Buzz Blog
Some in the healthcare world worry that Obamacare's “Pay for performance” system could hurt minority healthcare providers.---
Top of the Alty World
“How Obamacare Will Screw Black Doctors”--The Daily Beast
New York's Attorney General has backed away from finding out how the Red Cross spent Hurricane Sandy donations after the storm.--ProPublica
Slate's David Weigel explains why no new gun laws will result from the Santa Barbara shootings.--Slate
Mother Jones' looks at the slow death of extended unemployment benefits.--Mother Jones
Salt Lake City Weekly examines whether Cliven Bundy's anti-federal activism will receive the same treatment as oil-lease monkeywrencher Tim DeChristopher.--Salt Lake City Weekly
Governor Herbert says he expects flexibility with the feds when it comes to Medicaid expansion (Video)--Utah Policy
The Utah Pride Center will bestow its political action award on Salt Lake District Attorney Sim Gill—Q Salt Lake
Rantosphere
Dr. Brian Moench head of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment decries the “carbon bomb” that is the oil shale reserves of Utah's Uintah Basin.
“In addition to the fracking frenzy for oil and gas in the area, Utah is also "blessed/cursed" with the largest unconventional fossil fuel reservoir in the United States and perhaps the world - oil shale and tar sands deposits are 25 times larger than those in Alberta, Canada. Using geology-based assessment methodology, the US Geological Survey estimated a total of 4.285 trillion barrels of oil in the oil shale of the three principal basins of the Eocene Green River Formation, near Vernal, Utah.
If those deposits are extracted and burned (and the process would be much more carbon intensive than conventional oil and gas drilling), Utah would become home to the largest known carbon "bomb" on the planet. More "game over" for the planet than the Keystone pipeline.”--Truth-Out
The Long View
In the heart of Utah's coal country the small town of East Carbon sits next to a giant pile of coal ash, and some worry its contaminating the groundwater.
“When it comes to the expansion, HEAL says, the state should at least follow statutory requirements to use “the best technology available to minimize the discharge of any pollutant.” Scientists who have studied coal-ash landfills have found that simple liners can dramatically protect the groundwater beneath the waste piles, yet the state approved the expansion to be unlined, like the existing landfill.
If coal power is the dirty and addictive energy source to the economy—the way a cigarette is to a smoker—a liner on an ash landfill is at least an ashtray. Critics say not requiring a liner is like letting a smoker drop ash in your glass of water.”--Salt Lake City Weekly
