Bacon's Rebellion

  • “Will Growth Shape You, or Will You Shape It?”

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    James A. Bacon

    Stafford County, a locality that epitomizes the phrase “dysfunctional human settlement patterns,” is inviting fresh ways of looking at growth as it works on a new comprehensive plan. In a public hearing Monday, a 12-member committee entertained such notions as walkable communities, town centers and mixed-use development.

    Jennifer Buske with the Stafford County Sun reported a number of spot-on comments during a public hearing Monday. Said Lee Quill of Cunningham-Quill Architects:

    “Stafford’s screaming for a sense of place. … The courthouse area has amazing resources and there is tremendous opportunity there to create a town center. … Stafford is growing, I don’t have to tell you that. … So the question is, will growth shape you or will you shape it?”

    “You will be surprised how little land is actually needed to create a great community,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Stafford has all the parts of a community – civic institutions, subdivisions, strip shopping, roadways and offices – yet they are so spread out that people must get into their cars to complete daily tasks. Mixed-use communities can place stores, schools, parks and other facilities within walking distance of homes.

    “Three-fourths of trips under one mile are made by car and it’s these trips that clog all the roads,” said Ted Smart of Maryland Development Company. “Small neighborhood centers can keep people off arterial roads.”

    Schwartz and Quill also sang the praises of grid street systems: “With a grid, you would be able to shut off a portion of Route 1 in your ‘downtown’ to hold multiple functions – like a parade,” Lee said. “The grid system allows the traffic to disperse.”

    Currently, such smart growth concepts are, in a word, illegal. Stafford planner James Stepowany told the committee that county ordinances and zoning definitions — setback and buffer requirements, height restrictions and other rules — might need to be changed to allow a town center to take shape.

    Moral of the story: Contemporary suburbia does not give consumers what they are looking for. It delivers what developers are allowed to build within the constraints of county codes. There is no free market in land development. There are regulations and subsidies but no free market.

  • Missing in Action

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    James A. Bacon

    At last, someone else in the Mainstream Media is asking the same question I’ve been asking: Where is Tim Kaine? The Governor has gone largely missing in action from the transportation debate during the 2007 session even though he has (a) the bully pulpit, (b) veto power, and (c) the allegiance of Democrats in the Senate and House of Delegates who, though they’re a minority, could tip the balance of power between warring Republican factions. Other than urging General Assembly members not to give up on a compromise, Kaine has contributed remarkably little to the debate himself — at least nothing that’s been reported by the press.

    Now comes the Washington Times with an interesting angle you won’t read anywhere else:

    “Virginia Republicans say Gov. Timothy M. Kaine should play a bigger role in helping lawmakers reach a compromise on the transportation budget.” Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, said Mr. Kaine has been “missing in action” and thinks he and fellow Democrats would rather see talks fail so they can rip Republicans this fall when all 140 seats of the General Assembly are up for election.

    “I’m not sure what role he has played,” Mr. Bolling said. “When you look at it, the only thing he has done has been counterproductive.” Mr. Bolling said Mr. Kaine offered a transportation proposal last month that was almost identical to a plan rejected last year.

    Kevin Hall, Kaine’s spokesman, insists that Kaine has “worked closely with leaders from both parties in both chambers” to reach a consensus. If so, his labors have been very quiet, behind the scenes and fruitless. Furthermore, whatever he has said, it has done very little to moderate the partisan rhetoric of Democratic legislators.

    I have no inside knowledge. I am merely imputing motives to Kaine based on actions, and I will happily retract my speculations should I hear convincing evidence to the contrary. But I really do have to agree with Bolling. I don’t think that Democrats do want to be part of a legislative solution (unless it’s entirely on terms they find agreeable). They do want to see Republicans fail because they do think they can control the spin (thanks to a compliant MSM) and ride charges of a “do nothing” GOP-dominated assembly to electoral victories this fall.

    While urging compromise in public pronouncements, Kaine does nothing to advance that compromise. He offers no new proposals. He twists no arms. He does nothing to create a dialogue between combatants.

    Don’t mistake my observations about Kaine as a defense of the Republican transportation plan. As far as I’m concerned, the GOP has already compromised itself into incoherence. Their Transportation Abomination is a public policy horror whose financing mechanisms would do more harm than its VDOT/land use reform elements would do good. I agree with those who believe it was cobbled together out of pure political expediency in a desperate bid to stave off electoral disaster this fall. Should the senate-house conferees compromise yet again with the Chichester/Democratic wing of the Senate, it would succeed only in raising taxes, not addressing traffic congestion.

