Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
Cardoza can afford to campaign
Cardoza is a leader among the Blue Dogs, House Democrats who have staked out centrist positions on issues such as the budget. He will be spending time this fall campaigning for his fellow Blue Dogs; in part, because he can afford to. -- Modesto Bee, Sept. 25, 2006
Pombozastan, the sourthern tier, the 18th Congressional District
The University of California/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is bidding to site a mile from the Tracy city limitsthe most dangerous level the government designates of biowarfare laboratory. The issue and UC management problems are discussed in the articles abstracted below.
Below, you will find a series of abstracts of newsclips about the San Joaquin River Settlement. On Sept. 13, fourteen environmental and recreational organizations and 29 irrigation and water districts and four federal agencies, submitted a settlement agreement to United States District Court, Eastern District of California. The agreement proposes a plan for one of the greatest river restoration projects in American history.
The UC Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is on the short list to play host to the most dangerous type of biological warfare laboratory in the United States. It is seeking to locate the level 4 lab just outside the city limits of Tracy.
Tracy is the hereditary capital of that area composed of the adjoining congressional districts of RichPAC Pombo, Whale Slayer-Tracy, and Dennis Cardoza, Polar Bear Slayer-Merced, called in these pages, Pombozastan.
Top Department of Interior watchdog, Inspector General Earl E. Devaney, testified last week before a House subcommittee that Interior was corrupt and incompetent.
"Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior, Devaney told the House Government Reform subcommittee on energy and resources.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Friant Water Users Authority reached an unprecedented settlement agreement Wednesday to restore the flow of the San Joaquin River. NRDC, representing a number of local, state and federal environmental groups, and the FWUA had been at war in court for 18 years.
"Bringing the San Joaquin River back to life will be one of the greatest restoration projects ever undertaken in the United States,” said Peter Moyle, professor of Fisheries biology at UC Davis.
Today, UC Merced, through its local outreach organ, the Merced Sun-Star, proclaimed that it is taking extraordinary pains to build the campus to be "earth-friendly."
This reminds us of the frequently heard claim of developers before local land-use jurisdictions that they are "creating open space" when they put a golf course in a subdivision built on a sprawling expanse of seasonal pasture.
Hypocrisy at Davis (1)
UC Davis, where pedestrians must constantly dodge bicyclists, presents itself as an environmental paradise. Recently, it has decided to voluntarily study its own greenhouse emissions, joining a group of 88 members of
the climate registry ... created by state law in 2000 as a strictly voluntary program for businesses, governments and organizations wishing to measure their output of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the
atmosphere.
The state Legislature passed a bill to address global warming.
www.leginfo.ca.gov, AB 32, Enrolled
AB 32, Nunez Air pollution: greenhouse gases: California Global
Warming Solutions Act of 2006.This bill would require the state board to adopt regulations to
require the reporting and verification of statewide greenhouse gas
emissions and to monitor and enforce compliance with this program, as
specified.
SB 1056, a bill to amend the California Seed Law to deny local authority over seeds and plants failed to pass the state Senate last week, according to one official state Legislature website and several environmental groups.
The environmental groups said the bill was strongly backed by Monsanto and other biotech corporations.
There are two strong arguments against this legislation. First, it would preempt local authority, inviting state consitutional challenge. Secondly, the state has no policy on the poltential health and economic hazards of genetically modified organisms.