John Kasich has been on a tear lately…. a tear of endorsing Governor Strickland’s plan to Turnaround Ohio:
Starting at the 6:18 mark:
Kasich: “Now, Larry, at the same time, we talk about: how do you transition? In manufacturing, go up the value chain, you know, make parts for alternative energy, go into avontics and make parts for advanced aircraft. You know, there’s still a chance to make cars, but you just can’t rely on auto parts. You think about technology, our workers out here are good people, they’re smart people, we’ve got a great university system, we can get people from Silicon Valley to come here, but we have to improve the atmosphere in our State….”
I’ll agree with Keeling on this, the plan Kasich just described is a “homerun.” Only problem is that it’s Governor Strickland’s Turnaround Ohio plan.
You know who’s done a lot on promoting the manufacturing of alternative energy technologies in Ohio, John? Ted Strickland.
You know whose Administration already has done regulatory reform and got rid of thousands of overly burdensome and unproductive government regulations? Yep, Ted Strickland.
(BTW, at no time did John Kasich mention once his tax repeals… in an interview billed as “Kasich on Taxes.” He falsely said our budgets haven’t been balanced, when they are REQUIRED to be balanced. He claims Governor Strickland raised taxes… when he’s lowered them. So, not only is John Kasich running to the national media claiming a plan that is actually the Governor’s record, he’s then lying about the record.)
And I admit, I misjudged the extent John Kasich would try to co-opt Governor Strickland’s record as his own. I should have realized that when I didn’t see Jon Keeling writing post after post, Tweet after Tweet, condemning the Third Frontier, it meant that Kasich was going to sign onto it.
After all, John Kasich has wowed the Tea Party crowds throughout Ohio with his conservative populist message as being against “corporate welfare,” so much he claimed that he was a Tea Bagger First, a Republican second.
Except the Dayton Daily Newsreported this morning that the Kasich campaing has endorsed the compromise on Third Frontier worked out between Governor Strickland, the House Democrats, and the Senate Republican leaderships.
So, imagine the gall of Kasich when despite all this, he tries to pivot before the general election and claim that Governor Strickland has no plan to Turnaround Ohio.
Excuse me a minute, I’m sorry Mary Taylor has something she wants to say in response to concerns that Kasich-Taylor have no plans:
“[T]hey’re talking about a plan that doesn’t currently exist,” Taylor said.
Mary Taylor is right. It’s hard to criticize someone if they don’t have anything original to say…
Officials have said that this is sufficient funding to start passenger rail service among Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland by 2012.
Eventually, once there is a reliable source of dependable passenger rail service in Ohio, the 3C rail project is expected to be a precursor to a high-speed rail service.
There are unsubstantiated reports that a company will open a plant in the Columbus area to manufacture passenger rail cars needed for this project.
With nearly 25% of Ohio’s urban residents owning no vehicle of their own, passenger rail service will provide affordable statewide transportation. It’ll also be a boon to intrastate tourism.
Be sure to catch today’s must-read story in the Akron Beacon Journal about how there’s an international effort to develop wind power in Ohio as a direct result of policies enacted by Governor Strickland:
The state is aggressively pursuing wind as a new source of energy, jobs and economic development.
…
Six sprawling, large-scale wind farms with up to 436 towering turbines — and a price tag in excess of $2 billion — are proposed across western Ohio.
Although Ohio had lagged behind neighboring states in wind power, the passage of Strickland’s energy policy in 2008 has lead to surge in wind farm developments.
According to the ABJ, there are already four projects pending approval with the State with two more expected to be filed soon. One proposed project near Urbana alone is expected to generate as much electricity as a large nuclear plant or half of a large coal power plant.
According to some estimates, Ohio will get 3,000 to 4,000 additional large wind turbines.
About 20 wind-energy developers have been scouring western Ohio for several years in search of the best sites. The players involved include British, Spanish, German and Portuguese conglomerates with wind experience in Europe.
…
Ohio’s impending wind boom — triggered largely by that 2008 change in state law — is seen by some as a sign the state is moving toward cleaner, renewable energy and away from dirty, polluting coal that has ruled Ohio economically for decades.
