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Which parts of the U.S. are growing the fastest? The Census Bureau has released its latest numbers, and once again, the West and South come out on top.

FASTEST-GROWING STATES
State and Percent Change, 2005-2006

1. Arizona - 3.6%
2. Nevada - 3.5
3. Idaho - 2.6
4. Georgia - 2.5
5. Texas - 2.5
6. Utah - 2.4
7. North Carolina - 2.1
8. Colorado - 1.9
9. Florida - 1.8
10. South Carolina - 1.7

The Northern states hailed as the future of the Democratic Party by some pundits are nowhere to be found on the list. Indeed, as if to answer those who claim the Midwest and Northeast should be the centerpiece of progressive strategy, the Census Bureau observes:

* The Northeast region grew by only 62,000 people. In contrast, the South grew by 1.5 million and the West by 1 million. The Midwest added 281,000 people.

* The West was the fastest-growing region, with its population climbing by 1.5 percent. The South followed (1.4 percent), with the Midwest third (0.4 percent) and the Northeast fourth (0.1 percent).

* The South now accounts for 36 percent of the nation’s total population, with the West comprising 23 percent, the Midwest 22 percent and the Northeast 18 percent.

[Note: We don't use the same definition of "The South" as the Census Bureau, which includes Oklahoma. But as the above table shows, that doesn't significantly change the results, because Oklahoma isn't the state driving the South's big gains.]

The list of top 10 states in terms of numbers they have increased over the last year is also dominated by the South and West:

FASTEST-GROWING STATES
State and Number Change, 2005-2006

1. Texas 579,275
2. Florida 321,697
3. California 303,402
4. Georgia 231,388
5. Arizona 213,311
6. North Carolina 184,046
7. Washington 103,899
8. Colorado 90,082
9. Nevada 83,228
10. Tennessee 83,058

One of the most notable states: North Carolina, which has overtaken New Jersey as the 10th largest state in the country. The Tarheel State now clocks in at 8,856,505 residents.

These numbers drive the point home: The South and West are the regions of political power of the future. Neither is politically expendable, and anyone who says they are just can't be taken seriously.

Facing South will be shutting down until January 2 for some much-needed holiday R&R. We've had a big year, with the Institute having on impact on issues from the Gulf Coast to the Gulf War.

We thank you for reading, and for joining us as we ignite a new debate about change in the South. Another South is possible!

Still looking for some last-minute gift ideas for your favorite Southerner or South-watcher? Since we posted our last list, readers have sent in some great recommendations:

(1) "Make Cornbread Not War" T-Shirts and Bumperstickers from the Southern Foodways Alliance

(2) "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Parts" Spike Lee's masterpiece on Katrina, now on DVD

(3) "At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968" Civil Rights history by Taylor Branch

(4) "Taking the Long Way," defiant pop-country CD by The Dixie Chicks

(5) "On Agate Hill," latest novel from North Carolina's Lee Smith

(6) And don't forget a Gift Membership or Donation to the Institute for Southern Studies!

And if you haven't had a chance to donate to the Institute's end-of-year fundraising drive, make your contribution today -- we're half way to our $15,000 goal!

Contribute online here or via snail mail by mailing your check payable to Institute for Southern Studies to: ISS, P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Hoping to speed aid to Louisiana homeowners who suffered losses in last year's storms, the state's Road Home rebuilding program will take a fresh approach to appraising properties.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco today announced that the program will scrap its controversial computer-model system for calculating home values and instead use post-storm appraisals to determine pre-storm worth. Some citizens charged that the computer model underestimated pre-storm values, especially in Orleans Parish.

The Road Home program -- along with the private company that administers it -- have faced blistering criticism in recent days from federal and state officials. ICF International of Fairfax, Va. administers the program under a 3-year deal worth $756 million, one of the largest non-construction contracts in state history.

Founded in 1969 as the Inner City Fund, a venture capital firm financing urban businesses, ICF has evolved into a global consulting company focused on defense, energy, environment, homeland security, social programs, and transportation. Just this week, the company won a $10 million contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to run a program promoting clean energy investment. It probably doesn't hurt that the company has ties to the Bush administration, having earlier this year hired as the head of its homeland and national security divisions someone who previously served as an advisor to former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

But even while it's winning new government contracts, ICF's work in Louisiana has come under growing fire. This week, federal Gulf Coast Rebuilding Coordinator Donald Powell wrote a letter urging the company to pick up the pace of payments, noting that it has delivered aid to only 92 homeowners out of 80,000 applicants, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Also this week, state Rep. Charmaine Marchand (D-99th) camped outside the State Capitol for several days to drawn attention to Road Home's problems; Marchand's district includes New Orleans' especially hard-hit Upper and Lower 9th Wards. One of the state's U.S. senators also weighed in on the program:

All I can say is 'Road Home' ... is a debacle, it needs to be fixed. And I have started to look, in detail, at that ICF contract and I'm startled at what's in it. The dollar amounts – $19 million travel budget ... and I don't get it," said Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana).

Meanwhile, the Louisiana House and Senate passed resolutions last week calling on Gov. Kathleen Blanco to fire ICF. State lawmakers also created a panel to investigate ICF's handling of the contract, and they called on the federal Securities and Exchange Commission to look into possible conflicts of interest involving the company's initial public offering of stock. ICF filed official paperwork for the IPO in May, at the same time it was pursuing the Road Home deal; it went ahead with the offering in October, shortly after winning the contract.

This is not the first time questions have been raised about ICF's ethics. As the Baton Rouge Advocate reported in June, ICF first got involved in the Louisiana rebuilding effort when its Emergency Management Services subsidiary won a $900,000 contract to help the state decide how to spend federal grant money, in the process developing what eventually became Road Home. While carrying out that work, ICF decided to seek the lucrative program administration contract. But the Louisiana Board of Ethics raised concerns that the earlier contract might create the appearance of giving ICF an unfair advantage in vying for the bigger deal, so CEO Sudhakar Kesavan ended the earlier one.

The Board of Ethics also expressed concerns about ICF's plan to subcontract work to Liberty Bank, since bank chair Norman Francis also chairs the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which helped devise the Road Home program. In response, Liberty bowed out of the deal. (The other two companies invited to bid on the Road Home contract also proposed using subcontractors with LRA connections, the ethics panel noted: ACS State and Local Solutions wanted to work with Dryades Bank, whose president is LRA member Virgil Robinson, while BearingPoint planned to hire Whitney Bank, whose stockholders include LRA member John Smith.)

