The joining of the No-Tax crowd with the Greens

Proposition 1 failed last week. But there is no single reason why it failed, rather a coalition of normally opposed groups coming together to defeat a large umbrella project that would have cost billions with no accountability.

A letter written to the Seattle Times:

It should be readily apparent to even the densest Democrat that the results of Tuesday’s election are saying loud and clear: NO MORE TAXES FOR LIGHT RAIL, RAPID TRANSIT, STAGECOACH OR ANY OTHER FORM OF MASS TRANSPORT!

This society is not a society of cattle-car movement. We are not going to abandon our cars to satisfy the ego of politicians aspiring to be amateur social engineers at any level of government, and those who persist on this course of action will find themselves unelected next November.

Get back on the job and give us more freeways and better and safer bridges.

Have done with the foo-foo hand-wringing and procrastination and get on with the job.

Another letter tried to claim that the reason the measure failed was not because of environmental concerns. Really? Because environmental concerns about unchecked and unsustainable development are exactly why I opposed Prop 1. I liked the parts of the proposal that called for better mass transit and disdain the attitude that voters are unwilling to “abandon our cars” even facing rising gas prices and environmental harm. I opposed the measure because of the massive expansion of freeways, not increased spending on mass transit. It seems that the author of this letter felt the opposite way. This is why Prop 1 was such a debacle. Put these separate issues in separate ballot measures and see which ones get passed. If there really is opposition to light rail that measure will fail. If there is enough support for expanding suburban freeways a freeway proposition will pass.

If the fallout and varying opinions on Prop 1 teach Washington politicians anything it should be that you can’t bundle many issues (each with their own support and opposition) together and expect to get a clear picture of what voters are thinking. Put light-rail on the ballot by itself. I’ll vote for it.

Voters turn down spending, higher taxes

Both here in Washington and in Oregon some big ballot measures just failed (as well as around the country). The most notable are Proposition 1, a huge transportation expansion measure, and a SCHIP-like bill in Oregon. Additionally, several other measures failed all over the country. There are numerous explanations for why each measure failed, the NY Times attributed the failure of the Oregon healthcare initiative to deceptive advertising opposing the measure that was financed by Big Tobacco. What the Times doesn’t mention is that the tobacco companies opposed the measure by portraying it as a “blank check” for the government.

The NY Times uses the opportunity to decry the role of money in politics, since supporters of the measure could only send 25% of what opponents could. This logic doesn’t hold, however, when you look at the fund raising and spending done for and against Proposition 1 in Washington. Proponents spent far more money than the opposition and the measure still failed. Along with it, a state constitutional amendment requiring a portion of revenues be put into a hard-to-tap “rainy day fund” passed, a measure requiring a 2/3 majority to raise taxes also passed, and a measure to reduce the threshold from 60% to 50% to raise school taxes looks like it will fail (not all votes have been counted yet).

For me it looks like people are asking the government for more fiscal restraint as voters were unwilling to approve massive bills that could raise money for any number of projects. Personally? I opposed Proposition 1 and I’m glad it failed. My main problem with it was that it lumped too many things together. Want to build a light-rail system to supplement I-5? Sure! Put it on the ballot by itself and I’ll vote for it. But don’t try to lump in a massive expansion of 405 that will encourage suburban sprawl and do very little to help reduce gasoline consumption or CO2 emissions. More roads mean more cars, not less.

The bottom line for me? There are many reasons why certain measures passed and certain measures failed, but I think that they all revolve around the fact that voters are getting more and more skeptical of expanding government spending, especially in non-specific bundles, and the higher taxes that go along with it. I would have voted for a measure to expand light rail, and against one to expand freeways. But because they were lumped together I could do neither. I’m sure some people would have voted the opposite way. But at least we’d know which projects have popular support and which don’t. But asking for billions for a laundry list of projects turned out to be too much to ask.

For Whom Are We Saving The Planet?

Global warming is real. The evidence points to the fact that humans are contributing to it, although the magnitude of our contribution remains a point of contention. That is not the point of this post. I believe we should do what we can to reduce our emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere as much as is practically possible. We should conserve natural resources and find sustainable methods of production and sources of energy.

But we should not forget the end goal of saving the planet: allowing us to continue to live here. Saving the planet is not an end unto itself. Saving the planet is a means by which we hope to maintain an inhabitable place for humans to exist. Every argument about why global warming is bad stems from self-interest: rising sea levels will flood our coastal cities (people losing their homes), global warming will cause droughts and crop failures (people won’t have enough food or water), global warming will cause more intense storms (people will lose their homes and lives to massive hurricanes). All of reasons for stopping global warming are selfish, as they should be. Groups like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement are missing the point.  We are saving the planet for ourselves, our own selfish reasons.

What is the point of reversing global warming if it means that we have to forego all the luxuries that modern technology has afforded us?  It doesn’t make sense to provide for our own existence if that very existence is undesirable.  The point of pursuing sustainability is so that we can continue to do things forever.  Saving the planet and curbing global warming are laudable pursuits, but we should not forget what the real end goal is.

Give It A Rest…

The Gristmill blog had an interesting post today about how oil companies are resorting to “extortion” to keep renewable energy bills from going through Congress by warning that government mandates reducing gasoline consumption by 20% may force them to re-evaluate planned refinery expansions.

Does David Roberts really think that oil industry executive is going to sit there and say “Oh gee, let me invest billions of dollars in projects that you are actively making less profitable for me so you can continue to pander to your constituents who don’t understand basic economics. Sure thing! I’ll even smile at you from the unemployment line when the board and shareholders fire me for being such a bonehead!”?

This isn’t extortion; it’s business. If a project becomes less profitable because of government action companies will have to look at whether or not it’s still a good idea. Cheap gasoline is not a right in this country no matter how much people want it to be or how much politicians imply that it is. Oil companies should not be vilified for making smart business decisions in the face of legislation directly aimed at reducing its sales by one fifth.

Besides, who said high gas prices were such a bad thing? High gas prices force people to re-prioritize, hopefully cut back on their consumption, and give alternatives a second look. When prices got really high in the wake of Katrina I traded in my gas-guzzling SUV for a station wagon and started riding the bus 20 miles to school instead of driving. Now that I live in Seattle I ride my bike to work most days and will mostly take to bus to work starting next week when I start my new job. I just don’t want to have to pay that much to drive. We need to start weening ourself off gasoline and focusing on alternatives and high gas prices are a great way to start.

Maybe China Has The Right Idea

So China is now placing a moritorium on producing bio-fuel from food crops amid concerns that it is driving up the prices of just about every other food product out there. (link here) China with its population of more than 1 billion people has a tougher time feeding its population than the US does but it seems kinda funny that China would see through the ethanol hype before US politicians.

The end of the article has some fun facts about ethanol, some of which I guess are supposed to be in support of continued ethanol use and promotion. One in particular struck me: the fact that ethanol produces 18-29% lower GHG emissions per gallon than fossil fuels. What is ignored is that the lower energy content of ethanol reduces gas mileage by a significant amount, some anecdotal evidence suggesting as much as 30-40%. If that is the case than using ethanol would actually produce MORE greenhouse gases than conventional gasoline (but don’t tell that to the industrial farmers getting rich off higher corn prices). If anyone has any specific studies that have looked into this I would love to see them (just post a link in the comments).

Wind vs. Nuclear: Not Even The Same Ballpark

Here is interesting essay and rebuttal exchange discussing the pros and cons of nuclear energy as a way of combatting climate change as an alternate source of energy going forward in the 21st century. While the debate itself is interesting, I found the discussion of wind energy as an alternative to nuclear to be worthy of greater attention (this discussion is found almost entirely in the “con” essay).

