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<title>01 August, 2022</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trump vs. Biden, and Biden vs. Trump: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off</strong> - Was this week a preview of our next two years of duelling Presidents? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/trump-vs-biden-and-biden-vs-trump-lets-call-the-whole-thing-off">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Joe Manchin’s Latest Reversal Could Be a Game Changer</strong> - Finally, some positive news for President Biden and the Democrats despite the new G.D.P. report. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/joe-manchins-latest-reversal-could-be-a-game-changer">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Congressional-Staffer Rebellion</strong> - With climate legislation in peril and time running out, a group of young aides broke from a tradition of deference and staged a sit-in at Chuck Schumer’s office, demanding action. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/climate-change-sit-in-congressional-staffers-schumer-office">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Thousands of People Are Left Out of New York City’s Daily Homeless Census</strong> - A nonprofit news outlet has spent the past half year publishing more complete data on homelessness. Eric Adams’s administration says it plans to start doing the same. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/why-thousands-of-people-are-left-out-of-new-york-citys-daily-homeless-census">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The First Post-Roe Vote on Abortion</strong> - In Kansas, where the right to abortion is enshrined in the state constitution, an upcoming ballot measure could pave the way for a total ban. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-first-post-roe-vote-on-abortion">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>How US foreign aid could save more lives</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sYW1ZomSDQ_9sKTdlI7rmlvtg5c=/211x0:3000x2092/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71194900/GettyImages_1359725650a.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Volunteers at the Zanzalima Camp for Internally Displaced People unload 50-kilogram sacks of wheat flour that were a part of an aid delivery from USAID on December 17, 2021, in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. | J. Countess/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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USAID’s funding largely leaves out the people it’s supposed to work for.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HYqh3R">
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In 2021, USAID — the agency of the US government tasked with international development — disbursed <a href="https://foreignassistance.gov/">$28.3 billion</a> in foreign aid to an assortment of humanitarian causes ranging from hunger programs to medical treatment to education.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7pOKNz">
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But how much good is this money doing? And is that money accomplishing as much as it could be?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FuJL9G">
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The answer, it turns out, is much more difficult to find than you would think — and that’s a problem. USAID is one of the most consequential institutions in the world when it comes to aid for the poor.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hH4wDu">
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Since the world’s resources aren’t unlimited, we have a “moral imperative to use evidence and data to ensure we get the most impact per dollar spent as possible,” says Anne Healy, former head of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IXx3XM">
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Over the past two decades, researchers have become much better at determining whether a certain idea actually <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/12/11/20938915/nobel-prize-economics-banerjee-duflo-kremer-rcts">achieves intended goals</a>. The focus on results — evaluating whether a program benefits people cost-effectively — has changed philanthropy and even the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/04/07/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-launches-year-of-evidence-for-action-to-fortify-and-expand-evidence-based-policymaking/">US government</a>’s domestic programs.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZUUkEX">
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In theory, USAID <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Strengthening_Evidence-Based_Development_Cover_Update_-_Five_Years_of_Better_Evaluation_Practice_at_USAID-compressed.pdf">recognizes the importance</a> of making sure their programs work. But in practice, it’s largely failing to do so.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jq4MWm">
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Two USAID reviews, one by USAID’s office of the inspector general in <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/9-000-19-006-P.pdf">2019</a> and another commissioned by the agency in <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X78R.pdf">2020</a>, reveal two dismal facts: The agency gives out billions to programs that <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/9-000-19-006-P.pdf">don’t achieve their intended expectations</a>, and, worse, it’s not even sure of the <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X78R.pdf">impact </a>of most of the money it gives in aid.<strong> </strong>Recent agency moves and statements suggest that USAID wants to fix this problem. Whether it can will determine the fate of billions of dollars — and the health and well-being of many millions around the world.
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</p>
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<h3 id="gdDtuR">
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How USAID works
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7uK6dg">
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<a href="https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/usaid-history">Since 1961</a>, USAID has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign aid, with the aim of delivering humanitarian assistance to millions globally. Foreign aid accounts for less than <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/what-every-american-should-know-about-u-s-foreign-aid/">1 percent of the US federal budget</a> — far less than what <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/what-every-american-should-know-about-u-s-foreign-aid/">most Americans think</a> it does. But because of the federal budget’s massive size, even 1 percent is much larger than all of private philanthropy for <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/beyond-oda-foundations.htm">global development</a> in a given year combined. USAID spends <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/cj">tens of billions of dollars</a> a year on <a href="https://foreignassistance.gov/">global development programs</a>, the largest categories of which are health, humanitarian assistance, and economic development.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HkTgpJ">
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The agency, which works in over <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/how-to-work-with-usaid">100 countries</a>, usually <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R40213">doesn’t implement programs</a> directly, but partners with different organizations, including NGOs, universities, and faith-based and community groups. Its yearly <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/get-grant-or-contract/grant-and-contract-process">grants and contracts</a> comprised on average almost <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/9-000-19-006-P.pdf">$18 billion</a> over the last decade.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pLW01s">
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When looking into USAID’s effectiveness, it’s important to note that other US government priorities will influence how money is allocated even before USAID itself can make any decisions. As an example, USAID presents its budget requests within <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R40213">five strategic foreign aid objectives</a> developed by the State Department: humanitarian assistance, peace and security, democratic governance, economic growth, and social services.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/83KJ7-oe8ZCTR-Eq8-_s2mlkgww=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23905639/AP18069311000652.jpg"/> <cite>Ben Curtis/AP</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Kenyan girls attend an event in March 2018 for DREAMS, a US-funded, public-private partnership to reduce HIV infections among vulnerable girls and young women, at a site in Nairobi, Kenya, supported by PEPFAR, the US program to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NOFOpv">
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Foreign aid has of course been deployed by US administrations to advance their geopolitical goals. But that complicated record doesn’t mean aid can’t do a lot of good. USAID has been a major contributor to <a href="https://polioeradication.org/who-we-are/our-mission/">polio</a> <a href="http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/case-studies/eliminating-polio-in-haiti">eradication</a> in over 100 countries. PEPFAR, the US government’s anti-HIV/AIDS initiative, has led to an estimated <a href="https://files.kff.org/attachment/Issue-Brief-Assessing-PEPFARs-Impact-Analysis-of-Mortality-in-PEPFAR-Countries.pdf">20 percent lower mortality rate</a> in countries that received its aid, and has saved <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/7/8/8894019/george-w-bush-pepfar">millions of lives</a>. USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, which funds innovative projects around the world, has funded a handful of <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kremer/files/sror_div_19.12.13.pdf">highly cost-effective programs</a> in global health and education. USAID has contributed to many other effective global health programs, including developing <a href="http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/case-studies/eliminating-meningitis-across-africas-meningitis-belt">meningitis vaccines</a> that prevented an estimated 1 million cases.
