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Home Rule Disaster: Pennsylvania Residents May Be Forced to Live Within 300 Feet of A Frack Well Pad.

2012-02-09T22:25:39Z

Daniel Raichel, Legal Fellow, New York

It looks like the worst in Pennsylvania has come to pass. Despite a letter by nine GOP state senators two weeks ago pledging “opposition to language [in a Pennsylvania bill] that removes a local municipality’s ability to regulate and control all land use in their area,” both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature eviscerated municipal zoning authority this week by votes of 101 to 90 (house) and 31 to 19 (senate) respectively. The bill – a compromise version of Senate Bill 1100 and House Bill 1950 – is expected to be signed today by Governor Corbett.

Cutting to the chase, here are some of the things that the law would mean for Pennsylvania municipalities:

No Control Over Where A Frack Well May Be Zoned – Under the new bill, most oil and gas operations, including frack wells, pipelines and impoundment pits (the open-air pits where toxic water is stored after fracking) will be required to be permitted uses in all districts. Compressor stations, processing plants and some activities at impoundment pits may be restricted from residential zones, but must be allowed as permitted uses in agricultural and industrial zones.
Limited to No Control Over Setback Distances – Setbacks in residential zones for wells and drilling rigs are limited to 500ft from any existing building. Setbacks for well pads (the area around the well where trucks gather and chemicals are mixed) are limited to 300ft from any existing building. Likewise, setbacks for impoundment pits are limited to 300ft. It is important to recognize that this is a setback from a building, not a property line, so in many cases a well would be allowed right next to a yard, a driveway, or a livestock area.
No Control Over Hours of Operation – Localities may not impose restrictions on hours of operation on the drilling of wells, “subterranean operations” (AKA, fracking), or activities at compressor stations or natural gas processing plants. In other words, if there is a frack well in your neighborhood kicking up a racket after midnight, don’t bother calling the police, because the law now says they can frack all night long. (Note that there are noise restrictions on compressor stations and processing facilities in the new law, but these restrictions do not apply to gas wells).

The main tradeoff for this incredible loss of municipal power is a 15yr incremental, per-well “impact fee,” estimated to be the equivalent of a 1-3% tax on natural gas extraction, which, when compared with other state gas taxes like the 5% tax in West Virginia and the 7% tax in Texas, is one of the lowest in the country (until this law, Pennsylvania had been collecting no fee at all). The fee is supposed to go towards offsetting the cost of fracking to localities like damage to local roads and spills, but it is unlikely that the money collected will be enough to deal with the multitude of contamination incidents stretching from Butler to Bradford County, especially when you factor for the possibility of major, multi-million dollar contamination events like Dimock.

Even granting that the money would stretch far enough to remediate spills and other damage from fracking – this largely misses the point. Pennsylvania citizens have just lost the right to protect themselves through local democratic action from the negative health and community character impacts of a heavy industrial activity, all in exchange for the slim chance to break even.

To be clear, Pennsylvania municipalities concerned about gas fumes, car traffic, and the risk of explosions still have the authority to determine whether a gas station is too hazardous to be sited in a residential community. On the other hand, a municipality would be powerless to stop an industrial gas well serviced by thousands of heavy truck trips and circled by toxic, open-air waste pits from being placed immediately adjacent to a playground, provided that it was 500ft from any existing building.

Today’s action by the Pennsylvania government shows that the big money of the oil and gas industry can and does buy special treatment at the expense of the health and democratic rights of the Pennsylvania citizens and small businesses that rely on access to clean water (e.g. agriculture and food and beverage manufacturing). This should be a powerful lesson to New York that legislation that protects a municipality’s ability to protect itself – such as the recent bills proposed by Assemblywoman Lifton and Senator Seward – is needed now before drilling starts, and before it is too late.

State Department Inspector General weighs in: Says make pipeline permit review more rigorous and free of appearance of conflict of interest

2012-02-09T20:59:09Z

Liz Barratt-Brown, Senior Attorney, Washington, DC

“The appearance of this . . . needs to be cleaner”

(unnamed State Department official in IG report)

In a report sent to Congressional offices today, the State Department Inspector General found that the environmental review of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline had fallen short of providing an independent and objective review that Americans deserve.

The IG investigation was initiated before the President and State Department announced they would take more time to review the impacts of the pipeline, and, in particular, look at alternative routes to cutting through the Ogallala aquifer, one of our nation’s most important water sources. But in January, the permit was denied after Republicans in Congress insisted on attaching a rider to the payroll tax extension that forced the President to make a decision in sixty days. The President made it clear that if the forcing language was included in the bill, he would have no choice but to deny the permit since there was inadequate time to complete the review and to find and evaluate an alternative route.

At the heart of the controversy that initially sparked the IG investigation was the use of a “third party” contractor, Cardno Entrix, to conduct the environmental review. In a procedure that many would liken to the fox guarding the chicken coop, the applicant for a project, in this case, TransCanada, presented the reviewing agency with its choices for contracting out the review. The IG report explained that that practice has evolved because the applicant pays for the contractor and because this allows reviews to be processed more quickly.

But there is obviously a downside to such active engagement of the applicant in the review. At a minimum, it muddies the water regarding who is in charge of the contractor, the applicant or the State Department (it is still not clear who the contractor was contracted with – more on this later). And the water is further muddied when you have a reviewing agency, like the State Department, which has little experience in implementing environmental reviews under the National Environmental Protection Act, conducting the review. It makes it more likely that the review will be untowardly influenced by the contractor, which is in effect working for the applicant.

These were the very problems identified by the IG. First, they found that while the selection of the contractor followed legal guidelines, it led to an appearance of conflict of interest. The IG report quotes a State Department official who said that they had no control over who the applicant sent a proposal to and said further that because the applicant is “paying the bill”, the applicant was allowed to review the responses to proposals and to forward their top three choices to the Department. The report goes on to find that two of the three proposals failed to meet minimum requirements, making Entrix the sole remaining choice (why the applicant wasn’t required to have those proposals fixed or put forward new ones is a mystery to me). The IG report concluded: “Any potential appearance of improper influence can lead the American public to question the Department's independence and objectivity. Therefore, the Department should modify its third-party contracting process to reduce the appearance of improper influence." (p. 13)

Second, the IG found that there was a lack of technical depth on the part of the State Department. They found that the Department had to rely heavily on Entrix to address both substantive and procedural issues, thereby further compromising the process. The IG report stated: "The Department’s limited technical resources, expertise, and experience impacted the implementation of the NEPA process. The Department had to rely more on outside parties, such as its third-party contractor and other Federal agencies with expertise, to address issues related to alternatives and mitigation, pipeline safety, and environmental risks throughout the EIS process. As a result, OIG believes the EIS and related processes were less effective, thereby delaying the decision for approval or denial of the Keystone application.” (p. 21)

