Bacon's Rebellion

Following revelations last week that Patrick Michaels has taken $100,000 from power companies to debunk prevailing opinions regarding global warming, climatology has suddenly become a hot topic in Virginia. Now the editorial pundits are taking after the University of Virginia professor, who doubles as Virginia’s state climatologist.

“Students at Thomas Jefferson’s school in Charlottesville set high standards of honorable behavior. Too bad their code does not apply to faculty. Perhaps then Patrick Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences, would not have shamefully sold his academic credibility, embarrassing all Virginians in the process,” the Roanoke Times high-mindedly declared Monday, in effect calling Michaels either a liar or cheater. “Michaels’ shameful actions disqualify him from speaking for Virginia. Let him spread his industry-funded message without the title of state climatologist.”

The Free Lance-Star piled on yesterday: “There are still climate-change deniers or near-deniers around, as Virginians were reminded upon learning last week that Pat Michaels, a U.Va. professor who functions as the state climatologist and libertarian-think-tank beau ideal, was taking money from utilities to pick apart global-warming studies.” Added the editorial writer: “The rightist line on the issue–i.e., global warming is a myth created by evil one-worlders and embraced by ninnies–has been wavering for a while.”

Makes me wonder… have any of these people ever bothered to read Michaels’ work? I doubt it. It’s a lot easier to dismiss him as a paid goon of the Fossil Fuel Industry than to grapple with his arguments.

As I recall from what I’ve read, Michaels does not deny that global warming is occurring, although he debates the extent to which it is taking place. He also places that warming in the context of the fact that temperatures now are about the same as they were in the Medieval Warm Period, some of the warmest centuries in the previous 8,000 years. That warm period, presumably not caused by industrial carbon dioxide emissions, was followed by what historians labeled the Little Ice Age, which led most notoriously to the extinction of the Norse settlements in Greenland. In turn, the Little Ice Age yielded to the current warming trend, which began around 1800.

Michaels also concedes that human activity contributes to global warming. What he disputes is the extent to which human activity is responsible, in particular the degree to which rising temperatures are directly related to the level of CO2 greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. He notes, for instance, that CO2 emissions were increasingly steadily between 1940 and 1970, when average temperatures were falling — prompting worries at the time of an impending ice age. (He also offers a lot of arguments too technical to go into here.)

Finally, as I recall, Michaels questions the usefulness of the Kyoto Treaty in addressing global warming. Fulfilling the objectives of that treaty, at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars to the United States economy, would impact global temperatures by a tiny fraction of one degree decades out. Would it not be more economically rational, he asks, to adapt to climate change rather than try to halt it?

I don’t know the answers. I don’t know if Michaels is right or wrong. But I do know one thing: When a consensus in the elite media, not necessary the scientific community, is driving climate research and policy, it’s a good thing to have skeptical voices challenging the received wisdom — regardless of where their funding comes from. Sometimes the received wisdom is right. Sometimes it’s not.

A fascinating debate over growth management is playing out in Albemarle County. The Board of Supervisors is considering two new ordinances — phasing and clustering — designed to protect 95 percent of the county acreage designated as rural. A number of farmers and small property owners vehemently criticized the proposals in a hearing yesterday, arguing that the restrictions would confiscate much of the value of their land. The Charlottesville Daily Progress describes the ordinances this way:

To slow such development, phasing would allow two subdivision rights on each parcel every 10 years. To reduce any impact on natural resources, clustering would entail grouping small parcels together and leaving a large preservation tract undeveloped. The Planning Commission has recommended that the two ideas be used together to achieve both of those goals.

Albemarle County is a beautiful place, and I am sympathetic to the desire to protect it from development. But I’m not convinced that these ordinances are the best way to do it. Phasing development over years and decades would slow growth, but in doing so, it would guarantee that growth took the form of small, piecemeal projects. Large, well-financed developers would steer clear, effectively precluding any comprehensive, well-planned development. Growth would be scattered, disconnected and low density — in a word, it would be sprawl.

