Obama Visits Baltimore Firm Owned by Keystone XL Pipeline Supporter

President Obama will visit Ellicott Dredges today Baltimore today as part of his “Middle Class Jobs Opportunity Tour.”

Peter Bowe owns Ellicott Dredges and is a staunch advocate of building the Keystone Pipeline.  The Keystone XL Pipeline is a Canada-Nebraska oil pipeline, which would transport oil from extracted from the Alberta tar sands.

Yesterday, Bowe testified in favor of the pipeline before a House subcommittee on Small Business.  In his testimony, Bowe said building the Keystone XL Pipeline is all about jobs. 

So what does the Keystone pipeline have to do with us, and why do we care? For us, it’s all about jobs, not construction jobs for the pipeline itself, but ongoing jobs every year for decades to come, all related to the production of oil from the Alberta oil sands deposits…

 One way or the other, Canadians will eventually solve their distribution problems, with or without US governmental collaboration. To the extent this process is delayed, the producers will suffer economic loss, and their US suppliers, like Ellicott Dredges will suffer as well…including diminished employment.

Apparently the jobs created by the Keystone XL Pipeline are not high priority for President Obama’s agenda as he has punted on making a decision to approve or deny the project until late this year or early 2014.

Bowe urged approval of Keystone as soon as possible.

We urge you to approve the Keystone pipeline as expeditiously as possible. We should rely on the proposition that the Canadians are fully capable of acting as custodians of their own environment, and that Canadian oil is not only environmentally superior to that from say Venezuela, but certainly more secure politically compared to or other existing options.

Bowe also argued, contra to Obama’s negative rhetoric towards fossil fuels,

I think in terms of how to persuade the administration, for the foreseeable future the transportation industry in this country needs liquid petroleum products of one form or another. They can’t be displaced. They won’t be displaced. And that cost factors into everything that we consume whether you drive a car or not. If you consume any product, there’s transportation costs built into that. So I think we need to acknowledge – call it a ‘dependence’ on liquid fuels and say that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Energy is big part of our economy and our lifestyle.

Last year Bowe was a signatory to a letter to President Obama from the National Association of Manufacturers, which stated:

Dear Mr. President: The undersigned businesses and organizations, which together represent virtually every sector of the entire U.S. economy, share your continued goal of creating jobs and boosting the economy through manufacturing. However, there remains a piece of unfinished business that would harness the power of manufacturing to create jobs: final approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  As you and the Congress look to spur the economy and put people to work, there can be no stronger sign of a commitment to economic growth than approving Keystone XL.

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A Public-Private Pittance

Longtime readers know that I've long been crusading for privatization of state construction projects and transportation systems. So I was encouraged when I heard that the MTA was seeking input from private contractors on how to build the Purple Line in the DC suburbs.

That being said, what was reported from the meeting gives me a bit of pause:

Maryland officials are seeking ways to cover the state’s half of a Purple Line’s construction costs as they seek highly competitive federal aid for the other half. How much of the state’s $1 billion share the private sector would be asked to cover is still under consideration, officials said. Dormsjo said it could be about 5 to 10 percent of the construction costs. 

That puts the private investment roughly in the $50-$100 million range. Not a small sum when it comes to investing in transit, but also potentially leaving the state on the hook for most of the $1 billion estimated cost to construct the line. However, it isn't that significant an investment when compared to the fact that three companies are each pledging north of $700 million to build a casino in Prince George's County.

Why is the state seeking such a small amount of private investment? Follow the money:

In any Purple Line public-private partnership, Maryland officials said, the state would own the rail line and control fares. The joint venture of private companies could pay for some or all of the design and construction costs, which the state would pay back when certain milestones have been reached, officials said. 

The joint venture also would recoup its investment over an agreed-upon period as it operated or maintained the line. Because transit systems don’t make a profit, the state would make periodic payments based on whether the rail line met certain performance standards, such as keeping trains clean and on time. 

Such an arrangement would ensure that the rail line is well-run and maintained, and would free up some public money during the design and construction phase for other transportation projects, state officials said.

Emphasis mine.

Basically the system that the state has in place is not one that is operated by any particular profit margin, but instead based on small investment in a system in which the only metrics regulating performance and ensuring payment to the private vendors is meeting basic performance metrics.

