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At the Georgetown University climate speech, President Obama gave a tip-of-the-hat to the fossil fuel “disinvestment” campaign by commenting “invest, divest”.

Convince those in power to reduce our carbon pollution. (Applause.) Push your own communities to adopt smarter practices. (Applause.) Invest. Divest.Remind folks there’s no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth.

Today, I took an action in line with the President’s call by investing  in solar power via .  This investment is far from my first in solar, as my home makes clear. Today’s move was a bit different and has more meaning for me because there is far more behind this than simply choosing to “invest”.

For the past 15 or so years, much of my professional life has been involved participating in efforts to help move the U.S. military toward a smarter approach to energy issues.  This has involved work on  issues like Fully-Burdened Cost of Fuel, helping run (pro bono) a DOD-funded energy lecture series, giving presentations, writing articles (many without my name on them), participating in seminars and wargames, advising government offices (sigh, essentially also pro bono), and … well, a wide range of interactions, work, etc …  I have been investing — my time, my passion, my intellectual contributions — along with many others in seeking to move the U.S. military toward more sensible energy policies and practices.  My investment portfolio (sadly, not Koch-like, but still a “portfolio”) has not reflected this work and this investment.  At least, not until a few hours ago.

And email from Billy Parish, founder of Mosaic, sparked a change to the equation. Mosaic is crowd-sourcing solar projects — giving people a chance to invest their money in putting up solar panels $25 at a time. Billy’s email announced their latest project: putting up 12.27 megawatts of solar panels at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington
County, New Jersey (McGuire Air Force Base, Fort Dix and Naval Air Station Lakehurst).  Part of the larger move to make U.S. military bases more resilient by having on-base power production and cleaner through energy efficiency and renewable energy, the solar panels will be installed on 537 homes and supply an estimated 30 percent of home energy requirements. (Note that it is unclear whether the Mosaic-funded project is part of or in addition to the January 2013 announced plans to put solar on 1500 of 2200 United Communities homes at Joint Base McGuire.)

Thanks to Mosaic and the ability to invest $25 at a time (thus, my $100 counts as four times???), when it comes to renewable energy and the U.S. military, I’ve put my money where my mouth has been for over a decade.

The deaths of the Prescott, Ariz.-based “Granite Mountain Hotshots” was the worst wildland firefighting disaster since a 1933 wildfire killed 25 firefighters in Los Angeles. It was the largest loss of firefighters in the U.S. since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Until Sunday, Arizona had suffered 22 wildland firefighting deaths since 1955, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

A lightning strike is the suspected cause of the blaze, and a brutal heat wave in the West, combined with bone-dry conditions, likely aided its spread. The high temperature at Prescott on Sunday was in the triple digits. The forecast for Monday called for high temperatures to hover near the century mark, with continued low humidity.

Thunderstorms near the fire are a suspected cause of the erratic behavior of the flames on Sunday, when the firefighting crew was forced to deploy their last-resort fire shelters to try to deflect the flames.

Statewide temperature trends in Arizona since 1920, with the post 1970 trend line drawn as well.
Click image to enlarge. Credit: Climate Central.

The Yarnell Hill fire, like other wildfires in the West right now, is taking place in the context of one of the most extreme heat waves on record in the region, as well as a long-running drought. While the contributors to specific fires are varied and include natural weather and climate variability as well as human factors, such as arson, a draft federal climate report released in January found that manmade climate change, along with other factors, has already increased the overall risk of wildfires in the Southwest.

And projections show that the West may be in for more large wildfires in the future. Climate models show an alarming increase in large wildfires in the West in coming years, as spring snowpack melts earlier, summer temperatures increase, and droughts occur more frequently or with greater severity.

In Arizona, the current drought, combined with the regional heat wave, has created extremely dangerous wildfire conditions. Three quarters of the state of Arizona is experiencing “severe” to “exceptional” drought conditions, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor. In neighboring New Mexico, conditions are even more dire, with about 45 percent of the state experiencing “exceptional” drought, the worst-possible category.

Long-running precipitation deficits, including a below-average winter snowpack, have led to extremely dry soil moisture conditions in Arizona and New Mexico, in particular, and in other states across the West.

