It’s New Years Eve, and the Moon Dogs are out tonight. See ’em?
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Archives for 2012
step right up, make your cuts
The subject of cutting federal spending isn’t manageable in the abstract. While the “fiscal cliff” and “cutting spending” make for nice sound bites, they convey very little practicable information. Unfortunately the problem is vast, however, it is not impossible. The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance is a great place to start to understand the elements of the spending problem. It takes 38 typed pages just to list the 2,192 Federal Domestic Assistance programs in all their various types:
A: Formula Grants
B: Project Grants
C: Direct Payments for Specified Use
D: Direct Payments with Unrestricted Use
E: Direct Loans
F: Guaranteed/Insured Loans
G: Insurance
H: Sale, Exchange, or Donation of Property and Goods
I: Use of Property, Facilities, and Equipment
J: Provision of Specialized Services
K: Advisory Services and Counseling
L: Dissemination of Technical Information
M: Training
N: Investigation of Complaints
O: Federal Employment
The above 38 page table is extracted from the 3000+ page CFDA 2012 Print Edition.
Let’s be clear, this is not an optional civics matter for an American citizen. The Founders contemplated that our citizenship would entail a functional understanding of what our Federal government does, and whether it acts within the constitutional limits that authorize it to do those things.
Read the list. Imagine if you can, the tortured logic necessary to make a constitutional justification for each line item on the list. Many will require extended powers of fantasy to do so.
In a rational country governed by the rule of law, those programs least connected to constitutional authority should be the first to go.
The U.S. Supreme Court became the arbiter of legislative constitutionality with the 1803 Marbury decision. But the Court only acts on constitutional questions that the judicial system delivers to it. The Court requires a “case in controversy” to hear a constitutional question, let alone make a decision.
We will not see cases in controversy on the question of the constitutionality for most, if not all, of the 2,192 established Federal Domestic Assistance programs. And we know that under Obamacare, thanks to Justice Roberts, the 2012 list is scheduled to grow substantially (see previous post). We have no grounds to expect the Court to save us from totalitarianism.
But the process of the Courts’ deciding constitutionality in no way impedes or prohibits citizens from making their own assessments of what is constitutional, and exercising their political authority at the ballot box to make it so.
To be sure, the media will not enable this detailed citizens’ decision to proceed. It will continue to toss out sound bites and leave the citizens largely in the dark about the real nature of the problem. And those politicians wed to their pork who do not practice statesmanship will, in like manner, act to thwart any efforts to diminish the power of their pork-enabling offices.
We can save our country from financial ruin. It starts with understanding the real problem. It proceeds to finding and electing men and women who will represent us in the dismantling of the Federal Domestic Assistance state.
B_Imperial
Congress, defund this mess.
Below is a list of new boards and commissions created in the Obamacare bill.
1. Grant program for consumer assistance offices (Section 1002, p. 37)
2. Grant program for states to monitor premium increases (Section 1003, p. 42)
3. Committee to review administrative simplification standards (Section 1104, p. 71)
4. Demonstration program for state wellness programs (Section 1201, p. 93)
5. Grant program to establish state Exchanges (Section 1311(a), p. 130)
6. State American Health Benefit Exchanges (Section 1311(b), p. 131)
7. Exchange grants to establish consumer navigator programs (Section 1311(i), p. 150)
8. Grant program for state cooperatives (Section 1322, p. 169)
9. Advisory board for state cooperatives (Section 1322(b)(3), p. 173)
10. Private purchasing council for state cooperatives (Section 1322(d), p. 177)
11. State basic health plan programs (Section 1331, p. 201)
12. State-based reinsurance program (Section 1341, p. 226)
13. Program of risk corridors for individual and small group markets (Section 1342, p. 233)
14. Program to determine eligibility for Exchange participation (Section 1411, p. 267)
15. Program for advance determination of tax credit eligibility (Section 1412, p. 288)
16. Grant program to implement health IT enrollment standards (Section 1561, p. 370)
17. Federal Coordinated Health Care Office for dual eligible beneficiaries (Section 2602, p. 512)
18. Medicaid quality measurement program (Section 2701, p. 518)
19. Medicaid health home program for people with chronic conditions, and grants for planning same (Section 2703, p. 524)
20. Medicaid demonstration project to evaluate bundled payments (Section 2704, p. 532)
21. Medicaid demonstration project for global payment system (Section 2705, p. 536)
22. Medicaid demonstration project for accountable care organizations (Section 2706, p. 538)
23. Medicaid demonstration project for emergency psychiatric care (Section 2707, p. 540)
24. Grant program for delivery of services to individuals with postpartum depression (Section 2952(b), p. 591)
25. State allotments for grants to promote personal responsibility education programs (Section 2953, p. 596)
