Maryland Taxes Rain – as mandated by the EPA

Maryland Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley has instituted a tax on citizens for the amount of rain that falls on their property.

This goes to prove that elections have consequences. We were warned what the EPA had in mind to finish off our country. This will bankrupt our cities. The Maryland Dems are just going to do it the old fashion way, Churches and business goes first. Enforced by “surveillance”

Last October 2012 I ran a post EPA turns on the cities – Storm Water Tax coming our way.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Behold the Obama Administration’s new public works plan. Sue cities for polluting waterways and then as part of a settlement require them to spend, er, “invest” billions in extraneous sewer improvements. The White House doesn’t even need legislation to pour this money down the drain. The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency have taken enforcement actions against 25 cities over the last four years for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act, and there are another 772 on their list. In addition to imposing millions of dollars in penalties, the feds have forced these cities into consent decrees that will cost their local taxpayers $21 billion. The decrees spell out in detail what capital upgrades they must undertake—everything down to the size of their pipes. The EPA says this extraordinary intrusion on local sovereignty is justified because cities are discharging waste into waterways during heavy rains. Many older wastewater systems include a safety valve that releases untreated stormwater and sewage into lakes and rivers when underground tunnels are flooded. This is to prevent waste from backing up in basements. The EPA has ordered cities to limit such wet weather overflows to four per year, regardless of how much rain they receive or how little muck they discharge. Many cities have already taken concrete steps to reduce such overflows by developing “green infrastructure” (i.e., permeable pavements, rain gardens, catch-basins) that soaks up and diverts stormwater. Such solutions are easier and less expensive to implement than reconstructing their underground systems as the EPA wants them to do.

Back to the Maryland Fiasco:

The tax, officially known as a “storm water management fee,” will be enforced in nine of the state’s counties. The state legislature passed it in 2012 purportedly to “raise revenue to cleanup [sic] the Chesapeake Bay,” according to MarylandReporter.com.

Former 2012 GOP U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino bashes the tax in a Wednesday afternoon press release. The law “requires individuals, businesses, and even charitable organizations and houses of worship to pay a tax based on the amount of rain that falls on their property and the ‘impervious surfaces’ on their land,” he says.

The tax, mandated by the EPA and enforced locally, will be calculated “through satellite surveillance of your property,” the statement claims.

H.T: Breitbart

City Hires Minority Lifeguards – ‘no need to be able to swim’

City Recruits Minority Lifeguards Even if They Can’t Swim — yes, that is the headline. If we thought that the Federal mandates of hiring candidates solely on the basis of race was only at that level, it has now filtered down to State and Local levels. No doubt they received a federal grant to promote this ignorance. No longer hire the brightest and best, let’s let ‘em die so we can do the quota thing. Some good links in case one needs a reminder of how far down this road we have come.This really is getting old isn’t it? Here we go:

You can’t make this stuff up. It’s a real-life story out of Phoenix, the capitol of Arizona and the nation’s sixth-largest city. It has more than 1.4 million residents and, among its official mottos is “value and respect” of diversity. This means “more than gender and race,” according to the city’s official website. It also encompasses “uniqueness and individuality” and embracing differences. “We put this belief into action to provide effective services to our diverse community.”

To diversify the lifeguard force, Phoenix will spend thousands of dollars to recruit minorities even if they’re not strong swimmers, according to an official quoted in a news report. Blacks, Latinos and Asians who may not necessarily qualify can still get hired, says the city official who adds that “we will work with you in your swimming abilities.”

Earlier this year the Obama administration made history by hiring the government’s first “Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity” to mastermind a multi-million-dollar effort that boosts the number of minorities in biomedical research and slashes discrimination in the federal grant process. The effort was initially launched last year after a government-sanctioned study uncovered a “disturbing and disheartening” lack of racial diversity in the field.

