THE NET NEWS- GLOBAL

with Paulina Firozi

Health wonks from the Obama administration are color-coding all 50 states to indicate how well they’re combating the novel coronavirus. 

The bad news: Only North Dakota and Kentucky are “green,” indicating they have met the Trump administration’s criteria for starting to end shutdowns, according to the new site, CovidExitStrategy.org. North Dakota began reopening on May 1; Kentucky is starting to reopen next week. 

The slightly better news: 30 states are “yellow,” indicating progress is being made. 

The remaining 18 states are “red,” with a long way to go before they meet the standards the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend for a safe reopening. 

President Trump meets with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum on Wednesday. (Doug Mills/New York Times/Bloomberg News)

The project’s creators aim to provide a central clearinghouse of state coronavirus information.

Governors, facing intense economic and political pressure, are undertaking the exceedingly tricky task of figuring out how and when to end lockdowns. The website’s creators hope their data crunch and visualization will help policymakers and regular Americans get a better sense of how states are progressing toward the ultimate goal of safely ending the lockdowns that have resulted in massive unemployment and deep revenue losses for states.

The website pulls data on coronavirus testing, confirmed cases and deaths from the COVID Tracking Project and data on hospital capacity and influenza-like illness from the CDC. 

“It’s supposed to be the progress bar for the country,” Ryan Panchadsaram, former deputy chief technology officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, told me.

Panchadsaram partnered with the groups United States of Care and Resolve to Save Lives, along with the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, on the project. The organizers, who worked together on fixing HealthCare.gov during its flubbed rollout in 2013, spent the last few weeks pulling the data and organizing it into readable charts that allow states to be compared across a variety of metrics.

The HealthCare.gov website. (Alex Brandon/AP)

The data include several key metrics for reopening laid out by the CDC and the White House.

The CDC says that a state should see a “sustained reduction” of confirmed infections within a 14-day period before “proceeding to a phased comeback.” Or, testing should be ramped up enough that states should reduction in positive tests as a percentage of total daily tests.  

The new website details how confirmed new cases are trending and how many tests out of total tests are showing up positive. But because the officially released federal guidance is still vague, the creators had to make a number of their own calls about when to award a state red, yellow or green in particular categories.

For example, a state gets a green rating if its daily confirmed cases have decreased more than 5 percent during the previous 14-day period. The rating is yellow if there’s less than a 5 percent change in either direction. And it’s red if the cases increase more than 5 percent. 

To make those calculations, the creators used the seven-day average of confirmed cases — a practice that helps smooth out the data and shows trends better than relying on incremental changes every day. 

The need for such a website underscores several distressing realities in the United States. 

Many states are still struggling to tamp down the virus even after people spent weeks avoiding workplaces, schools, churches and places of business. 

And many different factors play into how well states can contain the virus and protect their health-care systems after ending lockdowns. These factors include each state’s number of daily tests and how many hospital ICU beds are empty. 

It’s exceedingly difficult to measure and compare how all the states are doing on these fronts. As I wrote in yesterday’s Health 202, the lack of detailed federal guidance has left many states scrambling to make decisions on their own. 

The CDC had prepared more extensive and detailed guidance on the metrics states should use in reopening, but the White House never released it. Based on that shelved guidance, “no one who is reopening meets the criteria for reopening,” a senior CDC official told CNN yesterday.

And governors – whose states have seen revenue collections drop between 20 and 50 percent during the lockdowns – are moving to reopen without necessarily explaining what their benchmarks are.

“I do think we’re seeing states reopen in response to economic pressures,” said Caitlin Rivers, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. “Governors, I think, are trying to balance the public health guidance and the need to act on the economy, and it’s a difficult choice. I do have sympathy for the position they’re in.”

Ahh, oof and ouch

AHH: Doctors have put together a limited and imperfect set of tools to help them treat covid-19 patients.

After scrambling in the dark just a few weeks ago, now doctors are pointing to some drugs and therapies that can help give patients a bit of a chance, Ariana Eunjung Cha reports, although she notes none of the therapies have proved capable of killing or stopping the pathogen. 

