The New York Times - USA (2020-08-03)

T

HEbillion-dollar bailout of one of Ohio’s biggest

utilities seemed suspicious from the start. It

turns out the F.B.I. was paying attention, too.

Federal agents recently raided the home of the

speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry

Householder, and charged him with racketeering. He and

his associates are accused of operating a $60 million polit-

ical slush fund to elect their candidates, with the money

coming from one of the state’s largest electricity compa-

nies.

Pause to marvel at that figure: $60 million. That is a lot

of money washing through state politics, even in a state

the size of Ohio. Prosecutors contend that in return for the

cash, Mr. Householder, a Republican, pushed through a

huge bailout of two nuclear plants and several coal plants

that were losing money. He has not commented.

The Ohio arrests came less than a week after Common-

wealth Edison, an Illinois electricity company, admitted

in federal court to bribing political figures in that state and

agreed to pay a $200 million fine.

No public officials have yet been charged with accept-

ing ComEd’s bribes, but subpoenas have been issued to

the offices of Michael J. Madigan, the longtime speaker of

the Illinois House of Representatives. Mr. Madigan, a

Democrat, oversaw passage of legislation sought by the

power company, including measures that effectively al-

lowed it to raise rates to save its own nuclear power

plants. The Illinois governor has called on Mr. Madigan to

resign if charges are proved against him; he denies any

wrongdoing.

Those cases are only the most recent examples in a

wave of utility wrongdoing that has come to light in recent

years across the nation.

In South Carolina, criminal and civil charges have been

filed in the $9 billion collapse of a nuclear power plant. The

Securities and Exchange Commission has accused for-

mer executives of the utility Scana of lying to the public

and the utility’s own shareholders about problems with

the project, which state regulators allowed to move for-

ward for years despite exploding costs and construction

snafus. Last month, a former executive of Scana, Stephen

Byrne, pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to testify for

prosecutors as they seek to bring additional charges.

In New Orleans, the utility Entergy was caught hiring

actors to show up at City Hall and pretend to be citizens in

favor of a controversial gas-fired power plant; the com-

pany was fined $5 million. A big Arizona utility, Arizona

Public Service, has become embroiled in repeated politi-

cal scandals, including pumping millions in dark money

into a campaign to stack the state regulatory board with

its lackeys.

Taken together, these and other cases demonstrate that

too many power and gas companies have sought to exer-

cise undue influence over the governments that nomi-

nally control them. Utilities spend lavishly on campaign

contributions, dinners, hunting trips for politicians and

more. They set up fake citizens’ groups to support their

undertakings. And they have been known to ply nonprofit

community organizations with “donations” to take public

stances that favor the utility — and against the real inter-

ests of the people these organizations ostensibly repre-

sent.

The monopoly gas and power companies are lucrative

enterprises by their nature, and their rates are generally

under direct government control. Using money to influ-

ence politicians and regulators is nothing new. But there

is reason to be especially alert to it now, because these

companies too often are standing in the way of the switch

to clean energy that the country so desperately needs.

The Ohio case looks to be truly malodorous. Mr. House-

holder appears to have won his high office largely be-

cause the power company, FirstEnergy, and its affiliates

were funding his political operation under the table, using

a “nonprofit” shell corporation that he controlled. That al-

lowed him to pump huge sums into the campaigns of al-

lied candidates who, after winning their legislative seats,

voted to give him the speakership. Then they voted in fa-

vor of his top priority, the bailout bill.

Prosecutors claim that $400,000 of the power compa-

ny’s money went directly into Mr. Householder’s pocket

as he was doing the company’s bidding in the Ohio State-

house. However, much of the money was used to pay for

deceptive advertising to advance the bailout bill and to

protect Mr. Householder and his allies from angry voters.

Prosecutors contend that his operation also hired agents

to interfere, sometimes physically, with a petition drive to

repeal the bailout law.

Why was the power company seeking bailouts in the

first place? Across the country, nuclear and coal plants

are at risk of closure because they cannot compete with

natural-gas plants and wind and solar farms. The coal

shutdowns are good news for the climate; the nuclear

shutdowns are more problematic, since these plants are

among the nation’s largest sources of clean electricity.

