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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Agricultural Commission Ron Sparks, the Fort Payne Democrat running for governor in the primary against Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis, answers questions Sunday at the Alabama River Alliance conference in Montgomery, while Kirsten Gerhart Bryant listens…
by Glynn Wilson
Alabama’s attorney general Troy “Toy Boy” King has now placed the state in the inauspicious company of the likes of Texas and corporate lobbying groups publicly fighting the opportunity to get on the international bandwagon to do something about climate change due to global warming as well as harmful air pollution.
The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson of New Orleans, told Congress earlier this week that regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, deemed a danger to the public health, will be phased in starting in 2011 for large plants and 2016 for smaller ones.
King joined Texas, Virginia and the pro-business manufacturing association in filing the petition with the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to review EPA’s decision.
In response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the federal government’s role in regulating air pollutants, the EPA announced in December that the agency would move forward to force states and industries to begin reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases that threaten public health.
Birmingham CBS Affiliate Reports on Coal Ash Waste
Cynthia Gould, one of the few broadcast reporters in Alabama willing to take on controversial environmental issues, reports on the coal ash waste crisis facing Perry County in Alabama’s Black Belt.
Check out our coverage, clearly the most comprehensive in the country, and watch for Glynn Wilson’s story in the March issue of Business Alabama Monthly magazine…
Alabama Governor’s Race Heats Up
Primary Vote Just Three Months Away
by Glynn Wilson
Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis, a conservative Democrat who voted to oppose President Barack Obama’s health care plan being debated on national television today, made a show this week of rolling out what he called an “economic plan” for Alabama, just three months before the vote in the Democratic primary race for governor scheduled for June 1.
According to Davis’s opponent in the primary, Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, the plan has lots of spending, tax credits and new programs, “all during the worst recession and budget crisis in Alabama history,” according to a statement issued by the Sparks campaign.
How does Davis propose to pay for this plan?
“We have absolutely no idea,” the Sparks campaign says.
“This is just another example of Artur Davis jumping on the bandwagon,” Sparks said. “I was the first candidate to have a plan to put Alabamians back to work, give their children an education, and generate a revenue source you can see clearly to pay for all of it. A plan is worthless if you don’t have a way to pay for it, and Artur Davis’ plan is worthless.”
Davis tries to explain how he will fund his ideas, Sparks said, “but it’s the same ol’ political promises and dodges that Alabamians have heard for years: growth and cutting waste.”
According to Taylor Bright, a former newspaper reporter who wrote the definitive piece on how Karl Rove orchestrated a Republican takeover of the state Supreme Court for the now defunct Birmingham Post-Herald, now acting as Sparks’ communications director, if a candidate says they will pay for promises with growth and cutting waste, then it means only one thing.
“You have no funding plan whatsoever,” Bright said.
“Artur Davis can’t raise one dollar of funding for his promises, while Ron Sparks will generate $800 million new dollars for college scholarships, pre-k and programs for seniors. And everyone knows investing in education creates new jobs for the future,” Bright said. “We have a real solution and a real plan. Artur Davis has a slogan.”
House Repeals Insurance Industry’s Antitrust Exemption
The House of Representatives debated the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act Wednesday, legislation that would repeal the 65 year exemption health insurance companies have from anti-trust regulations.
Speaking on the House floor this afternoon, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) lambasted Republicans for being “a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance industry,” prompting an offended Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) to lodge a complaint:
WEINER: You guys have chutzpah. The Republican Party is the wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. They say this isn’t going to do enough, but when we propose an alternative to provide competition, they’re against it. They say we want to strengthen state insurance commissioners and they’ll do the job. But when we did that in our national health care bill, they said we’re against it. They said we want to have competition but when we proposed requiring competition they’re against it. They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. That’s the fact!
LUNGREN: Mr. Speaker I ask that the gentleman’s words be taken down.
WEINER: You really don’t want to go there, Mr. Lungren.
A minute later, Weiner returned to the floor and withdrew his words, and then substituted them by clarifying, “Make no mistake about it, every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry!”
