1998 HB678 Fiscal Note St Lottery Commission Video Lottery Terminals

HB 678

Department of Legislative Services

Maryland General Assembly

FISCAL NOTE

House Bill 678

(Delegate Rawlings, et al.)

Ways and Means

State Lottery Commission - Video Lottery Terminals - Revenues and Funding

This bill proposes a constitutional amendment which authorizes video lottery terminals (VLTs) at up to 10 locations in the State, provides for the distribution of revenue from video lottery terminals, creates the Education Trust Fund and other special funds, and prohibits the General Assembly from adopting any laws authorizing any additional forms or expansion of commercial gaming.

Fiscal Summary

State Effect: Special fund revenues would increase by an estimated $54.6 million in FY 1999, increasing to $428.1 million in FY 2001, the first full year of operation for all authorized VLTs. Income and other tax revenues could increase an indeterminate amount through economic activity generated by VLT operations. Expenditures could increase for education, horse racing purses, and tourism development to the extent included in future years= proposed budgets and appropriated by the General Assembly. Fee revenues will offset administrative costs of the State Lottery Commission.

(in millions)	FY 1999	FY 2000	FY 2001	FY 2002	FY 2003
SF Revenues	$54.6	$354.6	$428.1	$427.9	$427.6
SF Expenditures	--	--	--	--	--
Net Effect	$54.6	$354.6	$428.1	$427.9	$427.6

Note: ( ) - decrease; GF - general funds; FF - federal funds; SF - special funds

Local Effect: Revenues for localities with VLTs would increase by an estimated $11.7 million in FY 1999, and $29.1 million in FY 2000. In the out-years, this amount would increase by 2% annually. Expenditures would not be affected.

Small Business Effect: Meaningful.

Analysis

Bill Summary: This bill permits video lottery operations at Laurel, Pimlico, and Rosecroft racetracks, all five existing off-track betting facilities (OTBs) (in Cecil, Dorchester, and Frederick counties, and two in Charles County), and at tourist destination locations in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore. Licenses may only be issued at OTBs and tourist destination locations if this constitutional amendment receives a majority of the votes cast in each respective county. Video lottery licensees at OTBs may have 250 VLTs; all others may have 2,000 VLTs for a total of 11,250 authorized VLTs. The bill also establishes the Education Trust Fund (ETF), and details the programs on which expenditures from the fund may be made.

Regulation

The State Lottery Commission is the regulatory body for video lotteries. The commission shall own or lease and control each VLT, associated equipment, and the central computer. Among other duties, the commission must establish application and license fees to cover administrative costs; establish the rules, odds, and method of operation of VLTs; prescribe the grounds and procedures for reprimands and revocation or suspension of licenses; oversee the manufacture, distribution, and servicing of VLTs; require periodic financial reports from licensees; prohibit licensees from allowing minors to play VLTs; and establish the payout percentage, which must not be less than 83% on an annual basis. The commission shall also license video lottery operators, video lottery employees, service technicians, and manufacturers. The commission has the authority to inspect and examine all premises in which video lottery operations are conducted and any VLTs and associated equipment, and to seize any VLTs and associated equipment. The commission may also inspect, examine, audit and seize books, records and documents relating to a licensees VLT operations.

At least $100 million must be invested by each licensee on construction and related costs, except for OTB licensees, who must invest at least $10 million each. License holders at race tracks must provide 500 additional full-time jobs; those at tourist destination facilities must provide 800 full-time jobs; those at OTBs must provide at least 200 additional full-time jobs. If licenses are issued to tourist destination facilities, the State Racing Commission is to issue OTB permits to the license holders. All video lottery licensees must endeavor to spend 14% of the total dollars spent on construction and procurement on services and goods provided by minority businesses.

Distribution of Revenue

The first allocation of revenue is for the costs of leasing, purchasing, repair, and maintenance of VLTs and associated equipment, as well as impact aid for counties where VLT facilities are located. If, at the end of the fiscal year, the proceeds from all VLTs average $250 per day per machine or less:

! up to 47% of the remaining proceeds (after the above costs) are distributed to the video lottery facility licensee;

! 9% is distributed to the purse dedication account;

! 1% is distributed to the Maryland Tourism Development Board;

! 0.5% is distributed to holders of track licenses except those who have video lottery facilities;

! the remainder (at least 42.5%) is distributed to the Education Trust Fund.