Congress could stop the nuclear closures with a big cli-

mate bill, but Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority

leader, is a big supporter of the coal industry and will let

no such bill through that body. Until Congress acts, saving

the nuclear plants with state subsidies maybe a good

idea. But states need to drive a hard bargain in these

deals, paying only as much as the power companies really

need and doing so only after carefully weighing alterna-

tives for cleaning up the grid.

That is not what happened in Ohio. Instead the legisla-

ture passed a malign law that charged ratepayers $150

million a year to fund the bailouts, with no credible audit-

ing of how much was really needed. While the law did

throw a minor sop to the solar industry, it also gutted most

of Ohio’s standards on energy efficiency and clean energy,

which were weak to begin with.

It is now clear that as the Ohio deal went down, the

F.B.I. was crawling all over the statehouse. Mr. House-

holder’s associates were caught on tape deciding how to

spend the gusher of dark money. Gov. Mike DeWine has

called on the legislature to repeal this crooked bill. In a

final act of disrespect for the people of Ohio, Mr. House-

holder refused to resign as speaker; House members

voted him out on Thursday, 90 to 0.

For citizens elsewhere, the big message from all these

scandals is that you cannot assume your state govern-

ment is working in the public interest as it oversees the

energy transition.

The electric and gas companies have huge investments

in dirty energy, and they are fighting to protect those

plants from clean competition. Nuclear plants are nomi-

nally on the clean side of the ledger, but proposals to save

them need to be examined with a microscope, since these

can be used to argue against or gut what little clean-ener-

gy legislation we have on the books.

Hearings in Congress are warranted, to see whether

new federal laws are needed to restrain this unethical be-

havior.

In the meantime, citizens are getting a clearer picture

of what they are up against. They are not just fighting

dirty energy — they are also fighting the dirty money in

politics that keeps it alive. 0

When Utility Money Talks

Justin Gillis

Corruption scandals reveal an

underside to the politics of energy.

JUSTIN GILLISis a contributing opinion writer and a for-

mer environmental reporter for The Times.

THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-EDMONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2020 N A21

F

INALLY. The World Health Orga-

nization has formally recognized

that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that

causes Covid-19, is airborne and

that it can be carried by tiny aerosols.

As we cough and sneeze, talk or just

breathe, we naturally release droplets

(small particles of fluid) and aerosols

(smaller particles of fluid) into the air.

Yet until earlier this month, the W.H.O. —

like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention or Public Health Eng-

land — had warned mostly about the

transmission of the new coronavirus

through direct contact and droplets re-

leased at close range.

The organization had cautioned

against aerosols only in rare circum-

stances, such as after medical pro-

cedures involving infected patients in

hospitals.

After several months of pressure from

scientists, on July 9, the W.H.O. changed

its position — going from denial to grudg-

ing partial acceptance: “Further studies

are needed to determine whether it is

possible to detect viable SARS-CoV-2 in

air samples from settings where no pro-

cedures that generate aerosols are per-

formed and what role aerosols might

play in transmission.”

I am a civil and environmental engi-

neer who studies how viruses and bacte-

ria spread through the air — as well as

one of the 239 scientists who signed an

open letter in late June pressing the

W.H.O. to consider the risk of airborne

transmission more seriously. A month

later, I believe that the transmission of

SARS-CoV-2 via aerosols matters much

more than has been officially acknowl-

edged to date.

In a peer-reviewed study published in

Nature on Wednesday, researchers at

the University of Nebraska Medical Cen-

ter found that aerosols collected in the

hospital rooms of Covid-19 patients con-

tained the coronavirus. This confirms

the results of a study from late May (not

peer-reviewed) in which Covid-19 pa-

tients were found to release SARS-CoV-2

simply by exhaling. The authors of that

study said the finding implied that air-

borne transmission “plays a major role”

in spreading the virus.

Accepting these conclusions wouldn’t

much change what is currently being

recommended as best behavior. The

strongest protection against SARS-

CoV-2, whether the virus is mostly con-

tained in droplets or in aerosols, essen-

tially remains the same: Keep your dis-

tance and wear masks.

Rather, the recent findings are an im-

portant reminder to also be vigilant

about opening windows and improving

airflow indoors. And they are further evi-

dence that the quality of masks and their

fit matter, too.

