‘Two can play this game': Newsom responds to Texas redistricting efforts
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Trump's AI Action Plan aims to block chip exports to China but lacks key details
The Trump administration wants its AI technology to be considered an industry leader both on home soil and abroad. But it also doesn't want the U.S.'s AI prowess to empower or embolden a foreign adversary. That's quite the balance to strike. If President Trump's AI Action Plan, which was released on Wednesday, is any indicator, the administration seems to still be figuring out the right course of action to achieve those goals. 'America currently is the global leader on data center construction, computing hardware performance, and models,' the plan stated. 'It is imperative that the United States leverage this advantage into an enduring global alliance, while preventing our adversaries from free-riding on our innovation and investment.' The plan mentions strengthening AI chip export controls through 'creative approaches' followed by a pair of policy recommendations. The first calls on government organizations, including the Department of Commerce and National Security Council, to work with the AI industry on chip location verification features. The second is a recommendation to establish an effort to figure out enforcement for potential chip export restrictions; notably, it mentions that while the U.S. and allies impose export controls on major systems required for chip manufacturing, there isn't a focus on many of the component sub-systems — a hint at where the administration wants the DOC to direct its attention. The AI Action plan also talks about how the U.S. will need to find alignment in this area with its global allies. 'America must impose strong export controls on sensitive technologies,' the plan states. 'We should encourage partners and allies to follow U.S. controls, and not backfill. If they do, America should use tools such as the Foreign Direct Product Rule and secondary tariffs to achieve greater international alignment.' The AI Action plan never gets into detail on exactly how it will achieve Al global alliances, coordinate with allies on export chip restrictions, or work with U.S.-based AI companies on chip location verification features. Instead, the AI Action plans lay out what foundational building blocks are required for future sustainable AI chip export guidelines, as opposed to policies implemented on top of existing guidelines. The upshot: chip export restrictions are going to take more time. And there's ample evidence, beyond the AP Action plan, to suggest it will. For instance, the Trump administration has contradicted itself multiple times on its export restriction strategy in the past few months — including just last week. In July, the administration gave semiconductor firms, like Nvidia and AMD, the green light to start selling AI chips they had developed for China, just months after rolling out licensing restrictions on the same AI chips that effectively pulled Nvidia out of the Chinese market. The administration also formally rescinded the Biden administration's AI Diffusion Rule in May, just days before it was supposed to go into effect. The AI Diffusion rule put a cap on how much AI computing capacity some countries were allowed to buy. The Trump administration is expected to sign multiple executive orders July 23. Whether these will contain detailed plans on how it will reach its goals is unclear. While the AI Action Plan talks at length about figuring out how to expand the U.S. AI market globally, while maintaining dominance, it's light on the specifics. Any executive order regarding chip export restrictions will likely be about getting the proper government departments together to figure out a path forward, as opposed to formal guidelines, quite yet. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Congressional committees push back on Trump's proposed NOAA budget cuts
Lawmakers from both parties have so far rejected steep cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) proposed by the Trump administration and reiterated their support for a fully staffed National Weather Service (NWS) during recent committee meetings, which included key appropriations markup sessions. While the House and Senate spending bills for fiscal year 2026 are still in the early stages of the legislative process, initial drafts indicate bipartisan pushback against the significant cuts outlined in the administration's budget proposal, released earlier this year. For fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1, the Trump administration proposed cutting NOAA's budget by roughly 25%, including the elimination of its research division, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and making major reductions to other key offices such as the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the world's largest provider of weather and climate data. MORE: After Texas flood, elected leaders say cuts to FEMA, NOAA could affect weather response The budget proposal stated, "The FY 2026 budget eliminates all funding for climate, weather, and ocean Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes. It also does not fund Regional Climate Data and Information, Climate Competitive Research, the National Sea Grant College Program, Sea Grant Aquaculture Research, or the National Oceanographic Partnership Program." The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies advanced a spending bill with