Gonzalez deserves praise for standing firm in impeachment vote
And, of course, there’s Indian
Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament who supported the American Revolution, once wrote that “a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion."
I would like to commend Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez for his decision to support the impeachment of former President Donald Trump. Right or wrong, he showed the courage and integrity needed in the face of adversity.
Those who criticize his decision should remember that Gonzalez stood for what he thought was right, even if it meant he would have to stand alone.
Samuel J. Wilson, Rio Grande
Jasmine Fusion Grill opened at the end of October at 560 S. High St. in German Village, offering diners Indian food with elements of Mexican, Italian and American cuisine.
The menu, for example, features a samosa filled with macaroni and cheese.
The restaurant offers fast casual meals with an eye toward convenience, co-owner Meredith Spano said.
Spano’s husband, Zulfiqar Ali, previously worked as a chef for the Tandoori Grill, a classic Indian restaurant on Bethel Road just north of the Olentangy Commons apartments. After eight years in that job, he decided to strike out on his own.
“This has been the type of food we’ve been cooking in our house for the duration of our marriage,” Spano said. “When it came time to open a restaurant, (Indian cuisine) was an obvious
choice to make.”
The restaurant sits on the second floor of a building near the boundary separating German Village from the Brewery District and shares a space with Columbus Axe Throwing.
Spano hopes hungry ax throwers will grab a bite to eat at her restaurant before or after they try their hand at tossing a hatchet toward a wooden tar
American Electric Power, one of the nation’s largest power generators, is accelerating its plan to reduce its emissions from carbon dioxide and now says its goal is to be carbon free by 2050.
“Our new goals are to achieve an 80% reduction in emissions by 2030 from our 2000 baseline and reach net zero emissions by 2050,” Nick Akins, the company’s president, chairman and CEO, said Thursday when the company released its financial results for the final three months of 2020.
“We are focused on diversifying our fuel mix, deploying and investing in new technologies, and modernizing the grid to help us meet these targets and deliver clean energy to our customers.”
AEP was once heavily dependent on coal. As recently as 2005, electricity from coal-fired power plants made up 70% of its fleet.
But in recent years, AEP has been closing or selling power plants and adding renewable energy to its mix of generation while increasing its pledge to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Last November, AEP said it will retire a coalfired power plant in Texas and stop using coal in another plant in that state.
AEP said Thursday that it expects to add 10,000 megawatts of solar and wind power by 2030.
AEP also said electricity consumption increased in the final three months of 2020 as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic.
It also expects a modest increase in power demand in ‘21.
“We saw some improvement in load at the end of 2020 as the economy began to bounce back from the impacts of the pandemic,” Akins said.
“Overall, we expect modest load growth this year as the economy continues to recover, led by expected growth in industrial sales.”
AEP reported profit of $436 million, or 88 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, more than double from the fourth quarter of 2019, when AEP had several one-time charges.
Revenue for the quarter was flat at $3.6 billion.
For the year, AEP earned $2.2 billion, or $4.44 per share, and revenue fell slightly to $14.9 billion.
The pandemic has led to a shift in how electricity is used, with consumption falling in industrial and commercial sectors and increasing in residential sectors as people spend more time at home or shift to work from home. mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams
OMAHA, Neb. – An appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s decision to drop a proposal to require freight trains to have at least two crew members, a plan that was drafted after several fiery crude oil train derailments.
The ruling Tuesday from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will likely make it harder for the railroad industry to reduce the number of crew members in most trains from two to just one. It opens the door for states to require two-man crews on freight trains that haul crude oil, ethanol and other hazardous commodities.
The court ruled that the Federal Railroad Administration acted arbitrarily when it dropped the safety measure President Barack Obama’s administration drafted in response to explosions of crude oil trains in the United States and Canada.
The FRA said in 2019 that safety data didn’t support requiring two-man crews on all freight trains.
The 2016 proposal followed oil train derailments including a runaway oil train in 2013 that derailed, exploded and killed 47 people while leveling much of the town of Lac Megantic, Canada.
Other derailments of trains carrying oil and ethanol have occurred in North Dakota, Oregon, Montana, Illinois, Virginia and other states.
Rail labor groups, which have maintained that single-person crews would make trains more accident-prone, praised the ruling. Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’S Transportation Trades Department coalition, said the decision “overturned one of the most indefensible decisions by the previous FRA.”
“With this decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit put common sense and safety ahead of profits and political favoritism,” Regan said.
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the court’s ruling should clear the way for his state’s law requiring two-person crews to take effect. Currently, two-person crews are generally the norm in the industry but freight railroads have proposed cutting that to one in contract talks now that railroads nationwide have installed an automatic braking system.
“The Trump administration unlawfully attempted to impose a national one-person crew standard that jeopardizes our environment and Washingtonians’ safety,” Ferguson said. Washington, California and Nevada all challenged the FRA’S decision on crew sizes.
An FRA spokeswoman declined to comment while the agency is reviewing the court’s ruling.
The Association of American Railroads trade group said the ruling would hamstring the industry’s efforts to increase automation, and it is evaluating whether to appeal.
“Railroads are frustrated and perplexed by the 9th Circuit’s decision. The panel rejected robust data, sound reason and well-established law in favor of judges’ personal opinions on how the expert rail safety agency should evaluate safety data and how the railroads should operate their trains,” AAR spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek said.
The railroad industry has argued that the installation of an automatic braking system on nearly 58,000 miles of track nationwide, which was completed last year, helps make the second person in a locomotive’s cab unnecessary.