    We can only hope that the GOP conferees have the courage of their convictions, abandon further compromise, and take their case to the voters this fall. Voters rejected increased regional taxes for transportation earlier in the decade. Since then, multiple opinion polls have shown that Virginians do not favor higher taxes as a way to address transportation congestion. It’s time for legislators to stand firm for their principles — and then defend their actions with the voters. If they’re not willing to do that, they might as well go home.

  • How Governments Waste Our Money On Transportation

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    James A. Bacon

    A million dollar waste of your tax money ends March 1st in Newport News (Daily Press Feb 13, 2007). The ‘Jump Over Jeff’ bus service ends. A Federal grant and some city money paid for service between two new urban shopping/living districts, Port Warwick and City Center which are maybe a mile apart – ‘jumping over Jefferson’ Avenue. The tax money paid for two buses and drivers. It cost a quarter to ride. The buses averaged 12 riders a day. Twelve. One Dozen.

    There’s $1.5m left on the grant, so Newport News bureaucrats will start up a new bus route connecting Christopher Newport University , the centers and a shopping mall until that money runs out.

    It’s wrong that the Federal government has so much money to throw away in boondoogles. A million here and a million there and soon you are talking about real money (to paraphrase Everett Dirksen). A million dollars more in Medicaid would mean what to Virginia? Or in Social Security?

    It’s wrong that Newport News would employ a grant writer and covet the money – just because it is there.

    It’s wrong for both governments to waste money on a less than brilliant transportation ‘solution’. If there was a economic need for the service a commercial enterprise could provide it. The governments would do well to make sure there are no barriers to bus/taxi/jeepney/rickshaw service – because if it is needed so much, then the citizens will pay for it.

    This genius for wasting money is the same thinking for the big six projects for Hampton Roads in the Transportation bills in conference committee – that actually INCREASE the congested miles after 20 years.

    This genius for wasting money is found in the same people who will be running the new level of government – the same unelected, unaccountable, unseparated powers Regional Government in the same Transportation abortion bills.

    Thanks tax and spend Republicans. Thanks a lot.

  • On to the Conferees…

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    James A. Bacon

    Now the Transportation Abomination will be considered by the House and Senate conferees. Reconciling the House and Senate bills will be up to the following individuals:

    House of Delegates:
    Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights)
    Morgan Griffin (R- Salem)
    Algie Howell, Jr. (D-Norfolk)
    Tim Hugo (R- Fairfax)
    Chris Jones (R- Suffolk)
    Terry Kilgore (R-Scott)

    Senate:
    Thomas Norment (R- James City)
    Philip Puckett (D-Russell)
    Ken Stolle (R- Virginia Beach)
    Frank Wagner (R-Virginia Beach)
    Martin Williams (R-Newport News)

    This comes from the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance:

    Given that four of five Senate Conferees and all six House members voted for the House version, it’s probably fair to say odds favor the House version. Yet the fact that the full Senate rejected the House version means work remains to be done if a bill is to pass this year.

    Also of note is the fact that architects of the Hampton Roads regional package are on the panel. Northern Virginia was not accorded similar representation.

    And this from Garren Shipley at the NV Daily: Sen. Thomas Norment, R-Williamsburg, an architect of the compromise, is still predicting that the Senate could still support the GOP package.

    Supporting Chichester’s version of the bill is just another way of saying “let me poke my finger in your eye one more time” to the House of Delegates, Norment said. “This vote is easy, man. This is pancakes here. … Voting on the committee report will be the real gut check — because that will be the absolute, last chance to do anything for transportation for the year. When it’s the conference committee or nothing, that’s when you really need to search your souls.

  • Transportation Abomination

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    James A. Bacon

    Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has publicly cast his lot with Sen. John H. Chichester and his allies in the state Senate who would burden Virginians with $150 vehicle registration fees on top of all the new fees and taxes contained in the GOP transportation compromise. I’ve lost track of the total tax take, but I suspect that the Senate/Kaine proposal would raise about $1 billion a year in new taxes and fees, if regional levies in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads are included.

    (Read accounts in the Virginian-Pilot, Times-Dispatch, Daily Press and Free Lance-Star.)

    The Axis of Taxes continues to maintain that transportation shouldn’t compete with programs for the widows and orphans who rely upon the General Fund for their sustenance. This is such a bogus argument, yet the Mainstream Media parrots it uncritically. (Brawwk! Polly want a cracker?)