In recent years, the Southwest has trended toward drier and warmer conditions, which is consistent with climate-model projections that show that the region may become more arid in the coming decades, due in large part to manmade global warming. In fact, Arizona was the fastest warming state in the contiguous U.S. since the mid-1970s, with average surface temperatures increasing by 0.639°F per decade since 1970.

Other contributors to wildfire trends include the consequences of decades of fire-suppression policies, which have left many forests with large amounts of vegetation to serve as fuel for wildfires. Another factor is population growth, and more specifically, development that has taken place at the edge of areas that have a history of wildfires, known as the “wildland-urban interface.”

Compared to an average year in the 1970s, during the past decade there were seven times more fires greater than 10,000 acres each year, and nearly five times more fires larger than 25,000 acres each year, according to Climate Central research.

Trends in large wildfires (greater than 10,000 acres) in Arizona, between 1970-2011.
Click image to enlarge. Credit: Climate Central.

Due to a combination of drought and record heat, 2012 saw one of the most destructive wildfire seasons on record, with 9.3 million acres going up in flames, the third-highest since 1960.

Over the shorter-term, firefighters battling the blaze may face more extreme heat through midweek, when temperatures may moderate slightly. Monthly and all-time temperature records have already been set across the West, including a high temperature of a scorching 129°F at Death Valley, Calif., on Sunday. That tied the all-time U.S. record for the highest temperature on record for the month of June, and came close to tying the record for the world’s hottest temperature, which is 134°F, set in Death Valley in 1913.

In Phoenix, even the overnight lows have been toasty, with an overnight low temperature of 91°F on June 30, for example, which tied the record-high minimum temperature for the date.

While individual heat waves have ties to short-term natural weather variability, increasingly common and intense heat waves are one of the most well-understood consequences of manmade global warming, since as global average surface temperatures increase, the probability of extreme heat events increases by a greater amount.

The heat this week poses a formidable obstacle for firefighters, since it affects wildfire behavior as well as human health. Heat is the No.1 weather-related killer in the U.S., according to the National Weather Service.

Related Content
Deadly Heat Wave Continues in West; Wildfire Danger High
The Age of Western Wildfires
Heat Wave May Threaten World’s Hottest Temp. Record
Global Warming Behind Australia’s ‘Angry Summer’: Study
Hansen Study: Extreme Weather Tied to Climate Change
8 Images to Understand the Drought in the Southwest

Today, the President will be giving a speech at Georgetown University on climate change issues, with announcements of initiatives that will be taken leveraging the powers of the Administrative Branch because the Congress is unable (and, to a large extent, unwilling) to take meaningful action to address climate change: whether mitigation or adaptation.

There are two things that we know, without question, before the President opens his mouth …

1. Those in denial on climate science will scream that the President is doing too much and those who understand climate risks will be concerned that the actions are inadequate.
2. Everyone — EVERYONE — will overstate the costs of action and understate the benefits of climate change mitigation and action.

As to the second, there are a myriad of reasons why people get the cost-benefit calculation wrong that range from outright deceit to cautiousness about the power of innovation.

As to that last, Ramez Naam’s the Infinite Resource: the power of ideas on a finite planet is a powerful discussion of how innovation can enable us, even at this stage, to address climate change successfully. Naam presents a strong version of what I describe as ‘pessimistic optimism’ — he is quite clear as to the extent of our challenges and problems while also providing cogent arguments as to why and how unleashing innovation can enable a transformation of American (and global) society toward a prosperous, climate-friendly future.

Naam has, among other things, an excellent discussion of how opponents and proponents have gotten the cost-benefit equation wrong on past policy discussions of addressing environmental issues (pages 201-204).

