#infrastructure law

[smalltofedsblog]

$550 Billion Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act (IIJA) - Immense Opportunity To Get Procurement Challenges Right

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is more than just a lot of money. It is an opportunity to make lasting systemic changes to the economy, but procurement processes need to improve. The IIJA is the opportunity to get it right.

[lenbryant]

45's capitalization skills are as far off as his youth. My seventh grade English teacher would have been horrified that such a nincompoop was once elected President (even if it was only through the racist institution of the U.S. Electoral College).

[robpegoraro]

Weekly output: Samsung self-repair, FCC chair's security concerns, tech-policy forecast, password managers, Google layoffs, electric-car progress, legal risks for security research

This week had me head into D.C. for work events four days in a row, something that last happened in early 2020. 1/17/2023: Samsung ‘Self-Repair’ Program Adds Galaxy S22 Phones, Some Galaxy Books, PCMag The post I wrote after Samsung gave me an advance copy of their press release noted the limited number of replacement parts offered under this program, but Technica’s Ron Amadeo–who has a lot more…

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Mother Jones:

The North Cascades elk herd is a cluster of some 1,600 animals whose domain, like so many habitats, is riven by a highway. From 2012 to 2019, Washington state records show, at least 229 elk were killed by cars along a stretch of State Route 20 in the Skagit Valley. The situation imperils humans, too: In 2023, a motorist died after swerving around an elk into a telephone pole.   “My own nephew had an elk collision, and I’ve nearly had collisions myself over the years,” said Scott Schuyler, a member of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, who is also the tribe’s natural resources and cultural policy representative. “We have an obligation to protect our neighbors and ourselves and these animals.”

To many observers, the solution has long been clear: a wildlife bridge, flanked by fencing. But building such a structure would cost around $8.5 million, a daunting expense. “There didn’t seem to be any money out there on the horizon that could make this happen,” said Jennifer Sevigny, a biologist with the nearby Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians, which co-manages the elk herd.

That changed in November 2021, when Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—a package that included the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program (WCPP), a grant initiative that would distribute $350 million over five years to states, Native tribes and other entities for animal-friendly infrastructure. Although Sevigny knew the competition for grants would be fierce, she submitted a proposal for an elk bridge when the program launched in 2023. “Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to get it,” she said.

When the recipients of the first $110 million in grants were announced in December 2023, however, the Stillaguamish was among them. Once the grant agreement is finalized, the tribe will partner with the Upper Skagit to convene biologists and engineers to design the bridge, which is expected to take four years to construct.

The Skagit Valley overpass wasn’t the only tribal winner: Of the 10 Western wildlife crossing projects selected for the initial round of WCPP funding, four were Native-led. “It was really awesome to see that (experience) come to fruition,” said Shailyn Wiechman, connectivity coordinator at the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society and a member of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation. But tribal-led connectivity projects on and adjacent to reservations still face obstacles—and money remains a big one.  

[the-lady-maddy]

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[agentfascinateur]

I 💜 Bernie Sanders

[news4dzhozhar]

[the-commonplace-book]

genshin's story team continuing with the hard hitting social commentary damn they really are going full on critique of justice system as a theatrical performance and the trivialization of justice into entertainment

[caffeiiine]

i would like to see either nikolai or sigma's sentences please :3 /nf

THANK YOU!!! YOU ARE FUELING MY TWO FAVORITE THINGS!!!

under the cut bc length. [it got REALLY long]

anyways, nikolai and sigmas prison sentences as they would be in michigan.

note: i’m not using the wiki for this. i doubt it covers everything, so im going back through the manga and analyzing everything from there. aside from finding out manga appearances, everything else is research and pre-memorized info.

note 2: i may have made a few mistakes with the sentencing but it should be accurate enough give or take 10 years.

note 3: there’s no minimum sentence since majority of research i’m doing leads to me picking the minimum years since it usually states “punishable by life imprisonment or any number of years” which is unspecific and sucks so i just dropped the category

nikolai!!! - crimes - sentence - reference state - references/citations

Crimes :

first degree murder [7 accounts]

second degree murder [1 account]

domestic terrorism [16]

mutilation of a corpse [1 account]

shoplifting [implied, counted as 1 general account/misdemeanor]

assault with/using a deadly weapon [1 account]

impersonation [2 accounts]

