CER, the nation’s leading advocate for innovation and breaking the mold in education, today released Education 50: 2018, with candidate ratings for races for Governor in 36 states and for State Education Superintendent in 7 states. Jeanne Allen, Founder and CEO of CER, released the following statement along with the ratings:
“The recent results from American College Testing (ACT) highlighted a profound crisis in American education. Those results showed that only 40% of our high school seniors are proficient and college ready in vital subjects like math, science and history. Put plainly, too many of our students are being cheated of opportunities for successful futures. And that’s just one of many education measurements that show the fundamental need for more access to great education opportunity, and the flexibility for schools and the people who educate our students to personalize, individualize and innovate.
“Governors and Superintendents of Education can have a profound influence on the quality and delivery of public education – for good or for bad. They can make the difference between a child having access to schools that work, whether or not they are in the child’s zip code, and whether and how the state legislature leads on ensuring that schools are transformed to accommodate 21st century solutions, from K through career.
“CER has created Education 50 so voters can see where candidates stand on two fundamental values – education opportunity and innovation, both of which require bold thinking and leadership. We know that education is failing most of our students. Governors can change all that.
“Our ratings indicate that only a third of candidates for Governor and State Education Superintendent fully support opportunity and innovation. Voters can easily find the positions of their state candidates. We urge all voters to use our ratings as a reference and support candidates who will give America’s students the best chance for success.”
The full report can be accessed here, or by visiting edreform.com/education-50/governors-races/.
Founded in 1993, the Center for Education Reform aims to expand educational opportunities that lead to improved economic outcomes for all Americans — particularly our youth — ensuring that conditions are ripe for innovation, freedom and flexibility throughout U.S. education.
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Rocky Mountain Power Takes Step to Lower Energy-Savings Targets
SALT LAKE CITY – Energy efficiency is a vital energy “resource” just like solar energy and natural gas power plants, and according to a recent international report increasing global energy efficiency is a central strategy to combat climate change. However, efforts to save energy are slowing in Utah.
A report filed with the Utah Public Service Commission (Docket No. 18-035-27) on November 1 shows that instead of increasing energy efficiency targets, Rocky Mountain Power is proposing to reduce the level of energy saved in Utah in 2019 by 20% compared to savings achieved in 2017. Specifically, the utility is planning for just 299 million kWh of annual energy savings through its 2019 Wattsmart efficiency programs. By comparison, in 2017 Rocky Mountain Power helped its customers save 373 million kWh of electricity annually through utility programs that stimulated the adoption of more efficient lights, appliances, air conditioning systems, industrial equipment and the like. These energy efficiency programs are cost effective, cutting $2.23 in utility costs for every $1 invested in energy efficiency incentive programs. The amount of electricity saved in 2017 alone resulted in $140 million net savings for the utility and its customers.
“Scaling back cost effective energy efficiency programs will result in more energy waste, higher utility bills for households and businesses in Utah, and increased operation of polluting power plants. Scaling back of Rocky Mountain Power’s energy efficiency programs is not in the public interest, and should not be approved by the Utah Public Service Commission,” said Kevin Emerson, Energy Efficiency Program Director for Utah Clean Energy.
Today’s proposal will translate to cuts to energy-saving incentive programs for residents and businesses that rely on robust efficiency incentives to help implement energy efficiency improvements. Energy efficiency has been an important energy resource in Utah for almost two decades. Since 2001 Rocky Mountain Power’s successful energy efficiency programs have helped Utahns save over 3.4 billion kWh of electricity per year, which is enough electricity to power nearly 373,000 average Utah homes.
While Rocky Mountain Power proposed reductions to efficiency targets, other regional electric utilities continue to increase targeted levels of electricity savings. “The main electric utilities in Colorado and Nevada are expanding their energy efficiency programs in 2019, not scaling them back. Rocky Mountain Power is moving in the wrong direction,” said Howard Geller, Director of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. “The company should strive to maximize the adoption of cost-effective energy efficiency measures by its customers, rather than cut its energy savings targets.”
“We all have to share resources and with Utah’s growing population we should be increasing our energy efficiency efforts. Utah families and businesses deserve more electricity savings, not a roll-back” said Emerson.
What is more troubling is that this appears to be a trend that Rocky Mountain Power is forecasting, despite Utah’s projected population doubling over the next couple of decades. In its most recent 20-year plan the utility projects that in the year 2034 it will save less electricity than it saved in 2008.
Utah Clean Energy and the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project encourage interested residents and businesses to submit comments supporting higher levels of electricity savings to the Utah Public Service Commission through Docket No. 18-035-27 and to tell Rocky Mountain Power directly that they support more electricity savings, not less.
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Background information and references
Docket No. 18-035-27: Rocky Mountain Power’s Semi-Annual Demand-Side Management (DSM) Forecast Reports: https://psc.utah.gov/2018/07/02/docket-no-18-035-27/
Figures for energy efficiency in 2017 come from Rocky Mountain Power’s Energy Efficiency and Peak Reduction Report 2017: http://www.pacificorp.com/content/dam/pacificorp/doc/Energy_Sources/Demand_Side_Management/2017/Energy_Efficiency_and_Peak_Reduction_Report_2017.pdf
A recent article from the Utah Geological Survey highlights the important role that energy efficiency plays in decreasing Utah’s overall and residential per-capita electricity demand while also keeping Utah’s economy strong: https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/energy-news/heroconservation/
The graphs attached show Rocky Mountain Power’s historic success in energy efficiency and the lower level of electricity savings being proposed for 2019, and the proposed reduction in electricity savings through 2034.