    If anyone in the MSM has noted the statistics cited by Attorney General Bob McDonnell in a statement he released Feb. 4, I have yet to see them.

    State spending has increased at an average of 6% a year over the past decade; a whopping 3% above the growth in population and inflation combined. The argument that core functions of government will suffer because of the Republican compromise plan is absolutely wrong and irresponsible. During the most recent two-year budget cycle alone, the General Assembly increased funding for K-12 education by 19%, funding for higher education by 22%, funding for public safety by 15%, funding for mental health by 21%, and funding for the Chesapeake Bay by a record 38%. Despite misleading sound bites to the contrary, Virginians know that spending for every core function of government has increased dramatically and is now at record levels.

    I am not shilling for the GOP compromise, which would draw upon the General Fund instead of rebate money to taxpayers. But I am calling B.S. on the Kaine/Chichester faction. A 19 percent increase of K-12 education isn’t enough? These guys need more money? How much will it take to satisfy these guys?

    At least when Mark Warner raised our taxes, he also found costs to cut and tried to hold bureaucrats accountable for performance. Kaine and Chichester have largely abandoned the cost-cutting/accountability piece of Warner’s formula and embraced the second. Nary a word from either of them about restructuring the way roads are built and maintained, and only lip service for land use reform. Open the money sluices, baby, it’s spend, spend, spend!

    Update: The Senate version of the Transportation Abomination is even worse than I realized. An e-mail summary from the Home Builders Association of Virginia reports that all the land use components but one, the Urban Growth Area requirement, as well as the prohibitions from accepting new subdivision roads into the state system, have been stripped from the bill — a minor fact overlooked in the newspaper accounts. Bottom line: The Senate bills represents a resounding victory for Business As Usual in every conceivable way. It… must… be… destroyed!

  • Socking it to the Sudan

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    James A. Bacon

    It looks like the General Assembly will pass some kind of legislation calling for the Virginia Retirement System to divest its holdings in companies doing business in Sudan, although the final details have yet to be worked out. (For a recent update, see this article in the Virginian-Pilot.)

    The cause is unquestionably just: The Sudanese regime, culpable for the genocide in Darfur, is an international pariah. The Western world should treat it as such. SB1331, introduced by Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II, R-Fairfax, would require the VRS to divest itself of its investments in some eight foreign companies, mostly involved in the oil business, that do business in Sudan. As the Western world cannot bestir itself to send in troops to stop the slaughter, one could argue, we should at the very least make oil companies pay a price for propping up the rogue regime.

    On the other hand, I do get nervous about telling the VRS how to invest, or divest, its money. Today it’s the Sudan. Tomorrow, it’s…. who? The Sudan is not the only objectionable regime in the world — its atrocities just happen to be better publicized than those of others. Should we divest ourselves of companies that do business in Burma? How about Saudi Arabia, the underwriter of radical Islamic madrassas, and a root cause of terrorism, around the world? Or, changing gears, should the VRS divest itself of companies that sell armaments to foreign governments… or emit greenhouse gases…. or fail to pay a “living wage”?

    In other words, should VRS investment policies be subject to second guessing by anyone, for any cause, who can mobilize enough votes to get a majority vote in the General Assembly? As the VRS Board of Trustees argues, earnings from investments finance about 70 percent of the retirement system’s benefit payments. Restrictions on those investments could reduce earnings “at a cost to be borne by taxpayers.”

    It’s a tough call. My heart sides with Cuccinelli. My reason sides with the VRS.

  • CONGESTION PRICING AND THE REAL PROBLEM

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    James A. Bacon

    Welcome Mr. Leahy! Glad to have you on board!

    I understand your concern for wasting money and diverting a new income stream to unworthy causes.

    You did not comment on the observation in a past post that the real problem you noted in London is the need for Fundamental Change in governance structure. More on how you can help with that in a moment.

    You also did not acknowledge the fact that throwing money into transport facilities, especially facilities to serve private vehicles is a waste.

    With respect to London’s (or any) congestion pricing, the important metric is people and goods moved per hour and per day, not the congestion level among private vehicles.

    Your source reports that congestion is down in spite of improvements to serve shared-vehicle systems. That sounds like a win / win.

    Improvements to shared-vehicle systems are less of a waste and induce less new vehicular traffic than do improvements to private-vehicle systems. Perhaps improvements in the shared-vehicle system is where the money was supposed to go in the first place and it was not a diversion. Is that not a possibility?

