NEW YORK (AP) — Holiday sales rose this year as American spending remained resilient during the critical shopping season despite surging prices on everything from food to rent, according to one measure.

Holiday sales rose 7.6, a slower pace than the 8.5% increase from a year earlier when shoppers began spending the money they had saved during the early part of the pandemic, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks all kinds of payments including cash and debit cards.

Mastercard SpendingPulse had expected a 7.1% increase. The data released Monday excludes the automotive industry and is not adjusted for inflation, which has eased somewhat but remains painfully high.

U.S. sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, a period that is critical for retailers, were fueled by spending at restaurants and on clothing.

By category, clothing rose 4.4%, while jewelry and electronics dipped roughly 5%. Online sales jumped 10.6% from a year ago and in-person spending rose 6.8%. Department stores registered a modest 1% increase over 2021.

“This holiday retail season looked different than years past,” Steve Sadove, the former CEO and chairman at Saks and a senior advisor for Mastercard, said in a prepared statement. “Retailers discounted heavily, but consumers diversified their holiday spending to accommodate rising prices and an appetite for experiences and festive gatherings post-pandemic.”

Some of the increase reflected the impact of higher prices across the board.

Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. economic activity, and Americans have remained resilient ever since inflation first spiked almost 18 months ago. Cracks have begun to show, however, as higher prices for basic necessities take up an increasingly large share of everyone's take-home pay.

Inflation has retreated from the four-decade high it reached this summer, but it's still sapping the spending power of consumers. Prices rose&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-november-report-c3764250d475b1149d344462adff53d6">7.1%</a>&nbsp;in November from a year ago, down from a peak of 9.1% in June.

Overall spending has slowed from the pandemic-infused splurges and shifted increasingly toward necessities like food, while spending on electronics, furniture, new clothes and other non-necessities has faded. Many shoppers been trading down to private label goods, which are typically less expensive than national brands. They've been going to cheaper stores like dollar chains and big box stores like Walmart.

Consumers also waited for deals. Stores expected more procrastinators to hit stores in the last few days before Christmas compared with a year ago when people began shopping earlier due to a global disruption of the supply chain that created thousands of product shortages.

“Consumers are trying to spread out their budget, and they are evaluating and shopping at different stores,” said Katie Thompson, the lead of consultancy Kearney’s Consumer Institute.

In November, shoppers cut back sharply on retail spending compared with the previous month. Retail sales fell&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-business-consumer-products-and-services-164db0f7a76020f27c176b1b21e23608">0.6%</a>&nbsp;from October to November after a sharp&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-economy-holidays-business-ae530b4148fcf19da4aa69d92c85add9">1.3%</a>&nbsp;rise the previous month, the government said in mid-December. Sales fell at furniture, electronics, and home and garden stores.

A broader picture of how Americans spent their money arrives next month when the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, comes out with its combined two-month results based on November-December sales figures from the Commerce Department.

The trade group expects holiday sales growth will slow to a range of 6% to 8%, compared with the blistering 13.5% growth of a year ago.

Analysts will also be dissecting fourth-quarter financial results from major retailers in February.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/11/1575032314075.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK (AP) — Holiday sales rose this year as American spending remained resilient during the critical shopping season despite surging prices on everything from food to rent, according to one measure.Holiday sales rose 7.6, a slower pace than the 8.5% increase from a year earlier when shoppers began spending the money they had saved during the early part of the pandemic, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks all kinds of payments including cash and debit cards.Mastercard SpendingPulse had expected a 7.1% increase. The data released Monday excludes the automotive industry and is not adjusted for inflation, which has eased somewhat but remains painfully high.U.S. sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, a period that is critical for retailers, were fueled by spending at restaurants and on clothing.By category, clothing rose 4.4%, while jewelry and electronics dipped roughly 5%. Online sales jumped 10.6% from a year ago and in-person spending rose 6.8%. Department stores registered a modest 1% increase over 2021.“This holiday retail season looked different than years past,” Steve Sadove, the former CEO and chairman at Saks and a senior advisor for Mastercard, said in a prepared statement. “Retailers discounted heavily, but consumers diversified their holiday spending to accommodate rising prices and an appetite for experiences and festive gatherings post-pandemic.”Some of the increase reflected the impact of higher prices across the board.Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. economic activity, and Americans have remained resilient ever since inflation first spiked almost 18 months ago. Cracks have begun to show, however, as higher prices for basic necessities take up an increasingly large share of everyone's take-home pay.Inflation has retreated from the four-decade high it reached this summer, but it's still sapping the spending power of consumers. Prices rose&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-november-report-c3764250d475b1149d344462adff53d6">7.1%</a>&nbsp;in November from a year ago, down from a peak of 9.1% in June.Overall spending has slowed from the pandemic-infused splurges and shifted increasingly toward necessities like food, while spending on electronics, furniture, new clothes and other non-necessities has faded. Many shoppers been trading down to private label goods, which are typically less expensive than national brands. They've been going to cheaper stores like dollar chains and big box stores like Walmart.Consumers also waited for deals. Stores expected more procrastinators to hit stores in the last few days before Christmas compared with a year ago when people began shopping earlier due to a global disruption of the supply chain that created thousands of product shortages.“Consumers are trying to spread out their budget, and they are evaluating and shopping at different stores,” said Katie Thompson, the lead of consultancy Kearney’s Consumer Institute.In November, shoppers cut back sharply on retail spending compared with the previous month. Retail sales fell&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-business-consumer-products-and-services-164db0f7a76020f27c176b1b21e23608">0.6%</a>&nbsp;from October to November after a sharp&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-economy-holidays-business-ae530b4148fcf19da4aa69d92c85add9">1.3%</a>&nbsp;rise the previous month, the government said in mid-December. Sales fell at furniture, electronics, and home and garden stores.A broader picture of how Americans spent their money arrives next month when the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, comes out with its combined two-month results based on November-December sales figures from the Commerce Department.The trade group expects holiday sales growth will slow to a range of 6% to 8%, compared with the blistering 13.5% growth of a year ago.Analysts will also be dissecting fourth-quarter financial results from major retailers in February.

Holiday sales up despite the squeeze of inflation

By ROBERT ZULLO <a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/after-substation-shooting-federal-regulator-orders-review-security-standards">States Newsroom</a>

Less than a month after gunfire <a href="https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2022/12/05/destruction-of-moore-county-substations-carry-steep-penalties-especially-if-linked-to-domestic-terrorism/#sthash.dMxxzOXD.dpbs" target="_blank">damaged </a>two
 Duke Energy substations in Moore County, N.C., knocking out power to 
about 45,000 people, federal regulators ordered a review of security 
standards at electric transmission facilities and control centers.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday ordered the 
North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which sets and 
enforces reliability standards for the bulk power system in the U.S., 
Canada and part of Mexico, to review existing “physical security” rules 
for the components of the power system.&nbsp;

The order, which requires NERC to deliver within 120 days its report 
on the effectiveness and applicability of current standards and whether 
improvements are necessary, comes amid reports of similar attacks at 
other sites across the country.&nbsp;

Earlier this year, three men in Ohio <a href="https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/02/24/three-men-plead-guilty-to-plotting-a-white-supremacist-attack-on-power-grid/" target="_blank">pleaded guilty</a>
 to planning an attack on electric substations as part of a white 
supremacist plot. In November, shots were fired at an American Electric 
Power substation near Centerburg, Ohio, knocking out power, <a href="https://www.knoxpages.com/news/authorities-discuss-shots-fired-at-centerburg-substation-that-led-to-power-outage/article_c1fbc59a-7005-11ed-bb7a-43652d401e3b.html" target="_blank">a local news outlet</a> reported. The FBI is also investigating a string of attacks at substations that happened in Washington and Oregon, per <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/pse-substations-among-five-attacked-in-pacific-northwest-in-november/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times</a>.

“One, it reminds us that we need to take physical security into 
account just as we do cyber security,” FERC Chairman Richard Glick said 
last week at the commission meeting, cautioning that the motives for the
 Moore County attack and some similar incidents elsewhere remain murky 
and under investigation by local and state law enforcement.

“But in the meantime I think it’s a good idea and this is a good step
 of trying to reassess our existing physical security standards and 
whether changes need to be made.”

In 2014, following a <a href="https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/safety-policy-division/reports/r1506009--physical-security-executive-summary.pdf" target="_blank">sniper attack</a>
 the year before on a Pacific Gas and Electric’s Metcalf substation in 
California, FERC approved a physical security reliability standard for 
owners of electric transmission facilities. The standard requires 
utilities and other transmission owners to conduct regular risk 
assessments on transmission stations and substations “that, if rendered 
inoperable or damaged, could result in instability, uncontrolled 
separation or <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-causes-cascading-power-grid-failures#toggle-gdpr" target="_blank">cascading</a>
 within an interconnection,” Mark Hegerle, director of FERC’s Division 
of Operation and Planning Standards, told the commission.&nbsp;

That means facilities that could create hazards for the larger grid 
if they are knocked out, a risk not posed by the North Carolina outages,
 said Rachel Sherrard, a spokeswoman for NERC.

“The assets in North Carolina were not individually deemed critical 
to the grid and the recent attack did not create an uncontrolled or 
cascading outage, which is what the standards are designed to protect 
from,” she said. “However, this does raise the question of the need to 
review an event that impacts several non-critical assets that 
collectively can have impact beyond any single asset failure.”

Substations <a href="https://www.osha.gov/etools/electric-power/illustrated-glossary/sub-station#accordion-72238-collapse1" target="_blank">serve a variety of purposes</a>,
 including stepping down voltage from the transmission system that 
transports electricity across long distances to the distribution wires 
that bring into homes and businesses. Asked if the shootings had made 
Duke re-examine how it protects substations, a spokeswoman said the 
company wouldn’t discuss specific security measures.&nbsp;

“We have multiple layers of security across our system that allow us 
to monitor and protect critical infrastructure,” the spokeswoman, Logan 
Kureczka, wrote in an email. “As the largest grid operator in the 
country, our responsibility to protect the power grid is paramount, and 
our security evolves as threats do.”

In a statement earlier this month, the Electricity Subsector 
Coordinating Council, which describes itself as the “principal liaison 
between leadership in the federal government and in the electric power 
sector,” said investor-owned electric companies, electric cooperatives 
and public power utilities “continuously monitor and prepare for threats
 to the grid and other infrastructure.”

