More Bad News from the US Supreme Court
Earlier this week I wrote a post expressing my disgust over the US Supreme Court’s announcement that it had found major provisions of campaign finance reform to be unconstitutional. This paved the way for corporate and union money to mute the voices of individual citizens like you and me.
Later in the week, the justices dealt another punch to the gut to the forces of progress. This came with the decision that rendered the federal government impotent against state and local decisions regarding rights of way — for things like power lines.
Many of us are — or were — hoping for long-distance transmission of electrical power. This would have made feasible the development of forms of renewable energy that are prevalent in certain areas of the country, e.g., solar thermal in the southwestern desert, wind energy in the plains, and geothermal in the mountains. As of this week, however, such things will require the buy-in of dozens of state and local bureaucracies.
It hasn’t been a good week of news from high court.
[…] ammonia even more attractive as a fuel is an issue that I wrote about earlier regarding a recent US Supreme Court decision. As of April 2010, it is far more difficult to resolve eminent domain issues that would have […]