Tag Archives: House

U.S. House rules privatize records of sitting Congress members

I don’t think those words mean what they think they mean.
“Official duty” and “personal property” generally are opposites,
but the U.S. House this month defined them to be the same.



Proposed by

Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy [R-CA-23],
and
passed 4:02 PM 3 January 2017
by

a straight party-line vote,
it’s

H.Res.5 – Adopting rules for the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress.

“(b) Records created, generated, or received by the
congressional office of a Member, Delegate, or the Resident
Commissioner in the performance of official duties are exclusively
the personal property of the individual Member, Delegate, or the
Resident Commissioner and such Member, Delegate, or Resident
Commissioner has control over such records.”.

Privatizing official records of Congress; what will they think of next?
This is Continue reading →

Musical chairs in local qualifying

Three out of five voting County Commissioners are not running again,
and one has already vacated his seat,
plus you have to have a playing card to keep track of who’s
running for the state Senate and House.



We already knew

State Senator Tim Golden was not running again,
and now we know who’s running for that seat:
Richard Raines (R),
who had said
two months ago he was not running again for
County Commission District 2,
Ellis Black (R) currently House 174, Bikram Mohanty (D) who ran last time and came close,
and John Page (R), who thus vacated County Commission District 5.

Because Ellis Black is running for Senate, and even though he
qualifed for his House District 174 seat Monday,
when he qualified for Senate Wednesday, he left his House seat open.
Running for District 174 are Crawford Powell (R), currently
County Commissioner for District 3,
Jessie Smith (D), and John L. Corbett (R).

The incumbents qualifed for the other House seats,
each with no challenger.

As for the three (3) County Commission seats now open,
here, read

Gretchen’s explanation.

And remember, more changes can still happen, because

qualifying has reopened for County Commission District 3,
and will have to reopen for District 5.

-jsq

Senate Farm Bill adds Rural Gigabit Amendment

The U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit
(1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks.


Our local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this,
if they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here.
Senator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district,

is already well along towards gigabit Internet.
Our three House members can help get south Georgia on the road to better
jobs, education, and health care through better Internet service.

Jennifer Reading wrote today for WCAX,
Leahy’s high-speed internet amendment passes,

What I want to make sure is that a rural area can compete the same
way an urban area can. It’s actually the argument, the debate that
went on before I was even born about whether you had rural
electricity, rural telephone or not and if we hadn’t done that much
of this country would be a wasteland,” said Sen. Leahy.

Don’t we want that, too?

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 →

The power of going solar —John S. Quarterman


Solar panels on farm workshop --John S. Quarterman
My op-ed in the VDT today. Remember
to vote today or Tuesday.
-jsq

This spring,

the University at Buffalo turned on 750 kilowatts of
solar electricity.

Rutgers U., in New Jersey, installed 1.4
megawatts in 2009 and started on 8 MW this summer. Down here with a
lot more sun, how about solar panels on VSU parking lots?

There’s

plenty of private solar financing available. Also in New
Jersey, a company installed 6 MW of solar on high school land and
leased the power to the school supplying most of its needs win-win.


You can go see a solar farm already working fine here,

200 kilowatts at Mud Creek Wastewater Plant.
Why not do the same


View Larger Map


at Lowndes High School, where all the world on I-75 could see,

attracting business to our community?

Why not?

Continue reading →

South Georgia Statehouse Districts for 2012 Elections

Having trouble figuring out where the redistricted Georgia House and
Senate districts are?
If you just want to find out which districts you are in,

My Voter Page by Georgia Secretary of State is the fastest way to find out.
Here also are

maps from GeorgiaInfo.

Your Vote Counts
Remember,
you can vote

today, tomorrow, Friday, Saturday,
or on the great election day, November 6th 2012.

Georgia House


Georgia House districts in south Georgia, 2012 elections

Georgia Senate


Georgia Senate districts in south Georgia, 2012 elections

-jsq

Free the Internet: stop SOPA and PIPA

If you don’t know what SOPA and PIPA are,

Google, Wikipedia, reddit, and many other websites will tell you today


that those are bills in Congress to censor the Internet.

If you like blogs, YouTube, facebook, and other social media,
you won’t like SOPA and PIPA if they become law, because they
will enable big copyright holders such as movie studios to
force websites to remove links to entire domains on suspicion
of copyright violation.

What you can do:
contact your members of Congress today.
You can do that through

one of the many online tools
Or

call, email, or send a paper letter directly.
Free the Internet!

-jsq

You like blogs, facebook, twitter, etc.? Oppose the “PROTECT IP” Act

If you like facebook, twitter, eBay, blogs, other social media, or even
Google or Yahoo,
you won’t like the so-called “PROTECT IP” Act, which is coming up to
a vote in the Senate any day now.


It would let big corporate copyright holders impose monitoring,
take down websites, and cut off funding, all without need for a court order.
There’s still time to oppose it.

Parker Higgins wrote for EFF Monday,

The PROTECT IP Act Is Very Real and Very Bad — Call Now to Block It

The

PROTECT IP Act (PIPA)
is the evil step-sister of the

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA),
the much-criticized Internet blacklist bill introduced
in the House last month. They’ve got a lot in common — both bills
would allow the government and private rightsholders to

censor the Internet for Americans,
and both bills have faced

strong opposition
from regular citizens, business leaders, and public interest groups.

In one way, though, PIPA is much worse: while SOPA is still in the
House committee stage and has been the target of extraordinary public
opposition, PIPA is already out of committee and poised for consideration
of the full Senate. That means PIPA is a few dangerous steps further
along in the process of becoming law. And with only a few weeks to go
in this legislative session, the Senate may try to rush the bill through
before the public has a chance to respond.

Here’s one way to contact your elected representatives.
Or call them on the
telephone.
See also

LAKE’s contact information for national elected officials.

-jsq

Georgia officials are getting it about solar



Chuck Eaton, Georgia Public Service Commissioner,
moderating a panel of Georgia’s Policy Makers at

Southern Solar Summit
said

Solar is great for
diversity,
independence,
research,
and
business.

He said that until recently he had discounted solar, but now he had seen it.

Continue reading →

Solar panels increase home value

Posted on slashdot 23 Apr
il 2011:



“Venture Beat reports that

a study (PDF) by Berkeley National Labs has
found that homes sold in California

earned a premium for solar panels. The
benefit ranged from $3900 to $6400 per kW of capacity. An earlier study
found that proximity to solar or wind power may also raise home values.

-jsq


PS: Hats off to Cheryl Ann Fillekes for this one.