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</p>
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<h3 id="Zkjpsi">
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US foreign aid isn’t working as well as it should
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Err3I4">
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But those success stories can obscure an uncomfortable truth: We don’t really know whether most of US foreign aid is improving anyone’s lives.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1mPEev">
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To understand why this is, let’s look at USAID’s own evaluations of its programs. In-house reports on the impact of USAID programs abide by the usual academic standards — they need adequate sample sizes and valid control groups, among other criteria. The agency uses a checklist to monitor whether each impact evaluation meets these different criteria, and gives them a <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X78R.pdf">quality designation</a>. These evaluations are only one way USAID monitors <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/project-starter/program-cycle/cdcs/performance-monitoring-indicators">performance</a> — for other programs, they instead monitor <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/IE_Technical_Note_2013_0903_Final.pdf">processes</a> or use qualitative work — and they are meant to assess whether or not USAID-funded programs are achieving milestones, such as lowering malnutrition.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bzlxok">
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But to prove success, the evaluations have to be high-quality, and most of them are not.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IW5ngn">
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“USAID is failing to generate rigorous evidence on which of its programs do or do not work,” wrote three former USAID administrators <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/passing-baton-data-and-evidence">in an article for the Wilson Center in 2021</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U1L8Bp">
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For one thing, USAID’s own efforts to assess its programs’ impact leave a lot to be desired. Most of the agency’s impact evaluation reports are not high or even acceptable quality by the agency’s own <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X78R.pdf">standards of rigor</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KLzlb3">
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The aforementioned internal review from 2020 revealed that most USAID-conducted impact evaluations of programs didn’t include one or more key quality elements like sample size, research/evaluation hypotheses, missing data, and other key components to understanding whether the results of an evaluation should be accepted as valid or not.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cFP85u">
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<a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X78R.pdf">46 percent</a> of the reports either didn’t have a comparison or control group, or didn’t provide enough statistics on a control group to be accurate.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ruy46n">
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Only 3 percent met USAID’s <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/passing-baton-data-and-evidence">highest standards of quality</a>. A bad impact evaluation is a waste of money, and it can even lead to <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/ten_reasons_not_to_measure_impact_and_what_to_do_instead">funding going to ineffective programs</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kKGYXQ">
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USAID also seemingly keeps paying out <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/18/usaid-biden-power-contracts-money-procurement/">contracts</a> to projects that don’t even work at a most basic level. A 2019 study by USAID’s inspector general of 81 USAID grants found that <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/9-000-19-006-P.pdf">over 40 percent of programs</a> achieved only half of expectations, which meant they self-reported that they didn’t achieve much of what they’d been paid to do by the grant.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d04zKT">
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The inspector general’s report outlined major concerns with even the awards that did achieve results. For example, one program reported achieving 110 percent of expected results for preventing and managing malnutrition in West Africa. But this was only because they were measuring radio outreach — people who heard about the program on the radio — as a “success”: Most people were not actually receiving malnutrition services, which was the real goal.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1bTm9z">
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According to a USAID spokesperson, the agency has begun “addressing many of the gaps and shortcomings identified”<strong> </strong>in the 2019 report, as well as some of the <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X7P5.pdf">recommendations</a> from the 2020 report, including updating its <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/evaluation/policy">impact</a> <a href="https://usaidlearninglab.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/tn-impact-evaluations_final2021.pdf">evaluation</a> guidance and requiring cost analysis<strong> </strong>in impact evaluations.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AjPXGW">
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Additionally, USAID is not using outside evidence in the way it could be. While USAID has standards and processes for <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/evaluation/policy">conducting evaluations</a>, it has fewer processes to ensure evidence from elsewhere is being used, experts told me.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/D_ABHlTULCqBWB7Ecje5D7NRbYM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23905844/GettyImages_1130995442.jpg"/> <cite>Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Women carry boxes of porridge, donated by the World Food Programme in partnership with USAID, for their children in the Mutoko rural area of Zimbabwe in March 2019.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QFzf4H">
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For example, let’s say a university study finds strong evidence that a certain approach to reducing childhood malnutrition is cost-effective. USAID could do more to consider this approach, even if it’s not research it conducted itself.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rFzBbG">
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USAID doesn’t have a monopoly on finding evidence for program effectiveness. There are research institutions, think tanks, and policy organizations in the countries in which USAID works. Having a more systematic way to compile, outsource, and use the evaluations of entities that are already working in relevant areas would help make sure that program and funding decisions at USAID are supported by the best available evidence, said Healy.
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</p>
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<h3 id="KHIwgK">
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USAID is potentially missing out on funding many effective organizations
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jfVsA2">
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Zooming out a bit, a systemic problem that likely contributes to USAID’s ineffectiveness is the way it doles out grants.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LdcEUZ">
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Unfortunately, the way USAID’s <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/get-grant-or-contract/grant-and-contract-process">grant structures</a> are set up now means there’s not much incentive for contractors to produce results. The most common form of USAID grants are what’s known as cost-plus grants, which basically means a contractor draws up a list of their expected costs and USAID pays them — regardless of whether they achieve results.
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</p>
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An alternative form of grant, <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/rediscovering_fixed_amount_awards">fixed-amount grants</a>, pay contractors when they achieve predetermined milestones and results. These are better, but they’re not yet widely deployed in government grantmaking. USAID deems fixed-amount awards <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/303saj.pdf">most appropriate</a> when the work has milestones that can be priced with reasonable certainty. USAID might not use them when a project lacks this information, and they also require ceding some direct government oversight of grants.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0jt9sG">
|
|||
|
|
The other problem with the USAID grants process is that it’s<strong> </strong>so <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/get-grant-or-contract/unsolicited-proposals">complicated to navigate</a> that legacy government contractors who know how to write grant applications have a major edge, experts told me. (To be sure, these problems exist across international granting organizations, and both small organizations and USAID administrators have acknowledged the high <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/npi">barriers to entry</a> and <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/jun-10-2021-remarks-administrator-samantha-power-usaid-annual-small-business">importance of greater inclusion</a>.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qOgKPX">
|
|||
|
|
Eliya Zulu, executive director of the African Institute for Development Policy, a research and policy organization based in Kenya and Malawi, described the process of putting together a successful USAID bid for his organization as a “huge nightmare.” The process included overtime work, over 150 support documents, and staffing that smaller organizations simply don’t have. A lot of legacy organizations have business development units focused on such tasks, he said, while a worthy but smaller organization might not have the same support.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YN0nDU">
