• Six years ago, a pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of oil into an Arkansas town: In sealed depositions, Mayflower residents describe illnesses, property damage and a smell that still haunts them. Some say they felt pressured to sign settlements.
• Whistleblower slams North Dakota regulators in wake of spill of 11 million-gallon natural gas condensate and the cover-up. Paul Lehto, a former gas plant operator has warned about conditions at two gas-processing plants in the state. For four years, the operators, ONEOK Partners, had claimed the spill was just 10 gallons and contained. In fact, it was more than a million times as big, still happening, and ignored by state regulators, as the environmental blog DeSmog uncovered:
“The safety culture is embarrassing,” said Lehto, who has described to DeSmog the discovery of dozens of loose bolts along critical sections of piping, and other improperly set equipment, deficiencies he attributes to the frenzied rush of the oil boom that has dominated the state’s landscape and economy. “North Dakota is basically a Petrostate,” said Lehto, who worked at the two plants between 2015 and 2016. “There is regulatory capture, and sure that happens in other areas, but nowhere is it more extreme than in North Dakota.”
• Trump tells crowd Beto O’Rourke “quit like a dog”: In Mississippi Friday, confessed outlaw #1 in the White House deployed another round of his playground insults, labeling the Texas Democrat “nasty” and “pathetic” before blasting him for leaving the 2020 presidential race with the dog comment. “Oh that poor bastard,” Trump said. “Poor pathetic guy. He was pathetic. Remember the arms were flailing? Does he ever stand on the floor and speak? But he’s waving his arms and going crazy, and I said ‘What the hell is he doing? What is he on?’’ Quite the implication for a guy tripping on narcissism.
MIDDAY TWEET
• 109 consecutive months of job growth and a majority of workers still don’t feel they have a good job:
The continuing strength of the labor market has been one of the most remarkable economic achievements since the recession petered out. A nine-year string of job gains has coaxed discouraged and disabled Americans back into the work force and raised wages and hours, particularly for those at low end of the pay scale. [...]
Beneath the clear benefits of the economic expansion, however, there is an undertow of anxiety, heightened recently by fears of slowing growth around the globe and in the United States.
“We’re not focusing enough on the people who have continued to be left behind by this recovery,” said Martha Gimbel, a manager of economic research at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative. “We have not talked enough about the workers who are still stuck even in a labor market that is this competitive.”
• Tribes cheers passage of bills protecting ancestral Native lands in Arizona and New Mexico from development: But few Republicans are on board and the bills face almost certain death in the Senate. Although the House passed H.R.1373 to stop uranium mining around the Grand Canyon National Park, only nine Republicans voted for it, with just one Democrat voting against it. Only 17 Republicans supported H.R.2181 to block oil and gas drilling near Chaco Culture National Historical Park. House Democrats voted for it unanimously. Said Rep. Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, which has close, ancient ties to the Chaco Canyon area, "I had to remind my colleagues that there are some things that are worth more than money." Obviously, a lot of Republicans don’t agree.
• State-funded charter schools are getting around vaccination requirements in California.
• Career diplomats feel betrayed that Mike Pompeo has been silent on Ukraine: But the secretary of state, former director of the CIA, and former congressman from Kansas remains popular among Republicans as he ponders a Senate race.