Category Archives: Environment

Change the system? ‘Aw, never mind …’

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
JUST IN CASE you were wondering, or knew and had forgotten, this is the way the political culture pushes back against change in South Carolina: Not with a bang, but with an “Aw, never mind.”
    Remember last week’s column, in which I offered, as a rare sign of hope, the gathering consensus that the state Department of Health and Environmental Control should be made more accountable by placing it directly under the elected chief executive? Well, ever since then, there’s been some backtracking.
Actually, it started even before that. While I was writing that column, I heard from my colleague Cindi Scoppe that Manufacturers Alliance chief Lewis Gossett was sending us an op-ed clarifying his position after The State’s Sammy Fretwell had reported that he and S.C. Chamber of Commerce president Otis Rawl were supporting legislative efforts to put DHEC in the governor’s Cabinet.
    Not having received that op-ed (and we still hadn’t received it a week later, when this page was composed), I just wrote around the business leaders, and focused on another Fretwell story that reported that the chairman of the DHEC board, Bo Aughtry, was supportive of the Cabinet idea. “It is worthy of serious consideration because I believe it would take some of the political influence out of decisions that really should not be political,” he had told Sammy.
    This was important because the board Mr. Aughtry chairs would be the very entity that would be surrendering power if the governor were in charge. I thought it reflected very well upon Mr. Aughtry.
On Wednesday, however, I began to worry when someone shared with me a memo that DHEC Commissioner Earl Hunter had sent internally on Friday, Jan. 16, which said in part (you can read it all on my blog):

On another note, several stories have been reported in The State newspaper and other media outlets recently regarding our agency being placed in the Governor’s cabinet. Two business organizations, the SC Chamber of Commerce and the SC Manufacturers Alliance were reported as being supportive. Information I have received from both of those organizations contradicts those storiesæ.æ.æ.æ. In addition, an article this week reported that our board chairman was also supportive. Chairman Aughtry has e-mailed and called me to let me know and let you know that he was misquoted. His statement to the media was simply that he felt that any change that would take politics out of the equation is worthy of consideration. He also let the reporter know that he was 100% supportive of the agency and its staff. As usual, however, that statement wasnt included in the report….

    Then, on Thursday, we received the op-ed piece from Bo Aughtry that you find on the opposite page. Please read it.
    He writes that “moving the agency into the governor’s Cabinet may be appropriate,” although “this is not my current position.” He does believe that “any move that will make DHEC decisions less subject to political pressures is worthy of consideration. Is this best accomplished by a move to Cabinet status? I do not know, but the objective is sound.”
    If that’s a denial, it’s a mushy one. But he delivers another message that I hear a lot more loudly and clearly: Earl Hunter is a great guy. His staff is very fine, too. The same is true of the folks on the governing board.
    And you know what? I agree. I don’t know all of those people, but I know Earl Hunter, and he is a great guy. He goes to my church. I truly believe he is a sincere advocate for the state’s health and environmental quality.
    But you know what else? This isn’t about how I feel about Earl Hunter. It’s about the fact that we have a system of government in this state that does not allow the public will to be expressed clearly and effectively through this or any other agency that does not report to the elected chief executive.
    Too often, the need for such accountability is expressed in punitive terms: A governor could fire an agency head who isn’t getting the job done. But an agency head who has the governor and his bully pulpit behind him will have a lot more political leverage for doing his job. Which is better: having the unelected board chairman “100% supportive of the agency and its staff,” or having the same support from the governor and his bully pulpit? As things stand, Mr. Hunter has no one at his back with any juice, but he does have to keep his board and 170 legislators happy, which is not a recipe for bold reform; it’s a recipe for caution.
    What I want is a system that gives South Carolinians someone to hold accountable for the fact that we take too much of the nation’s waste and are not as healthy as folks in other states. Such a system would also give the good, dedicated people at DHEC the political leverage to change the political dynamic in this state as it affects their mission.
    We’ve been here before. When this newspaper started pushing hard for a Cabinet system back in 1991, we ran smack into the fact that the then-commissioner of DHEC was also a terrific guy, named Michael Jarrett. He was enormously respected in state government circles, and rightly so. He spoke out strongly against making DHEC a Cabinet agency. He did so as he was fighting cancer, which took his life in 1992. Lawmakers listened, and did not make DHEC a Cabinet agency.
    We don’t need another reform debate based in how lawmakers feel about those serving in the current system, because in South Carolina, the reform argument always loses such debates. Once it becomes about ol’ so-and-so who has the job now, forget about change: Aw, never mind.
    The thing is, if Mr. Hunter and Mr. Aughtry were replaced tomorrow — something I am not advocating — it would not change one bit the fact that voters have no one they can hold responsible for improving our public health and environmental quality.
    Mr. Aughtry was right the first time, and he’s still right: Reform is “worthy of consideration,” because “the objective is sound.”

For more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

DHEC memo

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Here's the full internal DHEC memo that I referred to in my Sunday column. Commissioner Earl Hunter sent it on Friday, Jan. 16. I got it second or third-hand, and consequently copied and sent it to DHEC spokesman Thom Berry to check its authenticity. Unfortunately, he was traveling and couldn't get to his e-mail. So I read portions of it to him on the phone, and he said he recognized it as a message Mr. Hunter had sent the previous Friday:

Good afternoon, staff.

