Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Smashing (& Composting) Pumpkins

by Brenda Platt | October 20, 2022 5:21 am

[1]Smash and compost your pumpkins!

One day pumpkin composting will be as common as Christmas tree recycling.

[2]

If you backyard compost, add your pumpkin. Remove candles, wax and any decorations. Don’t compost pumpkins with paint or glitter. It helps if you smash or cut pumpkin into several pieces (as opposed to one whole pumpkin), but it’s not necessary. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IMG_0245-e1603917589696.jpeg
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/smashing-composting-pumpkins/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/smashing-composting-pumpkins/


Small Business Lending by Size of Institution, 2018

by ILSR | May 14, 2019 9:00 am

placeholder[1]In 2018, community-based financial institutions made 52 percent of all small business loans, even though they controlled only 16 percent of banking assets. For more detail on why small banks do so much more small business lending, see our article, “Banks and Small Business Lending[2].”

Share of Loans Made to Small Businesses, 2018

Bank Market Share for SB loans 2018 3

 


See more of our banking charts and data here[3].

If you liked this post, be sure to sign up for the monthly Hometown Advantage newsletter[4] for our latest reporting and research.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Banks and Small Business Lending: https://ilsr.org/banks-and-small-business-lending/
  3. banking charts and data here: https://ilsr.org/?contenttype=charts-graphs-resource-archive&initiative=banking
  4. Hometown Advantage newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/e7e4cd9a7332/hometown-advantage

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/small-business-lending-by-size-of-institution-2014/


Hot Composting Classes in DC This Fall

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | October 2, 2018 5:47 pm

Have you always wanted to compost in your backyard or garden, but haven’t known where to begin? Have you tried but given up due to poor results? Or do you just need help troubleshooting your existing composting system? If any of these are true for you, join us for a hot composting class in the District this fall! Our next class is on October 13th and it is free. Space is limited and first-come-first-serve, so register soon! ! 

ILSR’s Composting for Community Project is offering these classes in memory of Brittany Danisch with the generous support of her family and friends, in partnership with the Zero Waste Committee[1] of the DC Chapter of the Sierra Club, Compost Cab[2], the DC Food Recovery Working Group[3], Washington Parks and People[4], the University of the District of Columbia’s East Capitol Urban Farm[5] and the ECUF Compost Project[6]. The October 13th class will kick off the 3rd annual DC Food Recovery Week[7].

 

Class Details & Registration

The class dates and locations are listed below. Space is limited! Register by clicking on the link for the appropriate link below:

  • Saturday, September 29th from noon – 2pm at North Columbia Heights Green. Registration closed.
  • Saturday, October 13th from 9:30 – 11:30am at East Capitol Urban Farm*. Register here[8].

*This class will also prepare local residents to join the ECUF Compost Project’s[9] collaboratively managed food scrap drop off program.

 

These 2-hour classes will provide home composters the background they need to get started, troubleshoot on their own, and produce high-quality compost. Composting is not rocket science but there are some key facts composters need to know! We will cover the importance of oxygen, moisture, balancing nitrogen-rich material with carbon-rich material, which materials not to compost, and how to know the compost is ready to use. We will demonstrate how to compost successfully using a backyard composting system and how to avoid odor problems and attracting unwanted critters. The October 13th class will also prepare local residents to join the ECUF Compost Project’s[10] collaboratively managed food scrap drop off program, which ILSR launched in 2017.

 

Free Backyard Composting Systems

We are also offering class participants a limited number of FreeGarden Earth[11] and Earth Machine[12] backyard composting bins for free! These bins usually retail for $80+. This offer is available to class participants willing to track data on how their use of the bin for six months after the class. Data to be collected will include weight of the materials added, temperatures reached, and other management practices used. If you’re interested in receiving a composting bin, please indicate so on the registration form.

             Earth Machine
       FreeGarden Earth

 

The compost bin rebate will be administered at the end of the 6-month data collection period to participants that do the following:

  1. Gain approval for the placement of a bin from the relevant landlord or property management before placing or using a bin.
  2. Attend one of the two classes listed above.
  3. Use the bin as specified in trainings and product instructions and data sheets.
  4. Gather, and submit as required, the data requested by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on the web-based submission form (forthcoming).
  5. Properly maintain the Bin as directed including adhering to guidelines on when and how to add compostable material.
  6. Proactively implement rodent avoidance measures, immediately address any rodent activity if it occurs, and contact the Institute for Local Self-Reliance if rodent activity persists.
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Endnotes:
  1. Zero Waste Committee: https://www.sierraclub.org/dc
  2. Compost Cab: https://compostcab.com/
  3. DC Food Recovery Working Group: https://dcfoodrecovery.wordpress.com/
  4. Washington Parks and People: https://www.washingtonparks.net/
  5. East Capitol Urban Farm: https://www.udc.edu/causes/east-capitol-urban-farm/
  6. ECUF Compost Project: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ecuf-compost-project/join
  7. 3rd annual DC Food Recovery Week: https://dcfoodrecovery.wordpress.com/dc-food-recovery-week-2/
  8. Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekFZCBSAn_faYlMmEoFC-4Ej25DHKqwSaossDFSJnpktl0WQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
  9. ECUF Compost Project’s: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ecuf-compost-project/join
  10. ECUF Compost Project’s: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ecuf-compost-project/join
  11. FreeGarden Earth: http://enviroworld.ca/environmental-products/freegarden-earth
  12. Earth Machine: https://www.earthmachine.com/the_earth_machine.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dc-hot-composting-classes/


Education – The Public Good Index

by David Morris | February 26, 2018 10:17 am

Pell grants, awarded solely on need, are the largest single source of non-loan assistance to postsecondary education. Two thirds of Pell recipients enroll in public colleges and universities.

 

Fraction of tuition, fee, room and board expenses in public four-year colleges covered by Pell Grants in 1975: 79 percent.

In 2017: 29 percent.

 

Fraction of public college revenues supplied by state governments in 1975: 75 percent.

In 2012: 23 percent.

 

Change in inflation-adjusted state funding per public college student between 1990 and 2009: -26 percent.

Change in inflation adjusted tuition between 1990 and 2009: +116 percent

 

Fraction of students from the wealthiest 25 percent of households graduating within 10 years of finishing high school: 60 percent.

Of students from the 25 percent poorest households: 15 percent.

Source: The Growing College-Degree Wealth Gap[1], The Atlantic, 2016.

……………

A student from a family in the top 25 percent of income with standardized test scores in the lowest 25 percent was as likely to be enrolled in college as a student from a family in the lowest 25 percent of income earners with scores in the top 25 percent.

Sources: Lawrence E. Gladieux “Low-Income Student and the Affordability of Higher Education[2]”, 2004.

Sign-up for our monthly Public Good Newsletter[3] and follow ILSR on Twitter[4] and Facebook[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. The Growing College-Degree Wealth Gap: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/the-growing-wealth-gap-in-who-earns-college-degrees/479688/
  2. Low-Income Student and the Affordability of Higher Education: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780870784859
  3. Public Good Newsletter: https://ilsr.org/sign-up-for-the-public-good-e-newsletter/
  4. Twitter: http://twitter.com/ilsr
  5. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/education-public-good-index/


Brendan Greeley on Why We Need a Pro-Competition Political Party (Episode 40)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 23, 2018 9:00 am

Brendan Greeley

Economics writer Brendan Greeley has a thought about the role ‘economics’ play in our politics: “economists think that they’re physicists, but they’re actually just sociologists watching things and observing them“.

To suss this out, Building Local Power[5] hosts Christopher Mitchell[6] and Stacy Mitchell[7] sat down with Greeley. He is a writing alum of Bloomberg and The Economist and currently writes his daily economics newsletter, All We Know So Far[8] (subscribe at the link).

“I think the thing we’ve lost sight of in America is that we don’t understand that healthy competition creates all the things we love about capitalism. The irony of that is businesses don’t like competition. They hate it. It drives them crazy. They can’t do what they want. And so the most successful businesses will do everything they can to avoid healthy competition,” says Brendan Greeley of the issue he is trying to solve in his All We Know So Far work.

 

Our guest recommended the following items:

  • Debt: The First 5,000 Years[9] by Henry Graeber
  • ProMarket Blog[10]: The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
  • The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine[11] by Michael Lewis
  • The Big Short[12] film

Related Resources:

[13]Institute for Local Self-Reliance: Monopoly Tag[14] — All of the stories tagged with “monopoly” on our website details the — mostly — unchecked power that vast corporations and firms enjoy in our economy and democracy. Get the latest information on monopoly power in retail, broadband, energy, and waste stream issues.

Podcast: The Rising Anti-Monopoly Movement (Episode 36)[15] — ILSR experts Christopher Mitchell, Stacy Mitchell, and John Farrell sit down to tackle the reality of increased corporate consolidation in the economy and what it means. They also knit together their research focuses and connect them into how an anti-monopoly movement is brewing where everyday Americans are standing up and saying “enough”.

Podcast: Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win (Episode 30)[16] — This podcast episode with the Open Markets Institute’s Barry Lynn discusses how we got to here in our monopoly economy and how he has hope that we will win against the monopolists who are robbing our political economy.

Policy Brief: Comcast’s Anti-Municipal Broadband Election Investments[17] — In the Fall of 2017, this ILSR analysis details just how much money telecommunications giant Comcast Corporation is pumping into its efforts to scuttle pro-Internet access competition efforts in Fort Collins, Colo. and Seattle, Wash. Why? Because if these communities actually attained some measure of competition, Comcast could lose millions.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome everyone to another episode of the Building Local Power podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I’m Chris Mitchell, once again having commandeered the hosting position for this show. We have Stacy Mitchell, one of our regular hosts, back on.

Hi, Stacy.

Stacy Mitchell: Hi, Chris.
Christopher Mitchell: Stacy directs the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and I run a program on internet-type broadband access improvement-type stuff.

Today, we’re talking with Brendan Greeley. Welcome to the show Brendan.

Brendan Greeley: Thanks, guys.

I would say thanks to Chris who I like to think of as an internet friends because we tweet at each other, but I remember that we met each other a very long time ago before we were internet friends.

Christopher Mitchell: Right, and that’s something that I hope to get to at the end, which was one of my favorite stories, which I still google on a regular basis from when you were a staffer at Business Week, which was a story entitled Pssst … Wanna Buy a Law?, and it pulls it up every time from 2011.

But you, more recently, you do an economic research note called All We Know So Far, which I really enjoy. I have to note your Twitter feed’s a little behind because I wanted to share the most recent one, but I’ve not been able to yet.

Brendan Greeley: Oh, you know what? Actually, I borrowed some of that data from other economic research notes, and I felt okay putting it in the note, but I didn’t feel okay putting it online. I didn’t want to tempt fair use. I felt that I was within the bounds of fair use, but sometimes you shouldn’t poke the fair use bear.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, it was very good, and it was about where the money from the tax cuts are going, and how that’s okay, but it was very well done. I encourage people to check it out because it describes itself as an economic research note for people. And as a people who has taken macroeconomics but struggled through it, I can say that this is for people, and it’s helpful.
Brendan Greeley: Thank you. The great irony is that I too struggled through macroeconomics. No, actually, got a good grade in macroeconomics. I struggled through micro, but I haven’t actually taken any macro or micro anything since. I do not have a degree in economics. I have a degree in German literature.

I do think, and this is to our broader conversation today, one of my frustrations when I became a correspondent who wrote about economics was that so much of what we remember from school is not really true. If you got a degree in economics or if you took micro and macro in college in the ’80s, or the ’90s, or the early 2000s even, everything you learned then is not really … it’s only a framework that is missing details. Sometimes, I think when we talk about economics more broadly we’re all horrendously misinformed because a lot of stuff has come up, particularly since the recession we’ve learned a lot. Before the recession, there was some experimental research being done that has been borne out by the actual empirical data we have now. So it’s almost as if, when we look at economics, it’s as if we are studying biology as a culture, but we don’t know that it’s possible to sequence the genome. We’re that far behind in economics.

And so, one of the things that I’ve noticed is that economic research for people in finance is very good. It tends to be pretty good because if you get it wrong, you lose even more money. So I’m trying to take that spirit of being completely on top of things for finance and bring it to citizens as well because we tend to be misinformed about economics for a ton of reasons. But I think the debate over economics is much worse than the debate over climate, and the reason it’s much worse is I don’t think most of us even know how polluted the atmosphere is, how little what we’re talking about resembles the cutting edge of the actual social science.

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah, I think that resonates with me. I’m very curious to ask Stacy whether she studied economics. Just before we get into the actual meat of the discussion, this is actually a lot of what we’ll be talking about, I think, how the economy works, our understanding of it, how to make it work for more people.

Stacy, before I find out how you did in economics, I just want to say I did really well in micro. I really liked micro. I found that it actually is somewhat useful mostly because it’s a really great idea that seems never to be really particularly practical, but nonetheless, it’s sort of this ideal that I can understand how some people might think things should work even though they don’t because of obvious discrepancies.

But, one of my challenges with macro is that I was on Percocet for most of it because I’d had a major surgery. And three courses in a row and I had to take a Percocet in the middle of the first one, and I would be riding that halfway through the third one. Macro is mostly gone because of this surgery I was recovering from, so it was bad timing, and I blame that.

Stacy, how did you do in economics?

Stacy Mitchell: You know I dipped into economics class and a little bit in college, but mostly I sort of decided based on that experience that it wasn’t really going to answer the questions that I have. So I went and moved to history and studied, actually, labor history, which I found to be a good way to understand the economy, particularly how it’s changed and how people can change it through policy.
Christopher Mitchell: Yeah.
Brendan Greeley: I think that’s really interesting, and I think that one of the things, and then Chris I promise I’ll let you move onto the thing you actually wanted to talk about, is that you know there’s this idea that economics should inform other social sciences. You know there’s this Freakonomics idea that the things we learn about, human motivation, can be applied elsewhere. What I think that misses is that economics every time it takes in another social science, it gets better. You know people like Daniel Kahneman and Richard Taylor who won their Nobels for behavioral economics, Robert Shiller they took in the lessons from psychology, and it turned out that it helped them understand their actual profession better.

Often, I talk to … I like to call sociological economists or anthropological economists … or, sorry, economic anthropologists because they study the way we use money as groups of people and that turns out that all those traditions about how we use money are every bit as important as the marginal cost benefits that economists would have us calculate. So I think that there’s a lot missing when we just talk about economists. And I think you’re absolutely right, reading back in history longer than the Great Moderation helps us understand a lot of the things that we’re experiencing now as we look back to the late 19th, early 20th centuries.

Christopher Mitchell: Right.
Stacy Mitchell: I’m curious, Brendan. You mentioned that you think since the financial crisis that our understanding of economics has really changed in fundamental ways and maybe behavioral economics you sort of intimated just now maybe is one of those ways. But I was going to ask you; I’m kind of curious what you think some of those big shifts have been?
Brendan Greeley: Yeah, I think the biggest one is something that economists call heterogeneity, and that’s a really fancy way of saying people are different. To make the math easy … Yeah, it’s true. It sounds insane that we didn’t know this already, but economists are sort of just learning this over the last five years or so.

So a lot of … Most economic models rely on a single agent. Sometimes that single agent is also immortal. Right? So, we’re assuming there is one person in the economy making decisions and that person will never die, right? So we’re modeling on somebody who’s god, and that’s not how the real world works. So when you start to build models that have two or three different agents in them, people who are motivated in different ways, you start reflecting the actual economy and the way people respond, in a more accurate way. I’ll give you a specific example of what I’m talking about.

People who have access to credit behave differently than people who don’t have access to credit. So if you have access to credit, you’re not really worried about the present because you can borrow in the present to sort of meet your needs. And so for example, we carry out an austerity policy. The old models didn’t really think about who had access to credit, who could borrow money or not. They assumed that everybody had access to credit because there is credit in the economy and economists have access to credit because they have excellent credit rating scores. Who doesn’t have access to credit?

And so they assumed that in an austere policy gives you confidence about future returns and you base your own decisions right now about future bond market prices in the country that you live in. That’s perfectly rational for an economist. It’s not how any of the rest of us actually think. When you model people, who are wealthy and have access to credit and people who are not wealthy and don’t have access to credit they respond very differently to austerity. It turns out that if you add a little extra money to the economy people who don’t have a ton of money will spend that money immediately. You get very different results.

And so the IMF actually apologized. You know, when the IMF imposed its austerity program on Greece the IMF didn’t want to do as brutal an austerity as Germany did. But the IMF looked at its results and discovered that Greece was not thriving, right? People were not responding as predicted. They did not suddenly feel more confident in future bond prices for their economy and future tax policy [crosstalk 00:09:39]. They felt awful because everything had been drained out of the economy, and nobody was spending any money because nobody had any extra money, and nobody had access to credit. Right?

So, this stuff makes sense intuitively, but the models are very complex, and they make a lot of assumptions. The assumptions, I don’t think they’re maligned, but they do tend to be the same assumptions that economists have for themselves. Right? We model the world. We remake the world in our image. And so that for me is the biggest distinction, which is that if you think about different people responding differently to the same stimulus you get a very different policy prescription, in some cases, massively different. And so this is stuff that we just didn’t think about before the recession. We just didn’t think about it.

I think that economists are recognizing that finance place an important role. Economists used to be disdainful about finance. They thought it was this sort of dirty thing that happened in London and New York and they didn’t have to really about it. They were in Chicago, or Berkeley, or in Massachusetts and you know things were going to be financed however they needed to be. And so long as there was the same amount of capital in the economy how it moved around was not really important for their model. Of course, that turns out not to be true. You can allocate capital in very destabilizing ways. And so the Fed actually had to teach itself finance. You know starting at about 2010, so it could figure out what it had gotten wrong.

So economics is changing. The problem is our popular perception of economics is not changing. And so I don’t think that the recent tax policy was a smart move, the changes that we made. It’s not because it was a mean, it’s because there’s very little, in fact, there’s zero empiric evidence that says it will work, and there’s a ton of empiric evidence that says it won’t work. And so what you have right now in economics is actual experience. You have economists who have used data of things that actually happened, and they are fighting against a much older kind of economics, which makes assumptions about things that will happen. And those two economics are fighting right now. The kind of economics that says, “cut taxes, and they’ll pay for themselves,” that’s not born out with any actual empiric experience of the real world. It’s a thought experiment from a blackboard from 40 years ago. But there’s certain people who want to do it that way and so that why we end up having this fight.

Anyway, the short version of all this is that economists think that they’re physicists, but they’re actually just sociologists watching things and observing them.

Christopher Mitchell: Well, and I think one of the things that I think about when I’m about to rage-tweet about something regarding economics, and economists, and the Chicago school or something like that, I send that [inaudible 00:12:24] to pause to remind myself that most economists don’t think like the Wall Street editorial board. Despite the fact that-
Brendan Greeley: None of them do.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, exactly, exactly. And sometimes I get this, I’m like, “Oh, these economists are just so arrogant, and this, and that.” And I have to remind myself, no those are just the ones that have a megaphone, and they have a megaphone for a very specific reason because they are serving the interests of the people that can afford to have lots of megaphones it seems like.
Brendan Greeley: There’s such a small number of people who do this for a living, really small who write for the Wall Street Journal editorial board. I’m coming up with a term for this.

But there’s the academic profession of economics, which is fascinating and varied, and people are having really honest and open discussions about data, this huge movement towards using bigger and better datasets, more computers. They are trying to figure out what they got wrong, and they’re not doing a terrible job of it. Right? If you go to the American Economists Association Conference, I go every year, there are really vibrant, fascinating discussions about how to get this right in the future.

Then we have this parallel discussion of something called “economics,” which is a thought process from about 40 years ago, and that’s the one we legislate by. I don’t know what to call that one, but it’s driven by think-tanks in Washington. It is not driven by academics, and there are a small number of people who have academic degrees, who work in those think-tanks, and they’re the ones … It’s really like five people who write all of these op-eds who actually have PhDs, a very small number of people. And they’re a very small minority within the profession of economics.

Christopher Mitchell: We brought this up in a show back, beginning of January, I think, about Paul Krugman had called them the difference between conservatives who are professional economists and professional, conservative economists, the latter being that small group of people.
Brendan Greeley: I think that’s a good distinction. I think Paul Krugman himself has some things to answer for.

Stacy, you asked earlier what are some things that are changing about economics. I think the other thing that is changing is economics for a very long time relied on the mean, they relied on aggregate numbers, and there’s no such thing as an average person. We all do things differently. It turns out that the distribution of the effects of a lot of things that happen in economics are really painful and very targeted. So when you look at things like immigration, yeah, it’s really good for an economy overall, but it can be very expensive for certain, targeted populations. It turns out schools in areas with a lot of immigration end up being strapped for funding. So I think it’s very easy … It has also been easy for left-wing economists to say, “Look, immigration is good.” Of course, it’s good in the aggregate, but ignore the distributional effects.

I think trade is another one. Paul Krugman has always been a strong proponent of trade. We’ve only had the data and the incentive to look at trade having very bad consequences in very specific areas. You know, none of us thinks of ourselves as the average person. We’ll all think of ourselves as a certain person who is doing a certain thing in a certain town, and if that gets taken away because of trade, we don’t really feel any better that the country as a whole is better off.

And so I think that another thing that economists got wrong, that economists, by the way, are fixing but politicians haven’t quite figured out yet is that things that are good for all of us, in general, are often bad for some of us in specific. There’s no politics to address that thing that economists have slowly faded out.

Christopher Mitchell: Well, this is something that Stacy has talked about before on the show. And that’s, I think this is relevant, which is that you may take a person who runs a store, a local retail store, and that person … Let’s say that store is driven out of business in part because of Walmart, and that person goes and becomes a manager at Walmart. I think a lot of economists might think, “well, that community is simply the same. Maybe it’s better off for having lower prices for certain items from Walmart.” I’m not going to say anything about the quality of those things or other impacts. Whereas, we look at that, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and we say that’s a community that’s in some way’s lost some leadership. It’s lost some prestige. There’s different impacts that have not historically made it into the equation.
Brendan Greeley: Yeah. I think it’s a tyranny of measurements. I think we’ve chosen a few things to measure, and we’re learning that we were measuring the wrong things. Maybe we weren’t measuring the wrong things. Maybe it’s that systems adapt to create what’s being measured, so if what we’re creating is low consumer prices, we did a great job. But, one of the things that we’re recognizing is that even though inflation is down, it’s up a ton in a couple of things that we really care about, healthcare and education. So, even though we’ve done a really good job of managing inflation in the aggregate, our socks are a lot cheaper than they used to be, our TVs are a lot cheaper, so is our furniture, but the stuff that really matters that helps us flourish is not cheaper.

And so to get back to specifically what it was that you got in touch with me about, you had this idea of monopoly, you know, we changed what we were going to measure. In the early ’80s we decided it was no longer necessarily true that monopoly in and of itself created restraint of trade, it prevented new entrance, it drove down labor prices. It has a bunch of bad consequences. We thought, well the only thing we really care about is consumer prices, so if we can prove that consumer prices are going down then monopoly is okay. And so we measured that, and it kind of works, and it turns out to have had all sorts of other consequences. That’s a discussion that I only just now see moving into, I wouldn’t even call it the mainstream, but it is moving into policy circles and out of economic circles.

The word, monopsony, a single buyer of labor was something that you only heard in academic papers starting about two years ago. They started to think, “Well, what’s going wrong? What’s going on? It might be monopsony. You think?” And now, it’s starting to show up in think tank papers, which is a real improvement.

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah, one of my colleagues actually corrected a paper in which I had written, or some blog post or something, because she thought that that was not a term. She had never come across it before.
Stacy Mitchell: Brendan, I love this phrase that the tyranny of measurement that you used. I’m really struck, as a lot of people are now, by how different the economy feels for many Americans than what is reported in the numbers. I mean, I think many Americans feel very precarious in their economic situation like they’re working a lot, struggling to their heads above water, and yet we’re in … You know we’ve had … We’re in an upswing in terms of being in a real sweet spot in the economic cycle, and you know stock market has been soaring and so on and so forth.

You know, when you look out there I’m curious what you see in terms of the economy’s structural issues that aren’t working for a lot of Americans? And I guess as part of that question I’m also curious if you think we’re at risk for another kind of economic or financial crisis?

Brendan Greeley: I don’t think that we’re at risk of something like what we had in 2000 and 2009. Debt crises are worse than business-cycle collapses. Business-cycle collapse is usually what happens is a bunch of companies that had inflated stock prices lose their value, so people feel less confident about the future. They no longer have those companies as buyers, they no longer have those companies in their stock portfolios, even their 401(k)s, the half of Americans who have 401(k)s, and so they buy less. Right? So there’s an expansion in hope, and there’s a contraction in hope. That’s a normal process.

What we had in 2008 was a collapse in credit, which is something else entirely, and it was centered around people’s houses. And so when you’re borrowed to the hilt on your house, and you lose it, there are all sorts of consequences. A house is not like any other asset. You know, when you hand off those keys you don’t have a place to live. It sounds obvious, but that’s a much bigger deal than declaring a bankruptcy on your credit cards. So I do think that most of the economic indicators that we see say that we are on the backside of this expansion, but not that there’s a recession looming around the corner. But there’s one coming in the next two or three years.

To answer your question about what still feels wrong about this economy, I think if we look back over the last 20 years we have been in a process of replacing wages with credit. We can talk about why wages aren’t growing, but wages are not growing. We’ve seen very little growth in the last 20 years. Median income in the US has been in the mid-50’s. I think it’s $57,000 now, this year, for a household, for decades now. And you know, we’re animals. We’re apes with thumbs. We’re not rational. When we see other people around us getting richer, and we are not we get resentful, and so we took that missing wage growth and replaced it with debt.

So before the crisis, that debt manifested itself in very expensive houses and home equity loans. Since the crisis, we have paid down a lot of our household debt on housing, and we have replaced it with car loans, to some extent credit cards, and definitely student debt. So there’s some evidence that debt is fungible, that you can move it around between accounts, that if you can’t get a home equity loan you might, you might, get a student loan instead. Or, you might get a car loan and use that money that you would have put down on a car to pay for something else. And so what we’re seeing is debt levels approaching where they were, but they consist of different kinds of debt. So the good news is, if that collapses people lose their houses, they lose their cars, and they can’t pay back their student loans, that’s not good, it’s super bad news, but it’s not as bad as news as jingle mail where they don’t have a house anymore. So, that’s to answer to your question about the potential for another crisis.

The problem is we’ve never gotten rid of the fat. We took all that missing wage growth and we replaced it with debt. We’ve never gotten over that. And so, again, rational economists say, “Well, you shouldn’t live beyond your means.” But, you know, we aren’t rational. We’re people, and so we see a certain standard of living. We see a certain growth in our standard of living, and we when we can’t meet that growth that we came to expect, particularly when we’re told the economy’s booming around us even if we aren’t getting wage increases, then we replace those wage increases with credit. And so that’s your answer, I think. The reason things feel precarious is that debt causes physical stress, and we are at a debt level, fairly recently, I think in the last two or three months, we reached a debt level that is the same as the total debt level that we had as households right before the crisis.

Christopher Mitchell: Hey, this seems like a good time for a reminder. We support local businesses and hope that you do, too. Think about that when making purchases and whether you’re helping to centralize power or decentralize it.

We also need your support to do research, to provide technical assistance, and record these interviews. Please donate to help us at ILSR.org/donate. That’s I-L-S-R dot org slash donate.

Now, let’s get back to that interview.

Stacy Mitchell: How much do you think this increase in debt, that you’ve been describing, in recent decades was driven by changes in the financial industry? I mean to the extent … Is there a connection between the fact that the financial industry is less composed of local and regional community banks that are really tied in their own well being to the well being of their borrowers versus larger financial institutions that may have more incentive to be loose with debt and push debt? Or does that have nothing to do with it?
Brendan Greeley: So, I’ve looked into the difference between small banks and large banks a little bit. It doesn’t sort out, I think, the way we’d prefer it to.

One of the problems is Dodd-Frank, which I thought was very good legislation. I mean it could have been better if it were simpler, but we just don’t do simple legislation anymore. But one consequence of all that complexity is that compliance costs for small banks rose comparatively. So, if you’re Wells Fargo, you don’t really care about the compliance cost because you’ve got a lot of people already doing that sort of thing and you can apportion it out among your branches. If you run a small bank, lower than a $1 million in assets somewhere out in America, you only have five people in your back office. You add two more to meet compliance and that’s a real expense for you.

Perversely, the things that we did to make the system safer have hastened the decline of small banks. That was happening already anyway. Weirdly, there’s a lot of mixed evidence on small banks and loan quality. We find that small banks in rural areas have higher loan quality than small banks in urban areas. I think that the assumption is that might have something to do with that trust ties are bigger in rural areas than they are in urban areas. But I would not lay the increase in debt at the feet of consolidation in the banking industry. I think it is possible to regulate banks in a way that even if we get that natural consolidation that there’s still responsible funding.

I do think that what happened is something that we have no control over, but I wish that we would recognize it for what it is, which is that a ton of money is coming into America from other places. You had, at least in the early 2000s enormous oil wealth coming, looking for a place to safely invest, and that place was America. You had a lot of brand new money from China looking for a place to safely invest. That place was America. So we’re sitting with all of these liabilities, all these loans. People just doing anything to buy a treasury debt from the United States. There’s just always a willing buyer for American debt, and that makes you crazy.

Christopher Mitchell: Just very briefly, I think people might not get why the fact that there are people with a lot of money outside the United States that want to bring money into the United States may lead to a person like me taking on more debt. Could you just spell that out for a second? And then we are going to get to some of the politics around this, but I want to make sure we make this connection first.
Brendan Greeley: If I show up with a suitcase full of money that I earned in another country and I want it to be safe I’m going to go to a bank. I’ll deposit it at a bank. The bank has what it considers a liability. It’s got my deposit. So I’m a foreigner. So now the bank’s got to go and create some new assets to match those liabilities. The bank considers a loan that it makes to a consumer an asset. So it get these deposits, that’s a liability because it might have to give the deposits back. What it can do is make loans based on these deposits. Right? So money comes in from abroad as a liability, shows up on the bank’s balance sheet. The bank’s got to create assets.

Here’s the problem. There were not enough good, high-quality assets in America to meet the demand that was created by all the liabilities that showed up on banks’ balance sheets. So then, you had this search for any asset whatsoever of any questionable quality. That’s why we got all these crummy mortgages because banks were desperate to get any kind of asset on the books to match the liabilities that they had.

One of the reasons why all the German regional banks, all the [inaudible 00:28:34] got caught up in this in 2007 was for a technical reason that I won’t get into. They were about to lose their AAA rating, so they had to go out and create a bunch of assets while they still had their AAA rating, had to with European law. So they got caught up in this too for a completely different reason.

If you have a bunch of money coming in, that money wants to make money. Right? You want a return on the money that you’re investing in America, but there just aren’t enough high-quality assets in this economy even though it’s the biggest economy in the world, to create the returns for people coming in from the outside. So that’s a long process. Right?

So when we talk about everything that’s happened over the last 20 years, we saw the sub-prime crisis. Right? So that disappeared. And now, you know that money is going to go into other things. One of the things that we’ve seen in the financial markets is that there’s an increased interest in what we used to call junk bonds. Now we call it high yield debt. Basically, there’s not enough high-quality corporate debt to meet all of this money that’s coming in, to become an asset for this money. So they’re moving up the scale to what we used to call junk bonds, we now call it high-yield because more people are interested in it. This gigantic flood of money coming into America funded a bunch of terrible investments. Just the fact that we had the housing crisis didn’t change the flood of money. It just changed the nature and the makeup of these assets that are being created. 

Christopher Mitchell: I think that’s a very helpful way to describe some of the pressures. It gets to a different way of thinking about the problem because I think a lot of people think about this problem the same way that led to the establishment of the Tea Party, which the problem was my greedy neighbor, not these larger trends. But I think in some ways, the way that we try to deal with larger trends is by having a political system that has adults in it that are dealing with it.

One of the things that I know I’ve really picked up on your twitter feed and moved you in part from someone that I casually follow to someone that I followed a little bit more closely, so I could respond to you in snarky ways sometimes, was when you made this point that neither political party, the Democrats or the Republicans, and I think we could probably say the Greens and Libertarians also, none of them combine a pro-competition focus with a distrust of big government in maybe overregulation. I’d like you to just talk a little bit about that and how, I think, neither party really has good solution for these issues that we’ve been talking about.

Brendan Greeley: I’m obsessed with the idea of competition because, again, it was one of those things that was missing in economists’ models. You know when we make predictions about what’s going to happen in the future for the economy we rely on these models, and those models rely on certain assumptions. We get so used to using the models that we forget that they contain assumptions. One of the assumptions that these models contain because they were all developed originally in the early ’80s is the assumption of perfect competition. No single company can pay its employees less or gouge its suppliers or gouge its customers because no single company has the market power. They’re assuming that you’ve got a good regulatory state that’s going to prevent that from happening.

So, we don’t have that anymore. We changed what we were measuring. We decided we were going to measure consumer prices, and then we kept consumer prices low, and we allowed monopolies to form. Now we have a situation where the models are no longer accurate. The reasons the models are no longer accurate is companies now have market power to do bad things.

What’s fascinating about this, and this is the reason Chris that you and began talking and talk online, is that I started thinking about this problem when I was a tech reporter. I wrote about tech policy, and the reason I moved from tech policy to economics is that I kept on banging up against the exact same problem, which is that tech policy in America is so messed up because we don’t have enough competition. This was insanely difficult to explain to people because I kept on saying, “Prices for all kinds of digital products, prices for fixed internet access, prices for mobile internet access, they’re so much cheaper in Europe.” And people would say, “Well yeah, that’s because they’re socialists. They subsidize them.” And I would say, “No. It’s ’cause they’re capitalists, and they actually create market competition, and market competition drives down your prices, and it also improves your experience.”

One of the things that frustrates me is that internet service providers will do all this analysis and say no, prices really aren’t that different here and elsewhere in the world. One of the things that ignores is that the experience is abysmal. Right? They make it really difficult to compare prices. The support is awful. You know when I tried to change something with T-Mobile, which is one of the more benign of the carriers we have in America, they got a fast-talker on the phone to try and shame me out of the change that I was going to make. This is not things that happen in competitive markets because in competitive markets people are scared of pissing off their customers.

And so, my frustration, you know, I guess seven years ago when you and I first started talking was that I couldn’t do anything about this industry that I was covering because there was much a bigger problem. Which is that the industry that I was in and covering was so crummy because we have a bigger problem in America. Which is we don’t know how to think about competition. Democrats don’t tend to think about that. They think about fairness. Is the economy fair? Does everybody have a fair shake? They just don’t have a framework to think about it. Republicans think, “well if businesses want something then it must be good because businesses want to make profits, and they want to compete.” That’s just not true. That’s the frustrating thing. I, again, I don’t even think it’s malign-intent on the part of the Republicans. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. They want commerce to go forward.

I think the thing we’ve lost sight of in America is that we don’t understand that healthy competition creates all the things we love about capitalism. The irony of that is businesses don’t like competition. They hate it. It drives them crazy. They can’t do what they want. And so the most successful businesses will do everything they can to avoid healthy competition, but there’s no framework for that.

I keep talking to my friends who actually are in politics that I want to start a party called the Markets party, or the Competition party. They always say, “You’ll be lonely.” ‘Cause there’s no way to talk about this stuff. That’s what drives me crazy. So the thing that you follow so closely, the market for internet access, is crummy for the same reason that so many things are crummy because we can’t talk about competition in this country. 

Christopher Mitchell: Competition is miserable for businesses. You stay up late at night. I run a small business, and I’m not even in a particularly super competitive industry, and it’s not even something where if I lost my business my family would miss a meal or anything. But nonetheless, I worry about losing clients, and it’s nerve-wracking, and hard. I just want to note that we have to keep that in mind when we’re talking about a more competitive economy.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, I mean I think you see small businesses actually, you know the ones really sweating it to compete, and big companies have kind of rigged the rules in a lot of ways that insulates them from actually having to face that competition.

I think one of the problems in our … and I think Brendan’s … You’re really right about this whole point you’ve made.

I think one of the problems in our politics is that Democrats are nervous about the idea of competition and they’re nervous about business. I think there’s a sort of vaguely held idea that competition is actually the root of the unfairness, and in reality, it’s the centralization of power that’s the root of the unfairness, and that the markets aren’t structured in ways that even the playing field and create opportunity, of course, with an appropriate safety net and regulatory structure and the rest of it. So I think some of it is that Democrats really have an opportunity to rethink how they think about business and the economy, and not just sort of cede a lot of ground to Republicans who’ve really carried a lot of water for big business.

Brendan Greeley: What I want is growth Democrats, and I think that you’re absolutely right that they’re missing language to talk about growth. And then there are very old terms that we used to have that we’ve lost. And in order to use them, we have to reintroduce them and explain them to people. Things like monopsony, single buyer. Right? We have single buyers of labor in some towns, and that produces distortion. It’s a very old term. We just haven’t thought about it in a while, and we need to reintroduce it. Restraint of trade is another one. All that trust law that we got in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, it wasn’t about protecting consumers, it was about protecting other market participants who wanted to trade but were restrained from doing so. But nobody talks about that. You certainly don’t get Republicans talking about that.

There’s a very effective defense against that that large businesses have, which is that they have convinced America that regulation is bad. I think the way we talk about regulation in America is that Republicans say regulation is awful, and it curbs growth. And Democrats try to not say the word regulation. When what of course, we need, a regulation is just a law. There are good regulations, and there are bad regulations. What we really should be having is a conversation about what are the good regulations? The ones that encourage competition. The one that discouraged externalities like carbon. What are the good regulations and what are the bad ones? What are the regulations that say if you want to open a hair salon in a town it’s prohibitively costly for you to get licensed? And there is no political language to make that distinction in America.

So let’s take the thing that Chris I know you hold near and dear, which is competition in the telecoms industry. Net neutrality is the smallest concession that you could possibly imagine. Right? Other countries are so far beyond us in terms of requiring that service providers compete. So rather than force them to compete, we’re just asking them for this basic thing where you at least other people to compete over your wires. They say that’s regulation, regulation is bad, ergo we can’t have it. So we don’t have the language to talk about this, and I don’t really know of any Democrats who even know how to have this conversation.

Stacy Mitchell: It’s worth noting too, and I think you’re right about we don’t know how to talk about regulation good versus bad, but it’s also true that anti-trust in some way is really a police function. It’s not a regulatory function. It’s about making sure behavior is appropriate and that the market is structured in a way that facilitates competition. You know in the same way that our banking laws for a lot of the 20th century didn’t have to have a lot of incredibly complex regulatory rules, and so forth, and compliance rules because they were more simple and more structural. And said, “Here, banks need stick to their knitting and there’s going to be some geographic restrictions and so on.” And it seems to me that’s there’s a lot to be gained by thinking about the ways in which policy can structure markets as opposed to minutely regulate them.
Brendan Greeley: Yes, I think you are absolutely right about that. I think that we need to think about why do we have markets? Because they give us growth and prosperity. Why do we have politics? Because they protects us from markets. You know Germans have an understanding of this. Right? This idea of ordoliberalism. In Germany, it’s the idea that the government has to create the market so that the market actors can function properly and productively. We don’t have any sense in America of how it is we create good markets.

And the thing you said about simplicity I think is really crucial. This is the reason why Dodd-Frank frustrates me is that I think the aims of it are very good. I’d rather keep it than let go of it. Right? Given the alternative, I’ll take Dodd-Frank. But one way in which Dodd-Frank could have been much better is if it had just been really simple, but we don’t do simple rules in America.

Stacy Mitchell: Well, if we wrote simple rules big companies wouldn’t have any room to evade them, and you know.
Brendan Greeley: Oh, yeah. I mean this is a favorite trick that companies do, which is that they lobby for complex regulations. Their lawyers lick their chops, and then they go to the press and say, “Look how many regulations there are. Look how many pages of complex regulation there is. We need to get rid of it.”
Christopher Mitchell: Aside from your economic research note, what do you recommend that a person read or listen to to learn a little bit about this stuff?
Brendan Greeley: So the Chicago Booth School of Business has done a really amazing site called ProCompetition. I think that’s what it’s called. Luigi Zingales-
Stacy Mitchell: I think it’s actually ProMarket, maybe.
Brendan Greeley: ProMarket, thank you, ProMarket. So Luigi Zingales at Chicago, and this is fascinating that it’s the Chicago school that’s doing this, although it’s a business school and not the economics programs. I think what they’re doing is amazing because they are all hard-headed PhD economists who understand that markets need rules to function, and are going through market by market, and saying this is why this market doesn’t work. And so that to me, is an approach that we need, but again I’m going to say the same thing, I’m waiting for a politician to read that, pick it up and say this is my program. This is the thing that we’re missing in America. That I have not seen yet.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, thank you so much, Brendan for coming on. Really enjoyed this conversation.
Brendan Greeley: Thank you, guys. It was great to talk.
Christopher Mitchell: Brendan had to run, but I wanted to just note a couple of things that popped into my head over the course of the interview in terms of recommendations. One was that people should both read and watch The Big Short, the Michael Lewis book and movie. I thought it touched on some of the areas that we just talked about. The other is from the beginning of the interview, a book by David Graeber that was pretty popular recently called The History of Debt. The first few pages of that talk about some of the issues that we talked about right at the very beginning.

Did anything occur to you, before we wrap up?

Stacy Mitchell: I’m glad he mentioned the ProMarket site. That’s a really great read, and I’m really glad to see that initiative going, but I’ll just double-down on your suggestion of watching The Big Short. That’s one of my all-time favorite movies in recent years, and it captures so much in such an entertaining and in some ways, moving way.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes. I agree.

Well, thank you, Stacy.

Stacy Mitchell: Thanks, Chris. This has been fun.
Christopher Mitchell: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website, ILSR.org, that’s I-L-S-R dot org. Look around for the Building Local Power show page. While you’re there, you can sign up for one of our newsletters or all of them, and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Please help us out by rating this podcast, sharing it with your friends, or maybe hire a local pilot to fly one of those airplanes with the message dangling behind it over a beach. I’m sure that’s really great for carbon dioxide emissions.

This show is produced by Lisa Gonzalez and Nick Stumo-Langer. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_AL.

For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I’m Chris Mitchell. I hope you’ll join us again in two weeks for the next episode of Building Local Power. Now get out there and do something. Thanks.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[18] Building Local Power on iTunes[19] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[20]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[21]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[22] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[23] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[24] license.

Photo Credit: Data Center Journal[25].

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[26] and Facebook[27] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[28] for our ILSR general newsletter.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2018-02-21-blp040-brendan-greeley-economics-markets.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2018-02-21-blp040-brendan-greeley-economics-markets.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power
  6. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism
  7. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym
  8. All We Know So Far: https://allweknowsofar.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=62b7d5f8ee1dfec1953b57d94&id=a42b265e6b
  9. Debt: The First 5,000 Years: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781933633862
  10. ProMarket Blog: https://promarket.org/
  11. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780393353150
  12. The Big Short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWr8hbUkG9s
  13. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DWB-uMLX0AAI1Oe-1.jpg
  14. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: Monopoly Tag: https://ilsr.org/tag/monopoly/
  15. Podcast: The Rising Anti-Monopoly Movement (Episode 36): https://ilsr.org/anti-monopoly-blp-episode-36/
  16. Podcast: Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win (Episode 30): https://ilsr.org/beating-the-monopolies-barry-lynn-episode-30-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  17. Policy Brief: Comcast’s Anti-Municipal Broadband Election Investments: https://ilsr.org/comcasts-election-investment-policy-brief-on-seattle-fort-collins-broadband-ballots/
  18. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  19. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  20. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  21. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  22. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  23. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  24. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  25. Data Center Journal: http://www.datacenterjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/economy.jpg
  26. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  27. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  28. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/competition-party-blp-episode-40/


This Northern Minnesota Town is Considering Local, High-Speed Internet Infrastructure Solutions

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 20, 2018 6:39 am

Last fall, the northern Minnesota community of Ely took up a feasibility study to determine the possibilities of better connectivity with publicly owned Internet infrastructure. They also wanted to explore local interest in investment. After conducting a survey and reviewing the situation, local officials are contemplating moving ahead with two pilot projects.

A Big Demand

Citizens’ group, Ely Area Broadband Coalition (Ely ABC) and the Ely Economic Development Authority (EEDA) collaborated to manage the feasibility study process[1]. In 2016, the Blandin Foundation, the Iron Range Resources Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB), and St. Louis County awarded the city $25,000[2] which they’ve dedicated toward their efforts to improve local connectivity.

In order to gauge the community’s current feeling about the quality and cost of the services they purchase from area cable and DSL providers, the Ely ABC and the EEDA encouraged area residents and businesses to compete a survey last fall[3]. They wanted evidence to share with potential funding sources that the community was not being served. Community leaders also expected the results to help them decide which direction to take moving forward.

At a recent EEDA meeting[4], members discussed the survey results and the potential pilot projects.

“We want to see how people are satisfied with what they have and what they feel the needs are,” said Harold Langowski, the city’s clerk-treasurer. “Right now we are assuming everybody wants faster broadband. and that they’re not satisfied with what we have. But we’re only hearing that from people on the committee.”

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. collaborated to manage the feasibility study process: https://muninetworks.org/content/ely-minnesota-coalition-complete-feasibility-study
  2. awarded the city $25,000: https://blandinfoundation.org/news-room/news-items/six-iron-range-communities-selected-for-blandin-foundation-broadband-communities-program/
  3. compete a survey last fall: http://www.elyecho.com/articles/2017/10/07/want-better-internet-fill-out-survey
  4. At a recent EEDA meeting: http://www.elyecho.com/articles/2018/02/16/pilot-projects-floated-improve-internet-service?mc_cid=b29d802f13&mc_eid=2910c7b52b
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/this-northern-minnesota-town-is-considering-local-high-speed-internet-infrastructure-solutions/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/this-northern-minnesota-town-is-considering-local-high-speed-internet-infrastructure-solutions/


Idaho Municipal Network Touts Local Improvement District in New Video

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 16, 2018 6:00 pm

The city of Ammon, Idaho, has used its open access publicly owned network to create an environment that encourages competition for residents and businesses. In addition to giving them control over which services they use and which companies they patronize, the city is doing its best to share information. In this video, the Ammon Fiber Optic Utility explains information financing for those who decide to connect to the network.

Ammon is using a Local Improvement District (LID) approach to connect premises to the infrastructure. The city determines the boundaries of where the project will occur and property owners have the opportunity at the beginning of the process to pay for connecting to the network by attaching the cost over 20 years to their property. If property owners don’t take advantage of the opportunity during this window of time and decide later to connect, they must pay the estimated $3,000 – $5,000 out of pocket.

As the video explains, connecting one’s property to the network raises its value and makes it easier to sell. It also points out that the cost of connecting stays with the property, so if a homeowner moves before the 20-year period is over, the new owners continue the payments for connecting. The video also explains an estimated monthly cost breakdown for hooking up to Ammon’s network.

Keeping the community informed about their options keeps residents and businesses engaged in the process and aware of developments related to their network. Check out this short video about the LID #2 options and learn more from this report[1] from Harvard University’s Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH).

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. from this report: https://muninetworks.org/reports/edit-report-ammon-report-enabling-competition-and-innovation-city-fiber-network
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/idaho-municipal-network-touts-local-improvement-district-in-new-video/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/idaho-municipal-network-touts-local-improvement-district-in-new-video/


Want To Topple Telecom Oligopolies? Support Locally Owned Broadband

by Matthew Marcus | February 15, 2018 8:00 am

Rural communities seeking better broadband have options beyond big telecom.

This article was originally published in Fast Company[1] on January 19th, 2018.

This past August, the residents of the Republican-leaning Michigan town[2] of Lyndon Township overwhelmingly voted to raise their property taxes. What spurred this rural community to violate the core Republican tenant of minimal taxation?

Lack of high-speed internet access.

Speedy internet connections are easy to come by in cities and sprawling suburbs where big cable and telephone monopolies can expect a large return on their investment. But in many rural areas of the country, high-speed internet access is sparse–39% of rural Americans flat-out do not have broadband access.

That’s why Lyndon Township’s residents decided to fund a 3 million dollar broadband project, which increased their property taxes by over $20 per month on average. The end result will be a locally owned network offering a basic 100 Mbps fiber-to-the-home service, which is faster and more reliable than most cable services. As Ben Fineman, president of the Michigan Broadband Cooperative explained[3], “for people in a rural area, that’s far and away better than anything they can get today.”

This approach isn’t unique: At least 500 other counties and towns in the U.S.[4] have taken steps to end their dependence on monopoly ISPs. Wilson, North Carolina,[5] built their own fiber-optic network and high-speed internet service, defining it as a municipal utility like water or electricity. Westminster, Maryland,[6] entered into an equitable public-private partnership where they own the fiber network infrastructure and lease portions of it to an independent ISP.

But most rural communities still have extremely limited and poor broadband options, if any at all. Only half of American households[7] have access to two or more broadband providers. In Michigan, AT&T owns the majority of the market and is often the only ISP available. These minimally competitive regional markets leave monopoly ISPs with little incentive to improve service or lower prices. It’s an oligopoly, comprised of the nation’s largest telecommunication companies[8].

Nevertheless, some 20 states have passed preemption laws limiting local government’s authority to build new networks. In most cases the restrictions were lobbied for by powerful incumbent cable and telephone companies to limit competition.

Freshman Michigan Rep. Michele Hoitenga recently tried to introduce a bill to block local governments from funding broadband projects[9] in her state. It quickly surfaced that Hoitenga received over $5,000 in campaign contributions from big telecom[10] and PACs heavily funded by telecommunication companies.

AT&T hired 23 registered lobbyists last year in Michigan alone, with an expenditure of $211,501.09. To put that into perspective, that’s 3.8 times more registered lobbyists than Ford Motor Company[11] and about five times the expenditure of Verizon[12] and Google[13] in the state.

Even after the lobbyist footprints were flagged, Rep. Hoitenga defended her bill, claiming the town of Holland, Michigan, has 37 providers. The vast majority of the city has only one or two options, but there are actually around 14 providers in certain areas[14], which is exceptionally good–but it is not a product of a market free from government competition. It’s the result of their community-owned broadband network.

That network, which was built over 20 years ago, runs on an open access model, primarily as an efficient means of controlling municipal utility operations. This allows the city to lease the physical strands of fiber to ISPs, creating the competitive broadband market Hoitenga ironically pointed out. Today, Holland leases fiber to six service providers and has connected over 200 customers, many of them small businesses. They are now considering additional options to bring fiber-optics to more businesses and residents.

It’s further proof that rural communities seeking better broadband have options beyond AT&T and other big providers. But it’s only possible when communities and local governments demand real competition by eliminating legal barriers and investing public funds into community-owned networks or existing cooperatives.

The federal government could also help address these instances of gross inaccessibility. A shining example is the Rural Electrification Act[15], which provided loans to rural cooperatives in the 1930s, bringing electricity to farms and supercharging the local economies. While the FCC has acknowledged rural America’s lack of competition and broadband access, the solutions being offered are ill-conceived and largely benefitting monopoly ISPs that continue to hyperbolize the levels of broadband competition.

If, like Lyndon Township, more rural towns begin to see through the sizable lobbying efforts and legislative cheerleading of big telecoms, then more locally controlled networks will sprout up across the country. Equitable high-speed internet access and competition will follow, and telecommunication companies’ destructive regional monopolies might begin to falter.


Matthew Marcus researches community broadband networks and the local policies that enable them for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks initiative. You can find his writing at muninetworks.org[16] and ilsr.org[17]. Additionally, Marcus assists in the production of the organization’s Community Broadband Bits[18] podcast and compiles research for multimedia resources on muninetworks.org. You can email him at broadband@muninetworks.org.

Photo: Dwight Burdette[19] via Wikimedia Commons.

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Endnotes:
  1. Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/40517862/want-to-topple-telecom-oligopolies-support-locally-owned-broadband
  2. Republican-leaning Michigan town: http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2016/11/see_which_areas_of_washtenaw_c.html
  3. explained: https://muninetworks.org/content/transcript-community-broadband-bits-episode-272
  4. 500 other counties and towns in the U.S.: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  5. Wilson, North Carolina,: http://www.greenlightnc.com/
  6. Westminster, Maryland,: http://www.westminstermd.gov/419/Westminster-Fiber-Network
  7. Only half of American households: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-broadband-still-no-isp-choice-for-many-especially-at-higher-speeds/
  8. the nation’s largest telecommunication companies: https://www.recode.net/2017/4/27/15413870/comcast-broadband-internet-pay-tv-subscribers-q1-2017
  9. a bill to block local governments from funding broadband projects: http://michiganradio.org/post/bill-would-bar-michigan-communities-using-public-money-internet-infrastrucure
  10. Hoitenga received over $5,000 in campaign contributions from big telecom: http://www.mcfn.org/donor-tracking.php?candidate=6
  11. 3.8 times more registered lobbyists than Ford Motor Company: http://miboecfr.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cfr/lobby_detail.cgi?lobby_id%3D535%26last_match%3D%26exp_last_match%3D%26lobby_seq_no%3D%26lobby_type%3D%2A%26lobby_name%3DFORD+MOTOR+COMPANY%26include%3Dactive%26show_employees%3DY#EMP
  12. Verizon: http://miboecfr.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cfr/lobby_detail.cgi?caller%3DSRCHRES%26last_match%3D50%26lobby_type%3D%2A%26lobby_name%3DVERIZON%26include%3Dactive%261%3D1%26lobby_id%3D21%26last_match%3D0
  13. Google: http://miboecfr.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cfr/lobby_detail.cgi?caller%3DSRCHRES%26last_match%3D50%26lobby_type%3D%2A%26lobby_name%3DGOOGLE%26include%3Dactive%261%3D1%26lobby_id%3D10043%26last_match%3D0
  14. around 14 providers in certain areas: https://broadbandnow.com/Michigan/Holland?zip=49422
  15. Rural Electrification Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act
  16. muninetworks.org: https://muninetworks.org/
  17. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/
  18. Community Broadband Bits: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  19. Dwight Burdette: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lyndon_Township_Hall.JPG

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/want-to-topple-telecom-oligopolies-support-locally-owned-broadband/


SCANA-Dominion Energy Utility Merger a Risky Deal for S.C. Ratepayers

by John Farrell | February 14, 2018 4:17 pm

As monopoly utilities merge and grow bigger, they tend to abuse their captive customers.

This article was originally published in Charleston Post and Courier[1] on January 31st, 2018.

Costing over $9 billion, the V.C. Summer nuclear power plant was a bruising failure. South Carolina electric customers need a fresh start. To get that, they ought to avoid a shotgun marriage between SCANA and shareholder-owned Dominion Energy.

Like many electric utilities, Dominion Energy has a government-granted monopoly that shields it from competition. Like some others, it has repeatedly employed this grant of public service to extract substantial benefits for its shareholders from its captive customers. This tendency to abuse the public trust tends to get worse as companies merge and grow bigger, upsizing their economic and political power.

In a recent report I authored for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we detail the rising tide of utility mergers across the country. In the past two decades, utility companies have grown from regional powers within states into multi-state conglomerates with dubious economies of scale but powerfully evident economies of lobbying. These mergers make big headlines and big returns for utility shareholders, but often leave customers with second thoughts about the marriage. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Charleston Post and Courier: https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/scana-dominion-merger-a-risky-deal-for-s-c-ratepayers/article_74a739ea-06d4-11e8-aca6-aba462a44c6e.html
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/scana-dominion-energy-utility-merger-a-risky-deal-for-s-c-ratepayers/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/scana-dominion-energy-utility-merger-a-risky-deal-for-s-c-ratepayers/


Electric Cooperative Connects Rural Colorado to Fiber Internet, New Opportunities

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 14, 2018 12:00 pm

When the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative[1] (SLVREC) decided to invest in fiber for more efficient electrical operations, they also took the first step toward improving Internet access for residents and businesses in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. The cooperative is building a network for both members and local nonmembers in some of Colorado’s least populated and worst connected areas.

Up In The Valley

The San Luis Valley in Colorado is the headwaters of the Rio Grande and a high-altitude basin in south central Colorado. There are more than 8,000 square miles within the Valley, but only about half of that is privately owned. The Rio Grande National Forest and the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve cover large swaths of land that attracts naturalists and people looking for outdoor adventure. Tourists also come to the Valley to enjoy the hot springs. The area was once populated with the Ute Native Americans; Mexican settlers have also played a part in populating the region. Mountain ranges bound the Valley on the west and east sides, luring climbers and campers. Alamosa is the most populous community as the county seat with a little under 10,000 people; Adams State University is located there.

Andrea Oaks-Jaramillo, Marketing and Economic Development Coordinator from SLVREC spoke with us about the co-op’s venture into fiber connectivity:

“We want to make sure that people live in this area and are able to work and thrive here. We see a lot of our kids that go out of town for university and college and then don’t return because there isn’t a way to make a good living or to telecommute. That’s not what we want. We want to be able to have a stable and thriving economy while still maintaining what is priceless about living in a rural area.”

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative: https://www.slvrec.com/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/electric-cooperative-connects-rural-colorado-to-fiber-internet-new-opportunities/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/electric-cooperative-connects-rural-colorado-to-fiber-internet-new-opportunities/


Reduce and Reuse Before You Recycle: Delivering Ourselves from Over-Packaging

by Neil Seldman | February 14, 2018 10:46 am

The Climate Lab at the University of California at Berkeley, alongside the media organization Vox, produced a helpful video on the dangers of over packaging and how to reduce single-use waste. The video includes information and a guide to reducing one way take-out food packaging, water bottles and more.

You can stream and watch the 7 minute video, below. You will learn about simple steps that institutions and businesses can take for dramatic and cost effective results; and common sense.

Here’s a preview from the article the video came from[1]:

In many cases, not only are these services delivering food, they’re delivering lots of extra stuff: bags, boxes, wrapping, napkins, utensils, packs of condiments, colorful branded bits and bobs. Takeout can come with handfuls of ketchup or soy sauce packets, thick wads of napkins. Do you need all of that stuff? No one stops to ask — it just comes, and you get to deal with it.

Our problem with packaging and single-use items goes beyond the desire for an easy dinner. Packaging accounts for nearly 30 percent of all waste generated across the country according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and this doesn’t include other single-use items like disposable plates and utensils, diapers, junk mail, and paper towels. It piles up in our landfills, while manufacturing, shipping, and disposing of all of this stuff — often used for mere seconds — creates big greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. the article the video came from: https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/1/3/16842068/climate-lab-takeout-food
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/reduce-and-reuse-before-you-recycle-delivering-ourselves-from-over-packaging/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/reduce-and-reuse-before-you-recycle-delivering-ourselves-from-over-packaging/


Colorado State Senator Steve Fenberg on Local Power Versus Corporate Power (Episode 39)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 8, 2018 12:00 pm

Colorado State Senator Steve Fenberg (Photo Courtesy of the Boulder Reporter[5])

When author local activist saw that his community wanted a better, more renewable future he took action — now he’s doing the same work in the Colorado State Senate.

This week’s episode of the Building Local Power podcast[6] features a great conversation between the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell[7] and Colorado State Senator Steve Fenberg[8]. Fenberg, the former executive director of New Era Colorado, joins Farrell to discuss the status of local control and renewable energy in the Centennial State.

The conversation focuses on Boulder’s continuing march toward municipalization for reasons that will save citizens money and integrate a higher percentage of renewable energy. They also tackle the growth of lobbying efforts by massive utilities and what that means for concerned citizens across America.

“It’s about saying people want a cleaner energy future,” argues Sen. Steve Fenberg[9] (D-Boulder). “Technology has caught up to the point where technologies are out there that can get us there much faster than the path we’re currently on. There shouldn’t be these regulatory barriers to keeping individuals, as well as communities, from being able to use these technologies and new opportunities to have more control over their energy future.


 

Our guest recommended the following items:

  • This Changes Everything[10] by Naomi Klein
  • “Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money”[11] by Tony Bartelme, Charleston Post and Courier
  • Senator Fenberg also recommends to take a break from the news every once in a while so you can read something fun! So, your humble podcast producer recommends the book The Secret Life of Lobsters[12] by Trevor Corson, which is a an extremely fun and informative book on a pinchy delicacy.
  • Mergers and Monopoly: How Concentration Changes the Electricity Business[13] — This policy brief from our Energy Democracy initiative research team details the consolidation rampant in our electricity industry. It also runs through how these utilities leverage their growing economic power into political power.
  • Boulder Voters Say (Again): “We’ll Lead Movement to Energy Democracy”[14] — On Election Day 2017, Measure 2L had passed[15] with 51.7%[16] of the vote, keeping Boulder on course to make history as first city to municipalize its electric company in years –, and the only one ever to do it specifically to advance clean, local power. This run down details what that means for this community moving forward.
  • Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win — Episode 30 of the Building Local Power Podcast[17] — This podcast episode with the Open Markets Institute’s Barry Lynn discusses how we got to here in our monopoly economy and how he has hope that we will win against the monopolists who are robbing our political economy.
  • How Can Communities Leverage a Better Energy Future? – Episode 17 of Local Energy Rules Podcast[18] —This 2014 interview hosted by John Farrell with then-activist Steve Fenberg detailed the work of his organization, New Era Colorado, in promoting Boulder’s move to municipalize their electric utility to gain better local control.
  • Colorado State Senator Steve Fenberg’s Current Legislation & Priorities[19] — From his time as an activist to now in the Colorado State Senate, Steve Fenberg is looking to ensure more communities have the ability to enable their own local control. Read Fenberg’s stance on issues at his website.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Hello, and welcome to Building Local Power, a podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. My name is Nick Stumo-Langer and I’m the Communications Manager for ILSR.

This week’s episode of Building Local Power is a conversation between John Farrell, the Director of ILSR’s Energy Democracy Initiative, and Steve Fenberg, a Democratic state senator from Boulder, Colorado. Farrell also spoke with Fenberg way back in 2014 when he was Executive Director of New Era Colorado about the work his grassroots group was doing to fight the power of monopoly electric utility Xcel Energy in his city.

This conversation focuses on the ins and outs of local activism for renewable energy. Fenberg explains to our audience how local organizing power can translate into solid political wins and it’s not just about fighting against something, but fighting for something. In his case, committing Colorado to a bolder and more renewable future.

You can find links to everything John and Steve talk about on the show page for this podcast at ilsr.org. That’s I-L-S-R dot-org. Support this podcast by going to ILSR’s donate page at ilsr.org/donate. Help keep us going.

Finally, please rate, review, and share this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts. Your engagement helps us get great guests like Senator Fenberg and helps other to find this feed. Now, here’s the interview.

John Farrell: Welcome to another edition of Building Local Power, a podcast talking about the ways in which communities can build their local authority over their economies and the strategies that have been employed across the country. I’m John Farrell, the Director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and today I’m speaking with Stephen Fenberg, who I last spoke with three years ago for a different podcast, almost four years ago, actually, in March 2014, when he was with New Era Colorado. At that time, they had just won a ballot initiative by a narrow margin to keep the city of Boulder, Colorado on track to take over its electricity grid from the incumbent shareholder-owned corporation, Xcel Energy. Stephen, welcome back to the program.
Steve Fenberg: Well, thanks for having me, John. I appreciate it.
John Farrell: I just wanted to read a quote from that interview that we had back in 2014 to give some context for what you were working on then because I think it really captures the theme of what I see as the work that you’ve done since then. I had asked you about what your intentions were and you said that your goal in terms of what you saw the work in Boulder being as a model for other cities was, “Not everybody [municipalizes 00:02:39]. Not everybody is taking over the electric grid, but there’s the threat that communities should have the leverage to get what they’re asking for. At the end of the day, they’re the customer and if they’re provided a product that’s not in line with their values, they should be able to have the leverage to demand something better.”

I was curious. Could you just share briefly what it was that Boulder was trying to do back then three years ago and why that incumbent utility company wasn’t doing enough to satisfy Boulder’s residences and businesses?

Steve Fenberg: This is, I think, a conversation that more and more is happening around cities in Colorado, but all over the country really. The idea is that more communities are demanding that their energy sources are from cleaner sources. That was the case in the city of Boulder when it started the conversation as a community about the prospects of [municipalization 00:03:37]. But it wasn’t necessarily out of some deep desire to not be a customer of that particular utility. It was more about they wanted something that the utility wasn’t able to provide and that’s a much cleaner energy source and also to have the decision at the local level about where those energy sources come from, but also things like being able to deploy new technologies and make decisions about what they think is the best policies for their energy future. That was the idea.

Other communities have been watching Boulder, I think, very closely, and the city of Pueblo here in Colorado is in conversation in their community about what the future might hold for them. Then there’s other cities, especially large cities, that clearly use a lot of energy are having conversations with their utilities about making sure that maybe they’re not going to [municipalize 00:04:35], but making sure that they have an energy source and portfolio that meets their community’s values.

The city of Denver has said that they want to be on a path to 100% renewables. Their utility is Xcel Energy, so Xcel Energy has to take that seriously, not just because of Boulder, but because the city of Denver is such a huge customer base for them that it’s only the smart business thing to do to try to please them and give them what they’re asking for.

John Farrell: One of the things that we talk a lot about on this podcast, Building Local Power, is about monopolies, and about the concentration of economic and political power. One thing that is striking about the work that you are doing in Boulder is that Xcel Energy is a monopoly. They’re a state-granted monopoly. We have these in lots of places across the country, 30 states do the electric market this way and give companies a monopoly. What Boulder is doing is essentially saying, “We need a different choice entirely. We can’t operate, we can’t successfully get what we need from this company that controls the system.”

You mentioned Denver. Do you think that when they have these requests that Xcel really does have to respond to them? Is that threat of [municipalization 00:05:50] significant enough that it will motivate them to change? Or do they have that advantage of incumbency and they control over the system that allows them to ignore that local interest?

Steve Fenberg: I think it’s on a case-by-case basis. I think overall and historically we’ve seen that the incumbent utility typically can ignore that. They had the ability to get away with that by saying that it would be a horrible path to go down as a community, and there are so many unknowns, it would be expensive. That’s a pretty compelling message. I would say yes, they typically do get away with it, and they are typically able to kick the can down the road.

They did that with Boulder really for decades because this isn’t a new conversation for Boulder. It was going on for a long time. These contracts, these franchise agreements with the utility, are often 20 years. Communities don’t have the opportunity or the option to hold that threat over the utility very often if they’re in 20-year contracts.

I do think you’re right. These utilities do have an immense amount of power and authority and financial resources behind them. That’s a challenge. That’s why I think what’s happening in some of these communities is really exciting because there’s not a technical problem. There’s not a technical inability or a technical barrier that is keeping the communities from being locally-controlled and having democratic choice of deciding where their energy comes from. It’s really a political and sort of a legal barrier that is the real issue.

That’s why I think having these successes, no matter what these cities and communities actually end up doing, but the fact that we are having this conversation, they pushed the envelope to where we even are today. I think that means that legislatures, politicians, elected officials, need to have the conversation of how do we provide communities more choice? Whether that’s Community Choice aggregation, allowing a smoother path to [municipalization 00:07:56], competition, there are many policy options. But I think we’ve proven that we’ve gotten to a point where the options on the table right now are not nearly enough. 

John Farrell: One of the things I think was really terrific is that after what happened in Boulder in 2013, and then they’ve had to have a subsequent ballot initiative to keep the process rolling, another quote you offered in our 2014 interview was that, “What happened in Boulder gave folks hope that there are things you can do on the local level that can have a big impact.”

One thing, obviously, that you can do at a local level is to elect representatives to higher levels of government. I hear that since 2014, when we spoke last, the folks in Boulder have a new state senator.

Steve Fenberg: That’s right. Some young guy that has no experience. No, yeah, I in 2016 decided to throw my hat in the ring and run for state senate. I was fortunate enough to get elected, so I have been in the legislature now for a little over a year. We did one complete legislative session and we just started our 2018 session a couple of weeks ago.
John Farrell: You already have a couple of energy-related bills that I’ve seen that seem focused on local power, one about the rights of folks to install energy storage, and another one asking utility companies to make better plans for distributed energy like rooftop solar. Why is local energy like that important? I guess are you proposing other legislation that promotes local power, whether you’re talking about electricity and energy or in other forms?
Steve Fenberg: Colorado, historically, is a state that really embraces the concept of local control. Sometimes that meets my policy objectives and sometimes it doesn’t. I would say we’re somewhat not predictable in when we want to give communities local control and when we do. But in this case, I think it’s clear that Colorado’s constitution allows for communities to do things like have local control over their energy decisions. In fact, 29 cities in Colorado already do that.

I am interested in the issue. I think it’s part of the Colorado way of life, and philosophy, and way of governing. The bills that I’ve been working on so far in my short legislative career are in many ways in line with that concept. One of which is to not necessarily on a community or city level, but to actually on an individual level, to give individuals more choice, and options, and more authority over their own personal energy future, such as allow them to install energy storage systems in a way that makes sense and in a way that engineers think is safe and reliable and reasonable, even when utility might prefer them to do it in a different way so they can retain control.

But for me, this isn’t being anti-utility. This isn’t being anti-certain types of utilities. It’s about saying people want a cleaner energy future. We know that’s the case these days. Technology has caught up to the point where technologies are out there that can get us there much faster than the path we’re currently on. There shouldn’t be these regulatory barriers to keeping individuals, as well as communities, from being able to use these technologies and new opportunities to have more control over their energy future.

In some ways, it’s little-d democracy. In some ways, it’s about clean energy. In some ways, it’s simply about individuals being able to have control over their own destiny. I think, frankly, it’s important in a whole different variety of issue areas. There’s the utility energy issues, but it’s also I think important when it comes to communities having decisions of where oil and gas extraction activities are allowed to occur. Right now, they’re happening pretty much next to homes, and schools, and areas where many would say it’s not somewhere an industrial activity like that should occur. But right now in Colorado, communities don’t have an opportunity to decide where those activities are.

I think it crosses more than just energy use. It’s also energy extraction. Then even down to things like decisions of relating to school funding and taxes. I think it’s important for communities to have direction over their own destiny.

John Farrell: It looks in another way, too, and a hat tip to my colleague, Chris Mitchell, who works on this issue, but Colorado seems to also be a leader in cities taking charge of their broadband infrastructure and passing resolutions in order to build out their own fiber networks to make sure that their economies are not dependent on outside corporations providing them affordable and accessible internet access.
Steve Fenberg: That’s right. That’s been a big issue at the capitol over the last couple of years and a big issue for local communities. It actually intersects in an interesting way with the local power issue because we are seeing the communities that have control over their own energy utility are actually the ones that are able to move forward on public broadband much faster than others because they can essentially just use the lines and the infrastructure of the energy utility that’s already owned by the citizens and basically just add broadband to that infrastructure.

Whereas, here in Boulder, or in the city of Denver, or some other communities that have a monopoly on energy utility, they have no ability to force the utility to allow them to use their infrastructure to run the wires. We’re seeing communities like Longmont and Fort Collins move forward on public broadband. We’re seeing that it’s significantly faster than what the companies are offering and also significantly cheaper. It’s a better product. It’s better for consumers. It’s better for community development to have accessible internet for everybody. Again, it’s one of those issues where it’s a regulatory problem that has created a landscape where local communities don’t have a decision or don’t have a feasible option for making them the best decision for themselves, but instead have to do essentially whatever the monopoly utility or the private broadband company wants them to do.

John Farrell: I have kind of a bigger-picture question that plays off of that around this notion of local versus state oversight or control. When we talk about energy, we have utility companies that are regulated at the state level. That’s often true with broadband providers. There are a couple of recent events in the past year in the energy sector, at least, I think that highlight this question.

One was just in the past few weeks, a huge exposé about the political power of the big monopoly shareholder utility companies making very risky bets with customer dollars thanks to state legislation that gave them the power to essentially collect money for power plants that were incomplete that have now failed. There was a very big nuclear power plant project, both in South Carolina and in Georgia, and just a remarkable exposé of the enormous cost that’s going to be borne by folks for many, many years because state regulators were either handcuffed by the legislature or didn’t really do their job in terms of due diligence.

Then you have another example that actually involves Xcel Energy, your utility company there in Colorado, your electric utility. In Minnesota last year, the state regulators were saying about a new gas plant the utility wanted to build, “Well, we’d just like to think about it a little more and make sure that we’re making a cost-effective choice.” Well, the utility unleashed its 50 lobbyists on the 200 legislators in Saint Paul, Minnesota, at the state capitol, and got a bill passed to allow them to go ahead and build that power plant. It’s going to be $1 billion infrastructure investment that will significantly reward the company’s shareholders and as much as a $5 billion expense over the life of that power plant.

My question is is the oversight that we have of these companies when they get so big sufficient to manage and make sure that the public interest is protected? What do you see as the future here? You mentioned before the technology is moving really quickly. There are these opportunities that we can jump on and these folks don’t necessarily move very quickly. How do we address that and what can we do, if anything, at the local level?

Steve Fenberg: That’s a good point. We all probably have our opinions on private interests and corporations lobbying elected officials. It’s something that I think we have come to recognize as just a part of our system. It’s been held up in courts as free speech and, for better or for worse, it’s a core part of the democratic process right now.

But when that company or that private interest is a regulated monopoly, a state-sanctioned monopoly, I think there’s something even more obscene about it in that they are making their profit entirely off of ratepayers that have no other choice but to buy the product from this company. When they influence the process, it creates I think a pretty vicious cycle where regular individuals don’t have much of a voice or a seat at the table. In many industries, in many situations, their voice is by saying, “Well, I’m not going to buy your product.” In this case, they don’t have that option. I do think it’s very problematic.

I think the other thing is in many states and Colorado, the utility is mostly regulated by a public utilities commission. I think that’s appropriate because a lot of it is very complicated in the legislature, probably isn’t going to have the expertise to manage the regulations of a utility industry on a day-to-day basis. But if we think Congress or state legislators are complicated for regular people, the public utilities commissions are very complicated. You basically can’t participate unless you have a very high-powered attorney. Not only that, but you probably are going to need a team of high-powered attorneys, because that’s what the utilities always have. This is what they do. They live and breathe the regulatory arena and so they know everything about it. They control the system. Maybe not in an overtly-corrupt way, but indirectly they’re pretty much running the show in the regulatory scheme of things.

I do think it’s a problem. I think we need to allow more public input and more voice to the regular ratepayers, consumers, and the like. I also think we need to think about when it’s appropriate to not have monopoly utilities in charge of every aspect of some of these industries. It may make sense in many states to have a monopoly run the transmission, for instance, but when it comes to the distribution and maybe the generation, I don’t know that we’re at a place where we still need to have that as a government-regulated monopoly. I think those are conversations we’re starting to have more and more here in Colorado. I hope they’re happening elsewhere around the country, too.

John Farrell: Do you think that there are any spillover from the trends in national politics over the last year that are either helping or hurting this effort to talk more about local control and authority?
Steve Fenberg: Yeah, I think so. You look at the decision around net neutrality at a federal level. Immediately, a lot of people at the local level were saying, “Well, we’ve never had a better reason to create a local community broadband system because then we could have net neutrality essentially on the system because it would be publicly-owned at the local level.”

On the positive side, I think people are reacting to what’s happening federally and hopefully being in a lot of ways demanding more of a voice, and more control, and more attention than maybe they otherwise would. On the negative side, a lot of what’s going on at a federal level is going to have ramifications for decades to come. I mean, on the FTC, as we were just talking about net neutrality, that’s had a profound impact in the near future and for years to come after that.

But there’s also decisions have to be at the federal energy courts as well, where a lot of the regulatory rules and guidelines really do come down from the federal government and that the states implement. The current conversations happening at the federal level, generally speaking, are not positive for local control and for local decision-making for people’s energy future.

I think it’s having good and negative impacts, as a lot of things do in politics. The best part, though, is I do think people are working up and getting more involved and engaged and paying a lot more attention. In the long run, that’s what we’re going to need to make this shift.

John Farrell: We always ask guests on this program to give us a reading recommendation: a recent book, magazine article, web article. I know I’m springing this question on you unprepared, so take a few seconds, but you probably don’t have as much time to read these days, either, now that you’re busy being a legislator. But if there’s something that you would recommend-
Steve Fenberg: Well, I’m reading a ton, but none of it is all that interesting.
John Farrell: Is there anything you could recommend to our listeners that you’ve across recently?
Steve Fenberg: Yeah, I think there’s a handful of things. I think the Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything book raises critical points for the time we’re living in right now. I think my biggest recommendation is read from time to time something other than the news because right now the news, I think, can be pretty depressing. It does sometimes, I think, make us angry and want to mobilize into action to do something to fight back.

But at the same time I think it’s good for the long-term health of the movement, and for the individuals that do a lot of this work, to make sure they’re thinking past just the immediate political circus that’s going on and thinking about what we need to do now in this moment and this opportunity that’s going to lay the groundwork for a much more profound and longer-term impact in the long-term. I guess in some ways I would say whatever you can get your hands on that provides tools, resources, information, and guidance on how to capitalize in the current moment to create long-term impact rather than just short-term electoral impact in the near future.

John Farrell: Sounds great. Well, Stephen, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.
Steve Fenberg: Sure.
John Farrell:  Take care. Keep up the great work for the people of Colorado.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Building Local Power podcast. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website ilsr.org and clicking on the show page for the episode. That’s I-L-S-R dot-org.

While you’re there, you can sign up for one of our many newsletters, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and rate and review this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts. Join the conversation online by using the hashtag #BuildingLocalPower on Twitter and Facebook.

This show is produced by Lisa Gonzalez and me, Nick Stumo-Langer. Special thanks to cohost Stacy Mitchell, John Farrell, and Christopher Mitchell, all excellent ILSR experts. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_AL.

For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I am Nick Stumo-Langer. I hope you’ll join us again soon for another episode of the Building Local Power podcast.

 

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[20] Building Local Power on iTunes[21] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[22]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[23]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[24] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[25] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[26] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[27] and Facebook[28] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[29] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2018-01-19-blp039-fenberg-boulder-energy.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2018-01-19-blp039-fenberg-boulder-energy.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Boulder Reporter: http://boulderreporter.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/candidate-steve-fenberg.jpg
  6. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  7. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/author/johnf
  8. Steve Fenberg: http://www.stevefenberg.org/about-steve-2/
  9. Sen. Steve Fenberg: http://www.stevefenberg.org/about-steve-2/
  10. This Changes Everything: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781451697384
  11. “Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money”: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  12. The Secret Life of Lobsters: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8061573-secret-life-of-lobsters
  13. Mergers and Monopoly: How Concentration Changes the Electricity Business: https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/
  14. Boulder Voters Say (Again): “We’ll Lead Movement to Energy Democracy”: https://ilsr.org/boulder-voters-say-again-well-lead-movement-to-energy-democracy/
  15. passed: http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-election-news/ci_31439744/boulder-municipalization-persists-after-surprise-election-comeback
  16. 51.7%: http://clerk.boco.solutions/ElectionResults2017C/
  17. Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win — Episode 30 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/beating-the-monopolies-barry-lynn-episode-30-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  18. How Can Communities Leverage a Better Energy Future? – Episode 17 of Local Energy Rules Podcast: https://ilsr.org/communities-leverage-energy-future-episode-17-local-energy-rules/
  19. Colorado State Senator Steve Fenberg’s Current Legislation & Priorities: http://www.stevefenberg.org/issues/
  20. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  21. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  22. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  23. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  24. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  25. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  26. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  27. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  28. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  29. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fenberg-local-power-blp-episode-39/


Loveland, Colorado City Council Moves Forward on Municipal Broadband Network Development

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 8, 2018 4:40 am

In a series of decisions, Loveland, Colorado’s City Council voted earlier this week[1] to take the next step toward developing a municipal broadband network. In addition to allocating funds to develop a business plan, city leadership established an advisory board, accepted task force recommendations, and voted to amended current code to allow the electric utility to handle communications activities.

No Public Vote

The council addressed whether or not to ask voters to approve efforts to establish a municipal broadband network, even though the issue was not part of the agenda. City staff drafted an amendment during the meeting to require a vote, but after prolonged discussion City Council members voted 5-4 against including it.

Last fall, the city of Fort Collins needed to bring the issue before voters[2] in order to amend their charter so community leaders could move forward with a municipal network. After spending more than $900,000 through a bogus citizens group to try to stop the measure, Comcast was unable to persuade Fort Collins to defeat it[3]. Nevertheless, most of Loveland’s council members don’t want a repeat of the expensive hassle in Fort Collins.

Councilman John Fogle said that, prior to the Fort Collins election, he supported the idea of a vote on the issue[4], but he feels different now. “It’s not an even playing field when incumbent industries will spend $900,000 at the drop of the hat to perpetuate … a monopoly,” he said at the February 6th Council meeting.

Other council members who voiced opposition to a vote said that they’ve heard from constituents since 2015, when the city voted to opt out of the state’s restrictive SB 152. Since then, residents have contacted them to express their support to move the project forward. “I’m tired of being beaten,” said Councilor Rich Ball[5], “Let’s step up.” (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. voted earlier this week: http://www.reporterherald.com/news/loveland-local-news/ci_31648711/loveland-city-council-votes-move-ahead-development-municipal
  2. needed to bring the issue before voters: https://muninetworks.org/content/totals-are-comcast-spends-900k-fort-collins-election
  3. unable to persuade Fort Collins to defeat it: https://muninetworks.org/content/local-authority-wins-across-colorado-comcast-loses-fort-collins
  4. he supported the idea of a vote on the issue: https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/02/07/loveland-council-wont-seek-public-vote-municipal-broadband/314175002/
  5. said Councilor Rich Ball: http://www.reporterherald.com/news/loveland-local-news/ci_31648711/loveland-city-council-votes-move-ahead-development-municipal
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/loveland-colorado-city-council-moves-forward-on-municipal-broadband-network-development/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/loveland-colorado-city-council-moves-forward-on-municipal-broadband-network-development/


Anti-Municipal Broadband “Concerned Citizens” Group Unmasked as Cable Company in West Plains, Mo.

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 7, 2018 10:56 am

In an attempt to negatively influence public opinion, the incumbent cable ISP in West Plains, Missouri, was recently caught masquerading behind a phony citizens group. A real group of locals who support the community’s efforts discovered the astroturf connection and, with no way to deny their involvement, Fidelity Communications tried to rationalize away their subversive tactics to poison the project.

The Needs Of West Plains

About a year ago, we connected with City Administrator Tom Stehn[1], who described the situation in the south central town of about 12,000 people. Stehn told the story of how in 2015, the city decided to connect its municipal facilities with fiber and how, when word got out about the project, people in the business community approached the city. Even though local businesses could get cable Internet access, rates were up to three times higher than similar services in urban areas. There were also reliability issues that interfered with local commerce.

West Plains had also experienced significant job losses in recent years when several employers left town or closed shop. The city considered a fiber network an economic development tool[2] and a way to keep the local hospital and MSU campus connected with high-quality connectivity. Stehn told Christopher that when new businesses considered moving to West Plains, one of the five questions they always asked was, “What kind of Internet access do you have?” It made good sense to expand the original plan to offer local businesses access to the publicly owned network.

West Plains was offering symmetrical connections to local businesses early in 2017 and had even started offering gigabit service.

The Pilot And The Incumbent

fidelity-web-logo.pngThe city’s effort to bring better connectivity to a wide range of businesses and residents included a pilot project in West Plains’s Southern Hills district. In the fall of 2017, the city offered gigabit Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) connectivity to approximately 80 businesses and 14 residences as a way to work out potential issues and refine their services.

Around the same time, incumbent cable ISP Fidelity Communications[3] announced that they would be upgrading services in West Plains to offer gigabit download Internet access with 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) upload. Fidelity’s offering isn’t as useful to commercial customers without the robust upload speeds, but their willingness to respond to the city’s efforts shows the value of competition[4]. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. we connected with City Administrator Tom Stehn: https://muninetworks.org/content/businesses-can-get-gig-west-plains-mo
  2. an economic development tool: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  3. Fidelity Communications: http://www.fidelitycommunications.com/index.php
  4. value of competition: https://muninetworks.org/content/competition
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/anti-municipal-broadband-concerned-citizens-group-unmasked-as-cable-company-in-west-plains-mo/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/anti-municipal-broadband-concerned-citizens-group-unmasked-as-cable-company-in-west-plains-mo/


South Central Indiana Expects More Cooperative Fiber

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 6, 2018 8:44 am

As one electric cooperative in Indiana is engaged in a project to offer broadband, another project close by is in the works. As rural cooperatives take steps to offer broadband, local communities want to help local co-ops deploy in their areas.

Jackson County Project Moving Ahead

Last summer, Jackson County Rural Electric Memberships Corporation (REMC) announced that they had finalized[1] a plan to deploy Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to every service member within their 1,400 square mile service area.

With the strong support of Jackson County leadership, the cooperative started work on phase 1, a plan to establish a backbone through most of the ten counties where REMC members live and work. The first phase of the extensive $60 million project is about one-third finished. This phase will also allow the co-op the chance to connect the first 990 premises in order to work out any issues and refine services before reaching more homes and businesses. As they finish up the first phase, REMC is beginning to plan phase 2.

At a January meeting[2] that involved community leaders in the region and cooperatives, REMC General Manager Mark McKinney provided an update:

“We are in the process now of evaluating where phase two will be. We’re about a third of the way through phase one, which was approximately 330 miles of fiber optic cable being installed. When this is all said and done, if everything goes as planned, we’ll be looking at over 2,000 miles of fiber being installed. This is not fiber to the curb, this will be fiber all the way into the home.”

REMC expects to start serving approximately 1,000 customers in the Brownstown areas in February.

When the State Legislature passed SB 478[3], REMC was able to deploy fiber easier and faster. The bill, also known as the Facilitating Internet Broadband Rural Expansion (FIBRE) Act, updated existing law for cooperatives. Prior to the FIBRE Act, easements existed for electrical infrastructure but did not extend to fiber optic lines. SB 478 allows electric cooperatives with existing easements for electrical lines to apply those easements to fiber optic infrastructure. The change removed was described by the bill’s author as “a major impediment.”

McKinney reiterated that the project will reach every member of the cooperative with affordable broadband that offers a minimum of 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) download. He likened the project to rural electrification by cooperatives. “That’s the same mentality we’re using with this,” he said. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. announced that they had finalized: https://muninetworks.org/content/co-ops-and-counties-improving-indiana-connectivity
  2. At a January meeting: http://www.bcdemocrat.com/2018/01/30/brown_county_could_be_on_list_for_remc_highspeed_internet_expansion/?mc_cid=fae1ead570&mc_eid=e00c29a42c
  3. State Legislature passed SB 478: https://muninetworks.org/content/indiana-eases-easements-electric-co-ops-fibre-act
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/south-central-indiana-expects-more-cooperative-fiber/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/south-central-indiana-expects-more-cooperative-fiber/


Press Release: Over 750 communities have a community network, according to new ILSR map update

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 5, 2018 5:05 pm

Date: January 23rd, 2018

Updated Community Networks Map Now Includes over 750 Communities

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s map details the communities that are making investments in better connectivity

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. — Communities are playing a growing role in connecting their residents and businesses to high-quality broadband access. However, with the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality protections[1] looking imminent, it seems that companies like AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon are ascendent — but that’s not the case in the 750 communities we’ve mapped across the United States.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has been tracking community networks[2] for more than 10 years, tracking a variety of metrics from gigabit services to open access. For the first time, this map includes communities served by electric cooperatives whereas previous maps focused on municipal networks. The next map iteration will also have communities served by telephone co-ops.

Communities across the United States are investing in telecommunications networks[3] for a variety of reasons to benefit their future. Whether they invest to improve economic development outcomes or to improve access to education and health care these communities are building essential infrastructure that their residents and businesses demand.

Our map[4] now includes over 750 communities, here is the breakdown:

  • 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned FTTH citywide network.

  • 76 communities with a publicly owned cable network reaching most or all of the community.

  • 197 communities with some publicly owned fiber service available to parts of the community (often a business district).

  • More than 120 communities with publicly owned dark fiber available.

  • More than 130 communities in 27 states with a publicly owned network offering at least 1 gigabit services.

  • 258 communities served by rural electric cooperatives. 10 communities served by one broadband cooperative. (Communities served by telephone cooperatives will soon be on the map as well).

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. FCC’s repeal of net neutrality protections: https://muninetworks.org/content/net-neutrality-repeal-fact-sheets-numbers-maps-and-data
  2. tracking community networks: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  3. are investing in telecommunications networks: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  4. Our map: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/press-release-over-750-communities-have-a-community-network-according-to-new-ilsr-map-update/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/press-release-over-750-communities-have-a-community-network-according-to-new-ilsr-map-update/


Field Trip To Oklahoma’s Lake Region Electric Cooperative & Fiber Network

by H Trostle | February 5, 2018 3:17 am

Several rural communities have high-speed Internet service in Oklahoma, thanks to the hard work of the local electric cooperative. Headquartered in Hulbert, Oklahoma, Lake Region Electric Cooperative[1] is already laying the necessary infrastructure for an extensive Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.

Lake Region Electric Cooperative offers FTTH service to more than 1,000 homes in the rural communities around the city of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. As with electrification, the cooperative is once again providing a much needed utility where no private company would go. This is the internetification of rural America.

Grounded In Community

Lake Region Electric Cooperatives is rooted in rural Oklahoma: it serves the rural communities east of the city of Tulsa and north of the city of Muskogee. The land is rocky, covered in trees, and surprisingly hilly. To get to the headquarters, one must go up a short dirt drive off the main road heading into the town of Hulbert. I dropped by the office to learn more about how the project started and spoke to Communications Specialist Larry Mattes and Fiber Coordinator Eshwar Prasad Beemraj.

For years, the Lake Region Electric Cooperative sent out a survey to its members, and each year, the co-op members wrote back that they needed Internet service. The large private provider in the area had not updated their infrastructure in decades. Like many electric co-ops, Lake Region had helped make Exede satellite Internet service available to their members, but it wasn’t enough. People came to board meetings and annual meetings to voice their concerns.

The co-op had to act and the staff developed a plan to bring the fastest Internet service that they could to the co-op members. They created pilot projects in two areas near the center of their service territory; both were a success. To manage demand for the service, the co-op uses the CrowdFiber platform to track which areas have the most interest. Members can pre-register for the service on the Lake Region Electric Crowd Fiber site and put down a small deposit of about $50.

A Natural Extension Of Service

logo-lake-region-coop-OK.pngThe electric system is already a network of wires that transmit electricity from generation plants through substations to people’s homes. Lake Region Electric Cooperative had installed fiber to their substations in order to improve communications internally and co-op leaders realized that their existing infrastructure could be repurposed to provide Internet service.

Co-op employees map out where Lake Region fiber is and identify demand for FTTH service. They note if the co-op has access to the utility poles and what easements may apply. In some cases, they’ve gone door-to-door to update the easements that the co-op formed with property owners years ago. These easements gave the cooperative access to a section of the property in order to provide electric service, but these must be re-written in order to apply to fiber optic cables and Internet access. Then the fiber coordinator determines where to put the Point-of-Presence (POP) that will connect homes to the rest of the network. Lake Region Electric also serves small offices and businesses, including Cherokee Nation Businesses[2], owned by the Nation. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Lake Region Electric Cooperative: https://www.lrecok.coop/
  2. Cherokee Nation Businesses: http://cherokeenationbusinesses.com/Pages/home.aspx
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/field-trip-to-oklahomas-lake-region-electric-cooperative-fiber-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/field-trip-to-oklahomas-lake-region-electric-cooperative-fiber-network/


Presentations: 2018 Community Composting Workshop & Forum

by Virginia Streeter | January 31, 2018 3:30 pm

In January 2018, ILSR convened two events in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show, COMPOST2018[1], in Atlanta: the Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop and the National Cultivating Community Composting Forum. These events brought together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community-scale composting systems and enterprises. The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2018 is the 5th national forum convened by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

BEST PRACTICES IN COMMUNITY COMPOSTING WORKSHOP Agenda[2]
MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2018
CULTIVATING COMMUNITY COMPOSTING FORUM 2018 Agenda[3]
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2018

 


Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop

In this full-day workshop for community composters, held as part of COMPOST2018[1], we walked through practices that work and address how to take your community-scale composting to the next level. Through both presentation and small group discussion, participants walked away knowing how to adapt the efforts and achievements of other programs for their community. Participants included community-scale composters who are composting on-site at schools, community gardens, farms, or otherwise keeping the process as local and small-scale as possible, while engaging the community through participation and education, as well as small-scale haulers, such as pedal-powered collectors.

 


Part 1: Key Ingredients of Community Composting

 

Growing and Scaling in Community Composting — Daniel Brown, Rust Belt Riders[4], @RustBeltRiders[5]

Download here

 

Financing the Movement — Justin Senkbeil, CompostNow[6], @CompostNow[7]

Download here

 

Model of a Worker-Owned Cooperative — Terry Craghead, Fertile Ground Cooperative[8]

Download here

 


Part 2: Small-Scale & Urban Farm Composting

 

Worm & Other Composting Systems on an Urban Farm — Benny Erez, ECO City Farms[9], @ECOCityFarms[10]

Download here

 

Small-Scale Composting Systems — Erik Martig, LA Compost[11], @LACompost[12]

Download here 

 

Using Black Soldier Flies in Composting — Paul Rabaut, Suncoast Compost[13], @suncoastcompost[14]

Download here

 

 


Part 4: Social Justice, Youth, & Community Engagement

 

Corinne Coe-Law, Terra Nova Compost[15], @wemakecompost[16] (Moderator)

Whitney Jaye, Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network[17], @SAAFON4Farmers[18]

Sundiata Ameh-El, Compost Community[19]

Sandy Nurse, BK ROT[20], @BKROT[21]

Maurice Small, Farmer x Farmer Coalition[22]

Michael Martinez, LA Compost[11], @LACompost[12]

Xavier Brown, Soilful City[23], @SoilfulCity[24]

 

Download here

 


Part 5: Pedal Power!

Bike-Hauling Equipment & Female Empowerment — Kat Nigro, CompostNow[6], @CompostNow[25]

Download here

 

NYC: Micro Hauling & Commercial Waste — Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli, Common Ground Compost[26], @CommonCompost[27]

Download here 

 


National Cultivating Community Composting Forum

The Forum aims to:

  • Foster greater interconnection between community/small-scale/urban composters and the USCC membership/conference attendees
  • Show how community-scale composting fits in and complements the larger composting industry, both collection and processing, and both for individuals and organizations.
  • Showcase the variety of models and innovative ideas that are growing from the ground up.
  • Spur a community-based composter network that will stay connected following the conference.


Morning Panel: Community Composting Policies, Permitting & BMPs

Community scale composting is an important facet of a healthy diverse composting infrastructure, and can bring public attention to composting as well as catalyzing larger scale municipal efforts. Yet, too often government policies hamper the ability of community composters to compete for contracts and funding. One plus for small-scale sites is that they are typically exempt from state permitting regulations. But this could lead to poorly operated systems, which might give community composting a poor reputation. Panelists addressed what local government can do to support community scale efforts and identify best management practices to ensure well-operated sites.

 

Best Management Practices for Community Composters — Linda Bilsens Brolis, Institute for Local Self-Reliance[28], @ILSR[29], @ltbinda[30]

Download here 

 

Policy and Legal Obstacles to Community Compost — Kourtnii Brown, Common Compost[31], @CompostLocal[32]

Download here

 


Afternoon Panel: What is Community Composting & Why is it Important?

This panel introduced the concept of community composting and its importance to the wider composting industry. Community Composting takes many forms, but one thing Community Composters have in common is that they recycle material in the community in which it is generated, and the finished product benefits that community. Operations are structured as for-profits, non-profits, and worker owned cooperatives. Hauling can be done with bicycles or box trucks and piles may be turned with skid-steers or pitchforks. Some operations haul, others process, while others prioritize education. Minimizing the distance material travels to be processed and utilized isn’t the only distinguishing characteristic of Community Composting. These groups also approach the work through the lens of food security, social justice, permaculture, deep ecology, and workplace democracy. They use grassroots tactics to build their customer base and education is a substantial part of their work. Their decentralized processing networks allow them to be effective in densely populated cities. Working to make composting common practice in cities and states whose governments don’t currently provide incentives, Community Composters are the harbingers of larger programs. They prove that the market does indeed exist, and help to grow it through robust education programs.

 

Community Composting: One Mission, Many Forms — Michael Robinson, Rust Belt Riders[4], @RustBeltRiders[33]

Download here 

 

Small-Scale Hauler Benefits — Kristen Baskin, Let Us Compost[34], @LetUsCompost[35]

Download here

 

Partnerships Between Bike and Truck Haulers & Composting for Multi-Family Residents — Christi Turner, Scraps[36]

Download here 

 

Building Community Capital via Community Composting —Xavier Brown, Soilful City[23], @SoilfulCity[37]

Download here 

 


Looking at the Big Picture — Perspectives on Where Organics Management is Heading

 

The Important Role for Micro and Community Composting — Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance[38], @ILSR[29] @PlattBrenda[39]

Download here 
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Endnotes:
  1. COMPOST2018: https://compostconference.com/
  2. BEST PRACTICES IN COMMUNITY COMPOSTING WORKSHOP Agenda: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-workshop-agenda/
  3. CULTIVATING COMMUNITY COMPOSTING FORUM 2018 Agenda: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-forum-agenda/
  4. Rust Belt Riders: https://www.rustbeltriders.com/
  5. @RustBeltRiders: https://twitter.com/RustBeltRiders
  6. CompostNow: https://compostnow.org/
  7. @CompostNow: https://twitter.com/CompostNow
  8. Fertile Ground Cooperative: http://fertilegroundok.coop/
  9. ECO City Farms: http://www.ecoffshoots.org/programs/compost/
  10. @ECOCityFarms: https://twitter.com/ecocityfarms
  11. LA Compost: https://lacompost.org/
  12. @LACompost: https://twitter.com/lacompost
  13. Suncoast Compost: https://www.suncoastcompost.com/
  14. @suncoastcompost: https://twitter.com/suncoastcompost
  15. Terra Nova Compost: https://terranovacompost.com/
  16. @wemakecompost: https://twitter.com/wemakecompost
  17. Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network: http://saafon.org/
  18. @SAAFON4Farmers: https://twitter.com/SAAFON4Farmers
  19. Compost Community: http://www.compostcommunity.org/
  20. BK ROT: https://www.bkrot.org/
  21. @BKROT: https://twitter.com/bkrot
  22. Farmer x Farmer Coalition: https://commonrootsproject.com/2015/05/23/meet-maurice-small-urban-ag-consultant-compost-enthusiast-and-a-positive-force-working-to-cultivate-community-in-raleigh-and-beyond/
  23. Soilful City: https://soilfulcity.com/
  24. @SoilfulCity: https://twitter.com/soilfulcity
  25. @CompostNow: http://twitter.com/compostnow
  26. Common Ground Compost: http://commongroundcompost.com/
  27. @CommonCompost: http://twitter.com/commoncompost
  28. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://ilsr.org/
  29. @ILSR: https://twitter.com/ilsr?lang=en
  30. @ltbinda: https://twitter.com/ltbinda
  31. Common Compost: http://www.commoncompost.org/
  32. @CompostLocal: https://twitter.com/compostlocal
  33. @RustBeltRiders: https://twitter.com/RustBeltRiders
  34. Let Us Compost: http://www.letuscompost.com/
  35. @LetUsCompost: https://twitter.com/letuscompost
  36. Scraps: https://scrapsmilehigh.com/
  37. @SoilfulCity: https://twitter.com/SoilfulCity
  38. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://ilsr.org
  39. @PlattBrenda: https://twitter.com/PlattBrenda

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-presentations/


Community Broadband Pushed Out of Pinetops, N.C.

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 30, 2018 4:50 am

Suddenlink passed up the opportunity to offer connectivity in Pinetops, North Carolina, for years until now. About a year after a bill in the General Assembly gave nearby Wilson’s municipal network the ability to serve the tiny community, Suddenlink is taking advantage of the law to enter Pinetops and push Wilson’s Greenlight Community Broadband out.

Suddenly Suddenlink

One of his constituents called Town Commissioner Brent Wooten last October to share a conversation he’d had at work in nearby Wilson. Wooten’s constituent had encountered a Suddenlink employee who told him, “We’re coming to see you in Pinetops.” The company had sent out a notice to employees that overtime would be available because Suddenlink was planning to run fiber from Rocky Mount to Pinetops.

Wooten hadn’t heard anything from Suddenlink; neither had any of the other Commissioners. All he knew was that the company had been reducing staff and cutting costs ever since being acquired[1] by Altice in 2015.

North Carolina Legislature

A Little History

While events that put Pinetops (pop. 1,300) in the national spotlight[2] began in February 2015, the story has roots that go back further. Officials in Pinetops, recognizing that better local Internet access keeps small rural communities from wasting away, approached several providers years ago requesting better Internet infrastructure. Suddenlink’s service area ends about two miles outside of Pinetops town limits. Nevertheless, Suddenlink wasn’t willing to bring cable service to Pinetops. CenturyLink didn’t want to make investments to upgrade the community’s old DSL solution; the community had no options from national providers.

Not far from Pinetops sits Wilson, North Carolina, where the city of about 49,000 enjoys the benefits of a publicly owned fiber optic network, Greenlight[3]. Pinetops officials asked Wilson to expand Greenlight to their town, but state law precluded Wilson from offering broadband beyond county lines. Pinetops and the local Vick Family Farm, a large potato manufacturer with international distribution, were both desperate for better services, out of reach, and out of options because no other ISP would help them. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. cutting costs ever since being acquired: http://www.multichannel.com/news/cable-operators/altice-usa-closer-cost-cutting-goal/411418
  2. in the national spotlight: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/technology/broadband-law-could-force-rural-residents-off-information-superhighway.html
  3. Greenlight: http://www.greenlightnc.com/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/community-broadband-pushed-out-of-pinetops-n-c/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/community-broadband-pushed-out-of-pinetops-n-c/


Owensboro, Kentucky is Headed for Fiber-to-the-Home Pilot Program Expansion

by Matthew Marcus | January 29, 2018 5:15 am

Owensboro’s municipal fiber network could begin serving more customers this spring as it moves from pilot to citywide project.

Fiber Pilot Success Leads to Expansion

The residential Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) pilot project began in 2016 serving only a single neighborhood. Now, after a successful first phase, Owensboro Municipal Utility (OMU)[1] is installing new fiber along the electrical grid and urging potential customers to sign up for the expanded service.

The city itself has been utilizing fiber infrastructure to support electrical grid functionality since the late 1990s. OMUfibernet was originally conceived in 1999 to better serve the business communities needs. After recognizing the need for similar improvements for households, their residential FTTH pilot began in 2016[2] by connecting 500 residents with gigabit symmetrical Internet service. The pilot also allowed business’ to lease fiber, giving them greater flexibility in data transport speeds.

Humble Roots

The first municipal network in the country[3] was established in Kentucky in the 1980s. Those humble beginnings have led to a state with an impressive residential FTTH network coverage.[4] Often, deploying a well-crafted pilot project like OMU’s leads to successful citywide coverage. The Electric Plant Board in Franklin, Kentucky, unveiled a similar project in May, but we’ve seen these FTTH pilots happen in many communities. Rural cooperatives increasingly use pilot projects to perfect their designs and systems when they decide to offer Internet access to members. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Owensboro Municipal Utility (OMU): https://omu.org/about-us/
  2. residential FTTH pilot began in 2016: https://muninetworks.org/content/owensboro-kentucky-developing-muni-ftth-pilot
  3. first municipal network in the country: https://muninetworks.org/content/birth-community-broadband-video
  4. impressive residential FTTH network coverage.: https://muninetworks.org/content/visualization-fiber-blue-grass-state
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/owensboro-kentucky-is-headed-for-fiber-to-the-home-pilot-program-expansion/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/owensboro-kentucky-is-headed-for-fiber-to-the-home-pilot-program-expansion/


Bloomberg Businessweek Profiles Cities that Restrict Chains to Free More Space for Local Businesses

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 26, 2018 2:35 pm

“Like many elected officials, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop talks a lot about the need to support small businesses. Unlike many, he’s put policies in place to help owners survive rent hikes, secure low-interest loans, and get expedited business permits. More than 600 small businesses have opened since Fulop became mayor of New Jersey’s second-biggest city in 2013.”

That’s the opening of a piece by Nick Leiber in Bloomberg Businessweek, which explores how cities are using caps on “formula” retailers — a policy that ILSR has promoted — to ensure that local businesses have ample opportunities to secure space and grow. Drawing on ILSR’s research, the article tracks how these policies have worked in both Jersey City and San Francisco.

Read the full article in Bloomberg Businessweek here…[1] (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Read the full article in Bloomberg Businessweek here…: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/saving-main-street-with-zoning
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/bloomberg-restrict-chains/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bloomberg-restrict-chains/


Environmental Justice & Local Activism, A Conversation with NAACP Leader Jacqui Patterson (Episode 38)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 25, 2018 12:00 pm

Jacqui Patterson[5], the director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, joined ILSR co-founder and Waste to Wealth initiative researcher Neil Seldman[6] and ILSR’s Communications Manager Nick Stumo-Langer[7] for the latest edition of our Building Local Power podcast[8].

The discussion centers on the practical implications of environmental justice and how she balances her work at a national non-profit with the needs of 2200 branches and local chapters of the NAACP. The trio also delves into the difficulties facing local communities that attempt to make local ownership of energy resources a reality. Finally, Jacqui explains how her work intersects with a number of other activist spaces including organizing around women’s issues and racial justice in order to create a healthier environment and a vibrant local community.

Jacqui joins ILSR staffers in the Washington D.C. office.

“[I]t’s not as if I can sit here and say that we know the entire nation and every municipality, what they have and don’t have.

But we know starting with the ones we’re working with that actually have a vision of what they want to do and we kind of build out from there,” says Jacqui Patterson[5], Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.

  • NAACP’s Coal Blooded Report Resource Page[9] — This report and research product is a joint production of the NAACP, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and lead author Adrian Wilson. This resource page includes an action toolkit that serves as a plan of action for local NAACP units to effect change.
  • Beyond Sharing: How Communities Can Take Ownership of Renewable Power Report[10] — “The electric utility monopoly is breaking up, but will renewable energy become another form of wealth extraction or will community renewable energy enable communities to capture their renewable power?”
  • NAACP’s Just Energy Policies & Practices[11] — “We believe everyone has a right to safe and affordable energy.” That’s the mission of the NAACP’s Environmental Justice program that our guest Jacqui Patterson had a hand in building.
  • Local Solar Power: Red Plus Blue Makes a Green Tea Party – Episode 24 of the Building Local Power podcast[12] — This interview with Tea Party co-founder Debbie Dooley revolves around the idea of energy organizing across partisan boundaries. Clean power knows no party bounds, especially in the American southeast.
  • Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions[13] by Denise Fairchild, Al Weinrub, & Diego Angarita Horowitz
  • Energy Justice Network[14] [website]
  • Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People[15] by NAACP.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Hello and welcome to Building Local Power, a podcast from the Institute for Local Self Reliance. My name’s Nick Stumo-Langer and I am the communication’s manager for ILSR. I am back in the host seat today for a great episode of our podcast. In this podcast Neil Seldman, ISLR’s co-founder and I interviewed Jacqui Patterson. Jacqui is the director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program. She’s a great leader and activist who tours around the country. Jacqui’s work is very important for understanding the impact that monopolies have on our economy, especially when it comes to environmental justice, energy democracy, and communities of color.

Now, here’s the interview.

Neil Seldman: Hello everybody. This is Neil Seldman, the Institute for Local Self Reliance. We are about to have a podcast with Jacqui Patterson of the NAACP. I just wanted to mention that Jacqui and the institute have known each other for many years. We overlap with work in the sense that we fight incinerators, so does she. We focus on environmental justice for all our projects. In a broader sense, the more Jacqui and her colleagues at the NAACP are successful in cleaning up industry just as we try to increase recycling, it leads to better jobs for everybody. The environment and jobs are quite compatible. I hope this discussion brings it out. So welcome to you, Jacqui.
Jacqui Patterson: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Yeah. So this is Nick Stumo-Langer here, the ILSR’s communication’s manager and I think we’ll just kind of kick this off with kind of talking about a little bit of the work that you do at the NAACP Environmental Justice Program and kind of how do you coordinate with local community groups and what is your average day look like, even though I’m sure that it’s a pretty crazy one?
Jacqui Patterson: Yeah. So I work with local communities. As you may or may not know, the NAACP has 2,200 branches and chapters across the country, including local, everything from sub-municipal. For example, in Chicago I think we have four branches because it’s such a big area to college chapters and so forth. Then also youth counsels and women in the environment groups. So we a lot of local groups. The Environmental Climate Justice Program literally lives to serve those groups. That’s the purpose of our mission. So we do everything from doing analysis, policy reviews analysis, and reviews of best practices around everything from energy to anti-toxics work to climate resilience and adaptation work. So we both review the practices that are out there and make sure that our units know what those practices are and how they can replicate them. We also review the policies that are out there. Federal, state, and local policies and help our units meeting our branches and chapters to know how they can effect those. Then we go in and we work directly with the units on developing strategies for whatever changes they want to advance at the local level.
Neil Seldman: About two or three months ago you were interviewed by McKibben, the founder of 350.org, and we were pleased and intrigued by one of our responses. That was to the question he posed as to the necessity of getting back to Democratic institutions. You pointed out the obvious, that we have to fight voter suppression and gerrymandering. Right after that you mentioned that work at the local level on waste and energy. You were kind enough to mention the Institute’s work. So I was interested in your mind on your daily activities. How do you balance the environmental arguments with the political arguments to increase Democratic participation?
Jacqui Patterson: We see that in some ways the environmental work that we do is both … It’s interdependent with democracy because we can’t really have a democracy when we have a fossil fuel based economy where the very money that we pay in our rate for our electricity bills not only goes to use a process to create energy that pollutes our own communities, but it also goes into the coffers of groups that take those profits to do anti-clean air lobbying, anti-clean energy lobbying, and they pay into groups like ALEC, which actually actively advancing an agenda around voter suppression.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Absolutely.
Jacqui Patterson: So we see it all. So when we talk about having local self reliance and local generation of energy and so forth, we’re really talking about building democracy because we’re having a distribution of wealth and we’re actively working to take money out of politics in that sense.
Neil Seldman: If I could just say, I read an article recently, I don’t remember the name, but it listed all the major corporations that everybody knows from day to day living who contribute to the ALEC’s of the world for voter suppression, to politicians who push this so they can get further donations. It was extremely depressing because it was just about every major Fortune 500 company. People do have to realize that these corporations that are taking our money and actually using it to suppress our rights. Of course, it’s good to be in the same category as the NAACP fighting these things. But it’s great that you’re pointing them out and making the links between environmental danger and the danger to democracy.
Nick Stumo-Langer: And for listeners of this podcast, I think what Jacqui said kind of about almost the cyclical nature of having to spend rate payers, captive rate payers having to spend the money on fossil fuel, assets that are being built, nuclear plants, natural gas fracking that they don’t have a choose of whether or not to get their energy from a different source is paying into these democracy suppressing groups. So I’m kind of wondering … It’s a big problem that you pointed out and that Neil helped to underline. So what are you seeing on the local level that’s really fighting against this because the problem seems really insurmountable. I know it’s probably a big question, but that’s why we like to do this podcast to answer big questions.
Jacqui Patterson: Yeah. No, that’s a great question. It is a big one, and it is one that we wrestle with every day, all day. I mean, we are of the mind that building a thousand points of light is important. So each community, each household that we get to help to pull away resources from practices and industries and corporations that actively push against our voting rights is the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. So even though it sounds like it could be insurmountable, when you think of some of the other great struggles that really just started with small struggles and just kind of built up. I can’t think of any examples off my head, but I know there are those out there.
Neil Seldman: Refusing to go to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks 50 or so years ago. I can’t keep track of the years.
Jacqui Patterson: It’s hard to imagine. Yeah, it’s true. There’s just so many.
Neil Seldman: Nick asked this, when you go into a community that’s threatened by pollution coming across the fence, what’s your biggest challenge? Is it to get to meet the people, are the people already organized, or is the NAACP the organizing instrument?
Jacqui Patterson: So yeah. It can be a combination of things. Usually we don’t … We’re not of the mind to go into a community and say, “You’re all messed up here. You need to do …”
Neil Seldman: Not a good starting point.
Jacqui Patterson: No, exactly. So our work really starts with being in response to the challenges that are posed by our branches and chapters and then supporting them in whatever their vision is. In some cases, we will work with units that might not necessarily be aware of what’s happening. For example, when we did our cold-blooded report, we looked at the cold fire power plants across the country and did this analysis and discovered these polluting plants and so forth. Then we did go to those communities just to share the findings of the report, and then share the findings of the report we had communities that said, “Wow. No wonder half the people in my church are dragging around respirators or half the kids in school are having to carry their nebulizers to school just to get through a day.” So it all began to make sense to them through those conversations. So there’s that. Then from there we help folks develop a plan towards whatever it is, the goal is that they might want to address what’s effecting their community.

So it’s kind of both end. So they’ll come to us with it or we’ll go to them with data. Then they can take it from there in terms of what they want to do with it. 

Neil Seldman: I want to bring up one recent experience in the city of Baltimore, and of course the NAACP is based in Baltimore and Jacqui works out of that office. This might take a minute to set up. But we’ve been fighting incinerators for many … Garbage incinerators for many years. Invariably, the pattern has been the environmental people start the concern because of pollution, but once the decisions are basically carried forward with citizens do the financial analysis and see that it’s preposterous to invest $500 million cost $1 billion after you pay it off. In Baltimore, things changed. In Baltimore, as Jacqui knows, there is a downtown incinerator, which we’re fighting and hope to eliminate soon. But in the southern part of Baltimore, in Curtis Bay a few years ago, it was a proposal for a 4,000 ton per day incinerator. The young people there, white, Latino, African American basically organized around Ben Franklin High School, and they managed to get the entire city on the environmental justice bandwagon, if you will. Got the museums to cancel contracts to get energy from this dirty plant. Other local governments, the board of education, etc. It was quite a marvelous example of how environmental justice was the driver as opposed to economic analysis. I’m wondering if you’ve had other experiences, not necessarily in garbage incineration but other areas of protecting low income communities and communities of color, which have been inspired by environmental justice?
Jacqui Patterson: One of the places is in Gulf Port, Mississippi.
Neil Seldman: Oh!
Jacqui Patterson: Yeah. Where we were working with a branch there. We started with a conversation around after we done the cold-blood report actually, and found that there was a plant there that got a D grade on our report based on the level of pollutants that it puts out and it’s proximity to people. Then the proportion to people who are of color, the proportion to people who were low income. It ended up with a D grade. So we went and had the conversation with them. Then the NAACP branch got very involved in organizing community members, organizing churches, organizing folks in genera around the plant. It went from that to them having a conversation around their community in general and what they want for their community. Most recently, they have developed a series of community gardens to deal with their food insecurity issues. They also got all of their fire departments, houses of worship, and so forth together to do an equity and emergency management trainings. So they’ve done a whole series of …
Neil Seldman: Terrific.
Jacqui Patterson: Yeah. Exactly. It was born out of the environmental justice struggle.
Neil Seldman: I think this is quite a coincidence. You may not remember, but both of us participated in NAACP state conference in Florida.
Jacqui Patterson: Oh, yes.
Neil Seldman: A while back. I met people from the Gulf Port NAACP and we started working with them as a result of that conference. Very, very lovely people. The need was great. I also from it very interesting that it was a good combination of older people, mostly retired, but people over 50, let’s say, who had social security and other pensions, could afford the time, and there were a lot of young people there. Not too many people in the middle. But it was wonderful to see older people and younger people working on the same issues. It’s wonderful to hear now that the community gardens is moving forward. That was one of the issues years ago that we discussed at the meeting down there.
Nick Stumo-Langer: You’re listening to Jacqui Patterson, director of the NAACP’s Environmental And Climate Justice Program. I’m Nick Stumo-Langer with the Institute for Local Self Reliance, and we’ll be back after a short break.

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please consider making a donation to the Institute for Local Self Reliance. Your financial support not only underwrites this podcast, keeping it ad free, but also helps us produce all of the research and resources we make available on our website. Every year I ILSR’s small staff helps hundreds of communities rebuild their local economy. So please take a minute and go to ILSR.org/donate. That’s ILSR.org/donate. If you’re not able to make a donation, please consider helping us in other ways. Another great thing you can do is rate and review this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast. Rating helps us reach a wider audience and get better guests. So it’s hugely helpful when you do that. You can also join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook using the #BuildingLocalPower. That’s #BuildingLocalPower.

So because so many different parts of your work seem to kind of intersect with local policies and state policies that may restrict. For example, a zoning ordinance that would maybe limit the size of a community garden that leads to decreasing the amount of food deserts and also revitalizing the soils that’s so important in some of these most polluted zip codes. How do you do it? How do you keep track of the state, local, and the federal policies that may be impacting the communities you work with? Maybe as a term of advice for ILSR, how do you get that repository and also how do you activate the folks on the ground to fight against either a specific zoning policy or a specific state law saying, “You can’t have a community garden offering compost within certain feet of x.” That type of thing. Just wondering how you kind of keep all those balls in the air as you’re juggling them.

Jacqui Patterson: Yeah. So we just actually had a community resilience convening in December, and out of that community resilience convening we talked about all the aspirations that the communities had for themselves and then the communities talked about what the challenges are to those aspirations. Some of them might be political will or interest or engagement in the community. Others might be these different policies that are out there. In that we also put out kind of a draft policy platform that looked at about 12 areas of land use policies and all these different policies, and then we looked at those against the vision that folks had. Then we started to look at what state, local, and federal policies are that support and hinder these. So that’s really where it kind of starts. It starts with the community vision and what it wants for itself. Then it looks at what the threats and the answers are to that vision. Then we just kind of work it from there. So it’s not as if I can sit here and say that we know the entire nation and every municipality, what they have and don’t have. But we know starting with the ones we’re working with that actually have a vision of what they want to do and we kind of build out from there.
Neil Seldman: As I observe your work and your career, it’s very similar to mine. I wasn’t trained for it, but basically we’re community organizers with different titles. I was trade in labor economics and became a fighter of incinerators and promoter of recycling. What was your background and how did you become an environmental justice campaigner?
Jacqui Patterson: That’s funny. So yeah, I also, like you said, I actually started as a special education teacher and really went from there into Peace Corp, where I started to really look at some of the specials needs of the kids I was working with and seeing how these larger systems impacted. So one of the groups of kids I was working with were three year olds who all had hearing impairments because of a Rubella outbreak that had happened three years before and that their moms all had Rubella. Therefore, I guess this is a consequence of it. Just knowing that the MMR vaccine is just something that we all just automatically get. It’s just taken for granted and the difference in a place where so many people are mass wealth from Jamaica, which is where I was. But yet, the majority of the people there who should be holding those assets themselves in terms of the wealth, and so they don’t even have the very basics of human rights to health and well being. So that really kind of got me into thinking about how larger systems impact people’s health and well being.
Neil Seldman: That’s very interesting.
Jacqui Patterson: Yeah. That was the beginning. So I went from special education to public health because public health influenced special education. Then from public health … So still in public health really but then also just kind of larger circles of intersectionality. Started to work on Women’s Rights and working on Women’s Rights, it really … I saw where internationally and in the U.S. how women are disproportionality effected by climate change. In doing that, that’s where it lead me to where I am now.
Neil Seldman: Well, learning that you were trained and worked as a special ed teacher, fits because I know several and I know how hard they work and how dedicated they are. So I can see you transformed that dedication to the dedication and work you’re doing now. As a matter of fact, I have a very good friend who’s a special ed teacher. She’s close to 70 years old, and she refuses to retire because she’s so attached the mission and the particular kids she’s working with.
Nick Stumo-Langer: And, Jacqui, preempted on of the questions I was going to have was talking about the intersectionality because some much of your work, from the work that you’ve done and masters in social work and masters in public health. These aren’t necessarily things that you would think go together into environmental justice. So I’m kind of wondering how you take maybe the renewed activism that has come up in I guess what we’re calling the Trump Era. People want to get involved in that community and wanting to change the circumstances they see around you. How do you get all those disparate folks together into funneling something like environmental justice, which maybe on its face, some of our listeners and folks around the country would say is a narrow scope. I think you’ve made a good case already about how it’s very wide. But I’m interested to see how you think about that intersectionality with environmental justice and maybe how we’re maybe misunderstanding just the buzz word intersectionality.
Jacqui Patterson: I was in Alabama. We were doing one of these visioning sessions and then someone stood up in the room after we were visioning and people were talking about education, they were talking about all these things in their communities and then how it was being threatened. Someone stood up and she happened to be the only white American person in the room. She’s like, “I thought this was going to be about environmental justice?” She was really frustrated. She ended up walking out in high dungeon. I mean, she was just undone. But not really recognizing that it’s all inextricably interconnected.

So as we talk in communities like that, whether it’s Baton Rouge where in the aftermath of the murder of Philando Castile and then the three retaliatory murders. Then the flooding happened after that. It was on a context where the social cohesion of that community had been completely shattered because of these racial injustice issues. So if we don’t deal with racial injustice, we don’t build social cohesion. Then when we have these environmental challenges, they’re exacerbated because it’s in a community that has these riffs that are going on.

We don’t have solid education systems then we have a situation where the folks … What we have now in terms of people in the public utilities commissions and public service commissions who are making decisions that most impact communities of color and low income communities, but they’re not represented on the public society. We have a place like Mississippi, which is 37% African American. Then the 80 year history of the public service commission, they have never had an African American on the public service commission. Georgia, similar situation. Not to mention the lack of women on public service commissions and public utilities commissions. So if we don’t think about democracy and government and governance and inclusivity there, then we’re not going to have the decisions that represent the needs of the vast majority of the communities that are most impacted by environmental issues.

So I could give example after example after example of how these things are interconnected.

Neil Seldman: From listening to you, I get the impression that not only are you taking on tough issues but you go to the toughest places in the United States. I hope you get to visit Paris every once in a while. I say that euphemistically. But having traveled to Mississippi and Alabama, rural Alabama, and looking at the garbage issues, I know your issues are much broader because you’re dealing with environmental justice more than signing of garbage facilities. We appreciate your work. Your work is necessary for our work to succeed. I always point out that the more environmentally intelligent people are, the easier it is to talk about decentralization and the impact on their lives of bigness, both big government as well as big corporations.
Nick Stumo-Langer: I think it might be helpful for some of our listeners because there’s a lot of theoretical talk about environmental justice, what it means, who it includes, and what kind of … All the way down the line of what that can look like. But if you are recommending something to maybe a larger national group of people, what would you say the number one thing communities can do to help have a stake in controlling both of their future and renewable energy, getting out of these contracts, as well as building a more equitable waste stream. So just maybe one recommendation for each of those types of things that you’ve seen in your work.
Jacqui Patterson: So I think one thing that we can do that would have positive impacts on everything is campaign finance reform and getting money out of politics. I’ll start there. But more specific because, again, we really do have to always think intersectionally. That’s a common denominator on everything and why we’re so messed up as it stands everyone can find a way to invest in the clean energy economy, and everyone should definitely think of ways that they could be more energy efficient. Certainly try to figure out how they can have energy audits in their homes and if they work with their utilities, some of them are actually mandated to provide resources for energy efficiency. So they should figure out whether that’s happening in there. That will save them money and it will reduce the amount of energy we need to generate in general. So that’s important.

Two, whether you’re a renter or a homeowner or otherwise there are ways that you can be a part of the clean energy economy. If you decide to go solar yourself as an individual household or if you decide to organize or be a part of an organized solar garden, so that your co-owing a community solar. You can even do what they call virtual net metering where you’re not necessarily engaged with a solar panel that’s in your community or on your home, but you’re buying into … So that’s another thing folks can do. They can get their energy through this organizations. Depending on where you live, of course, is the other thing too. Where you can buy renewable energy credits and so there are different ways that folks can be a part of the clean energy economy. But it does require a little bit of investigating depending on where you live as to whether you can do some of those, any of those really in some ways. But those are some avenues.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Just a good general recommendation to explore your options and know kind of what you can do. What I hear you saying also is taking ownership of this is a choice we can make and this is something we can actually impact ourselves, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. Because when you turn on the lights, you don’t necessarily see where it’s coming from. That’s why I think we appreciate your work so much.
Neil Seldman: When the recycling movement started post World War II recycling movement started in the late ’60s. It started with volunteers, mostly women, setting up drop off centers. Drop off recycling centers became both a symbol of change in how to approach the environment as well as an example of something you can do to make a difference. Well, that was ’68, ’69. By the mid-’70s, there were community collection companies that went curbside. Then by the ’80s the cities took over those programs. So small things started by citizens, men and women, often in their backyard or in an abandoned gas station or an empty lot, which is how we got started here in the Mount Pleasant area of Washington D.C. just a few blocks from here. Led to big things. It’s taken 50 years, but then again, as you said, you have to start someplace. Just about all democracy and justice movements have started small and happily taken root. Now we need another push, a little more energy given our current political situation.
Nick Stumo-Langer: So to end every episode we like to ask our guests to give us a recommendation. Reading, listening, watching, anything that can kind of help bring our guests from your perspective to something that’s really inspiring you or something that’s made you think. So what is your recommendation?
Jacqui Patterson: I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend the book Energy Democracy that has been put out by Denise Fairchild and Al Weinrub. So that is an awesome book that really inspires based on the awesome work that’s happening in many different places across the U.S. to advance energy democracy in different ways. So it’s great because it provides a number of different types of models and it just shows some inspiring stories of how people have really started from that nugget of an idea and organized from small group of community members to a movement. So I would absolutely recommend that.
Neil Seldman: In this field, I just wanted to mention two resources that we rely on. One is Home Grown. We have a Democratic energy project that’s based in our Minneapolis office. We also work extremely closely with Energy Justice Network. Mikey Ewall, Dante Swinton, and others who really not only compliment but augment our work.

In closing, I want to thank Jacqui for coming here and of course thank you for your work, which makes a lot of other people’s work, including ours, a little bit easier. Thanks, Jacqui.

Jacqui Patterson: Thank you. The feeling is very mutual. I look forward to more discussion about how we can work more together. Thank you.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Building Local Power Podcast. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website, ILSR.org and clicking on the show page for the episode. That’s ILSR.org. While you’re there, you can sign up for one of our many newsletters, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and rate and review this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts. Once again, help us out by joining the conversation at #BuildingLocalPower on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever you use your social media. This show is produced by Lisa Gonzales and me, Nick Stumo-Langer. Co-host includes Stacy Mitchell, co-director of ILSR, and Christopher Mitchell, no relation, of our community broadband networks initiative. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_al.

For the Institute for Local Self Reliance, I’m Nick Stumo-Langer and I hope you’ll join us again for another episode of the Building Local Power Podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[16] Building Local Power on iTunes[17] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[18]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[19]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[20] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[21] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[22] license.

Photo Credit: Public Domain, Link[23].

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[24] and Facebook[25] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[26] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2018-01-25-blp038-jacqui-patterson-naacp.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2018-01-25-blp038-jacqui-patterson-naacp.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Jacqui Patterson: http://www.naacp.org/naacp-leadership/jacqueline-patterson/
  6. Neil Seldman: http://ilsr.org/author/neils/
  7. Nick Stumo-Langer: http://ilsr.org/author/nick
  8. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  9. NAACP’s Coal Blooded Report Resource Page: http://www.naacp.org/climate-justice-resources/coal-blooded/
  10. Beyond Sharing: How Communities Can Take Ownership of Renewable Power Report: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  11. NAACP’s Just Energy Policies & Practices: http://www.naacp.org/climate-justice-resources/just-energy/
  12. Local Solar Power: Red Plus Blue Makes a Green Tea Party – Episode 24 of the Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/local-solar-power-episode-24-of-the-building-local-power-podcast
  13. Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781610918510
  14. Energy Justice Network: http://www.energyjustice.net/
  15. Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People: http://www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CoalBlooded.pdf
  16. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  18. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  19. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  20. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  21. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  22. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  23. Link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=313247
  24. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  25. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  26. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/naacp-activism-blp-episode-38/


Montana Wants Network Neutrality, Executive Order Makes It So

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 24, 2018 7:52 am

Chairman Ajit Pai and the Republican FCC Commissioners voted last December to end network neutrality[1] protections, but many local and state elected officials and their many constituents did not support the decision. Suddenly, decision makers began seeking alternative approaches to ensuring an open Internet without fast or slow lanes. This week, Montana took the initiative by using an executive order to bar ISPs from entering into state contracts if those ISPs don’t practice network neutrality.

Read the full Montana Executive Order here[2].

Update: The State of New York is taking similar steps. Read more below.

Executive Order

While 22 states have taken legal action[3] against the Commission to stop the December 14, 2017 repeal, Montana is using state power to protect its 1.043 million citizens rather than wait for the court to decide. On Monday, Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order[4] while visiting his former high school’s computer science class.

“There has been a lot of talk around the country about how to respond to the recent decision by Federal Communications Commission to repeal net neutrality rules, which keep the Internet free and open. It’s time to actually do something about it. This is a simple step states can take to preserve and protect net neutrality. We can’t wait for folks in Washington DC to come to their senses and reinstate these rules.”

Montana currently contracts with several ISPs, including CenturyLink, AT&T, and Charter; state contracts come to about $50 million. The executive order requires[5]the state’s Department of Administration to develop policies and guidance by March 1st. In order to enter into a new contract with the state for the new fiscal year that starts on July 1st, ISPs must not:

1. Block lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management that is disclosed to the consumer;

2. Throttle, impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or use of a nonharmful device, subject to reasonable network management that is disclosed to the consumer;

3. Engage in paid prioritization; or

4. Unreasonably interfere with or unreasonably disadvantage:

a. End users’ ability to select, access, and use broadband Internet access service or the lawful Internet content, applications, services, or devices of their choice; or

b. Edge providers’ ability to make lawful content, applications, services, or devices available to end users.

(more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. voted last December to end network neutrality: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/goodbye-net-neutrality-ajit-pais-fcc-votes-to-allow-blocking-and-throttling/
  2. Read the full Montana Executive Order here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2018-01-Net-Neutrality-Exec-Order-MT.pdf
  3. 22 states have taken legal action: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/16898352/attorneys-general-lawsuit-fcc-net-neutrality
  4.  Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order: http://governor.mt.gov/Newsroom/governor-bullock-protects-net-neutrality-in-montana
  5. executive order requires: http://governor.mt.gov/Portals/16/docs/2018EOs/EO-03-2018_Net%20Freedom.pdf?ver=2018-01-22-122048-023
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/montana-wants-network-neutrality-executive-order-makes-it-so/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/montana-wants-network-neutrality-executive-order-makes-it-so/


Taylor Electric Cooperative Connecting Abilene, Texas With Fiber

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 23, 2018 7:16 am

Taylor Electric Cooperative, serving members in the Abilene, Texas region, is starting to offer Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Internet access to members through its Access Fiber pilot project[1].

Four Phases Of The Pilot

Lance Maeda, Director of Information Technology at Taylor EC[2] shared some details about the project that’s now serving a limited number of premises with plans to expand. The cooperative connected its first customer in early December 2017, about six months after the Board decided to pursue the project.

The cooperative is currently working on the first of four phases. This phase brings service to an apartment complex and two residential subdivisions, one of which is located adjacent to a Taylor EC satellite office where they will house electronics for the network. Engineers considered their plan a way to deploy this part of the network more cost effectively and more quickly. With this approach, they can concentrate on perfecting the service to members before moving on to the other phases.

They’ve recently finished the first subdivision where twelve members have signed up for FTTH services and are now focusing on the aerial connection to the apartment complex and the second neighborhood in the planned first phase. Homes in the second neighborhood are more sparsely located and, according to Maeda, Taylor EC will contend with a wide range of densities as they expand the project. Engineers have decided to house the fiber for the second half of the first phase in underground conduit where it will be protected from ice storms and tornados.

Taylor Electric Cooperative’s logo

No Grants Or Loans

The cooperative received no grants or loans to fund the pilot, funding it entirely through operations; the cooperative is not ready to share the cost of the pilot project. At this point, the electric cooperative is not restricted to offering Internet access in specific areas, says Maeda, but telephone cooperatives that offer services in Texas can only offer Internet access in their own territories. Taylor EC is weighing the pros and cons of applying for FCC funds because accepting any funds might require also accepting limitations. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Access Fiber pilot project: http://www.taylorelectric.com/access.html
  2. Taylor EC: http://www.taylorelectric.com/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/taylor-electric-cooperative-connecting-abilene-texas-with-fiber/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/taylor-electric-cooperative-connecting-abilene-texas-with-fiber/


FCC Ends Speculation On Broadband Speeds, Mobile Internet Access

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 22, 2018 5:47 am

On January 18th, the FCC ended months of speculation and released a fact sheet[1] that included several key conclusions to be included in the 2018 Broadband Deployment Report. The most important is that the FCC continues to recognize that mobile Internet access is not a substitute for fixed access. The Commission has also decided to leave the definition of broadband at 25/3 Mbps (down/up).

Download the fact sheet here[2].

“Broadband” Will Not Slow Down

The Commission had proposed reverting to a slower definition of broadband from the current standard of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload. Under Tom Wheeler’s leadership, the FCC decided to update the standard to its current definition in January 2015, but current Chairman Ajit Pai and other Republican Commissioners suggested in last year’s Notice of Inquiry[3] (NOI) that the FCC might effectively take us backward to a 10 Mbps/1 Mbps standard.

The suggestion rankled better connectivity advocates and Internet users. Many recognized that lowering the standards would make it easier for the FCC to proclaim that the U.S. was making strong progress toward universal household deployment. The Commission would have been justified making such a conclusion under the standard because large sections of rural American receive DSL, fixed wireless, satellite, or mobile Internet access that would meet a lowered 10/1 standard.

Hundreds of thousands of people, organizations, and businesses filed comments opposing a slower standard. Many of them live in areas where 10/1 speeds are already available but who have been waiting for better options. Commissioners Rosenworcel and Clyburn also spoke out against the lowering broadband speeds.

Commissioner Rosenworcel tweeted:

Often grants and loans from the FCC or the Rural Utility Service (RUS) only go to communities considered unserved or underserved. If the FCC redefined broadband, many rural communities would lose the opportunity[7] to qualify for funding to improve broadband infrastructure. Large swaths of rural areas considered unserved under the 25/3 standard would magically transform to served areas if we lowered the broadband standard. (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. released a fact sheet: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2018-01-Broadband-Report-Fact-Sheet.pdf
  2. Download the fact sheet here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2018-01-Broadband-Report-Fact-Sheet.pdf
  3. last year’s Notice of Inquiry: https://muninetworks.org/content/deploying-reasonable-and-timely-fashion-comment-fcc
  4. #FCC: https://twitter.com/hashtag/FCC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  5. #broadband: https://twitter.com/hashtag/broadband?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  6. September 20, 2017: https://twitter.com/JRosenworcel/status/910514607743217665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  7. would lose the opportunity: https://www.wired.com/story/redefining-broadband-could-slow-rollout-in-rural-areas/
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/fcc-ends-speculation-on-broadband-speeds-mobile-internet-access/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fcc-ends-speculation-on-broadband-speeds-mobile-internet-access/


Greeley, Colorado Municipal Network Gains Support in Local Letter

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 16, 2018 7:16 am

Now that they have removed the weight of Colorado’s restrictive SB 152[1], Greeley is looking forward to future solutions to poor Internet access. In a recent letter to the local Tribune[2], resident Richard Reilly offered three reasons why Greeley should develop a plan to move toward municipal broadband.

Reilly’s points are:

First and foremost, net neutrality must be at the heart of a municipal broadband. As the big Internet Service Providers start to throttle specific websites that compete or offer tiered packages, Greeley must commit itself to net neutrality. One price for full Internet access. Period.

Secondly, speed needs to be a priority. Comcast and the other ISPs have received billions of dollars to build the infrastructure for gigabit speeds. If Greeley can commit to the infrastructure to offer gigabit speeds, other ISPs will struggle to survive in our city — and good riddance.

Thirdly, customer service is key.

Already On Track

Reilly’s suggestion follows the community’s decision last summer to fund a feasibility study[3]. At the time, they expressed a hope that the study might encourage incumbents to offer better rates and services. In addition to better connectivity for the general public, Greeley’s Family and Recreation Center’s poor Internet access interfered with bookings. When the City Council decided to fund the study, they cited economic development as a key factor in finding ways to improve local connectivity. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. the weight of Colorado’s restrictive SB 152: https://muninetworks.org/content/local-authority-wins-across-colorado-comcast-loses-fort-collins
  2. a recent letter to the local Tribune: https://www.greeleytribune.com/news/opinion/greeley-has-the-chance-to-protect-its-residents-with-local-broadband-mailbox-for-jan-16/
  3. to fund a feasibility study: https://muninetworks.org/content/going-opt-out-funding-feasibility-greeley-co
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/greeley-colorado-municipal-network-gains-support-in-local-letter/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/greeley-colorado-municipal-network-gains-support-in-local-letter/


Missourian Tells Story of Rural Community Without Business-Quality Broadband

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 15, 2018 8:23 am

Directly north of Springfield, Missouri, sits Hermitage, a rural community of less than 500 residents. With only a few more than 200 households in Hermitage, it isn’t surprising that none of the big incumbent providers want to install the infrastructure to offer businesses or residents high-quality connectivity. A recent Missourian article[1] described what it’s like for businesses in a community whose owners need fast, affordable, reliable Internet access when it just isn’t available from the national ISPs.

Failure Expected

In Hermitage, entrepreneurs like local storekeepers cringe on the days when customers want to pay with credit or debit cards. Often their unreliable CenturyLink DSL service fails, sometimes for extended periods, which cuts into their revenue. Cindy Gilmore, who owns a local convenience store, has to either track down customers or take a loss when Internet access fails during mid-transaction and she restarts her modem.

Gilmore pays $89 per month to CenturyLink for service that is advertised as “up to” 1.5 Megabits per second (Mbps) download. Her speed test result on November 12th was .5 Mbps. Two weeks later a similar test reached the advertised speed and then two days later fell to .4 Mbps, which eliminated her ability to process credit card transactions, work from the office, or look up information she needed for supplies.

Rufus Harris works from home as an online car dealer and relies heavily on Internet access. As part of his work, he researches auto recalls and Carfax reports. The only option for Harris at his home office is CenturyLink and he pays $39 per month for residential “up to” 1.5 Mbps Internet access. He often finds himself, however, renting motel rooms for up to $400 per month because his Internet service at home goes down.

“It’s a shame when you pay for a service that you don’t receive,” Harris said. “We’re supposed to get at least 1.5 (Mbps) or up to, and most of the time it’s not near that good. A lot of the time, it might take 2 minutes to change from one page to the next.”

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. recent Missourian article: https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/state_news/rural-businesses-limited-by-lack-of-broadband/article_73354a66-d63c-11e7-997a-6fa09e39332e.html
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/missourian-tells-story-of-rural-community-without-business-quality-broadband/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/missourian-tells-story-of-rural-community-without-business-quality-broadband/


Zero Waste: A History & Primer

by Neil Seldman | January 12, 2018 12:00 pm

If you haven’t noticed, the U.S. recycling movement has become a Zero Waste movement, and the Zero Waste movement is spreading rapidly worldwide. Most recently, Vietnam’s Zero Waste Alliance joins scores of Zero Waste NGOs now on each continent.

In the U.S., Dan Knapp of Urban Ore, Berkeley introduced the “Zero Waste concept and corollaries” from Australia, after one of his sojourns to that continent in the mid 1990s. The concept and notion spread rapidly through the recycling movement, emboldening campaigners to ask for ‘more’. That is, more than traditional recycling.

Single use plastics (straws, utensils, foam cups, bags), old medicine, non-tethered bottle caps, hybrid packaging, old photo voltaic cell arrays, product/package redesign, toxic reduction and ocean plastics are all within the sights of a growing and youthful number of Zero Waste activists, organizations and entrepreneurs. Repair cafes, repair shops and volunteer fix it shops are found in most cities. They call to mind the early recycling days in 1969 when participants would start a drop off recycling station at the end of each campaign as a practical and symbolic step toward re instating recycling in cities and towns. Within a few years stations grew into curbside service companies and a few years after that, by the late 1970s, the renewed municipal recycling programs that we have today.

We can expect the same progression from the Zero Waste movement in the U.S. as zero waste – even greenwashing of the concept by the incineration industry and cities that still rely on garbage incineration – has entered our vocabulary and vision of grass roots activists and the general public. Similarly, the word “recycling” entered the common parlance in the 1970s, as recycling activities were getting under way.

An excellent way to keep up with these trends is to look at Zero Waste in action at the state and local level. For a start, ILSR recommends focusing on the projects recently summarized by Zero Waste Washington — http://zerowastewashington.org[1]. Here is a link to their 2017 Annual Report, which invites further exploration and replication of these policies and programs for state and local government.

Read: Zero Waste Washington 2017 Year in Review.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[2] and Facebook[3] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[4] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. http://zerowastewashington.org: http://zerowastewashington.org
  2. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  3. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  4. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/zero-waste-primer/


Want Your City to Prosper? Then Forget Everything You Think You Know about Economic Growth (Episode 37)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 11, 2018 12:00 pm

As a trained engineer and planner, Chuck Marohn noticed something off about the decisions many cities and towns were making about economic development. They were approving big-box stores and other short-lived, single-purpose developments that didn’t make financial sense in the long-run and, unlike our traditional town centers, weren’t designed to evolve over time.

Marohn went on to found Strong Towns[5]. In this episode of Building Local Power, he sits down with Stacy Mitchell to discuss why the conventional wisdom about economic growth often leads communities down a dark path of decay.

“So the way we build now is we build things all at once and we build them to a finished state. There is no contemplation of a second life cycle. There’s no concept in our society that if you build a home, some day it will evolve into a duplex. Or if you build a commercial building that some day it will evolve into a two-story or a three-story commercial building. You build a big flat big box store and that’s gonna forever more, by our codes and ordinances and financing and everything, that will forevermore be a big box store,” argues Chuck Marohn, Founder and President of Strong Towns[6] on how American communities are hamstringing their own futures.

Podcast: Stacy Mitchell on the Big Box Swindle, Strong Towns[7] — In July of 2016, ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell sat down with our guest, Chuck Marohn, to discuss her book, Big-Box Swindle[8], and its implications for smart development in cities and towns across America.

Report: How Rising Commercial Rents are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities are Doing About It[9] — This report examines how high rents are shuttering businesses and stunting entrepreneurship, and explores 6 strategies that cities are using to create an affordable built environment where local businesses can thrive.

A Case for Height Restrictions, Strong Towns[10] — In this analysis, Marohn delves deeper into the issue of dynamic height limit ensuring cities can be flexible in how they value their land for the best possible developmental future.

Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[11] — This report from ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell details how the United States is much less a nation of entrepreneurs than it was a generation ago. This report suggests that the decline of small businesses is owed, at least in part, to anticompetitive behavior by large, dominant corporations.

Our guest recommended the following items:

  • The Cost of Auto Orientation, Update (a.k.a. The Taco John’s Analysis)[12] by Chuck Marohn, Strong Towns | July 22nd, 2014
  • Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder[13] by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume 1[14] by Chuck Marohn | August 4th, 2012

Stacy Mitchell: Hello and welcome to Building Local Power. I’m Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance and I am super glad to be back in the host seat for this episode of our podcast. We have a real treat for you today. My guest is Church Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns. Strong Towns is an organization that’s dedicated to helping cities and towns become financially strong and resilient.

And I found in thinking about this, looking around the country, there are a lot of communities in America today that you couldn’t say were financially strong and resilient. So many of our communities are cash strapped, we don’t have enough resources, we don’t have the kind of economic development we need. Our social networks are often fraying and communities, I think, are also strikingly vulnerable. More vulnerable than they should be to being up ended by unexpected bumps in the road. It just seems like there are a lot of problems that communities are facing that they, for some reason, don’t have the wherewithal to solve maybe in the way that they used to.

Chuck is one of the best people I know to talk to about why this is. He does a great job of dissecting what exactly is wrong with how most communities approach their own growth and development. Chuck was trained as an engineer and a planner and so he has this great ability to look under the hood and basically do the math, if you will, that shows why many of the ideas that we hold about how our communities are supposed to grow and develop are actually wrong.

So Chuck is a great myth buster but Strong Town’s main focus is helping people figure out how to take control of their communities, what they need to do as citizens to make the places they live strong and resilient. And Strong Towns is working to build a movement around these ideas across the country so I’m really excited to talk to him about what he’s seeing and what’s happening out there.

Before we dive in I want to take a moment to thank all of you who made a donation to ILSR as part of our annual end of the year fundraising drive. Our target for donations from individuals is $53,000, that’s what we need to meet to raise our budget for this year. And thanks to many of you we’re making really good progress on that but we still have more to go. So if you didn’t have a chance to contribute at the end of 2016, please consider making a donation to start the year off or perhaps becoming a monthly sustainer where you give a little bit every month.

You can do that by going to ILSR.org and clicking on the donate button. Again, that’s ILSR.org. Your donations mean a lot and we put them to great use and we really appreciate the support. And with that, let’s dive into the conversation with Chuck. Chuck, welcome to the podcast.

Chuck Marohn: Hey, thanks so much for having me. We enjoyed having you on our podcast and it’s actually one that we refer to a lot. So nice to chat with you again.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, I thought that was a great conversation. We talked about big box stores and I know you guys have a link to that, obviously, on your website. We do too for people who missed it, definitely go and pull that back because I think you guys have a really terrific analysis about big box retail, as we do too. So it was a really fun conversation to dig into some of those issues and what’s happening out there.
Chuck Marohn: You’re doing fantastic work and I think it’s a lot of fun anytime we can collaborate on stuff. Because it’s a slightly different perspective than ours but it’s a really valuable one and it’s valuable space. So thanks for the work you do.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that and we feel the same. And both of our organizations, I think, are really out there on the ground with some ideas that are maybe different from what has been the predominant thinking for quite a few decades and I think really important. So I really appreciate that and appreciate the relationship. And of course, both of our organizations have a strong presence in Minnesota so we also have a little bit of geographic connection there too.
Chuck Marohn: Oh you betcha.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, exactly. And for people listening, Chuck is joining us from his home community, which is Brainard, Minnesota. Much of our staff is in Minneapolis. I happen to be in our Portland, Maine office but lived in the twin cities for about 10 years. So it’s great to have that link as well.

So I want to start, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that you worked as an engineer before founding Strong Towns. And what I’m really curious to know is what it is that you started to notice doing that work. What was it that was the first clue that something was amiss and tell me a little bit about your thinking around that and how it is that you went on to found Strong Towns? 

Chuck Marohn: I realized I wasn’t a good engineer. My undergraduate degree is in civil engineering. And I got out of school and you have to work for four years as an apprentice of sorts before you can get your license. And I went through that process. I enjoyed the work. I did municipal engineering so everything from roads and streets and traffic up to sewer and water systems. And I even worked on an airport expansion project, which was incredible. It was great work.

And I liked it. I knew I wasn’t a very good engineer. And actually my skills in the engineering profession were less … The things I was good at were less the technical stuff and more of what in a consulting firm would be the project salesman. But in the way you would want it to be would be like the project planner. The person who helped line things up and made decisions about stuff. You know, made recommendations on what you should do.

So I actually left and went back to school and I got a planning degree. And when I was in graduate school, a bunch of cities that I had done engineering kind of work for called me and wanted me to do planning work for them. And I wound up doing that. And so by the time I got done with graduate school, I had actually started my own planning company and hired a couple of my classmates, was working all over the state.

Doing that kind of work, having both of those experiences, doing planning, things like zoning permits and new developments but also having done the engineering work, I think it allowed me to see some of the ridiculousness of the projects that we do. When I was an engineer a lot of things didn’t make financial sense. We would do these big projects and the money would be coming from all these different places and I just kind of assumed that other people knew what was going on. It wasn’t my job to worry about the money, it was my job to worry about the engineering. So I just assumed someone smarter than me has got this figured out.

When I was actually doing the planning, I was closer to where the money went through the pipeline and I just saw the ridiculousness of it. I saw these projects where you would be doing a million dollars worth of work and I knew at the end of the day that we were gonna collect a tax base that would not collect even a fraction of that. It was obvious these projects weren’t gonna work and I was in a position to say, “Whose job is this?” And the answer was, it was nobody’s job. Nobody really looked at this. Nobody was responsible for making sure that the city was financially sound.

And so by the time we got to 2008 and the whole housing crisis and the election season that year and the economy kind of in free for all, I was just, I don’t think disillusioned is too strong of a word. No one was talking about this in the way that I was seeing it. And I thought, maybe I’m nuts. But maybe I’m not. And I decided that I was going to get my thoughts together by writing. And I sat down and I said I’m gonna write three days a week. And I started to write and that is what ultimately grew into a set of ideas and ultimately an organization. And now a movement of people known as Strong Towns.

Stacy Mitchell: You talk about these projects, and I assume you mean both maybe public projects, maybe infrastructure projects as well as private developments where cities are gung ho doing these things, green lighting them, investing in them but they’re not gonna pencil out. They don’t make financial sense, no one has their eye on the ball in that regard. Give us some examples of what kinds of projects you’re talking about. How would you explain this to someone you met on the street?
Chuck Marohn: Really, cities are really good at, and as an engineer I was really good at this, getting money to build stuff. We have created, whether it’s at the federal level, at the state level through grant and loan programs, whether it’s in the private sector through Wall Street money, we’ve created the systems to build new stuff. And we are exceptionally good at that. We’re really, really good, as a country, at building new things.

What I realized and what I understood, it was very clear to me, was that we would have zero capacity to maintain any of this. Any of this stuff we’re building, we were not gonna create enough wealth, enough tax base to take care of it. Now I’ll give you a very specific example. I was working with a city where the state was coming in with federal dollars and building a bypass around the city. And kind of the obvious engineering thing to do when you’re doing a project like that is to put the sewer and water in underneath the new roadway before you build it. When you put it in, basically in green field, basically a virgin ground, it’s really cheap to go out and trench that. You don’t have to go under the roadway, you don’t have to do any directional boring. It’s like the cheapest pipe you can lay.

And so before this bypass was going in, the recommendation from the engineer, which I fully supported, was let’s run the sewer and water out there before the road is built. I sat down and I said, I wonder how much tax space we would need to be able to actually pay for this pipe. And I ran the numbers. I sat down and I just put pen to paper. I said if we were gonna try to collect our money back within 20 years for this investment, how much new tax space would we have? We would have had to nearly double the entire tax space of the city just to run this 3/4 mile pipe up there. All the new frontage roads that would be built, all the pipe that would be built along those frontage roads all those costs, those are gonna be more. Just to get the ante to develop in the future was going to take more tax space than the city would ever have any concept of getting.

I worked in some small towns and small towns can be kind of extreme situations. I had another project where a developer had purchased this land really cheaply because they didn’t have any access to it. It was on a lake and the lake property was all selling for a premium. But you couldn’t get to this stuff. So it was all kind of land locked. And this developer, you know, developers are crafty people, this is what they get paid to do, figured out a way to get a road in there. But it was going to require a mile across public land. They got the county to sign off on this and the city, their policy was you can do it as long as you bring the road up to the city standards.

So the developer was going to pave this road. Come in and put in a patinous asphalt top on it. And it was gonna cost him a lot of money but these lots were gonna be worth quite a lot and they figured they could cash flow it and make it work. As a city planner, I sat down and I said look, if all these people develop as premium lake shore property, which this was not. But I said, let’s assume that you get huge lake shore mansions out of this that are worth a lot of money and we take the tax space from that, here’s how much it would be. And it was like $6,000 a year. Well we were taking over a $1.2 million road. And I said, $6,000 a year, you can’t even pay to plow the snow off this road, let alone some day go out and fix the cracks, fix the potholes, replace the surfacing and do all this. It’s not even close. I mean, you’re talking about over the life of this thing bringing in a dime or two for the dollar you’re gonna have to ultimately spend.

As soon as we started doing these, they just showed up everywhere. And I actually got to the point where I thought I’m doing something wrong. Because every development that I model, every one I can get numbers for and start running through this, we’re losing not just a little bit of money, we’re not even coming close to breaking even. This is crazy stuff.

And it took me a long time to realize, no, this is what we do. We’re really good at building things, we’re horrible at maintaining stuff. And this is why. This stuff benefits us in the short term but gives us these huge long term liabilities that we just have no capacity to take care of.

Stacy Mitchell: You know I think your focus really on the math and actually really looking at the numbers is so critical because this parallels stuff that we’ve seen, as you know, so much with big box stores and shopping malls. A developer comes in, you’ve got a vacant piece of land, they’re gonna put a bunch of big box stores on it. And they’ll say, “Oh well don’t worry, we’ll pay for the new intersection, we’ll pay for the new lights and the sewer, everything that has to go in the initial up front costs.” But what no one really often looks at is the fact that those stores are gonna have ongoing costs. That maintaining those roads, that dealing with the police calls that you get, the traffic accidents that are inevitable when you have big roads and all the car traffic and so on associated with these stores.

And then if you go to the other side of the ledger and actually pencil out the property tax revenue that’s generated, it’s very little in the scheme of things. Because it’s a big surface parking lot, basically. It really doesn’t add up to a lot of value. And yet, I think your point about how communities, it’s just so easy … We’re kind of growth obsessed so it’s so easy to look at new road, new bypass, new big box store as being about growth and not really looking at the underlying, ongoing math behind it. 

Chuck Marohn: Right. The interesting thing is that I bought into that narrative, the narrative that you described. Back in my engineering days I did work for Home Depot and I also did work for Menard’s. Which, I know you know what Menard’s is but for people not in the Midwest, it’s like a Midwestern version of Home Depot. With cheesier commercials.

So I did work for both of those. The argument I would make for the city or the presentation I would make, and it was just bought wholesale and I believed it. I was not there fibbing or anything, is these big box retailers would come in and they’ll pay for everything. They’ll pay for the frontage roads, they’ll pay for the traffic signals, they’ll pay for the sewer and water, they’ll pay for everything. You, the city, no cost out of your pocket.

And so you’d look and you’d say how can you not make money? How can you not be money ahead as a taxpayer, as a city, as a local government? How can you not be money ahead if the private sector is gonna pay for the whole thing? There’s an Upton Sinclair quote that I think is really important and it goes along the lines of it’s hard to get a man to change their mind about something when their job depends on them not changing their mind.

I think for me, I was in this job, I liked it, I was doing good work. I was getting paid. These projects, when I would do them, were very successful. Everybody was happy with me. There was no incentive for me to really question this very much. And so I bought into that argument that my client here is paying for everything. You’re doing great, everybody wins. It was only later on when I started to ask these questions about the second life cycle that actually the big box stuff became the huge problem. I mean, residential subdivisions, when they’re auto based are really bad. The frontage road stuff is really bad. The big box stores are atrocious. I mean, they’re the worst financially because they give you the biggest sugar high up front. They actually decimate everything you have that’s viable in your core downtown. And then they don’t hang around very long.

The pipe you’re putting in the ground will have a 50 year to 70 year lifespan. The road that you’re building will have a 20-30 year lifespan. Then you’ve got to go out and fix those things. In both of those instances, that big box store is no longer there. It’s gone and you’re either looking at a vacant building or you’re looking at something that’s much lower on the economic order. Cities don’t factor that in. They don’t ponder it, there’s no incentive to ponder it. There’s no requirement for them to ponder it. Even the way cities account for their liabilities, in a transaction where a big box store came in and built everything for you, you would show on your city public balance sheet a huge addition of assets and no long term liabilities.

And so we’ve wired everything in our system to make this look like a really good deal. And it is initially. It’s just long term, it’s a disaster. And it is literally bankrupting our cities.

Stacy Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, the upfront sugar high, I think that really captures the dynamic that we see so often. I want to get to digging in a little bit to the nuts and bolts about how we alter or how we change those underlying incentives and policies that lead us in this bad direction financially. But first I want to ask what your picture is of how development and growth ought to happen in a community. If you’ve been outlining the financially disastrous and unsustainable version, what does the prosperous and sustainable version of development actually look like?
Chuck Marohn: This is a really hard question. And I’d like to answer it in two ways. The first is to go back and understand the way things used to work. And worked not in the greatest way, but in the ways that cities were financially strong and secure and how that differs from today. Because there’s really two variables. People talk about the automobile, they talk about financial system, what have you. At the local level, it comes down to two variables.

Before the great depression, we built cities incrementally on a continuum of improvement. So everything was built to the next increment. If you start out with a single family home, that would then evolve into a duplex, that would then evolve into a quad unit, that would then evolve into row houses, into apartment buildings and on and on and on until you were at Manhattan. And not every city got there but you were on this continuum. And things happened incrementally and there was, essentially, always a built in assumption that there would be a renewal of the place you were in. It was all driven by the underlying land values, which the goal of development was to improve the value of land.

After World War II when we put all this money into auto infrastructure, what we did was we separated the value of land from the value of what’s on it. We actually drove down the value of land. If you just look at it from a supply/demand standpoint, what we did with the automobile is we dramatically increased the supply of developable land. This did have the effect, and this is what they were trying to do, of driving down costs. But what it also did was it made our development now, we lost that incremental growth part.

So the way we build now is we build things all at once and we build them to a finished state. There is no contemplation of a second life cycle. There’s no concept in our society that if you build a home, some day it will evolve into a duplex. Or if you build a commercial building that some day it will evolve into a two story or a three story commercial building. You build a big flat big box store and that’s gonna forever more, by our codes and ordinances and financing and everything, that will forevermore be a big box store.

And what you see happened is that instead of development having cycles where it has a boom and then a stagnation and then a renewal and then another stagnation and then another renewal, what you see is that current development just has a boom and then stagnation and then steep decline. And this is everywhere. This is the new subdivision, this is the commercial strip, all of it goes through this life cycle. We can’t go back to what we had. We’re not going to, we have different starting conditions. But I think we can learn from some of those principles. And so for me, the way that I describe it today to people is that we need to start making incremental investments again. We need to start making small investments over a broad area over a long period of time. We need to get our neighborhoods, our core neighborhoods, our downtown’s and any place else where we can create a critical mass, we need to get them growing again incrementally on this continuum.

The challenge we have is that we have way more stuff than we’ll ever maintain. And so you look at a city like Detroit and I would describe Detroit as just being a couple decades ahead of the rest of the country, they were the model that we all copied after World War II. They were the first ones to run the highways through the middle of town, create a commuter culture. They were the first ones to just basically go all in on what became the post war development pattern. They were the model. But they’re 20 years ahead of everybody else. And they’ve had to go through this gut wrenching experience of deciding what neighborhoods to keep and what neighborhoods to let go. If you only have enough money to replace a mile of pipe and you have 10 miles of pipe, which one are you gonna replace? Those are really hard problems.

I think we make that challenge easier and more humane and fiscally more responsible if we start today shifting our development pattern to one of not building all at once to a finished state in large blocks and chunks, but getting back to building incrementally over the broad swap of our community. 

Stacy Mitchell: You’re listening to Chuck Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns. I’m Stacy Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self Reliance. We’ll be right back after a short break.

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Now we’re back with Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns. Chuck, before the break you were outlining this vision of a more incremental and organic approach to how our communities develop and grow over time. And one of the things that really struck me in listening to you describe that is in a way you’re arguing for something that would involve a larger number of small players, if you will. That would disperse power and responsibility much more widely. So instead of having giant big box stores and big national developers and large scale projects that are developed to this finished point and really aren’t reusable and giant infrastructure and so on, we would be, as communities, all of us would be much more engaged in a way at the local level in making that incremental growth happen. Whether it’s a local business maybe opening a second location or enlarging their location or a property owner who adds onto a building or you know, that kind of small scale development approach.

That’s something we really believe at ILSR, not only for all the reasons that you’ve outlined but it’s also more democratic. And it enables our communities to develop in ways that suit them, that suit their particular circumstances and needs instead of this one size fits all model. However, it’s really challenging to convince city officials and the powers that be that this is the way to go. I mean, incremental development just, it’s hard to see it add up in a way that feels as big as the big projects. And so when you have new members and citizens that are joining Strong Towns and you’re connecting thousands of people across the country who are trying to address this in their own places, what’s the advice that you give them? How do they start this conversation and what’s the most … How do they frame this and get people to start to think differently?

Chuck Marohn: This is a really personal conversation. A really, I think, hard conversation to have. Because what we’re asking people to do is to rethink core values. Any time you go there it’s almost like you’re on the therapist couch, to a degree. So we do this gingerly. You’re right in the sense that as Americans we have been taught or ingrained in our culture that efficiency is a prime value. If we can do things efficiently, that is better. The opposite of efficiency is not necessarily inefficiency, it is redundancy. The opposite of having an efficient system is having a system with redundancies, with slack in the system. We have this economic model, and I get it. I mean I think it makes sense but it makes sense in an ecosystem of places, not in one centralized situation. But we have this economic model that is based on improving efficiencies. And what you see happening at the local level is that trade off makes us really fragile.

Instead of having an ecosystem of many different businesses providing many different options for you, you’ve got one big box store. And if that goes away you’re done. Or if that doesn’t offer the thing you want, your community’s done. If you can’t get a job there, you’re not getting a job in some places.

What we try to have people understand is that there is a trade-off for this. And it’s often not a trade-off that we’re willing to make when we think about it in this way. And as families, we invest in our own savings. I’ve got two daughters, we’re saving for college. We would not go put all our savings in one stock, right? Like Google’s the greatest company around, we’re going to go put all our stock in Google. Okay, maybe you do really well with that but what you’ve done is you’ve made your investments very efficient. But you’re also really vulnerable. You’re vulnerable to whatever happens with that particular investment.

When we look at the portfolio of a city, it’s no different. It’s very easy to, as a staff, administer one big project with one big player. It’s very easy, as a government, to plan around one big site with one big player. It’s much harder to deal with all these small little players, people with all their complexity and all their different challenges and they come in and they whine and they complain about stuff and they’ve got their pet issue over here and over there and oh, wouldn’t it just be easier if we could deal with the corporate attorney and the corporate engineer and just slam out this project and get it done? It’d be way more efficient.

When we trade efficiency, when we trade away our resiliency for efficiency, we wind up with really fragile places. And at the end of the day, that took me a long time to figure out. The writings of Naseem Taleb and the Black Swan, his book, and his book Anti-fragile were really helpful in that for me. But we have, systematically across this country, traded, in the name of efficiency, our very strong healthy resilient cities with a lot of messy redundancy and complexity, for systems that are hyper efficient and very, very fragile. And that is, at the end of the day, the thing that freaks me out the most.

When we explain that to people and when they get it, they understand because they feel the fragility around them. They feel that their places are not working. They don’t have a lot of slack in the system. And at the local level, that’s really disconcerting. So once you get people thinking this way, I think it’s an easy nudge to make. The harder nudge is when you actually have to talk to them about what it means to them and what it means to their house and their neighborhood and their place because it means, at the end of the day, building in change. And change is always a challenge. It’s always tough, it’s always scary.

Stacy Mitchell: So when you talk about having to make changes and that change is difficult, talk about what those concrete changes that we really need to be thinking about are.
Chuck Marohn: This is really hard at a personal level because we become used to the idea that we would buy into our idyllic neighborhood and that it would stay that way forever. That was never the anticipation of people even 100 years ago, let alone through thousands of years of human history. In those places there was always an anticipation that things would change over time. In fact, things would get better with change. One of the big challenges we have today is that we build things to their, not only their finished state, but a very high quality state.

If you go back to a city in the early 1900s, if I think about my hometown here, the new neighborhoods were built without all the amenities. They didn’t have roads, they didn’t have water and sewer, they didn’t have sidewalks, they didn’t have shops, they didn’t have libraries, they didn’t even have really fire protection or anything. The first people that moved there, moved there and built in little tiny houses. And their hope was if this neighborhood takes off and does well, we will add on, more people will be here and eventually we’ll be able to run the water pipe out here and have good water.

And then as more people show up and the neighborhood continues to expand, some day we’ll get paved streets. And as more people move in, we can add a library. There was this benefit from the more people that moved in, what we call it as a party, the more people that showed up at your party, the better the party got. Because the more stuff you could do, the more things you could handle, the better your situation became.

The way we build today, this is largely a byproduct of the way we finance growth and development, as well as our cultural ethic about it, when we go out and build that new subdivision, not only do we build the sewer, the water, all the roads, all the streets, all the sidewalks, but we put in the parks, we put in the amenities, we put everything in it. It’s like a full turn key kind of thing.

And so you move into this thing that you see as idyllic. It’s like, this is it. This is where I want to live. It’s got everything you ever want. And the last thing you want is for it to change. The problem we’ve got is that the finances of that doesn’t work. N so in a sense, when you move in that day, there’s a ticking time bomb, everything, the decline is built into the equation. You can put it off, you can forestall it, you can use regulation to do that, you can use incentives to do that, you can hope that you’ve got the neighborhood with the most affluent peoples so you can put off that decline. But decline is essentially inevitable. If you cannot renew a place, if you cannot bring it to a higher level of use, ultimately, the pipes age, the streets age, the siding ages, the shingles age, your appliances go bad. And ultimately the neighborhood goes into decline.

And so really what we’re talking about here is having people come to grips with this fact. That their only real long term options are decline or incremental renewal. The idea of stasis is not a viable option. And that’s hard for people because people crave that stasis.

Stacy Mitchell: It’s interesting because our historic downtown’s and our older built environment is naturally suited to that kind of incremental renewal. And despite the ways in which I would say that this automobile oriented development and the way that we spend money on infrastructure and all the things that we’ve been doing since World War II have, in some ways, really worked to undermine the viability of that older fabric. In a way, when you look around today, you see that those places are easier to renew and in fact generating better returns even when they’re struggling than a lot of the suburban large scale development that you’re talking about.
Chuck Marohn: One of the things that, I think, we’re most known for is our Taco John’s analysis. I’ve done a number of these but the Taco John’s one was the first one. We’ve had two identical blocks in our core downtown. One is this old run down 1920s built and been neglected every since single story commercial block. Literally the pawn shop, the bankruptcy attorney, the old liquor store, that kind of thing. Army surplus store. Not a great block. Two blocks over was the exact same kind of thing. We got it torn down and now we have a new drive through, Taco John’s, which is your standard franchise taco drive through place. Same size area, just a different style of development.

That old run down block has 78% more wealth, it pays 78% more taxes to the city than the brand new one, even though they have the same cost, the same amount of infrastructure, everything about them is the same. What you realize is that that old block, it’s already killing it financially. It’s already outperforming the stuff we build brand new right now. So make it even better, it doesn’t need some million dollar investment, it doesn’t need the city to come in and completely redo the streets and put in brick sidewalks and decorative lights. It just needs a little love. Like, someone go out and sweep the sidewalk, right?

Stacy Mitchell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chuck Marohn: Put out a bench, maybe. Plant a couple of street trees so you’re not just standing under the oppressive sun. Maybe reconnect the neighborhoods so people who live two blocks can feel like they can safely walk there. These are tiny, tiny investments. And they would pay huge returns. If you look at that taco place, it’s already a loser. I mean, it is underperforming the worst of the traditional development pattern, even though it’s brand new. And we all understand that it’s not gonna get any better. There’s no set of investments that we can make that would make that taco place into a two or three story commercial building. Or a building with more than one business in it. Or convert that parking lot into some other use that would have a higher value. None of those things are compatible with that business model.

So what you have is you have the traditional pattern of development is incremental approach that has a huge upside financially because it can change and evolve and adapt and grow. And very limited downsides financially. And then you can trust that with our new approach, which is built to it’s peak and only experiences decline afterwards. This goes to the core of why our cities struggle. Why we build places that wake up one day and you realize that you’re really fragile. We have way more stuff and we have not enough tax space to take care of it all.

These are rude awakenings we’re waking up to that this development pattern doesn’t work.

Stacy Mitchell: The Taco John’s analysis, that’s really eye opening and folks can find that on the Strong Towns website. That’s strongtowns.org. And I want to encourage people to start reading your website, if they aren’t already. You guys post several times a week and one of the things that I really love about Strong Towns is you do these great myth busting articles where you look at common conceptions about things and actually peel back and have a closer look at what’s really going on.

One of the things I would recommend to people is the stuff you’ve done around the infrastructure crisis. Which, as you say, is not the crisis that people think it is and we should all be aware of the federal government wanting to build infrastructure in our communities. So people should really take a look at that.

But I want to close by asking you about another common misperception that you’ve written about that’s sort of near and dear to my heart, which has to do with height limits. Often I hear people say, and I live in Portland, Maine, this is common here where we have not enough housing, more people are moving into the city, we don’t have enough housing and we definitely don’t have enough affordable housing. We have a city that’s relatively modest in terms of our heights in our older residential neighborhoods that are multi-family dense. But they’re still only like three and four story buildings. Downtown we have some taller buildings.

But there’s a kind of constant drum beat with this idea that we should okay these giant towers that people want to build and that will increase the supply of housing. But you point out that that doesn’t always work out and that, in fact, this can actually decrease the availability of housing and maybe even affordable housing. Can you walk through why height limits are maybe a good idea and this notion of towers doesn’t always work out the way people think? 

Chuck Marohn: I’ve got to tell you, some of that writing that I did on that has generated more controversy than just about anything I’ve ever written. From everybody from my friends in the free market realm to some of the planners who love the high density, TOD kind of stuff, they have a fetish with it, to some of the affordable housing advocates. Everybody has … It’s like the one thing that all of those disparate groups agree on, is that density in someone else’s neighborhood, in the form of a huge tower, is a great thing. I’ve been to Portland, I’ve been to a lot of these cities that are growing in that way.

And you have this bizarre situation where, I mean I saw this many, many times in Portland. You would have homes that, in my community, which is not a wealthy place, would be considered really run down and dilapidated. You would look at them from the outside and they would be in poor condition, the yard wouldn’t be mowed, there’d be garbage all over, a window would be boarded up. And there were people living there. And then you would say, how much is that house worth? I’d look it up on Zillow as we’re going by and it’s like $1.2 million. How is that possible? How is that possible?

It’s only possible if the land is worth $1.19 million and they’re planning on scraping off the house and building something new. Well, when you do that math, what you realize is that no one’s doing that to put in a single family home. That would be absurd. In that market it doesn’t make any sense to buy the land at that price and put in a single family home. What you’ve done is you have a piece of land where they’re planning on a tower. The land is priced, speculatively, for a tower.

And I’ve studied the cultural dynamic that brings this about. It is not rational, it is not based in any market principles, it is more of a psychological effect that happens in boom markets where you get land not priced on supply and demand curve, but really priced in a Robert Schiller, irrational exuberance kind of way.

And what it does is it takes options out of the marketplace. It stagnates markets. It drives up housing prices across the board. And it gives you only a couple small outlets for alleviating that crisis until you have a huge bust. And then everybody loses money, the city is in a really difficult position and then you have relatively more affordable housing but in a really, really painful way.

The counter of this, and the reason why I have been an advocate, not necessarily of a hard height limit, but what I’ve called a dynamic height limit, gets back to this idea of incrementalism. Our neighborhoods all need to grow. They all need to breathe, they all need to flex. And so I’m really supportive of the stuff that Portland has done to allow, by right, AVUs and some of the more intensive, the next level of intensity in some of their residential neighborhoods that have otherwise been stagnated.

But I think that same mindset needs to be applied to some of these other places where we’re inducing huge speculative investments and really distorted prices because the anticipation is not for the next increment of development, the anticipation is for some huge leap. And I think that the huge leaps price people out. I don’t think they’re helpful, I don’t think this is a problem that we’re going to solve just by inducing way more building. I don’t think we’re going to build our way out of this unless the idea is to build your way into collapse. What you want is you want to market that response incrementally to the incremental growth that you’re having.

People talk about how fast Portland is growing or Austin is growing and some of these other places. When you sit back and look at it, it’s like one and a half percent a year. Now that’s a huge amount of growth. I would agree with you in numbers. But as a total part of your system, it’s not even that much. It’s not like you’re growing 10% a year. In a system that big, you should be able to handle that without creating a housing crises. The crises is because places like that have tried to be too tactical in how they create these dense nodes and they’ve messed up their underlying land values. And I think to the detriment of their own people.

It’s a complicated issue but I’m a really strong advocate of incremental development and the idea that our neighborhoods need to be able to grow and flex and change and evolve. And I think if you did that in Portland, you could easily sap up one and a half percent growth rate every year from now until the end of time without creating any kind of boom bust scenario, which is what I think you’re setting up right now. 

Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. And one of the things that happens when you get those really expensive speculative developments is it causes all of the landlords in buildings nearby to then start raising their rents. I mean that’s a big part of our problem here is that rents are becoming really unaffordable and a lot of it is generated by this speculation that isn’t really grounded in financial reality. We have had these changes that have allowed the kind of incremental development. We’ve had a lot of these smaller lots in our older neighborhoods that people have now been able to build appropriately sized buildings on that have added to the housing stock, which is great.

The other thing I’d love to see us do is we’ve had tons of surface parking lots right in the heart of our city, as a lot of places do. Back from urban renewal, they tore everything down and we have these surface parking lots. And I look around at that and think what a stupid us. If this land is so valuable, how is it that we’re just letting it sit here mostly empty? Occasionally there’s a car. But mostly empty. 

Chuck Marohn: Right. Those things are unnatural situations and they’re visual cues that something’s broken in this market. Those things should not be persisting but they do. And I kind of obsess over the city, the local government side of this. If you are the city of Portland or if you are a Silicone Valley city or you are even a second or third tier city in California where you’re seeing a lot of growth, what you find is that the city government actually benefits financially from allowing this illusion to continue. They benefit from the speculative bubble. In the same way that the federal government, in many ways, benefits from speculative bubbles on Wall Street. There’s a certain boom and bust where if you’re the president during the boom or you’re the person leading the fed during the boom, all your metrics that you’re measuring look really good.

And if you’re the city of Portland and you can have land prices artificially really high, yes that hurts people and yes you’re trying to deal with that with all these inclusive zoning rules and different things, but at the end of the day your whole budget process is made easier because of this speculative bubble. The hard part for Portland, particularly, is going to be if and when, and I think it’s a when, there’s a correction. And that’s a, when increases of 5-10% property taxes every year goes away and actually becomes a major decrease and then a stagnation.

The core of Portland, I’ve called a planner’s Disneyland. It really, in many ways, is a remarkable place in North America. But when you get outside of that, it’s very American. I mean, it’s very much like every junky city in the US. You have all the liabilities that every other place has and those neighborhoods have no tax space to handle that. You’re gonna have the same problem but without the stable tax space. And I think that’s the bust side of the boom and bust. And in many ways, I think these fast growing cities are priming themselves for some really tragic conversations in the future because they’ve been intoxicated by the boom part of it.

Stacy Mitchell: Well thanks, Chuck. I wasn’t expecting us to delve into my own hometown, but I’m looking forward to sharing this episode with our city leaders because I think you have some good insights on the problems that we’re facing.
Chuck Marohn: That wasn’t a very happy way to end. Portland is a beautiful city and there’s a lot of great stuff going on. I do think that, I’m really energized right now by the mid sized towns. We’ve been doing some work in places like Akron, Ohio. And in a place like Akron, you actually can see rock bottom. They can see it. And that’s made them have an awareness that’s a little bit different than other places. And it’s exciting to engage there because once they figure it out, the trajectory is just up. And it’s up in a really organic, ecosystem way that just is really exciting. I love Portland, I love the fast growing places, but I love the energy of these mid size places. They just really make me get up in the morning with a smile.

I’m a nostalgic guy. I do think that our best days are yet to come. We’re going to have to get through this crisis of our own making. But once we figure it out, you can look at Detroit today and I think Detroit’s an exciting place. Lots of challenges, but I think exciting and on the right track.

Stacy Mitchell: I think that’s absolutely right. And the first step in actually making those changes is a recognition of the problem. And I think the kind of response that we’ve been having in our work and that Strong Towns has been having is really evidence of the fact that people are connecting these dots and are really interested in having that hard conversation and figuring out how we approach our communities in ways that put us on much more solid footing going into the future. So it’s challenging, but I think you’re absolutely right that things are shifting and we should all feel really optimistic about what we’re seeing on that front.
Chuck Marohn: And in the big box sphere, we’re seeing this model die in front of us, right? We’re seeing the mall model die in front of us. And all that does is create, in the marketplace, these huge opportunities for stuff that is really traditional developments, great for cities, great for neighborhoods, great for people, great for small businesses. I think that we’re starting to see the stage cleared. A lot of the bad actors are getting marginalized in our cities. I’m excited about the opportunities that creates.
Stacy Mitchell: Chuck, thank you so much. I feel like we could have this conversation all day but I really appreciate you taking the time and this has been terrific.
Chuck Marohn: Thank you. It’s nice to chat. I really appreciate the opportunity. Please, any time.
Stacy Mitchell: And thank you all for tuning into this episode of Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website, ILSR.org and clicking on the show page for this episode. That’s ILSR.org. We’ll put up a link to some of our favorite resources on the Strong Towns website and Chuck made a couple of book recommendations in the course of this conversation and so we’ll be sure to highlight those there as well. And while you’re on ILSR’s website, consider signing up for one of our newsletters and connecting with us on Facebook and Twitter. And once again, please help us out by rating this podcast and sharing it with your friends.

This show is produced by Lisa Gonzalez and Nick Stumo Langer. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by Dysfunctional. For the Institute for Local Self Reliance, I’m Stacy Mitchell, I hope you’ll join us again in two weeks for the next episode of Building Local Power.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[15] Building Local Power on iTunes[16] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[17]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[18]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[19] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[20] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[21] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[22] and Facebook[23] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[24] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-12-06-blp037-chuck-marohn-planning.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-12-06-blp037-chuck-marohn-planning.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Strong Towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/mission/
  6. Strong Towns: http://strongtowns.org
  7. Podcast: Stacy Mitchell on the Big Box Swindle, Strong Towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/19/stacy-mitchell
  8. Big-Box Swindle: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807035009
  9. Report: How Rising Commercial Rents are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities are Doing About It: https://ilsr.org/affordable-space/
  10. A Case for Height Restrictions, Strong Towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/11/3/the-case-for-height-restrictions
  11. Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  12. The Cost of Auto Orientation, Update (a.k.a. The Taco John’s Analysis): https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/7/22/the-cost-of-auto-orientation-update.html#.U9cV__ldUhk
  13. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781400067824
  14. Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume 1: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781478319276
  15. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  18. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  19. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  20. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  21. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  22. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  23. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  24. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/strong-towns-blp-episode-37/


Pricing Report From Berkman Klein Center: Municipal Broadband Subscribers Get Better Rates

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 10, 2018 8:29 am

The FCC collects data from Internet Service Providers that reflects census blocks where they offer service to at least one premise. Currently, the Commission does not collect information about rates subscribers pay. A new report from the Berkman Klein Center[1] dives into prices subscribers pay and also looks at trends from national companies as well as local publicly owned networks. The report, Community-Owned Fiber Networks: Value Leaders in America, supports what we’ve always found — that publicly owned networks offer the best all around value for the communities that make the investment.

Download and read the full report here[2].

In the Abstract, authors David Talbot, Kira Hessekiel, and Danielle Kehl describe their approach:

We collected advertised prices for residential data plans offered by 40 community-owned (typically municipally owned) Internet service providers (ISPs) that offer fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service. We then identified the least-expensive service that meets the federal definition of broadband—at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload—and compared advertised prices to those of private competitors in the same markets. We found that most community-owned FTTH networks charged less and offered prices that were clear and unchanging, whereas private ISPs typically charged initial low promotional or “teaser” rates that later sharply rose, usually after 12 months. We were able to make comparisons in 27 communities. We found that in 23 cases, the community-owned FTTH providers’ pricing was lower when averaged over four years. (Using a three year-average changed this fraction to 22 out of 27.) In the other 13 communities, comparisons were not possible, either because the private providers’ website terms of service deterred or prohibited data collection or because no competitor offered service that qualified as broadband. We also made the incidental finding that Comcast offered different prices and terms for the same service in different regions.

The report offers frank visual comparisons of the authors’ findings. Most of the comparisons show big national providers advertising offering service in the markets, but there are a few places where small independents advertise services similar to that offered by the publicly owned network.

