The Mississippi Center for Public Policy has joined other organizations in opposing legislation related to the so-called Green New Deal.
Virtually every provision of the Green New Deal, ranging from trillions of dollars in new spending to onerous rules on automobiles and airplanes, would be disastrous to households and businesses across America. The U.S. economy needs abundant, low-cost sources of energy, not bank-breaking regulations that make it more difficult for Americans to live their lives.
Earlier this year, members of the U.S. Senate introduced a resolution, S.J. Res. 8, calling for the creation of a radical, ill-thought-out “Green New Deal.” This complete and unrealistic overhaul of the U.S. economy would have devastated hardworking American families. According to the American Action Forum, the plan would cost Americans anywhere from $51.1 trillion to $92.9 trillion, or $316,010 to $419,010 per household, over ten years.
Not surprisingly, the Senators who proposed this preposterous resolution refused to support the measure when it was brought to the floor. A motion to invoke cloture and proceed to consideration of the Green New Deal failed by a vote of 0-57. None of the resolution’s sponsors supported it.
Normally when such imprudent policy ideas meet such a resounding defeat in the U.S. Senate, it means that these ideas will be relegated to the dustbin of political debate. Unfortunately, many members of Congress who refused to support this plan on the Senate floor are currently devising strategies to implement provisions of the Green New Deal by attaching them to important pending legislation.
Important measures to support American troops, fund the government or maintain economic growth must not be imperiled by ill-considered policies from a fringe resolution. Energy policy deserves dedicated legislation that offers policies that would lower costs for Americans. Removing senseless restrictions on drilling and fracking and repealing existing “renewable” mandates are just two possible paths toward greater energy affordability and increased choices for consumers. Congress should also pursue dedicated legislation that repeals wasteful government “clean energy” programs that subsidize boondoggles at significant expense to taxpayers.
American consumers deserve an abundance of options to heat their homes and fuel their vehicles. Sneaking Green New Deal provisions into unrelated legislation would only lead to higher costs and undermine transparency in government. We urge the Senate to oppose any attempt to hold meaningful bills hostage in order to enact the misguided Green New Deal.
You can read the full letter here.
Despite the potential risks, Mississippi farmers want the chance to grow hemp as a cash crop.
Freddie Rowell is a farmer from Pelahatchie and grows soybean, wheat, and corn. He’s been talking with people in some of the 47 states that have legalized hemp and is interested in the possibilities.
“It’s being done in other states and it can be done here,” Rowell said. “You’ll see cultivation almost immediately, just on a small scale. Farmers are resilient. They’re going to try. They’re risk takers anyway. They’ll make a go of it.”
Neal Smith, who owns Serene Fox Farm in the small Delta community of Shaw, says he’s very interested in trying his hand growing hemp. Smith primarily grows soybeans and corn.
“This is of interest because we need another crop we can rotate as we try to maintain and enhance the quality of the soil,” Smith said.
There are some roadblocks that will likely keep them on the sidelines for at least the next growing season and possibly longer.
The Hemp Cultivation Task Force will issue its recommendations to the legislature in December. The legislature will then have to pass a law exempting industrial hemp and hemp-derived products from the list of controlled substances in state law.
Then the state would have to submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and receive approval.
“My crystal ball doesn’t work on politicians at all,” Smith said. “If the legislature was to pass anything, it’d be three years before anything of a substantial nature happens.”
As for large-scale hemp farming, it could be years before the crop becomes part of the state’s economy even if the legislature legalizes its cultivation and the USDA signs off on a cultivation plan by the state Department of Agriculture and Commerce.
“A farmer is going to grow what’s most profitable and right now there are so many things that are unknown,” Rowell said. “You’re seeing hemp grown in Colorado, Kentucky and Tennessee. These are areas with climates totally different than Mississippi.
“There are too many unknowns for a farmer to farm it for the fiber, for bedding material, for the seed. There’s too much risk for a farmer to jump into this now.”
Some of those unknowns include whether Mississippi’s climate and soil types are suitable for large-scale hemp cultivation. The varieties being grow in test programs nationwide hail from Canada and Europe and there haven’t been any trials in Mississippi’s climate.
There also isn’t a supply chain to allow farmers to get the crop to market and there are no pesticides or herbicides that are approved by the USDA for hemp.
Hemp cultivation would be along four lines: industrial, grain, fiber, and oil production.
Estimates by Randy Little at the Department of Agriculture Economics at Mississippi State University would put hemp fiber or hemp grain cultivation nearly on par with corn grown in the northeast part of the state and higher than soybeans grown in the Delta.
Growing a crop for both purposes would be nearly on par on with revenue on Delta corn. Hemp wouldn’t approach the massive revenue generated by cotton grown in either the northeast part of the state or the Delta.