Workers from Sharp Coronado Hospital wave during a flyover to support health-care workers in their efforts against the coronavirus pandemic in Coronado, Calif. (Gregory Bull/AP)

“They range from protocols to diagnose and treat dangerous, but sometimes invisible, breathing problems that can be an early warning of covid-19 in some people, to efforts to reduce the illness’s severity or length,” Ariana writes. “At this stage, they are still experimental approaches by doctors desperate to find ways to help gravely ill people and throwing everything they can think of at the problem.” 

The therapies include the blood plasma of those who have recovered from covid-19, drugs to suppress the body’s immune response, anticoagulants and antivirals.

“Randomized clinical trials are necessary to confirm early anecdotal data, with the results probably months away. But doctors say they believe they are seeing some positive results from these and other things they have learned through trial and error these past 10 weeks,” she adds. 

OOF: An ousted top vaccine official will warn lawmakers the “darkest winter in modern history” is possible if the federal coronavirus response doesn’t improve. 

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, will testify before a House Energy and Committee subcommittee that the “window of opportunity is closing.” 

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, is shown in his official government photo from April 2017. (AP)
 

He said it’s crucial to be “truthful with the American people.”

“If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities,” Bright said in a prepared testimony submitted to the subcommittee. 

“While it is terrifying to acknowledge the extent of the challenge that we currently confront, the undeniable fact is there will be a resurgence of the COVID19 this fall, greatly compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system. Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history.”

“His appearance adds to a dramatic week of testimony on Capitol,” John Wagner writes. “On Tuesday, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and other Trump administration health officials warned the United States risks new coronavirus outbreaks and possibly a broad resurgence nationwide if states and cities reopen too quickly.”

OUCH: Hospitals across the U.S. lost tens of billions of dollars as they had to cancel non-essential procedures.

One example: Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., which has been a fixture of the state’s lower Naugatuck Valley for more than a century. The hospital is part of the community, running a program of 10 weeks of free lectures and a medical library for the public. But it may not be prepared to deal with the pandemic’s financial shock, Amy Goldstein reports. 

Recently installed ductwork is seen along the facade of Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

“To care for people of the valley who would get infected, Griffin invested in expensive preparations as the virus approached. During three weeks in March, the hospital spent $1.7 million — more than half its capital budget for the year — including for a crash renovation of East B, a shuttered medical unit,” Amy writes. 

“The hospital made these investments as the usual patients were vanishing,” she adds. “Visits to Griffin’s physician practices fell to 2,300 from mid-March through mid-April from 4,200 the month before. Endoscopies were down 90 percent in April. Even trips to the emergency department plummeted from a normal rhythm of about 120 a day to three dozen on a good day. The bottom line: Griffin is missing $6 million of its usual $15 million in monthly income.” 

The hospital’s fate depends on how long the virus lingers in Connecticut, as well as how much it can get from congressional aid for affected hospitals and whether the state pitches in any funds. It’s far from the only hospital in such straits.

“U.S. hospitals will have lost a total of $50.7 billion a month from March through June,” Amy writes. “Some are better buffered to absorb a financial shock than the 115-bed community hospital on its own in working-class Derby, Connecticut’s smallest-size city.”

Industry efforts

The coronavirus test from Abbott Laboratories used by the White House missed a large number of positive results.

That’s according to a preliminary study by a New York University group that found the test meant to determine whether an individual has the coronavirus in minutes missed a third of positive cases that were caught by diagnostic company Cepheid when using nasopharyngeal swabs and more than 48 percent when using dry nasal swabs, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Steven Mufson report. 

President Trump shows off an Abbott test at a news briefing on testing in the White House Rose Garden. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Abbott disputed that its test had any major issues and suggested the samples in the study may not have been tested correctly. It said the company’s reported false negative rate is 0.02 percent. 

There had been concerns about the Abbott test, which Trump hailed as a “whole new ballgame,” even before the NYU study. “Before a Senate committee last week, National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins testified that the rapid Abbott test had a 15 percent false negative rate, an apparent reference to unpublished data from Cleveland Clinic,” Carolyn and Steven write.

Genetics giant 23andMe announced it will recruit the sickest covid-19 patients as it researches how genetics plays a role in coronavirus cases. 

A patient suffering from covid-19 is treated in the intensive care unit at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, Calif. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

The company will seek help from hospitals to expand the study that was launched last month, Stat News’s Rebecca Robins reports. The study previously only included individuals who have opted in to participating in 23andMe’s research. 