• Addressing Acid Rain
  • Industry groups predicted annual costs of $25 billion per year, EPA projected $6 billion per year, over the past 20 years the costs habe been “only $3 billion per year, just one-eight of the industry estimates, and half of what the EPA estimated.”
  • Benefits:  “regulations saved an estimated $118 billion per year in reduced health expenses”.
  • And … Americans still have electricity for their big-screen TVs.
• Ozone layer
  • “Don Hodel … [Reagan] secretary of the interior after James Watt argued that any near-term risk of thinning ozone layer could be handled by telling people to wear hats and put on more sunscreen. … [DuPont] warned that phasing out CFCs could cost the United States more than $130 billion and “that entire industries could fold.” … the Competitive Enterprise Institute … phasing out CFCs would cost the countgry between $45 billion and $99 billion. … The EPA expected the phase-out to cost a total of $28 billion. …. the actual cost across the entire US economy turned out to be less than $10 billion … less than a tenth of what DuPont had estimated, less than a quarter of the lowest cost estimates from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and only slightly more than a third of what the EPA itself had estimated.”
  • While opponents of action had warned that refrigerators would become a thing only multi-millionaires could afford, “the country’s air conditioning and refrigeration kep on working without disruption.”
• And …
  • Benzene: When putting limits on benzene emissions at industrial sites, chemical companies forecast costs of $350,000 per plant.  Within a few years, changed processes that eliminated benzene entirely (beating the regulations) reduced this cost to … zero.  Health benefits > $billions.
  • Asbestos:  OSHA estimated costs of $150 million to end asbestos use in insulation and the costs turned out to be $75 million.  Health benefits > $billions.
  • Reduced coke oven pollution:  EPA estimated costs of $4 billion in 1987 learning by 1991 led to revised cost estimates of $400 million. Health benefits > $billions.

“Everywhere we look, the cost of reducing either resource use or pollution drops through innovation.  Even the cost estimates of regulators turn out to be too high.” (205)

Much will (and should be said) about the President’s speech and the 21 page plan released at 0600 this morning.  That the President is speaking — seriously — about climate change matters is good.  That President Obama is demonstrating a willingness to take — in wide public view — Administration action in the face of a do-nothing Congress is good.

What is not good is that, inevitably, the entire discussion will exaggerate the costs of action and understate the benefits of action.

We

• Cannot afford to get the cost-benefit equation wrong any more.
• Should understand that there are bad (very bad) and good reasons that this error occurs.
• Must fight to turn the discussion toward a closer understanding of the situation.

We are already facing massive costs due to inaction and inaction will increase costs.

Action is not a “cost” but an investment.

Because the “benefits” from action will be almost incalculably huge.

Related posts:

• Climate Sanity and the necessity of Fully-Burdened Cost and Benefit Analysis
• Climate Mitigation Advocates Systematically Understate Case — yet another example …
• Boiler MACT: Reason for a fourth cheer!
• “All costs, no benefits …”

Advocates for climate mitigation again understate case?

“Social Cost of Carbon” (SCC) is a tool to provide a fiscal accounting for all the damage implications of adding carbon to the atmosphere. The U.S. government has a SCC figure of about $20 per ton, which is radically below what reasonable. Even though a radically low figure, it matters that SCC has made its way into numerous Federal analyses as per this 2010 EPA report (pdf):

To date, economic analyses for Federal regulations have used a wide range of values to estimate the benefits associated with reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In the final model year 2011 CAFE rule, the Department of Transportation (DOT) used both a “domestic” SCC value of $2 per ton of CO2 and a “global” SCC value of $33 per ton of CO2 for 2007 emission reductions (in 2007 dollars), increasing both values at 2.4 percent per year. It also included a sensitivity analysis at $80 per ton of CO2. A domestic SCC value is meant to reflect the value of damages in the United States resulting from a unit change in carbon dioxide emissions, while a global SCC value is meant to reflect the value of damages worldwide.

A 2008 regulation proposed by DOT assumed a domestic SCC value of $7 per ton CO2 (in 2006 dollars) for 2011 emission reductions (with a range of $0-$14 for sensitivity analysis), also increasing at 2.4 percent per year. A regulation finalized by DOE in October of 2008 used a domestic SCC range of $0 to $20 per ton CO2 for 2007 emission reductions (in 2007 dollars). In addition, EPA’s 2008 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Greenhouse Gases identified what it described as “very preliminary” SCC estimates subject to revision. EPA’s global mean values were $68 and $40 per ton CO2 for discount rates of approximately 2 percent and 3 percent, respectively (in 2006 dollars for 2007 emissions)

A huge range — from as high as $80 (still too low …) to as little as $2 — in these figures but at least some effort to include the “costs” of carbon in decision-making.

