Virginia Martin

Ivey, Other Speakers, List Prisons, Health Care, Education Among Challenges for the Year

Gov. Kay Ivey told the 2020 annual meeting of PARCA that Alabama can address the challenges it faces today. “I’m confident through our collaboration we will find solutions to tackle our difficult problems,” said Ivey, the keynote speaker at the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama’s annual luncheon. Ivey gave the audience a sneak peek into her upcoming State of the State address. She said she expects to applaud the positive and issue a challenge to address areas that need improvement. Those matters include the 2020 census, the prison system, health care, mental health care and education reform. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Gasp, SELC Challenge ABC Coke Consent Decree

A fight over ABC Coke’s air pollution in Birmingham and Tarrant entered federal court Tuesday as groups charged that a consent decree agreement approved last spring is too weak to guarantee that unlawful discharges of the cancer-causing chemical benzene will stop. The action came in response to a government motion two weeks ago to finalize the consent decree. The Jefferson County Department of Health said today that it supported making the decree final. Read more.

by Hank Black

Alabama to Close Most of Holman Prison

By WBHM The Alabama Department of Corrections is accelerating plans to close most of Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Officials made the announcement Wednesday, citing growing maintenance costs and safety concerns at the 51-year-old prison. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM

Business Education Alliance: High-Level Skills and Education Needed to Meet Workforce Needs

Alabama faces a shortage of 200,000 highly skilled workers to fulfill industry job predictions by 2025 unless it aligns workforce development programs and collaborations between business and education with what employers will need, said the Business Education Alliance in a report released today. As Alabama shifts away from an industrial-based to knowledge-based economy, the BEA report stated, 60% of the working population will need to attain college-level degrees or credentials to qualify for jobs in 2025. Data for 2017 showed that 43% of the Alabama workforce possessed a college degree or other post-secondary education. Read more.

by Cheryl Slocum

Birmingham Council Approves Sending Up to 297 Neighborhood Reps to Conference

Despite some concerns of excessive spending, the Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to send up to 297 neighborhood representatives — up to three from each of the city’s 99 neighborhoods — to this May’s Neighborhoods USA Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Small Fraction of Students Qualify for Birmingham Promise University Scholarships

For urban students interested in college, tuition can be a major barrier. So when it was announced recently that the Birmingham Promise would offer a full tuition scholarship to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, many praised the partnership as a way to give eligible Birmingham graduates a much-needed financial boost. But there’s just one problem: most students aren’t eligible to apply for the scholarship. Read more.

by Janae Pierre, WBHM

Senate Votes on Impeachment Issues

Alabama’s senators split along party lines on votes involving President Trump’s impeachment last week, as did all the senators. The House was in recess. Read the major votes in the Senate during the legislative week ending Jan. 25

by Voterama in Congress

Local Effort Backs Carbon Emission Fee With Monthly Rebate to All Households

The most efficient way to combat climate change is to make fossil fuel use more expensive, an International Monetary Fund study found last October. The IMF also said sending the money from a tax or fee on coal and oil straight to citizens would blunt the economic disruption of that strategy. Read more. McClintock, Hammett, Others Set for Feb. 8 Event on Climate Solutions

by Hank Black

McClintock, Hammett, Others Set for Feb. 8 Event on Climate Solutions

A Feb. 8 event at the McWane Science Center on how to deal with the changing climate is scheduled to draw participants from multiple points of view, including energy industry heavyweight Seth Hammett, UAB polar researcher James McClintock and atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University. “Faith Meets Business: Climate Solutions for the Common Good” is billed as a community dialogue and will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. It is sponsored by the nonprofit Citizens’ Climate Education-Birmingham. Read more.

by Hank Black

Caught Off Guard: The American Southeast Struggles With Climate Change

Reporters from Southeastern newsrooms hold leaders in their communities accountable for reducing carbon emissions and preparing for climate change-related emergencies. Like hundreds of other cities, Louisville, Kentucky, is searching for a path to address climate change. Mayor Greg Fischer has declared a climate emergency, proposed a climate action plan and set a goal of reducing citywide carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. To get there, however, Fischer needs the cooperation of the region’s electric utility, Louisville Gas and Electric Co., which depends on coal and, with its related companies, has committed only to cutting carbon emissions 70 percent from 2010 levels by 2050. Even that more modest commitment, though, is now in doubt, based on recent comments by LG&E’s chief operating officer, Lonnie Bellar, at an energy conference last fall, dominated by coal interests. In discussing his company’s own carbon reduction plan, Bellar declined to make any promises about a clean energy future. At the fall meeting of the Southern States Energy Board, an organization of Southern governors and lawmakers, Bellar said his company was planning for different carbon reduction options, “free of commitments.” ”We want to continue to provide energy to our customers at a low reasonable cost,” he said. “If that means coal it means coal. If that means some other resource, it means some other resource.” Louisville illustrates a fairly common obstacle: communities with little control over the monopoly electric utilities that serve them. Today, in Caught Off Guard, InsideClimate News and nine newsrooms across seven Southeastern states are publishing stories on the progress and problems their communities face in relation to climate change. The region lags behind others in renewable electricity and faces some of the biggest global warming threats in the nation. In reporting their stories, the journalists found communities struggling with funding, or with a lack of political will, and the need for technological breakthroughs to meet climate change head on. Read more.

by James Bruggers, InsideClimate News