The Green Register Says Stop Fighting – Take Action!
A true leader in the “green” movement, so to speak, is the amazing online site that we’ve been speaking about over the past few months. Readers have been going crazy over the huge variety of products, news, information, data, services, and companies that The Green Register provides, and has quickly become THE voice when it comes to changing our ways and making this world a better, cleaner, safer place to live.
As the ball dropped, and people sang the words to Auld Lang Syne, they all began to think and wonder what life would be like come 2013. But instead of just thinking, there are organizations and people out there, like Jim DiPeso, who want to take action. They also want our congress to look at the issues that this world faces, and find ways to change the negatives into positives for the future generation.
Payroll taxes have been the major focus of our ‘men and women in Washington’ for quite some time now. But there are truly other amazing ideas that the people on Capitol Hill need to focus on.
A recent “Top Ten” list by Mr. DiPeso actually broke it down so that all of those people we voted in could ‘see’ that the green way of life needs to be implemented. One of the issues that needs to be focused on is the fact that congress needs to resume the passing wilderness bills, beginning with new legislation that already has bipartisan support in California, Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Michigan and Tennessee. Our wilderness, our natural resources – these are facets of life that can not be disregarded or ignored. Going green does no good for anyone if we actually get rid of the green we already have.
For those of you who do not know, the Antiquities Act is a fantastic tool that was created because of the concerns people had about protecting mostly prehistoric Indian ruins and artifacts – antiquities – located on federal lands in the West. The removal of artifacts from these lands by private collectors, called “pot hunters,” had become such a serious problem that in 1902, after an Iowan congressman went to see how the natural area was being “raped,” put together legislation to stop it from happening. The Act was intended to allow the President to set aside valuable public natural areas to be used as park and conservation land. These areas were given the title of “National Monuments,” with the aim being to protect all historic and prehistoric sites on United States federal lands and to prohibit the excavation or destruction of these antiquities. It seems that Congress wants to debate and perhaps end this particular Act, when what they need to do is leave it alone! Very rarely does Congress pass legislation that makes sense, so when they finally do, we should keep it.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund in 2012 needs to receive their authorized $900 million appropriation, seeing as that it hasn’t for more than a decade. Congress also must slow commodity crop subsidies that reward agricultural practices that are eroding soils and degrading our water quality. Again, with no land, there’s nothing else.
Many will not know, and none will understand, why the subject of 100-watt light bulbs is so important to Congress when the seemingly never-ending saga that is Cape Wind continues to need attention. For those who are not following the debate, the massive offshore wind project near Cape Cod, Massachusetts – which was intended to be the first offshore wind farm in the United States – was approved in 2010, yet its funding was secured by a major purchase agreement with energy utility, National Grid, which agreed to buy half its output.
The opponents to the deal, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, went to the Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court in September of 2011 to argue that the deal between Cape Wind and National Grid was unconstitutional. The Alliance, along with other Cape Wind opponents like the Associated Industries of MA and the New England Power Generators Association, claimed that the deal unfairly restricted interstate commerce because National Grid didn’t undergo a competitive bidding process involving out-of-state providers.
The Alliance said: “The contract sets a risky precedent by allowing utilities to negotiate expensive power agreements outside of the competitive bidding process, and to allocate the costs of those contracts unfairly to residential and commercial customers.”
The Court disagreed, choosing to uphold the power purchase deal and declaring that the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities was right to approve it earlier in the year. The court said that the DPA’s review was “thorough” and dismissed the constitutional arguments.
The Alliance called the decision, “a blow to ratepayers, businesses, and municipalities who are being asked to bear billions of dollars in new electricity costs when other ‘green’ energy alternatives are available at a fraction of the cost.”
Congress, people, readers, businesses – the Alliance, as its name suggests, may be correct on this one. They are completely concerned and frightened about the impact of the proposed wind farm on the wildlife and scenery of the area. The Alliance has been fighting the project through the courts and other means for over a decade. It looked like it might have succeeded in blocking the project in January 2010, when the National Park Service announced that Nantucket Sound is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but that didn’t stop the Secretary of the Interior to pass it.
This situation does become a huge issue of ‘he said, she said’ as time goes by, although the latest decision does leave half of Cape Wind’s funding secure, but it still needs to find a buyer for the other half of its output. In October, the Cape Wind facilitators said that two local energy utilities, NStar and Northeast Utilities, should have to buy the other half of the project’s output as a condition of their proposed merger. There’s also the small matter of Federal Aviation rules on whether or not the FAA believes that Cape Wind is safe for aircraft. That will also be another hurdle to jump before construction can begin.
In the end, this is a world that needs to stop debating and start taking action. From Washington, D.C. to the rest of the individuals living on this planet, we need to make sure that our natural resources are protected. We need to find a way to stop wasting time with meaningless ‘wars’ and start saving this country. If not, no offense, but the Mayans just may have the last laugh after all.
Join up with The Green Register to make sure that you are up-to-date with all of the political processes, the green building trends, and the eco-friendly companies and services that are available to each and every one of us. The Green Register is a fantastic educational tool that fights for a clean, safe ecosystem so that our children can have safe and fulfilling futures!
Until Next Time, Everybody!
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