It is with the SCC — whether the drastically inadequate $2 to $20 or a more sensible $80+ — in mind that I contemplated the most recent bid for a coal lease. In Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management opened bidding for 21.3 million tons of coal. As is typical, only one company bid.

Blue Mountain Energy, submitted a bid for the coal. The coal company, which hopes to expand its Deserado mine that supplies coal to the Bonanza coal plant in Utah, offered $6,390,000 – amounting to just 30 cents a ton.

Remember that Social Cost of Carbon only deals with “carbon” and not other pollutants / economic impacts from burning coal (such as mercury, particulates, etc …).

And, remember that each pound of coal burned for electricity translates into roughly two pounds of CO2 emissions.

Thus, working with the absurdly low $2 SCC translates into, roughly, a $4 per ton “Social Cost of Coal (Carbon Emissions)”.

Working with that lowest figure, the Blue Mountain Energy bid is under ten percent of that figure. Without accounting for land reclamation, mercury (and other) pollution costs, etc …, the societal cost for leasing this coal for mining is easily far more than 10x the money the Federal Government will receive.

While the “direct” bank account might seem to look good, with $s coming into the Treasury, the “externalities” in this case massively exceed that marginal incoming flow — without, again, attempting to account for the massive additional costs from coal on society.

With this in mind, a very simple rule should be put into place:

The Bureau of Land Management should not allow a mine sale to go ahead where the revenue raised is exceeded by the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) implications from the sale.

Organizing for America (OFA) is moving toward an ever-more aggressive positioning when it comes to clean energy and climate change issues.

Added this past week to the website, “Call Out Climate Change Deniers“:

Climate change is real, it’s caused largely by human activities, and it poses significant risks for our health. Some members of Congress disagree with this simple, scientifically proven fact. We need to work to curb climate change, and a big step is to raise our voices to change the conversation in Washington. Call these deniers out. Hold them accountable. Ask them if they will admit climate change is a problem.

On the page, quote after quote demonstrating an utter disdain for science and disregard for the very real threat(s) that climate change creates for American prosperity and security. Not surprisingly, some of America’s favorite Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Haters Of a Livable Economic System appear prominently in this list.

Let’s start with the Speaker of the House, John Boehner:

“George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.”

How about Rep. Ralph Hall (hint: Chairman Emeritus of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which he previously chaired from 2011 to 2013)?

“I’m really more fearful of freezing. And I don’t have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they’re not basing it on real scientific facts”

Senator Rand Paul

“[Scientists] are making up their facts to fit their conclusions. They’ve already caught them doing this.”

And …

Sadly, this is a target-rich environment.

But, it is now an environment where OFA is making moves to start shooting the fish in the barrel.

Check out the OFA material on House and Senate climate science deniers.

And, as OFA asks, start doing your part to “call them out”.

We will continue updating the list below as supporters get answers to the basic question of whether their representatives in Congress accept the science on climate change. We hope that this list will shrink as members clarify what they truly believe about climate change.

OFA is taking on calling out Climate Zombies.

This is a good step.

Let’s help make it an ever-more powerful and continuing one.

Again, leverage OFA to call out and put pressure on climate science deniers.

NOTE: At the end of the page is this note:

Thanks to RL Miller for contributing to some of the original research in tracking down this information.

We all owe a serious tip of the hat to RL Miller who has done quite a bit of work tracking down material on Climate Zombies and has been pushing for years for just this sort of major political action to ‘call them out’.

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According to the Commander of U.S. Forces Pacific (PACCOM),

significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’

Admiral Samuel Locklear had a meeting the other day with national security experts at Tufts and Harvard.  After this session, he met with a reporter who asked him asked what the top security threat was in the Pacific Ocean.  Rather than highlighting Chinese ballistic missiles, the new Chinese Navy aircraft carrier, North Korean nuclear weapons, or other traditional military threats, Admiral Locklear looked to a larger definition of national security.

