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May 22nd, 2014

5/22/2014

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Maryland consumers are being ignored and taken to the cleaners because its energy utilities have been handed to national corporations and rate payers are used to subsidize the costs of doing business.  Our Public Service Commission once regulated in public interest and is now stacked with corporate interest officials with O'Malley and Erhlich.  Just as with health care we are losing control of the most critical public services as energy is a must and needs to be affordable.  As most people are now needing subsidy for heating, cooling, and cooking, these essential needs make people captured to simply getting basic necessities.  This does not allow for freedom or democracy when most people must beg for subsidized necessities.

SMART METERS
are not about sustainability ----they are about rationing energy as prices soar and public subsidies end.


The Public Service Commission of Maryland


was created in 1910 to regulate utilities. Also during this time, natural gas was becoming a popular substitute for manufactured gas. Warfield wanted to bring natural gas to Baltimore but did not succeed in doing so. Between 1906 and 1910, gross income increased by 31 percent, and in 1910 Warfield resigned and was succeeded by J.E. Aldred as chairman. Aldred embarked upon vigorous expansion. Much of the company's electricity was supplied by hydroelectric plants on the Susquehanna River, and Consolidated owned several gas generating plants. With production in place, the company could offer more competitive rates.



When BGE was sold to Constellation there was a billion dollars from the sale placed in public trust for the closing of Calvert Cliffs.  Financial analysts now show that the closing will be done for far less so there is a bolus of public money that can come back to consumers or pay for infrastructure.  What we see is an insulting $170 dollars and soaring rates to pay a second time for infrastructure.  Just as happened with the subprime mortgage fraud settlement that never made it to the victims of fraud and went to subsidize corporate developers.

Time and time again public wealth is lost through fraud and corruption or handed outright as subsidy to now billion dollar a year corporations fat with profit from the public's money.

STOP VOTING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS!


Below you see Exelon is soaking its consumers across the country as it is here in Maryland.


BGE's customers to get $170 rebate -- ...www.topix.com/forum/com/ceg
BGE customers will get one-time rebates of $170 and other benefits totaling $2 billion in ... Constellation and BGE to ... Constellation Energy ...




ComEd customers face big price increases
May 07, 2014|By Julie Wernau | Tribune staff reporter

Just as the Chicago area is getting ready for air conditioning weather, residents can expect to be jolted by higher electric bills.

Starting June 1, Commonwealth Edison customers on average will see monthly bills jump 21 percent, to about $82 a month from about $69 a month.

City residents and others who have switched to competing suppliers won't escape the higher prices because the cost of all electric power is higher.




Demand had continued to grow, and in 1981 the Safe Harbor Hydroelectric Project started a four-year expansion project. In an effort to improve profitability, BGE trimmed its operating budget in 1982 and 1983 and sought diversification into other businesses. In 1983 however, the Maryland Public Service Commission turned down BGE's application to form a holding company, stating that Maryland law forbids such a structure for utilities. The holding company reorganization would have enabled BGE to diversify freely.

The Brandon Shores Unit Number 1--a coal-burning electricity-generating plant--opened in 1984, helping to eliminate the company's dependence on foreign oil. A second Brandon Shores unit started up in 1991. In 1983 about 60 percent of the company's operating revenue was in electric power sales, and around the same time gas sales began to slump.
In 1986 BGE formed Constellation Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary through which it planned to expand its nonutility interests, despite being denied the right to form a holding company.



Deregulation in the 1990s

In 1992 the company faced a dramatic shift in the way it did business when Congress passed the Federal Energy Policy Act. The act permitted competition in the wholesale power market and, by allowing retail competition, signaled the end of regulated, regional monopolies. Although its relatively small size and regional coverage would work against it in a competitive market, analysts felt BGE's customer mix could be a benefit. Because it had few industrial customers, BGE would not be so much at the mercy of large manufacturers who would set one supplier against another in a bidding war. However, BGE apparently felt the disadvantage of its size and responded to the act's passage by looking for a partner that would help cut costs through economies of scale.

In the mid-1990s, the electricity market was growing at a rate of only two percent a year. BGE focused on expanding its gas customer base and managed to increase that division's profits 25 percent in 1995. However, the company's real estate investments were performing poorly, which pulled down overall company earnings that year.

BGE forged an agreement to merge with Washington, D.C.-based Potomac Electric Power Co. (PEPCO) in 1995. The two companies anticipated making substantial staff cuts to reduce overlapping jobs; those cuts and savings from eliminating related redundancies were expected to save $1.3 billion over 10 years. Stockholders approved the deal in 1996, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave its okay in 1997. Maryland followed suit with conditional approval, but the process was held up by conditions placed on the merger by the District of Columbia. BGE and PEPCO had proposed splitting the expected savings from the merger evenly between customers and shareholders. D.C. regulators, however, wanted customers to get a larger share, and made that a condition of the merger. BGE and PEPCO would not agree to that condition, and the two companies called off the merger in December 1997. The companies had invested more than two years and $100 million in arranging the merger. Analysts considered both companies as likely candidates for other merger or takeover deals in the coming years.

In 1998 BGE began a major organizational restructuring that split the company into three discrete units: utility operations, power generation, and unregulated subsidiaries. "All the rules under which we operate are being rewritten," Christian H. Poindexter, BGE's chairman and CEO, said to Baltimore Sun correspondent Kevin McQuaid. "That's what's driving this." Part of the reorganization entailed the creation of Constellation Enterprises Inc., a holding company for the utility's unregulated subsidiaries. The company expected to continue to make management and organizational changes in 1998 as part of its preparation for competition, which Maryland had slated to begin in 2002.

Principal Subsidiaries: Constellation Enterprises Inc.; BGE Energy Projects & Services, Inc.; BGE Home Products and Services, Inc.; BGE Commercial Building Systems; Constellation Energy Source.



___________
This is a good look at the progression from public to privatized utility from the 1990s/early 2000s anticipating the problems we have today.  Remember, all this is the time of Reagan/Clinton and neo-liberalism....deregulating and consolidating for powerful corporate control of government. You see, all that happened was BGE staffing was slashed, pay declined, service and quality disappeared, and now we cannot even reach a real customer service representative as we 'wait on hold'.  Long power-outages come from no investment in infrastructure and maintenance so profit could soar.  Now, with the Maryland Public Service Commission stocked with pro-corporate officials from Erhlich and O'Malley----this commission looks at the public with contempt at public forums.

The citizens of Maryland are ready to return our vital public services to the hands of the public to operate in the public interest with money invested building public value and not profit.

Below you see the same questions being asked at the end of the 1990s as are now asked today, only it is getting worse.
Sadly, Progressive Maryland is now taken corporate as currently it advocates for the most Wall Street of pols in elections.  Anthony Brown will of course act just as O'Malley as corporate pol extraordinaire and this is whom Progressive Maryland today endorses.  So, it is not only our public commissions taken corporate but our democratic political action groups.  Do you hear your pol or political organization fighting these fights?  See why only Gansler, Brown, and Mizeur hit Maryland election news?


STOP ELECTING CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS WORKING FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT.  RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!

Energy Companies

Progressive Maryland  2000s

Energy companies – led by Pepco and Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE, owned by Constellation) – have for decades invested heavily in lobbying in Annapolis and campaign contributions to lawmakers. In just the past year, energy companies spent at least $477,679 on lobbying during the 2004 session (see attached list for Pepco, Mirant, and Constellation) plus untold thousands of dollars on campaign contributions (Common Cause estimates conservatively that they have donated $440,000 since 1999).

Those investments have yielded handsome dividends. Sometimes the dividends come in the form of anti-consumer, anti-environmental bills that pass, such as California-style electricity deregulation that became law in Maryland in 1999 and only now is being fully implemented, so far with negative results for environment and consumers.

And sometimes the dividends come in the form of what does not happen. The dog that failed to bark helped Sherlock Holmes solve the mystery of The Hounds of the Baskerville. A big and curiously silent hound is the Maryland state government when it comes to the abysmal performance of Pepco and BGE in the aftermath of last year’s Tropical Storm Isabel, when hundreds of thousands of customers went for days (and in some cases weeks) without electricity. That fiasco and the negligence of BGE and especially Pepco have been amply documented.

The two committees with jurisdiction over the electricity industry – the Senate Finance Committee and House Economic Matters Committee – held a joint hearing in October 2003, one month after the blackout. At those hearings, lawmakers decided to limit themselves to fact-finding so as not to pre-empt the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) from fixing the problem through regulation. But rather than fix the problem, PSC put the fix in. First, in April of 2004, PSC’s Ehrlich-appointed Chairman, Kenneth D. Schisler, fired the engineers and senior civil servants with the technical expertise to evaluate (and potentially criticize in detail) the utilities’ dysfunctionality. Then, in June, the PSC issued an “Order” that actually compliments the utilities for their improved performance since the 1999 blackouts following Tropical Storm Floyd (!) and merely suggests a few costless proposals. These bromides include “enhancing communications between utilities, local emergency management agencies, media and customers” and “consider[ing] taking additional steps with municipal governments to increase private landowner awareness of the risks attendant with off-rights of way tree and vegetation problems that pose risks to utility electrical facilities.” Lending new meaning to the term “captive agency”, the PSC then concludes its Order (“Suggestion” is more like it) with this amazingly counter-empirical claim: “No new 4 evidence or industry information has been adduced or presented that would suggest a need to alter the existing policies regarding overhead and underground wiring of the general electric distribution system.”

Will the hound of Maryland state government continue its peculiar silence vis-à-vis electric companies during the 2005 session of the General Assembly? Lawmakers were probably correct this past year to give PSC a chance to do its job. But considering PSC’s failure to do so, and considering Pepco’s subsequent 16 percent rate hike on customers this year, it is high time for the General Assembly to intervene. Lawmakers should hold public hearings and get answers to some obvious questions, such as: • Since deregulation in 1999, has the Pepco and BGE service-areas had more annual black- and brown-out days than before deregulation? • Since deregulation, have the Pepco and BGE service-areas had more annual black- and brown-out days than other parts of the country? • Why was the industry allowed to deregulate in such a way that the utilities could cut investment in infrastructure, such as power lines, poles, transformers, and vegetation-pruning capability? • Why, since deregulation, did the Public Service Commission allow Pepco’s CEO, John M. Derrick, Jr., to double his annual compensation up to $1.9 million per year in 2002? Worse, why did PSC allow BGE’s top executive, Mayo A. Shattuck III, to more than triple the CEO’s salary since deregulation, paying himself a whopping $6.9 million in 2003? Given BGE’s lousy performance during Isabel, how in the world could Shattuck justify a salary like that?•

Are PSC members allowed to work for the same companies they supposedly “regulate” after they leave public service? If so, does this help explain the failure of the PSC to chastise either Pepco or BGE after Isabel? And does it help explain PSC’s supine willingness to approve any hike in executive compensation, no matter how outrageous? • Why did power outages in the BGE and especially Pepco areas last longer than power outages in some other areas hit by Isabel, such as North Carolina and Pennsylvania? • Considering that Isabel’s overall impact was not much worse than Floyd’s had been in 1999, why did the BGE area suffer 790,450 customer outages over a period of nine days after Isabel compared to only 503,831 over the same time-period following Floyd? Worse, why did the Pepco area suffer 545,000 customer outages over a period of eleven days after Isabel compared to only 79,000 after Floyd? Granted, 2004’s wet summer made 5 trees easier to topple during Isabel, but was the ground so much softer as to explain this huge increase in power outages? Based on the answers to these and other questions, lawmakers can and must pass reform legislation – with a strong presumption that re-regulation is the only way to avert a California-like energy mess in Maryland. Will lawmakers take this kind of decisive action in the weeks and months ahead? Or will all that utility spending on lobbying and campaign contributions induce in lawmakers the kind of lethargy that killed reform following the Tropical Storm Floyd blackouts of 1999?

__________________

As you see below the consolidation of all industries with the Reagan/Clinton deregulation and global market push has been a disaster for citizens of all states.  This happened because the politicians elected as governor appointed officials to the State Public Service Commission who would vote in favor of the corporation and not the public.  We saw in the 1980s where this commission worked for public interest and today O'Malley actually wants to place Exelon executives on our PSC.

THIS IS WHY IT MATTERS WHO YOU ELECT AS GOVERNOR.  ALL CANDIDATES EXCEPT CINDY WALSH WILL CONTINUE TO FILL THE PSC WITH CORPORATE APPOINTMENTS.  I WILL START TO TAKE THIS UTILITY BACK TO PUBLIC SERVICE.


For those who think this is big government-----WAKE UP-----these are vital public services that are being priced out of most people's reach.  When the number of people needing subsidy for energy grows you have disenfranchised those citizens and those subsidies will end.


BGE Wins Competitive Bid For Privatization of the Fort Meade Gas and Electric Utility Distribution Systems.


Link to this page




Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) has been awarded a 50-year contract for privatization of the natural gas and electric distribution systems at the United States Army's Fort George G. Meade facility in Anne Arundel County, MD. The Army selected BGE as the successful bidder in a competitive procurement process, which began in 1999. Under the contract, the Government's aged gas and electric distribution systems will be replaced with new, modernized, BGE owned, operated and maintained systems that will provide safer and more reliable service for Fort Meade, its tenants, and the people who live and work there. BGE plans to begin the three-year construction project, which will add about 350 commercial services to BGE's infrastructure, once design and engineering work have been completed.

"BGE is proud to have won the contract for privatization of the gas and electric distribution systems at Fort Meade," said Frank O. Heintz, President and CEO of Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. "It is indeed an honor to be entrusted with this tremendous responsibility. The extension of BGE's surrounding gas and electric distribution systems onto Fort Meade is a natural and logical extension of our existing relationship, which began in 1917 with the establishment of Fort Meade. Fort Meade is one of our most important customers, and I am confident that BGE will meet all of the needs of this sensitive and crucial operation."

Note: BGE is a member of Constellation Energy Group . A Fortune 500 company based in Baltimore, Constellation Energy Group is the nation's leading competitive supplier of electricity to large commercial and industrial customers. We market energy nationally and manage the associated risks. We own and operate a diversified fleet of generation plants throughout the United States. We also deliver electricity and natural gas through the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), our regulated utility in Central Maryland. In 2002, the combined revenues of our integrated energy company totaled $4.7 billion.

CONTACT: Linda Foy (media), BGE, +1-410-234-7433, Linda.J.Foy@bge.com, or Jack Thayer (investor relations), +1-410-783-3647, Jonathan.Thayer@constellation.com, for BGE


________________________________________

There is not a SMART METER critique that shows energy costs going down for the consumer.  In fact, consumers are being hit with inflated bills and not able to attain recourse because these new too big corporations just ignore these consumers and with public justice dismantled-----Americans across the country are having their money taken with no recourse.  This is happening in the energy sector and with this consolidation comes the public's loss of control.

WE MUST BRING UTILITIES BACK TO PUBLIC STATUS AND WE MUST BRING BACK REGULATION.


These profits are ever climbing because the taxpayers and ratepayers are footing the bills for infrastructure and operations while service and quality declines and environmental issues grow.  Natural gas is fracking and having Exelon in our backyard increases pressure for fracking in Maryland.


Exelon to buy Constellation in $7.9 billion deal
Print By Associated Press business staff
on April 28, 2011 at 12:13 PM, updated April 28, 2011 at 12:15 PM



Associated Press fileExelon Corp.'s nuclear plant in Byron, Ill. NEW YORK  --

Exelon Corp. agreed to buy Constellation Energy Group Inc. for $7.9 billion Thursday, the latest in a string of acquisitions in the electric power industry.

Exelon CEO John Rowe, the longest-serving utility CEO in the country, has long been a proponent of consolidation. He has failed three times since 2003 to acquire a smaller rival. Now the market conditions appear to be on his side.

A combination of lower power prices and rising costs tied to tightening environmental standards has been the catalyst for several recent deals, including Duke Energy Corp.'s $13.7 billion buyout of Progress Energy Inc.

Constellation shareholders will receive 0.93 shares of Exelon for each Constellation share. That's worth $38.59 a share, a 12.5 percent premium over Constellation's closing price on Wednesday.

In Constellation, Exelon would acquire a company much like itself -- with one important difference. Along with a regulated utility and a wholesale power division, Constellation has among the largest retail power divisions in the country.

Analysts say Constellation's large retail arm and Exelon's large wholesale power division could work well together.

"Constellation's retail arm is a good fit, because it tends to do well when wholesale markets are bad," said David Grumhaus, a utility analyst at the Chicago hedge fund Copia Capital.

Wholesale electric providers own generating stations and sell their power to local utilities or retail power providers either through long-term contracts or through regional power pools.

Retail electric providers buy blocks of wholesale power and resell it to industrial, commercial and residential customers. Through most of the last decade, when power prices were rising steadily, retail providers struggled to sign up new customers because they couldn't offer rates lower than what customers were already getting from traditional utilities.

Lower demand for electricity in the wake of the recession and persistently low natural gas prices have lowered power prices and allowed retail providers to advertise low rates in order to attract customers. Also, new devices such as smart meters that track when power is used throughout the day have allowed retail providers to offer new rate plans based on when customers use power in order to lower overall bills.

"It's a deal that makes sense," Grumhaus said.


_________________________________________

The same benefits are offered again and again as to why merger after merger is good for the State of Maryland and as the article shows below-------none of the benefits happen.  The 600 jobs toted with this deal ended being a staff shakeup where local employees were fired and 600 new staff brought from out of the area.  This is a loss of jobs, not a gain.  The rate payers were immediately slapped with a whopping rate increase to pay the costs of infrastructure upgrades and operational costs, they were given $100 million tax credit for absolutely no reason to build a complex right on the water's edge in Baltimore------racketeering and unsustainable development in one swoop.  This deal kept the coal- fired power plants open and the billion dollars of taxpayer trust tied to paying for the closure of Calvert Cliffs is now in the hands of Exelon.

These are all political deals as you see the donations to these campaigns and the connection of Exelon to Obama goes directly to O'Malley's top position on the Democratic Governor's Association
. 

THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND HAVE A LOSE LOSE ON THIS MERGER.


Now we see Exelon as the main lobbyist for exporting natural gas which will make natural gas prices soar and rates as well.  We are being tied to the most invasive and corrupt system of energy control----the SMART METER ----that has as its only goal the rationing of energy as costs soar and public subsidy disappears.

It is good to note that as this article states the movement to natural gas in producing energy in Maryland will not take coal-fire out of the equation as Exelon simply sold the coal-fired plants to eliminate its footprint----they are still in operation.  Natural gas is far more damaging to global warming than electricity-operation of plants and will be used as an excuse to frack in Maryland.  Indeed, Exelon spends heavily to lobby for exporting natural gas and for the export facility here in Maryland.  Lastly, the mention of Exelon being required to pay for low-income subsidy was found to be a joke as the money sent was found to be fungible taxpayer subsidy to Exelon.  Even the jobs did not happen!


YOU MUST ENGAGE IN POLITICS TO BE THE CHANGE!!

Break up the Exelon bohemoth!

Posted on January 12, 2013 by interestingblogger


I recently read in The Daily Record an article which brought some ideas to my mind. The article noted that “Baltimore’s design review panel Thursday gave a preliminary thumbs up to a design for a sleek, glass, brick and metal tower to house the city’s new Exelon Corp. headquarters at Harbor Point.” As I mentioned in another post, the Inner Harbor benefited big business, not the workers. What about Exelon?

I’ll give you some background. A while ago last year I wrote opposing the Constellation-Exelon merger in my previous blog, Sunshine Politics that “the merger would be a victory for the monied interests because $7.9 billion dollars went into the pocket of Exelon Corp. for their purchase of Constellation Energy Corp…[and] 120 of those megawatts [of new generation Exelon is required to developed within the state, which is 280-300 megawatts] will come from a natural gas-powered plants. I [also noted]…the merger…causes the last Fortune 500 company to leave Baltimore…[which won't] help lower the city’s 20%+ unemployment. [Using the Baltimore Brew I learned that]…the site selected by Exelon…has been the subject of controversy among Baltimore real estate factions…[which could]…adversely affect electric utilities across the Baltimore region and across the state…[I later added rhat] Exelon paid for [numerous] fines for…past negligence…[including a fine] in 2005, the corporation paid $602,000 for exceeding the sulfur dioxide level in Pennsylvania.” I even predicted the merger would be approved, and I bemoaned the fact that there was not strong public opposition, saying that due to this fact, elected officials fell in line with the deal like Maryland’s  Governor Martin O’Malley who “appreciated the PSC’s decision, saying that it will add 6,000 new jobs in Maryland,” who had previously opposed the deal. Using OpenSecrets, I found that “Exelon has been the top contributor to 162 Congressmembers in the House and Senate from 2000 to the present, including Bob Ehlrich is 2000, Ben Cardin in 2012 and Steny H. Hoyer in 2012. Even Constellation Energy gave $10,000 to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who I’ve previously described as the anti-occupy mayor. The conditions of this merger set by the Public Services Commission (PSC) seemed notable including a hundred dollar rate credit to all BGE customers within 90 days, an investment of over 113 million dollars over three years by Exelon to “provide energy efficiency and low-income energy assistance to BGE customers” and the development of 285-300 “megawatts of new generation within the state,” 120 of which will come from a  natural gas power plant, 125 from “renewable resources” and 30 from solar power. Next, the PSC required the amount of staff at BGE and the two power plants to be the same for the next two years (no firing), but didn’t mention firing from Constellation or Exelon which will not be prohibited. Most importantly, Exelon is required to divest itself of BGE “if Exelon files for bankruptcy or allows its credit rating to drop six levels below investment grade,” which doesn’t seem to take into account the bad record of credit agencies like Moody’s and Standard and Poors which are partly responsible for the current financial crisis (the movie Inside Job explains this well).

You may wonder why this merger was a bad idea. Consider the occupiers, who criticized it before they were evicted, who said it is a bad “deal for Baltimore (and the surrounding areas) because it does not protect jobs and has no guarantees for rate relief.” They even organized a march against the merger at one point! The Tribune-owned Baltimore Sun revealed some about the merger that should make one opposed to it, which noted that once Exelon and Constellation are combined, the new company will be “the largest non-utlity energy provider in the United States.” In 2005, a similar merger approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with a company in New Jersey would have created such a behemoth, but after massive public action, it was stopped. Even without public action to stop the merger, a consumer advocacy group in Maryland, the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, and its counterpart in Pennsylvania were opposed, saying that “the combined company would hold too much power in the…Mid-Atlantic electricity grid, potentially pushing wholesale electricity prices higher.” As I noted when I wrote this originally, the merger itself could possibly eliminate 630 jobs in Constellation Energy and Exelon, most of which would in Baltimore, along with the fact that Exelon has a horrible safety record.

What could we as citizens do about this injustice? I did write in the past that the common folk of the state should participate in “militant non-violence opposing this merger and must push for re-regulation of the energy markets by the PSC,” but I feel more is needed.  I still support militant non-violence, yet I think that one can look to the Maryland Declaration of Rights for inspiration. Article 6 points out that “all persons invested with the Legislative or Executive powers of Government are the Trustees of the Public, and, as such, accountable for their conduct,” that “the People may…reform the old, or establish a new Government; [and that] the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.” The bolded section I believe is the most important. The common folk of Maryland should use the ideas of Article 41 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and declare that the monopoly of the Exelon-Constellation merged company is “odious, contrary to the spirit of a free government and the principles of commerce, and ought not to be suffered.” The people must tell their government that the energy markets must be re-regulated and that the Exelon-Constellation merger must be broken up by the state, otherwise Marylanders will suffer.


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January 30th, 2014

1/30/2014

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AS YOU WILL READ BELOW, FARM SUBSIDIES STARTED AS AN AID TO SMALL FARMERS JUST AS THE FHA STARTED TO FINANCE HOMES FOR THE LOW-INCOME.  NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS HAVE ALLOWED ALL PUBLIC AGENCIES TO BE CAPTURED BY CORPORATE INTERESTS AND EXTEND THE CORPORATE WELFARE SYSTEM.

THEY ARE BLOWING UP YET ANOTHER AGENCY MEANT TO HELP THE WORKING CLASS!




Obama's TPP and the Farm Bill now ready to pass:

The Affordable Care Act, the Immigration Reform, and the Farm Bill are all legislation tied to TPP and pols have been waiting for TPP to be signed to move all the legislation forward.

As we are seeing, all the legislation waiting for the TPP to be signed is now ready to move as neo-liberals and neo-cons work to make sure all the law works with the TPP treaty laws. That means, with agriculture neo-liberals had to move from an outright farm subsidy by paying farmers not to farm to a disguised subsidy.....crop insurance. That's all this issue is about ......what the TPP requirements are. Now, for the American taxpayer it means a lot more tax money for corporate subsidy as global warming is making the mid-west a dust bowl. WAIT A MINUTE,....I THOUGHT THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS WERE AGAINST CORPORATE SUBSIDY? Are you kidding.....trillions in corporate tax breaks in the guise to job creation to expand US corporations globally not a corporate subsidy? THAT'S RIGHT....NEO-LIBERALS ARE ONE GREAT BIG CORPORATE TAX SUBSIDY.

I listened to our local Maryland Chesapeake Bay environmental advocate do a nice job outing O'Malley's failure to press legislation into action.....that's what Maryland does to look progressive....it passes laws and then never enforces them. The way we know this man is not working for REAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES......he never mentions that having a global food corporation is very, very, very very bad for Maryland and the US. He does mention the political sway but not the damage these industrial food corporations reek on our food chain and environment. Even the farmers that own most of the farmland on the Eastern Shore of MD and VA are industrial agriculture. As my grandmother used to say about all those tomatoes growing on the shore.....all of them are shipped away and we are left with bad tomatoes. INDEED. It's the global market that pays more you know.