It is generally considered a good thing if there is high demand for short-term vacation rentals in your city. And the reasons for this demand in Starkville are obvious.
From football, baseball, and basketball games at Mississippi State to events in the community throughout the year, tourism play a key role in the city’s economy. And thanks to technology, websites like Airbnb make it easier than ever for visitors to search for new options during their stay.
While short-term rentals in the past may have consisted of advertisements in newspapers that tell you very little, consumers now have pictures, location, and feedback from previous guests. And the ability to pay via an intermediary.
Why are people looking for this option? Short-term rentals provide the visitors with a different experience. It is usually more personal and accommodating. If you are visiting with a family, it is often the only, or at least most cost-effective, option.
How do you know the room or house you are renting will be acceptable? The host has an incentive to provide a positive experience. As is the case with most services in our sharing economy, your reputation – and ability to stay in business – is built on customer feedback. Reputation is everything. Airbnb and other homesharing platforms are incentivized to ensure consumers and providers are not harmed. In fact, it’s in their best interest to ensure the experience is valuable and enjoyable. This is the free market.
Such technology has benefited the state, too. Last year, Airbnb remitted $1 million in taxes to the state that hosts collected. Over 69,000 guests utilized the service during that time period. Every sign indicates that these numbers will only continue to grow. Unless government gets in the way.
Which, unfortunately, is the direction many cities have gone. Some have even been sued over it.
The city of Starkville is currently debating a short-term rental ordinance. The original proposal was draconian in nature and would have likely ended much of the short-term industry in the city. It would have limited the number of weekends and nights per year a house could be rented, imposed a $300 licensing fee, and required a homeowner to be a permanent resident to receive a permit from the city.
Essentially, you would have to live in your house to rent out your house. Many homeowners have invested in real estate. This increases property values, which is a benefit for the city. And homeowners have an obvious incentive not just in receiving positive feedback online, but in maintaining the value of their investment. That is to say, a house being trashed is not good for anyone.
Alternatives to the original proposal are much more user-friendly, placing no limits on rentals, lowering the licensing fee, and easing off the residency requirements.
When it comes to the need for these ordinances, there are a couple common complaints. Noise is a popular topic. Yet, a city can pass and enforce a noise ordinance for everyone. It doesn’t require banning short-term rentals. If trash is being left behind, again, you can have ordinances concerning trash in yards.
The truth is that the biggest opponent to Airbnb and other homesharing sites is the hotel industry. The industry naturally wants to petition government to help create a moat around their industry.
It is understandable why people working in the hotel industry are upset by this disruption and by the fact that these platforms and their users are not governed by the same regulatory burdens of the hotel industry. The same can be said of the taxi industry when Uber was launched or of virtually any business that suffers from creative disruption. The cycle is as old as capitalism.
The incumbents in these industries have paid a regulatory cost. Rather than trying to impose old regulations on new, innovative, customer-focused players, we should consider deregulating the existing industries so that competition is enhanced and innovation is incentivized. The way to achieve this is through the free market. Writing new regulations and trying to enforce old ones encourages cronyism, and only hurts local economies. Starkville should think very hard about doing anything that would limit homesharing.
At the end of the day, we have individuals who are able to earn an extra income from something they own, and tourists are able to get what they are looking for. It’s called voluntary exchange. It’s a good thing. We should encourage more of it, not try to interfere with it.
This column appeared in the Starkville Daily News on October 6, 2019.
Former Institutions of Higher Learning Commissioner Glenn Boyce will be named the next Chancellor of the University of Mississippi on Friday, according to multiple reports.
As Ole Miss prepares for homecoming weekend and a winnable Saturday night game against Vanderbilt, the official announcement will be made tomorrow at The Inn at Ole Miss.
Boyce will become the third chancellor in five years at Ole Miss after former Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter stepped down in December with two years remaining on his contract.
For multiple reason – a declining enrollment and endowment, poor performance on the football field and a half-empty stadium, and continuous decisions that alienate a large chunk of a conservative alumni base – this hire was viewed as one that had to be right. Now obviously an Ole Miss board was not the one making the decision, it was the IHL that oversees the eight public universities. Still, Ole Miss faithful could at least hope for the best.
Regardless, and with no foresight into Boyce, what he will do, or what his plans for the university entail, this decision isn’t one that appears to have many people in Oxford celebrating.
Boyce, after all, was hired by the University of Mississippi Foundation to be a consultant in the search. This was with the private foundation however, not IHL. His name was not included in a list of eight candidates that appeared in Mississippi Today earlier this week.
For those that were hoping Ole Miss would step outside of the “good ole boy” system, it doesn’t pass the initial smell test. Rather, it is one that will raise eyebrows and leave more questions than answers. Such as, should a university be able to hire their own leader? Ironically, liberal professors seem as upset as members of the Make Ole Miss Great Again Facebook group.
