Day: March 25, 2011

Assault on Florida: Tallahassee Hijinks of the Week Ending March 25

Buck Banks

art-assault-floridaPart of the series, Assault on Florida.

It’s only been in session for three weeks, but Florida’s Republican Legislature is in full swing and our new governor is feeling his beans. Here’s a roundup of state politics from this week:

  • Gov. Rick Scott signed his first bill into law, eliminating tenure for new teachers and tying teacher contracts and pay to student performance.
  • In related news, the Senate’s education budget cuts about $1 billion from classrooms, dropping the average funding level of $6,811 per pupil to about $6,388. Also, teachers, would have to start contributing about 3 percent of their wages to their retirements, which will amount to about $678.6 million less in state spending on public pension benefits for teachers.
  • In related news, Gov. Scott urged lawmakers to promote charter schools, and they responded with a bill that would require school districts to enter into a contract with charters approved by community colleges or universities.
  • In related news, Education Commissioner Eric Smith suddenly announced his resignation on Monday, citing the fact that Scott had not met with him since Scott’s inauguration.

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Gingrich Flip-Flop du Jour

Buck Banks

There’s almost a conspiracy of silence, if it’s an anti-American government. If you’re the Iranians, if you are the Libyans, for that matter, if you’re the Chinese, you are able to suppress your people and the American government stays quiet.

— Newt Gingrich, on Fox News Feb. 22, explaining why the Obama administration was weak on Libya.

Prior to March 3, I would have strongly recommended an Eisenhower-Reagan model … you should have said nothing. Be very quiet. Condemn the violence. Do everything you can covertly.

— Gingrich, quoted today by the Washington Post on Libya.

Our Perennial, Predictable Surprise* at Unintended Consequences

Trish

I stumbled on this video (thank you, K.Q.) after reading Buck’s recent posts on new deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, along with other authors writing about man-made disasters.

Camp makes an excellent point. We think these things up, but we never plan adequately for the downside.

*Yes, that was an intentional oxymoron.

Let the Drilling Begin in the Gulf of Mexico

Buck Banks

As we approach the one-year anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon approaches (April 20) and the price of oil is headed north of $100 a barrel, oil companies are looking to get back into the exploration business in the Gulf of Mexico. Tuesday, we covered a new combination oil extraction and processing facility that was approved for use for the first time in the Gulf and now the Interior Department has approved Shell Oil’s proposal for more deep-water exploration.

Seems Shell has had an exploration plan for 26 years for its Auger field lease, which was approved in 1985. A newly approved plan supplements the original plan with a proposal to drill three exploratory wells in approximately 2,950 feet of water 130 miles offshore Louisiana. Those plans, of course, were not included in the 1985 set because back then nobody drilled for oil that deep because the technology to do it didn’t exist.

The Interior Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement go to great lengths in their joint press release to sound convincing that Shell’s new plan addresses the newfound safety concerns raised by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. And once Shell has an approved deep-water plan in place, it can propose even more exploratory drilling.

I found this part of the Interior press release especially disturbing:

The SEA [site-specific environmental assessment] included new scientific information that had not been previously available for consideration or analysis. Based on its review, BOEMRE found no evidence that the proposed action would significantly affect the quality of the human environment. Therefore, BOEMRE determined that an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was not required and issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), which allowed the supplemental exploration plan to be approved. (emphasis added)

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