26. Medicare value-based purchasing program (Section 3001(a), p. 613)
27. Medicare value-based purchasing demonstration program for critical access hospitals (Section 3001(b), p. 637)
28. Medicare value-based purchasing program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 3006(a), p. 666)
29. Medicare value-based purchasing program for home health agencies (Section 3006(b), p. 668)
30. Interagency Working Group on Health Care Quality (Section 3012, p. 688)
31. Grant program to develop health care quality measures (Section 3013, p. 693)
32. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 3021, p. 712)
33. Medicare shared savings program (Section 3022, p. 728)
34. Medicare pilot program on payment bundling (Section 3023, p. 739)
35. Independence at home medical practice demonstration program (Section 3024, p. 752)
36. Program for use of patient safety organizations to reduce hospital readmission rates (Section 3025(b), p. 775)
37. Community-based care transitions program (Section 3026, p. 776)
38. Demonstration project for payment of complex diagnostic laboratory tests (Section 3113, p. 800)
39. Medicare hospice concurrent care demonstration project (Section 3140, p. 850)
40. Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 982)
41. Consumer Advisory Council for Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 1027)
42. Grant program for technical assistance to providers implementing health quality practices (Section 3501, p. 1043)
43. Grant program to establish interdisciplinary health teams (Section 3502, p. 1048)
44. Grant program to implement medication therapy management (Section 3503, p. 1055)
45. Grant program to support emergency care pilot programs (Section 3504, p. 1061)
46. Grant program to promote universal access to trauma services (Section 3505(b), p. 1081)
47. Grant program to develop and promote shared decision-making aids (Section 3506, p. 1088)
48. Grant program to support implementation of shared decision-making (Section 3506, p. 1091)
49. Grant program to integrate quality improvement in clinical education (Section 3508, p. 1095)
50. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women’s Health (Section 3509(a), p. 1098)
51. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(b), p. 1102)
52. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(e), p. 1105)
53. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(f), p. 1106)
54. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(g), p. 1109)
55. National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Section 4001, p. 1114)
56. Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health (Section 4001(f), p. 1117)
57. Prevention and Public Health Fund (Section 4002, p. 1121)
58. Community Preventive Services Task Force (Section 4003(b), p. 1126)
59. Grant program to support school-based health centers (Section 4101, p. 1135)
60. Grant program to promote research-based dental caries disease management (Section 4102, p. 1147)
61. Grant program for States to prevent chronic disease in Medicaid beneficiaries (Section 4108, p. 1174)
62. Community transformation grants (Section 4201, p. 1182)
63. Grant program to provide public health interventions (Section 4202, p. 1188)
64. Demonstration program of grants to improve child immunization rates (Section 4204(b), p. 1200)
65. Pilot program for risk-factor assessments provided through community health centers (Section 4206, p. 1215)
66. Grant program to increase epidemiology and laboratory capacity (Section 4304, p. 1233)
67. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 4305, p. 1238)
68. National Health Care Workforce Commission (Section 5101, p. 1256)
69. Grant program to plan health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(c), p. 1275)
70. Grant program to implement health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(d), p. 1279)
71. Pediatric specialty loan repayment program (Section 5203, p. 1295)
72. Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program (Section 5204, p. 1300)
73. Allied Health Loan Forgiveness Program (Section 5205, p. 1305)
74. Grant program to provide mid-career training for health professionals (Section 5206, p. 1307)
75. Grant program to fund nurse-managed health clinics (Section 5208, p. 1310)
76. Grant program to support primary care training programs (Section 5301, p. 1315)
77. Grant program to fund training for direct care workers (Section 5302, p. 1322)
78. Grant program to develop dental training programs (Section 5303, p. 1325)
79. Demonstration program to increase access to dental health care in underserved communities (Section 5304, p. 1331)
80. Grant program to promote geriatric education centers (Section 5305, p. 1334)
81. Grant program to promote health professionals entering geriatrics (Section 5305, p. 1339)
82. Grant program to promote training in mental and behavioral health (Section 5306, p. 1344)
83. Grant program to promote nurse retention programs (Section 5309, p. 1354)
84. Student loan forgiveness for nursing school faculty (Section 5311(b), p. 1360)
85. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors and outcomes (Section 5313, p. 1364)
86. Public Health Sciences Track for medical students (Section 5315, p. 1372)
87. Primary Care Extension Program to educate providers (Section 5405, p. 1404)
88. Grant program for demonstration projects to address health workforce shortage needs (Section 5507, p. 1442)
89. Grant program for demonstration projects to develop training programs for home health aides (Section 5507, p. 1447)
