Good letter Jim. My letter on the forest fires got cut a little too. The
Journal needs more letters like those.
Thanks for keeping me on your mailing list.
Bob Eidsmoe Rio Verde, Arizona
----- Original Message -----
From: "Redmond, Jim" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 10:08 AM
Subject: Letter to editor on energy bill--sioux city journal
My letter to the editor attacking the energy bill appeared in today's
Sioux City Journal. I believe a few good paragraphs are missing from
the end of my letter.
Jim
Enron, friends have way with American citizens
SIOUX CITY -- A couple years ago, the energy-producing elite got
together with Dick Cheney behind closed doors and crafted a national
energy policy that reduced their liabilities and enlarged their
subsidies. NO ONE ELSE WAS INVITED. This week the Senate and House will
deliver this closed-door wish list (early Christmas gift) to Enron and
friends. Excluded from the table were those asking for better fuel
economy for our vehicles, those asking for conservation of energy, those
wanting us to abide by laws that protected our water, air and land. Look
at the overly industrialized North slope of Alaska and picture what
these energy companies are going to do to the last pristine wilderness
on the continent, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Unless Sens. Grassley and Harkin and our representatives vote against
this bill, the American public will find itself at the mercy of
corporations not willing to pay the price of a nuclear energy disaster,
not willing to protect our groundwater resources as they mine for
methane, not willing to reduce America's appetite for oil in a world
where war is used to control oil resources.
The energy bill moving out of committee (H.R.6) is a regressive package
of subsidies to the energy industry and an affront to consumers and
environmental protection.
The bill grants the power of eminent domain to the U.S. Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission allowing it to seize private land to construct
transmission lines, virtually eliminating local and state authority. --
Dr. Jim Redmond, conservation chair, Northwest Iowa Sierra Club
Jim Redmond
Briar Cliff University
[log in to unmask]
3303 Rebecca St.
Sioux City IA 51104
712-279-5544
712-258-8303 home
-----Original Message-----
From: Jane Clark [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 10:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Energy Bill and the Townsend Project, More
Yesterday's Des Moines Register
State Government
Update: Iowa Child: Grassley spurns proposed deal that cuts help for
Iowa
project
By Register Staff Report
11/13/2003
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
----
WHAT'S NEW: Republican leaders in the U.S. House Wednesday made a
counteroffer on the energy bill to Finance Committee Chairman Charles
Grassley, R-Ia., that would include elimination of special financing for
the
Iowa Child project, a proposed indoor rain forest near Coralville. House
Republicans say they are willing to accept four other entertainment and
commercial complexes in other parts of the country that would get
special
treatment, but not the Iowa project. Grassley has refused the offer,
aides
said.
WHY IT MATTERS: Republicans in the House contend the $225 million,
nonprofit
Iowa Child project is pork-barrel spending that's holding up approval of
a
compromise on a bill that's supposed to promote development of energy
and
improve the nation's electrical grid. Grassley says building the project
and
others with tax-exempt financing is an investment in the future. Plus,
he
says the Iowa project is "kind of like a pimple on an elephant compared
to
all the other issues we've got" dividing lawmakers in the legislation.
HOW IT HAPPENED: The senator said in a conference call with Iowa
reporters
that Iowans involved with the Iowa Child project brought lobbyists for
the
other projects to initial meetings with Grassley. "There was kind of a
team," said Grassley, but the other projects then dropped their support
for
the Iowa Child project. "I think it just shows you how some lobbying
groups
work in this town, to get an entree to the chairman of the Senate
Finance
Committee through an Iowa interest, and then they don't hold up their
end of
the bargain."
WHAT'S NEXT: House and Senate leaders will continue negotiations on the
energy bill. The talks probably will go on for a while because the House
is
in recess and can't vote on it until next week.
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