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Category: government – Page 58

The biggest Internet service providers and their trade groups spent $234.7 million on lobbying and political donations during the most recent two-year congressional cycle, according to a report released yesterday. The ISPs and their trade groups lobbied against strict net neutrality rules and on various other telecom and broadband regulatory legislation, said the report written by advocacy group Common Cause.

Of the $234.7 million spent in 2019 and 2020, political contributions and expenditures accounted for $45.6 million. The rest of it went to lobbying expenditures.

Comcast led the way with $43 million in lobbying and political contributions and expenditures combined during the 2019–2020 cycle, the report said. The highest-spending ISPs after Comcast were AT&T with $36.4 million, Verizon with $24.8 million, Charter with $24.4 million, and T-Mobile with $21.5 million. “The dollar amounts are shocking,” the report said. “In total, these corporations spent more than $234 million on lobbying and federal elections during the 116th Congress—an average of more than $320,000 a day, seven days a week!”

…and yes SpaceX/Starlink is on the list just about Everyone is.

My Favorite site for transparency, however is opensecrets.

Continue reading “ISPs spent 5 million on lobbying and donations, “more than 0,000 a day”” | >

Researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a new type of heat pump, a flexible heat pump technology, which could help households save on their energy bills and contribute towards net-zero emissions goals.

Heat pumps are a low-carbon alternative to gas boilers. They draw energy from external low temperature sources, most commonly outdoor air, in order to indoor spaces. When powered by renewable sources of power, they are significantly more environmentally friendly than conventional gas boilers.

Around the world, about 40% of carbon emissions come from heating powered by . The U.K. Government has set a target for 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028 in order to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.

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Are gas stations doomed in the long run, or is there an opportunity to reinvent them as a fast-charging destination stop for EV drivers?

Germany-based global ultrafast EV charging technology company ADS-TEC Energy sees the rise of EVs as a new opportunity for gas stations. Electrek spoke with John Tuccillo, global head of corporate and government affairs for ADS-TEC Energy, about what the reinvention of gas stations into superfast EV charging stations would look like and what it would take to make that happen.

Electrek: As we move to vehicle electrification, what do you think will happen to gas stations, and what are the challenges that gas stations face?

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😳!

Newsom said the emergency declaration would help support the state’s vaccination efforts. Demand for the vaccines has outstripped supply as infections rise. Staff at sexual health clinics and other sites have struggled to keep up with the influx of people seeking the shots.

California is mobilizing personnel from its Emergency Medical Services to help administer the vaccines. Newsom said the state is working across all levels of government to slow the spread through testing, contract tracing and community outreach.

California’s declaration comes after Illinois declared a public health emergency earlier Monday. New York declared a state disaster emergency in response to the outbreak late Friday.

Continue reading “California declares a state of emergency over monkeypox outbreak, following New York and Illinois” | >

Minxin Pei is professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a nonresident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Confidence in the safety of Chinese banks has been badly shaken by the failure of several small banks in Henan Province in April this year. In terms of their assets of about 40 billion yuan ($6 billion) and the number of customers, roughly 400,000, the shuttered rural banks are minions in China’s financial system.

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Colombia’s government has launched a partnership with Ripple Labs, the company behind the cryptocurrency XRP, to put land titles on the blockchain, part of a plan to rectify land distribution efforts so unfair they’ve led to decades of armed conflict.

The project, built by blockchain development company Peersyst Technology and Ripple, will permanently store and authenticate property titles on Ripple’s Ledger—its public blockchain.

This will help eliminate bureaucracy and hopefully make land distribution more equal, Ripple Labs and Peersyst Technology told Decrypt.

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The two are worlds apart – and that’s a big problem when it comes to recruitment and retainment. On one side is the need to protect American citizens and data from cyber attackers looking to disrupt our way of life by keeping networks and access locked away in a building. On the other side is the best and brightest talent that will bring innovative solutions to our nation’s defense and security organizations who expect flexible remote access – and can easily find it in the private sector.

To maintain our status as a global world power and stay one step ahead of our adversaries, we are going to have to find a balance between the two. To do that, the way we work across the DoD and IC must change.

The Federal government understands the significance of remote access on meeting mission objectives now and in the future. Agency leaders are looking to the private sector for technology that helps them maintain the highest security levels while meeting the ease-of-access demands of today’s worker – and can be implemented quickly. To support this, the National Security Agency developed the Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program.

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