    Let me begin by saying that I sincerely appreciate the positive way you have handled the budget balancing steps we've had to take to keep our agency afloat. And I especially appreciate the way you've continued to do your jobs with a sense of purpose and an emphasis on customer service. It's a testament to each and every one of you.
    Announcing furloughs just prior to the holidays was one of the most difficult tasks I have faced as Commissioner. I know all the members of the Executive Management Team feel the same way. I heard from many of you. The majority, very positive.  A few, very negative. Please know that I understand and can appreciate both reactions.
    Recently, however, I have learned of several unfounded rumors floating around that I am sure have caused concerns among many of you. One such rumor that I've been made aware of is that "an additional five or ten days of furloughs are forthcoming." I have also been told that some are saying that "the decision was made weeks ago" and that we are just delaying announcing this until the "right time." I ask that you pay no attention to these rumors.  They are just that…rumors…unfounded and untrue. Although allowed by law to implement up to 10 days during the year, no additional plans for furloughs have been or are being discussed.  If no additional budget cuts happen this fiscal year, it is my sincere hope and the current plan of EMT that no additional furloughs will be necessary this fiscal year
    On the budget front, the Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) met yesterday in Columbia.  According to news reports, collections for the months of October and November were actually ahead of revised projections by $30 million. Although $30 million in relation to the overall annual state budget is not a lot of money, it may be a sign that additional revisions downward of collection estimates may not be necessary. We hope that equates to no additional cuts for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2009. The BEA will meet in February to review collections data for the holiday shopping season.
    On another note, several stories have been reported in The State newspaper and other media outlets recently regarding our agency being placed in the Governor's cabinet. Two business organizations, the SC Chamber of Commerce and the SC Manufacturers Alliance were reported as being supportive. Information I have received from both of those organizations contradicts those stories. Both may be coming out with formal statements of clarification soon. In addition, an article this week reported that our board chairman was also supportive. Chairman Aughtry has e-mailed and called me to let me know and let you know that he was misquoted. His statement to the media was simply that he felt that any change that would take politics out of the equation is worthy of consideration. He also let the reporter know that he was 100% supportive of the agency and its staff.  As usual, however, that statement wasnt included in the report.
    In closing, I ask that you all try to keep a positive attitude during these difficult time, and that you please not allow yourselves to be distracted by the media. We will be appearing before our House Ways and Means Budget Subcommittee next Thursday morning regarding next fiscal years budget, and plan to lay out for the members the effects of all three cuts our agency has taken thus far, as well as what further cuts would do and what our most pressing needs are — both for our agency and the people of this state  I will provide another update once that has concluded. Take care And thank you again for all that you do.

Earl

Earlier DHEC chief also opposed restructuring

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Back when we did our "Power Failure" series about the problems with the way government is structured in South Carolina, one of the most influential opponents of going to a Cabinet system was the late Michael Jarrett, the highly respected commissioner of DHEC.

When the Legislature passed restructuring legislation that put some of the executive branch under control of the elected chief executive, DHEC was one of the larger agencies that lawmakers pointedly left out of the Cabinet.

The following is a story we ran as part of our series, in which Mr. Jarrett presented his arguments against gubernatorial control of his agency.

I had remembered this story and searched for it in our database so I could link to it in my Sunday column, in which I mentioned Mr. Jarrett's opposition to restructuring. I had forgotten the long correction that we later ran, which was in keeping with our archiving procedures attached to the file in our database:

THE STATE
DHEC CHIEF WARNS OF POLITICKING, FRAGMENTATION
Published on: 12/15/1991
Section: IMPACT
Edition: FINAL
Page: 1C
By LEVONA PAGE, Senior Writer
Memo: POWER FAILURE: The Government That Answers to No One

Sixteenth in a series

Correction: WE WERE WRONG, PUBLISHED DEC. 17, 1991, FOLLOWS:

Mike Jarrett, commissioner of the Department of Health and Environmental Control, said Monday his agency was not pressured by the office of former Gov. Dick Riley to deny a permit for the Union Camp paper mill, as he said in a story Sunday in The State. After checking with DHEC staff about his earlier comments, Jarrett said, "I think that was overstated from what I can find out now." He said that after the paper mill permit became controversial, Riley's staff called his agency to be sure that the permitting process was done properly and without haste so that it could not be challenged. "They were just calls expressing concern," Jarrett said. "The staff doesn't remember any undue pressure." Riley said Monday he and his staff strongly supported Union Camp, publicly and privately. "What we always said to DHEC was the governor supports this unless you can come up with a reason not to," Riley said. In a reference in the same story to a contact by the governor's office concerning a permit for a gold mine at Ridgeway, Jarrett said he was referring to the office of Gov. Carroll Campbell, not the Riley administration. DHEC issued the gold mine permit four months after Campbell took office. Campbell spokesman Tucker Eskew said the governor did not take sides in that controversy, but Eskew said, "There's nothing wrong with the governor's office contacting a state agency to express views. Such input at least is coming from an accountable, statewide elected official."

    Mike Jarrett knows state government as well as anybody in it, and he has some serious doubts about the proposed Cabinet.

    His opinion is likely to carry a lot of weight. He's been around since 1964, climbing to his present job as commissioner of the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

    Also, most people who know Jarrett know he's not concerned about protecting his job. A year ago, he learned he has terminal cancer.

    From his unique perspective, Jarrett speaks freely, and he faults the proposed Cabinet system mainly on two points. First, he says it would put more politics into decision making. Second, he says the particular plan being discussed in South Carolina unnecessarily splits up some agencies and diverts their functions to other agencies.

    If the governor is given more power, as a Cabinet system proposes, the chief executive will become more vulnerable to the voters' displeasure when things go wrong. That means state government will be forced to bow to every whim of popular political opinion, Jarrett said.

    "A governor has to be interested in politics and popularity, and agencies can't be run on the basis of popular decisions," he said.

    DHEC has had some experience with political pressure from the governor's office, Jarrett said. He cited two examples, both during former Gov. Dick Riley's administration.

    The first occurred when residents became upset about Union Camp's plans to build a $485 million paper mill near Eastover.

    "We had calls from the governor's staff not to permit," Jarrett said. "But what they (Union Camp) presented to us met the minimum standards of the law, and we permitted it.

    "In retrospect, it has been a good decision, but had we been driven by the governor's office . . . that decision would not have been made the way it was."

    Another example was the dispute over an $81 million gold mine at Ridgeway, which was opposed by some environmentalists.

    "First, the governor's office called. 'What can you do to get the permit through? It's big business, and we need it.' We had a hearing process. While that was taking place, the public got opposed. Then we got a call from the same staff. 'Don't permit it.' But we had no choice. It met the criteria of the law, and we permitted it."