This will be Boyce’s first involvement with a four-year university. Before running IHL, he was president of the Holmes County Community College, he served on various education-related boards, and he worked in the Rankin County School District.
He received his bachelor’s degree and doctorate from Ole Miss. He received his master’s from Mississippi College.
According to a data analysis by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the vast majority of forfeitures by law enforcement are not from traffic stops on the interstates.
Data from two-plus years of the state’s forfeiture database show that 35 out of 292 forfeitures from counties along an interstate route (11.9 percent) were from traffic stops along interstates.
Of the 590 forfeitures since the database went online two years ago, 48.3 percent of them came from counties with an interstate.
We analyzed forfeiture entries from the database from the counties along the three interstates. Most mentioned whether the seizure was from a traffic stop and the general location, but with much of the relevant data missing.
The law requires law enforcement agencies to report the value of the seizure and the date, but doesn’t mandate the exact location, direction of travel by the property owners, amount of drugs (if any) seized and whether any charges were filed against the property owners.
Information on contraband seized at these interstate stops is minimal, as only three of the entries in the database have exact quantities and type of drugs. Fifteen mentioned the presence of illegal drugs without providing the quantity or even type of contraband. Seventeen had no mention of drugs and two of these seizures, both in Rankin County, were of hidden, sealed bags of cash.
According to the database, only 25 out of the 100 forfeitures from counties along the route of Interstate 20 originated from traffic stops along the interstate.
The numbers for Interstate 55 are even more revealing, as only eight out of 159 forfeitures from the counties along I-55 originated from traffic stops on the interstate.
The same story was on Interstate 59, where only two out of 33 forfeitures were from traffic stops on the interstate.
Despite the low number of seizures, most are lucrative, averaging $67,261 per forfeiture. On I-20, the average stop netted $64,821, while I-55 stops were worth only $18,579 per forfeiture.
No busts along I-20’s 154.5 mile route occurred in Warren, Newton or Lauderdale counties. All of the interstate forfeitures occurred in Hinds (four out of 52 forfeitures), Rankin (13 out of 27) and Scott counties (eight out of 17).
As for I-55, eight of the counties — Lincoln, Copiah, Yazoo, Holmes, Yalobusha, Montgomery, Grenada and Tate — along the 290-mile route in Mississippi reported no forfeitures from interstate traffic stops.
All of the I-55 forfeitures occurred in Pike (three out of 19 forfeitures), Panola (one of nine) and DeSoto counties (three of 112).
Only Jasper and Lamar counties recorded seizures in the 171 miles of the I-59 corridor.
In this episode of Unlicensed, we talk about the core principle of individual liberty, and why the state has an apparent interest in restricting our liberty so often.
We start with The Sandlot and then talk about eyebrow threading, abortion protests, “fake” meat, vaping, hemp, Airbnb, and more.
Earlier this week an ordinance was passed in the city of Jackson by a 3-1 vote to “prohibit certain activities near healthcare facilities.”
This ordinance specifically targets the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The ordinance will create a “bubble zone” around the abortion facility, forbidding pro-life speech, prayer, or activity near the building.
Council Member Melvin Priester was largely concerned with maintaining a peaceful atmosphere in the business community. Mayor Chokwe Lumumba commented that he stands for free speech, having protested in Ferguson himself. He warned that protestors must remain, “dignified and respectful.” Council President Virgil Lindsay stated that this is an issue of access to healthcare.
The comments, made by city council members in regards to the ordinance, were befuddling and seemingly erroneous – but, what can be said about such a blatant violation of our rights? Apart from the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, this ordinance restricts freedom of speech and assembly on public property. As such, it is a subject which our council members and other politicians should have impeccable clarity.
Many, including myself, do not agree with various methods used on the sidewalk outside JWHO. If we stand for free speech, however, we must also stand for free speech that we are not personally comfortable with.
Additionally, it is difficult to understand how individuals practicing basic liberties outside of a “healthcare facility” are preventing access to basic healthcare.
If our representatives are rendered unable to understand the importance of maintaining freedom of speech, assembly, and religion, it is not surprising that they cannot recognize the right to life of the unborn.
Dozens of women, just this year, have chosen to walk from the abortion facility to the Cline Center, located across the street. Dozens of women, just this year, have chosen life because of the loving support of sidewalk counselors. It is now illegal for sidewalk counselors to offer this support outside of the abortion clinic.
We can hope that this shocking violation of basic rights will open many eyes to the shocking violation of rights that the abortion industry poses to mother and child.
The city of Jackson can attempt to hush the activity outside of the abortion clinic, but maybe, in that silence, we will be able to hear the truth of what is actually happening within those pink walls.