    There is a simple test of the Myth that putting money into new roadway improvements reduces congestion:

    Name one New Urban Region in the First World where improvements in the roadway system have decreased REGIONAL vehicular congestion.

    There is only two factors that strongly correlate with the speed of vehicle congestion growth. They are the size of the New Urban Region and the rate of population growth.

    Over the period 1984 to 2004 (dates are from memory) there was no significant difference between the rate of congestion growth and the level of expenditure or the lane miles of roadway added. Houston is a good example of throwing good money after bad.

    Now, the more important question for you on the issue of waste of revenue flow:

    How can we get folks like you who are concerned with governments (and citizens) wasting money to focus on the fact that, especially the United States, an ever more dysfunctional settlement pattern is evolving. These patterns will continue to create higher and higher costs of goods and services (including the cost of mobility and access.)

    It seems the real challenge for conservation, and conservatism in general, is to stop worrying about the nickels and dimes that are now wasted and start figuring out how to avoid future fiscal disaster.

    It is clear that a democracy with a market economy cannot survive when the majority cannot afford the goods and services that they believe they deserve.

    EMR

  • Still Congested

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    James A. Bacon

    At the risk of wearing out my (very generous) welcome, there are a few more pieces to the congestion pricing discussion I’d like to add.

    First up is this, again from the Daily Telegraph:

    The London congestion charge has failed to cause a significant reduction in delays on the capital’s roads, it emerged yesterday.
    In the last two years the congestion endured by drivers in central London has actually got worse, according to Transport for London figures.

    The amount of traffic entering the zone during charging hours has been cut by around 20 per cent since the charge was introduced in 2003, but this has been largely offset by a reduction in the capacity of the capital’s roads, due to road works and the introduction of bus lanes.

    Congestion fell by 30 per cent in the first year of the charging scheme but is now only 8 per cent below precharging levels.

    The weswtward extension of the charging zone next week is expected to increase congestion in central London, as motorists living in Kensington and Chelsea will be entitled to discounted access to the existing zone.

    Interesting. But it still looks as though overall congestion has declined. If it’s rising again, chalk it up to the habit many people have for adapting to disincentives if the eventual gain is great enough.

    And in an example of how transportation rhetoric knows know international boundaries, consider this:

    The Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that ministers would press ahead with their plans for road-pricing pilot schemes. “Doing nothing is not an option and we know what will happen if we do nothing — congestion will get worse and worse,” he said.

    Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?

  • Everyone Give Norm a Big, Friendly Bacon’s Rebellion Welcome

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    James A. Bacon

    I am delighted to add Norm Leahy to the list of Bacon’s Rebellion contributors. Norm, as many of you know, was a blogging pioneer in Virginia. A talented wordsmith, he published the highly regarded One Man’s Trash blog before calling it quits a couple of months ago. But blogging is in his blood, and now he’s back, contributing to Bacon’s Rebellion and Bearing Drift.

    Norm brings a conservative perspective to this blog as well as his own set of interests and priorities. Although he devoted his first post to the issue of congestion pricing, a perennial topic here at Bacon’s Rebellion, I encourage him to follow his personal passions. I know that I can be a one-note-Johnny when it comes to transportation and land use. Norm’s observations on a range of topics will give this blog a diversity of subject matter that it now lacks.

  • Time to Scrap the Compromise — Take It to the Voters

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    James A. Bacon

    Poor Bill Howell. My heart goes out to him. He showed true leadership and resolve in fashioning the GOP transportation package and then putting his prestige on the line to get it passed. To make the deal work with members of the Senate, the Speaker of the House swallowed a number of undesirable elements, such as state and regional tax increases, that he undoubtedly found personally distasteful. Such is the nature of compromise.

    But there is a difference between compromise and capitulation. Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee deleted $250 million a year from General Fund surpluses from the GOP compromise and replaced them with more than $330 million a year through $150 fees on newly registered vehicles. That would come on top of all the increases in state and regional taxes in the compromise proposal.

    It’s conceivable that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will emerge as a force in the debate and attempt to broker another compromise, but he’s shown little inclination to do so to this point, and the intransigence of Sen. John H. Chichester and his allies in the Senate suggest that there isn’t much room for negotiation anyway. Chichester, it appears, either wants it all or nothing at all. And nothing is what he might well get.

    Which is just as well. The tax-and-financing aspects of the GOP transportation package were horrendous to begin with; Chichester’s add-ons would make it even more insufferable. The best thing that could happen now is for the whole edifice to collapse. To keep the 2007 session of the General Assembly from being a complete loss, perhaps Howell can still salvage the less controversial pieces of the compromise such as the bills that reform the way Virginia builds and maintains its roads.