Lungren once again immediately demanded that Weiner’s words be taken down.
Weiner once more finally returned to the floor to withdraw his words, and ended his statement by saying that he has had “enough of the phoniness. We are gonna solve this problem because for years our Republican friends have been unable to and unwilling to. Deal with it!” His colleagues applauded his remarks.
At the end of the debate, the House voted 406-19 to repeal the insurers’ long-held exemption from anti-trust laws.
Transcript
Sometimes a legal summation can capture a story better on video than any editorial column…
Notice we have the ability to deliver messages in this way on the Web Press.
I am sitting here attempting to watch Toyota defend itself before Congress for it’s dangerous cost-cutting in production that led to massive safety issues with the Japanese auto giant’s cars, and it reminds me of the final episode of Boston Legal. You may remember how the litigation division of Denny Crane’s law firm fought off a takeover by the Chinese. Couldn’t find that episode on YouTube, but this is one of the best closing argument speeches from the show.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has introduced legislation that would greatly aid in the expansion of rooftop solar-energy production in the United States.
“There is sufficient roof space in the United States to meet 20 percent of our electricity needs simply by installing solar panels,” according to a press release issued today by the Center for Biological Diversity.
Senator Sander’s “10 Million Solar Roofs and 10 Million Gallons of Solar Water Heating Act of 2010″ would help fund the installation of solar panels on 10 million homes and businesses across the country as well as the installation of 200,000 solar water heaters. This would produce about 30,000 new megawatts of energy, the equivalent of about 30 nuclear power plants.
Unlike industrial-scale solar projects, which when poorly sited can have unacceptable negative impacts on wildlife and wild places and often require new long-distance transmission lines, rooftop solar by definition only occurs in already developed areas. It is the greenest of green energy.
The Center urges people to take a minute to contact their senators and encourage them to support the rapid expansion of rooftop solar energy.
by Glynn Wilson
Alabama is a red state in more ways than one.
In addition to voting more for conservative Republicans than just about any other state in the country, earning the state red status on the national political map, Alabama scores a low down red on the green report card issued by the League of Conservation Voters.
Conservative Republican Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby both scored Fs for Failure in a report released Monday. Sessions scored 9 out of a possible 100, while Shelby got an 18.
One of the primary reasons for the low score was due to the fact that Alabama’s delegation took a hard line against the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would help bring more than 29,000 clean energy jobs to Alabama, according Conservation Alabama, a statewide conservation group that today joined the national League for the first time on our suggestion in releasing the 2009 National Environmental Scorecard.
“Alabama’s Congressional delegation opted against bringing clean energy jobs to the state and voted against reducing our national dependence on foreign oil,” Conservation Alabama’s executive director Adam Snyder said in a press release accompanying the report.
“In a state that has 11 percent unemployment, with some counties at nearly 25 percent, Alabama’s Congressional delegation cannot afford to send a message to the world that we are not open for business for clean energy jobs,” he said, even though that’s exactly what they did.
A boardwalk leading through an ancient bald cypress swamp…
On the way back from the Tennessee Riverkeeper fund raiser in Decatur and camping at Point Mallard, I stopped by the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge on the way back to Birmingham. Unfortunately, the visitor center observation building is set up for looking through glass with no outside access allowed for wild bird photography, but the nature walk over the boardwalk into the bald cypress swamp was a perfect way to spend part of a sunny February day outside.
According to the official federal Website, the refuge was established in 1938 to provide habitat for wintering and migrating birds. Considered the easternmost Refuge in the Mississippi flyway, this 35,000 acre Refuge attracts thousands of wintering waterfowl each year and supports the southernmost and Alabama’s only significant concentration of wintering Southern James Bay Canada geese. It also serves as winter habitat for the State’s largest duck population, including the signature green and red of the mallards.
In addition to migratory birds, the Refuge hosts 115 species of fish, 74 species of reptiles and amphibians, 47 species of mammals, and 285 different species of songbirds. The refuge is also home to 10 federally listed endangered or threatened species.
Harper’s No Comment