Thirdly, the IG found that the State Department had failed to certify that there were no conflicts of interest between the contactor, Entrix, and TransCanada and had failed to look beyond statements made by Entrix to validate whether they were true. The regulations the State Department follows require that conflicts of interest be identified and investigated. The IG report stated: “It is the applicant’s responsibility to review carefully all organizational conflict of interest materials to determine whether a bidder, including any subcontractors, is capable of impartially performing the environmental services required under the third-party contract…. However, the Department did not request, and TransCanada did not provide, the organizational conflict of interest certification required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Handbook, nor did the Department conduct any independent inquiry into the information contained in the organizational conflict of interest statement.” (p. 24)

Finally, the IG report found that the State Department had failed to respond to two issues, stating that this was again likely due to lack of technical expertise. First, they failed to respond to what I suspect were some rather sharp questions put forward by DOE about whether the pipeline would supply could be exported out of the U.S. and would reduce U.S. exposure to oil price and political volatility. Second, they failed to review alternatives to the pipeline route put forward by TransCanada. This lack of consideration of alternatives became a major reason that the pipeline permit was ultimately denied. The IG report stated: “Although the Department took actions that generally addressed and incorporated the views and concerns raised by other Federal agencies in the final EIS, some comments from the Department of Energy’s July 2010 letter on the draft EIS were omitted from the appendix in the final EIS. Therefore, the Department did not provide a written response to all of the comments contained in the July 2010 letter. In addition, some concerns provided by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency were not completely incorporated. In particular, these agencies commented on the lack of alternative routes and the rationale the Department had used to exclude those routes from further evaluation in the EIS.” (p. 19)

One aspect of the IG report baffles me and that is its treatment of the FOIA process. As an organization that has three major FOIA requests pending (some pending since March of last year), I found it disturbing that the response rates of the Department were found to be within a reasonable range. This is likely because they used one case as the outside marker that had gone on for longer than 2,000 days, or in other words, over five years. This lack of responsiveness to FOIA requests deprives the public access to an open and transparent government generally. In this case, it has compounded the appearance of conflict of interest and unduly cozy relationships with the pipeline company and with its contractor, Entrix. Here is what the IG report said: “These cases are within the Department’s average complex case processing time for 2010, which is 284 days. In 2010, the fastest processed complex case was 21 days, and the longest case had been pending 2,162 days. These 18 cases are in various stages of processing, including releasing the first segment to the requestor, awaiting release to the requestor pending review, and tasking the request to various bureaus and offices for records.” (p. 38) We hope that the State Department will hurry up and respond to our and others’ requests.

In summary and not surprisingly, The IG report made three major recommendations.

1- The Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the State Department (OES), working with Legal Advisors office, should redesign the process for selecting third- party contractors, such as Entrix, by maximizing the Department’s control over each step of the process and minimizing the control of the applicant;

2- OES should have a full time NEPA expert on staff.

3- OES, working with the Legal Advisors office, should redesign process for selecting and using third-party contractors to improve Department’s organizational conflicts of interest screening process.

What is clear from all this is that, while the State Department has been cleared of legal wrongdoing, there are serious questions that remain about the “independence and objectivity” (as stated by the IG) of the environmental review. Just today, Friends of the Earth, the organization that has led the call for an investigation into the State Department review, reported that the Department had denied their request for a copy of the contract between Entrix and either TransCanada or the State Department. Given that the Congressional offices requesting the review also asked for the contract, it is amazing to me that they are refusing to release it. It only makes you wonder, what are they hiding?

The larger point is that there were unseemly practices, that, while legal, undermined the review process. If TransCanada were to re-apply, the State Department has made it clear they would have to go through the review process again. And that is a good thing, in light of this report and the concerns we expressed in our letter to the IG office.

But right now, Republicans on Capitol Hill are busy trying to attach riders to any bill that moves that would force approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Attaching a rider forcing approval of the pipeline would make a mockery of a fair and “cleaner” review process for any pipeline, and certainly for one as massive as the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

FOX Affiliate: Extreme weather tied to climate change

2012-02-09T19:51:45Z

Pete Altman, Climate and Clean Air Campaign Director, Washington, D.C.

Quick post:

Denver's Fox News on the connection between extreme weather's wild swings and global warming.

Coal Industry Attempts to Justify Pollution...Again

2012-02-09T19:14:57Z

Adrianna Quintero, Senior Attorney, Director, La Onda Verde de NRDC, San Francisco

A study released today by the coal industry attempts to justify dirty energy and life-threatening pollution by claiming that Hispanics and blacks will be hit hardest by energy price increases.

The study by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity looked at 2010 data and concluded that due to income inequalities, Hispanic households must be more impacted by rising energy costs. This extrapolation is not substantiated by facts and ignores the reality that due to the pollution caused by coal, low-income families, whether they be Hispanic, black, Asian or white are facing higher health expenses.

Lower-income families are more vulnerable to price fluctuations. That much is true and is true where food prices, housing, health care and energy costs are concerned. What this coal industry report ignores, however, is the fact that low-income communities, and especially Hispanic and black low-income communities, are disproportionately impacted by pollution spewed into the air by coal-burning power plants.

Thanks to coal burning power plants, the low-income communities that surround these are left suffering serious health effects, including asthma, bronchitis, lung and heart disease, developmental disorders, and increased mortality. For Latinos, the situation is dire since, one out of every two Latinos in the U.S. lives in counties that frequently violate air pollution standards. The further aggravating factor for Latinos is that, in addition to living in heavily polluted areas, a lack of adequate insurance coverage, high unemployment and a high number of workers working outdoors make the health and consequent cost impacts even more severe.

While the coal industry would like to profess concern for the well-being of Hispanics, actions speak louder than words and Latinos nationwide recognize this. Like most Americans, Latinos want clean air and a strong economy. We recognize that we need clean air to thrive and that energy efficiency is the best answer if we really want to save money on heating and energy bills.

Most of all though, we love our families and as the fastest growing group of voters in the U.S., we as Latinos, want our leaders in Washington—and EPA-- to protect our health, create jobs and move our country forward.

Low-income people should not have to pay for power with their health. This is why groups representing millions of Latinos have repeatedly come together to call on EPA to adopt strong, health protective standards which would allow families to avoid unforeseen health costs, lost work days and the pain and suffering that comes from watching your child gasp for air. The ACCCE ‘’study’’ is yet another scare tactic by an industry supported front group seeking to justify the pollution industry’s ability to continue making obscene profits at the expense of some of the more vulnerable people in our country.