    DHEC was able to shrug off the directives from the governor's office because the agency is governed by an independent board. Although all seven board members are governor's appointees, the terms are staggered, and the board usually is a mix of appointees by more than one governor.

    Environmental permitting actions should be insulated from politics, Jarrett said.

    Aside from the potential for political influence, Jarrett is strongly against the reorganization plan put forth by the governor's Commission on Government Restructuring.

    Under the commission's plan, the major health delivery functions of DHEC would be given to a new Department of Health and Human Services. Those functions include preventive health services, maternal and child health, home health care and migrant services.

    With the health delivery functions stripped away, the new Department of Health and Environmental Control would exist mainly as a regulatory and licensing agency. The department would monitor environmental quality and health care facilities.

    Jarrett said the separation of health and environment is contrary to a recent study of the national Institute of Medicine and would not benefit the public. He said the commission's recommendation is driven by a desire to provide one-stop environmental permitting for industry.

    DHEC is not the only agency whose functions would be split up. Others are the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism and the Department of Highways and Public Transportation.

    Jarrett said he wouldn't u
se his influence to fight a Cabinet system of government if some changes were made in the restructuring commission's plan. "I will be strongly against separating health and environment," he said. "I don't think it is for the benefit of the public. It is for the benefit of industry at the expense of the public."

It’s not a scientific fact that peas and carrots go well together

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For some time, I've gotten these regular e-mails called "Peas and Carrots Reports" from a South Carolina-oriented group called "Citizens for Sound Conservation." (Get it? Citizens for S.C.? I assume that's intentional.)

I've never had time really to look into what sort of group this is, or even read these reports, but I gather that it's one of those groups whose philosophy can be summed up as "Protecting the environment is great and all, but let's not get carried away." You know — we can have all the growth we want without really seriously hurting the environment. Which I don't necessarily disagree with, although I find that folks who start from that proposition generally drift more and more toward the growth, and farther and farther from the environmental protection.

No, what has vaguely bothered me about these reports is the "Peas and Carrots" part. It apparently arises from what I take to be the group's motto, "Because growth and protection go together — just like peas and carrots." The irritating thing about this to me is that I always thought the line was dumb when Forrest Gump said it, and I'm pretty sure it was meant to sound dumb, Mr. Gump being, you know, the way he was. Sort of an endearingly goofy thing to say. It was sort of meant to suggest that since peas and carrots were often packaged together and (I guess) his mama served them to him that way, he thought there was some sort of inherent connection. But there isn't, not really. Root vegetable and legume, green and orange — not a whole lot of similarities that I can see. And personally, I never thought they tasted good together. At best, an odd combo.

Anyway, that's about as far as my analysis of these reports had gone until the one I got today, which said the following (the boldfaced emphasis is mine):

    Despite the near 24-7 coverage focusing on how cool President Obama is and how his wife has already become a fashion icon, there was a good bit of news on the environmental front.  First, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Americans are skeptical of global warming – which means any state and federal policies being based upon that theory must be re-evaluated.  Second, while the causes of climate change continue to be debated our dependence on fossil fuels remains strong.  As such, support for more offshore exploration for oil and natural gas continues to grow.  And last, the private sector continues to embrace and transition into a more green economy – but government doesn’t need to overstep its bounds.  That’s the big question for 2009.

Come again? You say polls show that the propaganda campaign to cast doubt on global warming has gained some traction, so since more Americans doubt the science on this, we should change our policies?

Say what? Does that mean that if a majority of Americans comes to believe that the Earth is flat and you'll fall off if you go too far, the U.S. Navy should stay in the Western Hemisphere. (Yeah, some of our isolationists would love that, but it would still be nuts.)

I tend to get impatient with liberals who rant about how policies should be based in sound science and nothing else. Not that I've got anything against science, but because their real point is that our policies in no way should be based in deeply held values (specifically, religion-based values). Take that far enough, and you get eugenics or something equally horrible and "scientific." So when Obama said "We will restore science to its rightful place," I winced, because I know among Democrats that's code for "We'll do stem cell research whether you think it's morally right or not." That made it my second least-favorite part of a speech that on the whole I liked a lot.

But the idea that we should reverse policies meant to protect the Earth (not that we have many such policies to any serious extent) because a poll shows the average person doubts the science (never mind what the doubt is based in) is crazy.

Our republic is based in the notion that our elected representatives study issues and become more knowledgable about them than the average poll respondent. It too seldom works that way as things stand, with the ubiquity of polling and other pressures on elected officials to do the popular thing whether it's the right thing or not. This takes it to an absurd degree.

As to the larger point: Doubt is cast on global warming by people who simply do not want to do what it would take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I have gathered that they would not want to do it whatever the science is, and therefore they have resolved not to believe the science, and to cling to anything that might cast doubt on it.

I have a very different attitude: The way I look at it, even if there were only a 10 percent chance that our emissions were causing global warming, and that that was a bad thing, I say why the hell not reduce our emissions — especially since there are so many other good reasons (such as our strategic position in the world) to burn less gasoline, and to move past coal to nuclear, and all that other good Energy Party stuff.

And yeah, the fact that it MIGHT help the planet is an additional reason to do things that ought to be common sense.

Here's the thing — I'm pretty much open to any good argument. And I'm concerned enough about economic development that I still haven't made my mind up about that new coal-fired plant proposed for the Pee Dee.

Some actual GOOD news about the U.S. auto industry

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I'm not up to posting a lot of commentary on it, but I didn't want to let the day pass without noting this positive development, from an Energy Party point of view:

Fourteen U.S. technology companies are joining forces and seeking $1
billion in federal aid to build a plant to make advanced batteries for
electric cars, in a bid to catch up to Asian rivals that are far ahead
of the U.S.

The effort, the latest pitch from corporate America to inject
federal dollars into a project, is similar to an alliance that two
decades ago helped the U.S. computer-chip industry restore its
competitiveness. Participants include 3M Corp. and Johnson Controls Inc.

