Injustice in America, States Rights and the return to a poll tax.

GreenWatch

Injustice in America, States Rights and the return to a poll tax.

By Jay Burney

If you thought that the modern Republican Party is just about being anti-women with anti-contraception and invasive vaginal probe legislation tied to women’s medical decisions, you are wrong. Think again. They are anti-education, anti-environmental, anti labor, and anti-democracy. They are also against the historic civil rights that transformed America in the 1960’s.  Modern republicans are ushering us back to a time of Jim Crow.

Between 1876 and when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965 were implemented by the Federal government, the United States, especially many of the southern states, made racial segregation the law of the land.  The civil rights and liberties of African Americans were targeted by what are known as Jim Crow laws that codified racial segregation of public schools, public places, transportation, restrooms, drinking fountains, bank lending, job discrimination, and military segregation. Among the Jim Crow laws were “poll taxes” collected by several southern states from residents that wished to vote. These highly discriminatory “taxes” heavily and disproportionately impacted minorities especially African Americans, Native Americans, and the poor. If you couldn’t pay the taxes you couldn’t vote. You were disenfranchised. The Civil rights and Voting Rights Acts helped to put an end to that injustice.

If you do not know about this stuff, you really don’t know much about American history including the legacy of  Martin Luther King. He died fighting the institutional racism that characterized ( and often still characterizes) America.

You may have heard of the “southern strategy”. This is an American political term that has long characterized how national leadership has dealt with discrimination and segregation issues.  During the Civil Rights movement, democrats were able to both embrace the civil rights movement and to empower a newly emerging class of voters in the south. The strategy resulted in national and local election victories that were embodied in a 90% democratic enrollment by southern black voters.

This strategy helped lead a transformation of America into a place of more hope, more justice, and more equality. The world seemed a better place and America was taking the lead.

Today, the Republican Party is turning back the clock. Among other things they are returning to a “southern strategy” that is predicated on the exploitation of anti-African American racism, misogyny, fear, and the characterization of “States rights” as a panacea for the perceived evils that infest the Federal government. This is a thinly disguised but effective attack on women, minorities, the poor, the elderly, labor, education, students, economic and environmental regulations, and the fundamental freedoms, rights, and liberties that so many have fought and died for. It is a disingenuous and cynical strategy at best. The fundamentalist republican’s use the argument of  “potential voter fraud” as the foundation for requiring voter ID. This despite the fact that studies done in the past decade by the Federal Government find that less than .003% of voter fraud has been found nationwide. Despite that 38 states have advanced bills requiring voter ID.

In recent months, several states including Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee, Kansas, South Carolina, and Wisconsin have passed discriminatory voting practices, including voter ID laws. All of these come with real cash costs to the voters whom have to purchase the ID’s, purchase paperwork supporting the ID’s, and often travel great distances to access places where the ID’s are sold.

The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that if fully enacted, these laws could prohibit as many as 5 million otherwise eligible voters from participating in the next Presidential election. A preponderance of those affected will be people of color.

Because of this countries historic racial discrimination including voter rights atrocities traced back to Jim Crow and the prohibitive poll tax requirements, states that are trying to reintroduce new discriminatory voting regulations have to be approved by either the Justice Department or a Federal Judge.  Despite fundamentalist attempts to disembowel the federal government it still plays a role protecting our rights and liberties.

The states rights lie embodied in voter ID legislation is an attempt at a political power grab backed by an oligarchic empire that has outsourced, downsized, and disenfranchised the American dream. And they still like to refer to this dung heap of an idea “a shining city on a hill”.  American Exceptionalism indeed.

Here are profiles of some of the states that have enacted voter ID legislation.

Mississippi

Mississippi’s population is 59 % white and 37% black, and 2.7% Hispanic.  In November Mississippi voters approved a state constitutional amendment requiring all voters to have an approved photo ID such as a drivers license before they could vote.  The “make voting harder” amendment to the Mississippi State Constitution passed with a 62% plurality.  Opponents of the amendment say that the ID requirement will make it harder for the elderly, the disabled and poor and African American residents to vote. Among other issues is the actual cost of a driver’s license or photo ID and access to agencies that can provide these items to a fundamentally rural poor population, which is disproportionally African American.

