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April 25, 2024
Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Suffers Data Breach
April 25, 2024
Amid CA Homeowner Insurance Crisis, Consumer Advocates and Industry Clash at Hearing
April 25, 2024
New EPA Emissions Rules Squeeze Coal Plants
The rules, which will almost certainly be challenged in court, mandate strict controls on carbon-dioxide emissions at existing coal plants and newly built natural-gas plants. They set the stage for a significant infrastructure build-out to capture and dispose of CO2 emitted at such plants in order to comply.
The changes come as the industry juggles the first upswing in power demand in two decades and a shifting generation mix. Solar and wind projects are being added to the grid, and utilities say more gas-fired power plants are needed for reliability and to replace coal. Some utilities say they could need aging coal plants to stay online longer than expected.Existing gas plants, the backbone of the nation’s power supply, aren’t included in the new rules.
“The electricity industry is central to America’s economic growth and competitiveness. These are the folks who keep the lights on and power our country forward,” said Michael Regan, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator. “At the same time, the power sector is also a major contributor to the pollution that drives climate change and threatens public health.”
The EPA administrator said the new rules will cut 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions, roughly equivalent to the power sector’s 2022 emissions, and move the U.S. closer to the Biden administration’s goal of making the electricity sector carbon-free by 2035.
Regan said the new rules will amount to $370 billion in climate and public health net benefits over the next two decades. In 2035, the new rules would prevent approximately 1,200 premature deaths and 870 hospital visits, according to Regan. Carbon emissions from power plants make up around a quarter of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Vehicles account for the largest source, about 28%. Separate EPA rules issued Thursday will limit pollution from power-plant wastewater, regulate coal ash, and limit air emissions of mercury and other toxic compounds.Plants operating past 2039 would need to install carbon-capture units before 2032 to comply with the new climate rules, according to EPA officials. A nationwide slowdown in permitting and constructing energy projects will test the utilities’ ability to deploy carbon capture and storage, which is mostly untried on a large scale.
While the administration said the timelines for the power-plant rules would give companies time to comply, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Chief Executive Jim Matheson called the rules unachievable.
“It undermines electric reliability and poses grave consequences for an already-stressed electric grid,” said Matheson, whose organization represents many smaller utilities that operate coal plants. Many power executives say that carbon-capture systems are too experimental, unproven and expensive. Environmentalists say that wider use of the technologies will bring costs down and that the rules would help lower emissions in a major industry that has already been shifting to renewables.Tax credits for carbon capture in the 2022 climate, health and tax law known as the Inflation Reduction Act, combined with the new EPA rule, will spur both innovation and adoption of the technology, according to David Doniger, senior federal strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
“It’s going to cause coal-plant operators who want to keep the plants around to get serious about carbon capture,” Doniger said.
Doniger said utilities raised similar fears in the 1980s about the cost of installing scrubber technology to remove sulfur pollutants that damaged lakes and waterways in the Northeast. The actual cost was less than either industry or the EPA had projected, he said. The new rules will likely stoke the political debate over regulations designed to fight climate change.The administration has been pushing through rule changes designed to survive election-year politics. Last month the EPA issued its most stringent rules ever for tailpipe emissions for vehicles, though it handed the auto industry a concession by giving it more time to comply than what had originally been proposed.
Issuing the rules now avoids the threat of a potential congressional change, but they are still likely to end up in court.
Coal plants have struggled financially against natural gas and renewables, and the rules essentially schedule their phaseout, said Daniel Cohan, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. Most were built before 1990 and would be at least 50 years old by 2040. Their owners would face enormous costs for ongoing maintenance, in addition to the expense of installing a carbon-capture system.“It’s going to be only really special cases where it would make sense to install this technology,” Cohan said.
The industry would need to remove CO2 before it goes out of smokestacks, build pipelines to transport it and drill wells that could permanently store the carbon dioxide deep underground in rock formations. Such a build-out faces myriad challenges. Not all parts of the country, for example, have the geology required for storage.Generators in competitive markets are considered unlikely to make the capital investments that would be needed for older plants, but some utilities or electric co-ops in coal-heavy states might do so and pass the costs on to consumers.
The sector could also turn to options such as the use of hydrogen fuel or small modular nuclear reactors, which remain under development in the U.S. The EPA said it is also including flexibility regarding grid reliability and operations during emergencies.
There are only a few examples globally of carbon-capture projects tied to power plants. In North Dakota, Minnkota Power Cooperative hopes to build a carbon capture and sequestration project at a coal plant. Chief Executive Mac McLennan said the EPA is overestimating the current and future capabilities of the technology and underestimating the time needed to build.“I have great optimism and confidence that we can figure out how to make technology work to capture CO2 off of a coal plant,” McLennan said. “I have some fundamental concerns just whether and how we affordably and reliably keep the lights on.”
