Bump Stock Ban now official nationwide – Supreme Court

Repost from NPR News
[See also the New York Times report.]

Bump Stock Ban Proceeds After Supreme Court Denies Gun Makers’ Request To Halt It

By Laurel Wamsley, March 28, 201912:54 PM ET
A bump stock, left, is a device that can be added to a gun to increase its firing speed. The devices were banned by the federal government his week. George Frey/Getty Images

The U.S. Supreme Court officially denied an appeal from gun makers seeking to stop a Trump administration ban on bump stocks, the gun add-ons that can dramatically increase their rate of fire. The ban went into effect on Tuesday.

Gun makers had filed separate appeals to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, requesting a temporary hold on the ban. Roberts denied one appeal earlier this week; Sotomayor referred hers to the full court, which denied it on Thursday, allowing the ban to proceed while challenges to it move through the courts.

Bump stocks gained national attention after they were used in the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, where a gunman used bump-stock outfitted rifles to kill 58 people at an outdoor concert.

The ban requires bump stocks to be destroyed — such as by melting, shredding or crushing — or handed over at an office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The ATF recommends making an appointment with the ATF office beforehand.

As NPR’s Bill Chappell reported on Wednesday, the anticipation of a ban spurred sales of the devices:

RW Arms, a prominent bump stock retailer based in Fort Worth, Texas, says its entire remaining inventory of 60,000 bump stocks has now been turned over to the ATF’s custody. The items will be “shredded and recycled under the supervision of ATF agents,” the company said.

In the run-up to the total ban, RW Arms had rushed to sell as many bump stocks as it could, posting a countdown clock on its website to warn customers of the impending change. Its bump stocks were priced at between $179 and $199; the website now says they’re out of stock.

The ATF isn’t saying exactly how many bump stocks have been turned in so far — in large part because there are many ways for gun owners to comply with the law. But the agency’s chief of public affairs, April Langwell, says bump stock owners have turned the accessories in at ATF field offices “all across the country.”

Some states and cities banned the devices more than a year ago.

Government deregulation without limits – FAA comes under criticism

Repost from The Register-Guard, Eugene, OR
[Quote: “When something bad happens, the government will take action — but over time those regulations and requirements wind up being dropped, reduced or delayed. The 2017 fatal Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 financial crisis and countless other events could have been prevented.”]

Deregulating? DeFazio’s watching

Posted Mar 27, 2019 at 12:01 AM

The Boeing 737 jet crashes raise troubling questions that go far beyond one company’s safety record and one federal agency’s watchdog role.

The history of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft suggests it is an example of how the government’s regulation-and-oversight pendulum has swung too far. The Federal Aviation Administration has lacked both the money and the inclination to adequately oversee aircraft development, instead relying heavily on companies to do their own testing.

Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio is demanding answers. The Springfield Democrat chairs the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The committee’s investigative staff is doing research, and DeFazio then plans to hold hearings.

“This is really, really raising questions about the FAA as a watchdog,” he said in a meeting with The Register-Guard editorial board.

A faulty sensor is being investigated as one cause, and Boeing is working on a software fix. The two-sensor system was developed as a safety feature to prevent a plane from stalling. But it appears the failure of just one sensor can send the aircraft into a powerful, possibly irreversible dive unless the pilots override the system within 40 seconds, according to a New York Times report this week.

DeFazio promises a tenacious investigation. Among the questions are why the system was designed this way, whether the aircraft was unsafely rushed to market, and why the FAA and Boeing did not require extensive retraining of pilots.

“This is the first time Boeing has put in a system that took over the plane automatically,” he said. “And they didn’t think they needed to tell people about it — because it’s different from any other Boeing plane ever made?

“Obviously, maybe not the best idea.”

For years, the FAA has lacked sufficient inspectors and has outsourced much of that responsibility to the manufacturers. But the FAA is not unique. We now have a government that relies on the honor, integrity and self-supervision of the industries it regulates.

When something bad happens, the government will take action — but over time those regulations and requirements wind up being dropped, reduced or delayed. The 2017 fatal Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 financial crisis and countless other events could have been prevented.

“It’s repeated time and time again,” DeFazio said. “There are limits to deregulation, which in many cases have been exceeded.”

Oregon has its own history of unwatchful eyes. The Cover Oregon health insurance fiasco could have been averted through closer, more-knowledgeable oversight and insistence on stronger testing of the technology throughout its development. Better oversight — not to mention much-better planning in the first place — might have saved the state from wasting millions of dollars in the Highway 20 reconstruction between the valley and the coast.

Each time, government and the public vow to learn from these lessons. Then we relax and we forget.