I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to save the taxpayers money however if the $100 million investment is being offset by future payments.

The reason that three companies put up close to a billion each in order to operate a casino was one word: profit. These companies saw the risk of a large upfront investment offset by the ability to make huge profits on the backside. With the current Purple Line (and Red Line) public-private partnership proposal, there is no profit motivation at all. With the state maintaining ownership of the lines and control of the fares, how will this be any different than the state contracting out construction of the line? The only difference is that the state is getting somebody else to build the lines for them. Hardly a motivation for quality and cost savings.

When Virginia built their High Occupancy Toll lanes, they outsourced the entire construction and operation to Australian firm Transurban for 75-years. Those lanes were built quickly and so far have been operating smoothly. We can have the same thing with the Purple and Red Lines if we have the political will to do so. 

It behooves us, both as transportation consumers and taxpayers, to stop with these private-public partnerships that provide only a pittance of cost-savings to taxpayers. We must do better to be competitive as a state.

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Red Maryland Radio: 5/16/2013

Another big episode of Red Maryland Radio came at you tonight on the Red Maryland Network.

Listen to internet radio with redmaryland on BlogTalkRadio

On tonight's show:

• Delegate Don Dwyer plead guilty to a misdemeanor but was sentenced to 30 days in jail; what now?
• There's a proposal from the National Transportation Safety Board to drop the Blood Alcohol content required for a DUI to .05; the Litigator brings his expertise;
• Anne Arundel County Councilman John Grasso was ticketed for doing the same thing that made John Leopold's career;
• And Greg and I will spend some time discussing summer movies, television, and music.

This is why you can't afford to miss Red Maryland Radio each and every Thursday night at 8, on the Red Maryland Network.......and don't forget that you can subscribe to the Red Maryland Network on iTunes.

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HoCo Has a Rain Tax Calculator

Thanks to a new web-based impervious surface estimator created by Howard County’s Geographic Information Services, county residents and businesses can now calculate how much Maryland’s new storm water management fees or the “rain tax” as it is known, will cost them on their July property tax bills.  

Approved by the General Assembly in 2012 the Storm Water Management-Watershed Protection and Restoration Program implements a set of fees to fund watershed restoration and protection programs for the Chesapeake Bay as mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

The law requires Maryland’s 10 largest jurisdictions to generate revenue to pay for the projects through collecting fees on “impervious surfaces” i.e., roofs, driveways and parking lots.  Legislative analysts pegged the cost of the law at $14.8 billion.  State and local government and volunteer fire company property are exempt from the law.

While the Howard County site gives the disclaimer that it provides only an estimate of the amount of impervious surface fee, it is illuminates just how significant the fees will be for not just for homeowners but for businesses of all sizes.   

Steve Kendall, owner of Kendall’s Hardware in Clarksville says the fees will add “roughly another 10 percent to my $43,000 property tax bill.”  In addition to assessing a fee on the roof of the 37,000 square foot building, which houses the hardware store, Kendall will also be assessed for the parking lot and driveway. In all, the county will assess the storm water fees for 114,000 square feet of impervious surface according to the impervious surface estimator. 

“Howard County is not the cheapest place to do business,” Kendall said, and the added cost of the rain tax certainly shaves his bottom line, which may force him to make price adjustments.

Kendall said that he was already taxed once in the form of incorporating storm water and sediment control when he originally constructed the building.  

For Robb Merritt, President of Merritt Properties, which has the largest privately owned commercial real estate portfolio in the region, the rain tax has created uncertainty.  “Somebody is going to bear the cost,” Merritt said. “We just don’t know who, we haven’t been able to calculate the cost yet.” 

In addition to its 28 properties in Howard County, Merritt owns another 121 properties in the 10 jurisdictions affected by the rain tax.  Each jurisdiction has implemented their own tax meaning Merritt has to account for different fee structures for its properties across several counties. 

Even large companies like General Growth Properties, which owns The Mall in Columbia, and six other malls throughout Maryland, would see a significant fee assessment.  The impervious surface calculator estimates an annual rain tax bill of $63,480 for the mall property.

Tom Ballentine, a lobbyist for the Maryland Chapter of NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association, called the rain tax “the biggest impact fee in the state of Maryland,” and said the it has created “a good deal of uncertainty,” because not all of the jurisdictions have approved their fee structures, and there are complexities in calculating credits for existing storm water management practices.  

