The Washington Post National Weekly - October 21, 2018

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Room for for pot pot Room among the the pinot pinot among Legalmarijuana marijuanareshapes reshapes Legal Calif.wine winecountry’s country’s Calif.

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OCTOBER 221, 2018 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2018

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THE FIX THE FIX

Punishing SaudiSaudi Arabia Punishing Arabia A MBER P HILLIPS

Deny any new arms sales: Trump’s first A MBER P HILLIPS Deny anyand new arms sales: Trump’s first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia, shortly to Saudi Arabia, and shortly after he announced a foreign massivevisit (yet was overstated) s evidence mounts that Saudi Arabia afterand he announced a massive (yet overstated) s evidence mounts that Saudi Arabia deal to sell U.S. weapons defense equiphad a hand in the disappearance of a to sell weapons had a hand the disappearance of a ment to the country.deal That’s oneU.S. reason the and defense equipjournalist, there’s a growing rift in bement to the country.

That’s one reason the journalist, there’s a growing rift bepresident keeps giving when he explains why tween President Trump and Congress president keeps giving when he explains why tween President Trump and Congress he’s reluctant to punish Saudi Arabia. on what to do about it. he’s here. reluctant punish on what to do about it.

But Congress has a role Theyto have to beSaudi Arabia.

Trump said on Thursday it “certainly looks” Butinternational Congress hasarms a role here. They have to be said that on Thursday notified 30 days before any like Jamal Khashoggi isTrump dead and there it “certainly looks” notified 30 days before any international arms like Jamal Khashoggi is dead and that there sale, and they can reject it by passing a law may be “very severe” consequences depending sale, would and they can reject it by passing a law may be “very severe” depending prohibiting the sale. They need a vetoon the results of a Saudi investigation into consequences the prohibiting the sale.

They would need a vetoon thedoes results of astrongSaudi investigation into the proof majority if Trump is adamant about incident. But, as he often when proof majority if Trump is adamant about incident.

But, as he pushing the sale through. men are involved, Trump spent most of often the does when strongpushing law the sale men are week giving Saudi Arabia the involved, benefit ofTrump the spent most of the Hold fast on a terrorism thatthrough.

Saudi week Saudi Arabia Hold fastpassed on a terrorism law that Saudi doubt that its leaders didgiving not order that the benefit of the Arabia hates: In 2016, Congress into doubt that its leaders did not order that Arabia hates: In 2016, Congress passed into Khashoggi be killed. “Here we go again with law a bill allowing families of Sept. 11, 2001, Khashoggi be killed.

“Here we go again with a billfor allowing families of Sept. 11, 2001, you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump victims to sue Saudilaw Arabia what some you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS victims to sue Saudi Arabia for what some told the Associated Press on Tuesday. families claimPRESS is the country’s collusion in the the Associated Tuesday. has a few options it can take if J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED families claim is the country’s collusion in the Meanwhile, Housetold Speaker Paul RyanPress (R- onCongress attack. The law, the Justice Against Sponsors of Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan (Rattack.

The law, the Justice Against Sponsors of Congress has a few options it can take if Wis.) on Wednesday told CBS “This Morning” Terrorism Act, is controversial. It passed over Trump does not move against Saudi Arabia.

Wis.) on Wednesday told CBS “This Morning” Terrorism Act,over is controversial.

It passed over Trump does not move against Saudi Arabia. that the disappearance is “really disturbing” President Barack Obama’s veto and widethat disappearance disturbing” Baracklawsuits Obama’s veto and over wideand he seemed ready to tee the up action to punish is “really spread international President concern about Force Trump to sanction Saudi officials, and seemed ready to tee up action toSaudi punishCrownForce concern about lawsuits Trump to sanction Saudi civilians officials,andspread Saudi Arabia. “If this is thehecase, it’s atrocious, between nations.international But despite the including Prince Mohammed SaudiRyan Arabia. it’s atrocious, between civilians and nations. But despite the including Saudi tool Crown and we have laws for this,” said.“If this is the case, globalMohammed controversy the law stirred, Congress bin Salman: This is the most obvious at Prince and we have laws for this,” said. disposal, bin global Salman: is the most at But what could Congress do, especially if Ryan canobvious refuse tool to revisit it and controversy even tightenthe thelaw stirred, Congress Congress’s because bothThis Congress could up Congress do,the especially if canCongress’s can refuse to revisit it and even tighten the disposal, because bothonCongress Trump isn’t on board? ItBut haswhat only stood to screws Saudi Arabia. and president levy sanctions.

It’s also isn’t on board? only stood up and to targeted screwsCongress on Saudi Arabia. and thepunishment. president can levy sanctions.

It’s also While him in a substantialTrump way on foreign policyIt hasthe most severe The Hold hearings: doesn’t himlast in year a substantial way likeliest on foreign policy thetake mostwould severebe and punishment.

The power, Holdhearings hearings: Congress doesn’t once, when it forced him to sign a bill form this would viatargeted the have prosecutorial are While its once, when it forced him last year to sign a bill likeliest form this would take would be via the have prosecutorial power, hearings are its sanctioning Russia over election interference.

Magnitsky Act, which Ryan specifically menequivalent of a presidential bully pulpit. Coninterference. specifically menpresidential bully pulpit. ConLawmakers have asanctioning number of Russia tools toover useelection tioned in his interviewMagnitsky with CBS. Act, which Ryangress has asked Trumpequivalent to launch of anainvestigaLawmakers have a of numberOriginally of tools tofocused use tioned in histhe interview with tion CBS.into the disappearance gress has asked Trump against the Saudis, said Jon Alterman, head on Russia, law basiof Khashoggi.

Butto launch an investigaagainstatthe Alterman, head on Russia, thecommittees law basi- can tion the Middle East Program theSaudis, Centersaid forJon cally allows theof UnitedOriginally States tofocused sanction several dointo this,the too.disappearance of Khashoggi. But the Middle East Program at the Center cally allows the United to sanction several committees can do this, too.

Strategic and International Studies.

That’s foreign officialsfor who commit any human rights States Through those hearings or other public International Studies.explained That’s Jordan foreign officials who commitevents, any human rightscan highlight Through those or other public because Saudi Arabia Strategic is sensitiveand to any deviaviolation, Tama, an associate Congress things thehearings Saubecause Saudi Arabia is sensitive to any deviaviolation, explained Jordan Tama, an associate events, Congress can highlight things the Saution from the norm in U.S.-Saudi relations. professor at American University’s School of dis don’t want highlighted, Alterman said. tion from is the norm in U.S.-Saudi relations.Service.professor American School of freedom, dis don’treligious want highlighted, Alterman said.

“The U.S.-Saudi relationship more imporInternational That couldatmean a trav-University’s Issues like women’s toler“TheitU.S.-Saudi is more impor-assets International a trav- human Issuesrights like women’s freedom, religious tolertant to Saudi Arabia than is to the relationship U.S.," el ban or freezing of top SaudiService. officials.That could ance, mean free speech, and executant to Saudi Arabia than it Ais bipartisan to the U.S.," or freezing Saudi officials. freeofspeech, Alterman said. groupelofban senators haveassets askedof top tions.

“There are anyance, number things human Con- rights and execuAlterman bipartisan group of senators have “There are any number of things ConBut to take the most serioussaid. action, ConTrump to consider doingAthis for Mohammed. gress can do asked to shine ations. light on the differences But to take the what most serious action, Conto consider doing this for Mohammed. canU.S.” do to shine a light on the differences gress will need to convince Trump.

Here’s Another option is forTrump Congress to pass sancbetween Saudi Arabiagress and the n gress will need to convince Trump.

Here’s what Another option is for Congress to pass sancbetween Saudi Arabia and the U.S.” n Congress can do and how Trump fits into it. tions on its own with a veto-proof majority. ©The Washington Post Congress can do and how Trump fits into it. tions on its own with a veto-proof majority. ©The Washington Post BY

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CONTENTS

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CONTENTS ON THE COVER John De Friel, CEO 4 ON THE COVER John De Friel, CEO of Raw Garden, at4his cannabis 8 POLITICS of at his cannabis NATION 8 in Buellton, Calif., onRaw Oct.Garden, 2.

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OPINIONS

What the Arab world needs most: Free expression JAMAL KHASHOGGI A NOTE FROM KAREN ATTIAH, GLOBAL OPINIONS EDITOR I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Washington Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tu­ nisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.”

As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed.

They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives.

A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative.

Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.

The Arab world was ripe with hope during the spring of 2011.

Journalists, academics and the general population were brimming with expectations of a bright and free Arab society within their respective countries. They expected to be emancipated from the hegemony of their governments and the consistent interventions and censorship of information. These expectations were quickly shattered; these societies either fell back to the old status quo or faced even harsher conditions than before.

My dear friend, the prominent Saudi writer Saleh al-Shehi, wrote one of the most famous columns ever published in the Saudi press. He unfortunately is now serving an unwarranted fiveyear prison sentence for supposed comments contrary to the Saudi establishment. The Egyptian government’s seizure of the entire print run of a newspaper, al-Masry al Youm, did not enrage or provoke a reaction

from colleagues. These actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community. Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence.

As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate. There was a time when journalists believed the Internet would liberate information from the censorship and control associated with print media. But these governments, whose very existence relies on the control of information, have aggressively blocked the Internet.

