Business and industry – Page 92

Using plastic to pay for plastic

Or you can write a check, too. But I ran across a post on an engineering magazine blog (of all places) that has found perhaps the most mundane of problems (at least when compared to warfare, starvation, and the like) while advocating the same old left-wing solution to assist in solving it.

The blog is called Critical Path and the writer in this case is William Angelo. I’ll reprise the phrase that pays:

You can always appeal to people’s sense of outrage – and many people take environmental degradation seriously. But the people that do aren’t the problem and they have many other fights. And you know the old saying, out of sight, out of mind. We’ll worry about it tomorrow. So how about the best incentive of all – economic? We can use a carrot and stick approach. We could make plastic substitutes socially responsible by rewarding firms that do not produce or use plastic products. Perhaps tax or regulatory breaks that help the corporate bottom-line. Then we could also mandate a user tax on all plastic products at every transaction point – starting with the manufacturer to the merchant to the consumer – and use the proceeds to pay for a global cleanup. Money is the universal language – make users pay and perhaps give a refund for recycling. Even some dolt litterbug can understand that. (Emphasis mine.)

I probably should have left this slide just in case Martin O’Malley or one of his minions is reading monoblogue, but they’ve probably already thought about this tax themselves. Angelo’s complaint is about the tons of plastic which finds its way to our oceans and is harmful to marine life. Yes, it is shameful but for centuries mankind has used waterways as a conveyance to get rid of waste products, so this is nothing new.

However, Angelo’s approach is already law in a number of states where, in an effort to cut down on litter, deposits are required to purchase various products which are packaged in disposable bottles or cans, with the deposit ranging anywhere from a couple pennies to a dime. But there’s still plenty of litter strewn across the landscape despite the fines states could collect from scofflaws if they’re caught. And while the heaps of trash we Americans toss out has created a cottage industry for some who endeavor to pick up the recyclable portions in order to make a few dollars at the recycling center, a lot of garbage eventually finds its way to storm drains, ditches, and other waterways. Thus you have Angelo’s complaint, where he compares parts of the Pacific Ocean to a “giant non-flushing toilet bowl.”

On a personal level, I’ve probably tossed out a fortune’s worth of aluminum cans in my life but I otherwise tend to take advantage of the county’s recycling center just down the road from me. I’m sure that some portion of my tax bill goes to subsidize the effort since most of what they collect isn’t worth a whole lot unless you measure the waste in tons. What’s sort of sad is the amount of trash I walk by to take my recycling items there, much of which isn’t in a category the county will take. This is where we all can improve our efforts and be a little more conscious of what we use and use up.

Leaving aside another argument retailers have about the bottle and can collection areas which some states require for return of items being a draw for bugs and rodents to their stores, the case I make against a tax such as Angelo suggests is to ask who collects it? He envisions a “global clean-up” but to me the only group with such worldwide governmental scope is the United Nations, and the last thing we Americans need is to enact a tax for their benefit given the black hole the billions we already donate to the UN seems to end up in.

Once again, I think common sense should prevail. Just don’t litter – take a little pride in your surroundings, people. Simply being a little more sensitive to what you toss out where will go a great distance in solving the problem. Obviously one can’t eliminate the problem in full (accidents do happen, like the plastic cup at the lakeside picnic being blown into the water by a gust of wind) but using common sense is a lot cheaper than yet another tax that government can raise at will.

Fan mail with a twist

I’m beginning to sense that I’m building a theme with my midday posts this week, that of the blogosphere’s influence on political discourse in America 2008. It wasn’t intentional but I’ll let it ride for awhile and see where it goes.

The e-mail in question almost seemed like one of those which went to hundreds of bloggers, but it was personalized enough that I thought maybe it was legit. Just in case, and since I didn’t necessarily get permission to share the full contents, I’ll omit the name of the person and the organization. Let’s just say it’s one I agree with to a large extent and I appreciated the information the writer forwarded to me (which is commonly available in this case, maybe the info won’t be so common in the future.) I’m sure I’ll use this particular citation somewhere in a future post.

I’m writing to you today because I recently discovered your work on Maryland Voice and Monoblogue and I found the commentary very interesting. Since energy has emerged as a key issue in this election cycle, I thought I should introduce myself and make myself available to you as a resource.

I’m (withheld) and I work with (an energy-related organization.) I noticed you often focus on policy issues, I thought you might be interested in (a) document that addresses some of the political comments made about the industry recently. (Indeed, I was sent a nice link – stuff I suspected but didn’t have the numbers for.)