…
Under Ohio’s ”advanced energy portfolio standard,” 25 percent of the state’s energy must come from advanced and renewable sources by 2025.
The law requires that Ohio’s investor-owned utilities, like FirstEnergy, obtain at least half of that power within the state. If wind accounts for 75 to 95 percent of that power, Ohio has created an instant market for 5,000 to 7,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity.
Governor Strickland ran in 2006 to bring just this kind of turnaround to Ohio. While other states, even Indiana, was willing to promote alternative energy like wind, Ohio was behind the curve. But Governor Strickland’s 2008 renewal energy portfolio mandate has had almost immediate impact in catching the State up and becoming a leader in a new energy economy.
My friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing directed me to this depressing article on the “Fastest Dying Cities” from Forbes. It says that Youngstown, Canton, Dayton and Cleveland are among the “worst” cities.
Luckily, AAM also linked me to this video about how this destruction of my home state can be reversed:
It looks like the federal government is extending a hand, but where are the companies – and the jobs? The fact that 84% of the stimulus money set aside for investing in clean energy has gone to foreign companies tells me something is lacking in our corporations and entrepreneurs (not to mention in the legislation)!
I know we can do better.
And unless everyone in Ohio simply wants to decide between a career as a stockbroker or a hamburger-flipper, we’d better speed things up. (Watch the 3-minute video to hear one of my heroes, Leo Gerard, on this career choice!)
According to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, more than 20,000 new manufacturing jobs can be created in Ohio in the coming years with investment in and from the “green†economy. Four town hall meetings – on June 23 in Cincinnati, June 24 in Findlay, June 25 in Canton and June 26 in Cleveland – will offer community members a chance to learn more about opportunities for high-paying domestic jobs in renewable energy, clean technology and “green†manufacturing, while also discussing environmental and economic risks associated with accelerated climate change.
In conjunction with Vice President Al Gore’s We Campaign, the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club (as part of their Blue Green Alliance) are hosting the town halls. Participants will share facts on global climate change, energy independence and green job opportunities locally, as well as offer ways community members can get more involved.
Thirteen town hall meetings are being held in cities across the country this month. If you are in the vicinity, stop by, learn more and contribute to the discussion. Details on each Green Jobs for America — We Can Solve It Town Hall Meetings…
CINCINNATI EVENT
Monday, June 23, 2008, from 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Laborer’s Hall
3457 Montgomery Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45207 Speakers will include:
USW District Director Dave McCall
Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper
Larry Feist, Cincinnati State
Matt Ryan, SEIU
Representative from the Climate Project
FINDLAY EVENT
Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 7:00pm-8:30pm
USW Local 207L Union Hall
1130 Summit St.
Findlay, OH 45840 Speakers will include:
Dave Caldwell, USW
Kimberly Gibson, Ohio Energy Dept.
Findlay Mayor Pete Seinert
Donnie Blatt, USW (moderator)
Representative from the Climate Project
CANTON EVENT
Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 7:00pm-8:30pm
Golden Lodge
1234 Harrison Ave. SW
Canton, OH 44708 Speakers will include:
Ken Riley, The Climate Project
Dennis Brommer, USW
George Calko, Blue Green Alliance
Randy Feemster, Timken Company
Bryan Bell, AFL-CIO (moderator)
CLEVELAND EVENT
Thursday, June 26, 2008, 7:00pm-9:00pm
Sachsenheim Hall
7001 Denison Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44102 Speakers will include:
Eric Schreiber, The Climate Project
Dave Caldwell, USW
Pam Rosado, Policy Matters Ohio
Marnie Urso, Audubon Ohio
Teresa McHugh, Sierra Club
Donnie Blatt, USW (moderator)
Yes, gas prices are much higher than they used to be.
And yes, the cost of fuel is impacting the cost of groceries and everything else we buy.
But maybe the news isn’t all that bad.
For starters, most of Europe has always paid WAY more than we do, even with the latest jump in U.S. gas prices.
For example, drivers in Paris pay $5.54 per gallon. In London it’s $5.79 per gallon. And in Amsterdam they pay a whopping $6.48 per gallon.
Which could explain why so many people ride bikes in Amsterdam.
Which brings me to my point: we’ve had it too easy for too long.