The organization, which coordinates efforts to guard against threats 
to critical infrastructure to improve the reliability and resilience of 
the grid, said it was working with law enforcement investigating the 
attacks.&nbsp;

“Understanding what happened in North Carolina will be important to 
minimize future threats and to keep our industry’s defenses at the 
forefront,” the organization <a href="https://www.electricitysubsector.org/-/media/Files/ESCC/Documents/1252022ESCCPressReleaseFINAL.pdf" target="_blank">said</a>.&nbsp;

FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, a former Virginia utility regulator, said attacks on <a href="https://www.aep.com/assets/docs/safety/What's%20on%20Pole_AEP.pdf" target="_blank">transformers</a>,
 the drum-shaped devices on utility poles that lower the voltage before 
electricity is delivered to residences and businesses, are relatively 
common.&nbsp;

“They’re vulnerable to a drunk with a gun and an attitude. We have a 
lot of incidents of that. That’s not unusual,” he said. “The substations
 are a different ballgame. … A transformer knocks out a block or two. A 
substation, several tens of thousands of people.”

Noting that it was likely that NERC would come back with a 
recommendation to upgrade security standards, Christie said he hoped the
 Department of Energy would find a way to use grid resilience money from
 the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/gdo/bipartisan-infrastructure-law" target="_blank">bipartisan infrastructure law</a> to lessen the blow for electric ratepayers.

“It’s going to cost money and I hope this doesn’t all flow through to ratepayers,” he said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671572040645.jpg" alt="The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week called for a review of the physical security of the utility’s power systems. The order comes after attacks on substations in North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Washington state. Image courtesy of Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week called for a review of the physical security of the utility’s power systems. The order comes after attacks on substations in North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Washington state. Image courtesy of Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>By ROBERT ZULLO <a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/after-substation-shooting-federal-regulator-orders-review-security-standards">States Newsroom</a>Less than a month after gunfire <a href="https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2022/12/05/destruction-of-moore-county-substations-carry-steep-penalties-especially-if-linked-to-domestic-terrorism/#sthash.dMxxzOXD.dpbs" target="_blank">damaged </a>two
 Duke Energy substations in Moore County, N.C., knocking out power to 
about 45,000 people, federal regulators ordered a review of security 
standards at electric transmission facilities and control centers.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday ordered the 
North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which sets and 
enforces reliability standards for the bulk power system in the U.S., 
Canada and part of Mexico, to review existing “physical security” rules 
for the components of the power system.&nbsp;The order, which requires NERC to deliver within 120 days its report 
on the effectiveness and applicability of current standards and whether 
improvements are necessary, comes amid reports of similar attacks at 
other sites across the country.&nbsp;Earlier this year, three men in Ohio <a href="https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/02/24/three-men-plead-guilty-to-plotting-a-white-supremacist-attack-on-power-grid/" target="_blank">pleaded guilty</a>
 to planning an attack on electric substations as part of a white 
supremacist plot. In November, shots were fired at an American Electric 
Power substation near Centerburg, Ohio, knocking out power, <a href="https://www.knoxpages.com/news/authorities-discuss-shots-fired-at-centerburg-substation-that-led-to-power-outage/article_c1fbc59a-7005-11ed-bb7a-43652d401e3b.html" target="_blank">a local news outlet</a> reported. The FBI is also investigating a string of attacks at substations that happened in Washington and Oregon, per <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/pse-substations-among-five-attacked-in-pacific-northwest-in-november/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times</a>.“One, it reminds us that we need to take physical security into 
account just as we do cyber security,” FERC Chairman Richard Glick said 
last week at the commission meeting, cautioning that the motives for the
 Moore County attack and some similar incidents elsewhere remain murky 
and under investigation by local and state law enforcement.“But in the meantime I think it’s a good idea and this is a good step
 of trying to reassess our existing physical security standards and 
whether changes need to be made.”In 2014, following a <a href="https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/safety-policy-division/reports/r1506009--physical-security-executive-summary.pdf" target="_blank">sniper attack</a>
 the year before on a Pacific Gas and Electric’s Metcalf substation in 
California, FERC approved a physical security reliability standard for 
owners of electric transmission facilities. The standard requires 
utilities and other transmission owners to conduct regular risk 
assessments on transmission stations and substations “that, if rendered 
inoperable or damaged, could result in instability, uncontrolled 
separation or <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-causes-cascading-power-grid-failures#toggle-gdpr" target="_blank">cascading</a>
 within an interconnection,” Mark Hegerle, director of FERC’s Division 
of Operation and Planning Standards, told the commission.&nbsp;That means facilities that could create hazards for the larger grid 
if they are knocked out, a risk not posed by the North Carolina outages,
 said Rachel Sherrard, a spokeswoman for NERC.“The assets in North Carolina were not individually deemed critical 
to the grid and the recent attack did not create an uncontrolled or 
cascading outage, which is what the standards are designed to protect 
from,” she said. “However, this does raise the question of the need to 
review an event that impacts several non-critical assets that 
collectively can have impact beyond any single asset failure.”Substations <a href="https://www.osha.gov/etools/electric-power/illustrated-glossary/sub-station#accordion-72238-collapse1" target="_blank">serve a variety of purposes</a>,
 including stepping down voltage from the transmission system that 
transports electricity across long distances to the distribution wires 
that bring into homes and businesses. Asked if the shootings had made 
Duke re-examine how it protects substations, a spokeswoman said the 
company wouldn’t discuss specific security measures.&nbsp;“We have multiple layers of security across our system that allow us 
to monitor and protect critical infrastructure,” the spokeswoman, Logan 
Kureczka, wrote in an email. “As the largest grid operator in the 
country, our responsibility to protect the power grid is paramount, and 
our security evolves as threats do.”In a statement earlier this month, the Electricity Subsector 
Coordinating Council, which describes itself as the “principal liaison 
between leadership in the federal government and in the electric power 
sector,” said investor-owned electric companies, electric cooperatives 
and public power utilities “continuously monitor and prepare for threats
 to the grid and other infrastructure.”The organization, which coordinates efforts to guard against threats 
to critical infrastructure to improve the reliability and resilience of 
the grid, said it was working with law enforcement investigating the 
attacks.&nbsp;“Understanding what happened in North Carolina will be important to 
minimize future threats and to keep our industry’s defenses at the 
forefront,” the organization <a href="https://www.electricitysubsector.org/-/media/Files/ESCC/Documents/1252022ESCCPressReleaseFINAL.pdf" target="_blank">said</a>.&nbsp;FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, a former Virginia utility regulator, said attacks on <a href="https://www.aep.com/assets/docs/safety/What's%20on%20Pole_AEP.pdf" target="_blank">transformers</a>,
 the drum-shaped devices on utility poles that lower the voltage before 
electricity is delivered to residences and businesses, are relatively 
common.&nbsp;“They’re vulnerable to a drunk with a gun and an attitude. We have a 
lot of incidents of that. That’s not unusual,” he said. “The substations
 are a different ballgame. … A transformer knocks out a block or two. A 
substation, several tens of thousands of people.”Noting that it was likely that NERC would come back with a 
recommendation to upgrade security standards, Christie said he hoped the
 Department of Energy would find a way to use grid resilience money from
 the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/gdo/bipartisan-infrastructure-law" target="_blank">bipartisan infrastructure law</a> to lessen the blow for electric ratepayers.“It’s going to cost money and I hope this doesn’t all flow through to ratepayers,” he said.

After substation shooting, feds order review of security standards

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A woman is charged with two counts of first-degree murder after she tracked down her stolen car and allegedly killed two men outside a gas station, police said.

Demesha Coleman, 35, of Spanish Lake, was charged in the deaths of Darius Jackson, 19, and Joseph Farrar, 49. Another man was shot in the head during the shootout but survived.

It was not immediately clear which, if any, of the three men were suspected of stealing Coleman's car, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-woman-tracks-down-her-stolen-hyundai-kills-2-in-gas-station-shootout/article_0b98fbe0-c484-5f24-9da4-1c071defc0f0.html?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter_stltoday">reported</a>.

Surveillance video showed Coleman walking up to a Hyundai Tucson at the gas station with a man who was also carrying a weapon, according to a police detective. Police have not released the man's name.

The video shows Coleman opening the car door with her gun raised, while the man opens another door, also with his gun raised.

Coleman opened fire and sparked the shootout, police said.

She told detectives during a recorded interview that she went to the gas station to take her stolen car back, police said.

Coleman, who has no prior criminal history, is charged with two counts of murder, one count of assault and three counts of armed criminal action. Online court records do not name an attorney for Coleman.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1672058055484.png" alt="Coleman-photo St. Louis PD" />
 <figcaption>Coleman-photo St. Louis PD</figcaption>
 </figure>ST. LOUIS (AP) — A woman is charged with two counts of first-degree murder after she tracked down her stolen car and allegedly killed two men outside a gas station, police said.Demesha Coleman, 35, of Spanish Lake, was charged in the deaths of Darius Jackson, 19, and Joseph Farrar, 49. Another man was shot in the head during the shootout but survived.It was not immediately clear which, if any, of the three men were suspected of stealing Coleman's car, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-woman-tracks-down-her-stolen-hyundai-kills-2-in-gas-station-shootout/article_0b98fbe0-c484-5f24-9da4-1c071defc0f0.html?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter_stltoday">reported</a>.Surveillance video showed Coleman walking up to a Hyundai Tucson at the gas station with a man who was also carrying a weapon, according to a police detective. Police have not released the man's name.The video shows Coleman opening the car door with her gun raised, while the man opens another door, also with his gun raised.Coleman opened fire and sparked the shootout, police said.She told detectives during a recorded interview that she went to the gas station to take her stolen car back, police said.Coleman, who has no prior criminal history, is charged with two counts of murder, one count of assault and three counts of armed criminal action. Online court records do not name an attorney for Coleman.

Police: Woman tracked stolen car, killed two men

WASHINGTON (AP)—Congress on Friday gave final passage to legislation changing the arcane law that governs the certification of a presidential contest, the strongest effort yet to avoid a repeat of Donald Trump's violence-inflaming push to reverse his loss in the 2020 election.

The House passed an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act as part of its massive, end-of-the-year spending bill, after the Senate approved identical wording Thursday. The legislation now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Biden hailed the provisions' inclusion in the spending bill in a statement Friday, calling it “critical bipartisan action that will help ensure that the will of the people is preserved.”

