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Yahoo
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- Politics
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Michigan lawmakers consider photo, signature requirements on food assistance cards to curb fraud
Michigan Capitol | Susan J. Demas Electronic theft of benefits and unauthorized use of food assistance cards is costing Michiganders millions if not billions of dollars in fraud, supporters of legislation to require a photo and a signature on Michigan Bridge cards said during a Thursday meeting of the state House Government Operations Committee. Rep. Jason Woolford (R-Howell), sponsor of House Bill 4515, told lawmakers Thursday that Michigan has seen instances of organized crime stealing people's Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, data to drain people's SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, benefits which are informally known as food stamps. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A May statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said SNAP benefit fraud efforts have 'dramatically' increased in recent years through card skimming and cloning efforts. And as President Donald Trump's administration has zeroed in on cracking down on bad actors stealing food assistance dollars from those who need them, Judicial Officer of the United States Department of Agriculture John Walk said these crimes hurt Americans on multiple levels. 'These are truly sick and depraved individuals who are stealing food from low-income Americans for their own profit,' Walk said in May. 'It is especially disturbing when international criminal organizations siphon tax dollars away from SNAP beneficiaries to fund their own illicit activities.' Woolford's bill would require those using Michigan's food assistance card, known as the Bridge Card, to have their photograph and signature appear on the card. The bill isn't meant to inconvenience anyone in need of food assistance in Michigan more than the inconvenience many Michiganders face when getting a photo for a driver's license, passport, or a Costco membership card, Woolford said. And although the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency places estimates of implementing photo and signature requirements at between $1.5 million to $4.5 million annually, based on other states that have done so, Woolford said the change could save taxpayers billions in fraud. 'That's my concern, that the amount of money we're losing here, money that quite honestly could go to other people that are being denied benefits or that we don't have the money to take care of because of the waste, fraud and abuse,' Woolford said. In the House Fiscal Agency's analysis of the bill, savings to Michigan as a result of reduced fraud are indeterminate and likely negligible. Regardless of whose image would appear on a card, in order for whole families to benefit from food assistance, federal rules mandate that states can't hinder members of a household from permitted purchases, so anyone with the pin number can make a purchase regardless of the image on the card, the analysis said. On Thursday, Rep. Mike Harris (R-Waterford Township) said during his law enforcement career prior to joining the Legislature, he saw frequent fraudulent use of food assistance cards. At the same time, when considering concerns that having to get a photo taken would place an undue burden on recipients, Harris said he'd be interested in seeing if the bill could be further fleshed out to allow images already in the Michigan Department of State's database for state IDs to be used for Bridge Cards.
1News
29-05-2025
- Business
- 1News
Ten cent coin with King Charles III image approved for production
A ten cent coin with the image of King Charles III has been approved for production, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has confirmed. Photos of the quality checking were released today, giving people the first look at the actual coin. RBNZ director of money and cash Ian Woolford said New Zealanders could expect to see it in their change around 2027. "We received pre-production samples of the coin to check and approve before starting the full production run. We check the coins for quality, weight, size, security properties and that they match the design we ordered," he said. The coin is stamped with the year 2024 - which is when RBNZ placed the order with the Royal Canadian Mint. New Zealand does not have a mint, therefore coins are produced overseas. ADVERTISEMENT These photos are production samples of the new coins that will be in circulation around 2027. (Source: RBNZ) The King's effigy was designed for the Royal Mint by illustrator and designer Dan Thorne to be used on all New Zealand's coins. The Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand provided advice on the 10 cent coin before it went into production. The King faces to the left in keeping with the convention that the direction changes between sovereigns. "The reverse [or tails] side of the 10 cent coin still features an image of a koruru - the carved face on the gable of a meeting house - designed by James Berry as a part of the 1967 decimal coin series," Woolford said. 'All existing circulating coins, and $20 banknotes, bearing images of Queen Elizabeth II continue to be legal tender. We order notes and coins infrequently and do not plan to destroy stock or withdraw them early from circulation as this would be wasteful and poor environmental practice.' Minting the 20 cent, 50 cent, $1 and $2 coins with the KCIII image is likely to be around 2027. Coins then typically enter circulation around two years after production. "Updating our currency with the new sovereign takes several years because we always hold sufficient stock to deal with demand spikes or supply issues. We make enough coins and banknotes just in case - not just in time," said Woolford. "We will let everyone know when the KCIII coins are due to enter circulation as the time nears." Banks, retailers, consumers and anyone using or handling cash will not need to do anything differently when we introduce the coins bearing the image of the King. We will work with the cash industry to make sure there are no glitches with cash handling machines like self-service checkouts, vending and change machines accepting and issuing the new and old coins.
