Bacon's Rebellion

  • Springtime for the Rebellion

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    James A. Bacon

    The flowers were blooming, the birds were singing and the Rebellion was spreading. There was optimism in the air. And hope, real hope, for fundamental change — an end to Business As Usual. Feel the freedom. Read the March 24, 2008, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine.

    If you don’t subscribe to the e-zine, you should. It’s free. Click here.

    Here’s this issue’s line-up:

    User Pays

    Virginia’s transportation system needs more money. But how we raise the money is just as important as how much. Only a user-pays system can break the political gridlock.

    by James A. Bacon


    Good News, Bad Reporting

    As the economy weakens, you can count on the MainStream Media to defend MassOverconsumption and Business As Usual in a desperate bid to keep the advertising dollars flowing.

    by EM Risse


    Learning from Big Boxes

    Consumers love big box stores for their “bargains” and “everyday low prices.” What they don’t see are the costs imposed by hidden subsidies and the scatteration of human settlement patterns.

    by EM Risse


    Extend Foot, Pull Trigger

    The unilateral rewriting of the Dulles Greenway legislation sends a bad signal to potential investors in Virginia roads: When times turn tough, lawmakers renege on deals.

    by Leonard Gilroy


    Pork and Transparency

    The Commonwealth is slowly, grudgingly opening up its books to citizen scrutiny. Putting credit-card bills on a Web-accessible database is a big step forward, but it raises more questions than it answers.

    by Norm Leahy


    The War Bill Comes Due

    The hidden costs of the Iraq war are a bigger economic debacle than the sub-prime mess.

    by Peter Galuszka


    Juice Junkies

    The Day household is addicted to electricity. Our careless consumption has consequences beyond the light bill: pollution, mountaintop removal and greenhouse gases among them.

    by Barnie Day


    I’ll Take the Two BMWs, Please

    Rail to Dulles is so expensive that we could lease two BMWs per rider with the money. The Feds were right to turn down funding, and Virginia Congressmen should leave well enough alone.

    by Wendell Cox and Ron Utt


    Smokes, Litter and Drugs

    Youngsters who smoke cigarettes are more likely to litter and abuse drugs as well. The campaign to snuff out smoking is not just a public health issue, it’s a crusade to save our children.

    by Frank Kilgore


    More Roads Are Not the Answer

    The unraveling of Virginia’s transportation funding plans could be a blessing if it prompts lawmakers to wean the Commonwealth from its auto-centric, sprawl-inducing policies.

    by Michael Cecire


    Nice & Curious Questions

    Doggie Happy Hours, or

    Virginia is for Canine Lovers

    by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

  • Rotoscope and Virginia’s Cultural Revolution

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    James A. Bacon

    Yes, folks, there is a soft and gentle side to Bacon’s Rebellion — a side that is sensitive to the arts and culture in Virginia. Part of the Bacon’s Rebellion manifesto is to liberate Virginia’s artists from the cultural hegemony of the New York/Hollywood axis that determines who makes it into the Big Time and who does not.

    Virginia has many musicians and artists who are every bit as talented as the “product” (think Britney Spears, Hannah Montana) cranked out by the New York/Hollywood star-making machinery. (If you’re into country music, I suppose you can call it the New York/Hollywood/Nashville star-making machinery.) In the winner-takes-all economy, the winners get fabulously famous and fabulously rich while those of equal talent labor in lifelong obscurity. Thanks to the digital revolution, however, it is increasingly possible for local artists to bypass the star-making establishment.

    I don’t pretend to know much about Virginia’s music scene, but I do stumble across talented groups from time to time, and I do what I can to give them a little visibility. My latest discovery is Rotoscope, an alternative band from the Washington area. The band has a great song, “Under the Milky Way,” which you can listen to on MySpace. You can also download some of the band’s more progressive music on iTunes. Check out Rotoscope and lend these Virginia boys your support.

  • Gilmore’s Independence-from-Foreign-Oil Plan

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    James A. Bacon

    Because Bacon’s Rebellion focuses exclusively on state/local policy issues, I normally don’t comment on U.S. Senatorial campaigns, even those here in Virginia. But I’ll make an exception in this case because Republican Senatorial candidate Jim Gilmore has issued a proposal for a “U.S. Declaration of Independence from Foreign Oil,” which , if enacted, would have significant ramifications for energy production and the environment in Virginia.

