Posts tagged Wall Street
Time to End the Cheney/Halliburton Loophole
Feb 14th
By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed
Reprinted by Truthout.org
We live in a fracked up country, but thanks to Dick Cheney, there’s pretty much nothing we can do about it.
Over the past decade, the extraction of natural gas through a technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has emerged as one of the fossil fuel industry’s biggest money makers.
In fact, according to Bloomberg, fracking was the biggest reason American oil output hit a 25-year high in 2013.
The boom in fracking is, quite literally, hitting close to home.
A recent Wall Street Journal report looked at 11 of the country’s biggest energy-producing states and found that – “At least 15.3 million Americans lived within a mile of a well that has been drilled since 2000. That is more people than live in Michigan or New York City.”
That report also found that in Johnson County, Texas alone “…more than 3,900 wells dot the county and some 99.5% of its 150,000 residents live within a mile of a well.”
Like many places across the U.S., Johnson County is now basically one big drill site.
Not surprisingly, the fossil fuel industry is pushing fracking hard. Big oil has even found a friend in President Obama, who touted natural gas as a “bridge fuel” in his most recent State of the Union address.
All due respect to the president, but fracking is not safe. Numerous studies have shown that it contaminates drinking water, threatens public health, and, in some cases, even causes earthquakes.
If any industry in the country needs regulation it’s the fracking industry, but thanks in large part to Dick Cheney, it’s exempt from having to follow most important environmental laws on the books.
Let me explain: Back in 2005. President – excuse me Vice President – Cheney was hard at work doing what he did best: using his power as the second most powerful man in the country to protect his cronies in the oil business.
His former employer, Halliburton, wanted to get more involved in the emerging American fracking industry, but it faced a potential major roadblock in the form of a 1974 law called the Safe Water Drinking Act.
That act, signed into law by Republican President Gerald Ford, requires the Environmental Protection Agency to keep toxic chemicals from getting into Americans’ drinking water.
Cheney didn’t care about public safety but he did care about Halliburton’s bottom-line – after all, he was a big Halliburton stockholder when he became vice president – and so he joined the lobbying efforts to get Congress to carve out an exemption for fracking in the Safe Water Drinking Act.
Thanks to that carve-out – let’s call it the “Halliburton loophole” – the EPA can’t regulate fracking poisons even when they get into our water supply.
But Cheney and his oil industry buddies didn’t stop there. In 2005, Congress also gave the natural gas industry an exemption from having to write up reports on its activities under the National Environmental Policy Act and expanded its exemption from having to follow Clean Water Act regulations on what kind of chemicals it can dump in storm water runoff.
Coupled with existing exemptions to a variety of pollution laws like the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Superfund Act, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the 2005 carve-outs gave the fracking industry seven total exemptions from important environmental regulations.
Nine years later, it’s clear that Dick Cheney and Halliburton got what they wanted. Free from having to follow even the most basic environmental regulations, the fracking industry is bigger than ever and will likely continue to grow well into the future.
While other countries like France and Bulgaria with rich reserves of natural gas have banned fracking altogether, we here in the United States have done the exact opposite.
Thanks to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton loophole, anyone who lives near a fracking site is one of the oil industry’s guinea pigs in a giant multi-decade fracking experiment.
But we don’t have to sit back and take it while big gas pollutes our water, our bodies, and our environment.
We need to take action now to close the Halliburton loophole and all the rest of the fracking industry’s exemptions before more people’s water supplies and lives are ruined.
Call your local member of Congress right now and tell them that it’s time to say goodbye to the Bush years once and for all and close the Halliburton loopholes.
This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication.
Vote Obama – Government Oversight Critical By Scott Hatfield
Oct 31st
By Scott Hatfield
With serious differences on corporate and government accountability and the concentration of wealth and power at the very top, folks should be feeling compelled to vote for Obama. Here in Boulder, most people will vote and vote democratic. However, there are some compelling reasons to vote for Obama if you are a Green, moderate Republican, unmotivated, or middle of the road.
