renewable resources

‘Big Oil’s Slippery Six’ Testify To Congress About High Gas Prices And Lie

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Update to Senate To Call ‘Big Oil’s Slippery Six’ Back To Testify About Their Price Gouging On Gas Prices. The Washington Post reports, House panel grills oil company executives on high gasoline prices: The top executives of “the slippery six” of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies testified before Congress on Wednesday, at a time … Read more

Democratic Candidates for LD10 House Shine in Drive to Oust Clodfelter

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LD10 Democratic candidates.jpg
Left to right, candidates Kirsten Engel, Domingo DeGrazia, Nikki Lee and Catherine Ripley

Democrats have four impressive candidates for the Arizona House in Legislative District 10 in eastern Tucson, united in their effort to oust Republican incumbent, Todd “Confederate” Clodfelter.

  • UofA Law Professor Kirsten H. Engel is running for a second term in the AZ House, after serving on the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee, and Judiciary and Public Safety committee.
  • Newcomer Domingo DeGrazia, son of famous Tucson artist Ted DeGrazia, is a licensed pilot and a trial attorney in juvenile court. “I have a constant drive to better myself, creativity and tenacity to see a fight through to the end,” he says.
  • Catherine Ripley is a retired 26-year Navy officer and current political science teacher at Pima College (and earlier at Harvard, Boston University, and M.I.T.). In her first run for office, she says, “I’m a former diplomat, Mom, and business executive. I’ve seen famine and war. I’m here to bring my skills and experiences, and have the tools to hand Todd Clodfelter a defeat he’ll never forget.”
  • Running as a Clean Elections Candidate, newcomer Nikki Lee has a young campaign team of Millennials, including herself at age 36. “We have so much excitement on our campaign, doing innovating things, understanding the life of young people.”  She has  launched the “A to Z podcast” for young people.

LD10 has two AZ House members and one Senator, David Bradley, who was on hand and running without opposition. Clodfelter is notorious for his Confederate Flag screen saver, which he claimed wasn’t racist. His signature legislation throws a meager $150 tax credit at teachers to cover school supplies rather than help them in any meaningful way.

If you could pass one bill…

Asked if they could pass only one bill in the Republican-majority House, the candidates said it would be to:

Engel: End the hundreds of corporate sales tax loopholes and use the money to fund public schools.

DeGrazia: Stop gun violence.

Lee: Help veterans recover from PTSD and brain injuries.

Ripley: Enact common-sense gun policy, including a ban on bump stocks.

If you could reverse one law…

Asked what law or bill they would want to stop, the candidates said:

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Billy Kovacs Outlines 5-Point Plan to Grow Arizona’s Economy

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Democratic Congressional Candidate Billy Kovacs
Democratic Congressional Candidate Billy Kovacs

Democratic candidate Billy Kovacs outlined a detailed plan for how he would grow Arizona’s economy as Tucson’s Congressman.

“We can grow our economy without giving massive tax breaks for corporations,” he said at a recent meeting of the Democrats of Greater Tucson.

Among the five serious candidates, Kovacs is the only one emphasizing the economy in Congressional District 2. As Bill Clinton pointed out in 1992, winning elections is about “the economy, stupid!”

In a nutshell, his plan focuses on:

  • Education – creating an educated workforce.
  • Renewable resources – solar energy and energy storage.
  • Public transportation – expanding the Tucson streetcar in all directions and preserving Amtrak in Arizona.
  • Infrastructure – creating millions of jobs with a $1 trillion investment over 10 years.
  • Immigration – creating a path to citizenship for 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants.

“We need to attract companies and workers to Arizona, and I’m talking about smaller companies that want to live in Arizona because of our natural resources and trained personnel from the university — and not for tax breaks,” he said.

Education

According to Kovacs, the US Department of Education is gutting public education with budget cuts to after-school programs, teacher training, Pell Grants, literacy programs and even school lunches. He calls for:

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