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Forget nukes and aliens — or, god forbid, “nanoparticles.” Extreme weather events can strike anywhere — and you’re being asked to rehearse.
You’ll hear it in the grocery store, a racket rising from the cereal aisle and checkout lines. You’ll hear it on the subway or on the bus, so loud and synchronous and sudden that strangers will exclaim, laugh nervously, or make eye contact in surprise. You’ll hear it in the office, where it will cut off meetings mid-sentence and jolt the hands of anyone pouring themselves a third cup of coffee in the breakroom. You’ll hear it even if you’re alone: an unfamiliar two-part alarm from the spot on the couch where you left your phone, summoning you to see what is wrong.
This time, at least, nothing will be.
But at 2:20 p.m. ET on October 4, 2023 — that is, midday tomorrow — FEMA and the FCC will conduct a nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, prompting nearly every cellphone in the country to vibrate and make “a special sound that’s similar to an alarm,” even if it’s set to silent. (You also can’t opt out). You’ll additionally get a message to reassure you that we are not being nuked or worse: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed,” it will read in English or Spanish, depending on your phone’s settings.
Although this is a standard, federally required systems test — the second to be transmitted to nationwide cellphones after a similar exercise in 2021 — bizarre conspiracy theories have nevertheless emerged. Regrettably, the alert will not in fact “activate nanoparticles … that have been introduced into people’s bodies [via] the COVID-19 vaccine,” The Associated Press reported.
I sort of get it, though: The enormous scale of the test invites your imagination to run pretty wild. What sort of event would require the government to send every American the same emergency alert at the same time? (The agencies will also be conducting a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System on television and radio in tandem with the cellphone test).
Experts, though, say the test is more likely an attempt to push the “technological limits of the system,” which will be used more frequently to target specific geographical regions for occasions like extreme weather (or, uh, manhunts). Of course, that makes the broad scale of the test chilling in a different way: FEMA isn’t just testing if it can push an alert to fire-prone communities in the American West or Tornado Alley; they want to be sure they can reach everyone, everywhere.
It’s fairly unlikely that there will be an extreme weather event that will affect the entire continent at the same time, though the smoke and heat this summer came close. But it is likely that everywhere in the country will continue to experience extreme weather. Warning systems like FEMA’s are still one of the best ways to save lives in such scenarios. And tests like tomorrow’s are necessary because the alert systems remain worryingly imperfect (or are imperfectly implemented, like the time an emergency management officer sent everyone in the state of Hawaii an incoming ballistic missile warning with the words “THIS IS NOT A DRILL”).
But there is an even bigger, more ominous reason why tomorrow’s test is so essential. Joseph Trainor of the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center told CBS News that the natural reaction to an emergency alert on your phone is something called “milling,” when recipients “have to kind of process [the message], and make sense of what’s going on, and decide if they’re going to do something.” In that sense, “warning systems and alert systems, they get you started,” Trainor added. They are a rehearsal for if — for when — the real thing hits.
It doesn’t have to be something like terrorists or aliens. Our own environments are threatening enough for FEMA to need the ability to reach as many people as possible, as quickly and efficiently and assuredly as possible.
And now you’ve been warned.
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“We had enough assurance that the president was going to deal with them.”
A member of the House Freedom Caucus said Wednesday that he voted to advance President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” after receiving assurances that Trump would “deal” with the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits – raising the specter that Trump could try to go further than the megabill to stop usage of the credits.
Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican of North Carolina, said that while IRA tax credits were once a sticking point for him, after meeting with Trump “we had enough assurance that the president was going to deal with them in his own way,” he told Eric Garcia, the Washington bureau chief of The Independent. Norman specifically cited tax credits for wind and solar energy projects, which the Senate version would phase out more slowly than House Republicans had wanted.
It’s not entirely clear what the president could do to unilaterally “deal with” tax credits already codified into law. Norman declined to answer direct questions from reporters about whether GOP holdouts like himself were seeking an executive order on the matter. But another Republican holdout on the bill, Representative Chip Roy of Texas, told reporters Wednesday that his vote was also conditional on blocking IRA “subsidies.”