Also Ballentine said the rain tax has caused “difficult friction” in the commercial real estate industry between new developers and managers of existing properties.  “If the 10 counties fail to meet progress” Ballentine said.  “The consequences fall on new developers.”  That would have a significant impact on any new development in the Chesapeake watershed.

The Howard County Council approved the fee structure last March.  The county sets the fee at $15 per 500 square feet for three years, with increases in the fourth and fifth years.  The county must raise $130 million over the next five years to pay for mandated watershed and restoration projects.  Even though the fee will continue after five years, the county admits it cannot predict the cost of the fees after that. 

The fees will appear as a line item on county property tax bills.

Several state legislators from Howard County predicted the General Assembly would revisit the rain tax during the next legislative session in 2014.

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Red Maryland Radio Tonight

Join Greg Kline and I on this week's episode of Red Maryland Radio tonight at 8 .

On tonight's show:

• Delegate Don Dwyer plead guilty to a misdemeanor but was sentenced to 30 days in jail; what now?
• There's a proposal from the National Transportation Safety Board to drop the Blood Alcohol content required for a DUI to .05; the Litigator brings his expertise;
• Anne Arundel County Councilman John Grasso was ticketed for doing the same thing that made John Leopold's career;
• And Greg and I will spend some time discussing summer movies, television, and music.

All that and more tonight. Be sure to tune in tonight at 8, only on the Red Maryland Network.

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Tenth Amendment Part I: Interposition

By Ann Miller

Baltimore County Republican Examiner

Examiner.com

Checks and Balances

Our nation’s founders worked a web of protections into the fabric of our government designed to protect the citizens against the government’s natural tendency to become tyrannical.  Within the network of checks and balances, which provide protections not only between branches of the federal government but between levels of government (federal, state, and local) as well, are several legal devices for the use of the citizenry when all else has failed.  That is, when our elected officials (regardless of which branch of government they serve) are no longer representing the people, what recourse do the citizens have?

The Tenth Amendment provides the constitutional basis for state and local level protections against the federal government, and on the local and individual level against the state and county government.  The Tenth Amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Enter Interposition, Nullification and Civil Disobedience.  This article will address Interposition.

Interposition defined

Interposition, according to Constitutional author Felix Morley via the Tenth Amendment Center, is “an official action on the part of a State Government to question the constitutionality of a policy established by the central government. The action at least temporarily interposes the sovereignty of the State between its citizens and the distant authority of Washington. Customarily there is some sort of formal declaration to the effect that the objectionable national policy will be opposed until or unless the moot issue of its constitutionality is satisfactorily resolved.”

In the simpler words of this writer, interposition is a resolution which halts enforcement of a constitutionally questionable law until the constitutionality can be settled.  It can also be exercised after the constitutionality is determined in the case of a government entity ignoring the decision.

Duty to uphold their oath

Any public servant, whether elected or appointed, who takes an oath to uphold the Constitution has a right and duty to exercise interposition when the Constitutional rights of the citizens in his jurisdiction are being violated by the government, even if passed by law (referred to in the Declaration of Independence as “pretended legislation”) and upheld by the courts.  Despite common belief, the Supreme Court is really not the highest authority on Constitutionality of laws.  Which begs the question: who is?

To answer this question, I interview constitution experts Michael Peroutka and Derek Howell of the Institute on the Constitution.  Mr. Peroutka is the Co-Founder of the IOTC and was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party in 2004.  Additionally, he is a Maryland resident who grew up in Baltimore County.  According to Mr. Peroutka, the final authority is the constitution itself.  He said, “Everyone who takes an oath to it are bound not to their superior or a judge, but to the constitution itself.  The constitution is over the court, the court is not over the constitution.  The court applies it to cases that come before the court and renders an opinion, not a law, but an opinion based on the constitution and particular to that case in controversy.”

Hope lies on the county level

However, Maryland being Maryland, interposition here is unlikely to be exercised by state legislators when the state and federal governments are headed by leftists. Our only hope lies on the county level, where 16 of 24 jurisdictions hold a Republican majority, with several other conservative Democrat counties on the eastern shore and elsewhere.  On a county level, Maryland is a conservative state.  Mr. Peroutka added, “The lesser magistrate is not supposed to be the agent of the higher magistrate.  He is supposed to turn around and face the tyranny on our behalf.  That’s why the county government is so important.”

