Negotiations that could lead to the first union contract at any of Wal-Mart’s 5,000 stores worldwide began last week in Jonquiere, a town about 250 miles north of Quebec City in Canada. Continue reading
In September 2004, The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) adopted a renewable energy portfolio standard that requires 25 percent of the state’s electricity to be supplied from renewable energy sources by 2013. The NY RPS will require about 3,700 megawatts (MW) of new renewable fueled electricity projects to come on-line between 2006 and 2013.
Ethanol production makes sense, when you consider the facts by David Morris Originally published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 28, 2004 A recent column by Craig Westover claimed it takes more energy to make ethanol than is contained in ethanol (“Let’s have both sides of ethanol debate,” Nov. 17). The only evidence he… Continue reading
Who gets fruits of public R&D? by David Morris Originally published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 28, 2004 In 1980, Congress allowed universities to own federally supported research and grant exclusive licenses to businesses to commercialize that research. Since then, the landscape of America’s research universities has changed dramatically. Before 1980, U.S. universities applied… Continue reading
Independent businesses in two dozen cites joined forces to urge residents to "unchain" themselves on Saturday, November 20, by patronizing only locally owned stores and restaurants that day. The event, dubbed America Unchained, was organized by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA). The goal, according to AMIBA’s director Jennifer Rockne, was to broaden awareness of the local economic benefit of choosing to shop at locally owned businesses instead of chains. Continue reading
A group of California state lawmakers, led by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, are calling for the legislature to require that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) sell its 18.8 million shares of Wal-Mart stock, valued at about $1 billion. "The Legislature needs to take a close look at how we put our money behind our values," Lieber told the Associated Press. "Wal-Mart is making a big push to expand in many areas of our state. Continue reading
Voters in Hudson, Ohio—a community of 23,000 people thirty miles southeast of Cleveland—overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative that would have opened the way for big-box stores and allowed developers to skirt the town’s development review process. "We are ecstatic," said Liz Murphy, owner of the Learned Owl bookstore and member of Smart Growth Hudson, a citizens group that formed to defeat the initiative. Continue reading
Colorado voters have become the first in the nation to vote on and pass a renewable energy standard on as part of a statewide ballot question. By a 53%-47% margin, a majority of voters approved Amendment 37 on the November 2nd ballot; which requires an increasing amount of the electricity in Colorado to come from renewables energy sources such as wind and solar.
Colorado now joins 17 states with minimum clean energy standards as part of a growing trend of states taking the lead to fill the void of federal energy policy.
Counties that gained Wal-Mart stores during the 1990s fared worse in terms of family poverty rates than those that did not, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State’s Center for Economic and Community Development. Wal-Mart often characterizes its stores as beneficial to the working poor. Continue reading
Two pieces of legislation have been passed recently by the U.S. Congress contain some provisions that will provide financial incentives for distributed energy technologies including biomass, wind, solar and geothermal. The Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004 [H.R. 1380] and the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act [H.R. 4520] have been signed into law by President Bush. Some of these incentives are new, some are extensions of incentives that have lapsed with the inability of Congress to pass a comprehensive energy bill in the past two years.
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