    Besides opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil development, Gilmore would encourage exploration and drilling on the U.S. continental shelf. Virginia, for one, is believed to have extensive reserves of natural gas off its coast — the exploitation of which is a highly charged political issue.

    Gilmore wants to streamline regulations to allow construction of more oil refineries, and “eliminate counterproductive regulations that are raising our gas prices and damaging our economy.” Unfortunately, he does not specify what those counterproductive regulations are, so there is no way to tell whether his plan would affect the State Security Commission’s regulation of natural gas tariffs.

    Finally, Gilmore says he would “pursue the added benefit of nuclear power,” which would help reduce dependence on foreign oil, but offer a cleaner power source for the environment. It’s not clear, however, how nuclear power would reduce the demand for foreign oil. Nuclear power is used to generate electricity. Only a tiny percentage of the electricity in the United States (and virtually none in Virginia) is generated by oil, so there is little to be displaced by nuclear power. We could reduce oil consumption if we converted combustion-powered automobiles to electric vehicles on a large scale, but Gilmore does not discuss that possibility.

    Missing from Gilmore’s proposal: any mention of conservation or renewable energy. Gilmore’s proposal is the photographic negative of environmentalist energy policies, which emphasize conservation and renewables exclusively while restricting fossil fuels and nuclear power. I’m more humble: I don’t pretend to know which approach is the most economical. My approach would be to create an equal playing field for all energy strategies, including an adjustment for pollution and other externalities created by fossil fuels and nukes, and then letting the marketplace decide which is the most cost efficient.

  • BY DEFINITION

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    James A. Bacon

    In a comment following the 18 March post “ON THE ECONOMY” Anon 12:00 PM said…

    “Functional human settlement patterns will solve all our problems – by definition.”

    He / she was, perhaps, doing a funny but they have a point.

    We are painfully aware that many – ranging from advocates of remineralization; to vegetarians; to enforcers of family values; to those who advocate the right to carry concealed weapons into PTA meetings – suggest if everyone would just do as they suggest “all our problems will be solved.”

    That is why we spent over a decade writing The Shape of the Future and why PART TWO (Chapters 5 thru 14) spellS out in detail the economic, social and physical impacts of dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

    So far no one has disputed the reality of these impacts. They have disputed the collective will of citizens to do anything about them.

    It is silly to say functional human settlement patterns will solve “all our problems.” It is accurate to say that functional settlement patterns will facilitate solving many problems like the Mobility and Access Crisis and the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis that underlie the current financial market turmoil.

    What is more, as documented by Chapter 23 of The Shape of the Future, evolving functional human settlement patterns is the first step on the road to creating a sustainable trajectory for civilization.

    Even with functional human settlement patterns there are some complicating factors such as human genetic proclivities and the question:

    Will the genetic proclivities that got humans to this point keep them from going farther?

    And, what IS “farther?”

    EMR

  • The Physics of Traffic Congestion

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    James A. Bacon


    I won’t have much time for blogging today, so I’ll leave you with this short video clip, from New Scientist, of a Japanese experiment probing the “shockwave” phenomenon: traffic slowdowns that spontaneously appear without any obvious rhyme or reason.

    Ah, human behavior… If it weren’t so complex and so demented, it wouldn’t be anywhere near so interesting!

  • Look, Ma, No Traffic Signals

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    James A. Bacon

    Could this work in the United States? Ron Utt with the Heritage Institute offers (tongue in cheek, I think) this example from India of “a novel Libertarian/ Communitarian fusion for a cost effective, multi-modal approach to a signal-free system of traffic flow.” Whether he’s kidding or not, it makes you wonder.

  • Toll Roads in Action

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    James A. Bacon

    I normally don’t have much good to say about transportation planning in the Richmond region, but one institution does seem to be working well: The Richmond Metropolitan Authority, which governs the Powhite Parkway and Downtown Expressway, two critical commuting arteries funded entirely through tolls.

    The RMA is in the news today because the board took the not-very-popular decision to raise tolls. While I’m not exactly excited about paying more to drive on highways I use with some frequency, I really can’t complain. Based on reports in the Times-Dispatch, I believe the money will be put to good use.

