Tag Archives: ohio

NC Senators force ALEC bill through committee without even counting votes

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ALEC Heartland-1

The ALEC repeal of NC’s renewable energy law was written by fossil fuel funded climate change deniers at the Heartland Institute.

Bitter from a lack of support for his attacks on clean energy incentives, North Carolina Representative Mike Hager is promising some new, dirty tricks to revive the effort. His colleagues in the NC Senate appear to be helping, today advancing the Senate version of Rep. Hager’s bill through committee without counting the votes.

The bill was clearly a contentious one with a close “voice vote” — it’s impossible from listening to tell whether the Yeas (anti clean energy votes) or Nays (pro clean energy votes) were actually louder. Yet the Senate Finance committee co-chairman Bill Rabon talked over Senators requesting a hand vote and quickly adjourned the meeting. The Raleigh News & Observer writes:

Opponents of the bill loudly voted “No!” to show their frustration at the Republican chairman’s decision not to count individual votes. In what was clearly a razor-thin margin, both sides said they would have won if votes had been counted.

A video of the hearing is available: watch the last minute for the rushed conclusion and clear frustration among dissenting Senators. Continue reading →

BREAKING: North Carolina legislators reject ALEC’s fossil fuel funded attack on clean energy

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Today, those employed by North Carolina’s clean energy industries and anyone concerned about global climate change can celebrate the apparent downfall of an attack on renewable energy incentives.

NC Representative Mike Hager, a former engineer for coal-burning utility giant Duke Energy and a member of the fossil fuel-promoting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) watched members of the NC House utilities committee vote down his bill to freeze incentives for clean energy 18-3. While the bill technically isn’t dead yet, it will be tough for Rep. Hager to recover this fumble.

The incentive targeted by Rep. Hager is North Carolina’s renewable portfolio standard, or RPS. The NC RPS requires utilities to generate increasing amounts of electricity from cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar (ideally–the law is far from perfect but has been an important policy in helping North Carolina’s rapid growth of wind and solar energy projects). Continue reading →

Duke Energy & Koch Brothers aim to kill clean energy in North Carolina

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As anticipated, former Duke Energy engineer and North Carolina Representative Mike Hager has introduced a version of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Electricity Freedom Act” into the state’s General Assembly.

House Bill 298 would fully repeal North Carolina’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS)–a state law requiring utilities to generate more electricity from clean sources over time. The existing RPS law is credited for contributing to the rapid growth of the clean energy sector in North Carolina.

By introducing a bill to fully repeal North Carolina’s RPS law, Rep. Hager is backtracking on his own promise not to eliminate current renewable energy targets for NC’s dominant utility, Duke Energy. From the Charlotte Business Journal last December:

Hager says he does not support eliminating the renewable requirements. N.C. utilities already have committed to long-term contracts to meet the current level of renewable-energy requirements. So changing the rules could cause problems for the utilities, he notes. That is why he generally favors capping renewables at the current level.

But Rep. Hager abandoned this position, instead marching in lockstep with the American Legislative Exchange Council’s full repeal initiative.

At least seven of the bill’s sponsors are known affiliates of ALEC, including three of the four primary sponsors–Rep’s Mike Hager, Marilyn Avila, George Cleveland, Rayne Brown, Justin Burr, Sarah Stevens, and Mike Stone. Continue reading →

Koch Brother Fronts Flood into Kansas to Attack Wind Industry – REPORT

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Correction: this post listed KS Sen. Julia Lynn as a supporter of the RPS freeze–she is not and her name was removed below.

A recent flood of Koch-supported think tanks, junk scientists and astroturf groups from inside and outside of Kansas are awaiting the outcome of a bill this week that could stall progress on the growth of clean energy in Kansas.

States around the country, including Texas, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina are poised to cut back on government support for clean energy jobs using model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC, which brings companies together with state lawmakers to forge a wish list of corporate state laws behind closed doors, is coordinating this year’s assault on state laws that require a gradual increase of electricity generated by clean energy sources.

ALEC and a hoard of other Koch-funded interests operating under the umbrella of the State Policy Network have hit Kansas legislators hard with junk economic studies, junk science and a junk vision of more polluting energy in Kansas’ future. Koch Industries lobbyist Jonathan Small has added direct pressure on Kansas lawmakers to rollback support for clean energy.