90. Grant program to establish new primary care residency programs (Section 5508(a), p. 1458)
91. Program of payments to teaching health centers that sponsor medical residency training (Section 5508(c), p. 1462)
92. Graduate nurse education demonstration program (Section 5509, p. 1472)
93. Grant program to establish demonstration projects for community- based mental health settings (Section 5604, p. 1486)
94. Commission on Key National Indicators (Section 5605, p. 1489)
95. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6102, p. 1554)
96. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6103(a)(3), p. 1561)
97. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 6103(b)(3), p. 1568)
98. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 6112, p. 1589)
99. Demonstration projects for nursing facilities involved in the culture change movement (Section 6114, p. 1597)
100. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1619)
101. Standing methodology committee for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1629)
102. Board of Governors for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1638)
103. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (Section 6301(e), p. 1656)
104. Elder Justice Coordinating Council (Section 6703, p. 1773)
105. Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation (Section 6703, p. 1776)
106. Grant program to create elder abuse forensic centers (Section 6703, p. 1783)
107. Grant program to promote continuing education for long-term care staffers (Section 6703, p. 1787)
108. Grant program to improve management practices and training (Section 6703, p. 1788)
109. Grant program to subsidize costs of electronic health records (Section 6703, p. 1791)
110. Grant program to promote adult protective services (Section 6703, p. 1796)
111. Grant program to conduct elder abuse detection and prevention (Section 6703, p. 1798)
112. Grant program to support long-term care ombudsmen (Section 6703, p. 1800)
113. National Training Institute for long-term care surveyors (Section 6703, p. 1806)
114. Grant program to fund State surveys of long-term care residences (Section 6703, p. 1809)
115. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 8002, p. 1926)
116. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 8002, p. 1927)
117. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 8002, p. 1931)
118. Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 8002(c), p. 1938)
119. Multi-state health plans offered by Office of Personnel Management (Section 10104(p), p. 2086)
120. Advisory board for multi-state health plans (Section 10104(p), p. 2094)
121. Pregnancy Assistance Fund (Section 10212, p. 2164)
122. Value-based purchasing program for ambulatory surgical centers (Section 10301, p. 2176)
123. Demonstration project for payment adjustments to home health services (Section 10315, p. 2200)
124. Pilot program for care of individuals in environmental emergency declaration areas (Section 10323, p. 2223)
125. Grant program to screen at-risk individuals for environmental health conditions (Section 10323(b), p. 2231)
126. Pilot programs to implement value-based purchasing (Section 10326, p. 2242)
127. Grant program to support community-based collaborative care networks (Section 10333, p. 2265)
128. Centers for Disease Control Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
129. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
130. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
131. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
132. Food and Drug Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
133. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
134. Grant program to promote small business wellness programs (Section 10408, p. 2285)
135. Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2289)
136. Cures Acceleration Network Review Board (Section 10409, p. 2291)
137. Grant program for Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2297)
138. Grant program to promote centers of excellence for depression (Section 10410, p. 2304)
139. Advisory committee for young women’s breast health awareness education campaign (Section 10413, p. 2322)
140. Grant program to provide assistance to provide information to young women with breast cancer (Section 10413, p. 2326)
141. Interagency Access to Health Care in Alaska Task Force (Section 10501, p. 2329)
142. Grant program to train nurse practitioners as primary care providers (Section 10501(e), p. 2332)
143. Grant program for community-based diabetes prevention (Section 10501(g), p. 2337)
144. Grant program for providers who treat a high percentage of medically underserved populations (Section 10501(k), p. 2343)
145. Grant program to recruit students to practice in underserved communities (Section 10501(l), p. 2344)
146. Community Health Center Fund (Section 10503, p. 2355)
147. Demonstration project to provide access to health care for the uninsured at reduced fees (Section 10504, p. 2357)
148. Demonstration program to explore alternatives to tort litigation (Section 10607, p. 2369)
149. Indian Health demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (S. 1790, Section 112, p. 24)*
150. Office of Indian Men’s Health (S. 1790, Section 136, p. 71)*
151. Indian Country modular component facilities demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 146, p. 108)*
152. Indian mobile health stations demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 147, p. 111)*
153. Office of Direct Service Tribes (S. 1790, Section 172, p. 151)*
