Zahra Hirji, Reporter - Inside Climate News
Stephan: Those states controlled by carbon energy interests did little or nothing to consider the environmental or safety issues that accompanied permitting fracking. They passed the most minimal regulatory oversight. As a result Oklahoma is wracked with earthquakes while Wyoming is as this report describes. North Dakota has yet other issues. All three states, which is to say the people of those states, will be paying the price for a generation or more, while the profit-makers, having passed on any obligation to fix the mess they have left have moved on.
Deb Thomas, a researcher with the nonprofit Shale Test, monitored air pollution in Pavillion, Wyo.
Credit: Coming Clean
A new A new A new study brings researchers and environmental advocates closer than ever to tracing whether toxic chemicals spewing out of natural gas production sites are making their way into the bodies of people who live and work nearby.
The research, published last week, brought together for the first time air monitoring at oil and gas sites with what’s called biomonitoring—the tracking of what’s in human tissues or fluids. The results indicate harmful compounds were emitted from certain gas sites near the fracking town of Pavillion, Wyoming. Some of those chemicals, such as benzene and toluene, were then found in the air at surrounding farms and the analysis found traces in the urine of participants in the study.
The study was small (11 participants) and not peer-reviewed, but the findings suggest gas emissions were probably making their way into […]
No Comments
Aaron Rupar, - Think Progress
Stephan: If you read SR regularly you know about the economic disaster brought on by Sam Brownback in Kansas. Well, here's Governor Scott Walker's report card. I do not understand why the national media is so tone deaf on this. The failure of Republican governance is one of the most important stories in the country today, and should be a major factor in the upcoming election.
Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker Credit: AP/Scott Bauer
In 2011 — the same year Scott Walker became governor — Wisconsin enacted a Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit (MAC) meant to stimulate the state economy by providing tax relief for those who use property for productive purposes. A new study indicates it’s providing lots of tax relief for the rich but not much economic stimulus for anybody else.
The Wisconsin Budget Project study finds that MAC is taking a much greater toll on the state budget than lawmakers envisioned. Though it was initially estimated that the credit would reduce tax collections by $129 million in fiscal year 2017, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue now estimates it’ll cost $284 million next year. That’s roughly $30 million more than the amount Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature cut from the University of Wisconsin System in 2015.
The study also finds that MAC disproportionately benefits the rich and has had a negligible impact on job creation. Tax filers who make $1 million or […]
No Comments
Abby Broyles, - KFOR - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Stephan: And finally, we'll end today's edition with the sad tale of Oklahoma's roads and bridges. Please remember the equally sad Kansas road story from yesterday' edition. Failure to maintain infrastructure is a false economy. Costs only go up as infrastructure quality goes down.
2016 Oklahoma City bridge collapse
OKLAHOMA CITY- The budget our lawmakers passed includes big cuts to the county roads and bridges program to the tune of $50 million.
That’s on top of the $50 million in cuts to that program from last year.
The state program that gives counties money to fund roads and bridges makes many projects, like $10 million project on Country Club Road in Payne County, possible.
It’s set to be complete by the end of the summer.
It includes replacing a bridge and making big improvements to more than two miles of Country Club Road north of State Highway 51.
“If it weren’t for CIRB, we never would have been able to do that,” Payne County Commissioner Kent Bradley said.
“CIRB” is the County Improvements for Roads and Bridges program.
It’s a major funding source to repair bridges and expand roads.
It was on the chopping block this past legislative session.
Lawmakers cut $50 million that would have gone to the eight transportation districts in Oklahoma.
The Country Club Road project is getting done […]
1 Comment
Kit O'Connell , - Mint Press News
Stephan: It is the practice of the oligarchs to always operate within the law, which is not a problem since their Congressional liegemen obediently, as a vassal should, write the law to suit their masters. As this report makes clear they don't even bother to hide the corruption anymore. That is the level to which we have sunk.
This is what Bernie Sanders was trying to change, and he was right that it is an urgent problem. We are destroying the democratic republic bequeathed to us.
David Koch, Executive Vice President of Koch Industries, Inc.
Credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
WASHINGTON — Rather than following the lead of prominent advocates for campaign finance reform, the House of Representatives recently voted to make American politics less transparent than ever.
The issue of the influence of so-called “dark money” on politics — hidden, high-dollar donations made possible by reforms to campaign finance law like the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — is receiving renewed attention this election cycle thanks to successful awareness-raising campaigns by presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, and legislators like Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
A September poll by Bloomberg Politics found that 78 percent of Americans would like to see Citizens United overturned. And that opposition isn’t coming from just one corner; it’s consistent across the […]
No Comments
Tim Carpenter, Staff Writer - The Topeka Capital-Journal
Stephan: Kansas is absolutely fascinating from the perspective of a researcher like myself who focuses on trends and social wellbeing. You actually watch a group of people, supported by the voters of that state dismantle the state's infrastructure and social wellbeing, even literacy, by continuing to adhere to a Theocratic Rightist model of governance even in the face of outcome data shrieking out the failure of that model. It takes some time, but you can see the steps, the bad decisions happen one-by-one. Here is news on the roads.
I just don't know how the people of Kansas who voted for Sam Brownback as governor, and these legislators explain to themselves what is happening to them and their state. But I will bet you they will vote Republican again.
Kansas roads
The Legislature backed Gov. Sam Brownback’s strategy to narrow the state budget deficit by sweeping $185 million in transportation funds and delaying projects to fix treacherous highways and intersections that continue to exact a human toll.
A major piece of construction put off at least one year to free up cash would overhaul US-69 in southeast Kansas, where the car driven by Derek Curtis Brumbaugh, 17, of Pittsburg, crossed the center line near Arcadia and struck the vehicle operated by David Glen Kessler, 56, of Kearney, Mo. The violent collision in February killed both men.
State officials vowed for years to spend $75 million transforming the remaining two-lane highway between Fort Scott and Pittsburg into a four-lane expressway, but the new budget deal indicated a willingness among most lawmakers to wait.
“The governor came down and promised right before the election. They had the governor’s guarantee,” said Rep. Adam Lusker, D-Frontenac.
“That’s right,” said Sen. Jake LaTurner, a Republican from Pittsburg. “It’s a dangerous road.”
LaTurner sent a letter […]
No Comments