Scoop
29-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
10 Cent Coin With King Charles III Image Now In Production
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua has quality checked and approved the 10 cent coin with the effigy of King Charles III, King of New Zealand (KCIII), for production and New Zealanders can expect to see it in their change around 2027. Photos of the quality checking were released today giving people the first look at the actual coin. 'We received pre-production samples of the coin to check and approve before starting the full production run. We check the coins for quality, weight, size, security properties and that they match the design we ordered,' says Ian Woolford, Director of Money and Cash – Tari Moni Whai Take. 2024 is stamped on the coin which is the year RBNZ placed the order with the Royal Canadian Mint. New Zealand does not have a mint, so our coins are produced overseas. The King's effigy was designed for the Royal Mint by illustrator and designer Dan Thorne to be used on all New Zealand's coins. The Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand provided advice on the 10 cent coin before it went into production. The King faces to the left in keeping with the convention that the direction changes between sovereigns. 'The reverse (or tails) side of the 10 cent coin still features an image of a koruru - the carved face on the gable of a meeting house - designed by James Berry as a part of the 1967 decimal coin series,' says Mr Woolford. 'All existing circulating coins, and $20 banknotes, bearing images of Queen Elizabeth II continue to be legal tender. We order notes and coins infrequently and do not plan to destroy stock or withdraw them early from circulation as this would be wasteful and poor environmental practice.' Minting the 20 cent, 50 cent, $1 and $2 coins with the KCIII image is likely to be around 2027. Coins then typically enter circulation around two years after production. 'Updating our currency with the new sovereign takes several years because we always hold sufficient stock to deal with demand spikes or supply issues. We make enough coins and banknotes just in case - not just in time,' says Mr Woolford. 'We will let everyone know when the KCIII coins are due to enter circulation as the time nears.' Banks, retailers, consumers and anyone using or handling cash will not need to do anything differently when we introduce the coins bearing the image of the King. We will work with the cash industry to make sure there are no glitches with cash handling machines like self-service checkouts, vending and change machines accepting and issuing the new and old coins.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Pontiac misses out on $2M state grant to revamp downtown but says the project will go on
The city's plans to give Madison Street in downtown Pontiac a makeover with road resurfacing and new sidewalks got some bad news recently that will affect how fast the project gets done. The city applied for a $2 million grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity but will not receive it this year. The funds were part of a $30 million award from the Rebuild Illinois Downtowns and Main Streets and Research in Illinois to Spur Economic Recovery (RISE) programs. Pontiac wanted to use the money to upgrade downtown sidewalks and streets in an area west of North Chicago Street to North Oak Street. 'The basic plan was covering four blocks, altogether,' Mayor Bill Alvey said. 'The northside would be the primary focus.' More: Illinois 116 is being redone in Pontiac. Here's what you need to know According to City Administrator Jim Woolford, the money the city was requesting was going to be spent on street resurfacing and addressing the width and slopes of the sidewalks along Madison Street. The city is still looking at the project, Woolford said, but it will have to be done in parts over time, which poses a design challenge. 'We want it all to look the same,' he said. 'That's going to be the key that the design fits with the overall scope of the plan.' Although it had been two lanes in the past, Madison Street has been one lane for a few years. It has angled parking on both sides. 'If we widen the sidewalks, it would happen on the sidewalk and not into the street,' Woolford said. 'There might be some parallel parking on one side and angled parking on the other. But that final plan hasn't been determined.' The plan is not defeated, Alvey said. 'We will revamp our ideas and move forward,' he said. 'It's in a TIF district so there will be TIF funding at the moment and other grants that we are pursuing to enhance and improve the flow of traffic downtown. "It's still something we have in the planning stage. We'll keep working on it.' Erich Murphy is a reporter at the Pontiac Daily Leader. This article originally appeared on Pontiac Daily Leader: Plans moving forward despite city missing out on grant
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How Trump slowed the fight against ‘forever chemicals'
Rachel Frazin is an energy and environment reporter at The Hilland Sharon Udasin is a US West climate and policy reporter at The Hill. The following is an excerpt from their new book, , which will be out on April 10. In 2016, US President Barack Obama signed a major overhaul of the nation's chemicals law, the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. The 2016 amendments marked a change in how the agency handled new chemicals — which would need to be proven innocent to enter the market, rather than proven guilty to be eliminated. Previously, certain chemicals 'would go out onto the market' unregulated if Environmental Protection Agency toxicologists couldn't come up with data as to why they shouldn't, said Maria Doa, who directed the EPA's Chemical Control Division in 2016. Thanks to the 2016 updates, the agency at least now had a better suite of tools to deal with new chemicals. But this upswing in regulation was relatively short lived, as the first Donald Trump administration came to power in 2017. 