Another Reason Congress Must Reject the House Transportation Bill

2012-02-09T18:20:37Z

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director, Washington, D.C.

Citizens across the country are calling Congress right now, urging them to deep-six the ill-conceived transportation bill cobbled together by House Republican Leadership. There's even a handy toll-free number -- just dial 1-877-573-7693.

There are a number of reasons to do so, as the New York Times noted today. There's also a lot of dissembling from backers of the bill, including six whoppers described by streetsblog. And the funding is clearly just a shell game. First, it was drilling. Then, it was evisceration of dedicated funding for public transportation. Now? TIme to go after federal employee retirement support. The finance title for this monstrosity provides strong evidence that House Leaders are making this up as they go along, and their stumbling and bumbling is so inept it has attracted special ire from conservatives. Legislating is about addition, about building support. But this bill started with paltry backing and headed down from there.

And here's another reason to oppose the bill, if you're interested in transportation investments: 45 of 50 states lose money compared to the status quo under this bill. The only winners are Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Wyoming. The biggest losers of highway money are:

California (losing almost $725 million);
Florida (losing more than $880 million);
Illinois (losing more than $884 million);
Louisiana (losing more than $531 million);
Missouri (losing more than $721 million);
Montana (losing more than $516 million);
New York (losing more than $605 million);
Pennsylvania (losing more than $948 million); and
WIsconsin (losing more than $621 million).

The picture is more mixed with transit, with 32 states nominally receiving more support. But this is funny money, since the House swipes dedicated funding entirely from transit in its bill. For more details see the breakdowns provided by the Federal Highway and Transit Administrations to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee staff (pdf here). Please call 877-573-7693 now to urge your Member of Congress to oppose this bill.

Unfounded Attacks on Electric Cars Endanger American Jobs

2012-02-09T17:13:44Z

Max Baumhefner, Sustainable Energy Fellow, San Francisco

Congressman Issa recently called a hearing to accuse the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) of a cover up related to its now closed investigation into the post-crash fire risk posed by the Chevy Volt’s lithium-ion batteries. Issa’s theatrics only revealed that such batteries have caused zero real world vehicle fires (a regrettably common occurrence for gasoline vehicles), and that both NHTSA and the independent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety intend to retain their highest possible safety ratings for the Volt. Nonetheless, various talking heads continue to perpetuate the myth that electric cars are bursting into flames on our nation’s streets. This deceit hurts American workers and consumers, and only helps Big Oil.

Former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, a conservative Republican himself, has dismissed attacks on the Volt by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Lou Dobbs as “totally irresponsible journalism.” Even though NRDC and Bob Lutz have very different opinions regarding climate change, we agree that the “deliberate misstatement of facts” intended to undermine electric cars hurts the workers who build the Volt in Hamtramck, Michigan, and the workers across America who supply more efficient vehicle technology.

In addition to misleading the public into believing electric vehicles are unsafe, talking heads appearing on Fox News, The Drudge Report, Lou Dobbs, and others, are touting a report claiming every Volt sold is the benefit of $250,000 in government subsidies.[1] This figure even made its way into the opening remarks of Mr. Issa’s Congressional hearing. But financial analyst, Anton Wahlman, writes in The Street, “There is a fundamental flaw behind the math in this ‘report’ that discredits the entire report straight down to zero, in my view.” The report argues that the Volt benefits from $1.5 billion in public support, which when divided by the 6,000 Volts sold at the time the article was written, equates to $250,000 per vehicle.

This simplistic arithmetic is meaningless. Investments in manufacturing capacity are not recovered in the first few months of sales of a single model. Over 40 different plug-in models will be introduced over the next several years, and while forecasts vary, even conservative estimates project over half a million plug-ins to be sold within a few years. If a multinational oil company were to receive $10 billion in tax breaks to drill in the Gulf’s deep waters, would you argue that the first barrel produced cost the national treasury $10 billion?

Ironically, the same talking heads who are attacking the Volt are staunch advocates for tax loopholes and subsidies for oil companies enjoying record profits.[2] In March, House Republicans voted unanimously to maintain tax loopholes for Big Oil. In May, Senate Republicans defeated another measure to end subsidies for Big Oil, which dwarf the alleged subsidies to produce the Volt.

I apologize if you’re reading this on a small screen device, as it’s likely impossible for you to make out the little red dot, the area of which accurately represents the relative size of the alleged government support for the Volt. I trust you’ll have no difficulty seeing the large black spot.

Given the very real deficits facing this country, it is worth asking where limited public resources should be invested. Between Big Oil and vehicle electrification, the choice is stark. One became dominant in the late 1800s, the other is key to the future of American competitiveness in a global economy. One maintains our vulnerability to a volatile world oil market, the other uses cleaner, domestic energy. Private industry has already made the choice. Virtually every major automaker, and several new market entrants, will introduce plug-in electric vehicle models over the next several years. The real question is whether America will be at the forefront of this evolution in automotive technology. The last time we faced a similar decision was between the gasoline engine and coal-fired steam power. We chose correctly then.

[1] http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/fox-news-claims-each-chevy-volt-costs-taxpa, http://www.drudgereportarchive.com/drudge-report-topic/chevy+volt/, http://www.loudobbs.com/programhighlights

[2] http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/transcript/chevron-ceo-we-pay-our-fair-share-taxes

Call on Congress to Kill House Transportation Bill

2012-02-09T16:15:40Z

Rob Perks, Transportation Advocacy Director, Washington, D.C.

Today NRDC joins a broad swath of organizations united in opposition to the House transportation bill (HR. 7) to encourage our supporters to participate in a "national call-in day" to Congress. Please take a moment to call 1-877-573-7693 and urge your representative to vote NO on the bill. The bill is expected to come to the House floor for action next week, so please make your voice heard now.

When you dial the number, you'll hear a brief pre-recorded message about the bill. Then you'll punch in your zip code to be patched directly to the office of your member of Congress. It's that easy -- and it's that important!

You see, the House bill is without a doubt the worst transportation bill ever. Unlike the Senate, which has acted in a bi-partisan fashion on its own version of the federal surface transportation bill, the House of Representatives crafted a completely partisan piece of legislation chock-full of anti-environmental "poison pills" that will undermine transportation policy in this country. Most notably, the bill puts forward "smoke and mirrors" accounting gimmicks to fund transportation, which rely on speculative oil and gas royalty revenues tied to expanded drilling in protected areas off America's coastlines and also Alaska's Arctic National Willdlife Refuge. And it throws transit under the bus by breaking a 30-year bi-partisan deal that ensures dedicated funding for public transportation. Instead, the bill would restrict federal funding to highways. Just imagine how much worse traffic will be without transit?

