Iowa House Kills Flood Prevention Bill

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While our legislators in the Iowa House were busy giving $15 million to Warren Buffet and MidAmerican Energy, (see Paul Deaton's post below) they have oddly decided that there is no money in the budget for better managing Iowa's flood plains to prevent future flooding to our farms and communities, something that is very likely to occur, given the reality of global climate change, increasing weather extremes, and urbanization of the natural environment.

I can imagine a future scenario where the nay sayers to this important legislation will be one day quoted as saying, "Nobody could have predicted...."  Sound familiar?

From Senator Joe Bolkcom's newsletter, The Networker:

Last week, I reported that the Senate passed SF 2316, a bill to prevent future flood damage to communities and farms by better managing our flood plains. The very modest bill squeaked by on a vote of 26-20. Senator Rob Hogg (D-Cedar Rapids) has championed this effort in response to the 2008 Iowa floods.

This week the bill was pronounced dead in the Iowa House. See who opposed the bill.  As we continue to struggle with 2008 flood recovery and with spring flooding predicted throughout Iowa, this is an amazingly short-sighted defeat.



 

2009 QC Earth Charter Summit
Building a Local Foods Movement

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By Caroline Vernon


You’re invited to attend!

The 2009 Quad Cities Earth Charter Summit
“Building a Local Foods Movement”

Saturday, September 26, 2009, 9am-3pm
Augustana College - Wallenberg Hall

Local Food is the theme of the 2009 Earth Charter Summit, focusing on PACG’s Local Foods Initiative - Our goal is to promote and assist in the development of a healthy, sustainable, local food supply for our region, emphasizing sustainable agricultural practices.

The summit will include local and regional speakers and informative workshops focusing on our effort to develop a working partnership between individual citizens and those working within an institutional framework. There are opportunities for everyone on every level to become involved in the Healthy, Local Foods movement.  People in communities all across our country, and in the world, are mobilizing around this effort.                               

Workshops include:

· Community Gardens
· Local Food Coop
· Farm to Cafeteria
· The Economics of a Local Food Supply
· Information for Food Services, Municipalities, & Legislators
· Reducing the Carbon Footprint of our Diet
· The Importance of SEEDS in a local Foods movement

Keynote Speaker:

Kamyar Enshayan
Director, University of Northern Iowa Center of Energy and  Environmental Education

Enshayan launched Buy Fresh, Buy Local in Iowa  and worked with Iowa communities to start chapters.
Recipient of the 2008 Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award  from Practical farmers of Iowa.

Augustana’s Food Service will be providing a delicious, healthy, local foods lunch!

Cost to attend the Summit is only $10 /$5 for students—scholarships are available

REGISTER TODAY!—Through our website: qcprogressiveaction.org or Call PACG at 563-676-7580, or REGISTER at the door!

Happy New Year progressive family!

I wanted to share with you all the details of the upcoming Inaugural Ball here in the Quad Cities at the Davenport River Center on January 20th... but that will have to be the subject of my next post as I am deeply moved to share this excerpt with all of you from Stephanie Kaza's new book, "Mindfully Green: A Personal & Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking."  Great "food for thought" to live by in 2009 and beyond!

Peace and Love,

Caroline Vernon

Mindfully Green: A Personal and Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking

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by Stephanie Kaza
Posted by: DailyOM at www.dailyom.com

With all the attention on living sustainably, the one thing missing from the conversation is how to find a personal connection with green living that will sustain us on our green path. While practical approaches to an eco-responsible lifestyle offer important first steps, it is critical that we ground these actions in broader understanding so that we can effect real change in the world.

In this book, Stephanie Kaza describes what she calls the “green practice path.” She offers a simple, Buddhist-inspired philosophy for taking up environmental action in real, practical, and effective ways. Discover new ways to think more deeply about your impact on the natural world, engage in environmental change, and make green living a personal practice based in compassion and true conviction.

