The Nation

Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett Own More Wealth Than the Entire Poorest Half of the US Population

How can we get to a saner tax system, a more just distribution of wealth, and a healthier economy overall?

By Michelle Chen    November 13, 2017

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett speaks to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. (AP / Nati Harnik)

As treasure troves of the super-elite’s untold trillions glisten in offshore tax havens, Main Street is sinking in an underwater economy. Drowning in debt, clinging to the tatters of the welfare state, the gulf between the richest few and the rest of us could now widen even further with a new GOP tax bill loaded with another corporate bounty of loopholes, more tax “incentives,” and more trickle-up economics designed to concentrate as much wealth in as few hands as possible.

According to a report on the country’s widening wealth gap, published by the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the elites at the helm of this upside-down economy would fit in a cozy lifeboat:

The three wealthiest people in the United States—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett—now own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 160 million people or 63 million households.

More than half of US wealth is controlled by 25 billionaires. And multinational corporations shield an estimated 10 percent of global GDP from taxation through avoidance and evasion in obscure, unregulated financial enclaves.

Capitalism

The Paradise Papers—the massive trove of financial records exposing tech giants, Russian oligarchs, and White House officials alike—offer a glimpse of the hidden riches that remain untouchable by Uncle Sam, and the structural regulatory failures that feed global corporate impunity.

But, while the papers largely focus on corporate malfeasance, it’s vital to also look at the social injustices produced by this wealth imbalance, and the crisis of democracy that abets this global theft. According to recent estimates, “households in the top 0.01 percent, with wealth over $45 million, evade 25 to 30 percent of personal income and wealth taxes.”

Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality, says via e-mail, “[T]hese concentrations of wealth understate the actual levels of inequality, due to hidden wealth systems. We believe that closing these systems of hidden wealth are critical to reducing extreme concentrations of wealth.”

The nationwide wealth gap represents how the neoliberal economic system operates as a zero-sum game based on disempowering the poor.

It’s no secret that wealthy individuals and corporations channel their enormous financial assets into tax havens. Yet for the most part the piracy of the gilded class is perfectly legal, even encouraged, under existing tax codes. The everyday struggle to stay housed, get an education, or pay for medicine, on the other hand, often traps working-class households in virtual debtor’s prisons. Today the bottom 1 percent of households are collectively $196 billion in the hole, while the top 1 percent sit on $33.4 trillion of combined net worth. A fifth of American households, and about a third of black and Latino families, are stuck with zero or negative net wealth. And while wealth divides deepen racial segregation, concentration of accumulated assets across society aggravates long-term economic insecurity within communities of color and across gender lines. Overall, the increasingly polarized economic structure has hollowed the middle class, eroded public services, and driven years of stagnant wages.

The GOP’s proposed tax bill purports to curb offshoring by shifting to a territorial tax system, which in theory would tax large profits held offshore. But advocates point to the fine print: Various exemptions would severely limit the amount of corporate profit that is actually captured. A measure to nominally tax “excess” profits sets a sharp threshold at revenues above $100 million. The framework is structured so that, as economist Kimberly Clausing of Reed College noted at a press conference on the bill, “Embedded in that tax is actually an incentive to move tangible assets offshore,” which would actually be an incentive to shift not just financial assets but real workplaces. According to the financial watchdog FACT Coalition, “companies will be incentivized not just to move profits on paper to tax havens but to move actual jobs and factories to lower tax countries.” And to further empower the most toxic forms of capital, Republicans have proposed a bonus for fossil-fuel industries, by granting an exemption from the adjusted tax rate just for oil and gas companies—the same companies that are ruining local habitats and hiding the spoils abroad.

That means American workers get hit on both ends: public revenue hemorrhages and jobs slip away from communities as multinationals are encouraged to invest abroad, in another round of capital flight.

The fundamental structural problem that must be fixed, advocates say, is the lack of basic transparency in the global taxation system, which would allow both policy-makers and the public to at least track what happens to the estimated $94 billion to $131 billion in revenue that multinationals funnel away from public coffers into a financial black hole through tax dodging each year. OxFam America has called for a global effort to overhaul reporting regulations, so there is robust disclosure on a country-by-country basis. And to really clamp down on asset hoarding overseas, they are also demanding a direct ban on offshore shell companies that allow for unfettered money laundering for criminal syndicates, politicians, and everything in between. The Corporate Transparency Act that has been proposed in Congress would be a first step in requiring registration of the ownership of these anonymous phantom companies.