Election results show that the amendment was very popular amongst white voters, and not so popular amongst African Americans.

Many thousands of people, including ¼ of all Mississippi African Americans in Mississippi do not have photo ID’s or easy access to them.

The law had not been enacted by the March 13 Republican Presidential primary election where 97% of the voters were white.  The Republican controlled Mississippi legislature decided not to pass the rules that will govern the voter ID process until after the Republican primary.  Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a white republican and the states chief election officer said that it is the goal of legislatures to make sure that the rule is in effect for the Presidential elections, when African Americans are sure to try to vote. Hoseman was asked by a reporter on Republican primary day what he would say to opponents of the law and he said with a laugh “get over it”. The Justice Department or a Federal Judge will have to approve the new rules before they go into effect.

Texas

The federal government is also scrutinizing a new texas law that requires photo id in order to vote.

According to the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice, the new Texas law will prohibit up to 800,000 otherwise legally entitled voters from participating in the Presidential election. Other critics put that number well over 1 million.  According to Texas own data, a Hispanic voter in Texas is almost 50% more unlikely to meet the requirements to obtain the id, which include a minimum of $22 to purchase the documentation to get the Voter ID. The DOJ asked the State to offer some proof of voter fraud in Texas, and the state could nor provide any evidence On March 12 the Justice Department decided that the Poll tax made the Texas law illegal. Texas Governor Rick Perry is now suing the Federal government and seeks immediate implementation of the new law.

South Carolina

Just before Christmas the Justice Department rejected a South Carolina Law making it difficult for minorities to vote. The state is now challenging the Federal ruling and attorneys handling the case for the state have declared that it will cost South Carolina taxpayers more than $1million to prosecute the case, especially if it has to go to the Supreme Court. The return to Jim Crow is costly, but apparently the good white folks in South Carolina are glad to anti up to pay the piper.

Wisconsin

Almost 150 years after the United States fought the Civil War, and this is not just an issue of the south.

According to state democratic leaders, more than 250,000 Wisconsin voters are disenfranchised by the voter ID law.

Republican Gov Scott Walker’s administration who initiated anti-union legislation that turned the state inside out also initiated voter ID requirements.  Recently a State Judge placed a permanent injunction on the law.  The Judge said that over a quarter of a million Wisconsin voters who would other wise be eligible to vote, many of whom are democrats, would be prohibited from voting under the new rules, which would cost the individual voters money. Besides the photo id costs, the costs of transportation and lost wages for a day spent chasing down paperwork could cost individuals more than $100 each. 

Selma to Montgomery

You may have heard that Al Sharpton recently led a march with his National Action Network recreating the historic civil rights Marches between Selma and Montgomery Alabama to protest the new making it harder to vote laws.  Sharpton calls the new laws Jim Crow on steroids, saying that they are more polished and sophisticated and pretend to fix a problem that does not exist.  Sharpton says that the underlying rhetoric promoting these laws focus on voter fraud, are themselves fraudulent arguments designed to disenfranchise voters and not to strengthen the democratic process.

It seems that fundamentalist Republicans have no qualms about exploiting racial fears with a new radicalism that will bring our country to its knees. The game plan here is becoming more obvious with each passing day.

If you are wondering what this all has to do with you, and you live in Buffalo, there is a good chance that you are not a person of color. According to 2011 US Census data, the Buffalo Metro area is the 6^th most racially segregated area in the United States.  Our African American population is concentrated in the urban core of Buffalo while almost all of the suburban and rural areas are white.  This puts us on the cutting edge of the future of civil rights in America.  You may not know that the Jim Crow laws that have been inspired by the republican fundamentalists are making their way into your life today, but if they get a hold in the southern strategy states it wont be long before you will be asked to take a position. Much of Buffalo’s urban population has experienced a lifetime of racism.  As America rapidly descends into its Jim Crow past, what will you do?

ALEC The American Legislative Exchange Council

ALEC is a powerful corporate funded action organization that is behind all of the voting laws discussed in this article.  ALEC authors and promotes legislation in local and federal legislatures that further a corporate agenda reflecting smaller government, tax breaks for the rich, and legislation that is anti –environmental , anti-labor, anti-education, and a wide plethora of issues that  benefit the conservative agenda.