In effect, Republican leadership in the House has hijacked the process to produce a truly terrible transportation bill. You can learn more about it by visiting NRDC's action page on our website. Meantime, please pick up the phone and call 1-877-573-7693. Tell Congress to kill the House transportation bill!

In Patagonia: Chile's Glaciers Melt While Renewable Energy Resources Remain Untapped

2012-02-09T14:49:55Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

It would be hard to find a country with more abundant and accessible renewable energy resources--and a greater need to tap into them--than Chile. I spent nine days in this beautiful country last month, where NRDC is working with government and local citizens to encourage Chile to develop its clean energy resources.

With its high, sunny deserts, windy plains and seismic corridor, Chile has solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy resources that other countries can only dream about. Yet the country is trapped in the era of dinosaur energy, and is moving forward with plans for massive, destructive dams and dirty coal plants--even as local communities are already battling the effects of climate change and poor energy decisions in the past.

Global warming is a daily reality in Chile. Glaciers there are melting faster than anywhere else in the world, and that melting increases the risk of a natural phenomenon called a glacial lake outburst flood. These floods happen when a glacier that is damming a lake develops a hole, suddenly allowing the lake waters to pour through. We witnessed one of these events during our trip.

Our group was preparing to raft the next day on the Baker River, Chile's largest, when we heard the flood was in progress. The waters of Lake Cachet 2 were pouring through a hole in the Colonia glacier, causing the lake level to drop 87 meters (the height of New York City's Flatiron building) in a single day. The Baker River absorbed the flood, flowing at 3 times its normal rate.

The fork of the Baker River in the foreground is not really the river, but a result of the glacial lake outburst flood.

Needless to say, our planned rafting trip on the Baker was postponed. Instead we spent the day driving around the area to see how the flood had affected the surrounding land and the gaucho families who live there. Their properties were flooded as the river burst its banks and even sprouted entirely new branches. Thanks to a new monitoring system that has equipped each family with solar-powered CB radios, most were warned in time and managed to move their livestock to higher ground. We tried to visit one family, but a new river had come up between the road and the house. A few of us took off our shoes, rolled up our pants and waded over to greet them.

The people in this area are incredibly resilient--Lalo, the gaucho we visited, shrugged off with a smile the fact that the waters had washed away a small wooden bridge on his property and lodged it in a grove of trees. But glacial lake outburst floods are becoming alarmingly frequent in this area. There have been about seven since 2007, and none in the 40 years before that.

Lalo's livestock were unharmed, but his neighbor lost six sheep in the flooding.

The increasing frequency of glacial lake outburst floods raises serious questions about proposals to build massive hydroelectric dams in the region. NRDC has been helping local citizens battle one such project, called the HidroAysén project. It would build five dams on two of Patagonia's wildest rivers, and require the construction of a 1,200 mile long transmission line through the wilderness. In its environmental assessment, the company behind the project failed to consider many things, including how the dams might withstand more frequent and severe glacial lake outburst floods, which will, in all likelihood, become more common as the planet warms.

The tragedy of the HidroAysén project is that it's totally unnecessary. Efficiency measures alone could save Chileans more than 3,000 megawatts of power by 2020, more energy than HidroAysén project would produce. Chile's clean, renewable energy resources have the combined potential to generate nearly 400,000 megawatts of energy. Most of these technologies are already cost competitive with Chile's mainstays of large hydro and natural gas, yet they remain largely untapped. Chile's first geothermal plant, in the north, is under development and scheduled to come online in 2014--long before HidroAysén would start supplying power.

Recently, the government has taken important steps toward developing its first ever long-term energy policy, which will begin to make use of the country's own renewable energy assets. The Chilean Senate passed a bill that calls for the nation to use 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. This is, by all accounts, a very achievable goal--and one that will help preserve Chile's wilderness, reduce its dependence on imported coal, and provide reliable, cost-effective energy for its people. Despite this progress, Chile appears to pushing ahead with the harmful, unnecessary, HidroAysén mega-dam. Join us in encouraging Chile's president to stop the dam and keep Patagonia wild.

What's going on with new home sizes - is the madness finally over?

2012-02-09T13:30:32Z

Kaid Benfield, Director, Sustainable Communities, Washington, DC

After many years of dramatically increasing home size in America - from an average of 983 square feet in the 1950s up to 2300 square feet in the 2000s, despite declining household sizes - the trend appears finally to be going in the other direction. The real estate research firm Trulia found in 2010, for example, that the median "ideal home size" for Americans had declined to around 2100 square feet. More than one-third of survey respondents reported that their ideal preference was lower than 2000 square feet.

This is consistent with the forecasts of the National Association of Home Builders. (See detailed findings here.) Data from the census are also consistent in direction with those from Trulio's survey, though more subtle in the degree of change: according to the census, the median size of a new US home in 2010 was 2,169 square feet, up from 1,525 sqare feet in 1973 but down from the 2007 peak of 2,277 square feet.

So, while the recent change has been observed in the industry for a few years now, the graphs shown with this post are the best I've seen yet to depict both how out-of-control home sizes had become and the more recent trend toward downsizing. The downsizing trend is expected to continue even after the economy recovers, according to a spokesperson from NAHB.

The census data also include trends in average home size, which runs somewhat larger than median home size:

The recent downsizing is still evident and consistent with the median size data and the Trulio report..

Not all with an interest in the matter seem willing to concede the point, however. Stanton Homes, a North Carolina-based builder whose website features large new homes, groups all homes from 1,800 to 2,300 square feet (a 28 percent increase) in one category to show that the portion of homes sold within that size range has remained the same since 2006, although it has declined slightly from the preceding seven years. Even Stanton's analysis, however, shows declines since 2006 in the portion of the total new housing market claimed by homes of 2,400 square feet and larger in size, with the sharpest drop in the largest (4,000 square feet and larger) category. Stanton's data also show a decided increase in the market share claimed by homes under 1,400 square feet since the mid-2000s.

The National Association of Realtors doesn't seem ready to concede the point, either. The organization finds significance in a comparison of survey data reportedly compiled by the American Institute of Architects. This is from a recent NAR article titled, "Are Home Sizes Finally Done Shrinking?":

"In the first quarter of 2010, nearly 60 percent of the architects surveyed in AIA’s Home Design Trends Survey reported home sizes declining. Fast forward to the first quarter of 2011 and that number now has dropped to 52 percent, while 5 percent of architects are now reporting an increase in home sizes. Home sizes in the upper-end of the market, in particular, appear to be stabilizing ahead of more affordable entry-level homes."

