(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
The controversy about Global Warming continues amongst Utah’s Legislators with HJR12, Climate Change Joint Resolution which passed the Utah House yesterday 56-17. The Resolution will now go to the Senate for review.
Here are some gems reported in the Deseret News:
Sponsor Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-Ogden, a dairy farmer….said some argue that if the Environmental Protection Agency goes forward with cap and trade on CO2, it could lead to a “cow tax.”
Then cows like his own could be measured for “belches” and other gases they produce, which in turn could lead to a head tax that would increase the cost of milk and meat to consumers.
“I believe in global warming,” Gibson said. “I believe in global cooling, in (weather) cycles. We’ve had an ice age, extreme heat,” but can humans, “in our everyday lives,” change the environment around us?
Instead, through inaccurate data and a general type of hysteria, the public has been pushed to make improper judgments, he said. And adopting CO2 cap and trade would be a diabolical mistake. Such action is really “an energy tax” that will harm all Americans, harm jobs in this country and likely have little or no effect on global warming.
Some representatives opposed to HJR12 have pointed out that EPA grants could be in risk of not being issued to Utah if it actually took the advice of the Resolution, putting on hold any research on clean air and funds for revamping school buses. But another representative had this gem:
But the idea that CO2 is somehow detrimental to humans, or to the earth, brought Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, out of his chair.
“CO2 does not give us red days” of air pollution warnings on the Wasatch Front, he said. “That is absolutely untrue.”
“First do no harm,” said Noel. And cap and trade will do great harm, he added.
The resolution would have no legal bearing. The sentiment, though, of “doing great harm” is a blind-sighted view to the harm that will continue to be done to all life on our planet if something is not done to protect it, making the things that these legislators opposed to Global Warming value in their lives moot.
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged climate change, environment, global warming, utah legislature
This was posted to Utah Legislature Watch by Eric Ethington from his blog PRIDE in Utah
UT Senate President Michael Waddoups
SLC – With the controversial “compromise” between the pro-human rights legislators and the extremist right-wing hanging in the balance, a closed-door meeting between leading Republican Senators ended with a slap in the face to Utah’s LGBT community.
Last week, Representative Christine Johnson and Senator Stephenson announced a joint bill saying that no pro or anti gay legislation would be run this year by either side, and a committee would be assigned to study the necessity of anti-discrimination laws over the coming year. Call it an olive branch to Utah’s ultra-conservative lawmakers, a way for them to finally recognize the suffering of their constituents while still saving face by claiming that they were unaware of the problems in Utah before the committee delivered their report.
But now, Republicans have denied even that. In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, Senate President Michael Waddoups announced that they would hold up their end of no anti gay legislation this session, but that he saw no need for a committee to look into anything this upcoming year. On top of that, he threatened the gay community against speaking up, saying any “offensive activities” would push the Republicans into drafting legislation against the LGBT community.
Um… excuse me?? The queer community in Utah is one of the most oppressed in the country, being one of the few states that does not even afford housing or workplace protections to its’ citizens. There’s barely a handful of supportive legislators on Capital Hill supporting their basic rights and he wants the gay community to shut up and fall in line? Their strategy is clear, Republicans are in essence buying themselves a free-pass for the year from the constant barrage of negative press for their dark-age views, while giving nothing in return.
Now, the LGBT community of Utah is rising and coming together again. Enough. We have had it with our state constantly spitting on us, of teaching our children that they have no human worth just because they’re born differently. We are thrown from our parents’ homes, shunned from our churches and communities, fired from our jobs, evicted from our homes, denied every possible right to our partners and now are told our suffering isn’t even worth taking a deeper look at.
Enough. We’re sick of being the whipping-boy for those law makers who care nothing that thousands of their constituents are being persecuted. Sit Down, Shut Up and Fall In Line? Never.
See more on Utah LGBT issues here.
(Please note sarcasm in last paragraph!)
H.B. 200 Informed Consent, which requires ultrasound images to be taken and then displayed to women seeking abortions, if they so choose [to see the images], has generated much controversy, as anything having to do with a woman’s right to choose does. This bill made it through the Utah House last week.
