HB 2048 Dies, SB 1279 Still Trying to Bite

Virginia House Bill 2048 was that atrocity that Tea Party correspondents are calling "Agenda 21 On Steroids," that almost passed both the Senate and the House, apparently by being so long, so clunky, and so messy that nobody was sure exactly what else is wrong with it. This is the one on which four, count them, four Delegates claimed to have been so muddled they voted the opposite of the way they now say they meant to vote.

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2048S1

I didn't even try to read this abomination. I did, however, paste it into Word to see how many pages it prints out to by now. Would you believe 139 pages? In the font Arial?! Ten-point?

And while waiting for the thing to paginate, I saw some further abominations discussed in detail in it. "Nutrient management plans" and "nutrient credits"--yep, sure enough, that means the local slumlord gets to keep pumping sewage into the river and Grandma can't keep laying hens. Under penalties of "up to $32,500 per violation." If that clearly applied only to slumlords and factories and not to old people who've always kept laying hens, it wouldn't be so evil.

That reference to penalties contained a reference to another paragraph, some forty pages down. Talk about draconian penalties...for things like not destroying all your laying hens because some envious creature overseas doesn't want you to enjoy their company:

"person who willfully or negligently violates any provision of this chapter, any regulation or order of the Board, any condition of a certificate or any order of a court shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not less than $2,500 nor more than $32,500, either or both. Any person who knowingly violates any provision of this chapter, any regulation or order of the Board, any condition of a certificate or any order of a court issued as herein provided, or who knowingly makes any false statement in any form required to be submitted under this chapter or knowingly renders inaccurate any monitoring device or method required to be maintained under this chapter, shall be guilty of a felony punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than three years, or in the discretion of the jury or the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not less than $5,000 nor more than $50,000 for each violation. "

So basically, if you don't comply with all the gobbledygook about basically needing to "maintain professional certification" to live under a roof, the purpose of this bill is to make it impossible for you to live in Virginia...unless of course you move into one of those horrible little apartment blocks that Agenda 21 mandates we should all have to live in.

Please read as much of it, starting at any point where the links thin down to a reasonable proportion and continuing for as far as you can bear, just to know what you can thank your Delegate for waking up and killing. This is the proof that all that gruesome and improbable-sounding stuff you may have read about Agenda 21 is fact-based. It takes an agenda aimed specifically at destroying the United States to create such a bill.

Well, as of 4:30 p.m. on 2/14/13, our House of Delegates finally did wake up:

"YEAS--Hester--1.


NAYS--Albo, Anderson, BaCote, Bell, Richard P., Bell, Robert B., Brink, Bulova, Byron, Carr, Cline, Cole, Comstock, Cosgrove, Cox, J.A., Cox, M.K., Crockett-Stark, Dance, Dudenhefer, Edmunds, Fariss, Farrell, Filler-Corn, Garrett, Gilbert, Greason, Habeeb, Head, Helsel, Herring, Hodges, Hope, Howell, A.T., Hugo, Iaquinto, Ingram, James, Joannou, Johnson, Jones, Keam, Kilgore, Knight, Kory, Krupicka, Landes, LeMunyon, Lewis, Lingamfelter, Lopez, Loupassi, Marshall, D.W., Marshall, R.G., Massie, May, McClellan, McQuinn, Merricks, Minchew, Morefield, Morris, Morrissey, O'Bannon, Orrock, Peace, Plum, Pogge, Poindexter, Purkey, Putney, Ramadan, Ransone, Robinson, Rush, Rust, Scott, E.T., Scott, J.M., Sherwood, Sickles, Spruill, Stolle, Surovell, Tata, Torian, Toscano, Tyler, Villanueva, Ward, Ware, O., Ware, R.L., Watson, Watts, Webert, Wilt, Wright, Yancey, Yost, Mr. Speaker--97.

ABSTENTIONS--0.

NOT VOTING--Miller, O'Quinn--2. "

This web site will charitably assume that Delegates Miller and O'Quinn failed to oppose this thing because they were ill, or something. This web site will charitably recommend that Delegate Hester look for work in a field and a place more congenial to him/her/it, such as volunteering for medical experiments involving heroic measures used to treat major brain damage.  

Actually, this web site is just purely delighted to report that finally even Delegate Sherwood, who originally sponsored this atrocity, has seen the light and voted to kill it. She may be human after all. Maybe, when something slithered up and handed her the original draft of HB 2048, she just happened to have a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and thus couldn't believe that the thing that composed this abomination really was a demon...  

But we're not completely out of the quicksand yet, Gentle Readers. SB 1279, originally the twin to this bill and currently bloated to only 73 pages of 10-point Arial, is still in the House of Delegates, which has "requested conference committee."  

A few tidbits from SB 1279. First, just in case any True Greens think this might have something to do with e.g. strip mine operators and frackers and similar scum:   "The provisions of this article shall not limit the powers or duties of the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy "   In case you were wondering whether the penalties are less draconian:   "a special order to any VSMP imposing a civil penalty not to exceed $5,000 per day with the maximum amount not to exceed $20,000 per violation for noncompliance with the requirements of this article and its regulations "   In case you were wondering who's going to suffer most from this atrocity:   "For areas outside of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, "tributary" includes the following watersheds: Albemarle Sound, Coastal; Atlantic Ocean, Coastal; Big Sandy; Chowan; Clinch-Powell; New Holston (Upper Tennessee); New River; Roanoke; and Yadkin "   And:   "The charges may be assessed to property owners or occupants, including condominium unit owners or tenants (when the tenant is the party to whom the water and sewer service is billed)"   But not the actual offenders:   "A locality adopting such a system shall provide for full waivers of charges to the following:

1. A federal, state, or local government, or public entity, that holds a permit to discharge stormwater from a municipal separate storm sewer system; except that the waiver of charges shall apply only to property covered by any such permit; and

2. Public roads and street rights-of-way that are owned and maintained by state or local agencies including property rights-of-way acquired through the acquisitions process."

Don't let'em slip it past you just because this one's not as blatantly evil as its companion bill. This one is still proof that Agenda 21 is still aimed at the cultural, if not the physical, genocide of Virginia, and it still needs to be defeated, in numbers comparable to HB 2048.