Falmouth Citizen

Murder rates don't fall when guns are banned. Murder rates tend to climb when guns are banned. Those are the facts, people. A Sept. 13 report on crime statistics from the FBI shows that all violent crime rates dropped in 2009 – murder rates by 7.4 percent and robbery rates by 9 percent! John R. Lott, Jr., economist and author of "More Guns, Less Crime," credits President Barack Obama's election for causing gun sales to skyrocket and crime rates to plummet. This must tickle Lott a lot, since he was in college with Obama and treated frostily by him when Lott would try to convince Obama that guns weren't evil things. Read the rest of this entry »

When your beautiful town or city is an ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) city it is run by the UN! Utilizing organizations with no phone number, no business address, just a group of people joined to gather to dismantle local governments such as Conservation Trusts and Economic Development, overlay districts or comprehensive plans. Not the hard working tax payers that lives there. Vernal pools are just another way to negatively impact property, resulting in government confiscation and furthering the agenda to dismantle America furthering government control resulting in Socialism or worse. Read the rest of this entry »

Our nation got a look at the city of New Orleans this past weekend as the media marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s path of destruction. Most of the coverage centered on how much of the city has been rebuilt since that time, and whether or not the federal government has done enough to restore The Crescent City to its former self. I heard no discussions of a determination to avoid the corruption that led to the worst of the devastation. Read the rest of this entry »

The main characters in the story I am about to relate – bark beetles, white flies, aphids and even a gopher – could be stars of a sequel to the Pixar movie, "A Bug's Life." The only thing is: There's nothing to laugh about here, and unfortunately the tale is real and playing out in Sacramento County Superior Court instead of a Disney venue. Read the rest of this entry »

Falmouth Citizens should follow Arizona’s example and protest against any increases in utility bills.

Groups want utilities to fight emission rules that raise costs

by Ryan Randazzo – Jan. 8, 2010 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic

Stop Cap and Trade

Executives from several large, publicly traded electric utilities were greeted in Scottsdale on Thursday by a group of “tea party” protesters demanding that the companies fight global-warming legislation.

The protesters – Americans for Prosperity, the Scottsdale Tea Party and FreedomWorks – said that man-made global warming is not real and that utilities should reject new regulations on the emissions from their power plants that raise energy prices.

Inside the Fairmont Scottsdale, about 75 top executives from major utilities, including Arizona Public Service Co., conducted a private quarterly board meeting of the Edison Electric Institute, including a presentation from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson.

Edison represents about 95 percent of the shareholder-owned utilities in the country and supports legislation that would reduce greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants and other sources, so long as it limits price increases for electricity customers.

“We stopped debating the science of climate change many years ago,” Edison spokesman Jim Owen said. “The science issue is fundamentally settled. Let’s get engaged in the solution.”

Protesters said the utilities should use their vast financial resources to fight “the lies” that scientists spread about global warming, not embrace new regulations.

“Coal is clean, our technology is phenomenal,” said state Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, who addressed the crowd of about 60 protesters. “Those utilities should be helping us fight this battle and should not be saying to me the debate (over global warming) is over. It is bad science.”

Protesters held signs that read “Crooks are running the EPA,” “Carbon isn’t the problem, Congress is.” Some had flags depicting President Obama’s face over crossbones.

Protesters said proposed legislation in Congress regarding global warming is as important as the debate over health care.

“It is going to destroy business and the economy as a whole,” said Judy Hoelscher of Phoenix, who brought her daughters, ages 11 and 14, to the protest.

Officials from Arizona’s largest utility said they agree with Edison’s position on climate change.

“It’s not even a debate over whether the science is sound,” said Jim McDonald, a spokesman for APS, whose CEO is on the Edison board. “It is an acknowledgement that the issue is an important issue. We want to be part of the solution.”

In June 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and in October Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced a new, similar bill, although the issue appears to have taken a backseat to health-care reform.