Although most members of Congress are in their home states on recess this month, the energy debate is still going strong. Therefore, please let me know if you ever have any questions about energy issues. I’m happy to provide statistics or put you in touch with one of our industry experts.

I look forward to continuing to read your blog and hope we can stay in touch.

When I looked into this further, I found out that Maryland Voice is a republishing blog, which is why I hadn’t heard of it. It’s sort of like one of those enterprises that exists solely as a place for someone to place advertising hoping to make big money. However, my blog is real and I’m glad the person in question agrees with me. I look forward to having him (or her) as a source.

It got me to thinking about the number of new organizations which have sprung up in even the last year or two as the internet becomes more and more pervasive as an information source. Before, someone who wanted to begin a new advocacy group had to somehow scratch up the funding to advertise in the mainstream media and let themselves become known. Now they can do the same thing for essentially free on Youtube. Even better for them, there’s a happy marriage brewing between bloggers who are always looking for new and interesting content and those outfits which can provide it. In my case, I’m happy to give a hand when my aims and the group’s goals are congruent.

With all that clutter, though, there is a danger of dilution. Too many groups with the same message become competitors rather than allies and the infighting can be damaging to the cause as a whole. The organization in question for this post probably isn’t going to go away soon, but other startups in energy-related fields could go from low-budget to no-budget rather quickly if the issue is solved. It’s something we all need to keep in the back of our minds.

In the meantime, I appreciate the fan mail and am glad this person reads my thoughts on a regular basis.

The 30 second war begins

Striking the airwaves first, First District Congressional hopeful Andy Harris went for the obvious issue on everyone’s minds: energy independence.

While I wholeheartedly support the idea of more domestic oil production, I’m slightly more hesitant about the alternative energy angle. As Harris puts it in his “Prescription for the Pain at the Pump”:

Provide incentives for technological innovations in alternative forms of energy like nuclear, cellulosic ethanol, solar, geothermal, and hydrogen cell.

I guess I think the opportunity to come up with an ingenious solution to the problem and make a fortune isn’t incentive enough? To me, it’s not the federal government’s place to reward or retard a particular solution, it’s the free market’s job. The reason that ethanol, solar, geothermal, and hydrogen cell aren’t already ingrained in the energy market is the expense necessary to use them, at least compared to oil. That’s not to say the situation will last forever, but I don’t believe the solution lies inside the Beltway. If anything, get them out of the way!

Opponent Frank Kratovil was certainly licking his chops and something tells me that his first commercial out of the gate is going to slam Harris on his General Assembly energy record – that is, if he continues with the script already laid out in his campaign’s response to the Harris TV spot. Personally, I happen to think Andy was correct in voting against most, if not all, of these market-bending, job-killing, expense-increasing garbage bills that eminated from Annapolis over the last four years. Descriptions of several of these and how I would have voted myself can be found on my General Assembly voting record pages. (Remember, Frank Kratovil has no voting record, so we’re led to assume he would have voted the opposite way on the measures.)

And while Frank Kratovil may suggest that Andy Harris is for dirty water, the water’s not bad enough in Chesapeake Bay to keep Andy’s supporters from hosting a Chesapeake Bay Cruise fundraiser on Friday, September 26th, a cruise that will originate in Crisfield. Dustin Mills is the guy with the full details on the cruise, and he can be reached via e-mail – dustin@andyharris08.com. (Bummer, I have a conflict that evening. Too bad it’s not that Saturday evening instead.) There’s not a lot of tickets available as I found out last night, so time is of the essence.

Study: illegal population declining

Last week I was notified about a study done by Steven A. Camarota and Karen Jensenius of the Center for Immigration Studies which claimed that in the last year the population of illegal immigrants has declined about 10 percent nationwide. And while stepped-up enforcement got some of the credit, this drop was moreso simply because of a stagnant economy – there’s fewer jobs that Americans will do so the number Americans won’t do dropped as well.

To come up with their findings, the CIS duo used Census data along with information on other areas like cross-border remittances, incarceration data, and even school enrollment. The study itself is well-documented with several charts and graphs to show the trends in various areas.

But one weakness of this report is the glaring omission of state-by-state numbers. What piqued my interest in looking this over was whether the illegal immigrant population decline was spread among all 50 states, or concentrated in areas which have gotten tough on illegals over the last few months like Arizona and Oklahoma. Conversely, I wanted to know if the safe-haven laws in force in other states have contributed to increasing their illegal population despite the overall trend. (Obviously I was really interested in Maryland’s numbers given the ease which illegals can acquire a driver’s license. It’s my belief we’re among the most magnetic of states for these undocumented workers.)