Excerpt:

Chapter One: Reducing Harm
To get our bearings on the path, it is helpful to have some compass points for orientation. The first three chapters of this book consider principles that provide an ethical foundation and a pragmatic direction for the green path. Foremost of these is the commitment to reduce harm wherever possible.We begin by looking at the nature of environmental harm and exploring choices to reduce that harm. Offering kindness becomes a core practice of non-harming, a way to be with the suffering of the natural world, hard as this may seem. To gain a wisdom perspective on harm and suffering, the third chapter takes up the deep view based on interdependence. With ethical principles and systems thinking to guide us, we can have a certain measure of confidence in setting out on the path.

Reducing Harm

The Dalai Lama often opens his speeches by saying, “Everyone wants to be happy. No one wants to be unhappy.” Stemming from this statement is much of the world’s moral and religious philosophy. Another way to put this is, “Everyone wants to be unharmed. No one wants to be harmed.” All beings, from baby grasshoppers to giant redwood trees and people the world over, would prefer to be safe, to be free from harm, injury, violence, and suffering, to be allowed to live their lives in peace. Nobody really wants to be hurt, abused, or threatened in any way.

The Christian principle of reducing harm is contained in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In 1993 the Parliament of the World’s Religions proclaimed this moral code of reciprocity or mutual respect to be the common basis for a global human ethic. For Hindus, this is expressed as the practice of ahimsa, or non-harming—that is, taking up the path of not causing harm. In Buddhism, monks and laypeople take vows to “save all sentient beings from suffering.” Reducing harm through mutual respect is a central ethical principle in all religious and ethical traditions because it is fundamental to keeping human societies functional and not self-destructive. It is difficult for people and their support systems to thrive if everyone is hurting each other all the time.

This same logic can be extended to human relations with ecological systems. It is difficult for ecosystems to thrive and for people to thrive in them if plants and animals, groundwater, streams, mountains, oceans, and air are constantly under assault. Damaged support systems don’t work as effectively as healthy systems. They are less resilient, less capable, and less functional overall. Human beings trying to live in damaged or ailing ecosystems don’t do well either. They pick up waterborne disease from polluted streams. They struggle with asthma from poor air quality. They are vulnerable to extreme weather events from climate change.

So what does it mean to reduce harm? How can such a principle work when applied in a practical situation? How would one use such a guideline to be a good ecological citizen? As you would imagine, most environmental questions do not have simple answers. We don’t always know when harm is being done, and even when we can see there is harm, we don’t always know what the cause is. And further, there may be many reasons why it is difficult to reduce the harm that is happening. Choosing the ethical path of reducing harm turns out to be a complex and demanding practice. But that should not discourage us. Many wisdom traditions have prepared the way for this practice, and we can work with well-proven methods to help us along the path.

Degrees of Harm

In any given situation, people try to work out a way to get what they need without causing too many repercussions. We are constantly evaluating trade-offs and potential risks to minimize harm to ourselves as well as others with whom we have ongoing relations.We learn to do this in our family settings as we cope with household stress while keeping our safety intact. We maintain polite protocols to be good neighbors even if we disagree on politics. This balancing act reflects our evolutionary development as social animals; there are many good sociobiological reasons for being well-practiced at evaluating the potential for harm. Those who do this well assure both their own well-being and the well-being of their kin. Since this process of discrimination is already well developed, we can use it to help us on the green practice path. In order to reduce environmental harm, we must be able to identify it and then evaluate our own contribution to that harm.

Everyone has to eat, so this is a good place to practice looking for environmental harm and checking our participation in that harm. By “practice,” I mean engaging the questions around harming for a period of time and asking them over and over in different contexts. It is a form of discipline, remembering that this is what you are trying to do, bringing your attention back to the questions with a fresh mind again and again. Practicing with food presents an opportunity for mindfulness because so much of our time is spent in obtaining, preparing, and consuming food. When we stop to consider how much harm is involved in growing or making our food, we can make more informed choices about what we eat and what degrees of harm we will embrace.

