As the election nears, Biden pushes a slew of rules on the environment and other priorities

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By MATTHEW DALY (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — As he tries to secure his legacy, President Joe Biden has unleashed a flurry of election year rules on the environment and other topics, including a landmark regulation that would force coal-fired power plants to capture smokestack emissions or shut down.

The limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fueled electric stations are the Democratic president’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change.

The power plant rule is among more than 60 regulations Biden and his administration finalized last month to meet his policy goals, including a promise to cut carbon emissions that are driving climate change roughly in half by 2030. The regulations, led by the Environmental Protection Agency but involving a host of other federal agencies, are being issued in quick succession as the Biden administration rushes to meet a looming but uncertain deadline to ensure they are not overturned by a new Congress — or a new president.

“The Biden administration is in green blitz mode,″ said Lena Moffitt, executive director of the activist group Evergreen Action.

IT’S NOT JUST THE ENVIRONMENT

The barrage of rules covers more than the environment.

With the clock ticking toward Election Day, Biden’s administration has issued or proposed rules on a wide range of issues, from student loan forgiveness and affordable housing to overtime pay, health and compensation for airline passengers who are unreasonably delayed, as he tries to woo voters in his reelection bid against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

In all, federal agencies broke records by publishing 66 significant final rules in April, higher than any month in Biden’s presidency, according to George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center. More than half the rules — 34 — were considered likely to have an economic impact of at least $200 million, the center said.

That tally is by far the highest issued by a recent president in a single month, the center said. The next closest was 20 such rules issued by Trump in his final month in office.

Biden is not shying away from promoting the rules. For example, he went to Madison, Wisconsin, to promote his actions on student loan relief after the Supreme Court rejected his initial plan. More often, Cabinet officials are being dispatched around the country, often to the swing states, to promote the administration’s actions.

THE PROBLEM WITH RULES

Policies created by rulemaking are easier to reverse than laws when a new administration takes office, especially with a sharply divided Congress.

“There’s no time to start like today,” Biden said on his first day in office as he moved to dismantle the Trump legacy.

Over the course of his presidency, Biden has reinstated protections for threatened species that were rolled back by Trump. He also has boosted fuel efficiency standards, reversing the former president.

The Education Department’s gainful employment rule targets college programs that leave graduates with high debt compared to their expected earnings. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development moved to restore a rule that was designed to eliminate racial disparities in suburbs and thrown out by Trump.

It’s widely expected that Trump would move to reverse Biden regulations if he were to win in November.

DEADLINES LOOM

The Congressional Review Act allows lawmakers to void new rules after they’re finalized by the executive branch. Congressional Republicans used the once-obscure law more than a dozen times in 2017 to undo actions by former President Barack Obama. Democrats returned the favor four years later, rescinding three Trump administration rules.

The law requires votes within 60 legislative days of a rule’s publication in the Federal Register, a shifting deadline that depends on how long Congress is in session. Administration officials say they believe actions taken so far this year will be shielded from the review act in the next Congress, although Republicans oppose nearly all of them and have filed challenges that could lead to a series of votes in the House and Senate over the next few months.

Biden is likely to veto any repeal effort that reaches his desk before his term expires.

“The rules are safe in this Congress,″ given Democratic control of the Senate and White House, said Michael Gerrard, who teaches environmental law at Columbia Law School. If Republicans take over Congress and the White House next year, ’’all bets are off,” Gerrard said.

RULE-MAKING TO ESTABLISH A LEGACY

Besides the power plant rule, the EPA also issued separate rules targeting tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks and methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. The Interior Department, meanwhile, restricted new oil and gas leases on 13 million acres of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska and required oil and gas companies to pay more to drill on federal lands and meet stronger requirements to clean up old or abandoned wells.

Industry groups and Republicans slammed Biden’s actions as overreach.

“This barrage of new EPA rules ignores our nation’s ongoing electric reliability challenges and is the wrong approach at a critical time for our nation’s energy future,″ said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

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In addition to climate, the EPA also finalized a long-delayed ban on asbestos, a carcinogen that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, and set strict limits on certain so-called “forever chemicals″ in drinking water. The EPA also required more than 200 chemical plants nationwide to reduce toxic emissions that are likely to cause cancer, mostly in poor and minority communities already overburdened by industrial pollution.

While recently delivered, many of Biden’s actions have been planned since he took office and reinstated or strengthened more than 100 environmental regulations that Trump weakened or eliminated.

The rules come two years after Democrats approved a sweeping law aimed at boosting clean energy that is widely hailed as the most significant climate legislation ever enacted.

Taken together, Democrats say, the climate law and Biden’s executive actions could solidify his standing with climate-oriented voters — including young people who helped put Biden in office four years ago — and help him fend off Trump in a likely rematch in November.

