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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: World Meteorological Organization predicts Earth likely to blow past 1.5 degree Celsius climate target by 2027; Italy and Somalia stricken by torrential rains and deadly floods; PLUS: Buckle up --- the entire U.S. will see an unnaturally hot summer, NOAA warns... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Weather extremes --- What happens to people after a disaster?; E.P.A. announces crackdown on toxic coal ash from landfills; A billion new air conditioners will save lives but cook the planet; 'Halliburton Loophole' lets fracking firms pollute water without oversight; US power grids vulnerable to extreme heat conditions this summer; Methane mitigation in Texas could create thousands of jobs... PLUS: Can climate change be funny? Bill Nye gets laughs in a show about humankind's existential threat... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Treasury Department unveils new rules for Electric Vehicle tax credits; Extreme weather weekend wreaks havoc around the world; As the world gets warming, 'flash droughts' are coming on faster; PLUS: Germany shuts down the last of its nuclear power plants... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate change, disease imperil North American bats; GOP lawmakers kill funding for Wisconsin’s largest conservation project; As the climate suffers, enforcement needed for corporate green pledges; Water rule injunction adds confusion to Biden's protection plan; Insurance woes plague efforts to cut growing wildfire risks; Slow start on World Bank reform angers climate-hit countries; Court throws out Berkeley, California’s ban on natural gas... PLUS: Greenland's melting ice could be changing our oceans. Just ask the whales... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA takes control of toxic Ohio train derailment disaster, three weeks later; Rightwing media tries to weaponize Ohio disaster into culture war fodder; PLUS: Surprise! The oil and gas industry has failed to cut climate-warming methane emissions as promised... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Homes in flood zones are overvalued by billions, study finds; Massive coal train derails in Nebraska; Marine commission: Whale deaths not linked to wind prep work; Feds slash Gulf's first wind farm areas to make room for drilling, shipping, fishing; Bird flu kills sea lions and thousands of pelican's in Peru's protected areas; 'Climate-friendly' biofuel is not actually a biofuel, and comes with an astronomical cancer risk; Climate change is making winter weather warmer and "weirder"; Attacks surge on U.S. power grid ... PLUS: The Right has it in for 'woke' investors. The only problem? They don't exist... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Back-to-back extreme weather disasters trigger national state of emergency in New Zealand; New studies find global warming is melting Antarctica's ice; PLUS: Growing concerns about safety for residents in aftermath of Ohio chemical train derailment...Even on Fox 'News'?!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): World Bank president, dogged by climate questions, steps down early; truck carrying hazardous nitric acid overturned on an Arizona highway, prompting evacuations of the area; Twice as much land in developing nations will be swamped by rising seas than previously projected, new research shows; Major US railroad merger could bring more tar sands to south-east Texas; Greens and tribes say proposed venting and flaring rule falls short; Tesla opens its EV charging network to the masses ... PLUS: Mono Lake tribe asserts water rights, urges halt of water diversions to Los Angeles... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Ohio residents sue over fiery chemical train derailment after governor's decision to release toxic chemicals; Exxon drops its algae biofuel charade; PLUS: Electric vehicles dominate Super Bowl ads, signaling potential culture shift... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): As climate change disrupts ecosystems, a new outbreak of bird flu spreads to mammals; Deep sea mining noise poses harm to blue whales, scientists warn; Coal ash waste along shores of Great Lakes threatens water quality; US's first solar panels over canals pilot will deploy iron flow batteries; Ford to build EV battery plant in Michigan, use Chinese tech; Orphan well cleanup in Pennsylvania underscores enormity of task ... PLUS: Farewell radiators? Testing out electric infrared wallpaper ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Biden touts climate action and infrastructure upgrades in State of the Union address; Surprise! BP weakens climate targets amid record profits; FBI disrupts neo-Nazi plot to attack Baltimore power grid; PLUS: Minnesota enacts ambitious law to go 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Embattled Adani embarks on coal fire sale to boost liquidity; Oil industry-backed effort puts new California oil well ban put on hold for voters to decide; Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback; BP says demand for oil and gas will drop dramatically by 2050 in 'decisive shift';14 million Americans live near plants emitting cancer-causing gas; Communities on front lines of pesticide exposure fight for change; Drought may have doomed this ancient empire; Brazil pushes illegal miners out of indigenous Yanomami territory... PLUS: Drifting Toward Disaster: Breaking the Brazos

... and much, MUCH more! ...

