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Beyond the “kill switch”: How modern vehicles are already tracking drivers
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

Beyond the “kill switch”: How modern vehicles are already tracking drivers

By Maria Orms | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Many people are talking about the “car surveillance” provision in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which directs regulators to develop technology that can monitor driver impairment—such as passively detecting blood alcohol levels. This has led to claims about a government “kill switch.” But what’s less widely discussed is that forms of remote connectivity and control have already been built into vehicles for over a decade. Since the 2010s, automakers have steadily integrated cellular connectivity—first 3G, then 4G LTE, and now 5G—into modern vehicles. Systems like OnStar and similar platforms allow cars to communicate with external networks. These connections enable features like emergency assistance, navigation up...
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NEPA’s unintended consequences: How a well-meaning law became a barrier to progress
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

NEPA’s unintended consequences: How a well-meaning law became a barrier to progress

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com In 1970 when President Nixon presented to Congress “Reorganization Plan No.3,” no one foresaw the eventual result – some of history’s greatest environmental successes, and a virtual stranglehold on economic progress. America’s air and water are far cleaner today, automobiles emit virtually nothing, and many formerly polluted lands have been cleaned up. But the cumbersome procedures required for federal permitting have also led to delays, higher costs, and often killed projects and jobs permanently. Those impacts were never part of the plan. Nixon signs NEPA into law, January 1, 1970 EPA was created by executive order, bringing under one roof dozens of programs from multiple departments. Simultaneously, Congress passed a...
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Look what they’ve done to her BLM mess: A policy reversal hits a nerve
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Look what they’ve done to her BLM mess: A policy reversal hits a nerve

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com The New Seekers are best remembered for wanting to buy the world a Coke in their classic hit, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing." But a year earlier, they first hit the charts with another standard, "Look What They've Done to My Song," featuring the sad lyric, "It's the only thing that I can do half right, and it's turning out all wrong." That must be the lamentation of Tracy Stone-Manning, who ran the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under President Biden. I know because she is complaining so loudly about her successors in the current Administration. They are steadily unraveling the mess she left behind, and she is not happy. In an online editorial, she bitterly complains that the agency is in dire straits because of staffi...
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Feds Unveil Colorado River Options as States Miss Agreement Deadline
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Feds Unveil Colorado River Options as States Miss Agreement Deadline

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Two months after the seven states of the Colorado River basin failed to reach consensus on managing the waterway, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a set of proposed alternatives. The alternatives are familiar concepts, including “no action” — an unlikely scenario — and certain levels of coordination, including voluntary measures, among the states. One option is driven by the historical, natural flow at one of the reservoirs. Current operating guidelines for the river that supplies water to seven states, 40 million people, 30 tribes and 5.5 million acres of agricultural land will expire at the end of 2026.  On Jan. 9, the Bureau issued a draft Environmental Impact Statement that evaluates five operational alterna...
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If regulators make the rules, what is Congress doing?
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

If regulators make the rules, what is Congress doing?

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com An interesting case in Tennessee focuses on Congress delegating its legislative power to others – for decades. Not just to executive branch agencies, but in some situations to anyone at all. In Tennessee Riverkeeper v. City of Luttrell, an environmental group from another state (Alabama) sued the tiny town of Lutrell, population 1,000, over its wastewater treatment facility. Neither the federal EPA nor state environmental regulators had any problem with Lutrell. But in the Clean Water Act of 1972, Congress explicitly authorized “citizen suits,” whereby anyone can file suit to enforce the law. Like legalized vigilantes. Lutrell, the boyhood home of Chet Atkins, fought back, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Congress h...
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Colorado Hospitals Halt Gender Treatments for Minors After Federal Warning
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TownHall.com, Approved, State

Colorado Hospitals Halt Gender Treatments for Minors After Federal Warning

By: Amy Curtis | Townhall On December 18, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced new and sweeping regulatory changes that would bring an end to "gender-affirming care" for minors. This includes a ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for those under 18 years of age. The reforms mean that hospitals that continue to provide such "gender-affirming care" to children would be stripped of all federal funding as a condition of their participation in Medicare/Medicaid programs. In his announcement, Kennedy said, "Doctors assume a solemn obligation to protect children. Yet doctors across the country now provide needless and irreversible sex-rejecting procedures that violate their sacred Hippocratic oath, endangering t...
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Trump Admin Moves Aggressively to Reshape Food and Chemical Policy
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Just The News, Approved, National

Trump Admin Moves Aggressively to Reshape Food and Chemical Policy

By Amanda Head | Just the News The MAHA Effect: The chemical review overhaul seeks to comprehensively reassess food additives, pesticides, and environmental toxins to reduce their role in chronic diseases and improve overall safety standards. On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that following an extensive and comprehensive review, required under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the agency will now regulate the usage of a variety of five common chemicals used for pliability in materials used for construction and industrial applications.  The list includes: Butyl Benzyl Phthalate (BBP), Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Dicyclohexyl Phthalate (DCHP), Diethylhexyl Phthalate (DEHP), and Diisobutyl Phthalate (DIBP).  ...
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1,500 Truckers Pulled Off the Road for Failing English Rule Revived by Trump
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National, Approved, The Daily Signal

1,500 Truckers Pulled Off the Road for Failing English Rule Revived by Trump

By Fred Lucas | The Daily Signal FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Following new guidelines from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to enforce English language proficiency for commercial truck drivers, 1,500 drivers have had their licenses placed out of service by law enforcement, The Daily Signal has learned. “‘America First’ means safety first. Americans are a lot safer on roads alongside truckers who can understand and interpret our traffic signs,” Duffy said in May at the signing of the guidelines. “This commonsense change ensures the penalty for failure to comply is more than a slap on the wrist.”  The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a division of the Transportation Department, has had longstanding English-language proficiency requirements.  ...
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Mullen: This Independence Day, you’re not as free as you think
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Miami Herald, Approved, National

Mullen: This Independence Day, you’re not as free as you think

By Paul Mullen | Miami Herald There's a lot to celebrate this Independence Day, as we mark the 249th anniversary of our national divorce from Great Britain and the abuses of King George III. Yet under the flags and fireworks, the hotdogs and hamburgers, and the checkered tablecloths camouflaged in red, white, and blue, lies an uncomfortable, ironic truth: You're not as free as you think. This may sound absurd, inappropriate, even unpatriotic. How could this be, in "the land of the free"? The fact is each of us is shackled by invisible economic, regulatory, and civil chains. Hidden in plain sight is a tangled, ever-expanding web of federal, state, and local taxes, programs, regulations, spending, and debt-the overwhelming majority of which unjustly constrain and violate our Go...
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Walcher: Supreme Court ruling is a first step in restoring balance to NEPA
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GregWalcher.com, Commentary, National

Walcher: Supreme Court ruling is a first step in restoring balance to NEPA

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com Supreme Court decisions occasionally have far-reaching impacts, but the recent ruling in Utah’s Uintah Basin Railway case was a Doozy, in which the Justices unanimously hinted that Eagle County, Colorado should mind its own business. County Commissioners there had challenged the Surface Transportation Board’s approval of the 88-mile rail line, proposed by seven Utah counties as a vital transportation connection from the oil-rich region to the national rail network. Eagle County joined several environmental industry groups fighting the rail line, marginally suggesting it could impact traffic in Eagle County, which the oil trains might pass through on their way to Denver. But the real objection, highlighted in all the opponents’ legal filin...
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