Another interesting sidebar of their findings is that the illegal population rose sharply during the debate over the amnesty bill proposed by, among others, Senator John McCain. Apparently the newcomers were hoping against hope that they could be legitimized by the bill but once the measure died many decided to head back home.

Regardless of its main flaw of not having state-by-state information, as background material the study by Camarota and Jensenius is good for showing a trend that could accelerate if other states would be more aggressive in addressing the problem. Since no one really wants to maintain a stagnant economy for the long term, perhaps an approach that discourages illegals from even bothering to come is the best one. Speaking for myself, I have no problem whatsoever with those who wish to make a better life for themselves in America, I just want them to go about it in the proper manner and (especially) learn the language!

Response to comment #94662

Nope, it’s not what you think, I already took care of that one.

Yesterday’s post “Overtime inside the Beltway” brought two comments from my fellow blogger ShoreThings. Since the first one was number 94662 and it gets confusing if I overuse the title “comment that deserves a post” you get this title.

As for the first comment, I couldn’t do that right off the top of my head because I believe some of those leases are offshore. But the query misses the key point – whether oil companies already hold leases on a particular amount of explorable land is irrelevant when other areas with proven reserves are off-limits. Like the old adage goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And if oil companies have the choice between rolling the dice on an area that may hold some promise but could very well end up a dry hole against an area where it’s extremely likely that oil can be extracted and transported away profitably, chances are they’d go with the latter. While the drive-by media and the leftists (yes, I repeat myself) castigate oil companies for making obscene profits, it bears reminding them that indeed that is why they’re in business. Exxon/Mobil isn’t a non-profit corporation and it better not become one as long as I have a few shares of their stock. They still have to play in the market though and if Shell is selling gasoline cheaper, customers will go there and Shell will increase their profits.

To address the second comment, these House members make a compelling argument for their cause. However, to me the solution is not to place oil companies under the same restriction as coal companies have but instead loosen those shackles on the coal companies. Let’s look at this logically.

In both cases, the businesses are dependent on a supply of some sort to stay in business. Coal companies wish to mine coal as cheaply as possible and charge the highest price the market will allow. The same goes for oil companies. Therefore, for either entity to lease land but not use it would happen for two reasons: one, to prevent another competing company from gaining access to a particular site, and two, because to build the infrastructure necessary and transport the product to end-users isn’t currently estimated to be at a price point which is economically feasible. An example of this is oil shale, which I seem to recall becomes profitable to produce when the per-barrel price of oil is $75 or above. If oil companies are allowed to begin the process in an unfettered fashion, they can get to work on doing this as the per-barrel price is well over that figure – but methinks the environmental lobby will put the oil companies through a series of hoops before this ever happens.

So in the oil companies’ case they’re holding on to reserve areas because even at $120 a barrel it’s not currently profitable to start oil exploration and extraction there. (While I haven’t checked this out in some time, I used to frequently drive by some small oil wells in northern Ohio that weren’t being used – either the field is tapped out or the cost to extract became too high. The same principles apply, but I’ll have to check next time I go that way and see if they’re back in production given the higher prices.) But eventually as other areas begin to fall off in production oil companies are going to have to begin working these reserve areas, or else diversify their business away from oil. I’m quite aware that there is only a finite supply of petroleum; however, the supply isn’t going to run out anytime soon. In the meantime, oil companies should be allowed to lease more lands – after all, those lease payments do make someone a tidy profit for little time and investment on their part. (As I say, I’d be happy to lease my backyard to an oil company as long as I can use it too. Those little oil wells don’t take up a lot of space.)

While ShoreThings doesn’t mention this, I’ll also bet that the reason oil companies import so much foreign oil is quite simple – it’s cheaper to go to some other country, deal with their government-controlled oil monopoly there, and transport crude across an ocean or two than it is to produce here because our government discourages production through restrictions and regulation. And to address another argument he advances in his first comment, perhaps it is easier to transport ANWR oil to Japan but if the Japanese are willing to pay market price for oil, it’s not like we can’t use the money to buy that same amount of oil from a place easier to transport from than ANWR. (And you have heard that they built a pipeline across Alaska? With some help from Canada we could build another to the lower 48.) As readers may have gathered by now, oil’s a pretty damn valuable commodity to sell, too, so why not sell ours?

The other advantage to enhancing the areas available to domestic production is the additional opportunity to create good-paying jobs in America. This is a topic I’ve harped on a lot and it provides a great way to use those oil company profits – let’s create jobs which actually do work rather than a windfall profits tax creating jobs to push paper from one side of the desk to the other, as the government is famous for doing.

