Widener Students on Politics

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Parents in Philly Fed Up with Public Education

By Zeynep Ozdener

Recently Philadelphia has been under national scrutiny. Unfortunately, this white hot spotlight has centered around the education policies of the state of Pennsylvania. As public funding for education decreases, public schools in Philadelphia are suffering.

In light of these budget cuts, many Philadelphian parents have taken to writing complaint letters to Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Education. In fact, over 250 such letters have been sent in just the last week, and another 100 are expected to be formally filed within the next seven days. While around 43 percent of public education funding usually comes from the state nationwide, in Pennsylvania, it is only around 35 percent.

Overall, Pennsylvania is tenth on the list of least state-funded schools in America. This has caused a shortage of necessary school guidance counselors, arts programs, and even language programs for immigrant students. Indeed, over 3,000 public school employees were let go before the 2013-2014 school year began.

In my opinion, parents have every right to be outraged, and it is a solid, if small, first step that they are complaining to the proper authorities. However, as far as options go, Pennsylvania does not have many. In order to add almost 50 extra million dollars to the public education budget, the City Council has just today approved of a plan to purchase vacant properties from Philadelphia’s school district. However, Mayor Nutter has expressed disapproval, stating that the idea has many failings.

Whether or not he is actually right (Lord knows he has been wrong about many things in the past), $50 million has been allocated to the public school system, and already some of the laid-off employees have been re-employed. Hopefully, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania as a whole will be able to crawl out of this education-funding rut they have recently been in.

 

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Clean up the Gowanus Canal!!

by Elisabeth Powell

Widener University Environmental Politics and Policy Student

It should be a major priority to clean up superfund sites. It is ridiculous that it has taken this long for something to get done with the Gowanus Canal. This canal is very old and dumping by factories and untreated sewage by the city drains caused most of the pollution. It seems like it was a free for all dumping ground for Brooklyn. Benson metal has to pay $85,000 because they were dropping metal into the canal; Petroleum Tank Cleaners on Butler Street has been fined $32,500 for a spill and other violations. Surprisingly, a bus company has been fined over $500,000 for oil spills and other illegal dumping.

People just do not respect the waterway in this city, while the city is trying to clean it up, more people are trying to cut corners to save a buck. There are hazardous metals in the water such as mercury, lead, and an elixir of industrial chemicals and traces of pesticides. The combination of cutting corners and saving money for big business, the clean up is going to be 8-10 years and maintenance will go on forever. Was it really worth it? The contamination in some parts goes 100 feet deep! Not only is that a lot of man power to clean this canal up, it is going to take a lot of energy to do so; which costs the environment in another sense. And when the clean up is all said and done, how long is it going to stay clean? There should be a register list for businesses that illegally dump, like the sex offender list but dumping violators. Heavy fines should be put in place for life for these violators.

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Denver Plastic Bag Fee on the Horizon?

by Aubrey Dangelo

Widener University Political Science Major

The city of Denver, Colorado is considering the implementation of a city-wide fee on plastic bags, in an attempt to discourage their usage. If the measure passes, consumers will have to pay five cents for every single-use plastic bag that they receive from stores to carry their purchases. If the measure is adopted by the government of Denver, the fee will go into effect starting on April 1, 2014. Although this measure is facing a lot of opposition from lobbyists as well as plastic manufacturers, the proposed law is moderate in comparison to the ten cent per bag fees in other Colorado cities such as Breckenridge and Boulder, and the twenty cent per bag fee in both Aspen and Carbondale.
There is no doubt as to why this type of policy is gaining popularity in cities throughout not only the United States, but in cities all over the world. Most of the plastic bags used by consumers wind up in either landfills or in the ocean. Throughout the hundreds of years that it takes these bags to decompose, they release toxins into nearby soil, oceans, lakes and rivers. Pioneering the fight for Denver’s plastic bag fee legislation is City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega, who argues that the proposed ordinance will protect the environment by encouraging people to use reusable bags instead of single-use plastic bags. If individuals are not making responsible choices when it comes to the environment, it is necessary that laws are enforced that encourage them to change their practices, and that is the ultimate goal of this type of legislation.