The Paradise Papers ultimately represent just a tiny cross section of hidden offshore wealth. “This leak is only possible because of the radical secrecy embedded in our tax laws,” said Oxfam America Policy Director Gawain Kripke in a statement on the revelations. “This should be a clarion call for legislation to mandate basic transparency so we no longer need leaks like this to reveal the rot beneath the surface.”

But of course, if offshore tax holdings were fully disclosed, that would defeat the purpose of the tax-haven system. And who knows what else people would start to demand if politicians and billionaire CEOs were forced to come clean about the real sources of their riches? People might start to question who should be trusted to run our economies, and our governments.

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Michelle Chen is a contributing writer for The Nation.

POPSUGAR

Documentaries About Climate Change on Netflix

6 Documentaries That Will Shut Down Any Climate-Change Denier

by Lisette Mejia        November 14, 2017      View In Slideshow

Given President Donald Trump’s denial of climate change and his recent action of pulling the US out of the Paris Accord, now is probably an apt time to educate yourself on the environment. It’s even more important when you realize that the present Environmental Protection Agency director is a climate science denier — and he’s quite open about it.

Global warming is neither an engineered fallacy nor really even debated at this point. There is a broad consensus in the scientific community that climate change is occurring and heavily accelerated by humans.

An easy way to get educated on the matter? By watching a documentary, of course. We’ve compiled a list of environmental documentaries you can learn a lot from. Read on to see.

1 GasLand

Nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary in 2011, GasLand looks at the negative effects of fracking, also known as natural-gas drilling — like poisoned water sources and sick animals. It’s been incredibly influential as a tool in the anti-fracking movement and for those vocal about fracking’s role in worsening climate change.

2 More Than Honey

What do bees have to do with it? You’ll understand once you watch More Than Honey and discover that they’re dying in record numbers across the globe, thanks, in part, to climate change. You’ll also be reminded about how they pollinate much of our food supply, so their deaths have tragic consequences for humans, too.

3 Antarctic Edge: 70° South

Follow along in Antarctic Edge: 70° South as a team of scientists explores the “fastest Winter-warming place on Earth” — the melting ice sheet of the West Antarctic Peninsula. The film was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and turns two decades of scientific research on climate change into a sad but significant narrative.

4 Mission Blue

Mission Blue is a Netflix original documentary about a famous oceanographer named Sylvia Earle, and her efforts to create protected marine sanctuaries across the globe. You’ll leave with a greater appreciation for those who dedicate their lives to saving the ocean from effects like over-fishing, pollution, and climate change.

5 Chasing Ice

Chasing Ice won a news and documentary Emmy in 2014 thanks to its stunning visuals paired with a sobering story line. In it, you see the work of National Geographic photographer James Balog as he captures time-lapses of glaciers eroding and disappearing.

6 Surviving Progress

What’s considered progress these days? Technological advancements and economic prosperity might come to mind. Surviving Progress says we have it all wrong and need to look at progress as our efforts to confront climate change — or else we’re screwing ourselves and future generations over.

StateImpact – Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.   A reporting project of NPR member stations. About StateImpact Pennsylvania:

StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration between WITF, WHYY, WESA and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Marie Cusick, Susan Phillips and Reid Frazier cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania. This collaborative project is funded, in part, through grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Heinz Endowments and William Penn Foundation.

New gas pipeline capacity sharply exceeds consumption, report says

By John Hurdle        November 13, 2017

Nati Harnik / AP Photo. Workers unload pipes at a staging area in Worthing, S.D., for the 1,130-mile Dakota Access Pipeline. A new report says the nation’s new natural gas pipeline capacity resulting from a building boom is far more than is needed.

Charges that the U.S. pipeline industry is building far more natural gas pipelines than it needs are being fueled by a new report showing that the capacity of lines approved by federal regulators over the last two decades was more than twice the amount of gas actually consumed daily in 2016.

The report by the independent Analysis Group for the Natural Resources Defense Council said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved more than 180 billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d) of new pipeline capacity since 1999, when it began its current policy on approving interstate pipelines. The new capacity compares with the average daily consumption of only 75.11 bcf/d last year, the report said.

Even during the Polar Vortex of 2013/14 when exceptionally cold temperatures in the Northeast boosted the need for heating fuel, consumption of 137 bcf/d was still significantly lower than the combined capacity additions, the report said, citing data from the federal Energy Information Administration. In January 2017, national consumption was 93.1 bcf/d, even further below the capacity of the additional pipeline network, the report said. The data on additions to pipeline capacity are from FERC.

Topics:    Pipelines: The new battleground over fracking

NRDC, in the report issued Nov. 6, said the overcapacity is being driven by the profits that can be earned by pipeline builders; by FERC’s willingness to accept builders’ assurances that there is a need for the additional gas, and by the regulator’s existing application policy that does not recognize big changes in the natural gas market since the policy began.

