Petition Filed to Shut Down Nebraska's Cooper Nuclear Power Plant

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) appeared to downplay the importance of deficiencies in regulatory safety programs at the nation’s 104 operating nuclear power plants. NRC conducted safety inspections at each of the plants following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan. According to NRC, the inspections confirmed that every plant has the capability to effectively cool down reactor cores and spent fuel pools following power losses or damage to large areas of a reactor site following extreme events... The commission indicates that it will continue to evaluate results of the inspections, and NRC staff will review responses to a bulletin that requested information from plant owners/operators on how plants are complying with requirements to deal with the potential loss of large areas of the plant after extreme events. - Nuke Plants Reviewed for Extreme Events, Enviro.BLR.com, June 29, 2011

Petition Filed to Shut Down Cooper Nuclear Power Plant

July 4, 2011

10/11 News - An Enforcement Petition has been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requesting that the agency issue a Confirmatory Order requiring the shut-down of the Cooper Nuclear Station operated by Nebraska Public District.

The petition says that the Cooper Nuclear Plant's installed flood-protection measures, systems and barriers at the Cooper Nuclear Station are not sufficient to adequately protect the nuclear reactor from a full-meltdown scenario like that currently unfolding in Japan.

The petition also asserts that the plant's station blackout procedures are not sufficient to meet a challenging extended loss of off-site power due to flood-waters and other natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

The Enforcement Petition also requests that the NRC issue a $1,000,000 dollar fine against the nuclear plant operator.

According to Senior Consulting Associate Thomas Saporito,

"Operation of the Cooper Nuclear Station at 100% power is a reckless disregard for public health and safety where flood waters could disrupt safety-related protection systems at the nuclear plant and cause a full melt-down of the nuclear reactor within hours."

Saporito says,

"The NRC continues to be complacent in the agency's oversight and regulation of U.S. nuclear reactors -- favoring the economics of continued operations -- at the risk of public health and safety".

NPPD: Nuke Plant Could Be Shut Down “In Three Seconds”, Critics Still Worry

June 21, 2011

Missouri News Horizon - Despite ongoing and growing flood worries don’t tell the folks who run a Nebraska nuclear power plant, which is designed similar to the wrecked reactor in Japan, that the facility 70 miles from Lincoln and Omaha is an accident waiting to happen.

Even in the face of key safety questions over the years, some as recently as two months ago, the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) insists the 37-year-old Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, which sits on the raging Missouri River, is as secure as they come.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the safest, Alan Dostal who is NPPD’s nuclear expert says,

”We are an absolutely safe plant, that’s a 10.”

Dostal’s comments came during an interview with Nebraska Watchdog on March 29, five days before three workers at Cooper were exposed to radiation. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) a fuel rod accident triggered alarms that are worn by the workers. NPPD says the incident which is still under investigation did not cause any apparent injuries but was “unacceptable.” The NRC wants “to understand why normal work practices were not followed.”

In the meantime, Beyond Nuclear, an anti-nuclear power group, is petitioning the NRC to suspend Cooper’s license along with the licenses of 20 other U.S. reactors that in many respects mirror the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.

In its petition, filed before the Flood of 2011, Beyond Nuclear didn’t mention Nebraska’s weather by name but did say “a severe flood followed by a severe thunderstorm or accompanied by a large tornado” could cause a Fukushima like situation.

In addition, the federal government’s own Sandia National Laboratories has concluded that similarities between the Dai-Ichi plant and reactors like Cooper pose a significant problem: specifically that a lengthy loss of electrical power could cause a nuclear meltdown.

But when it comes to Cooper, NPPD’s Dostal finds the Sandia study a case of apples and oranges. Dostal says,

“We don’t believe that the Sandia analysis lines up very well with our configuration.” Asked by Nebraska Watchdog if he out rightly dismisses the Sandia research Dostal replied, “Well you wouldn’t dismiss it, you just have to understand that what they analyzed and what we have are not the same thing.”

As for the threatening Missouri River, following Monday evening’s rain storm, it was two feet from forcing NPPD to declare an “Alert” and shut the reactor down.

According to NPPD spokesman Mark Becker if the river hits 45.5 feet (it was at 43.5 feet Tuesday morning) the shutdown would occur over a period of 4-10 hours, although Becker adds they could shut it down “within three seconds” if necessary. Becker (see full statement below) insists that there is no fear of a meltdown because Cooper “would be operating with power from off-site sources that would run the pumps and other equipment necessary to keep the reactor and spent fuel storage facility with cooling water.”

Becker has also noted that late last year the NRC extended the plant’s license for another 20 years. According to Becker that finds Cooper “focused on the future and improved by the past.”

Cooper’s past is not without problems. According to a 1997 report from the federal General Accounting Office (GAO), Cooper spent 20 years operating on the edge. According to the GAO from1974 until 1994 the NPPD plant “did not ensure that its system to prevent leaks of radioactivity was maintained” to meet NRC standards.

Asked about the plant’s history Becker downplays the past. Becker tells Nebraska Watchdog it doesn’t make any sense going back over reports “that may or may not pertain to today’s operations.”

But according to Beyond Nuclear, the disaster in Japan clearly indicates that industry fixes over the years have not been foolproof. Beyond Nuclear says because of design flaws “experimental back fits” have not worked.

NPPD spokesman Mark Becker’s response (as of 3 p.m. Monday) regarding issues surrounding the Cooper plant and the threatening waters of the Missouri River:

“If we would be required by our procedures to shutdown the reactor if water reached the 902 feet above sea level (45.5 on the Brownville river gauge) we would do a shutdown. More than likely we would do a shutdown over a period of 4 to 10 hours, but could shut the reactor down within three seconds. We prefer to slowly go down to avoid errors.

No melt down would occur because the safety systems would be operating with power from off-site sources that would run the pumps and other equipment necessary to keep the reactor and spent fuel storage facility with cooling water.

The shutdown would be similar to the same types of actions taken when we go into a refueling outage and we have gone through more than 26 refueling outages. In the event we would lose off-site power, we have three diesel generators available to operate the safety systems. There is already diesel fuel available for 20 days of continuous operation (diesel; generators are tested monthly and we added the third backup system during the last refueling outage) plus we have brought in several tankers filled with diesel fuel and have alerted our fuel supplier to need of additional fuel if needed. We also have available backup sources of power with the use of batteries that can operate 4-8 hours with a portable diesel generator available to recharge those batteries.”

