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Florida News
- 11/29/08 - Florida Looks at Mercury Contamination in Fish
- 11/20/08 - Chemical Leading to Alligator Sterilization
- 11/10/08 - Migrant Labor: The Face Behind the Food Economy
- 10/27/08 - The Ongoing GOP Campaign to Steal the Elections: Summary of Latest News
- 10/24/08 - Florida's GOP Lawmakers Blamed for Early-Voting Lines
- 10/21/08 - Guess Who Funds High Fructose Corn Syrup Studies?
- 10/10/08 - Tarpon Springs, FL. Opponents Say Wal-Mart's Certificate Has Expired
- 10/08/08 - Florida Primary Recount Reveals Grave Voting Problems One Month Before Presidential Election
- 10/08/08 - Organic Coffee and Tea Cafe Awarded Energy Star for 2008
- 09/29/08 - Tarpon Springs, FL. Wal-Mart Returns To Continue Three Year Riverfront Battle
- 09/26/08 - Tarpon Springs Wal-Mart Site Plan as Contentious as Ever
- 09/25/08 - Estuary Monitoring Benefits Florida Keys Waterways
- 09/23/08 - Adding Treated Wastewater To Aquifer Considered
- 09/22/08 - Florida Catholic Franciscan Sisters Set Sights on Starbucks' Bucks
- 09/19/08 - States Accuse Pentagon Of Threats, Retaliation
- 09/18/08 - Vote Suppression Watch
- 09/17/08 - Political Treason: Subverting Democracy Through Electoral Fraud
- 09/16/08 - Feminized Toads Linked to Farms
- 09/12/08 - Mulhern: Just Say No to Wal-Mart in Tampa
- 09/10/08 - Farmworker Victory--Whole Foods Market Agrees to Pay Impoverished Florida Tomato Pickers a Higher Wage
- 09/04/08 - Dark Meat
- 09/04/08 - Florida Tomato Agribusiness Giants Plead Guilty to Enslaving Mexican & Guatemalan Immigrant Workers
- 08/28/08 - Warning on Voting Machines Exposes Threat of More Stolen Elections
- 08/22/08 - Grassroots Direct Action: San Francisco Voters Nov. 4 Will Tell Their Congress Reps to Defund the War
- 08/20/08 - Election Integrity - How We Lost It and How States are Getting It Back
- 08/19/08 - Raytheon's Cleanup History Is a Bit Spotty
- 08/19/08 - EPA is Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information
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Second Annual Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies Conference
West Palm Beach, FL
January 8 - 10, 2009
Click Here for More Information
This meeting is co-sponsored by The Annie Appleseed Project and Breast Cancer Network of Strengh, South Florida (formerly Y-Me). (Meeting is open to people with ANY and ALL cancer issues - not limited to breast cancer).
It will be held at the Palm Beach Airport Hilton in West Palm Beach, FL from Thursday, January 8 - Saturday, January 10.
Last year's meeting had 20 speakers, and almost 200 attendees including patients, advocates, family, integrative oncologists, acupuncturists, nutritionists, dieticians, yoga instructors, homeopaths, naturopaths, herbalists, etc.
Stop Calypso!
TAKE ACTION:
Contact the Governor, State Legislators & Candidates
VOTE:
The Calypso Deep Water Port Project would be the first liquefied natural gas deep water port of its kind off the shore of the United States. The dangers include flammable liquefied natural gas being transported by ship, heated from 260 degrees below zero using ocean water to a gas vapor, and then transported by pipeline at extremely high pressure to Port Everglades, a distance of more than ten miles.
The first LNG onshore facility leveled one square mile of Cleveland Ohio in 1944, killing 181 people, and leaving 680 homeless. A similar explosion occurred in 2004 in Algeria. There are no LNG deepwater ports so close to the US coastline - so what could happen is unknown.
The concerns are many:
One ignited vapor cloud explosion is capable of traveling up to 30 miles inland from the ocean docking port - endangering Fort Lauderdale and Broward County.
