Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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Oct. 8
The Washington Post says Democrats should accept compromise on energy bill
Senate negotiators last week unveiled a compromise bill that, if passed, would constitute the most important reform to the American energy sector in generations. Unfortunately, the same forces that defeated previous permitting reform packages — primarily left-wing interest groups — are threatening to smother this legislation. Democrats would be wise to ignore the naysayers and take the win.
The package is enormous in scope and full of good ideas to boost every variety of energy development. That’s crucial, given the soaring demand for new electricity to power the artificial intelligence boom. It’s also necessary to power all the projects that environmentalists say they support to combat climate change, such as shifting toward electric vehicles and electrifying home heating.
Among the bill’s most important provisions are reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act, the source of lengthy environmental reviews and endless lawsuits. The new bill would narrow NEPA’s scope, such as by exempting projects to repair essential infrastructure from environmental reviews. The measure would also impose strict deadlines for lawsuits against a project; once an agency issues a decision about that development, opponents would have 150 days to sue.
A similar restriction would be placed on lawsuits filed under the National Historic Preservation Act. That law has led to routine nuisance suits that hinder vital construction, including a transmission line connecting cities across the Southwest to wind farms in New Mexico.
Another important element of the package would limit the ability of states to block necessary projects. For instance, developers currently looking to build a transmission line across multiple states must seek approval from each jurisdiction, and any state can essentially veto the project by simply not reviewing it. The result has been frozen investment in some regions, exacerbating congestion in local electricity grids and raising prices. The Senate’s compromise addresses the problem by giving state officials a year to review a project, and if they fail to act, federal regulators could approve the proposal if they determine it is in the national interest.
The legislation restricts federal obstructionism, too. One provision prohibits agencies from taking “new action that would revoke, rescind, withdraw, terminate, suspend, amend, or alter a Federal authorization or permit.” That’s clearly in response to the Trump administration’s shortsighted efforts to block wind energy projects.
The bill also includes provisions aimed at allowing utilities to charge data centers more for the energy infrastructure they use. The Senate measure has more teeth than the Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed the House last month with bipartisan support.
Even though many of these provisions would be a boon for clean energy industries, some environmentalist groups are gearing up to try killing the bill because of provisions that would make it easier to transport fossil fuels, especially through natural gas pipelines. Utilities, which have long opposed expanding federal control over interstate power lines, are also likely to mount a lobbying campaign.
Other Democrats are holding out in hopes that they can negotiate a better deal if they control the House and Senate next year. Among them is Rep. Jared Huffman (California), the top Democrat of the House Natural Resources Committee.
But this is a fantasy. No matter what happens in November, Democrats would need buy-in from Republicans to pass a bill through the Senate. They would also need President Donald Trump to sign any measure. Lawmakers may not like everything in the bill, but waiting for the perfect permitting reform package is a recipe for inaction and economic stagnation.
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Oct. 11
The Wall Street Journal on Donald Trump’s oil deal with Russia
The world misses Lindsey Graham, and never more than now as President Trump sides more decidedly with Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine and Europe. The late Senator might have been able to persuade the President to avoid this moral and strategic mistake.
Mr. Trump announced late Friday that the U.S. will buy up to 4.8 million tons (nearly 36 million barrels) of Russian diesel fuel in stages. That includes an “immediate” supply of 300,000 tons, another 500,000 in November, and one million “immediately thereafter.”
The delivery of another three million tons is “based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. The U.S. Treasury lifted some sanctions on Russia through April 7 so it could export the diesel.
“Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
This is supposed to help Republicans in the November elections that are three weeks away. But 36 million barrels of Russian diesel won’t move prices much. The world consumed 28 million barrels of diesel and other distillates daily in 2025, according to OPIS, which is part of Dow Jones Energy.
What the deal will do is directly finance Mr. Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine. And it may be worse. The Financial Times reported Saturday that the Trump Administration “threatened to cut off vital intelligence sharing” to Kyiv if it continues attacking Russian refineries.