Now it wants to recruit up to 10,000 new participants who have been hospitalized with the disease to understand why some cases require severe measures.

“The new arm of the company’s Covid-19 study will be limited to people who are not already 23andMe customers,” Rebecca reports. “… New participants will be mailed a spit kit so they can send 23andMe a sample of their genetic material, which the company can then analyze. They’ll also be asked to fill out the same survey about their symptoms and family members that 23andMe’s customers who participated in the research were asked to complete.”

Coronavirus latest

In the states: 

• Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced the state will gradually reopen beginning this weekend. Barbershops and nail salons will be able to reopen, with some conditions, while non-essential stores and houses of worship will be allowed to open at 50 percent capacity, unless local governments find it unsafe, Fenit Nirappil, Erin Cox and Ovetta Wiggins report.
• Meanwhile, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced the extension of the district’s stay-at-home order and closure of nonessential businesses through June 8.
• The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s administration’s decision to extend stay-at-home orders, Colby Itkowitz reports.
• Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer backpedaled her remarks that the county’s stay-at-home order would continue for three months, Meryl Kornfield writes in The Washington Post’s live blog.
• New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) announced face masks will be required in all indoor and outdoor public settings starting on Saturday, except for eating, drinking and exercising, Samantha Pell writes.
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced some of the state’s northernmost counties had met the standards to begin gradually reopening, which will allow construction, manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and fishing to restart Friday, as well as retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup, the Wall Street Journal reports. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said construction firms will resume nonessential operations on Monday.

Congress on coronavirus: 

• House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) unveiled a pair of historic rule changes that could allow lawmakers to vote remotely if they cannot be at the Capitol for “reasons beyond our control” related to the coronavirus, Paul Kane reports. The House is expected to approve the measure on Friday.

The economic fallout:

• Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell warned the U.S. economy could face a multiyear recession if Congress and the White House don’t provide additional relief, Heather Long and Erica Werner report.

There’s still more to lean about the coronavirus: 

• Ordinary human speech can emit droplets that can remain in the air for at least eight minutes, a new study has found. The experiment, which used laser light to assess how many droplets are generated by human speech, could “explain why infections of the coronavirus so often cluster in nursing homes, households, conferences, cruise ships and other confined spaces with limited air circulation,” Joel Achenbach reports.

Sugar rush

with Paulina Firozi

A group of former climate policy staffers for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who during the 2020 presidential race billed himself as the only contender to make climate change his top issue, is trying to revive the ill-fated candidate’s comprehensive climate plan with both congressional Democrats and Joe Biden.

For weeks behind the scenes, the former Inslee staffers have made inroads in meetings with those working for several big Democratic players, including Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee; and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), as well several other Senate and House offices. 

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.). (Reuters/Jason Redmond)

The staffers have launched a new nonprofit policy and advocacy organization called Evergreen, in a nod to the nickname of the state of Washington. 

Its goal is to get Biden and congressional Democrats to adopt pieces of Inslee’s sweeping 200-page climate plan as part of both the former vice president’s official campaign platform and any forthcoming coronavirus relief package from Congress. 

Its latest proposal, published Thursday, is a $1.5 trillion stimulus plan for Congress to help states adopt cleaner forms of energy in response to the economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. But the new plan from House Democrats to infuse money into the sinking economy doesn’t include many green priorities.

“We recognized, as our campaign came to a close, that there’s just enormous energy within the Democratic Party for bold climate solutions,” said Sam Ricketts, an Evergreen co-founder and one of the wonks who wrote Inslee’s climate plan.

The group officially launched Thursday, though its members publicly disclosed plans to form the new group last month. Inslee, who is running for a third term as Washington governor, is not involved in the group.

Ricketts is joined by Bracken Hendricks, a co-author of Inslee’s climate plan, as well as Maggie Thomas, who hopped from the Inslee campaign to that of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) last year and will serve as the new group’s political director.

The new green group aims to bring policy chops to the burgeoning youth climate movement that helped elevate global warming as an electoral issue. 

Activists groups such as the Sunrise Movement helped bring the issue to the fore with high-profile protests in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and elsewhere. Democratic voters in the Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada primaries each ranked climate change second in importance to only health care in 2020 exit polling. 

“Activists have managed to get climate change on the agenda,” said Leah Stokes, an assistant professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and an Evergreen adviser. “Evergreen is actually there with the plan.”