Comcast Chaos

The authors investigation discovered support for what many Comcast subscribers have complained about — the cable provider’s rates and terms are far from consistent across the country. They discovered:

Presenting prices as a range – Comcast sometimes defined a monthly price as a range (between $2 and nearly $15 monthly), leaving it unclear what consumers would be paying.

Varying teaser rates – Comcast employed different teaser rate progressions, including a price increase after 12 months and two price increases over a period of three years.

Discounts for paperless billing and automatic payments – In four communities, the promotional price Comcast advertised in bold was only available to customers who allowed Comcast to automatically charge monthly payments to their credit card or bank. Prices were $10 higher for customers who did not agree, a practice that penalizes consumers without credit cards or bank accounts or who are reluctant to provide permission.

Service with or without a contract – In Issaquah, WA, and Longmont, CO, Comcast offered consumers a choice of taking service through a 12-month contract or doing so without a contract (and its potential cancellation fees) for $10 more a month. As a result, anyone who chose the plan without a contract but didn’t end up canceling within the first year would spend an additional $120.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Berkman Klein Center: https://cyber.harvard.edu/
  2. Download and read the full report here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2018-01-10-Berkman-Klein-Pricing-Report.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/pricing-report-from-berkman-klein-center-municipal-broadband-subscribers-get-better-rates/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/pricing-report-from-berkman-klein-center-municipal-broadband-subscribers-get-better-rates/


North Dakota’s Exceptional Fiber Networks – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 288

by Christopher Mitchell | January 9, 2018 10:44 am

This is episode 288 of our Community Broadband Bits podcast! Community Broadband Bits[1] is a short weekly podcast featuring interviews with people building community networks or otherwise involved with Internet policy.

With only about 757,000 residents and more than 710,000 square miles North Dakota is ranked 53rd in population density among U.S. states, territories, and Washington DC. There may not be many people there, but North Dakota has some of the best connectivity in the United States. Why? Rural cooperatives and independent companies have made continued investments.

In episode 288, Christopher interviews Robin Anderson, Sales Manager for National Information Solutions Cooperative[2]. Robin’s been working in the industry for years and has been involved in bringing better Internet access to rural areas in North Dakota. She has firsthand experience with the issues that arise during deployments and describes the camaraderie that grew naturally out of necessity when small, independent providers worked to achieve their goals to improve connectivity for cooperative members and rural subscribers.

Robin also touches on how federal loan funding helped so many of the cooperatives get started with fiber and how they took the next steps to self-fund as the demand grew. Christopher and Robin talk about the economics of fiber optic networks for cooperatives and the reasoning behind fiber investment in rural areas. They discuss some specific examples of the way collaboration in North Dakota has resulted in better networks.

This show is 28 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes[3] or the tool of your choice using this feed[4].

You can download this mp3 file directly from here[5]. Listen to other episodes here[6] or view all episodes in our index[7].

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle[8] and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[9]. Read the original here[10].

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Bits: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  2. National Information Solutions Cooperative: https://www.nisc.coop/
  3. via iTunes: https://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  4. using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  5. mp3 file directly from here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/audio/comm-bb-bits-podcast-288-robin-anderson-north-dakota.mp3
  6. other episodes here: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  7. in our index: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-bits-podcast-index
  8. Warm Duck Shuffle: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/arnebhus/arnebhus_-_Singles/Warm_Duck_Shuffle
  9. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  10. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/north-dakotas-exceptional-fiber-networks-community-broadband-bits-podcast-288

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/north-dakotas-exceptional-fiber-networks-community-broadband-bits-podcast-288/


ILSR Convenes the 5th National Cultivating Community Composting Forum

by Brenda Platt | January 8, 2018 6:00 pm

In collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle[1], the Institute for Local Self-Reliance announces two events to be held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show, COMPOST2018[2], in Atlanta:

Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop[3]
Monday, January 22, 2018
Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2018[4]
Tuesday, January 23, 2018

These events will bring together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community-scale composting systems and enterprises. The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2018 is the 5th national forum sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle.

Community composters, please join us! While our scholarship deadline has passed, we can still secure the community composter registration rate for you. Email Virginia Streeter at vstreeter@ilsr.org[5].

Links:

  • 5th National Cultivating Community Composting Forum Agenda[6]
  • RSVP for the Community Work Day & Compost Bin Build at the Urban Conservation Training Institute[7]
  • See participating organizations[8]
  • Sponsor the forum and workshop![9]
  • Donate to our ioby crowdfunding campaign for scholarships[10]
  • COMPOST2018 Event Page[11]
  • Last year’s CCC Forum presentations[12]

Learn more about community composting, check out our Composting for Community podcast[13], our new video[14] featuring past attendees, and our other composting resources[15].

Email composting4community@gmail.com[16] to join the Community Composting Coalition.

 

Thank you so much to our current sponsors!

 

[17]
Last year’s community composter group in Los Angeles.

(more…)[18]

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Endnotes:
  1. BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/
  2. COMPOST2018: https://compostconference.com
  3. Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-workshop-agenda/
  4. Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2018: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-forum-agenda/
  5. vstreeter@ilsr.org: mailto:vstreeter@ilsr.org
  6. 5th National Cultivating Community Composting Forum Agenda: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-forum-agenda/
  7. RSVP for the Community Work Day & Compost Bin Build at the Urban Conservation Training Institute: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/compost-bin-build-at-ucti-tickets-41420517884
  8. See participating organizations: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-attendees/
  9. Sponsor the forum and workshop!: https://ilsr.org/support-composting-forum/
  10. Donate to our ioby crowdfunding campaign for scholarships: https://www.ioby.org/project/cultivate-community-composting
  11. COMPOST2018 Event Page: https://compostconference.com
  12. Last year’s CCC Forum presentations: https://ilsr.org/notes-from-ccc2017/
  13. Composting for Community podcast: https://ilsr.org/composting-for-community-podcast-homepage/
  14. new video: https://ilsr.org/video-community-composting/
  15. other composting resources: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting/
  16. composting4community@gmail.com: mailto:composting4community@gmail.com
  17. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CCC-Forum-2017-Group-Shot.jpg
  18. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018/


Longmont Reduces Rate For Residential Gigabit Internet Service

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 8, 2018 4:46 am

In the midst of price increase announcements from Comcast and others[1] for 2018, gigabit subscribers in Longmont, Colorado, are enjoying a price decrease[2] from their publicly owned network, NextLight.

Happy New Year

As of January 1st, standard residential gigabit Internet access rates dropped from $99.95 per month to $69.95 per month. According to Longmont Power and Communications (LPC), about 28 existing subscribers obtained gigabit speeds at the old rate; along with any new gigabit subscribers, the existing customers will receive the new rate.

In addition to this most recent price reduction, NextLight offers a loyalty bonus for subscribers who obtain service for 12 continuous months. Gigabit subscribers who qualify have rates reduced to $59.95 per month. Charter Members — residents who subscribe for services within three months that service is available within their area — are able to receive gigabit connectivity for $49.95 per month as long as they keep their services. Charter Member rates stay with the premise if they sell their home and take that rate with them to their new residence. NextLight subscribers can also sign up for[3] 25 Mbps service for $39.95 per month.

All speeds are symmetrical so subscribers can take advantage of the robust upload speeds. Subscribers are better positioned to work from home and establish at-home businesses. With symmetrical connectivity, Longmont’s school children can take full advantage of web based home work programs and adults who want to pursue distance learning don’t have the hurdle of poor Internet access to handicap their goals.

Part Of The Success

In addition to affordable rates, NextLight offers promotions to increase sign-ups. Subscribers who successfully refer others will get one month of free service for each new subscriber. NextLight is extending the promotion to its Digital Voice service during the first three months in 2018.

“We’re customer-based and customer-focused,” Longmont Power and Communications General Manager Tom Roiniotis said in a statement.

“This is a further opportunity for residents who didn’t sign up during the initial city wide buildout so that they can become part of the success that Colorado’s first Gig City has proven to be.”

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[4]. Read the original here[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. price increase announcements from Comcast and others: https://www.fiercecable.com/cable/comcast-and-dish-raise-prices-again-despite-steep-ongoing-customer-losses
  2. enjoying a price decrease: http://www.timescall.com/longmont-local-news/ci_31570326/longmont-nextlight-cuts-rate
  3.  can also sign up for: https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/home/showdocument?id=20459
  4. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/longmont-reduces-rate-residential-gig

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/longmont-reduces-rate-for-residential-gigabit-internet-service/


Arlington, Virginia Bridges the Digital Divide

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 5, 2018 6:31 am

People living at the Arlington Mill Residences[1] in Arlington, Virginia, are on track to obtain no-cost high-quality connectivity this fall, likely through the ConnectArlington[2] network. The initiative is an example of how one local community plans to use its publicly owned Internet infrastructure to reduce the digital divide on its home turf.

The Homework Gap

Within Arlington Mill’s 122 affordable units, live 159 children; approximately half of the residences do not subscribe to an Internet access service. Because homework is increasingly dependent on a child’s ability to work online, kids at Arlington Mills must contend with the problem of finding access to computers and the Internet. For households that do subscribe, no-cost Internet access would free up monthly resources from $50 – $75 per month.

The Department of Technology Services (DTS) and Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development (CPHD) are collaborating to support the Arlington Digital Inclusion initiative. The initiative will start in Arlington Mills by providing free Wi-Fi to each unit and will eventually move to other properties owned by the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH). As the program moves forward, the city plans to seek out private donations and other grants to reduce the digital divide. The program will also be exploring ways to help residents obtain reduced cost or free devices or computers to take advantage of the high-quality connectivity. APAH has already applied for a 2019 Community Development Fund grant to cover the cost of training and notebook computers for residents.

APAH expects to choose an ISP that will use ConnectArlington, the county’s dark fiber network infrastructure.

The network began offering dark fiber services to business customers in 2015, but the infrastructure has been in place since 2012. Arlington took advantage of several infrastructure projects, including traffic control upgrades and other public safety improvements, to expand its fiber footprint. In 2014, Christopher spoke with Jack Belcher, who shared ConnectArlington’s backstory, for episode 97[3] of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

County Funding

A grant supported by county Tax Increment Funding (TIF) will pay to get the project rolling. In December, the Arlington County Board unanimously voted to approve[4] the $94,500 grant to APAH, which will cover the cost of hardware and software, maintenance, and approximately $25,000 toward Internet service, and dark fiber fees to ConnectArlington, if the ISP APAH chooses delivers services via the publicly owned infrastructure. As APAH looks for an ISP, they will seek out a provider that is willing to make in-kind contributions to cover any fees beyond the amount prescribed by the grant. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Arlington Mill Residences: https://housing.arlingtonva.us/affordable-housing/arlington-mill/
  2. ConnectArlington: https://departments.arlingtonva.us/dts/connectarlington/fact-sheet/
  3. episode 97: https://muninetworks.org/content/connecting-arlington-anchors-businesses-community-broadband-bits-podcast-97
  4. unanimously voted to approve: https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/release/arlington-launches-digital-inclusion-initiative/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/arlington-virginia-bridges-the-digital-divide/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/arlington-virginia-bridges-the-digital-divide/


Oconee County, South Carolina: Achieving Connectivity Goals Beyond AT&T Obstruction

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 2, 2018 10:06 am

Most residents and businesses in Oconee County, South Carolina, used dial-up connections when county officials applied for stimulus funding in 2010; there were still people in the county with no Internet access at all. A few had DSL connections, but even county facilities struggled with antiquated infrastructure. After an AT&T attack upended their plan to offer retail services, they pressed on and improved connectivity in the rural community. Powerful incumbent forces and a bad state law, however, eventually led this community to choose privatization.

Ripe For Stimulus

We spoke with Kim Wilbanks, who served as Project Manager for Oconee FOCUS, the 240-mile fiber optic publicly owned network. She worked with a small team of people that applied for funding[1] through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to obtain funds for the project. Wilbanks and former FOCUS Director Mike Powell were instrumental in establishing the infrastructure. The Wilbanks family used dial-up Internet access until 2010 when AT&T finally installed DSL on her street on the edge of town in the mostly rural county.

The mountains and hills across the county’s 674 square miles create a terrain that is speckled with man-made lakes. Fishing, water skiing, and sailing are popular and the lakes and waterfalls contribute to the region’s hydroelectric energy. Approximately 75,000 people live in Oconee County scattered within many of the small rural communities. The largest city’s population is only about 8,000.

Oconee County’s rural environment with a sparse population, sluggish economic growth, and high number of unserved and underserved premises, was the type of region where stimulus funds helped jump start projects. When the county received a grant in the second round of awards in the summer of 2010 for $9.6 million, officials at the county planned to connect community anchor institutions and municipal and county facilities first. They planned to later expand and bring businesses and residents better Internet access. The county matched the federal grant with $4.7 million to deploy the $14.3 million fiber optic infrastructure. After the RFP process, they were able to start construction in early 2011. By the end of 2013, they had finished construction; by 2014 six providers offered services[2] via the publicly owned fiber infrastructure in the northwest corner of the state. It was obvious that the community was eager to connect to high-quality Internet access.

att-death-star.PNGProblems From The Incumbent

In 2011 and 2012, AT&T sent its many lobbyists to South Carolina to try to stop Oconee County and any other community that might have considered improving their local connectivity through publicly owned infrastructure. When AT&T lobbyists convinced state legislators to pass H3508[3] in 2012, county officials had to change their business model to avoid running afoul of the law. They had planned on operating as a utility and offering retail services to the general public, but after the bill passed, Oconee was forced to operate as a wholesale only model.  (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. applied for funding: https://www2.ntia.doc.gov/files/grantee/7461_county_of_oconee_final_ea_executive_summary.pdf
  2. six providers offered services: http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/25370473/six-isps-offer-internet-through-oconee-co-focus
  3. state legislators to pass H3508: https://muninetworks.org/content/south-carolinas-exceptions-anti-community-broadband-law-are-worthless
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/oconee-county-south-carolina-achieving-connectivity-goals-beyond-att-obstruction/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/oconee-county-south-carolina-achieving-connectivity-goals-beyond-att-obstruction/


Community Of Coulee Dam Acquires Local Fiber For Future

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 29, 2017 5:45 am

The central Washington community of Coulee Dam took a significant step this month to establishing its own fiber optic network. At a December 27th special city council meeting, they announced that they had purchased one mile of fiber optic cable and equipment from Basin Broadband, LLC, for $34,995.

According to The Star[1], the former owners had only one customer and used the infrastructure to connect the local school district’s offices with the school on the opposite side of town. The district pays $170 per month to lease the line and their agreement expires in 2020; the city promised to honor the agreement.

Changing Charters

Community leaders have considered the prospect of starting a publicly owned fiber optic network for at least 16 months, when they began seeking out the owner of the infrastructure. The city’s population is only approximately 1,100 people, which means national incumbents have little interest in providing high-quality connectivity. CenturyLink offers DSL for residential and business service, but town leaders want to improve economic development possibilities[2] with fiber.

This past summer, the city council began discussing  changing the community’s legal designation[3] in order to step out from under Washington’s restrictive laws that govern the authority of “towns.” City Attorney Mick Howe advised that if the city changed its charter to operate as a “non-charter code city,” they would have more authority. Rather than acting only on specifically allowed activities in state law, they could act as long as they were not engaging in specifically forbidden activities as spelled out in state law.

Councilmember Keith St. Jeor said he knows people who settled in other towns because they have Internet service that is “100 times better.”

Councilmember Schmidt said the town is severely lacking in technology solutions and that they were not likely to come from private enterprise because of the small population. Changing to a code city would simply allow the municipality to explore more options.

“You might be surprised what solutions you find when you have more opportunities,” he said, in favor of starting the process.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. According to The Star: http://www.grandcoulee.com/story/2017/12/27/news/city-acquires-fiber-optics-in-preparation-to-offer-service/9794.html
  2. improve economic development possibilities: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  3. changing the community’s legal designation: http://www.grandcoulee.com/story/2017/06/21/news/town-will-consider-changing-into-a-city/9005.html
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/community-of-coulee-dam-acquires-local-fiber-for-future/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/community-of-coulee-dam-acquires-local-fiber-for-future/


The Rising Anti-Monopoly Movement (Episode 36)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 28, 2017 12:00 pm

“These monopoly utilities have grown too powerful for the utility regulators to rein them in,” says John Farrell of the power of monopoly electric utilities in our economy in an illustration of just one of the many industries where monopoly power reigns.

Monopoly power is an ineffable part of our society, but a new movement is coming up to tackle it. In this episode of the Building Local Power podcast[5], host Christopher Mitchell[6] sits down with podcast host & ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell[7] as well as ILSR initiative director John Farrell[8].

The trio tackle our reality of increased corporate consolidation across a number of industries, including broadband Internet access, retail and E-commerce, and electric utilities. They also knit together their research focuses and connect them into how an anti-monopoly movement is brewing where everyday Americans are standing up and saying “enough”.

“At some point, inevitably, the power of those corporations is so big that there’s no way for public oversight to be effective at regulating them,” says Stacy Mitchell in this episode.

“The solution has to be to disperse the power.”

 

Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[9] — “Between 1997 and 2012, the number of small manufacturers fell by more 70,000, local retailers saw their ranks diminish by about 108,000, and the number of community banks and credit unions dropped by half, from about 26,000 to 13,000. At the same time, starting a new business appears to have become harder than ever. The number of startups launched annually has fallen by nearly half since the 1970s.” Read more of our report for this perspective.

Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win (Episode 30)[10] — This podcast episode with the Open Markets Institute’s Barry Lynn discusses how we got to here in our monopoly economy and how he has hope that we will win against the monopolists who are robbing our political economy.

Mergers and Monopoly: How Concentration Changes the Electricity Business[11] — This policy brief from our Energy Democracy initiative research team details the consolidation rampant in our electricity industry. It also runs through how these utilities leverage their growing economic power into political power.

Monopoly Power and Network Neutrality[12] — With the repeal of net neutrality rules by the Federal Communications Commission it’s useful to explore the reasons why this move enables monopoly corporations to take over more of our lives.

ILSR’s Monopoly Tag[13] — Follow the “monopoly” tag on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s website to get the latest news on monopoly power in our economy from all of the initiatives at ILSR.

Our guests recommend the following items:

  • “Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money[14],” by Tony Bartelme, The Charleston Post & Courier

  • “From Territorial to Functional Sovereignty: The Case of Amazon[15],” by Frank Pasquale, Law and Political Economy Blog

  • “8 Policy Strategies Cities Can Use to Support Local Businesses[16],” by Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Christopher Mitchell: Here we are at the end of December in the year of 2017 with a rising anti-monopoly movement. Hey Stacy, I know that you’re not in DC. But can you tell us what the perspective is in DC from very serious people regarding this rising anti-monopoly movement?
Stacy Mitchell: I don’t know if I can speak for very serious people. But I’ll try.
Christopher Mitchell: Alright.
Stacy Mitchell: So the good news out of DC, I think is that we have got more elected officials who are concerned about growing concentration. We’ve got a new anti-trust caucus that’s formed in the House that law makers are joining.

Just yesterday we had a hearing in the anti-trust subcommittee looking at whether or not the consumer welfare standard that has guided anti-trust policies since the days of Ronald Reagan is the right framework. Or whether or not we need to enlarge or get rid of that or adjust it in different ways.

Christopher Mitchell: Stacy, I’m sorry. Did you say the citizen welfare framework?
Stacy Mitchell: No. I said the consumer welfare framework.
Christopher Mitchell: Could you just briefly tell us what that is?
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, absolutely. Back in the 1970s there was this movement among economists and law scholars to alter our anti-trust laws. They said prior to that, for decades and decades and decades anti-trust had, had this broad view. It said we need to disperse economic power broadly in society in order to protect democracy, in order to make sure that people, when they’re selling their labor or selling their goods have fair access to markets in order to protect our freedom, in order to keep our communities healthy.

All of these values were part of the overall framework that guided how we looked at things like whether some companies should be able to merge. How we looked at those kinds of issues. But then this group of people came around in the 1970s and they said, “No, no, no. None of that stuff should matter. The only thing that should matter is short-term prices for consumers. If a merger, or what’s happening in the economy is going to benefit consumers in the short-term, then it’s a good thing. That’s all that should matter.” That’s what’s known as the consumer welfare standard. It’s been the reigning law of the land since the early 1980s.

As I said, the good news is that there’s beginning to be this discussion about whether or not that’s a good idea. Whether we should think about how concentration affects workers, affects small businesses, affects communities. People are saying these broader values need to come back into the mix of how we look at anti-trust issues. So there was this hearing yesterday in the anti-trust subcommittee in the Senate. We had some good speakers. Barry Lynn was there from Open Markets Institute and gave a great testimony about why we do need to have a broader way of looking at an anti-trust.

The bad news is that we had folks from the establishment, you could say, Carl Shapiro, who used to be on the Obama administration. Josh Wright, who’s been a very close ally and within the Trump administration on these issues. Both of whom spoke up in favor of this narrow consumer welfare standard. We are hearing this pushback from the anti-trust bar, the attorney’s bar, saying “We don’t want to hear what the public thinks about concentration. We want to keep it to those of us who are experts, who understand these issues and this is the way things work. The folks who are raising questions about concentration, you just don’t know what you’re talking about.” I find that’s a really dismaying way to approach this. 

Christopher Mitchell: It’s time to drain the swamp bar.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, exactly. And of course, all of this Chris, was happening on the eve of this big net neutrality decision, which is just an earthquake in competition policy. Tell us what you’ve been doing on that.
Christopher Mitchell: Sure. Let me start by just noting that you’ve been listing to Stacy Mitchell, the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I am Chris Mitchell. I do a lot of broadband work. I over see our broadband work at least. I am the mouthpiece for great research that we do. John Farrell works on our energy policy and he’s over here quietly in the corner.
John Farrell: If Chris is the mouthpiece, I’m just the ears.
Christopher Mitchell: Stacy, what you were just saying actually reminded me of something that I just saw, which was in the discussion today where they repealed network neutrality, the principle that basically says that monopolies don’t get to screw us on the internet access that we need for our economy to work.

One of the republican commissioners called out the first federal trade commissioner from Obama’s first term and said that this guy thinks that what we’re doing is perfectly fine. Well it turns out that Obama’s first federal trade commission chair is now working for one of the biggest monopolies in broadband and of course has a different point of view now. A reminder of how we may have come further with the grassroots movement, but still have a long way to go.

But the digression aside, what we’re seeing is that we just had network neutrality repealed. Which is a principle that when you pay for internet access, you’re paying for the entire internet. That your service provider cannot block sites. It can’t decide that some sites are going to load much slower than others because they’re not paying their extortion fees. They can’t enact toll booths in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

That, in fact, the internet is effectively a utility. I don’t really like that language, because utility is complicated and utility can mean different things and we regulate different utilities in different ways. But it is the difference between something that we rely on and we take very seriously in terms of all Americans having equal access to effectively. And a system in which people just pay for what they can get and they’re at the mercy of the market. We’ve moved very strongly in the direction of being at mercy of the market.

Now John follows this issue very closely, I know. So I’m curious if you have any thoughts on this network neutrality debate before we really focus on what we’re seeing in a broader anti-monopoly movement over the year 2017 and then looking back and then forward.

John Farrell: The one thought that I keep coming back to in this debate about network neutrality is, what does meaningful choice in the market mean? The folks who were voting for the repeal were suggesting that consumers can exercise choices. This gets back to what Stacy was saying about the consumer welfare perspective around monopoly.

I think, Chris, you’ve done some excellent work and shared a lot on social media and our website, the community network’s website about the limited choices that people already have. This notion that as consumers that we can somehow make choices between companies to get what it is that we want. To avoid the toll lanes. To avoid the toll booths if you will.

And yet, there aren’t really very many meaningful choices. We see that in the energy sector as well. I’ll talk about that more in a few minutes. But I think we’re at this point where the concentration is getting so severe that the notion that we can somehow exercise power as consumers is really a misnomer. 

Christopher Mitchell: I really appreciate you prompting me in that way because we’ve done some interesting research and it’s worth noting that the Federal Communications Commission is largely captive of the cable and telephone companies. One of the side effects of that is that the data it collects is not very good and is very difficult to deal with.

So I want to pay supreme respect to Hannah and Chris in our office who basically cracked open the FCC database and did an analysis to show that 100 million Americans only have internet access through one of the four providers that we were looking at, Charter, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon that have a history of violating network neutrality. In 50 million households, they only have one option among those four providers. And then in another 50 million households, they have a choice between those providers.

Which is to say that if they don’t like the way AT&T is screwing them over, then they can go with Charter and also not have an open internet through them in the future, now that the federal government has abdicated its role as a regulator. We put this information out there and we’re going to be able to do some more interesting things to show the total lack of market competition. Frankly, there’s no sense that there is new effective market competition on the way.

Stacy Mitchell: It’s astonishing what’s happening with these gatekeepers. Whether it’s around the cable, internet providers. Whether it’s what we’re seeing with Amazon as a gatekeeper for commerce. Whether it’s what we’re seeing with Facebook and Google. These platforms that increasingly control and direct the flow of information and commerce in our society. You can name on practically one hand who they are. 90% of global ad revenue is now being picked up by Google and Facebook.

It’s no wonder that news organizations are laying people off. They’re the ones creating the content but Facebook has been so effective at creating this wall to garden, where people get their news there and never actually go to the sites that are generating that content.

We’ve been hearing just in the last few days from businesses that are now getting pushed off of Apple’s App Store. So Apple has said that if you’re a small business and you’re using one of these template based programs to generate an app for yourself, say you’re a pizza business. You want to be able to have customers order through an app and get their delivery set up that way. A lot of times you’ll use an off-the-shelf product that’s similar to WordPress for websites.

Apple has said, “No, no. We’re going to clean up the App Store. So any of these template based websites, they’re going to go.” What that means is small businesses who can’t afford to pay someone to develop an app just for them, are going to be completely walled off. It’s just like this power to direct commerce, to direct eyeballs, to direct information is really astonishing.

Christopher Mitchell: I’d just like to amplify what you just said Stacy, regarding all that ad revenue going … Basically Google and Facebook. Because there was a time when we were really worried that Craigslist had taken a lot of money away from newspapers. Because they made a lot of money off of classified listings. But now all of their money has gone away to these companies. We need this journalism so incredibly. This would be a great time to segway into John’s piece.

But actually, just want to make one other point, which is that Stacy’s glitching every now and then because she’s one of 30 million Americans who live between Maine and Virginia where they’re stuck with no good option. She basically only has an option of cable access. And even though she’s paying for a connection that would be very good and allow us to have high quality audio, we cannot get that from them on a regular basis, from Charter. This is something that monopoly is impacting our ability to bring you this analysis as we speak. I think we’ll come back to telecom a little bit. But John, tell us a little bit about the role of newspapers lately. 

John Farrell: Yeah, I think this is a really fascinating story. Just in the past few weeks, at the beginning of December, the South Carolina Post and Courier broke an enormous story. Just a terrific, could have been a series. A terrific piece of investigative journalism looking into monopoly-regulated utilities.

I just first of all want to highlight when we talk about the energy sector, we are talking about an area in which the word utility is literally meant and describes the actors and the players in the market. But that this has for over 100 years been a very tightly regulated sector where in over 30 states utility companies have a monopoly over a certain service territory. And if you are a customer, you have only one choice and that is the utility that the state has chosen to serve you.

What they found was that essentially these monopoly utilities have grown too powerful for the public regulators to reign in. Part of it was a handout from state government that allowed these utilities to get what’s called construction work in progress. To essentially take money and collect money from customers for power plants before they were producing electricity. I want to quote what the journalist has said who had published this piece that it set off a “bonfire of risky spending $40 billion by four utilities across five states.” $40 billion by these four utilities across five states. For power plants that have almost entirely, are not defunct. That the projects became so expensive and so unwieldy that they have now been retired.

And yet, customers are wholly responsible for the cost of those projects. They gave as an example the city of Charleston, South Carolina owes so much to one of these defunct nuclear power plants that it’s enough money for them to hire 26 additional police officers on a monthly basis, that they pay for power plants that will never produce a single electron.

Christopher Mitchell: I want to hang out here for just one second, John. ‘Cause I think you misspoke briefly when you said customers. It’s worth noting, these are rate payers. We use a different term for that. Because these are people that have no choice. One of the things that this article did really well, I think, was it basically points out that these are people who are taking your wallet into the casino, they’re maxing out your credit card, they’re taking the risk. And whenever they win, they walk away with those winnings. And when they lose, you get to pay that credit card bill.
John Farrell: Exactly. And the trade off that we made, to be clear, is that 100 years ago, the trade off that we made was to say, “We’ll allow this monopoly structure, we’ll allow people to not have choices as customers to all be rate payers. We’ll instate these public regulatory commissions, these oversight commissions to ensure that that money is spent responsibly.”

What this article essentially reveals is that with the help of the legislature, which has in many cases been heavily lobbied and financed by the utility companies, that they were able to run away with rate payer money and to fritter it away at a time when executives continued to get performance bonuses, despite projects that were clearly not going to result in the production of electricity. It’s an enormous scandal in the southeast.

But it actually highlights an ongoing problem that we’re seeing in the utility sector and it’s especially becoming poignant now because the technology and the energy system is moving in exactly the opposite direction from monopoly. That while for 100 years this industry was concentrated for the reason that power plants were large and expensive. And therefore we believed that we needed large, capital intensive businesses to build them. We’re now going in the opposite direction. There’s no longer a monopoly over power generation.

I couldn’t put a coal power plant on my roof. It would have been silly. They don’t build them that small. But I can certainly put solar panels up there. I can put a battery in my garage to store that energy. I can have an electric vehicle that I can charge from those solar panels. We’re at this fascinating moment where the utilities aided sometimes by commissions that they’ve captured and legislatures are running in one direction, doubling down on the last century’s model of centralized power generation and making incredibly risky bets.

At the same time, that all the technology and the economic opportunity is moving the opposite direction. We have this exciting grassroots resistance by customers being able to make different choices. It’s actually spreading as well to cities. You have over 50 cities in the United States that have said, “We actually want 100% of our electricity to come from renewable resources.” And throwing that in the face of the utility and saying, “If you can’t do it, then we’re going to try to do it.”

And in California, where they have a law, enabling communities to make that choice, to choose where they get their power from. 85% of electric customers in California, who won’t be rate payers anymore, they’ll be customers. By 2020 will be supplied by someone other than those incumbent utility monopolies. Most likely by their own city or county, which will be making those choices for them. When customers get a choice, they exercise it in a big way. You can see of course, from the story in the southeast, $40 billion dollars bonfire, why they might want to do so. 

Stacy Mitchell: What’s fascinating to me about this reporting about southern companies and Duke Energy and the other utilities that have been basically exploiting their ability to take dollars from rate payers for these obsolete plants. It really illustrates, I think, this problem of when you allow corporations to concentrate so much power and then you expect that there is going to be public oversight. These are publicly regulated utilities.

At some point, inevitably, the power of those corporations is that they become so big that there’s no way for public oversight to really be effective at regulating them. We still have to think about it’s not as though the solution is simply just to have bigger and bigger government. The solution has to be, how do we disperse the power to begin with. It’s really exciting to hear that there’s so much movement on the energy front to do that. 

John Farrell: Stacy, I just want to emphasize that point that you make about the limitations of public oversight and of government when these utilities continue to grow and merge. We actually just published a report in the last couple of months in the way that mergers of utilities give them essentially not just economies of scale in the economy in building power plants, but economies of scale and lobbying. That they can now learn the best tactics, the best strategies in multiple different states and jurisdictions to get the regulators to let them go their way.For example, in Minnesota, earlier this year, we had

the incumbent monopoly not getting a satisfactory result from the regulatory commission about building a new gas plant, go instead to the legislature, where there are 50 lobbyists, one for every four legislatures in the Minnesota legislature could run around and get them the result that they want, which is a billion dollar power plant and a big return for their shareholders. 

Christopher Mitchell: When we started off this podcast, I made a mention about very serious people. Which is actually a phrase that Paul Krugman uses. I’m actually not a reader of his. But I just listened to a podcast he did with Ezra Klein. He introduces this idea, which I’m sure he’s talked about before. But I had never heard it.

Which was, you have conservative professional economists. And then you have professional conservative economists. Which I think of as the Wall Street editorial board. Which is an economist who use language to just justify whatever the big companies want.

One of the things I’d like, John, you to just very briefly react to is nuclear power plants. Because they played a role in this. One of the things that just drives me nuts is whenever I hear one of these professional conservative economists talk about how we need more market-driven solutions, like nuclear power. How do you react when you hear that?

John Farrell: There is no power source for our electric grid that is more subsidized and underwritten by the public sector than nuclear power. They have loan guarantees. They have unlimited liability for nuclear accidents. They have guarantees and credits and rebates that have been provided by the Federal Government and by the states. Right, and storage of nuclear waste as well. In fact, Minnesota, funny enough, is one of the few states that actually charge utilities for that storage. Which we should all be doing.

2017 is a great year to talk about this because nuclear power plants are being propped up in many markets across the country because they are no longer competitive. The existing plants cannot compete. The new plants can’t be built. They’re simply not competitive anymore against the technologies that we have, rooftop solar, wind power, energy storage. Nobody could build a nuclear power plant, even with all of those loan guarantees and liability being underwritten by the Federal Government.

It’s laughable, this notion that somehow nuclear power has any role to play in a competitive market in energy. It’s really going to be the stuff that’s coming from the outside, the entrepreneurial solutions like people coming in and helping you install solar on your rooftop. People packaging solar and energy storage or ways that you can buy solar along with an electric vehicle.

Christopher Mitchell: At the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we are a small non-profit. Heck, you’ve been listening to most of our senior staff just now. We’re a small organization that does a lot with a limited budget. When you donate to ILSR, you don’t just help us pay the bills, you tell us that our work is valuable and we should keep doing it. Please donate at ilsr.org/donate once again, that’s ilsr.og/donate

Also, please tell other people about our work. Share that post on social media or copy it onto a cassette for that hipster friend of yours. Now, let’s get back to building local power.

As we continue to talk about some of the major mergers and the implications of monopoly power toward the end of 2017, there’s another one that’s popped up, that we want to discuss again before we reflect on how we got here over the course of 2017.

That’s Aetna and CVS. Why is that a big deal Stacy? I see you on the monitor rolling your eyes. This is something that’s obviously very close to you. I grew up thinking of CVS as just a place where I could buy candy bars. I’ve since learned that it’s something much more different than that.

Stacy Mitchell: I can’t even believe that this is on the table for consideration. It’s just stunning to me. And part because CVS is this huge pharmacy chain. Obviously we all experience that. They’re everywhere. They’re the biggest or the second biggest pharmacy chain.

They also own one of the largest pharmacy benefit management companies, CVS Health. That’s a company that decides what reimbursements rates are for other pharmacies, what drugs are covered. They basically manage your prescription drug benefits on behalf of insurers.

CVS has this long track record. Because of that conflict of interest that they have of basically squeezing independent pharmacies behind the scenes. Basically saying, “You can either take this reimbursement rate that is so low you will lose money on every prescription drug you fill. Or we can just leave you off the list and then people who have this particular type of insurance won’t even be able to get their prescription at your store.”

CVS has been doing that in order to steer people to its own mail order and retail pharmacies using its power as an insurance reimbursement. And then they’ve also been jacking up prices to consumers and limiting choices. There’s lots of evidence that people want to have choices, that they prefer the service at local pharmacies and they’re often being denied that.

So now, they want to go a big step further and buy a major health insurance company and have this lock on people from start to finish. When it comes to healthcare provision. They’re envisioning this idea of having more and more clinics in CVS stores. Basically, they’ll control your insurance, what’s covered, where you can use it and they will steer people to their own operations.

The idea that given how incredibly consolidated the healthcare system is, and that we know that that consolidation is driving the huge increases in prices and is pushing out a lot of community-based hospitals and pharmacies and so on. That we would even be talking about this is really astonishing. 

Christopher Mitchell: It is astonishing. And yet, I feel like I have a little bit more hope now at the end of the year than I did at the beginning of the year. We came in to 2017 looking at an AT&T Time Warner merger, which has been blocked by the Department of Justice. I trust intelligent people that have told me both that the Department of Justice has done this for reasons totally unrelated to the corruption of the Trump administration, and other people that told me that absolutely, the corruption of the Trump administration has pervaded the Department of Justice’s anti-trust unit.

I don’t know what to believe. But it seems like that’s the right decision. I don’t know if you have any comments on that, Stacy, but I’m curious if over the past 12 months you see a shift and you have more hope now, perhaps just because the mergers are slapping everyone in the face at the end of the year. So that you just can’t help that more people are noticing it. 

Stacy Mitchell: I completely agree with you. I have a lot more hope at the end of the year than I did at the beginning of the year. I think a lot has shifted on this issue. I do think in the case of AT&T, Time Warner that the justification that the government is giving for intervening is the right one, which is that we haven’t been paying attention to vertical mergers. Where you have companies that are at different points of the supply chain wanting to merge.

For a long time we’ve thought, “Oh that’s not a problem.” Now, when we look back at those previous mergers that happened that were of this nature, we’re realizing that those were bad ideas. People are beginning to look with more scrutiny on this, including in the Federal Government, which is a good thing.

I’m also more importantly, just incredibly encouraged by the grassroots swell of opposition. Whether it’s people insisting on owning their own power. Whether it’s the level of interest everywhere now, in anti-monopoly policy and concentration. The fact that we’re seeing elected officials respond to that. We’ve got more members of congress and state agencies and other kinds of local elected officials who are talking about concentration in a way that used to be true.

I think you talked about the professional conservative economists and the very important people. I think there’s a way in which the citizens of this country are at the gates saying, “No more. No more. The establishment has been making decisions in ways that have not benefited my community. And we’ve had it. We’re going to start to take reins in our own way.” 

Christopher Mitchell: What you said about the vertical mergers, I smiled a little bit because I got interested in railroads in part because a lot of the telecom regulation actually came after learning lessons from the railroads. One of the reason that railroad barons turned into railroad barons is not just that anyone becomes fantastically wealthy from owning a railroad, but that in particular, if you own the construction companies that are building the railroads, then you get people to invest in the railroads, and then your construction companies, just submit ridiculous bids so the investors of the railroad gets screwed. You walk away with all the money as the owner of both in this vertically owned conglomerate of sorts.

As I was learning about this then I was learning about Berkshire-Hathaway and the power companies that John’s talking about. And learning about Berkshire-Hathaway, one of the things it did for instance, it owns the trains that lead to the power plants. So they can charge a lot of money for the coal to transport the coal. The rate payers have to pay it. Because the public utility commission is regulating the price of the electricity. If the price of the input goes up a lot, well then people just pay more for their electricity.

I think this vertical merger issue is really good that the economists are recognizing it and the damage that can be done under it. But John, I’m just curious if you have any reflections either about vertical mergers, coal plants or just in general actually, how we’re doing at the end of 2017, versus the beginning of it. 

John Farrell: I would agree that over the course of the year, the anti-monopoly conversation that has been happening in the rest of the country, I think, is both feeding off of and feeding back into the anti-monopoly attitudes that have been infusing the electricity business and the energy business. With every passing month, there’s new innovation and de-centralized and distributed technology.

There is more growth of community-based solutions, whether that’s ways that we can invest collectively or ways that people can have actual choices. It’s helpful because this sector is defined by monopoly for over 100 years. People already knew that it was a monopoly. It’s a known fact that we started with monopoly and that we’re moving away from it.

Whereas, I think the challenge I see in some of our other sectors of our economy is that we have had to describe it as monopoly for people to understand. Like your work on Amazon. So I think when I look at the energy sector, I am very optimistic about the fact that not just this enormous story about 40 billions of wasted rate payer money down in the southeast.

But that people are really focused on what are the motivations of the companies who have this monopoly power? How have they exercised it in a way that’s not in our interest and clearly not in our interest and therefore, what solutions can we turn to, to give us those better choices. I think that’s what is coming up here at the end of 2017 and into next year.

Christopher Mitchell: I’m curious, as someone who’s followed Boulder very closely, for several years they’ve been fighting to municipalize the utility to be able to have control of their future. What advice do you give to random community A that asks you, “Is this the best use of our time? Should we be trying to municipalize? Or should we work around them? What should we be doing to build local power to deal with this monopoly in a way that we can at the local level?”
John Farrell: I think random community A might need a communications consultant to pick a better name, first of all, Chris. But what I would say is that Boulder has looked at the choices that it had in front of it for how it could exercise more local authority, how it could get more of what it wanted and settled on municipalization, taking over the utility as really their only substantive option.

So what I would say to cities in this harkens back there was a campaign here in Minneapolis about four years ago called Minneapolis Energy Options. It was run at the same time as the municipal elections. I think the beauty of that concept is that we need to look at all the options that are on the table.

The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota could form a municipal utility. There’s a statute that gives it that legal authority. But there might be a lot of other ways that it could do that too. It could look at purchasing power directly from energy producers and then having it transmitted to the city. It could facilitate community-based energy production. It could use its own water utility, because it has a utility already, to offer financing for energy. I think there’s a lot of options.

Municipalization, it takes a long time. It takes a lot of lawyers. It’s not necessarily the best strategy. But it should always be there on the table as the big stick that you have while you pursue other choices that you might have.

Stacy, I was curious. Something I read just today about Amazon, was making me think about what is a response that we can have to the way that Amazon’s market power is growing. It was about Amazon selling Apple TV and Chromecast, these two video streaming devices. Amazon is now going to start selling them again after two years of prohibiting their sale. Because they were waiting for Apple to provide in its software, on its streaming device, access to Amazon Prime Video.

They essentially said, “We’re not going to sell your product until it allows people to buy our service.” And that seems to be that power of that platform. Ironically, we’re talking about two of the titans in terms of monopoly power, fighting each other.

But what I’m curious is, what is there that gives us hope to change that. You’ve documented, I think, extensively, the degree to which Amazon is growing its power. It controls the amount of searches for eCommerce. The feeling that businesses have that they need access to that platform.

We’re having better conversations, I think, about anti-trust and Federal enforcement. But what are other ways, what are other means for small businesses or for consumers for citizens to participate in changing this system?

Stacy Mitchell: Let me first say, that in terms of actually restructuring Amazon in a way that would open up competition for eCommerce is entirely possible. Although Amazon is something very new in the history of the US economy, it does have these fantasies, the railroads being a good example, a very similar setup where you essentially had very powerful players controlling who got to market. That’s what Amazon had become in its major lines of business.

In terms of using the powers of anti-trust law, it’s all there. At the Federal level, we can and should break Amazon into at least two pieces so that it, as a platform, as a platform that other companies depend on in order to reach the market is a separate entity than Amazon as a retailer and a manufacturer of products. Because there’s inherently a conflict of interest there, which is why and how Amazon uses its market power to undermine those competitors. We should break it into at least two pieces.

We should also apply common carrier kinds of regulations to Amazon’s platform so that it has to treat all commerce fairly and in the public interest according to a set of guidelines there. We also need to think about data. One of the things that gives these big tech companies their power now is the enormous amount of data that they have and the fact that a newcomer to the marketplace can’t replicate that and therefore is at an inherent disadvantage and is easily blocked from being able to compete.

There’s a lot of good thinking going on about how to handle data. Whether it’s that people ought to own their own data and be able to port it to other companies. How we should regulate this use. They’re thinking about it quite closely in Europe and so on. There are tools there at the Federal level.

I would say to your question about what do citizens do. I think that we have to keep raising this issue by continuing to talk about it locally. And in particular, we need to get our local and state law makers sensitized to what’s happening to our local economies.

A huge amount of our tax base is the commercial businesses. The main street retailers that make up our streets and that provide a lot of our property and sales tax revenue. There really isn’t a sense at the local level of what’s at stake and how many jobs are associated with this.

What you see is you’ve got cities all over the country who are for example, putting big bids in to get Amazon second headquarters where we’re talking about giving away literally billions of dollars in public money to land Amazon’s headquarters. We’ve got a lot of subsidies for warehouses. There are a lot of ways in which local governments and local communities have been fueling this as well. That’s part of how we need to push back against this.

Christopher Mitchell: It’s one of those things where I think a lot of us are thinking, “It’s getting so dark. The economy is getting so monopolized. This rising anti-monopoly gives us a hope. But also there’s just a sense of, there’s almost nowhere else to go from here. It’s not like we’re going to just be satisfied with these monopolies. We’re going to see more organizations against them. But we’re running out of time here.

We were hoping to talk a little bit more about where we think it’s going to go. Let me leave this as an exercise for people who are listening, which is to say, you will determine where this goes. Let’s make sure that we’re organizing around things that we need and solving this problem the right way. Making sure that we’re breaking power up and increasing power at the local level so that we can resolve problems without needing another big firm. Make sure we solve the problem of Amazon in a way that doesn’t just give Apple more power for instance.

I think we should wrap up though with some recommendations. I was going to suggest that people who are interested in the network neutrality stuff, rather than suggesting at article, there are two reporters who are among many who are doing really great work. I can’t list them all, but Jon Brodkin writes for Ars Technica. It’s a wonderful site that does a lot of in-depth technical news. His writing on the network neutrality stuff is great. And Kaleigh Rogers is a writer for Motherboard, which is a bit more irreverent and in some ways just very in-your-face news about technology issues. I recommend following both of them. John, can I guess that you’re going to recommend a certain article from South Carolina? 

John Farrell: You’re not wrong in that. It is a tremendous piece of journalism from the Post and Courier. I actually don’t have the title in front of me here, but I’m sure that we’ll share it on our website. It is a really remarkable expose of the way that these monopoly utility companies operate and the implications for electric customers.

What I would say though, in terms of a recommendation is check out a resource that we’ve been building, called the Community Power Toolkit on ilsr.org that looks at the ways that we can act collectively to solve this problem. Not only ways that we can do for example, group purchasing of solar. Getting into this market and helping to reduce our energy use and become more self-reliant. The things that we can ask our utility to do and to change. And finally, the things that we can ask our cities to do because cities do have more authority than they think, over our energy system. There are many ways that they can act to change it.

Chris has graciously pulled up the title of the piece that I recommend you read. Power Failure: How Utilities Across the US Changed the Rules to Make Big Bets with Your Money, by Tony Bartelme. I highly recommend that piece.

Christopher Mitchell: And Stacy, I understand that you’ve assembled a list of things that our listeners must read before the next show?
Stacy Mitchell: No. But I have a few things to recommend. One is this law and political economy blog, which has a great piece up now by Frank Pasquale about how Amazon is essentially taking over the functions of government. It’s really an insightful piece and gets to the core of what one of the problems is with these new modern monopolies. It’s a great blog overall, but I would definitely recommend his short post about that.

The other thing I would say is that we’ve posted a number of resources recently for people who want to take action locally. The one I would point people to that’s on our website at ilsr.org and if you go over to the independent business section, we have eight policy strategies that cities can adopt to strengthen locally owned businesses.

We’ve also got some short videos up of recent presentations that talk about what it is that people can do at the local level to really take control of local economic development and create a more vibrant local economy and insulate your community from some of the effects of monopoly power that we’ve been talking about. 

Christopher Mitchell: Well one of the things that I think we can count on is that because we have repealed network neutrality, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, assures me personally that Charter will now have the money to invest in getting you a better connection Stacy, so that we won’t have these glitches anymore.
Stacy Mitchell: Is Charter the parent company of Spectrum?
Christopher Mitchell: Yes. Yeah, Spectrum is the name that they picked to obscure the fact that it’s Charter, because Charter has such a bad name. Much in the same way that Comcast uses the name Xfinity to hide the fact that they are Comcast.
Stacy Mitchell: Ah, thank you for that note. ‘Cause this is the invisible reality of monopoly, is if you’re not studying these issues, you often think that this is another company. But it turns out, it’s just one of the big four.
Christopher Mitchell: That’s right. Well this was a fun discussion. Thanks.

Thank you for listening to Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website ilsr.org and clicking on the show page for this episode. You can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on all of the internet’s social medias.

This show is produced by Lisa Gonzalez and Nick Stumo-Langer. Our theme music, it’s Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_AL. For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I am Christopher Mitchell. 2018 is looking like a good time to build local power. We’ll see you there.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[17] Building Local Power on iTunes[18] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[19]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[20]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[21] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[22] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[23] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[24] and Facebook[25] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[26] for our ILSR general newsletter.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-14-12-blp0036-Stacy-John-Chris-Monopoly-Review.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-14-12-blp0036-Stacy-John-Chris-Monopoly-Review.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism/
  7. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym/
  8. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/author/johnf
  9. Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  10. Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win (Episode 30): https://ilsr.org/beating-the-monopolies-barry-lynn-episode-30-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. Mergers and Monopoly: How Concentration Changes the Electricity Business: https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/
  12. Monopoly Power and Network Neutrality: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-network-neutrality/
  13. ILSR’s Monopoly Tag: https://ilsr.org/tag/monopoly/
  14. Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  15. From Territorial to Functional Sovereignty: The Case of Amazon: https://lpeblog.org/2017/12/06/from-territorial-to-functional-sovereignty-the-case-of-amazon/
  16. 8 Policy Strategies Cities Can Use to Support Local Businesses: https://ilsr.org/8-policy-strategies-cities-can-use-to-support-local-businesses/
  17. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  18. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  19. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  20. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  21. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  22. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  23. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  24. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  25. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  26. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/anti-monopoly-blp-episode-36/


North Carolina Local Media Focuses On Frontier Failures

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 28, 2017 4:06 am

WLOS News 13[1] – December 21st, 2017

Local investigative news shows often earn a reputation for digging into scams and rip-offs that pick consumers’ pockets. In a recent WLOS News 13 Investigates segment[2], Western North Carolina’s ABC affiliate started asking some tough questions about Frontier’s Internet access service in rural parts of the state.

A Comedy Of Errors

At the heart of the rip-off in this investigation is Frontier’s habit of advertising speeds that it cannot provide. The WLOS crew traveled to a home in a mountainous area of the region to visit Craig Marble, who moved from D.C., and works from home in the tech field. “It’s just a comedy of errors except that it’s not funny. It takes five minute to load a single webpage,” Marble said.

Marble discussed how he has paid for service of up to three Mbps download but he has never, to his knowledge, been able to obtain even that slow speed. As far as he’s concerned, he should at least be able to get what he’s paying for every month.

“This should be 3.0, not .3,” Marble said. He showed News 13 various speed tests for his service, they came up .3 and .5, and .6 at various times throughout the morning and afternoon.

Complaints, Complaints, Complaints

According to News 13, numerous complaints against Frontier resonate through local conversation. The station had received other complaints from people, some reporting that their Internet access works about 60 percent of the time. When they followed up with the Attorney General, they learned of 56 complaints filed against Frontier, about half due to issues with slow speeds.

WLOS spoke to Christopher about big telecom’s tendency to advertise “up to” speeds:

“If you can get good speeds in the middle of the night, but not during the day, I think that’s deceptive advertising to be suggesting to people that they can get those speeds,” said Christopher Mitchell, director of Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minnesota.

Mitchell says, companies shouldn’t advertise what they can’t offer.

“This is not something that is beyond the ability of the company to solve, this is a decision that they’re making which is to market a service that they cannot deliver or are willing to deliver on reasonable terms,” said Mitchell.

“It’s bad for our economy. We need to find ways for people who want to live in our rural areas can live there, and they can live good lives that will be economically productive,” Mitchell said.

Christopher also pointed out that states need to keep a close eye on companies like Frontier that receive Connect America Funding (CAF) and promise to upgrade rural areas. It’s important to make sure they follow through and use those public subsidies to keep their commitments to improve connectivity in rural areas.

In North Carolina, Attorney General Josh Stein encouraged citizens to contact his office with complaints.

“If there are companies out there making representations to consumers that they can not back up and we hear from consumers, we will absolutely take action on their behalf.”

“If we determine that Frontier is not complying with the law, we’ll hold them accountable, but there’s a lot of work we still need to do,” Stein said.

“If the consumer’s not getting what they are marketed by, what the representation by the company is, they have a legitimate gripe and they should let my office know,” Stein said.

Survey

The North Carolina Broadband Infrastructure Office has hosted a survey for people living in western North Carolina for the past several months and will continue to collect responses[3] throughout the rest of 2017.

Contacting WLOS

The I-team at WLOS also asks people in the region to contact them with similar complaints by sending a short video that displays speed test results.

File A Complaint

If you live in the region, or in another area of North Carolina and are plagued with similar Internet problems, you can file a complaint with the state’s Attorney General here[4].

Watch the report and read the responses[5] from Fairpoint at WLOS.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[6]. Read the original here[7].

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Endnotes:
  1. WLOS News 13: http://wlos.com/news/local/news-13-investigates-the-disconnect-of-internet-service-in-the-nc-mountains
  2. a recent WLOS News 13 Investigates segment: http://wlos.com/news/local/news-13-investigates-the-disconnect-of-internet-service-in-the-nc-mountains
  3. will continue to collect responses: http://mountainwest.baat-campaign.com/campaigns/master#Main
  4. with the state’s Attorney General here: http://www.ncdoj.gov/getdoc/fdbee1c7-c2a9-4f67-91b2-bb50beea1c0a/2-2-12.aspx
  5. Watch the report and read the responses: http://wlos.com/news/local/news-13-investigates-the-disconnect-of-internet-service-in-the-nc-mountains
  6. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  7. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/north-carolina-local-media-focuses-frontier-failures

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/north-carolina-local-media-focuses-on-frontier-failures/


2017 in Review and a Preview of 2018 – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 286

by Christopher Mitchell | December 26, 2017 3:36 am

This is episode 286 of our Community Broadband Bits podcast! Community Broadband Bits[1] is a short weekly podcast featuring interviews with people building community networks or otherwise involved with Internet policy.

It is that time of year – as 2017 draws to a close, we pulled Nick, Hannah, Lisa, and myself back into a podcast to talk about the predictions we made one year ago on episode 234[2]. And despite having to deal with our failed predictions from last year, we dive right into making more predictions for next year.

Along the way, we talk about the lessons we are taking away from 2017 and thinking more broadly about 2018.

We talk about net neutrality, cooperatives, preemptive state laws, consolidation, and even start with me going on a mostly-unneeded rant about radio.

So give the show a listen, and then start forming your own local Broadband and Beers informal group to begin organizing locally around better Internet access!

Read the transcript for this show here.

This show is 39 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes[3] or the tool of your choice using this feed[4].

You can download this mp3 file directly from here[5]. Listen to other episodes here[6] or view all episodes in our index[7].

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle[8] and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[9]. Read the original here[10].

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Bits: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  2. episode 234: https://muninetworks.org/content/2016-review-2017-predictions-community-broadband-bits-podcast-234/
  3. via iTunes: https://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  4. using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  5. download this mp3 file directly from here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/audio/comm-bb-bits-podcast-286-ilsr-year-end.mp3
  6. other episodes here: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  7. in our index: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-bits-podcast-index
  8. Warm Duck Shuffle: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/arnebhus/arnebhus_-_Singles/Warm_Duck_Shuffle
  9. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  10. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/2017-review-and-preview-2018-community-broadband-bits-podcast-286

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2017-in-review-and-a-preview-of-2018-community-broadband-bits-podcast-286/


New Year’s Resolutions for Utility Regulators

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 22, 2017 12:30 pm

[1]

Shocking investigative reports published this month[2] highlight our longstanding concerns about deficient oversight of growing utility monopolies[3]. Utilities consistently game the system to win massive benefits for shareholders and executives at the expense of electric customers and their communities. Charleston, SC, is on the hook for $1.2 million in payments for a now-defunct nuclear power plant — enough to cover starting salaries for 26 police officers[4]. The Roper Hospital there pays $43,000 per month[5] for a power plant that will never produce a single kilowatt-hour.

The costly failure of the South Carolina power plant happened despite state oversight of the project, and approvals for nine rate hikes to cover the $9 billion tab. Meanwhile, top utility executives received performance bonuses[6]. Similar failures of public oversight plague regulators[7] in Florida, Georgia, and Indiana, helped along by lawmakers who allowed utilities to make risky bets with customer money. We believe our system can, and should, work better in 2018. We offer these new year’s resolutions for state regulatory commissioners.

As a public utility commissioner in 2018, I resolve to:

  • Require shareholders to take on risk[8] equal to (or greater than) customers when a utility builds new infrastructure.

  • Require utility shareholders — not customers — to eat the cost of mismanagement[9], including cost overruns.

  • Require utilities to maximize the use of (almost always cheaper) energy efficiency and demand response[10] (including storage) before pursuing new power plant construction.

  • Require utilities to offer net metering with retail rate compensation or an equivalent value of solar payment–modeled on Minnesota’s value of solar[11]–to promote customer choice.

  • Prevent utilities from imposing fixed fees[12] that reduce the incentive to conserve and undermine the value of customer-owned renewable generation.

  • Require utilities to file tariffs for inclusive energy financing[13], providing customers universal access to capital for on-site energy improvements, including rooftop solar.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[14]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[15] or Karlee Weinmann[16] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[17] update.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/New-Years-Resolutions-2017.png
  2. published this month: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  3. growing utility monopolies: https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/
  4. 26 police officers: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  5. $43,000 per month: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  6. performance bonuses: http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article166298442.html
  7. plague regulators: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  8. risk: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  9. mismanagement: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/power-failure-how-utilities-across-the-u-s-changed-the/article_434e8778-c880-11e7-9691-e7b11f5b3381.html
  10. energy efficiency and demand response: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/
  11. Minnesota’s value of solar: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/MN-Value-of-Solar-from-ILSR.pdf
  12. fixed fees: https://ilsr.org/zapped-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair/
  13. inclusive energy financing: https://ilsr.org/report-inclusive-energy-financing/
  14. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  15. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  16. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  17.  Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-years-resolutions-for-utility-regulators/


Creating Community Wealth Through Compost (feat. Sophia Hosain & Guy Schaffer) – Episode #4

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 22, 2017 10:00 am

Welcome back to the Composting for Community Podcast! In this episode, we are reposting from ILSR’s Building Local Power Podcast[1]. ILSR’s BLP podcast host, Christopher Mitchell[2], and Composting forCommunity initiative Project Manager, Linda Bilsens[3], sit down with Sophia Hosain and Guy Schaffer to discuss how their composting projects are both engaging and serving their communities. They explore the potential community-based composting holds to empower historically marginalized communities in cities across the U.S.

Listen to this episode, then check out more episodes of the Composting for Community Podcast[4] and ILSR’s Building Local Power Podcast[5].

That wealth that we’re creating from food waste and food scraps needs to be recycled within our communities in order to truly make a wealthy and healthy community. And a sustainable one at that.

Guy Schaffer volunteers for the youth‐powered, bike‐based composting service, BK ROT[6], in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. BK ROT, started by Sandy Nurse and Renee Pepperone in 2013, brings youth of color into the developing green economy around organics recycling in New York City. At the time of the interview, Guy had recently finished a dissertation on compost in New York City, examining the relationship between municipal organics collection and more informal projects such as BK ROT. In his dissertation, he argues for the value of community‐based projects for pushing alternative possibilities for composting in the NYC.

Sophia Hosain works with ILSR partner Civic Works’ Real Food Farm[7], which serves communities in and around the Clifton Park neighborhood of northeast Baltimore. Sophia is a graduate of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Master Composter[8] program that Real Food Farm and ILSR partnered to bring to Baltimore in fall 2016. At the time of the interview, she established the farm’s composting cooperative, which still serves as a critical engagement touchpoint with the farm’s community, and allows the farm to act as a local composting demonstration and education site for Baltimore.

 

(more…)[14]

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Endnotes:
  1. ILSR’s Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/creating-community-wealth-through-compost-episode-19-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  2. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism
  3. Linda Bilsens: https://ilsr.org/author/linda/
  4. Composting for Community Podcast: https://ilsr.org/composting-for-community-podcast-homepage/
  5. Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/creating-community-wealth-through-compost-episode-19-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  6. BK ROT: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/03/08/building-community-composting-bushwick-brooklyn/
  7. Civic Works’ Real Food Farm: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/about-us/
  8. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Master Composter: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  9. http://2017-04-27-blp019-hosain-schaffer-composting.mp3: http://2017-04-27-blp019-hosain-schaffer-composting.mp3
  10. Play in new window: http://2017-04-27-blp019-hosain-schaffer-composting.mp3
  11. Download: http://2017-04-27-blp019-hosain-schaffer-composting.mp3
  12. Embed: #
  13. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/composting-for-community/
  14. (more…): https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-sophia-hosain-guy-schaffer/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-sophia-hosain-guy-schaffer/


Net Neutrality Repeal Fact Sheets: By The Numbers Maps And Data

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 21, 2017 12:00 pm

This post was originally published on December 13th, 2017 at MuniNetworks.org.

Update 12/22/2017: Original maps generated on December 11th and used for these fact sheets understated the population of Americans forced to obtain services from known network neutrality violators. The problem is even greater than we originally calculated. We’ve update our maps and our fact sheets to reflect the more accurate data.

Network neutrality protects Americans from the ability of powerful ISPs to exercise unchecked power over what subscribers access and how quickly they receive certain content. The neutral characteristic of the Internet is one of its finest qualities. If Republican FCC Commissioners and Chairman Ajit Pai vote to shred network neutrality on December 14th[1] as they’ve indicated, 177 million Americans will be left to the whims of a flawed market.

[2] (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. shred network neutrality on December 14th: https://muninetworks.org/content/monopoly-power-and-network-neutrality
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Full-U.S.-Net-Neutrality-Fact-Sheet.png
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/net-neutrality-repeal-fact-sheets-by-the-numbers-maps-and-data/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/net-neutrality-repeal-fact-sheets-by-the-numbers-maps-and-data/


Net Neutrality Repeal Threatens Some States More Than Others

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 20, 2017 10:34 am

On December 14th, FCC Chair Ajit Pai and the Republican Commissioners voted to present a huge holiday gift to big ISPs by dismantling network neutrality[1], despite outcries from the American people. When we examined FCC data to determine how many Americans would be left without market protections from known network neutrality violators, the numbers were discouraging[2]. Now we’ve reached into the weeds to analyze the numbers on a statewide basis.

Percentage Of Population

The results reveal that a significant percentage of Americans will be limited to Internet access only from large monopolies that have a history of violating network neutrality and very strong incentives to abuse their market power.

Some states with higher population benefit slightly from competition relative to others — compare Florida’s 40 percent to 65 percent in Pennsylvania — but this also reflects the anti-competitive nature of big ISPs that tend to cordon off sections of the country and respectfully stay within their zones. Other, more rural states, such as Wisconsin at 66 percent, have few options because national ISPs just aren’t interested in serving areas where population is sparse and the pay-off is a long time coming. Lack of competition means high probability of service from one of the big four known violators in our study — AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter.

In this chart, we’ve listed states in order of greatest percentage of impacted population: (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. dismantling network neutrality: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/goodbye-net-neutrality-ajit-pais-fcc-votes-to-allow-blocking-and-throttling/
  2. the numbers were discouraging: https://muninetworks.org/content/177-million-americans-harmed-net-neutrality
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/net-neutrality-repeal-threatens-some-states-more-than-others/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/net-neutrality-repeal-threatens-some-states-more-than-others/


Listen: Stacy Mitchell on “We the Podcast” with Rep. Keith Ellison and Lina Khan

by Stacy Mitchell | December 19, 2017 5:32 pm

Taking on Amazon. It’s a big subject. But in this episode of Rep. Keith Ellison’s podcast, “We the Podcast,” ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and Lina Khan of Open Markets join Rep. Ellison to talk about how to do just that — and why we need to. The three also discuss how Amazon is part of a trend of market concentration more broadly, and what that means for the middle class and communities.

“Nearly every industry you look in is dominated by three or four companies,” says Rep. Ellison in the episode. “Is market concentration part of the problem when it comes to the economic fortunes of working and middle class Americans?”

“It absolutely is,” Stacy replies. “These companies are concentrating power and they’re cutting off opportunity. It’s hard to start a business the way that people used to be able to, and get into the middle class that way. And because they have so much power, they’re able to manipulate workers and hold down wages.”

“I think it’s worth recognizing that this is not just an isolated feature of the rental car industry or the airline industry, it’s now a systemic feature of our entire political economy,” adds Khan. “Sector after sector after sector.”

You can listen to the 30-minute episode on iTunes[1] or wherever you find your podcasts, or watch the video of the recording below. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/taking-on-amazon-with-lina-khan-and-stacy-mitchell/id958234911?i=1000397483061&mt=2
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/listen-stacy-mitchell-on-we-the-podcast-with-rep-keith-ellison-and-lina-khan/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/listen-stacy-mitchell-on-we-the-podcast-with-rep-keith-ellison-and-lina-khan/


EPB Fiber Optics Reaffirms Network Neutrality Commitment In Chattanooga

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 19, 2017 4:12 am

FCC Chairman Alit Pai and Republican Commissioners earned big lumps of coal for holiday gifts this year when they shredded network neutrality protections on December 14th. They also raised interest in publicly owned Internet network infrastructure[1]. Existing publicly owned networks are reaffirming their commitment to network neutrality, including EPB Fiber Optics in Chattanooga.

Online Q & A

In order to reassure their subscribers and help clarify their policy, EPB held a live session[2] via the utility’s Facebook page on December 15th. To start off the conversation, CEO David Wade explained that nothing will change for EPB customers, regardless of the FCC decision. “For EPB fiber optics customers, [this ruling] means nothing,” Wade said. “We’re committed to having an open Internet.”

In an effort to better educate the community, EPB also asked legal counsel David DiBiase, marketing manager Beth Johnson, and Vice President of Marketing J.Ed. Marston to participate in the conversation and answer questions from viewers.

Customer Care Pledge

EPB has embraced network neutrality principles in its Customer Care Pledge[3], a simple and straight forward list of commitments to subscribers:

The best possible service delivered with the utmost respect. That’s always been our commitment to our customers — and it always will be.

  • Internet Privacy – We never sell your web site browsing information or online content
  • Open Internet (Net Neutrality) — Every home and business customer can send web content through EPB’s network at the same fast speed without having to pay extra
  • Fair and Equal Internet — EPB doesn’t play favorites when it comes to online traffic, so businesses of all sizes have a level playing field for delivering new and innovative options for customers. That’s good for customers and good for creating new jobs
  • Internet without data caps or speed throttling
  • Free residential installation and no contracts
  • No hidden fees or surprise billing
  • Neighborly customer service, 24/7/365 to serve you

Shortly after the FCC decision to repeal the policy, Wade released a statement[4], revealing EPB’s understanding of how deep high-quality Internet access now weaves into everyday life:

“Whether you’re talking about grade school students completing their homework or adults re-training for new careers, applying for jobs, or working from home, the internet provides critical access to educational and economic opportunities.”

“At the same time, the internet has become a primary platform for business operation, growth, and innovation. In the near future, healthcare delivery and other essential human services will be transformed by the internet. That’s why EPB Fiber Optics is committed to providing a standard of internet service that doesn’t create barriers, restrictions, or delays for our customers.”

Watch the EPB Q&A segment here; the video runs approximately 35 minutes:

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[5]. Read the original here[6].

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Endnotes:
  1. raised interest in publicly owned Internet network infrastructure: https://www.theringer.com/tech/2017/12/14/16775296/net-neutrality-fcc-municipal-networks-fiber
  2. EPB held a live session: http://nooga.com/212023/epb-discusses-position-net-neutrality/
  3. Customer Care Pledge: https://epb.com/customercarepledge
  4. released a statement: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2017/12/14/360155/EPB-Graves-Respond-To-FCC-Decision.aspx
  5. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/epb-fiber-optics-reaffirms-network-neutrality-commitment-chattanooga

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/epb-fiber-optics-reaffirms-network-neutrality-commitment-in-chattanooga/


Survey of Residential Food Waste Collection Access in the U.S.

by Virginia Streeter | December 18, 2017 1:15 pm

A new report released by BioCycle — with research led by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[1] — details the growth of residential access to food scrap collection services, both through curbside and drop-off programs. Food scrap recovery is increasingly recognized as a key to reaching high waste diversion levels, protecting the climate, and feeding the soil.

For communities with trash collection, weekly curbside collection of food scraps is necessary to achieve high household participation and provide an equivalent level of service and convenience. Drop-off collection is a good entry point for local government to support food waste recovery and a viable option for rural areas with no curbside trash collection. After initiating drop-off access at seasonal farmers markets, for example, several communities have established permanent sites and then curbside programs. (Note: In the food waste recovery hierarchy[2], avoiding food waste in the first place and rescuing edible food are priorities over collection.)

The report, BioCycle Residential Food Waste Collection Access Study[3], includes data from 148 curbside collection programs and 67 drop-off programs throughout the country. Curbside programs in the U.S. are serving 326 communities, providing access to 5.1 million households, and drop-off programs serve 318 communities, giving access to 6.7 million households. Only government-supported programs are covered by the survey. With the growth in private subscription services around the country (including many bike-powered operators), the total number of households with access in the U.S. exceeds 5.1 million.

This is the first year that BioCycle has included drop-off programs in its study.

Links:

  • Full report[4] (28 pages, available to BioCycle subscribers)
  • Press release[5]
  • Preview of survey[6] (4 pages)
  • GIF map of Growth of Households with Access to Curbside Food Scraps Collection[7]
  • ILSR’s Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community[8]
  • Bike-Powered Food Scrap Collectors[9] (BioCycle Jan. 2017 article)

Local government looking to replicate the success of early adopters have much to consider: which materials to accept, what type of containers to provide, whether to offer starter kits, whom to provide service, and whether households can opt in or not. The most successful curbside programs provide containers to facilitate participation.

The full report[10] (accessible with a subscription to BioCycle) includes data on materials accepted, service providers, type and scale of programs, BPI[11]-certification requirements, and more, as well as case studies of programs in Falls Church, Va. and Washington, D.C. (more…)[12]

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Endnotes:
  1. A new report released by BioCycle — with research led by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/12/06/residential-food-waste-collection-access-u-s/
  2. food waste recovery hierarchy: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  3. BioCycle Residential Food Waste Collection Access Study: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/12/06/residential-food-waste-collection-access-u-s/
  4. Full report: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/12/06/residential-food-waste-collection-access-u-s/
  5. Press release: https://ilsr.org/release-biocycle-access-study-2017/
  6. Preview of survey: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BioCycle_ResidentialFoodWaste_2017_12.pdf
  7. GIF map of Growth of Households with Access to Curbside Food Scraps Collection: https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6fIUC7ZlNMYTNh3q/giphy.gif
  8. ILSR’s Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  9. Bike-Powered Food Scrap Collectors: https://ilsr.org/bike-powered-food-scrap-collection/
  10. full report: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/12/06/residential-food-waste-collection-access-u-s/
  11. BPI: http://www.bpiworld.org/
  12. (more…): https://ilsr.org/biocycle-access-study-2017/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/biocycle-access-study-2017/


To Save the Internet We Must Own the Networks

by David Morris | December 18, 2017 6:00 am

In late October, Ajit Pai, Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, proudly announced, “We’ve been energetic in advancing the public interest…over the past nine months, the Commission has voted on 63 items at our monthly meetings, compared to 103 in the preceding three years.” It now surpasses 70.

This certainly has been a busy year for the FCC.  But Pai is dead wrong that this flurry of activity has been done to advance the public interest.  Indeed, as one might expect from a man who once worked for telecom giant Verizon, Pai has directed an unprecedented abdication by the FCC of its responsibility to protect the public welfare.

FCC Chair Ajit Pai (R)

In March, Congress, with virtually no debate or publicity, allowed Internet companies to gather and sell our personal data.  It was a monstrous and cowardly act. To avoid the public glare, Republicans stealthily developed a “secret strategy” the Washington Post reports[1]. “While the nation was distracted by the House’s pending vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Senate Republicans would schedule a vote to wipe out the new privacy protections.”

 

An outraged Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web appropriately labeled the decision “disgusting”.  “(W)hen people use the web what they do is really, really intimate,” he explained[2]. “They go to their doctor for a second opinion; they’ve gone to the web for the first opinion on whether it’s cancer. They communicate very intimately with family members that they love. There are things that people do on the web that reveal absolutely everything, more about them than they know themselves sometimes.”

Internet service providers (ISP) can now compile a detailed profile of our web behavior and market it.  Some may deign to charge us a premium for not doing so.  This has occurred before.  In 2016, AT&T began charging[3] a monthly premium of $30 for users who wanted to retain their privacy.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) the oldest organization defending civil liberties in a digital age, warns that allowing ISPs to monitor and manipulate data makes the web more vulnerable to attacks. Condemning the FCC’s privacy decision as “a disaster for America’s cybersecurity”, the EFF explained[4], “Privacy and security are two sides of the same coin:  privacy is about controlling who has access to information about you and security is how you maintain that control.”

Adding insult to injury, Pai’s FCC also halted[5] enforcement of a rule[6] demanding Internet providers “take reasonable measures to protect customer (personal information) from unauthorized use, disclosure or access.” That means Internet providers won’t be liable if their lax security exposes our personal information.

The FCC doesn’t regulate prices for residential service but it does for certain business data services (BDS).  These are commonly used by public entities like hospitals, schools, libraries, and police departments as well as by bank ATM networks, retail credit card readers and business networks.

Former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler (D)

In 2016, to “account for over a decade of efficiency gains” Obama’s FCC Chair Tom Wheeler proposed[7] lowering the maximum price ISPs could charge for BDS by 11 percent over three years. The FCC threw[8] out his proposal and went in the opposite direction by lifting all price caps.   Responding to businesses complaints that this was giving monopolies a license to extort, the FCC blithely redefined what a monopoly is.  Even if there is only one broadband provider the FCC still considers there to be “sufficient competition”, so long as a potential provider, is not far away!

Anticipating Pai’s largesse, AT&T scheduled[9] a 15-percent price increase for BDS lines in certain states to take effect “on or after” the day of the FCC’s vote.

 

And then there is the recent net neutrality decision.  Although the FCC had only formally demanded net neutrality in 2015, it had been trying to do so for almost a decade.  In 2008, the FCC voted to punish Comcast for “discriminatory management practices” but Comcast sued and the courts ruled that the FCC lacked the authority to prevent such practices.  In 2010 the FCC again imposed rules to prohibit blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. This time Verizon sued and in 2014 a federal appeals court again decided the FCC lacked the authority. (more…)[10]

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Endnotes:
  1. reports: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-congress-dismantled-federal-internet-privacy-rules/2017/05/29/7ad06e14-2f5b-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html
  2. explained: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/04/tim-berners-lee-online-privacy-interview-turing-award
  3. charging: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160329/08514034038/att-tries-to-claim-that-charging-users-more-privacy-is-discount.shtml
  4. explained: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-ways-cybersecurity-will-suffer-if-congress-repeals-fcc-privacy-rules
  5. halted: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/isps-wont-have-to-follow-new-rule-that-protects-your-data-from-theft/
  6. rule: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/isps-wont-have-to-follow-new-rule-that-protects-your-data-from-theft/
  7. proposed: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db1007/DOC-341659A1.pdf
  8. threw: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3d9aky/trumps-fcc-to-vote-to-allow-broadband-rate-hikes-for-schools-and-libraries
  9. scheduled: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/fcc-helps-att-and-verizon-charge-more-by-ending-broadband-price-caps/
  10. (more…): https://ilsr.org/to-save-the-internet-we-must-own-the-networks/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/to-save-the-internet-we-must-own-the-networks/


The Movement for Free College Tuition Is Growing

by David Morris | December 15, 2017 3:28 pm

In 2015, President Obama proposed[1] making community college free nationwide. He pointed to a pilot free tuition program just being launched by Tennessee for recent high school graduates and might not have been aware of a free tuition program operating in Louisiana for almost two decades.

The election of Donald Trump killed the prospect of federal assistance. But since states and cities (and tuition) traditionally provide the bulk of funding for higher public education, states and cities should play leadership roles.

Some have. Today, four states and one city are offering free college tuition, with varying conditions. Many more have introduced smaller systems.

In 2018, Tennessee will expand its 2015 program to include all adults who enroll in one of its state community colleges or technical schools as long as they don’t already have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, CNN reports[2]. Students must be state residents for at least a year before applying, enroll at least part-time, maintain a 2.0 GPA and complete eight hours of community service each semester.

In 2018, Rhode Island will inaugurate a four-year pilot program offering free tuition at Rhode Island Community College. Applicants must be recent high school graduates and maintain a 2.5 GPA in college while remaining enrolled full-time.  After finishing their degree they must live, work, or continue their education in Rhode Island.

In April, New York institute free tuition for both[3] two- and four- year public colleges for students from families earning less than $125,000 a year. Students must be enrolled[4] full-time and live and work in New York for the same number of years they received the scholarship.

As noted, Louisiana’s tuition scholarship program (TOPS) went into effect in 1998 and pays the tuition of students who attend[5], “either one of the Louisiana Public Colleges and Universities, schools that are a part of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, Louisiana approved Proprietary and Cosmetology Schools or institutions that are a part of the Louisiana Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.” Louisiana’s is the only program that pays tuition at private and four-year institutions. Students must have graduated from an in-state high school and meet two academic requirements: a 2.5 high school GPA in core classes and at least an average standardized test score. Those with higher grades can receive $400 to $800 in extra funding to help meet the costs of other college expenses. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. proposed: http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/08/pf/college/obama-free-college/index.html?iid=EL
  2. reports: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/11/pf/college/tennessee-free-community-college/?iid=EL
  3. both: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/10/pf/college/suny-cuny-tuition-free-college/index.html?iid=EL
  4. enrolled: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/14/pf/college/new-york-free-tuition-residency-requirement/index.html?iid=EL
  5. attend: https://www.osfa.la.gov/tops_mainlink.html
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-movement-for-free-college-tuition-is-growing/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-movement-for-free-college-tuition-is-growing/


Dear Santa… ILSR’s Annual Energy Policy Wish List!

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 15, 2017 7:00 am

Dear Santa,

We’ve been very good this year and, if it isn’t too much trouble, we’d like a few things in 2018, let us know!

[1]

Bad Federal Policies

The most accurate characterization for federal clean energy initiatives in 2017 is “filling the swamp.” Proposals include reducing federal incentives for wind power[2] and providing subsidies for aging and expensive centralized, coal and nuclear power plants[3]. A version of the tax bill would also eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles[4]. All three policy changes would result in higher energy costs in the short and long term, result in much greater pollution, and slow efforts by many communities to transition to clean, local power.

Expand Inclusive Energy Financing

Inclusive financing[5] means any utility customer that takes action to reduce their energy use can tap utility-provided capital, and pay back the cost through their utility bill. It means poor credit doesn’t have to be a barrier to clean energy savings. Several utilities already offer zero-down, all-credit access to energy savings and we hope it expands in 2018.

Encourage Local Action

Cities can take charge of their energy future by taking over the utility[6], seizing responsibility[7] for electricity purchasing, or expanding solar and electric vehicles. We provide more detail of city-level actions in our Community Power Toolkit[8].

[9]

Happy Holidays!

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[10]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[11] or Karlee Weinmann[12] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[13] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Holiday-Wish-List-2017-Final.png
  2. reducing federal incentives for wind power: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/house-tax-bill-trims-wind-tax-credit-extends-nuclear-provision
  3. subsidies for aging and expensive centralized, coal and nuclear power plants: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell/status/925447106076315648
  4. eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles: https://www.dmv.org/articles/gop-tax-plan-eliminates-hybrid-electric-vehicle-credit
  5. Inclusive financing: https://ilsr.org/report-inclusive-energy-financing/
  6. taking over the utility: https://ilsr.org/boulder-voters-say-again-well-lead-movement-to-energy-democracy/
  7. seizing responsibility: https://ilsr.org/community-choice-aggregators-fight-choose-their-power-provider-2/
  8. Community Power Toolkit: https://ilsr.org/community-power-interactive-toolkit/
  9. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/community-power-interactive-toolkit/
  10. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  11. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  12. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  13.  Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/santa-wish-list-2017/


In Jersey City, a Policy Fosters Local Independent Businesses

by Olivia LaVecchia | December 14, 2017 1:03 pm

When Ariel Zaurov first opened his pharmacy in downtown Jersey City’s Paulus Hook neighborhood, in 2005, he was one of just a few businesses in the area. It was a tough start — there weren’t a lot of people who lived in the neighborhood, and the store, called Downtown Pharmacy, didn’t get much foot traffic — but Zaurov dug in, joining the board of the neighborhood association, donating to school groups, and working with local vendors.

Now, 12 years later, Zaurov has opened a second location that’s one stop away on the light rail, and he employs 20 people full-time at both locations. The Paulus Hook neighborhood is thriving, too, with a growing population, increased development, and new businesses, many of which are independent. “Most places are run by the people who own them,” says Zaurov.

As the neighborhood has grown, chain stores have also become more interested in it. In early 2017, CVS signed a lease for a 20,000-square-foot location two blocks up the street from Zaurov’s pharmacy.

It’s a familiar story, one that plays out in cities across the U.S.: Independent business owners sink roots into a place, meet community needs, and foster neighborhood growth, and then, as the area becomes vibrant, chain stores sweep in to open their own locations.

What’s different about the story in Jersey City is that there, the city has taken proactive steps to check this common cycle, and instead, build a model that allows for more opportunity for local entrepreneurs. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/in-jersey-city-a-policy-fosters-local-independent-businesses-and-draws-cvss-ire/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/in-jersey-city-a-policy-fosters-local-independent-businesses-and-draws-cvss-ire/


Building a Zero Waste World, One Community at a Time (Episode 35)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 14, 2017 12:00 pm

Paul Connett, a sustainability activist and Profess Emeritus of St. Lawrence University, sits down to speak with Building Local Power podcast[5] guest host Nick Stumo-Langer[6] and ILSR co-founder Neil Seldman[7] about his work promoting zero waste policies to communities across the world.

Along with Paul’s insights on zero waste policies — from corporate redesign to community fun in participating in sustainability policies — he regales listeners with a version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, zero waste edition.

Paul Connett

“The planet is not going to be solved by the people at the top. It’s going to be solved by the people at the bottom who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and do something. It’s not talking, it’s doing. It’s not saying no to everything, it’s saying yes to something,” Connett emphatically states.

 

Paul Connett’s Zero Waste and Anti Incineration Presentation[8] — Watch a series of Paul’s presentations if you would like further perspective on zero waste and rejecting incinerators in your community.

If You Study Garbage You Will Not Be Unemployed[9] — Neil Seldman’s essay on the study of garbage as a key economic development activity is a crucial piece in this puzzle for making zero waste communities.

Empowering Our Communities to Redesign: Is Incineration Compatible with Recycling?[10] — This article is based on a report from Zero Waste Europe, where Connett has presented multiple times.

Our guests, Neil Seldman and Paul Connett recommend a series of texts to read about zero waste:

  • “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered[11],” by E.F. Schumacher

  • “The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability[12],” by Paul Hawken

  • “The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time[13],” by Paul Connett & Jeremy Irons

  • “Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans[14],” by Captain Charles Moore

  • “Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System[15],” by Mary Appelhof

Nick Stumo-Langer: Hello, and welcome to Building Local Power, a podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I’m Nick Stumo-Langer, communications manager for Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Joining me today is ILSR’s co-founder, Neil Seldman.
Neil Seldman: Hello, everybody. Nice to be here.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Today, joining us via phone is our guest, Professor Paul Connett, a zero waste superstar. A trained chemist, Paul threw himself into the anti garbage incineration movement while teaching as a chemistry professor at Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Now retired, he travels constantly, teaching, inspiring, and entertaining audiences around the globe.

He is author of The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time, produced the video pieces of Zero, and is featured in the film Trashed by Jeremy Irons. Connett takes no fees for his work, and ILSR and Doctor Connett have been working partners for the past 25 years.

Neil Seldman: It has been a pleasure working over the last few decades with Paul. He’s a ceaseless campaigner and tireless in his efforts as he travels around the world. He’s been to every continent, probably several times. At the critical stage of fighting incinerators back in the ’80s and ’90s, Paul and his partner and wife, Ellen Connett, produced Waste Not, which was a very important newsletter sent all across the country, which detailed the ups and downs of every struggle for incinerators that were being proposed, over 300 of them.

Paul has enthused us with his singing, his insistence that we all have fun while we are on the campaign trails all over the world. I must tell this one anecdote, which always sticks in my mind, and that is we, the institute was working for the Philadelphia City Council in the mid ’80s. Council and we wanted to stop an incinerator from being built in South Philadelphia.

ILSR coordinated the testimony to the City Council, and right after we had a pro-incineration expert tell the City Council that lead and other particles coming out of incinerators go up and they don’t come down. Well, with his scientific background and his wonderful way of presenting facts, Paul corrected that misconception that things go up and don’t come down. 

Nick Stumo-Langer: Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Connett: Hi. Thanks, Nick. Thanks, Neil. I remember that, the South Philadelphia battle, very well indeed and the amazing bouncing particles. I had to search through the appendices to find the fact that these particles never landed. They never landed in Philadelphia. They never landed in Pennsylvania or New Jersey or anywhere. They just kept bouncing, according to the consultant. Absolute nonsense, of course.

I think the councilors in South Philadelphia smelled a rat when they were told that, from the risk assessment people, that the incinerator posed no more threat than smoking two cigarettes in a lifetime.

Neil Seldman: Yeah.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Paul, I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit about how a chemistry professor got interested and involved in anti garbage incineration and pro zero waste community activities. How did this happen? Can you give us a little run through of that?
Paul Connett: Very simply, they tried to build an incinerator in St. Lawrence County, which is the northernmost part of New York state, abut of the Canadian border. That was where I was living at the time, 17 miles from the incinerator, but it woke us up and I started to research the issue. At first, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea. We got rid of … They proposed to get rid of 32 leaking landfills and this would make energy to boot. It seemed reasonable, until I started to read the literature and then I found the whole issue of dioxins absolutely fascinating, and with Tom Webster subsequently published six or seven papers on dioxin.

Because we were the biggest milk producing county in the whole of New York state, and the biggest source of exposure to dioxin is through the food chains and through cow’s milk. But this emerged actually from our research, particularly from Tom Webster. I got fascinated with dioxin and as soon as I started to fight incinerators in New York state, immediately we had invitations to speak in adjacent states in Vermont, in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, and then in New Jersey, and then all over the place. It took me to 49 states in the United States. I still haven’t been to Alaska. And as of the latest count, 66 other countries.

But, as you point out, you can’t just say no to something. It wasn’t enough to say no to incineration, because the officials read that as, “If we don’t want incineration, we’re going to have chaos.” We had to have alternatives. We had to say yes to something and Neil, in particular, with the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, was saying yes. He was saying, “Yes, we can use waste. We can reuse the resources, in what other people call waste, for local development, urban development, especially in the cities.”

That message really reverberated with me, so we pushed for intensive recycling, for composting, for reuse and repair. By the late 1990s, this whole conglomeration of alternatives morphed into the zero waste strategy. Other people would call it zero waste, 100% recycling. We call it zero waste, or darn close.

That folded back on an interest I’d had ever since I read The Limits to Growth in the 1970s. It was pretty obviously that you can’t have unlimited growth on a finite planet. Now people talk about the circular economy. If you want a circular economy, then you have to have zero waste. But the positive message is there are jobs, and small business opportunities, and local self reliance, and sustainability in this message of zero waste. 

Neil Seldman: Zero waste is a truly international movement. It started in the mid early ’90s in Canberra, Australia, moved to New Zealand, and came to the U.S., Europe, et cetera. It’s important because the international movement has a very clear definition of zero waste, which does not include incineration. Therefore, the proponents of incineration are constantly trying to redefine zero waste to include incineration, which we continually fight.
Paul Connett: Yes, and they do that with just the insertion of two words. They say zero waste to landfill. With those two words, keeps incineration in the picture. And, of course, that’s nonsense because the complete of opposite of sustainability is incineration. To burn your resources, which is what we’re doing, to burn your resources prevents us moving from the linear economy to the circular economy.

It’s pretty cynical, but they’re in it to make money, as much money as they can. To hell with the planet, to hell with communities. That’s all they’re interested in, and that’s pretty sad. 

Neil Seldman: And, of course, if you have an incinerator, of course you need a landfill for the ash and the bypass waste. Zero wasters, such as Paul and myself, feel that if we do get to zero waste, less material will go to landfill than if you have an incinerator.
Paul Connett: Yes, that’s the best way to put it. We want no incineration and we want a phaseout of landfills. We’re going to need landfills for the near future, but in the zero waste plan, we need in front of the landfill, a residual separation, a screening facility to pull out more recyclables, more toxics, to stabilize the dirty organic fraction.

Then introduce into that operation a zero waste research center to study our non-recyclables, which in my view is bad industrial design. The community has to say to industry, especially when they’re getting over 80% or even 90%, which some communities are doing, of diversion to landfill. They have to say to industry, “If we can’t reuse it, if we can’t recycle it and compost it, you guys, industry, shouldn’t be making it.” We need better industrial design for the 21st century.

In other words, we’re introducing fourth R. Now, most people heard of the three Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle. That last R of recycling includes composting, which in my view is more important than recycling, so we shouldn’t lose it. So, the three Rs and C, and then we add the fourth R of redesign. In other words, we need a combination of community responsibility and industrial responsibility.

I think before zero waste, the big mistake that we all made was to assume the community could do everything. But with zero waste, we are introducing the absolutely vital concept that industry has a critical part to play in this effort. We need to marry community efforts and industrial efforts.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Well, that’s an excellent transition. I’m wondering if you can kind of give us an overview of some of the policies that you would advocate for communities to implement to kind of make this a reality. I know you included redesign in there, but what are some of the things that we can get to transition us to that zero waste reality?
Paul Connett: Yeah, I have ten steps to zero waste. The first step is source separation. It’s using our ten fingers. The moment that people separate, they join the movement to sustainability. It’s absolutely important that you separate. If you mix things together, you get waste. If you separate, then you’re dealing with resources.

Once you’ve separated the resources, we got to make it convenient for pick up, and that’s why we need door-to-door pick up, door-to-door collection of the separated materials. One of the reasons that that is so critical, you cannot get clean organics clean enough to compost and to use in agriculture unless you have door-to-door collection. If you try to do it other ways, you get dirty compost, and that’s no good to us.

Then you get the familiar concept of recycling, and then after recycling, reuse and repair. And I’ll stop there because reuse and repair is critically important for community development. It is a model of the circular economy when we pass on secondhand goods to somebody else. What’s important about that for local self-reliance is this is where the jobs are. This is business opportunities.

Our reusables are low volume, but high value. Whereas recyclables are high volume and low value. After that, we have many steps involving reducing waste as much as possible. Reducing the residual fraction with pay as you throw systems with other waste reduction initiatives.

I’ve mentioned step eight, which is the separation facility in front of the landfill, which then takes us to industrial responsibility. And finally, the backup landfill, which is only going to take the non-recyclables and the stabilized organic fraction.

For the community then, something to look for is to make sure you have reuse and repair centers in town. Make sure they’re used for job training, for community education, for community activities, community fun. If we’re going to win this thing, if we’re going to really get to a sustainable planet, then people have to enjoy doing it, to have fun when they do it. If we’re grim, no one will help us. 

Nick Stumo-Langer: Looking at what you’re saying, especially in context of the other podcast episodes that we’ve done, we’ve done some things about privatization in the fishing industry, we’ve done things about huge consolidation in markets like retail and banking. I love that your ninth step is talking about what the industry has to do, because that is so far removed from what communities can do and empower themselves to create a better economy for themselves, to reuse these materials, and to create that circular economy for themselves, too. I love that kind of local message. It’s exactly in line with what we do here at ILSR.
Neil Seldman: Just to give some numbers here and an example of the St. Vincent de Paul in Lane County, Oregon, they have extensive reuse workshops, appliances, cars, mattresses, et cetera. They have created over 700 jobs in their part of the country. They’ve reduced the cost of living for low income people by 3% because of the purchasing through their thrift stores.

And there are many other excellent groups that prove that reuse is a major job creator. It also pays very good wages, and it also helped stop recidivism for returning citizens, because these jobs are interesting, they pay well, they have health insurance, and you could take care of a family. It literally can change people’s lives. 

Paul Connett: And you can have fun doing it. I gave a talk recently in Italy where this fashion-conscious country, I said, “Look, this jacket is secondhand. It cost me $5. This belt cost me $2. This tie cost me $3. These trousers cost me $4. These shoes cost me $9.” And I said, “Doesn’t look bad, does it?” You can have fun.
Neil Seldman: Yes. Another form of fun that Paul has introduced to his lectures and workshops is getting everyone to sing at the end of his presentation. It’s a wonderful uplift for people who are in a campaign. Of course, campaigns are difficult and take a long time, so having fun is essential.
Paul Connett: (singing)
Neil Seldman: Way to go, Paul. I love it.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Neil and I were talking offline about how the wonderful tradition of using the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” tune to fit to the political and social movement of the day, and I think you’ve just nailed it, so I appreciate that. That’s also the first time we’ve had singing on this podcast, so you’ve made a real impact.
Paul Connett: Well, let me pay homage to John Friedman from Preston, Connecticut. He wrote the words for that many years ago, and it’s ironic, because John actually lost that battle against the incinerator in Preston, Connecticut, but he lives on through those words, which I’ve sung now in over 60 countries.
Neil Seldman: Excellent.
Nick Stumo-Langer: If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you know that we don’t have any corporate sponsors who pay to put ads on our show. The reason is that our mission at ILSR is to reinvigorate democracy by decentralizing economic power, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to carry ads from these national companies.

Instead, we rely on you, our listeners. Your donations not only underwrite this podcast, but also help us produce all of the research and resources we make available for free on our website, and all of the technical assistance we provide to grassroot groups and communities across the country.

Every year, ILSR’s small staff help hundreds of communities challenge monopoly power directly and rebuild their local economies. So please take a minute and go to ILSR.org and click on the donate button. That’s ILSR.org. If making a donation isn’t something you can do, please consider helping us in other ways.

One great thing you can do is to rate and review this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ratings help us reach a wider audience, so it’s hugely helpful when you do that. Another thing you can do is sign up for one of our newsletters and share it with your friends. And now, back to Paul.

Paul, I really appreciate you running through some of the steps that communities can take to change this reality and to move farther towards zero waste. I’m wondering if you can maybe detail some of the biggest challenges that you see that communities face, and also that individuals face in kind of turning to the zero waste and try to turn themselves to a zero circular economy. I think that would be really helpful for our listeners to kind of figure out what you’ve identified as the challenges and how we can kind of overcome them.

Paul Connett: Well, the biggest challenge will remain individual responsibility. Fighting overconsumption. You’ve got the linear economy, extraction, production, consumption, waste. We stimulate consumption by advertising on television. Overconsumption produces enormous quantities of waste, so that big question … We enjoy overconsumption.

In America, we enjoy going, working for six days a week and then going to the shopping malls on the seventh day and spending all our money on the stuff that’s advertised on television, following the American myth, the more you consume, the happier you become. It’s a myth. The reality is the more you consume, the fatter you become, and the more waste you produce.

But the simple fact is that we enjoy it, and so the difficult thing is going to be following the moral imperative for reducing material consumption, but without becoming miserable. Somehow you have to reduce material consumption, whilst the community is getting happy, or as the individual is getting happier. That is going to require a transformation on a fixation with standard of living to quality of life.

We’re going to have … Our young people at universities are going to have to explore all the methods that we can possibly think of in which people get happier, without consuming enormous quantities of material and energy. That is the huge, huge challenge.

Another way of putting this is that we worship, we see progress as technological progress. But the real progress for the future is going to be social progress. Social progress, which dramatically cuts down on material consumption, but without taking us back to the Stone Age and misery.

A lot easier is going to be industrial design. And here, you can see places where the community has helped. Capannori in Italy, which was the first community to declare zero waste strategy in 2006. Capannori is near Lucca. They set up a zero waste research center. One of the things they kept finding in the residual fraction were these plastic capsules from one serving coffee machines. And they wrote to the company, they wrote to Lavazza, and said, “Look, we’re a zero waste community. We’re up to 83% diversion from landfill, but we keep finding your plastic capsules. What can we do about it?”

And they wrote back, also they phoned back, and said, “Look, let our experts talk with your experts.” Well now, they have produced a compostable coffee capsule. But others have produced recyclable and reusable coffee capsules. So even a relatively small community can have an impact on a major corporation if their public image is threatened.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Yeah. I think that’s very helpful, and especially figuring out what these incentives are for communities and for industries I think is a vital step in activists actually making a dent in some of these things.
Neil Seldman: Paul, you summarized things so well. I just wanted to point out that about, oh, 30 years ago, a wonderful book came out, we’ll be talking about other books in a few minutes, but The Limits to Satisfaction by an author named Leis, L-E-I-S, is a wonderful book explaining how the need for individual satisfaction through non-material acquisitions is essential for not only a happy life, but a peaceful life on Earth.
Paul Connett: Wow, thank you, Neil. I will get that as soon as I possibly can. That sounds just the ticket. One of the things though that prompts me to say is, you know when you have a big issue like sustainability, everybody says, “Let’s have sustainability experts.”

I say, “No.” We don’t want sustainable experts, experts on sustainability. We need all experts. We need all professors at university, all disciplines, to become experts on sustainability. In other words, how does your subject, how can you get your subject, your discipline, to relate to sustainability.

We need philosophers, you just mentioned one, we need philosophers. We need economists. We need engineers. We need artists. We need musicians. We need poets. We need chemists. We need physicists. We need everybody in this massive challenge to move a linear society to a circular society, a non sustainable, a throwaway society, to a sustainable society. We need everybody involved. Zero waste, getting people involved in the zero waste, is the first step. 

Neil Seldman: As Paul has said frequently in other venues, next to stopping war, becoming sustainable is the biggest crisis that humankind faces.
Paul Connett: In fact, Eric Lombardi from Boulder, Colorado, said it beautifully in the tour of Italy. He said, “I think the zero waste movement is the new peace movement.”
Neil Seldman: Yes, indeed
Paul Connett: Because the wars of the future are going to be over resources, so if we can discipline ourselves to minimize our consumption of resources, we minimize the pressures for countries to go to war.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That helps transition a little bit into something that I was kind of wondering. How does the zero waste movement, how do sustainability issues, how do you fit that into a context with other activist groups? I know that you know there are places for racial justice, for food justice, for a lot of different movements that are working with, like Neil was mentioning before, with reducing recidivism rates. There’s a lot of community activism about. How does zero waste and that movement fit within that larger activist space?
Paul Connett: Well, it’s the old classic. Think globally, act locally. It’s going from the politics of talking to the politics of doing. Young people doing things. One of the things that Beppe Grillo, the leader of the Five Star Movement in Italy, said to his fans a few years ago, they said, “Beppe, we agree with what you’re talking about, but do you want us to do?”

He said, “Go back to your communities and improve them.” And that put 140 grassroots activists into Parliament, including the mayor … well, not just Parliament, but local government … including the mayor of Parma, the mayor of Turin, and now the mayor of Rome. And Rome has just, I was there just a few days go in the city of Rome meeting the mayor, meeting the vice mayor, meeting the head of the waste management, [inaudible 00:24:37]. Rome is taking concrete steps to move towards zero waste, and if Rome can do it, any capital in Europe can do it.

Yes, this is it. It’s work at the grassroots level. It’s following Neil’s model from 30 years ago, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The planet is not going to be solved by the people at the top. It’s going to be solved by the people at the bottom who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and do something. It’s not talking, it’s doing. It’s not saying no to everything, it’s saying yes to something.

If all you say is no to something, however dreadful it is, and we have to say no, you’ve got to also have the opportunity and reserve some energy to say yes to something, otherwise you would deconstruct yourself. You will end up in misery. You’ve got to have positive reinforcement for what you do. Part of that reinforcement comes from working with others in your community. 

Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s an excellent note to end that on. We try to end every show with a reading recommendation from our guest so that they can go directly from your message to something else that is really affecting you and maybe making you think about things in a different way. It doesn’t have to be related to your work, just kind of something that’s been making you think and making you see the world a little bit differently.
Paul Connett: Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher, who I got to meet. Lovely man. And The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken. Those two books say so, so much. What I find fascinating is they’re written by economists. Some of the best books on ecology have been written by economists. Not surprisingly, because they derive from the same word, eco. They’re both books about our home, the planet. If you give economics enough space and enough time, economics and ecology are the same subject.
Neil Seldman: Thank you, Paul. I’m just going to add a couple of books. The top one that I recommend of course is Paul’s book of about two years ago on zero waste. I also recommend Captain Charles Moore’s book on plastic ocean, which is an issue threatening us all. Finally, my dear late friend, Mary Appelhof, Worms Eat My Garbage, and Worms Eat More of My Garbage, the sequel.

Thank you so much, Paul. This has been a great interview.

Paul Connett: Thank you, Neil, and thank you for mentioning dear Mary, Mary Appelhof.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Yes, thank you so much, Paul. We really appreciate you calling in.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Building Local Power podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. You can links to what we discussed today by going to our website, ILSR.org, and clicking on the show page for this episode. That’s ILSR.org. While you’re there, you can sign up for one of our many newsletters and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Once again, please help us out by rating this podcast and sharing it with your friends. This show was produced by Lisa Gonzalez and myself, Nick Stumo-Langer. I’d also like to extend a special thank you to our other show hosts, Christopher Mitchell and Stacy Mitchell, and to my guest and host on this episode, Neil Seldman.

Our theme music is “Funk Interlude” by Dysfunction_AL. Thanks for tuning in to Building Local Power and we’ll see you again later.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[16] Building Local Power on iTunes[17] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[18]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[19]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[20] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[21] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[22] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[23] and Facebook[24] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[25] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-12-14-blp035-paul-connett-zero-waste.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Nick Stumo-Langer: https://ilsr.org/author/nick/
  7. Neil Seldman: https://ilsr.org/author/neils
  8. Paul Connett’s Zero Waste and Anti Incineration Presentation: https://ilsr.org/paul-connetts-zero-waste-and-anti-incineration-presentation/
  9. If You Study Garbage You Will Not Be Unemployed: https://ilsr.org/if-you-study-garbage-you-will-not-be-unemployed/
  10. Empowering Our Communities to Redesign: Is Incineration Compatible with Recycling?: https://ilsr.org/empowering-our-communities-to-redesign-is-incineration-compatible-with-recycling/
  11. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780061997761
  12. The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780061252792
  13. The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time: https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=paul+connett
  14. Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781583335017
  15. Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780997261400
  16. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  18. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  19. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  20. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  21. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  22. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  23. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  24. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  25. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/zero-waste-blp-episode-35/


Lafayette, Louisiana’s Fiber Network Expanding to Neighboring Communities

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 14, 2017 3:56 am

For more than two years, the prospect of expanding to two nearby communities has been on the LUS Fiber to-do list in Lafayette. Now that the municipal fiber optic network has achieved at least a 40 percent take rate, the time is right to reach Youngsville and Broussard.

In 2016, the utility generated $36 million in revenue, according to Director of Utilities Terry Huval. The triple-play network has been generating profits since 2013; this will be the first expansion outside of Lafayette city limits.

Poised Pretty, Prudent Planning

Within the next few weeks, LUS plans to begin installing fiber in one subdivision in Broussard and one subdivision in Youngsville. The expansion will progress in “measured steps,” said Huval[1], so LUS Fiber can evaluate interest in the new areas. “Like any business,” he said, “we have to be prudent in how we expand.”

Back in 2015, we reported on potential expansion plans[2] that would have required the two communities to pay for the cost of expansion. At the time, Brossard and Youngsville weren’t keen on the idea, but now LUS Fiber is in a position to tackle the project without financial assistance from the two towns. The network has still not reached every premise in Lafayette, but Huval looks at the opportunity to reach Youngsville and Broussard as a way to solidify the utility’s financial position to complete the city deployment[3].

Some subdivisions were developed in the city after LUS Fiber’s first bond sale, so they have not been serviced yet, Huval said. But LUS Fiber will be extended to those areas in the city at the same time fiber is extended to some areas of Youngsville and Broussard, he said.

“Every home (in the city of Lafayette) will have access to fiber,” Huval said. “That’s the intention.”

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. said Huval: http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/2017/12/11/lus-fiber-announces-expansion-broussard-and-youngsville/941374001/
  2. reported on potential expansion plans: https://muninetworks.org/content/lafayette-considers-expansion-one-nearby-town-strikes-itself-list
  3. to complete the city deployment: http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/2017/12/12/huval-lus-fiber-expansion-continue-city/944486001/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lafayette-louisianas-fiber-network-expanding-to-neighboring-communities/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lafayette-louisianas-fiber-network-expanding-to-neighboring-communities/


Christopher On Marketplace: Munis And Network Neutrality

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 12, 2017 9:42 am

American Public Media’s Marketplace[1] – December 12, 2017

As the FCC’s vote on whether or not to remove network neutrality draws near[2], an increasing number of people are beginning to wonder how Internet access will change for them. Journalists have reached out to us to ask about the role of publicly owned Internet networks and the future without federal network neutrality policy protections. Molly Wood from Marketplace Tech[3] interviewed Christopher to ask about the pros and cons of munis, how the FCC vote could affect municipal networks, and how municipal networks may help when or if we face an Internet no longer protected by network neutrality.

Wood asked some general questions about munis and their cost, and Christopher offered some specific examples from information we’ve learned from the communities we study. Now that big ISPs are set to receive the keys to the kingdom, local leaders wonder if they can take steps to avoid the pitfalls of unfettered power.

Christopher told Molly:

The only way that [ending network neutrality] would help cities and people more generally is that it would lead to more cities considering this and cities being more aggressive because the big cable and telephone companies would likely abuse their new power. But the Internet will still be there behind the scenes and cities can build their own apps and get around the barriers that the big cable and telephone companies are producing.

Listen here or at the Marketplace website[4].

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. American Public Media’s Marketplace: https://muninetworks.org/content/christopher-marketplace-munis-and-network-neutrality
  2. remove network neutrality draws near: https://muninetworks.org/content/monopoly-power-and-network-neutrality
  3. Marketplace Tech: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/12/12/tech/some-cities-are-promising-municipal-broadband-if-net-neutrality-overturned
  4. at the Marketplace website: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/12/12/tech/some-cities-are-promising-municipal-broadband-if-net-neutrality-overturned
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/christopher-on-marketplace-munis-and-network-neutrality/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/christopher-on-marketplace-munis-and-network-neutrality/


SoCal City, Manhattan Beach, Considers Building Muni Network

by Matthew Marcus | December 12, 2017 3:59 am

In southern California, the city of Manhattan Beach is considering creating a municipal broadband network[1] to extend quality, affordable broadband to its residents and businesses.

Advocating for Quality Internet

Talk of the network surfaced from Information Technology director Sanford Taylor’s “Fiber Master Plan.” Beyond providing better broadband, the network would support “Smart City” projects: synchronized street lights, community cameras, and parking meters that allow drivers to find parking spots through an internet app.

Taylor previously worked for the city of Long Beach where he helped spearhead their fiber network. Municipalities typically pay exorbitant prices for large-scale high-speed Internet. Long Beach had been paying around $14,000 per month before Taylor transitioned from traditional ISPs to a wholesale option costing only $1,100 per month.

Nearby Santa Monica[2] has had success with their publicly owned network, which connects businesses, community centers[3], and has helped improve the functionality of municipal systems like traffic signals and cameras. The Long Beach[4] I-Net facilitates city operations by providing connectivity to municipal facilities but doesn’t connect businesses or residents. A private firm, Inyo Networks, developed a citywide fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network in the nearby town of Ontario; Taylor and Public works director Stephanie Katsouleas have been studying the arrangement closely. They are also visiting other communities that are investing in publicly owned Internet infrastructure, including Beverly Hills[5]. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Manhattan Beach is considering creating a municipal broadband network: https://www.easyreadernews.com/city-contemplates-broadband-service/?mc_cid=ef2ddd708f&mc_eid=e00c29a42c
  2. Santa Monica: https://muninetworks.org/content/more-details-incredible-santa-monica-city-net
  3. community centers: https://muninetworks.org/content/santa-monicas-muni-help-bridge-digital-divide
  4. Long Beach: http://www.longbeach.gov/ti/about-the-department/infrastructure-services-bureau/
  5. including Beverly Hills: https://muninetworks.org/content/famous-actors-and-fast-access-fttp-coming-beverly-hills
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/socal-city-manhattan-beach-considers-building-muni-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/socal-city-manhattan-beach-considers-building-muni-network/


Repealing Net Neutrality Puts 177 Million Americans at Risk

by Christopher Mitchell | December 11, 2017 5:46 am

This Thursday, December 14th, the FCC plans to remove network neutrality protections[1]. Republican Commissioners and Chairman Ajit Pai justify the decision by claiming that the market will naturally protect subscribers from predatory big ISP behavior. Unfortunately, the FCC’s own numbers disprove their theory. We dug into the data that reveals how 177 million Americans will be left without any market protection following net neutrality repeal.

Visualizing The Data

Using FCC 477 data, we created a visualization of relevant data. This map focuses on the people and businesses at greatest risk – where they are limited to options from providers that have violated network neutrality in the past or have admitted the plans to violate it in the future.

[2]

For a larger image, download this version[3] [18 MB png].

Download Net Neutrality Repeal By The Numbers, U.S.A. Edition, fact sheet here[4].

The results are not inspiring. More than 129 million people are limited to a single provider for broadband Internet access using the FCC definition of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. Out of those 129 million Americans, about 52 million must obtain Internet access from a company that has violated network neutrality protections in the past and continues to undermine the policy today.

In locations where subscribers have the benefit of limited competition, the situation isn’t much better. Among the 146 million Americans with the ability to choose between two providers, 48 million Americans must choose between two companies that have a record of violating network neutrality[5]. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. remove network neutrality protections: https://muninetworks.org/content/monopoly-power-and-network-neutrality
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NationalMap_Legend_2017_12_Updated.png
  3. download this version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hzm6qgoxs7lmbky/2017-12-nn-no-market-national-big.png?dl=0
  4. Net Neutrality Repeal By The Numbers, U.S.A. Edition, fact sheet here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Net-Neutrality-Repeal-by-the-Numbers-combined-PDF.pdf
  5. a record of violating network neutrality: https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/repealing-net-neutrality-puts-177-million-americans-at-risk/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/repealing-net-neutrality-puts-177-million-americans-at-risk/


Totals Are In: Comcast Spends $900K In Fort Collins Election

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 9, 2017 3:28 pm

A month ago we were following the election in Fort Collins in which Comcast had invested heavily[1] to oppose a measure to allow Fort Collins can pave the way for a future municipal network. Comcast lost their bid to buy the election and their recent campaign report reveals that the bankroll they spent was much more than anyone realized.

Close To A Million

When we analyzed Comcast’s investment in the Fort Collins election for our report, Comcast Spends Big on Local Elections: Would Lose Million in Revenue from Real Broadband Competition[2], we looked at the logic behind the big ISP’s investment to stop measure 2B. At the time, the front for Comcast and CenturyLink, Priorities First Fort Collins, had only spent about $200,000. Within two weeks of releasing our report, that figure rose to more than $450,000. The last campaign report, filed in early December, reports that the organization spent approximately $450,000 more. All told, the total amount spent by Priorities First Fort Collins for the campaign came to a whopping $900,999.

The grassroots organization Fort Collins Citizens’ Broadband Committee spent a little more than $15,000.

The measure to pass 2B to allow Fort Collins to amend its charter to simplify moving forward with a municipal network utility passed with 57 percent of the vote.

We looked at how much both sides spent and how their investments paid off. The anti-muni faction thought they could win by throwing money at the voters, but the locals who understand the problem in the community knew that education and leg-work were the key:

2017-2B-Spending-in-Fort-Collins.png
(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Comcast had invested heavily: https://muninetworks.org/content/comcasts-election-investment-policy-brief-seattle-fort-collins
  2. Comcast Spends Big on Local Elections: Would Lose Million in Revenue from Real Broadband Competition: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-comcast-fort-collins-seattle-competition-policy-brief.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/totals-are-in-comcast-spends-900k-in-fort-collins-election/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/totals-are-in-comcast-spends-900k-in-fort-collins-election/


Composter Catalyzes a Movement in Her Community (feat. Apple Rabbit Compost) – Episode #3

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 8, 2017 11:00 am

Welcome back to the Composting for Community Podcast! In this episode, we talk with Tiffany Bess, Founder of Apple Rabbit Compost[1] in Jacksonville, FL. Apple Rabbit Compost is a one-woman show that is changing the narrative around food waste to help nourish a more vibrant community from the ground up. They are the beginning of the composting movement in Jacksonville and are currently serving residents and a few restaurants in Jacksonville’s Urban Core neighborhoods.

Tiffany discusses how she’s helping to catalyze greater sustainability in her community, why she started Apple Rabbit Compost, and the role the Cultivating Community Composting Forum has played in helping her get started.

Listen to this episode, then check out more episodes of the Composting for Community Podcast[2].

…I started Apple Rabbit after managing a popular restaurant in the city that I live in. I was watching food get thrown away constantly and so I just kind of got to thinking like isn’t there something for recycling food the same way we recycle glass and paper?…this was something that they were interested in and so there was definitely a viable market for it.

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. Apple Rabbit Compost: http://applerabbit.org/
  2. Composting for Community Podcast: https://ilsr.org/composting-for-community-podcast-homepage/
  3. https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Tiffany-Bess-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Tiffany-Bess-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  4. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Tiffany-Bess-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  5. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Tiffany-Bess-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  6. Embed: #
  7. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/composting-for-community/
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-tiffany-bess/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-tiffany-bess/


Monopoly Power and Network Neutrality

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 7, 2017 8:15 am

The FCC is scheduled to decide[1] the fate of Internet access on Thursday, Dec 14. Will anyone anywhere in the U.S. be able to pay one basic fee to access information on the Internet from the most popular to the most arcane content providers? If all indications are correct, probably not. ISPs will increasingly decide on what terms we access the content we want. Prepare for your bills to go up.

You might wonder why the FCC is so focused on rolling back such an overwhelmingly popular policy in favor of giving more power to the most hated corporations in America. It isn’t because the most recent rules to codify the long-standing principle of non-discrimination has harmed investment. It hasn’t[2].

But something struck us about the lobbying campaigns around this issue. This graphic from the Sunlight Foundation[3] shows just how hard the top telecommunications companies and their lobbying associations have focused on defeating network neutrality. The image shows lobbying reports generated by lobbyists and whether or not the entity is opposed (red) or in favor of (green) network neutrality. As you can see, the amount of red coming from the ISPs that serve most of America vastly outstrips the green.

Lobbying-Reports-Mentioning-NN.png

Seeing Red

Since the Sunlight Foundation published this graphic in 2013, the landscape has changed in important ways. The two top firms supporting network neutrality were taken over by big monopolists that oppose maintaining an open Internet.

In 2015, Verizon acquired AOL[4] for $4.4 billion and CenturyLink recently completed its acquisition of Level 3[5]. CenturyLink, which sued the FCC over Title II reclassification, does not support network neutrality. The next strongest net neutrality supporter was Google, which took a quieter position in the 2015 debate over Title II but has since spoken out in favor of keeping the rules.

As a result of these acquisitions and the resulting concentration in the ISPs market, the small number of telecommunications companies that had favored network neutrality just a few years ago are now in the opposing camp. Without other viewpoints to counter the army of lobbyists passing on the anti-neutrality position, lawmakers will forever be surrounded by one perspective. Others, like Netflix and Etsy have stepped up, but the lobbying firepower is clearly on the side of the small number of massive monopolies that want to create new tollbooths on the Internet to extract still more revenue from subscribers. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. The FCC is scheduled to decide: https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/events/2017/12/december-2017-open-commission-meeting
  2. It hasn’t: https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Study-Net-Neutrality-Rules-Did-Not-Harm-Broadband-Investment-139573
  3. graphic from the Sunlight Foundation: https://sunlightfoundation.com/2014/05/16/how-telecoms-and-cable-have-dominated-net-neutrality-lobbying/
  4. Verizon acquired AOL: http://fortune.com/2015/06/24/verizon-gains-aol/
  5. completed its acquisition of Level 3: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/centurylink-completes-acquisition-level-3-131500900.html
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-network-neutrality/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-network-neutrality/


Watch ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell Speak on Amazon at Briefing for Members of Congress

by ILSR | December 5, 2017 1:26 pm

On Friday, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell joined members of Congress and other policy experts for a briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., “The Impact of Dominant Internet Platforms on Competition, Innovation, and Democracy[1].” The briefing, which was held by the House Judiciary Committee Democrats and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, comes as there is increasing concern about the size and power of large tech companies, including Amazon.

Stacy spoke on the second panel at the briefing, along with Rep. Keith Ellison, Lina Khan of Open Markets Institute, and Chris Lewis of Public Knowledge (who also serves on ILSR’s Board of Directors).  “We’re moving into a future in which we’re asking businesses to operate in something that is not a market, but a private arena controlled by Amazon,” Stacy noted on the panel. “There’s this pervasive sense that the future is no longer ours to choose, and that is toxic to democracy.”

Another concern raised at the briefing is the great political power that comes with monopolies’ economic power. “The bottom line is we have a crisis in democracy,” Rep. Keith Ellison said.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. The Impact of Dominant Internet Platforms on Competition, Innovation, and Democracy: https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/news/press-releases/judiciary-progressive-caucus-dems-hold-briefing-impact-dominant-internet
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/watch-ilsrs-stacy-mitchell-speak-on-amazon-at-briefing-for-members-of-congress/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/watch-ilsrs-stacy-mitchell-speak-on-amazon-at-briefing-for-members-of-congress/


ILSR Moderates Workshop at the National League of Cities Conference on “Creating a City Where Small Businesses Thrive”

by Stacy Mitchell | December 5, 2017 11:55 am

A thriving small business sector leads to more job growth, less inequality, higher median incomes, and stronger social bonds in your community. Yet aspiring entrepreneurs don’t have it easy. The cost of leasing commercial space is soaring in many cities, loans are hard to get, zoning rules often work against local businesses, and competition from Amazon is on the rise.

To help city leaders address these challenges, ILSR organized and moderated a workshop at the City Summit 2017 conference put on by the National League of Cities in November.

This lively and popular session featured a panel of city leaders from Grand Rapids, Mich., Portland, Ore., and Phoenix. Each talked about making local, independent businesses a centerpiece of their economic strategy, and outlined concrete policies and initiatives their cities have implemented to do so. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ilsr-moderates-workshop-at-the-national-league-of-cities-conference-on-creating-a-city-where-small-businesses-thrive/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-moderates-workshop-at-the-national-league-of-cities-conference-on-creating-a-city-where-small-businesses-thrive/


Sage Advice On Growing Your Grassroots Broadband Group

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 4, 2017 3:00 am

As the threat to network neutrality seems imminent[1], an increasing number of local people are organizing grassroots groups and are looking for the best steps to start local initiatives. When you decide that your community needs to make a change that isn’t happening organically, it’s time to nudge that change along. Starting a grassroots movement with like-minded citizens will help educate the community, build support, and generate ideas as you all consider what is the best solution for your unique situation. We’ve talked with local folks over the years who have shared lessons learned with us and we’ve gathered together some of the best grassroots stories with resources to share.

Seek Out The Masters

Of course, there’s nothing better than getting tips from some one who’s already climbed the mountain. John St. Julien from Lafayette passed away in 2016, but his voice and work lives on. We interviewed him in the early days of the Community Broadband Bits podcast for episode 94[2] in 2014and he had some great advice on engaging other people in the community and keeping the momentum positive.

logo-LPFBanner.pngWe also obtained permission to archive and preserve some of the writings[3] on the Lafyette Pro Fiber Blog, John’s brainchild he developed as Lafayette struggled against the many challenges by incumbents who wanted to preserve their monopoly.

Hanging’ With Buds

Often it is a mutual and familiar need that brings grassroots organizations together. In North Carolina, NC Hearts Gigabit[4] started as a way to connect to each other when they don’t feel connected to the current political process, want better Internet connectivity in North Carolina, and need to get out from behind a desk. They organize their meetings around lunch and, hey, we all need to eat amiright? Christopher spoke with the people who got the group off the ground, with Economic Development Consultant Christa Wagner Vinson, CEO of Open Broadband Alan Fitzpatrick, and Partner of Broadband Catalysts Deborah Watts. Listen to episode 280[5] of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. network neutrality seems imminent: https://muninetworks.org/content/network-neutrality-muninetworksorg
  2. episode 94: https://muninetworks.org/content/advice-starting-community-network-community-broadband-bits-episode-94
  3. archive and preserve some of the writings: https://muninetworks.org/content/lafayette-pro-fiber-blog-lives
  4. NC Hearts Gigabit: http://www.ncheartsgigabit.com/
  5. episode 280: https://muninetworks.org/content/nc-hearts-gigabit-community-broadband-bits-podcast-280
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/sage-advice-on-growing-your-grassroots-broadband-group/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sage-advice-on-growing-your-grassroots-broadband-group/


Pedal-Powered Composters Support Local Food Movement (feat. Tilthy Rich Compost) – Episode #2

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 1, 2017 7:00 am

Welcome back to the Composting for Community Podcast! In this episode, we talk with Kat Nigro, General Manager of Durham, NC-based Tilthy Rich Compost[1]. Tilthy Rich, a bike-powered food scrap hauler, aims to make composting a common practice accessible to everyone in their hometown of Durham. They are dedicated to paying living wages to their employees, supporting local agriculture, and advancing local compost production through advocacy. Tilthy Rich partners with other local organizations, CompostNow[2] and Brooks Contractor[3], and serves residential and commercial subscribers in NC’s Triangle region (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill).

Kat discusses what it takes to run a bike-powered food scrap hauling business and the role the Cultivating Community Composting Forum has played in bolstering their successes.

Listen to this episode, then check out more episodes of the Composting for Community Podcast[4].

…we believe the power of compost allows us to garner those nutrients that were going to be lost, use them to create healthy soil, and then use that soil to feed people. So our end goal is to feed people. And I think empowering people to reduce their waste, but also contribute to ending hunger in Durham is huge.

(more…)[10]

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Endnotes:
  1. Tilthy Rich Compost: https://tilthyrichcompost.com/
  2. CompostNow: http://compostnow.org/
  3. Brooks Contractor: http://www.brookscontractor.com/
  4. Composting for Community Podcast: https://ilsr.org/composting-for-community-podcast-homepage/
  5. https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Kat-Nigro-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Kat-Nigro-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  6. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Kat-Nigro-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  7. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Kat-Nigro-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  8. Embed: #
  9. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/composting-for-community/
  10. (more…): https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-kat-nigro/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-kat-nigro/


Internet Connectivity in Indigenous Communities (Episode 34)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 30, 2017 12:00 pm

Building Local Power podcast[5] host Christopher Mitchell[6] asks Matthew Rantanen, the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association[7]‘s Director of Technology and director of the Tribal Digital Village[8]: “What difference does adequate Internet access make in people’s lives?”

Rantanen, after taking a moment to answer, responds:

“Well, the difference it makes in people’s lives is clearly access to communications and to job research education, financial opportunities, basic entertainment. That’s obviously the more fun version of that, but having control of our own networks means that we can actually deliver services that we need vs just services that are set on some tier plan that somebody else dictates this is what you need. It’s way more beneficial to be able to control that ourselves and cater to our own communities.”

Welcome to episode 34 of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

This conversation between host Christopher Mitchell, Matthew Rantanen, and ILSR researcher Hannah Trostle delves into the challenges to better Internet connectivity on tribal lands across America, and how this connectivity is uniquely beneficial for these disadvantaged communities.

 

Connecting Rural America: Internet Access for All – Episode 26 of the Building Local Power Podcast[9] — This podcast episode between our Community Broadband Networks team discusses the ways that rural communities can build their Internet connectivity.

Community Connections – Matt Rantanen, Tribal Digital Village[10] — Christopher Mitchell interviews podcast guest Matthew Rantanen on what unique problems tribal governments have in connecting their communities.

Livestream The Indigenous Connectivity Summit From Santa Fe[11] — In early November, ILSR Researcher Hannah Trostle attended the Indigenous Connectivity Summit in Santa Fe, and we shared a livestream and archive of the event which informs this podcast episode.

Solar Powered Wireless on the Reservation – Community Broadband Bits Episode #76[12] — This podcast episode of our Community Broadband Bits podcast from 2013 features guest Matthew Rantanen specifically about how he built a community-owned wireless network for his community.

Our guest Matthew Rantanen recommended an item for our audience to read in anticipation of the Steven Spielberg movie:

  • “Ready Player One[13],” by Ernest Cline

Christopher Mitchell: Hey Matt. Can you give me a sense of how many people living in Indian country have broadband access?
Matthew Rantanen: At the Tribal Digital Village, which is 19 tribes in Southern California, just about 40% of our reservation homes have access to our broadband network, and there is roughly 3100 homes on the reservation about population of 9,000-ish, and the FCC actually says that 40% across the country have access to broadband services, but I’d love to challenge that figure based on just the knowledge I have of other reservations and working with tribes on connectivity issues. There’s a lot of holes in that thought process.
Christopher Mitchell: And Hannah, I’m curious. You really dig into what the FCC does on this. How much faith should we give the FCC numbers?
Hannah Trostle: The FCC numbers likely highly overstate how many people actually have internet access. Reservations are primarily located in rural areas, which have larger census blocks. The FCC looks at things on the census block level. As soon as one person has access within a census block, they consider the entire census block and everyone within it to have access, so that’s the problem with the statistics.
Matthew Rantanen: The number one reason we do not get access to federal grant money is because the census blocks misrepresent who has access to broadband and say that we’re served to areas vs unserved areas.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, for people who are wondering what the FCC is, we’re gonna explain all that and more talking about broadband and how we can build local power using some of the lessons that we’re seeing from what tribes are doing around the country and what is happening in Indian country.

I’m Chris Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and I’m hosting this episode of Building Local Power. Along with me, I’ve got Matt Rantanan, the Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association and Director of the Tribal Digital Village Initiative. Welcome back, Matt.

Matthew Rantanen: Thank you.
Christopher Mitchell: Matt and I had talked back in 2013 about what he’s doing specifically there. We’ll update that a little bit, and we will talk about other things as well, but if you really want to hear more of Matt’s voice, you can go back to those younger days of 2013.

We also have Hannah Trostle, who is a research associate and has been on this show before talking about coops. She really specializes in broadband research and focuses on rural areas. 

Hannah Trostle: Thanks for having me on the show, Chris.
Christopher Mitchell: Matt, let me just throw at you as we deal with this. We were talking a little bit about the Federal Communications Commission and the statistics, but let’s start a little bit broader, and let me ask you … We can stipulate that there’s a tremendous lack of broadband access, of high-quality internet access on Indian country lands around the United States.

If we had a choice, if you could snap your fingers and either have AT&T providing a mobile broadband package in the same way they do in major US cities on all of those lands over the next year, or we had to wait a little bit longer and maybe in three or four years we see many more of these local tribal initiatives pop up where the tribes are building their own networks, how do you think those two different options would result in different outcomes? 

Matthew Rantanen: Well, typically the barrier to entry with a mobile platform provided by a national carrier is the cost. Everybody thinks that native Americans have casinos and everybody’s rich. Well, out of the 567 federally recognized tribes, there’s roughly 50 casinos, 50 tribes that game, and some of those are successful and some of them are not. Overall, the tribes are actually fairly poor, and individually much poorer than that. Looking at 50% unemployment in most situations on reservation, these people can’t afford those service plans.

The next problem with a mobile platform national carrier like that is that they all have data capacity limits, and if you’re gonna call a service broadband, I think it should come along with an unlimited data scenario, because if you’re going to monetize every megabit over your plan and add cost and make it impossible for people to do homework, to do video conferencing tutorial, such like that, there’s no point in going that route. We’d be much better off if the tribes were building networks and services to themselves.

Christopher Mitchell: Let me ask, and Hannah, you could pick this up and then we can discuss it Matt if you want to jump in. I’m curious if we can just talk a little bit about the benefits of the locally owned approaches the two of you just came back from gathering with a lot of other people at this gathering in New Mexico with the Internet Society, focused on indigenous networks. It sounds like there’s a lot of enthusiasm. What are some of the benefits that we’re seeing from the tribes building their own networks?
Matthew Rantanen: You know, there’s a whole thought process behind the reservation system and the sovereign identity and the sovereign aspect of tribes, and that is self-governance. It’s been something that’s been pushed by the federal government all along. We all have our own constitutions, our own governments, structures, infrastructure, planning, residential planning, all those types of things, Environmental Protection Agency offices and such, emergency services and all, so having our own resource to the internet, providing a network to ourselves, or providing a network amongst other tribes as well, seems to go right along with the theory of self-governance and self-determination. It dictates that we are in control of the services that are being delivered to us.
Christopher Mitchell: That kind of seems like the boring aspect. It makes sense philosophically, and I appreciate that, but how does it make a difference in people’s lives?
Matthew Rantanen: Well, the difference it makes in people’s lives is clearly access to communications and to job research education, financial opportunities, basic entertainment. That’s obviously the more fun version of that, but having control of our own networks means that we can actually deliver services that we need vs just services that are set on some tier plan that somebody else dictates this is what you need. It’s way more beneficial to be able to control that ourselves and cater to our own communities.
Hannah Trostle: When I was at the summit, a lot of folks talked about how once they had access to the internet, they started forming Facebook communities and sharing more of their content locally within the community. It encouraged sort of a revitalization of different cultural practices. Someone was talking about I think sealskin boots at one point and how suddenly all the younger generation really connected that to their actual life and connected it to their online presence.
Matthew Rantanen: Yeah, so another thing that happens, well that happened in the history of the United States, is bigger groups of people were cut up into smaller groups to split them up to take away their strength, put on separate reservations. Families were split in half, especially in California. Bigger tribes were cut up into smaller reservations, three or four different reservations per tribe. Brothers were separated and families were separated, and that communication path basically is difficult, because it requires travel, transportation. And with the lack of [plenal 00:07:52] telephone service, still being at 70% penetration in Indian country, there’s still a lot of people that don’t have access to normal communication. Bringing broadband into these communities and opening up the opportunity for connectivity as much as visual, like video conference, hang-out sessions and Skype sessions and such, those opportunities give people a way back together to form those alliances again and then work above the reservation system and kind of rekindle some of that old communication path.
Christopher Mitchell: Matt, you’ve been in this business for a very long time. It’s been more than 15 years of providing internet service wirelessly from the tops of ridges using solar powered and other forms of electricity generally off-grid. I don’t wanna spend too much time describing the network. What I wanna sort of establish is that you’ve really been a go-to person over the years. I think you have a good sense of what’s happening in tribes around the country. What’s an exciting network, and more importantly, what are some of the benefits that it’s driving that maybe you learn more about or just we’re reminded of at this gathering that you were just at?
Matthew Rantanen: Well, one of my favorites is always referring to an IT director in the Coeur d’Alene Indian tribe, Valerie Fast Horse. She came down to the Tribal Digital Village network in early 2000s and went up to a tower with us, stood on top of one of the battery boxes, looked out over the landscape standing next to our equipment that was using 2.4 gigahertz at the time, and she just said, “Are you kidding me? You can do all this with wifi?” And then proceeded to go home, and over the last ten years has built this network called Red Spectrum that is a hybridized system between fiber and wireless that is making the Tribal Digital Village look kinda like a hobby network. That’s one of my favorite examples.

One of the best things that came out of the Santa Fe meeting, which is what happens when all of us get together on this grassroots level, is that communities that know they need this corner me at lunch, sit me down at a table with all five of their representatives, and basically have me go through a Broadband Wireless Networking for Communities 101 class in 30 minutes time, and they’re just feverishly taking notes and gathering my information, and then, “We’re gonna go home and we’re gonna start this, and we’ll call you back as soon as we hit the wall,” and I was like, “That’s one of the coolest things that happened during the Santa Fe ISOC meeting. 

Christopher Mitchell: Well, and it’s exciting that we have that because of good federal policies that allow this technology to be used unlicensed and whatnot, so it’s always worth reminding people that we have that and we need to preserve it.

Hannah, I’m curious what struck you at the Santa Fe. Was there any compelling stories about locally provisioned networks that you’d like to share with us?

Hannah Trostle: What really stuck with me was I ended up at a table with a bunch of people from Alaska, and there was one group that was actually from Canada and another group that was from Alaska. The Canadian group was like, “How is Alaska able to get this internet access? How are you actually able to build this?” They were doing an undersea fiber cable, and somehow the people in Alaska had figured out a system that would actually work to bring it to their community, whereas the Canadians were like stuck under their government and trying to get them to listen and weren’t able to do anything.
Christopher Mitchell: That’s a hopeful example in a time in which I think many of us are a little bit despondent about how we compare to other nations, so I certainly …
Matthew Rantanen: Right.
Christopher Mitchell: Appreciate that. Hannah, you know that we’re very bullish on electric and telephone cooperatives in helping in rural America build incredible networks. Is the future as bright in the tribal areas, or does something major need to change to make sure that people have full access to technology and communications?
Hannah Trostle: The thing with the telephone electric coops is that they’ve had so much support from the USDA, the US Department of Agriculture, in order to build these networks.
Matthew Rantanen: We definitely need a major breakthrough. You know, it’s happening here and there, and where a tribe has a relationship with let’s say a rural coop electric company, they’ll get some inroads into connectivity to their tribal buildings, but their connectivity to their homes on reservation poses problems. Depending on your geography, depending on your weather, fiber hanging on a pole is an option in a lot of places in the United States, but where there’s high wind and stuff like that, they have issues, so some of the reservations here in Southern California happen to be in the mountains, and some of the harshest weather happens in those mountain.

Because we’re close to the coast, we get a lot of different changes in weather in the mountain regions. Some of that fiber can’t hang on poles. Digging in the ground doesn’t work, so wireless becomes the situation. Wireless is not the best deployment solution for scalability, and some of those rural coops don’t wanna get into that as an alternative. They’re typically running fiber where they already have electrical resources.

So there is an impasse. It’s not a permanent wall, but there is certainly some creative solutions that need to be kind of worked out, and it’s kind of case by case, and once we get a couple of cases that are great, I think we need to really promote their success so that other people can kind of latch onto that and maybe grow that idea.

Hannah Trostle: So Paul Bunyan Communications Coop and Leech Lake, for instance.
Christopher Mitchell: In Minnesota.
Matthew Rantanen: Yeah, possibly, and then Anza Valley Coop, which is in Riverside County, California.
Christopher Mitchell: Which is making encroachments into your area so you’ll finally have good access in your home.
Matthew Rantanen: I can see a coil of fiber on my telephone pole outside of the house. Now I just have to trench it myself, because they’re a year behind if they have to trench. They only have one trenching team, so I think I have to go trench it myself. Otherwise, if you can hang it on pole all the way to your house, you’re in the queue for within the next month.
Christopher Mitchell: Hey. This is Chris. Probably the person you were just listening to, but this is me from a different time and place with a quick pitch for you.

You might notice that we don’t have any advertising and I’m not gonna tell you what underwear to get or that we recommend you also listen to the Goldman Sachs podcast, which I’m assuming is a tutorial on extracting so much wealth from Main Street that all of the local businesses get replaced by maximally leveraged chain stores. Seriously. Do not listen to that podcast.

But I am asking you to support us so that we can stop these big monopolies from taking all of your money and corrupting our public officials. You can help us do the unique research that only we do and get that information out to everyone. Donate at ilsr.org/donate. That’s ilsr.org/donate. There you can also sign up for our newsletters, and if you have energy after that, you could give Building Local Power a rating on Stitcher, iTunes, or Apple podcasts or whatever they’re calling it tomorrow. Thanks. You’re practically on staff here now, and we really appreciate your support.

One of the things that we’re worried about in cities is that the rapid increase in technology and communication allowing kids that have high-quality access to learn at a much more rapid rate … They have access to more materials. They may be more inspired … In addition to the other advantages they had in the past, that paradoxically, better internet access could result in a greater divide between the have-nots and the haves. Is that something that you’re worried about on the reservations, Matt? 

Matthew Rantanen: Absolutely. It’s something that we deal with every day, especially in the education system. Kids are required to sometimes even download what their homework assignment is, let alone do the research and the work for that homework assignment online, and it’s just assumed that you have access to internet. A lot of the kids in the Southern California reservation system, I’d say probably 90% of them are bussed off reservation to go to an in-town school if you will, and that expectation from that school system is that you have access to internet.

Well, these kids get back on the bus and go back to the reservation, where they don’t have access to internet, so a lot of families are taking their only vehicle and loading up the kids, driving down to town 45 minutes to a McDonalds or a Starbucks, and sitting there and poaching internet so they can download the homework assignment and then sometimes perform that homework assignment, and then come back home where that vehicle could be used for someone that is bringing money into the household through work, or it could be used for other sources of success for that family, and it’s being tied up just dragging kids back and forth to do internet access.

Christopher Mitchell: This is a show about building local power, and I think it’s pretty obvious how internet access and then access to education and access to economic development is important to that, but one of the things that’s often overlooked is cultural power and a sense of representation, and one of the things that I’ve certainly been more aware of as a white male is the way in which I’m constantly fed all kinds of things, that most of the movie stars are white and male, speak English as a first language, and I’m learning more about the importance of cultural representation for others.

I think the reaction from the African American community from the Black Panther trailers is incredible. Matt, I know that you and Hannah are both very big into this comic book universe. At the Santa Fe, you were there at the same time as an Indigenous Comic Con event, and I’m curious if you can just talk a little bit about the importance of those sorts of things, that cultural power, in terms of building local power within historically marginalized communities.

I wanna turn to Hannah first while Matt can think about what he wants to say.

Matthew Rantanen: The Indigenous Comic Con, this was the second year of it. Each year I have missed it, even this time. I was staying with a friend, and they did not have time to drive me over to the casino where it was being held.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, now I feel like a real jerk, ’cause I thought this was like something you got to do while you traveled.
Matthew Rantanen: No, but I was really, really excited. I bought tickets and was gonna go, ’cause every time I go to the Chicago Comic Con, I really recognize that I am out of place there, but the Indigenous Comic Con, it’s been put together by a lot of different native women, like I can think of Johnny Jay for instance, and it’s just very, very exciting for me personally.
Christopher Mitchell: Matt you look like a super hero already, for people who aren’t familiar. What do you think about the importance of representation in media in this genre?
Matthew Rantanen: This is epic, actually. I’m a 23-year veteran of the San Diego Comic Con, and watched that thing turn into the monstrosity that it is today. I’ve been to both of the … the very first and then this year’s Indigenous Comic Con, and I have to say it is an amazing opportunity for native artists and native writers and native creators to take their origin stories and their history and kind of create the popular art myths and storytelling aspects of their community like we see in the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe today. We actually have a tribal owned print company, and we took that print company to both the Comic Cons and set up a table and just wanted to support them in their efforts to create these awesome stories and illustrate these brilliant characters.

We have had a great relationship with all of the artists there. The Comic Book Convention creator, Dr Lee Francis III, has worked with many creative, inspirational people and has an amazing team of folks to put this thing together, and the stories that I see coming out of this, and the excitement that little kids and even adults have when they walk through the show floor and they see and recognize a character from stories that their grandparents told them when they were little kids about how their culture came about and how their people explain the sun and explain rain and explain things like that and explain the creation story, it’s just super cool to see, and there’s so much enthusiasm and excitement. So many artists, so much opportunity, there was some amazing comics to film stars there, to interact with tribal youth and tribal people, to just kind of tie that whole world together, it’s a magical experience.

But I love it. I’m a Comic Con geek, and seeing the core of the indigenous community being able to create and just get the stories out there visually is just phenomenal. 

Christopher Mitchell: That would be a wonderful place to end if I didn’t have one more question that I just really wanna put to you Matt, since you do have this long experience of running an ISP connecting the many tribes in San Diego County. Do you have a sense of how it’s different between you vs if like AT&T was running the same network in terms of creating opportunities for people to learn skills in an area in which I think they often don’t necessarily have that?
Matthew Rantanen: The big difference, obviously, is just the sheer massive corporation behind the AT&T effort, and I say that for a couple different reasons. One of ’em is its unlimited resources essentially for build-out, where we’re very restricted on budget. One of our hardest problems is quality of service of the network, and it has to do with uptime, and most of that has to do with solar power. I don’t see like a network that was deployed by an AT&T or an incumbent Telco having the similar issues and just throw money at the problem.

The other thing I see is that big corporations like that make decisions based on their corporate environments, not on the cultural environment of the community, so I think the network, weird enough that equipment can behave differently, but the architecture and the thought process behind the network would be different than the thought process and the architecture the way we design it.

We’re trying to be all-inclusive. They’re looking for low-hanging fruit and lowest cost to entry. We are also trying to be mindful of cost, but at the same time, if there is a home that’s off the beaten path and we have to generate some other piece of architecture to capture that home, we’re gonna do that, because that’s how we as a community work. I think that might be the two differences that most obvious.

Christopher Mitchell: It’s really insightful. I’m curious about one additional thing related, and that’s do you have a sense of your training people in ways that, because you’re locally owned, you can do in a unique way that they may not have opportunities if this was a different operation?
Matthew Rantanen: Yeah. I’d say it’s a more personal approach. If you’re in a remote community and you happen to have one service person from your incumbent Telco, you might get to know them, but the people that work for our group are all tribal, and they are from the community in the most part, so there’s a relationship there already, prior to actually being a part of this, so there is a familiarity there and a sense of community, and there’s a different sense of community with some of the folks that are actually on the reservations that are getting service. They’re entitled to more of an ownership thought process behind their work every day, vs “I’m just comin’ in to clock in.” I think there’s more of a responsibility to try to make the network better.
Christopher Mitchell: Matt, is there anything you recommend that people read? We usually just ask if there’s a final recommendation for a book or a movie or anything that’s culturally related.
Matthew Rantanen: It’s slightly related to technology. It’s been made into a movie, and it’s about to happen. Spielberg’s directing it, but I’d say go out and read Ready Player One.
Christopher Mitchell: Oh yeah. Yeah, I’m a little bit worried about the previews. I love that book. I devoured it on a vacation, and I was hungry for more. I thought his second book was pretty bad, but the movie now has me a little nervous after seeing a preview that was curiously different from what I envisioned.
Matthew Rantanen: Yeah, but was Spielberg at the helm? I don’t think we’re going to be disappointed with the movie as a movie. It may not 100% represent the book, but at least I think we’ll get another fun movie that is representative an era in time probably near and dear to all our hearts growing up through that era.
Christopher Mitchell: Yeah, I fully agree, and I’ll definitely be in line to see that movie very soon after it releases. Cool. Well, thank you Matt for joining us once again. Good luck, and I definitely look forward to meeting up with you to talk about whatever’s happening in the Marvel Universe when our paths cross again.
Matthew Rantanen: Excellent. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[14] Building Local Power on iTunes[15] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[16]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[17]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[18] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[19] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[20] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[21] and Facebook[22] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[23] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-11-21-blp034-matt-rantanen-tribal-networks.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-11-21-blp034-matt-rantanen-tribal-networks.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism
  7. Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association: https://www.sctca.net/
  8. Tribal Digital Village: https://sctdv.net/
  9. Connecting Rural America: Internet Access for All – Episode 26 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/connecting-rural-america-episode-26-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  10. Community Connections – Matt Rantanen, Tribal Digital Village: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-connections-matt-rantanen-tribal-digital-village
  11. Livestream The Indigenous Connectivity Summit From Santa Fe: https://muninetworks.org/content/livestream-indigenous-connectivity-summit-santa-fe
  12. Solar Powered Wireless on the Reservation – Community Broadband Bits Episode #76: https://muninetworks.org/content/solar-powered-wireless-reservation-community-broadband-bits-episode-76
  13. Ready Player One: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307887443
  14. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  15. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  17. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  18. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  19. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  20. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  21. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  22. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  23. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/indigenous-internet-blp-episode-34/


Electric Cooperative Provides Southeastern Missouri Counties with Fiber-to-the-Home

by Matthew Marcus | November 30, 2017 9:32 am

Southeastern Missouri residents in three counties will soon have Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) available through the Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative. The new project marks yet another opportunity for rural residents and businesses to obtain high-quality connectivity from their electric service providers.

Regional Improvements

Missouri specifically has been utilizing rural cooperatives as a means to connect people to improved Broadband Internet. Barry Electric Cooperative, Co-Mo Cooperative, Callaway Electric Cooperative,[1] Ralls County Electric Cooperative,[2] and Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative[3] have all begun connecting businesses and residents to their fiber networks.

Pemiscot Dunklin Fiber[4] will serve the residents of Dunklin, Pemiscot and New Madrid counties. The co-op has yet to announce subscription prices, but will offer video, voice, and high-speed Internet access. They plan to provide symmetrical connectivity so subscribers can be participants in the online economy, not just consumers. DSL connections are available to much of the area with scant cable offerings.

Cooperative Power

Electric cooperatives have provided essential services to rural and underserved areas for many years, and recently they’ve begun to offer Internet service in an effort to ensure rural communities aren’t left behind. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Barry Electric Cooperative, Co-Mo Cooperative, Callaway Electric Cooperative,: https://muninetworks.org/content/electric-and-telephone-cooperatives-team
  2. Ralls County Electric Cooperative,: https://muninetworks.org/content/another-rural-electric-co-op-connects-missourians
  3. Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative: https://muninetworks.org/content/sho-me-your-fixed-wireless-houston-mo
  4. Pemiscot Dunklin Fiber: http://pdfiber.com/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/electric-cooperative-provides-southeastern-missouri-counties-with-fiber-to-the-home/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/electric-cooperative-provides-southeastern-missouri-counties-with-fiber-to-the-home/


Self-Reliance & Transformation Through Composting (feat. Terra Nova Compost) – Episode #1

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 29, 2017 7:00 am

Welcome to the Composting for Community podcast!

In this episode, we talk with Corinne Coe-Law, Co-Founder and Director of the Atlanta-based Terra Nova Compost Cooperative[1]. Terra Nova Compost aims to teach underserved communities the value and importance of soil building as it relates to urban agriculture, food justice and climate change. Corinne also led ILSR’s first national replication of its Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders[2] composter training program in Atlanta in 2016. These students are now leading nine projects around Atlanta at a time when support for community composting in the area is growing.

Corinne discusses her successful replication of the NSR program, and the ability of localized composting to support community self-sufficiency, food sovereignty, and social justice.

Listen to this episode, then check out more episodes of the Composting for Community Podcast[3].

…aside from building our soil, growing our food, and feeding us [the power of compost is] really about transformation. Turning something that some would consider waste…into something really beautiful and abundant.

View the full transcript of the podcast here:

Corinne Coe-Law: We need to grow soil scientists, we need to grow composters and we need to do that locally.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Welcome to the first episode of the Composting For Community Podcast, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. My name is Nick Stumo-Langer, ILSR’s communications manager. This episode is recorded during the US Composting Council’s annual conference in Los Angeles in January of 2017 and features Corinne Coe of Terra Nova Compost in Atlanta. She and I discussed the exciting power of compost holds for revitalizing underserved communities and how her experiences are shaping the growing community composting movement in Atlanta.

This podcast is the first in a special promo series for the fifth annual Cultivating Community Composting Workshop and Forum in Atlanta in January of 2018, sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle Magazine. Register and learn more at ilsr.org/ccc-2018. That’s ilsr.org/ccc-2018. Be sure to rate this podcast on iTunes or wherever you receive your podcasts. It helps us to continue to create great content for you, such as ISLR’s other podcasts, Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and Community Broadband Bits. Finally, be sure to visit ilsr.org for the latest on our work in all sectors of community development and now, here’s Corinne.

Sitting here with Corinne Coe of Terra Nova Compost from Atlanta, Georgia, and just say hi. 

Corinne Coe-Law: Hi, everybody!
Nick Stumo-Langer: All right, so this is the first in a series of interviews we’re doing with community composters, talking about the impact that the programs are having in their community, as well as the larger benefits. I’ll start out with the softball question, what do you think the power of composting is?
Corinne Coe-Law: I think it really is, aside from building our soil, and growing our food, and feeding us, it’s really about transformation. It’s a wonderful metaphor for transformation. Turning something that some folks would consider waste, or perhaps is waste into something really beautiful and abundant.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s a good transition to talk about your work. Why don’t you talk a little bit about Terra Nova Compost, kind of about the programs that you’ve done, kind of give us a little run down of that?
Corinne Coe-Law: Sure, after two years living abroad I returned to the United States, and I chose Atlanta because my only sibling, my younger brother lives there, and we’re very close. I got there, and I found, into 2013, a very robust urban agriculture scene but very few farmers, and very few people were talking about composting. I was a little bit shocked at that because I had been doing composting work for probably six years at the time and also growing food. I thought, okay, here’s a fantastic opportunity for me to do some work that I’m already passionate about.

I started Terra Nova Compost in October 2013 after being in Atlanta for about six months. Terra Nova compost is exclusively an education and consulting organization. We are for-profit, and what we do is teach people how to compost, either at home, in their schools, in their community gardens, even on urban farms. I’ve certainly worked with some farmers, who either have existing compost systems or want to start them, want to improve them. Farmers are very busy, and so some farmers just need a little bit of support.

In 2016, I led the first national replication of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program in Atlanta. I called it the Community Compost Advocate Training Program. It ran for three consecutive weekends. I had 16 students and four children tagalongs, and it was a total success. For sure, to date, it was the most, the hugest success I’ve enjoyed professionally and it was just so much fun.

My students now, those 16 people, some of them are working together so we have now 10 community composting projects in four of Atlanta’s five metropolitan counties. I am tracking their progress and helping them, offering technical support, offering emotional support, whatever kind of support I can give. I’m proud to say that I really believe that all of my students got something big out of the program. Each of them perhaps something different, but it was really, it was really fantastic.

Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s excellent. What kind of a role does the NSR replication, and kind of the work you’re doing, help in build the infrastructure for compost? You were saying earlier, there’s a big urban ag scene. There’s a big kind of push for growing locally, buying at farmer’s markets that type of thing, as there are in a lot larger cities in the US and how does your role fit in with building that infrastructure out to make it not necessarily, not to make it, just something oh, composting is an interesting thing you can do, but kind of weaving that into the fabric of urban ag?
Corinne Coe-Law: Well again, if nobody is talking about and nobody is doing it, then the infrastructure obviously isn’t there and can’t be there. What I found, in 2013, nobody’s talking about it. A couple of farmers are doing it. A couple of community gardens are doing it somewhat poorly, and probably some folks are doing it in their backyards. Then, in 2016, I really wanted to do the Community Compost Advocate Training Program, the replication of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders, in Southwest Atlanta, which is where I live. I don’t really like the term underserved, but people probably understand what that means to some degree and is an underserved neighborhood. What I found was there was no place to do it. There was no place to do it. I couldn’t do my program there.

I did it in Candler Park, a really fantastic older neighborhood in Atlanta at a community-owned land trust, which is really fantastic because it’s a permanent land trust, nature preserve, community garden, public space. The bin that we build, the three bin system will be there for perpetuity. It’s a really fantastic bin, designed by Urban Farm Plans, I’m proud to say.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Good, a nice little shout out there.
Corinne Coe-Law: Yeah, shout out to our friends. But that was important to me to because land access is an issue, gentrification is an issue in Atlanta and having it at a land trust that’s owned by the community, it’s been there for longer than I’ve been alive, felt really good. However, now, my next project that I really haven’t told too many people about yet, is called the West Side Compost Project. I have identified a fantastic group of people to be on the board of directors and we’re starting a compost project on the west side in the neighborhood that I kind of wanted, this NSR replication to be, but we didn’t have a space for it.

The role of the NSR program is to get people excited, to get people enthusiastic, to start the conversation, and probably to some degree to get some money. I mean, again I have a for-profit business, but I’ll tell you that teaching composting doesn’t yet pay the bills for me, for sure. That’s not why I do it of course, and the West Side Compost Project will be a non-profit, I won’t make any money off of that. Terra Nova Compost won’t make any off of that. But, because of the success that we had with the NSR replication, I feel like I have the leverage to start this new project and I have a really great, strong board of directors, and hopefully get some funding to build infrastructure on the west side of Atlanta, so that perhaps we could do another NSR replication in a year or two.

Nick Stumo-Langer: We’re excited to, hopefully, partner to do that type of thing. Going back a little bit for the NSR replication, I know that ILSR staff member Linda Bilsens came down and you had a number of other experts. So, why don’t you talk about kind of how important it is to share the knowledge?  Making sure that you’re getting that knowledge-base from all these different experts who have been doing this for so long and kind of transplanting that into, communities that may not have that existing knowledge or that wealth-base, too, because it seems like, you’re building out in areas specifically where you want to build that community wealth.
Corinne Coe-Law: Absolutely. I mean, I was lucky enough to know the instructors that I brought in ahead of time. They happened to be the same instructors, some of the same instructors that Institute for Local Self-Reliance had used in their Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Programs in DC and Baltimore but I also knew them. So, when I called them up and I said, “Hey, I’m working with Brenda, I’m working with Linda, I want to do this.” I didn’t come out of nowhere. I mean, obviously the support of Brenda and Linda, probably would have offered me the at opportunity anyway, but Benny Erez can down from ECO City Farms. Rhonda Sherman came down from North Carolina State University. Linda and Eriks came down from DC from ILSR and Urban Farm Plans.

On top of that, I actually added into my program, a compost entrepreneurship portion, which was led by Chris Cano of Gainesville Compost and Bike Compost, also a friend of mind, and a social justice piece that was led by Sundiata Ameh-El of Tallahassee, Florida and his project is called Compost Community, and that was really important for me, because to go back to what I said about what the power of composting is, I really do believe it’s about transformation.

Working in underserved neighborhoods, I want to show people that anything is possible, right? We can create abundance out of almost nothing, and almost without any money at all. We just need to do it together, to be patient, to do the work. I’m really proud of the group of instructors that I chose. In some ways, they chose me, ILSR chose them, but I added to that mix and what I would, what I envision, long-term, that this program either leads into, feeds into, becomes whatever, something like the nation-wide Master Gardener Program that is in almost every county, in every state, across the whole country. It’s led by really skilled, knowledgeable people, right, and they’re knowledgeable about horticultural, agriculture, and I think that we need to grow that.

In five years, do I want to have Rhonda, and Benny, and Linda, and Eriks come down to Atlanta again? The answer is no. As much as I love them, I want them to come stay with me, go out for Mexican food, but we need to grow soil scientists, we need to grow composters, and we need to do that locally. I think that the more we’re able to replicate this program and honestly, in the same city, over and over again, to bring more people into the fold, we won’t have to use fossil fuels to move people to share the knowledge.

Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s good. That’s a great way to say that. I’m sure, and I’m sure you know, I know Linda and I’m sure that she says, “I don’t want to come. I want to come down for Mexican food. I want to come down and hang out and see Corine, and all that awesome stuff she’s doing.” But, that’s exactly right. We want to make sure we’re building those local experts, making sure that it’s a foundational part of the community.

I’d be remiss, because I do work for all the ILSR initiatives, to not talk about the economic development potential and to talk about how, this isn’t just about training folks to get more connected to the soil, to be able to kind of do those types of things. It’s also about building wealth in communities that have been sapped of wealthy, due to a variety of circumstances. I know, I’ll have you repeat a little bit of what you said in a panel a couple days ago, talking about why you don’t like the term food deserts. Why you don’t like some of the ways that we talk about these communities, because in a lot of ways, it doesn’t capture the full story. What composting, what community composting, what the work you’re doing in training and consulting can help to do to build that community wealthy, and that kind of underground structure of what a community looks like, that’s healthy, that’s vibrant, that’s doing great work for its people.

Corinne Coe-Law: Nick, that’s a big question, but I feel like it’s the question. It really, I feel like I’m getting teary-eyed.
Nick Stumo-Langer: It’s a podcast, no one can see if you’re getting teary-eyed. It’s okay.
Corinne Coe-Law: It’s important though. That’s how passionate I am about this. It is crux of why I do this work, okay? We need to be able to be able to take care of ourselves and admittedly, I’m a revolutionary if I might call myself one. I hope I am. Capitalism has isolated us from each other and from the Earth. Along with compost, I think seeds are critical to survival, social justice, food sovereignty, self-sufficiency, and that’s actually my next project that nobody knows about, except Ron Finley who I was luck enough to visit yesterday. He’s a friend of mine here in Los Angeles. If you have seeds, and if you have soil and water, you can take care of yourself.

This work, I aim to show people again, the power of transformation, that they can take of themselves, that everything we need has been provided for us by some miracle of God, or Allah, or whatever you choose to believe in. Brenda talked yesterday about social economics, environmental economics and of course, that doesn’t boil down to money, but I’m sure, anyone listening to this podcast probably has heard the saying that like, “Once we’ve cut down all the trees.” I don’t even know the whole saying, but basically, you can’t eat money, right?

Again, this work is about transformation. It’s about self-sufficiency. It is about job creation and community building, that’s why I brought Chris Cano, up from Gainesville, Florida, is to talk about how he created this business to do composting. One of my students now runs a young adult environmental training program, that she works for an organization called the Greening Youth Foundation and they have a training center focused on young adults, focused on environmental issues. She’s now teaching composting in her program because of my class. Her volunteer hours are actually paid hours, but she’s training young people to do the composting. They get paid to be there at this job training program for young people.

I also think, I had a conversation this morning with somebody, with J.D. that was the moderator of the panel yesterday, that you were at, or Brenda spoke at. There’s room for backyard, not only is there room, these are all critical, and they’re all necessary. Backyard composting, community composting, industry-scale composting. We need all three because not one of them can meet all of our needs. We have to have all three.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Yeah, there is the, I think, a common thread through a lot of what we’ve been talking about has been, community composting has all these intangible benefits, all these things, whether it’s strengthening the fabric of a community, whether it’s building those jobs in the community and it’s excellent and it’s something that we’ve talked about the benefits of, over and over again. Something that gets a little bit lost in that is that commercial-scale composting matters for the stuff that falls through the cracks, the stuff that maybe there isn’t a strong community base because that’s how these places were intentionally designed. What is an industrial park look like that’s isolated from an actual residential community center that people could actually live in? That type of thing.

It’s definitely something that where I know that, at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance we love the community scale, we love being able to do that, but something like composting is too important to just limit ourselves to one thing and also, realizing that there’s a lot of potential. There’s a lot of really great people who are thinking about this critically and how you can build wealth this way.

Corinne Coe-Law: It’s also the most fun. Backyard composting is you, your partner, your kids, maybe your neighbor, industrial-scale composting is really loud. You’re not going to make friends at an industrial-scale composting site. Community composting is really fun and I learned that, I knew that already, but I learned it, it became very clear, very clear, through my 2016 Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders replication in Atlanta.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Great. All right. This has been a great interview. I’ll end it with one final question. Doesn’t have to be a book, doesn’t have to be anything to heavy, do you have a reading recommendation, or a listening recommendation for our listeners here, so they can go directly from our conversation to something you like?
Corinne Coe-Law: I do think that the book Teaming With Microbes is fantastic if you want to get deep into soil biology. Basic composting, I would say The Rodale Guide to Composting is great. I will tell you too, I’m going to write a book about composting and social justice with Ron Finley.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s great.
Corinne Coe-Law: You heard it here first.
Nick Stumo-Langer: This is the exclusive, this is breaking news here on the podcast.
Corinne Coe-Law: This is breaking news.
Nick Stumo-Langer: All right. Well thank you so much for being here and for talking with me here at the USCC Compost Conference and I’m happy to do it. I’m happy to help lift up these stories.
Corinne Coe-Law: Thank you Nick, thank you so much. That was fun and all that’s true.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s also the benefit, right? Where it’s all accurate. Thank you so much for listening to this special episode of the Composting For Community Podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thank you to Grapes for his track, I Dunno, license on Creative Commons. Be sure to check out the rest of the ILSR podcast family including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and Community Broadband Bits at ilsr.org. Have a great day.

 

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[9] and Facebook[10] and Instagram[11]. For monthly updates on our work, sign up[12] for our ILSR general newsletter.

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[13].

 

Subscribe: iTunes[14] | Android | RSS

 

Audio Credit: I Dunno[15] by Grapes. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[16] license.

Photo Credit: Terra Nova Compost Cooperative[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. Terra Nova Compost Cooperative: https://terranovacompost.com/about/
  2. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  3. Composting for Community Podcast: https://ilsr.org/composting-for-community-podcast-homepage/
  4. https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Corinne-Coe-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Corinne-Coe-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  5. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Corinne-Coe-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  6. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/composting_for_community_ilsr/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Corinne-Coe-Podcast-Interview-CCC-2018-Promo.mp3
  7. Embed: #
  8. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/composting-for-community/
  9. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  10. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  11. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ilsr74/?hl=en
  12. sign up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup
  13. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  14. iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/composting-for-community/id1482294569
  15. I Dunno: http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626
  16. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/c4c-podcast-corinne-coe-law/


Electric Vehicles Unlock Local Energy Benefits, Deliver Cost Savings — Episode 51 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 28, 2017 2:14 pm

It’s no secret that electric vehicles have gone mainstream. From quarter to quarter, U.S. sales numbers consistently hover near or above record levels. Cities are trading in their gas-powered fleet vehicles and buses. And major auto manufacturers are planning for an electrified future.

But the shift toward electric vehicles means more than cleaner, greener transportation. It offers an opportunity to build out new infrastructure in a way that supports local economies and a pathway to bolstering local renewable energy, all while generating meaningful cost savings for drivers nationwide.

“Electric vehicles are really part of what we call the democratization of energy or energy democracy, which is to say that we are seeing a transformation. Because technology, energy generation is becoming localized,” said John Farrell, who leads the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

In a recent appearance on ILSR’s Building Local Power podcast[5], featured here as part of Local Energy Rules, Farrell and research associate Karlee Weinmann outlined the opportunities that come with widespread vehicle electrification and the barriers that remain despite significant economic and environmental benefits. (For a deep dive and the source of most data in this post, check out their report Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles[6].)

The Price is Right

(more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/EVs-report-LER-051-1.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/EVs-report-LER-051-1.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/electric-vehicles-episode-29-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/#transcript
  6. Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/local-energy-benefits-electric-vehicles-episode-51-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-benefits-electric-vehicles-episode-51-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/


Resources to Combat Network Neutrality Repeal from ILSR

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 28, 2017 10:47 am

The FCC is set to vote on whether or not to repeal network Neutrality under the deceptive guise of “Restoring Internet Freedom” on December 14th[1]. Like others who study broadband and telecommunications policy[2], we’re distressed by the possibilities for the Internet and its users, should the Commission decide to repeal these protections. Because we use the Internet for so much in our daily lives, reversing network neutrality will give big ISPs like Comcast and Verizon undue power over what information we receive, our online business, and the result may negatively impact innovation.

We’ve gathered together some of our earlier posts on network neutrality to help explain why the policy is so important. In this collection, we’ve included some of our own writings as well as media that we consider paramount to understanding why we need to preserve network neutrality.

The Basics At 80 MPH (Video):

An old but a goody. In this video, Professor Tim Wu explains network neutrality, including paid prioritization. The video is from 2016.

The Big ISP Perspective (Video):

Many of us consider a free an open Internet a necessity to foster innovation and investment, but the words from the lips of the big ISPs are changing, depending on whom they’re talking to. This video reveals what they tell the government about network neutrality versus what they tell investors.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. on December 14th: https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/events/2017/12/december-2017-open-commission-meeting
  2. who study broadband and telecommunications policy: https://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/detail/net-neutrality
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/resources-to-combat-network-neutrality-repeal-from-ilsr/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/resources-to-combat-network-neutrality-repeal-from-ilsr/


ILSR’s 2017 Annual Report: Building Local Power

by ILSR | November 28, 2017 5:00 am


With the generosity of people like you, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) has reinforced our role in the vanguard to advance policies and models that support locally driven economies, a cleaner environment, and more equity. With the abdication by the federal government of its role in protecting the public welfare, building and exercising local power is more important than ever.


Image: Donate Button[1]
Our mission remains steadfast and relevant. Your contribution at ilsr.org/donate[2] will help us unleash the power that communities have to build a more democratic, equitable, and sustainable future.


[3]In each of our wide-ranging initiatives, we work alongside community leaders to provide the hard data, detailed policy expertise, and compelling narratives needed to support effective advocacy, organizing, and real-life projects.

ILSR has been busy, and our 2017 Annual Report: Building Local Power[4] outlines some of the progress we’ve made this year.

A few highlights:

  • Our newest podcast, Building Local Power, has really hit its stride[5]. We’re gaining dozens of 5-star reviews on iTunes and we hope that it can rapidly gain recognition as an important source of insight on scale and ownership in both the public and private sectors, and how communities can counter the prevailing trend of economic consolidation.
  • At the request of a local group in Newport, Tenn., our Community Broadband Networks Initiative issued a report[6] explaining how claims by an anti-government organization were incorrect and intentionally biased. We then traveled to the community to speak with the utility board and city council members, who later voted unanimously to move forward with their citywide broadband project.
  • In Baltimore, we spurred the creation[7] of a community composting cooperative at Real Food Farm, which now has 70 members. With the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development, we  launched a youth-led food scrap collection and composting operation. And lastly, we presented a multi-phased plan for the City to double its recycling rate, save millions of dollars, and create over 500 jobs.
  • With the release of our report, Amazon’s Stranglehold, ILSR has played a pivotal role[8] in informing the growing discussion about Amazon’s power. The report has attracted over 40,000 readers, and been cited in more than 300 media stories. We’ve collaborated with diverse stakeholders to counter the company’s impact, including by convening strategy meetings with leaders from labor, small business, and other advocacy groups.
  • Through influential essays, we continue to address the vulnerable state of American democracy[9] and shine a light on strategies for restoring the nation’s capacity for self-governance.
  • In Minneapolis, our Energy Democracy Initiative helped unlock nearly $3 million per year in new funds[10] for climate and energy programs by suggesting revisions to the city’s electric and gas franchise agreements. We hope this sets a precedent for how other cities can finance their clean energy efforts.

Our resolve to decentralize economic power and reinvigorate democracy is stronger than ever, but we need your help.  Please consider making a tax-deductible gift[11] – no amount is too small – today to sustain our work and support the movement for healthy, equitable, and self-reliant communities.

Contribute by mail, send check to:
Institute for Local Self-Reliance,
2720 E. 22nd Street,
Minneapolis, MN 55406

Thank you from all of us at ILSR[12]. Your support makes a difference. 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/donate
  2. ilsr.org/donate: https://ilsr.org/donate
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf
  4. 2017 Annual Report: Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf
  5. has really hit its stride: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf#page=3
  6. our Community Broadband Networks Initiative issued a report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf#page=5
  7. we spurred the creation: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf#page=7
  8. ILSR has played a pivotal role: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf#page=6
  9. we continue to address the vulnerable state of American democracy: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf#page=9
  10. helped unlock nearly $3 million per year in new funds: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Annual-Report-ILSR.pdf#page=8
  11. Please consider making a tax-deductible gift: https://ilsr.org/donate
  12. all of us at ILSR: https://ilsr.org/about-the-institute-for-local-self-reliance/staff-and-board/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2017-annual-report/


The Fiber Future is Cooperative: Policy Brief On Rural Cooperative Fiber Deployment

by H Trostle | November 28, 2017 4:14 am

 

[1]

Rural communities across the United States are already building the Internet infrastructure of the future. Using a 20th century model, rural America is finding a way to tap into high-speed Internet service: electric and telephone cooperatives are bringing next-generation, Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks to their service territories. This policy brief provides an overview of the work that cooperatives have already done, including a map of the cooperatives’ fiber service territories. We also offer recommendations on ways to help cooperatives continue their important strides.

Download the policy brief, Cooperatives Fiberize Rural America: A Trusted Model For The Internet Era here[2].

 

Key Facts & Figures

Farmers first created utility cooperatives because large private companies did not recognize the importance of connecting rural America to electricity or telephone service. Now, these cooperatives are building fiber infrastructure.

Almost all of the 260 telephone cooperatives and 60 electric cooperatives are involved in fiber network projects. As of June 2016, 87 cooperatives offer residential gigabit service (1,000 Mbps) to their members.

Rural cooperatives rely on more than 100 years of experience. The cooperative approach does not stop with rolling out rural infrastructure, but ensures that their services remain viable and affordable.

The majority of Montana and North Dakota already have FTTH Internet access, thanks to rural cooperatives. Even one of the poorest counties in the country (Jackson County, Kentucky) has FTTH through a telephone cooperative.

AT&T receives about $427 million each year in rural subsidies to bring Internet service to rural America, but AT&T does not invest in rural fiber networks. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2018-06-Cooperative-Gigabit-Fiber-Map-Update.jpg
  2. Cooperatives Fiberize Rural America: A Trusted Model For The Internet Era here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/Cooperatives-Fiberize-Rural-America.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-fiber-future-is-cooperative-policy-brief-on-rural-cooperative-fiber-deployment/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-fiber-future-is-cooperative-policy-brief-on-rural-cooperative-fiber-deployment/


Amazon is Hurting Most Independent Retailers, but They’re Weathering the Storm Better than the Chains, Survey Finds

by Olivia LaVecchia | November 27, 2017 11:10 am

[1]

Image: Report cover.[2]
Click on the image to download the full report.

The retail industry is experiencing significant upheaval. Online shopping is expanding rapidly, many national chains have closed locations and even declared bankruptcy, and malls are going dark in record numbers. Headlines have started calling this wave of closures a “historic tipping point” for American retail.

However, almost all of the media reporting about these trends has focused on national retail chains. In order to find out how changes in the retail landscape are affecting independent businesses, we decided to ask them. Working with a coalition of national small business trade associations, we conducted a survey that gathered data from over 850 independent retailers across the country in a variety of retail categories.

The survey found both bad and good news for independent retailers.

On the side of challenges, the growth of Amazon is negatively affecting almost all independent retailers.  A full 90% of survey respondents say that Amazon is having a negative impact on their revenue, and 28% describe this impact as “significant.” (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017_SurveyFindings_ChangingRetailLandscape.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/changing-retail-landscape/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/changing-retail-landscape/


An Open Letter to Burlington on Local Ownership & Burlington Telecom

by Christopher Mitchell | November 22, 2017 5:12 am

At the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[1], we have been watching the latest developments with Burlington Telecom[2] from afar but with extreme curiosity. We have watched a wonderful local movement grow to Keep Burlington Telecom Local and that fits entirely with our values. Because of the challenges from BT’s prior mismanagement and court settlement, Burlington’s options are limited. The benefits of local ownership are tremendous – from being directly accountable for services to keeping more money in the community. But also the ability to correct problems as they arise. No management is perfect, but local ownership provides the most opportunity to ensure that the network will continue to serve the community, rather than a situation in which the community serves the network. We see the latter far too often in communities stuck with cable monopolies.

We salute those that have made Keep Burlington Telecom Local a viable option and we continue to hope that BT indeed remain local. But we are concerned that BT may not remain locally controlled.

In the event that the City Council decides to pick a non-local bidder, we want to offer some observations. We are an organization that shares localism as a strong value and has more than a decade of experience working on broadband policy to best benefit communities.

We have a long history with Ting (though no financial relationship) but less experience with Schurz Communications. Not only have we extensively documented Ting’s partnership[3] with Westminster, Maryland[4], to build a citywide fiber network, but many of us have been customers of Ting’s parent Tucows in various ways.

In our experience, absentee ownership of broadband networks is concerning, in part, because of a tendency for such a company to cut back on customer service and network investments. Such actions can be financially lucrative in the short term but inconvenient when the owner of the company shops, worships, and/or mingles with those who bear the brunt of such disinvestment. Network owners from afar don’t have to worry as much about upsetting their customers from declining standards.

Tucows has long been a force for good in protecting and expanding an open Internet, both in sponsoring important events and via its CEO, who has served in organizations that can be thankless and irritating but nonetheless make the Internet what it is today. In its partnership with Westminster, Ting put more on the line to make the partnership work than we have seen in any other partnership.

Tucows and Ting have a tremendous reputation for customer service, something we have verified in years of doing business with them both professionally and personally. We don’t have that same personal experience with Antietam Broadband, one of the properties of Schurz. But we recently looked into Shurz Communications’ reputation after it bought a local firm in Minnesota that we also hold in very high esteem – Hiawatha Broadband. What we found greatly dismayed us.

Antietam Broadband has quite poor reviews on various sites, including Yelp[5], Facebook, Google[6], and BroadbandReports.com[7]. Orbitel, owned by Schurz Communications, also has poor reviews[8]. We asked around about Schurz among broadband industry contacts and found that the company possesses an inferior reputation compared to Ting. We believe in the ability of long-time veterans in the industry to gauge the quality and integrity of their colleagues. Antietam also imposes data caps on subscribers[9] and we consider that choice an indication of the role an ISP intends to fill in a community. Data caps are a good proxy for whether an ISP cares about what makes the Internet special or if it is merely extracting wealth from a community.

In short, if Burlington Telecom can’t be locally owned, community leaders can still choose an owner that provides  the best chances of continuing the excellence of service Burlington residents and businesses have come to expect. Ting is a different kind of company in ways that will make a difference in coming years, particularly as we need smaller ISPs to take a strong stand against the cable and telephone monopolies.

Christopher Mitchell

Director, Community Broadband Networks

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[10]. Read the original here[11].

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Endnotes:
  1. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://www.ilsr.org/
  2. latest developments with Burlington Telecom: https://muninetworks.org/content/burlington-chronicles-catching-vermont
  3. extensively documented Ting’s partnership: https://ilsr.org/ppp-fiber/
  4.  with Westminster, Maryland: https://ilsr.org/ppp-fiber/
  5. Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/orbitel-communications-maricopa-3
  6. Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=Antietam%20Broadband&ludocid=10702899965397573151#lrd=0x0:0x948856cfe8101e1f,1
  7. BroadbandReports.com: http://www.dslreports.com/testsearch?ndx=All&fy=1999&order=score&q=antietam&ty=2017&typ=review
  8. also has poor reviews: https://reviews.birdeye.com/orbitel-communications-llc-900019456?page=2
  9. imposes data caps on subscribers: http://myactv.net/tech-support/knowledge-base-article.php?article_id=146
  10. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  11. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/open-letter-burlington

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/an-open-letter-to-burlington-on-local-ownership-burlington-telecom/


A Thanksgiving Feast Of Municipal Fiber Models

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 22, 2017 4:28 am

Like some of the foods on a traditional Thanksgiving Day table, different publicly owned network models uniquely suit the needs of their communities. We all have our favorite dish from a holiday dinner, which made us reflect on some of the characteristics of five of the most well known models and their benefits. We found fun comparisons to share with readers who understand the way publicly owned fiber optic networks nourish the communities they serve.

The Turkey = Full Retail Service

The most common for citywide networks, just as turkey is often the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving Day dinner. The retail model offers services directly to the public the same way a private cable company do, only usually with better customer service and better quality. Telephone, Internet access, and video are the services many offer to subscribers. Chattanooga’s EPB Fiber Optics[1] is the most famous example. Others include Lafayette, Louisiana[2], where take rates have recently topped 45 percent. Another example is Sandy, Oregon[3], where subscribers can get symmetrical gigabit connectivity for around $60 per month.

stuffing.jpg

Stuffing = Dark Fiber and Conduit

It does its most important job out of sight. In a turkey, it adds flavor to the bird. In a network, it provides a low cost, cow risk option that can attract competition for the community. In states where municipalities are not allowed to use their own infrastructure to serve the public, dark fiber and conduit can serve as the foundation for partnerships the fill in gaps left by incumbents.

Lincoln, Nebraska’s[4] extensive conduit network eventually led to a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) venture with a private sector ISP. Rockport, Maine[5], has deployed dark fiber and has the first municipal network in the state; they work with a local ISP to serve businesses and other local institutions. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Chattanooga’s EPB Fiber Optics: https://muninetworks.org/tags-135
  2. Lafayette, Louisiana: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-fiber-network-diversifying-economy-louisiana
  3. Sandy, Oregon: https://muninetworks.org/content/gig-city-sandy-home-60-gig
  4. Lincoln, Nebraska’s: https://muninetworks.org/content/city-lincoln-conduit-spurs-ftth-school-network-innovation-community-broadband-bits-podcast
  5. Rockport, Maine: https://muninetworks.org/content/first-muni-fiber-net-maine-community-broadband-bits-episode-115
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/a-thanksgiving-feast-of-municipal-fiber-models/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/a-thanksgiving-feast-of-municipal-fiber-models/


The Ripple Effect When You Shop Local (Infographic)

by Olivia LaVecchia | November 21, 2017 12:00 pm

[1]This post was first published by Advocates for Independent Business[2] (AIB).

When you choose locally owned businesses for your shopping, you create a ripple effect. It starts with your own experience, and the benefits that you get from shopping at independent stores, like getting to rely on local retailers’ expertise.

But then, the effects keep going. By shopping at local stores, you connect with your community. You strengthen your local economy. And finally, as the circle of ripples extends out, you cast a vote for the American dream.

Here’s what happens when you shop with a locally owned business — starting with you.

Click the image below to view the infographic at full size, and scroll down to see four graphics sized to share on social media.

This graphic is also sized to print as a flyer on regular 8.5 x 11″ letter paper. Just drag this image to your desktop, right-click to save, or click here to download a full-sized PDF file[3]. If this graphic resonates with you, please feel free to share and distribute widely, in print or online!

[4]

Below are four graphics sized to share on social media. Just drag to your desktop or right-click to save!
(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Advocates for Independent Business: https://indiebizadvocates.org/2017/11/21/shop-local-ripple-effect/
  3. click here to download a full-sized PDF file: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Holiday_LocalRippleEffect_AIB_Infographic.pdf
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Holiday_LocalRippleEffect_AIB_Infographic.jpg
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/shop-local-ripple-effect/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/shop-local-ripple-effect/


The Burlington Chronicles: Catching Up In Vermont

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 21, 2017 5:57 am

The people of Burlington have proven beyond a doubt that they believe in publicly owned Internet networks. They’ve fought harder than any other community we’ve seen to maintain a voice in the future of their much loved publicly owned fiber optic network, Burlington Telecom[1] (BT). Now after months of ruminating, debating, and examining their options, the future of BT is still uncertain.

The Back Story

We’ve covered BT extensively and dived into both the numerous benefits the community has enjoyed as well as the problems caused by former Mayor Bob Kiss and his administration. Bad choices and a lack of transparency snowballed, leaving the city to contend with sizable debt. Through all the difficulties, residential and business subscribers have consistently praised[2] their hometown publicly owned network and expressed an appreciation for accountability, good service, and BT’s local ownership.

Citibank-Logo-1.pngIn order to fend off a lawsuit from Citibank, the city of Burlington had to agree to find a buyer for the network. To maximize the funds the city will receive from the transaction, a sale needs to be finalized by early January.

On November 6th, the City Council was scheduled to vote on which entity would be allowed to purchase the network, but that would have been a dull ending to a story filled with drama and, as the fates would have it, that isn’t what happened. At all.

The Kiss Of Debt

The Kiss administration’s choice to hide cost overruns from the public and the City Council led to a $33 million obligation to CitiBank. In 2014, the two reached a settlement[3] after CitiBank decided to sue in 2011 and the parties had haggled in court for three years. As part of the settlement, the community committed to selling BT. In order to obtain the largest share possible of the proceeds from the sale – 50 percent – Burlington must reach an agreement with a buyer by January 2nd, 2018. The longer it takes to find a buyer, the less of the net proceeds the city will retain.

As an added incentive to get a deal done by January 2nd, Blue Water, LLC, will take over the ability for the city to choose if the matter drags on longer. When CitiBank and Burlington reached an agreement in 2014, Blue Water provided bridge financing to the city[4]. In exchange for $6 million, the city transferred temporary ownership to Blue Water and has leased the network from Blue Water ever since. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Burlington Telecom: https://www.burlingtontelecom.com/
  2. subscribers have consistently praised: https://muninetworks.org/content/bt-brings-low-cost-service-breaks-through-goals-basks-support
  3. the two reached a settlement: https://muninetworks.org/content/burlington-sells-burlington-telecom-continues-operate-network
  4. provided bridge financing to the city: https://muninetworks.org/content/burlington-sells-burlington-telecom-continues-operate-network
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-burlington-chronicles-catching-up-in-vermont/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-burlington-chronicles-catching-up-in-vermont/


Wilson, North Carolina’s Fiber Network Headlines Economic Development Plan

by Matthew Marcus | November 20, 2017 5:50 am

Wilson has made their community-owned Greenlight fiber network[1] central to their economic development plan, a move that may forge a new approach for other communities with similar assets.

