Media Archives - Page 7 of 19

Gay-rights movement’s new focus: immigration

Immigrants and advocates on a multicity bus tour across the state calling for immigration reform hold a rally Wednesday at Casa Latina in Seattle. Lupe Sanchez, at right, from Yakima cheers with the crowd. Photo: Mark Harrison/The Seattle Times

With important victories on same-sex marriage, the gay-rights movement here in Washington and across the country is bringing new energy and momentum to another thorny social issue: immigration.

By Lornet Turnbull, Seattle Times staff reporter

After the November election, gay-rights advocates — victorious in their fight for same-sex marriage in Washington — began planning their next strategic move.

Over the past decade they had landed other important victories, from outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to winning domestic partnership benefits for gays.

Now lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates here in Washington and across the country are bringing new energy and momentum to another thorny social issue: immigration.

In a way, their involvement is one of reciprocity — an acknowledgment of the broad support by immigrants of same-sex marriage last November. But it also reflects the overlap of two big political movements with shared constituents, whose struggles have often been cast in terms of human and civil rights.

An estimated 5 percent of undocumented immigrants are believed to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and tens of thousands of gay Americans have foreign-born partners.

“What we know is that marriage equality and anti-discrimination do not meet all the needs of our diverse community — that one of our most vulnerable communities is the immigrant community,” said Josh Friedes, longtime spokesman for Equal Rights Washington, a gay-rights advocacy group.

“We are committed to the idea that no aspect of the LGBT community be left behind.”

While gay-rights organizations in the past have been involved in the long-debated effort to fix the nation’s immigration laws, the intensity of their engagement on all levels this year is unprecedented.

Here in Washington state, most major gay-rights groups have a seat at the Washington Immigration Reform Roundtable — a loosely formed coalition of religious, labor and social-justice groups working to influence the outcome of the immigration-policy overhaul under way in Congress.

Rich Stolz, executive director of OneAmerica, one of the state’s largest immigrant-advocacy groups and a lead organization on the Roundtable, said the gay-rights groups bring an important perspective, as well as broad grass-roots support and advocacy to the decades-long conversation around immigration.

“There are so many parallels and crossovers in the LGBT and immigrant movements,” said Kris Hermanns, executive director of the Pride Foundation.

“The way we worked together around marriage equity deepened the understanding and trust in the relationship.”

In Maryland last November, for example, exit polls showed that LGBT voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to allow undocumented immigrants to access in-state tuition and state financial aid, while Latino voters backed a same-sex marriage measure.

Both passed.

“We’re seeing a significant alliance between the two communities that will not just be helpful for immigration reform, but that will hopefully continue beyond that,” said Steve Ralls, spokesman for Immigration Equality, a national group that focuses on LGBT immigration issues.

A lot at stake

But this isn’t just about payback.

In the first major rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws in a generation, the gay-rights movement also has a lot at stake.

An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 same-sex couples would benefit directly from changes in the immigration laws to allow gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born partners for lawful residency — a benefit now enjoyed only by straight couples.

And of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., about 600,000 are LGBT, including an untold number of young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

“We are keenly aware that many LGBT undocumented people come to America out of necessity and are being penalized for simply trying to survive and live with the dignity we here take for granted,” Friedes said.

And gay-rights advocates are bringing more than just momentum — they’ve also put money on the table.

A coalition of three dozen national advocacy groups, including the Pride Foundation and the Gay City Health Project, established a $100,000 fund to help young LGBT undocumented immigrants pay the application fees for a federal program, which grants them relief from deportation and issues them a work permit.

Carlos Padilla, an undocumented immigrant student and sophomore at Seattle Central Community College, has been advocating for immigration changes since he was a sophomore in high school.

But Padilla said it wasn’t until his freshman year in college that he felt he could also disclose that he is gay.

He not only sees the parallels between the two communities, he lives them.

In his presentations before students and others, he said, “I’d talk about being gay and get these blank stares. Now when I talk about it in terms of human rights, being able to have equality, it makes sense to people. People are now connecting the dots and seeing the connections.

“LGBT people and undocumented people are fighting for acknowledgment and acceptance in society.”

Political dogfight

While bipartisan, the effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws is expected to be a political dogfight, with the centerpiece of any legislation likely to include legalization for undocumented immigrants.

Any measure is also expected to include provisions to ease immigration restrictions on highly skilled workers; beef up border security and clear up immigration backlogs to allow family members to be reunited.

Immigration benefits for gay couples have been included in proposals set forth by President Obama, with some Democrats and gay-rights advocates — including those on the Washington Immigration Reform Roundtable — also pushing for them to be included.

But some Republicans have warned that provision could derail or at least hang up legislation that already promises to be divisive.

That same concern has also been raised by some of the more conservative faith-based groups at the Roundtable, which fretted over signing a letter to the Washington congressional delegation that listed benefits for LGBT families among the provisions they want to see in an overhaul bill.

Stolz of OneAmerica said the list of provisions are ones that the group overall could support, though, given the political sensitivity, “We understood that not everyone is prepared to sign onto the letter at this time.”

North Korea warns of pre-emptive nuclear strike on U.S. – UN approves new sanctions against North Korea

The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a move that sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.

North Koreans attend a rally in support of a statement given on Tuesday by a spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army vowing to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War as well as boasting of the North's ownership of "lighter and smaller nukes" and its ability to execute "surgical strikes" meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula, at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday. Photo: Jon Chol Jin/AP — North Koreans attend a rally in support of a statement given on Tuesday by a spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army vowing to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War as well as boasting of the North’s ownership of “lighter and smaller nukes” and its ability to execute “surgical strikes” meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula, at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday. Photo: Jon Chol Jin/AP

By Edith M. Lederer and Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS —The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a move that sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.

The vote Thursday by the U.N.’s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea’s closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests – and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.

The new sanctions are aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to finance and obtain material for its weapons programs.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

North Korea vowed on Thursday to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric as U.N. diplomats voted on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.

An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for “a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.

Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, and especially so in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on Thursday, tens of thousands of North Koreans protested the U.S.-South Korean war drills and sanctions.

Army Gen. Kang Pyo Yong told the crowd that North Korea is ready to fire long-range nuclear-armed missiles at Washington.

“Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their striking targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads and are placed on a standby status,” Kang said. “When we shell (the missiles), Washington, which is the stronghold of evils, …. will be engulfed in a sea of fire.”

The U.N. Security Council was considering a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The resolution was drafted by the United States and China, North Korea’s closest ally. The council’s agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signaled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.

The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

It accused the U.S. of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows to take “powerful second and third countermeasures” against its enemies. It hasn’t elaborated on those measures.

The statement said North Korea “strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the U.S. in 1950.”

North Korea demanded the U.N. Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led U.N. Command that’s based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.

In anticipation of the resolution’s adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on Feb. 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs.

U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said the proposed resolution would impose some of the strongest sanctions ever ordered by the United Nations.

The final version of the draft resolution, released Wednesday, identified three individuals, one corporation and one organization that would be added to the U.N. sanctions list if the measure is approved.

The targets include top officials at a company that is the country’s primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment, and a national organization responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.

The success of a new round of sanctions could depend on enforcement by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.

The United States and other nations worry that North Korea’s third nuclear test pushed it closer to its goal of gaining nuclear missiles that can reach the U.S. The international community has condemned the regime’s nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea’s largely destitute people.

The draft resolution condemns the latest nuclear test “in the strongest terms” for violating and flagrantly disregarding council resolutions, bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests “or any other provocation,” and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It also condemns all of North Korea’s ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.

But the proposed resolution stresses the council’s commitment “to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution” and urged a resumption of six-party talks with the aim of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula “in a peaceful manner.”

The proposed resolution would make it significantly harder for North Korea to move around the funds it needs to carry out its illicit programs and strengthen existing sanctions and the inspection of suspect cargo bound to and from the country. It would also ban countries from exporting specific luxury goods to the North, including yachts, luxury automobiles, racing cars, and jewelry with semi-precious and precious stones and precious metals.

According to the draft, all countries would now be required to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to North Korea’s nuclear or missile programs.

To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The draft resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.

The proposed resolution also bans all countries from providing public financial support for trade deals, such as granting export credits, guarantees or insurance, if the assistance could contribute to the North’s nuclear or missile programs.

It includes what a senior diplomat called unprecedented new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.

The draft also requires states to inspect suspect cargo on their territory and prevent any vessel that refuses an inspection from entering their ports. And a new aviation measure calls on states to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be aboard.

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Lederer reported from the United Nations. Foster Klug in Seoul contributed to this report.

‘By the grace of God’: How workers survive on $7.25 per hour

Meet Crystal Dupont and John White. Both are both struggling to live on minimum wage, one at the start of her career and the other toward the end of his.

By Allison Linn, Staff Writer, NBC News

Working from the bedroom she shares with her mother, Crystal Dupont fields customer service phone calls for a national appliance brand. Dupont, 25, subsists mainly on minimum wage pay. She is living without health insurance because she can’t afford it. Photos: David Friedman, NBC News

Crystal Dupont knows what it’s like to try to live on the federal minimum wage.

Dupont has no health insurance, so she hasn’t seen a doctor in two years. She’s behind on her car payments and has taken out pawn shop and payday loans to cover other monthly expenses. She eats beans and oatmeal when her food budget gets low.

When she got her tax refund recently, she used the money to get ahead on her light bill.

“I try to live within my means, but sometimes you just can’t,” said Dupont, 25. The Houston resident works 30 to 40 hours a week taking customer service calls, earning between $7.25 and $8 an hour. That came to about $15,000 last year.

It’s a wage she’s lived on for a while now, but just barely.

About 3.6 million Americans were earning at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour in 2012, and those weren’t all high school students flipping burgers.

About half of them were 25 or older, a little more than one-third were working full time and a little less than three-fourths had graduated from high school, according to the most recent government data.

A person working full time for minimum wage would take home an annual salary of $15,080. That’s a shade higher than the poverty threshold for a household containing two adults, and about $8,000 less than the poverty line for a family of four.

These are the workers who answer your customer service calls, deliver your pizzas, take care of your children, bag your groceries and serve your food.

President Barack Obama has called on Congress to give them a raise by increasing the minimum wage to $9 an hour by 2015.

Liberal-leaning economists say the move would help millions of workers without better prospects pay their bills. It would also pump more money into the economy through higher consumer spending, they argue.

“Unfortunately, for far too many people, the ladder that they’re on doesn’t have a whole lot of rungs,” said Doug Hall, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at the progressive Economic Policy Institute.

But conservative thinkers argue the move would hurt both the economy and low-wage workers. They say employers would have to cut benefits or jobs so they could afford to pay the higher wages to remaining employees. Some say the minimum wage already keeps people out of a job.

“There (are) the people who are already working and are getting the minimum wage, and there’s the other group of people who are not working because of the minimum wage,” said Mark Perry, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Caught in the middle of this debate are the workers themselves, millions of whom are preoccupied with the daily worries of getting by.

White rests on the back of an old Dodge pickup truck loaded with firewood at the homestead that has belonged to his family for more than 50 years. White heats his home with firewood, which is plentiful on the 100 acres he shares with his brother, and which costs far less than heating oil. He is also part of a program that helps subsidize energy costs for low-income residents.

Workers like John White, 61.

“It’s by the grace of God that I am having ends meet,” said White, who was out of work for 20 months before he got his current, part-time job delivering pizzas.

White has applied for a number of jobs, but he worries that at his age he is often overlooked for younger, more highly trained workers.

He earns a base salary of $7.25 an hour when he is prepping or doing other chores, but that drops to $4.50 an hour when he goes out on a delivery because he is supposed to also earn tips.

The Department of Labor allows tipped employees to be paid a base salary that is below minimum wage, but the employer must be able to show the employee receives minimum wage when tips are included.

In the past few years, White has relied on help from his church when he couldn’t pay his electric or phone bill, or needed car repairs. His fellow parishioners also helped him pick up odd jobs.

He gets $135 a month in food stamps, now known as SNAP, but lost his state-subsidized health insurance after he got his pizza delivery job. A lifelong bachelor, he lives in a family home in Robesonia, Pa., that he and his sibling inherited.

White’s wages have fallen steadily over the past decade. He worked in a warehouse of a regional department store for nearly 14 years and was earning $12.50 an hour before he was let go in 2003 after a dispute with a co-worker.

He was unemployed for about half a year until he got a job as a security guard in 2004. He earned $10.60 an hour in that job, and held it for six years until he was let go in June of 2010.

He’s been in the part-time pizza delivery job for nearly a year, but his financial situation remains precarious.

He’s hoping to pick up more hours. But unlike steadier jobs he’s had in the past, he’s learned that with this kind of job, there’s no guarantee of stable hours.

“You don’t even get eight hours in one day, (and) you might be lucky to get eight hours in one week,” he said.

Hoping for a better future

Dupont didn’t expect her working life to start out this way. She graduated from high school in 2006, a year after her father passed away, got a job and moved out of the family home.

But Dupont soon found that she couldn’t earn enough money to live on her own. She also needed to be home to help her mother, who is disabled and can’t drive because she has seizures.

Without her father’s income, Dupont and her mother couldn’t keep up on house payments, and the home they’d lived in since 1998 went into foreclosure in 2009. They moved into an apartment and now live on Dupont’s salary and her mother’s disability benefits and food stamps.

In January, Dupont started taking classes at Houston Community College, where she is in the business technology and computer science programs.

She took out a $3,500 student loan but is hoping that she can use scholarships and grants, or perhaps find a second job, to avoid taking on more debt.

On her days off, she’ll sometimes spend six hours studying, working ahead two or three weeks in her classes because she enjoys it so much.

“It tells me that there’s more than what I’m doing now out there – there’s more to life than this,” she said.

Action plan to protect scared sites

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer

President Obama along with four cabinet-level departments joined with the Historic Preservation Advisory Council to develop an action plan that will strengthen the protection on Indian scared sites and enable access by tribes. The action plan created March 5, 2013, is required by the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that had been signed in December 2012, by the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and the Historic Preservation Advisory Council.

“Through collaboration and consultation, the signatory agencies are working together to raise awareness about Indian sacred sites and the importance of maintaining their integrity,” said Milford Wayne Donaldson, chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. “The tools to be developed under this action plan will help agencies meet their Section 106 responsibilities while affording greater protections for sacred sites. The Advisory Council is very pleased to be part of this historic initiative to address the protection and preservation of Indian sacred sites.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Since 2009, USDA has stepped up Tribal consultation efforts. We understand the importance of these sites and will continue to make sure Tribes have full access to the resources they need in their communities.”

The MOU will remain in effect for five years and commits the signing parties to work together so that they may coordinate and collaborate ways to improve the protection of tribal sites and ensure tribal access to Indian sacred sites. It is understood that special care and confidentiality of some sites is necessary in some which involve sensitive information. Sacred site locations may be geological features, bodies of water, archaeological sites, burial locations, traditional cultural properties, and stone and earth structures. The sacred sites that have religious and cultural significance may be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places

Energy Secretary Steven Chu stated “Protecting America’s air and water and our nation’s heritage is an important part of the Energy Department’s commitment to Tribal Nations across the country, particularly those that are neighbors to the Department’s National Laboratories, sites and facilities. I look forward to continuing this important work and collaborating with other federal agencies and Tribal Nations to protect Indian sacred sites throughout the United States.”

The Action Plan includes:

A Mission Statement that commits the agencies to work together to improve the protection of and tribal access to Indian sacred sites, in accordance with Executive Order 13007 and the MOU, through enhanced and improved interdepartmental coordination, collaboration and consultation with tribes;
A list of actions the agencies will undertake together;
A commitment to consultation with Indian tribes in developing and implementing the actions outlined in the plan to ensure meaningful strategies for protecting sacred sites;
The establishment of a standing working committee made up of designated senior staff from the participating agencies, as well as other subject matter experts from the participating agencies as needed, to carry out the stipulations of the MOU; and
The commitment of the Agencies to designate senior level officials to serve as members of a Core Working Group, which the Department of the Interior will Chair.

Secretary Salazar also announced that Interior plans to provide a report on the Department’s Tribal Listening Sessions on Sacred Sites. Last year, the Department held several Tribal Listening Sessions across the country to elicit tribal and spiritual leaders concerns regarding sacred sites.

View the action plan here.

Congresswoman Votes Against VAWA Because of LGBT Inclusiveness

Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn said she rejected the VAWA because of its LGBT inclusion.

By Michelle Garcia, Advocate.com

A Republican congresswoman admitted that the only thing preventing her from voting in favor of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because of its’ LGBT-inclusive provisions, among others.

Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn told MSNBC that she voted against the newly approved House version of the VAWA due to added protections for LGBT people subjected to partner violence, as well as Native American people and immigrants. Blackburn was one of the 138 to vote against the bill, with 286 in favor. Eighty-seven Republicans supported the LGBT-inclusive VAWA.

“I didn’t like the way it was expanded to include other different groups,” she said. “What you need is something that is focused specifically to help the shelters and to help out law enforcement who is trying to work with the crimes that have been committed against women and helping them to stand up.”

Ore. report says coal-train dust data too sparse

Industry data is too scant to gauge the health effects of coal dust blowing off of trains headed from the Great Plains to export terminals along the West Coast, according to a review by Multnomah County’s health department.

The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — Industry data is too scant to gauge the health effects of coal dust blowing off of trains headed from the Great Plains to export terminals along the West Coast, according to a review by Multnomah County’s health department.

County Chairman Jeff Cogen, a coal export opponent, requested the report on health effects, The Oregonian newspaper (http://bit.ly/Z6n9yg) reported.

Local governments can’t stop the export projects, he said, but “the burden should be on the coal companies and the train companies to prove that this is not going to damage the health of our residents.”

One in nine Multnomah County residents lives within a third of a mile of potential coal-train routes, the report said.

Three of the five terminals being considered for coal exports could send trains through Portland – one in Coos Bay and two along the Columbia River in Longview, Wash., and at a Port of St. Helens industrial park near Clatskanie.

The analysis looked at the impact if all three projects succeed, bringing up to 90 million tons of coal through the county on 16 to 19 trains each day. But some of the traffic might be on the Washington side of the river, and two of the terminals haven’t applied for permits.

“The bottom line is a lot of the information on coal dust dispersal is proprietary, and it’s not well validated,” said Gary Oxman, who recently retired as county health officer and oversaw the report. “It doesn’t mean there’s a terrible risk from train transport, but it needs to be illuminated more.”

The report says the federal government should do a regional study of export proposals, a call similar to one made by Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber.

The dust contains harmful metals, including cadmium. But little is known about how it’s dispersed or the size of the particles. Smaller particles are more likely to lodge in the lungs.

BNSF Railway has estimated that up to a ton blows off of a single car. But terminal and rail officials say most of the dust is lost near mines in Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

Coal shipments have been going through Washington to export ports in British Columbia for decades with no complaints made to regulators there, say advocates such the Alliance for Northwest Jobs and Exports, a trade group that includes railroads and coal companies.

“Coal dust is one issue where people involved in the alliance feel very, very comfortable that it’s not a concern,” said spokeswoman Lauri Hennessey. “I really feel it’s a red herring.”

The report concludes the trains a mile long would generate relatively small increases in diesel pollution and noise, but they would go through areas already heavily affected by pollution. The trains could create cumulative delays of up to two hours per day at at-grade rail crossings, the report said.

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Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com

3 rail cars derail in Missoula, spilling coal

Crews work to clean up spilled coal and repair tracks on Tuesday where three Montana Rail Link rail cars derailed. The derailment near Railroad Street West and Trade Street in Missoula. Photo: Tom Bauer/Missoulian

Associated Press

MISSOULA, Mont. — Three cars on a Montana Rail Link train derailed in Missoula with one of the coal cars spilling some of its contents.

MRL spokeswoman Lynda Frost tells the Missoulian ( http://bit.ly/XLR53U) the train cars derailed about midnight Monday. Frost says one car was upright, one was tilted and one tipped on its side.

No one was injured. The cause of the derailment is under investigation.

Frost expected the derailment to be cleaned up by Tuesday evening.

A conservation group that opposes plans to increase the number of coal trains from the Powder River Basin says Tuesday’s spill is a reminder of the risks.

The Northern Plains Resource Council says the export terminals proposed in Oregon and Washington could mean up to 40 trains a day moving through Montana.

Information from: Missoulian, http://www.missoulian.com

Washington’s ex-governors get into it for TV

Former governors John Spellman (left) and Chris Gregoire sit down for a taping of "The Governors: A KCTS 9 Special" on Tuesday afternoon. 9. Photo: Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald — Former governors John Spellman (left) and Chris Gregoire sit down for a taping of “The Governors: A KCTS 9 Special” on Tuesday afternoon. 9. Photo: Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald

By Jerry Cornfield, Herald Writer

SEATTLE — Four former Washington governors spent an hour in a television studio Tuesday dishing on the high, low and unforgettable moments each experienced as the state’s chief executive.

And then it got interesting when the two liberal Democrats and two moderate Republicans detoured into politics.

Democrats Chris Gregoire and Mike Lowry and Republicans Dan Evans and John Spellman all praised last week’s Supreme Court ruling toppling a voter-approved requirement for a two-thirds majority to raise taxes.

“Two-thirds doesn’t make any sense,” said Evans, the state’s only three-term governor who served from 1965-77. “You can’t let the minority run the government or the state.”

But Gregoire, who left office in January after two terms, said not to expect a flood of new taxes this year because lawmakers know how popular the supermajority rule is with voters.

“I would be shocked if legislators run wild right now,” she said.

Then Evans added a spirited exclamation: “No legislator likes to do it unless they have to do it. Doggone it; the people have the last say.”

The gubernatorial quartet gathered in the KCTS9 studio in Seattle to tape an hour-long special to air April 16. Enrique Cerna of KCTS and Joni Balter, assistant political editor of The Seattle Times, moderated the conversation.

While each of the four ex-governors served in a different decade, they shared a similar passion for public service when they ran for the office.

Of course, not every one had an equally easy time getting the job.

Spellman first ran in 1976 and lost to Democrat Dixie Lee Ray, the state’s first woman governor.

“We didn’t see her coming on and it was kind of a shock,” he said. “We didn’t know how to lay a glove on her.”

Four years later he ran again. He expected a rematch but she lost in the primary. Spellman went on to defeat Democrat Jim McDermott and is the last Republican to serve as governor.

Gregoire etched her place in state history with a nail-biting defeat of Republican Dino Rossi in 2004 following recounts and a court case.

When asked to describe her experience, she joked: “One word comes to mind, refresh.” She was referring to continually checking online for the updated tallies of votes during the final hand count.

Once in office, each dealt with budget shortfalls. Three — Spellman, Lowry and Gregoire — raised taxes to help fill the gap.

“It had to be done,” Spellman said, adding the money was needed for schools and social services. “It didn’t help me politically.”

Evans, meanwhile, tried twice without success to win voter approval of an income tax as part of a larger reform package.

“We got our heads handed to us” the first time, he said. “We tried it one more time and it was almost three-to-one. People will live with the taxes they know. When something new comes up, they get skeptical.”

Lowry, who served from 1993-97, sounded much like a candidate again when he called today’s opposition to taxes “self-defeating. I think we’ve kind of lost sight of the importance of a well-run government. We need to get more revenue into this state.”

The potential of initiatives to handcuff lawmakers and governors in budget-writing and policy-making united the foursome.

“I think initiatives are leading us to anarchy,” Spellman said, adding he’d like to see some areas of government immune to change through initiatives.

As for achievements, Lowry cited his expansion of the Basic Health Program providing subsidized health insurance to the poor while Spellman said it was establishing a relationship with China which is now the state’s leading trade partner. Evans said he’s most proud of creating the community college system and the Department of Ecology.

One of the more emotional moments came when they discussed their toughest decisions.

For Gregoire, it was endorsing marriage for same-sex couples. She said she struggled with it mightily and “the weight of the world was lifted” when she went public.

Her most difficult day was the one when four Lakewood police officers were gunned down.

Lowry said he regrets not commuting the death sentence for convicted Snohomish County triple murderer Charles Campbell in 1994. Lowry opposed the death penalty but said he could not override the actions of the courts which had rejected Campbell’s repeated appeals.

One of the last questions they faced is how they prepared for life after being governor.

For Gregoire, it meant re-learning how to drive after eight years of getting chauffeured everywhere. She said she’s gaining her confidence, though not so much with parallel parking.

“It’s an adjustment,” she said. “Parking the car is an adjustment.”

Evans, who also served as a state lawmaker and U.S. senator, welcomed not being in the spotlight.

One of the frustrations of being governor, he said, is everyone recognizes you and you can’t get away with your family.

“It ultimately fades away and anonymity returns,” he said.

Energy nominee favors all-of the-above approach

President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Energy Department advocates an all-of-the-above approach to energy and favors natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to help the country develop clean energy.

By Matthew Daly, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Energy Department advocates an all-of-the-above approach to energy and favors natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to help the country develop clean energy.

Ernest Moniz, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leads the MIT Energy Initiative, a research group that gets funding from BP, Chevron and other oil industry heavyweights for academic work aimed at reducing greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. A former energy undersecretary, Moniz has advised Obama on numerous energy topics, including how to handle the country’s nuclear waste and the natural gas produced by the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing.

“Ernie knows that we can produce more energy and grow our economy while still taking care of our air, our water and our climate,” Obama said Monday as he introduced Moniz and two other candidates for top-level positions.

Gina McCarthy, an assistant EPA administrator, was chosen to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. A 25-year veteran of environmental policy and politics, McCarthy has worked for Republicans and Democrats, including Obama’s presidential rival, Mitt Romney, who tapped her to help draft state plans for curbing the pollution linked to global warming when he was governor of Massachusetts.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell was nominated to direct the White House Office of Management and Budget. Burwell held several posts during the Clinton administration, including deputy director of the OMB. She currently heads the Wal-Mart Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the retail giant, and previously served as president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program.

Moniz, 68, whose specialty is nuclear physics, has drawn fire from some environmental groups for his views on natural gas, especially that produced from shale, a gas-rich rock formation thousands of feet underground. The gas is freed through a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which large volumes of water, plus sand and chemicals, are injected to break the rock apart. Advances in technology have unlocked billions of dollars of gas reserves, leading to a boom in production, jobs and profits, as well as concerns about pollution and public health.

At a forum last year at the University of Texas, Moniz said natural gas, which emits fewer greenhouse gases than oil or coal, is likely to be part of the nation’s energy solution for years to come.

As a nation, the U.S. “should take advantage of the time to innovate and bring down the cost of renewables” such as wind and solar, Moniz said. “The worst thing would be to get time and not use it.”

Those and other comments have made some environmental groups wary of Moniz, who also has supported development of nuclear power, along with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“Ernest Moniz has a history of supporting dirty and dangerous energy sources like gas and nuclear power with polluting partners including BP, Shell, Chevron and Saudi Aramco,” said Courtney Abrams of the group Environment America. “Given this concerning track record, we hope Dr. Moniz will focus on clean, renewable ways to get our energy that don’t put our families and our environment in harm’s way.”

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said Moniz “has recognized that there are environmental issues – real issues, serious issues – with natural gas.”

When Moniz says issues with natural gas are manageable, “he quickly adds that just because they are manageable doesn’t mean they are managed,” Krupp said. “To me that’s actually a very full understanding that he brings to this role.”

As energy secretary, Moniz would not have direct oversight over fracking, which is primarily left to state and local governments. Even so, the Energy Department has a huge research budget, and current Energy Secretary Steven Chu has been criticized for focusing too much on renewables and not enough on natural gas, which has emerged in recent years as an energy powerhouse that has threatened the dominance of coal, the leading source of electricity in the U.S.

Like Chu, Moniz is an academic with a doctorate in physics. Unlike Chu, who led an Energy Department lab before becoming energy secretary, Moniz has extensive political experience, having served in the Clinton administration as undersecretary of energy and as a White House science adviser.

“The really good thing about Ernie is he’s been there, so he can hit the ground running,” said Carol Browner, a former Obama energy adviser who worked with Moniz when she headed the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton.

John Deutch, an MIT colleague and former CIA director, called Moniz a “brilliant choice” to lead the Energy Department.

“I think that President Obama has chosen the most qualified individual in the United States for the position of secretary of energy,” said Deutch, who led a review of shale-gas drilling for the Energy Department in Obama’s first term.

Deutch, who has known Moniz for 30 years, said his longtime colleague has the potential to be “one of the greatest energy secretaries the country has ever had.”

Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative advocacy group, set his sights a little lower.

If confirmed, Moniz will “inherit an agency with a tarnished record for picking losers and not winners in the energy market,” Pyle said. “It is our hope that Dr. Moniz will avoid opportunities to repeat the well-documented mistakes of his predecessor and refuse the temptation to let political pressure trump sound science and economics.”

Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.

Why Native American Art Doesn’t Belong in the American Museum of Natural History

The Hall of Plains Indians exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Source: amnh.org

Katherine Abu Hadal, Indian Country Today Media Network

Natural history museums—they are all over the US and abroad too. They house amazing dinosaur fossils, exotic hissing cockroaches, and wondrous planetariums—right next to priceless human-designed art and artifacts created by Native peoples of the Americas.

Like me, you might wonder why these designed objects are juxtaposed with objects of nature such as redwood trees and precious metal exhibits. Yes, of course art is part of the natural world that we live in—but then, why are there no Picasso paintings or Degas sculptures on display in the American Museum of Natural History?

How is a Haida mask different from an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus in its precision and intent? They both belong to the category that we call art and they deserve to be exhibited in a similar manner.

When Native American, Pacific, and African art and artifact is lumped in with natural history exhibits, it sends a message that these groups are a part of the “natural” world. That the art they produce is somehow less cultured and developed than the western art canon. It also sends the message that they are historical, an element of the romantic past, when in reality these peoples are alive and well, with many traditions intact and new traditions happening all the time.

Another thing we don’t need in order to look at and understand Native American art are dioramas of Native Americans in the actual exhibit. Dioramas only serve to confuse the public and enforce already present stereotypes. It’s offensive and demeaning and it detracts from the art. There are no dioramas of Greek or Roman life in fine art museums. Dioramas can muddy the experience by placing a contemporary interpretation of a life that we do not have firsthand knowledge of. Furthermore, they are simply tacky, taking an art display into the realm of Madame Tussaud’s .

How exactly the museum acquired its collections is another important question and one not answered by my research. The museum website does note the following about its anthropology collections:

“The founding of the Museum’s anthropology program in 1873 is linked by many with the origins of research anthropology in the United States. With the enthusiastic financial support of Museum President Morris K. Jesup, Boas undertook to document and preserve the record of human cultural variation before it disappeared under the advance of Europe’s Industrial Revolution. Their expeditions resulted in the formation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries of the core of the Museum’s broad and outstanding collection of artifacts.” (American Museum of Natural History, retrieved 2.15.2013)

Let’s consider other ways Native American art could be exhibited to the benefit of the public and Native peoples themselves. First, ancient art and artifact could be displayed next to contemporary Native art in order to show that Native cultures are not just a thing of the past, but are in fact living and dynamic. Or curators could more deeply consider the way these objects were used in context—that is, elaborate on the significance of the pieces to their makers; certainly they were not designed for the purpose of one day sitting in a natural history museum. As another option, the pieces could be placed under the control of contemporary Native groups who would decide how they should be exhibited. That has been met with controversy in some cases.

I know that it will not be easy or convenient to redesign the exhibition of Native art, but the current state of display at the American Museum of Natural History is embarrassing and ineffective in communicating the complexity of non-western art. The American Museum of Natural History and its collections are a product of an era much different than the present day. It’s time that the collections reflected the wishes of their creators and also current aesthetic and ethnic discourse.

Katherine Abu Hadal is a designer and researcher who loves learning and teaching about other cultures. One of her interests is Native American/Indigenous art. You can read more of her thoughts on Native art at nativeamericanartschool.com, where this piece was first published as “Why Native American Art doesn’t belong in the American Museum of Natural History (and neither does African or Asian art).”