Locklear commented that “People are surprised sometimes” that he highlights climate change — despite an ability to discuss a wide-range of threats, from cyber-war to the North Koreans.  However, it is the risks — from natural disasters to long-term sea-level rise threats to Pacific nations that has his deepest attention.

“You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

Climate Change merits national security — military — attention for very pragmatic reasons.

The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”

And, Admiral Locklear is now — almost certainly with Joint Chiefs of Staff and Office of Secretary of Defense knowledge and support — taking this up seriously with other nations.

“We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.’’

The Pacific region has seen some of the largest multi-national disaster relief operations.  Operation Sea Angel in 1991, following a devastating typhoon on Bangladesh, involved numerous military forces — including the Chinese Navy. Similarly, many nations used military forces to respond across the Indian Ocean to the disastrous December 2004 Aceh Tsunami.  Admiral Locklear is looking to the reality of mounting seas, more damaging severe weather, and looking to other climate impacts — and is working to set the stage for the region’s military forces to work together more effectively in responding to climate disruption driven disasters.

This interview is not an isolated comment by Admiral Locklear but an indication of increasing concern about and focus on climate change.  In December 2012, he raised climate change in a speech to the Asia Society. From this speech highlighting the importance and complexity of the Pacific region.  His first example of a non-region specific complicating issue:

this complexity is magnified by a wide, diverse group of challenges…challenges that can significantly stress the security environment….

— Climate change – where increasingly severe weather patterns and rising sea levels will threaten our peoples and even threaten the loss of entire nations…and of course the inevitable earthquakes and tsunamis will continue to challenge all of us in a very unpredictable way as our planet ages. Just as today our friends and partners in the Philippines are dealing with the challenges of the most recent super typhoon.

Admiral Locklear spoke a month ago to the U.S. Indonesia Society. In the speech, he linked climate change to the military, the need for resiliency and the ability for coping with mounting disaster relief requirements.

As Indonesia’s capabilities grow, the Indonesian military should also build on its tradition of contributing forces to U.N. peacekeeping operations…yet another area where the Indonesian and American militaries  can collaborate more closely to increase the level of interoperability between our forces.

While resilience in the security environment is traditionally understood as the ability to recover from a crisis, using the term in the context of national security expands its meaning to include crisis prevention.

With large populations vulnerable to the effects of climate change and natural disasters, both our nations have a significant interest in improving our ability to quickly respond and mitigate the ongoing risk these threats bring.

We learned how local communities prepare themselves for the inevitable disruptions are critical to the region’s efforts to maintain peace, security and prosperity.
This means working on disaster response alone is no longer the answer for the types of scenarios that we face.

Disaster risk reduction through mitigation, planning, and recovery that starts at the community level is required if we are to create more resilient societies.

Private businesses and communities must look within and beyond their current capabilities to ensure that they are prepared to handle what may occur as a result of some catastrophe.

Admiral Locklear as a strong voice on climate change issues might surprise some.  Consider, for example, the range of Combatant Commander formal statements to Congress as to the discussion of climate change.  Writ large, not much there — and Admiral Locklear is no exception in that list.  Admiral Locklear has mentioned climate change before, such as commenting that it would be a stress factor in Europe (where he commanded Operation Odyssey Dawn, the attack on Qaddafi’s Libya during the Arab Spring).  That Admiral Locklear is putting climate change on the top of the long-term security challenge seems to be new — to be news.

That a four-star flag officer is publicly stating that climate change dominates the long-term strategic discussions in his command matters.

It matters for the substance of discussion with other nations and for what this might portend for the highest levels of the U.S. military. (Sadly, there are reasonsto expect the (older) uniformed military to be strongly climate denial — having a 4-star speak different can impact this.) It perhaps is most important because the military is a path toward serious cultural change as to a broader acceptance of the basic reality of climate change.  Who ‘listens’ when someone in uniform speaks?  For me, themilitary is one of the key institutions for changing Americans perspectives on clean energy and climate change.

Even as one who follows climate change news, the graphic is  pretty shocking:

This guest post comes from Greg Laden.

