Mideast Assembly Thread

[Barnes]

As he may now be considered as an experienced assemblyman, as I am newly elected in this assembly and doesn't wish to become Speaker and as he coughs in a dignified way,

I hereby nominate Sweedish Cheese to Speaker of this Assembly.

Does my colleague Badger second this nomination ?

I know I'm not a Mideast Citizen, and I promise not to clog up your Assembly, but, I endorse my great friend, Swedish Cheese, as Speaker of this august body.

[Barnes]

I am introducing a bill I think is long needed by now:

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Judging from the NE Assembly's use of such a board, this is a good idea.

I ask the Assembly to avoid creating additional threads that clog the Elections Board. It has never been an issue to figure out what the next piece of legislation is here, nor is there ever a particularly lengthy queue.

As the President of the Northeast Assembly, I could be of some help here,

I suggest to not create a board. The Mideast's Assembly is very organized, and moves on one Bill at a time, also it is smaller than the Northeast's, so, it's more manageable.

Those are just my two cents.

[Barnes]

Just so you'll keep it in mind for possible legislation, later:

Please don't think that all schools are adequately funded. Many are struggling to afford new textbooks, or to simply offer extracurricular activities. One certain department that has taken large hits is fine arts. For example, band, chorus, and art classes are either being eliminated from schools, or having their funding severely cut.

Anyways, keep it in mind.  

[Barnes]

Just so you'll keep it in mind for possible legislation, later:

Please don't think that all schools are adequately funded. Many are struggling to afford new textbooks, or to simply offer extracurricular activities. One certain department that has taken large hits is fine arts. For example, band, chorus, and art classes are either being eliminated from schools, or having their funding severely cut.

Anyways, keep it in mind.  

Luckily, being in public education myself, I have this in the forefront of my mind.

Good to hear.

[Barnes]

Aww, all that nifty math for nothing?

I'd have liked to keep it, but passing the bill is more important.

Perhaps you should introduce a separate bill with the gas tax, and have the money go into a simple education fund?

[Barnes]

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^^^^^^^^^^
This monstrosity.

Indeed.  It is an awful restriction of individual liberty, and it's a terrible shame that our wonderful region has endorsed such awful legislation.

I agree.

[Barnes]

Hey guys,

Tmth sent me this message to you guys via AIM:

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[Barnes]

Hey guys, I wrote this Amendment for the ME Constitution concerning the Lt. Governor.  Feel free to try it.

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[Barnes]

Why the hell are you adding a Lieutenant Governor? That post was abolished for a reason.

Hey, I wrote it to be helpful. They can do what they want with it.

[Barnes]

With that the Weighted Grades Amendment is passed and presented to the Governor for his signature.

Now does anyone have any other bills to put forward before I put up my budget bill?

Can we do the ConCon first just to get that out of the way? I believe Ben proposed it. There was also the regional judge bill which was introduced. I'm just suggesting bills that wouldn't take a long time to debate so we can get them out of the weigh.

the budget is going to take longer than anything...since we'll have to come up with our first ever budget

If y'all just introduce the ConCon resolution, and don't debate it, you could have that done with in like two days.

[Barnes]

Two reminders:

-Hold a confirmation hearing for afleitch to be Superior Court Judge
-Send a Delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

[Barnes]

I'd like to be delegate.

Hash would be an excellent choice.

[Barnes]

Aye

[Barnes]

Point of order, the Assembly session ended on Friday at noon.

I agree with the point. We need to elect a Speaker, and then move back to the ConCon.

I nominate HappyWarrior for Speaker of the Assembly.

[Barnes]

I will not run for another term as speaker, my time in real life is simply too hectic at this moment and I will happily endorse Inks for the job.

I then retract my nomination.

I'll also happily endorse Inks for Speaker.

[Barnes]

Inks

[Barnes]

Hashemite

[Barnes]

Aye

[Barnes]

Huzzah! I finally get to propose this thing.

The Affordable Energy
and Environmental Protection Act

Preamble
To eliminate dependence on foreign oil, make our homes and businesses energy efficient, and ensure the protection of our natural environment for ourselves and our children.

Be it enacted by the Assembly of the Mideast Region:

Article 1 – Establishing a “Cap and Trade System” for the Mideast
A.   A Cap and Trade System for Greenhouse Gasses is herby established in the Mideast.  This system shall designate the total amount of Greenhouse Gasses allowed in the Mideast Region.
B.   The cap shall be set between 2011 and 2050   
C.   The cap shall be initially placed at 2007 emission levels.
D.   The cap shall be systematically reduced over time by the Governor, so that Greenhouse Gasses may be eliminated totally in the Mideast Region.

Article 2 – Tax credits and penalties
A.   Any company that reduces their greenhouse emissions, ahead of the regional standard, shall receive an annual tax credit of 15% of their annual revenue.
B.   Any company that reduces their greenhouse emissions, at the amount prescribed by the regional standard, shall receive an annual tax credit of 10% of their annual revenue.
C.   Any company that fails to reduce their greenhouse emissions, as set by the regional standard, shall be fined an amount equal to 10% of their annual revenue.
D.   As the cap is reduced by the Governor, the credits and fines may be raised, but as not to exceed 45%.
E.   The fines collected through this Act shall be invested in the following way:
a.   The creation of environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient projects.  Such as, solar panels, wind farms, hydro power plants, nuclear power plants, and other forms of clean energy.
b.   Grants distributed to Mideast small businesses (employing 50 or less workers) to create clean energy projects.
c.   Grants given to the Automobile industry for converting carbon emitting vehicles into clean-energy vehicles.

