[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXkDsx8thDM 285 234]
January 2012
Most people probably think “wetlands” should be wet. But not in the view of federal bureaucrats. Land can be perfectly dry–indeed, never have the slightest pool of standing water–and still be a “wetland” in Washington’s view. And it turns out that having the Supreme Court on your side isn’t enough to protect you.
Writes Reed Hopper in the Detroit News:
After hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees and 14 years of court battles with no end in sight, Michigan’s John Rapanos finally gave up his fight to defend himself against accusations that he illegally filled wetlands on his private property in violation of the Clean Water Act.
Despite winning his case in the U.S. Supreme Court, Rapanos recently settled it with the federal government. He agreed to pay fines and mitigation fees approaching $1 million. Federal prosecutors immediately hailed the settlement as a vindication of their virtually limitless power to regulate local wetlands nationwide.
But this settlement only demonstrates the inability of individual citizens to stand up for their rights against the overwhelming resources of Big Government.
The federal Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of fill material into “navigable waters” and expressly recognizes the rights and responsibilities of state governments to protect and maintain local waters. Who could have foreseen that federal bureaucrats would stretch the language of the law to encompass mostly dry, inland wetlands lying in the middle of a Michigan cornfield?
Certainly not ordinary citizens like Rapanos, whose private property was 20 miles away from the nearest navigable waterway. No wonder he told federal officials to take a hike when they accused him of a federal crime for the ordinary activity of “moving sand from one end of his property to another,” as one judge described it.
But federal bureaucrats in the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency are not used to being ignored. Rapanos was perceived as a threat to the agencies’ ever-expanding claim of authority. So they sued Rapanos criminally and civilly.
The Future of American Communications (FACT) working group funded by the Media Democracy Fund released its official report on the 26th of January. The report, which carries the working group’s recommendations to President Obama, offers up some various proposals that purport to hold promise for the future of the Internet.
As the title, “…and communications for all,” suggests though, there is an underlying current of argument that Internet access is a right, and therefore should be treated as a utility (and here, and here). Internet is not a right, it is a privilege and should therefore be treated as such. In the same vein, access to information is not a right; it is a privilege. The Internet is simply a medium to connect to content and information in general. If this is a right, then should every American also be entitled to a computer? Should everyone be given Blackberries on taxpayers’ dime? These would both follow if we assume that Internet connectivity is a “right.”
FACT takes the concept of a “right” to Internet access further, also recommending that government provide training so that people know how to use a computer and access the Internet. At some point, all this gets out of hand. Just as driving isn’t a right and we don’t rely on government to subsidize our cars and train us to drive, Internet is not necessity and should not be given to us by government.
Based on the recommendation of FACT to extend broadband networks to every rural area of the United States and train members of those communities to use computers and the Internet, I would estimate that costs of the project will be roughly in the neighborhood of 1 Godzillion dollars. But at the current rate politicians are throwing government dollars at “infrastructure” projects–see the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus plan–it’s not hard to imagine a future massive broadband initiative sailing through Congress.
The biggest problem with FACT’s recommendations may be they would require all networks to offer open access (wireless networks included) and adhere to the principles of net neutrality. This means that network operators–who will carry the larger burden of the costs of constructing and maintaining these networks–would be forced to run their networks in line with government regulations, instead of in a way that the companies believe best suits consumers. Additionally, if taxpayer-funded networks were to be built in every rural area of the country, at some point government-subsidized networks would outnumber private networks, easing the passage of legislation to enforce neutrality on those networks as well.
These are free market decisions. The bottom line is that if it was in the interest of ISPs to build networks in rural areas, they would have already done so. Expansion of networks should occur as the market demands them. The Internet is not a utility and is not a right. And it is not the duty of the taxpayer to teach individuals how to use it.
You gotta love it. I searched the greenie website Tree Hugger today for the term “bottled water.” Guess what came up on the top of the page? Google ads for Deer Park and other bottled water! You gotta love capitalism! Apparently, the value of advertising revenue knows no ideology. What’s really ironic is they have attacked CEI for our support of consumer choice, suggesting that our love of freedom results from our desire to get money from corporate groups. But then there they are, making money off of bottled water advertising.
Politicians, greens, and other alleged do-gooders keep saying that if you like bottled water, you must be stupid maybe even reckless! Chicago has even imposed a bottled water “sin tax,” and other cities are banning it from government agencies. According to bloggers Tree Hugger, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Corporate Accountability Interntational, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and others, consumer choice and private ownership of water is somehow evil! But who do local governments turn to in an emergency? Bottled water companies, who provide lots of water when its needed! See CEI’s latest video on the topic, and don’t forget to sign our petition to support consumer freedom and fight the Nanny State.
James Hansen of NASA is one of the leading climate alarmists, and possesses a scientific credibility lacking in the Goracle. But Hansen really has become a parody of himself, more activist than scientist. His supervisor at NASA was a skeptic. And as Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote a year ago:
If you’ve paid any attention to the global warming debate, you’ve heard of James Hansen.
Hansen is the politicized NASA climate scientist who virtually invented the global warming issue in the broiling summer of 1988 when he was the star doomsayer at Senate hearings called by Al Gore.
Since then, Hansen has received better press than Mother Teresa. In hundreds of interviews and glowing profiles, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has been treated as objective and/or infallible by an adoring mainstream liberal media.
Yet Hansen’s not even close to being an objective scientist. He is openly ideological and rabidly partisan. His political pals and financial patrons are liberal Democrats — Gore, John Kerry and left-wing groups funded by George Soros and Teresa Heinz.