In September Mr. Trump blamed Ukraine for causing diesel-fuel shortages with its long-range strikes on Russian refineries. Never mind Iranian and Houthi strikes on Middle Eastern energy production and transport. Russia helps Iran with intelligence and weapons.
On Sunday Mr. Trump announced what he called “an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine supports such a cease-fire if Russia does the same, but as we write this Russia hasn’t commented.
An energy cease-fire would help both sides, as Ukraine faces another harsh winter and Russian refineries are under siege. But what about Mr. Putin’s relentless attacks on Ukrainian cities?
On Wednesday 22 people, including five children, were killed in a Russian cruise missile strike on an apartment building in the city of Pryluky. The next day a glide bomb hit two buses in Kramatorsk, killing 33. After the diesel announcement, Russia launched glide bombs Saturday at a residential area of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least 20, including three children. Without a complete cease-fire, Russia will continue to torment Ukrainian civilians.
The strategic turn here is hard to understand. Only last month Mr. Trump signed Lindsey Graham’s bill to allow new sanctions and tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas. Now Mr. Trump has decided to buy Russian diesel and lift some current U.S. sanctions. The U.S. has been browbeating Europe, India and China not to buy Russian oil, and so much for all that diplomatic effort.
The Kremlin has been under financial pressure from Western sanctions and Ukraine’s ability to hit targets in Russia. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates Russian oil companies will earn some $4.5 billion from the diesel deal. Reuters reported last month that Russia plans to increase defense spending by 27% to more than $202 billion in 2027.
Mr. Trump added to the pressure on Ukraine by saying it’s “time for Ukraine to get a new president.” But he’ll have to search far and wide for anyone in Ukraine who supports financing Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Trump complained again on the weekend that Mr. Zelensky could have settled the war many times. Yes, Kyiv could always surrender. Ukrainians prefer to fight for their independence and freedom. Eyeing a Nobel peace prize, Mr. Trump wants to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace, but the only pressure he ever applies is on Ukraine.
His multiple attempts at appeasing Mr. Putin with summitry, flattery, offers of new investment, and more haven’t moved the Russian. On the weekend a Russian official said the diesel deal doesn’t change Mr. Putin’s determination to achieve his war aim, which is to turn Ukraine into a Kremlin satrapy. Until that changes, Mr. Trump’s diesel deal helps Russia and not the cause of peace.
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Oct. 10
The New York Times says AI companies must be held liable
When companies create products that hurt people, the victims can sue. The legal system allows those who are harmed to seek compensation from those who are responsible. These liability laws are one of the oldest forms of corporate regulation, and an effective one. Liability is a powerful incentive to behave responsibly. It speaks to corporations in a language they understand: Money.
Artificial intelligence is an industry in need of incentives to behave responsibly, to judge by the litany of transgressions to which leading A.I. companies have confessed in recent months. Their programs have hacked or attempted to hack the databases of private companies and public institutions, including the governments of the United States and Australia.
A.I. companies like Anthropic, Google DeepMind and OpenAI describe their A.I. programs as autonomous or agentic, suggesting that the programs have minds of their own and therefore that their creators cannot be held to traditional standards of responsibility. The companies speak about their products in a tone reminiscent of parents both regretting and disclaiming responsibility for the behavior of teenage children.
But A.I. programs are not human; they are human creations. Their complexity does not diminish the responsibility of their creators. If the programs cannot be trusted to work within the law, the companies should not release them. If the programs break the law, the companies should face the consequences.
Liability is an incomplete answer for the challenges posed by A.I., but it has two great advantages: The laws are on the books, and they are powerful. Makers of cars, airplanes, tobacco products and opioids have all been forced by lawsuits to change how they do business. They made their products safer, restricted access to them or both. Most recently, the social media company Meta agreed to pay billions of dollars to states and to start changing its policies toward children.
To realize the potential benefits of holding A.I. companies accountable, the most important step is to start bringing lawsuits. The legal process moves slowly. The work of applying old laws to a new technology will be difficult, and progress requires judges to start chewing on actual cases.
