Reuters published an Op-Ed written by Grover Norquist and Patrick Gleason titled,“GOP shows conservation is a conservative cause”
“What’s clear is that, for at least the next two years, the White House, Washington Democrats and TV commentators will continue to portray Republicans as anti-environment. All while promoting policies that would cut gross domestic product and kill jobs. Yet Republicans at the state level are implementing innovative policies that reduce emissions, while saving taxpayer dollars.
Consider North Carolina…Last month, for example, the Republican Governor Pat McCrory announced that the University of North Carolina school system was going to make its campuses more energy efficient. The oldest public university system in the nation has contracted with private companies to retrofit all university buildings and facilities.”
Forbes published an Op-Ed by Chris Prandoni, ATR’s Federal Affairs Manager, about the need for building the XL Pipeline: “Even Obama's State Department Knows Keystone XL Is Not An Environmental Hazard”
“It is telling that President Obama goes out of his way to ignore his own State Department’s job creation estimates, presumably because they further justify construction of the project. In the fourth, and hopefully final, Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the State Department writes:
Including direct, indirect, and induced effects, the proposed Project would potentially support approximately 42,100 average annual jobs across the United States over a 1-to 2-year construction period.
42,000 jobs is not a number to chuckle about, as President Obama does in his interview with the Times. The American construction industry has been hit hard during this economic downturn, especially in the Midwest. With the unemployment rate hovering around 7.5 percent, the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs should be cheered, not belittled.”
An item by ATR’s State Affairs Associate, Matt Blumenfeld, was spotlighted in California’s FlashReport: “California Government Worker Pensions Need a Dose of Transparency”
“Despite Gov. Brown’s bold claims about a balanced budget, California still has yet to address the questions surrounding the state’s unfunded pension liabilities. As of the end of 2010, California’s state and local pension obligations in the Golden State were estimated at a soul-crushing half-trillion dollars and steadily increasing each day. However, despite the best attempts of Sacramento lawmakers to avoid dealing with the state’s enormous unfunded pension liability, the public is about to get a better sense of just how dire the situation really is thanks to increased transparency. At the end of the month, California will see its pension liability nearly double on paper from its current official estimate of $128.3 billion to $328.6 billion thanks to new rules being put in place by Moody’s.”