Before that the administration created a new office help build a “diverse and inclusive workforce” at all federal agencies and Obama appointed a “Diversity Czar” at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help advance the goal of greater inclusion and diversity in government programs. Who could forget the race and gender employment quotas required at private financial institutions under Obama’s financial reform measure (known as the Dodd-Frank bill) to overhaul Wall Street? It’s all in the name of diversity.

H/T: Judicial Watch

DOT and HHS conspire to ‘reduce’ driving

Update:  looks like this was written as of April 1 apparently a joke but who would know?

but here we go. I guess we could say we knew this was coming. All of the LaHood’s previous statements would lead us to this. The mandate for those new Black Box requirement sure should have given us a heads up. But to put this together with DHS? They want us to “narrow our streets”?? Not one new road will be funded. Not one. Back in May, 2010 I posted: LaHood: “We are going to coerce people out of their cars”

On May 21, 2010 LaHood told reporters at the National Press Club that the “Partnership for Sustainable Communities’ his department had formed with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing—sometimes known as the “livability initiative”–was designed to “coerce” people out of their cars.

The moderator later asked: “Some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program, saying it’s an example of government intrusion into people’s lives. How do you respond?”

“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people’s lives,” said LaHood. “So have at it.” -(an honest man).

As we know, elections have consequences, the wish now comes true. Withholding funds to States until they come under the boot of our infamous leader. Here we go:

LaHood and Sebelius used the press conference to release a proposed set of actions their agencies and Congress can take to advance the health initiative. Congress could withhold federal transportation funds until states develop and implement aggressive vehicle miles traveled reduction goals and public engagement campaigns highlighting the health impacts of automobile use. State DOTs and legislatures could also levy a health excise fee on auto purchases to fund cycling, walking and transit infrastructure. As the nation’s largest insurer, HHS would revise underwriting standards to reflect the risks of high-mileage communities, and pair medical treatment with interventions to introduce customers and communities to non-auto transportation. Tax benefits for automobile parking would be rescinded, and the NHTSA would move immediately to require automakers to install ignition interlocks on all new vehicles.

Ignition interlocks? We are all going to have to breath into a machine before we can drive. Are you nuts? The cost of this? Use a treadmill for 30 minutes before the lock opens? Where does this end?

Standing side by side with many state DOT heads, US DOT Secretary Ray La Hood and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced a new public safety campaign to encourage less driving, lower speeds, and encourage more cycling and walking to meet the nation’s transportation needs.

“The use of motor vehicles, like smoking, heart disease and other public health threats, pose a grave risk to our children, friends and neighbors,” said Secretary Sebelius.

“For too long, the assumption has been that the negative impacts of auto travel are just the price we must pay for modern life”, said Secretary LaHood, “Well, no longer. It’s time to build a people-centered transportation system. We have the tools and policies to make change now, and we need to get to work.” LaHood urged DOTs and municipalities to begin immediately by reducing speed limits on residential streets, narrowing streets, and installing protected cycling facilities. LaHood also pointed to the benefits of the change, citing the continuing decline in vehicle travel nationwide. “Cities, counties and states no longer need to pour money into new infrastructure that will serve fewer and fewer drivers while their existing roads crumble. We’ll be doing our pocketbooks and the climate a favor while we reactivate our streets and improve public health”.

Secretarys LaHood and Sebelius tour a road ready to be retrofitted with a cycletrack

H/T: Streets.Mn and  News Alert

Barack Obama’s Surveillance Society

Yesterday I posted a story Obama” ‘Prolonged Detention”, otherwise known as FEMA Camps. Even Rachael Maddow took him on. He posited that it was now permissible to detain without trial as a preemptive move.Now on to part two. Before we get to the heart of the matter via the video, here is a bit of History.

From August, 2012 post: Obama fights injunction against unlawful detention of U.S. citizens

Obama fights the preliminary injunction granted to American Citizens against unlawful imprisonment. But Obama is not through with us yet. They are fighting it big time, and the rationale gets even more creepy. The argument goes something like this, if we are thrown in jail, we can always appeal, even though it may take years to prove our innocence. Guilty until proven otherwise, typical Marxist justice.