Now, to me that sounds like a majority of architects in 2010 reported declining home sizes, and then a majority in 2011 reported even further decline. It also sounds like the Realtors are doing some wishful reporting (or at least headline-writing). But whatever.

Bear in mind that the census data include single-family, detached homes, semi-detached, and townhomes but do not include condominiums and apartments. If homes in multifamily configurations were counted, the average and median sizes would be considerably smaller and the trends perhaps more pronounced.

Meanwhile, new home size in the US is decidedly extravagant compared to that in other countries. A survey and data comparison conducted by the (now-defunct, unfortunately) British Commission on Architecture and the Built Environment found the size of an average new American home built in the 2000s to be approximately twice as large in floor space as one in Spain or France, and nearly three times as large as the average in the UK.

For more good graphs on the US trend from Trulia, go here.

Move your cursor over the images for credit information.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page. Please also visit NRDC’s sustainable communities video channel.

It is Time to Restore Salmon to the San Joaquin River

2012-02-09T01:32:10Z

Monty Schmitt, Senior Scientist, San Joaquin River Project Manager, San Francisco

Last year marked the fifth year of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program and the two year anniversary of renewed river flows - the first since the 1940s when the operation of Friant Dam dried up the river and ended the historic salmon runs. Thanks to years of hard work on the part of state and federal agencies, farmers, conservation groups, water districts and other stakeholders, the San Joaquin River once again flows all the way to the sea.

The Restoration Program is now ready to achieve its most important objective: the reintroduction of salmon in 2012.

In preparation for reintroducing salmon, the Restoration Program successfully achieved many key milestones this year, including renewed flow releases, water supply benefits, successful salmon experiments, environmental plans and permits, and improved flood management.

Renewed Flow Releases - Now in the third year of renewed water flows in the river, the information the river releases provide continues to inform the development of water supply, habitat restoration and flood protection projects. The releases also enrich wildlife habitat along over 150 miles of river and improve water quality downstream.
Water Supply Benefits – The Restoration Program has succeeded in providing substantial water supply benefits to Friant farmers as promised in the San Joaquin River Restoration settlement agreement. Since river releases began two years ago, almost 100,000 acre-feet of water has been recaptured downstream, recirculated back into the water supply system, and returned to Friant farmers. In 2011, flood releases from Friant Dam were creatively used to meet virtually all flow requirements. The wet year conditions also allowed the Restoration Program to provide an additional 350,000 acre-feet of water – bringing the total amount of water the Restoration Program has provided to Friant water districts to 450,000 acre-feet. By contrast, in the first two years of renewed flows 358,000 acre-feet of water was released to meet requirements to restore a living river. The Restoration Program has actually increased local water supplies by almost 100,000 acre feet.
Successful Salmon Experiments - As part of an experiment leading up to full reintroduction of salmon, 1,200 juvenile fall run Chinook salmon were released in late April of last year. This was the first time salmon have been released in the river. Over 40% of these fish successfully migrated 150 miles downstream past the confluence with the Merced River – a comparable survival rate to those seen on the Sacramento River and in San Joaquin River tributaries. Moreover, these fish successfully migrated down both the river channel prior to the construction of planned restoration projects as well as down the Chowchilla Flood Bypass system. Along with other studies, this experimental release provides important information to support achieving the long term goal of restoring an average of 30,000 salmon per year to the San Joaquin River.
Environmental Plans and Permits - In April, the Restoration Program released the draft programmatic environmental document that will guide implementation going forward. Five years in the making, the document includes plans for over a dozen restoration and water supply projects as well as a wealth of information about fish restoration and water management. Scheduled for completion this spring, the document is the basis for other permits that are necessary to begin constructing habitat, as well as flood and water management projects to achieve the Restoration Program’s goals of restoring flows and salmon while minimizing water supply impacts.
Improved Flood Protection - The restoration project area on the San Joaquin River has never had the level of flood protection of cities downstream like Stockton and Sacramento. Bordered by mostly agricultural lands, these converted wetlands have a long history of high groundwater tables that are sensitive to water seeping away from the river channel during flood control releases. Last year, the Restoration Program and local landowners completed a three-year effort to develop a seepage management plan to avoid significant impacts from restoration flows. A foundation for the plan is an impressive network of over 130 groundwater monitoring wells along the river (often at the request of local landowners), that allow landowners and the Restoration Program to monitor groundwater seepage and manage flows.

Salmon reintroduction can be achieved this year as well.

Reintroduction of salmon is not a single event – it’s a process that will begin slowly. A wealth of information will be gleaned in the first years of initial releases and returns that will help inform the construction of restoration projects currently in development. The numbers of fish released this year may be small, and they will face less than ideal conditions, but the Restoration Program can begin reintroducing salmon this year.

There will always be opponents. It took eighteen years for farmers, the federal government and conservation groups to agree that it was better to work together than to fight in court. Unfortunately, there is still a vocal minority who continue to try to block reintroduction of salmon and overturn the court-approved negotiated restoration agreement. Valley congressmen Devin Nunes and Jeff Denham, along with downstream land owners and water districts who have benefited from a dry river, have attempted to delay reintroduction of salmon, defund the Restoration Program and overturn the broadly supported settlement agreement. So far, these attempts have been unsuccessful. Unfortunately these political attacks may continue, with restoration opponents seeking to delay the required reintroduction of salmon in 2012. Opponents overlook the many accomplishments of the Restoration Program and the data showing that the river can support salmon. Delay is their only hope of keeping California’s second largest river dry and lifeless.

Restoring the San Joaquin River was never envisioned to be a simple task. But from the outset, the Restoration Program has been developing solutions to the challenges we face. The accomplishments thus far show that we can overcome six decades of neglect and degradation. The Restoration Program was intentionally designed to achieve the long term goals in phases and to improve conditions in the river over time while reintroducing salmon by the end of 2012. Despite the size and scope of this effort, there is no challenge ahead that cannot be overcome.

When the first major milestone of restoring flows to the river was achieved in 2009, opponents tried hard to block the release, claiming there would be widespread flooding and water supply impacts. Instead, the flows provided information needed to improve flood management and enabled the implementation of water supply projects that not only achieved the intended goal of reducing impacts but actually resulted in water supply benefits for farmers. Change is never easy, but after 60 years the time has come to put salmon back in the San Joaquin River.

