Alabama ABC has ‘amazing’ audit, $12.6 million of state items all accounted for
Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler has completed his two-year property audit of the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board with perfect results. The ABC had 4,028 items of state-owned property valued at $12.6 million, all of which were accounted for. “If this were not my office doing the inventory, I would almost be incredulous,” Zeigler joked. “It is simply amazing that all four thousand items under the care of ABC were present and accounted for.” Zeigler continued, If every agency did a perfect job with their property inventory, my job would be a lot easier. In fact, it every agency did this well, somebody would want to abolish my office.” The State Auditor is responsible for property inventory of each item of state property valued at $500 or more. There are 176 state agencies which the state auditor inventories every two years.
Alabama editorial roundup: Oct. 4, 2018 edition
Recent editorials from Alabama newspapers: ___ Sept. 28 The Cullman Times on upcoming elections for state offices: The long political year in Alabama will come to a conclusion when voters go to the polls Nov. 6. … And everyone should be interested in the major state offices on the ballot. The governor’s race, with Republican Kay Ivey as the incumbent against Democrat Walt Maddox, who has served as Tuscaloosa mayor, features two candidates who bring different messages to the campaign. Ivey is running on her long years of services in various state offices and Alabama’s solid run of job growth. Maddox’s reputation became known across the state as he effectively led Tuscaloosa through the tragedy and rebuilding from a destructive tornado in 2011. He is challenging certain aspects of Ivey’s campaign, saying that education, health care, and the wages workers are paid all need improving. The themes of this race with a seasoned politician facing a new, young candidate give Alabamians plenty to consider on election day. Offices such as secretary of state, attorney general, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and two Public Service Commission seats all carry importance for citizens across the state. But to make a difference, every eligible voter needs to be registered and then go to the polls. A record number of Alabamians have been registered to vote in recent years, but often the turnout is thin. For those who are looking to the future, there is still plenty of time to register to vote. The deadline is Oct. 22. Requesting an absentee ballot is open until Nov. 1. Alabama has many crucial issues awaiting the next group of officeholders. Workforce training, better paying jobs, Medicaid expansion, access to health care, internet service for rural areas, and improving roads are among some of the topics that need to be addressed. Candidates will have plenty to say between now and Nov. 1. A lot of them will be making stops in this community and points across the state. Take the time to listen and ask questions when the opportunity arises. Alabama will reach its potential when citizens speak up. And the first step to be being heard is to vote. Online: https://www.cullmantimes.com/ ___ Sept. 27 Decatur Daily on national violent crime rates: Having spent the past year and a half claiming America was in the midst of a rising tide of crime, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has suddenly changed his forecast. According to FBI statistics, both violent crimes and property crimes decreased slightly nationwide last year, after two years of slight increases. At the time of the slight upticks in crime in 2015 and 2016, informed observers cautioned there was no cause yet for alarm because they might be simply statistical blips and crime levels nationwide remained close to 30-year lows. Others, however, including some hoping to stifle bipartisan criminal justice reform efforts in Congress and in many states, seized upon the uptick as evidence being “soft on crime” was resulting in more crime. They pointed in particular to increased violent crime in Baltimore and Chicago, while ignoring New York City, which continued to see declines in crime rates even as the police there were ordered to abandon their controversial “stop and frisk” policy. Honest observers recanted their doom-and-gloom predictions about New York. As National Review’s Kyle Smith wrote, “The statistics are clear: Crime is lower than ever. It’s possible that crime would be even lower had stop-and-frisk been retained, but that’s moving the goal posts. I and others argued that crime would rise. Instead, it fell. We were wrong.” Now crime has again ticked downward nationwide, and just as the two years of slight increases were no cause for alarm, one downward year doesn’t guarantee everything is all blue skies and sunshine ahead. It does mean, however, that the 30-year trend of historically low rates of violent crime still holds, and it’s the long-run trends, the ones that reveal patterns and smooth out statistical bumps in the road, that are important. And being at a 30-year low is cause for some celebration. Moreover, crime in the nation’s 30 largest cities is down, according to an analysis of the FBI data conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice, which found “that across the cities where data is available, the overall murder and crime rates are projected to decline in 2018, continuing similar decreases from the previous year.” The Brennan Center analysis continues: “Especially sharp declines appear in San Francisco (-35.0 percent), Chicago (-23.2 percent), and Baltimore (-20.9 percent). These estimates are based on preliminary data, but if they hold, the number of murders in Chicago could fall by year’s end to the lowest since 