An unending supply of cheap gas is the reason we ripped up all of our efficient electric street cars and interurban railroads and replaced them with roads.
But it looks like the rising cost of fuel might actually help solve the mess of poorly planned and unsustainable suburban sprawl that resulted when we abandoned our urban public transport systems.
As Nick at BSB points out, higher gas prices seem to be the reason that recent USDOT stats show Americans are finally driving less and taking public transit more.
High gas prices have caused “the largest drop in miles driven by Americans ever in the 66 year history of [DOT records]” as well as “the highest usage of public transportation in 50 years”.
In addition, high fuel prices have driven investment in alternative energy companies and pushed lawmakers to offer big tax breaks for renewable energy.
Isn’t this what we’ve been working toward for years? Getting people to drive less and use more renewable energy?
It sounds to me like higher fuel prices might actually be the best thing to happen to the environment in a long, long time.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) has introduced a bill called the Greenhouse Gas Emission Atmospheric Removal (or GEAR) Act. GEAR is designed to provide for bounties to be awarded to whomever accomplishes a specific task first – in this case scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere to counteract pollution from human activity.
“Wherever you find yourself on the issue of climate change,†the senator said in a press release, “we can agree on one important dynamic – change awaits us.â€
The bill would not aim to fund development of removing GHG emissions – the byproduct of hydrocarbon, or fossil fuel – but would incentivize gains made in the field with money rewards.
Awards would go to both public and private entities that have success in designing new technologies to remove and sequester GHG gases from the atmosphere.
I feel that bounties are a terrific way to provide incentives for people to enter emerging markets (and invest money in new technology develoment), and are a great tool in the market manipulation toolkit (alongside more traditional regulatory measures). The bill itself (S.2614) is short on specifics, but establishes a Commission within DoE responsible for formulating specific bounty values and targets, and stipulates that the government will have a stake in the intellectual property that wins the bounty (or bounties).
I suspect that at best conservatives will think that this is the full extent of what can and should be done by the government to address global climate change, and at worst that they’ll oppose this because it requires acknowledging that global climate change is a real issue and spending government dollars on that problem. Regardless, this is a good bill that does not prevent us from taking other simultaneous action, and I would hope it garners wide support. We’ll see if it makes it out of committee.
When is this “liberal media” meme going to die? Would a true “liberal media”, that is allegedly trying to cram a liberal POV down the throats of their consumers ever do something like this?
In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.â€
At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? “Slow down our economy�
Isn’t that the conservative meme towards global warming? That fighting it requires crippling our economy? If you believe what ABC reported Clinton said, it feeds directly into GOP talking points:
“Senator Clinton’s campaign now says we must ’slow down the economy’ to stop global warming,†said Alex Conant, RNC Spokesman. “Clinton needs to come back to Earth. Her ‘tax-it, spend-it, regulate-it’ attitude would really bring the economy crashing down. No amount of special effects will hide Clinton’s liberal record.â€
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton did NOT say that we have to slow our economy to fight global warming. Here’s what he actually said, in context.
Everybody knows that global warming is real, but we cannot solve it alone.
And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.
But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.
And guess what? The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn’t. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future… If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She’ll give it to you. She’s got the right energy plan.
To paraphrase what Bill said, in his own words from another speech…
“We are not asking you to change your economic growth rate, we’re asking you to change the way you grow.â€
Sheesh. Bill says “Promoting green policy will grow the economy”, and it’s reported as the exact opposite. What a joke.
An oft-repeated claim of the right is that government regulation of private industry stifles innovation, and it has a certain ring of truthiness to it. But, as with most things truthy, the truth often doesn’t play along.
Sulfur Dioxide pollution has significant externalities – acid rain, which often presents itself far far away from the site of the polluter. In this instance, regulation made this hidden cost effectively a real cost to the polluter – and so they innovated in the field of SO2 emissions reduction to figure out how to avoid the costs associated with SO2 pollution. One commenter compared regulation to a change in natural environment, which will result in industry “evolving” to overcome the new “selection” criteria. That’s actually an astonishingly insightful comparison. The concept of evolutionary economics wasn’t one covered in my one quarter of econ in college.