Protecting People from Extreme Heat - New Factsheet on Heat Health in India

2012-02-08T23:54:29Z

Anjali Jaiswal, Senior Attorney, San Francisco

While the Coliseum in Rome is covered with snow, residents in Ahmedabad’s city center will be experiencing 90° Fahrenheit (32° Celsius) temperatures this weekend. I am currently in Ahmedabad, meeting with our partners from the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) to plan for the fast- approaching extreme heat season, when temperatures can spike to 122° Fahrenheit (50° Celsius). We are working with our on-the-ground partners, PHFI and the Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar (IIPH), and local officials to protect local communities from the harmful health effects of extreme heat by implementing strategies to improve preparedness for the Ahmedabad’s increasing heat.

Our newly-released factsheet, Fighting Climate Effects: Protecting People from extreme Heat in One of India’s Fastest-Growing Cities, discusses our project’s goal to promote improved health by implementing interventions to help reduce heat-related health vulnerabilities, designing an early warning system for dangerous heat events, and developing targeted climate change adaptation strategies. The factsheet highlights the recommendations developed to address extreme heat vulnerability, progress that has been made to date and ongoing work to develop an early warning system and a climate change preparedness plan for Ahmedabad.

Addressing Heat Vulnerability in Ahmedabad

The factsheet provides recommendations developed by expert scientists, government administrators and health officials at a 2011 kick-off workshop held by PHFI, IIPH, and NRDC to address heat-health vulnerability, including:

Researching impacts of heat stress, community resources, and existing heat-coping measures through in-depth discussions with four groups: vulnerable people living in slums, workers in high-risk occupations, city department staff, and health care providers; and then analyzing data on local temperatures and corresponding deaths.
Identifying the most vulnerable populations in Ahmedabad through surveys assessing current heat awareness and susceptibility, and distributing an informational pamphlet on reducing extreme heat’s health risks to families with young children and the elderly.
Developing an actionable early warning system in Ahmedabad and integrating it into a local climate change preparedness plan to warn the population of impending extreme heat events.
Targeting heat-risk-reduction outreach to the most heat vulnerable groups, including young children, elders, people with heart or lung illnesses, families living in poverty, and workers in high-risk occupations.
Conducting best-practices workshops with Ahmedabad city departments, medical providers, workers in high risk occupations, and community leaders to implement extreme heat strategies, build local capacity, and improve internal information sharing and communication.

Early Progress

Following those workshop discussions, NRDC and our partners collaborated with Emory University’s School of Public Health in the summer of 2011 to conduct Ahmedabad’s first heat vulnerability assessment survey. The in-depth survey assessed 12 slums on household member health history, heat-exposure adaptation, heat-stress knowledge, and access to resources.

As a result of PHFI, IIPH, and NRDC’s communication with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), Ahmedabad officials are now developing a climate change state action plan, and specifically, accelerating efforts to protect communities from extreme heat. Also, local officials announced plans to install 10 weather gauges to examine historical weather trends, determine high-risk areas, and warn local communities about impending heat waves.

Looking Ahead

In 2012, we will continue to support the development of an early warning system and a climate change preparedness plan for Ahmedabad. NRDC, PHFI, IIPH and local partners will hold a heat sensitization workshop and focus group for medical providers in Ahmedabad in March 2012. The subsequent focus group will allow participants to share experiences to date and discuss concrete heat adaptation protocols to implement. This ongoing research and intensive outreach regarding the importance of heat adaptation has the potential to save lives from the increasingly severe effects of climate change.

Co-authored by Meredith Connolly, NRDC Energy Law & Policy Fellow

Last Two Weeks in Whales: Working to Save Whales in the Pacific Northwest; Cape Cod Dolphin Stranding; Dolphins and Whales Play Together; Debate Over Tagging Endangered Killer Whales; Dolphins Mimic Whale Songs...

2012-02-08T23:22:08Z

Zak Smith, Attorney, Marine Mammal Protection Project, Santa Monica

News in the world of whales over the last two weeks (or close to it).

Here’s a blowout edition of “This Week in Whales.” I’m sorry for the delay. But, as you’ll see from the first entry, I was a little bit busy filing a case against the National Marine Fisheries Service for its illegal authorization of Navy training activities in the Pacific Northwest.

On January 26, NRDC sued the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for failing to protect thousands of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and sea lions from U.S. Navy warfare training exercises along the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. As I stated in our press release, “The Navy’s Northwest Training Range is the size of the State of California, yet not one square inch is off-limits to the most harmful aspects of naval testing and training activities. We are asking for common-sense measures to protect the critical wildlife that lives within the training range from exposure to life-threatening effects of sonar. Biologically rich areas like the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary should be protected.” We’re joined in the suit by InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the San Juans, and People for Puget Sound, all represented by Earthjustice. You can read my prior blog on the suit, NRDC Seeks to Protect Whales in the Pacific Northwest from Sonar, which provides more details about our case and also has a cool slideshow.
Unfortunately, the dolphin stranding disaster in Cape Cod continues. Since January 12, 129 common dolphins have stranded, resulting in 92 deaths. While dolphin strandings are common this time of year, never in these numbers, making this the largest single-species event of its kind on record in the northeastern United States. The unusual numbers are leaving scientists and other specialists puzzled. A research team has conducted nine complete necropsies and blood and microbial swab samples have been taken from some of the dolphins that were found alive. While results of these studies have not been finalized, no pattern of disease or trauma has been found pointing to a cause. According to Katie Moore, Manager of the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s Marine Mammal Rescue and Research Program, “We’re not ruling anything out at this point. But we also don’t have any hard evidence to suggest once cause over another. So although it pains me to say these three words, when asked why this is happening, for right now, ‘I don’t know’ is the only answer I can give.” Some have noted that the weather this season in the Cape has been unusually warm, which may have caused changes in the distribution of prey species, leading more dolphins into stranding-prone situations. But Katie Moore says that while climate and other factors such as acoustic disorientation cannot be ruled out, “we don’t have a single answer.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, there was a mass stranding of pilot whales in New Zealand. 99 whales stranded and restranded at New Zealand’s Golden Bay over a four day period. Rescuers worked to save the whales throughout this period, with several refloating attempts. Unfortunately, officials eventually had to euthanize the whales that could not be saved.
For some good news, let’s move slightly west to Australia, where whale pingers on Gold Coast shark nets are keeping humpbacks from becoming entangled. The acoustic alarms were fitted in 2010 to warn whales about the presence of shark nets – put in place to protect swimmers from sharks. Of course, the unfortunate side effect is that humpback whales were becoming entangled in the nets. Apparently the pingers are working; government officials report that whale entanglements have dropped from six in 2009 to one last year.
You may have heard about the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would move costly and polluting fuel from Canada’s tar sands mines (themselves an environmental disaster) to the Gulf Coast. NRDC has vigorously opposed the construction of the Keystone Pipeline – it undermines our Nation’s efforts to shift to a clean energy economy and presents serious environmental and health risks. NRDC also opposes Canada’s plans for a tar sands pipeline from Central Canada to the pristine coast of British Columbia. This pipeline, “Northern Gateway,” would keep us hooked on dangerous fossil fuels and present an unacceptable risk to some of the most rugged terrain on the continent. This fall, a documentary produced by Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Patagonia will tell the tale of four surfers who set out to find big waves in the choppy waters off the Great Bear Rainforest – an area threatened by the proposed pipeline. Here’s a trailer of the documentary:

There’s a debate going on right now over a plan to dart tag Southern resident killer whales off Puget Sound. The population is critically endangered, estimated at about 88 individuals. While we know where they spend the summer months (Puget Sound) we don’t know where they go for the winter. Having this vital piece of information could help scientists device a better plan for their recovery. So, how do you find out where they go? You can shoot them with dart tags, producing an injury about the size of a golf ball that may get infected, or you can use more passive measures to track the whales such as listening to their distinctive sounds. The risk associated with dart tags could be justified if the National Marine Fisheries Service (who has to approve such plans) committed itself to using the information to designate additional critical habitat that could save the whales, but it hasn’t and it’s unlikely they will. The agency already has survey results showing the whales in shallow waters of the West Coast, as far south as Monterey, California, but has refused to use this information to protect whales from known threats, like military sonar. You can have all the data in the world, but if you don’t use it, what’s the point? As The Whale Museum noted in a letter to the agency, “[W]e cannot see a compelling need to use an invasive technique to show similar data trends when the existing data observations were not used, or were not adequate, to take conservation measures that would have prevented potential impact to whales in areas and times of the year when they have been demonstrated to use the area.” Yes, what they said.
Dolphins and whales have been recorded playing together. The humpback whales lift bottlenose dolphins out of the water, which then slide down the whales back into the ocean. Neither species showed signs of aggression or distress, indicating that the interaction was a playful social activity.
Did you know that fishing communities in southern Vietnam worship whales and hold huge burial ceremonies for washed up whales. These Vietnamese fishing communities also host a Whale Festival every year.
Captive dolphins in France have been repeating humpback whale songs that are on their performance soundtrack. The dolphins were breed in captivity, so their only exposure to the whale songs were on the soundtrack that plays during their show. While dolphins have been known to repeat back sounds immediately upon hearing them, scientists say this is the first time that dolphins have been recorded repeating sounds after a significant delay. The speculation as to why they are repeating the whale songs raise intriguing questions. Are the dolphins expressing something that’s occurring in a dream? Are the dolphins going over their performance routine in their heads like humans do when prepping for a dance recital? I don’t know if we’ll ever know for sure, but I’m glad they do it.
Speaking of captive dolphins, I’m guessing there’s a dolphin in China that’s dreaming of choking. Just in case you need another reason to oppose torturing dolphins for our entertainment, an operation was recently performed on a captive dolphin in China to remove a rubber ball that it accidentally swallowed during a performance. At one point, doctors issued a call for someone with arms measuring at least 1.1 meters long to reach in and grab the ball. Meng Da, a professional basketball player answered the call, but alas was not able to reach far enough into the dolphin’s stomach. The ball was finally removed in a three-hour operation, during which the dolphin was awake. That sounds awful.
Katy Perry techno tunes did not cause the death of two dolphins found dead at a Swiss amusement park in November 2011 following an all-night rave. The real culprit was brain injuries caused by overdoses of antibiotics.
Plastic bags are bad. They don’t decompose and they end up in the ocean. Here’s a video of a dolphin in Hawaii struggling with a plastic bag. It’s all fun and games until a dolphin can’t breathe.
Disappearing Arctic sea ice is enticing orcas to head North. Beluga whales, narwhal, and seals that could otherwise avoid the whales are increasingly on the menu. According to researchers, the killer whales will compete with Inuit hunters for food and may replace polar bears as the North’s top predator. As if polar bears didn’t have enough problems to deal with – global warming literally melting their habitat and unsustainable hunting in Canada.

Thinking Fast and Slow about Climate Change

2012-02-08T22:18:58Z

Dan Lashof, Program Director, Climate & Clean Air, Washington, D.C.

Think fast.

What’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you see “climate change”?

What’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you see “car crash”?

If you are like me, “climate change” conjures a vague image of melting ice and perhaps an image of a forlorn polar bear on a shrinking ice floe, while “car crash” produces a vivid image of twisted metal and broken glass. I’m fortunate because in the specific crash that comes to mind my son totaled his car but walked away uninjured. For many people the image will be much more tragic. By contrast, I suspect few, if anyone, immediately associate “climate change” with a specific image of someone they know who was injured or killed.

Now think slow.

As someone who studies climate change I can produce a litany of statistics: The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, more than 30,000 people died in the 2003 European heat wave, record floods in Pakistan displaced million of people in 2010. But this takes work. In fact, I had to look up each of these statistics to make sure that I remembered it correctly.

This fundamental difference between instinctive, intuitive, quick, “System 1” thinking and deliberative, analytical, slow, “System 2” thinking is at the heart of Daniel Kahneman’s brilliant book Thinking Fast and Slow.

Kahneman is a phsychologist, but he won the Nobel Prize in economics for showing that real humans simply don’t conform to the rational expectations model assumed in neoclassical economic theory. The book is an intellectual tour de force and a pleasure to read. It also has a raft of insights that are essential for climate policy advocates. I don’t want to say that it is a “must read,” but really, you want to read this book. It’s like a fine red wine: pleasurable and good for you too. Here is how the Guardian’s review summarized it:

It is an outstanding book, distinguished by beauty and clarity of detail, precision of presentation and gentleness of manner. Its truths are open to all those whose System 2 is not completely defunct…

The New York Times’ review was equally enthusiastic:

By the time I got to the end of “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” my skeptical frown had long since given way to a grin of intellectual satisfaction. Appraising the book by the peak-end rule, I overconfidently urge everyone to buy and read it. But for those who are merely interested in Kahneman’s takeaway on the Malcolm Gladwell question it is this: If you’ve had 10,000 hours of training in a predictable, rapid-feedback environment — chess, firefighting, anesthesiology — then blink. In all other cases, think.

