Pending Bills: A Closer Look

S:1108: 10 Million Dollar Solar Roofs Act of 2011
facts/details:

1. The bill directs the Secretary of Energy to establish a program that provides competitive grants to local communities.
2. It uses the funds to also pay for training for use of the solar energy systems.
3. The bill allows the grants to be used for the development of solar energy projects and programs for the use of new strategies.
4. The goal is to establish solar energy systems in no less than 10 million properties by December 31, 2020.
5. Its purpose is to use funds for more standardized, efficient, and less expensive ways of providing solar powered energy systems.

Questions:

1. Will the program be active in all states?
2. Can a lone citizen apply for a grant?
3. With the money come from the Department of Energy or will it come from another source?
4. Will the amount of money or reformation of this bill be determined by the success of this bill, if so how?

HR: 3621: Stop Online Piracy Act of 2011

Facts:

1. The bill requires service providers,search engines, network providers, and internet ad services, to take "preventive measures" against pirated materials/ sites.
2. The bill allows service providers,search engines, network providers, internet ad services, domain registries, and domain resistors, to be "immune to liability" meaning they can take no blame, but this is only if they obey the act.
3. Permits entities to refuse sites that "endanger public health".
4. It expands the current criminal copyright offences to include: copyrighted works by digital transmission, and works intended for commercial use.
5. It expands the criminal offences of trafficking inherently "dangerous" goods which includes: counterfeit drugs and goods falsely identified as meeting military standard.
6. Requires Secretary of State and Secretary of Commerce to appoint the "intellectual" property attache to the assigned US embassy or diplomatic mission in a country in each demographic region covered by the Department of State.

Questions:

1. What happens to the sites like YouTube that oppose this bill, will they be held liable?
2. What does this bill say about dealing with foreign sites out of the control of the US government?
3. How many congressmen are in support of this bill (are they the same guys who made tomato paste a vegetable) ?
4. Does Congress realize that this will basically "ruin" the internet as we know it because the internet is for the most part people sharing things as in music, pictures, etc?