The W.H.O. defines as a “droplet” a

particle larger than 5 microns and has

said that droplets don’t travel farther

than one meter. In fact, there is no neat

and no meaningful cutoff point — at 5 mi-

crons or any other size — between drop-

lets and aerosols: All are tiny specks of

liquid, their size ranging along a spec-

trum that goes from very small to really

microscopic.

Yes, droplets tend to fly through the air

like mini cannonballs and they fall to the

ground rather quickly, while aerosols can

float around for many hours.

But basic physics also says that a 5-mi-

cron droplet takes about a half-hour to

drop to the floor from the mouth of an

adult of average height — and during

that time, the droplet can travel many

meters on an air current. Droplets ex-

pelled in coughs or sneezes also travel

much farther than one meter.

Here is another common misconcep-

tion: To the (limited) extent that the role

of aerosols had been recognized so far,

they were usually mentioned as linger-

ing in the air, suspended, and wafting

away — a long-distance threat.

But before aerosols can get far, they

must travel through the air that’s near:

meaning that they are also a hazard at

close range. And all the more so because,

just like the smoke from a cigarette,

aerosols are most concentrated near the

infected person (or smoker) and become

diluted in the air as they drift away.

A peer-reviewed study by scientists at

the University of Hong Kong and Zhe-

jiang University, in Hangzhou, China,

published in the journal Building and En-

vironment in June, concluded, “The

smaller the exhaled droplets, the more

important the short-range airborne

route.”

So what does this all mean exactly,

practically?

Can you walk into an empty room and

contract the virus if an infected person,

now gone, was there before you? Per-

haps, but probably only if the room is

small and stuffy. Can the virus waft up

and down buildings via air ducts or

pipes? Maybe, though that hasn’t been

established.

More likely, the research suggests,

aerosols matter in extremely mundane

scenarios.

Consider the case of a restaurant in

Guangzhou, in southern China, at the be-

ginning of the year, in which one diner in-

fected with SARS-CoV-2 at one table

spread the virus to a total of nine people

seated at that table and two other tables.

Yuguo Li, a professor of engineering at

the University of Hong Kong, and col-

leagues analyzed video footage from the

restaurant and in a preprint (not peer re-

viewed) published in April found no evi-

dence of close contact between the din-

ers.

Droplets can’t account for transmis-

sion in this case, at least not among the

people at the tables other than the in-

fected person’s: The droplets would have

fallen to the floor before reaching those

tables.

But the three tables were in a poorly

ventilated section of the restaurant, and

an air-conditioning unit pushed air

across them. Notably, too, no staff mem-

ber and none of the other diners in the

restaurant — including at two tables just

beyond the air-conditioner’s airstream

— became infected.

It might seem logical, or make intu-

itive sense, that larger droplets would

contain more virus than do smaller

aerosols — but they don’t.

A paper published this week by The

Lancet Respiratory Medicine that ana-

lyzed the aerosols produced by the

coughs and exhaled breaths of patients

with various respiratory infections

found “a predominance of pathogens in

small particles” (under 5 microns).

“There is no evidence,” the study also

concluded, “that some pathogens are

carried only in large droplets.”

A recent preprint (not peer reviewed)

by researchers at the University of Ne-

braska Medical Center found that viral

samples retrieved from aerosols emitted

by Covid-19 patients were infectious.

Some scientists have argued that just

because aerosols can contain SARS-

CoV-2 does not in itself prove that they

can cause an infection and that if SARS-

CoV-2 were primarily spread by

aerosols, there would be more evidence

of long-range transmission.

I agree that long-range transmission

by aerosols probably is not significant,

but I believe that, taken together, much

evidence gathered to date suggests that

close-rangetransmission by aerosols is

significant — possibly very significant,

and certainly more significant than di-

rect droplet spray.

The practical implications are plain:

Social distancing really is important;

masks make a difference; crowds should

be avoided; and ventilation matters.

It’s not clear just how much this coro-

navirus is transmitted by aerosols as op-

posed to droplets or via contact with con-

taminated surfaces. Then again, we still

don’t know the answer to that question

even for the flu, which has been studied

for decades.

But by now we do know this much:

Aerosols matter in the transmission of

Covid-19 — and probably even more so

than we have yet been able to prove. 0

Yes, the Coronavirus Is in the Air

Linsey C. Marr

LINSEY C. MARRis a professor of civil and

environmental engineering at Virginia

Tech.