On May 16^th,federal judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Barack Obama and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA),striking down those sections of the Act that provide the president the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without benefit of their 5^th and 6^th Amendment rights. As a reminder, keep in mind it was Obama that insisted that the language in the NDAA bill include Citizens:Obama lies-he insisted that detention of Americans be in defense bill

“But… It was his administration that insisted that the language be included in the bill”.

From the video: Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”

Under the terms of the Act,Obama had been given exclusive authority to direct members of the US military to arrest and imprison anyone he believed to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda,the Taliban,or “associated forces.” When pressed by plaintiff’s attorneys about the practical extent of this authority,government lawyers admitted “…the NDAA does give the president the power to lock up people like journalist Chris Hedges and peaceful activists,” admitting that “…even war correspondents could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA.”

Yet incredibly,when pressed on the issue,this Obama mouthpiece suggested to Judge Forrest that concerns about the president’s detention powers were excessive as American citizens would,after all,have the ability to file a writ of habeas corpus should they be illegally or improperly jailed! “How long does [such a] petition take,” asked Forrest? When Torrance refused to answer,the Judge continued,“Several years,right”? (In Yesterday’s post, Obama seemed to think that ten years might be about right) -prolonged detention. Keep that phrase in mind.

Keep this in mind:

On July 2nd, 2008—Obama delivered a speech in Boulder, Colorado in which he promised the creation and establishment of a “Civilian National Security Force.” He further promised it would be “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the US Military.”

It is well known amongst dictators, the world over, that a private army is necessary to control the great unwashed masses over which they force their rule.

We have seen Obama steadily assume dictatorial powers over apathetic Americans in just four and a half years. He has all but hushed the people’s voice in government, the US Congress, by simply by-passing them and ruling by executive order—just like any other two-bit dictator. Some feel even the US Supreme Court has lost the steel from its collective spine under withering pressure from our budding domestic dictator, Obama.
If one did not know better, one would think there is a move afoot to institute a complete Marxist insurgency in America with Obama at the top—and —at the leading edge.
“The things done in every Marxist insurgency are being done in America today.” … Retired Lt. General William G.”Jerry” Boykin says in a new video he has just released . Boykin is a decorated former Delta Force Commander, US Deputy Under Secretary for Defense, and a recipient of the Purple Heart

AFL-CIO Richard Trumka and the Murder of Eddie York

 A new video as Obama opines about one of his best friends Richard Trumka. This is what we are in for. Fasten your seat belt. The Union thugs will rule indeed. Better yet, Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground will speak to our Kiddie’s teachers:

Left-wing ’60s radical and onetime domestic terrorist Bill Ayers will be a keynote speaker at the Association of Teacher Educators annual conference in Atlanta next month.

Ayers gained notoriety alongside his wife Bernardine Dohrn as a member of the Weather Underground during the Vietnam War. He was involved in Chicago’s “Days of Rage” riot in 1969 and went underground as a fugitive from justice after an accidental Greenwich Village townhouse explosion in 1970 killed three Weather Underground members who were preparing a bomb that prematurely detonated.

Ayers admitted in a 2001 book that he participated in bombings of the New York City Police Department headquarters, the U.S. Capitol Building and the Pentagon in the early 1970s. (RELATED: Inside TheDC’s dinner with former Weather Underground terrorists)

Read more: Daily Caller

Anyone still wondering what the next four years will bring?

Richard Trumka and the Murder of Eddie York- The Morals of the AFL-CIO Boss

From NRTW back in 2009:

As president of the United Mine Workers (UMW) union, Trumka led multiple violent strikes. Trumka’s fiery rhetoric often appeared to condone militancy and violence, especially against workers who dared to continue to provide for their families by working during a strike. As a Virginia judge ruled in 1989, “violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.”