Finally, by loosening restrictions on where oil companies can go it allows property owners to possibly have more valuable land. While much of the land in question is already under the control of the federal government, there are many who could see their land become more valuable and in some cases those areas happen to be fairly depressed right now. As I stated in the last paragraph, let’s allow more of those oil company profits to be reinvested in the communities across America and not be sucked into the black hole inside the Beltway, lost in the maw that is Fedzilla.

All I am saying is give capitalism a chance.

A retitled and slightly shorter piece is crossposted at Red Maryland.

Overtime inside the Beltway

While the majority Democrats decided it was time to pack up and head home for the usual August Congressional recess, a small renegade group of Republicans stayed behind to press the issue of energy independence. You know, I’ve heard a lot of folks say that it’s about time the Republicans showed they had cajones.

Unfortunately, all this bluster sort of escaped notice by the “drive-by” media, which isn’t surprising given who they’re in the tank for in this election. It’s one time the new media has taken the lead in coverage and ignored the B-list celebrity aspect of the Obama campaign – the mainstreamers have perfected ignoring to an art form as far as the McCain side goes. (Well, unless McCain does a campaign commercial they dislike.)

It appears that my blogging cohort The Waterman has gotten a front-row seat to the action, my guess is that he’s spending his summer as an intern for some Congressman or group. Regardless, he did jot down a few thoughts on Friday about the experience of having Nancy Pelosi turn out the lights and tell the GOP the party was over. (No, Nancy, it’s only just begun.) As well, The Waterman points out another first-hand report on the Americans for Tax Reform blog (perhaps that’s where he’s working.)

Is this all symbolism? Of course, because the GOP is a minority they can’t put together a quorum for business, and despite the Republicans’ most strenuous objections to the procedural call indeed the House is out of business until after Labor Day. Maybe the Democrats are hoping that oil prices continue to fall and along with that prices at the pump decrease too. We’ll still likely be looking at $3.50 per gallon by Labor Day though, and while that price is below the $4 a gallon tipping point which seems to the the highest price Americans will tolerate without complete outrage, it’s still over $1 a gallon higher than the price in force when Democrats seized back control of Congress after the 2006 elections.

I’ll come back to this point shortly, but one thing I received in my e-mail today was an update from the Harris campaign which featured an AP story by Kristen Wyatt. (She must be the Eastern Shore beat reporter because she has a lot of items in the Daily Times as well.) My jaw about hit the floor when Wyatt’s story claimed that Democratic opponent Frank Kratovil supported expanding domestic oil production like Harris did. Kratovil only wants to use the land already leased by oil companies which may or may not have marketable oil reserves on it, but not explore in other areas which are much more likely to pan out, like ANWR or on the Outer Continental Shelf. In many other areas of the Kratovil plan he advocates market-bending federal involvement and a reliance on “alternative” sources of energy that may be decades away from being practical unless heavily subsidized by our tax dollars.

In nearly two years of Democrat control, about all that Congress has accomplished is placing more restrictions on energy usage, for one example all but wiping out the incadescent light bulb in favor of the more efficient but more dangerous and harder to dispose of compact fluorescent bulbs. (Of course, President Bush didn’t veto the proposal either, to his discredit.) They haven’t created one volt of electricity or gallon of gasoline by doing common-sense items that would encourage oil and natural gas exploration, in particular loosening environmental restrictions. The permitting process for new power plants or oil refineries is way too long and arduous.

As I noted earlier, the GOP stalwarts can’t actually accomplish anything in terms of crafting and passing legislation by staying behind in Washington while their cohorts head home for some R and R. What they can do is show that they’re willing to work and solve these problems while the majority hems and haws about shifting to alternative fuels.

But perhaps the time spent would be more useful if the GOP got together and drafted up a list of legislative measures they’ll work on when Congress returns and make it public, sort of like 1994’s Contract With America. In this case, it would be all about energy independence through obtaining our own supplies of oil, coal, natural gas, and, hey, if T. Boone Pickens wants to front the cash, we can add wind power to the mix as well. I have no objection to that if the price is right. (In a side note, Maryland officials may be buying up the offshore wind power that Delmarva Power doesn’t buy from the Bluewater Wind project. Naturally it costs more to produce this electricity than it would to produce through more conventional sources, but Governor O’Malley isn’t one to be too worried about costs, is he?)

On the whole I’m very pleased (for once) that someone in Washington is willing to work to get legislation done, although I’m hoping that they pay as much mind to eliminating laws and regulations as they do to creating them.

