William Lawrence for Congress: Environment

The environmental agenda that William Lawrence shares with the public is nothing like the radical, humans-last agenda that dominated most of his adult life.

His published agenda is still pretty radical.

Pass a 12-month federal moratorium on new data centers

Protect Michigan’s water by restoring wetlands & rivers

Preserve game & wildlife areas

Hold polluters accountable

 

Data centers

Let's explore how this would play out.

First, it would hand the data centers that are already in-operation a monopoly and destroy any chance of start-ups being bring new data centers on-line. The new data centers would have to eat the fixed costs for 12 months with no revenue. That would tank the economics. That works at cross-purposes with the "wealth inequity" portions of his platform.

Second, very large amounts of public pension funds are invested in AI build-out. A 12 month moratorium on new data centers would jeopardize the pensions of the foot-soldiers the Progressives need.

Third, data centers are key to predicting "thought crime" and are pivotal to the plans of the Thought Control Police.

Conclusion: It just isn't going to happen. It is grand-standing in front of a gullible audience. 

Protecting Michigan waters

This intersects with several themes.

The prime reason given for shutting down the Enbridge 5 Pipeline is the risk it poses to the Great Lakes and inland rivers and streams. Enbridge 5 is a 30" pipeline that carries half-a-million barrels of oil and liquid propane a day from Western Canada to the US mid-West and eastern Canada. Shutting down Enbridge 5 will increase the cost of LP (for heating), gasoline and diesel in Michigan because it will have to be transported by trucks from states with pipelines fed by the Gulf states.

Another theme is the infringement on private property rights. Environmental purists want all toilets connected to sewers and waste-water treatment plants. They don't care how remote your home is from the waste-water treatment plant. The cost of hook-ups are astronomical and they won't be optional. If the cost of the hook-up exceeds the value of the property, then the owner was deprived of his property by the government without due-process.

Preserve game and wildlife areas

In Southern Florida, you cannot cut down a tree on your own, private property without getting a permit. That might make sense in a crowded urban area but is lunacy in rural areas.

The Department of Natural Resources already considers every non-domesticated animal on your private property as "public property". It is not much more reach to include the grass growing in an unmowed field (which you would then need a permit to mow), brushy fence line (need a permit to burn) or a small woodlot (need a permit to collect downed wood on your own property).

Those who like to quibble are likely to point out that Lawrence meant Michigan State Game Areas. My rebuttals is that is not what Lawrence wrote. Secondarily, "State Game Areas" is a proper noun (you can type it into a search engine with lower-case letters and see if the engine returns the term caps or lower-case) and state game areas is a common noun. That is, the text refers to all areas that harbor game and wildlife.

Based on prior behaviors, this can only be seen as an aggressive infringement on private property rights. 

Hold polluters accountable

When has a progressive ever held anybody accountable?

Did the manager of the Flint water treatment plant go to prison?

Did the management responsible for the maintenance of the Potomac Interceptor Sewage line ever have charges filed against them?

Those are both environmental disasters with huge human costs that happened in political jurisdictions with huge Progressive majorities. No accountability. Just sound-bites and free air-time.

It is very difficult to take this point seriously