|
|||
|
|
This leads to a situation where the vast majority of USAID money is going to <a href="https://unlockaid.org/">only 75 organizations</a>, and only <a href="https://unlockingaid.substack.com/p/heres-how-usaid-plans-to-direct-more?s=r">6 percent of grants</a> are given to organizations based in USAID-recipient countries. While legacy contractors aren’t inherently ineffective, the complicated process means smaller organizations, especially those based in the Global South, are often left out of awards, when even a small grant could make a big difference.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MMZ7GG">
|
|||
|
|
This means thousands of innovative Global South-led and -based organizations — groups which may be more effective because they understand local context better and interact with local policy actors to make sure <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/LCD_Policy_-_FORMATTED_508_01-11.pdf">effective programs continue</a> after USAID leaves — are not receiving funding because of bureaucratic issues.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="umBYms">
|
|||
|
|
USAID recognizes that this way of doing business is a problem. During USAID’s annual <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/jun-10-2021-remarks-administrator-samantha-power-usaid-annual-small-business">small business conference</a> last year, USAID administrator Samantha Power stated how the limited number of contractors “holds back healthy competition, limits our exposure to new approaches, robs small businesses of the chance to gain valuable experience, and doesn’t make the best possible use of valuable taxpayer dollars.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4YQaULuNYL_eU1iwl2hxfZWjd34=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23905850/AP22208428888055a.jpg"/> <cite>Altaf Qadri/AP</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
USAID administrator Samantha Power speaks in New Delhi, India, on July 27.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vowc1i">
|
|||
|
|
The most effective aid, said Zulu, will be evidence-backed and in equitable partnership with governments and organizations that ensure it’s focused on the needs of the people it is going to — and that’s not what’s happening now.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="5Maajt">
|
|||
|
|
Signs of a shift
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sSYh1T">
|
|||
|
|
The shift that needs to happen at USAID is so simple it seems silly to say out loud: The agency should fund things that are proven to work, and stop funding things that are proven not to work. But saying it is one thing. Doing it is another.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="55qj8x">
|
|||
|
|
One thing USAID could do is focus on the evidence for different sectors about effective uses of money, said Ruth Levine, CEO of IDinsight, a global development data analytics and advisory organization. “Really importantly, what we have learned about things that absolutely do not work, don’t do those again.” (Disclosure: I worked at IDinsight from 2017 to 2020.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AO1mG4">
|
|||
|
|
A good start would be revisiting its process of awarding grants.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="krnhZa">
|
|||
|
|
Experts told me a way to improve USAID’s record is to give out more fixed-amount awards. These pay contractors when they reach <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/rediscovering_fixed_amount_awards">pre-negotiated milestones</a>, meaning they’re more likely to pay for outcomes and results than other types of grant.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="goZFoy">
|
|||
|
|
Fixed-amount awards currently account for only about <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/rediscovering_fixed_amount_awards">8 percent</a> of USAID’s grants, but could and hopefully will be expanded — in March, a senior official announced plans for more <a href="https://unlockingaid.substack.com/p/heres-how-usaid-plans-to-direct-more?s=w">fixed-amount awards</a> and work with more contractors from the Global South. There’s also a lot of flexibility in how they’re implemented. They could potentially, for example, have components that pay for results, but also account for startup costs for a newer organization.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fmOdfu">
|
|||
|
|
Walter Kerr, the director of Unlock Aid, a global development innovation coalition, noted that in addition to incentivizing based on outcomes and results, these awards are a “great way to mitigate against concerns that some members of Congress have around fraud, waste, and abuse because you only pay for what you get.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SsNauL">
|
|||
|
|
There’s also awarding more money to smaller organizations and those based in the Global South. There have been green shoots here: The New Partnerships Initiative, USAID’s plan to diversify its partners, has awarded <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/npi">hundreds of millions of dollars </a>to “new and underutilized partners” since it began in 2019. Meanwhile, in <a href="https://twitter.com/unlockaid/status/1524505335343550465?s=20&t=OazOogcVxt17wPakG4Bs7g">an exchange</a> at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting in May, Power reiterated USAID’s goals to reduce administrative burden in granting and send <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/nov-4-2021-administrator-samantha-power-new-vision-global-development">25 percent</a> of foreign assistance to local organizations.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FJTOZ2">
|
|||
|
|
Related to such a reform could be a reorientation toward doling out more direct grants to governments instead of middlemen. Governments have more mechanisms in place than an outside contractor for identifying their problems, finding the people who need help, and continuing programs after USAID leaves. The government actually <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/06/us-foreign-aid-biden-build-back-better-world-development/">provides services</a>; it can often procure, for example, health equipment more cost-effectively than USAID buying it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aWHvVK">
|
|||
|
|
But <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/06/us-foreign-aid-biden-build-back-better-world-development/">less than 4 percent</a> of US foreign aid is channeled through governments. Compare that with a country like Japan, which channels <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/blog/how-much-foreign-aid-reaches-foreign-governments">nearly half</a> of its foreign aid this way. In the few cases where bilateral government aid has been tried by the US, it <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/06/us-foreign-aid-biden-build-back-better-world-development/">has been effective</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R4yEEM">
|
|||
|
|
The US has <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/ads/policy/300/350">existing grant mechanisms</a> it could expand to increase direct bilateral aid, including <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/06/us-foreign-aid-biden-build-back-better-world-development/">the Economic Support Fund</a>, which is used to provide <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R40213">money directly</a> to countries of strategic significance. Experts told me, however, that reforming aid to go directly to governments would be a heavier and longer-term lift than, for example, more fixed-amount awards or support for local NGOs.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PQmNi5oi8Puhh2s68d32KjXM-kw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23905851/GettyImages_1232724503.jpg"/> <cite>Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
People carry free aid distributed by the International Organization for Migration USAID following flash floods triggered by heavy rains in Herat, Afghanistan, in May 2021.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nsXFyU">
|
|||
|
|
Beyond the mechanics of grant-making, USAID could look to the example of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office, which has an empowered chief economist and an office that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fcdo-evaluation-strategy/fcdo-evaluation-strategy">conducts independent reviews</a> of evidence for large spending decisions, and then presents recommendations to senior policymakers. USAID has <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/nov-4-2021-administrator-samantha-power-new-vision-global-development">already shown signs</a> of moving in this direction, such as Power’s announcement last year to start an expanded chief economist office and a behavioral science unit.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ckYDaR">
|
|||
|
|
And there’s work already happening within the agency that USAID can foreground and scale up. The Development Innovation Ventures office (DIV), for instance, has been a promising testing ground for funding effective programs. DIV invests in potentially high-impact projects, looks for evidence of impact, and pays for results. It has funded new, Global South-based partners, and has funded interventions that have proven to be highly <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kremer/files/sror_div_19.12.13.pdf">cost-effective</a> at preventing childhood diarrhea, reducing road deaths and injuries, and more.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tJUSLw">
|
|||
|
|
DIV accounts for only about 0.1 percent of USAID’s budget, said Healy, who was a leader of DIV, but that belies the potential impact of adopting some of its approaches. “The real opportunity for DIV,” Healy told me, “is influencing the 99.9 percent of USAID’s other spending.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BvXQBI">
|
|||
|
|