bipartisan support last week that would fund NOAA at levels mostly in line with budgets of previous years. The fiscal year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill provides roughly $5.8 billion to NOAA in 2026, a 6% decrease from the previous year. However, it restores a majority of funding for NOAA's Operations, Research and Facilities (ORF) account, which includes OAR. While specific spending details have not yet been released, this would likely spare many critical research labs and climate institutes from potential cuts. During the July 15 markup session, Subcommittee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., expressed his support for the National Weather Service, emphasizing the recent toll of devastating flooding hitting the country. "Flooding has inflicted much pain on this nation over the last few months," he said. "From my district in Kentucky to Texas, now is the time to ensure the National Weather Service is equipped with the funding it needs to warn and protect our citizens." MORE: Senate considers Neil Jacobs, 'Sharpiegate' scientist, as NOAA administrator At the start of the markup session, Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, voiced concerns over both the proposed NOAA budget and recent staffing and funding cuts at the National Weather Service. "Weather forecasts are not waste, fraud and abuse," she said. "I ask my colleagues, did anyone come to your town halls and complain that the National Weather Service has too many meteorologists? Too many people issuing advisories, watches and warnings on severe storms?" DeLauro also cited concerns from Bill Turner, Connecticut's state emergency management director, who said the situation is "a very fragile house of cards right now, and we need them to continue… It really could be catastrophic in a lot of ways for our state if they go down that path of stopping the National Weather Service and their functionality." The bill now advances to the full committee for a markup on Thursday, July 24. The Senate's version of the bill allocates approximately $6.14 billion to NOAA for fiscal year 2026, just below the $6.18 billion approved for 2025. While this represents a modest overall decrease, the Senate Committee on Appropriations voted to boost spending for the agency's Operations, Research and Facilities (ORF) account, adding $68.7 million. The increase means more available funding that could go to key offices such as OAR, NWS and NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service). MORE: Hurricane season is here and meteorologists are losing a vital tool for forecasting them The current Senate bill explicitly signals support for NOAA's mission, including weather and climate research. "The Committee strongly supports Climate Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes for their critical role in delivering high-quality weather information and driving economic benefits across the United States," the bill states. The bill also addresses staffing concerns at local NWS offices across the country and provides additional funding to ensure they become fully staffed. The bill's authors write, "Insufficient staffing levels risk compromising public safety and the NWS's mission to protect lives and property. The Committee provides an additional $10,000,000 for Analyze, Forecast and Support and urges the NWS to prioritize recruitment, retention, and training initiatives to ensure all weather forecast offices (WFOs) are fully staffed." While introducing the bill, Jerry Moran, R- Kan., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Science and Justice, said, "NOAA, and particularly the National Weather Service, is a hugely important component of what this bill funds, and this bill recognizes that importance." He added that the bill "fully funds the National Weather Service" and "eliminates any reduction in the workforce." However, Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, raised concerns that the bill still gave too much discretion to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to determine the staffing levels needed to fulfill the agency's mission and statutory obligation -- "the Office of Management and Budget which clearly made the judgment that the National Weather Service has too many human beings working," Schatz said. He introduced an amendment that would have required the administration to maintain full-time staffing at levels in place as of Sept. 30, 2024, but it was rejected along party lines. The Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the Fiscal Year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act on July 17 by a vote of 19-10. MORE: How job cuts at NOAA could impact weather forecasting What does the Trump Administration want to cut? The administration's budget proposal calls for eliminating the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) as a NOAA Line Office, with several of its functions transferred to the National Weather Service and the National Ocean Service. OAR leads NOAA's weather and climate research and develops many of the forecasting tools meteorologists rely on to produce timely and accurate forecasts. The proposed budget would include shutting down NOAA's nationwide network of research labs and cooperative institutes. Among them is the Global Systems Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model, a critical tool in modern weather forecasting, was first developed more than a decade ago. The HRRR model helps meteorologists track everything from