Two Centuries After Declaring Independence from England, Americans Again Live Under the Tyranny of a Totally Unrestrained Executive

A List of Obama's Abuses Straight from the Declaration of Independence

July 4, 2011

The Humble Libertarian - So let me get this straight: America declares its independence from England because of how much it sucks to live under the tyranny of a totally unrestrained executive, and now two centuries later we are again living... under the tyranny of a totally unrestrained executive?

Yes it's that bad. To prove it, I've taken selected excerpts from the litany of charges against the king in the Declaration of Independence and listed them below along with modern examples of President Obama doing the exact same things that led America to rebel against England:

Unchecked, Unaccountable Bureaucracy

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

One significant change that will forever characterize the Obama administration is its radical and unprecedented expansion of a policy that started in the Nixon administration -- the unconstitutional appointment of "czars" as "principle officers" of policy within the administration who answer solely to the president without the advice and consent of Congress. By most recent estimates, Obama has appointed 41 of these "czars" to high level posts within his administration.

It is exactly this kind of centralization of executive power, isolated from the advice, consent, and oversight of the people via their representatives that our Founding Fathers condemned the king for in the charge above. Before he died, even the Democrats' most senior senator, Robert Byrd, condemned Obama "czar strategy" as an unprecedented and illegal power grab that centralizes power in the executive, evades congressional oversight, and violates the separation of powers required by law in the Constitution.

Violating the Constitution, Ignoring the Law

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

President Obama's systematic dismantling of our form of government as duly-constituted in the supreme law of our land, the U.S. Constitution, is an incontestable matter of record.

In a lawless society, the powerful -- especially the government's reigning executive -- are free to abuse others at will for their own benefit. By the time of the American Revolution, English law had developed a set of constraints on executive power and a system of law perhaps unprecedented in human history to protect the people from such abuses. Our Founding Fathers had no patience for the king's dissolution of the rule of law and exercise of autocratic power.

Since assuming office, the president has illegally and unconstitutionally:

• loaned billions to the auto industry,
• unconstitutionally appointed dozens of czars as detailed above,
• illegally gave the czars the power to oversee and set policy for private enterprises,
• violated the Constitution with his appointment of Hillary Clinton,
• ignored both law and Constitution with his illegal bombing campaigns in Libya and other countries,
• violated multiple amendments in the Bill of Rights with his extension of the unconstitutional Patriot Act,
• suspended habeas corpus, and
• passed an unconstitutional law requiring citizens to purchase insurance policies against their will.

Eroding National Sovereignty

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

By his determined globalist efforts, President Obama has committed the very crimes listed above as a charge against the King of England. Though he did not seek Congressional approval for his illegal war in Libya, the president felt justified in his actions because he received consent from the United Nations and NATO. His words and actions exhibit an alarming contempt for our national sovereignty and a bold willingness to "subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution."

Wikileaks cables have also revealed how Obama's State Department -- led by its unconstitutional appointee, fmr Sen. Hillary Clinton -- has secretly intimidated other countries into signing the Copenhagen accords to radically restrict economic productivity by creating a global carbon regulation regime and subjecting Americans to its foreign and unconstitutional machinations.

Taxation Without Representation

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

President Obama's unprecedented spending binge is not merely indebting us, but future generations. He and the United States Treasury are taking out loans and incurring obligations at a rate that necessarily entails that future generations will be required to pay back those loans. Without their consent (or even their existence), President Obama is incurring tax obligations for future Americans. That is not a stretch; it is a mathematical reality and a political injustice. By spending so much borrowed money, the Obama Administration taxes and spends without consent.

We are also suffering taxation without representation or consent because so many of our large spending bills are now being crafted in secret, behind closed doors, by lobbyists and unelected bureaucrats, and then put to a vote mere hours after completion, before our representatives even have a chance to read the many hundreds of pages in them, which include placeholders for lobbyists, bureaucrats, and legislative aids to pencil in changes after the bills have been passed!

The Vast, Militarized Police State

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
...

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

The creation under President George W. Bush of the Department of Homeland Security was an astonishing development in American history. In addition to the introduction of the word "homeland" into the American political lexicon, a word borrowed from fascist states like Nazi Germany, this new department would represent an unprecedented expansion of the national police state. And under Obama, the TSA which it oversees, would ramp up the abuse to startling levels, serving as the regime's uniformed thugs to intimidate, humiliate, and habituate the American populace to unwarranted searches, unnecessary police actions, and unquestioning submission to government agents.

Our Founding Fathers rightfully feared and hated the king's use of military force on an unarmed populace to police and control them. Under Obama, this is happening all over again. Not only are unarmed, non-suspect civilians being searched, harassed, and abused just for daring to travel, but the FBI is increasingly carrying out armed drug raids (with one drug bust every 18 seconds in the U.S. according to FBI statistics) with militarized police, terrorizing families and households for violating Washington's unconstitutional and failed War on Drugs.

Increasingly, these militarized police are searching the wrong houses, serving incorrect warrants, and murdering the subjects of their searches with impunity.

Executive Usurpation of The Power to Wage War

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
...

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

A key complaint of our Founding Fathers against the King of England, was his increasing usurpation of the people's representatives in assuming for the executive, the power of waging war and ordering the military as he saw fit. Their wisdom would become evident in the next two centuries of human history, as those regimes with the power of war vested solely in the executive have been the most corrupt, oppressive, and violent. The people and their representative bodies should have the sole prerogative of taking a nation to war and employing the use of its military.

President Obama has actively undermined this important political principle (and constitutional imperative) with his illegal war in Libya, which violates Congress' War Powers Resolution and the U.S. Constitution itself, which gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president.

He has steadfastly refused to get Congressional authorization for this military action and has meanwhile launched a second air war in Somalia without the consent of Congress. In both cases, there was no clear and urgent threat to national security, and as a Senator, Obama himself said that taking such an action is illegal and unconstitutional.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Private Operators Are Taking Over Roads and Increasing Tolls, Which Are No Different Than Tax Increases on the People

Ohio Turnpike Lease Plans Bring Toll Hike Fears

July 3, 2011

AP - Leasing Ohio's busy toll road that links the East Coast with the Midwest has the potential to bring billions of dollars to the cash-strapped state. It also could bring higher tolls and drive more traffic onto routes that meander through small towns, opponents say.

The governor wants to lease the Ohio Turnpike to a private operator, following the lead of a handful of states and cities that have pocketed cash for their toll roads in recent years.

Governments strapped by the Great Recession also are turning to selling off and leasing office towers, warehouses and prisons.

"We can get a big chunk of money that can be used to improve our infrastructure in the state," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday during a news conference. "Indiana did it. Indiana made a lot of progress."