During his presidential bid, Inslee won the praise of youth climate groups and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) for his ambitious climate plan, which the freshman congresswoman called a “gold standard.” 

Inslee called for a decade-long, $9 trillion investment that requires electric utilities to get 100 percent of their power from renewable and zero-emission sources by 2035. He also urged creating both a new Justice Department office to prosecute polluters and a new voluntary corps akin to the Peace Corps. 

By contrast, Biden’s climate plan, released last June, calls for spending about one-fifth that amount over 10 years.

When dropping out of the race, Inslee encouraged other candidates to explicitly adopt his plan. Warren took him up on the offer before dropping out herself.

Now pressure is on Biden to step up his climate ambitions.

In March, shortly after Biden defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Super Tuesday contests, the former Inslee staffers began discussions with Biden’s  campaign and shared with it a memo outlining Inslee’s ideas for clean energy standards, among other policies. 

The next month, the ex-staffers began circulating in Washington a policy paper outlining a distilled version of Inslee’s massive climate plan.

Former vice president Joe Biden. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

With the nomination in the bag, Biden is trying to win over young, climate-minded voters who backed other candidates in the primaryIn accepting the endorsement last month of the League of Conservation Voters, the former vice president signaled he is willing to adopt activists’ ideas and set “new, concrete goals” for combating climate change before the end of the decade.

“In the months ahead, expanding this plan will be one of my key objectives,” Biden said in a statement, without offering specifics.

And on Wednesday, Biden drafted Ocasio-Cortez, as well as former secretary of state John F. Kerry and Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash, to serve on a climate policy panel that the former vice president created as part of a larger effort to win over Sanders’s supporters.

Evergreen has not officially endorsed Biden, but co-founder Ricketts had kind words about the candidate, noting the economic recovery bill Biden helped negotiate in 2009 that put $90 billion toward promoting clean energy.

“Those investments have catalyzed enormous growth in American clean energy industries,” Ricketts said. “We need to do that, but much bigger, this time. And the vice president has some experience in that space.” 

Coronavirus fallout

Energy secretary says there’s no more aid to oil firms planned. 

Energy chief Dan Brouillette told Axios the administration is not planning any specific moves to provide a financial boost to struggling oil producers during the pandemic.

Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. (Armando Franca/AP)

The latest remarks follow Brouillette’s interview with Bloomberg TV this week in which he said the administration “worked very closely with the Federal Reserve” to make adjustments to its lending program to allow oil firms to access aid. 

“For the time being, the first steps we’ve taken are going to be what we do. I’m not anticipating any broad strokes here beyond what we’ve already done,” Brouillette told Axios. “We’re not contemplating, as I sit here today, a specific second or third step. It may come if the results of the plan aren’t panning out the way we had hoped.” 

The United States has lost about 600,000 clean-energy jobs. 

The clean-energy industry has seen a 17 percent drop in its workforce, nearly 600,000 jobs, as a result of stay-at-home-orders, according to a new report from BW Research Partnership. And the research firm said there are still more losses to come for the sector that had been growing rapidly before the pandemic hit. 

(iStock)

“While they represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s total job losses during the period, the clean energy industry’s fall in employment has exceeded estimates,” Reuters reports. “After a similar study last month, BW Research had projected 500,000 job losses sector-wide by the end of June. It now expects 850,000 job losses, about a quarter of all clean energy jobs, in that time.” 

California county said Tesla can restart vehicle production.

The Alameda County Public Health Department said the electric carmaker’s Fremont, Calif., facility can restart its vehicle production on Monday if it abides by agreed-upon safety protocols. 

Tesla cars are loaded onto carriers in Fremont, Calif. (Ben Margot/AP)

“It wasn’t clear from a news release whether Tesla would face any punishment for reopening last Monday in defiance of county orders,” the Associated Press reports. “ … The release said Fremont police would verify whether Tesla was holding up its part of the agreement. The deal requires that public health indicators have to remain stable or improve for the factory to stay open.”

Behind Tesla chief Elon Musk’s effort to reopen is a drive to compete with automakers in Michigan. 

“For Tesla, one of the competitive risks from remaining shut while Detroit and others reopen is being able to quickly satisfy demand in an economic rebound,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Rivals would be able to stock dealerships with new vehicles while Tesla rebuilt inventory.” 