It's the most significant legislative response Congress has made yet to Trump’s aggressive efforts to upend the popular vote, and a step that been urged by the House select committee that conducted the most thorough investigation into the violent siege of the Capitol.

The provisions amending the 1887 law — which has long been criticized as poorly and confusingly written — won bipartisan support and would make it harder for future presidential losers to prevent the ascension of their foes, as Trump tried to do on Jan. 6, 2021.

“It's a monumental accomplishment, particularly in this partisan atmosphere, for such a major rewrite of a law that's so crucial to our democracy,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles. “This law goes a long way toward shutting down the avenues Trump and his allies tried to use in 2020, and could have been exploited in future elections.”

On Jan. 6, Trump targeted Congress' ratification of the Electoral College's vote. He tried to exploit the vice president's role in reading out the states' electors to get Mike Pence to block Biden from becoming the next president by omitting some states Biden won from the roll. The new provisions make clear that the vice president's responsibilities in the process are merely ceremonial and that the vice president has no say in determining who actually won the election.

The new legislation also raises the threshold required for members of Congress to object to certifying the electors. Before, only one member of the House and Senate respectively had to object to force a roll call vote on a state's electors. That helped make objections to new presidents something of a routine partisan tactic — Democrats objected to certifying both of George W. Bush's elections and Trump's in 2016.

Those objections, however, were mainly symbolic and came after Democrats had conceded that the Republican candidates won the presidency. On Jan. 6, 2021, Republicans forced a vote on certifying Biden's wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania even after the violent attack on the Capitol, as Trump continued to insist falsely that he won the election. That led some members of Congress to worry the process could be too easily manipulated.

Under the new rules, one-fifth of each chamber would be required to force a vote on states' slates of electors.

The new provisions also ensure only one slate of electors makes it to Congress after Trump and his allies&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-joe-biden-presidential-elections-election-2020-electoral-college-311f88768b65f7196f52a4757dc162e4">unsuccessfully tried to create alternative slates of electors</a>&nbsp;in states Biden won. Each governor would now be required to sign off on electors, and Congress cannot consider slates submitted by different officials. The bill creates a legal process if any of those electors are challenged by a presidential candidate.

The legislation would also close a loophole that wasn't used in 2020 but election experts feared could be, a provision that state legislatures can name electors in defiance of their state's popular vote in the event of a “failed” election. That term has been understood to mean a contest that was disrupted or so in doubt that there's no way to determine the actual winner, but it is not well-defined in the prior law.

Now a state could move the date of its presidential election — but only in the event of “extraordinary and catastrophic events,” like a natural disaster.

Hasen said that while the changes are significant, dangers still remain to democracy, noting that in Arizona, the Republican nominee for governor, Kari Lake, was waiting on a ruling Friday in a lawsuit she filed to overturn the victory of her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs.

“Nobody should think that passage of this legislation means we're out of the woods,” Hasen said. “This is not one and done.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/1/1609956651601.png" alt="On Jan. 6, 2020, Trump targeted Congress' ratification of the Electoral College's vote. He tried to exploit the vice president's role in reading out the states' electors to get Mike Pence to block Biden from becoming the next president by omitting some states Biden won from the roll.-image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>On Jan. 6, 2020, Trump targeted Congress' ratification of the Electoral College's vote. He tried to exploit the vice president's role in reading out the states' electors to get Mike Pence to block Biden from becoming the next president by omitting some states Biden won from the roll.-image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP)—Congress on Friday gave final passage to legislation changing the arcane law that governs the certification of a presidential contest, the strongest effort yet to avoid a repeat of Donald Trump's violence-inflaming push to reverse his loss in the 2020 election.The House passed an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act as part of its massive, end-of-the-year spending bill, after the Senate approved identical wording Thursday. The legislation now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.Biden hailed the provisions' inclusion in the spending bill in a statement Friday, calling it “critical bipartisan action that will help ensure that the will of the people is preserved.”It's the most significant legislative response Congress has made yet to Trump’s aggressive efforts to upend the popular vote, and a step that been urged by the House select committee that conducted the most thorough investigation into the violent siege of the Capitol.The provisions amending the 1887 law — which has long been criticized as poorly and confusingly written — won bipartisan support and would make it harder for future presidential losers to prevent the ascension of their foes, as Trump tried to do on Jan. 6, 2021.“It's a monumental accomplishment, particularly in this partisan atmosphere, for such a major rewrite of a law that's so crucial to our democracy,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles. “This law goes a long way toward shutting down the avenues Trump and his allies tried to use in 2020, and could have been exploited in future elections.”On Jan. 6, Trump targeted Congress' ratification of the Electoral College's vote. He tried to exploit the vice president's role in reading out the states' electors to get Mike Pence to block Biden from becoming the next president by omitting some states Biden won from the roll. The new provisions make clear that the vice president's responsibilities in the process are merely ceremonial and that the vice president has no say in determining who actually won the election.The new legislation also raises the threshold required for members of Congress to object to certifying the electors. Before, only one member of the House and Senate respectively had to object to force a roll call vote on a state's electors. That helped make objections to new presidents something of a routine partisan tactic — Democrats objected to certifying both of George W. Bush's elections and Trump's in 2016.Those objections, however, were mainly symbolic and came after Democrats had conceded that the Republican candidates won the presidency. On Jan. 6, 2021, Republicans forced a vote on certifying Biden's wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania even after the violent attack on the Capitol, as Trump continued to insist falsely that he won the election. That led some members of Congress to worry the process could be too easily manipulated.Under the new rules, one-fifth of each chamber would be required to force a vote on states' slates of electors.The new provisions also ensure only one slate of electors makes it to Congress after Trump and his allies&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-joe-biden-presidential-elections-election-2020-electoral-college-311f88768b65f7196f52a4757dc162e4">unsuccessfully tried to create alternative slates of electors</a>&nbsp;in states Biden won. Each governor would now be required to sign off on electors, and Congress cannot consider slates submitted by different officials. The bill creates a legal process if any of those electors are challenged by a presidential candidate.The legislation would also close a loophole that wasn't used in 2020 but election experts feared could be, a provision that state legislatures can name electors in defiance of their state's popular vote in the event of a “failed” election. That term has been understood to mean a contest that was disrupted or so in doubt that there's no way to determine the actual winner, but it is not well-defined in the prior law.Now a state could move the date of its presidential election — but only in the event of “extraordinary and catastrophic events,” like a natural disaster.Hasen said that while the changes are significant, dangers still remain to democracy, noting that in Arizona, the Republican nominee for governor, Kari Lake, was waiting on a ruling Friday in a lawsuit she filed to overturn the victory of her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs.“Nobody should think that passage of this legislation means we're out of the woods,” Hasen said. “This is not one and done.”

New election rules approved in response to Jan. 6 violence

ELLSWORTH COUNTY—A Kansas sheriff's deputy was injured in an accident just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Ellsworth County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2020 Ford Explorer&nbsp;with emergency equipment activated and driven by Ellsworth County Deputy Adam M. Macy, 27, Salina, was responding to a collision on&nbsp;Kansas 14 one quarter miles north of Ave H.

The driver lost control on the ice. The SUV entered the ditch and rolled one time.&nbsp; EMS transported Macy to the hospital in Ellsworth. He was properly restrained, according to the KHP.

ELLSWORTH COUNTY—A Kansas sheriff's deputy was injured in an accident just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Ellsworth County.The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2020 Ford Explorer&nbsp;with emergency equipment activated and driven by Ellsworth County Deputy Adam M. Macy, 27, Salina, was responding to a collision on&nbsp;Kansas 14 one quarter miles north of Ave H.The driver lost control on the ice. The SUV entered the ditch and rolled one time.&nbsp; EMS transported Macy to the hospital in Ellsworth. He was properly restrained, according to the KHP.

Kan. deputy hospitalized after SUV rolls on icy road

By LAURA UNGAR and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL Associated Press

Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?

Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.

“China has a population that is very large and there’s limited immunity. And that seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant," said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Every new infection offers a chance for the coronavirus to mutate, and the virus is spreading rapidly in China. The country of 1.4 billion has largely abandoned its “zero COVID” policy. Though overall reported vaccination rates are high, booster levels are lower, especially among older people. Domestic vaccines have proven less effective against serious infection than Western-made messenger RNA versions. Many were given more than a year ago, meaning immunity has waned.

The result? Fertile ground for the virus to change.

“When we’ve seen big waves of infection, it’s often followed by new variants being generated,” Ray said.

About three years ago, the original version of the coronavirus spread from China to the rest of the world and was eventually replaced by the delta variant, then omicron and its descendants, which continue plaguing the world today.

Dr. Shan-Lu Liu, who studies viruses at Ohio State University, said many existing omicron variants have been detected in China, including BF.7, which is extremely adept at evading immunity and is believed to be driving the current surge.

Experts said a partially immune population like China’s puts particular pressure on the virus to change. Ray compared the virus to a boxer that “learns to evade the skills that you have and adapt to get around those.”

One big unknown is whether a new variant will cause more severe disease. Experts say there’s no inherent biological reason the virus has to become milder over time.

“Much of the mildness we’ve experienced over the past six to 12 months in many parts of the world has been due to accumulated immunity either through vaccination or infection, not because the virus has changed" in severity, Ray said.

In China, most people have never been exposed to the coronavirus. China's vaccines rely on an older technology producing fewer antibodies than messenger RNA vaccines.

Given those realities, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, said it remains to be seen if the virus will follow the same pattern of evolution in China as it has in the rest of the world after vaccines came out. “Or," she asked, “will the pattern of evolution be completely different?”

Recently, the World Health Organization expressed concern about reports of severe disease in China. Around the cities of Baoding and Langfang outside Beijing, hospitals have run out of intensive care beds and staff as severe cases surge.

China’s plan to track the virus centers around three city hospitals in each province, where samples will be collected from walk-in patients who are very sick and all those who die every week, Xu Wenbo of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said at a briefing Tuesday.

He said 50 of the 130 omicron versions detected in China had resulted in outbreaks. The country is creating a national genetic database “to monitor in real time” how different strains were evolving and the potential implications for public health, he said.

At this point, however, there’s limited information about genetic viral sequencing coming out of China, said Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

“We don’t know all of what’s going on,” Luban said. But clearly, "the pandemic is not over.”