ALEC is organized across the America, has introduced bills in every State legislature, and is funded secretly by private corporate interests organized by the Koch Brothers. According to the organization Media and Democracy which revealed over 800 ALEC sponsored bills in July of 2011, ALEC is reshaping our democracy by financially supporting legislators that take the model bills created by ALEC and introducing them and or voting for them in the political bodies that they represent.  

For more on ALEC and voting Rights:

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Democracy_%26_Voting

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

ALEC Exposed, Rigging Elections, The Nation, July 2011

http://www.thenation.com/article/161969/rigging-elections

Boom and BUST

GreenWatch

Boom and BUST

The Lies About Jobs

The legacy news media has a lot to say about the positive impacts of natural gas development in New York State. Like many others, you may be convinced that the economic upside of shale gas includes many jobs and a resurgent economy.

You are very wrong if you believe this. Most of the economic projections come from industry oriented propaganda. Industry that stands to profit dramatically if New York State allows hydrofracking. Not by creating jobs, not by building local economies, but by extracting wealth and leaving behind a legacy of destruction.

Last summer the New York State DEC published a draft generic supplemental environmental impact statement that was paid for by taxpayer dollars. A local WNY company, Ecology and Environment (E&E), which has extensive ties to the oil and gas industry produced an economic assessment that was contained in the publically funded document.  In it E&E stated that an average NYS shale gas development scenario would bring 53,969 jobs.  Food and Water Watch, an organization opposed to hydrofracking published an independent analysis last November entitled “New York State Exaggerated Potential Job Creation from Shale Gas Development.”  It states that the E&E projections are “deeply flawed“ and that “in the first year of an average scenario only 195 new jobs would be created for NYS residents and that “after 10 years only 600 jobs”. After the 10^th year there would be almost no more new jobs created”.

The E&E analysis mirrors industry claims and has been repeated over and over while the Food and Water Watch report, and many other independent assessments that support the critical analysis have been ignored by legacy media. “Truth” and fair and balanced information is a commodity bought and sold to the highest bidder and delivered into your living room by uncritical “news” operations that have a bottom line that does not often include investigation, analysis, or even critical thinking.

Boom

Generally speaking, the gas boom can be characterized as a short term accelerated production cycle. The initial development activities are massive and carry many real and environmental costs that are borne by the local communities.  Impacted communities are always unprepared to adjust to increased and cyclic populations. North Dakota experienced a significant boom due to natural gas operations in 2011 and has also experienced a dark side.

Williston ND saw its population grow from 14,500 people in 2010, to over 20,000 in late 2011. According to a Bloomberg report published this last January, “North Dakota Oil Boom Brings Blight with Growth as Costs Soar” the sudden boom created a housing shortage.  Rents for a two-bedroom home without utilities skyrocketed from $350 a month to over $2,000.  Five hotels and 1,200 new apartments are being built.  Meanwhile some workers and their families are living in their cars, while others are gathering in what are being called “man-camps” – temporary shelters including tents and trailers. Some counties have banned these man camps citing lack of sewer, electrical, and water systems, increased crime rates, and increased prostitution among other social issues.

While the Oil and Gas industry provided Williston with $1.5 million “oil extraction tax”  in 2011, infrastructure costs continue to soar.   The community is looking at spending $87 million to provide three new schools for the approximate 1,500 new students this year. This is an approximate 57% increase in what the local schools were designed to hold. Roads designed to handle 10 tractor trailer trucks a day now are being used by over 800 a day. Montrail County’s road system which has been so completely overburdened by the enormous truck traffic needs $600 million just to keep the roads open. Calls to Montrail County volunteer ambulance and fire services has tripled since 2009.

Bust and Despair

Imagine a ghost town with its ruined and abandoned buildings and streets inhabited by the wretched ghosts of its former residents.  This well-known scenario is based on oil and mineral extractions.  The rush and boom is always followed by collapse. Collapse stays forever. Whatever residents remain pay for the boom with expansive poverty and the inability to maintain basic services and infrastructure. The resultant cultural collapse is a Santorum (google it) scenario that we should all be prepared for if NYS allows fracking.