If proceeds from all VLTs exceed $250 per day per machine, the above distribution is followed for the first $250. Of the excess, no more than half, as determined by the commission, is distributed to the VLT licensees, and the remainder (at least half) is distributed to the ETF.

Education Trust Fund

A nine-member Education Trust Fund Board, chaired by the State Superintendent of Schools, is created to oversee the allocation of expenditures from the ETF. The State Superintendent of Schools is the chairman of the board. The board is required to report to the Governor and General Assembly by November 1 each year on the beginning balance and projected revenues of the fund, multi-year commitments for operating or capital purposes, and the proposed overall budget and allocation of funds for the upcoming fiscal year. The Governor may adjust the board=s proposed allocation of funds within the overall ETF budget and purposes for which the funds are designated.

Expenditures on the following programs are authorized from the fund:

! the extended elementary education program, which is an existing program providing pre-kindergarten programs to four-year olds from low-income families;

! full-day kindergarten with before and after school care for Aat risk@ children eligible for free and reduced price meals (a new program);

! technology in education, to fully fund the Maryland Plan for Technology in Education, which calls for all schools to be wired for technology and for the provision of hardware, software, and teacher training;

! the State Library Resource Center and regional resource centers, for improved library services and technology enhancements;

! the Opportunities Scholarship Fund, for scholarships of up to the full cost of University of Maryland, College Park tuition for Maryland high school graduates and college students with B averages or higher and family incomes of not more than $85,000 (a new program);

! the State=s student financial assistance programs, to reduce waiting lists for financial assistance;

and for Maryland=s public senior higher educational institutions, expenditures from the ETF may be made for:

! the Eminent Scholar Fund, to create endowed chairs;

! raising faculty salaries to the 90th percentile of their peer institutions;

! providing and maintaining information technology infrastructure.

Expenditures may also be made from the fund for the public school construction program or any other education related purpose approved by the board. The Governor is to include in each year=s proposed budget for these programs an amount not less than the amount appropriated in the prior fiscal year.

Other Revenue Uses

The Purse Dedication Account is created to enhance purses at the racetracks. Expenditures may only be made through an appropriation in the State budget or by budget amendment, and only by the following allocation: 62.3% to mile thoroughbred purses; 7.7% to the Maryland-Bred Race Fund; 26.67% to standardbred purses; and 3.33% to the standardbred race fund.

Funds distributed to the Maryland Tourism Development Board shall be expended for statewide tourism promotion, including heritage and other tourism areas. A Compulsive Gambling Fund is established, and funded by a $350 annual fee for each VLT. The fund is to be used by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for a 24-hour hotline for compulsive gamblers, and to provide counseling and other support services.

State Revenues: The table below shows the estimated proceeds of VLTs and their distribution for fiscal 1999, the first year of operation, through fiscal 2001, the first year in which the full allotment of VLTs would be in operation for the entire year (numbers may not add due to rounding).

Distribution of Estimated VLT Revenues Fiscal 1999 through Fiscal 2001
	FY 1999	FY 2000	FY 2001
Vendor Costs	$10,758,000	$65,443,000	$78,750,000
Impact Aid	11,742,000	29,143,000	29,725,000
VLT Licensees	48,910,000	317,408,000	383,253,000
Purse Dedication Account	9,366,000	60,780,000	73,389,000
Tourism Promotion	1,041,000	6,753,000	8,154,000
Non‑VLT Tracks	520,000	3,377,000	4,077,000
Education Trust Fund	44,227,000	287,018,000	346,558,000
Gross Proceeds	$126,563,000	$769,922,000	$923,906,000

These estimates are based on average proceeds per VLT per day of $225, and assume one-third of the VLTs are operational in February, 1999, one-third in July 1999, and the final third in January 2000. It is assumed that vendor costs would total approximately 8.5% of gross proceeds. The estimates show the maximum distribution to VLT licensees; the commission could distribute a lesser amount. If so, the difference would be credited to the ETF.

