Join us for a live chat about Mississippi’s energy future tonight at 8:00PM.

BY: B. Keith Plunkett @Keithplunkett
In January we completed our 2013 Conservative State of the State Report based on a survey of conservatives across Mississippi. The report listed the issues respondents think our state officials should focus on in 2013. One of those issues is Energy Planning.

In the report, Energy Planning got an overwhelming nod of approval from our entire survey list. However, when separating those who think the issue is “very important” (61%) from those who only think it to be “somewhat important” (34%), it drops to the bottom tier of issues. Part of this could be due to confusion as to what exactly an energy plan would do for Mississippi, and a lack of understanding the challenges.

Time To Chat

Well, now we want to help you ask some of those questions. That’s why we’re happy to join with Maris, West and Baker to bring you a Twitter Chat tonight using the hashtag #msEnergy. The chat will begin at 8:00.

If you don’t have a Twitter account you can follow the entire discussion right here on Mississippi PEP at our #msEnergy Page.

Many of our 2013 State of the State survey respondents listed renewable energy as the lowest of concerns regarding Energy Planning. Tonight, special guests Dr. Sumesh Arora, Director of Strategic Biomass Solutions and Vice President of Innovate Mississippi along with some of his staff will provide expert commentary and answer your questions about the topic of renewable energy.

Topics are expected to include a review of ongoing renewable energy projects in Mississippi, the economic impact of the sector, and the future for sustainable/renewable energy projects in the state.

The forum will be moderated by Tim Mask of Maris, West & Baker Advertising.

Join us at 8:00 PM tonight and let’s talk Mississippi Energy.

How Mississippi Became Beer-Friendly

Oxford’s inaugural beer festival is a direct indication of the alcohol reformation taking place in Mississippi. Most of the beers provided at the festival this year were illegal in the state less than a year ago. The state had and still has some strict and odd regulations when it comes to alcohol. Yet, since being elected into office in 2011, Gov. Phil Bryant has signed two Senate bills that have dramatically loosened regulations. This legislation has earned Bryant the nickname “Budweiser Bryant” from the grateful Mississippi beer enthusiasts.

The credit does not lay solely with Bryant, though. A majority of the change in state regulation is due to the advocacy promoted by the grassroots, nonprofit organization Raise Your Pints. Formed In Jackson in 2007, this organization focused on bringing the highest quality beers in the world to Mississippi. In order to accomplish its mission, two decisive bills needed to be passed.

The first bill was Senate Bill 2878, a bill that would increase the amount of alcohol in beer so that it may contain up to 8 percent by weight. This bill was passed and became effective July 1, 2012. It allowed beer drinkers in Mississippi to access a much greater array of beers, like craft beers and high-gravity beers. Craft beers are beers that are distributed by small, independent breweries, while high-gravity beers are beers that contain a high percentage of alcohol. According to beeradvocate.com, the 5 percent alcohol by weight cap eliminated 80 percent of the top-rated beers in the world and about 33 percent of the world’s beer styles, like barley wine, doppelbock, imperial stout and many more. Before its passing in July, Mississippi was the only state to have a ban on high-gravity beer.

The second bill the Raise Your Pints collective sought to pass was S.B. 2183, which would legalize the act of home brewing. The bill was passed on March 18, 2013, though the illegality of home brewing in the state was not really preventing Mississippians from enjoying the hobby. The entire issue was more of a gray area of legal interpretation. This law change resulted in clarifying the legislation, to the delight of home brewers. The passage of S.B. 2183 left no question that home brewing is a legal hobby in Mississippi. Mississippi was the second to last state to legalize this act officially, leaving Alabama as the only state that has yet to do so.

Raise Your Pints President Craig Hendry said that the passage of S.B. 2878 was more difficult to accomplish than that of the homebrewing bill

“It was our top priority and we spent a lot more time educating and promoting it. Our efforts with that bill also made it easier to follow it with the home brew bill the next year.”

The hard work of accomplishing that task paid off for Hendry and beer enthusiasts in the state.

“After that law passed, we have seen a big influx of new beers and new breweries distributing to Mississippi,” Hendry said. “Also, less than 12 months later, we are on the verge of having five breweries open in Mississippi, compared to only one a year ago. So, the results are there for everyone to see.”

via How Mississippi Became Beer-Friendly – The Daily Mississippian – The Daily Mississippian.

Related articles

• Home brewing boom embraced in all 50 states (denverpost.com)
• Adventures in home brewing (redenvelope.com)
• BEER! Now that we have your attention, a little science… (23andme.com)
• Gov. Robert Bentley signs home brew bill (al.com)

Dept. of Ed. plays more shenanigans with school rankings to implement Common Core.

The ranking Mississippi schools and districts receive this fall could stick for three years.

That’s because the state is switching to new more in-depth objectives for its classrooms to greater emphasize critical-thinking skills. By freezing its school rankings, the Mississippi Department of Education hopes schools can better prepare for those Common Core State Standards.

“We want to encourage the districts to move forward with full implementation of the Common Core, but our current assessment and the Common Core are not aligned,” said Paula Vanderford, education bureau manager for accreditation and accountability at the MDE.