Sheriff interposition

One possibility for interposition in Maryland exists as an action taken by a local sheriff against unconstitutional acts of the state or federal government.

Few recognize the power and importance of the position of county sheriff.  Unlike the police chief, who is appointed by the county executive and is therefore a municipal employee with obligations to government officials, the county sheriff is elected by the voters of the county. 

Although the Baltimore County Police Department website states the duties of the department as including “protecting the rights of all citizens”, it is the sheriff who truly represents the rights of the people.  His job description goes beyond issuing traffic citations and court subpoenas.  The duties of the sheriff include the authority to represent the sovereignty of the State over the federal government.

Sheriff Lewis of Wicomico County, the President of the Maryland Sheriffs Association, said, “Regardless of political affiliation, the office of sheriff is a non-partisan position and we represent everyone.  It just so happens that the overwhelming majority of my constituents views reflect my own in terms of our Second Amendment right to bear arms and our Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches and seizures, and that includes encroachment or infringement by the federal government or the state government.”

If only ALL of Maryland’s sheriff’s took their oath to uphold the constitution as sacred as Sheriff Lewis.  But more on that later in the series.

Watch for Part II: Nullification, coming soon.

Click here to view the original article, including all links and comments.

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A Quick Early-on Handicapping of Obama Administration Scandals: Watch, but Don’t Bet

--Richard E. Vatz

     The two most interesting questions regarding presidential administration scandals are: 1. What each says about the political integrity of the president and his administration, and 2. What the likely political costs and historical costs are.

 

     Herein is a quick analysis of the current presidential scandales du jours in descending order of mortality of threat to the Obama Administration:

 

A.   The Benghazi Scandal:  I think this is the worst of the controversies and will forever hurt President Obama’s presidential reputation.  It does not mean that most historians will concur: as Richard Nixon memorably and with rhetorical astuteness said, “It depends on who writes the history.”  There is no evidence counteracting the inference that the Administration wanted to eliminate any public discussion that al-Qaeda terrorism was at the root of the killing of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.  Not only is there no explanation of why President Obama attributed the killings to an anti-Muslim tape, but there is not even an attempt to explain why he and his administration did so for weeks following the murders.  The Administration’s irresponsible rhetoric reached its apogee when Secretary Hillary Clinton bizarrely and angrily and rhetorically said,  “We have 4 dead Americans…what difference does it make? Was it because of a protest or because 4 people were out for a walk?” 

          This is a false dilemma, of course, as the issue is not whether the Americans were killed by people out for a walk or by protesters, but whether they were killed by terrorists, associated with al Qaeda, who are still at large. 

     President Obama’s dismissing criticism as a “sideshow” and averring that there is no “there there” is a classic non-substantive response to substantive questions regarding the United States’   irresponsible actions before, during and after the attacks, and his misrepresentation of  his rhetorical responses immediately following the attacks will exist forever and not reflect well on him and his presidency, regardless of who writes the history.

B.   The I.R.S. Scandal:  all of rhetoric (persuasive discourse) begins with selection and ends with spin.  Analogously, the I.R.S. was involved in what appears to be criminal anti-democratic selection in scrutinizing conservative groups profoundly disproportionately.  This includes, as summarized by USA Today, “put[ting] a hold on all Tea Party applications for non-profit status [and] approving applications from similar liberal groups.” The issue of whether any such groups should get non-profit status is a canard or “sideshow.”

     The initial reaction by Democrats has been all over the place, but some particularly responsible – and politically astute – responses have come from the president, who showed with some, but perhaps not completely sufficient, anger his contempt for the use of federal agencies for political purposes, calling it  “intolerable and inexcusable.”

     The potential for political consequences will lie in a variation of Howard Baker’s tried-and-true Watergate line, “What did who know; when did they know it; and what did they do about it.”

     The estimate here is that this will not much hurt the president, but will not go away.  The Attorney General will – and I am not sure here – have to resign but claim it is due to his “pursuing other interests.”

C.   The Associated Press Scandal: the Administration has proudly owned up to secretly examining the A.P.’s records for months.  The A.P. has condemned the actions, calling them a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Justice Department was protecting the American people against a security threat: as CBS News puts it, revealing information concerning “a Saudi double agent who had infiltrated al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.” 