If the average proceeds per VLT per day were $300, the distribution to the ETF would be an estimated $481.8 million in fiscal 2001, and the distribution to VLT licensees would be an estimated $522.0 million.

Revenues would also increase an indeterminate amount through application, license, and other fees. The commission is to set these fees to cover the costs incurred in the regulation of VLTs. This revenue increase cannot be reliably determined at this time; the commission would set the fees by regulation.

19981216 President Clinton explains Iraq strike

Transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike - December 16, 1998

MORE STORIES:. Wednesday, December 16, 1998. • Republicans skeptical of Iraq attack on eve of impeachment vote • Clinton: Iraq has abused its final chance…

Clinton Iraq 1998

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

Transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike

CLINTON: Good evening.

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish.

Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability.

The inspectors undertook this mission first 7.5 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the ceasefire.

The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

The United States has patiently worked to preserve UNSCOM as Iraq has sought to avoid its obligation to cooperate with the inspectors. On occasion, we've had to threaten military force, and Saddam has backed down.

Faced with Saddam's latest act of defiance in late October, we built intensive diplomatic pressure on Iraq backed by overwhelming military force in the region. The UN Security Council voted 15 to zero to condemn Saddam's actions and to demand that he immediately come into compliance.

Eight Arab nations -- Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman -- warned that Iraq alone would bear responsibility for the consequences of defying the UN.

When Saddam still failed to comply, we prepared to act militarily. It was only then at the last possible moment that Iraq backed down. It pledged to the UN that it had made, and I quote, a clear and unconditional decision to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors.

I decided then to call off the attack with our airplanes already in the air because Saddam had given in to our demands. I concluded then that the right thing to do was to use restraint and give Saddam one last chance to prove his willingness to cooperate.

I made it very clear at that time what unconditional cooperation meant, based on existing UN resolutions and Iraq's own commitments. And along with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully, we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning.

Now over the past three weeks, the UN weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq's cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM's chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to UN Secretary-General Annan.

The conclusions are stark, sobering and profoundly disturbing.

In four out of the five categories set forth, Iraq has failed to cooperate. Indeed, it actually has placed new restrictions on the inspectors. Here are some of the particulars.

Iraq repeatedly blocked UNSCOM from inspecting suspect sites. For example, it shut off access to the headquarters of its ruling party and said it will deny access to the party's other offices, even though UN resolutions make no exception for them and UNSCOM has inspected them in the past.

Iraq repeatedly restricted UNSCOM's ability to obtain necessary evidence. For example, Iraq obstructed UNSCOM's effort to photograph bombs related to its chemical weapons program.

It tried to stop an UNSCOM biological weapons team from videotaping a site and photocopying documents and prevented Iraqi personnel from answering UNSCOM's questions.

Prior to the inspection of another site, Iraq actually emptied out the building, removing not just documents but even the furniture and the equipment.

Iraq has failed to turn over virtually all the documents requested by the inspectors. Indeed, we know that Iraq ordered the destruction of weapons-related documents in anticipation of an UNSCOM inspection.

So Iraq has abused its final chance.

As the UNSCOM reports concludes, and again I quote, "Iraq's conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in the fields of disarmament.

"In light of this experience, and in the absence of full cooperation by Iraq, it must regrettably be recorded again that the commission is not able to conduct the work mandated to it by the Security Council with respect to Iraq's prohibited weapons program."

In short, the inspectors are saying that even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham.

Saddam's deception has defeated their effectiveness. Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance.

And so we had to act and act now.

Let me explain why.

First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can crippled the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.

Third, in halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance, not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed. We will not only have allowed Saddam to shatter the inspection system that controls his weapons of mass destruction program; we also will have fatally undercut the fear of force that stops Saddam from acting to gain domination in the region.

That is why, on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team -- including the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of state and the national security adviser -- I have ordered a strong, sustained series of air strikes against Iraq.

They are designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors.

At the same time, we are delivering a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price. We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisers, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare.

If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.

Also, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins this weekend. For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world and, therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we have made in the Middle East.

