June 29 – Puerto Rico’s $72 Billion Debt; The Supreme Court’s Ruling Against The EPA; SCOTUS Hands a Victory to Voter Initiatives

Full Program

Part 1

We be begin with the other debt crisis, not Greece but Puerto Rico, where the governor of the island’s 3.6 million people just announced the commonwealth’s $72 billion debt “is not payable” and that Puerto Rico needs to pull out of a “death spiral”. Charles Venator Santiago, Professor of Latino Politics, Public Law and Political Theory at the Institute of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at the University of Connecticut joins us to discuss the constitutional limbo Puerto Ricans have be placed by the U.S. where they are American citizens but can’t vote, and why Puerto Rico has piled up more municipal debt per capita than any other American state.

Part 2

Then we look into the Supreme Court’s ruling against the EPA that undermines the Obama Administration’s efforts to cut mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-burning power plants. Bob Kincaid, a co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign joins us to discuss this victory for Peabody Coal and 23 states that sued the EPA over the cost of compliance to curb emissions which the EPA argues is offset by the health benefits from cutting emissions that are three times the costs of compliance.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a voter initiative in Arizona, Proposition 105 that passed overwhelmingly in 2000, creating an independent commission to oversee redistricting to prevent the Republican-dominated Arizona’s legislature’s gerrymandering. Steve Muratore, who blogs on election redistricting at the Arizona Eagletarian joins us to discuss this victory in which as Justice Ginsberg stated for the majority opinion “Arizona voters sought to restore the core principle that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around”.