Solar power provides just 0.4 percent of electricity in the United States, so why is rooftop solar such a threat to the American’s electrical utilities? It’s all about the “net metering” laws, writes Vox.com, in which solar-powered electricity is sold back to utilities at retail prices. According to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory story, if 10 percent of the market were to go to rooftop solar, utility earnings could take as much as a 40 percent hit. So the battle is here. It was coming all along. It will continue.
Philip Klein writes in the Washington Examiner that Republicans do conservatives a disservice by running on nothing. Of course, same could be said about the Democrats and liberals.
The Supreme Court delays early voting in Ohio. Via the Columbus Dispatch. That may just be the beginning, via Slate.
The hundred-year storm that ravaged the northern Front Range last September was not a direct result of climate change, according to a new study led by a meteorologist in Boulder. Models show that the 2013 storm was not all that different from a 1938 storm and a 1965 storm — long before carbon emissions had any appreciable effect. Via the Daily Camera.
The FDA is backing off a proposed regulation on how craft brewers dispose of spent grain from the fermentation process. Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall applauded and took credit for inciting the move, calling the estimated $43 million Colorado brewers would’ve had to spend per year on compliance an unnecessary cost. Brewers typically sell spent grains to farmers and ranchers as livestock feed, which seems wholly acceptable considering the grains already must be fit for human consumption. Via the Grand Junction Sentinel.
More conflicting testimony coming out of the Marvin Booker case — this time about whether the 56-year-old was still resisting when deputies discharged the Taser that led to his death. The deputy who had Booker in a chokehold said the prisoner was “incredibly strong,” but an inmate who witnessed the incident up-close said “he was already gone” when deputies shocked him. Via the Denver Post.
The Secret Service failure on the White House fence jumper is even greater than we’ve been told. Via the Washington Post.
Photos from the Hong Kong protests. Via the Atlantic.
A long, long read: The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza on Rand Paul: Can he share (most of) his father’s ideology and still win over the mainstream?
The conservative case against “bring you gun to work” laws. Via Charles C.W. Cooke at the National Review.
Compiled by Mike Littwin, Nat Stein, John Tomasic.
[ Photo by Desmond Sprujit. ]
