Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

[EX Q]: Republicans on the GOP-majority Senate Environment and Public Works Committee mostly had praise for Andrew Wheeler, who has served as the agency’s acting head since Scott Pruitt’s resignation in July amid ethics scandals. The committee chairman, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called Wheeler “very well-qualified” to take the job. But Democrats pressed Wheeler about his work as a lobbyist helping an influential coal magnate meet with Trump administration officials before his nomination to the EPA and his moves on deregulation and on what they said was his inattention to the growing dangers of climate change. “You seem to be consistently doing things that undermine the health and safety of this nation,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Wheeler. Markey asked him why he was pulling back on regulations that proponents say protect human health and the environment. “I believe we are moving forward” on protections, Wheeler responded. Wheeler cited changes he had initiated to roll back future mileage standards for cars and autos and to ease Obama-era clampdowns on dirtier-burning coal-fired power plants. He said EPA staff, whom he did not identify, had concluded that those rollbacks would ultimately lead to health gains. Environmental groups and formal assessments from the EPA and other agencies have contested that, saying the changes would increase pollution and increase harm to people and the climate. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said the rollbacks in car mileage standards and toxic mercury emissions under Wheeler were examples of unsafe deregulation and went beyond what industries themselves wanted. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., noted Wheeler had failed to mention climate change in his initial remarks to lawmakers. “Do you agree that climate change is a global crisis?” Sanders asked, shouting at times. “I would not call it the greatest crisis,” Wheeler said. “I would call it a huge issue that has to be addressed globally.” Wheeler told lawmakers that he had yet to read a massive government climate change report released late last year that emphasized man-made climate change was already underway. Wheeler said he had received one staff briefing so far on the climate change report. The work of the EPA and other government agencies, the report stresses the massive economic toll expected from increasingly severe wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather under climate change. Wheeler said the news media had seized upon “worst-case scenarios” of the climate report. “You are a former coal industry lobbyist that is sitting here,” Markey responded. “That’s the worst-case scenario, what you are proposing here” for easing Obama-era rules meant to clamp down on climate-changing fossil fuel emissions. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and other Republican lawmakers, by contrast, praised Wheeler for a move to remove federal protections for millions of miles of wetlands and waterways and other proposals. Republican lawmakers said the protections had burdened farmers and others. The grandson of a coal miner, Wheeler worked for the EPA in the 1990s and later as a longtime Republican Senate staffer. Democrats pressed Wheeler about his lobbying before joining the EPA, saying his work for coal companies should disqualify him from leading an agency that regulates coal. Wheeler’s lobbying clients included coal magnate Bob Murray, who pushed hard on the Trump administration after the 2016 elections to grant a series of breaks for the sagging domestic coal industry. Wheeler accompanied Murray to a March 2017 meeting to pitch Murray’s list of desired rule rollbacks and other breaks for coal to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Wheeler told senators that his main work for Murray had been on health benefits and pensions. “I did not work on the plan. I do not have a copy of it. I saw it briefly,” Wheeler said, referring to Murray’s wish list. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., displayed a blown-up version of a photo taken of the meeting with Perry, showing Wheeler at Murray’s side. A second photo showed Murray’s rollback plan in Wheeler’s hands. Murray had sought some of the coal breaks that the EPA under Wheeler has since acted on. That included Wheeler signing a rule easing federal regulation of toxic coal ash, redoing an Obama rule that pushed electricity providers to move away from dirtier-burning coal plants and targeting an Obama rule limiting emissions of toxic mercury from coal plants. A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed an ethics complaint Tuesday with the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General alleging that Wheeler’s oversight of those and other rollback proposals at EPA may have violated his government ethics pledge to abstain from regulatory decisions affecting his former lobbying client for at least two years. EPA spokesman John Konkus called the accusation “baseless” and “wrong” and said Wheeler works with EPA ethics officials and follows their guidance.