An article in the Deseret News has yielded some interesting comments from readers:
This law is a fairly transparent attempt to reduce the number of abortions by counting on pregnant women to change their minds after seeing an ultrasound of their living fetus. Naturally there are two ways to look at this: the pro-life view is that if a woman is confronted with graphic images of the fetus she can’t otherwise see, she will make an emotional decision against the abortion. The pro-choice view is that this is the equivalent of a protester standing outside the clinic with graphic photos of aborted fetuses — in other words, intimidation. Both views have some validity, which is why abortion is such a difficult debate in the first place. How many women will “choose” to see these images, is hard to say; whether any medical providers will somehow “show” the images to a woman without being asked is also hard to predict. And so the tug of war over a highly personal issue, between two equally passionate factions, with vulnerable, pregnant women in the middle, goes on and on.
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Legislature, please show some compassion to victims of sexual violence. Imagine if it was your daughter, wife or sister who was attacked. Would you still thrust this upon her?
These women CAN’T sleep at night. That is why they make the painful choice to have an abortion. This is a bill of re-victimization. Even in the cases where the pregnancy was just unplanned, it is not the government’s right to interfere with the woman or her doctor’s decision.
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What a complete WASTE of tax payers dollars and a HUGE WASTE of our State Legislatures time. We have so many other huge problems like our deficit and our unemployment crisis to fix. This bills only purpose is to try and make a woman change their mind as the congressman said in the article. To all Utah residents and to all the members of the Utah congress, abortion is LEGAL! Get used to it. I can’t wait to cast my vote this next election against any incumbent who voted in support of this. The abortion clinics should have the choice to support and install this in their facility, not be forced to. If this passes into law I hope the ACLU will fight this and get it overturned.
H.B. 200 does not provide complete disclosure to the woman seeking an abortion. While this bill is aimed in reality at attempting to have women change their minds about abortion (even after long and often painful thought into the decision), there are no provisions whatsoever to provide financial support by the government if the woman changes her mind. The “information” and “education” does not, for example, include the reality of the costs of raising a child; the emotional distress of giving the baby up for adoption and subsequently the legal rights of the birth mother to stay connected, or not, to the child; or parenting issues education. [Tongue in cheek] If state legislators are intent on making it difficult for women to make their own choices through a bill that legislates moral values, they should include in such a bill the financial obligation and commitment to support the woman and her child should she change her mind about having the abortion. “Informed” consent? Not really.
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged abortion, reproductive rights, utah legislature, wome's issues
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
Utah must look really crazy to the world right now. Members of a House committee passed a non-binding resolution to keep federal global warming laws out of the state.
ksl.com has posted a piece on the action today:
KSL.com on Utah Legislature view on climate change
The committee plans to take the resolution to the full House for a vote.
There are also many conservative Republicans who strongly believe global warming is a conspiracy to do something that would harm Utah. The resolution reflects this theory with strong words and a strong message.
For example, it claims perpetrators of “Climategate” often “incorporate “tricks” related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome.” The end result is what the resolution calls a climate change “gravy train.”
Along with scientific evidence, one only needs to look at things like the Hardiness Zone Map to see the the changes in climate over a period of years. (Oh, but wait! The Arbor Day Foundation are some of those “conspiracy theorists”!).
Global Warming is a very controversial issue with conservatives. The denial of global warming comes from the fact that the extraction industry would be heavily taxed and the profits would no longer be realized. The rich would become less rich and that just isn’t acceptable.
That’s the bottom line, and at the expense of our planet and all its life.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged climate change, environment, global warming, legislators, utah legislature
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
If one lawmaker has his way, Daylight Savings Time could be on its way out….of Utah, that is.
H.B. 288, Daylight Savings Time, proposes to exempt the state from observance of daylight saving time.
Quoted in a Deseret News Article, Rep. Kenneth Sumsion, R-American Fork says
“Over time, I’ve had so many constituents say they hate switching,” said Sumsion, who Wednesday introduced HB288.
There would still be 24 hours in the day. There would still be the same hours and minutes of daylight and darkness, depending on where the Earth is in its yearly trip around the sun.
“It’s a question of convenience and what we really want,” Sumsion said.
How would it be to not have to remember to “fall back” or “spring ahead”?
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
It is no secret that medical care is inadequate for inmates. Legislators have a history of not approving adequate funding for the care of those who are incarcerated. So when a bill is proposed that would save taxpayers money and still allow for inmates to receive medical care (under the provisions of the bill), you would think that Legislators would be happy, right?
Wrong. The insurance industry obviously has influence over legislators with this issue.