“If the subsidies will flow, we’re not gonna be able to get there. If the subsidies are not gonna flow, then there might be a path," he said, according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News.
As of publication, Roy has still not voted on the rule that would allow the bill to proceed to the floor — one of only eight Republicans yet to formally weigh in. House Speaker Mike Johnson says he’ll, “keep the vote open for as long as it takes,” as President Trump aims to sign the giant tax package by the July 4th holiday. Norman voted to let the bill proceed to debate, and will reportedly now vote yes on it too.
Earlier Wednesday, Norman said he was “getting a handle on” whether his various misgivings could be handled by Trump via executive orders or through promises of future legislation. According to CNN, the congressman later said, “We got clarification on what’s going to be enforced. We got clarification on how the IRAs were going to be dealt with. We got clarification on the tax cuts — and still we’ll be meeting tomorrow on the specifics of it.”
Neither Norman nor Roy’s press offices responded to a request for comment.
The state’s senior senator, Thom Tillis, has been vocal about the need to maintain clean energy tax credits.
The majority of voters in North Carolina want Congress to leave the Inflation Reduction Act well enough alone, a new poll from Data for Progress finds.
The survey, which asked North Carolina voters specifically about the clean energy and climate provisions in the bill, presented respondents with a choice between two statements: “The IRA should be repealed by Congress” and “The IRA should be kept in place by Congress.” (“Don’t know” was also an option.)
The responses from voters broke down predictably along party lines, with 71% of Democrats preferring to keep the IRA in place compared to just 31% of Republicans, with half of independent voters in favor of keeping the climate law. Overall, half of North Carolina voters surveyed wanted the IRA to stick around, compared to 37% who’d rather see it go — a significant spread for a state that, prior to the passage of the climate law, was home to little in the way of clean energy development.
But North Carolina now has a lot to lose with the potential repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, as my colleague Emily Pontecorvo has pointed out. The IRA brought more than 17,000 jobs to the state, per Climate Power, along with $20 billion in investment spread out over 34 clean energy projects. Electric vehicle and charging manufacturers in particular have flocked to the state, with Toyota investing $13.9 billion in its Liberty EV battery manufacturing facility, which opened this past April.
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis was one of the four co-authors of a letter sent to Majority Leader John Thune in April advocating for the preservation of the law. Together, they wrote that gutting the IRA’s tax credits “would create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy.” It seems that the majority of North Carolina voters are aligned with their senator — which is lucky for him, as he’s up for reelection in 2026.
SpaceX has also now been dragged into the fight.
The value of Tesla shares went into freefall Thursday as its chief executive Elon Musk traded insults with President Donald Trump. The war of tweets (and Truths) began with Musk’s criticism of the budget reconciliation bill passed by the House of Representatives and has escalated to Musk accusing Trump of being “in the Epstein files,” a reference to the well-connected financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in federal detention in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The conflict had been escalating steadily in the week since Musk formally departed the Trump administration with what was essentially a goodbye party in the Oval Office, during which Musk was given a “key” to the White House.
Musk has since criticized the reconciliation bill for not cutting spending enough, and for slashing credits for electric vehicles and renewable energy while not touching subsidies for oil and gas. “Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk wrote on X Thursday afternoon. He later posted a poll asking “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”
Tesla shares were down around 5% early in the day but recovered somewhat by noon, only to nosedive again when Trump criticized Musk during a media availability. The shares had fallen a total of 14% from the previous day’s close by the end of trading on Thursday, evaporating some $150 billion worth of Tesla’s market capitalization.
As Musk has criticized Trump’s bill, Trump and his allies have accused him of being sore over the removal of tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles. On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson described Musk’s criticism of the bill as “very disappointing,” and said the electric vehicle policies were “very important to him.”
“I know that has an effect on his business, and I lament that,” Johnson said.
Trump echoed that criticism Thursday afternoon on Truth Social, writing, “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” He added, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk replied, referring to the vehicles NASA uses to ferry personnel and supplies to and from the International Space Station.