Cheryl Chumley
Chesapeake Bay Foundation: A billion-dollar clean-up business makes its own mess
The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary, encompassing fresh water that flows from six states – Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, New York and West Virginia – and mixes with salt water from the Atlantic Ocean. The bay is roughly 200 miles long and up to 30 miles wide. It is estimated that more than 100,000 creeks, streams or rivers flow through its watershed and that as many as 17 million people live within the watershed and along the bay shoreline, earning their livelihood and enjoying recreational opportunities that the bay makes possible. “More than 500 million pounds of seafood is harvested from the bay every year,” the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) reports. Read all »
The Battle for the Postal Service: Postal Unions Go Postal
The Battle for the Postal Service: Postal Unions Go Postal
by Cheryl K. Chumley
Labor Watch, April 2012 (available as PDF)
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe recently explained to Congress his plan to improve the U.S. Postal Service’s dismal financial shape. The plan includes “…a combination of aggressive cost reduction, rethinking the way we manage our healthcare costs, and comprehensive legislation to reform the business model of the Postal Service.”
Donahoe is a 35-year postal veteran selected for the job in 2010 by the bipartisan Postal Service Board of Governors. He proposes a five-cent increase in the first class stamp to 50 cents effective immediately. This one step alone could yield $1 billion in new revenue, according to the USPS. In addition, he has urged that home delivery be cut from six days to five, with no Saturday work for postal carriers.
In 2006 Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which requires the agency to pre-pay all its employees’ retiree health benefits in order to reduce the risk of unfunded liabilities at USPS. And while Donahoe is not urging Congress to repeal this plan – unlike the postal workers’ unions — he is trying to obtain congressional approval for the USPS to provide its own health care coverage. Doing so, he says, would allow Medicare to become the first option for about 480,000 retirees. Read all »
Carbonfund.org: Carbon Scheming Gone Wild
The Carbonfund.org Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that aims to reduce global warming by having government require people and industries to cut their production and use of fossil fuels (i.e. coal, oil and natural gas). Established in 2003, Carbonfund.org, claims to help individuals and organizations become “carbon neutral” by showing them how to reduce or “offset” their carbon dioxide emissions. The group claims to have worked with over 600,000 individuals and 1,800 organizations—businesses, nonprofits, and religious and academic groups—to fight climate change and be “part of the solution toward a clean energy, low carbon future.” A polar bear stranded on a tiny piece of ice greets visitors to the group’s website. The caption says, “Fight global warming today! For him … and us.”
How do you offset carbon emissions so as to become carbon neutral? The organization explains that donors to Carbonfund.org are investing in carbon-reduction projects. Some projects, such as planting trees to soak up carbon dioxide, directly reduce carbon emissions. Others, such as new wind and solar power projects, are described as alternatives to ”dirty” and “polluting” fossil fuels. But Carbonfund.org emphasizes one other innovative project. It fights global warming by purchasing from companies their “right” to emit carbon dioxide into the environment. “We buy the carbon reductions and retire them, meaning that they are taken out of circulation forever. Simply put, we retire carbon by not using it.” Read all »