By LAURA UNGAR and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL Associated PressCould the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.“China has a population that is very large and there’s limited immunity. And that seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant," said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.Every new infection offers a chance for the coronavirus to mutate, and the virus is spreading rapidly in China. The country of 1.4 billion has largely abandoned its “zero COVID” policy. Though overall reported vaccination rates are high, booster levels are lower, especially among older people. Domestic vaccines have proven less effective against serious infection than Western-made messenger RNA versions. Many were given more than a year ago, meaning immunity has waned.The result? Fertile ground for the virus to change.“When we’ve seen big waves of infection, it’s often followed by new variants being generated,” Ray said.About three years ago, the original version of the coronavirus spread from China to the rest of the world and was eventually replaced by the delta variant, then omicron and its descendants, which continue plaguing the world today.Dr. Shan-Lu Liu, who studies viruses at Ohio State University, said many existing omicron variants have been detected in China, including BF.7, which is extremely adept at evading immunity and is believed to be driving the current surge.Experts said a partially immune population like China’s puts particular pressure on the virus to change. Ray compared the virus to a boxer that “learns to evade the skills that you have and adapt to get around those.”One big unknown is whether a new variant will cause more severe disease. Experts say there’s no inherent biological reason the virus has to become milder over time.“Much of the mildness we’ve experienced over the past six to 12 months in many parts of the world has been due to accumulated immunity either through vaccination or infection, not because the virus has changed" in severity, Ray said.In China, most people have never been exposed to the coronavirus. China's vaccines rely on an older technology producing fewer antibodies than messenger RNA vaccines.Given those realities, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, said it remains to be seen if the virus will follow the same pattern of evolution in China as it has in the rest of the world after vaccines came out. “Or," she asked, “will the pattern of evolution be completely different?”Recently, the World Health Organization expressed concern about reports of severe disease in China. Around the cities of Baoding and Langfang outside Beijing, hospitals have run out of intensive care beds and staff as severe cases surge.China’s plan to track the virus centers around three city hospitals in each province, where samples will be collected from walk-in patients who are very sick and all those who die every week, Xu Wenbo of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said at a briefing Tuesday.He said 50 of the 130 omicron versions detected in China had resulted in outbreaks. The country is creating a national genetic database “to monitor in real time” how different strains were evolving and the potential implications for public health, he said.At this point, however, there’s limited information about genetic viral sequencing coming out of China, said Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.“We don’t know all of what’s going on,” Luban said. But clearly, "the pandemic is not over.”

China's COVID surge could unleash a new virus mutant 

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt prepares to hand over the office to fellow Republican Kris Kobach, he notes that the amount of suing of the federal executive branch that happens now is more than he anticipated when he took the job 12 years ago.

"We've really been part of the pioneering generation of state attorneys general, both Republicans and Democrats, who have pushed back against federal actions that we think are not just bad policy, that's not our role, but are illegal. That is our role, to police the boundaries of the federal system. It's become increasingly necessary, because Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional, so their oversight function, that tended to work reasonably well in the 1980s and 1990s, maybe even the early 2000s, it just rarely functions at all now, and because of that, federal agencies have been allowed to operate, really, in an unchecked manner."

One of the issues Kobach will face as he comes in next month is whether or not there is any legal recourse for the federal designation of the lesser prairie chicken as threatened.

"The last time the federal government tried this, we brought suit and prevailed when the Obama Administration tried the same thing, and we blocked the effort then to list. We had started to engage on this one when there was emerging, what looked like one of these sue and settle lawsuits, where activist groups bring a suit against a sympathetic federal&nbsp;bureaucracy and then both of them agree to settle the suit before anybody else can get in it. We were prepared to jump in that."

Sue and settle is a strategy sometimes used by the government and interest groups that agree with it to speed along actions it already wants to do, because doing things at a court's behest does not require the notice and comment that is supposed to happen under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. 

The Act includes requirements for publishing notices of proposed and final rulemaking in the Federal Register, and provides opportunities for the public to comment on notices of proposed rulemaking. 

The Title 42 controversy that is currently playing out at the U.S. Supreme Court is not necessarily as much about the border for that court as it is about not allowing sue and settle strategy to continue to promulgate across the federal government. 

If a precedent can be set that tamps down sue and settle as a strategy, it could limit the power of future AG's to challenge in the way they do now, but it also could provide the public the opportunity to properly lobby its lawmakers and work the process through Congress rather than rulemaking in the first place.

NICK GOSNELL Hutch PostHUTCHINSON, Kan. — As Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt prepares to hand over the office to fellow Republican Kris Kobach, he notes that the amount of suing of the federal executive branch that happens now is more than he anticipated when he took the job 12 years ago."We've really been part of the pioneering generation of state attorneys general, both Republicans and Democrats, who have pushed back against federal actions that we think are not just bad policy, that's not our role, but are illegal. That is our role, to police the boundaries of the federal system. It's become increasingly necessary, because Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional, so their oversight function, that tended to work reasonably well in the 1980s and 1990s, maybe even the early 2000s, it just rarely functions at all now, and because of that, federal agencies have been allowed to operate, really, in an unchecked manner."One of the issues Kobach will face as he comes in next month is whether or not there is any legal recourse for the federal designation of the lesser prairie chicken as threatened."The last time the federal government tried this, we brought suit and prevailed when the Obama Administration tried the same thing, and we blocked the effort then to list. We had started to engage on this one when there was emerging, what looked like one of these sue and settle lawsuits, where activist groups bring a suit against a sympathetic federal&nbsp;bureaucracy and then both of them agree to settle the suit before anybody else can get in it. We were prepared to jump in that."Sue and settle is a strategy sometimes used by the government and interest groups that agree with it to speed along actions it already wants to do, because doing things at a court's behest does not require the notice and comment that is supposed to happen under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. The Act includes requirements for publishing notices of proposed and final rulemaking in the Federal Register, and provides opportunities for the public to comment on notices of proposed rulemaking. The Title 42 controversy that is currently playing out at the U.S. Supreme Court is not necessarily as much about the border for that court as it is about not allowing sue and settle strategy to continue to promulgate across the federal government. If a precedent can be set that tamps down sue and settle as a strategy, it could limit the power of future AG's to challenge in the way they do now, but it also could provide the public the opportunity to properly lobby its lawmakers and work the process through Congress rather than rulemaking in the first place.

Schmidt: Role of AG's in limiting federal government bigger now

SHAWNEE COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating a corrections officer for an alleged sexual relationship with a juvenile inmate, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

On Dec. 15, officials arrested 24-year-old&nbsp; Catherine Michelle Dutcher. She remains in the Shawnee County Department of Corrections on a $10,000 bond, according to online jail records.

&nbsp;The Kansas Dept. of Corrections hired Dutcher in August. She was fired on the day deputies arrested her. The case will be presented to the Shawnee Co. District Attorney.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671499323691.png" alt="Dutcher-photo Shawnee Co." />
 <figcaption>Dutcher-photo Shawnee Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>SHAWNEE COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating a corrections officer for an alleged sexual relationship with a juvenile inmate, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.On Dec. 15, officials arrested 24-year-old&nbsp; Catherine Michelle Dutcher. She remains in the Shawnee County Department of Corrections on a $10,000 bond, according to online jail records.&nbsp;The Kansas Dept. of Corrections hired Dutcher in August. She was fired on the day deputies arrested her. The case will be presented to the Shawnee Co. District Attorney.

Kan. corrections officer remains jailed for alleged sex with inmate 

KANSAS CITY – Three men have been sentenced in federal court for their roles in a scheme to transport tens of thousands of stolen catalytic converters across state lines as part of a multi-million-dollar business, according to the United State's Attorney.

“These three defendants were the ringleaders of a scheme that impacted thousands of area residents,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. “We worked closely with a number of our law enforcement partners to shut down their multi-million-dollar operation and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Evan Marshall, 25, of Rogersville, Cody Ryder, 31, of Springfield, and Camren Joseph Davis, 25, of Rogersville, were sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool on Monday, Dec. 19.

Marshall was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison without parole. The court also imposed a $750,000 money judgment against Marshall to be forfeited to the government, ordered Marshall to pay $19,133 in restitution to victims of the conspiracy who law enforcement were able to identify, and forfeiture to the government of the following items that were seized by law enforcement: 33 rifles, 20 scopes, six shotguns, 26 handguns, a Glock sub conversion kit, eight ammunition magazines, a 2011 Ram 3500 one-ton pickup, a 2004 Dodge Ram, a flatbed trailer, two 42-foot gooseneck flatbed trailers, a 16-foot livestock trailer, a 2021 Load N Go utility trailer, a 2007 car hauler trailer, a Volkswagen dune buggy, two Harley Davidson motorcycles, a 2012 Keystone 5th wheel camper, a Caterpillar skid steer, a 2019 Honda Talon SXS 1000 side by side, a 2016 Polaris RZR side by side, a Polaris Ranger 4x4,&nbsp; and 191 catalytic converters.

Ryder was sentenced to two years and five months in federal prison without parole. Davis was sentenced to five years of probation. The court imposed money judgments against Ryder and Davis to forfeit to the government $125,000 each.

“We are pleased to be a part of, and to see the successful ending, to this long-term investigation,” said Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams. “It is good to see the main participants in this crime being held accountable, and the potential for restitution for victims in our community.”

“Our community is painfully aware that catalytic converter thefts are not victimless crimes,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge of the HSI Kansas City Area of Responsibility Josh Armstrong. “While many may consider catalytic converter thefts to be victimless, all too often criminals involved in these types of thefts sometimes funnel the profits gained to organized criminal networks to fund additional, more dangerous crimes.”

On June 16, 2022, Marshall pleaded guilty to one count of transporting stolen property across state lines. Ryder pleaded guilty on June 13, 2022, and Davis pleaded guilty on April 21, 2022, to their roles in a conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines.

Co-defendants Enx Khoshaba, 30, Leslie Ice, 38, and Eric Kaltenbach, 38, all of Springfield, and Danielle Ice, 34, of Columbia (formerly of Springfield), have pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines and await sentencing.

Marshall admitted that he transported stolen catalytic converters, valued at $1 million or more, across state lines from December 2019 to October 2021. Marshall also admitted that he bought tens of thousands of stolen catalytic converters directly from his co-defendants and from other thieves, and sold the stolen catalytic converters for a total of approximately $1 million.