Currently nuclear power accounts for roughly twenty percent of the electricity generated in the United States. Wind power accounts for less than one percent of US electricity. The con essay suggests that wind power is already comparable to natural gas and new nuclear power plants in term of cost: between 4 and 6 cents per kilowatt hour. The essay also mentions but then conveniently forgets that that is the cost of production at “favorable sites”, neglecting to provide even a hint of definition or idea of how many unexploited “favorable sites” remain. The essay then goes on to suggest that with very little change in the existing electricity grid wind power could produce 15-20 percent of the nations electricity. To suggest that an already heavily subsidized energy source could easily go from producing less than 1% of our need to producing almost one fifth of the nations power with only “the proper priorities on upgrading the transmission and distribution infrastructure and changing regulations” seems overly optimistic.

One reason that I cannot see wind energy producing even close to 20% of our electricity is the simple fact that the wind does not blow all the time even at “favorable sites”. Imagine having one fifth of our electrical generation capacity dependent on the weather. The authors suggest storage mechanisms as a remedy, such as “new energy storage facilities” or pumped hydro-power resevoirs (these are shot down quite well in the rebuttal at the end). Nuclear energy is clean, efficient, and reliable. For that reason alone wind power will not be a suitable alternative, barring a series of major techonological innovations in electrical transmission and storage. If we are going to solve the problems of growing demand for power with clean solutions we need ideas that don’t involve covering North Dakota with windmills.

Ethanol: Long Term Benefits for Short-Term Headaches

Legislation is making its way through Congress concerning “green”energy sources, specifically wind and solar for electricity and ethanol as a substitute for gasoline. Included in this bill are targets for reducing gasoline consumption within the United States. The first target is to cut gasoline consumption by 20% within the next 10 years. Ignoring the fact that Congress has a habit of setting benchmarks with little to no basis in fact or possibility and revising them later, this is significant. First, laudably, Congress is finally getting off its ass and trying to do something about burning fossil fuels in the long term. Second, and mostly ignored by the majority of people, are the short term affects that these goals will have on the current market for transportation fuel, specifically gasoline.

Anyone who has been to a gas station recently has noticed a huge increase in the price of gasoline. In the two and a half months I have lived in Seattle gas prices have jumped nearly 75 cents per gallon. Simply put, this is because at previous prices companies could not produce as much gasoline as people wanted to buy. As anyone who has taken even two weeks of an economics course knows, when demand exceeds supply prices rise. The United States simply does not have the capacity, specifically refining capacity, to produce enough gasoline to meet demand at low prices. So prices rise and eventually enough people cut down on gasoline consumption so that the quanitity demand equals quanitity supplied (see Chapters 1 and 2 of any economics textbook). The simplest way to bring gas prices back down would be to increase the amount of gasoline produced. Much easier said than done.

To say that builidng a refinery in this country during the last 25 years has been a major headache would be a massive understatement. Besides environmental regulations there is also the problem of the “not in my backyard” mentality: residents never want a refinery built in their neighborhood. Now a new addition to the list: goverment mandated reduction of gasoline consumption, which hurts the potential future cash flows from the refinery. Reducing gasoline consumption and substituting cleaner burning fuels are worthwhile goals to be sure, but while we are promoting these thing for the long term we are removing incentives for oil companies to increase the supply of gasoline in the short term as well as the long. We want cleaner fuels but we have to put up with the headache of high gas prices for a while if we want to get there.

Just a side note: I wanted to include a rather enlightened and appropriate quote I found today on someone else’s blog:

“If you have voted for, or even applauded, conservation efforts that block or resist drilling in Alaska, if you don’t want refineries on your skyline, then you don’t deserve to complain about gasoline or other energy prices. If you plan to take a vacation anywhere this summer that requires driving or flying, if you’re even driving to the lake or the park for the day, you’re adding to the seasonal price swing. Your choices and your priorities are your own, and I’m not criticizing them. But you cannot claim the moral high ground and then complain about the cost.”