This great handbook provides some quantitative research on difference approaches to dealing with the significant rise in gas prices our affliction of asking the government to come to the rescue…
Appropriate Response To Rising Fuel Prices
This paper evaluates public policy options for responding to rising fuel prices. Price-minimization policies tend to harm consumers and the economy by encouraging transportation system inefficiency.
Guest Post from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Court Rules Against Automakers; Defends California Tailpipe Law
Fed Court Rules States Can Regulate Tailpipe Emissions BERKELEY, California (December 12, 2007) — Today a federal judge threw out an auto industry challenge to a California law requiring automakers to cut vehicle global warming pollution. Federal District Court Judge Anthony Ishii in Fresno rejected U.S. automakers’ claims that federal law pre-empts the state standards.“Three strikes and you’re out,” said Patricia Monahan, deputy director of the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). “With today’s decision, three federal courts have now ruled against the auto industry’s bogus claims.”
“This historic ruling comes on the heels of two other recent court decisions supporting the regulation of vehicle global warming pollution. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that vehicles’ global warming emissions are pollutants that can and should be regulated. In August, a federal judge in Vermont ruled against the automakers by upholding states’ rights to regulate vehicle global warming pollution.
Regardless, the Bush administration has stepped up its efforts to undermine federal and state efforts to regulate global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act. Most recently, the administration has threatened to veto energy legislation that directs the Department of Transportation (DOT) to raise fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The administration claims that these fuel economy standards would conflict with existing efforts to regulate vehicle global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act.”
Great job - lets continue to push the envelope to reduce our VMT as well as improve our efficiency!
What’s land got to do with it?
Because climate change is the “ultimate externality,” as MIT’s Robert Solow has put it, the world of land policy faces complex questions. How much impact does land use have on emissions and energy efficiency? If one city, region or state ties land policies to reducing emissions, will the impact be diluted because the neighboring jurisdiction does not? Are other things more central in the climate debate, such as continued international reliance on coal-fired power plants or the price on carbon?
Those were some of the questions that planners and policy leaders wrestled with at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s New England Smart Growth Leadership Forum, attended by about 100 people at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Nov. 1. In the conference, titled “Climate Change: The Emerging Role of Land Use,” Tufts University research professor Paul Kirshen catalogued the New England industries that are already feeling the results of changes in temperatures: fishing, blueberries and cranberries, maple sugar, dairy farms, and ski resorts to name a few. Steve Winkelman, manager of the transportation program at the Center for Clean Air Policy, explored “why sidewalks are as sexy as hybrids” - that is, how zoning, design, and transportation funding priorities can produce environments that reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). “Cars last 15 years,” he said. “A street grid is for a century.” Better ways of quantifying the relationships between the built environment and auto use are needed, he said.
In a panel discussion, Geoff Anderson, director of the EPA’s Development, Community and Environment Division, said in the years ahead a new measure may emerge, showing how development of various kinds affects greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. “I’d like to go to the Multiple Listing Service and see it right along with the property tax - how much am I going to drive if I live here?” he said. There may not be a silver bullet to counter the global warming challenge, said Beth Nagusky, project director of Grow Smart Maine, echoing comments by Bill McKibben, “smart growth may be the silver buckshot.”
Douglas I. Foy, former secretary of the Office for Commonwealth Development in Massachusetts and founding partner of the firm Serrafix, said in keynote remarks that the framework for land use and settlement patterns is slowly changing. “Congestion is a good thing, not a problem,” he said. The goal of transportation policy should shift from mobility to “being there,” in walkable or transit-accessible environments.
Armando Carbonell, chair of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute, said there was clearly a role for land policy and cities in the challenge of climate change. “It may be useful to think of cities as great carbon-reduction machines,” Carbonell said. “We’ve got to fix the cars, but we’ve also got to address VMT growth, and that is done by providing environments where one can walk or take transit. Planners are on the supply side of the problem, providing places for people to live with lots of amenities and diversity in housing - and by the way, such attributes are increasingly in demand anyway.”
There may well be a cap-and-trade regime in place in the years ahead and a price on carbon, he said, and at that time urban environments will be even more in demand.
The real estate industry has begun to come to grips with climate change, largely for business reasons. At a recent Urban Land Institute conference, industry leaders expressed concern that office space and other buildings will be obsolete fairly soon because they lack “green building” features. Rising sea levels are also seen as a threat to extensive property holdings in coastal cities.
