[Kreweoftruth] What we're watching in this year's session

[kreweoftruth at kreweoftruth.net]

Well, at least the 2012 Legislative Session will end June 4. But in the meantime, I suspect we'll all be losing a lot of sleep.


Education Reform. It all starts this week and the Governor's ambitious plan promises to dominate...and perhaps steamroll...the initial days. Already there are rumors teachers have planned a "sick out" for this Wednesday, the first day the bills will be heard. While there are important things to be tweaked in these bills, overall they have our support as long as Legislators respect school autonomy. We'll be backing the Louisiana Association of Charter School's amendments on these initiatives.


Protecting Louisiana lands and waters. To us, it is all about the oil and gas industry's covert operations to overturn or weaken Act 312, which provides a process by which radioactive waste and chemical pollution left by oil and gas companies on private lands is cleaned up. Admittedly, more could be done by the State Department of Natural Resources to actually get agreed upon cleanups going, but the process does work as outlined in Act. 312. So, we'll be monitoring efforts by Big Oil to try to take away landowner rights by weakening that law. Join us at www.LouisianaTruth.org. This is why we think this is happening: While we scramble to protect our rights to be protected from a legacy of pollution, Big Oil is trying to get as much clearance as it can to rape and pillage lands in North and Central Louisiana, as it starts fracking. Right now, we have polluted lands. Soon, we could have polluted acquifers. Stay tuned.


Merging Governor's Office of Elderly Affairs into the Department of Health and Hospitals. We respect the Area Agencies on Aging and the Councils on Aging immensely. They do the hard work of keeping all our aging parents independent, informed and with options to care. And we hear that they are concerned about change. But this change is actually good, in our opinion. The AAAs and COAs are not going to loose anything in this basic administrative change, and while we agree the process that initiated the merger wasn't handled well, DHH has been making up for that with a series of forums that are informative and promising. We hope this works out, as AAAs and COAs have had funding for programs like Senior RX and ADRCs cut over the past four years. We think the merger right now is a friendly one and allows the AAAs/COAs to get the best protections for the years ahead.


Always: Protecting citizens' access to medications. We'll be continuing to fight for unfettered access to medicines for those on Medicaid and Medicare.


Louisiana Legislative Women's Caucus. We're excited by the new leadership of Senator Karen Carter Peterson. 





cheron brylski
the brylski company
3418 coliseum street
new orleans, louisiana 70115
cbrylski at aol.com
504.897.6110
504.460.1468 cell
504.897.0778 fax
www.brylskicompany.com

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