Two more national parks partially reopen. 

Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks will begin gradually reopening on Monday, the Interior Department announced, after both parks shuttered in late March.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt visits workers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (National Parks Service/AP)

“Many of their services will remain closed, but visitors will get access to some of Yellowstone’s most popular spots, including Old Faithful, and recreation sites across Grand Teton,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “ … Grand Teton is in Wyoming, and Yellowstone is largely in Wyoming with small parts in Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone’s three Montana entrances will remain closed after consultation with Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, an Interior spokesman said.” 

New safety protocols will be in place at the parks. For example, the parks will hire additional contractors for cleaning and disinfecting, and will install Plexiglass panels at entrances and visitor centers. 

America’s beaches continue to reopen, too. 

Beaches in Los Angeles County have reopened after being closed for six weeks. 

Limited activities, including running, walking, swimming and surfing will now be allowed, the Los Angeles Times reports. Group activities and things such as sunbathing will still be banned, and parking lots, bike paths and boardwalks will remain shuttered. 

“Face coverings will be mandatory for anyone on the sand but not for people in the water. Beachgoers will be required to practice social distancing by staying at least six feet away from other groups,” the L.A. Times adds. 

Numerous powerful sectors in California want state regulators to postpone or reverse air-quality and climate rules amid the pandemic. 

“The trucking industry wants to stall new emissions-reduction rules. Oil companies want looser enforcement of existing regulations,” the L.A. Times reports. “Port and shipping interests are pushing to delay rules on ocean vessels as they become Southern California’s largest source of smog-forming pollution.” 

Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

“The breadth of requests presents a conundrum for regulators who, even in eco-minded California, have been open about the need to grant some measure of relief from environmental requirements in response to the pandemic,” the report adds. “While officials say their commitment to fighting climate change and air pollution remains unshaken, they are nonetheless postponing compliance deadlines and delaying pollution-reduction rules.”

Kate Gordon, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) senior adviser on climate, told the newspaper that some of the industry requests “are very understandable and really have to do with the fact of the current crisis, and in some cases they’re regulations that had already been a kind of a thorn in the side to certain industries and they just are using … the moment to try to dispute them.” 

Oil check

Stockpiles of crude oil in the United States dropped last week for the first time since January, according to the Energy Information Administration.

“U.S. crude stockpiles have risen by more than 100 million barrels since mid-January, with builds accelerating in March as the coronavirus pandemic took hold and during a brief price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia,” Reuters reports. “The drawdown this week was in part because imports fell to a record low at less than 2 million barrels per day, and U.S. production dropped.”

A storage terminal in Cushing, Okla. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)

The demand for fuel bounced back in the past week, even as it was still 23 percent below the year-ago average in the past four weeks.

Global warming watch

Electricity generated from renewable energy is on track to surpass coal-generated power for the first time this year.

Wind turbines at the Avangrid Renewables’ Baffin Wind Power Project in Sarita, Tex. (Eddie Seal/Bloomberg News)

That’s according to projections from the Energy Information Administration that signal the pandemic has had some impact on the shift toward renewables, the New York Times reports, citing EIA projections. The coronavirus-related shutdowns have meant more trouble for struggling coal producers. 

“It is a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago, when coal was so dominant that it provided nearly half the nation’s electricity,” per the Times. “And it comes despite the Trump administration’s three-year push to try to revive the ailing industry by weakening pollution rules on coal-burning power plants.” 

April was the second-hottest April ever recorded on Earth. 

With an average global temperature of 1.91 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.06 degrees Celsius, above the 20th century average, last month was the second-hottest recorded April after April 2016, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

It also marked the third month in a row that ranked as the second hottest on Earth in 141 years of record-keeping. 

Deforestation of the Amazon has continued during the pandemic. 

The destruction of parts of the Amazon rainforest has surged during the pandemic, according to an NBC News analysis of satellite images. 

A deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

“Environmentalists, who have also warned about the deforestation, said the pandemic has provided cover for the operations, and they blamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for what they see as his tacit approval of the deforestation,” per the report. “ … Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon soared by 55 percent in the first four months of the year compared to the same period last year, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. Destruction in April was up by 64 percent from the same month a year ago.” 

In other news

One option for getting rid of all the plastic polluting the oceans? Vacuum it all up. 

