Union Vale Democratic Committee

REDUCING THE DEFICIT By Bill McCabe published in The Hudson Valley News 8/3/2011

During the past two months, as the federal government has come closer and closer to defaulting on its debt obligations, Republicans in Congress have adamantly opposed an increase in the debt limit unless reductions are made in social programs, most specifically the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs. These same Republicans in Congress have refused to consider an end to what were supposed to be temporary Bush-era tax cuts for the very wealthy.

President Obama has gone far, perhaps too far, in trying to accommodate those Republicans in Congress. Then when agreement has seemed close, the Republicans have backed away to please the Tea Party and GOP political operative/lobbyist Grover Norquist. This is the same Grover Norquist who convinced 233 Republicans in the House and Senate to sign a pledge not to agree to any increase in taxation, even before deliberation on issues at hand. Those Republicans in Congress want to reduce the deficit on the backs of the poor, the vulnerable, and the middle class while enabling the top 2% of wage earners, the multi-millionaires and billionaires, to make and keep more of their millions and billions. This is not right.

Forty years ago the top 10% of earners controlled 30% of the country’s wealth; today they control more than 50%, and the top 1% now earns 23% of the country’s income. Democrats who want to end the “temporary” windfall for the super-rich are accused of wanting to redistribute wealth when, in fact, the Bush-era tax breaks for the super-rich have led the United States for the first time to a point where the greatest percentage of our national wealth is held by the fewest number of people. Tax cuts for billionaires, who don’t need them, have redistributed more and more wealth to the already exorbitantly wealthy.

Republicans in Congress refer to those millionaires and billionaires as “job creators.” These millionaires and billionaires are not creating jobs, are not investing in America, and are not rebuilding the country’s infrastructure. Instead they hoard their capital, shrink jobs in the US, and send jobs overseas. Republicans in Congress are doing all that they can to protect the wealth of the wealthiest and the industries they control. That is not right.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, he took over the management of a federal budget with a healthy surplus in the US Treasury. When he left office in 2009, he left the Treasury with trillions of dollars of debt, an economy in shambles, and a banking system near collapse.

The deficit that our country has to deal with now was caused primarily by the unfunded, costly, ill- advised war in Iraq. According to the Congressional Research Service, the war in Iraq has cost US taxpayers over $800 billion so far. During the Bush Administration, most of the military and contractual costs of the Iraq war were not budgeted; instead, those costs began the multi-trillion dollar deficit we now face.

Another major contributing cause of the current deficit was the lifting of regulations on Wall Street investment banks. Bank deregulation started in the 1990’s and continued through the Bush years, culminating in the investment banking scandals of 2008 that required federal bailouts to avoid an

international collapse of the whole banking industry. The effects of the greed and general bad behavior of the Wall Street banks continue to act as a drag on our economic recovery from the near-Depression of 2008.

CNN reports that only the Unite States and Denmark have specific debt limits, and that Denmark’s is set so high that it has never been reached. All other countries recognize the fact that when a legislative body votes to pass a budget in which anticipated spending is greater than tax revenue, that vote is an approval of a deficit – similar to a mortgage. Our US Congress, including some of those Congressional Republicans causing all the present mischief in Washington, approved our current budget – including the necessity to borrow. Now, in the middle of a budget cycle, is not the time to put the good faith of the US Treasury in jeopardy by reneging on payment of our bills.

Over the past 50 years the Congress has routinely increased the national debt over 60 times, with bi- partisan support and little controversy. This year congressional Republicans, including Congresswoman Hayworth and Congressman Gibson, have pushed the agenda of the Tea Party to cut or eliminate Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and national health insurance reform in order to pay the unpaid bills for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while assuring that the very few really wealthy will keep their hoards.

The level of our national debt (our mortgage) is a serious concern. It can be reduced by eliminating inefficiencies in government spending, by lifting the income cap on the Social Security tax, and by putting a swift end to the oil industry’s tax exemptions and the “temporary” Bush era income tax reductions for millionaires and billionaires.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is correct when she writes that the Congressional Republicans “expect students, the elderly and hardworking families to pay more, but refuse to require anything of the wealthy and corporate America.”

