Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday Aug 23, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Amnesty 2. ESA 3. Brownouts 4. Sage Grouse 5. Dust 1. Amnesty. Obama’s internal polling must be really, really bad, as they took the step last week to implement amnesty for illegals via executive fiat. The announcement was that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would no longer be deporting illegals just because they were illegals. Instead they would focus on violent criminal and make the determination to deport on a case by case basis. DHS apologists in the state controlled media are excusing this outrageous decision to manufacture millions of new voters for democrats on the grounds that the Obama administration has deported more illegals than any other administration in history. I don’t believe this claim, but even if it is true, so what? Does this excuse Napolitano’s DHS from following the law as written? And if the law no longer applies to the Obama administration when their reelection chances look slim, why pray tell does it apply to any of the rest of us? Obama is not royalty. He does not have the Divine Right of Kings to wave his little finger and make law. If it were me, I would defund DHS completely and transfer all their funding to the states on the Mexican border along with funding and the authority to round up and deport illegals as soon as they are apprehended, send it over to the senate and dare them to refuse to hold a vote on it. Obama thinks that by pandering to the illegals and their enablers, he will be able to pick up some votes next year. In doing so, he profoundly insults every single immigrant who has waited in line, gone through the process, followed the law, and become an American citizen. We will hope that our new neighbors will remember that insult. 2. ESA. Came across this story via some comments on Dan Fagan’s local talk show here in Anchorage. It is hair raising. Today there are 1063 species of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates listed as endangered in the US. There are another 316 listed as threatened. The greens are taking the opportunity presented by a very green-friendly Obama administration to bulk up those numbers as large as possible. In July, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) announced a “historic” consent agreement with Eric Holder’s (In)Justice Department and the Wild Earth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity to spend over $206 million in preparing paperwork to list another 1,000 species as endangered. This is truly, your tax dollars at work. Note that these are only two of dozens of environmental organizations trying to list thousands of new species as endangered. I have not a clue why Holder’s (In)Justice Department or the USF&WS have the wherewithal to give $206 million to Big Green so that they can tie up thousands of more square miles of property in critical habitat for all manner of plants, animals and creepy crawlers that are not really endangered at all. The money appears to be part of another friendly consent agreement between Big Green and their brethren ensconced deep into the bowels of the federal bureaucracy. The paperwork for all species at issue is scheduled to be completed by 2016. The consent agreement requires USF&WS to make decisions on listing 94 species by the end of 2011 and 64 more by the end of 2012. There was no explanation as to why an additional 940 species which were not part of the original litigation were included as part of the consent agreement. In the consent agreement, Holder’s (In)Justice Department also agreed to pay legal fees for the two green non-profits who are busily suckling on the public teat. The outrage is yet another reason why the Endangered Species Act must be repealed and the cozy little game between public interest litigation and green-friendly public employees must end. Perhaps the next administration ought to abrogate all recent consent agreements, reopen them and proceed to trial by jury. You can read a related article here: http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2011/07/22/endangered-species-paperwork-to-cost-206098920/ 3. Brownouts. The EPA has promulgated a series of new clean air rules that will force over 20% of existing coal-fired electrical generation nationwide to shut down in the next couple of years. This is a full 10% of all electrical generation nationwide. The rules go into place over the course of the next 18 months and will lead directly to rolling blackouts and brownouts in parts of the nation with coal fired electrical generation. None of the new rules are based upon any substantive improvement in public health or safety. They represent the logical conclusion of Obama’s war on coal. The electric utilities have neither the money available (estimated at over $129 billion to retrofit the plants) nor the time (January 2012 for Texas coal-fired plants) to make the required changes. The EPA waves its arms and estimates that the plant shutdowns will save over 36,000 lives and over $290 billion in health care costs. What rot. House leadership has promised to take on the out of control EPA this fall in legislation. Expect the democrat majority in the senate to kill those initiatives. Passage of these new rules and regulations pose a real problem for the next administration (assuming it not Obama’s second term), as they were all arrived at via a pseudo public process. The next congress must change the law so that all new rules since, say 2000, are repealed. The next president must take executive action to hold the new rules and repeal them as flawed and the outcome of a flawed and fraudulent cost-benefit analysis. The notion that these new rules will save $290 in health costs and over 36,000 lives is laughable on its face, and completely ignores the deaths that will take place due to illnesses caused by cold and heat during brownouts and unaffordable energy costs due to the new rules. For their part, the states and the utilities can get involved by directly going after the EPA. The states can pass legislation that prohibits all new EPA rules from taking effect inside their borders. The utilities can take the EPA to court, along with the states, tying them up until the congress and the next administration can do something to roll this garbage back. 4. Sage Grouse. In yet another Endangered Species Act story, the USDA announced last week that they would be paying over $112 million to western farmers and ranchers for habitat protection for a bird – the Sage Grouse – that is too numerous to be listed as either endangered or threatened. This bird was targeted by the greens as a vehicle to tie up most of the high plains, as it has a widespread range. Unfortunately (for them) even their deliberate undercounting of birds found too many to list. Despite the failure to list, Secretary Vilsack is paying the money to local ranchers through a variety of land conservation and habitat protection programs. Quite likely, taking the federal dollar will lead to a loss of property rights for the ranchers dipping into the public trough. The USDA is yet another bloated, overbearing federal welfare program that ought to be shut down – sooner rather than later. 5. Dust. The last environmental story this week concerns impending regulation of farm dust by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. You see, dust is particulate matter that causes death and disease, and must according to the EPA be strictly regulated. The proposed regulations will make it all but impossible for anyone to do anything that will raise dust into the air. It is aimed at farmers, people who live on or drive on dirt roads, and most of the farm and western states. This regulation led to a letter signed by 21 western state senators calling the new requirements ridiculous. Obama was confronted by an outraged farmer on his magical Mystery Tour and lied through his teeth, telling the farmer not to believe everything he read or heard. The EPA is coming for our energy. It is coming for our food. It is coming for our vehicles. Time for us to return the favor and come for it. I would recommend tar and feathers.
More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarc The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en