Crossposted on Red Maryland and That’s Elbert With An E.

Red Maryland a spam blog?

Editor’s note – apparently there was an issue accessing this site since last night. I had to disable the Site Meter on a temporary basis to fix the problem; hopefully the folks there are working on it. Thanks to Joe Albero for the heads-up. (Wonder if that problem and the post subject are related?)

I became aware yesterday afternoon that the Red Maryland blog I contribute to was temporarily locked as a “spam” blog. As a part of Blogspot, this and thousands of other blogs fall under the auspices of Google, which can be a problem. Today was one of those days, as this quote from the Blogger Buzz blog attests:

While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.

We’ve noticed that a few users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can’t post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.

We hope to have this resolved shortly, and appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks.

Many who picked up readership of monoblogue in recent months may not know that my blogging history includes a fairly short-lived Blogspot blog I called ttown’s right-wing conspiracy. But after looking into Google for a post I did there, I decided it would soon be time to get my own domain name and not be held hostage by the folks at Google.

The post I did actually turned out to be my first real splash in the blogging world, and as a guy who was lucky to get 10 readers a day at the time, that week I had nearly 200 and I found out a lot about blogging as a business. It was called “For a few dollars more…” and I posted it on July 28, 2005. I suppose I’ll see just how successful this link turns out to be because I still get the SiteMeter reports for that site and I still have a couple people a week who stumble onto my old place almost 3 years after I stopped posting there.

As I depicted in the 2005 post, Google employees were astoundingly liberal in their political giving and at the time were not very friendly to conservative sites like Red Maryland would eventually become. It’s not out of the realm of probability that someone on the left with an axe to grind may have reported a number of right-leaning sites as spammers in order to do a little Blogspot censoring and the folks at Google were only too happy to play along. As one of the e-mail commentors I received noted, “what if this happened right before the election?”

It’s the reason I decided to get my own site where I can pretty much say what I want, and even though I do pay for the server the cost is well worth the peace of mind. And while one drawback to that approach for Red Maryland would be having to recoordinate all the contributors to a new site (and making sure everyone repoints their browsers) perhaps another alternative would be to look into a WordPress blog (also a free service). But that has drawbacks too as my blogging friend Elbert can attest to.

In any case, hopefully the issue will be resolved soon if it hasn’t already been – but it’s a wake-up call to many on the right side of the blogosphere that free speech isn’t always free when someone else provides the platform. Perhaps we need to take a page from one of our heroes, Ronald Reagan, and actually pay for our microphone.

And now for something completely different…

On a number of occasions I’ve written about being a contributor to the Patriot Post internet newsletter and was asked to make a mention of times I’d actually submitted an article. Well, over the last three Fridays I’ve been fortunate enough to be included – two by their request and last week’s unsolicited.

Yesterday they placed my piece on the state of California banning transfats (page 9), last week’s item was on Beltway Gas Pains (page 5), and the earlier article discussed Big Labor’s effect on the Big Three (page 7). Of the three, the gasoline article was probably the most heavily edited (I think another contributor may have added his or her two cents in an article and portions of both were used) while the other two had a little light pruning and additions here and there. I could recognize them right away as mine though.

Sometime I may have to go through my e-mail and paper archives and see just how many times I’ve had something included over the years – my time with the Patriot Post dates back to my days in Ohio. There are times I wish there were bylines and such to recognize the writers but as I understand it a few may not benefit from having their names known. Thus we toil in obscurity but on the whole I’ve enjoyed the experience and hope to continue contributing many times in the future.

America’s not mad, it has ‘NozzleRage’

Note to readers: my site doesn’t have theme music, there’s a video below. This actually did better than an embed, and you can pause the video until you finish reading.

Yet another relatively unknown (but hoping not to stay that way) political effort which has popped up over the last few months is dubbed “NozzleRage”. In its own words, their goal is to:

NozzleRage is a video campaign designed…to make clear what is happening to this country and its drivers. Its goal is to channel the fury most Americans feel into effective action.

The first of a series of 30-second NozzleRage videos features an OPEC gas pump ripping off and then attacking an ordinary American consumer. It directs viewers to the NozzleRage Web site where they can register to view upcoming videos and find out what they can do to end our suicidal vulnerability to OPEC’s oil cartel.

NozzleRage’s message is supported by a number of the nation’s leading advocates for energy security including Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. (of the Center for Security Policy).

