Special CSCC Event THURSDAY: Energy And How We Pay For It

Apologies in advance if you get bombarded by multiple emails about this in the next few days, but we are trying to get the word out about this special CSCC event on Thursday:

The Central Susquehanna Citizens Coalition will present a public forum titled “Energy and How We Pay For It in PA: The Next Five Years and Beyond” on Thursday, April 1 at 7:30pm at the Union County Government Center located at 155 N 15th St., Lewisburg. The panel will feature four distinguished energy professionals from across our region and the U.S.

• Stacy Richards is Director of the SEDA-COG Energy Resource Center, and her topic will be "Energizing Our Region."
• Steve Connolley is the owner of Hometown Energy Systems, LLC, a renewable energy startup company, and his topic will be "Renewable Energy Technologies for Homes and Businesses."
• Preston Boop is the owner of Briar Patch Organic Farm where he produces bio-diesel fuel, and his topic will be "Alternative Energy from Recycled Organics."
• William Steinhurst is Senior Consultant for Synapse Energy Economics, an energy consulting firm, and his topic will be "The Future of Electricity Regulation."

The format of the panel discussion will be 15-minute presentations by each of the panelists, followed by 30 minutes of interactive discussion where audience members are encouraged to ask questions.

For more information, please see our full press release here.

You can also download our event flyer here. Please print one out to share or use as a reminder! Hope to see you there.

Final Countdown to HCR

Looks like the House of Representatives is headed toward a final vote on the healthcare reform (reconciliation) bill at 10am on Sunday morning. Carney voted "yes" on the previous House bill, and he has said some very encouraging things in the press lately, but the Daily Item characterized him as an "undecided" vote just yesterday. We know that he (and his staff) are literally counting the number of calls he gets for vs. against reform. So now is the time to make your voices heard. If you've got more than one voter in your household, everyone should call.

Here are his office numbers:
Williamsport: 570-327-1902
Shamokin: 570-644-1682
Clarks Summit: 866-846-8124
Washington DC: 202-225-3731
More contact information can be found at his website here.

If you've never called him before, it's so easy! A friendly staff member will answer your call, listen to your request ("Please tell Mr. Carney to vote for the healthcare reform bill"), take down your name, and you are done! It takes less than a minute.

And for those of you (like me) who are both excited about the prospect of this bill passing, but also dejected about how it falls short of achieving true "universal healthcare," it might make you feel a little better to read this House committee summary of what's actually in the reconciliation bill. It's very far from perfect, but there's some truly good stuff in there. I wish I could say more than "it's a step in the right direction," but... hey, it's a step in the right direction.

Private and Public Tragedy

Organizing for America- the organizing branch of the Obama campiagn that stuck around afterwards, has a great example of using technology to rally people.

I wrote the following to Chris Carney and as I got into it I wanted to give it a broader audience.


Dear Rep. Carney,

I am here for Betsy and Lisa [Names changed]-

We must pass health insurance reform now. Too many people and businesses face warped incentives or grim and miserable health due to the burdens of our perverse and broken system.

Betsyworks full tie in a private child care facility. She is a single mom. She often baby sits infants for many families and is always willing to help people with sick children or other events. Her selflessness allows others to pursue their careers as professors, doctors, and business leaders. Her employer, a day care center subsidized by a local employer, does not provide coverage. She had such severe back problems she could not sleep. Friends pooled $300 to help her see a chiropractor. She limited coverage now, but is still an injury away from financial crisis.

Lisa has leukemia. She works cleaning people’s homes. She cleans and cooks for her husband every day, even when he has been furloughed or been between jobs. She stays married to a disinterested, neglectful and nearly abusive husband because she could never afford individual coverage, or even get it with her leukemia. Where is her freedom to live her life? The combination of patriarchy and our health care system is deeply unfair and sexist. I think only the strength of her personality and her adult son keeps her husband from raising his hand against her.

Millions are uninsured. In 2009, one study found 45,000 Americans died due to lack of coverage. [1] They used a rigorous method used by researchers in 1993 who found around half that number then. Among those 45,000 are more than 2,000 uninsured veterans.[2] On 9/11, 3,000 of our citizens were innocent victims and became iconic heroes. We endure 15 9/11s every year through 45,000 private tragedies of martyrs to a broken healthcare system midwife by a corrupt political system. We have marshaled billions of dollars and 100,000s of soldiers to avenge the fallen of 9/11. Meanwhile, we engage in trivial “death panel” and “reconciliation” food fights at home while our fellow citizens are chewed up and spit out as corpses by the broken health care system. Why should the public tragedy of 9/11 count for so much more all these years than the sum of 45,000 private tragedies year in and year out?

Where is the justice in that? How is that fair?


[1] Heavey, Susan. Sept 2009. “Study Links 45,000 Deaths to Lack of Health Insurance.” Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917

[2] Physicians for A National Health Program. Nov 10, 2009. “Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance.” http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/over_2200_veterans_.php

Campaign Reform Wish List

Many of you have probably heard Barb Sundin talk about ideas for campaign reform. She's been handing a list of ideas to candidates for office and I thought you might like to read them too. (My favorite is #5.)

Campaign Reform Wish List
by Barbara Sundin

In light of the recent Supreme Court decision it becomes clearer that what we need is serious campaign finance reform. Last year alone 2.7 billion dollars were spent on state and local elections and 6.3 billion were spent on federal elections.That’s BILLION. Can you imagine what we could do with that money? Fix our schools, provide healthcare for everyone, fix our roads, invest in green energy are a few I can think of.