    Otherwise, it’s clear that the political system is gridlocked over transportation taxes. Maybe it’s time to take the issue to the voters and see what they have to say. Howell’s effort at compromise does make one thing very plain: We know who the real “obstructionists” are. Reporters can paint Chichester and his allies as the “moderates” in a battle against the anti-tax “die-hards” all they want, but there is no way to spin the story to make it look like Chichester compromised and Howell didn’t. The Howell faction of the Republican Party has inoculated itself against accusations of intransigence. The Axis of Taxes now looks like the ultras.

    Let’s see what happens in the GOP primaries this spring. Will the rank and file be enraged enough to throw out the proponents of Business As Usual? Let’s see what happens in the general elections this fall. How eager will voters be to boost their state and regional tax burdens after the inevitable round of property tax hikes this spring? The results could be clarifying.

  • The Rising Price of Congestion Pricing

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    James A. Bacon

    I know Jim is a fan of congestion pricing, and even believes it may hold some hope of changing the transportation landscape in far-flung portions of the state.

    But then there is a this cautionary tale out of London, where congestion pricing has been in place for some time. The results aren’t exactly pretty:

    Motorists in London have paid more than £677 million since the introduction of the congestion charge in 2003 — but only a fraction of this has been invested in other transport projects.

    And with Ken Livingstone, the capital’s mayor, planning to extend the zone west into Kensington and Chelsea, opposition politicians claim much of the revenue has been swallowed up in the cost of running the scheme.

    According to the Greater London Authority’s own figures, the bill for the congestion charge is rising above the rate of inflation, from £120.8 million two years ago to £143.5 million last year.

    However, setting up the scheme cost an estimated £161.7 million and it is now believed that motorists will have to help find the £103 million to extend it to the West.

    The London experience will in crease public doubts concerning road pricing. To add to the controversy it has emerged that a large slice of the income made by Transport for London comes not from motorists who pay the charge, but from fines on those who don’t.

    While London’s experience does not necessarily mean the concept of congestion pricing should be abandoned, it does tell me that before such a scheme is tried here, far more needs to be done to ensure that the sort of “budget creep” London is facing isn’t repeated.

  • Bacon Encounters the Prince of Darkness, Finds Him Disarmingly Charming

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    James A. Bacon

    House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, was “shaking with anger” yesterday after the Senate Finance Committee rejected his compromise plan for transportation for the second time this month. As reported by Christina Nuckols with the Virginian-Pilot, the Speaker said:

    I think we may just reject it and go home. I have a very fragile coalition in the House caucus that took a lot of cajoling to get them this far. We had a compromise… and that was my plan. Now it’s been completely repudiated.

    By contrast, his nemesis Sen. John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland, was in an expansive mood yesterday evening when dining at Azzurro, a swanky Italian restaurant in the “west end” of Richmond. I know this because I happened to be sitting at an adjacent table with my wife and son, celebrating her birthday.

    Accompanied by Sen. William C. Wampler Jr, R-Bristol, two women (presumably wives) and another man I did not recognize, the prime minister of the Axis of Taxes appeared in a jovial mood as everyone at the table engaged in animated conversation. (I cannot tell you what was being said: The hub-bub of the restaurant drowned out the words, and I would not have listened in any case: I respect the privacy of others, even if they’re on the “other side.”)

    I have written extensively about Chichester, almost always critically, but I had never met him before. Was he really the prince of darkness, as I have so often portrayed him? As my family was leaving the restaurant, I introduced myself and congratulated him on his “legislative victory” that afternoon — his maneuver had already sparked a barrage of e-mailed press releases into my in-box. Ever the Virginia gentleman, Chichester rose from his chair and shook my hand. He modestly downplayed his accomplishment, suggesting that he’d just done what was “best for Virginia.”

    Sen. Chichester no doubt has more important things on his schedule than perusing Bacon’s Rebellion, so he may be unaware of how relentlessly critical I have been. Regardless, he was most cordial. Indeed, when I told him that I would like to interview him to get “the other side of the story” into Bacon’s Rebellion, he readily agreed and gave me the name of his scheduler. With luck, fellow rebels, I will be able to pose the tough questions to Chichester in person that I have aired online. In the meantime, I will give the devil his due: He could have blown me off for interrupting his dinner, but he proved to be most charming.