Revitalization Efforts

In 2008, when Wilson’s Greenlight community network first launched, the Federal Communications Commission ranked North Carolina last in the nation in percentage of households subscribing to at least a “basic broadband” service. Today Wilson offers free Wi-Fi downtown, schools and libraries are outfitted with high-quality connectivity, and a majority of households subscribe to the broadband service.

Home to over 50,000 residents, Wilson has had a diverse history of industries popping up and dissipating over the years. After deploying their Greenlight Community Broadband, they’ve leveraged new businesses and an entrepreneurial spirit that shows no sign of relenting.

Wilson is initially focusing development downtown[2]. The local daily paper The Wilson Daily Times decided to refurbish an old building and move downtown. The city raised money to renovate an old theater into a cultural center, and an electrical components manufacturing company, Peak Demand, has invested $2.6 million to renovate an old tobacco processing plant.

A Shift From the Old

Wilson involves all community stakeholders to make this revitalization a success. They have worked closely with Barton College, a liberal arts university, and the local nursing school. The community is consciously trying to buy locally and many people meet to discuss how best to promote this.

Wilson’s economic development model has evolved alongside their broadband network and they credit much of their success to Greenlight’s benefits. In years past, many towns looked to bolster their economy by attracting companies that offered a windfall of manufacturing jobs— an industrial-era dream. But Wilson is no longer fretting over the decline of large-scale manufacturing companies that once haunted rural America. Instead, they’ve embraced the evolution towards technology companies and entrepreneurial business. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Greenlight fiber network: https://www.greenlightnetworks.com/
  2. initially focusing development downtown: https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2017/11/08/a-new-vision-of-economic-development/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/wilson-north-carolinas-fiber-network-headlines-economic-development-plan/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/wilson-north-carolinas-fiber-network-headlines-economic-development-plan/


Supporting Family Farming in the Age of Monopoly with Joe Maxwell (Episode 33)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 16, 2017 12:00 pm

“A competitive marketplace is fundamental to how our country should work,” says Joe Maxwell[5].

In recent years, though, many markets have stopped being competitive, including food and farming. In this episode of in this episode of ILSR’s Building Local Power podcast[6], Maxwell sits down to talk about it with Stacy Mitchell, ILSR’s co-director.

Maxwell, the former Lt. Gov. of Missouri, is now executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets. He’s also the president and CEO of Family Farm Action, a coalition of family farmers and advocates that’s building the “political muscle” to fight for farmers and communities.

Their conversation covers everything from the hollowing out of rural America to what the growing anti-monopoly movement looks like on family farms. With a merger looming between Bayer and Monsanto, this conversation about monopoly and our food systems is as urgent as ever.

“In my farming life I’ve seen over 91% of the hog farmers driven off the farm and out of business,” says Joe Maxwell[5]. “We’ve had several administrations, Republican and Democrat, that have allowed corporations to become too big to allow marketplaces to work.”

Family Farm Action’s website[7] — See the issues that Maxwell’s organization, Family Farm Action, is working on, including its support for a slate of anti-monopoly and pro-family farming candidates running in races across the U.S.

Organization for Competitive Markets[8]‘ website — Maxwell also leads the Organization for Competitive Markets, which is doing critical work to reclaim economic justice for America’s family farmers and ranchers. OCM’s resources include the policy brief, “Consolidation, Globalization, and the American Family Farm[9],” and a stance on how to restore the Packers and Stockyards Act[10].

ILSR Rules Archive – Packers and Stockyard Act[11] — In their conversation, Maxwell and Mitchell reference this legislation, which was passed with an intent to keep the livestock industry competitive.

“This Ag Economist Preached Bigger is Better. Now He Says the Evidence Favors Small Farms.” — Episode 32 Building Local Power Podcast[12] — This podcast episode features John Ikerd, an economist who once supported large-scale industrial agricultural operations, and now argues for a small-scale, local agricultural infrastructure.

Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[13] — This report from ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell details how the United States is much less a nation of entrepreneurs than it was a generation ago. It suggests that the decline of small businesses is owed, at least in part, to anti-competitive behavior by large, dominant corporations.

Our guest, Joe Maxwell[5], also provided recommended reading for our audience on consolidation in agriculture and the anti-monopoly movement:

  • “The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business[14],” by Christopher Leonard
  • “Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction,”[15] by Barry Lynn
  • “Food and Power[16],” a project by Leah Douglas of the Open Markets Institute

Stacy Mitchell: Hello, and welcome to Building Local Power. I’m Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Today on the show, our guest is Joe Maxwell. Joe is a former lieutenant-governor of Missouri. He ran and won that office in 2000, and served for a four-year term. Before that, he was in the Missouri legislature for about a decade. Today, Joe is the executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets, a national nonprofit public policy and advocacy organization that represents family farmers and rural America in the fight against corporate agribusiness monopolies. He also recently helped to found something called Family Farm Action, which we’ll talk more about. Joe is a fourth-generation family hog farmer in the northeastern part of Missouri, and he joins us today from his home in Mexico, Missouri. Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Maxwell: Thank you. It’s great to be on. We appreciate the opportunity.
Stacy Mitchell: So, I want to start with a campaign that you helped run last year in the neighboring state of Oklahoma. And this was a ballot initiative to enact something called Right to Farm legislation. Right to Farm sounds like a good thing, and it sounds like something that people in an agricultural state, like Oklahoma, would be in favor of. And in fact, I think polling about a year before the vote showed that voters favored it by a 64% to 15% margin. So, I was wondering if you could talk about, what was this Right to Farm measure all about and why did you get involved in trying to defeat it?
Joe Maxwell: Well, Right to Farm clearly, as you stated, Stacy, sounds great, but what the corporate ag interest that control the marketplace and abuse the market want to do is take a great sounding name like Right to Farm and use that to pass a constitutional amendment in the state of Oklahoma that would give corporations the same rights as individuals, at the same level of protection as is the Bill of Rights. So, the same right as freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, freedom of religion. And what it said was is that no legislator or the people could abridge their right to farm the way they wanted to without a compelling state interest.

So, we felt, as Farmers Across the Country, an organization of competitive markets, has many members in Oklahoma, our Board member, former state senator Paul Meggie is there. We really felt that we had to stand up and fight, in spite of the fact that early polling said that there wasn’t any way we could win.

Stacy Mitchell: So, how did you go about winning? Because my understanding is that you won, basically in a landslide, and won all of the state’s congressional districts. How did you turn things around?
Joe Maxwell: Well, first, I think, just standing up. I think, too often, in our agricultural communities, our small family farmers and ranchers, have just been beaten about the head and shoulders so much, whether that’s in the marketplace, or out there in their communities. Sometimes when big ag comes in, they just feel like that their voice doesn’t matter. And even the average citizen or average voter in America, often times will say, “Well it just doesn’t matter. It’s not gonna make a difference. These big corporations, they always win. It just doesn’t make a difference.”

Our standing up and saying, “Enough’s enough, we’re not going to let corporations be in the Bill of Rights that protects individual’s rights.” And so we stood up, and before we knew it, others were joining, and felt empowered to take a position against corporate ag. And then, the rest is history, as they say. We beat them 60% to 40%. We won in every congressional district.

Stacy Mitchell: So, I wanna return to politics, but first, I wanna ask you about what’s happening in rural America, and particularly to our farmers. OCM put out a report in August, a policy brief, and it has some truly astonishing statistics in it. One that caught my eye. In 1987, the US had about 250 thousand hog farms across the country, and the median size of those farms was about 12 hundred hogs per farm. Today, three quarters of those farms are gone. We’re down to about 63 hog farms. And the median size is now 40 thousand hogs, which is the size of a city. I have trouble even picturing what that’s like. What is driving this trend of so many farmers going out of business, and the farms that are left, being so much larger than they used to be?
Joe Maxwell: Yeah, there’s 63 thousand hog farms left in America. When my brother and I … I have a twin brother. When we started farming, there were 670 thousand hog farmers in America. So to me, in my farming life, I’ve seen over 91% of the hog farmers driven off the farm and out of business. And what’s happened? We had several administrations, republican and democrat, that have allowed corporations to become too big for the marketplace to work. They control that market, they’re able to manipulate that market, and they’re able to drive that farmer from the land.

During some of the worst hog price crisis’s, we saw family farmers getting, in 1998, got eight cents a pound for a hog, and the pork chop at the retail grocery store didn’t drop a penny. “How can that be?” Folks will say. Well when you only have two or three people buying and selling pork in the United States, they can do whatever they want. They collude, they drive the price down for the farmer, and drive the price up for the consumer. And so that’s what’s happened in America.

Over 60% of the market, in the hog market, is controlled by four corporations. The largest one in America is Smithfield. China owns … The country of China, invested to buy and own the largest pork producer, and pig producer, in the United States, Smithfield. JBS, which is Brazilian, using what we believe is illegal loans and manipulation of stock prices, purchased the pork division of Cargill. That’s either the second or third largest pork producer in the United States. So when you look at it, these companies that are abusing and driving farmers from the land, that are screwing the consumer by over-charging them, they’re not even US corporations anymore. They’re foreign corporations getting away with stealing from farmers and consumers.

Stacy Mitchell: In this trend towards consolidation, which you note catches farmers in both directions … Not only are they selling into markets that are highly consolidated, where they may have only one or two or three choices for companies that are competing to buy their output, but they’re also having to buy the seeds and other inputs that they need from other monopolies, that are highly consolidated. And we see this trend continuing, despite the fact that it’s such an already consolidated industry. We’ve got a big merger on the table right now, Bayer and Monsanto, which I understand, if that goes through, we could end up with just three companies that control 80% of the US seed supply. That’s astonishing, and I am amazed that regulators are even entertaining such a merger.
Joe Maxwell: Let me start by, Stacy, saying, “You’re exactly right.” And you know that the stack of the deck is just stacked against family farmers, small businesses, and the consumer in America. Because our government, since Ronald Reagan, all the way through Clinton, all the democrats and republicans, have really been in bed with the concept that big is better. They do not enforce the Clayton and Sherman Acts and the Packers and Stockyards Act. They deported judges that have actually watered those marketplace safeguards down. And today, the farmer’s caught in the middle, just as you described. They wanna stow our product, but the fundamentals no longer work because it’s really not anybody on the other side, but one company, offering you a price. Now, with these acquisitions and mergers on the seed and pentacle side, we’re gonna see three companies of the world …

Note that Monsanto, which I’ve not always been a fan of, but at least it was US, is getting ready to be merged and bought out by Bayer, a foreign corporation. And if you look at the purchases, and these acquisitions and these mergers on the input side, again, it’s the story of foreign corporations controlling the price that farmers have to pay. And they gouge that farmer on the input side, and the other side of these foreign multi-national corporations drive down the price, leaving the farmer very little options, other than to become a contract roller for those companies, a surf on their own land, or get out of business. And the consumers are harmed because when there’s too few people actually manufacturing and selling food products in the marketplace, they’re colluding. That is evidence …

There’s two cases going right now in the chicken industry, where the evidence is pretty clear, that the largest processors of poultry have been colluding on price and screwing the consumer out of about $1.10 per chicken. So you can think about the billions of dollars that the consumers had to pay because the market is not working.

But there is hope, and we are excited at OCM. We’re a 19 year old organization, we’ve never seen a better time. We’ve got Senator Grassley as the chair of judiciary, and Senator Lee as the chair of the sub-committee on anti-trust. Both of them, last year during two US senate hearings, said, “Enough’s enough.” Senator Grassley actually called these acquisitions and mergers tsunamis, and at the same time, we just saw Senator Warren and the democrats come out with the Better Deal, which has a platform against monopolies.

So we’re encouraged, when you ask folks like Senator Warren on one side, and Senator Lee on the other, and there’s probably not anyone else that can be that far apart ideology-wise, coming together on an issue. We are encouraged that we can, if the people will speak up just like we did in Oklahoma. And we’re not alone. We just need to join together and let our voice be heard and say, “Enough’s enough.” Whether you’re a consumer or a farmer, it’s time to end this big is better concept, and we need to have justice in Washington D.C. 

Stacy Mitchell: It seems like part of the reason that we haven’t gotten that justice, as people, in recent years, is that there’s not a lot of competition in the political parties, right? We’ve been talking about competition in the market, but our country … Increasingly, most Americans live in places that are either very blue or very red. And the other party isn’t doing a very viable job of competing for their votes. You’re a democrat in a state that is, Missouri, is typically a red state. And certainly rural areas tend to be quite red these days. But you contend that democrats can compete in rural areas and win, and that they can do that by actually speaking to these issues. Can you talk some about that?
Joe Maxwell: I did launch a sister organization to OCM as C4. A C4 [inaudible 00:12:41] action, you can speak about politics. There’s no doubt that the democrat party, in regards to economic issues, the only real difference over the past several decades, is which Goldman Sachs executive is gonna be the treasury of the department of congress. There’s no real debate about what the economic direction, and future, should be for America, and for its citizens, its companies, its small businesses, its family farmers and ranchers. So there’s not been a real debate out there, in regards to what economic direction we should go.

I think democrats have failed. I think we failed the people. I work on a bi-partisan basis. I just got through bragging on Senator Grassley and Senator Lee. But is it [inaudible 00:13:35] to the democrats and the democratic party, I think they have failed, time and time again, to hold up what their party was founded on.

You may recall, in 1792, we had Thomas Jefferson and Madison join together because they wanted to speak out against concentration. They wanted to speak out against the National Bank, and the concentration of wealth in this country, and inform the democrat party, the years of the little guy policies of the democrats. Did they evolve? [inaudible 00:14:11] democrats to go back to their roots. We are encouraged because we do see republicans moving [inaudible 00:14:20] party, but individual [inaudible 00:14:22] republicans wanting to right this injustice, and if the democratic party would join in, we really believe we can have true economic justice for everyone in this country.

Stacy Mitchell: You’re listening to Joe Maxwell, executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets and former lieutenant governor of the state of Missouri. I’m Stacy Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We’ll be right back after a short break.

If you enjoy this podcast, please consider making a donation to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Your financial support, not only underwrites this podcast, and helps keep it ad-free, but it also helps us produce all of the research and resources that we make available on our website, and all the technical assistance we provide to policy makers and citizens. Every year, ILSR’s small staff helps hundreds of communities challenge monopoly power and rebuild their local economies. So please take a minute and go to ilsr.org and click on the donate button. That’s I-L-S-R dot org. And if making a donation isn’t something you can do right now, please consider helping us in other ways. One great thing you could do is rate and review this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ratings help us reach a wider audience, so it’s hugely helpful when you do that. Thanks.

One of the trends that we have seen as the economy has grown increasingly consolidated, and as politicians have ignored, in many cases, that consolidation and what’s happening across the country, is that there’s this growing geographic divergence. There are a handful of cities, mainly on the coast, that have been doing fairly well, but then when we look across much of the country, the rural areas, the small towns, the heartland cities, they’re falling behind.

There’s growing poverty, very precarious employment, communities and institutions are afraid, and there’s a lot of despair in those places. As you look to growing numbers of elected officials and people running for office, who are beginning to speak to these issues, this issue of having an economy that works for people, where there’s real opportunity, where farmers and small businesses and workers can sell their produce, and sell their labor and get a fair price, because there’s competition. When you see Senator Warren and Senator Lee and other folks who are beginning to talk about this, what are the kinds of policies that OCM believes that we need to adopt in order to correct this problem and bring the whole country up?

Joe Maxwell: I think that you characterize it well. We see this as just a fundamental value to how our country works, and a fundamental issue. Our country is great because we work hard and we should receive a benefit for our toil. If we have an idea, we should be able to take that idea to fruition, and commercialize it, and benefit from our intellect, and our talents, and our skills. And as such, we should be able to hire good working men and women within our communities, and give them livable wages, and opportunities for healthcare, and an opportunity to prosper.

What happens when there’s concentration, is there’s this handful of companies have such a strangle-hold on the economy, on the markets, that they can just abuse that opportunity. They can deny small businesses the opportunity. You take in the seed industry, we mentioned the inputs. Look at the numbers, small business men and women that have been driven out of their business, in the seed side of inputs. But the same is true on small manufacturers within our communities. Or look in Pennsylvania at the industrial belt, at how concentration and globalization has driven men and women off the line at the workplace, at the company, and off into the unemployment lines. And now the say, “Well unemployment is the lowest it’s been in so long.” Yeah, that’s because people are hustling two or three jobs just to feed the kids. There’s just no justice in that. And it goes against the very values and ideals of this country, and that was given to us through our economic policy.

OCM believes the first and foremost thing is that we have to enforce the laws that are on the books. Back when we had the big trusts, the Steel Trust, the Whiskey Trust, the Packer Trust, all these trusts, they didn’t have corporations then, they had these trusts. This guy named Teddy Roosevelt, who later became president, that was the original trust buster. He got it. A republican president, a former governor of New York, and he said. “I’m going to bust those trusts, because I’m going to give people opportunity.” And that began a wave from his era, all the way through 1921, where laws were passed that say, “Look, you gotta have safeguards in the marketplace, because ultimately, if you just let the biggest win, they’re going to abuse the people, they’re gonna abuse the working families, they’re gonna abuse the farmers, they’re gonna abuse the small businesses.”

Second, on these acquisitions and mergers, our department of justice, they need, not only to enforce the current laws, but they also need to have additional tools to be able to look back on acquisitions and mergers, to ensure that the results that the company’s committed to the people of this country, that they were going to result in more jobs, more economic growth, if they allowed the merger, that those companies are delivering on those promises. And if not, the department of justice needs the teeth in the law, so they can fine or disrupt that company that they allowed to go forward.

We need to ensure in the Packers and Stockyard Act for farmers … Packers and Stockyard, that’s the anti-trust laws that protect farmers. When it was passed in 1921, it was called the Farmer’s Bill of Rights. We need to ensure that it continues to protect farmers against predatory and retaliatory practices. Right now, if a chicken contract grower speaks out against the company, they lose their contract and they therefore go bankrupt and lose their family farm. No company should have a right to retaliate against someone because of their free speech rights in this country. But yet that goes on, and we need to strengthen those laws and reinstate those laws. Those would be the priorities that OCM says we should go after first. And we call on every elected official to do so, and we call on every citizen. This Family Farm Action, which is our political arm, we call out every citizen to hold that elected official accountable. If they don’t stand up for people, and they don’t stand up for economic justice, then throw their butts out in this next cycle.

Stacy Mitchell: That’s interesting that the Packers and Stockyards Act used to be called the Farmer’s Bill of Rights. I’m curious if you know how that changed.
Joe Maxwell: First, note that the Sherman and Clayton Act, which is a general marketplace safeguard laws that were in place to break up that huge concentration of those trusts, they’re over on DOJ’s side and are enforced on that side. Packers and Stockyards Act was actually given over to the department of USDA, the Department of Agriculture. Because it was to represent, as opposed to protect the market, as the other safeguards do, its primary focus was to protect the farmer against the abuses in the marketplace. So it was an individual rights concept, that individual producers should have protection. Farmers just do not have the economic power. They raise something, and instead of setting the price for their pig, their calf, the corn, the soybeans, cotton, whatever it might be, they have to hold it up to the marketplace and say, “How much will you give me for this?” Therefore, the understanding was that they would need protections, because they would be very vulnerable in that type of a market.

It was shortly after that that several supreme court decisions came down that began to weaken that law. Finally, in 2005, the supreme court ruled in favor of the corporations, and took all the rights away from the farmer. Instead, the farmers not only had to show harm to themselves, but they had to show harm to the general marketplace. Well, no farmer can do that. How do they get the resources to hire those economists that have to come in and testify? Where do they get the money to hire the lawyers to take on a big corporation, which has millions and millions of dollars that they can spend on attorneys. So it was over time, about 2005, the courts made that final ruling, and we’ve been pushing to pass the GIPSA Rules. On the nineteenth of October, the USDA will close out their decision on whether or not we will have those original safeguards put back in the law. And we call on Secretary Perdue to do the right thing for Americans, for the consumers, and mostly for US family farmers and ranchers, by finalizing those rules. GIPSA is the Grains Inspectors Packers Stockyard Administration. 

Stacy Mitchell: It sounds like, in a way, that the Farmer’s Bill of Rights, when it was passed in 1921, was … In keeping with how we, throughout much of our history, approached anti-monopoly, was that we recognized that the goal was to protect people in the marketplace in all of their capacities. Not just as consumers, but as producers and workers and people who sold labor, sold goods, and needed a fair marketplace in order to get a fair price and a fair income. In the 1980s we began to move away from that, and to focus narrowly on the idea of efficiency and consumer welfare, with … Bigger companies are probably better because they’re more efficient, and we threw out a lot of those … Our enforcement of anti-trust dismissed a lot of those concerns about producers. And it sounds like, in some ways, that’s what has happened with the Farmer’s Bill of Rights, the Packers and Stockyards, is that its original intention was at odds with this new ideology, and that over time, its enforcement has been altered to fit the ideology and not the original intent.
Joe Maxwell: Absolutely, and you bring up the efficiency rule, and it sounds great. Right after President Reagan was elected, one individual in his administration, in the department of justice, on their own, unilaterally, without act of congress or executive order, changed the guidelines for how acquisitions and mergers would be governed. And the definition had been, for the definition for anti-trust, was competition. You would look at whether or not there was actually a market. Could people compete. Would they have a fair chance to enter the market space? Would the economy continue to drive? That one person, unilaterally, said, “No, it needs to be about efficiency. If this country can drive more efficiency, then the consumer benefits, because they’ll get a lower price.”

Now, I’m gonna tell you something. That sounds just great. But those big companies, they don’t give a hoot about the consumer. When they drive those efficiencies, have those acquisitions and mergers, layoff people, stop the ingenuity, or the research and development, do they lower the price of those goods to consumers? Absolutely not. What they do is put that money in their pockets, and go home laughing all the way, because of that change. Every president since Ronald Reagan, democrat or republican, has kept that rule, that guideline in place. And it denies the market the opportunity to work for the benefit of the consumers, the businesses, the farmers, the ranchers, and for the people.

Stacy Mitchell: So OCM is fighting to restore anti-monopoly policies, and particularly the Farmer’s Bill of Rights, as it was originally intended in 1921. That’s at the federal level. As someone who worked for a long time in state government, what is it that you think local and state officials should be doing on this issue?
Joe Maxwell: Well, most states also have rules and regulations, statutes governing the marketplace. I think all 50 states, the attorney generals in those states can join in with the department of justice, and have a right on behalf of the citizens of their state, to wade in on these acquisitions and mergers. So at the state level, I did the same thing I’m doing now at the federal level. I encouraged those policies to be enforced. I encouraged the attorney general of my home state, and I hope that every one of you encourages your attorney general, to enforce the standards and the safeguards that are in place, that allow the market to work for all people. It’s unfair to the workers. When there’s too few companies controlling everything, they don’t care about the workers. They set the price, they pay the workers. They set the price, they pay the farmers. And they set the high price the consumers have to pay for their goods. And everybody has a reason to join this fight, and demand economic justice for everyone in America.
Stacy Mitchell: So OCM is a non-profit research and public policy organization, and you’ve also been involved, recently, as we’ve touched on, with helping to launch Family Farm Action, which is a C4 national political action organization, that, as I understand it, is aiming to help support candidates who are strong on these issues. Are you seeing more candidates, particularly across rural America, who are talking about these things on the campaign trail? What’s the outlook, do you think, for having this be part of our elections?
Joe Maxwell: I think what’s important to understand is a lot of organizations like OCM … I’m very proud to be its executive director. We do great work on determining, doing our research. Angel Huffman on our team … I’ve put out that policy brief that you referenced. But we have to draw the line, because as a non-profit C3, we cannot engage, politically. We’re limited to how much we can walk the halls of the state capital, or the federal capital. But when we look at big ag, when we look at corporate ag, when we look at these multi-national corporations, they have team after team of special-interest lobbyists lobbying our elected officials.

So Family Farm Action is a C4 organization, and we’re able to lobby the halls of the states, and of the capital. And we’re also able to politically engage out there in campaigns. We felt very strongly, as a team, coming together with Family Farm Action, that we needed to give political muscle, and to join in with folks like the National Farmer’s Union, who’s a partner, who also lobby’s to join in with our National Sustainable Ag Coalition, who has a great team. We felt we needed to add additional political voice.

What’s the outlook? Well, we think that it’s great. Our experience in Oklahoma, when we started this podcast off, what we knew then was that somebody had to stand up. What we know today is the same is true, if we’re gonna get something done about this concentration, and the abuse of the marketplace, and the abuse of the consumers and farmers. So Family Farm Action is out looking for candidates. And they’re out there.

We’re delighted with Austin Frerick, up in the Iowa third district. There was just a national story done on him. We’re delighted with former deputy undersecretary Lillian Salerno, who’s announced [inaudible 00:30:50] for congress down in the Dallas area. We’re delighted with Drew Edmondson, announced and is running for governor in Oklahoma.

There are candidates around this country that are speaking up and demanding economic justice, for all citizens, regardless of where they live, whether that’s rural, or urban, or suburban, regardless of the color of their skin, or the faith that they believe in. We believe America, and those candidates believe, that in America, we stand for the basic principle and the value that everybody should have the right and opportunity to prosper in a great country like America.

Stacy Mitchell: Joe, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the timeout today. I wanna close by asking you if you have a reading recommendation. Something that you’ve come across recently that you think our listeners might enjoy or benefit from.
Joe Maxwell: I think there’s two books I would recommend. First, I’ll go with Chris Leonard’s The Meat Racket. Been out a couple of years, it does a tremendous job of just talking about this vertical integration and concentration of power, focusing mostly on the poultry industry, but it really speaks to all specters of agriculture and abuses that are there.

I think Barry Lynn, someone I work with, he’s an advisor on OCM, he’s a board member of Family Farm Action. Barry Lynn’s book Cornered. It is a great read for understanding this over-all monopoly, and the power of those monopolies.

I think also, just Google a guy by the name of Matt Stoller. Matt’s a tremendous reporter, a writer, has many articles out there. Leah Douglass is another name, that does a tremendous job of writing, and capturing, and being able to speak to these most complicated issues, in ways of which, almost any of your listeners would quickly grasp and say, “Oh my Gosh, this is going on in America. Why?”

Stacy Mitchell:  Joe, thanks so much for the time today.
Joe Maxwell:  You bet.
Stacy Mitchell: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website ilsr.org and clicking on the show page for this episode. That’s I-L-S-R dot org. While you’re there, you can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And, once again, please help us by rating this podcast and sharing it with your friends.

This show is produced by Lisa Gonzales, and Nick Stumo-Langer. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by Disfunction_Al. For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I’m Stacy Mitchell. I hope you’ll join us again in two weeks for the next episode of Building Local Power.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[17] Building Local Power on iTunes[18] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[19]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[20]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[21] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[22] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[23] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[24] and Facebook[25] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[26] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-11-16-blp033-joe-maxwell-farm-consolidation.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-11-16-blp033-joe-maxwell-farm-consolidation.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Joe Maxwell: http://competitivemarkets.com/joe-maxwell/
  6. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  7. Family Farm Action’s website: http://www.farmaction.us/
  8. Organization for Competitive Markets: http://competitivemarkets.com/
  9. Consolidation, Globalization, and the American Family Farm: http://competitivemarkets.com/policy-brief-consolidation-globalization-and-the-american-family-farm/
  10. restore the Packers and Stockyards Act: http://competitivemarkets.com/restore-the-packers-and-stockyards-act/
  11. ILSR Rules Archive – Packers and Stockyard Act: https://ilsr.org/rule/packers-and-stockyard-act/
  12. “This Ag Economist Preached Bigger is Better. Now He Says the Evidence Favors Small Farms.” — Episode 32 Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/sustainable-agriculture-blp-episode-31/
  13. Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  14. “The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781451645811
  15. “Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction,”: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780470186381
  16. Food and Power: http://www.foodandpower.net/
  17. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  18. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  19. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  20. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  21. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  22. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  23. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  24. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  25. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  26. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/family-farming-blp-episode-33/


The Institute for Local Self-Reliance Participates in Minnesota’s Give to the Max Day – 2017

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 16, 2017 8:57 am

[1]

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is Building Local Power, but we need YOUR help![2]

ILSR champions local self-reliance, a strategy that underscores the need for humanly-scaled institutions and economies and the widest possible distribution of ownership. We work with citizens, activists, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to design policies that meet our needs. We want to make sure that the benefits of our political economy benefits all local citizens.


(All of this information – and more! – is available here: https://givemn.org/organization/institute-for-local-self-reliance[3]) 


Your Gift Will Help Expand Our Community Development Work Across Minnesota.

ILSR’s research from our Energy Democracy initiative has shown why Minnesota’s community solar program has been such a success[4], and why it’s a model that other states should follow.

Our reporting[5] on Northeast Minneapolis’ innovative investment cooperative has brought national attention to the model and illustrated how communities can take charge of their own development.

Sibley County embarked on a new Internet access cooperative, thanks in large part to the Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband program, which ILSR promoted and told the stories[6] of the benefit to to decision makers across the state.

Amazon is exerting a growing pull on Minnesota’s economy. Your support helps us fund our groundbreaking research[7] on the Internet giant, it has been cited in 100s of media reports and by policymakers as a reason to keep resources local.

Xcel Energy’s proposed Becker gas plant would harm a community that could earn millions from renewable energy investments, rather than a new gas plant – check out our op-ed[8] from the Minneapolis Star Tribune on the plan. (more…)[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://givemn.org/organization/institute-for-local-self-reliance
  2. we need YOUR help!: https://givemn.org/organization/institute-for-local-self-reliance
  3. https://givemn.org/organization/institute-for-local-self-reliance: https://givemn.org/organization/institute-for-local-self-reliance
  4. why Minnesota’s community solar program has been such a success: https://ilsr.org/minnesota-has-the-best-community-solar-program-heres-why/
  5. Our reporting: https://ilsr.org/do-it-yourselves-downtown-investment-cooperative-model/
  6. ILSR promoted and told the stories: https://muninetworks.org/reports/rs-fiber-fertile-fields-new-rural-internet-cooperative
  7. our groundbreaking research: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold
  8. check out our op-ed: https://ilsr.org/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/
  9. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-institute-for-local-self-reliance-participates-in-minnesotas-give-to-the-max-day-2017/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-institute-for-local-self-reliance-participates-in-minnesotas-give-to-the-max-day-2017/


Can Puerto Rico Overcome a Colonial Past to Build a Greener Grid?

by John Farrell | November 15, 2017 12:00 pm

This article was originally published in Greentech Media[1] on November 6th, 2017.


Puerto Rico’s history of intervention and mismanagement created a financially disastrous backdrop for Hurricane Maria.

On September 20, Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico, destroying its electricity grid. The storm felled half of the cross-island transmission towers. Nine out of 10 back-alley power poles blew down. Every single customer on the island lost power.

Amid the wreckage lies an opportunity for Puerto Rico to rebuild stronger and smarter[2]. Tesla chief Elon Musk said his company will power the island with solar and energy storage. “The Tesla team has done this for many smaller islands around the world, but there is no scalability limit, so it can be done for Puerto Rico too,” he tweeted[3].

But there’s one big hitch with this plan.

Unlike other island grids, Puerto Rico’s has been under assault for years. A decade-long recession and utility mismanagement of an aging grid exacerbate problems rooted in Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status. The unfortunate combination of colonialism and local miscues make rebuilding infrastructure a taller task than for other island nations or the U.S. mainland. The island’s governor has already canceled a $300 million contract[4] for repairing the grid after it went to a tiny Montana-based firm that somehow secured a deal prohibiting government audits[5] of its costs and profits.

In the aftermath of Maria, the island needs a new vision to serve its local needs, driven by two principles: transitioning to lower-cost and resilient renewables, and retaining local ownership and control. Technology like Tesla’s can provide one piece of that vision — state-of-the-art solar and batteries that can provide cleaner, more resilient and more affordable electricity. But revitalizing the island’s grid, and economy, requires a broader vision for ownership and management that allows Puerto Ricans to share in the economic rewards of local power generation.

“Operation Bootstrap”

To understand the challenge of transitioning to a cleaner grid, it’s important to understand Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. commonwealth and how that has affected the island’s energy system.

The island’s residents are U.S. citizens who pay federal taxes. It has its own constitution, but the U.S. federal government can and does intervene in local affairs (more on that in a bit). Unfortunately, that history of intervention created a financially disastrous backdrop for Hurricane Maria.

In an effort to aid the island’s development, the federal government in the 1950s launched Operation Bootstrap, creating tax incentives for manufacturers to locate on Puerto Rico. The move helped grow the economy and create factory jobs, but also allowed U.S. corporations to avoid paying corporate income tax (think offshoring but within the country). In addition to putting domestic industry at a disadvantage to offshore ones, the law became increasingly expensive for federal taxpayers.

Congress repealed the tax break[6] in the 1990s. When that change finally took effect in the mid-2000s, it had a dramatic negative impact on manufacturing employment and the entire island’s economy.

[7]

Still reeling from the tax credit repeal, the island also struggled to access federal funds due to its second-tier status[8]. Today, the unemployment rate in Puerto Rico is 2.5 times higher than the U.S. average, and the poverty rate is a startling 45 percent (double that of the lowest-ranking U.S. state). The island has lost 10 percent of its population over the past decade, largely via migration to the mainland in search of economic opportunity, and the government went deeply into debt in a bid to keep the economy afloat.

The debt requires special mention, because special treatment for Puerto Rico’s borrowing (bonus tax exemptions) gives investors an incentive to overlook the island’s trouble in repaying its $72 billion obligation, allowing them to borrow 30 times more[9] than the average state. The governor has suggested islanders can only afford to repay about 20 percent[10] of the existing debt because payments would consume all economic growth through 2047.

The federal response to the debt crisis in 2016 further stymies Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts. President Obama created a federal oversight board that reports solely to the U.S. president[11], a chain of command that drew criticism from Hector Figueroa of the Service Employees International Union, who said it rendered Puerto Rico “a semi-colonial entity[12].” The board implemented austerity measures usually reserved for developing countries, including “unpopular decisions [such as] cutting spending on public health by 30 percent, closing schools, and lowering the minimum wage for young people to a little over $4 an hour,” Slate reports[13].

Unexpectedly, the oversight board rejected a debt restructuring offer from the island utility’s major creditors last year. The deal would have paid them 85 cents on the dollar[14] for bonds that many of the holders had purchased at lower prices, and provided no path[15] to re-enter capital markets to borrow — a crushing obstacle for a utility in desperate need of capital to rebuild its grid. Hedge fund managers had hoped[16] the oversight board would provide an easier route to a favorable payout than negotiating with Puerto Rico’s government.

The debt burden still hangs over the island in the wake of the hurricane strike. The New York Times reported, “Even as Maria hit Puerto Rico, hedge fund creditors were filing motions[17] in court to further their claims to be repaid.” Additionally, knowing the island would be desperate to unlock matching federal disaster relief funds, creditors offered a new, less generous deal[18] shortly after Maria struck in an effort to get themselves to the front of the repayment line.

So with an economy and government finances in shambles, Puerto Rico awaited a hit from a Category 5 storm. And its publicly owned utility, PREPA, was also poorly prepared.

Free electricity and fossil fuels

In its report[19] to the Puerto Rico Energy Commission last year, the consulting firm Synapse summed up its extensive review of the island’s utility with a scathing comment. “PREPA is failing at the basic mandate of an electric utility,” which is to offer safe and reliable electricity, the group stated.

Puerto Ricans have experienced four to five times the number of service outages as U.S. customers over the past two years, yet still pay the second-highest utility rates in the country. The utility has $4 billion in accumulated maintenance needs.

One of the utility’s major shortcomings, much like the island’s economic crisis, traces back to its colonial past. The last federally appointed governor (under President Franklin Roosevelt) offered free electricity[20] to win over municipalities that would lose property tax revenue when private utilities were taken public in the 1940s. That practice has continued, and the complimentary power for the island’s cities — and their publicly owned skating rinks, stadiums, etc. — cost the utility $420 million in 2016 alone. That’s $123 for every resident.

Many other governmental entities, such as schools, hospitals, the largest airport, and transit systems are delinquent on power payments, together totaling $300 million.

The utility’s poor decisions of the past are compounded by others made outside the utility. Puerto Rico’s legislature and governors have pressured PREPA to keep electricity rates low. But this mandate “stands in stark contrast to other utilities where revenue requirements are driven by needs,” reported Synapse in its critique of the utility’s resource plan before the island’s Energy Commission.

Marc Roumain, director at Windmar Renewable Energy, a clean energy developer with several projects on the island, recently told Utility Dive, “PREPA is selling its electricity at less than $0.20 per kilowatt-hour but it costs them $0.22 or more[21] to generate [it].”

Regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency — specifically, its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards — represent a third external force complicating the utility’s operation. The utility burns fuel oil to generate about 50 percent of the island’s electricity, in aging power plants that fail to comply with clean air standards. Rather than install scrubbers and repair its fuel oil generators, however, the utility instead bet on switching its fuel oil power plants to natural gas, relying on construction of a new gas import terminal. The import terminal has been delayed, worsening maintenance problems at some of the utility’s biggest power plants.

PREPA desperately wants the gas so it can avoid spending on repairs to its oil power plants, even as the legislature and Energy Commission express skepticism about swapping one fossil fuel dependency for another. As the Synapse study to the commission reported, “PREPA now finds itself having placed a bet on offshore gas — which may be a ‘too big to fail’ proposition.”

Mismanagement meets a Category 5 storm

PREPA’s active mismanagement has intensified the problems generated by poor historical decisions and clean air regulations.

In 2014, PREPA undercut[22] numerous renewable energy projects. The utility unilaterally added unwarranted technical requirements to existing contracts including then-expensive batteries, inhibiting projects from getting financing. Most wind and solar projects died on the vine. In 2015, a class-action lawsuit (still pending[23]) accused[24] the utility’s fuel purchasing office of procuring substandard fuel oil and fraudulently billing customers for the more expensive low-sulfur variety required by the Environmental Protection Agency.

In its 2016 report, Synapse noted that $165 million marked as administrative expenses was unaccounted for, and Slate reported it had all the hallmarks of a “slush fund[25].”

The total capacity of PREPA’s power plants exceeds the grid’s needs by a 50 percent margin, an expensive cushion. In addition, much of this capacity has far exceeded its expected lifecycle. The median age among its power plants is 44 years[26], 2.5 times older than the U.S. electric industry average. These aging power plants fail at a significantly higher rate than newer power plants.

[27]
Source: PREPA

Beyond the fallout tied to aging infrastructure and financial blunders, poor management has led to an exodus of skilled workers. Thirty percent of PREPA’s employees have retired or migrated to the mainland since 2012, The Washington Post reports[28] — including many of its skilled workers.

Against this backdrop came Hurricane Maria, driving straight over the island as a maximum-intensity Category 5 storm. PREPA representatives have suggested it will take six months[29] to fully restore power.

Several factors complicate PREPA’s restoration. The utility hadn’t fully recovered from Hurricane Irma’s recent strike — 60,000 customers were still without power[30]when Maria hit. The complete loss of power also makes recovery more difficult, a situation utility folks call a “black start.” The mountainous terrain in central Puerto Rico makes transmission and distribution line repair expensive and time-consuming.

Additionally, due to its isolation, the utility can’t easily take advantage of mutual aid pacts with other publicly owned utilities that normally provide extra labor power and equipment to help restore power. In an odd twist, three weeks after the hurricane, the utility refused mutual aid[31]. Governor Ricardo Rosselló has since sought mutual aid agreements with New York and Florida.

How to rebuild stronger and smarter

In the short term, the utility’s focus must be humanitarian aid — restoring electricity to as many Puerto Ricans as possible, especially for crucial services such as water pumping, sewage treatment, hospital care and refrigeration.

The good news is that some of these tasks don’t depend on restoring the island’s power grid. Already, solar and battery companies such as Tesla are donating equipment for local power generation. These contributions expand the network of powered facilities and can create a foundation for a more resilient grid that can weather future storms.

It is essential to prepare for a more resilient future as PREPA rebuilds the grid. And there’s little question the utility could do better. “It took four months[32] to restore power to the entire island after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and six months after Hurricane Georges in 1998,” reported Public Affairs Secretary Ramon Rosario just after Hurricane Maria struck the island.

To build stronger this time, PREPA can prioritize storm-hardened infrastructure, as mainland utility Florida Power & Light has done[33] over the past decade, including by swapping wood poles for concrete, elevating substations to avoid flooding, and changing insulators on power lines from ceramic to harder polymers.

To build smarter, PREPA can add smart grid technologies to contain outages, reduce recovery times, lower costs, and enable distributed renewable energy similar to actions taken[34] by the Chattanooga municipal utility or planned by the Hawaiian Electric Utilities[35]. This includes advanced sensors, digital switches, automated meters, and intelligent interrupters that contain outages, as well as making power plants more capable of ramping production up and down to complement wind and solar generation.

Procuring low-cost, resilient renewables would go a long way toward reducing reliance on imported fuel, which costs Puerto Ricans more than $2 billion per year[36]. Federal disaster managers, in particular, should allow the island’s utility to plan ahead, not just prop up a failing grid.

Lessons from Hawaii

Puerto Rico needs a new vision to serve its local needs, underpinned by a transition to lower-cost, locally owned renewables. Despite the clear benefits of expanding renewable energy, PREPA is moving in the opposite direction. PREPA’s fiscal plan suggests it will increase renewables to just 18 percent of generation by 2026, while spending billions to repower fossil fuel power plants and increase reliance on imported natural gas via a $500 million import terminal.

In contrast, distributed solar and energy storage packages[37] sold in Hawaii cost less than utility-provided electricity, and provide local pockets of power when the grid fails. Utility-scale combinations sell for as little as one-third of that cost[38]. Both are cheaper than power from PREPA’s ailing oil and gas power plants.

PREPA should instead vigorously accelerate renewable energy expansion, retire ancient oil power plants and repower or replace fossil fuel power plants only to the extent necessary to back up cost-effective renewable energy. Kauai Island Utility Cooperative serves as a model. In 2011, the Hawaiian utility was 85 percent oil-powered[39], with most of the remainder provided by long-established hydro generation. Just five years later, renewables provided 42 percent of the island’s electricity, with an expectation to reach 80 percent by 2025[40]. The switch has helped the utility lower electric bills[41] and avoid significant price inflation experienced by utilities on other Hawaiian islands.

PREPA’s unique challenges even more strongly reinforce the benefits of a renewable-first course. Fuel costs are expected[42] to rise 64 percent in the next decade, even as sales are projected to fall by nearly a quarter because of continued weakness in the island economy. This combination translates to rate increases of nearly 50 percent. The utility’s plan to remain hitched to fossil fuel power plants — which are expensive to maintain, costly to retrofit, and require overpriced fuel — despite affordable alternatives is almost criminal.

PREPA looks particularly shortsighted after the hurricane, given its unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the network in a way that encourages and integrates next-generation renewable power resources and storage.

Local oversight is paramount

Distributing renewable energy resources across the island would provide three types of resiliency. Batteries help maintain power for crucial infrastructure (hospitals, community centers, cellular towers, water-pumping) during storms. Renewable energy provides power generation immediately after storms to refuel batteries and provide power at key locations. And, with no need for imported fuel, renewables avoid the supply-chain disaster of diesel generators whose fuel must be unloaded at ports and shipped on roads ravaged by storms.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, for example, solar energy enabled Midtown Community School in Bayonne, New Jersey to idle its diesel generators and extend fuel supplies[43]. In contrast, restarting coal, gas and nuclear power plants on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hinged on the restoration of water-pumping infrastructure required for the steam thermal generators.

Puerto Rico’s government has already recognized the potential of a renewable energy and energy efficiency switch. The 2014 legislation[44] that created the Energy Commission also directed the utility to pave the way for more distributed renewable energy as well as reduced government energy use.

The danger in the utility’s — and entire island’s — precarious fiscal situation is that they will lose local oversight just as they have successfully begun to address their problems. Though the island established its independent Energy Commission to oversee PREPA just three years ago, the body has already pulled back the curtain[45] on PREPA’s problems. This local oversight should remain.

The federal government should help Puerto Rico climb out from under its crippling debt. General Motors received a $50 billion bailout package to stave off bankruptcy, with the federal government writing off $11 billion[46]. Puerto Rico’s federal taxpayers deserve at least as much support as U.S. automakers. At a minimum, its bondholders should get no more back in a bankruptcy proceeding than they put in, as many of its creditors hold bonds purchased at a significant discount.

The federal aid may go beyond money, such as suspending the Stafford Act’s provisions limiting disaster recovery money to rebuilding exactly what was destroyed, which would be a poor choice with a grid built for a 20th-century electricity system and poorly prepared for hurricanes.

Additionally, island officials and the federal government should resist calls for utility privatization, which would only extract more local money from the economy. If the utility must be sold (as a whole, or in a fire sale of assets), then the first option ought to be cooperative ownership, such as the model that has guided Kauai since the departure of its investor-owned utility nearly 20 years ago.

In Kauai, not only has local governance successfully addressed the crisis of high oil prices, it has managed to reduce costs for customers and return patronage capital[47] (the rewards of ownership) to members. Crucially, unlike with a private owner, cooperative ownership would include as part of its mission supporting economic development on the island, as hundreds of rural electric cooperatives do across the mainland United States.

Replacing colonial power with local power

While Puerto Rico’s power challenge, stemming from its colonial history and compounded by utility mismanagement, has persisted for generations, the recovery from Hurricane Maria offers a unique opportunity to confront and solve the pitfalls of the past. The island’s very aged fossil fuel power system should be retired. The provision of free electricity should end. The utility should set prices to recover the actual costs of maintaining a safe and reliable grid.

In rebuilding infrastructure, the utility should harden its grid against future disasters and nurture a more resilient and renewable energy system. In planning for the future, local oversight should ensure that the utility’s plans align with improving the island’s economic prospects and reducing its $2 billion per year fossil fuel dependency tax.

For many years, Puerto Rico has paid the price of remote meddling in its power system and economy. Building local power is a prerequisite for recovery.

Read the article on Greentech Media[48].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[49]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[50] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[51] update.

(more…)[52]

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Endnotes:
  1. Greentech Media: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/can-puerto-rico-overcome-a-colonial-past-to-build-a-greener-grid?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GTM_Solar+%28GTM+Solar%29#gs.iguvShQ
  2. rebuild stronger and smarter: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/puerto-rico-clean-energy-industry-prevent-maria-scale-damage#gs.TOmul=c
  3. he tweeted: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/915939199718531072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffuturism.com%2Fmusk-restore-electricity-puerto-rico-citizens-benefit%2F
  4. canceled a $300 million contract: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/puerto-rico-cancel-whitefish-energy-grid-contract-witch-hunt
  5. prohibiting government audits: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/whitefish-contract-leak-audit-puerto-rico-grid-crisis
  6. tax break: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/heres-how-an-obscure-tax-change-sank-puerto-ricos-economy.html
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CNBC_Puerto_Rico_Chart_3_1144_1072_80.jpg
  8. second-tier status: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/puerto-rico-history-debt-electricity_us_59cc14f8e4b05063fe0ee086
  9. 30 times more: https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21588364-heavily-indebted-island-weighs-americas-municipal-bond-market-puerto-pobre
  10. repay about 20 percent: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/330732-5-reasons-puerto-ricos-electric-debt-deal-is-a-rip-off
  11. reports solely to the U.S. president: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-puertorico-debt-bankruptcy/aurelius-hedge-fund-seeks-to-toss-puerto-ricos-bankruptcy-filing-idUSKBN1AN27H
  12. a semi-colonial entity: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/opinion/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
  13. reports: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/09/hurricane_maria_could_lead_puerto_rico_s_electric_utility_prepa_to_privatize.html
  14. 85 cents on the dollar: https://theintercept.com/2017/09/27/puerto-rican-debt-holders-respond-to-catastrophic-hurricane-by-offering-puerto-rico-more-debt/
  15. no path: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/330732-5-reasons-puerto-ricos-electric-debt-deal-is-a-rip-off
  16. had hoped: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-puertorico-debt-bankruptcy/aurelius-hedge-fund-seeks-to-toss-puerto-ricos-bankruptcy-filing-idUSKBN1AN27H
  17. filing motions: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/opinion/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
  18. less generous deal: https://theintercept.com/2017/09/27/puerto-rican-debt-holders-respond-to-catastrophic-hurricane-by-offering-puerto-rico-more-debt/
  19. report: http://energia.pr.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Expert-Report-Revenue-Requirements-Fisher-and-Horowitz-Revised-20161123.pdf
  20. offered free electricity: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-power-authoritys-debt-is-rooted-in-free-electricity.html?mcubz=1&_r=0
  21. costs them $0.22 or more: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-a-new-business-model-could-get-the-puerto-rico-public-utility-out-of-de/411826/
  22. undercut: http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2014/03/puerto-ricos-lag-in-renewable-energy-implementation-could-kill-solar/
  23. still pending: https://www.hbsslaw.com/cases/puerto-rico-electric-power-authority-prepa
  24. accused: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/business/dealbook/in-scandal-at-puerto-rico-utility-ex-fuel-buyer-insists-he-took-no-bribes.html?module=Promotron&region=Body&action=click&pgtype=article
  25. slush fund: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/09/hurricane_maria_could_lead_puerto_rico_s_electric_utility_prepa_to_privatize.html
  26. 44 years: http://www.gdb-pur.com/documents/PREPARecoveryPlan6-1-15.pdf
  27. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Puerto_Rico_aging_infrastructure_808_292_80.jpg
  28. reports: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/20/puerto-ricos-power-company-was-already-bankrupt-then-hurricane-maria-hit/?utm_term=.6ae29c9dd713
  29. six months: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/30/hurricane-fallout-puerto-rico-could-face-6-months-without-power/717005001/
  30. 60,000 customers were still without power: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/reuters-america-puerto-rico-power-grid-faces-generational-threat-in-hurricane-maria.html
  31. the utility refused mutual aid: http://www.energycentral.com/news/prepa-forgoes-mutual-aid-opting-little-known-contractor
  32. four months: http://www.elp.com/articles/2017/09/puerto-rico-remains-dark-as-damage-assessments-begin.html
  33. has done: http://newsroom.fpl.com/2013-05-02-FPL-announces-plan-to-accelerate-strengthening-of-Floridas-electric-grid-during-annual-storm-drill
  34. actions taken: https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/MF/Chattanooga
  35. Hawaiian Electric Utilities: https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/Documents/about_us/investing_in_the_future/final_august_2017_grid_modernization_strategy.pdf
  36. $2 billion per year: http://www.aafaf.pr.gov/assets/fiscal-plan---pr-electric-power-authority.pdf
  37. packages: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/sunrun-teams-with-tesla-to-install-solarstorage-for-hawaiis-self-supply-i/419389/
  38. one-third of that cost: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/valuing-storage-a-closer-look-at-the-tucson-electric-solar-plus-storage-pp/448370/
  39. 85 percent oil-powered: https://puc.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/RPS-KIUC-2016.pdf
  40. 80 percent by 2025: http://kiuc.coopwebbuilder2.com/sites/kiuc/files/PDF/annualreport/AnnualReport2016.pdf
  41. lower electric bills: http://kiuc.coopwebbuilder2.com/sites/kiuc/files/PDF/presentations/2015annualmeetingfinal.pdf
  42. expected: http://www.aafaf.pr.gov/assets/fiscal-plan---pr-electric-power-authority.pdf
  43. extend fuel supplies: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/62631.pdf
  44. legislation: http://www.oneillborges.com/our_client_alert/transformation-energy-relief-act/
  45. pulled back the curtain: http://energia.pr.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Expert-Report-Revenue-Requirements-Fisher-and-Horowitz-Revised-20161123.pdf
  46. writing off $11 billion: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury/u-s-government-says-it-lost-11-2-billion-on-gm-bailout-idUSBREA3T0MR20140430
  47. return patronage capital: http://kiuc.coopwebbuilder2.com/sites/kiuc/files/PDF/presentations/2015annualmeetingfinal.pdf
  48. on Greentech Media: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/can-puerto-rico-overcome-a-colonial-past-to-build-a-greener-grid?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GTM_Solar+%28GTM+Solar%29#gs.iguvShQ
  49. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  50. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  51. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  52. (more…): https://ilsr.org/puerto-rico-grid-hurricane/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/puerto-rico-grid-hurricane/


Lessons From the Nation’s Oldest Open Access Fiber Network – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 279

by Christopher Mitchell | November 15, 2017 5:02 am

This is episode 279 of our Community Broadband Bits podcast! Community Broadband Bits[1] is a short weekly podcast featuring interviews with people building community networks or otherwise involved with Internet policy.

Grant County’s Public Utility District was, along with some nearby PUDs, among the very first deployers of Fiber-to-the-Home networks shortly after the turn of the millennium. And per Washington’s law, they built an open access network[2] that today has more than twenty service providers.

Grant County PUD Project Specialist Russ Brethrower joins us for Community Broadband Bits podcast 279, a live interview from the Broadband Communities Economic Development Conference in Atlanta[3].

We discuss the history of the network and other observations from Russ, who has more direct experience in these networks than the vast majority of us that regularly speculate on them. We also talk about the experiences of open access over 16 years and how they financed the network. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Bits: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  2. open access network: http://www.grantpud.org/customer-service/high-speed-network
  3. Broadband Communities Economic Development Conference in Atlanta: http://www.bbcmag.com/atlanta/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lessons-from-the-nations-oldest-open-access-fiber-network-community-broadband-bits-podcast-279/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lessons-from-the-nations-oldest-open-access-fiber-network-community-broadband-bits-podcast-279/


Local Fiber Network Will Expand to Six More Vermont Towns

by Christopher Barich | November 13, 2017 4:29 am

In August, East Central Vermont Telecommunications District (ECFiber[1]) released their 2018 construction plans [2]to expand fiber optic network to the towns of Braintree, Brookfield, Granville, Hancock, Rochester, and Stockbridge in east-central Vermont.

Homegrown And Community Owned

According to Irv Thomae[3], the District Chairman:

“Our mission is to build and operate a universal, open access, fiber-to-the premises network, ensuring state-of-the art connectivity to every home, business and civic institution in all of our member towns. We are pleased that thanks to our recent financing we can at last provide near-universal coverage to six more towns.”

As of October[4], ECFiber has built over 420 miles of fiber optic cable and connected over 2,000 active customers in parts or all of their 24 member towns[5]. They plan to complete another 170 miles of the network by the end of 2017 and another 250 miles in 2018. “We plan to continue this process of filling out towns until the entire District is covered,” says Thomae[6].

ECFiber[1] is a consortium of 24 Vermont towns organized as a Communications Union District under Vermont law[7] (30 V.S.A. § 3052[8]). ValleyNet, a nonprofit organization based in Royalton, operates the community owned fiber optic network. The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) infrastructure provides symmetrical speeds from 17 to 700 Megabits per second (Mbps)[9] with no data caps. Top speeds will increase to gigabit connectivity later this year.

In the organization’s infancy, ECFiber submitted several funding proposals to obtain grants or loans under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act[10] (ARRA), but the funds were awarded to other local incumbent providers. From that point on, ECFiber utilized an innovative self-financing model[11] by issuing promissory notes in a private placement offering. After a few rounds of fundraising and outside investment, ECFiber went live in 2011[12]. The network has been expanding[13], increasing in speed[14], and keeping rates in check ever since. Currently the District funds projects[15] with revenue bonds; revenue from the existing customer base has been sufficient to cover all financing. (more…)[16]

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Endnotes:
  1. ECFiber: http://www.ecfiber.net/
  2. 2018 construction plans : http://www.ecfiber.net/press/2018-construction-plans/
  3. According to Irv Thomae: http://www.ecfiber.net/press/2018-construction-plans/
  4. As of October: http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/2017/october/11/ecfiber-connects-2000th-customer
  5. 24 member towns: http://www.ecfiber.net/member-towns/
  6. says Thomae: http://www.ecfiber.net/press/2018-construction-plans/
  7. Vermont law: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-vermont-law-bolsters-prospects-investing-community-broadband-networks
  8. 30 V.S.A. § 3052: http://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/chapter/30/082
  9. symmetrical speeds from 17 to 700 Megabits per second (Mbps): https://muninetworks.org/content/ecfiber-increases-speeds-not-ratesagain
  10. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/recovery/Pages/recovery-act.aspx
  11. ECFiber utilized an innovative self-financing model: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-bits-9-leslie-nulty-ecfiber-vermont
  12. ECFiber went live in 2011: https://muninetworks.org/content/ec-fiber-officially-live-vermont
  13. network has been expanding: https://muninetworks.org/content/expansion-ahead-ecfiber
  14. increasing in speed: https://muninetworks.org/content/ecfiber-increases-speeds-not-ratesagain
  15. funds projects: https://muninetworks.org/content/ecfiber-seeks-new-business-model-designation
  16. (more…): https://ilsr.org/local-fiber-network-will-expand-to-six-more-vermont-towns/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-fiber-network-will-expand-to-six-more-vermont-towns/


Lighting Fiber & Opportunity In Roanoke Valley, Virginia

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 10, 2017 4:43 am

In October, the Rowan Oak Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA), celebrated the completion of a 25-mile expansion of its open access fiber network. The completion of phase II of the network comes soon after the RVBA established office space in September[1] and after the RVBA announced that it will be connecting new apartments in downtown Roanoke[2].

Growth Is Good

The $3.4 million expansion extends the network to a local library and toward the Tanglewood Mall. To celebrate, RVBA held a lighting event at the library. Last year, the Roanoke Board of Supervisors included the funding for the expansion in the budget, despite an intense astroturf campaign by local incumbents to turn constituents against the network. Supervisor Joe McNamara supported the expansion[3] early on and spoke at the lighting ceremony.

With the new addition, the RVBA network totals approximately 80 fiber miles in the cities of Roanoke and Salem. This new expansion marks the beginning of more connectivity in areas of Roanoke County that are outside town limits.

[4]Setting An Example

The project has piqued interest among neighboring counties. According to the Roanoke Times, Botetourt County is working with the RVBA on ways to improve connectivity and the Franklin County Board of Supervisors has announced a public hearing on forming its own broadband authority.

As RVBA CEO Frank Smith said in his speech at the lighting ceremony, communities like Roanoke County need high-quality Internet access to compete with other places that also focus on quality of life as an economic development tool. He referred to the fact that Roanoke is not only competing with large cities, but must consider their standing against small and mid-sized communities such as Bozeman, Montana. He noted that a high percentage of high-tech companies are locating in places other than the largest cities because their talent want access to a quality of life that isn’t available in the large metros. The RVBA network is one tool in the community’s toolkit. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. established office space in September: https://wfirnews.com/local-news/broadband-authority-has-its-own-home-now
  2. connecting new apartments in downtown Roanoke: https://muninetworks.org/content/rvba-announces-first-residential-internet-access-new-isp
  3. Supervisor Joe McNamara supported the expansion: https://muninetworks.org/content/push-poll-and-passion-network-will-expand-roanoke-county
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/rss/roanoke-valley-broadband-authority-issues-rfp-2.jpg
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lighting-fiber-opportunity-in-roanoke-valley-virginia/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lighting-fiber-opportunity-in-roanoke-valley-virginia/


Local Authority Wins Across Colorado; Comcast Loses In Fort Collins

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 8, 2017 11:10 am

[1]Voters in 18 19 Colorado communities chose local telecommunications authority with an average rate of 83 percent. In Fort Collins, voters weren’t swayed by rivers of cash Comcast threw at them in the final month leading up to a ballot issue to pave the way for local fiber optic Internet infrastructure. By a comfortable margin, ballot measure 2B passed, allowing the city to proceed as it examines ways to improve competition and connectivity.

For a visual of what counties and municipalities have now opted out of SB 152, we’ve updated our map:

[2]

Fort Collins Voters Say Yes To 2B

Voters chose to amend the city charter in order to give the city council the ability to authorize the municipality to offer telecommunications services as a utility, rather than taking the issue to the voters in a separate referendum. The measure passed with a comfortable margin: 57 percent of voters approved the proposal.

The city has been investigating ways to improve connectivity for several years now because CenturyLink and Comcast are only providing a patchwork of substandard services. As a forward thinking community, Fort Collins wants to be sure that they don’t pass up any economic development opportunities. City leaders also feel that a municipal network is best positioned to offer affordable Internet access as a way to create an environment that is equitable and inclusive, especially for Fort Collins schoolchildren. The city is home to Colorado State University, which needs high-quality connectivity for research purposes. When considering the city’s social, economic, and development goals, the future ability to invest in Internet infrastructure makes sense. Comcast sees the measure as potential competition, the ultimate threat. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Updated-Colorado-Ballot-Voting-Fall-2017-transparent.png
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/local-authority-wins-across-colorado-comcast-loses-in-fort-collins/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-authority-wins-across-colorado-comcast-loses-in-fort-collins/


Mount Washington, Mass. Lights Its Fiber Network at Last

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 6, 2017 6:30 am

After a long and arduous process, the folks in Mount Washington, Massachusetts[1], were finally able to light up their publicly owned fiber optic network last week. According to resident[2] and Select Board Chair Eleanor Tillinghast, “We are thrilled. We’re going to be the envy of everyone.”

It’s Finally Here

As we reported last month[3], the community was eagerly anticipating the opportunity to finish up the last steps to begin connecting subscribers from the town’s 146 premises. Approximately 100 are connected and will take services from local Internet service provider Crocker Communications. In addition to providing Internet access, the ISP will handle billing for the city, provide 24/7 tech support for subscribers, and monitor the network. The infrastructure will be maintained by the company that built it for the city, NextGen Group. Mount Washington owns the infrastructure.

[4]Gigabit connectivity is available, but most subscribers have opted for 500 Megabits per second (Mbps). All speeds are symmetrical, which makes Mount Washington’s network valuable as an economic development tool. Community leaders are already seeing in increase in real estate transactions that they relate to the new network. “People may have ruled Mount Washington out before,” Select Board Member Brian Tobin told the Berkshire Edge[5]. “But we just catapulted ahead of other towns in terms of amenities.” As a potential quiet retreat for New Yorkers located in the Taconic Mountains, Tobin and Tillinghast expect to lure more urbanites who want to work remotely for part of the week. Tobin also has a Manhattan apartment and says that his Internet access speeds in the city are only about 117 Mbps download with slower upload speeds.

A Long Process That’s Paid Off

Up until now, many of the community’s residents relied on expensive, unreliable satellite Internet access. The remote nature of Mount Washington kept incumbents from investing in cable and only a few had access to DSL. In 2013, the community formed a broadband working group and began investigating options. We’ve documented the story[6] and spoke with Select Board Member Gail Garrett in 2016 for episode 212[7] of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

map-Mount_Washington_ma_highlight.pngThe town had to obtain special permission from the legislature to pursue the network without forming a Municipal Light Plant (MLP), the public entity that manages a broadband network under state law. Mount Washington was able to convince lawmakers that such an agency would be cumbersome for them because of their small population. (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. Mount Washington, Massachusetts: http://townofmtwashington.com/index.php
  2. According to resident: https://theberkshireedge.com/little-engine-that-could-mount-washington-flips-switch-on-fiber/
  3. we reported last month: https://muninetworks.org/content/mount-washington-massachusetts-set-debut-new-ftth-network
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/seal-mt-washington-ma.jpg
  5. told the Berkshire Edge: https://theberkshireedge.com/little-engine-that-could-mount-washington-flips-switch-on-fiber/#comments
  6. documented the story: https://muninetworks.org/tags/tags/mt-washington
  7. episode 212: https://muninetworks.org/content/tiny-mt-washington-builds-fiber-home-community-broadband-bits-podcast-212
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/mount-washington-mass-lights-its-fiber-network-at-last/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/mount-washington-mass-lights-its-fiber-network-at-last/


This Ag Economist Preached Bigger is Better. Now He Says the Evidence Favors Small Farms. (Episode 32)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 2, 2017 12:00 pm

Since the 1960s, there’s been a concerted effort by economists and policymakers to consolidate family farms into large-scale industrial agriculture operations. The thinking was that these giant farms could better feed the world.

Today’s guest, John Ikerd[5], was one of those economists — that is, until the farm crisis hit in the 1980s. Ikerd took a hard look at what was happening in rural America, and at the mounting empirical evidence that something had gone wrong in our food system, and he had a dramatic shift in his thinking.

In the episode of the Building Local Power podcast[6], Dr. Ikerd, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, sits down with ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell[7] to explain that shift and discuss the reality of consolidated agriculture and what it’s doing to rural communities, the environment, and our health. Despite the rhetoric of Big Ag, over 70 percent of the world’s food today is produced on family farms, according to Ikerd. And the evidence, he says, indicates that it’s a superior way to feed people.

“Today we don’t have a large number of small farms. We have very few large [agribusiness] firms.

What sociologists and others have concluded is where you’ve got four or five large  firms that control over half the overall market, you don’t have out and out collusion because they all know what each other is doing,” says John Ikerd[5], of our current concentrated agriculture sector.

He continues: “That’s the natural tendency of a capitalist economy. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of the government…to not allow that to happen, rather than to sanction it or even encourage it.”

John Ikerd: Feeding the World Intelligently — Without Corporate Agriculture (Video) [8]— Watch Ikerd’s opening keynote talk at the Organization for Competitive Markets’ 19th Annual Food and Agriculture Conference

JohnIkerd.com[9] — Visit Dr. Ikerd’s website for information about his books, upcoming speaking events, and more.

Powering a Political Revolution, North Dakota’s Non-Partisan League – Episode 4 of the Building Local Power Podcast[10] – This podcast featuring ILSR co-founder David Morris discusses the Non-Partisan League, an endeavor of turn of the century North Dakota that has major ramifications and set the framework for fighting concentrated economic power in banking, pharmaceutical chains, and agriculture today.

ILSR Rule Archive: Local Food Policies[11] – An overview of policies that enable local food, including examples from across the country that speak to the issues John Ikerd is arguing for.

Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[12] — This report from ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell details how the United States is much less a nation of entrepreneurs than it was a generation ago. This report suggests that the decline of small businesses is owed, at least in part, to anticompetitive behavior by large, dominant corporations.

Stacy Mitchell: Hello, and welcome to Building Local Power, I’m Stacy Mitchell, of the Institute for Local Self Reliance. Beginnings in the 1960s and 70s, there was a concerted push by economists and policy makers to transform the nations family farms into large scale industrial agriculture operations. One of economists, Dr. John Ikerd is our guest today.

John is an agricultural economist, and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri. In 1970, after earning his PhD, John began working as an agricultural extension economist, first at North Carolina State University and then Oklahoma State University. In the 1980s, he was at the University of Georgia, when the farm foreclosure crisis hit. It was then that he began to see that there was something deeply wrong with what he and other economists had been advising farmers to do. Namely, to either get big or get out.

John underwent a conversion of sorts, and in 1989 moved to the University of Missouri where he began to focus his research and education on sustainable agriculture. He retired in 2000, but his work to foster a more intelligent and sustainable farming economy didn’t stop. Since then, he’s written six books, including most recently in 2012 The Essentials of Economic Sustainability.

I met John this summer at the Organization for Competitive Markets conference in Kansas City, where he gave a truly rousing speech. You can watch that speech online, we’ll be sure to post a link to it on the show page for today’s episode which you can find on our website at ILSR.org.

John joins us today from his home in Fairfield, Iowa. John, welcome to the show 

John Ikerd: Thank you, I’m very glad to be with you, and look forward to visiting with your listeners.
Stacy Mitchell: Well it’s wonderful to have you on, and I’m really glad to have a chance to talk with you about the nature of what’s happen to agriculture, and the intersection of economics and policy and the nature of community. I understand that you grew up on a farm, a dairy farm in Iowa, and then went off to university and decided to study the economics of agriculture. And coming out of university, then went on to work for agricultural extension services, whereas understand it, a part of that job is helping to advise the farmers in the region of that university about what they should do, how they should manage their farms in ways that would be economically successful.

So tell me a little about what you were doing in the 1970s and what it was that you were telling farmers to do. 

John Ikerd: First of all, I did grow up on a small dairy farm, it happened to be in southwest Missouri at that time, rather than Iowa, so I am originally from Missouri. After I got my PhD, I had the head position in extension and I was a livestock marketing specialist for the first half of my 30 year academic career.

So that meant, as you suggested, that our responsibility was to go out and work with farmers and help them devise marketing strategies and make marketing decisions. I taught such things as future markets and options and forward pricing, and I was the person that did the market out for cattle and hogs and livestock in general. And we’d try to analyze what trends were going into the future.

But we also dealt with farmers on general business management strategies and we saw marketing as part of the broader sort of business management of farming. As you suggested, the basic theme of that time and it still is in many agricultural universities, is that farming has to be a business. If farmers think it’s a way of life, that’s kind of old fashioned or it’s out of date, so they have to focus on the economic bottom line. You often hear that, from back in the 1970s and 1980s was the period of time when we had expanding export markets and farmers were expanding production. It was very profitable in the 70s, as it has been up until the last few years now.

Farmers were told, “Well, you need to expand to get bigger, to get out,” was the saying a lot of people had, and that’s because what we were promoting was kind of an industrial model of agriculture. We said you need to specialize. Move away from diversified family farms. Specialize in particular commodities or one or two commodities. And then when you specialize then you can standardize and mechanize the process. And chemical fertilizers and pesticides and antibiotics in livestock allowed farmers to have much more control over that production process, so you could kinda write a recipe for how to grow a crop or how to grow a hog.

So you standardize, and then once you’ve done that you’ve simplified the management process so that you can consolidate into larger and larger farming operations. That’s what we thought, that was the get big or get out. You need to follow that industrial model, and you’ll become more economically efficient.

I bought into it and I think a lot of people still do. Under the idea that if we made agriculture more efficient, then we’d reduce the cost of food and make good food affordable for everyone. I think that’s the fundamental flaw in the industrialization of agriculture. It has tremendous negative impacts on rural communities and family farms and on the environment.

But most important thing, it failed to provide good food for everyone. We have a higher percentage of people that are food insecure in the country today than we had in the 1960s before we had this last round of industrialization. We made food cheaper for the people could afford it and for the average consumer, but we’re not getting food to the people who need it most because it’s not a problem of food costs being too high. It’s a problem of unequal distribution of income and access to food.

The reason you have food deserts in the city, it’s not profitable for the large industrial or corporate food retailers products into those markets at a reasonable price. So we didn’t feed the hungry. In addition to that, the food that they’re getting, and it’s not just because it’s highly processed junk food, but the food they’re getting is not healthy.

We didn’t anticipate all those things, but I contended that was an outcome. It took me many years to come to that outcome, but that was an outcome of agricultural industrialization. So I had to do something different. 

Stacy Mitchell: Let me ask you a little bit about what happened in the 1980s and what it was that led you to first start to question whether there was something wrong with the system that farmers were being told to follow.
John Ikerd: As I suggested that farmers were expanding production during the 70s, that was farm fence row to fence row and then tear out fence rows because we were going to feed the world. That was the Nixon era, in terms of farm policy and we were loaning a lot of money to developing countries through various international aid programs, which gave them money to buy food. The global economy was expanding during the 70s. So it was a time of great optimism in agriculture.

Unfortunately at that time, it was also a time when furl prices were high, inflation was high which meant interest rates were high. So farmers out here, and also cost to farm inputs were going up. Farmers following the advice of the so-called experts in terms of expanding, many of them borrowed large amounts of money at record high interest rates in order to take advantage of what were seeing as this opportunity for profitability in the future of agriculture.

But when we got into the 1980s we had a change of administration. Ronald Regan came in as president, said we’re going to bring inflation under control. Tightened up on the money supply, put the country into the domestic recession, that turned into a global recession. All those export markets dried up.

And then farmers were caught with these huge debts at record high interest rates and commodity prices fell because of the loss of export markets. And so farmers simply couldn’t pay those debts. They couldn’t even pay the interest on it, let alone the principle on it. So we had farm foreclosures and bankruptcies were kind of regular fare on the network news programs at that time.

At that time I moved from Oklahoma State University, where I’d been a livestock marketing specialist and working with big feed lots out in the Oklahoma and Texas… out in the Oklahoma Panhandle. I moved to the University of Georgia and I was head of the Extension Agricultural Economics department there.

It was the responsibility of the people in our department to go out and work with these farmers and try to help them figure out, we had them bring their records in, we’d sit down right across the table from them and try to go through their records and see how much equity, if any equity they had left and try to help them find some way to survive financially. Or at least to get out of farming while they still had some equity left. Or at least, as I like to say, talk them out of committing suicide, because farm suicides were not uncommon at that time, as these farmers were losing these farms.

So that’s what made me really begin to think, and I began to understand that the farmers that were in the biggest trouble at that time were the farmers that had been following what we so-called experts had been advising them to do. They had gone ahead… We had said you don’t really have an economic problem, or a profit problem, you have a cashflow problem. So if you are borrowing money to make the cash flow then things continue to be profitable, then you can make up the cash flow payments, you can pay off the debts and everything will be alright.

But I saw that wasn’t working, and it sure wasn’t working for the farmers. And then I saw that it wasn’t working for the rural communities that depended upon those farm families, not just to buy fertilizer and feed and agricultural supplies, but those families were the people that shopped on the main street of the small towns. They’re the people that bought tissues and the clothes and the cars in those communities and when those farm families couldn’t make a living anymore, then the people that depended upon those couldn’t make a living. So we saw rural communities all across the country- I saw it in Georgia but it happened in Missouri and Iowa and everywhere, these rural communities really suffered because it takes people to support communities, not just production and not just agricultural profits.

And then I really became concerned about the negative environmental impacts of industrial agriculture, that farming fence row to fence row, and the soil erosion was rampant and we were polluting air and water with agriculture chemicals and biological waste out of the big animal feeding operations.

I came to the conclusion that this kind of agriculture wasn’t working. And it wasn’t going to work in the future. Thankfully the sustainable agriculture program was just coming on the scene and as you mentioned, I had an opportunity then to get a grant from USDA in Washington on the first sustainable agriculture research and education program that they had funded was in 1988. That allowed me to move and I’ve been working on sustainable agriculture ever since.

Stacy Mitchell: How — when you were looking around at what was happening and beginning to piece this together, that the economics didn’t really make sense, that there were environmental costs, that there were huge social consequences for communities and for people, and you started talking to your colleagues and other people in the profession about what you were seeing and what you were concluding, how did they react?
John Ikerd: At first, the University of Missouri and all the universities were saying well, this sustainable agriculture system is just another one of these passing fads out here. Obviously everything that we’ve been doing is sustainable because we’re still doing it, and farmers are still arguing that it’s sustainable because we’ve continued to do it up until now.

At first when I went to the University of Missouri, I think they were expecting me to develop a public relations program that basically said everything we’re doing here is sustainable so we don’t have to do anything different. And then as they began to discover that I was serious, that I really thought we needed to recreate agriculture, that we need to move away from the industrial model and move towards what had been a very successful program in the 40s and 50s, at the University of Missouri was a balanced farming program.

It was about balancing making an economic living on the farm with the quality of life for the family. You know, buying washing machines, getting indoor plumbing, getting running water and things of that nature in the homes. So it’s about the quality of life, but balanced with economic and then so of conservation with kerosene and things of that nature, so it was a balance of taking care of nature and the quality of life and the economic dimensions of farming.

When I went to the University of Missouri, I thought, well, the University of Missouri has this history in balanced farming so it’ll be easy here to sell this new sustainable agriculture program because that’s what it’s about. It’s about taking care of the land, being a good responsible member of the community and then making a decent economic living for the family. Because that’s what’s necessary to sustain the productivity of the land over the long run.

But whenever I started pushing that idea it was in conflict with industrialization so pretty soon I could see there was great resistance to what I really wanted to do. I really ran into resistance when I started questioning the industrial model of animal agriculture, the large scale confinement animal feeding operations when bringing in standard farms. The big corporations at that time, it exchanged hands several times since then, wanted to bring an 80 sow hog operation into North Missouri.

That’s the epitome of industrial agriculture. And I supported the people that were opposing that because I did a study comparing actual records of Missouri hog farmers with what they were proposing to employ, the people they were going to employ, in the enzymes in these corporate hog operations. I concluded we were going to displace three independent hog farmers for every job that was created in one of those corporate capos.

You can imagine then, the backlash. The university was promoting this idea. I became pretty unpopular there, in the last five or six years that I was there. I joined forces with the [inaudible 00:15:14] at that time at Lincoln University, which is the historic black institution in the state of Missouri. They had a very good, small farms program, so we basically combined the Lincoln University small farms program with the University of Missouri’s sustainable farms program and that gave us both a solid footing to continue to do our work regardless of what the universities really thought about what we were doing.

And then I ended up in the last five years, I got 1.2 million dollar Kellogg Foundation grant to link sustainable agriculture with sustainable community development. But I did go ahead retire as soon as I had 30 years in, because I could retire without any penalties. When I retired I had no intention of not doing anything. I wanted to continue to do my work in a way that I wanted to do it. 

Stacy Mitchell: I want to return to some of the arguments that we hear for an industrialized large scale agro-business kind of system for producing our food. One of the arguments is that it makes food less expensive. Our food costs have certainly gone down in the US quite a bit, I think they’re something like half… We spend half as much as we used to on food.

But I understand that you believe that there’s a hidden cost to that, can you talk about what that is?

John Ikerd: First of all, if we go back, the period of time when we were first beginnings to industrialize agriculture, there was a reduction in the percentage of income that we spent on food. I think it was around 19% down to about 10% but we had reached that basically by the late 1990s. If you look back over the last 20 years, for the 20 year period between the mid to late 90s, into the twenty teens, food prices actually went up faster than the overall inflation rate. I think what we’re seeing here is as we’ve had more concentration, consolidation in the food business. We’ve had food retailers buying up food retailers and other food retailers and processors buying up other processors. We have a handful of large processors and retailers that basically dominate every sector of the agricultural economy today.

I think when you look at the price spreads, which is the difference between what the producers are getting and what the consumers are paying, you find that those price spreads have widened significantly. And that was a natural consequence of industrializing the food system, is you continue to, in this idea of specialized, standardized, consolidate larger and larger operations, you eventually end up with large corporations that have the market power to enhance their profits both at the expense of the consumer in terms of food prices going up faster than inflation, but also in terms of producer, and the producer not realizing those prices.

So I think it’s a fallacy to say that in the last twenty years, that we’ve seen real advantages from the industrialization. That’s been one of the rapid periods of industrialization in the food system. The problem was that when we were actually getting the gains in terms of reduction in percentage that the average consumer spends on food, we still weren’t getting good food to the people that needed it most. You can go all the way back to the enclosures in the 1600s and hunger as we know it today really began whenever we began to rely solely on markets to make sure that everybody got enough food. The basic problem is you have people within society that simply… they’re good people of equal being and worth that may be making great contributions to society in other ways but they’re simply not able to earn to enough in terms of income. So we can’t solve that problem by making food cheap.

There was a a global meeting of something like, I can’t remember now, 80 scientists or something like that from around the world and they got together and concluded that obesity now is a greater global food problem than is actual hunger. And everywhere around the world that take this industrial model of agricultural production and industrial model of food production, we see the same sort of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, the whole range of issues rise with it. And the United Nations studies in most of the rest of the world already concluded that they don’t really need or want the industrial agriculture because according to the UN, their issue in various UN reports between 70 and 80% of the people in the world today are not fed by industrial agriculture systems, but they’re fed by what basically we would call subsistence farms, small family farms.

We now now know through sustainable agriculture approaches, such as perma-culture, nature farming, agro-ecology, that we could increase yields on those farms double or triple, in some of the places even quadruple yields on those farms without adopting industrial models.

That’s reason much of the rest of the world is resisting genetically engineered foods and a whole range of industrial technologies because they simply have seen what happened in other parts of the world and they don’t want their agriculture to go that way. 

Stacy Mitchell: That’s a really striking statistic, that 70 to 80% of the world’s food is actually produced on family farms. I mean, because, we’ve had this whole idea that we had to… With this huge global population that we have to have this big, large scale industrial agriculture system the world over, if we were going to have any hope of feeding people. But that, in fact, is completely not true.
John Ikerd: That’s right, and there’s several UN reports that have come out recently: 2016 there was one put together, it was called Panel of International Experts on Sustainability. And they reviewed over 350 different scientific studies that have been done in various places and basically confirmed the indictment of industrial agriculture and talked about the alternative system that was needed instead. They made the case that we didn’t need industrial agriculture to feed the hungry and so on.

And then another fallacy that you hear is that we’re exporting about 20% of the food that we’re producing in this country, or 20% of our agriculture products go elsewhere, and we say okay we’re feeding them, but we’re not. There’s less than 1% of our agricultural exports go to the nineteen countries that are the hungriest people in the world today. Most of our exports are going to places like China and Korea and India and places like that where there’s an increasingly affluent middle class population. And what we’re doing is shipping more high protein foods to those increasingly affluent classes in the other places, we’re not even feeding hungry people in those countries.

What we are doing is allowing countries like China who has this tremendous population of people to provide, let’s say more meat for their increasingly affluent middle class there, rather than taking land out of rice production and other basic production that’s feeding the hungry people in those countries.

Stacy Mitchell: You’re listening to Dr. John Ikerd, an agricultural economist and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri. I’m Stacy Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self Reliance, we’ll be right back after a short break.

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I want to ask you as an economist, something that I think I find sort of puzzling in a way, which is that- the economic thinking behind this whole system was we’ll create more efficient operations, we’ll be able to have bigger output. And yet, what you describe is a system that’s become less and less competitive. There’s this enormous consolidation of not only farms, but most importantly at the processing and the retail level, it’s like a choke hold at this point, there’s so few companies that control those parts of the sector.

Farmers are getting less, consumers are paying more. Competition is like the bedrock of economics. I’m puzzled, how is it that economists didn’t see this coming and why hasn’t there been more of an about face.

John Ikerd: I think economists should have seen it coming. Back, at least as soon as I did, you should have seen it sooner than I did. I think I was late in seeing it coming, but I kind of understand how people within the academic community get tied into certain ways of thinking, and then I understand that it’s difficult to change those ways of thinking because you’re going to lose a lot of status within your profession and your friends and the whole bunch of things are going to change.

But what I think they should have anticipated is when I was in graduate school I had a whole course in market organization, and we studied in that course what was necessary for competitive markets. We had something likened to what most people think of as antitrust policy, but it’s maintaining a competitive market system. A system that will really do what Adam Smith said in terms of the invisible hand working to allocate scarce resources to meet the needs of at least people as consumers.

There was kind of three characteristics. One was structure, which says you have to have a large number of small farms. In a purely competitive market, so many farms small enough so that the action of no one individual has a significant impact on overall supplies or prices.

The second is conduct. If you have small producers, you can’t allow them to collude so that they act as one big producer, so that’s conduct.

Then the third was performance, and that was kind of the consequence of structure and conduct. The idea was that if you had a competitive structure and conduct then you’d have larger quantities of product at lower prices. And so that was the basic idea. When we got into the 1980s and the economy was slowing down, we had some economic problems that I talked about with inflation, then they began to say okay, we need to rethink some of these things. So basically they want to perform.

They said, if we have increasing output and we have lower prices, and the other thing was the innovation. If we’re getting a variety of new products coming in, then we have performance. And then we simply won’t worry about structure or conduct to any great extent. As long we’re getting, what I call it, as long as were getting a lot of cheap stuff, we’re not gonna worry about whether we’re getting the right stuff. Because in order to get the right stuff, in order to make sure that what consumers need they were getting, at the lowest possible economic cost, then you would have had to have a competitive market structure, large numbers, small farms. And you’d have to have absence collusion.

Today we don’t have a large number of small farms. We have very few large firms. What sociologists and others have concluded is when you get down to the point where you’ve got four or five large firms that control over half of the overall market, you don’t have to have out and out collusion because they all know what each other’s doing. And they go about setting prices and colluding without talking to each other, without having any evidence of collusion. And that’s what we’ve gone toward. And that’s a natural tendency of a capitalist economy, to move in that direction. Therefore it’s the responsibility of the government, which is what I learned in graduate school and other economists did too, the responsibility of government is to not allow that to happen, rather than to sanction it or even encourage it to happen.

For example, if you looked in agriculture and there’s been studies done in various sectors in the economy you would find such things as rather than needing 500 sows, in a hog operation, if you had 50 to 100 sows in that operation then that would be ten pigs times that, you would’ve achieved all these economies to scale as I was talking about with industrialization.

Beyond that, it’s mainly a matter of accommodating this industrial slaughter and distribution system. It’s where you get the economic power. It’s the same way with farm after farm. I got a friend that for many years was in charge, and he still has the information on the dairy profitability standard at the University of Wisconsin and he says, basically the economy is to scale in the dairy operation are exhaustive at 100, 150 cows in the dairy operation. Beyond that, it’s a matter of the operations getting bigger to accommodate the industrial system of processing and distribution.

So the size that we have today is not necessary and it’s not there because of economic efficiency. It’s basically there because of the market power. The power to influence market prices, to charge higher prices than would be possible if it’s purely competitive. And to pay, in the case of agriculture, to pay producers less than you would be paying them, and to take a larger return for your shareholders than you have in a competitive market.

So that’s what we have. And then they use that market power that comes from the large size corporations to turn that into political power, which basically destroys the ability of people to influence the political system in ways that would regulate those corporations so that they would be, in fact, competitive. So we’ve just allowed capitalism to get out of hand in terms of concentration to markets which gives them market power that’s not characteristic of competitive market economy, and the political power which prevents the government from enforcing regulation that would necessary to return us to a competitive capitalistic model.

Stacy Mitchell: That’s really interesting. In 2014, you were asked by the United Nations to produce a report about family farms in the US, and one of the central points that you made in that report is that family farms are multifunctional. That is they need to be financially sound and profitable enough to sustain themselves, but that profitability has to sit alongside other values and other things that those farms are fulfilling. Including being stewards of the land, being members of a community, sustaining the health and wellbeing of the family itself and so on.

And that really struck me because my own research and focus in my work is around independent business and particularly main street retailers. It’s a very similar story. They have to operate profitable businesses and be financially viable and so on, but when you look at their decision making, and when you look at their role in the community, they’re making decisions that are governed by a mix of values. And they’re serving a wide array of functions in addition to distributing goods, they’re performing all these other functions. Economic, social, and otherwise in the community. And so when you’re comparing them to say, Wal-Mart, what we haven’t been taking into account is all these other things and all these other ways in which your research seems to say that’s true of family farms as well.

I was wondering if you would talk a little about what some of those functions are and how you see that working.

John Ikerd: It goes back to my interest, and why I’ve embraced the concept of agricultural sustainability because agricultural sustainability is totally consistent with this idea of multi functionality and I’ve argued multi functionality is absolutely necessary for sustainability. Whether we’re talking agriculture or whether we’re talking the general economy, or whether we talk about sustainable communities or whatever. That multi functionality you described, and it’s interesting, I kind of supposed that it was probably true in small businesses but that’s not been my experience. It kind of goes back to what I mentioned earlier about the very popular balance farming program at the University of Missouri in the 30s and 40s and even into the 50s.

That was a period of time, when traditional family farm values were very strong and that balance approach was saying okay, on the one hand what we tend to talk about first is making a living. But the balance farming program was more about the quality of life in the farms. The 30s and 40s, quality of life… Many farms didn’t have electricity, they didn’t have running water. We didn’t have electricity on the farm I grew up on until about the time I started high school. We got running water when we got a Grade A dairy farm, but we didn’t have indoor plumbing in my house until I came home as junior in college and helped my brothers and my dad put in a bathroom over Christmas vacation.

The focus of balance farming is we need to improve the social quality of life. The various things that go with desirable conveniences. The other thing they couple that with is taking care of the land. There’s this long term ethic in agriculture that real farmers have a responsibility to leave the land for the next generation, as productive as they found it. And that’s in this idea of sustainability, the stewardship of the land. And there’s also responsibility for the larger community.

And I’ve said on a family farm, the family and the farm are inseparable. The farm and the way it functions and the way it’s operated is a reflection of the values of the family within the community. They’re thinking not only about what we’re doing on the farm, how we’re going to make money, but what are people going to think about this, are they going to think that we’re fulfilling our responsibilities as members of this community.

And you described the small family businesses or the small independently owned businesses much the same, and I think there’s a lot of similarity there. I think as an economist one of the most important things we need to realize is when we talk about the economics, economics is instrumental in that economics is the means of achieving something else. It was never meant to be the end that we pursue the economics with.

It’s a means of something else. If you look at money, money is the claim to something. If you don’t know what you want to claim with that money, you don’t know how much it’s worth or whatever. So I think in the multi functional farm, what you do is you look at the economic viability of the farm as the means by which you pursue whatever purpose you want for that business, or whatever you feel in terms of your social and ethical responsibility.

What is it that makes your life good? What makes it worthwhile? What gives your life meaning? Those are those social and ethical and ecological stewardship, and the economic piece of it is absolutely essential, but it’s a means of allowing you to do the other things. And so when we talk about the multi functionality, we’ve got to look at what’s the natural resource base that supports this farm or supports this business. What are we getting from…

And then the human resources, where are the people involved in the operation. We’ve got to maintain the productivity of the natural resource of the land, the water, the air, or for the business whatever sources or materials that they have. We have to take care of our employees, we have to make sure that it’s good for the family, it’s good for the community, if we want to sustain this business in the community, if we want to sustain the farm in the community.

And then if we do those things, then those things are where we create the economic viability that allows us to continue to do that. And in the absence of the dominate sort of influence, the economic system could function very well. It never functions perfectly but functions very well. The fundamental difference in what have now is we go to corporately controlled economy. But when you go to a large, publicly traded corporation, you’re basically in the global markets. The people may be good people that are managing these operations, they may have strong social and ethical values and the shareholders may have strong ethical and social values, but the only values they have in common is the desire to increase the economic value of that stock.

So when you’re managing the corporation, the corporation itself is purely an economic entity, it’s a mono functional operation by its very definition, the only thing it can do as a for profit corporation is to do whatever is necessary for it to maximize profits or returns through its shareholders. And that’s basically what it does, that’s the reason it tries to influence the political system, that’s the reason it tries to gain control of the markets, to gain monopoly power in the markets. It’s simply doing what corporations are designed to do.

And what we forgotten is that, a corporation, a large publicly held corporation has no social or ethical values, but we have to impose those through our public policies. And when I was talking about antitrust policy, that’s basically the justification. That’s the reason that we have government in control of capitalist economies. When government loses control, it loses the ability to impose the social and ethical values of the society in which that company or that corporation functions. And then the corporation continues to exploit and extract, exploit the natural resources, exploit the people, extract the resources and so on.

I think ultimately we’ve gotta get back to a situation where we reflect those social and ethical values as well as our economic necessities and the decisions that we make and the policies we make in the way we farm and the way we run our businesses.

Stacy Mitchell: What do you think our prospects for doing that are? There has been a growing local food movement that’s trying to reconnect with farmers, consumers that are interested in eating local, community supported agriculture. There seems to be more awareness, at least in some places around these issues. I know that there’s Farmers are certainly trying to organize, to change some of the policies and the ways in which antitrust and the Farm Bill and other things still work against that model of agriculture.

When you look back at where we’ve come over the last ten years, do you feel like we’ve made any progress? Do you have hope? What do you think needs to happen next in order to really overcome this?

John Ikerd: I always have people ask me am I optimistic about bringing about the changes, and my standard answer is I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful. And that simply means that I know that it’s possible that we can do these things. I’m confident that it’s possible we can make these changes. But I’m not underestimating the difficulty. I don’t underestimate the economic and political power of the corporations but I think we can change.

I think we have made progress because there’s greater public awareness. There’s much greater public awareness of the issues I’m talking about today then there was 25 years ago, or 27, 28 years ago when I came back to the University of Missouri. Most people had never heard the word sustainable at that time. Actually, I was thinking back, I don’t think I ever heard the word environment, environmental until Silent Spring. Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring.

There’s a person by the name of Margaret Wheatley who’s kind of a leading writer and has been over the years on organizational change, and different ways of holistic thinking, things of this nature. She went away on a retreat of some time and she came back and made a talk at the University of Wisconsin that I picked up on the internet, that I’ve used several times and I think it’s very insightful. She came back, she said she had three basic observations.

The first was there’s a feeling of impotence and despair in society today and I think that’s particularly true in rural areas where they’re being dominated by the large confinement animal feeding operations, industrial agriculture and we see rural areas in economic and social decline and decay. I think it’s true across society, there’s this feeling that something fundamental is wrong. I think that’s the first thing that has to happen before you’re able to bring real change. People have to come to the realization that something isn’t working here. We certainly don’t have agreement in what we ought to do about it. But when you have agreement that there’s something wrong, you’re at least one step closer to doing something about it.

The second observation that I hadn’t thought about, at least not clearly until I read what she said, she said, “The information doesn’t change minds anymore.” And I’ve written something about this too. The issues that we’re dealing with now are so complex that you can look at them from various different directions and come to different conclusions. For example, economists, you know, kind of neoclassical economists in the traditional vein of that would look at the same things I’m look at and talking about here and they’d come to a different conclusion.

So information isn’t changing minds. We talk about alternative facts and things of this nature. People don’t know what to believe. But the third part that I think is most hopeful, she said she had come to the conclusion that the only way you bring about change is when people within communities take charge of their own destiny. That change within the community is the way that you bring about change within the larger society and change within the global community as a whole.

I really believe that’s where we are in… If you look around, you’re aware of a lot different organizations, and I am too, that are all working in the same basic direction. We may have different ideas on what we ought to do and things of that nature, but we all realize there’s something fundamentally wrong.

And I would argue they all come under this conceptual umbrella of sustainability. How do we meet the needs of everyone here today? Not everyone has everything that they want, but how do we meet the basic food needs of people so that every child in this country and every child in the world has enough good, basic food to eat so that they can have healthy development of their minds and body and grow up to be productive, happy people? How do we do that? But how do we do that in a way that doesn’t diminish opportunities of future generations to meet their needs as well? So that they and their children will have enough to eat and have enough clothes and housing and that sort of thing.

I think there’s a realization that what we have now isn’t meeting the needs of many, if not most, of the people of the world today. We certainly aren’t leaving equal to better opportunities for the future. The next step in that is for people within all of these different communities, and when I talk about communities I’m talking about communities of place which are important, but communities of interest, people that are like minded and see a particular dimension of the issue I’m talking about, like the organization to competitive markets. And these are people within communities that have come together with other people within those communities and they connect with each other, and then they bring the connections with all these other organizations that they’re a part of. We’re developing this network of communities that are just all across the country and around the world, and I think that’s where the change is going to emerge from.

We change at the local level and then we begin to have impacts at the local level, then we can change at the state and regional and national and hopefully the international level. But it all begins when people take charge of their own destiny within their own communities.

Stacy Mitchell: Well you can imagine at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, we very much share that philosophy and that belief. This has been a fantastic conversation, and I really appreciate you taking some time out today to talk with us.
John Ikerd: I really appreciate the opportunity, thank you for calling me.
Stacy Mitchell: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website ILSR.org and clicking on the show page for this episode. That’s ILSR.org.

While you’re there you can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And once again, please help us out by rating this podcast and sharing it with your friends.

This show is produced by Lisa Gonzales and Nick Stumo-Langer. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by DysfunctionAl. For the Institute for Local Self Reliance, I’m Stacy Mitchell. I hope you join us again in two weeks for the next episode of Building Local Power.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[13] Building Local Power on iTunes[14] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[15]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[16]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[17] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[18] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[19] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[20] and Facebook[21] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[22] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-11-02-blp032-john-ikerd-ag-concentration.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-11-02-blp032-john-ikerd-ag-concentration.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. John Ikerd: http://johnikerd.com/about/
  6. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  7. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym/
  8. John Ikerd: Feeding the World Intelligently — Without Corporate Agriculture (Video) : http://competitivemarkets.com/dr-john-ikerd-feeding-the-world-intelligently-without-corporate-agriculture/
  9. JohnIkerd.com: http://johnikerd.com
  10. Powering a Political Revolution, North Dakota’s Non-Partisan League – Episode 4 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/powering-a-political-revolution-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. ILSR Rule Archive: Local Food Policies: https://ilsr.org/rule/local-food/
  12. Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  13. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  14. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  15. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  16. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  17. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  18. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  19. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  20. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  21. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  22. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sustainable-agriculture-blp-episode-31/


Comcast’s Election Investment: Policy Brief On Seattle, Fort Collins, & Broadband Ballots

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 2, 2017 7:08 am

Fort Collins Update: On November 3rd, Comcast’s front group Priorities First filed their most recent campaign report[1]. The report showed that the group spent and additional $256,326 on the Fort Collins campaign between October 23rd and November 1st. This brings big incumbent spending to stop competition to almost half a million dollars.

As the company with one of the largest ISPs in the nation, Comcast Corporation makes daily investment decisions. They choose to put company funds into a variety of ventures, from theme parks[2] to hair color; all that matters is that the investment pays off. This election season, Comcast is once again devoting funds to an investment it considers necessary – influencing elections in Seattle and Fort Collins, Colorado. We’ve prepared a policy brief to look deeper into Comcast’s investment into the elections.

Download the brief here: Comcast Spends Big on Local Elections: Would Lose Millions in Revenue from Real Broadband Competition[3].

We’ve written about lobbying dollars from big national incumbents so many times we can do it in our sleep. Comcast doesn’t want competition from any other provider. We know that subscribers complain year after year in surveys about the ISP and each year Comcast makes it at or near the top of the list of most hated companies. It’s reasonable to expect residents and businesses to switch to some other ISP if given the opportunity. If the new entrant happens to be managed by a utility they know and trust, the chances of them switching are even greater.

How many subscribers could Comcast lose in Seattle or Fort Collins? What sort of revenue would they lose if faced with competition from a municipal Internet network? We made some conservative projections and discovered that their contributions to local political races were small compared to potential losses they face if the results don’t go their way.

Seattle

In Seattle, Comcast and CenturyLink have donated $50,000[4] to a political action committee that supports a candidate opposed to publicly owned Internet infrastructure. This is only the latest attempt of the two national ISPs to influence the city’s mayoral elections; in 2013, they contributed similarly to Ed Murray[5], who went on to win the election. Murray was also opposed to the publicly owned option.

In our analysis, we’ve run a range of possible scenarios and offered both a conservative Comcast loss estimate and figures based on higher loss of subscribership. For example, if 20 percent of the city’s 138,000 current Comcast Internet access subscribers choose to switch to some other ISP, the company could lose $1.38 million per month based on monthly rates of $50 per month.

This is just one example of the losses that we calculated. We’ve also accounted for rate adjustments due to the effects of competition and considered the losses Comcast would face when subscribers abandoned video services. Check out the policy brief[6] for more results and details on our methodology. (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. most recent campaign report: https://www.fcgov.com/cityclerk/pdf/election-2017nov07/PFFC110317.pdf?1509735457
  2. theme parks: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/business/media/comcast-invests-by-the-billion-in-theme-parks-hogwarts-and-all.html
  3. Comcast Spends Big on Local Elections: Would Lose Millions in Revenue from Real Broadband Competition: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-comcast-fort-collins-seattle-competition-policy-brief.pdf
  4. have donated $50,000: http://statescoop.com/municipal-broadband-advocates-cry-foul-amid-seattle-mayoral-race
  5. they contributed similarly to Ed Murray: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/31/comcast-is-donating-heavily-to-defeat-the-mayor-who-is-bringing-gigabit-fiber-to-seattle/?utm_term=.a4e26c1f48c3
  6. Check out the policy brief: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-comcast-fort-collins-seattle-competition-policy-brief.pdf
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/comcasts-election-investment-policy-brief-on-seattle-fort-collins-broadband-ballots/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/comcasts-election-investment-policy-brief-on-seattle-fort-collins-broadband-ballots/


Mergers and Monopoly: How Concentration Changes the Electricity Business

by John Farrell | October 31, 2017 1:30 pm

[1]

[2] [3]

Executive Summary

A wave of consolidation has swept across the U.S. economy over the past decade, reshaping already-powerful corporations into financial and political powerhouses. The trend has taken particular hold among electric utilities, a sector where monopoly reigns virtually unchecked.

Consolidated, investor-owned utilities now have service territories that span several states and include millions of customers. They say gobbling competitors delivers operational efficiencies and cost savings. But who sees the benefits? And what are the unspoken costs?

This report explains how concentration of power in monopoly utilities delivers fewer customer benefits than alleged, and how the unmentioned costs of concentrating power in a few firms undermines protection of the public interest.

[4]The House Always Wins

Despite efforts to cast consolidation as customer-friendly, the benefits are heavily weighted in favor of utility shareholders.

Unequal Financial Benefits

Most utility mergers feature large benefits for company shareholders, but much smaller benefits for customers. When Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power generator, unveiled in 2014 its plan to swallow Washington, D.C.-based utility Pepco in a $6.8 billion deal, it pledged $100 million toward a fund earmarked for rate credits, low-income assistance, and energy efficiency across its multi-state territory. That translates to just $50 per customer, compared with the whopping $1.1 billion that the merger unlocked for Pepco shareholders.

Unspoken Costs to Competition

As they grow larger through consolidation, utilities use their size as cover from competitive markets. Mergers help preserve monopoly utilities’ market share, even amid a dramatic shift in how Americans can generate, consume, and engage with our energy. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: #exec
  3. [Image]: #full
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/imageedit_36_2199856389.png
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/


Six Reasons Your Next Car Should Be Electric

by John Farrell | October 30, 2017 9:25 am

[1]From ILSR’s newest report[2] on electric vehicles, here are six reasons your next car should be electric:

1. Fun: Electric vehicle motors provide more torque and instant acceleration at any speed than internal combustion engines.

2. Save Money: Over 10 years, owning an electric car will save you $10,000 in lower fuel costs and avoided maintenance, and that even includes the cost of buying a new battery.[3]

3. Distance: The 2017 Nissan LEAF’s 107-mile range covers 83% of daily trips taken by Americans. Sold at a comparable price, the 240-mile range of the Chevy Bolt covers nearly all daily travel. Especially if your household has a second car, an electric vehicle can meet your travel needs.

[4] (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. ILSR’s newest report: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EV_savings.001-1.jpeg
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/EV_Sufficient_Range.001.jpeg
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/6-reasons-electric-car/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/6-reasons-electric-car/


ILSR Submits Multiple Federal Communications Commission Comments Supporting Local Internet Choice

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 30, 2017 5:00 am

[1]This fall, nonprofits and other organizations with an interest in constructive broadband policy have worked to help the new administration’s FCC through the public comment process. We’ve let readers know about opportunities to share their thoughts with the Commission and we’ve submitted comments separately and with other likeminded groups.

[2]

Modernizing the Form 477 Data Program

The Commission asked for comments on the method in which it collects data regarding where broadband is accessible. ISPs provide information to the FCC based on which census blocks they serve. We’ve often criticized this approach because it grossly overstates where coverage is available, especially in rural areas where census blocks tend to be large.

Read our ideas for improvements[3] to the Form 477 data collection, which include obtaining more detailed geographic information, minimum and maximum speeds, and pricing information.

Connect America Funding Phase II Bidding Procedures and Program

In order to help bring better connectivity to rural areas, the FCC distributes Connect America Funds (CAF) to entities such as companies and cooperatives to build broadband infrastructure. The process involves bids from these entities. The FCC is considering changes to the current process and bidding procedures, including what types of projects qualify for funding. The Commission asked for comment after proposing a long list of possible changes.

We recently spoke with Jon Chambers[4] of Connexon, who provided more detail about the program and offered his thoughts on CAF and the possible changes.

Read our Reply Comments[5], that address issues we feel need attention, including the Carrier of Last Resort guarantee, more opportunities for rural cooperatives, and our concern that the FCC will attempt to equate subpar satellite and mobile broadband with high-quality connectivity. We filed our Reply Comments with Public Knowledge, Appalshop, and a long list of other organizations concerned about Internet access in rural America. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4808818548_54a67a74a6_o.jpg
  3. Read our ideas for improvements: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-Form-477-FCC-Comments.pdf
  4. recently spoke with Jon Chambers: https://muninetworks.org/content/jon-chambers-rethinking-rules-connect-america-fund-community-broadband-bits-podcast-268
  5. Read our Reply Comments: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-CAF-Bidding-FCC-Reply-Comments.pdf
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ilsr-submits-multiple-federal-communications-commission-comments-supporting-local-internet-choice/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-submits-multiple-federal-communications-commission-comments-supporting-local-internet-choice/


Comprehensive Fiber-to-the-Home Map of Kentucky, New Resource

by H Trostle | October 27, 2017 5:40 am

[1]From the rolling Appalachian Mountains to bustling city streets, Kentucky has it all, including gigabit (1,000 Mbps) service from Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks. That’s right, Kentucky – the state that is often used as shorthand in America politics to talk about coal country and poverty – actually has some of the fastest, most reliable Internet service in the entire country. We put together this map using the latest data sets available from the FCC to highlight how much of rural Kentucky has the gold standard in high-speed Internet service.

[2]

Cooperatives Cover Kentucky

This is just a brief snapshot using the June 2016 Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) Form 477 data set. This map shows all the FTTH infrastructure available in Kentucky according to the data submitted by ISPs. This data is reported on the census block level and may overstate coverage. Even so, the data reveals how cooperatives provide high-speed Internet service to much of rural Kentucky.

Cooperative Estimated Fiber Footprint*
Ballard Rural Telephone Cooperative 148 square miles
Duo County Telephone Cooperative 134 square miles
Foothills Rural Telephone Cooperative 841 square miles
Highland Telephone Cooperative 431 square miles
Logan Telephone Cooperative 104 square miles
Mountain Rural Telephone Cooperative 1048 square miles
North Central Telephone Cooperative 257 square miles
Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative 542 square miles
South Central Telephone Cooperative 762 square miles
WK&T Telecom (West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative) 1019 square miles

*This is estimated based on the total area of the census blocks labeled served according to the Form 477 and cross-referenced with news reports when available.. Rural census blocks tend to include a larger area than urban census blocks, and an entire census block may be marked as served when even one household has broadband access. These numbers may overstate coverage. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ILSR-Kentucky-FTTH-June-2016-v2-Map-Small-1.png
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/comprehensive-fiber-to-the-home-map-of-kentucky-new-resource/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/comprehensive-fiber-to-the-home-map-of-kentucky-new-resource/


Big Money & Lies: Incumbent Cable Monopolies Try To Confuse Fort Collins, Colo. Voters

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 25, 2017 11:27 am

With their back against the wall, Comcast is pulling out it’s well manicured, sharp claws in Fort Collins, Colorado. Voters will be asked to approve measure 2B on November 7th, which would allow the city to take steps toward establishing their own municipal telecommunications utility. In order to preserve the lack of competition, incumbent Internet access providers are on track to spending more[1] during this election than has been spent on any other issue in Fort Collins’ history.

Behind The Name Of “Citizen”

As we’ve come to see time and again, when a local community like Fort Collins takes steps to invest in the infrastructure they need for economic development, incumbents move in to prevent municipal efforts. Comcast and CenturyLink aren’t offering the types of connectivity that Fort Collins wants to progress, so the city has decided to ask the voters whether or not they feel a publicly owned broadband utility will meet their needs.

logo-comcast.pngIn keeping with the usual modus operandi, out of the woodwork emerge lobbying groups that not-so-artfully mask incumbents like Comcast and CenturyLink. These groups are able to contribute large sums of money to whatever organization has been established, often in the form of a “citizens group,” to bombard local media with misinformation about municipal networks to try to convince voters to vote against the initiative. In Fort Collins, the “citizens group” happens to call itself Priorities of Fort Collins (PFC).

A closer look at who is funding PFC’s website and professional videos takes one to the recently filed campaign report. The City Clerk’s Office has a copy of this document on file[2] and shows that PFC has only three contributors, none of whom are individual “citizens” but are associated with big telecom:

  • $125,000 from the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA): This organization was the same mask Comcast used back in 2011 when it spent approximately $300,000 to stop a similar effort in Longmont. It wasn’t the first time they’ve used this tactic and it won’t be the last.
  • $75,000 from the Citizens for a Sustainable Economy[3]: The organization is tightly wound with the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce and has been criticized in the past for questionable political spending. CSE’s President and the Chamber’s president are one and the same. Comcast, CenturyLink, and TDS are all members of the Chamber and so, by default, also members of CSE.
  • $1,000 from the Colorado Telecommunications Association[4]: CTA is another lobbying group that represents telephone companies and ISPs. TDS Telecom, which is also one of PFC’s public sponsors and a Fort Collins provider, belongs to CTA.

Christopher remembers work from groups like CCTA and CTA in another Colorado election:

“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this situation happen. CCTA also spent hundreds of thousands to preserve their monopoly in Longmont, but voters were savvy enough to ignore their lies.”

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. on track to spending more: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a37v4z/big-telecom-spent-dollar200000-to-try-to-prevent-a-colorado-town-from-even-talking-about-a-city-run-internet
  2. City Clerk’s Office has a copy of this document on file:
  3. Citizens for a Sustainable Economy: http://www.citizensforasustainableeconomy.com/
  4. Colorado Telecommunications Association: http://www.colotelecom.com/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/big-money-lies-incumbent-cable-monopolies-try-to-confuse-fort-collins-colo-voters/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/big-money-lies-incumbent-cable-monopolies-try-to-confuse-fort-collins-colo-voters/


New Spanish Language Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community

by Brenda Platt | October 25, 2017 7:00 am

Nueva Jerarquía en Español para Reducir los Residuos de Alimentos y Cultivar Comunidad

See our original, English-language hierarchy here[1].

[2]

Hay diferentes versiones disponibles para descargar:

11″ x 17’’ Póster[3] | 13’’ x 19’’ en Formato Vertical[4] | 19’’ x 13’’ Póster[5] | 8.5″ x 11″ Póster[6]

A principios de este año, desarrollamos esta Jerarquía para Reducir los Residuos de Alimentos y Cultivar Comunidad[7] con el fin de destacar que las soluciones de compostaje basadas localmente se deben priorizar antes que las soluciones regionales a gran escala. El compostaje puede ser de pequeña escala, de gran escala, y de todas las opciones entre estas, pero a menudo nos olvidamos del compostaje casero, el compostaje in situ, el compostaje comunitario, y el compostaje en las granjas. Los sistemas de digestión anaeróbica también vienen en distintas escalas. Ahora, esta nueva jerarquía en  español aborda los asuntos de escala y los beneficios comunitarios que se deberían considerar cuando se persigue estrategias e infraestructura para reducir y recuperar los residuos de alimentos.

Desde hace mucho tiempo la agencia de protección ambiental estadounidense (the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA]) ha sido una firme defensora de la recuperación de desechos de alimentos. La Food Waste Reduction Hierarchy (Jerarquía de reducción de Residuos alimenticios)[8] de la EPA ha sido difundida ampliamente y incluso escrita en las leyes locales. Por ejemplo, es parte de la Universal Recycling Law (Ley General para el Reciclaje)[9] de Vermont. Más recientemente, en 2015, la EPA se unió con el Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos (USDA), al establecer por primera vez un objetivo nacional para reducir a la mitad la pérdida y el desperdicio de alimentos para el año 2030.[10] La jerarquía de la agencia sigue siendo una guía importante de cómo cumplir esta meta: prevenir los residuos de alimentos, alimentar a los hambrientos, alimentar a los animales y recuperar a través de usos industriales y digestión anaeróbica.  Sin embargo, en la jerarquía de la EPA, el compostaje aparece justo antes de eliminación a través de vertederos e incineración. Creemos que el tamaño importa. (more…)[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. English-language hierarchy here: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HierarchyIG-FINAL-Spanish-01.jpg
  3. 11″ x 17’’ Póster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HierarchyIG-FINAL-Spanish-01.jpg
  4. 13’’ x 19’’ en Formato Vertical: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HierarchyIG-FINAL-Spanish_13x19.pdf
  5. 19’’ x 13’’ Póster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HierarchyIG-FINAL-Spanish_19x13.pdf
  6. 8.5″ x 11″ Póster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HierarchyIG-FINAL-Spanish_8.5x11.pdf
  7. Jerarquía para Reducir los Residuos de Alimentos y Cultivar Comunidad: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HierarchyIG-FINAL-24x18.pdf
  8. Food Waste Reduction Hierarchy (Jerarquía de reducción de Residuos alimenticios): https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy
  9. Universal Recycling Law (Ley General para el Reciclaje): https://ilsr.org/rule/food-scrap-ban/vermont-organics-recovery/
  10. por primera vez un objetivo nacional para reducir a la mitad la pérdida y el desperdicio de alimentos para el año 2030.: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/united-states-2030-food-loss-and-waste-reduction-goal
  11. (more…): https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy-spanish/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy-spanish/


KentuckyWired: Partners, Poles, and Problems Plague Broadband Project

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 24, 2017 9:10 am

With the best intentions, Kentucky announced in late 2014 that it would build out a statewide open access fiber optic network to at least one location in each county to encourage high-quality connectivity in both urban and rural communities. Hopes were high as rural residents and businesses that depended on DSL and dial-up envisioned connectivity to finally bring them into the 21st century. After almost three years and multiple issues that have negatively impacted the project, legislators and everyday folks are starting to wonder what’s in store for the KentuckyWired project.

Local Communities Are Best Suited To Deploy Community Networks

There is no one-size-fits-all method of deploying across a state filled with communities and landscapes as diverse as Kentucky. From the urban centers like Louisville and Lexington to the rocky, mountainous terrain in the southeastern Appalachian communities, demographics and geography vary widely. But most lack modern Internet access and local ISPs have found it hard to get affordable backhaul to connect to the rest of the Internet.

There are several municipal networks in Kentucky, some of which have operated for decades. In addition to Glasgow[1], Paducah, Bowling Green, Frankfort, and others[2], Owensboro is currently expanding a pilot project that proved popular[3]. As our own Christopher Mitchell discussed at the Appalachia Connectivity Summit[4], several cooperatives have made major fiber-optic investments in the state.

When it comes to connecting residents and local businesses, we strongly believe local entities are the best choice. Local officials have a better sense of rights-of-way, the challenges of pole attachments, and the many other moving pieces that go into network investment. Projects with local support see fewer barriers – people are more willing to grant easements, for instance.

As a state, building an open access fiber network into each county makes sense. States also need to connect their offices, from public safety to managing natural resources and social services. Rather than overpay a massive monopoly like AT&T, use those funds to build an open network that can nourish competition.

The general idea was smart, but we have had strong reservations about the execution from the beginning. To start with, the state chose an Australian firm to embark on the massive, expensive project that they describe as a public-private partnership. We see a significant amount of public risk and a guaranteed private profit.

Partnership Means Shared Investment

Frequent readers of MuniNetworks.org know that we caution local governments to take care when engaging in public-private partnerships[5]. Too often, municipalities and counties step into an agreement with a private sector partner and underestimate what they bring to the negotiating table. Community leaders approach public-private partnerships after being repeatedly rejected by large national companies, and lose site of their value within the realm of the telecommunications industry. They often give too much and ask too little from their private sector partners. We’ve written reports[6] and shared lessons learned to help local communities that consider public-private partnerships.

logo-KYWired.pngOne of the most important lessons learned is that a public sector partner should not take on all the risk. In fact, many projects labeled as “public-private partnerships” don’t appear on our community networks map because they don’t meet this requirement. It looks to us like Kentucky has taken on most of the risk in this project.

The state legislature allocated $30 million from the state budget to add to $23.5 million in federal grants for construction. In order to complete financing for the 3,200-mile project, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority issued $232 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds and $58 million in taxable revenue bonds. Bond Buyer named the issue the “Deal of the Year” in 2015[7] because the project had such promise. Sixty percent of the employees on the project are to be Kentuckians, as stipulated in the contract.

When the project began, state officials from the project and Macquarie, with little-to-none experience in the U.S. telecommunications market, optimistically estimated a one-year completion date. Since then, more than 150 “supervening events” have delayed deployment. As part of the agreement, Macquarie Capital and its partners will operate and maintain the network for 30 years while the state pays “availability payments.” Over time, those payments increase in amount regardless of the status of the construction.

The state intended to first connect 173 school districts to the infrastructure. Federal E-rate funding that had been used in the past to pay incumbents like AT&T for telecommunications costs would instead be used as revenue to help pay for the availability payments to private partners involved in the project. However, due to delays in construction, schools are not connected and they continue to obtain Internet access from incumbents. Nevertheless, Kentucky is still responsible for $28.5 million per year to private sector partners, a figure that will grow over the 30-year period up to more than $56 million annually.

AT&T is serving the schools under a long-term contract and sits poised to file a lawsuit if the state chooses to re-bid to give the Kentucky Communications Network Authority (KCNA) an opportunity later to bid on school connectivity. KCNA was established by the state in order to operate and maintain the KentuckyWired network. AT&T has already submitted a letter of protest, claiming that allowing the Authority to bid on connectivity to schools would give the Authority and “unfair advantage.” AT&T was able to intimidate state officials into abandoning an attempt at a re-bid back in October 2015 and now the KCNA feels, “It will be ‘very difficult’ for one arm of state government to award the schools connectivity contract to another arm of the state government in a truly competitive process.” Somehow other states have figured out proper ways to engage in such bidding – generally to the benefit of all because schools better networks at lower prices than AT&T is willing to offer even when it isn’t dramatically overcharging schools[8].

The gap in funding created by the loss of the federal E-rate funding is approximately $11 million per year. While that gap may not be permanent, it has unsettled some state legislators who are losing patience with Macquarie and the project.

Macquarie: We Had Our Doubts

Kentucky chose to establish a partnership with Australia’s Macquarie Capital to develop the project. The investment bank has an array of infrastructure projects on its resume, including bridges, wind power, and broadband networks in Asia. Communities and broadband researchers have encountered the organization before when it sought to invest[9] in the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) back in 2014.

logo-Macquarie.jpgSeveral communities served by UTOPIA chose not to authorize a public-private partnership. Macquarie wanted to invest in the network that was facing financial trouble at the time, in exchange for building out the network. The firm would have collected a guaranteed utility fee from every premise in the average amount of approximately $18 – 20 per month. At the time, only six of the 11 member communities voted to proceed forward with negotiations with Macquarie; the deal fell through and the firm moved on. According to Free UTOPIA’s Jesse Harris[10], “Macquarie is probably dead, and that’s probably okay.”

Since then, UTOPIA has seen better days and is expanding to serve several local communities through franchise agreements beyond its member towns. However, it will take many years of incremental expansion to achieve the scale that Macquarie would have allowed it to quickly hit.

Nonetheless, having seen Macquarie at multiple events and listening to their pitch leaves us suspicious of the value they contribute, aside from strong boosterism of any project in which they are participating.

Poles, Poles, Poles

Obtaining the ability to place fiber optic cable on existing utility poles has proved to be difficult for the Macquarie crew. In fact, executive director of the KCNA Phillip Brown said in July[11] that the agency’s inability to obtain the necessary agreements might require some redesign. The result of changing the route would be that some communities would not have access to the network. At the time, approximately 6,600 poles were inaccessible because the Authority had not procured agreements with utility companies, municipal utilities, or telecommunications companies that own the poles.

We’ve seen other instances of municipal network projects delayed because of pole attachment issues. Often an incumbent telecommunications provider owns a utility pole that becomes part of a municipal network design. In order to delay the deployment as a way to stave off competition from a municipal network project, the incumbent might drag their feet on an agreement or make unreasonable demands.

On other occasions, ownership of poles can be used as a delay tactic. In locations where poles have been in place for many years or in rural communities where record keeping has not been kept up to date, determining who owns the utility poles may be a challenge. In Lake County, Minnesota, a municipal network project ran far behind schedule and over budget when the local municipality didn’t verify ownership of utility poles that had been used in the city for many years. Incumbent Frontier Communications wasn’t sure who owned the poles either, but took advantage of the situation[12] to hold up the deployment. Even though the city had maintained and replaced the poles for years with not a peep from Frontier, the ISP raised objections when it faced possible competition. The two entities eventually worked out agreements, but only after Lake County had already significantly invested in their infrastructure and after a costly delay.

utility-pole-1.pngEvery time a new venture requires use of a pole, proper procedure can cause a bottleneck. Traditionally, each entity that owns wires on a utility pole will send a crew to the pole to move the wires and, since safety dictates where each wire must rest on the pole, each crew will complete their task in a particular order. Again, incumbents can use the opportunity to delay a deployment by slowing down the “make ready” work.

In Kentucky, however, Louisville and AT&T recently tested the old make ready approach and now we know that it doesn’t have to hamper the KentuckyWired project. When Louisville passed a One Touch Make Ready (OTMR) ordinance, AT&T sued to stop them[13]. OTMR allows one pre-approved crew to make one trip to a utility pole in the public right-of-way and move all the wires at one visit. This method greatly reduces make ready time and prevents AT&T and others from using the procedure to slow deployment of new entrant networks.

Usually, the FCC has jurisdiction in settling this type of issue, but Kentucky chose to opt out of the Commission’s purview years ago. As a result, the court found in favor of Louisville, and OTMR was not overturned[14]. AT&T and Comcast filed a similar lawsuit[15] in Nashville when the city passed a OTMR ordinance. Other communities that want to encourage competition and create policies that welcome new entrants are putting OTMR on their books[16]. Even West Virginia’s state legislature[17] sees the value of OTMR policy.

According to news reports, Macquarie’s team is having difficulties obtaining easements from private property owners in order to run fiber optic cable on utility poles. In addition to private property owners, there are also local community leaders whose towns have already invested in municipal networks. Billy Ray, who heads up the municipal network in Glasgow, Kentucky, says leaders from communities such as Glasgow hesitate:

“You don’t expect a new entrant financed by the government to come along and compete with you. We have some concerns about what is their ultimate goal.”

In the case of municipal objections, we are curious about how much work the state of Kentucky has spent working with local groups to get their feedback and include them in the process. Given the arrogance we have seen from Macquarie officials, it isn’t hard to believe local folks are annoyed at having to deal with KentuckyWired on any level.

Lack of Support At The State Capitol Doesn’t Help Much

Since Governor Bevin assumed office in 2016, enthusiasm for the project appears to have waned. Macquarie says that, “We have the utmost confidence that we can work through these challenges,” and reminds the public that:

“KentuckyWired is pioneering the use of the public-private partnership model in a new sector, and therefore the model is subject to temporary setbacks.”

There has also been talk of scaling back the project[18] as a way to reduce the overall costs (and make AT&T happier – often a priority of governors in AT&T states). Governor Bevin has thrown out the idea of reducing the size of the project to only covering the eastern areas of the state where the need for Internet access is the greatest. Changing direction midstream might sound like a simple way to reduce the price tag in the short-term, but it could sacrifice the long-term viability of the project. Oh and there is that matter of the signed contract with Macquarie (one of the pesky negatives of partnerships that are rarely remembered by those who extoll partnerships as the solution to all policy woes).

It’s true that the more rural and less economically stable areas in the eastern part of the state need the economic stimulus that high-quality connectivity can bring, but the urban centers in the other sections of the state will help set KentuckyWired on a strong financial path. The infrastructure needs to be in areas where there is ample opportunity for business and residential subscribers. Only then will ISPs see the value of using the middle mile infrastructure to serve last mile subscribers. Through those business arrangements, adequate support will help maintain the entire network, including the infrastructure in the sparsely populated Appalachian areas.

Middle Mile Dreams

For the past 10 years, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has explained on multiple occasions that middle mile investment is only a piece of the necessary investment needed for rural America. States like Massachusetts and the NTIA in adminstering the BTOP broadband stimulus program have suggested that middle mile will catalyze last mile investment.

It might, a little. But there is no good evidence of it. The barrier to last mile investment is a capital investment and a strong middle mile network changes the capital cost of last mile very little. Good middle mile can reduce operating costs by lowering backhaul cost to the rest of the Internet – but (and this is a big but) that can come at the cost of key community anchor institutions taking service from the middle mile network rather than the last mile network. And that makes the economics of last mile worse again.

Building last mile networks can create a market for middle mile networks because last mile networks will pay the middle mile networks for transit. But middle mile networks rarely change the capital cost of last mile networks, which are vastly more expensive.

Kentucky_capitol_staircase.jpgThe Silver Lining

The KentuckyWired project has some problems to overcome. The state of Kentucky could have chosen a better partner or better yet, hired a good team to manage it themselves. Nevertheless, they are beginning to establish good rural policy that they can expand and others can emulate. Rather than spending public dollars on expensive services from incumbents like AT&T, Kentuckians will own the fiber optic infrastructure that can be leased out to other ISPs at reasonable rates.

Time, money, and politics will limit whether Kentucky stays steadfast and completes the project as planned, or decides to reassess the choices they’ve made so far. However they move forward, they’ve established some important lessons on scale, partnerships, and thoroughly preparing a sound plan. From our perspective, it has not done much to change our argument that large scale investments are best done at the local level and public-private partnerships are significantly riskier than many realize.

Photo Credit: USA-Reiseblogger via Pixabay[19] (CC0).

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[20]. Read the original here[21].

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Endnotes:
  1. Glasgow: https://muninetworks.org/tags-81
  2. Frankfort, and others: https://muninetworks.org/content/frankfort-barbourville-upgrading-systems-kentucky
  3. pilot project that proved popular: https://muninetworks.org/content/owensboro-residents-flying-high-fiber-pilot
  4. discussed at the Appalachia Connectivity Summit: https://muninetworks.org/content/watch-video-appalachian-ohio-west-virginia-connectivity-summit
  5. take care when engaging in public-private partnerships: https://muninetworks.org/content/public-private-partnerships-reality-check
  6. written reports: https://muninetworks.org/reports/secrets-behind-partnerships-improve-internet-access
  7. named the issue the “Deal of the Year” in 2015: http://www.lanereport.com/57732/2015/12/kentuckywired-wins-national-deal-of-the-year-award/
  8. dramatically overcharging schools: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-fine-att-106k-overcharging-fl-schools-and-e-rate-program
  9. sought to invest: https://muninetworks.org/content/utopia-crossroads-part-3
  10. According to Free UTOPIA’s Jesse Harris: https://www.freeutopia.org/tag/macquarie/
  11. said in July: http://wfpl.org/lawmakers-suggest-scaling-back-statewide-broadband-program/
  12. took advantage of the situation: https://muninetworks.org/content/pole-issue-means-more-delay-lake-county-project
  13. AT&T sued to stop them: https://muninetworks.org/content/att-tries-end-magic-one-touch-make-ready
  14. OTMR was not overturned: https://muninetworks.org/content/court-sides-louisville-gets-its-one-touch-make-ready
  15. filed a similar lawsuit: https://muninetworks.org/content/comcast-follows-atts-litigious-lead-nashville
  16. are putting OTMR on their books: https://muninetworks.org/content/one-touch-make-ready-three-cities-and-counting
  17. West Virginia’s state legislature: https://muninetworks.org/content/locating-fiber-local-leaders-can-help-state-decision-makers
  18. scaling back the project: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article58768608.html
  19. USA-Reiseblogger via Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/kentucky-usa-america-1648869/
  20. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  21. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/kentuckywired-partners-poles-problems-plague-project

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/kentuckywired-partners-poles-and-problems-plague-broadband-project/


More Colorado Towns Put Municipal Broadband Question on The Ballot

by Matthew Marcus | October 23, 2017 8:05 am

This November, more Colorado towns and counties will be voting on whether to opt out of the 12-year-old SB 152, a state law that restricts broadband development.

Sweeping Out the Old

Senate Bill 152 has hindered communities’ ability to invest in Internet infrastructure and provide service themselves or with private sector partners. Many communities are realizing that national carriers can’t be relied on to provide high-quality Internet access. To date, at least 98 communities across the state[1] of Colorado have voted to reclaim local telecommunications authority by opting out of SB 152; a handful are considering actually pursuing a publicly owned network.

Opening the Door for Options

For some towns and counties, the ballot question is simply a way to keep their options open and to reclaim local authority that the state took away in 2005. As we’ve seen in Westminister, Maryland,[2] public-private partnerships can be a great option for communities. Being out from under SB 152 will allow these municipalities to explore high-quality network options if the opportunity arises. Additionally, when towns give themselves the ability to explore new providers and different models, current ISPs tend to take notice and adapt accordingly[3]. Beyond these options and ripple effects from shedding SB 152, some towns simply want autonomy and freedom from sweeping state regulation.

In Eagle County,[4] they recognize climbing out from under SB 152 will allow them to consider more substantial steps for taking back local power and implementing a high-speed network. They’ve yet to conduct any feasibility studies but in their yearly Legislative Policy Statement[5] they made it clear that they’re motivated to improve connectivity.

Ushering in the New

The town of Greeley is moving more decisively. Ahead of the November election and vote on SB 152, Greeley has agreed to fund a joint feasibility s[6]tudy[7] with neighboring Windsor. Avon Mayor Jennie Fancher authored an op-ed urging citizens to support the ballot question, saying:

Many communities around the state have already passed similar ballot initiatives in order to provide or partner in the provision of broadband services, and a  “yes” vote also enables residents to make the best decisions based on the needs of our own community, without raising taxes.

Fancher notes[8] the success of neighboring Red Cliff after opting out of the restrictive law two years ago and working on fixed wireless solution[9] for the rural mountain town. In the nearby Colorado towns of Fort Collins and Longmont, the communities have also moved forward after opting out of SB 152. This election cycle Fort Collins[10] voters will decide whether high-speed Internet should be categorized as a municipal utility, and Longmont[11] has created a community broadband network to support their buzzing city.

Come November, Boulder[12] and Eagle[13] counties will be voting on SB 152, along with a dozen towns. We’ve collected sample ballots:

  • Alamosa[14]
  • Avon[15]
  • Eagle[13]
  • Georgetown[16]
  • Greeley[17]
  • Gypsum[18]
  • Louisville[19]
  • Manitou Springs[20]
  • Minturn[21]
  • Monte Vista[22]
  • Snowmass Village[23]
  • Vail[24]

Photo Credit: Citycommunications at English Wikipedia[25] [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[26]. Read the original here[27].

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Endnotes:
  1. least 98 communities across the state: https://ilsr.org/broadband-boosted-at-the-ballot-episode-5-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  2. Westminister, Maryland,: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-connections-westminster-ting-how-and-why
  3. ISPs tend to take notice and adapt accordingly: https://muninetworks.org/content/going-opt-out-funding-feasibility-greeley-co
  4. Eagle County,: https://muninetworks.org/content/bring-ballots-two-more-colorado-communities-face-opt-out-question
  5. Legislative Policy Statement: http://www.eaglecounty.us/Commissioners/Documents/Legislative/2017_Legislative_Policy_Statement/
  6. Greeley has agreed to fund a joint feasibility s: https://muninetworks.org/content/going-opt-out-funding-feasibility-greeley-co
  7. tudy: https://muninetworks.org/content/going-opt-out-funding-feasibility-greeley-co
  8. Fancher notes: http://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/avon-mayor-vote-yes-on-2b-to-allow-town-authority-to-provide-broadband-services/
  9. fixed wireless solution: http://www.vaildaily.com/news/red-cliff-to-start-beaming-broadband-soon-usfs-approval-coming-this-week/
  10. Fort Collins: https://muninetworks.org/content/fort-collins-colorado-ballot-language-lives-through-legal-challenge
  11. Longmont: https://muninetworks.org/content/watch-how-longmont-colorado-built-community-network-year
  12. Boulder: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Boulder-County-Louisville.pdf
  13. Eagle: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Eagle-County-Minturn-Eagle-Gypsum-Avon.pdf
  14. Alamosa: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-City-of-Alamosa.pdf
  15. Avon: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Eagle-County-Minturn-Eagle-Gypsum-Avon.pdf
  16. Georgetown: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Georgetown.pdf
  17. Greeley: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-Greeley-SB-152-opt-out-ballot.pdf
  18. Gypsum: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Eagle-County-Minturn-Eagle-Gypsum-Avon.pdf
  19. Louisville: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Boulder-County-Louisville.pdf
  20. Manitou Springs: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Manitou-Springs.pdf
  21. Minturn: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Eagle-County-Minturn-Eagle-Gypsum-Avon.pdf
  22. Monte Vista: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-city-of-monte-vista-sample-ballot.pdf.pdf
  23. Snowmass Village: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Snowmass-village.pdf
  24. Vail: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-11-SB-152-Vail.pdf
  25. Citycommunications at English Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Fort_Collins_Colorado.jpg
  26. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  27. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/more-colorado-towns-put-opt-out-question-ballot

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/more-colorado-towns-put-municipal-broadband-question-on-the-ballot/


Protecting Communities from Gentrification

by David Morris | October 23, 2017 7:00 am

This article was originally published in our The Public Good: Reports from the Front Lines (September 27, 2017), available here[1].

About 15 years ago, the half-century flight from America’s cities came to an end.  A growing number of cities began see a growing in-migration, often of people with higher incomes.  Rising real estate prices spurred land speculation and new developments, threatening existing neighborhoods with displacement and reducing affordable housing.

Some cities have tried to do right by their long-term residents.  But the strategies they’ve embraced look to bribe developers with tax breaks or higher densities than the zoning code allows in return for the developer including in their high rise condos a portion with a sales price set to households with less than the area’s median income. On the whole, these bribes have only marginally increased affordable housing, done little if anything to preserve existing neighborhoods and in the long run, are unsustainable.

[2]

In the 1960s activists proposed a new strategy: Community Land Trusts (CLT) The first incorporated land trust was established in 1969.  New Communities was a 5,700-acre land trust and farm collective in southwestern Georgia owned and operated by approximately a dozen black farm farmers from 1969 to 1985.

[3]In 1972 Robert Swann, one of the creators of New Communities, wrote Community Land Trust: A Guide to a New Model of Land Tenure in America, which among others things, explained in detail how a land trust differs from conventional ownership.  A trust separates the ownership of the land from the ownership of the building.  A nonprofit organization, with a board usually composted of representatives from tenants and the surrounding neighborhood, owns the land and leases it to the homeowner for a designated period, often 99 years.  The homeowner has the right to sell the land at any time, but the return to the homeowner is limited.

Keeping the land out of the real estate market holds down housing prices, as does limiting the equity gains that accrue to the homeowner. The objective of the land trust is not to maximize profit, but to maximize community and diversity.

In 1984 Burlington, Vermont established the nation’s first urban CLT.  Burlington offered fertile ground for the concept.  A rapidly inflating housing market created the need.  A mayor, Bernie Sanders, receptive to the concept of social markets created the opportunity.

Initially Sanders viewed land trusts with skepticism. “The mayor feared the restrictions on reselling properties would create a form of second-class home ownership,” Jake Blumgart reports[4] in Slate, “If middle- and upper-class people could build wealth off their houses, why should the working class be limited to shared equity? Sanders’ preferred methods of ensuring housing affordability were rent control…and providing direct subsidies to low-income residents who wanted to buy homes.”

But in 1982, in a referendum, Burlington voters rejected rent control.  And direct subsidies to low income households, would have to increase as real estate prices increased, eventually overwhelming the municipal budget.

Bernie eventually vigorously supported land trusts. In 1984 the city midwifed the creation of its first land trust with a $200,000 seed grant and municipal staff support. Later, it made a significant loan from its pension fund to the land trust and raised additional funds from local businesses and federal resources. In 1988, it established the Burlington Housing Trust Fund, funded by a small increase in property taxes.

Municipal sponsorship of a land trust was not universally supported.  In his 1996 PhD dissertation, Reinventing Real Estate:  The Community Land Trust as a Social Invention in Affordable Housing, James Meehan recalled[5], “An opposition group upholding property rights organized and picketed the Board of Alderman. One realtor said, ‘If you believe that one of the most precious rights we, as individuals, have in our country, is the right to own land, a right protected by our Constitution, then you should take a long, hard look at this land trust.’”

Advocates prevailed.

In 1984, the same year Burlington started its land trust, a community in Boston applied the concept on a neighborhood scale.  At the time burned out and abandoned houses characterized the Dudley Street neighborhood. “(T)he per capita income of the Dudley Square residents was one of the lowest in the nation, on a par with the poorest counties in Mississippi, or Indian Reservations of the West,” noted to Peter Medoff and Holly Sklar note in their book, Streets of Hope:  The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood[6],

[7]With the support of local foundations, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) held a series of meetings.  Over many months, hundreds of residents participated in developing a plan that included business development, affordable housing, human services, youth development, education, playgrounds and public space.

The city adopted the plan, but its implementation required one more innovation. The “Dudley Triangle” consisted of a tangled web of city-owned land interlaced with tax-delinquent properties and vacant private lands. The neighborhood pressed the city for the authority to demand that the owners sell the trust the parcels. In 1988, the Boston Redevelopment Authority granted that request. The DSNI became the first, and so far the only, neighborhood with the ability to exercise eminent domain, a power usually reserved only to governments.

As Harry Smith, DSNI’s director of sustainable economic development told Blumgart, writing[8] for Next City,  “we never really used the actual power of eminent domain. We used it more as a stick, so if there were absentee owners who weren’t coming to the table and weren’t engaging we could send them a letter and say we are going to exercise the power of eminent domain. That would get their attention.”

In 1987 the Institute for Community Economics convened the First National Conference.  Twenty-four CLTs attended.  A year later the number doubled.  By 1990 the number attending had reached 120. After plateauing in the 1990s, the number of CLTs again began to grow rapidly, reaching more than 280 today.

Member organizations of the National Community Land Trust Network (which in 2017 merged with Cornerstone Partners to become the Grounded Solutions Network) now host[9] about 25,000 affordable rental units and 13,000-15,000 affordable owner-occupied homes.

The 30 acre Dudley Land Trust now boasts[10] 225 units of affordable housing, a playground, a mini-orchard and community garden, and greenhouse, as well as commercial space and office space.

[11]The Champlain Housing Trust (CHT), the result of a 2006 merger of the Burlington Community Land Trust and the Lake Champlain Housing Development Corporation, an agency that serves three Vermont counties,  holds about 565 homes in a land trust plus 2,100 rental and cooperative units. Half are within the city of Burlington. These constitute about 8 percent of the city’s housing stock. In the last two years, CHT has expanded its portfolio by purchasing several hotels and apartment buildings and converted them into housing and lodging for the homeless.  CHT’s operating budget[12] is over $10 million.

Some land trusts now include commercial space.  The Anchorage Community Land Trust focuses exclusively on commercial development. Vermont’s CHT manages 14 commercial properties in Burlington.

Evaluations have demonstrated the viability and effectiveness of land trusts.  They stabilize neighborhoods, revitalize communities, and keep housing costs affordable.

And they build equity for low-income households. The Urban Institute, found[13] that 90 percent of low-income households remained homeowners five years after buying a shared equity, CLT home, far exceeding the 50 percent average home ownership retention rate among conventional market, low-income homeowners, as reported[14] by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.   Reviewing the resale of 205 housing units in land trusts between l988 and 2008, analysts found[15] that, on average, a CHT homeowner who resold her home after five and one half years, recovered her $2,300 down payment and earned an additional $12,000 net gain in equity.

The housing collapse in 2008 offered an extreme test of the viability of CLTs.  They passed with flying colors.  A report by the Lincoln Institute, Outperforming the Market[16] found that homeowners who took out conventional mortgages were over 8 times more likely to be in the process of foreclosure than those with CLT mortgages.  That disparity soared to more than 25 times if the homeowner had a subprime mortgage.  Similar disparities occurred in the comparative rate at which homeowners were delinquent in their payments.

Comparatively low rates of foreclosure and delinquencies were an inherent result of the structure of the land trust.  The non-profit acts as the trust’s steward.  In the pre-purchase stage, the non-profit organization protects homeowners from predatory mortgage lenders.  After purchase it intervenes where necessary to make mortgage payments current or preclude foreclosure completion via a variety of strategies: financial counseling, direct grants or loans, arranging the sale and purchase of less expensive unit, and working with homeowners and lenders on permanent loan modifications.

For policy makers the Lincoln Institute’s findings held an important message, “CLT home ownership appears more sustainable than private market options for low-income homeowners”

Despite the overwhelming evidence of their success, community land trusts are still on the margins of urban policy, a result of at least four factors.

First, banks continue to be wary of financing units where ownership is divided. Blumgart reports that the North Camden (New Jersey) Community Land Trust collapsed in 2007 because local banks would not allow it to refinance its loans after the Great Recession.

Second, many cities tax CLT property the same as conventional property, despite the fact that its unusual ownership structure results in a lower market value for the property.  A few states have adopted[17] legislation requiring that CLT property be assessed at a lower value than unrestricted property. (e.g. Florida, North Carolina, Vermont).  Otherwise it is a city-by-city proposition

Third, new land trusts are confronting rapidly escalating real estate prices that outpace their ability to finance expansion.  When the Dudley Street Initiative was born, land in that part of Boston could be had for a song.  Now its price is rising rapidly. In 2015, the nascent Chinatown Community Land Trust was thwarted[18] in its first attempt at acquisition when it came short in a bidding war with a developer. (Undaunted, this past March, an a dozen local neighborhood groups formed[19] the Metro Boston Community Land Trust.)

Fourth, cities remain lukewarm, at best, to the concept despite the evidence that the city as well as its low-income residents may benefit.  Foreclosed properties significantly diminish nearby housing values, leaving the remaining homeowners vulnerable to foreclosure and the neighborhood to increased crime. Foreclosures also impose costs on municipalities.  The cumulative costs of administrative fees attendant to foreclosure, demolition of vacant properties, and declining property taxes can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per house.

One reason cities are reticent about supporting land trusts is the very reason land trusts have been created.  A significant percentage of municipal revenues come from property taxes, giving the city financial interest in maximizing the market/assessed value of real estate.   The land trust slows the increased price of real estate.

Opportunities for significant land trusts may be disappearing in besieged cities like Seattle and San Francisco, but even in rapidly gentrifying New York City, where only 9 percent of homes[20] on the market in 2014 were affordable to the 51 percent of New Yorkers earning less than $55,000 a year, a multi-partner Interboro Community Land Trust has recently been launched.  Funded with several million dollars from various sources, including New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development the land trust will draw[21] units largely from within the partners’ existing portfolios. Interboro’s first project will convert 250 units into permanently affordable housing.

 

Those cities that have suffered decades of disinvestment, where vacant properties and houses abound, in-migration has just begun and gentrification has touched only a tiny portion of the city may offer the best prospects for large scale use of CLTs.

Consider Detroit.  In 2015 the city had some 45,000 empty[22] homes.  Thousands more face tax foreclosure.  The Detroit Land Bank was auctioning off more than 20,000 vacant houses.

A coalition of housing activists asked the Detroit Land Bank to transfer some of its properties to a community land trust.  It refused.  The newly formed Detroit Community Land Trust Coalition turned to crowd funding, raising more than $108,000 in 10 days and an additional $30,000 from other funders, enough to purchase 15 houses at tax foreclosure auctions and begin repairs.

With the city’s help, Detroit could do much, much better.  Consider if Detroit were to approach the financing of land trusts as it did the financing of a new arena for the hockey team. The city and state enabled the issuance of $300 million in bonds backed by property tax revenues for the $900 million arena.  And later, adding insult to injury, it took $34.5 million dedicated[23] to schools and parks to enable the hockey arena to become home to the Detroit Pistons as well.  The $300 million alone could have financed the purchase of about 30,000 homes for community land trusts.

In Buffalo, land trust activists are focusing on the Fruit Belt neighborhood around the Buffalo Niagara Medical campus where expansion has spurred land speculation and development.  In late 2015, the city council responded to pressure by organizations like the Community First Alliance, a coalition of residents of the Fruit Belt neighborhood and activists from other neighborhoods in Buffalo by imposing a moratorium on the sale of any of the over 200 city-owned lots in the Fruit Belt neighborhood until “a duly approved strategic plan” has been created, a plan that must protect residents from “the adverse effect of development.

In Baltimore, which has two small land trusts and some 30,000 vacant homes owned by the city, a coalition has proposed a $40 million investment in CLTs. Mayor Catherine Pugh has endorsed the proposal.

Gentrification has already made deep inroads into cities like New York.  According to a recent report[24] by NYU’s Furman Center, only 9 percent of homes on the market in 2014 were affordable to the 51 percent of New Yorkers earning less than $55,000 a year.

Undaunted, in late October, the multi-partner Interboro Community Land Trust launched, funded with several million dollars from various sources, including from New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.  Its units will largely be drawn from within the partners’ existing portfolios. Interboro’s first project will convert 250 units into permanently affordable housing.

Vermont, with a population about the size of Baltimore’s, remains the pacesetter. In June its legislature enabled the issuance of $35 million in revenue bonds dedicated to housing that would be permanently affordable.  It was the largest housing investment in Vermont’s history.

Photo Credit: Mariamichelle via Pixabay.[25]

Sign-up for our monthly Public Good Newsletter[26] and follow ILSR on Twitter[27] and Facebook[28].

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Endnotes:
  1. here: https://ilsr.org/the-public-good-reports-from-the-front-lines-september-27-2017/#champlain
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/f5fb087e4f948f87134ead62c3fc9a97.jpg
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Cover-of-1972-Book.jpg
  4. reports: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2016/01/bernie_sanders_made_burlington_s_land_trust_possible_it_s_still_an_innovative.html
  5. recalled: http://cltnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1996-Reinventing-Real-Estate.pdf
  6. Streets of Hope:  The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood: https://books.google.com/books?id=SrRF5Prt7NgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=streets+of+hope+google&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKjv3C28PWAhWJZlAKHQ5AAEkQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=streets%20of%20hope%20google&f=false
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/download.jpeg
  8. writing: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5515d04fe4b0263cc20b3984/t/55fc361ce4b092562d29764c/1442592284623/Affordable+Housing%E2%80%99s+Forever+Solution.pdf
  9. host: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5515d04fe4b0263cc20b3984/t/55fc361ce4b092562d29764c/1442592284623/Affordable+Housing%E2%80%99s+Forever+Solution.pdf
  10. boasts: http://www.dudleyneighbors.org/land-trust-101.html
  11. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/y9d-rbat.jpg
  12. budget: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2016/01/bernie_sanders_made_burlington_s_land_trust_possible_it_s_still_an_innovative.html
  13. found: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/29291/412244-Balancing-Affordability-and-Opportunity-An-Evaluation-of-Affordable-Homeownership-Programs-with-Long-term-Affordability-Controls.PDF
  14. reported: https://www.lincolninst.edu/es/publications/articles/outperforming-market
  15. found: http://cltnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2009-Lands-in-Trust.pdf
  16. Outperforming the Market: http://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/outperforming-market
  17. adopted: http://cltnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/17-Property-Tax-Assessments.pdf
  18. thwarted: http://realestate.boston.com/news/2015/01/30/chinatown-residents-rally-after-community-land-trust-efforts-thwarted-by-developer/
  19. formed: https://www.dsni.org/dsni-blog/2015/4/7/metro-boston-community-land-trust-network-launch
  20. homes: http://furmancenter.org/files/NYUFurmanCenterCiti_HomeownershipOpportunityNYC_AUG2016.pdf
  21. draw: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/partners-announce-nycs-first-citywide-community-land-trust
  22. empty: https://www.detroitevictiondefense.net/taxes/how-to-fight-tax-foreclosures/
  23. dedicated: http://michiganradio.org/post/federal-judge-wont-step-now-block-detroit-pistons-move-downtown
  24. report: http://furmancenter.org/files/NYUFurmanCenterCiti_HomeownershipOpportunityNYC_AUG2016.pdf
  25. Mariamichelle via Pixabay.: https://pixabay.com/en/burlington-vermont-church-street-1541797/
  26. Public Good Newsletter: https://ilsr.org/sign-up-for-the-public-good-e-newsletter/
  27. Twitter: http://twitter.com/ilsr
  28. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/protecting-communities-from-gentrification-community-land-trusts/


Amazon’s Uneven Playing Field

by Olivia LaVecchia | October 20, 2017 11:05 am

Amazon is looking for a big subsidy to build its new headquarters. It’s only the latest move in the company’s long history of using the government to get favors that other businesses can’t.

This op-ed was first published in Vice’s Motherboard[1].

In the hierarchy of the corporate world today, Amazon is near the top. It’s one of the top five most valuable companies traded on the major exchanges, and founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is now the second-richest person in the world.

People tend to think that Amazon has gotten there simply by out-competing everyone else. But there’s another part of the story[2] of Amazon’s rise. From the very beginning, a core part of Amazon’s strategy has been taking advantage of public benefits not available to its competitors.

Now, bidding is set to close Thursday on the latest play in this strategy: Amazon’s decision to launch a public auction for the location of its second North American headquarters. In that auction, Amazon is angling for such a substantial public handout that, as Amazon itself puts it[3] in its Request for Proposals, the “magnitude may require special incentive legislation.” Since Amazon opened bidding, more than 100 cities across the U.S. and Canada have publicly announced their interest in the Amazon sweepstakes, and have given over conference rooms[4] and staff time to work on the bid, launched PR stunts, and started hashtags. Experts say that the end result of all of this hype could be a multi-billion dollar giveaway[5] from taxpayers to Amazon.

The process has unfolded like the work of a seasoned pro, and that’s because it is. It started back in 1995… (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Motherboard: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qv34dp/amazons-headquarters-tax-subsidies
  2. another part of the story: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  3. puts it: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17044620011
  4. given over conference rooms: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/technology/wooing-amazon-second-headquarters.html?_r=0
  5. multi-billion dollar giveaway: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/100-plus-contenders-imagine-hosting-amazons-hq2/
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/amazons-uneven-playing-field/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazons-uneven-playing-field/


Federal Communications Commission Complaint Reveals AT&T is Accused of Digital Redlining in Detroit

by Matthew Marcus | October 18, 2017 6:52 am

In Detroit, AT&T is facing a formal FCC complaint [1]accusing the telecom giant of deploying discriminatory “digital redlining” tactics. This is the second such complaint filed against the telecommunications giant since the first of the year.

Demanding Equality in Connectivity

The complaint filed by civil rights attorney Daryl Parks says the FCC violated the Communications Act[2] which forbids unjust and unreasonable discrimination. A month earlier, Parks filed a similar complaint [3]on behalf of three Cleveland residents. In both instances, Parks and community members maintain that AT&T is withholding high-speed Internet from minority neighborhoods that have higher poverty rates.

These complaints fall under Title II of the Communications Act, which contains not only net neutrality rules but important consumer protections regarding discrimination. Title II SEC. 202. [47 U.S.C. 202] (a) clearly specifies:

It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service, directly or indirectly, by any means or device, or to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, or locality, or to subject any particular person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.

The first complaint filed in Cleveland last March was prompted by a report[4] from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance[5] and Connect Your Community group[6]. Their analysis concluded that the disparities among neighborhoods are a product of over a decade of deliberate infrastructure investment decisions, resulting in digital redlining. Their well-documented maps[7] help visualize these disparities among neighborhoods.

The Roots of Redlining

Redlining is defined as denying or withholding services to residents of a certain area based on its ethnic or racial demographic. Redlining has been deployed for decades[8], most notably by the banking sector and their mortgage lending departments. Beginning in the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) compiled homeowner data for booming cities— primarily in the rust belt— and they drafted maps with red outlining city blocks containing[9] “undesirable inhabitant types” of high-risk. The maps were sectioned off into four categories: Grade A (“highly desirable”), Grade B (“somewhat desirable”), Grade C (“declining”), and red were Grade D (“to be avoided”). In Richmond for example[10], the damning red of Grade D was almost exclusively assigned to areas described as “negro”. The historical consequences have been disastrous, primarily for low-income communities of color across the nation. (more…)[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. formal FCC complaint : http://thehill.com/policy/technology/352267-att-hit-with-second-complaint-of-discrimination-against-low-income?mc_cid=9646f90f27&mc_eid=e00c29a42c
  2. Communications Act: http://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf
  3. filed a similar complaint : https://muninetworks.org/content/cleveland-residents-file-digital-redlining-complaint-against-att
  4. report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B62ag-I_FGHrbTYtMGdKOXZ4NmM/view
  5. National Digital Inclusion Alliance: http://connectyourcommunity.org/slow-att-service-will-block-thousands-of-cleveland-detroit-households-from-promised-access-discounts/
  6. Connect Your Community group: http://connectyourcommunity.org/
  7. well-documented maps: http://connectyourcommunity.org/slow-att-service-will-block-thousands-of-cleveland-detroit-households-from-promised-access-discounts/
  8. deployed for decades: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
  9. outlining city blocks containing: http://dsl.richmond.edu/holc/factors/map/5
  10. In Richmond for example: http://dsl.richmond.edu/holc/factors/view/5
  11. (more…): https://ilsr.org/federal-communications-commission-complaint-reveals-att-is-accused-of-digital-redlining-in-detroit/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/federal-communications-commission-complaint-reveals-att-is-accused-of-digital-redlining-in-detroit/


Eastern Tennessee: Newport Electric Smart Grid, Morristown Tech Incubator

by Matthew Marcus | October 17, 2017 5:59 am

Approximately 30 miles separate Morristown and Newport, but the two are joining forces to better connect local businesses and residents as entrepreneurs take up residence in the region’s newest high-tech work space.

An Incubator for Innovation in Morristown

SkyMart Venture Place is a new cooperative workspace stirring innovation in the quaint downtown district of Morristown.

Morristown was on the forefront of implementing city-wide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) back in 2006. Today their gigabit network MUS FiberNET[1] is fostering innovation in this thriving co-working space and helping neighboring communities bridge their connectivity gaps. Lynn Wolfe explains that the new space has helped support her in the early stages of her business. “[SkyMVP] gives me a place—with super-fast internet—to come and do my internet marketing, and it has been very beneficial for that and being able to upload my training videos,” Wolfe said.

SkyMVP’s doors opened in August of last year and it’s become a hub for local entrepreneurs. The space allows members to hold workshops, rent office space, and network with other professionals.

Similar incubator projects are underway in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley[2] and Indianola, Iowa[3]. SkyMVP is yet another example of how gigabit connectivity can spur positive transformations[4] for local communities. Morristown’s decision to invest in FTTH infrastructure is emboldening their local economy [5]and potential for small business growth in the area is promising. Sky MVP has even begun offering a course for budding entrepreneurs[6] and a handful of free workshops.

Expanding the ‘Net’ in Newport

Morristown’s leap in connectivity is spreading. Morristown Utility Commission (MUC) is partnering with Newport Utilities (NU)[7] to expand Internet connectivity in the region. MUC and Newport officially announced a 7-year contract in which MUC will supply NU wholesale Internet access and third-party Voice over IP services.

As part of a smart grid project, Newport is able to capitalize on their proximity and relationship with Morristown and bring better connectivity to residents, businesses, and other entities. The initial stages of laying 13 miles of the community-owned Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks is underway and Newport residents expect to start obtaining services from NU Connect[8] by January 1st.

logo-newport-utilities-tn.gifThis is an exciting development for building local power and expanding connectivity, but it also has the potential to become a model for other similarly situated communities. The agreement has allowed Newport to improve its local telecommunications at a cheaper cost than if it had to deploy the project from the ground up. Inline with other FTTH communities in Tennessee[9], Newport Utilities plans to offer a affordable monthly plan[10]; $40 per month for 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) and gigabit access is available for $100 per month. All speeds are symmetrical.

Newport recently received a $21 million loan[11] from the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to expand their smart grid project, which will allow them to bring high-quality connectivity to their entire service area. The smart grid applications will also allow NU to maximize the electric system’s efficiencies and reduce outages. They anticipate construction to be completed during 2018.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[12]. Read the original here[13].

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Endnotes:
  1. gigabit network MUS FiberNET: http://musfiber.net/
  2. Virginia’s Roanoke Valley: https://muninetworks.org/content/roanoke-valley-broadband-authority-connecting-new-accelerator-program
  3. Indianola, Iowa: https://muninetworks.org/content/indianola-city-owned-networks-partners-encourage-economic-development
  4. spur positive transformations: https://muninetworks.org/content/morristown-network-creates-cost-savings-and-spurs-job-growth
  5. emboldening their local economy : https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  6. a course for budding entrepreneurs: http://www.skymvp.com/programs/
  7. partnering with Newport Utilities (NU): https://muninetworks.org/content/morristown-and-newport-buddy-broadband-rural-tn
  8. obtaining services from NU Connect: http://www.newportutilities.com/pdf/BB%20Brochure.pdf
  9. FTTH communities in Tennessee: https://muninetworks.org/content/tennessee-muni-rates-fact-sheet
  10. affordable monthly plan: https://muninetworks.org/content/newport-utilities-updating-community-public-forum
  11. received a $21 million loan: http://bbpmag.com/wordpress2/2017/10/magellan-assists-rural-communities-in-securing-100-million-in-fiber-network-funding/
  12. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  13. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/eastern-tennessee-newport-smart-grid-morristown-incubator

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/eastern-tennessee-newport-electric-smart-grid-morristown-tech-incubator/


Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill In Michigan Pulls No Punches

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 16, 2017 9:05 am

Torpedo legislation aimed at municipal network initiatives don’t usually appear in October, but Michigan’s year-round legislature is making 2017 atypical. Last week, Freshman Representative Michele Hoitenga from the rural village of Manton in Wexford County introduced a bill banning investment in municipal networks.

HB 5099[1] is short; it decrees that local communities cannot use federal, state, or their own funds to invest in even the slowest Internet infrastructure, if they choose to do it themselves:

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN ENACT:

SEC. 13B. (1) EXCEPT AS OTHERWISE PROVIDED IN SUBSECTION (2), A LOCAL UNIT SHALL NOT USE ANY FEDERAL, STATE, OR LOCAL FUNDS OR LOANS TO PAY FOR THE COST OF PROVIDING QUALIFIED INTERNET SERVICE. (2) A LOCAL UNIT MAY ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH 1 OR MORE PRIVATE PARTIES TO PROVIDE QUALIFIED INTERNET SERVICE. (3) AS USED IN THIS SECTION, “QUALIFIED INTERNET SERVICE” MEANS HIGH-SPEED INTERNET SERVICE AT A SPEED OF AT LEAST 10 MBPS UPSTREAM AND 1 MBPS DOWNSTREAM.

The exception allows local communities to engage in public-private partnerships, but the bill’s ambiguous language is likely to discourage local communities from pursuing such partnerships. As we’ve seen from partnerships that have successfully brought better connectivity to towns such as Westminster, Maryland[2], communities often took the initiative to invest in the infrastructure prior to establishing a partnership. Typically, the infrastructure attracts a private sector partner. If a community in Michigan wants to pursue a partnership that suits the exception of HB 5099, they will first have to grapple with the chicken and the egg dilemma.

Rather than put themselves at risk of running afoul of the law, prudent community leaders would probably choose to avoid pursuing any publicly owned infrastructure initiatives.

 

Munis Gaining Ground In Michigan

seal-michigan.pngMichigan already has a significant state barrier in place; municipalities that wish to improve connectivity must first appeal to the private sector and can only invest in a network if they receive fewer than three qualifying bids. If a local community then goes on to build a publicly owned network, they must comply with the terms of the RFP, even though terms for a private sector vendor may not be ideal for a public entity.

Nevertheless, several communities in Michigan have dealt with the restrictions in recent years as a way to ameliorate poor connectivity. They’ve come to realize that their local economies and the livelihood of their towns depend on improving Internet access for businesses, institutions, and residents.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. HB 5099: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2017-2018/billintroduced/House/pdf/2017-HIB-5099.pdf
  2. Westminster, Maryland: https://muninetworks.org/content/p3-between-westminster-and-ting-%E2%80%9Ccommunity-broadband-innovative-partnership-year%E2%80%9D
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/anti-municipal-broadband-bill-in-michigan-pulls-no-punches/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/anti-municipal-broadband-bill-in-michigan-pulls-no-punches/


Mount Washington, Massachusetts, Set To Debut New FTTH Network

by Christopher Barich | October 12, 2017 6:01 am

Mount Washington, Massachusetts[1], is set to light up its new Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network this month. By “building our own Fiber-to-the-Home broadband network, we are taking an important step in securing our community’s long-term vitality and sustainability,” says Selectboard Member Gail Garrett[2].

Mount Washington Recap

Mount Washington is nestled within the forested Taconic Mountains area located in the southwest corner of the state. The roughly 150 full-time residents have been frustrated with the lack of connectivity. “Everybody’s had it with their current connections” said Garret and believes the town “deserves the same opportunity to connect to the internet as those in larger communities.”

The final estimates for the network came in at $603,000 but the town planned for any unanticipated make ready or dig costs and prepared for a high estimate of $650,000. To fund construction, Mount Washington authorized the use[3] of $250,000 from their stabilization fund in 2015, received $230,000 in federal and state funds[4] from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) earlier this year, and established a plan to borrow the remaining $400,000 through a state loan program. This spring, received an additional $222,000 grant from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development[5], which will allow them to pay down the debt sooner and have the network paid off within five years.

The FTTH network is set to provide residents who opted in, over 60 percent of the town, with up to 1 gigabit of upload and download speeds. To opt in, residents deposited $300 per household and committed themselves to three years of data and telephone service on the FTTH network. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Mount Washington, Massachusetts: http://townofmtwashington.com/index.php
  2. says Selectboard Member Gail Garrett: https://theberkshireedge.com/amid-regional-broadband-crisis-a-tiny-town-is-about-to-speed-up/
  3. authorized the use: https://muninetworks.org/content/mount-washington-voters-ready-fund-muni
  4. in federal and state funds: https://muninetworks.org/content/mount-washington-ma-makes-next-move-design-construction
  5. Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development: http://www.mass.gov/hed/economic/eohed/
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/mount-washington-massachusetts-set-to-debut-new-ftth-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/mount-washington-massachusetts-set-to-debut-new-ftth-network/


Franklin County Infrastructure Bank to Invest in Grove City, Ohio’s Fiber Network

by Christopher Barich | October 10, 2017 7:09 am

On August 1, 2017, the Franklin County Infrastructure Bank awarded Grove City, Ohio a $2 million loan to support their construction of a municipal fiber optic network.

The Grove City Plan

According to the city’s Request for Proposal[1] (RFP), the city is focused on first establishing an institutional network[2] (I-Net) and plan to expand it to serve local businesses over time. The initial fiber optic network will connect Grove City to the South-Western City Schools, the townships of Jackson, Prairie, Pleasant, and the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO). The goal is to create a network with a baseline of ten gigabits symmetric service, ten times the speed of current connections provided by Spectrum[3] (formerly Time Warner Cable).

According to Mayor Richard “Ike” Stage[4], the increase in network speed will attract businesses and will generate a 100 new jobs for the city. Josh Roth, Senior Program Coordinator for Economic Development and Planning, has said[5] “that Grove City has committed to one hundred jobs over the next three years.”

During the August 1, 2017 general session, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners  passed the resolution[6] to authorize the loan to the city of Grove City.

Franklin County Commissioner Kevin L. Boyce celebrated the project[7]:

“[T]he fiber optics really makes a difference because companies will look at whether to expand or move there [Grove City]. It could be a deciding factor. Those are jobs that are retained that you may not see.”

For more information on the positive relationship between publicly owned Internet network infrastructure and reyaining or attracting jobs, check out our economic development[8] page.

In addition to the FCIB loan, the city authorized a $4.8 million bond issue for the design and construction of the network. South-Western City Schools, Jackson, Prairie, Pleasant, and SWACO will all pay an annual fee to connect to the network; that revenue will be used to pay off the bond. An October 2016 Grove City Dispatch article[9] reported that the South-Western City School District will increase their capacity 10-fold, but continue to pay the same rate they currently pay the incumbent. Now public dollars will stay in the region to be reinvested in the local community.

The project hit a snag earlier this summer when community leaders had to contend with unanticipated make ready costs[10]. Final fees determined by electric provider American Electric Power and AT&T were much higher than original estimates. The City Council chose to appropriate an additional $2.7 million[11] from the the city’s general fund to cover the costs and proceed with the fiber optic project.

Grove City, Ohio[12] is located in Franklin County, just 20 minutes southwest from downtown Columbus. The city covers approximately 16 square miles with a population of roughly 38,000. (more…)[13]

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Endnotes:
  1. Request for Proposal: http://globalinstitute.dublinohiousa.gov/2025/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Grove-City-OH-RFP.pdf
  2. institutional network: https://muninetworks.org/content/institutional-networks
  3. current connections provided by Spectrum: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/10/10/.html
  4. Mayor Richard “Ike” Stage: http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170806/franklin-county-sales-tax-hike-used-for-infrastructure-loans
  5. Josh Roth, Senior Program Coordinator for Economic Development and Planning, has said: https://commissioners.franklincountyohio.gov/COMM-website/media/Documents/General%20Session/Minutes/(31)Aug-1-17.pdf?ext=.pdf
  6. passed the resolution: https://commissioners.franklincountyohio.gov/COMM-website/media/Documents/General%20Session/Minutes/(31)Aug-1-17.pdf?ext=.pdf
  7. Kevin L. Boyce celebrated the project: https://commissioners.franklincountyohio.gov/COMM-website/media/Documents/General%20Session/Minutes/(31)Aug-1-17.pdf?ext=.pdf
  8. economic development: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  9. October 2016 Grove City Dispatch article: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/10/10/.html
  10. unanticipated make ready costs: http://www.thisweeknews.com/news/20170711/fiber-optic-networks-make-ready-fees-climb
  11. appropriate an additional $2.7 million: http://www.grovecityohio.gov/editor/files/government/council/meetings/agenda/08072017cA.pdf
  12. Grove City, Ohio: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/grove-city-oh/
  13. (more…): https://ilsr.org/franklin-county-infrastructure-bank-to-invest-in-grove-city-ohios-fiber-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/franklin-county-infrastructure-bank-to-invest-in-grove-city-ohios-fiber-network/


Couldn’t Make It To Ammon, Idaho? Christopher Mitchell’s Presentation Featured in Videos

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 9, 2017 5:41 am

You may not have been able to get to Ammon, Idaho, to attend the official lighting ceremony[1] of the community’s open access fiber network. Perhaps you weren’t able to watch the stream to the event either; life is demanding and sometimes we just can’t fit everything into our day. But you can still watch the event at your own pace because we’ve broken down the presentations and panels for you.

Deb Socia (NCC) & Jeff Christensen (EntryPoint) Introduce Ammon Mayor Dana Kirkham:

https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=35m30s[2]

Mayor Dana Kirkham:

https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=43m46s[3]

State Senator Brent Hill:

https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=47m38s[4]

 

Keynote: How Does the City of Tomorrow Get ‘Smart’?

Glenn Ricart, Founder and CEO, US Ignite:

https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=53m5s[5]

Panel – How do we make ‘smart cities’ a reality?

logo-next-century-cities.jpg

  • Glenn Ricart, Founder and CEO, US Ignite
  • Shawn Irvine, Economic Development Director, Independence, Oregon
  • Aarushi Sarbhai, Graduate Research Assistant, University of Utah
  • Jeff Peterson, CTO, EntryPoint Networks
  • Moderated by Deb Socia, Executive Director, Next Century Cities

https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=1h14m20s[6]

Bobbi-Jo Meuleman, Chief Operations Officer, Idaho Department of Commerce:

https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=2h27m29s[7]

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. attend the official lighting ceremony: https://muninetworks.org/content/fiber-launch-event-ammon-oct-5th
  2. https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=35m30s: https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=35m30s
  3. https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=43m46s: https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=43m46s
  4. https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=47m38s: https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=47m38s
  5. https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=53m5s: https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=53m5s
  6. https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=1h14m20s: https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=1h14m20s
  7. https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=2h27m29s: https://youtu.be/YvBTjaoPRuc?t=2h27m29s
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/couldnt-make-it-to-ammon-idaho-christopher-mitchells-presentation-featured-in-videos/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/couldnt-make-it-to-ammon-idaho-christopher-mitchells-presentation-featured-in-videos/


Fiber for Key Industrial Areas Coming to Somerset County, Pennsylvania

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 6, 2017 6:47 am

Over the past several decades, the population of Somerset County, Pennsylvania[1], has incrementally jumped up and down, but today’s population is the same as it was in 1960. In order to boost economic development and encourage growth with more jobs, community leaders are deploying fiber for better connectivity in several industrial areas.

Financial Help For Fiber Connectivity

In May, U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced that they would provide[2] a $569,000 grant to the county to help fund the project. The EDA consider the project worth while because they expect the project to retain 20 existing jobs, generate 42 new jobs, and stimulate $25 million in private investment.

County officials intend to combine the EDA grant with an additional grant they received in January from the Appalachian Regional Commission. The ARC grant of almost $949,000 will allow Somerset County to dedicate approximately $1.5 million to run fiber four industrial parks. The County will match the grant award in order to fully fund the 22-mile network, which will expand existing Somerset County fiber infrastructure. View a map of the proposed expansion here[3].

Lack Of Meaningful Connectivity In Rural Pennsylvania

Recently, the County Board of Commissioners approved a contract with a firm[4] to oversee the project. Long-term goals are to improve connectivity for approximately 1,100 businesses and 3,900 households along with local community anchor institutions (CAIs) and other entities. Approximately 18 percent of the people in Somerset don’t have broadband as defined by the FCC (25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload) according to Form 477 data. The number is likely much higher, however, because Form 477 data tends to overstate coverage, especially in rural areas. Shortly after the county received the EDA award, two local Internet service providers expressed interest in delivering services via the new infrastructure.

The largest community is the county seat of Somerset with approximately 6,200 residents. The remaining boroughs and census-designated places vary in population from about 4,000 to less than 30. There are approximately 77,400 people scattered over the county’s 1,081 square miles along Pennsylvania’s southern border. Like many other rural areas, Somerset county’s low population density and widely dispersed population centers don’t appeal to national ISPs; they view such an environment as not worth investment. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Somerset County, Pennsylvania: http://www.co.somerset.pa.us/
  2. announced that they would provide: https://www.eda.gov/news/press-releases/2017/05/01/pa.htm
  3. map of the proposed expansion here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-Somerset-County-PA-fiber-expansion-plan-map.pdf
  4. approved a contract with a firm: http://www.tribdem.com/news/somerset-moves-forward-on-fiber-optic-expansion/article_6f375eca-a8ad-11e7-b1ec-f7f42b059370.html
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/fiber-for-key-industrial-areas-coming-to-somerset-county-pennsylvania/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fiber-for-key-industrial-areas-coming-to-somerset-county-pennsylvania/


Beating the Monopolies: Barry Lynn Explains How We Will Win (Episode 30)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | October 5, 2017 12:00 pm

Barry Lynn, head of the Open Markets Institute[5], has some good news for those concerned about concentrated corporate power and the implications for our livelihoods and our democracy: “We will win”.

In this episode of the Building Local Power[6] podcast, ILSR Co-director Stacy Mitchell[7] interviews Lynn about the changes in policy that gave rise to today’s monopolies, including the tech super-giants — Google, Facebook, and Amazon. And they talk about how a new movement to break up these monopolies is fast gaining momentum.

We let this episode run long, because there’s a lot to discuss. Mitchell and Lynn delve deep into the history of anti-monopoly policy in the United States, including the changes in antitrust enforcement in the 1980s that brought us to where we are today. And then they talk about where we go from here. Lynn outlines a one-two punch for wresting our country back from monopoly control: 1) We must see ourselves and assert our identity as citizens and not as consumers, and 2) We must talk about concentrated power and encourage our community leaders and elected officials to do the same.

“We are going to win. We are going to break up Google, Facebook, and Amazon. We are going to take on these other powers. The issue at this point is not, ‘Are we going to do it? Can we do it?’

The Open Markets Institute’s Barry Lynn visits ILSR’s Washington D.C. office to record this episode of the Building Local Power podcast.

We are going to do it,” says Barry Lynn of our current moment of reckoning.

He continues: “It’s just a matter of when and how. The American people, when they wake up, when they see the problem in front of their face, when they see that fist that is balled right there, we have awesome capacities to respond. Working together, just using our common sense, because that’s all we need to beat these people with their ideologies, just our common sense and our ability to see the facts before us. At this moment of despair, when people see these awesome concentrations of power, the most important step we have taken it, and that is to recognize the problem.”

The Rise and Fall of the Word ‘Monopoly’ in American Life[8] — In this piece for The Atlantic, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell looks at the history of the anti-monopoly movement in the U.S., and how today, as economic concentration soars, monopoly could again be just the word we need.

Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction[9] — In his book, Barry Lynn “strips the camouflage from the secret world of twenty-first-century monopolies-neofeudalist empires whose sheer size, vast resources, and immense political power enable the people who control to direct virtually every major industry in America in an increasingly authoritarian manner.”

Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[10] — This report from ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell details how the United States is much less a nation of entrepreneurs than it was a generation ago. This report suggests that the decline of small businesses is owed, at least in part, to anticompetitive behavior by large, dominant corporations.

Democrats Must Become the Party of Freedom[11] — In this piece for Washington Monthly, Barry Lynn encourages a beaten and battered Democratic Party to re-embrace anti-monopoly policies to reinvigorate American liberty and beat back Trumpism.

The Monopolist’s Playbook: Strategies To Retain Overwhelming Economic Power – Episode 21 of the Building Local Power Podcast[12] — In this podcast, ILSR researchers detail how monopoly power exerts itself in a number of different sectors of the American economy, such as: energy, Internet connectivity, and retail.

Open Markets Institute[5] — The relaunched, independent website of The Open Markets Institute details the organization Barry Lynn leads to reclaim American liberty from concentrated corporate control.

Report: How Amazon’s Tightening Grip on the Economy Is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities[13] — In this comprehensive report, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and Olivia LaVecchia detail the history of Amazon and its quest for millions in public subsidies and growth throughout the economy.

Stacy Mitchell: Hello. Welcome to Building Local Power. I’m Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We have a very special show with you today. My guest is Barry Lynn. Barry, I think it’s fair to say, is the founding father of today’s fast-growing movement against monopolies. Barry’s been working on this issue for more than 15 years. In that time, he’s been the Paul Revere, warning us of the dangers of concentrated economic power, and the Thomas Jefferson, articulating a framework for understanding and responding to this threat, and the Abigail Adams, quietly influencing the thinking of those around him.

The result is that there is a new movement afoot that seeks to wrest control of our country back from corporate monopolies and is gaining momentum. Today on the show, Barry and I are going to talk first about how we got to this point, and then turn to the important question of where we go from here. I first met Barry 10 years ago, when I had just published a book called Big Box Swindle, about how Walmart and other big retailers were taking over our economy. One of the central things I explored in that book was this question of what the hell had happened to our antitrust laws? At the time, Walmart was marching across the country, and it was employing tactics like predatory pricing and price discrimination to crush the competition. These tactics are illegal. I looked up the laws, and yet the laws weren’t being used to check Walmart’s power.

The same year I published that book, Barry wrote a terrific essay in Harper’s Magazine called Breaking the Chains: the Antitrust Case Against Walmart. Barry and I found we had a lot to talk about. In 2010, Barry produced a book that’s a favorite of ours here at ILSR. It’s called Cornered: the New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction. He then went on to write a series of deeply-reported articles about how monopolies are pushing down wages, stifling innovation, and killing job creation. His pieces have also tracked the political currents around monopoly policy, including how the Democratic Party had lost its way on this issue, and how that failure may have contributed to the election of Donald Trump.

Barry published many of his most important pieces in Washington Monthly, an underappreciated magazine that should be in your rotation if it’s not already. Barry is the executive director of the Open Markets Institute. He joins us today from our Washington, DC office. Barry, welcome to the show.

Barry Lynn: Thank you. Great to be here. I must say, you have been working with me for pretty much since the beginning, so I did help to pioneer this, but I think you get just about equal credit for pioneering where we are today.
Stacy Mitchell: Well, that’s too kind of you, but I appreciate it. It’s been just so terrific to see this really take off in the last few months. Now the real work begins, right? It’s good. I want to ask, I talked a little bit in the intro about how I came to be thinking about this issue. I want to ask how you came to be thinking about it.
Barry Lynn: Yeah. I came to think about or actually see America’s concentration problem, America’s monopoly problem, in somewhat of a roundabout way. I run, used to run a magazine called Global Business, and this was back in the 1990s. This was a major magazine back in those days. What I did is I had never studied anything about concentration. I hadn’t studied competition policy, but what got me walking down this pathway was there was an earthquake in Taiwan in 1999, in September 21, and there was a disruption to the production system. All of a sudden, all these factories in the United States shut down. I said, “Well, why did these factories shut down in the United States when there’s an earthquake in Taiwan, on the other side of the world?”

It turned out that all the certain kind of semiconductor was being made in this one town in Taiwan named [Sinju 00:04:05] and then being exported out to all the rest of the world. In essence, what I saw with that one earthquake was that human beings as a society, we put all of these really important eggs in one basket. It was at that moment, and I wrote a first book, which is called End of the Line, and that was about supply chain crashes, and it was about the effects of concentration on the functioning of complex systems.

What I really came to understand in writing that first book, this really was a too-big-to-fail-type thesis that I was dealing with, was that the reason that we saw this cascading failure of a supply system was because everything had been concentrated in one place. That’s what led me to look at the changes in how, especially here in the United States, but also people all around the world, did their competition policy, how we think about monopoly, how we protect ourselves against monopoly, or, as the case actually is, how we don’t protect ourselves against monopoly or the concentration of risk the way we used to.

Stacy Mitchell: It’s really interesting about these hidden monopolies in the supply chain, because I think most people, they encounter some monopolies in their lives that they recognize for what they are, maybe the cable company, I think 75% of all households have at most one choice for broadband internet. They see it in the airlines, especially if you live in a small city like I do, where you have one choice about which airline to fly to a given destination. Maybe they see Walmart’s power.

One of the things you’ve written about are all these things that are hidden monopolies to people. You talked a little bit about the supply chain ones, but there are other kinds of hidden monopolies that live behind what seems like a lot of choice, the sort of veneer of choice. Can you talk about what some of those are?

Barry Lynn: Yeah. There’s one that I wrote about in Cornered. This is a story that’s gotten a lot of attention, actually, including last night on John Oliver. What I wrote about was this company called Luxottica, which is an eyeglass manufacturer, but they’re actually a lot more than being an eyeglass manufacturer, because what happened is they realized that, in order to sell more eyeglasses, one way to do that would be to buy up all of the retailers. At some point, more than a decade ago, this Italian company called Luxottica came to the United States, and they started to buy a whole bunch of retailers. They bought LensCrafters. They bought Pearl Vision. They provided services to all the federated stores, Macy’s. They provide eyeglass services for all of the Target stores. They own Sunglass Hut.

Here’s a company where, if you go to the mall, because people still tend to buy their glasses in a physical location, you walk around in your town, you may see a whole bunch of different places selling eyeglasses, but what you don’t know is that they’re all owned by this one company called Luxottica. Luxottica is steering all of your business to their factories, so that the entire sense that you have that you are operating within an open market and there’s competition for your business is a myth. It’s an illusion.

Stacy Mitchell: It’s amazing. The supermarket ones also are phenomenal to me. You walk down the dairy aisle and you think, “Oh, I have all these choices for milk.” You walk down the beer aisle and you think, “Oh, I have all these choices.” It turns out all those brands are owned essentially by two companies, right?
Barry Lynn: Yes. There’s really two companies that control almost all of the milk business in the United States. In many cases, they trade off their control, so that if you go into one particular store, you may just be dealing with one particular company. I remember going into this one Walmart, this is down in Tennessee, and there were maybe eight different brands of milk. When I left, I wrote down all of those different … Every one of those brand names, I wrote it down. Then, when I left, I started Googling. I discovered that every one of those brands was all controlled by just one company. All that milk, at all these different price points, it was all being sold by one company.
Stacy Mitchell: It’s amazing. I think one of the things I really like about your work is that you’ve helped us recover a history that had been lost. We have this incredibly robust anti-monopoly history, and yet, from the view of today, a lot of that history has been obscured or lost. The example that, when I was working on Big Box Swindle and first really looking into this issue, I went back to look at the origins of the country, and the stuff that the Founding Fathers said, and so on. I was really … The Boston Tea Party was the one that so struck me at that time. I ended up writing about it in the book, because it’s this story that we all learn about how the colonists didn’t like taxes, and so they dumped tea into the harbor, right?

