Category: Businesses / Corporations / Industry

CO2 pipeline setback: South Dakota Supreme Court rules in landowners’ favor

by Skylar Tallal Fri, August 23rd 2024 at 10:30 PM

DES MOINES, Iowa — Summit Carbon Solutions is facing a set back in its proposed CO2 pipeline project, as the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled in favor of landowners who sued to keep Summit from surveying their land.

It’s a reversal of a lower court decision, with the state’s high court now claiming it’s premature to categorize Summit as a ‘common carrier’ for public utility. It’s something Summit needs to be able to prove before it can use eminent domain.

“One of our main arguments is that Summit’s not a common carrier,” Jess Mazour the conservation program coordinator with the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter said. “So it really does change the game here in Iowa as well.”

Summit can’t start building its pipelines in Iowa until it gets approval in North and South Dakota.

The Sierra Club Iowa Chapter calls the decision a victory for landowners. Even though the Iowa Utilities Commission isn’t taking up the club’s reconsideration request, the club is moving forward with its plan to take the fight to court.

“We now have precedent on our side and we’re going to have a strong base for when we file our appeal in district court,” Mazour said.

A similar court case is already on the books in Iowa, with Iowa’s highest court set to hear oral arguments October 8 at the state capitol.

“A landowner in Hardin County, Kent, he was sued for denying Summit access to his land and we are fighting that and also challenging Iowa’s survey law,” Mazour said.

Eminent Domain has been a major issue in Iowa over the last few years. Some Iowa lawmakers joined the pipeline opposition but haven’t been successful in their efforts to change state laws.

The topic is also coming up on the campaign trail, specifically in Iowa’s congressional races.

Congressional Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) Iowa said carbon capture pipelines make sense for Iowa.

“So the carbon capture pipeline is only meant to lower the carbon intensity score of ethanol which makes it competitive globally,” Rep. Miller-Meeks said.

She said while eminent domain is a state issue, she hopes there will only be a limited number of landowners who don’t sign on voluntarily.

“Farmers and property owners need to look at the why the rationale and then determine if it’s in their best interest,” Rep. Miller-Meeks said. “Companies that are acquiring easements are looking at how do you make the land whole. How do you ensure farmers that you can grow crops in the near future?”

Iowa’s News Now did reach out to Summit for comment didn’t hear back.

https://cbs2iowa.com/news/local/south-dakota-supreme-court-rules-in-landowners-favor-set-back-for-co2-pipelines

Fox talking heads and skin color

Yesterday in the news. Thanks to Joe My God for the posts I linked to here. This was my morning reading.

Texas Ran Out Of Migrants To Bus Into Blue Cities
New Poll Shows Harris +25 Among Arizona Hispanics
Read the full article. Arizona has the largest Hispanic population of any battleground state
Felon To Host Gala Fundraiser Honoring J6 “Hostages”
Felon Says He’s Refusing To Receive Intel Briefings Because Deep State Will Frame Him By Leaking Info
“Undercover” Lindell Brutally Owned By Child At DNC
Lindell has been spotted at the United Center wandering around in a fedora to “investigate” gender-neutral bathrooms and peddle his baseless election conspiracy theories. On Wednesday, the pillowmonger got into a verbal altercation with Knowa De Brasco, a 12-year-old activist who was there supporting Kamala Harris.
Read the full article. Watch all of the LOL clips.
NY Court Urged To Uphold Felon’s $485M Judgment
SCOTUS Upholds New AZ Law On Registering To Vote
Read the full article. Almost all voters register using the state form. As of last month, only 42,000 Arizonans are registered to vote via the federal form.
Felon Claims He Was Queen’s “Favorite President”
According to a coming biography, Queen Elizabeth told others that she found Trump “very rude” and that he always seemed to be looking over her shoulder “as if he was looking for someone more interesting.”

The book further claims that the Queen believed that Trump and Melania must have “some kind of special arrangement,” considering his flagrant serial adultery.
Trump Crime Family To Launch Cryptocurrency Platform
Pastor Convicted Of Criminally Harassing Drag Events
Read the full article.
Sentencing will be determined next week.
As you can see below, Reimer’s first arrest last year resulted in a money beg from a major right wing Canadian outlet.
Reimer’s previous non-drag related convictions resulted in sentences totally nearly three years.
Arkansas Supreme Court Rejects Abortion Initiative
Election officials said Arkansans for Limited Government failed to comply with state law primarily because it submitted documentation regarding paid signature gatherers separately and not in a single bundle.