Wind speeds of 4.5 mph would result in a flammable vapor cloud extending 7.3 miles downwind from the LNG port.
Once the gas dispersion level is exposed to oxygen, it will ignite from a simple spark - thus creating a fireball.
Fire departments have no way to extinguish such a cloud - it has to burn itself out.
A 2007 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirms that LNG tankers face "suicide attacks from explosive-laden boats, 'standoff' attacks with weapons launched from a distance and armed assaults" resulting in a "severe threat to public safety, environmental consequences, and disruption of the energy supply chain."
The GAO Report to Congress exhorts, "the Coast Guard - the lead federal agency for Maritime Security - has insufficient resources to meet it own self-imposed security standards."
Tankers on the ocean's horizon would be 3 football fields long and 17 stories high - increasing the risk of offshore spills, contributing to global climate disruption, and being targets for terrorist suicide attacks.
One tanker holds 33 million gallons of LNG -
which equals 20 billion gallons of natural gas - an explosion that
would have the power of 55 atomic bombs! It is needlessly reckless to situate a project like Calypso so close to a heavily populated coastal community, especially considering the frequency of tropical storms in the area.
Click here to watch a video and take action.
Last Updated: July 12, 2008
Protect Our Coasts
In search of a quick and easy fix for lowering the rising gas prices, Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) has submitted an amendment that would allow drilling off of coasts across the US- from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. In Florida that translates into over 1,200 miles of coastline threatened by this poorly thought out proposal.
Please write, Rep. Ander Crenshaw, Rep. Bill Young, and Rep. Dave Weldon, Florida's representatives on the House Appropriations Committee and let them know that you oppose offshore drilling.
More information:
Florida 2008 Legislative Roundup
From Progressive States Network)
With the voters enacting a $9.3 billion property tax cut in January and a projected $7 billion dollar state revenue shortfall, the largest one year drop in revenue in the state's history, Florida's recent legislative session was marked by hard budget choices. With legislative leaders committed to raising no taxes to fill a huge budget shortfall, draconian cuts were implemented in state services.
With an economy and real estate market in crisis, serious environmental concerns, continuing election problems, and the fourth highest rate of any state in residents' lacking health insurance, legislators either made things worse, failed to act, or merely nibbled around the edges of reform.
Budget Cuts for Children/New Spending for Prisons: Legislative leaders decided to cut services to those most in need and cut spending that will help ensure Florida's next generation has a prosperous future. At the same time they were taking funding from schools, they decided to spend almost the same amount on prisons.
- Hundreds of millions dollars were cut from reimbursements to hospitals for care given to the poor, and support for nursing homes.
- K-12 Education spending was cut by $332 million dollars statewide as college tuition at state schools was increased 6 percent. But, despite these cuts and tuition increases, lawmakers decided to increase spending on school vouchers by over $20 million.
- Prison spending is one area that did see a large funding increase of over $300 million dedicated to building new prisons.
Expressing the impact of the budget choices on Florida's residents, Rep. Kelly Skidmore noted, "The healthcare and education cuts cost us money, they cost us lives, they cost us jobs, and they cost us our future."
Healthcare Expansion in Name Only: While the legislature passed a budget that dramatically decreased healthcare spending on those least able to afford care, and removed the safety net for people suffering from catastrophic illnesses including transplant patients, they also passed a minimum benefits health insurance program that will emphasize primary care but leave little coverage for specialists and lengthy hospital stays. The plan also exempts insurers who provide the plan from the state's 50 coverage mandates, potentially leaving consumers vulnerable and without needed care in the event of a medical crisis. With all of the otherwise mandated procedures and specialist care and prolonged hospital stays exempted from coverage, the new minimum benefits insurance may not be worth the lower price it will cost.
Debating Hot-Button Social Issues: Without much to spend, many lawmakers spent considerable time and brought emotionally charged floor debates on politically potent issues that did not address the true needs of Floridians.
