Bluegrass Institute

Bluegrass Institute “tackled” the EPA earlier this week

May 23, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, “tackled” Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, on the issue of the Intrastate Coal and Use Act.

The event was hosted by TACKLE with TAC4, a group which encourages participants to tackle the issues, not each other – and in true fashion, both participants tackled the issues of Kentucky’s energy sector and federal overreach from the EPA.

Waters argued in favor of the Intrastate Coal and Use Act – a piece of model legislation sponsored by the Bluegrass Institute which would ensure that any coal mined, sold, and used exclusively within the borders of the commonwealth would be regulated exclusively by the commonwealth, not the EPA – on three fronts.

First, Waters argued that the EPA has proven ineffective and inefficient in weighing the costs and benefits of Kentucky’s energy sector, as shown by one of the EPA’s newest mandates, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule. According to the EPA’s own estimates, the rule would provide Kentucky with direct environmental and health benefits of $6.2 million. The only catch is that the rule comes with a price tag of $10 billion annually. That’s not even to mention the dozens of mining permits languishing in limbo because of EPA inaction.

Second, Waters argued that the commonwealth has proven it can responsibly regulate its own energy sector and environment, putting the proper weight on the costs and benefits of energy-intensive industry. In fact, since 1990, Kentucky has reduced its SO2 and NOx emissions by 75 percent. What’s more, since 2008, SO2 emissions are down by 28 percent and NOx emissions are down by nearly 50 percent, demonstrating that the air Kentuckians breathe is actually getting cleaner at an accelerating rate. Gov. Beshear’s 7 point energy plan released in 2008 is largely responsible, not our federal masters at the EPA.

Finally, Waters argued the Intrastate Coal and Use Act is the proper constitutional response to the EPA’s dramatic overreach. An agency which has shown no respect for Kentucky’s rights under the 9th and 10th Amendments, and which has also compared targeting Kentucky’s energy sector to the ancient Romans sacking dissenting tribes, must be reigned in with tools forged with constitutional muster.

And this coal act is just such the tool.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Energy

Once Beshear starts down the road of Medicaid expansion, there’s no turning back

May 21, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

One excuse apologists offer for Gov. Beshear’s further adoption of Obamacare through Medicaid expansion is that states can abandon the bloated program in three years once the feds put the financial burden back on state governments.

Let’s get real, shall we?

Does anybody in their right minds even entertain the notion that professional politicians are going to pull the rug out from under more than 300,000 lower-income individuals who will soon be added to the Medicaid doles? If voicing the simple, commonsense notion to make even modest reforms to entitlement programs is considered political suicide, then removing entitlements from over 300,000 Kentuckians must be the political equivalent of detonating a nuclear bomb.

What’s worse, the type of bold leadership in line with free market principles that would be necessary to shrink Medicaid to reasonable levels is simply not present in Frankfort. No professional politician is going to remove 300,000 people from an entitlement program unless he or she is preparing for a permanent retirement for politics.

Even if we want to venture through fantasy land and pretend that Gov. Beshear or his successor would have the intestinal fortitude to make such a bold move, it’s unclear that it would even legally be permitted to do so. According to legal experts, Robert Alt and Dan Greenberg:

“[I]n fact, there is substantial reason to believe that when a state chooses Medicaid expansion, it is something like a decision to go down a one-way street” and that “legislators are mistaken to ignore the possibility that expansion cannot be abandoned as easily as it was entered.”

Indeed, Beshear has us going down a one-way street the wrong way.

Debate set for tomorrow on the Intrastate Coal and Use Act!

May 20, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri 1 Comment

Tomorrow, May 21, Jim Waters, the President of the Bluegrass Institute, will take on Tom Fitzgerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, in a debate on the Intrastate Coal and Use Act!

WHAT: Debate on the Intrastate State Coal and Use Act, hosted by TACKLE

WHO: Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, and Tom Fitzgerald, Director of Kentucky Resources Council

WHEN: Tuesday, May 21 from 6 to 8:45 PM

WHERE: Heeren Hall, 2nd floor of Cooke Hall, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40206

The Intrastate Coal and Use Act is a piece of model legislation sponsored by the Bluegrass Institute and unanimously approved by the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Task Force on Energy and the Environment. If passed, the bill would protect Kentucky’s constitutional rights to regulate all internal commerce, specifically any coal mining operations in which the coal is mined, sold, and used exclusively within the borders of the commonwealth.

Such a law would push the EPA monkey off our backs for the one-third of Kentucky coal that stays within the borders of the commonwealth, allow for a more sensible and locally-driven environmental program, restore thousands of mining jobs, and protect our majestic wildlife and waterways.

So come on out tomorrow to this important discourse and voice your support for Kentucky’s constitutional rights!

