Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017

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Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com

Trump’s first week in office

IDS

Trump has signed 10 executive orders since his inauguration By Melanie Metzman mmetzman@indiana.edu | @melanie_metzman

Since President Trump was sworn in Friday, his first week has been packed with executive orders, appointments and White House press briefings. Here is a rundown.

ROSE BYTHROW | IDS

Darrel Boggess and his wife stand in front of St.Thomas Lutheran Church on East Third Street. The price of powering the church went from $5000 a month to $1000 after Darrel’s initiative to add solar panels.

Solar rights Bill would get rid of a huge solar incentive if passed By Alexa Chryssovergis aachryss@indiana.edu | @achryssovergis

When oil spills in the ocean, it can cause devastating pollution. The resource does damage to its surroundings, but when sunlight spills down from the sky, it’s not a disaster. Darrell Boggess smiles when he finishes his analogy. It’s just a sunny day. So a sunny day like last Saturday — a rare bright afternoon

in January with temperatures in the 60s — must be an exceptional spill of clean energy. On days like this, when the sun is beating down, solar panels soak up sunlight. During the day, though, the solar user probably won’t need all that energy, and so it can be sent back into the energy grid. Boggess, a solar user and member of the Solar Indiana Renewable Energy Network, a local group that educates and promotes solar usage throughout the

state, said his neighbors may use energy produced by his panels. He’ll be compensated for this at the retail price for solar energy. Then at night or on cloudy days when his solar panels can’t provide him sufficient energy, the system pulls back from the grid, and he’ll get billed for this at the retail price. When he takes energy out of the grid, the cost is added to his bill. When he adds to the grid, the cost is subtracted from his bill.

This concept — the give and take of energy to and from the grid and the subsequent adjustment of a user’s energy bill — is known as net metering. Net metering allows those who generate their own electricity to be compensated at the retail rate for excess they don’t use. But if a new bill passes this legislative session, it could be illegal in 10 years. SEE BILL, PAGE 6 Senate Bill 309 “Provides that a net metering tariff of an electricity supplier must remain available to the electricity supplier’s customer until the first calendar year after the aggregate amount of net metering facility nameplate capacity under the tariff equals at least 1 percent of the electricity supplier’s most recent summer peak load. Provides that after June 30, 2027: (1) an electricity supplier may not make a net metering tariff available to customers; and (2) the terms and conditions of any net metering tariff offered by an electricity supplier before July 1, 2027, expire and are uninforceable.” Source iga.in.gov

WOMEN’S GOLF

Women’s golf starts spring season with Arizona training By Ryan Lucas lucasry@indiana.edu | @ryanlucasiu

With the spring season for IU women’s golf team beginning at the end of February, the golfers need to be practicing on the green, but Bloomington’s cold winter makes that difficult. To combat the annual weather issues IU faces in January and February, the team is taking two three-day training trips to Arizona in the coming weeks to prepare for the season ahead. With the team’s first two tournaments of the season being in Arizona, senior Theresa-Ann Jedra said the training trips will help acclimate the players to the playing conditions, such as the dry heat and different grass, in the region. “Playing out west helps us know how far a ball is going or how much it will roll out and different things like that,” Jedra said. “It’s also good that we get out there because a lot of the teams that we play down south or out west are playing all year round, and we’re not.” The team will leave Thursday for its first weekend trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, where it will play at Desert Mountain Golf Course. On Feb. 10-12 the Hoosiers will return to Arizona for some practice rounds in Tucson. IU will also play a round at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona, before kicking off the season Feb. 26 at the Westbrook Invitational in Peoria, Arizona. In previous years, the team has played a tournament in

Puerto Rico in early February to start the spring season. However, IU Coach Clint Wallman said he wanted his golfers to get more practice rounds in than usual before beginning the season and has instead diverted the team’s funds from a Puerto Rico tournament to the Arizona trips. “When you’re coming out of the winter, it’s always about just getting as many holes in and trying to play through stuff,” Wallman said. “When you look back historically, we start playing well when we get about a dozen rounds under our belt. The problem is in the past that has been during tournaments.” Wallman said based on training trips in the past he expects to see round-to-round improvement from his team during its trips to Arizona. Senior Ana Sanjuan said she will use the trips to prepare her game and focus her mind on the upcoming season. Sanjuan appeared in all 11 events for IU last year and recorded the eighthbest single-season scoring average, 75.03, in school history. “I’m just going to try and play every shot as if it’s competition, and if I feel I have some technique problem then I have time to figure it out,” Sanjuan said. “I feel like I just want to be prepared and prepare myself as much as I can.” Wallman said the team will play for scores while in Arizona to help add some competitive edge to the rounds. Wallman SEE GOLF, PAGE 6

