Great Developments in Emission Reduction

This happened a couple days ago, but as it's crucial that the clean-truck program at two of the nation's busiest ports go forward, I think it's significant:

A federal court judge in Los Angeles on Monday tentatively denied a trucking association's bid to block a landmark clean-truck program at the nation's busiest port complex.

After a 40-minute hearing, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder said she would probably allow the program to move forward, despite objections from truckers.

"The balance of hardships and the public interest tip decidedly in favor of denying the injunction," she said in court.

Under the program, the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would upgrade their aging fleet of about 16,800 mostly dilapidated rigs that produce much of the diesel pollution in Southern California.

Though the American Trucking Association is opposing the bill and filed the attempted injunction, the clean-ports program was borne of a true blue-green alliance between labor and environmental groups, which is the next level of how we're going to fight climate change in this country and build millions of new green-collar jobs. The courts are now on the record as saying that reducing greenhouse gas emissions are in the public interest. And the ATA is being a little coy here - a good number of the trucking firms are already upgrading, so their injunction effort was meant to satisfy a few big corporations. It didn't work.

The second exciting development is SB 375, which for the first time links emissions to urban planning, and could easily become a model for the nation. We have to make sure it's signed into law, of course, but if and when it is, it will represent a great leap forward for the environment, live/work issues, quality of life, and traffic reduction.

The measure, known as SB375, aims to give existing and new high-density centers where people live, work and shop top priority in receiving local, state and federal transportation funds. The idea is that such developments check sprawl and ease commutes, in turn cutting the car pollution wafting through the Golden State.

Authored by Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), the bill reflects California's push to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Sponsors say the measure is part of a much-needed growth policy for a state whose population is expected to swell to 50 million from the current 38 million in two decades.

"Many places across the country have realized that if you just build spread-out developments, with the expectation that everyone will have to drive for everything, it should be no surprise when the result is excessive burning of gasoline," said David Goldberg, spokesman for Smart Growth America, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that helps cities and towns plan more workable, environmentally friendly growth.

"SB375 breaks new ground, because it specifically links that pattern of development to excess driving and what we need to do to address climate change," he said.

Instead of trying to capture more resources every time there's an energy shortage, we can reorganize our lives to maximize existing resources while making our lifestyles far less stressful and more pleasant. It's the solution that works on all fronts.

The budget madness is super-depressing, but these developments are cause for optimism.

We Still All Live In Richard Pombo's District

In 2006, one of the rallying cries of the liberal blogosphere was to dump Richard Pombo (R-CA), then the chair of the House Natural Resources committee. He had a number of crackpot anti-environmental ideas, not the least of which was to eliminate independent review of development projects to determine whether they would harm endangered species. It was a broadside against the Endangered Species Act, and it was one of the proposals that led a host of enviro groups and a lot of talent in the netroots to work for Jerry McNerney's ouster of Pombo, which was successful.

Two years later, we have a craptacular Congressman in McNerney, and the President is picking up where Pombo left off:

The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.

The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day per comment period, would use administrative powers to make broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.

This is one of those end-of-the-session goodies that we all expected Bush to hand out to his friends on the way out the door. He's been making the world safe for corporations and developers by eliminating regulatory restrictions and making their tax bills go poof (TWO-THIRDS of all corporations paid no federal taxes between 1998 and 2005 - that of course includes a couple Clinton years, so it's a bipartisan fealty to the corporate machine). In fact, it's not even the first time the Administration has tried to waive the Endangered Species Act - Michael Chertoff did it when pushing through construction permits for the fence on the Mexican border.

Price of liberty, eternal vigilance, etc. McNerney's election didn't cure everything and Bush's departure won't either. It's a never-ending battle.

Go West

The announcement today that Barack Obama will deliver his convention acceptance speech to a cheering crowd of 75,000 in Denver's Invesco Field is a telegraph that the Democratic nominee will concentrate a great deal of resources toward winning the West. There are increasing signs that the Rocky Mountain states are more winnable for a Democrat this year than in the recent past.

Superior voter mobilization is playing a role. Nevada's latest registration numbers show a five percent increase among Democrats over Republicans, a difference of 55,000 voters out of 1,000,000. In 2004, Republicans led in voter registration by one percent, and George Bush won the state by a touch more than that.

So are issues particular to the West. One of them is land use. When the Bush Administration is making closed-door deals to hand over hundreds of thousands of acres of forest to developers in the middle of Montana, residents are going to be angry, and take out those frustrations on the Republican Party. This subdivisioning of America simply won't stand among those Westerners who value open spaces and support land conservation.