severe thunderstorms to extreme rainfall to wildfire smoke. The Global Monitoring Laboratory, also based in Boulder, oversees operations at Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii's Big Island. This observatory has maintained the world's longest continuous observation of atmospheric carbon dioxide and has been crucial to our understanding of how human-caused greenhouse gas emissions fuel global warming. NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, Florida, plays a vital role in operational hurricane forecasting. The lab develops cutting-edge tropical weather models that have significantly improved forecast accuracy in recent decades. National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasters set a record for forecast track accuracy in 2024, according to a NOAA report. NHC issued 347 official forecasts during the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, and its track predictions set accuracy records at every forecast time period. MORE: DOGE now has access to NOAA's IT systems; reviewing DEI program, sources say Who will lead NOAA next? Earlier this month, during a confirmation hearing, Dr. Neil Jacobs, President Donald Trump's nominee to head NOAA, said he supports the administration's proposal to significantly cut the agency's budget arguing the reductions could be achieved by shifting work from research to operations without impacting "mission essential functions." Jacobs also said if confirmed, he would "ensure that staffing the weather service offices is a top priority," adding that, "It's really important for the people to be there because they have relationships with the people in the local community. They're a trusted source." NOAA's 2025 budget costs Americans less than $20 per person this year. ABC News reached out to NOAA for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration canceled a $4.9B loan guarantee for a line to deliver green power
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday canceled a $4.9 billion federal loan guarantee for a new high-voltage transmission line for delivering solar and wind-generated electricity from the Midwest to the eastern U.S. The U.S. Department of Energy declared that it is "not critical for the federal government to have a role' in the first phase of Chicago-based Invenergy's planned Grain Belt Express. The department also questioned whether the $11 billion project could meet the financial conditions required for a loan guarantee. President Donald Trump has repeatedly derided wind and solar energy as 'unreliable' and opposed efforts to combat climate change by moving away from fossil fuels. The Department of Energy also said Wednesday that the conditional commitment to Invenergy in November was among billions of dollars' worth of commitments "rushed out the doors" by former President Joe Biden's administration after Biden lost the election. 'To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, DOE has terminated its conditional commitment,' the agency said in a statement. It wasn't immediately clear how much the department's action would delay or stop the start of construction, which was set to begin next year. The company's representatives didn't immediately respond to emails Wednesday seeking comment The company has said its project would create 4,000 jobs and new efficiencies in delivering power, and that it would save consumers $52 billion over 15 years. The line would deliver electricity from Kansas across Missouri and Illinois and into Indiana, connecting there to the power grid for the eastern U.S. It could deliver up to 5,000 megawatts of electricity. "When electricity demand and consumer power bills are soaring, it's hard to imagine a more backward move,' said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a nonpartisan, Washington-based group supporting renewable energy. Keefe called the Grain Belt Express 'one of the country's most important energy projects' and suggested Trump canceled the loan guarantee 'just because it will bring cleaner energy to more people.' But two prominent Missouri Republicans, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, are vocal critics of the project, describing it as a threat to farmland and land owners' property rights. Bailey called the project a 'scam' and a 'boondoggle.' Hawley said on July 10 that he had secured a pledge from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright to cancel the loan guarantee in a conversation with him and Trump. Critics like Hawley object to the company's ability to use lawsuits against individual land owners along the line's route to compel them to sell their property, which Hawley called 'an elitist land grab.' Online court records show that the company filed dozens of such lawsuits in Missouri circuit courts in recent years, and the Missouri Farm Bureau's president posted on the social platform X Wednesday that the project threatened to 'sacrifice rural America in the name of progress.' Democrats on the U.S. Senate's energy committee suggested on X that Trump, Wright and Hawley 'just killed" the project, but Invenergy announced in May that it had awarded $1.7 billion in contracts for work on the project. And Bailey suggested in a statement that the project could still go forward with private funding without the loan guarantee, saying, 'If Invenergy still intends to force this project on unwilling landowners, we will continue to fight every step of the way.' John Hanna, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
