Entrance fees during the busiest months at Shenandoah National Park, and 16 other parks around the country, would more than double.

Trump Administration Proposes Raising Shenandoah Entrance Fee to $70 | Washingtonian

Agggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh

Internet and cellphone service can’t be fully restored without a steady flow of electricity to individual cell towers. The pumps, filtration systems, and other equipment used to treat sewage and provide clean drinking water also can’t function without power. Right now, those plants aren’t receiving much of it.

…the lack of electricity is a literal life-and-death issue — and one that may wind up killing more Puerto Ricans than the storm itself. The island’s government says 48 people died because of the hurricane, but my colleagues Eliza Barclay and Alexia Fernández Campbell estimate that the real death toll from the storm is probably well into the hundreds.

That number could spike even higher if the blackouts continue because the island needs electricity to operate its water and sewage systems; if the grid remains offline, huge numbers of Puerto Ricans will be at real risk of dying from heatstroke, dehydration, or exposure to contaminated water.

…The reasons have to do with geography and money. Puerto Rico’s biggest power generators are on the south of the island, but most of its inhabitants live on the north side, primarily in San Juan. There are four high-capacity transmission lines that carry power from the south to the north, and they pass through the center part of the island, the region Marin calls home. The problem is that central Puerto Rico is mountainous, full of huge swaths of thick forest, and mainly reachable only by driving on terrifyingly narrow dirt roads.

…For now, the military and civilian officials working to pull Puerto Rico back from the brink are focused on bringing powerful generators to the island. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the three-star Army general leading US military relief efforts in Puerto Rico, says civilian personnel are surveying hospitals, water plants, and sewage treatment facilities to find out which facilities have generators that are already working, which have ones in of need repair, and which don’t have any at all.

“If they don’t have a generator, do they need one, and can we bring one in?” he tells me. “And when we talk generators, I’m not talking your little Honda one. I’m talking about massive generators, like the size of a semi-truck.”

FEMA has already installed 100 generators at individual hospitals, sewage treatment plants, and water pumping facilities. It plans to bring in up to 400 more, according to officials on the ground here.

Generators are a short-term fix, however; a permanent solution will take far longer.

…The [wind] turbines are in perfect working order and could be a vital source of energy for the power-starved island. Except that they can’t actually be turned on without a small amount of electricity from the grid — which, of course, isn’t currently capable of providing it.

When the grid eventually comes back online, the wind farm will be able to provide power to about 35,000 homes. Until then, the blades aren’t turning.

…The medical center, though, is rapidly changing its normal ways of doing business in order to adapt to the new reality on the ground. Rodríguez tells me that many local residents have lost their homes and are living in large communal shelters. They may not know the medical center is open; even if they do, they often have no way of getting here.

In response, Rodríguez is sending doctors and nurses to the shelters, which are already seeing periodic outbreaks of infectious diseases such as conjunctivitis and parasite-borne skin diseases like scabies. That’s a new approach for the medical center, but Rodríguez feels like she’d be letting down her community if she didn’t experiment with alternative methods of delivering care. “This is our new normal,” she says.

Darkness: life in Puerto Rico without electricity – Vox

sigh…

Tesla’s first project to restore electricity in Puerto Rico is a children’s hospital in San Juan.

…The automaker, which previously committed to helping the U.S. territory recover from Hurricane Maria, is combining its commercial batteries and solar panels at the children’s hospital. The company said it is the first of many projects on the island that will use batteries and solar panel to restore power there.

A week after the first Powerwalls were sent to Puerto Rico, [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk said on Twitter that the company could theoretically rebuild the U.S. territory’s electricity system with solar and battery systems. [PR Gov. Ricardo] Rossello quickly jumped in on the Twitter discussion and invited Musk to talk about making the island a flagship project for Tesla.

Tesla Restoring Power to Children’s Hospital Puerto Rico

hmmmm

The Senate voted Tuesday night to kill a controversial pending rule that would have allowed Americans to file class-action suits against banks instead of being forced into private arbitration or small claims court.

…The move by the Senate followed a similar action by the House in July to rescind the rule. …Trump is expected to sign the repeal legislation, providing a major victory for the financial industry.

…Pence cast the deciding vote after the Senate tied 50-50. All but two Republicans — John Kennedy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — voted to repeal the rule. No Democrats or independents supported the move.

…For years, Wells Fargo used arbitration clauses to block lawsuits from customers who alleged that unauthorized accounts had been opened in their names. Ultimately, the bank estimated that as many as 3.5 million such accounts were opened.

The bank agreed to settle some class-actions suits, but not until the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office fined the bank over those practices last year. Even in cases that the bank settled, it had argued that the plaintiffs could not sue because of arbitration clauses.

Democrats cited the Wells Fargo case and the recent massive data breach at credit reporting company Equifax as proof that the new CFPB rule was needed to protect consumers from abuses.

Equifax has been criticized for initially making consumers give up their right to sue if they wanted to take advantage of the company’s offer of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection after the breach. Equifax later backtracked on that requirement after a public uproar.

…Last year, congressional Republicans tried to repeal a consumer bureau rule for retirement advisors. The measure passed the House and Senate, but Obama vetoed it.

On Monday, the Treasury Department issued a report slamming the arbitration rule as flawed and a giveaway to class-action attorneys.

Senate votes to kill new rule allowing class-action lawsuits against banks after Pence casts deciding vote – LA Times

Just in case you were deluded into thinking the Congressional GOP is looking out for voters.

A $300 million contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical infrastructure, which was awarded to a small, two-year-old Montana company that had only two employees when Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory, has sparked calls for an investigation from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. 

In addition to its size and relative inexperience, the fact that Whitefish Energy Holdings is based in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish, Mont., is fueling questions about how Whitefish Energy Holdings secured the lucrative contract. The former Montana congressman’s son also had a summer job at a Whitefish construction site.

Congress questions $300M Puerto Rico contract with tiny energy firm

For kerreyest sake….