“The report underscores very real concerns that we are overbuilding the natural gas pipeline system,” said Montina Cole, an attorney with NRDC’s ‘Sustainable FERC’ project.

Cole told StateImpact that an increasing number of pipeline builders are justifying their projects with so-called affiliate agreements in which buyers of the gas are commercially linked with the carrier. When the buyer is an electric utility, that means ratepayers end up paying the cost of the pipeline, she said.

“The pipeline developer is really on both sides of the transaction,” Cole said. “They are both selling the capacity, and the buyers are affiliates, which are increasingly electricity companies that have captive ratepayers.”

She argued that FERC, which approves virtually all pipeline applications that come before it, is too ready accept builders’ assurances that there is a need for a pipeline.

“Pipeline companies tell FERC: ‘We can demonstrate the need because we have contracts subscribing the capacity of the pipeline.’ FERC places undue reliance on that in deciding whether a pipeline is needed,” she said.

In a recent 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission failed properly quantify greenhouse gas emissions linked to a pipeline expansion project in the southeastern U.S.     Marie Cusick / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Despite the high cost of building new pipelines and the existence of spare capacity in existing lines, builders are attracted to new projects because they are more profitable, Cole argued.

“There’s a lot more money to be made if you build that new pipeline, and you have a guaranteed recovery of your costs,” she said. “It’s a very lucrative business.”

The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, which represents pipeline builders, rejected the calls for a reform to FERC’s pipeline policy, saying it has served consumers by responding quickly to market need.

“The responsiveness of FERC’s certificate process has enabled U.S. consumers and the economy to benefit very quickly from the shale revolution,” said INGAA spokesman Cathy Landry. “This would not have occurred had FERC been bound by a policy requiring extensive proceedings to establish an administrative determination of the needs of the market.”

Landry said the idea of FERC incorporating regional planning into its application process, as proposed NRDC, would be at odds from the regulator’s “pro-competition” policies that rely on the “real world commitments” of pipeline companies to demonstrate market demand.

Still, the issue of over-capacity in the pipeline industry has also been raised by the U.S. Department of Energy, which said in 2015 it expects the rate of pipeline additions to slow in future as gas is increasingly carried in pipelines that have been built over the last decade in response to the shale boom.

“Higher utilization of existing interstate natural gas pipeline infrastructure will reduce the need for new pipelines,” the DOE said in a report.

Meanwhile, the NRDC said FERC’s policy on evaluating pipeline applications does not take into account significant market changes since the policy took effect, including a huge increase in shale gas production, public concerns on whether fracking taints drinking water, and how climate is affected by the shale gas boom.

“The time is ripe for FERC to undertake a structured and collaborative review of its pipeline certification guidance and policy,” said the report’s author, Susan Tierney, a former assistant secretary for policy at the DOE, in a statement.

FERC would not say whether it is looking at the NRDC report, how it responds to charges that it is approving too much pipeline capacity, or whether it is considering a review of its 1999 policy. “We don’t comment on outside reports,” said spokeswoman Celeste Miller.

But Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur indicated her own concerns with FERC’s approval process when she dissented in October from the commission’s approval of the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines in West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, saying both projects would have significant environmental effects.

LaFleur, the only Democrat among the three current commissioners, said the FERC process would benefit from a fuller consideration of how to balance pipelines’ environmental effects, including downstream impacts, with their need.

John Quigley, former secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, said that big changes to the supply of and demand for natural gas since the FERC policy was implemented would justify a fresh look at whether it is working as it should.

“When you look at the impact that this build-out clearly is having in states like Pennsylvania, the environmental impacts, the potential impacts in terms of public health, risks to public safety, climate risks, all of that needs to be considered,” he said. “It is not at all unreasonable to ask that they be considered anew given the rapid change and the scale of the challenge.”

On the issue of overcapacity, Quigley said that national figures may obscure regional variations in states like Pennsylvania where there are not yet enough pipelines to bring huge quantities of Marcellus gas to market.

“Generally speaking, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest overcapacity but when you look at regional and sub-regional places, especially in Pennsylvania, there’s a pretty strong argument on the other side that given the immense volume of gas that is being produced, it still can’t get delivered to the most lucrative markets,” said Quigley, who is now director of the Center for Environment, Energy and Economy at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, opponents of the PennEast Pipeline project argue there’s no need for the line that would carry natural gas some 120 miles from the Marcellus Shale of Luzerne County, Pa. to Mercer County, NJ.

