The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-02)

A26 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 , 2022

BY CHRISTIAN DAVENPORT

Rocket Lab, the fast-growing
rocket company, has chosen to
build a second launch site at the
Wallops Flight Facility on Vir-
ginia’s Eastern Shore, where it
would launch its Neutron rocket,
a fully reusable vehicle that’s de-
signed to land back at its launch
site.
Under a deal announced Mon-
day with the state of Virginia, the
company would build a 250,000-
square-foot manufacturing and
operations facility, which would
include a launch control center,
on the site. The move is another
attempt to expand the facility and

the stability of Europe, sent oil prices soaring and raised the specter of nuclear conflict for the first time in over 30 years. Failure in Vienna would further destabilize the world, risk- ing a new nuclear arms race in the Middle East and perhaps yet another war, analysts say. “It could be a 191 4 moment,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group. The concern is, he said, that Iran has been emboldened by the collapse of relations between the United States and Russia and the soaring price of oil to press for new concessions, on the assump- tion that high oil prices will make Washington more desperate for a deal. Russia is one of the seven original parties to the deal, along with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Iran. The Ukraine war has pushed the price of oil above $100, caus- ing pain for consumers in the United States and around the world and putting pressure on politicians. The return to world markets of Iranian oil could bring prices down by as much as 10 percent, Vaez said. After acting on many previous occasions to rescue the talks from collapse, Russia could also potentially become a spoiler now that its relationship with the West h as ruptured, said Esfandyar Bat- manghelidj of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Reviving the deal nonetheless

continues to make sense for all the parties concerned, including Russia, he said. Russian Ambas- sador Mikhail Ulyanov has re- peatedly told reporters that the war has had no impact on the talks. He c alled it “regrettable but not dramatic” that the talks had not wrapped up by Monday. “It was a timeline not a deadline,” he wrote on his Twitter account. Negotiators have spent the past 10 months trying to hammer out an agreement on the terms under which the United States will return to the nuclear deal negotiated by President Barack Obama, known as the Joint Com- prehensive Plan of Action, and bring Iran back into compliance. President Donald Tr ump’s deci- sion to pull out of the agreement and impose tough sanctions on Tehran prompted Iran to renege on its promises to refrain from enriching uranium. Iran’s nuclear program has now reached the point where it is only weeks away from achieving breakout, which would mean it has enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb, diplomats and experts say. “It’s a really bizarre situation. We were finally at a point a couple of weeks ago where all the parties really believed a deal was at hand. And now the international environment has shifted,” said Batmanghelidj, who nonetheless added he believed a deal was more likely than not.

Repossessing a
car is supposed to
be the last resort
for lenders, who
can usually make
more money
working out a
payment plan
with borrowers
than selling the
car at an auction
for a loss.
But the pandemic has changed
so much in the world of finance.
A global semiconductor chip
shortage is leading to historically
high prices for used cars. This
surge might tempt the
companies that service auto
loans to be too quick to repossess
cars to take advantage of an
overheated used-car market, said
Rohit Chopra, director of the
Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau (CFPB).
So Chopra has a message for
the companies that service auto
loans: Don’t illegally repo
people’s vehicles. We are
watching.
Used-car prices, a large factor
in boosting inflation, have been
surging. The prices for used cars

and trucks have increased 40.5 percent since January 2021, compared with a 12 percent increase for new cars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The concern I keep raising is this is going to create incentives for more-aggressive repossession conduct because you can quickly resell this in the used-car market, in some cases over Kelley Blue Book level,” Chopra said in an interview. Here’s why this should matter to the agency charged with protecting consumer rights. Repossessing cars could be financially critical for struggling consumers because increasingly people don’t just use their cars to get to work — they need their cars to do their work, Chopra said. Gig workers pick up people’s food or take on odd jobs that require reliable transportation. Others are making a living or supplementing their regular income by driving for Uber or Lyft. Their cars are fundamental to their livelihoods. “You have a lot more people who are involved in moving

goods, driving, and actually so much of the independent construction trades depend on people having light trucks,” Chopra said. In a preemptive move, the CFPB issued guidance this week saying it would be closely reviewing repossession practices by loan servicers that might be tempted to circumvent the law in a rush to sell cars as prices surge rather than chasing people down for late payments. Illegal repossessions have been an ongoing problem, the agency said. Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, in 2020 the auto financing subsidiary of Nissan North America, which services auto loans and leases originated by Nissan and Infiniti dealerships, agreed to settle allegations by the CFPB that it illegally repossessed vehicles. The company agreed to a $4 million fine and to pay up to $1 million in restitution to consumers. In other cases, the agency said some auto loan servicers have refused to release personal

property found in vehicles unless delinquent borrowers paid a storage fee. Servicers have been slammed for sloppy bookkeeping in which consumers were incorrectly coded as being delinquent. Servicers have ignored bankruptcy rules that would have — at least temporarily — stopped a repossession. “I just am projecting the problems could get much worse unless we stay ahead of it,” Chopra said. Generally, auto loan servicers don’t immediately move to repossess a vehicle. They contact borrowers, giving them a chance to catch up on their loan payments. Except this doesn’t always happen. The CFPB pointed out situations in which servicers sent letters stating that their loans would not be considered past due if the borrower paid by a specific date. Yet the cars were repossessed before the date indicated in the letters. In other cases, contrary to stated payment practices, servicers applied partial payments to late

