The second term: Robert Stavins on energy and environmental policy
We spoke with Robert Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government Environment and Natural Resources Program, about energy and environmental policy issues the president will face in the next four years.Q: What are the top priorities for a second Obama administration in energy and environmental policy?A: The Obama administration faces a number of impending challenges in the energy and environmental policy realm in its second term, which I would characterize – in very general terms – as finding balance among three competing factors: (1) demands from some constituencies for more aggressive environmental policies; (2) demands from other constituencies – principally in the Congress – for progress on so-called “energy security;” and (3) recognition that nothing meaningful is likely to happen if the country’s economic problems are not addressed.Q: What will be the potential challenges/roadblocks in the way of implementing those top priorities?A: The key challenge/roadblock the administration faces in its second term as it attempts to achieve some balance among the three competing objectives above is the reality of a very high degree political polarization in the two houses of Congress.
Buying furniture for ‘Mickey D.’s’ House”The money from the recycled aluminum,” she said, “will help buyfurnishings for the house.”The Ronald McDonald House Pop Tab Collection Program began in1987. To date, more than 400 million pop tabs have beencollected, generating more than $300,000.The students used gallon milk jugs to collect the tabs and togive the project a unit of measure. The top collections came fromJackson County with 101 gallons. Columbia County collected 95.5gallons, and Houston County gathered 94 gallons. University of Georgia Typically, parents and teachers don’t encourage children to drinkmore soft drinks. But when it involves a lesson in communityservice, it’s OK to bend the rules.Junior 4-H club members across Georgia recently collected morethan 6 million aluminum pop tabs. Individually, they may appearworthless. But, together, all those little pieces of aluminumweighed a little more than 2 tons and were worth $1,900.”The 4-H District Junior Board of Directors voted last summer tocollect the pop tabs as a fund-raiser for the Ronald McDonaldHouse of Central Georgia,” said Lori Purcell, program developmentcoordinator for Georgia’s Central District 4-H office. Motivated by food and community serviceThe winning county 4-H’ers credit their success to pizza.”Like most kids, our students can be easily motivated by thepromise of a pizza party,” said Wanda McLocklin, the JacksonCounty 4-H program coordinator. “They enjoy helping the communityand are very community-oriented. And they really love pizza,too.”More than 500 students in Jackson County participated in theproject.Kids in Columbia County, the second-place winners, were motivatedby pizza, too.”They’ll do anything for pizza, so we incorporated a pizza partyinto this community service project,” said Columbia County 4-Hprogram assistant Paula Poss. “Our fifth-graders earn points allyear long for a variety of projects. The top class is thenrewarded with a free day to Rock Eagle’s Environmental EducationProgram.”
Moms, dads and friends all pitched inOne Columbia County class collected 49 gallons of pop tabs.”Mrs. Reed’s class collected tabs from their churches, theirneighbors and their parents’ offices,” Poss said.Besides earning pizza, the students are improving their characterskills, Poss said, by learning to share and to care.”This project is an easy one, as the pop tabs don’t take up muchroom in a classroom or office, and you can still save the popcans for other projects,” she said. “Our office saves the cansfor the Joseph Still Burn Center here in Augusta.” By Sharon Omahen 
Faced with growing drug-linked gang warfare and insufficient police on the streets, Trinidad and Tobago is turning to the military to help combat the country’s latest violent crime surge. The Defense Bill, passed by the Lower House and due to be debated April 2, is strongly supported by the twin-island nation’s business community and by human rights associations. Deploying members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force (TTDF) to assist the police is nothing new, but this move is aimed at giving soldiers the right to arrest suspects during operations. When Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar declared a four-month-long limited state of emergency in 19 hotspots back in August 2011, she singled out Trinidad’s drug trade with South America as the major cause for execution-style killings. “One of the causes for the spike in murders is ironically linked to the success by the police in the discovery of large drug hauls with values in excess of $20 million in just one raid,” she said in a statement at the time. “These large sums of money simply do not disappear from the drug trade without consequences and in some of the cases now occurring, this is the result.” Homicide rate declines, but not fast enough With nearly 100 people killed so far this year, Trinidad’s steady decline in homicides — from a peak of 547 in 2008 to 383 last year — is hardly comforting to ordinary citizens. “We need something to be done drastically. This can’t go on forever,” said Steve Maharaj, an elderly street vendor in Port of Spain. “I think the soldiers will help because when we had them out during the state of emergency, suddenly you saw a lull.” Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, executive director of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights, prefers to take a wait-and- approach to measure how effective putting arrest powers in the hands of soldiers will be. But she welcomed the decision to give soldiers crime-fighting arrest powers. Even though the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has 6,000 officers, only about 2,000 actually work each day because the police union insists on only one eight-hour shift at a time. “This gives you an idea of some of the problems the country has in managing the police and why they need to do turn to the regiment,” Mahabir-Wyatt said. “The Defence Force works as long as they are needed. It’s a different kind of discipline.” Military arrest powers under discussion The human rights activist said she’s encouraged by TTDF leadership’s declaration that soldiers will not be more aggressive to civilians than their police counterparts during crime-fighting. “I have personally spoken to the head of the military, and he doesn’t see any of the soldiers engaging in rogue acts [that would] violate the human rights of civilians.” Mahabir-Wyatt said police and soldiers have conducted joint patrols over the years, and that the Defense Act amendment would gives TTDF members the muscle to arrest suspects alongside their civilian law-enforcement counterparts. “You cannot have a soldier walking around by herself or himself just deciding to arrest somebody without having a police officer present,” she added. Ronald Marshall, a sociology professor at the University of the West Indies, said he doesn’t think TTDF soldiers would easily fall prey to corruption — a common problem throughout the Caribbean. “There has to be a special experiment because the kind of respect they will have for the army is not the type of respect they will have for the police who are more socialized into certain types of behaviours and allegations of corruption,” he recently told Trinidad’s Newsday newspaper. “I think the image of a soldier is more strong, anti-crime and definitive in terms of social order than a police officer.” By Dialogo April 01, 2013 TTDF: Bill gives soldiers same rights as police officers Anand Ramlogan, the country’s attorney general, has explained that the legal amendment would insulate soldiers in executing civilian law enforcement. “They will enjoy the same rights, privileges and immunities as police officers. They will have the same powers as police officers, including power to arrest, search, seize and to carry arms,” Ramlogan said in a press statement. He added that the government plans to train TTDF members in police practice and procedure, investigations, law and court process to ensure they are properly equipped to undertake their duties alongside police officers. The local chapter of Transparency International has identified a string of unanswered questions having to do with checks and balances, possession and storage of evidence, and who the public can turn to for redress should soldiers commit infractions. “These actions however must be balanced with the need to safeguard the constitutional rights of citizens. Powers of arrest and seizure can easily be abused,” the organization stated. While bickering continues about the decision to grant soldiers some police powers, the TTDF is staying above the fray and instead calling it “public policy.” “This matter is not only relevant to the Defense Force, but is one which also affects public policy and in time more views would unfold which would fully shape that policy. There will be a healthy range of perspectives,” Col. Anthony Phillip-Spencer, TTDF’s commanding officer, told the Guardian newspaper. If there’s one group that the Trinidadian government can turn to for unquestionable support, it is the business community. The Trinidad Chamber of Industry and Commerce says the move marks a major departure from traditional crime-fighting measures. “We believe that giving soldiers the same powers, authorities, privileges and immunities as are given by law to members of the Police Service and others can potentially have a positive impact on the reduction of crime,” the chamber said in a statement, noting that past joint police-soldier patrols to maintain law and order have been effective. The same thing has happened in our country, the Dominican Republic, where they’ve had to bring in servicemen to patrol the streets, but they’re not on active duty, in other words, they’re just at specific points in strategic areas. Yes, buddy, but Trinidad and Tobago has 60 points less criminality compared to our country in addition there is a lower % of poverty and inequality, and most obviously, they have a government that works and that is less corrupt.
