Legislation aimed at boosting US chip production has cleared its last major hurdle. The House of Representatives has passed the CHIPS and Science Act in a 243-187-1 vote, leaving just the reconciliation process and President Biden's signature before the bill becomes law. The equivalent Senate measure passed 64-33 in a vote one day earlier.

The Act is a dialed-down version of previous bills, but promises significant help for American semiconductor manufacturing. It offers more than $52 billion for US chipmakers as well as tax credits for domestic factories. In a statement, the President claimed the bill would lower product costs, create "high-paying" jobs and reduce the country's dependence on foreign chip sources.

Earlier approaches drew objections from both sides of Congress. Republicans were concerned the reconciliation bill would include unrelated climate, health and tax elements. They also said it risked funding Chinese manufacturing. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, has expressed concerns the bill might reward chip manufacturers already rolling in cash, and was the only non-Republican in the Senate to vote against it.

The CHIPS and Science Act isn't expected to affect production in the short term. It will take companies years to build new factories and otherwise upgrade facilities to tackle chip shortages and improve manufacturing independence. If things play out as its supporters imagine, however, CHIPS will hopefully decrease the severity of future supply chain crunches.

A group of 411 TV showrunners, creators and writers sent letters to executives at streaming platforms and other major Hollywood companies to demand better protections for workers in anti-abortion states. "We have grave concerns about the lack of specific production protocols in place to protect those at work for Netflix in anti-abortion states," they wrote in a letter to Netflix. “It is unacceptable to ask any person to choose between their human rights and their employment.” 

Similar letters, which were first reported on by Variety, were addressed to the likes of Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate, Amazon and AMC. The signatories include well-known creators, such as Issa Rae, Lilly Wachowski, Lena Waithe, Amy Schumer, Shonda Rhimes, Mindy Kaling, Ava DuVernay and Lena Dunham. They're demanding specific safety measures for people working on productions in states that have banned abortion after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month.

The group has demanded that the companies respond with details on their abortion safety plans within 10 days. Among other things, the writers want information on abortion travel subsidies, medical care for pregnancy complications (including ectopic pregnancies) and legal protections for workers who uphold a studio's abortion policies or help someone else obtain an abortion. They also implored the companies to immediately halt “all political donations to anti-abortion candidates and political action committees."

A Bloomberg report this week noted that studios are spending billions on productions in states that have banned or restricted abortions, though many were already filming before the Supreme Court decision in late June. Georgia, for instance, offers generous tax credits to productions, which has helped the state become a TV and film powerhouse. Last week, a law came into effect in the state. It essentially banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many people know whether they're pregnant.

Automakers might just get the EV tax credit extension they've been hoping for. Bloomberg and InsideEVs claim Senators Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin have reached an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act that would replace the 200,000-unit cap on federal EV tax credits with a system that would restore those perks for GM, Tesla and Toyota. According to Bloomberg's sources, the new approach is a compromise that would switch to price- and income-based limits, drop union manufacturing requirements and offer credits for used EVs.

The Act would provide up to $7,500 in credits for electric SUVs, trucks and vans priced up to $80,000, while cars would have to cost $55,000 or less. Individuals would have to earn no more than $150,000 per year, while couples could make up to $300,000 with the credit intact. You would reportedly get up to a $4,000 credit for buying a used EV, although the income ceiling is said to be much lower. Crucially, the credit could be offered at the point of sale (such as online or a dealership) rather than as a tax refund — you'd get your savings much sooner.

Although the agreement is expected to drop the union production requirement, there would still be incentives for domestic manufacturing. Although the exact terms aren't clear, EVs would have to be built in North America and source many materials from the region. This would mainly represent a concession to Canada, which balked at earlier proposed legislation that would have required US-only assembly. Canadian factories produce US-destined cars for multiple major brands.

The Schumer-Manchin pact is also poised to revive some of the Biden administration's environmental strategy, including its hopes of zero-emissions vehicles representing half of new sales by 2030. It's expected to include $369 billion in climate and energy spending, Bloomberg said. Manchin had objected to the past proposal, in part because he felt the union requirement would favor incumbent American brands like Ford and GM while disadvantaging rivals like Tesla. 

More details of the deal are still to come, and there's a chance the terms could change. If the Inflation Reduction Act passes as claimed, though, it could significantly alter the automotive landscape. GM, Tesla and Toyota could effectively lower the prices of their EVs and offset recent hikes, while Nissan and other marques wouldn't have to worry about hitting a unit cap in the first place. The move could also spark life in the used EV market by offering a clearer financial incentive versus buying new. Simply put, EVs could become more accessible even without lower-cost models in the pipeline.