Nor is Hansen part of the hallowed scientific “consensus” on global warming. He’s much more apocalyptic. He still predicts faster and much greater sea-level rises, ice-sheet meltings and species extinctions than the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Hansen’s Teflon credibility wasn’t even scratched after the August revelation that since 2000 he and his fellow scientists had been incorrectly crunching the data from about 1,200 ground weather stations that NASA uses to take the country’s annual average temperature — and which the unquestioning mainstream media used as “proof” the country has been getting hotter every year since 1998.
Maybe Hansen will be proved right. But these days he seems more interested in ideology than science.
That old line about “we’re here from the government to help you” always garners a laugh. But small toymakers are crying. Investigative columnist Timothy Carney looks at how the big toymakers are using new regulations to their benefit:
Thousands of self-employed businessmen, artists, and boutique owners who make or deal in hand-crafted children’s toys, clothes, or furniture could be out of work next month. A 2008 federal law, with the salutary-sounding name “Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act,” could drive these craftsmen out of business.
Big toymakers, who helped write the bill, are ready for the regulations that will go into effect Feb. 10, while smaller toymakers look likely to suffer. It’s another example of how Washington, when it regulates an industry, often helps the biggest businesses in that industry while crushing the smaller guys.
This toy story begins in the summer of 2007 when toy-making goliath Mattel was thrice forced to recall products made in China after discovering dangerous levels of lead. That fall, as Congress took up the bill reauthorizing the Consumer Products Safety Commission, consumer groups pushed for stricter safety standards on toys and other children’s products.
In September 2007, Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., introduced a bill in response to the lead-in-toys scare. The bill became law in August 2008, making it illegal to sell children’s products—toys, furniture, clothes, et cetera—that have not undergone third-party testing for hazardous materials.
The bill also declared that any children’s product was a “banned hazardous substance” if any portion of it had a lead content greater than 600 parts per million. Also all manufacturers of children’s products—big or small—are required by the law to create registries of every product they sell and put unique tracking numbers or marks on each product.
This third-party testing portion of the bill goes into effect Feb. 10, which has small toymakers up in arms. The Handmade Toy Alliance is one of many groups mobilizing to keep the CPSC from destroying artisan toymaking.
Large manufacturers who mass produce toys or children’s furniture will face some added costs from the bill, but these are costs they can bear—especially because the costs will be industry wide thus passed onto consumers.
Indeed, many of the bigger manufacturers have already implemented testing procedures to comply with the federal requirements. Their smaller competitors, however, will suffer under the burden.
Ah, yes. The government is here to help us–well, at least some of us, if we have big lobbying operations!
James Hansen of NASA has become one of the leading climate alarmists. Quite simply, the world is about to end. That being the case, industry executives who don’t toe the line (only wrecking the economy can save humanity from destruction) should be tried in a kind of environmental Nuremberg Trial.
It turns out that Hansen’s supervisor, at least, was not so enamored of his work. Reports the Spectator in London:
But now the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works reports that James Hansen’s former supervisor, retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon, former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Programme at NASA who was responsible for all weather and climate research in the agency from1982 to 1994, has said he thinks man-made global warming theory is anti-scientific bunk:
‘I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man-made,’ Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. ‘I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation… Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress…
Theon declared ‘climate models are useless.’ ‘My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,’ Theon explained. ‘Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,’ he added.
It’s too bad Dr. Theon’s views don’t get the same attention as those of Dr. Hansen.
Wondering who is in line to get their hands on that $825 billion in Pelosi/Obama federal stimulus cash? Let our old friend and venerable investigative reporter Tim Carney take you on a short tour. Here are a couple highlights:
» $75 million for “smoking cessation”
Ironically, because state governments are dependent on tobacco sales for billions in annual revenue, if this federal program worked, it would further deplete state coffers.
[...]
» $250 million for hidden NASA earmarks
Senators have directed a quarter-billion to be concentrated on repairing “NASA facilities damaged by Hurricane Ike” and improving “NASA’s supercomputing capabilities.” The only NASA spot hit by Ike was in the home state of Republican appropriator Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas, and NASA supercomputing is based in the home state of Democratic appropriator Sen. Barbara Boxer, California.
[...]
» $87.5 million for polar icebreakers
Senate appropriators have recommended $87.5 million for the design of a new icebreaker or the renovation of an existing polar icebreaker, together with icebreaker repair.
[...]
RESTRICTIONS: No casinos, golf courses, zoos, aquariums or foreign steel. The House bill has only a few plenary prohibitions: “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool.” Also, all construction projects funded by the bill must use only American-made iron and steel.
Good work, Tim. Left unanswered, however, is the question of why the House is displaying such a naked hostility to our nation’s zoo animals. Surely if creatures as lowly as subprime mortgage securities dealers have been helped out by the taxpayers, our nation’s majestic population of naked mole rats deserves a few million to chew on.
The Democratic Congress’s failure to pounce instantly to pass the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), also known as the “card check” bill, presents a disappointment for organized labro, since this bill has been the unions’ top legislative priority for months. Increased public attention on the legislation’s provision undermining secret ballots in union organizing elections, combined with the state of the economy, have pushed it to Congress’s back burner.
But unfortunately, President Obama seems ready to deliver for Big Labor quickly in other areas, even as Congress drags its feet on card check. The New York Times reports that Obama is set to repeal four Bush executive orders opposed by organized labor, including “one order that allowed unionized companies to post signs informing workers that they were allowed to decertify the union.”
For more on card check, see here and here.
Below, The Washington Examiner‘s Mark Tapscott explains EFCA’s shifting fortunes.
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