Legalectric

Xcel Energy’s rate case just received another interesting twist — a request of the PUC that the parties to the “settlement agreement” show their work!  I love it when that happens.

20168-124453-01_PUC Letter_8-29-2016

PUC staff wants detailed information about how they reached the numbers they did, how the settlement relates to each of the parties initial positions and testimony, etc., to “show your work!”  The PUC staff is requesting this information so that the Commission can determine whether to accept, modify, or reject the partial settlement agreement.  And note that the parties are mostly those e21Participants who signed off on Xcel’s Exe21_Initiative scam.

GOOD!  Take a close look, PUC!

To review the filings in this docket, go to this PUC SEARCH DOCUMENTS PAGE and search for docket “15-826.”

The Department of Commerce has hit the brakes on Sandpiper Pipeline and Line 3 Replacement Projects “until such time as Enbridge makes clear its intentions about the projects, or until we receive further direction from the Commission.”

Here’s the letter from Bill Grant:

20168-124424-01_Commerce_EIS Scope Decision Document on HOLD

And the guts of it:

YES!!!  Now, about those transmission lines proposed for pumping stations related to these projects????

(click for larger version)

3M has gotten away with poisoning the water of Minnesota, and the Dept. of Health has taken some protective and/or remedial measures, but it’s not nearly enough.  Isn’t it a wake-up call that we need a “Drinking Water Health Advisory” in this Land of 10,000 Lakes? Minnesota’s “Pollution Control Agency” has not been proactive on this, and we’ve known about 3M’s contamination for how long?  This is why we need the EPA!  The EPA is leading the charge, and Minnesota’s Department of Health (MDH), as above, has “responded” to the EPA Advisories.

80 Washington County homes will get bottled water as state reviews new pollution rules

In part:

Eighty households in Washington County will get bottled water and state-funded filtration systems because their drinking water exceeds a new federal safety standard for industrial chemicals that have long contaminated groundwater in the area.

…

In addition, state regulators will sample 400 to 500 wells within the area of contamination in coming months and issue additional drinking water advisories as needed.

The Dept. of Health page:

MDH Response to EPA Health Advisory for PFOS and PFOA

From the EPA’s page:

Basic Information

• Fact Sheet on PFOA and PFOS Drinking Water Health Advisories (May 2016)
  • HOJA INFORMATIVA Presencia de PFOA y PFOS en el agua potable Avisos de salud
• BLOG:  Science Guides Public Health Protection for Drinking Water by Joel Beauvais
  • La ciencia guía la protección de la salud pública en cuanto al agua potable

Technical Information

• FR Notice on the Health Advisories for PFOA and PFOS (May 25, 2016)
• 2016 PFOA Health Advisory
• 2016 PFOA Health Effects Support Document
• 2016 PFOS Health Advisory
• 2016 PFOS Health Effects Support Document
• 2016 EPA Response to Peer Review Comments

Provisional Health Advisories and Draft Health Effects Documents

Technical documents

• 2009 Provisional Health Advisory
• 2014 Draft Health Effects Document for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA)
• 2014 Draft Health Effects Document for Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS)
• Peer Reviewer Summary Report: External Peer Review of EPA’s Draft Health Effects Documents for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS)

Peer Review

• Contractor Led Peer Review Exit

• Armed, Confederate flag-waving White Lives Matter protesters rally outside Houston NAACP

• White Lives Matter group protests outside NAACP in Houston’s Third Ward

• White Lives Matter protest staged outside Houston NAACP office

• Armed ‘White Lives Matter’ Group Protests Outside Houston NAACP

• ‘White Lives Matter’ Stages Armed Protest Outside NAACP

Can’t make this stuff up.  I wish they’d read their “pocket Constitution” and amendments.  How is NAACP related to their 2nd Amendment rights?  Let’s see a 1,000 word essay, due tomorrow!

Yesterday there are armed white folks in Houston, Texas, sporting guns and waving Confederate flags:

“Obviously we’re exercising our Second Amendment rights but that’s because we have to defend ourselves. Their organizations and their people are shooting people based on the color of their skin. We’re not. We definitely will defend ourselves, but we’re not out here to start any problems.”

Really… It’s a crucial distinction that they’re talking about “2nd Amendment rights” and not “1st Amendment rights” here, that their focus is on guns, and not speech.  At what point is inflammatory “speech” of flags and open carry in front of NAACP headquarters criminal incitement or terroristic threats?

Notice the “14 WORDS” sign.  Those “14 WORDS” are a fundamental slogan of white supremacists, originally from David Lane, The Order, The Silent Brotherhood, Bruders Schweigen: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.”  He also authored the “88 Precepts” while in jail serving his 190 year sentence.  Words like this should not be taken lightly.  The actions of Lane’s group included the machine-gun mowing down of Alan Berg, Jewish radio talk show host, armored car robberies and counterfeiting, racketeering, and conspiracy.  He died in jail.

Incitement is a difficult concept, much is allowed, and in reviewing Constitutional law on incitement, the key is to be vague, to use inference, to speak of possibilities, and that’s OK.  Urges to action NOW is another matter.  So thus far, these “protesters” (again, what exactly are they “protesting?”) seem to be within bounds, unlike Drumpf (one protester yesterday was wearing a Trump hat), who has gone over the edge with direct, targeted incitement:

Is Donald Trump inciting violence? He might be. – Slate

In the inbox today from an activist cohort, a poem by Thomas Lux:

Cucumber Fields Crossed by High Tension Wires

The high-tension spires spike the sky
beneath which boys bend
to pick from prickly vines
the deep-sopped fruit, the rind’s green
a green sunk
in green. They part the plants’ leaves,
reach into the nest,
and pull out mother, father, fat Uncle Phil.
The smaller yellow-green children stay,
for now. The fruit goes
in baskets by the side of the row,
every thirty feet or so. By these bushels
the boys get paid, in cash,
at day’s end, this summer
of the last days of the empire
that will become known as
the past, adios, then,
the ragged-edged beautiful blink.

What surprises me is when someone notices transmission, and in this case, Lux is jarred enough to think and write about it.  It’s such a common part of our landscape that most people don’t notice it… that is, most people don’t notice it until they’re affected, and suddenly wake up to the reality of transmission, criss-crossing our country with its insidious web, noticing that it’s EVERYWHERE!  Once your eyes are opened to transmission, it’s impossible to disregard.