Call Republican Congresswoman Hayworth (202-225-5441) and Republican Congressman Gibson (2022255614), and tell them to save Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid and stop supporting tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

PROTECT CLEAN WATER by Bill McCabe published in Hudson Valley News 7/20.2011

Nothing is more crucial to the health and well-being of New Yorkers, not to mention our economy, than access to clean water. There is no higher priority, for individuals and for government, than to protect the quality of our drinking water. While other parts of our country suffer from scarcity of water, contaminated water, and droughts, our region is blessed with an abundant supply of clean water for domestic and industrial uses.

When I served in the Dutchess County Legislature, I worked hard to pass a county-wide law to require the testing of private wells at the transfer of property, similar to municipal laws in the Towns of Fishkill, East Fishkill, and Wappinger. These laws work well in those towns, and the rest of county residents who live on properties with private wells deserve similar peace of mind. While the Dutchess County Legislature did pass a well testing law, it was vetoed by the current County Executive and was one vote short of an over-ride of that veto.

The State and County Health Codes require periodic testing of all municipal and commercial water districts, and the rest of us who get our drinking water from private wells deserve at least some of that advantage. Indeed there should be a state-wide law in New York to require testing of private wells, as exists in other states. But in New York’s “dysfunctional” state legislature every attempt to state-wide well testing law has gotten nowhere.

Nobody wants to sell a property with polluted water supply, and virtually all pollution problems (so far) can be solved or mitigated at reasonable cost – that is until we have to deal with the consequences of hydrofracking. If New York State issues permits for the oil/gas industry to use its mixtures of chemicals, water, and sand under high pressure to blast shale deposits to recover natural gas, the threat of water and air pollution will be compounded, as will be the costs of clean-up and mitigation.

George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” How true, and we only have to go back a few weeks or a few months in our past to the environmental destruction that has happened, and IS happening , in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Colorado, and Texas resulting from the process and consequences of fracking for natural gas. New York State can be spared the ravages of fracking if we can persuade Governor Cuomo to ban the practice statewide.

Consider how many years and how many millions of dollars have been spent, so far, to clean up the pollution in the Hudson River after General Electric and other industries nearly killed the river by using it as their sewer for their waste products. The environmental costs will be even worse if hydrofracking is allowed in New York State. The region between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers is not a deserted wasteland waiting for a greedy oil/gas industry to exploit its natural resources. We need to preserve the ecology, water sources, natural beauty, character, and heritage of that region from the threats of hydrofracking.

Earlier this month the NY Department of Environmental Conservation issued its environmental review of fracking, including a ban on the use of fracking within 4,000 feet of the New York City watershed in the Marcellus shale region. This ban puts the source of drinking water for the City off limits but still

leaves the drinking water of upstate residents, including those in the Hudson Valley, open to contamination by the powerful gas industry. Don’t upstate New York residents deserve the same protection of clean drinking water that New York City’s residents will have?

Close by in northern Pennsylvania, hydrofracking has devastated the landscape, disrupted communities, turned neighbor against neighbor, ruined private wells, and permanently ruined farmland. Each gas well requires millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and hundreds of chemicals. The mixture is pumped horizontally and vertically into the shale and is exploded to free the gas from the shale. That mixture comes up to the surface and, similar to nuclear waste, presents major problems of storage and disposal. We should learn from Pennsylvania’s experience and ban fracking in New York!

In every state where hydrofracking techniques are used on a large scale, underground water has been polluted by the carcinogenic chemicals used in the high pressure blasting of the shale. Streams and rivers have been polluted by sludge running from well sites. Open pits of sludge seep into the ground or evaporate into the air. Radioactivity levels have increased downstream from sewage plants where well sludge has been processed in Pennsylvania. Earth quakes have increased dramatically around Little Rock, Arkansas where contaminated sludge has been forced into underground reservoirs.

The gas industry promises 37,000 new jobs for New York communities that sorely need them. What is not said is that most of those jobs are not permanent and would go to out-of-state drillers who come from Oklahoma and Texas. Just go to the Williamsport area of Pennsylvania to see what little effect gas drilling has had on the unemployment figures there. Most of the “economic advantages” for local communities go to rooming houses, taverns, and fast food restaurants. Municipalities and the State of Pennsylvania have increased funds from taxes and fees, but the future environmental and social problems will cost dearly. New York State should learn from Pennsylvania’s experience.