[1]

disturbing the peace

theft of public property [2][3] [1 account]

verbal assault/threat [4] [1 account]

aiding and abetting

aiding in prison break

drugging [1 account]

attempted poisoning [5] [2 accounts]

fleeing arrest [1 account]

[6]

robbery/general larceny [4 accounts]

unlawful possession of explosives

attempted first degree murder [implied] [7]

kidnapping [4 accounts]

aiding a convict

breaking and entering [1 account]

sentence :

at maximum = 14 life sentences + 61 years + 186 days and/or up to 7,063,000$ in fines; no parole

reference state : michigan

references via michigan legislature : [first degree murder] Section 750.316 Act 328 of 1931 + [second degree murder] Section 750.317 Act 328 of 1931 + [domestic terrorism not counted, i can’t find definitive punishments and it'd probably be with the supreme court] + [mutilation of a corpse] Section 750.160 Act 328 of 1931 + [shoplifting] Section 750.356 Act 328 of 1931 + [impersonation] Section 750.217 Act 328 of 1931 + [felony assault] Section 750.82 Act 328 of 1931 + [disturbing the peace] Section 750.170(?) + [theft of public property] section 750.356 act 328 of 1931 + [terrorizing/verbal assault/harrassment] section 750.411h act 328 of 1931 + [aidinh and abetting] section 750.450 act 328 of 1931 + [aiding in a prisoners escape/aiding a convict] section 750.183 act 328 of 1931 + [attempted poisoning] section 750.91 act 328 of 1931 + [fleeing arrest] section 760.479a act 328 of 1931 + [robbery] section 750.529 act 328 of 1931 + [unlawful possession of explosives] section 750.200 act 328 of 1931 + [attempted first degree murder] section 750.91 act 328 of 1931 + [kidnapping] section 750.349 act 328 of 1931 + [breaking and entering (with explosives)] section 750.112 act 328 of 1931.

Sigma!!! - crimes - sentence - reference state - references/citations

[8]

threatening an officer [2 accounts]

domestic terrorism [16]

unlawful possession of explosives

attempted first degree murder [1 account]

criminal negligence [9]

aiding and abetting

negligent attempted mass murder [10]

attempted first degree murder by proxy [several accounts] [11]

felony assault by proxy [12] [3 accounts]

[13]

attempted manslaughter [14] [2 accounts]

attempted second degree murder [15] [1 account]

aiding in a prison break

aiding a convict [1 account]

breaking and entering [1 account]

felony assault [3 accounts]

sentence :

at maximum: 5 life sentences + 45 years 93 days and/or up to 8,000$ in fines; possibility of parole

reference state : michigan

references via michigan legislature: [aiding and abetting] section 750.450 act 328 of 1931 + [felony assault] section 750.82 act 328 of 1932 + [aiding in prisoner escape/aiding a convict] section 750.183 act 328 of 1932 + [unlawful possession of an explosive] section 750.200 act 328 of 1932 + [attempted (any type of) murder/manslaughter] section 750.91 act 328 of 1932 + [breaking and entering (with explosives)] section 750.112 act 328 of 1932 + [threatening an officer] section 750.478a act 328 of 1932 + [criminal/gross negligence] section 8.9 michigan legislature

[thoughtportal]

undefined

Once You See the Truth About Cars, You Can’t Unsee It https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/opinion/car-ownership-inequality.html

By Andrew Ross and Julie Livingston

Mr. Ross and Ms. Livingston are professors at New York University, members of its Prison Education Program Research Lab and authors of the book “Cars and Jails: Freedom Dreams, Debt, and Carcerality.”

In American consumer lore, the automobile has always been a “freedom machine” and liberty lies on the open road. “Americans are a race of independent people” whose “ancestors came to this country for the sake of freedom and adventure,” the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce’s soon-to-be-president, Roy Chapin, declared in 1924. “The automobile satisfies these instincts.” During the Cold War, vehicles with baroque tail fins and oodles of surplus chrome rolled off the assembly line, with Native American names like Pontiac, Apache, Dakota, Cherokee, Thunderbird and Winnebago — the ultimate expressions of capitalist triumph and Manifest Destiny.

But for many low-income and minority Americans, automobiles have been turbo-boosted engines of inequality, immobilizing their owners with debt, increasing their exposure to hostile law enforcement, and in general accelerating the forces that drive apart haves and have-nots.