But no. It turns out that, in fact, there’s this big company, the East India Company, the global conglomerate of its time, which, as all monopolies do, had a very close relationship with the British Parliament, and had gotten itself into trouble through some bad choices that it made. It was losing money, in danger of going under, and Parliament stepped in and said, “Well, we’ll lift the duty on taxes. You can go sell all your tea in the American colonies. We’ll charge all those local tea merchants over there taxes, but you don’t have to pay them.” When the colonists went and dumped 46 tons of tea into Boston harbor, it was really a protest about monopoly, about corporate power, and about the relationship between corporate power and political power.

That was so eye-opening for me to discover. Then in reading your work over the years, learned more and more about how this history has actually played out, and that the period that we’ve been living in for the last 30 years, 40 years or so, is really a departure. I was wondering if you could help our listeners by telling us how our federal antitrust policies initially came about, which I think the earliest ones at the federal level are really in the 19th century, and before that, economic power had been controlled at the state level. What was it that led to the national policies, and what are the key milestones in that process of building up those laws?

Barry Lynn: As you mentioned, America, in many respects, was born out of rebellion against monopoly, the British East India Company. There are letters from 1773, signed by people like Sam Adams and John Hancock, in which they’re saying, “The problem with this company is not simply that they’re screwing with our commerce. The problem with this company is that they are a threat to our liberties.” America, in many respects, was born out of rebellion against monopoly, was born to … People created the country to ensure that they had liberty as individuals to sell their own products and their own labor to anyone that they wanted to within their own societies, in open markets.

At the beginning, the idea was, “No one is going to tell me who I can sell my goods to and my labor to, and no one is going to tell me at what prices. We’re going to just figure it out among our own selves. Liberty.” Over time, we kind of understood that monopoly was also a threat to our democracy, our democratic institutions. You allow people to concentrate wealth, concentrate power, concentrate control, and when you allow that, then your democratic institutions are almost inevitably put at risk, so we’re going to fight monopoly to preserve democracy.

Over time, Americans also understood, and this is actually what your institution is doing such a great job of promoting this idea today, is that communities, Americans wanted each community to be self-governing, the people in each, every community to govern the commerce within that community. Monopoly, people understood, was a threat to the sovereignty of the people within a community, our ability to do with our community what we will.

Americans did a fantastic job over most of our history at preserving liberty, democracy, community, through the use of anti-monopoly law. As you mentioned, initially, this was easy to do at the state level, at the local level. What happened over time is that new technologies came along, the railroad, the telegraph, and this allowed people to project power over space in ways that had not been possible before. Thanks to the railroad, thanks to the telegraph, you saw these corporate powers escape the control of state powers that had … The state powers that had regulated them up to that point.

In the 1888, 1890, you saw a set of the first federal anti-monopoly laws being passed. The first ones were … The Interstate Commerce Act was designed to protect people who were shipping things from the power of the railroads. The second one was the Sherman Antitrust Act, and that was in 1890. That was a more general anti-monopoly law. That was designed to break what people saw as cartels, which were, at that point, were the first real super-corporations, in which people would blend multiple corporations into a single entity. That was, from that point forward, most anti-monopoly policy has been pursued at the federal level, because most commerce in the United States takes across state borders.

Stacy Mitchell: We often talk about Teddy Roosevelt as being a trustbuster, but I think there are some later presidents that actually maybe even had a more influential role. Who stands out in your mind?
Barry Lynn: The people who were most responsible for the modern anti-monopoly regime, the regime that was in place through most of the 20th century, that was Justice Luis Brandeis. Brandeis was put onto the court by President Wilson. He was appointed to the court by President Wilson in 1916. In 1912 and 1913, Brandeis was a close advisor to candidate Wilson and then President Wilson. Together, the two of them really established a language. They resurrected, renovated, updated, modernized the language of Jefferson and Madison for the Industrial era, of the 20th century.

Then, in the 1930s, we had a couple of other people who were major players in this. There were many people, but two others who were really important were FDR … Franklin Roosevelt was, in a way that … More so than almost any of his advisors, really understood anti-monopoly, and just delivered some of the most important speeches and pursued some of the most important actions in the 1930s. All together, by the end of the 1930s, you had in place the regime that would remain in place until Ronald Reagan began to take it apart in the early 1980s. It was that regime, that antitrust system that was put in place beginning more than 100 years ago with the election of 1912, really accelerating in the 1930s, that approach to competition policy, to breaking up power, neutralizing power, that was more than anything else responsible for the fantastic prosperity and spread of liberty that we saw in the United States through the heart of the 20th century.

Stacy Mitchell: All those fat decades of the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, that’s the period when anti-monopoly policy is at its strongest, right? Talk about how that unraveled, because here you had these really solid public policies that served these deeply-held core values of liberty, of equality, of democracy, and they worked. You had an economy that did quite well, with a lot of innovation, rising middle class, shrinking gap between the rich and poor, women and people of color still not fully allowed in, but making big progress in those years. Anti-monopoly wasn’t maybe the only factor, but it clearly was a huge one, so how is it that, given that history and the effectiveness of those policies, how did that begin to come undone? How do we get to Reagan’s election, and he can flip a switch and turn these things off and no one does anything about it?
Barry Lynn: That’s a great question. That’s really the key question to understanding what went wrong in America. We know that in the early days of the Reagan administration, he and his people targeted unions. That was a big deal. Unions are actually part of competition policy. The idea is like, “We’re going to make it easier for the worker to get together and join his or her labor with his or her colleagues in a way that allows them to equalize their bargaining power with a corporation. That’s always been part of competition policy properly understood. The Reagan people went after unions right at the beginning. We know that. We’ve told that story, but what they also did, and this is the story we haven’t talked about, is they went after anti-monopoly pretty much as we had done it in America going back to 1773.

What they said is, “Rather than using our anti-monopoly law to protect our liberty, to protect our democracy, to protect our communities, to protect innovation, we should use anti-monopoly law to promote our welfare as consumers. The result of promoting our welfare as consumers is that we’re going to get more stuff. We’re going to get more material things. The way to measure that, we’re going to measure it by price. Actually, we’re not even going to really measure it. We’re just going to take people’s word for it. If you come to us and you say, ‘We’re going to make a merger,’ and you can make a reasonable case that a merger is going to … That you’re going to use the power from this merger to cut prices, we’re going to let you do that merger. If you happen to grow organically the way Walmart did, we’re going to leave you alone, as long as you make this case that you’re lowering prices.”

Just kind of at a stroke, they did this by just changing the guidelines that are used to interpret all anti-monopoly laws. They changed the philosophy that we use to understand our anti-monopoly laws. At a stroke, they just took this whole rich body of law and they turned it on its head, and they essentially turned it into a tool of the monopolists, of he who seeks to concentrate power and control over others.

Stacy Mitchell: As long as those companies are offering a veneer of choice and the appearance of low prices, at least in the short time, we traded our liberty, our democracy, and all of the rest of it for that.
Barry Lynn: All the rest of it, all the things that America was built to protect, everything that was most important for the citizen, we traded all that away for a few pennies worth of stuff.
Stacy Mitchell: Where was Congress when this was happening? Partly, where was the Democratic Party, but also, there were Republicans who got this stuff too. We have a history of at least some conservatives being supporters of this, so how did Reagan do this and what was Congress up to at the time? Did they just miss it, or did they … What happened?
Barry Lynn: That’s a great question, because it’s like, “How do we miss this kind of revolution?” Here we had this revolution in America back in 1773, and we studied that. When we think about it, it was revolution against monopoly. 200 years later, a group of people came in and engaged in a counter-revolution to overturn the prohibitions against monopoly in ways that would allow the rich and the powerful to concentrate control over the rest of us. There were a number of people in Congress who noticed that something was up. There was a group of senators, Howard Metzenbaum was one of them, Arlen Specter, a Republican, who said, “Hey, what is going on here? This is outrageous. This is wrong. We have to do something about it.” They were not able to concentrate sufficient power to stand up to the Reagan administration at that time.

One of the reasons, and this is an important factor, is one of the confounding factors was that when the Chicago Schoolers on the right, when the people promoting consumer welfare came to this in the Republican party and promoted these changes in the Reagan administration, there was a group of folks on the left who said, “Amen.” This was a group of folks that … It was really from the command-and-control Socialist left. It was the command-and-control left. You say, “Okay, when in American did we ever had a command-and-control left?” We actually had a very powerful intellectually and a very influential command-and-control left that in the 1960s and ’70s was led by a thinker, an economist, a writer who was very famous in those years called John Kenneth Galbraith.

John Kenneth Galbraith, his whole philosophy was that, well, what you do is you let the rich and the powerful concentrate control over entire parts of the political economy, and then we stick the government on top of it, and we make sure, we use experts to regulate the system, to command the capitalists to do the right thing, and it all ends up good for the people. It was the command-and-control left provided the cover for the command-and-control right to concentrate the power that we have seen concentrated in this country.

Stacy Mitchell: You’re listening to Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, and a leading thinker on anti-monopoly. I’m Stacy Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We’ll be right back with more of this conversation after a short break.

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When all those changes happened in the ’80s, and there was this revolution on how we looked at antitrust from a policy perspective, Reagan, Galbraith, all of that, it’s amazing how much that ideology blinds people in power to what’s really going on, or at least gives them cover not to look. What’s so striking to me about this issue is how much people on the ground, how much small business owners, farmers, and others out there encounter monopoly power all the time. I hear it from all sorts of people. I’m sure you talk to people all over the country for whom this is true. Whether they’re brewing beer, or driving a taxi cab, or whatever it may be, they are at the losing end of monopolies who are simply using their size and power to crush competition and do so in ways that harm our welfare across the board.

Yet federal regulators, people in power, have this ideological view that allows them to live in I think a kind of fantasy land where these things aren’t actually happening. They allow their ideology to form how they see the world, as opposed to allowing reality to inform how they think about the world. This has been going on for a long time, where small business owners have been dismissed, but it seems like reality is maybe beginning to overwhelm this misguided set of notions that have overwhelmed policy for so long.

Barry Lynn: Yeah. No, absolutely. We are seeing change, real change for the first time. What is that change? Actually, the most important part of that change is seeing the monopoly problem. To put it bluntly, what it is is seeing that this is concentrated power that we are facing. This is not an economic problem. It’s a political-economic problem. Our rights are being taken from us. As I mentioned before, our liberty is being taken from us. Our democracy is being destroyed. When monopolists concentrate power, they are basically concentrating a fist, and they are putting that fist in our face. They’re using that fist to make us cower. They’re using that fist to make us accept lower wages. They use that fist to force higher prices on us. They use that fist to get us to work longer hours. They use that fist to push bad drugs on our children. Monopolists use that fist to kill people, and they use that fist to concentrate more and more control in their own hands.

Now, what the economists of the last generation did, what the Chicago Schoolers did, the real magic that they managed to achieve is, when they came in with this consumer welfare frame that we talked about, is one of the things they did is when they were creating the consumer welfare frame, they basically managed to lop of the word political from political economy. They said, “In this new world, that antitrust, it’s not a matter of politics. It’s not a matter of people using our combined power of our votes and our voices to affect the world around us through Congress. This is entirely a matter of science. When we’re trying to promote our interests as consumers, we have to approach this scientifically, and we need to have specially trained economists and lawyers study this. No one else should actually be involved in this.”

Actually, you can look at this. Robert Bork, who is the father of this whole movement, in his book, the Antitrust Paradox, right at the beginning, it says, “This is a science,” and basically, asserting that it was a science, “The goal of this,” and they actually achieved this goal, was “to hide the fist” that was in our face. Here we have been, for 30 years, beaten, day after day by these people who have concentrated power against us, and they use that power against us. Yet, somehow, these people have tricked us into not seeing the fist that is beating us.

Now, thank goodness the American people at last and many of our representatives in Congress are waking up to the fact that this fist of power has been concentrated against us. As you said, it’s like, at a certain point, just the mere facts gets up to … The pile of facts is so large that you just cannot ignore it anymore. We’re now at the point where the pile of facts is such that the American people and our representatives are waking up and seeing that this whole ideology that was conjured out of nothing and used to trick us into giving up these tools that we had built over the course of 200 years, that was a giant lie. We’re starting to form our own fingers into a fist. 

Stacy Mitchell: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Why do you think the issue of monopoly has caught fire right now? What is that pile of reality that is catching up on this issue?
Barry Lynn: There’s a whole bunch of … You and I have been doing this for a long time, and we’ve seen all these different effects. We know that it means higher prices for certain goods, and it means less choice. When you teach people … You’ve been doing journalism and outreach, and your team has written really terrifically important papers, like that big report you did on Amazon. Getting these papers published, getting them out there, connecting them together with other people’s papers, just providing the facts for people to see by themselves, providing analysis for people to see, all the work that you have been doing, and that members of my team has been doing, and other teams around Washington and around America, that preponderance of fact that we have built up is having a real effect.

This has been the muckraking period. We’ve all been raking the muck and pulling the truth out of the muck, and now, at this point, people see it. Before you can ever really deal with the problem, you have to see it. That’s where we are now, is we’re at the point where people see the problem. The other fact that is really starting to have an effect is, 10 years ago, you and I were talking about Walmart, but there were still a lot of different sectors of the political economy in which there were large companies. What we’re now seeing is a whole second stage of monopolization in which three giants, supergiants, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are concentrating power that even makes Walmart scared.

Stacy Mitchell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Barry Lynn: There’s this whole second stage of consolidation that is taking place today that is leading to a number of people to say, “Not only do we have a problem, but given the power these companies have, we better start acting now.”
Stacy Mitchell: It’s also striking how bad the economy is for most people. I say that mindful of your right thinking that this is really ultimately an issue about power and about controlling the future of our communities. I think both of those things out there, both the sense that we have lost control over our own destinies at the local level, that we no longer have in our communities the capacity and the authority to shape our own future, I think a lot of the despair that’s out there is being driven by that.

It’s also striking as well these deep problems in the economy, whether it’s the failure to generate enough jobs, or how precarious so many of those jobs are. People working in the gig economy, doing two hour stints delivering packages for Amazon, they’re paid by a piece rate to do that. The fact that productivity has slowed, that corporations aren’t actually investing the way that they used to, you can look at all of these big measures, and things are not looking good, even though we’re supposedly at the height of a recovery period.

I think it’s one of the most interesting things that’s happened in recent years, is that the economists are beginning to recognize what’s going on, because none of the other explanations that they might offer up for these challenges really hold water, right? When you look at it, all of this seems to point back to concentration.

Barry Lynn: No, absolutely. It has gotten to the point where even, as you said, the economists are recognizing that we have a problem, which is quite … That is an achievement in itself. Something I want to make clear here is that we are going to win. We are going to break up Google, Facebook, and Amazon. We are going to take on these other powers. The issue at this point is not, “Are we going to do it? Can we do it?” We are going to do it. It’s just a matter of when and how.

The American people, when they wake up, when they see the problem in front of their face, when they see that fist that is balled right there, we have awesome capacities to respond, working together, just using our common sense, because that’s all we need to beat these people with their ideologies, just our common sense and our ability to see the fist before us, to see the facts before us.

At this moment of despair, when people see these awesome concentrations of power, the most important step we have taken it, and that is to recognize the problem. Once we have recognized the problem, once we have woken up from that ideology, I don’t know when ultimate victory will be at hand, but ultimate victory is in the future.

Stacy Mitchell: That’s great. I’m glad you have that kind of confidence. I have to say, one of the most encouraging things in recent months has been this attention on the big tech companies, on Google, and Facebook, and Amazon, because for a long time, I feel like we … People had this understanding of the bad monopolies. You could put your cable provider in there, your internet service in there, companies that really everyone hates, right? All the way around, they’re just awful.

Then there were these sort of good monopolies in a lot of people’s eyes, Google being one, Amazon being another. It’s been so nice to see that that’s finally breaking down, that people are, in fact, a lot of people, are very nervous about the power that they have, and that there’s this sense I think that’s beginning to drive a shift, where people are setting aside that consumer identity that has held us back for so long and beginning to recognize how these companies ultimately govern us in a way, and that it has everything to do with our livelihoods and our liberty. It’s really … I guess I’m genuinely surprised that this has happened. I thought it would take a lot more work for the conversation to turn on these guys.

Barry Lynn: Having just lived through this, because we were at … My Open Markets unit, institute, was until recently the Open Markets Program at New America, which was, is, a think tank here in DC. We just lived through an experience in which, back in June, we applauded this decision by the head of antitrust of the European Union, the decision that that person brought, Margaret Vestager, against Google. We said, “Hey, this was a good decision, and American regulators should learn from this decision and improve on it, build on it.”

The result of that was, within a couple days, my entire team was asked to leave New America. It was asked to leave New America because Google, a bunch of people, it wasn’t just one person, but a variety of people at Google brought real pressure to bear against the leadership in New America. That leadership buckled. We were shown the door. That ended up in the press, and one of the things that happened is just a phenomenal outpouring of support, just way beyond anything we expected, way beyond what anything that the communications people that we had worked with had expected.

What that really illustrates is that there is an absolute hunger out there. One, is there is real terror out there of these companies, but there’s also a hunger among people to stand up to them. Now, where is that coming from? One of the things that is at play is the Facebook fake news story, the Russian propaganda story. That’s educated a whole lot of people. Another issue is Amazon Whole Foods. Okay. Amazon, well, Amazon told us that retail was dead, physical retail was dead. We didn’t need to be in physical retail. It’s like, the whole was going to go virtual. Well, now, all of the sudden, they’ve made this sideways jump into the real world, and they seem to be intending to do a lot more of that. They’re setting up stores all over the place. They’re setting up stores inside of Kohl’s department stores.

You got Amazon owning Whole Foods. You got Amazon stores in a bunch of malls. You got Amazon inside of Kohl’s. Where does it stop? Is Amazon going to control all of commerce online and all of commerce in the real world? I think suddenly people are saying, “Well, golly. Maybe there’s something else going on here. Maybe this isn’t a pure technological play. Maybe this is actually just a monopoly play like we’ve seen before. Maybe, if we don’t do something about it soon, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

Another thing is there’s a growing concern among a bunch of companies about the power that Google has, power, not just over commerce, not just over our data, but actually over the newspapers that we rely on, control over the news magazines that we rely on. That Google and Facebook together, they control to a very large degree, the flow of news between the publisher and the reader, between the reporter and the reader, the author and the reader. In America, we have never before allowed for any couple of companies to have that kind of control over the flow of information from citizen to citizen that we see today.

People are seeing this in their lives in all these different ways, and every time they wake up to one problem, it helps them see other problems. It’s a cumulative thing, and that’s what makes sudden change possible, because the knowledge builds on knowledge, awareness builds on awareness, facts build on facts. What we’re seeing is, in America today, this awakening of the citizenry and of our leaders, and we are not going back to sleep again.

Stacy Mitchell: I love that. Sudden change is possible. Looking ahead at the coming months and years, what do you think is most important for us to do right now? If you were advising members of Congress, and if you’re out talking to ordinary citizens who are passionate about this issue and want to do something, and all the people you talk to, what is it that we should be doing? What’s the most important thing to have happen next?
Barry Lynn: I think the most important, you and I have talked about this, is actually it has to do with how we see ourselves. We have to see ourselves as citizens foremost, not as consumers. For the last 35 years, really powerful people have tried to take us, and put us in a box, and call us consumers. They actually wrote that into the law. They scratched out, back in 1982, they scratched out the word citizen, and they wrote in the word consumer into our antitrust law, and that changed both how we are seen by the law and how we see ourselves to a large degree.

The first thing we have to say is, “I’m not a consumer. I am a citizen. I produce things. I produce labor. I produce goods. I produce ideas. I will have open and free markets into which to sell my goods, my ideas, my labor. There will be competition for my goods, my ideas, for my labor, and there will be no intermediary standing between me and my neighbors telling us how to do business with one another, just the way Sam Adams and John Hancock said back in 1773.” That’s the first thing we have to do.

The second thing is, for anyone who’s in a position of authority, a position of power, a position of leadership, this could be within your community, within your town, within your church, is just go out there and talk about this. You don’t have to figure out what the fixes are. There’s going to be a thousand fixes. There’s going to be 10,000 fixes. That’s the beauty of antitrust law, of anti-monopoly law, is we have an immense number of tools that we can bring to bear. What we have to do is see the problem, and help our fellows see the problem. We have to make it safe for other people on the Hill, on Capitol Hill, to talk about this.

If you’re on Capitol Hill, and we have a number of people who are taking the leadership roles in this, they need to speak about it more and more, and more and more powerfully, no matter who comes at them, no matter how hard the other folks come at them. Speak about it. Every time you speak about it, you make it easier for your fellows and your neighbors to speak about it. Every time they speak about it, it makes it easier for you to speak about it. Admit we have a problem. Talk about it. Make it normal, and we will fix it.

Stacy Mitchell: One of the people in Congress who has been an outspoken leader on this issue early is Elizabeth Warren. She gave a speech back in the spring of 2016, the spring of last year. You’ve called it the most important speech by someone at that level in 80 years on antitrust. It was widely covered. Time Magazine’s headline was “Elizabeth Warren says Google, Apple, and Amazon snuff out competition.” I actually thought one of the most radical parts of that speech went under the radar in some ways, which was how much Elizabeth Warren talked about markets.

She opens the speech and she says, “I love markets. Strong, healthy markets are a key to a strong, healthy America.” She talks about small businesses throughout that speech, over and over again. She ends, near the end of it, she says, “Competitive markets generate so many benefits on their own that the government’s only role in those markets should be simple and structural: Prevent cheating, protect tax-payers, and maintain competition.” Do you think the left heard what she was saying?

Here she is, the leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic party. When we think about the progressive wing is about, it’s about raising the minimum wage, about having a strong social safety net, about taxing the rich and making sure that that’s redistributed out, all things that Elizabeth Warren very much strongly supports, I should say. But progressives, for a long time, have been more about fixing what the economy does to people after the fact, and what Elizabeth Warren here is saying, “We ought to structure the economy from the get-go in a way that actually allows people to have the liberty and the equality straight out of the very structure of the economy itself.” Do you think people heard that?

Barry Lynn: I think a lot of people heard that. I think more people are hearing that every day. Part of what the Chicago Schoolers did on the right a generation ago, they kind of came up with this idea that markets are not so much things that people make in society, that they use laws and policies to make a market, but that markets are these kind of forces that exist outside of society, that society exists within the marketplace.

Now, a lot of folks on the left, a lot of well-meaning people, a lot of people who consider themselves liberals or progressives, have fallen for this lie that society exists within this thing called the market, that the market is like nature, that the market is like weather. It’s like, there is no such force out there that is the market. Markets are the institutions that human beings make to regulate how human beings compete one with another. If you structure a market well, it allows you to compete constructively, to actually bring new ideas and new techniques to bear so that we make more stuff for each other.

The other thing that markets do is markets are a pathway to freedom. If we structure a market well, in doing so, we provide liberty to ourselves, to our neighbors, to our children, to our families, to trade their labor in ways that ensure that they’re not dependent on a boss, to run a business or a farm, an independent business or an independent farm, without fear that some Brazilian monopolist or some giant combine is going to come in and just put you out of work tomorrow, take away your property at a whim.

Markets are institutions that we make to provide us with liberty, and the left forgot that. Many people on the left, not all people, but many people on the left forgot that, and that’s in some ways one of the most important things that people have to learn, is that there is no such thing as a market that exists around us. Markets are things that we make to serve our fundamental interests.

Stacy Mitchell: Barry, this has been a terrific conversation. Thank you so much.
Barry Lynn: It’s been great to talk to you.
Stacy Mitchell: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website, ILSR.org, and clicking on the show page for this episode. That’s ILSR.org. While you’re there, you can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Once again, please help us out by rating this podcast and sharing it with your friends. This show is produced by Lisa Gonzales and Nick Stumo-Langer. Our theme music is Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_AL. For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I’m Stacy Mitchell. I hope you’ll join us again in two weeks for the next episode of Building Local Power.

 

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Endnotes:
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  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Open Markets Institute: https://openmarketsinstitute.org/
  6. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  7. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym
  8. The Rise and Fall of the Word ‘Monopoly’ in American Life: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/word-monopoly-antitrust/530169/
  9. Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780470928561
  10. Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  11. Democrats Must Become the Party of Freedom: http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/januaryfebruary-2017/democrats-must-become-the-party-of-freedom/
  12. The Monopolist’s Playbook: Strategies To Retain Overwhelming Economic Power – Episode 21 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/monopolists-playbook-episode-21-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  13. Report: How Amazon’s Tightening Grip on the Economy Is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold
  14. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  15. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  17. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  18. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  19. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
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Lessons Learned: “Not Feasible” Could Reflect Consultant, Not Your Community Network

by Christopher Mitchell | October 3, 2017 5:03 am

To be fair, “not feasible” could also mean that you are asking the wrong questions. Nothing rules out that the problem lies with both the consultant AND the questions. It’s hard to tell from the outside which of these factors dominates.

An Incomplete Path

For years, Iowa’s Decorah has been considering a municipal fiber network and local folks have been educating people on the possibilities. With so many other communities in Iowa moving forward successfully with projects, one would have thought Decorah might snag one of the consultants involved in those. It went instead with Uptown Services.

We generally don’t name consultants unless we feel compelled to on this site but Uptown Services was also the consultant the last time I saw such a poor feasibility that I couldn’t avoid writing about it[1] – in Hillsboro, Oregon. They were also the consultant for Provo, Utah; Alameda, California; Salisbury, North Carolina; and other networks that have encountered significant challenges in their business plans. We don’t know what role, if any, the consultants played in their struggles and, to be fair, Uptown Services has contracted with networks that have avoided any serious pitfalls.

I have no way of evaluating the many services they provide, but I can say that cities looking for feasibility analysis and early guidance in how to improve Internet access in a community should carefully consider their track record.

What upsets me is not that Uptown told Hillsboro and Decorah that a bond-financed rapid-deployment of citywide FTTH was too risky in their analysis. That may or may not be correct – and I deeply respect consultants that are willing to tell clients what they do not want to hear. The problem is that a consultant’s job should not be to say “yeah” or “nay” for one particular approach but rather to guide a community along a feasible path of improving Internet access.

logo-decorah-iowa.pngWe have seen examples of communities where they found building a citywide fiber network at once to be too risky for their appetite. Rather than giving up and foregoing the essential benefits of high-quality Internet access in the modern era, they set about building an incremental or phased approach. See our interviews with Auburn, Indiana[2] and Erwin, Tennessee[3] for two solid examples. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. couldn’t avoid writing about it: https://muninetworks.org/content/want-gig-ask-consultants-right-questions
  2. Auburn, Indiana: https://muninetworks.org/content/indiana-auburn-built-fiber-network-incrementally-community-broadband-bits-episode-77
  3. Erwin, Tennessee: https://muninetworks.org/content/erwin-deploys-phased-fiber-plan-community-broadband-bits-235
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lessons-learned-not-feasible-could-reflect-consultant-not-your-community-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lessons-learned-not-feasible-could-reflect-consultant-not-your-community-network/


Fort Collins, Colo. Municipal Utility Ballot Language Lives Through Legal Challenge

by Matthew Marcus | October 2, 2017 5:46 am

The Fort Collins’ ballot measure that could amend the City Charter allowing high-speed Internet to become a municipal utility moves forward after a short legal scuffle. The question will be decided at the November 7th special election.

Failed Legal Petition

After the language of the ballot question was released following approval by City Hall, local activist Eric Sutherland filed a petition with Larimer County. Sutherland — well known for his numerous petitions wagered against the city, county and school district[1]— claimed that the language “failed to consider the public confusion that might be caused by misleading language”. Sutherland also insisted the proposed City Charter Amendment isn’t legal under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR)[2] amendment to the State Constitution. TABOR requires local governments to get voter approval to raise tax rates or spend revenue collected under existing tax rates.

Attorneys representing the city of Fort Collins rejected Sutherland’s claims[3] and maintained that the amendment isn’t covered by TABOR. A utility does not require voter approval to issue debt because it is legally defined as an enterprise, a government-owned business. Moreover, Fort Collins Chief Financial Officer Mike Beckstead testified[4] that the bonds would be backed by utility ratepayers, not tax revenue. City Council explained in a statement that they included the $150 million-dollar figure in the ballot language in an effort to maintain transparency and show the level of commitment a broadband utility could require from the municipality. By including the dollar amount in the ballot language, the Charter would also establish a limit on any debt.

District Court Judge Thomas French issued his ruling[5] on Sept. 4th, dismissing Sutherland’s arguments regarding TABOR and explained that “there are no legal grounds to cause the submission clause to be rewritten” and finally that “the intention behind the charter amendment is not to create debt but to authorize the council to approve a new utility.” The proposed amendment will proceed as planned, narrowly making the county’s Sept. 8th deadline for certifying the November ballot.

Ballot Question 2B[6], to be decided at the November 7th special election, asks:

City-Initiated Proposed Charter Amendment No. 1

Shall Article XII of the City of Fort Collins Charter be amended to allow, but not require, City Council to authorize, by ordinance and without a vote of the electors, the City’s electric utility or a separate telecommunications utility to provide telecommunication facilities and services, including the transmission of voice, data, graphics and video using broadband Internet facilities, to customers within and outside Fort Collins, whether directly or in whole or part through one or more third-party providers, and in exercising this authority, to: (1) issue securities and other debt, but in a total amount not to exceed $150,000,000; (2) set the customer charges for these facilities and services subject to the limitations in the Charter required for setting the customer charges of other City utilities; (3) go into executive session to consider matters pertaining to issues of competition in providing these facilities and services; (4) establish and delegate to a Council-appointed board or commission some or all of the Council’s governing authority and powers granted in this Charter amendment, but not the power to issue securities and other debt; and (5) delegate to the City Manager some or all of Council’s authority to set customer charges for telecommunication facilities and services?

Options for the Community

Almost two years ago, Fort Collins and 46 other cities and counties[7] voted to repeal SB 152, a 2005 law[8] that barred local authorities from offering Internet service themselves or with a private sector partner. Fort Collins is a thriving tech town, home to approximately 160,000 residents and the University of Colorado, but like so many towns, they’ve been relegated to a couple mediocre options for cable and DSL service.

logo-nextlight-lpc.pngWith this proposed amendment to the City Charter, Fort Collins is considering different connectivity models. A public-private partnership isn’t off the table but they’ve been gleaning insights from their neighbor Longmont[9], who’s begun offering gigabit connectivity[10] through their NextLight community-owned network[11].

Over the past few years, support from the community for reclaiming local telecommunications authority has grown in Fort Collins and all over the state. Voters in approximately 100 towns and counties have chosen to opt out of SB 152; more communities will raise the issue this fall[12]. Some communities have taken steps to improve local connectivity but many appear to be satisfied to have preserved the option. Loveland issued an RFP for a gigabit network earlier this month and Estes Park is in the engineering phase of their project.

Fort Collins had a tentative public-private partnership in its sight a few years back, but the project never moved past early discussions. This vote will give the city the option[13] to implement its own municipal telecommunications utility. The local debate over the high-speed Internet initiative is ongoing.

Further Deliberation

Last Thursday Colorado State University hosted a panel discussion[14] where both sides of the debate voiced their opinions regarding the nuances of the proposed plans. Following a presentation by Tim Tillson from the Fort Collins Citizen Broadband Committee, Vice President of IT at CSU, Patrick Burns, gave a poignant firsthand perspective as to why the innovation is needed:

“I think there’s a real need for this, for us and our residents and our homes. And there’s a real need for our businesses. I have businesses coming and knocking on my door, and they do this every year, and they say we’ve got these giant data sets and we can’t get enough Internet capacity bought from anybody to upload these giant data sets. ‘You’re connected to Internet, too, aren’t you CSU? Let us just put them on your servers and then we can upload them.’ But we can’t do that because we’re not allowed to compete with the private sector.”

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[15]. Read the original here[16].

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Endnotes:
  1. numerous petitions wagered against the city, county and school district: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2017/08/26/fort-collins-broadband-question-challenged/602654001/
  2. Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR): https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/treasury/constitutional-provisions-0
  3. rejected Sutherland’s claims: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2017/09/05/fort-collins-broadband-legal-hurdle/634963001/
  4. Chief Financial Officer Mike Beckstead testified: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2017/09/01/judge-decide-fort-collins-broadband-ballot-wording-issue/625995001/
  5. issued his ruling: https://www.law360.com/articles/961544/way-cleared-for-colo-town-s-broadband-ballot-proposal
  6. Ballot Question 2B: https://www.fcgov.com/cityclerk/elections2017nov.php
  7. 46 other cities and counties: https://muninetworks.org/content/voters-quiet-drums-polls-colorado
  8. 2005 law: http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2005a/csl.nsf/billcontainers/FA216226F45192FE87256F41007B483C/$FILE/152_enr.pdf
  9. Longmont: https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/longmont-power-communications/nextlight-broadband/rates-and-services-gig-promo
  10. offering gigabit connectivity: https://muninetworks.org/content/fort-collins-co-considering-november-ballot-measure
  11. NextLight community-owned network: https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/longmont-power-communications/broadband-service
  12. will raise the issue this fall: https://muninetworks.org/content/bring-ballots-two-more-colorado-communities-face-opt-out-question
  13. give the city the option: https://muninetworks.org/content/fort-collins-co-considering-november-ballot-measure
  14. panel discussion: https://echo360.org/media/b44e8e72-2eca-4997-86ab-af99fa0c273c/public
  15. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  16. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/fort-collins-colorado-ballot-language-lives-through-legal-challenge

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fort-collins-colo-municipal-utility-ballot-language-lives-through-legal-challenge/


California Lawmakers Vote Against Rural Constituents for High-Quality Broadband Access

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 29, 2017 6:46 am

California Legislators have turned on their constituents living in rural areas who want to participate in the 21st century online economy. What began as a move in the right direction – allocating substantial resources to funding high-speed Internet infrastructure – has become another opportunity to protect big incumbents. It’s twice as nice for Frontier and AT&T, because they will be paid big bucks to meet a low Internet access bar.

Discretionary Fund

Democrat Eduardo Garcia, the main author on Assembly Bill 1665, represents the Coachella Valley, a rural area in the southern area of the state near Palm Springs. Democrat Jim Wood coauthored with eight others. Wood represents coastal areas in the northern part of the state, which was passed during the eleventh hour of the 2017 legislative session. Wood’s district and region has obtained several grants from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) that have helped to improve local connectivity.

The CASF is much like CAF; both programs are funded through a surcharge on revenue collected by telecommunications carriers from subscribers. Since 2007, when California authorized the CASF, the legislature has amended the rules and requirements several times. Early on, CASF awards went primarily to smaller, local companies because large corporations such as AT&T and Frontier did not pursue the grants. Now that those behemoths have their eyes on CASF grants, they’ve found a way to push out the companies who need the funds and have shown that they want to provide better services to rural Californians.

AB 1665 allocates $300 million to Internet infrastructure investment and an additional $30 million to adoption and related local programs. Policy experts have criticized the legislation on several fronts. Consultant Steve Blum told CVIndependent[1]:

The incumbents (large corporate ISPs) including AT&T, Frontier and the California Cable and Telecommunications Association jumped in and said, ‘We want the bill to be X, Y and Z.’ … Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia took it and started adding language that reflected the desires of these cable and telephone company incumbents.

“The bill went through three revisions, and each time, more perks were added for the incumbents. So as it’s written now, AB 1665 is going to put $300 million into a CASF infrastructure grant account and make it virtually impossible for independent projects to be funded. Essentially, then, it becomes a fund for AT&T and Frontier to use at their discretion.”

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Steve Blum told CVIndependent: https://www.cvindependent.com/index.php/en-US/news/local-issues/item/4078-connected-at-a-cost-is-the-internet-for-all-now-act-a-lifeline-for-rural-communities-or-a-big-giveaway-to-the-telecom-industry
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/california-lawmakers-vote-against-rural-constituents-for-high-quality-broadband-access/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/california-lawmakers-vote-against-rural-constituents-for-high-quality-broadband-access/


ILSR Sponsors the 5th National Cultivating Community Composting Forum, Scholarship Fund Announced

by Brenda Platt | September 27, 2017 4:31 pm

placeholderIn collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle[1], the Institute for Local Self-Reliance announces two events to be held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show, COMPOST2018[2], in Atlanta:

Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop
Monday, January 22, 2018

 

Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2018
Tuesday, January 23, 2018

These events will bring together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community-scale composting systems and enterprises. The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2018 is the 5th national forum sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle. Check out last year’s event here[3].

Interested in sponsoring, exhibiting, or contributing to our scholarship fund? Click HERE[4]. Any amount is welcome!

[5]

Community composters, we invite your participation and input on the agenda! What topics or experts would you most like to hear from? Are you interested in presenting? What are your biggest challenges?

Limited scholarships are available to community composters! Apply by Tuesday, October 17. We have scholarships up to $500 to help offset COMPOST2018 registration fees, and travel and hotel costs. A limited number of community composters are also eligible to receive a waived registration fee (a $375 value) with a commitment to volunteer 8 hours at the COMPOST2018 conference.

TO APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP OR PROVIDE INPUT ON AGENDA AND TOPICS, CLICK HERE[6].

[7]

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/
  2. COMPOST2018: https://compostconference.com
  3. here: https://ilsr.org/notes-from-ccc2017/
  4. HERE: https://ilsr.org/support-composting-forum/
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/support-composting-forum/
  6. HERE: https://form.jotform.us/72694758084168
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CCC-Forum-2017-Group-Shot.jpg
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-scholarships/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ccc-2018-scholarships/


PURPA: A Quiet Death or Longer Life After 40 Years of Wholesale Electricity Competition?

by John Farrell | September 27, 2017 12:29 pm

This article was originally published in Greentech Media[1] on September 18th, 2017.

In the first week of September, a U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee held hearings questioning a 40-year-old law that forms the bedrock of competition in the electricity market.

Before the law took effect, electric utilities had a complete monopoly over electricity generation. In 1978, after some spectacular cost overruns by incumbent utilities, the passage of Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) introduced competition.

Is a law passed in the era of shag carpeting and monster sideburns just as unfashionable in 2017?

If the list of testifiers was representative of utility customer interests, you might think so. But electricity markets are no less in need of competition in 2017 than they were in 1978. In fact, customers may pay a big price without it.

A bit of background

There’s much more detail in the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s recent overview of PURPA[2], but the law’s basic concept is that utilities must buy power from renewable energy sources or “co-generation” facilities (that produce both electricity and heat for sale) if it’s competitive with their own supplies. Think of it as the utility planning to buy a burger and fries for $5.00. If someone else can offer the utility the same lunch for less, then PURPA requires that they buy it, because it saves everyone money.

PURPA was designed to avoid utility cost overruns, particularly at nuclear power plants, if they built too much at too big a scale. It targeted market opportunities for medium-scale power generation — projects 80 megawatts or smaller (most full-scale power plants are 500 megawatts or more).

PURPA still serves a purpose

In the 1990s, Congress passed additional legislation to open the transmission system, allowing non-utilities to build power plants and sell that power elsewhere. Further changes created regional “balancing” markets run by independent system operators that allow for even more robust competition. A map of existing operators is shown below.

[3]

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Greentech Media: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-quiet-death-or-longer-life-after-40-years-of-wholesale-electricity-compet#gs.NfVtT3I
  2. overview of PURPA: https://ilsr.org/an-overlooked-solution-for-competitive-and-local-renewable-power/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/RTO_Map_1794_1120_80.jpg
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/purpa-a-quiet-death-or-longer-life-after-40-years-of-wholesale-electricity-competition/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/purpa-a-quiet-death-or-longer-life-after-40-years-of-wholesale-electricity-competition/


Verizon Will Cut Off Rural Subscribers In Thirteen States, You Listening FCC?

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 27, 2017 7:20 am

A recent proposal being considered by the FCC that has raised the loudest outcry has been the status of mobile broadband in rural areas. Now that Verizon is discontinuing rural subscriber accounts, the FCC will be able to see those concerns come to life.

Dear John…

The company has decided to cut service to scores of customers in 13 states because those subscribers have used so many roaming charges, Verizon says it isn’t profitable for the company. Service will end for affected subscribers after October 17th.

Verizon claims customers who use data while roaming via other providers’ networks create roaming costs that are higher than what the customers pay for services. In rural communities, often mobile wireless is the best (albeit poor) or only option for Internet access, so subscribers use their phones to go online.

Subscribers are from rural areas in Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin.

In a letter sent to customers scheduled to be cut off, Verizon offered no option, such as paying more for more data or switching to a higher cost plan. Many of the people affected were enrolled in unlimited data plans:

“During a recent review of customer accounts, we discovered you are using a significant amount of data while roaming off the Verizon Wireless network. While we appreciate you choosing Verizon, after October 17th, 2017, we will no longer offer service for the numbers listed above since your primary place of use is outside the Verizon service area.”

Affecting Customers And Local Carriers

Apparently, Verizon’s LTE in Rural America (LRA) program, which creates partnerships with 21 other carriers, is the culprit. The agreements it has with the other carriers through the program allows Verizon subscribers to use those networks when they use roaming data, but Verizon must pay the carriers’ fees. Verizon has confirmed that they will disconnect 8,500 rural customers who already have little options for connectivity. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/verizon-will-cut-off-rural-subscribers-in-thirteen-states-you-listening-fcc/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/verizon-will-cut-off-rural-subscribers-in-thirteen-states-you-listening-fcc/


Webinar Resources: Two Business Models for Community Composting

by Nick Stumo-Langer | September 26, 2017 12:00 pm

On Wednesday, September 20th, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the community composting network hosted a webinar on “Two Business Models for Community Composting: Worker-Owned Cooperative & Social Enterprise.” The webinar covered the pros and cons of each model, and some tips on getting started. Featured businesses were CERO[1], a worker-owned cooperative that raised over $350,000 in less than a year, via nearly 100 community investors, to launch its food scrap collection enterprise; and Eco-Cycle[2], a Boulder-based nonprofit, mission-based social enterprise that uses revenues to build zero waste communities. Watch the recording here[3].


Presenters

Eric Lombardi

President of Zero Waste Strategies, Inc. (Senior Advisor to Eco-Cycle International[4])
Boulder, Colo.
Twitter Handle: @ecocycle[5]

Eric has been working at the cutting-edge of the zero waste and social enterprise movements across the world since the mid-90’s. His working mission has been to transform the “waste management” industry into a resource management industry. Eric was a national spokesperson for the first the Grassroots Recycling Network, the first US zero waste organization (1997) and a co-founder of the Zero Waste International Alliance (2002).  Lombardi was invited to the Clinton White House in 1998 as one of the Top 100 USA Recyclers and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Association For Recycling.  From 1989-2014, he turned a small nonprofit into the largest zero waste social enterprise in America (www.Ecocycle.org[6]) and is now the President of Zero Waste Strategies Inc. and a strategic advisor to Eco-Cycle International.

(Read more about him on his LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-lombardi-72aa5913/ ).

Lor Holmes

General Manager & Business Development Lead of CERO Cooperative[7]
Roxbury, Mass.
Twitter Handle: @CEROcoop[8]

Lor worked as a Boston school bus driver and community organizer before earning a master’s degree in Community Economic Development. Driven by her passion for environmental and social justice, sustainable economic development and democratic models for community ownership, Lor started Roxbury’s first micro enterprise program and, as founding director at HarborCOV (Harbor Communities Overcoming Violence), she worked with immigrant communities to develop the country’s first permanent housing and economic development center for families affected by violence. Working class African American and Latino entrepreneurs from Roxbury and Dorchester founded CERO – Cooperative Energy, Recycling, and Organics. They raised financing from small community investors and began operations in October 2014, providing commercial compost services to local grocery stores, schools and restaurants. Since then CERO has created 7 full-time living wage jobs and diverted more than 2 million pounds of organic “waste” from landfill and incineration, instead to be returned to revitalize soil and support urban agriculture.


Facilitator

Brenda Platt

Co-Director and Composting for Community Initiative Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Washington, D.C.
Twitter Handle: @PlattBrenda[9]

Brenda Platt is the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.  She has worked 30 years fighting trash burners and promoting waste reduction, recycling and composting, particularly recycling-based jobs.  She currently directs ILSR’s Composting for Community projects, which advances locally based composting in order to create jobs, enhance soils, sequester carbon, reduce waste, and build more resilient and healthy communities.

She is the lead author of Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting[10] and developed ILSR’s new Hierarchy to Reduce Waste and Grow Community[11].


Resources

Webinar Recording

 

Slides
Two Business Models – Eric Lombardi Slides – 9.20.2017[12]
Two Business Models – Lor Holmes Slides – 9.20.2017[13]
Two Business Models – Brenda Platt Slides – 9.20.2017[14]

 

Lor Holmes, of CERO Cooperative also wanted to share the following resources, in addition to her email at cero.coop@gmail.com[15]:

The Ujima Project, Boston, MA – @UjimaBoston[16], https://www.ujimaboston.com/[17]

The Boston Impact Initiative – @bosimpact[18], http://bostonimpact.com/[19]

The Working World, New York, NY – @workingworldorg[20], workingworld.org

LIFE Economy, San Fransisco, CA – @LIFT_Economy[21], http://lifteconomy.com/[22]

 

See resources from our previous webinar, on how to prevent rats in community composting projects:

Webinar Resources: Successful Rat Prevention for Community-Scaled Composting[23]

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[24] and Facebook[25] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[26] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. CERO: http://www.cero.coop/
  2. Eco-Cycle: http://www.ecocycle.org/aboutus
  3. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Pp0p1KV7Q
  4. Eco-Cycle International: http://ecocyclesolutionshub.org/
  5. @ecocycle: https://twitter.com/ecocycle
  6. www.Ecocycle.org: http://www.ecocycle.org/
  7. CERO Cooperative: http://www.cero.coop/
  8. @CEROcoop: https://twitter.com/CEROcoop
  9. @PlattBrenda: https://twitter.com/PlattBrenda
  10. Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting: https://ilsr.org/growing-local-fertility/
  11. Hierarchy to Reduce Waste and Grow Community: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  12. Two Business Models – Eric Lombardi Slides – 9.20.2017: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ILSR-SE-Community-Composting.pdf
  13. Two Business Models – Lor Holmes Slides – 9.20.2017: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ILSR-Webinar-CERO-Business-Model.pptx.pdf
  14. Two Business Models – Brenda Platt Slides – 9.20.2017: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ILSR-business-CCC-webinar-09-20-17.pdf
  15. cero.coop@gmail.com: mailto:cero.coop@gmail.com
  16. @UjimaBoston: http://www.twitter.com/ujimaboston
  17. https://www.ujimaboston.com/: https://www.ujimaboston.com/
  18. @bosimpact: http://www.twitter.com/bosimpact
  19. http://bostonimpact.com/: http://bostonimpact.com/
  20. @workingworldorg: http://www.twitter.com/workingworldorg
  21. @LIFT_Economy: http://www.twitter.com/LIFT_Economy
  22. http://lifteconomy.com/: http://lifteconomy.com/
  23. Webinar Resources: Successful Rat Prevention for Community-Scaled Composting: https://ilsr.org/successful-rat-prevention-for-community-composting-webinar/
  24. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  25. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  26. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/webinar-two-business-models-for-community-composting/


Grassroots Broadband Groups Grow Across the U.S.

by H Trostle | September 26, 2017 5:15 am

Community networks are hyper-local movements. As we have researched these networks, we have often uncovered the work of grassroots activists trying to make a difference in their cities. Today, we’ve gathered together a collection to show how small groups of local people can make a big difference.

Virginia Friends of Municipal Broadband — This statewide organization of citizens and activists quickly formed in opposition to the proposed Broadband Deployment Act of 2017 in Virginia. They collected statements  on why the proposed law would be sour for community networks and published a press kit to help people talk about the issue.

Yellow Springs Community Fiber — This group formed in Yellow Springs, Ohio, to have the city consider building a community network. They hosted a public forum and created a survey to gauge residents’ interest in such a project. They even published a white paper about their proposal, and the city issued an RFP to explore the option.

Upgrade Seattle — This campaign for equitable Internet access encourages folks to support a municipal network in Washington state’s largest city. The Upgrade Seattle group hosts neighborhood study sessions and encourages residents to learn more and attend city council meetings.

Holland Fiber — Holland, Michigan, has been incrementally building a fiber network, and much of the impetus came from the Holland Fiber group. Local entrepreneurs, business owners, and residents realized that high-speed connectivity would be an asset to this lakeside tourist town.

West Canal Community Network — This  group of dedicated people focused their attention on bringing high-speed Internet access to the small community of West Canal in Washington. They held a series of public forums on the issue. As the final pieces of their plan to bring DIY wireless service came together, a private provider swooped in, finally recognizing the community’s persistence and began to offer service. The area now has Internet service, thanks in no small part to the pressure from this community group.

Archived Lafayette ProFiber Blog — The late community activist John St. Julien ran this website for years, bringing attention to the community support for the Lafayette fiber network. Peruse the archived blog in order to learn how Lafayette came to build a citywide, Fiber-to-the-Home network

Grassroots activists in cities across the nation have built up small groups and nonprofits in order to organize for better, more affordable Internet service. They have used websites, social media, public forums, and neighborhood meetings to get their message out. Take a moment to explore what’s happening in your community or check out our grassroots tag[1] to read more stories about local changemakers.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[2]. Read the original here[3].

Photo Credit: Courtesy of mounsey via pixaby[4].

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Endnotes:
  1. grassroots tag: https://muninetworks.org/tags/grassroots
  2. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  3. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/grassroots-broadband-groups-grow-across-us
  4. mounsey via pixaby: https://pixabay.com/en/users/mounsey-4905608/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/grassroots-broadband-groups-grow-across-the-u-s/


Shape the Rules for Rural Broadband Subsidies Fact Sheet – Reply Comments Due: October 18th, 2017

by H Trostle | September 25, 2017 6:36 am

Another addition to our Community Networks Initiative resources! This fact sheet details the most important aspects of the Connect America Fund (CAF) Auction. What is it? What should it do? Who does it affect? And how can you make a difference?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) manages the CAF program, which provides billions of dollars in subsidies to Internet service providers for areas where the cost of building networks is prohibitive. Some large providers decided not to accept some of the subsidies during Phase I – about $198 million annually for 10 years. Now, the FCC plans to host an auction so that providers can submit competing proposals on how best to serve these often rural, high-cost areas. (Check out the map of preliminary areas on the FCC website.)

Before the FCC can hold an auction though, the commission needs advice on how best to conduct it and what criteria they should consider. Jon Chambers, former head of the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, outlined his concerns about the current proposed rules in his article, The Risk of Fraudulent Bidding in the FCC Connect America Fund Auction. Listen to his analysis on Episode 268 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast.

The first round of public comments has passed, but reply comments are due October 18th, 2017. Read the fact sheet and then submit your own comments at FCC.Gov/ecfs/filings for “Proceedings” Docket 17-182 and Docket 10-90.

PDF icon CAF_II_Auction_Fact_Sheet.pdf[1]

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[2]. Read the original here[3].

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Endnotes:
  1. CAF_II_Auction_Fact_Sheet.pdf: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/CAF_II_Auction_Fact_Sheet.pdf
  2. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  3. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/shape-rules-rural-broadband-subsidies-fact-sheet-reply-comments-october-18th-2017

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/shape-the-rules-for-rural-broadband-subsidies-fact-sheet-reply-comments-due-october-18th-2017/


Electric Vehicles Use Local Power to Cut Pollution and Driving Costs (Episode 29)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | September 21, 2017 12:00 pm

Electric vehicles are enabling energy democracy.

That’s the takeaway from the latest Building Local Power[5] podcast episode, a discussion between guest host and Communications Manager Nick Stumo-Langer[6], Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell[7], and Energy Democracy initiative researcher Karlee Weinmann[8]. The conversation features a number of topics, including: the trajectory electric vehicles hold in renewable energy technology, generally; the ways that cities in the wake of recent hurricanes can rebuild to better weather the storms thanks to energy resiliency; and how residents of cities, large and small, can pressure their communities to enact better policies.

The springboard for this conversation is our June 2017 report on electric vehicles: Choosing the Electric Avenue – Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles[9]. With sales forecasts sky-high and battery technology getting more affordable, more and more individuals and communities are committing to vehicle electrification.

“Electric vehicles are really part of what we call the democratization of energy or ‘energy democracy’,” says John Farrell[10] of how electric vehicles fit into the renewable energy scheme.

He continues: “Which is to say that we are seeing a transformation because of the technology of energy generation becoming localized with things like rooftop solar, where you are seeing the control of energy a localized with the way that our smartphones give us all sorts of control: whether it’s to change the color of light bulbs or schedule when our air conditioning is running.”

Get caught up with the latest work from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on electric vehicles and community owned renewable energy:

Report: Choosing the Electric Avenue – Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles[11]

Thanks To Your Local Economy, Renewables Aren’t Going Anywhere (Episode 15)[12]

Amid EV Surge, Austin Eyes a New Way of Doing Business — Episode 48 of Local Energy Rules Podcast[13]

Three Forces Fighting Local Renewable Energy and Three Ways to Fight Back[14]

Here are some great reading recommendations from our guests, John Farrell[10] and Karlee Weinmann[15]:

[16]
Recommendation from Karlee Weinmann[15]: Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America[17] by Jill Leovy. Available from IndieBound here: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385529983.

Recommendation from John Farrell[10]: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?[18] by Jean M. Twenge, The Atlantic.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Karlee, I hear you have a stat for us today.
Karlee Weinmann: Electric vehicles can save you $1000 per year in fuel and maintenance costs.
Nick Stumo-Langer: $1000, that’s a really round number I like that. Today’s guests on Building Local Power will be Karlee Weinmann who you just heard, ILSR’s researcher in our Energy Democracy initiative and John Farrell the initiative director for Energy Democracy initiative.
John Farrell & Karlee Weinmann:  Hi, Nick.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Perfect. This episode of Building Local Power we’re going to talk a lot about electric vehicles and I am kind of confused about that so why don’t we just start off by introducing the giant report that we produced in June about electric vehicles. I think you, to do some quick podcast math. We’re going to reduce 88 pages and over 100 years of history about electric vehicles into a nice little sound bitey type segment. How does that sound?
John Farrell: That sounds great, Nick. You know I think the key thing is to understand about electric vehicles is that they already are capable of serving most Americans needs at an affordable price. For example the Nissan Leaf and I’m not talking about the one that was just introduced last week, but the one that’s been sold and car dealerships for the last couple of years already had enough range in its battery to meet 83 percent of Americans daily driving needs. And so I think a lot of people have thought about electric vehicles and their battery range as being too limited and I think we really need to turn that around and let people understand that electric vehicles can get you where you need to go already. And as Karlee mentioned in the introduction it can also save you a lot of money doing that. I think those are kind of the two big top line things that people need to understand about electric vehicles.

A couple of more things though I think that are interesting to share: electric vehicles and hybrid cars have as high a customer satisfaction rating as luxury vehicles. People love these cars and people are going to continue to love them not just because they save them money because they’re fun to drive. And the last thing I think that’s important and I won’t go into too much detail here is just to say that all of the fundamental underlying technology behind electric vehicles whether it’s the drive train with a hundred times fewer parts than a gas car or the battery or some of the other technology about how these vehicles operates is subject to all of the innovation that we have been having across our economy with technology which is to say that it’s going to get cheaper and it’s going to get cheaper very quickly.

And so electric vehicles might be a marginal savings. Now for some people they’re going to be a very significant savings for folks when they’re making car purchases in the next few years. And that’s why during national drive electric week we’re seeing companies like Volkswagen say every model we’ve got is going to be electric by 2030.

Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s great. And that’s really I think something that not a lot of our listeners would necessarily know these these are these vehicles are already on the market. They’re already extremely popular. Do you have any kind of sense of how popular these vehicles are you know maybe any numbers about how many more are being purchased and any kinds of new models that might be coming out that people could get excited about?
John Farrell: Well I think the key thing is that you know in terms of sales every quarter in 2016 saw higher sales than any previous quarter in the history of electric vehicle sales. So we’re seeing the growth build very quickly and the forecasts are for that growth to continue to accelerate. Now that being said electric vehicles are still a very small portion of vehicles that are being sold but that’s about to change because already we have a couple of new models one coming out this year and a couple in the next year from Tesla, from Chevy, and from Nissan that all about double the range of the first generation of electric vehicles that we saw. And that’s really going to start to help people understand that these are regular vehicles that they can use to both get around town and to make short and medium range traveled that they come to expect.
Karlee Weinmann: We’re already seeing auto manufacturers making long range commitments to this technology. So we’ve seen a number of auto manufacturers committing already to phase out their gas powered models in favor of hybrid and battery models going forward in the future. So I think one thing to remember here is that this is the future and the industry has already decided on that.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s great. So I know a little bit about both of you and I know your fascination with the electric vehicles are not just because you love new tech and because you guys are tech geeks so I kind of want to hear a little bit about you know a lot of our other work is focused on community owned renewal energy. So community solar arrays those types of things.

How do these kind of fit in with the rest of the work that we do around renewable energy technology?

John Farrell: You know electric vehicles are really part of what we call the democratization of energy or energy democracy which is to say that we are seeing a transformation because of the technology of energy generation becoming localized with things like rooftop solar where you are seeing the control of energy a localized with the way that our smartphones give us all sorts of control whether it’s to change the color of light bulbs or schedule when our air conditioning is running. And electric vehicles do that in several different ways. One of them is that we can fuel them at home. So now instead of going to a gas station in order to fuel your car you can just plug it in every night and have a full tank, if you will, every morning. The second thing is that once we can fuel at home we can also refuel at home or recharge at home by putting solar on our own rooftop or by getting solar from a local community solar array.

So  we now have the option to not only do the refueling process at home but to generate the actual energy that goes into it at home. And that’s just a fundamental change from the long distance supply chains that we have for oil and gasoline for our fossil fuel vehicles that have had you know enormous geopolitical consequences. And now all of a sudden we can talk about literally individuals can be energy independent in a way they might not have been able to before.

That’s not going to be the case for most people because even though solar and storage you know like solar and electric vehicles are a marriage of what we like to call the “sexy electrics”. A lot of people are not going to have space on their roof for a solar array or you know may not own the rooftop, but at the same time electric vehicles by being able to schedule when we charge them. That is some people who are home during the day and can charge them during the day.

Some people could plug them in at work during the day. A lot of people be willing to charge them at night at different times. Gives us a lot more flexibility on the grid both to generate more energy locally, so to put more solar on the local grid but also just to have more flexibility in how we operate the grid. And that’s going to be very important for integrating more renewable energy as the system continues to change.

I have spoken you I have stunned you into silence, Nick. And that is a good sign.

Nick Stumo-Langer: I think we’re all just stunned by the excellent turn of phrase of sexy electrics which I know when you say people like to call that I think that was a fancy way of saying John Farrell loves to call that sexy electrics.
John Farrell: Well Nick, it’s because I have an electric car I don’t have solar yet and that means I am half sexy.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Good to know. So what are the barriers to a very pervasive electric vehicle market across America. What are the barriers that are in place you know stopping people from having solar on the rooftop that charges their electric vehicle that has an electric vehicle charging spot at their work. What does that kind of look like?
Karlee Weinmann: Well Nick I think you hit on one of the biggest barriers that we see today which is a lack of infrastructure. So, John touched earlier on the so called range anxiety people have around electric vehicles you know questioning whether the battery charge is really going to be enough to get them or where they need to go. Certainly that concern gets diminished where they can go to work and plug in and plug in overnight at home like that that comfort that people can take in knowing that wherever they’re trying to go there’s going to be kind of that safety net or that security of being able to re-up their battery is important. And I think that you know we’re certainly seeing some encouraging movement in the direction of building out massive charging infrastructure at the municipal level we’re seeing cities interested in that we’re seeing you know a Tesla perhaps the most famous EV manufacturer interested in building on its own network of Chargers nationwide.

We saw the federal government under the Obama administration set this as a priority and dedicate some significant funding to it along interstates. So I think that there is definitely a recognition that this is a key component of ensuring that Americans are embracing electric vehicles in order to capture their benefits to the greatest extent possible. But obviously today you know an easy charger is not as commonplace as a gas station. So ultimately this is going to require a sort of cultural shift in how we think about driving and what infrastructure is available and how we’re investing in that. So, you know that’s one of the significant barriers that still needs to be acknowledged and dealt with and kind of conquered.

Nick Stumo-Langer: So that’s an interesting point Karlee and I’m glad you bring up you know the Tesla charging network and maybe some other kinds of ways that workplaces could implement their own EV charging but what does the the public infrastructure for this look like. What are things that cities can do to encourage this electric vehicle infrastructure. I know that you know some some cities are investing and ensuring that their their residents can charge up wherever they go or that it’s a very accessible thing. But are there some like model policies that some city folks can consider in order to to make sure this is available for everyone.
John Farrell: Well there’s a couple of things that we can do Nick to address the issue of infrastructure. The first thing that we have to keep in mind though is that unlike some other kinds of crazy fueling stuff that we might have heard about like hydrogen or natural gas, electricity is pretty much already available everywhere. Now the issue of course is that the rate at which we can charge plugged into an ordinary outlet isn’t really enough to fuel up an electric vehicle that’s driven for a substantial distance on a day to day basis. So on the one hand for someone like myself who has a pretty short commute and a Nissan Leaf I was actually able to charge the car fully overnight many nights especially during the week when I was just going to and from work and for a lot of people that will also be possible.

What we have is a sort of two issues that we need to address. One is how do we fully charge somebody who is driving a longer distance especially as the cars that we have electric cars that we have can go further. And the second one is how do we provide charging infrastructure for people who do not have off street parking or a covered garage where they can plug in. And so for the first piece there in terms of making sure that we have the ability to charge quickly we just need higher level charges so level 1 is your traditional outlet in your home or in your garage. That’s going to add you know a few miles overnight but not a whole lot. Level 2 charger which goes at 240 volts instead of 120 volts is going to add a charge much more quickly.

Pretty much every night when I plugged in my car since I had a level 2 charger it’s been able to fully refuel in just a couple of hours two or three hours even for a Tesla that’s being driven long distances. It can generally refuel overnight on a level 2 charger.

And then we’re going to have infrastructure on the interstate highway network like Karlee mentioned that Tesla and others are putting out their high voltage chargers that can charge in a matter of minutes instead of hours. So that’s kind of the way that we deal with the fueling up quickly enough since we’re used to going to a gas station and spending you know maybe three minutes being plugged in if you will getting our fuel it’s important that folks are able to do that quickly when they need to. But for the most part simply being able to refuel overnight and to fill up their tank so to speak at home. The second thing is for those folks who don’t have a place to plug in at night time what’s happening there.

Austin is a terrific example of this in Texas. Now they’re equipped in a way that many other cities aren’t which is to say they have a municipal utility they own their own utility company and their municipal utility is out there building public infrastructure public Chargers and is giving folks unlimited access to charging for about$4 a month. So that’s a really crucial way that the city can support this notion of availability to charging putting those higher voltage chargers out there. That mean you don’t have to be parked as long in order to charge and making sure that you have low cost access to them. Everywhere in your community other cities can do the same kind of thing they can partner with utilities to do that. They can build city on chargers or work with a private provider that might delay people for charging access. You know being plugged in is usually like a dollar or two an hour at the most. And some of those level 2 chargers a good way to for folks to add a little bit more capacity at a fairly low cost. So there’s a lot of ways that that cities can do this and other what they can do.

And I’m going to like Carly tell you more about it is that cities can kind of lead by example by doing investments in their own electric vehicle fleets and to demonstrate the technology.

Nick Stumo-Langer: You did steal my next question to ask Karlee because I know she’s super excited about city fleet electrification which is a great thing to be excited about. I have two things that I want to say in response to what you just said John when you’re talking about hydrogen fuel and weird kind of fueling I’m just sad that we don’t have the garbage fueling to flying cars that I was promised in Back to the Future. And I just want to point out for our listeners he said just over $4 a month for Austin Energy to have unlimited public charging. Now that’s obviously something where they are getting people enticed with that but that is an insanely cheap amount for unlimited charging and just want to like circle that, underline it, and bold face it. That’s crazy. So Karlee fleet electrification what why should we be pumped about it?
Karlee Weinmann: So I think to John’s point cities can be kind of powerful agents of this transition in leading by example. So let’s stick with the Austin example. Austin has plans over the next 10 years to add 330 electric vehicles to its municipal fleet. So that’s a huge number and that’s something that’s going to happen naturally. So as their traditional gas powered vehicles need to be phased out or replaced they’re just switching to the battery operated models over 10 years. They expect that to save them $3.5 million in fuel and maintenance costs. So that’s hugely significant. And I think it’s always worth pointing out that whenever a city saves money it’s taxpayers save money and that’s a pretty powerful argument to make in favor of of this transition. Aside from you know the maybe more obvious or more popular arguments that this is you know a city taking climate action all of those things that a lot of cities are talking about these days particularly in places like Texas.

On that note I’d also single out the example of Houston you know a city that’s maybe the most prominent example of the American oil industry. They added 27 Leafs back in 2014 and in 2014 numbers they save $100,000 per year in fuel and maintenance costs so you know the value proposition is only getting better. And I think that these stories really illustrate the power of fleet electrification to save cities money to build capacity that way and to really reinforce commitments to electric vehicles and the fact that this technology isn’t going anywhere and it really bears out.

Nick Stumo-Langer: I think you hit on something that I’m always very impressed that you and John pull out of almost any piece of research that we do for ILSR’s energy initiative is that it’s not only about decarbonizing in different parts of what we’re doing which is really fancy way to say, you know, getting renewable technology, but you point out that for cities for individuals for communities in any kind of format this saves money for them. This is an economic choice not just some kind of highfalutin way on environmentalism. This is something that a lot of people can can see the benefits of it in their pocketbook and I think that’s really important.
John Farrell: Nick I just want to point out too since we were talking about Houston and obviously in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and then again now in Florida suffering from the after effects of Irma that you know there was a lot of news media coverage of the gasoline shortages prior to the hurricanes and then even in some cases afterwards people have tried to keep generators running in order to provide power after the storms and electric vehicles provide this really interesting role or electrification or bad or the batteries in our electric vehicles. You know I read one story in the past couple of days. It was about Hurricane Sandy actually where a facility got a battery system installed that basically helped work with the diesel generator in order to lower its fuel consumption so that the fuel stocks that they had were available for longer. And when you think about a place like the Florida Keys that has been almost completely wiped out by this hurricane and how difficult it’s going to be to both rebuild the infrastructure locally to store fuel and also to get the fuel down there because it’s already a long drive in there you know still haven’t even finished making sure that the bridges all the way through the Keys are safe to travel on when we can connect local power generation with solar and solar panels are as good as a roof.

So if your roof is still on after the hurricane your solar panels are probably still there and you’re able to combine that with something like an electric vehicle which you can put electricity into and it in and of future generations of electric cars we’re going to have the ability to take that power out as backup generation.

And when you combine those things together all of a sudden you’re talking about resiliency and the ability to spring back after these natural disasters in a way that we haven’t been able to do before. And I think this is something that people forget is that a gas generator or a gas car always has the supply chain issue that you know the supply line issue. And you know the military understands this. That’s one reason they care about renewable energy is the supply chain. I think it’s something that we’ll be thinking more and more about is these kind of large natural disasters disrupt our economy and the way that we can have more local resiliency with electric vehicles and solar power and other ways to localize our energy generation.

Nick Stumo-Langer: And it seems to me too from what you’re saying John is that we’re going to be looking to these communities that have some kind of natural barrier you know that’s some place like Hawaii where getting the fuel to the island chain is really expensive or if it’s an isolated place after a storm like and like in New England after Sandy or if in the wake of these hurricanes I think that’s a really important thing to kind of understand that you know micro-grids and how electric vehicles fit into this type of thing you know with the sun shining for rooftop solar. It seems like all big pieces of a puzzle that we’re going to be figuring out together. And I’m just kind of wondering if there are any holistic examples of communities that have kind of gone all in on this. I want to say micro-grid But this kind of resiliency model and places that maybe we can point to and say “Hey Houston while you’re rebuilding” or “hey Florida Keys while you’re rebuilding this is the place you want to take a look at.”
John Farrell: I don’t think we have any like whole cities or whole communities that are demonstration projects for how you might rebuild and build a more resilient community. I think we’re going to learn a lot of things from this process though. And we have a lesson you know for better or for worse that was delivered on the eastern seaboard a few years ago which is in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and what you saw happen there. And it’s something that we’ve written a bit about in a report called Mighty Microgrids we published about a year and a half ago was that a lot of states there looked at this notion of microgrids which is say little portions of the grid that can operate on a standalone basis when the larger grid goes down. And that’s from a combination it can be fossil fuel generators but primarily renewables like solar and battery storage which is getting incredibly cheap.

You know we didn’t talk about the actual numbers before but the cost of battery storage when it was forecast what the price would be in 2016. Back in 2013. So it was looking ahead three years. All of the leading prognosticators were off by a 50 percent difference. They thought the price would go down a little bit but not nearly as much as it has. And now we’re seeing that a further two thirds decrease is likely in the next five to 10 years.

And so we’re going to see much more opportunity to rebuild our electricity system and our grid system in a way that allows for local power to stay on. Whether that’s for you know shelters for folks who had to leave their homes during storms for hospitals for emergency services in particular. I think that’s one of the key pieces. But of course the second one is simply thinking about you know as we’re rebuilding infrastructure in general rebuilding homes and apartment buildings and office buildings how can we make sure that we’re being as good a stewards of those dollars as possible. And so whether that’s energy codes that states or cities can adopt and make sure that the buildings are as energy efficient as possible requiring those buildings to be solar ready or as some communities have done in California and in Florida requiring that solar be included when there’s a major retrofit or when there’s a new home that’s being built. So I think there are ways that we can respond to this. I don’t think any community has kind of done it all but I think we have lots of little pieces that these storm-wrecked communities could tap into.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Transitioning just a little bit kind of back into ways that cities can enact policies to have these renewable technologies. What else can our listeners you know who may be thinking OK this all sounds great. I really love this. Electric vehicles fit into the grid because I got all the ones from ILSR. But what should they be telling their city council members or their members or their state legislators to allow them to do these types of things. And are there examples of some cities that are trying to work on how to do that?
Karlee Weinmann: Well I think first and foremost what people need to be telling their elected officials is that they want this. People do as John said people love electric vehicles. People are really into clean energy. And I think that the more that that becomes you know kind of a primary priority for people it will become a primary priority for cities as well. So we talked about Austin and Houston leading by example when it comes to the electrification of their municipal fleets. But you know the onus is not on the cities here. Citizens and residents should feel empowered to voice that this is something they want as well. An interesting example of sort of what that looks like is playing out here in Minneapolis right now. So, Minneapolis is unique in that it has a first of its kind partnership between the city and the two utilities that serve it.

And that’s an outgrowth of citizen led efforts among residents and advocacy groups to explore municipalization. A few years ago the end result was not municipalization but rather this partnership that has a ton of potential to be really effective and influential in deciding that we want a more democratic, cleaner, more sustainable energy future for our selves so one piece of that that’s on the table right now that in fact Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges raised in her budget address a plan that would impose a nominal increase on the utility franchise fee assessed to all utility customers in Minneapolis that would unlock about three million dollars a year in revenue that could be reinvested then in clean energy upgrades, energy efficiency programming, and outreach that you know we really need in order to move forward. And electric vehicle infrastructure can be a part of that.

So there’s a real opportunity to kind of look at what’s already on the table and think creatively about how funds could be moved around or redistributed in a way that better reflects the priorities of residents and officials who are committed to this vision for cleaner more democratic energy future. One other thing that I think is useful to consider that has really done with me since we began exploring how states and cities can influence electric vehicle adoption is exploring incentives and programs that really reflect what is going on in specific communities. So in California for example one of the most powerful incentives that was set forth after the state decided that it wanted to dramatically increase adoption was one that would enable any driver to use the carpool lane and whenever they wanted. So obviously in California famous for its traffic a lot of congestion going on.

This is an incentive that actually proved to be really powerful studies that examined why drivers made the switch to go electric revealed that this was actually kind of a top of mind thing for a lot of people. And so I think where cities and states can be really in tune with what’s happening in their community and what might actually move the needle for people on electrification in the transportation sector I think that that’s a really powerful powerful thing to keep in mind and something that maybe doesn’t have a one size fits all approach. But I think variations of that can be implemented everywhere.

John Farrell: Nick, I think good example of this might be an incentive in Minnesota if somebody would come scrape my car off for me after a snow storm because it was an electric car. I think I would definitely be more likely to buy one.
Nick Stumo-Langer: I’ll be there for you John.  I’ll come scrape the car off.  Well that sounds great. And I think that you answered a lot of really good questions kind of about what ways cities can do things what ways citizens can kind of get involved with this type of thing. I think Karlee that was a great summation of that is that there’s not a one size fits all there is there is no specific policy that is going to solve all your problems but the citizen voice and the resident voice matters and these issues.

We’re moving on to the very last part of the show where we ask for your recommendations. Reading watching listening and anything you think is going to be of interest to our listeners this could be something to do with energy work. It also could not be because you can’t have your brain just in this. So, Karlee what is your recommendation for our listeners?

Karlee Weinmann: My recommendation Nick is a little bit outside the energy realm. This week I would recommend that everybody in America read the book “Ghetto Side” by Jill Leovy who is an L.A. Times reporter and she’s brilliant. And this book explores the epidemic of unsolved murders of African-American men in L.A. County. But it really tells a broader story of some of the you know racial social and economic disparities that persists across the country and the ways in which that manifests and in destructive ways that that hold everyone back. So I think especially as we think about equity and equality and community thinking about these ideas can be you know really really powerful and important and elevate our conversation around that. So that’s my depressing but extremely important recommendation.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s “Ghetto Side” by Jill Leovy, thank you so much Karlee. John?
John Farrell: Yeah I’m going to keep on the depressing theme with a piece that was put out in the Atlantic just earlier this week entitled have smartphones destroyed a generation. The caveat here is every time I get asked this when I’m on this show it’s always something I read in the last 24 hours because I can’t remember anything past that which is probably because I have a smartphone. The piece really goes into the issue of the generation that’s coming of age now since the broad dispersion of smartphones and and kind of the impact that it’s having on their social and emotional growth. And it’s just it’s a fascinating thing as a parent of kids who are not at that age yet and who do not have phones yet in terms of thinking about like how I will deal with this appropriately for them but also for somebody who has a smartphone and uses that a lot.

What’s the appropriate relationship between myself and my smartphone and my you know real live folks in my life. Real life relationships, so it’s really interesting. I think the headline was terribly hyperbolic and it’s you know just another way of like getting down on young people. But I think that in general it’s a really interesting way to think about how we might do things differently and what the role of adults is in putting down their phones to talk to kids and how we can teach kids to be good users of that online and off.

Nick Stumo-Langer: All right, well thank you so much the both of you for being on Building Local Power today.
John Farrell: Thanks, Nick.
Karlee Weinmann: Thank you.
Nick Stumo-Langer: And thank you to all of you for listening to this episode of building local power and to all of our episodes of building local power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our Web site ILSR.org and clicking on the show page for this podcast. That’s ILSR.org. And while you’re there you can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. You can also go to ILSR.org/donate and help us keep producing these great podcast with these great guests and these great topics — all the greats. We thank you so much for rating us on iTunes and recommending to your friends. And a final thank you for the music. It’s Funk Interlude by dysfunctionAL. Now for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I’m Nick Stumo-Langer, and I hope you’ll join us again for another episode of Building Local Power. Thanks everyone.

 

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If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[22]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[23] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[24] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[25] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[26] and Facebook[27] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[28] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-09-12-blp-029-john-karlee-evs.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-09-12-blp-029-john-karlee-evs.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Nick Stumo-Langer: https://ilsr.org/author/nick/
  7. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/author/johnf
  8. Karlee Weinmann: https://ilsr.org/author/kweinmann
  9. Choosing the Electric Avenue – Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  10. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/author/johnf/
  11. Report: Choosing the Electric Avenue – Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  12. Thanks To Your Local Economy, Renewables Aren’t Going Anywhere (Episode 15): https://ilsr.org/thanks-to-your-local-economy-renewables-arent-going-anywhere-episode-15-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  13. Amid EV Surge, Austin Eyes a New Way of Doing Business — Episode 48 of Local Energy Rules Podcast: https://ilsr.org/amid-ev-surge-austin-eyes-a-new-way-of-doing-business-episode-48-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  14. Three Forces Fighting Local Renewable Energy and Three Ways to Fight Back: https://ilsr.org/3-forces-fighting-local-renewable-energy/
  15. Karlee Weinmann: https://ilsr.org/author/kweinmann/
  16. [Image]: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385529983
  17. Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385529983
  18. Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
  19. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  20. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  21. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  22. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  23. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  24. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  25. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  26. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  27. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  28. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/electric-vehicles-episode-29-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Community Broadband Media Roundup – September 18

by Kelsey Henquinet | September 18, 2017 11:36 am

Every week, we pull together a list of the latest news regarding community broadband networks from across America and share it with you, our readers. Media roundups are published on Mondays, right here[1].

Georgia

Cagle joins Ferguson in Pushing Broadband[2] by Winston Skinner, The Newnan Times-Herald

The lieutenant governor, who is a candidate for governor, recently announced his plan for speeding the deployment of high-speed broadband to underserved areas in rural Georgia.

“Strong infrastructure represents a bedrock component of any strategy to create access to good paying jobs,” Cagle said.

 

Kentucky

Tenn.-based Cable Provider to Bring Service to Warren County[3] by Don Sergent, Bowling Green Daily News

 

Maine

EPA and USDA to Help Two Maine Communities with Economic Development Goals[4], United States Environmental Protection Agency (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. right here: https://muninetworks.org/tags/tags/media-roundup
  2. Cagle joins Ferguson in Pushing Broadband: http://times-herald.com/news/2017/09/cagle-joins-ferguson-in-pushing-broadband
  3. Tenn.-based Cable Provider to Bring Service to Warren County: http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/tenn--based-cable-provider-to-bring-service-to-warren/article_dbcd995b-fa58-5ba4-af73-7fcfd8440745.html
  4. EPA and USDA to Help Two Maine Communities with Economic Development Goals: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-and-usda-help-two-maine-communities-economic-development-goals
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/community-broadband-media-roundup-september-18/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/community-broadband-media-roundup-september-18/


Rural Internet Connectivity is a Campaign Issue In Virginia’s 2017 State Elections

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 15, 2017 5:46 am

For years we’ve encouraged voters to make improving connectivity a campaign issue in local, state, and federal elections by pursuing answers from candidates. In this year’s Virginia Gubernatorial race, it has now become a topic that both candidates are addressing as a key issue. The Roanoke Times Editors, no strangers to the state’s struggles with rural Internet access, recently published an editorial to inform voters[1] that broadband is finally getting some long overdue attention.

 

Surprised And Pleased

The Times has spent significant resources on broadband reporting in recent years, so it’s no surprise that the editors are savvy to the fact that broadband as a campaign issue is a novel development.

The most important news here is that both candidates say they see a state role in extending broadband to rural Virginia. The times really are a-changing: This is the first governor’s race where broadband has been a big enough issue for candidates to issue policy papers on the subject.

During the last legislative session, the Times covered[2] Delegate Kathy Byron’s bad broadband bill closely. Over the past few years, they’ve pointed out the many disadvantages[3] local communities face when folks suffer from poor connectivity. They’ve also shined a light on why the state’s economy will deteriorate if Virginia does nothing to improve Internet access in rural areas. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. an editorial to inform voters: http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-which-candidate-is-best-on-rural-broadband/article_cf19a178-7230-58b5-8bf6-a6b9f8d90738.html
  2. Times covered: http://www.roanoke.com/news/local-leaders-fear-proposed-bill-could-derail-roanoke-valley-municipal/article_84b426b2-500b-518a-b48e-f6139441d2eb.html
  3. pointed out the many disadvantages: https://muninetworks.org/content/times-editors-rural-virginia-deserves-better-connectivity
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/rural-internet-connectivity-is-a-campaign-issue-in-virginias-2017-state-elections/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rural-internet-connectivity-is-a-campaign-issue-in-virginias-2017-state-elections/


Tennessee Cooperative Expands Across Border into Kentucky

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 13, 2017 7:01 am

A Tennessee communications cooperative will soon bring fiber connectivity[1] to Kentucky’s Warren County. North Central Telephone Cooperative (NCTC) will offer high-quality Internet access via gigabit (1,000 Megabits per second) connectivity via its North Central Communications, Inc., subsidiary.

 

Starting With New Construction

NCTC will start in a new subdivision and has already installed fiber prior to new home construction. The cooperative will also offer services in a nearby apartment complex. NCTC will make Internet access along with video service available to the new homes that are not yet built. They intend to expand to other multi-dwelling units and subdivisions in the area and hope to develop a larger regional footprint.

In order to accomplish their goal, NCTC is enlisting the help of other local entities:

“We’re talking to Warren Rural Electric Cooperative and Bowling Green Municipal Utilities, trying to implement your vision that everyone in Warren County is served by broadband eventually,” said [Nancy White, NCTC CEO]. “We all have the same vision to provide broadband to as many people as want it.”

Not A Stranger To Kentucky

Approximately 120,000 people live in Warren County with a little more than half making their homes in the county seat of Bowling Green. The population has increased steadily by double digits since 2000. It’s located in the south central area of the state and also home to Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College and Western Kentucky University.

On September 8th, the Warren County Fiscal Court approved a non-exclusive franchise agreement to allow NCTC to serve people in the county. NCTC is already serving subscribers in Allen County as part of the Kentucky Wired project. Warren County adjacent on the northwest border of Allen County. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. soon bring fiber connectivity: http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/tenn--based-cable-provider-to-bring-service-to-warren/article_dbcd995b-fa58-5ba4-af73-7fcfd8440745.html
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/tennessee-cooperative-expands-across-border-into-kentucky/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/tennessee-cooperative-expands-across-border-into-kentucky/


Press Release: Mayor Hodges’ Budget Would Make Minneapolis a National Clean Energy Leader

by John Farrell | September 12, 2017 2:00 pm

Contact:
John Farrell
jfarrell@ilsr.org[1]
(612) 808-0888

Proposed budget would enable Minneapolis residents, businesses to save millions on energy costs

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. — Cities across the country are grappling with extreme weather, rising sea levels, and an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many of them have committed to address this crisis. But the City of Minneapolis, under a budget proposed by Mayor Betsy Hodges, is poised to do something novel: put real resources behind its climate and energy pledge. The mayor’s budget proposal would unlock roughly $3 million in new funding, leveraging more than $20 million in utility conservation funds, and expand access to energy savings to many more residents and businesses.

Under Mayor Hodges’ budget proposal, presented Tuesday to the Minneapolis City Council, the city would increase its natural gas and electricity franchise fees by 0.5 percent — a nominal increase on payments already made by all utility customers in Minneapolis. The increase would yield substantially deeper resources for the city to pursue urgent energy goals, including retrofits of 75% of homes by 2025 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

“The mayor’s commitment would juice up the city’s one-of-a-kind Clean Energy Partnership with utilities Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy,” says John Farrell, a member of the citizen advisory board to the Partnership and director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). “It would mean far more city residents and businesses would have access to tools to cut their energy use, and be able to go deeper to reduce energy costs by 20% or more.” (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. jfarrell@ilsr.org: mailto:jfarrell@ilsr.org
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/press-release-hodges-budget-energy-leader/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/press-release-hodges-budget-energy-leader/


Get Charged Up About Drive Electric Week

by Karlee Weinmann | September 11, 2017 12:00 pm

Electric vehicle sales are surging, and the trend shows no signs of stopping — particularly as the battery technology that powers them enables longer trips and comes at a lower cost. The first electric cars hit the market more than 100 years ago, but this time, there’s plenty of reasons to believe they’re not only here to say — but poised to fundamentally shift both transportation and the way we interact with the grid.

This Drive Electric Week, join ILSR in celebrating the rise of the electric vehicle and the opportunity it presents to modernize the grid, empower consumers, and benefit communities. Below, we invite you to explore our recent work on electric vehicles and energy democracy. (You can also find our full report, Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles here[1].)

Electric Vehicles Everywhere

Electric vehicles re-entered the U.S. market in a big way over the past decade or so, led by popular Hybrid models like the Toyota Prius. Now, drivers have an ever-expanding suite of options, and they’re increasingly choosing to plug rather than gas up. In just the first quarter of 2011, more electric cars were sold than General Motors had leased throughout the 1990s. Last year, U.S. auto dealers had sold 158,000 plug-in vehicles, a 30% increase over 2015 figures. Learn more here[1].

Good News for Utilities?

If the average electric car travels 12,000 miles per year, it will require the typical household to use an extra 4,000 kilowatt-hours per year — a 33% increase. On a mass scale, the additional demand would provide a significant boost to electric utilities which, for the better part of a decade, have been universally battling stagnant growth in electricity sales. While this hiked-up demand could place some new strain on the grid, overall it offers a compelling opportunity for utilities to offer favorable rates, policy, and infrastructure that captures the potential for the grid while easing avoidable risks. Learn more here[2]. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. here: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  2. here: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/#grid
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/national-drive-electric-week-2017/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/national-drive-electric-week-2017/


Ohio State Lawmakers Look to Minnesota for Broadband Development Ideas

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 11, 2017 3:18 am

Two Ohio State Senators are taking a page from Minnesota’s playbook to expand rural broadband connectivity. Democratic Sen. Joe Schiavoni and Republican Sen. Cliff Hite recently announced that they would be introducing legislation to create a grant program modeled after the Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband Grant Program.

 

Putting Money Into It

The program is expected to expand broadband Internet access to approximately 14,000 rural Ohio households per year. State officials estimate that 300,000 homes and 88,500 businesses in rural areas of the state do not have access to broadband connectivity.

In Minnesota, the Department of Employment and Economic Development hosts the Office of Broadband Development[1], which administrates grant awards and management. The Ohio bill will place the responsibility for the program in the hands of their Development Services Agency[2] (DSA).

Grants will be awarded of up to $5 million for infrastructure projects in unserved and underserved areas; the grants cannot fund more than half the total cost of each project. Recipients can be businesses, non-profits, co-ops or political subdivisions. The bill allocates $50 million per year for broadband development from the state’s Ohio Third Frontier bond revenues.

The Ohio Third Frontier is a state economic development initiative aimed at boosting tech companies that are in early stages and helping diverse startups. The Ohio General Assembly appropriates funds to the program, much like the Office of Broadband Development in Minnesota.

 

Minnesota Setting The Trend

seal-minnesota.jpgThis isn’t the first time politicians have looked longingly at Minnesota’s plan to build more network infrastructure in rural areas. Ralph Northam, Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, released an economic plan for his state this summer and addressed the need to improve connectivity in rural areas. In his plan, he suggested that the state adopt clear goals “[s]imilar to the legislation Minnesota has passed.”

His report inspired the Roanoke Times[3] to look deeper at Minnesota’s Border-to-Border Broadband Program and the editors decided that “there are some useful lessons Virginia can learn from Minnesota.”

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Office of Broadband Development: https://mn.gov/deed/programs-services/broadband/
  2. Development Services Agency: https://development.ohio.gov/
  3. inspired the Roanoke Times: http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-minnesota-offers-virginia-a-lesson-on-rural-broadband/article_1bce113b-9a0d-554e-9219-a4b6a1bd8754.html
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ohio-state-lawmakers-look-to-minnesota-for-broadband-development-ideas/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ohio-state-lawmakers-look-to-minnesota-for-broadband-development-ideas/


Madison, Wis. Asks for Proposals for Building Citywide Fiber Network

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 8, 2017 6:20 am

Last year, Madison’s CIO Paul Kronberger spoke with Christopher about the city’s pilot project[1] to bring better connectivity to several lower-income areas. They also discussed the community’s separate plan to deploy dark fiber infrastructure across the city. The city recently released its Request for Proposals as they seek a partner for deployment for a Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) network. Final proposals are due October 20th.

The RFP comes about a year after the community finished a feasibility study[2] to examine costs, interest, and business models for a city-wide municipal network.

 

Publicly Owned With Help From A Partner

Madison has a specific business model in mind. They are looking for a partner willing to emulate Huntsville’s approach[3], in which the city designs, builds, and owns a dark fiber network. A private sector partner constructs fiber drop cables from the public rights-of-way to the subscribers’ premises. The partner handles lit services responsibilities and the city takes care of all dark fiber concerns. Madison also wants its partner to take on the task of obtaining access to necessary private easements. The community is looking for a firm that is willing to establish a long-term relationship.

The city has determined that the project will consist of 114,680 residential passings, which includes both single-family and multi-family dwellings. The number of business passings has been calculated to 10,331. All community anchor institutions (CAIs) will also be connected.

 

The Vision For Madison

Approximately 247,000 people live in the state’s capital city, having seen an increase of 8.6 percent since 2010. Madison is considered a town with an exceptional quality of life, in part because the city has established a set of Racial Equity & Justice (RESJ) goals. Their desire to invest in the infrastructure to bring equitable service to all of the community is an extension of those goals. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. about the city’s pilot project: https://muninetworks.org/content/madison-starts-muni-fiber-effort-considers-citywide-effort-community-broadband-bits-podcast
  2. finished a feasibility study: https://muninetworks.org/content/madison-wisconsin-gets-serious-about-municipal-fiber
  3. emulate Huntsville’s approach: https://muninetworks.org/content/muni-network-huntsville-draws-google-fiber
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/madison-wis-asks-for-proposals-for-building-citywide-fiber-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/madison-wis-asks-for-proposals-for-building-citywide-fiber-network/


With Whole Foods Deal, Amazon’s Empire Grows (Episode 28)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | September 7, 2017 12:00 pm

The latest Building Local Power[5] podcast episode features a discussion between ILSR initiative director Christopher Mitchell[6] and co-director Stacy Mitchell[7] on the Amazon-Whole Foods deal. The conversation features a number of issues, including why Amazon’s growth isn’t that innovative after all due to their market power as a crushing force for consolidation. Much of the conversation is an extension of our Amazon’s Stranglehold report[8], co-authored by Stacy and ILSR researcher Olivia LaVecchia.

Amazon’s role as a marketplace, a distributor, and as a producer of items paired with their ability to sell below cost marks it as a formidable force of consolidation in the American economy. As Stacy says, “concentration begets concentration.”

Can another company come along and unseat them? I think it’s pretty remarkable that it’s now been quite a few years since we’ve seen an internet company come along and change things. Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, those guys are getting pretty old at this point, and there is no new entity that has come along, in part, because if one gets to be too successful, one of those big companies either pushes it out of the market in a predatory way, or they buy it up. How is it that we’re going to see a new competitor come along and challenge Amazon?

Christopher Mitchell: Hey, Stacy.
Stacy Mitchell: Hey, Chris, how are you?
Christopher Mitchell: Hey, I’m doing pretty good. I’m curious if you have a number for us for this week.
Stacy Mitchell: It’s 465.
Christopher Mitchell: 465, what is that?
Stacy Mitchell: That’s the number of Whole Foods stores that are now owned by Amazon.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes, and we can say “now owned” because we waited a little bit to get a sense of what was happening before doing the show rather than just rushing in like other people. This week we’re going to be talking about Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and some more monopoly power type stuff. Stacey is the famous Stacey Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance out in Portland, Maine. I am Chris, the less-famous Mitchell of the Minnesota office. I work on broadband issues. Stacey works on independent businesses, and we’re a part of the team here at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that’s fighting to build local power to make sure that communities are strong, and that we’re all happy to wake up tomorrow morning. I think that’s kind of a good summary.
Stacy Mitchell: That’s right.
Christopher Mitchell: Let’s talk about Amazon, let’s just maybe some basic facts to refresh people’s memories and maybe people just heard about it without really getting into it. What exactly happened? To be clear, this is Amazon. It’s not Jeff Bezos personally, as in the acquisition of Washington Post. I think those are important distinction.
Stacy Mitchell: That’s right. Back in mid-June Amazon announced its intention to acquire Whole Foods, the chain of natural foods grocery stores. Just about six weeks later it was quietly approved by the Federal Trade Commission, or the FTC. It was approved with lightning speed in what we can only assume was a fairly cursory review of the issues. This is despite the fact that a lot of people, including people in the food industry, folks like us who study concentrated market power, legal scholars, members of Congress, a lot of folks had raised serious concerns about this merger. Yet, it appears that the FTC approved it rather quickly and didn’t take a deep look at what those issues are.
Christopher Mitchell: You say “appears”, this is an interesting point that goes along with the speed, which is that we don’t really know because, what’d they issue, three sentences in terms of their decision?
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, it’s really remarkable the lack of transparency. Yeah, it was a total of three very basic sentences in their statement that said that this merger had been approved. There’s no further explanation in terms of how they chose to look at this deal, whether there were particular things that they tried to evaluate, what went into their thinking. Again, this despite the fact that there had been enormous amount of public discussion of it, and rather than sort of supporting that kind of active democratic engagement and oversight the FTC is, basically, this opaque black hole. We don’t know what they looked at.
Christopher Mitchell: Why is this something that rises to the level of us talking about it? What’s the big deal? I think a number of people might just think, “Well, Whole Foods is just some place where relatively wealthy, young, often white families go, and who really cares about them anyway?”
Stacy Mitchell: I think the concern for me is that Amazon has monopoly power in online retail. They are capturing almost one out of every two dollars that Americans spend online. They’re also the place where 55% of all online shopping searches start. People are no longer starting at Google or a search engine, they’re starting directly at Amazon. They have this tremendous market power online, and there are various ways in which Amazon is going to use Whole Foods to really augment and solidify its hold over online commerce.

It’s also going to begin to blur the lines between online and offline retail. What we’re seeing is the beginning of Amazon taking its monopoly power online and then beginning to extend that into the physical world of retail. That has huge implications for all of us, for the economy as a whole, for innovation, competition, for consumers, for workers. Those are the deeper issues. It’s easy, I think, to look at Whole Foods and say, “Well, they’re a relatively minor player in the grocery industry.” As you noted, they’re a sort of niche player for a set of sort of affluent, mostly urban customers. That’s true, but they’re a foothold into one of the most pivotal, important sectors of the consumer goods industry, which is, of course, food.

Christopher Mitchell: When I think about Saint Paul, Minnesota where I live, and I very much want to keep living, I think about good jobs and how to make sure that the community has, not just high tech jobs and jobs for people that have college degrees, graduate degrees and what not, but also jobs for people that may only have a high school degree or didn’t finish high school. One of those places is the grocery stores. Because many of them are unionized they have a means of employing people, and those people know that they’ll have a future. They have some job security, they have some decent wages and things like that. I think maybe you could just describe for us what life is like as a grocery store today because this isn’t somewhere where they’re like, “Oh, we’ll just trim down our margin a little bit and we’ll still be okay.” This is sort of an area in which Amazon could make a huge difference because it’s already kind of already on a thin margin, right?
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah. We’ve seen throughout Amazon’s history it has used its ability to lose a lot of money in order to take market share. It did this for many years in books where it would sell books below its own cost. Of course, if you’re a bookseller or a publisher you can’t compete with that because you have nowhere to make that up. Amazon could do that because its investors were willing to allow it to post losses. It sold books at a loss, and then we’ve seen it consistently do this. It will strategically sell below cost in order to push competitors out of the market.

The question now is are we going to begin to see that in the grocery sector, which, it’s a sector with very thin margins. How is that going to affect competing retailers who don’t have the luxury, particularly independent stores, of losing money for years on end in order to stay in the market? Also, how is it going to affect suppliers, farmers and others? The way that Amazon ultimately finances that below-cost selling is partly, as I mentioned, through the willingness of its investors, the willingness of Wall Street not to require profits, but also by squeezing fees and margin from suppliers.

The food sector is one of the few bright spots in the economy. In fact, the Federal Reserve just came out with this book a few weeks ago where they talk about how in both urban and rural areas the growth of local and regional food systems, food manufacturing at a smaller regional scale, retail systems and so on, that has been a real driver for some goodness in local economies, some new growth and economic vitality in places that were missing it. Amazon could really change that. It could come in and put pressure in a way that pushes down returns to those producers, to their workers. We’ve seen this in the book industry. The average author income is down about 30%, and many people in that industry say that’s because of Amazon flexing its muscle and demanding bigger discounts. Are we now going to see that same thing in the food sector?

As you noted, a lot of grocery stores are unionized, and workers earn a family-supporting wage with benefits in those jobs. Amazon has a very different labor model. It has a kind of 19th Century labor model that pays very low wages, uses a lot of temps and increasingly automates jobs. When we think about what this means for us on the income side of the ledger in terms of our ability to get decent work to have thriving local economies, there’s a lot of reason to be concerned.

Christopher Mitchell: One of the reactions that I see from people is to say, “Well, I really like Amazon. Amazon’s a brilliant business in terms of how they do business. Maybe this will be terrific because Amazon is going to lower the prices of food and things like that.” Now, just ignoring for a second, obviously, that the cost may go up in the future, I’m curious for people who like Amazon, can you just cite some of the examples? You mentioned the books, but are there other examples in which we have a sense that Amazon will ultimately be abusing its power in order to run others out of business?
Stacy Mitchell: Amazon has done this with upstart rivals in the e-commerce space. One good example is Zappos, the shoe retailer. This was a company that came along selling shoes online, really built a unique and beloved business doing that. Amazon decided one day that they wanted to own that business. They went to Zappos and tried to buy them, and the founders were not interested in selling, and so Amazon responded by beginning to sell shoes at a loss and offering free shipping. Zappos, in order to continue to compete, had to match those, and it just started bleeding money. It was just losing so much money. Finally, the company just couldn’t do that any longer and they gave in, and now Zappos is owned by Amazon. We saw Amazon do this with Diapers.com. They have this pattern of using their muscle to eliminate competitors that come along that might challenge them. That’s bad for consumers. At this point I don’t even know if a business that had a good online retail strategy could even get financing. What bank, what investor would want to fund that given what we know Amazon is going to do?
Christopher Mitchell: I think that’s such a key point, and something that people don’t always appreciate is that this impact in terms of who gets investment to build those next business, it will prevent all kinds of ideas from ever coming out, and we’ll never know that had lost them. One of the things that you focused on in a recent editorial in which it was entitled “Amazon is trying to control the underlying infrastructure of our economy”, and it was in Motherboard a few months ago. I think people think of Amazon as another competitor, but you’re arguing that, basically, Amazon is both the distributor, it’s basically the marketplace, and it’s figuring out how to torpedo those who are using it. It’s almost like a Hollywood monster, frankly.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, that’s right, yeah, the many-headed Hydra. Yeah, Amazon, it’s vastly more of a threat to competition. It’s like an order of magnitude more of a threat to competition than, say, Walmart because Amazon isn’t a retailer. It’s easy to think of them as a retailer. They’re the biggest seller of books, toys, electronics, clothing online or off. They’re a huge retailer, and we tend to think of them that way, but that’s not really what they are at their core. What they’re interested in is controlling, as I said in that Op-Ed, the underlying infrastructure of the economy. They want to own the rails, essentially, that all the other businesses that want to sell you stuff have to ride in order to get to you.

One of those pieces is the online platform. I mentioned that most online shopping now starts on Amazon’s platform rather than going through a search engine, so, effectively, they’re precluding competition right out of the gate, they’ve figured out how to do that. For anybody else, any other retailer or manufacturer that wants to sell online, increasingly what that means is that they have to become a third-party seller on Amazon’s platform because if they’re just doing it through their own website there’s less and less traffic, there’s less and less ways that anyone can even discover them because people are starting right on Amazon.

Then the other two big pieces of Amazon’s infrastructure, one is the Cloud, they control over a third of the world’s Cloud computing capacity, everyone from Netflix to the CIA uses Amazon. Then the last piece that they’re building out quite rapidly right now, in which the acquisition of Whole Foods is really helping them do, is shipping and package delivery. Amazon is now freighting goods from China across the ocean. They’ve got cargo planes that they’ve leased. They’ve got a big network of delivery points and warehouses. They’ve got their own trucks that they’ve leased. They’re doing their own deliveries in a growing number of cities. Their idea is not only deliver their own packages, but to, basically, begin to displace UPS, the postal service, and become the package delivery service, again, that anybody who wants to have a package arrive on your doorstep is going to have to use.

The importance of this, it’s just so critical, because what it means is that Amazon, in effect, has set up a system where it owns the rails, and therefore it can privilege its own goods and products on those rails. If it wants to knock other sellers off and take the buy box for itself on its platform it can and does that all the time. It decides, “We want to be a big player in apparel, everybody else we’re going to shove to the side.” It’s able to privilege its own goods. Then for the parts of the market that it doesn’t really want to deal with for one way or another, it just levies, effectively, a tax on all those other companies that are selling goods that it doesn’t really want to deal in, it gets a cut of that.

It’s incredibly powerful and, basically, Amazon can toggle back and forth between those two sides of its business in ways that amplify its market power in the other. The best analogy in history, as I said, is the railroads, but in a way this is a novel kind of setup that we’ve never seen before. What is happening is that we are moving from an open market that’s governed by democratic rules to a market that is, effectively, privatized, that is an arena run by Amazon as opposed to run by a set of rules designed to encourage competition.

Christopher Mitchell: I think that leads to an interesting question, which is that you’ve convinced me, and I hope many other people, that Amazon is, indeed, not winning on a fair, level playing field. They are doing things to manipulate the playing field to benefit themselves over their rivals. I think that is something we should be deeply concerned about. Other people just focus on how Amazon is incredibly innovative, and I think none of us would deny that. They are very good at what they do, even just ignoring all the, perhaps, underhanded things. Just the fact that they innovate. They find ways of driving cost down. They do all kinds of great technical things in an efficient manner. For someone who just looks at that side, let’s just say that Amazon is not doing anything underhanded, but just is such a great competitor that they’re going to run everyone else out of business because they’re so good at running their businesses. Is that something we should worry about?
Stacy Mitchell: Amazon is incredibly innovative. It’s important when we think about this not to conflate the technological innovations that Amazon has brought with the implications of its market power. If you look at how Jeff Bezos’ response to questions about this, he’s got a very clever way of essentially saying, “All these other industries are being hurt, not because we’re incredibly dominate, but because of this evolution in technology.”

We have to remember that we can have the evolution in technology. We can have the benefits that Amazon has brought, and Amazon can continue to be a competitor, while also taking steps to ensure that competition is open and the next company that’s going to come along and invent a really incredible great thing has a chance to get started, because that’s the problem right now. The next company that might have a great idea, there’s no oxygen left. They’re going to be strangled in their infancy by Amazon before they even get started.

We used to, in the middle of the 20th Century and early part of the 20th Century, we used to take a much more aggressive stance with regard to proactively promoting competition. In the 1940s we went after AT&T, and the federal government said, “You’re sitting on all these patents for these great technologies. You have to actually license those patents.” The federal government did this with a number of other companies.

The result was that AT&T continued to be there and continued to innovate. These patents were, then, available to all these other companies and, overall, the economy, society, consumers benefited. We got this best-of-both-worlds, and I think that’s now how we really have to begin to approach Amazon. Incidentally, one of those patented technologies that was required to be unlocked from the AT&T vault was for the transistor, which, of course, led to the whole computer revolution. I think that’s the kind of mindset that we need to take and framework we need to take when we look at Amazon.

Christopher Mitchell: In the Op-Ed that you wrote on Motherboard you quoted John Sherman, Senator and co-author of the Sherman Antitrust Act. He said, “If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessities of life.” I think it’s a remarkable thing is to say in some ways it kind of plays into this idea that even if there’s an entity that’s really, really good at something, we still have to limit their power because we’re the kind of country that was built on the idea of decentralizing power and not letting anyone, even if they’re benevolent, be a king over us.
Stacy Mitchell: That’s absolutely right, and it’s a quote that really speaks to the political nature of concentrated power, that this isn’t just about economics and markets. It’s also that when you concentrate that kind of power economically you, invariably, have political power, not only over government, the ability to persuade, lobby, donate cash, otherwise affect what government does, but, in effect, you control people’s livelihoods. There’s this sort of centralization of power that means we as individuals are less free.

We have less liberty to go out there and ply our trade and operate in an open marketplace if that marketplace really isn’t open but is, in fact, controlled by this one entity. That’s a political issue as much as it is an economic one. We understood that for most of our history. From the Boston Tea Party, really, up until the 1970s, 1980s there was this sense that the purpose of breaking up these concentrations of power, keeping corporations in check, dispersing economic power, the reason for that was as much political as it was economic.  

Christopher Mitchell: One of the question that I really wanted to hit you with, and I think this is one of the harder ones, a little bit, is something I’ve heard. I heard a reporter framing it in this way saying that when this reporter had started off they were writing about Microsoft, and how people were worried that Microsoft would use its power over the operating system in the 90s to dominate the whole future of computing, and how that person does not own a single Microsoft product today. Oddly enough this person, basically, said, “So we never had to worry about Microsoft,” which I think is a totally false reading of history. Nonetheless, I think people would look at you, Stacey, and say, “Look, you said Walmart was going to kill everything and harm us, and now you’re talking about how Amazon is going to kill even Walmart. So, why should we worry about this when, maybe, the Amazon killer is right around the corner and this is the way things work?”
Stacy Mitchell: Amazon has not killed Walmart, and I think it’s a good point as all eyes are on Amazon we should also take one back and look at Walmart. How Walmart has responded to Amazon’s power is that they’ve gone out and bought up a number of internet startups like ModCloth, Bonobos, eliminated these rival companies that may have come along and given us a more diverse marketplace. Then they’ve also entered into this partnership with Google where they’re going to be using Google Home as a way to do voice-controlled shopping.

Essentially, we’re facing this potential future where it’s Amazon and Walmart, these two behemoths that will interconnected into our homes through the web, through voice-controlled speakers. We’ll have this integrated digital experience where we’ll ask our Echo or we’ll ask our Google Home to send us whatever the things we want. They will choose the product for us, and we’ll have a closed marketplace where other companies can’t break into that fortress.

I continue to be incredibly concerned about Walmart’s market power. They’re a quarter of the entire grocery industry in this country and a huge percentage of everything else. There is a distinction, the one that we talked about, which is that Walmart doesn’t control this infrastructure as we talked about with Amazon. Amazon is this different beast, but it’s an illustration of how monopoly and concentration tends to beget concentration on its own. This is not a transition, but, really, a further consolidation of the market. Can another company come along and unseat them?

I think it’s pretty remarkable that it’s now been quite a few years since we’ve seen an internet company come along and change things. Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, those guys are getting pretty old at this point, and there is no new entity that has come along, in part, because if one gets to be too successful, one of those big companies either pushes it out of the market in a predatory way, or they buy it up. How is it that we’re going to see a new competitor come along and challenge Amazon?

Christopher Mitchell: There’s something that I’m curious how you’d react to, which is one of the ways that I react to and say, “Look, let’s just assume that in eight to 10 years another company is going to come along and defeat Amazon, and it’ll be a new one.” In some ways I feel like we’re a bunch of cute beagle puppies that are locked in a ring with two warring elephants. They’re stomping around and sometimes falling over, and sometimes a new elephant comes in. It kind of sucks to be the cute little puppies in that situation. Even if the elephants change identities and things like that, it’s not good for our communities.
Stacy Mitchell: That’s exactly right. We published this report last November called “Amazon stranglehold”. One of the parts of the report that I think is so useful is that we spent some time talking about the importance of a diverse marketplace, and this is especially true in the retail sector. The more outlets that there are, the more different retailers that there are, the more chances that a company that comes along and produces a new product, the more opportunities they are going to have to be able to bring that product to market, to find one or two or three or a number of retailers that are willing to carry that and promote it to their customers.

When that whole thing collapses and we just have a couple of dominate channels, if you’re a small company or a new company how are you going to get your product featured? You may be able to get it onto Amazon’s platform, but no one’s going to see it if it doesn’t show up in the search results in the first couple of pages or if it’s not otherwise featured or promoted. The same thing is true with shelf space at Walmart, so we basically cut off all of this diversity. That new business formation, that’s where we get a lot of our innovation over time. The best new ideas come from those new businesses. It’s also the source of most of the net job growth. It’s the vitality of our communities, all of those small and mid-sized businesses that make the places we live healthy, that give us a measure of control over our future at the local level because they’re owned locally, that matters.

One of the arguments that we’ve been making at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance is that it’s not just a matter of taking markets that have one or two big players and making them markets with four or five big players. We need to think about market structure, that is, that having markets that have a mix of different size businesses that include lots of small and mid-size businesses as well as a few large businesses, that those industries are actually healthier, and we know this from a lot of economic research. That kind of mix also produces the healthiest communities and the healthiest democracy. The idea that we’re going to have Walmart and Amazon duking it out, and then maybe some other company, theoretically, might come along and knock Walmart out or knock Amazon out, that, really, does not present the kind of diverse economy that’s going to yield all the kinds of benefits that we know we get when we have a truly diverse mix of businesses in an industry.

Christopher Mitchell: I would reference the interview you did two weeks ago with Gina Shaffer and talking about how when she built that hardware store in an area and how thrilled people were to have it there, how it helped lead to a revitalization of that neighborhood, these are the kinds of things that we’re talking about, those sort of side effects. I could talk to you all day, Stacy. I really enjoyed this conversation. I wanted to make sure that people are thinking about this.

As we turn off this episode, please go and rate our show where ever you found it, on the Apple Podcast, on Stitcher, any other place you can find us, please give us a good rating. Tweet about it, tell your friends about these interviews. This show is edited by Lisa Gonzalez. It’s produced by Nick Stumo-Langer and Lisa. The music is by Disfunction Al. It’s a song called Funk Interlude. Thank you everyone, and thank you Stacy. 

Stacy Mitchell: Thank you, Chris.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[9] Building Local Power on iTunes[10] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[11]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[12]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[13] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[14] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[15] license.

Photo Credit: By ChadPerez49 [CC BY-SA 4.0[16]], from Wikimedia Commons[17].

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[18] and Facebook[19] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[20] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-09-05-blp028-stacy-whole-foods.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-09-05-blp028-stacy-whole-foods.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism/
  7. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym/
  8. Amazon’s Stranglehold report: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold
  9. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  10. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  11. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  12. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  13. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  14. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  15. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  16. CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
  17. from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whole_Foods_Markham_Canada.jpg
  18. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  19. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  20. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/whole-foods-amazon-episode-28-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Press Release: Amazon Angles for Subsidies in Search of Second HQ

by Nick Stumo-Langer | September 7, 2017 10:36 am

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, September 7th, 2017.
Contact: Nick Stumo-Langer, stumolanger@ilsr.org[1], 612-844-1330[2]

In response to Amazon’s announcement that it is seeking a location[3] for a second North American headquarters, Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance issued the following statement:

“Amazon’s announcement that it’s opening a search for a second North American headquarters is only the latest play in Amazon’s long-time strategy of financing its growth through public subsidies.

“Over the last decade, as Amazon has mastered this strategy, it’s come to employ site location experts and lobbyists in its efforts to pit local and state governments against each other for the largest subsidy package. It’s a strategy that’s paid off for the company: Our Nov. 2016 report[4] found that between 2005 and 2014, half of all of Amazon’s new fulfillment centers received public incentives, totaling $613 million. Amazon received another $147 million in subsidies connected to its data centers during these years. Additional incentives provided by governments since 2014 have driven the total value of public handouts that Amazon has received to well over $1 billion, according to data compiled by Good Jobs First.

“These deals are in addition to generous tax loopholes that Amazon has long exploited to gain a financial advantage over its brick-and-mortar competitors, especially independent retailers.

“For taxpayers, workers, and local governments, Amazon’s strategy has been costly. Our analysis[5] finds that as Amazon grows, it’s in fact destroying far more jobs than it’s creating. It’s also beginning to threaten the revenue streams on which local governments rely, as shuttered stores depress commercial property tax values. In response to Amazon’s HQ2 RFP, public officials would do well to invest in smart economic development for their communities instead of engaging in Amazon’s arms race.”

For more on Amazon’s use of subsidies and tax loopholes, see pages 63-67[6] of our report: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/[7].

###

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a 42-year-old national nonprofit research and educational organization. ILSR’s mission is to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support strong, community rooted, environmentally sound and equitable local economies. www.ilsr.org[8] – Email stumolanger@ilsr.org[1] for press inquiries.

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Endnotes:
  1. stumolanger@ilsr.org: mailto:stumolanger@ilsr.org
  2. 612-844-1330: tel:(612)%20844-1300
  3. seeking a location: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2299039
  4. Nov. 2016 report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ILSR_AmazonReport_final-1.pdf
  5. analysis: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ILSR_AmazonReport_final-1.pdf
  6. pages 63-67: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ILSR_AmazonReport_final-1.pdf#page=63
  7. https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  8. www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/press-release-amazon-subsidies-hq/


Cleveland Residents File Discrimination Complaint Against AT&T

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 1, 2017 6:18 am

Large, corporate providers like AT&T have to make shareholders happy, which is why they shy way from investing in regions where they don’t expect much profit. Routinely, those areas include sparsely populated rural communities and urban neighborhoods traditionally considered low-income. Often low-income neighborhoods also include a high percentage of people of color. Attorney Daryl Parks of ParksCrump, LLC, recently filed suit with the FCC on behalf of three residents in Cleveland who are victims of AT&T’s “digital redlining.”

The Data Tells The Story

In March, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) and Connect Your Community (CYC) released a report on digital redlining[1] in low-income neighborhoods in Cleveland. “Digital redlining” refers to AT&T’s investments in infrastructure, which improve connectivity in areas where they serve, except for neighborhoods with high poverty rates. CYC and NDIA analyzed form 477 data submitted by the telecommunications company and noticed a pattern. The revelations in that report helped the plaintiffs understand their situation and choose to ask the FCC to look deeper into AT&T’s questionable business practices.

The event that inspired the analysis was the AT&T DirecTV merger. As part of the merger, AT&T agreed to create a low-cost Internet access program for customers under a certain income level. The speed tier was only 3 Megabits per second (Mbps) download, but AT&T infrastructure investment in Cleveland lower income neighborhoods was so outdated, residents could not obtain those minimal speeds. As a result, they were deemed ineligible for the program. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. released a report on digital redlining: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-report-att-digital-discrimination-cleveland
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/cleveland-residents-file-discrimination-complaint-against-att/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cleveland-residents-file-discrimination-complaint-against-att/


What To Do About Germany’s Packaging Explosion?

by Neil Seldman | August 30, 2017 7:00 am

A business report from the German group Deutsche Welle paints a very confusing picture for those looking at Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for paper, packaging and products, or PPP, in US. Does EPR in Germany, the leader in EPR policy for the past three decades, work?

The original report from Deutsche Welle is available here.[1]

According to a study by the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germans produce more packaging per capita (1.3 lbs. per day) than any other European country. Companies are actually making more money by using more packaging. Stephan Gabriel Haufe, German Environment Minister, announced that new packaging laws would provide stronger incentives to manufacturers to redesign and reduce packaging and better incentives for recovery of beverage containers.

Some companies can easily comply with new regulations as they have cut packaging by 20% on their own. What are we to make of this information? Apparently under the founding EPR system:

  • There has been no redesign of packaging.
  • There has been an increase in packaging.
  • There has been an increase in incineration capacity.
  • There has been a decline in refillable bottles and deposits.

The list is a fit, if not complete, summary of the critique of EPR – PPP in the US. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. The original report from Deutsche Welle is available here.: http://www.dw.com/en/what-to-do-about-germanys-mounting-packaging-waste/a-36657662
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/what-to-do-about-germanys-packaging-explosion/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/what-to-do-about-germanys-packaging-explosion/


8 Policy Strategies Cities Can Use to Support Local Businesses

by Stacy Mitchell | August 28, 2017 3:51 pm

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance produced this policy brief for Local Progress, a network of elected officials organized by the Center for Popular Democracy. We’ve reproduced the text of the brief below, and it’s also available to download[1] [PDF] and as part of Local Progress’s library of policy briefs[2].

 

The Problem

Locally owned businesses play a central role in healthy communities, and are among the best engines that cities and towns have for advancing economic opportunity. Small business ownership has been a pathway to the middle class for generations of Americans, and continues to be a crucial tool for building wealth and community self-determination. This is something many people understand intuitively, and it is also borne out by research that finds that the presence of locally owned businesses is linked to higher rates of job creation, less income inequality, and stronger social networks.[1][3]

Despite these benefits, in many communities, small businesses are disappearing. Between 1997 and 2012, the number of independent retailers fell by about 108,000 and small manufacturers declined by 70,000.[2][4]  Even more alarming than the overall decline in small businesses is the fact that it appears to have become much harder to launch one: The number of new firms created each year has fallen by nearly half since the 1970s, a trend that economists say is slowing job growth.[3][5]

Contrary to popular perception, this decline isn’t because local businesses aren’t competitive. In many cases, it’s because public policy and concentrated market power are working against them. Misguided zoning policies, soaring real estate costs, and financing terms that incentivize landlords to rent to chains[4][6] are making it harder for local businesses to find suitable space. Banking consolidation and the decline of local financial institutions has left more entrepreneurs struggling to obtain the capital they need, a barrier that is especially acute for Black, Latinx, and women entrepreneurs.[5][7] Economic development subsidies and tax incentives further skew the playing field by disproportionately flowing[8] to big corporations.

 

The Solution

As policymakers begin to recognize these barriers, some are taking action to ensure that their communities are places where local businesses can thrive. Here is a sampling of the strategies they are using. (more…)[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. download: http://localprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Small-Business-Support.pdf
  2. library of policy briefs: http://localprogress.org/resources/policy-briefs/
  3. [1]: #_edn1
  4. [2]: #_edn2
  5. [3]: #_edn3
  6. [4]: #_edn4
  7. [5]: #_edn5
  8. disproportionately flowing: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/shortchanging
  9. (more…): https://ilsr.org/8-policy-strategies-cities-can-use-to-support-local-businesses/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/8-policy-strategies-cities-can-use-to-support-local-businesses/


Court Sides With Louisville: One Touch Make Ready Is A-Ok

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 28, 2017 9:25 am

Louisville has overcome a tall hurdle in its efforts to bring better connectivity and more competition to the community through local control. On August 16th the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky supported the city’s one touch make ready (OTMR) ordinance. AT&T challenged the ordinance in court, but their arguments fell flat and court confirmed that the city has the authority to manage its rights-of-way with OTMR.

 

State Law

AT&T’s claim based on state law asserted that the city was overstepping its authority by enacting the OTMR ordinance because it was impinging on Kentucky Public Service Commission jurisdiction. AT&T attorneys argued that, according to state law, the PSC has exclusive jurisdiction over utility rates and services, but the court found that argument incorrect.

Within the state law, the court found that the OTMR ordinance fell under a carve-out that allows Louisville to retain jurisdiction over its public rights-of-way as a matter of public safety. The ordinance helps limit traffic disruptions by reducing the number of instances trucks and crews need to tend to pole attachments. The court wrote in its Order[1]:

AT&T narrowly characterizes Ordinance No. 21 as one that regulates pole attachments. But the ordinance actually prescribes the “method or manner of encumbering or placing burdens on” public rights-of-way. … It is undisputed that make-ready work can require blocking traffic and sidewalks multiple times to permit multiple crews to perform the same work on the same utility pole…. The one-touch make-ready ordinance requires that all necessary make-ready work be performed by a single crew, lessening the impact of make-ready work on public rights-of-way. … Louisville Metro has an important interest in managing its public rights-of-way to maximize efficiency and enhance public safety. … And Kentucky law preserves the right of cities to regulate public rights-of-way. … Because Ordinance No. 21 regulates public rights-of-way, it is within Louisville Metro’s constitutional authority to enact the ordinance, and [the state law granting authority to the PSC] cannot limit that authority.

 

Federal Jurisdiction

gavel.pngEven though many states are subject to FCC pole attachment rules, those rules don’t apply in Kentucky. AT&T tried to argue that the FCC has jurisdiction over the poles, but Kentucky is a “reverse preemption state” under the federal Pole Attachment Act (47 USC § 224). Due to their classification, FCC rules on pole attachments don’t apply in Kentucky. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. wrote in its Order: http://www.dwt.com/files/Uploads/Documents/Advisories/Bellsouth%20v.%20Louisville%20--%20Order%20granting%20SJ%20to%20Louisville.pdf
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/court-sides-with-louisville-one-touch-make-ready-is-a-ok/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/court-sides-with-louisville-one-touch-make-ready-is-a-ok/


Working Partner Update: The Reuse People

by Neil Seldman | August 28, 2017 6:00 am

Our partners at The Reuse People have been busy with the growth of the reuse movement. Here’s a recent update from their president, Ted Rieff:

The Repair Movement Boosts Reuse

by Ted Rieff

There’s a worldwide “repair movement” underway. That’s a fact I didn’t know until very recently, when a reader sent me several news articles that describe various aspects of the movement. Included are “right to repair” organizations fighting for easier access to repair information from manufacturers (electronics is a main focus) and “repair cafés,” where people can take broken or inoperable items and find volunteers with the expertise to fix them. Then there’s www.ifixit.org[1], a growing online resource that promotes repair-ability through a variety of initiatives.

I must admit to being somewhat puzzled by the idea that repairing (rather than replacing) broken items borders on revolutionary. After all, a few short decades ago if something broke you either fixed it yourself or took it to a repair facility. You could always find a shop that repaired worn or damaged appliances, bicycles, radios, shoes, furniture, even clothing (the local tailor or seamstress).

Then, too, TRP is in the reuse business, so I’m surrounded by salvaged products, most of which are going to need some kind of fixing, even if it’s just a coat of paint. Customers can purchase beautiful cabinetry, windows, doors, lighting fixtures and other used products from TRP, but they wouldn’t be in our store if they weren’t ready to retrofit or restore what they buy. Appliances are the only items that are guaranteed to be in working order and for which TRP allows a brief return window.

There are several reasons getting things repaired has become more difficult. Planned obsolescence is one. Another is the ease of finding replacement products, which often cost less than what you’d spend to have the broken item repaired. And when manufacturers restrict repair information to “authorized” facilities, unsanctioned repair shops go out of business. Those are things the movement is trying to change.

I’m glad that informed consumers are starting to rethink their options when it comes to the question of whether to repair or replace broken items, because repairs lead to reuse, and reuse is what TRP is all about. The more people are willing to repair stuff, the more they will be willing to purchase used products. Repair and reuse go hand in hand.

It’s all part and parcel of the circular economy, wherein products and resources are kept moving throughout the system rather than trucked off to that ultimate dead-end — the local landfill.

If you’re interested in learning more about the repair movement, check out these articles:

  • Repair is the New Green – Ifixit.org[2] 
  • At Repair Cafes, ‘Beloved but Broken’ Possessions Find New Life – NY Times[3]
  • The Fight for the Right to Repair – The Smithsonian[4]
  • ‘Repair cafés’ are about fixing things – including the economy[5]

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[6] and Facebook[7] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[8] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. www.ifixit.org: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001P5ysJhOK_WUJaGKair3pWeeJQNiv-GCa66Bhii7xDjLkdkaZQA9_msCCY0EXMyK2J6lRuwrumBC3hG_D0yO5iT6Cf9qYNEDouDwNWqtv4yei5DavxaWyUILmIqqh8FVB-AL0XSzbkZLs0nf8RjDfChZPoAkwFBKziyudO7DprZQ=&c=cBAhCzesxhmOJXW_Liql5rSXrrfyCQGnb1bZrXV2l8OrOrJ_mbXegw==&ch=Zfp7yQJhb9Y_i2IIGbLlkZ_dhvjhHrX6AKzeRfxTWBd-K1eQwQ9dwQ==
  2. Repair is the New Green – Ifixit.org: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001P5ysJhOK_WUJaGKair3pWeeJQNiv-GCa66Bhii7xDjLkdkaZQA9_msCCY0EXMyK2a5gDeQMsN1hTBP1Q5DGEYHCJ4LkFQP9y-kt5qM4N1_uQMsI2eKH-s-QeZhFdDFX8keyeVZf_GWQZTbQEIqWAv6noneDHcTM7CIM_GZ8_b6D6233FBXAvb_4pudFd81sj2JQsGuEqKF5qORmBTNwzCF4dJmOsUTnV&c=cBAhCzesxhmOJXW_Liql5rSXrrfyCQGnb1bZrXV2l8OrOrJ_mbXegw==&ch=Zfp7yQJhb9Y_i2IIGbLlkZ_dhvjhHrX6AKzeRfxTWBd-K1eQwQ9dwQ==
  3. At Repair Cafes, ‘Beloved but Broken’ Possessions Find New Life – NY Times: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001P5ysJhOK_WUJaGKair3pWeeJQNiv-GCa66Bhii7xDjLkdkaZQA9_msCCY0EXMyK2LgAV-qJi4l6Nxq3Hg8qJRwHLzt3YufHJkRMgDwm4Ve-3XBtf4HCrsDZdW8S3EvusNq0m7RaXvIX1t2ClpLmNPrmQuit1yPBRxc04sD1YhXwWyrBSbzN6a9aI7hvBczG5qpkVqC2kb-DHnOmyXVFx7xhymB47b_rFMhqG1eWRXUk=&c=cBAhCzesxhmOJXW_Liql5rSXrrfyCQGnb1bZrXV2l8OrOrJ_mbXegw==&ch=Zfp7yQJhb9Y_i2IIGbLlkZ_dhvjhHrX6AKzeRfxTWBd-K1eQwQ9dwQ==
  4. The Fight for the Right to Repair – The Smithsonian: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001P5ysJhOK_WUJaGKair3pWeeJQNiv-GCa66Bhii7xDjLkdkaZQA9_msCCY0EXMyK22zbrwIw1ZCYGI-Kvt_cjbc2TxcDp4LPwfCXw_fDWdNJXFTU6Ac3ElvdPGTLvVWZ76OmhwZaY6mleqbyxMVr73MtVUdMXJ1FpiHJw3KajLmJ2-hcsezeoOgZv9NeUDIpmK7pgRt2EJj7EuklVYn91fYIhKT89V220uz0EzOP8Z48XXR8rOfx48A==&c=cBAhCzesxhmOJXW_Liql5rSXrrfyCQGnb1bZrXV2l8OrOrJ_mbXegw==&ch=Zfp7yQJhb9Y_i2IIGbLlkZ_dhvjhHrX6AKzeRfxTWBd-K1eQwQ9dwQ==
  5. ‘Repair cafés’ are about fixing things – including the economy: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001P5ysJhOK_WUJaGKair3pWeeJQNiv-GCa66Bhii7xDjLkdkaZQA9_msCCY0EXMyK2_amIaphJ8hu8zXq0C9ki0yXpq-1FwcdWERkawPWHxRSLKINIf-rAQLky-XhPn4eJYZp0j4ZAskEgWL3JIQ11NxRGI825yzb9iW7iMX8a5ixsJ9B3IlDWsIpL_i4lS7dRdFOGOUmXslPqTiwCBNSpMjp5iNHy0t_xiunc1RBZZDQTaFFyqZ6VIIvl7JI5VmuBHvAJRMOO6ME=&c=cBAhCzesxhmOJXW_Liql5rSXrrfyCQGnb1bZrXV2l8OrOrJ_mbXegw==&ch=Zfp7yQJhb9Y_i2IIGbLlkZ_dhvjhHrX6AKzeRfxTWBd-K1eQwQ9dwQ==
  6. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  7. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  8. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/working-partner-update-the-reuse-people/


Great Britain’s Trash Burning Habits Makes Recycling Go Up in Smoke

by Neil Seldman | August 25, 2017 3:21 pm

This article[1] caught our eye about the practice of burning trash in Great Britain from the Duetsche Welle.

Highlights from the article include:

The Eunomia report concludes that if all of the planned incinerators were built, the UK will only reach a 57 percent recycling rate by 2030. That is far below the 70 percent target about to be adopted under European Union law – a target the UK government has signaled it will keep, even after Brexit.

But with the rise of renewables, such energy is looking less attractive. Building out incinerator capacity is making recycling goals hard to meet – and could lead to the absurd situation of having to import waste to feed to industrial burners.

According to a new report from the environmental consultancy Eunomia[2], all of this incinerator-building will make it impossible for the UK to meet its planned recycling targets. That’s because incineration capacity offers a perverse incentive to stop recycling.

According to the report, the UK is going to end up with more capacity than it has rubbish to burn by 2021, because there will be ever less black bag rubbish as recycling rates improve. That gap will reach 3.4 million tons by 2030. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. This article: http://www.dw.com/en/britains-lust-for-burning-trash-sends-recycling-goals-up-in-smoke/a-40094211
  2. Eunomia: http://www.eunomia.co.uk/reports-tools/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/great-britains-trash-burning-habits-makes-recycling-go-up-in-smoke/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/great-britains-trash-burning-habits-makes-recycling-go-up-in-smoke/


What Neighborhood Retail Gets Right (Episode 27)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | August 24, 2017 12:00 pm

In this week’s Building Local Power[5] podcast episode, ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell[6] interviewed Gina Schaefer, a Washington D.C.-based founder of several Ace Hardware stores and a board member of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The two discuss a number of topics, including how her Logan Circle neighborhood reacted to her first store opening and the way her stores are faring in the age of big-box retail and Amazon.

If you’re interested in finding out the ways the cooperative model of Ace Hardware works across the country, the experience of a women in independent retail, and why valuing retail workers is critical to success then this is the podcast for you.

“[Amazon] just means that we have to be scrappier, and more diligent, and figure out how to be more top-of-mind for our consumers… I do think that there’s a role that the customer needs to play. On the one hand people are loving the return of Main Street. They’re embracing the Shop Local movements… Then on the other hand is really fighting this ‘it’s cheaper and more convenient’ mentality with Amazon that all of the small retailers have to figure out how to compete with,” says Gina Schaefer.

Here is a great watching recommendation from our guest, Gina Schaefer:

Daughters of Destiny[7] is available for streaming via Netflix.

Stacy Mitchell: Hello and welcome to Building Local Power. I’m Stacy Mitchell. I’m co director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the organization behind this podcast. I’m coming to you from our Portland, Maine office. And I’m really excited about the conversation we have today. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this interview.

My guest is Gina Schaefer. Gina is founder and owner of 11 neighborhood hardware stores located in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Alexandria, Virginia. She opened her first store in 2003, and today she has over 200 employees.

Gina’s been deeply engaged in community revitalization, including efforts in D.C. and elsewhere to strengthen locally owned businesses and nurture new entrepreneurs. She serves on the board of directors for Ace Hardware, which is a national wholesale cooperative. We’ll talk more about what that means in our conversation.

Gina’s also an active member of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage and she serves on several non-profit boards including, in full disclosure here, our board of directors here at ILSR.

Gina has received many recognitions and honors. She’s been called an industry top gun, a woman to watch. I think as you listen to this conversation, you’ll begin to understand why.

Gina joins us today from our Washington, D.C. offices. Before we get started, a reminder to please subscribe to this podcast and rate us no iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcast. We’re a small, scrappy organization so we could really use your help and this is an easy way to do it. Just take a minute to leave us a rating. It really helps us reach a wider audience, so thank you.

Now let’s get started. Gina, welcome to the show.

Gina Schaefer: Good afternoon.
Stacy Mitchell: You know, back in 2002 you were working at a tech company and you came home one day and said to your husband “I’m going to open a hardware store in our neighborhood,” which is the Logan Circle neighborhood in Washington. I think at this vantage point you’re probably sort of prescient about the urban revival that was underway, and maybe even helped contribute to it. I mean, I think that’s what happened in a lot of cities, is that people started business and kind of abandoned main streets, and that was part of what helped drive neighborhood revival.

But you know, way back then it’s easy … You know? Today we think of city neighborhoods as a great place to open a business, but that was not at all the case 15 years ago. I mean, at that time retail was all about big stores, lots of parking, big parking lots, everything had to be easy for people in their cars.

You basically did everything wrong. You opened this little hardware store that was 20 feet wide and 100 feet deep, and had zero parking spaces. Do people think you were crazy?

Gina Schaefer: You know, Ace Hardware thought I was crazy, the coop that we belong to. The neighbors thought it was wonderful. They didn’t care. I think they really bought into the idea of walking, and shopping, and recreating, and loving where you live, and that included going to stores that had no parking.

It’s funny, it’s not even been two decades. In the grand scheme of urban revival I think you that have to go decades to really see dramatic changes in some cases. But Logan Circle at that time had three or four businesses, I would say it’s probably … You know? I’ve never truly counted, but maybe 10 or 12 blocks and two or three businesses. Everything else was just closed. Houses were boarded up. Every other house was boarded up. The businesses had long gone and there was nothing here, so it was ripe for a lot of changed and Washington, D.C. at the time was truly ripe for retail development. The big boxes and the national chains that you think of had really … They had ignored us for a long time so we had a lot of opportunity that, in hindsight, is exciting but we had no idea what was coming at us.

Stacy Mitchell: Did that give you any pause? I mean, when you met with folks at Ace and they were like “This is not how a hardware store can operate, can function well today.” I mean, did you have hesitation and just decide to do it anyway?
Gina Schaefer: I think there were two things going on. My husband is very fiscally conservative, thank goodness. He controls the books. He’s super, super smart. He was just, I think, clueless enough, meaning I kept him clueless enough, to not realize how scary the process was going to be. The CEO of Ace, John Venhuizen, and I have a lot of funny conversations now about how, at the time, they thought it was a horrible idea. And just to be clear, John was not the CEO at the time. He had nothing to do with the process. But the folks in charge of new business development, they were afraid of the city, they didn’t like the neighborhood, they couldn’t see the vision. They didn’t live here so they didn’t understand how amazing this neighborhood was and how great the city could be.

So, yeah, I think I was the only one … Maybe I was the most clueless, because I was just so excited about the opportunities that I refused to see any of the negative sides that I was hearing about from various parties.

Stacy Mitchell: When you opened your doors, how soon did you know that you’d done the right thing? I mean, how did the neighborhood react.
Gina Schaefer: You know, when I think back on that day it’s so exciting to think about it. We opened with four employees and about … I guess we had, gosh, 7,000 square feet. I can’t even remember now. We quickly grew to 14 employees in about a week and a half. I mean, we way underestimated. Even though we knew the community, we felt the community was going to be excited. We had a standing ovation at a community event. We had lots of word of mouth and advertising happening all over the city. We didn’t really anticipate people waiting in line at the door, or really coming in in droves like they did. We grew very quickly in a short amount of time.
Stacy Mitchell: Today I imagine opening a new store is a somewhere different experience. I mean, you come to it knowing a lot more. I guess you’re up to about 11 stores now. When you think back on this 15 years, what’s one of the things that you’ve learned that you didn’t know back in 2002 that you sort of wished you had, or that’s been something that’s really been eye opening for you in terms of doing retail?
Gina Schaefer: How much time do we have? I should tell you that since I’ve seen you last we actually bought a store, and so now we have 12. I would say one of the things that I didn’t know then is that I would own this 12th store that is 98 years old. So I have this iconic brand really to nurture, which is so scary and so exciting at the same time. It’s called Frager’s. It’s on Capitol Hill.

From a business perspective there’s so much I didn’t know. I mean, I knew … My team jokes that I lead from a place of cheer-ocracy, meaning everything is just cheery and happy. That only gets you so far, and I’ve learned that over the years. I work with a business coach to learn more about the numbers. I have taken countless seminars, and classes, and used educational resources from Ace and other avenues to learn about HR and marketing.

We have 30,000 items in our store, which is a whole other conversation. But what it comes down to is I’m really running a small business, and any small business has the same needs in terms of expertise, marketing, HR, finance, et cetera, and so on. So I wish I had known more about those things when I first started, but I think my growth path for the last 14 years has gotten me where I’ve needed to be when I’ve needed to be there. And I am by no means an expert in anything.

Stacy Mitchell: How are independent hardware stores doing overall? I mean, I think if we go back 15 years, for example, when Home Depot and Lowe’s were just growing like crazy, everyone sort of looked at hardware store as this sort of bygone from another era, going away. But I mean, you’re a testament and I think there are others like you that have opened brand new stores in places that didn’t have them and really succeeded. What’s the overall state of the hardware industry right now for independent retailers?
Gina Schaefer: There’s a lot of really interesting things going on. You sort of touched on it, but I think 10 or 20 years ago if a … Well even five years ago, if a big box was opening in the neighborhood of a small hardware store it was absolute panic. I think in some ways the independent retailers who are good at what they do … This is not going to work everywhere, but those of us who are good at what we do can comfortably live in communities where there are both.

We sort of think of ourselves as being in the home preservation business. People come in because their toilet needs to be fixed. They want to repaint a wall. They might need to hang something on the wall. You know? Nail in floorboards, et cetera, and so on. Obviously it’s bigger than that to keep us in business, but the preservation. Home Depot wants to help build houses, build buildings. They’re selling lumber and drywall and things like that. So there is a pretty good distinction for most of us.

In terms of the independent market, again a couple of really distinct things going on. Ace had the pleasure this summer of celebrating our 5,000th opening. We now have over 5,000 independent stores across the country. We’ve had several years of increased store growth. We went through about an eight-year period there where we closed more stores than we opened, and it was really scary. But that has changed. We’ve been fortunate for the last, I think, five years now to have a positive net store growth.

If you read any hardware news, which some people might find interesting, you’ll see things like True Value potentially trying to sell itself. True Value is also a coop. If you think of the landscape, there’s three big national coops for hardware: Do It Best, True Value, and Ace. The True Value system is really in jeopardy right now. It’s kind of scary to watch from an independent perspective because while in some case we could consider them competitors, I consider them allies in the fight against big retail and so I don’t necessarily want them to fail. But they’re struggling now.

I think that Ace is doing really well. True Value needs to find its feet, or figure out what’s going on. Iconic brands in the larger picture, like Sears, are struggling for a variety of reasons. We’re kind of all over the place, I guess, long answer, short.

Stacy Mitchell: Yeah, I think that’s right. Let’s talk a little bit about the coops because I think people … You know? They might see the Ace brand and assume that it’s a chain, or think it’s a franchise. But it’s not. It’s this other model. Can you just walk people through what it is? And True Value and Do It Best are the same basic setup, I think, right?
Gina Schaefer: Yep. We are a purchasing coop, the exact same as True Value and Do It Best. Coops dividend their profits back to their members, so as a member we are part owner in the overall corporation of Ace Hardware, or Do It Best, et cetera. That dividend comes to us at the end of the year based on our purchases. It’s a percentage of our purchases back. You get it in the form of stock and cash.

I would tell you that it’s not a ton of money, although it incrementally goes up. The more you purchase, the more successful you are. The stock is not redeemed until you die, sell, or close the business. It’s almost like a … I use the word “forced,” but a retirement plan for those of us that are owners. Then the cash piece comes back. You use it to pay your taxes. You use it to do store renovations. Some owners, depending on how small they are, use it to supplement their income. That’s how that works.

I was also fortunate about a year ago to be elected to the board of a national coop called CCA Global. They run the Carpet One Flooring & Home stores. which a lot of folks know about and may not know that that is a coop as well. CCA Global has helped spin off more of a non-profit arm that’s really delving into coops and what they do communities. What they think a typical community is comprised of is about 150 coops.

So those of us who are consumers or residents in communities don’t necessarily think of these business models being everywhere, but coops can be in housing, they can be in food, they can be worker coops, purchasing coops like us, utility coops, credit unions are typically coops.

So we’re a little bit of everywhere. And people are much more likely to do business, with my business at least, when they hear that we’re a coop and not a franchise. Obviously nothing against franchises, but we’re perceived very differently in the consumer’s mind and so it’s very important to me that consumers know that Ace is a coop.

Stacy Mitchell: One of the ways that that’s different is you’re fully independent. I mean, you run your business the way you want to run your business. You can create a store that is suited to the neighborhood that it’s in. You’re not having to follow a national set of parameters the way … You know? If it’s a McDonald’s it has to be X, Y, and Z. You have to sell a certain kind of food, and so on.

That’s not the case with your stores. I mean, you get to make the decisions. You are fully a local owner, and then you’re also a part owner in Ace along with about 5,000 other store owners. I assume you all sort of have one vote, right?

Gina Schaefer: Yes.
Stacy Mitchell: And ultimately it’s on you in a kind of democratic fashion to direct this wholesale buying group, right?
Gina Schaefer: Correct, yes. Ace has wrapped a bunch of services around just selling us product, which has been super helpful for us. So when we open a new store they’ve created what we call a core package. It’s about 6,000 square feet of product that a consumer would absolutely expect us to have in a hardware store. All of the widgets that you can think of: the plumbing parts, the electrical parts. Things that, as a small business owner, I don’t even want to have to think about. We may fit that into a smaller space than 6,000 square feet, but that’s what they’re core plan would say. Then on top of that we can do basically whatever we want.

I was in an amazing Ace Hardware Store in Houston, Texas last year that has a fudge shop inside of it. You want to talk about the fun place to be in a hardware store, it’s not the plumbing aisle, it’s the fudge shop.

We have a really great indoor plant section at one of my locations. We sell a ton of houseplants in specialty flowerpots. That’s unique. A lot of Ace Hardware Stores don’t carry that. So we have the benefit, as part of this larger buying group, to be able to create these really interesting niches to help serve our neighborhood the way we would like to.

Stacy Mitchell: You mentioned the carpet and lighting one, you know, those stores. Ace is about 100 years old. There are coops in the grocery sector too. People might have seen IGA, Independent Grocers Association. A lot of rural, small-town grocery stores are part of that coop which is also, I think, around a century old.

It’s been interesting as someone who’s done research on independent businesses for a long time. I think there’s a really marked difference in how well independent businesses are that belong to one of these coops, that have coops in their sector, versus other sectors where they don’t exist. It seems like that sort of mutual support, and the kind of knowledge, and also the economies of scale … I mean, you guys are buying … Ace is buying in bulk. That means pricing it at local hardware stores is not that different from a Home Depot or a Lowe’s, right? I mean, those are some of the sort of strengths that come with that.

Gina Schaefer: Nobody believes that but Ace does help us, keep us competitive pricing wise. I mean, we hear every day that we’re more expensive but, again, a whole other conversation. But that is one of the beauties of being a part of a coop. They’re doing all of the negotiations with the Weber’s of the world, and Black & Decker, and Milwaukee. All of those brands that you can get in a lot of places, they can get for the same price from us.
Stacy Mitchell: So you guys are price competitive but no one believes you?
Gina Schaefer: Nobody believes us. I had a retailer tell me years ago that the research showed that customers think that independent hardware stores are 17% higher in price, and so his advice was “Go ahead and price higher.” We have not done that. That was apparently the research at the time so, yes, most people assume the smaller you are the more expensive you are.
Stacy Mitchell: We’re learning in so many ways these days that if you believe something to be true, it doesn’t really matter what the facts are that you see in front of you.
Gina Schaefer: Right.
Stacy Mitchell: Well let’s take a short break and we will be right back. You’re listening to Gina Schaefer. I’m Stacy Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We’ll be right back with more of this conversation after a short break.

If you were listening to another podcast right now, this is the moment when they would take a break to bring you an ad from a national company. Maybe an online mortgage broker, or a meal delivery service, you know the ads I’m talking about. At ILSR our mission is to deconcentrate the economy, to bring economic power back to communities, so we’re all about locally owned businesses.

But for businesses that are local in scope, advertising on a national podcast doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s where you come in. Please support your local businesses. Also, please consider kicking in a few bucks to support ILSR. Your donation not only underwrites the cost of this podcast, but it also helps support all of the research and resources that we make available on our website and the advocacy work that we do. So please take a minute and go to ILSR.org and click on the “donate” button. That’s I-L-S-R .org. While your there you can also sign up for our monthly newsletter. It’s a great way to get regular updates with new resources and tools you can use to build local power.

Now back to our conversation with Gina.

So the one thing we haven’t talked about yet in this conversation is sort of the 800 pound gorilla in the room for all retailers and for local economies, which is Amazon. Amazon is now capturing about one out of every $2 that people spend online. And although I can buy hardware from you through the Ace Hardware website, anywhere you are if there’s an Ace store near you you can buy all kinds of stuff from them online through the Ace coop website, lots of people are just starting their search right on Amazon. They’re not even going to Google. They’re not looking around. They may not realize they have local options if they want to shop online and still support the local economy.

How does this feel from your perspective as a hardware store owner? Have you felt this in your own business, the growth of Amazon? And how do you think we should respond? What is it that people need to know?

Gina Schaefer: Oh my gosh. I wish that I had the magic answer for this. It’s a standard conversation, right? It comes up often with organizations that are businesses, even my team, customers. It’s really scary. I think 50% of all retail purchases now are coming from Amazon, or 50% of all consumers have an Amazon Prime account.

I gave a presentation to about 800 franchise owners in New Orleans a couple of months ago. They sell tires and they really thought that they were Amazon proof. But you can buy tires online now, and I said to them “You know? If you are in the audience and you have an Amazon Prime account, why would you ever shop at a local store when you’ve already paid money to shop at an online store?”

It was kind of an “aha” moment for a lot of the people in the audience. It just means that we have to be scrappier, and more diligent, and figure out how to be more top-of-mind for our consumers.

I do think that there’s a role that the customer needs to play. On one hand people are loving the return of Main Street. They’re embracing the Shop Local movements. You know, in Washington, D.C. if you’re not eating snacks that came from a local maker, you’re not eating the right snacks. Right? If you’re not drinking a locally produced beer, you’re not drinking the right beer. It’s become very hip to do those things. I think the consumer wants to do that.

Then on the other hand is really fighting this “It’s cheaper and more convenient” mentality with Amazon that all of the small retailers have to figure out how to compete with.

Stacy Mitchell: You know, it’s interesting you mentioned food, because it seems to me like one of things that independent businesses have is experience. You know? Food is an experience. It’s about the experience of having … You know? I just had a locally grown peach for breakfast and it was so good. It was just completely different than the conventional peach at the supermarket. It’s all about that experience.

I wonder to what degree the experience of being in store and part of your neighborhood … Is this something that you’re emphasizing more? And what’s the role of the people, the employees in your store, in making that something that people seek out that creates a different kind of shopping experience that sort of exceeds the lure of clicking a button on your phone?

Gina Schaefer: Well I think we have three weapons to fight with. Product selection. A lot of things that you can’t find online, and by that I mean some of our vendors are really giving us, and by “us,” I mean Ace, exclusive rights to sell some products. So we have items that you can’t find anywhere else.

We have to have superior customer service. I can’t tell you how many times a day I hear:

“Oh my gosh. I went to …”

and they’ll name another retailer or some place they shopped online and they’ll say:

“The service was terrible so now I’m coming here.”

Well why didn’t you come here first? So the minute we get them to realize that we have better customer service, we’re likely to have a customer for life. The converse of that happens too though. The minute we disappoint a customer, they are very quick to say they’ll never shop here again. So even if the alternative means going back to a place where they know that they’re going to get poor service, they will hold that one experience with us against it. You know? Maybe it’s double standards, but us really needing to up our game when it comes to customer service.

Then finally customer location. Having 500 stores means that we’re very close to a majority of the population in the United States, meaning you might be able to ship something overnight form Amazon, but you can walk in and get friendly customer service with unique products within a couple of miles of where you live all over the country.

So those are really are three weapons. Those are the three things that we have to fight with. Now what we do with them is up to us. For me it’s educating my staff on what the differences are between us and Amazon. I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder because I always want to have that price argument:

“No, they’re not always cheaper. No, I know you can always find stuff cheaper online but that doesn’t mean that Amazon is the cheapest and we’re not.”

I’m never going to get over that. I’ve tried to tell myself I need to have a better argument, or I need to not be so emotional about it. But I take care of 260 people and their families by providing them with stable employment, health benefits, a 401(k), vacation time, so many things that small businesses can’t do or that the bigger businesses won’t do, so I think that I have to be as vocal about it as possible. I can’t seem to operate any other way.

Stacy Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing, 260 employees and really the front lines of your business. I get really annoyed when I hear people talk about retail workers as being “low skill” or “no skill.” As someone who’s studied retail and spent a lot of time talking to people who work in retail at independent stores, at big chains like Walmart, I think those of us who have desk jobs couldn’t survive in these jobs a lot of times. I mean, it not at all low skill. I feel like that’s a way for the chains, especially, to make us comfortable with the idea that these folks aren’t paid very good wages and don’t get health care and other basic provisions.

What’s really interesting, and is also something that people … There’s this assumption that big companies always pay more. That’s true in a number of sectors of the economy, but it’s not true in retail. In retail the smaller businesses actually, statistically speaking, pay more than the big chains and that’s true for your stores. You had a piece in the Washington Post last year, an op-ed, and you wrote:

“Since the very beginning I’ve subscribed to the theory that business is a two-way street. I tell my team that as an employer I hope to be respected by them, and that they in turn should get the same respect back.”

What does that actually mean in your business? I understand the human case for that but what’s the business case for that?

Gina Schaefer: Simply for me it’s, I think the better you take of your team the more they’ll take care of customers, in going back to how we compete against the likes of Amazon. It’s having knowledgeable happy staff. And if we have constant turnover, or if we have disgruntled employees, they are not going to take care of your customers in a way that will keep them coming in, and that’s what we have to do. I mean, we fail sometimes for sure. We are not 100% perfect by any means. But those are the kinds of things that we strive for because that’s what we think will help us be more viable.

You know, you mentioned earlier that I’m part of Businesses for a Fair Minimum Wage. I want my employees to see that even if retail compensation, for example, isn’t as high as we would all like it to be that I’m going to fight to make it as high as legally we can; as opposed to the business owners that are out there saying “I don’t want to pay people more.” I mean, I don’t know how you go to work every day and look at your employees in the face and say “I hope you still make $7.25 tomorrow,” which is the starting wage in 24 states. So when I do work on these campaigns, I try to educate my staff as well so that they at least know why I’m doing it and what I hope to make better.

Stacy Mitchell: Mm-hmm (affirmative). One of the last things I want to ask you about is when you were a teenager, you worked in a hardware store and …
Gina Schaefer: I did.
Stacy Mitchell: I’ve done my homework. I think we’re roughly the same age so I’m thinking this is probably the early nineties or the late eighties, and you told another publication that you were not allowed to actually sell hardware. The only thing you could do was work the cash register, for the obvious reason that you’re a girl and so you wouldn’t know …
Gina Schaefer: Right.
Stacy Mitchell: You know? That’s where you had to stay. Sort of fast forward to now, do you still run into gender disparities in the industry? Do you sometimes get treated differently by suppliers and other people? You know? How does it play out and what do you, when you kind of look … I know you’ve been involved in trying to help and support more women going into business. What are the barriers that they’re facing, and what are the best ways that we can try to overcome those.
Gina Schaefer: You know? Like anything, it comes through education and awareness and just interaction with a whole diverse group of people who are owning stores. I helped some of the women at the corporate office start Women in Retail Organization and Ace, an affinity group. I think we had maybe, I don’t know, 20 women come to our first event and the last event had over 150 RSVPs. So really it’s just building awareness with the vendor community, that not only are walking the show floor (for example, I just came back from an Ace trade show), but that we hold the purse strings. You know? I can walk up to a vendor selling power tools and spend just as much as my husband can. It’s building that awareness and making sure that the vendors know. I can become a bit feminist about it but oftentimes they just don’t make that assumption. They just assume …

I was with a 19-year-old daughter of a retailer from California last week at this trade show. She walked up to someone who was selling a hand tool and he said:

“Oh, do you want to take one? You can use it to make your cupcakes.”

Well this was not the right young woman to say this to. I mean, the poor thing went ballistic and she said:

“I’ve never made a cupcake in my life. Why would you assume I was going to make cupcakes?”

So I would say that those kinds of experiences are a little fewer and far between than they were before, but they still occur. And you know how we handle them. We chuckle and then educate, and that’s all we can do.

Stacy Mitchell: Yeah. Are there things that more broadly, in terms of policy and what communities do … You know? Some of the barriers, for example, that women face going into business have to do with getting loans. There have been studies that have shown you can have the exact same credentials, the same financial resources, and you’re less likely to be approved for a loan. I don’t know if you’ve been involved in any advocacy around that, or if you have thoughts about what are the best ways we can overcome those things.
Gina Schaefer: I’ve been really interested in watching all of the studies coming out about unconscious bias. I know originally, or maybe at least I thought originally, it had to do with hiring practices and making sure that names, and gender, and all that stuff were not on resumes. I think that banks need those same types of criteria.

When I was applying for my first loan, my hardware experience didn’t technically count because I was only 16. The first three banks, I think, we spoke to didn’t want to give me a loan because I didn’t have any hardware experience. Mark, my husband didn’t go in and try and get those loans without me, so I don’t know if he would have been perceived differently because he was a man. But I’ve heard those conversations. I’ve had those conversations. Most women were never going to have true hardware experience, at least not in an urban setting in Washington, D.C., so I think incorporating some of the unconscious bias practices that are becoming more prevalent will help on a banking level.

Running a hardware business is like running a clothing boutique, a card shop, dog washing business, a restaurant, you still have to know all of the basics that I mentioned before: HR, marketing, finance, et cetera. So it doesn’t really matter if you don’t necessarily have expertise in that.

Stacy Mitchell: Well this has been a lot of fun. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. Something that we do at the end of our podcast is ask our guests for a reading recommendation. Is there anything that you want to suggest?
Gina Schaefer: Can I suggest a documentary instead?
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah.
Gina Schaefer: You know, I haven’t done a lot of reading this summer to be honest. I’ve been watching documentaries and I just watched one called ‘Daughters of Destiny’ on Netflix. It’s a four-part docuseries about … He was a tech executive from New Jersey, although he was Indian by heritage, who went back to India and started a school for children of the lowest caste system, which supposedly doesn’t exist anymore but it does. It was fascinating. He specifically … The documentarian specifically picked girls from the school to follow throughout their years. I think the documentary, or the series, was filmed over, I think, six or seven years so you got to see some of the youngest become teenagers throughout the series.

You know? We talk about the struggles that we have, building a business or building lives as women in the United States or business owners et cetera, and it’s nothing compared to what these families go through. So the series was good for me. It was eye opening, educational, it was beautifully filmed, I thought. The stories were great. It really made me want to go volunteer at this school and help these kids become better people.

So anyway, it’s not a book but I highly recommend ‘Daughters of Destiny’.

Stacy Mitchell: That’s great. Thank you.
Gina Schaefer: Yeah, sure.
Stacy Mitchell: And thanks so much for being on the show. It was great to have you.
Gina Schaefer: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Stacy Mitchell: And thanks to all of you for listening to this episode of Building Local Power. You can find links to what we discussed today by going to our website, ILSR.org, and clicking on the “show” page for this page. That’s ILSR.org, and while you’re there you can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Once again, please help us out by rating this podcast and sharing it with your friends.

Also a thank you for our theme music. It’s ‘Funk Interlude’ by Dysfunction Owl.

For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I’m Stacy Mitchell. I hope you’ll join us again in two weeks for another episode of Building Local Power. Thanks.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[8] Building Local Power on iTunes[9] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[10]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[11]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[12] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[13] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[14] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[15] and Facebook[16] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[17] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-08-22-blp027-gina-schaefer-ace-hardware.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-08-22-blp027-gina-schaefer-ace-hardware.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym/
  7. Daughters of Destiny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b49QEQsNUj0
  8. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  9. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  10. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  11. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  12. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  13. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  14. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  15. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  16. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  17. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/neighborhood-retail-episode-27-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Dumb and Dumber: Looking Beyond the Department of Energy’s Flawed “Baseload” Study

by John Farrell | August 24, 2017 7:00 am

The U.S. Department of Energy earlier this summer commissioned a study[1] purportedly about grid reliability. In reality, it’s more likely the study is a fishing expedition searching for ways to buttress fossil fuel contributors to and allies of the Trump administration — folks squeezed by competition from less costly wind and solar power[2].

Luckily, the expedition for the imaginary renewable reliability liability seems to have run aground on reality, according to a leaked draft of the report[3] (final report here[4]). Rather than implicate renewables, it shows that low prices drove utilities into the arms of gas power plants and away from coal and nuclear power (it still has plenty of insinuations about renewable energy).

While this study will hopefully end the futile effort to find a clean energy scapegoat for the struggles of large-scale, non-renewable power plants, it doesn’t erase a longer-range issue for electric utilities across the U.S.: big, old power plants and new fossil-fuel power plants are equally ill-equipped to compete in a 21st century electricity system.

No Turning Back

The fantasy of the Department of Energy study was finding a way to turn back the clock on renewable energy, missing its key advantage: since wind and solar have no fuel costs, they are always the cheapest electricity in the market. No matter how low the operations costs of a coal or nuclear (or gas) power plant, they need fuel. And it’s virtually impossible to find any supplier of coal, uranium, or gas who can compete with zero. Plus, there aren’t many utility customers who want to pay more than they have to for electricity. In other words, power plants that rely on round-the-clock electricity sales can’t compete in a world of zero-marginal-cost solar and wind electricity (the study acknowledges this).

This chart from the California grid operator illustrates shifts in the market. The solid blue line shows total electricity demand, but the zero-fuel-cost renewables (primarily wind and solar) are reducing the total amount needed from the grid, as shown by the green line.

[5]

What power plant owners need isn’t a round-the-clock electricity generator, but a flexible response to wind and solar energy. The grid needs resources that can follow the green line, supplying power (or reducing demand) when needed, and on short notice. Right now, most utilities have settled on natural gas power plants for that role. There’s been a fairly dramatic buildup in natural gas capacity in the past decade, even amid renewable energy growth (the Department’s study notes this growth, driven by low gas prices, but doesn’t necessarily grasp the longer-term liabilities).

[6] (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. commissioned a study: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/339365-doe-grid-study-has-wind-and-solar-lobbyists-spooked
  2. less costly wind and solar power: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1emI4NNlZwVjexZcwDCVvYKrp3YHNvGzS/view?usp=drive_link
  3. leaked draft of the report: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/report-draft-of-doe-baseload-study-says-wind-solar-dont-threaten-reliability/
  4. final report here: https://energy.gov/staff-report-secretary-electricity-markets-and-reliability
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Screenshot-2017-08-22-16.03.10.png
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/us-power-plant-capacity-2017-0224-e1503505107506.jpg
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/dumb-and-dumber-beyond-doe-baseload-study/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dumb-and-dumber-beyond-doe-baseload-study/


FCC Considers Smart Phones Broadband Deployment. That’s Laughable.

by H Trostle | August 22, 2017 6:13 am

Cell phones as a substitute for home Internet service? That’s what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggested in an August 2017 document. Buried within the Notice of Inquiry for the Section 706 Report, the FCC quietly proposed that mobile service could be considered broadband deployment.

In a recent article, Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica dove into why that suggestion is laughable. Mobile Internet service, especially at speeds less than 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload, is not equivalent to high-speed home Internet service.

This proposal also raises concerns for rural communities exploring funding options.

 

Overstating Rural Connectivity Has Consequences

If the FCC treats mobile Internet access as broadband deployment, rural areas will suddenly look better connected. On paper, the FCC statistics will show that rural America has sufficient Internet access, but the reality in the trenches will remain as it is today – poor connectivity in many rural communities.

A similar situation has already happened in Iowa, where the inclusion of satellite Internet service is now considered broadband access. The interactive FCC 2016 Broadband Deployment Map clearly shows that almost all of Iowa has high-speed Internet access via satellite. One can use satellite service to browse the web, but it has significant limitations, especially when uploading data.

screenshot of Iowa

[Screenshot from August 2017 of FCC June 2016 Deployment Data of Iowa: Yellow = 25 Mbps/3 Mbps Internet access. Full map here.] (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/fcc-considers-smart-phones-broadband-deployment-thats-laughable/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fcc-considers-smart-phones-broadband-deployment-thats-laughable/


Connectivity Coming Up Roses Since the 90s in Pasadena, California

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 21, 2017 2:57 am

Most people associate Pasadena with the annual Tournament of Roses parade and the Rose Bowl football game, but under the flowery surface, fiber is connecting Pasadena’s municipal facilities, businesses, and electric utility substations. Pasadena developed its fiber optic network to improve electric utility efficiency but also with an eye toward the future. When they invested in the infrastructure, community leaders anticipated that economic development would thrive in communities with ample high-quality connectivity.

Lori Sandoval, Telecom and Regulatory Administrator for Pasadena’s Department of Information Technology was involved in the development of Pasadena’s fiber network from the beginning and she shared the story with us. She also provided some lessons learned so other communities can get the most out of Pasadena’s experience.

 

A Community Of Culture

The community of approximately 140,000 people was one of the first incorporated in what is now Los Angeles County and considered a cultural hub. IN addition to Caltech, Pasadena City College and the ArtCenter College of Design, the Pasadena Playhouse and several museums are there. JPL and Kaiser Permanente are two of its largest employers. Its school system, Pasadena Unified School District, extends beyond the reach of the city. Pasadena has been celebrated for its architecture, especially it 1930s bungalows and many historical estates.

 

How It All Started

In the mid-1990s, the community included construction of a fiber optic network in its strategic plan. Pasadena Water and Power had been using old copper lines for communications between substations and needed to replace them with something more reliable that also provided more bandwidth. During this same period, the City Manager’s Office was investigating ways to create new revenue and local businesses were finding that they could not obtain the Internet services they needed from incumbent ISPs.

Pasadena’s first approach was to focus on installing more conduit and fiber than needed for city services and to lease the asset to a competitive carrier. They allocated $1.8 million from the general fund to pay for network construction. If Pasadena had funded the deployment with electric utility funds, law required the infrastructure be used exclusively for electric utility purposes. The loan from the general fund was predicated on the understanding that funds from a lease to a competitive carrier would first go directly to the general fund to repay the cost of deployment. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/connectivity-coming-up-roses-since-the-90s-in-pasadena-california/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/connectivity-coming-up-roses-since-the-90s-in-pasadena-california/


Bring On The Ballots: Two More Colorado Communities Face Opt Out Question

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 18, 2017 4:58 am

As predicted, more Colorado communities are opting out of the state’s restrictive SB 152 that removed local telecommunications authority in 2005. Two more communities have decided to put the question to voters this fall in order to take the reins and reclaim local control.

 

Eagle County, Colorado

There are about 53,000 people living in Eagle County[1], located in the northwest section of the state. The County Commission had considered taking the matter to the voters last fall, but considered the ballot too full with other measures. The town of Red Cliff within Eagle County voted to opt out[2] of the law in 2014. County officials have included telecommunications in their legislative policy statement[3] supporting their intent to reclaim local authority and bringing better connectivity to both urban and rural areas of the county.

Eagle County encompasses 1,692 square miles; much of that is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. There are several national protected areas within the county. They haven’t established a plan to invest in publicly owned Internet infrastructure, but first want to deal with the issue of opting out of SB 152.

 

City of Alamosa, Colorado

Alamosa[4], county seat of Alamosa County, is also planning on bringing the issue to voters this fall. Like many other communities that have voted to opt out, Alamosa doesn’t have specific plans to invest in infrastructure yet, but they want to have all options on the table.

They’re interested in using existing city owned dark fiber and conduit and exploring possible public-private partnerships, but they’ve not ruled out offering direct services. In a few of the public areas, Alamosa intends to offer free Wi-Fi while they look into possible solutions.

Alamosa is in south central Colorado and home to approximately 8,800 people. The climate is a cold desert where the Rio Grande River passes through town. More than half of county residents live in the city.

 

Joining An Ever Expanding List

Earlier this year, Central City and Colorado Springs voters chose to opt out of SB 152[5], bringing the list to nearly 100 local communities. In order to assist with local efforts, the Colorado Municipal League and Colorado Communities, Inc., have created the SB05-152 Opt Out Kit: A Local Government Blueprint For Improving Broadband Service in Your Community[6]. The kit includes sample ballot language, provides resources for educating voters, and shares outcomes in communities where voters chose to opt out.

In most case, support to reclaim local authority greatly outweighs votes against it, reinforcing research that reveals strong support[7] for local choice and municipal networks. As in other Colorado referendums, the decision proved to be bipartisan with voters from all parties supporting the idea to reclaim local authority; clearly Coloradoans from across the political spectrum understand the need for high-quality Internet access.

[8]
List current as of November 9th, 2016.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[9]. Read the original here[10].

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Endnotes:
  1. Eagle County: http://www.eaglecounty.us/default.aspx
  2. Red Cliff within Eagle County voted to opt out: https://muninetworks.org/content/republicans-and-democrats-alike-restore-local-authority-colorado
  3. legislative policy statement: http://www.eaglecounty.us/Commissioners/Documents/Legislative/2017_Legislative_Policy_Statement/
  4. Alamosa: http://cityofalamosa.org/sb152/
  5. chose to opt out of SB 152: https://muninetworks.org/content/opting-out-colorado-limits-central-city-and-colorado-springs
  6. SB05-152 Opt Out Kit: A Local Government Blueprint For Improving Broadband Service in Your Community: http://ccionline.org/download/SB-152-Opt-Out-Kit.pdf
  7. research that reveals strong support: https://muninetworks.org/content/pew-survey-reveals-overwhelming-support-local-authority
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/coloradomapbig.png
  9. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  10. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/bring-ballots-two-more-colorado-communities-face-opt-out-question

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bring-on-the-ballots-two-more-colorado-communities-face-opt-out-question/


Press Release: Minneapolis Mayor’s Proposed Budget Unlocks $2M+ for Clean Energy

by Nick Stumo-Langer | August 17, 2017 12:28 pm

Contact:
John Farrell
jfarrell@ilsr.org[1]
(612) 808-0888

Proposed budget would enable Minneapolis residents, businesses to save millions on energy costs

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. — A few weeks ago, cities across the country responded to President Trump’s intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord with their own commitments. But the City of Minneapolis, under a budget proposed by Mayor Betsy Hodges, is poised to do something novel: put real resources behind its climate and energy pledge. The mayor’s budget proposal would unlock more than $2 million in new funding, leverage more than $20 million in utility conservation funds and expand access to energy savings to many more residents and businesses

Included in Mayor Hodges’ proposal, unveiled this week, the city would increase its natural gas and electricity franchise fees by 0.5 percent — a nominal increase on payments already made by all utility customers in Minneapolis. The increase would yield substantially deeper resources for the city to pursue urgent energy goals, including retrofits of 75% of homes by 2025 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

“The mayor’s commitment would juice up the city’s one-of-a-kind Clean Energy Partnership with utilities Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy,” says John Farrell, a member of the citizen advisory board to the Partnership and director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). “It would mean far more city residents and businesses would have access to tools to cut their energy use, and be able to go deeper to reduce energy costs by 20% or more.” (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. jfarrell@ilsr.org: mailto:jfarrell@ilsr.org
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/press-release-minneapolis-franchise-fee/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/press-release-minneapolis-franchise-fee/


Grant County, Oregon, Starts Planning Internet Infrastructure Project

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 17, 2017 5:06 am

With funding from the state to jumpstart their initiative, the city of John Day in Grant County, Oregon, is working with local communities to deploy fiber to nearby Burns. The infrastructure will bring better connectivity to local residents in the mostly rural community.

 

Beginning Of A Plan

City Manager of John Day Nick Green told the Blue Mountain Eagle[1] that the plan is still in the works, but representatives from the county and local towns will be part of the Grant County Digital Coalition. The group, which is still being organized, will own and manage the infrastructure. They anticipate the network will likely be some sort of hybrid design, rather than Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) throughout the entire 4,529 square mile county. “Our goal is to address the entire county’s needs, but we will start with the urban corridor,” said Green.

Green told the Eagle that average download capacity in the county is 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) and local officials want the new infrastructure to boost averages to at least 30 Mbps. There is some fiber in the region for businesses but residential access is poor.

 

County To County

The city of John Day[2] received $1.82 million from the state, which will fund the project. The county will deploy a 75-mile fiber optic line from Burns in Harney County to the Grant County seat, where about 1,800 people live. John Day is the most populous community in the county, where only about 7,500 people reside. Phase 1 will deploy an additional 85 miles of fiber to connect Grant County facilities, such as city halls, schools, and the county court. For Phase 2, local communities will construct municipal networks to offer residential service in the south and east of the county seat. Phase 3 will follow with a similar effort in the northern and western communities.

Once the Coalition is formed, they will decide whether to offer services directly as a utility company or to lease the infrastructure to a private sector provider. In addition to improving residential Internet access, local officials hope improved connectivity will spur economic development. The early timeline for the Grant County Digital Network[3] estimates local residents will be able to obtain service as early as October 2018.

 

The “New West”

About 63 percent of the land in Grant County is controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. There are several National Forests and designated Wilderness Areas in Grant County. In recent years, the community has experience population decline, high unemployment, and an aging population. They’ve started several initiatives to reinvigorate the region in order to stimulate growth, including a focus on targeting young working families and digital commuters.

State Sen. Ted Ferrioli of John Day, who worked to obtain the state funding, referred to John Day as a “new West” community. “It could turn out to be the key piece to attracting a few new employers and growing local businesses.”

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[4]. Read the original here[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. told the Blue Mountain Eagle: http://www.bluemountaineagle.com/Local_News/20170801/fiber-line-would-triple-average-internet-speeds
  2. city of John Day: http://www.cityofjohnday.com/
  3. early timeline for the Grant County Digital Network: http://www.cityofjohnday.com/planning/page/grant-county-digital-network
  4. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/grant-county-oregon-starts-planning-internet-infrastructure-project

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/grant-county-oregon-starts-planning-internet-infrastructure-project/


Voters Say “Yes!” to Fiber-to-the-Home in Lyndon Township, Michigan

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 16, 2017 5:13 am

In a record high turnout for a non-general election, voters in Lyndon Township, Michigan[1], decided to approve a bond proposal to fund a publicly owned Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. The measure passed with 66 percent of voters (622 votes) choosing yes and 34 percent (321 votes) voting no.

 

Geographically Close, Technologically Distant

The community is located only 20 minutes away from Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan and the sixth largest city in the state, but many of the Township’s residents must rely on satellite for Internet access. Residents and business owners complain about slow service, data caps, and the fact that they must pay high rates for inadequate Internet service. Residents avoid software updates from home and typically travel to the library in nearby Chelsea to work in the evening or to complete school homework assignments.

Lyndon Township Supervisor Marc Keezer has reached out to ISPs[2] and asked them to invest in the community, but none consider it a worthwhile investment. Approximately 80 percent of the community has no access to FCC-defined broadband speeds of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.

“We don’t particularly want to build a network in our township. We would rather it be privatized and be like everybody else,” Keezer said. “But that’s not a reality for us here.”

When local officials unanimously approved feasibility study funding about a year ago, citizens attending the meeting responded to their vote with applause[3]. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Lyndon Township, Michigan: http://www.twp-lyndon.org/
  2. has reached out to ISPs: http://michiganradio.org/post/fed-slow-internet-lyndon-township-set-vote-publicly-funded-alternative
  3. responded to their vote with applause: http://chelseaupdate.com/lyndon-township-board-votes-favor-broadband-feasibility-study/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/voters-say-yes-to-fiber-to-the-home-in-lyndon-township-michigan/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/voters-say-yes-to-fiber-to-the-home-in-lyndon-township-michigan/


Visa Wants to Rule How We Pay for Purchases. But Its Market Power Has a High Cost.

by Olivia LaVecchia | August 14, 2017 4:46 pm

In July, Visa announced a new initiative. It would offer a select number of restaurants and food vendors as much as $10,000 each to upgrade their payment technology. There was one catch: The businesses had to agree to stop accepting cash.

The initiative was the “opening salvo,” as one Visa executive put it, in the credit card company’s plan to increase its market power by eliminating cash. “We’re focused on putting cash out of business,” Visa CEO Al Kelly told[1] the company’s investors.

There’s a clear incentive for Visa to take on cash. That’s in part because the company has already conquered the market for credit cards. In 2016, 59 percent[2] of credit and debit card purchases in the U.S. were made with a Visa card. Another 25 percent of purchases were made with a Mastercard, meaning that just two card networks now have a near lock on the market.

For the businesses on the receiving end of this push, though, a cashless future could be quite costly. That’s because of one of the other incentives Visa has for getting rid of cash. Every time a customer pays for a transaction with Visa, Visa gets a cut, along with the bank that issues the card, in what are known as swipe fees. Visa and the banks decide what that cut is. It averages about 2 percent[3] [PDF] of the purchase amount. In other words, on a $100 purchase, that’s $2 that gets eaten up in swipe fees that would otherwise go to the business. Smaller businesses, which have no leverage to negotiate, often pay even more; in our survey[4] of more than 3,000 independent business owners, retailers reported a median of 3 percent of their total revenue spent on swipe fees.

For many businesses, especially retailers and restaurants, swipe fees’ cut of their revenue is often more than their entire profit margin. As one business owner, the head of a fourth-generation supermarket in the Cleveland area, explains it[5], “Swipe fees have ballooned into my second-largest operating cost after labor… my profit margins don’t go much above a single percent.” Another business owner, who employs 400 people at eight gas station and convenience store locations in Minnesota, echoes[6] the experience: “As with almost every other convenience store, the banks take more in swipe fees than I earn in profits.” (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. told: https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-takes-war-on-cash-to-restaurants-1499853601
  2. 59 percent: https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-takes-war-on-cash-to-restaurants-1499853601
  3. 2 percent: https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/psr/dataset/intl_if_august2016.pdf
  4. survey: https://ilsr.org/2016-independent-business-survey/
  5. explains it: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/02/credit-card_swipe_fee_costs_a.html
  6. echoes: http://www.startribune.com/we-re-in-danger-of-backsliding-on-swipe-fees/409593265/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/visa-wants-to-rule-how-we-pay-for-purchases-but-its-market-power-has-a-high-cost/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/visa-wants-to-rule-how-we-pay-for-purchases-but-its-market-power-has-a-high-cost/


Internet Association’s Video Looks At Network Neutrality And What ISPs Are Really Saying

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 11, 2017 5:00 am

With the FCC taking another look at the advancements in network neutrality rules passed during the Obama administration, the topic has been on the lips of many segments of the population. Many of us consider a free an open Internet a necessity to foster innovation and investment, but the words from the lips of the big ISPs are changing, depending on whom they’re talking to.

The Internet Association, who went on record in 2015 in support local authority for Internet infrastructure investment, recently released a video about the fickle financial reporting of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

The Internet Association describes the situation like this:

In our latest video, Internet Association takes a look at what Internet Service Providers (ISPs) told the government about net neutrality’s impact on investment and what they told their investors about its impact. They don’t quite match up.

Something to keep in mind: when companies like ISPs talk to their investors, they’re legally obligated to tell the truth.

The question of infrastructure investment is an important one because network investment helps the entire Internet economy grow and thrive. Innovative websites and apps fuel consumer demand for the Internet, which in turn fosters further network investment, which then fosters further innovation by websites and apps.

At Internet Association, we believe that the only way to preserve the free and open internet – and this cycle of innovation – is through strong, enforceable net neutrality rules like the ones currently on the books.

Check out the video and hear the contradictions from the lips CFOs who head up these big ISPs. What’s the real story here?

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[1]. Read the original here[2].

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Endnotes:
  1. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  2. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/internet-associations-video-looks-network-neutrality-and-what-isps-are-really-saying

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/internet-associations-video-looks-at-network-neutrality-and-what-isps-are-really-saying/


Connecting Rural America: Internet Access for All (Episode 26)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | August 10, 2017 12:00 pm

This week, our Building Local Power[5] podcast contains a conversation between guest host Nick Stumo-Langer[6] and ILSR researchers Hannah Trostle[7] and Christopher Mitchell[8] to discuss the importance of connectivity in rural America and the barriers high quality local investment.

The group discusses a number of topics, including how electric cooperatives are changing the dynamic on who gets connectivity in America.

Finally, a number of barriers to rural connectivity come up throughout the conversation. This includes the millions of federal dollars that go to large companies such as AT&T and Century Link instead of small, local providers (or municipalities to invest in their own infrastructure).

“The answer is because AT&T, Century Link, Frontier, these other big companies are hoovering up all of the money that is available through services like the Universal Fund, which is now called Connect America through the Federal Communications Commission,” says Christopher Mitchell. “They’re giving out billions of dollars and they’re spending it on some of the worst products. You look at what AT&T is doing, AT&T is going to be getting $2.5 billion from the federal government to expand rural access. The speeds they are going do deliver, obsolete. The prices are $60 to $70 per month for this very slow service that has data caps. It’s awful.”

Here are some reading recommendations from the podcast today:

Hannah Trostle recommends The White Goddess[9] by Robert Graves, available from IndieBound here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780374289331[10].
Christopher Mitchell recommends Machine Man[11] by Max Barry, available from IndieBound here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307476890[12].
Hannah Trostle and Christopher Mitchell both recommend Electricity for Rural America: The Fight for the REA[13] by Clayton Brown, available from IndieBound here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780313214783[14].
Nick Stumo-Langer recommends The Shell Collector[15] by Anthony Doerr, available from IndieBound here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439190050[16].

Get caught up with the latest work from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on fighting monopoly power and the state of broadband access across our economy:

WAMU’s 1A Show Covers Rural Connectivity With Christopher[17]

The Power and Perils of Cooperatives (Episode 12)[18]

Watch Video From Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit[19]

Access Appalachia: Internet Access for Rural America[20]

Nick Stumo-Langer: So Hannah, rural broadband, it’s going to be really expensive, right? Something that we could never, ever invest in.
Hannah Trostle: That’s not true in any way. It’s pretty affordable overall. We just got a story out of Jackson county in Indiana. The Jackson county rural electric coop there is going to build out fiber to the home to its entire service area, 1,400 square miles, about 24,000 members for only $60 million in the next five years.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That seems really cheap. I’m shocked.
Hannah Trostle: It’s pretty reasonable overall.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Alright, that sounds great. We’re going to dig pretty deep on this issue of rural broadband access today on this episode of Building Local Power. My name is Nick Stumo-Langer and I’m the communications manager for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. You just heard Hannah Trostle, who is a researcher for our Community Broadband Networks initiative. Also on the line is frequent host and founder of the Building Local Power Podcast, Christopher Mitchell.
Christopher Mitchell: Hey, good to hear from you.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Let’s break it down at the very beginning of this issue of rural broadband access. I’d like it if both of you could give our listeners a little bit of perspective on what the quality of rural broadband access is, what it is and the issues that we’re facing.
Christopher Mitchell: Sure. I think it might be interesting to note that I think I come at this from a little bit more of a detached perspective. I grew up not necessarily in large cities but in urban areas, moved through a number of them frankly. Whereas Hannah comes from a more rural part of Minnesota and so has a more direct relationship with this. But I have to say that I’m somewhat offended when I hear any claims that we just can’t connect rural populations with high quality access because we can.

We don’t have to settle for some kind of poor substitute, something that’s just merely cost effective and leaves rural areas with substantially worst access than one would find in urban areas. You can look at the numbers in terms of how much it cost when you it well. You can look at the long term costs. Frankly, it makes sense to connect rural communities with high quality access. I just say that’s where I’m coming from on this.

Hannah Trostle: Yeah, you could actually say that I’m a child of coops because my electric service growing up was from the electric coop from the next county over. My telephone service and internet service actually came through the telephone coop. Minnesota has a great tradition of cooperatives. It has really built up the rural areas of the state.
Christopher Mitchell: Nick, I want to come back and mention one other thing. Which is that this country has a long standing commitment to universal access, whether it’s through electricity, we made sure that just about everyone had access to it, telephones. It’s interesting, when I talk to rural groups in Wisconsin, I met a group that actually represents businesses all across Wisconsin. They noted that some of the first roads the state of Wisconsin built were to the dairies. That’s one of the reasons we think of Wisconsin as a dairy state, because once government built roads the marketplace for dairy products thrived.

There’s a couple of key points I always want to make. One is we have this historic commitment. The second is this is not charity. I can’t stress this enough, that this is something that we all benefit from. Making sure that people like Hannah grow up being able to be productive, being able to get a great education, being able to push the limits of their individual talents, that’s something that benefits all of us and it’s not something that urban areas should think smugly, “Oh, we’re doing this out of the goodness of our hearts.” Urban areas benefit when everyone has high quality infrastructure access.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Something we love on Building Local Power as you know are statistic. What is the current situation for rural America? How many people are not connected? How many people don’t have access to these high quality options?
Hannah Trostle: Let me go back to the last good statistic that came from the FCC as to that. That would have been about 39% of rural Americans did not have high quality internet access of 25 megabits per second by three megabits per second. The last statistic that came out for some reason decided to include satellite data. Satellite coverage is not a substitute for good internet service and so it has greatly skewed the latest statistic.
Christopher Mitchell: You see numbers anywhere from 19 million people in rural areas, to much higher numbers. I think 19 millions is people who can’t get any kind of DSL type of connection and there’s a higher number for people, it’s I think closer to 40 million, when you look at cannot get access to the higher quality broadband product.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That strikes me Chris, that we’re losing out on a lot of opportunity and a lot of productivity in these rural areas. What kinds of things are being shut out of these rural communities by not having high quality access? I know you mentioned some of them but enumerate them for our audience.
Christopher Mitchell: One of the things that has struck me for years was a conversation I had in rural Minnesota with a guy who had been working on what has become RS Fiber Coop, which is as you know one of incredibly successful approaches to rural broadband service. We’ve written about it in a report called Fertile Fields people can find on our website. But he said that his family had been farming a piece of land for, I believe it was, four or five generations. He and his wife were concerned that if they continued to live in that area without high quality broadband they would actually be harming their children. They were considering moving because their children would not have opportunities if they grew in this land that their family was so attached to. I just think that’s something that family should not have to make the choice over.

