Not many years ago, there wasn’t enoughwind power coming from the Great Plains to worry about. Now there is, and lots of people are worrying.
A group of mostly East Coast utility companies calling itself the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy fears that the prime conditions in the Great Plains will make the region’s wind power too cheap for its members to compete with, unless developers there are made to pay the costs of moving wind power eastward.
Influential natural gas producers and generators in Texas are worried. They are demanding that the state’s wind developers share the costs of backup natural gas generators that must pick up the slack when the wind doesn’t blow. The gas industry, threatened by state policies that promote wind power, is asking regulators to impose penalties on wind generators that can’t deliver scheduled energy when the wind dies down.
And last week, four senators representing New York, Ohio, Montana and Pennsylvania proposed to deny federal clean energy grants to wind developers that buy blades, turbines and other components from abroad.
“It is a no-brainer that stimulus funds should only go to projects that create jobs in the United States rather than overseas,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, pointing at a proposed Texas wind farm whose backers include a Chinese power company.
Some renewable policy advocates say the problem has less to do with China and more with on-and-off-again federal energy policies, and arguments over how to pay for the vast expansion of transmission lines needed to maximize wind power delivery. Instead of looking at foreign rivals, members of Congress should start with a look in the mirror, says this side in the debate.
Corporate interests having are eyeing our water. From wastewater to drinking water, big business is looking to cash in on public water systems and they’ve got a new tactic: They’re using desperate economic times to convince city officials that they should place a corporation between families and their ability to eat, drink, and clean.
Take Akron, Ohio, for example. In September 2008 I wrote an article for Alternet about a ballot measure in Akron where voters were asked whether to lease the city’s wastewater system to a corporation in return for an immediate, one-time payment. The plan was roundly defeated. But more importantly, as the article suggested, the lease signaled a new direction for water privatization in the U.S. This involved a collaboration between water companies and Wall Street to snatch up control of water infrastructure for the better part of a century.
Since that vote, similar lease plans have been floated in Milwaukee and Chicago, presenting a dangerous possibility: In the near future, a major U.S. city could sign over unprecedented control of its water system to a corporation for a generation or longer. The silver lining in this narrative is that the same communities being targeted by water corporations for these deals are now charting out new ways to ensure their water remains in public hands. And for the moment, advocates of public control are winning.
Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services.
The tax measures passed easily, with late returns showing a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio. Measure 66 raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000, and Measure 67 sets higher minimum taxes on corporations and increases the tax rate on upper-level profits.
The results triggered waves of relief from educators and legislative leaders, who were facing an estimated $727 million shortfall in the current two-year budget if the measures failed. Source Article
It appears that since we can’t count on the Federal Arm of the government to take care of our money issues perhaps the States themselves should do so. Oregon is the first. Any other takers?
Smuggled and bootlegged, it has been the cause of transatlantic tensions for more than two decades. But after 21 years in exile, the haggis is to be allowed back into the United States.
The “great chieftan o’ the puddin-race” was one of earliest casualties of the BSE crisis of the 1980s-90s, banned on health grounds by the US authorities in 1989 because they feared its main ingredient ‑ minced sheep offal ‑ could prove lethal. Source Article
First Posted: 01-14-10 12:34 PM | Updated: 01-14-10 03:23 PM
Update at 3:13 PM:American Express announced today that processing fees for any donations made to the 65 charities listed on this website between January 12 and the end of February will be rebated back to those charities.
As a massive human tragedy unfolds in Haiti, relief organizations are soliciting credit-card donations through their hotlines and websites. About 97 percent of these donations will actually make it to the designated organizations — but the other 3 percent will be skimmed off by banks and credit card companies to cover their “transaction costs.”
Thanks to this hidden fee, American banks and credit card companies are making huge profits — somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million a year — off of people’s charitable donations, according to a Huffington Post analysis.
Those profits rise sharply after major disasters, when humanitarian relief organizations such as Oxfam and Operation USA take in more than 85 percent of their donations via credit card — and the credit card providers, with only a few exceptions, refuse to waive their fees.
Credit card companies have only been willing to waive their processing fee for charity once, Richard Walden, the CEO of Operation USA, tells the Huffington Post, and that was for the tsunami disaster of 2004. Source Article
Embattled Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) has scheduled a press conference at his home in Connecticut Wednesday at which he is expected to announce he will not seek re-election, according to sources familiar with his plans.
Dodd’s retirement comes after months of speculation about his political future, and amid faltering polling numbers and a growing sense among the Democratic establishment that he could not win a sixth term. It also comes less than 24 hours after Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced he would not seek re-election.
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is widely expected to step into the void filled by Dodd and, at least at first blush, should drastically increase Democrats’ chances of holding the seat.
Chase and Citibank announced via their websites that they are no longer participating in (Federal Deposit Insurance Company) FDIC Transaction Account Guarantee Program. Both banks are still insured under the general FDICprogram, however.
What is the FDIC? It’s the government entity that makes it safer to keep your money in the bank rather than stuff it in a mattress. In the case of a bank failure, your funds deposited in that failed bank are guaranteed and will be returned to you. From the FDIC website:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is an independent agency of the United States government that protects funds depositors place in banks and savings associations. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. Since the FDIC was established in 1933, no depositor has ever lost a single penny of FDIC-insured funds.
What does dropping the Transaction Account Guarantee protection mean to you? Actually, you should be pretty scared. Taking a protection away from your hard earned funds is not a good thing. Nor is it a good sign of the health of these banks. Dropping out of the program means that the banks don’t have to be quite as strict with their banking procedures.
As 2009 closes out, the dominant issues in the world of food could be lumped into two competing paradigms that have framed much of the decade. In one corner we have Big Food: factory farms, fast food restaurants, mystery meat, biotechnology and other examples of when the economics of scale are applied to how we feed ourselves. In the other corner is Small Food, whose players include farmers’ markets, ecology-based agriculture and seasonal diets of minimally processed food.
In a victory for small food, 2009 will perhaps be remembered as the year gardening returned to mainstream consciousness. Much credit goes to First Lady Michelle Obama, thanks to the organic veggie patchshe planted on the White House lawn. The symbolic gesture created an instant buzz, and many other politicos around the world have followed suit. There are now gardens on the grounds of city halls, governors’ mansions, and other houses of leadership around the world, providing countless opportunities to educate and discuss why gardens are good.
According to the National Gardening Association the number of households with gardens rose from 36 million in 2008 to 43 million in 2009. Michelle Obama’s garden certainly deserves some credit, but so does the recession, which inspired many people to stick their hands in the dirt, not only to save on grocery bills, but to find economical ways to enjoy their leisure time.
The Huffington Post | Ryan McCarthy First Posted: 12- 9-09 01:30 PM | Updated: 12- 9-09 05:38 PM
British bankers are going bonkers today after the UK government announced that it wouldn’t stand idly by as they showered themselves with obscene bonuses made possible by last year’s massive infusion of government money.
Alistair Darling, the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer — sort of like a Treasury Secretary, but with more pluck — announced today that he will impose an immediate, one-time 50-percent tax on bonuses of more than 25,000 pounds (about $40,800). That’s on top of regular income taxes.
The New York Timescalls it “the most direct attack on bonuses anywhere in the world.”
Across the pond, however — where the Wall Street titans whose companies were saved from dissolution by an infusion of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are about to reward themselves with a good chunk of that money in the form of year-end bonuses — no such action is in the offing. Source Article
Too bad our Congress doesn’t have the balls of the British Parliament . Of course, we all know what our Congress is–the only question is what their price is! ~Susan~
