Tag Archives: Law

GA bill for solar financing

What electric utilities fear most:
bipartisan support for distributed rooftop solar financing.
You can call your legislator and support HB 874,
the Solar Power Free-Market Financing and Property Rights Act of 2014.

Dave Williams
wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle 28 January 2014,

Ga. Republican unveils solar bill,

Georgia property owners would be able to contract directly with
solar energy installers to finance the installation of solar panels
under legislation introduced in the General Assembly Tuesday.

The bill would let property owners lease solar panels instead of
having to buy them with cash up front, said Georgia Rep. Mike
Dudgeon, R-Johns Creek, the bill’s sponsor.

“We want to make it clear Continue reading →

TPP Environment chapter released by Wikileaks

No penalties and no proposed criminal sanctions in TPP for environmental destruction,
in sharp contrast to

the U.S. proposal for new criminal penalties for
“unintentional infringements” intellectual property.

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) – Environment Consolidated Text

Today, 15 January 2014, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for
the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Environment Chapter and
the corresponding Chairs’ Report. The TPP transnational legal regime
would cover 12 countries initially and encompass 40 per cent of
global GDP and one-third of world trade. The Environment Chapter has
long been sought by journalists and environmental groups. The
released text dates from the Chief Negotiators’ summit in Salt Lake
City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013.

The Environment Chapter covers what the Parties propose to be their
positions on: environmental issues, including climate change,
biodiversity and fishing stocks; and trade and investment in
‘environmental’ goods and services. It also outlines Continue reading →

Change orders in DeKalb County

Manipulating construction contracts landed two former DeKalb County school
employees in prison.

Rhonda Cook wrote for the AJC 9 December 2013,

Former DeKalb schools COO gets 15 years:
Judge rejects former superintendent Crawford Lewis’ deal for no jail time,

Prosecutors allege Reid sent work to her husband by presenting new
work at Columbia as an extension of what he was already contracted
to do and then Pope allegedly overcharged the district.

Prosecutors also contend Continue reading →

Fossil fuels are a disaster: literally in WV

300,000 people have their drinking water poisoned by
a coal chemical in a disaster declared by a state and the federal government.
Do we know what’s in that coal ash

coal ash
in the Lowndes County landfill?
Do we trust a pipeline company
with

a long list of safety violations
to dig into our aquifer?

David Jackson wrote for USA Today yesterday,

Obama sends disaster aid to West Virginia,

President Obama is sending federal assistance to West Virginia,
where schools and businesses are closed after a chemical spill
Thursday into a Charleston river.

“The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of
West Virginia and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local
response efforts,” said an administration statement on Friday
morning.

Under the order, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal
Emergency Management Agency will coordinate efforts with local
officials.

Kiley Kroh
wrote for Thinkprogress yesterday,

West Virginia Declares State Of Emergency After Coal Chemical Contaminates Drinking Water, Continue reading →

Nash County, NC has agendas and minutes for many local boards online

A county

no bigger than Lowndes County has

agendas and minutes online for
its Board of Commissioners, Board of Health, Local Emergency Planning Committee,
Board of Adjustment,
Board of Elections,
Social Services Board,
and yes, its Planning Board.

Why can Nash County, NC afford this yet Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter
says Lowndes County can’t afford to put agendas and minutes online for
the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission?

And if a county can require a solar farm to follow stormwater management
and numerous other regulations, why can’t a county require a natural
gas pipeline to follow local regulations?

It can, if its elected officials actually stand up for their citizens.
And why can Nash County, quite a bit north of Lowndes County,
install solar farm after solar farm while there are none in Lowndes County?

The Nash County online documents also include the details of what the
various boards were considering, such as in the

Agenda and Minutes of the Nash County Planning Board 21 October 2013,
which include this item:

Conditional Use Permit Request CU-130901 (Previously Tabled Item).

Made by Chris Killenberg With Community Energy Solar on Behalf of Castalia Solar LLC to
Develop a Solar Farm on an Approximately 22.91 Acre Portion of Two Tracts Located on
the West Side of N NC Highway 58 and South of NC Highway 56 in the A1 Agricultural
Zoning District.

And not just the agenda item, also

extended discussion in the meeting, including: Continue reading →

Utilities can’t take the solar heat

Utilities are trying increasingly desperate tactics in their
losing battle against distributed rooftop solar power.
It’s time for them to get out in front and lead instead.

Clare Foran wrote for NationalJournal

Are Utilities Wilting From Heat of Solar Competition?

