Environment

An initial hearing Tuesday on revamped cap-and-trade legislation from Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-MA, and Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-CA) gave moderates a public mouthpiece that might spur concessions from party leaders down the road.

At the hearing in Boxer’s panel Tuesday, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-MT, cited “serious reservations” about the bill’s requirement for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Boxer replied: “The goal is very, very doable.” Kerry agreed but said the target could change. “We’ll see what happens on the floor on that,” Kerry said. “I’m open to talking with Max; we’ll see where we end up.”

Boxer said she wants her climate bill to continue to preserve EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases despite complaints Tuesday from Baucus and Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. “We have to keep the EPA in the game,” Boxer said. But, she added, “There are ways to make it more certain for people.” Specter challenged EPA Administrator Jackson at the hearing and Democratic leaders afterward to provide regulatory certainty.

“There’s a great deal to be gained by certainty so people can make plans,” Specter told Jackson. He also emphasized it is the job of Congress to lay out that roadmap for industries. “That’s really our job,” he said.

FOLLOWING MY SHOTS

UPDATED 10/27/09. See end of column.

Anybody who reads NewWest.Net regularly might be getting a little weary of reading about Senator Jon Tester’s “Jobs and Recreation Act,” S. 1470. So far, by last count, we’ve posted twenty-two articles and columns on the bill and its impact. This includes our own coverage and several guest columns, as we’ve tried to give each major stakeholder a forum to voice their point of view, including one from the senator himself. (Click here to read them all.)

But this bill keeps on giving out stories, it seems, such as these updates and follow-ups to earlier postings.

internet technology

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The deadline for submissions was August of this year.

Now, the applications from each state are posted, and in a number of Intermountain West states, the Governors have already taken the next step of reviewing and prioritizing the projects, and made their recommendations public.

Guest Column

Climate change is here. It’s already influencing economic decisions and conditions across the world.

Yet most of the analysis on the impacts of climate change has been so large or abstract—the global impacts of weather patterns or rising sea levels—that the results often hold little value for an average family or small business.

Locally, there has been little research on the direct impacts that climate change will have on Montana communities.  Fortunately, more analysis is starting to take place at the state and local level. 

Health Care

In Whitefish, Montana, the average yearly cost of taking care of a Medicare patient over a three-year period ending in 2006 was $3,950.

Across the country in the Florida Panhandle town of Graceville, the cost of tending a Medicare patient during the same time was nearly $15,500.

People in Graceville are poorer than people in Whitefish, it’s true. But the difference in cost of caring for a Medicare patient in these two towns is astounding — more than four times more expensive in one rural Florida hospital than in one town in rural Montana.

The map above shows the wide range of costs in caring for Medicare patients among 2,990 rural and exurban hospital service areas. The map, the first of its kind, is based on a remarkable set of data collected by researchers at the Dartmouth Medical School. Doctors and economists there take a sample of Medicare costs from every hospital. They account for differences in race, sex and age from place to place, but not income. What they have discovered are large differences in medical costs from one part of America to another.

News Nugget

According to a new report out this week from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, fewer Americans believe that world temperatures are warming and fewer and fewer see climate change as a very serious problem.

Of the 1,500 adults polled, 35 percent said global warming is a serious concern, down from 44 percent in April of 2008. And, 57 percent said they think there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature is on the rise. That is down from 71 percent in April of 2008.

Respondents in the Mountain West have had the biggest change in attitude, according to the poll. In this year’s poll, 44 percent said they believe the earth is warming. In 2008, that number was 77 percent. That’s a 31 percent drop. The region with the next biggest change was the Great Lakes region, which saw a 20 percent drop.

The Mountain West also had the biggest drop in the the concern over climate change. In 2008, 44 percent of regional respondents said climate change is very serious problem. Today, that number is 26 percent—down 18 percent. Both the West and the Great Lakes region also saw the biggest declines in the percentage of respondents who believe global warming is caused by humans.

WASHINGTON TO THE RESCUE?

Unnoticed by many, two members of Congress from Washington have decided it’s about time to do something to resolve the seemingly endless debate over the future of our last roadless lands.

Senator Maria Cantwell and Representative Jay Inslee, both Democrats, have re-introduced the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act (S.1738, H.R. 3563) to codify the Clinton-era Roadless Rule that has been on a legal roller coaster for the past nine years.

OIL SHALE

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday a new set of experimental oil shale leases with stricter controls than Bush-era leases, and he’s calling for an investigation of an 11th-hour move by the previous administration that critics saw as a giveaway to energy companies.

Salazar said he had “serious questions” about whether the January 15 lease addenda, which opened up 50,000 additional acres to oil shale leasing for six companies, “are in fact legal or whether or not they should be rescinded.”

He asked for the department’s inspector general to launch a probe into the Bush move before his office would take action on it.

Guest Column

In 2009, we celebrate the centennial of the arrival of the great American conservationist Aldo Leopold to the Southwest as a ranger with the U.S. Forest Service. Over the course of a diverse and influential career, Leopold eloquently advocated a variety of critical conservation concepts including wilderness protection, sustainable agriculture, wildlife research, ecological restoration, environmental education, land health, erosion control, watershed management, and famously, a land ethic.

Each of these concepts resonates today – perhaps more so than ever as the challenges of the 21st century grow more complicated and more pressing. But it was Aldo Leopold’s emphasis on conserving whole systems – soil, water, plants, animals and people together – that is most crucial today. The health of the entire system, he argued, is dependent on its indivisibility; and the knitting force was a land ethic – the moral obligation we feel to protect soil, water, plants, animals, and people together as one community.

After Leopold’s death in 1948, however, the idea of a whole system broke into fragments by a rising tide of industrialization and materialism. Fortunately, today a scattered but concerted effort is underway to knit the whole back together, beginning where it matters most – on the ground. Leopold’s call for a land ethic is the root of what is being called a new agrarianism – a diverse suite of ideas, practices, goals, and hopes all based on the persistent truth that genuine health and wealth depends on the land’s fertility.

Transportation Policy

The proposed streetcar in downtown Boise has generated a lot of comment and controversy. But even with all the news coverage and discussion there still seem to be a number of questions. I try to get to the most important ones in a series of trolley FAQs:

Just where exactly is Boise getting the $60 million to pay for this thing?
Earlier this year President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) into law. As part of that Act, the U.S. Department of Transportation is making $1.5 billion available to state and local governments through the TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Discretionary Grants Program. TIGER grants can be used for most any kind of transportation related project, but it must also achieve certain outcomes such as increasing livability, sustainability, economic competitiveness, and job creation. Grants will be announced as soon as possible after September 15, 2009, but not later than February 17, 2010.

If the City of Boise gets the grant those funds will partially cover the start-up costs. To generate the remaining monies needed they are considering the establishment of an LID or Local Improvement District. Under the LID, the City would levy an additional tax on businesses along the streetcar route. There is still no consensus among business owners as to whether there is support for the creation of an LID, but Idaho state law 50-2601 allows Idaho municipalities to create LIDs (or BIDs - Business Improvement Districts) with a simple majority vote of the Council. The Mayor and Council will then have to cobble together funds from the City’s general fund and CCDC to pay for ongoing operations.