Neighboring Indiana last week marked the five-year anniversary of its $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road to foreign investors. The state has spent much of the money on highway projects and put $500 million into an investment fund for future road construction.

Chicago leased an 8-mile highway for nearly $2 billion five years ago, and an Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia. But a plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike fell through in recent years, in part because of fierce opposition from state and federal lawmakers.

Ohio's new budget allows the state to lease nearly all of Interstate 80, which carries about 50 million vehicles each year across northern Ohio from Pennsylvania to Indiana. It also gives the state's legislature some control over any potential deals after concerns were raised about whether a new owner would take care of the highway.

Much of the resistance is being led by officials from Ohio counties along the 241-mile turnpike, which is funded through tolls and the sale of gas and food at rest stops.

"It's a terribly unfair deal for northern Ohioans who have largely paid for the turnpike over the years," said Tim Brown, a commissioner in Wood County, just south of Toledo. "It's no different than a tax increase for us."

Among the main concerns is that tolls are almost certain to go up if a private operator takes over.

Tolls have nearly doubled since investors took over the Indiana Toll Road. A 10 percent increase took effect on Friday, bringing the price to cross the northern half of the state to $9 for most cars.

County officials in Ohio want to make sure there would be limits on future toll increases if the state's toll road is leased. It's now $15 for cars making a full trip. The turnpike collected a record $236 million from motorists last year. By comparison, Pennsylvania charges $32 to travel all 357 miles on its turnpike.

Kasich, a Republican, views the Ohio Turnpike as an asset that has potential to bring more revenue at a time when the state just completed a series of spending cuts to fill an estimated $6 billion budget hole.

He thinks the state could get at least $2.5 billion in leasing it and has said the money would pay for work on roads, bridges and harbors without raising taxes.

No deals are in the works yet. Kasich officials have said they envision a 30-year lease with an initial payment and a piece of annual toll revenues.

Still, there are many more details to work out.

A five-county planning body in northeast Ohio wants most of the money to go toward projects in northern Ohio, where the turnpike money is generated. It also wants to make sure there are guarantees that a private operator will keep up with highway maintenance.

The concern is that if the road becomes too costly or goes downhill, businesses that rely on the route might relocate or it will be tougher to attract new companies.

"There's a cost to the communities that are along the turnpike," said Stephen Hambley, a Medina County commissioner who heads the planning body in northeast Ohio. "We've been paying for it since the '50s. We feel we're a majority stockholder."

That's why state Sen. Mark Wagner, a Republican from Toledo, inserted a provision to Ohio's state budget giving lawmakers oversight of any lease deals.

"We owe it to northern Ohio to do it in a responsible way," he said.

Another worry is that truck traffic will move to secondary roads and clog up the small towns along the way. That's what happened when an 82 percent rate increase took full effect in 1999. The state responded by lowering tolls and increasing speeds for truckers.

More toll hikes if the turnpike is leased will likely push a lot more tractor-trailers onto other roads, said Joe Jones, a long-haul truck driver from Charlotte, N.C. He went out of his way to avoid the turnpike's toll booths while hauling machinery from upstate New York to Chicago on Friday.

"It puts another 60 miles on the trip, but I hate paying tolls," he said while refueling at a truck stop just outside Toledo.

Toll Road RFID Tags: A Threat to Privacy, Anonymity and Individual Liberty

RFID1984.com - Many people consider RFID technology to be a substantial threat to privacy and liberty, especially if it appears that remotely-readable RF tags will be incorporated into a National ID Card, passport or some other form of mandatory identification — an ID card that you will be required to present when opening a bank account, entering a federal building, or buying an airplane ticket.

I'm a little surprised that the people who are so vocal about domestic surveillance haven't said much about this issue.

There are thousands of Texas motorists who have already unwittingly opened the door to government surveillance by participating in TollTag, TxTag, or EZ Pass, programs that allow the use of toll roads and airport parking garages without having to stop and deposit coins at a toll booth. Each participating motorist attaches an RFID tag to his or her car's windshield, and a device at the toll booth detects the card as the motorist zooms unimpeded through the toll plaza.

In other areas of the country, similar programs have names like SunPass, Cruise Card, EXpressToll, Fast Lane, Fastrak, K-Tag, MnPass, PalmettoPass, Pikepass, Smart Tag, I-Pass — and the best name for such a device — eGo.

A serious problem, from the standpoint of privacy protection, is that not all of the RFID tag readers are on toll roads. In Dallas, TollTags can be used to pay for parking at Dallas Love Field and DFW International Airport.* In Houston, plans are under development to allow the use of EZ TAGs at both Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports.*

The Dallas North Tollway was the first toll road in the world to use electronic toll collection when the technology became available in 1989.* A newer variation called TxTag allows access to toll roads throughout Texas.*

So the major airports have RFID tag readers, along with the tollways, as a matter of convenience. But there is no reason that TollTag readers could not be placed at other points all over the state. This would make it easier to locate a stolen car, for example, if it had an RFID tag.

More recently, a more mysterious development has taken shape: these square white modules have appeared on TXDOT poles along the freeways in the Dallas area. They are usually mounted on the same poles as the traffic surveillance cameras, but in some locations they stand alone.

This mysterious roadside antenna is on Spur 408 in southwest Dallas. The writer knows an antenna when he sees one, and the peculiar thing about this one is that it is tilted downward, about 20°, toward the traffic.

This specimen is located at 32°41'52.0" N., 96°56'10.1" W. An inquiry to the Texas Department of Transportation produced this reply:

The units are Smart Sensors manufactured by Wavetronix. The Smart Sensor is a digital wave radar used for vehicle detection. The Smart Sensor measures vehicle volume, occupancy, speed and classification. The information gathered is NOT used for law enforcement purposes. We use the information to generate the speed map shown on our web site and to generate the travel times displayed on the dynamic message signs on the freeways.

That's interesting. The system is sensitive enough to measure occupancy of each passing vehicle? Even more interesting is the claim that the information is not used for law enforcement purposes. Why not? If their system shows a steady stream of people driving at 90 mph on the freeway, or driving on the shoulders at 60 mph, isn't TXDOT obligated to notify the police?

Updated 9/13/2008:
Today I got an informative email from a reader who clarified the use of the word "occupancy" in TXDOT's explanation above. The term refers to the percentage of time that each of the lanes on the highway is occupied -- the traffic density, in other words, not the number of people in each passing car. Obviously I had overestimated the power of this system.

SmartSensor is a 10.525 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar.* Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored. To some extent, it is necessary to retain this information in the event of a billing dispute. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.