The Democratic controlled NY Assembly passed an extension of a moratorium on the use fracking in New York State until the federal Environmental Protection Agency completes its evaluation of the effects of fracking. Unfortunately, the Republican controlled New York Senate would not allow the extension to come to a vote. Now it is up to Governor Cuomo and the DEC to authorize a total ban on fracking, or at least the extension of the moratorium until the federal study is completed. To protect clean water in New York State, call Governor Cuomo’s office at (518) 474-8390 to register your opposition to hydrofracking.

CLOSE DOWN THE COUNTY INCINERATOR by Bill McCabe published in The Hudson Valley News 6/8/2011

Twenty-five years ago incinerating trash and producing electricity in the process was considered a state-of-the-art way to handle solid waste. When Dutchess County decided to do just that, it was thought that most costs would be covered by fees, the sale of electricity, and the marketing of the incinerator’s ash to road builders. What looked good back then looks horrible today.

The Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency (RRA) administers the county’s incinerator in the Town of Poughkeepsie and has a contract with a private company to operate the facility. The agreement between the County and the RRA stipulates that Dutchess County (that is, we the taxpayers) must cover any deficit in the costs of operating the incinerator. Since 2002 the RRA deficit has more than tripled from $2 million to $6.3 million in 2009. The losses at the RRA are unacceptable, and the County must look to alternatives before the current contract with the private operator comes up for renewal in 2014.

During the past three years the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency (RRA) has received negative reports from a State audit, two successive County Comptrollers, a Legislative Green Ribbon Panel, a special sub-committee of the Legislature, and newspaper investigations that have called into question the Agency’s management practices and overcharges to Dutchess County. In 2010, the Dutchess County Legislature contracted with MidAtlantic Solid Waste Consultants (MSW Consultants) to conduct an outside evaluation of the Resource Recovery Agency’s policies and practices. MSW Consultants’ report, paid for by a grant from the Dyson Foundation, was presented to the County Legislators in May, and it calls for substantial changes in the ways that Dutchess County disposes its trash.

Currently the county incinerator operates at less than 50% of its capacity, diverts only 4% of the waste it handles, has a recycling rate far below the national average, charges high tipping fees that discourage use by private carters, throws fine-particulate pollution into the air, and annually produces 50,000 tons of toxic ash that costs $3 million each year to transport to landfills.

The majority of the board members of the Resource Recovery Agency want to increase the use of the incinerator by enforcing a policy of flow control, which would require all trash produced in Dutchess County to go to the incinerator facility. Flow control would increase the use of the existing incinerator to full capacity and require the building of another of another incinerator similar in size and design, resulting in more toxic ash, more air pollution, and very little improvement in the county’s recycling rate. AND the cost, estimated by MSW Consultants, would be $110 million including a land fill for disposal of the ash. The net annual cost to county taxpayers would be about $20.9 million, including debt service charges. An implementation of this foolish recommendation would compound every existing economic and environmental problem at the Resource Recovery Agency.

The MSW Consultants’ report estimates that if Dutchess County exported its waste (truck or train) to landfills in other states, as is done by most municipalities in New York State, the cost would be $10 million less per year than the RRA plan to expand the incinerator. Exporting waste would decrease air pollution, eliminate the cost of disposing the ash, and increase opportunities for recycling. As recycling

increases, the volume of trash decreases – lowering the cost of disposal. The ultimate goal should be to recycle as much material as possible, having ZERO WASTE as an ideal to work towards. Less waste equals lower taxes. With lower cost as an incentive, people are motivated to recycle.

The way to reduce waste substantially is twofold: first, to have a county-wide, consistent recycling system whereby all non-organic recyclable materials are collected in one container; second, to compost organic materials. Fully 60% of the trash that goes into the incinerator is organic. Diversion of organic trash to composting would produce a marketable commodity, significantly reduce the volume of trash to be transported to landfills, reduce associated costs, and benefit the environment. Municipalities across the country that have implemented ZERO WASTE have experienced recycling rates of 60 to 90 % and substantial reductions in costs. Locally, Marist College, Vassar College, and Bard College give us excellent examples of successful recycling programs, including the composting of organic waste.