That is the big picture with the Farm Bill. It is designed to make sure global agriculture does not lose money just as oil subsidies and all the public private partnerships are made to hand all corporate losses to the taxpayer or consumer. THIS IS WHAT NEO-LIBERALS DO....THEY WORK FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT JUST LIKE REPUBLICANS! THEY ARE NOT DEMOCRATS SO WE NEED TO RUN LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES!

So this is what all of Maryland neo-liberals did for you and me.....crop insurance will pay for crop failure in a region of the US that we all know is and will continue to become a dust bowl as global warming weather changes will be long-term. So, global agriculture goes on a buying spree overseas buying all the most fertile land to start farming overseas and will import America's food supply while taxpayers subsidize farms in the mid-west that fail year after year. It guarantees the US will have almost no viable agriculture as these billions of dollars being sunk into failed farming could be used to move US farming further north where climate would not be as extreme and where there may actually be aquifers with water. Remember, all of the mid-west aquifers are drying because global agriculture drained domestic resources so that global corporations could make more profits. THIS IS THE FARM BILL. Meanwhile small family farms are disappearing as land grabs and all these farm subsidies go to the big AG and never to the small farmer.

If you look at the Eastern Shore of MD and VA you will find the same thing. A few great big farm industries own much of the land and cart away the food to sell overseas. This industrial farming is why so much fertilizer is being used and not used correctly. If mom and pop farmer simply used his/her own chicken poop to fertilize a small farm that grew produce for the locals and maybe to send to Baltimore for example.....we would not have the flood of nitrogen, phosphorus and others into the Chesapeake Bay. The same for the global Perdue. If we did not have a global meat industry, but rather went back to small farmers with some chicken houses that fed local and some regional areas, we would not have all that chicken poop, all that processed body waste, and all those hormones and anti-bodies global corporate food suppliers use to maximize profit. So, this is the story the Chesapeake Bay advocate did not tell. What happens with these laws aimed at correcting these problems is as with the RAIN TAX.....it will increase expenses for the small farmers that have little to do with the pollution.

This is what the Farm Bill does on a national level. It expands and supports global agriculture and global meat which in turn gives us unhealthy food and drains resources.....

AND ALL OF MARYLAND NEO-LIBERALS VOTED FOR IT!

They didn't do it for the Food Stamps because remember, in 2009 they had a super-majority of democrats that could have funded Food Stamps for a decade or more at full value and they did not because they wanted to pretend Food Stamps were forcing them to compromise!

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL MARYLAND PRIMARIES TO SHAKE THE NEO-LIBERAL BUGS FROM THE RUG!

Look below who Obama and Maryland neo-liberals have as the chief negotiators for the agriculture part of TPP------MONSANTO.....

THE ENTIRE WORLD HATES MONSANTO AND DO NOT WANT IT IN THEIR COUNTRIES BUT ARE BEING FORCED WITH THESE TRADE DEALS TO LET THIS MONOCULTURE DISASTER INTO THEIR COUNTRIES!


Top Agriculture Negotiator on to the TPP: Monsanto
Protect the land from Monsanto


Educate! Food and Water, TPP

By Barbara Chicherio, www.nationofchange.org
June 24th, 2013

Something is looming in the shadows that could help erode our basic rights and contaminate our food. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in history, both in economic size and the ability to quietly add more countries in addition to those originally included. As of 2011 its 11 countries accounted for 30 percent of the world’s agricultural exports. Those countries are the US, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Viet Nam. Recently, Japan has joined the negotiations.

Six hundred US corporate advisors have had input into the TPP. The draft text has not been made available to the public, press or policy makers. The level of secrecy around this agreement is unparalleled. The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark while representatives of US corporations are being consulted and privy to the details.

The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique. If ratified the TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented right to demand taxpayer compensation for policies that corporations deem a barrier to their profits.

There appears not to be a specific agricultural chapter in the TPP. Instead, rules affecting food systems and food safety are woven throughout the text. This agreement is attempting to establish corporations’ rights to skirt domestic courts and laws and sue governments directly with taxpayers paying compensation and fines directly from the treasury.
Article image

Though TPP content remains hidden, here are some things we do know:



Members of Congress are concerned that the TPP would open the door to imports without resolving questions around food safety or environmental impacts on its production.
Procurement rules specifically forbid discrimination based on the quality of production. This means that public programs that favor the use of sustainably produced local foods in school lunch programs could be prohibited.
The labeling of foods containing GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) will not be allowed. Japan currently has labeling laws for GMOs in food. Under the TPP Japan would no longer be able to label GMOs. This situation is the same for New Zealand and Australia. In the US we are just beginning to see some progress towards labeling GMOs. Under the TPP GMO labels for US food would not be allowed.
In April 2013, Peru placed a 10-year moratorium on GMO foods and plants. This prohibits the import, production and use of GMOs in foods and GMO plants and is aimed at safeguarding Peru’s agricultural diversity. The hope is to prevent cross-pollination with non-GMO crops and to ban GMO crops like Bt corn. What will become of Peru’s moratorium if the TPP is passed?
There is a growing resistance to Monsanto’s agricultural plans in Vietnam. Monsanto (the US corporation controlling an estimated 90% of the world seed genetics) has a dark history with Vietnam. Many believe that Monsanto has no right to do business in a country where Monsanto’s product Agent Orange is estimated to have killed 400,000 Vietnamese, deformed another 500,000 and stricken another 2 million with various diseases.

Legacies of other trade agreements that serve as a warning about the TPP have a history of displacing small farmers and destroying local food economies. Ten years following the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 1.5 million Mexican farmers became bankrupt because they could not compete with the highly subsidized US corn entering the Mexican market.

In the same 10 years Mexico went from a country virtually producing all of its own corn to a country that now imports at least half of this food staple. Mexican consumers are now paying higher prices for Monsanto’s GMO corn.

With little or no competition for large corporations Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta now control 57 percent of the commercial food market.

While the TPP is in many ways like NAFTA and other existing trade agreements, it appears that the corporations have learned from previous experience. They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.

If the TPP is adopted the door will be open wider for human rights and environmental abuse. Some of the things we should expect to see include:

more large scale farming and more monocultures;
destruction of local economies;
no input into how our food is grown or what we will be eating;
more deforestation;
increased use of herbicides and pesticides;
increased patenting of life forms;
more GMO plants and foods; and
no labeling of GMOs in food.

Together these are a step backwards for human rights and a giant step towards Monsanto’s control of our food.

Please pass the word to others about the TPP as most Americans are unaware of this trade agreement or its ominous effects if passed.


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HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT WHETHER FEDERAL, STATE, OR LOCAL -----THE COMMON PHRASE TODAY IS -------FAILED PUBLIC POLICY.

The reason you hear of massive protests around the world is the TPP and citizens in these countries are set on getting rid of politicians allowing their countries to become involved. The US will do the same as people are able to hear the truth and because TPP is illegal it can be made NULL and VOID if passed. Many of the countries involved are developing and have agriculture as their way of life and what neo-liberal politicians writing these TPP want to do is have US dominated global agriculture to come in and do what was done in the US to these subsistence farmers.

IT IS TRULY EVIL STUFF AND YOUR NEO-LIBERAL RIGHT HERE IN MARYLAND IS BACKING IT!

So, what will happen in these countries is global agriculture will take over, the meats and food will be filled with hormones and anti-biotics and GMO seeds will cause massive crop failure by making crop pests resistant to any chemical treatment. Can you imagine what a country like China will do to hogs if they own Smithfield....even as we are told they will operate in the US? I know, you say 'can it get worse'?

THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU!!!!!

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TPP: Doubling down on failed trade policy

Posted March 6, 2013 by Karen Hansen-Kuhn


Used under creative commons license from Gobierno de Chile.

A 2010 summit with leaders of the member states of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP).

The 16th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) began this week in Singapore. That trade deal has the potential to become the biggest regional free-trade agreement in history, both because of the size of the economies participating in the negotiations and because it holds open the possibility for other countries to quietly “dock in” to the existing agreement at some point in the future. What started as an agreement among Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore in 2005 has expanded to include trade talks with Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States and Vietnam. Japan and Thailand are considering entering into the negotiations, and others are waiting in the wings.

And yet, despite the potential of this agreement to shape (and in very real ways override) a vast range of public policies, there has been very little public debate on the TPP to date. Governments have refused to release negotiating texts. Media attention on agriculture and the TPP has focused on New Zealand’s insistence on access to U.S. dairy markets and Japan’s concerns over rice imports.

While important, that debate is much too narrow. The TPP is not only about lowering tariffs. It has the potential to greatly expand protections for investors over those for consumers and farmers, and severely restrict governments’ ability to use public policy to reshape food systems. The fundamental causes of recent protests across the globe over food prices, the rising market power of a handful of global food and agriculture corporations, as well as the dual specters of rising hunger and obesity around the world, point to the need to transform the world’s food systems, not to lock the current dysfunction situation in place.

In Who’s at the Table? Demanding Answers on Agriculture in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, IATP raises questions around investment, food safety (especially in emerging new food technologies), procurement and competition policy that should guide an informed public debate around the right rules for agricultural trade.

Trade policy should start from such goals as ending global hunger, enhancing rural and urban incomes and employment, and encouraging a transition to climate friendly agriculture--not from the bottom line of multinational corporations. The burden of proof should be on governments to demonstrate that the commitments being negotiated in the TPP will advance the human rights to food and development. Given the stakes for agriculture and food systems in all of the countries involved, they should include all stakeholders in a frank discussion of the trade rules that are needed to ensure that food sovereignty, rural livelihoods and sustainable development take precedence over misguided efforts to expand exports at any cost. That is what should be on the table in Singapore.
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If you look at this article you will see the big AG subsidizing is one great big fraud and below this article you will see pols concerned that Food Stamp and fuel subsidy has too much fraud. Indeed, there is pressure placed on the poor to sell their Food Stamps....but solving the need for them will eliminate that problem.....corporate fraud by people having millions of dollars....THIS NEEDS ATTENTION. This Farm Bill simply super-sizes the opportunity for fraud as these global agriculture corporations are now working both the import and export side of the aisle.



REMEMBER, WITH CORPORATIONS AND THE RICH NO LONGER PAYING TAXES YOU AND I ARE THE ONES HANDING OUR TAX REVENUE STRAIGHT INTO THE POCKET OF CORPORATE SUBSIDY!

Corporate Welfare Racket: Big Agriculture’s Crop Insurance Fraud

posted by Marcos Da Silva September 13, 2013 Current Events,

A federally subsidized crop insurance program instituted in the wake of the Dust Bowl to help protect American farmers has matured into an undesirable situation that facilitates opportunism by duplicitous growers and financial institutions, who bank on exploiting the trust of taxpayers who helplessly foot the bill.

Today’s federal crop insurance makes it dangerously easy for planters to commit fraud and hold a cavalier attitude about crops they have no incentive to maintain since they will be compensated regardless of their yield or success. Farmers need not have a vested interest in caring for their crops and may gamble on risky plantings.

The arrangement is pretty much a setup for taxpayers.


The government pays 18 approved insurance companies to run its crop insurance program, doling out $1.4 billion last year to cover the “administrative costs” incurred by these insurance companies. The government then pays farmers to buy coverage AND on top of that, it also pays the bills on losses if losses exceed predetermined limits.

And this all happens even as farm income this year is expected to top $120 billion, its highest inflation-adjusted mark since 1973, and as median commercial farm household income hits $84,649, almost 70 percent higher than that of the typical American household.

Taxpayers should not finance payments for a business sector that is more than capable of thriving on its own.

Crop Insurance Anatomy Of A Fraud

For obvious reasons, the growing insurance tab is a bipartisan target.

In a budget strained America, even diametrically opposed figures such as President Obama and Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan recognize a problem with the bloated subsidized insurance program, but the farm and insurance lobbies, which spent at least $52 million influencing lawmakers in the 2012 election cycle, are resilient forces.

“We have been subsidizing some of the farmers who least need it in a way that is really costing taxpayers a lot of money,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat of New Hampshire. “We’re never going to solve our budget challenges if that’s what we’re doing.”


Crop insurers say that the subsidized insurance helps stabilize food prices while protecting farmers from losses and sparing politicians from ad-hoc farm bailouts. But unlike direct farm aid payments, which are capped at $40,000 per farm, there is no limit on crop insurance subsidies.

And there is no transparency. The names of those receiving payouts from the program are kept secret. In 2011, 26 anonymous farmers each got annual subsidies of more than $1 million; and more than 10,000 received $100,000 or more. One grower of tomatoes and peppers in Florida enjoyed a subsidy of $1.9 million.

It pays to be a farmer in America.

Crop Insurance Covering Companies' CostsThe U.S. crop insurance program, intended to safeguard farmers from natural disasters, has mutated into an income support mechanism that almost eliminates risk from agriculture and helps private insurance companies benefit from public assistance.

And when it’s not the insurance companies benefitting at taxpayer expense, it’s the farmers.

By law, insurers are obligated to cover anyone who applies for crop insurance. Yet. farmers pay only about 38 percent of their insurance bills. Policies protect as much as 85 percent of a farm’s average yield, but over 70 percent of policies guarantee income rather than yield.

When last year’s drought drove corn prices to record highs, farmers with “harvest price option” policies were paid those inflated prices for what didn’t even grow — contributing to a record bill for taxpayers and record income for farmers. Taxpayers bore the burden of almost 75 percent of the 2012 insurance payouts.

And that’s not even accounting for any collusion there might be between insurance companies and farmers, or as taxpayers like to call it…

Fraud.

Exposing dangerous flaws in America’s crop insurance program in North Carolina, in 2009 it was discovered that an entire network of insurance agents, claims adjusters and farmers had been conning the government for over a decade to the tune of $100 million in taxpayer money.

Last December, Harry Dean Canady, found himself pleading guilty to defrauding the federal crop insurance system for $1 million. But Canady was the tip of the iceberg in the largest fraud in the program’s history, a case that so far has ensnared 41 North Carolina tobacco farmers, insurance agents and claims adjusters whose law breaking cost taxpayers close to $100 million.


The evidence is incontrovertible:

America’s crop insurance system is in need of serious reform.


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There is a funny part in this article that states that there is a scheme to give fuel subsidy with food stamps that circumvents the law!!!! That's why they needed to cut. The Farm Bill is a republican one -----all the things a global corporation needs and democrats pretended it was all about the Food Stamps. Poor people are indeed often forced to hand over Food Stamps or try to sell them for money. That reflects on you and me....

House Passes Farm Bill, Crop Subsidies Preserved
By AP / Mary Clare Jalonick Jan. 29, 20143



After years of setbacks, a nearly $100 billion-a-year compromise farm bill cleared the House on Wednesday despite strong opposition from conservatives who sought a bigger cut in food stamps.

The five-year bill, which preserves generous crop subsidies, heads to the Senate, where approval seems certain. The White House said President Barack Obama would sign it.

The measure, which the House approved 251-166, had backing from the Republican leadership team, even though it makes smaller cuts to food stamps than they would have liked. After wavering for several years, the GOP leaders were seeking to put the long-stalled bill behind them and build on the success of a bipartisan budget passed earlier this month. Leaders in both parties also were hoping to bolster rural candidates in this year’s midterm elections.

House Speaker John Boehner did not cast a vote on the bill, a commonplace practice for a speaker, but he had issued a statement Monday saying it was “worthy of the House’s support.” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., voted for the bill despite concerns from some in her caucus that the bill cut too much from the food stamp program.

The bill ultimately would cut about $800 million a year from the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program, or around 1 percent. The House had sought a 5 percent cut.

The legislation also would continue to heavily subsidize major crops for the nation’s farmers while eliminating some subsidies and shifting them toward more politically defensible insurance programs.

House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., called the compromise a “miracle” after trying to get the bill passed for almost three years. An early version of the legislation was defeated on the House floor last June after conservatives said the food stamp cuts were too modest and liberal Democrats said they were too deep.

The House later passed a bill with a higher, $4 billion cut, arguing at the time that the program had spiraled out of control after costs doubled in the last five years. But cuts that high were ultimately not possible after the Senate balked and the White House threatened a veto. The Senate had sought a cut of $400 million annually.

Many House conservatives still voted against the bill — 63 Republicans opposed it, one more than in June.

One of those conservative opponents was Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. “It spends money we simply don’t have,” he said.

But 89 Democrats supported it, bolstered by the lower cut in food stamps. The top Democrat on the agriculture panel, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, said he also enticed some of his colleagues with more money for fruit, vegetable and organic programs.


The final savings in the food stamp program would come from cracking down on some states that seek to boost individual food stamp benefits by giving people small amounts of federal heating assistance that they don’t need. That heating assistance, sometimes as low as $1 per person, triggers higher benefits, and some critics see that practice as circumventing the law. The compromise bill would require states to give individual recipients at least $20 in heating assistance before a higher food stamp benefit could kick in.

Some Democrats said the food stamp cut still is too high.

Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, one of the states that have boosted benefits through heating assistance, said the cut will be harmful on top of automatic food stamp cuts that went into place in November.

“I don’t know where they are going to make that up,” McGovern said.

To pass the bill, Lucas and his Senate counterpart, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, found ways to bring many potential naysayers on board. They spent more than two years crafting the bill to appeal to members from all regions of the country. They included a boost in money for crop insurance popular in the Midwest; higher rice and peanut subsidies for Southern farmers; and renewal of federal land payments for Western states.

They also backed away from repealing a catfish program — a move that would have angered Mississippi lawmakers — and dropped House language that would have thwarted a California law requiring all eggs sold in the state to come from hens living in larger cages. Striking out that provision was a priority for California lawmakers who did not want to see the state law changed.

For those seeking reform of farm programs, the legislation would eliminate a $4.5 billion-a-year farm subsidy called direct payments, which are paid to farmers whether they farm or not. But the bill nonetheless would continue to heavily subsidize major crops — corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton — while shifting many of those subsidies toward more politically defensible insurance programs. That means farmers would have to incur losses before they could get a payout.

The almost $100 billion-a-year bill would save around $1.65 billion annually overall, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The amount was less than the $2.3 billion annual savings the agriculture committees originally projected for the bill.

An aide to Lucas said the difference was due to how the CBO calculated budget savings from recent automatic across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration.


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Here is a local look at how ordinary farming families see this farm bill and what it does to the fabric of our US agriculture system.....Nebraska is a solidly RED state so these are views from conservatives.....who by the way want to get rid of  neo-cons just as democrats want to get rid of neo-liberals.


Farm subsidies: Largest corporate welfare program Tell North Platte what you think
by The Platte Institute - 6/30/2012


Last week, the United States Senate passed a new farm bill which, among its many provisions, changes the way crop insurance is calculated, makes some changes to farm subsidies, and finances new price support programs.

While the bill still has to pass the House of Representatives, it once again raises the issue of farm subsidies and their effects on the overall economy.

Farm subsidies first began during the Great Depression when Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt enacted price floors and began paying farmers not to grow crops in order to deal with oversupply and stop prices from falling.

Since then, Congress has passed similar farm bills sustaining these subsidies approximately every five years, resulting in a gross distortion of the agricultural markets.

These subsidies were originally intended to help small family farmers from bankruptcy due to falling commodity prices, but they have since become America's largest corporate welfare program.

Farm subsidies are awarded based upon the type of crop grown - with 90 percent being awarded for growing corn, wheat, rice, cotton, and soybeans - and the amount of crop grown, with high producers receiving higher subsidies. This means that most subsidies go not to the family farmer who could face bankruptcy in the event of a bad yield, but instead go to large farms and agribusinesses who can afford to produce the favored crops in massive quantities.

The corporate welfare nature of farm subsidies becomes clear when one examines exactly where the subsidies go. Nebraska currently receives $239 million in direct payment subsidies, the seventh-highest payment in the nation.

Those payments go to the 73.2 percent of all Nebraska farmers who collect government subsidies.

Of those 73.2 percent, 10 percent collected 62 percent of all subsidies awarded in the state. The top 10 percent of subsidized farmers in Nebraska collected an average of $35,752 per year in subsidies between 1995 and 2010, while the bottom 80 percent of Nebraska's subsidized farmers collected an average of $1,334 per year in subsidies over the same time period.

Adding to the idea that farm subsidies are far from a "safety net" is that fact that Nebraska farmers are currently seeing record-high farm income. In 2011, the net total farm income was $5.4 billion, a 35 percent increase over 2010, a year where farmers already saw their income increase 49 percent from 2009.

Farm income accounted for one-third of the state's income growth in 2011. On a national level, 2010 Census data indicates that the average farm household income was 25 percent higher than the average for all U.S. taxpayers.

On top of all this, some of the subsidies go to organizations that do not use farming as their primary income, further diminishing the role of subsidies as a last resort safety net.

For example, between 1995 and 2010, the 19th largest recipient of farm subsidies in the state of Nebraska was the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, who received $2,797,796 in subsidies from the federal government over those 15 years.


Nebraskans must recognize that we do not need subsidies to have a thriving agricultural sector.


The example of New Zealand shows that when a country eliminates subsidies it can actually create innovation which improves the economic health of the agricultural sector. In 1984, the New Zealand government subsidized 44 percent of all sheep farming, meaning that although farmers sold lamb for $30, it was only actually worth $12.50 in the international marketplace with the government making up the difference.

That same year New Zealand eliminated their sheep farming subsidies. By 1989, after changing how they produced, processed, and sold their product, New Zealand farmers found a new market for their lamb and began selling it for $30 without government assistance. By 1999, the price had increased to $115.

Far from providing a safety net to small farmers - something that is better provided through things like crop and disaster insurance - farm subsidies have become tools for corporate welfare, taking taxpayer money and giving it to organizations that do not need it.

Nebraskans should encourage their federal representatives to end farm subsidies and allow farmers to be independent from the government.
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January 29th, 2014

1/29/2014

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FOLKS, IF YOU DO NOT HERE YOUR INCUMBENT POL SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST ALL THESE POLICIES AND TPP-------THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEED TO GO!  RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES!

I want to take today through Friday to talk about why Obama and Congress are now ready to focus on domestic issues and why his mantra of helping the middle-class and poor is ridiculous......all the items on the Congressional agenda are tied to TPP and they intend to pass TPP in the near future.

The good news for US citizens is that TPP is illegal and a COUP against the US Constitution and American people and we can simply declare it NULL AND VOID when we reinstate Rule of Law. 

I'm starting with the environmental issues in Obama's speech and TPP because we have a corporate 'public' media outlet....WYPR with commentators who pretend to lament issues that they really support.


You may have seen the Huffington Post article on TPP and the environment but continue down to see how Maryland is one big TPP sesspool thanks to your neo-liberal!

ALL THE CANDIDATES RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND WILL CONTINUE TO PUSH THE TPP AGENDA!


In Maryland, labor and justice simply backs the worst of TPP neo-liberals even as they intend to make labor and justice just like Chinese workers and citizens.  WHY ARE THEY NOT RUNNING LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES IN ALL PRIMARIES!!!!!??????


Regarding Obama's domestic agenda that all involves passing TPP:

Basu's shout out for attention to global warming is a HOOT isn't it!  The US is the number one exporting now of all the raw materials that hasten global warming and Basu supports every one as this makes the rich richer in the US while it kills our environment.  TPP makes sure that all those silly US environmental laws won't get in the way of corporate profit and that is why we have XL Pipeline preparing to export the worst methane and carbon emitter TAR SAND OIL.  Basu is for building this pipeline....it creates jobs you know as he is in building a natural gas export right here in Maryland.  Fracking is a great methane/carbon emitter.  The US exports coal and raw timber all of which are great carbon emitters so all this talk of global warming by neo-liberals is only to sell windmill funding to make another source of profit for Wall Street investment firms.  YOU CANNOT BE A NET EXPORTER OF ALL THE MATERIALS CREATING CARBON AND METHANE EMISSIONS AND SAY YOU ARE AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING FOR GOODNESS SAKE.   All of Maryland pols are backing the natural gas terminal that will place fracking on steroids.

 NEO-LIBERALS WILL VOTE ON A TPP BILL THAT KILLS ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT AND THAT IS WHY WE HAVE SUCH A HIGH LEVEL OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION TODAY....OBAMA AND CONGRESSIONAL NEO-LIBERALS ARE ALLOWING FREE TRADE OF ALL OF US NATURAL RESOURCES.


You wouldn't know that Obama's entire agenda surrounds the legislation needed to pass the TPP and we all know that has nothing to do with making a strong middle-class and helping the poor.  Remember, there is no wealth inequality because tens of trillions of dollar in corporate fraud still needs to come back.

The reason we had a do-nothing Congress is that these few years your neo-liberal has been working on behalf of their state's global corporations in writing TPP and now that Obama's Trade Rep signed the TPP agreement Congress is ready to go full court passing all the domestic bills that are written just for TPP.

ALL OF MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS!!!!!

Let's look at each one to remember how they are attached to TPP and how they kill American workers and families.  THESE ARE EVIL DUDES YOU ARE ELECTING AND RE-ELECTING FOLKS!

So why are corporate NPR/APM and WYPR not connecting these TPP/environment dots?  More important, why are Maryland's environmental groups and 'progressive' action groups not sounding the alarm?  Maryland Progressives give Maryland Assembly strong marks on environment without ever shouting that TPP will knock the socks off of anything local.  Building windmills off of Maryland coast while exporting natural gas.....REALLY?


Let's look closer at what this environmental catastrophe means to labor and justice.  First, look at the Incinerator project everyone is fighting here in the Baltimore area.  Why would you build something like this with all kinds of 'green language' when we all know it is bad news for health and climate?  THE INCINERATOR IS PART OF A GLOBAL CORPORATION THAT RUNS THESE AROUND THE WORLD -------VEOLA ENVIRONOMENT OWNED BY JOHNS HOPKINS.

