What Beebe Didn’t Say…
Gov. Beebe gave an inspiring and challenging speech to the combined House and Senate yesterday, challenging the Legislature to move forward on health care, a lottery that’s efficient and transparent, economic development, grocery tax reduction and pressing for alternative energy. Beebe noted that Arkansas recently ranked 10th nationally in overall education efforts, that economic development efforts over the past two years had netted $2.7 billion invested and 19,000 new jobs, and that millions in new road money was coming in due to the new severance tax on natural gas. No question, Beebe has the gravitas of high popular polling numbers, exceptional economic development record and a strong state budget performance to pull this Session’s agenda off without breaking a sweat.
For the first time in this blogger’s memory, “ADEQ” was mentioned in a governor’s state of the state address. One would probably need to go back to Clinton’s early years when he was establishing himself as a pragmatic environmentalist to find a reference to the ADPCE/PCE/ADEQ agency. Beebe mentioned that ADEQ is now receiving revenues from the severance tax haul…part of his deal to siphon 5% of the tax away from ADHT to the state’s general fund. ADEQ sorely needs the additional funding, as EPA has consistently pushed unfunded programs onto states during the Bush years and the Fayetteville Shale play is creating new environmental demands on the agency that has had minimal oil and gas enforcement experiences in the past.
Of interest is what Beebe didn’t say. Not once was the Governor’s Global Warming Commission mentioned, nor any of its 54 recommendations, nor Arkansas’s contribution to the warming of our home planet. He did talk about being “stewards of our environment,” conserving, operating efficiently and the state’s partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative that will allow the state to “lead by example”…one assumes that refers to conservation measures by state building retrofits and efficiencies. Me thinks the message in the tea leaves is as the Poohbah has predicted months ago. Both Beebe and GGWC Chair Rep. Kathy Webb are pragmatists. We will not see the more archaic, government mandated, top down restrictions that global warming advocates have pushed on other states.
For complete coverage of the Governor’s State of the Sate address–
http://governor.arkansas.gov/newsroom/index.php?do:newsDetail=1&news_id=1384
The Grand Poohbah
Tags: ADEQ