While Gaffney provides the political gravitas to the group, the video in question was done by the Zucker brothers (think of the Naked Gun series of movies, Airplane!, or the short-lived but hilarious TV series Police Squad!). Gaffney also did a recent op-ed in the Washington Times about a concept known as the “Open Fuel Standard”, legislation that is in the Congressional hopper but probably won’t see any movement until they return from the August recess.

Here’s the Zucker brothers’ first video contribution to the cause:

Now it will be interesting to see what happens when I post tonight whether the video will still play! It does.

Another redistribution I question

A regular reader of monoblogue sent me a tip about Maryland’s grant program for solar and geothermal energy programs – while the fiscal year just began on July 1st, he noticed on the WBOC website an AP story out of Annapolis which stated the entire $591,000 devoted to this year’s grant allocation has already been spoken for.

While J.M. surmised that I should “burn the O’Malley Administration a new asshole,” personally I think that in a time of budget shortfalls that these programs of dubious benefit need to be among the first to be axed. I question the value of these subsidies and why they should be required to make solar or geothermal more competitive with conventional heating sources – both of these systems should be able to sell themselves on their own merits if they’re the best thing since sliced bread; thus, no grants should be necessary. Obviously the state of Maryland, in its haste to consume as much of the green Kool-Aid as possible, feels otherwise.

According to the story, interest in the systems has been piqued because the state raised the maximum amount of each grant. HB377 pegged the grant figures thusly:

The lesser of $2,500 per kilowatt or $10,000 for newly installed electrical generation capacity (up from $3,000 or 20% of installed cost);
The lesser of $3,000 or 30% of installed cost for solar water heating (up from $2,000 and 20%);
The lesser of $1,000 per ton or $3,000 for a geothermal system on residential properties (up from $1,000);
The lesser of $1,000 per ton or $10,000 for a system on commercial properties.

Two major changes in existing law were the addition of commercial properties to grant eligibility and a sales tax exemption for solar and geothermal equipment (again, regulating behavior through the tax code.) So not only did $591,000 go to this grant program, the state made no sales tax on the thousands of dollars of equipment that was sold – if all of the $591,000 was sold as equipment that’s a loss of about $35,000.

I’d also be interested in knowing just who got these grants, and where their political contributions were made. While I’m sure many were on the up and up, something tells me a few friends of O’Malley managed to have their homes redone with solar or geothermal heating on the state. In fact, if the state of Maryland continues to insist on skewing the home heating market with grants like these, part of the deal should be a nice large sign placed in public view at the property in question detailing exactly how many tax dollars were given to the property owner.

This was one of the bills I considered for my Accountability Project but opted not to use – probably because the House votes were near-unanimous (137-0 and 140-0) and the Senate vote was 42-5 (Vote #1168). I already had 35 Senate votes so the bill wasn’t deemed as high of a priority as others making the cut. (By the way, Senator Andy Harris’s “environmental” record would be enhanced by this vote since he was in the majority – one of the few votes I would have disagreed with him on. The five voting properly against were Senators Della, Exum, Greenip, Mooney, and Pipkin.)

Of course, because the money ran out so quickly the state is sure to increase the pot for FY2010. In the meantime, look for utilities to pay for supplying more grant money as the AP story mentions the possibility of funding from an upcoming greenhouse gas allowance auction (yep, cap and trade rears its ugly head on September 25th.) Meanwhile, the home heating market becomes more tilted in favor of so-called renewable technology, a subsidy we’re going to pay for in more ways than one.

Gas price relief? Not likely

You can tell what the pet issues are at any time by the names of bills placed in the Congressional hopper. Witness the recently introduced H.R. 6495, (it’s a 40 page .pdf file, just so you know) better known as the “Transportation and Housing Choices for Gas Price Relief Act of 2008.” The lead sponsor is Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and 4 of the 5 co-sponsors are Democrats, with the reliably liberal RINO Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut added to make the measure “bipartisan.” (Blumenauer is a favorite of my cohorts at the AIA because he also sponsors a large portion of the “green” building legislation circulating through the House.)