The US government just crossed a key milestone in its bid to improve domestic chip production and compete with rivals like China. CNBCreports the Senate has passed the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill to fund and incentivize American semiconductor manufacturing, in a 64-to-33 vote. The measure includes over $52 billion for US firms making chips, additional funding for further technology development and tax credits to spur manufacturing investments.

The Act, also known as "CHIPS-plus," is a scaled-back version of bills previously circulating through Congress. Those efforts received opposition across the political spectrum. Republicans objected to earlier measures with accusations that Democrats were pushing a partisan reconciliation bill that would include climate, medicine and tax considerations. There were also concerns funding might inadvertently reach China. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, was concered that a past variant was a "blank check" to already-profitable chip producers. 

The House will still have to pass and help reconcile counterpart legislation before President Biden can sign the bill into law. That's considered very likely, however, as the Senate has cleared a 60-vote filibuster threshold. The House is expected to pass its version when Democrats only need to wield their majority to succeed.

The expected law is unlikely to have an immediate effect when new factories take years to complete, and upgrades aren't necessarily quicker. It won't address near-term chip shortages. Even so, CHIPS could play an important role in American tech manufacturing. On top of reducing the chances of future shortages, it could reduce the dependence on Taiwan and other semiconductor hubs threatened by countries like China. While there are no guarantees the Act will lead to more jobs and lower prices, it might help the US compete in an increasingly fierce market.

President Biden's administration is backing up its funding for heat disaster prevention with a website to keep people informed. Fast Companynotes the White House has launched a Heat.gov website to help the public and authorities understand the dangers of extreme heat and reduce the health risks. The 11-agency collaboration offers maps for current and expected temperature spikes across the US, prevention guidance and data-driven tools.

Among the resources are a CDC-made Heat & Health Tracker that shows both historic and predicted trends. You'll see how much hotter your area has become over the decades, for instance. Other tools help you understand the effects of extreme heat on vulnerable groups, or aid communities seeking funds for city heat maps. The Biden administration has already been using the data to guide $50 billion in federal spending, White House climate advisor David Hayes said.

The Heat.gov debut comes just as the US (and many other parts of the world) grapples with particularly severe heat waves, and is part of a larger strategy to deal with the realities of climate change. Temperatures are expected to keep climbing, and this could help planners mitigate the dangers. In his most recent initiatives, President Biden sent $2.3 billion to FEMA for climate-related disaster "resilience," expanded low-income energy help to include efficient air conditioning and proposed wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico.

The website is also consolation of sorts. The Supreme Court recently curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to enforce the Clean Air Act. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin also thwarted efforts to include climate change measures in a federal spending bill. While Heat.gov won't compensate for those losses, it potentially draws more attention to climate issues.

The Secret Service may face serious legal repercussions over deleted text messages relating to the January 6th, 2021 Capitol attack. NBC Newssources said the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General has opened a criminal investigation into the deletion of texts from the days surrounding the riot. The Secret Service has been ordered to stop its own internal probes, according to a copy of a letter DHS Deputy Inspector General Gladys Ayala sent to the agency.

In a statement, the Secret Service acknowledged receiving Ayala's letter. It promised a "thorough legal review" to ensure it was "fully cooperative" with all oversight.

Word of the deleted texts came last week, when the Inspector General's office said that Secret Service texts from January 5th and 6th had been deleted as part of a "device replacement program." Agents were supposed to back up their messages before the migration, but it's not clear that happened. While the Secret Service told the House's January 6th committee that it was "currently unaware" of any lost messages, CNNreported, it also acknowledged that it was still trying to recover messages. The service hasn't provided more than a single message thread in response to a House committee subpoena.

It's not yet clear if the messages are recoverable, and there isn't any known evidence of malicious intent. Whatever the circumstances, there's a chance the Secret Service could face significant charges. House committee leaders Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson warned that the service might have violated the Federal Records Act by failing to keep the messages. At the least, the investigation highlights the challenges and importance of preserving data in modern government — a botched migration could impact crucial proceedings.

The US and UK have signed a Data Access Agreement that will allow law enforcement agencies in each country to request user internet data from the other, the Department of Justice (DoJ) and UK Home Office said in a joint press release. The agreement was created in 2019 as the CLOUD Act to allow the nations to fight serious crimes including terrorism, child abuse and cybercrime. 

"The Data Access Agreement will allow information and evidence that is held by service providers within each of our nations and relates to the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of serious crime to be accessed more quickly than ever before," the DoJ wrote. "This will help, for example, our law enforcement agencies gain more effective access to the evidence they need to bring offenders to justice, including terrorists and child abuse offenders, thereby preventing further victimization."