“Every community in this country deserves to breathe clean air and drink clean water,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “We promised to listen to folks that are suffering from pollution and act to protect them.”

‘CHALLENGING TIMES’

Along with votes in Congress, the rules likely face legal challenges from industry and Republican-led states, including several lawsuits that have been filed already.

“Part of our strategy is to be sure that we understand the current court culture that we’re in, and make sure that every action, every rule, every policy is more durable, as legally sound as possible,” Regan told a conference of environmental journalists last month.

Still, looming over all the executive branch actions is the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA. A landmark 2022 ruling limited EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming, and a separate ruling weakened regulations protecting millions of acres of wetlands.

A case pending before the court could put EPA’s air pollution-fighting “good neighbor” plan on hold while legal cases continue.

“We are living in challenging times in so many ways, but we at EPA are staying focused on the mission,’′ Regan said at the April conference. “And then we have to really just defend that case in court.”

Rules issued by other agencies also face legal challenges.

Republican-led states are challenging the administration’s new Title IX rules that provide expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students and new safeguards for victims of sexual assault. They’re also suing to overturn a rule requiring background checks on buyers at gun shows and places outside stores.

Gerrard, the Columbia law professor, said the threat of executive-branch actions being overturned by Congress or the courts “makes it hard for either side to build up any momentum.” That uncertainty also makes it harder for the industry to comply, since they are not sure how long the rules will be in effect.

STAYING POWER ON CLIMATE?

Gerrard and other experts said the climate law and the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021 are more durable and will be harder for a future president to unwind. The two laws, combined with executive branch actions, will put the country on a path to meet Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, environmentalists say.

The climate law, which includes nearly $400 billion in spending to boost clean energy, will have ripple effects on the economy for years to come, said Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resource Defense Council and a former Obama administration official.

She pushed back on complaints by industry and Republicans that the power plant rule is a continuation of an Obama-era “war on coal.″

“It’s an attack on pollution,″ she said, adding that fossil fuels such as coal and oil are subject to the Clean Air Act “and need to be cleaned up.″

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the challenge in the 2022 Supreme Court case, said EPA was adhering to what he called Biden’s “Green New Deal” agenda.

“Unelected bureaucrats continue their pursuit to legislate rather than rely on elected members of Congress for guidance,” said Morrisey, who is the GOP nominee for governor in the state.

Trump swaps bluster for silence, and possibly sleep, in his hush money trial

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By JILL COLVIN (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump isn’t known for letting slights pass.

Yet for weeks, the famously combative presumptive Republican nominee has sat silently — to the point of sometimes seeming asleep — in a sterile Manhattan courtroom amid a barrage of accusations and insults.

There were the times his former fixer-turned-chief prosecution witness was quoted calling him a “boorish cartoon misogynist” and a “Cheeto-dusted” villain who belonged in a “cage, like an animal.” There were the graphic details relayed by a porn actor about the night she claims they had sex. And there were lengthy descriptions of what the prosecution argues was an illegal scheme to conceal hush money payments to salvage his then-flailing 2016 campaign.

Through it all, even as he and his allies attacked the case outside the courtroom, Trump has spent the majority of his time as a criminal defendant sitting nearly motionless for hours, leaning back in his burgundy leather chair with his eyes closed. He ultimately chose not to testify in a case that made him the first former president in the nation’s history to stand trial on criminal charges.

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Tuesday, after which a jury will decide whether to make him the first former president and major party nominee convicted of felony charges.

Trump’s demeanor inside the courtroom has been a notable departure from the fight-at-all-costs persona that has defined him through decades of public life, fueling his transformation from a New York tabloid fixture to a onetime – and possible future – president.

And it has been at least partially strategic, according to people familiar with Trump’s approach who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case. Trump’s attorneys have warned him that behaving as he did in his previous trials — where he tangled with judges and stormed out — could damage his standing with a jury that is likely watching his every move and will determine his fate.

Acting out, he appears to have concluded, is not in his best interest, particularly as he faces the risk of imprisonment if he’s convicted.

Trump has also been able to speak several times a day to a gaggle of media camped outside the courtroom, giving him an outlet to vent his frustrations and get his message out. Facing a gag order that prohibits him from criticizing witnesses, his campaign has assembled a host of supporters — from vice presidential contenders to the House speaker — to deliver those attacks instead.

But the approach comes with its own risks. Some former prosecutors and attorneys who have been closely following the case said that while disruptive behavior could prove detrimental to the jury, there’s also a risk of Trump appearing too disengaged.

“What you want is for your client to look attentive, respectful and look like nothing is bothering him — but also not falling asleep,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former assistant U.S. attorney who for years specialized in white-collar crime.

EYES WIDE SHUT

Trump has repeatedly denied reports from journalists watching him via closed-circuit television that he is sleeping in court, insisting on his social media site that he simply closes “my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!”