These moves are promising signals of a shift away from business as usual and an embrace of more evidence-based approaches. Which is good, because the time for change is long overdue. USAID has for years identified its own need for reform, but little change has happened. Evidence has told us so much more about how to help the world’s neediest. It’s time for that attitude to sweep through the halls of American diplomacy.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Mad about inflation? Blame your local officials.</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Joe Biden speaks in front of shipping containers, with the containers in focus and Biden blurred." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4vQvGYhor2vyrGa9MpZPzaXegCQ=/459x0:7798x5504/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71194823/1241222085.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
President Joe Biden speaks about the economy and inflation at the Port of Los Angeles on June 10. Inflation is a political struggle for Biden, but the decisions that could break supply chain logjams are usually made at lower levels of government. | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Biden gets the blowback. But bad local decisions have helped drive prices of housing, energy, and everything else higher.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y9ovPI">
|
|||
|
|
Perhaps it’s not surprising that inflation has so heavily weighed down the Biden administration. The buck famously stops at the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk, and when a buck doesn’t buy what it used to, that’s a problem for the president.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tZLy4q">
|
|||
|
|
But many of the worst bottlenecks making the pandemic economic recovery so painful were put in place by political actors much lower down the food chain, from governors to city councilors to everyday citizens.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m3ps0M">
|
|||
|
|
Two years of soaring prices once thought to be fleeting effects of the initial Covid-19 shock have reached their most painful point yet. The most recent <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/consumer-prices-up-9-1-percent-over-the-year-ended-june-2022-largest-increase-in-40-years.htm">consumer price report</a> shows an increase of slightly over 9 percent from June 2021, the biggest yearly increase in four decades. The cost surge has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/13/inflation-rose-9point1percent-in-june-even-more-than-expected-as-price-pressures-intensify.html">been driven primarily</a> by a lack of housing and an energy crisis that has notably rippled into food prices, along with lingering Covid-related supply chain problems.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kAeZ2O">
|
|||
|
|
The Federal Reserve’s 0.75 percent <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20220727a1.htm">interest rate increase this week</a> is its latest attempt to control inflation overall, but in many of the sectors hit worst by rising costs, delays, and shortages, the federal government has a relatively small role to play in getting supply to catch up to demand.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nFroht">
|
|||
|
|
In our federalized system, it may make more sense to blame your state and local government or even your neighbors, not President Biden, for out-of-control costs in housing and energy or supply chain pain in our logistics infrastructure. That’s because most of the time, the US tasks lower levels of government with responsibility for infrastructure and land use — and the decisions made at those levels in the past are contributing to rising prices today.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XVlQyZ">
|
|||
|
|
State and local jurisdictions, not the Fed or the feds, determine how much housing is built and where, when to permit cheap clean energy sources and vital energy transmission lines, and whether to expand ports and logistics infrastructure. Across the country, local legislators, executives, and public authorities have declined to spend more to improve economic capacity, or placed additional hurdles in the way of badly needed new development.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GNPip8">
|
|||
|
|
Here are three big parts of the economy undergoing inflation stress that local officials have made worse, and what it would take to reverse course.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="Gq76Ta">
|
|||
|
|
<ol type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Energy and transportation
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EM9cwx">
|
|||
|
|
In the US and globally, energy has been perhaps the single most painful contributor to inflation. Surging energy costs hit Americans not only at the gas pump, but in nearly every other part of their budgets. Oil-based fertilizers have grown scarce, making food more expensive, while rising fuel costs hit transportation for basically every consumer good, and energy-intensive heavy industries pass on higher input costs to consumers.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zUW5ej">
|
|||
|
|
The problem ultimately stems from disruptions in various fossil fuel commodity markets. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent diplomatic backlash cut off supplies of oil and natural gas from one of the world’s largest producers. Those markets were already tight before the war because producers thought it would take longer for economies to reopen after the initial Covid-19 shutdown and ramped down production.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8rsiIA">
|
|||
|
|
As a result, countries less dependent on fossil fuels, like France, with its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/02/lower-inflation-better-jobs-in-france-la-vie-est-belle">extensive nuclear energy infrastructure</a>, have seen much less dramatic overall inflation. Americans have felt the energy price pain mostly at the gas pump, which is not surprising since, among its peer countries, it has the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/electric-vehicles-europe-percentage-sales/">lowest rate of electric vehicle adoption</a> and the <a href="https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/natgeo-surveys-countries%E2%80%99-transit-use-guess-who-comes-last/9081/">lowest rate of public transit usage</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FBBPzx">
|
|||
|
|
The Biden administration has tried to visibly fight the cost of fossil fuels by releasing stockpiles from the strategic petroleum reserve, and has framed legislation to promote electric vehicles and move away from fossil fuels as inflation-fighting measures. But the ultimate decision-making authority over US energy lies with states and localities.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3XmzGz">
|
|||
|
|
The power authorities that oversee much of the energy market are creations of state governments, and decisions like whether and where to build new transmission lines and electric vehicle charging stations lie with municipalities.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rhSXps">
|
|||
|
|
As a result, local actors have stymied the transition away from fossil fuels, leaving the country more exposed to sudden shocks in prices, said Samantha Gross, the director of the Brookings Institution’s Energy Security and Climate Initiative and author of <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/renewables-land-use-and-local-opposition-in-the-united-states/">a report on local obstacles to renewable energy</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BXoOLH">
|
|||
|
|
She pointed to endless delays on projects like the Grain Belt Express, a transmission line that would bring dirt-cheap Kansas wind energy across the plains to the Midwest and connect to the East Coast grid. Missouri legislators, among others, have been <a href="https://energynews.us/2022/04/05/missouri-senate-committee-takes-up-bill-targeting-grain-belt-express-transmission-line/">almost implacably hostile to the project</a>. Local officials have deferred to local landowners, declining to approve the Express and instead pursuing legislation that would raise eminent domain compensation costs for building it and give lower-level county officials more discretion to cancel the project.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f453ad">
|
|||
|
|
It’s not just red-state officials who have delayed electrification and kept the country dependent on fossil fuels, even as the cost of those fuels spikes. <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/1b-transmission-smack-down-may-upend-northeast-renewables/">Maine voters</a> shot down a 2021 referendum to build transmission lines to hook New England up to Canada’s ample existing supply of renewable hydroelectric power, leaving the region more dependent on fossil fuel generation. Opposition was led by local conservationists and hunters who objected to cutting down forests to make way for the lines. They found themselves strange bedfellows with incumbent fossil energy interests, who bankrolled efforts to kill the project.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v5Slnm">
|
|||
|
|
Local opposition and procedural delay mean “you get projects that make sense financially and from an environmental perspective, that even already have private investment, are still really, really hard to get sited and built,” Gross said. As a result, she said, “We’re going to end up with a slower and more expensive energy transition than we need, and that’s a drag on the economy on a continuing basis for years, decades maybe.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="Y9zVuZ">
|
|||
|
|
<ol start="2" type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Housing
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z2ztjd">
|
|||
|
|
One of the largest drivers of national inflation has been housing costs. Shelter accounts for about one-third of the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, one of the most important measures of inflation. This spring, housing costs accelerated <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/10/consumer-price-index-may-2022.html">the fastest they have in more than 30 years</a>, even as the Federal Reserve had been raising interest rates for months, which should slow down demand for homes.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B9O8Bv">
|
|||
|
|