Remember, VEOLA is a global corporation and is TPP is passed we will not have all those air quality standards met as all this hampers corporate profit!!!!!




 WikiLeaks Exposes What Obama's Secret Trade Deal Would Do To The Environment


Posted: 01/15/2014 12:22 pm EST  |  Updated: 01/25/2014 4:01 pm EST


WASHINGTON -- WikiLeaks published a leaked draft of the environment chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Wednesday, and environmental groups are lining up to take a swing.

The leaked documents come from a meeting of the trade deal's chief negotiators held in Salt Lake City, Utah, from Nov. 19 to 24, 2013. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes 12 countries –- the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei –- and would govern a number of international environmental and trade issues.

The draft indicates the pact will include a number of promises on the environment, but will lack strong enforcement tools. "When compared against other TPP chapters, the Environment Chapter is noteworthy for its absence of mandated clauses or meaningful enforcement measures," wrote WikiLeaks in its release. The chapter is intended to deal with issues like overfishing, trade of wood products, wildlife crime, and illegal logging. But most of the measures in the chapter are voluntary, rather than binding, and do not include penalties or criminal sanctions for violations. Compliance is largely left to the respective countries.

Enviros offered similar criticism. "The lack of fully-enforceable environmental safeguards means negotiators are allowing a unique opportunity to protect wildlife and support legal sustainable trade of renewable resources to slip through their fingers,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, in a statement.

The leaked document from November is only a draft, but if the trade pact's final environmental chapter looks like it, it would make the Obama administration's environmental trade record "worse than George W. Bush’s," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “This draft chapter falls flat on every single one of our issues -- oceans, fish, wildlife, and forest protections -- and in fact, rolls back on the progress made in past free trade pacts.”

According to a report from the chairs of the TPP Environmental Working Group drafting the chapter, also released by WikiLeaks, there remains significant disagreement among the parties on many of the pact's provisions. The chairs wrote that Vietnam, Peru and Malaysia object to a provision calling for countries to "rationalize and phase out" fossil fuel subsidies "that encourage wasteful consumption." They also noted that the United States and Australia object to the climate change portion of the pact as it is written.

Negotiation of the pact has been underway since 2010, but all discussions take place entirely outside of public view. The Obama administration has already received backlash for leaked portions of the pact that indicate it would grant greater rights to corporations to challenge national laws in private courts.

Efforts to fast-track the trade deal met resistance from Democrats in Congress this week.


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VEOLA ENVIRONMENT IS OWNED BY HIGHSTAR WITH JOHNS HOPKINS AS ITS MAJOR SHAREHOLDER AND THIS IS WHY O'MALLEY AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE ARE PUSHING THESE PLANTS IN MARYLAND.  

It has nothing to do with greening or environmentalism.....it simply moves all public waste and recycling to this Hopkins' owned business VEOLA.  As this happens, communities around it will see all kinds of health effects and the air quality already bad in Maryland will get worse------THAT'S A DOUBLE WIN FOR JOHNS HOPKINS AS ASTHMA IS THE NUMBER ONE HEALTH PROFIT FOR MARYLAND HOSPITALS!!!!

Just imagine how likely having a global health corporation like Hopkins owning and running the disposal of medical waste.....their major expense.  Remember, in China there are no environmental laws and that is why all kinds of hazardous dumping and leeching has made China an industrial dump.


This policy is not only disgusting......but O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake and your Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall neo-liberals are tying the funding of public schools to this Johns Hopkins business that kills the environment.  If you look at who supports these incinerators--------Baltimore museums and many Maryland public school districts.  The public sector tied to yet another corporation.




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Keep in mind Maryland's Governor O'Malley led the way for exporting natural gas while leading the Governor's Association because, of course, O'Malley is a raging Wall Street pol.  Mike Miller has said this will happen as as all Maryland neo-liberals keep voting him as leader.....they will vote for it as well.

The infrastructure funding bill by Congress and by Maryland Assembly would fund the construction of this project.  That is why they want this BOLIS OF MONEY as Clinton investment banker turned pol Dulaney moves forward.


ISN'T IT AMAZING THAT YOU NEVER HEAR ANY OF THIS FROM MARYLAND MEDIA OR WYPR AND MARYLAND ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS ARE MOSTLY SILENT TO SOMETHING THAT WILL HAVE DEVASTATING ENVIRONMENTAL AFFECTS ON THE STATE???

I want to add that it is Frosh that heads the judiciary committee that vets judicial appointments and if you liked Maryland's court decision that MERS was not criminal.....you can expect that Frosh placed  pro-global corporates judges in Maryland courts.  See why we do not want Frosh as Maryland Attorney General?  Wonder why Maryland labor groups are backing him?


Court Considers Natural Gas Exports From MD Terminal  

Mon, 01/13/2014 - 11:02am
MAX EHRENFREUND, The Washington Post  

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The future of a massive, controversial construction project on the Chesapeake Bay for exporting natural gas could depend on one poorly written sentence.

Attorneys for the Sierra Club were in court last week fighting the $3.8 billion proposal by Dominion Resources to renovate its terminal in Calvert County so the facility could send domestic gas overseas. The case — which turns on several words in a contract first signed in 1972 and rewritten over the years — is pending in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

Labor and business leaders argue that construction would bring a huge influx of capital to a state still recovering from the financial crisis. But environmentalists say that the project would worsen global warming, and residents are concerned about the effects on traffic and property values in the sleepy coastal community of Lusby about 60 miles southeast of the District.

"We are all following it really closely," Kelly Canavan, president of a local community organization, said of the dispute between the Sierra Club and Dominion.

Canavan's group, the Accokeek, Mattawoman, Piscataway Creeks Communities Council, opposes Dominion's plans. She said the court case "is one of the strongest possibilities for actually stopping the project."

The case also demonstrates how radically the global energy economy can change in just a few years.

Dominion's Cove Point terminal, which began operating in 1978, was built to receive imported natural gas. But recently, few tankers have come through as the new drilling techniques commonly known as "fracking" have produced an unexpected glut of domestic shale gas.

Dominion now proposes to use Cove Point for export instead of import. But natural gas must be cooled into a liquid before it is loaded onto a tanker. Dominion will have to build cooling facilities at Cove Point — a project that would require three years and thousands of workers.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club — which aims to decrease the country's reliance on naturalgas — worry that allowing the exports would encourage domestic drilling, damage the ecology of the bay and ultimately hasten climate change.

Whether the project proceeds could depend on how the court interprets the contract, which curtails how the site can be used. The facility's original owner, Columbia Gas, initially signed the agreement with the Sierra Club and another environmental group. Relations between business and the environmental movement were friendlier then than they are today, and Columbia wanted to avoid a legal dispute.

Sierra argues that the most recent version of that agreement, which Dominion signed in 2005, a few years after acquiring the property, precludes the company from exporting natural gas from Cove Point by sea.

The agreement provides that Dominion can use the site for "receipt by tanker and the receipt or delivery bypipeline" of natural gas in its various forms.

According to the environmental group's lawyers, that phrase means that Cove Point can receive shipments of natural gas by sea or overland via pipeline, and that it can deliver gas to domestic customers, also viapipeline. Delivering gas to outgoing vessels is not permitted, they argue.

A lower court ruled against the Sierra Club last year. Circuit Judge James Salmon agreed with Dominion that the facility could make a "delivery by pipeline" to the pier where deep-water tankers dock.

The offshore pier, just over a mile from the coast, is indeed connected to land by an insulated pipeline along the bottom of the bay.

The Sierra Club appealed the decision.

The parties to the contract in 2005 did not anticipate that Dominion would ever need to export natural gas. During arguments Wednesday, appeals court judges questioned attorneys for both sides on economic and technological aspects of shipping gas at that time, trying to reconstruct a world that already seems far in the past.

Dominion has signed contracts with importers in India and Japan, who agreed to buy capacity at Cove Point for 20 years. The company asked the court to rule quickly on the case, citing the volatility of the global market for fossil fuels.

For those who live near the facility, the debate about Cove Point is much more than a disagreement over the meaning of "receipt or delivery."

Carolyn Hart, president of the Calvert County Chamber of Commerce, said her group's members are eager for the jobs and people they expect construction to bring to the area. "I can tell you, we're waiting," she said. Hart lives a quarter of a mile from the terminal, and she and her husband own a nearby wine shop.

Dominion said they are among many people who think the project will benefit the community. "The support for this kind of a project is extremely broad and very deep," said Chet Wade, a spokesman for Dominion.

Others worry about the risk of an industrial accident.

"We feel like Dominion is transferring environmental and health risks to their neighbors, and we're not getting compensated," said Sue Allison, who can see Cove Point's storage tanks from her kitchen window and made the trip to the courthouse in Annapolis to demonstrate her opposition to the project.

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Do you know that selling the coal fire- power plants with the deal with Exelon is an environmental greenhouse disaster and your Maryland Assembly pol voted for this merger deal that could have required these power plants be shut down?  O'Malley handed them to Exelon who simply handed them to a connected figure and Maryland still has coal-fired power plants all by a governor who Maryland press labels a friend of the environment!!!!

I NEVER HEAR BASU TELLING US ALL THIS AS HE LAMENTS GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS AND GLOBAL WARMING.....HE WILL SHOUT OUT TO BUILD WINDMILLS, BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE WITH ALL THIS OTHER BAD ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN MARYLAND!

Know where the windmills will be built?  I know, Maryland pols said this was a job creator.....yet, very few Maryland workers  will be involved.  IT'S ABOUT CHANNELLING FEDERAL AND STATE FUNDING TO CAMPAIGN DONORS YOU KNOW!

Look below to see yet another foreign global corporation coming into the US to build manufacturing.  Remember, TPP gives global corporations a pass on all US labor and justice laws if it cuts into profits.......TPP will allow Siemens to bring workers from around the world to work in Kansas and if Kansas citizens want a job.....they will work for the same third world wages these immigrants get...... THIS IS WHAT GREEN TECHNOLOGY BUSINESSES BRING TO THE US.....AND YOUR FEDERAL AND STATE TAX MONEY WILL SUBSIDIZE THE BUILDING OF THESE PLANTS BECAUSE.....AFTER ALL.....THEY CREATE JOBS!

See why WYPR does not connect the dots......see why public media was taken corporate?



Siemens will Build Wind Turbine Production Facility in the U.S.
05.05.2009 · Posted in Wind Energy

 
Additional capital investment in green technologies – 400 new jobs to be created

Erlangen, Germany, May 05, 2009

Siemens intends to build a new production facility for wind turbines in the state of Kansas. Initially, 400 new jobs are expected to be created in the new wind turbine production facility in Hutchinson, Kansas. When production begins at this facility, Siemens will be able to even more effectively meet the strong demand for wind turbine equipment in North and South America in the future.

75px Siemens AG logo.svg Siemens will Build Wind Turbine Production Facility in the U.S.“The United States already is and will continue to be one of the world’s fastest growing wind energy markets. We are thus intensifying our commitment to this green technology to further expand our leading global position in this field,” stated Peter Löscher, CEO of Siemens AG. “We are already the leading green infrastructure giant. And by making these investments, we will become even greener.” With revenues totaling EUR19 billion in fiscal year 2008, Siemens now has the world’s largest portfolio of environmental technologies.

Construction of the 300,000-square-foot nacelle production facility is scheduled to begin in August 2009. A nacelle is mounted on top of the tower and supports the rotor. It houses a wind turbine’s major components for electric power generation, including the gearbox, the drive train and the control electronics.

The nacelles to be produced in Kansas will weigh 90 tons and the first nacelle is expected to be shipped in December 2010. All nacelles produced in Hutchinson will be used in the company’s reliable 2.3-MW wind turbine product family. Initially, the factory’s planned annual output is approximately 650 nacelles – or 1,500 megawatts (MW).

“Just two years ago we opened a rotor blade manufacturing facility in Fort Madison, Iowa. By expanding our investment in Kansas, we are strengthening our presence in the U.S. and, at the same time, we are increasing the proximity to our U.S. customers. This new location will enable us to serve them more rapidly and cost-effectively,” said René Umlauft, CEO of Siemens Energy’s Renewable Energy Division.

Hutchinson is near the geographic center of the continental United States and offers a viable workforce and excellent transportation logistics. The factory will include direct loading onto rail, which will provide easy access to project locations throughout the Unites States and Canada. Shipments can also be made utilizing the barge facilities at the port of Catoosa, located 250 miles from the plant. Kansas also has excellent wind conditions. In terms of wind energy potential, this centrally located state ranks third in the U.S.

Since entering the wind industry in 2004, Siemens has greatly expanded its worldwide manufacturing network. In addition to opening and consequently expanding the wind turbine blade manufacturing facilities in Fort Madison, Iowa, USA, and Engesvang, Denmark, the Danish facilities in Brande and Aalborg have been expanded and a new R&D center in Boulder, USA, was established. Siemens’ global wind power business has grown from approximately 800 employees in 2004 to more than 5,500 today, which equals an increase of approximately 650 percent.

Wind power is an important feature of Siemens’ environmental portfolio. In 2008, revenue from the products and solutions of Siemens’ environmental portfolio was nearly EUR19 billion, which is equivalent to around a quarter of Siemens’ total revenue.
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October 07th, 2013

10/7/2013

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MARYLAND HAS THE WORST OF MEDIA-BUILDING HEADLINES FOR ITS POLITICIANS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH FACT.  THIS IS THE SAME THING THAT GAVE US OBAMA AS A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER AND PROGRESSIVE WHILE HE, LIKE O'MALLEY ARE RAGING GLOBAL CORPORATISTS!


From Fracking gases to incincerator emissions......from coal-fired power plants that keep on ticking to Indy races complete with the gas-mask car emissions......HOW DOES O'MALLEY GET A NOD AS GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS REDUCTION? 

The same way Obama gets a Nobel Peace Prize and then uses drones to kill civilians all over the world.  O'Malley says he will do it......and then doesn't.  YET HE HAS THE HEADLINES TO USE IN HIS NATIONAL CAMPAIGN!  What will happen is that O'Malley, before he leaves office will make sure there is data that showsome kind of improvement only to find a decade later that all this data was bogus.....as with all of his other data.

Why do we not hear from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network lots of shouting out about all the policies moving forward since this award was given?  Maryland is home to the private non-profits as 'progressive' policy headlines that never happen
.

What we know today.....October 2013, is that O'Malley spent last year as head of the Governor's Association and worked to establish markets for US natural gas with the intent to export and he is behind the export terminal in MD.  We know he is proposing incineration sites across the state, calling incineration 'green', and he allowed the sale of BGE/Constellation with the coal-fired power plants rather than closing them, so we have 3 of them still operating in MD.  As a minor aside......he gets behind the Baltimore Indy race no one wants-----except BDC as a marketing tool and pushes high-emission race cars be allowed in a city whose citizens are sickest from air pollution ailments.  IT IS BIZARRE HOW A POLITICIAN WHO COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT GETS AWARDS FOR CURBING GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS.

What O'Malley did was fulfill an Obama campaign donor requirement to build Wind Farms off the coast of MD.  While wind energy is good, these wind farms will provide such little alternative energy to the grid as to not be worth the taxpayer subsidy.  This is the greenhouse gas legislation O'Malley actually did!


WATCH HIS CAMPAIGN IN 2016 IF HE DOES RUN FOR PRESIDENT-----ALL THOSE MARYLAND HEADLINES ON POLICY THAT DID NOTHING WILL MAKE HIM LOOK THE ENVIRONMENT KING.


CLIMATE CHANGE MARYLAND Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act Plan

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act Plan
The 2012 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act (GGRA) Plan fulfills the mandate to, by the end of 2012, propose a plan that achieves a 25 percent statewide reduction in GHG emissions by 2020, while also spurring job creation and helping improve the economy. The GGRA also requires a report in 2015 that, amongst other things, requires MDE to provide a recommendation on what the State's longer term reduction target should be. In 2008, the Maryland Commission on Climate Change, appointed by Governor O’Malley, recommended that Maryland consider a 2050 goal as high as a 90 percent reduction from 2006 levels. This plan spurs reductions in GHGs through incentives that increase energy efficiency using existing technologies, and identifies ways to transition to new energy sources and stimulate further technology development.  Published: July 25, 2013



BALTIMORE, MD (November 4, 2009) – On behalf of its 80,000 supporters across the region, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network today named Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley as recipient of its highest annual prize. The “Maryland Climate Leadership Award” is presented to the Governor for his critical leadership in helping to pass the historic Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act in Maryland earlier this year.


Exelon completes sale of 3 coal-fired power plants to Raven Power

December 3, 2012 By PennEnergy Editorial Staff
Source: Exelon Corp.


Exelon (NYSE: EXC) announced that it has completed the sale of its three Maryland coal-fired power plants to Raven Power Holdings, a new portfolio company of Riverstone Holdings. The sale fulfills Exelon’s commitment to divest the plants as part of its merger with Constellation. Under the agreement announced Aug. 9, 2012, Raven Power will maintain jobs with comparable pay and benefits for employees at the plants.

The three plants, known collectively as Maryland Clean Coal, include:

• Brandon Shores, Pasadena, Md.: 1,273 MW of installed capacity, two units (coal)
• C.P. Crane, Middle River, Md.: 399 MW installed capacity, three units (coal and oil)
• H.A. Wagner, Pasadena, Md.: 976 MW installed capacity, five units (coal, natural gas and oil)

The sale was required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Department of Justice and the Maryland Public Service Commission as part of Exelon’s merger agreement.


_____________________________________________
  • Petitioning The Governor of MD
Governor O'Malley: Don't Trash our Community! Go green and stop the incinerator!

    1. Petition by

      Free Your Voice

For the health of our community and our children we are calling on Governor Martin O’Malley to stop the proposed trash burning incinerator from being built in Curtis Bay. If built the Energy Answers Incinerator would be the largest of its kind in the nation, producing more pollutants per hour of energy produced than the largest coal plants in Maryland. Worse still, the project is set to be built less than a mile from Benjamin Franklin High School and Curtis Bay Elementary School, in violation of Maryland state regulations. It is this kind of recklessness that has led Baltimore to be ranked number one in air pollution related deaths per capita.

Energy Answers was required to begin construction in August. While the Maryland Department of Environment investigates if they failed to do so, we are calling on Governor O’Malley to intervene and protect our children’s health and the health of our community.

Please sign our petition asking Governor O’Malley to stop the incinerator!  Let him know that our community is not a dumping ground. Call the Governor now at 410.974.3901 / 1.800.811.8336. 

Thank you for your support

To:
The Governor of MD
Gov. Martin O'Malley, Maryland
Anthony Brown, Lt. Governor
Don't trash our community. Go green. Stop the incinerator!

Building the nations' largest trash burning incinerator less than a mile from our schools, recreation center, businesses, and homes is wrong. Sincerely,
[Your name]


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Waste-to-Energy Dirtier Than Coal-Fired Power Plants, Report Claims Chesapeake Bay Beat & Environment Health 13 October 2011 By Greg Masters
Capital News Service

1ANNAPOLIS — A report released Thursday argues that waste-to-energy incinerators are not truly renewable, despite Maryland’s waste-to-energy sector being placed in the same renewable energy class as solar and wind power.

The nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project issued the report, which claims that the state’s two major waste-to-energy incinerators produce more pollution than some coal-fired power plants.

“This report really shows that waste-to-energy incineration is not clean, and it’s not renewable, and it’s not the best option for the economy,” said EIP research analyst and report author Robbie Orvis.

The Montgomery County Resource Recovery Facility and the Wheelabrator Baltimore Incinerator both produce more mercury, lead and greenhouse gases per hour of energy than each of the state’s four largest coal-fired power plants, Orvis concluded based on an analysis of publicly available emissions reports submitted to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Maryland’s waste-to-energy plants also generate a significant amount of dioxins and incinerator ash, which can contain toxic materials, the report states.

In addition to the two major incinerators Maryland has already, there are plans to build or expand existing plants in Baltimore, Harford County and Frederick County.

In May, Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law a bill making waste-to-energy incineration a Tier 1 renewable resource, including it in the Clean Energy Production Tax Credit program and Renewable Portfolio Standard.

“By reclassifying trash incineration energy as Tier 1, Maryland decreases incentives to invest in much cleaner forms of energy that are truly renewable, such as wind and solar,” said EIP attorney Leah Kelly.

O’Malley’s office had no comment on the report, but spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said the governor will look at it.

Lori Scozzafava, deputy executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, had not seen the report but said waste-to-energy facilities meet federal air quality standards “and are considered a renewable energy source.”

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Meanwhile, O'Malley as head of the Governor's Association worked hard in moving forward natural gas exportation and MD as a site for just that!


By Kate Amara
Fracking opponents renew efforts as natural gas export site is approved MIT study also shows Md. leads nation in air pollution early deaths

Published  8:46 AM EDT Sep 13, 2013 WBAL




Monday, Aug 26, 2013 11:39 AM EDT

Fracking’s real health risk may be from air pollution The preliminary results of a study found some evidence for drilling-related symptoms

By Lindsay Abrams  SALON

A distribution center for natural gas shipping and delivery (Credit: Eric Krouse/Shutterstock) The preliminary results of a study on the health effects of fracking are mixed, the Associated Press reports: They “challenge the industry position that no one suffers but also suggest that the problems may not be as widepread as some critics claim.”

One of the first attempts to study the long-term health effects of natural gas drilling, the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project released its early findings after 18 months spent studying one county south of Pittsburgh:

The project found 27 cases where people in Washington County believe they were hurt by nearby drilling — seven cases of skin rashes, four of eye irritation, 13 of breathing problems and three of headaches and dizziness. The skin exposures were from water and the other cases were from air. The numbers don’t represent a full survey of the area, just cases with plausible exposures.

The EHP group is trying to help people who have been exposed to drilling-related air or water pollution, toxicologist David Brown told the Associated Press, adding that they’re finding “an array of symptoms” in some people who live close to wells or processing stations.

While tainted water is the image that immediately comes to mind, helped along by news footage of people setting their taps on fire, the study found that air pollution might pose a greater health risk. In two homes that rest 1,000 feet away from gas processing stations, air pollution levels were as much as four times higher than the local average. The industrial stations, which clean raw natural gas and send it out through national pipelines, seem to be more of a concern than the drilling sites themselves, of which Washington County has 700.

The researchers are being cautious, though, and the small scale of their study means they’re not yet ready to claim any definitive links between fracking and the health problems they’ve observed.



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HOW CAN RACE CARS CIRCLING FOR HOURS AND DAYS BE GOOD FOR AIR QUALITY AND THE BAY?  IT CANNOT BUT HERE IS O'MALLEY READY TO BACK ANYTHING REGARDLESS OF ENVIRONMENT!



Earlier, the Baltimore City Council and the Maryland Stadium Authority formally threw their support behind BRD's efforts to bring a race to the city. Those efforts began in 2008.

Among those joining Davidson for the announcement were Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Indy Racing League commercial division president Terry Angstadt, IZOD IndyCar Series driver Graham Rahal and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Jr., according to a BRD statement.


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O'MALLEY GIVEN AN AWARD ON GLOBAL WARMING AND AIR QUALITY?  OH REALLY?



Maryland has highest death rate from air pollution

6:47 PM, Sep 27, 2013   Scott Broom @scottbroom   WUSA 9


BALTIMORE, Md. (WUSA9) -- The alarming surprise for us here is that Maryland has the highest death rate from air pollution than any other, state according to a new study from MIT.

If you, or someone you know has Asthma -- or COPD -- you know what a struggle it can be to breathe when air pollution gets bad, and for some, that pollution is deadly.

On line videos of potentially lethal asthma attacks -- the most acute -- immediate and scary effects that can be triggered by air pollution, which can be particularly severe in our region during the summer.

Now researches at MIT have crunched the numbers, matching population data against maps of particularly severe pollution outbreaks and finding that Maryland has the highest death rate due to air pollution of any State. A Contributing factor in the premature deaths of 113 of every 100,000 people.
    
Part of Maryland's problem, a small, densely populated state , breathing other people's pollution along with its own. A pollution map shows the effects of being downwind of auto emissions from D.C. and northern Virginia on just one bad day in July
 
The MIT study accounts for illnesses of all types, not just asthma or COPD. The MIT study relies on data going back to 2005 and state environmental officials point out strict new emissions regulations have gone into effect since then. 

But air pollution doesn't recognize state boundaries and it appears Maryland is paying the price more than others.







0 Comments

September 06th, 2013

9/6/2013

0 Comments

 
THESE NEO-LIBERALS ARE EVEN USING PUBLIC MONEY AND OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TO PAY FOR THEIR PERSONAL MARKETING/NETWORKING FOR PRIVATE CORPORATIONS IN MARYLAND.  IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS RIGHT FOR THE CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE....IT HAS ONLY TO DO WITH WHAT WILL MAKE THE RICH IN MARYLAND/BALTIMORE RICHER!

BALTIMORE IS ONE BIG CORPORATE WELFARE SYSTEM!!!


WE CAN REVERSE THIS!  DO NOT THINK IT IS A DONE DEAL!

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL ELECTIONS!


What people need to know is that with the infrastructure money ready to spout in to cities across America the move to contract out all the work to private contractors has Chow told to create a pay to play around the country for Maryland's 1% in exchange for this bonanza of water and sewage development.  They are working to privatize water and sewage just as Rawlings-Blake did when she made Trash pickup separately charged from property tax.  We now have completely privatized trash pickup and rates will be rising.  So too now water and sewage.