Another major issue in the West concerns its natural libertarian streak. The quintessential Western Democratic candidate is a civil libertarian and a conservationist, who wants the rights of his citizens protected. Anchorage, AK mayor Mark Begich, running for the US Senate against Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens, is an example of this kind of Democrat, and his plan to protect citizens' rights looks like a political winner:

The Begich plan includes:

Standing Up Against Government Interference - including warrantless wiretapping, the assault on habeas corpus, the pursuit of Real ID cards, and retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that illegally helped the federal government spy on Americans.

No Surveillance on Law-Abiding Americans – Begich opposes efforts since 9/11 to take advantage of public fears, bypassing the courts and Congress to eavesdrop on Americans.

Repeal the Patriot Act – Begich believes national security resources should be built on human intelligence and Special Forces that will identify and respond to real threats of terrorism, not monitoring what books Americans read.

Restore Habeas Corpus – Begich called the Military Commissions Act, passed in 2006, the lowest point in our country’s response to the threat of terrorism. The Act suspends habeas corpus for millions of Americans, and that right needs to be restored.

There are as many electoral votes in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada as there are in Ohio. New Mexico is actually the ultimate swing state, having chosen the winner in 22 out of its 24 Presidential elections (and really 23, since it narrowly went for Gore). The opportunities in the West, including in places like Montana and Alaska, are very great, and Sen. Obama is showing a desire to press those advantages.

Density Comes To California

Via Matt Yglesias and Atrios, the city of Sebastopol is thinking about supporting increased density in their upcoming development plans.

The Sebastopol City Council kicked off deliberations of a controversial redevelopment plan Tuesday with a majority of members voicing support for higher-density buildings as the most environmentally sound approach.

"Density is what makes transit feasible, giving us the option of getting out of our cars," said Councilman Larry Robinson [...]

The redevelopment plan would allow 300 residential units and nearly 400,000 square feet of new business and civic space between the Laguna de Santa Rosa and downtown.

Supporters have said the plan encourages the most environmentally sound method of development and would help add economic vitality to the city.

This approach is not without critics. There remain those who consider tall buildings an urban blight, think that all development comes with traffic woes and want to maintain local "character" when talking about growth.

The point here is that we have to start to re-orient to a different kind of lifestyle. If basic necessities are within walking distance and a strong transit spoke can build out from denser development, the traffic problems are eliminated, the quality of life goes up, and people can get around and get to work without the need for their cars. Santa Monica is a pretty dense city, with several points of interest and commercial shops within walking distance and a strong bus system. It's not Manhattan and it doesn't have to be. But there's less of a reliance on the automobile, and ultimately reducing that reliance is the key to making us energy secure.

The alternative is areas like the Inland Empire, where runaway sprawl and persistent construction of single-family homes is not only unsustainable, it's unaffordable, as the mortgage crisis and soaring energy costs turn these developments into ghost towns. With 200 dollar-a-barrel oil on the horizon, urban planning simply cannot retain the status quo and expect to survive. There isn't one complete answer here - telecommuting and Internet delivery, increased mass transit (I can't wait for my subway to the sea), and density will all play a role. But we cannot sacrifice any of those options in the name of NIMBYism.

Disownership Society

There was a time a few years ago when I connected home ownership to a personal sense of accomplishment. I got a realtor and started going around and was ready to make the deal (the market has dropped 30% since then, so I was right to be wary). I couldn't get past the fact that the idea of this as a personal sense of accomplishment was really the only accomplishment. Buying a home, if done correctly, is a hedge against inflation, but in a market like we have currently even that isn't true. So I don't know if I view this retrenchment of home ownership as a bad thing, except for the fact that the backsliding is mostly due to foreclosure. Outside of intrinsic benefits I'm not sure that it's so desirable anymore.

The percentage of households headed by homeowners, which soared to a record 69.1 percent in 2005, fell to 67.8 percent this year, the sharpest decline in 20 years, according to census data through the end of March. By extension, the percentage of households headed by renters increased to 32.2 percent, from 30.9 percent.

The figures, while seemingly modest, reflect a significant shift in national housing trends, housing analysts say, with the notable gains in homeownership achieved under Mr. Bush all but vanishing over the last two years.

Rents have gone up, but buying a home with no money down and never lowering the principle is just renting your home from the bank. And Paul Krugman takes it a step further:

In effect, U.S. policy is based on the premise that everyone should be a homeowner. But here’s the thing: There are some real disadvantages to homeownership.