2015. In Baltimore, homicides could drop to the lowest since 2014. While the city’s murder rate remains high, this would mark a significant reversal of the past two years’ increases.” Sessions was quick to take credit. “And I am announcing today the FBI will release its annual Uniform Crime Report, which will show that violent crime and murder have stopped rising and actually declined in 2017,” Sessions said in a speech to law enforcement in Alabama. “. Those are the kind of results you get when you support law enforcement. Those are the kind of results we get when we work together.” By work together, however, Sessions means ending federal oversight of local police departments that have violated the civil rights of the people they’re supposed to protect. Ames Grawert, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Reason.com it was “galling to see” Sessions cite national crime data to support his position on policing: “Ascribing credit of any crime increase or decrease to a single year and a half of federal policy is just beyond belief, but here we are.” Sessions first exaggerated the scope of the problem and now is exaggerating the supposed effects of his policy changes, all in an effort to derail criminal justice reform. “The reality is, data-driven prison and sentencing reforms, like those
GOP looking more confident on Brett Kavanaugh after FBI report
A high-stakes partisan row broke out Thursday over a confidential FBI report about allegations that Brett Kavanaugh sexually abused women three decades ago, with Republicans claiming investigators found “no hint of misconduct” but Democrats accusing the White House of slapping crippling constraints on the probe. At the same time, Republican leaders seemed to show increasing confidence. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa said he now expects the Supreme Court nominee to be confirmed in a Senate roll call on Saturday. In a hardening of battle lines, one of two vacillating Democrats — North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp — said she’d oppose the Supreme Court nominee. Heitkamp, facing a tough re-election fight next month, said she was concerned about his past conduct and felt that his angry attacks on Democrats during last week’s Judiciary Committee hearing raised questions about his “current temperament, honesty and impartiality.” However, in a potential sign of momentum for Kavanaugh, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., told CNN that “we’ve seen no additional corroborating information” for the accusations and that the investigation had been comprehensive. Flake, who’s not stated his position on the nomination, was among three Republicans who had pressed President Donald Trump to order the renewed FBI background check. Another GOP lawmakers who has publicly taken no stance, Susan Collins of Maine, also called the probe “a very thorough investigation” and said she’d read the documents later. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski said she’d read the report. Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia also has not declared how he’ll vote. The battling commenced as the conservative jurist’s prospects for winning Senate confirmation remained at the mercy of five undeclared senators, including the three Republicans, with an initial, critical vote looming Friday. It followed the FBI’s early-morning release of its investigation. “There’s nothing in it that we didn’t already know,” Grassley declared. He said he based his view on a briefing from committee aides and added, “This investigation found no hint of misconduct.” Other Republicans who’d already voiced support for Kavanaugh echoed Grassley, saying after a briefing that there’d been no corroboration of wrongdoing by Kavanaugh. Said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., “The senators who requested the supplemental background check got what they requested, and I am ready to vote.” Top Democrats fired back at Grassley after getting their own briefing. The Judiciary panel’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, said it appeared that the White House had “blocked the FBI from doing its job.” She said that while Democrats had agreed to limit the probe’s scope, “we did not agree that the White House should tie the FBI’s hands.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already started a process that will produce a crucial test vote in his polarized chamber Friday on Kavanaugh’s fate. Should Republicans get the majority of votes they need — and Vice President Mike Pence is available to cast the tie-breaker, if necessary — that would set up a decisive roll call on his confirmation, likely over the weekend. Several senators said 10 witnesses were interviewed for the report. One senator said it was about 50 pages long. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said agents reached out to 10 but spoke only to nine. He said five were witnesses connected to accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and four involved a separate claim by Deborah Ramirez. Feinstein complained Thursday that agents had not interviewed Kavanaugh or Ford, who has testified that he sexually attacked her in a locked bedroom during a high school gathering in 1982. Feinstein also said attorneys for Ramirez, who’s claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were Yale freshmen, had no indication the FBI had reached out to people she’d offered for corroboration. Grassley said the FBI could not “locate any third parties who can attest to any of the allegations,” and he said there is “no contemporaneous evidence.” He provided no specifics. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats’ fears that the “very limited process” laid out for the investigation would restrain the FBI “have been realized.” He also said, “I disagree with Sen. Grassley’s statement that there was no hint of misconduct.” Neither side provided any detail about what the report said, constrained by years-old arrangements that require the results of FBI background checks to remain confidential. Earlier, White House spokesman Raj Shah rebuffed Democrats’ complaints, saying, “What critics want is a never-ending fishing expedition into high school drinking.” He said the FBI reached out to 10 people and interviewed nine, including “several individuals at the request of the Senate, and had a series of follow-up interviews … following certain leads.” While the FBI interviews were to focus on sexual assault allegations, Democrats have also questioned Kavanaugh’s drinking habits during high school and college and dishonest comments they say he has made about his background. Kavanaugh has said stories of his bad behavior while drinking are exaggerated. Three women have accused him of sexual misconduct in separate incidents in the 1980s. Kavanaugh, 53, now a judge on the powerful District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, has denied the claims. The White House received the FBI report around 3 a.m. Thursday. Trump weighed in hours later in a tweet in which he denounced what he called “the harsh and unfair treatment” of Kavanaugh. “This great life cannot be ruined by mean” and “despicable Democrats and totally uncorroborated allegations!” Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told reporters Thursday that time slots for reading the FBI file are so full that senators are being told they might have to wait until Friday to read it. “They’re so swamped,” she said. The report arrived at a Capitol palpably tense over the political stakes of the nomination fight and from aggressive anti-Kavanaugh protesters who have rattled and reportedly harassed senators. Feeding the anxiety was an unusually beefy presence of the U.S. Capitol Police, who were keeping demonstrators and frequently reporters at arm’s length by forming wedges around lawmakers walking through corridors. Barring leaks, it was unclear how much of the FBI report,
Alabama’s higher ed funding cuts since 2008 are country’s third deepest
Alabama’s cuts to state higher education funding over the last decade are among the deepest in the country, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, D.C. The funding decline persisted even as the state’s economy began to rebound from the Great Recession. Since 2008, Alabama has slashed state higher education funding by 34.6 percent or $4,290 per student, CBPP found. The state’s cuts are the nation’s third worst by dollar amount and fifth worst by percentage. Nationally, the average cuts since 2008 are 16 percent or $1,502 per student. Alabama’s inadequate public investment in higher education over the last decade has contributed to rising tuition prices, often leaving students with little choice but to take on more debt or give up on their dreams of going to college. Between 2008 and 2018, the average tuition at public four-year institutions in Alabama jumped by $4,329, or 69.8 percent – far outpacing the national average growth of 36 percent. These soaring costs have seemingly erected barriers to opportunity for young people across Alabama, particularly for black, Hispanic and low-income students. “Pushing the cost of college onto students and their families will not make our state stronger,” said Carol Gundlach, policy analyst for Alabama Arise, a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of congregations, organizations and individuals promoting public policies to improve the lives of low-income Alabamians. “We must invest adequately in higher education to be able to build an Alabama where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.” In Alabama, a college education is even less affordable than many other states across the country , especially for black and Hispanic families. In 2017, the average tuition and fees at a public four-year university accounted for: 21 percent of median household income for all Alabama families. 32.2 percent of median household income for black families in Alabama. 26.8 percent of median household income for Hispanic families in Alabama. “The rising cost of college risks blocking one of America’s most important paths to economic mobility,” explained CBPP senior policy analyst Michael Mitchell, the report’s lead author. “And while these costs hinder progress for everyone, black, Hispanic and low-income students continue to face the most significant barriers to opportunity.” Student debt Financial aid has failed to bridge the gap created by rising tuition and relatively stagnant incomes. As a result, the share of students graduating with debt has increased. Between 2008 and 2015, the share of students graduating with debt from a public four-year institution rose from 55 percent to 59 percent nationally. The average amount of debt also increased during this period. On average, bachelor’s degree recipients at four-year public schools saw their debt grow by 26 percent (from $21,226 to $27,000). By contrast, the average amount of debt rose by only about 1 percent in the six years prior to the recession. A large and growing share of future jobs will require college-educated workers. Alabama Arise believes greater public investment in higher education, particularly in need-based aid, would help Alabama develop the skilled and diverse workforce it needs to match the jobs of the future. “All Alabamians, regardless of their income or where they grow up, deserve an opportunity to reach their full potential,” Gundlach added. “Our state should end tax breaks for large corporations and invest in making college more affordable for the students who need assistance the most.”