We already know that VEOLA is in town to develop this water infrastructure development and no doubt will be the public private partnership that will run the agency once all is done.  Remember, as we rebuild all public assets new.....neo-liberals hand off these services to private hands to operate making taxpayers responsible for all capital costs and as we know with energy/BGE, all operating costs.

Pay to play is a complicated thing as the interests of the 1% in Maryland must be expanded in the region chosen to represent and profit from work here in Maryland and Baltimore.  That is what Chow's work entails.  How does that work for the public?  NOT AT ALL.  Chow is not working for you and me, he is working for the 1% and their profit on our dime.


If you look closely at what public works has become since privatization of public services went on steroids with O'Malley in Baltimore, one only has to look at all of the dozens of independent contractors all working underground all using different resources and having different approaches to work, and none of it overseen for quality to know that we have a mess in our public works that will be a nightmare for the next generation of repair.  These politicians say....we will be long gone when that mess is discovered.  So too will be this water-sewage project unfolding! -


Travel by city's water chief questioned Rudy Chow spent 35 days this past year at conferences

By Luke Broadwater and Yvonne Wenger, The Baltimore Sun 9:47 p.m. EDT, September 4, 2013

The head of Baltimore's water system spent 35 days attending conferences in the past year, many of them out of state, records show. The travel has raised concerns among some city officials, who say Water and Wastewater chief Rudy Chow is needed here to focus on issues of crumbling infrastructure and erroneous bills.

Chow on Wednesday defended his attendance at 11 conferences, including eight out-of-state trips, as positive for the city. He said he learns from other jurisdictions and often holds up Baltimore's recent progress as a model for other cities.

"Just because I am traveling doesn't mean I am not focusing on work that needs to be done," he said. "By traveling to these different places, having these so-called professional affiliations, we can gain the insight of how other people are doing their business. ...
"We are among the most sought-after organizations in the utility world due to our transformational changes," Chow said. "People in our industry want to hear from us."

Among other trips, Chow traveled to Anaheim, Calif., in August of last year for the American Public Works Association Congress. In October, he went to New Orleans to give a presentation at the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibit and Conference.

And he traveled twice to Chicago for conferences, with plans for a third trip next month. The city's spending board approved $3,000 for that trip Wednesday.

Chow's trips became a subject of scrutiny at the Board of Estimates meeting when Baltimore Comptroller Joan M. Pratt questioned several of his agency's expenses. "Mr. Chow goes on a lot of travel for speaking conferences, and that information should be shared with the citizens of Baltimore," Pratt said. "It is at taxpayers' expense."

Chow has won praise as an innovative manager who is making improvements since joining Baltimore City government 21/2 years ago. But Pratt and some others pointed to the city's frequent water main breaks and erroneous water bills as evidence that Chow should spend more time here focused on day-to-day issues.

"I like it best when he's at home," said Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke.

Clarke said she has "a lot of respect" for Chow and believes he has taken steps to improve the troubled system. "But we have a long way to go," she said.

Chow has been reimbursed about $8,500 for travel expenses, records show. The city also paid at least $4,000 in registration fees for the various conferences, which can range from about $200 to about $1,000. Some of Chow's travel was paid for by outside entities, city officials said.

Kevin Harris, spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, said the administration is working to strike the "right balance between the need to have people travel and advocate on behalf of the city while taking steps to minimize costs to citizens."

Harris said Chow "has led in promoting several innovative reforms to our sewer system" that will bring down water billing and infrastructure costs. "It's not surprising that because of this leadership there is interest in learning more about what we are doing here in Baltimore which requires him to leave the city from time to time," Harris said.

Chow, who makes $132,000 annually, joined city government in 2011. The next year, the city's auditor found that the Department of Public Works overcharged thousands of water customers by at least $9 million. Exorbitant bills were especially infuriating to citizens as decades-old water lines cracked underground with regularity, sending water streaming down streets while disrupting traffic and sometimes gas and electric services. At the same time, the city has raised water rates by 42 percent over three years.

In response, Chow implemented what he has called "corrective actions" — part of a broader, long-term effort to address billing problems attributed to faulty water meters, outdated technology, human error and, in some neighborhoods, fabricated meter readings.

At the Board of Estimates Pratt noted that not all of Chow's travel has been approved by the panel. She also questioned the agency's hiring of consultants who are paid more than city workers, as well as the creation of several new administrative positions that pay in excess of $100,000.

Councilmen Nick Mosby and Edward Reisinger said they had not evaluated Chow's travel. But both praised Chow for his efforts to address Baltimore's water system troubles.

"Mr. Chow has always been a very high professional and very knowledgeable, trying to think outside the box when it comes to our aging infrastructure," Mosby said.

Reisinger said he's not opposed to travel by government workers and sees conferences and workshops as opportunities to improve services. "I support when he goes to the conferences, if he learns something," Reisinger said, "if there's something to take back."

Councilman Carl Stokes said the outward appearance of the travel might not sit well with some Baltimore residents, especially those who have received erroneous water bills in recent months. The best response going forward is for the agency to be completely transparent about the expenses and purpose of the trips, Stokes said.

"It's the perception — I am not saying it's right or wrong," Stokes said. "I don't know the ins or outs of the travel. … When people are threatened by fraudulent or very high water bills, and then to raise the water bill double-digits every year, it would seem to many there should be belt-tightening in discretionary spending or travel that is not necessary."

_____________________________________________
If you do not think that the mayor and city council are working to privatize Baltimore's police and fire departments to private contractors -----think again.  We already see International Security corporations being brought in for banks and other institutions and YOU CAN BET THAT THESE POLS ARE BEING PUSHED BY JOHNS HOPKINS TO GO PRIVATE CONTRACTING.

If you think these police ignore you and could care less about obeying ;law.....wait until these International Security people come to town.  These corporations are generally hiring former private military police and special forces people.


STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL CONTROLLED DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES.....RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES!  UNEMPLOYED?  RUN FOR ELECTED OFFICE AND BE A GOOD GUY!


Cities Cut Police, Switch to Private Contractors


By Agence France-Presse

17 November 11

he central Minnesota town of Foley tried having its own police department and contracting with the county sheriff's department for law enforcement.

Nationwide, other cities have supplemented traditional police with contracted officers, said John Firman, director of research for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

But as cities across the US struggle with the economic downturn, more will look at innovative ways of providing public safety, Mr Firman said.

"For the first time in our history … police are no longer immune from budget cuts," he said.

After cuts in state aid and uncertainty about future funding, Foley City Council started looking at options to save money on policing. The town decided to contract with General Security Services Corporation to provide 24-hour coverage starting in January for about $US16,000 ($15,592) a month.

Budget cuts have also forced a county school board in Colorado to sell advertising space on student report cards to help make ends meet.

Jefferson County Public Schools expects to make $US90,000 over three years from Collegeinvest, a college savings plan, for the five-centimeter ads on report cards issued by its 91 primary schools. The school board last year slashed its spending by $US40 million after reduced state and federal government support.

"We're obviously looking for revenue generators and taking them where we can find them," board spokeswoman Melissa Reeves said.

The Jefferson County school board already sells advertising space on buses to a bank. Ms Reeves said it anticipates making a further $US70 million in spending cuts in coming years, as the US struggles to put hard times behind it.

__________________________________

Now, I have already introduced you to VEOLA as the Transportation contractor that is privatizing public transportation MTA.  There is much more to VEOLA and it is a company that just a decade ago did not have much profit but now, since it is now being connected to municipalities all across America.....it is a global corporation with the 1% owning most the company.  It is not just a French corporation....it is globally owned and Maryland's 1% are in on the ground floor. 

As you can see this one corporation is taking all of our public services and making them private.  Could we do the same thing this corporation as far as sustainability and development as a public utility/service?  OF COURSE WE CAN AND WILL!

BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT WITH JOHNS HOPKINS IS MAKING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC PRIVATE AND CITIZENS WILL YET AGAIN BE USED TO FINANCE ALL CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND OPERATING COSTS IN THEIR NEED FOR THIS ESSENTIAL COMMODITY......


WE CAN DISBAND ALL THIS STUFF AND RETURN IT ALL TO PUBLIC SERVICE IF YOU RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE.

We already know that the poor and working class will again be placed into a rationing because they will not be able to afford market-value on water and heating/cooling/transportation. SO WHY ARE LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS IN BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND NOT SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST THIS?


Veolia Energy North America Holdings, Inc. Veolia Energy Boston, Inc Veolia Energy in Philadelphia Veolia Energy Los Angeles,Veolia Energy in Kansas City,

Veolia Water Baltimore

By treating wastewater, Veolia Water helps to protect water resources, spur the economic growth of cities and improve quality of life.

A major challenge Both wastewater treatment and drinking water services fall under the responsibility of public authorities. Critical to public health and environmental balance, wastewater treatment needs to be stepped up in a world in which 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation.

The three steps in wastewater treatment The process deployed by Veolia Water to preserve the quality of water involves three key steps.

  • Collection. This is done through a wastewater collection system consisting of a network of pipes. This conveys the wastewater to the treatment plant. Collection systems are maintained regularly (cleaning, monitoring, etc.) to prevent blockages and corrosion.
  • Treatment. The way that the water is dealt with at a wastewater treatment plant is based on its degree of pollution and the legislative standards governing its discharge into the environment.
  • Discharge into the environment. After processing at a treatment plant, the water is returned to the natural environment in a way that does not adversely impact environmental balances.
A world-class operator A leading global operator of wastewater services for public authorities, Veolia Water provides services to more than 71 million people worldwide and manages some 3,514 municipal treatment plants. We treat the wastewater of a number of major cities, including Milwaukee, The Hague, Budapest and Madrid, and develop innovative technical solutions, especially for managing and recycling wastewater sludge.


Veolia Energy Expands its Baltimore Presence with District

Veolia Energy Expands its Baltimore Presence with District Cooling System Acquisition Working toward a more sustainable Baltimore, Veolia Energy adds the cutting-edge system and its 50 customers, representing over 11.5 million square feet, to its growing networks


Business Wire BALTIMORE -- February 10, 2010

Veolia Energy North America, a leading provider of sustainable energy services and facility operations and management solutions, is delighted to announce that it has purchased the Comfort Link district cooling system business. Comfort Link was previously a partnership of Baltimore Gas and Electric, a Constellation Energy subsidiary, and Monumental Investment Corporation, a subsidiary of EMCOR Group, Inc. One of the largest ice thermal storage systems in the country, Comfort Link serves 50 major customers, representing more than 11.5 million square feet. The acquisition will expand Veolia Energy’s existing district energy (heating, cooling and cogeneration) operations in Baltimore, with 16 new buildings served. Reflecting Veolia Energy’s commitment to sustainable development, Comfort Link’s cutting-edge ice thermal storage system reduces the number of required chillers and cooling towers, which makes it highly energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly. In addition, Comfort Link works as an energy storage system, allowing Veolia Energy to produce thermal energy during off-peak periods, potentially saving money, and reducing the demand for electricity during peak hours. Veolia Energy will provide preventive maintenance and will continue to invest in the system to increase efficiency. Customers connected to the system include federal, state, and Baltimore City government buildings; entertainment and retail establishments; commercial office buildings; hotels; hospitals; and religious and other non-profit facilities. “In addition to being a valued addition to our growing North American portfolio, the Comfort Link acquisition is the perfect complement to our existing heating and cooling network in Baltimore,” said Stewart A. Wood, President and CEO of Veolia Energy North America. “This system was particularly attractive given its high level of energy efficiency and its strong environmental profile, which matches our commitment to ensure that our systems help our customers reduce their carbon footprints. We are committed to providing excellent service to the many high-profile buildings and attractions served by this system, as we collectively work toward a more sustainable Baltimore.” The Comfort Link system delivers more than 32,000 tons of cooling capacity and approximately 40 million ton-hours of chilled water via an 11-mile distribution network. Founded in 1996, the system features four “networked” chilled-water production facilities. Veolia Energy anticipates future growth for Comfort Link as more buildings in the vicinity leverage the network as a cost-effective, highly-reliable and environmentally-responsible alternative to operating and maintaining their own thermal energy equipment. Prior to the acquisition of Comfort Link, Veolia Energy provided centrally produced steam, hot water and chilled water to approximately 250 commercial, government, institutional and hospitality customers, and nearly 30 million square feet of space, in Baltimore’s central business district, East Baltimore and Inner Harbor East areas. About Veolia Energy North America A subsidiary of Veolia Environnement, the world’s leading environmental services company, Veolia Energy focuses on controlling energy costs and reducing carbon footprints through energy-efficient, custom solutions. Solutions encompass the production and distribution of highly-reliable thermal energy; on-site operation of customers’ complex equipment to enhance the technical, economic and environmental performance; combined heat and power generation (cogeneration); and the introduction of renewable fuels into the energy mix where it is viable. Veolia Energy North America serves customers throughout the Continental USA, with a national reach and capability, and owns and operates the largest portfolio of district energy (heating, cooling and cogeneration) networks in the United States. With approximately 335,000 employees globally,

Veolia Environnement reported revenue of $50 billion in 2008.


THINK WHAT O'MALLEY'S HANDING OF MARYLAND TO A NATIONAL ELECTRICITY CORPORATION LIKE EXELON HAS ALREADY DONE TO RATEPAYERS/CITIZENS!  THEN TRIPLE IT!






0 Comments

August 06th, 2013

8/6/2013

0 Comments

 
The group also recommends that CSX voluntarily track air pollutants, warning that the project could increase pollutant levels above those considered dangerous by the World Health Organization.


A group that suggests voluntary tracking by a corporation is a group working for the corporation!  We need consumer/public advocates taking the lead in all this.  So, how does building a facility that the WHO considers emitting dangerous levels of pollutants right on the Chesapeake's edge meet the Sustainability Maryland pledge of O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake?  Oh, that's right, sustainability is only future campaign headlines.  If you tried, the only way to be less sustainable would be to build on Harbor Point.  These two corporate pols are on a roll!  As a country do we really want larger terminals to handle import/export or do we want domestic consumers with middle-class incomes as the consumers right here in America....producing and consuming?  THAT'S THE QUESTION AND ANSWER. 
We need to look at CSX and its business practices.  I attended a community meeting on public playgrounds built on CSX property.  CSX was partnered with Baltimore Development in turning playgrounds into parks so as to dissuade/gentrify communities with lack of access to playgrounds.  I also deal with property owned by CSX that has no upkeep..we constantly have to complain for attention.  Not so good! 

As this article makes clear CSX is not working with the communities; it is developing a plan and O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake is simply pushing what they are told.  We need to know as well that CSX is partnered in MARC train.....taxpayer money subsidizing corporate profits.  We know for example that tracks from the DC beltway to Baltimore County lack maintenance and fail code causing loss of life and property damage time and again.  CSX is waiting for taxpayers to pay for their infrastructure upgrades and could care less about safety they say!  Train derailments caused by bad switches and trucks crashing into trains because of unmarked crossings...that is not a good corporate partner!

Why would one make a harbor at the tip of the largest inland bay a huge port in an already stressed Chesapeake Bay?  Is that really good public policy?  Of course not.  It is only happening because the 1% of Maryland see Maryland as a player in the world economy.  Empty airport concourses for International flights?  So what.....we are going to be a global player if Americans want it or not!  AMERICANS DO NOT WANT IT FOR THE RECORD!  What we are seeing is a complete disregard for environment and social justice in the name of profit as this article does elude to.  People's health will be impacted so the very least we should be hearing of lucrative buyouts of all homes in the area.


Study finds planned CSX transfer station could have negative impact Intermodal project welcomed by some; feared by others


krector@baltsun.com

The study's findings will be presented at a Morrell Park Community Association meeting Tuesday night, and Morley said the organization hopes CSX will consider its recommendations as the company moves forward with the project.

Among the recommendations: Establish a plan to deal with the large number of rats expected to be displaced from the Mount Clare yard, limit the hours of operation, and work with local schools and homeowners to mitigate environmental problems, such as increased emissions from trucks.

The group also recommends that CSX voluntarily track air pollutants, warning that the project could increase pollutant levels above those considered dangerous by the World Health Organization.

Tazelaar said project planners are already devising ways to mitigate pollution. Truck companies are being encouraged to upgrade fleets with cleaner vehicles. Electric cranes will be used at the site instead of diesel cranes. The maximum number of truck trips will be restricted, and officials are looking to minimize truck traffic on residential streets, he said.

He said more changes are being considered, including landscaping to provide a buffer from nearby homes, and others are likely to be discussed with more public input.

"We're going to encourage economic development, but we're not going to do it without the public's input or at an extreme cost to the public," he said of the project.

Air quality is particularly worrisome in Morrell Park because residents who live in many of the homes surrounding the intermodal site are already disproportionately unhealthy compared to others in the state and city, with higher death rates from heart disease and chronic lower-respiratory diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, bronchitis and asthma, the study found.

The average age of residents is higher than in some city neighborhoods, the study found, making them more susceptible to pollution.

Douglas Sanders, who turns 75 this week, lives on Harman Avenue in a small home that backs up to the train tracks. Inside, his walls are lined with carpet to keep out the noise, but he's used to the clattering of the trains anyway, he said.

"I come from the old school in West Virginia. You really don't care as long as nobody comes on your property," he said of the rail yard behind him.

He shrugged at warnings of potential health impacts, noting he's survived a triple-bypass surgery and several other ailments over the years, including having twice been shot.

His neighbor John Stinchcomb, 72, also said he doesn't mind the noise. He spent 32 years living in a home that backed up to train tracks in Pigtown and has been in his home that backs up to the tracks in Morrell Park for 12, he said.

"It don't bother me," he said. "We kind of like sitting watching" the trains pass by, he said.

Still, other residents, like Weishorn, fear the intermodal facility will make their neighborhood unbearable. She loves her home and how quickly she can zip down Washington Boulevard to her work in Harbor East, she said, but she doesn't feel that her concerns are being addressed.

"While this isn't a palace to some people, it is my palace, and I have a lot of concerns," Weishorn said of her home. "I know this neighborhood isn't, you know, Howard County, with $500,000 houses, but it's a community."
___________________________________________________
Baltimore has VEOLA ENERGY ........everything you need to privatize all public services!!!!!!


Commenters from Indianapolis......SOUND FAMILIAR?


  • OUTRAGEOUS VEOLIA Stephen BolenJuly 13, 2011 8:24 PMHOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY LET THIS INEFFICIENT COMPANY RAISE OUR WATER RATES STILL FURTHER? THAT SHOWS A COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THE CUSTOMER WHO IS ALREADY HARD PRESSED TO PAY EXISTING VEOLIA RATES. WHERE IS THE MAYOR IS ALL OF THIS?? Reply to CommentFlag Comment
  • Be careful what you read Chelsey the MayorOctober 19, 2009 10:35 PMShouldn't the City have found an independent consultant? A consultant that is not attempting to buy the water utility to do the study? What is the saying, The Fox is in the Hen House? Reply to CommentFlag Comment
  • Actually WatchdogOctober 18, 2009 11:40 PMIf you look at this, there is no problem on the Veolia side of things. They don't own anything. They operate it. The Department of Waterworks hasn't done anything for seven years. They're the ones who need the rate increase...veolia is paid a flat fee regardless of what happens in the economy.

    The bond holders could back the bonds...it just was all tied up in variable rates.

    check your facts before you reply next time how 'bout. Reply to CommentFlag Comment
  • Who Is Minding The Store Vox PopuliOctober 17, 2009 8:44 PMSo in short, we sold a city owned entity financed by a bad bond deal to a company that can't manage that resource and now they want more money by way of another rate increase. Why wasn't the Veolia contract structured such that the city could take back that asset if Veolia couldn't manage the resource? Why isn't the Bond Bank on the hook for choosing a bond company that can't guarantee the bonds?

Consultant: Indianapolis water utility lax in overseeing Veolia
Chris O'Malley
October 17, 2009  Indiana Business Journal

A consultant’s report filed as part of a water rate case takes the city’s Department of Waterworks to task for lax oversight of the French company that operates the city’s water utility.

The city too often relied on the Department of Waterworks’ board, on consultants and on the private operator, Veolia Water, rather than on the department’s own staff “to ensure safe and efficient operation, maintenance and management” of Indianapolis Water.

That’s one of several critical findings of a consultant hired by the department and filed as part of a 35-percent rate-hike request pending before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

The proposed rate hike, which would fund $111 million in capital improvements, is on top of an 11-percent emergency rate hike the commission approved earlier this year. In the emergency case, ratepayers are being tapped to pay more than $25 million in additional debt-servicing costs stemming from the utility’s inordinate amount of variable-rate bond debt.

While past practices of the Indianapolis Bond Bank drew much of the blame for the bond fiasco, the waterworks department and its board are squarely at issue in the latest rate case.

The department, which owns the city water system and supervises Veolia, filed the critical assessments as it tries to convince skeptical regulators it is working under new leadership to fix a flawed institutional structure.

“The Department understands that the commission is concerned about its supervision of Veolia and its ability to ‘stand up’ on behalf of ratepayers,” wrote Matthew T. Klein, whom the city tapped to take over the Department of Waterworks last March. Klein is the former head of enforcement at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Klein took over from James Steele, a consultant who was interim head of the department following the departure of longtime waterworks head Carlton Curry, in late 2007.

The city under former Mayor Bart Peterson acquired Indianapolis Water from NiSource, the Merrillville-based gas and electric utility, in 2002. Veolia was hired to operate it under a 20-year, $1 billion contract.

Problems from start

“In general, the management structure of the department was not fully developed following the city’s acquisition,” said Alan Ispass, an executive of Englewood, Colo.-based utility consulting firm CH2M Hill, in testimony filed with the IURC.

“Thus, although the department took ownership of the physical waterworks assets, it never developed an internal institutional structure sufficient to maintain direct accountability for the management, financial and technical capacity that is essential for long-term ownership and operation of a utility,” Ispass said.

The consulting firm said the department, with seven full-time employees at last count, lacked staff to adequately monitor the utility’s financial performance or to adequately review Veolia’s capital requests, which often approach $100 million a year.

“Staffing levels are also too low to provide adequate monitoring of short- and long-term financial performance, compliance with debt covenants and rate adequacy.”

The consulting firm called it “incumbent on the department to provide an increased level of scrutiny and professional judgment as to the extent and magnitude of the capital program,” balanced with the department’s available funding and water service needs.

Responsibilities of department staff regarding matters related to Veolia are often ambiguous and ill-defined, said CH2M, adding that contract-administration recommendations made by staff “repeatedly have been overturned” in Veolia’s favor by the department’s seven-member volunteer board.

As for the city’s management agreement with Veolia, CH2M Hill found the department was allowed to award capital projects exclusively to Veolia. An amendment to the agreement in 2007 does not guarantee or assure Veolia will win projects, yet “it has been selected for almost all capital projects to date.”

It suggested the department could seek additional cost savings by broadening contract opportunities.

“Ultimately the current absence of competitive bids creates a lack of transparency and clarity in the capital project process … Greater control over the capital project process may allow the department to develop creative shared cost-savings measures to provide a mutual benefit for all parties,” the report said.

Changes under way

While airing its dirty laundry to the commission, the water department outlined steps it’s taken in recent months to correct the department’s problems. The chairman of the waterworks board, Marvin Scott, noted in testimony with the IURC that the department has sought to limit capital projects, paring Veolia’s recommended $640 million, five-year capital plan to $214 million for only “highest priority” projects over three years.

Scott and Klein said the department also plans to address other issues raised by the consultant, included hiring additional staff, such as a professional engineer and a hydrogeologist.

“I do not believe the department currently possesses the correct number and type of staff to support its obligations under the management agreement,” Klein told the commission.

After joining the department, Klein terminated an administrative assistant, a contract analyst and the chief financial officer. He replaced the CFO with Ronald J. Miller, an accountant who will be pressed to conduct more thorough long-term financial planning and performance benchmarking.

In 2005, the department, in trying to free up $45 million in additional money for capital projects, converted fixed-rate bonds to variable-rate debt with abandon. Eventually, about 60 percent of its $845 million in outstanding debt was in variable-rate instruments. Bond swaps intended to mitigate the risk of interest-rate variations failed to backstop the risk as financial firms involved in the deals failed or saw credit ratings plunge.

Klein told the commission the department has now converted all its variable-rate debt to fixed, and was considering legal action against unnamed defendants involved in its past bond financing.

“The department has taken significant steps to improve upon the management of the system and to be the active and interested owner of the system that the commission expects it to be,” Klein said.

“I guess given the close oversight that the commission continues to exercise since the emergency rate case … they don’t want to dig the hole any deeper,” said Bette J. Dodd, a Lewis & Kappes attorney representing industrial water customers.

But the department’s very existence could be in question under scenarios Mayor Greg Ballard is considering for the utility. This summer, he solicited proposals from companies interested in operating waterworks. One included an offer from Indianapolis natural gas utility Citizens Energy Group to acquire Indianapolis Water for up to $1.6 billion.•
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I speak with all of Maryland's MTA workers telling them to protest now and stand up to politicians like O'Malley and all of Maryland's neo-liberals who are privatizing all that is public.  This article along with that in San Francisco shows what they will do once established.  As with the CSX expansion that disregards public interest.....all of these partnerships lead to impoverishment, fraud, and corruption!

Flash forward to 2013 and Arizona Public Transit workers are back on the picket line because they are being impoverished just as VEOLA is doing in Maryland.  Making a corporation more profitable by killing wages and benefits and lowering consumer access and quality is what is happening with these deals.  As we saw above with CSX handling train service......all of public transportation is being privatized and as with electricity----Exelon----we will see rate increases up to what market will bear as they say!

