Declarations

Crop Insurance

“The lack of insurance for malt barley is preventing farmers from planting this crucial crop.”

—U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., during his Aug. 20 speech at the Empire Farmstead Brewery in Madison County, N.Y. Schumer called on the USDA to establish a new crop insurance program for Central New York farmers who grow malt barley, a crop that is crucial to the growth of the area’s burgeoning craft beer industry.

Much Better and Much Worse

“You’re going to hear a lot of folks say things are so much better, the economy is so improved, and other people are going to say it is so much worse.”

—Allison Plyer, with the New Orleans-based think tank, The Data Center, comments on the state of her city 10 years after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Much of New Orleans has rebounded but many areas still struggle, particularly African-American neighborhoods and the chronically neglected Lower 9th Ward.

Biometric Identifier?

“I support technological innovation. Innovation, however, does not give companies a license to mislead consumers about issues affecting their safety.”

—San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and another prosecutor filed a revised lawsuit in late August against Uber saying its background checks rely only on personal information, and the firm can’t ensure information is associated with an applicant without a “unique biometric identifier” – fingerprints, in other words.

A Strong Relationship

“We know, at least based on the spatial and temporal relationship between these earthquakes and brine disposal operations in Harper and Sumner counties, that these two are certainly linked. … There’s definitely a strong relationship between the two.”

—Kansas Geological Survey scientist Tandis Bidgoli, on the link between an uptick in the number of earthquakes in two southern Kansas counties and the injection into wells of saltwater used in oil and natural gas drilling.

Sinkhole Crisis

“We’re completely reactionary. We don’t have the resources to be proactive.”

—Lou Akers, executive director of the Huntington, W. Va., Water Quality Board, said in regards to a dramatic increase in sinkholes in the city. The Huntington Water Quality Board is reportedly getting at least three sinkhole-related calls a week.