With Ruth Bader Ginsburg planning to retire in 2015, her replacement by a far right corporatist would have serious consequences for decades on a wide variety of issues. Whether it is a woman’s right to choose, global warming, campaign finance, toxic waste, voter intimidation and suppression, public lands extraction, public health, or civil liberties, cementing right wing control would be a blow to the rights of all Americans. With the appointments of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayer, the President has shown appropriate and reasonable judgment.
Government oversight and regulation of large powerful corporations plays a critical role in protecting the safety of the American people. For a wide variety of issues, the Republicans keep repeating that regulations are the problem. We need to act to prevent a corporate free for all. The top issue on regulations has been health care reform. Privatizing Medicare through a voucher system while removing oversight would raise premiums while unleashing corporate profits at the expense of the sick and wounded. Health care needs to be about healing people rather than absolving accountability for the powerful. The argument against Obamacare is the same as the argument against oversight of toxic material. With cancer overtaking heart disease as the nation’s top killer, the purpose of collusion between these disparate but connected industries reflects a self perpetuating cycle of disease as a top priority, not safety in the homeland. A lack of regard for corporate accountability pervades the Romney agenda across the board on environmental issues so important to Boulder and the quality of life everywhere be it water (#1 in CO), CO2, endangered species, public lands extraction, exploding chemical plants, or wilderness.
Most of the stated opposition to corporate accountability boils down to the economic burden on the rich and powerful corporate elite. This is especially glaring in the financial and economic sectors. For Romney, it is not a matter of the economy; it is a matter of whose economy. Republicans are all too happy to see larger and larger proportions of Americans living in poverty and despair. Again a complete lack of accountability is the mantra for the financial sector abuses that got us into this economic quagmire in the first place. Meaningful reform will not occur without oversight. Too many people have lost their homes, retirement funds, and jobs. The Wall Street giants have made their intentions clear. A regulatory regime on these bloated bankers is critical for an economy that provides a level playing field. We need a financial system capable of promoting the interests of a majority of Americans, not just those at the top. “Drill, baby, drill!’ will not get us out of the mess that Wall Street created, just ask the Frankenstorm Sandy.
Across the board, replacing any meaningful policy analysis with sound bites about burdensome regulations on large corporations will not solve our nation’s problems. If you want to get out of a hole, stop digging. While fighting multiple wars abroad under the guise of keeping the American people safe, the serious erosion of corporate responsibility at home on issues such as health care, toxic exposure and the environment, and the financial sector will do more to damage homeland safety than enemies abroad could ever hope for.
Scott Hatfield has been a member of the Central Committee of the Colorado Democratic Party and the Executive Committee of the Boulder Democratic Party since 1996.
Boulder Homeless protest; Wall Street rip off; Afghanistan; actions by RMPJC
May 3rd
2) Action Alert on Wall Street rip off of home equity
3) Action Alert on withdrawal from Afghanistan
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HOMELESS PROTEST TUESDAY:
Tuesday, May 3 BOULDER Come show your support for places for homeless people to sleep in Boulder. Starting May 1, homeless people in Boulder will have no legal place to sleep every night as the Homeless Shelter will be closed, and BOHO will be open dependent on the weather. But the City will continue to give homeless so- called “camping tickets”. Join us at the corner of Broadway and Canyon in Boulder from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. to protest the city’s policy and then speak at the Boulder City Council during public comment which starts at 6 p.m.. Sign up on line between 4-4:45 p.m. atwww.bouldercolorado.gov or after 5 p.m. at the Municipal Building.
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CALL STATE LEGISLATORS RE WALL STREET THEFT OF HOME EQUITY
Call/Email CO House Members about S.B. 234: Stop Wall Street from Stealing Your Home Equity
Ask the chair and vice-chair of the Colorado House of Representatives Local Government Committee and your Colorado State House rep. to support SB 234, which prohibits the dangerous financial scheme of private transfer fee covenants on homes. Often unnoticed by homeowners, Wall Street Home Resale Fees (otherwise known as Private Transfer Fees) are inserted into home sale contracts by private third parties, and require that every time a home is sold for the next 99 years, a percentage of the sale of the home (usually 1%) be paid to the third party. In return, homeowners receive nothing but reduced home equity and a harder time selling their home.