Their argument was backed up in 2016 by the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, a public advocate for utility ratepayers, which said the PennEast Pipeline Co. had failed to demonstrate the need for the gas that would be carried by the line, and seemed to be motivated “more by the search for higher returns on investment than any actual deficiency in pipeline supply or pipeline capacity to transport it.”

In a response to claims that the pipeline was not needed, PennEast released a consultant’s report in 2015 saying that energy consumers in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania could have saved $890 million in additional energy costs if the pipeline had been operational in the cold winter of 2013/14.

PennEast is still waiting for FERC to issue a Certificate of Public Convenience which would allow it to begin eminent domain proceedings against landowners who have refused its offers of compensation. The company previously said it expected the certificate to be issued in the summer of 2017, and now says it expects FERC to do so “shortly,” according to company spokeswoman Pat Kornick. She predicted the pipeline will be operational in the second half of 2018.

McClatchy  D.C. Bureau

‘One of the most secretive, darkest states’: What is Kansas trying to hide?

By Laura Bauer, Judy L. Thomas And Max Londberg, The Kansas City Star

November 13, 2017

The statement was simple. Factual.

A Kansas spokesperson was acknowledging that the state highway department didn’t have the money to rebuild a dangerous stretch of Interstate 70 that had been the scene of multiple wrecks and a grisly motorcycle fatality caught on video.

“KDOT has lost a lot of money over the last few years,” the spokesperson said. “There’s just no funding at this point.”

Simple, yes. But in Gov. Sam Brownback’s cash-strapped administration, those were fighting words. Days later, the spokesperson was fired.

“Your article was the nail in my coffin for being the face of KDOT,” the spokesperson said in an email to The Kansas City Star.

The terminated employee, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, had learned what it meant to cross the line — the one where the state of Kansas doesn’t discuss public business with Kansans.

Kansas runs one of the most secretive state governments in the nation, and its secrecy permeates nearly every aspect of service, The Star found in a months-long investigation.

From the governor’s office to state agencies, from police departments to business relationships to health care, on the floors of the House and Senate, a veil has descended over the years and through administrations on both sides of the political aisle.

Read more in this series: Why so secret, Kansas?

Secrecy inside child welfare system can kill: ‘God help the children of Kansas’

Here’s how Kansas lawmakers keep you from finding out what they’re doing —until it’s too late

Who benefits from tax breaks in Kansas? You’re not allowed to know

When cops kill in Kansas, you probably won’t hear their names or see the video

Caregivers of disabled left in dark under Kansas’ private healthcare system

“My No. 1 question to anybody who opts in favor of nondisclosure is, ‘What are you trying to hide from us?’  ” said former Rep. John Rubin, a Johnson County Republican, calling Kansas “one of the most secretive, dark states in the country in many of these areas.”

What’s hidden are stories of regular Kansans who have suffered inside the silence.

In the course of its investigation, The Star found that:

▪ Children known to the state’s Department for Children and Families suffer horrific abuse, while the agency cloaks its involvement with their cases, even shredding notes after meetings where children’s deaths are discussed, according to a former high-ranking DCF official. One grieving father told The Star he was pressured to sign a “gag order” days after his son was killed that would prevent him from discussing DCF’s role in the case. Even lawmakers trying to fix the troubled system say they cannot trust information coming from agency officials. (Story coming Monday)

▪ In the past decade, more than 90 percent of the laws passed by the Kansas Legislature have come from anonymous authors. Kansans often had no way of knowing who was pushing which legislation and why, and the topics have included abortion, concealed weapons and school funding. Kansas is one of only a few states that allow the practice. (Story coming Tuesday)

▪ When Kansas police shoot and kill someone, law enforcement agencies often escape scrutiny because they are allowed to provide scant details to the public. The release of body-cam video has become common practice around the country after several high-profile, police-involved shootings. But in Kansas, a new state law is one of the most restrictive in the nation, allowing agencies to shelve footage that could shed more light on controversial cases. (Story coming Wednesday)

▪ Kansas became the first state to fully privatize Medicaid services in 2013, and now some caregivers for people with disabilities say they have been asked to sign off on blank treatment plans — without knowing what’s being provided. In some of those cases, caregivers later discovered their services had been dramatically cut. (Story coming Thursday)

The examples, when stitched together, form a quilt of secrecy that envelops much of state government.

“Damn,” said Bob Stephan, a Republican and four-time Kansas attorney general. “That causes me concern. It’s very disheartening. … It’s gone crazy.”

Secrecy from the top down

Many lawmakers who have attempted more openness in government say accountability has withered in the Brownback era.

Sen. Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, has spent 41 years in the Legislature, making him the longest-serving lawmaker in Kansas history. He has served under eight governors — half of them Republicans, half Democrats.

