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a day ago
- Business
Japan to Set Up Ministerial Council for Farm Policy Reform
News from Japan Society Jun 2, 2025 22:38 (JST) Tokyo, June 2 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government said Monday that it will establish a ministerial council for the reform of the country's agricultural policy in order to tackle soaring rice prices. At the council headed by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, ministers will discuss the government's policy of curbing rice production with subsidies to encourage rice farmers to change crops. The first meeting is expected to be held Thursday. The current rice policy is "beyond the limit," Ishiba told the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament. It is necessary to review the policy including the rice production adjustments and draw a conclusion as soon as possible so that farmers and consumers will feel reassured, Ishiba said. Amid a downtrend of demand for rice, the government promoted rice paddy acreage cuts, or "gentan," based on its supply and demand projections, from the 1970s. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
2 days ago
- Business
Japan to Set Up Ministerial Council on Rice This Week
Tokyo, June 2 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Monday that he would set up a ministerial council this week to discuss achieving the stable supply of rice amid soaring prices. "We want to thoroughly discuss farmland prices and food security to stabilize farmers' finances," Ishiba said at the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament. He reiterated the need to review the government-led adjustment for rice production and said that it is necessary to draw a conclusion on the matter as soon as possible. Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi said that the government will drastically shift its rice field policy toward fiscal 2027 and beyond. A basic plan will be drawn up in fiscal 2025, which ends next March, he said. Ishiba rejected a call for a ban on political donations from corporations and organizations. "As companies are members of society, they should express their political will" through donations, he said. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
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Honolulu City Council advances sewer fees bill
Mayor Rick Blangiardi administration's proposed 10-year, 115 % sewer fee rate increase that's expected to begin this summer has been countered by the Honolulu City Council. The Council's five-member Budget Committee voted 4-1 Tuesday, with Radiant Cordero dissenting, to approve passage of a committee draft of the city-initiated Bill 60. Budget Committee Chair Tyler Dos Santos-Tam's version of the measure, which shaves the city's decade-long span for increased rates down to about six years, will start Jan. 1, 2026 and run through 2031. Dos Santos-Tam's Bill 60 proposes sewer fee increases for a household that uses about 6, 000-gallons per month—deemed 50 % of all single-family households in Honolulu—equates to a 6 % increase in sewer fees in fiscal year 2026, 7.5 % in fiscal year 2027, 8.5 % in fiscal year 2028, followed by 9 % over the remaining three fiscal years. If adopted, Bill 60 would see a 60 % base charge—a fixed monthly fee—and a 40 % volumetric charge, or fees based on monthly water usage. Currently, city and county sewer bills calculate a 70 % base charge—a fee of $77.55 for all single-family homes—and a 30 % volumetric rate, which is applied equally for every 1, 000 gallons used, the city Department of Environmental Services states. ENV indicates that a household using 6, 000 gallons per month pays $99.77—with the base of $77.55 plus $22.22 for the volumetric rate. Dos Santos-Tam's version of Bill 60 also will align with ENV's 6-year capital improvement projects plan. 'So we can get through a full CIP cycle, ' he added. 'And then we can deal with what happens in the out years thereafter.' Under Dos Santos-Tam's Bill 60, the budget committee voted to allow 'rule-making authority ' for ENV to set up a program called Customer Assistance for Residential Environmental Services, or CARES, to help with 'affordability and equity ' of increased sewer fee rates. Sewer customers who qualify based on household income of less than 80 % area median income will be eligible for a $20 to $25 credit on their monthly base fee. The program will be funded at $10 million per year. Customers will have to apply for the program to prove eligibility and then be re-verified every six months, ENV states. Bill 60 is scheduled to return for a third and final reading before the full Council on June 4. In October, ENV initially proposed to increase sewer fees annually for the next 10 years—by 9 % over the first six years, followed by smaller annual increases of 8 %, 7 %, 6 % and 5 % over the subsequent four years. But by April, ENV Director Roger Babcock presented to the Council's Budget Committee the so-called 6 % option—which sees sewer rates rise by 6 % on July 1. Those rates would increase by 7.5 % in 2027, 8.5 % in 2028, 9 % in the following four years, then rise by 8 %, 7.5 % and 7 % in the final three years, ending in 2035. City officials say proposed sewer fee hikes are necessary to support ongoing wastewater operations and maintenance efforts, as well as a $10.1 billion capital improvement program for Oahu's wastewater collection and treatment system that is planned through 2040. The fee hikes also will fund projects to prepare the city's wastewater infrastructure for climate change and sea-level rise, city officials say. And they assert the work includes a $2.5 billion upgrade to the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant as required under a 2010 federal consent decree. Previously, Council Chair Tommy Waters—who does not sit on the budget committee—offered his version of Bill 60, a 6.75 % increase for the first five years, starting July 1. The initial increases would be followed by an 8.75 % increase for the next two years, then a decrease to 7.75 %, 6.75 % and 5.5 % over the remaining years, 'thereby creating savings, ' Waters said previously, adding instead of a 100 % increase over the decade, 'it would amount to approximately about a 70 % increase over 10 years.' But at Tuesday's hearing, Waters admitted his version of the bill was found to have calculation errors. 