The clustering idea can be charitably described only as “less bad.” Clustering development in compact areas makes sense on the micro scale. But in the larger, Albemarle-wide context, it won’t make much difference. Instead of 10-acre lots smeared across the countryside, we’ll see compact little subdivisions strewn across the countryside. Such a development pattern still will put stress on local road networks and the delivery of county infrastructure and services.

The only way to “save” the countryside without ruining it is to allow already-developed portions of Albemarle County, particularly along U.S. 29 north of Charlottesville, to evolve into a more urban settlement pattern, and thus accommodate a larger population. If the county also allowed for the expansion of urban enclaves (the pattern and density of small towns) in places like Crozet and Scottsville, there would be little demand to build scattered subdivisions in the countryside… and no need for landowners to feel like their property rights were being violated.

Here’s the opening paragraph of a WaPo editorial today:

THERE THEY don’t go again: Metro’s board of directors, kowtowing to the provincial politics of its members from Virginia, has voted to put the brakes on a swift and logical selection of a general manager, even though someone already is doing the job impressively. Dan Tangherlini, the system’s interim general manager since February, has won high praise in short order for weeding out bad middle managers, lifting morale and responding to rider complaints.

Usually the Post editorial writers single out those doctrinaire, anti-tax, downstate Republicans in the House of Delegates for blame. But they couldn’t this time — none of them sit on the Metro board of directors. Instead, it takes a shot at Gerald E. Connolly, chairman of the Fairfax County board chairman and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, which appoints the Virginia Metro board members (and, incidentally, a Democrat). The Virginians’ sin:

Last month the posturing worriers talked the board into a needless dawdle, launching a “national search” for a general manager, which could take up to three months.

The Washington Post might feel a tad differently if it were fronting the $4 billion in capital costs for the Rail-to-Dulles extension of the Metro as well as multi-millions of dollars yearly in operating subsidies.

Gregory Letiecq, the blogger behind the Northern Virginia blog “Black Velvet Bruce Lee,” has received a cease and desist letter from the Los Angeles law firm representing the estate of the late Bruce Lee. Letiecq, a 42-year-old computer programmer who comments on Prince William and Manassas politics, said he won’t fight it, according to the Manassas Journal-Messenger. He doesn’t need the trouble.

I have to say, though, I love Letiecq’s idea of his changing the name to “Not Black Velvet Bruce Lee.” How could the Bruce Lee estate complain with that? The blog would explicitly state that it’s NOT black velvet Bruce Lee. No room for trademark confusion there!

(By the way, for a great laugh, view “Something to Really Complain About.”)

As blogs gain readership and prominence, expect more legal actions against them for trademark/copyright infringement, libel, defamation, violations of political campaign laws, or God knows what else. Welcome to the real world, baby.

Attorney General Bob McDonnell has announced the formation of a Government and Regulatory Reform Task Force. The objective: to start a “serious, long-term effort” to reduce “unnecessary and obsolete regulations in Virginia, and to limit the regulatory burden on Virginia businesses and citizens.”

The Virginia Administrative Code may not be the Federal Register (thank you, lord) but it still runs 24,000 pages. But it’s big enough to undermine Virginia’s reputation as one of the most business-friendly states in the country. As a McDonnell press release stated:

Recent studies have indicated that Virginia’s regulatory ranking has slipped in recent years. Pacific Research Institute’s 2004 Economic Freedom Index report gave Virginia a regulatory ranking of 15th. Similarly, a 1999 study by Clemson University ranked Virginia 2nd in terms of economic freedom, but gave the Commonwealth a score of 18th on the regulatory component.

There will be three working groups: one for agriculture, one for small business and one for health care.

It sounds like a useful exercise. It’s entirely possible that nothing will come of it — another study collecting dust on the shelf. Remember the Wilder Commission report? On the other hand, I can’t see any harm coming from it.

Update: The task force invites the public to report egregious regulations or pass along other information/advice by e-mailing [email protected].

The Richmond Times-Dispatch is making big changes at its newsroom, and a lot of people are unhappy about it. Unfortunately for the T-D, Style Magazine, the Richmond weekly that has taken delight for years in tormenting the city’s dominant media player, has taken the lead in covering the story. Not surprisingly, the slant has been mainly negative.