Marshall began selling the catalytic converters to a company in Mountain Home, Arkansas, in the fall of 2019. At that time, Marshall would purchase junk vehicles and sell the vehicles’ parts, including the catalytic converters. In the late fall of 2019, the owners of the Mountain Home company asked Marshall if he would begin purchasing catalytic converters in southwest Missouri and sell to them exclusively. Marshall agreed to do so; in return, they regularly provided Marshall with cash so that Marshall had the funds to purchase a higher volume of catalytic converters. They also provided Marshall with a list of valuable catalytic converters. By December 2019, Marshall had mostly ceased buying junk vehicles and scrapping them out for parts, and instead began purchasing already-detached catalytic converters from scrap yards and individual sellers.

By January 2020, the owners of the Mountain Home company were wiring Marshall hundreds of thousands of dollars on a monthly basis so that Marshall could purchase a higher volume of detached catalytic converters.

By December 2019, Marshall had also enlisted Davis to work for him and another company, which Marshall also established in December 2019. Davis’s job was to purchase catalytic converters using cash that Marshall provided him. During that time period, Marshall provided Davis with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to purchase catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf. As part of the arrangement, Davis exclusively sold the catalytic converters he purchased to Marshall. On at least one occasion, Marshall provided Davis with $40,000 in cash for the purchase of catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf.

Davis admitted that he bought at least 1,500 stolen catalytic converters from various thieves and sold them to Marshall for a total of approximately $250,000.

In February 2021, Marshall enlisted Ryder to work for him and his company. As with Davis, Ryder’s job was to purchase catalytic converters using cash that Marshall provided him. From February 2021 through October 2021, Marshall provided Ryder with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to purchase catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf. As part of the arrangement, Ryder exclusively sold the catalytic converters he purchased to Marshall. On at least one occasion, Marshall provided Ryder with $10,000 in cash for the purchase of catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf.

Ryder admitted that he bought at least 1,500 stolen catalytic converters from thieves and sold them to Marshall for an aggregate amount of approximately $250,000.

Many of the catalytic converters that Davis and Ryder purchased with the cash Marshall provided them were stolen, and Marshall knew at the time that many of them were stolen. Marshall paid Davis and Ryder an agreed-upon percentage amount over their purchase price for the catalytic converters, less the amount of cash Marshall had fronted them.

From December 2019 through October 2021, in addition to utilizing Davis and Ryder as buyers of stolen catalytic converters, Marshall also purchased stolen catalytic converters directly from thieves. In July 2020, a Springfield, Mo., police detective contacted Marshall regarding the purchase of catalytic converters from individuals known to be thieves. Despite being put on notice that he was purchasing stolen catalytic converters, Marshall continued to purchase stolen catalytic converters, including from at least one of the individuals identified by the detective.

Marshall admitted that he knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters from co-defendants Davis, Ryder, Ice, Kaltenbach, Khoshaba, and at least six other thieves. Marshall transported and sold almost all of the catalytic converters, including the stolen catalytic converters, to the owners of the Mountain Home business.

Marshall, Davis, Ryder and others loaded the catalytic converters, including the stolen catalytic converters, into bins that were placed on trailers at Marshall’s residence. They hauled the trailers, which each contained between 800 and 1,200 catalytic converters, many of which were stolen, from Rogersville to Mountain Home. Marshall transported catalytic converters from Rogersville to Mountain Home approximately every two weeks from December 2019 through October 2021.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1655461710974.png" alt="Marshall -photo Greene Co." />
 <figcaption>Marshall -photo Greene Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY – Three men have been sentenced in federal court for their roles in a scheme to transport tens of thousands of stolen catalytic converters across state lines as part of a multi-million-dollar business, according to the United State's Attorney.“These three defendants were the ringleaders of a scheme that impacted thousands of area residents,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. “We worked closely with a number of our law enforcement partners to shut down their multi-million-dollar operation and bring the perpetrators to justice.”Evan Marshall, 25, of Rogersville, Cody Ryder, 31, of Springfield, and Camren Joseph Davis, 25, of Rogersville, were sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool on Monday, Dec. 19.Marshall was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison without parole. The court also imposed a $750,000 money judgment against Marshall to be forfeited to the government, ordered Marshall to pay $19,133 in restitution to victims of the conspiracy who law enforcement were able to identify, and forfeiture to the government of the following items that were seized by law enforcement: 33 rifles, 20 scopes, six shotguns, 26 handguns, a Glock sub conversion kit, eight ammunition magazines, a 2011 Ram 3500 one-ton pickup, a 2004 Dodge Ram, a flatbed trailer, two 42-foot gooseneck flatbed trailers, a 16-foot livestock trailer, a 2021 Load N Go utility trailer, a 2007 car hauler trailer, a Volkswagen dune buggy, two Harley Davidson motorcycles, a 2012 Keystone 5th wheel camper, a Caterpillar skid steer, a 2019 Honda Talon SXS 1000 side by side, a 2016 Polaris RZR side by side, a Polaris Ranger 4x4,&nbsp; and 191 catalytic converters.Ryder was sentenced to two years and five months in federal prison without parole. Davis was sentenced to five years of probation. The court imposed money judgments against Ryder and Davis to forfeit to the government $125,000 each.“We are pleased to be a part of, and to see the successful ending, to this long-term investigation,” said Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams. “It is good to see the main participants in this crime being held accountable, and the potential for restitution for victims in our community.”“Our community is painfully aware that catalytic converter thefts are not victimless crimes,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge of the HSI Kansas City Area of Responsibility Josh Armstrong. “While many may consider catalytic converter thefts to be victimless, all too often criminals involved in these types of thefts sometimes funnel the profits gained to organized criminal networks to fund additional, more dangerous crimes.”On June 16, 2022, Marshall pleaded guilty to one count of transporting stolen property across state lines. Ryder pleaded guilty on June 13, 2022, and Davis pleaded guilty on April 21, 2022, to their roles in a conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines.Co-defendants Enx Khoshaba, 30, Leslie Ice, 38, and Eric Kaltenbach, 38, all of Springfield, and Danielle Ice, 34, of Columbia (formerly of Springfield), have pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines and await sentencing.Marshall admitted that he transported stolen catalytic converters, valued at $1 million or more, across state lines from December 2019 to October 2021. Marshall also admitted that he bought tens of thousands of stolen catalytic converters directly from his co-defendants and from other thieves, and sold the stolen catalytic converters for a total of approximately $1 million.Marshall began selling the catalytic converters to a company in Mountain Home, Arkansas, in the fall of 2019. At that time, Marshall would purchase junk vehicles and sell the vehicles’ parts, including the catalytic converters. In the late fall of 2019, the owners of the Mountain Home company asked Marshall if he would begin purchasing catalytic converters in southwest Missouri and sell to them exclusively. Marshall agreed to do so; in return, they regularly provided Marshall with cash so that Marshall had the funds to purchase a higher volume of catalytic converters. They also provided Marshall with a list of valuable catalytic converters. By December 2019, Marshall had mostly ceased buying junk vehicles and scrapping them out for parts, and instead began purchasing already-detached catalytic converters from scrap yards and individual sellers.By January 2020, the owners of the Mountain Home company were wiring Marshall hundreds of thousands of dollars on a monthly basis so that Marshall could purchase a higher volume of detached catalytic converters.By December 2019, Marshall had also enlisted Davis to work for him and another company, which Marshall also established in December 2019. Davis’s job was to purchase catalytic converters using cash that Marshall provided him. During that time period, Marshall provided Davis with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to purchase catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf. As part of the arrangement, Davis exclusively sold the catalytic converters he purchased to Marshall. On at least one occasion, Marshall provided Davis with $40,000 in cash for the purchase of catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf.Davis admitted that he bought at least 1,500 stolen catalytic converters from various thieves and sold them to Marshall for a total of approximately $250,000.In February 2021, Marshall enlisted Ryder to work for him and his company. As with Davis, Ryder’s job was to purchase catalytic converters using cash that Marshall provided him. From February 2021 through October 2021, Marshall provided Ryder with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to purchase catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf. As part of the arrangement, Ryder exclusively sold the catalytic converters he purchased to Marshall. On at least one occasion, Marshall provided Ryder with $10,000 in cash for the purchase of catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf.Ryder admitted that he bought at least 1,500 stolen catalytic converters from thieves and sold them to Marshall for an aggregate amount of approximately $250,000.Many of the catalytic converters that Davis and Ryder purchased with the cash Marshall provided them were stolen, and Marshall knew at the time that many of them were stolen. Marshall paid Davis and Ryder an agreed-upon percentage amount over their purchase price for the catalytic converters, less the amount of cash Marshall had fronted them.From December 2019 through October 2021, in addition to utilizing Davis and Ryder as buyers of stolen catalytic converters, Marshall also purchased stolen catalytic converters directly from thieves. In July 2020, a Springfield, Mo., police detective contacted Marshall regarding the purchase of catalytic converters from individuals known to be thieves. Despite being put on notice that he was purchasing stolen catalytic converters, Marshall continued to purchase stolen catalytic converters, including from at least one of the individuals identified by the detective.Marshall admitted that he knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters from co-defendants Davis, Ryder, Ice, Kaltenbach, Khoshaba, and at least six other thieves. Marshall transported and sold almost all of the catalytic converters, including the stolen catalytic converters, to the owners of the Mountain Home business.Marshall, Davis, Ryder and others loaded the catalytic converters, including the stolen catalytic converters, into bins that were placed on trailers at Marshall’s residence. They hauled the trailers, which each contained between 800 and 1,200 catalytic converters, many of which were stolen, from Rogersville to Mountain Home. Marshall transported catalytic converters from Rogersville to Mountain Home approximately every two weeks from December 2019 through October 2021.

Prison for 3 in massive catalytic converter theft scheme

By DYLAN BADDOUR <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/19/texas-permian-basin-fracking-oil-wastewater-recycling/">The Texas Tribune</a>

Fracked wells in West Texas don’t just produce petroleum. Much more than anything else, they spit up salty, mucky water.

Typically, companies have discarded that fluid, hundreds of 
millions of gallons per day, by injecting it back underground, 
occasionally causing small earthquakes. But as water becomes more 
scarce, they’re beginning to reconsider.

For now, hydraulic fracturing in arid West Texas uses large amounts
 of fresh aquifer water to crack open subterranean shales, unleashing a 
mixture of oil, gas and fossil brine 10 times as salty as the sea.

Increasingly, frackers are starting to reuse that brine, easing their burden on aquifers.

“We’ve just month by month seen extraordinary growth in the volumes
 we are managing,” said Matthew Gabriel, CEO of XRI Holdings, which 
recycles oilfield wastewater in the Permian Basin, the nation’s top 
oil-producing region.