The creators of contraption called FRED, or the floating robot for eliminating debris, hope to produce by next spring a design for a 50-foot vessel that can autonomously suck up trash on open bodies of water. 

For now, a version was launched by about 20 engineering students for a test run last month in Mission Bay in San Diego, Hugo Kugiya reports for The Post. 

FRED retrieves marked plastic water bottles during a test run in San Diego. (Sandy Huffaker/The Washington Post)

“Grand, maybe unrealistic, hopes ride on FRED, whose baptism last month was only a first test for the students and a small start-up called Clear Blue Sea,” Hugo writes. “Like other emerging ventures around the world, the nonprofit group is trying to help solve one of the planet’s most daunting problems: oceans littered with plastic.” 

with Tonya Riley

Human rights activists and New Jersey law students are suing to block the state from using Internet-based voting systems, which security experts say are fundamentally insecure against hacking.

The effort is a shot across the bow for the online systems, which some states have embraced as a solution for people who have trouble voting by mail during the pandemic despite widespread security concerns. 

New Jersey piloted an app-based system on Tuesday in a collection of 33 small elections for people with disabilities that make it impractical for them to vote by mail. Everyone else had to vote by mail and there was no in-person voting option.

New Jersey officials haven’t said whether they plan to repeat the pilot in the state’s July primary or the general election, but the lawsuit is trying to stop those plans before they start. It’s essentially an offshoot of an earlier lawsuit that challenged the security of the state’s voting machines and also dealt with the danger of voting systems going online. 

“It’s critical that voting be accessible for everybody but not at the expense of security and the risk of a group of people having their votes manipulated,” said Penny Venetis, director of Rutgers University Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, which is challenging the use of online voting on behalf of Coalition for Peace and its New Jersey division as well as a state legislator. 

Venetis and her students filed their motion Monday. They initially aimed to halt Internet voting during the Tuesday election but couldn’t get a hearing in time. 

Delaware and West Virginia are planning larger pilots for voters with disabilities and those in the military or overseas during their states’ presidential primaries in June. The states are all using a cloud-based system designed by the Seattle-based company Democracy Live. 

A man uses a cellphone in New Orleans. (Jenny Kane/AP)

States that are using them have described the Internet systems as a safe way to ensure everyone can vote amid a pandemic that has upended everything about elections. 

But security experts see them as an invitation for hackers to alter votes undetected and worry they’ll deny equal treatment to voters with disabilities by making them take security risks other voters don’t have to. 

“This is one of many issues of inequality that the virus is bringing to the fore,” Venetis told me.

The New Jersey secretary of state’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment about future plans for the app or about how many people used it on Tuesday. 

Internet-based voting is generally viewed as less secure than any in-person voting system. 

That’s because there’s no way to ensure that the computer, phone or tablet the voter is using hasn’t been compromised, and it’s impossible for the voter to verify that the vote is still correct when it reaches election officials. 

Because there’s no paper record of the vote there’s also no way to audit it after the fact. 

“There’s very clear scientific consensus that the return of voted ballots by Internet is not securable,” Andrew Appel, a Princeton University computer science professor, who wrote an expert statement for the plaintiffs in the New Jersey case, told me.

The Department of Homeland Security also sent states an alert last week warning that online voting systems pose “significant security risks” that could undermine the integrity of an election or compromise the secrecy of the ballot.  

The DHS alert was less critical of systems that deliver blank ballots to voters over the Internet or that allow them to mark their votes on a home computer and then print them out and mail them in.

Democracy Live also produces such systems, which Venetis and Appel said they urged New Jersey to adopt instead of the fully online system. 

People wait to cast their votes. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

New Jersey had a spotty record with election security even before the pandemic hit. 

It’s one of just two states, along with Louisiana, where nearly all in-person voting machines will lack paper records in 2020, which experts say are vital to protect against hacking. 

That’s despite a four-year push by DHS and more than $1 billion in federal money nationwide aimed at eliminating such machines and making other cybersecurity fixes following Russia’s hacking and disinformation operation in 2016. 

The earlier lawsuit filed by Venetis and the Rutgers students aimed to stop the state using those paperless voting machines. It dragged on for more than a decade and didn’t ultimately block the machines. But Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson did order New Jersey officials to ensure the state’s voting process is kept entirely offline — an order the Rutgers clinic is asking her to enforce now.