A new era started at the Times-Dispatch when Tom Silvestri, a former business editor who was promoted through the ranks at Media General, took over as publisher. Silvestri immediately put his imprint on the newspaper by overhauling the editorial/opinion page to give more prominence to state and local issues (see “RT-D Battles to Stay Relevant“). About a year ago, he also hired ex-Marine Glenn Proctor to replace retiring Executive Editor Bill Millsaps (see “Who Will Gather the News? A New Force in Richmond“).

Things percolated quietly for a while without any dramatic changes. Then Greg Weatherford wrote a cover story in the July 12-18 issue of Style about the “uncomfortable silence at the Richmond Times-Dispatch” (see “Truth and Consequences“). Weatherford picked up on the fact that Proctor was blunt, even harsh, in his critique of the T-D’s news product, that management had instituted a gag order on reporters, and that Silvestri had refused to be interviewed for the article, but he offered little context to suggest why management was doing what it was doing.

Since then, the resignation of Managing Editorial Louise Seals (see “Was T-D Exec Forced Out?”) and the abrupt termination of long-time free-lance columnist Randy Fitzgerald was more grist for the rumor mill. But the outside critics are missing the bigger story: Silvestri and Proctor obviously are trying to raise editorial standards at the newspaper. And that entails some house cleaning.

Although the T-D has a number of excellent writers and reporters, the newspaper has a reputation, even in its home town, of mediocrity. Style Magazine can take pleasure at poking its big, bad rival, as one would expect a spunky, competitive tabloid to do, but I’m sympathetic to Silvestri — and that’s not just because he was my boss when I was publisher of Virginia Business. He’s trying to change the culture of the T-D newsroom. That’s hard enough in any organization, even harder in an organization of journalists who all regard themselves as independent thinkers, and downright daunting in an environment in which stagnant ad revenues translate into constant cost-cutting pressure.

If I were in Silvestri’s place, I wouldn’t have talked to Style Magazine either. It was a no-win proposition. After years of negative stories from Style, he had no reason to expect that the magazine would treat the newspaper any differently than in the past. As for the gag order on the news staff, admittedly, it does seem a bit hypocritical: Journalists are big proponents of transparency for others. But looking at the situation from Silvestri’s perspective, I can’t blame him. It would be highly detrimental to allow malcontents to carry on their battle with management in the pages of Style. No other CEO would tolerate it, and there’s no reason for Silvestri to do so either.

I have a lot of old friends in the T-D newsroom, and I don’t want to see them treated shabbily. But as a regular reader of the Times-Dispatch, I want to see higher editorial standards. I want to see Silvestri and Proctor succeed. I hope they can pull off their changes without trashing newsroom morale.

Update: Jason Roop, Editor of Style, gives a spirited defense of the weekly’s coverage of the Times-Dispatch in the comments section of this post.

Update II: Editor & Publisher weighs in on the resignation of Managing Editor Louise Seals and the dropping of Randy Fitzgerald’s column.

Lobbyists spent a record $15.4 million courting legislators at the General Assembly last year, easily surpassing the previous record of $13.6 million set two years ago, reports Tyler Whitley with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (The numbers run from May 1 through April 30, so they do not include the impact of the extended session.)

As sad as it is to contemplate the increase in rent-seeking activity in the state Capitol, I found this even more depressing: “The reports are not computerized. They are filed in cardboard boxes in … the Patrick Henry Building.”

Now, go to the Lobbyist Registration Database. The database purports to be maintained through Feb. 7, 2006, which is hardly what you would call up to date. That means that registration data covering the most recent General Assembly session — with a filing deadline more than three months ago — still is not in the system.

Thus, you can conduct a search on, say, Verizon Virginia for the 2005-2006 year and get the following results: Verizon lobbyist George E. Murphy Jr. reporting zero lobbying expenditures — even though Verizon in fact lobbied very heavily to open up Virginia cable franchises to competition. We get two more goose eggs for William G. Thomas and Maureen Stinger at Dominion Virginia Power, and ditto for the legion of lobbyists for the Virginia Education Association. Not terribly helpful.