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Evolution: Both houses of the Legislature passed bills forcing schools to include critical attacks on evolution in biology curricula. Fortunately, the two houses couldn't reconcile their two bills and neither became law.
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Pre-Abortion Ultrasounds: A bill to require women seeking abortions in the first trimester to have ultrasounds and view the results passed the House but died in the Senate on a 20-20 tie. The only exceptions for the bill were for rape, incest and human trafficking victims, but they would have had to present documentary evidence that they were the victims of such a crime to get the exemption.
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Guns at Work: A law was passed that allows gun owners with a concealed weapons permit to have their guns locked in their car at work. The bill split the usual conservative coalition in the state with the NRA in strong support, but business groups fighting just as forcefully against the measure.
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Voter ID Requirements:Florida already has one of the strictest voter ID requirements in the country, yet the state decided to further limit the ID that citizens can use when they go to the polls, removing buyers club and employee ID cards from the list of acceptable ID.
Environmental measures were the one Session Highlight: The legislature made progress on a few key environmental bills, but many were compromised or their implementation delayed.
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Clean Energy: HB 7135, the governors top environmental bill, implements a host ofinitiatives including increased energy efficiency standards for new buildings and homes, and an incentive for reducing power generation by allowing utilities to meet demand for new power by increasing efficiency and charging rate payers for the investment. Many more contentious issues, such as requiring a percentage of power be generated by renewable sources, were not laid out in the law and will be addressed by future legislatures. The bill was not without controversial elements, such as subsidized construction of power lines from nuclear power plants and a prohibition on municipalities restricting plastic bag use.
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Everglades Restoration: The state will spend $50 million dollars on everglades restoration, half of what it usually spends but up from the zero funding included in the budget earlier in the session.
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Sewage Outflows: SB 1302, prohibiting the dumping of treated sewage into the ocean was passed into law, but it won't take effect until 2025. Currently 300 million gallons of sewage a day is released into the sea through pipelines from Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
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Energy Efficient Vehicles: Energy efficient and hybrid vehicles will now be able to travel in high occupancy vehicle lanes no matter how many passengers are riding in them.
Some Issues See Minor Reform or Partial Victories: While there were a host of missed opportunities, minor reforms were achieved on a few issues. Lamentably, some of these reforms were very limited in scope and these partial victories were no where near what is needed to meet the many challenges facing the state.
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Foreclosure Rescue Service Regulation:HB 643 will require written agreements when a foreclosure rescue company purchases a home and these agreements will have to contain certain consumer protection disclosures.
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School and Student Assessment: The assessments of high schools in the state will no longer be solely determined by student scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), but will also be determined by such things as graduation rates, college entrance tests, and participation in advanced placement classes. FCAT testing will also be delayed, standards will be made more explicit and grade appropriate, and "FCAT Frenzy" activities such as in-school rallies will be banned.
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Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation:SB 756, Provides that people who have been wrongfully jailed for crimes will now be compensated with an automatic payment of $50,000. However, a "clean hands" provision will bar compensation for anyone with a previous felony conviction. These are, of course, the people most likely to be imprisoned unjustly.
Faced with a precipitous falloff in revenue, lawmakers decided to fund prisons over schools and waste considerable time on issues that will not improve the lives of Floridians. On almost every issue, lawmakers failed to take the bold steps necessary to deal with mounting challenges.
Take Action. Support Green Jobs!
The Green Jobs Act of 2007 authorized $125 million per year to create an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program as an amendment to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). The Green Jobs Act (GJA) is an initial pilot program to identify needed skills, develop training programs, and train workers for jobs in a range of industries - including energy efficient building, construction and retrofits, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles, biofuels, and manufacturing that produces sustainable products and uses sustainable processes and materials. It targets a broad range of populations for eligibility, but has a special focus on creating "green pathways out of poverty."
Congress has not yet appropriated money for the Green Jobs Act. Please contact your Senator today and urge them to fund the Green Jobs Act of 2007!
Read more at Green for All's web site.
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