Frankly, they do not have to make the choice over when we get the policy right. The question is ultimately, how should we do it? What is the best approach from a perspective of quality and from a perspective of cost effectiveness, to make sure that everyone has high quality service? As I argue and as Hannah’s research has shown, we can do this. I think we can ultimately connect everyone who’s on the electric grid to high quality broadband service as well using some of these time tested methods which are in rural areas public ownership and cooperatives. I wouldn’t say that they’re equal answers. In areas that have cooperatives, that’s probably the best approach.

In areas that don’t have cooperatives, it may be smart to first see if you can create a new cooperative or get an existing cooperative to expand near you. But there’s also areas where you might have an enthusiastic local government, whether that’s a city county township where you can get the kind of competence you need to build a municipal network. In many cases municipal networks are working on these issues as well, but I think when we look at the vast amounts of territory involved, coops are probably the best solution. I think Hannah can tell us more about many coops that have done this, but one in particular that is showing what can be done.

Hannah Trostle: Yeah, across the US there are about 900 electric cooperatives and about 54 of those have some sort of project for improving internet access in their communities. One of the latest one that we saw was Tombigbee Electric Cooperative in Alabama. They have started a project called Freedom Fiber.
Christopher Mitchell: Freedom.
Hannah Trostle: Okay. Freedom Fiber, it’s going to start surveying two towns in early September. It’s going to be in one of the least served counties in the US. 75% of Marion County does not have access to broadband. Tombigbee Electric Cooperative is going to start building in the two largest population centers. It’s only going to be about $8 million, and then they’re going to build out over the next five years, serve the two biggest population centers in the county. And then it’s going to be another $30 million to build out to their entire service area.
Christopher Mitchell: One of the key issues that it’s worth noting is that when you look at these numbers, it comes down to sometimes $5,000 per household as you get in the lower density areas, and for a small number of households even more than that. But the cost of building electrical networks is actually greater than the cost of building fiber networks, if you talk a electric utilities that do both. You might wonder, “How did we ever build electricity out if it was so expensive and now we can’t built fiber out?” The answer is because AT&T, Century Link, Frontier, these other big companies are hoovering up all of the money that is available through services like the Universal Fund, which is now called Connect America through the Federal Communications Commission.

They’re giving out billions of dollars and they’re spending it on some of the worst products. You look at what AT&T is doing, AT&T is going to be getting $2.5 billion from the federal government to expand rural access. The speeds they are going do deliver, obsolete. The prices are $60 to $70 per month for this very slow service that has data caps. It’s awful. The amount that they’re getting per household is actually about $2,400, which would cover the cost of fiber in a lot of Indiana for rural areas per house, in Vermont we’re seeing this as well with the big telephone company there, Fairpoint, where they’re getting so much money that it’s almost the cost of building fiber, but because they’re focused on shareholder returns, they’re not putting it into fiber, they’re putting it into DSL and they’re going to look for future handouts to get higher quality service. There’s no doubt.

When you look at this you might be thinking, “Hannah’s saying that that’s really costly,” but actually it’s well within the realm of what we’re already subsidizing firms to build for obsolete technology. If we actually directed this to local institutions that wanted to invest in the communities, we would basically be there. There might be a need for some of those farther away farms to get a one time grant, but the cost of the ongoing service is actually low enough that these electric utilities will not need operating subsidies. They may need one time capital subsidies, and that’s totally affordable and totally doable, if we would just stop writing checks to AT&T and Century Link and Frontier and these other companies that have totally failed rural America.

Nick Stumo-Langer: To lay out the thread of what you’re saying here, millions and millions of rural Americans do not have high quality broadband internet access. We have solutions that we know are tried and true, building on the infrastructure of these cooperatives, these municipal utilities and even new infrastructure investments in these smaller communities that are going to be able to allow for local providers. But you see so much money getting siphoned to these monopolies and these giant political and market power entities, like AT&T and Century Link. How do we communicate that to those in power, to say, “Stop giving money to these people that are providing a terrible service for rural America?”
Christopher Mitchell: That is a very good question in terms of what we can actually do about it. In fact, when you look at building local power, it’s challenging. I’ll go back a little bit to a presentation I just gave in the Appalachians, in Marietta, Ohio, in south east Ohio. In that I was making the point that in rural Kentucky we already see some high quality fiber to the home networks in large areas of Kentucky because of coops that have reinvested historically in them.

After I spoke, one of the people came up to me and said, “Did you know that actually one of those areas that has fiber to the home is one of the poorest counties in the entire country, not just Kentucky?” They’ve been able to create jobs because of this, which I think makes the point first of all that this can be done when you have the right incentives and the right investments. But if you look at other areas of Kentucky, where we had local success stories, many of them are building wireless solutions. That’s because they’re making very rational decisions, which is to say the cost of building fiber is very expensive in the first few years.

It’s a very high capital cost and so lower income counties, counties that have bleak job prospects and people are unfortunately feeling that they have to move out of in order to get jobs, those counties don’t have the money to go and build fiber to the home. Now in talking to them, many of them realized that over 30 years the cost of operating and building wireless networks actually exceeds the cost of fiber optic networks. It’s just that fiber networks, they’re all front loaded and so what we have is a financing challenge that local communities themselves will really struggle to meet without innovative financing options like we saw in RS Fiber actually.

To a limited extent some local communities may be able to get around that but we absolutely need the federal government to help out in these areas. For that, we need rural folks to be educating themselves and demanding their representatives and their senators actually pursue what’s best for the county, rather that just what they hear is working inside the beltway of DC. The problem is, is that you need a federal government solution and that federal government solution is going to come from an area in which the only voices people listen to are AT&T and Century Link and Verizon and the big cable companies. We need to break through that kind of lobbyist power in DC in order to make sure that we have the right programs to finance these local solutions.

Nick Stumo-Langer: A point I know you made during your presentation at the Appalachian Connectivity Summit was that wireless has a little bit of a problem going through a mountain, has a little bit of a problem going through large areas, large fields where there may be telephone wires. I think that’s a good point to make for any one that is looking for a solutions. It’s good to look at this fiber that gets in the ground, that goes right to the house and that you understand person to person that you’re going to have good connectivity if you have a wire going to your house. You’re able to get on the internet. You have the upload speeds, the download speeds that you need, that type of thing.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes. I think it is worth remember that wireless is not magic. It does have problems, particularly in areas like West Virginia, in the Appalachians, in the Rockies. Now it is true that fiber is going to be much more expensive. In some cases it may be prohibitively expensive. Wireless could be a good short term solution but I think that we should not forget that we too electricity to just about everyone in the country and over time we can find ways of cost effectively getting fiber out to everyone if we look for the right entities, which are the cooperatives that will reinvest all of the gains until they connect everyone.
Hannah Trostle: We’ve seen a number of cooperatives work with both fiber and wireless solutions for rural areas. I was recently just looking at the Orcas Power and Light coop. They operate as Rock Island Communications. They took over an old DSL network and then they have been building fiber to the home out in San Juan County in Washington, which is about 20 islands. As they build from island to island, they’ve also been using wireless to connect further away islands. They’re hoping to cover their service area in mid-2018.
Christopher Mitchell: I think that’s one of the key issues, is recognizing that, the time element. People often forget about the time element but the coop is going to keep reinvesting and keep reinvesting. AT&T is going to keep extracting and keep extracting from the community. Over time, those trends, they’re either exciting if you’re a coop or really disturbing if you’re served by AT&T.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Both of you have mentioned rural electric cooperatives, cooperatives that are being formed around internet access, as well as municipal utilities being able to invest in these networks for themselves. I want to get a little bit of a sense of the barriers that exist to expansion, whether it’s to these municipalities or these rural electric cooperatives look at their neighbors, literally their neighbors and saying, “You deserve the internet access just like we have.” How is that coming up in the political scene or in any other way?
Christopher Mitchell: It varies from state to state. We have seen many municipalities that have their own fiber networks wanting to share it. Now, partially this is self interested, in that they have a large investment and a fixed cost of … had investments that include network operating center and the ability to deliver television signals and things like that, where if they can spread it across a wider base it’s going to be much less risky and they’ll have a greater return with which those who make a profit often reinvest in the community.

But many communities also recognize the benefits of a strong region, and so you see communities like Chattanooga fighting got the right to expand to their neighbors when the state will not allow them to. Tennessee has literally chosen rather than allowing cities like Morristown, Jackson, Tullahoma, Pulaski, Chattanooga to expand at no cost to tax payers. Tennessee is taking $45 million of state tax payer money and trying to give it to companies like AT&T, because AT&T is so powerful in the state.

It’s incredibly frustrating to see that municipalities that have been incredibly successful, I think Chattanooga made $20 in net income last year, they’re not able to use that to better their surrounding communities because the state has decided instead it wants to use tax payer dollars to throw at a company like AT&T, that is literally delivering a service that is 1,000 times slower at a greater cost to the rural areas. Now Hannah’s also tracked a number of barriers to rural electric coops, which actually violate federal law but state still have them in place.

Hannah Trostle: A lot of these barriers for cooperatives are actually based around funding. They prevent the coops from using department of agriculture money to build networks for internet service. Now a number of states have started to encourage cooperatives to invest in fiber networks. They have passed some laws straight up saying, “Yes, electric coops, you should do this. This would be great.” That would be Tennessee.

Then, there are cases like in Indiana, where the state realized that they needed to explain some issues with [pole 00:19:47] attachments and they passed an act called the fiber act, specifically to encourage to coops to use their existing infrastructure. They had to actually allow the coops to use all their easements that they previously had. North Carolina is the state that had prevented electric coops from providing internet service.

There have a been a number of little ways around it, such as partnering with other telephone coops or local telephone companies or not directly offering internet service to the public but having dark fiber. I know one had to create a subsidiary called, I think it was [Columbia 00:20:26] River Electric coop had to create a subsidiary called Blue Wave Connections. The rules around coops are complicated and they vary so much state to state.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Yeah. It really strikes me that our research and your expertise, both of you, runs the gamut from these great state programs and investment programs, and I guess even just the infrastructure allowing these cooperatives to invest, such as Minnesota, to all the way to North Carolina where it seems like the state legislatures, the state government in general is not wanting their rural areas that are already disadvantaged and areas that are losing population and losing economic vitality, to make themselves better. It seems like a no brainer to me that these communities should be able to invest in better internet access and all the benefits that come with it, but it seems like an odd thing. Why are these state legislatures so against this investment?
Christopher Mitchell: You have to recognize that the people working in stage legislature, the elected officials, many of them mean well and they’re really trying to represent the best interest of their community. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. I think North Carolina has some exceptions in particular. But they are very limited in their capacity. They have almost no staff to help them understand issues. Many of them are normal people who have not studied these issues in depth. They’re people who have other jobs.

The only people they can get information from are lobbyists because there is not a local group that is going to inform an elected official in North Carolina or Tennessee about the public interest view on telecom. Telecom is kind of this forgotten thing. If you’re working in energy, there’s lots of environmental groups that are working it. They’re still totally outnumbered but in telecom there’s practically no one. State legislatures are really at the mercy of these big cable and telephone company lobbyists.

That’s to some extend why even though we oppose additional barriers and we try to work with state legislatures where we can, one of the things that’s so exciting about cooperatives is that largely they can make investments that work. They may have to jump through some hoops as Hannah was describing, but people who are listening who are served by an electric or a telephone coop and they’re unhappy with their broadband service should contact their coop board. They should talk to their neighbors and organize local businesses to demand that the coop do something about it.

This is something that we have a ton of resource on at muninetworks.org, the website that houses most of our broadband work. A lot of it is work that Hannah’s done. There’s a number of interviews also that I’ve done with electric coops about this. We’ve created a wealth of resources for people who want to learn more about how they can push their own coops to solve this problem for them.

Nick Stumo-Langer: As we’re heading toward the end here, I think it would be useful for our audience to have a little bit of connective tissue with some of our other Building Local Power episodes. How does internet access, how does local investment for high quality internet access fit in the philosophy of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance? How does this all fit together? Can you map that for us, either of you?
Christopher Mitchell: The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is really focused on how to make the maximum use of your resources locally, how to make sure you have a lot of political and economic power locally. Without economic power, you struggle to have political power. Which is to say that if your community’s dependent on jobs from Walmart and other massive firms, you probably don’t have much control over the future of your community. Now if you are generating electricity locally, that means that money you’re paying for for this thing that everyone uses is staying in the community, it’s recycling in the community.

If you are doing that with your broadband service as well, then not only are you keeping that money in the community, often you’re going to have much better broadband service. Which mean you’re going to have better job prospects, you’re going to have higher property values, you’re going to be a place that people want to come to, which is going to make your community more valuable.

It’s going to make it easier to have this positive cycle of investment in the community and creating a virtuous circle. It’s hard to have a thriving economy today without a high quality broadband option. It will be even harder tomorrow. Without those high quality jobs and that sort of investment, it’s harder to be a place that people want to live. This all basically comes together and helps you to be more self-reliant.

Nick Stumo-Langer: This has been such a great conversation. Very informative for me and I’m sure for our listeners on how rural broadband fits into this whole mission statement. Something we do every week is we ask our guests for a reading recommendation. I’d like to ask both of you, do you have a reading recommendation? Watching, listening, anything that would be great for our listeners to experience. Hannah?
Hannah Trostle: The book that I’m going to recommend is not at all related to this topic. It is a book that I have been reading at night. It is called The White Goddess by Robert Graves. It is a very old book. It’s called a grammar of poetic myth, but it’s more like an autobiography about Graves’ life and how his research consumed him.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Great, thank you. Chris?
Christopher Mitchell: Let me start with the book that I’m reading at night right now, which is a book called Machine Man by Max Barry. It really captures a kind of leftist snarky author’s take on an engineer approaching the world. I’m loving it for all these asides and things like that. If you like snark and if you like that kind of left wing perspective, this book really nails it. I would also say that Max Barry’s books in general, I’ve read most of them, really cover well what happens if we do not restrain in very large corporate power. They’re often near future dystopic novels in which corporations have much more control over our lives.

But I would say that a recommendation that I can recommend from both Hannah and I, because we both read this and we both found it amazing because it was on topic and I think far more interesting than I expected, is a book called Electricity For Rural American, The Fight For the REA, which is the Rural Electrification Administration. It’s by Clayton Brown. It’s a book that’s almost 40 years old I think. I got it because I wanted to know the history.

I literally was thinking to myself, “Alright, this is going to put me to sleep for a few weeks but I’m going to get through it. I opened it up and I got sucked in. It was almost like a mystery. I found it to be incredibly exciting the way the … It was almost like this suspense thriller of how the REA came to pass, the people behind it, the interest, the talking points from the big companies at the time, which were trying to oppose these coops. I have to say, if you can find it I highly recommend it.

Hannah Trostle: I just wanted to add that there’s a fascinating section in the middle of it about the design of a report cover. It’s kind of off topic but it’s such a human element to this book. It’s about how they really liked putting red barns on their report covers to try to encourage the man who was in charge to read them because they knew he really liked red barns.
Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s a great small little element of that. I’ll give my recommended as well. I’ll keep it pretty short. I’ve been reading a lot of short story collections this summer. One that I can’t recommend enough is The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr. There’s a number of different stories in here that go into the human experience, the intersection with nature. Really, really fun.

Short stories, as I’m kind of learning because I haven’t really gotten into them too much before, is that you can just read a little bit. You read the story, it’s like 30, 40, 50 pages, and then you can completely get out of that world. You’re not sucked in. You don’t have to spend hours and hours reading the same book. It’s great. Thank you so much Chris and Hannah for joining me today, it was a great discussion.

Christopher Mitchell: Thank you.
Hannah Trostle: Thanks, Nick.
Nick Stumo-Langer: You can find all the links to what we discussed today on ilsr.org on the show page. You can go to our website ilsr.org/donate to help us produce more podcasts, have more information for you. Click on the show page for this episode. You can also sign up for our newsletters, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter and rate this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or where you find your podcast. A big thank you for our theme music, that’s Funk Interlude by Dysfunction Al. For the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I’m Nick Stumo-Langer. Thank you so much for listening for this episode of Building Local Power.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[21] Building Local Power on iTunes[22] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[23]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[24]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[25] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[26] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[27] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[28] and Facebook[29] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[30] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-07-26-blp026-hannah-chris-rural-broadband.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-07-26-blp026-hannah-chris-rural-broadband.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power-podcast-homepage
  6. Nick Stumo-Langer: https://ilsr.org/author/nick
  7. Hannah Trostle: https://ilsr.org/author/htrostle/
  8. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism/
  9. The White Goddess: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780374289331
  10. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780374289331: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780374289331
  11. Machine Man: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307476890
  12. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307476890: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307476890
  13. Electricity for Rural America: The Fight for the REA: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780313214783
  14. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780313214783: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780313214783
  15. The Shell Collector: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439190050
  16. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439190050: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439190050
  17. WAMU’s 1A Show Covers Rural Connectivity With Christopher: https://ilsr.org/wamus-1a-show-covers-rural-connectivity-with-christopher/
  18. The Power and Perils of Cooperatives (Episode 12): https://ilsr.org/the-power-and-perils-of-cooperatives-episode-12-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  19. Watch Video From Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit: https://ilsr.org/watch-video-from-appalachian-ohio-west-virginia-connectivity-summit/
  20. Access Appalachia: Internet Access for Rural America: https://ilsr.org/access-appalachia-internet-access-for-rural-america/
  21. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  22. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  23. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  24. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  25. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  26. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  27. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  28. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  29. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  30. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/connecting-rural-america-episode-26-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Orange County And Its Schools Work For Fiber In Virginia

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 8, 2017 5:00 am

With a growing need for fast, affordable, reliable connectivity, an increasing number of schools are constructing fiber optic infrastructure to serve their facilities. In some cases, they partner with local government and a collaboration eventually leads to better options for an entire community. Schools in Orange County, Virginia, will be working with county government[1] to build a $1.3 million network.

 

Quickly Growing Community

Orange County’s population of approximately 34,000 people is growing rapidly, having increased by 29 percent between 2000 and 2010. Nevertheless, it’s primarily rural with no large cities. Gordonsville (pop. 1,500) and Orange (pop. 4,800 and the county seat) are the only towns. Another community called Lake of the Woods is a census-designated place where about 7,200 people live. The rest of the county is filled with unincorporated communities. There are 343 square miles in Orange County of rolling hills with the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west.

Manufacturing and retail are large segments of the economy with 65 percent of all business having four or less employees as of 2013. Agriculture is also an important part of the community, including the growing local wine industry.

 

Working Together To Connect The County

The county and schools have teamed up to commence a multi-step project that begins by connecting the Orange County Public Schools[2]’ facilities. A 33-mile wide area network (WAN) will connect all eight buildings. Federal E-rate funds will pay for approximately 80 percent of the deployment costs and Orange County and the school district will share the remaining costs from other funding. The partners plan to deploy extra capacity for future uses.

Once the first phase of the network is complete, the county hopes to use the excess capacity to improve public safety operations. Sheriff, Fire, and EMS services need better communications so the county intends to invest in additional towers, which will also create an opportunity for fixed wireless and cellular telephone providers.

The OCBbA wants to eventually use the new infrastructure to improve access for residents and businesses. The network will be made available to ISPs interested in offering services in the area.

“Orange is a very under-served area when it comes to Internet connectivity. This will allow them the backbone and the ability now to come off the backbone and get the internet to our citizens,” Darell Hatfield, Orange County Public Schools director of technology said.

 

Starting At The Beginning

The Orange County Broadband Authority (OCBbA) formed in the spring of 2016 and established the initiative to develop an open access network aimed at improving rural connectivity. While the first two phases of the network that will serve educational and public safety needs seem assured, the OCBbA’s plan to do more is not a certainty. They also want to expand the network across the northern section of the county, but do not have an implementation date or funding yet.

The county hopes high-speed Internet serves as the gateway to attract new businesses and create a better quality of life.

“We’re pretty confident we’re on the right path of getting the infrastructure in place, and then it’s just whatever the mind can be creative about how to apply that technology,” Bryan David, Orange County administrator, said.

Check out the OCBbA presenation about Strategic Priorities here[3].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[4]. Read the original here[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. will be working with county government: http://www.nbc29.com/story/35904332/orange-county-public-schools-launching-rural-broadband-initiative
  2. Orange County Public Schools: http://www.orangecountyfirst.com/content/orange-county-schools
  3. OCBbA presenation about Strategic Priorities here: http://www.orangecountyva.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2055
  4. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/orange-county-and-its-schools-work-fiber-virginia

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/orange-county-and-its-schools-work-for-fiber-in-virginia/


The Broadband Market is Broken: Don’t Fall for Telecom Lobbyist Lies

by Lisa Gonzalez | August 3, 2017 7:41 am

We’ve all been lied to, but when we’re lied to by those we rely on, it’s the worst. Right now, we are all subject to a lie about our Internet access. That lie is rooted in the idea that the best way to move forward is to allow the free market to dictate our access to the Internet, along with the quality of services, privacy protections, and competition.

The big ISPs try to tell us “it’s a competitive market,” then they tell their shareholders competition is scarce. They tell legislators they fear competing against relatively small municipal networks and cooperatives that only serve singular regions but they have subscribers in vast swaths across the country. Federal decision makers tout the benefits of competition, but approve consolidation efforts by a few powerful companies that are already behemoths. This reality is The Big Lie.

What can we do about it? First, understand the cause of the problem. Next, share that understanding. We’ve created this short video to explain The Big Lie; we encourage you to share it and to check out our other resources. Our fact sheets[1] and reports[2] are a great place to start if you’re looking for a way to improve connectivity in your community. Don’t forget to check out our other videos[3], too.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[4]. Read the original here.

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Endnotes:
  1. fact sheets: https://muninetworks.org/fact-sheets
  2. reports: https://muninetworks.org/reports
  3. our other videos: https://muninetworks.org/content/videos
  4. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-broadband-market-is-broken-dont-fall-for-telecom-lobbyist-lies/


Brief History of Solid Waste Management and Recycling in Washington, DC

by Neil Seldman | August 2, 2017 10:49 am

The history of solid waste and recycling in the District of Columbia is long and diverse. In the early years of the 20th Century low-income girls and women were hired to pick through garbage on sorting tables to recover materials. In the more recent past, recycling of newspapers and metals was a key fundraising tool for community organizations in the District. Walter Pierce, for whom Community Park West in Adams Morgan was named, led many recycling drives to raise funds for uniforms for DC’s classic Ghetto Invitation Tournament that operated through the mid 1970s and early 1990s, helping many young men gain access to college.

Commercial recycling was sustained by ‘scrappies’ or ‘junk yards’ even as they scaled down from the heyday during WW II. The city was served for many years by Georgetown Junk, ABC Salvage, and others. Super Salvage located in Buzzard Point in SW DC is the last remaining scrap yard in the District.

Recycling in DC – as in all cities – is tied to the solid waste management system of DC.

1968 was an important year in solid waste management for the District. The Kenilworth Dump was created by the city adjacent to the Kenilworth neighborhood in Northeast DC in the early 1940s as the city’s population boomed during World War II. The Dump was a dump. Despite widespread complaints from the surrounding neighborhood, garbage was tipped and burned in the open. In 1968 a young boy was accidentally burned to death while playing amongst the fires. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson led the campaign to shut down the operations. A ‘sanitary’ landfill was built on the site, which served the city until the 1970s.

The Marion Barry Administrations (1979-1991) took an important step forward but ultimately put the city at a disadvantage in solid waste management. Barry made DC one of the first cities in the country to distribute wheeled and covered carts to each household in a strategy to address the rat infestation problems plaguing major parts of the city. A fleet of new trucks with mechanical lifts was employed. However, solid waste management, in general, was ignored for the rest of his administration. The trucks were not replaced and a depleted fleet maintenance system could not keep the trucks on the road. Further investment in the Ft. Totten and Benning Road waste transfer stations, key assets of the city, were reduced so that the hydraulic systems were down 25% of the time. During Mayor Tony Williams’ Administration (1999-2007), the city faced the daunting task of not having enough trucks each morning to service the 45 garbage routes.

The DuPont Circle Neighborhood Ecology Corporation drop-off recycling program emerged in the 1970s out of a conglomeration of nascent drop-off centers established in Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan and DuPont Circle. By late 1988, recycling consciousness in the city, as in cities across the US, helped Councilmember Nadine Winter pass a mandatory recycling law for households and businesses.

The Barry Administration had to comply, but with little enthusiasm. It did introduce curbside recycling collection. But curbside recycling was subsequently dropped two times by the city only to be reestablished after citizen complaints were taken up by numerous environmental organizations and community activists including Benneta Bullock Washington, wife of DC’s first elected Mayor Walter Washington. The city did establish a Solid Waste Advisory Commission with appointments made by each City Council member and the Mayor, as required by the recycling law. But recycling stagnated for decades as the Commission was ignored and then discontinued. Recycling stagnated, as the Department of Public Works at first was antagonistic to recycling and then became indifferent to its fate. The agency embraced incineration as the so-called ‘proper’ solution for the District, by supporting either a plant built in DC or joint ventures with neighboring jurisdictions. Recycling was seen as a needless activity and a costly added burden. The DC Sierra Club and Common Cause successfully sued the city to comply with the recycling law, but it had little immediate effect.

The recycling program was contracted out to a private hauling firm, Waste Management, Inc. Recycling participation continued to stagnate. The only improvement under the DPW was the decision to contract with a nearby composting company, Pogo, in Sunshine, MD, to take from 5,000-8,000 tons of fall leaves instead of mixing the leaves with garbage at city transfer stations and trucking to an incinerator or landfill. Brenda Platt of ILSR and Dr. Rosalie Greene of the US EPA worked for three years to establish the redirection of leaves from incineration/landfill to composting at a favorable price compared to incineration. They worked closely with the DPW on a pilot fall leaf composting program, first at Eastover Park in southeast DC in 2004, and then at the Oak Hill Youth Detention Center property in Laurel, MD, in 2005-06. The pilots were critical in demonstrating the success of leaf composting but without sufficient investment in staffing and front-end loader maintenance, ultimately ILSR recommended contracting with Pogo to accept the City’s fall leaves. Further, under its arrangement with Pogo, the city was able to buy back finished compost and mulch at reduced prices. By composting fall leaves the city raised its household recycling rate from about 20% to 25%.

In 1995, Councilmember Harry Thomas Sr. commissioned ILSR to prepare a report on solid waste and recycling. The report focused on the transfer stations as the weak link in the system and urged the city to renovate the facilities to improve the efficiency of the system and use these invaluable assets to serve both the city and the private sector. By allowing the private sector to use public facilities, the city could better amortize their investment as well as provide a surplus that could be invested in recycling and waste reduction.

ILSR also prepared a report for the AFSCME Local that represented DPW workers showing that unionized city workers could operate the recycling program better and at the same cost as Waste Management, Inc. City workers knew the routes far better than Waste Management, Inc. workers, who had high turnover rates, and therefore missed stops and resulted in the public flooding the offices of City Council members with complaints. The transition to a city work force for recycling ensued.

The efficient new transfer stations were not used to help finance recycling. But the improved transfer facilities served to alleviate the crippling development of improper private transfer stations popping up across the city even in residential neighborhoods. The Washington Coliseum for example had become a transfer station, stinking up the community, destroying streets and drastically reducing real estate values. The city had no regulations to prevent the private operators.

The deterioration of the city’s solid waste infrastructure forced the city under Mayor Williams to address the issue full on. The Williams Administration with the support of City Council chair Carol Schwartz put together a financial package that allowed the city to purchase a new fleet of collection trucks that would serve garbage routes and recycling routes. The uniform trucks allowed the fleet maintenance department to improve its efficiently. Williams created a worker management committee, which brought union members into the discussions. Drivers were asked to evaluate trucks prior to purchasing. ILSR worked with the Williams Administration to strike an accord with the private transfer stations: the private companies would be able to use the public transfer facilities at a low rate in exchange for closing down the offending transfer stations throughout the city.

Recycling remained stagnant under the hostile eyes of the DPW. Increased pressure from environmental organizations and citizens pressed the City Council to take action resulting in the “Sustainable Solid Waste Management Amendment Act of 2014,” which provided a pathway forward. The DPW was put on notice to start gathering data from the private sector for the first time. The DPW was also ordered to look into the feasibility of unit pricing for garbage collection (Save As You Throw, SAYT1[1]) and to develop a comprehensive composting program, as well as a waste reduction program. Mayor Bowser appointed an entirely new staff to lead the DPW, who have responded well to the mandate of the 2014 legislation. Negotiations coordinated by Chris Weiss of the DC Environmental Network and newly appointed DPW director Chris Shorter led to the formation of a citizen advisory committee that meets quarterly.

The city’s recycling rate is still well below the national average of 35% and far below the recycling levels reached by other major cities, some of which are recycling over 70% of their solid waste. DC’s non recycled municipal solid waste is sent to incinerators and landfills in Virginia. The city’s estimated 25,000 tons of recycled metal, glass, paper and plastic are sent to a Waste Management Inc. facility in Elkridge, MD, where they are processed for markets. Transportation costs the city close to $1 million a year. Processing at this very large materials recovery facility (MRF) is not efficient and a good percentage of materials, especially glass and plastic are not recovered but used by Waste Management, Inc., as landfill cover. ILSR contends that the city should contract with a closer-in facility, which is properly scaled for more efficient processing of recovered materials to reduce the costs of recycling. DC pays $120 per ton for recycling. Thirty miles up the road, Baltimore is paying $20 per ton to recycle, less than half of what Baltimore pays to incinerate its garbage, $50 per ton. DC pays $46 per ton to incinerate waste at the Lorton, VA garbage incinerator. The Energy Justice Network has compiled information about the environmental impact of garbage incineration on the District.2[2]

Recycling will have a much brighter future in DC under the current DPW leadership. A comprehensive composting program can boost recycling levels by 20%. We support a decentralized and diverse approach, one that for instance prioritizes backyard and community scale composting for gardens and food production in DC’s neighborhoods over large-scale industrialized sized facilities that are far away. The DPW has already initiated a Ward based drop-off program for haulers and citizens in anticipation of a comprehensive effort to get organics out of the city’s waste stream. School-based food waste collection for composting is a program of the DC Department of General Services. The DC Parks and Recreation also runs the community composting cooperative network at 50 DPR gardens and partner sites in each of the City’s Wards. These are key avenues for the city to engage citizens in the whys and wherefores of composting.

Further ILSR contends that the city can use the public transfer stations to raise capital for support of an expanded recycling program. The city’s rates for private haulers are well below market rates in the area. An increased charge of just $1 per ton disposed at the Ft. Totten and Benning Road transfer stations could provide an estimated $700,000 annually. These annual funds would allow the city to lower the cost of recycling through co-collection, distributed composting, unit pricing, development of a reuse hub for refurbishing enterprises and by reevaluating single stream collection and the Extended Producer Responsibility regulations for electronic scrap in the 2014 law.

As always, a highly effective recycling, composting and reuse system needs constant citizen vigilance and participation. The DC Sierra Club Zero Waste Committee, the DC Environmental Network, ILSR and many individual citizens form the nucleus of recycling activism in DC.

 

  1. Also known as Pay As You Throw, PAYT, and Save Money & Reduce Trash, SMART. The total price is $45.59 per ton. DC pays $34.64 per ton for tipping waste at the Covanta incinerator in Lorton, plus $10.95 per ton to Lucky Dog hauling company for hauling the waste to Lorton.
  2. See, http://www.energyjustice.net/content/dcs-waste-and-environmental-racism[3].

Photo Credit: thisisbossi via Flickr[4] (CC 2.0[5]).

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[6] and Facebook[7] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[8] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. 1: #A1
  2. 2: #A2
  3. http://www.energyjustice.net/content/dcs-waste-and-environmental-racism: http://www.energyjustice.net/content/dcs-waste-and-environmental-racism
  4. thisisbossi via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thisisbossi/8464527546/in/photolist-dTYV97-cUypYq-6CtP1A-VBoSY6-aBPBz5-dTTi5c-nqsErr-qvkcSJ-joXJzi-hs9z9m-88TaoK-agC8No-bVfZ7P-drxK4U-nMsGQj-diZt3T-9Lev6p-9dkZnt-aNm5hp-nGp57D-84amgF-53Uzwa-hs9uYg-a4RNzd-jMEH8r-ssAppE-oqgFqZ-hs9uza-b2rLx8-4DbnUK-4oCYgc-3bF9Wu-9rmWaz-4Cucda-o76hA-ecmTgC-dUNgKK-qiUgGb-dM1Gd7-aBPdeW-71NdQg-hBVSUX-8snhCA-aBPfgU-oeRWgS-6CtND9-9wH1JP-4KG8nQ-owjDW1-dwyhoS
  5. CC 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
  6. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  7. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  8. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/brief-history-of-solid-waste-management-and-recycling-in-washington-dc/


Zero is the Hero: Zero Net Energy Buildings Reach New Communities, Promising Savings, and Renewable Energy

by Matthew Douglas-May | August 2, 2017 10:02 am

As energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies continue to improve both functionally and economically, Zero Net Energy (ZNE) buildings are spreading in communities around the country. The energy savings and environmental benefits of ZNE buildings, which produce as much energy using on-site renewables as they consume, are catching the attention of city leaders, regulators, and individuals nationwide.

In May 2017 Santa Clara, California became the first city in the world[1] to include ZNE requirements in its building code, requiring all new single-family residential construction to be ZNE. Cambridge, Massachusetts plans to follow Santa Monica’s footsteps with goals to phase in ZNE[2] in all new construction between 2020 and 2030 starting with commercial buildings and finishing with energy intensive laboratories. These moves follow statewide goals set in 2007 by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for all new residential construction to be ZNE by 2020 and all new commercial construction to be ZNE by 2030. Many other cities like Fort Collins, Colorado, and Austin, Texas, have also made ZNE plans and goals[3].

On the national level, the New Buildings Institute (NBI) estimates that the number of “ZNE certified and emerging projects” increased by 74%[4] in 2016 alone.

 

Why Zero Net Energy?

The shift toward ZNE buildings is well underway, but what are the benefits and the costs it brings?

The energy drawn from the grid and consumed by a ZNE building, including electricity, natural gas, hot water, and others, is matched over the course of a year by electricity generation from on-site renewables, usually solar. In addition, energy efficiency measures reduce these buildings’ energy needs and costs. In the 41 states, four territories, and Washington, D.C.[5] where building owners can sell solar energy back to the grid with net metering, ZNE buildings will essentially have no energy bill, or even receive net revenue from surplus solar generation, promising significant savings for renters, owners, and all building stakeholders. Still, the energy efficient appliances, special building design, and solar panel installations make ZNE buildings more expensive upfront than non-ZNE buildings. The big question is, do overall ZNE savings offset the greater price of the buildings themselves? (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Santa Clara, California became the first city in the world: https://newsroom.smgov.net/2017/03/30/santa-monica-city-council-approves-ordinance-requiring-all-new-residential-construction-to-be-zero-net-energy
  2. goals to phase in ZNE: http://aceee.org/files/proceedings/2016/data/papers/10_1034.pdf
  3. ZNE plans and goals: http://aceee.org/files/proceedings/2016/data/papers/10_1034.pdf
  4. increased by 74%: http://gettingtozeroforum.org/2016-list-zero-net-energy-buildings/
  5. 41 states, four territories, and Washington, D.C.: http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/net-metering-policy-overview-and-state-legislative-updates.aspx
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/zero-is-the-hero/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/zero-is-the-hero/


Fishing for Local Power (Episode 25)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | July 27, 2017 12:00 pm

This week’s episode of Building Local Power[5] is a great conversation with a close ally and friend of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Niaz Dorry[6], coordinating director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, sits down with hosts Christopher Mitchell[7] and Stacy Mitchell[8] to talk about the growing privatization of the fishing industry, how she organizes her fishing community, and the damage that large-scale fishing does to the environment and her local economy.

This conversation offers a great on-the-ground perspective on what privatization looks like and how it harms local groups and small-scale operations.

“The players that want to privatize the ocean, and consolidate the fishing industry, sometimes are the same players we’re fighting in other parts of our social justice movements, but for some reason, we’ve not transferred that knowledge and the strategies we’ve used in other movements, to the ocean work.” says Niaz Dorry[6] of her work in organizing around these issues. “We just decided that doing very basic things, like eating fish that’s on the green list, or buying certified seafood, we’ve done our part. That’s not enough. Those were good steps forward. We know too much about what’s happened in the rest of our society, and we know too much about what’s happened in the fishing industry, to stop there.”

Here are some reading recommendations from our guest, Niaz Dorry[6]:

[9]
From Mother Jones’ March/April 2017 Issue: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/codfather-carlos-rafael-fish-fraud-catchshares/.

(more…)[10]

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-07-12-blp025-niaz-dorry-nama.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-07-12-blp025-niaz-dorry-nama.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Niaz Dorry: http://www.namanet.org/our-staff
  7. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism
  8. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym
  9. [Image]: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/codfather-carlos-rafael-fish-fraud-catchshares/
  10. (more…): https://ilsr.org/fishing-for-local-power-episode-25-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fishing-for-local-power-episode-25-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Times Editors: Rural Virginia Deserves Better Connectivity

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 24, 2017 5:23 pm

People who live in rural America have known for a long time that urban areas have better access to Internet services. Recently, however, the issue has become a hot topic of conversation and analysis by policy experts, lawmakers, and the telecommunications industry. In a recent editorial by Virginia’s Roanoke Times[1], the outlet’s leadership explained why “Third World standards” for Internet access won’t do for people who, by choice or circumstance, live in rural areas.

“Third World Connectivity”

The editors at the Times point to reporting done by the Wall Street Journal (reprinted here by MSN Money) that describes how rural America’s lack of high-quality Internet access puts it on the same economic footing as “the new inner city.” The Times quotes the WSJ:

Keep in mind the Journal is not some liberal organ typically associated with calling for more government intervention; editorially, this is the conservative voice of the nation’s business community. Its view (like ours) is purely an economic one: “Counties without modern Internet connections can’t attract new firms, and their isolation discourages the enterprises they have . . . Reliance on broadband includes any business that uses high-speed data transmission, spanning banks to insurance firms to factories.”

While the urban areas of the state average connectivity higher than the national average, much of the state – the rural areas – must contend with speeds that compare with countries like Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Nigeria.

countryside.jpgThe editors at the Times point out that, much like in the 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt vowed to electrify every rural community, private firms don’t venture where lack of profit doesn’t justify an investment. “This points the way to one possible fix that even the Journal highlights: Government intervention,” writes the Times editors.

But they understand the hurdles that exist today that weren’t so high when Roosevelt was working his plan to light up the farms. Public efforts to connect rural America face hurdles from giant telecommunications companies who fear any competition today or in the future. Lobbying at the state level is powerful.

We saw an example of that in the most recent General Assembly, where Del. Kathy Byron, R-Bedford County, sponsored a bill[2] that would have crippled existing municipal broadband authorities (such as the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority) and made it difficult for new ones to form.

Byron was inexplicably working against her own constituents’ interests. Forest averages 8.4 mbps, slower than Sri Lanka. Bedford averages 6.3 mbps, just barely faster than Peru. Byron’s ideology may be pure, but when it comes to a key part of modern infrastructure, her constituents are living under Third World conditions.

That ideological purity is also simply wrong. If telecoms could make money in these rural areas, they would. They can’t. So should we just let them wither and die?

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. recent editorial by Virginia’s Roanoke Times: http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-will-virginia-tolerate-third-world-infrastructure-in-its-rural/article_1a24a567-b90a-5ab1-8949-aea3796b5fba.html
  2. Del. Kathy Byron, R-Bedford County, sponsored a bill: https://muninetworks.org/tags/va-hb-2108
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/times-editors-rural-virginia-deserves-better-connectivity/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/times-editors-rural-virginia-deserves-better-connectivity/


Three Forces Fighting Local Renewable Energy and Three Ways to Fight Back

by John Farrell | July 24, 2017 2:00 pm

If you’re reading energy news of late, you might have come across three new ways that forces are aligning against local renewable energy. State governments are increasingly pre-empting local authority on a range of issues, including energy. Utility companies are undercutting state regulation with their legislative lobbyists. And utilities are also bringing their monopoly market power to bear in previously competitive markets.

We’ll detail examples of each of these three disturbing trends, and ways to fight back.

State Preemption

One of the most disturbing trends in politics is that of states preempting local authority.

Across many economic sectors, we at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance identify ways that cities can take charge of their local economy. In energy, that includes ideas like a city takeover (municipalization) of the utility, banning fracking, or increasing franchise fees charged to private, monopoly utilities for use of public property to deliver energy services.

Unfortunately, some state legislatures have decided to reduce local authority to make these moves. Through municipalization laws passed decades ago, states preempted or limited local authority to take over utilities, instead favoring state regulation and oversight. State lawmakers In Colorado in 2016 passed a law that overturns local bans on gas fracking[1]. In 2017, the Minnesota legislature considered a bill[2] that would add complexity when cities consider changes to franchise fees, despite ample public notice and deliberation required by cities that have such fees.

While there aren’t numerous examples of local energy policy preemption, we fear it may grow as states become more accustomed to preempting cities[3], or making it expensive for local governments to exercise authority. In Arizona, for example, differences of opinion in a variety of areas of regulation prompted the state government to threaten to withhold local government aid[4] to cities that enact ordinances that conflict with the priorities of the legislature and governor.

States themselves are facing a preemption threat as well, with U.S. Energy Secretary Perry suggesting[5] he may find ways to favor large-scale fossil fuel power plants over renewable energy producers. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. law that overturns local bans on gas fracking: https://ballotpedia.org/Preemption_conflicts_between_state_and_local_governments#tab=Fracking
  2. considered a bill: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF1146&version=1&session=ls90&session_year=2017&session_number=0
  3. states become more accustomed to preempting cities: http://nlc.org/preemption
  4. state government to threaten to withhold local government aid: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/06/473244707/from-fracking-bans-to-paid-sick-leave-how-states-are-overruling-local-laws
  5. suggesting: http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-state-renewable-energy-goals-2381603128.html
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/3-forces-fighting-local-renewable-energy/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/3-forces-fighting-local-renewable-energy/


Co-ops and Counties Improving Indiana Connectivity

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 24, 2017 5:44 am

Like other states with significant rural populations, local communities in Indiana have been working to come up with ways to improve connectivity for residents and businesses. Two more areas in Indiana can expect better connectivity as county government invests for economic development and a rural electric co-op decides its time to offer Internet access to members.

Jackson County Rural Electric Membership Corporation

In the south central section of the state, Jackson County Rural Electric Membership Corporation (REMC) serves members in ten counties. Their members don’t live in areas in and around the larger towns in the region because most of those premises already had electric service when REMC obtained a federal loan to electrify the area in 1937. Their service area covers about 1,400 square miles and they serve 24,200 members.

In June, the cooperative announced that it had approved a five-year plan to provide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) connectivity to every member in its service area. In their press release, REMC compared the project to rural electrification, which launched the cooperative, and wrote:

Several factors were taken into consideration: enhancing the quality of life for members, agricultural and agribusiness needs, providing an enhanced path for education and healthcare opportunities, keeping our communities economically viable, and developing a plan where no REMC member is eft out. All of these facts fall under Cooperative Principle #7: Concern for Community.

A Big Project

REMC will invest approximately $5.43 million for the project’s first phase; the entire project will cost $20 million in Jackson County alone. The investment for REMC’s entire service area will be $60 million. Co-op officials estimate the project will be cash positive in three years and will be completely paid for in 16 years.

In June, Jackson County Council unanimously approved a tax abatement for the cost of phase 1[1], which establishes the backbone for the system and snakes through most of the counties in REMC’s service area. Phase 1 will also include an opportunity to test the network by connecting approximately 990 members in order to work out problems before offering services to members across the entire network.

According to the local Crothersville Times[2], local realtors have expressed concern about the county’s lack of high-quality connectivity, said Executive Director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corporation Jim Plump. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. unanimously approved a tax abatement for the cost of phase 1: http://www.tribtown.com/2017/06/24/council_oks_broadband_abatement/
  2. the local Crothersville Times: http://crothersvilletimes.com/?p=8100
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/co-ops-and-counties-improving-indiana-connectivity/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/co-ops-and-counties-improving-indiana-connectivity/


Watch Video From Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 20, 2017 9:58 am

If you weren’t able to make it to the Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit in Marietta, Ohio[1], on July 18th or if you’re just interested in learning more about improving connectivity in rural areas, you can still almost be there. Video of Christopher’s keynote address is available to view.

The event occurred on July 18th at Washington State Community College in Marietta, Ohio. In addition to Christopher’s presentation, there was a panel discussion about community ownership models. Other experts offering information included Marty Newell from the Center for Rural Strategies, Kate Forscey from Public Knowledge, and former chairwoman of the FCC Mignon L. Clyburn, who also spoke at a Town Hall that evening.

For more information on connecting rural America, including the Appalachian regions, check out these resources:

 

More Resources:

Access Appalachia page[2] – Our page includes federal statistics on broadband availability and federal subsidies for large Internet Service Providers. Find toolkits and detailed maps of 150 counties in Kentucky, Southeast Ohio, and northern West Virginia.

Central Appalachia Broadband Policy Recommendations[3] from the Central Appalachia Regional Network

The Fiber Broadband Association’s Community Toolkit[4] from the Fiber Broadband Association

Broadband Planning Primer and Toolkit[5] from the Appalachian Regional Commission

 

Get more information from:

Appalshop[6] of Whitesburg, Kentucky

Blandin Foundation[7]

Common Cause[8]

Center for Rural Strategies[9]

Public Knowledge[10]

Generation West Virginia[11]

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[12]. Read the original here[13].

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Endnotes:
  1. the Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit in Marietta, Ohio: https://muninetworks.org/content/appalachian-ohio-west-virginia-connectivity-summit-july-18th
  2. Access Appalachia page: https://muninetworks.org/content/access-appalachia
  3. Central Appalachia Broadband Policy Recommendations: http://www.carnnet.org/docs/Policy%20recommendations_web.pdf
  4. The Fiber Broadband Association’s Community Toolkit: https://toolkit.fiberbroadband.org/
  5. Broadband Planning Primer and Toolkit: http://www.arc.gov/images/programs/telecom/ARCBroadbandPlanningPrimerToolkit.pdf
  6. Appalshop: https://www.appalshop.org/
  7. Blandin Foundation: https://blandinfoundation.org/programs/expanding-opportunity/broadband/
  8. Common Cause: http://www.commoncause.org/
  9. Center for Rural Strategies: http://www.ruralstrategies.org/
  10. Public Knowledge: https://www.publicknowledge.org/
  11. Generation West Virginia: http://www.generationwv.org/
  12. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  13. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/watch-video-appalachian-ohio-west-virginia-connectivity-summit

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/watch-video-from-appalachian-ohio-west-virginia-connectivity-summit/


RS Fiber Upgrades: Gigabit Speeds With No Price Increase

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 18, 2017 5:00 am

As if bringing high-quality connectivity to rural central Minnesota wasn’t enough, RS Fiber Cooperative has recently established the “Cornerstone Member” program[1]. Now that gigabit connectivity is available, existing residential customers can upgrade from 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) with no price increase. As long as they continue service uninterrupted through 2017, they offer stands.

General Manager Toby Brummer:

“We wanted to do something for those customers who made that early commitment to RS Fiber. We thought they should be recognized in some special way for their loyalty and support of the cooperative. Future Internet applications will likely require higher speeds and this will set our customers up for broadband success for the foreseeable future.”

It’s What They Do

The upgrade to gigabit connectivity for existing subscribers with no increase in price follows the same pattern we’ve seen from other publicly owned networks. Recently, we presented detailed data from municipal networks in Tennessee that showed how rates have changed very little over decades[2], even though speeds have consistently increased.

Vermont’s ECFiber also recently announced a speed increase[3] at no extra charged for subscribers. They also plan another increase in 2018.

RS Fiber Cooperative has been connecting towns and rural areas in Sibley and Renville County. For more about the cooperative, check out our 2016 case study, RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative[4]. The last four communities to receive services[5] will be connected later in 2017.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[6]. Read the original here[7].

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Endnotes:
  1. recently established the “Cornerstone Member” program: http://www.rsfiber.coop/rs-fiber-cornerstone-status-rewards-early-subscribers-with-lifetime-gigabit-internet/
  2. how rates have changed very little over decades: https://muninetworks.org/content/tennessee-muni-rates-fact-sheet
  3. recently announced a speed increase: https://muninetworks.org/content/ecfiber-increases-speeds-not-ratesagain
  4. RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative: https://muninetworks.org/reports/rs-fiber-fertile-fields-new-rural-internet-cooperative
  5. last four communities to receive services: https://muninetworks.org/content/rs-fiber-starts-connecting-last-four-communities
  6. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  7. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/rs-fiber-upgrades-gigabit-speeds-no-price-increase

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rs-fiber-upgrades-gigabit-speeds-with-no-price-increase/


Local Solar Power: Red Plus Blue Makes a Green Tea Party (Episode 24)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | July 13, 2017 12:00 pm

In this week’s episode of Building Local Power[5] we interview Debbie Dooley, President of Conservatives for Energy Freedom[6] and co-founder of the Green Tea Coalition[7] in the southern United States. Dooley’s organizations promote “consumer choice in the energy field” to “provide competition” and stop monopolies from limiting their customer’s options in renewable energy. The Green Tea Coalition[7] features a collaboration between members of the Tea Party Movement and progressives in the Green Party and the Democratic Party in Georgia and other southern states.

This conversation tracks closely with a previous Building Local Power episode where our experts discussed hyper-partisanship in our political system. That episode, Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local[8], discussed how local issues and local politics cuts across partisan barriers and brings coalitions of concerned residents together.

“I live in Atlanta, there’s different roads that will take you to your final destination of Atlanta. The roads you take is dependent upon where you’re coming from,” says Debbie Dooley of talking to people across the political spectrum in order to promote local renewable energy. “As long as we work together, someone’s willing to work together to advance clean energy and solar and other renewables, I don’t care why they’re advancing it, wanting to work to advance it. I just care in the end result.”

Here are some great reading and watching recommendations from our guest, Debbie Dooley:

Article from Vox[9]

 

Article from The Guardian[10]

Get caught up with the latest work from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on fighting monopoly power in energy and other economic sectors:

Solar: Choice, Competition, and Clean Air[11]

Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local (Episode 14)[12]

Reminder: The Fight for 100 Percent Renewable is Political[13]

Thanks To Your Local Economy, Renewables Aren’t Going Anywhere (Episode 15)[14]

Christopher Mitchell: Hey John, did you ever see that movie Lincoln?
John Farrell: Nope.
Christopher Mitchell: I didn’t either, there was not enough explosions. It’s on my list but things that blow up or have a lot of jokes get to the top of my list faster. I understand that there’s a discussion there about the difference between a compass and a map, in that the compass shows you what direction you want to go in but a map will actually give you a better sense of how to get to your destination, it shows you where the swamps are and things like that. I feel like your work in energy, this is related to that because you’re trying to get to a spot and you’re looking for the best way to get there. It’s not just marching in one direction and shouting at everyone about climate change. How would you describe what you do?
John Farrell: I think what we are doing is trying to open up as many possible avenues for local solutions to the energy economy. We’re looking at that from many different perspectives, whether that’s simple policies to make it easier for folks to afford putting up solar on their own roof, to more complicated fights like trying to break up utility monopolies that use their political power at the state and the federal level to make it more difficult.
Christopher Mitchell: It sounds to me like you’re having a lot more success in drawing in a wider political base. You can work with people across the political spectrum for your ends, whereas I think people that are only talking about climate change, they’re not going to be able to get there.
John Farrell: Yeah. I think it is the danger of the compass method as you put it and focusing too much on what is the real problem that we’re facing but not necessarily recognizing that there are many roads to get there, and that sometimes the more effective roads in the long run are the ones that attract people where they are, get them a sense of self-interest and buy in into the solution that is often at the local level and that build that larger political constituency so the next time that we have a big national conversation about it, they’re ready to buy in in a language that you have.
Christopher Mitchell: Great, let’s talk about this with someone who’s been doing it for quite some time.
John Farrell: Sounds like a plan.
Christopher Mitchell: We’re now going to bring on Debbie Dooley, the president of Conservatives for energy freedom and the Green Tea Coalition. Welcome to the show.
Debbie Dooley: Thank you guys for having me on the show and allowing me the opportunity to get my message out.
Christopher Mitchell: Absolutely, we’re excited to learn more about that message. As we get into it perhaps the first question would be, what exactly is the Green Tea Coalition?
Debbie Dooley: The Green Tea Coalition was founded in 2013. It was a mechanism that brought both conservative and progressive activists together to support Georgia Power adding more solar to their energy mix. It was made of Tea Party activists and Sierra Club activists. We were very successful in that endeavor.
John Farrell: You sort of alluded to this already Debbie, and by the way this is John. Hello, it’s great to talk to you.
Debbie Dooley: Hi, John.
John Farrell: What motivated you to start the Green Tea Coalition? You mentioned that it was about getting Georgia Power to do more with solar, but also to start the organization Conservatives for Energy Freedom. I’m also interested in how you see that mission aligning with the work that we do at ILSR that we’re calling building local power.
Debbie Dooley: I was motivated to educate conservatives and other people about solar and renewable energy. I started Conservatives for Energy Freedom as a mechanism to, the audience was specifically conservatives and republicans, to give them the correct information about clean energy, about solar because they have been given so much false information over the years from groups that were actually funded by monopolies in fossil fuel that did not like the competition from solar and other clean energy.

My mission aligns with building local power because I think we can be very effective on the local level, local control, energy freedom. There’s nothing more local than a private property owner that [inaudible 00:04:41] has the right to control the energy he produces on his private property. The power belongs to the people.

Christopher Mitchell: You mentioned that one of the goals that you had was correcting misinformation that folks had received about clean energy, do you feel like conservatives need a different message than liberals about clean energy?
Debbie Dooley: I absolutely do. My dad is a retired baptist minister. Growing up a preacher’s kid, he always used to tell me, “You’ve got to get them in the church in order to hear your message.” The big mistake progressives make is assuming incorrectly that if someone doesn’t believe in climate change then they oppose clean energy. It is a misconception to believe that. In Georgia, we just passed a third party PPA bill, which will allow third party leasing and sales of solar panels. It passed the Georgia legislature with 100% support from legislators of both parties. It was championed by Republican legislators. It was with the message of energy choice, free market competition. I absolutely believe that that is the winning message.

If you talk to most Republicans about clean energy and you open up, “We need to go with clean energy because of climate change,” they’re not going to pay a bit of attention to anything else you say. But if you talk about energy choice, private property rights, freedom, innovation, national security and being good stewards of the environment God gave us, all of a sudden you will have a receptive audience. I live in Atlanta, there’s different roads that will take you to your final destination of Atlanta. The roads you take is dependent upon where you’re coming from. As long as we work together, someone’s willing to work together to advance clean energy and solar and other renewables, I don’t care why they’re advancing it, wanting to work to advance it. I just care in the end result.

Christopher Mitchell: Debbie, I get the impression that when you make this case, that it’s receptive obvious, it’s received well from folks. You’ve been doing it for quite some time. I’m curious where it stacks up from a conservative person, how interested am I in this relative to other things that I might be really interested in, such as lowering taxes or healthcare issues? Is this something that when you talk to people it rises toward the top of their list of interests?
Debbie Dooley: It is not at the top of their list of interests. I depends on the timing of talking to them. For example, I was involved in opposing a rate case in the Panhandle of Florida, in the Pensacola area, Gulf Power wanted to bring in a coal plant that was actually losing money that was in Georgia into their [inaudible 00:08:22]. They also wanted to add a $48 per month fixed charged on everyone’s power bill. I called it a solar tax. Because this was going on, people were receptive, Panhandle of Florida is a big Republican area. People were interested at that time because of this rate case going on. At that point, they were interested in it in Georgia.

Georgia Power has a big fiasco with plant Votgle and with Westinghouse going bankrupt. People here are very much interesting in advancing solar. Every conservative that I know believes in energy choice. They don’t like these giant monopolies depriving them of the decision of what to do on their private property. They want to be energy independent. If you have a list of 10, it may not rank one, two, three, but it will certainly rank probably five or six on that list of the top 10 with the right messaging.

Christopher Mitchell: What do you see … I suspect the answer to this might already be, “It depends,” but do you see a particular opportunity that’s very big around renewable energy? Is it at the federal level, is it at the state level, or is it at the local level that we have the greatest opportunity to make progress?
Debbie Dooley: Everybody will say and agree that Barack Obama, under his eight years of his administration, he was very much a pro clean energy president. Yet, I was fighting battle after battle after battle on the state level, because to me there are so many opportunities on the state level to advance renewables, to advance clean energy. Look what’s going on in North Carolina, South Carolina, a lot of the southern states, the states in the south, they are really going renewable.

Under the Obama administration the real battle has always been on the state level. There is no change whatsoever under President Trump. The battle and the opportunities to advance clean energy, the best opportunity is going to be on the state level because especially Republicans, they pay attention to a lot of things that happen on the federal level but it seems like they’re much more interested on the state level or the local level because that impacts their daily lives much more than something on the federal level does.

Christopher Mitchell: What do you see … I mentioned earlier this issue with the monopoly utility company, is that really the biggest barrier when we talk about people having a choice to go solar, or are there other things that represent a bigger barrier? Whether that’s the cost or something else.
Debbie Dooley: I believe it is misinformation by Koch Brothers funded groups and the giant electric monopolies that prohibit competition and choice. For example, if we removed the regulatory barriers and allow solar and other clean energy to compete on a level playing field, and folks can generate their own electricity, they have the opportunity to enter into private contracts and sell excess energy to their neighbors. The cost portion will go away. I think a lot of people now in states where you have net metering, where they actually can sell the excess energy and you have all of that going on, I think you see rooftop solar flourishes.

I think if we remove those regulatory barriers that exist and allow people to control the power they produce on their private property, you allow them to become entrepreneurs and actually make a profit off of it, then I think you’ll see solar and other clean energy to explode in the United States. Cost, yes, I see, hear a lot of people talking about the cost, upfront cost of rooftop solar, but if you remove those regulatory barriers and allow competition and choice, I think that’d do away with the cost concern.

Christopher Mitchell: Debbie, you mentioned all this work at the state level, the unanimous support in Georgia I believe is what you were saying. I focus more on broadband issues. One of the things that’s odd is that we are often working with Conservative communities at the local level, we find at the state level it’s more often that Republicans are on the side of the cable companies and Democrats are mixed. At the federal level it’s almost totally partisan, where it’s mostly Republicans that are opposing the kinds of things we want to do for local power. I’m always curious when I’m talking to someone who’s more conservative, who do you look at in terms of leading lights on the conservative side for anti-monopoly thinking and anti-monopoly work?
Debbie Dooley: There’s a lot of leaders on the conservative side that go after the monopoly. I think I’m the most vocal one that’s out there. Believe it or not, when you were talking about cable, you would not believe the comments and the complaints I receive from Republicans, from conservatives especially Tea Party Republicans, complaining about the local cable companies and how they would like to have a choice besides going to a satellite. I do believe that that is out there, that people do complain about that. I do see where you’re coming from, even in the electric monopoly model, a lot of Republicans are more aligned with these electric, government created electric monopolies, whereas a lot of folks on the Democrat, progressive side, aren’t as aligned.

Again, that depends on situation but I can tell you, when I first began the work in Florida the Republicans were very closely aligned with the monopolies because the monopolies campaign contributions and all of that. I began to get the message out and began to work, work with a lot of the elected officials and influencing policy by giving interviews, and all of a sudden a lot of Republicans started saying, “Hey, maybe we need to take a closer look.” They passed legislation that remove the tangible property tax from commercial solar. They’re more open to renewables that they once were.

I will be honest with you, I have seen some Democrats leaning groups that support monopolies too. It’s because these electric monopolies have a lot of money. They use their utility customers as cash cows, so it’s like they have these big money trees, so they have a lot of money that they can donate to a lot of both Democrat and Republican groups. Money drives a lot of this. I am changing it, look what happened in Georgia. Georgia Power was king forever, until, nobody ever defeated them, until 2013 when I formed Green Tea Coalition and partnered with Republicans on the public service commission to go against what Georgia Power wanted and got them to add more solar to their energy portfolio pix. I happen to believe that’s all changing.

Christopher Mitchell: I want to agree with you before John asks the next question because that’s something that we definitely see. We certainly see progressive groups that people are surprised when they suddenly take a strong position in telecommunications in an issue they haven’t been involved at before. Then you find out that they got a bunch of money from a Comcast or someone like that. It seems like, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m suggesting it’s all on one side of the aisle, but I’m always curious in terms of very briefly if there’s any authors or media personalities you think get this right at the national level?
Debbie Dooley: I don’t know a whole lot of folks that are willing to do that. Now, I am sure there are some out there but I would look on the libertarian progressive side, I would look in Nevada. We had a big battle in Nevada against the monopolies there and the libertarian party was very much involved in that. They created a group called Unplug Monopolies. I would look at a John Stossel on Fox Business Network or someone like that. For example, Republican celebrity actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is not fond of monopolies either.
John Farrell: Debbie, this is John. I was interested in asking you about one policy you thought that would really make a difference. You alluded earlier to net metering being something that really helps drive that opportunity for individuals to go solar and get fair compensation but given this discussion about monopolies, it’s certainly an issue that we faced here in Minnesota as well. A utility company was supposed to get regulatory approval of a power plant and they went to the legislature and got approval to skip all of the cost analysis. I’m curious, is the end result, is the policy that we really want if we could have a magic wand that would get rid of the monopoly, that would make electricity service more competitive, not just from the economic side of things but also breaking apart the political power of these utility companies.
Debbie Dooley:  I think that would absolutely do that. I would encourage everyone to actually look at what Texas has done in regard to their electric utilities. They did not call it deregulation because a lot of is still a little bit regulated. They call it a restructuring. People like individual liberty, especially Republicans, Democrats, that’s something that’s bipartisan. Being able to actually be self-sufficient so you’re not reliant on a centralized authority and you can generate your own power and you can pay for the cost of it by actually selling excess power to your neighbors, then that would be something that I really and truly believe would take off. Look what’s going on in Texas, wind power is very big in Texas. I think that’s something that we really need to look at.

Another thing that people are increasingly concerned about, there is nothing more prone to a terrorist attack than our centralized power grid. The federal energy regulatory commission found a few years ago that terrorists would have to take down nine of the key substations and it would cause a blackout from coast to coast that would last weeks. If we move to a rooftop solar kind of decentralized power structure, that would help protect us against such a devastating impact of our centralized power grid going down. I fully believe that solar is a national security issue.

Christopher Mitchell: Debbie, where do you see the opportunities for bipartisan action given your success in Georgia and other places? I’m curious too if Donald Trump’s election has changed the nature of the work, trying to work across party lines.
Debbie Dooley: I say there’s a lot of opportunity. These battles in Florida, we have a bipartisan coalition in Florida. We work together to try to advance solar based on free market competition and choice. We work with, in Florida, one of the partners on the left that I’m very close to and work with is Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Dr. Stephen Smith. He gets it. He understands that the message has to be different when you’re trying to reach Republicans than when you’re trying to reach progressives. We’ve been working together I believe it’s since really 2014 and we have a great working relationship together. We hang together in Florida, the monopolies put a referendum on the Florida ballot that would increase their power and would have really hurt solar. It would have given them even more power to kill solar. It was masquerading as a pro-solar ballot.

Left and right came together, election night I was in the Tampa area, we all flew down to see if we were able to defeat it. On election night Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives came together to actually watch the local election returns in Florida to see if we were able to defeat the referendum that these electric monopolies had spent over $20 million on to pass. We were able to defeat that. We celebrated, we had Champagne. Then through parts of the night all of the Democrats were basically on one side of the room, in one section, watching the presidential election returns, and the Republicans in the coalition were on the other side, seeing if Donald Trump would win. We respected each other’s difference. We would joke with each other.

In Georgia the coalition has been bipartisan. In Nevada, it’s been a bipartisan coalition. The key to that is being able to come together and respect each other’s differences. We don’t talk about issues we don’t agree on, that’s a taboo subject. That’s the key because fighting for renewables and fighting these electric monopolies and fossil fuel interests, it’s a David versus Goliath battle, so we’re much more successful and it’s been my experience where we find a way to work together on issues we agree on. As far as Donald Trump’s election, it has really not changed my work one bit with the exception that I get a lot of news interviews because they know I’m a Trump supporter.

Christopher Mitchell: You mentioned one thing I want to follow up on very briefly. That’s, you agree with people that you have different political views from to not discuss the issues that you disagree on. Is that just when you’re in the meeting talking about the issues? Do you ever go out for drinks afterward and then you can have debates and let your hair down? Or is it really that you try to avoid talking about these issues at all?
Debbie Dooley: We avoid talking about the issues but we do socialize. Here in Georgia a friend, Colleen Kiernan used to be executive director of Sierra Club, we would meet for lunch or have drinks. I would always go to see her club’s Christmas party and all that, but we did not talk about, we avoided topics that we disagreed on because we knew that was counterproductive and we would not change each other’s mind.

Now in Florida, some of the people that I’ve worked with on the front lines and stuff like that, fighting these battles in Florida, we’ll joke, they’ll laugh and call me a tree hugger because that’s what a lot of the Koch funded groups used to call me when I first became a very strong advocate for solar. But it’s best to avoid the topic because it will be divisive and it’s better to focus your energy on issues you agree on or talk about movies or personal things, but stay away from the topic of politics.

Christopher Mitchell: I find it funny that you’d be called a tree hugger for supporting solar, considering trees are one of the biggest challenges for solar, they’re kind of enemies in a lot of ways. I wanted to emphasize what you said, I found myself in Lafayette, Louisianan, which is a very conservative city, who had a mayor at the time that I tremendously admire. I was having diner with very close friends of his who have political ideas that are very much in opposition. I said, “What happens when politics comes up?” They looked at me and they said, “Why would we ever talk about politics?”
Debbie Dooley: Agreed.
Christopher Mitchell: Right. I think it’s worth noting. We’re told by national media that we’re such a polarized society but it’s worth remembering that there are a lot of people that manage human relationships without having arguments that are political and divisive. I wanted to highlight that. Can I ask you as a final question, do you have any recommended books or articles that anyone that’s been enjoying our conversation should read?
Debbie Dooley: I’ve written articles for the UK Guardian that talks about my solar belief. I’ve written those, they’re actually articles. There’s a video. I’ve done two videos with Vox, vox.com. One of the videos actually talks about the Republican talking points. About two months ago I spoke at UC Berkeley on an energy panel. We got along great. They asked me why I supported Trump, I laid out the case, respectful and they said, “We disagree with you but you have the right to believe the way you believe.” I could not have been treated better at UC Berkeley. It was phenomenal. I loved being there.

April 1st I spoke at Columbia University in New York City. Same thing, treated very, very well. You have treat … When you’re working with your friends, with friends on the left, progressives, you can be friends. I went to University of Alabama and I live right in the middle of Georgia Bulldog country during college football season, but that doesn’t mean people that don’t like Alabama are my enemies. They’re not, they’re friends.

Christopher Mitchell: Maybe for a few hours.
Debbie Dooley: For a few hours, right. I would like to say, you have to treat politics like you would when you’re having a big family thanksgiving dinner, you don’t approach the subject that you know will cause controversy. I would recommend a book that can be very useful, it’s called America, The Owner’s Manual and how to beat city hall. I’m mentioned in the first part of it. It was written by former Democratic governor and senator from Florida, Bob Graham. He’s a great guy.

That’s something that’s really instructive that will tell you how you can put your differences and work with people across the aisle. Like, it’s okay to bring up issues besides, “Hey, how do you feel about this issue and about that issue.” When we do we find that the left or right have a lot more in common than just energy. For example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, I worked with my friends in the labor union to oppose that. You have teachers unions are working with, in many states working with conservatives to stop common core. A lot of this has already been done in Georgia. I’ve worked with groups on the left, formed a coalition to stop a anti-union bill that was backed by the chamber of commerce. I worked with a lot of the same groups to oppose tax payer funding of a sport stadium. There’s a lot of opportunity that’s out there, you just really have to be respectful and really don’t discuss issues you don’t agree on and you’ll be much more successful.

Christopher Mitchell: Thank you so much for your time and all of the work you spent and all these years organizing for local power.
Debbie Dooley: Thank you. It’s an honor that you asked me to be on your podcast. You guys are great.
John Farrell: Thanks so much Debbie, great talking to you.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Debbie Dooley, president of Conservatives for Energy Freedom and the Green Tea Coalition, joining John Farrell from our Energy Democracy initiative and Christopher Mitchell from the Community Broadband Networks initiative. This was episode 24 of the Building Local Power Podcast. Learn more about Debbie’s organization at energyfreedomusa.org. Also, both organizations have a presence on Facebook.

Subscribe to this podcast and our other podcast, Local Energy Rules and Community Broadband Bits, on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music licensed through Creative Commons, the song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to episode 24 of the Building Local Power Podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[15] Building Local Power on iTunes[16] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[17]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[18]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[19] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[20] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[21] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[22] and Facebook[23] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[24] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-07-07-blp024-debbie-dooley-green-tea.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-07-07-blp024-debbie-dooley-green-tea.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Conservatives for Energy Freedom: http://energyfreedomusa.org/about/
  7. Green Tea Coalition: https://www.facebook.com/thegreenteacoalition/
  8. Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local: https://ilsr.org/breaking-through-partisanship-left-right-local-episode-14-of-the-building-local-power-podcast
  9. Article from Vox: https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/4/18/15339266/debbie-dooley-tea-party-conservative-republicans-renewable-energy
  10. Article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/06/debbie-dooley-tea-party-solar-energy-florida-environment
  11. Solar: Choice, Competition, and Clean Air: https://ilsr.org/choice-competition-and-clean-air/
  12. Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local (Episode 14): https://ilsr.org/breaking-through-partisanship-left-right-local-episode-14-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  13. Reminder: The Fight for 100 Percent Renewable is Political: https://ilsr.org/reminder-the-fight-for-100-percent-renewable-is-political/
  14. Thanks To Your Local Economy, Renewables Aren’t Going Anywhere (Episode 15): https://ilsr.org/thanks-to-your-local-economy-renewables-arent-going-anywhere-episode-15-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  15. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  18. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  19. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  20. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  21. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  22. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  23. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  24. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-solar-power-episode-24-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Slow-to-Accelerate EV Charging Program Provides Lessons for Improvement

by Karlee Weinmann | July 12, 2017 8:00 am

Minnesota’s largest investor-owned utility, Xcel Energy, last month reported sparse participation in a program designed to deliver value to customers who charge their electric vehicles when it’s most convenient for the grid. But despite its benefits for the grid and cost savings for customers, the initiative appears stuck in neutral.

By April 2017, a year and a half after its launch, just 95 Xcel customers had opted in to the state-mandated electric vehicle charging tariff. With nearly 1,000 plug-in vehicles registered to Minnesota drivers — a bulk of them likely in Xcel’s metro-area territory — participation numbers hover well below reasonable expectations. Why?

A review of Xcel’s most recent report on the program[1], filed with regulators on June 1, offers a few hints.

First, the utility’s outreach to date hasn’t followed a proven blueprint established by other utilities more proactive about electric vehicle ownership. Where Xcel has spent more than $100,000 to table at farmers markets and meet with local employers, it hasn’t built relationships with car dealers to educate electric vehicle buyers about charging options. Austin Energy, in Texas, has proven the potential of partnerships with dealerships, offering a month’s free charging[2] to new electric car owners as a tool to let them know about charging plans.

But even with bolder outreach, questions loom about the viability of Xcel’s charging program for customers unable or unwilling to shoulder high upfront costs. The utility requires separate metering and charging infrastructure that costs roughly $1,500 — a burden that likely deters participation when the average payback for participation is just $14 per month. (That means it would take more than nine years to recoup the initial investment, more than the six-year average duration of car ownership.) In contrast, the charging program at nearby Dakota Electric has a lower upfront cost that pays back in just 2-4 years of typical charging.

Disappointing participation numbers for Xcel’s program underscore the need for a more holistic approach to encouraging drivers to charge when electricity is least expensive. Without the right charging policies in place, Xcel misses an opportunity to strengthen demand response, improve grid performance, and get itself ready for an increasingly electrified transportation system.

 

[3] (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. recent report on the program: https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showPoup&documentId=CBD932BE-76AF-4BCD-84CE-7EC008ED6AA3&documentTitle=20176-132476-01
  2. a month’s free charging: https://ilsr.org/amid-ev-surge-austin-eyes-a-new-way-of-doing-business-episode-48-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1-Graphics-for-EV-report-test-BG-2017-0607.006.jpeg
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/xcel-energy-ev-charging-minnesota/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/xcel-energy-ev-charging-minnesota/


“Muni Fiber Models” Community Internet Connectivity Fact Sheet

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 12, 2017 6:24 am

When local communities look for ways to improve connectivity, they may consider investing in a municipal fiber optic network. As they begin to review possible options, local officials, their staff, and community groups will realize that there are a number of potential models. We’ve put together the Muni Fiber Models fact sheet[1] that takes a brief look at those models and provides some examples.

From “Retail” to “Tubes In The Ground”

Chattanooga[2] is the most well known municipal Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network and is offered by the community’s Electric Power Board (EPB). EPB’s service offers telephone, Internet access, and video service directly to subscribers. The fact sheet provides more examples of communities that have decided that full retail service[3] is right for them. On the other end of the spectrum, places like Lincoln, Nebraska[4], provide only the infrastructure and lease it to private sector providers who then offer retail services to businesses and residents. The other approaches we find most commonly used include open access[5], I-Nets[6], and Partnerships between local government and the private sector.

We’ve included short explanations for each model and provide some examples for a starting point. We encourage you to share the fact sheet with others who are interested in learning about different paths to better connectivity through publicly owned networks.

Download the Muni Fiber Models fact sheet here[7].

Review our other fact sheets[8] and check back periodically for new additions. Fact sheets are a great way to quickly and easily share information and cultivate interest in learning more.

PDF icon Muni Fiber Models Fact Sheet

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[9]. Read the original here[10].

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Endnotes:
  1. Muni Fiber Models fact sheet: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-07-Muni-Fiber-Models-Fact-Sheet-FINAL.pdf
  2. Chattanooga: https://muninetworks.org/content/chattanooga-fiber-surpasses-expectations-offers-lessons-community-broadband-bits-podcast-257
  3. full retail service: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-ftth-networks
  4. Lincoln, Nebraska: https://muninetworks.org/content/small-cells-yield-big-results-lincoln-community-broadband-bits-podcast-238
  5. open access: https://muninetworks.org/content/open-access
  6. I-Nets: https://muninetworks.org/content/institutional-networks
  7. Muni Fiber Models fact sheet here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-07-Muni-Fiber-Models-Fact-Sheet-FINAL.pdf
  8. other fact sheets: https://muninetworks.org/fact-sheets
  9. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  10. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/muni-fiber-models-fact-sheet

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/muni-fiber-models-community-internet-connectivity-fact-sheet/


Day Of Action To Save Network Neutrality: Submit Your Comments To FCC

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 12, 2017 3:31 am

During the Obama administration, the FCC under Chairman Tom Wheeler made bold steps to protect innovation and competition on the Internet[1] by passing network neutrality rules. With new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, network neutrality is in danger. In order to prevent the backward slide – or worse – we all need to comment to the FCC and tell them to preserve network neutrality protections.

Stepping Back In Time

Under Chairman Wheeler, regulations were put into place that prevented ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from slowing down specific websites or charging extra fees to certain sites, who then must pass along those fees to customers. Rather then turning the Internet into just another version of Cable TV, the FCC has preserved its neutrality – now those actions are at risk.

Chairman Pai announced soon after he was appointed that he wants to roll back the rules implemented during the Obama administration, which includes eliminating “Title II” of the Communications Act protections for broadband. Title II provides the legal basis that prevents blocking and throttling.

Let’s Act

On May 18th, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rule Making[2] (NPRM); comments are due July 17th. What does the mean? It means it’s time for you to contact the FCC here (Proceeding 17-108)[3] and let them know that you want in network neutrality and that you believe existing rules should stay in place.

If you’ve never commented on an FCC proceeding, here’s an article from Gigi Sohn[4], former Counselor to Tom Wheeler, who can offer some tips on an effective comment. You can also read some of the other comments[5] submitted by others.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[6]. Read the original here[7].

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Endnotes:
  1. made bold steps to protect innovation and competition on the Internet: https://muninetworks.org/content/chairman-tom-wheeler-depart-jan-20-2017
  2. Notice of Proposed Rule Making: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/05230656804377/FCC-17-60A1.pdf
  3. contact the FCC here (Proceeding 17-108): https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings
  4. an article from Gigi Sohn: http://mashable.com/2017/06/15/how-to-write-a-good-fcc-comment/#hHiRC4lJ9iq4
  5. read some of the other comments: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-108
  6. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  7. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/day-action-save-network-neutrality-submit-your-comments-fcc

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/day-of-action-to-save-network-neutrality-submit-your-comments-to-fcc/


Frontier Is A No-Show: Rural Wisconsinites Looking For Promised Connectivity

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 10, 2017 5:17 am

It’s been about two years since the people of Lincoln County, Wisconsin, learned that Frontier Communications received federal funding to expand Internet access in their region. Now, they’re wondering why Frontier has still not started construction of promised infrastructure.

A Long Road To Nowhere

The community has been seeking ways to improve local connectivity for years. Back in 2013, they held a series of local listening sessions and workshops[1] with officials from the University of Wisconsin-Extension Center for Community Technology Solutions. The goals of the workshops were to educate community members about the importance of connectivity and to learn more about the availability of Internet access at the local level. The meetings addressed both residential and business needs[2].

In the summer of 2015, county officials announced that they had been working on an initiative to find a way to improve connectivity throughout Lincoln County. By engaging members of the public in town hall forums they had learned that the general consensus was[3]:

“For the most part, people are disappointed with their current service.”

“Generally speaking, their current Internet service is not fast enough and there just isn’t enough capacity to do what they want to do.”

Community leaders were also learning that a fair number of home-based businesses were popping up in the county.

As part of their initiative, the board had worked with the UW Extension Office, County Economic Development Corporation and County Information Technology Department. They also passed a resolution[4] stating that they would do everything they could to expand broadband to every resident in the county. County officials began having meetings to develop a plan to meet their goal. Shortly after, they learned that Frontier had accepted Connect America Funding Phase II (CAF II), federal funding designed specifically to expand connectivity in rural areas considered unserved and underserved.

Frontier would use part of the CAF II to expand its services in Lincoln County. Frontier assured the county that the build-out would likely begin in the spring of 2016 and be completed by late 2020. Did this mean they would finally get high-quality connectivity? (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. held a series of local listening sessions and workshops: http://www.merrillfotonews.com/2013/05/28/merrill-community-forum-series-continues-importance-of-broadband-listening-session/
  2. both residential and business needs: http://www.merrillfotonews.com/2013/06/18/importance-of-high-speed-internet-in-business-amp-community-development/
  3. that the general consensus was: http://www.merrillfotonews.com/2015/07/01/horizon-appears-bright-for-county-broadband-initiative/
  4. They also passed a resolution: http://www.merrillfotonews.com/2016/12/09/ask-an-official-county-discusses-high-speed-internet-for-rural-residents/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/frontier-is-a-no-show-rural-wisconsinites-looking-for-promised-connectivity/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/frontier-is-a-no-show-rural-wisconsinites-looking-for-promised-connectivity/


Two Maine Communities Joining Forces For Dark Fiber, Internet Access

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 8, 2017 6:27 am

The communities of Calais[1] and Baileyville[2] in Maine are joining forces and investing in fiber optic infrastructure. Recently, the city councils in both communities along with the local economic development corporation decided to construct a publicly owned dark fiber network[3]. They’ve also chosen a local firm to construct it.

Dark Fiber

The idea for the project started in 2015 when the Downeast Economic Development Corporation[4] (DEDC) contacted local Pioneer Broadband to discuss ways to improve connectivity. DEDC is a non-profit entity engaged in improving economic development in the region. Calais’s choices for Internet access were limited and some areas out of the city had no Internet access at all. DECD hired Pioneer to develop a feasibility study which would provide suggestions to improve access for both businesses and residents, with symmetrical connectivity a priority.

Pioneer’s study suggested a dark fiber municipal network with connectivity to all premises in Calais and adjoining Baileyville. ISPs will they have the opportunity to offer services to the community via the publicly owned infrastructure. Julie Jordan, director of Downeast Economic Development Corporation said:

“I’m pleased to say that the Baileyville Town Council, Calais City Council and Downeast Economic Development board of directors have all endorsed this exciting project. We look forward to working with Pioneer and developing results that can dramatically improve service in our towns. With the construction of the fiber optic infrastructure, Calais and Baileyville businesses and residents will have access to state of the art, high speed, reliable internet and these communities will be poised for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Telecommuting options, telemedicine, online education, and media streaming will all be greatly enhanced.”

 

Along The Border

Calais has three ports of entry into Canada and is located on its southeastern border in Washington County. There are approximately 3,100 people in Calais and another 1,500 in Baileyville, which is just north. Retail, construction, and service industries lead the economy in the area.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[5]. Read the original here[6].

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Endnotes:
  1. Calais: http://www.calaismaine.org/
  2. Baileyville: http://baileyvillemaine.com/
  3. decided to construct a publicly owned dark fiber network: http://bangordailynews.com/community/pioneer-broadband-chosen-by-downeast-economic-development-corporation-to-provide-new-municipal-network-design-for-calaisbaileyville/
  4. Downeast Economic Development Corporation: http://www.downeasteconomicdevelopment.com/
  5. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/two-maine-communities-joining-forces-dark-fiber

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/two-maine-communities-joining-forces-for-dark-fiber-internet-access/


Video To Share: Rural America, Broadband Help is Not on the Way

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 6, 2017 5:16 am

If you live in rural America, chances are you know what it’s like to have inadequate Internet access. If you’ve heard about the Connect America Fund, however, you probably think help is on the way and your problems will soon be over; you’ll get the kind of speeds available in large cities, right? Wrong.

Our short video[1] on rural connectivity and CAF explains how big companies are taking federal subsidies to build networks that provide the same old slow DSL service to rural areas. So, what can people in rural communities do? The video describes how local communities are becoming more self-reliant through publicly owned infrastructure and offers some starting points if you’re interested in learning more.

More Of The Same? No Way!

The Connect America Fund (CAF) is offering billions of dollars to build out networks in rural areas, but the companies receiving the subsidies are the same ones that already offer terrible connectivity in most rural communities. Are they using those subsidies to invest in high-speed connectivity for rural areas? No. The DSL connections that those companies are deploying for your home or business with CAF funding is already considered obsolete.

Rather than accepting these substandard solutions, an increasing number of communities[2] have decided to act so they can have the same or better quality of connectivity as urban areas. Rural cooperatives and municipal networks are taking charge of their own telecommunications infrastructure needs. Unless you live in one of these communities, you may have never heard about the fast, affordable, reliable connectivity available from a community network or a cooperative. They’re just doing it and not bragging about it.

YOU Make It Happen

How does a community or a cooperative start offering better connectivity? We’ve created this short video that explains the basics and we invite you to share it with others. It all starts with YOU.

Be sure to check out our other videos[3], too!

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[4]. Read the original here[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. Our short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrMj4Qyo29o
  2. an increasing number of communities: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  3. our other videos: https://muninetworks.org/content/videos
  4. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/video-share-rural-america-broadband-help-not-way

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/video-to-share-rural-america-broadband-help-is-not-on-the-way/


Access Appalachia: Internet Access for Rural America

by Christopher Mitchell | July 5, 2017 5:20 am

Check back on MuniNetworks.org’s Resource Page[1] frequently for updates to Internet access in the Appalachian region.

This is the central hub for ILSR’s research on Internet access around the Appalachian United States. We have compiled federal statistics on broadband availability and federal subsidies for large Internet Service Providers. We’ve created detailed maps of 150 counties in Kentucky, Southeast Ohio, and northern West Virginia.

We’ve also created Rural Toolkits for Kentucky, Southeast Ohio, and northern West Virginia. These toolkits offer a big picture look at connectivity on a regional and statewide level.  They also provide action steps for folks to learn more and get involved.

Remember these three key details when reading through this information:

Internet access: if you can get online, check email, and browse the web.

Broadband: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently defines this as speed of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.

Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH): a high-speed fiber-optic connection directly to the home. This type of technology can support speeds of more than 1,000 Megabit-per-second (Mbps).

Appalachia can get better Internet service, but the big companies aren’t going to do it. Cooperatives and small towns are stepping up and delivering world-class Internet service.

Kentucky

kentucky toolkit imageThis information covers the entirety of the state – all 120 counties.

Rural Toolkit: This toolkit provides the basics of how to get started. From what is broadband to the details of federal funding, this toolkit has got you covered. At the back, it includes a statewide fact sheet, which is also available separately.

Statewide Fact Sheet: Did you know that three Internet Service Providers get more than $327 million to spend on rural Kentucky? Did you know that they aren’t required to build high-speed networks offering broadband?

Information for each county in the state can be found in this Dropbox folder. Each county map outlines where there is any form of Internet access. Then it specifies the technology: DSL, Fixed Wireless, Cable, or Fiber-to-the-Home.

Keep up to date with information about Kentucky here.

Southeast Ohio

small image of ohio connectivity pageThis information covers the counties of Athens, Belmont, Coshocton, Gallia, Guernsey, Harrison, Hocking, Jackson, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Tuscarawas, Vinton, and Washington.

Rural Toolkit: Want better Internet access? Check out this toolkit and then share it with leaders in your community. You don’t have to be an expert on networking to get started on improving Internet access. At the back, it includes a fact sheet for the region — also available separately.

Fact sheet for Southeast Ohio: Learn about what other communities in Ohio have done to improve Internet access. Consider how big companies receive subsidies to built obsolete networks that only need to provide speeds of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.

Information on every one of these counties is available in this Dropbox folder. Each county map outlines where there is any form of Internet access. Then it specifies the technology: DSL, Fixed Wireless, Cable, or Fiber-to-the-Home. Fiber-to-the-Home can provide speeds that are much faster than “broadband.”

Read more about what communities are doing to improve Internet access in Ohio. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. MuniNetworks.org’s Resource Page: https://muninetworks.org/content/access-appalachia
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/access-appalachia-internet-access-for-rural-america/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/access-appalachia-internet-access-for-rural-america/


Tennessee’s Tri-County Electric Cooperative To Build High-Speed Internet Network

by H Trostle | July 4, 2017 4:10 am

On the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, an electric cooperative looks to a more connected future. The Tri-County Electric Cooperative that operates across state lines is preparing to build a state-of-the-art network for high-speed Internet service throughout Trousdale County, Tennessee. This will be the first year of construction for the cooperative after several years of planning.

Tri-County Electric plans to soon begin services to Trousdale County, the smallest county in Tennessee. Many of the county’s 8,000 residents’ choice is limited to Comcast and AT&T, and Tri-County Electric’s Vice-President and General Manager Paul Thompson noted that people in the county often only subscribe to about 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. With a steady membership base of 50,000 spread across two states and a close relationship with the county, the electric co-op is in a good position to move forward with the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) project. The cooperative intends to offer an affordable base package that provides faster, more reliable connectivity than what the incumbents are willing to offer the rural communities.

Funding From The Feds

Since 2014, Tri-County Electric Cooperative has actively pursued financing for a FTTH network in the county. The co-op applied for a grant through the Rural Broadband Experiments program managed by the Federal Communications Commission. They did not receive any funding, but the process resulted in a tangible plan.

The process of applying for the grant built up community support for the project and enabled the co-op to identify key assets. As part of the grant application, they noted which census blocks they expected to connect and what community anchor institutions, such as schools, libraries, and government buildings, could be included. The Trousdale County government even passed a resolution giving explicit permission for Tri-County Electric to build and operate a FTTH network.

Although Tri-County Electric Cooperative did not receive that grant, the co-op continued to pursue different avenues for funding. This year, the co-op received a $20 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service to install the fiber network. The county also attempted to give the co-op some funding, but state government policies blocked that effort. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/tennessees-tri-county-electric-cooperative-to-build-high-speed-internet-network/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/tennessees-tri-county-electric-cooperative-to-build-high-speed-internet-network/


ILSR Raises Up Urban Farms with Community Compost in Baltimore and D.C.

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | June 30, 2017 5:27 pm

In 2014, ILSR’s Composting for Community Initiative[1] launched the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders[2] (NSR) composter training program to teach community leaders how to compost on a small-scale for local food production and to adapt the rigor of commercial composting industry practices to the small scale. In addition to teaching how to avoid nuisance odors, pathogen problems, and unwanted critters; the NSR program demonstrates how to produce high-quality compost and enriching the community. Our goal is to increase the pool of community leaders who know how to manage well-operated community compost systems such as those at schools, community gardens, and urban farms.

 

Because urban agriculture largely takes place on vacant lots, sometimes on sites previously used for commercial or industrial uses, soil contamination is a potential concern. In addition, previously developed urban sites generally have compacted soils that have been depleted of nutrients and can no longer store water or sustain life. Fortunately, adding organic matter helps restore proper structure and function to soil, and compost is among the best ways to accomplish this. Compost has the added benefits of binding contaminants, making them less available to plants and people, as well as restoring biological activity that is essential to plant health. As a result, urban growers are increasingly requesting ILSR’s technical assistance on best practices for adding composting to their operations. The NSR program has been replicated in DC, Atlanta, and Baltimore, resulting in composting projects at dozens of gardens and farms.

 

Putting the concepts of the NSR program into action, ILSR is directly establishing a number of model community scale composting sites and operations in DC and Baltimore.

 

Real Food Farm, northeast Baltimore

In partnership with Civic Works’ Real Food Farm[3] in Baltimore, we have established a model small-scale community-centered compost site. Real Food Farm grows fresh produce on 8 acres in and around the Clifton Park neighborhood in northeast Baltimore and serves two nearby food deserts. In 2016, we partnered with them to bring the NSR Master Composter program to Baltimore[4]. ILSR built Real Food Farm a 5-bin rat-resistant composting system, which was central to the hands-on instruction during the six-week NSR course.  The system now provides the backbone for the composting cooperative, which is processing hundreds of pounds of food scraps from the farm and the cooperative’s members.

Members of Real Food Farm’s Compost Co-op remix an active compost pile during a recent workday.

Two participants of the course, also FoodCorps service members at Real Food Farm, completed their capstone project requirement by adopting NSR best management practices and the principles of a cooperative model to create the Real Food Farm Compost Co-op. The Compost Co-op provides the farm a tangible way to engage its customers and supporters, by training them to become members of the farm’s new food scrap drop-off system, while creating a valuable product. The project embodies best practices, with a rodent-resistant composting system, secure material storage, active monitoring and data recording, and thorough and regular mixing of materials. The Co-op, with close to 50 members, is also composting food scraps from local food scrap collection service, Compost Cab[5]. The management of the system, though still driven by farm staff, is increasingly being distributed to all of its members through the formation of committees and adoption of bylaws.

Sophia Hosain of Real Food Farm trains new Compost Co-op members on the protocol for dropping off their food scraps.

Filbert Street Community Garden: Curtis Bay, Baltimore

The Curtis Bay neighborhood of Baltimore is Maryland’s most polluted zip code and the manufacturing industry has vanished, leaving in its wake high unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, and lack of opportunity. In this historically disenfranchised community, workforce skill training and employment opportunities are sorely needed, as is ready access to healthy food assistance programming.

A recent graduate of Benjamin Franklin High School builds the inaugural compost pile in Filbert Street Community Garden’s composting system.

Under a grant from the Abell Foundation, ILSR has partnered with the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development (CCYD) to launch a youth-led bike-powered food scrap collection and community composting initiative at the Filbert Street Garden in Curtis Bay. Together, we are creating a youth entrepreneurship program to train participants in workforce skills, food access programming and community-scale composting. CCYD has hired two local youth from the nearby high school to launch a bike-powered food scrap collection and composting enterprise, which will eventually serve an estimated 50 households and businesses in the Federal Hill and Curtis Bay neighborhoods. These youth will gain guided, hands-on experience supporting CCYD programs that improve access to fresh produce for as many as 250 local community members, and will manage a small-scale composting operation and its expansion. The project also aims to provide year-round employment with workforce skill training in billing, route development, customer outreach and marketing. ILSR has built the 3-bin composting system at Filbert Street Garden and trained the youth on how to compost. The compost produced will be used to grow more food.

The youth hired to run the bike-powered food scrap collection service receive their first hands-on composting training with ILSR staff.

Another key collaborator, and the inspiration for the youth-led bike-powered composting project, is BK ROT[6] in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. BK ROT was started by Sandy Nurse and Renee Pepperone in 2013 and is a community-supported operation employing four local youth year-round to collect food scraps from the surrounding community[7] by bike.

 

Our article in BioCycle’s January 2017[8] provides a deep dive into bike-powered food scrap collection businesses.

 

DC’s Ward 7

The University of the District of Columbia’s East Capitol Urban Farm[9] (ECUF) in DC’s Ward 7 has transformed a vacant parcel of land to a community resource that promotes urban agriculture, and aims to improve food access and nutrition through a community-oriented farmers’ market, nutrition education, and community gardening plots. Creating opportunities for entrepreneurship for one of DC’s most economically disenfranchised corners is another goal. The Farm includes more than 80 gardening beds for Ward 7 residents, a community plaza, a play space for children, an education and engagement zone, and a site for a farmers’ market. The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) – through its College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) – manages ECUF and led the effort to establish it in 2015.

Gardeners at UDC’s East Capitol Urban Farm don’t let the hot DC summer dampen their spirits!

ILSR is collaborating with CAUSES to establish a composting project, a key missing component of ECUF’s goal toward zero waste. On June 17th, ILSR staff coordinated a compost bin-building workshop, lead by local system designers Urban Farm Plans[10], for ECUF staff. The site is now being prepared for its next major milestone – its first composting workshop and the unveiling of its community drop-off program on Saturday, July 22nd.

Staff from ECUF, ILSR and Urban Farm Plans strike a pose after a successful bin-building workshop at ECUF.

ILSR is also collaborating with Soilful City[11] to establish a community composting project at the Clay Terrace Community Garden. Xavier Brown runs Soilful City and is one of our NSR graduates. He currently is the compost manager at Project EDEN[12] (Everyone Deserves to Eat Naturally), part of a church community in Ward 8. Project EDEN is an innovative youth-focused urban garden initiative that brings fresh fruits and vegetables, workforce development, and transitional employment opportunities to underserved youth and adults. It offers social and entrepreneurial opportunities in a community blighted by poverty and violence. In the past 3 years, EDEN has hired 36 youth and young adults ages 14-22 and has provided fresh produce to more than 350 families.

Xavier Brown of Soilful City has been working with Clay Terrace Community Garden (aka Dix Garden) to get the garden established.

With Xavier’s help, the community garden in Clay Terrace, which is part of the Richardson Dwellings DC Public Housing project, is now seeking similar opportunities. Together, we are planning the compost system, securing composting tools, and adapting the NSR program to the local community. We have fundraised to pay small stipends to two local garden founders to help establish and manage the composting system. We are exploring ways to use the composting project to expand membership in the garden, incorporate life and jobs skills training, as well as spur micro-enterprise development.

Xavier, also an NSR program graduate, has been hosting Soilful Thursday workdays around SE DC to help spread the gardening and composting love.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[13] and Facebook[14] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[15] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Composting for Community Initiative: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting/
  2. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  3. Civic Works’ Real Food Farm: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/
  4. NSR Master Composter program to Baltimore: https://ilsr.org/nsr-master-composter-course-bmore-fall-2016/
  5. Compost Cab: http://compostcab.com/
  6. BK ROT: https://bkrot.org
  7. collect food scraps from the surrounding community: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/03/08/building-community-composting-bushwick-brooklyn/
  8. Our article in BioCycle’s January 2017: https://ilsr.org/bike-powered-food-scrap-collection/
  9. East Capitol Urban Farm: https://www.udc.edu/causes/east-capitol-urban-farm/
  10. Urban Farm Plans: http://www.urbanfarmplans.com/portfolio/compost-knox/
  11. Soilful City: https://soilfulcity.com/
  12. Project EDEN: https://projectedendc.org/
  13. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  14. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  15. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-raises-up-urban-farms-in-baltimore-and-dc/


Independence & Local Self-Reliance

by Nick Stumo-Langer | June 30, 2017 2:00 pm

Here at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we advocate for independence in a variety of forms. From strengthening the status of independent businesses in the economy to encouraging local governments to break free from monopoly Internet Service Providers and invest in their communities’ connectivity, independence is vital for small-scale, local economies. That’s why, in honor of Independence Day 2017, we’ve gathered resources from across our work that you can delve into during this long weekend.

We have a number of podcasts, articles, and infographics from all of our initiatives that discuss the vital role independence plays in the local economy. We know that you need some fodder for conversations during BBQs, travel to be with loved ones, and fireworks shows.

Let’s get started:

Building Local Power Podcast

A number of our Building Local Power[1] podcasts directly discuss independence in its various forms.

In Mayors Take on Preemption to Defend Local Solutions[2], Tallahassee, Florida Mayor Andrew Gillum argues that the state level preemption policies of states like Florida, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota are harming city governments’ independence. These policies impact a number of issues, including:

  • municipal broadband
  • minimum wage increases
  • plastic bag bans
  • tax and expenditure limitations

Mayor Gillum spoke intensely against this level of control by the state government: “There’s a nimbleness to local governments that I think people have an appreciation for. …The legislatures are trying to] exclude us from being able to make any investments in that space for the greater good.”

Another great episode discussed how curbing partisanship in our politics by focusing on local issues: Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local[3]. The group discusses the nature of local policies and politics versus the national-level fights and hyper-partisanship. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  2. Mayors Take on Preemption to Defend Local Solutions: https://ilsr.org/defend-local-solutions-episode-17-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  3. Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local: https://ilsr.org/breaking-through-partisanship-left-right-local-episode-14-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/independence-local-self-reliance/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/independence-local-self-reliance/


Pinetops Will Stay Connected to Broadband In North Carolina, For Now

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 30, 2017 5:39 am

It’s been a long road for Pinetops, North Carolina, as they’ve sought better connectivity in their rural community. After dramatic ups and downs, the community seems to have finally found a tepid resolution. Greenlight can, for now, continue to serve Pinetops[1].

With Conditions

On June 28th, the General Assembly passed HB 396[2], which allows Wilson’s municipal network, Greenlight, to continue to provide gigabit connectivity to the town and to Vick Family Farms but establishes conditions. If or when another provider brings Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service to Pinetops, Wilson has 30 days to end service as customers transition to the new provider. Until a different provider comes to Pinetops, Greenlight will continue to offer its gigabit connectivity to the approximately 600 households and premises in the community of about 1,300 people.

In addition to premises in the town of Pinetops, Greenlight is serving Vick Family Farm, a local potato manufacturer. When the business obtained access to high-quality Internet access, they were able to expand their business internationally; they invested in a high tech distribution facility[3]. The facility requires the kind of capacity they can only get from Greenlight.

Community leaders in Pinetops are relieved they don’t have to give up fiber connectivity, but they’re happy with the service they get with Greenlight and would rather stick with the muni.

“Although not the solution we expected, we are pleased this bill allows us to continue to leverage Greenlight’s next generation infrastructure as we focus on growing our community,” said [Town Commissioner Suzanne] Coker-Craig. “Hopefully, no other provider will exercise the option to build redundant infrastructure that our community neither wants nor needs. Pinetops has made it clear that we want the quality and speed of service that only Greenlight can provide.”

Read the text of the bill here[4]. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. continue to serve Pinetops: http://www.localnetchoice.org/connections/wilson-greenlight-to-continue-gigabit-fiber-service-in-rural-pinetops-and-vick-family-farms-with-conditions/
  2. passed HB 396: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H396v2.pdf
  3. invested in a high tech distribution facility: https://muninetworks.org/content/nytimes-examines-sixth-circuit-reversal-potatoes-and-pinetops
  4. Read the text of the bill here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-06-H396v2-pinetops-bill.pdf
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/pinetops-will-stay-connected-to-broadband-in-north-carolina-for-now/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/pinetops-will-stay-connected-to-broadband-in-north-carolina-for-now/


One Touch Make Ready: Model Language In Three Cities And Counting…

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 28, 2017 5:09 am

One Touch Make Ready (OTMR) policies are recognized as a way to cut down on the expense and the time it takes to deploy fiber optic networks. At least three sizable urban communities have adopted OTMR practices to streamline fiber optic construction and ensure consistent standards. For other communities looking at ways to encourage brisk fiber optic investment, it pays to study the language of OTMR resolutions and policies.

OTMR allows a pre-approved contractor to move cables belonging to more than one entity on one visit to the pole to make room for the new fiber optic cable. This is a departure from the old method, in which each entity takes turns visiting the pole in question to move only their wires. The old approach is time consuming because each entity must take turns in the order in which their wires are installed on the poles. If one entity causes a delay, every other entity that needs to work after them must also wait. What follows is a snowball effect and an entire project can fall far behind schedule.

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio’s municipal utility, CPS Energy, adopted a broad set of pole attachment standards[1] that include specific requirements for OTMR, including what needs to happen before, during, and after the process.

The standards lay out administrative procedures, technical provisions, and specific provisions for both wired and wireless attachments. It incorporates recommendations from the FCC on how best to expand broadband while also weaving in safety standards from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In the introduction, CPS Energy writes:

From a holistic perspective, the Standards seek to balance the competing needs and interests of multiple communications providers to access and utilize CPS Energy Poles, while at the same time recognizing that the core purpose and function of these Poles is for CPS Energy’s safe and reliable distribution and delivery of electric services to CPS Energy customers. Hence, any use of CPS Energy’s Poles must at all times ensure the continued operational integrity, safety and reliability of CPS Energy’s Facilities, electric services, personnel and the general public.

You can view the entire 128-page document, which includes appendices, here[2]. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. broad set of pole attachment standards: https://www.cpsenergy.com/content/dam/corporate/en/Documents/PoleAttachments/Pole%20Attachment%20Standards.pdf
  2. entire 128-page document, which includes appendices, here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-06-San-Antonio-pole-attachment-standards.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/one-touch-make-ready-model-language-in-three-cities-and-counting/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/one-touch-make-ready-model-language-in-three-cities-and-counting/


Amid EV Surge, Austin Eyes a New Way of Doing Business — Episode 48 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by Karlee Weinmann | June 26, 2017 12:00 pm

Experts predict a dramatic transformation[5] of the U.S. transportation system will take hold in the coming decade. Karl Popham, who manages emerging technologies and electric vehicles at Austin Energy, expects major disruption too, fueled mainly by a distinct shift in how drivers view auto ownership.

For decades, the marketplace has nurtured a “single-car ownership” model, built around the idea that every adult driver wants to own a vehicle. But the popularity of carshare services like Zipcar and Car2Go, as well as ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, suggest a fundamental fracture in that longstanding framework.

“The American dream of having that house and the cars and the 2.1 kids and all those kind of things maybe doesn’t necessarily apply as a universal truth to younger generations,” said Popham, who works for the eighth-largest municipal utility in the nation. “We need to think more in terms of convenience and mobility, and less about owning something that is ultimately parked over 90% of the time.”

Electric and autonomous vehicle technology supports the change, said Popham, whose city-owned utility is a leader in conservation and renewable energy[6]. He recently spoke with John Farrell, head of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, about changes already in motion and what’s yet to come.


Note: We published this podcast and post alongside a new, comprehensive report — Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles[7] — that explores in-depth the influence electric vehicles can have in building clean energy economies at the community scale.


A ‘Next-Wave Mobility Plan’

Popham’s vision lines up with an innovative, wholesale push for electrification approved by the Austin City Council last year. The “next-wave mobility plan[8]” prioritizes electric, shared, and autonomous vehicles in the city’s transportation plans. City leaders and staff, including Popham, are working together now to map out specific solutions that further the three-pronged approach.

“We want to be a proactive partner and leader with new and established companies to bring these revolutions sooner rather than later to the City of Austin, so it can be the new normal — and a roadmap and benchmark, quite frankly, for other cities,” Popham said.

Austin already supports a shared vehicle economy, including through ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. It’s also home to an autonomous vehicle program run by Google, currently in its pilot phase. But it’s farthest along in its strategy when it comes to electric vehicles, with a network of 550 public charging stations[9] that drivers can access — as much as they want — for $4.17 per month.

More than 1,000 drivers have opted in to Austin’s public charging program, modeled after a gym membership. Electric vehicle owners can sign up for a six-month “membership” for $25 (which shakes out to $4.17 monthly) and enjoy unlimited access to the public charging stations. For some, especially those who also have workplace charging infrastructure, it’s all they need to keep their cars powered up. Others pair the public network with at-home chargers.

The Business of EV Charging

Austin Energy estimates the city’s drivers do 85% of their car-charging in personal garages and carports, behind the meter. The public network, however, provides another option. And the opt-in “membership” program encourages drivers to use it. Some auto dealers hand out a prepaid membership when they sell electric vehicles off the lot. But even drivers who don’t the six-month buy-in can use the public chargers anytime, for $2 per hour.

“We did it to encourage overall [electric vehicle] adoption,” Popham said. “We know the majority of charging happens at home. … But what the $4.17 does, it gets them to rethink the paradigm.”

The program bucks the typical utility model of hinging bottom-line performance on greater electricity sales, an increasingly outdated strategy as new technology — from energy efficiency to demand response — pushes it out of step with current market conditions. But creative sales models like this can be a smart move for utilities; these vehicles inherently boost demand for electricity.

Each electric vehicle currently represents an additional $400 in annual revenue for Austin Energy, Popham said.

Encouraging charging during off-peak times, when electricity demand is lower, enables electric vehicles to play an important role in managing the overall grid. Austin Energy doesn’t offer a full suite of incentives, like some utilities do, for drivers to charge at these times (such as overnight, when there is excess wind generation). But it has launched a pilot program that provides lower rates outside the peak-demand window.

The Austin program[10] offers drivers unlimited charging at public stations for a $30 monthly rate. That covers at-home charging as well, as long as drivers plug in outside the peak demand period, which stretches from late afternoon to early evening. If a driver charges during that window, the cost ticks up.

A $30 flat fee shakes out to about $0.09 per kilowatt-hour, assuming the average electric vehicle uses 4,000 kilowatt-hours per year. That rate is higher than similar programs offered by other utilities that feature off-peak rates as low as $0.03 per kilowatt-hour[11]. But for Popham, the cost differential between his utility’s program and others isn’t too concerning.

Austin Energy’s program is in its early stages, meant to generate data and driver feedback to inform more permanent solutions, he said. In addition, Popham noted grid benefits even when drivers charge electric vehicles at peak times — they help offset the afternoon influx of solar generation as more arrays come online.

Promising Demand Response

As part of its push to maximize the benefits of electric vehicles, Austin Energy has also tested demand response technology[12], methods that allow the utility to encourage or require drivers to charge during times when it’s best for the grid. The utility runs a similar program using smart thermostats, to regulate air conditioners when electricity demand ticks toward its peak.

While it harnessed similar technology, the electric vehicle experiment yielded even better results than the thermostat initiative, Popham said. No one opted out of the vehicle-charging pilot and drivers seemed willing to tweak their at-home charging habits to align with utility needs, where ceding control of their home-cooling systems was a tougher sell.

“What our study shows is people are much more comfortable with stopping their charging for a few hours on your EV,” Popham said. “We considered it a fairly good success and definitely could be part of our roadmap moving forward.”

Fleet Electrification

Austin’s transition to a more electrified transportation future doesn’t stop with its private customers. In fact, the city itself is at the center of the plan. Austin plans to integrate 330 electric vehicles into its municipal fleet between now and 2020, a move expected to generate $3.5 million in savings — including fuel and maintenance costs — over 10 years.

The transition places Austin alongside a slew of other cities turning to electricity to power their vehicles. Nearby Houston reported savings of $110,000 per year[13] by replacing just 27 of its light-duty cars with electric models. In many of those cities, as in Austin, the change is as much about saving money as it is modeling the possibilities of electrification.

“It’s also important for us as a city to eat our own dog food,” Popham said. “We want people to see in the community city vehicles driving on electric just to demonstrate the technology and that they work, and get more people exposed to them.”

In addition, Austin’s transit authority is planning to bring between 10 and 20 electric buses into its fleet. Officials are working now to cobble together the funding they need to purchase the buses and build out required charging infrastructure. Though electric buses cost more upfront, Austin authorities say the cost of bus ownership over 10 years is less than that for gas-powered models.

Austin Energy has also helped airlines save money by transitioning their heavy-duty equipment, used to load and transport baggage, to electric models.

Down the line, Popham said, the city’s transit options could include a shared electric, autonomous shuttle, or food-delivery vehicle to run groceries from the store to people’s homes. Along with buses, those potential innovations will drive up electricity sales for Austin Energy.

“There’s a lot of different kinds of business cases and applications that we’re pretty excited about,” he said.

What’s Next?

The economics of vehicle electrification are increasingly compelling, especially as battery costs plummet (indeed, battery packs are expected to clock in at just one-quarter of their 2010 price[14] by 2022, a reduction that on its own could cut the price of electric vehicles by 25%).

But in order to fully realize a modernized transportation sector, with widespread use of electric and autonomous vehicles, Popham said automakers need to help plug significant gaps in today’s marketplace — especially in Texas, where larger vehicles dominate the roadways.

For starters, he said, manufacturers need to boost production of electric trucks and SUVs — a high-demand segment nationwide. The Ford F-150 pickup has been the top-selling vehicle[15] in the U.S. for more than three decades, and last year the Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram ranked second and third.

A number of hybrid and electric SUVs have come online so far and achieved high satisfaction ratings, with more models expected to hit sales floors in the future. Electrifying the pickup truck has been a slower process, but not a stagnant one — electric vehicle mainstay Tesla is planning to manufacture one, while Workhorse Group (which built a hybrid delivery van[16]) has already tackled it[17].

As consumers, municipalities, and companies alike tiptoe into the electric vehicle marketplace, auto manufacturers will face rising demand across vehicle segments. And with its new plans in place, Austin officials say the are confident they’ll be ready to adapt to near-inevitable changes in market dynamics.

“There’s a very good chance it won’t be the single-occupancy vehicle, single-car ownership model, which is the very inefficient model we see today,” Popham said. “It could be all electric and automated vehicles.”

Photo Credit: Karlis Dambrans via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)[18].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[19]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[20] or Karlee Weinmann[21] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[22] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Popham_Podcast.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Popham_Podcast.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. predict a dramatic transformation: https://ilsr.org/will-all-new-vehicles-be-electric-by-2030-one-expert-says-yes-episode-46-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  6. leader in conservation and renewable energy: http://austinenergy.com/wps/portal/ae/green-power/renewable-energy/renewable-energy/!ut/p/a1/jZDBTsMwDIafZYce1zgpGy23JExZN9ae6EouKENZWqlrqixQwdOTgYQE2sR8sqXvl-0PSVQj2au31ijf2l51p1nOn_FydoMZ4JUoigwomzORZIwQnATgKQBAUrLkQPJyUd5DXpUVLdccBE-uzF8oCv_lV1csIG7DNwbJQflm2vZ7i2qnez2qXaenoXHm_YTRfpekAXN6r5128asL_zfeD8e7CCIYxzE21ppOxy_2EMG5SGOPHtW_SbRF8uvIH0nilqRABWfrWVVguiB_gTMWv4HLmobDY_3xoLepz_KWTiafovrm6w!!/dl5/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/
  7. Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  8. next-wave mobility plan: https://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Transportation/ASMP_MCAC_01_17_17_Final_WithResults.pdf
  9. network of 550 public charging stations: http://austinenergy.com/wps/portal/ae/green-power/plug-in-austin/electric-vehicle-drivers/!ut/p/a1/jdCxboMwEAbgZ8nACL4YNSHdXBcRQhOmEuKlovQAS4CRcUHK05eoS1uRJred9P26008ESYlos0GWmZGqzerLLlZvQD265UDDYE09YAF_ih6Sw3ITLidw-gliP36GMIkTFkccAu7emb8yDG7ld3ccoHrP9yURXWYqW7aFIinWmBstc3vASuY12h9aDqj7C2ftu-tNXGOBGrXzqaceKmO6_tECC8ZxdEqlyhqdXDUWzEUq1RuS_pbkSMR_zzKf_gUzbX6D63V1zWt6fsGjZzahZIvFFyxaRUk!/dl5/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/
  10. The Austin program: http://austinenergy.com/wps/portal/ae/green-power/plug-in-austin/electric-vehicle-drivers/residential-time-of-use-rate/!ut/p/a1/jZCxTsMwEIafpUNGx64rILCZUKWhLRkQwWRBJr0klhw7uriJxNOTigWqFnrbSd_3n-6nBZW0sGrQtfLaWWUOe3H9znjEVzHjaXLDIyaS-H59lT_Nb9P5BLz9BLJl9sDSPMtFto5ZEi8u9M-MYP_5jxcc4LiNtzUtOuUbom3lqAQDpUddkgEaXRogO9QDYE8lQq93YL1WhnjdAnEV2fdAUHk4hAn7sYimMIQKEDDc49RS433X3wUsYOM4hrVztYGwdG3ATimN6z2Vv0n6Sou_XhFLfgyc6PobOF9m177Iz83KDJvqOa1nsy8l5VTc/dl5/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/
  11. off-peak rates as low as $0.03 per kilowatt-hour: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/#opportunity
  12. demand response technology: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/
  13. reported savings of $110,000 per year: http://www.greenhoustontx.gov/ev/Houston_Case_Study_2013.pdf
  14. just one-quarter of their 2010 price: http://www.eenews.net/energywire/stories/1059996345
  15. the top-selling vehicle: http://www.caranddriver.com/flipbook/sales-tale-these-are-the-25-best-selling-vehicles-of-2016#24
  16. hybrid delivery van: https://cleantechnica.com/2017/02/16/workhorse-hybrid-delivery-vans-5-times-efficient-conventional-delivery-vans/
  17. has already tackled it: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/workhorse-group-w-15-electric-pickup-truck/
  18. Karlis Dambrans via Flickr (CC BY 2.0): https://www.flickr.com/photos/janitors/13104187124/in/photolist-fMgVkC-5eDv32-byXNUG-kXYpAh-xiCzxK-bfcHdr-mZUqYr-X7reo-kXWZzV-kXYohL-rGNb1c-ngcKbh-dGbDzJ-kuMHH3-bbqwLa-tZ1VcY-bbqwAZ-pvVrCy-dG6eya-kXYp95-bqa8at-nx4BaJ-aYnCcn-8kmbos-8kmaQh-4osGiR-pTYNRk-peCZHV-q97CNo-qboUVi-8khYzx-pv3YnW-bKLtQr-4ot5P6-4oszXZ-4ox95E-4ox9v7-zkCuJn-yF7atG-yFfQH6-CLNR9H-CjFsMy-CLNS4P-CDSvqH-qgabSg-wUMBAB-LYcvPV
  19. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  20. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  21. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  22. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amid-ev-surge-austin-eyes-a-new-way-of-doing-business-episode-48-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/


Fiber-to-the-Home Funding On Summer Ballot In Lyndon Township, Michigan

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 26, 2017 9:13 am

In August, voters in Lyndon Township, Michigan, will decide whether or not they want to approve a plan to invest in publicly owned fiber optic Internet infrastructure.

It’s All In The Mills

Voters are being asked to approve a millage increase of 2.9 over a 20-year period. In other words, property taxes will increase approximately $2.91 per $1,000 of taxable value of a property. Those funds will be used to fund a bond to finance the project; city leaders have already determined that the principal amount of the project will not exceed $7 million.

Once the infrastructure has been completed, the community plans to partner with one or more Internet Service Provider (ISP). Estimates for monthly millage bond costs and monthly cost for Internet access at 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) are approximately $57 for Lyndon Township’s average homeowner. Gigabit access will be available and will cost about $25 more each month.

If funding is approved, the community expects to finish the project and be using their new Internet infrastructure by the end of 2018.

Supported By Citizens

The issue of better connectivity in Lyndon Township isn’t a new one. At a meeting in March 2016, Township Board members voted 5-0 to fund a feasibility study. The Board had approached providers about improving connectivity in the area, but none considered an investment in Lyndon Township a good investment.

At the meeting, members of a broadband initiative started by local residents shared their stories. As is often the case, local residents described driving to the library or Township Hall to access the Internet because their own homes were unserved or connectivity is so poor. According to a Chelsea Update article[1], when the Board approved the feasibility funding, “[t]here was a vigorous round of applause from the crowd.”

seal-michigan.pngAbout 80 percent of the community does not have access to FCC defined broadband at 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. In the summer of 2016 when property owners received a survey about Internet access with their property tax bills, 83 percent of those who replied[2] and were registered voters described high-quality Internet access as “important” or “very important.” It was listed as second in a ranked list of priorities; water quality was number one.

Lyndon Township[3] is 36 square miles and home to about 2,800 people. It’s mostly rural and while it’s lack of population density makes for clean air, quiet nights, and enjoyable wildlife viewing, national ISPs can’t see the reason for expanding there. It’s a bad situation for homeowners and their kids:

“We live in Washtenaw County, within twenty miles of the University of Michigan, seven miles from downtown Chelsea and cannot get a high-speed internet connection. My husband has to drive to the Chelsea District Library to complete many of his work requirements, as well as my children with their college and job-hunting connection needs.”

The Ballot Initiative

People in Lyndon Township know that the only way to fix the problem is to handle it themselves[4]:

“We came to the mutual conclusion that nobody else is going to fix this broadband problem for us…if we, as Lyndon Township residents and surrounding townships, want it fixed we need to do something about it ourselves,” said Ben Fineman of Michigan Broadband Cooperative (MBCOOP).

MBCOOP is a group of volunteers in Washtenaw County that have banded together to seek out ways to improve connectivity in the communities of the county. They’ve developed a website with information on each of the communities in the county where efforts are underway. Check out their FAQs[5] on Lyndon’s project. They have also prepared a handout about the bond and funding for the project[6].

On August 8th, voters in the township will be asked:

Shall the Township of Lyndon, County of Washtenaw, Michigan, borrow the principal sum of not to exceed Seven Million Dollars ($7,000,000) and issue its general obligation unlimited tax bonds, in one or more series, payable in not to exceed twenty (20) years from the date of issue of each series, for the purpose of paying the cost to acquire, construct, furnish, and equip capital improvements consisting generally of a fiber optic infrastructure to provide broadband internet service in the Township including, but not limited to, fiber optic backbone, service lines, necessary electronics, rights-of-way, accessories and attachments thereto and any other related component, equipment or cost necessary to place the improvements into service?

The community of Leverett, Massachusetts, was faced with a similar situation. Many of the people in their community were using expensive satellite, dial-up, and some DSL connections. They also had difficulty obtaining reliable telephone service and big incumbent providers with a presence in the Leverett had no intention of upgrading the infrastructure. When they did the math, it was cost effective to invest in publicly owned FTTH infrastructure for Internet access and phone service. Leverett’s network[7] is faster, more reliable, and more affordable.

Educating Lyndon Township Folks

In order to share information about the plan before the vote, the community held a townhall meeting on June 21st and will hold another meeting on July 20th at the Township Hall at 7 p.m.

PDF icon Lyndon Township, Michigan, Bond Informational Handout

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[8]. Read the original here.[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. According to a Chelsea Update article: http://chelseaupdate.com/lyndon-township-board-votes-favor-broadband-feasibility-study/
  2. 83 percent of those who replied: http://www.mbcoop.org/lyndon-township/
  3. Lyndon Township: http://www.twp-lyndon.org/
  4. is to handle it themselves: https://thesuntimesnews.com/lyndon-township-broadband-bond-proposal-to-be-on-august-ballot/
  5. Check out their FAQs: http://www.mbcoop.org/frequently-asked-questions-lyndon-township-broadband-initiative/
  6. handout about the bond and funding for the project: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-06-Lyndon-tnshp-bond-flyer.pdf
  7. Leverett’s network: https://muninetworks.org/content/leverettnet-meets-demand-better-connectivity-ma
  8. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  9. here.: https://muninetworks.org/content/find-ftth-funding-summer-ballot-lyndon-township-michigan

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fiber-to-the-home-funding-on-summer-ballot-in-lyndon-township-michigan/


Amazon Is Trying to Control the Underlying Infrastructure of Our Economy

by Stacy Mitchell | June 25, 2017 6:00 pm

Companies that want to reach the market increasingly have no choice but to ride Amazon’s rails.

This article was first published in VICE’s Motherboard[1].

We often talk about Amazon as though it were a retailer. It’s an understandable mistake. After all, Amazon sells more clothing, electronics, toys, and books than any other company. Last year, Amazon captured nearly $1 of every $2[2] Americans spent online. As recently as 2015, most people looking to buy something online started at a search engine. Today, a majority[3] go straight to Amazon.

But to describe Amazon as a retailer is to misunderstand what the company actually is, and to miss the depth of the threat that it poses to our liberty and the very idea of an open, competitive market.

It’s not just that Amazon does many things besides sell stuff—that it manufactures thousands of products, from dress shirts to baby wipes, produces hit movies and television shows, delivers restaurant orders, offers loans, and may soon dispense prescription drugs[4]. Jeff Bezos is after something so much bigger than any of this. His vision is for Amazon to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy. Amazon’s website is already the dominant platform for digital commerce. Its Web Services division controls 44 percent[5] of the world’s cloud computing capacity and is relied on by everyone from Netflix to the Central Intelligence Agency. And the company has recently built out a vast network of distribution infrastructure to handle package delivery for itself and others.

Companies that want to reach the market increasingly have no choice but to ride Amazon’s rails. With Prime and digital assistant Alexa, from GE appliances to Ford cars, Bezos has lured a majority of households into making Amazon the default provider of everything they order online. Most Prime members no longer[6] comparison shop. This has forced competitors of all sizes—from major brands like Levi’s and KitchenAid to small-scale producers, e-commerce innovators, and independent brick-and-mortar stores—to abandon the idea of reaching consumers directly. Instead, they have to rely on Amazon’s platform to sell their goods.

Amazon exploits this dependence to dictate terms and prices to suppliers, and it uses the data it gathers from companies selling on its platform to weaken them as competitors[7]. A company that designs a popular product and builds a market for it on Amazon’s site can suddenly find that Amazon has introduced a nearly identical version[8] and given it top billing in search results. One study[9] found that, after a retailer becomes a seller on Amazon, it’s only a matter of weeks before Amazon brings the merchant’s most popular items into its own inventory.

Being both a direct retailer and a platform for other sellers gives Amazon novel weapons for shaking down suppliers. …

Continue reading:  Read the full article in Motherboard.[10]

Related: Statement: Regulators Should Block Amazon’s Acquisition of Whole Foods[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. Motherboard: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xpgvx/amazons-is-trying-to-control-the-underlying-infrastructure-of-our-economy
  2. nearly $1 of every $2: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  3. majority: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-27/more-than-50-of-shoppers-turn-first-to-amazon-in-product-search
  4. dispense prescription drugs: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/16/amazon-selling-drugs-pharamaceuticals.html
  5. 44 percent: https://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-to-vendors-get-off-amazons-cloud-1498037402
  6. no longer: https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-prime-discourages-most-people-from-comparison-shopping-online/
  7. weaken them as competitors: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  8. introduced a nearly identical version: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-20/got-a-hot-seller-on-amazon-prepare-for-e-tailer-to-make-one-too
  9. study: http://upstreamcommerce.com/blog/2014/10/28/amazon-muscles-marketplace-vendors-sellers
  10. Read the full article in Motherboard.: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xpgvx/amazons-is-trying-to-control-the-underlying-infrastructure-of-our-economy
  11. Statement: Regulators Should Block Amazon’s Acquisition of Whole Foods: https://ilsr.org/press-release-amazon-whole-foods/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazon-is-trying-to-control-the-underlying-infrastructure-of-our-economy/


Boston Bringing Broadband Ready Ranking To Real Estate

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 24, 2017 5:06 am

Tenants often don’t know what level of Internet access they can expect in a new office location or home until they are already committed to moving in. Boston aims to change the unpredictability and improve the city’s connectivity by working with WiredScore to establish a Broadband Ready Building Questionnaire as part of the city’s planning and development review process.

Thinking Ahead For Better Development

Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) and the city’s Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the company. The questionnaire will apply to new projects, planned development areas, and institutional master plans and will be used to assess a project’s impact on matters such as transportation, access to public spaces, environment, and historic resources. The questions will also serve to obtain public feedback.

WiredScore[1] has developed Wired Certification, an international rating system for commercial real estate that offers several levels of building certification based on quality of connectivity. A high level of certification is not based solely on one provider that offers high capacity connectivity to a building. There are a number of factors that determine which level of certification applies to a WiredScore ranked facility.

Specialized For Boston

Boston and WiredScore developed a unique questionnaire that addresses the issues they consider most relevant. In addition to rights-of-way and entry to the building, the partners ask specifics about telecom rooms, delivery of service within the building, and the accommodation of future innovative technologies. They also ask property owners about ISP providers at the address and whether or not tenants have choice.

With better information, commercial and residential tenants can choose a home that fits their needs. According to Christopher:

One of the many problems with Internet access is the lack of reliable information about services at a given location. This agreement between Boston and WiredScore is a step in the right direction – better ISPs thrive in sunlight while the biggest cable and telephone companies rely on ignorance and monopoly.

Developers are not required to pursue certification, and the questionnaire isn’t mandatory. This long-term approach is an inexpensive way for Boston to improve connectivity throughout the community by encouraging competition and education for Bostonians. Developers and property owners also benefit; they’re able to market their facilities as certified.

Check out the questionnaire here[2].

PDF icon Boston Broadband Ready Buildings Questionnaire

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[3]. Read the original here.[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. WiredScore: https://wiredscore.com/en/
  2. Check out the questionnaire here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/COB-BPDA-Article80-Broadband-Ready-Buildings-Questionnaire.pdf
  3. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  4. here.: https://muninetworks.org/content/boston-bringing-broadband-ready-ranking-real-estate

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/boston-bringing-broadband-ready-ranking-to-real-estate/


Louisville’s Opportunity: Connecting Their City, Receiving Big Savings

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 21, 2017 11:30 am

In order to save public dollars, improve municipal connectivity, and enhance the city’s ability to take advantage of various “Smart City” technologies, Louisville is planning to grow its existing fiber infrastructure[1]. Their plan will take advantage of aspects of the KentuckyWired project to reduce costs. An increasing number of local governments have taken a similar common sense approach and deployed fiber optic Institutional Networks[2] (I-Nets). In addition to cutting telecommunications costs, the infrastructure gives communities the freedom to predict future expenditures and find innovative ways to use publicly owned fiber.

Grow What You Have, Smartly

Louisville already owns a little more than 21 miles of fiber within the downtown business district. Under the Mayor’s proposed budget, $5.4 million would be allocated to add another 97 miles to the network. The estimated cost of the project deployment is low for an urban project because there are locations along the proposed route that overlap with the KentuckyWired project. In those areas, the company that is working with the state, Macquarie Capital, will install the fiber optic cables for Louisville alongside the KentuckyWired infrastructure. Macquarie will deploy both underground and on utility poles. This arrangement greatly reduces the cost for Louisville because they only pay for the materials.

According to the city’s chief of civic innovation[3], without the contribution of KentuckyWired, the project would have cost more than $15 million.

The network is only meant to serve community anchor institutions, along with municipal and Jefferson County facilities; there are no plans to connect homes or businesses. Louisville could lease excess capacity to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the future, which would generate revenue for the community.

In areas where KentuckyWired doesn’t run, such as West Louisville, the city will have to pay the entire cost of deployment. As an example of the savings generated by taking advantage of this larger opportunity, the connection to West Louisville is approximately 7 miles and will cost about $2.2 million. In the areas where Louisville is able to “double up” with Macquarie Capital’s crews for the remaining 90 miles, the cost of the project will be approximately $3.2 million. Funding for the project is part of the larger bonding that the Mayor has proposed; the final proposal will be presented to the Metro Council on June 22nd.

Improve City Services

Saving public funds are a major impetus for the project, but making life in Louisville better is always a goal. The new fiber will allow the city to reduce traffic congestion by connection 130 traffic signs to an ITS, which cuts down on commuter time and improves air quality. City officials also plan to use the network to improve public safety by connecting 18 more cameras. Gigabit connectivity will be available at 31 municipal facilities when the network is up and running, which will significantly increase productivity for city staff.

Public Savings

seal-louisville.pngThe chance to save public dollars on fiber deployment at this time will be complemented by savings generated moving forward. Leasing lines from incumbent providers adds up; they often raise their rates with little or no notice, making budgeting from year to year very difficult. Louisville will immediately save $78,000 in annual operating expenses and will have the freedom to use its own fiber network as it chooses without the fear of a provider increasing rates.

Martin County, Florida[4], chose to end the uncertainly of rate hikes and take back control of outrageous rate hikes from a national provider. When their franchise agreement with Comcast was about to expire, the company proposed an 800 percent increase in rates that amounted to highway robbery. Martin County officials determined it was more cost effective for government operations, schools, and other institutions on the network to invest in their own infrastructure.

Officials in Martin County had opportunities to cut costs similar to Louisville’s situation. There were other projects, including an Intelligent Traffic System (ITS) project in process; they reduced costs by sharing conduit space. Working across agency boundaries for a true “carpe diem” is an excellent way to save public dollars and forge relationships that make government more efficient.

Based on the provider’s proposal, Martin County and its institutions are saving millions each year, they don’t face surprising rate increases, and they have access to better connectivity. Read more about Martin County in our 2012 report, Florida Fiber: Martin County Saves Big with Gigabit Network[5].

Santa Monica, California, created a vision for better connectivity throughout the community in 1998. Their vision started with a Master Plan and an I-Net[6]. Working incrementally, they eliminated leased lines from incumbents, which allowed them to save the capital they needed to invest in their own infrastructure. They now have CityNet, a fast, affordable, reliable network; they’ve saved millions of taxpayer dollars and kept local dollars in the local economy. Santa Monica isn’t sending public funds away to the headquarters of the big telecom corporations so they’re able to use those funds for other purposes. Check out our 2014 case study[7] for the details on how they did it.

Louisville leadership knows that now is the time to complete this project at relatively low cost and in a speedy fashion. If they don’t seize the day, the project will cost more in dollars and time.

CCFF-logo_3_plain-small.jpeg

Challenged By Outsiders

The city’s efforts to save significant public dollars are being challenged by a group called, ironically, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. The group is not from Louisville or Kentucky. We’ve seen this organization pop up whenever national incumbent providers want to sabotage municipal efforts to escape their monopoly. Groups like the (TPA) typically offer slanted, sloppy research packaged to appear professional but their material is riddled with errors.

TPA has the distinction of making our page dedicated to misinformation and falsities, the Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies[8] page. To give an example of one recent mistake, they claimed that Rockport, Maine, had spent $2.5 million on a fiber network. The town had actually spent $40,000 and was quite happy with the return on its investment – a partnership with local provider GWI.

A Smart Strategy Others Should Consider

Communities all over the U.S. are saving with publicly owned I-Nets:

Broward County, Florida[9]: Saving $780K per year on connectivity, and additional $28K per year on telephones, and their rates are not longer increasing 15 percent annually.

Ellensburg, Washington[10]: Saving $10,300 per month.

Virginia Beach, Virginia[11]: Estimated savings $500K annually.

Davenport, Iowa[12]: Saving $600K annually.

Falmouth, Massachusetts[13]: Saving $160K annually.

Those of us who follow developments in publicly owned fiber don’t always hear which communities have invested in I-Net infrastructure. Often communities take the initiative as a way to get services they can’t obtain from incumbent providers, reduce costs, or because they want better control over their telecommunications services. Those efforts typically result in substantial savings and often contribute to economic development, better connectivity in schools and libraries, and lay the ground work for the Internet infrastructure a community needs moving forward. I-Net infrastructure is an investment worth considering.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[14]. Read the original here[15].

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Endnotes:
  1. planning to grow its existing fiber infrastructure: https://insiderlouisville.com/metro/wired-mayors-budget-funds-project-to-help-bring-fiber-internet-to-jefferson-county/
  2. Institutional Networks: https://muninetworks.org/content/institutional-networks
  3. According to the city’s chief of civic innovation: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pushback-for-high-speed-fiber-project-in-kentucky-highlights-political-battle-over-broadband/
  4. Martin County, Florida: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-bits-4-kevin-kryzda-cio-martin-county-florida
  5. Florida Fiber: Martin County Saves Big with Gigabit Network: https://muninetworks.org/reports/florida-county-saves-millions-building-its-own-broadband-network
  6. started with a Master Plan and an I-Net: https://muninetworks.org/content/exploring-santa-monicas-incremental-fiber-approach-community-broadband-bits-episode-90
  7. Check out our 2014 case study: https://muninetworks.org/reports/santa-monica-city-net-case-study
  8. Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies: https://muninetworks.org/content/correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-page
  9. Broward County, Florida: https://muninetworks.org/content/broward-county-saves-fiber-network-florida
  10. Ellensburg, Washington: https://muninetworks.org/content/ellensburgs-next-step-pilot-local-biz
  11. Virginia Beach, Virginia: https://muninetworks.org/content/virginia-beach-growing-municipal-network-savings-development
  12. Davenport, Iowa: https://muninetworks.org/content/davenport-stepping-closer-muni
  13. Falmouth, Massachusetts: https://muninetworks.org/content/falmouth-saves-cape-cod-i-net
  14. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  15. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/louisvilles-opportunity-i-net-savings-now-and-later

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/louisvilles-opportunity-connecting-their-city-receiving-big-savings/


Comcast Called Out For Lies Concerning Municipal Fiber Network

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 21, 2017 3:57 am

Sharing information about the fabulous work by communities investing in publicly owned Internet infrastructure is a full-time job. So is correcting the misinformation spread by national providers trying to undermine that important work. Fortunately, there are people with firsthand knowledge of those inaccuracies who can set the record straight.

It Started As A Simple Question

A recent post on Reddit[1] shows an email exchange between the Senior Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Comcast and the General Manager at NextLight in Longmont, Colorado. The email started when a resident from Fort Collins sent a message to the city council. Fort Collins is looking at better connectivity and researching their options.

The Fort Collins City Council forwarded those questions to Comcast and asked some one at the company to explain the difference between their gigabit connectivity and the gigabit service offered by NextLight, the municipal network in Longmont. As can be expected, Comcast’s representative replied with a long list of inaccuracies and outright falsities. In addition to claiming that Longmont’s service adds charges where it does not, Comcast’s rep tries to convince the Fort Collins City Council that NextLight’s service is inferior, but the fact show otherwise.

Fortunately, the email found its way to General Manager at NextLight Tom Roiniotis, who made the time to correct the misinterpretations. As is often the case in the “webiverse,” the email with accurate information found its way to Reddit.

The post, cleverly titled “GM drops the mic on the Comcast rep” is here[2], but we’ve also republished it. For some testimonies on Longmont’s NextLight service, check out the comments on the Reddit thread.

ON REDDIT:

logo-reddit.pngPer CORA (Colorado Open Records Act), this email is available to the public. Below is a recent email exchange between the NextLight (Longmont) General Manager and the Comcast Senior Gov’t & Regulatory Affairs rep. He refuted most of the information the Comcast rep was trying to peddle to City Council. Both Loveland and Fort Collins City Council received these responses.

All responses from the NextLight GM are quoted below. Original questions are also included.

June 8, 2017

Comcast: If you look at Longmont’s residential rate card, which is attached, the price for 1 gig varies greatly. If you were able to sign up within the first 3 months of NextLight reaching your home, then you can get 1 gig for $49.95 per month but if you miss that window then it is $99.95 per month (see the Terms & Conditions for Charter Member attached).

NextLight: Currently over 99% of LPC’s NextLight Gig customers are Charter Member customers. We’ve found that the community was very eager to subscribe and did sign-up quickly. Those very few that did miss the Charter Member period and signed-up for our standard service offering move to a loyalty rate of just $59.95 after 12 months, as was noted in the related document you sent with your email.

Comcast: In both cases, you also need the Wireless Gateway which is $8.95 per month.

NextLight: Actually customers are not required to lease a gateway from LPC NextLight. Customers have the choice to utilize our service without a wireless gateway, use their own, or lease one from us. Currently over 75% of our customers choose to either not utilize a wireless gateway or use their own.

Comcast: Then there is an installation charge of either $39.95 or $49.95.

NextLight: All standard installations have been and continue to be waived. This is noted in LPC’s FAQ section, in marketing materials, communicated to customers by our CSRs, and recently re-emphasized on our website and rate cards.

Comcast: And if you use a paper bill, that is an additional $2.00 per month.

NextLight: LPC made the decision up front to provide paperless billing as the standard. After all, NextLight customers are internet customers and all have the ability to receive electronic billing. We also considered sustainability/environmental impacts in the decision to not automatically print and mail paper bills. Currently less than 2% of our residential customers have requested a “snail mail”/paper bill.

Comcast: Plus all additional taxes and fees.

NextLight: There are no taxes or other fees for our NextLight Internet customers. Our Charter Members receive an Internet bill for $49.95; not a penny more.

Lie_detector_test.jpg

Comcast: Thus, a customer is looking at around either $70 per month plus the installation charge of $40 or $50 plus taxes and fees if you sign-up within the first 3 months or $110, plus installation charge of $40 or $50, plus taxes and fees.

NextLight: This is simply inaccurate – please see responses above.

Comcast: Also, Longmont’s Wireless Gateway is not capable of 1 gig wifi, thus, if you want to truly get 1 gig you have to plug in a hard line into your computer. (See further explanation of wifi routers below.)

NextLight: This is also inaccurate. Nextlight wireless routers are 4×4 MU-MIMO capable and dual-band, supporting connection speeds up to 2033Mbps. The 5GHz wireless AC mode alone supports connection speeds up to 1733Mbps.

Comcast: It is unclear to me if there is a data cap for NextLight.

NextLight: NextLight has no data caps. This is also covered in our FAQ’s, our marketing materials, and communicated to our customer by our CSR’s. We appreciate you pointing out that it is unclear to you – we will look to improve our marketing and communications on this point.

Question from Fort Collins City Council: 1) Why is Comcast offering their 1 gig service to residents of Longmont for only $70/month but is charging Fort Collins customers $110/month to $120/month? Is there some additional value that Fort Collins residents are receiving for their additional $40 to $50/month that Longmont residents are not receiving?

Comcast: As with many of our products and other internet service tiers, our pricing varies by market. Since this is a new product, we are experimenting with consumer demand and acceptance, including pricing as a variable. We are doing this testing throughout different markets in the western United States.

logo-nextlight-lpc.pngOur everyday price for 1 Gigabit service throughout the entire western United States is $159.95 per month, without a contract.

We are testing a promotional price of $109.99 per month throughout all of Colorado with a one-year service agreement. In addition, we are testing a $70 per month promotional offer in some areas of the state including Longmont, Erie and Niwot (as well as across the entire city of Detroit). Additional prices and promotions may be tested in the future.

Yes, there is the additional charge of $10 for a new modem, which can do up to 9 gigs down over wifi.

This is another very important difference between our product and Longmont’s. If you have Longmont’s 1 gig service and a wifi router, you max out around 150 to 250 Mbps; however, with Comcast’s 1 gig service and new modem you can get 1 gig over wifi. Thus, with Longmont to get 1 gig you must plug in your computer to a hard line; whereas, with our 1 gig product, you and your family can receive 1 gig over wifi.

NextLight: Again, this is not accurate. NextLight provided wireless routers as well as most of the wireless routers our tech savvy customers purchase for themselves are capable of much higher speeds than 250 Mbps.

The most significant difference, as pointed out by Mr. Akins below, is that NextLight provides a true symmetrical 1 Gbps service (that’s 1 gig up and 1 gig down), while Comcast’s service only provides 35Mbs upload. That means that NextLight’s upload speed is about 29 Times Faster than Comcast’s. A 2GB backup to the cloud with 1Gbs upload speed takes less than 20 seconds with NextLight service, but would take almost 8 minutes with Comcast’s service. A full PC backup of 100GB (gigabytes) of data to a cloud service such as the popular “Crash Plan” would take about 13 minutes with NextLight compared to over 6 hours with Comcast. Regardless of how fast Comcast wireless routers are claimed to be, they can’t provide upload speeds any faster than the 35Mbps limitation on Comcast’s “1 Gig” service.

CCFF-logo_3_plain-small.jpegComcast: Finally, as you are aware, we have a data cap at 1 Terabyte per month. (There is less than 2% of all our customers throughout the nation that reach and exceed this limit.) So there is no additional charge for data up to 1 Terabyte, and if you do go over, you can purchase an unlimited plan for an additional $50.

Question from Fort Collins City Council: 2) What are the additional charges, if any, for modem rental, data overages, or unlimited data? Why is Comcast potentially hiding additional modem rental fees and data overage charges and their upstream rate from customers when advertising their service?

Comcast: Please see the explanation above. In addition, Comcast is not hiding additional fees and costs. Please compare the advertising by Longmont with that of Comcast’s and you will find that Comcast is actually more transparent and clearer than Longmont.

NextLight: Again we welcome any input on where LPC NextLight information is unclear in anyway so we can address it. I invite you to touch base with me directly on any future questions or comments so we can ensure all are accurately informed of the NextLight services and pricing available to our customers. Thank You.

Not The First Time, Not The Last…

Fortunately, Roiniotis had the opportunity to set the record straight in this instance, but Comcast has an army of lawyers that get paid handsomely to spread this type of misinformation to local elected officials. The only way to combat these falsities are to stay diligent and to educate people whenever the opportunity arises.

In order to help stop the spread of similar chicanery from big providers intent on limiting competition, we’ve created a clearinghouse of resources that address misinformation. Check out our Correnting Community Fiber Fallacies[3] page.

Image of the Longmont Public Library by Billy Hathorn (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0[4] or GFDL[5]], via Wikimedia Commons[6].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[7]. Read the original here[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. recent post on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FortCollins/comments/6g8z18/broadband_beers_nextlight_longmont_gm_drops_the/
  2. “GM drops the mic on the Comcast rep” is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FortCollins/comments/6g8z18/broadband_beers_nextlight_longmont_gm_drops_the/
  3. Correnting Community Fiber Fallacies: https://muninetworks.org/content/correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-page
  4. CC BY-SA 3.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
  5. GFDL: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
  6. via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALongmont%2C_CO%2C_Public_Library_IMG_5220.JPG
  7. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  8. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/oops-comcast-called-out-fabrications-concerning-nextlight

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/comcast-called-out-for-lies-concerning-municipal-fiber-network/


The Rise and Fall of the Word ‘Monopoly’ in American Life

by Stacy Mitchell | June 20, 2017 6:00 pm

For several decades, the term was a fixture of newspaper headlines and campaign speeches. Then something changed.

This article was first published in  The Atlantic[1].

 

If “monopoly” sounds like a word from another era, that’s because, until recently, it was. Throughout the middle of the 20th century, the term was frequently used in newspaper headlines, campaign speeches, and State of the Union addresses delivered by Republican and Democratic presidents alike. Breaking up too-powerful companies was a bipartisan goal and on the minds of many voters. But, starting in the 1970s, the word retreated from the public consciousness. Not coincidentally, at the same time, the enforcement of anti-monopoly policy grew increasingly toothless.

The story of why the word and the movement dropped off the map in tandem carries lessons about how an economic policy’s effectiveness can be its own undoing, and about how people are thinking about corporate power today. Because monopoly is back. As concentration has soared to levels not seen in decades, economists are talking about monopoly[2] again; recent scholarship has linked consolidation with rising inequality and other economic ills. Politicians on both the left and right are talking about it, too[3]—the announcement last week that Amazon is planning to buy Whole Foods has refocused some politicians’ attention on the subject[4].

Sentiments were similar back in the 1920s, the last period of high levels of corporate concentration and inequality. Isolated protests against big business erupted periodically then as they do now. People who lived in small towns fought the grocery giant A&P’s displacement[5] of local retailers; farmers rallied against the control Wall Street banks had over the agricultural industry[6]; and residents of big cities protested the high prices charged by holding companies that had gained control of the electricity supply. (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/word-monopoly-antitrust/530169/
  2. are talking about monopoly: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21720657-its-economists-used-champion-big-firms-mood-has-shifted-university-chicago
  3. are talking about it, too: http://time.com/4389698/elizabeth-warren-antitrust-2016-election/
  4. refocused some politicians’ attention on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/ro-khanna-amazon-whole-foods/530805/
  5. fought the grocery giant A&P’s displacement: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=749084
  6. rallied against the control Wall Street banks had over the agricultural industry: https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-word-monopoly-in-american-life/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-word-monopoly-in-american-life/


Boulder County Incentive Program Drives Adoption of Two ‘Sexy Electrics’: Solar and Electric Cars — Episode 47 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by Karlee Weinmann | June 19, 2017 12:00 pm

An innovative group purchasing program in Boulder County, Colorado, put hundreds of electric vehicles on local roads and sparked the addition of more than 1 megawatt of rooftop solar in its first two years. Now, the initiative is a springboard for efforts nationwide to allow consumers to seize control of their clean energy future.

The Boulder County project was the first in the country to offer dual incentives for integrating electric vehicles and rooftop solar. It started as part of an ongoing push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, taking specific aim at transportation, a major contributor of harmful pollutants. To date, it’s paying off — and in more ways than one.

In addition to bringing more clean energy technology online, the program’s financial benefits for the community far outpaced its costs, Brad Smith, the county’s Sustainability Outreach and Education Specialist, recently told ILSR’s John Farrell. The county spent just $650 on marketing and outreach, a miniscule price for the gains it has seen.

By Smith’s tally, every $1 invested by Boulder County drove $794 in community benefits. That calculus doesn’t include Smith’s time — which he says is cheap anyway. All things considered, he said, the payoff is enormous.

“These numbers are absolutely off the chart for what we are typically working with in the county, and so it was a wildly successful program for us,” Smith told Farrell, who leads the Energy Democracy Initiative at ILSR. “In addition to all of that, our residents were really, really excited about the program.”

Note: We published this podcast and post alongside a new, comprehensive report — Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles[5] — that explores in-depth the influence electric vehicles can have in building clean energy economies at the community scale. 

Proven Results

The program spurred 392 electric vehicle sales and the installation of 1.2 megawatts of rooftop solar (in separate 205 arrays), including participants in communities outside Boulder County that heard about the program and wanted in. In the county itself, home to the Nissan dealership, residents used incentives to purchase 289 electric vehicles and build 123 solar systems that have a combined capacity of 692 kilowatts.

Despite being home to less than one-tenth of 1% of the U.S. population, Boulder County drivers accounted for 3.5% of total nationwide Leaf sales[6] in the first year of the program.

Source: Southwest Energy Efficiency Project

The deal included more than $11,500 in discounts, including incentives from both the local dealership and Nissan North America. In addition, the dealership offered 0% financing over 72 months to eligible customers plus free charging at any charging stations in its network over the first two years of vehicle ownership. Lessees could also tap into certain smaller discounts.

On the solar side, a price tag of $3.50 per installed watt sat alongside incentives ranging from $250 to $750 per array, depending on the installer.

But the payoff didn’t end there. Electric vehicle owners also enjoy fuel and maintenance savings compared with gas-powered vehicle owners. In 2015, the equivalent cost of electricity hovered around $1.07 per gallon — enough to generate significant benefits for LEAF owners, even when gas prices hung below the $2-per-gallon mark.

Solar and EVs: A Natural Fit

Boulder County might have been the first to bring electric vehicles and solar together under a single incentive program, but it was hardly a novel move — the same consumers that tend to favor electric vehicles also like renewables. By combining the two, the county made a run at increasing the effectiveness of its program in reducing emissions.

Going forward, as more electric vehicles hit the roads, they could become pivotal assets to the power grid. With daytime charging options, these cars could soak up excess solar energy during the sunniest part of the day, when production is highest.

In the first year of the Boulder County program, roughly 13% of participants who installed solar also purchased electric vehicles[7]. About 7% of those households had designed their solar arrays to power their new electric vehicle in addition to their home.

Most solar owners see benefits via net metering, which sends their power onto the grid and in turn receive bill credits from their utility. Even in these cases, when the electrons from their solar panels aren’t soaked up by their vehicle on-site, they effectively offset at least a portion of Leaf charging with renewable generation.

A Blueprint for Others

The Boulder County program borrows from a model piloted in Portland, Oregon, more than a half-decade ago. There, a neighborhood group launched a program for solar panels that with the help of federal funding expanded citywide, driving up solar installations by 300% between 2009 and 2010. Particularly after Boulder County proved the framework could also work with electric vehicles, other players across the U.S. are testing it in their markets[8].

In Boulder County, the program quickly took hold. Organizers spent the spring of 2015 laying the foundation for implementation, with a plan to close the first phase at the end of September of that year. But demand in the community was so high that they extended the program period through December and opened it for another round in 2016.

Testimonials gathered as part of a program review by the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project showcase the enthusiasm around the Boulder County model. Consumers said the program smoothed out the process of learning about electric vehicles and purchasing one, while the dealership reported easier sales to better-informed customers.

In proving demand for electric vehicles in its communities, Boulder County’s program reinforced the appeal of incentive programs. Other communities across the country have replicated the effort, sometimes with the help of utilities eager to capture the benefits of increased electricity demand. One study suggests that if the average car travels 12,000 miles annually, an electric vehicle would increase its household’s energy needs by 33% (or roughly 4,000 kilowatt-hours per year).

Now, the utility serving the area and much of Colorado, Xcel Energy, has effectively taken the reins in Boulder County with a program that delivers $10,000 in instant benefits to customers when they buy a new Leaf. A similar effort launched recently in Ohio[9], where utility AEP is offering a $10,000 discount on new Leafs — open to all residents in its territory, even if they purchase electricity from someplace else.

What’s Next for Boulder County?

With Xcel running its incentive program, the county has taken a step back. While it planned to open a new round of vehicle incentives this year, Smith said Xcel has a solid framework in place and the capacity to extend its benefits more widely, across Colorado. Boulder County will revive its electric vehicle program if necessary, but for now, its staff will help guide other administrators and focus on new efforts, including a forthcoming incentive for electric bikes[10].

Down the line, the Boulder County model could be more widely used to encourage adoption of other technologies, including ones that improve energy efficiency. The county is also exploring ways to help community groups and faith-based organizations lead similar initiatives.

“We’ve kind of become a support system for other folks wanting to run this, and then as other entities run these programs, we’ve taken a step back and simply provided the outreach and marketing,” Smith said.

For the Boulder program evaluation and a handbook on replicating the program elsewhere, check out the website of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project[11].

Photo Credit: Vetatur Fumare via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)[12].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[13]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[14] or Karlee Weinmann[15] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[16] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Podcast_Smith.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Podcast_Smith.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  6. 3.5% of total nationwide Leaf sales: http://www.swenergy.org/data/sites/1/media/documents/publications/documents/Colorado_EV_Group_Purchase_Programs_Mar-2016.pdf
  7. also purchased electric vehicles: http://www.swenergy.org/data/sites/1/media/documents/publications/documents/Colorado_EV_Group_Purchase_Programs_Mar-2016.pdf
  8. other players across the U.S. are testing it in their markets: http://www.swenergy.org/Data/Sites/1/media/events/webinars/2016-08-15/2016-08-15-Final_Group_Purchase.pdf
  9. similar effort launched recently in Ohio: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2017/05/24/customers-in-aep-ohio-territory-can-get-10-000-off.html?ana=RSS%26s=article_search
  10. incentive for electric bikes: https://www.bouldercounty.org/news/boulder-county-launches-discount-electric-car-and-bike-purchase-program/
  11. Southwest Energy Efficiency Project: http://www.swenergy.org/publications/transportation
  12. Vetatur Fumare via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0): https://www.flickr.com/photos/10047629@N04/8873748669/in/photolist-ew9hjH-psvrLp-aNDJMn-am4uR1-dgTPPQ-8GksrV-pehE9E-fnXX8F-a9CUHM-dgdPsu-9C9YBC-92GeNX-e4m7QB-a9CUQ4-a5wKWh-92KmHq-9C9YvG-pMu9e9-sgBwuq-fodySG-9f1u1d-aXy4ok-egmX52-8GoBvh-8GoxYQ-TDTTbf-bpxCvf-8GoBih-8b1xwU-8Gozgu-8Gknxa-8Gkn6V-bCswZ2-s2Mhmx-8HsVtT-aGaYcr-dxytsz-a5wmZ5-aXy4Qx-9cEKod-bpxySJ-9cEKhC-9cEKs5-eQYQAx-bVEeck-dxyth2-bDX1jm-bxwosj-dxyt9Z-eRbdr9
  13. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  14. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  15. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  16. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/boulder-county-incentive-program-drives-adoption-of-two-sexy-electrics-solar-and-electric-cars-episode-47-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/


Electric Cooperative, County Collaborate To Expand Fiber-to-the-Home in Rural Virginia

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 16, 2017 5:01 am

Prince George County, Virginia, and its electric cooperative recently entered into an agreement that will allow Prince George Electric Cooperative (PGEC) to offer Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to certain areas in the county. The arrangement came after a successful pilot project that proved residents and businesses in the rural community were interested in better connectivity. The agreement will inject funding into the cooperative’s plans to bring high-quality connectivity to all its members.

From Rural Pilot To Proven

In February, officials from PGEC reported to the County Board of Supervisors[1] that the pilot project was under way. The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved the cooperative’s formation of its PGEC Enterprises subsidiary, which will offer connectivity to members. The co-op has connected premises along one stretch of Quaker Road in Prince George County, and received applications for installation from more than 40 property owners.

By the time PGEC had finished deploying in the pilot area in early May, a total of 49 premises were connected to the network. According to the co-op’s VP, Casey Logan, that figure represents approximately two-thirds of potential subscribers.

Jumpstarting Co-op Broadband

The performance agreement[2] between Prince George County[3], PGEC, and the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) will provide $1 million to the cooperative in IDA bond funding to expand the pilot project to a wider network. The funds are part of spring bonding that covers a number of county projects. The County Board voted unanimously[4] to dedicate the funds to the broadband expansion project.

In addition to connecting all its substations, PGEC will connect any residence, business, community anchor institution, or public facility within 1,000 feet of a state road along the fiber route. Approximately 500 premises are located within the planned fiber route. The project should take about four years to complete.

PGEC plans to dedicate an additional $5 million to the project over the next five years and has said that, once the 500 premises are connected, they will likely continue to connect premises in their service area.

“When the cable and phone companies couldn’t meet the high speed Internet needs of the communities because of the feasibility of expansion, we made the numbers work,” Logan stated. “We were there first.”

If fewer than 500 premises are connected within the proposed time period, PGEC will pay back $2,000 per premise that is not connected. The performance agreement also stipulates that the obligation of the contract between the county, the cooperative, and the IDA is a contingency that remains in effect if there is any sale of assets.

So Many Needs, Such Slow Speeds

Many premises in Prince George County rely on satellite, which often has harsh data caps and expensive overage charges. In addition to providing more reliable, affordable connectivity for K-12 students who increasingly need high-quality Internet access[5] for homework assignments, the network is offering better connectivity for emergency services in the county.

[Casey] Logan said the need for county children to have internet access for their schoolwork was a big part of the co-op’s motivation. “If we didn’t try and do something, generation after generation of our children are not going to have the opportunities they need,” he said.

seal-prince-george-cnty-VA.jpegCost of service for residents is $82 per month, which includes $75 for symmetrical 30 Megabits per second (Mbps) Internet access and $7 per month for router lease. There is no limitation on the amount of data subscribers use. While the performance agreement stipulates that PGEC provide speeds that meet the FCC definition of broadband (25 Mbps / 3 Mbps) officials from PGEC have stated that the current speed of 30 Mbps may be increased in the future, depending on subscriber input.

The performance agreement requires the cooperative to connect facilities such as to the Central Wellness Center, Prince George Emergency Crew building, the Burrowsville Fire Department and the town’s community center. Each facility will pay the residential rate during the course of the agreement. Later, those facilities will pay commercial rates, which have not been established yet.

With the lack of urban areas, it isn’t surprising that approximately 61 percent of all businesses in the county are home-based. Without high-quality connectivity, however, businesses’ face a limited ability to offer their goods or services to global customers. They also can’t share data rich documents with colleagues, which also limits opportunities.

Co-ops Are Doin’ It For Members

At a community meeting in May, Logan told attendees[6], “We did what we did because frankly nobody else would do it.”

President and CEO Mike Milandro added, “I honestly believe that without this, rural America will die.”

Prince George County[3] is home to approximately 36,000 people, many of whom work in the public sector. There is no major urban area in the county, and much of the 282 square mile county is rural. Agriculture is an important part of the economy and about 2,100 people live in the county seat of the town of Prince George.

Sparsely populated areas like Prince George County don’t attract the attention of national providers because it isn’t profitable enough to invest with so few potential subscribers who live across the entire county. All across the U.S. rural telephone and electric cooperatives are examining what their members need and considering offering high-quality Internet access. A growing number are offering gigabit connectivity[7].

PGEC is carrying on a tradition common among rural cooperatives – taking steps to improve life in the community[8]:

“It was a natural for us,” said M.E. “Mike” Malandro, president and CEO. “We’re in the business of putting in infrastructure and providing customer service.”

For the co-op, the impetus to take on broadband was simply to give back to the community, especially in the rural parts of the county.

Photo of Prince George County Regional Heritage Center courtesy of The Best Part of Virginia[9].

PDF icon Performance Agreement: Prince George County, Industrial Development Authority, and PGEC Enterprises, Virginia

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[10]. Read the original here[11].

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Endnotes:
  1. reported to the County Board of Supervisors: http://www.princegeorgeva.org/DOC270.pdf
  2. performance agreement: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-Prince-George-County-PGCEC-VA-performace-agreement.pdf
  3. Prince George County: http://www.princegeorgeva.org/
  4. voted unanimously: http://www.theprincegeorgejournal.com/news/supervisors-recommend-giving-1m-to-ida-to-help-fund-broadband-project/
  5. increasingly need high-quality Internet access: http://www.progress-index.com/news/20170505/co-op-completes-broadband-project-plans-to-roll-out-to-all-members
  6. Logan told attendees: http://www.progress-index.com/news/20170505/co-op-completes-broadband-project-plans-to-roll-out-to-all-members
  7. are offering gigabit connectivity: https://muninetworks.org/content/national-cooperative-month-celebrate-gigabit-cooperatives
  8. to improve life in the community: http://www.progress-index.com/news/20170505/co-op-completes-broadband-project-plans-to-roll-out-to-all-members
  9. The Best Part of Virginia: https://www.petersburgarea.org/events/prince-george-county-memorial-day-observance
  10. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  11. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/co-op-county-collaborate-expand-ftth-pilot-virginia

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/electric-cooperative-county-collaborate-to-expand-fiber-to-the-home-in-rural-virginia/


Why Local Self-Reliance? (Episode 22)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | June 15, 2017 12:00 pm

In this episode of Building Local Power[5], host Christopher Mitchell, of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews ILSR co-founder David Morris about the history of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and why the message of local self-reliance is as relevant today as it was in the 1970s. This wide-ranging conversation takes in the role that new communications technology is facilitating concentration and how cities are rising to the moment by exerting their own power.

No matter whether you’re a conservative or a radical, you hate your utility company, and you hate your utility company because it’s a monopoly, and it’s remote, and it’s not responsive, and for a whole bunch of reasons. So when you’re starting to talk about energy that can be harnessed at the local level, and the rooftop level, and the neighborhood level, and the metropolitan level, people are extremely enthusiastic. That cuts across ideologies, and it’s that political, I think, as well as environmental dynamic that’s the most important of all. — David Morris

Get caught up with the latest work from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on fighting monopoly power across a variety of sectors:

From Christopher Mitchell:

[6]
Available here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2011/10/benkler[7].

From David Morris:

[8]
Available here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51306.Mutual_Aid[9].

Christopher Mitchell: David, when I tell people that I work for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, they’ll often say, “Who could be against that?” So let me ask you, in 43 years of experience, who is against local self-reliance?
David Morris: Well, in one respect, no one’s against local self-reliance if you define it as communities, you define it as mutual aid, you define it as self-help, so in that sense, both conservatives and liberals and radicals are all in favor of local self-reliance, but if you define it as the exercise of collective authority at the local level in order to make rules that can establish a firm wealth-producing economy, then you do tend to get a difference of opinion.
Christopher Mitchell: You start to make enemies.
David Morris: You start to make enemies. Conservatives are all for decentralization of political authority, as long as it’s not an exercise of political authority. Liberals would like a centralization or have, traditionally until very recently, wanted the federal government to exercise significant authority because they thought communities were parochial and racist and xenophobic, so both of them subscribe to the concept of local self-reliance, but they are very different when you’re talking about the exercise of authority and power.
Christopher Mitchell: And this is what we’re going to be talking about today, local self-reliance, what does it mean? Where does it come from? Where are we going? Those sorts of things. I’m Chris Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I direct our broadband work, and David Morris, one of the co-founders of the organization is back with us for, I believe, a third episode of Building Local Power.
David Morris: Thanks, Chris, for having me on for a third episode.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, many more are on the way, I have no doubt. So let’s explore this, and maybe we’ll start at the beginning, a time in which there was a polarizing president, discussion of horrible corruption at the federal level, a president under attack, 1974, not the modern era, so you get together with a couple of friends and decide you’re going to create the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. What did you have in mind, in terms of what was the idea of what local self-reliance meant then?
David Morris: Well, local self-reliance in 1974 and in 2017 means a focus on cities, and a focus on cities for a number of different reasons. One is that historically, cities are the basis of innovation. That goes back hundreds and even a thousand years. The second is that in the United States, the population shifts are such that we went from being a rural nation before 1920, to being an urban nation, to being an almost entirely urban urban nation. 80% of the people in the United States live in cities.
Christopher Mitchell: When you say “cities”, some people might think metro areas of more than a million people, but having worked with you, my sense is you actually just mean defined units. You’re not talking about a specific scale. It’s more the idea of people that live in close proximity to each other.
David Morris: It’s people who live in close proximity to each other and also that have a certain amount of authority to make decisions on their own behalf collectively, yes. And it could be a city of 10,000 people. In fact, if you take a look at what used to be the Bureau of Statistics, when we used to have a Bureau of Statistics at the federal level, and you take a look, you’ll find that there’s a greater population in the United States in smaller cities than there are in larger cities.
Christopher Mitchell: So the third factor, what was that?
David Morris: The third factor was that cities have become increasingly competent. They have created an internal capacity, and that wasn’t true in the 19th century, that wasn’t true in the early 20th century. It was early 20th century when cities began to essentially run municipal electric utilities, run their streetcar companies.
Christopher Mitchell: Water and sewer.
David Morris: Water and sewer. They also began to develop the municipal planning profession. They began to create data so they could compare each other on the basis of efficiencies and that has continued, and so cities are now very capable. The fourth reason that we focus on cities is that’s where the rubber meets the road, and no matter what happens at the federal level, you feel it at the local level, and they have to clean up the mess. They have to enact. What you have is congress makes a law, and then the executive branch defines the regulations related to the law, and then the states have to, and then the localities have to interpret that and then put them down on the ground, and so when it comes to an energy crisis, for example, the federal government can worry about the oil reserves, but it’s the mayor that has to worry about your utility bills going up and people not being able to pay their utility bills.

And the final reason for it, and a very important recent reason, is that technology is now decentralizing in its impact. In the 19th century and much of the 20th century, technology was centralizing when we shifted from renewable resources to fossil fuels to concentrated energy sources, we shifted from small to big. When we shifted from batch manufacturing to mass production, we shifted from small to big. When we shifted from wood to steel, we shifted from small to big, and so we created institutions and we created laws, and we even created behaviors that assumed that bigger was better, and bigger was more efficient, but at the end of the 20th century and certainly in the 21st century, technology is moving us in the other direction, and that means that cities are not on the outside looking in to these huge structures, whether they be power plants or whether they be steel mills, but they’re actually there where the economy, that is the real economy, the productive economy is increasingly based.

Christopher Mitchell: One of the technologies that I would just highlight is the communications technology, which in many ways, led to that centralizing, I think, in that you had a telegraph which was one to one over great distances, and then eventually you had broadcast, which was one to many over great distances, but it’s only more recently when we have the possibility for many to many over the internet as people are connected that I think also leads to a different way of sharing information that leads to decentralization.
David Morris: It does lead to decentralization, although one can have a whole ‘nother discussion here about whether the internet has led to decentralization or centralization in many ways because it does allow for a corporate control which we’ve never had before, a very intimate corporate control.
Christopher Mitchell: Right. There’s billions of websites, but Facebook has billions of users, and there’s no sense of how you’d ever take them on.
David Morris: That’s exactly right. Billions and billions and billions of us communicating with each other every day, and there’s about half a dozen corporations that own that process.
Christopher Mitchell: Most of it, yes. So what I’m interested in really making sure we hit on is the trend, because it strikes me, having worked for ILSR for the last 10 years, that I’m really hearing the glory days in the sense that you started this focus on cities at a time when cities were, if anything, becoming less popular. People were fleeing cities for many years. Budgets were difficult. I live in a time now, and I’m working in a time in which everyone wants to live in cities. Not everyone, but they’re incredibly sexy. People are flocking to them. I think budgets are looking better than they have in decades. So what can you tell us about the change over this time with that sense of the city as an exciting place?
David Morris: Well, that’s a very good summary, actually. In 1974, people were still fleeing the Detroits, and the Clevelands, and the old industrial cities, the Pittsburghs and the like, and everybody was talking about the growth of the suburbs and the shrinking, especially of the central cities, at that time, and so the institute was promoting an idea that had relatively little currency. The environmentalists hated cities. They hated cities because they thought that they were resource-consuming, that they in fact exploited the land in a poor way.
Christopher Mitchell: There was a sense at one time that the solution to pollution is dilution, and so cities, you just concentrated all the pollution. If you just could spread it out, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem.
David Morris: That’s exactly right. I sometimes tell the story when someone asks, “So what would a good rule be that’s sort of a local self-reliance principle in the environmental movement?” And I talk about the 1970 Clean Air Act, and the 1970 Clean Air Act essentially said that in order to deal with the particulate pollution that was coming out of the smokestacks in cities where people lived, you would raise the height of the smokestacks, and what that then created was a regional problem of acid rain and the like, and I thought, “Well, what about if instead of that, we had a law that said that the end of the smokestack had to be curved, and the end of it would come into the boardroom of the corporation?” And I bet you that if we did that, that is if we married responsibility and authority, we would have heard about clean and zero emission manufacturing a generation ago.
Christopher Mitchell: If you were listening to another podcast right now, they might take a break because Goldman Sachs had bought advertisements on their show, but we don’t do that, and it’s not because we’re against advertising, but because the model is much harder for small businesses, and so we hope that you’re going to be supporting us with a donation through ilsr.org, our website, and we certainly hope that you’re also patronizing your local businesses for whom doing centralized advertising on podcasts may not work as well, and if you enjoyed this show, certainly consider other podcasts like our Community Broadband Bits. If you like my voice, you can hear a lot more of it there, and Local Energy Rules with John Farrell, where they’ve recently been talking about solar power and electric vehicles. Pretty exciting stuff.

Coming back from our short break, we recently did a digitizing project in which we were looking back at old columns that you had written, David, and in the ’80’s, you wrote about 3D printing, and how 3D printing could fundamentally change the economy, and it’s happening now, certainly, and we’re seeing this incredible new technology that really lends itself to local manufacturing on a small scale. What are some of these other technologies?

David Morris: Well, there’s many technologies like that. When I was writing about it in the late 1980’s, it was called desktop manufacturing, but certainly 3D printing is exactly what it is, but when we look at different aspects of the economy, for example in energy, it’s obvious to people in terms of energy, that it used to be that you had very specific parts of the globe that had resources that you could use to generate energy, and you dug them out, and you transported them long distances, and you burned them in either large power plants or through distribution networks at your gas stations and in your cars, and you created institutions, and you created a national infrastructure as a result of it, but the sunlight falls on your roof, and the wind blows through your backyard, and so when we’re talking about moving to renewable resources, we’re also talking about resources that can be claimed, that can be harnessed at the very, very local level, I mean, even at your rooftop level, and that’s been true forever, but the new technologies allow us actually to do that in an economical way and to generate electricity.

Previously, in thousands of years, you generated heat and you generated mechanical power, but right now, you can generate electricity which is, of course, the premier form of energy. So that’s something that’s very, very new. It’s very new. In fact, in 1974 when the institute started, literally three months before that, 20 miles away from our headquarters, the first factory was set up that produced solar cells for terrestrial applications. They had been used for space satellites before that, and in a year’s output, it generated enough solar cells to power one house. That was 1974. And in 1999 was the first time where the amount of solar capacity that was installed connected to a grid exceeded the amount of solar capacity that was installed in remote cabins and remote outposts. So that’s less than 20 years ago.

Christopher Mitchell: Let me ask you why that matters in the sense that certainly there’s less pollution from not digging fossil fuels up, transporting them long distances and whatnot, but what we care about is the electricity. Why does the economy care where it comes from?
David Morris: Well, the economy doesn’t care where it comes from, absolutely, but politically, it has a dynamic that’s extremely different. No matter whether you’re a conservative or a radical, you hate your utility company, and you hate your utility company because it’s a monopoly, and it’s remote, and it’s not responsive, and for a whole bunch of reasons, and so when you’re starting to talk about energy that can be harnessed at the local level, and the rooftop level, and the neighborhood level, and the metropolitan level, people are extremely enthusiastic. That cuts across ideologies, and it’s that political, I think, as well as environmental dynamic that’s the most important of all.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, I just wanted to actually reinforce your point, and David, as you know, I love disagreeing with you. 75% of Americans, I think, undoubtedly hate their electric company because it’s mostly investor-owned companies that are not meeting their needs, but I was just in Newport, Tennessee, which has a municipal electric company, which is locally owned, and though they are a monopoly, I was talking with them about how they were viewed in the community. One of the things they told me was that their installers were often offered beer and people would be like, “Oh, you want a drink?” They just had such a good reputation, so this local does matter, certainly, I just wanted to throw that out there because I would hesitate for anyone who thinks that all the utility companies are hated. We see the municipal ones tend to be really loved.
David Morris: No, that’s absolutely true. They do. Well, they tend to be respected, and sometimes they tend to be admired, and-
Christopher Mitchell: Rarely loved, maybe.
David Morris: … sometimes there’s a tension, but the same is true about government. I mean, most everybody hates remote government, which means the federal government. Many people, if not most people, don’t like their state governments, which are remote and controlled by people that they don’t even know, but most people do like their local government. They may scream about, and yell about, and so forth. “The snow wasn’t plowed when it should have been plowed,” and so forth, but there’s a real clear connection to your local government, and so scale does matter both in terms of the economy and politics.
Christopher Mitchell: But sticking with electricity, how important is it that when you’re generating locally, it just means that more of that money is staying in the community versus going, some portion of your bill is going to the company that’s extracting the coal, some portion of your bill is going to the railroad monopoly that’s moving it, some portion of your money is then going to a generation facility that could be in a different state. How important is it that that money stays in the community in terms of why we’re concerned about it?
David Morris: Well, it’s very important. It’s important. It’s part of the recycling of local resources. Part of the maxim of local self-reliance is that you extract the maximum amount of value you can from your local resource base, and that includes your human resource base, that includes your natural resource base, that includes your capital, and in terms of capital, you want to recycle your money as much as you can. I don’t want to overemphasize that point, however, although it’s a useful point to talk to people about, but when you buy from a locally owned business, you actually have influence on that locally owned business. That business probably knows you. You certainly do know them. If you want to complain, you can complain to them directly.

The owner of that business may very well live locally. If they live locally, they pay property taxes to the schools that their kids go to, so there’s a lot of reasons why you want to keep your money local, and one of them is economic, but again, one of them is political in the sense that you have more say, more participation, more influence over small business than you do remote business, and locally owned structures rather than remotely owned structures.

Christopher Mitchell: Since you mentioned both economic and political, I think it’s worth noting something that I’ve certainly learned over the years, which is that it doesn’t seem to be possible to have local and distributed political power if you do not have local and distributed economic power.
David Morris: That’s exactly right. We talk about authority, responsibility, and capacity, the kind of arc of local self-reliance. You can’t really have the exercise of authority if you don’t have a productive capacity. Now Thomas Jefferson, by the way, who hated cities, he hated cities, he thought that when people went to cities, they became property-less, they became mobs, and they became part of political machines and boss machines, and the reason that he supported the yeoman peasant was that the yeoman peasant, in fact, could be self-sufficient. He didn’t preach self-sufficiency, but could be self-sufficient. He or she had the skills and also had land and had the productive capacity, and because they had productive capacity, they would be informed in their decision making, collective decision making process, that is, they would be able to participate in politics knowing how the world worked, and so needing that capacity is extremely important.
Christopher Mitchell: You mentioned self-sufficiency, it’s just worth noting, are we expecting cities to be self-sufficient?
David Morris: No. We’re expecting cities to be self-reliant.
Christopher Mitchell: Oh, that goes back to the name, I think.
David Morris: Yes. Indeed, it did. One biologist talked about self-reliance being the capacity for self-sufficiency, but not self-sufficiency itself. I like, and I think it’s useful for us to use the metaphor of nation that I think we view cities as nations. Not autarchic, autarchy is a terrible thing. Only North Korea believes in autarchy and look what that got them, right? We don’t believe in self-sufficiency for cities, but if they treat themselves as nations, they become self-conscious. They become self-aware. They track the flow of resources through their borders. They make decisions that try to maximize the value to the people within those borders of those resource flows, and so that’s what we’re talking about in terms of local self-reliance.
Christopher Mitchell: Now I want to take this conversation and go to a different spot, which is I think one of the greatest problems that we face as a nation right now is how we think of areas outside of our communities, and I would point to an article that I’ll be recommending people read at the end of the show, which was by James Fallows in which he traveled around the country and talked to people, often from areas that have been seen as being really hard hit in recent economic times, cities that are not doing as well, like Allentown, where I was born, and one of the things he found was that people generally had a sense that things were going well in their community, but that nationwide, we were falling apart, and that locally, they liked the immigrants that were coming in to their community because they were contributing and they were helpful.

But nationwide, we had this problem with immigrants, and it didn’t matter where he went in the country, he felt that people locally felt their immigrants were helpful, and to some extent, I think we’re a nation of 330 million people with an incredibly flawed news media. In some sense, I feel like our philosophy is one of the rare ones I can see that actually can figure out how we can all get along in some ways.

David Morris: Yes, absolutely. Knowledge breeds respect, I think, and admiration, and it’s absolutely true. You find the same thing is true in schools. If you ask people whether the school system is good or bad, they say, “It’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s not educating.” You ask them whether their school is working, they say, “Yeah, my school is working just fine, thank you very much.” And the same thing is true with local politicians versus national politicians, that is, if you know them, you may be angry at them for one reason or another, but you don’t think of them immediately as corrupt or ineffective.
Christopher Mitchell: To some extent, I actually feel like, and you have a much broader view of this than I do, I wonder if things are so specialized now. I mean, we’re so far past the point in which an intelligent person can know most things in most fields, that we simply cannot have policymaking at such a high level. We need to push it down where there’s more local expertise because I think when we look at the state level and the federal level, we’re expecting far too much expertise from people who often don’t have staff at the state level, and at the federal level, we can get into what all the problems are in a different show, but fundamentally, it seems to me that the economy has gotten much more complicated. The solutions to our problems in many ways are more complicated, and there’s a lack of expertise, and if we bring it more to the local level, we will address that. Is that a dynamic that’s-
David Morris: Yes, it is a dynamic. I mean, you can also look at it as the costs and the benefits of a particular policy when you’re talking about large scale institutions, fall on different actors, if you will. And so the heads of corporations make a decision. Let’s say closing a plant, for example, but that doesn’t affect them negatively, it actually affects them positively. The more that we can, in fact, decentralize, distribute, push down to the community level, both the costs and the benefits, then we can have a better decision making process, that’s why I had talked about the curved smokestack coming in through the board window. That was one where you, in fact, began to marry authority and responsibility. Those who made the decisions were those who were going to feel the impact of those decisions, and you end up with very good decisions. In that case, the decision would have been to reduce pollution in the first place, rather than to spread it around.
Christopher Mitchell: Right, and obviously, you can only do that when the boardroom is in proximity to the factory.
David Morris: That’s right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That’s another point. It could be in another continent, I suppose. You were talking about James Fallows’s piece about immigrants, migrants, and I think that would lead one to the proposition that decisions related to deportation should be pushed down to the local level. Now in saying that, I get it, that people out there are going, “Boo hoo hoo, wait a minute, the communities are xenophobic. They can be racist. They have a history of, in fact, pushing out people who don’t look like them,” and I can see that point, but also because you know these people in your community, or people down the block know these people in your community, that you will probably find a community saying, “You know, there are 10% of them who are criminals. We can put them in jail or we can send them out of the country, but 90% of them are law-abiding citizens, are just like you and me, are striving and insecure, and what we should do is nurture them, not to make them afraid.”

Now that’s a decision I think that would be done at the local level, and in fact, is being done at the local level. You look at Los Angeles, you look at a number of different cities that in fact have provided money for legal support of their immigrants, and when one talks about sanctuary communities, one should realize that this is not a theoretical term, sanctuary communities, this is a term that says, “We are going to protect our neighbors against the despotism,” really, of a remote government in Washington, D.C.

We are at a point now, as you indicated, a new generation is growing up that does focus on cities, and at the same time, you have a federal government that essentially is trying to preempt and destroy the authority of cities and move us back 40 or 50 years in terms of the progress that we have made, and so the fight right now is at the city level both in defending what is good, and promoting even better, and so in terms of local self-reliance, we do need to not only explain the term and promote the term, but get into the nitty gritty of what does it mean in terms of specific policymaking? What does it mean in terms of specific strategies? What can a city do?

Christopher Mitchell: You mentioned that cities are increasingly more competent and whatnot, and with the Trump administration pulling out of the Paris Accord relating to climate change, we’re seeing increasingly, talk of cities having their own foreign policy now, so where does this fit in, and I have to say that I am somewhat nervous about it as someone who does believe that the nation needs a cohesive foreign policy that’s unified, but I’m curious what your thoughts are in terms of, from the city point of view.
David Morris: Yeah, from a city point of view, when you talk about foreign policy and the climate change issue, it has foreign implications, what a city does. It’s a local policy. A city, in terms of energy, in the past, cities could only get involved in the energy situation by promoting energy efficiency and energy conservation, but now, they can talk about local energy production, and as they do that, they in fact, say, “We are going to comply with this treaty or with this negotiation,” and I think that that’s very useful. But the term “foreign policy”, and I looked up some of the recent literature in terms of people promoting it, and there are many people promoting city foreign policy, what they mean is that cities should try to be global in attracting capital.

And I think that this is understandable, and we certainly should pursue that, but we should also be careful about what that means, if in fact, a city foreign policy is that you make yourself as attractive as possible to the creative class, to the investment class, to the people in the rest of the world who want to buy citizenship in the United States so that they come into your community and invest in your community, then I think that’s a dangerous road, and once again, it’s a road that looks outward rather than inward. Now that doesn’t mean we should be parochial. Clearly, we live in a globe, and one of the wonderful things about the internet is that in fact we can communicate horizontally with the rest of the world. We don’t have to communicate through intermediaries. We don’t have to go up to a mass media and then down to the people who are listening to that.