Though progressive in intent, the Biden administration’s signature legislative achievements on infrastructure and climate change will further entrench the nation’s staunch commitment to car production, ownership and use. The recent Inflation Reduction Act offers subsidies for many kinds of vehicles using alternative fuel, and should result in real reductions in emissions, but it includes essentially no direct incentives for public transit — by far the most effective means of decarbonizing transport. And without comprehensive policy efforts to eliminate discriminatory policing and predatory lending, merely shifting to electric from combustion will do nothing to reduce car owners’ ever-growing risk of falling into legal and financial jeopardy, especially those who are poor or Black.

By the 1940s, African American car owners had more reason than anyone to see their vehicles as freedom machines, as a means to escape, however temporarily, redlined urban ghettos in the North or segregated towns in the South. But their progress on roads outside of the metro core was regularly obstructed by the police, threatened by vigilante assaults, and stymied by owners of whites-only restaurants, lodgings and gas stations. Courts granted the police vast discretionary authority to stop and search for any one of hundreds of code violations — powers that they did not apply evenly. Today, officers make more than 50,000 traffic stops a day. Driving while Black has become a major route to incarceration — or much worse. When Daunte Wright was killed by a police officer in April 2021, he had been pulled over for an expired registration tag on his car’s license plate. He joined the long list of Black drivers whose violent and premature deaths at the hands of police were set in motion by a minor traffic infraction — Sandra Bland (failure to use a turn signal), Maurice Gordon (alleged speeding), Samuel DuBose (missing front license plate) and Philando Castile and Walter Scott (broken taillights) among them. Despite widespread criticism of the flimsy pretexts used to justify traffic stops, and the increasing availability of cellphone or police body cam videos, the most recent data shows that the number of deaths from police-driver interactions is almost as high as it has been over the past five years.

In the consumer arena, cars have become tightly sprung debt traps. The average monthly auto loan payment crossed $700 for the first time this year, which does not include insurance or maintenance costs. Subprime lending and longer loan terms of up to 84 months have resulted in a doubling of auto loan debt over the last decade and a notable surge in the number of drivers who are “upside down”— owing more money than their cars are worth. But, again, the pain is not evenly distributed. Auto financing companies often charge nonwhite consumers higher interest rates than white consumers, as do insurers.

Formerly incarcerated buyers whose credit scores are depressed from inactivity are especially red meat to dealers and predatory lenders. In our research, we spoke to many such buyers who found it easier, upon release from prison, to acquire expensive cars than to secure an affordable apartment. Some, like LeMarcus, a Black Brooklynite (whose name has been changed to protect his privacy under ethical research guidelines), discovered that loans were readily available for a luxury vehicle but not for the more practical car he wanted. Even with friends and family willing to help him with a down payment, after he spent roughly five years in prison, his credit score made it impossible to get a Honda or “a regular car.” Instead, relying on a friend to co-sign a loan, he was offered a high-interest loan on a pre-owned Mercedes E350. LeMarcus knew it was a bad deal, but the dealer told him the bank that would have financed a Honda “wanted a more solid foundation, good credit, income was showing more,” but that to finance the Mercedes, it “was actually willing to work with the people with lower credit and lower down payments.” We interviewed many other formerly incarcerated people who followed a similar path, only to see their cars repossessed.

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LeMarcus was “car rich, cash poor,” a common and precarious condition that can have serious legal consequences for low-income drivers, as can something as simple as a speeding ticket. A $200 ticket is a meaningless deterrent to a hedge fund manager from Greenwich, Conn., who is pulled over on the way to the golf club, but it could be a devastating blow to those who mow the fairways at the same club. If they cannot pay promptly, they will face cascading penalties. If they cannot take a day off work to appear in court, they risk a bench warrant or loss of their license for debt delinquency. Judges in local courts routinely skirt the law of the land (in Supreme Court decisions like Bearden v. Georgia and Timbs v. Indiana) by disregarding the offender’s ability to pay traffic debt. At the request of collection agencies, they also issue arrest or contempt warrants for failure to appear in court on unpaid auto loan debts. With few other options to travel to work, millions of Americans make the choice to continue driving even without a license, which means their next traffic stop may land them in jail.