    The higher tolls will raise $80 million in projected maintenance and construction costs over the next decade: bridge repairs, installation of high-speed toll lanes, and $500,000 in annual routine maintenance (snow removal, pot-hole repair and grass cutting) that the Virginia Department of Transportation has provided until now.

    I think it’s a good thing that the RMA has the flexibility to raise tolls as needed to maintain the system and make spot improvements to eliminate bottlenecks. The thing I’m looking for more than anything when I hop on the Expressway is free-flowing traffic. One day the original construction bonds will be paid off and the RMA will be able to lower tolls. But I hope the board doesn’t eliminate the tolls entirely and turn the highways over to VDOT. I like knowing that the RMA is running the show and has a dedicated source of revenue to keep the highways in top shape and congestion-free.

    If other regions of Virginia had any sense, they’d adopt the RMA model for themselves.

  • Still a Lot to Learn about Climate Change

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    James A. Bacon

    As the governor’s commission on climate change starts digging into the impact of Global Warming on Virginia — a particular concern is the expected three-foot rise of sea levels by the end of the century — it would do well to acknowledge the evolving state of climate science. Nearly every day brings some new discovery that refines our knowledge of the mechanics of climate change. The latest, as reported by National Public Radio, highlights “the mystery of Global Warming’s missing heat.”

    While surface temperatures on the earth have been warming over the past four or five years, temperatures in the oceans have showed no warming — indeed, according to reports of some 3,000 robotic sensors scattered around the earth’s oceans, known as the Argo system, the waters might actually have cooled a bit. That’s relevant to Virginians for a couple of reasons: (a) the oceans hold significantly more of the earth’s surface heat than the atmosphere does, and (b) the warming of the ocean, which slightly expands its mass, is expected to be a driving force of rising sea levels.

    For Virginians, rising sea levels are the cutting edge of climate change. Other than New Orleans, Hampton Roads is the lowest-lying large metropolitan area in the country, and it is exceptionally vulnerable to rising sea levels. Also, the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is vulnerable to salification as ocean water displaces fresh water in the estuary.

    The new Argo system measurements appear to be inconsistent with the predictions of climate change models that temperatures and are destined to rise. Scientists are baffled. Perhaps it’s just a measurement error: The ocean’s heat might be circulating to deeper levels not tracked by the sensors. Alternatively, the earth’s natural thermostats may be allowing more heat to be released into space than expected. Or, concedes Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, there may be a dynamic at work that science has not yet identified.

    Here’s another curve ball. In theory, because ocean water temperature should account for about half of rising/falling sea levels, sea levels should not have been rising over the past few years. But they have continued to rise — about 1/2 inch over four years. Scientists guess that the melting of Greenland and Antarctic icecaps may account for the rise. There are so many variables in the climate, however, that nobody knows for sure.

    One more thing for Virginia’s climate change commission to think about: If sea levels are rising 1/2 inch over four years, that implies a rate of one inch per eight years. If the rate stays constant for the rest of the century, that implies that sea levels will be 11.5 inches higher — less than one foot — by the year 2100. As I recall, the commission is operating on an assumption that sea levels will rise three feet over that period.

    The fact is, nobody knows what sea levels will do, and anyone who speaks with certainty is blowing hot air. What we can say with some confidence is that there is a significant risk, based on our current knowledge, that sea levels will rise. We need to take those risks into account as we plan for Virginia’s future, and we need to continually update and modify our assessment of those risks to reflect the best scientific knowledge as we go forward.

    (Image credit: From Vanity Fair, a photo of what Manhattan might look like if sea levels continue to rise, “Notes of Intelligence” blog.)

  • Too Much of a Good Thing

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    James A. Bacon

    Congestion tolls are coming to the Washington metropolitan region: The big question is whether they will be one piece of a patchwork approach with modest ambitions or the underpinning of a massive, region-wide plan to raise billions of dollars for transportation priorities, mainly mass transit.

    Plans are already in the works to use congestion tolls to pay for construction of new lanes along the Interstate-495 Beltway and Interstates 95 and 395 in Northern Virginia, and the Intercounty Connector in Maryland. Now in a new report the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board is exploring the idea of imposing variable pricing tolls on all major highways and parkways in the region, not just transportation arteries where new lanes can be added.