Take the murder of Eddie York, a nonunion contractor, who was shot in the back of the head and killed while leaving a worksite in 1993. Trumka and other UMW officials were charged in a $27 million wrongful death suit by Eddie York’s widow. After fighting the suit intensely for four years, UMW lawyers settled suddenly in 1997 — just two days after the judge in the case ruled evidence in the criminal trial would be admitted.

Later, as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Trumka pleaded the Fifth Amendment before Congress and a court-appointed election monitor over his role in an illegal fundraising scheme to benefit the Teamsters president Ron Carey’s re-election. Trumka has remained in his position ever since despite an AFL-CIO rule (adopted in 1957) which held that union officials who plead the Fifth have “no right to continue to hold office” in the union umbrella organization.

Read more about Trumka’s history of condoning union violence and corruption in the Foundation’s eye-opening Fact Sheet (PDF).

From an earlier post: Richard Trumka’s ugly history of violence and corruption

VIDEO Sen Rand Paul on Gun Control Executive Order: Obama is Not ‘King’

Reblogged from Reclaim Our Republic:

January 15, 2013 at 11:02 am

“I’m against having a king,” Paul said. “I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress — that’s someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch.”

“I’ve been opposed to executive orders, even with Republican presidents. But one that wants to infringe on the Second Amendment, we will fight tooth and nail,” he continued.

Read more… 45 more words

I think this sums up things quite nicely.

DHS Buys 200,000 More Rounds of Ammunition

We are on a bit of a vacation in the great state of Florida, so doing my best to keep up with the coming take down of our guns. Here is the latest purchase of ammo by the government. If this story perks up your ears, check out some of my earlier stories. Enough ammo to kill us ten times over. This makes the fiscal cliff seem like child’s play.

Federal government continues to arm itself to the teeth while Obama administration pushes gun control. First the back story:

August 12, 2012  Why is the Government buying up so much Ammo?

Major General Jerry Curry: Why Are Domestic Government Agencies Purchasing Enough Lethal Ammunition to Put 5 Rounds In Every American?

All of these rounds of ammunition can only be used to kill American citizens, though there is enough ammunition being ordered to kill, in addition to every American citizen, also every Iranian, Syrian or Mexican. There is simply too much of it. And this much ammunition can’t be just for training, there aren’t that many weapons and “shooters” in the U.S. to fire it:

August 27 2012 U.S. Forest Service makes urgent request for more ammo « BUNKERVILLE | God, Guns and Guts Comrades!

Another US agency has submitted a request for a variety of ammunition.

January 4, 2012:

While the Obama administration sets out to eviscerate the gun rights of American Why is the Government buying up so much ammo?er this week it was announced that the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a company a contract worth over $45,000 dollars to provide the DHS with 200,000 more rounds of bullets.

As Mike Adams highlights, “A citizen is considered to be a stockpiling “terrorist” prepper if they own just 1,000 rounds of ammo. The government, however, can purchase billions and the mainstream media doesn’t even question it.”

“Where is all this ammunition going? It’s being stockpiled by the federal government, awaiting some future event during which it will apparently be “activated.” Why else would you stockpile something if you don’t anticipate needing to use it someday?”

“During all this, Obama and his cohorts in Washington are loudly insisting that American citizens have no right to purchase firearms or ammunition, and that new laws will soon be enacted to make sure you cannot do what the government does: stockpile weapons and ammo.”

This new purchase adds to the staggering figure of 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition already secured by the DHS over the last 9 months alone.

A solicitation originally posted on the FedBizOpps.gov website on December 17 on behalf of the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center advertised the need for 200 cases of 13–40 Cal, 180 Grain, Jacketed Hollow Point bullets, with each case containing 1000 rounds, to be delivered almost immediately as soon as the contract is awarded.

The bullets are to be delivered to a training site in North Charleston, South Carolina, which “specializes in Maritime Law Enforcement and Port Security Training. Basic and advanced training programs are conducted in concert with the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, the U.S. Courts Probation and Pretrial Services Training Academy, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Training Academy, the Customs and Border Protection Field Operations Academy, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.”

