Tag Archives: ALEC

Renewable Portfolio Standards: GA, NC, and ALEC

Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS) are being proposed
in Georgia and ALEC is trying to do away with them in North Carolina.
If ALEC doesn’t like them, there must be something good about RPS.
Let’s get on with real renewable energy in Georgia.



In Georgia,

HB 503,
sponsored by Karla Drenner, Carol Fullerton, Debbie Buckner, Scott
Holcomb, Spencer Frye, and Earnest Smith,
would create a Renewable Energy Credits Trading program as part of
renewable portfolio standards,
as Kyle wrote for Spencer Frye’s blog 10 March 2013,

Let the Sunshine In.
Unfortunately, HB 503 includes biomass as a renewable energy source.
Maybe they just mean landfill gas, which I consider a special case
since it’s being produced anyway, and since methane is worse as
a greenhouse gas than CO2, burning landfill gas makes some sense.
Nope, in

the actual bill, 46-3-71 (1):

‘Biomass material’ means organic matter, excluding fossil fuels and black liquor,
including agricultural crops, plants, trees, wood, wood wastes and residues, sawmill
waste, sawdust, wood chips, bark chips, and forest thinning, harvesting, or clearing
residues; wood waste from pallets or other wood demolition debris; peanut shells; cotton
plants; corn stalks; and plant matter, including aquatic plants, grasses, stalks, vegetation,
and residues, including hulls, shells, or cellulose containing fibers

The barn door in there is “harvesting”, which can mean whole trees,
but the rest isn’t much better.
We don’t need to be burning things that increase atmospheric CO2
and end up stripping our forests.
In

North Carolina they staretd with just tops and limbs and then tried to escalate
to whole trees.
We already
fought off the biomass boondoggle here in south Georgia;
let’s not have it encouraged statewide.
Especially when we have better solutions: solar and wind power.
HB 503 isn’t going to get passed this year, since it didn’t make
crossover day, so maybe its sponsors can clean up that biomass mess
before they submit it again.

Speaking of North Carolina,

Continue reading →

Scorecard on Internet and Energy at the Bird Supper


Gretchen Quarterman, Dexter Sharper, Bill Slaughter, and others at the Bird Supper in Atlanta

On the 27th of February I posted

Internet and Energy at the Bird Supper
and Gretchen and I went to the Bird Supper in Atlanta and discussed
those four bills with legislators.
Our local elected officials were lobbying on the same side of many of
the same bills.
It’s past crossover day now, when bills are supposed to be
approved by one house of the Georgia legislature in order to be
taken up by the other.
How did that come out?
We all beat the mighty telcos and cablecos on two bills!
But Georgia Power is even mightier, and won on two bills.
Plus one legislator’s name is connected with 3 out of 4 of those bills.
And our local delegation cancelled itself out on the one vote
that actually went to the floor.

Internet Access: help stop two telecommunications bills

The local Industrial Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta City Council,
and Lowndes County Commission have recently realized that
fast Internet access is essential to attract businesses,
for their employees to work at home, for applicants to apply for jobs,
for students to submit assignments, and for general quality of life.
And there’s good news from the legislature!

Continue reading →

ALEC again: GA HB 176 for higher cell towers with less local government oversight



After
massive public opposition
just fought off

a subdivision near Moody’s gate,
do we want telephone cell towers popping up in Moody’s flight lines?

Trying to outlaw municipal broadband isn’t the only thing telecom
companies and ALEC are up to in the Georgia legislature:
they’re also pushing a bill for higher cell towers with less
local government control over height or siting.
Do you want one next to you without even an opportunity for a local government hearing?

Here’s what ACCG says about

HB 176,
renamed from ‘Advanced Broadband Collocation Act’ to
‘Mobile Broadband Infrastructure Leads to Development (BILD) Act’:


Cell Tower Siting Preemption Legislation Progresses

HB 176 passed a House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications
Sub-Committee on Thursday. Representatives from ACCG, Cobb County,
Gwinnett County, GMA and several cities expressed concerns on the
impact this legislation will have on local cell tower siting
ordinances. This bill significantly preempts local governments in
reviewing and approving applications for both the modification of
existing cell towers and structures (collocation) and the
construction of new cell towers and structures local communities. As
HB 176 is the top priority of the wireless industry this session and
is being backed by many other influential groups including the
Americans for Prosperity and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, it has
very strong momentum. Please have your county staff review the bill
and inform your House members of any negative implications it has on
your local zoning, land use or tower/equipment application review
processes. This legislation will likely be heard on the House floor
soon.