This fossil fuel-funded attack ignores the good that wind energy has done for Kansas, a state known for its bipartisan support for its growing wind industry (see key report by Polsinelli Shughart). The state now has 19 operating wind farms that have brought millions to farmers leasing their land and millions more to the state, county and local levels (NRDC). The American Wind Energy Association says that Kansas wind industry jobs have grown to 13,000 with the help of incentives like the renewable portfolio standard.

Unfortunately, clean energy is not palatable to the billionaire Koch brothers or the influence peddlers they finance. Continue reading →

VIDEO: Romney confronted in Ohio, “Do you still think the rising of the seas is funny?”

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At a campaign event today in Etna, Ohio, Governor Romney was asked, “Do you still think the rising of the seas is funny?” Romney responded, “I never imagined such a thing is funny,” despite using rising sea levels as a punchline in his speech to the Republican National Convention.

Woman: “Do you still think the rising of the seas is funny?”

Romney: “I never imagined such a thing is funny.”

Man: “Is climate change still a joke to you?”

Romney: “As a matter of fact, if you’d like to – I know you’re filming – if you’d like to see my view on global warming, I wrote a book, and there’s a chapter on global warming and you’ll see what I think we can do to deal with it.” Continue reading →

Greenpeace Semester Students Draw Inspiration from Ohio Activist

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Ohio activist Elisa Young, center, talks with Greenpeace Semester students, including author Miles Goodrich (in red hat) during the students' trip to moblize Cincinnati residents against Duke Energy's proposed rate hikes.

 

Written by Miles Goodrich, Greenpeace Semester Summer 2012

Because students proved a critical force in sustaining the social movements of the last century, Greenpeace has developed its own semester long program – the Greenpeace Semester – to train young adults in mobilizing for the environment.  Each semester, students go on a trip to work on a critical environmental issue with Greenpeace.

This session, our class went to Cincinnati to protest Duke Energy’s rate hikes, which the company proposed soon after the city switched to renewable energy credits after a successful grassroots organizing campaign to stop buying power from Duke – a move which cost that company close to 100 million dollars.  Despite being dropped in Cincinnati, Duke still owns that cities grid and is working to charge residents more to use it in and attempt to make up for that lost revenue.

On the drive out there, we stopped outside the dilapidated town of Cheshire, Ohio to speak with local anti-fracking and coal activist Elisa Young.  At first glance, Elisa’s warm smile suggests she’s a kindly neighborhood everywoman.  And indeed she acts with the sweet disposition of a grandmother—offering the fifteen students of the semester both homemade salsa to eat and homemade rocking chairs to relax in—but her warmth only extends so far.  To local fracking companies, Elisa is the worst kind of neighbor: a nosy citizen meddling in corporate affairs by demanding transparency regarding the supposedly public exploits of businesses.  “When they’re essentially writing the laws,” said Elisa of the energy companies with enormous influence over local governments, “you have to do your best to keep them honest.”

Despite her dedication to taking on a powerful industry, Elisa is a reluctant activist.  She survived the same cancer that claimed the lives of many of her friends and family—innocent casualties of the poisonous coal plants that have desecrated her ancestral home.  Elisa has experienced firsthand the damage the fossil fuel industry wreaks.  She knows what she is up against, but that does not stop her from doing her best to protect her homeland.

Elisa’s best work consists of trawling through hundreds of pages of obscure legal language and navigating her way around corporate bureaucracy—all in the name of staying an informed citizen.  “She was so inspiring as a grassroots organizer,” student Mackenzie Greisser said of Elisa, “fighting such a difficult fight for so long, but with success.”

Rather than chaining herself to every fracking well in Ohio (“I would do it if I thought it was how we’d win”), Elisa prefers to take on the industry by forcing them to abide by the law: registering the correct permits, filling out the proper paperwork.  Through this citizen-empowerment activism, Elisa has made a name for herself as the persistent, annoying gadfly, always double-checking the reports that energy companies file.  She understands the importance of participating in democracy beyond voting every four years.