Local officials ultimately have much more control over housing production than the Fed or Biden. Home building is constrained by three main factors: national credit conditions, supply chains, and local land use policy, explained Paul Williams, a housing economics expert and founder of the Center for Public Enterprise, a new think tank focused on public investment. Of those three factors, only one — land use policy — is truly within the remit of elected officials, and local leaders have almost all of the power. The local level is simply “where policy happens,” said Williams.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y7eyY7">
|
|||
|
|
Through zoning regulations that dictate how much housing can be built and where, local governments determine how much the housing market can respond to new demand with corresponding supply. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html">majority of land</a> in some of the most prosperous and rapidly growing cities, like Seattle or North Carolina’s <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2019/02/15/raleigh-city-council-grapples-with-density-talk.html">Research Triangle</a>, has been zoned exclusively for single-family homes, restricting housing supply even as demand in those areas rises.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C3XJpx">
|
|||
|
|
Pre-pandemic, the hottest housing markets in coastal metros like the Bay Area and New York City were among the most restricted by zoning, sending house prices skyrocketing. When Covid hit and many of the well-paid professionals who had previously been tied to jobs in San Francisco or Manhattan shifted en masse to remote work, the price pressure that had been concentrated in a few nodes spread throughout the entire country. Simultaneously, a strong labor market led to a burst of <a href="https://www.governing.com/community/millennials-will-reshape-our-landscape">long-delayed household formation by millennials</a> who are finally able to move out of shared apartments or parents’ basements and might be starting their own families.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uVHtB3">
|
|||
|
|
Local governments have only recently and haltingly begun to reverse course to encourage housing production. California, home to much of the country’s most in-demand residential real estate, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-09-17/what-just-happened-with-single-family-zoning-in-california">passed landmark zoning reform bills last year</a>, but some of its largest markets like Los Angeles have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-06-29/state-lawmakers-aim-to-give-l-a-a-reprieve-on-housing-deadline">blown deadlines</a> to develop plans to actually allocate more land for housing, and implementation has barely begun. In New York, meanwhile, a promising effort to include similar apartment legalization and transit-oriented development schemes in the state budget was <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/hochul-affordable-housing-accessory-unit-development-y43611">torpedoed</a> in the face of opposition from suburban politicians <a href="https://theislandnow.com/news-98/suozzi-says-hochuls-zoning-proposals-end-single-family-housing-in-new-york-state/">like Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Tom Suozzi</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Ewqjc">
|
|||
|
|
While there are some federal tools for addressing housing costs at Biden’s disposal, such as the newly revived Obama-era <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/06/09/hud-biden-fair-housing-rule/">fair housing rule</a>, they don’t radically move the needle on supply. Ultimately, these tools can work by offering carrots and sticks to local governments, who remain the final decision-makers.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZMdSjO">
|
|||
|
|
The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, can only cool the market by raising interest rates to make the job market worse. That could have the effect of scattering young households, forcing people to move back in with parents or roommates, and further discouraging housing production. The most direct route to lowering housing costs, most people’s biggest expense, runs through state houses, city halls, and zoning board meetings.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="9EXxHL">
|
|||
|
|
<ol start="3" type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Logistics infrastructure
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OWrVff">
|
|||
|
|
Along with a housing crisis and energy price spikes, supply chain chaos has been one of the defining aspects of the post-Covid inflationary moment. The Biden administration has been working to solve this: It passed <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/11/15/22772627/states-infrastructure-congress-biden">an infrastructure bill</a> that will funnel lots of money into projects like port expansion and has launched a supply chain disruption task force to tackle backups of physical goods.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6zKvPy">
|
|||
|
|
But as in the cases of housing and energy, many of these efforts fall apart because of local land-use fights, said K.N. Gunalan, former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iZvO6A">
|
|||
|
|
As Gunalan observed, “incentives at the local level don’t always align with national incentives.” He pointed to the recent decision by California authorities to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-26/710-freeway-expansion-los-angeles-plan-killed?utm_source=reddit.com#:~:text=The%20Los%20Angeles%20County%20Metropolitan,of%20asthma%20and%20poor%20health.">abandon a decades-old plan to expand Highway 710</a>, the main trucking corridor leading out of the country’s busiest port in Los Angeles and toward the intermodal transfer stations that move imported goods along to the rest of the country.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tneI9q">
|
|||
|
|
Local opponents have slowed down new logistics facilities in deep-red Utah as well, where a coalition has fought against <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/06/29/inland-port-prevails-utah/">an “inland” port</a> that would take pressure off overloaded West Coast hubs.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="31nBZE">
|
|||
|
|
The Highway 710 expansion would have imposed heavy costs on local communities, which would lose land and suffer worse air quality. But the absence of any alternative plan to get stuff out of the Los Angeles ports will lock in current congestion.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="bTCiuW">
|
|||
|
|
Local fragmentation creates national inflation
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nSNrFl">
|
|||
|
|
When all politics is local, as the cliche goes, stakeholders can only see local costs and not national benefits, so it’s a lot easier to say “no” than “yes.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="80FIHW">
|
|||
|
|
American deference to local jurisdictions on crucial land use and permitting questions has become a kind of meta-bottleneck, one that makes it impossible to straighten out the actual bottlenecks driving inflation. Local opponents of new infrastructure investments may have good reason to object to big projects. But right now, local quality-of-life concerns are not in balance with the need for new investment in housing and infrastructure, so stakeholders double down on procedural delays or throw up their hands and avoid the problem altogether.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tIfPLS">
|
|||
|
|
If America is going to accommodate growth without crippling inflation — let alone avoid the worst losses from climate change — new housing, port expansions, power transmission lines, and other projects to build the nation’s infrastructure all have to go somewhere. That somewhere will often be in the middle of existing communities and across local jurisdictional lines.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4oF0NS">
|
|||
|
|
These efforts require a level of coordination and prioritization policymakers haven’t practiced in decades. The American system of government splits responsibility for some of the most crucial parts of the economy across countless small fiefdoms and levels of government, which often have competing interests. Breaking the local economic logjams that are sending prices higher will require elevating and expediting the planning process for projects that could make a difference.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qaXfvE">
|
|||
|
|
<em>Alex Yablon writes about economics and public policy. He is a fellow with the Jain Family Institute.</em>
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>The quest to find a salamander that went missing 71 years ago</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A jar containing a small salamander beside an identifying tag." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nkBe5GTCfBh23s4015s6b2E-ulE=/0x0:4200x3150/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71194764/20220701mebVOXwater_9.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
The world’s only specimen of the Blanco blind salamander, Eurycea robusta, shown here on July 1, was collected in 1951. The amphibian is kept at the Biodiversity Center at the University of Texas Austin’s Department of Integrative Biology. | Matthew Busch for Vox
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
More than 2,000 species worldwide are considered lost. Could finding them avert extinctions?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Lo9LGH">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ud3W68">
|
|||
|
|
AUSTIN, Texas — The room looked like something inside a haunted house. Rows and rows of metal storage shelves held thousands of glass jars filled with snakes and lizards and frogs, each labeled with a catalog number, like a library of the dead.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AHodNf">
|
|||
|
|
I was here at the University of Texas at Austin’s herpetology collection on the first day of July to see one particular animal: the Blanco blind salamander.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gbIcB7">
|
|||
|
|