    As Eric Weiss explains in a Washington Post piece, regional transportation planners see no other option for keeping the roads moving. In an ideal world, congestion tolls would pay for new two-way lanes, as is planned for the Beltway and I-95/395, but in most cases the cost of acquiring the land for expanded roadways will make the cost prohibitive. Meanwhile, more money isn’t forthcoming from state governments. The only realistic alternative, the planners contend, is to impose tolls on roads that motorists now ride for free and to plow the money — as much as $2.75 billion a year — back into mass transit.

    Tolls would range in price from $.20 per mile to more than $2 per mile for some stretches of road during periods of peak demand — even more for crossing Potomac River bridges

    In the abstract, this a Bacon’s Rebellion fantasy come true. If new highway capacity is too expensive to build, use the price mechanism to ration it and incentivize drivers to utilize transportation alternatives from mass transit to telecommuting. Ideally, the incentives would be so powerful that they could stimulate meaningful shifts to move transportation-efficient human settlement patterns as well.

    However, there are major political obstacles, not the least of which is the fact that people tend to be hostile to tolls imposed on roads and highways they once drove for free. Additionally, while the study contends that the preferred “DC and Parkways Restrained” plan would not impact any demographic group disproportionately, it does suggest that the tolls would stimulate a significant relocation of jobs within the region. A shift in jobs would create changes in land values and the tax base of different municipalities. Inevitably, the plan would create winners and losers among municipalities and within the politically influential developer/home builder community. Just as inevitably, as soon as the potential losers understand what’s a stake, they will start agitating against the proposal.
    Click on this image for a close-up of a map published in the report. The flesh-colored areas designate where jobs will be lost — primarily in the inner ring of “suburbs” around the District of Columbia — and where jobs will be added, primarily in the urban core and outlying areas along the metropolitan periphery. Where the jobs go, property values will follow. Not only would the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board plan impose $2.75 billion a year in tolls upon a reluctant citizenry, jurisdictions such as Arlington and Alexandria would come out big losers. Are the elected representatives of those communities likely to support a plan with such an outcome?

    Another stumbling block: A massive shift of the job base westward to Loudoun County and western Fairfax may not be what many Virginia smart growth advocates have in mind.

    Bacon’s bottom line: As much as I am a huge fan of market-based solutions to transportation, this plan strikes me as overkill. The $2.75 billion-a-year cost exceeds the total $2.331 annual congestion cost for the Washington metropolitan area (as calculated by the Texas Transportation Institute). That’s plain crazy! This plan would apply a machete where a surgeon’s knife is called for. I can’t conceive of a plan like this winning public support.

    There is definitely a role for congestion pricing in addressing the transportation needs of the Washington region, but the strategem needs to be applied selectively, and the public needs to be persuaded that it has an ameliorative effect before it can be rolled out on a regional scale. Furthermore, although the authors of this study did examine the impact of the tolls on land use patterns, they did not consider the reverse: how changes in land use could make the tolls work more effectively. As Ed Risse ceaselessly points out, there needs to be a balance between the travel demand generated by land uses and the transportation capacity planned for those land uses. I could detect no sign of such a sensibility in the study.

  • ON THE ECONOMY

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    James A. Bacon

    As we point out in PART IV of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS, 15 May 2007 may be thought of decades from now as the ‘Ides of March’ of the Autonomobile – Large, Private Vehicles.

    The week that proceeded and the week that followed the 15 th of March in 2008 may be thought of as the ‘Ides of March’ for the leveraged, securitized, subsidized Global Economy, as we knew it.

    The last few days there has been a “too-numerous-to..” count, cite or link-to flood of MainStream Media coverage but there is no examination of the bottom line:

    Two items get no press.

    First the real cause of the current crisis. Behind (or perhaps underneath?) the current financial Enterprise meltdown is the very same problem that was the root cause of the Savings and Loan Crisis (mid-80s), the Banking Crisis / Commercial Real Estate Meltdown (late-80s to mid-90s). The problem?

    Dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

    We had dogs in all these fights. We also had friends who we had warned five years before they went under in every downturn since Boise Cascade was wiped out by raw land speculation in the mid 70s. Our personal, inside experience includes not just national poster children like Boise Cascade and Continental Illinois Bank but a lot of Regional ones as well.

    The lesson for citizens is simple: Evolve functional settlement patterns or suffer the economic consequences.

    Sure, the “cause” of the current crisis is said to be the securitized sub-prime loans and securitized credit card debt that kicked over the house of cards. There were many other sub-problems too.

    However, those most who were convinced by MainStream Media ads and low initial mortgage payments to buy a $300,000 to $900,000 dollar house in the R = 25 Miles to R = 60 Miles Radius Band could have afforded a $120,000 to $500,000 dwelling in R = 2 to R = 20 Radius Band.

    The cause of the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis is this: Agency regulation and Enterprise short term profit objectives resulted in the building the wrong size house in the wrong location. The cause of the Mobility and Access Crisis is the need to rely on Autonomobiles to get from where citizens are to where they need to be.

    The second overlooked issue: The headlong rush to solve the wrong problem.

    Some – the Lame Duck White House and the lame candidates who want to next occupy the White House – are pretending there is no Recession. Recent polls indicate that around 75 percent of the citizens think, and are acting as if, there is a Recession at hand With about the same percentage of the economy dependent on consumer spending, citizens and not Wall Street Titans or Federal regulators, are the ones who will make the decisions.

    For most citizens, the past 10 years have been much like a recession as we point out in “Good News, Bad Reporting,” 5 March 2008.

    At the same time as some some are in denial, others are focused on bailing out the leveraged, securitized, subsidized fools who got us here.

    Steven Pearlstein quotes Nouriel Roubini: The current system has perfected a system of “socialized risk and privatizing gain.” E. J Dionne Jr says the Wall Street Titans have turned into “a bunch of welfare clients.”

    Yes, there is a lot to be said for Groveton’s point that now that everyone in the boat is where they are, Agencies have to bail out the fat cats that caused the problem because if not far more citizens will suffer.

    The point we make in “Good News, Bad Reporting” is that trying in vain to prevent a needed Recession may throw us all into a Depression.

    EMR

  • Congestion Pricing for the Washington Region

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    James A. Bacon

    The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board has issued its final report on value pricing (congestion pricing) for the Washington metropolitan area: “Evaluating Alternative Scenarios for a Network of Variably Priced Highway Lanes in the Metropolitan Washington Region.”

    From my quick perusal, the report does not make any recommendations. Instead, it lays out three congestion pricing scenarios for the region and lists topics for future investigation. I don’t have time to dig into the document today, but I post it here for the reference of those who would like to examine it.

    Hat tip to Jim Wamsley, who writes as follows:

    Some selected quotations from Professor Vickrey’s 1959 presentation to Congress provide an excellent starting point and context for the work reported in this study.

    “Under urban conditions we cannot have both free flowing rush hour traffic and the absence of user charges or other constraints on highway use. One or the other of these desiderata must yield.”

    “Recent technological developments in electronics have placed within reach and within reasonable cost the possibility of assessing against the users of metropolitan streets and highways a set of charges that can be tailored about as closely to the costs occasioned by the actual usage as these costs themselves can be estimated. This can be done without interrupting or even slowing the flow of traffic, and at a cost that will be minute compared to the savings produced in inducing a more economical and less congested pattern of traffic flow and a more economical apportionment of traffic between the various available modes of transportation. It would, moreover, go far toward solving the financial problems associated with the provision of the expensive facilities required to provide adequate transportation in a modern metropolis.”

    “Pricing of highway use will thus make it possible to provide at reasonable cost uncongested and speedy transportation anytime, anywhere, and for anyone for whom the occasion is sufficiently urgent to warrant the payment of the corresponding charge. Without pricing, it is very likely that during the rush hours this degree of freedom of movement would not be available to anyone at any price.”

    “It is accordingly of the utmost importance, in evaluating plans for traffic facilities, to consider the various ways by which their use may be suitably controlled.”

    Almost fifty years later we now take up again the basic principles enunciated by Professor Vickrey and many other distinguished economists, planners and engineers, and present them for public consideration in a new context.”

    Eric Weiss with the Washington Post gives his spin on the report here.

