We asked the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) to require NorthWestern Energy to update existing street lights with more efficient LEDs. We’ve provided a way to pay for the retrofit. That is, we want the PSC to eliminate an overcharge that is costing Montanan’s roughly $2.1 million a year and to claw back approximately $25 million in past overcharges. That’s more than enough money to pay for implementation of this energy-efficient technology. Further, we allege that Montana’s Constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment requires elimination of NorthWestern’s wasteful nighttime energy usage. Monopolies like NorthWestern should not be allowed to force customers to pay more than they should have to because there is no alternative to the energy-hog lights NorthWestern supplies. If you support the refund of past overcharges to fund additional ongoing savings coming from purchase of Dark Sky Association approved LED street lights please join our petition; send it to 10 of your friends, and ask them to do likewise. We will present the petition as part of the public comment portion of the case. The city of Los Angeles has installed 150,000+ LEDs creating a 63.3% street lighting energy-use reduction and $7.7 million annual dollar savings (as of December 17, 2013). New York is replacing a quarter of a million of its lights with LEDs. Other cities are also moving to conserve energy. More than 2180 local governments in 50 states (+Washington DC, Guam & Northern Mariana Is), and 84 (of 196) countries & all 13 Canadian provinces and territories have installed some LED street lights. In many towns, payment for energy to light streets consumes 37 to 50+% of the municipal budget. We can cut the energy component of that expense in half. It is estimated that the US has between 26 and 52 million street lights. The technology used in those is 90 years old and the average age of these lights is 25 years. Energy to illuminate streetlights in the US costs tax and ratepayers $2 billion a year and $4 to $6 billion a year to operate and maintain them. Conversion of 52 million luminaires would save enough energy to supply 500,000 US households. At present, the PSC has decided to consider only the overcharge issue in the case. However, it has reserved consideration of other issues and we will be making offers of proof on issues not currently under consideration. Those issues include: 1) whether conversion to LEDs by NorthWestern should be mandated (as the conversion to high pressure sodium street lights from less efficient lighting was required by the PSC in 1982); 2) whether the overcharge ought to be used to fund energy efficient LED street lighting (which is saving communities worldwide money and reducing nighttime energy usage by more than 50%; 3) whether NorthWestern should be required to allow use of its poles that consumers have paid for to house LED lights if NorthWestern does not supply them (as has been done when Ottertail Power was required by the US Supreme Court to allow competitors to use its facilities); 4) whether a non-metered tariff for LED luminaires ought to be developed to eliminate the cost of metering LEDs (similar to the non-metered tariff now used to bill for current lights and non-metered tariffs offered by other utilities); and 5) whether future bills should reflect the amortization schedules of lights so cities will know when lights have been paid for and the portion of the charge used to defray infrastructure costs should drop out of the bill. If we can eliminate the present overcharge and apply past, refunded overcharge to save energy, property owners in roughly 80% of the districts with NorthWestern-owned street lights, will see a reduction of approximately $70 to $120 a year per household in their individual property tax bills. For the other 20% of street lighting districts it will mean elimination of looming future overcharges. For Montana local governments it will mean revenue savings due to elimination of part of the overcharge they pay when they contribute to overcharged lighting districts encompassing city property. After the cost of the new LED luminaires are covered from the overcharge, we are requesting that money remaining after other expenses in the case be refunded to consumers. Our testimony and exhibits have been posted (date of 3/21/14) on the Public Service Commission website at the link to docket # D2010.2.14 (incoming tab). Seattle City Light’s Edward Smalley, former Director of DOE’s Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium, notes: “LED technology has advanced to a point where it not only meets design standards for a plurality of applications where cobra head fixtures are used, but cost benefit analysis reveals the technology to also be cost effective. While many are seeing energy saving of greater than 50% over HPS, the driver for a large number of system owners is actually the operations and maintenance savings, both in manpower and resources. Furthermore, organizations like the Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium provide [online] tools and expertise to help simplify a transition to LED technology. We are at a point where it has become evident that there is a clear benefit of replacing HPS roadway lighting with LED.” To purchase 2000 LED streetlights in 2009, Seattle spent $369/luminaire. Today a better performing unit costs near $150 to replace luminaires in residential areas. As of the end of 2013, Seattle City Light has saved its street lighting customer $2.6 million per year in energy and maintenance costs by the conversion to LED street lighting, 75% of this savings going to the citizens of Seattle. It is anticipated that the savings will approach between $4-5 million a year once all 86,000 Seattle streetlights are converted to LED. At that point municipal energy use will have been reduced by 24%. Seattle City Light’s estimated simple payback is 7.6 years. Seattle’s RFP requires a 10 ye...

Time changes are very annoying and we the voters should have a choice in whether we want the time change or not.

Apple is a company that earned its beloved reputation by engaging in a competitive marketplace and providing its customers with innovative products. Comcast is a company that earned its reputation as one of the most hated companies by helping create laws that prevent competition and providing expensive low quality products. The result of Comcast’s behavior is that the United States has outdated and overpriced internet. This is an embarrassing situation for the country that invented the internet. Now Comcast is starting to do away with net neutrality, a concept that allowed innovative new companies like Facebook and Google to be created. Comcast’s tactics hurt the American marketplace and the American people. However, Americans recognize that not all companies are created equal and we want Apple to know that we will not tolerate one of our champions partnering with a villain in a race to reduce competition and squeeze the American consumer from the wonderful opportunities that capitalism can provide.