This creature is not exactly what you would call charismatic. Measuring a few inches long, the salamander has no eyes and translucent skin, with a trapezoidal head and external gills that look like feathery antlers. And after sitting in a jar of alcohol for several decades, the specimen looked like a bit of amphibian jerky.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TDbsxpxFhEbmfr_y9x9wmWDV-K4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23899601/20220701mebVOXwater_63.jpg"/> <cite>Matthew Busch for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A preserved specimen of the Blanco blind salamander that was captured from the wild in 1951.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TPZutmXeZVjwK76ogS4KYTE9Iqs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23900454/20220701mebVOXwater_243a.jpg"/> <cite>Matthew Busch for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Travis LaDuc, curator of herpetology at the University of Texas at Austin, stands among rows of glass jars filled with snakes, frogs, and other reptiles and amphibians on July 1. The collection is home to the only known specimen of the Blanco blind salamander, Eurycea robusta<em>,</em> on the planet.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P82Vpj">
|
|||
|
|
Yet the Blanco blind salamander, a species native to Texas, is one of the collection’s most prized species.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ByZNS0">
|
|||
|
|
Not only is this animal rare, but it’s also missing. No one has seen the Blanco blind salamander in the wild for more than 70 years. No one knows whether it still exists. The specimen in UT Austin’s collection is the only known representative of the species<em>, </em>Eurycea robusta, on the planet.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h6KhnE">
|
|||
|
|
The Blanco blind salamander<em> </em>is one of more than 2,000 kinds of animals, plants, and fungi worldwide that scientists call “lost species.” Unlike the more widely known categories of endangered and threatened — which describe wildlife at risk of extinction — the category “lost” refers to species that scientists haven’t seen for <a href="https://www.rewild.org/lost-species">at least a decade</a> or, by <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acv.12788">other definitions</a>, more than 50 years.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lOqSU0">
|
|||
|
|
The <a href="https://www.rewild.org/lost-species/top-25-most-wanted-lost-species">list</a>, compiled by the environmental group Re:wild, which has a whole program dedicated to lost species, includes a number of odd organisms that tend to lack the popularity of, say, pandas and tigers. There’s a golden mole from South Africa, for example, that has been missing since 1936, and a trapdoor spider from Portugal (last seen in the early 1900s). There’s even a lost mushroom — the Big Puma Fungus — which no one has seen in the temperate forests of South America for three decades.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MukuaT">
|
|||
|
|
Lost is a bad state to be in. These species are often at risk of extinction, and governments have trouble protecting what they don’t know exists. Case in point: Earlier this year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-03-14/html/2022-05331.htm">decided</a> not to classify the Blanco blind salamander as threatened or endangered, justifying its decision, in part, by claiming that it might already be extinct.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jJmmiG">
|
|||
|
|
Finding lost species is not only a strategy to avert extinction, but it can also yield benefits for human communities. Every species has lessons to teach us about how ecosystems work and how they sustain us. Failing to find and study them is “tantamount to burning all the books in a library that you haven’t read yet,” said Andy Gluesenkamp, director of conservation at the San Antonio Zoo’s Center for Research and Conservation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HMJIdwZ3zoGfIBiLwRoBzQJefNQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23901342/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_50.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Andy Gluesenkamp, director of conservation at the San Antonio Zoo’s Center for Research and Conservation, is leading an expedition to find a Blanco blind salamander in the wild.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="exLLYL">
|
|||
|
|
Which brings us back to that drab-looking salamander in Austin. Gluesenkamp, an eccentric, Ace-Ventura-type amphibian lover, is leading an expedition to find one in the wild — and I traveled to Texas to join him. Our hunt took me inside the Earth (literally) and into one of its strangest ecosystems, where, I learned, it’s very easy for things to get lost.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="jYOY2m">
|
|||
|
|
A hidden world deep below one of America’s largest cities
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zSiBnR">
|
|||
|
|
The last time anyone saw a Blanco blind salamander in the wild was in 1951. A gravel company operating just north of San Marcos, Texas, dug up a spring in the dry bed of the Blanco River. Some water oozed out and in it were several pale-white salamanders.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lmHK18">
|
|||
|
|
As the story goes, workers put four of the amphibians in a plastic bucket. A heron later flew by and ate two. One got lost. And the last individual was identified as a new species and eventually made its way to a jar at UT Austin.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="18jx1e">
|
|||
|
|
No one has seen one of these salamanders alive since.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SBNebt">
|
|||
|
|
One possible reason is that it has already gone extinct (<a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/">more than 40 percent</a> of known amphibians are currently threatened with extinction worldwide). Another is that it’s just incredibly hard to spot, said Gluesenkamp, a talkative scientist who formerly served as the state herpetologist in Texas. “It’s got this reputation for being unfindable,” he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UzdcmO">
|
|||
|
|
Just consider where the Blanco blind salamander lives: deep underground in the Edwards Aquifer, one of the least accessible places on Earth. The aquifer is a complex underground structure made of caverns and porous rock that stretches more than 4,000 square miles across south-central Texas. It boasts a remarkable amount of life, including crustaceans, a handful of eyeless salamanders, and blind fish (<a href="https://www.fws.gov/species/widemouth-blindcat-satan-eurystomus">one of which</a> is also a lost species). It’s also a vital resource for the region, providing drinking water for <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/texas/stories-in-texas/edwards-aquifer-protection/">nearly 2 million</a> Texans.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GMnm4C">
|
|||
|
|
The only way for people to enter the aquifer is through caves. Lucky for me, spelunking is Gluesenkamp’s specialty.<strong> </strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DwQubz">
|
|||
|
|
One morning in early July, I met Gluesenkamp about 45 minutes north of San Antonio near Honey Creek Cave, perhaps <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/local/article/Honey-Creek-Cave-5744500.php">the longest known cave in Texas</a>, which forms a natural opening to the Edwards Aquifer. The bed of his black Toyota Tacoma was filled with wetsuits, masks, and waterproof headlamps. We were going cave snorkeling.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L0G5yo">
|
|||
|
|
It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. We swam through dark caverns in clear water under a ceiling of stalactites. In just over an hour, we saw a few blind salamanders (though not the missing ones), a red crawfish, and large colonies of long-legged arachnids<strong> </strong>that moved like shadows across the wall.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8jjSbUeWdzfU8BcAYEROq5TWIN0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23898638/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_54.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Andy Gluesenkamp snorkels through part of Honey Creek Cave in search of eyeless salamanders on July 6. The longest known cave in Texas, Honey Creek is located on private land in Comal County, Texas.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CDuxJz">
|
|||
|
|
While it might sound icky that salamanders live in the water we drink, they tend to signal that it’s clean, Gluesenkamp told me. Their skin is semi-permeable,<strong> </strong>which makes them sensitive to pollution, such as runoff from farms or septic systems.<strong> </strong>“They depend on the same water that we do,” he said.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YXjuAf">
|
|||
|
|
Cave snorkeling is tough work. Limestone rock releases carbon dioxide and the cave’s structure can restrict airflow, making it hard to breathe. Within minutes of exploring the cave, I felt myself gasping for air — not a great feeling when you’re deep inside the Earth, breathing through a snorkel.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ljYm9I">
|
|||
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|
Spelunking is also not the best method for trying to find a Blanco blind salamander, Gluesenkamp said. There aren’t many of these natural openings near San Marcos, where the lost species likely lives, Gluesenkamp said. And it’s possible that the salamanders live in pockets of water even deeper underground.
|
|||
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</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Lkxcqt">
|
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|
Fortunately, there are ways to bypass caves entirely.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<h3 id="So0sAp">
|
|||
|
|
Catching animals as they waterslide out of the ground
|
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</h3>
|
|||
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Lb9Lqh">
|
|||
|
|
The Edwards Aquifer doesn’t have many entrances that humans can squeeze into, but it does have plenty of exits — cracks and holes in the ground where water sometimes gushes out.
|
|||
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tK2zL7">
|
|||
|
|
That’s one thing that makes San Antonio and Austin bearable in the sweltering summer: In some parts of the aquifer, the water is under so much pressure that it shoots to the surface, forming artesian cold springs (which are enjoyed by bathers).
