David Latimer, wearing a South Carolina Highway Patrol button on his lapel, was working Capitol Hill one recent morning, warning of the dangers of longer and heavier trucks on the nation's highways.
Drop a pebble into a fishpond and it creates a tiny ripple. What starts as a local event instantly surges outward, causing a ring of disturbance that grows as it travels across the water. Beneath the surface, the goldfish scatter as a mallard above beats a rapid retreat. And for those who may be dozing on the shoreline, a chain of events has begun that forces change in every direction.
With the current boom in U.S. oil and natural gas production, it might be tempting to put aside the notion of shifting to more sustainable fuels for commercial transport. Why venture into this unknown area when traditional supplies are so plentiful?
Ripples of anxiety are likely to be coursing through internet retailers this month. That's because two events - the introduction of the Marketplace Fairness Act in the U.S. Senate and an opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy - made it more likely than it has been in 50 years that they will have to collect taxes in states where they don't have a physical presence. If that happens, out-of-state retailers would be compelled to collect sales and use taxes in almost 10,000 state tax jurisdictions that, according to the Tax Foundation, exist across the United States.
Of all the issues the Obama administration is grappling with, a modest redesign of what food labels say about sweeteners might not have seemed among the more controversial. But ever since First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the plan last year, a lobbying frenzy has ensued.
Billions of transactions around the world everyday connect buyers and sellers in the online marketplace. This globally connected marketplace demands and deserves a sound international mailing and shipping protocol.