As someone who spent 10 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit (three of those on death row), I have grave concerns about Tennessee's plan to resume executions this year. I now call the great state of Tennessee my home, and I don't want to see our state risk executing the innocent when we have less costly alternatives available. Paul House, Michael McCormick, and Gussie Vann, are all individuals who were sentenced to death in Tennessee, only decades later to be exonerated, after evidence of their innocence was finally considered. Given the problems with Tennessee's current death penalty system, we cannot trust the system to get it right 100% of the time. Please join me in asking Governor Haslam not to resume executions in Tennessee. Thanks for your support, Ray Krone Ray Krone became the nation's 100th death row exoneree when he was released from prison in Arizona in 2002. Update, October 2016: the number of death row exonerees has risen to 156.

I know many people, myself included, who are overeducated and under employed. As a small landlord, I can't find anyone with a job to rent from me - everyone who comes is on disability! As a college teacher, I worry about the future of my students as increased inequality decreases the number of quality jobs. I live in a city where 30% of the population lives in poverty, with little opportunity to change this.

I have been personally affected by this issue and now i see it happening again with a family member. Young people generally do not know their rights until they have been caught up in the system then they begin the process of learning the mistakes they made. The most significant but unspoken fact is that this also creates a perpetual cycle where those who are intimidated into cooperating become leaked as snitches in society both public and privately. Therefore their lives are never the same the are either ridiculed or haunted from then on. Prosecutors create these dilemmas for young men who don't know their rights well enough to plead the fifth "My son was with another family member when a friend was killed. My son is hurt confused and really caught up in the middle of a family/friend situation. So he chooses to stay neutral. Well the detective and or district attorney doesn't want him neutral he wants him to either be a witness or a suspect. Not knowing what to do, how to think. His back is up against the wall. Either you tell what you know and we give you a proffer or you take your chances in court. These young adults or scared. Our fifth amendment should not be used against us in this type of way. This need to STOP......

“In the name of tort reform, a conspiracy of corporate interests and elected officials has thrown obstacles in the path of victims even getting their day in court, let alone financial judgments: gutted consumer protection laws, capped financial compensation, and drastically limited attorney's fees — to the point that they cannot afford to take cases. The justification for (what they call) reform is that runaway juries swayed by heart-wrenching cases award mega-millions in punitive damages that can hurt their bottom line — the dead, maimed, and injured be damned! In the name of all injured Americans past, present, and future, it’s time to reform tort reform — and call it what it is. “ Stephen L. Goldstein

I want our democracy to work. I want ALL Americans to be able to do their civic duty in voting on every Election Day. Let's free people up to vote and honor Election Day by making it a national holiday. Thanks.

Other Republican-led states have done it. Virginia voters strongly support it. And the state Senate just passed it. But right now, some Republicans in the House of Delegates are standing in the way. If they continue to block Medicaid expansion, they'll be catering to an extreme slice of their own base rather than helping get health care to the state's neediest residents.

Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell is standing in the way of getting affordable health care to nearly 200,000 of the state’s poor and disabled residents—despite the support of Virginia voters. As speaker of the House, Howell plays a key leadership role that impacts the health and welfare of the entire state. From his district in Fredericksburg to Roanoke to Virginia Beach, families know the suffering caused by lack of affordable health care—and are waiting for the House of Delegates, under Speaker Howell’s leadership, to do the right thing and move immediately to expand Medicaid eligibility. Accepting federally funded Medicaid expansion would save lives, save financially-at-risk rural hospitals, improve public health, create jobs, and boost the state economy. Expansion would get affordable medical care to Virginians in the “coverage gap” — those who aren’t currently eligible for the state’s Medicaid program but don’t make enough to qualify for subsidies under Obamacare. Hundreds of thousands of Virginians are in “the gap,” and the majority are the working poor, people who work for low wages and still can’t afford health care. The cost of Medicaid expansion will be paid 100% by federal dollars (that’s money Virginia taxpayers have already sent to Washington) during the first three years. After that, federal support will taper to 90% of the cost by 2020. This is coverage Virginians have already paid for; without expansion, those dollars will go to other states. And polls show there’s bipartisan support for Medicaid expansion. Whether Republican or Democrat, Virginia voters support expanding access to life-saving health care for the state’s neediest residents. Speaker Howell: It’s time to listen to Virginians and stop blocking Medicaid expansion. Let’s get our families and neighbors the health care they need.

All winter, the Apostolic Pentecostal Church in Rockford has opened its doors to the homeless whenever overnight temperatures fell below freezing. On most nights, nearly 50 people would seek life-saving refuge from the bitter cold. The church is acting on their beliefs -- namely, that Christians have an obligation to care for those who are cold, hungry, outcast, and excluded. But last Wednesday, the city of Rockford cited the church for code and zoning violations and demanded that they cease sheltering people at night. According to the church's pastor, the city warned them that it would be illegal for the church to continue opening their doors to the homeless. City officials have a rightful responsibility to protect the public from harm, but in this case, they're doing more harm than good. Most seeking shelter in the church have no other options during dangerously cold nights. Barring the church from welcoming these people could cost lives. Let's show the mayor that thousands of people from all over the country are standing with this church!

While the loss of flight 370 is tragic, the entire mainstream media has covered absolutely nothing else since it's disappearance. Even when there were no new developements, the mainstream media persisted in speculation and inumerable repititions of information that was already widely known. It is the responsibility of the newsmedia to ensure that viewers are aware of all pertinant and current events. The practice of extended wall to wall coverage of this or any other issues by the mainstream media is a failure to meet their obligation to keep the viewers informed on newsworthy events. The signers of this petition collectively ask, both now and in the future, that media organizations do not engage in the practice of wall to wall coverage and keep people updated on ALL current events.