So I think that we do need to look outward, but I’m concerned if foreign policy means that we should, as individual cities, make ourselves as attractive to foreign investment as the nation has tried to make itself attractive to foreign investment.

Christopher Mitchell: Right. I think one of the concerns that just springs into my mind, of course, is that then you’re potentially displacing local investment, and you don’t want to privilege foreign investment over your local investment.
David Morris: Well, that’s true, but I think more importantly than that, you are giving control. I mean, when somebody invests in your community, they try, if they can, to gain control over that investment and the productive capacity that they have invested in, so I think that that’s more problematic than just the fact that there will be … I don’t think that foreign investment will displace local investment. I think it might distort local investment, but it also brings absentee ownership, and that in itself is a significant problem.
Christopher Mitchell: So let’s talk about recommendations. What do you have in mind for something that a person who’s listening to this show might want to read to learn a little bit more, or just something that’ll blow their mind?
David Morris: Well, I have two things. One is a book that is not available in your local library, and is not in print, and has not been … Well, it is probably not in print, but you can download from the web, which is a book called Mutual Aid by a man named Peter Kropotkin.
Christopher Mitchell: I would be surprised if that’s not in a local library.
David Morris: Well, you can look. It’s not in my local library, but it probably is in one of the branches of your local library.
Christopher Mitchell: It’s in my library in my house.
David Morris: Yes. Yes. It’s probably still in print in some edition. It was published more than 100 years ago, and Peter Kropotkin was an anarchist in the best sense of the term, which meant that he believed that people could take the future into their own hands and localize the means of production, but Mutual Aid is a fascinating book in and of itself, but what I would suggest people do is to read the chapter on medieval cities. Now, Peter Kropotkin, without going through a long discussion, was a naturalist and a botanist and a scientist of the first order, and he lived at a time where Charles Darwin had come out with his theory of evolution, and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was translated into survival of the fittest, competition, tooth and claw, and what he found in his research about nature was that nature worked by cooperation. It didn’t work through competition, and he then took that as his thesis and looked at human society as well as agricultural and animal society, and posited that in fact it was cooperation that was the fittest, if you will.

And there’s a chapter in Mutual Aid about medieval cities, and people who think of the period of time, 900 to 1000 AD, we think of as the dark ages. It was not a dark age. It was an age where city states arose.

Christopher Mitchell: People were having so much time, they didn’t bother to record history.
David Morris: Well, people could read … It’s an easy chapter read. It’s probably 25 pages, but it talks about the astonishing progress, the astonishing innovation that was done when small, we’re talking about cities of maybe 5,000 people, 10,000 people, when they came together, and mutually created codes, and forms of behaviors, and local economies, and technologies, and the like, so I suggest that, number one.
Christopher Mitchell: Let me build on that with a book that references that book and that work, and Kropotkin’s work in general, and that’s a more recent work that uses more recent studies to make similar points called The Penguin and the Leviathan by Yochai Benkler, who’s a brilliant professor at Harvard who often talks about decentralization. I just recently read this book, and it talked about a number of different studies, and I actually think makes a very nuanced case for how we overemphasize the role of selfishness. We are motivated by selfishness, but we are motivated by lots of things, and we need to appreciate that.
David Morris: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s very good. The second book is one that most people might know of, especially people who are listening to this podcast, and that is the book The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs, and it came out in the early 1970’s, maybe mid to late 1970’s, and her thesis is that most innovation came from cities, that cities are the reason that we have modern civilization, and there’s a whole bunch of reasons why that might be the case, but she goes through it very well in terms of providing examples and the like, and I think that both the cities of 5,000 and 10,000 people in 900 and 1000 AD, and also in terms of the modern city and its ability to generate wealth internal to itself, those would be the two books that I would suggest.
Christopher Mitchell: Great. And I suggested this James Fallows article, I believe it was a cover story on The Atlantic sometime last year, How America is Putting Itself Back Together, and then just because I’m just going to go crazy with recommendations, I did recently read a book by Katherine Cramer, who’s a professor at the University of Wisconsin, called The Politics of Resentment. She did a ton of interviews across Wisconsin looking at how people get their identity and how that informs their political views, and actually not so much where they get their information. I thought that was a major weakness of the book, but just how they think about a lot of these different things, and how they reacted over the past five years as we went through these elections, basically ever since Obama took office, and then also in Wisconsin with Walker, and it was a pretty interesting read.
David Morris: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Christopher Mitchell: So thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you, David, for coming back on. We look forward to having you again soon, I hope.
David Morris: Thanks. I’m looking forward to it, as well. Thanks for the conversation.
Christopher Mitchell: As we wrap up the show, I strongly encourage you to rate our show. Please share it on Facebook, on one of those massive tech monopoly companies that we can’t get away from because it’s the only way to get the word out that there is another way ultimately, and we can build structures that will give us more freedom, and build stronger local economies, but make sure you’re rating us where you found this show so that other people will find it. Thank you.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who now heads up our Public Good Initiative. He and Christopher, Director of the Community Broadband Initiative at the institute, were discussing local self-reliance and what it means for local communities. This was episode number 22 of the Building Local Power Podcast. Check out more of David’s articles and interviews at ilsr.org. In addition to David’s ongoing contributions, we have many of his previous writings archived at our website. We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Never miss out on our original research. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks to Dysfunction-Al for the music licensed through Creative Commons. The song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to the Building Local Power Podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[10] Building Local Power on iTunes[11] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[12]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[13]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[14] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[15] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[16] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[17] and Facebook[18] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[19] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-06-08-blp022-david-why-ILSR.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-06-08-blp022-david-why-ILSR.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. [Image]: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2011/10/benkler
  7. https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2011/10/benkler: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2011/10/benkler
  8. [Image]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51306.Mutual_Aid
  9. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51306.Mutual_Aid: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51306.Mutual_Aid
  10. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  11. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  12. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  13. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  14. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  15. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  16. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  17. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  18. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  19. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/why-local-self-reliance-episode-22-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Indiana Eases Easements For Electric Cooperatives, Allows Fiber Infrastructure Investments

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 14, 2017 2:29 am

The State Legislature in Indiana sent SB 478 to Governor Eric Holcomb earlier this session; he recently signed the bill into law[1]. Also known as the Facilitating Internet Broadband Rural Expansion (FIBRE) Act, the new law allows electric cooperatives with easements for electric lines to use those same easement for fiber infrastructure. The change in existing law will allow rural electric cooperatives to bring high-quality Internet access to the many rural regions in Indiana that are now unserved or underserved.

Updating Easements For Connectivity

SB 478 applies only to existing easements between electric suppliers and property owners. It doesn’t apply to new electric easements, railroad property, or the installation of new poles, conduit, or other structures. Other exceptions also apply to limit the new easement applications to existing infrastructure.

The language of the bill provides in detail the steps that a property owner can take if they oppose the installation of the new infrastructure under the purview of an existing easement. It also lays out the information that an electricity provider must provide to the property owner regarding the plan for fiber infrastructure deployment and planned delivery. The bill goes on to establish further procedures if a property owner decides to pursue legal action if they feel their property value is decreased due to the new infrastructure or other related matters.

Lastly, the bill lays out procedural requirements for an electric cooperative that decides to offer broadband Internet. They must create a separate entity and maintain a separate accounting system.

Read the entire bill here[2].

Learning From The Co-op Guys

Republican State Senator Eric Koch, lead author on the bill, introduced the legislation as part of his ongoing efforts to improve connectivity in Indiana’s rural areas. According to a March article in the Indiana Economic Digest[3]:

A couple of years ago, Koch was working on another issue with the Indiana Electric Cooperatives, and he saw maps of all the areas that are served by REMC’s in Indiana.

“As we were working on this other issue, it occurred to me that those maps aligned almost exactly with ones I had of unserved areas in rural Indiana. … I immediately saw them as the key. I said, ‘You guys got to help me. We have to find a way to leverage your role in rural areas. That was kind of the beginning of the conversation a year or two ago.”

The cooperatives educated Koch about the easement issue. When state laws governing electric line easements were developed in the 1930s, lawmakers couldn’t imagine the need to extend those easements to telecommunications infrastructure.

utility-pole-1.pngThe bill passed with strong bipartisan support in both legislative bodies, passing 49 – 1 in the Senate and 96 -2 in the House. The Governor recently signed the bill into law.

States Can Help Cooperatives Help Citizens

West Virginia also passed policy legislation[4] this session to encourage a cooperative model to expand high-quality Internet access in rural areas. Perhaps other states will follow these two common sense examples and ease state laws that discourage electric cooperatives from doing what they need to do to improve local connectivity.

North Carolina residents and businesses could benefit if its lawmakers looked north to these two states. Electric cooperatives must contend with laws that limit their access to capital for the purpose of offering broadband to cooperative members in North Carolina. We analyzed the situation in our 2016 report, North Carolina Connectivity: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly[5].

At the ceremonial signing of SB 478, Tom VanParis, CEO if Indiana Electric Cooperatives said:

“Internet access has become essential to the American way of life. Similar to 80 years ago when most rural Hoosiers lived without electricity, much of rural Indiana still lacks quality Internet options.”

PDF icon SB 478 Facilitating Internet Rural Broadband Expansion (FIBRE) Act – Indiana

Photo Credit: tpsdave via Pixabay[6] (CC0)

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[7]. Read the original here[8].

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Endnotes:
  1. recently signed the bill into law: https://www.indianaec.org/2017/06/08/gov-holcomb-signs-legislation-lifting-broadband-expansion-hurdle-2/
  2. Read the entire bill here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-SB-478-IN-EMC-Easements.pdf
  3. March article in the Indiana Economic Digest: http://indianaeconomicdigest.com/main.asp?SectionID=31&SubSectionID=64&ArticleID=87355
  4. West Virginia also passed policy legislation: https://muninetworks.org/content/unpacking-policies-west-virginias-hb-3093
  5. North Carolina Connectivity: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/NC-Broadband-Report_10_2016-1.pdf
  6. tpsdave via Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/stewart-bridge-columbus-indiana-1933328/
  7. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  8. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/indiana-eases-easements-electric-co-ops-fibre-act

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/indiana-eases-easements-for-electric-cooperatives-allows-fiber-infrastructure-investments/


Refute Misinformation With Our “Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies” Page

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 13, 2017 6:23 am

As an increasing number of communities investigate the possibility of publicly owned Internet networks, big cable and telephone companies are spending big dollars to fund the spread of misinformation. In order to combat untruths and share accurate data, we’ve created the Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies[1] page. You will find resources to help you identify and respond to some of the most used resources, arguments, and tactics from groups aiming to quash better connectivity through local control; you’ll also find the best ways to address them.

Reports, Reports, Reports

A common strategy from companies with de facto monopolies such as Comcast and AT&T are funding reports created by entities that appear to be nonpartisan academic groups. They also fund groups to generate similar anti-municipal network material from organizations that pretend to operate in the best interests of taxpayers or citizens. In reality, these groups produce slanted material intended to capitalize on the lack of information most people have about publicly owned networks. They aim to fill the void quickly and repeatedly with misstatements in order to taint any later discussion of public investment.

One way to influence decision makers and the general public who are learning about ways to improve local connectivity is by taking advantage of the credibility that may be attached to a seemingly academic report. We provide several examples on the Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies[1] page and offer a few direct responses that point out the many factual and analytical errors.

Similarly, we offer examples of rebuttals to some of the most common arguments against public Internet network infrastructure. In addition to general rumors, we found some excellent rebuttals to specific lies that national providers attempt to spread by repeating early and often.

Information Is Power

The Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies[1] page also takes a look at how misinformation gets started, how it spreads, and ways to stop it in its tracks. From our page:

Keeping the community well informed can prevent confusion and derail misinformation campaigns before they get started. Sometimes, despite best efforts, rumors and misinformation can still spread.

We offer seven “Do’s and Don’ts” that we find effective in repairing misperception. It’s important not to alienate the people with whom you want to share information. In addition to examples, you can find links to other helpful resources and we encourage you to check back; we’ll update the page periodically with new resources and developments.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[2]. Read the original here[3].

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Endnotes:
  1. Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies: https://muninetworks.org/content/correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-page
  2. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  3. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/refute-misinformation-our-correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-page

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/refute-misinformation-with-our-correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-page/


Will All New Vehicles Be Electric By 2030? One Expert Says Yes — Episode 46 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by Karlee Weinmann | June 12, 2017 11:00 am

Is the U.S. on the cusp of a clean energy revolution that will fundamentally change how we live, work, and get around?

That’s exactly what entrepreneur and lecturer Tony Seba argues in his book, Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation[5]. His multi-pronged predictions include: all new energy will be provided by solar or wind, all new mass-market vehicles will be electric, and all of these vehicles will be self-driving or semi-autonomous — by 2030, or maybe sooner.

Seba explained his breathtaking vision in a recent conversation with John Farrell, who leads the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He pointed to a series of factors, including falling energy storage costs and fast-moving innovation in the auto and renewables industries, that he says will reinvent day-to-day life in America.


Note: We published this podcast and post alongside a new, comprehensive report — Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles[6] — that explores in-depth the influence electric vehicles can have in building clean energy economies at the community scale.


A History of Fast Adoption

Seba’s forecast is a lofty forecast, but he insists this kind of upheaval isn’t new — there’s a clear formula for getting there. Just think of the smartphone.

A decade ago, iPhone and Android devices met with skepticism when they made their debuts. The market hadn’t seen multifunctional devices like them, and they came at a premium price. But over time, smartphones proved their value and found their way into average consumers’ hands. Prices dropped, and slow-moving competitors suffered. In the end, iPhone and Android spurred a total market disruption.

Now, the electric vehicle industry is on a similar trajectory, in the early stages of a new market transformation. The same is true for power delivery, and electric utilities — notoriously averse to shifting market dynamics — face an existential crisis if they refuse to adapt.

“Disruptions happen from the outside,” Seba said. “Usually incumbents either don’t see their disruption coming or they don’t see it coming quickly. They usually deny it ‘til it’s too late for them to do anything about it.”

Electric Vehicles Unlock Unique Benefits

At the crux of this budding revolution are the benefits electric vehicles offer compared with their gas-powered counterparts, and consumers are beginning to bite.

Tesla, the pioneering luxury electric vehicle maker, reported a year ago[7] that roughly 400,000 people had put down a non-refundable $1,000 deposit on its forthcoming Model 3, considered its first “affordable” car.

Tesla’s brand has a certain cachet that puts it at the forefront of the conversation, but electric vehicles in general are becoming more popular as battery costs decline and they can travel farther between charges. Electric vehicle technology now outstrips internal combustion engines on a number of fronts, Seba said, amping up their appeal.

For one, the electric motor lasts substantially longer — it can handle 1 million miles versus the 200,000 for an internal combustion engine, he said. They are substantially cheaper to run on a per-mile basis and generally see lower maintenance costs (see the chart below from our new report[8]). At the same time, they can store energy to power drivers’ homes (and vice versa), an impossibility for traditional cars.

From where Seba sits, the demonstrated advantages of an electric vehicle increasingly overpower skepticism of them.

“The experts get it wrong when they say, ‘Oh, gasoline is cheaper and therefore that’s going to affect the EV market,’” he said. “That’s like folks saying 15 years ago that Kodak film was going to get cheaper and therefore digital cameras were not going to disrupt it. At some point, gasoline cost is going to be irrelevant in this disruption.”

Utilities Staring Down an Existential Crisis

The momentum propelling electric vehicle innovation coincides with shifts in the electric industry at large. The traditional utility business model — a one-way power delivery system whose financial success depends on expensive infrastructure and electricity sales — is buckling under pressure from consumers prioritizing renewables and energy efficiency.

The falling cost of solar, which like electric vehicle batteries has been on a sharp decline for years, means the cost of on-site power generation increasingly competes with power delivered by the utility. Continued drops in solar materials and installation costs will open that opportunity to more consumers, underscoring the economic case for utilities to better accommodate solar.

By Seba’s calculations, the per-watt cost of solar has plunged from $100 when the technology was new in 1970 to just 33 cents per watt today. During the same span, he found the costs of other energy sources — coal, oil, nuclear power, and natural gas — swelled by at least six times, and as much as 16 times.

Ongoing work to refine solar panels has made them cheaper — every time the base of installed solar doubles, the cost of the panels drops by nearly a quarter, he estimated. Today, the panels are among the least expensive parts of putting solar on a rooftop. Soft costs, like for permitting and interest on financing, both contribute more to the overall price tag, underscoring the impact of improvements to the manufacturing process.

As lower prices push solar further out into the marketplace, those other costs are also poised to fall, Seba said. Eventually, rooftop solar will be a no-brainer for people building a new home or replacing their roofs. In addition, Seba said, it’s only a matter of time before more affordable storage increases the value proposition of on-site generation.

“The cost of a solar rooftop is going to be at the same level or even cheaper than the cost of an asphalt roof,” he said. “At that point, essentially you have free solar or even negative-cost solar and that day is not too far away.”

Industry Stalwarts Dig In

Automotive and electric utility stalwarts have largely sidestepped the competitive concerns that loom as consumers clamor for new options. Car makers, whose bottom lines center on after-market expenses like maintenance, have plenty to lose. So do utilities, whose long-held monopoly status is threatened by customers who can increasingly choose to generate their own power.

“They are in danger of being disrupted…Tesla and other electric vehicle companies…have nothing to lose,” said Seba.

Rather than adjust their outdated business models, industry titans have dug in their heels. Electric utilities, for example, have leaned on legislators and regulators[9] to enact policies designed to diminish the financial feasibility of rooftop solar and other distributed generation.

A particularly egregious coalition of Florida utility interests last year spent more than $20 million on a campaign to pass a constitutional amendment, disguised as a pro-consumer choice measure, that in reality would have curbed solar growth in the Sunshine State. Voters ultimately struck down[10] that proposal, but fee hikes and unfair solar compensation schemes loom nationwide.

The strategy might slow progress in the short term, but Seba predicts it won’t be effective for long. Within a few years, he said, distributed solar will simply be too good a deal for consumers to pass up.

“Utilities have been monopolies for 100 years. Edison and Tesla would know a utility today…they have been able to maintain very, very inefficient economic system because they are rewarded by their capital expenditures. …They have had no incentive to make make electricity cheaper and less wasteful. When you get new companies coming in from the outside – solar companies and battery companies and so on – who have nothing to lose and everything to gain and who are competitive, the monopolies have no chance. … Today’s solar is cheaper than what utilities sell to us in hundreds of markets around the world, and that is why solar is accelerating — because millions of consumers are making the economically rational choice, which is to go with solar,” Seba said. “By about 2020, essentially solar plus storage is going to become cheaper than the cost of transmission.”

The New Clean Energy Economy

Even as more Americans cozy up to the idea of generating their own power for their homes, businesses, and cars, not everyone will go totally off-grid. The idea of this mass “grid defection” has been overblown, Seba said. Many people — including renters or households with imperfect rooftop conditions — simply can’t install on-site solar. Others who can are unable to generate enough power on their own to go completely off-grid.

Still, while the utilities will retain a significant portion of their customer base in the long term, that doesn’t mean the existing approach to electric and transportation infrastructure will cut it. Electric vehicles and distributed renewables are both fundamentally incompatible with the aging systems in place today. And both are expected to grow exponentially in coming years.

Improved, cheaper battery technology feeds into growth among both electric vehicles and renewable generation. Seba describes a virtuous cycle: more solar with storage increases the demand for batteries, in turn driving down the cost of batteries, in turn reducing the price of electric vehicles, in turn increasing the demand for electricity via solar and storage, and so on.

So what does that mean for the electricity system, including electrified transportation? To Seba, the future looks like a “Internet of energy.” Households, businesses, and municipal facilities will generate their own power, which then can store, manage, and sell to other users.

As the price of electricity goes down, the value of this community-oriented distribution will be rise. Falling electricity prices suggest an uptick in demand, spotlighting the need for a robust network that enables various on-site producers to efficiently and effectively spread their power around, Seba said.

“It’s going to become more of a two-way thing, just like the Internet is a two-way thing,” he said. “We can upload and download electricity, if you will.”

We’d like to think that Seba is describing ILSR’s vision of a transition to from energy monopoly to energy democracy, shown below.

 

Photo credit: Windell Oskay via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)[11]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[12]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[13] or Karlee Weinmann[14] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[15] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Seba_Podcast.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Seba_Podcast.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780692210536
  6. Choosing the Electric Avenue — Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/
  7. reported a year ago: http://fortune.com/2016/04/15/tesla-model-3-reservations-400000/
  8. our new report: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/#mainstream
  9. leaned on legislators and regulators: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  10. ultimately struck down: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article113449438.html
  11. Windell Oskay via Flickr (CC BY 2.0): https://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/9267544078/in/photolist-f7WzYJ-D1Ho92-dcZVKX-6krU6P-jf9Xjt-72j2Fz-dXMDoz-dXMDqB-dXMDkF-ePvDQ2-dXTjfY-dXTjdG-nV5xoC-ojPHY8-qxmReS-6kAGXC-nhxKa3-6kwyEZ-ntBvxk-ojPHTP-99AvfS-4KDdnA-4t8U5F-f7Wvgw-f7GjtR-4yt7kS-f7GiLr-jfeaS7-3avJSA-f7GkdK-4NDeMD-nKPTLY-f7WzKj-f7WvB3-5t88ou-f7GjfK-nKPUsC-bVU3Ma-6Jjd63-a4YmWZ-f7Ww6L-a4MSur-8PRK6H-6XniNQ-f7GmqF-7hyh2A-f7GhVc-f7WymU-dWws9B-f7GjLF
  12. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  13. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  14. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  15. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/will-all-new-vehicles-be-electric-by-2030-one-expert-says-yes-episode-46-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/


ILSR Report on “Monopoly Power and the Decline Small Business” Receives Award for Antitrust Scholarship

by Nick Stumo-Langer | June 12, 2017 8:00 am

[1]An article written by ILSR Co-Director Stacy Mitchell[2] has been named “Best Antitrust and Small Business Article” as part of the annual Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship[3].

The piece was published by ILSR as Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[4] and also appeared in the academic journal The Antitrust Bulletin under the title “The View from the Shop—Antitrust and the Decline of America’s Independent Businesses[5].”

The Cohen Award was created through a trust established in honor of the late Jerry S. Cohen, a highly regarded trial lawyer and antitrust writer. The 2017 award committee consisted of Zachary Caplan, Warren Grimes, John Kirkwood, Robert Lande, Christopher Leslie, Roger Noll, and Dan Small. Information on other articles recognized by the committee can be found here[6].

Mitchell’s article notes that small, independent businesses have declined sharply in both numbers and market share across many sectors of the economy.  It argues that this decline is owed, at least in part, to anticompetitive behavior by large, dominant corporations.  Drawing on examples in pharmacy, banking, telecommunications, and retail, it finds that big companies routinely use their size and their economic and political power to undermine their smaller rivals and exclude them from markets.

The article presents three reasons to bring a commitment to fair and open markets for small businesses back into antitrust enforcement and public policy, and concludes by outlining several specific steps for doing so.

Read a summary of the report[7].

Download the full report[8].

For updates on ILSR’s independent business and anti-monopoly work, sign-up[9] for our monthly Hometown Advantage Bulletin and follow Stacy[10] and ILSR[11] on Twitter.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MonopolyPower-SmallBusiness.pdf
  2. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/stacy-mitchell/
  3. Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship: http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/content/einer-elhauge-receive-jerry-s-cohen-award-antitrust-scholarship
  4. Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MonopolyPower-SmallBusiness.pdf
  5. The View from the Shop—Antitrust and the Decline of America’s Independent Businesses: http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Mitchell_0.pdf
  6. here: http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/content/einer-elhauge-receive-jerry-s-cohen-award-antitrust-scholarship
  7. Read a summary of the report: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  8. Download the full report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MonopolyPower-SmallBusiness.pdf
  9. sign-up: http://ilsr.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ebfe77c732e7192553aef5712&id=5c034248dd
  10. Stacy: https://twitter.com/stacyfmitchell
  11. ILSR: https://twitter.com/ilsr

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-report-on-monopoly-power-and-the-decline-small-business-receives-award-for-antitrust-scholarship/


Frederick Compost Summit Brings Together Regulators, Farmers, and Residents

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | June 8, 2017 10:33 am

On Monday, May 22nd, 2017, the Frederick Compost Workgroup[1] hosted the Frederick Compost Summit at Fox Haven Educational Farm[2]. ILSR’s Composting for Community project co-sponsored the summit along with Frederick Zero Waste Alliance, Fox Haven Farm, and others.

ILSR staff made opening remarks, presented composting options for the county (including our new hierarchy to reduce food waste & grow community[3]), and helped facilitate breakout sessions. Notable panelists included:

Jan Gardner, Frederick County Executive;
Kaley Laleker, Deputy Director of MD Dept. of the Environment’s Land Programs; and
Cindy Johnson, Director of Recycling for the Frederick County Solid Waste Management Division.

County Executive Jan Gardner identifies 3 key waste reduction options requiring more detailed analysis. Community-scale decentralized composting is one!

Farmers were also well represented on the event’s panels by Jeremy Criss, Manager of the Montgomery County Agricultural Services Division, and Keith Ohlinger, farmer and composter at Heritage Hill Farm in Howard County.

The summit brought together 97 local regulators, farmers, stakeholders and citizens to discuss existing challenges, such as zoning and unclear county regulations, which hamper the ability of the county’s large number of farmers to compost. The summit provided valuable information-sharing and an opportunity for county residents to ask questions of local regulators, while also fostering new collaborations, and identifying concrete next steps and volunteers willing to help carry them out. ILSR looks forward to continuing to support the Frederick Compost Workgroup’s advocacy as both advisers and friends.

ILSR’s Linda Bilsens kicks off the Summit with her remarks highlighting the connection between compost and healthy soil.

 

The Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Connection

Two graduates of our 2015 Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders (NSR) training course[4], Lacey Walker and Phil Wescott, show the power of a train-the-trainer program to spread enthusiasm for composting. After completing the course, they took their knowledge back to Frederick County, and organized the Frederick Composting Workgroup to engage both local government and the community. In part due to this workgroup’s advocacy, the county has now identified source separated organics collection and decentralized community-scale composting as 2 of 3 priority waste management options requiring more detailed analysis. This plan could involve as many as 15 different smaller scale (10,000 yards per year produced) sites. The hope is that many would be located on farms. Because of farmers’ intimate knowledge of soil, they are perhaps the most appropriate stewards of the composting process.  

ILSR’s Brenda Platt emphasized the need for a distributed and diverse infrastructure, with scale and local being important considerations.

In addition to becoming a local compost expert and advocate, Phil started Key City Compost, becoming the first service provider in the county to offer curbside collection of food scraps for composting which are then composted at a local farm. At the summit, Phil shared his hopes for Key City Compost’s future expansion. We are hopeful that the interactions at the summit will help to facilitate the path forward for Key City Compost, as well as other local composting entrepreneurs.  

“I would love to see Frederick County formally allow the on-farm composting of organics that mimics the state’s 5,000-square-foot exemption. That would make it a lot easier for someone like myself to graduate into a larger program.” NSR grad Phil Westcott advocated during the Frederick Compost Summit.

ILSR and Fox Haven Learning Center are currently fundraising to host an NSR training to build leadership capacity for rural composting. Part of the plan is to develop an on-farm composting demonstration and education site, that can spawn other on-farm initiatives. Fox Haven is an education center, ecological retreat, organic farm and wildlife sanctuary. The 700+ acre property is primarily dedicated to reforesting and rewilding the lands that support the Catoctin and Potomac Watershed. As an education center, they welcome rural farmers, homesteaders, school groups, citizens, and others to reconnect with the land and learn about the importance of maintaining soil and water health. Fox Haven is a member of the Farm Bureau as well as the Jefferson Ruritan. Their proximity to Frederick gives Jefferson a mix of multi-generation farmers and Jefferson business owners as well as relative newcomers to the rural setting who are departing from nearby cities.

 

After completing the NSR course, Phil started Key City Compost. His company has been written up in the Frederick News Post. (Photo credit: Frederick News Post, Bill Green)

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[5] and Facebook[6] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[7] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Frederick Compost Workgroup: https://www.facebook.com/frederickcompostworkgroup/
  2. Fox Haven Educational Farm: http://foxhavenfarm.org
  3. new hierarchy to reduce food waste & grow community: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  4. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders (NSR) training course: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  5. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  6. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  7. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/frederick-compost-summit-brings-together-regulators-farmers-and-residents/


Report: Choosing the Electric Avenue – Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles

by John Farrell | June 7, 2017 1:00 pm

 

Browse the Report

Executive Summary
Introduction
Electric VehIcles Going Mainstream
Impact: Improving the Grid
Impact: Cutting Pollution
Impact: Readying Energy Democracy
Rules to Maximize the Electric Vehicle Opportunity
Conclusion
Appendix A – The Vehicle-to-Grid Future
Appendix B – Electric Bus Savings
Appendix C – Driving Electric Savings
Sources

Key Links:

Download: Executive Summary

Download: Full Report

View: video and slides[1] from the webinar

Listen: a series of paired podcast episodes about electric vehicles…

[2]

[3]

[4]


Executive Summary

The U.S. vehicle market will undergo a massive technology disruption from electric vehicles in the coming decades. Many analysts see the potential for surging sales of these efficient vehicles to enable smart grid management, but few have explored the local impact of electric vehicles: promoting energy democracy. Electric vehicles offer a natural use for solar energy, a pathway to pump more local solar power onto the grid, and a source of resilient power when the grid goes down. Ultimately, electric vehicles are another tool to miniaturize the electricity system, providing unprecedented local control.

The imminent transformation requires immediate attention to policy and planning. Electric utilities typically produce 15-year or longer “resource plans” to map out additions of new power plants and power lines that will last for decades. But electric vehicles may have an impact much sooner than the 40-year lifetime of these traditional resources, or even the 15-year timeframe of resources plans. The rising numbers of electric cars on U.S. roads may impact utility plans well within their current planning horizon. The time for action is now. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. video and slides: https://ilsr.org/video-electric-vehicles-webinar/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/will-all-new-vehicles-be-electric-by-2030-one-expert-says-yes-episode-46-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/boulder-county-incentive-program-drives-adoption-of-two-sexy-electrics-solar-and-electric-cars-episode-47-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/amid-ev-surge-austin-eyes-a-new-way-of-doing-business-episode-48-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-electric-vehicles/


Addressing UPenn Report on Municipal Broadband: Dud Data, Unsuitable Approach

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 1, 2017 10:49 am

For the second week in row, our staff has felt compelled to address a misleading report about municipal networks. In order to correct the errors and incorrect assumptions in yet another anti-muni publication, we’ve worked with Next Century Cities to publish Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies: Yoo Discredits U Penn, Not Municipal Networks[1].

Skewed Data = Skewed Results

Professor Christopher S. Yoo and Timothy Pfenninger from the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition (CTIC) at the University of Pennsylvania Law School recently released “Municipal Fiber in the United States: An Empirical Assessment of Financial Performance[2].” The report attempts to analyze the financial future of several citywide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) municipal networks in the U.S. by applying a Net Present Value (NPV) calculation approach. They applied their method to some well-known networks, including Chattanooga’s EPB Fiber Optics[3]; Greenlight[4] in Wilson, North Carolina; and Lafayette, Louisiana’s LUS Fiber[5]. Unfortunately, their initial data was flawed and incomplete, which yielded a report fraught with credibility issues.

So Many Problems

In addition to compromising data validity, the authors of the study didn’t consider the wider context of municipal networks, which goes beyond the purpose of NPV, which is determining the promise of a financial investment.

Some of the more expansive problems with this report (from our Executive Summary):

  • They erred in claiming Wilson, Lafayette, and Chattanooga have balloon payments at the end of the term. They have corrected that error in a press release[6]. Other errors, such as confusing the technologies used by at least two networks, are less important but decrease the study’s credibility.
  • Several of the cities dispute the accuracy of the numbers used in the calculations for their communities.
  • The Net Present Value calculation is inappropriate in this context for many reasons and does not offer an accurate view of the financial performance of these networks or the larger context of the investment impact on the community
  • The authors demonstrate little familiarity with basic patterns of FTTH network economics.

Proceed With Caution

Communities that invest in fiber Internet infrastructure do so to improve economic development[7], expand educational opportunities, and attract entrepreneurs. They want to save public dollars[8], keep young people from moving away to find work, or enhance healthcare for residents. Unfortunately, Yoo and Pfenninger disregarded the first rule of Muni Research 101 – each community is unique. By abandoning the basic rule, the authors have generated another anti-muni piece of literature thinly disguised as an academic publication.

As with every piece of information that community leaders use to help them decide how to move forward, we encourage decision-makers who choose to review this report to do so with an intensely critical eye.

Download the full report[9].

For More…

For more on this report, listen to Christopher and Lisa discuss the approach in Episode 21 of the Building Local Power podcast[10]. The discussion begins right around 17:00 into the podcast. We tackle the UPenn piece and touch on another report from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance that needed a response[11].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[12]. Read the original here[13].

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Endnotes:
  1. Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies: Yoo Discredits U Penn, Not Municipal Networks: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/fiber-fallacy-upenn-yoo.pdf
  2. Municipal Fiber in the United States: An Empirical Assessment of Financial Performance: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-fiber-in-the-united-states-an
  3. EPB Fiber Optics: https://epb.com/
  4. Greenlight: http://www.greenlightnc.com/
  5. LUS Fiber: http://www.lusfiber.com/
  6. in a press release: http://www.baller.com/wp-content/uploads/Press-Release_Penn-Law_5-26-17.pdf
  7. economic development: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  8. save public dollars: https://muninetworks.org/content/institutional-networks
  9. Download the full report: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/fiber-fallacy-upenn-yoo.pdf
  10. Episode 21 of the Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/monopolists-playbook-episode-21-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. that needed a response: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-report-dissects-boondoggle-map
  12. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  13. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/addressing-upenn-report-dud-data-unsuitable-approach

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/addressing-upenn-report-on-municipal-broadband-dud-data-unsuitable-approach/


Rural Telephone Cooperative Forges Its Own Path In Michigan

by H Trostle | May 29, 2017 7:39 am

Can’t get telephone or Internet service? Have you tried starting your own company? In 1998, John Reigle did just that with the support of the community and Michigan State University. Today, Allband Communications Cooperative provides not only telephone service, but also cutting-edge, high-quality Internet access and environmental research opportunities in rural Northeastern Michigan.

A Story Of Promise, Betrayal, And The Telephone Company

We connected with Allband representatives who shared details about Allband’s interesting and dramatic history[1] as told by Masha Zager back in 2005. They kindly provided updates and let us know what’s in store for this by-the-bootstraps effort that started in the woods of Michigan.

When John Reigle moved out into the woods past the small town of Curran, Michigan, he didn’t intend to start a brand-new venture. He simply wanted to build a home and work on his consulting business; he just needed telephone service.

The large incumbent telephone company GTE (which later became Verizon, which still later sold off this service area to Frontier) had assured Reigle that the lot where he planned to build his house would be easy to connect to their telephone network. They quoted him a price of about $34 and scheduled an install date. Trusting that the telephone company’s representatives knew the service area, Reigle moved forward with his plans to build.

After he finished constructing his house in 1998, Reigle contacted the telephone company to finalize his service connection. Despite the earlier assurance that his location would not prove a problem, Reigle found that he was miles away from the GTE network. This time, the company quoted $27,000 to run a copper telephone line from the highway to his new house.

His consulting firm could not operate without a telephone so he decided to bite the bullet and agree to the steep price. GTE rescinded its quote, however, and no matter how much Reigle offered, the company would not run telephone service to his new house.

Obviously perturbed, Reigle filed a complaint with the Michigan Public Service Commission only to discover that he had built his house in an unassigned area. Despite the previous promises from GTE, the Michigan Public Service Commission noted that legally GTE could not be forced to provide service in that area.

That is when the Michigan Public Service Commission told Reigle:

“If you want telephone service, start your own phone company.”

Creation Of The Cooperative

allband_header.pngProfessor Ron Choura from Michigan State University’s Telecommunications program worked at the Michigan Public Service Commission at the time. He connected with Reigle, and the two hatched a plan to create a brand new telephone company. Commuting hours each way, Reigle took classes from Professor Choura in order to implement the idea. By late 2003, they had put together a business plan for a nonprofit telephone company and incorporated it with the state.

Reigle and Choura did what no one had done in more than 20 years: they created a brand new Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC). Telephone companies are either ILECs or Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs). A key difference between the two is that ILECs may receive funding from the federal Universal Service Fund, which is distributed to subsidize connectivity in rural communities.

When the federal government created the system to regulate telephone companies in the 1980s, they assumed that all ILECs would be created at one time: the entire U.S. was carved up into non-overlapping areas for the telephone companies. Any telephone company created after that would have to compete with the incumbents.

Up to now, the federal government only had a process for approving new competitive telephone carriers; creating a new incumbent was an entirely new procedure. The Federal Government required Choura and Reigle to obtain many waivers in order to qualify as an ILEC and receive Universal Service Funds.

Allband Communications was not only going to be a new ILEC, also a new utility cooperative, which put it under the purview of the United States Department of Agriculture. As a cooperative, Allband Communications could receive funding from the United States Department of Agriculture. Most utility cooperatives were created during the 1930s for electricity and during the 1950s for telephone service.

An increasing number of telephone and electric cooperatives are providing high-speed, Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service throughout the U.S., but have the benefit of decades of experience in providing utility services to their local community. Without that past experience and community trust, Allband Communications’ venture seemed a bit more risky, but the cooperative had community support from folks who wanted reliable 911 service.

Cooperative Funding And Paperwork

logo-fcc-2012.PNGAllband Communications received some seed money from a LinkMichigan grant of about $212,000. The grants were awarded in the early 2000s[2] to help spur telecommunications planning and deployment. In August 2004, the cooperative also submitted a loan application to the USDA Rural Development office. While they waited for that application, they began to build an all fiber network with $6.24 million in RUS funding. At that point, the cooperative was still waiting on several waivers from the FCC in order to receive its ILEC status.

Finally, the FCC approved several of the waivers in 2005, and the USDA Rural Development Program officially awarded about $8 million to the cooperative to start its project. It didn’t take long for Allband to build out its network, which began providing service to its first cooperative member in November 2006.

Within a month, the FCC approved the remaining waivers to make Allband an official ILEC. Allband was then able to join the National Exchange Carrier Association, saving money on administrative expenses, keeping costs down, and start receiving Universal Service Funds.

In August 2010, the co-op received an American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) grant of $9.7 million to build out their network further into underserved areas. Check out their service area map[3] which covers and area of around 3,600 people.

Looking Forward

Allband Communications Cooperative continues to focus on the current needs of the community. The cooperative’s latest projects include expanding the fiber network, improving small business efficiency, and increasing home safety.

The network expansion extends into the new “Allband Multimedia area,” which is outside of Allband Communications original cooperative area. In order to encourage digital inclusion, Allband is offering credit for construction of the network. Those within the cooperative’s footprint who have not yet connected are eligible for a $1,000 credit to put towards extending the cable to their house. Those in the “Allband Multimedia area” can get a $500 credit. The goal is to make the expansion of the network affordable for the community.

Allband Communications is not just expanding their network into new areas, but also into the office sector. The co-op launched Unifi, a way to seamlessly connect office devices, enabling telephone calls to be taken on cellphones, laptops, or tablets. The Unifi program also includes features like screen-sharing and video conferencing.

At the same time, Allband Communications has launched LifeWatch, a live-feed video monitoring system that can be used for everything from home security to caring for elderly relatives. logo-lifewatch.pngThey’ve set up the LifeWatch system on their website, which features a feed of local wildlife from the Allband facility backyard.

Giving Back To The Community

The goal of Allband Communications has always been to improve the community by providing much needed connectivity to their neighbors. The service territory is in an economically distressed and historically underserved area of northeastern Michigan. Allband brought reliable 911 service to the community in addition to telephone and fast, affordable, reliable Internet access. Stand alone residential Internet access is available at 100 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload for $59.99 per month. There are not data caps and subscribers can also bundle with voice services.

The cooperative not only provides home Internet service, but also connects community anchor institutions, such as government facilities, libraries, or schools for free or reduced rates. Allband Communications is providing much needed connectivity to local churches: Beaver Lake Community Church, Calvary Baptist Church, and Spratt United Methodist Church. Allband is donating connections of 100 Mbps to the churches.

Allband communications has also started a nonprofit called Allband Communications Education, Wildlife, & Research Opportunities (ACEWR) that provides educational opportunities, workforce development, and wildlife research. ACEWR allows the cooperative to collaborate with universities and research institutions across the United States. The nonprofit also has an online workforce development program to train locals in new skills, empowering them to succeed in the 21st century economy. ACEWR’s location in the Michigan woods also makes it a prime spot for research on local wildlife, endangered species, and conservation projects.

Looking forward, Allband Communications hopes to partner with local governments in forming public-private partnerships. Working together with the support of the community is key to a project’s success. This quote from the cooperative’s history page best summarizes their role:

“Allband and its mission is proof that collaborative efforts between community driven rural telecommunication providers and government can correct the digital divide that traditional providers with traditional business models cause and fail to correct.”

Picture of Carnberry Lake in Curran, Michigan, courtesy of Homes.com[4].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[5]. Read the original here[6].

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Endnotes:
  1. interesting and dramatic history: http://www.broadbandproperties.com/2005issues/nov05issues/Michigan%27s%20Allband%20Comm.%20Coop.,%20Masha%20Zager.pdf
  2. awarded in the early 2000s: http://www.michiganbusiness.org/press-releases/michigan-economic-development-corporation-offers-13-linkmichigan-telecommunications-planning-grants/
  3. service area map: http://allband.org/service-area-map/
  4. Homes.com: http://www.homes.com/for-sale/curran-mi/
  5. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/rural-telephone-cooperative-forges-its-own-path-michigan

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rural-telephone-cooperative-forges-its-own-path-in-michigan/


Report: Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies

by Lisa Gonzalez | May 24, 2017 10:15 am

Usually, we ignore the misinformation released by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) but their latest efforts are so shady, we felt it was our responsibility to shine a light on its lack of validity and the organization’s credibility. Our report, Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies: Taxpayers Protection Alliance Edition[1], takes a deeper look at the TAP’s most recent attempt, which is filled with errors and a blatant disregard for the truth.

What Is A “Boondoggle” Anyway? This Map!

When we looked deeper, we discovered that TPA’s “Broadband Boondoggles: A Map of Failed Taxpayer-Funded Networks[2]” is more misinformation than map.

All of the basic errors in the map display a lack of attention to detail; our short report examines the deceitful characteristics of this resource. Our purpose in publishing this report is to caution community leaders and citizens who are investigating publicly owned infrastructure; the TPA is not a credible source.

TPA-sandyUtah.png

One of the more obvious errors: Sandy, Oregon, appears in Utah.

The map is also visually deceiving because it includes 213 communities, but only provides information for 87. Of the 213 on the map, the TPA only label 14 as “failures,” which means less than 10 percent of the networks they document fit their own definition of “failure.”

Clearly, TPA has proven that it seeks to spread any and all information it can find to discredit municipal networks, regardless of accuracy. Communities, public officials, or staff that research the option of publicly owned networks should review our report if they have ever considered the data in the Boondoggles Map.

Consider the Source

If your community is seeking better connectivity, thorough research will be the foundation of how you proceed. As part of your research, be sure to review the organizations that offer information.

From our report:

This brief report does not claim all municipal networks are successes. Municipal networks are challenging in the best of circumstances and local governments must perform due diligence before making decisions in this area. However, we have seen networks that are unqualified successes attacked as being failures by groups that, like TPA, are more focused on delegitimizing the idea of government than determining the best policy for building community wealth.

[3]

Download the full report[4].

Check out our other “[5]Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies” report on LUS Fiber[6].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[7]. Read the original here[8].

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Endnotes:
  1. Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies: Taxpayers Protection Alliance Edition: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-05-TPA-boondoggle-rebuttal-final.pdf
  2. Broadband Boondoggles: A Map of Failed Taxpayer-Funded Networks: http://munibroadbandfailures.com/
  3. [Image]: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-05-TPA-boondoggle-rebuttal-final.pdf
  4. Download the full report: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-05-TPA-boondoggle-rebuttal-final.pdf
  5. “: https://muninetworks.org/reports/correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-reality-lafayettes-gigabit-network
  6. Correcting Community Fiber Fallacies” report on LUS Fiber: https://muninetworks.org/reports/correcting-community-fiber-fallacies-reality-lafayettes-gigabit-network
  7. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  8. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-report-dissects-boondoggle-map

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-correcting-community-fiber-fallacies/


New York City Works With Grassroots for Low-Income Access – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 254

by Christopher Mitchell | May 20, 2017 10:06 am

This is episode 254 of our Community Broadband Bits podcast! Community Broadband Bits[1] is a short weekly audio show featuring interviews with people building community networks or otherwise involved with Internet policy.

Some time ago, when speaking with Joshua Breitbart, the Senior Advisor for Broadband to the New York City CTO Miguel Gamiño, he mentioned to me that any subset of the issues they face with regard to improving Internet access in New York City is itself a massive issue. Joshua joins us to elaborate on that challenge and an exciting project that points to the way to solving some of their problems on episode 254 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

We talk about Queensbridge Connected[2], a partnership to ensure people living in low-income housing have access to broadband Internet connections. We also discuss how their responsibility does not end merely with making Wi-Fi available, but actually helping people be prepared to use the connection safely[3].

Joshua offers an important perspective on the challenges in large urban areas to make sure policy is fully responsive to local needs by ensuring residents are a part of the process and solution.

Read the transcript of the show here[5].

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us[6] or leave a comment below.

This show is 21 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes[7] or the tool of your choice using this feed[8].

You can download this mp3 file directly from here[9]. Listen to other episodes here[10] or view all episodes in our index[11].

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle[12] and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[13]. Read the original here[14].

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Bits: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  2. Queensbridge Connected: http://www1.nyc.gov/site/queensbridge/index.page
  3. helping people be prepared to use the connection safely: https://medium.com/@nycgov/queensbridge-connected-a-look-inside-the-effort-to-bring-free-wi-fi-to-north-americas-largest-4c4a84324bed
  4. https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/comm-bb-bits-podcast-254-joshua-breitbart-nyc.mp3: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/comm-bb-bits-podcast-254-joshua-breitbart-nyc.mp3
  5. Read the transcript of the show here: https://muninetworks.org/content/transcript-community-broadband-bits-episode-254
  6. e-mail us: mailto:podcast@muninetworks.org
  7. via iTunes: https://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  8. using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  9. download this mp3 file directly from here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/audio/comm-bb-bits-podcast-254-joshua-breitbart-nyc.mp3
  10. other episodes here: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  11. view all episodes in our index: https://muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-bits-podcast-index
  12. Warm Duck Shuffle: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/arnebhus/arnebhus_-_Singles/Warm_Duck_Shuffle
  13. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  14. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/nyc-works-grassroots-low-income-access-community-broadband-bits-podcast-254

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-york-city-works-with-grassroots-for-low-income-access-community-broadband-bits-podcast-254/


Infographic: The Threat of Super-Preemption to US Cities

by Lisa Gonzalez | May 11, 2017 8:07 am

Preemption at the state and federal level threatens local telecommunications authority[1], as we’ve seen in about 20 states[2]. When state laws usurp local governments’ ability to decide how they improve poor connectivity, they disregard an understanding of local affairs that is unique to each community. Some states are threatening to take preemption another damaging step farther with super-preemption.

Super-Preemption: “Super” In A Bad Way

The Campaign to Defend Local Solutions describes the problem like this:

State legislatures across the country have gone beyond preventing local governments from passing common-sense local solutions. They’ve begun silencing local voices using draconian super-preemption laws.  These laws allow special interest groups to sue local governments and in some cases personally sue local officials for doing their job. These laws are designed to intimidate, bully, and chill government at the local level. This infographic highlights where these laws exist, where they have been recently proposed, and what their impacts could be to cities, counties, local officials, and taxpayers alike.

Mayor Andrew Gillum from Tallahassee, Florida, recently spoke with Community Broadband Networks initiative director Christopher Mitchell and our Communications Manager Nick Stumo-Langer about super-preemption for episode 17 of the Building Local Power podcast[3]. He noted that local governments need flexibility to meet the demands of local constituents:

“There’s a nimbleness to local governments that I think people have an appreciation for. The legislature [is trying to] exclude us from being able to make any investments in that space for the greater good.”

In order to spread the word about super-preemption, the Campaign to Defend Local Solutions[4] created an infographic to help educate lawmakers, constituents, and communities about the issue. The resource describes how super-preemption influences policy makers, giving lobbyists and their corporate or special interest clients’ power. The infographic also shows where super-preemption laws are in place or are proposed. Lastly, the infographic suggests how citizens can get involved and express their concern for preserving local authority.

2017-05-small-superpreemption-graphic-defend-local-solutions.jpeg

Check out a larger version of the infographic here[5].

There are more resources at the Defend Local Solutions website[6], including a list of partners, how to get involved, and more resources on local matters.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[7]. Read the original here[8].

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Endnotes:
  1. threatens local telecommunications authority: https://ilsr.org/preemption-episode-10-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  2. about 20 states: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  3. episode 17 of the Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/defend-local-solutions-episode-17-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  4. Campaign to Defend Local Solutions: http://defendlocal.com/home/
  5. larger version of the infographic here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-05-superpreemption-graphic-defend-local-solutions.jpg
  6. Defend Local Solutions website: http://defendlocal.com/home/
  7. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  8. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/infographic-super-preemption

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/infographic-the-threat-of-super-preemption-to-us-cities/


Watch: How Cities Can Create a Built Environment Where Local Businesses Thrive

by Olivia LaVecchia | May 9, 2017 12:21 pm

Cities are changing to become increasingly inhospitable to locally owned businesses. As older buildings get replaced by new development, commercial real estate prices soar, and national chains seek new markets, independent businesses are struggling to find space that’s appropriate and affordable for their needs. The result is that longtime businesses are getting priced out of the neighborhoods they’ve been serving for years, and entrepreneurs are facing higher barriers to starting new businesses. When this happens, local business owners lose, but so do cities and the people who live in them.

ILSR’s Olivia LaVecchia recently joined with policymakers and advocates at Hopeful Economics[1], a summit co-hosted by the City of Vancouver and Simon Fraser University, to explore this issue. In this 20-minute talk, Olivia discusses what’s causing the problem, why it matters — and six policy strategies that cities are using to address it.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Hopeful Economics: https://www.hopefuleconomics.ca/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/watch-how-cities-can-create-a-built-environment-where-local-businesses-thrive/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/watch-how-cities-can-create-a-built-environment-where-local-businesses-thrive/


Press Release: Maryland Governor Hogan Signs ILSR-led Bipartisan Bills to Advance Composting

by Nick Stumo-Langer | May 5, 2017 1:19 pm

Maryland to Explore a Decentralized Composting Infrastructure

Governor Hogan Signs Two Bills – HB171/SB99 & HB1349 – to Advance Food Waste Recovery and Ensure Compostable Plastics Meet Standards

Contact:
Nick Stumo-Langer
612-844-1330[1]
stumolanger@ilsr.org[2]

ANNAPOLIS, MD – On Thursday, May 4th, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed two bills to advance composting in Maryland. One will bolster recovery of food waste and other organic materials by expanding infrastructure in the state. The other will reduce contamination at compost sites by preventing the false labeling of plastics as compostable or biodegradable. In signing the bills, which were among dozens of environmental bills passed by the Maryland legislature in 2017, Governor Hogan thanked the state’s elected officials for the real bipartisan effort in passing laws to “protect our soil, our air, and our water… and grow the investment in jobs in our state.”

HB171[3]/SB99[4], the “Yard Waste and Food Residuals Diversion and Infrastructure Act,” requires the Maryland Department of the Environment to study and report on existing compost manufacturing infrastructure in Maryland, as well as laws in other states that divert food scraps and organics, and to then recommend how to improve infrastructure and funding opportunities to expand composting in the Maryland. The bill requires the Department to consult with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, along with a number of ILSR’s allies including the MD-DC Compost Council, the American Biogas Council, the Maryland Horse Council, the Chesapeake Foodshed Network, the Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, and the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Council.

HB1349[5], “Compostable, Degradable, and Biodegradable Plastic Products – Labeling,” requires products being sold in the state labelled as compostable to meet well-established standards. HB1349 was signaled out as one of 12 key environmental bills signed by the Governor at the Annapolis City Dock.

The passage of the bills were thanks in large part to the efforts of Delegate Shane Robinson[6], who sponsored both bills on the House side; Senator Thomas Middleton[7], sponsor of Senate Bill 99; and Brenda Platt, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who led the coalition in crafting the bills.

“With the passage of these bills, Maryland can begin exploring different ways to encourage composting in our state,” says bill sponsor Del. Shane Robinson. “The study group created by this legislation, comprised of state agencies, non-profit organizations, and private entities, will make Maryland more competitive in the field of renewable resources, while decreasing the waste we put into our landfills, and the labelling bill will ensure that composting facilities have clean materials to create their compost with.”

“Composting sustains 4 times more jobs on a per-ton basis than landfilling or burning trash,” says Brenda Platt, the chief architect of both bills. “These bills will help Maryland grow composting and food waste recovery in a way that supports farmers and new businesses and creates jobs.” Thanks to her advocacy, HB171/SB99 specifically calls for the Department to investigate ways to encourage a decentralized and diverse infrastructure, and to prevent generation of organic waste.

“We congratulate Maryland on leading the way towards a more sustainable future. Kudos to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance for helping push the state towards greater organics recycling and healthier soils,” said Frank Franciosi, executive director of the US Composting Council.

The President of the Maryland Horse Council, Jane Seigler, said, “We believe that organic waste generated by farming in general and by horse farming in particular can and should be an important component of composting programs that divert this resource to beneficial reuse.”

According to Justen Garrity, owner of Veteran Compost, “HB1349 would reduce the burden on our company to deal with non-compostable wastes and allow us to use that money to grow our business in Maryland.”

Referring to HB1349, Rhodes Yepsen, the Executive Director of the Biodegradable Products Institute, stated, “This new labeling requirement will significantly reduce ‘greenwashing,’ where false and unsubstantiated claims negatively impact both consumers and the environment, and thereby build trust in truly compostable products and packaging for diverting food scraps from households and businesses in Maryland.”

HB171/SB99 passed by votes of 46-0 in the MD Senate and 134-2 in the MD House, and HB1349 passed by 120-8 in the MD House and 33-14 in the MD Senate.

###

Brenda Platt, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s expert in composting-based economic development and a key architect of the laws from their origins, can explain this issue to your audience and give vital context for the growth of composting, waste issues, and economic development. Contact Nick Stumo-Langer to set up an interview at 612-844-1330[1] or at stumolanger@ilsr.org[2].

About ILSR: The Institute for Local Self-Reliance[8] (ILSR) is a public interest organization, focused on helping communities see the economic benefits of community composting and rethinking the waste system; Brenda Platt is a national expert on the policies and economics surrounding community composting and the technical implementation of such programs.

***************

Other Resources:

  • “Maryland considers bill to require study of organics processing infrastructure,” Waste Dive’s analysis[9], February 6th, 2017.

  • US Composting Council, Compostable Products Task Force http://compostingcouncil.org/compostable-products-task-force/[10]. HB1349 was modeled after a similar law enacted in California and based on a legislative template produced by the USCC’s Compostable Products Task Force.

  • ILSR’s Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think[11] details the myriad benefits composting can have in a community, including job creation; it is broken into sections and posters for easy-sharing here[12].

  • ILSR’s Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste and Grow Community[13] highlights the importance of reducing wasted food, rescuing edible food, and home composting, followed by community scale composting before large-scale centralized composting.

  • YouTube video details the value of ILSR’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Training Program[14] for training community leaders in composting programs in their city.

  • ILSR’s report, Pay Dirt: Composting in Maryland to Reduce Waste, Create Jobs, & Protect the Bay[15].

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Endnotes:
  1. 612-844-1330: tel:(612)%20844-1330
  2. stumolanger@ilsr.org: mailto:stumolanger@ilsr.org
  3. HB171: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=hb0171&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  4. SB99: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=SB0099&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  5. HB1349: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2017rs&id=HB1349
  6. Delegate Shane Robinson: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=robinson%20s&stab=01&ys=2017RS
  7. Senator Thomas Middleton: http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/05sen/html/msa11612.html
  8. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org
  9. Waste Dive’s analysis: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=%2Bdu7sJaY23OO%2BqQ6mC2QqglzHYl8onDna9bYv0z8S%2B2c1yLWI1mxfmqRnVahUkhLvt34ryd3oA2nBFkrCjQ4tsvoLACEpg48KbWdY4eeog%2BodIl5FgoacA%3D%3D&G=0&R=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wastedive.com%2Fnews%2Fmaryland-considers-bill-to-require-study-of-organics-processing-infrastruct%2F435558%2F&I=20170505125031.00000193fc7b%40mail6-59-ussnn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU5MGM3NDNiMGE1MmZjOGQ5NDEyOWM3YTs%3D&S=gPAOFU4vc7fGbjzQswk2KBW9K9kHFRiUWrTB7A2tQUw
  10. http://compostingcouncil.org/compostable-products-task-force/: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=WAA0HYy4enWklLGLVOCoftvRiKxkwcx7028A%2BNZlWSzSEaUD3cyAX240dN6O%2F7Rq8J1Ed1czy6lq3xsI6rpIn%2Fkm1CLHC2QKgRzEg1C8J5snKqsDSKwn9Q%3D%3D&G=0&R=http%3A%2F%2Fcompostingcouncil.org%2Fcompostable-products-task-force%2F&I=20170505170412.000000182b3c%40mail6-33-usnbn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU5MGNiMDg5NzY4ZjMxYWQxMDE3NTUxYzs%3D&S=ome1Zj_E0vr7qOXEvUdRq-p7RVStGRC7CRZoWZmz8Zw
  11. Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=s8mq%2BFF8Y8J%2F7%2FXrLp5ygdcwMPrxjsUdQBMch4EEnHhpCCjF3%2FNlfNQD4KJX0U2%2BP2UTUIrHEBu4Z9vmmFLmysDGmeFJsKfcIviHmPxt%2FzK%2FGUaoQGs9Rw%3D%3D&G=0&R=https%3A%2F%2Filsr.org%2Fcompost-impacts%2F&I=20170421204847.000000476b11%40mail6-34-usnbn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU4ZmEyZTcyYWQzYzMyODYyNzE1ZTgyMjs%3D&S=7UoVOhWJkbiLfSYYHLnUB7XG6BfLKTfVR9YoCV0a0J0
  12. here: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=s8mq%2BFF8Y8J%2F7%2FXrLp5ygdcwMPrxjsUdQBMch4EEnHhpCCjF3%2FNlfNQD4KJX0U2%2BP2UTUIrHEBu4Z9vmmFLmysDGmeFJsKfcIviHmPxt%2FzK%2FGUaoQGs9Rw%3D%3D&G=0&R=https%3A%2F%2Filsr.org%2Fcompost-impacts-posters%2F&I=20170421204847.000000476b11%40mail6-34-usnbn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU4ZmEyZTcyYWQzYzMyODYyNzE1ZTgyMjs%3D&S=rcpYEfJdRdMo7HaVwdCOsuALbXOtEnNTptrgQmevhUA
  13. Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste and Grow Community: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=s8mq%2BFF8Y8J%2F7%2FXrLp5ygdcwMPrxjsUdQBMch4EEnHhpCCjF3%2FNlfNQD4KJX0U2%2BP2UTUIrHEBu4Z9vmmFLmysDGmeFJsKfcIviHmPxt%2FzK%2FGUaoQGs9Rw%3D%3D&G=0&R=https%3A%2F%2Filsr.org%2Ffood-waste-hierarchy%2F&I=20170421204847.000000476b11%40mail6-34-usnbn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU4ZmEyZTcyYWQzYzMyODYyNzE1ZTgyMjs%3D&S=jNvaN16cAtciBKnr4620jUBPELqfmzjUHLBAYi3dUIs
  14. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Training Program: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=s8mq%2BFF8Y8J%2F7%2FXrLp5ygdcwMPrxjsUdQBMch4EEnHhpCCjF3%2FNlfNQD4KJX0U2%2BP2UTUIrHEBu4Z9vmmFLmysDGmeFJsKfcIviHmPxt%2FzK%2FGUaoQGs9Rw%3D%3D&G=0&R=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLjyx-0Ki3nU&I=20170421204847.000000476b11%40mail6-34-usnbn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU4ZmEyZTcyYWQzYzMyODYyNzE1ZTgyMjs%3D&S=QVtr-Fp019p7g2_275eOzkpGJzVCe673wcUgNJnwFpU
  15. Pay Dirt: Composting in Maryland to Reduce Waste, Create Jobs, & Protect the Bay: http://link.email.dynect.net/link.php?DynEngagement=true&H=WAA0HYy4enWklLGLVOCoftvRiKxkwcx7028A%2BNZlWSzSEaUD3cyAX240dN6O%2F7Rq8J1Ed1czy6lq3xsI6rpIn%2Fkm1CLHC2QKgRzEg1C8J5snKqsDSKwn9Q%3D%3D&G=0&R=https%3A%2F%2Filsr.org%2Fpaydirt%2F&I=20170505170412.000000182b3c%40mail6-33-usnbn1&X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjU5MGNiMDg5NzY4ZjMxYWQxMDE3NTUxYzs%3D&S=1HdwzQd_8jqb6cxHFwpUwjWhLzFyr-nu3zWFkdfhSQk

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/press-release-maryland-governor-hogan-signs-ilsr-led-bipartisan-bills-to-advance-composting/


Would You Pay 5% More for Local Energy?

by John Farrell | May 4, 2017 1:56 pm

In recent months, a raft of cities and states pushed up their renewable energy targets to 50%, 80%, or even 100%. But how will that energy be delivered? Will it be from the top down, by merchant wind and solar power plants? Or from the bottom up, by customers producing their own power?

The answer likely lies somewhere in between, but some studies of a low-carbon future rely too heavily on incumbent powers and utility-scale development for the energy of the future. A January 2016 study[1] commissioned by the central U.S. grid operator — the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) — does yeoman’s work examining how to  achieve a low-carbon energy mix across the region, but leaves many questions unanswered.

First, the Unfiltered Results

The MISO study suggests that achieving an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (from a 2005 baseline) is possible without increasing the cost of wholesale energy on the system. The 2050 Midwest grid would have zero coal plants, around 50 gigawatts of new gas power plants, and nearly 200 gigawatts of new wind and solar power. The following chart shows the projected installed capacity of each resource at a few benchmark years between now and 2050.

[2]

The low-carbon future examined in this study would require a massive transmission line expansion, with over 45 gigawatts of transmission capacity in MISO’s northernmost resource zone alone (primarily Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota). The chart below, from the study, illustrates.

[3]

Although it doesn’t dive into details, the study suggests this scenario carries the lowest cost region-wide, and that achieving similar carbon reductions in a constrained transmission scenario (presumably without the substantial expansion pictured above) would cost about 5% more per year.

Only 5%?

Ignoring for the moment the many factors aside from the transmission system that could alter this analysis in a way that reduces transmission needs — from distributed solar to storage to electric vehicles — let’s ask this question: would a state legislator or governor be willing to pay 5% more to increase in-state renewable energy generation rather than importing the electricity? Would a ratepayer?

Typical economic impact estimates suggest wind projects create $1 million in economic activity per megawatt, while solar projects spur $2.5 million per megawatt. Both create numerous construction jobs.

[4]
Most studies of our grid system focus on the grid costs and benefits alone, leaving out economic benefits that tend to matter more to the affected communities.

The Many Things Ignored

Though the MISO study may offer an opening for more local renewable energy generation at a premium to transmission, it likely overstates the cost of achieving 80% carbon reduction by focusing too narrowly on the transmission system. It also includes other questionable assumptions. A few examples follow.

Stagnant Electricity Demand

The study assumes electricity consumption will rise by a constant 0.8% over the study period, despite stagnant electricity sales[5] nationally over the past decade. If the trend of zero growth continues, this study overestimates total electricity sales (and therefore power generation needs) by 42%.

[6]

Electric Vehicle Adoption

A countervailing issue is electric vehicle adoption, which by increasing electricity demand and sales may help correct for this odd projection of growth. On the other hand, electric vehicles offer a source of managed demand that can absorb excess electricity supply, in turn reducing the need for long-distance transmission. Bloomberg forecasts[7] ongoing cost reductions that will translate to a substantial portion of the U.S. vehicle fleet going electric by 2050. Grid models run without acknowledging this assumption are dangerously suspect.

[8]

No Local Solar?

Distributed solar adoption is also ignored in the MISO study, presenting a major problem for modeling hourly system load matching. In California, for example, daytime solar production (largely from utility-scale solar, but also including distributed solar) is substantially changing the daily load curve.

[9]

No Energy Storage?

Finally, the MISO evaluation ignores the potential for energy storage. At 2016 prices, it’s no surprise that transmission offers a much more cost-effective tool for managing variable power supply and demand. But battery cost and energy density are improving rapidly[10], and to assume they will not have an impact in the 34-year study period makes the transmission-only analysis almost meaningless.

[11]

Narrow Studies Provide Poor Context

There’s a reason that in regulated utility markets, Public Utilities Commissions require utilities to conduct an alternatives analysis to determine the “least cost” method of meeting grid needs (unless the utility uses its lobbyists to avoid it[12]). These assessments are intended to reduce the likelihood that electric customers overpay for electricity.

The MISO study provides an interesting slice of data, suggesting that it’s cost-effective to decarbonize the regional power grid. Its most useful lesson may be that managing demand within MISO’s zones is only incrementally more expensive than a massive transmission expansion, offering state policy makers viable options for focusing on local generation rather than long-distance imports.

Due to its omissions, however, the MISO study is totally insufficient for assessing the least cost method of decarbonizing the regional electricity system. Too many changes are bubbling up from the local distribution grid, and substantial technological innovation is likely to fundamentally alter the economics.

Photo Credit: Michael VH via Flickr[13] (CC 2.0[14])

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[15]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[16] or Karlee Weinmann[17] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[18] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. January 2016 study: http://www.vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/VCE_MISO_Study_Report_04252016.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=47896
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=47897
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/energy-independence-clean-energy-self-reliance/re-fossil-jobs-per-mw/
  5. stagnant electricity sales: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/5?agg=0,1&geo=g&endsec=vg&linechart=ELEC.SALES.US-ALL.A~~~&columnchart=ELEC.SALES.US-ALL.A~ELEC.SALES.US-RES.A~ELEC.SALES.US-COM.A~ELEC.SALES.US-IND.A&map=ELEC.SALES.US-ALL.A&freq=A&start=2001&end=2016&ctype=linechart&ltype=pin&rtype=s&pin=&rse=0&maptype=0
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=47898
  7. Bloomberg forecasts: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/the-electric-car-revolution-tesla-began-faces-its-biggest-test
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=47900
  9. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=47901
  10. battery cost and energy density are improving rapidly: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/the-electric-car-revolution-tesla-began-faces-its-biggest-test
  11. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=47902
  12. uses its lobbyists to avoid it: https://ilsr.org/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/
  13. Michael VH via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelvh/23622169009/in/photolist-BZpMS2-kPy3FM-qBtnca-nAJEwu-axPfBT-ff6gSJ-91vHes-rjJWJ-bDs3Po-fi7G8j-obUU18-by6M9o-4CqmPg-6cspLD-obUVCg-axPgGg-qMLnDs-qsAMnc-bMdx6t-3yJX2-mLJaUL-hjbu43-vYayW-9p1L2b-8mZHq-94FBYR-eDw9Sc-cYnWWj-Gj92XC-aNU5uK-5EqiqK-8Zexzy-a335b5-98x91i-aNU5pp-4Wkv3t-4djMNz-5pH5ic-8DA3Sh-dFtHq6-4zUFwh-87smw4-6FkpHa-qQjUSX-4rrg3B-bmHKup-49mFG5-nLBgGz-8vWA4a-9wBZk1
  14. CC 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
  15. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  16. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  17. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  18. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/would-you-pay-5-more-for-local-energy/


Creating Community Wealth Through Compost (Episode 19)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | May 4, 2017 12:00 pm

In Building Local Power[5] this week, we’re delving into the potential community-based composting holds to empower historically marginalized communities in cities across the United States. Host Christopher Mitchell[6] and ILSR’s Project Manager for the Composting for Community initiative, Linda Bilsens[7], sit down with composters Sophia Hosain and Guy Schaffer to discuss how their composting projects are both engaging and serving their communities. Also, be sure to check back all next week for our celebration of International Compost Awareness Week[8] from May 7th-13th.

Sophia Hosain works with ILSR partner Civic Works’ Real Food Farm[9] and Guy Schaffer volunteers for the youth‐powered, bike‐based composting service, BK ROT[10].

Linda, Sophia, and Guy are all part of the larger community composting movement that is growing throughout the United States. This movement is made up of composters working in diverse communities—ranging from urban, suburban, and rural—with common goals such as revitalizing degraded soils, diverting organic materials from the waste stream, and building community wealth in underserved, food insecure areas. Read more about this movement and how ILSR and other partners convened the Cultivating Community Composting Forum[11] in Los Angeles earlier this year.

“That wealth that we’re creating from food waste and food scraps needs to be recycled within our communities in order to truly make a wealthy and healthy community. And a sustainable one at that,” says Sophia Hosain of the benefits of community composting in communities across the United States.

Sophia Hosain works with ILSR partner Civic Works’ Real Food Farm[9], which serves communities in and around the Clifton Park neighborhood of northeast Baltimore. Sophia is a graduate of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Master Composter[12] program that Real Food Farm and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance partnered to bring to Baltimore last fall. She now manages the farm’s composting cooperative, which serves as a critical engagement touchpoint with the farm’s community, and allows the farm to act as a local composting demonstration and education site for Baltimore.

Guy Schaffer volunteers for the youth‐powered, bike‐based composting service, BK ROT[10], in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. BK ROT, started by Sandy Nurse and Renee Pepperone in 2013, brings youth of color into the developing green economy around organics recycling in New York City. Guy recently finished a dissertation on compost in New York City, examining the relationship between municipal organics collection and more informal projects such as BK ROT. In his dissertation, he argues for the value of community‐based projects for pushing alternative possibilities for composting in the NYC.

Get caught up with the latest work from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on composting based economic development by exploring our resources, below:

Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community[13]

Composting Cultivates Economic Development (Episode 7)[14]

Bike-Powered Food Scrap Collection[15]

Community Composters Gather at Conference in Los Angeles[16]

NSR Master Composter Course in Baltimore[17]

Christopher Mitchell: Hey Linda, I hear you have stat, it’s not really great news but we have good news that will be attached to it. What is that specific?
Linda Bilsens: More than 40 million people in the US are considered to be food insecure, which is why composting is such a useful tool because it closes the food loop and helps communities grow more healthy food.
Christopher Mitchell: That’s Linda, Linda Bilsens, our project manager of composting for community at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here on the Building Local Power Podcast one more time. I’m Chris Mitchell. I’ve been here for most of the episodes I guess, I work on a lot of our broadband work but I also really enjoy yelling into a microphone. So, I’m back and Linda is going to introduce our guests who both come from very interesting locations, two urban areas that are doing really great work with composting. So Linda, why don’t you take it away.
Linda Bilsens: Thanks Chris. It is my great pleasure to introduce our two speakers for today, Sophia Hosain of Real Food Farm in Baltimore, in the Clifton Park neighborhood, she’ll be talking about the role that her farm plays in addressing food access issues and the role that composting plays in that. Also joining us is Guy Schaffer who works as a volunteer for the youth powered bike faced composting service, BK ROT, in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. BK ROT was started by Sandy Nurse and Renee Peperone in 2013, brings use of color into the green economy that’s developing around organics recycling in New York City. Guy recently finished a dissertation on compost in New York City in which he argues that the value of community based projects for pushing alternative possibilities for the composting in the city.
Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to the show both Sophia and Guy. As I was just thinking about this I was reminded of stories about ILS Founding, The Institute for Local Self Reliance, in the mid 70s when our founders got together. They had this idea that one could be self reliant inside cities whereas a lot of the thought at the time for people who were thinking about self reliance and how to be less dependent on big companies or federal government programs. A lot of them though you had to live way out in farm countryside and so I think it’s really great to talk about these programs and get a better sense of how we can be more independent and how our communities can solve their own problems locally. So I’m really excited, I’ll probably do more listening than usual, something I should learn in general so Linda if you want to start the conversation I’d really appreciate it.
Linda Bilsens: Sophia and Guy I was hoping that you could start by setting the scene for our listeners about your communities, where do you live, where do each of you live and work and what is some of the challenges that the members of your community might be facing, what forces are at work and what opportunities do you see that exist, or maybe don’t exist in your communities. Sophia, do you want to start?
Sophia Hosain: Surely, yes. Baltimore is a really interesting place in that it has a unique., kind of socio-political unstable environment. The city is home to thousands and thousands of vacant homes which is really interesting and also has a lot of food deserts. So some of the challenges that we face look like, non-inclusive development, obviously I mentioned the food deserts and it’s still very affordable city. We do actually have quite a bit of opportunity to turn a lot of these vacant lots and vacant houses and vacant green spaces into things like community gardens, and I think that that’s a really nice place where we can bring the compost and we can close the food circle and put it to use to rehabilitate these spaces to bring the power back to the community as far as what they’d like to see happen.
Guy Schaffer: Bushwick is a historically black and brown neighborhood that’s been undergoing a lot of really heavy gentrification in the last maybe 10 years or so, and so that kind of the scene in which BK ROT is operating. We’ve been watching as the neighborhood is really slipping out of the hands of the people who have lived there, black and brown people who have lived in the neighborhood for years are losing ownership of these spaces and also just losing opportunities within what Bushwick is turning into.

And so a lot of what we’re interested in doing in BK Rot is trying to create a different kind of development in the area that is focused on creating opportunities, for the people who have historically lived there, or the black and brown youth who have been left out of a lot of the development of the neighborhood.

Linda Bilsens: The next, I was hoping that each of you could talk a little bit more about the work that you’re doing, groups that you work with, in terms of building local power, how you might be empowering you communities by bringing people together, sharing skills, sharing knowledge, growing food, addressing social justice issues. Sophia do you want to go first?
Sophia Hosain: At the Real Food Farm we started processing compost via a compost cooperative, and most of our members come from about a three mile radius around where we’re located, which again is in Clifton Park Baltimore. We’ve created several partnerships with local businesses as well, for example we work with a couple local florists, most often local cauliflower and we take off their green waste from their shop and also we partner with the Institute of Local Self-Reliance and also with [Compost Cabs 00:06:10] who gets to drop off with us as well. We adopted the cooperative model because I feel really passionately about people being able to take initiative and responsibility for their trash. One of the most pressing and upsetting things to me about the way that we live these days is that we buy packaged things, there’s single use items and we put them out in our driveway or on our street to be picked up in our alleys and someone takes them and we have no idea where it goes.

But one of the really pressing issues facing Baltimore is that Curtis Bay, which is in the southern part of Baltimore City, it was the most polluted zip code in the United States in 2013 and 14 I believe, That’s because it’s home to five different incinerators and so part of the reason why I am so set on making people responsible for their own food waste is because it is directly affecting their health because these incinerators are putting toxic chemicals out into the air which people are breathing and there’s high levels of asthma and early rates of death in Curtis bay and I’m trying to have people, especially here in the Clifton Park area, just be responsible and change their habits in ways that is conducive to rehabilitating cites soils.

So, the cooperative model allows for us to do that in that we’re really transparent in what compost is, how it comes about, how you can do it at home, how you can do it with us, how you can use it in your garden. Ways to just reduce your food waste production at home, because we do have the good fortune of being on a farm we’re able to demonstrate the ways that food can go from ground to plate to compost and then right back into the garden and so you really see the whole picture of the life of food.

Guy Schaffer: If I could just ask you a quick question Sophia, you mentioned that you’re on a farm, now that is an urban farm, right? I mean it’s probably one of the few farms that has bus stops nearby, I’m guessing.
Sophia Hosain: Yes, it is an urban farm. We grow on about six acres. We actually farm the athletic fields of the school so we have a little bit more space than most of your urban farms. Yes we’re right off of Hartford Road which has bus stops all up and down it but actually there’s quite a few urban farms and gardens in Baltimore. We’re not the only one doing cool composting.
Linda Bilsens: Guy, what about yourself, what are you and BK ROT doing in the Bushwick community to empower people?
Guy Schaffer: So kind of a central thing in BK ROT is really about jobs creation. We are in a really interesting moment in New York City. The city has [long 00:08:49] and nurtured a strong community composting culture, but that community composting culture is based mostly on volunteer base composting. We’re interested in trying to take this kind of labor, the community should do, in order to keep resources local, and turn it into something that’s a job. There’s not a barrier to entry around who has time to actually do this volunteer work. The way we run our compost system we have youth workers who are picking up food scraps on bike and then doing all the work of processing it, sifting it, bagging it, distributing it. They’re paid 15 bucks an hour, they get the [00:09:30] education around compost, it’s like a good job, these kids are treated as experts because they now how to run a compost system and they understand the science of it and then they also working on getting them public speaking opportunities as they help to represent the org at events and stuff.
Christopher Mitchell: I just wanted to build off of Sophia’s point about the incinerators at Curtis Bay-
Guy Schaffer: Bushwick has likewise long been a huge sacrifice zone in New York’s general pattern of environmental racism. Bushwick has been home to a disproportionate amount of the city’s transfer station for decades and so one of the things BK ROT is interested in doing is trying to design ways in which we can deal with waste in a way that is not onerous. That is, there’s going to be waste everywhere in New York City and if we’re creating waste management infrastructure that’s actually pleasant to be around I think that’s a really important intervention that we can make.
Christopher Mitchell: If I hear a critique often about coming form more conservative circles, is that dealing with food insecurity in major cities would be solved better by just getting more Walmarts in and around them rather than anything else and I’m just curious if you can give us a better sense of how your approach is better than looking to a big corporation coming in and just selling more food.
Guy Schaffer: I guess the important things for me is just about the way the value is moving in that kind of system. With BK ROT system, and we’re not [specifically 00:11:08] dropping food where it’s more central to us, but we do try to create a system in which we’re keeping value close to us. The value that’s inherent in food scraps is being extracted and distributed to workers within Bushwick rather than being extracted to somewhere outside of the city. And so with food systems there, I think it’s just the exact same thing. We need to, if we’re putting Walmarts in our cities that is really just creating a big siphon for value, pull value out of neighborhoods.
Christopher Mitchell: And so Sophia, I’d love to hear your take on it as well.
Sophia Hosain: I’m always thinking about should anything happen, should we face a natural crisis, a political crisis, a warfare crisis, what happens to cities? Cities so often only have a three day food supply at most and so if we’re talking sustainably, if we’re talking about creating a system that’s going to work no matter what happens, really making a community wealthy then your food should come from where you live. All that food that comes to Walmart comes from huge mid-western conglomerate farms that really have no interest in the people even eating it, but if we can have people making their own food and using compost that they make from their food waste to make that happen I think that ultimately the community is richer and the individual is richer, and those things don’t happen mutually exclusively and that’s the cooperative idea, that the wealth of the community is individual wealth that no one person is better off without their community being empowered as well.

And so I think that when you’re talking about interesting food deserts it’s such a huge problem especially in Baltimore, you’re talking about adding more Walmarts, most of Baltimore is a food desert and what we talk about when we talk about food deserts is like having fast produce available within a quarter mile of where you live. I personally wouldn’t consider the food that you get at Walmart to be representative of what would be a healthy diet. First of all it’s not even an entity that’s dedicated to specifically to providing food. [inaudible 00:13:17] reiterating what Guy said, that wealth that we’re creating from food waste and food scraps needs to be recycled within our communities in order to truly make a wealthy community and a sustainable one at that.

Christopher Mitchell:  Right, I think those are really good points that both of you raised-
Linda Bilsens:  I think you guys do such a great job of exemplifying how something like composting fits into this idea of empowering local communities and addressing issues like social and environmental injustices and food deserts in particular, I think it’s a connection that it’s not always a natural connection for people to make so I think that hearing your stories just really helps put that into context. I would also add to the question that Chris just posed, that I think that community gardens, urban farms, community composting, anything like that that you can do in our communities that brings people together and gets people to collaborate on these positive projects, for positive end goal, is just building those connections that I think can’t be overstated how important that is. Especially in a time when there is gentrification and other forces like that that makes it harder for people to connect with each other, just creating positive and safe spaces for neighbors to meet each other and collaborate, I think is a really beautiful and powerful thing, and that’s something that you don’t necessarily get with the big buck store like a Walmart.
Christopher Mitchell: I’d love to get a reaction from Sophia and Guy on that point because I think it’s a really interesting point in terms of any examples of communities pulling together and maybe then doing things that are even unrelated to the work that initially started perhaps.
Sophia Hosain: One of the awesome things that comes out, like when they were talking about this point of personal connection is, we didn’t move beyond talking about food waste. That is one part of the dire situation we’re facing as earth warriors in the current environmental crisis, it’s not the only one, by being in this cooperative environment and meeting monthly, meeting weekly and turning piles with people from the community and talking about how much food they’re directly responsible for removing from the incinerator waste stream, we get to open the dialog to all sorts of other things, like talking about fossil fuel usage and how most of the people who drop off to our cooperative live within a couple mile radius, we’re talking about alternative modes of transportation, we’re talking about alternative models of economy.

Talking about compost as that being a resource that is even greater than money because you can pay infinite amounts of money and never be able to rebuild severely degraded city soils but compost can do that and so we make these personal points of connection and it opens our worlds to talking about all sorts of other stuff, like the – like making vegetable soup out of your food scraps that you don’t necessarily want to throw away, like cabbage ends, or carrot ends, or broccoli stems, just like that point where you can have conversation, where you can meet people face to face where they’re at, where you can have that personal connection and set dialog back and forth it opens the door to infinite collaboration as a community.

Christopher Mitchell: Yes, I’m glad to hear that. Guy, I’m just curious have you seen anything like that as well?
Guy Schaffer: Yes absolutely. I think the connections you can create with people while doing this labor together. Our current space, Know Waste Lands, is a garden that was designed to be beautiful and open and inviting and people walk in off the street to join us in this space just to look at flowers, we’ve started getting some kids, there’s like a trio of I think maybe 10 year old girls, who just come in and play with worms and they’re great and they’re just like kids who I know now. The creation of open space, the availability of work that is seen as valuable and interesting and educational and uplifting I think it all just goes to, it does pull people together, I mean it builds community, it makes people talk to their neighbors, which has been a really exciting thing, I feel so lucky to be a part of it, and to still be a part of it.
Christopher Mitchell: Excellent, so I think Linda has a closing question for you.
Linda Bilsens: Thank you both for taking the time to share your stories today, just help put compost into context in terms of building local power. Sophia has introduced us to the Curtis Bay neighborhood which she mentioned about it earlier, being the most polluted zip codes in the Maryland State and so on, but Guy I was hoping you might be able to share a little bit about what benefits you think a project which BK ROT has up in Brooklyn, what can transfer to a community like Curtis Bay in Baltimore and maybe even beyond.
Guy Schaffer: I for one want models like BK ROT to be replicated far and wide. I think it is making this really important intervention in the way that waste systems work by taking waste and waste labor and making both of them more visible. Now what that does is I think that it makes people more aware of what they’re throwing away, but also makes people more aware of the fact that work needs to be done in order to bring what they do throw away back into the economy, back into their world, back into the value of their life, and so I think that this model has a lot of potential impact for a place like Curtis Bay.

I think it has a lot of potential impact for places that can make use of compost through reclamation of that material through urban farming, I think it has a lot of use for places that have been overly burdened by waste infrastructure and that can benefit from having an actually nice waste infrastructure in the area, I think it could be useful in places that have a crisis of opportunity, like Curtis Bay, like Baltimore, where we need more jobs for people, that are good jobs that pay decently, are rewarding and make you feel like you are contributing to the world.

Linda Bilsens: Great answer and I think that is something maybe that wasn’t touched on, is that Curtis Bay not only does it have so many incinerators, it’s also seen a loss of industry over the last decade in terms of manufacturing and ship building so the opportunity to employ local youth is really a powerful, powerful thing. I think in that context especially.
Sophia Hosain: Just another dynamic to add to the Curtis Bay situation is that it’s also home to the largest public housing unit. It’s population is by and far very economically depressed.
Linda Bilsens: Yes that must be powerful, and Sophia you’re from Baltimore, right?
Sophia Hosain: Yes.
Linda Bilsens: Guy, where are you from again?
Guy Schaffer: Silver Spring, Maryland.
Linda Bilsens: I don’t know if there’s anything else that you want to make sure we touched on.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes, go for it.
Guy Schaffer: One of the things that I have been really excited about is being an opportunity present in compost, just inherent in the method is that it’s very low tech and very DIY and doesn’t actually require a ton of investment and so it really, unlike a metals or glass recycling, compost really offers people a way to design, resource recovery systems that work for them and there’s just a lot of flexibility in the design of compost systems. It creates a lot of opportunity for creating more sustainable and more valuable things.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes I’m glad you made that point, that’s really, it’s worth remembering these things you can do just about anywhere with a small loan or maybe not even needing that, that’s a kind of opportunity that we need to be promoting. Any closing comment from Sophia?
Sophia Hosain: One of the most valuable lessons that I got from doing this often, weekly, every day in terms of making compost is that [inaudible 00:21:20] involving the community in our endeavor were making all of those people co-conspirators in our effort to rehabilitate our immediate environment. Not allies, which sometimes can become a passive thing, but co-conspirators, an active role that your taking in creating a better world that you want to see and it is always amazing and powerful to me.
Guy Schaffer: I love that compost conspiracy idea.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes and I think on that we’ll probably will close it out. It’s been a very interesting conversation and I’m really glad to know not only that you guys are out there doing this work but that you’re able to share it and I hope that will inspire other people to do these sorts of things in their communities. Linda was there a good place so we can direct people to learn more about the sort of things we’ve been talking about?
Linda Bilsens: I think that our website at www.ilsr.org.
Christopher Mitchell: Dig into composting at ilsr.org that should be our new jingle. All right well thank you everyone for listening and we’ll catch you in another two weeks with another Building Local Power podcast.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Sophia Hosain and Guy Schaffer joining Linda Bilsens and Christopher Mitchell for episode number 19 of the Building Local Power podcast. Take a look at more of our composting resources at ilsr.org/initiatives/composting. You can learn more about her guest’s projects at realfoodfarm.civicworks.com and bkrot.org. Subscribe to this podcast and all of our podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks to Dysfunction_AL for the music, license through creative commons, the song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Self-Reliance, thanks again for listening to episode 19 of the Building Local Power podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[18] Building Local Power on iTunes[19] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[20]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[21]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[22] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[23] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[24] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[25] and Facebook[26] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[27] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-27-blp019-hosain-schaffer-composting.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-27-blp019-hosain-schaffer-composting.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism
  7. Linda Bilsens: https://ilsr.org/author/linda/
  8. celebration of International Compost Awareness Week: http://compostfoundation.org/icaw
  9. Civic Works’ Real Food Farm: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/about-us/
  10. BK ROT: https://www.biocycle.net/2017/03/08/building-community-composting-bushwick-brooklyn/
  11.  Cultivating Community Composting Forum: https://ilsr.org/notes-from-ccc2017/
  12. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Master Composter: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  13. Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  14. Composting Cultivates Economic Development (Episode 7): https://ilsr.org/composting-economic-development-episode-7-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  15. Bike-Powered Food Scrap Collection: https://ilsr.org/bike-powered-food-scrap-collection/
  16. Community Composters Gather at Conference in Los Angeles: https://ilsr.org/notes-from-ccc2017/
  17. NSR Master Composter Course in Baltimore: https://ilsr.org/nsr-master-composter-course-bmore-fall-2016/
  18. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  19. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  20. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  21. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  22. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  23. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  24. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  25. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  26. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  27. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/creating-community-wealth-through-compost-episode-19-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Policies That Make Markets Work, Hello Antitrust! (Episode 18)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | April 27, 2017 12:00 pm

This week in Building Local Power[5], we are focusing on what makes and breaks markets – market power, monopoly, and antitrust. As we discuss with noted antitrust Silicon Valley lawyer Gary Reback, markets require intelligent intervention to prevent power from becoming too consolidated.

Let’s be blunt – if you are happy with the Internet access choices or airline experience you have, this isn’t for you. But if you want an economy that works for you, this is a good place to start.

Reback’s book, Free the Market: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive[6], comes highly praised by our own Christopher Mitchell, who conducts the interview. Reback had a front-row seat to the failings of government policy that has allowed a few technology firms to garner so much market power today – but it is not too late to re-introduce competition to the market via smart policies.

“But what we’ve seen over the last several years is people on both the left and the right [are] beginning to ask hard questions [about] whether US industries have become too concentrated,” says Gary Reback of the power of antitrust policy. “Is there too much market power in just a few companies? Certainly a lot of that is focused on the high tech industries. It’s not just Elizabeth Warren…but it’s also some of the conservatives from places like Utah are also focused on these kinds of questions.”

Get caught up with the latest work from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on antitrust policy and economic concentration by exploring our resources, below:

Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[7]

America’s Major Market Power Problem (Episode 13)[8]

With New Wave of Mega-Mergers, the Big Aim to Get Bigger[9]

Amazon’s Growing Stranglehold (Episode 6)[10]

Resources available from MuniNetworks.org:

Here’s the book that Gary Reback wrote:

[15]
Free the Market! Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive[16] Available from an independent retailer here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842460[17].

Christopher Mitchell: Hey folks, welcome to a special edition of the Building Local Power podcast. I’m Chris Mitchell, I usually host the show and I’ve been involved in a lot of the interviews, and I run our broadband policy for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. This is a special episode, it’s an interview that we did with Gary Reback, a noted antitrust attorney who’s pretty well known for trying to make sure marketplaces are working and that we have real competition.

This is an interview that I actually did for our Broadband Bits podcast, but we didn’t really get into the community broadband aspect, we really talked more generally about antitrust. We thought this would be a really good episode for people who are concerned about communities and the role that growing consolidation has on all aspects of markets and how it’s impacting our communities. So, I hope you enjoy it, and I definitely recommend you check out Gary’s book Free the Market! It’s a terrific book about antitrust.

As always, please review the show, rate it, wherever you find it, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever. We really want to make sure that this show grows and that more people hear about it to make sure that we can still keep putting out great episodes and talking to great guests. Enjoy the interview.

Today, I’m speaking with Gary Reback, a well-known Silicon Valley lawyer. Welcome to the show, Gary.

Gary Reback: Thank you.
Christopher Mitchell: I’m excited to have you on the show. You’re well-known for being very involved in getting the government to sue Microsoft and for writing a book that actually came to me at a really good time about seven years ago called Free the Market!: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive. I really enjoyed that book, highly recommend it. For our audience’s sake, we’re not going to talk much about broadband in this conversation. But I think that many of these principles around competition in markets apply very strongly but it’s something that will be sort of in the sideline. Gary, I’m curious if we can just start with a brief description of what you might describe as a working market before we spend the rest of our time talking about the markets that aren’t working as well.
Gary Reback: So that’s an important question and an important point, Chris. We live in a capitalist system and the whole theory of a capitalist system is that when markets are functioning properly, everybody’s better off, not just a few people but everybody’s better off and resources are allocated correctly and people will get what they want at the best available prices and so forth. So in a well functioning market, you have a bunch of buyers and they’re all competing against each other. You have a bunch of sellers and the sellers are all competing against each other. Then you kind of have an interface between the two groups where transactions occur and the competition among the buyers and the competition among the sellers enables exactly the most efficient transactions to occur across that interface and that what makes a market very, very productive.
Christopher Mitchell: Well, with that in mind, I’m curious if you could just rattle off a couple of instances in which you’ve worked on areas in which those markets had broken down?
Gary Reback: A lot of the work I’ve done is in high technology or information technology and specifically in the software markets. There are some markets that are called network markets like the phone system for example where the normal rules of economics don’t really apply as well. In these markets, whoever gets the lead tends to maintain that lead and dominate the market particularly if they exploit their position using anti-competitive practices. So for example, if you use a certain Word processor or if all your friends do, you really have to be on that same Word processor or something compatible. You might like a different Word processing program but if everybody else is on one you don’t like, you still have to use that.

That creates what called a network effect or a network externality. Those kinds of conditions make the efficient operation of markets more challenging. Markets can still operate efficiently but in those kinds of markets, we have to have good government oversight and appropriate intervention when bad things occur in order to maintain competition and to get the right allocation of resources.

Christopher Mitchell: Now, when you say that, I think what you’re talking is smart policies, one of the things that I’m often criticized for by people who don’t like my work as someone who I think of as arguing for smart government policies is a knee-jerk sense that government involvement will inevitably hurt the market and make the market less competitive. I’m curious how you respond and I’m sure you run across this idea all the time as well.
Gary Reback: Sure. One way to think about this is the difference between antitrust enforcement, enforcement of the antitrust where laws and regulation. Now, we do need regulation in some cases which we can talk about. But generally speaking, antitrust lawyers think that regulation really is not quite a good approach and it tends to have some of these bad effects that you’ve eluded to but antitrust enforcement, we sometimes call it the free market approach to regulation. Let me just explain the difference for a second.
Christopher Mitchell: Please do.
Gary Reback: Yeah, in a regulation situation, a group of people are chosen in fact to micromanage the industry and they’re not industry managers from the industry. They’re chosen not by the shareholders. They’re chosen generally by political figures. They get together and manage the industry, sometimes it’s a single company that dominates an industry and they manage in a rather intrusive way. They tell the industry who it can sell to and at what prices, where it has to invest more resources and so forth. Now, in that kind of situation, the people who criticize regulation sometimes, not always, but sometimes have a good point.

Antitrust works on a different principle. The principle is this, the government sets the basic rules of competition. Then the government steps back and it lets the competitors in the market duke it out under those rules of competition as long as everybody obeys those rules, the government really doesn’t have much of a role to play but if somebody breaks the rules, the government doesn’t try to regulate them, the government sues them and they bring them before a court and they present evidence and the judge makes a decision just as a judge would in any other prosecution of one kind or another.

We find over the years that in most cases, that works the best. Now, there are some cases where the market won’t support more than one company like the municipal water and sewage facility or something like that and there you do need regulation. You want to make sure that pharmaceuticals are safe and so you need regulation there and air traffic controllers for example. But in a lot of other industries, antitrust enforcement and free market competition would work a lot better than regulation would.

Christopher Mitchell: Well, and I think there’s an interesting point in terms to that. In many ways, we’d like to see, many of us would like to see government breaking up big companies. For instance, I might name Comcast or those other companies that people have suggested breaking up. In your book, at one point, you had mentioned that there was if the government’s not able to break them up then almost perpetual lawsuits might be preferable. Is that kind of a middle ground or is that actually just a second option that you described?
Gary Reback: Yeah, I almost described that humorously. I mean, obviously the best thing to happen is to maintain competition in the market. Now, you can generally maintain competition if you block anti-competitive mergers. A lot of big companies have acquired or because the government has let them acquire competitors or in the case of certain broadband companies, to acquire content providers for example and use that as a market advantage that excludes competitors at both levels of competition. I don’t know that I go the perpetual lawsuit route until I’d exhausted other things but you don’t have to start at breaking up the company, where you need to start is not letting the company acquire market power either through anti-competitive things that it does like exclusionary contracts or something like that or through mergers that increases market power in a way that consumers don’t benefit.
Christopher Mitchell: You labeled both horizontal and vertical mergers in that case which you would see as both being potentially damaging and letting a company perhaps gain too much power.
Gary Reback: Well, I certainly would. Now, traditionally, antitrust look at horizontal mergers with greater scrutiny than vertical mergers. As the conservatives began to take power in the antitrust area through what’s called the Chicago school that I think your listeners have heard about before, they de-emphasized antitrust scrutiny of vertical mergers and just focused on horizontal mergers. So the consequence is that I thin most people would agree that too much horizontal power through mergers is a very bad thing. We’ve come to understand through better research though that these vertical acquisitions can also create enormous problems.

It’s a bigger push though to get a conservative administration to take action in the vertical arena because generally speaking they don’t quite understand how the market mechanisms are being affected because if it’s a vertical acquisition, you’re affecting several different markets in the same supply chain and the analysis becomes more complicated. Nevertheless, I think these days, that these people on the cutting edge of antitrust would say we haven’t paid nearly enough attention to vertical mergers.

Christopher Mitchell: Well, I think it’s interesting you mentioned sort of the present day where we are seeing a lot more attention. You had mentioned in our previous discussion as you’re preparing for this that Elizabeth Warren and others are getting very involved. You also, I know, have a deep sense of the history behind anti-monopoly movements and my impression is is that this is not something that we would expect to come from one party but rather kind of a piece of each party working together to try and decentralize the power ultimately.
Gary Reback: I think so. Of course our problem, Chris, is that the two parties don’t seem to be able to work on much of anything these days in Washington. They won’t work together on much of anything. But what we’ve seen over the last several years is people on both the left and the right, political figures beginning to ask hard questions whether US industries have become too concentrated and not just the industries that I work in but industries more generally. Is there too much market power in just a few companies? Certainly a lot of that is focused on the high tech industries. It’s not just Elizabeth Warren, senator Elizabeth Warren who would be left off center but it’s also some of the conservatives from places like Utah are also focused on these kinds of questions.

So for the first time in a long time, I think we have some consensus at least among people who are looking at this area that maybe the lack of antitrust enforcement has been going on too long and we’re beginning to have some problems that need to be addressed.

Christopher Mitchell: Well, I think that’s where we’d like to push toward the end of the show is most people think of monopoly and they think, “Oh, I’m going to have to pay more when I buy something,” but that’s not even the worst problem, is it?
Gary Reback: Oh, I think it’s not even close to the worst problem. Let me give you several other problems that I think your listeners would consider far more important that too much industry concentration creates. So from an economic perspective, in order to raise prices, when a monopolist or a duopolist, what a concentrated industry does is it restricts output. If you want a present day example of that, think about these big airline mergers that have gone on in the last several years. United Continental and American US Airways, I mean, we’re down to the point that there are only a few major airlines in the United States.

Now, the consequence of that is of course higher prices in terms of all the fees they can impose but a bigger consequence is that you can’t get a seat on a flight when you need it anymore. This has particularly affected small to mid-sized cities across the country and certainly on the West Coast, we have this problem in spades. In order to keep the high prices, the few companies in the market simply restrict the availability of their service. So that to me is a bigger problem than the fact that you may have to pay more. You just can’t get it at all. So that’s one problem. We’ll call that output.

The second problem is that the effect of monopoly on innovation. We all benefit from lower prices but we benefit a lot more when there’s some breakthrough innovation in high tech or in pharmaceuticals or something like that. So our antitrust policy really ought to be directed at protecting innovation. Now, the problem is the monopolists would use some of its market power to maintain its monopoly, to keep itself from being displaced by some new technology. It would do things to try to restrict a challenger’s ability to get to market by engaging in exclusive contracts or by denying access in one way or another. So the net result of all that is that we’re denied the new technology that the challenger would bring to the market.

Let me give you a couple of examples, so back a couple of decades ago, Microsoft used anti-competitive practices against the company called Netscape that had invented the browser and actually ended up putting Netscape out of business. So that’s an example where they tried not just to hurt the competitor but to coop the technology so that they would own the browser market.

Christopher Mitchell: You actually in your book described how Microsoft went to Netscape and basically made them an offer that said basically we won’t kill you if you don’t compete with us, if you only put your browser on other platforms that are non-PCs, we’ll have the PCs you’ll have everything else and everyone will be happy. I mean, so they were very deliberate and open about it.
Gary Reback: Yes and obviously, some of the Microsoft people contest the facts in terms of exactly what they said and so forth but from the perspective of the government’s case, that’s right, the monopolist came in and said, look, you can live on an island and you can have whatever that island brings to you and we’ll just have the rest of the world and won’t that be fine. Of course, that won’t be fine. So if you think back 10 or 15 years ago, Microsoft owned the browser market. The only way you could get to Google for example is by going through Microsoft. 98% of Google’s traffic came from Microsoft. If you type www.google.com on the browser line, Microsoft didn’t have to send you to Google. It could have put up a big red warning and say, “Hey, this site has been reported as stealing your personal information. Don’t go there.”

Of course, no one would have gone there and they would have killed Google in the cradle. They would have suppressed search technology which all of used everyday, why didn’t they do that? They were already being fined billions of dollars by the European Commission. They ran the risk of reigniting the antitrust scrutiny in the United States so they didn’t do it. As a result, we all benefited by this new technology.

Christopher Mitchell: I just found this really worth noting. The compulsory licensing response, another way in which I think people might not necessarily immediately think of that as a response to these antitrust problems but you talked about the history of compulsory licensing particularly around patents and things like that to basically make markets work to solve this problem, I think.
Gary Reback: We have a long history of compulsory licensing in the United States. They was compulsory licensing of a lot of the patents that the phone monopoly had. We have to be careful obviously because you want people to innovate and patent technology but when big companies use patents as a wall against market entry, that becomes a problem. From time to time, in past history as you mentioned, the government’s come in and ordered compulsory licensing. You don’t see that much anymore because patents have become so much more prominent and the conservatives in particular are reluctant to intervene in the patent market but that would be an effective way to deal with some problems as well. In software, generally speaking, the problem isn’t patents. But in other places, yes, that’s something really people should look at.

Modern monopolies in the high tech area take all your data and prepare dossiers on you which are, I don’t know, from my perspective very troublesome. I mean, I think most people understand that when they buy something online, whoever they’re buying from has a record and will use that record to help them find other things and that’s I think most people would accept that. But when you have a search engine that keeps track of your searches for many, many years and combines that information with what you buy and so forth, they get begin to get at what your political orientation is, where you live on the street, what your religion is, all kinds of things that becomes very, very problematic. We have a problem with privacy in the United States largely because we have several big companies that collect data across the board and that’s a problem that Europe is beginning to address but in the United States, really not so much.

Finally, Chris, just let me say, one of the other things we have found historically that industry concentration and monopoly does is it puts political power into the hands of monopolists because they can make political contributions and under our law there’s a case citizens united, the supreme court case from seven or eight years ago that gives big corporations the right to make unlimited political contributions. So some of the things that big tech companies want to lobby for are more or less okay by me. But other things they want to lobby for bother me a whole lot like the lack of privacy protection. So using monopoly to further political power is something that’s also very concerning.

Christopher Mitchell: That’s one that I long find very frustrating in part because it’s not just at the federal level. That money allows them to basically own state legislatures. They can be powerful at the local level. It’s corrupting everywhere.
Gary Reback: Yes, in fact, it’s much worst, I think. At least there’s some visibility, a bit of visibility at the federal level. At the state level, their projects which have sprung up in various places trying to get some daylight as to what’s going on but with the demise of local newspapers for example, we just don’t get the kind of coverage we used to. I agree with you, the effect of that kind of conduct at the state and local level is even more disturbing than at the national level.
Christopher Mitchell: So speaking of the state and local level, do you have any recommendations for what could be done at the state and local level to try and strike back at antitrust even though they don’t have the power to break them and things like that?
Gary Reback: Yeah, this is a tough question, Chris, because on one hand, these big tech companies have gotten so big, they’re multinational and so powerful, I’m not even sure a national government has the power to do much about them. I mean, I’ve always favored the United States working with Europe to have enough power to try to restrain these big companies. However, with the new administration, a number of people have now been looking to states to try to exercise some antitrust authority over these companies. Then there are states, many of the bigger states have their own antitrust enforcement mechanisms and they have their own antitrust laws. Now, they got to be careful because they have smaller budgets than the national government does.

But they might well be able to go after specific anti-competitive practices. So they wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do a 10-year case and break up one of these companies but they might be able to go into court and stop one of the big companies from doing something that’s anti-competitive that squelches new technology or that hurts consumers. Certainly, a lot of people are looking at that now because we don’t think we’re going to get much in the way of antitrust enforcement over the next few years.

Christopher Mitchell: Great. Well, thank you for taking the time and sharing some of your experiences and thoughts with us on antitrust.
Gary Reback: I appreciate you asking me and I hope your listeners and others continue the new interest in antitrust. It’s time we renewed its effectiveness.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was attorney Gary Reback joining Christopher Mitchell for episode 18 of the Building Local Power podcast. Remember to check out Gary’s book from your local independent bookseller. The title is Free the Market: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive. We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you find your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks to Dysfunction_Al for providing music licensed through creative commons, the song title is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, thank you for listening to episode 18 of the Building Local Power podcast.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[18] Building Local Power on iTunes[19] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[20]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[21]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[22] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[23] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[24] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[25] and Facebook[26] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[27] for our ILSR general newsletter.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-25-blp018-gary-reback-antitrust.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-25-blp018-gary-reback-antitrust.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Free the Market: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842460
  7. Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  8. America’s Major Market Power Problem (Episode 13): https://ilsr.org/market-power-problem-episode-13-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  9. With New Wave of Mega-Mergers, the Big Aim to Get Bigger: https://ilsr.org/new-wave-of-mega-mergers-means-the-big-get-bigger/
  10. Amazon’s Growing Stranglehold (Episode 6): https://ilsr.org/amazons-growing-stranglehold-episode-6-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. Comcast Merger Wrap-up and Anti-Monopoly Policy – Community Broadband Bits Episode 148: https://muninetworks.org/content/comcast-merger-wrap-and-anti-monopoly-policy-community-broadband-bits-episode-148
  12. Susan Crawford, Captive Audience, and How to Kill the Cable Monopoly: https://muninetworks.org/content/susan-crawford-captive-audience-and-how-kill-cable-monopoly
  13. The Real Threats from Monopoly – Community Broadband Bits Podcast #83: https://muninetworks.org/content/real-threats-monopoly-community-broadband-bits-podcast-83
  14. Local Governments and Internet Access Debate – Community Broadband Bits Episode 185: https://muninetworks.org/content/local-governments-and-internet-access-debate-community-broadband-bits-episode-185
  15. [Image]: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842460
  16. Free the Market! Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842460
  17. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842460: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842460
  18. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  19. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  20. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  21. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  22. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  23. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  24. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  25. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  26. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  27. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/antitrust-policy-episode-18-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Bill To Limit Local Broadband Authority Appears In Maine

by Lisa Gonzalez | April 25, 2017 6:00 pm

Maine is the latest battleground for local telecommunications authority. A bill in the state’s House of Representatives threatens to halt investment in “The Pine Tree State” at a time when local communities are taking steps to improve their own connectivity.

“I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”

Rep. Nathan Wadsworth[1] (R-Hiram) introduced HP 1040; it has yet to be assigned to a committee. Like most other bills we’ve seen that intend to protect the interests of the big national incumbent providers, this one also has a misleading title: “An Act To Encourage Broadband Development through Private Investment.” Realistically, the bill would result in less investment by discouraging a whole sector – local communities – from making Internet infrastructure investment.

Large national companies have thus far chosen not to invest in many Maine communities because, especially in the rural areas, they just aren’t densely populated. In places like Islesboro[2] and Rockport[3], where residents and businesses needed better connectivity to participate in the 21st century economy, locals realized waiting for the big incumbents was too big a gamble. They exercised local authority and invested in the infrastructure to attract other providers for a boost to economic development, education, and quality of life.

Not The Way To Do This

If HP 1040 passes, the community will first have to meet a laundry list of requirements before they can exercise their right to invest in broadband infrastructure.

HP 1040 contains many of the same components we see in similar bills. Municipalities are only given permission to offer telecommunications services if they meet those strict requirements: geographic restrictions on service areas, strict requirements on multiple public hearings including when they will be held and what will be discussed, the content and timelines of feasibility studies, and there must be a referendum.

The bill also dictates financial requirements regarding bonding, pricing, and rate changes. Municipalities cannot receive distributions under Maine’s universal service fund.

As one of the remaining states that don’t have restrictions on local authority and one of the most rural states in the country, Maine’s towns and counties are the best poised to turn around its status as poorly connected. Inflicting rules on local communities to make the process more difficult will end investment, not encourage it.

In 2015, Rep. Norm Higgins sponsored a bill to create better connectivity[4] through open access networks and by removing investment barriers. When we asked him about HP 1040, he said, “Competition should be encouraged and local control should not be infringed.”

State Battles Can Be The Toughest

seal-maine.png

Interestingly, Wadsworth, is listed as a state chair for the American Legislative Exchange Council[5] (ALEC) and this bill certainly complements their past work in Maine[6]. It’s easy to see that they want to quell the success of publicly owned networks in rural states in order to prevent the solution from taking hold in more densely populated areas.

This year, similar bills were introduced in Virginia and Missouri[7]. Missouri has seen this fight in the past[8] and, while the bill has been quiet lately, their session isn’t over just yet so anything could happen.

Virginia was especially tough, but grassroots organizations managed to fend off restrictions[9] that could have ended plans for several public projects and plans that included public-private partnerships.

Local Ire For HP 1040

Page Clason, Member of the Islesboro Broadband Committee, described HP 1040:

I would say this proposed bill is puzzling because while suggested to promote investment of broadband in Maine it would do the opposite.  Nothing in the bill provides stimulus, most everything in the bill provides increased hurdles and costs for communities needing the broadband investments. The only stimulus I can garner from such an approach would be that the largest providers would be further comforted that no other service providers would show up to do the builds that the dominating providers have not been supplying for the last few decades.

Check out the full text of the bill[10] and follow its progress[11].

Update: Since publishing our story, the bill was referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology[12].

Image of the Maine House Chambers courtesy of Maine an Encyclopedia[13].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[14]. Read the original here[15].

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Endnotes:
  1. Rep. Nathan Wadsworth: http://legislature.maine.gov/house/hsebios/wadsnj.htm
  2. Islesboro: https://muninetworks.org/content/islesboro-and-rockport-so-near-and-yet-so-far-ftth-vote
  3. Rockport: https://muninetworks.org/content/rockport-builds-maine%E2%80%99s-first-municipal-network
  4. sponsored a bill to create better connectivity: https://muninetworks.org/content/maine-house-representative-pushes-better-internet-access-community-broadband-bits-podcast-18
  5. state chair for the American Legislative Exchange Council: https://www.alec.org/about/state-chairs/
  6. past work in Maine: https://muninetworks.org/content/time-warner-cable-takes-maine-lawmakers-exclusive-hotel-lobbying-tryst
  7. Missouri: https://muninetworks.org/content/senate-committee-passes-sb-186-mo
  8. seen this fight in the past: https://muninetworks.org/content/missouri-hb-2078-fails-post-mortem-play-play
  9. fend off restrictions: https://muninetworks.org/tags/va-hb-2108
  10. full text of the bill: http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_128th/billtexts/HP104001.asp
  11. follow its progress: http://legislature.maine.gov/LawMakerWeb/summary.asp?paper=HP1040&SessionID=12
  12. Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology: http://legislature.maine.gov/committee/#Committees/EUT
  13. Maine an Encyclopedia: http://maineanencyclopedia.com/house-of-representatives/
  14. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  15. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/bill-limit-local-authority-appears-maine

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bill-to-limit-local-broadband-authority-appears-in-maine/


Residential Subscribers in Focus as Minnesota Weighs Community Solar Incentives

by Karlee Weinmann | April 22, 2017 6:00 am

In its filing on providing community solar incentives for residential subscribers, the Department outlined a loose framework[1] for the “adder,” designed to encourage community solar developers to pursue projects accessible that target residential subscribers. The agency pitched an incentive worth $0.025 per kilowatt-hour, to be phased out over time.

[2]

The residential adder discussion is part of a larger debate over what state regulators can do to ensure community solar is universally accessible. Particularly as these projects catch on with developers[3] in Minnesota and nationwide, sensible policies must ensure equitable distribution of their benefits — from reduced utility bills for subscribers to economic development in the communities they serve.

Earlier this year, ILSR advocated for holistic policies[4] designed specifically to improve access to such projects among low-income people. We also recommended that regulators consider a range of incentives[5] — for projects sited on brownfields, serving low-income communities, and having residential subscribers, among other criteria — to promote equitable development and participation.

This week, after the Minnesota Department of Commerce proposed general guidelines for a residential adder, ILSR submitted feedback[6] to the Commission. These comments are included below, lightly edited for clarity.


ILSR Comments Submitted on Minnesota PUC Docket No. 13-867

A residential adder is appropriate

We support adoption of the Department’s recommendation to include an adder to the VOS bill credit rate for residential subscribers. We appreciate the Department’s analysis that the adder is warranted based on the added cost of administering subscriptions for residential customers (and it supports data we’ve seen — which may have been submitted as trade secret — regarding the marginal cost of serving residential customers).

Existing statute favors a residential adder

As ILSR noted in comments submitted January 13, residential subscriber participation was a pivotal consideration in legislation that shaped community solar programming. It is an essential component of ensuring access to community solar projects across all customer classes.

Researchers in the Minnesota House of Representatives specifically noted in their summary of the statute[7] (216B.1641) that “it allows access to solar energy by renters and property owners lacking sufficient capital to install their own solar systems or whose property may be shaded or otherwise unsuitable for solar installation.”

An adder for residential participants helps cement community solar participation among groups otherwise at risk of being shut out of renewable generation. In our previous comments, ILSR noted roughly 50 percent of households cannot host their own solar, emphasizing the pivotal role community solar projects play in promoting more equitable access to clean energy.

The proposed adder value is reasonable

We support January comments filed by Cooperative Energy Futures[8] which align with the Department recommendation to develop a residential adder worth $0.025/kWh. We further support an adder for low-income participants, noting that there are marginal risks and costs associated with such subscribers.

Further review needed

While we remain open to a gradual step-down for the residential adder (as proposed by the Department), we recommend that any such implementation plan be based on more comprehensive market analysis that examines how community solar develops in Minnesota.

We agree with Cooperative Energy Futures’ earlier comments that any adders adopted by the Commission be applied in a way that does not favor out-of-state developers or introduce uncertainty with regard to financing. We also support Cooperative Energy Futures’ earlier recommendation that the Commission commit to regularly review adders to adjust them as needed over time, based on market dynamics.

Budget, capacity caps unnecessary

We do not believe there is a need for the Commission to impose a cap on capacity or budget for the recommended residential adder. Such a limit would not be in keeping with the intent of the community solar statute, designed to expand access to solar.

Further, the scheduled phase-out of the adder acts as a de facto cap and — like the phase out of federal tax credits for solar — provides predictability and market certainty that an arbitrary cap would not.

Confusion about the adder assignment

The request for comments on the Department’s recommendations asked for input on what point a project application should be assigned the residential adder. It was our understanding that the adder would be applied to the individual subscriber and not the project as a whole, but the questions open for comment seem to imply otherwise. Without knowing more about the methodology of choosing which projects are “residential” if adders are to be applied to whole projects, it’s difficult to say when the appropriate time would be to apply the adder. We believe the adder is best applied to the subscriber, where residential status can be easily verified.


This article originally posted at ilsr.org[9]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[10] or Karlee Weinmann[11] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[12] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. outlined a loose framework: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5f11rwtd8le5j6/20173-129559-01%20DOC%20comments%20on%20VOS%20and%20adders%20for%20CSG.pdf?dl=0
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Residential_Adder_Chart.001.jpeg
  3. catch on with developers: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-community-solar-market-to-surpass-400-mw-in-2017
  4. advocated for holistic policies: https://ilsr.org/unlocking-universal-access-to-community-solar/
  5. a range of incentives: https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showPoup&documentId=5843F5CE-136E-42E5-929C-64A4314E6854&documentTitle=20171-128071-01
  6. submitted feedback: https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showPoup&documentId=CC1997F8-3AEE-4026-A022-4F10176CC2BE&documentTitle=20174-130873-01
  7. summary of the statute: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/ss/sssolarleg.pdf
  8. January comments filed by Cooperative Energy Futures: https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showPoup&documentId=A82F7FA1-D9B1-4FBF-85CF-4169634FDF11&documentTitle=20171-128108-01
  9. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  10. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  11. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  12. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/minnesota-community-solar-adder-puc-2017/


Make Every Day Earth Day Through Composting

by Brenda Platt | April 21, 2017 4:30 pm

“The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

                                           – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937

With almost 30% of U.S. cropland eroding above soil tolerance levels – meaning the long-term ability of the soil to sustain plant growth is in jeopardy – President Roosevelt’s words ring as true today as in 1937. FDR was responding to the devastation wrought by the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Today, severe drought conditions are all too common, as are extreme storms.

Fortunately, we have one fairly simple solution: amending soil with compost.

Enhancing the ability of soil to retain water, slow stormwater run-off, and resist erosion is vital to life on this planet as we know it. That’s why we’re celebrating soil health this Earth Day.

Turns out, composting can save us in other ways too. Food scraps, leaves and other organic material can be transformed into compost. When buried or burned, these materials produce potent greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Some estimates indicate global food loss and waste contribute to 8% of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions. When converted into compost and added to the soil, food waste sequesters carbon. A lot of it. At the same time, on a per-ton basis, composting sustains many more jobs than landfills or incinerators.

In honor of Earth Day 2017, we are releasing a series of posters[1] to highlight composting’s myriad benefits. Share, download and use! (We are releasing with Creative Commons attribution.)

We are also sharing resources that can help educate your neighborhood on how compost builds community wealth:

Posters: Compost Impacts More Than You Think[2]

Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community[3]

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. series of posters: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts-posters/
  2. Posters: Compost Impacts More Than You Think: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts-posters/
  3. Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/earth-day-2017/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/earth-day-2017/


Mayors Take on Preemption to Defend Local Solutions (Episode 17)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | April 20, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode seventeen of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Andrew Gillum[6], Mayor of Tallahassee, Florida and founder of the advocacy group, Campaign to Defend Local Solutions[7] joins Christopher Mitchell[8], the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Network’s initiative and Nick Stumo-Langer[9], ILSR’s Communications Manager for the latest episode of the Building Local Power podcast. The trio go into detail on the issue of preemption and what the state-level attacks on local sovereignty mean for communities across the country.

Check out the Campaign to Defend Local Solutions at their website[10], on Facebook[11], and on Twitter[12]. They have a great set of resources[13] and a number of different partners[14] in a number of communities.

“There’s a nimbleness to local governments that I think people have an appreciation for,” says Mayor Andrew Gillum[15] of the harms of state-level preemption in America’s communities. “…The legislature [is trying to] exclude us from being able to make any investments in that space for the greater good.”

 

Preemption, Local Authority, & Municipal Broadband (Episode 10)[16]

Who Decides?[17]

The Public Good Newsfeed – September 9, 2016: Trophy Hunting, Racist School Closings, and more…[18]

Here’s the reading/watching recommendation from Mayor Andrew Gillum:

From our guest, Mayor Andrew Gillum[15]:

[19]
We Are All Newtown Video Series – http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/newtown/.
Chris Mitchell: Hey Nick, I’ve run across this new term ‘prumption?’ How do you say it?
Nick Stumo-Langer: Preemption.
Chris Mitchell: Preemption. You think I would have come across that before.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Yeah, well I can give you the dictionary definition.
Chris Mitchell: Yeah, please.
Nick Stumo-Langer: “A prior seizure or appropriation” but what that actually means in context, is a bunch of states repealing soda tax bans, plastic bag bans, and municipal broad band.
Chris Mitchell: Wow. this doesn’t seem like such a good idea and it seems like something we should talk about on Building Local Power, right now.
Nick Stumo-Langer: Yeah.
Chris Mitchell: In just about 15 seconds, you’re gonna hear us talking to Mayor Andrew Gillum but before that, I want to tell you who us is. I’m Chris Mitchell. I do a lot of the broadband work for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and to help me talk with the mayor, we have …
Nick Stumo-Langer: Nick Stumo-Langer, the Communications Manager for ILSR.
Chris Mitchell: Let’s get to the mayor. Welcome to Building Local Power Mayor Andrew Gillum of Tallahassee. Thank you for coming on our show today.
Andrew Gillum: Yeah, no it’s my honor. I’m so pleased to see you all covering this topic.
Chris Mitchell: So today we’re gonna be talking about preemption and we wanted to start by asking you, mayor, how you really got drawn into this problem of states trying to take away your local rights. What happened in Tallahassee?
Andrew Gillum: We were really recruited into this by the state, by the second amendment foundation and their allies at the NRA. Circa 2011 the Florida Legislature passed a law basically prohibiting local governments from regulating guns in any way, shape, or form. We had prior to states preemption, a law in the book that basically said you couldn’t fire a gun in the city park. Because we refused to remove that from our local ordinances, we were then sued by these groups under Florida statute, which allows them to sue us in our personal capacities, including for decisions we make in our roles as elected officials. Which previously we had immunity from so that’s personal lawsuit. We could be fined up to $5,000. We could be responsible for paying up to $100,000 in attorney’s fees for the opposing parties, should they prevail. That we cannot use public funds to defend ourselves, which means we must find our own legal counsel and that we could face removal from office at the discretion of the governor.

And so we pushed back on that lawsuit, sort of dug us deeper into this fight. So for two years we’ve been in the courts, beat these interest groups now twice, but still seeking some constitutional judgment here on whether or not Florida law is in fact constitutional, which we maintain it is not. But I will say at least in the courts, we’ve been able to push back on these groups from being able to push local governments around and bully us into doing their bidding. My hope is that through our fight we maybe stiffen the spines of some other local governments that they don’t have to roll over to these guys. They have a lot of money and they may have a lot of political will and power, but we have people on our side. That’s why they elect us at the local level to represent their interest and it’s my hope that we’ll see more of this kind of action by way of defending local governments take place in other cities around the state of Florida but also around the country.

Chris Mitchell: Well and that’s what I think brings us to the larger story that we wanted to talk about, which is something called defend local solutions. I just wanted to note that this is an organization that is about preemption broadly. One of the things that we try to do and one of the things that I have no doubt that you do as a mayor, is try to make sure we’re not being unnecessarily divisive. And one of the things I like about this story is there’s a lot of conflict about the proper role of guns and policy but this is actually a fight not over whether or not one can have firearms, but about where you can discharge one. So I just wanted to highlight that for anyone who’s supporting local decisions but is kind of more of a fan of the NRA that might be listening.
Andrew Gillum: We’ve got people who support our fight here who are NRA card carrying members who are concealed carriers themselves but they get the common sense piece of this, which is it doesn’t make sense to fire and shoot a gun off in a city park where our families picnic and our kids play. They understand and they understand what that means to have common sense laws and any laws that impact guns to them is not an affront to the Second Amendment. I maintain that that’s the right conclusion that there are some things that can still be common and can still be logical and can still make sense to the average person without us having to go down this unnecessarily divisive rabbit hole or to have guns or not to have guns. That isn’t the fight and that’s not what this fight about.
Chris Mitchell: I’m just wondering if you could maybe follow-up a little bit on the campaign to defend local solutions and kind of talk a little about the breath and the depth of the organization and maybe even point to some of the great names that you have signed onto the campaign.
Andrew Gillum: One of the things that I think is important about this campaign is that we’re trying to pull together local government from over the United States because we’re noticing increasingly that this is a battle that’s being waged in cities and in states all across the country. And so whether you are concerned about where you can discharge a weapon or if you’re concerned about your own local regulations around the environment and around minimum wage or local hiring practice, affordable housing, human rights, you know, you name it. Broadband issues. You know, we’re here to defend the rights of local governments to make decisions that are in the best interests of the communities that they serve. That’s why people elect their superintendents and their local mayors and city council members so that those voices will undoubtedly be their representative voice in the corridors of power.

And so we’ve been really fortunate to hear from elected officials really all across the country, from California to Arkansas to Arizona to cities all over the state of Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, Ohio. We’ve also been fortunate to get groups across the range of issue interest to join this campaign to defend local solutions because like us, they believe that local government has a role and in fact, Tip O’Neil was the one who said all government is local. In fact, you can probably find more Republicans quoted on the issue of local being the best and most representative form of government and now all of a sudden, in state legislatures, they’ve abandoned that thought and are now doing their earnest best to take away local decision making.

That’s why we created the campaign to defend local solutions so that local citizens and local elected officials can have a stronger collective voice to say we have a role in this Democratic process as well.

Chris Mitchell: It does seem like many people tend to believe the level of government that should be exercising power is whichever level of government they currently exercise the majority in. I’m curious in your work with defending local solutions that you came to this with a specific issue, were you surprised or were there any preemption issues where you were thinking really? They’re preempting on that? Take us along as you sort of went along this journey from where you started to where you are now.
Andrew Gillum: Well, as I heard stories from folks all around the country, North Carolina was very pronounced, right? Because it dealt with the transgender issue and transgender bathrooms.
Chris Mitchell: Right, the HB2 Bathroom Bill.
Andrew Gillum: Yeah, but that was only one element of it. I mean the other thing that the legislature in North Carolina did was remove the local government of Charlotte’s ability to set their own minimum wage and their own non-discrimination ordinances in their own city. And so we’ve seen that number played in a number of places around the country where non-discrimination practices have been challenged. Local communities ability to ban fracking. Their abilities to set their own minimum wage and bar middle regulations. In Florida, this legislative session there’s even a bill that is the most sweeping that I’ve ever seen, which basically says that local governments can’t create any regulations that impact businesses.

I can’t imagine the decision that I make as a mayor and previously as a city councilman that couldn’t be argued that it impacts business. And so the vagueness of that and the wide and sweeping nature of that is a huge threat to local governments. We fear that it may impact our ability to protect our water quality to our air quality to our signage, to our non-discrimination and wage laws. I mean, you name it. Legislation like that it’s overwhelmingly broad and in fact I don’t think it would stand a legal test but it does exactly what these legislatures are intending for it to do, which is to chill activities and to chill the rule making at the local level of these locally elected officials.

I think people will be surprised if they learn the kinds of things that were being discussed as part of this debate and I get it. I mean I understand it. If you are special interest and you pay tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands a year for lobbyists to represent your agenda, I would also want to concentrate the number of people that I have to talk to about my interests by limiting it instead of talking to over 400 cities across the state of Florida, to talking only to 120 members of the Florida House and 40 members of the Florida Senate. Their interest is very clear and their motives for doing that are very clear but who loses in that setup are the voters. The everyday people who are impacted by these kinds of decisions and that’s why we believe it’s important to defend local rule making and local involvement and how our communities are governed.

Nick Stumo-Langer: That’s great. So here at ILSR, one of our guiding principles is that we believe the best decisions for the community is made at the community level, at the local level. We’re kind of wondering, what’s the economic impact of preemption? What kind of things, outside of your own personal being able to be sued by whomever if they don’t like what you’ve come up with, what’s the local economic impact?
Andrew Gillum: I mean, for instance, if you’re preempting local communities with regard to how it is they set local wages, those are very real life and present impacts on the people who live in your community. If you’re in the state of North Carolina, your state has impacted to the billions because of … The negative impact of their own preemption laws, you had sporting tournaments canceling annual conferences, annual sporting events. You had slues of private sector businesses say that’s not a place in which I want to do business. Increasingly, young people and increasingly retirees are looking for and seeking out a certain quality of life, a certain level of inclusivity.

Welcoming communities when if you are retiring, you choose what is it you want to retire. Or if you’re a young person coming off of one of our college campuses or looking for where it is you may want to start a family or even a business, you’re looking at what kind of progressive policies might exist in the communities that you might be seeking to relocate. And so the impact is probably off the charts. There’s some real quantifiable ways we can see this. I think North Carolina gives us a really good glimpse of when you have regressive policies how it is can impact a community but you also see at a very localized level how it is that when you don’t create a good and strong quality of life for people to choose to live, they can choose other places to go.

I don’t think the story is yet told completely on the financial impacts and the negative regressive financial impacts that these kind of super preemptive policies have on local communities.

Nick Stumo-Langer: Definitely. And I think something I hear you saying and you might be a little bit too modest to say it, is that a place like Tallahassee or a place like Boulder or a place like wherever, the local leaders live in that community and they know what’s best for their community and they’re making these policies for a reason. So I think that’s a very powerful point.
Chris Mitchell: The opposite of that of course is the idea that everyone should have to live by the same exact rules and fundamentally, you deal with different problems in Tallahassee than people deal with in other parts of Florida where it’s not as dense where they have fewer people. I’m just wondering if you can-
Andrew Gillum: No, you’re right.
Chris Mitchell: Talk a little bit about that as a local leader.
Andrew Gillum: Anyone who has served at the local level knows that our communities are unique and they’re interesting and they are specific, right, to where we live. My city I’m the only city in the state of Florida that has two state universities located in them. One in HBCU and one a majority serving institution. We are in the northern panhandle where Tallahassee is a little bit of an arbitration compared to what exists around us, which around us is largely more rural. It is on the coast a little bit more tourism center and where we are we’re an everyday working community. We’re the seed of state government with universities and challenges that present themselves because of those unique differences. We’re not Miami, Florida. We’re not Miami Beach, Florida. And Miami Beach isn’t homestead Florida and so all of these places are different and are requiring their own local look at some of these problems.

I gotta be honest, I mean someone asked me what if the legislature were of your political persuasion and wanted to create laws that you felt were beneficial to your own ideology? And what I would say is preemption has a role largely to set the floor. A place by which regulations and standards should not go beneath. But in this case, the Florida legislature is conducting itself as a way to create a ceiling to regulation, create a ceiling to what could be done in that local communities are not allowed to do anything different or beyond what the state says because they carved out the territory again largely to feed a particular interest that doesn’t necessarily benefit the interest of the local government and the citizens who make up our cities and our counties. It’s really important that folks recognize, even if you’re not in the granular details of lawmaking and policy making, that all of us could I think reasonably agree, that we elect our local officials to represent the values and the interests of that local community.

There’s real value to that because I’ll tell ya, as a local elected, I don’t get to escape my decision making. I’m reminded when I’m on date night. I’m reminded when I’m standing in grocery store lines, when I’m at church, or taking my kids to the park. People are unrelenting about telling me what it is that they think based off what they read about an action that the local government took last week or yesterday or even a month ago. They don’t forget and they like having access to folks like me so that if they need to help change my mind or change my perspective about something, they can do that and I can’t underscore how critical it is for local government to be able to act rapidly to make certain changes in their community, which is very different than a legislature that meets three months out of a year. In some cases and in some states, take Texas for instance, where they don’t meet until every other year.

There’s a nimbleness to local governments that I think people have an appreciation for. I can literally take a vote on a Wednesday night and it have Thursday morning impact and I think that’s a little value for folks at the local level and people at the local level understand that and they appreciate it.

Chris Mitchell: Well, I have to say to some extent I feel like you’re reading out of our playbook. I mean all of the points that you make … When I first learned about the idea of ceilings rather supporting floors than ceiling and policy from co-founder of our organization. I think it’s just worth noting for people that before the great economic meltdown of ten years ago, a number of states in that case were actually trying to do some commonsense regulation to stop the rip-offs of people that wanted to buy homes. The state regulators said they couldn’t do it and we had a bigger problem because they wouldn’t let those sorts of things through so floors not ceilings. Absolutely. I’m totally with you on that.

Picking up on where you were leaving off though, a little bit about that local regulation you feel from the fact that you live in the community and your decisions have real, immediate impact, one of the things that Florida does it’s one of about 19 or 20 states that limit the ability of local governments to build broadband networks. Which is something that I focus on for ILSR and I’m just curious. The reason that state legislators often give for this is because you could just go ahead and squander millions upon millions of dollars that’s unnecessary and you wouldn’t face a consequence for it. That local taxpayers need to be protected so I’m always curious when I ask a mayor, do you have a sense that if you just squandered millions of dollars in unnecessary investments that there would be no repercussions?

Andrew Gillum: Well, I tell you I wish. Listen, we can’t squander a penny without reading about it or hearing about it and therefore creating a whole backlash from folks around what it is we’re doing with their money. It’s a little bit of jiu jitsu on behalf of state legislators to make that claim because you know they squander money everyday of the week and nobody knows about it because of the volumes of dollars that they’re talking about.

In our case, and we are looking at every dime, every nickel, everything that we spend as a government. In fact, if you go to our website, you’ll see there’s a checkbook on there and as you go through that checkbook you can see down to the cent what we spent on a vendor, on procuring a certain service, on buying a certain item, an investment that we made. That is available visa vi our public checkbook because our public demands that level of transparency and accountability on our behalf. That argument with regard to broadband is a false argument. It’s a straw man. It’s a nice sound byte but it doesn’t actually show up in any everyday life in our communities.

Take Chattanooga, for instance. Not only have they found a really powerful public use for the expansion of broadband and now they’re the one gig city, but they’ve also found an economic sort of edge that puts them and sets them apart from other communities because of the kind of rapidness of internet speeds that you can get as a business or a consumer or an everyday citizen. Like Chattanooga, we own and operate our own electric utility system. There are tons of efficiencies that we could gain through a smart grid system that gives our customers real time data, real information, assuming we were able to have a ubiquitous presence with regards to internet and high speed internet access.

But Florida law precludes us from doing that. Now to whose interest is that? I mean who does it benefit to keep local governments from being able to respond to the needs of their citizens as expressed through the will of their democratic vote but also through what we get to hear from them on a pretty everyday, robust feedback system at our city halls and in our email inboxes and on the telephone. Folks are on a best about telling us how they feel and I’ll tell ya, I consistently get comments from businesses and from individuals and from college students predominantly, saying man why don’t we have this? Why can’t we get that? Can you get Google fiber here? Can you do this? Can you expand this?

And at one point, we were able to be responsive to that and now that legislature has done a carve out excluding us from being able to make any investments in that space to the greater good. And so I think it’s very harmful and I think it also impedes the competitive advantages of local government that are increasingly trying to find ways to distinguish themselves, not only from the competitiveness of growing new business and industry, but also for our ability to attract and retain the kind of talent that we need to fill the pipe line for jobs that we want to create. The impacts are pretty significant for us and the legislature was clear about what it wanted to accomplish and I would maintain that what they were accomplishing was not in the interest of the everyday citizen but in the special interest of folks who pay lots of money to have sway over the process.

Nick Stumo-Langer: I think that’s a great point. So I know that we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but this is a useful buzzword I think for our listeners to hear. Can you just define ‘super preemption’ and what this means. Maybe kind of what the state legislature … Why this is a new problem.
Andrew Gillum: The courts have maintained that states do have the ability to carve out territory for themselves, also known as preemption. But what we have seen now and what we have referred to as this sort of preemption 2.0 the draconian version, is now that they have taken aim at individual elected officials. Removing from elected officials and indemnification or immunity for decisions that they make in their capacities as elected officials.

Take for instance if we were voting on a seatbelt law, and I had decided that I was going to vote against mandating seat belts and someone got in an accident and were hurt because they didn’t wear a seatbelt. You couldn’t come back and then sue me for voting against the seatbelt law simply because there was an accident and someone got hurt in. For me making a decision at my capacity as an elected official, I have immunity over that. Could you imagine if the new terrain became based on how you vote on a particular issue and its impact on a community you can be personally sued for those decisions. I mean it would have a complete chilling effect on elected officials and frankly our democracy as we know it.

So this is an important line that’s been moved by these lawmakers. Frankly we have not seen yet a strong enough constitutional challenge to force judges to answer this question as to whether or not that is legally acceptable. So the super form takes aim directly at electives but I would include in that another very punitive aspect is where you hear the president and others talking about penalizing cities that have declared themselves sanctuaries of taking federal money and withholding federal money for housing programs and homelessness programs and food safety and security programs because of a political difference. That’s unreasonable and it is extremely punitive to citizens.

Chris Mitchell: I would say it’s not actually only unreasonable, it’s particularly unwise because you look at Los Angeles where there’s this discussion about if they were to lose funding are we gonna not have security at the docks where we’re importing goods? I mean … It’s just a threat that has been made before. Anyone that’s actually contemplated the consequences of it. But I want to with our five minutes left, I want to make sure we just touch on what people can actually do. So you can certainly follow defend local solutions on social media. You know, I see you guys are active on Twitter but what really can be done to make sure that we’re correcting this problem?
Andrew Gillum: Well one, I do want to emphasize folks is following us and joining us at defendlocal.com where you can find a great collection of resources. Stay up on the latest news on some of these fights that are happening all across the country. Sharing those stories out because I really do believe that the most powerful instrument here is changing public will. If the public knew exactly what was at stake in some of these preemption fights, it would make their heads spin. I think legislators largely get away with it because it feels like inside a baseball but the impacts of these decisions are real and they’re felt everyday in communities.

But what we’re trying to do is we’re not just trying to be an aggregator of information, but we’re trying to help local elected officials find their voice so that they can be stronger advocates for what local governments and local communities need to build a strong enough and robust enough fight back mechanism so that our folks know that they’re not dealing with this thing in isolation. But that this seems to be a real plan coming together in cities and states all across the country that are stripping power from local governments.

We’re also hoping that through our work we’ll be able to find stronger legal ground to fight this fight. In Ohio, we found that off of the merit of the local charter that was grounds enough to push back on the state legislator’s overreach into decision making that belonged squarely with the local government and not in the hands of the state. That’s an important legal argument that maybe it can be asserted in other counties and cities that also have strong charters that carve out space for local governments to have a real ground to fight on.

I would say we’re trying to increase the level of communications and discussion and conversation about this really important public topic. That this is not just about local governments and state governments fighting for more control. That to the extent that we’re fighting at the local level is to increase the ability and maintain the ability for local governments to choose and decide for themselves what’s in the best interest of their own communities. That’s not part of an issue, I think it’s simply a question of division of power and our ability to make sure that our communities can be treated when distinct and unique that we’re able to have laws and rules and governments that reflect the uniqueness of our communities. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be floors, there absolutely should be floors.

But preventing us from looking our for the best interests of citizens to do the bidding of powerful money well healed and local interest, is not going to serve the public well and that’s why we need the voices of local governments, local officials, local citizens, speaking up and speaking out.

Chris Mitchell: Mayor Gillum, can I ask you one last question. It’s our easiest question and that’s, if you can recommend a recent article that you’ve read that you think is interesting, whether it’s on this topic or another, or a favorite book. We always just like to recommend something for folks to check out.
Andrew Gillum: One piece that I found was particularly striking to my constancy, was the “We Are All Newtown” web series that was done. I believe we may have access to the resource for that on our campaign to defend local. I’ve gotten really close to a number of the folks who shot and supported the Newtown documentary that was done but there’s a good reading about that and also access to the documentary that was done on PBS that folks can get access to. I highly recommend it.
Chris Mitchell: All right. Well thank you so much for your time Mayor Andrew Gillum and for spearheading this campaign to make sure that we can restore local authority.
Andrew Gillum: Absolutely. And thank you all for your interest in the subject.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Mayor Andrew Gillum from Tallahassee, Florida joining Christopher Mitchell and Nick Stumo-Langer for Episode 17 of the Building Local Power podcast. Nick is our Communications Manager and Christopher heads up the Community of Broadband Networks Initiative. Remember to check out defendlocal.com to learn more about the campaign to defend local solutions.

We also encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else gets your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org. Thanks to dysfunction Al for the music license to creative comments. The song is “Funk Interlude.”

I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to Episode 17 of the Building Local Power podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[20] Building Local Power on iTunes[21] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[22]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[23]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[24] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[25] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[26] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[27] and Facebook[28] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[29] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-11-blp017-mayor-gillum-preemption.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-11-blp017-mayor-gillum-preemption.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Andrew Gillum: http://www.talgov.com/cityleadership/gillum.aspx
  7. Campaign to Defend Local Solutions: http://defendlocal.com/
  8. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/chrism/
  9. Nick Stumo-Langer: https://ilsr.org/author/nick/
  10. website: http://defendlocal.com/
  11. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DefendLocal/
  12. Twitter: https://twitter.com/DefendLocal
  13. set of resources: http://defendlocal.com/resources/
  14. different partners: http://defendlocal.com/partners/
  15. Mayor Andrew Gillum: http://www.talgov.com/cityleadership/gillum.aspx
  16. Preemption, Local Authority, & Municipal Broadband (Episode 10): https://ilsr.org/preemption-episode-10-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  17. Who Decides?: https://ilsr.org/decides/
  18. The Public Good Newsfeed – September 9, 2016: Trophy Hunting, Racist School Closings, and more…: https://ilsr.org/the-public-good-newsfeed-september-9-2016-trophy-hunting-racist-school-closings-and-more/
  19. [Image]: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/newtown/
  20. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  21. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  22. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  23. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  24. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  25. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  26. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  27. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  28. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  29. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/defend-local-solutions-episode-17-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Press Release: Walmart’s Climate Pollution Grows as It Scales Back Renewable Power

by Nick Stumo-Langer | April 19, 2017 5:06 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday April 19th, 2017

CONTACT: Nick Stumo-Langer, stumolanger@ilsr.org[1], 612-844-1330

Walmart’s Climate Pollution Grows as It Scales Back Renewable Power

More than a decade after Walmart pledged to become an environmental leader, the company’s climate emissions continue to rise, according to data released today by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR).

ILSR found that Walmart has scaled back its renewable power projects in the U.S. The amount of renewable energy the company derives from its clean energy projects and special purchases fell by 16% since 2013.

Walmart derives only 2.4% of the electricity it uses in the U.S. from its own renewable energy projects, down from nearly 3.2% in 2013. Meanwhile, Walmart’s greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. have risen 2% since 2013.

For its analysis, ILSR relied on data submitted by Walmart to CDP (formerly the Climate Disclosure Project).

“While other national retailers and many small businesses are generating a sizable share of their power from clean sources, Walmart has made very little progress, especially in the last few years,” said Stacy Mitchell, ILSR’s co-director.

The figures released today update data that ILSR published in two in-depth reports on Walmart’s environmental impact: Walmart’s Dirty Energy Secret[2] (2014) and Walmart’s Assault on the Climate[3] (2013).

 

 

[4]Cover Image: Walmart Climate Report[5]

 

 

 


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The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a 42-year-old national nonprofit research and educational organization. ILSR’s mission is to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support strong, community rooted, environmentally sound and equitable local economies. www.ilsr.org[6] – Email stumolanger@ilsr.org[7] for press inquiries.

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Endnotes:
  1. stumolanger@ilsr.org: mailto:stumolanger@ilsr.org
  2. Walmart’s Dirty Energy Secret: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-dirty-energy-secret-release/
  3. Walmart’s Assault on the Climate: https://ilsr.org/walmart-climate/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ILSR_WalmartCoal_Final.pdf
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ILSR_WalmartCoal_Final.pdf
  6. www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org/
  7. stumolanger@ilsr.org: mailto:stumolanger@ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/press-release-walmart-climate-2017/


NSR Master Composter Course in Baltimore

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | April 19, 2017 3:45 pm

In October and November of 2016, ILSR’s Composting for Community Initiative[1] replicated its Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders (NSR) Master Composter course in Baltimore at Civic Works’ Real Food Farm[2]. Real Food Farm grows fresh produce on 8 acres in and around the Clifton Park neighborhood in northeast Baltimore, serving 2 nearby food deserts. Before the course, ILSR built Real Food Farm a 5-bin rat-resistant composting system, which was central to the hands-on instruction during the six-week NSR course. After the course, ILSR helped the farm’s compost project managers design a new food scrap drop-off program, which provides the backbone for the cooperative management structure they have successfully implemented. As a result, Real Food Farm is poised to serve as a model for other urban farms in Baltimore and beyond, as well as a training site to spawn additional local community composting projects. As a train-the-trainer course, the NSR builds leadership capacity and increases the pool of local compost advocates and experts — In Baltimore, that is already leading to more community-based composting sites being planned and implemented.

Photo courtesy of Urban Farm Plans

Partners for the course included Civic Works’ Real Food Farm (where we conducted the training and have established a composting system), ECO City Farms[3] (a training partner), and Urban Farm Plans[4] (the builder of the new composting system at Real Food Farm). There were 14 participants in the course that represented a diverse segment of the urban farming movement of Baltimore: 1 zero waste consultant; 1 university professor; the Baltimore City Farms Program[5] coordinator for the City’s Department of Recreation & Parks; 3 AmeriCorps volunteers; 3 international fellows; and 6 other individuals that either directly work at area urban farms (Real Food Farm, Strength to Love II, ECO City Farms) or work with organizations that support this work (Civic Works[6] and the Farm Alliance of Baltimore[7]). The course itself provided a critical opportunity for leaders in the urban farming movement to come together and collaborate, particularly to complete the “capstone” project requirement.

Inspired by our NSR program replication in Atlanta, we developed a replicable Social Justice module for the Baltimore NSR. The module was co-led by Nadine Bloch (Beautiful Trouble[8]), Linda Bilsens (ILSR), Myeasha Taylor (Civic Works), Sophia Hosain (Real Food Farm Americorp service member), and Sache Jones (Farm Alliance of Baltimore). We also invited a graduate of our NSR course, Xavier Brown of Soilful City[9], to share how composting is helping him empower his Southeast DC community through establishing gardens and skill-sharing. 

NSR course participants practice building compost piles in RFF’s new system

Well-run demonstration sites are to people’s understanding of what good compost is and how it is made. For a demonstration site, ILSR advocates, for instance, for rat-resistant systems, planning the full system (i.e., carbon storage, feedstock handling, signage, record-keeping, curing area, screener, etc.), and evaluating grade for where to place system (drain away from edible plants). Real Food Farm is on its way to being just such a site. On December 18th, 2016 Real Food Farm held its first Compost Co-op training where members of the community came to learn about the new food scrap drop-off system. The Co-op is now up to 50 members and is also composting food scraps collected by Compost Cab[10]. Find out more about their Compost Co-op here[11].

 

Urban Farming in Baltimore: The City of Baltimore is dedicated to establishing itself as a leader in sustainable local food systems by encouraging urban farming. The City already boasts a number of farms, both for- and non-profit, and has various programs[12] in place to support local farmers. But, as is true in most old industrial cities, soil contamination is a reality[13] that must be managed to mitigate impacts on human health. The good news is that the City is also promoting simple soil best management practices[14], including amending soils with compost, that can be followed to help minimize risk factors associated with lead and other common pollutants.

Among the many benefits of composting and compost use[15] are those involving the soil[16]. Compost has the ability to filter out 60-95% of pollutants from stormwater and can immobilize and degrade contaminants already in the soil. ILSR is proud to help support the City’s healthy food growing goals by bring our NSR Master Composter training course to the Baltimore community. ILSR recently completed a report on recycling in Baltimore[17] to inform city agencies, City Council and Mayor’s Office about the immediate opportunities for increased recycling and its potential economic impact on the city. We are also working with the Baltimore Office of Sustainability to draft an Organics Recycling Strategy, which should be released in the coming weeks.

NSR participants pose after a successful bin building workshop

 

NSR Course Requirements: The Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders’ Master Composter course has four main requirements: attendance of all classes; implementation of a capstone project; completion of 30 hours of supported community composting service; and tracking and sharing community service hours and work completed. Participants will have six months from the last class (ending May 18th, 2017) to complete the capstone project and community service components.

For the capstone project component, participants will support or initiate a community composting project based on their interests and the needs of the community they are serving. Participants are encouraged to collaborate on supporting an existing community composting project (such as Real Food Farms[18], Filbert Street Garden[19], and other Baltimore Farm Alliance[20] member farms). Other potential projects might include building and managing compost bins at community gardens, schools, churches, or compost demonstration sites. In addition, participants will provide NSR staff with brief monthly progress updates throughout the six-month, post-class period.

For the community service component, participants will be expected to log 30 hours of community composting service. Half of these hours will be spent providing hands-on composting support to a community in need. Upon successful completion of the course requirements, participants will be eligible for receipt of a Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders’ Master Composter certificate and will be qualified to apply to future Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Advanced Master Composter train-the-trainer apprenticeships.

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Composting for Community Initiative: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting/
  2. Real Food Farm: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/get-involved/compost/
  3. ECO City Farms: http://www.ecoffshoots.org
  4. Urban Farm Plans: http://www.urbanfarmplans.com
  5. Baltimore City Farms Program: http://bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/special-programs/farms
  6. Civic Works: https://civicworks.com
  7. Farm Alliance of Baltimore: http://www.farmalliancebaltimore.org/farms/
  8. Beautiful Trouble: http://beautifultrouble.org/trainer/nadine-bloch/
  9. Soilful City: https://soilfulcity.com
  10. Compost Cab: http://compostcab.com
  11. here: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/get-involved/compost/
  12. various programs: http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/projects/baltimore-food-policy-initiative/homegrown-baltimore/urban-agriculture-2/
  13. soil contamination is a reality: https://ilsr.org/composting-will-help-flint-recover-from-its-water-crisis/
  14. simple soil best management practices: http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/CoB-Soil-Safety-Policy.doc
  15. benefits of composting and compost use: https://ilsr.org/benefits-composting-compost/
  16. the soil: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Compost-Day-2.jpg
  17. report on recycling in Baltimore: https://ilsr.org/report-baltimore-recycle/
  18. Real Food Farms: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com
  19. Filbert Street Garden: http://www.farmalliancebaltimore.org/farmer-spotlight-rodette-jones/
  20. Baltimore Farm Alliance: http://www.farmalliancebaltimore.org/farms/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/nsr-master-composter-course-bmore-fall-2016/


Small Banks, Big Benefits (Episode 16)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | April 13, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode sixteen of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative and Stacy Mitchell, the co-director of ILSR and director of ILSR’s Community-Scaled Economies initiative interview Building Local Power’s first guest outside of ILSR. Our guest this week is Justin Dahlheimer[6], the President of the First National Bank of Osakis[7] in west-central Minnesota. The trio discuss the benefits of community banking and how banks that have a vested stake in their community lend in ways that increase the vitality of communities like Osakis.

“We’ve got a stake in every customer’s personal financial livelihood. It should be that way. It’s embedded transparency. It’s accountability,” says Justin Dahlheimer[6] of the relationship community banks have with the people that they serve. “We want to weather the community risk and be able to charge off loans, not come back after customers and ruin financial lives and move on to the next thing… [We want to] work together and leverage dollars to bring more wealth into the community versus just recirculating or poaching wealth from other banks. We want to create that wealth.”

Get caught up with the latest in our community banking work by exploring the resources below:

Top 5 Reasons to Choose a Community Bank or Credit Union[8]

Tools for Starting a Local Move Your Money Campaign[9]

Public Banks: Bank of North Dakota[10]

From our guest, Justin Dahlheimer[6]:

 

[11]
Check out all of Justin’s “Financial Literacy Series” on the First National Bank of Osakis’ Blog: https://fnbosakis.com/investing-in-you/[12].

From Chris Mitchell:

[13]
A detailed deep dive into the state of banking for Americans from Mehrsa Baradaran, titled “How the Other Half Banks[14].” Available from Harvard University Press, here: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286061[15].
Chris Mitchell: Hey, Stacy, what’s happening with community banks around the country?
Stacy Mitchell: Well, in 2010 the U.S. was home to about 7,000 small locally owned banks. Today we’re home to about 5,000, so a pretty dramatic drop in just 7 years.
Chris Mitchell: Yeah. I would assume that we haven’t lost a lot of need for local banks. Today we brought in the president of First National Bank of Osakis, Justin Dahlheimer. Welcome to the show.
Justin Dahlheimer: Well, thanks for having me on.
Chris Mitchell: Stacy, do you remember this voice?
Stacy Mitchell: I do. Justin used to work for us.
Chris Mitchell: Right. Founder David Morris said that if we were going to have you on the show we had to remind people that you did the mapping that really put our North Dakota pharmacy map over the top, and actually is back in the news again. The report that showed that North Dakota’s local pharmacy law really has led to superior coverage and access for people in North Dakota. Welcome back.
Justin Dahlheimer: Thanks. I have been kind of keeping abreast to that issue and all the things that we did look at here. I tune in every time I see the North Dakota pharmacy law come under fire, and I’m always pleased to see your guys’ research. It seems to never die. It’s a good thing for pharmacies, and I was really proud of the work I did here and really proud of the relationships I made. Glad to be back.
Chris Mitchell: Well, we’re thrilled to have you back. For people who have listened to Building Local Power before, you probably recognize Stacy Mitchell, the person who runs our independent business work. I’m Chris Mitchell, the guy who does a lot of the broadband work around here. Actually, I should say I run the broadband program. I take credit for all the work and I don’t do most of it.

I think we wanted to talk about what’s happening with local banks. Justin, I wonder if you could just start by talking about what a local bank is. You had noted when we talked previously that you have a lot of experiences and have a real good sense of what’s happening but some of the stuff we’re talking about might be more specific to more rural or non-metro community banks.

Justin Dahlheimer: Yes, and that’s exactly where I come from. We’re a small community northwest of the Twin Cities about 120 miles in a population about 1,700 people. A local bank is very much the livelihood of that community. We’ve been around since 1903. That’s a lot of economic cycles that you rely on financial institutions to keep everything steady and to keep these small communities on the map and to keep reinvesting dollars into them. That is what we believe community banks should be in the independent community banking world and why we feel very passionate about the range of products and the range of roles that we have to play. I think there’s a stark difference between the ways a lot of these rural community banks are operating for their communities and the way banks and financial institutions are operating in the urban environments.
Stacy Mitchell: Clearly the context that you’re operating in is a bit different from a city, but it’s also true that urban areas have a lot of great community banks and credit unions. It’s a different environment but equally vital in those neighborhoods, wouldn’t you say?
Justin Dahlheimer: Yes, I would agree. We like to look at our role as community bankers and the amount of hats that we wear and organizations we touch on a daily basis. The same happens in these urban areas and the ideal of knowing our customers and having a long vested relationship with them and the stake of their business or them as just their families. Where they’re headed on their financial journey matters whether that’s in a city, small or big, and they can equally play a large role. I just feel management’s relationship to their customers in the locality is very important.
Chris Mitchell: Yeah. I think one of the reasons I just brought up that dichotomy was to get a sense of, I think, there’s a continuum of banking. On one side are the giant fee-driven banks that, I think, crushed our economy 10 years ago. On the other end are very small local community banks. I just wanted to make sure that our listeners know that although Justin has experience with all kinds of local banks, I think we’ll be talking about your perspective largely coming from one of a smaller community bank.
Stacy Mitchell: Before we got together to do this episode, I went to the FDIC’s website and I pulled up the balance sheet for your bank, basically your financial … Where are all your bank’s money is going and what it’s going to be used for. I did the same for Bank of America, which of course one of the largest banks in the country. I think they have about $2 trillion in assets and they’re enormous. What’s really striking is I think a lot of people think that local banks are just smaller versions of big banks, but when you look at the numbers it’s two completely different businesses. The one that really jumped off the page to me is when you look at Bank of America, they have just 2% of their assets going to small business and farm loans. When I look at First National Bank of Osakis, it’s 23% of your loans going to small businesses and farms. That’s a really dramatic difference. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your role in the local economy and why that difference is so stark.
Justin Dahlheimer: On the micro level that we … In our balance sheet it looks at loan volume and loan size. That’s really what it comes down to is loans are costly to put on. When you’re a large bank like Bank of America and you’re in a volume-driven world, you’re going to gravitate towards those larger loans because the costs advantages, the ability to offer a lower rate, and just in general the overhead is lower.

For small community banks that are doing small loans like we are; under $100,000 for the most part, even under $50,000 on mortgages, the time invested in those relationships it’s not cost effective for Bank of America to build a business model on that and provide value to its shareholders, whereas for us it’s a necessity. We have to do those loans. It’s vital for our community and our market share. We’re going to spend our time doing those things and spend our relationships with very small loans versus you could talk to a Bank of America customer who probably has a line of credit unsecured that’s $75,000 to $100,000. I would say I put on more mortgages for $75,000 to $100,000 in the last 3 months than I would ever put on unsecured. My board would be a little concerned if I was putting on unsecured loans for $75,000 to $100,000 with the customer base that we have. It’s at that level you’re building those businesses and keeping them in your communities, and that’s where we have to be.

On the other side there’s the rate difference. When you try to have a discussion and negotiation, Bank of America stated rates in the Wall Street Journal are going to be a lot lower because they’re dealing with large loan customers, large companies. We’re dealing with small customers, smaller scale relationships, and we’ll have a little bit higher rate. On a nominal level it’s obviously much less in interest they’re paying. It becomes that discussion to the general public, why are small community banks charging a higher rate. Well, the scale is a very misleading factor and it becomes too simple, I guess, to report the rates for each institution and not consider the fact that there’s a lot of costs that goes into these relationships.

Chris Mitchell: Well, one of the things that I’m always interested in is this idea of a fee-driven bank. I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about the difference in business model between a bank like yours and what we think of as a fee-driven bank like a Wells Fargo or Bank of America.
Justin Dahlheimer: Yeah. I think the best way to sum that up is banking in a sense has become a commodity-driven industry. The mortgage and products we offer … They want that marketing scheme to make it look as a transactional relationship. You’re going to go out to get a mortgage like you’re going to go out to get a loaf of bread. Everybody’s going to compare their costs, and you’re going to buy the cheapest one.

Well, going back to the financial meltdown and the mortgage crisis, a lot of people assumed that every mortgage was the same. Well, it’s not the same and that’s why Dodd-Frank came [in vogue 00:08:27] and that’s why a lot of the regulation came was to weed out what different mortgages really cost. When you’re in the business of making a lot of loans and keeping rates low, you’re going to have to make money somewhere, and it’s going to be on the fee side and that’s where the large banks lived. It was putting fees into their contracts, into their mortgages, into their lending relationships, deposit relationships to pay for the overhead to do these types of loans versus a bank that has a long lasting relationship with a customer that has a deposit account that has been there since they were a child. The products become a relationship based where you’re going to price into that relationship more on the rate side because it’s an ongoing relationship versus the large banks, which are trying to securitize these mortgages and sell them off the investors. They’re not holding them locally on their balance sheets and to do that they’ve got to get to the lowest cost point but they’ve got to make money to keep in the doors. The more they can do, the more money they can make, and they’re going to do that on the fee side.

I actually was curious on this topic. The way I look at it as a banker is on my gross income for the year; how much is coming, what percentage is coming from non-interest income, which is fees, and what percentage is coming from interest income. I tend to look at things in our industry as small maybe being $1 billion versus the legislation says a $10 billion bank is a small bank. I would say under $1 billion. Banks under $1 billion, as a percentage of total income have 16.5%. Banks over $1 billion are at 21%, 5-6% more of their income is coming from fees. We’re charging less fees but a marginally higher interest rate. We feel that is a better way to price a relationship. We’re saving them money on the cost side.

Chris Mitchell: I know Stacy wanted to jump in but I also wanted to say I’m willing to bet that you have not lost any of your customers’ paperwork and foreclosed on them because of your mistakes. Stacy, what did you want to add?
Stacy Mitchell: There was something that really struck me about what you just said, Justin, which is the different motivations for big banks versus local banks. Essentially if the big banks have this fee model, they want to make money on the fees and the churn and so every mortgage they do they get fees, every mortgage they securitize they get fees, and then they sell it off and they have nothing else to do with it. Every loan and so on, they just want to collect those fees. They want to open checking accounts. They charge higher fees typically on checking accounts.

When you talk about your bank, what you’re saying is we want to make money on the interest, meaning that we want to have customers who are able to pay back their loans. We’re going to have a long term relationship with them because over time as they pay back those loans we’re going to make money on the interest. It’s really striking because that essentially means that your bank can’t be profitable and do well unless your customers are doing well. Whereas a big bank, and we saw this spectacularly in the financial crisis, they can collect all those fees and blow up the economy and their customers can lose their homes and have every bad thing happen to them financially and the banks are still fine because they’re not tied to those customers anymore. Whereas you have this very connected relationship to your customers’ well-being. I imagine, especially being in a small community, if the town is doing well you’re doing well, and if the town is doing badly you’re doing badly.

Justin Dahlheimer: Exactly. We’ve got a stake in every customer’s personal financial livelihood. It should be that way. It’s embedded transparency. It’s accountability. Like you said, Stacy, the bank’s doing well when the community’s doing well and vice versus. It’s a duty, I think, as a local financial institution to be forward looking enough to price into your business model the fact that we do have economic cycles. We want to weather the community risk and be able to charge off loans, not come back after customers and ruin financial lives and move on to the next thing that the community needs to happen and have those ongoing relationships with community leaders to motivate local resources to do good things for the community and work together and leverage dollars to bring more wealth into the community versus just recirculating or poaching wealth from other banks. We want to create that wealth.

I think that comes from having a stake in the game. I think that’s why the interest margin and that profit focus has always been a much more trustworthy relationship but large marketing and misleading fees and what you can control of what the customer sees can make that … Big banks say we just charge lower rates. It’s compelling but it’s on us as a small financial institution, a small community bank to change that discussion by educating our customer base and marketing based on education and put a real focus on financial literacy. I think that is where our industry is really failing. That’s an opportunity for us to really get into schools, get into households, and educate because it’s not being done properly.

Chris Mitchell: I asked my wife, who worked for a local bank out of Walker and one of the regional … It had 5 branches and she worked for one of the branch banks about her experiences. Her eyes almost lit up talking about the manager who she said just did everything she could for the community. She said something that I just thought was amazing, I’d never considered before and that’s that they made these loans of $100, $200 to people to help them to build up credit so that they could get experience borrowing and the bank would have an experience knowing that they would pay them off. I’m willing to bet that Bank of America has zero loans for $100.
Justin Dahlheimer: It’s all credit card based in the big companies. They’ll give you a credit card and some would say with a pulse and now it’s up to you to sink or swim, rather than structuring transactions with cash flows, doing the prudent underwriting at a micro level that they feel is not worth their time because of the cost effectiveness of it versus a community bank which has a duty as a financial educator to do these sorts of things and to build strong financial wherewithal.
Stacy Mitchell: I guess going back to the statistic that I mentioned at the start of the episode about the decline in the number of community banks, a lot of them are being bought up or merged into bigger banks. I’m curious, Justin, about what the pressures are there for local banks to do that and what your sense of why we’re losing so many local banks despite how important they are to communities, to local economies, and to job creation.
Justin Dahlheimer: I dwell on this often because I’m periodically in a room full of bankers, and the first thing that they complain about is regulation. It’s important to understand that the Dodd-Frank laws, while I believe a lot of that regulation was necessary, the scale of that regulation was to include banks that very much are living with the accountability I just discussed. We live with our business relationships on our sleeves, so the added regulation of showing our work is almost blasphemy to this group of banking and bankers that have been around for hundreds of years in family generational banks or independent banks. They lose the optimism. We have to go through regulatory exams. We’ve always had too. Now they’re adding layers of regulation and another regulatory body, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which I do feel does good work and they’re in the right areas but sometimes they creep into areas and include small banks into things that they doing need to be doing.

A good example is the Civil Service Member Relief Act, where we have to pull a report on any consumer customer to verify they’re not in the active military. I could have somebody I went to high school, somebody I know very well, maybe my next door neighbor come in and if I don’t pull a report verifying that I looked that he’s not an active military member, I will be written up and could face a violation. That is ridiculous, in my opinion. Should it be done in certain communities, in certain localities, and with certain scale of banks and did they abuse it? I bet they did, but for us it’s tiring and when you add more and more regulation like that that includes us small independent banks that we’re very much not the problem, board rooms get exhausted, strategies get co-opted, and they feel the pressure to sell because they just don’t feel the liability and the profits that are being siphoned off for regulation is worth it.

A good example of how much regulatory cost is I’ve seen surveys out there that say banks are facing 5 to 8% more in regulatory costs. Our bank alone, I did this math off our budget last year, 20% more of our net income I think is gone due to increased regulation. That’s a large figure to explain to a board. Then we have to make up for that in other areas and trying to get into niche lending, which I think you’re confining yourself to more of a type of loan that makes you more susceptible to economic turns and even more so you get into the fact that a lot of our products are being co-opted out of us so we’re less diversified in our portfolios than we’ve ever been because the regulation is forcing those products to bigger banks that have more economies of scale.

Chris Mitchell: It seems like the other half of the equation is that it’s harder than ever to create a new local bank and community bank. Stacy, you probably have a statistic on this in terms of how many new banks there are.
Stacy Mitchell: I think we’ve only had one new bank approved in the last 5 or 6 years and that’s it. It’s a striking change because before that we would see banks close every year, a local bank, or merge into bigger banks but we would also see lots of new banks started. That made up for a certain amount of the losses. After the financial crisis, regulators just essentially stopped approving new banks. I think the low interest rate environment has also made it less attractive or harder to start a local bank than it used to be, but there’s clearly something going on with regulators not allowing new banks to form as well.
Justin Dahlheimer: Exactly. You’re seeing less all-inclusive local community banks the way I described my bank than you would see from a new bank perspective. They’re going to be more targeted in industries and niches that serve a common purpose. For example, financial tech companies looking for banking charters eventually because they have great software products that make a certain type of banking more convenient. That’s probably where you’ll see more new charters in the future, and it’s not going to be doing community style banking where they’re rolling up their sleeves and doing the necessary things from a short term and long term perspective for the community and for the consumers that they do business with.
Chris Mitchell: One of the reasons that we invited you to the show actually comes from you commented on our Facebook page. This is about that tension between credit unions and banks. I think someone was basically saying everyone should go to a credit union and you responded that you need to recognize that local banks are incredibly important and that credit unions are part of the ecosystem but shouldn’t be the only option. Can you talk a little bit about that tension between the banks, particularly smaller banks, and credit unions?
Justin Dahlheimer: Credit unions have morphed into a world that looks a lot like the large bank, the Wall Street bank that we as independent community bankers don’t like. Even worse, they don’t have to pay taxes the way we do. They have a lot of money to divert into lobbying to expand their market areas and to expand their customer base in ways that weren’t originally intended. It’s another moving part that we’re competing against that isn’t dealing with the same factors but yet they have the perception that they’re populists on those large credit union waves, that they’re for the people, that they’re owned by the people.
Chris Mitchell: Right. If I could just break in for a second, if I’m understanding correctly, there’s some credit unions, I think, that are getting very big and aggressive but not all credit unions necessarily.
Justin Dahlheimer: Exactly. I think most bankers would say as originally intended, those credit unions dealing with common affiliations, unions, trade associations, even the military, they do great things. They’re dealing with under banked folks and they’re leveraging community dollars in those types of communities to help do great things. Those are great credit unions.

The ones that are operating like large banks are the ones that are giving credit unions a bad name and are the ones that are really causing the local community banks, which in my opinion my community bank operates a lot like the way credit union is intended. Everybody who’s a customer of my bank is somebody from my local community. They have a common affiliation. We’re in a lot of ways like the original credit unions were intended, but as we get nameless and faceless and we get more profit motivated and more scheme motivated the legislation has allowed the large credit unions into areas like commercial lending where they don’t have, number one, the expertise and, number two, the jurisdiction. They’re not intended to be there. They’re only there because it drives more profit for them to in some ways give back to their members but now their members are probably more vague than you and I. We have more in common than probably a lot of the credit union members in the large credit unions.

That is the issue that drives us. We started things with a fee-based motivation or an interest or long term relationship based, those statistics that I cited on percentage of gross income coming from non-interest income, credit unions beat banks far and ahead. The large credit unions have 30% of their gross income coming from fees. My small bank that I work for is 3.5% of our gross income comes from fees. That’s a commodity-based relationship.

Stacy Mitchell: It’s really interesting what you just said because it speaks to something that comes up all the time in our work here at ILSR, which is that scale really matters. When you’re talking about these giant credit unions that now span multiple states or in some cases even are national, ostensibly they’re customer owned but at that scale they’re not really … It’s not really a democratic institution. They’re not connected to place and community. They don’t have the kinds of relationships that a local financial institution has. In the same way we’re talking about the difference between a local bank versus a big bank, it’s the same idea with credit unions and just because they have this different, in theory, this different ownership structure doesn’t necessarily make them any different because that scale is so huge and they are disconnected from place.
Justin Dahlheimer: I think geography really matters on how legislation is crafted and how regulation applies. The closer geography you have to your customer base, the more accountable you are, and I think that credit unions, banks, all of the above should operate under that mantra. As the general industry gets independent community bankers angry is the fact that we’re painted with the brush of a financial crisis that we very much have nothing to do with. Whether I know the causes of that financial crisis or not, I know it came from the fact that they allow the bigger to get bigger without a lot of control and yet the lobbying includes the smaller into those legislative discussions because they know they have economies of scale. If they’re going to get more regulation, we’re going to get more regulation, and it’s going to hurt us disproportionately more.
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah. It’s really interesting this point about geography and also I’m thinking back to what you said about the regulations that you’re entangled with and how difficult that makes it to operate now. Its striking, back from the ’20s and ’30s all the way until the big changes in banking law in the 1990s, we used to have these laws in place that said you have to stick close to your community. You can’t just spread all across the country. You have to have a geographic focus to what you’re doing and really be rooted in place. We limited the ability of banks to grow big by just spanning the country.

We also limited the ability of banks to mingle different kinds of businesses, so if you were a commercial bank with FDIC insurance, that is the government taxpayers were protecting your deposits, you couldn’t engage in like Wall Street gambling. You couldn’t do all of the securities trading that you see big banks doing now. We had this strict separation, so if you want to be an investment bank and do Wall Street stuff, great but you’re not going to have an insured deposits. If you want to be a commercial bank, then you can’t be messing in that kind of stuff.

Those two policies really kept banks much more regional or local in their focus, much safer over the long term, but the other great thing about that structural approach is that we then didn’t have to write all these nitty gritty rules governing every little bit behavior because we just kept created the right kind of structure to align banks with their communities. Obviously we had some consumer protections. We need those kinds of things, but we didn’t have to have just this crazy mass of rules because we weren’t trying to govern these really institutions in the case of Bank of America, Wells Fargo that have become so big and complicated that they’re really ungovernable. It seems to me when we talk about regulation that part of the problem is it’s not more or less regulation, it’s smart regulation is the issue.

Justin Dahlheimer: I think it’s more a human focus on a banking a relationship. I will go back to that periodically but that is really what we’re doing now to combat our larger competition is we’re breaking down that wall of what a banker is. It’s not that mean person who caused the financial crisis. It’s that person that is involved in city council, a firefighter, a coach that you know, somebody you can trust.
Chris Mitchell: To be clear, I think you’re most of those things but if you’re also a firefighter I’m very impressed.
Justin Dahlheimer: I am. Yeah, volunteer firefighter.
Chris Mitchell: Oh, wow. You’re all of those things. That’s very impressive. You’ve been busier than I have since you left.
Justin Dahlheimer: Small community, got to wear many hat. That’s something that we should publicize as a banking community because I know a lot of community bankers who do just as many interesting things. If we can get into kids’ minds that that matters and that’s more trustworthy because you know more about that person, it’ll pay long term dividends, and that’s what we’re in the business for, being there in 10 to 20 plus years to see the rewards and them doing well financially so our community is.
Chris Mitchell: You said you wanted to end with a message of hope. I actually wanted to prompt perhaps a different message of hope and then you can sure your other one but that is you came from a county that voted heavily for Trump. In describing it, you’re someone everyone knows you’re not a Trump supporter, that you’re not a Republican but it sounds like you bring a message that rural America still gets along even among different political perspectives.
Justin Dahlheimer: I think geography matters, Chris. I think when it comes down to discretion, no matter what you are; blue, red, or purple, being able to have a stake in the decisions that matter in your community matter to just everybody who lives there. We can unite on that and on that level make change happen that is good for the community. That’s what we focus on and that’s what I’ve focused on in our community. We want to bring people together and realize that we may not line up on all these other issues that the national media wants us to that galvanized the social issues but living next to one another has always mattered a lot and will continue to, and we’ll continue to fight for that.

The other hopeful message is I just feel community banks, in general, have a nice opportunity to drive financial literacy and to do very interesting things to build trust in their communities, they just have to focus on that aspect of it and have the wherewithal that they’ve had for over a hundred years to be there and be the consistent presence. These other banks and these other institutions will be in and out. If we stay invested truly in our customers we’ll be there and be profitable.

Chris Mitchell: Great. I just wanted to say as we do wrap up, I think some advice for people would be to definitely switch away from the big banks. Don’t go to the big credit unions. Support your local banks. Part of that doesn’t just mean having a checking account with the local bank, it means using the credit card from the local bank rather than some kind of American Express card that gets you lots of points but harms local merchants. There’s a lot of things you can do to really make sure that you’re supporting that local bank being a thriving institution.

Justin, I’ll just put you on the spot really quick. Is there anything you think people should read; an article, a book that would give them a better sense of this industry?

Justin Dahlheimer: I don’t have anything that’s real topical, but I do think they should spend more time really getting to know where management decisions are made in their community. If you’re banking, like Chris said, there’s a lot of ways to do good things for your bank but the number one question that should drive your decision is, is my relationship purely a data point with my bank or are they actually having humans make those decisions and is the information they have about me less about an algorithm and more about knowing what I need to do in my life or what I want to do in my life and where I’m headed?

I wish I had a lot of great articles and a lot of good things for people to read. I don’t just because our industry is pretty much obsessed with being delved into our individual communities.

Chris Mitchell: Great. Stacy, do you have any recommendations?
Stacy Mitchell: Well, I would say that when it comes to moving your bank account, we have some great resources on our site at ILSR.org. If you go to the banking section we have 5 reasons you should bank with a locally owned bank or credit union. We also have a great step-by-step guide to actually moving your accounts because that’s a little bit more complicated than just switching grocery stores. We have some good tools that we point you to how to find a local bank or credit union that’s actually part of your community and doing good stuff in your community.
Chris Mitchell: Wonderful. I would just recommend a book that I have on my bookshelf. I haven’t read yet. The Slate Money podcast had recommended it and discussed it a bit. I thought it sounded brilliant. One of the ways it ties in is it talks about why low income folks actually tend to prefer the loan services, the payday loans that many of us are concerned about for have rapacious interest rates. One of the reasons is they’re used to being gouged to death by the fees from the big banks, and so they prefer these loan terms in which they can get them. The name of that book is How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy by Mehrsa Baradaran, I believe.
Justin Dahlheimer: I’d be remised to say we aspire to … On our blog, on our website, fnbosakis.com, called Financially Literate to take consumers through these topics on a very consumer level, basic level to build financial literacy in our own customer base. It’s digitally available to everybody, and we’re going to probably update once a month as we get going. Financially Literate at fnbosakis.com is our blog.
Chris Mitchell: That’s O-S-A-K-I-S.
Justin Dahlheimer: Yes.
Chris Mitchell: Thank you everyone for listening. This has been a really fun discussion.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Justin Dahlheimer, president of First National Bank of Osakis in Minnesota, joining Christopher Mitchell and Stacy Mitchell for episode 16 of the Building Local Power podcast. Stacy is one of our co-directors and runs the Community-Scaled Economy Initiative, and Christopher heads up the Community Broadband Networks Initiative.

As a reminder, check out fnbosakis.com. If you scroll down, you’ll see the Financially Literate tool that Justin mentioned in the interview. Also, don’t forget to go ILSR.org for the tool Stacy mentioned to help you make the switch to a community bank.

We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org. Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music license through Creative Commons. The song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to episode 16 of the Building Local Power podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[16] Building Local Power on iTunes[17] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[18]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[19]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[20] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[21] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[22] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[23] and Facebook[24] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[25] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-05-blp-016-justin-dahlheimer-small-banks.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-05-blp-016-justin-dahlheimer-small-banks.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Justin Dahlheimer: https://fnbosakis.com/aboutus/
  7. First National Bank of Osakis: https://fnbosakis.com/
  8. Top 5 Reasons to Choose a Community Bank or Credit Union: https://ilsr.org/top-5-reasons-choose-community-bank-or-credit-union/
  9. Tools for Starting a Local Move Your Money Campaign: https://ilsr.org/resources-starting-local-banking-campaign-your-community/
  10. Public Banks: Bank of North Dakota: https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/
  11. [Image]: https://fnbosakis.com/investing-in-you/
  12. https://fnbosakis.com/investing-in-you/: https://fnbosakis.com/investing-in-you/
  13. [Image]: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286061
  14. How the Other Half Banks: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286061
  15. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286061: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286061
  16. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  18. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  19. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  20. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  21. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  22. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  23. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  24. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  25. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/small-banks-big-benefits-episode-16-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Alabama Committee Kills Bill For Better Connectivity

by Lisa Gonzalez | April 10, 2017 8:00 am

When Alabama State Sen. Tom Whatley from Auburn spoke with OANow in late March[1], he described his bill, SB 228[2], as a “go-to-war bill.” The bill would have allowed Opelika Power Services (OPS) to expand its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) services to his community. On Wednesday, April 5th, his colleagues in the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee[3] decided to end the conflict in favor of AT&T and its army of lobbyists.

The final vote, according to the committee legislative assistant, was 7 – 6 against the bill. She described the vote as bipartisan, although the roll call isn’t posted yet, so we have not been able to confirm.

According to Whatley:

“AT&T has hired 26 lobbyists to work against me on that bill. It really aggravates me because I have boiled one bill down to where it only allows Opelika to go into Lee County. It cuts out the other counties.”

Whatley has introduced several bills this session and in previous legislative sessions[4] to allow OPS to expand beyond the state imposed barriers to offer services in Lee County. Alabama law doesn’t allow OPS, or any other municipal provider, to offer advanced telecommunications services outside city limits. SB 228 would allow Opelika and others (described as a “Class 6 municipalities”) to offer services throughout the counties in which they reside. A companion bill in the House, HB 375[5], is sitting in the House Commerce and Small Business Committee.

Rep. Joe Lovvorn, who introduced HB 375 agrees with Whatley:

“If it doesn’t make sense for a large corporation to go there, that’s OK that’s their choice,” he said. “But they don’t have the right to tell, in my opinion with my bill, the city of Opelika they can’t serve them either.”

AT&T’s lobbyists aren’t the only big money opponents facing off with Whatley. The Taxpayer’s Protection Alliance (TPA), one of the many organizations backed by billionaire Koch brothers[6], has popped up in Alabama to help the national telecom. Per its usual modus operandi, TPA has published several opinion pieces in the local news to spread misinformation.

A Mayor’s Work Is Never Done

opelika-seal.pngMayor Gary Fuller of Opelika has stayed on task. We profiled one of his op-eds[7] in early March, in which he corrected the many errors and lies spread by an article about another sloppy TPA report.

In a more recent piece in OANow[8], Mayor Fuller tells the story of how Opelika came to own and operate[9] the public’s gigabit FTTH network. In a thoughtful and logical article, he explains how the community became a reluctant provider due to lack of investment and poor service from the monopoly cable provider. He describes a community that took control of their own destiny rather than taking it on the chin from one of the companies that write checks for the TPA.

And, once again, Mayor Fuller addresses the misinformation spread by the TPA about how the network was funded, how much it cost, and how it has impacted the community. He counters unproven statements with facts and supplies the numbers to back them up.

Mayor Fuller describes how Opelika’s investment has injected the community with job growth, better response from area private providers, and the kind of connectivity the town needs to stay competitive. The city’s bond rating has risen. the economy is expanding, and finances are looking good. Clearly, the investment in fiber infrastructure investment was a good decision.

When it comes to recognizing what Sen. Whatley, Rep. Levvorn, and their constituents are up against at the State Capitol, says Mayor Fuller:

For nearly two decades, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications have spent millions of dollars to lobby state legislatures, influence elections and buy research to stop the spread of public Internet services that often offer faster speeds and cheaper rates. These companies have succeeded in getting laws passed in 20 states that ban or restrict municipalities from offering Internet to residents.

Now that such laws are in place, elected officials need to step up and fix a system that prevents municipal networks from expanding to neighbors who want and need service from communities willing to help them, like Opelika. Destroying bills in committee to protect incumbents is not a good way to start.

The Committee Process And Lack Of Access To Democracy

In Alabama, as in most states, the state legislature reviews proposals via the committee process. Bills like SB 228 can be killed in committee or pass through to be taken up by the full body, then the House, and eventually the Governor. Committee hearings are a key component to the democratic process.

gavel.pngIn the Alabama State Senate, there are two rooms where committee meetings occur that enable audio live streaming. If a committee chair feels the bills they will discuss should be livestreamed, the committee will meet in either room 727 or 807. If Alabamans want to witness their Senators engage in the process of democracy at the committee level and are not able to watch the livestream or are interested in viewing some other bill discussion, they need to make the journey to Montgomery and attend a committee hearing in person.