If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion: It would cause no more burden upon the lobbyists to fill out the required information electronically than it does to fill out a paper form. But the electronic data could be easily and instantaneously entered into the lobbyist database, where it could be made immediately available to the public. The programming required to create such a form would be negligible — indeed, the effort might well pay for itself simply by saving the cost of manually transferring the data from paper to computer.

How about it, Katherine Hanley, secretary of the commonwealth?

Lead headline in the Daily Press (August 1, 2006) is “NN’s Tax Pickle.” Assessments for property on waterfront skyrocket. This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.

It wasn’t front page news when York and James City County changed their tax rates because of huge tax increases based on a rising real estate market. It wasn’t a big deal when the same thing happened and taxes still went up – it was reported but as a local item – in Poquoson, Hampton and Williamsburg.

Newport News hasn’t changed their rates. Their Democrat mayor, Joe Frank and his big government, more taxes, more spending majority on City Council didn’t lower the rates. Now, guess who is getting hit with the 29-48% tax assessment increases? The Mayor. And Sen. Marty Williams (1^st SD, R). And the other families that live on the James and run Newport News no matter if the delegates and senators are R or D.

They are talking about getting the Code of Virginia changed to cut $100k from real estate assessments. They could do like everyone else and just lower the rates, but that’s not good enough. Lowering the assessments on personal property keeps the tax rates up for business. Brilliant economists these politicians. There’s a devil in the details of the scheme.

Sen. Marty Williams has been trying to raise taxes since Gov. Gilmore left office. He wants an unelected Regional government to raise sales taxes even more. Apparently, taking dollars from the poor with a regressive tax is better than paying your own property taxes. Which begs some questions.

If the Transportation Tax Scam of 02, the Chicken-Little-surplus-creating Tax Hike of 04 and the Transportation Tax Scare of 06 were all for vital needs of the Commonwealth and local communities, then why aren’t increases in property taxes the same?

Are these tax increases excessive and unnecessary for good government, vital investments, needed infrastructure? If so, how so?

Why is that rich people living on the James need tax relief and poor people paying sales taxes and more fees don’t?

Sen. Williams lived a few blocks away from the water when he was elected. Now, he has moved up. Funny how well some politicians do financially when they are ‘part time’ legislators – and have to take that time away from their jobs.

Finally, it’s really funny that people living on ‘Park Place’ complain about taxes. Didn’t they ever play Monopoly (T)?

Irony is delicious. Best served cold with a dash of salt and lemon.

Good news from Fort Monroe: Preliminary designs under evaluation by Hampton’s Federal Area Development Authority envision a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly future after the military based is closed. According to the Times-Dispatch’s Andrew Petkofsky, the three plans under consideration differ “only in the size and density of the village that would center on the pre-Civil War fort structure and the historic buildings adjacent to it.”

Describing public hearings on the plans:

There was wide agreement that the fort property – essentially a golf-club-shaped island at the mouth of the Hampton Roads harbor – should be ungated and open to the public, and that it should also include a large, open park, public beaches and a waterfront walkway.

The project should include new development within strict limits and should generate enough revenue through commerce, housing and tourism to eventually offset maintenance and operational costs, Dover said. He predicted that Fort Monroe’s unusual waterfront location would make residential housing a major source of revenue.

“Housing is probably one of the strongest pillars in this mixed-used temple,” Dover said. “It’s a unique-enough environment that you can insist on the very best.”

(Photo credit: Ocean View Station Museum.)

No surprises in today’s Times-Dispatch transportation poll. Everyone wants the government to “fix” transportation — they just don’t want to pay for it. Large majorities of those polled opposed higher taxes in general, and even larger majorities opposed (a) an added sales tax on cars, (b) higher fees on insurance premiums, (c) an increase in motor-vehicle registration feeds, or (d) a wholesale tax on gasoline. Virginians also opposed borrowing money to build roads or cutting spending in other programs. A large majority, however, did endorse tougher fines on bad drivers.

Interestingly, two money-raising scheme won a narrow margin of support:

• Raising tolls on some interstate highways: 49 percent in favor, 45 percent opposed.
• Authorizing localities to impose local taxes for regional projects: 50 percent in favor, 43 percent opposed.