We have an outstanding opportunity here in Dutchess County to re-think the way we dispose of trash. We can transform the failures of the Resource Recovery Agency from its current financial and environmental mess into better managed system that reduces costs and protects the environment. Step one is for the County Legislature to pass a law returning responsibility and accountability directly to Dutchess County. In other words, eliminate the Resource Recovery Agency and replace it with Commissioner of Solid Waste to manage the treatment and disposal of trash in conjunction with municipalities and private carters. Currently private companies provide about 70% of the trash collection services in Dutchess County, and that would continue. The big change would be that the county would manage the system; the troubled Resource Recovery Agency would no longer exist.

Any new approach, if it is to succeed, must remove the incinerator, emphasize recycling, and provide for the composting of organic material. This works well elsewhere, and it can be a reality for Dutchess County.

The Dutchess County Legislature will be making serious decisions in the next few months regarding the disposal of solid waste. Call the Legislature’s office at 486-2100 to register your support to close down the county incinerator, replace the Resource Recovery Agency with a County Commissioner of Solid Waste, and develop a ZERO WASTE system for Dutchess County.

MORE REASONS TO OPPOSE FRACKING by Bill McCabe Published in The Hudson Valley News 5/25/2011

Last week, the Democratic candidate for County Executive, Dan French, announced his opposition to the use of fracking to recover natural gas from shale deposits in New York State. He said, “The time for moratoriums and half measures is past.” He went on to call for an outright ban on fracking because of its unsafe practice of mixing numerous cancer-causing chemicals with sand and millions of gallons of water in underground explosions to recover natural gas from the Marcellus shale area that reaches from the Delaware River to the Hudson and includes a portion of northern Dutchess. Dan French is right to urge a ban on fracking.

A significant report recently published by scientists at Duke University in “The Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientist” concludes that drinking water wells within one mile of active fracking sites in Pennsylvania are 20 to 60 times more likely to be contaminated by methane gas. According to those scientists, there is a direct correlation between levels of methane in well water and their proximity to fracking operations. The correlation is, in the opinion of one scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, “similar to the evidence that lung cancer risk increases with tobacco use.” Not all smokers get lung cancer, but the risk surely increases; similarly, not every drinking water well near fracking will be contaminated, but the risk increases substantially – 20 to 60 times!!

Last year, Governor Patterson vetoed a resolution from the State Legislature to place a moratorium on granting permits to natural gas companies to use fracking techniques. Instead, Patterson issued an executive order banning permits for seven months while more scientific information could be gathered. That ban is about to run out, and the time has come for the Legislature and Governor Cuomo to permanently ban fracking in New York State.

Major gas drillers have been spending millions of dollars lobbying NY State officials and buying drilling rights from private land owners. These companies are anxious to move their equipment into New York from Pennsylvania at a moment’s notice as soon as the Patterson executive order expires, and they can apply for drilling permits from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

In Pennsylvania, where that state’s governor and Legislature have welcomed fracking companies, evidence continues to mount about the negative environmental and health consequences, not only from the drilling process and underground blasting, but also from the disposal of the sludge that comes out of those gas wells. Water, earth, and air are being contaminated from the sludge wherever fracking is used. Some sludge is buried deep underground, some sits in open pits to evaporate into the air and seep into the land, some drains into streams, and some is dumped into municipal waste processing plants that were not designed to treat the volume of toxic wastes generated by fracking. The threats to health and the environment are real, they are catastrophic, and they have to be averted.

In March, the EPA ordered an investigation into increased rates of radioactivity detected at water treatment plants that receive waste from fracking companies and at public drinking intake sites located downstream from those plants. Dangerously high levels of benzene have also been detected in fracking sludge, and the EPA has been formally requested by three Congressmen to look into the use of diesel

fuel as one of the chemicals used in fracking, an apparently direct violation of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act of 2005.

Advertisements paid for by natural gas companies have been touting natural gas as “clean energy.” While the gas itself may burn cleaner than other hydrocarbons, according to scientists at Cornell University the process of fracking to obtain the gas makes it 20% dirtier than coal. Furthermore, the long-term health and environmental risks make fracking riskier than offshore drilling for oil.

We must ban fracking as soon as possible. Now science is strongly supporting the experiences of real people who have been seriously harmed by fracking. To those who say that fracking for natural gas is patriotic, avoiding the need for foreign oil, we ask, “What worse can the enemies of the US do than poison the ground water of Main Street?” Instead of fracking for methane gas, we should develop sustainable, renewable wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal alternatives to oil.