SB 234 passed in the passed in the Senate on 4/29/11 by a vote of 31-2 with two excused. The bill was introduced today in the Colorado House of Representatives Local Government Committee. Please call and email Rep Laura Bradford, Chair at 303-866-2583 and laurabradford55@gmail.co and LIBBY SZABO, Vice Chair at 303-866-2962 and libby.szabo.house@state.co.us and your representative (see www.congress.org if you’re not sure who that is) and ask them to support SB 234.
The Coalition to Stop Wall Street Home Resale Fees (http://www.stophomeresalefees.org/about) is organizing to fight the dangerous financial scheme of private transfer fee covenants and to protect homeowners across the country. Together, they are fighting to ensure that homeowners keep full equity in their home, and have the freedom to buy or sell their home without paying off an unaffiliated third party.
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U.S. SENATE BILL FOR WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN: CALL YOUR SENATORS TO CO=SPONSOR
Ask Senator Mark Udall and Senator Michael Bennet to co-sponsor S.186, the Safe and Responsible Redeployment of United States Combat Forces from Afghanistan. The bill states that it is U.S. policy to begin the phased redeployment of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan by July 1, 2011. It also requires the President to submit a plan to Congress, by July 31, 2011, for the phased redeployment of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan, including a completion date for such redeployment. The bill was introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer on January 25, 2011 and has four sponsors. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. A copy of the bill is below
Senator Michael Bennet
Phone: 303-455-7600 Toll-free: 866-455-9866 Fax: 303-455-8851
(202) 224-5852 Fax: 202-228-5036
Email Senator Bennet at http://bennet.senate.gov/contact/
Senator Mark Udall
Washington, D.C. Office Phone: (202) 224-5941 Fax: (202) 224-6471
Phone: (303) 650-7820 Fax: (303) 650-7827
Email Mark Udall at http://markudall.senate.gov/?p=contact_us
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S.186 Safe and Responsible Redeployment of United States Combat Forces
from Afghanistan Act of 2011 (Introduced in Senate IS)
S 186 IS
112th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 186
To provide for the safe and responsible redeployment of United States combat
forces from Afghanistan.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
January 25 (legislative day, January 5), 2011
Mrs. BOXER (for herself, Mr. DURBIN, Mrs. GILLIBRAND, and Mr. BROWN of Ohio)
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee
on Foreign Relations
A BILL
To provide for the safe and responsible redeployment of United States combat
forces from Afghanistan.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Safe and Responsible Redeployment of United
States Combat Forces from Afghanistan Act of 2011′.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) October 7, 2011, will mark the 10?year anniversary of the start of
Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
(2) Members of the United States Armed Forces and coalition forces
have served valiantly and at great personal sacrifice in support of
Operation Enduring Freedom.
(3) As of January 25, 2011, 1,457 American military personnel have
lost their lives in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and 10,226
have been wounded.
(4) As of January 20, 2011, United States taxpayers have spent an
estimated $336,000,000,000 for operations in Afghanistan.
(5) During a speech at the United States Military Academy at West
Point on December 1, 2009, President Barack Obama outlined a
detailed plan to allow the United States `to begin the transfer of our
forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011′.
(6) President Obama also stated, `It must be clear that Afghans will
have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no
interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.’
(7) It is essential to begin turning responsibility for security in
Afghanistan over to the Government and people of Afghanistan.
SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY ON PHASED REDEPLOYMENT OF UNITED
STATES COMBAT FORCES FROM AFGHANISTAN.
It is the policy of the United States to begin the phased redeployment of
United States combat forces from Afghanistan not later than July 1, 2011.
SEC. 4. PLAN FOR COMPLETION OF PHASED REDEPLOYMENT OF COMBAT
FORCES.
Not later than July 31, 2011, the President shall submit to Congress a plan for
the phased redeployment of United States combat forces from Afghanistan, to
include an end date for the completion of that redeployment.
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For more information on RMPJC, call us at 303-444-6981 or visit our website at www.rmpjc.org or link with our facebook page at our website.
RMPJC is located at 3970 Broadway, Suite 105, Boulder. From Quince and Broadway go east and take a right into the second driveway into the shopping center.
Carolyn Bninski
RMPJC
303-444-6981x2
Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?-Martin Luther King