fees first. Reordering payments can make it appear that people are further behind than they might be, triggering a repo. Unscrupulous servicers have additional “incentives for risky auto repossession practices since repossessed automobiles can command these higher prices when resold,” the agency said. It’s also become easier to locate cars slated for repossession. The repo man isn’t just in a tow truck anymore. Chopra said repossessions have gotten much cheaper now because cars can be tracked with GPS or through license plate recognition cameras, which can scan for cars that are earmarked for repossession. Exacerbating the problem the CFPB is trying to head off is borrowers’ growing auto debt. As car prices continue to rise, loan amounts are also increasing, which results in longer loan terms to make the payments more affordable. As of the last quarter of 2021, the average monthly payment for new vehicles was expected to reach an all-time high of $636,

according to Edmunds, an auto market research firm. The average monthly payment for used vehicles was also expected to break a record, climbing to $520, compared with $437 in the fourth quarter in 2020. Auto loans are already the third-largest consumer credit market in the United States, at more than $1. 46 trillion, double the amount from 10 years ago, the CFPB said. To prevent unfair, deceptive or abusive practices, Chopra said, the CFPB wants auto loan servicers to review their policies and procedures, including call scripts, to thwart unnecessary repossession. “We want to make sure that systemically this gets eradicated,” Chopra said. Repossessions are unavoidable when people get in financial trouble and can’t pay their auto loans. But the CFPB is right to drive home the point that servicers shouldn’t wrongfully snatch people’s cars if they are making a good-faith effort to catch up on their payments.

As u sed-car prices surge, a warning to any potentially repo-happy lenders

Michelle
Singletary

THE COLOR
OF MONEY

BY LIZ SLY

vienna — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cast a shadow over talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which extended beyond a presumed deadline Tuesday amid growing doubts that a new agreement is in sight. Iran’s chief negotiator re- turned to Vienna from a visit to Tehran over the weekend with hardened demands, diplomats say, dampening hopes that an agreement to bring the United States back into the deal and Iran back into compliance would be wrapped up by the end of Febru- ary. European negotiators had warned that they were prepared to walk away if there was still no agreement by Monday. On Monday the United States joined the warning, with State Department spokesman Ned Price telling reporters in Wash- ington that the Biden administra- tion also is “prepared to walk away if Iran displays an intransi- gence to making progress.” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh coun- tered Tuesday with a warning that Iran could pull out, too. “Iran is willing but will not wait forever,” he said on his Twit- ter feed, adding, “A d eal is at h and if WH [White House] makes its mind.” “A no deal outcome is as possi- ble as reaching a potential deal because some minimum demands of Iran remain unmet,” cautioned the official Iranian news agency IRNA. The threats may just be part of the inevitable last-minute brink- manship that typically accompa- nies the final hours of negotiations, analysts say. “The negotiations will probably get more tur- bulent in the coming days, exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, underscoring that the prospect of failure is real,” Henry Rome wrote in a note for the Eurasia Group. But the stakes, always high, have been raised higher by the Ukraine war, which has rocked

Iran talks overshoot deadline, with

progress upended by Ukraine war

LEONHARD FOEGER/REUTERS A member of the Austrian armed forces walks past Vienna’s Palais Coburg, site of negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal, in February.

Tehran hardened demands after Russian invasion, diplomats say

make it a hub for space explora- tion — a sort of m iniature version of Florida’s Cape Canaveral. Rocket Lab has already con- structed a launchpad for its Elec- tron rocket, a relatively diminu- tive vehicle at 59 feet tall that’s designed to launch small satellites. The Neutron rocket is more than twice as large, 131 feet tall, and capable of hoisting batches of satellites to orbit. Virginia Space, which operates what’s called the Mid-Atlantic Re- gional Spaceport, would kick $30 million into the deal, and the state’s Major Employment and In- vestment Project Approval Com- mission would make another $15 million available for the project. Currently, Rocket L ab launches its Electron rocket f rom its facility in New Zealand. It has been wait- ing for approval from NASA to launch the small rocket f rom Wal- lops and hopes to get that approval soon.

Wallops is also home to Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, which is used by NASA to fly cargo, supplies and science experiments to the International Space Station in launches that can be see across the Mid-Atlan- tic. Neutron, which is intended to fly far more frequently, would put on quite a show. Not only would it take off from Wallops, but, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, it is designed to fly back to Earth and land so that it could be refur- bished and flown again. The Neu- tron rocket would fly back to its launch site. The company is tar- geting 202 4 for the first flight. In a statement, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said that Wal- lops’s “position on the Eastern Seaboard is the ideal location to support both Neutron’s expected frequent launch cadence and the rocket’s return-to-Earth capabili- ty.”

Rocket company will expand its presence at Wallops on Va. Eastern Shore

JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST Rocket Lab wants to launch its reusable Neutron rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. It has plans to launch its Electron rocket from the facility once it has NASA approval.

Rocket Lab plans to build

operations facility, along with a second launch site

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The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-02)

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