Let’s explore several ways of evaluating degrees of harm in food. Looking at the broad picture, we can measure the various environmental impacts generated by the growing and processing the major food groups. Fortunately for us, the Union of Concerned Scientists has already done this research, laying down reliable benchmarks based on scientific analysis. These are outlined in their book The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices.

The authors considered 120 types of environmental impacts and then consolidated this list to six primary concerns: air and water pollution, land use, solid and hazardous waste, and climate change. They then examined U.S. national data for producing all of our food sources—fruits, vegetables, grains, meat. They were able to show which impacts were associated with each type of food production. Their study indicates that meat production is the leading cause of agricultural water pollution. This is because cows and hogs are fattened for slaughter in large feedlots and their manure runs off into the groundwater, polluting nearby streams and lakes. Production of grains and vegetables takes its toll on soil health and habitat biodiversity. So we can use factual data to measure the types and degrees of harming—in the arena of food production and other areas as well.

Another way to evaluate harm is to examine the impacts on individual plants and animals that we choose to consume. Many people are concerned about the treatment of animals in the industrial food system, which causes distress and suffering for the animals. Classic philosophical arguments for vegetarianism point out that animals have awareness and intelligence, that they experience physical and emotional suffering as we do.The infliction of cruelty and suffering—such as clipping hogs’ tails, cutting chicks’ beaks, or branding the hides of cattle—are standard operations in domestic meat production.

Animals experience further anxiety and stress from being crowded in small cages or packed into trucks for long-distance transport. Calves and piglets are often traumatically separated from their mothers before weaning. If you eat meat, you can evaluate which of these types of harming is acceptable to you. If you want to reduce harm to the soil and groundwater as well as to individual animals, you can reduce the amount of meat you eat. The Union of Concerned Scientists strongly recommends cutting back on meat consumption to directly reduce both animal suffering and environmental degradation.

Evaluating harm to plants is more difficult because we don’t understand how plants experience harm. We know that poor soil, lack of water, and over harvesting can leave plants weak and nutrient deficient. But do plants suffer in the same way if their evolutionary integrity is altered through genetic engineering? Does mono-cropping harm plants or soils or both? With the rise of the organic farming movement, green consumers looking to reduce harm choose organic over conventional produce options. They reason that organic plants have been better nourished by the soil and perhaps also more lovingly cared for by the farmer, at least in small-scale operations. Workers on industrial-scale organic farms, however, may not hold such intimate relations with their crops.

Another way to evaluate degree of harm is in terms of the eater, rather than the eaten. Meat-intensive diets have been correlated with high rates of human heart disease and cancers of the digestive tract. Some vegetarians have turned away from meat to protect their health and avoid meat-associated medical risks. Studies now show that hormones used in beef production can affect human reproductive development, causing early puberty and male infertility. The heavy use of antibiotics in conventional meat and dairy operations is a human health concern as well, undercutting the effectiveness of these valuable drugs in treating human infection. Reducing harm to ourselves is a viable and important aspect of reducing environmental impact, reflecting the recognition that we too are part of the environment that is under siege.

We can also consider degrees of harm relative to spiritual well-being. In many world and indigenous religious traditions, abstaining from meat is a common practice in cultural ceremonies or as training in self-discipline. Practicing restraint requires constant vigilance and the tempering of deeply conditioned appetites. Buddhists and Hindus emphasize the merit gained from cumulative acts of compassion in relation to animals. They further believe that a meat-free diet generates a calmer mind, more disposed toward equanimity and patience and therefore less likely to harm others.