If there’s a politically acceptable solution to Virginia’s transportation woes, it wasn’t what the Kaine administration and state senate were pushing this spring.

As we have come to expect, the poll framed the transportation debate as a funding issue. Never considered were alternatives to the tax-and-build scenario:

• Should lawmakers consider privatization and/or outsourcing of road maintenance to generate cost savings?
• Should the Commonwealth Transportation Board prioritize projects designed to mitigate traffic congestion over projects that open up new areas for development?
• Should the state do more to ensure that transportation and land use planning are coordinated?
• Should the state encourage telework?
• Should the state make it easier for the private sector to enter the marketplace with van, bus and other shared-ridership services?
• Should major new developments be required to put into place Transportation Demand Management plans?
• Should landowners whose property values increase thanks to transportation improvements be required to help pay the cost of those improvements?

Don’t tell me there’s no bias in the press. I’m not saying it’s a conscious or malevolent bias — it’s probably just tunnel vision, a lack of awareness of the alternatives. But lawmakers respond to daily news stories and editorials, and when reporters define the problem as a lack of money, they are defining the terms of the debate and limiting the range of options.

Could this have anything to do with the high cost of housing in Fairfax County?

The Board of Supervisors has decided that buyers of new or renovated homes that exceed the 35-foot height limit will have to lower the roofs or raise the ground around the foundations before they move in. According to Lisa Rein with the Washington Post, some 15 buyers have been denied occupancy permits because their houses are too tall.

The violations stem from a difference of opinion between builders and the county on how to measure the height of a house. For years, builders have interpreted the zoning ordinance more liberally than the county when measuring structures with multiple roof lines. They averaged the heights of all the roof lines, while the county says the midpoint of the highest roof line should have been measured.

County officials acknowledged last week that they had issued valid permits to build at those heights and had failed to monitor compliance with their zoning rules.

Now homeowners are paying the price for the County’s negligence. More to the point, what’s the reasoning behind the County’s regulation of the height of housing in the first place?

The high-stakes maneuvering over the $4 billion Rail-to-Dulles project is heating up. It turns out that the Bechtel/Washington Group construction consortium has a rival, a team headed by Fairfax developer WestGroup. The state has a no-bid, public-private partnership proposal from Bechtel to build the Metro extension. But according to Alec MacGillis at the Washington Post, state officials may entertain a bid from the rival WestGroup group.

On the upside, WestGroup may come up with a lower bid for the gigantic project. One of its team members is Dragados, a Spanish company that specializes in the large-bore tunneling needed if the Metro line is to run underneath Tysons Corner rather than above ground. On the downside, there’s no guarantee that WestGroup will submit a better bid, and the bid solicitation itself will create another delay could run up construction costs and spook federal funding, which is already looking tenuous.

The Kaine administration faces tough choices in a very high-stakes game. It will be interesting to see how well the Kaniacs play big-league political poker.

(P.S. Kudos to MacGillis at the WaPo for his solid ongoing reporting of the Rail-to-Dulles controversy. The Post’s coverage is much improved from earlier this year.)

Dora Sullivan, the mayor of Cape Charles, rides a golf cart to drive to official meetings, do her grocery shopping and convey her grandchildren around town. And she has plenty of company in the Eastern Shore town of 1,100. So many Cape Charles residents use the carts to tool around that a cottage industry has sprouted up. According to the Virginian-Pilot, one local woodworker customizes carts, some with paint jobs, some with dune-buggy tires.

Now Paylor Spruill, developer of the proposed Belharbour Station project in Cheapeake, is asking the city to allow golf carts on public roads in the South Norfolk community. In his vision, the carts could be driven not only around his $200 million development on the Elizabeth River– with 350 condos, 230 apartments, and 150,000 square feet of commercial space — but along river trails, over bridges, into historic sections of South Norfolk and into Portsmouth.

While the idea of “electric cars” as substitutes for gas-powered vehicles has yet to take off (see “Hybrids Out, Electric Cars In“), golf cart sales are surging. Since 2001, according to Pilot reporter Mike Gruss, Club Car and E-Z-GO have manufactured one million vehicles.