Sign up for our COVID-19 newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest coronavirus news throughout New York Prosecutors argued on Tuesday that New York State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) abused his power, while defense attorneys countered he was just a normal father helping his son Adam, during opening statements in the trial against both men.In a preview of evidence and testimony the jury will see and hear throughout the next month, the defense contended that prosecutors would be unable to prove that the senator ever changed positions on a bill to get Adam Skelos jobs, but federal authorities maintain that the former majority leader’s power was immense enough to coerce businesses into hiring his son, regardless of whether he actually voted differently on legislation.“Senator Skelos pressured, and his son got paid,” said Tatiana Martins, one of the assistant U.S. Attorneys prosecuting the case, at Manhattan federal court Tuesday. “It wasn’t just politics as usual, it was corrupt.”Both men deny the accusations in an eight-count federal indictment that they shook down three companies to the tune of $300,000—in payments in the form of jobs that Adam was either unqualified for or to which he didn’t show up—in exchange for illegally manipulating legislation.“The office of Dean Skelos was not for sale,” said G. Robert Gage Jr., the senator’s defense attorney. “There was no quid pro quo.”In stating that the senator and his son weren’t “speaking in code” to cover up their conduct in their private calls that investigators recorded, as prosecutors allege, Gage argued they were just on edge after Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York—Martins’ boss—said “stay tuned” after the arrest of Skelos’ counterpart, state Sen. Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan). Silver, former Speaker of the Assembly, is also on trial for similar, but unrelated, corruption charges in the same courthouse. Bharara was seated in the back row of the Skelos courtroom, watching the opening with a furrowed brow.Christopher Conniff, Adam’s attorney, conceded in his opening that his client had acted unprofessionally at times and exaggerated his dealings with his dad, but he insisted that is not a crime.“He is by no means perfect,” Conniff said. “He made some mistakes and said some things he shouldn’t have in order to keep a job.”
Whether you started saving early or are just starting out, there are way to cut back on spending. Some of the easiest ways start right at home. Here are seven easy things you can do to cut costs and even earn some cash back right at home:1. Renting that extra spaceIf you have an extra room or space in your garage, basement even backyard, someone out there is willing to pay to utilize it. Renting out the space for living or storage can yield you a pretty penny for something you weren’t using anyway.2. Have a yard saleWe all have some things laying around the house that we don’t need. Kids grow out of clothes and toys. Those old electronics are still sitting around. And that old end table just doesn’t quite fit in the room anymore. All of these things are just waiting to be money in your pocket.3. Repair dripsThe United States Geological Survey says that a faucet that has one drip a second will add up to nearly 6,500 gallons of water a year. No matter where you live it is cheaper to repair that drip.4. Save on printer inkAnyone who has ever bought printer ink knows that by volume it is more valuable than most precious metals. While printing isn’t as common a need as it once was, you may need to from time to time. Try printing documents at work or the local office supply store if you can.5. Save on a flushDepending on where you live, water bills can get expensive very fast and without warning. Toilets have a large tank capacity that is rarely needed. Try filling a two-liter bottle with water and dropping it in the tank. Each flush will save money on your water bill.6. DIYNeed something done? Unless it is a serious repair or service, chances are that you can do most things on your own. With a quick Google search you can find guides on how to do nearly anything.7. Improve freezer efficiencyKeep your freezer as full as possible! A packed freezer is more energy efficient and can freeze anything else you put in it faster. If you don’t need the space for food, fill it up with ice. Just keep the sides clear for air flow and you will start saving money right away. 40SHARESShareShareSharePrintMailGooglePinterestDiggRedditStumbleuponDeliciousBufferTumblr,Tyler Atwell Web: www.cuinsight.com Details
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Tourism are stories, and the storytelling concept is imperative today. But the story must be true, credible, and have some foundation, so that they can tell it at all and that it can be sustainable. As far back as 1992, on the shores of Bale, dinosaur bones were found in Colona Bay, including the dorsal vertebra of Histriasaurus, the world’s oldest known member of a group of sauropods (long-necked, herbivores) called Rebbachisauridae. Remains of a carnivorous dinosaur and a large sauropod associated with Brachiosurus have also been found. Wow that story and foundation for telling the same, right? On the other hand, the Bale site, as far as is known, is the only site in the world that hides the fossilized remains of these reptiles under the sea, and it is assumed that dinosaur fossils are as old as 130 million years. Based on fossils found in other parts of Istria, it is believed that at least ten species of dinosaurs lived in this area. The outdoor pool of 706m2 consists of a swimming pool for adults, a swimming pool for children and a pool with sitting massages. Next to the main pool there is a hot tub of 20 m2 and a depth of 90 cm. Access roads and terraces (sunbathing areas) are cascaded into the terrain, without disturbing the natural configuration of the terrain, which he made important. Thus, the construction of Paleo Park did not disturb the physiognomy of the landscape and sought to preserve the indigenous vegetation, while the environment is decorated with Mediterranean plants incorporated into the structure of Paleo Park and the natural environment. When we haven’t made better