Many experts believe battery technology and manufacturing capacity
could become as strategically important as oil is today. Auto makers,
including General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor
Co., say they plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010. But the
U.S. has limited capacity to make the lithium-ion batteries those cars
will need. Asian producers such as Panasonic Corp. dominate the car-battery field.

About time we got off our duffs on this. That could be a decent thing to spend federal dollars on, rather than more of the same…

I missed my chance, Jerry!

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Last week, I meant to react to this news …

About 20 DHEC and EPA agents raided the city’s sewer plant at 8 a.m.
Thursday, armed with a search warrant, weapons and wearing bulletproof
vests — just as parents were dropping off their children at nearby
Heathwood Hall Episcopal School.

… by saying that if it had been ME raiding that place, I don’t think I’d have worried about bulletproof. Bullets wouldn’t have been my main concern. I’d have gone for a hazmat suit. But that’s me.

But forgetting to say that until now at least gave me the excuse of using that headline about "missing my chance."

Now that we’ve had fun, I’ll raise the serious question: First the police department messes. Then the inability to close out the fiscal year because no one knew how. (Or was it the other way around?) Y’all know I like ol’ Mayor Bob, but one begins to wonder if there’s anything the city knows how to do right. I guess I’ll just use it as another excuse to push for the strong-mayor system that would at least give Columbia voters someone to hold accountable.

Blinded by ideology

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Just to show you the difference from an UnParty approach and an ideological one, take a look at The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial on the Detroit bailout, and compare it to ours.

Both of us are against the bailout. So we agree, right? Not quite. It seems that the one thing that bugs the WSJ the most about the deal is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it might force Detroit to make sensible cars for a change. And that, to the libertarian extremists at the Journal, would be like taking the country to Room 101 — in other words, it would be the worst thing in the world:

It’s also becoming increasingly clear that the real goal of Democrats isn’t to save jobs per se, but to tell Detroit what cars to make and how to make them. The goal is to turn GM and the rest into Big Green Machines that will stop making SUVs and trucks and start making small cars that run on something other than carbon fuel. If consumers don’t want to drive them, well, the next step will be to impose subsidies or penalties and taxes to coerce them to do so. Giving the federal government an equity stake could also lead to protectionism, as the politicians attempt to shield Detroit’s mismanaged assets from competition by citing the interests of the UAW, the environment, or some other "social" good that has nothing to do with making cars Americans will want to drive.

Here’s what’s wrong with that — or one of the things wrong with it: As I’ve made clear, I’m against the bailout. But if there IS a bailout, provisions requiring Detroit to build cars that move us toward energy independence and maybe, just maybe, reduce greenhouse gases would be a GOOD thing about deal, not a bad one.

Moreover, if we the taxpayers are putting up the money — which, we shouldn’t, but if we are — we have EVERY RIGHT in the universe to demand that Detroit make whatever kinds cars we demand. If we want them all to be purple and green two-tone three-wheelers that run on moonbeams, that by God is the kind of cars the recipients of OUR money ought to get. If the market demands some other kind of car, then the car companies that aren’t taking our frickin’ money can make them.

Of course, I also believe — as the founder of the Energy Party — that there would be absolutely nothing wrong with making it illegal to sell those idiotic land yachts that Americans have been driving for the past decade or so. SUVs are contrary to the national interest — strategically and environmentally — and I am utterly unmoved by anyone’s argument that they should be allowed to help fund the next bin Laden to come out of Saudi Arabia’s madrassas just because — and this infantile "reason" is offensive to me in the extreme — they WANT to.

Of course, the God-given right to fund petrodictators — helping Mahmoud buy the Bomb, for instance — while at the same time destroying the planet, for no better reason than some moronic desire to loom over the rest of traffic in a vehicle that can carry 8 times as many people as it ever actually carries, is of SUPREME IMPORTANCE to the editors of the WSJ. Nothing is more sacred. One gets the impression that if someone came up with a foolproof plan to capture bin Laden, neutralize the Taliban, stabilize Pakistan, turn our economy around 180 degrees, end man-made global climate change and make everyone in America a millionaire (without the currency losing value, mind you), the WSJ would be against it if it also included a requirement that CAFE standards rise.

DHEC response to news series

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Someone just today brought my attention to the Web page full of material that DHEC posted in response to the series that Sammy Fretwell and John Monk down in our newsroom recently did.

The very first item, written by board chairman "Bo" Aughtry, says it "was submitted to the newspaper’s editorial offices Nov. 20." This is the first I’ve heard about it. I’m worried that they might have sent it to Cindi, who is off this week. And here it is 6:23 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving.

I’m going to try to reach the appropriate people to see whether they had meant to submit it for publication, although I don’t know how much luck I’m likely to have tonight — or any time before Monday. We’ll see.

In the meantime, here’s the full text of that item:

Imagine.
That’s the word The State used to begin its eight-day assault on the Department of Health and  Environmental Control.  So let’s imagine.

Imagine a newspaper that reports  only select facts they decide are important.

Imagine a series with misleading conclusions arrived at through
innuendos, dredging up stories from more than 20 years ago, most of
which have been refuted, and reporting them inaccurately again.

Imagine a newspaper whose reporters have traded objective reporting
for “gotcha’” journalism and half-truth mudslinging, while at the same
time so enamored with itself that it takes three paragraphs to pat its
reporters and photographer on the backs.

Imagine no more. That publication  exists as The State and
there are others who obviously work in conjunction with them on
misrepresentation of fact after fact in an effort to make an agency,
its employees, commissioner and board look bad, in an attempt to
advance its own political agenda or to seek some journalism award.

If anyone  knew all the facts in any of The State’s stories, it would take a very good imagination  to accept their conclusions.

Based on my experience and observations, I find these attacks not
only misleading but unjust. Since I became chairman of DHEC’s governing
board in 2006, I have been continually impressed with the diligence,
commitment and dedication of those employees, certainly including
Commissioner Earl Hunter, with whom I have dealt. Is the agency
perfect? I know of no organization made up of 4,200 employees that can
boast perfection but this one is very good.