Many schools have tried to begin teaching the new standards, which will be tested for the first time during the 2014-15 school year. However, they’ve also been accountable for state tests on Mississippi’s current frameworks, meaning they’ve had to juggle two different sets of standards.

Results on those state tests are used to determine a school’s and a district’s letter grade.

“Districts have a fear of moving into full implementation of Common Core because the assessments will be used in the accountability system,” Vanderford said. “We thought if we were able to not assign a performance classification over the next couple of years, that would release some of that fear, and districts would move toward full implementation of Common Core.”

Students still will take state tests under the old standards next school year and their test scores will be released to the public. But those results will have no impact on schools’ and districts’ letter-grade rankings, unless they improve.

Read More

Related articles

• Anderson: Take a closer look at Common Core authors (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• OK Common Core Curriculum draws legislative opposition (watchdog.org)
• No closer to common ground: Hearing airs concerns on Common Core (watchdog.org)
• Common Core Supporters Firing Back (edweek.org)

Rep. Bobby Moak on Medicaid expansion: “All Democrats want is a vote.”

Over 600,000 Mississippians on Medicaid are at risk of losing their health benefits if the

legislature does not reauthorize Medicaid by July 1st.

House Democratic leader Bobby Moak says Governor Bryant is threatening there will be no special called session to vote on Medicaid reauthorization or expansion. Moak says the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington confirms that federal health funds will be cut to states that don’t expand Medicaid.

“For the Governor to think the law of the land will not be enforced is a fallacy,” Moak says. “All Democrats want is a vote.”

Rep. Bobby Moak says, “Lets have a vote on expansion. Allow us the opportunity to express our vote to protect our hospitals throughout this state. Now, they like to say look you Democrats don’t have enough votes to pass the expansion measure. Well, to that I say ‘tell me what the vote number is.’ Look into your crystal ball because I don’t know what it is. Put it out there on the floor, lets have a vote, and if we lose we’ll vote to reauthorize Medicaid.”

Moak says he hopes Governor Bryant will step back from the issue, call a special session, and allow Medicaid expansion to be properly vetted.

Read More

Related articles

• Division of Medicaid preparing to notify beneficiaries of loss of coverage. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• Democrat Rep. Chuck Young: Expand Medicaid or risk “civil unrest”. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• A brief timeline of where we are on Medicaid and why. (savemsmedicaid.wordpress.com)
• Plunkett: DSH payments will never be cut. Dems should vote to reauthorize Medicaid now. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• Bryant Says He Could Run Medicaid (wtok.com)
• Race-based study group attempts to sway states on Medicaid expansion with polling data. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)

May 22–On this day in Mississippi history . . .

in 2012 Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 211, the Sunshine Act.

“Transparency in government is critical to its integrity,” Bryant said after signing the bill into law. “I have long supported and believed in the need for Mississippi to more clearly define its relationships with outside counsel. Our goal with the Sunshine Act is to make these relationships more open and transparent, and House Bill 211 is a strong example of government being held accountable.”

The bill set new guidelines for the hiring of outside counsel by state agencies and for the hiring of outside counsel on a contingency fee basis.

Under the legislation, state agencies can retain outside counsel in cases where the attorney general declines to represent them or in cases where a state agency feels the attorney general cannot adequately represent its legal interests because of a significant disagreement over legal strategy.

The bill also defines when an outside attorney may be hired on a contingency fee basis.

Before making such an agreement, the attorney general or state official retaining the counsel must provide a written determination that the fee to be paid is both cost-effective and in the public interest.

Other provisions included in the bill:

• Requires outside counsel to keep detailed time records
• Places limitations on percentage of a recovery that can be paid as a contingency fee. It also provides that “[a] contingency fee shall not be based on penalties or civil fines awarded or any amounts attributable to penalties or civil fines”
• Fees paid to outside counsel “shall not exceed recognized bar rates for similar services”
• Fee limitations can be waived by majority vote of the Outside Counsel Oversight Commission, which is comprised of the governor, the lieutenant governor and the secretary of state
• Requires the attorney general to give an agency seven days’ notice before taking any legal action on the agency’s behalf, unless delay would cause the state “irreparable injury”

MS Power’s Kemper Plant will be hot topic at Southern Co. shareholder meeting.

Questions about the abrupt departure this week of Mississippi Power President Ed Day are likely to be asked during the annual meeting of Southern Co. stockholders today in Pine Mountain, Ga.

Representatives of the Sierra Club said in a conference call Tuesday they will use the shareholders’ meeting as an opportunity to ask about the cost overruns at the power plant under construction in Kemper County and the leadership changes at Mississippi Power.

On Monday, Mississippi Power announced Day was retiring. Two weeks ago, Tommy Anderson, vice president of generation, also left abruptly.

“We want to know who’s running the ship,” said Sierra Club regional representative Glen Hooks. He said his group also wants to know the true nature of the Kemper County plant’s cost overruns.