Meanwhile, the coal-mining industry is finding new customers abroad to replace retiring U.S. coal plants. Consol Energy operates three mines in Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia. Chief Executive Jimmy Brock said new export markets took 60% of the 26 million tons of coal that Consol dug last year.
“I think we need to invest in those technologies,” Brock said, referring to carbon capture. “If they don’t, we’ll continue to send our coal overseas.”
April 25, 2024
McKinsey Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Opioids Work, Sources Say
April 25, 2024
FCC Will Start Regulating Internet Service Like a Public Utility
In a vote Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to classify internet service as a public utility. The definition is part of a new framework the FCC will use to regulate broadband networks.
For years, internet-service providers have sparred with regulators and activists over the rules for offering internet access to consumers and businesses. Net-neutrality provisions introduced during the Obama administration were scrapped during the Trump presidency. The shifting rules haven’t radically changed how the internet is delivered to consumers or how much they pay for it.
With the FCC’s vote, internet-service providers are likely to challenge net-neutrality rules in court, meaning it could be months before they go into effect.
What does net neutrality entail?
Net-neutrality rules typically bar internet-service providers from assigning priority to certain web traffic or creating so-called fast lanes for certain websites. They also restrict providers from throttling, or slowing down, traffic to websites that don’t pay up.
Proponents say that the guardrails are critical to ensuring internet users have equal access to digital content and that deep-pocketed websites aren’t given priority over smaller ones. Without rules, advocates say that companies such as Comcast could charge content owners such as Netflix to pay extra, akin to a toll, to have its videos delivered smoothly to viewers.
Opponents of net neutrality say the rules are unnecessary and allege that the FCC is using the policy to expand its regulatory remit.The topic crept into pop culture around 2006, when the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R., Alaska) described the internet as “a series of tubes.” His metaphor was mocked as simplistic by “The Daily Show” and other media—but also captured the public imagination.
How could these rules affect consumers and their options for internet service?
That depends on whom you ask. The foundation for the commission’s new internet rules—Title II of the Communications Act—allows the regulator to intervene if it determines a company is charging unreasonable rates. The order being voted on Thursday explicitly avoids rate regulation.
Internet providers aren’t convinced it is the last word. They fear the new order will open the door for future FCC rules that regulate prices. Some states have capped what internet service providers such as Verizon Communications and AT&T could charge low-income households.
The FCC’s rules don’t prohibit providers from throttling internet service for consumers who are enrolled in plans with data allotments. The throttling would be allowed as long as the internet-service provider is transparent about its rules and the action occurs without cherry-picking certain applications or websites.Internet providers’ practices became a flashpoint in 2018 when Verizon throttled the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s wireless internet service during a wildfire emergency. Verizon has called the throttling “a customer support mistake.” Proponents have used the episode as a reason why net neutrality rules should exist.
Haven’t we heard this before?
Yes. In 2015, the FCC, under Obama-appointed Chairman Tom Wheeler, classified internet service as a utility and imposed net-neutrality rules. Republicans called the rules a regulatory overreach. In 2017, the FCC, then under Trump-appointed Chairman Ajit Pai, rolled them back.
It has been seven years without federal net-neutrality rules, and consumers haven’t seen much change in how they experience the web. Net-neutrality opponents, including the two Republican FCC commissioners, argue that is because the rules weren’t needed in the first place.California was among the first states to step in and implement its own net-neutrality rules. Some providers treated the state rules as a kind of de facto national standard.
Why bring the rules back?
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has said that she believes in net neutrality and that stronger regulatory authority over internet infrastructure would allow the agency to safeguard private-sector networks against cybersecurity threats.
The new rules would affect a range of companies that provide internet service, including cable companies, mobile carriers and satellite-internet providers. Those companies say the FCC’s push could bring about more regulation, including at the state level, because the order doesn’t pre-empt states from making their own rules.
Providers must file public disclosures with the FCC if they fast-lane or throttle any type of traffic. Those disclosure requirements discourage internet providers from playing favorites with internet traffic.
April 24, 2024
Insurance Pricing Continues to Moderate as Rates Decline in Most Regions: Marsh
- Global property insurance rates were up 3%, on average, in the first quarter of 2024, compared to a 6% increase in the previous quarter. In the US, companies with concentrations of assets in catastrophe zones such as the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic coast, and California have begun to see lower increases or even decreases in rates, compared to higher increases in recent years.
