The Triadvocate

Lobbying...and Social Media?

 

A guest post by Triad Strategies President Roy J. Wells

Any of you who are friends with me on Facebook, connected with me on LinkedIn, or are part of my small following on Twitter, have been probably scratching your heads wondering why a lobbyist is pushing out volumes of content on Social Media.  In fact, you were not the only ones shaking your heads.  When I introduced Social Media to the Triad Team last November, there were a few eyes rolling and heads shaking. So, I figured I owed a bunch of people an explanation, and what better way to do it than on the TRIADvocate. 

The Case Against a Power Authority

 

By Guest Blogger Richard Hudson, Jr. PA Chair, Retail Energy Supply Association

Everyone supports the goal of keeping electricity prices as low as possible for consumers, but creating a power authority to build and manage generating capacity and to buy and sell power would almost certainly result in a less efficient energy market and higher prices.

Pay to Patrol Bill Lands Tomorrow

 

A 747 is about to land in Harrisburg tomorrow.

No need to check the sky or alert the TSA to the need to conduct passenger underwear checks at Harrisburg International Airport.  We are referring to House Bill 747, which would for the first time force certain municipalities that rely on State Police protection to pay a per capita fee to the Commonwealth for that service.

Guest Blogger -- John McNesby

 

Occasionally, The Triadvocate is going to open up its space to our friends who wish to post on topics of importance.   Our first guest blogger is Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5 President John McNesby, commenting on the recent contract award.  You can learn more about the issue here, where you can also contact John directly.

Fire, Fire, Mrs. McGuire!

 

Pennsylvania is rarely known as a groundbreaking state when it comes to public policy.  We are generally content to be followers, not leaders, muddling around in the middle of the pack. Heck, we even let lowly Delaware beat us to the front of the line by ratifying the U.S. Constitution five days before we got around to doing so.  To be fair, we are number one with a bullet when it comes to importing trash from other states, so we have that going for us.

We Got Stripes

 

The year is 1959, and the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, strides to the microphone and croons: “On a Monday, I was arrested.  On a Tuesday, they locked me in the jail…” If Cash were still alive today and living in Pennsylvania, the next line of “I Got Stripes” might very well be: “On a Wednesday, they shipped me off to Michigan.” 

Bulldozers for Sale

 

Was it a blessing, or a curse?  Did it create new jobs, or merely preserve existing ones? And how many jobs are we talking about here, anyway?

We refer, of course, to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the thrashing and gnashing about it began anew this week when the Associated Press came up with an analysis concluding that the “surge” on spending for roads and bridges “had no effect on unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry.”

Numbers Don't Lie

 

If you follow Pennsylvania politics for even a few months, you figure out that the standard mindset in the Keystone State is to assume that we are not citizens of a larger world.  If things are bad, they must be the worst right here at home.  The pothole capital?  The home of sports teams that always freeze in the clutch?  The worst crime?  The biggest garbage dumps?  We think we’ve got it bad and we like that just fine.

Meet the New Boss

 

On a sultry August day in 1859, Sir Edwin Drake sank a drill bit 69 feet into the ground in Titusville, Pennsylvania.  The black gold that gushed to the surface gave Pennsylvania the distinction of being home to the first commercial oil well in the country.  Soon thereafter, the world’s first commercial oil pipeline was laid in the wooded hills of northwest Pennsylvania. Thank goodness we avoided being the home of a sitcom named the "Oil City Hillbillies."

Twitter Opens Up the Dome

 

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, State Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-Montgomery) plops down 140 characters about his work with the Obama Administration on health care.  A few feet away, State Rep. Eugene DePasquale (D-York) is Tweeting about his efforts to curb distracted driving.  Across the aisle, State Rep. Jim Christiana (R-Beaver) is using his 140 characters to tout his efforts to provide a more open government through his PennGAP bill. 

Power to the People

 

Gene Stilp and his merry band of gadflies staged a media event this week, where they predicted that the expiration of electric rate caps in the PPL service territory would unleash a public outcry rivaling the legislative pay raises of 2005, all because the General Assembly did nothing to stop the concomitant price increases.

Magical Marcellus Mystery Tour

 

Last week, Governor Ed Rendell announced, to the shock of no one, that he would again pursue an extraction tax on natural gas.  Some may recall that taxing natural gas drillers has become the preferred method of funding pretty much everything in the commonwealth, from environmental protection, to road and bridge construction, to low income heating assistance. The billions of cubic feet of gassy goodness trapped below Penn’s Woods have indeed become a big, fat, lucrative target for a state government swimming in red ink.