As I said last month, it appears that the office of Secretary of State John Thurston [photo] deliberately withheld the above-cited rule about petition bundling. Thurston was a pastor before entering politics.
Project 2025 Head Floats RFK To Run The CDC Or FDA
Newsmax: Harris Vs Trump Polls Are “Election Meddling”
Felon Dodges After Fox Asks If He’s Afraid That Taylor Swift Will Sue Him For Posting Fake AI Endorsement
Gov. Tim Walz Delivers Rousing Acceptance Speech
Bill Clinton At DNC: Trump Creates And Curates Chaos
Buttigieg At DNC: Trump/Vance Are “Selling Darkness”
I knew he’d knock it out of the park.
Oprah At DNC: Decency And Respect Are On The Ballot
Walz’s Son Brings Nation To Tears: “That’s My Dad!”
Michigan AG To GOP And SCOTUS: “You Can Pry This Wedding Band From My Cold, Dead, Gay Hand” [Video]
“I got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the United States Supreme Court. You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay, hand. And I’m retaining a lot of water, so good luck with that.” – Michigan AG Dana Nessel, last night.

Classic Tom the Dancing Bug

Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for August 22, 2024

Tom the Dancing Bug Comic Strip for August 22, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2024/08/22

How the Inflation Reduction Act sparked a manufacturing and clean energy boom

Some 271 manufacturing projects for clean energy tech and electric vehicles have been announced since the IRA passed.

Aug. 20, 2024, 7:22 AM CDT / Source: CNBC

By Spencer Kimball, CNBC and Gabriel Cortés, CNBC

The Inflation Reduction Act has sparked a manufacturing boom across the U.S., mobilizing tens of billions of dollars of investment, particularly in rural communities in need of economic development.

The future of those investments could hinge on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. The prospect of a Republican victory has shaken the confidence of some investors who worry the IRA could be weakened or in a worst-case scenario repealed.

Companies have announced $133 billion of investments in clean energy technology and electric vehicle manufacturing since President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law in August 2022, according to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Rhodium Group.

Actual manufacturing investment has totaled $89 billion, an increase of 305% compared to the two years prior to the IRA, according to MIT and Rhodium. Overall, the IRA has leveraged half a trillion dollars of investment across the manufacturing, energy and retail sectors, according to the data.

“It is having a transformative effect within the manufacturing sector,” said Trevor Houser, a partner with the Rhodium Group. “The amount of new manufacturing activity that we’re seeing right now is unprecedented in recent history, and is in large part due to new clean energy manufacturing facilities.”

Some 271 manufacturing projects for clean energy tech and electric vehicles have been announced since the IRA passed, which will create more than 100,000 jobs if they are all completed, according to the advocacy group E2, a partner of the National Resources Defense Council. The investments sparked by the IRA have been a boon for rural communities in particular, Houser said.

“Unlike investment in AI and tech and finance, which is clustered in big cities, clean energy investment really is concentrated in rural communities, and is one of the brightest sources of new investment in those areas,” Houser said.

The IRA has also accelerated the deployment of renewable energy, with $108 billion in invested in utility-scale solar and battery storage projects. Investments in solar and battery storage have surged 56% and 130%, respectively, over the past two years, according to the Rhodium data.

“The more mature technologies, so like wind and solar generation, electric vehicles, those have achieved escape velocity,” Houser said. “They will continue to grow no matter what. It’s a question of speed.”

Trump threats to IRA

But the “manufacturing renaissance” is still in its early stages and remains fragile, Houser said. Without the IRA, the resurgence of new factories would not have taken off, said Chris Seiple, vice chairman of Wood Mackenzie’s power and renewables group.

Former President Donald Trump has threatened to dismantle the law as he advocates for more oil, gas and coal production.

“Upon taking office, I will impose an immediate moratorium on all new spending grants and giveaways under the Joe Biden mammoth socialist bills like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act,” Trump told supporters at a May rally in Wisconsin.