Golf carts may be emerging as a mainstream transportation alternative, but not in the way envisioned for electric cars a decade ago. Golf carts are cheaper to buy than cars, they run on electricity, and they’re fun. The same could be said of bicycles, but golf carts are more versatile: They have seats, can carry light cargo, and can run up to 25 miles per hour. Long confined to resort and retirement communities, they’re spreading beyond their normal haunts.

As golf carts establish themselves as a legitimate transportation mode in some communities, I would expect to them to morph into all kinds of specialized vehicles. Some bigger, some smaller, some designed for fair weather, some for foul, some adapted for bike paths, some for city streets. (Click here to see the incredible variety that exist already.) Over time, communities will accommodate the new vehicles through municipal ordinances, special lanes and designated parking. It will be interesting to see how municipal authorities sort out the inevitable conflicts with automobiles.

There is something seriously awry in Fairfax County when the local Redevelopment and Housing Authority may provide public housing assistance to a family of four earning $90,300 a year. The supply of affordable housing is so limited that many middle-class families — not just lower-income families, not just working-class families, but middle-income families — cannot afford to live in the county.

Writes Brian McNeill with the Connection Newspapers:

Using 2005 data, [George Mason University] researchers … found that a family earning the median income of $90,000 could afford payments on a house that cost $265,000. Last year, however, only 115 single-family homes sold at that price or less, out of more than 20,000 homes sold, meaning that families below the median income cannot afford to buy a house in the county.

The report’s findings provided the basis for the Housing Authority’s push to change the definition of “moderate income” to mean at or below 100 percent of the median income. Approximately 50 percent of the county’s households could theoretically be eligible for housing assistance under the new proposed definition.

“This is lunacy,” said Housing Commission John C. Kershenstein (Springfield). “It’s one half of the county supporting the other half of the county.”

When the housing marketplace cannot provide shelter affordable by families earning the media income, then the housing marketplace is seriously broken. Restrictive zoning and planning policies of Fairfax and neighboring jurisdictions have created an artificial shortage of housing and, thus, a massive transfer of wealth to homeowners from non-homeowners. Homeowners reap massive equity increases in the value of their dwellings while non-homeowners find themselves locked out of the housing market unless they are willing to commute horrendous distances along increasingly congested roads from more affordable communities.

Replicated in New Urban Regions across the country, this government-engineered transfer of wealth is unprecedented in size and scope — yet almost invisible in the sense that the public does not understand what is happening.

(Hat tip to Tobias Jodter and Joe West both for pointing out this story.)

A panel of engineers has strongly recommended that the Rail-to-Dulles extension of the Washington Metro system be run underground for a four-mile stretch in Tysons Corner. Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post paraphrases local officials as saying that the tunnel “would not be prohibitively more expensive” than an above-ground track.

This recommendation comes on the heels of a warning by Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-10, that the added cost of the tunnel could imperil federal funding regarded as necessary for the first phase of the heavy rail project. The situation now, as MacGillis sums it up: “With the panel’s strong support for the tunnel, it is now up to Kaine and [Secretary of Transportation Pierce] Homer to decide whether to forge ahead with it despite the concerns of Wolf and others.”

One option that some are discussing is to put up the project for rebid. The project’s contractors, a consortium of Bechtel Corp. and Washington Group International Inc., maintain that the tunnel is too expensive.

Bechtel, as reader Robert Jackson reminds me, is also the contractor for Boston’s infamous Big Dig project, which has gone billions of dollars over budget and suffers from major flaws, and as well as a nuclear waste treatment facility in Washington state that could go $7 billion over budget and six years past the completion date. I suspect that there’s plenty of blame to go all around for these two fiascos, including meddling government regulators, changing specifications and the sheer complexity of the projects. But Bechtel’s track record does not inspire confidence.

Rail-to-Dulles is much more than a transportation solution. Without a tunnel, the Metro line would shred the fabric of Tysons Corner, Virginia’s single largest commercial complex, rather than add to it. An underground rail line, by contrast, would create property values high enough to induce developers to spend billions of dollars transforming the dysfunctional, ill-connected cluster of office buidings into a world-class, pedestrian/transit-friendly business center that all Virginians can be proud of.