Schmitt criticizes Obama's space plan

'American leadership is absent from space – is this the future we will leave to our children? I hope not,' Schmitt, a former Apollo astronaut and U.S. Senator says.

Editors note: On Monday, President Barack Obama ditched plans for America to return to the moon. While pledging to increase NASA's budget by six billion dollars over the next five years he called for the space agency to stay close to Earth and do research. Former U.S. Senator and Apollo 17 Astronaut Harrison Schmitt disagrees and has long advocated a Return to the Moon.

GUEST COMMENTARY

by Harrison Schmitt

Once again, the President has exposed his basic belief that America is not exceptional, that Americans should apologize for protecting liberty for 250 years, and that the human condition would be no worse off without our past expenditure of lives, time, and treasure in freedom’s behalf.

Since 1958, space policy, like naval policy before it, has set the geopolitical tone for the interactions between the United States and its international allies and adversaries. The President’s FY2011 budget submission to Congress shifts that tone away from leadership by America by abandoning human exploration and settlement of the Moon and Mars to China and, effectively, leaving the American Space Station under the dominance of Russia for its remaining life. With the Station’s life inherently limited by aging, these proposals sign the death warrant for American sponsored human space flight.

The President proposes to cancel the American plan to return to the Moon, the six-year old Constellation Program. In spite of funding neglect by the previous Administration and Congresses, Constellation is well on the way to developing the organizational framework, hardware, and generational skills necessary for Americans to continue to be leaders in the exploration and eventual settlement of deep space.

Ceding the space race to China and Russia

Protecting liberty and ourselves will be at great risk and probably impossible if we now abandon deep space to the any other nation or group of nations, particularly a non-democratic, national socialist regime like China. To others would accrue the benefits – psychological, political, economic, and scientific – that accrued to the United States from Apollo’s success 40 years ago. This lesson from John Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower has not been lost on our ideological and economic competitors.

An American space policy that maintains deep space leadership, as well as providing major new scientific discoveries, requires returning to the Moon as soon as possible. Returning to the Moon prepares the way to go to and land on Mars, something we are a long way from knowing how to do, and trains new young Americans in how to work in and with the challenges of deep space. This also continues a policy in which freedom-loving peoples throughout the world can participate as active partners. Even more pragmatically, settlements on the Moon can send badly needed clean energy resources back to Earth.

The President also proposes Americans either (1) ride into space at the forbearance of the Russians at a cost of $50 million a seat or (2) wait for the “commercial” launch sector to succeed in developing acceptable and affordable means of placing astronauts in near-Earth space.

On the one hand, do we really want to go continue to go, hat in hand, to the Russians to access a Space Station American taxpayers have spent $150 billion to build?

What happens as the political and ideological interests of the United States and an increasingly authoritarian Russia continue to diverge? On the other hand, do we really want to put all our national space access eggs in the one basket of unproven “commercial” launch capabilities? What happens if a risk adverse NASA and Congress make those potential capabilities unaffordable?

Further, if such human launch capabilities are truly “commercial,” with NASA only one customer, why should not investors carry most of the funding load instead of the taxpayer?

Adverse consquences

Finally, the President’s space budget continues the fiction that political policies that erode both liberty and incomes can successfully counter nature’s inexorable changes in climate. It is one thing for NASA to continue to provide objective space-based sensing of climate variations so that we can understand the natural forces of change and prepare for it – it is quite another to turn the space Agency into an advocate for political initiatives that are doomed to failure but with lasting adverse consequences to all Americans and their economy.

The right and continuing space policy choice for the Congress of the United States remains as previously approved by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Returning to the Moon compares in significance to President Jefferson’s dispatch of Lewis and Clark into wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson’s decision had unquestioned and critical significance to American growth and survival.

As with the American West, human exploration of space embodies basic human instincts – freedom, curiosity, and betterment of one's conditions. America’s unique and special society of immigrants still has such instincts at its core.

Harrison H. Schmitt is a former United States Senator from New Mexico as well as a geologist and former Apollo Astronaut. He currently is an aerospace and private enterprise consultant and a member of the new Committee of Correspondence.

Op-Ed: More Energy, More Jobs, More Revenue

"We can’t afford to lose more jobs by raising taxes" state land commissioner candidate Bob Cornelius says.

As our State Legislature convenes in Santa Fe, many legislators have offered several proposals to raise revenue for our budget deficit by raising taxes on the poor by increasing taxes on food. We’ve also seen proposals to tax the “rich” by raising income taxes. There’s even talk of raising our gross receipts tax on business. I am amazed that our elected officials would even consider raising taxes during a time of recession in our state.

What the Richardson-Denish administration and the Democrat led State Legislature fail to see is that higher taxes won’t create more revenue, it will create less. If they raise the tax on food, people will shop less and go hungry more often. If they raise income taxes, people will move out of the state and look for a new job. If they raise the gross receipts tax, businesses will have to find ways to make up the financial hit and that usually means they will layoff some employees or take their company and their jobs to a state that is more business-friendly. According to a report from the NM Department of Workforce Solutions, New Mexico lost over 43,000 jobs in 2009. We can’t afford to lose more jobs by raising taxes.