  • A Tear in the Fabric of the Cosmos: Bacon Lauds a WaPo Editorial

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    James A. Bacon

    Sooner or later it was bound to happen: The Washington Post has run an editorial that I agree with. Rest assured, I haven’t gone soft and mushy — it’s the Post that has seen the light.

    Buried in the latest White House budget, writes the Post, is a proposal to grant $100 million to as-yet-unspecified cities to experiment with value pricing as a strategy for combatting traffic congestion. The Post, which has plugged tirelessly for more construction and higher taxes in Virginia, sees merit in a strategy that would modulate the demand side of the equation:

    Traffic jams cost millions of Americans real money, an expense that is disguised in the form of lost time and wasted gas, not to mention the daily frustration that’s harder to price or otherwise quantify. The White House estimates that in 2003 American motorists in the 85 most-clogged metropolitan areas wasted 3.7 billion hours and 2.3 billion gallons of gasoline — about $63 billion worth — stuck in traffic. Every year, drivers in the 10 most-congested cities pay between $850 and $1,600 and use the equivalent of about eight work days on jammed highways and streets. These calculations do not even consider the massive social cost of additional air pollution. The Washington area is one of the worst-off: The Census Bureau announced last year that, on average, commuters in and around the District have the second-longest trips in the country.

    Urban congestion has become so bad that, in addition to investing in public transportation and traffic-calming strategies, many cities are considering ways of making these disguised costs explicit — by, for example, charging a toll when drivers enter certain parts of towns or use particularly popular highways during peak hours — thereby discouraging unnecessary trips when congestion is at its worst.

    It’s scary when I find myself agreeing with a Post editorial. There must be some significance to this harmonic convergence of such divergent philosophies. Perhaps it’s a sign that the time for congestion pricing has truly come. Now… if only we could persuade the lawmakers trapped inside the bubble of the General Assembly to halt their bickering over which taxes to raise and start thinking about how to institute congestion pricing.

  • One Good Reason to Support the GOP Transportation Compromise

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    Christina Nuckols at the Virginian-Pilot provides a sympathetic portrait of Sen. John H. Chichester and his opposition to the GOP transportation compromise. There is a human side to the ringleader of the Axis of Taxes. Writes Nuckols:

    Nicknamed “Chichi” by reporters, the senator has a fondness for Labrador retrievers, sushi, the Red Sox and barbershop choruses. He gave up his motorcycle after two crashes but still pilots his own small airplane. A mischievous charmer when he chooses, John Hansford Chichester also can be curt and condescending toward hapless legislators who appear before his committee, earning him the less affectionate moniker “Jesus H. Christ” among junior delegates.

    Nuckols contends that Chichester is driven by principle, not politics. I find that entirely plausible. Unfortunately, his principles, which invariably favor higher spending and higher taxes, are not ones that I share.

    The good news for those who would like to depose “Lord Chichester”: The senator told Nuckhols that he will decide next month whether to seek re-election. His decision could be influenced by the outcome of the transportation debate. If passing the GOP transportation compromise would prompt Chichester to resign, then the god-awful thing just might be worth enacting!

  • Looking for Energy Efficiency? Let’s Start with NoVa Data Centers

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    James A. Bacon

    In previous posts, I have made the argument that Virginia needs to incentivize Dominion and other electric utilities to invest in conservation programs and energy efficiency as well as expanding electric-generating and transmission capacity. The logical question is… what kind of programs?

    Like a program rolled out earlier this week by Pacific Gas & Electric, which is leading the formation of a nationwide coalition of utilities to coordinate energy efficiency programs for the high tech sector, focusing on data centers. Quoting from GreenBiz.com:

    PG&E offers a comprehensive portfolio of program and service offerings for the high tech sector, including financial incentives for customers who pursue energy efficiency projects in their data centers. The company was the first to offer incentives for virtualization and server consolidation, a program that is prompting customers to remove underutilized computing equipment using virtualization technology.

    Data centers can use up to one hundred times the energy per square foot of typical office space, so the energy efficiency opportunities are significant. “A customer choosing from our menu of programs, which include cooling system improvements, high-efficiency power conditioning equipment retrofits, airflow management tune-ups, virtualization, and replacement of computing and data storage equipment with the latest technologies can generally drive a third to as much as half of the energy use out of their operations,” according to [Mark] Bramfitt [High Tech Segment Manager for PG&E].

    Northern Virginia has 14 data farms and more on the drawing boards. It would be comforting to know that Dominion has joined the PG&E coalition. But if it has, it wasn’t mentioned by name in the story.

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The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

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