Apparently, our week of GOP debunkery continues on today's BradCast. I have a feeling we may be at it for quite some time, as Republicans are just getting started with their crash and burn majority control of the U.S. House. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On yesterday's program, we shared a few clips from interviews this week with the new Republican Chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky. He explained why he was dead set on his committee investigating the connection between classified documents found by Joe Biden's aides at his Delaware residence (and immediately returned to the federal government) and concerns about "influence peddling" by the President and his family. That, despite any actual evidence to support the allegations.

Comer also made clear he had no interest in his Committee investigating the former President, despite the hundreds of classified documents he'd stolen from the White House (and refused to return, with many still missing) and mountains of evidence of influence peddling by Donald Trump and many of his children, including son-in-law Jared Kushner who received $2 billion from the Saudis just after Trump left office.

There was one point Comer focused on, however, in an effort to buttress his case. "There's one email that's been identified that is suspicious, that we want to look into," he explained. "We want to make sure that this one email that was on Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't one of the classified documents" found at Biden's residence in DE.

This claim seems to stem from an allegation first published by a New York Post columnist, apparently. GOP Senators have also been citing the same claim of late. Sen. Ron Johnson (WI) recently argued on Fox Business that an email from 2014, said to have been found on what Republicans have long claimed to be an "abandoned" laptop from the President's son contained "a very detailed analysis of what's happening in Ukraine." Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) alleged on a podcast that information in the email "could easily have come from a classified briefing."

Washington Post's Glenn Kessler examined the allegation and the evidence today. He found that the facts stated in the 22-point email said to be from Hunter actually lined up with information that was not only on the public record at the time, but published by major news outlets just weeks before the date of the email. "Laptop email suggests Hunter Biden read newspapers, not classified documents," Kessler's headline reads today. He awarded "Three Pinocchios" to the claims from Johnson and Cruz, as echoed by Oversight Committee Chair Comer on Sunday.

At the same time, Hunter Biden, after years of staying quiet about all of this, appears to now be pushing back. His attorneys recently sent legal letters to Fox "News" and Tucker Carlson, for example, demanding they retract and apologize for what the letters characterize as defamatory statements. They've also sent letters seeking criminal investigations by both state and federal authorities into the dissemination of his personal data by folks like Rudy Giuliani in the run-up to the 2020 election, making clear that while some of the data discovered was his, he neither authorized its public release, nor dropped off an allegedly abandoned laptop at a repair shop, as the GOP story, initially spread by Giuliani, goes.

Much more on all of the above today. But if Republican members of Congress believe that House investigations into this sort of stuff is what voters want them to do, after months of campaigning on claims of out-of-control crime, record inflation, high gas prices, etc., they are likely very wrong. At least according to a new report on focus groups of independent voters in Wisconsin, Virginia and Texas.

Next up today, we share some of the remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House floor today before a vote by House Republicans to remove her from the Foreign Affairs Committee based on comments they regard as anti-Israel four years ago. In truth, the move by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy --- who was finally able to scrounge up the minimum number of votes needed to remove her (all Dems voted in her favor) --- was clearly revenge for Democrats removing Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (GA) and Paul Gosar (AZ) from their committee assignments during the last Congress. That, after they each posted violent threats against Democrats. (For example, Green promoted a comment from a supporter calling for the assassination of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Gosar posted a video in which he is depicted as decapitating Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with a ninja sword.)

Then, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Big Oil profiteers announce all-time record profits after a year or two of inflating gas prices; and the Biden EPA announces some very good news for longtime opponents of what would have been a toxic mining project in a pristine part of Alaska.