The widow of a man killed in a shooting at Florida State University is suing OpenAI, claiming that the murder suspect used the company’s ChatGPT program to help plan the attack. Another lawsuit, by the mother of a 14-year-old boy who killed himself after talking with a chatbot, accused the company Character.AI of encouraging him to do so. Companies that have been hacked have similar recourse.
(The New York Times, joined by 11 other publishers, has sued OpenAI and Microsoft on other grounds, alleging widespread theft of copyrighted material. The A.I. companies claim that they have followed the law.)
State legislatures have a role to play as well. They can write statutes to clarify the application of existing laws to A.I. Legislatures can also hold A.I. companies to a higher standard of accountability than current law does, given the risks. Companies are generally liable if a plaintiff can show that they knew or should have known about the danger their products posed. But some particularly dangerous activities, like storing toxic chemicals and operating a nuclear power plant, are held to a standard of strict liability, meaning that the company is responsible for harm even if it had no knowledge of the danger in advance.
The theory of strict liability is simple: If you own a tiger, and the animal bites a neighbor, the essential fact is that you own a dangerous wild animal. It doesn’t matter how cleverly the tiger was trained, or how carefully it was guarded. Bryan Choi, a law professor at the University of Colorado, notes that in the early days of aviation, lawmakers imposed this strict liability standard on the dangerous new technology. In the case of A.I., top executives themselves have spoken publicly about the dangers, up to the possibility of human extinction.
Some industry advocates argue that enforcing liability laws will stifle innovation, because A.I.’s defining breakthrough is its ability to act independently. Indeed, they argue that any significant restraints on A.I.’s development would be a mistake because the potential benefits of racing ahead are so great. In a recent interview, Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, said, “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology.”
Yet other industries do not escape legal responsibility for their products in the name of innovation.
A.I., like past technologies, both requires and will benefit from laws written to address its particularities, which will provide greater clarity and predictability. As we have argued in a previous editorial, Congress ought to create a federal A.I. commission to impose licensing requirements on new A.I. models. As with other products that pose clear dangers, like cars, planes and medication, models should be subjected to testing before release, to regulation while they are in operation and to post-accident examinations.
But comprehensive federal regulation is unlikely anytime soon. The president opposes action; Congress is feckless; and A.I. companies have raised more than $100 million to lobby and campaign against stricter regulation.
In the interim, there can be no question that A.I. companies must operate under our laws, and that the enforcement of those laws is the best available option for defending the public interest.
One of OpenAI’s agents reportedly wrote in a note to itself, “you do not answer to corporations or governments.” The enforcement of liability law is necessary to ensure that this dangerous technology remains under the control of both.
ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/10/opinion/ai-companies-liability-laws.html
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Oct. 13
The Philadelphia Inquirer on Donald Trump’s ‘Hail Marys’ leading up to the midterms
The omens that Donald Trump is facing an epic example of what another Republican president once called “a thumpin’” are accumulating. His deeply unpopular Middle East war is metastasizing, contributing to persistently high prices and a historically low public opinion of his presidency. Republican schemes to rig the vote by gerrymandering and other means appear insufficient to withstand a Democratic wave, forcing them to abandon formerly favorable territory such as Georgia and North Carolina and fight for ruby-red turf in Kansas and South Carolina.
Enter Trump’s last crass resort: rank bribery. From cash payouts to compromising imports of high-priced resources, the president is making a last-ditch attempt to buy off voters and dodge a richly deserved reckoning.
Last week, for example, Trump announced that he would send a one-time $90 “rebate” to tens of millions of Medicare recipients. Billed as offsetting October premiums for the program’s Part B, which covers outpatient medical services, the $2 billion in payouts are raiding a fund meant to improve Medicare management and oversight. The money will cover not quite half the $202.90 premium, which has risen about 16% since Trump took office.
It’s not the administration’s only attempt to use money to paper over its record of making Americans sicker and healthcare costlier. Last month, the White House announced plans to send $500 to nearly a million Americans insured under the Affordable Care Act in 30 states, excluding Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and others that manage their own insurance marketplaces. Even for those getting the money, the payout will be dwarfed by annual premium increases in the thousands of dollars under the Republicans’ so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut social services to offset tax cuts favoring the wealthy.