In the last few years a new criterion has arisen for evaluating harm: the distance a food has traveled from production to market. The harm, in this case, is to our climate, since long shipping distances contribute significantly to the carbon emissions impact of food products. Farmers’ markets across the nation have been promoting “locavore” campaigns, challenging people to eat 10 or 20 percent of their diet from local foods only. Authors Barbara Kingsolver and Gary Nabhan have taken on the experiment of eating 100 percent locally in their Midwest and desert regions, inspiring others with their stories. In this measure, degree of harm reflects the number of food miles associated with a specific food. We can choose to reduce our diet-related greenhouse gas emissions by eating locally and cutting down on food miles.

EVENT POSTPONED:  Join I-Renew to Celebrate Renewable Energy on Winter Solstice Tonight in Iowa City

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Postponed:  watch this space for new date and time...

I-Renew Winter Solstice Event for tonight...Due to unfavorable weather conditions for today and this evening, I-Renew has decided to postpone the Celebration of Renewable Energy scheduled for tonight. A new date will be TBA, though we hope to get together soon to celebrate our accomplishments and collaborate on new endeavors together! Stay safe and warm! 

Sunday December 21, 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Mill Restaurant, 120 E. Burlington St. Iowa City  
Admission: $5 suggested minimum donation.  Public welcome!

Festivities include:

Live Music! with The Gilded Bats and Ben Schmidt.

Free Giveaways!
Silent Auction with great renewable holiday gifts!

Discussion and fun with like minded folks interested in renewable energy!

The funds raised at the event will go toward I-Renew's work educating Iowans about sustainable energy production and use.

If you have questions, please contact the I-Renew office
email: irenew@irenew.org  or visit our website

Contact: Michelle Kenyon Brown, Director
Iowa Renewable Energy Association (I-Renew)
michellekbrown@irenew.org

Mike Carberry
I-Renew: Board of Directors & Membership Chair
mike@greenstatesolutions.com

Johnson County Ballot: Say YES to Conservation on November 4th

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Citizens for Our Land, Water and Future

This November 4th we will have the opportunity to vote for a $20 million investment over the next 20 years for increased water and air quality, conservation, open spaces, wildlife habitat, trails and recreational areas.

This local investment will be leveraged with grants, donations, and federal, state and private money for a likely multiplying effect of 2.5 to 3 times, for a total investment of $50 to $60 million for our land, water and future.

For a homeowner in Johnson County, this would be an investment of about $2.20 a month, or the cost of a large coffee. An owner of a $200,000 house would pay an additional $26.36 a year. Farmland owners would pay approximately an additional 21 cents per acre.

No land will be condemned; only willing sellers will be considered.

The money will be administered by the Johnson County Conservation Board.

The plan will be flexible, comprehensively developed with citizen input, and will be subject to annual audits.

Preserving our land and water improves our quality of life, increases land and property values, and contributes to the economic vitality of the area for not only our lifetime but that of our children and grandchildren.
 
If you think it is time for something so bold and revolutionary, we could use your support. All the usual things that happen in a campaign will be needed—campaign donations, yard sign locations, volunteers, letters to the editor, and advocacy mailings. If you want to be involved in these activities, just let us know.

Together we can make a difference for our land, our water, and our future.

Click here for further information.

 

Green-collar Jobs in Iowa

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by Brianne Sanchez, Des Moines Register

State Senator Ron Hogg (of Linn County, Iowa) wants to add more green to the wardrobes of young professionals in Des Moines. The term "green collar" is a buzzword in the business sector, but to many, its meaning is still unclear. "It's anybody working in a job that is based on environmental sustainability," said Hogg, who serves on the state's Natural Resources and Environment committee. "So, for example, the people manufacturing wind turbines." By his definition, green collar jobs can include careers such as architects and designers of LEED-certified projects as well as factory workers.

"The importance is that we have to be environmentally sustainable at the same time we're economically sustainable," Hogg said. "We no longer live in an era where we can trade the economy off the environment."

Click here to see profiles of two Iowa green collar workers.