If the SmartSensor devices are accompanied by TollTag readers, and (someday soon) they could easily be, the technology is in place to track the movements (and speed) of people all over town, not just on the toll roads. This could be a good thing — for example, if the police are looking for a stolen car — or it could be very bad, depending on Big Brother's use of the information.

Yes, but what if you don't have a TollTag on your car? Can you travel anonymously and blend in with the crowd, without being electronically followed? No, because the state is using license plate readers as well.

Highway 121's new lanes to open in July, sans toll collection. Once collections begin, [Texas State Highway] 121 will be the first toll road in the nation without tollbooths. Motorists will be able to use their North Texas Tollway Authority TollTag in addition to the transportation agency's TxTag stickers and the Harris County Toll Road Authority's EZ TAG. People who don't have toll tags, though, won't have to stop at a booth. Instead, video cameras will capture their license plate number and send them a bill, though that will cost about 33 percent more than toll tag users will have to pay.

The Editor says...
I went up the Dallas North Tollway several months ago and never saw a toll booth, so I didn't pay the toll. Nor did I ever get a bill in the mail. I hope there's not a warrant out for my arrest!

Texas Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars. New inspection stickers will "contain a tamper-resistant transponder, and at a minimum, be capable of storing: (1) the transponder's unique identification number; and (2) the make, model, and vehicle identification number of the vehicle to which the certificate is affixed."

The Editor states the obvious:
This would render Toll Tags obsolete. It would also make it fairly simple to locate a stolen car, and might be an easy way to enforce the speed limits on the open highway. For example, if your car is detected in Dallas at noon and in Houston at 2:30 p.m., you were obviously speeding on I-45.

Electronic Vehicle Registration Picks Up Speed. In South Africa, at least 500,000 RFID tags are now being affixed to metal license plates to automatically identify vehicles and verify they are properly registered. Within the next two years, 10 million cars in that country are expected to sport electronic license plates. In Bermuda, meanwhile, more than half of the island nation's cars and trucks currently have RFID-enabled registration stickers attached to their windshields, and all of its trucks and cars — nearly 25,000 — are expected to have them by June of this year. Other countries — including Brazil, China, Dubai, India and Mexico — have either already begun implementing or are currently eyeing RFID-enabled vehicle identification and registration systems.

Georgia 400 To Upgrade Cruise Card eGo Tags. Georgia's State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA), which operates the GA 400 toll road in Atlanta, will be the first toll facility within the continental United States to upgrade their radio frequency identification (RFID) toll collection technology to TransCore's paper-thin eGo® tags, a lower-cost, battery-less windshield sticker tag. Almost a million eGo tags are already deployed in transportation applications, including toll roads in Puerto Rico and Brazil.

TxDOT selects TransCore RFID for tracking and tolling throughout Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) selects TransCore's eGo® Plus radio frequency identification technology for use in the area's Central Texas Turnpike Program, a $2 billion transportation initiative. The multimillion-dollar contract allows for the initial release of 500,000 eGo Plus tags, branded locally as TxTag, with a total of 2 million tags over two years. The Central Texas Turnpike Program was designed to increase mobility by adding capacity and reducing congestion in the region.

Trusted traveler toll road system means the government will decide if and where you travel.

NAFTA Superhighway RFID Card For US Citizens. US citizens will be forced to adopt a de facto national identification card and have their freedom of mobility defined by the government under proposals set to derive from NAFTA superhighway toll road systems and the implementation of the American Union. Existing toll road systems operational at US borders such as SENTRI/NEXUS and the FAST program mandate that passing vehicles are enrolled in RFID passive tracking and identification programs linked to central databases.

Did someone mention the NAFTA Superhighway?

Pike needs to play fare: Tolls for all or no one. So now the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is thinking about setting up something called "open-road tolling," which means that instead of robbing you at tollbooths, they would record every driver's license-plate number and then rob them with monthly bills. This raises a couple of interesting questions.

Highway Tolls Key to New Jersey Debt, Spending Reform Plan. In his January State of the State address, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) unveiled a long-awaited plan to capture the value of the state's toll roads. The state would receive approximately $38 billion in cash financed by the sale of bonds backed by toll increases. According to the plan, the cash would be used to significantly pay down New Jersey's $32 billion bonded indebtedness and finance transportation projects.

RFID: A Brief Technology Analysis. Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have been deployed in limited numbers for years. Two of the most predominant have been in the form of toll road collection transponders and security badges. Toll road authorities around the country have equipped drivers with a transponder that is connected to their credit card. This allows them to pay their tolls at 40 miles-per-hour rather than stopping to throw quarters into a basket and slow the flow of traffic.

Skymeter: Skymeter's satellite data aggregation and price matching takes all of the pain out of getting a GPS billing feed [which] can be used for Road Use Charging, Pay as you go Insurance, Parking, and any application requiring payment for vehicle use.

National RFid Center General Newsletter 09/02/2006: The roadway, known as the "Golden Corridor" is the first in the country to install all-video toll collection. Using license plate information photographed by cameras, money will be deducted from customer accounts. Those without toll accounts will have bills sent to their address, based on information from their license plates.

Video eye to scan for Newton parking lapses. Automatic license plate recognition — a kind of RoboCop of the parking world that uses a panoramic video camera, laptop computer, and sophisticated software — detects cars that have been parked too long and sounds an alert to write a ticket. The city bought three systems for $50,000 and plans to install them in parking enforcement vehicles this month.

Police partner with license plate readers. A growing number of police departments are turning to mobile camera systems to fight motor vehicle theft and identify unregistered cars. The cameras read license plates of parked and moving cars — hundreds per minute — and check them against vehicle databases, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which purchased several systems for its police vehicles last fall.

This license plate-scanning technology has been around for a few years already, and is in use on side streets as well as freeways. The following commentary was written in 2004:

License Plate "Guns" and Privacy: New Haven police have a new law enforcement tool: a license-plate scanner. Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars and links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner. Right now the police check if there are any taxes owed on the car, if the car or license plate is stolen, and if the car is unregistered or uninsured. A car that comes up positive is towed.

Even the most gung-ho devotee of big government would have to be a little concerned about the potential for totalitarianism at this point, even if privacy is not guaranteed. Wholesale monitoring of motorists on the streets and freeways is legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has said in two cases, U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo, that Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're driving on a public street.*

"Our commuting to and from where we live and work is not done clandestinely". [Webb v. City of Shreveport, 371 So. 2d 316, 319 (La. Ct. App. 1979).]*

It is interesting that, at least for now, TollTag users can (and do) drive at speeds considerably in excess of the posted speed limit, and even though the TollTag system recognizes those drivers as they enter and exit the highway (and many points along the way), the system is not used to generate speeding tickets. This, I suspect, is to avoid making the TollTag into an unpopular snitch, and to avoid revealing that capability before some appointed hour yet to come -- perhaps after TollTags are mandatory.

Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored, at least for billing purposes. It is necessary to retain this information for some number of months, to resolve potential billing disputes. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.

Incidentally, TollTags are vehicle-specific -- they can't be shared, even between two cars owned by the same person.* There are now over 1,000,000 of these electronic transponders in operation in the North Texas area.*

The use of the TollTag may seem to be sheer luxury, but there are places around Dallas where a vehicle without such a tag must stop and pay a toll two or three times. This results in a little more risk, more gas consumption, and more wear and tear on the brakes at every stop. TollTag users are rewarded with a discounted toll rate as well. If I needed to travel on the North Dallas Tollway every day, I would probably get a TollTag for my car. But I think I would find a way to wrap the TollTag in aluminum foil when I wasn't on the tollway. That might not keep Big Brother from following me around, but there's no reason to make that kind of surveillance any easier.

GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount; Pay by the Mile for Your Insurance

GMAC - Pay for what you use and nothing more.

Would you buy a whole pizza if you only wanted a slice?

Common sense says to only use what you need -- and only pay for what you use. That's the thinking behind the GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount, where those who drive less, save more on their auto insurance. Whatever the reason for hitting the road less often, GMAC Insurance can reward you for something you're already doing.

The less you drive, the more you save -- up to 54%* a year on your auto insurance premiums.

Exxon Mobil Pipeline Leaks Oil into Yellowstone River

Exxon Mobil released 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River through a broken pipeline. The company said that the damage was concentrated within a five- to 10-mile stretch of river. That figure has been growing since, hitting 30 miles in recent days. Later came inaccuracies in how long it took to shut down the pipeline from the company's control room in Houston. After initially saying it took six minutes to shut down the pipeline's pumps and 30 minutes to stop the flow of oil completely, the company revealed in filings with pipeline regulators that it took almost an hour. Company officials insist there was never any intent to deceive. - Montana, Exxon Mobil Split Over River Oil Spill, Associated Press, July 8, 2011

Exxon Mobil Says Oil Leaked into Yellowstone River

July 2, 2011

Reuters - A pipeline operated by Exxon Mobil Corp leaked as many as 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River in Montana and has been shut down, the company said.

Exxon officials said on Sunday there were traces of oil up to 10 miles downriver from the site of what they called a "very unusual" event, though the governor of Montana said the spill may have spread further.

The U.S. oil company said it had slowed processing rates at its Billings refinery following the leak but did not expect supply disruptions in the area.

Exxon found the leak from the EMPCo pipeline early on Saturday morning. The pipeline runs only in Montana, from Silver Tip to Billings.

The cause of the leak remains unclear. Exxon estimated the oil release at anywhere from 750 to 1,000 barrels. One barrel of oil is equivalent to 42 gallons (163 liters), and the pipeline typically transports 40,000 barrels a day.

"We had no indications that there were any issues with this pipeline," Gary Pruessing, the president of EMPCo, told reporters on a conference call on Sunday.

Pruessing said the pipeline had been shut in May as a precaution as the river approached a high-water point, but that it was judged to be safe and turned back on.

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer questioned Exxon's contention that the spill into the Yellowstone, the longest undammed river in the United States, was concentrated within a 10-mile area.

"This is a lot of wild country, and they haven't any idea whether it's 5 miles, 50 miles or 100 miles, they're guessing," Schweitzer, a Democrat, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

A full assessment of the oil's spread will not be possible until small boats can be deployed in the river, he said.

Exxon said earlier that the river's turbulence made it unsafe to use boats, but that the company had sent aircraft to view the spill.

Exxon discovered the leak when a loss of pressure was detected on the pipeline, which dates from 1991, and within six minutes the line was shut off, company officials said.

Some residents were briefly evacuated as a precaution but were allowed to return home later.

CONCERN FOR FARM FIELDS, WILDLIFE

Exxon said it would have about 100 people working on the spill by the end of Sunday.

Alan Jeffers, an Exxon spokesman, said in response to Schweitzer's comments that the company made its assessment that the spill appeared to be confined to within a 10-mile area based on what it had observed and what was reported to it.

"The bulk of it appears to be in that area, but we're continuing to look for oil along the river," he said.

Schweitzer said he was concerned about damage from the spill to farm fields recently flooded when the Yellowstone overflowed, and to the state's trout fishing industry.

Air monitoring has detected no threat to residents from the spill, EMPCo's Pruessing said. Municipal water systems also have shown no signs of infiltration by the oil, he said.

The Billings Gazette on Sunday cited conflicting reports from Exxon officials as to the extent of the leak. The paper carried pictures of absorbent bags piled along the side of a road running parallel to the river, ribbons of oil sticking to logs and one of a turtle stuck in oily mud.

Environmental cleanup firm Clean Harbors is on-site assisting with the early remediation efforts, Exxon said.

The leak came one day after a Maryland jury awarded plaintiffs suing Exxon $1.5 billion in damages for a 2006 leak at a gasoline station.

Congested Missouri River Threatens Tributaries

Congested Missouri River Threatens Tributaries

July 4, 2011

AP - In a season of flooding by some of the nation's biggest rivers, it's streams most Americans have never heard of that could cause some of the worst problems in the Midwest.

Hundreds of tributaries that feed the congested Missouri River face a greater-than-normal flood risk this summer because of water levels that have kept them from draining. The Missouri is expected to remain near historic highs for months, which means the threat will remain through summer— a season when the Midwest often is beset with thunderstorms that can quickly dump heavy rain.

University of Iowa engineering professor Witold Krajewski, director of the Iowa Flood Center, compared the situation to a "traffic jam" of water. It started with the sustained release of massive amounts of water from dams on the upper Missouri, caused by spring rain and a heavy Rocky Mountain snowpack that filled reservoirs.

"It's like a football game and baseball game getting out at the same time," Krajewski said. "There are all these cars trying to move. It doesn't take long before drivers can't get out of the side streets."

Backed-up tributaries in South Dakota and Missouri have already submerged streets and threatened homes near the point where they reach the surging river. In Hamburg, Iowa, work crews are keeping close watch on changing levels of the Nishnabotna River to their east, as they try to hold off the Missouri River from the west.

Some tributaries, such as the Nodaway and Big Sioux, are so backed up with high water in the larger river that local officials worry that a well-placed downpour could suddenly pose a new flooding threat.

Nebraska State Climatologist Al Dutcher said the problem won't end soon.

"We're probably going to see the tributaries be problematic all year," Dutcher said. "If we get a monster storm that drops 3 to 4 inches of rain into a basin, all that water has to be evacuated. As it goes out toward the Missouri River, it's going to back up."

Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineer in Vicksburg, Miss., said similar problems could have happened during spring flooding along the Mississippi River, but heavy rainstorms didn't occur at key times and tributaries didn't swell beyond their normal size.

The flooding along the Souris River that has devastated Minot, N.D. is due to heavy rains, not a tributary backup.

In southwest Iowa, crews in Hamburg have devoted most of their time to building a temporary levee to stop the Missouri, but officials said there is little they can do to protect against flooding by the Nishnabotna if an intense rainstorm hits the area.

In northwest Missouri, the Nodaway River is so clogged with water as it approaches the Missouri River that water is running backward nearly three miles upstream, said Andrew County Emergency Management Director Roger Latham. The township of Nodaway, a tiny community of about 25 people, has evacuated amid fears that the tributary will swell and swamp the area.

"If you want to drop a rubber ducky in the river, you can watch it float upstream," Latham said. "The Missouri River probably will not affect the township. But if we get any significant rainfall, the Nodaway's got nowhere to go but sideways."

One resident, Gary Nold, said his riverside cabin has taken nearly 3 feet of water from the tributary — the most he's seen since massive flooding in 1993. Dirty water from the Nodaway, filled with corn stalks and tree limbs, crept over its banks and forced the final holdouts in the area to seek dryer ground.

Nold said the cabin, about three-quarters of a mile upstream of where the Nodaway and Missouri rivers meet, has flooded several times before. But the 75-year-old retiree said all the past floods have come from intense rain upstream, not backed-up water.

"I was smart this time," he said. "I took everything out ahead of time. It's getting old, and I'm upset I'll have to clean it. But I'll be back."

The tributary threat comes in the thick of the region's rainiest season. Iowa, Missouri and eastern Nebraska traditionally receive their heaviest rain during the summer.

So far, areas that drain to the Missouri River have been relatively lucky.

Iowa State Climatologist Harry Hillaker noted that in central Iowa, Des Moines received about 10 inches of rain during the middle of June — but that water drains into the Mississippi River. In western Iowa, rainfall in the past month has been below normal, Hillaker said.

"Eastern Nebraska and western Iowa are the epicenter of the world for overnight rain," Hillaker said. "We can get very heavy rains that go on hour after hour in the right conditions. That would be another issue for the Missouri. These big, flash-flooding kind of rains can really get to be a problem."

Even without heavy rain, the Missouri has caused headaches in Dakota Dunes, S.D., where the Big Sioux River has backed up about a miles from the Missouri and covered several streets in the community.

After backing up, several creeks in Kansas have topped or broken through levees near the Missouri River, said Scott Watson, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Kansas City. Watson said the region's wettest season won't end until late July.

India Offers Free Cars in Return for Sterilization

India: Rajasthan in 'Cars for Sterilisation' Drive

Couples are being urged to opt for Tata Nanos rather than babies

July 1, 2011

BBC News - Health officials in the Indian state of Rajasthan are launching a new campaign to try reduce the high population growth in the area. They are encouraging men and women to volunteer for sterilisation, and in return are offering a car and other prizes for those who come forward. Among the rewards on offer is the Indian-made Tata Nano -- the world's cheapest car.

Many in the government are worried about the size of India's population. It is expected to overtake that of China by 2030.

Sitaram Sharma, the head doctor of Jhunjunu in western India, is hopeful that the chance to win a car might be just enough to tempt at least 20,000 men and women to undergo sterilisation. He is also offering motorcycles, televisions and food blenders.

The offer is open to all Indians and not just residents of his drought-prone region.

Other regions have also offered incentives for couples volunteering for sterilisation.

A nationwide campaign was abandoned in the 1970s, however, after complaints that thousands of men and women were forced into having the operation.

Read More...

Banks Slashing the Amount Borrowers Owe on Mortgages

Banks Cutting Principal on Some Mortgages: Report

July 2, 2011

Reuters - Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co have started modifying tens of thousands of mortgages where the banks deem the loans especially risky, even if the borrowers have not asked, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

In some cases, the paper said, the banks are slashing the amount borrowers owe, citing one case in Florida where a woman's principal balance was cut in half.

The paper said the banks are targeting holders of pay option adjustable-rate mortgages, a type of loan where borrowers have the option of skipping some principal and interest payments and having the amount added back onto the loan.

Such "option ARM" loans were seen as especially high risk in the wake of the financial crisis; the two banks collectively still have tens of billions of dollars of such loans in their portfolios.

One law professor quoted by the Times said the banks were behaving in contradictory ways, modifying some loans that should not be and not modifying some loans that should be.

Spokespeople for the two banks were not immediately available to comment.

IMF Intervention Ensures the Loss of Greek Sovereignty and Jobs While Privatizing Its Resources

Greek lawmakers voted to speed the enactment of the country’s new austerity measures, clearing the way for foreign lenders to make available the next installment of aid needed to meet the government’s expenses through the summer. Among the new measures are cuts in spending on health and defense, tax increases on heating oil and the self-employed, and reductions in the number of public employees. They also call for the privatization of about $70 billion in state assets, including the sale of state-owned land and shares in the Public Power Corporation, the betting monopoly OPAP, the Hellenic Postbank, and the operators of the ports of Piraeus and Salonika. At the last minute, the bill was altered to freeze the salaries of civil servants and to lower the ceiling below which income for individuals is not taxed; the minimum was reduced to $11,600 annually from $17,400, with more lenient treatment for people with children. - Greek Parliament Approves Implementation of Austerity Plan, New York Times, June 30, 2011

Euro Zone Warns Greeks on Sovereignty and Privatization

July 2, 2011

Reuters - Euro zone finance ministers have approved a 12 billion euro ($17.4 billion) installment of Greece's bailout, but signaled that the nation must expect significant losses of sovereignty and jobs.

Ministers in the Eurogroup gave the go-ahead for the fifth tranche of Greece's 110-billion-euro financial rescue agreed last year, and said details of a second aid package for Athens would be finalized by mid-September.

But within hours of Saturday's decision, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker warned Greeks that help from the EU and International Monetary Fund would have unpleasant consequences.

"The sovereignty of Greece will be massively limited," he told Germany's Focus magazine in the interview released on Sunday, adding that teams of experts from around the euro zone would be heading to Athens.

"One cannot be allowed to insult the Greeks. But one has to help them. They have said they are ready to accept expertise from the euro zone," Juncker said.

Greeks are acutely sensitive to any infringement of their sovereignty and any suggestion that foreign "commissars" might become involved in running the country is an incendiary political issue and could trigger more street protests.

After Saturday's conference call on Saturday, the 17 euro zone ministers agreed the fifth tranche would be paid by July 15, as long as the IMF's board signed off on the disbursement. The IMF is expected to meet on July 8 to approve it.

The payment will allow Greece to avoid the immediate threat of debt default, but the country still needs the second rescue package, which is also expected to total around 110 billion.

Between now and then, finance ministers will work on the "precise modalities and scale" of private creditors' involvement.

Germany hopes this will eventually total around 30 billion euros, with banks voluntarily buying new Greek bonds when old ones they hold mature, meaning Athens would not have to produce cash to repay its creditors immediately.

Juncker also said Greece must privatize on a scale similar to the sell off of East German firms in the 1990s.

"For the forthcoming wave of privatizations they will need, for example, a solution based on a model of Germany's 'Treuhand agency'," Juncker said, referring to the privatization agency that sold off 14,000 East German firms between 1990 and 1994.

BITTER EXPERIENCE

Greece's problems with a lack of economic competitiveness are modest compared with those of eastern Germany, which more than 20 years after communism still has high unemployment.

Juncker made no explicit reference to job losses. But any repeat of Germany's Treuhand experience may prove bitter for Greeks, who are already suffering soaring unemployment as a recession drags into its third year.

Treuhand was supposed to sell state property at a profit but closed with a huge deficit and a legacy of bitterness among the legions of workers whose jobs it destroyed. Four million Germans were employed by Treuhand-owned companies in 1990 but only about 1.5 million jobs were left by 1994.

The Greek parliament voted on Thursday to set up a privatization agency under austerity plans agreed with the European Union and IMF which have provoked violent protests on the streets of Athens.

Athens must sell off 5 billion euros in state assets this year alone or risk missing targets set under its EU/IMF program, which could cut off its funding needed to keep the government running and avoid a debt default.

"The current package of measures, which Athens has agreed to, will bring a solution to the Greek question," said Juncker. However, he added that the Greek tax collection system was "not fully functional."

Athens has repeatedly failed to meet budget targets laid down in the first bailout program, raising the risk that the crisis will spread across the euro zone if unresolved.

"What is crucial now is to implement parliament's decisions," Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said shortly after the Eurogroup decision.

The decision gives Athens breathing but concern is growing among EU officials that the strictures being imposed on Greece, including 28 billion euros of austerity measures between now and 2015, are too harsh and could cause longer-term damage.

Financial markets still see an 81 percent chance that Greece will eventually default, and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Der Spiegel in an interview that Berlin was making preparations for such an event -- even though it does not expect it to happen.

Private financial institutions have held talks with finance ministry and central bank officials in euro zone countries to discuss under what conditions the private sector would be willing to help finance Greece and by how much.

Those discussions continue, with the involvement of the private sector in the next package a must for several euro zone countries as voters grow increasingly opposed to shouldering the burden of bailing out Greece on their own.

But private sector involvement must be voluntary to avoid triggering another downgrade of Greek debt to default status by ratings agencies, a development which could put the whole Greek banking sector at risk.

Greece Needs Herculean Reforms to Secure Bailout

Greece stays stuck in its worst recession since the 1970s with a youth unemployment rate of more than 40 percent. Greece last week passed austerity measures worth 28 billion euros ($40 billion) and promised to deliver 50 billion euros in sell-off revenues by 2015, including raising 5 billion euros by the end of this year alone. On the list are public utilities whose sale is sure to prompt public reaction. - S&P warning adds default threat to Greece's bailout, Reuters, July 2, 2011

July 2, 2011

Reuters - Greece is set for an uphill struggle this week launching sell-offs and tax system reforms to meet European Union and IMF conditions for bailing it out.

A warning from Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker that Greece will lose sovereignty and jobs to meet those criteria has enraged unions. Any suggestion of foreign intervention in running the country is an incendiary political issue that will make implementing reforms even tougher.

Public sector union ADEDY, which has launched crippling strikes and protests, reacted angrily to his comments. ADEDY President Spyros Papaspyros said Juncker was out of line,

"Mr Juncker interferes in the internal affairs of a country, provokes European rules and is an embarrassment for the country whose government tolerates him."

Juncker's comments could trigger more of the anti-austerity street protests that have roiled the country for months as Greece stays stuck in its worst recession since the 1970s with a youth unemployment rate of more than 40 percent.

EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Greece last week passed austerity measures worth 28 billion euros ($40 billion) and promised to deliver 50 billion euros in sell-off revenues by 2015, including raising 5 billion euros by the end of this year alone. On the list are public utilities whose sale is sure to prompt public reaction.

"Greece now needs to push faster fiscal adjustments and structural reforms," said EFG Eurobank economist Platon Monokroussos. "On the privatisation front, it is of essence the government delivers fast results to send a strong signal to financial markets."

That is easier said than done.

The socialist government, which came to power on a social welfare platform, has yet to launch a single state sale in 18 months in power and must set up a privatisation agency within weeks to meet its target.

It must also start to sell state property, estimated at up to 300 billion euros but often entangled in legal complications.

"The 50 billion euro target is not achievable," said Constantinos Mihalos, head of the Athens Chamber of Commerce. "Share values are very low right now because of the recession."

At the same time, Greece needs to deliver on pledges to reform a chronically inefficient tax system that has relied too much on middle class salary earners and let wealthy tax evaders off the hook, producing disappointing revenues this year.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Reuters in an interview on Friday that Greece would tap for the first time private sector expertise but tax offices around the country are notoriously resistant to any change.

"A greater effort is needed to rein in tax evasion and broaden the tax base in a bid to bring the ratio of revenues to GDP closer to euro area average and reduce expenditure and waste in the broader public sector," Monokroussos said.

Investors have feared that default by Greece would send shockwaves through the world finance system with some commentators saying such an eventuality could call the whole euro zone into question.

Another hurdle is the law on a uniform pay scale for the public sector, sure to cut further the salaries of civil servants who have already seen their pay reduced by an average 15 percent as a result of a wave of austerity measures to secure the 110-billion-euro bailout last year.

On Saturday, euro zone finance ministers approved a 12 billion euro loan Greece needs to avert default.