The winner of the contract to provide the DHS with the ammunition, announced on January 2, was Evian Group Inc., an organization that was formed just five days before the announcement of the solicitation.

 Read more here

U.S. Buses Fitted With Eavesdropping Equipment

If the bus story was not bad enough, add this update from Hot Air:

…February of this year, before the Attorney General of the United States signed off on an order allowing the government to access pretty much everything it wanted in the name of counterterrorism. The Wall Street Journal found out about the order and got a FOIA request to force its exposure:

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Not everyone was on board. “This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public,” Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.

A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.

I thought the story was worthy of a tin foil hat that buses were now listening to us. At first. But then recall the NSA reveal  by the NY Times Domestic Spying program story:The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. recorded in September 2, 2012. So they store any and all keystrokes, and now moving on to buses? Lamp posts hold recording devices? Where is the outrage? If you havn’t caught the Binney interview, it is worth the ride and it follows at the bottom of the post.Here we go:

Cities across America are equipping their public transport systems with audio recording devices, potentially storing every word spoken by passengers onboard. Rights activists say the surveillance plan by far exceeds what is necessary for security.

­The multimillion dollar upgrade is underway in several US cities, including San Francisco, Eugene, Traverse City, Columbus, Baltimore, Hartford and Athens, reports The Daily, which obtained documents detailing the purchases.

The money partially comes from the federal government. San Francisco, for example, has approved a $5.9 million contract to install the eavesdropping systems on 357 modern buses and historic trolley cars over the next four years, with the Department Homeland Security footing the entire bill. The interception of audio communication will apparently be conducted without search warrants or court supervision, the report says.

The systems would be able to record audio and video from several locations in a bus for simultaneous playback. In Eugene transit officials explicitly demanded microphones capable of distilling clear conversation from the background noise. The recordings would generally be retained for 30 days. One of the systems produced for transport monitoring supports up to 12 high definition cameras, each with a dedicated microphone.

The system may potentially have additional capabilities added like timing the recording with GPS data from an onboard navigator, using facial recognition technology to identify people recorded or connecting wirelessly to a central post for real-time monitoring.

“This technology is sadly indicative of a trend in increased surveillance by commercial and law enforcement entities, under the guise of improved safety,” Ashkan Soltani, an independent security consultant whom the online newspaper asked to review specifications of equipment marketed for transit agencies, told The Daily.

Transport authorities gave various explanations for beefing up surveillance. A San Francisco contractor says the system will “increase passenger safety and improve reliability and maintainability of the system”. An Arkansas transit agency official said it is needed to deflect false complaints from passengers, describing it as “a lifesaver for the drivers”. Maryland officials openly called it a tool for law enforcement.

In some cases the systems are being installed despite resistance of civil liberties activists and lawmakers. In Maryland a legislative committee rejected a bill that would allow the local transport agency to proceed with its plan over concerns that it would violate wiretapping laws. The state’s attorney general advised the transportation agency to use signs warning passengers of the surveillance to help the system withstand a court challenge.

Privacy law experts say audio surveillance systems on buses pushes the boundaries of what is necessary to protect the law.

“It’s one thing to post cops, it’s quite another to say we will have police officers in every seat next to you, listening to everything you say,” said Neil Richards, a professor at Washington University School of Law.

With the microphones, he said, “you have a policeman in every seat with a photographic memory who can spit back everything that was said.”

Public transport is not the only place where citizens are worried about being constantly monitored by keen-eared recording devices. Similar systems combining audio and video recording with wireless connectivity are being installed in lampposts across the US.  Hot Air

Obamacare and the coverup that should do Sebelius in

The Weekly Standard has a story that should be front page news and a headliner. If this does not do in Kathie and Obama, nothing will. Talk about cronyism. One of the most corrupt governments in memory may have gone a bridge to far. For those discouraged, this may give us a lift. The States’ refusal to be complicit in this crucial aspect of Obamacare with the exchanges should shine a spotlight on the development of the federal exchanges — and what it illuminates won’t be pretty. Here we go:

The Obama administration’s congressional allies botched the drafting of this aspect of the health care overhaul, as the plain language of Obamacare doesn’t empower federal exchanges to distribute taxpayer-funded subsidies to individuals; it empowers only state-based exchanges to distribute the subsidies. (The administration pretends otherwise.) Moreover, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is lagging behind in developing the federal exchanges.