Quad City Earth Charter Summit, Oct. 11, 2008, Davenport

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Global Climate Change: Generating Hope and Energy

Join them for a day of exploring facts and possibilities. Walk away with hope for the future and energy to make a difference.

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

8:00 am - 4:00 pm

The River Center
136 East 3rd Street
Davenport, Iowa

cost: $20 - includes the organic lunch, or $10 without lunch.

Guest speakers include our own Molly Regan, Soil & Water Commissioner, Scott County

2008 has been named the United Nations' Year of Planet Earth. A perfect time to emphasize Earth Charter's role in healing the planet.

Register Early

call: 563-323-9466

Climate Justice: Promoting Equity in Dealing with Climate Change

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By Progressive States Network

Too often, the impact that policies and measures have on low-income and marginalized communities is considered only as an after thought, if at all. Climate change policies are no exception.

While everyone will be impacted by the effect of climate change, the impacts will be distributed unequally. For example, temperatures are expected to increase across the country resulting in higher cooling costs, which more greatly affects poorer households. But the impacts go beyond just increased cooling costs. Higher temperatures will have a greater effect on those with poorer health and lack of access to hospitals and health care. People of color and low-income communities face more health care disparities, including less routine care and unequal access to quality care. As a result, these communities will doubly suffer from the effects of climate change.

While there is no doubt that aggressive, comprehensive action must be taken, the impact these policies have on lower-income communities and communities of color must be considered from the beginning, especially in a time of recession when family budgets are most strained. This Dispatch lays out the issues facing climate change policies and how states can implement smart, equitable changes.
Stopping"Cap and Dump"

The disproportionate burden on low income communities and communities of color is continued by bad climate change policies. If not properly created, implemented, and enforced, cap and trade policies can result in poor communities and communities of color being exposed to a grossly disproportionate level of pollution. The idea behind cap and trade is that emissions levels for a particular industry are capped. Emissions allowances are then distributed amongst the industry. These allowances can then be traded between companies to compensate for exceeding emissions limits.

Dumping in Poor Communities: Without proper policing, a cap and trade system can become a "cap and dump" system where companies, especially those in disadvantaged communities, make no changes in their behavior and instead just buy emissions credits to cover their bad behavior. In the end, communities that cannot afford to keep polluting industries out become toxic dumping grounds.

In a declaration against cap and trade schemes, environmental justice advocates point out that many current cap and trade schemes are undemocratic, "because it allows entrenched polluters, market designers, and commodity traders to determine whether and where to reduce greenhouse gases and co-pollutant emissions without allowing impacted communities or governments to participate in those decisions."

Carbon Taxes as a Better Alternative: Many economists, including conservative ones, argue that an across-the-board tax on carbon to encourage emission cutbacks from all sources would not only be fairer, but would be economically more effective for overall both stopping climate change and economic efficiency.

Many analysts argue that carbon taxes are simpler, more transparent, and less subject to manipulation by polluters. And because it applies to every carbon source, it gives stronger incentives to immediately convert to less toxic and renewable energy sources. Combined with tightening regulatory limits, carbon taxes are less likely to end up with disproportionate dumping of emissions and toxins in poorer communities.

Smart Cap and Trade Policies: Where cap and trade policies are used, several steps must be taken to ensure that cap and trade schemes are fairly implemented as we highlighted in an earlier Dispatch. First, emissions allowances must be auctioned off, instead of being given away, to raise revenue and create economic incentives for businesses to change their behavior. The revenue raised can be used to provide economic relief to lower-income families and to ensure that lower-income communities do not become emissions dumping grounds.

Second, the emissions trading must be strongly monitored with stringent enforcement provisions, including reasonably accurate emissions measurement and automatic excess emissions penalties that are not subject to appeal or waivers. The trading of any emission that is toxic, like mercury, must also be prohibited, even if they are greenhouse gases.
Easing Economic Disparity

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office found that under a cap and trade system for carbon dioxide emissions, most of the costs of meeting the cap would be borne by consumers through higher prices for products like electricity and gasoline. The price increases would have a disproportionate impact on lower-income households because they would bear a larger burden relative to their income.

