3:48 am Thursday morning as I hammer out this report and what a week this has started out to be.
I became somewhat incensed when I heard on the radio Monday that the Feds were still trying to bend to the will of the O’Hare crowd. The US Mint will mint new silver dollars with a noticeable change. You will NOT see “In God We Trust” written around the face of it. They are quick to note that the motto hasn’t been removed but rather has been stamped around the corrugated edge of the coin. Those in the know say you will need a magnifying glass to read the inscription.
Then I learned that the Texas Attorney General has signed onto the brief in the Supreme Court Case siding with EPA not to regulate Carbon Dioxide from tail pipe emissions of new vehicles. Normally such action falls under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Agency to request such intervention but they say the were never contacted and did not request that the Attorney General intervene in the suit on their behalf.
I don’t say whether Carbon Dioxide should be regulated or not but the fear is that if it is then that will affect industrial plants as well.
The coal burning power plants that Perry just fast tracked into being granted permits would be hit also. According to Environmental Defense the eleven plants proposed by TXU would be the equivalent of adding 10,000,000 Cadillacs to the highway.
The real crusher came as I continued down my To Do List for Wednesday and contacted TxDOT to check on the status of the Federal Grant for Motorcycle Safety & Awareness. We received $317,000 to be used for that purpose. I had asked Clif to work with a group established just for that purpose.
After reading the letter from Clif in the Suds-N-Butterfly Newsletter I was curious why it was there with this much money ready to be spent.
I spoke with Frank in Traffic Safety and he was very possessive of the grant saying “This is our money we applied for the grant” and I explained I knew that the state applied for it and I also knew it could go to a non profit group that served the purpose for which the grant was received.
Frank reiterated that it was their money and they had already decided where it would go. When I asked where it was going he said it went to DPD Motorcycle Safety Division.
I called Clif and he was every bit the politician. At first he said they hadn’t given him the money. When I said Frank told me they had then he said well they told me to write up how I could spend the money and I asked if he had contacted the group I had asked him to work with. He said no, he didn’t have time to go looking for someone to share the money but he was going to buy some Share The Road Signs for Texas Motorcycle Roadriders Assoc.. I said we need the money spent on driver awareness we already spend money to teach us to be careful. His reply was “ I don’t know that I agree about that.” He also stated that they could make the material for PSA’s, Billboards and such but could not pay to run the PSA’s or keep the Billboards up. But he could maybe work with a group that would do that.
But he said he only had til the end of this week to get anything filed.
I called the officers of the group I had recommended and one didn’t know anything about it and the other didn’t return my call. My mind went blank and my stomach felt empty. It appears this money will not be used like it should be unless I can do something today. I will be down at Clif’s office later this morning and try to find some way to work around this crap. If not the all I can do is apologize for not staying on top of it but I was under the impression it was being handled. I pointed everything in the right direction and then went on with other things.
WE have a meeting with a Club in Bryan Sunday and a show to do Tuesday then I think I will take a little hiatus and get my head back on straight. Of course I’ve been saying that since June 1994.
Sputnik