  • Schmucks Pay Taxes, Too

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    James A. Bacon

    I’m a pro-business kind of guy. I believe in free markets. I celebrate the contribution of entrepreneurs. I believe that capitalism is the greatest wealth-creating system ever created. But I’ve got a big problem — a very big problem — when businesses lobby for tax breaks from government that ordinary citizens could never hope to receive. Here in Virginia, government practitioners appear willing to hand out tax breaks to any special pleader with a story to tell, even as they jack up taxes on everyone else.

    Two more straws in the wind…

    Volkswagen. Over and above the $6 million in subsidies and incentives that the Commonwealth is paying Volkswagen to relocate its US headquarters to Fairfax County (see “Another Data Point on the VW Deal“), it appears that we will be giving VW employees exemptions on car-related taxes as well. Reports Emily Dooley with the Times-Dispatch:

    Known around the General Assembly as the “Volkswagen bill,” the legislation exempts employees at automaker headquarters and their families from paying motor vehicle sales and use taxes if they lease a car built by the automobile manufacturer.

    Volkswagen Group of America Inc. announced last fall its plans to move 120 employees and its headquarters from Michigan to Fairfax County in April.

    A nonemployee pays $750 in taxes when buying a $25,000 Volkswagen. After July 1, a VW headquarters employee would not. Each employee is allowed to lease up to four cars per year for 12 months. Then the cars are sold.

    The tax waiver was a benefit in Michigan.

    Qimonda. Will Jones with the Times-Dispatch reports today that semiconductor manufacturer Qimonda in eastern Henrico County would get an estimated $1.3 million tax cut this year as part of the county’s proposed budget for fiscal 2008-09. The semiconductor company plans to invest $1.5 billion in the plant over the next several years, and the 27 percent reduction in the machine & tool tax, writes Jones, “would help the memory-chip manufacturer weather a depressed market for its products and make Henrico more attractive for investment by the semiconductor industry.”

    Of course, those two tax breaks are chicken feed compared to the ginormous incentives that the City of Fredericksburg is offering to the Kalahari Waterpark to locate an indoor waterpark in the Celebrate Virginia project. (See “Kalahari’s $61 Million Waterpark Subsidy.“) Fredericksburg officials hand out goodies to favored businesses like Halloween candy.

    What we’re experiencing in Virginia is the slow-motion transformation of the tax code into a two-tier system: one set of rules for special pleaders who wheedle concessions from lawmakers, and a set of rules of the rest of us schmucks. As the special pleaders whittle away at the tax base, government raise taxes on the schmucks to make up the difference.

    State and local officials contend that the tax breaks represent a net gain — without them, VW, Qimonda and Kalahari wouldn’t make the investments, create the jobs and generate the taxes that are projected. What the business-welfare apologists don’t acknowledge is that the schmucks create jobs and pay taxes, too. The difference is, our economic activity is invisible to public policy makers: We don’t hire lobbyists and public relations professionals to make our case. When schmucks pay more in taxes, we have less capital to grow our businesses. Thus, we pay less in taxes in the long run.

    Maybe I should just stop complaining about unfair tax treatment and join the crowd. Maybe I can make a case that blogs are a critical component of Virginia’s emerging information economy and that they need to be encouraged and subsidized. Think anyone would buy it?

  • GREED IN THE NAME OF GREEN

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    James A. Bacon

    Not EVERYONE who works for MainStream Media is conspiring to increase the rate of consumption.

    Check out “Greed In the Name of Green: To Worshipers of Consumption: Spending Won’t Save the Earth.” It is a very good item by “Washington Post Staff Writer” Monica Hesse that ran in the Style section of 5 March issue of WaPo.

    Our favorite is the hybrid Lexus but there are a lot of good examples.

    We were reminded of this item when we went back to check out the references to “RuralZED” housing that were provided in a comment under the Atlantic Realty backfill project in Falls Church posted on 6 March by Jim Bacon.

    The item on “RuralZED” housing was on a website called “TreeHugger.” Talk about Greed in the Name of Green. The site gives new meaning to the word “news hole” vis a vis advertising.