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: Energy

Medicaid expansion is not free, not even over the next three years

May 17, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

In the wake of Gov. Beshear’s medicaid expansion, multiple myths have been put forth by Obamaphiles – including Beshear himself – touting the benefits of such expansion.

One myth which the states are particularly fond of is the idea that somehow, since it’s paid for by the feds, expanding Medicaid to over 300,000 extra Kentuckians is completely free to denizens of the commonwealth. It’s as if the resources to provide healthcare to families at up to 138% of the federal poverty level (granted, low-quality healthcare) miraculously came down from the heavens and came to rest right here in the commonwealth, just waiting for a sickly child or two to consume them.

Of course, as inquiring Kentucky minds know, the feds can’t provide anything whatsoever to Kentuckians that hasn’t been taken from someone else, and the resources taken to fund expanded Medicaid will in large part be taken from Kentuckians right here at home.

The fact that the resources are funneled through the federal government does nothing to change this fact.

In fact, according to a recent Heritage report, Medicaid expansion will add $638 billion dollars to government spending over the next 10 years, and that’s spending from a government already $16 trillion in the hole and counting.

What’s worse, by 2017, Medicaid expansion won’t even be free to Kentuckians in federal fantasy land, because the state governments are legally required to pick up a chunk of the bill.

And all this assumes the feds actually keep their promises to fund the state’s endeavors with your federal tax dollars. Who knows when the changing tide of politics will turn this whole funding charade on its back, leaving the states completely responsible for the even more bloated Medicaid catastrophe, and the hundreds of thousand of citizens made to depend on it.

Filed Under: Health care Tagged With: healthcare

Mercatus and Bluegrass Scholars report: Kentucky is not economically competitive, Part 4 of 4

May 16, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

Citizen Education Seminar Panel from Bluegrass Institute on Vimeo.

Recently the Bluegrass Institute partnered with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University to host its Citizen Education Seminar at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Lexington. The event included both Bluegrass Institute and Mercatus scholars discussing the most pertinent barriers standing in the way of Kentucky’s economic competitiveness.

Today, we present the final segment of our weekly series delivering exclusive video footage from the event. Featured is a panel discussion and Q&A session with all three of the event’s keynote speakers, including the Mercatus Center’s distinguished visiting scholar Maurice P. McTigue and senior research fellow Matthew Mitchell, Ph.D., along with John Garen, Ph.D., the Gatton Professor of Economics at the University of Kentucky and chairman of the Bluegrass Institute Board of Scholars.

The conversation was wide and varied, but whether the questions concerned the importance of new media in the liberty movement or revisiting the dependency trap, the audience in attendance had all of their queries answered by these three learned economists.

Other topics included the prospects of growing our economy from “the bottom, up,” the success of the Brazilian economy, Maurice McTigue’s fantasy agenda for his first day as governor of the commonwealth, and even the possibility of turning arid wastelands into fertile oases by planting trees in the desert.

Learn all about it inside this video.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: economic competitiveness

Bluegrass Energy Report key evidence for this Tuesday’s upcoming debate.

May 16, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell aren’t the only ones providing Kentuckians with the type of tools necessary to protect our energy sector from the EPA’s unilateral mandates – so is the Bluegrass Institute.

This coming Tuesday in Louisville, Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute will argue for the Intrastate Coal and Use Act, a bill which would guarantee to Kentuckians sovereignty over the one-third of all Kentucky coal that is mined, sold, and used exclusively within the borders of the commonwealth. Such commonsense and constitutional defenses are what we need in the commonwealth if we are to succeed in fending off the federal behemoth that is the EPA.

And we need these weapons now more than ever.

Last year alone, Kentuckians lost more than 4,000 coal mining jobs or 22 percent of mining employment. Eastern Kentucky and Appalachian miners were explicitly targeted by the EPA, and experienced a 30 percent decline in employment. Overall, mining production in the commonwealth was down by 91.4 million pounds.

No doubt, Jim Waters will reference a new report from the Bluegrass Institute that shows how – in no small part due to EPA regulation – energy prices are set to increase by 20 percent over the next ten years. These increases in energy costs will not only be a direct burden on Kentucky families, they’ll also chase business from the commonwealth, which relies so heavily on low energy and operating costs to lure industry to set up shop.

So come on out to 2825 Lexington Road in Louisville, KY at 6 PM to voice your support for the Intrastate Coal and Use Act.

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: Energy

Second piece of legislation introduced in as many weeks to protect Kentucky from EPA overreach

May 14, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

Last week, Sen. Rand Paul joined Mitch McConnell in coming to the aid of Kentuckians in our lopsided battle for a sensible environmental policy by introducing the Defense of Environment and Property Act.

This piece of legislation would provide a commonsense and definitive delineation for what makes a “navigable waterway,” a term which the EPA currently has unilateral power to define and enact mandates. For too long, the EPA has played fast and loose with what waterways it considers under its jurisdiction, even ruling that ephemeral streams temporarily formed by recent rainstorms are under its jurisdiction.