[EX A]: Democrats hit Trump EPA nominee on coal lobbying, rollbacks.

[EX Q]: Calyxt Inc, an eight-year-old firm co-founded by a genetics professor, altered the genes of a soybean plant to produce healthier oil using the cutting-edge editing technique rather than conventional genetic modification. Seventy-eight farmers planted those soybeans this spring across 17,000 acres in South Dakota and Minnesota, a crop expected to be the first gene-edited crop to sell commercially, beating out Fortune 500 companies. Seed development giants such as Monsanto, Syngenta AG and DowDuPont Inc have dominated genetically modified crop technology that emerged in the 1990s. But they face a wider field of competition from start-ups and other smaller competitors because gene-edited crops have drastically lower development costs and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided not to regulate them. Relatively unknown firms including Calyxt, Cibus, and Benson Hill Biosystems are already advancing their own gene-edited projects in a race against Big Ag for dominance of the potentially transformational technology. “It’s a very exciting time for such a young company,” said Calyxt CEO Federico Tripodi, who oversees 45 people. “The fact a company so small and nimble can accomplish those things has picked up interest in the industry.”  Gene-editing technology involves targeting specific genes in a single organism and disrupting those linked to undesirable characteristics or altering them to make a positive change. Traditional genetic modification, by contrast, involves transferring a gene from one kind of organism to another, a process that still does not have full consumer acceptance. Gene-editing could mean bigger harvests of crops with a wide array of desirable traits - better-tasting tomatoes, low-gluten wheat, apples that don’t turn brown, drought-resistant soybeans or potatoes better suited for cold storage. The advances could also double the $15 billion global biotechnology seed market within a decade, said analyst Nick Anderson of investment bank Berenberg. The USDA has fielded 23 inquiries about whether gene-edited crops need regulation and decided that none meet its criteria for oversight. That saves their developers years of time and untold amounts of money compared to traditional genetically modified crops. Of those 23 organisms, just three were being developed by major agriculture firms. The newly competitive landscape could foster more partnerships and licensing deals between big and small firms, along with universities or other public research institutions, said Monsanto spokeswoman Camille Lynne Scott. Monsanto - which was recently acquired by Bayer AG - invested $100 million in startup Pairwise Plants this year to accelerate development of gene-edited plants. North Carolina-based Benson Hill, founded in 2012 and named after two scientists, mainly licenses crop technology to other companies. But it decided to produce its own higher-yielding corn plant because of the low development costs, said Chief Executive Matt Crisp. Calyxt plans to sell the oil from its gene-edited soybeans to food companies and has a dozen more gene-edited crops in the pipeline, including high-fiber wheat and potatoes that stay fresh longer. Developing and marketing a traditional genetically modified crop might easily cost $150 million, which only a few large companies can afford, Crisp said. With gene-editing, that cost might fall as much as 90 percent, he said. “We’re seeing a huge number of organizations interested in gene-editing,” Crisp said, referring to traditional crop-breeding companies, along with technology firms and food companies. “That speaks to the power of the technology and how we’re at a pivotal point in time to modernize the food system.”  Supporters of gene-editing say it allows a higher level of precision than traditional modification. With CRISPR, one popular type of gene-editing technology used by Syngenta, scientists transfer an RNA molecule and an enzyme into a crop cell. When the RNA encounters a targeted strand of DNA inside the cell, it binds to it and the enzyme creates a break in the cell’s DNA. Then, the cell repairs the broken DNA in ways that disrupt or improve the gene. (For a graphic on how the Syngenta process works, see: tmsnrt.rs/2KJmtxr )  Biotech firms hope the technology can avoid the “Frankenfood” label that critics have pinned on traditional genetically modified crops. But acceptance by regulators and the public globally remains uncertain. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on July 25 that gene-editing techniques are subject to regulations governing genetically modified crops. The ruling will limit gene-editing in Europe to research and make it illegal to grow commercial crops. The German chemical industry association called the decision “hostile to progress.”   