The pathway that leads from a simple traffic fine to financial insolvency or detention is increasingly crowded because of the spread of revenue policing intended to generate income from traffic tickets, court fees and asset forfeiture. Fiscally squeezed by austerity policies, officials extract the funds from those least able to pay. This is not only an awful way to fund governments; it is also a form of backdoor, regressive taxation that circumvents voters’ input.

Deadly traffic stops, racially biased predatory lending and revenue policing have all come under public scrutiny of late, but typically they are viewed as distinct realms of injustice, rather than as the interlocking systems that they are. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it: A traffic stop can result in fines or arrest; time behind bars can result in repossession or a low credit score; a low score results in more debt and less ability to pay fines, fees and surcharges. Championed as a kind of liberation, car ownership — all but mandatory in most parts of the country — has for many become a vehicle of capture and control.

Industry boosters promise us that technological advances like on-demand transport, self-driving electric vehicles and artificial intelligence-powered traffic cameras will smooth out the human errors that lead to discrimination, and that car-sharing will reduce the runaway costs of ownership. But no combination of apps and cloud-based solutions can ensure that the dealerships, local municipalities, courts and prison industries will be willing to give up the steady income they derive from shaking down motorists.

Aside from the profound need for accessible public transportation, what could help? Withdraw armed police officers from traffic duties, just as they have been from parking and tollbooth enforcement in many jurisdictions. Introduce income-graduated traffic fines. Regulate auto lending with strict interest caps and steep penalties for concealing fees and add-ons and for other well-known dealership scams. Crack down hard on the widespread use of revenue policing. And close the back door to debtors’ prisons by ending the use of arrest warrants in debt collection cases. Without determined public action along these lines, technological advances often end up reproducing deeply rooted prejudices. As Malcolm X wisely said, “Racism is like a Cadillac; they bring out a new model every year.”

Andrew Ross and Julie Livingston are professors at New York University, members of its Prison Education Program Research Lab and authors of the book “Cars and Jails: Freedom Dreams, Debt, and Carcerality.”

[amtrak-official]

We have applied for 7 billion to do essential repairs on the NEC, because the Biden administration didn't grant garenteed money to the gateway project in the BIL and yet it is essential to the start of real high speed rail in this country. I love how as a public institution, more money is given to brightline than the company run for the whole country

[tomorrowusa]

Trump's most famous promise was to make Mexico pay for his squalid and corrupt border wall.

Amount collected from Mexico: 0 centavos.

Trump did give tax breaks to billionaires while giving COVID-19 to much of the rest of the country.

Trump's promises are as worthless as degrees from Trump University.

[pannaginip]

(This story was was originally written as part of the 2023 Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship under Rappler.)

In 2020, Jann Alexis Lappas got a call from his parents who told him that they received a sum of P700 pesos to sign documents.

The documents were, according to Lappas’s parents, attendance sheets for a community consultative assembly (CCA) for San Miguel Corporation-owned Pan Pacific Renewable Power Philippines Corp.’s Gened dam projects, part of the crucial process to secure free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) permitting big projects in indigenous peoples’ ancestral domains.

This development came as a surprise to Lappas because prior to the incident, as early as 2019, the community had already thumbed down the project’s progression when 300 elders issued their first of many Resolutions of Non-Consent against the dams.

According to a June 2021 FPIC report, if the Gened-1 dam pushes through, will submerge communities in the barangays or villages of Bulu, Magabta, Poblacion, and Waga in Kabugao town, and Lt. Balag in Pudtol town. Some 7,465 out of Kabugao’s 18,782 recorded 2020 population would be affected by this flooding. Another 4,995 in Baliwanan, Kumao, Lenneng, and Karagawan are projected to be negatively affected by the project.

Lappas and his group of Isnag friends would continue to post updates about the dam negotiations on their personal Facebook pages, but Kabugao Youth would only be formed in December 2020, fresh off of the heels of Typhoon Ulysses.

Social media is a core source of information and connectivity in Kabugao, being comprised of 21 villages and communities, many of which are remote.

As the movement gained traction, the Kabugao Youth network gradually became a frontliner in the struggle to oppose the dam.

[National Commission on Indigenous Peoples or] NCIP FPIC guidelines state that no meetings, negotiations, or assemblies related to the FPIC process should be conducted outside of the affected ancestral domain.

At the same time, according to Solano, the NCIP is not supposed to conduct or facilitate activities to directly convince the IP communities of the merits of the projects [...]