Do not misunderstand, I fully believe that DHEC, like any public
body, is accountable to the citizens it serves. Accordingly, it is
subject to responsible, accurate criticism if it fails our citizens.
Yet, for The State to criticize this agency with articles
that are portrayed as complete fact but which are based only on a part
of the story, is, in my opinion, quite irresponsible.

The fact of the matter is that The  State and most of
those quoted in their series, need DHEC. They have decided that this
agency is the villain and they are the self-anointed righteous
vindicators protecting the public. Truth is they’re more interested in
protecting their bottom line, billable hours or such political clout as
they think they may possess, seemingly caring not a whit for the truth,
only for what advances their own motives.

This newspaper, like others, imposes word count restrictions on any
external responses to their reporting whether it be my response here or
a letter to the editor. Because of those constraints, refuting the many
accusations in this series would require more space than what is
readily available here. For our perspective on this series and the
subsequent editorials that I’m sure will appear, I invite you to our
Web site at www.scdhec.gov.

Now here’s a fact you don’t have to imagine. In the midst of state
budget reductions and fewer staff doing more work, we’ll spend taxpayer
dollars laying to rest these ridiculous and self-serving allegations.
Trust me when I tell you the taxpayers of this great state have paid
quite the tab in the last eight months as staff have had to stop what
they were doing to respond to question after question, some of which
were asked multiple times in a thinly-veiled attempt to get an answer
the reporters wanted, not the full facts of the matter. The  State’s
reporters spent some four hours with Commissioner Earl Hunter in
face-to-face interviews, only to have things misrepresented to the
majority of readers who never make it past the headline and first three
paragraphs. 

Imagine? No. I believe this newspaper is doing a disservice to its
readers in casting as fact what is actually subjection, to DHEC
employees and their families through the creation of undeserved public
doubt, and to the taxpayers of South Carolina in wasting tax dollars
through unnecessarily protracted interrogation.

Paul “Bo” Aughtry is chair of  the S.C. Board of Health and Environmental Control

How Detroit got to where it is now

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Make_suvs

Earlier today I wrote an editorial for tomorrow’s paper that warns against being too eager to give Detroit the means to keep doing what it’s been doing, as some in Congress seem to want to do.

My reading prior to writing that led to my post about cheap gas, and in responding to a comment on that, I was reminded of something Tom Friedman wrote the other day:

O.K., now that I have all that off my chest, what do we do? I am as
terrified as anyone of the domino effect on industry and workers if
G.M. were to collapse. But if we are going to use taxpayer money to
rescue Detroit, then it should be done along the lines proposed in The
Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit
bureau chief for that paper.

“In return for any direct government
aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go.
Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a
government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical —
should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and
return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean
tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers,
closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company
… Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto
Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant
— would be an enormous mistake.”

That, in turn, reminded me of something else Paul Ingrassia wrote recently, and that’s what this post is about. Basically, I wanted to recommend his primer, "How Detroit Drove Into a Ditch," which is a nice reminder of everything the Detroit Three (formerly the "Big Three") and the UAW did to mess up the auto industry in this country.

Energy Party’s worst nightmare: gas at $1.87

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You may think it’s the Republicans who were the big losers last week, but you’d be wrong. It was the Energy Party.

I realized how awful things were last night as I passed the gas stations on the way home. Hess was at $1.879.

Folks, that’s the same as less than 30 cents a gallon back when I started driving in 1968. Which is less than we were paying then. And when I think of the 1968 Buick LeSabre I used to drive (before I bought my Vega, which was really a mistake), and the mileage it got, it sends a chill to the heart.

Even I, Energy Party stalwart that I am, thought about stopping to buy some of that cheap gas, even though I had plenty in my tank.

So now everybody’s going to start buying SUVs again (which of course will create upward pressure on the gas price, but we never learn), and Obama’s going to make sure we don’t drill in Utah or wherever, and Congress wants to bail out Detroit (or perhaps we should say, it wants to bail out the UAW), whether it gets its act together or not.

As The New York Times noted on Election Day,

Just a few weeks ago, the Big Three American automakers convinced
Congress to give them $25 billion in cheap loans to retool their plants
to make fuel-efficient cars. Then, with nary a blush, the Ford Motor
Company introduced the new star in its line: the 2009, 3-ton,
16-miles-per-gallon, F-150 pickup.

Lord help us, because we won’t help ourselves.

Just to review, here’s what we should do, and are not going to do:

  • Impose a tax increase to get the pump price of gasoline back closer to $4, so the money stays in this country, and demand is curtailed, thereby driving down world prices, thereby putting more money in our national coffers for hydrogen research, developing electric cars, paying for the War on Terror, credit bailouts, a National Health Plan, and all the other stuff we can’t actually afford now.
  • Produce more of our oil domestically, whether it’s off-shore, in Utah, in Alaska, wherever — for as long as we continue to need the stuff, which will be for quite a while.
  • Put all the resources we can muster into an Apollo/Manhattan Project to make our need for oil a thing of the past ASAP. How will we pay for it? I just told you.
  • Use "stimulus" funds to build mass transit, nuclear plants and other critical energy infrastructure, rather than throwing the money to the winds the way we did with the earlier stimulus program.
  • Do all the other stuff in the Energy Party Manifesto.

There. I said my piece. Nobody’s listening, but at least somebody said it.

Mayor Bob’s update on bus funding

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Just now getting to my weekend e-mails, and I see this one from Bob Coble:

I wanted to give you an update from the City County RTA Committee that met at City Hall last Thursday. City Council members include me, EW Cromartie, and Kirkman Finlay. Belinda Gergel also joined us. County Council members include Damon Jeter, Val Hutchinson, and Joyce Dickerson. Chairman Joe McEachern also attended. The Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and other groups also were in attendance. The first meeting had four presentations from staff on a variety of background issues. Joe Cronin of the County gave an excellent overview of how our RTA compares to peer cities. I believe that all the Committee members strongly agree on two fundamental points. First that transit is an essential public service that is critical for those who depend on bus service to get to their job and the doctor; an essential environmental tool to prevent non-attainment status and become a green community; and is vital to continuing economic development. Secondly, that the County and the City have the capacity to provide funding currently and it would be unacceptable not to do so.