“We’ve had a real problem with this current administration,” Hensley said. “This is the least transparent administration I have seen. To be able to even get basic information about issues like foster care and the corrections department, it’s next to impossible when you make an inquiry.”

Rubin pushed for transparency — often in vain — during his time in Topeka from 2011 to 2016. He was one of the first two legislators to sign a pledge created last year by a group called Open Kansas.

The pledge asked lawmakers to increase government accountability and transparency. Only 23 of the state’s 165 legislators signed the pledge during the 2016 session. After last November’s election, that number increased by 14 but still represented just 22 percent of the Legislature.

It’s no wonder Kansas got a flunking grade in a 2015 study by the Center for Public Integrity that measured transparency and state accountability. Among its bad grades: F’s in public access to information, internal auditing and executive accountability.

Though the state’s obsession with secrecy goes back decades, Brownback’s seven years as governor have been marked by efforts to shield executive decisions from the public.

In 2012, the Shawnee County district attorney’s office concluded that private meetings Brownback held with lawmakers at the governor’s mansion technically violated the state’s open meetings act. Prosecutors determined the violations were a result of ignorance about the law and did not pursue penalties.

Two years later, the state’s budget director used a private email address to share details of Brownback’s budget proposal with a pair of lobbyists who had close ties to the governor. The director shared the information several weeks before lawmakers saw it.

In late 2014, Brownback appointed two additional members to the Saline County Commission but refused to release the names of the applicants. Two news organizations sued and the court eventually sided with Brownback. But five applicants came forward and identified themselves. The year before, Brownback had refused a request to identify applicants for a seat on the Kansas Court of Appeals, the state’s second-highest court.

And last year, as Brownback’s office weighed budget cuts in the wake of massive tax reductions and huge revenue shortfalls, he refused to release financial documents that had been public under previous governors.

Critics say the governor also leaves behind a legacy of state agencies that avoid disclosure as a matter of policy.

This ‘suicide curve’ is the site of numerous violent crashes

After a fatal motorcycle crash on a dangerous stretch of Interstate 70 in Kansas City, Kan., a Kansas Department of Transportation spokesperson told The Star a lack of funding had prevented a rebuild project. Days later, the spokesperson was fired. Video courtesy of Leo Eilts.

Monty Davis and Max Londberg The Kansas City Star

A current Kansas Department of Transportation employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, likened the central office in Topeka to the Pentagon.

“They (spokespeople) are told what they can and cannot say,” the employee said. “Their public relations people are just there for show.”

The spokesperson who was fired after talking about highway funding deficits was known within KDOT as a social media expert whose communication initiatives had built public respect for the agency, one former colleague said.

The employee “was really the best public affairs manager that KDOT had,” said Martin Miller, who retired in 2015 as the spokesman for the department’s south-central Kansas district. “I would see Facebook posts, tweets, emailed press releases at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning. (The terminated employee) did a great service for the residents of Kansas.”

The Star sent questions to Brownback’s office, including one asking whether anyone from KDOT had been disciplined for talking about funding issues. His office responded with a lengthy comment about transparency but did not answer the question about KDOT.

“Governor Brownback’s administration has always been sensitive to the fact that government is a public institution and that public institutions function best in the sunshine,” wrote Rachel Whitten, the governor’s interim spokeswoman, in an email Thursday. “He makes it a priority to remain open with the people he serves by answering thousands of media requests for comment, hundreds of open records requests, and signing numerous bills that increase transparency in state government.

“Public officials are required to balance transparency with many other considerations in the process of governing, including the law, and the privacy of private individuals who interact with the government, among a myriad of other important factors.”

Many do not see it that way. The state, they say, seems hellbent on keeping information from the public.

“If you don’t have transparency in every aspect of the government, then you aren’t making it clear to people that the public’s business is being done in a forthright way,” said Doug Bonney, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas. “It’s something about Kansas; I don’t know what it is exactly. But Kansas is overly worried about information becoming public.

“If it’s not the least transparent state in the Union, it’s close to it.”

An ingrained mindset of privacy

Rumors had been running through Tonganoxie for days: Tyson Foods was coming.

But residents didn’t know any details of the planned poultry plant. Not until the big announcement inside the Brunswick Ballroom in early September when state and county officials were on stage smiling and clapping.

By then, much of Tonganoxie was pissed.

This wasn’t just going to be a small plant. It would be a $320 million state-of-the art complex, slaughtering and packaging 1.25 million birds each week. Residents worried about the smell, contamination to the area and how their town and schools would handle a projected 1,600 employees.