As a result of the EPA’s nonsensical notions for what makes a waterway “navigable,” the bloated federal bureaucracy has succeeded in blocking close to 40 mining permits and brought a halt to millions of dollars of economic activity in the commonwealth. Even private landowners whose property is wetted by snow-melt are not safe. If they want to build on their property, the EPA’s cronies are liable to come after them.

Kentuckians have had enough, and so has Sen. Rand Paul:

“Environmental protection must be balanced with the constitutional right to private property. I have spoken with several Americans who have fallen victim to the EPA and Army Corps’ aggressive breach of power. This act will restore common sense to the federal jurisdiction over navigable waters, place necessary limitations on out-of-control government agencies and protect our right to private property.”

This is the second piece of legislation sponsored by Kentucky senators in recent weeks designed to put some limits on EPA overreach The first was Mitch McConnell’s Coal Jobs Protection Act.

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: Energy

Debate set for May 21 with state sovereignty over Kentucky’s energy sector on the line

May 13, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

On Tuesday, May 21, Jim Waters, the President of the Bluegrass Institute, will take on Tom Fitzgerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, in a debate over which entity is best equipped to oversee the costs and benefits of the commonwealth’s energy sector: mid-Atlantic bureaucrats at the EPA, or informed and concerned Kentucky citizens.

WHAT: Debate on the Intrastate State Coal and Use Act, hosted by TACKLE

WHO: Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, and Tom Fitzgerald, Director of Kentucky Resources Council

WHEN: Tuesday, May 21 from 6 to 8:45 PM

WHERE: Heeren Hall, 2nd floor of Cooke Hall, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40206

So come on out to this important discourse on May 21 and voice your support for Kentucky’s constitutional rights!

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: Energy

Medicaid is officially expanding in the commonwealth

May 9, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri 1 Comment

Well apparently Kentucky is officially the 21st state in the nation to be treated to the wonders of Medicaid expansion – thanks to Gov. Steve Beshear, Obama’s No. 1 lap dog.

Is anyone surprised? Beshear has been hinting that he’ll accept the federal dollars for Medicaid expansion – and the chains that come with them – for nearly a year now.

One has to wonder if Beshear even considered a recent study from the New England Journal of Medicine which showed Medicaid expansion in Oregon resulted in ZERO significant health benefits compared to those uninsured. Whether we’re talking blood pressure, levels of blood sugar, or cholesterol levels, those who were randomly selected to join Medicaid showed no difference in levels of health compared to those who were not selected.

But why would Beshear be concerned with such trifling statistics when he already made up his mind to jump on the Obamacare bandwagon a year ago?

As Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, put it in his recent interview with WHAS in Louisville, “Medicaid expansion will only make a broken program bigger, not better.”

Filed Under: Health care Tagged With: healthcare

Mercatus and Bluegrass Scholars report: Kentucky is not economically competitive, Part 3 of 4

May 8, 2013 By Phil Impellizzeri Leave a Comment

Matt Mitchell – Citizen Education Seminar from Bluegrass Institute on Vimeo.

Today, we present remarks from the Mercatus Center’s senior research fellow and adjunct professor of economics at George Mason University, Matthew Mitchell, Ph.D., in part 3 of our weekly series delivering exclusive video footage from the event.

Mitchell picks up where University of Kentucky’s John Garen, Ph.D., and Mercatus’ Maurice P. McTigue left off, discussing the importance of economic freedom in cultivating a business-friendly environment in the commonwealth. It’s this sort of environment which attracts capital investment and jobs to the states and would allow Kentucky to become economically competitive with our neighbors.

As Mitchell notes, economic freedom has been shown to bring a higher level of prosperity not only between countries, but also between the U.S. states. Statistically significant evidence shows that U.S. states with more economic freedom tend to enjoy higher economic growth and higher GDP-per-capita.

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on true economic growth through capital savings and investment, Kentucky all too often turns to special favors, regulations, and protectionism in a confused effort toward short-term gain.

And as Mitchell explains, if it weren’t for Kentucky’s inherent resources – a “beautiful environment and good people” – denizens of the commonwealth would be a whole lot worse off than we already are:

“Everybody has a friend who just eats terribly, doesn’t exercise, has all these terrible health habits but still looks pretty good, right? And it occurred to me as we were driving through these lush, green, beautiful hills that states are like that in a lot of ways as well.

“Some of the least economically free states are Hawaii, California, New York. These are states with a lot of natural resources that allow them to get away with bad diets and bad health habits. The genetics make up for it in some ways.

“So it occurred to me, maybe one of the reasons why Kentucky doesn’t stack up very well on a lot of these measures of competition is because the genetics are so good in terms of your beautiful environment and good people.”

At least we have that going for us. But economic competitiveness? Not so much.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: economic competitiveness