Climate change policy is not a predictable, rapid-feedback environment, so we can’t expect our instincts to be much help. Our brains evolved to very quickly detect and react to immediate threats, which we recognize through associative memory using System 1. Understanding the threat from climate change, by contrast, requires complex analytic thought: heat-trapping pollution is building up in the atmosphere; the climate is changing as a result; this is increasing the probability of extreme weather such as the European heat wave and the Pakistani flood. Being able to do this kind of reasoning, the operation of “System 2” in Kahneman’s terminology, is a great human achievement, but it takes effort. Kahneman shows, through a series of cleverly-designed deceptively simple experiments, that humans are fundamentally lazy and will only engage System 2 when prodded to do so.

As a consequence people are really bad at understanding statistics and probability. System 1 jumps to conclusions based on associations, and it’s very hard for System 2 to break through. Kahneman shows that some types of rare events, such as plane crashes, are judged to be much more common than they really are because they are associated with vivid imagery which is readily available to System 1. Premature deaths from air pollution, on the other hand, are likely to be judged much less common than they really are because statistical deaths don’t have a human face. The risk of catastrophic climate change driven by amplifying feedback loops is likely to be ignored altogether because we have no experience with which to associate this risk.

So how can we use the insights from Thinking Fast and Slow to make progress on climate? I have only begun to scratch the surface of what this thought-provoking book has to offer, but here’s a start.

First, we shouldn’t be surprised that this is hard. Humans are capable of understanding the threat from climate change and responding appropriately, but it doesn’t come naturally.

Second, the way scientists are trained to communicate with each other is often worse than useless for communicating to the public (including scientists unless they are actively engaging their System 2). Scientists are trained to avoid anecdotal evidence, present statistics, and focus on uncertainties. Meanwhile, fast-thinking humans learn from stories and examples, and equate uncertainty with ignorance.

Third, real people don’t have stable well-ordered preferences as assumed by neoclassical economic theory. Decisions depend on framing and context as much as the specifics of the alternatives.

In other words, changing the way fast-thinking real humans view climate change can be a slow process. Thinking Fast and Slow really is a must read for those who want to try.

LA's Trash Bureau Recommends Important Step for City's Waste

2012-02-08T21:09:10Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Yesterday, the Bureau of Sanitation for the City of LA released its recommendations for fixing the inefficiencies in LA’s waste system. After more than a year of careful consideration, the Bureau determined that an exclusive franchise system with 11 franchise zones for the commercial and multi-family sectors would provide the best solution to increasing recycling and minimizing the burden that waste collection imposes on LA residents. As I have written before, the commercial and multi-family sectors are responsible for approximately 70% of the waste LA sends to landfills, so it is an important nut to crack to meet the City’s zero waste goals. I have written several blogs on this issue and on the benefits of going to zero waste ranging from reducing our dependence on polluting and space hogging landfills to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to creating more jobs. You can read these blogs, here, here, and here.

In discussing the Bureau’s recommendations with my colleagues from Sierra Club’s Zero Waste Committee in Los Angeles, we are immensely excited. If this passes through the Board of Public Works, this marks a bold statement from the City that it is serious about sustainability. It will serve as a key victory for environmentalists concerned about the impacts of waste on our land, water, air, and future generations. The proposed changes to the current inefficient system unlocks the potential to take LA to the next level of recycling and set us as a national leader.

The work doesn’t end if the Board of Public Works votes to approve the Bureau of Sanitation’s recommendations. Beyond the need for the decision to be approved by the LA City Council, there will be a lot more work to make sure the ultimate franchise system includes strong requirements. We need to continue to be vigilant to make sure LA’s waste industries are operating in a sustainable way. But, the ultimate conclusion from the Bureau’s recommendations is that the new program will shine a light onto an industry that has been shielded for a long time in LA. The proposed exclusive franchise system will make achieving LA’s waste reduction goals much easier because there will be greater transparency and accountability.

I cannot gloss over the fact that there will be those who do not want greater transparency and accountability. Mainly, these interests represent big business groups who will not stop in their efforts to maintain the status quo. These groups will even go so far as to create faux environmental organizations to make it seem like environmentalists support their band aid solution to a big problem. But in the end, we cannot let these parochial interests block progress. The Board of Public Works needs to implement a system that is fair and works for all LA residents and businesses, not just those in the private sector who have the resources to bark loudly and complain.

So, what are the next steps? On Monday morning, February 13, 2012, LA’s Board of Public Works will hear the recommendations from the Bureau of Sanitation and vote on whether to approve them. If approved, it will head to City Council. Strap in folks, the opponents will likely throw out all the stops, but some policies are worth running through the gauntlet. This is certainly one of them.

CBO Shows House Transportation Bill is Fiscally Reckless

2012-02-08T19:30:37Z

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director, Washington, D.C.

This week we have confirmation that the Republican Leadership has hijacked the transportation bill, with Congressman LaTourette of Ohio confirming that the bill was written by Speaker John Boehner (although LaTourette himself, along with many others, doesn’t support it). This helps to explain why the bill is larded with extreme measures, including bills passed last week that would annihilate dedicated funding for public transportation (see a report on that here) for the first time in thirty years, slash public oversight required thanks to the 40-year-old National Environmental Policy Act and for the first time ever tie the federal transportation program to speculative drilling revenue.

Thanks to the Congressional Budget Office, we now have an idea of just how fiscally irresponsible this last scheme would be. This nonpartisan group of green-eyeshade analysts has examined the three bills voted out by the Natural Resources Committee last week. Here’s what they find:

H.R. 3407, which would open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for new drilling would generate $1.5 billion in federal revenue during the House Republican Leadership transportation bill’s span 2012-1016;
H.R. 3408 which promotes commercially unproven oil shale drilling would generate $5 million (all in 2016); and
H.R. 3410 which mandates new drilling offshore would generate $508 million 2012-2016.

The grand total? A bit more than $2 billion over 5 years. This is DWARFED by the need. From 2008-2010 alone the Highway Trust Fund had to be shored up with $35 billion of transfers from the general fund. Here’s a graph showing the future of the fund as projected by CBO last summer:

In other words, these bills touted as the panacea for a revenue-starved transportation program don’t prop the program up at all! As Taxpayers for Common Sense has noted this is fiscally reckless. And as they, along with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Reason Foundation and NRDC have noted, it violates the “user pays” funding principle that has underpinned transportation investments for at least the past half-century.

Fiscally reckless. Environmentally damaging. Attacks anyone who rides transit, walks, or bikes by swiping funding for those options. It’s time to kill this bill.