Finally today, a programming announcement for The BradCast! We will be moving to a four-day-a-week, Monday through Thursday schedule (with rebroadcasts scheduled for Friday) for the foreseeable future. While there are no emergencies, as noted on the program, there are several reasons for this change. Catching up on some long overdue health issues (physical, emotional, mental) is just one of them. We're fine. But, after moving from a weekly to a daily schedule back in early 2015, in order to cover the 2016 elections, and then staying with that schedule thanks to the "surprise" ending of that election, and then continuing on through four years of Trump and a years-long pandemic...well, we've got a lot to catch up with here and hope you will both understand and forgive us for our need to take Fridays off for a while. Perhaps even permanently. (Feel free to leave any complaints in the comments section below, however!)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big Oil posts all-time high record profits; Biden hits the road to promote long-awaited infrastructure upgrades; Earth saw 42 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2022; PLUS: Biden EPA finally vetoes Alaska's controversial proposed Pebble Mine... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Biden Admin. recommends major Alaska oil project; Clean energy saw as much investment as fossil fuels for the first time in 2022; Arizona copper mine proposal could advance clean energy but scar sacred tribal lands; One of climate change's great mysteries - clouds --- may finally be solved; How just 25 oil companies are set to blow the world’s 1.5°C carbon budget; Global elite produce almost half greenhouse emissions, UN saysPLUS: The right words are crucial to solving climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: As California recovers from epic storms, the fight for water is just beginning in the U.S. West; Massive boost to U.S. solar manufacturing arrives thanks to the Joe Biden and the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act; PLUS: Exxon scientists in the 1970s accurately predicted today's climate warming levels and weather disasters... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Fukushima water to be released into ocean in next few months; Gas and coal plant failures widespread as largest grid operator struggled to manage winter storms; Davos 2023: Big Oil in sights of climate activist protests; Nevada: Feds offer $700M to lithium project at heart of ESA dispute; Death by clear-cut: Canada's unique deep-snow caribou are vanishing; Sweden finds rare earth deposits that could benefit Western consumers; PLUS: Climate gentrification is coming to hurricane-wrecked Florida... and much, MUCH more! ...

The last time multiple ballots were needed for any party to elect a House Speaker, a century ago in 1923, it took nine ballots to settle the matter. Today, before we got off the air from today's BradCast, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy had failed to secure a majority on the eleventh ballot. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Not all hope is lost. There's still the all-time record of 133 ballots over two months in 1855-1856 that today's Republican Party has yet to break. Give them time.

So, the 118th U.S. Congress has not yet been gavelled into existence. But that's not the only place where Republicans seem to be tripping over their own legislative [bleeps].

On today's program...

• Up-to-the-minute coverage of the madness and idiocy of Day 3 in the Republican-led House; how the 20 far-right anti-McCarthyites are shooting themselves and their party in the foot; what McCarthy has already given away (pretty much everything) in his still-failed effort to win them over; how Trump may be the biggest loser of all here; the Democratic Party's continuing unified support for leader Hakeem Jeffries (the lead vote-getter, with 212 votes, on each and every ballot to date); why all of this is important and the dangers ahead; a reminder of what the nation is now missing without Dems in control of the chamber; and the question of whether Dems should help McCarthy win the Speakership in exchange for a promise to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a national and potentially global depression, as suggested by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA).

• In Pennsylvania on Thursday, Democratic Gov.-Elect Josh Shapiro tapped former Philadelphia city commissioner and election official, Al Schmidt, a Republican, to serve as Sec. of the Commonwealth.

• Also in the Keystone State this week, Democrats in the State House have out-maneuvered Republicans to seat a House Speaker. In a surprise victory last November, Dems won back the majority from the GOP for the first time in a decade, but only by one seat. Then, one Democratic member died and two others vacated their seats for higher office. Until special elections to fill those three seats can be scheduled, both parties were claiming the majority and the right to run the House, set the legislative agenda, and schedule the special elections, which will likely result in a clear majority for the Dems after they are finally held. But Dems were able to win over some Republican votes to elect one of their own as Speaker in a surprise victory this week.

