Green Solutions from MT Green Bulletin Feb 26, 2007

GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens

The Legislature, ALEC, Canadian Trade, and the Environment

The two bills, above, illustrate the difficulties of establishing good environmental policy through the Legislature. In the first case, a clearly bad bill was approved with the help of some usually good Democrats, for reasons we haven't yet heard or received. In the second case, a very good bill barely passed out of the Senate committee on a straight party-line vote. In the House, where party domination is reversed, it might not fare so well, but hopefully Russ's explanation and the bill itself will provide the necessary justification for several Republicans supporting it, as well.
We can surmise that Rep. Windy Boy voted for HJR 8 (the requirement that environmental groups bringing lawsuits against timber sales on federal land would have to post a bond -- one is already required for opposing timber sales on state land) in exchange for other legislator's support for bills he supports. This is a common enough practice called "log rolling", but since most of Windy Boy's bills, such as the stronger mercury rule, failed, he might have no further obligation or desire to support HJR 8. Bill Thomas is the only other Democrat supporter of HJR 8 I know, and he has proven to be positively anti-environment (and opposed to the rest of the Green agenda) in nearly all respects. He even went so far as to vote against Indian rights, apparently in retaliation against local Indian groups who relied on help from Republicans to receive tribal recognition. Such is "the two party system of denial and blame."
Other Democrats from Butte and Anaconda have traditionally supported corporate interests over environmental protection, and they are doing so now on other bills. Democrats from Great Falls who voted against HJR 8 have opposed Windy Boy's bills and others opposing, restricting, or taxing coal-fired power in Montana and the Highwood Station in particular (Windy Boy works with Citizens for Clean Energy, www.cce-mt.org and has carried bills supporting its agenda). For Greens, the conclusion is obvious: Democrats can't be trusted to control corporate polluters, loggers, miners, and other environmentally-destructive elements and their methods. However, given the fact that there aren't any Greens in the Legislature, we need to work with both Democrats and Republicans to form a majority in favor of protecting Montanans' rights to "a clean and healthful environment."
It appears as though the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is still a dominant force in the Montana Legislature. All of these goofy bills repealing environmental protections, supporting corporate domination, large box stores ("the Wal-Martization of America"), more prison spending, more weapons of mass destruction, and continuing drastic cuts to welfare, health care, and other anti-poverty and education programs, are right out of ALEC's play book. I thought we were already organized to systematically oppose ALEC as an influence group in this session of the Legislature. Obviously, the ACLU, the Green Party, Montanans for Corporate Accountability, CCE, MEIC, have done somewhat better this time than before, but we are talking mainly to ourselves. We need a serious outreach to Republicans and "resource Democrats" to convince them that our very survival as a free republic depends on totally discrediting and rejecting the ALEC pressure group and its corporate lobbying agenda. http://www.alec.org/task-forces/natural-resources
Baucus Democrats have traditionally been strong supporters of the Montana agri-business and timber industries -- even that part of it controlled by out of state interests, and detrimental to Montana's producers and Montana residents' property rights. For reasons unknown to me, they have focussed intensely on Canadian timber producers as receiving "unfair" government subsidies (as though ours don't!), and thus subjected Canadian producers to additional import duties. (Canadian competition has tended to diminish the need for Montana logging and timber sales, thus helping conserve and protect our forests, which grow much more slowly than British Columbia's.)
It would appear that Sen. Tester is also being persuaded that our Canadian neighbors pose various "threats" including being "soft on terrorism" and border security, as well as unfair competition ("dumping") of grain and lumber exports, not to mention endangering U.S. beef exports by selling us cattle infected with Mad Cow disease -- most of which (in the U.S.) has been successfully blamed on Canadians. Scientists claim that the U.S. could have a major Mad Cow problem of its own, but very few animals are tested, and the regulatory officials and lobbyists have vigorously suppressed or eliminated most of the safeguards and research. Extra duties applied to Canadian lumber imports under Baucus's sponsorship have been rejected by the courts, and up to $6 billion may have to be refunded to Canadian timber producers.
This Canada-phobia is a new thing, in my experience, and very undesirable. Great Falls businesses, the medical community, and many other economic and cultural sectors have long had mutually-beneficial relations with Canadian firms and provincial governments -- especially Alberta -- and we would like to see these trade and cultural relations expanded and improved, not further undermined by Montana resource and agri-business lobbyists. Calgary is the only "world city" within 300 miles of Great Falls, and our local economy is heavily dependent on Canadian tourists, truckers, and investors in a regional economy which integrates both sides of the border. Although Canada has a Conservative government now, even that is much greener and more "liberal" and cognizant of the public interest than the Bush Administration. The kind of "neo-con" policies of the Bush Administration have almost no support in Canada.

"Forecasting" as a tool of corporate oppression

The main reason given for building the Highwood Generating Station in the EIS and SME/ECP propaganda, is the "projected" need for more electricity, growing at a rate of 5-15% a year over the next several decades. In similar fashion, the Prison Lobby "projects" a growing need for more prisons, drug treatment facilities, mental health care facilities for the criminally insane, etc. All of these are "projected" to continue their exponential growth since the 1970's, when the first "energy crisis" and the "war on drugs" were seriously promoted by corporate lobbyists, and began to form a kind of bedrock for national policy.
Is this real "growth" or is it merely a self-fulfilling prophecy -- an institutionalized plan on the part of selected corporate interests to commit consumers, policy makers, and taxpayers to an agenda which benefits these same corporate interests, but may be quite detrimental to society and the economy as a whole? Surely, the latter is the case. While most of the world is planning for a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions over the next several decades, the effects of building additional coal-fired power plants in Montana have only belatedly and inadequately included any sort of analysis of their effects on global warming, and the possible financial risks to taxpayers, ratepayer, and the general public.
Conservation and efficiency, the cheapest available alternatives to constructing more generating capacity, are not legislatively or institutionally included in the future power need "forecasts." Thus, the best available alternatives have not even been considered in the FEIS or other documentation concerning the Highwood Station.
Similarly, the prison population is projected to "grow" at rates which require an annual increase of 5-15% in prison and other "corrections" funding. These forecasts are likewise based on simple extrapolations of past rates of spending increase, not on any empirical or analytical data which includes information on WHY the prison population is growing, and what could be done to reverse this "trend." Consultants and Montana Corrections staff have told us over and over, again. "We can't build our way out of prison over-crowding." They rarely add the following: We need policy changes to reduce the prison population at the source, and this involves decriminalizing a number of presently "criminal" activities.
I know very well why the prison population is growing: because of antiquated and discriminatory drug laws, mandatory minimum sentencing, criminalizing an ever-wider spectrum of victimless, personal behavior; and the lack of adequate mental health funding and facilities. It is estimated that as many as half of those in prison have severe mental problems causing them to end up in prison as a default "solution" to their psychological, social, and economic problems. Instead of spending money on creating jobs, providing universal health care, food stamps, public housing, and the like, we spend it on the prison system, which now costs more than our total budget for higher education.
The first two causes, at least, are directly attributable to the ALEC lobby, which actually began primarily as a vehicle for the prison and "corrections" lobby. ALEC is also largely responsible for the third, since it is the strongest lobby for corporate medicine, and against any sort of universal national healthcare policy, income redistribution, or anything which resembles "socialism," including quality public education. http://www.pnhp.org
Much to their disgrace, the court systems, the legal profession, and law enforcement agencies have also lobbied heavily in favor of stricter drug laws, "three strikes and you're out," mandatory minimum sentencing, and other measures which virtually ensure that those serving time in prison will not be rehabilitated or "cured" of their criminal tendencies, and will be kept there far beyond the point of cost-effectiveness or public benefit and safety. Every prisoner is a revenue stream for some private interest or state budget, and until we start thinking in terms of REDUCING the prison population by some 80% (just to equal the next closest free society, Britain, in the percentage of its population incarcerated), we are failing to address one of the worst single symptoms of our social and political malaise -- the existence of a vast gulag of degrading and oppressive prison camps rivaled only by Nazi work camps and the Soviet Gulag system.

The Mystery of the Missing Massage Table Factory

Golden Ratio Woodworks, a leading manufacturer of massage tables and related products, announced early this month that it was closing its 48,000 sq ft. factory at Emmigrant (near Chico Hot Springs), laying off 300 workers, and moving its production facilities to China. The loss of 300 manufacturing jobs in Montana is huge -- especially jobs of this kind, in an export industry, all local residents, upscale products compatible with holistic health care and other Green values, etc.
When I heard about this, I was outraged. Where is the Governor, where are our "pro-labor" and "pro-business" Senators and Representative? Or is this another case of industrial, corporate capitalism (and medicine) destroying its competition, or anything which resembles "environmentalists" or other "touchy, feely" activities?
When I researched this story, I found two links, from the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and the Butte Montana Standard. Neither was available, apparently because they have expired (the story appeared on February 5). Has this problem somehow managed to solve itself? Has the merger/sale/outsourcing been cancelled? From the websites, one might think so. Golden Ratio is still hiring, still selling its wonderful products, and there seems to be no massive "emmigration" from Emmigrant.
Carry on, and don't let it happen, again! http://www.goldenratio.com/
http://www.wellspringinstitute.com/