154. Indian Health Service mental health technician training program (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 173)*
155. Indian Health Service program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 192)*
156. Indian Health Service program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 194)*
157. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 204)*
158. Indian youth life skills demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 220)*
159. Indian Health Service Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment (S. 1790, Section 199B, p. 258)*
On the Fixed-Meaning Canon
“In the English-speaking nations, the earliest statute directed to statutory interpretation made it a punishable offense for counsel to argue anything other than original understanding. Enacted by the Scottish Parliament in 1427, the act was entitled “That nane interpreit the Kingis statutes wrangeouslie.”3 it read: “Item, The King of deliverance of councel, the manner of statute forbiddis, that na man interpreit his statutes utherwaies, then the statute beares, and to the intent and effect, that they were maid for, and as the maker of them understoode: and quha so dois the contrarie, shall be punished at the Kingis will.”4 Even with its Law French (“whosoever speaks the contrary”), the original meaning of this statute is quite plain.”
Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, (2012).
The debate over constitutional originalism or textualism vs. the “living constitution” is not new. Nor is it settled, as Obama and his party would have us believe.
statesmen v politicians
“You might be tempted to say, “If the language were plain and unambiguous, we wouldn’t be arguing about it, would we?” Banish the thought: Lawyers argue about plain and unambiguous language all the time. That is their job: to inject doubt when it is in their clients’ interest.”
Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, (2012).
Law degrees are held by 167 Members of the House (38% of the total House) and 55 Senators (55% of the total Senate).
breaking the mold
‘If a change in price leads to sharp shift in demand or supply for a particular good, that good is said to be “elastic.” If a price change results in little or no change in the level of supply or demand, the good is “inelastic.”‘
People will migrate to jobs, but it’s a chicken and egg problem to bring the capital investment that creates enterprises into a place where people don’t already live to fill those jobs. Capital can only be formed and preserved through profit, and governments don’t make a profit. Capital moves through the market to seek the highest return on investment. Capital cannot afford to remain idle for a labor market to respond.
Elbert County has a regulatory zoning scheme built around the intent to preserve the look of an untouched state of nature. Cows and horses fit this scheme. Enterprises that don’t involve cows and horses do not. Ranching is not labor intensive, it requires large tracts of expensive land, and it presents no competitive return on investment to capital.
Inheritance taxes are levied at market land valuations that stay high due to the scarcity of land in a state of nature, and a supply of buyers who bring accumulated wealth from enterprises outside of Elbert County. These buyers don’t invest in Elbert County land to make a return. They come here to escape progress, not to promote it.
In Elbert County, labor is inelastic. We have a small population; labor is scarce, and not as diverse for available skills as the labor forces in cities. As a result of all the above, we don’t have a rich job market waiting to hire people in Elbert County.
Still, America is a free country. The deck is stacked against us, but when has it ever not been so? A hard set of economic facts, hard, at least, for members of the labor force without land or a full bank account of acquired wealth from another place, need not determine our economic potential.
The same corporate forms that provided the organization for profit-making enterprises throughout the rest of America are freely available to Elbert County non-landed citizens. It starts with a plan to make a product, research into the fabrication method that product requires, discovery of sources for the input materials, and finding the market. All of these things exist for every product we consume; you just need to do the research to discover them.
The accumulation of start-up capital can be done by selling shares in the enterprise to all those pledged to work for the company. This core group would become the preferred stock holders.
Look around at all of the manufactured and assembled products we use in our daily lives. Many of them are not that difficult to put together. Many are built in lands on the other side of the world from materials that come from American plastics, fibers, minerals, and machinery.
Foreign supply chains from domestic materials incur steep round trip transportation costs to send raw materials out and bring finished goods back. Consider the costs in an international supply chain that could be eliminated by locating production here in America—fuel, transportation infrastructure, middlemen taking a cut, government levies at various transaction points, regulatory takings from multiple government agencies—all built into the price of the products we buy. In effect, as a domestic producer, these are recoverable opportunity costs that, by their elimination, fall straight to the bottom line of an expected return from domestic production.