Though Elisa stayed behind in Cheshire as we moved on to Cincinnati, we all took a bit of her and her citizen-hero mentality with us to the city council on Tuesday during a public hearing on the issue of allowing fracking waste to be stored within the city limits. We witnessed plenty of Elisa-like gumption and conviction among the nearly twenty citizens who all called upon the council to ban injection wells—sites where fracking waste is forced into the earth.  Echoing Elisa’s story, Mackenzie described how her family’s susceptibility to cancer makes the toxic byproducts of fracking a disturbing means of energy acquisition.  “Elisa fighting for her hometown inspired me to fight for mine by standing up against fracking,” Mackenzie said, “and the council thanked me for being an active student.”

So as much as anything, the Greenpeace Semester’s trip to Cincinnati to mobilize support against Duke Energy’s rate hikes is an experiment in democracy: government by the people.  And not corporate people, but living, breathing people who fight for their right to live on stable earth and breathe clean air.  People with the tenacity of Elisa Young and the drive of Mackenzie Greisser.  People who still believe in democracy.

This blog was written by me, Miles Goodrich – Greenpeace Semester student.  You can read more about my class trip experience here: renewthefuture.tumblr.com and go to www.quitcoal.org to learn more.

Twitter: @GPSemester

Facebook: Greenpeace Student Network

Petition: https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1023

Ohioans take a stand against fracking

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Something big happened in Ohio yesterday. After four days of movement building, networking and preparation we shook Columbus with the biggest action against fracking Ohio has ever seen, Don’t Frack Ohio.

Taking our message to the sky with a wind powered banner

1,000 strong, we took over the statehouse and passed a people’s resolution to end fracking.  “We the people have come together to put and end to fracking for a healthy and sustainable future.”

Ohio is the latest of many states coming under attack from the natural gas industry.  Gov. Kasich has received $350,000 from the industry making it much easier for them to pump chemicals into the ground destroying our land, polluting our air and poisoning our water. Last week Gov Kasich signed SB 315 turning one of the worst fracking bills in America into law.

Through out the we weekend heard from 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Gasland Director Josh Fox, Mary-Clare Reitz from Ohio Alliance for People and the Environment and many other local leaders. Of all the stories I heard this weekend Jamie Frederick’s hit me the hardest.

Jamie lives near Youngstown, Ohio in a small rural town. Following an alarming set of health problems that put her on the threshold of death, she finally figured out what the core of her problem was — contaminated well water. Her neighbor signed a contract with a gas company shortly before she moved into the home. A water test revealed that Jaime’s well water was contaminated with chemicals associated with drilling, things like barium and strontium.

“If they would have installed solar panels and wind turbines near outside my home instead of drilling rigs I would not have gotten sick and would be called mom now” Jamie Frederick.

Words cannot express how moved, inspired and hopeful I am from the weekend.  It was amazing to see people from all over Ohio and neighboring states of all ages come together to fight for our right to clean air, clean water and our right to say NO to fracking. Ohioans have risen up and found their voice. The fight against fossil fuels has not been an easy one but now more than ever, I am confident that we will win.

ALEC slips Exxon fracking loopholes into new Ohio law

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Wake up and smell the frack fluid! But don’t ask what’s in it, at least not in Ohio, cause it’s still not your right to know.

Ohio is in the final stages of making an Exxon trojan horse on hydrofracking into state law, and it appears that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) connected Exxon’s lawyers with co-sponsors of Ohio Senate Bill 315: at least 33 of the 45 Ohio legislators who co-sponsored SB 315 are ALEC members, and language from portions of the state Senate bill is similar to ALEC’s “Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act.”

…disclosure of fracking fluids? On behalf of ExxonMobil?!

Frack fluids include unknown chemicals that gas drillers mix with sand and large amounts of water. The mixture is pumped underground at high pressure in order to retrieve gas and oil by fracturing shale formations. These are the chemicals that have caused widespread concern among residents near gas fracking operations, concerns echoed by doctors who don’t know how to treat patients harmed by exposure to chemicals that oil companies keep secret. Oil companies like XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, the first company lined up to drill in Ohio’s Utica shale. Continue reading →