That is something we wanted very much to avoid without giving Iraq's a month's head start to prepare for potential action against it.

Finally, our allies, including Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, concurred that now is the time to strike. I hope Saddam will come into cooperation with the inspection system now and comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. But we have to be prepared that he will not, and we must deal with the very real danger he poses.

So we will pursue a long-term strategy to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction and work toward the day when Iraq has a government worthy of its people.

First, we must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging allied aircraft over Iraq or moving against his own Kurdish citizens.

The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.

Second, so long as Iraq remains out of compliance, we will work with the international community to maintain and enforce economic sanctions. Sanctions have cost Saddam more than $120 billion -- resources that would have been used to rebuild his military. The sanctions system allows Iraq to sell oil for food, for medicine, for other humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people.

We have no quarrel with them. But without the sanctions, we would see the oil-for-food program become oil-for-tanks, resulting in a greater threat to Iraq's neighbors and less food for its people.

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.

The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. Bringing change in Baghdad will take time and effort. We will strengthen our engagement with the full range of Iraqi opposition forces and work with them effectively and prudently.

The decision to use force is never cost-free. Whenever American forces are placed in harm's way, we risk the loss of life. And while our strikes are focused on Iraq's military capabilities, there will be unintended Iraqi casualties.

Indeed, in the past, Saddam has intentionally placed Iraqi civilians in harm's way in a cynical bid to sway international opinion.

We must be prepared for these realities. At the same time, Saddam should have absolutely no doubt if he lashes out at his neighbors, we will respond forcefully.

Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.

Let me close by addressing one other issue. Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down.

But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so.

In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community, fear and hope. Now, in the new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past, but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.

Tonight, the United States is doing just that. May God bless and protect the brave men and women who are carrying out this vital mission and their families. And may God bless America.

####

http://www.google.com/search?q=Clinton+Iraq+1998&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

19981124 and 25 Dr Connett presentation on Municipal waste incineration

Municipal waste incineration

A poor solution for the twenty first century

Paul Connett's speech on incineration and waste reduction

A presentation by Dr. Paul Connett Professor of Chemistry

St. Lawrence University

Canton, NY 13617.

At the 4th Annual International Management Conference

Waste-To-Energy

Nov. 24 & 25, 1998

Amsterdam.

About the author

Dr. Paul Connett is a full and tenured professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he has taught for 15 years. He obtained his undergraduate degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College in the US. For the past 14 years he has researched waste management issues with a special emphasis on the dangers posed by incineration and the safer and more sustainable non-burn alternatives.

He has attended numerous international symposia on dioxin, and with his colleague Tom Webster has presented six papers at these symposia which have been subsequently published in Chemosphere. He has given over 1500 public presentations on these issues in 48 states in the US and 40 other countries. With his wife Ellen he edits the newsletter Waste Not, which is in its twelfth year of publication. With Roger Bailey, Professor of Fine Arts at St. Lawrence University, he has produced over 40 videotapes on waste management, dioxin and other environmental issues.

To aid your browsing of this important and extensive speech, CANK has created an Index to all headings and has also highlighted some (but not all) key phrases in red

Executive Summary

Far from it being the universally proven technology claimed by its promoters, the incineration of municipal trash with energy recovery has been an experiment which after 20 years has left the citizens of industrialised countries with a legacy of unacceptably high levels of dioxins and related compounds in their food, their tissues, their babies and in wild life.

The author argues that as the industry has struggled to make incineration safe, they have, like the nuclear power industry before them, priced themselves out of the market. Moreover, as they have sought air pollution control devices to capture the extremely toxic by-products of combustion, the resulting residues have become more problematic and costly to handle, dispose and contain. There are still remaining concerns about the safety of incinerators, especially as they are built in developing economies, which do not have the resources to build, operate or monitor them properly.

However, even if these concerns are overcome, as we move into the twenty first century, the role of trash incineration, with or without energy recovery, will become less and less viable, both economically and environmentally.