At a policy level, the supply chain costs that American consumers are willing to bear in the prices they pay support powerful private and public constituencies whose interest it is to keep labor rates depressed in the third world. While our domestic markets may give third world labor an opportunity to work, when you add in all of the overhead that comes with the opportunity our markets provide, we may not be doing them as big of a favor as some would think.
The existence today of a given international product supply chain should be seen as an opportunity, not a determinant of our future. So too, a hard set of economic factors need not control us. We are a free people with the ability to create any structure we can conceive. With a little ingenuity, passion, and effort, we can make whatever future we want. Right here in Elbert County.
B_Imperial
Living Constitution
“The very name Living Constitution is misleading. It conveys the impression of a system designed to be flexible and adaptable. This quality is touted by the advocates of the system, who speak metaphorically of the Constitution as a “living organism” that must grow with society or else “become brittle and snap.” It is not a living organism—any more than any other legal prescription is. And the notion that the advocates of the Living Constitution want to bring us flexibility and openness to change is a fraud and a delusion. All one needs for flexibility and openness to change is a ballot box and a legislature. The advocates of the Living Constitution want to bring us what constitutions are designed to impart: rigidity and difficulty of change. The originalists’ Constitution produces a flexible and adaptable political system. Do the people want the death penalty? The Constitution neither requires nor forbids it, so they can impose or abolish it, as they wish. And they can change their mind—abolishing it and then reinstating it when the incidence of murder increases. When, however, Living Constitutionalists read a prohibition of the death penalty into the Constitution—and no fewer than four Supreme Court Justices who served during the tenure of your judicial coauthor would have done so—all flexibility is at an end. It would thereafter be of no use debating the merits of the death penalty, just as it is of no use debating the merits of prohibiting abortion. The subject has simply been eliminated from the arena of democratic choice.(24) And that is not, we reemphasize, an accidental consequence of the Living Constitution: It is the whole purpose that this fictitious construct is designed to serve. Persuading five Justices is so much easier than persuading Congress or 50 state legislatures—and what the Justices enshrine in the Constitution lasts forever. In practice, the Living Constitution would better be called the Dead Democracy.”
From Chapter 70: The false notion that the Living Constitution is an exception to the rule that legal texts must be given the meaning they bore when adopted.
Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, 410 (2012).
commissioner district reorganization
National election results maps from 2012 showed high concentrations of Obama voters in the cities surrounded by Romney voters in lower density rural areas. Romney voters have most of the land in the country, but Obama voters have the higher numbers. Over time, the majority will find ways through taxation, entitlement grants, and regulatory controls, to take property away, or otherwise control it, from voting minorities. The traditional social contracts based on American values of independence and hard work that used to keep people humble about taking advantage of their neighbors, have eroded from the onslaught of public sector redistribution and widespread gaming for higher returns from less work. Who can blame the gamers? Everyone loves a freebie.
Had the Founders anticipated the dramatic population density variance between town and county that came to exist in America, they probably would have constructed more devices with similar purpose to the Electoral College and the Bicameral Legislature to level the playing field and inhibit one segment of the population from dominating another.
Today, Elbert County mirrors the federal urban/rural split with its own suburban/rural dichotomy, and with similar effect. Higher numbers in the suburban corridors overshadow lower numbers in the rural areas. The suburban sentiments tend to be less conservative than the rural sentiments, and with one set of local zoning laws to apply to both suburban and rural areas, the rural areas bear the burden of suburban oriented law and get little in return for it.
Decades ago, the county had far fewer people. Commissioners mostly worried about keeping the few unpaved county roads passable. Each commissioner district had its own road equipment yard and barn, and most calls from voters were about roads needing work. There was a correlation between a commissioners home district, that districts road conditions, and a feedback loop for allocating equipment where and when necessary. The county’s population was more uniformly distributed. The nature of the various commissioner districts was similar. And zoning law was unheard of in the county.
Gradually people moved to Elbert County, however, and with them came one-size-fits-all zoning law to protect their home values. Whether zoning succeeds at home value protection, whether it maximizes the economic potential of an area, and what potential beneficial outcomes zoning precludes from ever happening, can all be debated.