This month, XRI <a href="https://www.xriwater.com/news/xri-announces-the-evolution-pipeline-system/" target="_blank">announced</a>
 a 230-mile expansion to its existing 450-mile Permian pipeline network.
 Unlike other Permian pipelines, these carry water from oilfields to 
treatment plants and back, linking the major oil producers’ batteries of
 tanks. XRI, based in Houston, is also adding three more treatment 
plants to its existing 30.

Fracking doesn’t require particularly clean water and the treatment
 to prepare it is pretty simple, Gabriel said. It’s the pipeline network
 that makes it economical, providing the equivalent of oilfield plumbing
 to replace the laborious process of trucking in water and trucking out 
waste.

“You open a valve and you can have all the water you need,” Gabriel
 said. “I think we’re going to see enormous advances around this concept
 in the coming years.”

XRI currently manages 1 million barrels of wastewater per day and 
recycles 800,000 — a small portion of the total volume produced by 
Permian Basin oil fields.

Recently, Texas convened water experts for a state-funded study of 
recycling that so-called “produced water,” the term for wastewater from 
oil wells. Released this year, the Texas Produced Water Consortium <a href="https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/tx-water-consortium/downloads/22-TXPWC-Report-Texas-Legislature.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>
 estimated Permian Basin wastewater production at approximately 11 
million barrels, or 462 million gallons, per day in 2019, the last year 
of available data. Since then the figure has likely increased in step 
with soaring Permian oil and gas output.

In response to a survey by the Texas consortium, fracking companies
 on average said they were already reusing about 30% of their 
wastewater. Even if they satisfied 100% of their need with recycled 
water, they would still have millions of barrels of produced water left 
over every day.

Underground disposal remained a much cheaper option than reuse, it said, but might not be so for long.

“Scarcity conditions,” the 130-page report said, “will eventually make this an economically viable option.”

According to the latest Texas water plan, statewide water supplies 
will decrease by approximately 18% within 50 years, “primarily due to 
depletion of aquifers.”

“Without additional supplies … one-quarter of Texas’ population 
would have less than half of the municipal water supplies they will 
require in 2070,” the plan said.

"Managed depletion" of aquifers in West Texas

Fears hit especially hard in the state’s western desert and plains,
 where fracking is booming. Almost 80% of this vast region’s documented 
water demand is met by a complex collection of aquifers — colossal, 
subterranean formations that filled up over millions of years.

“We’re just planning to deplete it. It’s not like we’re conserving 
it. We’re just making the crash landing slow and somewhat tolerable,” 
said Jeff Bennett, a hydrogeologist in the West Texas town of Alpine who
 worked for 15 years for the National Park Service nearby.

Planners called it “managed depletion” — the intentional use of the resource to its end.

Such a fate awaits the Ogallala Aquifer, the nation’s largest 
underground body of water, which swoops into West Texas from the north, 
and for which the Texas Water Development Board <a href="https://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/models/gam/ogll_n/Appendix%20F%20_%20Update%20Northern%20Ogallala%20GAM.pdf" target="_blank">calls</a> “managed depletion” its “management strategy.”

Models suggest people are drawing from the Ogallala at 6.5 times 
its recharge rate, according to Robert Mace, executive director of the 
Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University 
in San Marcos.

“It’s like a savings account. Your paycheck is $1,000 per month and
 you’re spending $6,500 per month,” he said. “You came in with some 
money from grandpa and that balance is just going down.”

The figures come from complex models informed by partial, 
self-reported water use records collected by a patchwork of groundwater 
districts. Where no districts exist, there are no permits or limits.

Atop the Pecos Valley Aquifer, which underlies much of the fracking heartland, <a href="https://www.twdb.texas.gov/mapping/doc/maps/GCDs_8x11.pdf" target="_blank">five adjacent counties</a> lack groundwater districts. In one of them, Winkler County, the TWDB <a href="http://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/dfc/docs/summary/GMA3_DFC_2016.pdf?d=3028" target="_blank">expects</a> aquifer levels to fall by up to 161 feet between 2010 and 2070.

“Nobody is managing it,” Mace said. “You pump whatever you want, you do whatever you want.”

He said models expect the Pecos Valley Aquifer to support demands through 2070, but not indefinitely.

“How did you go broke?” Mace said, paraphrasing Ernest Hemingway. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

Of 883 active water wells registered with the TWDB on the Pecos 
Valley Aquifer, 237 are for livestock, 209 for irrigation and 131 for 
public supply.

Another 146 are for industrial use. These wells may serve a variety
 of processes, from power generation to chemical refining. Many provide 
water for the fracking process, registered to owners including BP, 
Sinclair Oil &amp; Gas, ExxonMobil and Gulf Oil Company.

Demand for fracking water has skyrocketed

It’s impossible to know exactly how many water wells are used for fracking or how much they pump because the <a href="https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/WA/htm/WA.36.htm" target="_blank">Texas Water Code</a> exempts oil and gas producers from reporting and permitting requirements.

The U.S. Geological Survey has <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2021/3053/fs20213053.pdf" target="_blank">estimated</a>
 freshwater consumption for fracking in the Permian Basin of Texas grew 
by 2,400% between 2010 and 2019, to 72 billion gallons, approximately 
one-and-a-half times the amount of <a href="https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Water/PIO/GPCD_and_total_water_use_slides.pdf" target="_blank">water used by the City of Austin</a> that same year.

Fracking uses water — about 16 million gallons per well per year in
 the Permian — to break open underground shales that hold oil and gas, 
but mostly super-salty water, buried remnants of ancient oceans.

Freshwater goes down the well and more than twice its volume of brine comes back up, mixed with the hydrocarbons.

The Texas consortium report estimated that Permian wells produced 
3.93 billion barrels (about 165 billion gallons) of fracking wastewater 
in 2019, a year when the whole basin (including parts of New Mexico) <a href="https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/" target="_blank">produced</a> 1.4 billion barrels of oil.

Some of the water is reused in fracking, but the large majority is 
pumped underground and discarded. Planners have considered treating it 
to irrigate crops instead, which California does with wastewater that is
 much less salty and doesn’t include fracking fluids. But for now, that 
remains a high-tech ambition with the much dirtier Permian water.

"We're not even fully sure what's in it"&nbsp;

David Shifflett, 74, farms hay and pecans in Reeves County, where 
records from the Texas Railroad Commission — which oversees the oil and 
gas industry — show 557 disposal wells permitted in the last 10 years, 
including 44 in the last year.

On the roads near Shifflett’s home, a fleet of tanker trucks 
steadily ferries wastewater to the wells. The high-pressure injections 
have <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18112022/texas-oil-and-gas-agency-investigating-5-4-magnitude-earthquake-in-west-texas-the-largest-in-three-decades/" target="_blank">caused earthquakes</a>,
 damaging Shifflet’s irrigation system. He supports the oil producers, 
he said, but he wants them to stop pumping waste underground.

“We have looked at getting that water and recycling it,” Shifflett 
said. “I’m very interested in doing that, but at present it’s just too 
expensive.”

Every spring and summer, he pumps 1,000 gallons per minute for two 
weeks per month onto 140 acres of pecan trees. And he pumps 10 days each
 month onto 150 acres of hay year-round.

Shifflett owns 11 wells. The freshwater beneath his land belongs to
 him by right. To irrigate, he pays only for construction, pumps and 
pipes. Adding high-tech treatment and transport from oilfields would 
multiply his costs many times over. The economics of groundwater are 
much better, for now.

“It’s going to be energy-intensive and expensive to treat this 
water,” said Dan Mueller, a senior manager at the Environmental Defense 
Fund and a member of the Texas Produced Water Consortium. “We’re not 
even fully sure what’s in it.”

Frackers mix into the water proprietary solutions with scores of 
known and unknown chemicals which still need to be identified before 
they can be dealt with, he said. Then treatment technologies will need 
to be developed and tested for those specific toxins.

For now, the consortium found, studies and pilot projects are 
needed before Permian produced water is proven safe for even nonedible 
crops like cotton. Making it cost-effective is a whole other challenge. 
Reuse as drinking water remains mostly out of the question.

“If you can use it for fracturing wells, then that’s the way to do 
it,” said Mueller, a civil engineer. “It’s the option of minimal 
treatment as opposed to very heavy treatment.”

Pipelines reduce&nbsp;cost of water reuse

Unlike farmers, oil producers can reuse their dirty effluent 
without intensive purification or health concerns over toxic 
constituents. The industry has identified the benefits of doing so.

“Not only does produced water recycle and reuse offset the need for
 fresh water for fracturing operations, treated produced water works 
better than fresh water,” read a <a href="https://texasalliance.org/executive-summary-sustainable-produced-water-policy-regulatory-framework-and-management-in-the-texas-oil-and-gas-industry-2019-and-beyond/" target="_blank">2019 white paper</a>
 from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. “Reuse is likely to 
increase as the midstream industry matures and injection capacity is 
unable to keep pace with production.”

Today, injection capacity, the amount of well space permitted for 
fluid disposal, continues to grow, although the rate is slowing. In 13 
counties of the Permian Basin, records from the Texas Railroad 
Commission show 6,462 injection wells permitted in the last 10 years, 
including 344 in the last year.

The Texas consortium found underground disposal was the cheapest 
option for dealing with Permian produced water. It noted that costs fell
 75% where pipeline infrastructure replaced truck transport.

Companies like XRI are trying to make the same change for treated 
reuse.“The market is so quickly changing,” he said. “We see quite 
frankly significant cost savings available to the customer with 
recycling.”

It took time for the pipe network to link up enough wastewater 
producers and reusers, he said. Now, customers can send off waste and 
draw new water from a system on site, no trucks involved.

In the end, the future of produced water reuse will depend on economics.

“It’s going to come down to the cost-benefit analysis,” said Perry 
Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network. 
“You have to reframe this discussion with regard to ensuring there are 
adequate water resources.”

“I would much rather, personally, see water being reused than going to injection wells,” he said.

Texas’ upcoming legislative session could yield action. Fowler 
suggested the state’s severance tax, which is paid by the oil sector, 
could be tapped to subsidize treatment costs and incentivize reuse.

Alex Ortiz, water resource specialist for the Sierra Club in 
Austin, said the state could mandate permits for water wells used in 
fracking, setting freshwater consumption limits designed to force reuse.
 But he’s not expecting it.