First hatched in 2017, the plan came about because crime fighting agencies in each country were hamstrung by laws that made it difficult to obtain overseas data from ISPs and companies like Google and Facebook. The aim was to create a bilateral agreement to remove some of those roadblocks and still "maintain rigorous privacy protections for citizens," the UK Home Office said at the time. Australia also joined the CLOUD Act late last year. 

Both agencies promise to "maintain the strong oversight and protections that our citizens enjoy," and not compromise or erode human rights. When the law was originally drafted, however, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called it "a dangerous expansion of police snooping on cross-border data."

President Biden is still unveiling measures to combat climate change, and his newest efforts are aimed at preventing environmental crises. The President has outlined a string of executive actions that, notably, include the first "Wind Energy Areas" in the Gulf of Mexico. The 700,000 acres will allow for enough potential offshore wind power to supply over 3 million homes, according to the administration. The Secretary of the Interior, meanwhile, will further work on wind power along the mid-to-southern Atlantic Coast as well as the Florida Coast.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has unveiled $2.3 billion in funding to bolster resilience against heat waves, wildfires and similar climate change-related disasters. New guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services expands the use of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program for air conditioning, community cooling centers and other resources to fight extreme heat.

As in the past, Biden characterized his efforts as useful for the economy, not just the environment. The wind power projects should create jobs, while the FEMA and Health Department initiatives could minimize the damage from natural disasters. These events disproportionately hurt minorities and underserved communities, he said, and they also put critical infrastructure at risk.

Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The White House has also devoted billions of dollars to clean energy projects, planned a national EV charging network and fought to reverse the purchase of gas-powered Postal Service vehicles.

This isn’t as extensive a response as some expected. The Washington Post reported that Biden considered declaring a climate emergency this week, though press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed he is still open to the idea. Biden is far from alone in failing to treat the warming climate with urgency, though. Congress has struggled to pass climate-related legislation given Senate opposition from Republicans and Democrat holdout Joe Manchin. These executive moves could help Biden advance elements of his climate agenda despite the legislative roadblock.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service plans to substantially increase the number of electric-powered vehicles it’s buying to replace its fleet of aging delivery trucks, officials said Wednesday.

The Postal Service anticipates boosting electric vehicles from 20 percent to 50 percent in its initial purchase of 50,000 vehicles — with the first of them rolling onto delivery routes next year. It also proposes buying an additional 34,500 commercially available vehicles over two years, officials said.

The proposal, to be posted in the Federal Register on Thursday, came after 16 states, environmental groups and a labor union sued to halt purchases of next-generation delivery vehicles under the initial plan that was skewed heavily toward gas-powered trucks.

The new environmental proposal effectively pauses the purchases at 84,500 total vehicles — 40 percent electric — even as the Postal Service seek to buy up to 165,000 next-generation vehicles over the next decade to replace aging delivery trucks that went into service between 1987 and 1994.

Future purchases would focus on smaller amounts of vehicles in shorter intervals than the original 10-year environmental analysis, officials said. 

The goal is to be more responsive to the Postal Service's evolving operational strategy, technology improvements and changing market conditions, the Postal Service said in a statement. A public hearing on the new proposal will be held next month.

The next-generation delivery vehicles are taller to make it easier for postal carriers to grab packages and parcels that make up a greater share of volume. They also have improved ergonomics and climate control. 

Investigators raised alarm bells when they learned Homeland Security bureaus were buying phone location data to effectively bypass the Fourth Amendment requirement for a search warrant, and now it's clearer just how extensive those purchases were. TechCrunchnotes the American Civil Liberties Union has obtained records linking Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other DHS divisions to purchases of roughly 336,000 phone location points from the data broker Venntel. The info represents just a "small subset" of raw data from the southwestern US, and includes a burst of 113,654 points collected over just three days in 2018.

The dataset, delivered through a Freedom of Information Act request, also outlines the agencies' attempts to justify the bulk data purchases. Officials maintained that users voluntarily offered the data, and that it included no personally identifying information. As TechCrunch explains, though, that's not necessarily accurate. Phone owners aren't necessarily aware they opted in to location sharing, and likely didn't realize the government was buying that data. Moreover, the data was still tied to specific devices — it wouldn't have been difficult for agents to link positions to individuals.

Some Homeland Security workers expressed internal concerns about the location data. One senior director warned that the Office of Science and Technology bought Venntel info without getting a necessaryPrivacy Threshold Assessment. At one point, the department even halted all projects using Venntel data after learning that key legal and privacy questions had gone unanswered.

More details could be forthcoming, as Homeland Security is still expected to provide more documents in response to the FOIA request. We've asked Homeland Security and Venntel for comment. However, the ACLU report might fuel legislative efforts to ban these kinds of data purchases, including the Senate's bipartisan Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act as well as the more recently introduced Health and Location Data Protection Act.