PHOTOS BY CODY THOMPSON

Law students send thank you notes to benefactors of march Comthomp@umail.iu.edu @CodyMThompson

Three Maurer School of Law graduate students’ hands were moving across the cream-colored thank-you notes. The students, sitting in the student lounge of the law school, had just returned from Washington, D.C., with 53 others who attended the Women’s March on Washington. The thank-you notes, which will be signed by all law students on the trip, were addressed to the people who donated money to help pay for their transportation. “We felt stronger knowing we had your support back in Bloomington,” third-year law student Francesca Hoffman said. “Not just financially, but with food donations and overall emotional support.”

Keystone and Dakota Pipelines pushed forward Trump signed executive actions to advance the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines Tuesday. Immediately following this Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, released a statement in opposition to Trump’s order. “President Trump ignored the voices of millions and put the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industry ahead of the future of our planet,” Sanders said. Withdrawal from Trans Pacific Partnership On Monday, Trump signed an executive order to remove the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership. The TPP is a trade deal that would have aligned the U.S. with 11 nations, including Japan, Vietnam, Australia, Canada and Mexico, in the Asia-Pacific. The agreement would have eliminated thousands of tariffs and restructured regulations to ensure efficiency. The countries involved in the deal conduct about 40 percent of global trade. Trump said withdrawing the U.S. from the TPP is a “great thing for the American worker.” Freeze on federal hiring Trump signed an executive order to freeze federal hiring, excluding the military, Monday. This freeze also includes a halt on pay raises for all government employees.

Top Law students Francesca Hoffman and Emily Kile wrote letters to those who donated money for a trip to Washingotn, D.C., for the Women’s March. Right One of the cards law students wrote.

By Cody Thompson

Alternative facts White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at the first White House press briefing Jan. 21 the Trump inauguration ceremony had drawn the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period.” Media outlets shortly came out to say Spicer was incorrect. The Washington, D.C., metro reported 193,000 riders by 11 a.m. on the day of Trump’s inauguration in comparison to 513,000 riders for Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Spicer also said White House ground coverings made the audience appear smaller in photographs and video. However, the same White House ground coverings were used when Obama was sworn in for his second term in 2013. Spicer took no questions from the media at the press briefing. The crowd controversy has been named “CrowdGate.” Trump campaign strategiest and counselor KellyAnne Conway defended Spicer’s statements on NBC News. She told NBC’s Chuck Todd that Spicer was not lying; rather, he was giving “alternative facts,” and she said Trump’s inauguration turnout could not be quantified.

The trip included 26 law students. The other 30 people included undergraduate and graduate students, professors from other departments, family of law students and one other professor. Hoffman sat with fellow thirdyear law student Emily Kile and second-year law student Ash Kulak. Scattered across the table were thank-you notes with different colored writing. Some were written with curly light letters and some with rigid ones. On the table, there were also coffee cups and a law book titled “Federal Courts: Cases and Materials on Judicial Federalism and the Lawyering Process.” The march in D.C. had a big influence on all three students, they said. “It was truly an inspiring, lifechanging experience,” Hoffman SEE CARDS, PAGE 6

Reinstatement of Mexico City Policy on abortion access Along with the freeze on federal hiring and withdrawal from the TPP, Trump signed an executive order to reestablish the Mexico City Policy involving nongovernmental organizations and abortion access. The act, originally signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1984, required NGOs as a condition for federal funding that they “would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” Bill Clinton rescinded the act when he became president in 1993. George W. Bush reinstated it upon taking office. Barack Obama rescinded it again in 2009. Now Trump has brought the policy back once again. FHA mortgage premium cut cancellation As one of his first acts as president, Trump signed an executive order Friday to eliminate a discount on the fees for a federal mortgage program that helps homebuyers with small down payments or lessthan-perfect credit scores. About one in five mortgages is backed by the Federal Housing Administration, according to CBS News. Former Housing and Urban Development secretary for the Obama SEE TRUMP, PAGE 6


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