Frannie Heizer, as the attorney for the RTA, presented the current legal options for funding. She made the following points: First, a sales tax referendum could not be held until November 2010 (Richland County Council could call the referendum now for 2010). Secondly, Frannie believes that the use of hospitality tax for transit would require a change of state law in the 2009 Legislative Session. The County has asked for an Attorney General’s Opinion to see if hospitality tax could be used now without a change in state law. Thirdly, neither City nor County property tax can be used without a referendum and then property tax would be limited by the cap on milage. Fourth, the mass transit fee by the County and the vehicle registration fee by the City and County are available now (both fees are different legally but to the taxpayer are paid in the same way and the same amount). 

When we establish a funding plan, other issues that were discussed included the need for other governments and partners to participate in funding the RTA; doing a comprehensive operations analysis; and changing the RTA organizational structure to have advisory members for those governments that are not providing money to the system.

The next meeting will be Friday November 14th at 9:30 am at the RTA headquarters on Lucius Road. We are inviting three members from the Lexington County Council to participate.

Thanks. I will keep you updated.

Who’ll resurrect the electric car? Chrysler says IT will

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Just as everyone is ready to write off Detroit, Chrysler (of all companies) tells the WSJ that it’s going to have a fleet — "portfolio" is the term it used, actually — of electric cars and trucks year after next:

Chrysler LLC is aiming to launch a full "portfolio" of electric cars and trucks, and sports-utility vehicles starting in late 2010, a person familiar with the company’s plans said.

The lineup will include front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive cars as well as so-called "body-on-frame" trucks, this person said.

At least one of the models will be a pure electric vehicle with a rechargable battery pack that Chrysler expects to have a range of 150 to 200 miles, this person said.

Others will have a battery that can last for about 40 miles and a small gasoline engine to provide power and recharge the battery for longer trips.

Chrysler expects these "range-extended" electric vehicles to go about 400 miles on eight gallons of gasoline, this person said….

I’m guessing that there will be a great deal of interest in this "portfolio" if it materializes. After all, my video short "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?" is my second-most watched video EVER on YouTube, with 27,748 views. (Which is first? Don’t ask. What that says about America is more disturbing, and a subject for another day.)

When I saw this breaking news on my Treo this morning, I thought it particularly ironic in light of the three letters to the editor I read in that same paper this morning, trashing Detroit all the way around for failing to do such things as this. I agreed with the letter writers, by the way.

I’ll believe Chrysler can pull this off when it does so. But the news is encouraging, from an Energy Party perspective.

Loving me some planet

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Pooge_002

Ya gotta love this: So I’m going through my snail mail IN tray, something I do every month or so whether I need it or not (please, please don’t send me anything urgent or important via snail mail), and I run across this tabloid-sized publication called Environment & Climate News, and of course my usual move with anything unsolicited that is printed on something like newsprint is to toss it in the newsprint recycling bin.

But I can’t, because IT’S WRAPPED IN PLASTIC.

So who in the world who’s so interested in the environment be so utterly clueless as to send something so grotesquely incongruous to a crack, trained observer such as myself?

Well, once you know the answer you say "of course:" It’s our old friends Joseph L. Bast and his Heartland Institute, which is an organization that, like our governor, would never ever want gummint to do anything about climate change or anything like that.

Oh, and you say the picture above is hard to read on account of the glare? Well, that’s because IT’S WRAPPED IN PLASTIC!

But before you walk away chuckling, I should point out something that probably would never have struck me if not for my habit of saving up the mail to go through all at once: A few minutes before, I had dispensed with (by which I mean I had passed it on to Cindi because I noticed there was an item related to S.C. state policy) a publication called Health Care News, which as it happens is also put out by The Heartland Institute. Three guesses as to what the Institute wants us to do about health care. You got it: Nothing. (Mainly because the concept of "us" is anathema to such groups.)

This organization now has my attention. Ubiquity will do that. This group may be better funded, and operating on more fronts, than its spiritual brother Howard Rich.

Amazing the amount of money people will spend rather than pay taxes, isn’t it?

Pooge

Alert: Actual relevant discussion happening on the blog as we speak!

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Just thought I’d clue y’all into the discussion going on as I type this between DHEC’s Thom Berry and the S.C. blogosphere’s "not very bright" over the sewage spill into the Saluda River.

Those of you who prefer serious issues to Top Five Lists should probably tune in, and weigh in…

Yeah, but what’s ‘normal?’

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Just now had to run downstairs to make a change in a Friday editorial because I got this release from DHEC to the effect that test results "from the Saluda River in Columbia indicate water quality has returned
to normal following the discharge of partially treated wastewater last
week."

DHEC further says it’s taken down the warning signs that everybody was ignoring, so I guess it has a lot of confidence in the tests.

Personally, I’m not going to run down the river and jump in quite yet, partly because of my heavy dignity as eminence grise of the editorial board, and partly because, after I dragged my old behind back up the stairs after updating the editorial I got to conjurin’ (which is "Firefly" talk for "figuring"): Do they mean "South Carolina" normal, or "states with the kinds of safeguards in place to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the first place" normal?

Mind you, I’m not putting the blame on DHEC here — or rather, I’m only assigning to them their fair share of it. The whole way we provide such basic local services as sewer in this state — a fragmented, often overlapping mishmash of local gummints, special purpose districts and private providers — is such a mess it’s hard for anybody to keep track of it.

Maybe Mayor Bob ought to go ahead with pulling his summit together. With all these little local fiefdoms along the river counting on its waters to attract untold wealth to the region, I expect they’ve all got some more conjurin’ to do.

(Oh, and for those of you who conjure that Mayor Bob, or someone in local gummint, should have been able to deal with this without meeting with a bunch of other folks — well, you just don’t understand how weak and fragmented local gummint is in our state. You can thank the Legislature for that, by the way. They never miss an opportunity to keep things this way.)