But the bill is quite the reach if you look at cause and effect, because I’m not quite sure where the impact on gas prices will come given some of the topics the bill covers:

Grants to state and local governments and other entities with priority given to, “proposals that will have the biggest impact on reducing single occupancy vehicle trips,” to the tune of $50 million.
$850 million of grants and subsidies to mass transit.
Making urban density a factor in community transit grants.
$10 million in grants over each of the next three years to market “transportation alternatives” to single occupancy vehicles.
Tinkering with the tax code yet again to reward behavior like teleworking, commuting by bicycle, an increase in allowable deductions for “transportation fringe benefits”, parking cash-out programs, and vanpooling.
Encouraging federal agencies to participate in local transportation management associations.
Incorporate transportation costs and transit accessibility into the index which determines low-income housing tax credits and possibly into the Multiple Listing Service which realtors use – that’s another $3 million.
“Location-efficient” mortgage goals for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (That in particular sounds like an invitation to a much larger bailout.) There’s also $2.5 million in grants set aside for each state to construct or acquire “location-efficient” housing, that being defined as within 1/2 mile of a transit stop.
Adding high schools to those schools covered under the existing SAFETEA-LU transportation bill, in order to create “safe routes to school”. By the way, that’s another $2.7 billion through 2013.

I’m not seeing any new fuel supply out of these bullet points, are you?

I know those far to my left will argue that many of these provisions will reduce the need for gasoline in the long run, and for the moment I’ll accept the premise for sake of argument. At $4 a gallon, we would need to save 939,500,000 gallons of gasoline to make up the $3.758 billion my public school math figured out that this program would cost. However, that doesn’t count the energy used for all the studies and creating all of the regulations that will go along with enacting some of the bill’s finer points. It’s going to have a pretty large carbon footprint for dubious benefit – just looking at one portion of the bill, transit routes are subject to change based on ridership and a house that’s close to the bus stop one day may be a mile away the next.

In sum, what this bill is attempting to do is not to lower gas prices, for that would defeat the many nebulous purposes this bill would place the federal government out to achieve. Instead, it’s another attempt to regulate behavior by placing more carrots in the tax code and beating with the sticks those who may desire low- to moderate-income housing in areas which may be nice neighborhoods but which don’t happen to be near a bus route or train station.

However, the main point I’m bringing out is that, much like telling Americans that a bill is good because it’s “for the children” – or its corollary, telling Marylanders that a proposal is ideal because it’s “for the Bay” – placing those magic words “gas price relief” in the title belies that same old liberal claptrap which various members of Congress have been trying to enact for years but haven’t been able to get out of committee most of the time.

You can’t make a Corvette out of a Prius and you can’t bring gas price relief through regulating behavior. But Democrats in Congress keep trying, while ignoring the plain truth that the best way to achieve gas price relief is by increasing our domestic oil supply and refining capability. Bills advocating that approach languish in Congress, while this turkey of a bill may just see a vote before the end of this session.

Is it really a wiser choice?

One article that I allocated last week when I hosted Carnival of Maryland 37 was from the local blog Lost On The Shore, and it argued for investing more into mass transit as oil prices show no sign of subsiding in the near future. Obviously the investment Tom argued for would be from our already-bloated state government in concert with other East Coast states along the I-95 corridor and would ideally result in a high-speed rail system similar to those found in Europe or Japan.

I’ll give him credit for having enough sense to realize that this would be almost by necessity a system limited in geographic scope because, even at 150 miles per hour, train travel is nowhere near as timely as air travel on a coast-to-coast basis. However, there already is one large obstacle to bringing in a high-speed rail system and it’s not really the cost for infrastructure – the roadblock is called Amtrak. While Tom brings up the fact that Amtrak trains are sold out far in advance, having a heavily subsidized entity already in the rail market all but prohibits the sort of private investment that could make such a enterprise worthwhile. Unlike the freight business, passenger rail became too much of a burden after the advent of the interstate system made auto travel easier and faster so by the early 1970’s no large-scale railroad player remained in the intercity passenger rail business. (Thinking about passenger trains also brings to mind one of my favorite books, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. But I digress.) In stepped the federal government and Amtrak was created.

Unfortunately, each time Congress has mentioned slashing the huge subsidies for train travel – particularly during the heady days of the Contract With America – Democrats and the rail unions (but I repeat myself) have mustered up the votes and the sympathy to continue Amtrak’s gravy train for another budget year. In the meantime, the condition of the tracks slowly deteriorates and obsolete labor rules are kept in force so that anyone who wanted to compete on a level playing field with our national train service could probably clean their clock in little to no time. But that taxpayer subsidy slants the board in such a way to discourage competition.

(It’s definitely an aside, but over the weekend I had the opportunity to ride on Baltimore’s light rail system. While it was convenient enough, taking my friend and I to the gates of Camden Yards, the quality of service left something to be desired – in particular the dearth of trains at a time schedulers should know will be quite busy.)