• In another surprise victory for Democrats, this time in the very Republican Ohio state House, Democrats out-maneuvered the GOP again by voting en masse with a group of Republicans to elect a more moderate Speaker than the one the GOP had chosen as their leader just last month. The power struggle comes in the wake of a still-unfolding racketeering scandal for the GOP as the state's former Republican House Speaker, Larry Householder, begins a federal trial this month with his co-defendant, the former Chair of the Ohio Republican Party, regarding $61 million in alleged bribes to pass legislation to help bail out energy giant, FirstEnergy.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our first Green News Report of the new year, with a ton of stuff we missed over our holiday break, and a bunch of stuff that has happened since our return, including the roll out of billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades and new incentives for consumers to move to clean, renewable energy, as adopted when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden promotes bipartisan infrastructure repairs and upgrades as funding flows from new climate laws; U.S. West braces for another round of major storms; PLUS: Republican dysfunction in U.S. House a bad omen for climate policy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How to prepare for this week's Atmospheric River storm; In famed Mt. Kilimanjaro game park, the animals are giving up; Protests near German village eradicated to expand coal mine; Biden rolls out new rules. Courts may torpedo them; Farewell to the Senate's biggest climate denier; The toll extreme weather took in the U.S. during 2022, by the numbers; Winter warm spell stifles skiing in the Swiss Alps; A hotter, wetter Arctic spells trouble for everyone... PLUS: Alaska’s Arctic waterways are turning a foreboding orange... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden EPA opens civil rights probe into Jackson, MS' water crisis; Big insurance companies begin to back away from Big Oil: PLUS: BMW to build massive E.V. battery plant in U.S. --- Republicans who voted against incentives take credit... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Only 5 percent of plastic waste generated by US last year was recycled, report says; Secret files suggest chemical giant feared weedkiller’s link to Parkinson’s disease; Russia is destroying water/power infrastructure in Ukraine; Utilities sticking with fossil fuels despite climate pledges; How coal producers legally dodge cleanup obligations; Will new UK PM Sunak rebuild green agenda torn up by Truss?; More than half of bird species in the U.S. are in decline; Deforestation slowed last year, but not enough to meet climate goals; New European pipelines are hydrogen ready... PLUS: Inside the fantastical, pragmatic quest to make "hybrid" meat.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Elections are not only about the future, they're also about accountability for failed leadership. There is a lot of that in Florida today, even if it's difficult to notice above the death, destruction and devastation following Hurricane Ian. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Current estimates for the cost of damage in Florida following Hurricane Ian range anywhere from $40 to $60 billion. And, yet, the state's two Republican U.S. Senators both voted against a bipartisan infrastructure bill last year which included some $50 billion to help states harden and upgrade infrastructure to better withstand events exactly like Ian.

Marco Rubio called the measure "wasteful". Rick Scott described it as "reckless spending". Each has received nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the oil and gas industry since 2017. Moreover, both Rubio and then Representative, now Governor, Ron DeSantis voted against disaster funding in 2013 following Hurricane Sandy, even though both are now seeking similar federal funding for Florida.

Hurricane Ian was made far worse than it otherwise might have been thanks to climate change caused by the burning of oil and gas that the state's GOP leaders have long promoted despite decades of warnings from scientists. Just weeks ago, DeSantis issued an order blocking his state's pension fund --- which invests billions held on behalf of teachers, firefighters and other state workers --- from even considering the climate risks posed to companies when investing in them. He described such considerations as "political".

Of course, the state's U.S. House contingent is also filled with GOP climate deniers who have long lied to their constituents about the dangers of our worsening climate crisis in of the state's most affected by it. Every single Florida Republican in both the House and Senate voted against the Democrats' recently adopted bill that invests $369 billion over the next ten years to wean the nation off fossil fuels and the greenhouse gas emissions that made the state's recent disaster so much worse --- and makes high-tide flooding in South Florida now a regular occurrence, even on sunny days.

Will any of Florida's corrupt GOP leaders ever be held accountable by voters for their deadly, failed leadership on these issues? That is, if voters are even able to vote this year amid the rubble left behind by Ian?

Rubio is facing a reelection challenge in November by Democratic Rep. Val Demings. The state's former Governor, Charlie Crist (then a Republican, now a Democrat) is challenging DeSantis. While the Dems trail in both contests according to pre-election polling, both are within reach --- at least if voters are informed enough to know who is on their side, and who has been playing them as suckers for years, as we discuss in detail today.

Also today...

• The bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating Donald Trump's January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his multiple failed attempts to steal the 2020 Presidential election has now rescheduled their next (maybe last?) public hearing for Thursday, October 13, following a previous cancellation two weeks ago due to Hurricane Ian.

• More evidence of why you should ignore the polls and predictions in these UNconventional times before this year's critical midterm elections: voter registration for women --- especially younger Democratic women --- has spiked even in the ruby "red" state of Idaho following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of 'Roe v. Wade', according to new data.