The easiest way to raise revenue is to create jobs. More jobs mean more people paying income taxes, buying more food, and more businesses doing more work which increases the state’s revenue from the gross receipts tax. The most likely place for new jobs to be created is in the area of energy, both traditional forms like oil and natural gas and by creating a new energy economy to include wind, solar, clean coal, biogas, hydro and eventually nuclear.

Unfortunately for New Mexico, the same Legislature that wants to raise your taxes, has also created over-burdensome regulations on energy that have attributed to the 43,000 jobs lost and will continue to cause more people to lose their job if steps are not taken to ratify the situation.

Revise the Pit Rule instead of raising taxes

Instead of raising your taxes, the State Legislature needs to take a look at revising the “pit rule” policy created by the Oil Conservation Division. This policy is not law, but it has effectively killed thousands of jobs in the oil, natural gas, and mining industries. This rule adds an additional $150,000-$250,000 to the price of every well a company drills, depending on which part of the state the company drills. If we eased the regulation, a company could spend that $250,000 to create eight jobs that pay over $15 an hour. That was just for drilling one well. Ideally, these companies could hire more people and do more energy exploration. The company would pay more gross receipts taxes, the new employees would pay income taxes and could afford to buy more food for their families. The tax revenue created would help the budget crisis and with oil and natural gas prices recovering, a percentage of the revenue from the minerals would go into the Land Grant Permanent Fund which funds Pre-K through 12th grade education and our colleges in New Mexico.

Along with the revised regulations, I am proposing that the State Land Commissioner work with climatologists and geologists to locate ideal areas for the creation of “green job zones”. These studies would allow us to target areas of state land where renewables like solar and wind could produce the most energy. With the proposed Tres Amigas power plant outside of Clovis connecting major electrical grids and the Legislature’s mandate that local utility companies use 20% renewable energy to create electricity, there is an already made market demand for renewable energy businesses to come in, create thousands of jobs and produce billions of dollars of new revenue for this state.

This could all be accomplished in this 30 day session of the State Legislature. Instead of arguing over which taxes to raise and on whom taxes will be raised, the Legislature could be working to foster a climate for job growth and real revenue enhancements. We can solve this budget crisis by being proactive and taking a new way forward, instead of trying the old failed policies of the past.

The plan is simple: More Energy, More Jobs, More Revenue.

Attorney General Targets Environmental Crimes

GUEST COMMENTARY:

One of the most important jobs I have as Attorney General is to help protect, preserve and enhance New Mexico’s environment, water and natural resources. This is accomplished through litigation, cooperative efforts with stakeholders and enforcement of environmental laws. Many of these laws impose criminal penalties on conduct that presents a serious harm or risk of harm to human health and the environment.

To help protect New Mexico families, I am pleased to report that we are beefing up the public education and outreach efforts of the Environmental Crimes Unit (ECU) within our Water, Environment & Utilities Division. This unit is dedicated to enforcing environmental laws and ensuring that those who violate them are held accountable.

We are providing several ways for the public to help report violations to the ECU. These tips are important and could prove valuable to the ECU as it investigates and helps prosecute violations of New Mexico's environmental protection statutes. Additionally, a new publication is in the works that provides information about environmental crimes and how to report them. This new tri-fold brochure will be available to the public and other governmental agencies. The following is some of the information that will be contained in the publication.

New Mexico is a large state and just learning about potential environmental law violations can be a difficult task. That is where you come in...with the help of the general public, the ECU can cover a lot of ground throughout the state.

What Are Environmental Crimes?

Air Pollution: burning of commercial or industrial waste; release of hazardous substances into the air; illegal removal of asbestos from buildings.

Hazardous Waste: improper storage, disposal, or transfer of hazardous waste. Hazardous waste can generally be described as any material that threatens public safety and the environment. It includes degreasers, acids, metals, paint waste, solvents, cyanides and pesticides.

Water Pollution: discharge of waste into streams, rivers, lakes, including farm drainage and waste generated by construction sites and factories.
Solid Waste: improper dumping of large quantities of garbage or refuse


What to Look For:

• Containers or drums that appear to be abandoned (for example you find them in a forest, along a roadside or otherwise in a place where it appears they do not belong), especially if they are corroded or leaking.
• Dead fish in streams or waterways, particularly if the water appears to contain foreign substances (such as detergent, bleach, chemicals or has a strange color).
• Dead animals alongside a river bank or in a field.
• Discolored and/or stressed, dying plant life.
• Visible sheens on the ground or in the water.
• Foul smelling or oddly colored discharges onto the ground or into a stream or waterway.
• Foul smelling or strange looking emissions into the air.
• Pipes or valves that would allow for discharge from a plant that appear hidden.
• A truck dumping materials into a manhole or sewer drain.
• A person burying drums on business or residential property.

There is more information on our Web site about examples of environmental crimes, what steps you should take to report suspected violations and some cautionary measures to be taken by anyone who encounters potential environmental waste contamination.

With the help of citizens who report environmental crimes to our ECU and the new publication, the Attorney General's Office can better protect New Mexico and work to keep it forever, The Land of Enchantment. Thank you.


Gary K. King
New Mexico Attorney General

NOTES:

The Environmental Crimes Unit has established ways for you to report suspected environmental crimes:

Environmental Crimes Telephone Tipline: (505) 827-6629

Environmental Crimes E-mail: ecrimes@nmag.gov


Fill out an on-line form.