The long-term bust is characterized by broken and impoverished rural communities. According to Chris Burger of the Sierra Club Atlantic Gas Task Force one of the principle downsides of economic impacts in a fracking area is a loss of diversity of jobs.  Tourism and recreation jobs almost completely disappear as those industries are devastated by the blight caused by gas drilling sites and infrastructure.  Agriculture is seriously impacted by drilling activities and studies have shown that in communities that allow fracking up to 50% of family owned farms are put out of business.

A Cornell University report “Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling: What does it mean for Economic Development concludes that short term boom is always followed by long term bust. Good long-term jobs are not created in drilling communities. Other good jobs migrate away.  Economic diversity declines, as communities cannot attract investment from non-extraction industries.

Add these economic development lies on top of the catastrophic environmental issues created when the waters that we depend on become contaminated, and undrinkable. Your drinking water will be affected. Add this to the costs of the remediation, the lack of remediation, and the to costs of the consequences of human health impacts. Add these inevitable consequences of the depravation and predation by the few that will gain economically to the many that will suffer long term economic consequences and you have to wonder how on earth, we has a culture can have the political, social, or moral will to allow hydrofracking.

Why Western New York needs to have a public hearing about Hydrofracking

By Jay Burney, GreenWatch

In case you have not heard about it, New York State is currently evaluating whether or not to allow a controversial natural gas drilling process called hydrological fracking to take place across the state. This process allows extracting of natural gas from certain shale formations that lie underneath N.Y, including Marcellus and Utica Shale, both which are found below parts of WNY.  NYS is accepting public comments on the matter until January 11.  You can submit your comment by going here:

http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/76838.html

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has held several public hearings on the issue across New York State. But not in Buffalo or Niagara Falls.  Our proximity to the shale, and the potential social, economic, and environmental impacts of this process on WNY should be a compelling reason for the NYS DEC to hold public hearings on this matter here. They have chosen not to. It is very likely that unless the DEC extends its public comment period on the process beyond the January 11^th deadline and opts to hold a public hearing in or near Buffalo, a coalition of concerned citizens and groups may very well hold a “peoples hearing” to better alert the local press and to inform the DEC of the “opinions” of citizens in the WNY region.

One of the many reasons that the process of hydrofracking is controversial because it uses toxic chemicals which are injected into the ground under high pressure and at high volume. There is widespread concern and growing evidence that these chemicals will enter water supplies and aquifers and render the freshwater unusable and toxic to life, including humans. This is important to the people of WNY as it could effect our drinking water and the Great Lakes which are an increasingly valuable global resource representing about 20% of the earths fresh surface water and about 100% of our regions sustainable future.

Only some of the at last 300 chemicals that are used are known to the public.  They include  methanol, ethylene glycol, formaldehyde, naphthalene, benzene, toluene and xylene. They are known to be endocrine disrupters, cancer-causing agents, or cause other negative human health impacts including respiratory ailments and birth defects. These chemicals have been found widely in drinking water and in aquifers near gas fields and wells.

The drilling companies consider other chemicals used as secret proprietary formulas and they will not release these formulas to the public for scrutiny. This is of some consequence.

According to a local anti-fracking group, Re-Energize Buffalo (http://renewnrg.blogspot.com/2011/03/radioactivity-in-wastewater-from-shale.html)

 In 2009, NYSDEC analyzed 13 samples of fracking wastewater from gas drilling sites in the Marcellus Shale and found levels of radioactive radium as high as 267 times the safe limit for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink. Studies conducted in Pennsylvania confirm those findings an have revealed some drinking water near fracking operations to contain radium at over 1,000 times higher than federal safe drinking water standards. In addition

Environmental and health professionals, as well as citizen activists around the United States share concerns that fracking with these contaminates will destroy the fresh water that life depends on, that we drink, and that our food supply requires. They are asking for more scientific analysis and that NYS proceed with great caution until there is more quantifiable information. The U.S. EPA is still engaged in evaluation of the safety of fracking and will not publish its findings until at least 2013. The potential multiplier effects of introducing known and unknown toxins into our water could be catastrophic for us and for future generations.