It gets worse. HHS has contracted with a subsidiary of a private health care company to help build and police the very exchanges in which that company will be competing for business. The person who ran the government entity that awarded that contract has since accepted a position with a different subsidiary of that same company. An insurance industry insider (speaking on the condition of anonymity) says that HHS, in an attempt to hide this unseemly contract from public view until after the election, encouraged the company to hide the transaction from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

in January, HHS awarded Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI) what the Hill describes as “a large contract to build a federal data services hub to help run the complex federal health insurance exchange.” At that time, the director of Obamacare’s newly established Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) — which the Hill describes as “the office tasked with crafting rules for the national exchange” — was Steve Larsen. Larsen had been the insurance commissioner for Maryland when Obama’s HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, was the insurance commissioner for Kansas, and the two are reportedly close. The CCIIO awarded the Obamacare exchange contract to QSSI while Larsen was the CCIIO’s director, and he played a central role in planning the construction of the exchanges — although it’s not known whether he made the decision to award the contract to QSSI or not.

Under the contract that it signed with HHS, QSSI’s power would be substantial — as QSSI would shape, run, and affect companies’ ability to compete to sell insurance through Obamacare’s federal exchanges. The Hill writes, “A draft statement of work for the contract awarded to QSSI states the contractor should provide services necessary to acquire, certify and decertify health plans offered on a federal exchange.” Moreover, “It stipulates the contractor should monitor agreements with health plans, ensure compliance with federal standards and” — somewhat strikingly — “take corrective action when necessary.” Full story Weekly Standard

OSHA’s new guidelines for homebuilders

There never was a process of improving our economy that Obama and his minions would not like to diminish. Who are these folks who are consistently trying to increase the costs of whatever we try to do? We had the EPA on the contractors back: New England Company fined for not providing EPA required phamphlets and EPA law effective in April. Home repairs may have to be put on hold. Now we are moving on to roofs. Over 6 feet you need a scaffold or a lift? Here we go:

 

St. Louis-area homebuilders are pressing their case that new rules to prevent workers from falling from roofs could add thousands of dollars to new home prices and threaten contractors struggling in a hard-pressed industry.

“It’s almost impossible to do what they want in every situation and in some situations we’re going to be spending a whole lot more money and guys are not going to be any safer for it,” argued Bob Behlman, of Chesterfield-based Behlman Builders Inc.

The homebuilders also are upset about what they view as draconian penalties for violating the rules, up to $7,000 per worker on the job for a violation regarded as serious.

Their complaints are drawing attention in Congress, which has been examining regulations from the administration of President Barack Obama with an eagle eye. Intervention by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., prompted the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to temporarily ease up on enforcement of the new rules across the country and offer more cooperation in complying.

“It just didn’t pass the common sense test that we should be coming in with really aggressive, overbearing kind of regulations on this particular industry that is on the ropes right now,” McCaskill said.

OSHA guidelines

Some features in new federal fall-protection rules for homebuilding and roofing:

• Workers more than 6 feet above the ground must be protected by guardrails, safety nets or other acceptable means.

• Employers who consider rules not feasible or worry that they create greater hazards can devise site-specific protection plans that must meet OSHA approval. (Cost is insufficient grounds to consider a rule not feasible.)

• Workers must be trained in avoiding falls and using protection equipment. Documentation of training must be available.

• Employers have the option of their workers operating from scaffolds, ladders or aerial lifts.

• $7,000 maximum penalty for serious violations with reductions for “good faith efforts.”

Read more: STLToday