Guess who’s chair of the

Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications SubCommittee?

Continue reading →

National attention on GA HB 282 against muni broadband: needs GA leg. to vote it down

Another bad idea from ALEC already passed in SC and NC and is now in the GA
legislature, getting coverage in several national technical
and political blogs:

HB 282, which would effectively forbid
municipal broadband if any commercial carrier offers 1.5Mbps.
It's up for a hearing this week: time to call your state rep.

Timothy B. Lee wrote for ArsTechnica 14 Feb 2013,

Bill would ban muni broadband if one home in census tract gets 1.5Mbps:
Approach could leave some Georgia residents without a viable broadband option.



Incumbent broadband providers are pushing legislation that would
restrict Georgia towns from building municipal broadband networks.
Under the proposal, if a single home in a census tract has Internet
access at speeds of 1.5Mbps or above, the town would be prohibited
from offering broadband service to anyone in that tract.

State-level restrictions on municipal broadband networks are

Continue reading →

First ALEC, now Heartland Institute: losing sponsors

Heartland Institute, one of only two organizations to field a speaker

for
continuing Plant Vogtle delays and cost overruns
at this week's GA PSC hearing,
has been dropped by every pharmaceutical company.
When you're down to Heartland Institute and

renewable-energy-opposing
and

astroturf-funding super-lobby group ALEC,
itself
rapidly losing members (so bad
even Bank of America has dumped ALEC);
and when your public hearing speakers are 40 to 1 against continuing
with Southern Company and Georgia Power's nuclear boondoggle,
maybe it's time to end it.

Brad Johnson wrote for thinkprogress 19 December 2012,

Heeding Public Outrage, Pfizer Drops Climate Denial And Tobacco Front Group Heartland Institute,

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE) has confirmed that it will no
longer support the Heartland Institute, a political advocacy group
that questions the science of climate change and tobacco smoking.


Forecast the Facts, which is leading the

campaign calling on
corporations to drop Heartland, was informed of the decision by
Pfizer's Corporate Secretary Matthew Lepore. Pfizer was a major
donor to Heartland, giving $45,000 in 2012 alone.

Pfizer's decision means that there are no longer any pharmaceutical
companies known to support the Heartland Institute.

Pfizer's last contribution to Heartland was in 2012. Pfizer's
decision follows a groundswell of public outrage over the corporate
support for the Heartland Institute's toxic behavior, including a
billboard campaign that equated believers in climate change with
serial killers such as the Unabomber. Over 150,000 people have
signed petitions to corporate leaders to drop Heartland. Pfizer is
the 21st company to end its support for Joseph Bast's organization,
joining its competitors Amgen (AMGN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Bayer
(BAYRY), and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as well as major companies like
General Motors (GM), State Farm, and PepsiCo (PEP).

That’s the best you’ve got for support, PSC, and you’re pretending continuing
to let Southern Company and Georgia Power run up a bill of $billions is in the
best interests of the people of Georgia?

-jsq

Georgia statehouse and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Somebody wrote me a week or two ago:



I saw in todays paper Chip Rogers and other Senate leadership was changed yesterday.
Thank goodness!

Well, don't cheer too soon.
According to Jim Galloway in the AJC

15 November 2012,

"Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock withdrew his re-election
bid and endorsed Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, the governor's floor leader,
for the position."



Ronnie Chance is not only

also ALEC,
Chance is

the other ALEC state Senator
who put both the charter school amendment
and the multi-year amendment on the ballot.
Is this leadership "change" improvement?
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Why must we get fooled again?
When will the people of the state of Georgia get tired of government
by astroturf and elect some legislators who will represent the people?

-jsq

ALEC and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Why do I keep associating the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points
with ALEC?
Because ALEC's "our state legislators" were promoting them at Georgia's Capitol.


ALEC logo

Chip Rogers
Two out of three of
the Georgia legislators Jim Galloway named in

Georgia's own 52-minute video on the ‘Agenda 21’ conspiracy,
namely

Chip Rogers and Barry Loudermilk,
are associated with ALEC.

Senate Majority Leader (now former) Chip Rogers (R-21)
has been ALEC's State Chaimran for Georgia and received ALEC's
2011 State Chair of the year Award.
Surely you remember him!
Rogers

sponsored both misleading amendment 1 ("charter schools") and
misleading amendment 2 ("multi-year contracts") on this year's ballot.