U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue blasted the ruling for enacting unnecessary barriers to innovation and stigmatizing gene-editing technology by subjecting it to the EU’s “regressive and outdated” regulations governing genetically modified crops. The USDA also has no current plans to regulate gene-editing in animal products, according to a document provided by the agency. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, plans to regulate gene-editing in both plants and animals, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in a June blog post. The agency is developing an “innovative and nimble” approach to regulating gene-editing, he wrote, that will aim to ensure its safety for both humans and animals while allowing companies to bring beneficial products to market. The USDA, by contrast, chose not to regulate gene-edited crops because the process typically introduces characteristics that are “indistinguishable” from those created through traditional plant breeding, which take much longer, USDA Secretary Perdue said in a March statement. Although there has been no widespread consumer resistance to gene-editing, activists who have long opposed genetically modified crops remain suspicious of any sort of tinkering with DNA. The new technique raises risks of creating undesired changes in the food supply and warrants increased regulation, said Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network. That kind of opposition is why agribusiness giant Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] is pursuing gene-edited technology with caution, said Randal Giroux, the firm’s vice-president of food safety, quality and regulatory affairs. Cargill announced in February that it would collaborate with Precision BioSciences to develop healthier canola oil, but is proceeding slowly on agreements to store and transport other companies’ gene-edited crops pending clarity from regulators, Giroux said. “We really do want to see gene-editing evolve in the marketplace,” Giroux said. “We’re watching to see how consumers adopt these products and react to these products.”  SECRET FIELD-TESTING  Other major agriculture biotech firms are moving more aggressively, hoping to take advantage of lighter regulation to speed development. A gene-edited crop may take five years to move from development to commercialization in the United States, compared with a genetically modified crop that could take 12 years, said Dan Dyer, head of seeds development at Syngenta. The firm is working on better-tasting tomatoes that take longer to spoil and hopes to launch a gene-edited crop in the mid-2020s, said Jeff Rowe, Syngenta’s president of global seeds. DowDuPont - at a secret location in the U.S. Midwest - is field-testing waxy corn, a variety grown for industrial purposes that has been edited for higher yields. The company plans a commercial launch next spring. Smaller firms will be nipping at the heels of these massive companies in the race to bring the next generation of genetically engineered foods to market, said Robert Wager, a biology faculty member at Vancouver Island University. “The lack of USDA-regulated status is a huge game-changer,” he said, “for universities and small startups to enter the market.”
[EX A]: Gene-editing startups ignite the next 'Frankenfood' fight.

[EX Q]: A person carrying the novel coronavirus in Norway contaminates now on average 0.7 other individuals, Bent Hoeie told a news conference. The government’s goal had been to limit the spread to maximum one other person. “Before we implemented tough restrictions, every contaminated person in Norway infected 2.5 other individuals on average,” Hoeie said. “If this development had been allowed to continue, we would probably have been in the same situation that we have seen in some countries in Europe.”  The Norwegian government announced three weeks ago  emergency shutdowns of many public and private institutions, including schools and kindergartens, sending the economy into a tailspin and triggering hundreds of thousands of layoffs. The government will decide on Wednesday whether to extend the restrictions beyond mid-April. It was not immediately clear which measures could be lifted, nor when they would be. Local authorities in the capital Oslo and Trondheim, Norway’s third-largest city, have already said they will not reopen schools and nurseries by mid-April because they needed more time to prepare. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said on Monday the number of coronavirus cases in the country stood at 5,755 people, with 59 deaths. The FHI also estimated for the first time on Monday that around 14,000 people in total may be carrying the virus in Norway, or 0.26% of the population. “It is good news. It shows the restrictions have worked,” Camilla Stoltenberg, the head of the institute, told public broadcaster NRK. “(But) we don’t know which specific measures worked.”
[EX A]:
Coronavirus epidemic 'under control' in Norway: health minister.