Phoenix Transit Workers Protest as Veolia Brings in "Strike Busters"

By Monica Alonzo Tue., Aug. 10 2010 at 2:37 PM  Valley Fever...Arizona




​Veolia Transportation officials and representatives of the three local transit unions continue to negotiate labor contracts and have managed to avoid a bus strike in Phoenix.

So far.

But more than two-dozen union workers who drive, fuel, clean, and repair Phoenix city buses protested, with bright-colored signs in hand, this morning in front of the Hyatt Place in Tempe, where they discovered that Veolia execs already are stashing replacement workers in anticipation of a possible bus strike.

Billy Wingfield, a Veolia operation manager from Boise, Idaho, arrived in Tempe just last night.


Billy Wingfield (left) watches protesters alongside ATU President Bob Bean, after the two shared perspectives on labor negotiations.​"We're not here to replace them. We're here to help out, to do whatever is necessary to service the customer," Wingfield told New Times while he stood outside of the Hyatt Place, watching the transit workers march up and down the sidewalk. Other out-of-town workers watched from the hotel's balcony.

"I think this is just part of the process. The company has to prepare for the worst -- but hope for the best," Wingfield said.

Union reps aren't happy because, in the midst of "good faith" negotiations, Veolia executives placed ads in the Arizona Republic seeking temporary bus drivers and have flown in about 200 replacement drivers and supervisors, like Wingfield, from all over the country.

Veolia officials said in a statement they are "committed to resolving the remaining issues with its unions," but have to be prepared in case an agreement is not reached. They said it was "a preventative measure only, focused on avoiding a total lack of transit service in the event of a work stoppage by the unions."

Labor contracts expired on June 30, but the Teamsters (employees who fuel and clean buses) and Operating Engineers (mechanics) agreed to extend their existing contracts until August 15. The Amalgamated Transit Union (bus drivers) extended its contract through September 30.

A joint statement released by all three labor unions stated that they all "plan to continue bargaining and have no plans to strike in the near future. If there is a strike, it is due to the bad faith bargaining on behalf of Veolia."

"We're out here because of the passengers, our customers" said Sebastian Aldama, a 20-year Veolia employee and ATU member. "A majority of the people who use our buses are people in need. They depend on us. We want the public to know we're not interested in a strike. We're interested in continuing negotiations."

Workers are concerned because, while they have granted Veolia two contract extensions, Veolia has not yet decided whether it will grant an extension now requested by the Teamsters, says Jerry Ienuso, a Teamsters negotiator.

And if one unions strikes, they are all expected to walk. Talks with the Teamsters are expected to resume on Saturday.

Union officials might have some cause for concern, especially since Veolia officials were able to sucker Phoenix into waiving a $50,000-a-day fine that their company otherwise would have been required to pay if workers went on strike.

It's not a typo. Written into the five-year city-bus contract that started on July 1 was a steep $25,000-a-day fine for each bus facility (and Veolia operates two in Phoenix) that the company had to pay Phoenix to make up for the reduced levels of bus service. 

Why would Phoenix give Veolia a pass on those sanctions meant to be an incentive for the company to avoid a strike and maintain bus service at full capacity?

Well, when Phoenix refused to ante up the money that Veolia wanted for expenses linked their old city-bus contract, company officials told the city that they would walk away from the new contract. Giving Veolia a pass on strike-related fines during initial negotiations was one of several concessions that Phoenix had to make in order to get the new contract signed.

Bob Bean, president of the ATU, predicts that Veolia is going to hand the Teamsters a final "take it or leave it" offer and not grant the extension. He believes that Veolia would rather have workers go on strike now and wait them out -- when it won't cost them potentially millions in fines -- instead of down the road when fines are back in place and workers have some leverage.

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  • BUSINESS
  • November 21, 2009
Investor to Help Baltimore Port Prepare for Bigger Ships

    By
  • CHRISTOPHER CONKEY  Wall Street Journal

A private investment group led by Highstar Capital has agreed to invest as much as $1.3 billion to expand the Port of Baltimore as ports in the eastern U.S. push to make changes needed to serve a new generation of supersize cargo vessels.


The deal, announced Friday, is essentially a 50-year lease between the Maryland Port Administration and Ports America Group, a company owned by Highstar Capital, a New York private-equity fund. In exchange for the right to operate Baltimore's cargo-container terminal for 50 years, Ports America will make an upfront payment of $100 million and a series of infrastructure improvements at the port. Chief among them: deepening the water at the cargo terminal to 50 feet from its current depth of 45 feet.

The improvements will enable Baltimore to compete for the supersize cargo vessels that are expected to start passing through the Panama Canal after its expansion is complete in 2014 or so. The vessels are capable of carrying twice as many 40-foot containers as the cargo vessels that typically call on East and Gulf Coast ports.

Other ports are considering similar expansions and hunting for the capital to get them done. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is examining a number of proposals to fix its biggest impediment to serving bigger cargo ships: a bridge that isn't high enough for the vessels to fit under.

Port officials in Charleston, S.C., are studying plans to increase the depth of its water, which fluctuates by six feet along with tides. The port is also moving to develop its Navy Base Terminal, which would boost container capacity by 50% when finished.

Officials in Savannah, Ga., are improving rail connections, purchasing new gantries and upgrading technology in an effort to more than triple the number of containers the port can process. The port will find out within the next year or so whether it can proceed with a channel-deepening project that would enable it to handle the larger vessels.

"The canal expansion is clearly going to be a game-changer in international trade," said Curtis Foltz, chief operating officer at the Georgia Ports Authority.

The port in the best position east of the Panama Canal may be in Norfolk, Va. The water is already 50 feet deep there, and the port has joined with freight rail company Norfolk Southern Corp. and others on the Heartland Corridor, a rail connection to the Midwest that can accommodate trains double-stacked with 40-foot cargo containers.

"We do know [traffic] is going to go up" after the canal is widened, "and we're definitely going to be ready for it," said Joe Harris, a spokesman for the Virginia Ports Authority.

Private infrastructure groups are looking for opportunities at a time when many state and local governments are strapped for cash. Florida recently signed a deal with a private consortium to build and operate a tunnel at the Port of Miami. Earlier this year, the Port of Oakland agreed to turn over some of its terminals to Ports America, which has gradually established a presence at virtually every major port in the country.

"Difficult economic times also open the door for new business opportunities," said Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, referring to Baltimore's deal with Ports America. Maryland officials said the deal could ultimately bring 5,700 jobs to the state, which plans to spend the $100 million upfront payment on road, bridge and tunnel upgrades.

In a statement, Christopher Lee, president of Ports America Chesapeake and managing partner of Highstar Capital said the company is looking forward to implementing "the critical infrastructure required to maintain the Port of Baltimore's competitiveness and importance to the Maryland economy."

Another promise of lots of jobs and the first thing we hear is automation of the port will kill lots of jobs!  Think this isn't going to happen in Maryland!  LIPSTICK ON A PIG!

Longshoremen's union rallies against plans to automate Jersey City-Bayonne port

Print By Steve Strunsky/The Star-Ledger
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on January 09, 2012 at 3:00 AM


Some 27,000 longshoremen worked the region's docks before the use of bus-sized, steel containers revolutionized the shipping trade in the mid-1960s.

The number of local longshoreman since has dwindled to about 3,500.

Now, shipping's latest technological revolution is coming to the region. Global Container Terminals plans to create the region's first automated port at its Jersey City-Bayonne location on the Port Jersey peninsula. It is part of a $312 million expansion that Global agreed to under a June 2010 deal with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

And, it's not going over well with the International Longshoremen's Association, the union that represents Global and other dockworkers.

About 150 members from ILA locals rallied Friday outside Global’s Jersey City offices to protest what they feel is a serious threat to their job security.

“We want to let everyone know that we’re here to protect our jobs and our members,” said Stephen Knott, general vice president of the ILA.

“We helped build these companies. We went along with containerization. Now that they want automation, we want to make sure that we’re as much a part of it as possible and that any new jobs created are ILA jobs. That’s very, very important to us.”

The term “automated-port” is somewhat a misnomer in that all ship-to-shore cranes are still operated by a person, said Joe Harris, a spokesman for the Virginia Port Authority. It runs the nation’s only automated port, a facility built by the Maersk shipping line that opened in Portsmouth in 2007.

The automated portion involves a separate crane that transfers containers, though even a significant portion of that is controlled by a person from a remote location, Harris said.

The combination of automated and manual crane operation results in a faster transfer, Harris said. For example, the Portsmouth terminal operates at a rate of 45 container-moves per hour, compared with a nationwide average of 35 to 38 moves.

“It’s a highly efficient terminal,” Harris said.

Industry officials said the Jersey City terminal would be similarly automated.

But automation is anathema to the ILA, and it was not mentioned when the expansion was announced 18 months ago.

In the announcement, the Port Authority said it would purchase Global’s 98-acre site and lease it back to Global, which is based in Vancouver, Canada. The Port Authority also said it would provide up to $150 million in financing.

Global declined to comment at the time. And Friday, James Devine, the executive in charge of the company’s Jersey City facility, did not return a call seeking comment.





0 Comments

August 05th, 2013

8/5/2013

0 Comments

 
HI E VERYONE! 

I WANT TO TAKE TODAY TO LOOK AT THE NEWS AT ALL LEVELS AND SHOUT OUT TO GET OUT AND FIGHT THIS TAKEOVER OF THE PEOPLE'S ABILITY TO CONTROL PUBLIC POLICY AND HOLD CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE.





Undocumented workers in Maryland and Baltimore work under some of the most repressive conditions of wage theft and workplace abuse.....all labor laws unenforced and fear of being reported as undocumented if they shout out too loudly about what is happening to them every day in Maryland and especially in Baltimore.  This is a neo-liberal state doing this to the poor and disenfranchised.  Obama and O'Malley are neo-liberals and this Immigration Bill is market-based....meaning it is completely about how to maximize corporate profits on the backs of labor.

The convoluted path to citizenship that is immerging will not be attainable by most immigrants...only those coming in on high-end VISAs will be able to reach this citizenship goal for the most part.  Meanwhile people from developing worlds will flood an economy with 25% unemployment and domestic grads from STEM among the unemployed.

Why are they doing this?  Global markets need foreign workers to work as Americans overseas.  Third world workers are used to working for sweat shop wages and having no Rule of Law protecting them....that is the reason for this Immigration Bill.  EXPLOITATION OF LABOR.

Why would anyone encourage the President to circumvent the 3 branch check on Executive power to inact this law?  Well, TPP basically ends the Constitution and these democratic institutions so why not get started say these people!



President holds trump card on immigration Obama can expand Deferred Action without congressional approval — and should do so if Congress fails to act

By Nelson Peacock 6:00 a.m. EDT, August 5, 2013  Baltimore Sun

President Barack Obama is tantalizingly close to passing comprehensive immigration reform, a legacy achievement. The Senate has provided a bipartisan bill, and the House is working on reform. The key issues are border security and a legal pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million who are here illegally.

The political reasons for the House to negotiate a deal are many. A recent Gallup poll showed that 87 percent of Americans support comprehensive reform that includes a pathway to citizenship. Moreover, growing numbers of Latino voters in key states turned out in historic numbers for Mr. Obama in last year's election, which strongly suggests that, in the long run, Republicans need to address this constituency or continue to lose votes.

However, Speaker John A. Boehner, the Republicans' point man in the House, doesn't have the luxury of operating in the long term. The conservative bloc of House Republicans is digging in against reform that includes a pathway to citizenship, and with what promises to be a bloody spending fight with Democrats looming, the speaker needs to strengthen his position with his conference.

It's no wonder the speaker has instructed his committee chairmen to send up smaller, incremental bills for consideration, with a final decision on the path forward to come this fall.

Regardless of what Mr. Boehner and the committee chairmen come up with, most of the millions of unauthorized immigrants here now will almost surely stay, because it is expensive and time-consuming to deport them. The immigration enforcement system is currently funded to deport roughly 400,000 immigrants a year, funding that's unlikely to increase in difficult budgetary times, and it can take years to get many cases in front of immigration judges.

In part for those reasons, the Department of Homeland Security does not treat all deportations equally. In recent years, the agency has expanded its use of prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement, focusing on recent border crossings and public safety threats. Today, deportations of immigrants with strong connections to the U.S. are unlikely.

Indeed, prosecutorial discretion is a guiding principle of this administration's immigration enforcement policy. With it, the administration has moved immigration enforcement from an ad hoc system in which individuals are removed indiscriminately to one that prioritizes criminals, recent border crossers and fugitives. In 2012, 96 percent of all removals were based on these priorities. Opponents of the policy call it amnesty, but with limited resources, it's obvious why an agency charged with protecting the homeland is focusing its deportation efforts on national security and public safety.

For Mr. Obama, expanding prosecutorial discretion in deportations has been good policy and politics. It might just be the trump card he needs to bring House Republicans to the negotiating table.

Last summer, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which established the first program in which a subset of those here illegally could come forward and register with the government. If you were brought here as a child, are currently in school or the military and have no criminal record, you can get protection from deportation and you can petition for work authorization.

This program, aimed at so-called Dreamers, triggered a wave of enthusiasm in the Latino community, and many political analysts believe it helped the president weather 50 percent disapproval ratings last summer and win a historic 75 percent of the Latino vote in November. Nearly 520,000 people have received relief under this program since it was announced.

Now the president should turn again to this playbook and expand the program to other sympathetic categories of immigrants, such as those with a longtime presence in the United States or those with U.S.-citizen family members. The legal parameters and operational protocols have been established, and because this program, like the original Deferred Action program, would be funded from immigrants' fees, it would not require a congressional appropriation. An expanded Deferred Action program could be up and running within weeks.

Of course, those committed to defeating reform would trot out the tired criticism that the president doesn't enforce the laws on the books. They conveniently forget that both parties share the blame for the current system, and they ignore the record-low estimates of border crossing attempts and the record-high number of deportations. (A recent Pew Hispanic Center analysis found net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero in recent years.) Nothing the administration does would change their minds.

It is a near-certainty that expansion of prosecutorial discretion will occur if the House defeats all reform efforts or the House and Senate can't reach an agreement. Perhaps the president can force negotiations by reminding critics that, in the absence of real reform, a president — any party's president — still has to govern. For Mr. Boehner and the House GOP, the alternative to negotiating would be expanding "amnesty" without any of the security and business enhancements that the Republicans want and the nation desperately needs.

If the president acts boldly, he might be able to wrest a bill from Congress that could establish his legacy and, more important, secure the real immigration policy changes this country needs.

Nelson Peacock is a vice president with Cornerstone Government Affairs in Washington and the former assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.


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Do you know that one of the biggest issues for student loan holders is that the Department of Education is now run by credit collection agencies..Wall Street on steroids .. as they work to force people to get out of default and then manipulate the fees so as to send people back into default.  Each time you are brought out of default these Wall Street credit collection agencies tack as much as $3,000 to these student loans making these bills skyrocket.  It is worst than pay day loans.  THIS IS THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FOLKS!

We all know that the unemployment caused by massive corporate fraud has sent many student loan holders into this situation.  So paying higher interest is just the tip of the iceberg.  Neo-liberals like Clinton and Obama..and all Congressional leaders have allowed Rule of Law be suspended and the public is being preyed upon from all sectors. That is the problem.

The solution is to first stop outsourcing public agencies.  Rebuild white collar criminal agencies and bring back all of the for-profit education fraud..at a trillion dollars and climbing if these student loan frauds are added.  Then, pour all that fraud recovered back into public education and financial aid that is low interest and awarded for sound reasons as was the policies before the Dept of Education was privatized..just like Freddie and the FHA.  Good public agencies ruined by privatizing!



Congress reaches student loan deal that lowers rates for borrowers But new formula can bring higher rates later

By Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun 10:37 p.m. EDT, August 2, 2013

With the start of classes just weeks away, Maryland financial aid directors sighed with relief that Congress has finally reached an agreement on student loan interest rates that will lower costs for borrowers this academic year.

"We have been getting calls from students," said Zhanna Goltser, director of financial aid at Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore. "It's great that it will save money for students who are borrowing now."

"Now" is the key word. Under a new formula created by lawmakers, the rate on certain federal loans could go up significantly in a few years.

A gridlocked Congress failed to meet a July 1 deadline on expiring rates, resulting in the interest on new subsidized Stafford loans doubling to 6.8 percent. Subsidized means that Uncle Sam pays the interest on the loan while the borrower is in college.

But under bipartisan legislation that passed its final congressional hurdle last week, the rate for all Stafford loans as well as PLUS loans used by parents and graduate students will be tied to the market. Given today's low interest rates, students and parents will enjoy reduced interest rates for the time being.

"It's an interest rate increase masqueraded as a decrease," warned Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors.com, a network of websites on college admissions and financial aid.

As the economy continues to improve and interest rates rise, families in a few years could be paying substantially more to borrow from the government, he said.

Under the legislation, the interest rate on Stafford and PLUS loans will be a combination of the yield on a 10-year Treasury note and a flat rate, depending on the type of loan. Congress also added caps to limit how high rates can go.

The rate on Stafford loans for undergraduates will be the yield on the 10-year Treasury plus 2.05 percent, not to exceed 8.25 percent. Interest on Stafford loans for graduate students will be the Treasury yield plus 3.6 percent, but no more than 9.5 percent. The PLUS loan rate will be the Treasury yield plus 4.6 percent, with a cap of 10.5 percent.

Each year, the rate for new loans will go up and down with the Treasury yield. But once a loan is taken out, the interest rate is fixed for the entire term.

The president is expected to sign the bill. The legislation is retroactive, so the formula will be in effect for loans made since July. The new rates for this year will be 3.86 percent for undergraduate Stafford loans, 5.41 percent for graduate Stafford loans and 6.41 percent for PLUS loans, aid officials said.

That is significantly less than borrowers would be paying if a deal hadn't been brokered. Without the legislation, the rate would have been 6.8 percent on all Stafford loans and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans.

"Families will be happier with this tied to the market just like any other [loan] they would have taken out," said Dana Kennedy, director of financial aid at St. John's College in Annapolis. And this way, students and parents will know each year what the interest rate will be, rather than waiting for an act of Congress, she added.

Some parents recently advised their children not to sign loan papers until Congress decided on a rate, Kennedy added. They feared that borrowers could be locked into a higher rate by signing early, though lawmakers were expected to make the rates retroactive to July 1.

"We're pleased that students are going to see some relief this current school year," said Tom McDermott, director of student financial services at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Still, the caps are on the "high side," said McDermott, who hopes Congress will revisit the issue.

McDermott said he's concerned that if federal loan rates climb significantly, students and families might switch to private loans that do not offer the same protections and benefits as the government. And some aid experts predict that higher rates are ahead.

"We don't see it as a cause for celebration," said Lauren Asher, president of The Institute for College Access & Success in California. "The cost to families over the 10 years would be more than if Congress did nothing."

The legislation is projected to generate $715 million in added revenue for the government over the next decade as rates rise, Asher said. And that's on top of the $184 billion profit the loan program was already expected to see over that time, she said.

Asher predicts that parents will be paying more than the current 7.9 percent on PLUS loans by 2016, and undergraduates will borrow at a rate higher than today's 6.8 percent on Stafford loans by 2017.


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This commenter is absolutely right but at the same time he does not identify the problem with this troop drawndown; we have more private military contractors then civilian troops and it is only civilian troops coming home!  Obama states he is bringing the troops home; he is not telling us that during his term he and Hillary have placed the privatization of the US military on steroids and that 'bringing the troops home' means primarily those civilian troops.  Who needs them when you are going with drone attacks/special forces assaults in undeclared war all over the world!

Think that is going to send jihadists into overdrive?  You betcha.  The threat to embassies and US citizens all around the world is just the beginning as the fight against naked capitalism taking over Muslim societies heats up.

Jihadists aren't the only ones against these policies.  EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE US AND EUROPE ARE AGAINST THEM AS WELL! Maybe not the few thousand of the world's 1% promoting these policies.  Why do Americans not shout loudly as they are in Europe and around the world against this criminal, corrupt, and crippling foreign policy?  We have Greenspan/Clinton/Bush people filling all media outlets with propaganda that makes N Korea's Great Leader and his media look downright democratic.  Food filling the grocery stores of North Korea/drones not killing innocent people...same thing!



Bring the troops home from Afghanistan — and everywhere else


With the recent commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, isn't it about time to think about a troop withdrawal plan? And by the way, VE Day was 68 years ago, so why do we still have troops in Europe?

Let's leave Europe to the Europeans, Korea to the Koreans, Iraq to the Iraqis and Afghanistan to the Afghans.

Dave Reich, Perry Hall

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Below you see a private non-profit called CREDO.  It is a business who sets itself up as a public interest company B-Corp/501-C4 so it gets tax breaks.  I join their petition signing protests myself as they ask for your name, address, and email in exchange for petitioning an issue.....WE ARE THE PROGRESSIVE CORPORATION HELPING CITIZENS AGAINST CORPORATE OVERREACH.  I have shouted that most of these 'progressive' organizations are simply getting your personal information to use for marketing and now we see they are using the money to support political candidates who are neo-liberal and corrupt......not labor and justice candidates.  Whether MoveOn or Credo......many of these pundits/organizations are neo-liberals in liberal disguise.

LIBERALS LIKE MCGOVERN WORKED TO HOLD CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE AND ADVANCE WORKERS/PEOPLE'S RIGHTS.  NEO-LIBERALS DO THE OPPOSITE...THEY WORK FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT AGAINST LABOR AND JUSTICE.

We may need to use these groups because they currently have the power of voice....but do not believe all that they tell you!


Comment on the article below:

IF MUDCAT IS WORKING FOR A GREAT BIG FAT CRIMINAL OF A CORPORATE POL LIKE GANSLER IN MARYLAND ......CREDO IS A NEO-LIBERAL, NOT A LIBERAL ORGANIZATION!



Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler has hired a new campaign manager, about a month before he plans to formally announce his campaign for governor. Matthew "Mudcat" Arnold said in an interview Friday he got the job this week. (Source:NBC.com) Here is why this is a good thing. "Mudcat" sounds like he knows how to play my game. Trash me all you want but I got criminal charges against politicians
.



Liberal super PAC: Calling Republicans racist more effective than criticizing policy

1:08 AM 09/14/2012 inShare1 3 Alex PappasPolitical Reporter

A top official at a liberal super PAC with the goal of eradicating tea partiers from Congress is telling activists that it’s more effective to label Republicans as racists than criticize their policies.

According to an audio recording obtained by The Daily Caller, Matthew “Mudcat” Arnold, the national campaign manager of the liberal CREDO super PAC, told a gathering of supporters in Aurora, Colo., on Sept. 8 that they’ve realized “policy did not move voters.”

He used Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King as an example.

“When we said that Steve King … is pro-life and believes in cutting Social Security and voted for the Ryan budget, no one cared,” Arnold said. “When we said Steve King’s a racist, Steve King believes that immigrants ought to be put in electric fences, people moved.”

“When you talk about the substance of a man’s character, people respond,” Arnold continued. “Believe it or not, that is not something politicians knew.”

CREDO super PAC, which did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Caller on Thursday, bills itself as a “political committee working to defeat ten of the most odious tea party members of Congress.”

Arnold made the comments while discussing the organization’s campaign against Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. The event at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse was billed as a gathering for “CREDO members and local activists to discuss our campaign to defeat Mike Coffman.”

Democratic candidate Joe Miklosi is challenging Coffman. Republicans reacted to Arnold’s comments by pouncing on Miklosi.


“The irony of this is that Miklosi repeatedly tries to paint Coffman as a radical, but he’s got a far, far left-wing group of crazies supporting him and helping his campaign,” said a Republican strategist familiar with the campaign. “Miklosi is masquerading as a moderate, but you can tell a lot about somebody by the company they keep.”

The super PAC’s strategy of trying to smear Republicans is evident with the nicknames they’ve given to the 10 members they are targeting this year: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is “Queen of Crazy,” Florida Rep. Allen West is “Beyond Crazy,” Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh is “America’s Most Offensive Congressman,” and Iowa Rep. Steve King is “Paranoid Bigot.”

“We want to stop people who have hijacked our community, who have hijacked the national platform and who are advocating policies and saying things in public that embarrass us,” Arnold said.




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Judicial watch is a conservative group but the concerns as regards the suspension of Rule of Law and dismantling of our democratic system of checks and balances is real.  All of these manipulated showdowns in Congress that lead to concessions killing all Americans is deliberate.  Remember, the democrats had all 3 branches of government and a supermajority and failed to address all policy that now sits in gridlock doing nothing

“Obama’s unilateral actions are undermining our constitutional republic in ways that we have not seen, at least in recent American history,” Fitton said.



Opinion Judicial Watch head: Obama likes to play ‘catch me if you can’

By Ginni Thomas 9:23 PM 08/04/2013 inShare1 1


Tom Fitton’s organization Judicial Watch is a useful ally of citizens who want a conservative government watchdog monitoring an out-of-control government. Judicial Watch, incorporated in 1994, is a non-profit group that presses Republicans and Democrats alike on transparency, accountability and integrity in government.

Fitton and company worked with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on ethics reform legislation and have filed over 100 lawsuits against the Obama administration to battle the stonewalling and corruption they find rampant in big government.

“Obama’s unilateral actions are undermining our constitutional republic in ways that we have not seen, at least in recent American history,” Fitton said. “We still have a Congress. We still have a judiciary that has the ability to reign in the government when it chooses, assuming the law allows, but Obama has taken on unilateral actions that have not been checked.”

Fitton says the Obama “way” is “catch me if you can.”

In this interview, Fitton discusses the scandals President Obama is now calling “phony” — Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting, Solyndra and NSA surveillance. Fitton is not buying the dodge. He seeks facts, documents and proof.