'We started from 2012 rather than 2016 … which is the last date that sewer increases took effect, ' he explained. During a presentation, ENV Director Roger Babcock highlighted that Waters' proposed Bill 60 in fiscal year 2026 would provide less revenues—about $397.5 million, a 13 % drop—compared with the city's current revenues of $457.03 million devoted to sewer funding. 'So that's a $60 million decrease, ' Babcock said, 'which would be very problematic for the program.' In contrast, Babcock noted the city's proposed 6 % option would provide $484.4 million in revenue needed to support required sewage system upgrades. Initially stating he'd resubmit a corrected version of his measure, Waters later backed Dos Santos-Tam's draft of Bill 60. Still, Waters noted households using 6, 000 gallons of water or less per month could see their sewer bills rise by over 61 %, from $99.77 per month to $160.85 per month. 'And those using 9, 000 gallons per month, which is the typical user—a family with two kids, a dog, maybe in-laws—that would go up from $110 to $204 ' per month, an over 85 % increase, said Waters. 'I mean that's really what we're voting on.' At the meeting, city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services Director Andy Kawano favored Dos Santos-Tam's measure as 'revenue calculations will meet our required minimums going forward through 10 years.' However, 'there could be an option, if it's more palatable for Council members, to truncate the (10-year ) term to five to seven years, that's possible, ' Kawano claimed. 'If we do that, we would meet our required minimums for every year, for one through five or one through seven, depending on what Council members decide.' Ways to defray the overall cost of the city's wastewater operations also were touched on at the meeting. During public testimony, Frank Doyle, a former city and county ENV director, testified the Council and city should work together to end the 2010 federally-mandated consent decree that included upgrading the island's sewage treatment plants to 'secondary treatment.' Although secondary treatment does not make the water drinkable, it does turn it into recycled water that can be used for things like landscaping, city officials say. 'Since entering the consent decree the city has spent billions of dollars for improvements of our wastewater system, and has essentially completed almost all of the requirements of the decree except for the one, largest project—a $2.5 billion (secondary treatment ) project for Sand Island, ' Doyle said. 'If secondary treatment was required at Sand Island (Wastewater Treatment Plant ) in 2010—because it really holds some significant public health or environmental concern—that project would have been prioritized immediately.' 'Instead, it comes in last, not needed until 2030, ' he said, adding no real public health concern occurred in 2010. 'And there isn't any today.' Doyle requested the Council 'urge the administration to continue to pursue a discussion with EPA ' on the consent decree. 'And if the administration doesn't want to do it, the Council should do it, ' he added. In 2010 the negotiated consent decree included three phases and a 25-year implementation schedule, the city says. According to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the work was meant to reduce the public health risk caused by exposure to pathogens in raw sewage and the amount of harmful pollutants affecting the island's marine environment. At the time, overflows caused millions of gallons of untreated sewage to be discharged into water off Oahu. The city had to pay a total fine of $1.6 million to be split between the federal government and state to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act and Hawaii's water pollution law, the EPA states. Those violating acts included the March 24, 2006, Beachwalk force main break which spilled about 50 million gallons of sewage into the Ala Wai Canal, according to the EPA. For his part, Waters stated 'as a Council, we've asked the administration to discuss with the EPA removing the need for secondary treatment or extending the term of the consent decree.' 'We need to extend the sewer fees, but not for the full 10 years, as requested, ' he added, 'to give us time to work with the EPA and find alternatives to funding the wastewater system.'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Honolulu's proposed 115% hike in sewer fee under review
