Через пандемію всі слухання перенесені більше, ніж на рік. В зв’язку з цим відтерміновується й остаточне рішення, зазначила радниця міністра енергетики
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British finance minister Rishi Sunak’s budget this week will include an extra $8.1 billion of spending for the health service over the next few years to drive down waiting lists, the finance ministry said on Sunday.   

The sum comes on top of an $11 billion package announced in September to tackle backlogs built up over the COVID-19 pandemic, the finance ministry said.   

The spending is aimed at increasing what is termed elective activity in the National Health Service (NHS) — such as scans and non-emergency procedures — by 30% by the 2024/25 financial year. 

The increase comprises $3.2 billion for testing services, $2.9 billion to improve the technology behind the health service, and $2 billion to increase bed capacity.   

“This is a game-changing investment in the NHS to make sure we have the right buildings, equipment and systems to get patients the help they need and make sure the NHS is fit for the future,” Sunak said in a statement. 

Sunak is expected to set fairly tight limits for most areas of day-to-day public spending in his budget on Wednesday, which will seek to lower public debt after a record surge in borrowing during the pandemic. 
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«Думаю, що буде оскаржений контракт, який уклав «Газпром» з Угорщиною»
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Depending on whom you ask, Maine’s proposed “right to food” constitutional amendment would simply put people in charge of how and what they eat — or would endanger animals and food supplies, and turn urban neighborhoods into cattle pastures. 

For supporters, the language is short and to the point, ensuring the right to grow vegetables and raise livestock in an era when corporatization threatens local ownership of the food supply, a constitutional experiment that has never been tried in any state. 

For opponents and skeptics, it’s deceptively vague, representing a threat to food safety and animal welfare, and could embolden residents to raise cows in their backyards in cities like Portland and Bangor. 

In the Nov. 2 election, voters will be asked if they favor an amendment to the Maine Constitution “to declare that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.” 

The proposal is essentially “the 2nd Amendment of food,” said Republican Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, who proposed the amendment, likening it to the U.S. constitutional amendment that assures the right to bear arms.

He says it’s a common-sense amendment that would make sure the government can’t stop people from doing things like saving and exchanging seeds, as long as they don’t violate public or property rights. 

“There’s a lot of disturbing trends in the food category, with the power and control that corporations are taking over our food,” said Faulkingham, who is also a commercial lobster fisherman. “We want to protect people’s ability to grow gardens, grow and raise their own food.” 

Faulkingham and others said the amendment is a response to growing corporate ownership of the food supply. They see the amendment as a way to wrest control of food from big landowners and giant retailers. 

But Julie Ann Smith, executive director of the Maine Farm Bureau, the largest farmers advocacy organization in the state, argued the language of the amendment is so broad that it could make the food supply less safe.

That’s a problem in a state where potatoes, blueberries, maple syrup and dairy products are all key pieces of the economy, she said. The amendment could empower residents to buy and consume food that isn’t subject to inspections, proper refrigeration and other safety checks, Smith worried.

“We think it’s very dangerous to have the words ‘to consume the food of your own choosing.’ That is so broad and dangerous,” Smith said. “It has the potential to cause serious problems in food safety, animal welfare.” 

Smith said the farm bureau is also concerned that the amendment could override local ordinances that prevent residents from raising livestock anywhere they choose.

Supporters of the proposal, including Faulkingham, said that local rules would still be enforced, and that the amendment would not mean you could do things like raise chickens anywhere you want or fish commercially without a license. 

The amendment proposal is an outgrowth of the right-to-food movement, sometimes called the food sovereignty movement, which has expanded in recent years in Maine and states around the U.S. and Canada. 

The movement comprises a patchwork of small farmers, raw milk enthusiasts, libertarians, back-to-the-land advocates, anti-corporatists and others who want to ensure local control of food systems. 

Maine enacted a food sovereignty law, the nation’s first of its kind, in 2017. The law allows local governments to OK small food producers selling directly to customers on site. The law was especially popular with sellers of raw milk, which can be legally sold in Maine but is more restricted in many other states.

The nationwide food sovereignty movement has yielded similar laws in states including Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and North Dakota, and pushes for the same elsewhere. 

The amendment is likely to find support among Maine’s self-sufficient, practical Yankee set, said Mark Brewer, a political scientist with the University of Maine.

However, Brewer agreed with criticism that the amendment is so vague that it’s unclear what it would actually do. 

“I’d be more interested in how it could play out in the courts,” Brewer said. “If you want to raise cattle within the city limits when city laws say you can’t, but the Constitution says you can. Then what happens?” 

