Monument or National Park?

There was a luncheon meeting where staff from Senator Udall’s office informed attendees about possible legislation to make the Colorado National Monument into a National Park. The Senator hasn’t decided if he will draft a bill to make that happen; he’s still in the information gathering stage. I learned some interesting things at that meeting:

Before the park service had money to manage the monument, it was managed by Grand Junction’s Chamber of Commerce. At one time the Chamber was in favor of national park status, but so far they haven’t committed to supporting any legislation that would make it happen.

The two largest concerns for the people who are against the proposal are the air quality and possible traffic congestion if visits increased. The park service is already planning for increased visits, mostly because the local population is increasing. It seems the Chamber is hesitating to jump on the bandwagon because of their concerns that designation as a national park would make it more difficult for the oil and gas companies to belch toxins into our air. (Note: I said that. The Senator’s staff made no mention of oil and gas or the motives of the Chamber.)

FRAM, LLC

The owners of drilling leases near Whitewater, in conjunction with the BLM hosted an open house at the Double Tree Hotel.  There was no official presentation, just easels with maps and information scattered around the room. There is an open comment period for this project. (Information linked in the Homework section.)

Occupy GJ

The Occupy Grand Junction folks had protestors in the parking lot of the Double Tree Hotel to greet the oil and gas industry as it arrived. TV News cameras showed up, and were interviewing people. (I just waved as I drove by.) As I was leaving the FRAM event, I overheard two policemen talking to the local BLM head honcho about how inappropriate it was for the protestors to be there. The tone of the conversation seemed to indicate that the protestors should have stayed downtown, and weren’t welcome at the ritziest hotel in town.

When did the right to assemble get taken out of the U.S. Constitution?

Home Depot Customer Service

The check is in the mail, and I’ve agreed to stop bitching until Thursday. If the check doesn’t arrive then, all bets are off. In the meanwhile, the store manager gave me $25 worth of merchandise just so that I would go away.

Homework

Monument or National Park

Contact Mark Udall

2010 Fram LLC Proposal

2011 Proposed Plan

BLM Seeking Public Comments on Fram Proposal Deadline December 1

Occupy Grand Junction on Facebook

A couple of things caught my eye this morning, and made me ask if common sense was finally taking over. One was a Politico story about Grover Norquist and Tom Coburn fighting over tax hikes. The other is Udall and Hatch in the Senate and Hickenlooper in Colorado trying to merge departments in order to reduce costs.

Norquist is famous for asking politicians to sign a pledge to never vote to raise taxes. Almost all Republicans have signed this pledge over the years. All politicians are asked to sign it. In my case I declined to sign it because TABOR already limits the ability to raise taxes without a vote of the people, so the only vote I would ever cast on raising taxes would be as a citizen, not as a politician. It seemed superfluous.

Coburn is a signor on the pledge, but he has come to the realization that the U.S. can’t retire $14-trillion in debt without increasing revenue. We can’t cut spending fast enough or grow the economy fast enough to raise the kind of money it takes to make payments on $14-trillion. And to add insult to injury, that expense is going to be increasing as interest rates go up. So Coburn, and two other Republican legislators are exchanging letters with Norquist suggesting that a tax increase should be on the table.

Hickenlooper and Udall are looking at other ways to find savings in government programs.

Hickenlooper has proposed that two departments merge. The idea is that if the state Division of Wildlife merges with the state parks system, duplicative efforts like planning, vehicle acquisition and maintenance, and accounting could reduce expenses. The benefit to a consumer is that they can get a camping permit and a fishing license at the same place under the merged entities.

Udall and Hatch have proposed a new committee to look for government waste. A Sentinel story today notes there are “80 economic development programs, 44 employment and training programs and five agencies within the Department of Transportation that operate 100 surface-transportation programs.” I know a little about the 80 economic development programs. People in the industry find reporting to be a nightmare because each of the 80 programs expects different information to be included in reports. Designing information tracking systems with so many different data points is a daunting task for not-for-profits who are always operating on a shoestring. Having one agency and one report would be a real savings on both sides of the transaction.

In each of these stories the politicians stepped outside of their stereotypes and into common sense driven leadership roles. Coburn is hardly a tax and spend liberal, but he sees the need to increase revenues in order to get the budget deficits and long term debt under control. Udall is an environmentalist who sees the need to cut waste in government. Hickenlooper is deploying business principles to reorganize government in a more efficient way. Common Sense is breaking out all over!

Homework

Coburn Norquist Fight

Hickenlooper Wants to Merge Agencies

Sentinel Report on Udall Hatch Proposal