“We’ve just begun our investigation,” said Leonard Bentz, chairman of the state Public Service Commission. His chief of staff, Jay McKnight, will serve as special investigator. Bentz said the PSC has had open discussions with Southern

Co., “and we’ve been assured that there will be cooperation.”

Ed Holland, lead attorney for Southern Co., parent company of Mississippi Power, has taken over as president of Mississippi Power. Holland said in a statement Monday information the PSC requested was not provided.

“There was no intentional withholding of information,” Holland said. Executives decided to communicate the information in a meeting, he said, but failed to follow through. “We made a mistake of not delivering in a timely fashion,” he said.

Bentz said his agency first asked for the information a year ago. “We asked four specific times and we did not receive it until last week,” he said.

The documents no provided deal with a $366 million cost overrun announced in 2012 for the plant. In April, Mississippi Power announced the plant was $540 million more over budget.

Read More

Race-based study group attempts to sway states on Medicaid expansion with polling data.

Editors Note: The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, founded in 1970, is a non-profit institution that conducts research on political, economic, and social policy issues of concern to African Americans.

A poll by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, released Tuesday, says a majority of people — 62 percent — across five Southern states including Mississippi support Medicaid expansion as called for in the Affordable Care Act, despite opposition from Southern states’ governors to expansion.

In the poll, support for Medicaid expansion in Mississippi was lower than that in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina, pollsters said, but still at 59 percent.

“I hope the leaders of these states will hear the will of the people,” Ralph B. Everett, president of the Joint Center, said during a teleconference from Washington on Tuesday. The center is a Washington-based public policy organization that deals primarily with minority issues.

Mississippi PEP’s Conservative State of the State survey results from January of 2013 shows conservative Mississippians reject Medicaid expansion in large numbers.

Bryant spokesman Mick Bullock said, “Last year, Mississippi spent more than $1.4 billion in state dollars on the existing Medicaid program — more than one quarter of our total state support budget. I’m sure the survey results would have been different had taxpayers been asked if they wanted to foot the bill for a drastic increase to this already enormous cost. Mississippi cannot afford it, and as Gov. Bryant has said many times, any expansion of Medicaid would result in tax increases for Mississippians or cuts to critical spending in areas like education, public safety and economic development.”

The poll showed a large difference in support between races — with African American support at 85 percent to 53 percent for whites — economic classes and political parties. Only 38 percent of Republicans supported expansion, compared to 87 percent of Democrats.

Recently, a poll sponsored by the Mississippi Republican Party, requested by Bryant, showed 76 percent of registered Republicans opposed expansion. Some questioned the validity of that poll, as well, noting the chief Medicaid expansion question included the term “Obamacare” and that 13 percent were unsure.

Read More

Download it for Free!

Related articles

• Alabama residents favor Medicaid expansion but not Obama reforms as a whole, poll shows (al.com)
• More favor Medicaid expansion but oppose health care reform (chronicle.augusta.com)
• Public in Deep South supports expanding Medicaid, poll finds, but lawmakers don’t (newsobserver.com)

Delbert Hosemann

Mississippi PEP couldn’t make it without our sponsors and donors. Thanks to Secretary Hosemann.

2013 Boys State to begin May 26 at MSU.

Gov. Phil Bryant and Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker lead a list of speakers for the American Legion’s Boys State on the campus of Mississippi State University this month.

Bryant and Wicker are scheduled to speak on May 29, the fourth day of the annual event that teaches rising seniors about state and local government and the electoral process.

Boys State will meet May 26-June 1 on the Starkville campus.

Other speakers during the week are Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman; U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss.; State Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg; Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith; State Treasurer Lynn Fitch; U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee, R-Miss.; Attorney General Jim Hood; Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann; State Rep. Toby Barker, R-Hattiesburg; and Lt. John Poulos of the Mississippi Highway Patrol.

Related articles

• New App Makes Parking at Mississippi State University More User-Friendly (virtual-strategy.com)

DOJ fishing for information on MS Voter ID.

The U.S. Department of Justice still is considering whether to preclear Mississippi’s voter identification requirement that was approved by voters in November 2011.

Jan Schaefer, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jim Hood, said information requested by the Justice Department on March 21 “is being sought and will be submitted to DOJ as it is collected from various officials and agencies which have it.”

Pamela Weaver, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, said the Justice Department in March requested “any correspondence between legislators, elected officials, employees and members of the public regarding voter ID. Because this was an unusually broad request without specific dates, we worked with the Justice Department on clarifying the scope of information and time frame.”

Once the Justice Department receives the information, it will have 60 days to respond. Under federal law, any changes to Mississippi elections must be approved by the Justice Department to ensure they do not violate minority voting rights.

Read More

Related articles

• May 17 – On this day in Mississippi history . . . (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• Issa: Scandal Over AP Phones Records ‘Just the Latest One’ at DOJ (cnsnews.com)
• Fired-Up GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy Takes Apart Argument That Voter ID Laws Are Racist During House Hearing (theblaze.com)
• Pruitt: DOJ subpoenas unconstitutional (politico.com)
• Justice Department Failure: Suit Filed Over DOJ Refusal to Clean Up Voter Rolls (pjmedia.com)