“My big concern is this will not just be an emergency measure. It will continue past the quarantine and it will be expanded,” Venetis told me. “And that’s a real problem because votes can be manipulated and it will be completely and totally invisible.” 

The keys

House lawmakers will vote Friday on a historic resolution that would allow lawmakers to vote remotely during the pandemic. 

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), left, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg News)

The rule change would allow members at home to designate a colleague in Washington to cast votes on their behalf. 

The order kicks the can down the road, however, on lawmakers using videoconferencing or other tech tools to vote from home, saying such systems could be used in the future if the House’s tech division certifies they’re sufficiently secure against hackers. 

The measure would also allow committees to hold official video hearings — something the Senate is already doing. “That one big step is to make sure Congress can act,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who introduced the changes, told Paul Kane. 

The proposed rule change was supposed to be introduced late last month but was stalled by Republican opposition. Hoyer said the final rules incorporated ideas from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). McCarthy accused Democrats of using the rules to steal power. 

Trump extended until 2021 an order banning U.S. companies from dealing with Huawei or other telecommunications companies deemed a national security risk. 

President Trump. (Evan Vucci/AP)

The White House first issued the order last May, but the Commerce Department has provided temporary licenses over the past year allowing some U.S. companies to continue to sell goods to Huawei. U.S. officials say Huawei could serve as a backdoor for Chinese espionage and have urged allies to similarly get tough with the company, but Huawei denies those charges.

Trump’s move comes as relations between China and the United States have cooled dramatically during the pandemic. 

U.S. officials also warned that Chinese government hackers are likely trying to steal coronavirus research, calling it a “significant threat to our nation’s response to COVID-19.”

DHS will advise U.S. telecom companies on how to protect 5G cellphone towers following arson attacks linked to coronavirus conspiracy theories. 

Workers install 5G telecommunications equipment on a T-Mobile tower. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

The warning follows nearly a dozen arson attacks against towers in Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium last month after false claims that the technology spreads the coronavirus, Ellen Nakashima reports. 

U.S. carriers have also seen sporadic attacks in recent weeks, some of which may have been the work of “eco-terrorists” rather than conspiracy theorists, an industry official told Ellen. 

The U.S. government and World Health Organization officials have made clear there’s no connection between 5G technology and the virus.

Hill happenings

The Senate will vote today on whether to renew vast government spying powers.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). (Andrew Harnik/AP/Bloomberg News)

The powers expired about two months ago when the Senate failed to reauthorize them before breaking for an extended recess during the pandemic.

The Senate failed to pass one bipartisan amendment on the bill yesterday to exclude Internet browsing and search histories from a warrantless surveillance program. The amendment, introduced by Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), failed by just one vote and might have passed except that four members did not vote. 

But in a win for privacy hawks, the Senate did pass an amendment by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), which will increase oversight of the court that grants warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Here are details from Politico’s Martin Matishak.

More news from the Hill:

Industry report

A  group of more than 140 global technology companies is today launching a new initiative promoting awareness of security risks associated with “smart” Internet-connected devices.

An Amazon Echo, center, and a Google Home, right. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

The  Cybersecurity Tech Accord’s “Stay Smart. Stay Safely Connected” campaign will host an online repository of Internet of Things security tips and international privacy standards.

More industry news:

Global cyberspace

Germany has “hard evidence” Russian was responsible for a cyberattack on the country’s parliament, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Michael Kappeler/dpa/AP)

The breach allowed hackers to steal documents from Merkel’s office, the Associated Press reports. 

The statement comes after federal prosecutors issued an arrest warrant against an alleged officer in Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency last week. Merkel didn’t confirm the arrest was related but said, “I take these things very seriously.” Russian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in the 2015 hack.

More global cybersecurity news:

France Threatens Big Fines for Social Media With Hate-Speech Law

France is empowering regulators to slap large fines on social-media companies that fail to remove postings deemed hateful, one of the most aggressive measures yet in a broad wave of rules aimed at forcing tech companies to more tightly police their services.

The Wall Street Journal

Chat room

Even though the House is trying remote voting, the Senate is still meeting in person, a move some technologists consider unnecessary and dangerous. Stanford Internet Observatory Director Alex Stamos:

Daybook

• The Open Technology Institute will host an event on the role of technology in pandemic response efforts today at 11:30 a.m.