They have also arrested local reporters and pressured advertisers to harm the revenue of specific publications.

There are a few oases that continue to embody the spirit of the Arab Spring. Qatar’s government continues to support international news coverage, in contrast to its neighbors’ efforts

The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events.

ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX FINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

to uphold the control of information to support the “old Arab order.” Even in Tunisia and Kuwait, where the press is considered at least “partly free,” the media focuses on domestic issues but not issues faced by the greater Arab world. They are hesitant to provide a platform for journalists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. Even Lebanon, the Arab world’s crown jewel when it comes to press freedom, has fallen victim to the polarization and influence of proIran Hezbollah.

The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power. During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe, which grew over the years into a critical institution, played an important role in fostering and sustaining the hope of freedom. Arabs need something similar. In 1967, the New York Times and The Washington Post took joint ownership of the International Herald Tribune newspaper, which went on to become a platform for voices from around the world.

My publication, The Post, has taken the initiative to translate many of my pieces and publish them in Arabic. For that, I am grateful. Arabs need to read in their own language so they can understand and discuss the various aspects and complications of democracy in the United States and the West. If an Egyptian reads an article exposing the actual cost of a construction project in Washington, then he or she would be able to better understand the implications of similar projects in his or her community.

The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices. We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education. Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face. n

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TOM TOLES

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Cherish What didtheU.S. demise knowofand Sears when?

DAVID VON DREHLE IGNATIUS is a Washington Post opinion columnist. columnist covering foreign affairs.

In 1817,Arabia Saudi not long must after conduct the once-great a serious, emperor no-holds-barred Napoleon investigation met his of the apparent Waterloo, poet Percy gruesome Shelley murder wrote aoffew Post lines contributing on the impermanence columnist of power.Khashoggi.

Jamal He picturedThe a ruined kingdom’s statuerelationship in a wind-swept withdesert the United with an States, inscription and its access barely to global legible financial among the markets, brokenhangs pieces: in“My the balance. name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

A congressional inquiry would The in empires we build in are called corporations, But the meantime, thethe United States blunt an apparent White(and House and ourand kings haveintelligence names such as Cook, Zuckerberg, Hastings Senate House effort to put a lidBut onthe SaudiBezos, whoseshould holdings include Post). same committees begin an The Washington related information. lesson applies.

Nothing — least of all power and dominion — lasts urgent oversight investigation The bottom line: Saudi Arabia forever. what U.S. spy agencies knew is at an existential tipping point. about threats against Khashoggi The United States urgently needs — and also into their broader to understand how the kingdom him to deliver his bounty to the reporting The latest and name analysis in the onruins Saudi of got into this Wilders; as I grisly recall,mess, it wasand a piece Arabia and today’s its headstrong crown commerce, Ozymandias where it’sand going. of candy a little cup. in the shifting prince, Mohammed sands,bin is Sears.

Salman.

Saudi friend tellswhen me that A generation later, the we Look This oncongressional its works: Theinquiry cultural are at an unanticipated railroads cured isolationfulcrum and influence should focus of this firstcompany on the is hard of history, a bit and like Co. the began Sears, Roebuck intelligence “duty to to overstate. agencies’ Sears made assassination of Archduke Franz publishing its mail-order consumers warn” Khashoggi of us all. about any Ferdinand in or the catalogues, theJune days1914, when lethal threat, because his U.S. America was a different world failed plot could

by German Christmas mean officers a single to before Sears. residency qualified My favorite him as chapter a “U.S. assassinate Hitler in gone 1944. candy and a Adolf little cup were in the books person” for whom of Laura such Ingalls a Khashoggi’s apparent death may forever.

Anyone living anywhere Wilder takes warning wasplace required. there.

ItIn should seem unimportant could buy anything.by The Sears look, for any hint that U.S. “Littletoo, House on the Prairie,” the comparison, but itlingerie has begun catalogue offered and a author recalls intelligence about a snowbound MBS, as the chain of events thatdolls could alter tractors, porcelain and crown prince is known, has been Christmas on the lonely frontier. the Middle and East.all that could be motorcars, Just as the skewed by children the Trump have White begun to This congressional inquiry imagined in between. For many despairfor House of receiving political reasons. any gifts,And a shouldconsumers be secret, because it an years, could order bachelor the investigation farmer from should a nearby examine would house involve highly entire from the sensitive catalogue, the larger problem of homestead bursts half-frozen information.

The committees and a boxcar would deliver all the U.S. visibility intowith the kingdom, through the door a tall tale should review every Saudilumber, pipes, wiring, windows which has too often been a black of meeting Santa Claus in the related item included and shingles necessaryintothe hole for blizzard. our spy agencies. terrible Santa has asked

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President’sa middle-class Daily Brief since construct dream.

President office. If I am oldTrump enoughtook to remember daily briefing missed the arrival of the annual important as developments, why? catalogue, fat as an Did the CIA prepare encyclopedia, and theafrenzy it psychological of Crown inspired in ourprofile household.

The Prince Mohammed?

What did it “wishbook” revealed countless say? Did items we the hadintelligence not even known to community augment its exist. collection as reports emerged The brilliant retailer and about Khashoggi’s death?

Did philanthropist Julius Rosenwald the White or the National gave Sears House a physical presence as Security Council well, in cities andmake townsany across special tasking Did the country.

Werequests? found nothing Trump or his aides ignore or odd in the 1960s about buying dismiss any vital intelligence? paint and neckties from the same Here are some specific place.

Sears became the largest questions I hope would guide the retailer to the greatest consumers committees’ on Earth. Butinquiry: then shopping l From malls happened, and Walmart King Salman’s revolutionized the management accession in January 2015, what of inventory, and the Internet was the role of the Allegiance became wishbook.

Council,an theinfinite body that Sears entered bankruptcy supposedly oversees Saudi on Monday. political transitions? What did is about a disease old theNostalgia CIA know theof council’s men; has of always been a quickAmerica ratification land for the young.

So let’s Mohammed’s elevation to not deputy dwell the lost leveler, the and crownon prince in April 2015, vanished national to crown prince incommons, June 2017?that was let’s marvel HowSears. do theInstead, analysts assess theat the remorseless engine council’s potential role of now, with renewal and innovation that Mohammed under a dark cloud economist Joseph Schumpeter of suspicion? l When dubbed “creative destruction.”

Mohammed ordered Schumpeter’s insight was2017 to see the arrests in November of that prospering economy morea than 200 Saudis — rewards that— leverage includingenterprises many princes what fresh ideas todid meet needs assessment thefuture intelligence

and wants. Older community offer?companies When Gen.—Ali even large and al-Qahtani, an powerful aide to one of the companies must keep up or die. sons of the — late King Abdullah, Survival of the did fittest a cold died in captivity, theisCIA try and heartless doctrine, unless to discover what happened? youl stop to the think of thetried benefits of When Saudis fitness.

Strong, fit companies during the summer of 2016 toare job-creating companies; they are arrest and kidnap from overseas salary-paying companies; they a prominent businessman are insurance-providing critical of Mohammed, was U.S. companies; pay dividends to intelligence they aware? l When pension funds.

Maj.Rosenwald’s Gen. Ahmed alwealth from hisdeputy share of a robust Assiri became chief of Sears allowed him to build intelligence last year, he moved thousands of schools forinner African into the crown prince’s Americans theU.S. Jimintelligence Crow South circle. Whatindid — project integrallast to the slow doaafter it learned month but rise of the acivil thatirrepressible Assiri was organizing rights movement. “tiger team” for covert special Despite its perennial appeal in operations? l Saudi coffee shops and ontell college sources me that campuses, fails those who socialism oppose the crown wherever steps inrallying to protect prince areitquietly flabby frombin the lethal aroundenterprises Prince Ahmed winnowing of competition.

Abdulaziz, the last remaining Legacy companies act son of the foundingnaturally King Abdul to preserve the Have statusU.S. quo, Aziz ibn Saud. because the past was where they intelligence agencies provided flourished.

Give them the White House any the protection, special favor, of assessmentsthe about Ahmed’s state and they will use it to viewspower and political prospects? snuff out are young and vigorous These intrusive questions, competitors theyofhave but that’s thewhile essence goodthe chance. oversight. The committees need willing to letAdie to A docountry their job, urgently.

U.S. something as formative its resident appears to havetobeen identity Sears is to brutally as murdered inAmerica Istanbul.is a country more forknow, its What didthat U.S.cares intelligence future thandid forititsknow past.it? and when n n

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TRENDS SCIENCE

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Owners The casepush of theback disappearing on Owners Airbnbbugs limits push bac BY

B REN OBERT G UARINO M C C ARTNEY

BY

IA

nsects ustin around Hongthe of San world Diego are in ahas crisis, used Airbnb according and to sim-a small ilar butcompanies growing number for the of long-term past fivestudies years toshowing rent out dramatic a second declines home for in invertebrate short stays. populations.