First of all, there’s the financial risk. Although it’s rarely put this way, borrowing to buy a home is like buying stocks on margin: if the market value of the house falls, the buyer can easily lose his or her entire stake.

This isn’t a hypothetical worry. From 2005 through 2007 alone — that is, at the peak of the housing bubble — more than 22 million Americans bought either new or existing houses. Now that the bubble has burst, many of those homebuyers have lost heavily on their investment. At this point there are probably around 10 million households with negative home equity — that is, with mortgages that exceed the value of their houses.

Owning a home also ties workers down. Even in the best of times, the costs and hassle of selling one home and buying another — one estimate put the average cost of a house move at more than $60,000 — tend to make workers reluctant to go where the jobs are.

And these are not the best of times. Right now, economic distress is concentrated in the states with the biggest housing busts: Florida and California have experienced much steeper rises in unemployment than the nation as a whole. Yet homeowners in these states are constrained from seeking opportunities elsewhere, because it’s very hard to sell their houses.

Finally, there’s the cost of commuting. Buying a home usually though not always means buying a single-family house in the suburbs, often a long way out, where land is cheap. In an age of $4 gas and concerns about climate change, that’s an increasingly problematic choice.

That last point is important, the exurbs are going to die out if we don't come up with energy solutions quick. You're going to see slums on the far edge of towns.

It's an interesting question. The fact that the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes homeownership and that renters basically pay for that means that it's established policy to encourage it. And yet it STILL comes fraught with risk. Maybe that risk is too great. Maybe we should rethink the policies that allow homeowners the ability to fail so easily. We have $76 billion dollars deprived from the federal treasury in mortgage deductions, some of that tied to second homes and vacation spots, and $0 on a rental deduction. Perhaps it's time we ask why. And maybe we should be subsidizing denser development and growth that lessens energy demand, and we could do that through the tax code.

CA-42: DCCC Hits Hard

Even in 2006, while I didn't always agree with the D-Trip's methods and which candidates they supported with cash, it was undeniable that their Web production and video team was top-notch. Here's another example, as they used a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain video of sleazy Republican Rep. Gary Miller (CA-42) begging the Monrovia City Council to buy his property. You'll recall that Miller's claim has always been that the city forced him to sell the property - a claim which saved him millions in taxes by having the sale fall under existing eminent domain laws.



Great job by the D-Trip to plow the ground for a challenge to the slimebucket Miller. Now we need a good candidate...

CA-42: WAAAAHHHHHH!

This might be the lamest story I've ever read (h/t TPM Muckraker). Start the sappy music... now:

Rep. Gary Miller (news, bio, voting record) grew up poor. Even though he's now worth more than $13 million, he says he's still worried about his family's financial security.

So, while federal authorities investigate some of his real estate transactions, he says he'll keep on making deals.

Thirteen million doesn't go far in this go-go world of ours, you see. I mean, just think, his great-grandchildren might have to GO TO WORK!

There's more, if you can stand it...

Miller, a fifth-term Republican representing conservative inland Southern California, said in an interview that he had put his real estate investment activities on hold upon entering politics, only to find that "I was worth less money every year."

"Some people are arguing I shouldn't have the opportunity to make an investment that every other American citizen has an opportunity to make," he said. "I've got kids, I've got grandkids, and it'd be nice, when I get ready to go, when they're older, if I can help them."

Yes, it'd be nice if they could burn $100 bills to light their cigarettes the way I do. It'd be nice if THEY could have an ice sculpture in the shape of a swan for their 14th birthday. It'd be nice if THEY would need a hand-cart for shopping at Barney's instead of just a small bag. I mean, think of my CHILDREN! They've never known how to not be rich!

Miller makes $165,200 a year sitting in Congress, by the way, so he's not exactly destitute even if he had to sell off his developer business tomorrow. That, and the $13 million in the bank.

Here's one of my other favorite lines from the article, where this guy's defender goes, "Hey, it's not like he broke the law, he just stretched it a bit. Until it broke."

To Miller's defenders, the whole controversy amounts to a bum rap.

"Any good businessman's going to push the envelope from time to time," said Frank Williams, executive officer of the Baldy View Chapter of the Building Industry Association in California. "That's part of dealmaking. It's not illegal."

Shorter Frank Williams: Breaking the law is not illegal.

And then there's the coup de grace:

Miller got into politics, he said, because he wanted to do something about government regulation on businesses...

Yeah, eliminate it.