Omaha World-Herald. Feb. 28, 2021.
Editorial: Nebraska should pause on new prison and plan for broad criminal justice reform
Nebraska legislators face difficult and expensive choices in addressing the state’s prison problem.
While we agree that the situation is urgent, we also believe these decisions are too important to rush - even though action has been delayed for some years and even though the State Penitentiary in Lincoln is outdated and in need of renovation.
At a time when most states in the nation are lowering their inmate population, Nebraska’s prisons are dramatically and dangerously overcrowded.
Our prison crowding is second in the nation only to Alabama, with 1,800 more inmates than our facilities’ rated capacity. That’s down from 2,100 over capacity in 2019, but the state could face an influx of prisoners as courts catch up with sentencings delayed during the pandemic.
The Ricketts administration is asking lawmakers to spend nearly a quarter-billion dollars on a new, 1,600-bed prison, which, if built, still would leave the state with more inmates than its rated capacity.
We believe prison construction, at best, is only part of the solution.
Some senators are concerned about the price tag; some also are troubled by what they see as the Ricketts administration’s one-dimensional approach.
Appropriations Committee Chairman John Stinner articulated some of the concerns during a hearing this month. “That’s a lot of money,” he said. “And it’s a lot of ongoing money” - about $34 million a year in operating costs. He was among committee members who asked whether more study was needed to consider alternatives before committing to one of the most expensive construction projects in state history.
Such an examination likely is in the offing.
Gov. Pete Ricketts said the state would seek a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for a study by the nonprofit Crime and Justice Institute to identify strengths and weaknesses in probation, parole, criminal sentencing and incarceration.
Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, who pushed for the study after Ricketts vetoed his effort last year to make inmates eligible for parole more quickly, expects the study to point to successful reforms in other states, including Republican-dominated states, for Nebraska legislators to consider in 2022.
Prison crowding is costly and dangerous for inmates, corrections officers and host communities.
It may well be that Nebraska needs a new prison, or at least substantial renovation to the aging penitentiary - but that certainly does not constitute the alpha and omega of the state’s corrections needs.
Nebraska must undertake criminal justice reform that includes alternative courts for addicted and mentally ill offenders, and ensures that fewer inmates leave prison without accountability to parole or community corrections officials. Ricketts, whose default is keeping offenders locked up, should heed police chiefs and others who share those concerns.
Few inmates are sentenced to life - they are going to get out. The state’s greatest interest is keeping them out - by both finding appropriate alternatives at the front end to the dangerous environment of prison and by providing resources during confinement that give convicts the best chance to succeed in society after serving time.
A fundamental, comprehensive structural reform is urgently needed in Nebraska - not simply another structure.
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Lincoln Journal Star. Feb. 24, 2021.
Editorial: Rolling blackouts show need for climate action plan
Don’t blame failing wind energy for the rolling blackouts that shut off the power for thousands during last week’s cold snap. Don’t point the finger at the Lincoln Electric System, Nebraska Public Power District or any other utility either.
Blame the jet stream and global warming, or what some scientists are calling “global weirding.”
In the last few years, climate scientists have verified that temperatures in the Arctic have gone up, causing ice to melt and even more warming. That has upset the balance between the very cold Arctic and warmer readings to the south, causing the jet stream, the upper atmosphere winds that push weather systems across the continent, to “wobble.”
The mid-February jet stream wobble let a blast of extremely cold air slide down from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. The subzero temperatures created a spike in demand for power that threatened to overwhelm the resources of the Southwest Power Pool, forcing the power management agency to which Nebraska’s utilities belong, to order “load shedding” that became the rolling blackouts.
Immediately after, Gov. Pete Ricketts declared the blackouts “completely unacceptable” and jumped on the GOP bandwagon blaming failed wind energy for the shutdowns. Wind generation did drop during the deep freeze. But it represented just a small percentage of the power loss, which also hit natural gas.
Because the Arctic air covered such a large area, demand spiked to an unprecedented level, and, together with generation failures, triggered the rolling blackouts, which, though unfortunate, lasted only an hour or two in Lincoln.
There will be legislative hearings to examine what happened with Nebraska’s power supply over those two weeks, why it occurred and, undoubtedly, some suggestions to prevent it from happening again.
Some of those solutions, such as building in additional short-term emergency generation capacity into the system are obvious and necessary.
But the examination needs to extend beyond power alone and look at how Nebraska can respond to the root cause of the blackouts — climate change.
Specifically, the Legislature should pass Omaha Sen. John Cavanaugh’s LB483, which would direct the University of Nebraska to develop “an evidence-based, data-driven strategic plan to provide methods for adapting to and mitigating the impacts of extreme weather events or climate” that could be considered by the Legislature.
Nebraska must develop a plan to seriously address climate change. And it needs to do so as quickly as possible, after several efforts similar to Cavanaugh’s failed to advance in recent years.
For, as the polar plunge demonstrated, climate change is real — with extreme weather events likely to occur more often in summer and winter — and its impact can be devastating.
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Grand Island Independent. Feb. 28, 2021.
Editorial: Underlying conditions should be vaccine priority
Our state government keeps saying it is speeding up the distribution of coronavirus vaccine so that it can quickly get the vaccine to the people who need it most.
But instead of sticking to its original plan of vaccinating people with underlying health conditions along with people over age 65, the state of Nebraska has removed younger people who are most at risk if they contract COVID-19 from the vaccine high-priority group.
Now officials say it will be another two weeks before they even have a plan for vaccinating them after the priority group of those 65 and older is completed.
Gov. Pete Ricketts has been defending the decision with the reasoning that people 65 and older make up more than 80% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths during the past year.
But people with underlying health conditions, such as those on dialysis, cancer patients and organ transplant recipients, have been unable to go out in public for a year now because of how dangerous it would be for them to be infected. It is time that they get their vaccine.
With the vaccines currently being used in the U.S., two doses are required, so even once they are approved for vaccine, it will take close to a month for those with underlying conditions to complete the regimen. Making them wait another month or more before they can even qualify is unfair.
It’s important that the elderly receive the vaccine, but there are many people between 65 and 69 who are in good health and can wait another month or so if need be.
We must rely on our state government and our health professionals to fairly distribute the vaccine throughout our state. A detailed plan is essential when you consider that Nebraska has close to 1.5 million people age 16 and older and it’s an enormous task to make sure that the vaccine is available to those in the rural areas, as well as urban residents.
State officials have predicted that vaccinations might be available to the general public by late April or May. But this delay in vaccinating people who should have the highest priority casts doubt on that prediction.
We are trying to be patient, but it has been a year and more than 2,000 Nebraskans have died. Only about 9% of Nebraska’s population has had both doses of the vaccine.
Ricketts and our state’s health officials must get everyone possible involved in speeding up the vaccination of our state.
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