Party foul

Editorial: Clicking forward

By the time you read this, the online polls will be open for the 2014 and 2017 Class Council elections. With four qualified candidates in each presidential race, the competition will likely be close, and we encourage you to peruse the candidacy statements printed in our Opinion section before you cast your vote. But beyond the newsprint, check out our video Q&As with presidential candidates on bowdoinorient.com.
Including this video on the front page of our website marks a change in the Orient’s approach to web-based material. This week, we shuttered the Orient Express, our three-year experiment with blogging. We found that the multimedia pieces we ran on the blog complemented our regular print content, so we have consolidated everything onto our main website with the hopes of cultivating a general forum for news. Print is still the Orient’s primary focus, but we realize that much of the student body is plugged in seven days a week; we hope to reach you beyond the confines of the physical Friday paper.
But as we post online content more frequently, it is important to note that our web non-removal policy has not changed. Interviewees frequently ask to make their remarks anonymous or to preview quotes before articles are published, even on banal topics. The Orient’s policy states that anonymity will be granted only in situations when the paper would not otherwise be able to include reliable or pertinent information; previewing quotes prior to publication is allowed only in very unusual circumstances. Additionally, we hear regularly from alumni, students and former contributors who would like us to remove comments or quotes from articles online. Our policy is to decline these requests. The Orient is public record, and its content does not change to suit individual needs; this policy was created under the ethical premise that history will not be revised to fit private interests. It also safeguards against editorial staff making highly subjective decisions about which removal requests to grant.

Editorial: Do the light thing

Last Friday, President Mills announced the College’s proposal to install a solar power complex spanning the roofs of Farley Field House and Watson Arena as well as three acres of the recently-acquired former Naval Air Station property. If the project obtains the necessary local, state and federal approvals, it will be the largest solar power installation in the state, with the potential to generate 1.6 million kilowatt-hours of power and offset Bowdoin’s annual electricity consumption by 8 percent.
The announcement made headlines in the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and on the Huffington Post, highlighting Bowdoin’s efforts to remain at the forefront of renewable energy use. We applaud the plan’s movement toward institutional sustainability, taking steps beyond encouraging individuals to recycle or turn off the lights. But we should note that the project is still no more than a promising prospect—a preliminary step toward our ultimate carbon neutrality goals. The College must still jump through a number of regulatory hoops before ground will be broken at the Naval Air Station, and electricity prices have yet to be established. It will be a few years before the panels will become fully operational.
As Bowdoin seeks to benefit from the construction of Maine’s largest solar-panel facility, the state as a whole has missed an opportunity in another field of renewable energy. On Tuesday, the Norwegian company Statoil announced that it will not proceed with plans to build a $120 million wind farm on the coast. A spokesperson for the company attributed the decision partially to legislation signed by Governor LePage in June that reopened the bidding war for offshore wind power. LePage stated his opposition to the deal when it was announced last winter. According to the Portland Press Herald, the governor criticized the agreement because it offered Statoil an above-market rate for the electricity it would provide to the state. As a result, Maine loses a multi-million dollar investment in green energy and jobs as well as an opportunity to be a national leader in harvesting offshore wind power.

Editorial

This piece represents the opinion of The Bowdoin Orient editorial board.

October 4, 2013

For some students, this week’s federal government shutdown may not mean much more than a cancelled weekend trip to Acadia National Park. But not all Mainers are as insulated, and the spending freeze will be felt most acutely by those who are already vulnerable.

According to the Portland Press Herald, funding for Section 8 housing subsidies for low-income residents is only guaranteed through the end of the month; if federal funds aren’t restored, landlords will have grounds to evict tenants. Similarly, money for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is likely to dry up if the shutdown is not resolved before the end of the month, leaving the more than 26,000 Mainers who receive assistance through those programs unable to cover their basic expenses. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that subsidizes utility costs—which will only increase as the weather gets colder—needs federal confirmation before November to be able to help underwrite heating bills.

The previous shutdown, which lasted for 26 days between November 1995 and January 1996, cost the federal government $1.4 billion. Bloomberg projects the current shutdown will cost the federal government about $300 million a day. The results of an extended shutdown will be enormous, and a swift agreement seems like a tenuous hope. We will hit the debt ceiling on October 17, and if the government surpasses it, the Treasury will not have the authority to borrow funds to close the gap between spending and revenues. Though Speaker of the House John Boehner has publicly stated that he wants to avoid defaulting on our loans, the shutdown is an unnecessary crisis and his egregious mishandling leads us to question his ability to navigate another critical fiscal vote.

The 1995-1996 shutdown was precipitated by back-and-forth budget negotiations between both parties. This time around, it’s different. A group of 80 Republicans in the House, dubbed the “suicide caucus” by conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer, has hijacked the governing process. These representatives make up only 18 percent of the total House membership. According to Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, they were elected with only 12 percent of the 118 million votes cast in House elections last November. Despite these low percentages, these Republicans received the tacit approval of Speaker Boehner who has proved unwilling or unable to exercise his leadership to stop the suicide caucus, contrary to his assertions that he wanted to avoid a shutdown.

These 80 representatives have used a routine procedural measure to prevent the full funding and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which has been enacted by Congress, signed by the president, and declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. This shutdown is not the product of normal partisan bickering; it is unyielding dogmatism masquerading as legitimate negotiation. Republican members of the suicide caucus are exploiting the letter of the law at the expense of their constitutional duty to govern, and they should be held responsible.

The editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Claire Aasen, Erica Berry, Nora Biette-Timmons, Marisa McGarry, Eliza Novick-Smith, Sam Miller and Sam Weyrauch.

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