Barry Loudermilk
Rep. Barry D. Loudermilk (R-14) is on ALEC's
Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force.
How convenient that Loudermilk is the

Secretary of the Georgia
Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee!

So there is at least a convergence of ALEC's "our state legislators"
and those pushing this anti-sustainability agenda.
This is not surprising, since ALEC is opposed to clean, sustainable energy,
as confirmed by

ALEC's own attempt to rebut that point.
A rebuttal that brought to light ALEC's phrase "our state legislators".

I see Loudermilk is a sponsor of a bill called the

Georgia Government Accountability Act,

Continue reading →

The real U.N. Agenda 21

What is this Agenda 21 referred to by the

anti-sustainability astroturf talking points
movie shown at the Georgia statehouse?


The real Agenda 21 is a typical U.N. set of do-good wishful thinking


documents adopted at a U.N. conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
If you think it’s been successful in actually implementing sustainability,
you haven’t paid attention this summer to the
U.N. Rio+20 successor conference from
activists actually interested in a sustainable economy.
Such pro-sustainability activists generally

bemoaned the lack of effective action in the intervening twenty years:
the climate continues to warm as almost every nation continues to burn
more fossil fuels.
The U.N.’s own Rio+20 document pretty much

relegates such concerns to a sideline to an expanding economy.

The U.N.’s intentions are good: this is a small planet with

Continue reading →

Anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

For many months I have been resisting requests from various people
(both pro- and anti-sustainability) to write about Agenda 21.
Why resist? Because I considered the anti-Agenda 21 campaign
a distraction from real issues.
Now that ALEC’s “our state legislators” have
made Georgia an international laughingstock over it,
I suppose it’s a big enough distraction to write about.
But the topic of this series is sustainability:
you know, exactly what the astroturf talking points are meant to subvert.
Sustainability is important, and we should talk about it.


Better Georgia: Agenda 21 Full Video from Bryan Long on Vimeo
Jim Galloway’s 12 November 2012 AJC article,

Georgia’s own 52-minute video on the ‘Agenda 21’ conspiracy,
notes that the video some of ALEC’s “our state legislators” chose to play
in the state capitol, like every other attack on sustainability that
uses “Agenda 21” as a key talking point, also includes this:

”The Delphi technique was developed by the Rand Corporation
during the Cold War as a mind-control technique. It’s also known as
‘consensive process.’ But basically the goal of the Delphi
technique is to lead is to lead a targeted group of people to a
pre-determined outcome…..”

The actual RAND Delphi study is

RAND logo

readily available on the web,
and it doesn’t say what Agenda 21 conspiracy buffs say it says.
Come on, conspiracy buffs: show me where the RAND study says its
goal is “to lead a targeted group of people to a pre-determined outcome.”
Nobody can show me that, because it doesn’t say that.

Galloway’s article says

ALEC’s “our state legislators”
were being taught that T-SPLOST was

Continue reading →

Most corrupt state sells public education to Waltons


Amendment 1 results
And it wasn’t even close:

2,152,091 to 1,526,959 (58.50% to 41.50%).
Lowndes County went for the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment
18,606 to 17,619 (51.36% to 48.64%).
The voters of Georgia just sold their children’s educational
birthright for a mess of slick brochures.


Amendment 2 results
The

other ALEC amendment, on multi-year contracts,
passed by

an even wider margin:
2,241,621 to 1,275,809 (63.73% to 36.27%).
Lowndes went for it 20,205 to 14,414 (58.36% to 41.64%).

Apparently Georgia voters will vote for any old thing that’s
submitted to them as a constitutional amendment.


Esau sells his birthright for a mess of pottage
Congratulations, ALEC and Wal-Mart!
You’ve demonstrated money talks and

slick brochures sell.
This was even better for you than

ALEC’s so-called anti-immigration law which the legislature passed
and

that actually devastates Georgia agriculture for
the profit of private prison company CCA.
This time you got the people of Georgia to vote directly against
their own best interests to the benefit of school privatizing
corporations in Virginia and Michigan!

Boo Georgia voters.
You’ve just given

the most corrupt legislature in the country
the ability

to commit you the taxpayers to contracts for decades.
And you’ve just traded your children’s educational birthright
for a mess of slick paper.

-jsq