“We’re going to terminate his green new scam,” he said. “And we’re going to end this war on American energy — we’re going to drill, baby, drill.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/inflation-reduction-act-sparked-manufacturing-clean-energy-boom-rcna167315

Peace & Justice History for 8/20:

August 20, 1619
The first enslaved Africans brought to North America arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, aboard a Dutch ship.
________________________________________________________
August 20, 1964
A nearly $1 billion (about $5 billion in current dollars) anti-poverty measure, the Economic Opportunity Act, which created Head Start, VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America), and other programs that became part of the “War on Poverty,” was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.


Sargent Shriver & LBJ
Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps, drafted the legislation and became director of the Office of Equal Opportunity which implemented the new law. The “Great Society” 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august20

Actually not that funny…

but it kinda is.

Close to Home by John McPherson for August 19, 2024

Close to Home Comic Strip for August 19, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/closetohome/2024/08/19

Mark Cuban Posts Flurry of Responses to Kamala Harris Economic Plan

Published Aug 16, 2024 at 6:59 PM EDTUpdated Aug 17, 2024 at 2:36 PM EDT

FWIW. Mark Cuban is a billionaire, and as Tengrain says, billionaires are indicative of the flaws in the US taxation system. However, Cuban doesn’t seem to have devoted himself entirely to the dark side, as many billionaires do, and this story is fairly positive about the Harris-Walz campaign.

=====

Billionaire and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban promoted Vice President Kamala Harris‘ economic policies in a flurry of social media posts Friday afternoon.

Harris introduced several proposals aimed at bringing down the cost of groceries, the housing market and other essential goods during a rally in North Carolina on Friday. The Democratic nominee’s plan includes tax cuts, a federal ban on price gouging by food producers and offering down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers who qualify. As the Associated Press (AP) reported, the policies are largely built off the Biden administration’s priorities.

“As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans, like the cost of food,” Harris told supporters Friday. “We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed. But our supply chains have improved and prices are still too high.”

Cuban, a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, shared his two cents on Harris’ proposals to X, formerly Twitter, including addressing criticism that the vice president has received for promising to go after price gouging as a way to tackle inflation. Trump has called the plans similar to “Maduro-esque price controls,” comparing the plan to the Venezuelan leader’s policies that crippled the country’s economy.

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias wrote to X on Friday, “I’m pretty sure Harris did not in fact propose price controls on groceries—just kind of vaguely said that antitrust enforcement is good (it is good).”

Cuban responded to Yglesias’ post, “This is a fact.”

“Did you also notice that she said that the 25k credit only applies to NEW homes? Did I hear that right?” he wrote in a separate response to Yglesias.

Cuban posted another statement a few minutes later praising Harris’ plans to bring down health care and drug costs, writing, “And my favorite of course, did anyone else hear @VP say she was going to bring TRANSPARENCY to pharmacy and healthcare middlemen? The root cause of almost all that is wrong with healthcare pricing?”

According to AP’s report, Harris’ price gouging attacks include instructing the Federal Trade Commission to penalize any “big corporations” that engage in price spikes. But economists previously told Newsweek that the plan could backfire, and likely does not address the root problems of inflation.

“The idea of a political solution to an economic non-problem is flawed,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and trade at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., during an interview with Newsweek. “There’s very little evidence that corporate greed or price gouging is responsible for high grocery or housing prices.”

“Preventing price increases sounds good, but what do investors and farmers do when they can’t guarantee a return on investment or cover their costs?” Lincicome added. “They cut back on investment, leading to reduced supply and even higher prices or outright shortages.” (Note from Ali: translated, this means if we the customers deprive the owners/shareholders of their massive profits which actually are not their investments but the prices we pay, they might scoop up their marbles and go home. I’m not scared.)

Harris also attacked Trump’s economic proposals during her rally on Friday, including critiquing the GOP candidate’s calls for increased tariffs on imports.

The vice president said that Trump “wants to impose what is, in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries.”

“It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs,” Harris added, per AP’s report. “A Trump tax on gas, a Trump tax on food, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter medication.”

Cuban also praised Harris as a “pro-business candidate” during his string of posts to X.

Newsweek reached out to Harris’ campaign via email for comment on Friday evening.

https://www.newsweek.com/mark-cuban-posts-flurry-responses-kamala-harris-economic-plan-1940604

And now for something different-

It’s linked in the daily US Guardian newsletter, so you may have seen it. But, while I prefer fictional mysteries to true crime, this piqued my interest, so maybe it’ll interest you, too, if you haven’t read it yet.