But everyone will readily admit that the nature of our commissioner districts has changed. They are no longer qualitatively similar. Moreover, while the districts retain a geographic orientation, the tools used to manage and serve them have become centralized. We now have one county-wide road and bridge agency, and we have one set of zoning laws to govern all areas. The geographic orientation of a commissioner has become less relevant than it used to be.
With generalized governmental tools, commissioners must now exercise a cross county awareness in their decision making. An orientation to only one geographic area of the county, suburban or rural, is actually a handicap for adequately governing under a generalized system.
So why have this discussion now? Because in January the leaders of the Republican and Democrat parties in Elbert County will meet to reorganize commissioner districts and precinct boundaries. The two main legal requirements are that the districts consist of contiguous precincts, and that total population be spread uniformly between the districts and precincts. There are some other rules but these seem to be the main ones.
Reorganizers are not bound to consider the suburban/rural nature of the districts or the precincts they contain in formulating the new map. But some of the big issues in the county have very different meaning and application for suburban vs. rural citizens.
Reorganizers have an opportunity to create mixed use commissioner districts and perhaps de-polarize future BOCC and planning activities by de-emphasizing our differences. If we cannot have laws tuned to the suburban or rural context in which they are enforced, perhaps we could at least have leadership that is responsive to all types of citizen equally.
America’s federal republic was designed to allow for dissent and argument, and to prevent power from concentrating in any one place, whether it was citizens or a public branch of government. By preserving traditional commissioner districts in Elbert County, districts that have now grown into distinct and increasingly opposed power centers, are we preserving a type of government that the Founders attempted to avoid?
On the other hand, by keeping the now polarized commissioner district scheme, are we enabling a forum for dissent for dissent’s sake, for no greater purpose than to manufacture discordant events to create political sideshows and opportunities for politician self-aggrandizement?
Reorganization of the commissioner districts seems like the time to consider these questions. Perhaps homogenous district boundaries might help mitigate some of the sources of conflict that have, sadly, become routine in Elbert County.
B_Imperial
The Kings X on “our” property
Two Tea Party candidates talking new taxes. Adding insult to injury, this tax idea appears to have originated with Democrat candidates. See: High Prairie Business Womens’ Group Luncheon Meeting Oct 12 2012
~ Campaign Lip Service ~
A Classic Parker Holiday
ElCo Commissioners 12-8-2012
EHS Instrumental Music Flourish!
oil and water
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I visited with retired geologist Grant Thayer after the BOCC’s 11-28 approval of the Sylvester Well permit, and asked him about my analysis of the adequacy of the oil & gas drilling related water quality testing protocol of testing existing wells in the vicinity of well bores, which in most cases would be shallow drinking wells.
The conclusion I had previously reached was that in the majority of Elbert County, the proposed testing protocol – which as it turns out is now a statewide rule in review at the COGCC – would only reach wells in shallow aquifers, leaving water in the deeper aquifers largely untested. The expensive alternative would be to drill a water well into all aquifers penetrated by an oil & gas well in the vicinity of that well, where such water wells do not already exist.
Thayer maintained this expensive alternative is not necessary due to differential pressures underground at different depths. As you go deeper in the ground, the weight of overlying rock is cumulative. Imagine the weight of 1 cubic foot of sand resting on your toe, and the weight of a couple thousand of them all stacked up in a column resting on your now extremely thin toe. (I asked Grant if he had a write-up to explain these physics and he said he did not, so you’re stuck with my non-geologist analogies.)
Now imagine a water balloon loosely filled with water. When you push down on one end of the balloon, thereby increasing pressure on that end, the water moves to the other end. In an environment of both low and high pressures, fluid will move to the lower pressure.
Fluid outside of a well bore casing that has escaped through a breach will migrate to the lowest pressure outlet – the surface. On its way it will be traceable in a lower pressure shallow aquifer first, before it shows up in a high pressure deep aquifer.
So even though untapped deep aquifers are not monitored for contamination, monitoring of the overlying shallow aquifers should be sufficient to indicate a well bore breach, because that’s where contamination would show up first.
Other things being equal, Thayer’s explanation appears to put my concern to rest.
I also asked Grant about a claim one of the speakers in the public comments segment made, suggesting that static levels in shallow aquifers are lowered by mining water from deeper aquifers. He said this is a popular myth and that removing the fluid from different aquifer structures has no effect on levels in other aquifers.
Grant nodded an interest when I asked him what he thought about the recent application of fracturing technology to water wells, and the effect this will have on existing water grants and adjudications from the Colorado State Engineer, all predicated on pre-frac (lower) recovery expectations.