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jhiw3X">
|
|||
|
|
This geological wonder makes searching for aquifer animals a lot easier. Springs and wells often blast critters to the surface, where scientists like Ben Schwartz and Ben Hutchins can capture them in nets.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
|
|||
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<div class="c-image-grid">
|
|||
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<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
|||
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<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FMfB8Sb5EGXNb29_Hl0cmGIDJMo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23899634/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_10.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Ben Hutchins, an invertebrate biologist at Texas State University, looks under a microscope at a small isopod crustacean from the Edwards Aquifer.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
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<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7cV5Cc8UNKplge-IHO72B1pW3wM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23899667/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_5.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Ben Schwartz, a professor and director of the Edwards Aquifer Research and Data Center at Texas State University, points at a couple of amphipods in a sample of critters collected from artesian well water.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N2ELWo">
|
|||
|
|
I met them early one morning at Texas State University to see how this works. The day before, Schwartz and Hutchins, aquifer biologists, had placed a mesh net over an artesian well on campus. When I arrived it was full of tiny crustaceans. These organisms were all eyeless and transparent, with long, gangly legs and antennae. (Those appendages help them navigate and find food in the dark, Hutchins explained.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5YOTVe">
|
|||
|
|
Hutchins and Schwartz, also known as “The Bens,” aren’t looking for lost species, but they’ve found dozens of new ones — all of them small crustaceans. That’s one big draw to the study of invertebrates, they said, which might otherwise seem dull. “We can find [new species] any old day,” Hutchins told me.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hfb1dj">
|
|||
|
|
Their work contributes to a much bigger scientific mission of understanding what does and does not exist in Earth’s many ecosystems. Documenting life anywhere, Hutchins told me, creates the foundation from which researchers can ask biology’s biggest questions, such as how different animals evolve and why some environments have more diversity than others.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SETIqf">
|
|||
|
|
Hunting for lost species is part of that same endeavor. Right now, we know close to nothing about the Blanco blind salamander, such as where it lives and what it contributes to the aquifer. Finding and studying this species could help answer all kinds of questions about this unique ecosystem and life in extreme environments.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WSAje77LEWDxfG-suH5RIrbuJPc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23900938/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_73.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Hutchins wades through Sessom Creek, near the university, on July 5.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lKSqpl">
|
|||
|
|
If only Gluesenkamp could find one. Scientists have yet to capture the salamander in nets near springs or wells, possibly because these water sources aren’t in the right spots. The salamander is also rare, Gluesenkamp said, which means you’d have to sample huge amounts of water for an individual to appear, like looking for a hair tie in a warehouse of Olympic-sized pools by grabbing buckets of water.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IzCcZ4">
|
|||
|
|
But he has one other idea.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="Fjz9SK">
|
|||
|
|
If you can’t find an animal, look for the clues it leaves behind
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iSf3OW">
|
|||
|
|
It was close to 100 degrees when Gluesenkamp and I arrived at our destination: a rusty metal pipe in the middle of a ranch on the outskirts of San Marcos.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AC8rrY">
|
|||
|
|
“This is the portal,” said Gluesenkamp, who was wearing a floppy camo sunhat.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oYIdEE">
|
|||
|
|
He meant that somewhat literally: The pipe is a 360-foot well that connects to the Edwards Aquifer. As he tapped the side of it, the well produced an echo that sounded like a toy laser gun firing in quick succession.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7ggPFjnCPUkIyMJrjcJNxf7khMo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23899683/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_37.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Andy Gluesenkamp, left, and Scott Nicholson, a Texas-based ranch broker and conservationist, examine a plastic container designed to capture water from a well outside San Marcos, Texas, on July 5.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mAtvEG">
|
|||
|
|
I was here to see Gluesenkamp’s most promising idea for finding the Blanco blind salamander in the wild: a sampling method called eDNA.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZdjqTn">
|
|||
|
|
All animals, including us, are constantly releasing DNA into the environment, such as when they sneeze or shed dead skin and hair. This is how detectives might find a suspect from a crime scene; they’ll collect DNA and cross-reference it with a criminal database.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mhOadg">
|
|||
|
|
It’s also how scientists can find missing species. Environmental DNA, or eDNA, is an increasingly common technique for detecting bits of an animal’s genome in small samples of air, soil, or water. After collecting DNA, scientists search for a match in databases containing the DNA of known species.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EbHI3N">
|
|||
|
|
Scientists have used eDNA to <a href="https://www.pennlive.com/pa-sportsman/2013/11/asian_carp_dna_discovered_in_major_pennsylvania_waterway.html">detect invasive species</a> in rivers and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/ancient-dna-sediment-neanderthal-denisovan/524433/">ancient human remains in dirt</a>. They’ve also used it to argue that the Loch Ness Monster <a href="https://www.livescience.com/loch-ness-monster-dna-study.html">likely doesn’t exist</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IXw4Qh">
|
|||
|
|
Now, Gluesenkamp, a real-life species detective, is using this approach to search for the Blanco blind salamander. This pipe is one of several dozen wells across Texas that he’s hoping to test over the next 15 months, with financial support from Re:wild.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kNHBD0">
|
|||
|
|
Wearing blue surgical gloves to prevent contamination, he carefully lowered a plastic tube into the well to collect water, which he then forced through a small, circular filter designed to capture DNA. He’ll soon send that filter to a company in the UK for analysis.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ShIFdj">
|
|||
|
|
The idea is pretty simple: If the missing salamander lives anywhere near this well, some of its DNA should be floating around in the water. Gluesenkamp isn’t looking for the salamander so much as he’s searching for the clues it leaves behind, which are theoretically more abundant.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bh2Vb7">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s a very efficient approach,” Gluesenkamp said. It’s also less intrusive than traditional sampling methods, he added. All you need is a little bit of water. (Most wells in Texas are privately owned, he said, and it’s easier to convince land owners to let you collect a small amount of water than to install and frequently check nets or traps.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EeP0Lv1lEVajPOARh4LNavGyUJo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23899695/ScottBall_vox_media_lost_species_assignment_san_marcos_bulverde_texas_july_5_6_2022_32.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Stephen Ball for Vox</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Andy Gluesenkamp pushes water from a well near San Marcos through a specialized filter designed to capture DNA.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S4W4QD">
|
|||
|
|
But there’s a catch. Scientists don’t actually have any DNA for the Blanco blind salamander — it deteriorated decades ago when the only known specimen was first preserved. Instead, Gluesenkamp will be looking for genes associated with the broader group of species to which the Blanco blind salamander belongs. If the analysis reveals DNA that’s similar to blind cave salamanders (but doesn’t quite match any other known species), that would signal that the Blanco blind salamander exists, he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yDo321">
|
|||
|
|
DNA evidence on its own isn’t enough to prove, without a doubt, that an animal has been rediscovered, according to Re:wild. You need physical evidence. So if and when Gluesenkamp gets a hit through eDNA in a particular well or spring, he’ll lay traps to try and capture a physical specimen. Only then would he be able to say with certainty that Eurycea robusta has been found.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="rfjQWK">
|
|||
|
|
What happens when a species is rediscovered?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8XgfSw">
|
|||
|
|
Lost animals are rediscovered all the time. In the last few months, for example, someone in Vermont <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/extinct-orchid-vermont-scn-trnd/index.html">found</a> an orchid that hadn’t been seen for more than a century and scientists announced they <a href="https://www.uah.edu/news/news/small-rare-crayfish-thought-extinct-is-rediscovered-in-cave-in-huntsville-city-limits">discovered</a> a type of crayfish in Alabama that was presumed extinct.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6snrGX">
|
|||
|
|
Why do we care? Because finding them can prove valuable.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9U1D4p">
|
|||
|
|
