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Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and other former top economic officials appointed by presidents of both parties urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to preserve the Federal Reserve’s political independence and allow Lisa Cook to remain as a central bank governor for now. The justices are weighing an emergency appeal from the administration to remove Cook while her lawsuit challenging her firing by Republican President Donald Trump proceeds through the courts. The White House campaign to unseat Cook marks an unprecedented bid to reshape the Fed board, which was designed to be largely independent from day-to-day politics. No president has fired a sitting Fed governor in the agencys 112-year history. Earlier in September, a judge determined that Trump’s move to fire Cook probably was illegal. An appeals court rejected an emergency plea to oust Cook before the Fed’s meeting last week when Cook joined in a vote to cut a key interest rate by one-quarter of a percentage point. A day after that meeting, the administration turned to the Supreme Court and again asked for her prompt removal. In their filing, lawyers for the former economic officials wrote that immediately ousting Cook would expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, thereby eroding public confidence in the Feds independence and jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy. Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen served as successive chairs of the Fed’s seven-member board of governors, spanning six presidential administrations back to 1987. Greenspan and Bernanke were initially appointed by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, respectively. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Yellen to the Fed and she was Democratic President Joe Biden’s treasury secretary. The list of signatories includes other treasury secretaries, heads of the Council of Economic Advisers and former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a former chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Trump sought to fire Cook on Aug. 25, but a judge ruled that she could remain in her job. Trump has accused Cook of mortgage fraud because she appeared to claim two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as primary residences in June and July 2021, before she joined the board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and a smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home. Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cook did specify that her Atlanta condo would be a vacation home, according to a loan estimate she obtained in May 2021. In a form seeking a security clearance, she described it as a 2nd home. Both documents appear to undercut the administrations claims of fraud. The attempt to fire Cook differs from Trump’s dismissal of board members of other independent agencies. Those firings, including at the National Labor Relations Board, Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Product Safety Commission, have been done at will. In allowing those firings to proceed for now, the Supreme Court cautioned that it viewed the Fed differently. Trump has invoked the provision of the law that set up the Federal Reserve and allowed for governors to be dismissed for cause. Mark Sherman, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
In a rural corner of Louisiana, Meta is building one of the world’s largest data centers, a $10 billion behemoth as big as 70 football fields that will consume more power in a day than the entire city of New Orleans at the peak of summer. While the colossal project is impossible to miss in Richland Parish, a farming community of 20,000 residents, not everything is visible, including how much the social media giant will pay toward the more than $3 billion in new electricity infrastructure needed to power the facility. Watchdogs have warned that in the rush to capitalize on the AI-driven data center boom, some states are allowing massive tech companies to direct expensive infrastructure projects with limited oversight. Mississippi lawmakers allowed Amazon to bypass regulatory approval for energy infrastructure to serve two data centers it is spending $10 billion to build. In Indiana, a utility is proposing a data center-focused subsidiary that operates outside normal state regulations. And while Louisiana says it has added consumer safeguards, it lags behind other states in its efforts to insulate regular power consumers from data center-related costs. Mandy DeRoche, an attorney for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, says there is less transparency due to confidentiality agreements and rushed approvals. “You can’t follow the facts, you can’t follow the benefits or the negative impacts that could come to the service area or to the community,” DeRoche said. Private deals for public power supply Under contract with Meta, power company Entergy agreed to build three gas-powered plants that would produce 2,262 megawatts equivalent to a fifth of Entergy’s current power supply in Louisiana. The Public Service Commission approved Meta’s infrastructure plan in August after Entergy agreed to bolster protections to prevent a spike in residential rates. Nonetheless, nondisclosure agreements conceal how much Meta will pay. Consumer advocates tried but failed to compel Meta to provide sworn testimony, submit to discovery and face cross-examination during a regulatory review. Regulators reviewed Meta’s contract with Entergy, but were barred from revealing details. Meta did not address AP’s questions about transparency, while Louisiana’s economic development agency and Entergy say nondisclosure agreements are standard to protect sensitive commercial data. Davante Lewis the only one of five public service commissioners to vote against the plan said he’s still unclear how much electricity the center will use, if gas-powered plants are the most economical option nor if it will create the promised 500 jobs. “There’s certain information we should know and need to know but don’t have,” Lewis said. Additionally, Meta is exempt from paying sales tax under a 2024 Louisiana law that the state acknowledges could lead to “tens of millions of dollars or more each year” in lost revenue. Meta has agreed to fund about half the cost of building the power plants over 15 years, including cost overruns, but not maintenance and operation, said Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a consumer advocacy group. Public Service Commission Jean-Paul Coussan insists there will be “very little” impact on ratepayers. But watchdogs warn Meta could pull out of or not renew its contract, leaving the public to pay for the power plants over the rest of their 30-year life span, and all grid users are expected to help pay for the $550 million transmission line serving Meta’s facility. Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard University’s Electricity Law Initiative, said tech companies should be required to pay “every penny so the public is not left holding the bag.” How is this tackled in other states? Elsewhere, tech companies are not being given such leeway. More than a dozen states have taken steps to protect households and business ratepayers from paying for rising electricity costs tied to energy-hungry data centers. Pennsylvania’s utilities commission is drafting a model rate structure to insulate customers from rising costs related to data centers. New Jersey’s utilities regulators are studying whether data centers cause “unreasonable” cost increases for other users. Oregon passed legislation this year ordering utilities regulators to develop new, and likely higher, power rates for data centers. And in June, Texas implemented what it calls a ‘kill switch’ law empowering grid operators to order data centers to reduce their electrical load during emergencies. Locals have mixed feelings Some Richland Parish residents fear a boom-and-bust cycle once construction ends. Others expect a boost in school and health care funding. Meta said it plans to invest in 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy in Louisiana and $200 million in water and road infrastructure in Richland Parish. “We don’t come from a wealthy parish and the money is much needed,” said Trae Banks, who runs a drywall business that has tripled in size since Meta arrived. In the nearby town of Delhi, Mayor Jesse Washington believes the data center will eventually have a positive impact on his community of 2,600. But for now, the construction traffic frustrates residents and property prices are skyrocketing as developers try to house thousands of construction workers. More than a dozen low-income families were evicted from a trailer park whose owners are building housing for incoming Meta workers, Washington says. “We have a lot of concerned people they’ve put hardship on a lot of people in certain areas here,” the mayor said. “I just want to see people from Delhi benefit from this.” Brook reported from New Orleans. Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Jack Brook and Sophie Bates, Associated Press/Report for America
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E-Commerce
Former President Bill Clinton opened the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative Wednesday with a list of things that worry him. It would be irresponsible, almost jarring, for us to take off and not acknowledge the traumatic rise in political violence that weve seen in our country, Clinton said about the shooting deaths of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. Were pulling further and further away from one another. Clinton said he worried about the dismantling of domestic and foreign assistance programs, the war on science and public health, cuts to education, trade wars, and being at risk of losing our freedom of speech. Were trying to do everything we can to provide a counterweight to a lot of the negative things that have taken place in the last several months, Clinton said of the two-day conference, which shifted its format to create working groups to tackle many of the issues he outlined. The conferences biggest announcement on Wednesday was a partnership between the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Unitaid, and Wits RHI that will provide Gilead Sciences HIV prevention drug lenacapavir in 120 low- and middle-income countries for $40 a person each year, starting in 2027. The Gates Foundation announced a similar agreement with the Indian manufacturer Hetero Labs. Clinton said the move was partially in response to foreign aid cuts from President Donald Trumps administration, which he said could lead to more than 6 million more HIV cases and potentially 4 million more deaths in Africa. In July, GOP leaders stopped an additional cut of $400 million to PEPFAR, a program combating HIV/AIDS credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under then-President George W. Bush. Points of Light Chairman Neil Bush said PEPFAR and the way it has helped so many in Africa has always been a point of family pride. And though he hasnt talked to his brother, former President George W. Bush, about the new program announced at the Clinton Global Initiative, Neil Bush said he sees it as a way philanthropy can help fill in gaps. It seems like Americas withdrawal from the world is having terrible ramifications, in my personal view, he said, adding that Points of Light hopes to increase the help it provides through its ambitious plan to double the number of volunteers in America in the next 10 years. Activist and philanthropist Abigail Disney urged Clinton Global Initiative attendees to be more aggressive in their giving and encouraged them to support cultural movements instead of programs. I dont care where you are on the political spectrum there is mistrust, theres fear and there is anger, and we should all be very alarmed, Disney said. And I hang around big philanthropies these days and I dont see any alarm. I dont think thats because theyre not alarmed. I think thats because theyre afraid. Everybodys afraid. However, President Clinton said that the Clinton Global Initiative, which launched in 2005, has always looked to create solutions. If we hold our heads high, keep our eyes and ears open and deal with others with an outstretched hand and not a clenched fist, weve got a chance to keep hope alive, he said. We have the chance to make a meaningful difference in other peoples lives. _____ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. Glen Gamboa, AP business writer
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E-Commerce
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