Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

Saving Helium: Something Lawmakers Actually Agree On

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Feb. 6, 2013 3:07 PM PST

Congress: Keeping balloon Hello Kitty alive since 2013.

The world is facing a helium crisis. Helium is a finite and rapidly diminishing resource, one we could run out of in the next 25 years. And here we've been blowing up giant Snoopy balloons and making ourselves sound like pre-pubescent boys for all these years.

The shortage is causing helium prices to, well, balloon. And apparently it's all Congress' fault:

Scientists have warned that the world's most commonly used inert gas is being depleted at an astonishing rate because of a law passed in the United States in 1996 which has effectively made helium too cheap to recycle.

The law stipulates that the US National Helium Reserve, which is kept in a disused underground gas field near Amarillo, Texas – by far the biggest store of helium in the world – must all be sold off by 2015, irrespective of the market price.

But now the House of Representatives—in a rare bipartisan effort—is trying to change that. On Wednesday, Democratic Reps. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Rush Holt (N.J.) and Republican Reps. Doc Hastings (Wash.) and Bill Flores (Texas) announced that they are working together on the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act. The bill would change how the Helium Reserve, which provides half of all helium used in the United States and a third of the helium used all over the world, works and extend its life beyond 2015. It would auction off most of the helium in the reserve at market value (which will be determined by the Secretary of Interior), instead of selling it at cut rates. It will also require that we keep the last 3 billion cubic feet of helium in the reserve for use for research purposes.

Helium isn't just necessary for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, as the lawmakers point out. It's also used in computer chips, MRI scans, fiberoptic cables, and NASA's rockets.

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Obama to Nominate REI CEO as Secretary of Interior

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Feb. 6, 2013 12:00 PM PST

According to numerous reports, President Obama will announce on Wednesday that he is nominating Recreational Equipment Incorporated CEO Sally Jewell to serve as the next Secretary of Interior. Jewell, as Washington State native, is certainly a nontraditional pick for a job typically given to Western politicos, and the selection is drawing interesting responses.

(Full disclosure—I'm an REI junkie. The flagship store in Seattle is basically my happy place. You can get many products that are made with recycled materials or made in the US, and you can return anything. OK, end of disclosure.)

Environmental groups issued excited press releases about the selection, noting that Jewell and REI have partnered with both Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation on programs to promote the outdoors. "Whether it's been through her work to get more kids outside or her accomplishments in building a business that recognizes the passion Americans have to explore the outdoors, Sally Jewell has demonstrated that she knows just how important our wild places are to our national legacy and our economy," Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in a press release.

But members of Congress from states heavily involved in energy development were much more cautious. "The livelihoods of Americans living and working in the West rely on maintaining a real balance between conservation and economic opportunity," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). "I look forward to hearing about the qualifications Ms. Jewell has that make her a suitable candidate to run such an important agency, and how she plans to restore balance to the Interior Department."

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chairman of the Public Lands and Environmental Regulation subcommittee of the Natural Resources Committee, said he has "reservations" about the Jewell appointment, including concerns that REI has "intimately supported several special interest groups and subsequently helped to advance their radical political agendas" (i.e., Sierra Club and NWF).

Before coming to REI, Jewell worked as an engineer for Mobil Oil and a banker. See Sarah van Schagen's Grist profile of Jewell from 2007 for more.

Work Less, Save the Planet

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Feb. 5, 2013 3:12 PM PST

Here's a way to cut carbon emissions that is so easy, it actually makes you do less work: cutting back on your work hours. A new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research concludes that if we all worked fewer hours, we could cut future global warming by as much as 22 percent by 2100.

"The calculation is simple: fewer work hours means less carbon emissions, which means less global warming," says economist and paper author David Rosnick. His research found that dialing back the amount of time the average person works by 0.5 percent per year would mean a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. If you work 40 hours a week, that would mean shaving about 12 minutes off the average work week per year. Working one minute less per month seems pretty doable. Basically, we're using a whole lot more of everything when we're working–electricity, gasoline, heating, air conditioning, etc. Leisure is requires less greenhouse-gas-producing activity.

Rosnick notes that much of the anticipated future global warming is locked in by the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we've already put in the atmosphere. But cutting back on work time could eliminate a quarter to a half of the global warming anticipated from future emissions, he argues. But he acknowledges that this is a more difficult proposition in an economy like the United States that has major inequality between high- and low-income earners. He explains:

In the United States, for example, just under two-thirds of all income gains from 1973–2007 went to the top 1 percent of households. In this type of economy, the majority of workers would have to take an absolute reduction in their living standards in order to work less.

Europeans have already gone this route, expanding the amount of time workers get for vacation and holidays. The US, instead, has plugged forward with ever-longer work days. But as Rosnick argues, cutting back on the number of hours we work may increase our productivity in the time we are working.

"Increased productivity need not fuel carbon emissions and climate change," said CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot in a statement accompanying the paper. "Increased productivity should allow workers to have more time off to spend with their families, friends, and communities. This is positive for society, and is quantifiably better for the planet as well."

Paper Giant Pledges to Leave the Poor Rainforest Alone. Finally.

Asia Pulp & Paper—the notorious destroyer of pristine tiger and orangutan habitat—says it's changing its ways.

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Feb. 5, 2013 1:06 AM PST

Deforestation in Indonesia

If you've ever bought toilet paper, a bucket of KFC chicken, or photocopy paper, there's a decent chance that it came from Asia Pulp & Paper, the third largest paper producer in the world. There's also a chance that that paper was made from the quickly disappearing Indonesian rainforest—which is why activists and environmental organizations have long labeled Asia Pulp & Paper a "forest criminal" for destroying this precious habitat. But Tuesday, APP and environmental activists came together to announce a new conservation policy that they say will stop the company's destruction of virgin forests forever.