The aim of the climate bills is to limit the amount of carbon dioxide and other emissions that cause global warming and let companies trade permits to release those emissions.

Over time, the pollution permits, or “allowances,” would be reduced to encourage utilities to switch to technologies like wind or solar or perhaps even nuclear power.

Advocates of a cap-and-trade system hope to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to avoid catastrophic effects of global warming.

Several groups analyzed what the House bill could cost the average U.S. household in higher energy bills and costs for goods and services that use a lot of energy.

“We believe there will be a cost, and our goal is to make the costs manageable,” said Owen, from Edison. “But we would not support a poorly designed bill, one we thought was unrealistic or that did not contain adequate safeguards for customers.”

APS estimates put the cost to its customers at $28 to $112 a year in 2012 if the House bill passed.

Estimates from Salt River Project, which is not a member of Edison because it is a municipal utility, ranged from $65 to $245 a year in 2012.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration concluded the legislation could cost the average household $83 annually, with costs as low as $59 and as high as $292. By 2030, the impact could be from $157 to $850.

How much it would cost consumers and affect the greater economy depends on how fast utilities can build nuclear plants or trap the greenhouse gases from coal plants; how they’ll be credited for doing things such as planting trees; and whether renewable-energy jobs like those at wind farms will adequately replace those lost at coal plants.

The Congressional Budget Office concluded that household expenses would rise $175 a year under the bill. That analysis found the lowest-income households would see an average net benefit of $40 a year, while the highest income homes would take a $245-$340 annual hit.

Activist groups that support a cap-and-trade program say the tea-party groups don’t give enough credit to the jobs that will be created at solar power plants and other alternative-energy projects.

“We can produce more energy than our state uses, and it could be a commodity we export to other states,” said Beth Pramme of Repower America in Arizona. “We could get out of our own state’s financial crisis.”

By Stephen Power

Cap and Trade

The annual winter meeting of the nation’s biggest shareholder-owned electric utilities is normally a snooze, getting little attention from outsiders. Not this year.

On Thursday, dozens of marchers — some toting signs with slogans such as “Welcome, Carbon Crooks” — protested outside the Edison Electric Institute’s annual board of directors meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., venting their fury over the industry’s efforts to help congressional Democrats on legislation that would cap U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.

“We’ve got rent-seeking industries trying to carve out a special niche and beat their competitors with government regulations,” said Tom Jenney, director of the Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a Virginia-based group that participated in the protest. Jenney’s group, joined by the Scottsdale Tea Party and FreedomWorks, a conservative group led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, says climate legislation passed by the U.S. House in June “would do serious damage to America’s economy and standard of living.”

The protests came on a day when the CEOs were hearing presentations from Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Sen. Lindsey Graham(R., S.C.), who has riled many members of his own state party by working with Democrats on legislation to control U.S. emissions…

James Owen, a spokesman for EEI, said the group’s members are working with Democrats on climate legislation “precisely because we are concerned about managing the costs of the transition to a low-carbon economy, and we continue to believe a comprehensive bill is the best way to manage those costs” while reducing emissions. The alternative, Owen said, is EPA regulation, which is likely to be far more costly.

While EEI didn’t endorse the House legislation, its officers worked with the bill’s sponsors on much of its fine print, and publicly praised the House for voting in favor of the bill.

Jenney said his group’s members “don’t really like taxes,” but that “if there’s going to carbon legislation, it should be along the lines of” a simple tax on carbon, with offsetting payroll tax reductions.

“There’s less chance for companies to carve out competitive advantages with a carbon tax than a cap-and-trade regime where the government is giving permits to favored companies,” he said.

Jenney said the protesters weren’t allowed onto the grounds of the Fairmont Scottsdale Hotel and didn’t have an opportunity to interact with the CEOs gathered inside the hotel. Instead, the demonstrators planted themselves outside the hotel, waving signs and encouraging passing motorists to honk.