The Lincoln Institute continues to be engaged on land use and climate change, convening 30 big city planners to share best practices in climate action plans, sponsoring research by New Orleans recovery director Ed Blakely on how urban planning must adapt to the inevitable impacts of global warming, and participating in the Superstition Vistas project on 275 square miles of desert state trust lands in Arizona, new development with a goal of being carbon-neutral.
http://www.lincolninst.edu/news/atlincolnhouse.asp
Tonight the local Chittenden County crowd was treated to a discussion with Senator Bernie Sanders at the 2007 CCMPO Annual Meeting. Sanders brought the rather progressive discussion from the Executive Director Scott Johnstone up a level by providing some legitimacy of federal policy and probably more importantly ..dollars to the discussion.
Much as the ULI’s annual meeting discussed transportation as it relates to land use - the more fundamental discussion is based on finding money to pay for transportation infrastructure that pretty much everyone agrees is necessary. The ULI discussion highlights comments from John Horsley from AASHTO discussing the VMT method of fees - but says it is out of reach for 10 to 20 years…
John Horsley, executive director of the American Association State
Highway and Transportation Officials, pointed out the impending crisis
at the federal level, a consequence of rapid increases in the price of
materials needed in construction and a flat gas tax per gallon which
has not been raised in 14 years. The highway trust fund is expected to
generate less income than planned spending by 2009, a deficit which
would cause sharp reductions in funding to states. New approaches for
charging drivers, such as by miles driven, may be more effective in the
10-20 year period, but for now AASHTO is calling for a 10-cent increase
in the federal gas tax to restore its buying power.
Come on… 10 to 20 years for a sustainable funding mechanism to be established? This could be established much sooner than that if people are willing to move forward and face the future.
Senator Sanders discussed his future role in the next transportation bill and mention that impacts from global warming, supporting transit, and moving people from their SOVs are intentions - however - given the recent reports from AASHTO and ASCE of the inadequacy of our current transportation infrastructure - significant pressure is being placed on highway infrastructure replacement. While this is of course an extremely important area we much address - but, perhaps first we need to decide … when is it time to NOT replace some infrastructure. The Operation and Maintaince of our current system is tremoundous, and the costs of maintaining it will only continue to increase given the future demand for oil based materials will increase in cost.
I urged the Senator to use the term Sprawl in his discussions in the next transportation bill. This term should be used to denote the unsustainable land use and development patterns leading to inefficient transportation systems (only one significant cost of sprawl).
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The ULI does it again in this piece from their annual meeting held in the urban sprawling metropolis of Las Vegas…
http://thegroundfloor.typepad.com/the_ground_floor/2007/10/gen-y-and-housi.html
The first observations are interesting to note. I don’t know where they obtained these data and how valid they are, but I can relate to what these data indicate. The vast majority of my colleagues and friends desire similar such areas to find a home.
Some takeaways from this session:
What Gen Y members don’t want: big houses on big lots, isolated from everything.
What they do want:
housing that fulfills their need for instant access and convenience.With the oldest members of Generation Y (those in their mid-20s)
starting to enter the housing market, the characteristics of this
demanding, strong-willed generation provide many clues to their
preferences in living arrangements.
For instance, they:Favor the quirky, unique and different.
Seek diversity in all aspects of their lives.
Prefer urban over suburban environments.
Multi-task (One observation: “Most don’t wear watches because watches only do one thing.”
The second interesting observation is the change in demographics - changing households from couples, young males being replaced by single-women households.
One key signal of a housing shakeup resulting from Gen Y: changes in
household formation and more single Gen Y women entering the housing
market. In the years ahead, look for the decades-long prevalence of
married couples with children to be increasingly replaced with
single-women households. With more women than men now graduating from
college, women in many markets will soon be making more than men,
placing women in a position of affluence and authority that will affect
housing decisions. Because they will likely delay marriage to pursue
careers, their housing choices will be far different than those made by
their baby boomer mothers. The likely favorite: close-in multifamily
rental or for-sale units in mixed-use communities that emphasize
communal space and social interaction. “This bodes well for urban
communities,” one panelist said.
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This post from the economist Greg Mankiw helps to describe a bit of the recent phenomenon of high oil/gas prices and the seeming resiliency of the US Economy (… at least stock market).
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/10/where-have-all-oil-shocks-gone.html
Where have all the oil shocks gone?
Oil prices are near record highs, which raises a fascinating question. In recent years, the U.S. and world economies have typically shrugged off oil price increases. By contrast, oil price increases are a major part of the conventional story of the economic turmoil of the 1970s. Why the difference?
We economists do not have a complete answer, but we have some clues. One important clue is below (via Carpe Diem):
The economy is far more energy-efficient today than it was in the past, in part because economic activity is based more on services and less on manufacturing. As a result, energy prices matter less today.
In their research on the topic, Blanchard and Gali also give credit to more flexible labor markets, better monetary policy, and a bit of luck.