Critical of congressional oversight that is not consistent or thorough, Fitton instead encourages citizen activism. He believes citizens often do not understand the tools available for them to hold local, state and federal officials accountable.

Fitton’s book, “The Corruption Chronicles,” details the scandals of Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. The organization has also produced a movie, “The District of Corruption,” on AXS TV and this fall on HDNet Movies.


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Do you know that all of what tax revenue generated from these Enterprise Zones are fenced into those communities...they do not help greater Baltimore. Tax base from Greater Baltimore is used to not only subsidize these Enterprise Zones now, but revenue is frozen into the future...ergo....paying Rain taxes, privatizing trash collection, crumbling schools and parks. It is not better to build on toxic land than allow it to simply be a green space....that is the Sustainable policy solution. Building a huge complex on toxic land when we know that global warming will raise the sea level as much as 10 inches in just a few decades means the public will be called to build sea walls to protect this complex and compromise the toxic containment, All for more poverty jobs that we all know are filled with wage theft and workplace abuse.

The development plan for a city filled with working class people would have been the real Enterprise Zone....one that builds small businesses with regional business owners so the grassroots would grow and create health communities. What we have is a handing off .....many will say a looting of our public assets in order to enrich a few and create more wealth inequity-style development. Please do not allow these 1% decide that the global corporations will control all business and consumption because this is what these policies move forward!



Baltimore Brew Stirring up News and Views in Baltimore Maryland
Monday, August, 5th, 2013 5


First it was a faint murmur of unease. Now it’s become a clamor for answers.

The $107 million tax increment subsidy proposed for Harbor Point is stirring up a normally somolent citizenry, which has been socked with rising water bills and cutbacks in fire protection and youth rec centers.

The latest evidence comes from a special meeting called for this Tuesday by the Fell’s Point Residents Association to revisit its endorsement of the luxury waterfront development and proposed regional headquarters of Exelon Corp.

The group had previously voted “not to oppose” the conceptual plan for Harbor Point, “but that was before many specific issues that need significant further discussion came to light,” Arthur Perschetz, association president, told The Brew in an interview today.

Too Much Public Subsidy

“The biggest concern by residents is that the city is dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars for a project that is basically a private development,” Perschetz said.

“Yes, it will produce some jobs,” he continued, “but it isn’t going to start paying anything back to the city [in the form of property taxes] until 2025. That’s what people are feeling – there’s too much subsidy for a site that the city itself says is one of the best locations on the East Coast.”

The group has invited Marco Greenberg, vice president for developer Michael Beatty, and Ronald Kreitner, director of Westside Renaissance, to “explain their viewpoints and answer our questions,” according to Perschetz.

Kreitner, a former director of the Maryland Office of Planning, is associated with Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, who has signaled his opposition to the Harbor Point plan.

Greenberg has been a senior executive at both Struever Bros, Eccles & Rouse and John Paterakis’ H&S Properties Development, who jointly held a ground lease at Harbor Point before they were reportedly bought out by the Beatty group.

“Gold-Plated” Parks?

The use of $59.1 million to finance parks at the site – and an additional $21.6 million for a waterfront promenade – has stuck in the craw of association members, Perschetz said, especially when the city spends so little to improve existing public spaces and its major parks are in disrepair.

The group’s membership will take a fresh vote on Harbor Point on Tuesday – and a rejection could have a direct impact on the evolving political calculus of the project.

Considered a “shoo-in” when proposed two months ago by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the $107 million TIF subsidy has been vigorously questioned by Carl Stokes, chairman of the City Council’s Taxation, Finance and Economic Development Committee.

Record crowds attended two hearings before Stokes committee last month.

They included members of the Campaign for Fair Development, associated with the United Workers union, and residents from Perkins Homes, who accused the city of using their low-income demographics to secure a state “EZ” (Enterprise Zone) designation for Harbor Point that give the developer $88 million in tax breaks.

Earlier this week, a petition drive opposing the subsidies began circulating on the Internet.

Perkins Homes residents question tax subsidies to Harbor Point at a July 10 City Hall hearing. (Photo by Mark Reutter)

Councilman James B. Kraft, whose 1st District includes Fells Point and Harbor Point, says his support of the TIF subsidy – on top of the “EZ” tax break – is based on neighborhood support of the project. He publicly promised last month to vote on the project’s financing package according to the wishes of the community.

That vote may come as early as August 12.

Mayor Rawlings-Blake and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young want to get the financing bill out of Stokes committee this week (a working session of the committee is set for 5 p.m. Wednesday in the City Council chambers).

TIF Needed ASAP

The Beatty group is under enormous pressure to secure the TIF package before the end of September, when his group is set to purchase the capped portion of the 27-acre site from Honeywell International, the present owner.

The Allied Chemical works was closed in 1985 in part because of its extensive pollution of the Inner Harbor. (Photo by John Horn)

The Harbor Point site was used as a chromium-ore reduction factory for more than a century.

It was closed by Allied Chemical in 1985 after environmental regulators determined that 62 pounds of cancer-causing chromium waste were being dumped into the harbor every day.

The site underwent a decade-long remediation to contain the chemical wastes buried under the factory. Allied first constructed a stone embankment around the three sides of the site that bordered on the harbor.

A three-foot-wide soil-bentonite hydraulic barrier was then extended more than 70 feet deep between the land and water, and a plastic-and-clay cap laid on top of the ground to seal off the contaminants.

Without TIF funds to finance the “public” portion of the development – which will be elevated on fill above the cap –  the $1 billion project cannot move forward, according to Beatty.

Will Exelon Walk?

Exelon Corp. is the only announced tenant for the complex, projected to take 12 years to finish and create more than 3 million square feet of new office, retail and residential space.

There is growing worry in the developer’s camp that Exelon might back out of its commitment to the site if the City Council does not approve the TIF legislation in the very near future.

If that did happen, the company wouldn’t walk far.

Under a February 2012 agreement with the Maryland Public Service Commission that permitted its acquisition of Constellation Energy, Exelon pledged to build a new headquarters building in downtown Baltimore.










0 Comments

March 19th, 2013

3/19/2013

0 Comments

 
THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE WHEN A WEEK DAY KEEPS ME FROM MY COMPUTER!!!

SIMPLY RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE AND WE CAN AND WILL TURN THIS AROUND.  IF YOUR ORGANIZATION IS NOT DOING THIS.......THAT LEADERSHIP IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!!!

I want to end for now my discussion of Zeitgeist and Sustainability as building new social order that seeks to keep most people in poverty and living with no social safety nets.  Your Third Way corporate democrat intends to make all that is public private and maximize wealth at the top.....THAT IS THEIR CAUCUS PRINCIPLE.


Below you see how energy and greening tax credits have filled corporate balance sheets and they all show as profits not cost in development.  Remember, the public universities are now where all research and development is done for corporations and they are all supported by the taxpayer and students. These tax breaks are pure profit!!  Add to that the level of fraud and you see why corporations are richer than any time in human history.  Clinton and Obama are the ones to thank because they ran and took the democratic party away from the people and worked for these corporate profits!!!

We know that s-corporations are set up to allow the shareholders to bear the burden of business taxation and that these shareholders are not paying a cent in taxation for the most part.  The b- corporation is geared to do the same thing only with a claim to be environmental/justice oriented while doing it.  That is not happening as well.  I received a message from National Insurance Company that they were now a corporate sponsor of Human Rights Watch.  In Baltimore, land of human rights violations, not one word is said of police brutality, incarceration, and wage poverty.  It fights only for gay rights and environment......THE O'MALLEY/OBAMA.....THIRD WAY AGENDA.  These are great justice issues only neither have anything to do with real human suffering. 

WE ARE WATCHING DEATH AND SUFFERING IGNORED FOR LESS PRESSING ISSUES.  DO YOU HEAR OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL?  THEY HAVE BEEN BANISHED FROM AMERICAN PRESS BECAUSE THEY RANK THE US AS TOPS IN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS.  THEY ARE A REAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION!!!

The point is this:  Human Rights Watch is a DAVOS 1% Organization that simply ignores most human rights issues created by the 1% and captures this policy.  It doesn't really work for historical and deadly justice issues.  So, you have an insurance agency like National Insurance partnering with this 'human rights' organization and immediately it is a b-corporation getting tax write-offs for its charitable work.  THESE B-CORPORATIONS ARE SIMPLY FUNNELING MONEY AS DONATIONS TO ORGANIZATIONS THAT CAPTURE THE POLICY ISSUE THAT PROTECTS PEOPLE FROM THE ABUSES CREATED BY THE COUNTRIES SUPPORTED BY THE US.

It is not a good policy to allow b-corporations to write-off taxes when we know fraud and corruption is rife.  It will simply be abused.





Human Rights Watch

United States and the CIA

Strong criticism against Human Rights Watch was caused by the Organization's declarations in favour of CIA illegal actions of Extraordinary rendition towards suspected terrorists. CIA Secret Rendition Policy Backed by Human Rights Groups? “Human Rights Watch and, apparently, other human rights groups signed off on renditions in talks with the Obama administration, saying publicly that there is "a legitimate place" for the practice.


Selection bias

The Times accuses HRW of "imbalance" since it ignores many human rights abusing regimes while covering other zones of conflict "intensely", notably Israel. It issued 5 lengthy reports on Israel in one 14 month period, whereas in 20 years it has issued only 4 reports on the conflict in Kashmir, despite the fact that there have been 80,000 conflict-related deaths in Kashmir and the fact that "torture and extrajudicial murder have taken place on a vast scale."[31] It issued no report on post-election violence and repression in Iran. One source[who?] told The Times, "Iran is just not a bad guy that they are interested in highlighting. Their hearts are not in it. Let’s face it, the thing that really excites them is Israel.” [28] The Times also accuses HRW of failing to report on human rights abuses of Arabs when "perpetrators are fellow Arabs."[28]

Nick Cohen, writing in The Spectator in February 2013, says that both "Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch look with horror on those who speak out about murder, mutilation and oppression if the murderers, mutilators and oppressors do not fit into their script."[32]


_________________________________________________

Imagine that a startup in greening has the designation of B corporation....it gets both the tax breaks in doing business and then it gets tax breaks for simply being.  One top of that most times the 'cause' for which it works is not really met.



B Corp and a Benefit Corporation are Not Created Equal


By Jonathan Mariano | September 8th, 2011


Corporation is a non-profit certification from B-Lab, a company that supports the legal structure Benefit Corporation

B Corp is just short hand for a Benefit Corporation, right? Not quite. Although there are similarities between the two in name, and in spirit, there is a crucial difference. B Corp is a certification and a Benefit Corp is a legal entity. Let me explain.

The Confusion Between B Corp and Benefit Corporations
First off, let’s talk about the confusion. If we look at the description of a B Corp and a Benefit Corporation, both are extremely similar.

“Certified B Corporations are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.” – B Corp

“Benefit Corporations are a new class of corporation that are required to create a material positive impact on society and the environment and to meet higher standards of accountability and transparency.” – Benefit Corporation.

Confusing? Yes. Both seek to benefit society and the environment. So then what is the difference?

B Corp – The Certification
B Corp is a certification offered by a non-governmental organization named B Lab. (I know, alphabet soup confusion!) There is no state legislative mandate or structure, per se.

Rather, companies wishing to become a Certified B Corp fill out an Impact Assessment. A company not only has to meet certain social and environmental criteria, but provide support documents to become fully certified. Furthermore, company bylaws must eventually be amended to include stakeholder interests. The change in bylaws will make the company strikingly similar to a Benefit Corporation in corporate structure.

Benefit Corporation – A State Legal Entity
A Benefit Corp is a state government legal corporate structure. It is a way to legally structure a company like an LLC, S-Corp, or C-Corp. Benefit Corporation status will allow companies to embed their sustainable principals into their DNA. In some ways, this is just a more straighfortward version of what B Lab is trying to do with the B Corp certification.

The California Legislature recently passed legislation to allow companies incorporated in the state to be Benefit Corporations. The nuances of the bill may differ from state to state in order to accommodate each states unique legal structure.

Yet, the heart of the the Benefit Corporation is the same across the board. Rather than a corporation focusing on just profit for the shareholders, a Benefit Corporation is required to focus on the public benefit (hence the name Benefit Corporation.)

Only five states have the Benefit Corporation as an option when incorporation in that state: Hawaii, VIrginia, Maryland, Vermont, New Jersey. Six more states are in the process of making it part of their states corporate legal system: Colorado, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, and Michigan.

On a side note, just to clear up even more confusion, B Lab, creator of the B Corp certification also advocates for such legislation.

B Corp or Benefit Corporation?
Now that we have cleared up the difference between B Corp and Benefit Corporations, can a company be both a B Corp and a Benefit Corp? The answer is yes, granted you meet the requirements of certification and incorporate in a state that has a Benefit Corp entity.

________________________________________________

New, for those who don't know Delaware's record for corporate protection, from 0% taxation to judicial courts that try national cases and always seem to fall in favor of that business.  There is the perk of Delaware being the national capital in dynasty accounts that create shell corporations and accounts to hide wealth.......WHAT CORPORATE STATE WOULDN'T WANT THAT DESIGNATION?

WAIT.......MARYLAND SAYS LET'S USE FAKE SOCIAL AGENDAS AS A SELLING POINT!!!!!

Almost all of what is happening is designated health, environment, and arts.


Maryland in line to become B corporations pioneer New type of company would be organized around social agenda

by Douglas Tallman | Staff Writer  

 ANNAPOLIS — Maryland is poised to become the first state in the nation to recognize a new classification of corporation that puts social welfare issues on the same footing as profits.

"For these companies, it makes sense and it's consistent with the brand we're trying to establish in Maryland," said Del. Brian J. Feldman (D-Dist. 15) of Potomac on Saturday.

Feldman sponsored House legislation that would have the state recognize so-called B corporations — "B" for benefit — in which for-profit companies have environmental, public health or arts objectives integrated into their charters.

"The B corporation legislation builds into the DNA of the company public purposes along with private purposes," said Sen. Jamie B. Raskin, the Senate sponsor of the legislation.

The bill passed the House, 135-5, on Monday. The Senate version passed, 44-0.

Del. H. Wayne Norman, a lawyer who has set up charitable entities, was one of five Republicans to vote against the legislation.

"I don't see any necessity for the B corporation. I'm happy with my no vote, my red vote," said Norman (R-Dist. 35A) of Bel Air. "I just didn't see the need to change a long-standing law."

Companies could become B corporations after a two-thirds vote of their shareholders. The companies would have to report to a third party its efforts to live up to its social agenda, similar to how companies report financial data to Moody's Investors Service.

The legislation also gives a B corporation's directors some protection if shareholders sue because the company's public-service goals conflict with the stockholders' fiduciary interest.

But Feldman and Raskin say that more than the legal protections, the legislation offers corporations a chance to brand themselves as community-minded businesses.

The B corporation benefits from being able to tell people they have organized not only to raise shareholder value but also to advance the environment and enhance a particular community, said Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park.

"I think that Maryland can become the Delaware of B corporations," he said. "We could be the magnet for companies that want to organize in this way."

A Web site set up for the issue says 285 companies have organized themselves as B corporations by altering their own charters or bylaws, but Raskin said they are B corporations in name only.

"None of them are recognized that way as a matter of state statute," he said.

_____________________________________________________


The amount of money corporations are making in tax fraud is enormous.......only outdone by the profits from outright business fraud and it could only happen with your Third Way corporate democrat at all levels of government.  Maryland is ground zero for these corporate pols running as democrats!!!!

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!!!!!



Tax lobbyists help businesses reap windfalls While Congress fights over ways to cut spending and the deficit, generous breaks for corporations pass with little notice

By Christopher Rowland |  Globe Staff     March 17, 2013

Pete Marovich for The Boston Globe

Tax breaks won by the Washington lobbying industry, centered on the K Street corridor, show how cheap it is, relatively speaking, to buy political influence.



WASHINGTON — Lobbying for special tax treatment produced a spectacular return for Whirlpool Corp., courtesy of Congress and those who pay the bills, the American taxpayers.

By investing just $1.8 million over two years in payments for Washington lobbyists, Whirlpool secured the renewal of lucrative energy tax credits for making high-efficiency appliances that it estimates will be worth a combined $120 million for 2012 and 2013. Such breaks have helped the company keep its total tax expenses below zero in recent years.

The return on that lobbying investment: about 6,700 percent.

These are the sort of returns that have attracted growing swarms of corporate tax lobbyists to the Capitol over the last decade — the sorts of payoffs typically reserved for gamblers and gold miners. Even as Congress says it is digging for every penny of savings, lobbyists are anything but sequestered; they are ratcheting up their efforts to protect and even increase their clients’ tax breaks.

‘It’s not about tax policy, it’s about benefiting the political class and the well-connected and the well-heeled in this country,’ Said Senator Tom Coburn of oklahoma.

The Senate approved tax benefits for Whirlpool and a host of other corporations early on New Year’s Day, a couple of hours after the ball dropped over Times Square and champagne corks began popping. A smorgasbord of 43 business and energy tax breaks, collectively worth $67 billion this year, was packed into the emergency tax legislation that avoided the so-called “fiscal cliff.’’



Whirlpool officials said the tax breaks help the company retain jobs, but in recent years, it has closed refrigerator manufacturing plants in Indiana (above) and Arkansas.

In the days that followed, the tax handouts for business were barely mentioned as President Obama and members of Congress hailed the broader effects of the dramatic legislation, which prevented income tax increases on the middle class and raised top marginal tax rates for the wealthy.

Yet the generous breaks awarded to narrow sectors of the American business community are just as symptomatic of Washington dysfunction as the serial budget crises that have gripped the capital since 2011. Leaders of both parties have repeatedly declared their intention to make the corporate income tax code fairer by lowering rates and ending special breaks, while intense lobbying, ideological divides, and unending political fights on Capitol Hill block most progress.

The result: sweeping bipartisan tax reform of the sort negotiated in 1986 by Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip’’ O’Neill Jr. is rated a long shot once again this year. In fact, the most visible signs of cross-party cooperation on corporate taxes are among regional groups of lawmakers who team up, out of parochial interest, to maintain special treatment for businesses in their home states.

In the absence of meaningful change, corporations like Whirlpool continue to pursue the exponential returns available from tax lobbying. The number of companies disclosing lobbying activity on tax issues rose 56 percent to 1,868 in 2012, up from 1,200 in 1998, according to data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Whirlpool had plenty of company on New Year’s, including multinational corporations with offshore investment earnings, Hollywood companies that shoot films in the United States, railroads that invest in track maintenance, sellers of energy produced by windmills and solar panels, and producers of electric motorcycles.

Their special treatment is a fraction of a broader constellation of what the federal Joint Committee on Taxation estimates will be $154 billion in special corporate tax breaks in 2013, contained in 135 individual provisions of the tax code.

Watchdogs and tax analysts denounce these favors as a hidden form of spending that amounts to corporate welfare. In essence, these “tax expenditures’’ are no different than mailing subsidy checks directly to companies to pad their bottom lines.

Congress reduced the number of tax breaks in 1986 as part of the broader reform package. The breaks steadily crept back, particularly in the last decade, as lawmakers heeded requests from advocacy groups and business lobbyists to lower taxes as a way of subsidizing particular industries.


Howard Carruth of Arkansas, a machine maintenance worker, lost his job with Whirlpool last year. He said Congress made a mistake giving tax breaks to the company.


“There’s a justification and rationale for virtually every one of these. They have their intellectual advocates, and they have their political advocates, and that’s how they get in the law,’’ said Lawrence F. O’Brien III, an influential lobbyist and a top campaign fund-raiser for Senate Democrats who represents financial industry clients and other interests.

Whirlpool has a powerful Michigan delegation behind it, including key committee chairmen of tax-writing and energy committees in the House. In response to questions from the Globe, the company said its special tax breaks led it to save “hundreds’’ of American jobs from the effects of the recession.

“Energy tax credits required that Whirlpool Corporation make significant investments in tooling and manufacturing to build highly energy-efficient products,’’ Jeff Noel, Whirlpool’s corporate vice president of communication, said in an e-mail. “If you look at our 101-year history, we have definitely paid our fair share of US federal income taxes.’’

But its federal income taxes have been minimal in recent years, thanks in large part to tax credits and deferrals, according to public filings. Its total income taxes — including foreign, federal, and state — were negative-$436 million in 2011, negative-$64 million in 2010, and negative-$61 million in 2009. It carries forward federal credits as “deferred tax assets’’ that it can use to lower future tax bills.

The renewed tax breaks granted by Congress in January, which were retroactive to the beginning of 2012, will not be recorded until Whirlpool pays its 2013 taxes. Because of the absence of that tax credit, and because of greater earnings and changes in foreign taxes, the company estimated its total 2012 tax expenses will be $133 million.

Whirlpool did not provide a specific number of jobs retained. The benefits were not sufficient to protect Whirlpool’s employees at a refrigerator manufacturing plant in Arkansas. Last summer, the company laid off more than 800 hourly workers, closed the factory, and moved manufacturing of those refrigerators to Mexico. It was part of an overall reduction of 5,000 in its workforce announced in 2011 in North America and Europe.

Congress “made a big mistake,’’ by authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits for Whirlpool based on arguments that the company would retain domestic jobs, said Howard Carruth, a machine maintenance worker and union official who began work at the plant in 1969 and lost his job last year when the plant closed.

“They really hurt the economy around here,’’ he said. “I blame the corporate greed.’’  NOT THE POLITICIANS GIVING THEM ALL OF THESE BREAKS?

The closing also transformed Carruth from loyal to embittered customer: “We bought Whirlpool for our own house, for family and friends. If one of those goes out in my house right now, it will not be replaced by Whirlpool.’’

Many companies would probably pay much higher taxes — including Whirlpool — if Congress eliminated special breaks and lowered the income tax rate to 25 percent from the current 35 percent.  THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!!!  CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE THAT LOWERING THE RATE WILL CAUSE THESE BUSINESSES TO PAY MORE?  IT IS RIDICULOUS!!!

An extra benefit of winning government subsidies through the tax code: Recipients remain immune from spending cuts like the automatic “sequester’’ imposed on March 1.

Called the “tax extenders,’’ 43 credits, deferrals, and exceptions for general business and energy firms were lumped into the fiscal cliff legislation. The returns on lobbying investments companies realized when the Senate passed its fiscal cliff bill helps explain why Washington tax lobbyists remain in demand:


■ Multinational companies and banks, including General Electric, Citigroup, and Ford Motor Co., with investment earnings from overseas accounts won tax breaks collectively worth $11 billion — a return on their two-year lobbying investment of at least 8,200 percent, according to a Globe analysis of lobbying reports.

■ Hollywood production companies received a $430 million tax benefit for filming within the United States. As a result, companies like Walt Disney Co., Viacom, Sony, and Time Warner — with the help of the Motion Picture Association of America, chaired by former Connecticut senator Christopher J. Dodd — realized a return on their lobbying investment of about 860 percent.

■ Railroads lobbied on a broad array of issues, a portion of which yielded $331 million for two years’ worth of track maintenance tax credits. Return on investment: at least 260 percent.

■ Even at the low end of the economic scale the returns can be large. Two West Coast companies that manufacture electric motorcycles — Brammo Inc. of Oregon, and Zero Motorcycle Inc. of California — reported combined lobbying expenditures of $200,000 in 2011 and 2012. They won tax subsidies payable to the consumers who buy their products worth an estimated $7 million. The electric motorcycle market stands to receive a return on that investment of up to 3,500 percent.

Like each of the industries that won special treatment in the Jan. 1 “extenders’’ corporate tax measure, the electric motorcycle lobby argued that tax breaks would protect or create jobs. Electric motorcycle manufacturers only employ hundreds of workers now, said Jay Friedland, Zero Motorcycles vice president, but could employ thousands in the future.

“There are definitely provisions in the extenders that people scratch their heads at, but if your goal is to build a replacement for the pure oil economy, this is the kind of industry you want to make an investment on,’’ he said.

Measuring the rewards for lobbying on individual tax provisions is by nature imprecise, especially for large corporations that weigh in on dozens of issues. Companies file blanket disclosure reports that do not break down their lobbying expenditures by individual issue.

Publicly traded companies like Whirlpool with narrower lobbying agendas, and who publish their annual tax credit benefits in shareholder disclosure reports, are easier to track.

In addition to seeking tax breaks, corporate lobbyists also seek to protect favorable elements that are already baked into US tax policy. Private equity firms, for instance, fight each year to defend the tax treatment of “carried interest’’ payments for investment managers. Those payments are treated as a capital gain by the Internal Revenue Service, and thus taxed at a much lower rate, 20 percent in 2013, than the top income-tax rate of 39.6 percent.

The best-known example of a millionaire benefiting from “carried interest’’ tax treatment was Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, who reduced his individual tax rate to below 15 percent by applying the provision to his extensive Bain Capital profits.

The publicity surrounding Romney’s tax returns fueled an onslaught by critics. The private equity industry’s trade group and the nation’s largest firms spent close to $28 million on lobbying in 2011 and 2012, according to public records. So far, they have won — a benefit that the Obama administration has estimated is worth at least $1 billion over two years. The return on investment for maintaining the status quo on the carried-interest tax rate over two years was at least 3,500 percent.

The returns show how cheap it is, relatively speaking, to buy political influence.

“It’s an end run around policy, and that makes it very efficient,’’ said Raquel Meyer Alexander, a professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia who has examined the investment returns on lobbying. “Firms that sit on the sidelines are going to lose out. Everyone else has lawyered up, lobbied up.’’

Critics lament that fiscal combat between Republicans and Democrats is preventing serious reform of the business tax code.