In 2017, after a park ranger in Guatemala spotted a <a href="https://www.rewild.org/press/found-remarkable-salamander-rediscovery-heralds-early-success-for-worldwide-quest-to-find-and-protect-lost-species">lost species of salamander</a> on the edge of a reserve, Re:wild and other environmental groups helped expand the park’s boundaries to protect the species (which is critically endangered).<strong> </strong>Two years later, researchers rediscovered a rare <a href="https://www.rewild.org/press/found-chevrotain-miniature-fanged-deer-rediscovered-tiptoeing-through-vietnams-coastal-forests">rabbit-size deer</a> in Vietnam, and have since developed a program to conserve it, including removing hunting snares in the forest.<strong> </strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QJVlNg">
|
|||
|
|
The impact of finding the Blanco blind salamander would be a bit more complicated. It could prompt the US Fish and Wildlife Service to review the species again, Gluesenkamp said, which could, in turn, cause them to classify the salamander as federally threatened. (That might not mean much because the salamander shares habitat with other threatened species — so, in a sense, it’s already under protection.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/p6LxMk-6vM2SSw0v2jjfSBrQikk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23899713/AP110816160565.jpg"/> <cite>Eric Gay/AP</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A Texas blind salamander at the National Fish Hatchery and Technology Center in San Marcos, Texas, in 2011. The endangered species is found only in the Edwards Aquifer.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wmw5eI">
|
|||
|
|
More than anything, finding the Blanco blind salamander would be a reason to be hopeful. The species is not only an indicator of water quality, but it’s also likely the top predator in the aquifer. “They’re the great white sharks of their ecosystem,” Gluesenkamp said. Knowing they’re alive and well would mean the aquifer — on which so many people and other species depend — is more or less healthy.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7btC1s">
|
|||
|
|
These animals are also just metal and a reminder that we share our planet with some seriously cool critters. Blanco blind salamanders might not have eyes, but they do have motion-sensing organs that help them find food.<strong> </strong>They have no pigment in their skin. And they’re experts at conserving energy, spending most of their time in complete stillness. “If you’re into salamanders, it’s the coolest of the bunch,” said Gluesenkamp.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T2zWM5">
|
|||
|
|
It would be a shame to write off this species without an exhaustive search, Gluesenkamp said. While the planet is, indeed, losing dozens or even <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/">hundreds of animals to extinction</a> each year, many of which science has yet to even document, sometimes, animals aren’t gone — they’re just missing.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YPpSo2">
|
|||
|
|
<em>Mandy Nguyen contributed reporting to this article.</em>
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AYR wins P.G. Reddy Memorial Trophy</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lawn Bowls | Indian women ensure historic first CWG medal in ‘fours’ format</strong> - On Tuesday, India will make its maiden Commonwealth Games final appearance in the women's fours format of lawn bowls, assuring the team of a medal</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Extra day race in Bengaluru on Aug. 11</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Leopard Rock and Brave Beauty impress</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Giant Star, Ashwa Yudhvir, Ashwa Magadheera and Shamrock excel</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>HC denies bail to three accused in Viveka murder case</strong> - They sought relief on health and other grounds</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mahouts, kavadis of State jumbo camps seek higher wages</strong> - They may consider staying away from this year’s Dasara festivities if their demands weren’t fulfilled</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Three new elephants may debut at this year’s Mysuru Dasara</strong> - 14 elephants shortlisted with Abhimanyu, the howdah tusker, leading the squad</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Drive against traffic rule violations</strong> - It booked 420 cases and imposed a penalty of ₹ 2.64 lakh on Sunday</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bandi’s third ‘Praja Sangrama Yatra’ to begin today</strong> -</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: First grain ship leaves under Russia deal</strong> - A ship carrying grain leaves Odesa under a deal aimed at easing a global food crisis.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: The last remaining families in Bakhmut</strong> - Olena and her family are one of the last remaining in the Donetsk region where an evacuation order is in place.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kosovo postpones new car number plate rules amid tensions</strong> - Ethnic Serbs park trucks and tankers at border crossings in the north in protest at the new rules.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Euro 2022: England beat Germany to win first major women’s trophy in dramatic style</strong> - Chloe Kelly scores an extra-time winner as England beat Germany to secure their first women’s major trophy in dramatic fashion.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cancer survivor objects to Spanish beach ad image</strong> - The 60-year-old tells the BBC she suspects the government poster used a doctored picture of her.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Star Trek icon Nichelle Nichols dead at 89</strong> - “Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1870547">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Biden tests positive again in COVID rebound, heads back to isolation [Updated]</strong> - The president finished one course of Paxlovid. Now doc is watching rebound closely. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1869641">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The weekend’s best deals: Kindle Unlimited, Nintendo Switch games, and more</strong> - Dealmaster also has discounts on the Google Pixel 6a, Switch Lite, and Apple TV 4K. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1870361">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apple Watch buying guide: Which wearable is best for you?</strong> - The impending launch of watchOS 9 in the fall shakes things up a bit. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861074">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Satellite images + lucky boat trip give new info on glowing “milky seas”</strong> - Scientists are closer than ever to understanding the phenomenon. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1869910">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>“Doc, my butt hurts”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Where specifically does it hurt?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Right around the entrance”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Yeah well that’s the exit. As long as you think it’s an entrance, it’ll continue to hurt”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MackumTheKnife"> /u/MackumTheKnife </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wd6vx2/doc_my_butt_hurts/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wd6vx2/doc_my_butt_hurts/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>I went for a job interview today and the manager said, “We’re looking for someone who is responsible”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Well I’m your man” I replied, “In my last job, whenever anything went wrong they said I was responsible”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/mykeuk"> /u/mykeuk </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wd20x8/i_went_for_a_job_interview_today_and_the_manager/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wd20x8/i_went_for_a_job_interview_today_and_the_manager/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Three guys are drinking in a bar</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Three guys are drinking in a bar when a drunk comes in, staggers up to the counter, and points at the guy in the middle, shouting,”Your mom’s the best sex in town!" Everyone expects a fight, but the guy ignores him, so the drunk wanders off and bellies up to the bar at the far end. Ten minutes later, the drunk comes back, points at the same guy, and says, “I just did your mom, and it was sw-eeeeet!” Again, the guy refuses to take the bait, and the drunk goes back to the far end of the bar. Ten minutes later, he comes back and announces, “Your mom liked it!” Finally, the guy interrupts. “Go home, dad, you’re drunk.”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Striking-Entry3354"> /u/Striking-Entry3354 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wdbxqp/three_guys_are_drinking_in_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wdbxqp/three_guys_are_drinking_in_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>“Son, I found a condom in your room”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Gee, thanks, grandpa.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Why are you calling me grandpa?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Because I couldn’t find it yesterday.”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MudakMudakov"> /u/MudakMudakov </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wd41vp/son_i_found_a_condom_in_your_room/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wd41vp/son_i_found_a_condom_in_your_room/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Hey, I bet you’re still a virgin.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Kid 1: “Hey, I bet you’re still a virgin.”<br/> Kid 2: “Yeah, I was a virgin until last night .”<br/> Kid 1: “As if.”<br/> Kid 2: “Yeah, just ask your sister.”<br/> Kid 1: “I don’t have a sister.”<br/> Kid 2: “You will in about nine months.”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Hannah_Banana420"> /u/Hannah_Banana420 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wcs3ch/hey_i_bet_youre_still_a_virgin/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wcs3ch/hey_i_bet_youre_still_a_virgin/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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</ul>
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