APP has pledged to develop plantations only on land that is not rainforest or land that has already been cleared—and on February 1, it halted its bulldozers in the pristine forests that are home to species like the Sumatran tiger and the orangutan. The company has also committed to consult with indigenous and local communities on any proposed new plantations. The Forest Trust, a non-profit that works with corporations to instate sustainable forest practices, will monitor the implementation of the new policy.

The agreement on third-party evaluation is significant, according to Scott Poynton, the executive director of the Forest Trust, which worked with APP to design the new policy. While the company has drawn criticism in the past for not living up to promised environmental changes, Poynton said that this new policy is much stronger than any previous pledges.

Arguably the trickiest part of all this is that the new policy applies not only to APP, but also to its business partners; as other corporations have found, controlling your whole supply chain can be difficult. But if it succeeds, the impact will be great: APP is a $6 billion company that produces 8.5 million tons of paper per year. The company and its suppliers control 6.4 million acres in Indonesia alone.

The Forest Trust, which began working with APP in February 2012, specializes in changing corporate giants from the inside. In 2010, it worked with Nestlé to get deforested products out of its supply chain. Poynton said the group's strategy is to wait for companies to request help in devising sustainability plans. "We believe if we want to solve the problem we ought to work with the folks who are causing it," he explained. Forest Trust has 50 staffers dedicated to ending deforestation in Indonesia, Poynton said, including experts in forestry, ecology, social science, and conflict resolution. Thirty of them have been working with APP to develop the new policy.

As Poynton was quick to point out, it was the campaigning from Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and other environmental groups that pushed APP to the table in the first place. "This would never have happened without efforts of Greenpeace and other NGOS that campaigned against [APP]," he said. "But we also don't think it could have happened without someone on the inside like us working with the company to figure out how to get there."

Greenpeace has been campaigning against APP for years, exposing the company's use of illegally logged trees and highlighting the ways in which its deforestation contributes to skyrocketing carbon emissions. Greenpeace and convinced more than 100 companies—including giants like Adidas, Kraft, Staples, and Nestlé—to stop doing business with APP. One of Greenpeace's campaigns asked Barbie—a Mattel product—to "break up" with APP, which prompted the toy giant to stop sourcing paper from "controversial sources."

"We don't want any image of forest destruction or deforestation attached to us," said an APP spokeswoman.

"I think APP is really seeing that pressure from the market," said Bustar Maitar, the head of Greenpeace's forest campaign in Indonesia. "There is no choice for them to keep their products in the international market. They have to do forest protection in Indonesia."

Maitar is optimistic that the change could move the rest of the global paper and pulp market, too. "APP's commitment will send a strong signal to the rest of the world to move on forest protection," he said. "Otherwise they will lose their international market."

Aida Greenbury, APP's managing director of sustainability, told Mother Jones that the campaigns from Greenpeace and others didn't directly hurt the company's bottom line. But they did affect its reputation. "The loss we suffer mostly is linked to the image, the perception about APP," said Greenbury. "If you want to be recognized as a true global leader, we don't want any image of forest destruction or deforestation attached to us."

Greenbury said that the commitment also reflects APP's business interests. "Truthfully it's not only about environmental and social sustainability, it's also about economic sustainability as well," she continued. "We need work with stakeholders not only in Indonesia but beyond, because we want to make sure that we don't have a lost opportunity in the future to expand our market."

While supportive of the announcement, Greenpeace's Maitar conditioned his praise with the statement that Greenpeace will be monitoring APP's success in putting its commitment into action. "For us this is the last opportunity of APP to make the commitment and implement it on the ground," he said. "This is the golden opportunity for APP."

Obama Admin Widens Exemption for Contraception Coverage

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Feb. 1, 2013 10:46 AM PST

The Obama administration announced a shift in its policy regarding insurance coverage for contraception on Friday. The new policy provides an accommodation for faith-based non-profit organizations to the requirement that their group health insurance plans cover birth control.

The contraception policy previously exempted religious organizations that had "inculcation of religious values" as their main purpose and primarily employed and served people who shared their religious tenets. But other religious organizations that offer services (like meals, education, or health care) to and employ people not of their faith worried that they might not qualify for the exemption. With the new accommodation, those non-profits would have to certify that they oppose providing the contraceptive services required under the law; after they do that, they'd be given a pass from providing contraceptive coverage in their group health insurance plans. Instead, those women will get a separate plan directly from the insurance company that covers contraception.

This issue had been the subject of several lawsuits filed by religious-affiliated institutions like hospitals, schools, and social service organizations that believed they should not have to provide coverage for things that don't align with their religious beliefs.

The new policy also changes the category of organizations that can qualify for a full exemption from the policy to the IRS' definition, which includes all "churches, other houses of worship, and their affiliated organizations." These organizations don't have to provide contraception coverage at all if they oppose it.

One group that has been hoping for an opt-out for contraception coverage that didn't get it: Private-sector CEOs who personally oppose birth control will not be able to remove it from employees' plans.

Reproductive rights groups praised the change as a smart compromise. NARAL Pro-Choice America said in a statement that it is "optimistic that these new draft regulations will make near-universal contraceptive coverage a reality."

"This policy delivers on the promise of women having access to birth control without co-pays no matter where they work," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. "Of course, we are reviewing the technical aspects of this proposal, but the principle is clear and consistent. This policy makes it clear that your boss does not get to decide whether you can have birth control."

This story has been corrected to clarify the new policy.