The income allows A newhim report andsughis gests husband thattothe cover problem the mortgage is more widespread while keeping than the three-bedroom scientists realized. houseHuge available numbers for family of bugsmemhave been bers who lostvisit in aoften. pristine national forest So Hong in Puerto foughtRico, back the when study the found, city council and the passed forest’s a law insect-eatin July ing that animals would ban havesuch gone short-term missing, too. rentals. He collected signatures onInpetitions 2014, anat international food courtsteam and of social biologists gatherings estimated as that, part inofthea past successful 35 years, campaign the abundance to block the of invertebrates measure fromsuch taking as beetles effect until and bees it canhad be decreased put to popular by 45 percent. referenIn dum, places possibly where in long-term 2020. insect data “They are available, say it’s regulation, mainly in Eubut rope, really insect it’s a ban numbers that they arepassed,” plummeting. said Hong, A study 34, alast creative year showed directora 76 at apercent software decrease company. in “We flying absoinsects lutely in want the regulation. past few decades What we in German don’t want nature is a ban.” preserves.

The explosive latest report, growthpublished of shortMonday term rentals in the Proceedings nationwideof has the National pushed local Academy governments of Sciences to rein (PNAS), in the practice, shows with that help this startling from the loss hotelofindustry, insect abundance which wants extends to to stifle thea Americas. formidableThe competitor. study’s authors Butimplicate the effort climate has change spawned in the political loss ofcontests tropicalthat invertebrates. have highlighted “Thisthe study difficulty in PNAS of managing is a real wake-up a disruptive callnew — aindustry. clarion call It has — that triggered the phenomenon a backlash in could some jube much, risdictions much from bigger, the and short-term across many rental more firms ecosystems,” and propertysaid owners David whoWagner, don’t want an expert to lose in a lucrative invertebrate enterprise. conservation at the UniversityInof June, Connecticut voters in Palm who Springs, was not involved Calif., overwhelmingly with this research. approved “This is a ballot one ofmeasure the mostoverturning disturbing artilimcles its on I have short-term ever read.” rentals. Some state Bradford governments, Lister, aincluding biologist in at Rensselaer Arizona andPolytechnic Tennessee, Institute have inin tervened New York, to protect has been hosts studying when rain legislators forest insects thought in Puerto cities were Rico since settingthe limits 1970s. thatIfwent Puerto tooRico far. is theThese island kinds of enchantment, of restrictions then — in its scores rain of forest cities is “the in the enchanted United forest States on andthe hundreds enchanted worldwide isle,” he said.

— have Birds barely andslowed coqui the frogs risetrill in beneath home-sharing, a 50-foot-tall which is emerald forecast canopy. to continue The toforest, expand named rapidly, El Yunque, and permanently is well-protected. transform Spanthe ish lodging Kingand Alfonso tourism XIIbusiness. claimed the jungle Short-term as a 19th-century rentals have royal soared preserve. later, becauseDecades hosts like the Theodore extra in-

R OBERT M C C ARTNEY

A

ustin Hong of San Diego has used Airbnb and similar companies for the past five years to rent out a second home for short stays.

The income allows him and his husband to cover the mortgage while keeping the three-bedroom house available for family members who visit often.

So Hong fought back when the city council passed a law in July that would ban such short-term rentals. He collected signatures on petitions at food courts and social gatherings as part of a successful campaign to block the measure from taking effect until it can be put to popular referendum, possibly in 2020.

“They say it’s regulation, but really it’s a ban that they passed,” said Hong, 34, a creative director RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST at a software company.

“We absoJONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST lutely want regulation. What we don’t want is a ban.”

The explosive growth of shortterm rentals nationwide has pushed local governments to rein in the practice, with help from the hotel industry, which wants to stifle a formidable competitor.

But effortJohnson, has spawned said Arun sent day. The Sundararajan, sweep sample a busibio- theResearchers Shaun who political that have highoffers his measured property in ness professor mass decreasedattoNew a fourth York or Unian contests lighted difficulty of amanaging Washington, D.C., group on versity. of what it had been. eighth Be- thearthropods, a Year’s disruptive new industry.

Airbnb, that includes talks lastIt has tween He noted January that 1977 lastand New January backlash in some year withspiders renter andjuEve, more 2013, the catch than rate 3 million in thetriggered guests sticky ainsects, risdictions from Valencia the short-term Taylor centipedes, in of were staying ground traps in fellAirbnb 60-fold.rooms, or rental and property San Francisco.

Rico’s Elowners more “Everything than the total is dropping,” number stayList-firmsPuerto who don’t want to lose a lucrative Yunque National ingsaid. er in hotels The most owned common

by Marriott inverForest. and Hilton tebrates in combined. the rain forestenterprise.

— the In June, voters in Palm Springs, moths, The the regulations butterflies, have the estabgrassCalif., lished a legal hoppers, the spiders framework and others for the —overwhelmingly approved a ballot newall are industry, far less abundant. which in many cit- measure overturning limits on iesLouisiana was operating State in University violation enofshort-term rentals. Some state governments, including in zoning lawsTimothy tomologist or other ordinances.

Schowalter, Arizona Theyisalso who nothave an author allowed of the local recent gov- and Tennessee, have intervened ernments report, hastostudied collect this taxes forest on to protect hosts when legislators thought cities were short-term since the 1990s. rentals.

The new Airbnb research says setting about is consistent 60 percent with his of its data, U.S. ashosts well limits that went too far.

These kinds of restrictions — in now as thepay European such levies. biomass studies. scores “ItBut takes thethese new long-term regulations sites, are of cities in the United Statesaand hundreds worldwide barely with consistent slowing down sampling the across nascent — renthave barely slowed the rise in industry. long period Global of time, short-term to document home-sharing, which is forecast als grew these trends,” by 82he percent said. “Ifrom find their 2012 continue to expand rapidly, to 2017, data pretty from compelling.”

45.6 billion to 82.9 and permanently transform the billion, The study according authors to aalso Julytrapped report

by Skift, anole lizards, a travel whichindustry eat lodging arthrore- and tourism business.

Short-term rentals have soared searchinfirm. pods, the rain In the forest. same They period, compared withbecause counts hotel these room numbers sales increased 27 hosts like the extra in-

Study shows aoff‘disturbing’ massivemore loss of Gloves come as hotel industry, cities insects — and bug-eating animals — worldwide move to place limits on short-term rentals Roosevelt made it national recome and guests geta alternatives, serve,at and El Yunque often a lower price, remains to a hotelthe or only tropical rain in the motel.

Matching theforest two has beNational Forest system. come much easier because book“We downonline in ’76,on’77 exings canwent be done Airbpressly to measure the resources: nb, HomeAway, VRBO and other the insects and the insectivores in sites. theThe rainexpansion forest, the aroused birds, thefear frogs, in Lister said. the lizards,” lodging industry, whose comHe came back nearly 40 years panies and unions have financed later,promoted with his tight colleague Andrés and regulation of García, an ecologist at the Nationwhat they describe as “illegal hoal Autonomous of Mextels.”

They haveUniversity formed an alliico. What scientists did notthat see ance withthe residents unhappy on their return troubled them. short-term rentals are altering “Boy, itneighborhoods’ was immediatelycharacter obvious their whenwith we affordable went into that forest,” and housing acLister said. birds flitted tivists.

They Fewer make claims, based overhead.

The data, butterflies, once on inconclusive that growth abundant, hadrentals all butisvanished. of short-term contributand Lister againshortmeaingGarcía significantly to housing suredand therising forest’s insects and othages rents. er “The invertebrates, groupthecalled real storya over last arthropods that aincludes spiders year or year and half seems to be and hotel centipedes.

Thewaking biomassup(the the industry to dry fact weight of all the captured the that Airbnb poses a much invertebrates) hadtheir significantly bigger threat to business decreased 1976 to the prethan they from originally imagined,”

from the from percent, 1970s.404.2 Anolebillion biomass to 512.3 billion. dropped by more than 30 percent.

Some By anole 2022, species Skift forecast, have altogethshortterm er disappeared rentals sales fromwill thejump interior 60 percent from the 2017 level, to forest.

132.5 Insect-eating billion rooms, frogswhile and birds hotel room sales willtoo. plummeted, rise by Another 34 percent, reto 686.9team search billion. used mist nets to capture It seems birds likely in 1990, that short-term and again rentals in 2005.would Captures have fellgrown by about even 50 faster without percent.

Garcia the andnew Lister regulaanations, the lyzed butdata no figures with anare eyepublicly on the available aboutThe insectivores. how many ruddylistings quail were which dove, lost overall eats fruits because and of seeds, the new no had rules. population In San Francisco, change. AAirbbrilnb reported liant green bird in January called the thatPuerto some of the tightest Rican tody, which restrictions eats bugs in the alcountyexclusively, most had cost itdiminished nearly 5,000 by listings.

90 percent.

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Schowalter said, Also, because it’s so diffi“you cult to have allenforce these different many regulations taxa showthatthehome-sharing ing same trends — continues the inseceven if it’s tivorous birds, technically frogs and illicit. lizards — but“The you more don’theavy-handed see those among and draconian the seed-feeding birds.” regulations that cities Lister tryand to Garcia impose, attribute the more this complicated crash to climate. it isIn for the same them 40to enforce,” year period said Matthew as the arthropod Kiessling, vice president crash, the average of the high Travel temperaTechnology ture in the Association. rain forest increased by 4 come degrees.

But and cities The accuse temperatures the shortin guests get alternatives, term the tropics rental companies toprice, a narrow of amaking band.or often at a stick lower to hotel enforcement The invertebrates difficult that livedeclinthere, motel.

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They have challenging formedcontrol. an allihave But “we what can residents all I step would up,” call he said, smart by ance with unhappy that regulation, using more because fuel-efficient and on short-term rentalsit depends arecars altering data, turning off data unused is largely electronics. held by theirand neighborhoods’ character the The Portland, Ore.-based and the compaXerces andcompanies, with affordable housing acnies Society, areaThey largely nonprofit notenvironmensuper-intertivists. make claims, based ested tal in sharing that promotes the data,” said ongroup inconclusive data, that insect growth Kellen conservation, Zale, a law recommends professor plantat the of short-term rentals is contributUniversity ing garden of Houston. withtonative plants ingasignificantly housing shortthat The flower biggest throughout challenge hasyear. been ages and rising rents. the whether “Unfortunately, allow short-term weover havethe rentdeaf “Thetoreal story last als ears of inorWashington,” second Denver, year year andhomes. a halfSchowalter seems to be Phoenix said. and those Seattle ears say will yes, listen while the But hotel industry waking upatto New some point, and heAirbnb San said, Francisco because our the York fact that poses ahave much largely food supply banned willthe be practice. jeopardy. bigger threat to in their business n n than they©The Washington Post originally imagined,”

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by S searc hotel

6 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2018

SUNDAY, October 21, 2018 23

KLMNO WEEKLY

DATA CRUNCH

Voter turnout BY

C HRISTOPHER I NGRAHAM

The United States has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the developed world. In 2016, for instance, just under 56 percent of the voting age population cast a ballot in the presidential election, according to the Pew Research Center. In countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Belgium, by contrast, recent participation surpassed 80 percent.

But the United States is a big country, and there are huge regional variations in voter participation within our own borders. At the state level, for example, turnout in the 2016 presidential election ranged from less than 40 percent in Hawaii to nearly 70 percent of the voting age population in Maine and Minnesota.

Drilling down to the county level, as we’ve done in this map, shows even more variation. To calculate county-level voter turnout, we relied on two data sets: total votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, compiled from official sources by the MIT Election Data & Science Lab, and total citizen voting-age population as calculated by the Census Bureau. The final turnout figure is simply the percent of the citizen voting-age population in a given county who cast a presidential ballot.

The data shows that in the average county, 59 percent of adult citizens voted in 2016. Turnout rates ranged from less than 20 percent in one Georgia county to nearly 100 percent in a number of small southwestern ones.

What’s driving those differences?

While there’s no magic formula that can predict voter turnout in a given community, there are a number of factors that researchers have found, time and time again, to be closely associated with who turns up at the polls.

State policies matter One of the most striking features of the map above is the effect of state borders on turnout. States such as Tennessee and West Virginia, for example, appear in much darker shades of red than their neighbors.

Colorado, on the other hand, is much bluer than surrounding states.

Some of these differences can be traced back to state-level laws on voting

nearly 30 percentage points higher among Americans age 60 and older than among the 18-29 age group. Whites and blacks were about 15 percentage points more likely to vote than Hispanics. Americans with a postgraduate education were more than twice as likely to cast a ballot as those who hadn’t finished high school.

Don’t forget about culture But demographics aren’t destiny. Culture and communitylevel norms regarding civic engagement and voting all play a significant role, too.

access. Tennessee, for instance, has a strict photo ID requirement and allows for vote by mail only under certain circumstances. Colorado, on the other hand, mails out a ballot to every voter in the state and requires only an ID — the non-photo kind — of voters who choose to cast a ballot in person.

Electoral competitiveness matters too In presidential elections, turnout tends to be higher in battleground states where voters may feel that their votes

count for more than they would in a nonbattleground state, where the result is essentially a foregone conclusion. You can see this most clearly at play in the map above in Vermont and New Hampshire. Turnout was higher in the latter state, despite its having much stricter voting laws than its neighbor to the west.

Demographic differences Demographic variables, like race, age and education, also play a significant role in turnout. In 2016, turnout was

What does it mean for 2018?

If researchers know one thing about turnout, it’s this: It plummets during midterm years.

The plot of U.S. election turnout over time works out to a wild zigzag, with swings between presidential and midterm election years in the neighborhood of 20 percent. The differences are observable across all demographic groups, but they’re particularly pronounced for young voters.

How that will all shake out at the county level remains to be seen. County-level turnout is more complicated in midterm election years, since there’s no single national-level contest common between all voters.

Some states have big Senate and House races drawing a lot of attention this year, while others don’t.

One thing that’s certain is that interest in the election is running high this year. Google searches for “voter registration,” for instance, are at a level that more resembles a typical presidential election cycle rather than a midterm year. n

©The Washington Post

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POLITICS

KLMNO WEEKLY

Trump has huge head start for 2020 BY

M ICHELLE Y E H EE L EE

A

s Democrats get organized for the 2020 presidential election, one major obstacle is becoming starkly clear: President Trump’s $100 million head start.

Trump, who began raising money for his reelection campaign shortly after winning the presidency, disclosed this past week that his campaign and affiliated committees have raised at least $106 million — an enormous sum that exceeds what any of his predecessors amassed so early in their presidencies.

More than half the money the committees raised in the most recent fundraising quarter came from individual supporters who are giving in amounts of $200 or less. These supporters also are turning up at Trump-headlined rallies, where their information is being pulled into the Republican National Committee’s expanding voter database.

The party is connecting with 1 million voters per day and forging an army of volunteers — with a test run of this machine underway in the November midterm elections.

Amid this expansive effort, Democrats’ hopes for the presidency are just coming into focus.

The 2020 race is expected to begin almost immediately after the midterms, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) and former vice president Joe Biden are among the highprofile Democrats who have recently raised millions of dollars and traveled around the country to support midterm candidates — moves typically considered signs of presidential aspirations.

But the Trump machine has been churning for nearly two years — unheard of before this president, as his predecessors typically waited until after midterm elections to focus on their reelection campaigns.

“If the Trump campaign and RNC keep doing what they’re doing, they’re going to amass a huge fundraising and grass-roots network,” said GOP strategist Scott

ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The president’s reelection effort has raised $106 million, recruited thousands of volunteers Jennings, who advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Together with the RNC, Trump’s campaign committee and joint fundraising committees have raised more than $337 million and stockpiled at least $88 million of it in cash.

Democrats acknowledge that Trump has a head start in finetuning the campaign’s data and online fundraising capabilities.

The president is a top political advertiser on Facebook and Google, and the RNC is continuing to improve the data and email lists that Trump’s 2020 campaign will inherit.

“It is really impressive, the money and the operation that the Trump folks are putting together,” said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist. As soon as the midterms are over, he said, Democrats “had better get about the business of re-arming for the next battle.”

The Democratic National Com-

mittee, struggling to rebuild after 2016, effectively has no cash on hand and remains in debt. DNC officials said they are cognizant of the gap they need to close for 2020 and are investing in state parties and cybersecurity so that the eventual nominee will inherit a strong party — something they acknowledge that Hillary Clinton did not have in 2016.

Trump has a number of advantages when it comes to fundraising, the most powerful of which may be his appeal to different parts of the GOP base.

Supporters are buying “Make America Great Again” gear and responding to Facebook ads. A barrage of Republican Party fundraising emails bearing Trump’s name and likeness has helped draw in a steady stream of donations of less than $200, which make up more than 40 percent of the RNC’s fundraising this entire cycle.

Trump has been equally suc-

The Republican National Committee collects data from those who attend the president’s rallies, such as this one in Kentucky on Oct. 13.

cessful at luring large contributions from wealthy donors who support conservative causes.

These groups are better organized and act more strategically than any Democratic outfits that raise money from big donors, said Joel Benenson, who was a campaign strategist for Barack Obama.

The work of these groups is already evident. At least six political action committees have spent more than $9 million to promote Trump’s 2020 run, while spending only about $1.2 million supporting GOP House and Senate candidates, according to a McClatchy news analysis.

The RNC now has 540 national staff members across 28 states, with more than 22,000 activists whom they describe as “top tier” because they are specifically trained to help sustain the operation. In comparison, 5,000 such volunteers were trained for the 2016 campaign.

Republicans are hoping that their organized approach will fend off any anti-Trump wave.

“When [Trump] announced his reelection campaign shortly after the inauguration, I think it was a brilliant move because it allowed us to keep running hand in hand with the campaign apparatus and the RNC for the midterms,” RNC political director Juston Johnson said.

Trump’s Make America Great Again rallies supporting GOP midterm candidates have served a particularly useful purpose: recruiting volunteers for the RNC’s field operation and improving its data program, which is growing increasingly sophisticated as a result of the nearly $250 million that officials say they have spent since 2012 to improve the party’s data and digital operations.

The RNC’s data program flags prospective volunteers when they express interest in the party for the first time — such as making a donation or signing a petition online — and then activates them when they seem most enthusiastic about the president, such as when they register to attend their first Trump rally. n ©The Washington Post

8 22 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2018

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SUNDAY, October21, 21, 2018 20189 SUNDAY, OCTOBER

9

NATION OPINIONSKLMNO WEEKLY

NATION

KLMNO WEEKLY

o Colorado Drilling fight ballot heads to Colorado ballot J ENNIFER O LDHAM in Denver

payers would be forced to pay more for capital improvement bonds funding new fire stations years-long fight over howand equipment, said Don Warden, close oil and gas drillingthe county’s finance director. Encan safely be to placesergy companies pay most of these where people live andcosts now. work is coming to a head with an Yet supporters of the measure unprecedented November ballotnote that the state is “currently measure that would ban such op-giving more money to the industry erations within at least half a milethan it is receiving in severance tax of homes, schools, businesses andmoney” because of lower oil and gas prices and a 2016 Colorado waterways.

Proposition 112 is pitting home-Supreme Court ruling that reowners against Fortune 500 com-quired the state to issue about panies and even neighbor against$120 million in refunds to energy neighbor. The stakes involved arecompanies. / immense in a state that is the The national implications of the nation’s seventh-largest oil pro-initiative became clear in August ducer and fifth-biggest supplier ofwhen proponents turned in the petition signatures to place it on natural gas.

Opponents say increased set-the ballot. Energy stocks plunged, backs would put tens of thousandswiping out almost $3 billion in construct a middle-class dream. of people out of work, plunge Colo-market value for five companies I am old enough to remember rado into a recession and jeopar-plumbing Colorado’s fossil fuels. the arrival of the annual dize U.S. energy independence. An The dangers weigh heavy on the HELEN H. RICHARDSON/DENVER POST HELEN H. RICHARDSON/DENVER POST catalogue, as fat as an industry-backed political actionminds of residents in Broomfield, encyclopedia, and the frenzy it committee, Protect Colorado, col-where Extraction Oil & Gas is inspired in our household. The readying frack atonce-great least 70 wells lected about $33 million through In 1817, not longtoafter the emperor Napoleon met his DAVID VON “wishbook” revealed countless onpoet the Percy edge of recently built subSept.

26 to defeat the initiative.

Waterloo, Shelley wrote a few lines on the impermanence of DREHLE items we had not even known to urbs.

Abandoned beThat sum, which dwarfed power.the He pictured a ruinedwells statuelurk in a wind-swept desert with an is a Washington Post exist. communities here, amount the other side raised, hasneath inscription barely legible among theincludbroken pieces: “My name is opinion columnist.

The brilliant retailer and Laurie made Proposition 112 one of theing one Ozymandias, Kingwhere of Kings; LookAnderson on my Works, ye Mighty, and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald most expensive referendums inlives with her husband. despair!” gaveandSears a physical presence “Soon will be 19 wells as that The showdown comes appliwethere build in the United States are called corporations, w short- state and- history.

A sweeping new The empires trations were below shortA sweeping new as well, in citiesdrilling and towns across I willcations be able todrill seesuch from my home,” Proponents that industo in theas shadow of the and our kings have names Cook, Zuckerberg, Hastingssafe (and drillingcounter operation operation els of exposure long-term levels of exposure the country. We she said, gesturing toinaThe vacant lotyear Post). pollute the air and Rockies tripled theWashington past Bezos, whose holdings include But the same sits near sitsfound near nothing th effects.”trial operations for non-cancer health effects.” odd in the 1960s about buying covered with yellowing prairie threatensubdivisions health and safety.

Coloraand oil production record lesson applies.

Nothing — least of allhit power and dominion — lasts in Erie, subdivisions in Erie, natorial candiThe state’s gubernatorial candiand neckties from theoil same located 500 fourth-largest feet from Rising, theGas committee leadinggrasshighs.

Thejust nation’s Colo. and oilforever.

Colo. Gas and Polis (D) do and dates, Rep. Jared Polis paint (D) and place. Sears became the largest neighborhood. worry the effort, has highlighted moreher oil field based on“The proved reserves development, development, alker Stapleton State Treasurer Walker Stapleton retailer greatest consumers health andthe safety is Range leadinghere, than fires, leaks lies beneath Front exploration andand explo-about and ot measure be- a dozen (R), oppose the ballot measure be-to theexploration on Earth. Butfracking then shopping to stress anxiety and of sions since 2017. Several haveThe been ensuring that moreof rigslots will go him toup deliver his bounty toitthe fracking operations operations latest nameand in the ruins ould effectively cause they say would effectively malls happened, and Walmart nights.” deadly, and the loss of life is onesleepless in metropolitan dealing as Iban recall, it was aRegulators piece are abutting more are abutting more commerce, today’s Ozymandias areas Wilders; ators concluddrilling. concludrevolutionized the management Others weigh different likely Propositionin112 supwith historic growth. considof candy anded a little housing housing the shifting sands, is Sears. t 85 percent of reason that cup. it would put 85 percent of inventory, and the Internet Energy porters this time in getCurrent lawgroups requiresemphawellsAto be generation later, the ownedofland developments onLook the developments on the on erations. its works: The cultural owned land off succeeded stateandwhen privately off became wishbook. that more500 than put thesize set back feet from homes and cured railroads isolation and exploration.

Frontsignatures Range. toinfluence Front Range. of this company isthree-quarters hard ploration. ting Giv-enough limits to energy Giv-an infinite Sears of the upfeet to from 43,000 Coloradans on the ballot. to overstate.

1,000 schools.

The referSears, Roebuck Co. began Sears made il and gas measure play en and the huge role oil and gas playentered bankruptcy on Monday. they saywould couldpush lose their jobs As the Nov. 6 midtermconsumers electionwho that publishing to 2,500 its mail-order ofendum us all. the American here — a report by the American Nostalgia is a disease of old first year of world Proposition 112 toin the feet allow local governments catalogues, the days when America was aand different e found thatnears, the both sides are going door Petroleum Institute found that the men; America has always been a include teachers, hotel and restaudoor and holding rallies, before especialto increase even farther.

Christmas could mean acontribute single $31.4 Sears.

My favoriteitchapter te $31.4 billion industries billion land for rantof employees, and truck drivers. in the most populous in counties Each side in the Proposition candy112 and a little gone economy the books Laura Ingalls s economylyand a yearcup to were Colorado’s andthe young. So let’s not dwell on Many alsobacking own ofAnyone near debate says it forever. anywhere Wilder takes placeColoradoans there.

Inhas the blic revenue — Denver. Most Coloradoans $1.2living billion in public revenue —the lost leveler, the vanished national commons, that mineral rights that the arepoint separate vote by mail, and they started science.

Residents to peercould buy anything.

The Sears “LittlereHouse on the Prairie,” the budgetary many officials fear the budgetary was Sears. Instead, let’s marvel at fromreviewed land ownership. ceiving their ballots last week. research showing health offered catalogue lingerie and author recalls asurface snowbound repercussions. the remorseless engine of sayoil Proposition According to Tracee Bentley, ex-Mineral from toxic and gas emis-porcelain tractors, dolls and and school Christmas onrisks the owners lonely frontier. nd school disMunicipalities disrenewal 112children puts risk rely sionsatsuch as cancer, respiratory motorcars, and allstand that could bemillions Just as the haveroyalties begun tothey millions ofecutive dol- director of the Colorado tricts to lose of dol-and innovation that onreceiving to pay medical expenses and de- in lars.

Petroleum Council, the despair state isof problems and congenital birth imagined between. many just economist any gifts, a just north of WeldFor County, north of Joseph Schumpeter dubbed necessities.

They say if consumers “a bellwether.”bachelor If Prop-other fects.

Energy groups citethat ayears, Coloracould order an farmer from a nearby 1 percent ofconsidered the Denver, produces 91 percent of the“creative destruction.”

Schumpeter’s insight was to see initiative passes, taxpayers osition 112 were to pass, homestead she said,thebursts do Department of Public Health & entire house from the half-frozen ved $73 million state’s oil catalogue, and received $73 million that2008 a prospering economy bewith required to reimburse “we are certain we would see it popshould Environment of 10,000 air and a boxcar would deliver all thebetween through the door a tallstudy tale between 2008 in tax distributions rewards enterprises that leverage oil-them. samples inin oilthe and gas areas thatpipes, lumber, wiring, of meeting Santa ords show. up in a couple years in other and 2016, windows state records show. n Claus freshtaxideas to meet future needs states.” found “all measured concenshingles necessary to terrible blizzard.

Santa has asked airand 12 passes,and-gas-producing taxIf Proposition 112 passes, ©The Washington Post BY

A

Cherish the demise of Sears

gas setbacks pits e 500 companies

Measure to increase oil and gas setbacks pits homeowners against Fortune 500 companies

payers would be forced to pay more for capital improvement bonds funding new fire stations and equipment, said Don Warden, the county’s finance director. Energy companies pay most of these costs now.

Yet supporters of the measure note that the state is “currently giving more money to the industry than it is receiving in severance tax money” because of lower oil and gas prices and a 2016 Colorado Supreme Court ruling that required the state to issue about $120 million in refunds to energy companies. / The national implications of the initiative became clear in August when proponents turned in the petition signatures to place it on the ballot. Energy stocks plunged, wiping out almost $3 billion in and wants.

Older — market value forcompanies five companies even largeColorado’s and powerful plumbing fossil fuels. companies — must keep up or The dangers weigh heavy ondie. the Survival of the fittest is a cold minds of residents in Broomfield, and heartless doctrine, where Extraction Oil unless & Gas is you stop to benefits of readying tothink frackof atthe least 70 wells fitness.