- Casualty insurance rates increased on average by 3%, the same as the previous five quarters, largely due to concerns about the size of jury awards in the US.
- For the seventh consecutive quarter, the overall average pricing for financial and professional lines fell. Driven by rate reductions and increased competition for business – particularly in the US, UK, Pacific, and Canada – average rates decreased by 7% in the first quarter, compared to 6% decline in the previous quarter.
- Globally, cyber insurance rates decreased by 6%, compared to a 3% decrease in the prior quarter. Insurers are increasingly focused on the strength of organizations’ cybersecurity controls, typically looking for year-over-year improvements in cyber resilience.
April 24, 2024
New Federal Rule Would Bar ‘Noncompete’ Agreements for Most Employees, Chamber of Commerce to Sue
April 24, 2024
Chubb Posts First-Quarter Profit Hike as Property/Casualty, Life Earnings Rise
April 24, 2024
Orion180 Launches Homeowners Insurance in Arizona, Marks Major Expansion Westward
- Orion180 Insurance Co., a surplus lines (non-admitted) insurance company domiciled in Indiana and doing business in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina.
- Orion180 Select Insurance Co., an admitted insurance company domiciled in Indiana that is approved to provide coverage in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi and Georgia.
- Orion180 Insurance Services LLC, a managing general underwriter that partners with carriers and reinsurers to deliver homeowners insurance and other insurance solutions.
April 24, 2024
The True Cost of Megamergers in Healthcare: Higher Prices
Hospitals have struck deals in recent years to form local and regional health systems that use their reach to bargain for higher prices from insurers. Employers have often passed the higher rates onto employees.
Such price increases added $204 million to national health spending, on average, in the first year after a merger of nearby hospitals, according to a study to be published Wednesday by American Economic Review: Insights.
Workers cover much of the bill, said Zack Cooper, an associate professor of economics at Yale University who helped conduct the study. Employers cut into wages and trim jobs to offset rising insurance premiums, he said. “The harm from these mergers really falls squarely on main street,” Cooper said.
Premiums are rising at their fastest pace in more than a decade, driven up by persistently high inflation across the economy. Rising costs have fueled contentious negotiations that have led some hospitals and insurers to cancel contracts, leaving patients in the lurch.
Hospital mergers make the price pressures worse.
“When those hospitals have market power, they can use that to extract high prices from insurers and those costs are ultimately passed onto consumers,” said Amanda Starc, an associate professor of strategy at Northwestern University, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
Hospitals say mergers create efficiencies and combine resources to make strategic investments and improve quality. Operating costs drop by 4%-7% on average at acquired hospitals after a deal, research shows. Quality stays the same or declines after mergers, studies have found.
The American Hospital Association’s general counsel, Chad Golder, said the study was incomplete because it didn’t include prices for some big insurers.For the study, researchers analyzed claims from three of the nation’s largest insurers: CVS Health’s Aetna, UnitedHealth’s UnitedHealthcare and Humana.
They found that mergers raised prices by 1.6% over the two years afterward, on average, and by 5.2% where deals gave hospitals hefty market power under federal guidelines.
Hospital prices have been a longstanding target in Washington. The Trump administration issued rules to force hospitals and insurers to make prices public.
The Biden administration and the Federal Trade Commission have targeted hospital mergers as part of a broader antitrust push, including guidelines for problematic deals completed last year.
Federal officials have moved to stop recent proposed mergers, including a deal scuttled in December in the San Francisco Bay Area. John Muir Health called off plans to buy a third local general hospital after the FTC sued to end the deal.
“The proposed transaction would have provided substantial benefits for patients and the community,” the hospital system said.The FTC returned to court in January to try to stop Novant Health, one of North Carolina’s largest hospital systems, from buying two more hospitals in the state. The deal would give Novant about two-thirds of a local market known as the Eastern Lake Norman area, the FTC said.
Novant is fighting the lawsuit. Novant has pledged to pour millions of dollars into the hospitals and expand services, including surgery and neonatal intensive care.
The study published Wednesday analyzed price changes before and after 322 mergers between 2010 and 2015. Researchers also compared prices during the same period at similar hospitals not involved in deals.
Researchers looked separately at prices for outpatient services owned by hospitals, such as imaging and ambulatory surgery centers. It is a large and growing share of hospital business, Cooper said.
In sparsely populated areas, outpatient prices climbed more after mergers. Where there are fewer people, the study found fewer outpatient surgery centers to compete for patients’ business.
“The hospital’s the only show in town in those areas,” Cooper said.
April 24, 2024
UnitedHealth Says Hackers Possibly Stole Large Number of Americans’ Data
April 23, 2024