EnviroPolitics Blog

Pa lawmaker proposes assault weapon ban

Pa State Senator Steve Santarsiero announces assault weapon ban legislation at a news conference in Lower Makefield Township, Pa. **News conference video**

By Chris Ullery, Bucks Courier-Times

In the wake of mass shootings in New York, Texas, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, state Sen. Steve Santarsiero on Thursday announced legislation that would ban military-style assault weapons in Pennsylvania.

Santarsiero, D-10, of Lower Makefield, said the measure is modeled after a 2013 Connecticut law targeting more than 150 gun models, banning high-capacity magazines, and providing a voluntary buy-back program for gun owners.

The Connecticut bill Santarsiero used in crafting his legislation passed that state’s legislature a few months after the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, where Adam Lanza used an assault-style weapon to kill 20 children and six adults.

“I’m here to tell you today, we’ve had enough … after these most recent incidents in Buffalo and Uvalde, it’s time we stand up with a single voice and say, ‘Enough. Enough. No one needs to have a military-style assault weapon,’” Santarsiero said during a press conference at the Lower Makefield Township Municipal Building.

Read the full story here

Gun control legislation doesn’t get far in the GOP-dominated Pennsylvania General Assembly

May 25, 2022 –Harrisburg An effort by Democratic lawmakers in Pennsylvania to ban owning, selling or making high-capacity, semi-automatic firearms went nowhere Wednesday as state House Republicans again displayed their firm opposition to gun restriction proposals.

The state House of Representatives voted 111-87 against the effort by Democratic Rep. Danielle Friel Otten of Chester County to take up the bill after Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff argued it should have to go through a committee first.

The bill has spent more than a year in the Judiciary Committee, where Chairman Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin, has bottled up most proposals to regulate or restrict firearms.

Other gun-control news
Frustration mounts over the Pennsylvania law that keeps Philly from passing its own gun control

House passes tough new gun measures hours after wrenching testimony

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Workers’ fall into tank of M&M chocolate

By Jenna Wise, Patriot-News

Two people fell into a tank of chocolate while completing maintenance work at the Mars/M&M factory in Lancaster County, Pa., and now federal workplace safety officials are investigating.

The fall into a partially filled chocolate vat happened around 1:51 p.m. at the Mars facility on the 200 block of Brown Street in Elizabethtown, authorities said.

Federal labor officials confirmed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is investigating the incident. OSHA has six months to investigate and submit its findings, according to a U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson.

The workers who fell into the tank are employed by the Manheim-based I.K. Stolzfus Services, the Labor spokesperson said.

According to its website, I.K. Stolzfus Services specializes in “professional industrial cleaning, water tank repair, cleaning & painting, abrasive and sandblasting services.”

Firefighters rushed to the Mars factory Thursday afternoon and rescued the workers by drilling a hole in the bottom of the tank and pulling them out, according to the Elizabethtown Fire Department.

I.K. Stolzfus declined to comment and directed any questions to a Mars Wrigley spokesperson. Mars did not provide an update on the workers’ conditions. Elizabethtown police also directed questions to Mars.

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Bill directs NJ counties to cut food waste in half

From the NJ Senate Democrats

TRENTON – In an attempt to reduce food waste throughout the state, the Senate Environment and Energy Committee yesterday approved legislation sponsored by Senator Richard Codey and Senator Bob Smith, which would require each solid waste management district in the State to develop a strategy to reduce food waste.

The bill, S2730, would require each solid waste management district, by 2030, to implement a strategy for reducing the amount of food waste generated annually by at least 50 percent of the quantity of food waste generated in the year this bill is enacted into law. The strategy would be adopted as an amendment to each district’s solid waste management plan and be subject to the approval of the Department of Environmental Protection.

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“Food is a terrible thing to waste. Annually, it is estimated that one-third of all food produced in the world goes to waste, equaling more than a billion tons of fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, seafood, and grains that are thrown out,” said Senator Codey (D-Essex / Morris).

“This amount is also an environmental concern since, when food is wasted, all the energy and water it took to grow, harvest, transport, and package it are squandered too. Additionally, when food goes to a landfill and rots, it produces methane—a greenhouse gas approximately 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

The bill would also require the Department of Environmental Protection to develop and publish a list of measures that solid waste management districts could utilize to achieve food waste reduction.

“In the last session, we were able to pass legislation that required large generators of food waste such as hospitals, prisons, restaurants, and supermarkets to recycle food garbage rather than sending it to incinerators or landfills. This marked an important step towards systematically addressing food waste Statewide, and this bill could continue this work at the regional level,” said Senator Smith (D-Middlesex / Somerset), chair of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

The bill was released by the committee on a vote of 5-0.

Bill directs NJ counties to cut food waste in half Read More »

Blistering state report on Baltimore’s Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant

By Christine Condon, Baltimore Sun
Jun 09, 2022, at 5:48 pm

A blistering state report on Baltimore’s ailing Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant made public Thursday detailed “systemic problems” plaguing the facility, including “failures at nearly every level.”

The report, produced by the Maryland Environmental Service, which took over the plant in late March, laid out a variety of infrastructure problems that have caused solid waste to build up in various parts of the sewage treatment process at the plant, leading to excessive releases of harmful bacteria and nutrients. But it also dove into problems with management, safety, and staffing, blasting Baltimore Department of Public Works officials for a “lack of leadership” and providing a first look at a failing culture inside the facility, where problems first became public last summer.

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In addition to a litany of mechanical fixes, the report recommended the hiring of several new employees, including an on-site safety manager, a training and certification manager, and a biosolids manager with two supporting staff members focused on processing solid waste.

A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Works emphasized that the issues at the plant pre-date Public Works Director Jason Mitchell, who started in 2021, adding that the department has a “renewed commitment to continuing to address these challenges, including governance, operations, and employee safety” under his leadership.

Read the full story here

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Napalm Girl: Uncomfortable figure for the U.S. during the Vietnam era and today for Vietnam’s communist government

By Eric San Juan, La Prena Latina

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, June 8 (EFE).- Used as a propaganda symbol against the brutality of the United States Army, Kim Phuc, the so-called “Napalm Girl,” is an uncomfortable image for Vietnam’s regime 50 years after the iconic photo of her running nude because of how she fled the country in search of freedom.

The photo of little Kim Phuc crying in pain from a napalm strike in Jun. 8, 1972, can be seen today at the Ho Chi Minh War Museum, where atrocities committed by American soldiers are exhibited, but for 20 years, the conflict’s most iconic image was missing.

The photo was in the museum in the 1980s when, according to Canadian writer Denise Chong in the book “The Girl in the Photo,” Kim Phuc herself was surprised to see it exhibited, but disappeared after she fled Vietnam and sought asylum in Canada in 1992.

The image took more than two decades to return to the museum: it did so in 2013 at the hands of author Nick Ut, who donated it on one of his many trips to his native Vietnam.

The text accompanying the photograph in the museum shows Vietnamese authorities’ discomfort. It speaks of the 9-year-old girl Phan Thi Kim Phuc “hopelessly burned” by napalm by a US attack on the village of Trang Bang where she lived, and the awards received by Ut. It says nothing about the woman that girl became.

Vietnamese press, which barely mentions the 50th anniversary of the photo in recent days, usually goes a little further by saying Phuc, 59, lives in Canada with her family, without mentioning her departure from the country or suffering from having become the regime’s propaganda weapon.

Read the full story here

Napalm Girl: Uncomfortable figure for the U.S. during the Vietnam era and today for Vietnam’s communist government Read More »

Registry to help NJ minority farmers advances

News From The NJ Senate Democrats

TRENTON – In an effort to expand diversity in agriculture ranks, strengthen the farm sectors of the state’s economy, and foster greater inclusion and equity for minorities, women,

and other underserved populations, the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee advanced legislation that would direct the Department of Agriculture to establish a New Jersey Minority, Women, and Underserved Farmer Registry.

Through the Farm Liaison designated by the Secretary of Agriculture, the bill, sponsored by Senator Nellie Pou and Senator Joe Pennacchio, would direct the department to:

* coordinate outreach to minority, women, disabled, LGBTQIA+, and socially disadvantaged farmers in the State who have been historically underserved by farm loan assistance programs, including programs for beginning farmer loans, emergency farm loans, farm loan servicing, farm operating loans, guaranteed farm loans, direct operating loans, direct farm ownership down payment loans, microloans, and other business assistance available to farmers in the State;

* register minority, women, disabled, LGBTQIA+, socially disadvantaged, and historically underserved farmer-owners to receive notification of opportunities to apply for and participate in farm loan and business assistance programs;

* assist in the prioritization of applications of historically underserved farmers, who are State registrants, for farm loan and business assistance programs;

* provide each registrant with information concerning the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) minority farm register; and

* provide each registrant the opportunity to register with the USDA minority farm register.

“The vast majority of farmers in New Jersey and throughout the United States are predominantly white and have the advantage of coming from families that have farmed the same land for generations. For decades now, racial injustice has left Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and other nonwhite workers to endure a long history of discrimination in the farming industry, from violence and land theft in the Jim Crow South to banks and federal farm offices that refused them loans or government benefits that went to white farmers. This bill aims to begin to remedy those disparities, and to bring more diversity and equity into New Jersey agriculture,” said Senator Pou (D-Bergen / Passaic).

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In 1920, there were more than 925,000 Black-run farms, accounting for over 14 percent of all farms in the United States. However, U.S. Census data, as recent as 2017, reveals that there are under 35,000 left, representing less than two percent of American farmers. Most are concentrated in the Southeast and Texas.

The USDA Minority Farm Register was established to promote inclusion and diversity in the agricultural and horticultural sectors of the nation’s economy. Establishing a parallel registry in New Jersey would include and bolster the participation of New Jersey minorities, women, disabled, LGBTQIA+, and historically underserved farmers in the available State and federal loan and assistance programs for farmers.

“New Jersey’s agricultural sector has a proud tradition as the Garden State,” added Senator Pou. “Through the establishment of this Minority Farm Registry, we can begin to see the fruits of our collective farm labors and bolster our agriculture economy to better represent all segments of society.”

The bill, S772, was released from committee by a vote of 12-0.

Registry to help NJ minority farmers advances Read More »