“It’s Texas. There’s going to be a carrot, not a stick,” Ortiz said.

For Ira Yates, the fourth-generation beneficiary of an 8,000-acre 
family oil lease in the West Texas town of Iraan, the future of the 
Permian Basin includes large-scale produced water reuse whether or not 
the Legislature opts to act.

“When people begin to see there is economic value in that dirty 
water, people are going to start claiming it,” said Yates, 71, a member 
of the Produced Water Society who now lives in Austin. “Today it’s a 
liability but it will end up being an asset.”

Despite the obvious water problems in West Texas, he said, there 
are few local voices advancing systemic sustainability. The rural 
region’s brightest students typically flee at the first chance they get,
 Yates said; those who remain end up too tied up making paychecks and 
supporting families to fight for reform.

He thinks authorities have two options: put money into produced 
water reuse now or wait until scarcity drives water prices high enough 
to attract private enterprise.

“We don’t have time for the free market to handle that challenge,” 
Yates said. “If we can land a rocket on a platform in the middle of the 
ocean, we can clean up water. It’s just a matter of cost and whether 
we’re willing to do it.”

Disclosure: The Environmental Defense Fund, Exxon Mobil Corporation 
and the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers have been financial 
supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news 
organization that is funded in part by donations from members, 
foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in
 the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/support-us/corporate-sponsors/">list of them here</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671471758185.png" alt="The huge demand for water used in hydraulic fracturing wells requires the construction of ponds like these in Big Lake, which store millions of gallons of fresh water. (Tamir Kalifa for The Texas Tribune) " />
 <figcaption>The huge demand for water used in hydraulic fracturing wells requires the construction of ponds like these in Big Lake, which store millions of gallons of fresh water. (Tamir Kalifa for The Texas Tribune) </figcaption>
 </figure>By DYLAN BADDOUR <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/19/texas-permian-basin-fracking-oil-wastewater-recycling/">The Texas Tribune</a>Fracked wells in West Texas don’t just produce petroleum. Much more than anything else, they spit up salty, mucky water.Typically, companies have discarded that fluid, hundreds of 
millions of gallons per day, by injecting it back underground, 
occasionally causing small earthquakes. But as water becomes more 
scarce, they’re beginning to reconsider.For now, hydraulic fracturing in arid West Texas uses large amounts
 of fresh aquifer water to crack open subterranean shales, unleashing a 
mixture of oil, gas and fossil brine 10 times as salty as the sea.Increasingly, frackers are starting to reuse that brine, easing their burden on aquifers.“We’ve just month by month seen extraordinary growth in the volumes
 we are managing,” said Matthew Gabriel, CEO of XRI Holdings, which 
recycles oilfield wastewater in the Permian Basin, the nation’s top 
oil-producing region.This month, XRI <a href="https://www.xriwater.com/news/xri-announces-the-evolution-pipeline-system/" target="_blank">announced</a>
 a 230-mile expansion to its existing 450-mile Permian pipeline network.
 Unlike other Permian pipelines, these carry water from oilfields to 
treatment plants and back, linking the major oil producers’ batteries of
 tanks. XRI, based in Houston, is also adding three more treatment 
plants to its existing 30.Fracking doesn’t require particularly clean water and the treatment
 to prepare it is pretty simple, Gabriel said. It’s the pipeline network
 that makes it economical, providing the equivalent of oilfield plumbing
 to replace the laborious process of trucking in water and trucking out 
waste.“You open a valve and you can have all the water you need,” Gabriel
 said. “I think we’re going to see enormous advances around this concept
 in the coming years.”XRI currently manages 1 million barrels of wastewater per day and 
recycles 800,000 — a small portion of the total volume produced by 
Permian Basin oil fields.Recently, Texas convened water experts for a state-funded study of 
recycling that so-called “produced water,” the term for wastewater from 
oil wells. Released this year, the Texas Produced Water Consortium <a href="https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/tx-water-consortium/downloads/22-TXPWC-Report-Texas-Legislature.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>
 estimated Permian Basin wastewater production at approximately 11 
million barrels, or 462 million gallons, per day in 2019, the last year 
of available data. Since then the figure has likely increased in step 
with soaring Permian oil and gas output.In response to a survey by the Texas consortium, fracking companies
 on average said they were already reusing about 30% of their 
wastewater. Even if they satisfied 100% of their need with recycled 
water, they would still have millions of barrels of produced water left 
over every day.Underground disposal remained a much cheaper option than reuse, it said, but might not be so for long.“Scarcity conditions,” the 130-page report said, “will eventually make this an economically viable option.”According to the latest Texas water plan, statewide water supplies 
will decrease by approximately 18% within 50 years, “primarily due to 
depletion of aquifers.”“Without additional supplies … one-quarter of Texas’ population 
would have less than half of the municipal water supplies they will 
require in 2070,” the plan said.<h2>"Managed depletion" of aquifers in West Texas</h2>Fears hit especially hard in the state’s western desert and plains,
 where fracking is booming. Almost 80% of this vast region’s documented 
water demand is met by a complex collection of aquifers — colossal, 
subterranean formations that filled up over millions of years.“We’re just planning to deplete it. It’s not like we’re conserving 
it. We’re just making the crash landing slow and somewhat tolerable,” 
said Jeff Bennett, a hydrogeologist in the West Texas town of Alpine who
 worked for 15 years for the National Park Service nearby.Planners called it “managed depletion” — the intentional use of the resource to its end.Such a fate awaits the Ogallala Aquifer, the nation’s largest 
underground body of water, which swoops into West Texas from the north, 
and for which the Texas Water Development Board <a href="https://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/models/gam/ogll_n/Appendix%20F%20_%20Update%20Northern%20Ogallala%20GAM.pdf" target="_blank">calls</a> “managed depletion” its “management strategy.”Models suggest people are drawing from the Ogallala at 6.5 times 
its recharge rate, according to Robert Mace, executive director of the 
Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University 
in San Marcos.“It’s like a savings account. Your paycheck is $1,000 per month and
 you’re spending $6,500 per month,” he said. “You came in with some 
money from grandpa and that balance is just going down.”The figures come from complex models informed by partial, 
self-reported water use records collected by a patchwork of groundwater 
districts. Where no districts exist, there are no permits or limits.Atop the Pecos Valley Aquifer, which underlies much of the fracking heartland, <a href="https://www.twdb.texas.gov/mapping/doc/maps/GCDs_8x11.pdf" target="_blank">five adjacent counties</a> lack groundwater districts. In one of them, Winkler County, the TWDB <a href="http://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/dfc/docs/summary/GMA3_DFC_2016.pdf?d=3028" target="_blank">expects</a> aquifer levels to fall by up to 161 feet between 2010 and 2070.“Nobody is managing it,” Mace said. “You pump whatever you want, you do whatever you want.”He said models expect the Pecos Valley Aquifer to support demands through 2070, but not indefinitely.“How did you go broke?” Mace said, paraphrasing Ernest Hemingway. “Gradually, then suddenly.”Of 883 active water wells registered with the TWDB on the Pecos 
Valley Aquifer, 237 are for livestock, 209 for irrigation and 131 for 
public supply.Another 146 are for industrial use. These wells may serve a variety
 of processes, from power generation to chemical refining. Many provide 
water for the fracking process, registered to owners including BP, 
Sinclair Oil &amp; Gas, ExxonMobil and Gulf Oil Company.<h2>Demand for fracking water has skyrocketed</h2>It’s impossible to know exactly how many water wells are used for fracking or how much they pump because the <a href="https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/WA/htm/WA.36.htm" target="_blank">Texas Water Code</a> exempts oil and gas producers from reporting and permitting requirements.The U.S. Geological Survey has <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2021/3053/fs20213053.pdf" target="_blank">estimated</a>
 freshwater consumption for fracking in the Permian Basin of Texas grew 
by 2,400% between 2010 and 2019, to 72 billion gallons, approximately 
one-and-a-half times the amount of <a href="https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Water/PIO/GPCD_and_total_water_use_slides.pdf" target="_blank">water used by the City of Austin</a> that same year.Fracking uses water — about 16 million gallons per well per year in
 the Permian — to break open underground shales that hold oil and gas, 
but mostly super-salty water, buried remnants of ancient oceans.Freshwater goes down the well and more than twice its volume of brine comes back up, mixed with the hydrocarbons.The Texas consortium report estimated that Permian wells produced 
3.93 billion barrels (about 165 billion gallons) of fracking wastewater 
in 2019, a year when the whole basin (including parts of New Mexico) <a href="https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/" target="_blank">produced</a> 1.4 billion barrels of oil.Some of the water is reused in fracking, but the large majority is 
pumped underground and discarded. Planners have considered treating it 
to irrigate crops instead, which California does with wastewater that is
 much less salty and doesn’t include fracking fluids. But for now, that 
remains a high-tech ambition with the much dirtier Permian water.<h2>"We're not even fully sure what's in it"&nbsp;</h2>David Shifflett, 74, farms hay and pecans in Reeves County, where 
records from the Texas Railroad Commission — which oversees the oil and 
gas industry — show 557 disposal wells permitted in the last 10 years, 
including 44 in the last year.On the roads near Shifflett’s home, a fleet of tanker trucks 
steadily ferries wastewater to the wells. The high-pressure injections 
have <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18112022/texas-oil-and-gas-agency-investigating-5-4-magnitude-earthquake-in-west-texas-the-largest-in-three-decades/" target="_blank">caused earthquakes</a>,
 damaging Shifflet’s irrigation system. He supports the oil producers, 
he said, but he wants them to stop pumping waste underground.“We have looked at getting that water and recycling it,” Shifflett 
said. “I’m very interested in doing that, but at present it’s just too 
expensive.”Every spring and summer, he pumps 1,000 gallons per minute for two 
weeks per month onto 140 acres of pecan trees. And he pumps 10 days each
 month onto 150 acres of hay year-round.Shifflett owns 11 wells. The freshwater beneath his land belongs to
 him by right. To irrigate, he pays only for construction, pumps and 
pipes. Adding high-tech treatment and transport from oilfields would 
multiply his costs many times over. The economics of groundwater are 
much better, for now.“It’s going to be energy-intensive and expensive to treat this 
water,” said Dan Mueller, a senior manager at the Environmental Defense 
Fund and a member of the Texas Produced Water Consortium. “We’re not 
even fully sure what’s in it.”Frackers mix into the water proprietary solutions with scores of 
known and unknown chemicals which still need to be identified before 
they can be dealt with, he said. Then treatment technologies will need 
to be developed and tested for those specific toxins.For now, the consortium found, studies and pilot projects are 
needed before Permian produced water is proven safe for even nonedible 
crops like cotton. Making it cost-effective is a whole other challenge. 
Reuse as drinking water remains mostly out of the question.“If you can use it for fracturing wells, then that’s the way to do 
it,” said Mueller, a civil engineer. “It’s the option of minimal 
treatment as opposed to very heavy treatment.”<h2>Pipelines reduce&nbsp;cost of water reuse</h2>Unlike farmers, oil producers can reuse their dirty effluent 
without intensive purification or health concerns over toxic 
constituents. The industry has identified the benefits of doing so.“Not only does produced water recycle and reuse offset the need for
 fresh water for fracturing operations, treated produced water works 
better than fresh water,” read a <a href="https://texasalliance.org/executive-summary-sustainable-produced-water-policy-regulatory-framework-and-management-in-the-texas-oil-and-gas-industry-2019-and-beyond/" target="_blank">2019 white paper</a>
 from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. “Reuse is likely to 
increase as the midstream industry matures and injection capacity is 
unable to keep pace with production.”Today, injection capacity, the amount of well space permitted for 
fluid disposal, continues to grow, although the rate is slowing. In 13 
counties of the Permian Basin, records from the Texas Railroad 
Commission show 6,462 injection wells permitted in the last 10 years, 
including 344 in the last year.The Texas consortium found underground disposal was the cheapest 
option for dealing with Permian produced water. It noted that costs fell
 75% where pipeline infrastructure replaced truck transport.Companies like XRI are trying to make the same change for treated 
reuse.“The market is so quickly changing,” he said. “We see quite 
frankly significant cost savings available to the customer with 
recycling.”It took time for the pipe network to link up enough wastewater 
producers and reusers, he said. Now, customers can send off waste and 
draw new water from a system on site, no trucks involved.In the end, the future of produced water reuse will depend on economics.“It’s going to come down to the cost-benefit analysis,” said Perry 
Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network. 
“You have to reframe this discussion with regard to ensuring there are 
adequate water resources.”“I would much rather, personally, see water being reused than going to injection wells,” he said.Texas’ upcoming legislative session could yield action. Fowler 
suggested the state’s severance tax, which is paid by the oil sector, 
could be tapped to subsidize treatment costs and incentivize reuse.Alex Ortiz, water resource specialist for the Sierra Club in 
Austin, said the state could mandate permits for water wells used in 
fracking, setting freshwater consumption limits designed to force reuse.
 But he’s not expecting it.“It’s Texas. There’s going to be a carrot, not a stick,” Ortiz said.For Ira Yates, the fourth-generation beneficiary of an 8,000-acre 
family oil lease in the West Texas town of Iraan, the future of the 
Permian Basin includes large-scale produced water reuse whether or not 
the Legislature opts to act.“When people begin to see there is economic value in that dirty 
water, people are going to start claiming it,” said Yates, 71, a member 
of the Produced Water Society who now lives in Austin. “Today it’s a 
liability but it will end up being an asset.”Despite the obvious water problems in West Texas, he said, there 
are few local voices advancing systemic sustainability. The rural 
region’s brightest students typically flee at the first chance they get,
 Yates said; those who remain end up too tied up making paychecks and 
supporting families to fight for reform.He thinks authorities have two options: put money into produced 
water reuse now or wait until scarcity drives water prices high enough 
to attract private enterprise.“We don’t have time for the free market to handle that challenge,” 
Yates said. “If we can land a rocket on a platform in the middle of the 
ocean, we can clean up water. It’s just a matter of cost and whether 
we’re willing to do it.”Disclosure: The Environmental Defense Fund, Exxon Mobil Corporation 
and the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers have been financial 
supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news 
organization that is funded in part by donations from members, 
foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in
 the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/support-us/corporate-sponsors/">list of them here</a>.