Transmission through

aerosols matters — likely

more than we think.

J

OE BIDEN’S recent policy pro-
posal to address the country’s cri-
sis of care didn’t garner major
headlines. There were no Trump
tweets in response, or congressional Re-
publicans denouncing it as socialism.
But make no mistake: His plan is quietly
radical.
The plan incorporates a lot of ideas
that are not the candidate’s own. His
pledge to give all 3- and 4-year-olds ac-
cess to preschool? President Barack
Obama initiated a universal preschool ef-
fort in 2013. His promise to help parents
afford child care? It piggybacks on Sena-
tor Patty Murray and Representative
Bobby Scott’s Child Care for Working
Families Act. His argument that care-
givers deserve better pay and more
rights? To get there, he says he’d sign the
Domestic Workers Bill of Rights bill put
forward by Senator Kamala Harris and
Representative Pramila Jayapal in 2018.
But by bringing all of these pieces to-
gether in one place and by talking about
them in the same breath with his other
economic policies, he is pushing this con-
versation into new territory. No longer is
the struggle to care for our families while
earning a living something relegated to
kitchen tables and curtained-off hospital
beds.
Mr. Biden’s plan ties together many
kinds of care in one package: care for
young children, care for elderly parents
and care for the sick and disabled. Each
of these tends to get siloed off; as a re-
sult, they’re fought for by disparate ad-
vocacy groups, whose efforts target var-
ied solutions.
Elder care is especially neglected in
policymaking, despite the fact that the
number of Americans age 65 or older is
set to grow by more than 90 percent over
the next four decades
But it’s not just the inclusion of all of
these kinds of care in one platform that
breaks new ground. It’s also that Mr. Bi-
den puts these ideas forward as a central
part of his economic package, the heart
of his campaign. This is both smart poli-
tics and smart policy.
That adequate child care undergirds
the smooth functioning of the rest of the
economy has become increasingly clear
over the course of the pandemic. But it
was true long before the virus. The share
of American women in the paid work
force has been falling behind that in

other developed countries for decades
thanks to a lack of investment in child
care.
We still haven’t made the same con-
ceptual leap with elder care, however, or
care for other family members who are-
n’t children — though we should. Those
who care for their spouses or parents are
also less likely to work, and even those
with jobs miss over a week of work each
year on average because of these respon-
sibilities; the lost productivity costs
more than $28 billion a year.
Mr. Biden didn’t simply drag out a soc-
cer mom to talk about these issues; he
introduced his proposal by talking about
himself. “I was a single parent for five
years after my wife and daughter were
killed and my two boys were badly in-
jured,” he said, referring to a 1972 car ac-
cident. “We cared for our parents at the
end. My dad was months in hospice in
our home; same with my mom.” He also
talked about caring for his son Beau be-
fore his son died of brain cancer in 2015.
This matters, because child care in par-
ticular has fallen all too often into the cul-
ture war over women’s roles at home and
at work, neglecting the men who also
have family members who need care.
Care is an issue that comes for almost
all of us at some point in our lives. Even if
we don’t have children, we may very well
find ourselves tending to a sick spouse or
an aging parent. Few escape its reach,
but very few of us are adequately pre-
pared to shoulder the responsibility all
on our own. And yet we have an econ-
omy, and a policy apparatus, that com-
pletely ignores this enormous burden.
While you might try to tell a father
struggling to find a child care spot for his
child, let alone pay for it, that he should
have thought of this before he decided to
have children — as if the optimal way to
design our society is to make having chil-
dren a luxury — it’s hard to argue that if
you can’t afford decent and dignified
care for your aging parent, you should
have chosen not to have a parent get old.
Binding these things together makes it
clear: We all have a responsibility to
make sure the vulnerable are adequately
cared for.
With his announcement last week, Mr.
Biden turned up the volume on some-
thing usually discussed in the fearful
whispers of daughters worried about
their mothers on the verge of dementia,
or the hushed arguments parents have
late at night about how to afford pre-
school. It was a remarkable moment, and
one that could change the way we think
about care for the long term. 0

Biden’s

Radical

Care Plan

Bryce Covert

BRYCE COVERTis a contributor at The
Nation and a contributing opinion writer.

The candidate is talking

about child care and elder

care in the same breath.

ADAM McCAULEY