Strong, fit companies on the edge of recently built are subjob-creating companies; urbs. Abandoned wells they lurkare besalary-paying companies; neath communities here, they includare ing insurance-providing one where Laurie Anderson companies; they pay dividends to lives with her husband. pension Rosenwald’s “Soonfunds. there will be 19 wells that wealth hissee share a robust I will befrom able to fromofmy home,” Sears allowed him to she said, gesturing tobuild a vacant lot thousands of schools for African covered with yellowing prairie Americans in the Crow grass located justJim 500 feetSouth from — integral to“The the slow hera project neighborhood. worry but irrepressible of the civil about health andrise safety is leading rights movement. to stress and anxiety and lots of Despitenights.” its perennial appeal in sleepless coffee shops and on collegeconsidOthers weigh different campuses, socialism fails emphaerations. Energy groups wherever it steps inthree-quarters to protect size that more than flabby fromColoradans the lethal of the enterprises up to 43,000 winnowing ofcould competition. who they say lose their jobs Legacy companies naturally act112 in the first year of Proposition to preserve the status include teachers, hotelquo, and restaubecause the pastand wastruck wheredrivers. they rant employees, flourished.

Give them the Many Coloradoans also own protection, the special favor, of mineral rights that are separate state and land they will use it to from power surface ownership. snuff out owners young and Mineral sayvigorous Proposition competitors while they have 112 puts at risk royalties theythe rely chance. on to pay medical expenses and A country willing to let die other necessities.

They say that if something as formative its the initiative passes, to taxpayers identity as Sears is toto America is a should be required reimburse country them. n that cares more for its future than for its past. n ©The Washington Post

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SUNDAY, October 21, 2018 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2018

WORLD

KLMNO WEEKLY

Venezuela fights to keep a key asset

BY J EANNE W HALEN AND A NTHONY F AIOLA

A

s crisis-plagued Venezuela struggles to pay its bills at home and abroad, foreign creditors are circling one of the country’s most valuable assets: Citgo, the Houston-based oil company that it has owned since 1990.

If Citgo is seized and sold to pay Venezuela’s debts, it could disrupt one of the most reliable sources of cash for a country already reeling from hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, and a population exodus. U.S. sanctions aimed at pressuring President Nicolás Maduro, who has overseen the worst of the country’s implosion, have exacerbated the government’s pain, largely blocking it from the U.S. financial system.

The fight over Citgo is unfolding in courtrooms and boardrooms across North America and Europe — with a key decision expected by the end of the year.

Two Canadian mining firms are trying to acquire parts of Citgo as compensation for Venezuela’s expropriation of their assets more than a decade ago. A Russian oil company and holders of bonds issued by Venezuela’s state oil producer have staked a claim to Citgo shares. ConocoPhillips suggested it may also pursue the company.

In August, a federal judge in Delaware gave a bankrupt Canadian gold-mining company, Crystallex International, permission to seize shares of Citgo’s holding company, a decision that Venezuela’s lawyers said would “trigger a cascade of adverse events.”

Now the other creditors are waiting to see whether the judge allows Crystallex to begin selling those shares — which could trigger even more claims on Citgo.

Venezuela faces more than $10 billion in immediate claims from foreign entities. “The pool of creditors is much larger than the pool of available ways to get paid,” said Russ Dallen, a Florida-based managing partner at the brokerage Caracas Capital Markets. “Citgo is the most valuable asset out there.”

ISAAC URRUTIA/REUTERS

If oil company is seized by creditors, it could cut off a reliable source of cash for struggling country Citgo’s Gulf Coast refineries are big buyers of Venezuela’s crude oil.

The Houston company is one of the few customers from which Venezuela can expect same-day payments, Dallen said. It is possible that a new Citgo owner would carry on buying from Venezuela with little interruption, but it’s also possible that new ownership would destabilize those purchases, he said.

Oil exports account for more than 90 percent of Venezuela’s hard-currency earnings. That money is “absolutely necessary for keeping the regime afloat,” said Monica de Bolle, director of the Latin American studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Disrupting it “would tighten the noose around the Maduro regime.”

Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, the state oil company that

owns Citgo, appealed the Delaware court ruling, saying it could “jeopardize the financial well-being” of PDVSA and Citgo. PDVSA and the Venezuelan Communication Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Citgo owns refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Illinois and pipelines and petroleum distribution terminals across the United States. The company sells fuel to Citgo-branded gasoline stations that are owned by local entrepreneurs.

U.S. sanctions have reduced Venezuela’s ability to benefit from Citgo, barring the firm from sending dividends to Caracas. The United States did not issue sanctions preventing Venezuela from selling oil to Citgo because the U.S. market depends on those imports.

The creditors’ tug of war over Citgo is unfolding as Venezuela’s economic crisis deepens. Malnu-

Ninety percent of Venezuela’s hardcurrency earnings are in oil, and a court ruling may let foreign creditors take control of Citgo.

trition and poverty are soaring, power and water infrastructure is failing, and inflation is rocketing toward 1 million percent. Venezuelans are fleeing their broken nation by the hundreds of thousands in the region’s largest migrant crisis in decades.

The country’s oil industry, meanwhile, is crumbling. Drill sites and pipelines are being raided by bandits and failing because of mismanagement and a lack of spare parts. Oil output has slumped to levels not seen since at least the 1950s.

The country is also facing large claims from foreign companies whose mining and oil assets were nationalized under the previous government of Hugo Chávez, the leftist firebrand who died in 2013.

In 2016, an international arbitration panel ruled that Venezuela owed Crystallex $1.2 billion plus interest as compensation for nationalizing the Las Cristinas gold mines, a seizure that pushed Crystallex into bankruptcy.

With the Delaware court ruling, PDVSA was found liable for Venezuela’s debts, and Crystallex was granted permission to take over the state oil company’s shares in a subsidiary that owns Citgo Holding. The court told Crystallex to hold off selling the shares until it fielded objections from other parties.

Banks and pension funds that hold $1.5 billion of PDVSA bonds secured by a majority stake in Citgo Holding have requested a delay in the share sale until the appeal is decided.

The Russian state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, which holds 49.9 percent of Citgo Holding as collateral against loans it provided to PDVSA, also stepped forward, saying a change in Citgo ownership could give it the right to sell that collateral.

And ConocoPhillips, which is trying to recover $2 billion from PDVSA in connection with Venezuela’s oil industry nationalization, asked the court to delay the share sale, saying the appeal ruling could make Citgo available to PDVSA creditors like itself. n ©The Washington Post

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NATION

Polio-like illness cases on the rise Rare disorder mainly affects children and can paralyze arms and legs

B Y L ENA H . S UN

F

ederal health officials are worried about an increase in a mysterious and rare condition that mostly affects children and can paralyze arms and legs.

This year, of 127 suspected cases of acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, 62 have been confirmed across 22 states, according to Nancy Messonnier, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 90 percent of the confirmed cases have been in children 18 and younger, with the average age being 4 years old.

The surge in cases has baffled health officials, who on Tuesday took the unusual step of announcing a change in the way the agency will count cases in the future. They also wanted to raise awareness about the frightening condition so parents can seek medical care if their child develops symptoms, and so reports of the illness can be quickly relayed back to the CDC. “We understand that people, particularly parents, are concerned about AFM,” said Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Despite extensive laboratory and other testing, CDC has not been able to find the cause for the majority of the cases.

“There is a lot we don’t know about AFM, and I am frustrated that despite all of our efforts, we haven’t been able to identify the cause of this mystery illness.”

The increase in cases has been happening irregularly since 2014, usually in August and September, Messonnier said in a news briefing with reporters.

The CDC knows of one child who died with the disorder in 2017.

Thus far unable to determine how the disease spreads, officials said Tuesday they are starting to count suspected cases as well as confirmed to better anticipate increases in confirmed cases over the coming months.

There is no specific treatment for the disorder, and long-term

Number of confirmed acute flaccid myelitis cases Federal health officials are worried about an increase in a mysterious and rare polio-like condition that can paralyze arms and legs, with 127 confirmed or suspected cases reported as of Oct. 16.

150

100

Suspected 50

Confirmed 0

2014*

2015

2016

2017

2018*

Cases in 2014 represent August through December. Cases in 2018 are through Oct. 16. All cases are listed by date of onset.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

outcomes are unknown. The rare but serious disorder affects a person’s nervous system, specifically the spinal cord. Neurological conditions like it have a variety of causes, such as viruses, environmental toxins and genetic disorders.

“We know this can be frightening for parents, and I know many parents want to know what signs and symptoms they should be

“There is a lot we don’t know about AFM, and I am frustrated that despite all of our efforts, we haven’t been able to identify the cause of this mystery illness.”

Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

THE WASHINGTON POST

looking out for in their children,” Messonnier said. Parents should seek medical care right away if their child develops sudden weakness or loss of muscle tone in the arms and legs.

Some patients diagnosed with this condition have recovered quickly, but some continue to have paralysis and require ongoing care, she said.

The CDC began tracking the condition in 2014, when there were 120 confirmed cases. Then in 2016, there were 149 confirmed cases. Officials said it’s too early to know whether the total cases for 2018 will surpass those previous years. But the data reported Tuesday represents “a substantially larger number than in previous months this year,” Messonnier said.

She said it was important for parents and clinicians to remember that this is a rare condition, affecting less than 1 in 1 million people.

“As a parent myself, I understand what it’s like to be scared for your child,” she said. “Parents need to know that AFM is rare even with the increase in cases we are seeing now.”

Still, because this is a “pretty dramatic disease,” Messonnier said health officials want to raise awareness about the symptoms to make sure parents seek medi-

cal care immediately if their children show a sudden onset of weakness in their arms and legs.