State recycling fracking wastewater to ease looming water shortage

By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY Salina Post

SALINA — Seeing a need, Steve Hanson took a chance and opened a music store. Fifty years later, S.M. Hanson Music is still going strong!

And,
 50 years later, the music store at 335 S. Clark Street remains a Hanson
 family business, as Steve's son, Rick, now serves as CEO and president 
of the business.

The story about how the store got started varies a bit, depending on whether you talk with Steve or Rick.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671733163126.jpeg" alt="Rick and Steve Hanson have made S.M. Hanson Music a family tradition for 50 years. Photos by Leslie Eikleberry/Salina Post" />
 <figcaption>Rick and Steve Hanson have made S.M. Hanson Music a family tradition for 50 years. Photos by Leslie Eikleberry/Salina Post</figcaption>
 </figure>By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY Salina PostSALINA — Seeing a need, Steve Hanson took a chance and opened a music store. Fifty years later, S.M. Hanson Music is still going strong!And,
 50 years later, the music store at 335 S. Clark Street remains a Hanson
 family business, as Steve's son, Rick, now serves as CEO and president 
of the business.The origin of S.M. Hanson MusicThe story about how the store got started varies a bit, depending on whether you talk with Steve or Rick."There
 was a need for it and I talked to enough musicians, that we decided we 
needed to open a music store and took a chance," Steve said.Rick, however, provided a bit more insight about opening the store."The
 Christmas before the store opened, we ran out of room in the basement 
for the guitars, and all of the drum sets, and that stuff, because 
that's really where it started," Rick said. "We had product in the 
basement of our family home. And so the next Christmas, you know, it was
 like, 'well here's the plan.'"Steve said they got a Small Business Administration loan and built the building on S. Clark Street."We
 did all the inside work in the building, built the walls and they've 
changed many times over the years," Steve said. "My partner at the time 
taught me how to frame walls, so that's what we did."Steve said 
that his experience with guitars and his discussions with other 
musicians about what they needed were key to getting the business off 
the ground. Also, it was vital to secure a dealership from a company 
that would trust the new store to "do a good job with their product," he
 said."That was really hard to do because you're starting out and
 don't have a reputation at all," Steve said. "So we found a couple of 
companies that we could order from and started from there with kind of 
generic brands and then built into what Rick's put in today: Martin 
guitars and a lot of Fender and Gretsch.""I think also, in the 
experience that he talks about, working at one of the other stores as an
 instructor for several years, seeing the lack of interest in that store
 supporting guitars and maybe a little bit of the rock and roll side of 
it because they focused on band instruments, I think that sort of drove 
some of the need also," Rick said. "So it's understanding the need or 
finding a niche where you can start plugging the hole."When the store opened, Steve already had a network of guitar players. That network was heavily populated with his students."That helped build the business, of course," Steve said.Additionally, Steve had been playing in bands himself and knew a number of musicians and their music needs.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671733208797.jpeg" alt="You can catch a glimpse of the history of S.M. Hanson Music when you first walk in the door." />
 <figcaption>You can catch a glimpse of the history of S.M. Hanson Music when you first walk in the door.</figcaption>
 </figure>The clienteleOver the years, S.M. Hanson Music has served tens of thousands of people, according to Rick."Early
 on, it was local people and people from western Kansas. We were open on
 Tuesday and Thursday nights until 9, and there were many nights that 
Steve and Dean were still teaching come 9:30-10 o'clock, and I had 
customers in the store that were from Colby and Goodland and Norton. 
Those guys would get off work at 4:30 or 5 o'clock and drive in, so 
obviously, we're going to hang around and help them get what they need,"
 Rick said.Customers from throughout the region continue to drive in to shop at the store.As bands traveling through heard about the store, business continued to pick up."Now that we ship stuff, and with the website, we're shipping stuff to both coasts on a pretty regular basis," Rick said. Growing the merchandise baseWhen the store opened, the focus was mainly on guitars, but over the years, the variety of products offered grew."Our
 main focus was guitars, electric and acoustic, and some banjos. We had 
some percussion, but it was mainly guitars," Steve said.Rick said that when the store opened, synthesizers were just becoming popular, as were electronic pianos."Steve
 and one of the associates here, Don, went back to Boston to the ARP 
factory, and for a time, between St. Louis and Denver, this store in 
Salina, Kansas, was the only store that was an ARP synthesizer dealer. 
And we had two people that were factory trained," Rick said.The business then grew into also selling sound systems.Despite the increased variety of products over the years, guitars remain the most popular."As
 a department of instruments, it certainly is," Rick said. "There are 
some other areas, such as the big digital pianos, that have grown 
substantially. Back in the mid-80s, I sold the first piano lab to 
K-State University; a Yamaha teaching lab with all Clavinovas. Of 
course, we've done installations since early in the '70s, and that's 
been an up-and-down type of business, but at any point, one installation
 comes in and that's the biggest ticket for the month."Christmas giftsThrough
 the years, starter guitar kits and beginner-level acoustic guitars have
 proved to be popular Christmas gifts purchased at S.M. Hanson Music."This
 time of the year, we'll have packages that are really aimed at giving 
that first-time student, whether it's a youth or young adult or adult a 
good chance of learning how to play," Rick said.Music lessonsEver the music teacher, Steve still gives guitar lessons, and both guitar and percussion lessons are offered through the store."This
 store still gives guitar lessons and percussion lessons. Dean 
Kranzler's (percussion) been here 50 years, 50 and a half years," Steve 
said.Bass, banjo, and piano lessons also are offered.Rick said the best way to sign up for lessons is to go to the store's website (<a href="http://smhansonmusic.com">smhansonmusic.com</a>), click on the "Lessons" link, and fill out the form.Why guitars?Steve attributes his passion for guitars to the King of Rock and Roll and other performers of that era."I
 heard Elvis Presley. There were bands back then: Gene Vincent, Elvis, 
Bill Haley and the Comets, and I remember doing a band contest at what 
is now the Stiefel Theatre at that time. We were doing Bill Haley and 
that kind of music," Steve said. He also remembers going into a local establishment that had a jukebox and playing the same Carl Perkins song over and over.While
 playing with a number of bands over the years, Steve now focuses his 
talents on playing at churches at Christmastime and at the Smoky Hill 
River Festival and its musical kick-off, Festival Jam."I still 
look forward to that for sure. Festival Jam that Rick and I created 36 
years ago is the biggest showcase in the country. You can't help but 
love being backstage with 105 or 110 musicians that come in to play for 
Festival Jam."