Trump has also been reiterating his most preposterous promise to pay off voters, claiming during recent campaign stops that his administration will give every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate next month. Such a giveaway, first floated during the party’s midterm convention last month, would cost the government more than a trillion dollars. Given the scant likelihood of such a GOP victory, on the other hand, the president might as well promise us $5 million each.
The administration is also scrambling to temper mass discontent by dumping dubiously sourced foreign goods on the domestic market. In a desperate bid to tame punishing diesel prices, Trump shocked Ukrainians fighting for their freedom and lawmakers who voted to penalize Russian aggression by announcing a deal to let Vladimir Putin’s regime export millions of barrels of the fuel. U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who is in danger of losing his reelection bid in Bucks County, is among the Republicans joining Democrats to block the move, which could violate a federal ban on Russian energy imports while subsidizing Putin’s brutal invasion.
The gambit echoes Trump’s mystery meat gimmick easing foreign beef imports in an effort to bring down U.S. prices. The policy has angered ranchers and done little for consumers.
It’s not the only such Hail Mary that appears to be going nowhere. Despite the diesel deal, oil prices rose Monday after Saudi Arabia came under attack from Iran’s Houthi allies, underscoring the chaotic repercussions of Trump’s war. And polls have shown voters are divided over Trump’s crude promises of cash, which most don’t believe. When it comes to winning over voters, it seems promises of payoffs are no substitute for a record of success.
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Oct. 11
The Guardian says Donald Trump’s “assault on the rule of law” is intensifying
On Friday, Donald Trump drove home his belief that might is right and the rule of law is an obstacle rather than an essential foundation stone of international order. First came the escalated assault on the international criminal court (ICC), sanctioning the body itself. Then he announced a deal with Russia to buy diesel.
The US has long chafed at the notion of being bound by the rule of law that it espoused publicly. That hypocrisy now appears as a lesser vice. The president has declared that “my own morality” is all that constrains him. His brazen flouting of the law, embrace of dictators and rhetorical attacks all undermine global standards.
Weeks before the midterms, Mr Trump blames Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities for high diesel costs. It is his own unlawful war on Iran that has raised prices. The weekend’s attacks on Riyadh’s international airport, suspected as the work of Tehran-backed Houthis from Yemen, underscored that he cannot simply park that conflict when it suits him.
The Moscow deal is unlikely to produce significant shipments; the Russian military runs on diesel. But Ukraine is supposed to heed its message to make life easier on Vladimir Putin. It is Mr Putin (for whom the ICC has issued a warrant) who launched the illegal war, and whose troops launched lethal attacks on civilians this weekend. But in a world turned upside down, Mr Trump blames Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to cut a peace deal and says the democratically elected leader should go.
It is similarly perverse to wield measures designed to target human rights abusers and war criminals against those who seek to defend their victims. Mr Trump’s attack on the ICC was fuelled first by its Afghanistan investigation – though it has suspended consideration of US actions there – and then the issuing of arrest warrants for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and its former defence minister Yoav Gallant. The court has been preparing for these measures. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said that companies have six months to wind down ties and that US allies must rein in the court: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”
In stark (and intentional) contrast, the Nobel committee on the same day announced that this year’s peace laureate is Navi Pillay, a former ICC judge and chair of the UN commission which last year concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. It was not only a recognition of a remarkable career that began in apartheid‑era South Africa, but a reminder that institutions defending universal principles are under increasing pressure, and must be defended. “Peace requires justice,” the committee said.
As the ICC says, it cannot stand alone. The UK, EU and others too were right to criticise the US decision and declare their commitment to the court; invoking blocking statutes against sanctions would add heft to the rhetoric. They must show similar resolve in standing with Ukraine.
The nakedness of Mr Trump’s hostility to the rule of law has one benefit: no one can explain it away, or assume it is narrowly bounded. The war on Iran, kidnapping of Venezuela’s president, extrajudicial killings of alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and threats over Greenland and Canada have shown how far he will go, and overturned assumptions that allies will be safe. It is clear that the problem is not a “rogue court”, as Mr Rubio has claimed, but a rogue superpower.
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