Senate Democrats: Living out ‘If you give a mouse a cookie’
Since the day President Donald Trump won the election, Democrats have openly flaunted the fact they would do everything they could to derail his presidency, his agenda and essentially anything they could related to him. Chants of “Not my president” could be heard on the streets of D.C. throughout the inauguration and haven’t stopped since. They have shown given any opening whatsoever they will do whatever they can to stop progress and to tarnish anyone associated with the President. Even Senate confirmations for critical agencies have sat around for much longer than in previous administrations. And we’ve watched Trump repeatedly be blamed for policies in existence before he took office. His staff has been accosted out in public. His cabinet officials have been personally and professionally vilified. Everything including his wife’s shoes and recovery time from a medical procedure has come under fire. I thought we’d seen it all until the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings began. When Democrats realized they couldn’t stop the appointment based on his merits, they set out to derail his confirmation by attempting to ruin his character. The twists and turns of the last several weeks are going to have ever lasting consequences as Senator Lindsey Graham passionately said, “This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap.” The number of holes and inconsistencies in Dr. Christine Blasey Ford‘s accusations from the day they came has out raised red flags for even the most casual observer. That said, Senate Democrats called for another hearing to address the concerns, when they got that they then screamed for an FBI investigation. And then they got that, and now they’re saying that it’s still not enough. They want more time. They want more witnesses. They want more. It reminds me of a book I read to my children, “If you give a mouse a cookie.” The fact is this isn’t about the accusations anymore and if you had any doubt about that Senator Cory Booker was so kind as to finally say so yesterday. Enough already looking at the evidence senators have all that they need to vote plus some. As a voter in Alabama, I call on Senator Doug Jones and the others to reject the partisan gamesmanship that has torn apart more than this nomination process and to confirm Kavanaugh. Top four facts for senators to consider: Not only are there no witnesses, the people Ford claimed were there deny such an event. The holes in Ford’s memory. While not remembering specifics of an event from 35 years ago is in itself surprising the number of holes are in fact. Front door questions. Kavanaugh’s history and testimony and that of those who support him. Senate Democrats have done a great disservice to our nation and to women by using the accusations against Kavanaugh as a prop in their political theater. I hope that the backlash is swift and firm not just with the upcoming elections, but also with Kavanaugh being confirmed.
Montgomery VA Medical Center earns 1-star facility rating, others improve
A new report from the Veterans Administration shows two Alabama VA medical centers have made some improvements in its quality of services over the past year, while another remains stagnant. As part of their efforts to remain transparent and hold VA facilities accountable, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) on Wednesday released end of fiscal year 2018 (FY2018) hospital Star ratings, which evaluate and benchmark quality of care delivery at VA medical centers (VAMCs) across the nation. In Alabama, on a 1 through 5 star scale, they rated: Birmingham: 4-star (score went up) Montgomery: 1-star (trivial change, did not improve) Tuscaloosa: 3-star (score went up) “With closer monitoring and increased medical center leadership and support we have seen solid improvements at most of our facilities,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “Even our highest performing facilities are getting better, and that is driving up our quality standards across the country.” The Star rating designation is designed to help VA identify best practices of its top performing hospitals and share them across VA’s health care system to achieve system-wide improvements. “There’s no doubt that there’s still plenty of work to do, but I’m proud of our employees, who work tirelessly to move VA in the right direction for Veterans and taxpayers,” Wilkie added. Birmingham Birmingham remains a bright spot for veterans within the Alabama care system. Over the past three years it has steadily improved having received a 3-star rating in 2016, going up to a 4-star in 2017 and now pulling another 4-star with additional signs of improvement. “Providing high quality healthcare and benefits to our nations Veterans is one of our most fundamental obligations,” said Rep. Terri Sewell. “I’m proud of the tireless work that VA professionals are doing in Birmingham to save lives and improve healthcare quality standards for our Veterans and service members. Here in Congress, I have supported VA reforms like the Veterans’ Access, Choice and Accountability Act, a bill which allowed Veterans to receive care from private doctors when there’s a backlog and which increases accountability and transparency within the VA. I also introduced and helped pass a VA hiring amendment that encouraged the VA Secretary to select eligible employees