Our future task will be dominated by a need to find sustainable ways of living on the planet. Those who have been preoccupied with making incineration safe have lavished their engineering ingenuity on the wrong question. Society's task is not to perfect the destruction of our waste, but to find ways to avoid making it. The argument that burning waste can be used to recover energy makes for good sales promotion, but the reality is that if saving energy is the goal, then more energy can be saved by society as a whole by reusing and recycling objects and materials than can be recovered by burning them. Municipal waste is a low-tech problem. It is made by mixing. It is unmade by separation.

Both problem and solution are at our fingertips, not on the drawing boards of Swiss or Swedish engineers. In the longer term, after the citizen has played his or her part by supporting source separation, reuse, recycling, composting and toxic removal, industry has to pay more attention to the way objects and materials are made and used. How an object is going to be reused or recycled has to be built into the initial design decisions

To recognise that it is overconsumption that is giving us both global warming and a waste disposal crisis, is to recognise that trash is the most concrete connection each individual has to the global crisis. More effort has to be put into resisting the largely post-war American philosophy that "the more one consumes the happier one becomes'", before it makes the planet uninhabitable. A way has to be found to tame the voracious appetites of the multinational corporations which plunder the world for short-term profit. This cannot be done until we as individuals find a way to resist the skilful advertising that traps us within a whole web of false needs. The antidote to overconsumption is community building. The fierce local arguments that ensue over the siting of both landfills and incinerators can be used to force these issues onto the political agenda.

Incineration might make sense if we had another planet to go to, but without that sci-fi escape, it must be resisted in favour of more down-to-earth solutions that we can live with, both within our local communities and on the planet as a whole. Both incineration and raw waste landfilling attempt to bury the evidence of an unacceptable throwaway lifestyle. Every incinerator built delays this fundamental discussion by at least 20 years.

Introduction

As I deliver these comments I am very conscious of the fact that many of the people sitting in this audience earn their living from the operation of incinerators. They will probably find many of my views antithetical to their own. I applaud the organisers of this conference for having the courage to allow me to speak. Too often, decision-makers do not discover the downside to incineration until the wrath of the public is unleashed.

To paraphrase the words of Shakespeare's character Mark Anthony, I come here not to praise the idea of the incineration of municipal waste with energy recovery, but to bury it.

However, whether you agree with my position or not, I hope you agree with Joseph Joubert, who said, " 'Tis better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle a question without debating it". In my view, incineration of municipal waste looks back to the nineteenth century, not forward to the twenty first. Indeed, the first waste-to-energy plant was operating in Hamburg, Germany in 1895.

I will argue that even if the finest engineers were able to make incineration safe - i.e. captured all of the toxic emissions and found a safe method of handling and storing the ash - from an ethical point of view, they would not have made the incineration of trash acceptable. It simply doesn't make ethical sense to spend so much time, money and effort destroying materials we should be sharing with the future. Thus, those who have set themselves the Herculean task of perfecting the art and science of incineration, have poured a massive amount of attention into the wrong end of the problem and produced a sophisticated set of answers to the wrong question. As we prepare to enter the twenty first century, society's task is not find a new place or a new machine in which to put the trash, but to find ways of not making waste in the first place.

When one first hears about trash incineration it seems like a good idea. I certainly thought so. It promised to rid our Northern NY county of 32 leaking landfills and to produce energy as well. It seemed like a win-win situation. For a municipal official beleaguered with the responsibility for a mountain of trash coming at him or her on a daily basis it appears to offer a quick fix solution, with little or no modification of the existing infrastructure for picking up trash. For a politician with citizens yelling at him or her because they don't want to live near a proposed landfill, or the expansion of an old one, the modern waste-to-energy incinerator looks like a perfect political escape plan.

It is only when one spends time looking below the surface appeal of these facilities that one realises the huge backward step they represent, environmentally, socially, economically and from the point of view of moving towards a sustainable society.

I will discuss the arguments against building more trash incinerators under seven headings.