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In New York, If the Cats are Away the Mice will Play…

by Morgan Wieziolowski

Widener University Political Science Major

New York State needs to improve their regulation and inspection of water within the state, regardless of large staff cuts from the DEC in the past few years. Actions taken against polluters of NY water systems has dropped twenty-five percent in the past three years. Over 850 staff members that work for the state DEC (Divisions of Air and Water Quality Management) lost their jobs and no one seems to be covering the positions of those workers. Pollution and waste dumping is going unattended and unprotected, the state needs to change their system of management. Corporations and factories are able to self-report their waste and fuel emissions with no one to question or check whether the reports are accurate. Large facilities are refusing to follow their permits and regulations because they “don’t have to.” It is a little disheartening to think that a corporation in the United States is allowed practically free reign in their chemical/waste/disposals and emissions. Obviously the staff members for the DEC are not doing their jobs, or are unable to do the jobs of those who were laid off.

Governor Cuomo should address this issue directly by either proposing to shift some funding to the DEC, to rehire the people needed or hiring new staff that will accomplish the inspections and regulations necessary. He should crack down on corporations caught not following permits, by creating legislation with harsher consequences for the corporations, beyond the scope of fines. Sometimes it makes more sense financially for a Corporation to pollute the air/water, (breaking state/federal permits) rather than paying a fine. The state should come up with consequences that will actually incentivize the corporation to follow the laws. It could also start at a City Council meeting or a County level. Especially because the water pollution is more significant in certain areas of the state than others. For example a law could say, that any corporation in the state that has been proven to break the NYS or Federal environmental protection laws more than three times in a twenty year period, is no longer permitted to run business in the state of New York. Such a law would force companies and businesses to follow the regulations because they would want to maintain the business in the state, which is much more of an incentive, or consequence. However if there is no one regulating or inspecting that these Corporations are following the laws then there is not really a point in having a new piece of consequential legislation in the first place.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/12/new-york-pollution-inspections_n_3915472.html

 

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The PA DEP & Problematic Pits

by Sarah Cox

Widener University Political Science Major

Clearly the gas drilling industry has many concerns when it comes to environmental safety as well as how human health will be affected. Range Resources Corp. has dug a retaining plastic covered pit next door to a small Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania farm. The pit is bigger than a football field and can hold 15 million gallons of water for shale-drilling purposes. As expected, the once peaceful neighborhood is in upheaval around the noisy, smelly and dangerous pit. These pits are susceptible to spills of chemical water, which makes them extremely dangerous to the farm land around them.

The fact that the State Department of Environmental Protection is letting this pit stand is slightly disheartening. Why will the DEP fight to block smaller, open top pits, but not these larger pits? These large pits are designed for transfer stations, which means heavy truck traffic will be driving in and out of the neighborhood location, often spilling chemicals and releasing air pollutants if the tanks are not sealed properly. Even more concerning is the fact that there are seven Range sites like this one in the DEP’s data base and all seven have received at least one state violation. These environmental violations are usually focused around improper waste handling, which is exactly what you would want in your back yard and around your kids, right?

Industrial sites such as these pits do not belong in residential or agricultural based areas.

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Fracking Fee Is NOT Enough

by Paul Berger

Widener University Environmental Politics and Policy Student

I am one that is definitely against fracking, but the way I see it, is that it is something that cannot be stopped, only slowed. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) says that the Impact Fee from the drilling of the Marcellus Shale will not be as beneficial to Pennsylvania as much as it is other states. If PA decides to stay with the impact fee that they created in 2012, the environmental and fiscal costs leave little room for profit. The solution that the PBPC are suggesting is to impose a 4% tax on drilling of new wells. These kinds of numbers will generate 1.2 billion dollars per year by 2020, which is three times the current fee. They go on to talk about how other states like West Virginia and Texas have these taxes in place, and their benefit will increase as production increases, while other states like Pennsylvania will not see an increase in profit. If PA keeps this fee instead of the tax, they are going to leave millions of dollars in revenue that could be used for schools, infrastructure and healthcare. If fracking is going to be something that cant be stopped, then why not benefit from it economically and help the state in other ways, even if it will destroy the environment

http://www.phillytrib.com/cityandregionarticles/item/10698-policy-center-reports-marcellus-shale-not-beneficial.html