Are you a locavore?

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Emile DeFelice, sometime contributor to this blog, said it this way: "Put Your State On Your Plate."

Hugh Weathers, the man who beat Emile to remain state agriculture commissioner, has a more succinct way of putting it: The word, he says, is "locavore."

Read about the concept, and what South Carolina is doing to promote it, in Mr. Weathers’ op-ed piece today, if you haven’t read it already. Then take the challenge — eat local for a day.

Then, do it again.

NOW you tell me…

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Several people have now pointed out to me the fact that the NRDC backed down on its previous assertion about S.C. beaches being so dirty.

Yeah, I know. I saw the news story. It ran the day I was packing up to leave the beach. So thanks a lot for the heads-up there, you environmental hammerheads. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

And to add insult, in that very day’s paper, as I’m heading back home to the Midlands, I’m greeted by this news:

With temperatures approaching 100 degrees today and Sunday, hundreds of
people would normally flock to the Saluda rapids at Riverbanks Zoo to
cool off.

Bad idea this weekend.

A
combination of high runoff pollution and a sewage leak from an upstream
treatment plant have caused state health officials to continue urging
people against swimming, wading or tubing at “the rocks,” as the area
is known.

“Stay out of the water at that area,” said Adam Myrick,
spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
“And keep your pets out of the water and keep them from drinking the
water.”

Great. All of this goes to back up that the best thing to do on vacation is sit in the house and read a good book. I spent a great deal of my time last week finishing this book and starting this one. It seems appropriate at this point to consider the opening passage of the latter:

Standing at the frigate’s taffrail, and indeed leaning upon it, Jack
Aubrey considered her wake, stretching away neither very far nor
emphatically over the smooth pure green-blue sea: a creditable furrow,
however, in these light airs. She had just come about, with her
larboard tacks aboard, and as he expected her wake showed that curious
nick where, when the sheets were hauled aft, tallied and belayed, she
made a little wanton gripe whatever the helmsman might do….

Fortunately for Capt. Aubrey, he didn’t have to worry about the ocean being to polluted to sail through — at least, not unless she were becalmed, and floating in her own waste…

Welcome to the beach

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Generally, I make a point of keeping up with the local news wherever I am. Hence my occasional reports in this venue from Memphis, or from up in PA (where over the weekend the biggest news seemed to be the question of whether Joe Paterno would retire).

Today, I’m at the beach in SC, where I am greeted by this lovely news in The Sun News:

    South Carolina’s beaches, including those in Horry and Georgetown
counties, are the sixth most polluted in the nation, according to a
report released Tuesday by a nonprofit environmental group.

    Local
and state experts denounced the report, saying area beaches are safe.
Officials with Horry County, North Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach and the
state Department of Natural Resources all complained of inaccuracies
and misinterpretation of data in the National Resources Defense
Council’s report….

That second paragraph makes me feel SO much better, doesn’t it you? Well, of course YOU feel better; you’re not at the beach, are you?

As I left to come to my favorite blogging spot at the beach, I told my daughter not to go near the water until I got back. I told her it was because of the buddy system of aquatic safety. I didn’t want to freak her out totally.

However we pay for it, we all need a better transit system

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

On Wednesday, my truck was in the shop. This sort of situation may mean slightly different things to different people. Here’s what it meant to me:

Wednesday morning, I needed a way to get from home — out west of West Columbia — to work, if for no other reason than I needed the paycheck to pay for getting my truck fixed.

Fortunately, my eldest daughter was staying at our house with her children — her husband is remodeling their home — and she works downtown. So she drove me way south of downtown to my office, before turning around and going back to her office.

(My wife couldn’t take me because she had my daughter’s six-month-old twins, and her car isn’t set up to accommodate the Apollo-capsule-type arrangements that they call baby carseats these days.)

From that point, I was stuck. I knew I was going to have to stay late at the office that night — later than anyone in my department — because I was going to be off Friday and needed to get at least a week’s worth of work done in the four days available. Besides, no one in my department lives anywhere near me. In fact, I started writing this column on Wednesday to get ahead, and as I typed this sentence at 5:23 p.m., I had no idea how I’d get home.

As it happened, my daughter got me at 8 p.m. Fortunately, she and her children had to go back into town anyway; otherwise picking me up would have involved a long round trip for somebody, with gasoline at $4 a gallon. I wasn’t quite at a stopping place when she arrived, so she waited downstairs for me with, as near as I could tell over her cell phone, at least one of the twins screaming.

Then, on Thursday morning, my truck still wasn’t ready. So we improvised a whole new plan, in which I drove my wife’s car into town, and my daughter left work at midday to take her car out to my wife so that she could go to work in the afternoon. But at least I was covered in case the job required me to be somewhere else in the course of the day, which sometimes happens.

This is ridiculous, folks.

Yes, I know: Poor me. These are decidedly spoiled American, middle-class problems.

But never mind me. The truth is, if you are less fortunate, you have a harder time owning a vehicle, fixing it when it’s broken, filling it with gasoline, or paying to park it. Nor can you afford to do without that job that the vehicle would take you to.

There are many places in this country where folks don’t have these problems. I have a New York subway card in my wallet from my last trip there, which I can’t bring myself to throw away because of the wonderful thing it represents: freedom from driving and pumping gas and finding a place to park, simply ducking down a few steps, and moments later finding myself in whatever part of town that I need to be in.

In the Columbia metropolitan area, we have our own sort of mass transit system, in theory. But it isn’t fully adequate to anyone’s needs. It doesn’t go from enough places to enough places often enough, and it’s tough for someone who just needs it occasionally to find out quickly and easily how to use it.

What we need is a better transit system, but what we’re in danger of having now is a worse one, or none at all. That’s because Richland County — the one local government that’s done the most to step up to the challenge of funding said system — is going to stop stepping up in October. That’s when the vehicle tax the county levied for that purpose runs out.