“No, I don’t fall asleep,” he told Telemundo Miami. “I sometimes will sit back, close my eyes. I hear everything perfectly. At some point I may fall asleep. But I will let you know when that is.”

Eliason said Trump’s demeanor was “definitely” something jurors would notice and could potentially perceive as disrespectful if they feel ”he’s acting like it’s not even worth his attention” or think he’s taking a nap.

“If it’s a tactic to try to make it look like he’s not concerned about the testimony, I don’t think that would play well,” he said. “I guess if he’s really just sort of listening with eyes closed, meditating or whatever, that doesn’t seem so bad. But I think falling asleep, the jury would find quite disrespectful.”

On the other hand, he added, “You don’t want him to get really agitated” as he did during previous trials.

Actually, sleeping in court would be highly unusual for a defendant.

“I have witnessed lawyers fall asleep, but never a defendant in a criminal case. Their lives are at stake and they don’t sleep in my experience,” said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a professor at the George Washington University Law School who has been writing about the case.

“It’s possible it’s all an act to show: ‘Hey, this is bogus, I’m not going to pay attention to it,’” he added, but that would also be unhelpful. “Since the jury has to pay attention, that doesn’t send a message that you respect this whole jury process.”

‘YOUR CLIENT IS UPSET’

Trump hasn’t been entirely sedated. During jury selection, he appeared alert and engaged, and was at one point reprimanded by the judge for his visible reactions to one juror’s answers.

“(W)hile the juror was at the podium maybe 12 feet from your client, your client was audibly uttering something … he was audibly gesturing,” Judge Juan Merchan warned one of his lawyers in April.

“I won’t tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom,” he went on. “I want to make that crystal clear.”

Later, when Stormy Daniels was on the stand, Trump’s reaction to her testimony once again prompted Merchan to summon his lawyers to the bench.

“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” Merchan said, according to the transcript.

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But as the trial dragged on, and particularly during his ex-attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony, Trump most often sat in repose, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes closed, his lips pursed and his head tilted back or to the side. He shifted from time to time — sometimes to scratch an itch. Sometimes he appeared to doze off, his mouth falling agape as he sat for hours in the fluorescent-lit courtroom.

Other times, he re-engaged, sitting upright, chatting with his lawyers or scribbling and passing notes. He often leafed through stacks of papers, looked around the courtroom or sat upright, with his arms folded across his chest. He appeared especially alert and engaged during defense witness Robert Costello’s combative testimony, during which the judge threatened to remove Costello from the stand.

But afterward, he returned to the eyes-closed, head-back position that became his default.

PAST OUTBURSTS

It’s been a marked contrast from his demeanor at his earlier civil trials, when Trump stormed out of the courtroom, actively sparred with judges and made no effort to shield his disdain.

During his business fraud civil trial, during which Cohen also testified, Trump blasted a court clerk from the stand, lashed out at the judge and, at one point, marched out of the courtroom. The judge in that case issued Trump a $355 million penalty.

And in his E. Jean Carroll defamation case, he was reprimanded for muttering while she spoke, told the judge he would love it if he were removed from the courtroom, and stood up and walked out during Carroll’s closing argument, in front of the jury.

Saltzburg said he believes Trump’s behavior in that case is one of the reasons the jury awarded her a whopping $83.3 million.

“They wanted to send a clear message to him and they thought it would take a lot of money to do it,” he said.

In this case, said Jeffrey S. Jacobovitz, a trial attorney with extensive experience in white-collar criminal defense, Trump’s demeanor is “something that a jury would certainly notice.”

The perception that he’s been sleeping “is likely to have a negative effect on the jury,” he said, adding, “I think I would prefer angry Trump.”

Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak, Jake Offenhartz, Jennifer Peltz and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

St. Paul credit union program pairs borrowing and saving to financially empower underserved communities

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A St. Paul credit union is teaming up with a Minneapolis nonprofit to help families repair their credit and build up their savings.

Those who participate in the new 12-month pilot program will sign up for a small credit-building loan from Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union. Then, if all loan payments are made on time, they will be rewarded with a savings contribution to match the loan value, according to Affinity Plus.

The pilot program is being run with the assistance of Build Wealth Minnesota.

“Our goal is always to make banking more accessible to the communities that need it the most,” said Adam Layne, community engagement and business development manager at Affinity Plus, in a release. “Combining efforts with Build Wealth Minnesota and offering resources tailored to help families overcome the disparities in their community really shows that goal in action.”

The 10-person cohort, which is made up of people enrolled in Build Wealth’s Family Stabilization Plan, is designed to ease families into the banking system with financial education workshops and regular meetings with a financial coach from Build Wealth Minnesota.