We contacted the folks at Legislative Audio and Video Service who told us that there is “no technology in the legislature to archive any audio or video files. Nor is there any transcription service.” Consequently, we were not able to review the hearing to determine what was said or by whom at the time we published this story.

[10]As we attempt to follow the development of bills in different states, we see the wide spectrum of access to democracy at the state level. In some places hearings are routinely livestreamed and archived, either video or audio, which should be the normal practice in every state. Constituents should be able to know what their elected officials say at committee meetings and how they vote on specific measures. Not all Representatives or Senators make speeches during chamber debate and if a decision is made on a voice vote, a citizen may never know if their elected official is representing their interests or the interests of lobbyists like AT&T, Comcast, or the billionaire Koch Brothers.

There are decisions made in Montgomery that affect people across the state and many don’t have the opportunity to go to the Capitol to be physically present for committee meetings. People in Alabama have responsibilities and committee schedules are unpredictable. Even if they make the long trek to the Capitol, they may find that a bill they want to see discussed in a hearing has been rescheduled to another day – a wasted trip.

Alabamans should, at the very least, have the opportunity to read a transcript after the fact to know what went on in committee about issues they care about. In 2017, however, recording and archiving committee meetings so voters know what they’re getting from elected officials is a small ask in a democratic society.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[11]. Read the original here[12].

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Endnotes:
  1. spoke with OANow in late March: http://www.oanow.com/news/local/whatley-ready-to-fight-for-opelika-s-broadband-expansion/article_5ca17e5d-e61e-57d9-97e0-fb406b5beafd.html
  2. SB 228: http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/ALISON/SearchableInstruments/2017RS/PrintFiles/SB228-int.pdf
  3. Senate Transportation and Energy Committee: http://www.legislature.state.al.us/aliswww/ISD/SenCommittee.aspx?OID_ORGANIZATION=3102&COMMITTEE=Transportation%20and%20Energy
  4. and in previous legislative sessions: https://muninetworks.org/content/al-legislators-dont-wanna-hear-it-local-authority-bill-stalls-committee
  5. HB 375: http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/ALISON/SearchableInstruments/2017RS/PrintFiles/HB375-int.pdf
  6. many organizations backed by billionaire Koch brothers: http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/koch
  7. We profiled one of his op-eds: https://muninetworks.org/content/another-anti-muni-hack-job-opelika-mayor-strikes-back
  8. more recent piece in OANow: http://www.oanow.com/news/local/ops-broadband-opelika-mayor-says-yes-and-here-s-why/article_2dc323ee-13c4-11e7-8ee9-a3c8caa17506.html
  9. came to own and operate: https://muninetworks.org/content/opelika-builds-first-full-fiber-network-alabama-community-broadband-bits-episode-40
  10. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/seal-alabama.png
  11. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  12. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/al-committee-kills-bill-better-connectivity

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/alabama-committee-kills-bill-for-better-connectivity/


Thanks To Your Local Economy, Renewables Aren’t Going Anywhere (Episode 15)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | April 6, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode fifteen of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews John Farrell[6] and Karlee Weinmann[7], researchers for ILSR’s Energy Democracy initiative on the prospects of renewable energy given President Trump’s executive orders undermining the Clean Power Plan. The group discusses how the strong market for renewable energy will endure any federal level interferences,

This discussion also features the (virtual) ghost of Ken Bone to shift the discussion how the accelerating push to renewables will work on a local level where individual fossil fuel power plants are dominant.

“A lot of that growth [around renewables] is rooted in state policies that support it and encourage it and not necessarily in any action that happens or doesn’t happen at the federal level,” says Karlee Weinmann of the shift in federal energy policy away from renewables and towards fossil fuels.

Here is the piece on the red sweater-clad Ken Bone and his energy question at the second presidential debate during the 2016 election:

A Deep Dive to Answer Ken Bone’s Energy Question[8]

Here are the reading/watching recommendations from the group this week.

From John:

[9]

From Chris & Karlee:

Chris Mitchell: John, I hear that you’ve been thinking about where our energy has come from recently.
John Farrell: I haven’t just been thinking about it recently, Chris. In the last decade it is remarkable to note that over 40% of our new power plant capacity and increasingly more of that is coming from renewable energy sources alone and the remainder of that is pretty much coming from natural gas. In other words, there’s almost no new coal power plants being built in this country, in the last decade.
Chris Mitchell: Also no nuclear power plants or other facilities.
John Farrell: There hasn’t been a new nuclear plant built in a long time and the only one that’s under construction in Georgia, continues to experience construction delays, increasing its cost.
Chris Mitchell: The other thing that came to mind when you said that, was that in the last decade was entirely after the year 2000, which still I find amazing.
John Farrell: Yes, in fact it’s not even that close to the year 2000 anymore.
Chris Mitchell: It really isn’t. Welcome to another Building Local Power podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We’re going to talk about clean power today and the Clean Power Plan from the Obama administration that the Trump administration has just wiped out and whether we should freak out or celebrate or how we should react in general to this monumental, monumental change in policy. Is that right John?
John Farrell: It is a big change in policy but I think that it would be important to note that we should all take a deep breath before we consider the implications of this.
Chris Mitchell: There’s nothing better than a podcast that talks about taking a deep breath. That was John Farrell, who runs our energy work. I’m Chris Mitchell and also Karlee Weinmann, who is here with a bemused look on her face and does all the work that John takes credit for. Welcome back Karlee.
Karlee Weinmann: Hi, Chris.
Chris Mitchell: It’s great to have old podcast veterans back on Building Local Power. Let’s just take a quick step back and talk about what was the Clean Power Plan from the Obama administration, in brief?
John Farrell: It was really just a set of rules that would guide states on the course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. It was going to particularly affect states that had a lot of coal power plants that were disproportionately putting a lot of greenhouse gas emissions into the air and was going to require them to come up with a plan and the next thing was that the state was able to choose what that plan was but they would have to hit a certain target for emissions reductions.

When I said at the beginning, “We need to take a deep breath about what’s happening here.” That’s for two reasons. One is that because it was a fairly complex rule there’s a process for walking it back. I heard one commentator on the radio say, “Creating the rules was like walking up a set of stairs and undoing them means you have to walk down the same set of stairs.” Changes in the rules will take some time.

The second thing is that for states that were agreeable to the Clean Power Plan, which is to say they wanted to do something anyway, they’re going to go ahead and find ways to implement those rules or find other ways of meeting those greenhouse gas emissions regardless.

I think we have two hopeful elements here. One is that it will take a while to undo this and the other is that many states will move ahead, whether or not the federal government is continuing to compel them to do so.

Chris Mitchell: Karlee, I just want to ask you a question, as someone who came to us as a reporter covering a lot of business. I think of you as somebody who knows a lot about markets. It strikes me that all of this change in policy, the market isn’t sort of thinking, “Oh, carbon is free in the future.” It seems like in many ways, not much has changed.
Karlee Weinmann: Utilities are increasingly moving toward clean energy and they have been for a long time, based on the economics. It’s not like the Clean Power Plan upended the marketplace and as John said, it’s not like this decision by President Trump will upend the marketplace.

Fracking is, I think, a great and instructive example of this. Certainly that compounded the shift away from coal and that had nothing to do with the policy that we’re talking about here today. The bottom line is that nothing is going to save coal from these economics. Even if natural gas gets more expensive, renewables remain on a trajectory that makes them increasingly accessible and attractive.

Chris Mitchell: Well that’s, I think, a good sign. It’s also a sign, I just sort of wonder a little bit about the hype on both sides. To be glib, investors are smarter than voters and I don’t think investors have a sense like, “Hey, let’s go build three coal power plants now.”
John Farrell: You know it’s funny you should say that Chris, because one of the tools that Karlee and I use, and many others in our field, is analysis done by the investment bank, Lazard, at least I think that’s the name. They do this every year and it compares the cost of energy from different power plants. What you can see in their most recent one, which is like version 10 of their analysis, is essentially that renewable energy is the cheapest form of electricity across the board. That solar and wind and of course, things like energy efficiency, are cheaper than any other kind of power plant you can build. Whether it’s a nuclear one, a coal one or a natural gas one.

When Karlee’s talking about the economics being in the driver’s seat here, in the wake of the Clean Power Plan or it’s reversal, like you said, the folks informing the investors, the investment banks, are essentially saying put your money in renewables. That’s the cheap stuff.

Chris Mitchell: It strikes me, from the stat you brought from the beginning, 40% of energy gains over the last 10 years, coming from these renewable energies, this clean energy. Maybe I’m stuck in thinking about this from a 20 year ago perspective, which was like people were saying, “Oh, sure solar’s doubling but it’s a fraction of a fraction. It doesn’t matter, it’s not adding up.” It seems like it’s adding up now.
John Farrell: Yeah, it is. In fact, if you look on our website and Karlee’s updating every quarter our analysis of new power plant capacity, you can see that this chart went from being almost all purple and black, which was representing fossil fuels, to this big, bright, band of blue, which represents wind power, which has been most of that new capacity.

In the past couple, three, four years, all of a sudden there are these big bars of orange and red, which represent large-scale and small-scale solar. It is really adding up. Although, on an annual basis, the amount of total energy, electricity that we get from that is still relatively small, it’s growing very quickly. It shows up first in these charts around capacity, in the next couple of years we’ll start to see that in terms of how much energy we get on an annual basis.

Karlee Weinmann: A lot of that growth is rooted in state policies that support it and encourage it and not necessarily in any action that happens or doesn’t happen at the federal level. I think that just goes to show that where we’re really seeing movement, in terms of policy, that advances or inhibits growth in renewables and clean energy, that’s not happening at the federal level per se.
Chris Mitchell: When you say it’s at the state level, I’m curious, I immediately start thinking, “Oh, well probably like California and blue states.” But then I remember Texas and even Iowa, I’m not really sure what color Iowa is anymore, yellow for corn maybe. I’m curious what states in particular have really been driving this. I’m guessing it’s not all states.
John Farrell: No, it’s not all states but there’s no question there is some partisan lean to the states that are driving a lot of this. California, for example, happens to be a very deep blue state but it also happens to be a state that has a really good renewable energy resource. In fact, I would say that in some ways it’s even more powerful of a driver.

You take Iowa, for example, regardless of its politics, it has an incredible wind resource and in fact, the policy that got its wind industry started expired 10 or 20 years ago. All of the development in wind power in Iowa, which is one of the nation’s leaders on a per capita basis, is because wind simply is a really cheap resource for supplying electricity needs because wind blows a lot in Iowa.

On the other hand, you have states like Minnesota or Colorado or California or New York, where we’ve enacted policies that are pushing utilities toward renewables. Of course the analysis shows, in retrospect, that that was a very cost-effective choice. You’re also seeing advances in places like Arizona or Nevada or Texas, where it’s not really policy driven, it’s just economics.

In West Texas you have tens of thousands of megawatts of wind power, because it’s a very good wind resource but increasingly solar. Excellent solar resource in Arizona and Nevada and New Mexico, driving a lot of solar adoption there.

Chris Mitchell: One last thing on this area and the economics, is you mention that it’s a good bet to force utilities to go with the renewables. Now in the past you and I have talked a lot about what was the best way of subsidizing these forms of power, feed-in tariff, production tax credit, the problems associated with some of these. Are these things unnecessary now?
John Farrell: I don’t think it’s unnecessary to still have policy that is helping toward the transition toward renewable energy. What I would say, is that that kinds of policy we need are different. Whereas a decade ago it was really important to sort of throw money at it, to get the industry built up, to build the manufacturing experience, to get the supply chains developed, to get people trained in and employed and build all of that part of the installation and manufacturing process.

What I think has happened now is that we need to figure out ways to maintain competitive markets. For example, a 1978 federal law called PURPA, has required utilities to buy electricity from competitive sources ever since the late 1970’s. It came out of the oil crisis and the desire to find more economical power sources. Well that law is still enforced in all 50 states, requiring us to look at economical sources and utilities, now that they are facing competition from renewable energy resources produced by non-utility participants, are saying, “Hey, we want to get rid of that law.”

There are still ways in which the entrenched interests, whether it’s monopoly utility companies, or the fossil fuel industry, are trying to push back against renewables and we need to hold firm on market access on the basis of cost competitiveness.

Chris Mitchell: One last thing before we get to our surprise call in guest, which is a quote from the past. I wanted to note that I was listening to Charlie Sykes’ last week. He has a show on Indivisible, which is a joint production of, I think, Minnesota Public Radio, WNYC and others. It’s the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, talk radio. Charlie Sykes is a conservative talk show host who is from Wisconsin.

He’s a very interesting guy. He was making the case that he felt like the Clean Power Plan would have been really bad for Wisconsin. It would have cost, in his words I think, billions of dollars in extra costs to rate payers and would have been therefore bad to business. I’m just curious how you would respond to that. I think it looks like Karlee is all ready to offer some context.

Karlee Weinmann: I think it’s fair to say that in some states like Wisconsin utilities might have made poor bets on infrastructure like coal plants in the past but now it’s up to regulators to hold them accountable and part of that is the Clean Power Standards, that may or may not be imposed by the federal government, but part of that is holding utilities to sensible, responsible economics like the kind John has been talking about. It can cause rate payers a lot of money, as well, to stay the course that we’ve seen from these, maybe more short-sighted utilities, in the past.
John Farrell: I would just like to add to that. There’s a couple more factors here. One in terms of cost is that the health and environmental costs of our power system has always been socialized. You have private profits for utilities building these power plants and then socializing the costs, the health and environmental costs.
Chris Mitchell: Could you just explain a couple of those?
John Farrell: Yeah, for example, mercury pollution from coal power plants in particular, gets into lakes and streams and waters, gets consumed by fish or absorbed by fish and then raises the toxicity to the level that we can’t eat fish anymore, particularly vulnerable populations like children and pregnant women.
Chris Mitchell: Right, they only get it like once a week or something like that.
John Farrell: Exactly. That’s been one of the costs that we’ve had and certainly not one that we pay for on our utility bills. The second thing I would say though too, and this is a bit of a criticism of the Clean Power Plan is that as an administrative rule, and it really is the only way that Obama had to implement it because he didn’t have a Congress willing to work with him, and coming from the top down at the federal level, it really just applies sort of brute force to utilities to make them change the way that they’re doing business.

A lot of the economical opportunities that we have for renewables, though, aren’t from the utilities. They’re from the bottom up. They’re from consumers putting solar on their own households. They’re from community solar, like we have in Minnesota or New York or Maryland. They’re from distributed energy production that could use that 1978 PURPA law to sell power competitively to the utility company.

I think one of the potential costs that, I don’t know if this is what Charlie Sykes was getting to or not, but I think one of the potential problems with the Clean Power Plan was the fact that this top down kind of bureaucratic solution would have made it difficult for some of those things to come to market that might be much more cost-effective than asking utilities to turn the ship.

Chris Mitchell: With that, we want to take a call that comes direct to us from the Town Hall debate between presidential candidate Clinton and presidential candidate Trump. Ken Bone, I think you’re on the line. What did you want to ask?
Ken Bone: What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?
Chris Mitchell: Candidate John, tell us what your plan would include.
John Farrell: First of all, I just want to point out that Ken Bone got picked on a lot in the media or highlighted in the media for the fact that he had a bright red sweater and then a whole bunch of other stuff went on. It was really one of the most intelligent questions that we’ve had about energy policy in a long time.
Chris Mitchell: I think that’s probably why he got picked on. I mean, honestly, I just don’t see our media being able to really deal with those sorts of intelligent, layered questions, which aren’t sort of red meat for one side or the other.
John Farrell: Right and that’s true. There wasn’t a lot of red meat for either side in this particular question. It was a very well-nuanced one. I think the most important part of his questions really was around this notion of both environmentally friendly energy and then what happens with fossil fuel power plant workers.

There is a recognition in that question that we are moving away from fossil fuels. Despite that, you see in the recent news here about the Clean Power Plan, this assumption that we’re going to somehow roll back these regulations and it’s going to allow these, in particularly, coal mining and coal jobs to come back.

The truth is, in the last 50 years, employment in the coal mining sector has dropped by about two-thirds even as production has more than doubled. That has nothing to do with renewable energy because there weren’t renewables on the system in the sixties and seventies and eighties and even the early nineties.

Chris Mitchell: It’s Wyoming’s fault actually, with the Powder River Basin coal and the coal from out west and the mountaintop removal coal. It’s all highly capital now.
John Farrell: Right. Unfortunately that’s something that candidate and then President Trump has not been really interested in getting into the nuance of. He’s really exploiting the job losses from automation in the coal mining sector in order to unpack and destroy these environmental regulations.

I think the crux of this then, is that in the same way that some people say well the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, that the Coal Age is going to end, not because we run out of coal but because we have cheaper ways to produce our energy than we did before.

Ultimately, the issue here is, what is that we can do? What is a reasonable approach to our energy system that accomplishes these goals of environmental sensitivity, meeting our energy needs and respecting fossil fuel power plant workers and fossil fuel workers? The Clean Power Plan reversal does none of these things. It doesn’t mean that we will get environmentally friendly energy, in fact it undermines a regulation in favor of it. It doesn’t really help us, in terms of cost-effective energy either.

In fact, the biggest winners being talked about in the news here are coal mining companies, which will be able to sell more coal to existing power plants perhaps, at the expense of the workers for whom often end up being on the losing end of bankruptcy filings, for example, where they lose their pensions and their healthcare and everything else.

What can we do? There were a number of things that we actually outlined, that we wrote about on our website, in light of Ken Bone’s question at the debate and there were a couple of things. One is, as I have said earlier, reinforcing the access for renewable energy to the market.

Number two is figuring out how we can retrain people from the fossil fuel sector to work in those jobs and to make sure those are good jobs. Whether that’s helping unions organize in that area, like they have the fossil fuel industry, whether that’s coal mining jobs or power plant jobs or just making sure that we have a way to transition folks into those jobs that are generally good paying.

The third thing is we just have to admit that the fossil fuel jobs are going away. There’s nothing that we can do, from a federal regulation perspective, other than maybe something like Wyoming tried to do recently, which was to pass a law prohibiting utilities from building renewable energy power plants. It would be incredibly expensive and have all these adverse, societal effects from pollution and on down. It might keep them working for at least a little bit longer. Maybe, except that as the cost of energy went up from the utility company, people are going to put solar on their rooftop and stop buying it from the utilities.

There’s really no saving those jobs. How do we have a just transition? How do we help those folks?

Chris Mitchell: I feel like I often hear people talking about job retraining. We’ve heard about this from NAFTA. We’ve heard about this from TPP and trade agreements. People always talk about how the people who end up losing their jobs can just get new jobs. It seems like when you actually look at those programs, they’re hard to pull off. What do we have to do to actually make sure they’re going to work in this instance?
John Farrell: Well, we give a little bit more detail in the posts that we produced in response to Ken’s question.
Chris Mitchell: Which I believe was a deep-dive to answer Ken Bone’s energy question at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s webpage on ILSR.org.
John Farrell: Yes, thank you Chris. I think that what’s a key here to understand is that retraining is just one piece of this. We need wage insurance, which means insuring the folks that are in these jobs can maintain their current wages for a set period of time. Maybe at least five years so there is a reasonable period of transition.

The second one is that we have that retraining assistance but it might also include relocation assistance because it may be that the jobs for renewable energy are not in Appalachia like the jobs were for coal mining or for working in a power plant.

A similar issue actually came up recently in Minnesota about the potential closure of a coal power plant in Becker, a small rural community. Another thing that we have to consider too is not just the outcome for these workers but the outcome for the communities. These big power plants are a sizeable portion of a community’s property tax revenue and a sizeable presence in the community. What can we do for those communities?

In Minnesota, we had a bill passed that said we’ll build a new power plant there to replace that. It’s a billion dollar rate payer subsidy for a town of 2,000 people in order to maintain that town’s character. There are probably less expensive ways we can do that. We outline a couple of them in our research. It comes from some very good, very thorough work done by the American Prospect.

Karlee Weinmann: There are a number of these workers, a fairly large proportion, that are going to be hitting retirement age before we really need to be all in on this transition. It’s not necessarily going to be a one to one, we need to find a new job and a solution for every single worker and while I acknowledge that a just transition is of paramount importance, this is and has been a shrinking industry for a long time. That evolution in the fossil fuel industry is I think important to remember in this context.
Chris Mitchell: Right, actually it just strikes me whenever I hear people talk about how great these jobs are, that one of the things I always remember in growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania, I didn’t know any miners certainly, but there was always this sense that people worked hard, dirty jobs, not because they loved it and it was awesome but because they wanted to make sure their kids had a good education and had all the opportunities that they didn’t have. They could go on and not spend their life working in a job, which was unsafe in many cases. I think it’s an important context to bear in mind.

I wanted to end with a question of hope, which is we talk around the office a lot about whether things are heading in a direction that’s one of despair or not. I’m curious, when you look at this, and we’ve elected someone that I think no one in this office supports as president, who’s doing a lot of damage to the things that we care about and yet it seems to me like it’s actually maybe he can’t do that much damage because we have local leadership and that sort of thing. I’m just curious what you take away from it Karlee?

Karlee Weinmann: I would say that I take a lot of heart in the local leadership that we have and in many communities around the country since November. With regard to these clean energy issues, I think we’ve seen a tremendous willingness on behalf of local leaders to take ownership of this issue and to really make it their own in way that maybe they weren’t as active about before November. But now, especially in light of the recent actions regarding the Clean Power Plan, I think that there is a new kind of emphasis that really opens the door to local action that can really deliver the most meaningful results here.
Chris Mitchell: Do we have any recommendations for people to check out for reading or listening or viewing or anything like that.
John Farrell: There was a really remarkable piece recently published by The New York Times on Uber, looking at its business model and the tension between the company’s interest and the driver’s interest. They had some interactive features that allowed you to kind of play around with what would happen if there were more drivers or less drivers. It’s a really stunning revelation of what the sharing economy is about and whether or not Uber is really good for the people who are working for it, whether or not they’re employees or not. I highly recommend it as a good way to get some insight on that.
Chris Mitchell: I’d like to suggest a recommendation from Karlee and I, which is the video that you recommended we watch. Do you remember the name of it? The one hour presentation about the electric vehicles and driving.
John Farrell: Oh yes. It’s Tony Seba did a presentation. He’s an author of a book called Clean Disruption. I don’t recall the exact title of the Youtube video from 2016 for the presentation he gave but it is a remarkable look at the way that the clean energy economy will be changing thanks to Silicon Valley technology over the next decade.
Chris Mitchell: Great. Thank you both.
John Farrell: Yeah, thanks Chris.
Karlee Weinmann: Thanks Chris.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was John Farrell and Karlee Weinmann joining Christopher Mitchell for episode 15 of the Building Local Power Podcast. John and Karlee work on our Energy Democracy Initiative and Christopher heads up the Community Broadband Networks Initiative. Check out John and Karlee’s work at ILSR.org/initiatives/energy.
Chris Mitchell: Hey everyone. Please tell your friends, tell others who might be interested about this show. If you have a chance to rate us on iTunes please do. Several people already have. We really appreciate all of the comments and we really appreciate you taking the time to listen to us.
Lisa Gonzalez: We also encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org. Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music licensed through Creative Commons, the song is Funk Interlude. This is Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to episode 15 of the Building Local Power podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[10] Building Local Power on iTunes[11] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[12]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[13]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[14] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[15] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[16] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[17] and Facebook[18] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[19] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-03-blp015-john-karlee-clean-power-plan.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-04-03-blp015-john-karlee-clean-power-plan.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/author/johnf
  7. Karlee Weinmann: https://ilsr.org/author/kweinmann
  8. A Deep Dive to Answer Ken Bone’s Energy Question: https://ilsr.org/ken-bone-energy-question/
  9. [Image]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/02/technology/uber-drivers-psychological-tricks.html
  10. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  11. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  12. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  13. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  14. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  15. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  16. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  17. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  18. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  19. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/thanks-to-your-local-economy-renewables-arent-going-anywhere-episode-15-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Infographic: The Market for Internet Access Is Broken

by Lisa Gonzalez | April 5, 2017 6:00 am

“Monopoly” may be a fun family night activity, but if you live in a place where you have little or no choice for Internet access, it’s not fun and it’s not a game.

According to FCC data, most families don’t have a choice in Internet access providers, especially providers they like. Nevertheless, the biggest companies keep reporting increasing revenues every year. People aren’t happy with the service they’re receiving, but companies like AT&T and Comcast continue to thrive. What’s going on?

In a recent State Scoop piece[1], Christopher wrote:

[T]he market is not providing a check to AT&T or Comcast power. They are effectively monopolies — and as we just saw — can translate their market power into political power to wipe out regulations they find annoying.

At the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, where we work to support local economies, this broken market is a major problem. Cable monopolies are bad for local businesses, which become less competitive from paying too much for unreliable Internet access. Communities cannot thrive without high quality Internet access today.

We created this infographic to present the evidence showing that the market is broken. This resource also discusses why creating more competition in the current market is such a challenge. An effective way to overcome this broken market, however, is to consider what hundreds of local communities are already doing – investing in publicly owned Internet infrastructure. Our infographic offers a few examples of different models, each chosen to suit the communities they serve.

Get a larger version of the infographic here[2].

[3]

Get a larger version of the infographic here[2].

Kudos to intern Kate Svitavsky who created the infographic.

Stay up to date on community networks with our newsletter[4].

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[5]. Read the original here[6].

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Endnotes:
  1. recent State Scoop piece: http://statescoop.com/paths-to-repairing-a-broken-broadband-market
  2. Get a larger version of the infographic here: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/market-broken-infographic-full.pdf
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/TMHS-Final.jpg
  4. with our newsletter: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  5. MuniNetworks.org: http://MuniNetworks.org
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-infographic-market-has-spoken-market-broken

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/infographic-the-market-for-internet-access-is-broken/


Local Governments Are Increasingly Buying from Amazon. Here’s Why They Need to Stop.

by Olivia LaVecchia | April 4, 2017 3:02 pm

[1]

Download this article as a PDF[2] that you can print and share with your local officials, and head to the end to see 5 things you can do right now.

Photo: Downtown Hamilton, Mont.[3]
Downtown Hamilton, Mont. Jimmy Emerson/Flickr

When Shawn Wathen decided to see how much his county was spending on purchases from Amazon, he wasn’t sure what he would find.

Wathen co-owns an independent bookstore, Chapter One, in Hamilton, Mont., a 4,500-person town nestled in the Bitterroot Mountains an hour south of Missoula. Wathen has seen a lot of stores come and go from downtown Hamilton in recent years, but Chapter One has kept on, along with the local newspaper and the office supply store, the toy store and the drug store, that are the bookstore’s neighbors on the same block of Main Street.

Amazon doesn’t have a physical presence near the town — no warehouse for storing goods and packing boxes, no sortation center or delivery station or one of its new brick-and-mortar bookstores — or, in fact, anywhere in Montana, but Wathen’s been increasingly impacted by its growth in recent years. After reading the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s recent report on the company[4], and talking about it with the Hamilton Downtown Association, Wathen started wondering if his local officials were buying from Amazon for any county purchases. He got in touch with the Ravalli County treasurer to find out.

After some back-and-forth with the county, and teaming up with another business to pay the $120 records fee, Wathen got back a report. Between reams of paper and ink cartridges, a handful of books and miscellaneous items like picture frames, Ravalli County had spent $15,500 purchasing goods from Amazon in 2016. Residents in the county have worked to stop chain retail proliferation for years, including successful campaigns to block two separate Walmart developments, but meanwhile, Amazon had snuck in under their noses.

It felt “a little bit like betrayal,” says Wathen. Wathen’s been at Chapter One for 21 years, starting out as an employee and later buying the business. He and his co-owner work at the store full-time; they pay property taxes, serve on local associations, host author readings, and organize book clubs and literature seminars. Chapter One is a small business, but in 2016, the bookstore gave $8,000 in discounts and direct donations to organizations in the county, including three school districts.

Photo: Shawn Wathen at Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Mont.[5]
Shawn Wathen at Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Mont. Photo courtesy Shawn Wathen.

Ravalli County’s spending with Amazon isn’t an outlier. In February, U.S. Communities, a purchasing cooperative that negotiates office and school supply contracts for more than 90,000 public agencies across the country, announced[6] that it had awarded Amazon Business a multiyear contract for 10 different product categories, including office supplies, classroom and art supplies, musical instruments, audio visual and electronics, and scientific equipment and lab supplies. In coming months, the public agencies that are members of U.S. Communities will be deciding whether or not to sign onto the contract. These agencies include everyone from major city governments like Boston and Minneapolis, to school districts, townships, libraries, fire departments, and sewer districts. In its Request for Proposals, U.S. Communities estimated the overall value of the contract to be $500 million per year.

While U.S. Communities described the contract as “competitively solicited, evaluated, and awarded,” independent business owners quickly disagreed. “The way the U.S. Communities bid was written proves yet again how the system continues to be rigged against open and fair competition,” the National Office Products Alliance, the trade association for independent office supply dealers, described[7] in a statement. “In order to bid on the U.S. Communities contract, a bidder had to bid on all nine categories,” which included not just office supplies, but also grocery, clothing, animal supplies, and more. “These requirements made it impossible for anyone other than Amazon to bid on this contract.” (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Download this article as a PDF: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017.04-ILSR_Why-Your-Local-Government-Shouldn’t-Buy-From-Amazon.pdf
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/downtown-Hamilton_Jimmy-Emerson_flickr-e1491322904701.jpg
  4. recent report on the company: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Shawn.jpg
  6. announced: http://www.uscommunities.org/news-events/news/article/?tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=96&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&cHash=d0bfa1a3ca7b58bca5e4873f94244213
  7. described: http://www.nopanet.org/news/326078/U.S.-Communities-Awarded-its-Office-Products-Contract-to-Amazon.htm
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/local-governments-are-increasingly-buying-from-amazon-heres-why-they-need-to-stop/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-governments-are-increasingly-buying-from-amazon-heres-why-they-need-to-stop/


Anticompetitive Conditions Are Impacting Independent Businesses, Says Letter to Sen. Klobuchar

by Olivia LaVecchia | April 4, 2017 2:31 pm

In today’s highly concentrated markets, the ability of dominant companies to exclude and impede businesses from competing has become one of the most pressing issues facing independent businesses.

On the heels of a recent speech[1] about the need for more vigorous antitrust enforcement by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate’s Antitrust Subcommittee, Advocates for Independent Business[2] (AIB) has sent Sen. Klobuchar a letter commending her call for action and sharing information about the experiences of AIB’s member businesses. AIB is a coalition of national trade associations representing tens of thousands of independent businesses across a variety of industries, and is coordinated by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

The letter looks at how independent businesses are being negatively impacted by anticompetitive behavior by dominant companies, including by the rise of platform power as a new form of market power that limits businesses’ ability to reach the market; by high levels of vertical integration that allow dominant companies to use their power in one part of the supply chain to impede competition in another; and by concentration in markets for essential services, like credit card processing, which allows dominant suppliers to charge excessive fees.

What’s at stake, the letter notes, is job growth, a healthy middle class, and the entrepreneurial aspirations of Americans: (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. recent speech: https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/in-speech-at-center-for-american-progress-klobuchar-discusses-how-vigorous-antitrust-enforcement-can-strengthen-u-s-economy
  2. Advocates for Independent Business: https://indiebizadvocates.org
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/anticompetitive-conditions-are-impacting-independent-businesses-says-letter-to-sen-klobuchar/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/anticompetitive-conditions-are-impacting-independent-businesses-says-letter-to-sen-klobuchar/


Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community

by Brenda Platt | April 4, 2017 12:00 pm

[1]

Different versions are available for download:

11″x 17″ Poster[2] | 13″x 19″ Portrait[3] | 18″x 24″ Portrait[4] | 19″x 13″ Poster[5] | 24″x 18″ Poster[6] | US Letter Portrait[7] | US Letter Poster[8]

We’ve developed this Hierarchy to Reduce Waste & Grow Community[9] in order to highlight the importance of locally based composting solutions as a first priority over large-scale regional solutions. Composting can be small scale and large scale and everything in between but too often home composting, onsite composting, community scale composting, and on-farm composting are overlooked. Anaerobic digestion systems come in different sizes as well. This new hierarchy addresses issues of scale and community benefits when considering what strategies and infrastructure to pursue for food waste reduction and recovery.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has long been a strong advocate of food waste recovery. Its Food Waste Reduction Hierarchy[10] has been widely disseminated and even written into local law.  Vermont’s Universal Recycling Law[11], for instance, has made it the policy of that state. More recently, in 2015, EPA joined with the US Department of Agriculture, in establishing the first ever domestic goal to reduce food loss and waste by half by the year 2030[12]. The agency’s hierarchy remains an important guideline for how this goal is to be met: prevent food waste, feed hungry people, feed animals, and recover via industrial uses and anaerobic digestion. However, in the EPA’s hierarchy, composting is listed just before disposal via landfilling and incineration. We believe size matters.

ILSR supports the development of a diverse and distributed food waste reduction and recovery infrastructure. We hope local and state governments will consider using our hierarchy as a policy framework. We welcome comments and suggestions.

 

Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste and Grow Community from Nick Stumo-Langer[13]
Download the original PowerPoint presentation of the above slides here: ILSR Food Waste Hierarchy PowerPoint[14].

Download a pdf of the Hierarchy to Reduce Waste & Grow Community: ILSR Food Waste Hierarchy v2[15].

See the Spanish version.[16]

Check out other composting infographics here.[17]

[18]
Share our gif here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/output_hZZYb8.gif[19].

We want you to be able to share this graphic under creative commons license, free of cost. But please, make sure to let people know they should link to: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/[20] to see the original content.

If you’re publishing on your website, or in one of your publications, please include this sentence:

“The following comes from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[21] (www.ilsr.org[22]), a national nonprofit organization working to strengthen local economies, and redirect waste into local recycling, composting, and reuse industries. It is reprinted here with permission.” 

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[23] and Facebook[24] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[25] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HierarchyIG-FINAL-24x18.pdf
  2. 11″x 17″ Poster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyIG-FINAL-11x17.pdf
  3. 13″x 19″ Portrait: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyIG-FINAL-13x19-Portrait.pdf
  4. 18″x 24″ Portrait: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyIG-FINAL-18x24-Portrait.pdf
  5. 19″x 13″ Poster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyIG-FINAL-19x13.pdf
  6. 24″x 18″ Poster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HierarchyIG-FINAL-24x18.pdf
  7. US Letter Portrait: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyIG-FINAL-USLetter-Portrait.pdf
  8. US Letter Poster: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyIG-FINAL-USLetter.pdf
  9. Hierarchy to Reduce Waste & Grow Community: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HierarchyIG-FINAL-24x18.pdf
  10. Food Waste Reduction Hierarchy: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy
  11. Vermont’s Universal Recycling Law: https://ilsr.org/rule/food-scrap-ban/vermont-organics-recovery/
  12. goal to reduce food loss and waste by half by the year 2030: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/united-states-2030-food-loss-and-waste-reduction-goal
  13. Nick Stumo-Langer: //www.slideshare.net/ILSR
  14. ILSR Food Waste Hierarchy PowerPoint: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/HierarchyComposting.pptx
  15. ILSR Food Waste Hierarchy v2: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HierarchyIG-FINAL-24x18.pdf
  16. See the Spanish version.: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy-spanish/
  17. Check out other composting infographics here.: https://ilsr.org/composting-search-results/?_sft_contenttype=charts-graphs-resource-archive
  18. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/output_hZZYb8.gif
  19. https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/output_hZZYb8.gif: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/output_hZZYb8.gif
  20. https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/
  21. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://www.ilsr.org/
  22. www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org/
  23. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  24. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  25. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/food-waste-hierarchy/


Report: Why Should Baltimore Recycle More?

by Neil Seldman | April 3, 2017 7:45 am

Download the Full Report

The report was prepared to inform city agencies, City Council and Mayor’s Office about the immediate opportunities for increased recycling and its potential economic impact on the city. The Office of Sustainability, Department of Planning and the Department of Public Works were all generous with their data and insights in helping prepare the report. ILSR also relied on input from environmental organizations and recycling and composting businesses. What follows is the introduction of the report, the full report is available for download here.

There are two primary reasons why Baltimore should invest in more recycling. Establishing high recycling levels will position the city’s residents and businesses for the future, when the costs of incineration and landfill will be more expensive. The city could save citizens and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars by shrinking its waste stream for the next generation.

More immediately, increased recycling means more jobs. Within three years, based on the experiences of other cities, Baltimore could have 500 new direct jobs in this sector of the city’s economy. In general, for every 10,000 tons of materials incinerated, one job is created. For every 10,000 tons of materials processed for recycling and composting, five to 10 jobs are created. Hundreds more jobs are created when processed materials are used in industry and agriculture. Oakland, CA created 1,000 jobs in the recycling sector in the last 10 years. Based on the results of a recent business report on recycling and jobs in South Carolina, if just one percent of Baltimore residents recycled eight more newspapers per month, it would add $304,000 to the local economy.

Expanding Recycling in Baltimore

Mayor Pugh’s Transition Report identifies solid waste and recycling management as a top priority, calling for the doubling of the city’s recycling rate within one year as a primary strategy to eliminate the use of the downtown garbage incinerator and landfills.

The net cost to the city for incineration at the Wheelabrator Baltimore incinerator is $50 per ton. The net cost to the city for recycling as of March 2017 was $18 per ton. For every ton the city recycles, it saves $32. At current prices, the 25,000 tons per year that the city recycles saves $800,000. Mayor Pugh’s goal is to double the recycling rate within a few years; if that goal is met, the city will save $1.6 million annually at current prices.

While the markets for recycled materials fluctuate, the costs of upgrading the aging incinerator and expanding the ash landfill can be expected to rise in the next few years. Replacement incineration and landfill capacity will steadily increase over time. For example, the installation of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to reduce pollution at Wheelabrator was estimated by air quality officials to cost somewhere around $70 million, with $10 or $11 million in yearly operating costs. The Harford County, MD, garbage incinerator closed after 28 years instead of its projected useful service life of 30 years, because “complete upgrades [would have been] uneconomical and unsuccessful at achieving an increase in operational efficiency.”

Baltimore City’s contract with Wheelabrator Baltimore expires at the end of 2021 with a city option through 2026. If the incinerator continues to operate beyond 2021, the city will have to expand the capacity of Quarantine Road Landfill.

Baltimore’s business institutions and residences generate about 970,000 tons of solid waste a year, including 286,000 tons of construction & demolition debris.

[1]

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/imageedit_20_8596302282.png
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-baltimore-recycle/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-baltimore-recycle/


Rural Solar At Risk As Co-ops Push for Less Oversight

by Karlee Weinmann | March 30, 2017 12:34 pm

Minnesota’s governor recently vetoed[1] anti-renewables legislation that threatens rural solar development, but the bill’s likely resurgence means the state remains among a growing crop of Midwestern states facing the prospect of heavy-handed limitations on solar growth.

The Minnesota legislation would have exempted rural electric cooperatives from all oversight of distributed generation policy by state regulators, putting the utilities alone in charge of resolving customer disputes over rates and fees related to owning distributed renewable energy systems like solar. The legislation would have allowed rural utilities to implement anti-solar policies[2] without scrutiny from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, the regulator charged with safeguarding the public interest.

Coincidentally, the Commission is already probing whether fees imposed by some co-ops on customers with rooftop solar are justified. After a series of complaints, regulators opened a docket focused on determining whether those charges — sometimes masked as other required expenses, like for a new meter — reflect the utility’s actual costs to serve customers with solar panels, or are instead a backhanded attempt to recover lost sales.

Still, even in the face of unresolved questions, the problematic measure drew bipartisan supporters who misleadingly billed it a restoration of “local control.” The bill met with Gov. Mark Dayton’s veto pen soon after it crossed his desk.

“The effect of this proposed legislation would negatively impact Minnesota’s progress toward more renewable and efficient energy,” the governor said in a letter explaining his move[3]. “All Minnesota customers — from family farmers to large businesses — should be able to invest in technology to produce clean and efficient energy with the assurance that the Public Utilities Commission is available to provide consumer protection.”

Dayton’s veto was a distinct win for the co-op member owners, renewable energy advocates, and others who vocally opposed the bill. But the legislation’s proponents remain committed to peeling back regulations that expand clean energy options. State Rep. Pat Garofalo hinted soon after the veto that similar language would surface again. Days later, the zombie provision appeared in omnibus legislation[4] that remains under consideration.

Co-op Solar in Cross Hairs Across Midwest

The Minnesota legislation is among several efforts led by rural cooperatives in statehouses across the Midwest to limit oversight of or directly undercut policies supporting customer-owned distributed generation.

Iowa

Companion bills in the Iowa House and Senate (HB442[5] and SB331[6]) would slacken reporting requirements energy efficiency programs of non-rate-regulated utilities (including co-ops). The legislation, still working its way through the statehouse, would reduce reporting from every year to every other year.

This relatively narrow proposal is unlikely to upend Iowa’s efficiency efforts. But it could pave the way for more substantial utility deregulation — if lawmakers’ show an appetite for it this time around.

Missouri

Legislation up for consideration in Missouri (HB340[7]) could prove a  double-whammy for rooftop solar. The provisions proposed this session would upend rooftop solar compensation by exempting from net metering all utilities that serve fewer than 20,000 meters — an obvious nod to co-ops, which typically serve wide geographic areas with low populations. In fact, the state’s co-ops are among the most visible proponents[8] of the changes.

Additionally, the overhaul would allow co-ops (and municipal utilities) to create individual rate structures for members who generate their own power, potentially opening the door to added charges that render rooftop solar cost-prohibitive. The proposed change represents a sharp deviation from the existing requirement that all residential electric customers be treated the same.

Indiana

Hours of testimony at an Indiana Senate committee meeting this month exposed deep divides between the state’s utilities and policies that promote growth in the clean energy economy. New legislation (SB309[9]) is the latest attempt by the state’s utilities to dampen mounting enthusiasm for renewable generation.

The proposed bill[10] would ban net metering by 2027 and restrict state regulators’ options for replacing it with alternative compensation for households and businesses that generate their own solar power. Rather than getting the retail price for energy they feed back onto the grid, solar customers would instead receive the much lower avoided cost or wholesale rate, despite this energy being absorbed at the retail level by their neighbors.

Further, the bill includes a mandatory “buy-all, sell-all” provision — its attempt at a replacement for net metering — that would prohibit customers from actually using the energy they generate using rooftop arrays, forcing them to send all of it onto the grid. The proposed pricing changes mean these customers would lose money selling their power to the utility at the wholesale rate, then buy it back at a premium. (This mechanism isn’t unfair by default. Minnesota’s “value of solar” policy has a similar provision, but its carefully calculated solar valuation[11] actually pays a premium to retail prices for solar based on its value to the grid.)

As with previous efforts[12] designed to limit regulatory oversight in Indiana, the state’s investor-owned utilities are playing a key role this time around. But co-ops landed in the spotlight recently when senators passed an amendment[13] to the legislation that would exempt rural utilities from competitive procurement requirements.

A Tough Battle Ahead

The legislative assault on solar generation, particularly in rural areas, doesn’t show signs of letting up. Nor will it, as long as utility customers (and in the case of cooperatives, member-owners) continue to find solar attractive while their utilities fail to deliver solar options.

There are ways forward that don’t involve utilities undermining their owners and customers at the legislature. Minnesota[14] and New York[15] are modeling how to value distributed renewable energy resources appropriately. Many cooperatives are offering customers a chance to subscribe to community solar[16] arrays, and some are even throwing in a free electric water heater[17] that the utility can essentially use like a battery.

In the near term, some utilities will succeed in undermining the economics of customer-owned solar, to their detriment. Because with rapidly falling costs of solar and energy storage, it may not be long before they have to worry about customers–especially those that have been maligned by bad policy–looking to cut the cord[18].

Image credit: User: OgreBot/Uploads by new users/2015 January 15 12:00[19]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[20]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[21] or Karlee Weinmann[22] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[23] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. vetoed: http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestemprairie/2017/03/citizens-asked-him-to-so-dayton-vetos-hf234.html
  2. allowed rural utilities to implement anti-solar policies: http://midwestenergynews.com/2017/02/08/commentary-removing-co-op-oversight-jeopardizes-rural-solar/
  3. a letter explaining his move: https://www.scribd.com/document/342538708/MN-Governor-Mark-Dayton-HF234-Veto-Letter#from_embed
  4. omnibus legislation: https://www.senate.mn/departments/scr/billsumm/summary_display_from_db.php?ls=90&id=5469
  5. HB442: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/LGI/87/Attachments/HF442.html
  6. SB331: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/LGI/87/Attachments/SF331.html
  7. HB340: http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills171/hlrbillspdf/1019H.01I.pdf
  8. most visible proponents: http://midwestenergynews.com/2017/01/19/bill-backed-by-missouri-co-ops-would-allow-new-limitations-on-net-metering/
  9. SB309: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2017/bills/senate/309
  10. proposed bill: http://midwestenergynews.com/2017/01/24/indiana-energy-bill-would-eliminate-net-metering-move-to-buy-all-sell-all-solar-model/
  11. carefully calculated solar valuation: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-of-solar/
  12. previous efforts: https://thinkprogress.org/indiana-solar-bill-crafted-by-utilities-killed-due-to-a-whole-variety-of-issues-updated-1ea96644411f#.eepxtuccv
  13. passed an amendment: https://twitter.com/nick_janzen/status/844549118559223808
  14. Minnesota: http://www.ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-of-solar/
  15. New York: https://ilsr.org/is-new-yorks-compromise-the-future-for-net-metering/
  16. community solar: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-and-cooperatives-community-solar/
  17. throwing in a free electric water heater: http://swce.coop/swce-field-services/renewables/
  18. cut the cord: http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2017_03_02_why_we_need_to_discuss_grid_defection
  19. User: OgreBot/Uploads by new users/2015 January 15 12:00: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:OgreBot/Uploads_by_new_users/2015_January_15_12:00
  20. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  21. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  22. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  23. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rural-solar-at-risk-as-co-ops-push-for-less-oversight/


Compostable Plastics Bill Advances in Maryland

by Virginia Streeter | March 29, 2017 3:03 pm

Since we wrote about[1] Maryland House Bill 1349[2], “Compostable, Degradable, and Biodegradable Plastic Products – Labeling,” in late February, it has made significant progress in the Maryland state legislature. As of March 23rd, the bill passed its third reading in the House and moved on to the Senate. Since the bill was not cross-filed with the Senate, it does not receive a public hearing, although it still goes to the Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee to be discussed.

The initial bill hearing[3] was held on March 1, 2017, in a joint session with the Environment and Transportation Committee and the Economic Matters Committee. Brenda Platt of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Linda Norris Waldt of the US Composting Council[4], and Rhodes Yepsen of the Biodegradable Plastics Institute[5] all testified in favor as a part of bill sponsor Delegate Shane Robinson’s[6] panel of experts. After an extensive discourse on the bill, where the expert panel fielded questions regarding the standards laid out in the bill and what implementation of the law would look like, the bill was voted out of committee with a favorable-with-amendments designation. The only amendment was suggested by Julie Lawson of Trash Free Maryland[7], who testified about her concern with the standards the bill set for “marine degradable” products, as it would have conflicted with the existing Maryland state ban on microbeads.

Given the bill’s overall intention to prevent products that are not truly compostable from ending up in composting facilities, the references to marine degradable materials were stricken entirely from the legislation. If it passes, Maryland will be on the cutting edge of this crucial issue; only California has adopted similar legislation.

A number of organizations, including ILSR, testified in favor of the bill. The written testimonies for the following organizations are available below:

  • Biodegradable Plastics Institute[8]
  • Institute for Local Self-Reliance[9]
  • United States Composting Council[10]
  • Veteran Compost[11]
From left to right: Del. Shane Robinson, Brenda Platt, Linda Norris Waldt, and Rhodes Yepsen. Brenda Platt is holding up an example of a compostable plastic bag.
From left to right: Del. Shane Robinson, Brenda Platt, Linda Norris Waldt, and Rhodes Yepsen. Brenda Platt is showing the committee samples of bags marketed as compostable or biodegradable, but which came out of the composting process mostly intact.

 

 

 

Full bill available here: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2017RS/bills/hb/hb1349f.pdf[12].

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[13] and Facebook[14] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[15] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. we wrote about: https://ilsr.org/compostable-plastics-labeling-legislation-maryland/
  2. Maryland House Bill 1349: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=hb1349&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  3. initial bill hearing: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/54346573-babf-4ef3-b2d0-7a7dd56765f3/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c
  4. US Composting Council: http://compostingcouncil.org/
  5. Biodegradable Plastics Institute: http://www.bpiworld.org/
  6. Delegate Shane Robinson’s: http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa15460.html
  7. Trash Free Maryland: https://trashfreemaryland.org/
  8. Biodegradable Plastics Institute: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/BPI-HB-1349-testimony.pdf
  9. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ILSR-testimony-HB-1349-03-01-17.pdf
  10. United States Composting Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/USCC-HB-1349.pdf
  11. Veteran Compost: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Veteran-Compost-Testimony-HB1349.pdf
  12. http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2017RS/bills/hb/hb1349f.pdf: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2017RS/bills/hb/hb1349f.pdf
  13. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  14. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  15. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/compostable-plastics-bill-advances-in-maryland/


Public-Private Partnership Pursued in Pennsylvania

by H Trostle | March 28, 2017 6:37 am

Pennsylvania’s state barriers won’t stop this community from improving Internet service for its municipal facilities, residents, and businesses. The City of Lancaster is collaborating with private provider MAW Communications to ensure the community has next-generation technology. Their public-private partnership, LanCity Connect, will offer affordable 1 gigabit (1,000 Megabits per second) service over a new Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.

Shared Risk, Public Financing

The Lancaster Online has closely followed the development of the partnership from a 2015 Wi-Fi project between the partners to the current citywide fiber plan. Here’s a quick summary of the basic framework of the partnership:

MAW Communications originally built a $1.7 million fiber backbone[1] starting in 2015 with financing from the city’s water fund bond. The city had refinanced its water utility debt, saving some $7.8 million and they worked out an agreement with MAW where the private partner would deploy and own a backbone fiber network. Over the 20 year term of the deal, the city has the right to half the network for city services, including automatic meter reading (AMR) and a traffic control system, with the city being able to renew the deal for four additional terms. Officials have said this arrangement will not impact water rates.

MAW Communications will extend the network to premises, aided by a $1.5 million loan with a 7 percent interest rate from the city’s general fund reserves. The provider will repay the loan over a 13 year period. As long as MAW Communications has an outstanding loan to the city, the provider cannot sell the network without the city’s written approval. Though the loan will help MAW to begin building the network, the costs of connecting homes and businesses would still be prohibitive at $1,000 each if not for another element of the plan.

The city developed a creative way to spread that $1,000 connection charge across a longer time horizon. Lancaster will transfer a $1.5 million loan from the city’s water fund to a Special Revenue Fund for LanCity Connect. If more funds are needed, the city can loan $1.5 million in 2018 and again in 2019 from the water fund. These loans will be paid back via a 13 percent surcharge on LanCity Connect’s rates – this surcharge is expected to last indefinitely.

Business Administrator Patrick Hopkins provided the details these financials in this presentation, which the city government live-streamed on its Facebook page (the presentation runs for about 48 minutes):

 

Savings For The City

The city of Lancaster looks forward to necessary improvements and major cost savings for city services. High-speed connectivity for traffic signals will enable remote monitoring of traffic congestion. The water utility will save $130,000 – $200,000 per year through automatic water meter reading. For internal Internet service costs alone, the city will save $110,000 annually. Police and city officials will be able to securely and freely connect to the network from anywhere in the city.

seal-lancaster-pa.gifAnd of course, the city will see better Internet service for residents and businesses. Local leaders anticipate that the network will improve economic development and generally improve the quality of life locally.

If MAW Communications defaults on the loan repayments, the city may claim ownership of the network and will have liens on other MAW Communications’ assets and revenues. The community may run a risk if another provider like Comcast were to purchase MAW, however unlikely that may be. The city would be repaid the debt but would no longer have a real market for Internet services.

MAW Communications and the city of Lancaster have attempted to strike a balance between risk and reward that benefits the community overall in this partnership. We think they have done a reasonable job given the challenges of creating a partnership in the current environment. For more about collaborations between the public and private sectors for better connectivity, read the report Successful Strategies Behind Broadband Public-Private Partnerships by Christopher Mitchell and Patrick Lucey.

From Free Wi-Fi To Fiber Fast: Recent History

When Lancaster was originally ready to improve Internet access with fiber, the incumbent provider wasn’t interested. Under Pennsylvania law, the main telecom provider has the right-of-first-refusal and Lancaster approached Verizon but they turned down the offer in February 2015. Lancaster looked to other providers and found a trusted partner.

MAW Communications proved its reliability to Lancaster by working with the city on previous projects. The company had provided free public Wi-Fi and installed fiber in the downtown corridor before considering a citywide network.

For the project in downtown, MAW Communications installed the fiber underground through microtrenching — overhead wires are not allowed in the city center. The city pitched in $500,000 to have this fiber installed, and the local ABC affiliate’s video lauded Lancaster as “the first city in Pennsylvania to offer free public Internet access.

At this point, MAW Communications and Lancaster began to look specifically at a citywide network. They created a pilot project, called The Early Adopter Program, to test the possibility of providing Internet service to residents. From the pilot project, 95 percent of the customers described LanCity Connect as “reliable” “high quality” and “useful.”

Building the Network

Over the next two years, MAW Communications will build the network overhead by stringing the cables on the utility poles. The company will divide the city into nine sections and build the network in four phases. See the map of the plan on LanCity Connect’s website.

logo-lanconnect.pngEach phase will feature a registration period when folks can sign up for the new service. After the registration period closes for a particular phase, new sign-ups will not be accepted until the entire network is complete.

The city has an area of about 4 square miles and approximately 21,400 total households. Both partners anticipate quick deployment and attracting customers quickly. MAW Communications estimates 4,000 initial households will take service from the network and a 2 percent annual growth[2] in subscribership. Like an increasing number of communities considering or investing in publicly owned infrastructure, LanCity Connect[3] won’t offer video service, instead focusing only on Internet service.

Rates And Installation

Residents in Lancaster will have four speed tier options:

  • 50 Mbps for $34.99 per month
  • 150 Mbps for $49.99 per month
  • 300 Mbps for $75.99 per month
  • 1 Gbps for $89.99 per month

There will also be a low-income price available for 50 Mbps (price not available yet). This chart compares MAW’s rates to the incumbent’s. The Internet service also requires a router, which costs about $250 through MAW Communications. Residents have three options: pay $250 outright, rent-to-own the MAW Communications router, or provide their own router. All tiers are symmetrical – the same upload and download speeds – which will enable telecommuting opportunities and better service for local businesses that need to share files with clients and colleagues.

Scheduling for installation will begin on April 1st and all phases should be complete by December 2019.

This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org[4]. Read the original here[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. $1.7 million fiber backbone: http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/official-it-s-not-risky-for-city-to-put-up/article_a9e76b6a-0456-11e7-9f07-2b86355a4f2e.html
  2. a 2 percent annual growth: http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/official-it-s-not-risky-for-city-to-put-up/article_a9e76b6a-0456-11e7-9f07-2b86355a4f2e.html
  3. LanCity Connect: https://www.lancityconnect.com/
  4. MuniNetworks.org: http://www.muninetworks.org
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/public-private-partnership-pursued-pennsylvania

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/public-private-partnership-pursued-in-pennsylvania/


Breaking Through Partisanship: Left-Right-Local (Episode 14)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | March 23, 2017 12:30 pm

Welcome to episode fourteen of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews John Farrell[6], Stacy Mitchell[7], and David Morris[8], directors of our Energy Democracy, Community-Scaled Economies, and Public Good initiatives, respectively. The group discusses the nature of local policies and politics versus the national-level fights and hyper-partisanship.

This free-form discussion centers around the innovative economic structures many communities are investing in and how best to connect them to policies.

“Talking about economics is one way to get there, but also, there are these shared values that we have around democracy, local control, liberty,” says Stacy Mitchell of organizing for better local solutions to national problems. “Those are things that are widely all American. I think, also, going back to those basic values and motivations are really helpful in getting past being trapped in an unhealthy partisan conversation.”

For a sampling of recent work by the participants, read the following articles:

Energy Democracy in 4 Powerful Steps[9]

Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[10]

Taking on the Billionaires[11]

David Morris: Well, I think that, in 2017, what The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has to offer and what the country needs is a strategy around concentrated corporate power and the undermining of democracy, specifically the most intimate type of democracy, at the local level.
Chris Mitchell: Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to another episode of Building Local Power. We’re going to start this one a little bit differently because it’s a slightly different formatted show. In the past, we’ve really talked about specific initiatives and policies. Here, today, we’re going to be talking more about how to organize and what kind of strategies are needed in this year of 2017, where we’re seeing hyperpartisanship and I think a lot of frustration and inability to talk to people that we think of as being on the other side.I’m Chris Mitchell. I do a lot of the broadband work. You’ve probably heard me on just about every episode of Building Local Power. We also have, on this show, Stacy Mitchell from our Independent Business Initiative. Welcome, Stacy.
Stacy Mitchell: Great to be with you, Chris.
Chris Mitchell: And we have John Farrell, who does our energy work and has been on the show many times.
John Farrell: Howdy.
Chris Mitchell: I want to start off with a conversation with David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, someone who we talked about the nonpartisan league in North Dakota recently, which keeps coming back in my mind. David, why don’t you give us a thought of what you think we need to be doing in the modern era right now?
David Morris: Well, I think that, in 2017, what we need to do is to focus on the concentrated power in the private sector. We all believe in a private sector, but the private sector is, right now, being enabled and encouraged and aided and abetted to become increasingly concentrated and big. The other piece of it is the reduction in the health of our democracy by undermining the local public sector. That is we are involved in a point now where the states and the federal government are preempting the right of us to make decisions at the most intimate level, which is at the local government level.
Chris Mitchell: I like that a lot. I like that framing, in the sense that we’re facing down concentrated power. Now, to some extent, I’d really like to focus the conversation on how we can go about enacting those strategies and why I think that our philosophy at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance particularly fits that, because we are really focused on, I think, policy goals and respectful policy goals, in a sense of we’re not coming in and saying, “The Democrats are awesome. The Republicans are awesome, and everyone else sucks,” which I think some groups do, even though they may have legitimate policy points. Stacy, I’m curious how you’re thinking about this.
Stacy Mitchell: I very much agree with what David said at the beginning. I think that the issue of concentrated power, it’s remarkable how much unity there is among American citizens around that issue. We saw, in Oklahoma, the failure of this right-to-farm bill, which would have given big agri business a greater hold over the state. We’ve seen a lot of state initiatives, whether it’s around minimum wage, whether it’s around the power of big corporations, where regardless of whether it’s a blue or a red place, people are voting in favor of more control and more equity when it comes to the economy, and I think that’s really notable in this otherwise incredibly seemingly-partisan time period.

This issue of where we practice democracy and the importance of local democracy is so critical and why, when we see states and the federal government preempting lower levels of government, we should be alarmed in most instances. When people are engaged locally and wrestling with an issue, whether it’s energy policy or agriculture policy, there’s an investment and a knowledge at that level that makes them much better able to be citizens at the state and federal level and much more knowledgeable about that issue in a way that I think is really important.

When we don’t have that local democracy and that local engagement, people’s information about an issue and the way that they engage with that issue is filtered through the media, or it’s filtered through what the Republican and Democratic parties want to say, or it’s filtered through what corporations want to say. All of those things, I think, can sometimes work to disconnect us and create this sense of toxic partisan politics around issues.

Chris Mitchell: John, I’d like to throw it to you to see what you have to say as an opening comment.
John Farrell: My thoughts on this notion of this moment in time are really shaped a lot by something that recently happened in Minnesota involving a monopoly utility company getting around public oversight by the use of its 50 lobbyists at the state legislature to get a bill to exempt it from oversight. Just thinking about this bigger picture of concentrated power, the thought is, “50 lobbyists at the state level can buy you, in this case, a billion-dollar power plant. 50 lobbyists at the federal level could probably get you a long way to getting something you want on a national scale. 50 lobbyists at the local level is actually quite inefficient,” because there are so many different municipalities in so many different places where decisions are made. It’s very difficult for concentrated power to compete with people power at that level and to compete with local economies.

I think when we talk about localizing power and where we make decisions, I think that’s one of the dynamics we have to be aware of, is that the more that these decisions are made at the national level, the disproportionate power we give those concentrated interests a chance to have influence.

Chris Mitchell: One of the things that I think is interesting about the local level is that I think people have a different perception at the local level of what’s happening than they do at the national level. I have a sense of what’s happening in my community because I drive around in it. I talk to people from there. I’m in it. I’m reading the local newspaper. I have a sense of what’s happening across the country from my media habits.

To some extent, I think my thinking gets shaped by James Fallows, who’s done some really good work in the Atlantic and elsewhere, talking about how when he talks to people about immigration … and he’s visited cities that are hard hit by what we might call the hollowing out of the manufacturing economy, the highly-paid, low-skilled jobs … he finds that people in areas that might be voting for candidates who are anti immigration, they don’t have a problem with immigrants in their community. They’ll say things like, “I think that immigrants are really contributing to my community and our economy, but nationally we’re just getting killed by them,” and things like that.

This is a sense in which, from my point of view, there’s just a pragmatic sense of organizing locally may help us to actually be getting political power where we have experience and where it’s not so much shaped by a media that both the left and the right, at this point, are very frustrated with. I’m curious if that resonates with anyone else.

Stacy Mitchell: I agree with that. If you serve on the local school board, you have to wrestle with … If it’s a budget cut, you have to wrestle with the implications of that. You really have to deal with the hard realities of what things cost and the taxes that one has to raise in order to fund those. Whereas, when you’re talking about the federal budget, I think it’s very easy to abstract and to have an idea that, “Well, we can cut taxes endlessly and still somehow get the things that we need paid for.” There’s a way in which the rubber meets the road at the local level, that if participate in it, it naturally requires you, as a citizen, to wrestle with these complexities and the fact that things are not black and white.
David Morris: I would also add to that, that at the federal level, half of our discretionary budget goes to the military, which means at the federal level, you’re forever having to justify a huge expenditure on the basis of a terror, which tends to be very far off. The conversation is fear inducing. At the local level, we also have a military budget, I guess. It’s for the local police, but that’s a conversation that is much more intimate, and it’s a conversation that really links the fact that we need a police force, because we do have crime internal to ourselves, rather than something that’s going on 10,000 miles away that’s going to take half of our taxes. I think that there are many reasons why it is healthy, really, to bring as many issues as we can down to the local level for resolution.
John Farrell: Chris, I would agree with that sentiment you expressed previously about the media playing a really important role in coloring our perceptions of what happens outside of our community versus our ability to have our own objective view … Well, maybe objective isn’t the right term, but we’re able to inform ourselves within our own community, from our own experience, that we don’t have to rely on the media for that, and I think that’s a very important tool in maybe tamping down a little bit of the partisan perceptions that we have about different issues.

I always laugh at the fact that Obamacare became such this political hot subject, even though it used to be more of a Republican idea, in terms of how to approach health insurance. It was different media sources that have changed our perception of whether or not that was a liberal or a conservative idea, and I think that’s less likely to happen when we’re talking about things close to home, where the people and the ideas are much more concrete.

Chris Mitchell: One of the things that I think we sometimes get into trouble with, from a partisan point of view, is when we’re trying to tell others what to do. I’m curious. David, in particular, I’m curious how you’ll react to this because, in my mind, local self-reliance is this sense of … and I think a lot of the ideas behind Building Local Power is what we can do locally ourselves, rather than saying, “Hey, you people over there, you have to do it this way.”

I happened to be in Idaho the day that they changed the law, the day that the new law went into effect, that they had open carry. You had hidden carry, the ability to carry weapons about your person without a permit, I believe. That’s the kind of thing where I think, in my mind, a lot of liberals would think, “Well, I don’t want them to be able to do that.” To some extent, I think organizing locally and working on local issues may mean foregoing certain policy preferences that apply to other people. I’m just curious how you react to that, David, and then everyone else.

David Morris: Yeah. I think that that’s true. I think that, at the local level, where … The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is not necessarily trying to tell people what to do. It’s giving people the space to do things that they need to do, which is something very different. I think that the conservatives have called the liberal governments the nanny state, but in fact, what we’re finding out right now is that with the preemption of local governments by the state and the federal government, that in fact it is becoming the nanny state. It’s saying to us, “We will let you drive the car, but only if that car goes to our favorite places.” I think that we can, in fact, argue that we shouldn’t be treated like children at the local level, unless we’re doing something at the local level which either harms human rights or that interferes with things beyond the boundaries of the city.
John Farrell: I think there’s an element here of considering what limitations starve action at the local level, and I think about this a lot in energy, where most of our energy system is regulated at a state level. A lot of the challenge that we have right now is that, as things change, as technology is giving us choices to act both individually and collectively at a local level, whether it’s solar energy or electric vehicles or community solar projects, we have to figure out how we can change the rules at the state or the federal level to open up that opportunity for local action. I think we’re in this interesting place.

On the one hand, as David alluded to, there’s this nanny-state preemption going on where the state and federal government are saying to cities, “You can’t do things that don’t go in the direction that we want you to go.” Yet, there’s also this tension, especially in the energy industry and in other areas, where the technology and the marketplace is saying, “There’s all this opportunity for local action and individual and collective action on a small scale, and we need to have the authority to match up with that. We need to be able to make those decisions locally.”

I think that is going to be an ongoing tension, is that, in many ways, the work that we do offers solutions at the local level, and yet, we have to be able to have that authority centered there in order to make those decisions effectively.

Chris Mitchell: As you were saying that, it made me think about a conversation that I had recently with Olivia. We were talking about this very issue, of organizing, and I think, to some extent, as we were talking about scaling up, to make sure the rules are correct at the state and federal level, a question might be, “How do we go about doing that, and how do we get beyond partisanship?” Olivia said that one of the things she likes about us is that we try to do a real strong economic analysis.

Stacy, as someone who’s worked with local businesses across the political spectrum, I’m curious about this, in what way you think that really trying to focus on the economics of a policy, rather than perhaps just the easiest way to get Democrats to agree with you, might be a better way of organizing.

Stacy Mitchell: I think that’s true. I think a lot of it has to do, really, just with language. I think that the differences in people’s viewpoints are perhaps less than we imagined, but we often use different language, depending on where people are in the political spectrum. For me, I try to avoid anything that signifies a particular political position, and I find that it’s much easier to get to common ground when you strip that stuff out. I think you’re right. Talking about economics is one way to get there, but also, there are these shared values that we have around democracy, local control, liberty. Those are things that are widely all American. I think, also, going back to those basic values and motivations are really helpful in getting past being trapped in an unhealthy partisan conversation.
Chris Mitchell: This is something that I often think about with David as well, because it’s a story that David actually recently retold, and I remember it from one of my first months here. David, you talked about how in an analysis that you did, and perhaps others did here at ILSR, of a favorite policy of ours 30, 40 years ago … I believe it was around solar … we admitted that it would be a loss of jobs for several years, and then, in the end, it would be much better for the local economy. I think a lot of people would not have necessarily been so forthcoming with that analysis.
David Morris: Yes. Actually, we started in Washington, D.C., and Washington D.C. is treated as a state by the federal government when it comes to data gathering and analysis. There are input-output models that are appropriate to D.C., as both a city and as a state. What we did was to gather the data to look at what the economic impact would be if we began to move toward energy efficiency, and especially solar energy, in Washington D.C.

What we found out was that, in the short term, jobs would be lost because D.C. is an incredibly high labor-intensive economy. It operates on paper, essentially, and meetings. In the short run, you would have a loss of jobs, but in the long run, as the savings from those jobs rolls into the local economy, you would have a significant increase in jobs. When we publicized that, we got calls from some economists that said, “Okay. Now you’re credible, that you’re willing to understand the dynamics of the economy in a way that most are not.”

Chris Mitchell: I think that this might involve a trade-off, and I think, John, I’d like to get your reaction to it, in the sense that there’s a danger of us trying to be so pure and not being as political, in part because we’re trying to get beyond this partisan, left-right dynamic and trying to create a new dynamic that focuses on local, but to some extent, I always wonder, “Are we undermining our ability to be effective by trying to be so honest and rigorous with details?” You know that I often come into your office, and I’m like, “Am I being pedantic, or is this an important distinction?”
John Farrell: I think the issue of partisanship is one we have to take very seriously, because the arguments that we make and the analysis that we make and our focus on local economies is not a partisan issue among most people. I think that we inevitably, though, have to talk about things that are political because this issue of concentrated corporate power is a political issue. It plays out in the political sphere. That, I think, is the distinction here that I find important and useful, is that we absolutely have to think about these things, not just in terms of the economics, but in terms of the politics, but we also need to think about not necessarily how it plays with a particular partisan audience, but rather what is the message that appeals to folks on those universal values that Stacy mentioned?
Stacy Mitchell: That’s a really critical point, if I can just jump in, because there’s an impulse to try to fix what’s wrong with our economy by focusing on local enterprises and forming co-ops and forming other kinds of businesses to address local problems. That’s all terrific, but if it doesn’t connect, actually, to politics, we’re not going to change the larger policy structures that fuel corporate power and make those kinds of local models not really viable and not going to go beyond the one or two places that they start. While we want to maybe not trigger these natural partisan dividing lines, this ability to connect what we’re talking about with politics, and particularly with votes on actual legislation, is really critical. I think that piece is so important to preserve.
John Farrell: I wanted to add to that, too. I think just a little more color on what this means to act in a politically savvy but not partisan way is to think about, “What are the organizations that influence the perceptions of people of both parties?” For example, in Minnesota around energy issues, rural electric cooperatives play an enormously important role in rural areas, and they’re influential in both parties. No matter who is holding that office, the co-ops play an important role. They’re a center of, a generation of, a big portion of the economy. The members of the board are significant leaders within the local community. Understanding that, separate from even the energy issues that might be up before the legislator, is crucially important.
Chris Mitchell: I’d like to pile on with that, in a sense of how … John, what you were just saying made me refine what I was thinking, and maybe I can say it a little bit better, in a sense that political versus partisanship, in a sense that, ultimately, we want our policies to succeed, and we need people that are elected to put them into being. But in my mind, we are going to be dealing with Republicans in rural areas and Democrats in urban areas, with some exceptions, but for the most part, if you have an R on your name and you’re in a rural area, you are probably going to get elected. If you have a D behind your name and you’re in an urban area, you’re probably going to get elected.

I’m not as concerned with who those people are as I am with them having a sense that, “I have to enact policies that are going to create local wealth and preserve local decision making.” I want them to be afraid, no matter whether they’re a Democrat or a Republican, that if they enact a corporate-friendly agenda, they’re going to be punished.

David Morris: I would agree with that, but I also think that we also need to take into account the issue of responsibility. When we talk about responsibility, we do start stepping on toes, whether they’re liberal toes or conservative toes, and I mean being responsible for those people who are needy, responsible for those people who are disabled, responsible for future generations. That’s the point at which we are essentially requiring sacrifice, and that is the point where we need to talk about values in order to be the bridge for that. In cities, you’re talking about affordable housing. In rural areas, you’re talking about healthcare, and in urban areas as well.

I think that we’re preaching local authority and local capacity, but we’re also preaching mutual aid. I think that the mutual aid can and should extend beyond our borders where that’s possible. For example, Chris, in your work, in terms of municipal broadband, there are cities that have created their own universal fiber-based networks, and they would like to extend out to the suburbs. A number of those suburbs are conservative suburbs, but they really want to connect to a publicly-owned telecommunications network because it’s proven superior to their own. That’s a form of mutual aid.

A more direct form of mutual aid is one that I am actually trying to promote when I’m here in California, and that is that the federal government would like to probably zero out funding to public radio. That’s really only about $80 or $90 million a year, and I am trying to persuade the state of California that not only should they make up the cuts internal to their state, but they should extend out beyond their state and say that they will make up the cuts to any city in the United States where they are embracing public radio and are willing to support public radio and to states as well. I’m thinking more about extending that mutual aid to those places in the country which take public radio seriously and see it as an important communication vehicle independent of either political party.

John Farrell: I’d like to jump in on this concept of mutual aid because I think it’s useful in thinking about it in two different ways relevant to my work. One is that the term is actually used in the utility business to describe a situation where, for example, one city-owned utility is subject to some sort of natural disaster and has an enormous amount of clean up to do to get the power back on, and other municipal utilities from around the country send their line workers in, in order to help that city out, recognizing that they’re all going to be in that boat at some point, and that sometimes an individual city has a limited amount of resources. I think that’s very much in the spirit of what David’s talking about, and it applies both to this issue of media, but also to this issue of energy services.

The second thing I think is important to recognize is that sometimes mutual aid is actually a benefit and not a sacrifice. One of the things that we’re seeing crop up more and more is this conversation about folks who are on energy assistance, which is to say that there’s a public fund that we all already contribute to that helps pay energy bills for people who can’t afford to. That fund is, in some ways, a subsidy to the industry that provides that power at too expensive a price for the folks who use it, and there is now an opportunity to invest in things like energy efficiency or solar. They can actually reduce those folks’ dependency. It can increase their own self-reliance and also reduce the amount that collectively we have to put into that form of mutual aid.

I think there’s a couple lessons there. One is that absolutely there are lots of ways to provide this mutual aid that makes sense, but another one is that sometimes when we do it, it actually pays back.

Chris Mitchell: I would throw into this discussion that mutual aid can, of course, be nongovernmental. This is something that I often think of Mormons, in that they tend to vote pretty conservatively, if you look at Utah, but they also are incredible when it comes to mutual aid. I wouldn’t say that we should get rid of all forms of governmental mutual aid, because my sense is that the reason we have governmental mutual aid is because our nongovernmental mutual aid didn’t actually do enough to make sure that everyone had what they needed. I would say that I’d be open to reevaluating that if we got back into a good economy without such corporate control and, I would say, such extraction of wealth from our communities, but until then, those are some of the things that I think about.
Stacy Mitchell: The other thing to keep in mind about the difference between private mutual aid and public mutual aid is that private mutual aid often comes with strings attached and is discriminatory in how it’s available to people based on race, gender, moral ideology, whatever it may be. The public is the shared space and the thing that we all equally control.
David Morris: I would say that there is also, in terms of the question of mutual aid, but also the question of responsibility, is that 50 years ago, if you voted on a school bond to raise the property taxes to support the school system, you probably had a child either in the school system or one was about to be or one that would have just graduated. In 2017, the majority of people who vote on school bond issues do not have children in the public school system. Yet, consistently, these bonds do win around the country, and that is a form of self-sacrifice, if you will, for the greater good. That is somebody who is saying, “I’m willing to raise my property taxes in order to benefit my neighbor or other people, because I think that, in the long run, that helps the public good, which helps me.”
Stacy Mitchell: It’s interesting because, as a parallel to that, one of the arguments that I’ve often made in favor of locally-owned business is that, in the same way, a local business owner who’s voting on a tax increase that would go to the schools often has kids in the schools or at least is part of the community that has kids in those schools, and so has to weigh the cost to his or her business against the value that’s generated for the kids in the community.

A distantly-owned corporation doesn’t have that at all, in fact has just the opposite motivation, which is to get the lowest possible tax rate that they can in that community. It’s just one of the ways in which local ownership, I think, complicates business decisions in ways that are socially useful.

Chris Mitchell: As we move into final comments, as we’re running out of time, I just wanted to reiterate that, in my mind, this is a show in which we’re dancing around a little bit, talking through what it means to build local power in a time of hyperpartisanship. I really find that focusing on the local just gives me a sense that we can accomplish things. When I look at the national, I feel like the problems are so big, but to the extent that we can solve a lot of problems locally, maybe the national problems won’t be quite so big.
Stacy Mitchell: Thomas Jefferson, when he had retired from national office and went back to Virginia, was at this point where he started to worry about the future of the democracy, and he really advocated for this idea in Virginia of breaking government down into ever-smaller units, like counties would be broken down into wards, which would be broken down into sub-wards. The idea is that just about everyone would have to serve in some sort of elected office. Of course, at the time that he was advocating that, he also owned about 500 enslaved people, so it’s a little bit of complexity, to say the least.
Chris Mitchell: Well, it’s a great point, and I guess my fear is that in a world that we would like to build, with a lot of local power, we would need more people to take responsibility. I think we need more people to run for elected office. This is something that I think the right has historically encouraged people to run for office, and the left is now starting to really encourage particularly women to run for office. That is, I think, a question, in this society that we have, whether or not enough people would want to take responsibility for making these hard decisions. Maybe we’ll come back to that on a future show.
David Morris: I think that the elephant in the room is that if you’re a local, you’re small and you’re weak. We have been talking about how, collectively, we can be strong by changing the rules at a higher level of government. The question is, “How would we change those rules?” I think of the health system. Cities are involved somewhat peripherally in the health system, although they have municipal hospitals, and they have some welfare and aid programs, but how do we want to change the health system so that it not only provides universal healthcare, but it also provides a way in which we, on the community level, can have some say and some participation?

When I look around the world, I see that Sweden, for example, is a country that has a universal healthcare system that’s financed by taxes imposed by the country itself, but it’s primarily run at the municipal level. Canada has a universal healthcare system that is essentially run at the provincial level, both in terms of income generation, in that case, and also operation. We do need to think about how we can have rules at the higher level that enable us to deal with problems that right now we can’t deal with at the local level because we don’t have the resources to.

John Farrell: I think that what Stacy said earlier is a really good reflection on this issue of to what extent we can make decisions locally, which is where that story of the big corporation and the viewpoint that they would take, for example, on a local school referendum. The issue there is to the extent that we have concentrated corporate power, we can’t confront it at the local level, but we do have policies at the federal level, called antitrust, that give us the power and the authority to confront corporate power in a way that we have not been exercising that. That muscle has grown weak over the past decades.

I think that is really the biggest challenge in the pursuit of local self-reliance, is this notion that, “Yes, we need to organize at the local level and to think about these questions of getting people to take responsibility and run for office, of identifying the ways that we can enact and enable local solutions.” Our work, in many cases, shares those models widely, but as long as there are these large entities that can throw around disproportionate political power, it will be difficult to have solutions at the local level for a system to become successful and become replicable, because they’ll continue to stand in the way.

Chris Mitchell: I think that’s a good place to end, not because we’ve necessarily solved it, but because that’s a good concluding point. Let me just ask you, if you enjoyed this open, freeform discussion and would like to see us come back and revisit this style again in the future, let us know. Send us a note to Info@ILSR.org, Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We’ll be back to you in two weeks with another focus topic, and maybe we’ll have some open discussion again in the future. Thank you for listening.
Lisa Gonzalez: We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org. Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music, licensed through Creative Commons. The song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to The Building Local Power Podcast.

 

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Endnotes:
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  6. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/author/johnf
  7. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/author/stacym/
  8. David Morris: https://ilsr.org/author/davidm/
  9. Energy Democracy in 4 Powerful Steps: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-in-4-steps/
  10. Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  11. Taking on the Billionaires: https://ilsr.org/taking-on-the-billionaires/
  12. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
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  15. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  16. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  17. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  18. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
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Legislative and Broadband Relief For Pinetops, North Carolina In Sight

by Lisa Gonzalez | March 23, 2017 7:43 am

Since August 2016, the small community of Pinetops has been on the verge of losing their best connection to the 21st century – high quality Internet access. The North Carolina Legislature has a chance to change all that this session with legislation that will carve out an exception to restrictive state laws that prevent a local municipal provider from serving this rural town.

The State Blocks Service

When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed the FCC’s preemption[1] of state law restricting geographical reach of broadband from municipal electric utilities, Pinetops was in a pickle. Nearby Wilson had extended its Greenlight high capacity Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service to the tiny community where residents and businesses were still slumping on DSL, dialing up, or not connected at all. The court’s reversal required the city of Wilson to risk losing their ability to serve their own community if they continued to do business as a provider for Pinetops[2].

The only way Pinetops and another customer outside Wilson County – Vick Family Farms – could continue with Greenlight was when the City Council voted to continue temporary service at no charge[3]. Elected officials made the decision based on the expectation that legislators would introduce proposals to carve out exceptions for both Pinetops and the Vick Family Farm, commercial potato farm also located outside of Wilson County. Last week, they made good on that promise[4].

Reps Step In To Help

Representatives Susan Martin (R) and Jean Farmer-Butterfield (D), both from Wilson, introduced HB 396[5], which allows Wilson to expand Greenlight to Pinetops and the area in Nash County where Vick Family Farms is located. The legislation would allow the Nash County business to continue with the service it needs for daily operations. Pinetops is located in Edgecombe County. North Carolina’s restrictions prevent municipal networks like Greenlight from serving subscribers beyond county lines.

When the FCC preempted that restriction[6], Wilson answered requests from Pinetops and Vick Family Farms to come to their neck of the woods. Pinetops has steadily lost population and jobs due to its poor connectivity. Vick Family Farms wanted to invest in a new processing facility and open up its business to an online customer base. Both have experienced turn arounds since obtaining access to FTTH connectivity and don’t want to go back[7] to their prior situation.

Hurricane Matthew hit Pinetops in September 2016 and the community is still recovering. Community leaders in Wilson don’t want to compound Pintetops’ difficulties by taking away the Internet access they’ve come to depend on.

Bipartisan And Local

Because HB 396 is local and impacts 15 or fewer counties, it doesn’t require the Governor’s signature to take affect. If both the House and Senate pass the bill, it will immediately become law. In addition to the two main sponsors – one from each party – several other legislators have signed on to HB 396.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[8].

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Endnotes:
  1. reversed the FCC’s preemption: https://muninetworks.org/content/sixth-circuit-court-appeals-reverses-fcc-disappointing-ruling
  2. if they continued to do business as a provider for Pinetops: https://muninetworks.org/content/wilson-forced-turn-service-pinetops
  3. at no charge: https://muninetworks.org/content/wilson-offer-greenlight-pinetops-no-charge
  4. they made good on that promise: http://www.wilsontimes.com/stories/bill-would-allow-pinetops-to-keep-greenlight,82311
  5. HB 396: http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2017&BillID=hb396&submitButton=Go
  6. FCC preempted that restriction: https://muninetworks.org/content/cable-companies-lose-big-fcc-barriers-community-broadband-struck-down
  7. don’t want to go back: https://muninetworks.org/content/we-just-cant-go-back-time-pinetops-calls-repeal-state-law
  8. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/legislative-relief-pinetops-sight

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/legislative-and-broadband-relief-for-pinetops-north-carolina-in-sight/


Video: A Solar Leader Emerges in Rural Iowa

by Karlee Weinmann | March 15, 2017 10:30 am

It seems counter-intuitive that a conservative farming community in southeastern Iowa is home to some of the most expansive solar generation in the U.S. But that’s exactly what’s happening in the area served by Farmers Electric Cooperative, the rural utility whose enterprising leader, Warren McKenna, saw renewables as a gateway to economic vitality.

Last summer, ILSR spent some time experiencing firsthand the solar explosion in this Iowa community and learning how Farmers Electric made it happen. See it for yourself here:

To learn more, read the full story[1] on McKenna’s successful campaign to make his community a solar giant.

Video by Stephen Maturen[2].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[3]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[4] or Karlee Weinmann[5] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[6] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. read the full story: https://ilsr.org/thanks-to-co-op-small-iowa-town-goes-big-on-solar/
  2. Stephen Maturen: http://www.stephenmaturen.com/
  3. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  4. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  5. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  6. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/video-solar-rural-iowa/


America’s Major Market Power Problem (Episode 13)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | March 9, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode thirteen of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the ILSR and director of the Community-Scaled Economies initiative. The two discuss the environment for small businesses in the United States, especially noting the fact that the rate of small business creation is at one of its lowest rates since the early 1970s.

Additionally, Stacy and Chris talk about how the issue of small businesses and incentivizing their creation is a bipartisan issue that greatly benefits local economies.

“The economy has grown very concentrated, in a lot of industries, there are just two or three huge firms that control most of the market,” says Stacy Mitchell of the current dismal rate of small business creation. “There’s evidence that [these firms] use that power to actually exclude and block smaller businesses from being able to get to market, to have a fair opportunity to compete.”

 

For the report that Stacy referred to this week, check out our report, Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[6] from August 2016.

Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business[7]

From Stacy:

[8]
Yale Law Review Journal’s “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox[9]” by Lina Khan

 

[10]
The Economic Innovation Group’s “Dynamism in Retreat: Consequences for Regions, Markets, and Workers[11]“

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Chris:

[12]
“Anansi Boys[13]” by Neil Gaiman Available from an independent retailer here: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Anansi+Boys/[14].
Chris Mitchell: Hey, Stacy. I hear that Americans aren’t creating new businesses anymore. What’s going on?
Stacy Mitchell: The rate of new startup businesses in this country is half of what it was in the late 1970’s. We think of ourselves as a nation of startups, but we really aren’t anymore.
Chris Mitchell: Well, that’s actually pretty disturbing that it’s late 1970’s, because that was when I was born, but also, I associate it with a period of economic stagnation in fact.
Stacy Mitchell: Exactly. There are a lot of ways in which I think today’s economy creates this kind of illusion of dynamism and competition, when in fact if we peel back and look a little closer, there’s much less competition than there used to be. It’s harder and harder for ordinary Americans to start and grow a business.
Chris Mitchell: It’s very disturbing. That’s what we’re going to be talking about for this show. You just heard the voice of Stacy Mitchell with our Independent Business Program at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She’s coming out of Portland, Maine. I’m Chris Mitchell in Minneapolis. I work on our broadband work. Today, we’re going to be talking about basically what’s hurting local business and small business formation.

Let me just ask you to remember to rate our program, the Building Local Power podcast, on iTunes or wherever you find it. Tell your friends to blog, tweet, do Facebook posts, tumble with it. Do whatever you need to do to get the message out there, please, to share this discuss.

Now, Stacy. Let’s get back into this. Why aren’t new firms being created?

Stacy Mitchell: Well, there’s one reason that a lot of people are looking at, which is that the economy has grown very concentrated. That is that in a lot of industries, there are just two or three huge firms that control most of the market, and there’s evidence that they use that power to actually exclude and block smaller businesses from being able to get to market, to having a fair opportunity to compete. We’ve seen this in lots of different industries where we see big businesses doing this and just making it harder for small businesses to actually get their products to market or be able to compete.
Chris Mitchell: Stacy, you wrote a paper that was published last summer, “Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: The Case for Restoring America’s Once Robust Antitrust Policies.” I find it interesting because I think a lot of people will hear in media that the problem that’s harming businesses is government policy, that there’s too many regulations. I’m curious if you can talk about that. It seems to me that what we’re actually talking about is whether we have good regulations or bad regulations.
Stacy Mitchell: I think that’s absolutely right. There are two storylines out there that are dominant about why small businesses are disappearing. One is the storyline that they’re just inefficient, and they can’t compete, and they’re just going to fall by the wayside naturally because of competition. The other storyline is that government is interfering with them, tangling them up in a bunch of regulations and high taxes and so on.When you look more closely, there’s lots of evidence that small businesses are actually highly competitive, and that there are things that they do better and more nimbly than the big companies, and that the real problem is that they’re getting blocked from the market. When it comes to regulation, I think you’re exactly right. The real question we should be considering is what does the regulation do, and how does it work, does it work well?

What we see a lot of is that big companies game government in ways that result in regulation that doesn’t impede their behavior, but puts a lot of problems in the way of small businesses. Really, as you said, it’s a question of how does government either support a dynamic and diverse economy or not? It’s not a matter of more or less regulation.

Chris Mitchell: It strikes me that you’ve talked about this before in that if you look at surveys of the groups that are pro big business, they’ll often talk about how some of the worst places to do business are San Francisco, maybe, or Vermont. These are areas that actually have the highest number of local businesses. Am I getting that pretty close?
Stacy Mitchell: Yeah. It’s absolutely right. Texas has one of the lowest rates of small business and Texas is a state that we often think of as free and open economy. Vermont, on the other hand, has the highest rate of small businesses. When I look at it, I see Vermont is a state that has done a pretty good job of keeping big companies in check. They use regulation really to ensure competition and ensure opportunity, as opposed to allowing big companies just to use their market power to crush smaller businesses.
Chris Mitchell: Now, as you know, I am a huge book lover. I used to work in a used bookstore. I have 2,500 volumes in my small home. I think it’s actually an interesting little experiment that seems to have been run because small bookstores seems to be getting destroyed when Barnes & Noble and Borders were running rampant. Then the market changed enough that those big bookstores seemed to go away. It seems to me that small bookstores are now actually bucking the trend. There’s been a lot of new, small bookstores that have been created, right?
Stacy Mitchell: That’s right. We’ve added over 500 new, independent bookstores in the last five years or so.
Chris Mitchell: There hasn’t been a major change in government regulations, but it strikes me that there has been a change in basically unfair, very large, consolidated competition.
Stacy Mitchell: It’s been a couple of things that I think are driving that growth of new bookstores. One is that Borders failed. That opened up a lot of territory for bookstores to go in. We lost one of the biggest chains.

Then one of the other drivers is that the buy local movement has, for various reasons, heavily benefited bookstores. When people think about the kinds of community businesses that are important to them, bookstores have been sort of like the local food movement, the other real focal point of those efforts. Independent bookstores have benefited. There’s also a new generation of bookstore owners who are figuring out this new territory and how to be successful in the current market.

That said, Amazon is now incredibly dominant in the book business. The reason that Borders failed and that Barnes & Noble is quite shaky right now is because Amazon’s got a lot of market power. When independent bookstores, they’ve done fairly well in recent years, but when they look to the future, they’re quite concerned about where things are headed.

Chris Mitchell: One of the things that your paper, “Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business,” notes is that authors get a lot more sales from small businesses, particularly unknown authors who readers like me learn about them through word of mouth, from local businesses. Is that one of those things you were noting that local businesses just tend to do better?
 Stacy Mitchell: This is one of the most important things that we’ve documented across a lot of different industries, books being one, which is that if you have this diversity of independent retailers and a diversity of distributors and so on, you have a much wider range of products that actually make it to market. What big chains do, and even Amazon, is that they really funnel consumers to a handful of top products. They actually can even manipulate the search results that you’re seeing in order to channel you to products that have a higher profit margin for them. In the case of Amazon, it’s increasingly manufacturing or publishing its own books. It publishes many books. It’s steering consumers to a small number of titles.The result is that a new author or a small publisher has a much harder time breaking into that market. If there are independent bookstores, as a new author, you can get going simply by having some of those bookstore owners notice your book and start hand-selling it to consumers. Then word of mouth starts to take off and you can actually find your way to an audience. That’s true not just of books, but it’s true of toys, clothing. Everything else in the marketplace there’s this same story.

We’ve done a lot of interviews with small manufacturers and they are very concerned about consolidation in the retail sector, that there are so few chains, and Amazon is so dominant. What they all talk about, when you hear them describe the role of independent retailers, it’s clear that they’re like this keystone species for the whole industry. That the health of the independent retail part of the industry is so critical to those new products having a chance to be discovered by consumers in the first place. Just to give you a statistic, you’re about three times more likely to discover a new book that you didn’t know about, but that you’d like to read, if you’re browsing in an independent bookstore than if you’re shopping at Amazon.

Chris Mitchell: It’s interesting to me that you can create a bookstore. I think it’s a little bit easier than, for instance, starting a new pharmacy. In part, that’s because of you have monopoly in a middle layer here, where if you want to start a pharmacy, you have to deal with something called pharmacy benefit management companies. I wonder if you can just tell us a little bit about how that impacts whether or not we can have competitive pharmacies.
Stacy Mitchell: That’s a great question. Pharmacy benefit management companies or PBMs. Most consumers have never even heard of these companies, but they’re among the most powerful players in the health care market, and particularly in prescription drug benefits. PBMs, there are just two of them that control almost 80% of all the prescriptions in this country. They hugely dominate the market.PBMs are basically hired by your health insurance provider to decide what to control your pharmacy, your benefits. They’re the ones that decide which pharmacies are going to be in the network that you can use. They also set the reimbursement rates so when those pharmacies dispense a drug to you, how much they get paid back from the insurance company, that’s set by the PBMs.

The PBMs, what’s astonishing to me is that the PBMs own their own mail-order pharmacies. The largest PBM, CVS Health, owns the second-largest chain of chain pharmacies, CVS. What these companies do is that they use their contracts with independent pharmacies. They basically go to independent pharmacies and they say, “You have two choices. You can either be in the network and be one of the pharmacies that’s covered by this big insurance plan, but in order to be in the network, we’re going to set these reimbursement rates that basically leave you barely getting by or, in fact, losing money on the prescriptions that you dispense.”

You’re stuck between this rock and a hard place as an independent pharmacy. The reason that these companies do that, of course, is that they just want to steer all the business to their pharmacies, to their own mail order, or in the case of CVS, to the CVS chain.

The analysis that we did a couple of years ago that I think is really eye-opening is that we looked at the state of North Dakota. North Dakota doesn’t allow chain pharmacies to operate in the state. A state only has independent pharmacies. This is a law that goes back to 1963. It’s unique in the United States, but it’s similar to laws in a lot of European countries.

It offers this great and sort of unusual test case to look at, “Well, what happens in a market where there are only independents?” We’re trained to imagine that that would be not very competitive. It wouldn’t be good for consumers. It might be high-priced and bad service. All these stereotypes we have about small businesses in our head.

It turns out that North Dakota has among the lowest prescription drug prices in the country and they have very high levels of health care service. They also have a lot of pharmacies. They have more pharmacies per capita than any other state in the country. You can go to these tiny town in North Dakota with 500 people and there will be a pharmacist there, often the only professional health care provider in the community.

The reason that independent pharmacies are so healthy in North Dakota is because unlike pharmacies, they still have to deal with the PBMs, but because there is no other chain in North Dakota, it basically levels that negotiation playing field. The PBMs have to really negotiate with independents instead of just handing them this take-it-or-leave-it contract that is going to ultimately destroy their business, such as what we’ve seen happen in all the other states.

Chris Mitchell: I actually classify this law in North Dakota as weird law. I’ve mentioned this in a previous Building Local Power episode. In Minnesota, we actually just lost a ban on Sunday liquor sales because it was seen as being antiquated. In fact, banning Sunday liquor sales is not about puritanical desires. It’s about supporting small businesses because small businesses, people who run them would like a day off. It turns out that if you allow Sunday liquor stores sales, you’re not going to have a whole bunch of new sales. You’re just going to spread your cost and your revenue across more widely. That’s going to be bad for small businesses, but it’s great for big chains. I’m curious, do you think that we need more of these weird laws to level the playing field?
Stacy Mitchell: I think we do, especially in the absence of federal antitrust action. I think it’s really up to states and cities in this environment to step up and insist that there be a competitive open market that not only serves consumers well, but creates opportunities for people to start businesses, grow jobs, all the other things that our competition laws at the federal level are, in theory, supposed to protect. North Dakota’s pharmacy ownership law is a great example in the sense that it’s a regulation that actually supports more competition and a healthier, freer, more productive, dynamic market by interfering in that way. That’s effectively what you get.
Chris Mitchell: I also think one of the benefits of that North Dakota law is that you probably don’t have the pharmacies shaping the rules. As you well know, in North Dakota, some big companies like Walmart tried to come in and muscled their way in and changed the rules in North Dakota using various means, but they didn’t have the political power to just change the rules because political power was dispersed because of each community having its own pharmacy, effectively.
Stacy Mitchell: Well, yeah. This is another very powerful reason, it seems to me, that we should be, as a society, very concerned about consolidation, about this drop-off in small business. Is that ultimately the goal of dispersing economic power, going back to the Boston Tea Party, has always been about protecting democracy. The ways in which corporations are able to use their leverage with government to get their way, to make us citizens less and less powerful, that in and of itself should be a reason to break up concentrations of power and to really insist on an economy where power is much more dispersed.
Chris Mitchell: As we round out the interview, I just want to note a report from the Economic Innovation Group called, “Dynamism in Retreat.” It says that the missing companies, if we had just created small businesses along historical norms, that we would have one million more jobs today in the United States than we do. That’s pretty incredible.
Stacy Mitchell: It is. It’s really striking. Another thing that I found quite striking in this data that they just released last month is they looked at how the last four years during this economic recovery period, how many new businesses were created versus previous recoveries in the early 2000’s, the early ’90’s, and the 1980’s. They found that the rate of business creation in this recovery is 1/3 of what it was during the recovery in the 1990’s.

Also, what was most striking is that in previous recoveries, new business formation has been happening all across the country. What they found now is that there are only five metro areas where there’s significant new business growth. All the other metro areas are not seeing that. In fact, in 60% of all metros right now, there are more business deaths than there are business births. In history, we’ve never seen that before. It’s really a remarkable shift and one that, particularly for the reason of job creation, but lots of other reasons, is quite alarming.

Chris Mitchell: One of the things that I liked about this report is that it was pretty nonpartisan. I think sometimes you see reports like this and they just want to say, “This is happening because the Democrats are terrible or the Republicans are for the big guy.” This really, I think, I don’t want to say down the middle, but it’s pretty independent. It notes consolidation within the banking sector, something that I think Republicans tend to support. It notes the rising level of regulations and challenges of starting a new business, which is something that I think Democrats take a little bit more responsibility for at times.

I’m just curious if you have any reactions to that because I think it’s one thing if you have people being like, “Well, that’s just because Obama hated businesses.” I really want to be clear that I think we would root the problems with small-business formations in the deficiencies of both parties, really.

Stacy Mitchell: I think that’s absolutely right. I think in some ways, some of the kinds of reforms that we’ve been advocating at the policy level, we’ve had a tough time with Republicans in the House and Senate, to be clear. That’s certainly the case with respect to beefing up antitrust enforcement. We’ve seen much more movement and leadership from Democrats on that.

On the other hand, there are areas, and I think banking is an excellent example, where the mess that we find ourselves in right now where we have a handful banks that own most of the market, where we’ve lost one out of every four community banks in the last seven years, that kind of consolidation has been driven both by Republicans and Democrats. It was Bill Clinton that passed the two major banking laws that really shifted banking policy and gave the upper hand to Wall Street banks.

There’s a lot to like about Dodd-Frank, the financial reform bill that was passed in the wake of the financial crisis. I like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I think it’s done a lot of good things. The law certainly closed off some of the worst shenanigans on the part of Wall Street banks. I don’t want to paint it with one brush, but it also didn’t really address the issue of consolidation. It didn’t break up these big banks. At the same time, it created new compliance obligations for community banks that has made it a little bit more difficult to stay in business. I think when you look at banking it’s really clear that powerful wings of each party have played a significant role in causing that consolidation and not really addressing the problem.

Chris Mitchell: I’d like to wrap it up, I think, by just noting that even though we would say both parties have a share of responsibility, under no circumstances are we claiming that that’s shared 50/50. Had Hillary been elected, I have no doubt that we would be very angry at the level of influence that Goldman Sachs would have over White House. However, the level of Wall Street input into the Trump White House is off the charts. I don’t want to do any false equivalence here.
Stacy Mitchell: Well, that’s absolutely right. It’s infuriating to watch the Republican leadership in the House and Senate right now saying, “Oh, we’ve got to roll back Dodd-Frank in order to help community banks.” When you look at the actual provisions of Dodd-Frank that they want to roll back, it’s often related to things that have nothing to do with community banks. It has to do with securities trading, and derivatives, and all this other stuff that Wall Street banks are up to. It’s particularly galling, I think, when you purport to be doing something on behalf of small businesses or local banks when all you’re really doing is giving out big favors and easing up on these large corporations.
Chris Mitchell: We like to end with a reading recommendation. Is there anything that you’ve read recently you want to share with the audience?
Stacy Mitchell: I have two, but they’re both kind of wonky reads. They’re not necessarily curl up by the fireside kinds of reads, but they’re really great. The first one is an article called, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” This was in the Yale Law Journal just last month. It’s by Lina Khan, who is a fellow at the New America Foundation and also a Yale law school student. It’s really terrific.It’s a look at the way that antitrust law has been changed over the last 30 years or so and how those changes have made our current antitrust policy really not be able to effectively grapple with the anti-competitive concerns that are raised by Amazon in particular. Although it’s a law journal article, it’s very readable and really walks you through some of those changes and what the implications are and the issues raised by Amazon. I think it’s a great companion piece to the report that we published late last year about Amazon.

Then the other thing that I’ve been reading, and again is deep in the weeds, is a book called, Virtual Competition, by two legal scholars, Maurice Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi. It’s a really fascinating book about how the new world of online commerce and the various ways that the internet has altered business, how in that world there are lots of things that make it seem to us very competitive, but in fact, is a kind of veneer that hides all sorts of ways in which that market is much easier for collusion, and behavioral discrimination, and all kinds of things to actually work against competition and harm consumers.

 Chris Mitchell: Great. Since you’re going to be a little bit wonky, I’ll just note that I just picked up a Neil Gaiman book that I hadn’t read yet, Anansi Boys, which I’m not sure how to pronounce exactly. If people aren’t familiar with Neil Gaiman, or Gaiman, I don’t know how to pronounce anything apparently relating to him, I was blown away by his book, Neverwhere. A little less wonky, a little more fun. May not be right for everyone, but I sure loved him. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Stacy Mitchell: Thanks, Chris. It’s been great.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Stacy Mitchell joining Christopher for Episode #13 of the Building Local Power podcast. Stacy is Co-Director of ILSR, as well as heading up the Independent Business Program. Christopher, no relation to Stacy, Mitchell is the Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative. To download the “Monopoly Power” report Christopher and Stacy discuss, go to ilsr.org and check out the resources in the Independent Business Initiative.

We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast, and all of our other podcasts, on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org.

Thanks to Dysfunction_AL for the music, licensed through Creative Commons. The song is “Funk Interlude.”

I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to Episode #13 of the Building Local Power podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[15] Building Local Power on iTunes[16] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[17]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[18]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[19] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[20] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[21] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[22] and Facebook[23] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[24] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-03-02-blp013-stacy-smal-biz-formation.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-03-02-blp013-stacy-smal-biz-formation.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  7. Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/
  8. [Image]: http://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/amazons-antitrust-paradox
  9. Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox: http://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/amazons-antitrust-paradox
  10. [Image]: http://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Dynamism-in-Retreat.pdf
  11. Dynamism in Retreat: Consequences for Regions, Markets, and Workers: http://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Dynamism-in-Retreat.pdf
  12. [Image]: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Anansi+Boys/
  13. Anansi Boys: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Anansi+Boys/
  14. http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Anansi+Boys/: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Anansi+Boys/
  15. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  18. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  19. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  20. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  21. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  22. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  23. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  24. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/market-power-problem-episode-13-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Arkansas Utility Leads on Energy, Broadband

by Karlee Weinmann | March 2, 2017 2:00 pm

This article was co-written with ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative research associate, Hannah Trostle, and this piece is cross-posted on MuniNetworks.org[1].

Ouachita Electric Cooperative, nestled deep in south-central Arkansas, is an unlikely innovator in a pair of industries struggling to adapt to shifting market dynamics: electricity and broadband.

Despite rising demand for energy efficiency and renewable electricity generation, large investor-owned utilities — and many rural electric co-ops — have resisted programs to address those needs. Likewise, corporate Internet service providers frequently offer shoddy service at high rates, a particular problem in rural areas with limited competition.

But Ouachita Electric[2] found a way to do both things better, with complementary technologies. Fiber-optic network investments provided lower cost Internet access, but also provide an information backbone for the electric utility that can reduce outage times and verification for energy savings programs. The network and the efficiency programs reduce costs for a customer base dominated by low-income households that can now reinvest their earnings elsewhere in the community.

[3]Inclusive Financing

The utility’s tariff-based, on-bill financing program — known as HELP PAYS[4] — allows customers to invest in energy efficiency upgrades at their homes, like insulation and heat pumps, at no upfront cost. Ouachita Electric covers eligible expenses, then recoups its buy-in through payments from participating customers on their monthly bills. Customers immediately pay less thanks to utility-financed energy-saving improvements.

Unlike other energy efficiency programs, the opt-in “inclusive financing” program, HELP PAYS, enables all Ouachita customers to capture significant benefits:

  • Low-income households can pay, because they don’t need to come up with thousands of dollars upfront for qualifying improvements.
  • Renters can participate, because monthly charges are attached to individual meters rather than individual customers, meaning they won’t be saddled with costs if they move.
  • The tariff structure does not hinge eligibility on a minimum credit score, unlike loan-based programs that rely on private financiers.

Customer interest in the tariff-based, on-bill program surged immediately[5] after Ouachita Electric implemented it last year. In the first three months, the number of customers seeking efficiency assessments — a precursor to improvements — doubled, from 73 to more than 162.

In August, the utility reported[6] 100 percent of multifamily and rental units eligible for the program had opted in. At the same point, 92 percent of single-family customers that had received offers to invest in upgrades agreed to do so.

The impact of inclusive financing is especially pronounced in this co-op’s service territory, where the average household income hovers around $33,000 per year, far below the national median of $52,000.

But the benefits of inclusive financing, as proven by Ouachita Electric, extend much further.

The enterprising utility reports cost savings, confirmed and quantified using smart meters. Thanks to inclusive financing, Ouachita Electric has reduced the amount it spends on power to supply electricity to its members. Going forward, it will curb the need to add expensive new generation capacity.

A New Fiber Network

Electric cooperatives have tried a number of approaches to improve internet access for their largely rural customers, from working with satellite communication companies to experimenting with broadband over power lines. Now, Ouachita Electric has started a project to bring some of the fastest Internet service in the U.S. to their co-op members.

Ouachita Electric is collaborating with the local, family-owned, telephone company, South Arkansas Telephone[7], which already provides Internet service to half of Ouachita Electric’s service territory. The partnership, the Arkansas Rural Internet Service (ARIS)[8], is set to bring phone, video, and gigabit Internet service — more than ten times the speeds typically offered by cable companies — to all 9,500 homes and businesses throughout Ouachita Electric’s service territory.

Ouachita Electric and South Arkansas Telephone are co-owners of ARIS, as described by ARIS Director Mark Lundy in Telecompetitor[9]. As such, they will share both the cost of construction and the overall revenues.

Mark Cayce, the general manger of Ouachita Electric Cooperative, explained that the partnership builds on the strengths of both the electric cooperative and the local telephone company:

“They have technical expertise and back office skills we didn’t have. We have access to our members and we built a long-standing reputation of a company that provides really good service.”

They announced the project in mid-June 2016, expecting to hook up the first customers that September. ARIS will offer speeds of up to one gigabit (1,000 Mbps) directly to homes for less than $100 per month. The entire venture will involve installing about 1,800 miles of fiber over the next few years.

These rural communities cannot wait for the better connectivity — which won’t just be better than what they had, it will rival the best networks in the country. Within the first week of the announcement, over 400 members signed up for service.

Fiber networks not only provide high-speed Internet service, but also create opportunities to innovate. Cities have used fiber to improve traffic management, electrical systems, and public safety systems. Ouachita Electric’s investment could enable many of these innovations, but they are starting with smart meters.

Complementary Benefits

With real-time sensors, these smart meters monitor power quality and can deliver notifications of power outages. They form part of a smart grid system that improves monitoring and management of the overall electric power system, resulting in power savings and lower costs.

In an April 2012 report[10], ILSR explained the benefits of the smart grid owned by Chattanooga municipal utility EPB in reducing the time customers are without power:

“EPB credits the smart grid automation with preventing 2.4 million customer minutes of interrupted service during the 2011 tornadoes alone. As of Feb 29, EPB reported that its fiber network had saved 5 million customer minutes interrupted since July 1, 2011—an average of 30 minutes per customer.“

Chattanooga’s smart grid again proved its worth during the July 2012 storms that caused regional power outages. EPB and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s case study[11] found that the smart grid reduced customer outage time by 55 percent and customer costs by 33 percent. In that one day alone, the smart grid saved the city utility more than $1 million in the expected overtime costs for restoring service.

A 2017 publication[12] by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University estimated that the EPB smart grid also provides indirect benefits of $43.5 million annually. That number only includes cost savings from quickly detecting failing equipment and isolating potential problems. EPB also directly saves at least $9.6 million with the new sensors – from catching power theft to better regulating power purchasing.

Additionally, the Chattanooga EPB smart grid actually prevented a house fire,[13] in 2014. Thanks to the real-time information from the smart meter, the municipal electric utility sent a nearby employee to check out an anomaly. It turned out to be a fire in the bushes near the back door of a home. The employee put out the fire and fixed the electric line all before the family came home from church. This would not have been possible without the community fiber network supporting high-speed communication between the meter and the utility.

Ouachita Electric’s decision to invest in the fiber network means the co-op’s members will be well-connected and well-served. Members will save money and conserve energy with the smart meters, and they will have access to some of the most reliable, highest-speed Internet service in the entire country.

What’s Next

Ouachita Electric has cemented its status as a pioneer in boosting access to energy programs and broadband, but it shouldn’t be an outlier. The co-op’s attentiveness to its member-owners’ needs spotlights opportunities to introduce well-designed initiatives that plug gaps in the local economy. It’s a formula that should attract all co-ops, designed with democratic ideals in mind.

These initiatives are a set of powerful tools to address low member-owner engagement that plagues rural utilities nationwide[14]. With trailblazers like Ouachita modeling real-world initiatives that deliver measurable results, other co-ops and their member-owners face a substantially lower barrier to pitching and implementing similar efforts, and to cash in on the robust — and proven — potential of energy savings and Internet access.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[15]. For timely updates, follow Karlee Weinmann[16] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[17] or Community Broadband Networks weekly[18] update.

Photo Credit: Justin Cozart via Flickr[19] (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Endnotes:
  1. cross-posted on MuniNetworks.org: https://muninetworks.org/content/arkansas-utility-leads-energy-broadband
  2. Ouachita Electric: http://www.oecc.com/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ouachita-IF-graphic-copy.jpg
  4. HELP PAYS: https://www.oecc.com/help
  5. surged immediately: https://cleanenergysolutions.org/sites/default/files/documents/2015-05-26-transcript.pdf
  6. the utility reported: http://www.oecc.com/pdfs/Ouachita%20Electric%20HELP%20PAYS%20Program%20-%20First%204%20Months%20of%20Activity-1.pdf
  7. South Arkansas Telephone: http://www.sat-co.net/
  8. Arkansas Rural Internet Service (ARIS): http://www.arisark.us/
  9. Telecompetitor: http://www.telecompetitor.com/telecom-utility-partnership-pursues-arkansas-gigabit/
  10. April 2012 report: https://ilsr.org/broadband-speed-light/
  11. case study: http://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub58408.pdf
  12. 2017 publication: https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/MF/Chattanooga
  13. prevented a house fire,: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/feb/07/lineman-helps-save-red-bank-home-fire/131148/
  14. plagues rural utilities nationwide: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/
  15. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  16. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  17. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  18. Community Broadband Networks weekly: http://eepurl.com/crfK3b
  19. Justin Cozart via Flickr: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AI-540_near_Winslow%2C_Arkansas.jpg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/arkansas-utility-leads-on-energy-broadband/


Energy Democracy in 4 Powerful Steps

by John Farrell | March 1, 2017 1:27 pm

There’s no question that the energy system is undergoing change. One need look no further than the 1 million solar rooftops in the U.S. or — for the wonky — the source of new power capacity in the U.S. over the past 15 years. In 2003, just 20% of new electric capacity came from renewable power plants. In the last eight years, it’s been at or over 60% almost every year. In the first three quarters of 2016, 16% of our new power capacity came from distributed solar alone (such as home rooftop solar arrays).

But few people realize that the change from fossil fuels to renewable sources is just a harbinger for a phase of massive disruption in energy markets. The disruption will remake how the energy system serves its users and offer unprecedented choices for customers. It may go further than choice.  As the energy system shifts away from the outdated utility monopoly model, the four Ds of energy democracy — distributed power, decentralization, democracy from ownership, and disruptive technology — have the potential to put those users in charge and allow them to reap the economic benefits.

[1]

Democracy from Distributed Power

Power generation is the first line of democratization, brought on by the miniaturization of power plants. Last century was defined by gigawatt-scale nuclear and coal and hundred-megawatt-scale gas power plants. Now, power generation has shrunk down to multi-megawatt wind turbines and multi-watt solar panels.

Even the largest wind and solar power plants are compilations of hundreds or thousands of mass produced individual turbines or solar cells.  (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/us-power-plant-capacity-2017-0224.jpg
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-in-4-steps/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-in-4-steps/


Maryland Bill to Increase Food Recovery Infrastructure Advances with ILSR’s Help

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 27, 2017 1:13 pm

Legislation is making its way through the Maryland legislature that will encourage a distributed infrastructure to divert yard waste and food waste from the waste stream. The legislation is called “Department of the Environment – Yard Waste and Food Residuals Diversion and Infrastructure – Study” (Senate Bill 0099[1] and House Bill 0171[2]). The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has been instrumental in working on this legislation with MD Delegate Shane Robinson[3] (District 39). ILSR organized the expert panels to testify and the submittal of written testimonies to the Senate and House committee hearings. ILSR has also helped facilitate a series of consensus amendments. This is the same legislation[4] that passed the Maryland House of Delegates last session but did not move in the Maryland Senate.

The legislation would direct the Maryland Department of the Environment to identify means to promote investment in infrastructure to expand food waste recovery, evaluate the current recovery of food waste in Maryland, identify opportunities for expansion, and more. It specifically calls for the Department to explore ways “to encourage a decentralized and diverse infrastructure.” The Department would report its findings and recommendations to the Governor and the General Assembly. ILSR helped to craft the bill and is named as 1 of 20+ organizations to be represented on the study group. The legislation would go into effect on July 1, 2017.

Senate Bill 99 Hearing

Senate Bill 99[5] was heard by the Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs committee on January 24th, 2017. The Senate bill was introduced by Senator Thomas Middleton (D-Charles)[6]. ILSR, along with a number of ally organizations, testified in favor of the bill.

Testimony and Resources

A number of experts testified at the committee hearing and even more submitted written testimony to the committee. Video of in-person testimony is available from the Maryland State Senate. In-person testimonials came from:

  • Senator Thomas Middleton, Maryland State Senate [Beginning at 00:30][7]
  • Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance [Beginning at 04:00][8]
  • Caroline Peat, American Biogas Council [Beginning at 07:49][9]
  • Brian Flores, The Compost Crew [Beginning at 10:03][10]
  • Dave O’Leary, Sierra Club – Maryland Chapter [Beginning at 11:11][11]

All testimony was in favor of SB 99. Written testimony was submitted by:

  • The American Biogas Council[12]
  • Agricity LLC (dba Compost Cab)[13]
  • Chesapeake Bay Foundation[14]
  • The John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Bloomberg School of Public Health[15]
  • The Compost Crew[16]
  • Greenbelters for Zero Waste[17]
  • Institute for Local Self-Reliance[18]
  • Maryland Horse Council[19]
  • Montgomery County Food Council[20]
  • Waste Neutral[21]
Testifiers from Senate Bill 99 Committee Hearing, January 24, 2017.

The Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs committee approved Senate Bill 99 by unanimous vote of 11-0[22] on February 21st, 2017.

House Bill 171 Hearing

House Bill 171[23] was heard by the Environment and Transportation committee on February 8th, 2017.The House bill was introduced by House Delegate Shane Robinson (D-Montgomery Village)[24]. ILSR, along with a number of ally organizations, testified in favor of the bill.

Brenda Platt from Institute for Local Self-Reliance & HB 171 Sponsor Maryland Delegate Shane Robinson
Testimony and Resources

A number of experts testified at the committee hearing and even more submitted written testimony to the committee. Video of in-person testimony is available from the Maryland House of Delegates. In-person testimonials came from:

  • Delegate Shane Robinson[25], Maryland House of Delegates [Beginning at 46:13][26]
  • Delegate Andrew Cassilly[27], Maryland House of Delegates [Beginning at 48:00][28]
  • Patrick Serfass, American Biogas Council [Beginning at 50:26][29]
  • Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance [Beginning at 52:32][30]
  • Ryan Walker, The Compost Crew [Beginning at 54:30][31]
  • Valerie Connelly, Maryland Farm Bureau [Beginning at 58:40][32]
  • Kevin Kinnally, Maryland Association of Counties [Beginning at 59:20][33]

Commentary and questions continued until 1:00:00 in the video[34]. All testimony was in favor of HB 171.

Written testimony was submitted by:

  • Agricity LLC (dba Compost Cab)[35]
  • American Biogas Council[36]
  • The Compost Crew[37]
  • Future Harvest, Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture[38]
  • Greenbelters for Zero Waste[39]
  • Gromax Organic Recycling[40]
  • Institute for Local Self-Reliance[41]
  • The John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Bloomberg School of Public Health[42]
  • Maryland-Washington D.C. US Composting Council Chapter[43]
  • Maryland Horse Council[44]
  • Montgomery County Food Council[45]

House Bill 171 is in the line to be voted on at the end of February 2017.

[46]
See full bill, here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HB171-Maryland-Bill-2.24.2017.pdf[47].

Next Steps for SB 99/HB 171

Over the next few weeks, ILSR will monitor the legislation’s progression through both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly, reconciliation through the conference committee to ensure both bills are identical, and (hopefully) seeing it signed by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[48] and Facebook[49] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[50] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Senate Bill 0099: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=SB0099&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  2. House Bill 0171: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=hb0171&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  3. MD Delegate Shane Robinson: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=robinson%20s&stab=01&ys=2017RS
  4. same legislation: https://ilsr.org/initiativescompostingmd-hb743/
  5. Senate Bill 99: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=SB0099&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  6. Senator Thomas Middleton (D-Charles): http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=middleton&stab=01&ys=2017RS
  7. [Beginning at 00:30]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/be98c19c-b051-4950-8395-837b20305e38/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=16000
  8. [Beginning at 04:00]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/be98c19c-b051-4950-8395-837b20305e38/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=16000
  9. [Beginning at 07:49]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/be98c19c-b051-4950-8395-837b20305e38/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=16000
  10. [Beginning at 10:03]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/be98c19c-b051-4950-8395-837b20305e38/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=16000
  11. [Beginning at 11:11]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/be98c19c-b051-4950-8395-837b20305e38/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=16000
  12. The American Biogas Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ABC-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  13. Agricity LLC (dba Compost Cab): https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Agricity-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  14. Chesapeake Bay Foundation: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CBF-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  15. The John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Bloomberg School of Public Health: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CLF-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  16. The Compost Crew: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Compost-Crew-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  17. Greenbelters for Zero Waste: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Greenbelters-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  18. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ILSR-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  19. Maryland Horse Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Maryland-Horse-Council-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  20. Montgomery County Food Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MoCo-Food-Council-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  21. Waste Neutral: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Waste-Neutral-Testimony-SB-99.pdf
  22. unanimous vote of 11-0: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2017RS/votes_comm/sb0099_ehe.pdf
  23. House Bill 171: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=hb0171&tab=subject3&ys=2017RS
  24. House Delegate Shane Robinson (D-Montgomery Village): http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=robinson%20s&stab=01&ys=2017RS
  25. Delegate Shane Robinson: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=robinson%20s&stab=01&ys=2017RS
  26. [Beginning at 46:13]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  27. Delegate Andrew Cassilly: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=cassilly01&stab=01&ys=2017RS
  28. [Beginning at 48:00]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  29. [Beginning at 50:26]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  30. [Beginning at 52:32]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  31. [Beginning at 54:30]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  32. [Beginning at 58:40]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  33. [Beginning at 59:20]: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  34. 1:00:00 in the video: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/f6a6a1df-f8d6-475a-a973-9e3cdf7d34a7/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c&playfrom=2772000
  35. Agricity LLC (dba Compost Cab): https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MDE-Food-Waste-Study-Bill-Agricity-testimony.pdf
  36. American Biogas Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ABC-Support-with-Amendments-MD-HB0171-2017.pdf
  37. The Compost Crew: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Compost-Crew-Testimony-HB0171-CommitteeonEnvironmentTransportation.pdf
  38. Future Harvest, Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Future-Harvest-CASA-LOS-Food-Waste-HB0171-02.07.17.pdf
  39. Greenbelters for Zero Waste: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Greenbelt-testimony-HB0171-02-08-17.pdf
  40. Gromax Organic Recycling: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Harold-Wiggins-PHB-171.pdf
  41. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ILSR-testimony-HB171-02-08-17.pdf
  42. The John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Bloomberg School of Public Health: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/JHU-CLF-Written-Statement-HB0171.pdf
  43. Maryland-Washington D.C. US Composting Council Chapter: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MD-DC-CC-testimony-HB0171-02-08-17.pdf
  44. Maryland Horse Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Horse-Council-HB171-testimony-on-composting.pdf
  45. Montgomery County Food Council: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HB1712017MontgomeryCountyFoodCouncilLetterofSupport-signed.pdf
  46. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HB171-Maryland-Bill-2.24.2017.pdf
  47. https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HB171-Maryland-Bill-2.24.2017.pdf: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HB171-Maryland-Bill-2.24.2017.pdf
  48. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  49. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  50. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2017-maryland-bills-organic-diversion/


The Power and Perils of Cooperatives (Episode 12)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 23, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode twelve of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Hannah Trostle and Karlee Weinmann, Research Associates for the Community Broadband Networks and Energy Democracy initiatives, respectively. The three discuss the cooperative model of ownership and how this model can enable investment in gigabit Internet connections for their member-owners, but also how they are subject to a low participation rates in their elections.

The trio details the challenges of cooperative ownership and the myriad of benefits for active and engaged cooperative boards and administration structures.

“There are co-ops out there that are finding ways to…have their members understand how solar can work for them,” says Karlee Weinmann on the benefits of cooperatives for renewable energy. “[They’re] finding ways to implement solar in a way that is financially feasible and financially beneficial.”

Here are everyone’s reading recommendations from this week:

From Hannah:

[6]

Vivek Shraya’s collection of poetry titled; “even this page is white.”

Available from an independent retailer here: https://vivekshraya.com/books/even-this-page-is-white/[7].

From Karlee:

[8]

Matthew Desmond’s book on Milwaukee’s segregated housing environment titled; “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.”

Available from an independent retailer here: http://www.evictedbook.com/[9].

From Chris:

[10]

Calvin Trillin’s short-form poetry on politics, available at The New Yorker here (http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/calvin-trillin[11]).

Cathy O’Neil’s book detailing the “dark side of big data,” titled “Weapons of Math Destruction.”

Available from an independent retailer here: https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/[12].

Christopher Mitchell: Karlee, why don’t you tell us a statistic?
Karlee Weinmann: Well Chris, 70% of rural electric co-ops have a voter turnout rate of less than 10%.
Christopher Mitchell: How many?
Karlee Weinmann: 70%.
Christopher Mitchell: 70%?
Karlee Weinmann: Right
Christopher Mitchell: Wow. Hannah, about how many electric co-ops are there in the country?
Hannah Trostle: There are about 890.
Christopher Mitchell: Okay. I’ve seen 867. I think these things are hard to count.
Hannah Trostle: 867 are the distributional electric co-ops and then there’s another couple that are just generation and transmission.
Christopher Mitchell: How did I know that you would have a more specific answer on that if I pushed you a little bit?

Today, we’re going to talk about cooperatives and specifically electric cooperatives; what we’re kind of calling “The Promise and the Perils of Co-ops”. You’re listening to Building Local Power from the Institute for Local Self Reliance and the first voice you heard was Karlee Weinmann.

Karlee Weinmann: Hello.
Christopher Mitchell: And the second voice was Hannah Trostle.
Hannah Trostle: Hey.
 Christopher Mitchell: And they’re both research associates with the Institute for Self Reliance. Karlee focuses on energy and Hannah does more of the broadband-type work and does a lot of our work specifically in rural broadband. And I’m Chris Mitchell, I kind of run the broadband worker. I guess I think of it more of managing it because almost all of the work is done by other people. And we’re gonna be talking about cooperatives today and how they can build local power really with a focus on how they can build power in rural areas. And we’re gonna be talking about power in a different sense as well. So, let’s get to it.

So I think we will start, a little bit, with the peril, and ask a question about why it’s a problem that many people are not participating in the democratic governance of their co-ops where, just to be clear for people who may not be as familiar, being member of the co-op, taking service from the co-op, means that you are a voter and you helped to pick the board that sets the direction of the co-op. Effectively, you should be participating in running it, but many people are not doing that.

Karlee Weinmann: Right. So many people don’t even realize that by getting their electricity from a co-op, they, in fact, are an owner of that co-op which gives them, theoretically, a say in the strategic direction, policies, and other decision making that happens at the co-op board level. So how it’s supposed to work is that all the member-owners of a co-op will elect a board that theoretically represents them and their interests and can advance policies that they’re on board with. Unfortunately, that’s not happening in very many cases as the statistics shows. Engagement is low, people aren’t realizing that they have this opportunity–
Christopher Mitchell: Or obligation.
Karlee Weinmann: Or obligation, yeah, in fact in many cases, there are barriers put in place requiring in-person voting or other restrictions that make it difficult to participate in that process. So, while co-ops sort of exemplify this democratic ideal and principle, that’s not translating to reality in a lot of cases today.
Christopher Mitchell: It seems like there might be at least two separate issues. One is apathy, a natural apathy of people that are not participating. And the second might be some cooperatives that are going out of their way to make it harder for people to participate.
Karlee Weinmann: Exactly.
Christopher Mitchell: Okay. Because I know, for instance, when I’m a member of a couple of co-ops and, for the most part, I get something in the mail and I send it back. And that’s a very easy way to vote, but you mentioned in-person voting where some of these cooperatives make it very hard to vote.
Karlee Weinmann: Right, there’s in-person voting requirements that we’ve seen. In some cases, there’s this convoluted nomination process that favors incumbent board members which contributes the intransigence we see in policy and that shuts people out.
Christopher Mitchell: Lets just ask why that is a problem. Because, the rural electric co-ops have still done an incredible job. I think of- If you wanna look at rural electricity versus other infrastructures, for instance, broadband, the rural electrics do an amazing job and in many cases they are starting to get involved in broadband.

But, fundamentally, they have continued to provide reliable power at low cost. And I suspect that that is a part of the apathy, that people are sitting there thinking, “Well, if my power was flickering on and off everyday, I’d probably be more interested in voting. But it’s not, it works.” So why is it a problem if we have these low voter turn-outs or barriers to voting for co-ops.

Karlee Weinmann: I think, fundamentally, the more people that are involved, the better these co-op strategies and policies are going reflect what people truly need. And that also ensures that there’s space for changes and adjustments and improvements as markets change.

So, with regard to electricity, there is a lot of movement happening in that market place right now. There needs to be room available to develop distributed resources like solar, like wind, and in a lot of cases, we’re seeing co-ops that, for a variety of reasons, including obligations to coal and general wariness of change, that are preventing that development from happening and pretty soon that’s not just going to be a bad decision but it’s going to be highly destructive to their customers, their members, their owners.

Christopher Mitchell: Okay. So, we’re talking about someone that may be living in this territory of a cooperative and wants to put solar on their roof. What kind of barriers might they face?
Karlee Weinmann: In Minnesota, something that we’ve seen arise in many years, as interests in rooftop solar has risen, is that the imposition of outsize fees for those rooftop solar installations. What that means is that the co-ops are charging enough in cases in extra fees specifically for rooftop solar projects to make it financially not feasible. And there is some dispute resolution proceedings ongoing at the Public Utilities Commission right now and, in fact, this is enough of a problem that it’s become, sort of, a spotlight issue, this legislative session with the advent of proposed legislation that would remove dispute resolution proceedings like that from the PUC to the co-op’s board instead. So, that would essentially, potentially, give the co-ops free reign to impose these fees–
Christopher Mitchell: So what we’ve long seen with co-ops is that a lot of times state and federal law will often carve out space for co-ops that’s different than like Duke Energy, or Entergy, or Excel Energy, these big electric providers, they get regulated closely. But co-ops, because they are so responsive to their members in theory, they have more authority to impose these sorts of fees that if Excel Energy was doing this, the Public Utilities Commission, theoretically, would be all up in arms saying, “Nope, you cannot impose these fees.”
Karlee Weinmann: Or at least it’s a guaranteed check on those fees.
Christopher Mitchell: Sure. Now, I think it’s worth noting that on the flip side of the coin, the co-ops have more power to be self governing. We’re seeing some co-ops really doing smart things. Which are–
Karlee Weinmann: True, very true. I spent a few days in Iowa last summer learning more about a co-op called Farmer’s Electric Cooperative, about 30 miles south of Iowa City, that has made solar work in spades in their community. There are farmers all across the hills that you can see when you come into town that have solar panels on their roofs. Businesses in town have solar right on the front of their buildings and I think that’s really an indicator that there are co-ops out there that are finding ways to not only have their members understand how things like solar can work for them, but actually finding ways to implement solar in a way that is financially feasible, financially beneficial and just really a good idea for the people that they serve.
Christopher Mitchell: Hannah, I want to bring you into the discussion about co-ops. I’m curious- we, from the broadband side, I think are just so thrilled and excited about what the rural electric co-ops are doing. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Hannah Trostle: Yeah. There are, right now, just about 50 electric co-ops thinking about doing some sorts of fiber projects. Some have already started and completed them, others are working with the local telephone companies. Some have actually worked together to build middle mile networks and its overall pretty exciting, but it’s also rather new.
Christopher Mitchell: Right. As you were saying that, I was thinking that, because I think a discussion I recently had with someone from, I believe it was, north Arkansas Electric Co-op and he’s also the president of the co-op trade organization. He was saying- I said, “10 years ago, not very many were doing this,” and he said, “Oh, five years practically no one was doing it.” So this is rather new development.
Hannah Trostle: It’s not entirely brand new, in the sense that electric co-ops have been in this space before with the broadband over power line experiments that didn’t really go very many places.
Christopher Mitchell: Many of them have also experimented with partnerships with satellite. I mean, they’re aware of the need in rural areas and they’ve been trying to find ways of responding to it and they’ve also, historically, run their own fiber optic lines to substations for monitoring and quality purposes and that sort of thing. So, even though they haven’t made fiber available to others, it’s something that they’re very familiar with technologically.
Hannah Trostle: Yup. It’s already part of their networks. So, right now it’s just figuring out ways to extend it further, whether that be to businesses or just to the community anchor institutions like schools and libraries. Most of the 50 electric cooperatives now seem to be interesting in fiber to the home.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes. So, I guess I would just be curious. We haven’t really said why. Why, from the ILSR perspective, from a perspective of local self-reliance, do we care that co-ops are getting into this? Why is it a big deal?
Hannah Trostle: From the ILSR perspective, it’s a big deal because this is another way that people in the community can actually own their internet infrastructure. They don’t have to rely on big corporations and it’s a good way of getting things that are beyond DSL out in rural areas.
Christopher Mitchell: Right, making sure that these rural areas aren’t left behind. They actually have infrastructure that’s comparable to what we have in urban areas and, in many ways, superior even. I mean, if I could move to Missouri and take service from one of these co-ops, I would have much better service than what I get in St. Paul, where I live. We’re gonna–
Hannah Trostle: Yeah, actually, we should just move the ILSR office up to my home town which already has fiber to the home and it would be fun.
Christopher Mitchell: And interestingly enough, it’s pretty close to my wife’s parent’s place so I’d have a place to stay and I’d be okay with that. At least, maybe, on Fridays and Mondays.
Hannah Trostle: Only on Fridays and Mondays.
Christopher Mitchell: Right–
Hannah Trostle: These fiber projects really do have to be democratically owned, so that goes back to Karlee’s point about how the voting structure of electric co-ops right now is not really great for making sure that works.
Christopher Mitchell: You know, it’s interesting because I wanted to just press her on that. Why do they have to be democratically owned? But I also want to follow up on the board questions. So, when you say they have to be democratically owned, it’s a technology, anyone could do it, what does the democratic ownership matter?
Hannah Trostle: Well, there’s so many different ways to do fiber projects. It really matters what the local community needs. If the people on the board aren’t representing what the community actually wants, then it’s not going to work real well. If they go about doing a fiber to the home project and no one actually wants high speed internet service at home, what they really want is high speed internet service at their local businesses, in their schools, then the co-op has just wasted a lot of time doing these really small test projects when they could have been going out and doing a lot more throughout the entire community because they serve a really large area.
Christopher Mitchell: Right, and I think it’s worth noting that one of the things that we see co-ops doing is, after there’s a change in general manager or on the board you might see more willingness to engage in this because you may have people that have been on the board for 40 years and their mind is set in a certain direction and the idea of getting involved in something so new and risky, relative to everything else the co-op does, is different and scary in some ways.

Now, one of things that I just wanted to throw out is that I remember that most of the Midwest co-ops that I have talked to, they have a real sense- the cooperative spirit is that you serve everyone. But I’ve heard that some of the co-ops that were built in areas that used to be rural and are increasingly exurban. They may be thinking about doing fiber to those exurban parts, but leaving behind the more rural points and I don’t know exactly how you deal with that.

Clearly, the economics of doing fiber in these exurban neighborhoods is going to be better than out in the farming areas. I think there’s gonna be a crisis of leadership that will come forward and you’d really want to make sure people are active in their voting as those decisions are being made.

So, I’d like to turn to some of the economics of this and, Karlee, one of the questions that I had for you to lead this off is: Why should we be so concerned? I still think a lot of people think of solar as something that’s nice to have, but you pay a premium and then you can say that you’re not burning fossil fuels and things like that. Is there an economic imperative to get away from coal and can you tell us a little about how these things work?

Karlee Weinmann: Distributed generation, such as solar panels, particularly on a person’s roof are becoming more and more affordable as time goes on, putting them in reach of more and more people. So, if you think about the wider impact of that, that’s pretty huge when you factor in, not only, the financial bottom line but the environmental benefits, the social benefits, and all these other things. With relation to the cost to the fossil fuels, in those same regards, I think that the benefits are very clear and I think that as the marketplace shifts to make more space for these new technologies, we need to be really aware of how we can use them to create economic benefit particularly at the community scale, which is something that we’ve seen pioneered in communities like the one in Iowa that I mentioned earlier.

So, it’s definitely possible to use these new technologies for economic, social, environmental benefit. I think we need to recognize and not be afraid to innovate, particularly in rural areas where these utilities have a huge opportunity to make it happen for themselves.

Hannah Trostle: You mentioned earlier that the electric cooperatives have these contracts with coal and these sorts of things. How long are these contracts? What is, sort of, the format?
Karlee Weinmann: What’s happening in a lot places is that the distribution co-ops that will actually distribute your energy and deliver your bills get their energy from, what are called, Generation and Transmission, or G&T co-ops. So, those larger co-ops are the ones that are making sure that your distribution co-op can get power to you, to your house, to your business. Where those Generation and Transmission co-ops are sourcing their power is pretty dirty these days.

So, distribution co-ops are under contract, in many cases very long term contracts, with those G&T co-ops to source their power.

 Christopher Mitchell: And very long term means 60, 70 years?
Karlee Weinmann: Means decades, generations maybe, in some cases.
Christopher Mitchell: Okay.
Karlee Weinmann: So, the co-ops that serve every day customers are bound to these contracts with G&T co-ops, which rely on coal for decades, in some cases generations, and onsite power like rooftop solar, for members, is exempt from those contracts but the co-ops themselves remain on the hook for that coal generation and the infrastructure it requires to process it. So, big plans, all these things that the industry is generally moving away from.
Christopher Mitchell: Right. So in some ways, and this is something I really feel for co-ops, for generations we saw electric growth growing, demand was increasing and you know we’re gonna have a lot of people demanding this. Now, you have a twofer hitting these rural electric co-ops. One is, in many cases, their losing populations, so their demands actually declining now.
Karlee Weinmann: Mm-hmm.
Christopher Mitchell: They still are on the hook to buy all that power. People are using LEDs, they’re doing energy efficiency stuff so their needs are going down and then people are putting solar on their roofs. So, they really feel like they’re stuck.
Karlee Weinmann: Right, and when the utilities are not keeping up with the way the markets changing and what their members want- because remember that if a co-op is facing this dilemma, it’s because it has members that want to install rooftop solar and when they’re not responsive enough, they’re just wasting time that they could be spending trying to find solutions which are available and need to be available, frankly.
Christopher Mitchell: Right. Now, Hannah, one of the things that this plays in with the fiber, I think, is that where we see co-ops building fiber, their demand is decreasing less or it starts increasing again. Because one of the reasons people are leaving these territories is because they do not have good internet access. Whereas, the electric co-ops that are building the networks have some of the best access you can get in the entire country, and in fact, in some cases, in the world I would say. Because you can get a gigabyte for less there than you can almost anywhere else.
Hannah Trostle: Yeah, and they will also have way more devices if they have good internet access and all those devices need electricity. Even if each device on its own is, actually, not using that much but collectively, they will increase your energy needs. I can remember- I grew up up north with an electric co-op.
Christopher Mitchell: And when Hannah means up north, she means north of Brainerd. For a lot of people that have never been to Minnesota, but have only seen the movie “Fargo”, Brainerd has a lot of Minnesota to the north of it and that’s where Hannah’s from. I’ve been up there as well, it’s great country.
Hannah Trostle: Yep, it’s sort of not really northern iron range, but not really central Minnesota–
Karlee Weinmann: It’s up there.
Hannah Trostle: It’s pretty far up there. I remember when we started getting better internet access. We started getting more devices and my dad looked at the power bill and was like, “What happened?” And went through the house and pulled out all of the cables.
Christopher Mitchell: Right, the Xbox that never turns off.
Hannah Trostle: Yes, the Xbox never turns off, the PlayStation never turns off.
Christopher Mitchell: Right, so in some ways, if co-ops would take all of our advice, I think we’d solve all of their problems. That’s what I’m hearing.
Karlee Weinmann: They just need to take their member’s advice. I think we can settle for that.
Christopher Mitchell: Yeah, fair enough. All right, moving on to that part of the show in which we give a little bit of reading advice. Hannah, what do you have to suggest that people might want to check out?
Hannah Trostle: I would suggest Vivek Shraya’s “Even This Page is White”. It’s a collection of poetry. It’s made by this Canadian artist about anti-blackness. That is the topic of poetry, it’s pretty fun. I believe its V-I-V-E-K S-H-R-A-Y-A.
Christopher Mitchell: I have to admit, I’m a little weak on poetry myself. I read magazines cover to cover, because I’m a giant dork, but I skip the poetry because I find its too hard to understand for my brain. So, I’m curious about your brain, Karlee.
Karlee Weinmann: Well, I’ve got some non-fiction for you this week Chris.
Christopher Mitchell: That is a little bit more my speed, I’m afraid to say.
Karlee Weinmann: So, I would highly recommend a book called “Evicted”, it’s by–
Christopher Mitchell: Oh yeah!
Karlee Weinmann: Have you read it?
Christopher Mitchell: I have not read it, I’ve heard the interviews.
Karlee Weinmann: You have to read it.
Christopher Mitchell: I really want to do a show on it in the future.
Karlee Weinmann: Yes, everyone must read it. It’s by a Harvard Sociologist named Matthew Desmond who writes in a way that no sociologist I’ve ever read, can. It’s very journalistic and very focused on storytelling. It’s about the way that our housing economy is so inequitable. Specifically, with regard to low-income renters, he does deep ethnographic research into the rental economy in the poorest sections of Milwaukee, which is one of our nation’s most segregated cities, to show just how hard it is for, particularly women and children, to get any sort of leg up, whatsoever and, as an extension of that, how hard it is to build any kind of stability or wealth when you can’t have a home.
Christopher Mitchell: It’s great that you recommend that. One of things that I really like about it is that it really gives a full picture. He talked with a lot of landlords too.
Karlee Weinmann: Right.
Christopher Mitchell: And dealt with them to give a sense that, it’s not like one side is the good side and then you have the bad people that are ripping them off. It’s very complicated.
Karlee Weinmann: It’s very complicated. His telling is very even handed and some of the landlords are sympathetic to. It’s a story without an agenda that leaves you feeling called-to-action, which I think is very difficult to achieve and also really emphasizes the urgency of the issue.
Christopher Mitchell: All right, so I want to make two recommendations building off of those. One is Calvin Trillin, a poet that I have read because he writes very short poems and they are very funny; two things that I love.
Karlee Weinmann: Chris is a haiku guy.
Christopher Mitchell: Yes, and ideally a haiku that has a pun in it. The–
Hannah Trostle: You can read all of Vivek’s poetry in under two hours and she also is a music artist so you can just listen to it.
Christopher Mitchell: Ah! Okay. So, I need to broaden my horizons. I want to recommend a non-fiction book also which is Kathy O’Neil’s “Weapons of Math Destruction”, which I’ve been recommending to people before I read it and now that I’ve read it, I really want to recommend it to people. Because, it’s a very short, engaging, fast read. In fact, I would say that, unless you’re really into the weeds like I am, you can just read the first 100 pages and you’ll get most of what you’ll need out of it. But it’s incredibly important for the modern era, where these algorithms are determining so much about what we’re paying for cars, what we’re paying for many of the products that we buy. If we deal with the justice system, whether we’re likely to get justice or not. It’s incredible how these algorithms are taking over and how little people actually understand about how flawed they are. So, highly recommend it.

Let me just take a minute to thank those of you that have been rating us on iTunes and in other places where you may get your podcasts. It’s really gonna help us to make sure that we’re showing up in the rankings somewhere and that people are serendipitously finding us. So, please do take a minute to rank us wherever you found us.

But with that, we’ll hang up the microphone and we’ll just encourage people to go out and build local power for another two weeks and we’ll come back and talk about this again.

Karlee Weinmann: Thanks Chris.
Hannah Trostle: Thanks Chris.
Christopher Mitchell: Thank you.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Karlee Weinmann from the Energy Democracy Initiative and Hannah Trostle from the Community of Broadband Networks Initiative. They sat down with Christopher to ponder building local power and electric cooperatives. Christopher is director of the institute’s community broadband networks initiative.

For more on electric cooperatives, you can check out ILSR.org and also muneenetworks.org if you’re interested in how they’re bringing internet access to members. We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org.

Thanks to Dysfunction-Al for the music license through Creative Commons. The song is “Funk Interlude”. I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self Reliance, thanks again for listening. This has been episode 12 of the Building Local Power Podcast.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[13] Building Local Power on iTunes[14] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[15]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[16]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[17] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[18] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[19] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[20] and Facebook[21] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[22] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-02-17-blp012-hannah-karlee-cooperatives.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-02-17-blp012-hannah-karlee-cooperatives.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. [Image]: https://vivekshraya.com/books/even-this-page-is-white/
  7. https://vivekshraya.com/books/even-this-page-is-white/: https://vivekshraya.com/books/even-this-page-is-white/
  8. [Image]: http://www.evictedbook.com/
  9. http://www.evictedbook.com/: http://www.evictedbook.com/
  10. [Image]: https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/
  11. http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/calvin-trillin: http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/calvin-trillin
  12. https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/: https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/
  13. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  14. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  15. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  16. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  17. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  18. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  19. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  20. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  21. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  22. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-power-and-perils-of-cooperatives-episode-12-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Sherco Power Plant: The Wrong Project, for the Wrong Reasons, At a Big Cost

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 22, 2017 2:00 pm

The proposed Sherco natural gas plant[1] bill will soon be at Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton’s desk, give him a call and tell him you oppose this billion-dollar boondoggle.

Call Gov. Mark Dayton at 651-201-3400 or email him at mark.dayton@state.mn.us[2].

Read more below in the op-ed[3] that we submitted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune or in our original post excoriating the planned fossil fuel power plant[4].


Minneapolis Star Tribune[5] – February 13, 2017

Sherco power plant: The wrong project, for the wrong reasons, at a big cost

By John Farrell & Karlee Weinmann

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers, including Gov. Mark Dayton, last week endorsed Xcel Energy’s plan to build a new natural gas plant in Becker, Minn. What they’ve left out is that this project is a multibillion-dollar boondoggle.

Fortunately, there’s still time to stop it.

Led by Xcel and labor groups, proponents say the plan will safeguard jobs lost when Xcel shutters coal-fired generators at the site in the mid-2020s. But the new facility is projected to employ just 150 workers, roughly half the number currently employed by the coal operations. It’s hardly worth the $1 billion upfront price tag and billions more in fuel costs borne by ratepayers — especially when there are cheaper ways to protect the workers and generate the power.

Read the full story here.[6]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[7]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[8] or Karlee Weinmann[9] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[10] update. (more…)[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. proposed Sherco natural gas plant: http://www.startribune.com/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/413648453/
  2. mark.dayton@state.mn.us: mailto:mark.dayton@state.mn.us
  3. op-ed: http://www.startribune.com/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/413648453/
  4. original post excoriating the planned fossil fuel power plant: http://www.startribune.com/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/413648453/
  5. Minneapolis Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/413648453/
  6. Read the full story here.: http://www.startribune.com/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/413648453/
  7. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  8. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  9. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  10. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  11. (more…): https://ilsr.org/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sherco-power-plant-the-wrong-project-for-the-wrong-reasons-at-a-big-cost/


Community Composters Gather at Conference in Los Angeles

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | February 10, 2017 4:20 pm

On January 24th, 2017, ILSR along with BioCycle[1] and the US Composting Council[2] (USCC) co-sponsored the 4th Cultivating Community Composting (CCC) Forum, held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference & Trade Show in Los Angeles, California. The Forum was preceded by a full-day Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop. The Workshop and Forum provided attendees a unique opportunity to network, share best practices, and build support for community scale composting. ILSR secured funding from a number of sponsors to support these events. A hearty thanks to 11th Hour Project[3], Food Waste Experts[4], ReoTemp Instruments[5], Sustainable Generation[6], BioBag[7], Green Mountain Technologies[8], O2 Compost[9], and EPA Region IV[10] for their generous support!  We provided scholarships of up to $500 for 42 community composters to attend. Check out presentations from the 2017 CCC Workshop and Forum here[11].

Rodette Jones (MD), Tracie Troxler (FL), Kat Nigro (NC), Molly Lindsay (NY) and Tiffany Bess (FL) share why they attended the 2017 USCC Conference in LA. Photo courtesy of USCC.

CCC 2017 served as a valuable reminder that community composters serve an integral and unique role in both the broader composting industry and the sustainable food movement. We are the social innovators and entrepreneurs that are collecting food waste by burning calories instead of fossil fuel[12], employing youth[13] and marginalized groups, and developing innovative data-sharing applications[14] and cooperative ownership structures[15]. We are the compost educators and facilitators that are building equity and power[16] in our communities from the ground up, by supporting businesses, schools, farmers[17], community centers[18], and other communities in need[19]. We are the front lines, grassroots, boots-on-the-ground that are cultivating awareness and demand for compost and its associated benefits. We are transforming landscapes, urban and rural (and everything in between), by getting compost into the hands that feed the soil that feeds us[20].

The CCC Workshop brought together 60+ community composters from 17 states for one of the largest gathering of local-scale composters in history. It was a full-day, pre-conference event where community composters shared practices that work through both presentation and small group discussions. Attendees explored how to adapt the efforts and achievements of other programs for their communities and explored next steps to keep the momentum of the movement moving forward. Topics included: Key Ingredients of Community Composting; Small-Scale Composting Systems and Processing Best Management Practices; Hauling, Bike and Other Logistics; The Business of Community Composting; and a panel discussion on Community Engagement and Building Community Power via Community Composting. 

“This was so inspiring! It’s so easy to feel all alone in micro hauling & processing and it’s very refreshing to be with so many others in the same boat!”

– Meredith Danberg- Ficarelli (Common Ground Compost, New York NY)

Some key takeaways from the CCC Workshop:

  • As community composters, engaging our communities is key to our success! To successfully engage our communities, we must be able to identify & serve their needs. This requires observation, patience, humility and forethought.
  • To build power in our communities, we need to help address the forces that weaken their fabric, such as prejudices, oppression, and injustices. The panel on Community Engagement and Building Community Power (which featured panelists from Atlanta, Baltimore, DC, Flint, Detroit, Boston and LA) distributed a glossary of social justice terms[21] to empower participants to continue this dialogue in there communities.
  • Community composter-focused networking and info-sharing opportunities such as the CCC Workshop and Forum are critical to building a strong foundation for the movement.
  • There is strong interest in forming an official community composter coalition or USCC chapter to leverage increased attention and support for community composting-related issues.
  • Resounding demand exists for developing widely recognized best management practices (BMPs) for community composting.
Dustin Fedako of Compost Pedallers leads a breakout discussion on Marketing & Outreach at the 2017 CCC Workshop

The CCC Forum, which took place as a track in the broader USCC Conference, brought other composters, compost advocates and stakeholders to the discussion. This part of the event provided a number of community composters a national stage for their expertise, helping to make the case for partnerships between community composters and larger-scale haulers and composters, as well as government fiscal and regulatory support for community-scale composting systems. In the Forum Keynote, our local LA host community composter, Michael Martinez of LA Compost[22], told how he is using composting to empower the marginalized people of LA County, which if it were its own state, would be the 8th largest in the U.S. in terms of population. California produces a sizable majority of the country’s produce, and yet, according to Michael, the people living in LA County are often bypassed by the current food system even though they make up a lion’s share of its farm labor. 

Participants of the 2017 CCC Forum create a word cloud while answering the question, “How can strengthen the interconnection between community composters and larger-scale composters?” Photo courtesy of USCC.

In a session focused on how community composters drive local programs, Jennifer Mastalerz of Philly Compost (community composter) and Tim Bennett of Bennett Compost[23] (mid-scale composter) discussed how they have a mutually beneficial partnership that makes their businesses stronger than if they were on their own. David Paull of Compost Wheels[24] explained how the combination of local YouthCorp members and individuals pulling themselves out of homelessness has become an unexpected, yet beautiful formula for successfully managing his food scrap collection routes. The CCC Forum wrapped up with a panel on how government policies can help grow community composting:

  • Bridget Anderson, Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability at the NYC Department of Sanitation, discussed how NYC views their community composting program (employs 40 with an annual budget of $3.5 million) as a key to NYC’s diversion success.
  • Michael Martinez talked about how community composting provides us an opportunity to “stop managing the problem [of our waste], and start creating solutions.”
  • Christina Oatfield of the Sustainable Economies Law Center talked about their recent paper outlining the most common policy barriers to community composting (such as gaps in zoning, exclusive hauling contracts, feedstock-sharing restrictions, and lack of community composting BMPs).
  • Kendra Bones, Commissioner at Austin Resource Recovery, shared how Austin is focusing on backyard composting and compost training for the public to prepare for their goal to be zero waste by 2040.
  • Kyle Pogue of CalRecycle described the huge lack of composting infrastructure needed to help California meet its waste diversion goal of 75% by 2025. In response to a question, Kyle did not rule out the possibility of community composters coming together to submit a proposal for a piece of the new multi-million funding opportunity. He also encouraged community composters to join an upcoming stakeholder webcast[25].
  • Chris Hunt of ReFED (and a graduate of the NYC Master Composter Program) explained that community composting was selected as one of the 27 feasible solutions outlined in ReFED’s 2016 Roadmap to Reducing U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent. Later, as a panelist in a session under a conference track dedicated to the ReFED report, ILSR’s Brenda Platt unveiled ILSR’s new “Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste and Grow Community”[26].
Panelists of the “Supporting a Distributed Composting Infrastructure: Dollars and Rules” session at the 2017 CCC Forum

To cap off an already successful and inspiring event, ILSR co-director and Compost Initiative director, Brenda Platt, was awarded the prestigious H. Clark Gregory Award[27] from the USCC, “for outstanding service to the composting industry through grassroots efforts.” After 30 years of service dedicated to fighting incinerators, expanding recycling, cultivating composting at all scales, and building community power from the ground up, we feel certain that Brenda could not have been more deserving of this honor.

Check out presentations from the 2017 CCC Workshop and Forum here[11].

 

 

 

Take a visual tour of CCC 2017 below:

 

Cultivating Community Composting Workshop & Forum - 2017

 

 

 

 

 

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Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[28] and Facebook[29] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[30] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. BioCycle: https://www.biocycle.net
  2. US Composting Council: http://compostingcouncil.org/compost2017/
  3. 11th Hour Project: http://www.11thhourproject.org
  4. Food Waste Experts: http://www.foodwastexperts.com
  5. ReoTemp Instruments: http://reotemp.com
  6. Sustainable Generation: https://sustainable-generation.com
  7. BioBag: https://biobagusa.com
  8. Green Mountain Technologies: http://compostingtechnology.com
  9. O2 Compost: http://www.o2compost.com
  10. EPA Region IV: https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-epa-region-4-southeast
  11. here: https://ilsr.org/resources-2017-ccc/
  12. burning calories instead of fossil fuel: https://compostpedallers.com
  13. youth: https://bkrot.org
  14. data-sharing applications: https://compostnow.org
  15. cooperative ownership structures: http://www.cero.coop/meet-the-team.html
  16. building equity and power: https://terranovacompost.com/about/
  17. farmers: https://ideamensch.com/david-paull/
  18. community centers: https://lacompost.org/#
  19. communities in need: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/get-involved/compost/
  20. feed the soil that feeds us: http://compostwithme.com/home/community-composting/
  21. glossary of social justice terms: http://www.suffolk.edu/campuslife/27883.php
  22. LA Compost: https://lacompost.org
  23. Bennett Compost: http://www.bennettcompost.com
  24. Compost Wheels: http://www.compostwheels.com
  25. stakeholder webcast: http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Actions/PublicNoticeDetail.aspx?id=1991&aiid=1815
  26. “Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste and Grow Community”: https://ilsr.org/waste-recovery-episode-11-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  27. awarded the prestigious H. Clark Gregory Award: https://ilsr.org/release-platt-grassroots-award/
  28. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  29. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  30. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/notes-from-ccc2017/


Bolstering Waste Recovery Through Model Legislation (Episode 11)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 9, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode eleven of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Brenda Platt, ILSR co-director and director of our Waste to Wealth initiative. The two discuss the history of ILSR’s Zero Waste work and how the conversation around composting and waste has changed in her 30 years at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Platt is also working closely with Maryland legislators to implement laws that increase the percentage of waste diverted from landfills to create rich compost and increase economic development.

“One of the beauties of composting is that it can be small-scale, large-scale, and everything in between,” says Brenda Platt. “But we’ve been promoting communities to build small-scale, distributed infrastructure around composting with local partners such as residences, businesses, and schools.”

 

Here are Brenda’s recommendations to learn more about our composting work, please send any comments on the hierarchy (below) to bplatt@ilsr.org[6]:

[7]Growing Local Fertility: A Guide To Community Composting[8]

by Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance; James McSweeney and Jenn Davis, Highfields Center for Composting

Chris Mitchell Brenda, I’m really curious about the future of food waste and yard waste in Maryland. Tell me a little bit about what the future holds.
Brenda Platt Well, I think the future is bright for recovering food scraps and yard trimmings in Maryland. Maryland issued a zero waste plan more than a year ago, and recovering organic material is one of the core objectives of the plan, and it calls for 90% recycling of food scraps and yard trimmings by the year 2040.

It’s very aspirational and Maryland is on it’s way to meeting those goals, but there’s really a long way to go, particularly with food scraps.

Chris Mitchell That’s great, and that voice you’re hearing, that’s Brenda Platt, the co-director for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the director of the Compositing for Community program at ILSR, and I should have said, the award-winning Brenda Platt.

This is Chris Mitchell. I’m back in the host chair. I usually do our broadband type work at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and I’m running the Building Local Power podcast again this week. We’re talking about composting in Maryland and how it’s building local power.

And Brenda, as we start, let me just ask you to just tell people, what award did you win?

Brenda Platt The U.S. Composting Council, which is a national trade industry association has several awards, and this year I’m the winner of the H. Clark Gregory Award. That’s an award that’s given to an individual displaying outstanding service to the U.S. composting industry for a period of years, and particularly recognizes individuals who’ve had a lasting positive impact on the industry, particularly for grassroots efforts, such as backyard composting and public education.

It’s always an honor to be recognized by your colleagues and peers.

Chris Mitchell I think it’s well deserved from everything I’ve heard. I’ve talked with some of the people that you work with and they always hold you in very high esteem. I think one of the reasons for that … It may have to do with you working so hard to get Maryland to pass this zero waste plan.I wonder if we might just start … You’ve been with the institute, for forever, from my point of view, as I’ve only been here for 10 years. Can you just tell me a little bit about, just a minute or two, when you started at ILSR, what kind of recycling there was and whether there’s this sense that zero waste was even a possibility, and then we can just fast-forward to what Maryland’s doing now.
Brenda Platt Well, I started at the institute in 1986, and zero waste was not even part of the lexicon. We were part of a larger movement, you could say, in the mid-90s to promote zero waste planning. I’ll just say a lot people when I mention zero waste, their kind of eyes roll. They go, “Zero waste, yeah right, Brenda.”It’s really akin to like a manufacturers having a goal of like zero defects in their products. Or a community has a goal of zero drugs in their community or schools, so we like to say if you’re not for zero waste, how much are you for?

It’s really a planning construct, it’s a goal. There’s [inaudible 00:03:20] goals along the way, and composting and food waste and yard waste, recycling, is really a very strong part of any community’s zero waste plan or goal. I would just tell you that the leaders in zero waste planning and meeting goals is the business community. There’s a zero waste business alliance, and there’s dozens of businesses that have embraced zero waste planning and are saving money in their bottom line.

The international definition of zero waste is 90% or better, so it’s not really zero in terms of the consensus definition, but there are a number of communities from Austin, Texas to San Francisco to small communities in between that have embraced zero waste planning, and it’s been really a pleasure to be working on a sector and particularly on composting, you know, an issue that addresses so many of the pressing issues of the day.

Not just trash reduction, but creating jobs, meeting client protection goals, composting in particular, because composting is a process that manufacturers [inaudible 00:04:33] product. It’s a soil amendment. It ends up back in soil. And guess what? Once in soil, it sequesters carbon.

There’s so many benefits to moving towards zero waste planning and having composting be part of the strategy towards that.

Chris Mitchell One of the things that I think people here … When you say zero waste, at least, I’m just gonna imagine this because this is what pops in my head is I think plastic being wasted and thrown away. But it’s interesting because you know things like leaves, and its impact on the watershed, and we’re talking about communities that are environmentally sustainable, and even food security.Maybe just walk us through just a little bit … This isn’t just about having pretty gardens. This is much deeper in terms of how healthy a community is.
Brenda Platt Right. And I’m with you on plastics. One of my pet peeves is styrofoam and single use food service ware items. Part of getting to zero waste is moving towards reducing waste, using more durables and reusables, and we’re seeing a lot of that. Just take the plastic shopping bag, which there’s many communities that have either outright banned it or put a fee on it.People are using reusable shopping bags, so we’re seeing a culture change along with the most critical policies.

Now when it comes to composting, it’s true. It’s not just about … only about using compost in your gardens to grow flowers or plants. One of the biggest growing markets for compost in the country is in what we call “green infrastructure.” And those are things like rooftop bioswales, rain gardens, green roofs. All of those green infrastructures that are designed to handle storm water run-offs from parking lots or hard surface areas.

The old way used to be to build like concrete canals or collect it, and when you have green infrastructure, which mimics the natural environment, it acts more like a sieve, if you will, so it filters the storm water. It holds the storm water. It slows it down. You’ve got native species that are growing in it that can handle the water.

Compost in particular, which is really organic matter, has something called humus in it, which is like a glue-like substance that holds, not only the compost together, but the soil particles together. When you had compost organic matter to a rain garden or even your turf grass, your lawns, you’re helping your lawns and those other landscaped areas actually like absorb the water.

Studies show that you need 10% less water when you have soil amended with compost, so it can be tremendous savings on water, nutrients, slowing storm water, sequestering carbon. We are now been doing a lot of work on showing that not only can you save money on communities by doing river-smart landscapes …

In Montgomery County, Maryland, which is the largest population in Maryland, they have a program called the RainScapes program. You can actually get a rebate, up to $750, if you put in a conversation landscape or a rain garden that’s using compost. And if you’re a private business or an institution like a church and office building, your rebate could be $10,000.

There are communities that are building incentives to try and encourage people to add compost to your soils.

Chris Mitchell We talked quite a bit about some of the work that the Institute for Local Self-Reliance is doing with the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders program past episode with Linda, your colleague there, in the program.One of the things I just can’t help but think about is that this seems like a whole new industry that’s taking root and growing. And it actually is similar to 40 years ago, more than 40 years ago, when ILSR was formed, the solar industry was just kind of being born. And if you look today, I think it’s unfortunate, but a lot of the benefits of manufacturing solar panels and things like that are in other countries.

It seems like your work is trying to figure how to make sure that as this composting industry develops, that we keep the benefits local to the communities.

Brenda Platt That’s right. One of the beauties of composting is that it can be small scale, large scale and everything in between. But what we’re finding is that many cities that are rolling out their food scrap collection programs, making it convenient for citizens to participate by giving them a bin, collecting it every week, just like we’ve done in the last 20 years with recycables being collected at households.

But we’re seeing that often those materials are going to a far away facility, so the finished compost isn’t making its way back to the community, to households that have set their food scraps at the curb. And one of the things that we’ve been promoting is that communities could be supporting small scale, decentralized, or distributed infrastructure.

There’s local farmers that could be supported. In addition to rural farms, there’s urban farms, there’s community gardens, there’s composting at schools. And this is the intersection with the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Community Composting Training Program we’ve launched is that small-scale sites will only be successful if they have trained operators.

It’s not rocket science, but there is some science, and things you need to know in order to produce high quality compost in order to avoid the pitfalls of unwanted critters running around at your site, and there are best management practices around that.

You want to make sure that you’re reaching high temperatures that can deal with any pathogens that might be in there. We are dealing with rotting food waste, and actually what we teach is you want to be using fresh beet stalks before it actually gets to that rotting phase.

Through the training program, we’re producing kind of a new generation of community leaders who understand the benefits of composting, how to do it, that are leading to small scale decentralized sites being successful. And we’ve launched the program in the DC area already. I mean we have a number of community compost sites not only at urban farms and community gardens, we’ve got some at schools.

It’s been replicated in Atlanta. They have one of their projects that started up from one of the trainees is at a church, in addition to schools and inner city community farms and gardens. It’s helping make these sites very successful.

Chris Mitchell I want to like just touch on some of things you’re recommending that Maryland do. You’ve long worked in Maryland, and I think there’s a couple things that you’d recommend that states be considering.So tell us a little bit about what a state can do to allow more of this composting at a local level.
Brenda Platt We’ve been working in Maryland for a number years as you’ve noted. Well, it does help to work with state legislatures that you have a good relationship with, and so we were invited to work with, at the time, delegate Heather Mizeur, our representative, and she introduced a bill that passed that called on the state agencies to re-look at their composting regulations and permitting.And so without that state bill that basically called on the state agencies to take a look at where they were and where they needed to be and to do the outreach and education, I don’t think things would’ve moved.

In this particular state, that was critical. But then it really led to the state agencies, not only the Maryland Department of Environment, but also the Maryland Department of Agriculture, with the other stakeholders, collectors, composters, environmental groups, groups like ours, coming together and identifying that we needed to update the permitting regs.

Without a clear regulatory path in Maryland, we weren’t going to see investors or the private sector build facilities because it was such a gray area. That actually was a process that took three years, and we worked hard to make sure that there were policies that supported on-farm composting, medium scale. We worked hard to make sure there were clear exemptions for small scale sites. We had then followed up with that as we were just talking about with programs to help ensure that those small-scale sites that are exempt are still well-operated.

Chris Mitchell What are some of the issues that you’re working on in Maryland now?
Brenda Platt Some of the things that were kind of left on the table as a follow-up to the update on the permitting regs, which became finalized in the middle of 2015, is really now what are we gonna do to create incentives? What are we gonna do to deal with zoning issues, identify properties? There’s still in Maryland, a lack of facilities, that all scales that can take food waste.There’s generally no problem with yard waste, but there’s still more yard waste that could be recovered. We have a bill that we’ve been working with a group of stakeholders in Maryland that actually had a Senate hearing last week in the House hearing on the Maryland house side will be February 8th.

That bill, bill 171, really calls for the Maryland Department of Environment to have a work group with other stakeholders to look at how it can expand the infrastructure for food waste and yard waste recovery. And it calls for very specific things in the bill, so they have to look at things like identifying sites.

How do we create a grant and loan program to encourage infrastructure?

Chris Mitchell Do you think that bill’s gonna pass?
Brenda Platt Right now, the bill is unopposed, so my fingers and toes are crossed that it will pass, and we’ll continue to move the ball on advancing composting in the state.
Chris Mitchell Let me ask you a concluding question to … You can certainly answer however you’d like, but I’m curious, what’s a really exciting development in composting that just makes you feel like this is a great moment?
Brenda Platt Having just been at the U.S. Composing Council’s Conference and International Tradeshow, where I received the award we talked about earlier, we brought together the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We had a big best practices and community composting workshop and several sessions on cultivating community composting, and we brought close to 70 community composters from all around the country to that meeting.We raised money for a scholarship, so we had people from Flint, Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles, DC, Reno, Nevada, Cleveland, and they are young, they are mixed age, they are diverse, and they are the fastest growing movement of the industry right now. And it is just so exciting to be at the table with them. They are a bike-powered food scrap collectors, some of them are volunteer operations, but many of them are for-profits. Some of them own co-operatives.

One of them like [inaudible 00:15:44] co-operative out of Boston is owned by predominantly Latino and African-American workers who were either underemployed or unemployed who saw that this was a growing sector of Massachusetts with the state [inaudible 00:16:02] it was going to be moved more food waste recovery. And they said, “You know what? We’re gonna get a piece of this pie.”

And so they are growing, and many of them are doing it on a community scale where those community assets, food waste and yard trimmings. The benefits, the workforce scales are all kept within the local community, and to support not only the local economy, but the public health and other benefits of those communities.

And it’s just really exciting to see this small scale kind of community composting sector grow and be recognized within the the larger composting industry.

Chris Mitchell That’s really good to hear. Let me ask you then for a reading recommendation that also inspires you that you share with our audience.
Brenda Platt One of the things that we’ve done recently is that we’ve launched a hierarchy to reduce food waste and grow a community that looks at putting a lens on the scale on who owns the composting infrastructure, and that’s available on our website.

So please Google that and we’d love your feedback on whether we’re on the right track here like rescuing edible food and then promoting home composting and small-scale decentralized composting. And a companion piece to that, I’ll just point out, is a report Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting, and that’s also available on our website.

There’s links to other resources as well, so check them out.

Chris Mitchell Great, and that’s available at ILSR.org/initiatives/composting. Or you can certainly search for Waste to Wealth compositing. I think that’s gonna be one of the easiest ways to get you to the site. But we’ll also have links on the webpage that has this podcast.

Let me just thank you Brenda for coming on Building Local Power and sharing with us some of your insights about composting, where it’s been, where it’s going.

Brenda Platt Thank you. My pleasure.
Lisa Gonzalez That was Brenda Platt visiting with Christopher Mitchell. She’s one of our co-directors here at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and she also directs the Composting for Community program.

Christopher’s director of the institute’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative. For episode number 11 of the Building Local Power podcast, Brenda and Christopher were discussing composting programs, especially in Maryland, and how they can help build local power. Check out the resources Brenda recommended at ILSR.org and be sure to investigate more composting resources through our Waste to Wealth library.

Chris Mitchell Hey folks. I just wanted to ask you if you could do us a real big favor to help us spread the show around, and that’s to jump on iTunes or Stitcher, wherever you found this show, and to give us a rating. Give us a little review, particularly if you like it. If you don’t like it so much, then maybe don’t do that, but if you’re enjoying this show, please give you a rating and help us to build the audience a bit.

Thanks.

Lisa Gonzalez We encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and all of the other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever else you get your podcasts. Never miss out on our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org.Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music license to creative commons. This song is “Funk Interlude.” This is Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self Reliance. Thanks again for listening to the Building Local Power podcast.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[9] Building Local Power on iTunes[10] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[11]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[12]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[13] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[14] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[15] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[16] and Facebook[17] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[18] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-02-03-blp011-brenda-composting-maryland.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-02-03-blp011-brenda-composting-maryland.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. bplatt@ilsr.org: mailto:bplatt@ilsr.org
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ILSR-Food-Waste-Hierarchy-v1.pdf
  8. Growing Local Fertility: A Guide To Community Composting: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/growing-local-fertility.pdf
  9. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  10. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  11. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  12. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  13. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  14. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  15. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  16. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  17. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  18. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/waste-recovery-episode-11-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Press Release: Brenda Platt Receives Major Composting Award for Grassroots Advocacy

by Nick Stumo-Langer | February 8, 2017 5:06 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, February 8th

Contact: Nick Stumo-Langer, stumolanger@ilsr.org[1], 612-844-1330[2]

ILSR Co-Director Brenda Platt Receives Prestigious H. Clark Gregory Award from US Composting Council

LOS ANGELES – Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) co-director and director of ILSR’s Composting for Community initiative, was honored on Wednesday, January 25th, 2017, with the US Composting Council’s prestigious H. Clark Gregory Award[3], “for outstanding service to the composting industry through grassroots efforts.” The award came at the closing ceremony of the US Composting Council’s annual conference, this year held in Los Angeles.

Frank Franciosi, the US Composting Council’s executive director, presented the award, including notable past recipients. They include such outstanding grassroots composting leaders as: Alice Waters of the Chez Panisse Foundation, Will Allen of the Growing Power Farm, and Christine Datz-Romero of the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

“[Platt] began her career in the late 1980’s, successfully fighting dozens of mass-burn waste incineration plants planned across the country and promoting non-burn alternatives,” said Franciosi in his speech. “Brenda Platt has played a critical role in fostering the growing community composting movement, having co-hosted the National Cultivating Community Composting Forums she has brought together dozens of community composters from across the country,” he continued.

Franciosi concluded by imploring the audience to join him “in congratulating one of the hardest working women in our industry.”

“It is an incredible honor to work in an industry where you just absolutely love your job…an industry that addresses so many of the pressing issues of the day, whether it’s soil, climate, trash, food access, [or] food security,” said Platt in her remarks accepting the award. She concluded, “let’s go after that one trillion dollars in infrastructure, and let’s help build a diverse and distributed composting infrastructure.”

Photo Credit: US Composting Council[4]

For more information on the H. Clark Gregory award, see the US Composting Council’s website here: http://compostingcouncil.org/annual-awards/.

For more information on our Composting work, visit: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting/

###

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a 42-year-old national nonprofit research and educational organization. ILSR’s mission is to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support strong, community rooted, environmentally sound and equitable local economies.

www.ilsr.org[5] – Email stumolanger@ilsr.org[1] for press inquiries.

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Endnotes:
  1. stumolanger@ilsr.org: mailto:stumolanger@ilsr.org
  2. 612-844-1330: tel:(612)%20844-1330
  3. H. Clark Gregory Award: http://compostingcouncil.org/annual-awards/
  4. US Composting Council: http://compostingcouncil.org/
  5. www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/release-platt-grassroots-award/


Despite Intense Bipartisan Opposition, Virginia’s Anti-Municipal Broadband HB 2108 Passes

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 8, 2017 12:00 pm

On February 7th, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 72 – 24 to pass HB 2108[1], otherwise known as “Byron’s Bad Broadband Bill.” The text of the bill[2] was a revised version substituted by Del. Kathy Byron after Governor Terry McAuliffe[3], local leaders across the state[4], and constituents very handily let her know that they did not want the bill to move forward. The bill now moves to the Senate.

Byron’s original “Broadband Deployment Act” has been whittled down to a bill that still adheres to its main purpose – to protect the telephone companies that keep Byron comfortable with campaign cash[5]. There is no mention of deployment in the text of the new draft, but it does dictate that information from publicly owned networks be made open so anyone, including national providers, can use it to their advantage.

According to Frank Smith[6], President and CEO of the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA),

…Virginia Freedom of Information Act stipulations already codified in the Wireless Services Authority Act are sufficient and the new requirements in Byron’s bill could require the broadband authority to reveal proprietary information about its customers.

“There’s nothing hidden under the table,” Smith said. “The Wireless Services Authority Act is sufficient because you all did your job in 2003.”

The broadband authority’s rates, books and board meetings already are open to the public.

Private providers would never be required to publicize information that could jeopardize their operations. The objective here is to discourage public private partnerships and prevent local governments from investing in the type of infrastructure that would attract new entrants into the region.

Not “Us” vs. “Them”

At a time when everything seems political, both Republicans and Democrats appreciate that this is not a political issue. The bill’s new language, terrible as it is, passed through the House Labor and Commerce Committee on February 2[7]. The vote in the committee was close – 11 supported the bill and 9 opposed it. Six Republicans opposed the bill while two Democrats supported it.

Likewise, when the bill passed in the House yesterday, Delegates voting against passage were 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

gavel.png

Better connectivity is not a partisan issue but a matter of economic development, educational opportunities, public savings, quality of life, and local control. Rural communities that have been passed over by big corporate providers understand those reasons but AT&T doesn’t see it that way. To big the incumbent telephone company that wants to maintain its monopoly with slow DSL service in rural Virginia, it’s about maintaining a monopoly. Once the word gets out that municipal networks offer the fast affordable, reliable connectivity that local communities need, it’s only a matter of time before they lose their grip on that monopoly.

The best way to protect their position is through the Virginia General Assembly. They’ve been at it for years; it works in about 20 states[8].

Speaking Misinformation Through A Delegate

When Byron brought the new language to the House floor, she presented a speech that attacked municipal networks and used the same talking points we’ve heard over and over again. In fact, her speech was almost good enough to have been written by an AT&T lobbyist.

In the video of her presentation of the revised bill to the body (available below), she distorts the facts and relies on the same old examples from a very short list of municipal networks that have had financial problems, or are being privatized. Byron’s speech takes on the patronizing tone we so often hear from the big corporate providers as they purport to “protect the tax payers” while their true motives are to protect their monopolies. Watching the video is a good lesson in preparedness because it’s straight out of the anti-muni playbook.

Christopher summed up the situation:

“Once again, we see a state legislature prioritizing the anti-competitive instincts of a few telephone companies over the need for more investment and the desire for more choices in rural communities across their state. Virginia’s communities need more investment and more choices from ISPs, not new barriers crafted by powerful lobbyists in Richmond.”

The bill now goes to the Senate. View Delegate Byron’s testimony from the bill’s engrossment, below:

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[9].

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Endnotes:
  1. voted 72 – 24 to pass HB 2108: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?171+vot+HV2078+HB2108
  2. text of the bill: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?171+ful+HB2108H2
  3. Governor Terry McAuliffe: https://muninetworks.org/content/hb-2108-hearing-postponed-until-feb-2nd
  4. local leaders across the state: https://muninetworks.org/content/more-virginia-communities-oppose-byrons-bad-broadband-bill
  5. comfortable with campaign cash: https://muninetworks.org/content/byrons-conflicts-va-how-deep-do-they-go
  6. According to Frank Smith: http://www.roanoke.com/news/politics/general_assembly/revised-broadband-bill-passes-committee-heads-to-full-house/article_a5e6af5e-2047-56ab-83e1-eae08fc940fa.html
  7. passed through the House Labor and Commerce Committee on February 2: http://www.roanoke.com/news/politics/general_assembly/revised-broadband-bill-passes-committee-heads-to-full-house/article_a5e6af5e-2047-56ab-83e1-eae08fc940fa.html
  8. it works in about 20 states: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  9. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/hb-2108-opposition-bipartisan-passes-va-house

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/despite-intense-bipartisan-opposition-virginias-anti-municipal-broadband-hb-2108-passes/


Community Development Block Grants Aid Connectivity In Nelson County, VA

by ILSR | February 6, 2017 5:26 am

This article was written by Community Broadband Networks initiative intern, Kate Svitavsky.

Publicly owned Internet infrastructure is typically funded with[1] revenue grants, interdepartmental loans, or through avoided costs at the local level. Part of the planning and infrastructure costs, however, can sometimes be covered by state and federal grants known as Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Nelson County, Virginia[2], leveraged CDBG to expand their fiber network and maximize benefits to the community.

CDBG funds, are distributed to 1,200 units of state and local government by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and can go toward a variety of infrastructure and development purposes. When communities consider ways to use CDBG funding, they can get long-term valuable benefits by directing those funds toward Internet infrastructure.

Nelson County Broadband

Currently, the network has 39 miles of middle mile fiber and laterals. Nelson County began preparing for the network in 2007, when it received an initial planning grant of CDBG funds. The grant allowed the county to develop a project which improved their eligibility for federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

They applied and in 2010 for stimulus funding and received a $1.8 million grant from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) to build out a middle mile network. In the first phase of their construction, the county used the BTOP funding and approximately $456,000 in required local matching funds to deploy 31 miles of fiber backbone. The second phase added another eight miles to the network in 2015, funded in part by $200,000 of CDBG funding; the community has also contributed about $690,000 in other local funds.

“It becomes a win-win for residents and businesses and for service providers,” said Alan Patrick[3], Chair of the Nelson County Broadband Authority. “Residents and businesses have an opportunity to receive broadband access, which may have not been available prior to the county building infrastructure in the area, and it is also a benefit to the service providers.”

As of November 2016, 240 businesses, residents, and organizations subscribe to Nelson’s network, which serves the communities of Lovingston, Nellysford, Colleen, Woods Mill, Martins Store, and Avon. Multiple ISPs operate on the open access network[4], including Nelson Cable, SCS Broadband, and Ting Internet.

The Broadband Authority hopes to add another 52 customers[5] in two additional neighborhoods in the near future. They retained a consulting firm that recently provided[6] a broadband build out plan. The Authority is still considering the recommendations that suggest adding another 75 miles of fiber. The expansion would reach the towns of Faber, Shipman, Piney River, Tyro, Arrington, Afton, and Wintergreen. The estimated cost of the expansion is approximately $7.8 million.

About CDBG

Congress created the CDBG program in 1974 as a way to help communities revitalize neighborhoods, requiring the majority of funds to benefit low-to-moderate income (LMI) individuals, families, and areas.

seal-nelson-county-va.jpg

In 2015, HUD distributed over $3 billion in CDBG funds to units of government including cities, counties, and 49 states. A funding formula, which takes into account population trends and indicators of need such as housing age and poverty levels, dictates what level of CDBG support HUD offers recipients. If communities aren’t populous enough to receive funding on their own, they are eligible to apply for CDBG funds through their state CDBG authority. (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. is typically funded with: https://www.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/financing-munis-fact-sheet.pdf
  2. Nelson County, Virginia: http://www.nelsoncounty-va.gov/government/broadband-authority/
  3. said Alan Patrick: http://www.newsadvance.com/nelson_county_times/news/broadband-connecting-rural-nelson-county-poses-trials/article_084cfc16-c817-11e4-93ea-cf012298d1cf.html
  4. open access network: https://muninetworks.org/content/open-access
  5. hopes to add another 52 customers: http://www.nelsoncounty-va.gov/wp-content/uploads/Approved-NCBA-Minutes-November-8-2016.pdf
  6. that recently provided: http://www.nelsoncounty-va.gov/wp-content/uploads/Approved-NCBA-Minutes-October-6-2016.pdf
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/community-development-block-grants-aid-connectivity-in-nelson-county-va/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/community-development-block-grants-aid-connectivity-in-nelson-county-va/


States Where Amazon Collects Sales Tax (Map)

by Stacy Mitchell | February 6, 2017 1:48 am

[1]
Map of states where Amazon collects sales taxes, Feb. 2017.[2]

As of February 2017, Amazon collects sales tax in 38 states, but there are still seven states in which the sales tax loophole gives the company a competitive edge over other businesses. These include states like Maine and Arkansas, where Amazon has cut ties with affiliates in order to continue to dodge sales tax collection. Five states do not have sales tax.

This marks a stark change from a year earlier, when Amazon collected sales tax in just 28 states, and an even more stark change from the company’s sales tax avoidance strategy over the 20-plus years since its founding in 1995.

In some of these states, Amazon collects sales taxes because it has a physical presence; Amazon’s network of facilities has expanded rapidly[3] in recent years. In other states, Amazon collects sales taxes because those states have enacted affiliate nexus laws[4] that expand the definition of physical presence. Recently, several other states have invited the U.S. Supreme Court[5] to revisit the issue by passing laws asserting state authority to require collection without a physical presence.

For more background and information on internet sales tax, including legislative approaches taken by states and proposed federal efforts, see our Internet Sales Tax Fairness[6] page. For change over time, see past sales tax maps below.