Potentially Regressive Pollution Taxes: In fact, any form of pollution tax is regressive because the economic burden falls more heavily on low income households. Poor households spend more than 15% of their income on energy, while households earning over $50,000 a year spend less than 3%. For households with an average income of roughly $13,000, the costs of a modest emissions-control target would be between $750-$950.

Before moving on to policy options for protecting low-income households, it is important to clarify what exactly is meant by economic burden. Many right-wing climate change deniers claim that climate change policies would destroy the U.S. economy. This is easily disputed by a new report by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) found that a cap and trade policy would not unduly burden economic growth and not adversely affect employment or business growth. To this extent, climate change policies will not hurt overall economic growth. However, there will be some cost to consumers. The EDF study put the amount at less than 1% of household budgets for the average American family. That is an average, so that amount for lower-income families will be larger as a portion of income and more daunting. Climate change policy must ensure that these families are not unduly economically burdened.

There are several ways to ensure that working families are not left behind in the race to fight climate change. First and foremost, policies must be enacted now. The EDF report pointedly stated that the longer the delay in action, the higher the costs of emissions reductions will become.

Eliminating Regressivity: The Brookings Institution has released a paper on how to implement an equitable carbon tax. The study also seconds the need for rapid action, noting that the sooner states enact a carbon tax and then increase it gradually, the more cost effective it will be compared to cutting emissions drastically in the future. To help offset the cost of a carbon tax on lower-income households, the paper calls for the creation of an environmental earned income tax credit in the personal income tax that would be equal to the employer and employee payroll taxes on initial earnings (up to a limit).The tax credit could be financed by revenue raised through implementing the carbon tax. Economic analysis in the study shows that properly enacted rebates would completely offset any increase in costs by a carbon tax.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) developed a set of key measures necessary to offset the increased costs of climate-change legislation. Assistance for low-income consumers must:

*

fully offset the impact of higher costs on the bottom fifth of the population,
*

reach as many in the bottom fifth as possible,
*

cover increases in household's various energy-related expenses, not just utility bills,
*

reflect family size,
*

operate through proven delivery mechanisms, and
*

phase up as emission controls phase in.

The CBPP report estimates that 14% of the value of the emissions allowances under a cap and trade system would be enough to cover the costs of providing assistance to the poorest fifth of households and partially offset the costs for households with modestly higher incomes.
State Action to Address Climate Justice

Many states are already taking action to ease the burden of energy costs on lower-income families, and those efforts need to be accelerated as climate change policies are implemented.

Assistance for energy costs: As we highlighted previously, Illinois gave a $1 billion rebate to consumers to provide relief from large electricity rate increases. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program clearinghouse lists all of the states and programs offering assistance. A few key state programs include:

* Minnesota requires electric companies serving over 200,000 residential customers provide a 50% discount for low-income customers on the first 300 kilowatt hours consumed each month.
* Arizona provides discounts up to 40% on the cost of electricity for customers who earn up to 150% of the federal poverty level.
* Ohio has a Percentage of Income Payment Plan that requires utilities to accept payments based on a percentage of household income.

Energy efficiency measures: While energy cost offsets are important, assistance to encourage adopting energy efficiency measures is needed, since the initial costs of doing so can be prohibitive. For instance, while in the long-term, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs use less energy, the initial cost of a CFL is, on average, more than three times the cost of a regular light bulb. For families that barely make it month to month, those few dollars make a big difference. In recognition of the initial financial hurdle, Southern California Edison distributed one million free CFLs. Other state programs and policies include:

* West Virginia (SB 474) creates a limited sales tax holiday for energy star products.
* Colorado (HB 1387) uses funds from the severance tax trust fund to, among other things, provide home energy efficiency improvements for low-income households.
* New Hampshire (HB 1434) provides that at least 5% of a greenhouse gas emissions reduction fund shall be used to assist low-income residential customers to reduce total energy use.
* Michigan (SB 1046) establishes the low-income energy efficiency accounts to purchase energy efficiency windows, insulation and other energy efficiency measures that would be eligible for certain tax deductions and credits.
* Kansas (SB 580) creates weatherization assistance program account within the housing trust fund.
* South Carolina (SB 1076) creates a non-profit that would be able to receive funds and contributions that would help provide financial assistance to low-income households to implement energy efficiency and conservation measures.
* California's Public Utilities Commission implemented an unprecedented $108 million program to give incentives to low-income, single family homes to install high-performing solar installations.

Integrating Fighting Climate Change with Job Creation: Ultimately, the strongest way to help low-income communities and communities of color fight the disproportionate burden of climate change is to create environmentally beneficial jobs and economic growth within their communities.

Green for All, one of the leading advocates for green jobs in disadvantaged communities, highlights how shifting to a clean, green economy will improve the health and well-being of low-income earners who have suffered disproportionately from the current pollution-based economy.

Funds for states became available through the federal Green Jobs Act of 2007, authorizing $125 million per year to create green jobs worker training programs, which was included in the recently enacted Energy Independence and Security Act. Washington state was the first to pass a green collar jobs provision; HB 2815/ SB 6516 specifically targets low-income workers for green workforce training.
Conclusion

As we pointed out in our discussion on bio-fuels, blindly implementing climate change policies can create new harms, even while trying to fix old ones. Sound climate change policies are now desperately needed partly because of the failure to recognize the complexity of the issue. Protecting and re-investing in marginalized communities ensures an equitable and sound means to fighting climate change, instead of leaving substantial populations behind to deal with a mess they didn't create.
Resources
Climate Justice: Promoting Equity in Dealing with Climate Change

The California Climate Change Center at US Berkeley, Lessons for a Cap and Trade Program
Virginia Environmental Law Journal, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Climate Change: The Equity Problem
Stopping"Cap and Dump"

California Environmental Justice Movement's Declaration on Use of Carbon Trading Schemes to Address Climate Change

EJ Matters, Resources on Carbon Trading

Carbon Tax Center, Tax vs. Cap-and-Trade

American Enterprise Institute, Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes
Easing Economic Disparity

Congressional Budget Office, Trade-offs in Allocating Allowances for CO2 Emissions
Center for Integrative Environmental Research, The U.S. Economic Impacts of Climate Change and the Costs of Inaction
Environmental Defense Fund, What Will it Cost to Protect Ourselves from Global Warming
The Brookings Institution, A Proposal for a U.S. Carbon Tax Swap, An Equitable Tax Reform to Address Global Climate Change
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Designing Climate Change Legislation that Shields Low-Income Households from Increased Poverty and Hardship
State Action to Address Climate Justice

Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Green Taxes

Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program clearinghouse

Green for All

Green Jobs Act of 2007

State Bills
# West Virginia SB 474
# Colorado HB 1387
# New Hampshire HB 1434
# Michigan SB 1046
# Kansas SB 58
# South Carolina SB 1076
# Washington HB 2815/ SB 6516
3 Steps Forward

1. CO: Colorado lawmakers propose to loosen the so-called "Taxpayer Bill of Rights"

2. MO: Missouri House rejects bill to cut minimum wages

3. IA: Bill to allow public employee collective bargaining goes to governor, but fate uncertain
2 Steps Back

1. US: Many states appear to be in a recession

2. NE: Nebraska Attorney General refusing discrimination cases involving undocumented workers
Events
Good Jobs First Conference

May 7th & 8th
Baltimore/D.C. area

Registration is now open for Good Jobs First's national conference on May 7 and 8 near BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, located between Baltimore and Washington, DC. Come meet the nation's top campaigners, researchers and experts on economic development accountability and smart growth for working families.