Another hypothesis: The macroeconomic effect of high energy prices may depend on whether the high prices are the result of reduced supply or increased demand. Perhaps in the 1970s high oil prices were largely the result of supply restrictions, whereas in recent years high oil prices are driven more by increased demand from a booming world economy.
One final conjecture: Maybe the recent increase in oil prices has been less sudden, making it easier for other prices to adjust. In particular, it may not have affected the skewness in the distribution of relative-price changes in the same way as previous oil shocks did.
We have no shortage of theories. The definitive study on the macroeconomic effect of oil prices is still waiting to be written.
Recent news from the Environmental Building News bringing new studies to light regarding the full emissions profiles of Green Buildings - with the focus on Transportation.
That’s right—for an average office building in the United States, calculations done by
Environmental Building News (EBN) show that commuting by office workers accounts for 30% more energy than the building itself uses. For an average
new office building built to code, transportation accounts for more than
twice as much energy use as building operation.
LEED buildings - while a great step, and with recent advances in viable buildings with minimal GHG footprints - transportation remains the biggest hurdle to develop sustainable, green buildings. The article describes eight key factors that contribute to the energy intensity of buildings… “D-factors,”
including density, distance to transit, diversity of uses, and design
of streetscapes.
Given recent documented improvements in building efficiency can be done economically and marketed
The answer: for newly built multifamily housing, virtually all of it.
At the annual ULI Shaw Forum (endowed by the late Charlie Shaw) held
last week, Solara,
an affordable housing development in San Diego with 56 units and a
2,100 square foot community center, was showcased; its operating carbon
footprint has been reduced by 95%.
We still need to be aware of the location of our new buildings….
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UNH Professor John Carroll teaches in the UNH Department of Natural Resources.
Link to the article appearing on the 24th of September, 2007.
He reported the New Hampshire Department of Transportation will be cutting its maintenance budget by 30 percent because it is too costly to maintain roads when oil is $81 a barrel.
A couple of towns in New Hampshire have decided to revert to de-paving, or returning to gravel or dirt roads, because paving is so expensive, he said. While there are many alternative energy sources available such as wind, geothermal and solar, Carroll said combined they would only produce roughly half the amount of energy that is currently fueled by oil.
For the United States to move beyond its complete dependency on oil, Americans will have to make big changes, he said. Carroll touts localization, direct marketing, supporting and buying from local farmers.
He also said halting suburbanization and focusing on the rail system will alleviate the reliance on cheap oil.
Carroll promotes public transportation and would like to see bus lines increase in New Hampshire that are partially subsided while they build ridership.
At the lecture he handed out a schedule for the Amtrak Downeaster, to encourage people to use the train rather than drive.
“Actions speak louder than words,” he said. “The way you bear witness is better than what you advocate.”
the ideas of some areas of infrastructure not being maintained to the level that we all may except raises some serious questions for sustainability of small rural towns in New England. As the new, service based economy has moved to the urban areas - many rural communities have been left to fund their infrastructure on their own. As this article highlights the decisions are becoming difficult - such as not-paving roads and deferring needed infrastructure work.
These decisions affect the economy of the area by limiting the ability for trucks (the dominent mode of freight in rural areas) to reach communities and raising the costs of goods in the community.
this is the news of the Day - Vermont has the ability to set Emissions Targets!
Article - Courtesy of the Union of Concerned Scientists
September 12, 2007
Federal Court Rules Automakers Have Technology to Makes Cleaner Cars
Court Upholds State Tailpipe Standards to Curb Global Warming Pollution
WASHINGTON (September 12, 2007) - A federal judge in Vermont today ruled that states can regulate vehicle global warming pollution, rejecting U.S. automakers claims that they don’t have the technology to meet the new standards and that they are pre-empted by federal law.
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The judge, William K. Sessions, reviewed analysis by Union of Concerned Scientists when making his deliberations. Earlier this year, UCS unveiled a vehicle design, dubbed the Vanguard, which would exceed the state standard by cutting global warming pollution by more than 40 percent using conventional, off-the-shelf technology.
Below is a statement by Michelle Robinson, director of the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“This stunning ruling will be seen as a turning point in the fight to protect Americans from the worst consequences of global warming. Judge Sessions affirmed what we at the Union of Concerned Scientists have been saying for years: Automakers have the technology today to meet this global warming pollution standard in a cost-effective way. Vermont and 11 other states have been leading the way by adopting this standard that originated in California, and now the federal government should adopt a standard that is at least as stringent.
“Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency now has no excuse to stand in the way of state implementation. If the agency granted the necessary waiver, the dozen states that have adopted the standard would be able to cut as a much as 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020.”