“What we’re doing is running a Soviet-style, five-year industrial plan for those industries that are clever enough in their lobbying to ask all of us to subsidize their business profits,’
’ said Edward D. Kleinbard, a former chief of staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation and now a law professor at the University of Southern California.

“These are perfect examples of Congress putting its thumb on the scale of the free market,’’ he said. “I’ll be damned if I know why I should be subsidizing Whirlpool.’’

Congress has the opportunity every two years to stop doling out a good portion of these favors. A peculiarity of many special tax breaks is that Congress places “sunset’’ provisions on them.

Some observers say passing temporary tax breaks gives lawmakers an ongoing source of campaign funds — from companies that are constantly trying to curry favor to get their tax credits renewed. Others say it’s because making these tax rates permanent would require a 10-year accounting method — a step that would show how much each provision is truly costing taxpayers.

Whatever the reason, Congress has made many of them quasi-permanent, by simply extending them again and again.

“It’s the same cowardice that Congress has on everything. They don’t want to be truthful about what they are doing,’’ said Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and persistent critic of government waste and special deals in the tax code.

Coburn voted against the raft of “extenders’’ when they were previewed and approved by the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing in August 2012. He offered amendments to strip individual tax breaks out of the package — including the high-efficiency appliance tax credit for Whirlpool and GE — but they were shot down by the majority Democrats on the committee, led by chairman Max Baucus, of Montana.

“It’s not about tax policy, it’s about benefiting the political class and the well-connected and the well-heeled in this country,’’ Coburn said in an interview. “We’re benefiting the politicians because they get credit for it. And we are benefiting those who can afford to have greater access than somebody else.’’

Whirlpool pursues its Capitol Hill agenda from an office suite it shares on the seventh floor of a building on Pennsylvania Avenue that is loaded with similar lobbying shops and sits just a few blocks from the Capitol. Across the street, lines of tourists wait to view the original Declaration of Independence and the Constitution at the National Archives.

Whirlpool and other appliance manufacturers won tax breaks for producing high-efficiency washing machines, dishwashers, and refrigerators in 2005, as part of a sweeping package of energy incentives approved by the Republican-controlled Congress.

But that victory was just the beginning of a prolonged effort. Whirlpool and other appliance manufacturers must perpetually work to win renewal of their credits every two years or so. In recent years, the company has spent around $1 million annually on lobbying, up from just $110,000 in 2005.

The fiscal cliff legislation represented the third time the appliance tax credits were included in a tax extenders bill.

Defending the credits has become easier, said a person who has participated in Whirlpool’s lobbying efforts. The extenders, this person explained, is an interlocking package of deals, each with a particular senator or representative demanding its inclusion.

“Some of it is the inherent stickiness of something that is already in the tax code,’’ said the person, who was not authorized to speak about Whirlpool’s efforts and requested anonymity. “If they open Pandora’s box and start taking things out, it’s politically very difficult.’’

The paradoxical posture of senators of both parties was on full display at the hearing last summer of the Senate Finance Committee to consider the most recent package of tax extenders. Some members lamented the system of doling out tax breaks, pledging to reform the corporate code, even as they defended individual items in the legislation and voted to approve it.

The senators said they wanted to provide stability and predictability for businesses that had come to rely on the temporary provisions to stay afloat and retain workers.

They did make an effort to trim the package: Some 20 provisions were left on the cutting room floor, according to data cited in committee. The panel ultimately approved the bill with a bipartisan, 19-to-5 majority.

Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, went to bat for Whirlpool and other companies who she said are creating next-generation appliances that save water and electricity.

“We have one of those major world headquarters in Michigan — and it’s amazing what they are doing,’’ she said. “Right now, we are exporting product, not jobs,’’ she added, without mentioning Whirlpool’s Arkansas plant closure last year.

Former senator John F. Kerry, another member of the committee, said certain industry sectors need temporary tax subsidies. Oil and gas companies, Kerry explained, benefit from permanent tax breaks in the law, while the wind, solar, and other alternative energy interests are forced to come to Congress “hat in hand’’ every two years.

Coming “hat in hand’’ in this context means deploying teams of lobbyists, mostly former Capitol Hill aides. They left their government jobs with an understanding of the tax code and, working in the private sector, are able to leverage their political connections to gain access to congressional leaders and staff.

Among the busiest and most influential of these tax-lobbying teams is Capitol Tax Partners, a firm headed by Lindsay Hooper, and his partner, Jonathan Talisman. Hooper served as a tax counsel to a senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee in the 1980s. Talisman held the post of assistant treasury secretary for tax policy during the Clinton administration. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Capitol Tax Partners lobbied on behalf of 48 companies in 2012, according to its mandatory disclosure reports. That client roster includes a bunch of companies that won tax breaks in the fiscal cliff bill: Whirlpool (energy-efficiency tax credits), State Street Bank (tax treatment of offshore investment income), and the Motion Picture Association of America (tax breaks for domestic film production), to name a few.

In Whirlpool’s case, Capitol Tax Partners and other boutique tax lobbyists helped the company win access to key lawmakers, said the person who has participated in the company’s lobbying efforts.

“There is a certain amount of door-opening and phone-call-answering quality of some of these firms that can be useful to make sure that you are getting your message to the right person at the right point in time,’’ the person said. “But on the substantive issues, these were done by the energy-efficiency advocacy groups and the companies themselves.’’

After the Senate Finance Committee approved the tax extenders package last summer, it remained uncertain when it would materialize on the Senate floor for a final vote. Insiders kept their eyes peeled as the rancorous debate over the fiscal cliff — whether taxes would rise on the middle class wealthy — drowned out any voices discussing corporate tax reform.

Nothing was certain, until majority Democrats rolled out their bill on New Year’s Eve. With tax increases for the rich included, it would raise $27 billion in new revenue in 2013. The Obama administration trumped that figure as helping to reduce the deficit
.
0 Comments

March 15th, 2013

3/15/2013

0 Comments

 
IF YOU DO NOT MAKE RULE OF LAW THE TOP ISSUE IN VOTING FOR A CANDIDATE YOU WILL SEE MORE AND MORE CORRUPTION AND CRIME TAKING BOTH GOVERNMENT MONEY AND OUR MONEY!!!!!!

THIS IS THIRD WORLD JUSTICE PEOPLE!!!!


DOES A MOVEMENT LIKE ZEITGEIST  PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP REALLY ALLOW THE INDUSTRY PROMOTING IT TO REMAIN RIFE WITH FRAUD?


We all know sustainability is a good policy.  We all know we live at a time where corporate fraud is systemic and that this fraud is always rapped in the cloak of do-gooding.  Some good will come from this green movement but sadly most of the money is already going into the pockets of these same developers and investment bankers.  Anyone who looks for a new home may look at a 'green home' for value.  It costs more in many cases but you get the money returned in savings over years. Here is the problem.....the builder received all kinds of tax breaks and grant incentives to build green, from building supplies, to buying the land, to rehabbing homes in blighted neighborhoods where the property was literally given to them, to the very investment in building green.  EVERY SINGLE STEP IN THE GREEN PROCESS IS HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED AND THE END PRODUCT ALWAYS COSTS THE CONSUMER MORE.

Do you think a builder would build green without the incentives?  Most people who can afford to buy houses know buying green is good and want to buy green.  So why do you have to subsidize the industry in order to get them to build green?  YOU DON'T.....THEY JUST DO IT AS A GIVE-AWAY.  What about these new b-corporations that are businesses built on the policy of being green and getting to write it off their taxes.  If the new economy is all about greening do you need to give tax credits to companies simply for working on green issues?  NO, IT IS SIMPLY ANOTHER WAY TO END CORPORATE TAXATION.  The entire green industry is self-built to move massive amounts of public money through fraud to corporations.  SOUND FAMILIAR?

Below you will see some of what has been existing for years with no attempts by justice to staunch the crime.  Even the agency charged with monitoring and providing BEST PRACTICES in the Green Industry has been sited time and again for lack of oversight and duplicity in fraud.  This is LEEDS  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.  I have read for years how LEED buildings were found to be less than environmental and failing certification specs time and again.  It operates just like the financial regulators who worked with the banks to commit the fraud.


WE ARE ONCE AGAIN LOSING MOST OF THE PUBLIC MONEY INVESTED INTO WHAT SHOULD BE A GREAT PUBLIC POLICY TO FRAUD!!!!


THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE WE HAVE THIRD WAY CORPORATE POLITICIANS WORKING FOR CORPORATE WEALTH HEADING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES NEXT ELECTIONS!!!!!



Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

From Wikipedia, (February 2013)

Receiving a Gold LEED rating in September 2011, the Empire State Building is the tallest and largest LEED certified building in the United States and Western Hemisphere.[1] The Gold and Platinum rating of David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, is the first and only convention center in the world to have such certifications.[2] 1225 Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., is the first redeveloped office building on the U.S. East Coast to receive LEED Platinum status.[3] Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh has multiple LEED certifications, including the world's only Platinum-certified greenhouse[4] and a Platinum-certified and net-zero energy Center for Sustainable Landscapes.[5] The University of Texas at Dallas Student Services Building is the first academic building in Texas to receive LEED Platinum status.[6] Shearer's Foods plant in Massillon, Ohio is the first food manufacturing plant to receive LEED Platinum status.[7] Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and spearheaded by Robert K. Watson, Founding Chairman LEED Steering Committee from 1995 until 2006, LEED is intended to provide building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

Since its inception in 1998, the U.S. Green Building Council[8] has grown to encompass more than 7,000 projects in the United States and 30 countries, covering over 1.501 billion square feet (140 km²) of development area.[9] The hallmark of LEED is that it is an open and transparent process where the technical criteria proposed by USGBC members are publicly reviewed for approval by the almost 20,000 member organizations that currently constitute the USGBC.

The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) was established by USGBC to provide a series of exams to allow individuals to become accredited for their knowledge of the LEED rating system. This is recognized through either the LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) or LEED Green Associate[10] (LEED Green Assoc.) designation. In 2011 GBCI named the organization's first class of LEED Fellows, the highest designation for LEED professionals. GBCI also provides third-party certification for projects pursuing LEED.

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We see fraud in how taxes are paid and grants and credits are requested.  We see fraud in builders selling homes as green when they aren't.  We see fraud in business start-ups that go nowhere and are found not to have a viable business plan.  We see securities fraud over green and corporate tax loopholes made just for phony-green.  THIS IS YET ANOTHER TRILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY IN FRAUD ALL BY THE SAME PEOPLE ENRICHED FROM THE LAST FRAUDS THAT WENT UNACCOUNTED.


Green Product Fraud: Buyer Beware Real Estate News   |  Dec 3, 2008   |  By: Audie Chamberlain  |    Prev | Next

Going green is good for the planet and can be good for your pocket book too. However, beware of businesses ready to take advantage of your new Earth-centric enthusiasm. Green-washing describes this practice and Jim Walker describes the warning signs of a fraudulent green product. Having a hard time being festive and energy conscious? Cut back on your holiday electric bill with a green tip from Marti Boetthcher.

Beware of Green-washing
By Jim Walker III
“Despite the U.S. governments efforts to provide guidelines for green produce marketing, the practice of Greenwashing, or the falsely promoting or exaggerating the greenness of a product or service, is not unusual.  In making the determination as to the claim to be green, one can ask the following questions to help detect potential greenwashing situations.”


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ENVIRONMENTAL BUILDING NEWS

October 14, 2010

USGBC, LEED Targeted by Class-Action Suit            


Henry Gifford, whose lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against USGBC, has been an outspoken LEED critic since 2008.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and its founders have been named as defendants in a class action lawsuit filed in federal court. Filed on behalf of mechanical systems designer Henry Gifford, owner of Gifford Fuel Saving, the lawsuit was stamped on October 8, 2010 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Among other allegations, the suit argues that USGBC is fraudulently misleading consumers and fraudulently misrepresenting energy performance of buildings certified under its LEED rating systems, and that LEED is harming the environment by leading consumers away from using proven energy-saving strategies. Alleged fraud and deceptive practices The suit alleges that USGBC’s claim that it verifies efficient design and construction is “false and intended to mislead the consumer and monopolize the market for energy-efficient building design.” To support this allegation Gifford relies heavily on his critique of a 2008 study from New Buildings Institute (NBI) and USGBC that is, to date, the most comprehensive look at the actual energy performance of buildings certified under LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations (LEED-NC). While the NBI study makes the case that LEED buildings are, on average, 25%–30% more efficient than the national average, Gifford published his own analysis in 2008 concluding that LEED buildings are, on average, 29% less efficient. A subsequent analysis of the NBI data by National Research Council Canada supported NBI’s findings, if not its methods. (Commentary questioning the respective statistical approaches of both the original study and Gifford’s analysis appears in this BuildingGreen.com blog post by Nadav Malin, president of EBN’s publisher BuildingGreen.) Using that study and USGBC’s promotion of it, the suit alleges fraud under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, among other statutes. Gifford’s suit demands that USGBC cease deceptive practices and pay $100 million in compensation to victims, in addition to legal fees. Under the Lanham Act, the suit repeats the same concerns in alleging deceptive marketing and unfair competition. Other allegations include deceptive business practices and false advertising under New York State law, as well as wire fraud and unjust enrichment. Class-action suit By having his lawyer, Norah Hart of Treuhaft and Zakarin, file a class-action lawsuit, Gifford is not only claiming that he has been harmed by USGBC, but that he is one of a class of plaintiffs that have been harmed. According to the suit, those plaintiffs include owners who paid for LEED certification on false premises, professionals like Gifford whose livelihoods have allegedly been harmed by LEED, and taxpayers whose money has subsidized LEED buildings. The class action approach may be technically difficult to pursue in this case, says lawyer Shari Shapiro in an article on her green building law blog. Among other things, Shapiro notes that in a class action suit it is relevant whether, among other things, “the plaintiffs are enough alike so that their claims can be adjudicated together” and “whether the lead plaintiffs adequately represent members of the class.” Given the variety of plaintiffs Gifford is trying to represent, that may be hard, she says. Shapiro, assuming that Gifford has benefited from the green building wave, even questions whether Gifford has even been harmed, as he would have to be to take part in the lawsuit. However, Gifford told EBN that there’s no question about that. “Nobody hires me to fix their buildings,” he said. Though not an engineer, Gifford is respected in energy efficiency circles for his technical knowledge. He told EBN that he has lost out because owners are fixated on earning LEED points, and he doesn’t participate: “Unless you’re a LEED AP you're not going to get work.” That’s unfair, he claims, because while USGBC says that its product saves energy, it doesn’t. Gifford says that his services actually save energy, and he’s prepared to prove it by sharing energy bills from buildings he has worked on. Whether many other building professionals feel the way Gifford does, and whether they’re willing to go on the record, will be one aspect of this case to watch. Gifford indicated that the response so far has been mixed. As he told EBN, “Everybody has the same response: thank you, thank you… let me know how it goes.” Was there fraud? If the case does move ahead, Stephen Del Percio, a lawyer and author of the blog GreenRealEstateLaw.com, told EBN that it will be challenging to litigate. “You can’t prove fraud just by circumstantial evidence,” he said. Even if the NBI study is false, that may not be enough. “You have to intend to mislead people,” he said. Gifford told EBN that he doesn’t have evidence that anyone at USGBC tried to mislead the public, but if the suit proceeds the discovery process could, in theory, turn up emails or other communications that support Gifford’s case. USGBC performance initatives Gifford’s complaints focus on the 2008 study and how USGBC publicized it, but they don’t appear to account for other aspects of LEED. Gifford focuses on buildings certified under LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC), but the scope of LEED-NC and other LEED rating systems is clearly distinct. LEED for Existing Buildings, launched in 2004, looks at actual building performance, and in 2006, USGBC announced that buildings certified under LEED-NC would have the option of being enrolled at no charge in LEED for Existing Buildings. In 2007 USGBC launched LEED for Homes. While that system focuses on design and construction of new homes, it requires on-site verification including blower-door testing during construction, helping ensure that construction practices follow the design intent. Although this final piece may be too late for Gifford and the contentions of his lawsuit, in 2009 USGBC began requiring reporting of energy and water data for new buildings certified under the newer LEED 2009, and it set up infrastructure to invite sharing of information from all LEED-certified buildings (see “USGBC Expands Data Collection from LEED Buildings,” EBN Aug. 2010). Through this effort, the Building Performance Partnership, USGBC hopes to offer special help to LEED-certified buildings that are not living up to expected performance, according to Brendan Owens, P.E., vice president for LEED technical development at USGBC. Although USGBC has generally played down the possibility because it doesn’t want to discourage participation in LEED, and energy reporting, CEO Rick Fedrizzi has suggested that non-performing buildings may lose LEED certification in one form or another. Despite these efforts, Gifford complained to EBN that “the green label gives the designer, the developer, the contractor and the owner the right to hold a press conference staying that their building is energy-efficient, while the LEED system guarantees anonymity” when it comes to reporting actual energy use. Why sue? Asked by EBN why he was motivated to go to court, Gifford said, “I’m afraid that in a few years somebody really evil will publicize the fact that green buildings don't save energy and argue that the only solution [to resource constraints] is more guns to shoot at the people who have oil underneath their sand.” In other words, he says he's hoping to make the green building movement more honest so that it’s not embarrassed down the road. USGBC told EBN that it was reviewing the litigation and would respond in due course. In addition to USGBC, other named defendants are David Gottfried, a USGBC founder; Rob Watson, who helped start LEED in the 1990s while working for the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Rick Fedrizzi, a co-founder and currently CEO. Responding to EBN’s request for comment, Watson said, “I can’t comment on ongoing litigation except to say that USGBC is examining the complaint. USGBC has confidence in LEED and in our role in stimulating positive market change.” Michael Italiano, the only key USGBC founder not named as a defendant, told EBN that while he hadn’t reviewed the case, “To me it sounds frivolous and it doesn’t have much chance.” He noted, “LEED doesn't guarantee anything, and I think LEED gives people the tools to understand that.” Owners who want to verify performance can enroll in LEED for Existing Buildings, monitor their energy bills, and take other actions, he noted. A lawyer and currently CEO of Market Transformation to Sustainability, a nonprofit behind green standards, Italiano said that lawsuits targeting standards that have allegedly constrained trade typically focus on lack of a bona fide consensus process of standard-setting. In the case of LEED, he said, a broad array of stakeholders has been involved in writing and reviewing LEED standards. Russell Perry, FAIA, of SmithGroup, agreed that if anyone thinks LEED for New Construction guarantees higher energy performance, they have the wrong idea. “LEED-NC is saying that a building has been designed to meet a certain standard, but there are many variables that go into the actual performance, only one of which is design.” Perry also noted that LEED includes a broad array of topics, only one of which is energy. Referring to climate change and other environmental and health issues, Perry added, “I don’t think that this kind of distraction helps us move the ball down the field.” – Tristan Roberts

October 14, 2010

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JUST LOOK AT THE VARIETY OF TAX BREAKS AND GREENING INCENTIVES OFFERED JUST IN BALTIMORE.  THERE ARE STATE AND FEDERAL BREAKS AS WELL.  NOW, WE ALL KNOW THAT MARYLAND AND ESPECIALLY BALTIMORE HAS ABSOLUTELY KNOW OVERSIGHT ON ANY OF THIS AND WE KNOW THAT THE FEDERAL JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WILL TURN ITS HEAD AS WELL. 

BALTIMORE'S MAYOR HAS STATED THAT MAJOR GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING IS NEEDED BECAUSE THE  CITY IS CLOSE TO BANKRUPTCY YET THE GIVING NEVER ENDS AS REGARDS DEFRAUDING GOVERNMENT COFFERS!



ANNOUNCEMENT
REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS
COMMUNITY ENERGY SAVERS GRANTS



Program Intent
The City of Baltimore has committed $1 million in Stimulus funds to a competitive grant program for community and
neighborhood organizations to reduce energy use. The Community Energy Savers Grant is designed to provide
community groups with technical assistance and financial resources needed to reduce energy use, either by their
organization or their target audience. These funds will further empower community and neighborhood organizations to
contribute to the goals of the Baltimore Sustainability Plan. Passed as City Council Ordinance in 2009, the Baltimore
Sustainability Plan (www.baltimoresustainability.org) outlines 29 goals, including a 15% reduction in energy use and
greenhouse gas emissions by 2015. We extend an invitation to eligible entities to apply for funds to help Baltimore
realize this vision for a sustainable future.
Eligible Entities
Community and neighborhood non-profit organizations are eligible to apply. Applicants must be a qualified 501(c)(3).
Eligible Uses
Three types of grants will be awarded.


Type 1 grants:
First, grants in the form of technical assistance will be awarded for applicants to conduct energy audits at their
facilities. The findings of these audits will help applicants prioritize energy saving upgrades and retrofits and can be
used as supporting documentation in subsequent grant applications for funds to implement such improvements. (If
your facility has not yet had an energy audit, applying for technical assistance grants may be a good first step.
Because there are three grant rounds, funds to implement improvements recommended in the energy audit can be
applied for in subsequent rounds.)


Type 2 grants:
Second, grants up to $50,000* will be awarded for applicants to implement recommended energy saving upgrades and
retrofits to their facilities and/or equipment. Results of a third-party energy audit and/or feasibility study including
analysis of projected energy savings must accompany proposals for upgrades or retrofits. Proposals for upgrades and
retrofits may include:
• Installation of insulation;
• Installation of efficient lighting,
• HVAC upgrades,
• High efficiency shower/faucet upgrades,
• Weather sealing,
• Purchase and installation of Energy Star appliances,
• Replacement of doors and windows, and
• Installation of solar powered, high efficiency appliances (this is different than renewable energy generation
devices such as photovoltaic panels).


Type 3 grants:
Third, grants of up to $50,000* will be awarded for applicants to conduct public education and outreach activities that
result in direct energy savings by their target audience. Proposals for public education and outreach activities may
include:
• Design and operation of energy efficiency and conservation programs,
• Identification of effective methods for achieving maximum participation and efficiency rates,
• Public education,
• Measurement and verification protocols, and
• Identification of energy efficient technologies.
* If your grant request is $25,000 or more, please explain how certified minority and women-owned business
enterprises will be involved in the execution of the project. A list of certified minority/women business enterprises can
be found at http://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/mwboo. In some instances, based on the proposal, a waiver may be
granted because of the nature of specialty work, the lack of availability of MBE/WBEs to perform the work, etc. If a
proposer thinks that it is impossible to utilize MBE/WBEs, an explanation must be included to support that position. In
identifying firms in the directory, proposers may use some of the following words in the Service Description Box:
green, LEED, lighting, sustainability, energy, solar, HVAC, and environment.
Evaluation Criteria
Proposals will be evaluated based upon:


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IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IT WOULD BE EASIER FOR MARYLAND JUST TO DO A BLANKET END TO CORPORATE PROPERTY TAX AS ALL THESE WAYS BUSINESSES NOW AVOID PROPERTY TAXES GROWS BEYOND MANAGEMENT.  BUSINESS TAX BREAKS HAVE BECOME A COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT DESIGNED TO PROVIDE COVER FOR ILLICIT USE!!

A LEEDS INSPECTION?  REALLY?


Incentives for Going Green in Maryland: Property Tax Credits Dino C. La Fiandra
incentives_for_going_green_in_maryland_property_tax_credits_2.pdf February 10, 2009 By now, you know that there are many good reasons to consider building or operating your building to an environmentally friendly “green” standard like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).  The so-called “sustainability dividend,” also known as the “green premium,” is the economic benefit to the developer/owner/operator of building or operating to a green standard.  Depending on the level of green achieved, the construction costs for a green project may run as much as six percent greater than construction costs for a comparable non-green project, perhaps even more.  Although building or operating to a green standard may foster a sense of altruism and social responsibility, particularly in a difficult real estate market the increased construction costs of a green building must be outweighed by the sustainability dividend of the green asset in order to make the green building an economically feasible endeavor. 

Some of the natural consequences of greening that we typically discuss include lower energy costs, increased rental occupancy, increased rents, reduction in water consumption, and increased market value/sales price of the real estate, among other items.  Tax incentives for greening, however, are equally important in considering and maximizing the anticipated sustainability dividend of a proposed green project.  There are numerous types of tax incentives offered to promote sustainable development.  This article focuses on property tax credits available under state and local law.  Other tax incentives exist and will be discussed in future articles.

Property Tax Credits

One of the primary ways that state and local governments encourage sustainable development is through property tax credits.  In Maryland, property taxes are regulated largely at the state level; however, these regulations are implemented and administered by local county and city governments.  Under this regulatory framework, the state has authorized the counties to provide property tax credits for green buildings and energy conserving green devices.  Maryland Code, Tax-Property Article, § 9-242 permits property tax credits for “high performance buildings.”  Under that section, a high performance building is one that achieves a LEED Silver rating or higher or a comparable rating under another appropriate rating system.  Section 9-203 allows the counties to grant a property tax credit for “qualifying energy devices” including solar and geothermal energy devices, and other energy conserving devices.  Under each section, the State allows the counties to determine the amount of the tax credit, the duration of the credit, and other particulars of the local regulations that implement the tax credit.  In accordance with this authority, several Maryland counties have granted these property tax credits.

Baltimore County

Baltimore County provides a property tax credit for buildings that achieve certain LEED ratings.  The amount and duration of the property tax credit is based on whether the structure is commercial or residential, the LEED rating system pursuant to which the building is certified, and the level of certification within the rating system.  For commercial buildings, Baltimore County recognizes three of the LEED rating systems: LEED-NC (New Construction/Major Renovation), LEED-CS (Core & Shell), and LEED-EB (Existing Buildings).  Residential buildings must be rated under LEED-H (Homes) In order to qualify for a property tax credit, the commercial building must actually achieve a LEED rating of Silver or greater within one of the recognized rating systems. 