          The excellent CBS correspondent John Miller, with an extensive background in intelligence work, says that the British, obviously America’s preeminent ally, complained bitterly about the breach of national and international security.

            The A.P. has complained that the actions by the Justice Department violated their (A.P.’s) rights, and that it constituted the “plunder[ing] of two months of news-gathering materials to seek information that might interest them.”

          The estimate here is that this “scandal”will, unlike the first two, peter out, and Americans will, correctly or incorrectly, see this as almost an inside fight between the government and an unsympathetic press, with far fewer consequences to our Constitutional rights. The concern for security will trump concern for the Associated Press.

Professor Vatz teaches political rhetoric at Towson University and is author of the book, The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion (Second Edition), Kendall Hunt, 2012, 2013

    

 

 

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Document: FBI-Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services MOU

Delegate Mike Smigiel (R-Cecil County) has obtained a copy of the memorandum of understanding between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services initiating the investigation, which led to federal indictments of 13 Maryland correctional officers for aiding the Black Guerilla Family gang's drug trafficking and money laundering ring.

141512337 Memorandum of Understanding

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String of Legislative Audits Show a Department of Corrections in Disarray

Legislative audits dating back to 2010 reveal a host of managerial and accounting failures and other deficiencies at the beleaguered Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

The department is under fire for a corruption scandal involving correctional officers assisting a violent gang in its criminal enterprise at the Baltimore City Detention Center, according to a federal indictment.   

Governor O’Malley called the federal indictments a “positive achievement” and expressed his full support of DPSCS Secretary Gary Maynard.  O’Malley appointed Maynard in 2007, and in a pre-scandal interview with the Baltimore Sun editorial board called Maynard “awesome.”

A string of legislative audits show that DPSCS has more than just a corruption problem. 

An October 2010 audit report of the department’s Baltimore region disclosed “serious procedural and record keeping deficiencies” including failure to reconcile inmate funds with the state Comptroller’s records, comingling inmate and general funds, and made “unsupported questionable check disbursements and cash withdrawals.” 

DPSCS and the Comptroller’s accounting procedures require a periodic reconciliation if inmate funds with the Comptroller’s records.  The department failed to perform that reconciliation and left a $314,000 unresolved difference between inmate funds and Comptroller’s records.

Auditors found that DPSCS transferred nearly $50,000 between general funds and inmate fund between April 2008 and April 2009, without authorization from the Comptroller, and that a $31,500 advance from the Comptroller for the inmate fund transferred to the general fund was not repaid. 

The audit also found that DPSCS made more than $100,000 in unsupported cash, check, and salary advance disbursements. 

A January 2012 audit report of the Maryland Correctional Enterprises, a division of DPSCS, revealed that inmates processing claims submitted by physicians to Maryland’s Medicaid program were not prohibited from having access to personal information, such as social security numbers.  Although MCE used a computer program to redact sensitive personal information before inmates performed data entry, not all forms had social security numbers redacted.   MCE was unaware of the problem until auditors disclosed their findings.  This occurred a year after passage of state law barring inmates from having access to sensitive personal information.

Other negative DPSCS audits include:

An April 2011 report of the Department of Pretrial Detention and Services showed that DPDS agreement with the State’s Attorney’s office failed to contain specific deliverables and payment terms.  DPDS improperly calculated annual and sick leave resulting in employees earning more than allowed, and some of those employees received overpayments for leave when the stopped working for DPDS.

A January 2012 audit of the DPSCS Information Technology and Communications Division found that ITCD failed to maintain sufficient password control over it’s computer system and database, and its firewalls were not structured to protect the department’s network from third parties.

A November 2012 audit of the DPSCS Office of the Secretary showed that the office could not account for over $300,000 in missing equipment and did not report $22,500 in missing or stolen equipment.

A February 2012 report of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board revealed that the board made payments to claimants that were not in compliance with state laws and failed to provide supporting documentation for some award payments.  CICB also failed to adequately protect its electronic claims database from unauthorized access, and did not request claimants to provide social security numbers in order to determine proper award amounts.

A list of DPSCS audits can be found here.

The Maryland Office of Legislative Audits provides the latest reports via email.  Anyone can sign up to receive audits by registering here.

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