• President Biden announced, on Thursday, the pardons for thousands of Americans convicted for "simple possession" of marijuana under federal law over the years. He called on Governors to do the same for those charged under state laws and has asked both his Health and Human Services Secretary and the U.S. Attorney General to finally consider rescheduling cannabis from its current Schedule I status, which classifies pot --- which is now sold legally in dozens of states --- on the same level as LSD and heroin, and even more dangerous than fentanyl and methamphetamine.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with news on Biden's visit to Florida after Ian; Saudi Arabia and Russia's plan to raise oil prices; the climate stakes of Brazil's upcoming Presidential runoff election; and great news from the great state of New York regarding electric vehicles...

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With unspeakable devastation from Florida to Ukraine, the stakes couldn't be higher for our upcoming midterm elections. We cover all of that on today's BradCast, even while tending to some long overdue accountability and grotesque conflicts of interest in Congress. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

The horrifying death toll from last week's climate change-fueled Hurricane Ian continues to rise. More than 100 were confirmed dead in Florida alone as of airtime. That number is likely to keep growing, along with the growing questions about why state officials did not call for evacuations before they finally did. Put those questions into the same file that may explain the state's years of climate crisis denial and its now collapsing insurance industry.

At the same time, corrupt authoritarian regimes elsewhere are similarly ill-serving their citizens. We get caught up a bit today on Russia's sham referendums and unlawful annexation of four regions in eastern Ukraine last week. That, as Russia's military offensive continues to collapse and lose ground to Ukrainians defending their sovereign homeland; as Vladimir Putin faces growing unrest after announcing the forced draft of hundreds of thousands of Russians; and as he continues to threaten the use of nuclear weapons as his political and military fortunes devolve.

Then, we move to Brazil, where far-right President Jair Bolsonaro lost in the first round of voting on Sunday to the nation's former leftist President known to the people simply as "Lula". While Lula defeated Bolsonaro over the weekend, neither candidate received the votes necessary to avoid a run-off later this month. Lula's victory was much narrower than expected based on pre-election polling showing that he was likely to defeat Bolsonaro by about 14 points. He won by just less than 6 points in what should serve as another object lesson for U.S. voters before our own critical midterm elections in just 35 days.

Next, we're joined by longtime government affairs and ethics lobbyist CRAIG HOLMAN of Public Citizen to discuss the Combatting Financial Conflicts of Interest Act that he had hoped to see passed in the House before next month's midterms. Holman helped shepherd passage of 2012's STOCK Act. It was hoped that the decade old measure --- requiring immediate disclosure of stock trades by members of Congress and ending their exemption from insider trading laws --- would shame members into avoid conflicts of interest when trading stocks in companies which they also oversaw in Congressional committees.

As Holman details today, the STOCK Act failed in that regard for several reasons. As a New York Times analysis found last month, at least 97 members of the House and Senate, of both parties, continue to hold stocks in companies that they oversee on Congressional committees. But it is hoped that the new measure will end that as well. It would bar members and their direct family (spouses and children) from buying and selling stocks at all, and require them to divest their portfolio entirely or place such assets into blind trusts.

"Prior to the STOCK Act in 2012," Holman explains, "insider trading was illegal for you and I and Martha Stewart, but it was perfectly legal for members of Congress. And they were making use of it. There was one economist who came out with a study that showed members of Congress enjoy a 12% higher rate of return than the rest of us on the stock market. Which means either they're geniuses at trading in the stock market, or they know something that we don't know. Quite obviously, it's the latter."

While the STOCK Act did reduce members' trading in stocks by about two-thirds, he says, the other third "are still out there trading. They are sitting on the same committees and in their same official capacities overlooking the same businesses that they're buying and selling stocks in."

The new bill, however, would finally end those bipartisan conflicts of interest, and/or the appearance of same, once and for all. But, Holman also explains how the bill he had hoped to see passed by both chambers before this year's midterms was derailed last week He tells us whodunnit and how he hopes to see the measure adopted nonetheless in the lame duck session after the elections. Here's hoping!