I also wanted to talk a little bit about bus service and local transit options. I have no idea what the fare is to ride Shore Transit, only that I see a bus go by my house every so often when I’m home and paying attention. And perhaps with the price of gas what it is right now, a more full bus may mean that the service actually comes closer than ever to breaking even. However, my experience is that transit services of that type (particularly paratransit) operate at a loss. In Ohio, where such items are allowed by state law, every few years there would be placed on the ballot a property tax levy or renewal to support Toledo’s regional transit system and it would always pass despite my objections. Here in Maryland, a portion of the state gasoline tax helps defray costs – of course with fewer people driving that shortfall in gasoline tax collection is eating away anything gained by increased ridership. It’s a typical Catch-22 in government; when the people do what’s asked of them they lose in the long run anyway. As a matter of fact, this AP story yesterday by Jim Abrams warns of a possible gas tax increase due to – you guessed it – people using fewer gallons of gasoline because they’ve cut back on driving.

To me, “Fedzilla” (I told you I liked that term) is presenting far too many obstacles to more efficient, cost-effective transportation. By subsidizing an overhead-heavy railroad with our tax dollars it’s discouraging someone who may want to come in make the investment in infrastructure necessary to build the rail system Tom desires. By not allowing and encouraging oil exploration domestically they’re leaving gasoline prices higher than they could be if they simply got out of the way, and the price of diesel fuel is crippling the trucking industry – especially small independent operators. And by threatening to increase taxes even more on each gallon, they’re perpetuating a scam that sends money to states to build bike paths or further subsidize modes of transport which simply aren’t cost-effective or useful to many workers, some who, like myself, need to have their car available for field work or other job-related items.

Given the choice, I’d prefer to allow the market to decide how best to move people around. Oh yes, it already has, which is why practically every household in America has a driveway with a car on it. With rare exceptions, that car is the most convenient mode of transportation to get from Point A to Point B and it’s only because the price of oil has reached intolerable levels that much discussion of the mass transit issue has ensued. Being the kind of guy who likes free choice, I think our best approach to mass transit is to let it sink or swim on its own merits, and something tells me that the call wouldn’t be made for a bus on every corner if gas prices return to more appropriate levels.

Crossposted on Red Maryland and That’s Elbert With An E.

A gonzo energy plan

Growing up in the Midwest in the late seventies and being a fan of loud, heavy, guitar-driven rock, naturally I took a liking to the music of one Ted Nugent – thus, there’s about a half-dozen of his CD’s and cassettes in my collection. While Ted wasn’t ever an overwhelming commercial success, he had a loyal fan base that was mostly based in the midsection of the country and you’ll find that “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Stranglehold” are staples at virtually any classic rock station.

But as the “Motor City Madman” approaches the big six-oh this year, his focus in life has changed. Certainly he still does some touring and the occasional new release (the last studio CD being 2007’s “Love Grenade”) but he may well be better known now as reality show host and outdoors spokesman with his own line of bowhunting equipment which he’s developed as a business over the better part of the last two decades.

And now he’s entered the world of writing – well, to a larger and longer form than, say, “Wango Tango.” While putting words to paper isn’t necessarily new for him, the Human Events website recently added Nugent to its roster of commentators, with his latest effort called “Let The Energy Buffalo Run Free.”

For the most part, Ted has another hit on his hands with the piece, calling for more oil drilling, a renewed emphasis on nuclear power, and less interference from the federal government. He’s even come up with a new word I’ll have to allocate for my lexicon in describing those inside the Beltway, that word being “fedzilla.” It’s quite apt, if you ask me (and even if you don’t.) Another William F. Buckley he’s not, but Ted gets the point across well enough. Most interesting to me was his turnaround on nuclear power – I seem to recall reading an interview years ago where he spoke out against building more plants. Being pro-nuclear power is a stance that may seem somewhat contrary to Nugent’s reputation as a conservationist but apparently the issue of what to do with the spent fuel roads has been solved to Ted’s satisfaction enough to place him on the side of nuclear energy. He brings up France as an example and the French do have a pretty good track record of safety in their plants, as opposed to the Russians.

In many respects, Nugent’s branching out into the world of political commentary reminds me of another celebrity who parlayed his fame into fortune and political activism, Chuck Norris. I discussed Chuck’s political dealings about a month ago, and wondered if this signaled a future political run. Similarly, there was some talk in Michigan political circles about adding Nugent to the 2006 GOP ticket as lieutenant governor and I don’t think Nugent has ever ruled out the idea of political office entirely. It would certainly bring a dose of Hollywood to a staid group of politicians.

Meanwhile, Ted can deliver more red meat to conservative followers, assuming that his commentary continues to hit the target. Something tells me the “whackmaster” has pretty good aim.