Proponents of the drilling process, mostly energy companies, engineering firms and law firms that will benefit from the extraction, argue that proposed regulations in New York mandate that the companies disclose proprietary formula’s to the DEC for appropriate review and that all well sites and associated water sources will be appropriately monitored and tested. Opponents including some DEC staff members say that the DEC is not equipped to oversee the number of wells that may be drilled, and that it is unlikely that enough money will every be appropriated to handle the regulatory oversight needed to insure even a modicum of safety for water sources.

Apparently New York State shares these concerns albeit at this time on a limited basis. The NYSDEC has already determined that they will not allow hydrofracking to proceed in the areas that make up both the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. WNY watersheds are not protected by the same rules.

Another reason that WNY deserves a public hearing is that when Governor Cuomo appointed an advisory panel early last summer to help the state evaluate economic and environmental consequences of hydrofracking, he neglected to appoint a single member from WNY.

Robert Knoer, Chair of the WNY Environmental Alliance which is comprised of 80 WNY environmental organizations, writing on behalf of the alliance noted in a letter to Gov. Cuomo in July:

“I must however express our concern that there are no representatives of the Western New York region on the panel.  While acknowledging that this is not a "regional" panel I note that there has been a natural dichotomy created by the proposed SGEIS.  The current proposed course of action distinguishes among watersheds: Disturbance around the New York City and Syracuse watersheds from hydrofracking activities is unacceptable within a 4000 foot buffer.  However when addressing the Primary aquifers that dominate upstate non-filtered water supplies the DEC determined that "Horizontal extraction of gas resources underneath the Primary Aquifers from well pads located outside this area (500 feet) would not significantly impact this valuable water resource" (dSGEIS Executive Summary pg. 18).

There appears to be a distinction, albeit perhaps unintentional, of the impact of the state policy between Western New York and downstate aquifers.  As such, we feel it is appropriate that the Western New York environmental concerns be fully and thoroughly vetted as this discussion proceeds.”

As of January 1, 2012, there has been no response to this letter.

Another reason for concern to WNY’ers is the proposal to accommodate fracking wastewater at the Niagara Falls N.Y. reprocessing plant. A portion of the hydrofracking fluid injected into wells is recoverable. This fluid needs to be treated before it is released. This fall the Niagara Falls  N.Y. Water Board which oversees the city’s wastewater treatment facilities decided to explore the financial benefits of taking fracking wastewater, treating it, and discharging it into the Niagara River.  There are serious and fundamental questions about whether or not the Niagara Falls facility can handle the known and unknown toxins and these are issues that citizens are demanding to be aired in a public hearing.  Dumping fracking wastewater into the Niagara River where it will eventually flow into the Atlantic Ocean is an issue that needs intense scrutiny. 

Last week (December 27), a coalition of 82 Mayor’s from around the Great Lakes called on provincial, state, and federal governments to hold public hearings for “utmost transparency and disclosure” when it comes to the potential impact of fracking waste on Great Lakes waters.  http://niagaraatlarge.com/2011/12/27/great-lakes-mayors-raise-concern-about-proposed-fracking-waste-discharge-to-niagara-river/

The Niagara Falls Water Board has recently hired a PR firm to handle “questions” about the issue. Great.

False Jobs and Real Economic Consequences

Advocates of fracking including politicians, lobbyists, the energy industry and the engineering and law firms that will benefit economically from hydrofracking have used a “jobs” as the principle public argument to allow hydrofracking in New York State. Food & Water Watch, a national organization dedicated to safe food and water issued a challenge to the “jobs creator” theory in a November 2011 report entitled “New York State Exaggerated Potential Job Creation from Shale Gas Development.”

http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/NewYorkJobCreationFromShaleGas.pdf

The report states:” The oil and gas industry, industry-funded academics, and ideological think tanks have promoted shale gas development as a sure-fire job creator in difficult economic times. Proponents of shale gas development have benefited from media and U.S. government reports in which the supposed economic benefits have gone unquestioned. Food & Water Watch recently analyzed one industry-backed job projection and found that it overstated shale gas job creation potential in New York by a factor of about 900 percent.

The report states that the NYS economic analysis report originally produced by Ecology and Environment, a Buffalo based engineering firm with strong ties to the oil and gas industry, predicted that an average NYS shale gas development scenario would bring 53,969 jobs.  Food and Water Watch says that these projections are “deeply flawed”.  For instance, close inspection of the footnotes revealed that that projection was based on a 30-year production scenario. According to the Food and Water Watch report, 30 years of production is an inflated scenario.  Currently the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether or not shale gas companies have overestimated the productivity of shall gas wells.

Under the Food and Water Watch recalculated the New York analysis and concludes that in the first year of an average scenario only 195 new jobs would be created for NYS residents, and that after 10 years only 600 jobs. After the 10^th year there would be almost no more new jobs created. The first year scenario would impact one fortieth of one percent of New Yorkers currently on unemployment.

The report says that the E&E report misuses the multiplier effects and the indirect job creation scenarios in ways that exaggerate the economic spillover from the jobs. The report also points out that E&E has close ties to the oil and gas industry.

In addition the F&W report states that the NYS analysis fails to account for the negative impacts that drilling and fracking would have on employment in other industries such as tourism and agriculture. These kinds of multiplier effects are shoved under the rug.

The report states: “Close examination of this job projection shows that allowing for such extensive shale gas development in New York would actually have a minimal impact on employment in the near term, primarily because most jobs would go to employees from out-of-state. Shale gas development would not provide the broad- based economic growth that New York now needs and that the industry has promised they could deliver. Instead, shale gas development would primarily benefit the oil and gas industry while bringing significant costs to public health, public infrastructure, and the environment.”

These costs presumably would be borne by the taxpaying public.

The Food and water Watch report concludes “The New York socioeconomic impact analysis, conducted by E&E Inc., fails to provide an accurate projection of the potential benefits of opening up the state to drilling and fracking for shale gas. By exaggerating the potential benefits, New York has failed to serve the public interest. In reality, current residents of New York can only expect intensive shale gas development to create several hundred new shale gas industry jobs for each of the first 10 years, followed by far fewer production jobs created for the next 20 years.

http://www.legislativegazette.com/Articles-Main-Stories-c-2011-12-19-81139.113122-Economists-say-fracking-study-is-flawed.html

In late December, the Legislative Gazette, an Albany based newspaper covering NYS government, reported that three economists Jannette M. Barth, Senior economist at the Pepacton Institute LLC; Edward C Kokkelenberg, a research fellow at the School for Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell, and Timothy Mount, Economics Professor at Cornell sent a letter to Governor Cuomo that also detailed why the E&E economic survey provided to the State is flawed. The letter reads in part:

"The state's economic focus should be the realistic identification and estimation of the present value of all costs and benefits to the state and its citizens.” "The state should be concerned with maximizing the present value of the benefits to the State and minimizing the present value of all costs to the State and its citizens. The gas industry will strive to maximize the present value of the benefits to themselves and postpone costs, or more likely, make others pay the costs."

The Gazette interviewed Jannette Barth, one of the authors of the letter.

"(The E&E report) didn't take into account costs of wear and tear of roads and infrastructure,"  She said that the state's Department of Transportation circulated a memo from July detailing the potential damage fracking and well construction could do to roads and other infrastructure, especially from truck traffic.

"The research findings done by independent studies are vastly different from industry research," Barth said, saying that any study of fracking should be done not by any single agency, but a team of individual experts on all the ways that fracking could impact the economy and the environment.

"What we really, really need is the state DEC to insist on a comprehensive unbiased peer-reviewed environmental impact statement, based on data that is either published, or carefully scrutinized or verified because the industry has a bias in this," Barth said.

It is important that the DEC extend the public comment period beyond the current January 11 deadline, hold a public hearing in WNY, and extend the moratorium on issuing drilling permits until at least after the USEPA finishes its ongoing study about the safety and health impacts of hydrofracking.  If this is not done, there will be a public hearing in Buffalo, conducted by citizens, and you will be invited to say your piece.