Journalist Jeff German was stabbed to death. Las Vegas watches as the accused politician goes on trial

German had written about workplace harassment by Robert Telles, a county lawyer, before he was killed

Jeff German was a doggedly old-school investigative reporter in Las Vegas who didn’t care what mobsters or tainted politicians he offended. After more than 40 years on the job, he had received so many threats and angry phone messages he stopped paying attention to them.

“I get that stuff all the time. It’s not a big deal,” he told his editor at the Las Vegas Review Journal.

It was the summer of 2022, and the editor, Rhonda Prast, had seen threatening texts and social media messages from a local politician who German had been writing about and considered reporting them to upper management.

German saw no particular reason to fear the politician, a short, bullet-headed lawyer named Robert Telles who headed an office that settles the estates of county residents who die without a will. At the time, he had two much more chilling messages on his voicemail from hard, angry men calling him every name in the book and threatening to come after him.

Even those didn’t bother him. Earlier in his career, German had stared down Tony Spilotro, a notorious, cold-eyed mafioso who was memorably portrayed by Joe Pesci in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino, and came away unscathed. Prast, too, did not think Telles meant her reporter physical harm. “I thought he was going to sue us,” she said.

Yet, as a murder trial now underway in Las Vegas has revealed, there may have been more to Telles than met the eye. According to the prosecution, Telles became so exasperated with the stories German was writing about him – stories depicting him as a nightmare boss who harassed and bullied his staff and conducted an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate – that he drove to German’s house on 2 September 2022, and stabbed him to death in broad daylight after learning that his electronic communications with the subordinate were about to be made public.

German, who was 69, was left to die in a row of bushes along the side of his house. It was 24 hours before neighbours, alarmed by the fact that he’d left his garage door open and was not responding to messages, walked around his house and discovered the body.

Once police arrived, however, it took just four days to gather enough evidence to arrest Telles. Security video footage gathered between Telles’s house and German’s showed a maroon GMC Yukon Denali travelling between the two and a man dressed improbably in a wide-brimmed straw hat and a reflective orange jacket walking to and from German’s house with a grey bag slung over his shoulder. (snip- More )

“This Has Been Going On And On”: CNN Cuts Away From Donald Trump Press Conference As Former President Makes Marathon Opening Statement — Update

It’s a start! The reporting is not as honest and full as Heather Cox Richardson’s and the Pod Saves guys that Tengrain posts, but still, it’s a start.

By Ted Johnson, August 15, 2024 3:01pm

UPDATE: Donald Trump defended his personal attacks on Kamala Harris, despite some suggestions from allies that he focus on issues of the economy and the border.

“I think I am entitled to personal attacks,” Trump told reporters at a press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ. “I don’t have a lot of respect for her.”

Trump noted that Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, have been engaged in their own personal attacks, calling him and JD Vance “weird.”

The press conference appeared to be a Trump campaign effort to get the candidate to do a bit of a reset. For the first 50 minutes or so, Trump read from notes, hammering Harris on the economy as well as the border and crime. Behind him were props of household goods, designed to emphasize the rise in prices during the Biden administration.

But Trump often meandered into different subjects. A reporter asked him about reports that Harris will propose new restrictions on price gouging, something that conservative critics already have decried as price controls. Trump briefly chided Harris for the proposal, before then quickly moving to her position on fracking.

At another moment, Trump got in a swipe at CNN‘s Chris Wallace. “Not the father. There’s no resemblance between him and Mike Wallace, that I can tell you.”

Nikki Haley, Trump’s GOP primary rival who has since endorsed him, said earlier this week on Fox News that he should focus on issues. Trump said that he appreciated her advice, but “I have to do it my way.”

Fox News stayed with the remarks and the press conference. CNN carried the initial 30 minutes of remarks, cut away and then returned when Trump started to take reporters’ questions. The network cut away again about a half hour later. MSNBC skipped the press conference altogether.

PREVIOUSLY: Donald Trump opened his latest press conference by delivering an opening statement that went on … and on.

After 30 minutes, CNN cut away.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer told viewers, “We’re continuing to monitor the former president of the United States. He’s still with his so called opening statement that’s been going on well more than a half an hour, close to 40 minutes already…This has been going on and on.”

(snip-More)