Does Holman have any concerns that this new law would prevent qualified folks from running for Congress in the first place? "Not on my end," he responds. "That is one argument that you always run into. But, quite frankly, if you've got a huge financial conflict of interest with your official duties of serving in Congress, I don't want you here. If you're not going to get rid of that conflict of interest, you pose more of a threat to the integrity of our legislative process, no matter how competent you are."

Finally, President Biden visited Puerto Rico on Monday in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Fiona (the storm that took out power across the island, yet again, just two weeks before Ian's devastation in Florida). He didn't throw paper towels at residents, as the former guy did following Hurricane Maria, though he did vow to help get their infrastructure back up and hardened to withstand many more of these storms that will be coming their way as the climate crisis worsens. We share some of Biden's remarks today...

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Even before Hurricane Ian devastated the state, Florida's insurance industry was collapsing. As discussed on today's BradCast, decades of climate denialism by the Republicans who run the state hasn't helped. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Gov. Ron DeSantis seems to have a very different perspective on federal hurricane disaster aid than he did while a freshman in Congress in 2013, when he was an adamant "no" vote on sending federal aid dollars to New York and New Jersey after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. He also seems to have a different opinion of President Biden than he did just a week or so ago, when the ambitious GOP Presidential hopeful was threatening to use state taxpayer dollars to fly undocumented immigrants to Biden's home in Delaware. Suddenly, the DeSantis swagger is gone. At least for now, as the Sunshine State Guv has little choice after Ian but to crawl hat in hand to the same federal government he has pretended to abhor for political benefit.

But that's not DeSantis' only problem. As our guest today, THOMAS FRANK, longtime climate change impact journalist at E&E News, explains, the insurance industry in Florida has been in big trouble for some time. Major insurers left the state after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and six of the regional mom and pop outfits who took their place have gone insolvent over the past year alone.

"There's not the kind of robust, private sector [in the insurance industry] you have really everywhere else in the country," Frank tells me today. "What happened the last few days is going to make a bad situation --- pick your adjective --- horrendous. The truth is nobody knows exactly how bad it's going to be, because that's going to take weeks, months to figure out as people try to start filing claims and so forth. But I don't anyone thinks it's going to be anything but bad."

Frank has been reporting on --- and warning about --- the state's failing insurance industry long before Ian may have finished it off. Premiums for homeowners insurance cost about 3 times more than the national average and, at the same time, Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer of last resort, has been under-pricing homeowner policies for years, he says. They are unlikely to have enough money to pay out the claims that will soon come flooding in.

Moreover, homeowner policies don't cover flood insurance. That's left to a federal government program and most Floridians who have flood coverage live on the coast, even as hundreds of thousands of homeowners who have been flooded out this week live nowhere near it. They are unlikely to be insured for flooding at all.

As Frank writes today at E&E, "Hurricane Ian is expect to financially ruin countless people" in the state, including both homeowners and insurers. As he wrote yesterday at Politico, "Profit drove a 30-year boom" in the state, particularly near the coast, where the population has doubled or tripled amid a building boom in recent years, despite warnings from climate experts about sea rise and the intensification of hurricanes. "Ian smashed" that boom "in a day," writes Frank.

This, in a state controlled by climate change denialist politicians who have gone so far as to ban the use of the phrase "climate change" in state reports, and where DeSantis, as recently as last month, began an effort to bar the state's pension fund from even considering environmental factors when investing billions of dollars belonging to teachers, firefighters and other state workers.

Please tune in for today's enlightening conversation.

Finally today, Democrats in the House Oversight Committee recently obtained and released a trove of internal documents from fossil fuel industry insiders from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. The communications reveal that Big Oil execs, staffers and lobbyists admit to "gaslighting" the public regarding their public claims to be fighting against the climate crisis. (Who could have guessed it?!) For example, while Shell has publicly claimed they are working toward "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a missive to employees in 2020 instructs them to never "imply, suggest, or leave it open for possible misinterpretation that (net zero) is a Shell goal or target," adding that the company has "no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio" over the next 10 to 20 years.

Republicans on the House Committee are furious that their friends and campaign donors have been exposed (again) as liars. And the companies argue the Committee's selective release of documents doesn't offer a full picture of their very very concerned stance on the climate crisis. So, as a public service, we close today with a new ad from Chevron that may help clear the air a bit. You're welcome!

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