City and county officials, along with Brownback, had been quietly working on a deal for months. A site was already picked. “Project Sunset,” it was called behind closed doors.

“This was a done deal. They said they were going to break ground in 90 days,” said Steve Skeet, whose parents own land across the road from where Tyson wanted to build. “They knew about this but didn’t tell anybody. Giving it a code name made it a dirty secret that they wanted to hide.”

Residents heckled and jeered as the plans were revealed, and Skeet’s mom cried.

In the end, the town’s uproar was heard loud and clear. Two weeks later, the Leavenworth County Commission reversed its support of the project and Tyson said it would explore other locations.

Project Sunset could have played out anywhere in Kansas, where privacy is as deeply rooted as the wheat fields covering the Sunflower State.

“In Kansas, I do think folks tend to be somewhat private people,” said Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Louisburg Republican. “The majority of the state is rural and that small-town approach, that ‘Our business is our business and it’s not anyone’s business until we want to share it,’ tends to be the thought of the day.”

Both Democrats and Republicans have run opaque administrations, said Burdett Loomis, who worked for former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

“Once you’ve got that lack of transparency, unless there’s something that rocks the boat, the people who benefit from it are perfectly happy to let it be,” said Loomis, a political science professor at the University of Kansas. “Corporations, lobbyists, lawmakers, a lot of these people have no reason to change anything very much.”

The culture that stifles transparency has become ingrained, said Benet Magnuson, executive director of Kansas Appleseed, a nonprofit justice center serving vulnerable and excluded Kansans.

“There’s something about once that culture sets in,” Magnuson said. “It’s really difficult to move out of.”

Raised in Kansas, Magnuson went to Harvard and Harvard Law School before moving to Texas. There, he never encountered problems when requesting open records or information. Then he returned to Kansas.

“Moving back here, time after time, the first question that would be asked is, ‘Who are you and why are you asking for this?’ ” Magnuson said. “In Kansas, I’m hesitant to say 100 percent, but it was close to 100 percent of the time that’s what you get — ‘who are you and what are you going to do with this?’ ”

The Star asked more than a dozen counties how they were responding to a new law intended to open criminal affidavits.

When it contacted Kurtis Jacobs in Finney County in southwest Kansas, the District Court administrator said he would not provide the information without first knowing the angle of the story. Or, he said, The Star could file an open records request.

“Under the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA), I can take three days to respond and then as long as I need to to get the information,” Jacobs said. “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.”

Three months after receiving two requests from The Star regarding the deaths of an infant and a 10-year-old boy, the Department for Children and Families said it could not fulfill them.

Why? Because it didn’t have enough staffing resources “due to its current workload of KORA requests.”

Meeting behind closed doors

Obtaining records and information isn’t the only obstacle regular citizens encounter.

Kansas is one of four states that do not require public notice of all regular public meetings, according to a Star analysis of the 50 states’ open meetings laws. The Kansas Open Meetings Act only requires notice be given to individuals who have requested it.

And Kansas and Arkansas are the only two states that do not require minutes to be kept of a public meeting.

Since 2016, the Kansas attorney general’s office has filed seven enforcement actions against municipalities that have violated the two open government laws. In each case, those who broke the law were asked to take additional training and agree to not break the law again.

The state also grants tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to lure businesses. Trouble is, you’ll never know who got those credits or how much. The state does what most states do not: It forbids the disclosure — even to lawmakers — of the recipients and how much they received. In Missouri and other states, that information is available online. (Story coming Tuesday)

It should be of little surprise then that Kansas has received D’s and F’s in several national studies about transparency over the years, including the 2015 Center for Public Integrity report where Kansas ranked with 10 states that scored F’s.

Some Kansans have fought to make the system more open.

Alan Cowles, a Lawrence physician, couldn’t find any record of his local health board or city or county commissions discussing a $750,000 lawsuit he knew about.

That’s because, he discovered, when members went into closed session they didn’t list specific reasons why. That prompted him to survey the state’s 10 largest cities and counties and he found that all but one — the Manhattan City Commission — would close meetings without giving “meaningful information” about the subjects they were going to discuss.

He found that they conducted at least 200 hours of government business behind closed doors.

“They were doing business in secrecy,” Cowles said. “What good is the open meetings act?”

He worked with Sen. Marci Francisco, a Lawrence Democrat, and Baumgardner, the Louisburg Republican, to change the law and require boards to state the specific topics they plan to discuss in a closed meeting. The legislation went into effect July 1.

“The public ought to have some chance in knowing what these governmental bodies were talking about,” Cowles said.

Judith Deedy, a mother of three in Johnson County, is worried about lack of transparency in education policy.