'January came and then we were still kind of going along,' Doa said, 'until the new folks came on board — the new political folks — and then things got more complicated.' When Trump took office, the EPA had just seen a resurgence of attention on PFAS, a group of toxic and pervasive compounds that have been used in a wide range of everyday products to make them nonstick, waterproof and stain resistant. In 2018, the agency put forward a four-step plan: In practice, however, activists, Democratic politicians, and many career EPA staffers raised concerns about how the Trump administration went about tackling the chemicals. Critics complained that the administration took years to evaluate whether to set drinking water limits — instead of actually doing so — and thereby delayed the rollout long-term. Officials alleged that the Trump administration took a similar approach to cleanup. Jim Woolford, a former EPA official, said that in April 2019, his office was charged with urgently writing a rule that would designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances. While his staff wrote the rule in a matter of a few months and he was told the administrator's office received it that autumn, he lamented that it was like 'waiting for Godot, because it just sat there.' By the time Woolford retired in April 2020, the rule still hadn't come out. And the version that the agency did ultimately publish in January 2021 had a key difference. Instead of issuing a proposed rule, as had been drafted by Woolford's staff, the EPA released an alert about its future intentions to do so — meaning, rather than moving one step forward, it effectively started the entire process over again. Those delays in regulation, Woolford contended, had the potential to cause further harm to communities struggling with the impacts of PFAS contamination. Steven Cook, a Trump EPA appointee, said that career staffers were the ones hesitant to move forward because such action 'hadn't been done before.' He contended that the EPA ultimately landed on issuing a notice that it could propose a rule — rather than actually proposing one — because the agency had not yet publicly laid out all of the pros and cons of pursuing a hazardous substance designation. The very creation of the advance notice could 'create that record,' while floating some ideas and getting feedback from members of the public, according to Cook. In terms of timing, Cook attributed the holdup to the 2020 election. He also described an agency that was trying to solve a problem but also maintain its corporate-friendly and 'deregulatory' political stance. Whatever the reason for the delay, sites around the country were anxiously awaiting the 'hazardous' designation. When it came to determining whether and how severely newer PFAS were toxic, Trump-appointed officials have been accused of straight-up changing the science — particularly when it came to assessing the risks of substances like PFBS, which replaced the now-phased out PFOS in products like firefighting foam. Instead of following career staff recommendations to assign PFBS with just one number to reflect a toxicity-related value, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, whose 40-year EPA career included directing the agency's National Exposure Research Lab and holding a leadership role in its Office of Research and Development, said that political officials offered a range of numbers — leaving room for interpretation about how toxic the substance actually was. 'That's a pretty unfounded approach,' she stated, noting that such a range could allow bad-faith actors to cherry-pick the most favorable number and leave often good-faith actors like states with less precise information about the substance's degree of toxicity. In response, David Dunlap, an EPA official during the first Trump administration, has argued that this was not a science-integrity issue, but instead was a 'compromise.' (The Biden administration later rescinded the Trump-era assessment.) Under Trump, political appointees tried to repeat this behavior with an evaluation for GenX, recalled Betsy Behl, who worked on risk assessments at the agency. 'We were facing exactly the same issues… rewriting of things and the push to provide a range of numbers, not a single number,' she said. Not only was the Trump administration's EPA interfering with scientific endeavors and failing to limit exposure to existing PFAS chemicals, the agency was also approving new ones. While the original Toxic Substances Control Act requires new chemicals to undergo safety reviews, a loophole called the Low Volume Exemption allows chemicals produced in small amounts to undergo a less rigorous review. EPA career officials said the Trump administration was able to use this escape clause to approve additional — and potentially dangerous — PFAS. In 2018, the EPA used this exemption to approve a type of PFAS for use in ski wax — despite 'uncertainty' as to whether the substance could waterproof a person's lungs, making the organ's air sacs unable to put oxygen into the blood. In total, more than 600 different PFAS were approved under the exemption over the course of several decades Twenty-nine of those took place under Trump. And while most of these exemptions occurred in decades past, to some officials, recent advancements in the science and understanding of this family of chemicals made the new approvals particularly egregious. Former EPA lawyer Mark Garvey said that when the agency was approving new PFAS, he was 'just screaming bloody murder about 'how can we approve new chemicals to go out on the market while we're saying that every time we turn around everything's worse and worse? That we're finding it in more places. That it's more toxic than we thought. That it's reacting differently.'