For Heather Retberg, a farmer in the small town of Penobscot, the concerns about cows turning up in cities are a silly distraction from the real goal of the proposal.

Retberg, who has a 100-acre farm with cows, pigs, chicken and goats, said the proposal is “an antidote to corporate control of our food supply” and a chance for rural communities to become self-sufficient when it comes to what food they grow and eat. 

It’s also a chance to tackle the problem of the state’s “food deserts,” where residents don’t have enough access to healthy food, Retberg said. 

 
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«Для того, щоб починати всі сільськогосподарські роботи, потрібно мати також і добрива. А добрива виробляються з газу»
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U.S. President Joe Biden is meeting Sunday with two key senators at his home in Delaware to try to complete details of a pared-down social safety net and climate control spending plan set for introduction in Congress as soon as Monday. 

Biden is hosting Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, along with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of two pivotal lawmakers who has called for sharp cutbacks in the president’s original $3.5 trillion plan proposing the biggest expansion of government benefits to American families in five decades. 

With the 100-member Senate equally split between Republicans and Democrats, the policy agreement and votes of Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the two most moderate members of the Democratic caucus, are key to passage of the legislation, along with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. Currently, no Republicans support the legislation. 

Biden has expressed hope that he can reach agreement this week on what he has acknowledged will be a more limited spending plan of about $2 trillion or less, with some provisions, such as two tuition-free years of community college, jettisoned from the final package and others, such as paid worker leave and dental insurance for older Americans, trimmed or delayed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show, that 90% of the measure “is agreed to” and that it is being written Sunday, with final details yet to be worked out. She said it will be introduced on Monday. 

“We’re pretty much there now,” she said. 

Pelosi said that despite the likelihood that the original Biden spending proposal will be roughly cut in half, it will be “bigger than anything we’ve ever done in terms of helping families,” with extended tax credits for all but the wealthiest parents and universal pre-kindergarten schooling for three- and four-year-old children. 

As details of the social safety net plan are finalized, the House leader said her plan is for the chamber to vote later this week on a bipartisan trillion-dollar infrastructure measure already approved by the Senate to fix the country’s deteriorating roads and bridges and expand broadband internet service throughout the United States. 

“I’m optimistic we can do that,” she said. 

The infrastructure spending plan drew the support of 19 Republicans in the Senate, along with that of all 50 Democrats, but progressive Democrats in the House blocked its passage there until agreement could be reached on the social safety net legislation. 

Biden had proposed raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals earning more than $400,000 a year to pay for his social safety net measure, but Sinema has balked at both. That has left the White House and Democrats supporting the Biden spending plan to scramble to find other ways to pay for it. 

Pelosi said, “We have an array” of other ways to pay for the measure, including a so-called “wealth tax” targeting the estimated 700 U.S. billionaires. “We’re going to fully pay for the bill.” 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN the legislation would take aim at “exceptionally wealthy individuals” and likely tax their unrealized capital gains that now are only taxed when they sell assets. She said tax payment enforcement would also be ramped up to collect more revenue. 
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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday new measures to fight discriminatory lending practices. 

The Justice Department’s new Combating Redlining Initiative will redirect federal resources to investigating fair lending concerns, according to the agency. It will draw on existing department authorities under the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to prevent creditors from discriminating on the basis of race, religion, age and sex. 

“Today, we are committing ourselves to addressing modern-day redlining by making far more robust use of our fair lending authorities,” Garland said. 

Redlining is the denial of credit services or mortgage loans to communities and individuals based on race and national origin. Garland characterized the initiative as the furthest-reaching effort to combat redlining in the Justice Department’s history. 

The department will work with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to target illegal practices and file and prosecute fair lending lawsuits, according to Garland. “The initiative represents the department’s most aggressive and coordinated effort to address redlining,” he said.

“Lending discrimination runs counter to fundamental promises of our economic system,” Garland said. “When people are denied credit simply because of their race or national origin, their ability to share in our nation’s prosperity is all but eliminated.” 

 
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Радниця глави Міненерго наголосила, що кризу спричинив збіг багатьох чинників, але ринкові ціни зараз диктують автократичні режими.
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За словами радниці глави Мінернерго, не весь газ, який зберігається в Україні, їй належить
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У Європі зросли ціни на «енергетичний кошик», який включає вугілля, нафту та газ, на 95%, заявила радниця міністра енергетики України Лана Зеркаль
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З боку Росії «шантаж вже дуже явний», каже Зеркаль
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За даними компанії «Оператор газотранспортної системи України», транзит природного газу через Україну за 9 місяців року склав 32,7 мільярдів кубометрів, що на 17,2% менше, ніж за аналогічний період 2020 року
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