Founded in 2004, Build Wealth Minnesota is a nonprofit that partners with local communities and businesses to provide underserved families with supportive financial programs and services.

Affinity Plus, which is based in St. Paul, is a not-for-profit credit union that was established in 1930 and has grown to 31 locations across the state.

“There are a lot of tools needed to support our mission of interrupting generational poverty, and by providing this loan and match, Affinity Plus is playing a crucial role in our program,” said Jeffery Robinson, senior program director at Build Wealth Minnesota, in the release.

Two cohorts are planned for the year. For more information, visit bwealthe.org/programs.

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Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah; Israel is unlikely to comply

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By MIKE CORDER (Associated Press)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave. Although Israel is unlikely to comply with the order, it will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country.

Criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing, particularly once it turned its focus to Rafah. This week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for another international court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also under heavy pressure at home to end the war, which was triggered when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people, most civilians, and taking some 250 captive. Thousands of Israelis have joined weekly demonstrations calling on the government to reach a deal to bring the hostages home, fearing that time is running out. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

While the ruling by the International Court of Justice is a blow to Israel’s international standing, the court does not have a police force to enforce its orders. In another case on its docket, Russia has so far ignored a 2022 order by the court to halt its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier, Israel signaled it, too, would brush off an ICJ order to stop its operations. “No power on earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza,” Avi Hyman, the government spokesperson, said in a press briefing Thursday.

Immediately after the ruling, Netanyahu announced that he would hold a special ministerial meeting to decide how to respond. Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition, derided the decision.

“The fact that the ICJ did not even directly connect the end of the military operation in Rafah to the release of the hostages and to Israel’s right to defend itself against terror is an abject moral failure,” he said.

The court’s president, Nawaf Salam, read out the ruling, as a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside.

Fears the court expressed earlier this year about an operation in Rafah have “materialized,” the ruling said, and Israel must “immediately halt its military offensive” in the city and anything else that might result in conditions that could cause the “physical destruction in whole or in part” of Palestinians there.

Rafah is in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, and over 1 million people sought refuge there in recent months after fleeing fighting elsewhere, with many of them living in teeming tent camps. Israel has been vowing for months to invade Rafah, saying it was Hamas’ last major stronghold, even as several allies warned an all-out assault would spell disaster.

Israel started issuing evacuation orders about two weeks ago as it began operations on the edge of the city. Since then, the army says an estimated 1 million people have left as forces press deeper inside.

Rafah is also home to a critical crossing for aid, and the U.N. says the flow of aid reaching it has plunged since the incursion began, though commercial trucking has continued to enter Gaza.

The court ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open, saying “the humanitarian situation is now to be characterized as disastrous.”

But it did not call for a full cease-fire throughout Gaza as South Africa, which brought the case, requested at hearings last week.

South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, said the country’s allegation that a genocide is underway is getting “stronger and stronger by the day.”

“We are really pleased that the court has given very serious consideration to the matters that we put before it and has affirmed that an urgent decision is needed from the court to pause this onslaught against innocent Palestinian people,” she told South African state broadcaster SABC, adding that it’s now up to the U.N. Security Council to determine how to protect the Palestinians.

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the court’s order “underlines the gravity of the situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, who have for months endured the blocking of basic services and humanitarian aid amid continued fighting.”

“The ICJ’s decision opens up the possibility for relief, but only if governments use their leverage, including through arms embargoes and targeted sanctions, to press Israel to urgently enforce the court’s measures,” Jarrah said.

The cease-fire request is part of a case filed late last year, accusing Israel of committing genocide during its Gaza campaign. Israel vehemently denies the allegations. The case will take years to resolve, but South Africa wants interim orders to protect Palestinians while the legal wrangling continues.

The court ruled Friday that Israel must ensure access for any fact-finding or investigative mission sent by the United Nations to investigate the genocide allegations.

At public hearings last week at the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, urged the panel of 15 international judges to order Israel to “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip.

The court has already found that Israel’s military operations pose a “real and imminent risk” to the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The operation has obliterated entire neighborhoods, sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes, and pushed parts of the territory into famine.

“This may well be the last chance for the court to act,” Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who is part of South Africa’s legal team, told judges last week.

Israel rejects the claims by South Africa, a nation with historic ties to the Palestinian people.

“Israel takes extraordinary measures in order to minimize the harm to civilians in Gaza,” Tamar Kaplan-Tourgeman, a member of Israel’s legal team, told the court last week.

In January, ICJ judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive. In a second order in March, the court said Israel must take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.

The ICJ rules in disputes between nations. A few kilometers (miles) away, the International Criminal Court files charges against individuals it considers most responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

On Monday, its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said he has asked ICC judges to approve arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three top Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Israel is not an ICC member, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

This story was updated to correct that the International Criminal Court is not a U.N. court.

Associated Press reporter Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed.