Over the last couple of weeks, we've been seeing more pieces of evidence that Kentucky's economic policies aren't working for our families and communities.  Here are a couple of examples:

• From the Courier-Journal, an article about the costs of utilities outpacing paychecks.  Gas has gone up 54%, electric 34%, and water 128% since 2000. Wages, of course, have been pretty much stagnant, and while lawmakers could have passed mechanisms to help make energy cleaner and more affordable, and could have passed a state Earned Income Tax Credit to help low-income working families who've been hit by the reession, they chose to do neither.
  
• From the Courier-Journal, an article that reports that more of Kentucky's kids are living in poverty this year than last.  Relatedly, KFTC members have been gathering reports and stories from our allies in the family services world, and as one service provider told us, "It's clear that we're not taking care of our kids."  Stay tuned for members' stories about the impact of chronic budget cuts on Kentucky's kids.

But we've also been seeing some good words in those papers, too, with solutions outlining a way out of this mess.  Here's an excerpt from a letter from Erik Lewis from Rowan County, published in the Herald-Leader:

'Leaders' don't lead on progressive reform of tax code

Grateful to have a state budget, Kentuckians may be too forgiving of its lousy contents and the lack of political leadership that produced it.

...

Powerful forces have long worked to turn citizens against the idea of "progressive taxation," that people should pay taxes according to their capacity to pay. Higher taxes on rich people are supposedly unfair and counter-productive. Yet there's no harm in cutting school budgets or imposing furloughs for state employees? Who among us, if and when we earn high income, wouldn't be willing and able to pay a couple of extra cents per dollar in taxes on such earnings? Perhaps if people lead, leaders will follow.

Erik L. Lewis, Morehead

Erik's last thoughts are good ones to close this post, aren't they.

 

The Hispanic Latino Coalition in Louisville held a People Not Profiles demonstration yesterday to challenge Arizona's anti-immigrant laws.  

Over 100 protesters (including KFTC members) gathered outside the building housing Louisville's immigration offices to protest Arizona's controversial SB1070. After hearing speakers from several local organizations, the march progressed to Fourth Street Live, where a "Show Us Your Papers" demonstration was held. 

People taking part in the action approached random people in the streets and asked them to "show me your papers, please" in order to engage them in conversation about the Arizona law.

Pictures are from the Louisville Fairness Campaign.

Back in late June, AmericaSpeaks held town forums about the budget across the U.S.  One of them was in Louisville. People from across the state were invited and encouraged to come.

The reports from these meetings were released this week, and it turns out Kentuckians have some pretty clear ideas about what kind of nation we need, and how we can get there.

Some of the highlights from the Kentucky participants:

• Most Kentucky participants – 67% – support government action to strengthen the economy.
• Most Kentucky participants – 54% – support the recent legislation to extend unemployment benefits and offer aid to states who've been bludgeoned by the recession.
• Most Kentucky participants – 58% – support raising taxes on people who earn more than $1 million a year.
• Nearly half of Kentucky participants support raising the top corporate income tax rate by 5%.
• A whopping 61% of Kentucky participants support a carbon tax.  How about that one?
  

These numbers are telling us that Kentuckians are interested in solutions that prioritize fairness and making our communities healthy and whole. Yes, we want our leaders to be fiscally responsible.  But we also want them to do the work of finding the money that we need, and finding it in a way that's equitable and fair, to invest in creating the communities that we want to live in.

If you'd like to learn more about the AmericaSpeaks town hall discussions, or about the results from Kentucky or across the nation, go to: http://usabudgetdiscussion.org/

The Alliance for Appalachia will be hosting a weekend-long training for community leaders in the southern coalfields, August 13-15, near Charleston, WV.

The training will focus on skills and information related to community organizing as well as issues such as developing economic alternatives. By providing a number of longer and shorter workshop options, our goal is to appeal to people who have been organizing in their communities for a long time, as well as those who are just getting their feet wet. Workshops include: Organizing 101, Conflict Resolution, Talking to Your Neighbors about Tough Issues, Economic Transition, Understanding SMCRA and more! Plus plenty of time for fellowship, music, movies and fun. You can see the draft schedule at here.

Registration deadline has been extended to July 31! Register here.

Action Alert from our friends at REACT (Rubbertown Emergency ACTion) in Louisville.

Contact Congressman John Yarmuth & Congressman Ed Whitfield and ask them to send a representative to the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010 hearing this Thursday, July 29th at 10 AM in the Rayburn Room 2123.

Congressman John Yarmuth: 1-202-225-5401

Congressman Ed Whitfield: 1-800-328-5629

HB 8520 is a bill we MUST support. This bill brings us closer to making sure our exposure to toxic chemicals from smoke stacks and consumer products (i.e., toys, baby bottles, etc.) is reduced. The bill not only deals with testing chemicals prior to them being released into the market place but also includes environmental justice provisions that would help those communities, like those near Rubbertown.

Additionally, Ed Whitfield is on a key committee and needs to hear from us.

Please take a few minutes to call and feel free to use the verbiage above to let the congressmen know this is important to you. Then let us know how things went.

Thank You!

Eboni Neal Cochran, REACT (Rubbertown Emergency ACTion)

"Coal execs hope to spend big under new rules to defeat Conway and Chandler"

By John Cheves

Excerpted from the Lexington Herald-Leader

Several major coal companies hope to use newly loosened campaign-finance laws to pool their money and defeat Democratic congressional candidates they consider “anti-coal,” including U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway and U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler in Kentucky.

The companies hope to create a politically active nonprofit under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, so they won’t have to publicly disclose their activities — such as advertising — until they file a tax return next year, long after the Nov. 2 election.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last winter that corporations and labor unions may pour unlimited funds into such efforts to influence elections.

“With the recent Supreme Court ruling, we are in a position to be able to take corporate positions that were not previously available in allowing our voices to be heard,” wrote Roger Nicholson, senior vice president and general counsel at International Coal Group of Scott Depot, W.Va., in an undated letter he sent to other coal companies.

Nicholson declined to comment on his letter Tuesday, after the Herald-Leader obtained it.

For the full story, click here to visit the Lexington Herald-Leader's Bluegrass Politics blog.

A reclaimed stream in Floyd County

At Monday's OSM Open House, OSM provided some useful worksheets to help people understand what the OSM plans to study in the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for the proposed stream protection rule.

KFTC has uploaded these worksheets to our website as well as a comment form provided by the OSM. You can review the EIS worksheets to get a better sense about what the OSM is proposing.  After reading through them you can then fill out the provided comment form, save it, and then email it as an attachment to sra-eis@osmre.gov with the subject line OSM-EIS-35.

Each worksheet describes an aspect of the EIS and lists the different options the OSM will be studying. What the OSM wants to know is:

1. Are there options OSM should consider that are not listed?
2. Is there a reason the OSM should not consider one of the listed options?

Also, you can download some suggested comments from KFTC and ally organizations here.

Comments need to be emailed to the OSM office by the end of business on Friday, July 30th.

Residents in Pike County are working to pick up the pieces from last week's flooding.  Although there was certainly a lot of rain, some areas of the county were much worse than others.  People are starting to ask the question, "why?"

Near Raccoon Creek, people are talking about the impact of the construction of Hwy 119.  In Harless Creek, people are talking about the impact of strip mining.

"I think everybody up this holler would say that there wasn't enough rain to cause all of this," Bo Sayler, Harless Creek resident shared.  He described the flooding as coming in 2 waves shortly after the rain started and has concerns about the sediment ponds at the head of hollow. 

"The creek has been getting higher and higher since they started stripping," Freddie Coleman shared who grew up in the community and is helping several family members rebuild. 

Apex Coal is actively mining on the left-hand side, and there is an abandoned strip mine on the right-hand side. 

Both are retired coal miners and acknowledged how a lot of the companies do. 

"I think the mining contributed to it. It's not fair that people be put in this situation," Freddie added.  Folks are working to figure out what can be done as they continue to rebuild.

Check out photos

We had a great planning meeting last night for in Scott County for their upcoming Singing For Democracy Gospel Fest, an event to rally the community together to restore voting rights to former felons.

Final acts and publicity plans are coming together and we have a strong set of outreach events over the next week leading up to Saturday (calendar below).  You can also download a copy of the Flyer or Handbill of the event by clicking the link - and then pass them out to friends or members of your church on Sunday. 

One big piece of news is that we've decided to premier our voting rights digital stories video at the Gospel Fest - a piece recently shot by Seed Lynn as part of a project with the Highlander Center.

Although the event is primarily for Scott County, some members from  Northern Kentucky, Lexington, Grant County, Owen County, Frankfort, and other nearby places are planning to come as well, so feel free to join us from out of town.  

Singing For Democracy Publicity Events:

- Sunday, July 25th – Whistle-stop tour of Georgetown Churches to invite them out to the Gospel Fest (contact Tayna Fogle at 859-699-8073 for more information)

- Tuesday, July 27th – Meet at the Ed Davis Learning Center at 5pm to canvass the Boston and neighborhood and leave door-hangers for Singing For Democracy.  Then, pass out handbills at the basketball game at the Ed Davis Learning Center at 6:30pm.
- Thursday, July 29th – Meet at the Ed Davis Learning Center at 5pm to canvass the Boston and neighborhood and leave door-hangers for Singing For Democracy.  Then, pass out handbills at the basketball game at the Ed Davis Learning Center at 6:30pm.

for more information about this event, contact Tayna Fogle at 859-699-8073 or Dave Newton at 859-420-8919 or Dave@kftc.org

A reclaimed stream in Letcher County

What

The federal Office of Surface Mining Control Reclamation & Enforcement (OSM) has proposed some new rules intended to protect vital headwater streams across the country from the impacts of the mining industry. Before OSM can implement these proposed rules, it has to do an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) of the likely environmental impacts of the proposed rules.  This study is supposed to look not only at the impacts of the proposed new rules but also at various other options, such as implementing the original 100-foot Steam Buffer Zone rule and the option of not changing the status quo.  

By proposing these new rules OSM is implementing another step from the Memorandum of Understanding drafted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in June 2009 that outlined how the Obama administration will address mining’s impacts on water quality.

OSM is holding an “Open House” for the public to learn about the proposed process for their Environmental Impact Study. We understand there will be a large room where people will be able to go up to different tables and learn about different aspects of the EIS. Then we have been told there will be a private room where people will be allowed to give 2-3 minute comments on the process of the proposed EIS; for example, someone might give a comment asking that OSMRE study the impacts of removing the trees and shrubs along the sides of the streams.

When

Where

At the Hazard Community College, just south of Hazard on Route 15.

KFTC encourages anyone who wants to go to this hearing to learn more or give comments on the proposed EIS to please go to the hearing. We will have some staff and members there for the entire day to help KFTC members and allies navigate this process. However, given the structure of the “Open House” we are not just trying to get people in the room.

For those unable to attend the Open House, you may also submit comments on the EIS by any of the following methods, although OSM requests that you use electronic mail if possible. Comments must be received by OSM by July 30, 2010.

• Electronic mail: Send your comments to sra-eis@osmre.gov
• Mail, hand-delivery, or courier: Send your comments to:
  

Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
Administrative Record, Room 252-SIB
1951 Constitution Ave. NW.
Washington, DC 20240.

For more information:

• OSM’s public notice in the Federal Registry
• KFTC talking points document
• Call Kevin Pentz at 606-335-0764 or email kevin@kftc.org