Tag: allowed

Guns in National Parks

  • Guns are no longer prohibited in America's national parks. (Photo courtesy of Fenners)

People can now carry guns in national parks. The National Park Service is adapting to the new law. Samara Freemark reports:

Transcript

People can now carry guns in national parks. The National Park Service is adapting to the new law. Samara Freemark reports:

The new policy means a reversal for the nation’s 392 National Park sites. Firearms have been prohibited in the parks.

But now….

Whatever law you were under in that state outside of the park now applies in the national park unit.

That’s National Park Service spokesman David Barna. He says that means that parks everywhere except Illinois and Washington DC will allow firearms.

But different states have different laws about the specifics – for example, whether you can conceal your weapon or not.

Barna says that could get complicated.

Appalachian Trail passes over 14 states. Yellowstone National Park is in 3 states. And the burden is going to be on the public to know those various laws.

Barna says the Park Service will help gun owners out with website updates and postings in park facilities.

But he says they can’t put up notices every time a park trail crosses a state line.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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No Solar in My Suburb

  • There are some state laws that say homeowners' associations can't stop the construction of solar panels. (Photo courtesy of Standard Renewable Energy)

More people are putting up solar
panels on their houses. But in
some places around the country,
solar panels are getting blocked
by homeowners’ associations. Mark
Brush has more:

Transcript

More people are putting up solar
panels on their houses. But in
some places around the country,
solar panels are getting blocked
by homeowners’ associations. Mark
Brush has more:

It comes down to aesthetics for a lot of these associations. They have rules about how tall your grass can be, when trash cans can be set out, and what color your house can be.

Sometimes these associations just don’t like solar panels, or they worry they’ll be sued by neighbors.

Raymond Walker is a lawyer for Standard Renewable Energy. It’s a fast growing solar installation company in Texas. He says these restrictive rules can cost jobs and money.

“It doesn’t seem at first blush like it ought to be a big problem, in fact, you know, it seems like it might be sort of a silly issue, but we lost about $500,00 in installation money in 2008 because of this, and we’re projecting that we’ll lose about two million dollars this year.”

There are some state laws that say homeowners’ associations can’t stop the construction of solar panels, and now some legislators want to see a federal law passed.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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