But it seems to make a heck of a lot of sense. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or even an economist) to hold classical “free trade” economics up to the real world and notice that the two things don’t exactly work the same. In doing some research about evolutionary economics, I stumbled across this book: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. Unfortunately, it’s not available yet, but the Columbus Public Library has copies on the way. I’m #3 on the waitlist. It’ll be interesting to see what the book has to say about this topic.
Did you ever wonder about who the big polluters are in Ohio? Well, the EPA has provided an easy way to visualize that data in Google Earth. For example, I downloaded the Ohio data for NOx emissions (in tons) and took two images of Ohio, one statewide and another focusing on Franklin County. NOx might not be the most interesting thing to track, but it’ll do for demonstration purposes.
First, statewide:
You’ll note that most of Ohio’s polluters (of NOx, anyway) are power generation plants. The higher the line, the more tons of NOx produced. Next, a close up of Franklin County:
You’ll note there aren’t any major polluters of NOx in the Columbus area, but you can see Lake Erie area polluters in the background.
This is an example of competent government – providing data to citizens in an easy to use and understand format to foster transparency. This is one of the important things our tax money pays for, and the kind of stuff Obama is talking about when he talks about data access for citizens. We want more of this, in all areas, and less of the Bush Administration’s typical secrecy.
JSOnline – Nov. 9, 2007 – Frustrated by inaction in Congress on global warming, Midwest governors will convene in Milwaukee next week to craft a regionwide strategy to curb greenhouse gas emissions and boost renewable energy.
The Midwestern Governors Association Energy Summit will take place Wednesday and Thursday at the Pfister Hotel. The event is being led by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican.
Hey Ted! Ya’ Goin’? Love to see some leadership on this.
The excellent (and must-read) ClimateProgress has a terrific debunking of the “Hummer has a lower lifecycle cost than a Prius” BS. My favorite part:
Their website says the report “does not include issues of gigajuelles [sic!], kW hours or other unfriendly (to consumers) terms. Perhaps, in time, we will release our data in such technical terms. First, however, we will only look at the energy consumption cost.”
Wouldn’t want to confuse consumers with unfriendly technical stuff such as kilowatt-hours like those annoying electric utilities do every month. No. Let’s put everything in dollar terms so no one can reproduce our results. When you misspell gigajoules on your website — and have for a long time (try googling “gigajuelles”), you aren’t the most technical bunch.
gigajuelles? Seriously? Man, as a trained Electrical Engineer, that cracks my shit up.
Nothing to see here. Please move along. Resource wars this way –> Business as usual is this way < --
Last autumn-winter season was Europe’s warmest for more than 700 years, researchers say.
The last time Europeans saw similar temperatures to the autumn and winter of 2006-07, they were eating strawberries at Christmas in 1289, according to Jürg Luterbacher at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and colleagues.
Wingnuts say it together with me one time:
Strawberries at Christmas? Ain’t that a good thang?
Wingnut bloggers are always looking for something to call treason. Bi-partisan trips to Syria is one that comes to mind. You want treason? I’ll give you treason:
WASHINGTON, June 14 — Senate Democrats, facing their first significant battle over a wide-ranging bill intended to reduce oil consumption, found themselves blocked by Republicans on Thursday and postponed all significant votes until next week.
Filibuster this. Filibuster that. It’s almost like they are pissed the American people spoke and gave the Congress a mandate to move away from disastrous Republican policy.
Treason.
We’re entrenched in a war in a part of the world we’d give two shits about if it weren’t for our dependence on oil. To filibuster measures to reduce our consumption – and dependence – on oil is stone cold treason.
This is not just a tree hugger versus SUV driver battle here. This is a national security matter. Blocking such is fucking TREASON. Real leadership would recognize the security and environmental reasons for diversifying our energy generation methods. It’s hard to display real leadership when you have a bunch of spoiled brats throwing fits in Congress.
But it seems to make a heck of a lot of sense. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or even an economist) to hold classical “free trade” economics up to the real world and notice that the two things don’t exactly work the same. In doing some research about evolutionary economics, I stumbled across this book: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. Unfortunately, it’s not available yet, but the Columbus Public Library has copies on the way. I’m #3 on the waitlist. It’ll be interesting to see what the book has to say about this topic.