Mayor Rick Blangiardi administration's proposed 10-year, 115 % sewer fee rate increase that's expected to begin this summer remains under Honolulu City Council scrutiny. The Council's Budget Committee today is scheduled to review aspects of city-initiated Bill 60, which, if approved, will take effect July 1. The measure passed its second of three readings April 16. The city Department of Environmental Services says an average single-family residential sewer bill totals approximately $110.89 a month. By July 1 that bill could rise to $122.04 a month. ENV contends planned sewer fee rate hikes are necessary to address rising operational costs as well as fund critical projects within its $10.1 billion capital improvement program, scheduled for 2025 to 2040. That includes work to upgrade the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant to full secondary treatment, which will cost an estimated $2.5 billion. Potable water fee rates will not be adjusted, as they are separate fees administered by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. In October, ENV initially proposed to increase sewer fees annually for the next 10 years—by 9 % over the first six years, followed by smaller annual increases of 8 %, 7 %, 6 % and 5 % over the subsequent four years. But since that time other versions to Bill 60 have materialized—including a revision by ENV itself that supposedly lessens the initial blow of higher fees to its rate-paying customers. In April, ENV Director Roger Babcock presented to the Council's Budget Committee the so-called 6 % option—which sees sewer rates rise by 6 % on July 1. Those rates would increase by 7.5 % in 2027, 8.5 % in 2028, 9 % in the following four years, then rise by 8 %, 7.5 % and 7 % in the final three years, ending in 2035. Under this 6 % option, the city said, the same average single-family residential sewer bill in the first year would go to $119.18 a month instead of $122.04, a 2.3 % difference. Babcock said new rates should ensure the city is 'whole, in terms of operations and maintenance, debt service and new debt issued in order to do our (capital improvement program ).' But Council Chair Tommy Waters has said the city's new 6 % option is 'putting the big rate increases at the end of the 10-year cycle, rather than at the beginning.' With regard to Bill 60, Waters' tentative proposal to increase sewer fees annually for the next decade includes a 6.75 % increase for the first five years, starting July 1. The initial increases would be followed by an 8.75 % increase for the next two years, then a decrease to 7.75 %, 6.75 % and 5.5 % over the remaining years, 'thereby creating savings, ' he said. Waters said instead of a 100 % increase over the dec ade, 'it would amount to approximately about a 70 % increase over 10 years.' Legislation related to the city's sewer fund has also materialized. On May 5, Waters introduced Bill 43, meant to redirect a portion of the 3 % visitor-generated Oahu transient accommodations tax, which in part is earmarked for Honolulu's rail project, to the city's sewer fund. Bill 43, as drafted, would temporarily amend the disposition of the city's OTAT revenues so that 50 % would be deposited into the transit fund, while 41.66 % would go into the sewer fund. The legislation also allocates 8.34 % to create a special fund, one to be named by the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Serv ices, to mitigate impacts of visitors on public facilities and natural resources and 'supplement any funds regularly appropriated for that purpose.' If approved, Bill 43 would take effect July 1, 2027, and be repealed June 30, 2037. But critics of Waters' measure—including BFS Director Andy Kawano—say it's not a feasible option for the city to pursue. 'This measure will negatively impact the city's general fund and deviate from the intended purpose of the TAT, which is to provide general fund capacity to fund city services ; mitigate the strain visitors place on public facilities, emergency services, and natural resources ; and provide additional funding for rail (i.e., 'Skyline') construction, ' Kawano wrote in a May 12 letter to Council. Still, Waters previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that 'Bill 43 offers a more strategic and equitable alternative to the administration's proposed 115 % rate hike.' 'By using the Council's existing authority to reallocate a portion of OTAT revenue, Bill 43 reduces pressure on working families, ' he said. 'It ensures that visitors who contribute heavily to the wear and tear on our water and wastewater systems contribute a fair share.' The meeting begins at 9 a.m. inside Council chambers, 530 S. King St.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Mike Johnson doused a GOP dumpster fire
Speaker Mike Johnson bet it all on 'one big, beautiful bill.' With a heavy assist from President Donald Trump in the final hours, he delivered. The bill's House passage early Thursday morning was at least temporary vindication for a series of strategic decisions championed by the Louisiana Republican — chiefly, that packaging a massive suite of tax cuts together with other sundry GOP priorities would make it easier to move ambitious legislation with his tiny governing majority. Johnson had to battle for months with factions of his own conference, and with the Senate, at multiple key junctures. But he plowed through and moved a host of Trump's campaign promises closer to the president's desk after a final flurry of negotiations and a rare, overnight session on the House floor. 