The IMF will meet on July 8 to approve the 12-billion euro loan tranche, which is expected to be handed over by July 15 and allow Greece to avoid the immediate threat of debt default.

But the country still needs the second rescue package, which is also expected to total around 110 billion. EU officials will now look at how private creditors can be involved voluntarily so that rating agencies do not declare the rescue a "credit event."

Currency Meltdown and Hyperinflation

What Accelerated Hyperinflation Looks Like

July 1, 2011

SHTFPlan.com - Never having lived through a hyperinflationary currency meltdown makes it difficult to visualize how such an event may unfold. We know from historical examples like the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe that the end result is wheel barrows full of paper currency being used to buy basic staples like bread and rice.

The following chart from the late Howard Katz provides us an example of what the beginnings of a currency meltdown look like, in this case Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, and how quickly it can devolve into completely financial chaos:

year		rate of increase in prices
1999		56.9%
2000		55.22%
2001		112.1%
2002		198.93%
2003		598.75%
2004		132.75%
2005		585.84%
2006		1,281%
2007		66,212.3%
2008		231,150,888.87% (July)

The Zimbabwe dollar took roughly five years to completely lose the confidence of its people. But because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency all bets are off in terms of time lines. Given our dependence on debt issuance and foreign investment to cover our expenses, there’s a distinct possibility that shouldn’t be ignored. As James Rawles discussed in his book Patriots and Troy Grice in his book Indivisible, if our foreign creditors pull the plug on lending, the entire monetary system of the United States could collapse in one fell swoop. This is certainly a possibility.

Whatever the triggering mechanism, and however long it takes for the American public and our foreign creditors to lose confidence, the end result will be the same. We often talk about store shelves emptying if and when the dollar becomes worthless, but another likelihood in such an event would be that store shelves remain fairly well stocked simply because the people have nothing of value to acquire those goods (and eventually, that leads to riots and political collapse).

The following video from Silver Investor demonstrates the pricing discrepancies that will result if the US dollar goes into meltdown.

However it comes about, whether quickly in a period of days or weeks, or progressively over months and years, the wealth of anyone who denominates their assets in US dollars (including now, ironically, many Zimbabweans) will be virtually destroyed.

Obamacare Will Let Several Million Middle-class People Get Nearly Free Insurance Meant for the Poor

Medicaid for the Middle Class?

June 21, 2011

AP - President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

After initially downplaying any concern, the Obama administration said late Tuesday it would look for a fix.

Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.

Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night.

"I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make sense," Foster said during a question-and-answer session at a recent professional society meeting.

"This is a situation that got no attention at all," added Foster. "And even now, as I raise the issue with various policymakers, people are not rushing to say ... we need to do something about this."

Administration officials said Tuesday they now see the problem.

"We are concerned that, as a matter of law, some middle-income Americans may be receiving coverage through Medicaid, which is meant to serve only the neediest Americans," said Health and Human Services spokesman Richard Sorian. "We are exploring options to address this issue."

Administration officials and senior Democratic lawmakers initially defended the change, saying it wasn't a loophole but the result of a well-meaning effort to simplify the rules for deciding who would get help under the new health care law. Instead of a hodgepodge, there would be one national policy.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, called the situation "unacceptable" and said he intended to look into it.

Governors have been clamoring for relief from Medicaid costs, complaining that federal rules drive up spending and limit state options. The program is now one of the top issues in budget negotiations between the White House and Congress. Republicans want to roll back federal requirements that block states from limiting eligibility.

Medicaid is a safety net program that serves more than 50 million vulnerable Americans, from low-income children and pregnant women to Alzheimer's patients in nursing homes. It's designed as a federal-state partnership, with Washington paying close to 60 percent of the total cost.

Early retirees would be a new group for Medicaid. While retirees can now start collecting Social Security at age 62, they must wait another three years to get Medicare, unless they're disabled.

Some early retirees who worked all their lives may not want to join a program for the poor, but others might see it as a relatively painless way to satisfy the new law's requirement that most Americans carry health insurance starting in 2014. It would help tide them over until they qualify for Medicare.

The actuary's office said the early retirees eligible for Medicaid would be on top of an estimated 16 million to 20 million new people that Obama's law already brings into the program, by opening it to childless adults with incomes near the poverty level.

It's unclear how much it would cost to cover the retirees. Federal taxpayers will cover the entire initial cost of the expansion.

Republicans already see a problem.

Former Utah governor Mike Leavitt said bringing early retirees in will "just add fuel to the fire," bolstering the argument from Republican governors that some of Washington's rules don't make sense.

"The fact that this is being discovered now tells you, what else is baked into this law?" said Leavitt, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under President George H.W. Bush. "It clearly begins to reveal that the nature of the law was to put more and more people under eligibility for government insurance."

The Medicare actuary's office roughed out some examples to illustrate how the provision would work. A married couple retiring at 62 in 2014 and receiving the maximum Social Security benefit of $23,500 apiece could get $17,000 from other sources and still qualify for Medicaid with a total income of $64,000.

That $64,000 would put them at about four times the federal poverty level, which for a two-person household is $14,710 this year. The Medicaid expansion in the health care law was supposed to benefit childless adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level. A fudge factor built into the law bumps that up to 138 percent.

The actuary's office acknowledged its $64,000 example would represent an unusual case, but nonetheless the hypothetical couple would still qualify for Medicaid.

Bush-appointed Judge Rules in Favor of Obamacare

Bush-appointed Judge Rules for Obama Healthcare Overhaul

June 29, 2011

Two federal judges, both appointed by Republican presidents, have sided with conservative opponents of the law, ruling that its requirement that almost all Americans buy health insurance is unconstitutional. Three other federal judges, all appointed by Democratic presidents, have sided with the Obama administration, deciding that the law passes muster.

That's why today's news is particularly significant. In a lawsuit brought by a conservative legal center, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled in the law's favor. One of the two judges in the majority, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, was appointed by President George W. Bush, and even clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the leader of the court's conservative wing. It marks the first time that a judge has ruled against the party that appointed him on the law's constitutionality--as well as the first time an appeals court has ruled on the issue.

"No one is inactive when deciding how to pay for health care," wrote Judge Sutton, rejecting a key argument of the law's opponents.

They claim that forcing people to pay a fine for not buying insurance amounts to regulating inactivity, something, they argue, that's not covered as a legitimate target of regulation under the Constitution's Commerce Clause.

The ruling was a victory for the Obama administration, but it could turn out to be short-lived. Nearly everyone expects the dispute ultimately to be resolved before the Supreme Court, and court-watchers say it's difficult to predict which way the justices will rule.