It is not the responsibility of the government to protect you from yourself. We as citizens have given government too much authority, and that isn’t a good thing.
Just look at the new meat-labeling regulations for unsuspecting consumers.
One of the two comments the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce received concerning the regulations was from a rancher in Starkville. They are worried people would be unable to read the labels of meatless products because they are too close to traditional meat products.
“Kroger has marketed and is labeling the product in a way that a consumer could be in a hurry, and grab that product since it is available in the meat department, where in fact, it is not real meat. They even went so far as to place (it) next to the other ground beef and prepattied hamburger products,” the comment noted.
It would take that busy person all of ten seconds to read the label.
Government is not here to read for you, and we shouldn’t expect it to. It is unfortunate than any citizen thinks this is the job of government.
While MDAC might be on the hunt for fake meat, the debate over the term “fake meat” and plant-based alternatives misses a crucial point. Plant-based companies want you to know what they are selling is not actually meat. Their consumers are specifically looking for this product and they generally pay more for it.
There is not some conspiracy at play here. This would actually be a terrible conspiracy, if that’s what marketers were trying to pull off.
Rather, consumer habits are shifting. If consumers were not interested in plant-based alternatives, these options would not be on our shelves. Because private companies – whether it’s Kroger, Walmart, Whole Foods, or any other grocery store – need to do one thing above all to stay in business: sell products that consumers want, at a profit.
If there wasn’t interest, a Whole Foods would not have opened in Jackson. Plant-based options would not be available at Kroger. Subway would not have chosen Mississippi as one of a handful of states for a vegan meatball test. Burger King would not have launched the Impossible Burger.
This debate might be over veggie burgers, but this is just one example of the government in Mississippi trying to make decisions for individuals. And at the end of the day, it will just be one of 117,000 regulations on the books in Mississippi. Can’t we just try to be more free and let the voluntary exchange between consumers and producers happen without the government trying to intervene?
This is symbolic of a larger problem we have here in the Magnolia State. We don’t trust the free market and consumer choice. The sooner we do, the better off we’ll all be.
The Jackson city council has passed a controversial ordinance aimed at curbing pro-life counselors and protesters from standing outside the city’s abortion clinic in Fondren.
The new ordinance bans individuals from approaching within eight feet of any person, unless that person consents to receiving a leaflet, bans people from protesting, congregating, or picketing within fifteen feet of the abortion center, and bans any amplified sound.
The council held a long meeting last Thursday, and eventually addressed the ordinance in a packed room, open to the public, after eight hours of other scheduled discussions.
Following this meeting, one council member, Melvin Priester, took to his official Facebook page to make some comments about the day. After addressing some of the other issues that were on the docket, he turned to the controversial new ordinance and had this to say (please note errors are his own as the statement appears unedited):
“I am absolutely, 100% convinced that give or take 20 years from now, one of these bored kids that gets drug to City Council meetings to wait for their parent to make a public comment will be in a bar on whatever 2039's version of a Tindr/Grindr date is. His/her date is going to ask ‘so, why did you move here?’ And this person is going to reply, ‘As a kid, my family was SUPER-religious. I didn't even go to school, they just posted me up outside the only abortion clinic in a 3-hour radius day-after-day. Anyway, I'm 12 or 13 and my folks would always take me to Jackson City Council meetings to protest abortion. We'd sit there for HOURS so dad could talk for like 3 minutes. It was soooooo boring. He made me sit there and film it on my cell phone even though it was a televised meeting. Anyway, I swore to myself at like the 4 hour point of dying on one of these hard benches for the millionth time that as SOON as I turned 18, I'd get sooooo far away from Jackson and never look back. So here I am, living in San Francisco, working for planned parenthood. You know how it turns out.”
Priester suggests that religious families will see their children turn against their views, turn against them, turn against Jackson, and will seek a life working for the nation’s largest abortion provider.
The comment is incredibly hurtful for the thousands of faith-filled Mississippians who seek to imbue in their children the values that they hold dear. These good people attempt to pass on what’s important to them, teach their kids to get involved in the community, and to defend the most innocent among us, the unborn.
These values deserve to be praised rather than shamed.
The question must be asked: would Priester fire off such a one-sided and belittling analysis of this situation if the shoe were on the other foot? I would think not, it seems much more likely that he’d praise people for exercising their civic duty, had they not had the gall to disagree with him.
Priester, himself, has tweeted that, “[I]t’s the citizens of Jackson and the families they raise that truly make Jackson great.” Apparently this doesn’t apply to those who dare to raise their children in “SUPER-religious” or pro-life houses.
Regardless of where you stand on the newly passed ordinance, many can probably agree that belittling those who show up to council meetings to participate in their civic duty and suggesting that their kids will turn against their views, probably isn’t the way to foster respectful dialogue on a controversial issue.