When DeFazio and his congressional colleagues find the answers they are seeking, our government should heed them.

Vallejo releases unfinished Orcem/VMT report after community demands

Repost from the Vallejo Times-Herald

Community demands spur release

By John Glidden, March 26, 2019 at 12:02 pm | UPDATED: March 27, 2019 at 1:35 pm
The site of the Vallejo Marine Terminal/Orcem Americas project proposed for South Vallejo is shown. (Times-Herald file photo)

Amid growing pressure from the community and applicants, the city of Vallejo on Tuesday released an unfinished draft version of the updated Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the Orcem/VMT project proposed for development in South Vallejo.

In a message posted to the city’s website, staff cautioned that the lengthy document, in its current form, is not ready to be presented to the council for certification and possible project approval under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

“As of this date, clarification is needed as to who is the responsible party for certain indemnity and mitigation measures, and who has site control and ownership of the project site,” staff wrote in its message. “While this clarification is obtained processing of the EIR has been paused.”

Reached by phone Tuesday, Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan said he agreed with City Hall’s decision to release the report.

“(The city has) been pressured to release the EIR,” he said. “Both sides have asked that it be released, and the public has the right to go through it.”

However, the City Council has yet to certify the contents of the FEIR, he warned.

Vallejo Marine Terminal (VMT) wants to build a deep-water terminal, while Orcem Americas is seeking to build a cement facility. Both projects would be located on the same 31 acres at 790 and 800 Derr St. next to the Mare Island Strait in South Vallejo.

VMT/Orcem opponents and supporters wait to hear the decision from the Vallejo City Council in 2017 at City Hall in Vallejo. (Chris Riley — Times-Herald file)

Release of the report comes nearly two years after the council directed city staff to complete and finalize the EIR.

Orcem has been one of the more vocal voices, spending money on various advertising in the Times-Herald, demanding City Hall release the document for public review.

Steve Bryan, president of Orcem Americas, said his team was surprised by the sudden release of the document.

“We haven’t had time to review the document, but we were very surprised today,” Bryan wrote in an email. “Like everyone else, we were expecting the Final EIR. The City Attorney’s February 25th letter stated the City was ready to release March 1st, not another Draft FEIR.”

Opponents of the project have insisted on release of the report. They’ve expressed concern the development, if built, will harm the surrounding neighborhoods and city.

Peter Brooks, president of Fresh Air Vallejo, a group opposed to the project, said on Tuesday that the group was not surprised by the release of the unfinished document.

“We are prepared to go through the report with a fine-toothed comb,” he wrote in an email to the Times-Herald.

The Vallejo Planning Commission voted 6-1 in 2017 to reject the VMT/Orcem project, agreeing with City Hall that the project would have a negative effect on the neighborhood, that it would impact traffic around the area and the proposed project was inconsistent with the city’s waterfront development policy. The project also has a degrading visual appearance of the waterfront, City Hall said at the time.

Vallejo Marine Terminal and Orcem officials in the front row react after the Vallejo Planning Commission voted 6-1 in March 2017 to reject the proposed project.

City officials argued in 2017 that since a rejection was being recommended, a FEIR was not required. At the time, city leaders called the first iteration of the document a draft FEIR. The report released on Tuesday is an updated version.

Orcem and VMT appealed the Planning Commission decision, and in June 2017 when reviewing the appeal, a majority of the then-council directed City Hall to complete the impact report.

Since then, numerous agencies have issued letters of concern with the project as they reviewed the first version of the DFEIR.

The FEIR was expected to be released last year until leaders received a 13-page letter from Erin Ganahl, deputy attorney general for the State of California, writing that the project’s DFEIR, an Environmental Justice Analysis (EJA), and the Revised Air Analysis were misleading.

“The environmental documents for the project fail to provide adequate legal support for the city of Vallejo to approve the project,” Ganahl wrote on behalf of state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “The DFEIR fails to adequately disclose, analyze, and mitigate the significant environmental impacts of the project; the EJA improperly concludes that the project would not disproportionately impact low-income communities of color, and thus misleads decision makers and the public by minimizing the projects significant environmental justice concerns.”

Just this month, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) issued a letter concluding that if the Orcem portion of the project was built, it would increase air pollution.

“The project as proposed will increase air pollution in an already overburdened community and increase the health burden placed on the community from toxic air contaminants including diesel particulate matter, a known carcinogen,” BAAQMD officials wrote after reviewing the stationary sources proposed by Orcem.

City Hall said in its Tuesday message that staff expects to provide the City Council a progress report on the project by April 23.