Following is a list of the things I would like to see in Campaign reform legislation. I know it’s a stretch, but if only some of these things get passed into law our elections might become sane again and legislators might just be able to legislate for the good of the country, instead of fundraise. Furthermore, they would be responsible to the voters not the big money people and special interest groups. Please carefully consider these suggestions. They would make your life a lot easier and bring government back to the people.

1. Campaigns limited to 2 months before primary and then start up again on Sept 1

2. National Primary day in May

3. No money can be raised until the campaign season starts 2 months before the primary.

4.No contributions from corporations or lobbyists or unions or special interest groups

5. No contributions from anyone who can’t vote for you. (Makes legislators more responsive to their constituents.)

6. All TV time free to candidates for the month of October and until the election in November.

7. All money left in the war chest at the end of the campaign goes into a general fund that can be evenly distributed to candidates who are running the next time.

The idea in all of this is to limit the time and money spent on campaigning. It should never be that the election goes to the highest bidder.Furthermore, legislators shouldn’t have to spend all of their time in office trying to raise money to run the next time. They should be legislating.

Dem State Committee endorses single payer

According to a report from Jerry Policoff on OpEdNews.com, the Democratic State Committee has endorsed the idea of enacting a single-payer health care system in Pennsylvania. Three of the five Democratic candidates for governor have said they would sign such a bill and the other two are open to the idea.

Why isn't this generating coverage in the mainstream media? Because it's doesn't rise to the level of news until something actually happens. Gov. Rendell promised to sign a single-payer bill if it reached his desk. It hasn't. Perhaps some believe nothing will happen until the federal level action (or inaction) is resolved, so promising to do something once all the political inertia is overcome is an easy thing to do. Here's hoping the legislature calls their bluff--and soon.

For the link to the full article, click on the headline above.

CSCC Meetup Feb. 4th - Rails to Trails Project

Please mark your calendars for next week! CSCC will be holding its first regular monthly meetup on Thursday, Feb. 4th at 7:30 pm, at the First Baptist Church in Lewisburg (51 S. 3rd St.)

Our kickoff meeting will be a Q&A information session and discussion about the Buffalo Valley Rail Trail project, with special guest Trey Casimir, Board Chairman from LARA.

We have been discussing on this blog lately about how the local paper has been reporting people's opinions on this project without really providing many facts about the expected costs, impact, and other details. We hope this in-person meeting will give everyone a chance to sit down and learn more about what is going on, and (potentially) what can be done to help.

Please spread the word-- remember, CSCC meetups are always open to anyone who is interested!

LARA, Rails to Trails, and the Daily Item

I should be writing to the Daily Item, but they have already published a reply to their stories about the Union County Commissioners's most recent meeting. But here goes.

First, the Daily Item published a story reporting on comments from Preston Boop speculating on what might happen at the next meeting of the Union County Commissioners. But it was the coverage on December 16 that the DI really ought to reconsider. I have no problem with their publishing a picture of Yvonne Morgan wearing a pig hat to the meeting. Who wouldn't? It was obviously a good bit of political theater. I do have a problem with this passage:

But it was Morgan’s personal attacks against Showers and Republican Commissioner John Mathias that cast a pall over Tuesday’s meeting from the get-go.

“Commissioner Showers is the husband of a trust-fund child. He may not know what financial struggle is,” Morgan wrote as she called into question Showers’ and Mathias’ financial judgment in considering allowing the county to take over the Lewisburg Area Recreation Authority’s Rail Trail. “John Mathias has financial means to weather the economic storm. Most of us do not.”

That may not include Morgan, the wife of Evangelical Community Hospital general surgeon James Morgan, who also sits on the hospital’s board of directors.

Take a good look at that last sentence. It looks like The Daily Item simply turns Yvonne Morgan's tactic (of drawing inferences based on who someone is married to) back on her. It's not relevant to the story, and it diverts attention from the issues that journalists ought to be looking at. (Note: if this was said by someone at the meeting, it would be relevant, but that's not the way it's reported.) It's legitimate to report on the emotions of the meeting, but it's not okay to try to stoke them.

Ultimately, the story ought to be about the merit and wisdom of the project: what do the economic impact studies say, and what do economists who understand such things think about their accuracy? Is there public support for the project in the county as (I believe) there is in the Lewisburg area? What has been the experience of other communities and areas that have put in Rails to Trails system? Finally, is there a strong argument that the county should be interested in the project, or are the potential costs prohibitive? I understand that the DI can't send reporters around the country, but in the age of e-mail, is it that hard to get enough information to write a story about similar projects in other rural areas?

But even if the DI doesn't want to do any background reporting about the project itself, here's what might interest me: Has Yvonne Morgan ever been a public official? How long has she been chair of the Republican Committe in Union County? Does she seem to understand the issues, or is her opposition simply a matter of basic principle (no federal money for any projects)?

Further: What are the known costs associated with a rails to trails system and how much burden might they place on the county and taxpayers? What's the current plan for funding over the long haul? As far as I've seen, the DI has not taken on any of these questions. So here's an idea for the next issue of the Williamsport Guardian: where rails to trails paths have gone in, what has been the result? Have these projects been a net positive or a negative in various locations and why?

I realize that some citizens are opposed to the Rails to Trails project on principle because of the use of federal funds. I respect that and understand the point. Federal requirements mean that the trail will need a larger initial investment than it otherwise might (because of federal standards). I don't see anyone stepping forward with ideas about how to get a trail up and running without those funds, however. Because I think a trail here that is flat, scenic, and convenient would significantly enhance life in many ways, including economically through increased visitors to the valley, I'd like to see that trail built. But first we're going to have to focus on the merits, not on the sideshow.