They are:
1. Toxic emissions
1.1 Hydrogen chloride is formed.
1.2 Nitric oxide is generated.
1.3 Toxic metals are released.
1.3.1 Mercury, a highly problematic pollutant, is difficult to control.
1.4 Dioxins, Furans and other by-products of combustion are formed.
1.4.1 Post combustion formation of dioxin.
1.4.2 The fly ash dioxin problem.
1.4.3 No continuous monitoring of dioxins possible.
1.4.4 Rising concern about current dioxin levels.
1.4.5 Dioxin emissions easily captured in food chains.
1.4.6 Ireland.
1.4.7 Advances in one country do not always translate to success in others.
1.5 End-of-the-pipe control
1.6 Modifications to counteract one pollutant can lead to increases in others.
1.6.1. UK.
2. Ash disposal.
2.1 Fly ash hazard often obscured.
2.2 Ash represents a Catch-22 for the incineration industry.
3. Economic costs.
3.1. Incinerators are formidably expensive.
3.2. Very few jobs are created for this massive economic investment.
3.3 Most of the money invested in the incinerator leaves the community.
3.4 Loss of capital is acute in developing economies.
3.5 Taxpayers usually find out true costs when it is too late.
3.5.1 Flow control outlawed in the US.
4. The waste of energy involved.
4.1. Modern incinerators do produce saleable energy.
4.2 Reality versus Public relations.
4.2.1 Consider these simple points:
4.3 Recycling saves more energy than incineration yields.
4.4 A larger vision is needed.
5. Public opposition.
5.1. In the US incineration is the most unpopular technology since nuclear power.
5.2 US development at a standstill.
5.3 Opposition in other countries.
5.3.1 Germany.
5.3.2 France.
5.3.3 Bangladesh.
5.4 The dangers of ignoring public opinion.
5.5 Look at more than one option.
5.6 Even a true believer should not lead with incineration.
5.7 The non-burn alternatives are more popular.
6. A few words on the alternatives.
6.1 Landfills.
6.2 The importance of composting.
6.3 Integrated waste management.
6.4 Five principles.
7. Sustainability.
7.1 Cheap fossil fuels conceal our non-sustainability.
7.2 Incineration is a wasted opportunity.
7.3 Forces behind overconsumption.
7.4 Fighting the dominant paradigm.
7.5 Community building.

8. Conclusion

Read Dr. Conett’s entire presentation here.

19981117 Defenders of Clinton argue he should not be impeached

Defenders of Clinton argue he should not be impeached because he committed perjury

In Truth, Even Those Little Lies Are Prosecuted Once in a While

by William Glaberson

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/158/articles/glaberson.htm

Glaberson, William. 1998. "In Truth, Even Those Little Lies Are Prosecuted Once in a While." New York Times, November 17, 1998.

[…]

A Florida postal supervisor is in prison for denying in a civil deposition that she had a sexual relationship with a subordinate.

[…]

Defenders of President Clinton have argued that his accusers are overzealous in saying he should be impeached or subject to criminal charges on the grounds that he committed perjury when he denied in a civil deposition that he had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

But a review of more than 100 perjury cases in state and federal courts, and statistics on the number of perjury prosecutions brought around the country, show that people are prosecuted in America for what might be called small lies more regularly than the Clinton defenders have suggested.

With the House Judiciary Committee's hearings into the possible impeachment of the president set to begin this week. The president's defenders are expected to return to their theme. The president's lawyer, David Kendall, has said that "no prosecutor in the United States would bring a perjury prosecution on the basis" of the kinds of questions Clinton was asked about his sex life in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit.

But interviews with lawyers, legal experts and with a woman who is serving a sentence for lying about sex in a civil case show that, far from being shrugged off, the threat of prosecution for perjury, even in civil cases, is a crucial deterrent in the legal system.

"Symbolically, the sword of Damocles hangs over every perjurer's head, and no one can know whether they're the perjurer that's going to be prosecuted," said Jeffrey Abramson, a former prosecutor and an expert on jury trials who is a professor of legal studies and politics at Brandeis University.

One statistic on perjury prosecutions has been widely circulated since the president's supporters began arguing that perjury was little more than a technicality seized upon by the president's enemies: Of 49,655 cases filed by federal prosecutors last year, only 87 were for perjury.

[…]

Read the rest here – it is quite an eye opener: In Truth, Even Those Little Lies Are Prosecuted Once in a While