But ICF is putting a positive spin on recent developments. On Monday, just days after the Louisiana legislature called for the company to be fired and investigated, ICF put out a press release headlined, "ICF International Receives Expression of Support from the State of Louisiana":

ICF International received a strong expression of support today from the Louisiana Division of Administration (DOA), the agency that oversees ICF's contract for the implementation of The Road Home program. Jerry Luke LeBlanc, Commissioner of Administration, stated, "We all realize that this contract to assist in recovery from the nation's largest disaster is a monumental task. ICF has responded to the challenge of getting the program up and running. We will continue to work with ICF to address implementation issues and to streamline the program for the benefit of our citizens. Our most important focus is our homeowners and getting our communities back." LeBlanc's comments were made in the context of a nonbinding resolution passed by the State legislature last Friday calling for Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to terminate ICF's role in The Road Home program.

Governor Blanco also stated, "I share the frustration of our people and the legislature, but common sense must prevail. This is the most massive long-term recovery program ever undertaken by any state, at any time in American history. The remedy for our people, who have endured so much through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, is to move faster, not to start over from scratch."

"We appreciate all the expressions of support," said Sudhakar Kesavan, Chief Executive Officer of ICF. "Our focus now, as it has been all along, is on helping the people of Louisiana and delivering a successful program."

Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode (R), facing a backlash for a letter mailed to constituents decrying arrival of Muslims in the country, insists he did nothing wrong, reports the Charlottesville Daily Progress:

U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. will not apologize to Islamic groups for a letter he wrote that decries Muslim immigration to America, his press aide said Thursday.

"He stands by the letter," said Linwood Duncan, aide to the 5th District Republican. Duncan refused to say more.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded an apology Tuesday night for the letter, which Goode, of Rocky Mount, sent to hundreds of constituents and which the council labeled Islamophobic.

Indeed, when asked by Fox News today whether he believes “there are too many Middle Easterners here now," Goode responded by saying "I'm not gonna say yes or no."

Meanwhile, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the Muslim American who instigated Goode's backlash, notes that Goode's comments -- made in a letter about immigration policy -- were bizarre given that Ellison is not an immigrant:

Mr. Ellison dismissed Mr. Goode’s comments, saying they seemed ill informed about his personal origins as well as about Constitutional protections of religious freedom. “I’m not an immigrant,” added Mr. Ellison, who traces his American ancestors back to 1742. “I’m an African-American.”

In the growing body of research showing that high-interest "sub-prime" home loans are bad for consumers and the economy, the Center for Responsible Lending has released a damning study that finds one out of five subprime loans end up as foreclosures:

About one in five subprime mortgages made in the last two years are likely to go into foreclosure, according to a report released yesterday, ending the dream of homeownership for millions of Americans.

At that rate, about 1.1 million homeowners who took out subprime loans in the last two years will lose their houses in the next few years, the report said. The foreclosures will cost those homeowners an estimated $74.6 billion, primarily in equity.

The report, written by the Center for Responsible Lending, a research group in Durham, N.C., was based on data supplied by Moody’s Economy.com. Researchers examined more than six million mortgages made from 1998 until the third quarter of 2006; the report is the first nationwide study on the performance of subprime mortgages. It includes projected foreclosure data for all major metropolitan statistical areas. The highest default rates are expected to be in cities in California, Nevada, Michigan and New Jersey as well as Washington, D.C.

The Mortgage Banker's Association claims that the Center is using overly pessimistic data. But as blogger bondad notes, this isn't the first piece of evidence that subprime loans "underperform." As the AP reported last month:

In a conference call titled "How Bad is Subprime Collateral?" Tom Zimmerman, head of ABS research for UBS, and David Liu, head of mortgage credit, discussed how much higher loan delinquencies and foreclosures are for 2006 subprime loans compared with similar subprime loans from earlier years -- the result of deteriorating underwriting quality from lenders combined with a slower housing market.

Still, despite the adverse conditions, "I guess we are a bit surprised at how fast this has unraveled," said Zimmerman. While it's "not a secret that subprime collateral has performed pretty disastrously so far," he said, "I must say we were a bit surprised by the magnitude with which" the loans "deteriorated this year."

The rate of subprime loan delinquencies of 60 days or more -- meaning borrowers are that far behind in their payments -- has climbed to about 8 percent, up from about 4.5 percent a year ago.

The rise of predatory lending -- especially by "mainstream" finance operations like Citigroup -- was once a fringe issue. Thanks to groups like the Center, it's now at the center of the policy debate. Indeed, as Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) comments at the website DKos:

One of the first items of business for the Financial Services Committee in the new Congress will be a strong predatory mortgage lending law, modeled after various state laws, including North Carolina, that have provided homeowners effective protection and not diminishned the availability of credit in the subprime market.

A big THANK YOU to the dozens of people who have contributed to the Institute's end-of-year fundraising drive. We're well on our way to our $15,000 goal. Keep those tax-deductible contributions coming and support a powerful voice for the progressive South!

Between 2,000-4,000 Southerners and South-watchers visit Facing South each dayfor a unique mix of news and views on the South you can't find anywhere else. But this isn't all we do.

Facing South is produced by the Institute for Southern Studies, the leading "think tank/act tank" in the South working for justice, democracy and peace. We provide cutting-edge research, award-wining investigative reporting, and provide a forum for voices locked out of the debate -- a thriving progressive movement for change in the South.

Whether it's exposing under-reported stories in the Gulf Coast or co-launching a campaign to raise North Carolina's minimum wage for 101,000 workers, the Institute is there, helping you better understand the South -- so we can change it for the better.

Now we need your help to continue our vital work for change. If you can, please pitch in with your tax-deductible gift today. Thanks!

And remember: another South is possible.

In a New York Times op-ed published last week, two prominent North Carolina scientists sharply criticized the Army Corps of Engineers' plans for Mississippi's coast in the wake of the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Titled "Castles in the Sand," the piece -- by Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, and Orrin Pilkey, professor of earth sciences at Duke University -- began:

At this year’s meeting of the Geological Society of America, which took place in Philadelphia in October, representatives of the United States Army Corps of Engineers presented proposals to re-engineer the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Some 200 coastal and marine scientists attended the meeting; most of them were stunned by the scope, expense and sheer wastefulness of the projects the corps is considering.

As part of its Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program, the corps wants to build a large seawall to protect parts of Bay St. Louis, Miss., and to install storm-surge gates to close off local bays. A corps proposal the op-ed authors deem "particularly awe-inspiring" calls for reconfiguring the Mississippi Gulf Islands -- part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore -- to their pre-Hurricane Camille size, while adding enough sand to elevate the islands by about 20 feet. The proposed project would dump some 50 million cubic yards of sand on the national seashore to protect redevelopment of the mainland coast.

That, the scientists say, is nuts:

At the very least, these proposals would cost billions of dollars to realize, aside from the environmental damage that would ensue. Yet as the corps acknowledged at the Geological Society meeting, its proposed "coastal improvements" would not provide protection from the kind of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes that have destroyed coastal Mississippi twice in the past 37 years. So what, exactly, is the point?

The corps’ failure to devise a rational redevelopment plan points to the futility of trying to maintain coastal development in such an unstable place. A realistic appraisal would conclude that the long-term outlook for coastal development there is bleak. Yet the corps, urged on by developers, seems determined to wage a quixotic fight.

The consensus among the scientists who attended the GSA meeting was that the corps' plans would fail, either catastrophically during a major hurricane or gradually through shoreline erosion that's worsening as a result of rising seas caused by global warming, say Young and Pilkey. They advocate a more pragmatic approach:

The time has come to step back from this extraordinarily hazardous shoreline, perhaps to replace the blocks of destroyed buildings with rows of protective dunes in a seashore park. We should not rebuild on the shoreline of vulnerable areas like the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We certainly shouldn’t be doing it with federal dollars or destroying a National Seashore in order to provide a false sense of security for redevelopment.

Congress has ordered the corps to present its long-term plans for the region by the end of next year.

Following up on the scientists' op-ed, the Times yesterday ran a story further detailing scientific opposition to the corps' proposals, as well as the agency's perspective on the matter:

The corps says it is working closely with state agencies, federal emergency management officials and environmental regulators, ''trying to come up with a plan that would retain the quality of life'' but also keep residents ''as far out of harm's way as possible,'' in the words of Susan Ivester Rees, a marine scientist with its Mobile district in Alabama, where much of the work is coordinated.

It's interesting to hear that the corps hopes to protect residents from harm, when at the same time the agency has proposed relaxing restrictions on wetlands development along the Mississippi Gulf Coast as well as eliminating the requirement for public notice of such projects.

Marijuana is now the most valuable cash crop for the United States overall and for many states across the South, according to a new study published in the latest issue of the Bulletin of Cannabis Reform. The study estimates the total value of this year's U.S. marijuana crop at $35.8 billion, more than the combined value of corn at $23.3 billion and wheat at $7.45 billion.

Five of the top 10 marijuana-growing states are in the South -- six counting West Virginia. The top 10 states are: 1) California, 2) Tennessee, 3) Kentucky, 4) Hawaii, 5) Washington, 6) North Carolina, 7) Florida, 8) Alabama, 9) West Virginia, and 10) Oregon. Five states including Tennessee and Kentucky had annual marijuana crops worth over $1 billion.

"The fact that marijuana is America's number one cash crop after more than three decades of governmental eradication efforts is the clearest illustration that our present marijuana laws are a complete failure," Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, said in a press statement.

The study was conducted by Jon B. Gettman, who holds a doctorate in public policy from Virginia's George Mason University and who now teaches public administration at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va. He argues that the U.S. policy of prohibition and eradication of marijuana has been a failure, and that the crop should be legalized and regulated:

The ten-fold growth of production over the last 25 years and its proliferation to every part of the country demonstrate the irrefutable reality that marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the economy of the United States. The contribution of this market to the nation’s gross domestic product is overlooked in the debate over effective control and discouragement of use by teenagers and children. Like all profitable agricultural crops marijuana adds resources and value to the economy. The focus for public policy should be how to effectively control this market through regulation and taxation in order to achieve immediate and realistic goals, such as reducing teenage access, rather than to continue to sacrifice achievable goals in exchange for unachievable long-term goals that have failed to materialize over the last 25 years.

A report released last year by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University, found that replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year. The study was endorsed by more than 500 economists, including three Nobel laureates.

Miron estimated that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition, with $5.3 billion of the savings accruing to state and local governments and $2.4 billion accruing to the feds.

And then there are the savings in human suffering that would be gained from ending the failed policy of prohibition. More than 700,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges last year -- and more than 5 million in the past decade -- with almost 90 percent of those arrests for simple possession, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. How many lives have been hurt by legal problems related to consuming a plant whose use, according to a 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine, "is not associated with increased mortality"?

When representative-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN) became the first Muslim elected to Congress last November, it was celebrated by many as a step forward for inclusion. But not by all: CNN's Glenn Beck, for example, famously insisted that Ellison "prove ... that you are not working with our enemies."

Rep. Ellison's request to be sworn in using the book of his faith, the Koran, also ignited deep fears among certain elements of the right. Exhibit A: Rep. Virgil Goode (R) of Virginia, who quickly mailed a letter to his closest supporters warning that the Ellison episode was proof that the U.S. must close its borders to guard against hordes of incoming Muslims.

By some unfortunate error, Goode's letter made its way to an active Sierra Club member, who promptly delivered it to Charlottesville's C-Ville Weekly. Below is a copy of the letter, made available courtesy of TPM Muckraker (see another version here). In the missive, Goode assures agitated readers that he will do all in his power to stem the Islamic invasion, and lays to rest any speculation that he planned to nail a copy of The Koran to his office walls:

Decades ago, college was only for the elite. It took progressive federal policy to expand access to higher education. But the New York Times reports a familiar story today about how even public universities are turning away from their mission of providing education for all:

Like Florida, more leading public universities are striving for national status and drawing increasingly impressive and increasingly affluent students, sometimes using financial aid to lure them. In the process, critics say, many are losing force as engines of social mobility, shortchanging low-income and minority students, who are seriously underrepresented on their campuses.

“Public universities were created to make excellence available to all qualified students,” said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, an advocacy group, “but that commitment appears to have diminished over time, as they choose to use their resources to try to push up their rankings. It’s all about reputation, selectivity and ranking, instead of about the mission of finding and educating future leaders from their state.”

This effort to lure the elite comes just as many lower and middle class students are drowning in debt; the typical student emerges from college owing over $17,000. You can find the average for your state at the Project on Student Debt.

Since the Reagan administration, Washington has only made the problem worse, as columnist Paul Loeb writes:

In 1980, the maximum Pell Grant covered 77% of the average cost of attending a public institution. It now covers just 33%. In December 2005, the Bush administration made the situation far worse by cutting $12.7 billion in Federal financial aid. They reduced Pell Grants, cut successful low-income support projects like some of the Trio programs, and enacted major cuts in student loan subsidies, which will leave students paying far higher interest rates for years.

In calling for student interest rates to be sliced from 6.8% to 3.4%, the Democrats have picked a good issue. Their plan also calls for increasing Pell Grants from $4,050 to $5,100 per year and expanding tax credits towards higher education. These are policies that make sense, and will have a payoff eclipsing the 5-year price tag of $18 billion. Indeed, real progressive legislation would go much further, such as capping debt payments on those who take public service careers.

As Loeb notes, it's also an opportunity for political leaders who want to speak to the next generation of voters, and get them mobilized around progressive issues:

Passing new laws to broaden access to higher education won't be easy. But the Democrats could consider it an opportunity. Whether or not they can pass the necessary bills over Bush's potential veto, they now have a chance to reach out and organize, particularly on campuses whose students are used to politicians ignoring them. If they can do enough to highlight the crisis in access to education, they can give grassroots campus groups a major boost in getting their peers involved. They can help engage students in drawing the links between how they or their classmates struggle to pay for their schooling and the larger priorities of our country.

A hopeful update to our story last week about Ali and Shahla Afshari, the Iranian couple that were abruptly fired in West Virginia two years ago
with little explanation.

The Charleston Gazette reports that the couple settled with the U.S. government -- which now admits it was wrong to fire them:

The federal government now admits that it made a mistake when it fired a Morgantown couple of Iranian descent two and a half years ago.

Earlier this month, Ali and Shahla Afshari reached a settlement with the government for $654,000 in back pay and damages.

Also, they were reinstated to their research jobs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown.

“I’m glad that we were vindicated,” Shahla Afshari said. “The most important thing for our family was to clear our name.”

Apparently, the feds offered them settlement money earlier, but only if they didn't demand to go back to work -- an offer they refused. The couple has lived in the U.S. for 18 years, conducting workplace safety research for NIOSH, work which the Gazette notes "had nothing to do with national secrets and did not require a security clearance."

The Afsharis note that the money comes nowhere near the expenses they have piled up after losing their jobs in May 2004. $200,000 alone will go to cover lawyers fees -- and even the lawyers aren't getting their due after two years on the case.

It's good that the Afsharis are back at work and their name is cleared. But the case revealed bizarre and troubling behavior on the part of federal officials that demand greater scrutiny, including:

* The Federal Bureau of Investigations had decided the Afsharis were not a threat long before they were fired. A local FBI agent already had conducted a routine check and closed their file.

* A government official was forced to recant her sworn testimony about the couple. At first, she said she recommended to Howard that they be fired. Later, she said that her sworn testimony was “not consistent” with her current “recollection of matters.”

* The government officials in Atlanta who recommended their firing never interviewed their neighbors, co-workers or supervisors in Morgantown. They never talked to the local FBI agent, either.

It begs the question of what other domestic casualties have been suffered during the "war on terror."

Speaking of boneheaded moves by federal authorities who are supposed to protect public health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday unveiled a controversial final rule that eases reporting requirements for companies under the Toxic Release Inventory program.

The changes will allow industrial polluters to withhold information on toxic releases -- and will make it harder for citizens to access information about pollution in their communities.

"EPA's actions take us back to the dark ages when the public knew nothing about toxic releases and when companies couldn't be held accountable for pollution that threatened public health," U.S. PIRG staff attorney Alex Fidis said in a news release. "EPA is substituting a don't ask, don't tell policy for a program that works to protect public health and the environment."

The new rule will allow companies to use or release four to 10 times more toxic chemicals before they are required to submit a report. It will also allow companies to withhold information about the use and production of dangerous persistent bioaccumulative toxics. EPA had planned to change the frequency of reports from once a year to once every two years but abandoned the proposal in response to public outcry.

When EPA announced the planned changes to TRI, it sparked opposition from various quarters, according to a recent report from OMB Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes open government. Titled "Against the Public's Will," OMB's report on the response to EPA's proposed TRI changes documented opposition to the plans from 23 state governments and more than 120,000 average citizens, 60 members of Congress, 30 public health organizations, 40 labor organizations, and 200 environmental and public-interest groups.

In May 2005, the House of Representatives voted to block EPA from implementing the TRI rollbacks, but the Senate was unable to consider a similar measure before EPA finalized the changes.

The TRI program was established in 1988 as a response to the 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, where a Union Carbide plant accidentally released 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate into the environment, killing more than 3,000 people outright and sickening at least 150,000 others. Shortly after the Bhopal incident, there was a serious chemical release at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in West Virginia, leading to the hospitalization of six workers and 135 local residents. Union Carbide is now owned by Dow Chemical, which has denied liability for the incident.

The Union Carbide disasters spurred U.S. public-interest and environmental organizations to demand information on toxic chemicals being released into communities. Their demands led Congress to pass the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which created the TRI reporting program.

For details on toxic chemicals being released into your community, visit the EPA's TRI Explorer Web page.

According to a recent CNN poll, opposition to President Bush's handling of the Iraq war now stands at 70% -- the highest level ever. Two-thirds of the public oppose the war itself, and only 11% favor sending more troops.

But the Washington Post reports that the White House is "aggressively promoting" a plan to send "15,000 to 30,000 more troops" to Iraq -- "over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." As Think Progress notes, the push seems to be coming at the behest of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, despite Bush's earlier promises to base his military strategy "on the sober judgment of our military leaders."

Many Southern base towns -- especially in North Carolina -- are already bracing for Iraq deployments. As the AP reports, about half of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune -- 28,000 soldiers in all -- will be sent by early 2007 to western Iraq including Fallujah.

Other base communities that will be affected:

* The 2nd Marine Division will be joined by another ground-combat team from Camp Lejeune, an Army Brigade Combat Team from Fort Stewart, Ga., and at least two Marine battalions from Camp Pendleton, Calif.

* The 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, which has bases in North Carolina and Beaufort, S.C., will be sending airplanes and helicopters.

* Army units from North Carolina's Fort Bragg also have soldiers in Iraq, and a major unit of the 82nd Airborne Division plans to leave for Afghanistan in January. The 82nd has about 6,000 paratroopers, including its helicopter crews, in Iraq, and some will be there until next summer.

The Army Brigade from Fort Stewart, Ga. was the subject of an interesting Wall Street Journal article last week, which highlighted how ground combat troops have been short-changed by a military culture that favors high-tech weaponry and space defense. It's worth quoting at length:

With just six weeks before they leave for Iraq, the 3,500 soldiers from the Third Infantry Division's First Brigade should be learning about Ramadi, the insurgent stronghold where they will spend a year.

Many of the troops don't even know the basic ethnic makeup of the largely Sunni city. "We haven't spent as much time as I would like on learning the local culture, language, and politics -- all the stuff that takes a while to really get good at," says Lt. Col. Clifford Wheeler, who commands one of the brigade's 800-soldier units.

Instead, the troops are learning to use equipment that commanders say they should ideally have been training with since the spring. Many soldiers only recently received their new M-4 rifles and rifle sights, which are in short supply because of an Army-wide cash crunch. Some still lack their machine guns or long-range surveillance systems, which are used to spot insurgents laying down roadside bombs. They've been told they'll pick up most of that when they get to Iraq.

The strains here at Fort Stewart -- one of the busiest posts in the U.S. military -- are apparent throughout the Army. They spotlight a historic predicament: The Iraq war has exposed more than a decade's worth of mistakes and miscalculations that are now seriously undermining the world's mightiest military force.

In the 15 years after the Cold War, senior military planners and civilian-defense officials didn't build a force geared to fighting long, grinding guerrilla wars, like Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead they banked on fighting quick wars, dominated by high-tech weapons systems.

The result: At a time when the war in Iraq is deepening, and debate over pulling out the troops is intensifying, the rising cost of waging the fight is outpacing even the Army's huge budget. The financial squeeze is leaving the Army short of equipment and key personnel.

Troops on the ground -- many hailing from Southern bases -- feel the brunt of these decisions.

A coalition of public health and environmental groups filed suit last week against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to toughen the national standard for particulate matter pollution to a level that could prevent thousands of premature deaths every year.

Earthjustice, a nonprofit public-interest law firm, filed the suit on behalf of the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense and the National Parks Conservation Association. It's a response to the EPA's October decision to reject the advice of its own scientific advisory panel and staff scientists, who called for strengthening the existing standard of 15 micrograms per cubic meter for fine particulate matter to a more protective standard between 13 and 14 micrograms per cubic meter.

The current standard was set in 1997. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to review air quality standards every five years and revise them based on the latest scientific information.

Scientists estimate that particulate pollution is responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths nationwide every year by aggravating respiratory illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, and pneumonia. The pollution is also linked to premature deaths from other causes, such as lung cancer and heart disease.

Over 20 million people across the South live in areas where the air fails to meet federal health standards, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Particulate pollution also takes a heavy toll on the region's economy, SELC notes:

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Shenandoah National Park continue to be ranked as the two most polluted parks in the country due to air pollution, leading to decreased visibility from the Park's ridges. The result is a heavy financial burden -- as much as $320 million annually in lost sales and tax benefits, and over 4,000 jobs -- for the mountain communities depending on tourism revenue from these parks.

"Anyone who questions the need to lower particulate matter pollution standards should take a hike in Great Smoky Mountains or Sequoia national parks in August," says Mark Wenzler, director of NPCA's Clean Air Program. "You will likely encounter a haze so thick you can barely see the next ridge. Imagine what that pollution is doing to your lungs."

It's not only the federal government that's let down the people of New Orleans.

A letter signed by a range of grassroots activists, educators and health care providers from the storm-stricken city is making the rounds, and it takes to task nonprofit organizations and foundations that pledged help but failed to deliver:

In the days after the storm, there were many promises of support made to the people of New Orleans. Promises from not only the federal government, but also an array of nongovernmental organizations, such as progressive and liberal foundations and nonprofits. Small and large organizations have done fundraising on our behalf, promising to deliver resources and support to the people of New Orleans.

Many organizations and individuals have supported New Orleans-led efforts with time, resources, and advocacy on our behalf, and for this we are very grateful. These organizations followed through on their promises and offered support in a way that was respectful, responsible, and timely.

However, we are writing this letter to tell you that, aside from these very important exceptions, the support we need has not arrived, or has been seriously limited, or has been based upon conditions that become an enormous burden for us.

...

In 15 months we have hosted visits by countless representatives from an encyclopedic list of prominent organizations and foundations. We have given hundreds of tours of affected areas, and we have assisted in the writing of scores of reports and assessments. We have participated in or assisted in organizing panels and workshops and conferences. We have supplied housing and food and hospitality to hundreds of supporters promising to return with funding and resources, to donate staff and equipment and more. It seems hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised in our name, often using our words, or our stories.

However, just as the government's promises of assistance, such as the "Road Home" program, remain largely out of reach of most New Orleanians, we have also seen very little money and support from liberal and progressive sources.

Posted to the Web site of Left Turn, a quarterly magazine published by a network of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist activists, the letter has been signed so far by 50 people affiliated with organizations working in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and 30 allies from outside the Gulf region. Signers are associated with groups including the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, Black Workers for Justice and the New Orleans Network.

The letter asks people who've pledged help for the region to take a hard look at what they've actually done:

Has your organization raised money on New Orleans' behalf? Did that money go towards New Orleans-based projects, initiated and directed by those most affected? Have you paid New Orleans organizations that have acted as consultants? Have you listened directly to the needs of those in the Gulf and been responsive to them? Have you adjusted your practices and strategies to the organizing realities on the ground?

We ask you to seize this opportunity, and join and support the grassroots movements. If the people of New Orleans can succeed against incredible odds to save their city and their community, it is a victory for oppressed people everywhere. If the people of New Orleans lose, it is a loss for movements everywhere. Struggling together, we can win together.

People interested in adding their names to the letter are asked to e-mail nolagrassrootsletter@yahoo.com with their name, city, and job title or organizational affiliation for identification purposes.

Thirteen years ago this month, I was in New York City finishing journalism graduate school and wrapping up an internship at an alternative news weekly when I made a decision that some of my classmates and colleagues found shocking.

I was moving to the South.

More specifically, to North Carolina. I had fallen in love with a man from Raleigh, and through my visits with him and his friends I had also grown attached to the place and its people. I wanted to follow him there so we could begin building our life together below the Mason-Dixon line.

Given the reactions I got from some people, you'd think I had announced I was relocating to Outer Mongolia.

"You're moving where?" they asked, incredulous. "You're leaving the media capital of the world for what?"

The irony was, these were folks who liked to think of themselves as broad-minded and prejudice-free. But their world view was shaped by a U.S. media culture that tends to see the Northeast as the center of the civilized world and the South as a bastion of backwardness.

That's one of many reasons why supporting the work of the Institute for Southern Studies is so critical. By offering a vision of the South as a place of progressive ideas and movements, the Institute smashes the region's unjust reputation as a conservative monolith -- a stereotype that, unfortunately, carries on in works like Whistling Past Dixie, Tom Schaller's controversial new book urging vote-seeking Democrats to abandon the region.

So this holiday season, strike a blow against anti-Southern prejudice: Support the work of the Institute with a tax-deductible donation.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals -- regarded as the most conservative in the country -- may be the first legal arena to be affected by the winds of political change.

Headquartered in Richmond, VA (and housed in the former treasury of the Confederacy), the 4th Circut affects everyone who lives, works or owns a business in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas. And as the Washington Post reports this morning, recent vacancies coupled with a new Congress could steer the country's most right-wing court in a new direction:

A growing list of vacancies on the federal appeals court in Richmond is heightening concern among Republicans that one of the nation's most conservative and influential courts could soon come under moderate or even liberal control, Republicans and legal scholars say.

A number of prominent Republican appointees have left or announced plans to leave the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which has played a key role in terrorism cases and has long been known for forceful conservative rulings and judicial personalities.

The article cites dismay from conservatives, and glee from liberals, that President Bush didn't fill the 4th Circuit's vacancies before Republicans left office. As the Post notes: "The 15-member court has three vacancies, and a fourth judgeship will open in July. That would leave the bench with six Republican and five Democratic appointees by summer."

The 4th Circuit has been a bastion of federal court conservatism. Republicans famously blocked four of President Clinton's appointments, and the legal outlook of those who have made it to the bench have made it the favorite court for Republicans to make their case, as the Christian Science Monitor reports:

[The 4th Circuit's] conservatism is evident in rulings scaling back everything from employment-discrimination claims to criminal procedural protections such as the Miranda warning. Death-row inmates here have one of the lowest success rates in getting their appeals heard of any of the 12 federal circuits.

Such novel positions often invite Supreme Court review, says Dave Douglas, a law professor at William & Mary law school in Williamsburg, Va. They also make the court a favorite for conservative lawyers. Observers say the court's stances on law and order help explain why the Justice Department chose to hold prominent post-Sept. 11 terrorist suspects within the Fourth Circuit's territory.

In fact, the 4th Circuit's conservatism was so strong that the few times the judges voted against Bush administration policies -- such as refusing to authorize the transfer of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla to face new charges and opposing gay marriage amendments to the constitution -- it was a major event.

It's doubtful Democrats will succeed in getting -- or even try for -- liberal judges in the 4th Circuit. More likely, the court will go the way of Congress: towards moderation.

I spent yesterday meeting with community groups in Mississippi, including the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance and MS Worker's Center for Human Rights. Both have been on the front lines in providing basic assistance to those affected by the hurricanes -- and battling corrupt contractors, complacent FEMA operatives, and others standing in the way of a decent recovery.

Like New Orleans, one of the biggest issues is still housing. The big news this week is that Gov. Haley Barbour was seeking an extension from the feds on how long Katrina evacuees could live in FEMA trailers. The scope of the problem is staggering:

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency records show that as of Monday, 84,494 people were living in FEMA trailers in 13 Mississippi counties. That's 31,294 trailers multiplied by the average family size of 2.7 people.

This is, at best, a stop-gap measure. The real problem is that there is no leadership in Washington to help people find homes -- as a judge said this week, the federal program is "a disaster."

News stories and the stories I heard talking to community leaders were the same: insurance companies have bailed or been as slow as molasses. Money allocated for homeowners has yet to reach people; less than 60 in Louisiana and under 200 in Mississippi. Renters -- the majority of Katrina evacuees -- aren't even in the budget.

More than one of the people I spoke to believe an orchestrated plan is in the works: holding out on the homeowners and renters until they break, then letting the casino and development interests move in and buy up the land. Given how little state and federal leaders have done to help people get into homes, you can see why this theory sounds plausible.

Few people know this is what's still happening in the Gulf Coast. Whether you believe it's neglect, incompetence, or deliberate economic disenfranchisement -- or some combination -- the reality is that it's keeping hundreds of thousands of people from getting on with their lives.

One highlight of our visits: almost everyone we talked to profusely thanks us for our Gulf Watch project, and the work we're doing to keep the stories and struggles of Katrina on the national radar. You can help support our work here.

Jobs with Justice's sixth annual online "Grinch of the Year" contest is underway, and one of the companies nominated for the dubious distinction -- designed to recognize the national figure who did the most harm to working families in the past year -- is Joseph Luter III, chairman of Smithfield Foods, which operates the world's largest pork slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, N.C..

Smithfield has been accused of practices that result in an unusually high rate of worker injuries, as well as harassment and intimidation of employees who speak up for their rights. Meanwhile, company executives enjoy posh lifestyles, as JWJ notes:

As Smithfield pays poverty wages to its employees and fails to provide adequate treatment to injured workers, former CEO and current Chairman of the Board, Joseph Luter III, takes in $83,333.33 each month in a base salary just for consulting Smithfield. Under the terms of Luter’s contract, he is also entitled to use the company jet and receives cash incentive awards. Even in retirement, Luter is afforded a lavish lifestyle.

Last month, workers at the plant staged a wildcat walkout, which we covered here at Facing South. The facility has also been cited by Human Rights Watch for violating international human rights standards. For more information on conditions at the plant, visit Justice at Smithfield.

This past weekend, Congress passed a bill requiring the federal government to share offshore oil and gas royalties with Louisiana for coastal restoration efforts, something state leaders have long pressed for.

The massive $45 billion package that included the royalties measure offers other provisions aimed at boosting the state's hurricane recovery efforts. Among them is a two-year extension for bonus depreciation, which allows companies to write off 50 percent of their new capital expenses in a given year.

The royalty-sharing provision calls on the Interior Department to provide Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama with 37.5 percent of future royalties collected from Gulf oil production, with Louisiana getting about half. It allocates another 12.5 percent to land and water conservation programs, with the remaining 50 percent going to the U.S. treasury.

However, the new law angered shrimpers across the South by creating permanent normal trade relations with Vietnam, which has been accused of flooding the U.S. market with cheap seafood, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

"We are getting bombarded with more shrimp than we know what to do with," said A.J. Fabre, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and an opponent of liberalizing trade with Vietnam. "Favored nation status means that the door would be thrown wide open."

The U.S. shrimp industry initiated an anti-dumping petition against foreign shrimp three years ago. In November 2004, the U.S. Department of Commerce found that companies exporting shrimp from Vietnam and China violated U.S. trade laws by selling below the cost of production and imposed tariffs for economic damage.

Under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act -- also known as the Byrd Amendment after sponsor Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) -- U.S. shrimpers and processors began receiving compensatory checks last month. (However, there have been allegations of excessive or improper payments, leading the Southern Shrimp Alliance to call for better verification of claims.)

The bill passed by Congress also opens to oil and gas development 8.3 million previously protected acres off the Gulf Coast, raising the ire of environmental leaders such as Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, who released a statement blasting the move:

"We are disappointed that Congress is finding it so difficult to cut ties to the oil and gas industry and to think outside the drilling rig when it comes to America's energy policies. Just last month Americans cast their ballots in a call for a new direction, not more of the same. Let's hope this is Congress' one last fling with Big Oil and that we can make a fresh start to achieving true energy security with the new year and the new Congress."

Executive Director Chris Kromm hasn't donned a Santa outfit and stood outside your local Wal-Mart ringing a bell (yet) because he is down in New Orleans getting the latest first-hand reports on the recovery effort. But it's that time of year to show your support for the great work the Institute for Southern Studies is doing as a Voice for the Progressive South.

In August of 2005, Chris was going on vacation for a well deserved break and invited me to guest blog for a week. I was happy to help out, but little did I know I would be blogging about the worst natural disaster in modern U.S. history.

Since then, The Institute for Southern Studies has been a major voice for the forgotten victims of Katrina, a singular event which exposed the problems of poverty, inequality, economic injustice, and government incompetence and corruption -- not just in the South but all across America -- for all the world to see. But the Institute for Southern Studies had been working for change on these issues since long before Katrina, and with your help continues that work today.

Chris later asked me to become a regular contributor here at the Facing South blog, and again I was happy to help out. It isn't much in the bigger scheme of things, but the hours spent each week researching and writing posts on topics that are (hopefully) of interest to progressive Southerners seem like the least I can do. (And it's all on a volunteer basis, in case you were wondering.) In the process, I have learned a lot and gained a great deal of respect for the folks here and the work they do.

Those are just some of the many reasons I am supporting the Institute for Southern Studies during their year-end fundraising drive, and encourage you to do the same.

The number of U.S. homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments is climbing, and the delinquency problem is especially severe in storm-ravaged Mississippi and Louisiana, where many people face the threat of losing the roof over their head from a disaster of a different kind.

The overall delinquency rate rose to 4.67 percent from July through September, compared to 4.39 percent in the second quarter, while the delinquency rate for subprime mortgages rose to 12.56 percent in the third quarter, up from 11.7 percent in the previous three-month period.

That's the finding of a survey released yesterday by a mortgage banking industry group. About 16 times as many subprime loans are past due as in 1998, when the industry began tracking the statistics as part of its periodic delinquency analysis, the Washington Post reports:

About 223,000 households with subprime loans lost their homes to foreclosure in the third quarter of 2006, and about 725,000 had missed payments, according to the quarterly survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association, which analyzed about 42.6 million mortgages, including 5.8 million that were subprime. Subprime borrowers generally pay interest rates about 3 percentage points higher than "prime" borrowers with good credit.

The deterioration in the subprime market is likely to continue for several years, industry analysts said. They note that the growth of this sector has contributed to near-record homeownership levels, but it has also left some owners unable to handle the payments. Analysts expect more foreclosures in 2007 and 2008 because many subprime loans are low for a time and then adjust up.

The states with the highest overall delinquency rates in the latest survey were Mississippi at 11.05 percent and Louisiana at 9.5 percent. The good news is that the delinquency rates in these states have dropped markedly since the period immediately after Katrina and Rita, when they skyrocketed to 17.44 percent in Mississippi and 24.63 percent in Louisiana. However, the rates remain elevated from June 2005, when Mississippi's was 8.53 percent and Louisiana's was 6.67 percent, according to MBA's December 2005 delinquency survey.

In the latest survey, the South had the second-highest overall seasonally adjusted delinquency rate at 5.37 percent, behind the North Central rate of 5.44 percent and the national rate of 4.67 percent. Rates in the Northeast and West were 4.39 and 2.81 respectively.

On losing his bid for Senate minority whip to Trent Lott by one vote, Sen. Lamar Alexander said "this gives me the independence to devote all of my time to serving Tennesseans and focusing on the issues I care the most about: education, energy, job creation and the environment.”

As no small consolation, Alexander has landed a couple of key committee assignments -- one to the powerful Appropriations Committee, and another to the Environmental and Public Works Committee. A press release from Alexander's office says:

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) will become the first Tennessee Republican ever to serve on the Senate's Appropriations Committee, widely considered to be its most powerful committee because of its jurisdiction over federal spending.

Newly-elected Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who named Alexander to the Appropriations Committee, said, “This appointment demonstrates the respect our caucus has for the extraordinary contribution Lamar has made during his first four years in the Senate, and it is intended to make it possible for him to be even more effective during his next term.”

McConnell also appointed Alexander to the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee which has jurisdiction over Tennessee Valley Authority, clean air and transportation issues. Alexander will also be the third ranking Republican member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Alexander said, “These appointments could not have been better for Tennessee. The appropriations appointment gives me the best possible opportunity to help control spending and to help Tennesseans receive our fair share of federal funding. The other committee assignments allow me to work for Tennesseans on the issues I care most about: education, energy, the environment, job creation and helping the new TVA board of directors keep electric power reliable and reasonably priced. I am grateful to Sen. McConnell for this show of confidence after just four years in the Senate.”

Alexander's appointment to Environment and Public Works Committee could be good news for environmentalists. Unlike many Republicans who oppose environmental regulation and are beholden to various special interests in the energy industry, Alexander has been a vocal supporter of conservation, clean air, and other environmental causes.

While Alexander says in his press release that he intends to help the new TVA board keep "electric power reliable and reasonably priced," he has also been an outspoken critic of TVA's progress on pollution control at their coal-fired power plants.

Alexander remarked in 2005:

But for all their generating success, Widows Creek and other, older coal plants also are major polluters of the air in the Tennessee Valley, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Tuesday that sulfur dioxide generated from coal plants such as Widows Creek probably causes 40 percent of the smog in the Great Smoky Mountains.

"These plants also produce nitrogen pollutants and mercury, which are hazardous to our health," Sen. Alexander said. "TVA has the latest pollution control equipment on only two of the eight units at Widows Creek today. If we're really serious about clean air, TVA needs to put the latest pollution control equipment on all of its coal-fired units and/or build more nuclear power plants."

Earlier this year, Alexander reintroduced the bi-partisan Clean Air Planning Act, which would restore environmental protections rolled back by Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative and accelerate implementation of pollution controls. CAPA would cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 82%, cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 68%, cut mercury emissions by 90%, and impose the first-ever cap on CO2 emissions which contribute to global climate change.

Sen. Alexander had previously co-sponsored the legislation in 2003, earning high praise from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy:

It is rare in politics for a freshman Senator to step forward and provide this kind of leadership," said Dr. Stephen Smith, Executive Director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "This move has the potential to break a partisan log jam that has choked our national parks and kept citizens across the country holding their breath waiting for the promise of clean, healthy air."

[..]

Senator Alexander's move sends a clear message to President Bush and the Environmental Protection Agency that protecting the air quality of our national parks must be a major focus of any federal clean air bill. The President's "Clear Skies Act" has widely been criticized as not going far enough to get the protections needed for human health and the national parks. By endorsing the Carper bill, Senator Alexander will help send a signal to the Tennessee Valley Authority and other Southeast utility companies that advanced technologies make the most economic sense for long-term clean air benefits.

While chairman of the Senate Energy Subcommittee, Sen. Alexander also urged Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to pursue even stricter mercury emissions controls at the state level:

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on Wednesday said the federal government’s current rule on mercury emissions may not be strong enough to protect Tennessee and urged Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen to continue his investigation into the extent to which coal-fired power plants are contributing to the problem of mercury deposits in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“If the investigation shows that the Smokies are being harmed by mercury, then Tennessee may wish to adopt measures that go beyond the current federal mercury program for power plants, as some states are doing,” Sen. Alexander wrote. “The bottom line is that the federal mercury rule may not be strong enough to protect Tennessee citizens."

Sen. Alexander has been a longtime defender of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When the National Park Service announced proposed management plan revisions that would have opened up National Parks to more commercialization and increased noise and pollution from off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, and personal watercraft, Alexander said:

I am opposed to the proposed new management policies because I believe they would reduce the importance of conservation, impair park air quality and increase the likelihood of noise pollution. Frankly, I’m not convinced a rewrite of the management policies is even necessary.

Alexander hand delivered a letter to National Park Service Director Fran Mainella outlining his concerns about conservation, air pollution, and noise pollution.

Sen. Alexander has also supported clean coal technologies, including a coal-gasification process (which was coincidentally developed by Eastman Chemical Company of Tennessee, who coincidentally just recently received a $130 million investment tax credit for their work on the technology.)

While he doesn't get an A+ 100% score with all environmentalists (among other things he opposed tax credits for windmills and supports natural gas exploration in Alaska and more nuclear power plants), Sen. Alexander is clearly a better friend to the environment than many of his colleagues in the GOP, who have "stayed the course" on America's outdated energy policies and resisted environmental regulation at every turn. It will be interesting to see if his bi-partisan ideas receive a warmer welcome in the new Democrat controlled Congress.

A scientist at a Charleston conference about the effects of global warming and rising sea levels on coastal communities said:

The rising ocean is "going to shave off a ton of landscape along the coast," which could drown marshes that act as buffers for storm surge, raising the likelihood of major flooding when the next hurricane hits, said Jim Morris, marine studies professor at the University of South Carolina and director of its Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Then there's this from a panel discussion at the conference about insurance along the South Carolina coast:

While climate change and global warming have plenty of skeptics, said state Insurance Director Eleanor Kitzman, “the insurance industry believes in this issue and it is affecting the way they do business — which affects the citizens of South Carolina and the economy of this state and that gets my attention.”

Not only are premiums increasing dramatically, she said, but the availability of insurance is not keeping pace with the demand because of the continuing growth in coastal areas.

According to the article, insurance premiums along the South Carolina coast have increased 100% for homes and up to 700% for condos.

If there was ever a time that a limit on state spending shouldn't apply, one could say that recovering from the biggest "natural disaster" in history would be it.

But the Louisiana 2006 special legislative session is stuck in a stalemate, as Gov. Katherine Blanco has failed to get a 2/3 House vote needed to lift a constitutionally-enshrined cap on spending that Louisiana voters enacted in 1998 as part of a "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" (pdf), or TABOR -- a darling cause of right-wing think tanks in the 1990s.

Here in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune reports on the damage that TABOR (and those unwilling to suspend it) has dealt to Blanco's 10-day special session:

The House of Representatives struck a crippling blow Wednesday to Gov. Kathleen Blanco's bid for public employee pay raises, road construction dollars and other new spending, refusing for the third straight day to raise a constitutional cap on state spending.

The mostly party-line vote left the governor's spending agenda in tatters and sent administration officials scrambling to find silver linings in the 10-day special lawmaking session Blanco convened to distribute a $2.4 billion tax windfall.

Blanco and Democrats point out that many of the spending items that would push the budget over the limit are sorely needed and wildly popular: "I wonder how much time do we need to decide that we need to spend some money on highways and roads?" said Rep. John Alario, who handled the governor's money bills.

But a block of mostly Republicans are flexing their muscle and so far have refused to compromise -- and with the session slated to end Sunday, it might be unsalvagable.

Louisiana's experience should be a warning to other states that enact rigid rules in the name of fiscal restraint, but which end up