Policy Articles

Akaka cosponsors bill to protect homeowners facing foreclosure

May 2011

U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) joined 10 other Senators in introducing the Regulation of Mortgage Servicing Act. The bill is aimed at helping homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure stay in their homes by bringing more fairness and transparency into their dealings with mortgage servicers.

The bill would bring to an end the dual track process, under which a foreclosure process proceeds at the same time that a homeowner is being considered for non-foreclosure alternatives. In addition, the bill would require banks and other mortgage servicers to create a single point of contact for homeowners to work with and provide an independent, third-party review before sending a family to foreclosure. Read more >>

President announces founding of White House Rural Council

June 16, 2011

President Obama signed an Executive Order on June 9 to create the first White House Rural Council - a task force whose focus is to strengthen rural communities nationwide. Read RCAC's response and more >>

The Future of Uranium Mining in Colorado

By Bobby Magill, October 2010

When the Cotter Corp. shut down operations at the Schwartzwalder uranium mine in the mountains above Golden, Colo., in 1999, it was supposed to have prevented any of the radioactive ore from leaching into Ralston Creek. The creek, which flows below the mine, feeds into the drinking water supply for Denver and its suburb of Arvada. Earlier this year, Colorado public health officials slapped Cotter with a $55,000 fine after the uranium levels in Ralston Creek were discovered to be seven times the level considered safe for drinking water.

If you would like to read the entire article posted in New West Development, click here.

New Mexico coalition promotes Low-Income Housing Tax Credit changes

June 2010

By Mark Allison and Ed Rosenthal, executive director of the Supportive Housing Coalition of New Mexico and vice president, Rural & Native American Initiatives at Enterprise Community Partners, www.abqjournal.com

In an opinion, policy article by Mark Allison and Ed Rosenthol, which ran in the Albuquerque Journal on June 24, the authors urge Congress to make changes to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to revive the program and the proceeds. Enact Carryback Provision for Housing Tax Credit

Measuring the sustainability of western water systems

May 2010

By Jon Christensen, executive director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California; Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson, Jr., the Robert E. Paradise professor in natural resources law and Perry L. McCarty director, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University; and David M. Kennedy, the Donald J. McLachlan professor of history, Emeritus and co-director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University

Our water systems in the American West are old-fashioned hybrids. Combinations of natural and engineered systems, they are largely the products of archaic political and institutional structures, some dating back centuries, late nineteenth-century scientific assumptions, and mid-twentieth century engineering technologies. All of these foundational fixtures of the West’s water system are showing severe signs of obsolescing rapidly. Few water managers, moreover, are able to think beyond their basins or operate with a regional or watershed-wide mandate. The West’s astonishingly fragmented water management systems –– numbering more than 1,100 water districts, as well as hundreds of mutual water companies and other entities –– have never been well articulated and are now approaching intolerable incoherence.

To read the entire article published in the March 2011 issue of the Rural Review, click here.