Regulatory battles over solar power payment models played out in
several states this year. And as the dust settles, solar providers
are claiming victory. Utilities, on the other hand, are trying to
reframe the conversation entirely by insisting they aren’t an enemy
of solar.

After discussing utlities’ attempts to bash net metering, she notes
the

Sierra Club

hard-won
victory over the

ALEC solar tax:

In November, Georgia Power

backed down Continue reading →

Ask your Congress members to oppose TPP today

Here’s

a handy form by EFF
to oppose the secretly-negotiated privacy-deleting corporate-greed-defending
natural gas export pipeline-enabling Trans-Pacific Parternship treaty.

Parker Higgins and Maira Sutton
wrote for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
28 December 2013,

2013 in Review: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,

The biggest TPP story this year was the publication by WikiLeaks
in November of the chapter titled “Intellectual Property.” Unfortunately,
its contents confirmed many of our worst fears: from
ratcheting up copyright term lengths
around the world, to
boxing in fair use, to mandating a draconian legal regime around DRM software, section
after section contained clauses plucked from corporate wishlists and
snubbed the public interest altogether.

And then there’s

Ted Poe’s House Subcommittee pushing TPP for LNG exports that would propel
“natural” fracked gas pipelines
such as Spectra Energy’s Sabal Transmission gas pipe
through private property and

public rivers and watersheds and

aquifers.

Here’s what’s up next: Continue reading →

Secret meeting of Lowndes County Commission and state reps @ LCC 2013-12-20

The VDT report doesn’t say when or where, and doesn’t say whether
Dexter Sharper (District 177) wasn’t invited or chose not to attend.

There’s nothing about this meeting in the online

agendas
or

calendar,
even though that calendar lists

Pictures with Santa at the Historical Courthouse (12/19/2013).

There is this undated

public notice with no agenda:

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will meet with members of
Lowndes County’s Legislative Delegation on Friday, December 20,
2013, at 4:00 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Conference Room located on
the 3rd floor of the Judicial-Administrative Complex, 327 North
Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia.

K. Paige Dukes, County Clerk

pdukes@lowndescounty.com 229-671-2400

Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT 22 December 2013,

Commissioners host local delegation,
oddly omitting the when and where and much of the why from
the traditional

who, what, when, where, and why of journalism.

The Lowndes County Commission hosted Continue reading →

Last day to oppose NRC bad nuclear waste plan

Today you can object to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC)
inadequate plan for radioactive waste storage.

Comment through regulations.gov

on Docket #NRC-2012-0246-0456;
here’s

a link to the comment form.

NRC’s web page on

Waste Confidence:

The public comment period on the Waste Confidence Draft Generic
Environmental Impact Statement and proposed rule ends on Friday,
December 20, 2013.

Background from

Beyond Nuclear:

No safe, permanent solution has yet been found anywhere in the
world—and may never be found—for the nuclear waste
problem. In the U.S., the only identified and flawed high-level
radioactive waste deep repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada has
been canceled. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an end to the production
of nuclear waste and for securing the existing reactor waste in
hardened on-site storage.

Facebook event with more information.

Here’s
a petition:

The NRC, by court order, has been required to gather public input
regarding a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) regarding
the storage of nuclear waste that is grossly inadequate and leaves
over 150 million Americans who live within 50 miles of a nuclear
power plant at risk.

The NRC has declared that it would only be a SMALL risk to the
environment and communities near nuclear power plants to store
nuclear waste on-site for 60 years, 160 years or even INDEFINITELY
if no permanent repository is established….

And NRC’s oversight committee is the

Subcommittee on Energy and Power
of the

Energy and Commerce Committee,
which just held a hearing 12 December 2013 on

Oversight of NRC Management and the Need for Legislative Reform.

-jsq

Susan Waller refusing to answer a question @ Sabal 2013-12-17

Here’s Susan Waller of Spectra

refusing to even listen to a question that she had just asked for:

FERC-required Open House about the
Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline

by Sabal Trail Transmission and Spectra Energy,

Video by Blake Clark, Madison, Madison County, Florida, 17 December 2013.

Blake Clark remarked on this video he took:

This short clip speaks for it’s self. Notice Susan Waller’s
condescending tone through out the clips entirety. It is assumed,
and I have witnessed her speaking to most landowners inquiring more
information in the same tone here. Are the people at Sabal (Spectra)
or “what ever they may be calling themselves this week” really
concerned for you, your questions, or your property? You decide!

Visit

Spectrabusters.org for more information on the Sabal Trail
Pipeline, Thank you!

Earlier

she complained that someone who presented her with evidence
was “disruptive”.

What I wanted to ask her about was Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange