EPA to Regulate Dairy Milk Spills as per Oil Spills

From hotair.com -Two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that subjects dairy producers to the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure program, which was created in 1970 to prevent oil discharges in navigable waters or near shorelines. Naturally, it usually applies to oil and natural gas outfits. But the EPA has discovered that milk contains “a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil,” as the agency put it in the Federal Register. In other words, the EPA thinks the next blowout may happen in rural Vermont or Wisconsin. Other dangerous pollution risks that somehow haven’t made it onto the EPA docket include leaks from maple sugar taps and the vapors at Badger State breweries. More here

Share/Bookmark

Request for Rule on Border Gun Sales Denied

From nytimes.com -The Obama administration on Friday rejected a request for an emergency rule requiring gun dealers along the Mexican border to report bulk sales of assault rifles, a proposal intended to make it harder for drug cartels to smuggle weapons. The White House told the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that gunrunning to Mexico was a continuing problem, rather than the kind of fast-moving emergency that justified an exception to the normal process for reviewing proposed regulations. Still, the administration said, the time elapsed since the bureau published its request for the emergency rule on Dec. 17 would count toward the 60-day public comment period required by normal procedures. That means the bureau might still be able to impose the rule by late March. Under the proposal, dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas would be required to tell the bureau whenever they sold, to the same buyer within a five-day period, two or more semiautomatic rifles of at least .22 caliber and the ability to accept a detachable magazine. Among such weapons are AK-47s. Dealers nationwide are already required to report bulk sales of handguns. Supporters of gun rights have criticized the push for the regulation on semiautomatic rifles.
Share/Bookmark

Global Warming? Nope, Climate Change

While geological records have revealed drastic changes in the earth’s temperatures for billions of years, the notion of “climate change” has been tied to a prevailing political movement that gained momentum by embracing a more finite concept known as, “global warming.” Radical environmentalists suggest these two concepts, though inter-related, are vastly nuanced and therefore very different. And in conjunction with these arguments, the greatest re-branding of a government grant gathering franchise in human scientific research history has been taking place. “Global Warming Research” franchises have been expanded so they can include the concept of “climate change” in the collective efforts to explain the unexplainable divergences in temperature trends.
Of course skeptics, the non-believers to use the religious analogy, see the creeping of the term “climate change” into the dialogue as simply the use of a wider net that can be cast to snare more believers (and voters). This subtle tactical shift has become particularly important to keep the pipeline of research dollars flowing to climate change experts, as fact-loaded data points such as record low temperatures, actually suggest these theories have fatal flaws. For human beings receiving billions of dollars in global warming and climate change grant money, real temperature data points are jeopardizing their grant money gathering industry. Those damned data points clearly need alternative explanations.
Torquemada - Spanish Inquisition
Recent climate-gate scandals provide the clearest signs yet that there has been much scientific suppression by the beneficiaries of global warming and climate change grant money. Scientific colleagues noticing the egregious errors in the both the collection, storage, and manipulation of relevant scientific data, have been academically crucified by their franchise protecting “scientific” detractors. There is no intellectual incest like scientific incest with dollar incentives. One of the most impressive rhetorical tactics of the non-scientific background intellectual elites, people who are particularly fond of all the central-planning policies that global warming/climate change seems to require, is to look down their noses at anyone who does not buy into the nuances of the wider intellectual net known as “climate change.” As is always the case, when ulterior motives are at work stubbornness sets in and then debate evades all logic.
The problem is with those of us who think global warming should also involve trends of warmer temperature readings. We are not sufficiently sophisticated. Don’t we realize that all the other changes in climate (and overall planet temperatures) in the geological records are irrelevant? Why can’t we ignorant Neanderthals simply trust government-funded scientists? Can’t we see that trillions of tax dollars can triumph over the cycles of nature? Non-believing “deniers” are a scourge because they are selfish and greedy. And they are also morally inferior, because unlike those on the receiving end of billions in government grants, they are not in favor of science or the greater good. Pity. Guess I'll go outside and take a deep breath. Oops, can't do that, its freezing out there.

Share/Bookmark

Irony: Otero County Freezing, No Natural Gas

In one of life’s great ironies, senior citizens living in Otero County New Mexico reported to us that they ran out of natural gas this week. They were bundled in blankets and literally freezing in their homes. All of this was occurring while elected officials in Santa Fe continued to block all efforts to drill for natural gas at Otero Mesa. On November 2nd even the most casual of political observers realized that the election victory by Ray Powell Jr. (as state Land Commissioner) meant it would be a cold day in hell before the natural resources of Otero Mesa were tapped for the benefit of the citizens of New Mexico on his watch. Adding insult to the injuries of residents of Otero County this week (and all other counties in the frigid state) were the actions of House Energy Committee Chairman Brian Egolf.
Ray Powell Jr.
Representative Egolf has made it clear he will do everything in his power to fight the elimination of radical environmental restrictions that might actually bring more access and production of energy to the state. The only exception to Egolf’s anti-energy stance is a curious willingness to take millions of dollars out of state coffers to subsidize “green” energy schemes that cannot provide warmth to the citizens of the state.
It would seem that when New Mexico needs common sense the most, simply to bring something essential such as home heating during record cold temperatures to its residents, too many of our elected officials continue to insist on drinking from the global warming kool-aid cups. How many New Mexicans will fall ill or freeze to death before reason prevails? Nobody knows.


Share/Bookmark

Open Records Access.........Bill

Capitol Report New Mexico - In reponse to the news that came out this week detailing how former Gov. Bill Richardson has an 8-year seal on his personal and public records, Rep. Nate Gentry (R-Albuquerque) and Rep. David Doyle (R-Albuquerque) have filed House Bill 368, called the Open Records Access Bill. The bill was formally filed Friday afternoon (Feb. 4) and is designed to ensure taxpayers have access to public records even after those records are archived. Read full story here:
Share/Bookmark

Chavez: Happy Birthday President Reagan

Linda Chavez
Townhall - Feb. 6 marks the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, but the day had meaning for me even before I went to work for President Reagan in 1983. My father, Rudy, who died at age 60 in a car wreck in 1978, shared Reagan's birthday, and I often wondered what he would have thought had he lived to see his daughter working in the White House -- and for a Republican president. Rudy was a staunch Democrat of the New Deal variety. He'd grown up destitute during the Depression and dropped out of school in ninth grade. He joined FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps to help put food on the table for his mother and siblings, while his father served more than 10 years in Fort Leavenworth prison for selling bootleg whiskey during Prohibition.
But I think if he had lived a few more years, Rudy would have become as big a fan of Reagan as I was. Like many Democrats of his era, Rudy was staunchly anti-communist, believed anyone who was physically able should work and not take government handouts, and loved the United States with every fiber of his being. The proudest moments of his life were serving his country in World War II as a tail gunner in the Army Air Corps over New Guinea, where he was shot down. He believed we were the greatest nation in the history of the world. If my father had lived until 1980, I can't help but believe he'd have voted for Reagan, as I did, even though at the time, I was still a registered Democrat. Read full column here:
Share/Bookmark

What Would Reagan Do About Egypt

Larry Elder
We’re about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. As much as I would like to praise that great and good man, I have to wonder what he would do about Egypt? Would he shepherd Egypt along the path to democracy—as he did successfully with South Korea and the Philippines? Or would he maintain a “constructive engagement”policy with Mubarak as he attempted with the apartheid regime in South Africa?
That policy frankly failed, and we had to await F.W. de Klerk moves to release Nelson Mandela and allow the African National Congress to compete in democratic elections. Reagan’s greatest success—of course—was in pressing for reforms behind the Iron Curtain, and for publicly demanding that Soviet ruler Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down this wall.” A key part of Reagan’s success was his recognition that religious liberty was central to ending Communist totalitarianism. As a candidate for president, Reagan had watched, as indeed the world watched, in awe as the Polish Pope John Paul II celebrated an outdoor Mass in Warsaw. One million Poles cried out “We Want God!” Reagan, unashamed, teared up. “I want to work with him,” he said. And how he did. Read full column here:

Share/Bookmark