for its fellowship program who represent rural areas. I’ve visited the Birmingham VA and met with the staff there, which is why I am not surprised to learn that they have maintained their 4-star rating. Our fight to provide Veterans across Alabama with timely and responsive access to quality care is far from over, and I applaud the Birmingham VA medical center on the strides it has made.” Montgomery In 2015, the director of the Central Alabama Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHCS), or Montgomery VA, was removed from his post when a pattern of gross mismanagement and systemic malfeasance was exposed. Weeks later he became the first VA official in the country fired under our new VA accountability law. Since that time the Montgomery VA has been under a federal microscope and was making many improvements. However, after improving from 2015 to 2017 and receiving a 3-star rating for two years in a row, the state’s capital city VA hospital dropped to a 1-star, out of 5, in 2018. Someone who has been working hard to hold the Montgomery VA accountable and improve their service is Alabama 2nd District Rep. Martha Roby. She calls the newly released rating “unacceptable.” “The news that the Central Alabama VA has dropped from a 3-star rating to a 1-star rating is completely unacceptable,” Roby told Alabama Today. “Our veterans represent the very best of this country, and it is incumbent upon us to ensure they receive the best possible care we can provide. Significant work is needed to achieve this goal. She continued, “I have been and will remain actively engaged with CAVHCS Director Dr. Linda Boyle and other VA leadership to improve care for our veterans so that it is easily accessible and of the highest quality. As always, I encourage veterans in Alabama’s Second District to contact my office with problems related to VA casework. I am deeply disappointed in this rating, and my top priority continues to be that we treat our veterans properly.” Rating methodology The VA uses a comprehensive performance improvement tool called Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning (SAIL) that includes key metrics used by the private sector as well as additional metrics that are important for addressing access to care, quality of mental health care, employee perception about the organization, nursing turnover, efficiency and capacity. The metrics are organized into 9 Quality domains and one Efficiency and Capacity domain. The Quality domains are combined to represent overall Quality. Each VA medical center is assessed for overall Quality from two perspectives: Relative Performance compared to other VA medical centers using a Star rating system from 1 to 5. Improvement compared to its own performance from the past year. Both relative performance and size of improvement are used to guide improve efforts.
GOP senator: Secret FBI report shows no Brett Kavanaugh misconduct
A top Senate Republican said Thursday the confidential FBI report on charges that Brett Kavanaugh sexually abused women three decades ago “found no hint of misconduct” by the Supreme Court nominee. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made his remarks — and urged his colleagues to confirm the conservative judge — in a written statement hours after the post-midnight delivery of the FBI document to Congress. With Kavanaugh’s uncertain prospects for approval depending in part on the decisions of five wavering senators, lawmakers began viewing the document in a secure room in the Capitol complex. “There’s nothing in it that we didn’t already know,” Grassley said, basing his comment on a briefing he said he’d received from committee aides. He added, “This investigation found no hint of misconduct.” Democrats have complained that the FBI’s reopening of its Kavanaugh background check has been far too limited, leaving out contact with crucial potential witnesses. Grassley said the FBI could not “locate any third parties who can attest to any of the allegations,” and he said there is “no contemporaneous evidence.” He provided no specific detail. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already started a process that will produce a crucial test vote in his polarized chamber Friday on Kavanaugh’s fate. Should Republicans get the majority of votes they need — and Vice President Mike Pence is available to cast the tie-breaker, if necessary — that would set up a decisive roll call on his confirmation, likely over the weekend. “Senators ought to wipe away the muck from all the mudslinging and politics and look at this nomination with clear eyes,” Grassley said, echoing accusations against Democrats that McConnell has been making. He added, “It’s time to vote. I’ll be voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.” Three women have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in separate incidents in the 1980s. Kavanaugh, 53, now a judge on the powerful District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, has denied the claims. While the FBI interviews were to focus on sexual assault allegations, although Democrats have also called into question his drinking habits during high school and college and dishonest comments they say he’s made about his background. Kavanaugh has said stories of bad behavior while drinking are exaggerated. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Daniel Sutter: Is Facebook really like Ma Bell?