B_Imperial
RE: Sylvester Well Permit, From: Southwest Energy
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“As of September 30, 2012, Southwestern has approximately 302,000 net acres in the Denver-Julesburg Basin in eastern Colorado where the company has begun testing a new unconventional oil play targeting middle and late Pennsylvanian to Permian age carbonates and shales. The company has completed a horizontal well and a vertical well, both of which are testing multiple intervals. Evaluation will continue on these two wells over the next 90 days. Southwestern is permitting and plans to drill additional wells in the area in 2013.
Last updated 11/05/2012″
Sunday sunset
Drowning in good intentions
“1. The NHS provides a comprehensive service, available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief. It has a duty to each and every individual that it serves and must respect their human rights. At the same time, it has a wider social duty to promote equality through the services it provides and to pay particular attention to groups or sections of society where improvements in health and life expectancy are not keeping pace with the rest of the population.”
The National Health Service Constitution
“The Constitution also contains pledges that the NHS is committed to achieve. Pledges go above and beyond legal rights. This means that pledges are not legally binding but represent a commitment by the NHS …”
the 24th
This cloud bank waited up there all day long to reach this point. Some times these things evaporate into thin air before the sun has a chance to get underneath them. Not this one. It had a statement to make about the Colorado day it had just witnessed, before releasing its hold on the light.
behavioural law
In the search for the right college experience for our son, we took the opportunity to visit The King’s College in New York. We sat in on Dr. Parks’ 3rd year class, “American Political Thought & Practice II: 1825-1914.”
Dr. Parks lectured on the period immediately following the Civil War with focus on the major constitutional and statutory acts defining the legal bounds for granting former slaves full participatory citizenship in the United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 demonstrated the magnitude of this task, one so large that the 14th and 15th Amendments followed close on its heels. In an analysis of the language of the above act, Dr. Parks made the point that this new law conflicted with the majority of sentiments about former slaves. Slavery was abhorrent, but full equality under the law was quite another matter. The 13th Am. declaring slavery to be unconstitutional was an easy call. What you do with that conclusion, however, involved changing long held attitudes that didn’t change so easily.
As a result, the law was written to foreclose loopholes and specify penalties for disobedience.
Dr. Parks’ historical constructions flowed quite plausibly, the students who responded to his questions did so substantively, and the class was well-knit. His lecture was definitely the bright spot in our evaluation of The King’s College, which we’ve since concluded is not the right fit for our son – at least at this evaluation point.
On the narrow point, however, of the structure of laws designed to alter behavior of a hostile recipient audience, his observation was brilliant and worth expanding upon.
It doesn’t take a lawyer to recognize when straightforward legal language expresses basic law that comports with moral values and ethical behavior. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion[.]” Simple and to the point.
Like post Civil War reconstruction laws, however, most modern statutes and regulations contain seemingly interminable clauses about exceptions, penalties, entrapments, alternative restatements of the subject, etc. Like reconstruction law, they fall into the category of behavior-changing impositions on a resistant populace.
The modern role of law is deterministic. It proceeds from the assumptions that behavior can be, should be, legally determined. But the adversarial structure of most modern law – language designed for enforcement against an unwilling populace – refutes any higher noble purpose and instead, indicates the futility of regulatory law by its distance from behavioral norms.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 could not change behavior on a subject that everyone agreed was abhorrent. Almost 100 years later the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was still working to change attitudes about race. Law, evidently, is a poor vehicle for implementing change.
If modern law was really so self-evidently good for us, it wouldn’t need to be constructed to trap every imaginable means to circumvent it!
Our Constitution was not written with penalty clauses for disobedience. Citizens are not stupid. The United States started from this premise. The Founders built a government around express limits to what that government could legally do.
The progressive approach to governance, however, has the relationship between man and state completely turned around. Law is the progressive’s change agent for imposing a regulatory statist vision. Constitutions, equitable norms, and legal traditions don’t apply to progressives. They’re quaint devices for controlling the chumps.
The sooner citizens wake up and begin treating our regulatory dictatorship with the contempt it deserves, the better.
The progressive utilitarian belief in the power of law won’t magically make the law into an effective change agent, however, the foreseeability of failed progressivism will be of small comfort to Americans as we witness our elite progressive rulers side-step into heavy handed dictatorship.
B_Imperial