I was distressed to find many people who are essentially pro-environment and who generally understand climate change science being less than terribly shocked about the prospect of the Keystone XL pipeline being built. Then I began to realize that many people don’t realize the order of magnitude of the problem. I’m writing a blog post about this …, but in the mean time I want to provide a list of handy dandy reliable and helpful sources of information about the pipeline and related issues.

• Keystone XL decision will define Barack Obama’s legacy on climate change
• An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
• Keystone XL: Why not?
• STUDY: The Press And The Pipeline
• Why not Keystone XL. Clear reasons why Keystone XL is not in the U.S. national interest
• 5 Myths About Keystone XL, Debunked
• Debunking Nature’s arguments for Keystone
• The Keystone XL Pipeline: Red herring, symbol, or a piece of a puzzle?
• Joe Romm on Climate, Obama, Keystone, and Consequences
• New video explains the climate threat from the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
• New Analysis Shows Simple Math: Keystone XL Pipeline = Tar Sands Expansion = Climate Change

How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming?

This guest post comes from DWG.

And, well, the Star-Ledger‘s editorial board is now my favorite editorial board in the nation.

The editorial ends

Yes, we have always had storms, droughts and floods. But the pace and severity are setting records across the globe, just as the scientists predicted. To ignore that growing risk is reckless. And expensive.

Let’s just say that the ‘flat earther climate deniers‘ weren’t thrilled with this editorial.

The Virginia legislature seems poised to adopt a (at best) mediocre transportation bill — better than what Governor McDonnell proposed originally but still pretty bad — but the voting is going to be close as Tea Party Republicans are prepared to vote NO on the Governor’s top priority because it includes tax revenues to pay for common goods.

This legislation represents one of the rare occasions where House of Delegates Democratic Party members might actually have serious leverage.

When looking at this bill, here are three major problems that House Democrats can use their leverage to address:

1. Wholesale gas tax is lower than general sales tax rate.
2. Hybrid tax is punitive and the (il)logic doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
3. There are multiple horrid transportation boondoggles embedded in this that will syphon off $billions (potentially $10s of billions) of limited resources that could be better spent on other transportation projects to improve Virginians’ lives, improve Virginia’s economy, and better serve Virginia’s future.

Addressing these very quickly,

Make Wholesale Gas Tax Equal to Sales Tax: While there a myriad of policy reasons why lowering gas taxes are simply bad policy (moving away from user fees, rewarding pollution, hurting efforts to reduce oil imports, promoting things that move money out of Virginia (since VA imports all of its oil products), etc …), there is a fundamentally bizarre element at play here:  Why is the legislature going to reduce partially the gas tax percentage while increasing the general sales tax? A simple question, “Why should fuel for cars be taxed less than clothing for children?”

Democrats in the House should demand that the wholesale gas tax equal the retail general sales tax rate. [NOTE — general sales tax is not on the wholesale price of a product, but retail, so even this would advantage gasoline products …]

Eliminate Hybrid Surcharge:  Again while it is stupid on policy reasons (attacking those seeking modern technology and energy efficiency with lower pollution with lower external costs (such as reduced health implications)), the logic behind the hybrid surcharge doesn’t stand up. Governor McDonnell has claimed it is required due to lost gas taxes. However, with the new wholesale gas tax, it would take over 20 years of average driving in a hybrid to lead to lost tax revenue of $100.  And, hybrid vehicles sell for higher prices than non-hybrids — thus there is more tax revenue on sales and title transfers.  This is a punitive ‘anti-green’ tax which is simply a punching of those ‘greenies’ who buy hybrids and who generally favor Democratic Party candidates.

Democrats in the House should say no to this idiot policy which is targeting your own supporters.

Mandate open review of major transportation projects with legislative review before proceeding.  While the Coalfields Expressway is truly the worst (designed more to support Mountain Top Removal using tax dollars than to help better Virginia transportation), there are multiple $multi-billion questionable projects that will — $ for $ — do far less than Virginia and Virginians than a wide range of other transportation project options.

House of Delegates Democrats should demand provisions for external review of major projects and legislative approval requirements to reduce the waste of taxpayer resources on ‘Roads to Nowhere’.

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