    The site must be popular with those who buy a lot because they sell a lot of ads. When you bring up the item on “RuralZED” housing there is a framework of ads that runs for screen after screen. The story itself is very short so the impression you get is “Hey, Tree Hugger you need to buy, buy, buy…” Reminds us of the Ford Motor Company ad on page two of Unte Reader…

    By the way the second story of “RuralZED” housing makes it clear that this Unit-scale modular component system is designed to create varied Dooryard and Cluster agglomerations. Since “Zed” is used in Great Britain (and some former Colonies) for Zero, “RuralZED” may mean “Not Rural.” It is all a matter of Vocabulary.

    EMR

  • On the Energy Conservation Front…

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    James A. Bacon

    This news has come in from Dominion Virginia Power…

    • Dominion has started enrolling customers for the first of its nine energy-conservation pilot programs: the PowerCost Monitor. Sensors installed on home meters will send wireless signals to in-home displays estimating how much is being spent on electricity at any given time. The 1,000 residential customers in the pilot project will be able to track energy costs by either kilowatts or dollars for different appliances. As the appliances are turned on and off, customers will be able to view energy savings in the device display. (See press release.)

    • Dominion has sold the 1 millionth energy-efficient compact fluorescent lightbulb under its CFL promotion initiative. The power company estimates that consumer savings will amount to $270 million over the multi-year life of the bulbs, and CO2 emissions will be reduced by 1.5 million tons – the equivalent of removing 264,710 cars from the road for one year. (See press release.)

    Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math. There are roughly 3 million households in Virginia. Let’s say the average household has 20 light bulbs. The CFL initiative represents 1/60th the potential savings available through switching out light bulbs. This one, simple change could be the equivalent of getting 16 million cars off the road (more cars than there are in the Commonwealth) — while simultaneously saving Virginia families money!

    Bacon’s bottom line: Combine the CFL initiative with the PowerCost Monitor and the ability to reduce consumption by managing appliances — and let’s not forget Dominion’s other power-saving initiatives coming up — and we should have no trouble meeting the Virginia Energy Plan goal of reducing electricity consumption 10 percent from what it otherwise would be by 2022. We should set far more ambitious goals for ourselves.

  • Measure, Measure, Measure

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    James A. Bacon

    As Prince William County starts checking on the immigration status of criminal suspects, a team of sociologists and criminologists from Virginia universities will be watching. As reported by the Washington Post, the team will ask, “How does a community change when its police officers start checking citizenship?”

    The team will analyze everything from police records to public sentiment. But how do you measure such a policy’s success? If large numbers of illegal immigrants leave the county, were they driven out by police actions, out of fear or because there are fewer jobs in a flagging economy? If reported crime goes down, does it mean that fewer people are breaking the law or that more people are afraid to call authorities?

    The academic initiative has the support of local authorities, who want to make sure that police don’t engage in racial profiling of Hispanics and to evaluate whether the program is cost effective. In the background: Municipal officials want to protect the county against discrimination lawsuits. Also, the board learned recently that the cost of the crackdown will be $6.4 million the first year, more than twice as much as earlier estimated.

    County Supervisor Martin E. Nohe says the exercise will help ensure that the county’s policy is “legal, just and reasonable. … We had to not just avoid racial profiling. With this new focus on Prince William County, we had to also avoid the perception of racial profiling.”

    Without the evaluation, says Chairman Corey A. Stewart, the county would have only anecdotal evidence to judge whether the policy is achieving its purpose, and at what price.

    Bacon’s bottom line: This is a great idea. The knowledge that someone will be systematically tracking the data will, in itself, discourage police from engaging in racial profiling. At the same time, the compilation of comprehensive and objective data will make it difficult for partisans on either side of the illegal immigration debate to make sweeping claims based on anecdotes and isolated incidents.

    Who knows, this initiative could provide a template for governance elsewhere in Virginia. All too often, elected officials make decisions on the basis of incomplete data. All too often, when it comes time to re-evaluate their decisions, they still have incomplete data. (That’s why I’ve argued so strenuously for a component in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s pre-K school initiative to track the impact of the early education on “at risk” children.) I can visualize a future in which state and local governments routinely partner with Virginia universities to measure the results of public policy initiatives.

    Imagine that: Basing decisions on hard data, not anecdote and gut instinct! That would be the greatest revolution in Virginia governance since the overthrow of the monarchy!

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

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

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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