CARSON CITY — Most of Nevada’s government will soon transition to a four-day workweek. But the reasons for it go beyond filling the state’s $887 million deficit.
The plan, proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons and broadly supported by legislators, will save $600,000 on energy costs, make it easier to implement a 10-hour-a-month furlough for state workers and lift their flagging morale.
But legislative sources point to another reason — even if they’re loath to admit it publicly — for this major change: The reduction in the availability of state services will make the public feel the effect of the revenue shortfall.
It’s a potentially controversial, if intriguing, strategy.
The citizen who isn’t attending college or doesn’t have a child in school or use social services, may not have felt the effects of previous rounds of cuts. But longer lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, lengthier waits for birth and death records and delays for businesses dealing with state agencies might make Nevada’s stark financial situation personal.
Legislators cited first the potential economic benefits of the four-day week — Utah, which adopted the schedule in 2008, saw energy savings, overtime and sick leave among state employees decrease and citizens increasingly use online services.
But as Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, said: “It’s important for us, as we cut across the board, to demonstrate to the public the impact of the cuts.”
As the Prophet Isaiah queried: “What will you do on the Day of Reckoning, when evil comes from afar?”
Click on the image to buy the book.
Having just completed my first reading of Jeff Biggers’ masterfully crafted, meticulously researched “Reckoning At Eagle Creek,” I am left feeling nigh-breathless at the scope of the evil that came from afar and visited a nigh-Biblical plague upon people in the form of the heartache, sickness and grim Death that always serves as the handmaiden of coal. Such a sensation is fitting, I suppose, for a book that recounts the history of the thousands of human beings rendered breathlessly mute by the ravages of Black Lung, slate falls, mine explosions, poisoned waters, blasted hills, choked valleys, murdered workers and whole communities literally blown off the map in the merciless, ceaseless quest for the Holy Profit of Coal.
Jeff Biggers has crafted out of family history and regional history an honest, unblinking reckoning of the costs paid by a nation and, indeed, a world for what we have been assured by the industry for more than a century is “cheap” coal. Mr. Biggers proves in the pages of “Reckoning At Eagle Creek” that the only way to see coal as “cheap” is to view the lives, history and heritage consumed in its acquisition as being even cheaper still.
“Reckoning At Eagle Creek” is the manifestation of one man’s quest for understanding of where our dependence on the nastiest fuel form on the planet has taken us and where that path ultimately leads. That quest is neither fanciful nor mythical. It is rock-hard and bone-real. With its publication, “Reckoning At Eagle Creek” becomes an immediately necessary resource for anyone who seeks to understand the ever-increasing toll we all pay for “cheap” coal, for “cheap” electricity, for “cheap” heat. In his “reckoning” of accounts within the scope of his family’s southern Illinois homeland, Jeff Biggers honestly reveals coal mineshafts and stripmine pits for what they are: the abbatoirs of the American Dream.
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?
There’s been a lot of talk about carbon tariffs–taxing imported goods from polluting industries in nations or states that don’t regulate CO2–over the last year or so. Many rust belt and coal state Democrats have called for federal climate legislation to include a such a carbon tariff. This would impose a tax on goods imported to the US from nations with no carbon controls on manufacturing (say, China). So it might come as a surprise to some that the first carbon tariff actually enacted isn’t between nations at all–it’s between Minnesota and North Dakota.
….Of course, North Dakota is none too happy about any of this–the state promptly decided to sue Minnesota, saying the tariff unfairly gives renewable energy an advantage over coal powered energy. Perhaps North Dakota missed the memo–that’s precisely the point. The move will hopefully cause speculators in North Dakota to start seriously thinking about wind power projects–the state has been called ‘the Saudi Arabia of wind’ because of the vast potential it has there….
The Secret Service is trying to uncover who hung an effigy of President Barack Obama in President Jimmy Carter’s home town.
The black doll, which bore the president’s name, was found in Plains, Georgia on Saturday. A rope was slung around its neck and it was hanging in front of a sign declaring the town as Carter’s home.
North Dakota’s attorney general said he expects the state to sue Minnesota over a plan there to tax carbon created by electrical generation.
After discussing the issue with the state Industrial Commission in a closed session this month, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said “It is very likely that we will be suing the state of Minnesota.”
At issue is a measure by Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission to add a fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit a large amount of carbon relative to other fuels sources. North Dakota officials argue that the move would place an unfair tax on electricity from the state and discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.
Stenehjem said possible legal action would relate to constitutional protections against restrictions on commerce between states.
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.
(12-12) 19:15 PST BERKELEY — Eight people were in custody Saturday after a crowd of angry protesters broke windows and threw burning torches at UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s campus residence in protest of fee hikes and budget cuts, authorities said.
As many as 75 people – some of them carrying torches – surrounded the mansion, known as University House, on the north side of campus off Hearst Avenue at about 11:15 p.m. Friday, police said.
The crowd, including a man taken into custody in a university protest a day earlier, chanted, “No justice, no peace,” and began smashing planters, windows and lights. Several hurled their torches at the building, said campus spokesman Dan Mogulof.
Birgeneau was sleeping at the time and was awakened by his wife, Mary Catherine, Mogulof said. They were frightened, but unharmed, he said.
“These are criminals, not activists,” Birgeneau said in a statement issued Saturday morning. “The attack at our home was extraordinarily frightening and violent. My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger condemned the attack Saturday as a form of terrorism.
Reporting from San Luis Obispo, Calif. - Katie Martin grew up with a set of water commandments. No lingering in the shower. Turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth. Don’t flood the yard.
Until she left for college this fall, the 19-year-old lived with her family in a typical California stucco house with a lawn. But when it comes to water, neither the Martins nor their town, San Luis Obispo, is typical.
Katie, her parents and little brother use roughly half the water on a per-person basis as the average single-family household in Los Angeles used last year.
“The community is just like that,” Martin said.
As climate change, environmental constraints and growth continue to tighten the valve on California’s water supplies, the rest of the state is going to be more like that too. Not just during droughts but all the time.
The reason is simple. Compared to building new reservoirs, recycling or seawater desalination, conservation is one of the cheapest, quickest and least environmentally damaging ways for the state to get more water.