The agency knows that poliovirus is not the cause of these cases, because CDC has tested every single stool specimen from patients, and none have tested positive for poliovirus. Messonnier said West Nile virus, which had been listed as a possible cause on CDC’s website, is not causing the illnesses.

In some individuals, health officials have determined that the condition was from infection with a type of virus that causes severe respiratory illness.

But the agency doesn’t know who may be at higher risk for developing this condition or the reasons they may be at higher risk. CDC has tested many different specimens from patients with this condition for a wide variety of pathogens, or germs, that can cause AFM. But so far, no pathogen has been consistently detected in the patients’ spinal fluid.

Parents can best protect their children from serious diseases by taking prevention steps, such as washing their hands, staying up to date on recommended vaccines and using insect repellent to prevent mosquito bites, she said.

There is no specific treatment for AFM, but neurologists who specialize in treating brain and spinal cord illnesses may recommend certain interventions, such as physical or occupational therapy, on a case-by-case basis.

CDC is not releasing a list of the 22 states with confirmed and suspected cases because of privacy issues. But some state health departments, such as Minnesota’s, have reported the numbers.

States are not required to provide this information to CDC, but they have been voluntarily reporting their data. Working with local and state health departments and hospitals, CDC has been able to confirm a number of these cases faster, Messonnier said. n ©The Washington Post

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COVER STORY

High Value on Calif.

Farms Wine country embraces — or at least tolerates — legal marijuana and its tax revenue BY

PHOTOS BY PHILIP CHEUNG FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

S COTT W ILSON in Santa Ynez Valley, Calif.

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KLMNO WEEKLY

COVER STORY

I

t is the fall harvest here in this fertile stretch of oaks and hills that produces some of the country’s best wine. This season, though, workers also are plucking the sticky, fragrant flowers of a new crop.

Marijuana is emerging among the vineyards, not as a rival to the valley’s grapes but as a high-value commodity that could help reinvigorate a fading agricultural tradition along the state’s Central Coast. Brushed by ocean breeze, cannabis has taken root, offering promise and prompting the ageold question of whether there can be too much of a good thing.

Cannabis has been fully legal in California for less than a year, and no place is generating more interest in it than the stretch of coast from Monterey to here in Santa Barbara County, where farmers now hold more marijuana cultivation licenses than in any other county.

The shift in legal cultivation patterns is coming at the expense of the remote Emerald Triangle, the trio of far-northern California counties where an illegal marijuana industry has thrived for decades. The Central Coast is not growing more marijuana than the Emerald Triangle, but it could be on track to grow more legally, if trends hold.

“We’re nearly right in between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the two big consumer hubs,” said John De Friel, whose 17-acre Raw Garden Farm and seed lab sits among cabbage patches and wineries.

The regulated California cannabis market is a $4-billion-ayear industry, a boon to the local tax base and to a generation of entrepreneurial farmers more schooled in the agricultural sciences than in the dark arts of deception.

But legalization already is reordering the business and geography of cannabis cultivation, pushing crops into places they have never been. The new cultivations are challenging long-held beliefs in some conservative communities, including this one, where a rural libertarian streak is confronting a crop still stigmatized despite its legality.

The novelty of cannabis here also is a benefit. In northern California, the marijuana industry’s decades-old outlaw culture has

proved a major obstacle to transforming the black market into a legal one. With so much lowercost, unregulated marijuana on the market there, farmers complying with the stiff, expensive new regulations are struggling to make it into the light.

Here, along the Central Coast, growers complying with the licensing process are having an easier time without a thriving black market as competition. California farmers have only until the end of the year to meet the licensing and regulatory requirements — a process that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — or face the law.

While expensive, the commercial logic to get legal is undeniable. In approving recreational marijuana use in November 2016, California voters vastly expanded the legal market, which previously was accessible only to the roughly 200,000 residents with medical marijuana cards. Now, marijuana can be sold to the entire drinking-age population of the nation’s most populous state.

The initiative allowed counties and cities to make their own rules, including outright bans on sale and cultivation. As a result, hundreds of potential growers are still “jurisdiction shopping,” trying to find counties with the lowest can-

Clockwise, from top: At a farm in Buellton, Calif., cannabis grows on a steep slope. Adam Silver, left, ranch manager at Raw Garden Farm and seed lab in Buellton, loads cannabis plants onto a truck. CEO Graham Farrar shows cannabis buds at Glass House Farms, which produces thousands of pounds of buds a year and has 50 employees.

nabis taxes, the right climate, an experienced labor force and a favorable location.

Santa Barbara County set its tax on cannabis revenue at 4 percent, the lower end of the scale, hoping to attract farmers to a place where many agriculture jobs have been lost to the economics of free trade.

The approximately 330 acres under cannabis cultivation here is a tiny fraction of the land devoted to vineyards, which once helped replace a declining beef and dairy cattle industry in the valley. But government officials and growers acknowledge that more cannabis will come, in part because the “Santa Barbara brand” built by its

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COVER STORY pinot noirs could help sell the locally grown product to new consumers.

Just how much more is a concern to some government officials, all of whom see the need for new crops to boost the tax base but worry whether marijuana in the county’s northern hills and southern greenhouses will change the local culture.

“What sets Santa Barbara County apart is our willingness to face reality — that marijuana is already in our communities and that pretending it will go away on its own is fantasyland,” said Das Williams, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, who opposed state legalization. “But I’ll be the first to say I hope it doesn’t get too big.”

In glass houses Along the southern tip of the county, up against the Pacific Ocean, a cut-flower industry once thrived. Acres of greenhouses nurtured carnations, daisies and orchids.

The decline has been precipitous. Since the U.S. free-trade agreement with Colombia was signed six years ago, what was once a historic element of the county’s economy has been decimated.

Graham Farrar has stepped in.

A Santa Barbara County native, Farrar is the operating partner of Glass House Farms, which owns about five acres of greenhouse space just outside Carpinteria.

It is a state-of-the-art cannabis farm that produces thousands of pounds a year and has 50 employees, who unlike vineyard farm hands can work full-time because of the more frequent cannabis harvest schedule. Three annual harvests are common in cannabis greenhouse operations.

Standing in a greenhouse that once grew Gerbera Daisies and is now row after row of cannabis, Farrar notes the irony of his position.

The free-trade agreement was designed in part to help Colombia fight its problem with coca, the plant that supplies the key ingredient in cocaine. Instead, it opened up greenhouse space thousands of miles away, where he is growing what the federal government classifies as an illegal drug more dangerous than cocaine.

“Here we’re just replacing one cut flower with another,” Farrar

said.

Farrar’s operation here is more clean room than farm.

A rack of dry-cleaned lab coats awaits workers, who pick, dry and package the flower for sale. There is a small nursery for research.

And each greenhouse, rigged with drip irrigation, is fitted with a $100,000 odor-control device to keep the pungent cannabis smell from nearby homes.

“Hiding is no longer a valued skill,” said Farrar, 41, who worked in the software industry and has a degree in molecular biology and biochemistry. “The net of all this — the government, the climate, the compliance culture — is that this is a very goldilocks spot.”

Farrar also has secured one of three cannabis retail licenses that the city of Santa Barbara is issuing for recreational sales. His goal is to transform the traditional marijuana dispensaries, which often have the furtive feel of an adult book store, into something appealing to new customers.

There will be a Santa Barbara County-grown section, but the store will have flowers and oils from all over the state. Eventually, Farrar said, it will evolve into a showroom as more and more firsttime users find what they like and then choose delivery services. California-grown cannabis cannot be legally delivered outside the state.

“Most customers have not even walked in the door yet,” he said.

“And Santa Barbara, as a brand,

A refrigerator at Raw Garden Farm contains 5 million seeds.

rings a lot more bells for people than other places.”

Deputies and libraries The initial quarterly cannabis tax revenue is due soon at the county treasury. Some early estimates say it could run between $2 million and $3 million, money that will go toward enforcing the cannabis law with some left over for public services.

In recent weeks, sheriff’s deputies have carried out raids targeting farms in the backcountry areas of Tepusquet Canyon and Cuyama Valley, the county’s two traditional if small-scale marijuanagrowing areas, seizing plants worth millions of dollars.

Large cannabis plants washed down into Montecito, just a few miles from Farrar’s greenhouses, during the catastrophic mudslides earlier this year. They served as clues that there are farms amid the avocado and citrus orchards that authorities have yet to find.

“I get that it’s a whack-a-mole approach, but we have to do something to make this fair for those complying with the law,” said Dennis Bozanich, the deputy county executive who manages the cannabis portfolio.

Williams, the board chairman who opposed state legalization, said the cannabis tax revenue also will help “to pay for some mental health services and save a few public libraries.”

But, given marijuana’s high

KLMNO WEEKLY

profit margins, he worries that it will wipe out what remains of the cut-flower industry. He also worries about the cultural message that the proximity of cannabis production might send to the county’s young people.

“I grew up in this community, and I do not know, for any practical purposes, how marijuana could be any more accessible than it already is,” he said. “But I do see as a danger anything that legitimizes it any more.”

Connoisseur tourism A few of the hoop houses at Iron Angel Ranch — steel, semicircle rings topped with plastic canopies that shield cannabis plants from the sun and wind — are high up a steep hill overlooking the Sanford Winery.