Some commentators and politicians have proposed regulating Facebook, Twitter, and Google as public utilities. To make sense of this proposal, let’s consider the economic role of public utilities. Today’s social media giants might meet the popular definition of monopoly, namely having a very large market share. Economists, however, use a much stricter definition, and public utility regulation is applied only to the specific type known as a “natural” monopoly. Natural monopoly refers to industries where the cost per unit produced or customer served falls due to a very high first unit cost and a very low cost of serving extra customers. Consider the electric grid. Establishing the grid requires generation plants, transmission lines, substations, and finally the power wires in our communities. Once built, the cost of connecting one more home or business to the grid is very low. The same dynamic applies to water and sewer systems, landline telephones, and roads and streets. One large firm will likely dominate such industries. Why? Competition drives price down to the cost of production. Here the largest firm has a cost advantage and can profitably charge lower prices than its rivals. Smaller firms can either match the leader’s price and lose money or maintain a profitable price and likely lose customers. After the smaller guys go bankrupt, the large firm can raise its price and earn big profits. We frequently use anti-trust laws to prevent the establishment of or to break up existing monopolies. But breaking up a natural monopoly is unlikely to produce competition for long. The largest firm’s cost advantage doesn’t go away. What are the alternatives? One is government ownership of the utility, which we rely on for water, sewers, roads, and electricity in communities like Troy. Cooperative ownership by customers – electric and natural gas co-ops – prevents managers from trying to profit at customers’ expense. Public utilities regulation gives a private, for-profit company an exclusive service territory, albeit with restrictions. Government regulators, in Alabama the Public Service Commission, set prices and other terms of service. And the utility is a common carrier who must provide service to all customers willing to pay the regulated price. Economists and lawyers developed the public utilities doctrine around 1900. Another way to think about a public utility is that competition between profit-seeking businesses normally best serves customers. But the enormous cost of power grids renders multiple systems and competition unattractive. Perhaps having one grid and economists deliver the benefits of competition through rules makes more sense. Whether the public utilities doctrine served America well during the 20th Century is a question for another day. How about applying this model to social media today? Facebook and Google meet the popular definition of monopoly – they dominate their markets. Twitter dominates its unique product, but alternatives exist to push out messages. None of the three has a massive, critical physical infrastructure creating declining cost per customer. The social media giants do possess an advantage resembling natural monopoly. They have coordination value: the value of being on Facebook increases with the number of other users. Economists call this a network effect. Although many economists fear that network effects might lock us into inferior technology, in practice entrepreneurs can get consumers to switch: we do not still watch VHS movies and listen to cassettes. The social media companies serve their customers very well. For instance, YouTube’s advertising allows performers to earn money, with some stars earning millions per year. Facebook has offered users innovative features and an easy interface. Market domination due to better service benefits consumers. Alternatives to Facebook currently exist, like LinkedIn and even MySpace. More significantly, a new rival would not have to duplicate a massively costly physical infrastructure. The economic case for regulating the fast-changing digital world with a model designed for the physical world is weak. Today’s social media giants will likely have a much shorter time on our economic stage than phone and electric utilities unless we cement their positions via regulation. ••• Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Richard Shelby, Doug Jones join forces, urge fairness for Gulf mineral development program
Alabama U.S. Senators Richard Shelby and Doug Jones reached across the aisle and joined forces on Wednesday asking the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to ensure coastal states receive their fair share of revenues from any new federal mineral reserves development. “Our states have experienced significant impacts from federal offshore mineral development, including environmental damage to our coasts,” the senators wrote. “We are committed to ensuring that our states are treated fairly and that our states are not forgotten when decisions are made about the disposition of unallocated federal mineral revenues.” Pending legislation would allow unallocated federal mineral revenues to be committed to specific causes, including the maintenance of national parks and increased support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The senators note that the majority of this funding would be generated from offshore oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico. Under the current Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA), which governs offshore federal mineral development in the Gulf of Mexico, the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas receive only 37.5 percent of the revenue generated from oil and gas reserves within their borders. Revenue is capped at $500 million and must be divided among the four states. In contrast, other states receive 50 percent of the revenue generated from mineral development within their borders and those revenues are not subject to an arbitrary cap. They were joined by Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Kennedy (R-La.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) in their request. The full text of the senators’ letter to Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), can be found below: Dear Chairman Murkowski and Ranking Member Cantwell: We strongly support addressing parity in revenue sharing for coastal states in any package that may be considered by your Committee or the Senate. Legislation is moving forward that would allow unallocated federal mineral revenues to be committed to various programs. The majority of this funding will be generated from offshore oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico. If Congress moves to designate federal mineral revenues to specific uses, then it is important this opportunity achieves equitable revenue sharing for the coastal producing states. You are well aware that mineral revenues generated from federal lands located within a state are governed by the Mineral Lands Leasing Act of 1920. Under that Act, 50 percent of the mineral funds generated are shared with the host state to offset the impacts of the federal mineral development. There is no cap on the amount of federal revenues that may be shared with these states. By contrast, under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, our states that host offshore federal mineral development receive only a 37.5 percent share of the revenue generated off our coasts, with a cap of $500 million annually that we must share among our four states. The current revenue sharing with coastal producing states is not equivalent to the sharing that is occurring with the mineral lands states. Our states have experienced significant impacts from federal offshore mineral development, including environmental damage to our coasts. We are committed to ensuring that our states are treated fairly and that our states are not forgotten when decisions are made about the disposition of unallocated federal mineral revenues. We look forward to working with both of you and your colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to ensure that parity in revenue sharing is included in any legislation that allocates federal mineral revenues, which in this case are primarily generated off our coasts. Thank you for your attention to the concerns of our coastal producing states.