'There was a few moments over the last week when it looked like the thing might fall apart,' Johnson told reporters shortly after the vote, adding he visited the House chapel to pray on it. In essence, Johnson spent months fighting fires. His job, in conjunction with other GOP leaders, was to manage flare-up after flare-up as various groups inside the House ranks battled over trillions in tax cuts and politically explosive reductions to social safety-net spending. Johnson might not have succeeded in putting out every blaze, but he kept them from growing into a conflagration that even Trump couldn't extinguish. He'll probably have to do it again later this year after the Senate sends back revisions to the megabill. The outlook for the legislation looked bleak throughout the past week, as various bands of holdouts resisted coming aboard. On Wednesday night, for instance, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) — a conservative hard-liner — suggested the bill would potentially 'have to fail' on the floor for leaders to realize it should be reworked. Moderate Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said he was 'not happy' with changes the conservatives had secured to more quickly eliminate clean-energy tax credits he'd been working to defend. Neither ended up voting for the bill. Davidson was one of two House Republicans who voted 'no' Thursday, and Garbarino missed the vote. But Johnson had spent the week peeling off almost every other member — moving methodically between holdout groups, patiently working through a seemingly endless litany of issues. On Monday night, after tentatively approving some key demands from fiscal hawks who had delayed a key Budget Committee vote, Johnson faced ire from the other side of the conference in a closed-door meeting. Several Republicans in the Main Street Caucus told Johnson they were frustrated that he was once again appearing to entertain politically explosive cuts to Medicaid — cutting the federal share of funding to states, known as FMAP — after the speaker had seemed to rule them out. Some of the centrist-leaning Republicans in the room pressed the speaker to publicly take the proposal off the table for good this time — and send a message to the hard right not to push further. Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), a former Trump aide, spoke up to air his own irritation with how Johnson had managed the whole megabill process. Indeed, the speaker and his team's tactics had grated on many GOP members. They believed he had unwisely delayed settling the biggest battles until the final hours and had given disingenuous assurances to some at-risk Republicans that the Senate would intervene and block some of the bill's most unpalatable provisions. Johnson jotted down notes as members spoke. A few minutes later, as he walked back to his office, he told reporters, 'FMAP has not been on the table — it's been off the table for quite some time.' He had extinguished another fire. But it was time for Johnson to call in backup. The next morning, Trump made a rare journey to the drab, poorly-lit Capitol basement to make his wishes clear. It was uncertain if he'd stanch the disputes or toss more fuel onto them. The visit came just a few days after the hard-liner rebellion had blocked the bill in the Budget Committee vote over concerns that the megabill would add trillions of dollars to the national debt. Before he even walked into the meeting, Trump appeared to be looking to stoke conflict — dismissing the hard-liners' deeply held beliefs. 'I'm a bigger fiscal hawk — there's nobody like me,' he told reporters alongside Johnson, in response to a question about some of the hard-right concerns. Inside the meeting, the president took on a kind of Rodney Dangerfield persona, House Republicans said — telling barbed jokes at lawmakers' expense. He laced into the fiscal hawks and 'SALT Republicans' pushing for the expansion of a key tax break — calling out 'grandstanders' by name who sought to stand in the way of his 'one big, beautiful bill.' 'He insulted several people with a great intensity,' said one bewildered House Republican, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly about private meetings and conversations. Trump's tongue lashings and Johnson's hardball approach to muscling the bill through this week rattled some even long-time GOP lawmakers. It was clear there was no room for dissent. 'I could never have imagined when I started in politics that we would have this kind of a scenario,' one House Republican said of the our-way-or-the-highway approach. 'But who else do we turn to, besides Johnson?' Near the end, the speaker needed to douse one last blaze: The hard-line House Freedom Caucus was balking and pushing for concessions on Medicaid that other Republicans simply would not accept. A White House meeting was arranged with the holdouts, and Johnson sat in with top lieutenants as Trump unleashed the fire hose — pressing Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Harris of Maryland and other hard-liners to vote for the bill. 'It was tough. There was no back and forth,' said one Republican briefed on the meeting. 'He let them have it.' Johnson returned to the Capitol triumphant. 'The plan is to move forward as we expected,' he told reporters. Roy and Harris then huddled through the night with White House officials including Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Legislative Affairs Director James Braid. The hard-liners pushed for, and said they secured, promises for executive orders to address Medicaid and other items on their wish list. Meanwhile, as night turned to morning over the course of a nine-hour vote series, Johnson huddled one-on-one with several previously balking members on the floor. Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, a fiscal hawk who a few days earlier had said the bill 'fell short,' spoke to Johnson around 3 a.m. Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who won a key concession ending the taxation of gun silencers, sat with the speaker later in the morning. And just before Republicans passed the massive bill a little before 7 a.m., the speaker and Miller spoke for several minutes, ending their conversation with a handshake. Unlike several prior high-stakes votes during Johnson's speakership and predecessor Kevin McCarthy's, there were no dramatic scenes wrangling last-minute votes from the assembled hard-liners. His team was confident the tough tactics had worked. 'They always fold,' one senior GOP aide said.