use of it and branded it so far, they decided to do so from the Mon Perin camp in Bale, which opened a Paleo park about dinosaurs worth 23 million kuna. Because of this great discovery, at the 1995 World Congress of Paleontologists in Beijing, Bale was included in the World List of Paleontological Sites. Paleo Park is a combination of a themed amusement water park and an educational research polygon with the aim of approaching and popularizing this archeological site in the Bale coast. And as they point out from the Mon Perin camp, special attention will be paid to the education of younger generations by establishing cooperation with kindergartens and primary and secondary schools in order to get acquainted with the unique site in Istria through a walk through the theme park. In addition to entertainment and tourist content, Paleo Park has six life-size dinosaur sculptures, and it is interesting how the pool is in the shape of a dinosaur. How do you do that? Here is a story about dinosaurs, camp, design and Bale. Great story and extension of Camp Mon Perrin, right? The motive is more for guests to choose Camp Mon Perin as their summer destination. An excellent example of a successful camping story and a real example of the direction in which camps must develop and how to use, ie tell the story through tourism. Photo: Camp Mon Perin
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New Zealand will begin moving citizens to compulsory quarantine from Friday as they return from overseas, stepping up its efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus halfway through a four-week nationwide lockdown.The shutdown began in late March in the Pacific nation of about 5 million, and a state of national emergency was declared to stifle local transmissions of the respiratory disease.”No one goes home, everyone goes into a managed facility,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that 14 days spent in a government-approved facility would be a prerequisite for all foreign travellers. “Even one person slipping through the cracks and bringing the virus in can see an explosion in cases, as we have observed with some of our bigger clusters,” she told a media briefing in Wellington on Thursday.Ardern added that her cabinet would decide whether to extend the nationwide curbs on April 20, two days before the lockdown is set to end.The lockdown has reduced domestic transmissions, authorities said, with a steady fall this week in the daily rise in infections.The tally of infections rose by 29 to stand at 1,239 on Thursday, for the lowest daily rise since March 21, a sign the epidemic could be on the retreat since the lockdown began 15 days ago. Overnight, 35 people were declared to have recovered.New Zealand, like neighboring Australia, has fewer infections than many countries and the pace of infections in both nations has slowed dramatically in the past week.Despite some signs of a plateau in infections, the government said it had no plans to relax the curbs over the Easter weekend and warned of hefty fines for non-essential travel then.Police will step up activity around holiday spots during the Easter holidays, authorities said, with some roadblocks planned.Topics :
Washington has been at odds with countries such as France and Britain over their plans to impose digital service taxes as a way to raise revenue from the local operations of big tech companies such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc.Critics say the firms profit enormously from local markets while making only limited contributions to public coffers, but Washington views the taxes as discriminating against US firms.The US comments came after the Financial Times reported that Mnuchin had called for suspension of the talks in a June 12 letter to top officials in France, Spain, Britain and Italy, and again threatened retaliatory action.Lighthizer this month launched investigations to determine whether digital services taxes being adopted or considered by 10 countries – Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Britain – amounted to unfair trade practices. If it finds they do, the US government could impose new tariffs.Washington previously initiated action against France for its digital services tax, but France later agreed to suspend the measure while the OECD worked out a standardized approach.Read also: Cash-strapped governments see revenue in $26t online industrySpain insists the digital tax it is considering does not discriminate by country and will apply to companies regardless of where they are headquartered.“Spain believes it’s necessary to adapt its fiscal system to the new economic reality of the 21st century; that was our position before receiving the letter, and continues to be so now,” a government source told Reuters.The French finance ministry confirmed it received Mnuchin’s letter and was preparing a joint response with the other recipients. United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin decided to pull out of negotiations on digital services taxes with European Union officials after they failed to make any progress, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday.Lighthizer told US lawmakers that he still believed an international regime was needed to deal with taxation, but the talks with European countries were not proving fruitful.“We were making no headway and the Secretary made the decision that … rather than have them go off on their own, you would just say we’re no longer involved in the negotiations,” he said during a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee. Treasury spokeswoman Monica Crowley said Washington had proposed pausing – not ending – talks among Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development countries on digital taxes and setting rules for international taxation.Read also: Indonesia defends digital tax policy despite US scrutiny“The United States has suggested a pause in the OECD talks on international taxation while governments around the world focus on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and safely reopening their economies,” she said.A source briefed on the letter said Washington still felt an agreement was possible this year.
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