On June 10th at 7pm, Robert Jackson, one of the Duke University scientists who wrote the paper demonstrating the correlation between fracking and high levels of methane gas in drinking water wells, will be speaking at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies on Sharon Turnpike in Millbrook. Go hear what he has to say.

Candidate for County Executive Dan French is correct when he says, ”New York State has the opportunity to act now and prevent immediate and long term damage to our ecosystems and our people’s health.” Call your representatives in the State Legislature and request their active support for bills to prohibit fracking in New York: in the Assembly the bill is A.7218, and in the Senate the bill is S.4220. Ban fracking now!

CLOSE INDIAN POINT by Bill McCabe as published in The Hudson Valley News 4/13/2011
As Americans, our deep concern goes to the people of Japan as they cope with the triple-disaster of the earthquake, the tsunami, and the subsequent radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. We admire the dignity and calm which the Japanese people have shown in their response to these tragic events. Our sympathy goes out to all the Japanese who have lost family members, their homes, and their way of life. The effects, especially from the contamination of radiation, will last for generations.
As Americans, we also have to re-evaluate our national policies on the use of nuclear power plants, even as we look for safe, efficient, renewable sources of energy in order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Step one is to support Governor Cuomo’s commitment to phase out and close down the nuclear plant at Indian Point along the Hudson River in Westchester County.
The Indian Point nuclear facility, just 24 miles from New York City, is proximate to one of the world’s greatest population centers. A nuclear event at Indian Point would mean the immediate evacuation of 450,000 people who live within a 10 mile radius of the site. In view of what happened recently in Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may now recommend a 50 mile evacuation radius, directly affecting nearly 20 million — including the residents of in New York City, northern New Jersey, and most of Dutchess County. The logistical impossibility of such an evacuation in itself demands the closing of Indian Point.
The two reactors at the Indian Point facility, similar in design to the devastated facility in Japan, were built in the late 1950’s less than one mile away from where the Ramapo fault intersects with another fault line. Scientists estimate a 1 in 1,000 chance of an earthquake disaster at Indian Point. No matter what degree of safety is built into the reactors, the Indian Point nuclear plant is simply in the worst location and has to be removed.
If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. If we do not learn from Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Japan just how devastating the threat of nuclear accidents can be to human existence, we almost ensure something worse to come. According to the NRC, there is serious concern for 3 existing U.S nuclear power plants that are near or on geological fault lines, 2 in California and our very own Indian Point plant. It should be closed down as soon as possible.
Currently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing an application to extend Indian Point’s license to operate. In a rather bizarre preliminary decision, the NRC has refused to consider the key issue of how Entergy Corporation, the operators of Indian Point, plan to handle/store/dispose of spent nuclear rods. Right now the storage units for spent nuclear rods are full at Indian Point, and nobody has a viable solution as to how to dispose of them. Until the disposal issue is safely resolved, all nuclear plants should be closed, and Indian Point should be the first – despite Congresswoman Nan Hayworth’s support for its continued operation.
Nuclear power is not safe enough, is not clean enough, and is not efficient enough. It costs billions of dollars to build a plant, and it takes 10 years before one watt is delivered to the grid by any new nuclear
facility. What a waste of money and time. Say no to any new nuclear power plants, especially to the one being considered (and supported by Congressman Gibson) for a location north of Albany.
For over 90 years, our country has given billions of dollars annually to the oil and gas private industries in the form of tax incentives, tax credits, grants, exploration licenses, and other types of favoritism – including the exclusion of the oil and gas companies from having to comply with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The corporate welfare that these private industries have enjoyed has created some of the most profitable corporations and some of the richest corporate executives that the world has ever known. It is time to end this favoritism for industries that certainly do not now need it, if they ever did.
What is needed now is to transfer the government’s financial benefits away from the oil and gas industries and invest them with the development of wind power, solar power, and hydro-power including wave and tidal power turbines. Fossil fuels are limited, create pollution, and cause environmental harm; nuclear power plants and the waste they produce are fraught with potential cataclysmic dangers, especially the one at Indian Point. Close it ASAP.