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The Right to Vote Is the Foundation of Lawful Government—No Consent = No Government
By Kary Love
1244 words
One of the great things about being a small-town country lawyer is you get to meet so many “ordinary” Americans going about their business, raising their kids, volunteering in their communities and working day after day to make a better tomorrow. One of the troublesome things about being a country lawyer is you encounter the contrast between those ordinary people and their so-called “leaders” and “law enforcers.” Though many of the latter reflect the good qualities of “ordinary” Americans, many, if not most, as taught by experiments in psychology, abandon their moral codes and embrace the psychopathology of those granted governmental power.
Power is dangerous. Unless constrained by law, there is no difference between the power of a police officer to shoot an unarmed person and that of a mafia enforcer. The sole difference is the police officer is only empowered to kill in accordance with the law. If he kills, like a mafia hit man, outside the law, then he is, too, an “outlaw.” So too, the FBI, the CIA, the US Army and every other governmental agent authorized to kill. Either it is done in accord with the law or it is illegal, possibly criminal. “Law enforcers” voluntarily swear an oath to the Constitution not to deprive persons of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Those who live up to it may rightly be considered heroes. Those who do not may rightly be considered Mafioso. I don’t make the law, but I have been trained to understand and interpret it.
In that training, I have learned American law has a principled foundation. It is known as the Declaration of Independence (DOI) passed by Congress July 4, 1776, it is the law that established America, and it remains in force to this day. Because America was going to “secede” from the British Empire, possibly to engage in “revolution” and war against the “mother country,” the American revolutionaries thought they had a duty to state the principles of law that justified such otherwise “treasonous” action.
The main justification was declared to be the fact that the English government was not based on the “consent” of the American people and was therefore “illegitimate” (which means unlawful). Not legal. How could the Americans claim that?
Simple. Americans’ did not have the right to vote for representatives in Parliament. Thus, the Americans argued, laws passed by Parliament were not lawful in America because they did not “have the Consent of the Governed.” The DOI declared government “derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.” Without such consent government powers cannot be exercised “justly.” It that event the DOI continued, “it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it” (government).
The foundation of America is the idea that true representation of the people, meaningful consent to the laws its government passes, must be obtained by the government or it risks being “illegitimate” or a government of “outlaws.” This consent, in a republic such as the American, is derived from periodic votes of the people electing “representatives” or agents of the people representing the peoples’ input to lawmaking—since having direct votes was not technologically possible at the time—election of representatives (not “rulers”) was deemed prudent. But, should voting not be representative, consent would not exist, and government would be of questionable legitimacy.
Sadly, voting is apparently becoming less and less reflective of the consent of the people.
Keith Sellars, one of the 12 Alamance County, NC residents prosecuted for voting in 2016, tellingly wrote at Counterpunch:
For me it’s important that we call this what it is: voter suppression. Other policies — including a proposed voter ID constitutional amendment, polling site closures and early voting restrictions, and partisan and racial gerrymandering — hope to do the same.
One in three black men in the United States has been charged with a felony. In North Carolina, black men are incarcerated at four times the rate of white men. And here, as in most states, that can mean harsh restrictions on your right to vote. So even if we think these laws are unfair, the opportunity to influence them is taken from our hands.
As reported in the Guardian:
The two most recent Republican presidents have entered office despite receiving fewer votes than their opponent in a national election, thanks to the electoral college, which systematically over-represents small states. (California gets one electoral vote per 712,000 people; Wyoming gets one per 195,000.) With the presidency in hand in the run-up to the 2020 census, minority rule will be further entrenched by adding a citizenship question to the census. This will result in systematic undercounting of the population in heavily Democratic areas, which will in turn further reduce their influence as legislatures draw maps based on the data.
Then there’s the Senate. Because of its bias toward smaller, rural states, a resident of Wyoming has 66 times the voting power in Senate elections as one in California. Thus, in 2016, the Democratic party got 51.4 million votes for its Senate candidates. The Republicans got 40 million. And despite losing by more than 11 million votes, the Republicans won a supermajority (22 of 36) of the seats up for election, holding their majority in the chamber.
The hideously malapportioned Senate and electoral college permit the last piece of the minority rule puzzle to snap into place: the supreme court. In 2016, after losing the contest for the presidency and the Senate by millions of votes, the Republicans were able to install two supreme court justices. There may be more.
In fact, when the Senate confirmed Trump’s first nominee, Neil Gorsuch, it was a watershed moment in American history. For the first time, a president who lost the popular vote had a supreme court nominee confirmed by senators who received fewer votes – nearly 22 million fewer – than the senators that voted against him. And by now, it will not surprise you to discover that the senators who voted for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh represent 38 million fewer people than the ones who voted no.
I am just a small-town country lawyer. But I am also an American. I have been honored to work with many ordinary Americans to build their communities, support the education of their children, raise money for charity, and I have learned they have a wisdom and a decency far beyond that of those who claim to be their “rulers.” I have witnessed their capacity for judgment as they sat on juries, small township Boards, and in private organizations doing good in their communities. The record of their success at self-governance is manifest all around us every day. I thank them for their service!
I have also witnessed the creeping suppression of their right to vote, and to have their vote counted and respected. It may not be my place to warn those who think they rule, who think they are above the law, and who believe they have power to disregard the “consent of the governed,” and so I do not. The Declaration of Independence does that. The dust bin of history is replete with the bones of failed governments that tried to rule without the consent of the people. “With a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence” the Declaration launched a government based on the consent of the people. Those who would undermine it, by imperiling the right to vote, do the work of another power that shall not be named.
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Kary Love is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters, including some desperado nuns, in court for decades and will on occasion use blunt force satire or actual legal arguments to make a point.