The following table identifies the amount and duration of the property tax credit for commercial buildings:

Baltimore County Property Tax Credits For High Performance Buildings

LEED Rating System         Duration of Tax Credit      Level Achieved      Property Tax Credit (as a percentage of the total property tax assessed) NC (New Construction)

There are certain requirements and limitations for these property tax credits.  Predictably, a building may not receive more than one tax credit.  The Director of Budget & Finance may terminate a property tax credit if he/she finds that the building has been altered so that it no longer complies with the rating system that was the basis for granting the tax credit.  Finally, the application of the property tax credit must be filed on or before June 1 immediately preceding the first taxable year for which the credit is sought.

Howard County

Howard County has adopted a property tax credit system similar to that of Baltimore County, although there are important differences.  As in Baltimore County, eligibility for the property tax credit for commercial “high performance buildings” is tied to actually achieving a LEED rating of Silver or greater in the LEED-NC, CS or EB rating systems.  However, in Howard County, the Director of Inspections, Licenses and Permits may adopt by regulation equivalent rating systems, thereby potentially expanding the sets of rating criteria that would qualify for the property tax credit.  Furthermore, Howard County provides a back-up property tax credit for LEED certified buildings that do not qualify for the high performance building property tax credit.  Finally, as discussed more fully below, Howard County provides property tax credits for green homes in a manner completely independent of LEED certification. 

The following table identifies the property tax credit for LEED-NC, CS, and EB buildings in Howard County, as well as for buildings meeting equivalent criteria as adopted by regulation.  Under Howard County’s regulatory framework, these high performance buildings will typically be non-residential or multi-family buildings.  Residential buildings are addressed separately.

Howard County Property Tax Credits For "High Performance Buildings"

LEED Rating System                 Duration of Tax Credit     Level Achieved       Property Tax Credit (as a percentage of the total property tax assessed) NC (New Construction) or
CS (Core & Shell)

As noted above, there is a “back-up” property tax credit available for green buildings that do not otherwise qualify for a property tax credit based on the high performance building criteria.  For these buildings, the property tax credit is based on the level of LEED certification achieved and is in an amount equal to a certain percentage of the eligible costs associated with the acquisition and installation of an energy conserving device that receives a credit (point) under a LEED rating system.  Under Howard County’s current regulatory framework, this property tax credit would benefit the owner of a building that is rated under a LEED rating system other than NC, CS or EB, or the owner of a building that receives a LEED certification, but does not achieve the Silver or higher level.  The following table identifies the particulars:

Howard County Property Tax Credits For "Green Building Energy Conservation Devices"

Leed Rating System       Duration of Tax Credit     Level Achieved     Property Tax Credit (as a percentage of the Eligible Costs* of the
Qualifying Energy Conservation Device/s**) Any 3 years Certified



* “Eligible Costs” are those costs incurred within the 36 months preceding the initial application for the property tax credit, and include the costs of device itself, as well as those for any necessary parts, components or accessories, and installation.
** “Qualifying energy conservation device” means an energy conservation device that receives a LEED credit, including but not limited to a solar energy or geothermal energy device, that is utilized by a structure that achieves any LEED certification, regardless of level.  A qualifying energy conservation device is one that is used to heat or cool the structure, generate electricity for use in the structure, or provide hot water for use in the structure.

Lastly, Howard County provides a property tax credit for green residential buildings regardless LEED rating system or level of certification, if any.  This property tax credit is similar to the property tax credit for qualifying energy conservation devices discussed in the preceding paragraph and table in that it is based on the eligible costs of a solar energy device or a geothermal energy device used within a residential structure.  Unlike the credit for qualifying energy conservation devices, it is limited to solar and geothermal energy conservation devices, it is not tied to LEED or any other rating system, and it is not based on achieving any level of certification.  Eligible costs are limited to those incurred within the 12 months prior to the application for the credit.  The property tax credit is equal to 50% of the eligible costs, not to exceed $5000 for a heating system or $1500 for a hot water system.

Montgomery County

Like Howard County, Montgomery County's property tax credit program provides a property tax credit based on the level of LEED certification achieved.  Other factors that come into consideration include the gross floor area of the building, whether the building is residential or commercial, and the LEED rating system (or equivalent system) that provides the basis for certification.  The following table provides the details:

Montgomery County Property Tax Credits For "High Performance Buildings"

Building Type                                                                   LEED Rating System (or equivalent)    Duration of Tax Credit     Level Achieved      Property Tax Credit (as a percentage of the total property tax assessed) Newly constructed or extensively remodeled
non-residential or multi-family residential building
with at least 10,000 sq ft of gross floor area NC or CS


Like Howard County, Montgomery County also provides a property tax credit for qualified energy conservation devices, although they approach it a bit differently.  Montgomery County allows a property tax credit equal to 50% of the eligible costs of a solar energy device or a geothermal energy device, not to exceed $5000 for a heating system or $1500 for a hot water system.  In addition, Montgomery County provides a property tax credit of up to $250 per fiscal year for energy conservation devices such as programmable thermostats, insulation, and caulking and weather stripping for doors and windows.

Conclusion

Particularly during these tumultuous times in the real estate market, developers of green buildings need every advantage available to them to enhance the economic viability of green projects.  Other aspects of the “sustainability dividend” may soften, or may simply not appear.  For example, in a depressed market, increased rents and occupancy rates as compared to those of non-green alternatives may not be sufficient to make a green project feasible.  Developers interested in green projects may find that the tax incentives discussed in this article move such projects toward feasibility.  As the green revolution continues to take hold, perhaps more Maryland counties will provide similar tax incentives for green projects.

Practice Categories  Green Building and Sustainability


Tax Incentives Make Sustainability More Rewarding


All too often, businesses launch sustainability initiatives for good financial reasons but overlook tax incentives that could make their decision even more advantageous. Authors Howard Wagner and Scott Tarney explain why and how businesses should review their sustainability initiatives to take full advantage of the many incentives now available at the federal, state, and local levels. Howard M. Wagner, CPA, Scott Tarney, Crowe Horwath LLP (4-28-2009)
 
"Going green" is no longer just a matter of improving a company's image or fostering good community relations. In many cases it's also a matter of good economic sense. Most top managers today recognize the significant financial and strategic benefits that come with managing operations in a way that minimizes long-term environmental impact.

For a variety of reasons - including cost savings, customer expectations, competitive advantage, and logistical considerations - more and more companies are devoting time and resources to the effort to reduce waste, restrict or clean up emissions, decrease energy consumption, increase recycling, and shift to alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and biofuel.

If you are engaged in any program of this nature, there is a good chance your company is eligible to receive some type of incentive - probably several - from federal, state, or local governments. These incentives might take the form of property tax abatements, sales tax exemptions, income tax credits, discretionary grants, low-interest financing, or one or more of many other available incentive programs.

In many cases, companies are already undertaking these efforts for competitive or strategic reasons. As such, it simply makes sense for companies to structure such programs in a way that makes them eligible for any available incentives. The tax benefit, when combined with cost savings, competitive advantage, and the prestige of a green label, can help make sustainability more financially feasible.

Activities That Qualify for Incentives
What types of activities might be eligible for incentives? Literally hundreds of programs can qualify for advantageous tax treatment. Examples include:


•Installing pollution control equipment;


•Investing in energy-efficient buildings or components;


•Manufacturing products from recycled materials;

•Investing in systems to capture items from a company's waste stream for recycling or use by others;


•Undertaking environmental remediation activities;


•Adapting manufacturing or other processes to use alternate energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal wind, and biomass; and


•Producing alternative fuels for vehicles or using alternative fuels to power a company's own fleet.

The types of incentives offered to encourage such activities represent just about every type of government sponsored tax benefit imaginable, including investment-, production-, or consumption-based income tax credits; accelerated depreciation for certain capital expenses; property tax reductions or abatements; and exemptions from state or local sales taxes for the purchase of relevant equipment or components. What's more, the virtually endless list of incentives is constantly changing as some expire and others are added.

Federal Incentives
At the federal level, many sustainability incentives are fairly well-publicized.
High-profile examples include fuel credits for producers, sellers, and users of alcohol-based or biodiesel fuels in vehicles. Tax credits related to energy-efficient building design and construction are also fairly well-known, at least within their industries and in certain geographic regions. Examples include tax credits for installing equipment that uses solar energy to generate electricity or to heat or cool a structure.

Businesses are also eligible for an immediate deduction of expenses attributable to qualified energy-saving improvements to certain commercial buildings. The requirements for such incentives are, necessarily, detailed and technical in nature, but compliance is usually well worth the effort. In many cases, cost- and energy-saving equipment that makes long-term economic sense can be even more beneficial simply if it meets the requirements of the various incentive programs.

The array of federal incentives continues to expand regularly. The most prominent example occurred when the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was expanded to incorporate an entire section named the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008. This legislation, signed into law in early October 2008, extended several important incentives that were due to expire and introduced a new program to encourage the design and development of pollution control systems, alternative energy systems, and processes to capture excess energy from a manufacturing process.

The final legislation devotes nearly 150 pages of text to the extension, modification, and creation of new energy and emissions-related incentives. These range from tax credits for electricity produced from marine renewable resources, wind power, and geothermal heat pump systems to incentives for carbon dioxide sequestration, biodiesel and other alternative fuels, plug-in electric drive motor vehicles, idling reduction units for heavy trucks, alternative fuel vehicle-refueling facilities, energy-efficient commercial buildings and residences, and many more. The act also provides for accelerated depreciation for purchases of equipment used to collect, distribute, or recycle a variety of commodities.1•
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March 14th, 2013

3/14/2013

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IF 'SUSTAINABILITY' ONLY APPLIES TO YOU AND ME.....IS IT REALLY ABOUT SAVING THE EARTH OR IS IT ABOUT MAXIMIZING WEALTH AT THE TOP?




I will end my talk on Zeitgeist Movement as DAVOS by saying this.....if you read their bio they have created a mystique that rivals the ancient Greeks that this organization sprang from the ashes of the financial collapse from massive corporate fraud simultaneously around the world and has no one leader.....A CREATION MYTH FOLKS!  EVERY GREAT EMPIRE MUST HAVE A CREATION MYTH.  People who get rich by lying, cheating, and stealing are sociopaths not benevolent rulers so we know their goal is not what is best for the planet...it is what maximizes their wealth.


The new go-to word is 'Sustainability'....we have to save the planet.....and we do.  That is the tenet of Zeitgeist and it looks good on paper and indeed from Third Way corporate Obama to elite 1% Johns Hopkins there is a push towards 'sustainability'.  Living simply so people can simply live is the mantra of the 1960s.  Let's look at public policy to see who is walking the walk and who is just talking the talk.  Looking here in Baltimore, are policies that promote development having billion dollar corporations as anchors in a downtown with massive office complexes built right on the water's edge of a harbor we want to clean 'sustainable development'?  OF COURSE NOT, IT IS THE WORST OF DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES, BUT IT LOOKS PRETTY AND GIVES VIEWS TO THE RICH!!!  Does having a Brussels-style complex of wall-to-wall cement and buildings with global aspirations that is EAST BALTIMORE development having Hopkins running every business sector in the state meet the definition of 'living simply so that others may simply live'?  Does a health care reform that fails to address the driver of cost......fraud and waste.......and builds an industry surrounding 'preventive medicine', the very source of much of the fraud and waste, a 'sustainability' approach to health care?  Hopkins is driving this private system approach that builds all kinds of clinics, mobile transport units that serve as clinics, and a wellness plan that has patients coming in every three months to have their blood drawn and analyzed.......is that policy about 'sustainability' or profit.  What is the number one category of physical waste polluting the environment today?  MEDICAL WASTE.  Did you know that these national medical chains that are the  new private industry are all owed by the 1% and health care and education has been identified as the go-to industries for future profits ergo, this kind of health care reform?

THERE IS NOTHING SUSTAINABLE THAT THE 1% ARE DOING IN THE QUEST FOR PROFITS SO WHY ARE THEY SO CONCERNED WITH ORDINARY PEOPLE LIVING SUSTAINABLY?   THAT'S RIGHT.....IT'S ABOUT THE MONEY WE WILL NOT HAVE, NOT THE PLANET.

Who leads the push against all business regulation as regards environmental law and social justice law that seek to make business systems pay for polluting and forcing them into sustainable development and allows people the money to style their lives around environmental and health quality issues?  THAT'S RIGHT....THE 1% HAVE ELIMINATED ALL PUBLIC POLICIES THAT WERE BUILT JUST FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROTECTING THE EARTH AND EMBRACING SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP.  They do it for profit as it kills the earth.

I KNOW........HOW DIABOLICAL CAN SOCIOPATHS BE?


VOTE YOUR INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!



Now, this is the Brookings Institute definition for 'sustainability'.  I can just hear an executive telling a deputy to write this definition in Wikipedia.  It doesn't say anything about avoiding making the American midwest into a monoculture of wheat, corn, and soy just so these global agribusinesses can glean massive profits selling it to the government and shipping it to the third world rather than simply developing local farming in those locations.  This is one of the most destructive of policies as regards sustainability and yet, magically the Farm Bill subsidizes this same behavior with even greater profit for global agribusiness.  DID YOU HEAR THE ELITE INSTITUTIONS FIGHTING THIS POLICY?  THESE INSTITUTIONS ARE TOO BUSY BUYING ALL FERTILE LAND AND FRESH WATER SOURCES AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE MONEY STOLEN FROM YOU AND ME THROUGH CORPORATE FRAUD!!!

To end for today, I'd like to point to the current practice of scooping the world's professional class and bringing them to the US as immigrant workers.  The sustainable thing to do is leave these future leaders in their countries to work towards development rather than expanding elite institutions into these countries after taking the leadership to America.  The entire idea of Best of the Best.....a Brookings Institute/Johns Hopkins public policy......IS THE OPPOSITE OF SUSTAINABILITY!!!!!!!!!

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES IN NEXT ELECTIONS!!!



Sustainability
From Wikipedia,

Achieving sustainability will enable the earth to continue supporting human life as we know it. Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions.

Healthy ecosystems and environments provide vital goods and services to humans and other organisms. There are two major ways of reducing negative human impact and enhancing ecosystem services and the first of these is environmental management. This approach is based largely on information gained from earth science, environmental science and conservation biology. The second approach is management of human consumption of resources, which is based largely on information gained from economics.

Sustainability interfaces with economics through the social and ecological consequences of economic activity. Sustainability economics involves ecological economics where social, cultural, health-related and monetary/financial aspects are integrated. Moving towards sustainability is also a social challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles and ethical consumerism. Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from reorganising living conditions (e.g., ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture), or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy and sustainable Fission and Fusion power), to adjustments in individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources.


___________________________________________________
The Sun does do some investigative journalism that gives the power base a slap of reality every now and then,  but it is a propagator of the BEST of the BEST world-class city design driven by Third Way global corporations.  Listen to this parody below...it is great.  We are being sold the idea that innovation and attracting rich businesses are the only way to grow this industrial city filled with blue collar working families.  Now, another way to go which would be the 'sustainable' approach is take all those billions of dollars being used to build a mirror of Manhattan and build small community businesses.....YOU KNOW, THE REAL ENTERPRISE ZONE CONCEPT!!!!!  I thriving downtown of small businesses and business owners that are the very blue-collar working class now unemployed is the sustainable approach......it isn't the maximizing profits approach that drives Baltimore's development.  IT IS HYPE FOLKS.....THIS ENTIRE IDEA OF SUSTAINABILITY THAT LEAVES GREAT WEALTH DOING ALL THAT IS UNSUSTAINABLE WHILE SELLING SUSTAINABILITY TO YOU AND ME!!!

SINCE WHEN DID MASSIVE PUBLIC DEBT INCURRED WHILE GIVING MASSIVE PUBLIC MONEY TO MASSIVELY WEALTHY DEVELOPERS BECOME SUSTAINABLE?????



Put on the red ink

Baltimore Sun  Our view:

The mayor's attempt at a 10-year fiscal plan is generating suspicion, but such an exercise is necessary if Baltimore is to thriveFebruary 19, 2013Anger at actions by Baltimore's mayors has taken various forms over the years, but rarely has it manifested itself in a music video. But on Feb. 11, the day Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was to give her State of the City address and outline some of her ideas for coping with the dire fiscal forecast consultants predicted for the city over the next decade, the Baltimore City Paper posted on its website a full-length parody of the Police classic "Roxanne," entitled "Stephanie (you don't have to put on the red ink)".

The effort is clever and impressively carried out, and it reflects an undercurrent of suspicion among city activists. Some doubt the reality of the 10-year fiscal forecast and question the mayor's motives in following it up with ideas like changes to municipal pensions and a trash collection fee. The song asks how the consultants could have come up with such gloomy predictions for a city that has not regularly audited its own departments and reiterates common complaints that Baltimore gives away too much in tax breaks for well-heeled developers. Others have asked why the city would spend more than half a million dollars on consultants in an effort to figure out how to save money, particularly given that Baltimore already employs an entire department of finance.

In general, the sense seems to be that Ms. Rawlings-Blake dropped this report out of nowhere, and she must be up to something.

But what, exactly? What does a Democratic mayor in a Democratic city and state have to gain by highlighting the need to reduce spending — particularly the cost of benefits for unionized employees? What does any politician have to gain by highlighting the fiscal problems of the government she leads and then proposing a variety of unpopular ways to address them? And just what did people think was going to happen when, 18 months ago, Ms. Rawlings-Blake announced that she intended to develop a 10-year plan to deal with the city's chronic budget shortfalls?

The mayor could have continued patching the budget together every year with chewing gum and baling wire, but she has chosen to seek a more sustainable path — and one that could allow the city to invest in the kinds of things that will help it grow. In that context, the cost of bringing in outside experts from Public Financial Management Inc. is insignificant (though, for the record, already-implemented PFM recommendations for changes to city health benefits are saving Baltimore $20 million a year).

The way Ms. Rawlings-Blake has rolled out the consultants' report and her recommendations may be responsible for some of the unease. First she released a report detailing the scope of the problem, then she provided a few details of her plans to address it in her State of the City address, and tomorrow she intends to release the consultants' full report, plus her own action plan. To some, that feels like we're getting set up.

In truth, though, the release of the report is and should be just the beginning of a conversation with city residents and other stakeholders about how best to proceed. The consultants came up with more than 100 recommendations for ways to improve the city's finances and its competitiveness, and the mayor intends to pursue them over the course of the next two years or more. This is a long-term effort that should be judged not by how it is being introduced but by how well the administration listens to the ideas and concerns of the community and other elected officials as it translates Ms. Rawlings-Blake's ideas into legislation in the months and years ahead.

But the mayor should certainly not be blamed for wanting to do something more than manage the slow decline of a great American city. We could go on hoping that gradual improvements to the crime rate or schools, or knocking an occasional penny from the property tax rate, will spark a sudden turnaround in Baltimore's fortunes — or we could embrace the reality that the time has come to try a new strategy. The city schools have taken the latter course with their ambitious reconstruction plan, and now the mayor is following suit. Some of the ideas she will present tomorrow will probably be good, some may turn out to be bad, and others will likely emerge from the conversation that will follow. But if we want Baltimore to thrive, it is an effort worth making.

_______________________________________________

Modus Operandus of Baltimore Development is that Johns Hopkins as leader of development gives these billion dollar corporations whatever they want complete with Enterprise Zone designation and ring-fence all tax revenue in exchange for 'charitable donations' that give Hopkins grants for LaCrosse Museums, facilities infrastructure, and affiliated 'public' schools and their athletic fields.  NONE OF THIS IS SUSTAINABLE.  Here you see a green light for a plan that should have had a downtown full of empty and blighted office buildings in the downtown corridor being axed for waterfront development that takes more and more of the waterfront and privatizes it with worthless office buildings.  Exelon as a merger deal had to be in the city so we didn't need to make these concessions to keep their business.  Is it 'sustainable' to allow a corporation to bring an entire management staffing from another region while firing 600 existing management staff already living locally?  NONE OF THIS IS ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY!!!!!!


Exelon lays out plans for new Baltimore headquartersPreliminary design calls for 22-story skyscraper at Harbor Point
A rendering of Exelon's Baltimore headquarters is pictured. (Handout photo )February 08, 2012|By Hanah Cho, The Baltimore Sun

Exelon Corp.'s new headquarters in Baltimore is designed to be a glassy, 22-story skyscraper, similar in style to the Legg Mason tower, which would be a neighbor on the Harbor East waterfront, according to preliminary designs revealed Wednesday.

The building would be part of the $250 million first phase of the 27-acre Harbor Point development, which would also include a central plaza, a headquarters for U.S. Lacrosse, a six-acre waterfront park and an apartment tower, said Michael Beatty, president of Harbor East Development Corp.

Plans for the new building were released a week after Exelon picked Harbor Point over sites in the city's traditional downtown district. The choice disappointed some local business leaders, who had hoped the Chicago-based energy giant would settle on a location in the area around Pratt and Light streets.

Exelon is seeking to acquire Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group in a $7.9 billion deal that still requires regulatory approvals. The Maryland Public Service Commission is expected to make a decision by Feb. 17.

The old McCormick and Co. site at Light and Conway streets and Baltimore City Community College's Bard Building at Lombard Street and Market Place were among the top spots considered by Exelon officials.

Speaking during a presentation on the 24th floor of the Legg Mason tower, which overlooks Harbor Point, Exelon's senior vice president of corporate affairs said the site was the best choice for the combined companies' power-selling and renewable energy businesses.

"We wanted to create a presence and make a statement that we are … here for the long term," Calvin Butler Jr. said.

Butler also said that Harbor Point provided an opportunity to expand, and that Exelon appreciated the developer's record of constructing high-rises on schedule. Exelon hopes to move into the building in 2014.

Exelon is expected to spend around $120 million for a long-term lease that could range from 15 to 20 years.

Beatty, who repeatedly said that Harbor Point was a part of downtown, brushed aside criticism of Exelon's decision to build at the site instead of in the city's traditional business district.

"We're all part of the same city," said Beatty, whose company built the Legg Mason tower and the surrounding Harbor East neighborhood.

Laurie Schwartz, executive director of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, said the city was big enough for various types of development.

"I think that downtown is very resilient and [that] some people suggesting that downtown lost its vibrancy is a bit of an overreaction over the move of one tenant," she said.

______________________________________________

So, if none of the development I've spoken of today has anything to do with sustainability, what is the purpose of the Baltimore Mayor's plan for SUSTAINABILITY?

I will speak tomorrow about what these policy actually do for the citizens of Baltimore vs the 1% driving these policies.


I want to point to one issue that drives me crazy.....growing food in the city.  Those of us who are urban gardeners know this:  the city's soil if so polluted from being an industrial city with millions of lead-based gasoline cars spewing toxic chemicals all around the city that the approach being taken on the cheap.....simply tilling empty lots and planting, or even raised beds made with soil brought from yet another contaminated location is BIZARRE.  It is an example of moving a policy forward towards a goal that has nothing to do with public interest and everything to do with society of the 1%.  I listened to a 'greening' presentation by a city greening organization that focused on the fact that all of the soil would need to be carted in from some far away place to assure uncontaminated soil.  HOW IS THAT SUSTAINABLE?  HOW CAN THIS FOOD GROWN IN BAD SOIL BE OK FOR PEOPLE CONSUMING IT?  WELL, IT IS THE POOR THAT WILL GET IT SO DON'T WORRY.  THEY NEED TO START  CREATING THEIR OWN FOOD SOURCE AFTER ALL.

I stopped by this block-sized urban garden in Washington DC, right in the thick of urban blight and asked that question....soil, car fumes, et al.......the executive of the non-profit pushing this gave me a glare that said 'HOW DARE YOU QUESTION WHAT YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO HAVE!'!!!  Listen, I can afford to go the WholeFoods as can she!!!



2010 Baltimore City
2010 Annual
Sustainability Report
2010 ANNUAL REPORT
STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE
MAYOR


Featured Article 2010 Annual Report

Baltimore City’s 2010 Annual Sustainability Report was released on April 16, 2011 as part of Baltimore Green Week’s EcoFest. The annual report outlines the progress made to date toward achieving the goals of the Sustainability Plan and highlights the great work underway to benefit the economic, social, and environmental health of Baltimore.

In the two years since the City Council adopted the Baltimore Sustainability Plan, a multitude of partners in a variety of forms and functions – community organizations, businesses, families, and schools – have continued to work to implement the goals of the Plan and make Baltimore a more sustainable place to live and work.

The Annual Report provides an opportunity to check in, renew our commitment, and celebrate our successes together as a community.  The structure of the Annual Report is based on that of the Sustainability Plan and provides both quantitative and qualitative measures of Baltimore’s efforts to forward Plan goals. For each of the seven theme chapters of the Plan - cleanliness, pollution prevention, resource conservation, greening, transportation, education & awareness, and green economy – the report features a success story from the past year.

The Report addresses each of the 29 goals by highlighting key facts, related 2010 efforts, and a few action items which individuals can take to help be part of the solution. Many of the partners in these efforts are listed along with their web addresses for more information at the end of the report. While these pages begin to tell the story of the great work underway, we recognize the sample endeavors included here do not represent an exhaustive list.

There are doubtless many additional organizations accomplishing valuable work throughout Baltimore. We encourage all entities in Baltimore to share how they help to achieve the city’s sustainability goals here at our website via the “Share your Success Stories” button on the homepage. We will use the projects and initiatives shared here to produce next year’s Annual Report

Thank you to the countless individuals and organizations that took action this past year to improve the quality of life and sustainability here in Baltimore!

To download a copy of the report visit: 2010 Annual Report






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    Author

    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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