In January 15 of 2021, 300 Kabugao Isnags passed another resolution opposing and banning the proposed hydroelectric power projects, but then-regional director of the NCIP Marlon Bosantog declared the resolution invalid as only 20 of the elders were “authorized” in accordance with a heavily contested December 23, 2019 resolution and proceeded with the issuance of the [Memorandum of Agreement or] MOA.

Said December resolution, which named 209 “authorized elders” to negotiate in behalf of the Isnag community, was found by the community, RA Cortes Law, and the NCIP’s own regional review team (RRT), to contain many irregularities including signatures of deceased individuals and duplicated signatures.

Many other irregularities have been reported by the elders of Kabugao in their resolutions and legal cases before the Office of the Ombudsman, as well as by Kabugao Youth in their regular postings to the local community.

The MOA would also generate much more opposition as the Isnag community was exposed to the exact terms of the dam and what they stood to lose, with individuals from the community claiming that they had their signatures and identities forged on the documents.

On May 18, RA Cortes Law also filed an electoral protest in behalf of the Isnag community and Isnag elder Roland Apilit to nullify the election of [John Amid] as [indigenous peoples mandatory representative or] IPMR for Kabugao, Apayao citing irregularities in the IPMR selection and the approval of IPMR selection guidelines without the approval and knowledge of the Isnag communities.

According to the NCIP on multiple occasions, the FPIC has been provided, allowing for the issuance of a certification precondition (CP), thus allowing Pan Pacific to continue with the project even through opposition.

As for the opposition of the Isnag community, the NCIP claims opposition is part of the agenda of the communist left.

On multiple occasions, the NCIP issued statements downplaying the opposition to the project as activity of the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).

NCIP Chairman Allen Capuyan is the executive director of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), while NCIP Regional Director Marlon Bosantog is the former spokesperson.

In order to proceed with the issuance of the MOA and the CP, NCIP higher-ups including Regional Director Atanacio Addog held efforts to advance the damming process using the forged documents with the individuals named as authorized elders in the December 2019 resolution instead of redoing the process amid staunch opposition from the local Isnag communities in Kabugao.

Kabugao elders share the sentiment [to keep fighting], writing their desire to keep the waters clean: “(We) would rather let the Apayao River flow freely and the same be inherited by the youth and those Isnag of Apayao yet unborn rather for their enjoyment and appreciation, rather to pass on an ancestral domain buried beneath a reservoir coupled with kilometers-stretched on filth brought by siltation and sedimentation.”

2023 Sept. 14

[californiastatelibrary]

Did you know California was offering income tax incentives for solar energy almost 50 years ago? If this piqued your interest, join us for a free evening of cutting-edge scholarship and legal analysis of both our infrastructure needs and environmental law with renowned academic Dr. Dave Owen on June 11 from 6-7:30 pm via Zoom. To learn more and register, visit https://libraryca.libcal.com/event/12472857.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Department of the Interior:

Acting Deputy Secretary of the Interior Laura Daniel-Davis today announced more than $520 million from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to revitalize aging water delivery systems across the West. The funding will support 57 projects across all six regions served by the Bureau of Reclamation to improve water conveyance and storage, increase safety, improve hydropower generation, and provide water treatment. To strengthen America’s climate resilience, President Biden secured more than $50 billion for climate resilience and adaptation through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, and established a National Climate Resilience Framework, which is advancing locally tailored, community-driven climate resilience strategies.  

Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis made the announcement while visiting the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico. 

Today’s visit follows Secretary Deb Haaland’s announcement last week of a $60 million investment from the Inflation Reduction Act for water conservation and drought resilience in the Rio Grande Basin. These resources will ensure greater climate resiliency and water security for communities below Elephant Butte Reservoir and into West Texas. The water savings from the proposed projects are anticipated to be in the tens of thousands of acre-feet per year. 

President Biden’s Investing in America agenda represents the largest investment in climate resilience in the nation’s history and is providing much-needed resources to enhance Western communities’ resilience to drought and climate change. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Reclamation is investing a total of $8.3 billion over five years for water infrastructure projects, including rural water, water storage, conservation and conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse, and desalination. Since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was signed in November 2021, Reclamation has announced almost $3 billion for 440 projects. 

[the-lady-maddy]

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