Yesterday the House shot down a bill that would permit inmates to use their private insurance to pay for their health care while incarcerated.
H.B. 22Inmate Health Insurance Amendments,would require the inmates’ private carrier to serve as the primary insurer while serving time in a state or county facility.
According to an article in the Deseret News,
House members voted against the bill, saying state taxpayers should pick up the cost, even if the inmate is insured.Opponents said during debate that the bill painted insurers as bad guys, when in fact the bad guys are the ones who broke laws that got them arrested and incarcerated. They also argued that the bill was anti-free market and smacked of government takeover of a private enterprise.
Interestingly, the article points out the amount of donations candidates received in the 2008 elections.
In the 2008 election, the insurance industry gave $313,311 to state-level candidates (including the Legislature, governor and attorney general), according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Insurance companies gave the second-most of any industry that year, outdistanced only by the securities and investment industry, which gave $614,207, according to the institute.
And big insurance companies lose few political fights in the Utah Legislature.
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, points out the cost savings to taxpayers with the passage of this bill.
The bill would save county jails more money than the state, with only a handful of felons in the state prison having outside health insurance. But a number of county jail inmates, who may be sentenced for several months up to a year, have insurance while incarcerated, Ray said.
"Taxpayers are getting hammered, and it’s time for insurance companies to step up and pay for what they’ve contracted for," said Ray just before his bill was voted down on a 30-44 vote.
This is just one example of how lawmakers are"incarcerated" themselves by big corporations….and at the expense of taxpayers and those in need of care.
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Tagged health care, human rights, jail system, legislators, medical care, taxes, utah legislature
For years I have been sharing my dream of action to end war with many people:
That people will "wake up" and begin mobilizing, en masse, to Washington, D.C. to demand an end to corruption, to war, to the crimes against humanity. Imagine the highways clogged with people traveling to the doorsteps of our nation’s capital, just having "awoken" from their sheep sleep, realizing that change must happen and that the only way to do this is to go to the heart of the problem.
Finally, someone is putting this vision to reality. Check out Peace of the Action a group whose mission it is to clog "business as usual" in D.C. on a daily basis until these demands are met:
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
Last week we reported on the impending signing of the Snake Water Valley Agreement by Utah’s Governer Herbert. The agreement would have given the go-ahead for a multi-billion dollar pipeline that would have allowed 50,000 acre-feet to be drawn from the Snake Valley Aquifer.
It now appears that Nevada’s Supreme Court ruling on the matter has stopped the signing of this agreement in its tracks
“This ruling significantly changes the landscape upon which our ongoing discussions have been based,” Herbert said. “It allows us to revisit the proposed agreement with the state of Nevada and ensure that our continued desire to protect Utah’s water interests and the environment is met.”
“This is a very important decision and a home run for the public,” said Great Basin Water Network coordinator Rose Strickland. “The Supreme Court followed the Nevada water law. If we follow the law and the science, there will be no misguided pipeline threatening the environment and economies of rural Nevada and Utah.”
Salt Lake Mayor Peter Corroon, candidate for Governor of Utah, is also opposed to the water agreement.
“Salt Lake County appreciates that Gov. Herbert has decided to postpone signing the currently proposed deal,” Corroon said. “In a state where water is at such an extreme premium, we need to protect it as much as possible.”
and here is what the editors of the Salt Lake Tribune have to say about it:
Now a lower court must decide whether the Southern Nevada Water Authority must file new groundwater applications or the state engineer must reopen the protest period. We presume that in either case, interested parties in Utah, including residents of Snake Valley, will have an opportunity to be heard by the Nevada state engineer.
We hope that this would lead to renewed scientific study of the aquifers beneath Snake Valley and others in this region. Experts suspect that withdrawing 50,000 acre-feet of water from beneath that valley, the amount SNWA has asked, would be unsustainable and could turn it and the neighboring valleys into a dustbowl.
Until this process plays out, Utah should not sign any agreement with Nevada.
Just because there is a delay in this agreement doesn’t mean it’s dead. There is still much work to be done. There are ways that citizens can get involved and have their voices heard. The Great Basin Water Network is a good place to start. The bottom line is to:stay engaged by
writing letters to the editor of your local newspapers, attend public hearings, comment on federal, state and local actions. Be an advocate for wise water use.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged environment, natural resources, utah legislature, water issues
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 