Last week, the County Council ditched a plan to hold a referendum asking voters to approve a 1-cent sales tax increase to fund the buses and other transportation needs and wants. I don’t blame the council. As we said in an editorial before the action, the Legislature has jacked up our sales taxes too high already. And besides, some of the things in that transportation proposal were more wants than needs, and only in there to get people who don’t ride buses to back the proposal.

No one knows where we go from here. The County Council doesn’t know. The citizens group that put together the plan the council rejected doesn’t know.

And just in case we got the notion that the city of Columbia would be taking up the slack, I got a preemptive call from Mayor Bob Coble Thursday morning to tell me that the options range from few to none. (While the mayor didn’t say so, that’s largely thanks to the Legislature’s tireless efforts to make sure local governments can’t pay for any local need that they aren’t paying for already.)

About the only person offering new ideas last week was regular contributor “bud” on my blog, who suggested using the city’s and county’s shares of the “hospitality tax,” a lot of which currently goes for things a whole lot less essential than a mass transit system.

As I write this, I don’t know what the best way to pay for a better transit system might be. What I do know is that Midlands governments need to find a way, for the sake of:

  • Those who have no other way to get to work now.
  • Those of us who would like a better way to work than we have now (and sometimes need one).
  • Those “knowledge workers” who are supposed to make the planned Innovista work, and who have the option of working instead in a community where it’s easier, and cheaper, and cleaner to get around.

For more, visit my blog at thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Driving slower

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"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"
            — the late George Carlin

When I drove to Memphis a couple of weeks ago, I did a new thing — I drove under the de jure speed limit. Normally, I do what most people do, stay under the de facto limit — staying carefully under a speed that is 10 mph over the limit.

This change on my part wasn’t due to some newfound respect for the law. We know that here in the United States, no state actually means for us to drive below the stated speed. If they did, the police would stop and ticket us for exceeding it. We all know that a trooper will sit right there and watch you go by if you’re doing 78 in a 70 zone, for instance. But go 85, and he’ll get you. (One exception to this may be the Mississippi patrolmen, who are apparently too busy speeding themselves to notice anyone else doing it.)

Nor was I doing it to help fight the War on Terror. I agree with Samuel Tenenbaum that we should lower the limit to 55 and enforce it, but in the meantime, driving that much slower than the surrounding traffic is not only unsafe, but will not have a sufficiently measurable impact on energy independence to make taking your life in your hands worth it. We’ve all got to do it for it to help.

No, I drove below the limit because my family was packed into three cars, and one of those contained my wife and daughter and the six-month-old twins, and they had to stop frequently. My wife said it made her nervous to try to stay within sight of each other, so I went on ahead, but tried not to get too far ahead.

And you know what? I kind of liked it. It was … more relaxing.

Anyway, when I was getting ready for this trip, I ran into Samuel, and he said "Drive 55!" And I said I didn’t think I could do that, because I had to drive to Pennsylvania, pack my daughter’s belongings into my truck, drive back from Pennsylvania with all the stuff, and unload it at the place where she’s going to be living back in South Carolina, all between Friday morning and Monday afternoon. But I did promise to stay below the posted limits. "But that means you’ll be driving 70!" Actually, no, I assured him — since so much of the trip is in Virginia (limit 65), and the limit in PA is 65 or 55, and the small bit of Maryland is 65 or 60 (around Hagerstown), and the first 50 miles of North Carolina is 60, my average would be far below 70.

So I did it yesterday, and the results were good.

I drive a 2000 Ford Ranger. And for those of you who wonder why the founder of the Energy Party doesn’t drive a Prius, consider three things:

I can’t afford a Prius. I don’t foresee a time anywhere in the near future when I will be able to afford a Prius.

I am the designated truck owner in the family — my large, extended family. No one closely related to me owns a large, truck-type vehicle of any kind — certainly no SUVs, I’m happy to say. Whenever one of my 20-something children has to move from one apartment to another, or building materials are needed, or an attic full of stuff has to be hauled either to Goodwill or the dump or whatever, I’m the guy; I’ve got the truck.

I’ve done everything I can to be responsible about this truck-ownership thing. I went out of my way to find a 4-cylinder, manual transmission. (What this means is that I’m not only the designated truck owner, but the designated truck driver, since no one else has confidence with the manual shift, and I prefer to drive my own truck anyway.)

This brings up an ironic digression. We looked into renting a truck for moving my daughter from PA. It was going to cost more than $700 — we tried several vendors — plus the cost of renting a car to get up there. So we decided to give away a lot of her stuff — my daughter’s fine with that — and haul back only what I could get onto my Ranger. (To get your mind around this, picture the Beverly Hillbillies, only we opted not to take a rocking chair for Granny.) But I needed new tires. So I splurged and bought (via credit card) four new tires. Changing the tires revealed bearings that needed repacking, the need for new tie rod ends, and original shocks that were overdue for replacement at 110,000 miles. Total: $1,450 dollars. Samuel and Jerry Whitley, who is a CPA, told me that at least I was investing it in my truck instead of wasting it on a rental. So I guess that’s something. And it drives really well down, without that shimmy every time I went over the slightest irregularity in the road.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, my point: I drove under the speed limit the whole way. Normally, my truck gets about 22 mpg in town. I had never had it on the highway for an extended period before. Driving below the limit, I got 27 mpg on my first tank of gas. I refilled when we finally rolled into Carlisle, PA, last night, and I had gotten an awesome 28.7 mpg on the second tank. Not as good as the 31 or so we had done in my wife’s car on the Memphis trip, but this is a truck — and as we know, Detroit has put zero effort into making the things efficient, on account of their being exempted from CAFE standards all those years.

So I think it was worth the extra hour and a half or so it took — or whatever. I didn’t want to actually do the math, because that might make me want to hurry on the trip back. It’s like a Zen thing. We left Cola at 10 a.m., stopped several times, and got to Carlisle at about 8:10 p.m.

And it was also a more relaxing drive. Once you drop the usual "Gotta get there! Gotta press the guy in front of me!" mode, your head gets into a better place. I noticed this on the Memphis trip as well.