She is one of many Shawnee Mission School District parents who started paying closer attention to what happens in the state Capitol after budget cuts and other policy changes began affecting schools.

Deedy, executive director of the advocacy group Game On for Kansas Schools, recalled that a 2015 law changing education funding was “one of the wake-up calls.”

“That was a really clear example to so many people that we had a Legislature that was not listening to us,” she said, “and by us I mean any supporters of public education.”

The bill that made block grants the source for school funding was a “gut-and-go” measure — a common practice in Topeka where legislators take a bill that has already passed one chamber, gut it and insert an unrelated bill. The maneuver clears the path for less public debate and easier passage. (Story coming Tuesday)

“To us, it was absurd that something this important was getting rammed through so quickly,” Deedy said.

How did your legislator vote?

Aside from using “gut-and-go” measures and anonymous bills, lawmakers also can keep their votes from being disclosed to the public in committee meetings where much of the legislative work is done.

House rules don’t require committee votes to be logged unless a member requests his or her vote be recorded. The Senate only requires that the number of votes for and against an action be recorded.

When former Rep. Rubin told his committee in 2013 that the votes of each member would be recorded, “I had a revolt on my hands.”

Both Republicans and Democrats went to the House speaker, he said, and complained, asking how Rubin was allowed to do that. When the speaker said committee chairs have the power to require public votes, they asked to be removed from his committee.

Rubin backed down but still had every one of his own votes recorded; he recalled only three or four other committee members following his lead.

“I’ve talked to legislators in other states and so did Legislative Research, and they’ve never heard of such a thing,” Rubin said.

He said Topeka should not be a place for covert actions.

“The things we do in the Legislature affect people’s lives profoundly,” Rubin said. “People in Kansas have a right to know how their government operates and have the right to know about how decisions are arrived at that affect their lives.

“People have no idea this stuff is going on.”

The Star’s Kelsey Ryan, Bryan Lowry, Hunter Woodall, Andy Marso and Steve Vockrodt contributed to this report.

Laura Bauer: 816-234-4944, @kclaurab

Judy L. Thomas: 816-234-4334, @judylthomas

Max Londberg: 816-234-4378, @MaxLondberg

Monday

Many say that as children die, a state agency charged with protecting them instead focuses on itself.

Tuesday

Lawmakers hide their roles in legislation, and controversial bills pass outside the public’s eye.

Wednesday

Want to see what a police body camera captured? In a state where officers avoid scrutiny, good luck.

Thursday

Some of the state’s most vulnerable patients have suffered since Kansas privatized its Medicaid system.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article184298908.html#storylink=cpy

NPR    Public Health

Algae Toxins In Drinking Water Sickened People In 2 Outbreaks

Greta Jochem      November 9, 2017

A algae bloom in Lake Erie contaminated the water supply for Toledo, Ohio, in August 2014. About 400,000 people were without usable water. The Washington Post/Getty Images

The city of Toledo and nearby communities have earned the dubious distinction of being the first to report outbreaks of human illness due to algae toxins in municipal drinking water, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Both areas take their drinking water from Lake Erie. Blue-green algae are common there and in many other in freshwater lakes, where they can multiply in the heat of summer and produce toxins, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Exposure to water contaminated by toxins can cause rashes, respiratory issues and stomach or liver illness, and are an ongoing issue in recreational areas around the country.

Not to mention they can cause dead zones in bodies of water, killing marine life. And if you’ve ever seen one, they don’t exactly make for a pleasant day at the beach. The bloom can look like chunks of green, earthy scum floating on the water, or make the water look like it’s been dyed green.

In September 2013, microcystin toxin was detected in the water treatment facility for Carroll Township, Ohio, at 3.5 times the safety threshold for drinking water. The township’s 2,000 residents were told to use water only for dishes and “non-drinking uses.” Six people suffered gastrointestinal illnesses in the outbreak, according to the CDC.

Then in August 2014, the state of Ohio declared a state of emergency after algal toxin contaminated the city of Toledo’s water supply. This time around, 110 people got sick, and almost half a million people had to quit drinking tap water until they got the all clear.

Drawing water from the cold depths of a lake can reduce the risk of contamination, according to the EPA, and water treatment facilities can filter out or neutralize toxins.

Among the biggest causes of algae blooms: an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus in warm, un-moving water. Those nutrients sneak into water predominantly through the use of fertilizer in agriculture. Warmer summers and higher rainfalls that cause sewer systems to overflow also help algae flourish.

It’s too early to know whether drinking water problems due to algae are becoming more common, says Jonathan Yoder, a CDC epidemiologist and one of the report’s authors.