Article 3 – Equipping homes for an energy-independent future
A.   All homes equipped to be at least 10% energy efficient by January 1, 2011, shall receive a rebate of $800.  The percentile shall increase by 5% every two years with the rebate also increasing by $400 every two years.
B.   Any home that purchases a clean energy device for their home, including, but not limited to, solar panels, a wind turbine, or tapping geothermal energy, shall receive a deduction of 10% on their regional income taxes for 2011 and 2012.

Article 4 – Establishing a tax on harmful environmental emissions
A.   A tax of 15% is hereby established on any business importing or exporting harmful environmental emissions to or from the Mideast.
B.   The revenue collected through this tax shall go directly into funding clean-energy projects.

Article 5 – Establishing a fund to research alternatives to harmful coal emissions
A.   A fund of $5,000,000 shall be set aside over the course of four years to research alternatives to harmful coal mining, and to make coal mining environmentally friendly.

Article 6 – Effective Date
A.   Article Two of this Act shall take effect July 1, 2011.
B.   Article Three, Section B, of this Act shall tax effect twenty days after its passage into law.
C.   Article Five of the Act shall take effect January 1, 2011.

Article 7 – Miscellaneous items
A.   This Act is not to be implemented in such a way as to tamper with the implementation of the Atlasia Clean Energy Act of 2010 (F.L. 37-4).

[Barnes]

Greenhouse gases will NEVER be eliminated and shouldn't since we need them anyways for our planet to allow for life. We have 15% unemployment, now is not the time to destroy every small business in the Mideast.

How does this destroy small businesses? That's a simple talking point. Article 2, Section E, deals solely with job creation. The grants given to businesses can only be given to small businesses.

I must admit, I am also skeptical on Article 4 of this bill. I'll have to do some more research on this issue, to see who this could primarily affect.

The first thing I thought of who it could harm is the food service industry.  Any restaurant who imports their CO2 tanks from outside would get slapped with a 15% tax.  Plus, any companies, such as PepsiCo, who ship their CO2 tanks out of the region would get slapped with a tax.

That's true. Perhaps amending the amount to a smaller margin, and then increasing it over a period of time?

[Barnes]

I just think that a blanket attack on "greenhouse gases" is something that will have unexpected consequences.

Well that's true. What do you should be the top targets?

[Barnes]

Smaller business can't pay for these emission reductions like big business can. If you are anti-corporate you are doing the reverse effect because small business gets taxed to death because they don't have the money in the first place to keep up with this regulation and then we have monopolies.

So really, the large companies can pay for these changes, the small companies have to pay the fees which goes through section E back to them to have energy efficient projects only this goes all through bureaucracy and less money comes out.

I’m not against cleaning our world up. I think the best way to do this is tax credits period. This way when smaller businesses can afford these changes, they will instead of starting up and then getting penalized to death with taxes.

Well then propose an amendment that sets up a different tax on each "level" of business.

How about we actually try to make a good bill? Of course, I know it's much easier to just say you oppose it and stop anything from happening.

[Barnes]

Smaller business can't pay for these emission reductions like big business can. If you are anti-corporate you are doing the reverse effect because small business gets taxed to death because they don't have the money in the first place to keep up with this regulation and then we have monopolies.

So really, the large companies can pay for these changes, the small companies have to pay the fees which goes through section E back to them to have energy efficient projects only this goes all through bureaucracy and less money comes out.

I’m not against cleaning our world up. I think the best way to do this is tax credits period. This way when smaller businesses can afford these changes, they will instead of starting up and then getting penalized to death with taxes.

Well then propose an amendment that sets up a different tax on each "level" of business.

How about we actually try to make a good bill? Of course, I know it's much easier to just say you oppose it and stop anything from happening.

To add on, how about no tax penitentials on small businesses for a few years? And, in a few years, they can hopefully be caught up enough to fully participate in the bill.

[Barnes]

I just think that a blanket attack on "greenhouse gases" is something that will have unexpected consequences.

Well that's true. What do you should be the top targets?

It's not even that certain gases need/should be targeted.  My point is that there are legitimate purposes behind many greenhouse gases.

Some gases, and in a certain amount. There are certainly many types of emissions that are harmful to our environment that we can agree need to be targeted.

[Barnes]

Smaller business can't pay for these emission reductions like big business can. If you are anti-corporate you are doing the reverse effect because small business gets taxed to death because they don't have the money in the first place to keep up with this regulation and then we have monopolies.

So really, the large companies can pay for these changes, the small companies have to pay the fees which goes through section E back to them to have energy efficient projects only this goes all through bureaucracy and less money comes out.

I’m not against cleaning our world up. I think the best way to do this is tax credits period. This way when smaller businesses can afford these changes, they will instead of starting up and then getting penalized to death with taxes.

Well then propose an amendment that sets up a different tax on each "level" of business.

How about we actually try to make a good bill? Of course, I know it's much easier to just say you oppose it and stop anything from happening.

Yes, but I don't want a cap and tax system in the first place Not to be rude, but can we focus on the budget first? IF this passes it will be worthless because we are having a reboot once the budget is passed. I'd like to work on this with you, but after what should be our top priority and the most lenghty, the budget.

Grr...What's the status of the budget? Behind the scenes, anyway?