They are a legacy of the graymarket days, when farmers could grow marijuana for medical use.

The risk of a raid was high. These were out-of-sight, out-of-mind “grows” that today are a small part of what the farm is producing.

Rows of hoop houses stretch out below, just along Santa Rosa Road, which connects Iron Angel to Highway 101, the main northsouth artery just a few miles away.

Mathew Kaplan, who helps run the farm and markets the cannabis under the name Vertical, said the 20 acres now under cultivation will grow to five times that amount by spring.

“We get lumped in with farmers in this county, and this county takes care of its farmers,” Kaplan said. “That just isn’t the case in other parts of the state.”

But Kaplan and his partners plan to make Iron Angel a destination, as well, borrowing from the model that Sanford and other neighboring wineries have used for years.

He said tourists might one day be able to stay in cabins around the 1,500-acre hillside property, which overlooks the Santa Ynez River, racehorse training stables and vineyards that stretch into the middle distance. Oaks dripping with Spanish moss cluster around the land. There are a few Black Angus cattle and a bobcat, though he calls the latter “the laziest or slowest in the world,” given all the deer around.

“I absolutely want more of us to come here; it would be great,” Kaplan said. “It’s always better to be part of a broader community.” n ©The Washington Post

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KLMNO WEEKLY

BOOKS

The beginning of America’s Cold Civil War N ONFICTION

l

REVIEWED BY

C HARLES L ANE

I THE RED AND THE BLUE The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism

By Steve Kornacki Ecco. 497 pp. $29.99

t has been 33 years since Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union, catalyzing internal reforms that escaped his control and led, in 1989, to the downfall of Eastern Europe’s communist governments.

1991 saw the collapse of the regime in Moscow itself. Americans across the political spectrum claimed a victory not only for the military and economic power of the United States, but also for our ideas — for American-style capitalism and democracy.

It was a time of triumph. Today, however, the United States feels like a great power on the edge of its own legitimacy crisis. Euphoria and ideological vindication have long since given way to ferocious internal divisions. Confidence in our institutions has morphed into cries of “rigged system.” Among those employing such scornful language is none other than the current leader of the free world.

Between the end of the EastWest Cold War and the beginning of the American Cold Civil War came the 1990s, an economically prosperous time that produced less marching in the streets than in the turbulent 1960s, but a heightening of conflict within and between the major political parties. Indeed, as Steve Kornacki, a national political correspondent for NBC and MSNBC, argues in his superb new book, “The Red and the Blue,” many seeds of the present partisan deadlock were sown during that crucial decade.

The ’90s began with a grand gesture of bipartisanship: the 1990 budget agreement between President George H.W. Bush and a Democratic Congress, which Bush and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill embraced for the sake of a broad public goal, deficit reduction, even though it required Bush to break his 1988 campaign pledge of “no new taxes.”

The Republican establishment considered this act of statesmanship appropriate to the country’s new status as global hegemon; they expected to reap political re-

KEITH JENKINS/THE WASHINGTON POST

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and President Bill Clinton in 1995. While Gingrich pushed Republicans to the right in the 1990s, Clinton pulled his party to the center.

wards. To their horror, a rightwing gadfly from Georgia named Newt Gingrich attacked the compromise from the back benches of the GOP’s caucus in the House, casting it as a betrayal of the party’s rank and file.

The rest, as they say, is history: Gingrich moved on to seize power in his caucus, then toppled the Democratic majority. Though they are familiar, Kornacki recounts these events stylishly and objectively, reminding us of how the House Democrats had grown complacent after so many years in power.

The other key figure in his absorbing narrative is, of course, Bill Clinton. Whereas Gingrich attacked the political center, Clinton tried to occupy it, shifting his party’s ideology away from liberalism, both cultural and economic. In the process, he broke a Democratic taboo by taking on the preeminent black political leader of the time, Jesse Jackson, chiding Jackson’s organization publicly for failing to condemn a hip-hop artist, Sister

Souljah, when she seemed to endorse violence against whites.

Clinton embraced free trade, promised a crackdown on crime, soft-pedaled organized labor’s agenda in Congress and cut a deal with Gingrich to reform welfare.

Thanks to Kornacki’s rich retelling of these events, we can see how today’s reshuffled political parties represent coalitions that began to form in reaction to the compromises their respective leaders forged in the 1990s. Donald Trump’s GOP still feeds off the anger Gingrich first aroused. For their part, the Democrats increasingly lean left, rejecting Clinton’s centrist spirit and, indeed, blaming it for their loss of power in Washington.

As Kornacki also notes, the ’90s saw the rise of a new brand of politician — the can-do, anti-establishment, anti-NAFTA populist billionaire — in the form of H. Ross Perot, who collected millions of votes as a third-party candidate for president in 1992 and 1996.

One Donald J. Trump almost

picked up the standard of Perot’s chaotic Reform Party in 2000, Kornacki writes, but eventually determined that the time wasn’t right and that ultra-rightists had captured the movement.

If there’s a shortcoming in Kornacki’s book, it’s that he does not expressly address the connections between the changing international environment and the incipient decomposition, during the 1990s, of what had been a centrist two-party duopoly in American politics. That duopoly reflected a broader national need for consensus in the face of a generally recognized external threat, the Soviet Union. The enemy state’s collapse liberated political entrepreneurs like Gingrich to challenge unwritten rules that had modulated political debate, at least among party politicians, for decades. The Cold War’s end, in other words, destabilized both the losing nation and the winner. n Lane is a Washington Post opinion columnist.

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SCIENCE

KLMNO WEEKLY

The case of the disappearing bugs BY

B EN G UARINO

I

nsects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the study found, and the forest’s insect-eating animals have gone missing, too.

In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent.

In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves.

The latest report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that this startling loss of insect abundance extends to the Americas. The study’s authors implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates.

“This study in PNAS is a real wake-up call — a clarion call — that the phenomenon could be much, much bigger, and across many more ecosystems,” said David Wagner, an expert in invertebrate conservation at the University of Connecticut who was not involved with this research. “This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read.”

Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, has been studying rain forest insects in Puerto Rico since the 1970s. If Puerto Rico is the island of enchantment, then its rain forest is “the enchanted forest on the enchanted isle,” he said. Birds and coqui frogs trill beneath a 50-foot-tall emerald canopy. The forest, named El Yunque, is well-protected. Spanish King Alfonso XII claimed the jungle as a 19th-century royal preserve. Decades later, Theodore

RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST

Study shows a ‘disturbing’ massive loss of insects — and bug-eating animals — worldwide Roosevelt made it a national reserve, and El Yunque remains the only tropical rain forest in the National Forest system.

“We went down in ’76, ’77 expressly to measure the resources: the insects and the insectivores in the rain forest, the birds, the frogs, the lizards,” Lister said.

He came back nearly 40 years later, with his colleague Andrés García, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them.

“Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest,” Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished.

García and Lister again measured the forest’s insects and other invertebrates, a group called arthropods that includes spiders and centipedes. The biomass (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates) had significantly decreased from 1976 to the pre-

sent day. The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold.

“Everything is dropping,” Lister said. The most common invertebrates in the rain forest — the moths, the butterflies, the grasshoppers, the spiders and others — are all far less abundant.

Louisiana State University entomologist Timothy Schowalter, who is not an author of the recent report, has studied this forest since the 1990s. The new research is consistent with his data, as well as the European biomass studies.

“It takes these long-term sites, with consistent sampling across a long period of time, to document these trends,” he said. “I find their data pretty compelling.”

The study authors also trapped anole lizards, which eat arthropods, in the rain forest. They compared these numbers with counts

Researchers measured arthropods, a group that includes insects, spiders and centipedes, in Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest.

from the 1970s. Anole biomass dropped by more than 30 percent.

Some anole species have altogether disappeared from the interior forest.

Insect-eating frogs and birds plummeted, too. Another research team used mist nets to capture birds in 1990, and again in 2005. Captures fell by about 50 percent. Garcia and Lister analyzed the data with an eye on the insectivores. The ruddy quail dove, which eats fruits and seeds, had no population change. A brilliant green bird called the Puerto Rican tody, which eats bugs almost exclusively, diminished by 90 percent.

The food web appears to have been obliterated from the bottom.

It’s credible that the authors link the cascade to arthropod loss, Schowalter said, because “you have all these different taxa showing the same trends — the insectivorous birds, frogs and lizards — but you don’t see those among seed-feeding birds.”

Lister and Garcia attribute this crash to climate. In the same 40year period as the arthropod crash, the average high temperature in the rain forest increased by 4 degrees. The temperatures in the tropics stick to a narrow band.

The invertebrates that live there, likewise, are adapted to these temperatures and fare poorly outside them; bugs cannot regulate their internal heat.

“It’s a very scary thing,” Merrill said, that comes on the heels of a “gloomy, gloomy” U.N. report that estimated the world has little more than a decade left to wrangle climate change under control.

But “we can all step up,” he said, by using more fuel-efficient cars and turning off unused electronics.

The Portland, Ore.-based Xerces Society, a nonprofit environmental group that promotes insect conservation, recommends planting a garden with native plants that flower throughout the year.

“Unfortunately, we have deaf ears in Washington,” Schowalter said. But those ears will listen at some point, he said, because our food supply will be in jeopardy. n ©The Washington Post

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