“The bottom line is that we can’t say whether they are increasing or not, we know that the conditions that lead to algal blooms — nutrient pollution and warm water — are present in these freshwater lakes,” Yoder says. “I think there’s a continual risk in some of these areas for algal blooms and for some of them to be the type that have toxins that cause human illness.”

Kathy Benedict, lead author of the paper and an epidemiologist with the CDC’s Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch, points out that the cases in Ohio in 2013 and 2014 were not necessarily the first — they were just the first to be reported. The CDC is tracking harmful algal blooms through One Health Harmful Algal Bloom System (OHHABS) to help prevent illnesses, she says.

Fortunately, health problems from drinking water remain rare in the U.S. The CDC report, which was published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found than in 2013-2014, 42 outbreaks were reported in 19 states, resulting in 1,006 illnesses and 13 deaths. Most of the cases and all of the deaths were caused by Legionella, the source of Legionnaire’s disease.

For Lake Erie, blue-green algae blooms have become an “annual summer plague,” in the words of Cleveland’s newspaper, The Plain Dealer. And they’ve just had one of their worst years yet. In the summer of 2017, blooms in the great lake were the third-largest ever recorded. The good news is that this time around, no one got sick.

Greta Jochem is an intern on NPR’s Science Desk.

Related:

NPR    Environment

Poisonous Algae Blooms Threaten People, Ecosystems Across U.S.

From KQED, Heard on All Things Considered

Officials found the toxin microcystin in the blue-green algae present at Discovery Bay, Calif. For people exposed to the toxin, symptoms include dizziness, rashes, fever, vomiting and in more unusual cases, numbness.

Lesley McClurg/KQED      August 29, 2016

Serious algae outbreaks have hit more than 20 states this summer. Organisms are shutting down beaches in Florida, sickening swimmers in Utah and threatening ecosystems in California.

The blooms are a normal part of summer, but the frequency, size and toxicity this year are worse than ever.

And water managers are rattled.

“Everyone’s on edge with the cyanobacteria,” says Bev Anderson, a scientist with the California Water Resources Control Board.

Emails reporting outbreaks of cyanobacteria — or blue-green algae — fill Anderson’s inbox every morning.

The algae is showing up in lakes and big reservoirs like Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville. In some places, it looks like someone poured a giant can of green paint into the water. And the smell can be rank.

Anderson says California has posted danger signs at at least 30 lakes and reservoirs.

But what’s most alarming are the toxin levels, which Anderson says are “crazy.” Twenty micrograms per liter would be worrisome. Current readings are as high as 150,000 micrograms per liter.

As for the threat the algae outbreaks pose, water districts carefully screen for toxins in drinking water. It’s boaters and swimmers who are most at risk.

Discovery Bay, a community about 60 miles east of San Francisco, is normally buzzing with boats and personal watercraft. But this year, the waterfront has been eerily still for weeks.

On a recent day, Dave Holmes watches with disgust as his white speedboat and blue kayak bob in mucky green water.

“We’ve been here since 2002,” Holmes says. “It is by far the worst we’ve ever seen.”

Down the street, another Discovery Bay resident regrets diving into the water in mid-July. Wade Hensley ended up in the hospital because his body went numb from the waist down. It’s still numb.

“And, it was about three days of swimming. Not constant, but in and out. And they can’t pinpoint exactly what it is,” Hensley says.

But, county health officials did find microcystin — one of several toxins produced by algae — in Discovery Bay. More typical symptoms are dizziness, rashes, fever and vomiting.

The docks behind homes at Discovery Bay, Calif., are quieter than usual because of fears of blue green algae toxins. Lesley McClurg/KQED

Algae expert Bev Anderson blames a changing climate for the blooms, at least in part.

“We’re getting higher temperatures than we’ve seen ever in the past,” she says. “California had an unprecedented drought for the last five years which [has left] the water levels very low in a lot of areas.”

And shallow water means warmer water. Add to this cocktail, runoff from farms, golf courses and lawns — algae love fertilizers.

Worst of all, Anderson says, scientists are just starting to understand a problem they expect to escalate.

“Some areas have been monitoring and seeing blooms for decades, but they’ve never had toxins,” she says.

Researchers are finding poisonous blooms in surprising places like mountain lakes and streams.

So scientists are scrambling for solutions. The chemicals that kill algae can help temporarily, but they can also backfire by promoting other toxins.

When it comes to swimming, Anderson’s advice is simple.

“If in doubt, stay out!” she warns. “Don’t go in, don’t let your dogs in.”

There’s nothing to do now but wait for the green muck to disappear — and hope a cold winter kills it off.