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The dirty little secret about power generation is that most states, including Arizona, rely heavily on coal. Sure, Arizona has mandated 15% renewable energy by 2025 but for now, King Coal reigns. Even California, which has a much more ambitious plan of 33% renewable by 2020, relies heavily on coal. However, and somewhat hypocritically, California has banned coal plants within its borders while importing a vast amount of coal power from neighboring states, including Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexi

Recently, a new Arizona law permitted the state to raise money from private and public sources to build a border fence. Republican state senator Steve Smith sponsored the bill, which he hopes will raise the $50 million needed to add new fences and bolster existing ones at www.BuildTheBorderFence.com. This is a first. No other state has attempted to build a fence using donated money. This effort came after the federal government stopped building the fence, citing cost overruns and technological

The Navajo Generating Station near Page, AZ uses about 8 million tons of coal a year to provide 2.25 GW of power and nearly 95% of the electricity for the huge pumps on the Central Arizona Project canal that bring water from the Colorado River. The US Environmental Protection Agency is releasing new regulations controlling nitrogen oxides. This directly impacts the generating station and could force it to spend as much as $1.2 billion to install a new control system, as well as millions of doll

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has published an update and a revision of a 2007 study entitled “Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom”. The report analyzed three primary “freedom variables” for each state, determining the overall burden that local and state policies place on individual residents. So how did California stack up? Frankly, not so good. In fact, California was only underperformed by New Jersey and New York. The authors, William Ruger a

From police actions, to court rulings, to the impending renewal of key provisions of the Patriot Act next week, the debate over the Fourth Amendment, its meaning, and its relevance could not be any more heated, nor could a frank national conversation about civil liberties be more urgent than right now. What does the Fourth Amendment say and what rights does it guarantee to all U.S. citizens? Is the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution under assault? How can we balance the interests of publi

If asked what type of renewable energy is most prevalent in California, most would choose solar or wind, but in reality, those two forms of renewable energy aren't even close. Instead, the current California champion for renewable energy is geothermal, followed by small hydro. Say what? As an example, on Wednesday May 4, 2011, geothermal energy production in California was 23,980 MWh, followed by small hydro with 13,210, then wind at 10,166. Solar power was last, with 3,094, behind biomass and

The confluence of three cultural events this week has raised my awareness of the precious value of freedom.  Two were just completed novels, and one was the repetition of an annual holiday.  The books were Barbara Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible" -- a searing account of the life of an American missionary family in the Congo as that nation won its independence from Belgium, and Eric Flint's historical novel "1824: the Arkansas War," which posits an independent Arkansas territory in what is today t

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Inventory has been analyzed by the American Farmland Trust (AFT), an agricultural conservation group working to aid farmers, ranchers and their communities. The numbers, published in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of American Farmland Magazine, reveal California's dismal performance over the past quarter-century in protecting its rural legacy from suburban sprawl resulting in a risk to domestic specialty crop production. “During the

While Wall St. and the Federal Reserve continue to claim that inflation is virtually non-existent, Main St. knows otherwise.  According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of gas has surpassed the $3 mark again, placing increased financial strain on consumers facing 9.8% official unemployment and 17.0% official underemployment.  Since this time last year, the nation's average gas price has risen almost 17%.  Unseasonably cold weather in the U.S. and Europe, a weak U.S. Dollar, record deficits

While national security hawks on both sides of the aisle vociferously condemn Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, they continue to remain mum on U.S. support of Saudi Arabia.  This is despite the fact that several cables revealed U.S. concern over Saudi Arabia's illict financial support of Islamic extremists, as well as Iraq's fear that Saudi Arabia is destablizing the nation by funding a resurgent Al-Qaeda and other Sunni-related causes.  Yet, there is little outcry from hawkish Democrats or toug