(more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Amazon-Sales-Tax-Fairness-Map-2017.02.jpeg
  3. expanded rapidly: https://ilsr.org/amazon-logistics-map/
  4. affiliate nexus laws: https://ilsr.org/rule/internet-sales-tax-fairness/2237-2/
  5. invited the U.S. Supreme Court: https://ilsr.org/us-supreme-court-invitation-reconsider-internet-sales-tax-ruling/
  6. Internet Sales Tax Fairness: https://ilsr.org/rule/internet-sales-tax-fairness/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/states-amazon-sales-tax-map/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/states-amazon-sales-tax-map/


Thanks to Co-op, Small Iowa Town Goes Big On Solar

by Karlee Weinmann | February 3, 2017 12:52 pm

It’s hard to imagine a place more bucolic than the rural farming communities clustered around Kalona, Iowa — the kind of place that for generations has embodied conservative, blue-collar values woven throughout rural America.

Nestled in the gently rolling hills of southeastern Iowa, it’s at first difficult to tell what sets Kalona apart from countless similar places on the Midwestern landscape. Small towns like these form the backbone of a region whose economy depends on a rich farming tradition, even well into the 21st century.

But Kalona’s charm doesn’t obscure the innovation that makes it a national leader in clean power generation. In this small community, where many Amish and Mennonite families shun electricity and cars, solar power has proliferated. In fact, the Kalona area is a surprising national leader in solar power generation.

Sparking Solar

The local solar movement traces back to Farmers Electric Cooperative, the utility serving 605 households and businesses in Kalona and its surrounding villages. Per capita, Farmers Electric generates 3,719 watts of solar power per subscriber — 76 percent more than the next utility[1]! The utility, owned by its customers, offers a window into how community-minded thinking can shape sensible energy policy and reinvent the local economy.

Eight years after Farmers Electric launched a fierce campaign to integrate renewables into its energy mix, it’s obvious that solar has caught on. Skeptics were slow to opt in to clean power in the beginning. But now, in Kalona, solar power is the norm. They line the roofs of farmhouses and other local businesses, and ground-mounted arrays power other agribusiness operations.

What started with a single pilot array at a local high school has grown into a robust distributed generation network including farmers, homeowners and business owners cashing in on clean energy. Even as customers save money, more of their energy dollars stay within the community, boosting the local economy.

See our video[2] of Farmers Electric excellent solar reality:

Farmers Electric remains an outlier in promoting solar so aggressively, but its approach provides a blueprint for other power providers.

“Solar is like the electric car. I think people see it as the future, basically, in technology,” said Warren McKenna, who heads up Farmers Electric and spearheaded its solar plan. “If you make it easy, I think they’re going to grab a hold of it. It’s been very, very popular with our customers.”

There is no single path to unlocking the economic and community benefits seeded by solar, captured widely in Farmers Electric’s territory. Still, the unexpected success in bringing widespread solar generation to a tiny farming community about 30 miles south of Iowa City offers a pivotal lesson: it all comes down to the money.

The Pitch

Farmers Electric harnessed the power of the dollar to gets its solar campaign off the ground, and keep it going. In order for the program to succeed, McKenna knew early on that it had to provide a financial boost to co-op members — the environmental benefits, he says, were an unspoken cherry on top. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. 76 percent more than the next utility: http://solarbuildermag.com/news/sepa-top-10-solar-utilities-of-2015/
  2. See our video: https://ilsr.org/video-solar-rural-iowa/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/thanks-to-co-op-small-iowa-town-goes-big-on-solar/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/thanks-to-co-op-small-iowa-town-goes-big-on-solar/


“Why Local Solutions?” Internet Access Fact Sheet

by Lisa Gonzalez | February 1, 2017 6:01 am

The next time you’re attending a city council meeting, attending a local broadband initiative, or just chatting with neighbors about better local connectivity, take a few copies of our Why Local Solutions?[1] fact sheet.

[2]

Our new one-pager addresses three main reasons why local telecommunications authority is so important:

  • State and federal government won’t solve the problem – local residents, businesses, and elected officials know what they need, right?
  • Large telecom companies refuse to invest in rural areas – we’ve seen over and over how their promises to improve Internet access go unfulfilled.
  • Local leaders can best resolve local issues – they are accountable to the people they see every day and they experience the same reality.

In addition to providing some basic talking points to get the conversation moving, the fact sheet offers resources to guide you to more detailed information on publicly owned Internet networks. This resource is well paired with our other recent fact sheet, More than just Facebook[3]. You’ve already started to get people interested in all the advantages of high-quality connectivity, now show them how local self-reliance it the most direct route to better access.

Download Why Local Solutions? fact sheet[4].

Other Fact Sheets At Your Fingertips

Fact sheets are a useful tool for getting your point across without overloading the recipient with too much information. They can easily be digested and carried to meetings with elected officials and often are just the right amount of information to pique someone’s curiosity.

Check out our other fact sheets[5].

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Why Local Solutions?: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-01-why-local-solutions1.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/small-local-solutions1.jpg
  3. More than just Facebook: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-01-more-than-just-facebook.pdf
  4. Download Why Local Solutions? fact sheet: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-01-why-local-solutions1.pdf
  5. our other fact sheets: https://muninetworks.org/fact-sheets
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/why-local-solutions-fact-sheet

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/why-local-solutions-internet-access-fact-sheet/


Tennessee Broadband Bill Is A Jackpot For AT&T, Junk For EPB

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 27, 2017 11:19 am

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam doesn’t want the public’s money to pay for publicly owned Internet infrastructure. He has no problem, however, writing a $45 million check backed by taxpayers and payable to the likes of AT&T in Tennessee.

“A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down Your Pants”

On Wednesday, Haslam introduced the “Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act,” another state sponsored handout to the national Internet Service Providers who have made countless broken promises to expand to rural areas. The bill contains some provisions dressed up to look like measures that make big strides for the state, and will be helpful, but it’s not ground breaking.

The bill lifts existing state restrictions on electric cooperatives that may wish to offer retail Internet access to members. The state restrictions on co-ops are dubious anyway and could be challenged under federal law. For the state’s electric cooperatives that reach all over the rural areas, the bill is welcome, but communities near Chattanooga’s EPB gets the short end of the stick.

EPB, Chattanooga’s Municipal Electric Utility, has advocated for several years to expand beyond their service territory. Neighboring communities, such as Bradley[1] and Polk Counties, need better connectivity because the national providers don’t consider their regions a good investment. Nevertheless, state law prohibits EPB from expanding to them and this legislation won’t change that.

“Don’t Confuse The Conversation”

State Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, where the local municipal network has jump started economic development and improved the quality of life, pointed out the problem[2] in Haslam’s shell game legislation:

Bowling said the measure only goes halfway in removing regulatory limits that she said now limit fiber optic service in much of Tennessee “and keeps too many rural citizens from participating in the 21st century digital economy.”

“I’m certainly glad that electric co-ops will be able to retail fiber services under this measure and I think that will be significant,” she said. ” I am amazed that some of the giant, investor-owned telecoms have been able to confuse the conversation by trying to make it about what is fair for the provider, instead of focusing on what is right for the consumer.”

Bowling has introduced legislation to repeal the state’s law that prevents municipal electric utilities that offer connectivity from expanding. The measure has had wide constituent support, as many of these efforts do, but elected officials at the state level who may be swayed by campaign donations are harder to convince.

att-death-star.PNGHere, AT&T, Have Some Money!

The Times Free Press reported[3]:

Asked why he didn’t include EPB and other municipal electric services, Haslam said, “You have a situation where we’d much rather have private providers rather than government-subsidized entities have the first crack at getting that done.”

AT&T has collected billions in taxpayer subsidies over the years, and is about to receive a fair chunk of another $45 million.

Ignoring Sage Advice

Last summer, the state’s own Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) released a study[4] that recommended eliminating the barriers that prevent entities like EPB from expanding. Haslam chose to dismiss his own agency’s recommendation to keep EPB corralled and AT&T happy.

AT&T has lobbied hard to keep EPB contained and appears to have won this round. To date, the national provider has had no interest in updating service outside Chattanooga. They know they won’t have to compete with EPB now, and still have no motivation to spend any of that taxpayer money in the region. The people in Bradley and Polk Counties, who have held public meetings[5], passed resolutions[6], and practically begged the state to allow EPB serve their community now know that their Governor chooses AT&T lobbyists over them.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[7].

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Endnotes:
  1. Bradley: https://muninetworks.org/content/holding-their-breath-bradley
  2. pointed out the problem: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/politics/state/story/2017/jan/27/epb-will-remalargely-inside-its-fence-under-h/409765/
  3. Times Free Press reported: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/politics/state/story/2017/jan/26/haslam-announces-plan-expand-broadband-rural-areas/409634/
  4. released a study: https://muninetworks.org/content/tn-study-suggests-stamping-out-state-barriers
  5. held public meetings: https://muninetworks.org/content/tn-fibers-new-video-family-life-bradley-county
  6. passed resolutions: https://muninetworks.org/content/bradley-county-urges-tennessee-lawmakers-high-speed-internet-now
  7. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/tn-broadband-bill-jackpot-att-junk-epb

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/tennessee-broadband-bill-is-a-jackpot-for-att-junk-for-epb/


Trump’s FCC Pick Bodes Poorly for Net Neutrality & Broadband Competition

by Christopher Mitchell | January 26, 2017 6:00 pm

StateScoop[1] – January 26, 2017

Commentary: The chairman’s track record of opposition to equitable telecom policy could lead to fewer choices in the market and the upending of one of the internet’s most treasured aspects — but the fight’s not over yet.

Donald Trump picked his FCC chairman much earlier than anyone expected, though Ajit Pai is not a very big surprise. Formerly a lawyer for Verizon, Pai has been a constant voice in favor of large incumbent cable and telephone positions, especially opposing the Open Internet Order, known more commonly as network neutrality[2].

He has served on the FCC for four years, giving a strong sense of what his priorities are. In speaking to staff on his first day, he focused on the digital divide[3] but offered few clues as to what he might be planning to improve access aside from cutting regulations — as though the only thing holding back the nation’s ISPs from offering high-quality lower-cost access in low-income neighborhoods was prohibitions against the practice.

Pai opposed efforts to help low-income families access the internet via the Lifeline program, advocating instead for a cap that would create a waiting list rather than covering all qualifying families. And more telling, he actually opposed efforts to rein in the ripoff charges in many prisons, where the incarcerated have to pay incredibly inflated rates[4] to make phone calls. For those who don’t care if people in prison are ripped off, consider that the amount of contact a prisoner has with family is correlated with recidivism. That means you are paying higher taxes to house prisoners so CenturyLink and others can charge them a buck a minute or more to talk to their families.

Pai’s opposition to equity extends beyond individual programs and into the content of the internet itself. Pai has proven himself an opponent of net neutrality and said in December that its days are numbered under Trump.

To be fair, Pai has claimed at times to adhere to some net neutrality principles — such as no blocking of websites. But to be honest, he has also consistently argued that the FCC should not have the power to effectively enforce such rules.

The issue with Pai, and more broadly among the Republicans running the federal government these days, is that they believe the market for internet service works well. In fact, the party line seems to be that if there is a problem, it is the possible need for even more consolidation — AT&T buying Time Warner properties like HBO and CNN, for instance.

The belief is that if one provider engages in anti-consumer behavior, the market will correct it. It’s a great theory, but I’m not exactly sure where it gets the average American living in a large urban area. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, and if I get annoyed at the Comcast bandwidth cap, my other option is a much slower CenturyLink DSL connection. I can say from my own infuriating personal experience with these providers that this “market” is not self-correcting.

Many claim that I have more options. Any number of think tanks that get checks from the big cable and telephone companies are happy to remind me that I could get even slower service from Verizon Wireless over LTE, though the cost of blowing through my monthly data cap would exceed my mortgage. Even statistics collected by the FCC or the NTIA support the view that my neighborhood is full of choices, but it’s an illusion. It’s just that there is a business corridor in my census block that has a few more choices, so “Hey, presto,” I too have more choices officially! But not really.

What are the real markers for whether the market is working? Try comparing the consumer satisfaction of the big cable companies to their profits.

Hypothesis: if the market is competitive, cable companies cannot have high profits when their customers hate them because their customers would switch to one of the many other choices in the market.

And the hypothesis is proved wrong: Comcast’s profit in one quarter of 2016 exceeded $2 billion[5] and yet it was among the most hated[6] companies in the country according to Consumer Reports rankings.

Some people are so frustrated with their options that they are starting to write four-figure checks to get better service. In Ammon, Idaho, some 70 percent of households in the city’s first municipal fiber zone decided to join, despite supposedly having lots of other service options. In Kitsap County, Washington, neighborhoods can petition for fiber service from the public utility district and the greatest demand[7] is in the areas that already have cable and DSL service.

The market has spoken. The market is broken. But at the federal level, policy will be made more than ever by the biggest cable and telephone companies. We have a rough hand, but we aren’t powerless. To undo net neutrality, Pai’s FCC will have to take comments — and millions of people commented in favor of preserving net neutrality last time. Don’t miss that window. Pressure your elected officials — make them choose between the lobbyists and your vote.

In any given community, only one or two cable and telephone companies call the shots. They rule the state legislature. We need to support competition where it exists and create it where it doesn’t, which is what more than 450 communities[8] are already doing with municipal investments across the country.

The battle for equitable broadband access and a free and open internet isn’t over just because the big cable and telephone companies again control Washington. We can win by building power at the local level.

Commentary originally published on StateScoop[1].

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Endnotes:
  1. StateScoop: http://statescoop.com/trumps-fcc-pick-bodes-poorly-for-net-neutrality-competition-in-the-broadband-market
  2. network neutrality: https://www.freepress.net/issues/free-open-internet/net-neutrality
  3. the digital divide: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/fcc-chairman-pai-vows-to-close-broadband-digital-divide/
  4. incredibly inflated rates: https://www.prisonphonejustice.org/
  5. $2 billion: http://www.wsj.com/articles/comcast-profit-tops-estimates-1461754929
  6. most hated: http://www.dailydot.com/via/why-comcast-most-hated-company-america/
  7. the greatest demand: https://muninetworks.org/content/kitsap-residents-demand-fiber-and-get-it-community-broadband-bits-podcast-237
  8. more than 450 communities: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/trumps-fcc-pick-bodes-poorly-for-net-neutrality-broadband-competition/


Preemption, Local Authority, & Municipal Broadband (Episode 10)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 26, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode ten of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, John Farrell, the director of ILSR’s Energy Democracy initiative, interviews Christopher Mitchell (our usual podcast host) and Lisa Gonzalez of our Community Broadband Networks initiative. The three discuss the power of municipal broadband networks, how the power held in cities is integral to these projects, and the barriers put in place by cable monopolies to prevent these networks.

Gonzalez and Mitchell dive deep into a few models that have benefitted their communities across the nation.

“These big cable and telephone companies are against competition,” says Chris Mitchell. “For them, they’ve grown up in monopoly environments. They are opposed to private-sector competition and public-sector competition.”

From Lisa: Genius on Hold[6] is available on Netflix, currently:

From Chris:

The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T[7] by Steve Coll, Atheneum

Be sure to read up on some of our Community Broadband Network initiative’s other work, as well as a previous Building Local Power episode Christopher and Lisa spoke on:

  • Community Broadband Networks Map[8]
  • Broadband Bits Podcast[9]
  • Broadband Boosted at the Ballot, An Election Wrap-Up[10]

John Farrell Chris, tell me how Comcast is ruining your Sunday nights.
Chris Mitchell: Even before I came to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I was a photographer. When I’m done at the end of a weekend – I do a lot of sports photography – I have to upload those files to clients. If I was in Chattanooga or a place where I get a very high-quality internet connection, that would take me on the order of 10, 15, 16 seconds, depending on how large of a shoot I had done, basically. Instead, it takes me over a half hour. Which means on a Sunday night, when I’m done and I want to go to bed, I have to stay up to make sure the transfer clears and everything goes there.

This is better than it was five years ago when it would take more than an hour. Comcast has modestly increased my speed, but it’s pretty significant, frankly. I find it a little bit frustrating, especially because I’m actually paying more for my crap connection than people are paying in Chattanooga for a much better connection.

John Farrell: Welcome to another edition of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Building Local Power podcast. I’m guest host, John Farrell, Director of the Energy Initiative here at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I want to remind you that wherever you have found us, if you like what you’re hearing, please take a minute to rate this podcast to help others find it. Remember, it’s the Building Local Power podcast. If you don’t like it, it’s the Community Broadband Bits podcast. This episode, I’m joined by Director of our Community Broadband Networks Initiative, Christopher Mitchell-
Chris Mitchell: Hello.
John Farrell: And Lisa Gonzalez, also a Senior Researcher on the same initiative.
Lisa Gonzalez: Hey, John.
John Farrell: In this episode, we’re going to be talking about situations where states have been stepping in to stop cities from making investments in local networks for faster and more affordable broadband. I just have to say I’m puzzled by this notion. It seems like broadband is an essential piece of infrastructure in the 21st Century economy. If cities want to step in and do something to make it better, why are states passing laws to preempt local authority over broadband? Can you give a couple of examples of where that’s happening?
Chris Mitchell: Yes, we can. I don’t want to burst your bubble, John, but in the United States, sometimes things are done to protect certain industries that have very good lobbyists or have a lot of money that they can donate to campaigns. Let’s just come right out and say that I don’t think there is a good policy reason to restrict local authority in these matters. The reason it’s usually done is the cable and telephone companies, they do not want to deal with restrictions, so they go to the state legislature and they say, “It is unfair for us to have to compete with cities because us at Comcast, we only have billions of dollars in profit, to say nothing of the tens of billions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of billions of dollar in revenue.”
John Farrell: I’m picking up the sarcasm here, Chris.
Chris Mitchell: I’ve been told sarcasm is a very bad tool to use. Let’s just say that they will cast themselves – this big, multinational, incredibly-profitable company – as being the underdog versus a city that is taking action because its local businesses are literally saying, “If you don’t do something as the city to get better internet access, we are going to have to move our jobs to another city that has good internet access.” That’s the dynamic that’s playing out. I think Lisa’s seen this in many cases as well.
Lisa Gonzalez: That’s right. Let’s also talk a little bit about their code words, because how do they describe themselves to the public? They say, “We’re protecting the taxpayer.”
Chris Mitchell: Right.
Lisa Gonzalez: They say, “We do this because we want to make sure that local communities don’t spend taxes on failures.” What do we know about municipal networks? There’s only a few that the anti-municipal network lobbyists use because there are only a few that haven’t done very well. We have a map that has over 400 examples of municipal networks, publicly-owned networks, that have done very well. We hear the same four or five examples used over and over again because they can’t think of any more.
John Farrell: This is a great opportunity. Let’s name a couple of these places that have taken these efforts to see what it is that these telecom companies are trying to protect us from.
Chris Mitchell: Sure. Well, Chattanooga is one that everyone knows about. They have done a wonderful job, but you can find tons about them anywhere you look. I would say Lafayette, Louisiana is a great example. Lafayette, Louisiana is a place that has an incredible culture, but did not have any tech infrastructure. They didn’t have a lot of high-tech jobs.

One of the things that the mayor there, who I’ve gotten to know quite well, Joey Durel, had said was they were very frustrated that their kids would grow up in Lafayette, in the heart of Cajun country, and they’d have to move to Dallas or Houston to get high-paying jobs, to get good jobs. He wanted to fix that. I think, Lisa, you’ve been tracking this closer than I have.

Lisa Gonzalez: Right. Lafayette is now being called, “The Silicon Bayou.” One of the reasons is because they’ve been attracting companies that are coming there because they had this great network and are bringing high-tech jobs, well-paying jobs. In 2014, there were three companies that came there bringing about 1,400 jobs to the community, all because of the network, all because they were high-tech jobs that needed high-speed connectivity.
John Farrell: What’s better about their network than what they had before?
Chris Mitchell: Actually, I just want to make a point. Because some people will think, “Oh, well, they didn’t have internet access before,” but they did. They had Cox Cable, a cable company that is one of the larger ones in the nation. They had service that was not quite as good as the top cable services, but it was pretty similar cable service you can get in any major metro.

That is not good enough if you’re a major tech company. You need very high-quality access. In particular, you need high-quality upload speeds. A lot of us at home, we have higher download speeds than upload speeds. It might be okay because we’re not going to upload as much, although that’s really been changing in recent years. If you’re a business, you need to make sure you can get files out to clients. You need to make sure you can do offsite data backup immediately. You don’t want to be waiting all night to make sure that something is backed up offsite to be secured. There’s all kinds of reasons in which you need a high-quality connectivity, which actually even goes – and we’re not going to get very technical – but you get into all sort of issues with latency and other kinds of technical measures of quality for an internet connection that you do not get on DSL and cable.

John Farrell: The network in Lafayette then is that it’s not only faster than what was offered before, but it also was, I know the term that you use sometimes is symmetrical, which is to say the upload speed is as fast as the download speed.
Chris Mitchell: Right. Right. You have all of these technical issues that are better. It’s basically a modern network or a next-generation network, we sometimes call it, rather than a last-generation network, an older network like cable and DSL. It’s last-generation’s technologies.

Now, here’s a couple of other things, too. They don’t raise their prices every year. They don’t engage in this misleading promotional pricing, where you pay one price for a little while and sometimes the cable company won’t even tell you what you’ll be paying in six months. They have transparent pricing that stays pretty stable over time. They don’t try to rip you off. They have good customer service when you have a problem, if you do have a problem.

There’s all kinds of other differences, too, that we tend to gloss over. They’ve done an incredible job, but there are places that didn’t have as good of internet access and really decided that they had to do more. I think maybe it would be just helpful if, Lisa – you’ve been running the website for a long time now – what are some of the big savings that we’ve seen from communities building these networks?

Lisa Gonzalez: I think probably the most striking example I’ve seen of savings is Martin County, Florida. We did a case study on this a couple years ago.
Chris Mitchell: We did? You did it!
Lisa Gonzalez: Yeah, well, I did most of it. Martin County, Florida had a franchise agreement with Comcast. It was at the end of the contract and the franchise agreement had a provision wherein Comcast would provide a network for the municipal facilities to be connected.
Chris Mitchell: Cities wanted networks. Cable companies wanted to build in the right of way because they didn’t want to have to negotiate with every property owner. A cable company comes to a city-
John Farrell: When you’re saying, “the right of way,” you’re saying they want to put the wires under the street. They don’t want to have to run them from house to house over lots of private property.
Chris Mitchell: Right. You don’t want to have to negotiate with every property owner, right, to put a pole in there. They want access to the existing utility poles or to conduit under the ground. That’s city property. The city manages it on behalf of the public.

The goal is is that the cable company gets what it wants, but it has to pay for that. One of the ways it paid for that was to give franchise fees to pay the city some percentage of the cable proceeds of their revenues, but also to do some other things including wiring broadband to key anchor institutions like schools and libraries, police stations, and that sort of thing. This all changed in the ’90’s is what Lisa’s saying.

Lisa Gonzalez: Right. When they were at the end of the contract, Comcast said, “We don’t really want to do this anymore. Not for free.” Although, it wasn’t really free, as Chris just explained. “We want to start charging you for services.” The figure that they gave Martin County was something like 300 times on what they had been paying in the past.

Martin County, when they ran the numbers, they realized it was just more cost-effective for them to deploy their own network and run it themselves. The county and the school district partnered together to pay for this and they did use E-Rate, also, to help pay for some of the infrastructure costs.

Chris Mitchell: A federal program we’re not going to get into.
Lisa Gonzalez: Right. Over the course of the next 30-year period, when they realized how much they’ve saved, it comes to $30 million. We’re talking savings. When you break that down to what the school … Let’s just talk about what the school was paying for connectivity per megabit. By Comcast’s proposal, they would have been paying $526 per megabit. With what they’re paying to the county for connectivity, it’s 51 cents.
John Farrell: Orders of magnitude more expensive to stay with the incumbent cable company.
Lisa Gonzalez:  Right, right.
Chris Mitchell:  Right, not only that, they actually ended up with a network that was far superior.
Lisa Gonzalez:  Yes.
Chris Mitchell: We’re talking about Florida here. They had a network that was not redundant and was on poles. They have a network now which is redundant, which means if something goes wrong, the network will stay up, and it’s underground, which makes me feel safer if my public safety facilities are connected underground in hurricane country. The benefits to the public are remarkable.
John Farrell: How many communities are doing this? I think you alluded to this before. We keep a map, actually. ILSR has a map of all the communities that have done this. How many communities are there that are doing things like Martin County or Lafayette?
Chris Mitchell: We’re getting near 500 that we’re tracking. I should say very carefully the number of communities that are doing something like Martin County, where they’re focused on the local anchor institutions, it must be over 1,000. It’s very hard to track them down because there’s not a lot of press releases saying, “Hey, we’re just going to build a wire to connect our police stations and things like that.” The number of communities that is actually providing a service that is available to the public, whether it’s a local business district or the entire community, is approaching 500. The number of places where it’s available citywide is closer to 150. What one of the important things is is that it’s growing very rapidly.
John Farrell: What I’m hearing is that there’s different ways communities can do this. Sometimes you can just do it for public institutions, public buildings. Obviously, there are huge cost savings in Martin County and no doubt in other places. Or you can actually deploy this to the entire community. That, as I understand it, is where you get into these preemption fights at the state level where the enormous multinational cable company says, “We can’t afford to compete with Lafayette, Louisiana, or Chattanooga,” or some other place that wants to deploy a public network available to everybody.
Chris Mitchell: Right. I think it’s worth just reiterating one more time that these big cable and telephone companies, they’re against competition. Right? That is, for them, they’ve grown up largely in monopoly environments, which is the case prior to 1996. They are opposed to private-sector competition and public-sector competition. Their talking points trying to stop local governments from doing this are very much focused on public versus private, but it’s not because they would actually welcome private competition. It’s just convenient for them to argue in that way.One of the ways it breaks down is that a lot of local governments, I mean more than half of the ones that we’re tracking, are making investments and trying to make that available to the private sector. Chattanooga, Lafayette, Wilson, North Carolina, a lot of these communities – they provide service themselves. A lot more communities want to figure out how they can just enable others to provide services. Mount Vernon in Washington or Westminster in Maryland, they want to make sure that they’re creating a market. They want to invest in infrastructure, fiber-optic cables, or conduit, or things that you just think of it as making it easier for a private-sector ISP to offer services. They want to basically make it so it’s very easy to have competition for services in their community.
John Farrell: Maybe another way to think of this is rather than having competing road networks, building up duplicative infrastructure for different cable companies or internet providers to compete, the city builds one set of roads, and then the package delivery companies – Amazon, DHL, FedEx, whatever – all get to compete to offer services using that public infrastructure.
Chris Mitchell: Yeah, it’s almost like you’ve been reading our work, John. That is absolutely the analogy that I would use.
John Farrell: Do you think that there’s one kind of model that’s better for communities than others? It sounds like the Martin County example is small-scale, but has huge savings. On the other hand, you have Chattanooga or Lafayette that are attracting tons of new businesses because of the fact that their internet services are so competitive. Would you push a community in any particular direction?
Lisa Gonzalez: Absolutely not. I think it depends on what the community wants, their vision, what they need, what they already have. Each community is unique and we found this out. There are certain characteristics that each community has that they might find similar in other communities that have followed particular models that they may want to investigate further and maybe mirror, but every community is different. Every community needs to approach their answer uniquely.
Chris Mitchell: Yeah, I would just pile onto that and say that it’s kind of an interesting puzzle in that most of the communities that have built networks have not used taxpayer dollars. They’ve borrowed and then they’ve repaid the investors with revenues from the network without using any taxpayer dollars. Now, that’s starting to change a little bit. Some communities are looking at this and they’re thinking, “You know what, we should use some taxpayer dollars. We should build the network and, sure, the revenues from the network will help, but we’re going to build it and we’re going to make sure that our focus is on indirect benefits, is on education, is on drawing attention, drawing businesses into the community. For us, we’re looking at this as an infrastructure.”

Now, there’s some communities that would say, “We would never put taxpayer dollars into this.” There’s already been several – some of them are very conservative, some of them are very liberal – that have said, “This is a basic infrastructure, so we’re going to use our taxpayer dollars.” When Lisa and I are advising a community, we would never come in and just say, “This is the way you should do it.”

John Farrell: Let’s go back to the preemption question one more time here. You have these states, a number of different states – I think a policy was just introduced in Virginia to more severely constrict what kind of municipalities can do networks – they’re not putting taxpayer dollars at risk. The vast majority are successful. What’s the point of a preemption policy? Who is it serving?
Chris Mitchell: It’s absolutely serving the cable and telephone companies. The point is when we have an open discussion about this sort of thing, it’s a different result than the normal process. The cable and telephone companies, they own state legislatures in the sense that they put a lot of money into lobbying. They have great relationships. There’s no natural opposition to them.

You work in energy, John, where there tends to be more local groups. Not a lot, but there are some local groups that have some expertise and might be trying to lobby one way or another. Certainly now, there’s actually groups that are favoring renewable energy that are actually pretty good at lobbying.

John Farrell: Let me just jump in and just make that analogy, because I was going to ask that question. Specifically in the electricity business, we have a lot of disruption happening because of solar power. I mean, there are lots of other technologies, too, whether it’s electric vehicles or what have you, but solar power has fundamentally changed the system in that an individual person can now be a power generator. Are there disruptive technologies like that or is it like you said, there really is no natural opposition, so these cable and telephone monopolies don’t have any kind of countervailing power facing them down at the legislature?
Chris Mitchell: I think that’s a hard question to answer, but there’s a little more history here because we went through this all in the late ’90’s when Congress and the federal government changed the policy and opened it up so there could be lots of competition. We had 10,000 – a little less than that, like 7,500, 8,000 – ISPs and they were called CLECs at the time.

The point was was that when you and I, John, when we were in high school, we were getting on the internet, we could go to any company in town. Right? We’re using dial-up modems and we would go to these companies. Those were all these companies that came about from a result of Congress changing policy and allowing them to enter that market. They almost all got crushed and destroyed because of changes in federal policy, because the incumbents were so good at lobbying in the late ’90’s and early 2000’s. Over time, they really learned a lesson.

You come back to now. There’s not a vibrant movement of independent service providers that are lobbying against anti-competitive bills in the statehouse. Which is to say that when a cable company goes to the statehouse and says, “We need to outlaw this competition,” a legislator might turn around and say, “Well, who can I talk to to get the opposite opinion?” There’s no one. Right? There might be a municipal league of cities, which is then consulting with someone like us to try and figure out what they can say, but that’s only one of many issues for them. There is almost nobody in every state whose primary issue is to look after the telecommunications interests of small businesses and residents. There’s just a vacuum.

Honestly, our number one defense when Virginia or Missouri, which are two states which are right now considering these bills to really restrict local authority, our number one goal is to make sure the press is reporting about it. Because when the press reports about these bills, people write in. They get very frustrated. They call. They overload the switchboards in some cases. Then the bill disappears.

John Farrell: That’s because unlike when they call their cable companies, somebody actually answers the phone.
Chris Mitchell: Right, right. Well, or there’s an answering machine, but a legislator that’s thinking, “I can just do this and nobody’s going to notice or care,” when people start noticing or caring, they think, “I have other priorities. I’m going to worry about something else rather than this cable and telephone company who I know will be around next year to give me more money to try and push this bill through again and hopefully no one will notice then.”
John Farrell: Well, I think we’ve covered it pretty well about why preemption is a bad idea and how municipal networks can be very good for communities.
Chris Mitchell: Let me just say that you mentioned our Community Broadband Bits podcast, which Lisa does an incredible job editing, we have 240 episodes almost now cataloging these local stories. There’s a wonderful back catalog that, if people are interested in the actual local stories, that they can check out.
John Farrell: Just out of curiosity, if I’m looking at the map, for example, on our website, can I tell if you’ve told a story about that community from there?
Chris Mitchell: Each city that we’ve written about has a link to all of our coverage of that community, so you can click on that community and then you can see what we’ve written about it and if we had a podcast, it would be included in that.
John Farrell: Excellent. Well, that’s a perfect reminder for folks who are listening. Please take a moment, whether it’s on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you found this podcast, to review this podcast. Let us know how we’re doing. Other people can’t learn about it if you don’t tell them whether or not this was good or not. I just was on iTunes the other day. They won’t even show the reviews until we get to a certain threshold. Help us out there. Remember, the Building Local Power podcast, if you like it and I’ll leave it there. Our final question for you, both for Lisa and for Chris, what’s something you’ve read recently that we should read, too?
Chris Mitchell: There’s so many different things, but I thought I would come down with a book that I just read, which is quite old, which is The Deal of the Century, by Steve Coll, which details the breakup of AT&T in the ’80’s. I had no idea the deep history, but it really touches on anti-monopoly and anti-trust policy, which is something that we care so much about here at ILSR. I think it’s an incredible read to just look back at that era.

I think it’s important to note that if you look at the result of that breakup now, I think it’s been good in the sense that I don’t think the internet would have developed if AT&T continued to have a monopoly. We also went from an era in which Americans all had good access to telecommunications of the day, telephones that worked at reasonable prices. We have moved into an era in which telephones do not work very well and we pay an incredible amount for our telecommunications bills. I am a very big fan of competition, but I think it’s also important to recognize that there are trade-offs and it is not by any means a clear win to have competition.

John Farrell: Well, let me pushback on that concept, though, Chris, because what you’re saying is that competition may not lead to the same outcome as the monopoly did under AT&T. What I’ve also heard you say before is we don’t really have a competitive marketplace for telecommunications. Maybe we don’t know what could be delivered in a competitive market at this point because we’ve gone from one monopoly that was well-regulated to a lot of monopolies that have a lot of market power and political power to crush their competition.
Chris Mitchell: You are absolutely right. I think one of the questions we have to deal with as a country is whether or not we truly want competition, because competition may involve government policy that we’re not so comfortable with. One thing here in Minnesota right now is whether or not liquor stores should be open on Sundays. Minnesota is one of many states that has long prevented liquor stores from being open on Sundays.

Some people cite religious reasons, but it’s really about preserving small businesses because it’s harder for them to be open seven days a week. That is a policy that a lot of people look at and say, “Government shouldn’t be regulating that,” but it’s also a pro-competition policy. Pro-competition policies are hard and they may look like the government’s putting its thumb on the scales more than people are naturally used to, but that might be what it takes to truly establish a competitive market in a lot of areas.

John Farrell: That’s a really interesting insight into that law. One that I wasn’t aware of, so thanks for sharing. Lisa, did you have a book to share?
Lisa Gonzalez: Actually, I want to recommend a video, and it happens to be on Netflix right now, because I saw it last weekend. One of the reasons why I’m recommending it is because it dovetails off Chris’ book recommendation. It’s called, Genius on Hold. It’s about an inventor. His name is Walter Shaw. He worked for AT&T back when it was a monopoly. He worked there when it went through the regulatory breakup. He was a tinkerer and he was not somebody who had been to college. He was just one of those guys who just get it and can do it.
Chris Mitchell: John and I are familiar with those people. Sorry.
Lisa Gonzalez: It follows the whole legal story of AT&T breaking up, but at the same time it talks about the social implications on this gentleman’s life because AT&T really had it out for this guy because they were intimidated by him and what he could do. What they effectively did was prevent him from earning a living. He ended up working for the mob creating these little inventions that allowed them to break the law, because they could talk on the phone without having their phone calls tapped by the government.

It just follows him and his family and his life and, at the same time, what was going on with the AT&T breakup and all of the stuff that was going on with them. It’s just a really interesting story because it talks about anti-competitive implications and monopolies, but at the same time it brings it to a real-world perspective. It’s called, Genius on Hold.

John Farrell: Most of the time, we don’t go so far as to say that monopoly behavior will make us work for the mob, but I think that this could be an interesting way to learn more about that. Thanks, Lisa.
Lisa Gonzalez: Thanks, John
Chris Mitchell: Thank you, John.
John Farrell: You’re welcome.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was John Farrell hosting the Building Local Power podcast this week. John’s the Director of ILSR’s Energy Democracy Initiative and he took some time to interview Christopher and me about state preemption and local authority as it pertains to municipal broadband networks. Thanks, John.

We have a number of other resources on preemption and local authority at our website dedicated to community broadband, muninetworks.org. At that site, you can also find the interactive Community Networks Map we discussed during the interview. Take a few moments to check it out.

This was Episode #10 of the Building Local Power podcast. We encourage you to subscribe to Building Local Power and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Never miss out on our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org.

Thanks to Dysfunction_AL for the music, license through Creative Commons. The song is, “Funk Interlude.” I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to the Building Local Power podcast. Catch you next time.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[11] Building Local Power on iTunes[12] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[13]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[14]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[15] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[16] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[17] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[18] and Facebook[19] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[20] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-01-19-blp010-chris-lisa-state-preemption.m4a
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  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Genius on Hold: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1806910/
  7. The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199958.The_Deal_of_the_Century
  8. Community Broadband Networks Map: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
  9. Broadband Bits Podcast: https://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  10. Broadband Boosted at the Ballot, An Election Wrap-Up: https://ilsr.org/broadband-boosted-at-the-ballot-episode-5-of-the-building-local-power-podcast
  11. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  12. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  13. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  14. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  15. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  16. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  17. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  18. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  19. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/preemption-episode-10-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Taking on the Billionaires

by David Morris | January 26, 2017 11:53 am

Combatting defeatism may be our single most important psychological objective in the wake of the election. We need to revive the spirit embodied in Barack Obama’s vague but hopeful campaign slogan in 2008, “Yes We Can.” At the federal level this is a time to expose, to educate and to resist. But at the state and local level we can act proactively to fashion strategies that both embrace progressive values and directly benefit those who mistakenly voted for Donald Trump as an economic savior. This is the first in a series of pieces focusing on what can be done.

The Giveaway

Over the next 6-12 months Congress will almost certainly give the richest 1 percent of the population an income tax gift totaling some $75-150 billion. The 1 percent, with annual incomes averaging $1.3 million will capture 47 percent of the tax cuts for an average annual tax saving of $214,000 each, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center[1] estimates based on Trump’s proposal, which does not differ dramatically from that of the House Republicans[2].

The top 0.1 percent, a population comprised of only 117,000 taxpayers who earn, on average $37 million a year will see their tax bill slashed by $1.3 million. The top .001 percent of taxpayers, fewer than 1400 individuals, who earn a dizzying $160 million annually, may see their bank accounts swell by some $10 million.

Profligacy is reserved for the few. For the many this Administration and Congress will be downright tightfisted. The bottom 20 percent of the population, some 80 million low income and working class people, will receive on average a $100 income tax reduction. By one estimate[3] that, given the whole package of proposed changes, almost 9 million families could see their taxes could actually increase.

Adding insult to injury the Trump tax plan would not only give the wealthy far larger dollar benefits but it actually reduces taxes on the wealthy by a greater percentage.

The Response

It will be virtually impossible to stop this unprecedented giveaway. But states can fight back. They can raise state income taxes on the rich in proportion to the reductions at the federal level, diverting as much of the massive federal tax gift as possible from the pockets of the 1 percent into public investments, public services and support for the 99 percent.

State-based campaigns that focus on progressive income taxes will illuminate the dangers of the increasing concentration of private wealth and its relationship to the increasing impoverishment of public services, wage stagnation and widespread privation. They can address fundamental questions. How are we connected? Do we have a responsibility to one another and to future generations?

Class Matters

Those who now run Washington insist the “me” should take precedence over the “we,” that the private is superior to the public. Michigan Republican State House Speaker Tom Leonard, who proposes eliminating the state’s income tax, already the lowest in the country, justified[4] his stance by invoking a common meme, “This is the people’s money, not ours.” We need to make clear that, given the current distribution of tax breaks and the unprecedented concentration of wealth, the attitude of the 1 percent might more accurately be summarized as, “This is our money, not the peoples.”

Despite the election of Donald Trump, a clear message of this election was that the American people believe that class matters. They are outraged that the top 1 percent have captured[5] 99 percent of all new income generated since 2009 and amassed more wealth than 95 percent of the population. They understand the inherent unfairness and danger when 400 individuals have more wealth than 150 million Americans.

Bernie Sanders emphasized this unfairness and promoted a steep increase in taxes on millionaires and came within a whisker of being the Democrat’s nominee. Hillary Clinton favored raising taxes on the rich and won nationally by almost 3 million votes. And at least one pre-election survey by the Rand Corporation found that over half of those intending to vote for Trump supported increasing taxes on the wealthy.

The Consequences

The tax gift to the rich will demand real sacrifice from the poor and the middle class—more closed state parks, fewer health services, overcrowded classrooms, more prison unrest. The House tax plan will reduce federal revenues by $3 trillion in the first 10 years; Trump’s plan will reduce them by $9.5 trillion according[6] to the Tax Policy Center. The Administration appears to agree with the higher estimate given that Trump’s staff proposes[7] federal spending cuts of $10.5 trillion over the next decade.

The brunt of these cuts will occur in the non-defense part of the discretionary budget, spending on Medicaid, science, veterans’ benefits, food stamps, job training, health research, disaster assistance, housing assistance, national parks, roads and transit will suffer disproportionately. Indeed, Trump proposed[8] during the campaign an increase in military aid to be “fully offset” by reduced spending on social insurance and public works.

These reductions will put even more pressure on already strapped state and municipal budgets. Federal government spending comprises, on average 30 percent of state revenues. This varies from a high of 43 percent in Mississippi to a low of 21 percent in Hawaii. Red states, where politicians rail against federal spending, are more dependent on Washington than blue states.   A recent Associated Press survey found that 33 states are currently dealing with a budget shortfall or expect to confront one in the coming fiscal year.

Why Raise State Income Taxes?

 

The premise of state-based campaigns focusing on fairness and the obligations of citizenship is that the major problem is not a stagnating economy. The economy is growing. The problem is that all the benefits of that growth are going to a tiny portion of the population while the rest of us experience stagnating wages, declining benefits, and dwindling public services.

Within states the income dynamic mirrors that of the nation as a whole. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities[9] (CBPP) in Arizona, the top 1 percent increased their incomes by 73 percent while the bottom 99 percent saw their incomes drop by 6 percent. In Washington the difference was 142 percent to 1 percent; in Wisconsin it was 120 percent to 4 percent and in Indiana 76 percent to zero.

Raising state income taxes and thereby diverting federal tax breaks to the wealth into state spending will arguably benefit not only that state, but also the nation. The majority of federal discretionary spending goes to the military, and in the future its proportion will likely increase. Meanwhile all state spending goes to health, education, welfare and transportation. The economic impact of military spending is far less than that of non-defense spending. Each military dollar grows the economy by 60-70 cents, according to research[10] by Robert Barro and Charles Redlick.   On the other hand, each federal dollar spent on food stamps grows the economy by $1.74 and by $1.36 if spent on general aid to state governments according[11] to Moody’s Mark Zandi.

State campaigns can also make a strong case that giving money to the rich is an ineffective and inefficient way to boost the economy.

Giving money to the rich has a similar low-yielding dynamic to spending it on the military. Since the rich spend much less of a tax cut than those of lower incomes tax cuts for high earners boost employment less than those for low earners. An analysis of the 2008 Bush stimulus cuts found that for every $1 in cuts, high income households spent 77 cents while low income spent $1.28 (The authors explain that a stimulus can increase average total spending by more than its own value, if it tips the balance for enough people to make large purchases like computers, cars that are purchased on credit.)

Taxing Labor and Capital

Congress wants to cut the tax on capital, which because of past tax cuts, already is taxed at about half the rate as income from labor. Most of us earn our income by working. The rich are different. They earn most of their money from capital, not labor. In 2007, wages and salaries accounted[12] for only 40 percent of the income of the richest 1 percent, according to Professor Alexander Hicks. Sixty percent came from profits, dividends, interest, rent and capital gains. For the richest 0.1 percent, the figure is almost 70 percent.

Those who favor even further cuts in taxes on capital argue this will increase private savings, which will increase investment. The evidence is that it will do neither. Indeed, the Congressional Research Service[13] has examined the issue from the opposite direction addressing the question, “What would be the impact of increasing capital gains tax rates?” It concludes that doing so “appear(s) to increase public saving and may have little or no effect on private saving. Consequently, capital gains tax increases likely have a positive overall impact on national saving and investment.”

Most states tax income from capital at the same rate as income from labor. Thus raising the state income tax will raise the state tax on capital gains. In a state like California, the top tax rate on income from capital, at 13.3 percent, nearly that of the federal rate, if Republican tax proposals become law.

The False Benefit of State Tax Cuts

State tax cuts do not stimulate economic growth. They generate deficits, which because of the states’ constitutional requirement to balance their budgets, results in reduced public spending, which itself reduces economic growth. According to economist Robert Lynch,[14] “there is little evidence that state and local tax cuts—when paid for by reducing public services—stimulate economic activity or create jobs…”

Researchers at the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution conclude[15], “We find that states have no good reasons to believe that cuts in income tax rates will bring the desired benefits. Yet, states continue to erode their tax bases in the name of economic growth during a time when few states can afford to cut services, such as education and infrastructure repair that are critical for both businesses and households.”

As Michael Leachman and Michael Mazerov of CBPP point out[16], the historical evidence is compelling. In the 1990s states with the biggest income tax cuts experienced job growth during the next economic cycle at an average rate only one-third as large as states with less significant or no cuts.   From 2000 to 2007 four of the six states that reduced personal income taxes significantly saw their share of national employment decline. (The other two states are major oil and natural gas producers.) Since 2010, four of the five states that have enacted the largest personal income tax cuts have had slower job growth afterwards than has the nation as a whole.

Kansas is the poster child for this dynamic. After its legislature slashed personal income taxes in 2012, state revenue decreased by $1 billion a year. Newly elected Governor Sam Brownback insisted, “Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Instead, since December 2012, Kansas experienced job growth of 2.4 percent compared to 6.9 percent in the rest of the nation.

Some argue that raising taxes on the rich will lead them to leave the state, resulting in a net loss in state revenue. The empirical evidence contradicts that argument.  An analysis of New Jersey, a good test case because the tax increase there was large (from 6.37 to 8.97 percent) and many New Jersey residents can easily move to neighboring states, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut without changing where they work found little movement. Charles Varner and Cristobal Young of Stanford found[17] that only 80 of the roughly 40,000 people who earned over $500,000 a year left New Jersey.   Professor Varner observes, “the loss in revenues … is very small compared to the revenue gain.”

After an extensive review of the literature, Mazerov concludes[18], “No state has ever lost revenue by raising taxes on rich people.”

A state-based campaign could personalize the impact of inequitable tax cuts and the resulting inequitable spending cuts. It could focus on the meaningless of additional money for billionaires and the centrality of money for a growing number of us.

Consider what has happened in Oklahoma. Oklahoma[19] reduced its income taxes, resulting in over $1 billion a year in reduced state revenues. The wealthiest 1 percent of households cumulatively received nearly the same share of the tax cuts as the bottom 80 percent. The median Oklahoma household saw tax reductions of $228, compared to $15,519 for the average household in the top 1 percent. The bottom 20 percent of households received an average of just $4 per year.

While gaining virtually nothing from the tax cuts, the vast majority suffered from the accompanying spending reductions. The state’s Medicaid agency eliminated dental services for low-income adults.

More than 7,300 families are on a waiting list for home and community-based services for those with developmental disabilities, and the wait has extended to 10 years. The number of teachers decreased, class sizes grew, and class offerings and programs were eliminated.   An acute teacher recruitment and retention crisis has forced districts across the state to issue emergency certifications to under-qualified teachers or leave positions unfilled. Oklahoma’s correctional facilities are operating at more than 10 percent above inmate capacity but with 30 percent less staffing, creating threats to the safety of staff, prisoners, and the public.

State Income Taxes: The Lay of the Land

In the 1970’s, on average, states raised their income tax rates. In 1980 they were two times higher than sales tax rates. Beginning in the 1980s, however, states consistently lowered income taxes while raising sales taxes. Today, according to Elizabeth McNichol[20] of CBPP, the median state sales tax rate is equal to the median state top income tax rate.

 

The result has been to make state and local taxes, on the whole, regressive. The share of income paid by the poorest 20 percent is twice that of the richest 1 percent. Unsurprisingly, the disparity is widest in states without an income tax. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports[21] that Washington’s working class pays seven times more taxes, as a share of income, than its super-wealthy. Maine and Minnesota’s tax structures come closest to treating the poor the same as the rich. In fact, Maine’s recently passed income tax surcharge on the wealthy may make it the only state that has a progressive tax system when all state and local taxes are included.

 

 

Typically, personal income taxes generate one third of state revenues in states that have an income tax. As noted above, federal spending accounts for another 30 percent of state revenues.

Forty-three states impose an income tax. Seven impose no income taxes (AK, FL, NV, SD, TX, WA and WY). Eight states have flat taxes (CO, IL, IN, MA, MI, NC, PA, UT).

Top marginal tax rates for states imposing an income tax vary by a factor of three, ranging from a low of 4.25 percent in Michigan and 4.54 percent in Arizona to 10.15 percent in Maine and 13.3 percent in California.

A History of Failure and Success

Can a campaign focusing on fairness, equity, and responsibility win? The signs are mixed.

Between 2000 and 2009 10 states raised[22] income taxes on the wealthy. Between 2005 and 2015 about a dozen decreased them. In some cases the same state both raised and lowered income tax rates. New York, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Maine fall in that category.

 

In 2012, by a wide margin Californians voted to raise top tax rates by 30 percent. (Only 3 percent of taxpayers are affected.) In 2016 they voted to extend that tax hike.

In 2016, the people of Maine voted narrowly to approve a 40 percent hike in their top tax rate despite the opposition of the Governor and most political leaders. The increase will raise $142 million the first year and $12 million additionally each year thereafter.

Both California and Maine’s initiatives dedicated the new money to education.

On the other hand, in 2010 Washingtonians decisively defeated an initiative to introduce a state income tax for the first time, initially imposed just on the rich. In 2011 Colorado voters just as decisively rejected an initiative to raise the income tax despite the increased revenue being dedicated to education. (In 2016 an initiative petition, targeting a modest income tax increase restricted to the rich wasn’t submitted in time.)

Constitutional barriers will pose high barriers to progressive tax reform in some states. This appears to be the case in Illinois and may be the case in Colorado. Michigan’s 1963 state constitution flatly states, “No income tax graduated as to rate or base shall be imposed by the state or any of its subdivisions.” Louisiana, Oklahoma and California require a two-thirds favorable vote in the legislature to raise taxes, although the question can be put on the ballot by petition.

The Changing Landscape

State campaigns may be aided by the changing landscape of tax reform. In the face of deteriorating roads and overcrowded schools, even those who ideologically favor reducing taxes are conceding that increased revenues are needed.  And drastic cuts in federal aid will exacerbate the problems faced by state legislators. Currently they almost always favor increasing sales taxes. For example, in recent years some 20 states have raised gas taxes to pay for sorely need infrastructure. Nevertheless, once the conversation focuses on how to tax rather than whether to tax, the discussion, but once the tax taboo is overcome, the conversation about equity and the income tax may be facilitated.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is promoting a tax hike for millionaires to pay for the states $3.5 billion budget deficit. Montana’s Governor Steve Bullock similarly proposes a tax hike on the wealthy. Washington Governor Jay Inslee advocates a tax on capital gains. Alaskan Governor Bill Walker raised the possibility of a new state income tax to pay for that state’s large budget deficit, although he recently backed off from that proposal.

Voters may be showing their dissatisfaction with continual tax cuts that result in deteriorating public services.  Even in Red states. In November 2016 the Republican voters of Kansas declared their frustration with state policies that consistently cut public services to reduce deficits caused by tax giveaways to the rich. The Atlantic summarized[23] some aspects of that dissatisfaction, “Moderate Republican candidates ousted 14 conservative state legislators allied with the governor in primary elections across the state, while anti-Brownback contenders won nominations for open seats in another seven races.”

People who ideologically oppose taxes often change their minds when their car hits a deep pothole. Or when the response time for 911 calls significantly lengthens. Or when their kids can no longer attend after school activities. Or when state parks are closed.

Private splendor and public squalor has never been more evident. While the recent election gave federal power to those who would widen the gap, state and local governments, the governments closest to the people, are where increasing needs, the perilous state of public services and the growing disparity between the super-wealthy and the rest of us, may offer fertile ground for progressive strategies that largely benefit those who voted for Trump.

Sign-up for our monthly Public Good Newsletter[24] and follow ILSR on Twitter[25] and Facebook[26].

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Endnotes:
  1. Tax Policy Center: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000924-an-analysis-of-donald-trumps-revised-tax-plan.pdf
  2. House Republicans: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/an_analysis_of_the_house_gop_tax_plan_9-16-16.final_.pdf
  3. estimate: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2842802
  4. justified: http://time.com/money/4634605/eliminate-state-income-tax-michigan-kansas-tennessee/
  5. captured: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/19/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-99-percent-new-income-going-to/
  6. according: http://m.arkansasonline.com/news/2016/dec/27/gop-plans-to-cut-tax-rates-and-brackets/
  7. proposes: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/314991-trump-team-prepares-dramatic-cuts
  8. proposed: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/06/politics/donald-trump-defense-spending-sequester/
  9. Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/12-15-16sfp.pdf
  10. research: http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/126/1/51.abstract
  11. according: https://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Stimulus-Impact-2008.pdf
  12. accounted: http://democracyjournal.org/arguments/how-the-wealthiest-of-americas-rich-make-their-money/
  13. Congressional Research Service: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42043.pdf
  14. Robert Lynch,: http://www.epi.org/publication/books_rethinking_growth/
  15. conclude: http://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-tackling-tax-cut-myth-report-brookings-urban-institute.html
  16. point out: http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-personal-income-tax-cuts-still-a-poor-strategy-for-economic
  17. found: http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-personal-income-tax-cuts-still-a-poor-strategy-for-economic
  18. concludes: http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rasing-income-taxes-migration.pdf
  19. Oklahoma: http://okpolicy.org/the-cost-of-tax-cuts-in-oklahoma/
  20. Elizabeth McNichol: http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/how-state-tax-policies-can-stop-increasing-inequality-and-start
  21. reports: http://www.itep.org/whopays/
  22. raised: http://www.cbpp.org/research/raising-state-income-taxes-on-high-income-taxpayers
  23. summarized: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/kansas-republicans-rebuke-their-conservative-governor-brownback/494405/
  24. Public Good Newsletter: https://ilsr.org/sign-up-for-the-public-good-e-newsletter/
  25. Twitter: http://twitter.com/ilsr
  26. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/taking-on-the-billionaires/


“More Than Just Facebook” Internet Connectivity Fact Sheet

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 26, 2017 11:49 am

Our newest fact sheet, More than just Facebook[1], provides an overview on how Internet access and fast, affordable, reliable connectivity reaches most aspects of our lives. We provide statistics on economic development, education, and methods of delivering Internet access. This fact sheet is a good introductory tool that points out how we’ve Internet access is much more than just social media.

We also offer some explanations of concepts that may not be familiar to people who don’t work in the telecommunications field or advocate for municipal networks. This fact sheet is a tool that lays out what publicly owned Internet infrastructure and better connectivity can mean for your community.

Share it with friends, relatives, and your elected officials who might wonder if they could do more than “Like” pithy posts if they had better connectivity.

[2]

Download More than just Facebook[3].

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here.[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. More than just Facebook: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-01-more-than-just-facebook.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-01-more-than-just-facebook.pdf
  3. Download More than just Facebook: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-01-more-than-just-facebook.pdf
  4. here.: https://muninetworks.org/content/more-just-facebook-fact-sheet

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/more-than-just-facebook-internet-connectivity-fact-sheet/


Solar: Choice, Competition, and Clean Air

by John Farrell | January 17, 2017 6:00 am

It’s simple to promote solar power as a money saver and clean alternative to fossil fuel generation. But it sells solar short to focus only on savings, when it also gives Americans the freedom to generate their own energy and to challenge the economic and political power of big corporations.

Individual Freedom

If individuals want to invest their money, or pay someone else, to put solar on their rooftop, who is the government or the utility to tell them no? Americans should be free to decide how best to spend their money, and rooftop solar is one of the few ways they can spend it that pays back by cutting their use of electricity.

Competition

In more than 30 states, utilities operate as monopolies. The monopolies serving most customers are a private companies that receive a generous rate of return (10% or more) on money they invest in the grid system. Utilities suggest their monopoly is “natural,” and that the grid operates most efficiently in their clutches. But if that’s the case, why are utilities across the country scrambling to cut compensation for solar producers[1], add fees to the bills of solar owners, and modify electric bills so people who use less energy can’t avoid paying the utility less money[2]?

The truth is that technology from solar to smartphones undermines the rationale for a utility monopoly[3], and customers should be able to compete with their utility to get the best deal.

Americans also deserve to have a say in the rules of the electricity business. Big monopoly utilities wield their customers’ dollars against them in court and at the capitol. In Florida, investor-owned utilities have one lobbyist for every two legislators[4]. One of California’s biggest investor-owned utilities spent over $46 million[5] opposing a policy allowing cities and towns to shop for a better deal. And utilities can use money from their captive customers[6] to pay for membership in trade organizations that spread their monopoly-protection legislative ideas from state to state. Monopolies don’t just mean bad business, they make for bad politics, and less concentrated economic power means more people power in making the rules.

Benefits for Everyone

Solar is good for individuals, but their investments also pay dividends for the grid. For one, solar power produces power right where we use it. Think about a delivery from Amazon: is it better to have items sent to the distribution center 30 miles away or to your front porch?

Solar also produces power during times of peak energy use. Most state or regional grids reach their peak capacity on hot, sunny afternoons, the same time solar pours electricity into the grid. Consider congestion lanes on a freeway: when traffic is heavy, the price to use them goes up. The value of solar energy is higher because of when it’s produced.

Furthermore, solar on a local rooftop likely involves a local installer and maybe even a local loan. The money spent to finance and build a rooftop solar installation stays in the local economy when most other energy dollars do not.

Finally, solar reduces health and environmental costs that big companies unload onto their customers.  Every kilowatt-hour of energy produced at a coal or natural gas power plant produces several pounds of pollutants. Their spread into the air and water spurs warnings[7] to limit our consumption of fish, higher incidences of respiratory diseases like asthma, and other public health dangers. Because it reduces energy consumption from power plants, rooftop solar helps avoid these health and environmental costs otherwise borne by individuals rather than the utility companies that cause them.

If you like, it’s possible to get into the weeds[8] of the financial and economic benefits of rooftop solar versus coal or gas or nuclear, but aren’t choice, competition, and cleaner air enough?

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[9]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[10] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[11] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. cut compensation for solar producers: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  2. people who use less energy can’t avoid paying the utility less money: https://medium.com/getting-it-right-on-electricity-rate-design/zapped-by-the-utility-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair-16bc00b84e91#.5n7qapl42
  3. undermines the rationale for a utility monopoly: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  4. one lobbyist for every two legislators: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/watchdog-report-says-power-companies-wield-too-much-influence-in-florida/2172513
  5. $46 million: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/05/pge-answers-questions-community-choice-aggregation/
  6. use money from their captive customers: http://www.energyandpolicy.org/real-solar-cost-shift-subsidized-attacks-on-rooftop-solar/
  7. warnings: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/fish/eating/safeeating.html
  8. into the weeds: https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/
  9. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  10. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  11. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/choice-competition-and-clean-air/


Fact Sheet On Municipal Networks In Virginia

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 16, 2017 2:05 am

The latest addition to our list of fact sheets focuses on Virginia: Municipal Networks Deliver Local Benefits[1]. We noticed that municipal networks in the “Mother of States” have spurred economic development, saved taxpayer dollars, and improved local connectivity.

A number of local governments in Virginia that have invested in Internet network infrastructure have attracted Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to use the publicly owned assets to offer services to residents and businesses. Local governments are using fiber-optic networks to improve public safety, take control of their own connectivity needs, and attract or retain employers.

Download the fact sheet here.

[2]

Download the fact sheet here.

Learn more about the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA) open access network, located in southwest Virginia. Christopher spoke with Frank Smith, President and CEO of the RVBA for episode 221[3] of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

Take a look at our other fact sheets[4]; we will continue to add state-specific editions so check back for more. Subscribe to our weekly email[5] for a run down of stories so you can stay up-to-date on what’s happening in community broadband networks.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Municipal Networks Deliver Local Benefits: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-virginia-fact-sheet.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-virginia-fact-sheet.pdf
  3. episode 221: https://muninetworks.org/content/virginias-roanoke-valley-opens-fiber-access-community-broadband-bits-podcast-221
  4. our other fact sheets: https://muninetworks.org/fact-sheets
  5. Subscribe to our weekly email: https://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters/
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/fact-sheet-munis-virginia

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fact-sheet-on-municipal-networks-in-virginia/


Official Agendas Available, Fourth National Cultivating Community Composting Forum

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 13, 2017 3:17 pm

placeholderIn collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle[1], the Institute for Local Self-Reliance is releasing the agenda for the Fourth National Cultivating Community Composting Forum from January 23rd-24th to be held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show[2], COMPOST2017, in Los Angeles.

These events will bring together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community-scale composting systems and enterprises. The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2017 is the fourth national forum sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle.

Thank you to our sponsors!

 


Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop Agenda

Monday, January 23rd, 2017 Los Angeles, California

8:30AM to 4:30pm

Agenda available here for download[3]

8:30-9:00AM:

Welcome & Who’s Here

 

9:00-10:00AM:

Part 1: Key Ingredients of Community Composting

  • David Paull, Compostwheels[4], Atlanta
  • Dustin Fedako, Compost Pedallers, Austin
  • Guy Schaffer, BK ROT[5], New York City

 

10:00-11:00AM:

Part 2: Small-Scale Composting Systems/Processing BMPs

Moderator: Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Presenters:

  • Composting in an Urban Setting at Howard University Garden, Jeffrey Neal, Howard University Community Garden[6] Compost Manager, Washington D.C.
  • Small-Scale Systems & Technologies, Jean Bonhotal, Cornell Waste Management Institute[7], Ithaca
  • Establishing Best Management Practices for Community Compost Sites, Renee Crowley, NYC Compost Project hosted by Lower East Side Ecology Center[8] Project Manager, New York City

 

11:00-11:15AM:

Break

 

11:15-12:15PM:

Part 3: Hauling, Bike, & Other Logistics

Moderator: Dan Matsch, Eco-Cycle, Boulder

Presenters:

  • Composting Logistics: Material, information, and Money, Michael Robinson, Rust Belt Riders, Cleveland
  • Hauling Logistics & Service Design, Justin Senkbell, CompostNow[9], Raleigh
  • The Unique Challenges and Opportunities of Bike Hauling, Kathryn Nigro, Tilthy Rich[10], Raleigh

 

12:15-1:45PM:

Lunch & Informal Breakouts

At restaurants outside of the hotel – on your own.

Breakout Topics:

  • Topic 1: BMPs at compost sites
  • Topic 2: Bike powered operators
  • Topic 3: Outreach & marketing
  • Topic 4: Business & financing

 

1:45-2:45PM:

Part 4: The Business of Community Composting

Moderator: Kyle Isaacksen, Reno Rot Riders, Reno

Presenters:

  • Dustin Fedako, Compost Pedallers, Austin
  • Jennifer Mastalerz, Philly Compost[11], Philadelphia
  • Mary Ryther, Compost With Me[12], Falmouth [Massachusetts]

 

2:45-3:30PM:

Part 5: Community Engagement & Building Community Power via Community Composting

Moderator: Linda Bilsens, Institute for Local Self-Reliance Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders, Washington D.C.

Panelists:

  • Michael Martinez, LA Compost[13], Los Angeles
  • Corinne Coe, Terra Nova Compost[14], Atlanta
  • Renee Wallace, Food Plus Detroit[15], Detroit
  • Sophia Hosain, Real Food Farm – Civic Works[16], Baltimore
  • Valerie Onifade, Howard University Community Garden[17], Washington D.C.
  • Amy Freeman, Edible Flint[18] & Flint Women in Ag Farm Development Center, Flint
  • Lor Holmes, CERO[19], Boston

 

3:30-4:15PM:

Part 6: Breakout Discussions

Topics TBD: BMPs, hauling logistics, business plans/financial viability, outreach & marketing, policy agenda, volunteer management, community engagement/community empowerment, school composting, etc.)

 

4:15-4:30PM:

Report Back from Breakouts, Closing, & Next Steps

Agenda available here for download[3]


4th National Cultivating Community Composting Forum

Agenda

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017 Los Angeles, California

Agenda available here for download[20]

Moderators:

Nora Goldstein, BioCycle[21], @BioCycleMag[22]

Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance[23], @ILSR[24]

8:15-9:45AM:

Part 1: Cultivating Community Composting Forum

 

Community Composting: Distributed, Diverse, and Growing

Welcome from Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle
Overview & Introduction to Community Composting (interactive polling)

Forum Keynote: Empowering Neighborhoods Through Compost, Michael Martinez, LA Compost[13]

Panel: Community Composters Drive Local Programs

This panel will showcase how community composters bring public attention to composting and the potential partnerships. Commercial scale composters and haulers – along with local government – will learn the benefit of these programs and how to support/partner with community-based efforts.

Presenters:

  • Sustaining Business through Collaboration, Philadelphia. Jennifer Mastalerz, Philly Compost[11] and Tim Bennett, Bennet Compost[25], Philadelphia.
  • Connecting Composting to Creating Jobs in Marginalized Communities, Atlanta. David Paull, Compost Wheels[26], Atlanta.
  • Bike-Powered Collection Spurs Community Participation, Austin. Dustin Fedako, Compost Pedallers, Austin.

 

10:30-12:30PM:

Opening Plenary – Welcome to Compost2017[27]

 

12:30-2:30PM:

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall Sponsored by Exhibitors

 

2:30-4:00PM

Part 2: Cultivating Community Composting Forum

Panel Discussion: Supporting a Distributed Composting Infrastructure – Dollars and Rules

This panel will address the importance of local and state financing and policies to the development of a diverse and distributed composting infrastructure that includes community scale operations. How can state agencies such as CalRecycle’s create funding incentives to support community composters? How can local government revisit districting rules to allow for community composters to compete? What local governments are already financing and supporting community scale composting?

Moderator: Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington D.C.

Panelists:

  • Bridget Anderson, Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability NYC Department of Sanitation, New York City
  • Michael Martinez, LA Compost[13], Los Angeles
  • Christina Oatfield, Sustainable Economies Law Center[28], Oakland
  • Kendra Bones, Commissioner Austin Resource Recovery[29], Austin
  • Kyle Pogue, CalRecycle[30], Sacramento
  • Chris Hunt, ReFED[31] (formerly of Grace Communications Foundation), Healdsburg [California]

Closing Remarks

 

4:45-6:15PM:

ReFed’s Roadmap Hits the Road: Building Processing Capacity at the Right Scale[32]

Discussion Panel includes:

  • Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington D.C.

Agenda available here for download[20]


WHAT IS COMMUNITY COMPOSTING? 

Community composting is the radical idea that compost is used within the same community where the material is generated and that the community participates in some way. Community composters keep the feedstocks, process and product as local as possible while engaging the community through participation and education. Projects range from urban to rural and include small enterprises, demonstration/training sites, schools, universities, pedal-powered collection systems, worker-owned cooperatives, community gardens and farms.

For more information on community composting, download our report:
Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting[33]

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Endnotes:
  1. BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/
  2. USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show: http://compostingcouncil.org/compost2016/
  3. Agenda available here for download: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Best-Practices-in-Community-Composting-Workshop-agenda-01-23-17-FINAL.pdf
  4. Compostwheels: http://www.compostwheels.com/
  5. BK ROT: https://bkrot.org/
  6. Howard University Community Garden: https://www.facebook.com/howardcommunitygarden/
  7. Cornell Waste Management Institute: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/composting.htm
  8. NYC Compost Project hosted by Lower East Side Ecology Center: http://www.lesecologycenter.org/programs/compost/nyc-compost-project/
  9. CompostNow: https://compostnow.org/
  10. Tilthy Rich: https://tilthyrichcompost.com/
  11. Philly Compost: http://www.citysproutsphilly.com/compost/
  12. Compost With Me: http://compostwithme.com/
  13. LA Compost: https://lacompost.org/
  14. Terra Nova Compost: https://terranovacompost.com/about/
  15. Food Plus Detroit: http://foodplusdetroit.org/
  16. Real Food Farm – Civic Works: http://realfoodfarm.civicworks.com/
  17. Howard University Community Garden: http://dugnetwork.org/resource/howard-university-community-garden-halo-green/
  18. Edible Flint: http://www.edibleflint.org/
  19. CERO: http://www.cero.coop/
  20. Agenda available here for download: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CCC-Forum-agenda-01-24-17-FINAL.pdf
  21. BioCycle: https://www.biocycle.net/
  22. @BioCycleMag: http://twitter.com/BioCycleMag
  23. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org
  24. @ILSR: http://twitter.com/ilsr
  25. Bennet Compost: http://www.bennettcompost.com/
  26. Compost Wheels: http://www.compostwheels.com/
  27. Welcome to Compost2017: http://compostingcouncil.org/conference-program/
  28. Sustainable Economies Law Center: http://www.theselc.org/
  29. Austin Resource Recovery: http://www.austintexas.gov/department/austin-resource-recovery
  30. CalRecycle: http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/
  31. ReFED: https://www.refed.com/
  32. Building Processing Capacity at the Right Scale: http://compostingcouncil.org/conference-program/
  33. Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting: http://www.ilsr.org/growing-local-fertility/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/agenda-fourth-national-cultivating-community-composting-forum/


State Bills To Block Municipal Networks Start In Missouri, Virginia

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 13, 2017 7:22 am

With each new legislative session come the new bills from the incumbents aiming to limit competition. We typically expect at least one and begin looking for them early in January as legislatures begin assembling in state capitols; this year the anti-muni efforts begin in Virginia and Missouri.

“Show-Me” Your Bill

Missouri’s communities have been the object of legislative persecution from big national incumbents and the legislators they back for several years. When we learned that another effort to severely limit the ability for municipalities to bring better connectivity to the community was afoot, we weren’t surprised.

This year, the bill is from Republican Senator Ed Emery[1], who has recently moved from the House to the Senate. Surprisingly, Emery’s bio reports that he also worked with his father and grandfather in their feed and grain business. As some one with a connection to farmers, one would expect him to understand the importance of high-speed connectivity in today’s agriculture industry. Emery also has a significant history in the utilities industry. He’s received both the Legislator of the Year Award from the Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association and the Leadership Award from the Missouri Telecommunications Industry Association[2].

SB 186 starts out strong by prohibiting local government from offering “competitive service,” which includes both retail or wholesale models. By preventing wholesale models, the bill interferes with a municipality’s ability to work with private sector partners, a major complaint about the bill introduced last year[3].

The bill states that voters can only choose to allow a municipality to offer any services after the community has engaged in a very thorough feasibility study and the results have been publicized. As with last year’s bill, SB 186 sets up onerous hurdles that threaten to sabotage a network in the early days, discouraging local communities from pursuing a chance to serve residents, businesses, and municipal facilities. The bill also dictates ballot language, establishes geographical limits on any local network, and clearly established that no funds from other municipal services can be directed toward a municipal network. Much of SB 186’s language comes from last year’s bill.

The bill is now in the Local Government and Elections Committee[4] but no hearing has been scheduled yet; we’ll let you know when and if it’s on the agenda. View the entire text of SB 186 online[5].

Meanwhile In Virginia

Fresh from Virginia comes HB 2108[6], the “Virginia Broadband Deployment Act,” which makes changes to existing law by adding an entire section. The bill also repeals several disclosure exclusions relating to telecommunications; those exclusion are now under the Freedom of information Act. (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. Senator Ed Emery: http://www.senate.mo.gov/mem31/
  2. Missouri Telecommunications Industry Association: http://mtia.org/
  3. bill introduced last year: https://muninetworks.org/content/missouri-hb-2078-fails-post-mortem-play-play
  4. Local Government and Elections Committee: http://www.senate.mo.gov/lgov/
  5. View the entire text of SB 186 online: http://www.senate.mo.gov/17info/pdf-bill/intro/SB186.pdf
  6. HB 2108: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?171+sum+HB2108
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/state-bills-to-block-municipal-networks-start-in-missouri-virginia/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/state-bills-to-block-municipal-networks-start-in-missouri-virginia/


Response to Amazon’s Jobs Announcement, January 2017

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 12, 2017 2:30 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, Jan. 12

Contact: Nick Stumo-Langer, stumolanger@ilsr.org[1], 612-844-1330[2]

 

Statement on Amazon’s Jobs Announcement

Amazon is Causing More Job Losses than Gains, and It’s Lowering Wages

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[3], and co-author of the recent report, “Amazon’s Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities[4],” responded to the announcement on jobs made today by Amazon:

“Amazon’s jobs announcement this morning has it in the headlines as a job creator. But there’s a dirty secret about jobs at Amazon. As we found in our recent report [5]on the company, as Amazon gains market share, it destroys more jobs than it creates,” Mitchell said. “What’s more, these jobs are bad jobs. Our research finds that Amazon pays significantly lower wages than the prevailing rate for comparable work, that it’s experimenting widely with ways to erode job security, and that working conditions in its warehouses are grueling and dehumanizing.”

The report found that Amazon has eliminated about 149,000 more jobs in retail than it has created in its warehouses, and the pace of retail layoffs is accelerating as Amazon gains market share. The report also analyzed Amazon’s wages In 11 metro areas and found that it pays its warehouse employees 15% less on average than the prevailing wage for other warehouse workers in the same region. In Atlanta, for example, Amazon pays 19% less than the regional average for warehouse work. In Louisville, its wages are 17% lower, and in Phoenix 6% lower.

“What Amazon’s announcement really shows is how fast the company is growing, and that’s bad news for U.S. workers, who stand to lose more than they gain as Amazon increasingly dominates commerce,” Mitchell added. “Amazon is at the center of many of our most alarming economic trends, including the rapid increase in temporary and on-demand work, lower wages, and rising inequality.”

###

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a 42-year-old national nonprofit research and educational organization. ILSR’s mission is to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support strong, community rooted, environmentally sound and equitable local economies. www.ilsr.org[6] – Email stumolanger@ilsr.org[1] for press inquiries.

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Endnotes:
  1. stumolanger@ilsr.org: mailto:stumolanger@ilsr.org
  2. 612-844-1330: tel:(612)%20844-1330
  3. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://www.ilsr.org/
  4. Amazon’s Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities: http://www.ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold
  5. our recent report : https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  6. www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/response-to-amazons-jobs-announcement-january-2017/


The Perils of Privatization (Episode 9)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 12, 2017 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode nine of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews David Morris, a co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the director of the Public Good initiative. The two discuss the climate surrounding privatization in our economy and how the incoming Trump administration will bolster these efforts nationwide.

Morris delves deep into the history of public infrastructure including explanations of how our language around the subject has changed over the years, privatization in other countries, and hope for the future.

“In the late 19th century, 75-85% of all water and sewer utilities were owned by the private sector, and it turned out that that was a disaster in part because they were managed very poorly and in part because they only wanted to serve wealthy people,” says David Morris[6]. “Today, 75-80% are owned by cities and counties, and they have been running them very impressively ever since.”

Here’s David’s reading recommendation for those interested:

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind[7] by Yuval Harari, Harper

Be sure to read up on some of David’s other work, as well as a previous Building Local Power episode David was interviewed for:

  • Going Beyond Candidates: Three State Initiatives That Could Change America[8]

  • November 8th: Four Key Factors for the Armchair Strategist[9]

  • How to Make a Political Revolution[10]

  • Powering a Political Revolution, North Dakota’s Non-Partisan League – Episode 4 of the Building Local Power Podcast[11]

Chris Mitchell: David, welcome back to the office. I hear that the ownership of local water systems is switching. Just tell me the statistic that you just told me.
David Morris: Well, over the last century, I mean the late 19th century, 75%, 85% of all water and sewer utilities were owned by the private sector. It turned out that that was a disaster, in part because they were managed very poorly and in part because they only wanted to serve wealthy people. Today, 75% to 80% are owned by the public sector. That is, cities and counties took them over and have been running them very impressively ever since.
Chris Mitchell: Well, that’s how we’ll kick off this episode of Building Local Power in which we’ll be talking about who owns our infrastructure and the movements that are fighting about whether it’s going to be public or private. I’m Chris Mitchell. I do the broadband type work for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. David Morris is back with us. Welcome back, David.
David Morris: Thank you very much. I appreciate being back.
Chris Mitchell: David is a co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and runs our Public Good initiative, in which he thinks a lot about privatization. Let me just start by asking you why do you think so much about privatization?
David Morris: I mean, privatization almost by its very definition means that something is proprietary. It means that something is not accountable inherently. It means that something is driven by selfishness. It’s driven by greed. It’s secret. That’s what privatization means. In fact, the original kind of Latin verb form is private, which means to tear apart. Public, on the other hand, is based on cooperation and openness, and it’s sometimes aspirational, but in essence it is accountable to the voters, so it’s a completely opposite way of doing things. We have in this country, over the last century, increasingly accepted the fact that public work should be owned by the public and for the common good, and in the last 20 years we’ve begun to reverse that, that guiding principle.
Chris Mitchell: I get the impression this is not a discussion that would have been held 150 years ago, right? I mean, before that the water system, the electricity system, the roads, all of these things are creatures of the last 130 years more or less.
David Morris: They’re not creatures. Public, the public sector, they’re creatures, but we had roads in the early part of the 19th century, they were privately owned roads.
Chris Mitchell: Right. I guess I was thinking of the kind of roads we have today. We did have those roads, you’re right. We had privately owned roads back then, and we have a long history even of privately owned ferries and bridge crossings and things like that presumably.
David Morris: That’s right. When we built the interstate highway system in the 1950s, it was built without toll roads. It was clearly a public works project. Now under the new kind of infrastructure plan that Donald Trump and the republicans have, we will have a public infrastructure that’s almost entirely owned by the private sector and will be based on tolls.
Chris Mitchell: From an infrastructure perspective, the conversation really started to change in what? The 80s, the 90s? I guess one place to start might even be this whole thing, public works. In my lifetime I never really knew what public works was because I came of age at a time in which that term fell out of fashion. I think the Clinton administration really popularized this term infrastructure. I just wonder if that triggers anything for you in terms of the importance of language and how we call these things.
David Morris: Oh, absolutely it does. It was Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s that began the process of privatization, and we all remember that in his inaugural address. His key phrase was, “The government is the problem, not the solution.” He firmly believed that, but it was Bill Clinton, that’s correct, and Al Gore that essentially embraced privatization from a liberal perspective. Yes, they changed the language. You don’t hear the word public works any longer.

You hear the word infrastructure, which is a very neutral word that essentially means, well, we have to build something and maybe the private sector can build it and run it just as efficiently. Whereas the word public works says, we have to build something for the common good, whether it’s a park, whether it’s a school, whether it’s a road, whether it’s a sewer system, and therefore it has to be structured and organized in a certain ways. The construction itself is the same. You’ll be using the same materials, the same technology. It’ll be occupying the same place, but who will be accountable to and who it’ll be owned by are very different.

Chris Mitchell: The idea of who it’s accountable to I think is really important. I think we can come back to that, but one of the things that always rises to the top in privatization is the motivation of those who claim they’re just supporting privatization because it will be more efficient and less costly; that if you contract this stuff out rather than doing it in-house, tax payer dollars will be saved, there will be innovation, something magical will happen, and these public services will be delivered in a better way in some way. How do you respond to those claims?
David Morris: One can respond empirically and one can respond theoretically. Empirically, it’s false. Empirically, the studies that have been done indicate that the private sector, when it runs things like waterworks and sewer works, charges more than the public sector and when the public sector takes back, as it has in a number of cases, their water system or the sewer system, the prices go down. That’s empirically.

Theoretically, it makes sense that that happens. It makes sense because the private sector, especially if it’s private equity, which is sort of a new phenomenon in the public works field, private equity has a return of 8% to 18% that they require, so you have this enormous profit requirement. The private sector borrows money at one and a half to two times the cost of money to the public sector, and so you would expect that it would be more costly all things considered.

As for innovative, you don’t really find an enormous amount of innovation from the private sector. You don’t find that enormous amount of innovation from the public sector as it is. I think that we would all agree that if you’re going to have any innovation or cost reduction, it would come from competition. The thing about public works is that almost always they’re monopolies. In fact, when you sign a privatization agreement with one of these firms, you often guarantee that more revenue flow and you put in a non-compete clause, which means if I, as an investor, build a road, under the contract the state cannot build another road that competes with my road. It is astonishing. In terms of competition, it’s not going to be the motivating factor for them to keep their costs down or for them to innovate.

Chris Mitchell: One thing that they do do is they pay a lot less, right? This is one of the sources, I think, of the claims that the private sector may be more efficient, is that they will take a person who is getting a perhaps living wage, a wage that is above the norm in the private sector, who’s working for the public sector, they will fire that person. They will replace them with someone who will work for less. That’s a dynamic that they will point to in terms of their cost savings, and also fewer benefits and things like that. Is that right?
David Morris: Yes, that’s correct. There’s two responses to that. One is a response from the public perspective, which is that those employees of the local infrastructure works or public works are local people. They are local residents. They’re our neighbors. Are we essentially saying, now you’re paid a living wage, but we want to pay three cents less per month on our water bill, and therefore we’re going to force you into a lower wage and maybe into foreclosure and delinquency and the like. I don’t think if people put that to a vote that they would want that to happen.The second thing that happens is that you get worse employees. On average, if a investor takes over a water utility, it fires about a third of the workers, which means the other workers are working harder. If you pay workers less, you get workers that are less trained, and so you tend to get sloppier work or you get poor customer service. I mean, you sort of get what you pay for. Either from a moral perspective, if you will, or from a customer service perspective, it’s very harmful.
Chris Mitchell: Do you have any examples that come to mind from where a community has engaged in privatization and then regretted this decision? It turned around and come back to hire those people back and make it public again?
David Morris: Evansville, Indiana. Durham County, North Carolina. Gary, Indiana. Houston, Texas. Atlanta. All those sold, essentially, their water utilities or sewer utilities, and then they bought them back and they lowered their prices. We don’t have a word. You know, we have a word for nationalization, but we don’t have a word when a city takes back its public works, but Europeans have. Nationwide it is called the remunicipalization movement and that makes sense because we’re talking essentially about a local movement.
Chris Mitchell: Right. Actually, we’re seeing this in Boulder and our colleague John Farrell has written about that. Actually, you’re right. Municipalization is the word that they use in the case there with the electric utility. Here in Minneapolis we’ve seen this with the IT services for the City of Minneapolis, which they thought would be better privatized. I believe that one of the things that they realized afterward was the different incentives. When you’re a private company running a help desk, your incentive is to get the person that’s calling you to hang up. It’s not necessarily to solve their problem; it’s to get them to hang up. If you’re a local government with a problem and your help desk has an incentive of just trying to get you to hang up, that’s not a very good situation to be in.
David Morris: No, it’s not. Now, the public sector is responsible too here. I said earlier that if you have a public works, it’s accountable. It is accountable, but who is it accountable to? Because it turns out that if you raise my water rates, I throw you out of office. What happens is that local officials that want to get elected do not increase their water rates or their sewer rates or their parking meter fees. As a result, that infrastructure runs down. The pipes begin to leak. Then the less you maintain, the higher the price that you’re going to have to pay. Often, what you find is that these privatization efforts spur from a city being unwilling to go to its citizens and say, “I can ask you to pay more now or I can privatize this, and the other firm is going to ask you to pay a lot more than.”They’ve been very reticent to do that, so this, it works both ways. The public sector can borrow money at a longer term at a much lower rate. The public sector knows what’s going on locally. The public sector is accountable, but the public sector, it turns out, is a coward and that elected officials are not willing to go to people and say, “Look, we need to maintain this system.” The best example was the parking meters in Chicago. The parking meters in Chicago were such that they were run down. I can’t remember. 20%, 30% of them didn’t even work and so they sold them, and because they wouldn’t raise the parking meter fee. They sold them and the fees literally overnight tripled, but it wasn’t the responsibility of the city anymore. Yell. You want to yell? Yell at that investor. Yell at the bank that now owns it.
Chris Mitchell: One of the things that I want to bring into this, I think, is experience. You talked about a bit about water systems. I just wanted to bring this out. You have experience in terms of governing a body of a water utility, so this is not something where you’re just romanticizing them. You actually know how this works.
David Morris: Yes. I was on the board of directors. We called ourselves commissioners of the Saint Paul water utility, a city run water utility, which is one of the finest utilities, if I say so, in the country. It’s meticulous in its efficiency and it is innovative. Yes, I have a good experience, but I also know that on that commission I was a citizen representative. There was also a city council representative. The city counselor, and I will remember this meeting to the end because I said, “Why don’t we raise the rates, you know, slightly so that we can invest in technologies that will be … make it more efficient and reduce the water consumption overall?” and the city counselor said, “You know, once we raised the rate a penny and I got phone calls.” A penny and I got phone calls.
Chris Mitchell: It’s interesting that you make that point because I’m a Saint Paul resident on a house in Saint Paul. I say I own a house. I love that. I own my house, the one house that I live in and that I own, my wife and I. Our water bill is so low. It’s just astonishing to me, frankly, how … I don’t want to say anything negative about people who are in very tough circumstances and paying their bills, but when you look at the value of getting unlimited free water, fresh water to your home, the amount that my wife and I pay it’s just … I can’t believe how little it is, frankly.I think that’s a credit to how well it’s run, but one of the things that I think some people point to is where it’s not working as well. Where they have a utility and they would like to change it and they feel that it’s not accountable, but maybe they’re a minority at the ballot box. People are voting on different issues and things like that. I think there are times where people have this frustration. They just feel like it’s not as accountable as they want it to be.
David Morris:  I think that’s true. Very few people like government. We hate the national government. We’re not quite sure about the state government. We tend to like the local government, but we always have complaints, and we need a process by which those complaints are considered and dealt with, and if they’re correct, that there corrections that occur. You do have bureaucracy at the local level. Yes, but the question then is whether the solution to that is to make changes internally or is this solution to that giving up control of the system? I think that the evidence is that giving up control of the system means that the next time you want to complain, you’re complaining to the Suez, literally, the Suez water company, which now owns your system, and good luck to you.
Chris Mitchell: I think that raises a final point that I want to make sure that we make. That is, the impact of this when you have not just private ownership, but this is generally absentee private ownership, right? It’s not like all these cities have their own private company with a guy who lives in the city or a woman lives in the city owns it. We’re talking about massive multinational corporations in many cases. In my business in broadband we talk about how frustrating it is that money that I pay on my bills leaves my community and goes to Philadelphia. Here we might be talking about money that’s going to Germany or anywhere else in the world, so there’s a real impact on local dollars because these are utilities everyone is paying into this. If the money is leaving the community, that’s kind of a big deal.
David Morris: It is a big deal. Now what we’re seeing is these private profit making companies are giving away to private equity firms. Private equity firms are a strange little beast and they could care less about your community. Private profit making firms might be in there for five years, 10 years, 20 years. Private equity firms want to flip it, and so they will come in and they will own it, and within a few years they will sell it, so they’re not there for the long run at all. That’s a problem.
Chris Mitchell: Right.
David Morris: I think that the Republican, because I think it’s not just Donald Trump, the Republican proposal for infrastructure financing is a very serious change in American historical strategies. There was a time in the 60s and the 70s where if you wanted to build a sewer system, the government paid 90% of it, the federal government paid 90% of it. Then they paid 50% of it. Then they paid 20% of it, but they understood that they would come in to make grants to cities.

Now the current privatization proposal is that a private firm would put up 20% of the money as equity, 80% would be borrowed and the federal government would give them an 80% tax credit against that 20% that they had put down. Governments can use tax credits, so in essence this means that this is going to be privately owned. The public sector could build it themselves, but they’re not going to get any incentives to build it themselves and that means that you could end up with literally a majority, maybe even a vast majority in certain sectors, of our public works programs becoming private works programs.

Chris Mitchell: I’ve seen a lot of head-scratching over this because it might make sense if it was 50 years and we were building out brand new things, but it’s not like we’re going to build a new bypass around the Twin Cities. It’s not like we’re going to build a whole new water system. A lot of the infrastructure spending we need in this country is on updating existing things. Do you have a sense of how this is going to interact? Because I don’t get the sense that these investors are looking to just invest in the Saint Paul water system. They’re trying to build something new that they can then extract maximum profits from.
David Morris: They do want to just invest in the Saint Paul. These are sunk investments and why not buy them? In Missoula, Montana, which is, by the way, because of a quirk of historical circumstances the only city that doesn’t own its own water company, a group bought it for, I think it was $30 million and sold it for $300 million about 10 years later. There’s enormous profit to be made from flipping these types of investments.
Chris Mitchell: This money that’s going to be made available, you’re saying it’s going to be buying existing systems and maybe a promise to upgrade them, so in order for Saint Paul to figure out how we’re going to benefit from this infrastructure package, if it rolls forward, we have to figure out what to sell off, basically?
David Morris: Oh. Yes, that’s right. Exactly. If it wants to benefit from it. What you have often in these privatization agreements is that you sell it and then the private, the investors give you, you being the city government, $50 million, $100 million, $200 million upfront. Now upfront is a wonderful thing from a city government, especially if you happen to be a city counselor who’s going to only be in office for two years, and so you take that money and you use it to pay down your debt. Your credit rating tends to be increased and suddenly then the rates increase, and everybody is screaming at the private company, but it’s upfront money that is what makes local governments salivate about this.Under these 80% tax credit, you could certainly have a lot of upfront money that is paid to … Let’s call it a bribe to city officials. Often, if they’re put up for a vote by the citizens, call them customers, if you will, they reject it. New Jersey just changed their law. Illinois, Pennsylvania. This is in the last three years. They’ve changed their law so that they can bypass a vote on this by the local citizenry. We’re talking about something here which is not popular by the local citizenry and we’re now talking about a federal program which is a massive subsidization, but only to privately owned infrastructure.
Chris Mitchell: Wow. It’s a sobering thought, but I’m hoping that you have a reading suggestion which will be more entertaining, enlightening, positive, leaving us with a little bit more hope than perhaps we’re sending at the ebb of this conversation right now.
David Morris: Yes, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with infrastructure or public works. I thought people might be interested in a book called Sapiens by Yuval Harari, an Israeli writer. It’s an astonishing book. It’s a book that goes from Prehistory to post-human, if you will. He essentially traces the development of humanity and makes these insights that are remarkable, and so I recommend it to people. For example, he talked about how 100,000 years ago there were several human species. There was erectus, there was Neanderthal, there was of course Homo Sapiens. There was a bunch of us really running around. And that we had the same brain size and the like.100,000 years ago the Sapiens in East Africa tried to invade or tried to migrate into the Middle East where the Neanderthals already were and got the crap beat out of them. 30,000 years later the Sapiens migrated again and destroyed the Neanderthals, and then took over the world. The question is, how did that happen? What happened? According to Harari, he said that it’s that language, certainly, the development of language, and the development of cognitive ability, but the essence of that was the development of gossip. He said that gossip is essential if your group becomes more than a small clan because you need to know what your neighbor is doing, who’s trustworthy, who’s not trustworthy. You need to know about the human relationships that are going on.

When it’s a very small clan, what you need to know is, is there a saber-toothed tiger out there that’s going to eat me or where is the animals that we’re going to hunt? You know, that sort of outward oriented information. With gossip, you could have larger and larger communities, and so initially when the Sapiens went into the Middle East, it was groups of 20 fighting groups of 20, but then when they went in 30,000 years later, it was groups of 200 fighting groups of 20. These are the kind of insights and I strongly recommend it to people who are interested about us.

Chris Mitchell: That sounds interesting, and it fits with what we’ve done with communications and technologies, in that telephone originally, it was expected to be only a business use and then people started using it to gossip it was actually seen as sort of sin and an inappropriate use of technology. Certainly you skip ahead to today and seeing how Twitter and Facebook have dominated usage for how we use our media, it’s clear that there is something very social going on. Thinking of it in terms of gossip is something I had not thought of, or potentially the evolutionary advantages of, so that’s interesting.
David Morris: One of the nice things about gossip 50,000 years ago is that it was personal gossip. It might be terrible gossip, but it was one person talking to one person or three people or four people. Unfortunately, in 2016 gossip is one person talking to several billion people who don’t even know they’re being talked about, so there’s a difference in scale that we’re talking about, but the gossip originally is literally small town gossip, which some people feel might be harmful, but in this case was a matter of gathering information, who’s trustworthy, who’s sleeping with whom, who has stolen something and that type of thing, which was extremely useful to bond the groups. The other thing that Harari says that was the definitive of the cognitive revolution was that we began believing fictions, whether it was religion, nation states, whatever it turned out to be. We believe in fictions. Animals, other animals, do not believe in fictions, and so we created societies-
Chris Mitchell: By fictions I think you mean things beyond that you can readily sense, right? Imagine things perhaps.
David Morris: Are really things that don’t exist. I mean, nation states don’t exist.
Chris Mitchell: Right.
David Morris: Right? And religions don’t exist and we so made them up, but they became ways to bond larger and larger communities together because we all believed in the same fictions.
Chris Mitchell: Right. In some ways it’s actually … It’s almost creating something through shared belief.
David Morris: That’s right. That’s right. Exactly. The emphasis there is on shared.
Chris Mitchell: We face a threat from privatization and other sources, and building local power, but hopefully gossip will save us.
David Morris: If people gossip sufficiently I think that it might very well save us. You had started by saying that the people who are in favor of privatization essentially say the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. It’s more innovative than the public sector and why don’t we let them do it? They say it as if that’s an established belief system, which it is. It is the conventional wisdom. It just happens not to be true. What we need is that when someone says that to your neighbor or a city council or whatever, their immediate reaction isn’t to say, “Yeah. That’s probably true.”

Their immediate reaction is to say, “That’s false, and I know it’s false because how could you borrow money at one and a half to two times the cost and how can you have a profit of 10% when we don’t need a profit of and end up delivering it to us more cheaply? That doesn’t make sense. You’re going to have to prove yourself to me. I’m just not going to accept it as an article of faith.”

Chris Mitchell: I think this always comes down to, in my mind, the underpants gnomes of South Park. I’ll leave that as an exercise for people to find out what I mean by that, but the underwear gnomes have a three stage process for profiting. I think the uncertainty that’s in the middle stage is worth looking into for people who are unfamiliar with it. Judging from your look, you’re one of them. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. This has been another episode of Building Local Power. Please check us back in two weeks when we’re back with another discussion.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who now heads up our Public Good initiative. He and Christopher, director of the Community Broadband Initiative at the Institute, were discussing privatization of infrastructure and traditionally public services. This was episode number nine of the Building Local Power podcast. Check out more of David’s articles and interviews at ilsr.org, Public Good initiative. We encourage you to subscribe to the podcast and all of our other podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Never miss out in our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter, also available at ilsr.org. Thanks to Disfunction L. for the music, license through Creative Commons. The song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks again for listening to the Building Local Power podcast.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[12] Building Local Power on iTunes[13] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[14]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[15]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[16] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[17] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[18] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[19] and Facebook[20] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[21] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-01-06-blp009-david-morris-privatization.m4a
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2017-01-06-blp009-david-morris-privatization.m4a
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. David Morris: https://ilsr.org/author/davidm/
  7. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens
  8. Going Beyond Candidates: Three State Initiatives That Could Change America: https://ilsr.org/going-beyond-candidates-three-state-initiatives-that-could-change-america/
  9. November 8th: Four Key Factors for the Armchair Strategist: https://ilsr.org/november-8th-four-key-factors-for-the-armchair-strategist/
  10. How to Make a Political Revolution: https://ilsr.org/how-to-make-a-political-revolution/
  11. Powering a Political Revolution, North Dakota’s Non-Partisan League – Episode 4 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/powering-a-political-revolution-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  12. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  13. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  14. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  15. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  16. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  17. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  18. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  19. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  20. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  21. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-perils-of-privatization-episode-9-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


How 2017 Will Transform Broadband Opportunities for Local Governments

by Christopher Mitchell | January 10, 2017 5:36 pm

StateScoop[1] – January 10, 2017

Commentary: Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance predicts new connectivity opportunities and an altered broadband landscape as a pro-business Trump administration prepares to disrupt the status quo.

This may well be the year of local government broadband solutions. For some communities, it will be because they are prepared to step up and are excited about ensuring all residents and businesses in the community have the tools to thrive in the digital economy. For others, it will be a last resort in the face of new political and economic challenges — but many will be taking action.

There’s a new landscape for broadband

For years, improving internet access has been — at best — an afterthought in Congress. Now with Rep. Marsha Blackburn[2] chairing the House’s telecom subcommittee and Donald Trump widely expected to appoint a pro-incumbent FCC leader, AT&T and Comcast are setting the agenda and I do not expect any federal actions will improve the competitive landscape in telecommunications.

While nearly every state has elected officials talking about how important connectivity is, very few have the will to put serious money up for network investment following recent programs with questionable outcomes. New York is putting $500 million into a complicated broadband program[3] and Massachusetts has thrown tens of millions of dollars at consultants and a massive middle-mile ring that hasn’t done much to solve its connectivity problems because it attempted to micromanage solutions in an industry it barely understands[4]. Wisconsin is actually taking money out of a smart energy efficiency program in a poorly-designed[5] one-time giveaway to internet service providers (ISPs). (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. StateScoop: http://statescoop.com/how-2017-will-transform-broadband-opportunities-local-government
  2. Marsha Blackburn: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-marsha-blackburns-rise-is-bad-news-for-net-neutrality-and-science
  3. complicated broadband program: http://stopthecap.com/2016/08/04/n-y-governor-announces-sweeping-progress-towards-broadband-nyers-goal/
  4. barely understands: http://theberkshireedge.com/state-agency-dawdles-western-massachusetts-languishes-without-high-speed-internet/
  5. poorly-designed: http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2016/12/09/state-energy-fund-diverted-to-other-uses/
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/how-2017-will-transform-broadband-opportunities-for-local-governments/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/how-2017-will-transform-broadband-opportunities-for-local-governments/


Waste to Wealth, 2016 in Review

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 9, 2017 2:00 pm

Now that 2016 is firmly in the rearview mirror, we are looking back at some of the great work that we did in our Waste to Wealth initiative during the year. We’ve broken down some of our top content into the two active categories of our initiative: Composting Makes Sense[1] & Recycling, Economic Development, and Zero Waste[2]. We’ve also included some of our top media hits[3] from the year as well as a full index of our stories available here[4] or below.


Top Posts from Composting for Community Project:

Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think[5]

by Brenda PlattMay 6, 2016

From healthy soils, to good local jobs, we bet you didn’t know that compost can have such an impact on your daily life! So think twice before you throw away your compostable food scraps… because one person’s trash is another’s black gold. Please help us spread the word!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL WEB-OPTIMIZED GRAPHIC

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL 18×23 POSTERS

We want you to be able to share these infographics under creative commons license, free of cost. Read more…[6]

ILSR’s NSR Program Replicated in Atlanta, GA[7]

by Linda BilsensJuly 8, 2016

ILSR is proud to introduce the Atlanta Community Compost Advocates! Corinne Coe of Terra Nova Compost Cooperative[8] partnered with ILSR and ECO City Farms[9] to adapt their Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders (NSR) Composter Training Program for the City of Atlanta. ILSR and Terra Nova Compost collaborated closely to fundraise for, design and implement the inaugural class of the Community Compost Advocate Training Program (CCATP), which was offered with with generous financial support of the Food Well Alliance[10]. On the weekends of June 11th-12th, 18th-19th, and 25th-26th, a culturally diverse group of 16 participants came together to learn about the art and science of composting and community. Read more…[11]

Montgomery Co., MD Bill Requires Distributed Composting[12]

by Brenda PlattJuly 14, 2016

On June 28, 2016, Montgomery County Council (Maryland) Vice President, Roger Berliner, introduced legislation to require the development of a comprehensive composting and food recovery strategic plan. The bill might be the first in the country to stipulate a diverse and distributed plan that considers food rescue, backyard composting, community scale composting, on-site institutional and commercial composting, on-farm composting, local use of compost to support soil health and the County’s stormwater management program, and more. Read more…[13]

Composting Will Help Flint Recover From Its Water Crisis[14]

by Linda BilsensAugust 9, 2016

It would be an understatement to say that Flint has been in the news a lot lately—one of the most recent stories has to do with a lapsed trash collection contract[15] that left residents without service. The city still has a long road ahead before it can fully heal from the water contamination crisis that started in 2014: more than 8,000 children[16] are thought to have been effected; 6 city officials have just been charged[17] in connection; and Flint’s Mayor, Karen Weaver[18], used the podium at the recent Democratic National Convention to remind the nation that “The water is still not safe to drink or cook with from the tap”. Like many older industrial cities, Flint also has lead and other heavy metals in its soils[19], exacerbating the effects of the water crisis. As is often the case, low-income communities are more likely to be exposed to the highest concentrations. Read more…[20]

EPA’s New Rules for Landfills Won’t Cut Greenhouse Gas Pollution[21]

by Rebecca ToewsSeptember 12, 2016

The Federal Register recently published new landfill rules which fail to meet any of the goals that the White House and EPA have set forth to reduce landfill gas emissions.

In July, US EPA’s “Fuels and Incineration Group” (FIG) pushed through its final revisions to new rules regarding landfills in the United States. The rules state that landfill owners may receive greenhouse gas credits that profit a landfill operation’s bottom line.

Garbage is Not Renewable.” states Neil Seldman of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “While we applaud the EPA for its public statement in support of food loss reduction,” he says, “this new landfill policy will do nothing to help move toward the food recovery goal. It will even hurt these efforts.” Read more…[22]

Vote for the White House Kitchen Garden[23]

by Linda BilsensOctober 31, 2016

On a chilly day in late-February, my husband and I received an unexpected visitor[24] to our backyard: First Lady Michelle Obama. We are deeply honored that the First Lady chose our family’s garden (along with a couple of local schools) to act as the launchpad of her Let’s Move! Initiative. The initiative has succeeded in bringing the connection between gardening, homegrown food, and an active, healthy lifestyle into the national spotlight, and it is thought to represent the largest single impact the Obama Administration has had on food issues[25]. Read more…[26]

Video: Prospect Heights Community Farm Community Composting Feature[27]

by Linda BilsensNovember 18, 2016

At the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we document and promote innovative uses of local power that can be used around the country. Community composting is a way that neighborhoods can take control of what could be waste, such as food scraps, and turn it into wealth, such as healthy soil. Prospect Heights Community Farm[28] in Brooklyn shows us how they are doing just that in our latest video. Read more…[29]

Video: Compost Happens, But Training Matters[30]

by Linda BilsensNovember 23, 2016

Composting is an age-old practice that still benefits our soils as much today as it did in ancient times. But, what many people may not know is that proper training matters[31] in order to create this “black gold” both safely and effectively. At ILSR’s Composting for Community Project, we’re cultivating a greater awareness of the myriad benefits compost can provide to our soils and ourselves, the critical role community plays in the composting process, and what it takes to create high-quality compost. Read more…[32]

The Community Compost Cooperative at the Howard University Community Garden[33]

by Valerie OnifadeDecember 8, 2016

The composting site at the Howard University Community Garden in NW Washington, DC (Shaw/Howard area) showcases what a collaboration between a local government department, non-profit organizations, small businesses, institutions of higher education, and members of the community can accomplish for composting efforts. This project demonstrates the benefits that come from community composting and has the potential to become an example of the onsite institutional systems that ILSR promotes[34]. Read more…[35]

Composting Cultivates Economic Development – Episode 7 of the Building Local Power Podcast[36]

by Nick Stumo-LangerDecember 15, 2016

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Linda Bilsens, Project Manager of ILSR’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program. Bilsens explains how producing compost from food scraps builds local economic development, fights climate change, and cultivates community.

Chris and Linda discuss how both individuals and communities can partake in rebuilding their local soils by composting organic materials. Check out the further information on our composting work here: Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders training program[37]. Contact Linda Bilsens[38] if you’re interested in replicating this program. Read more…[39]


Top Posts from Recycling, Economic Development, and Zero Waste Project:

Zero Waste: A Short History and Program Description[40]

by Neil SeldmanJanuary 20, 2016

In the last 20 years, No Waste, a simple term expressing the aspirations of recycling activists, became Zero Waste and a social movement bearing that name quickly took root in the USA, Europe, Asia and the entire globe.

In 1995, Dr. Daniel Knapp of Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA traveled to and toured Australia for the first of a series of talks with governments, businesses and citizens in major cities on how to maximize materials recovery and minimize wasting by reusing, recycling, and composting everything currently being wasted. Read more…[41]

Is Recycling Stagnating? The Case of Los Angeles[42]

by Neil SeldmanMarch 8, 2016

In the past several months, journalists in major publications such as Forbes, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Mother Jones have concluded that recycling rates have stagnated. They tend to blame the recent downturn in materials prices. They’re half right. Recycling levels have stagnated in many cities and towns, largely in the South and Midwest, and the national average of 35 percent has not moved much in more than a decade. Read more…[43]

Activists Win The Day: Huge Grassroots Victory Over Curtis Bay Incinerator[44]

by Neil Seldman | March 18, 2016

The best way to defeat proposed incinerators has proven itself once again: community organizing. The Maryland State Department of the Environment[45] pulled the permit on the proposed 4,000 ton per day incinerator to be built in the long suffering industrial communities of Curtis Bay-Brooklyn on the Fairfield Peninsula in south Baltimore. Curtis Bay and Brooklyn are adjacent to communities in Anne Arundel County, MD which are also celebrating this grass roots victory. Read more…[46]

The Victory Over Proposed Incinerator in Logansport, Indiana[47]

by Neil SeldmanApril 21, 2016

For the past 40 years organized citizens and small businesses have successfully defeated proposed incinerators in over 400 cities and counties in the US. Each confrontation was unique even as they shared common elements: Opponents of garbage incineration used facts against the administration’s public relations, focused at the local level where elected officials are most vulnerable to public outcries, stayed polite and professional in the face of ad hominem attacks, and relied on community meetings and social media to get around black outs by local media. Read more…[48]

Save the Albatross Coalition Formed[49]

by Neil SeldmanMay 9, 2016

The Save the Albatross Coalition was initiated by recycling activists through the Grass Roots Recycling Network, founded in 1995. ILSR’s Brenda Platt and Neil Seldman were two of the five co-founders of GRRN.  The Coalition aims to address the earth’s global plastic pollution problem through responsible behavior by companies that generate the plastic products that threaten our oceans.  Neil Seldman co-chairs the Save the Albatross Coalition with Captain Charles Moore of Algalita Research and Education, based in Long beach, CA. Read more…[50]

The Future of Garbage in Maryland Is Not What It Used To Be[51]

by Neil SeldmanJune 13, 2016

A few years ago it looked like Maryland would start to resemble states like Connecticut and Massachusetts that invested heavily in garbage incineration. Baltimore has a downtown incinerator, Harford County wanted to expand theirs, Washington County wanted its own facility, Frederick and Carroll Counties were under contract for building a new 1,500 ton per day plant, a private company wanted to build a 4,000 ton per day plant at Curtis Bay in south Baltimore, and Prince George’s County began exploring ‘conversion technologies’ or as Bradley Angel of GreenAction for Environment and Health calls them, ‘incinerators in disguise.’ Read more…[52]

Eureka Recycling: Efficient, Cost Effective, and Socially Beneficial Recycling[53]

by Neil SeldmanSeptember 8, 2016

Grassroots recycling companies were a critical link in the United States as the transition from the drop off recycling centers that sprung up after Earth Day in 1970 and municipal curbside service that emerged in the mid 1970s. Non-profit and for profit enterprises demonstrated the feasibility of curbside collection and by the mid 1980s municipal services were being introduced throughout the U.S. Established hauling companies bought some of the more successful enterprises.[1][54] Several remain in operation today: Recycle North in Burlington, VT, Center for Eco Technology in Pittsfield, MA, Infinity Recycling in Chestertown, MD, EcoCycle in Boulder, CO, Berkeley Ecology Center, Ann Arbor Ecology Center, Resource Center in Chicago, and Eureka Recycling in St Paul, MN. Read more…[55]

ILSR Co-Founder Speaking at Ralph Nader’s Breaking Through Power Conference[56]

by Nick Stumo-LangerSeptember 14, 2016

On Monday, September 26th, Institute for Local Self-Reliance co-founder Neil Seldman[57] will present at Ralph Nader’s Breaking Through Power Conference[58] in Washington D.C. His presentation: “Community Business is Revolutionary”[59] will be at 11:10AM at Carnegie Institution of Washington[60].

Tickets for one-day passes are only $10 and can be purchased through TicketMaster. Here is the description of the event from the organizers of the Breaking Through Power Conference. Read more…[61]

Murray J. Fox, The “Johnny Appleseed” of U.S. Recycling[62]

by Neil SeldmanOctober 6, 2016

In my career of five decades of working in the recycling field for ILSR there is only one person I consider a true “Johnny Appleseed of Recycling” in the U.S.  His name is Murray J. Fox and he remains a sage of recycling, whose own history provides insight into today’s policies and issues. He never failed to teach others about the configuration of the equipment, the technologies to be employed and the problems to be solved.  In the 1970s, Fox provided guided tours to beginning community recyclers of his ingeniously designed beneficiation plants with modern equipment and expandable walls along concrete pads.  These were the people  who subsequently became national leaders in the emerging U.S. recycling movement. Read more…[63]

Review of the “Facts” that Guide Waste Management, Inc.’s CEO[64]

by Neil Seldman | October 20, 2016

The CEO of Waste Management, Inc. (WMI) commented to CNBC that, based on the facts, glass and organics should not be collected because they lack economic value for shareholders. In a related panel discussion, the need for top-down legislation to help recycling was deemed unnecessary. Accordingly, WMI is reducing its investments in recycling. “As profits in this area decrease,” one report states, “WMI has reduced its investment in recycling from $300 to $400 million per year to under $20 million per year, (See, Waste Dive for September 6[65], 7[66], and 14[67]). Read more…[68]


Top Media Highlights from 2016:

5. 4 Money Stories in the Compost Industry[69]

by Jenna Miller, National Center for Business Journalism | November 25, 2016

The feasting season is also the season for food waste. According to the Worldwatch Institute the amount of discarded food in the U.S. increases by a third between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Composting helps with some of that. Year-round, compostable material makes up between a third and a half of residential waste produced in the U.S, according to the Institute for Local Self Reliance. Read more…[70]

4. The Not-So-Great Side Effect of Your Sheet-Mask Addiction[71]

by Fawnia Soo Hoo, Refinery29November 12, 2016

Don’t let the unseasonal heat wave fool you — winter is, eventually, coming. That means it’s time to stock up on those hydrating and repairing products. One of the most effective ones out there? Sheet masks. But as we drench our faces in donkey milk or snail goop, we can forget one glaring issue: all the leftover waste. After a week of regular treatments, your garbage can can might look like Hannibal Lecter and Jason Voorhees went on a bender — full of crumpled eyeless and mouthless masks along with heaps of plastic packaging, which will all end up in a landfill. Read more…[72]

3. Getting Smart About Waste[73]

by Bob Graves, Governing MagazineApril 26, 2016

With the advent of the Internet of Things, it may seem that technology can make virtually anything “smart.” We hear regularly about intelligent transportation systems, electrical grids and vehicles. But what about waste? Can technology make waste smart? Read more…[74]

2. Seeds of Hope[75]

by Taylor Haynes, Clever Root MagazineNovember 7, 2016

In 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama, aided by local school children, planted the first seeds of what would become an impressive garden on the grounds of the White House, overflowing with vegetables, fruit and herbs. Nearby, the White House beehives keep busy pollinating the garden and making honey, which is often used as a gift for foreign dignitaries.

On February 25, 2016, the First Lady visited the Washington D.C. home and garden of The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Compost Project Manager Linda Bilsens and Eriks Brolis. Her visit was a complete surprise — but Brolis and Bilsens were more than happy to give the First Lady a tour. The First Lady even sifted the couples’ compost. In return, she personally invited the couple to visit the White House Kitchen Garden. Read more…[76]

1. Landfills Have a Huge Greenhouse Gas Problem. Here’s What We Can Do About It.[77]

by Erica Gies, EnsiaOctober 25, 2016

We take out our trash and feel lighter and cleaner. But at the landfill, the food and yard waste that trash contains is decomposing and releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfill gas also contributes to smog, worsening health problems like asthma. Read more…[78]


Full Index of Waste to Wealth Content, Chronologically:

  • Update on Houston One Bin System Plan[79] by Neil Seldman | January 19, 2016
  • DC Department of Public Works Gets Waste Diversion Staff[80] by Neil Seldman | January 19, 2016
  • Zero Waste: A Short History and Program Description[40] by Neil Seldman | January 20, 2016
  • A Response to Anti-Recycling Ideology[81] by Neil Seldman | January 20, 2016
  • Minnesota Report Underscores Potent Recycling Industry in the State[82] by Rebecca Toews | February 4, 2016
  • Congratulations to the 2015 Deconstruction/Reuse Contest Winners[83] by Neil Seldman | February 9, 2016
  • Indianapolis puts MRF on hold, first step towards a modern recycling program[84] by Neil Seldman | February 12, 2016
  • Lawsuit Possible Next Step in Baltimore Community’s Battle Against Proposed Garbage Incinerator[85] by Neil Seldman | February 12, 2016
  • Cultivating Community Composting Forum and Workshop Bring Composters Together[86] by Rebecca Toews | February 16, 2016
  • First Glance at Second Chance – A nonprofit deconstruction company[87] by Neil Seldman | February 19, 2016
  • Recycling and the Skid in Oil Prices[88] by Neil Seldman | February 21, 2016
  • Gold in the Garbage: How Recycling Rates Could Be a Lot Higher[89] by Neil Seldman | February 23, 2016
  • MD Bill Introduced That Names ILSR to State Task Force[90] by Brenda Platt | February 26, 2016
  • Update on One Bin Plan in Houston and Dirty MRF in Indianapolis[91] by Neil Seldman | March 3, 2016
  • Survey says…Recycling Quality Harmed by One-Bin Approach[92] by Neil Seldman | March 3, 2016
  • Is Recycling Stagnating? The Case of Los Angeles[42] by Neil Seldman | March 8, 2016
  • Condo in the Scarborough District of Toronto Gets Serious About Recycling[93] by Neil Seldman | March 9, 2016
  • Webinar: Crowdfunding for Community Composting[94] by Rebecca Toews | March 16, 2016
  • New England Reuse and the Reuse People of America Partner on Deconstruction[95] by Neil Seldman | march 16, 2016
  • Activists Win the Day: Huge Grassroots Victory Over Curtis Bay Incinerator[96] by Neil Seldman | March 18, 2016
  • Destiny Watford Wins Recognition for Work Fighting Curtis Bay Incinerator[97] by Neil Seldman | April 19, 2016
  • Paul Connett Hand Delivers Zero Waste Book to Pope Francis[98] by Neil Seldman | April 19, 2016
  • ILSR Leading Free Worm-Powered Composting Workshop as Part of DC Food Recovery Week of Action[99] by Linda Bilsens | April 20, 2016
  • The Victory Over Proposed Incinerator in Logansport, Indiana[47] by Neil Seldman | April 21, 2016
  • Incinerator News: From Baltimore, MD, to Arecibo, Puerto Rico[100] by Neil Seldman | April 28, 2016
  • Anti-Incineration Efforts in China: Two Plants Canceled in One Week[101] by Neil Seldman | May 5, 2016
  • Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think[5] by Brenda Platt | May 6, 2016
  • Save the Albatross Coalition Formed[49] by Neil Seldman | May 9, 2016
  • Getting Smart About Waste[102] by Neil Seldman | May 12, 2016
  • Saint Vincent de Paul Continues to Expand Re-Use Partnerships[103] by Neil Seldman | June 1, 2016
  • Lesson From the 2016 NCSU Vermiculture Conference[104] by Linda Bilsens | June 6, 2016
  • Niagara Falls Jumps Ahead in Recycling, Reduces Waste by 20%[105] by Neil Seldman | June 10, 2016
  • The Future of Garbage in Maryland is Not What it Used to be[106] by Neil Seldman | June 13, 2016
  • Revolution Recovery – Dealing in All Things Deconstruction[107] by Neil Seldman | June 15, 2016
  • Reaching for Zero Waste is Contagious.[108] by Neil Seldman | June 16, 2016
  • Compost Combats Desertification: Download New Poster[109] by Brenda Platt | June 17, 2016
  • The Repurpose Project – Building Community Through Reuse[110] by Neil Seldman | June 22, 2016
  • Recent Developments in the World of Mattresses[111] by Neil Seldman | July 6, 2016
  • Community Forklift: A Blueprint for Reuse Success[112] by Neil Seldman | July 6, 2016
  • ILSR’s NSR Program Replicated in Atlanta, GA[7] by Linda Bilsens | July 8, 2016
  • Technology Industry Kills Right to Repair Bill in New York State Senate[113] by Neil Seldman | July 11, 2016
  • Montgomery Co. MD Bill Requires Distributed Composting[114] by Brenda Platt | July 14, 2016
  • Zero Waste to Landfill?[115] by Neil Seldman | August 2, 2016
  • HERC’s Emissions and Toxic Ash Make it a Far Cry from Best Practices in Dealing with Trash[116] by Neil Seldman | August 2, 2016
  • Composting Will Help Flint Recover From Its Water Crisis[14] by Linda Bilsens | August 9, 2016
  • Saluting ILSR’s 2016 Interns[117] by Rebecca Toews | August 11, 2016
  • Prince George’s County Has Officially Declined to Move Forward with Garbage Incineration[118] by Neil Seldman | August 25, 2016
  • Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Compost Training Program[119] by Linda Bilsens | August 25, 2016
  • NSR Master Composter Course in Baltimore, Fall 2016![120] by Linda Bilsens | August 30, 2016
  • Sweden is not recycling 99% of its waste.[121] by Neil Seldman | September 7, 2016
  • Eureka Recycling: Efficient, Cost Effective and Socially Beneficial Recycling[122] by Neil Seldman | September 8, 2016
  • EPA’s New Rules for Landfills Won’t Cut Greenhouse Gas Pollution[21] by Rebecca Toews | September 12, 2016
  • ILSR Co-Founder Speaking at Ralph Nader’s Breaking Through Power Conference[56] by Nick Stumo-Langer | September 14, 2016
  • Gay Gordon-Byrne on the Right to Repair[123] by Neil Seldman | September 21, 2016
  • The True Value of Recycling and the Waste Stream – Episode 2 of the Building Local Power Podcast[124] by Nick Stumo-Langer | October 6, 2016
  • Murray J. Fox, The “Johnny Appleseed” of U.S. Recycling[62] by Neil Seldman | October 6, 2016
  • ILSR Sponsors the Fourth National Cultivating Community Composting Forum, Scholarship Fun Announced[125] by Brenda Platt | October 11, 2016
  • Brenda Platt Speaks to San Diego Food Waste Summit[126] by Nick Stumo-Langer | October 17, 2016
  • Review of the “Facts” That Guide Waste Management, Inc.’s CEO[127] by Neil Seldman | October 20, 2016
  • Vote for the White House Kitchen Garden[23] by Linda Bilsens | October 31, 2016
  • Statements on Extended Producer Responsibility in Europe[128] by Neil Seldman | November 1, 2016
  • Seeds of Hope[129] by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 10, 2016
  • Video: Prospect Heights Community Farm Community Composting Feature[27] by Linda Bilsens | November 18, 2016
  • Video: Compost Happens, But Training Matters[30] by Linda Bilsens | November 23, 2016
  • EPR in British Columbia and its relevancy for the U.S.[130] by John Bailey | November 28, 2016
  • 2016 World Soil Day: Benefits of Composting Infographic Posters[131] by Brenda Platt | December 5, 2016
  • The Community Compost Cooperative at the Howard University Community Garden[33] by Valerie Onifade | December 8, 2016
  • Community Purchasing Alliance Expands Waste and Recycling Services[132] by Neil Seldman | December 13, 2016
  • Composting Cultivates Economic Development – Episode 7 of the Building Local Power Podcast[36] by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 15, 2016
  • Dramatic Economic Impacts of Increased Recycling in South Carolina[133] by Neil Seldman | December 22, 2016

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[134] and Facebook[135] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[136] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Composting Makes Sense: #compost
  2. Recycling, Economic Development, and Zero Waste: #zero
  3. top media hits: #media
  4. index of our stories available here: #index
  5. Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts/
  6. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts/
  7. ILSR’s NSR Program Replicated in Atlanta, GA: https://ilsr.org/atlantacommunitycompostadvocates/
  8. Terra Nova Compost Cooperative: https://terranovacompost.com/
  9. ECO City Farms: http://www.ecoffshoots.org/education/neighborhood-soil-rebuilders/
  10. Food Well Alliance: http://www.foodwellalliance.org/
  11. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/atlantacommunitycompostadvocates/
  12. Montgomery Co., MD Bill Requires Distributed Composting: https://ilsr.org/moco-food-waste-bill-hearing/
  13. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/moco-food-waste-bill-hearing/
  14. Composting Will Help Flint Recover From Its Water Crisis: https://ilsr.org/composting-will-help-flint-recover-from-its-water-crisis/
  15. lapsed trash collection contract: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/us/no-trash-collection-in-flint-michigan/index.html
  16. 8,000 children: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/us/flint-weighs-scope-of-harm-to-children-caused-by-lead-in-water.html?_r=1
  17. just been charged: http://michiganradio.org/post/flint-water-crisis-aftermath-six-state-employees-charged-and-prosecutors-not-done-yet
  18. Karen Weaver: http://michiganradio.org/post/mayor-weaver-dnc-i-am-voice-flint-and-we-need-your-help
  19. in its soils: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/lead-in-soil-another-known-factor-in-flint/
  20. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/composting-will-help-flint-recover-from-its-water-crisis/
  21. EPA’s New Rules for Landfills Won’t Cut Greenhouse Gas Pollution: https://ilsr.org/epa-new-landfill-rules/
  22. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/epa-new-landfill-rules/
  23. Vote for the White House Kitchen Garden: https://ilsr.org/vote-for-the-white-house-kitchen-garden/
  24. received an unexpected visitor: https://ilsr.org/flotus-tours-ilsr-staff-members-backyard-garden/
  25. food issues: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/obama-administration-big-food-policy.html
  26. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/vote-for-the-white-house-kitchen-garden/
  27. Video: Prospect Heights Community Farm Community Composting Feature: https://ilsr.org/video-prospect-heights-community-farm/
  28. Prospect Heights Community Farm: https://www.phcfarm.com/
  29. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/video-prospect-heights-community-farm/
  30. Video: Compost Happens, But Training Matters: https://ilsr.org/video-compost-happens/
  31. training matters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljyx-0Ki3nU
  32. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/video-compost-happens/
  33. The Community Compost Cooperative at the Howard University Community Garden: https://ilsr.org/community-compost-howard-university/
  34. onsite institutional systems that ILSR promotes: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/state-of-composting-in-us.pdf
  35. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/community-compost-howard-university/
  36. Composting Cultivates Economic Development – Episode 7 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/composting-economic-development-episode-7-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  37. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders training program: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  38. Linda Bilsens: mailto:lbilsens@ilsr.org
  39. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/composting-economic-development-episode-7-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  40. Zero Waste: A Short History and Program Description: https://ilsr.org/zero-waste-a-short-history-and-program-description/
  41. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/zero-waste-a-short-history-and-program-description/
  42. Is Recycling Stagnating? The Case of Los Angeles: https://ilsr.org/is-recycling-stagnating-the-case-of-los-angeles/
  43. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/is-recycling-stagnating-the-case-of-los-angeles/
  44. Activists Win The Day: Huge Grassroots Victory Over Curtis Bay Incinerator: https://ilsr.org/activists-win-the-day-huge-grassroots-victory-over-curtis-bay-incinerator/
  45. The Maryland State Department of the Environment: http://www.mde.state.md.us/Pages/Home.aspx
  46. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/activists-win-the-day-huge-grassroots-victory-over-curtis-bay-incinerator/
  47. The Victory Over Proposed Incinerator in Logansport, Indiana: https://ilsr.org/the-victory-over-proposed-incinerator-in-logansport-indiana/
  48. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/the-victory-over-proposed-incinerator-in-logansport-indiana/
  49. Save the Albatross Coalition Formed: https://ilsr.org/save-the-albatross-coalition-formed/
  50. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/save-the-albatross-coalition-formed/
  51. The Future of Garbage in Maryland Is Not What It Used To Be: https://ilsr.org/the-future-of-garbage-in-maryland-is-not-what-it-used-to-be/
  52. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/the-future-of-garbage-in-maryland-is-not-what-it-used-to-be/
  53. Eureka Recycling: Efficient, Cost Effective, and Socially Beneficial Recycling: https://ilsr.org/eureka-recycling-efficient-cost-effective-and-socially-beneficial-recycling/
  54. [1]: https://ilsr.org/eureka-recycling-efficient-cost-effective-and-socially-beneficial-recycling/#_ftn1
  55. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/eureka-recycling-efficient-cost-effective-and-socially-beneficial-recycling/
  56. ILSR Co-Founder Speaking at Ralph Nader’s Breaking Through Power Conference: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-co-founder-speaking-at-ralph-naders-breaking-through-power-conference/
  57. Neil Seldman: https://ilsr.org/author/neils
  58. Breaking Through Power Conference: https://www.breakingthroughpower.org/schedule/
  59. “Community Business is Revolutionary”: https://www.breakingthroughpower.org/sessions/community-business-is-revolutionary/
  60. Carnegie Institution of Washington: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Carnegie+Institution+of+Washington/@38.9587651,-77.0657896,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7c9b1c191e789:0x732bc14c4a51d628!8m2!3d38.9587651!4d-77.0635956
  61. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-co-founder-speaking-at-ralph-naders-breaking-through-power-conference/
  62. Murray J. Fox, The “Johnny Appleseed” of U.S. Recycling: https://ilsr.org/murray-j-fox-the-johnny-appleseed-of-u-s-recycling/
  63. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/murray-j-fox-the-johnny-appleseed-of-u-s-recycling/
  64. Review of the “Facts” that Guide Waste Management, Inc.’s CEO: https://ilsr.org/recycling-increases-economic-value-contrary-to-waste-managements-commentary/
  65. 6: http://www.wastedive.com/news/steiner-waste-management-is-using-facts-to-create-smart-goals-for-recycl/425715/
  66. 7: http://www.wastedive.com/news/data-analytics-the-most-effective-approach-for-a-zero-waste-solution/425424/
  67. 14: http://www.wastedive.com/news/steiner-the-industry-is-in-a-recycling-recession/426205/
  68. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/recycling-increases-economic-value-contrary-to-waste-managements-commentary/
  69. 4 Money Stories in the Compost Industry: http://businessjournalism.org/2016/11/3-angles-to-report-on-the-composting-industry/
  70. Read more…: http://businessjournalism.org/2016/11/3-angles-to-report-on-the-composting-industry/
  71. The Not-So-Great Side Effect of Your Sheet-Mask Addiction: http://www.refinery29.com/face-masks-bad-for-the-environment
  72. Read more…: http://www.refinery29.com/face-masks-bad-for-the-environment
  73. Getting Smart About Waste: http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/gov-getting-smart-waste-technology-activism-policy.html
  74. Read more…: http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/gov-getting-smart-waste-technology-activism-policy.html
  75. Seeds of Hope: https://thecleverroot.com/seeds-of-hope/#.WG_4eLYrKF2
  76. Read more…: https://thecleverroot.com/seeds-of-hope/#.WG_4eLYrKF2
  77. Landfills Have a Huge Greenhouse Gas Problem. Here’s What We Can Do About It.: http://ensia.com/features/methane-landfills/
  78. Read more…: http://ensia.com/features/methane-landfills/
  79. Update on Houston One Bin System Plan: https://ilsr.org/update-on-houston-one-bin-system-plan/
  80. DC Department of Public Works Gets Waste Diversion Staff: https://ilsr.org/dc-department-of-public-works-gets-waste-diversion-staff/
  81. A Response to Anti-Recycling Ideology: https://ilsr.org/a-response-to-anti-recycling-ideology/
  82. Minnesota Report Underscores Potent Recycling Industry in the State: https://ilsr.org/minnesota-report-underscores-potent-recycling-industry-in-the-state/
  83. Congratulations to the 2015 Deconstruction/Reuse Contest Winners: https://ilsr.org/congratulations-to-the-2015-deconstructionreuse-contest-winners/
  84. Indianapolis puts MRF on hold, first step towards a modern recycling program: https://ilsr.org/indianapolis-puts-mrf-on-hold-first-step-towards-a-modern-recycling-program/
  85. Lawsuit Possible Next Step in Baltimore Community’s Battle Against Proposed Garbage Incinerator: https://ilsr.org/lawsuit-possible-next-step-in-baltimore-communitys-battle-against-proposed-garbage-incinerator/
  86. Cultivating Community Composting Forum and Workshop Bring Composters Together: https://ilsr.org/ccc2016-forum-and-workshop/
  87. First Glance at Second Chance – A nonprofit deconstruction company: https://ilsr.org/first-glance-at-second-chance-a-nonprofit-deconstruction-company/
  88. Recycling and the Skid in Oil Prices: https://ilsr.org/recycling-and-the-skid-in-oil-prices/
  89. Gold in the Garbage: How Recycling Rates Could Be a Lot Higher: https://ilsr.org/gold-in-the-garbage-how-recycling-rates-could-be-a-lot-higher/
  90. MD Bill Introduced That Names ILSR to State Task Force: https://ilsr.org/initiativescompostingmd-hb743/
  91. Update on One Bin Plan in Houston and Dirty MRF in Indianapolis: https://ilsr.org/update-on-one-bin-plan-in-houston-and-dirty-mrf-in-indianapolis/
  92. Survey says…Recycling Quality Harmed by One-Bin Approach: https://ilsr.org/survey-says-recycling-quality-harmed-by-one-bin-approach/
  93. Condo in the Scarborough District of Toronto Gets Serious About Recycling: https://ilsr.org/condo-in-the-scarborough-district-of-toronto-gets-serious-about-recycling/
  94. Webinar: Crowdfunding for Community Composting: https://ilsr.org/webinar-crowdfunding-for-community-composting/
  95. New England Reuse and the Reuse People of America Partner on Deconstruction: https://ilsr.org/new-england-reuse-and-the-reuse-people-of-america-partner-on-deconstruction/
  96. Activists Win the Day: Huge Grassroots Victory Over Curtis Bay Incinerator: https://ilsr.org/activists-win-the-day-huge-grassroots-victory-over-curtis-bay-incinerator/
  97. Destiny Watford Wins Recognition for Work Fighting Curtis Bay Incinerator: https://ilsr.org/destiny-watford-wins-recognition-for-work-fighting-curtis-bay-incinerator/
  98. Paul Connett Hand Delivers Zero Waste Book to Pope Francis: https://ilsr.org/paul-connett-hand-delivers-zero-waste-book-to-pope-francis/
  99. ILSR Leading Free Worm-Powered Composting Workshop as Part of DC Food Recovery Week of Action: https://ilsr.org/dcfoodrecoveryvermicompostworkshop/
  100. Incinerator News: From Baltimore, MD, to Arecibo, Puerto Rico: https://ilsr.org/incinerator-news-from-baltimore-md-to-arecibo-puerto-rico/
  101. Anti-Incineration Efforts in China: Two Plants Canceled in One Week: https://ilsr.org/anti-incineration-efforts-in-china-two-plants-cancelled-in-one-week/
  102. Getting Smart About Waste: https://ilsr.org/getting-smart-about-waste/
  103. Saint Vincent de Paul Continues to Expand Re-Use Partnerships: https://ilsr.org/saint-vincent-de-paul-continues-to-expand-re-use-partnerships/
  104. Lesson From the 2016 NCSU Vermiculture Conference: https://ilsr.org/2016vermiconference/
  105. Niagara Falls Jumps Ahead in Recycling, Reduces Waste by 20%: https://ilsr.org/niagara-falls-jumps-ahead-in-recycling-reduces-waste-by-20/
  106. The Future of Garbage in Maryland is Not What it Used to be: https://ilsr.org/the-future-of-garbage-in-maryland-is-not-what-it-used-to-be/
  107. Revolution Recovery – Dealing in All Things Deconstruction: https://ilsr.org/revolution-recovery-dealing-in-all-things-deconstruction/
  108. Reaching for Zero Waste is Contagious.: https://ilsr.org/reaching-for-zero-waste-is-contagious/
  109. Compost Combats Desertification: Download New Poster: https://ilsr.org/desertification-and-compost/
  110. The Repurpose Project – Building Community Through Reuse: https://ilsr.org/the-repurpose-project-building-community-through-reuse/
  111. Recent Developments in the World of Mattresses: https://ilsr.org/recent-developments-in-the-world-of-mattresses/
  112. Community Forklift: A Blueprint for Reuse Success: https://ilsr.org/community-forklift-a-blueprint-for-reuse-success/
  113. Technology Industry Kills Right to Repair Bill in New York State Senate: https://ilsr.org/%ef%bb%bftechnology-industry-kills-right-to-repair-bill-in-new-york-state-senate/
  114. Montgomery Co. MD Bill Requires Distributed Composting: https://ilsr.org/moco-food-waste-bill-hearing/
  115. Zero Waste to Landfill?: https://ilsr.org/zero-waste-to-landfill/
  116. HERC’s Emissions and Toxic Ash Make it a Far Cry from Best Practices in Dealing with Trash: https://ilsr.org/hercs-emissions-and-toxic-ash-make-it-a-far-cry-from-best-practices-in-dealing-with-trash/
  117. Saluting ILSR’s 2016 Interns: https://ilsr.org/meet-the-interns_2016/
  118. Prince George’s County Has Officially Declined to Move Forward with Garbage Incineration: https://ilsr.org/prince-georges-county-has-officially-declined-to-move-forward-with-garbage-incineration/
  119. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Compost Training Program: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  120. NSR Master Composter Course in Baltimore, Fall 2016!: https://ilsr.org/nsr-master-composter-course-bmore-fall-2016/
  121. Sweden is not recycling 99% of its waste.: https://ilsr.org/sweden-is-not-recycling-99-of-its-waste/
  122. Eureka Recycling: Efficient, Cost Effective and Socially Beneficial Recycling: https://ilsr.org/eureka-recycling-efficient-cost-effective-and-socially-beneficial-recycling/
  123. Gay Gordon-Byrne on the Right to Repair: https://ilsr.org/gay-gordon-byrne-on-the-right-to-repair/
  124. The True Value of Recycling and the Waste Stream – Episode 2 of the Building Local Power Podcast: https://ilsr.org/the-true-value-of-recycling-episode-2-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  125. ILSR Sponsors the Fourth National Cultivating Community Composting Forum, Scholarship Fun Announced: https://ilsr.org/2017-cultivating-community-composting-forum/
  126. Brenda Platt Speaks to San Diego Food Waste Summit: https://ilsr.org/brenda-platt-speaks-to-san-diego-food-waste-summit/
  127. Review of the “Facts” That Guide Waste Management, Inc.’s CEO: https://ilsr.org/recycling-increases-economic-value-contrary-to-waste-managements-commentary/
  128. Statements on Extended Producer Responsibility in Europe: https://ilsr.org/statements-on-epr-in-europe/
  129. Seeds of Hope: https://ilsr.org/seeds-of-hope/
  130. EPR in British Columbia and its relevancy for the U.S.: https://ilsr.org/epr-in-british-columbia-and-its-relevancy-for-the-u-s/
  131. 2016 World Soil Day: Benefits of Composting Infographic Posters: https://ilsr.org/world-soil-day-2016/
  132. Community Purchasing Alliance Expands Waste and Recycling Services: https://ilsr.org/community-purchasing-alliance-expands-waste-and-recycling-services/
  133. Dramatic Economic Impacts of Increased Recycling in South Carolina: https://ilsr.org/dramatic-economic-impacts-of-increased-recycling-in-south-carolina/
  134. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  135. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  136. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/waste-to-wealth-2016-in-review/


New Resource: Map, List Of Citywide FTTH Munis

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 9, 2017 5:03 am

It’s no small feat to plan, deploy, and operate a municipal citywide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network, but communities are doing it. We’ve put together a Citywide Municipal FTTH Networks list and a map[1], with quick facts at your fingertips. If your community is considering such an investment, this list can offer a starting point on discovering similarly situated locations to study.

[2]

The list is divided by state and each state heading offers a description of any barriers that exist and a link to the statute in question. Under each community, we also included relevant links such as to the provider’s website, coverage on MuniNetworks.org, and reports or resources about the network.

We used four basic criteria to put a community on our list and map:

  • The network must cover at least 80% of a city.
  • A local government (city, town, or county) owns the infrastructure.
  • It is a Fiber-to-the-Home network.
  • It is in the United States.

Share the list far and wide and if you know of a community network that meets our criteria that we missed, please let us know. Contact H. Trostle at htrostle@ilsr.org[3] to suggest additions.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Citywide Municipal FTTH Networks list and a map: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-ftth-networks
  2. [Image]: https://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-ftth-networks
  3. htrostle@ilsr.org: mailto:htrostle@ilsr.org
  4. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-resource-map-list-citywide-ftth-munis

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-resource-map-list-of-citywide-ftth-munis/


Energy Democracy, 2016 in Review

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 28, 2016 6:00 am

While 2016 was a turbulent year in our government, the goals and values we hold at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and in the Energy Democracy initiative remain steadfast.

Top Energy Posts of 2016[1] | Top Media Hits of 2016[2] | Top Twitter Posts of 2016[3]

My colleagues and I have been promoting effective, bottom-up strategies to build up local economies. You can see that detailed in our annual report here: 2016 Annual Report: Decentralizing Economic Power, Reinvigorating Democracy[4]. Here are some of the highlights of our work in 2016:

  • Working alongside grassroots groups, we’re changing the rules so that decentralized solar energy, once viewed as a bit player, is beginning to displace centralized, utility monopolies as economically feasible for added energy capacity.
  • This year, we launched a Community Power Map to illustrate the growth of community groups, renewable energy projects, and state policies designed to increase local power over energy decisions.
  • We released a number of reports this year, detailing the growth of microgrids, investigating the benefits of electric cooperatives, and challenging the conventional wisdom of bigger being better in renewable energy.

Looking forward into 2017, we’ll add a power-packed toolkit to help communities across the country take charge of their energy future. Our resolve to decentralize power and reinvigorate democracy is stronger than ever. Please join us in replicating these inspiring successes as a powerful counterpoint in uncertain times by making a tax-deductible gift today[5].

Top 5 Energy Democracy Posts of 2016:

5. Report: Re-Member-ing the Electric Cooperative[6] by John Farrell, Matt Grimley, & Nick Stumo-Langer, March 29th

Electric cooperatives have been the backbone of the nation’s rural electrical system for more than 80 years. Their mission and business model now face more challenges than ever, from financial to contractual to basic member control. But the opportunity is equally great, with a chance for member-driven investment to power hundreds of local economies across the rural United States. Read more…[7]


4. Just How Democratic are Rural Electric Cooperatives?[8] by Matt Grimley, January 13th

Randy Wilson knew you had to start somewhere.

Knocking on doors and hanging around retail store parking lots, he and volunteers from the citizen group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth[9] collected signatures. After weeks of holding out clipboards, they collected the more than 500 signatures needed to run for the board of the Jackson Energy Cooperative in Appalachian Kentucky. Read more…[10]


3. Report: Beyond Sharing – How Communities Can Take Ownership of Renewable Power[11] by John Farrell, April 26th

The electric utility monopoly is breaking up, but will renewable energy become another form of wealth extraction or will community renewable energy enable communities to capture their renewable power? Read more…[12]


2. Community Power Map[13] – Interactive Resource

Where are communities taking charge of their energy future? Which states give communities the most power?

ILSR’s Community Power Map[14] provides an interactive illustration of how communities are accelerating the transition toward 100% renewable energy and how policies help or hinder greater local action. Explore the map…[15]

[16]


1. Report: Mighty Microgrids[17] by John Farrell & Matt Grimley, March 3rd

Communities all over the country are finding ways to break the macro barriers to microgrids. As we flip from a top-down to bottom-up grid management structure, major policy barriers must be lifted in order to expand energy democracy to customers and producers. Read more…[18]


Top 5 Media Highlights of 2016:

5. Will Trump Quit Mocking Climate Science When He Sees The Viability Of Free Market Solutions?[19] by Ken Silverstein, Forbes – July 27th

The Democrats, meanwhile, are calling for the country to generate half of its electricity from clean energy sources within a decade.

“The difference between the parties has a great deal more to do with the potential winners and losers during this transition than it does with the science itself,” says John Farrell, the director of the Energy Democracy initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[20], in an interview. “Follow the money. That’s a good way to understand the party platforms.”


4. New mapping tool showcases clean energy policies and projects[21] by Frank Jossi, Midwest Energy News – September 16th

A new state “community power[22]” mapping tool released this month gives policymakers and activists a national scorecard on state and local clean energy initiatives.

John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance developed the map to showcase the link between what his group regards as good state energy policy and the number of community energy projects and renewable policies now underway.

No organization had mapped the relationship before, at least in the way ILSR did, he said.

“I was surprised how well the mapping shows what we intended it to show, which is that states which have a better policy regime…tend to have more of the things we were tracking,” Farrell said.

Those include dots on the map for renewable projects and energy efficiency efforts, many for wind and solar, in every state. Viewers can add projects which Farrell may have missed.


3. Five Policies Blocking Microgrids (From a Veteran of Local Energy Wars)[23] by Elisa Wood, Microgrid Knowledge – April 1st

“People’s expectations have risen about what level of control they ought to be able to have,” says John Farrell, director of democratic energy for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)[24], a 40-year-old organization that is a veteran of local energy wars.

ILSR wants to see local communities control more of the $360 billion/year[25] spent on electricity in the U.S. But the question is “how do we allow people to participant and have some measure of control in a way that makes the whole system work together?” he says. “I think it is very possible.”


2. Q&A: New report challenges assumption that bigger solar is better[26] by Frank Jossi, Midwest Energy News – October 17th

John Farrell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s[27] Energy Democracy Initiative, argues in a recent paper that smaller-scale solar — and to a lesser degree wind — can be just as effective as utility-scale projects.

Why? Farrell’s research suggests that with transmission costs from remote wind and solar farms, having the source closer to users begins to make sense.

“Power that’s delivered at the distribution level might have a different value than generic wholesale power generation that comes on to the transmission system,” said Farrell, a nationally known solar expert.

Evidence in the paper — “Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?[28]” — reveals that solar in particular is a bit more competitive at a smaller scale than wind. Economies of scale appear more favorable in the wind industry, where better and bigger equipment along with faster wind can offset higher transmission costs, he said. Still, the report doesn’t totally dismiss small wind, especially that which is community owned.


1. Messy Battles Over Energy Are on Ballot Across States[29] by Ari Natter & Mark Chediak, Bloomberg Markets – November 1st

Taken together these items underscore how energy companies are facing a hodgepodge of pressures at the state level, prompting big fights outside the Beltway. The stakes are so high because there hasn’t been major federal energy legislation in nearly a decade.

There’s “the realization that we are not going to make progress at the federal level,” said John Farrell, a director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a Washington-based non-profit that advises local governments on community development.


Top 5 Twitter Engagements of 2016:

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[46]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[47] or get theDemocratic Energy weekly[48] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Top Energy Posts of 2016: #post
  2. Top Media Hits of 2016: #media
  3. Top Twitter Posts of 2016: #twitter
  4. 2016 Annual Report: Decentralizing Economic Power, Reinvigorating Democracy: http://ilsr.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ebfe77c732e7192553aef5712&id=a7cdcf4643&e=29169d2e96
  5. by making a tax-deductible gift today: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Institute-For-Local-Self-Reliance
  6. Report: Re-Member-ing the Electric Cooperative: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/
  7. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/
  8. Just How Democratic are Rural Electric Cooperatives?: https://ilsr.org/just-how-democratic-are-rural-electric-cooperatives/
  9. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth: http://www.kftc.org/
  10. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/just-how-democratic-are-rural-electric-cooperatives/
  11. Report: Beyond Sharing – How Communities Can Take Ownership of Renewable Power: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  12. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  13. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  14. ILSR’s Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  15. Explore the map…: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  16. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  17. Report: Mighty Microgrids: https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/
  18. Read more…: https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/
  19. Will Trump Quit Mocking Climate Science When He Sees The Viability Of Free Market Solutions?: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/27/will-trump-quit-mocking-climate-science-when-he-sees-the-viability-of-free-market-solutions/#78fa0e0a5484
  20. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/
  21. New mapping tool showcases clean energy policies and projects: http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/09/16/new-mapping-tool-showcases-clean-energy-policies-and-projects/
  22. community power: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  23. Five Policies Blocking Microgrids (From a Veteran of Local Energy Wars): http://microgridknowledge.com/policies-blocking-microgrids/
  24. Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR): https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/
  25. $360 billion/year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDgkTJ4PC3M
  26. Q&A: New report challenges assumption that bigger solar is better: http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/10/17/qa-new-report-challenges-assumption-that-bigger-solar-is-better/
  27. Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s: https://ilsr.org/
  28. Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?: https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/
  29. Messy Battles Over Energy Are on Ballot Across States: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-01/messy-battles-over-energy-are-on-the-ballot-across-u-s-states
  30. https://t.co/QdPUQlAfzi: https://t.co/QdPUQlAfzi
  31. pic.twitter.com/bRzysO6C1C: https://t.co/bRzysO6C1C
  32. February 5, 2016: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell/status/695711390405758976
  33. https://t.co/TbxnugmR9I: https://t.co/TbxnugmR9I
  34. pic.twitter.com/S8QstAtwGA: https://t.co/S8QstAtwGA
  35. May 5, 2016: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell/status/728359916382072832
  36. @johnffarrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  37. #commonbound: https://twitter.com/hashtag/commonbound?src=hash
  38. pic.twitter.com/LLTK8qzflx: https://t.co/LLTK8qzflx
  39. July 9, 2016: https://twitter.com/stacyfmitchell/status/751805309400875008
  40. https://t.co/A5ysb5taAA: https://t.co/A5ysb5taAA
  41. pic.twitter.com/tWB3nHez4O: https://t.co/tWB3nHez4O
  42. October 10, 2016: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell/status/785584205166092288
  43. https://t.co/AOUqtdx1ZV: https://t.co/AOUqtdx1ZV
  44. pic.twitter.com/GaH5kt5P4v: https://t.co/GaH5kt5P4v
  45. November 18, 2016: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell/status/799641605045178368
  46. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  47. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  48. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-2016-in-review/


New Year’s Resolutions for Electric Utilities, Happy 2017!

by Karlee Weinmann | December 26, 2016 12:00 pm

The turn of the year is a perfect time for monopoly electric utilities nationwide to reflect on their substandard policies and embrace changes that will bring cleaner, more affordable energy to their customers. By finally committing to truly support distributed generation and renewables, these utilities can ensure their customers will have the choice and freedom they deserve in an evolving energy economy.

In 2017, fair-minded and forward-thinking monopoly electric utility CEOs will resolve…

…to not impose fixed fees[1] that undermine the value of customer-owned renewable generation.

…to not stop customers from installing solar[2].

…to encourage engagement among member-owners[3] if the utility is a cooperative.

…to be honest with my customers[4] about the proven benefits of distributed solar power.

…to recognize that the traditional utility business model is outdated[5], and to find new ways to support customer choice.

…to maximize demand response and energy efficiency[6] before building out new capacity.

…to support inclusive financing[7] to allow universal access to efficiency upgrades and on-site renewables.

…to support local jobs[8] by encouraging renewable energy and energy efficiency installations.

…to seek new business models[9] that align my financial interest with that of utility customers.

…to focus more on the benefits for utility customers[10], rather than the profits of utility shareholders.

Share the infographic below, or the individual resolutions above, to tell electric utilities that valuing renewable energy is good for their customers, good for their business, and good for the United States’ grid.

[11]
Created by Nick Stumo-Langer

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[12]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[13] or Karlee Weinmann[14] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[15] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. not impose fixed fees: https://ilsr.org/zapped-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair/
  2. not stop customers from installing solar: https://ilsr.org/in-floridas-fight-for-renewables-new-co-op-network-eyes-solar/
  3. encourage engagement among member-owners: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/
  4. be honest with my customers: https://ilsr.org/changing-the-language-of-renewable-energy-the-electric-monopolys-newest-ploy/
  5. recognize that the traditional utility business model is outdated: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  6. maximize demand response and energy efficiency: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/
  7. support inclusive financing: https://ilsr.org/report-inclusive-energy-financing/
  8. support local jobs: https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/
  9. seek new business models: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  10. focus more on the benefits for utility customers: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/
  11. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Resolutions-for-Utilities-v3.png
  12. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  13. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  14. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  15. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2017-electric-utility-resolutions/


Dear Santa…ILSR’s Federal Energy Policy Wish List

by Karlee Weinmann | December 20, 2016 6:00 am

A new administration critical of clean energy[1] imposes vast uncertainty on a U.S. energy sector that in recent years has tiptoed toward greater local control and increased renewable energy generation. This year, our federal policy wish list includes a series of items that would keep up the trend and deliver economic benefits to communities nationwide.

This infographic spotlights our most sought-after policies, and while it would be nice if Santa could deliver them this week, we likely must rely instead on incoming federal officials to drive changes.

[2]
Created by Nick Stumo-Langer

 

Clean Energy Incentives

Extend clean energy incentives, using cash rewards in place of the federal tax credits. Offering cash incentives for solar, wind, and other projects lowers the barrier to building them[3], opening the field to more market participants and reducing the need for Wall Street financiers.

Conversely, without tax credits or a cash substitute, the federal government could impose a fee on fossil fuel users based on the amount of carbon and other pollutants they emit. Measures designed to favor renewable generation, such as other countries’ carbon taxes[4] or Minnesota’s “value of solar” policy[5], could serve as models.

 

Include Proximity in Cost of Energy Produced

Update PURPA, the federal law passed in 1978 to promote renewable energy generation[6], to explicitly incorporate the cost of power delivery in avoided cost. A more comprehensive calculation would reward projects built near substations for putting less strain on the grid, boosting their compensation.

 

Competitive Bidding for Transmission Projects

Require all transmission projects under federal jurisdiction to undergo a competitive bidding process that includes non-wires alternatives[7], ensuring the chosen method is the best way to meet the need.

 

Antitrust Enforcement in Electric Utilities

Ask the Justice Department to study the implications of consolidation in the U.S. electricity industry. A steady flow of mergers and acquisitions[8] in the power sector has stifled competition, with likely implications for consumers.

 

Electric Vehicle Funding

Earmark Federal Highway Administration funds for electric vehicle infrastructure development, continuing work accelerated under the Obama administration[9].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[10]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[11] or Karlee Weinmann[12] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[13] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. critical of clean energy: https://ilsr.org/trump-white-house-energy-questions/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Holiday-Wish-List-Infographic-Final.png
  3. lowers the barrier to building them: https://ilsr.org/further-thoughts-on-the-economics-of-losing-the-federal-solar-tax-credit/
  4. other countries’ carbon taxes: https://www.carbontax.org/where-carbon-is-taxed/british-columbia/
  5. “value of solar” policy: http://www.ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-of-solar/
  6. to promote renewable energy generation: https://ilsr.org/can-a-40-year-old-law-let-more-customers-exit-the-grid/
  7. non-wires alternatives: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  8. steady flow of mergers and acquisitions: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/making-sense-of-q1s-monster-ma-activity-in-the-power-sector/418413/
  9. accelerated under the Obama administration: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/03/obama-administration-announces-new-actions-accelerate-deployment
  10. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  11. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  12. Karlee Weinmann: http://twitter.com/karleeweinmann
  13. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dear-santa-wish-list/


Composting Cultivates Economic Development (Episode 7)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 15, 2016 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode seven of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Linda Bilsens, Project Manager of ILSR’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program. Bilsens explains how producing compost from food scraps builds local economic development, fights climate change, and cultivates community.

Chris and Linda discuss how both individuals and communities can partake in rebuilding their local soils by composting organic materials. Check out the further information on our composting work here: Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders training program[6]. Contact Linda Bilsens[7] if you’re interested in replicating this program.

“The communities that are embracing this…that I’ve seen that they’re tired of waiting for someone else to do something,” says Bilsens of the powerful benefits that composting can have on communities.

If you missed the first episodes of our podcast you can find those conversations with Olivia LaVecchia here[8], Neil Seldman here[9], John Farrell here[10], David Morris here[11], Lisa Gonzalez here[12], and Stacy Mitchell here[13]. Also to see all of our episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[14]. View the full transcript of the podcast, below.

Linda Bilsens: We throw away quite a bit of material each year. More than 50% of what we throw away is actually compostable. We actually throw away about 38 million tons of food waste each year, and only 5% of that is composted, which I think is crazy.
Chris Mitchell: That sounds pretty crazy. I think maybe we should talk about it for the next 20 minutes or so.
Linda Bilsens: Sounds good.
Chris Mitchell: You’re Linda Bilsens, the program manager for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program. I’m Chris Mitchell. I do broadband-type stuff for the institute focusing on locally-owned networks, but I also interview people at ILSR about building local power. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. I’d like to start out a little bit wide since this is the first time we’re talking about composting on building local power and just ask you, sure, those are big numbers that you just threw out, but why should we care about composting?
Linda Bilsens: I was asking myself the same question a few years ago when I first starting getting into composting. Basically I got into composting because I wanted to be able to grow my own food, so I started gardening and working on farms. When it came down to it, the soil is pretty much what makes all of that possible. If you’re going to be growing in the same place over and over again, you have to add back what you take away, and composting is the way that you do that. So I basically came to composting because I wanted to grow my own food.
Chris Mitchell: One of the things that I think is interesting about composting as well as many components of our waste stream is that you can pretty much do it anywhere. Is that right?
Linda Bilsens: Yep, absolutely. You don’t need a lot of infrastructure to make it happen especially at the small scale, so that’s pretty much we focus on is just getting people started. There are some lessons to learn about how to do it a little bit better without running into some of the nuisance problems that you could otherwise come across, but in general it’s really you just got to go start doing it.
Chris Mitchell: If we were to see hundreds of communities doing that around the nation, in what ways would that contribute to more local power do you think? Aside from just having better soils, how would the community benefit if they were putting energy into these kinds of programs?
Linda Bilsens  The main reasons that get me excited about this work is that composting is something that you don’t really have to wait for a government program or a business to provide a service. You can basically start doing it today. Because as long as you’re producing waste, which we all do, if you eat any food, if you cook at all, if you have a backyard or a garden, you have stuff to compost. Instead of throwing it in your garbage bin, if you have any space or a community garden, you can start composting that today and see a tangible product in a few months time.
Chris Mitchell: My wife is very supportive of composting, and we got into it a number of years ago. I’ll say two immediate impacts in our household that I wouldn’t say are about building local power but just were interesting to me is that most of our trash disappeared. It turned out that we cook a fair amount, so a lot of our trash was stuff that we could compost. Then the second thing is that we don’t have to take our trash out as often …
Linda Bilsens: Totally.
Chris Mitchell:  … because we’re mostly throwing away plastic or other things that is not going to rot in our kitchen, so we could wait until the bag was more full to take that trip out that nobody wants to do.
Linda Bilsens: Totally.
Chris Mitchell: So those are concrete effects.
Linda Bilsens: You’re actually taking out the smelliest part of your waste as well, which is pretty exciting, I think, and you’re doing something productive with it at the same time.
 Chris Mitchell: What else were you going to say in terms of what helps us build local power?
Linda Bilsens With the community composting scale, which is really what we tend to prioritize, is that you have this opportunity to … It’s like another opportunity to connect with your neighbors and your neighborhood. It’s another opportunity to come together and work on something together for a common end goal. Here in DC, around a number of the community gardens that exist, there are about 40 or so, you see people of diverse backgrounds coming together and working together on something as simple as compost. There’s just kind of a touchpoint for the community. I think it gives us another opportunity for common ground, another opportunity to interact with each other, get to know each other, which I think is pretty critical if you want to come together to exert any sort of local power.
Chris Mitchell: Some people have started businesses, too. I mean this isn’t just something one does to make one’s self feel better. You could actually start a small business doing this.
Linda Bilsens: Definitely. It still requires you to be quite entrepreneurial at this stage. I think that we don’t really value compost or soil or the other benefits that comes from composting enough for it to be something that just anybody could start up, but I think if you’re entrepreneurial and you’re dedicated to it, you can definitely start a business.
Chris Mitchell: Let’s talk about the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilder Program. What exactly is that? What do we do at ILSR around this issue?
Linda Bilsens: The full title is the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Program. That’s pretty much what it is it’s a composter training program. It’s built off of what is more broadly known as the Master Composter model. This is offered throughout the country, and it’s often offered in conjunction with a master gardener program, which more people would be familiar with likely. Yeah, there’s like at least 50 plus programs around the country. There’s probably more, but that’s the number that we identified a couple of years when we were surveying. It’s all about giving people the basic tools that they need to start composting. What differs for us and I think the title makes the point, is that we’re focusing on neighborhoods not just backyards, so we focus on community composting which involves not just one household but a number of households or a community of some sort.
Chris Mitchell: Is this something that it’s just white people do? I think that a lot of people might think, “Oh, composting. It’s the latest trend in counterculture, white folks.” I suspect that’s not been your experience.
Linda Bilsens: Definitely not. What excites me so much about composting and what I’ve witnessed here in the DC community in particular but also in the Baltimore community where we just started working is that it is empowering for everyone. Composting is an opportunity to take control of what would be a waste and make it a resource. I think that’s appealing to most everybody. I do think that whether it’s immigrant populations or groups of immigrants that are just coming over that come from agriculturely focused countries, or anybody that’s interested in growing their own food for the various reasons that someone might be interested in that, composting is a natural complement to all of that. So I do think it’s appealing to just about anybody. Especially with the inequalities that we see in our food system, it’s really a compelling tool for any community.
Chris Mitchell: I see that. It’s interesting that [you’re 00:07:58] worked and we have programs that are related as far away as Atlanta and Lincoln, Nebraska. Is there anything that you find interesting about the kind of communities that are embracing this?
Linda Bilsens: The communities that are embracing this, there is a common thread that I’ve seen. It’s basically people who are just tired of waiting for somebody else to do something.
Chris Mitchell: That’s great.
Linda Bilsens: Yeah. I mean it’s just this really simple … It almost seems silly. Composting to some people seems silly, but once you start doing it and you actually see that you can create something and you’re also helping address a number of other big problems that we as a humanity face, it’s pretty inspiring stuff.
Chris Mitchell: Let’s talk about one of those in particular. How does composting interface with climate change?
Linda Bilsens: By composting, we’re taking out this huge chunk of the waste stream that otherwise ends up in landfills or incinerators. I think that food waste in specific is the largest portion of waste that ends up being incinerated or landfilled in the United States, so you’re taking it away from being burned or from sitting in a landfill. Also food waste in particular, organic materials, when they decompose in anaerobic conditions, they basically create a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It creates methane.
Chris Mitchell: A different way of saying that, of course, when they rot, bad things happen, right?
Linda Bilsens: Totally. There’s ground water pollution. There’s air pollution. There’s always bad things that can come from it, so you’re kind of avoiding that.
Chris Mitchell: Right, and rotting is not composting.
Linda Bilsens: Nope, nope. Though I do hear people in the composting world say, “Rot on,” as like a “Rock on.” Though I think rotting is not necessarily a negative term, yeah, you don’t want to putrefy things. You want things to decompose properly.
Chris Mitchell: That’s a good word, putrefy. You think rot, it’s kind of a word that makes you think of nasty things, but then putrefy is yet another level up.
Linda Bilsens: Definitely. Another benefit to the climate from composting has to do with the carbon sequestration potential of healthy soil, and compost is an important amendment to keeping soil healthy. By improving the quality of the soil, you improve the biology of the soil, which is tied to the ability of soil to sequester carbon, basically pulling it out of the atmosphere and holding on to it, but you also grow more plants which also sequester carbons. So it’s really exciting. This is a new field that I think is gaining traction now, but it’s kind of a hot topic.
Chris Mitchell: It is. In fact some very powerful people have become more interested in it. Can you tell us about a surprise guest that you had over last winter?
Linda Bilsens: My husband and I had been nominated basically to be featured as part of what we thought was an HGTV special on urban farming. Home and Garden Television was supposedly coming to DC, and they wanted to feature some community gardens in the DC area to show how cool urban ag is. My husband was arranging all this. After a few visits with what we thought was HGTV staff, we had this interview. So we arrive in our backyard, and there’s 20 plus people kind of crawling around. We start this interview with Home and Garden Television. As we’re answering a random question about how we started the garden and what did we do to the soil to improve it, as my husband’s in the middle of answering, up behind us comes this voice. We turn and it happens to be the First Lady Michelle Obama so both of us completely awestruck and speechless.
Chris Mitchell: I can imagine.
Linda Bilsens: I’m pretty sure I squealed actually.
Chris Mitchell: There’s probably video evidence of that.
Linda Bilsens: Oh, yeah. No, I’ve heard it lots of times at this point. I’m certain of it. Yeah, so she surprised us. We totally got pumped by Michelle Obama, and it was pretty exciting.
Chris Mitchell: That’s great. Do you have a sense, then, that this is something that is catching on around the country?
Linda Bilsens: Yeah. No, absolutely. Though Michelle Obama’s visit was fantastic and such an honor and it was exciting to see somebody that prominent supporting or interested in what we were doing because she was technically there to see the garden. But as soon as we brought up the concept of composting and how important it is to us maintaining our garden and the importance of not wasting that food, she wanted to go see the composting system. So she led the entire camera team through our tiny little walkway to the composting system, and she wanted to test out the compost sifter that we have. She totally understood why we were doing what we were doing, and she was excited about it, and she was very complimentary of it. It was really exciting to see that. Also through the rest of our work and the Composting for Community Project under which the NSR falls …
Chris Mitchell: That’s the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program, NSR?
Linda Bilsens: Yes. Through the rest of our work in the Composting for Community Project under which the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program falls, we’re getting a chance to work with community composters from around the country, so it’s certainly something that is growing in terms of a movement.
Chris Mitchell: What’s the best place to go for people that want to learn more about it and how they might get involved?
Linda Bilsens: Our webpage on the ILSR website would be a great place to start. That’s the neighborhoodsoilrebuilders.org. Other places that they might look for information would be BioCycle. It’s a magazine for the composting industry. Nora Goldstein, who’s a close friend of the institute, she’s the editor of that magazine. Composting at the community scale is a passion for hers as much as it is for us. So those are two great places to start.
Chris Mitchell: Wonderful. We’d like to end this show by asking for a recommendation for something to read: article, book, maybe even a podcast, who knows? What’s something interesting you’ve heard or read that you want to share with people?
Linda Bilsens: A couple of things come to mind. The Marin Carbon Project in California is putting out lots of interesting research papers on the topic of carbon sequestration and soil and compost in particular, so if anybody’s interested in that, they’re a great source for information. There’s also a series about the inequality in our food system and how to address that I’ve been fully making my way through. It’s actually a publication called Food First, The Institute for Food and Development Policy. There’s a series that they put out recently about dismantling racism in the food system, which I think is really eye opening. It gets me motivated.
Chris Mitchell: Excellent. I think those are very interesting recommendations. I’ll be checking them out myself. Thank you for taking some time to tell us more about the composting work and why it’s relevant, how it can build local power.
Linda Bilsens: Thanks Chris.
Lisa Gonzalez That was Linda Bilsens, program manager for the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Program at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance talking with Chris Mitchell about the program and how composting contributes to local power. Learn more about the program at ilsr.org/initiatives/composting. Subscribe to this podcast and all of the podcasts in the ILSR family on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Never miss out on our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music licensed through Creative Commons. The song is “Funk Interlude.” I’m Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks for listening to Episode Number 7 of our building local power podcast.

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[15] Building Local Power on iTunes[16] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[17]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[18]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[19] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[20] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[21] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[22] and Facebook[23] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[24] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2016-12-08-blp007-linda-neighborhood-composting.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2016-12-08-blp007-linda-neighborhood-composting.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders training program: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  7. Linda Bilsens: mailto:lbilsens@ilsr.org
  8. here: https://ilsr.org/dark-store-tax-dodge-episode-1-of-building-local-power-podcast/
  9. here: https://ilsr.org/the-true-value-of-recycling-episode-2-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  10. here: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. here: https://ilsr.org/powering-a-political-revolution-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  12. here: https://ilsr.org/broadband-boosted-at-the-ballot-episode-5-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  13. here: https://ilsr.org/amazons-growing-stranglehold-episode-6-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  14. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  15. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  17. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  18. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  19. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  20. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  21. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  22. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  23. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  24. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/composting-economic-development-episode-7-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Decentralizing Economic Power, Reinvigorating Democracy: ILSR’s Impact in 2016

by ILSR | December 15, 2016 6:00 am

Image: Donate Button[1]ILSR’s forward-thinking, bottom-up solutions have never been more needed.   Please help us expand our impact in 2017 by making a donation[2] to ILSR.


[3]
Download the Report[4]

As we head into a turbulent era of government, the values and goals of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) remain steadfast. Every day we help communities tap into their own power to build a more democratic, equitable, and sustainable future. Our 2016 Annual Report: Decentralizing Economic Power, Reinvigorating Democracy[5] illustrates how ILSR’s initiatives have gained important victories, connected with people across the country, and moved the needle on our most important economic and political conversations.

With the generosity of people like you, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has been at the forefront of advancing policies and models that support locally driven economies while protecting the climate and reducing inequality. Please take a look through our annual report[6] and donate to support our work[7].

Here’s a look at a few highlights from 2016 and what lies ahead for 2017:

    • Working alongside grassroots groups, ILSR is changing the rules so that decentralized solar energy, once viewed as a bit player, is beginning to displace centralized, utility monopolies. This year, we launched a Community Power Map[8] to illustrate these successes, and in 2017, we’ll add a power-packed toolkit to help communities across the country take charge of their energy future.
    • Scores of communities have drawn on ILSR’s resources and expertise as they have built publicly owned telecommunications networks that offer a viable alternative to the big telecom monopolies. Thanks in large part to our work, Federal Communications Chair Tom Wheeler told members of Congress[9] this year that the restoration of local municipal broadband authority should be their “A-Number One” priority. We’ll be working to help more cities exercise that authority in 2017.
    • ILSR’s widely-covered report, Amazon’s Stranglehold[10], brought new attention to the consequences of corporate concentration and inspired many leaders to join us in calling for a renewal of our once-robust anti-monopoly policies. As we fought concentrated power, we also worked alongside  allies that represent tens of thousands of independent businesses to enact new local and state policies that expand access to capital, address rapidly rising rents, and enable local businesses to thrive.

(more…)[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Institute-For-Local-Self-Reliance
  2. making a donation: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Institute-For-Local-Self-Reliance
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ILSR_AnnualReport_2016_FINAL.pdf
  4. Download the Report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ILSR_AnnualReport_2016_FINAL.pdf
  5. 2016 Annual Report: Decentralizing Economic Power, Reinvigorating Democracy: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ILSR_AnnualReport_2016_FINAL.pdf
  6. annual report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ILSR_AnnualReport_2016_FINAL.pdf
  7. donate to support our work: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Institute-For-Local-Self-Reliance
  8. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  9. Federal Communications Chair Tom Wheeler told members of Congress: https://ilsr.org/local-internet-authority-a-number-one-priority-for-congress-says-wheeler/
  10. Amazon’s Stranglehold: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
  11. (more…): https://ilsr.org/2016-annual-report/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2016-annual-report/


Fact Sheet on Minnesota’s Rural Digital Divide

by Lisa Gonzalez | December 5, 2016 12:14 pm

The fact sheet highlights the great work that Minnesota cooperatives and municipalities have done to bring fast, affordable, reliable Internet service to rural areas throughout the state. They’ve built many Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks, but there is still much work to do.

One in 4 Minnesotans lives in a rural area, and of those rural households, 43 percent lack access to broadband, defined by the FCC as 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload. Resilient, robust, fiber is the long-term goal, but fixed wireless can help extend coverage in hard-to-reach rural areas.

Download the fact sheet and pass it on.

See all of our Community Network Fact Sheets[1] here.

Read ongoing coverage related to these networks at ILSR’s site devoted to Community Broadband Networks[2].  You can also subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks.[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Network Fact Sheets: http://muninetworks.org/fact-sheets
  2. Community Broadband Networks: http://MuniNetworks.org
  3. subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks.: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fact-sheet-on-minnesotas-rural-digital-divide/


2016 World Soil Day: Benefits of Composting Infographic Posters

by Brenda Platt | December 5, 2016 6:00 am

placeholderDecember 5th is World Soil Day, on this day we celebrate the eminent power of soil reinforced with compost. In 2002, the International Union of Soil Sciences declared December 5th as World Soil Day[1] “to celebrate the importance of soil as a critical component of the natural system and as a vital contributor to human wellbeing.” In 2013, when the resolution was introduced to the full United Nations General Assembly, it was passed unanimously.

Check out our newly printable and shareable infographic pages:

One Person’s Trash…[2] | Composting Enhances Soils and Protects Watersheds[3]

Composting Protects the Climate[4] | Composting Creates Jobs[5] | What Can You Do?[6]

On this World Soil Day, we are pointing to the vast benefits that locally-based composting has in improving soil.

“The dust storms and floods of the last few years have underscored the importance to control soil erosion. I need not emphasize the seriousness of the problem and the desirability of our taking effective action, as a Nation and in the several States, to conserve the soil as our basic asset. The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt, Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law, Feb. 26, 1937

With almost 30% of U.S. cropland eroding above soil tolerance levels – meaning the long-term ability of the soil to sustain plant growth is in jeopardy – these words ring as true today as they did in 1937. FDR was responding to the devastation wreaked by the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Today, much of the western United States remains under severe drought conditions. In the East, we’ve had our share of droughts but extreme storms seem to be reigning lately. Enhancing the ability of soil to retain water, slow stormwater run-off, and resist erosion is vital to life on this planet as we know it.

Fortunately we have one fairly simple solution: amending soil with compost. Compost-amended soil enhances soil properties, stems soil erosion, and protects against soil desertification. In addition, compost converts wasted food and resources into a valuable asset.

In honor of World Soil Day, we are releasing our popular compost infographic as a series of individual printable and shareable images. Check out the original post here: Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think[7].

compost-infographic-18x23-pg1[8]

compost-infographic-18x23-pg2[9]

compost-infographic-18x23-pg3[10]

compost-infographic-18x23-pg4[11]

compost-infographic-18x23-pg5[12]

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[13] and Facebook[14] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[15] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. World Soil Day: http://www.fao.org/global-soil-partnership/world-soil-day/background/en/
  2. One Person’s Trash…: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg1.jpg
  3. Composting Enhances Soils and Protects Watersheds: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg2.jpg
  4. Composting Protects the Climate: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg3.jpg
  5. Composting Creates Jobs: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg4.jpg
  6. What Can You Do?: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg5.jpg
  7. Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts/
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg1.jpg
  9. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg2.jpg
  10. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg3.jpg
  11. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg4.jpg
  12. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Compost-Infographic-18x23-Pg5.jpg
  13. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  14. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  15. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/world-soil-day-2016/


The Public Good Newsfeed – December 1, 2016: The Perils of Privatization

by David Morris | December 1, 2016 3:00 pm

placeholderA selection of recent news stories with an ILSR insight into “The Public Good.”

Stories in this Newsfeed:

The Privatization of Everything[1] |  Privatizing Education[2] | Privatizing the Oceans[3]

Privatizing Municipal Services[4] | A Resource Guide to Privatization[5]

The outcome of the Presidential election will make the word “privatization” will become central to our political conversations. We should be mindful that the privatization movement did not start with Donald Trump, nor has it solely been a Republican initiative. For those wanting to familiarize themselves with the already pervasive nature of that movement and its problematic impact, we offer a few choice readings.


29The Privatization of Everything

Talking Points Memo[6] (TPM) has an excellent primer on privatization. The Hidden History of the Privatization of Everything[7] consists of three essays by experts in the field.

Donald Cohen, founder and Executive Director of In the Public Interest, offers a sobering review of the rapid growth of privatization from an idea to a movement to dominance.

He notes:

  • Private prisons didn’t exist thirty years ago. Today, publicly traded, billion-dollar corporations are key players in prisons and immigrant detention. Privatized immigration facilities now house over two-thirds of all detained immigrants.
  • Twenty-five years ago charter schools did not exist. Today, nearly 3 million children attend charters, and large corporate chains and billionaires are funding the rapid growth of privatized, publicly funded charters.
  • Former defense contractors, IT corporations and publicly traded corporations are running welfare, food assistance, and other safety net systems in many states across the country.
  • Today the federal government employs more than three times as many contract workers as government workers,

Journalist David Dayen, reports on the true cost of private prisons:

“Actual housing of convicts in prisons and jails is only one part–perhaps the smallest part–of the overall industry revenue stream. Private companies seek to pull profits from the moment someone is suspected of a crime to the final day they meet with a parole officer. Private industry transports prisoners, operates prison bank accounts, sells prescription drugs, prepares inmate food, and manages health care, prison phone and computer time. And that’s just the start. The money comes from the taxpayer, in state and federal contracts, and the suspects, inmates, and parolees themselves, in fees and add-ons. Those caught in the web represent what marketers would call the ultimate “captive audience”: there is no way to shop around for a better deal.”

… private prison companies can prosper whether the incarceration rate expands or lowers, by controlling the other ends of the pipeline, from pre-trial supervision to post-prison re-entry. The greatest source of profits now comes from federal contracts to detain, transfer, and deport undocumented immigrants. The more toxic the immigration debate becomes, the more advantage for-profit corporations take.”

Journalist Erika Eichelberger describes how privatization circumscribes public control and actions.

“In 2006, the city leased four major parking garages to a Morgan Stanley-led firm for $563 million[8]. In 2009, Morgan Stanley sued the city for threatening its profits by allowing a nearby building to open a public garage. Chicago had to pay $62 million[9] to settle.

In 2008, Mayor Daley sold off 36,000 city parking meters[10] to another Morgan Stanley-backed company, with little[11] public input. It was later revealed that the deal was undervalued[12] by $1 billion. Meter rates skyrocketed from $3 an hour to $6.50 an hour. And the firm charged the city millions[13] for violating the contract by putting certain meters out of use for street repairs, parades, and festivals, and for giving free parking permits to people with disabilities…

Between 1994 and 2006, 43 highways[14] became so-called public-private partnerships, according to a 2009 report by the Frontier Group. Many toll road contracts include[15] provisions discouraging[16] governments from improving or expanding nearby public routes in order to funnel traffic—money—to the privatized road…

Virginia’s 2006 contract with two private firms to build toll lanes on the Capital Beltway requires[17] the state to compensate the companies whenever carpools exceed 24 percent of traffic in carpool lanes for the next forty years—‘or until the builders make $100 million in profits.’

The state of Indiana had to reimburse[18] the private company operating the Indiana Toll Road $447,000 in 2008 because the state waived the tolls of people who had to evacuate during severe flooding. The company also refused[19] to allow state troopers to close the toll road during a snowstorm because it would hurt profits…

Some 700[20] jurisdictions across the country have elected to privatize transportation policy on the traffic enforcement side as well, in the form of red light cameras. These are the cameras mounted at intersections that take a photo of your license plate when you run a red light. The company will then issue the ticket, usually after approval by local authorities.

Some of these firms require[21] cities to approve a fixed percentage of all tickets in order to guarantee the company a certain level of income, thereby eliminating local judicial discretion. Some companies impose[22] financial penalties on municipalities that make safety improvements at intersections if those improvements could affect the volume of tickets a company can issue…

‘When you sell off public assets to private parties basically what you’ve done is absolutely confined the ability of the public sector to dictate the terms by which public good is determined,’ Mac McCarthy, president of the Lincoln Institute for Land says. ‘[Private] contract becomes law.’”


Milpitas School District Solar Carports 2Privatizing Education

Back in 2011 Diane Ravitch, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, and President of The Network for Public Education, in a terrific piece in the Saturday Evening Post, declared[23],  “The media tell you that other nations have higher test scores than ours and that they are shooting past us in the race for global competitiveness. The pundits say it’s because our public schools are overrun with incompetent, lazy teachers who can’t be fired and have a soft job for life. Don’t believe it. It’s not true.”

She noted that these complaints have been repeated over the last 60 years, a time during which the United States became the world’s most innovative, technologically advanced and economically powerful and prosperous nation.  “Is it possible that we succeeded not because of test scores but because our society encourages something more important than test scores: the freedom to create, innovate, imagine, and think differently?”

Ravitch addresses the crucial publicness of public schools.

“Since the 1840s, our public schools have been a bulwark of our democratic society. Over time, they have opened their doors to every student in the community regardless of that student’s race, religion, language, disability, economic standing, or origin…

With this openness, there is a price to be paid: Our public school teachers have one of the most difficult jobs in society. Their classes include children who are recent immigrants, many of whom don’t speak or read English; they include children who have social, emotional, mental, and physical disabilities; they include children who live in desperate poverty….

Our schools are now expected to educate all children, whatever their condition. In 1975, Congress mandated special education for children with disabilities. It promised to pay 40 percent of the cost but has never followed through…”

“(Later) (i)nstead of sending the vast sums of money that schools needed to make a dent in its goal, Congress simply sent testing mandates to every school. It required that every child in every school must reach proficiency by 2014—or the schools would be subject to sanctions. If a school failed to make progress over five years, it might be closed or privatized or handed over to the state authorities or turned into a charter school. There was no evidence for the efficacy of any of these strategies, but that didn’t matter.

Setting an impossible goal, providing inadequate resources to pursue that goal, and then firing educators and closing schools for failing to reach it is cruel and unusual punishment…

Charter schools on average do not produce better academic results than regular public schools. As charters proliferate, regular public schools lose students and funding, and many charters try to avoid the students who are most costly and difficult to educate…

Piece by piece, our entire public education system is being redesigned in the service of increasing scores on standardized tests of basic skills. That’s not good policy, and it won’t improve education. Twelve years of rewarding children for picking the right answer on multiple-choice tests is bad education. It will penalize the creativity, innovativeness, and imaginativeness that has made this country great.”

In late 2016 AlterNet,[24] one of the most widely read sources of information from a progressive perspective, examined the role of charter schools more deeply in an eBook, Who Controls Our Schools?[25]

Many will be surprised to discover, that charter schools were first proposed by the head of a major teachers union.  Albert Shanker viewed them as vehicles that would allow liberate teachers from stifling bureaucratic rules and allow them the freedom to experiment with different education strategies.  Lessons learned would be used to improve public schools.

But soon the charter movement became a vehicle, not to improve the public school system, but to hobble and eventually eliminate it. Conservatives, whose proposal for education vouchers, had been consistently rejected by voters, viewed charters as a way of achieving the same goal:  the privatization of public education. The Walton Family Foundation, for example, which initially supported a school voucher movement, has spent more than $1.3 billion on K-12 education and boasts it has given seed funding to one-in-four charter schools.

As charters expanded investors became interested in this huge new potentially lucrative sector. When media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced in 2010 that News Corp. planned to enter the for-profit K-12 education market, he called it “a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed.” (Today that figure is more than $600 billion.)

Democrats as well as Republicans jumped aboard the charter train.  When Bill Clinton’s Presidency began, the U.S. had a single charter school. When it ended, there were more than 2,000. The Bush Administration made state acceptance of charters a requirement for receiving billions of dollars in education federal funds. The Obama administration reinforced that policy.

In 2014 three million students attended 6,700 charter schools, an increase of 70 percent since 2009. Forty percent were part of corporate chains or franchises.

Who Controls Our Schools?[26] also examines the impact of privatization on the long American tradition of local control of education and on minority and poor communities.

“New Orleans, Detroit, New York, Chicago, Columbus, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, the District of Columbia, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Houston have all seen elected school boards upended by privatization. Collectively, these cit­ies experienced the forced closure of more than seven hundred public schools and replacement by charters, according to a May 2014 report by Journey for Justice Alliance[27], a nationwide coalition of community groups as well as youth and parent organizations in twenty-one cities. ‘America’s predominantly black and Latino communities are expe­riencing an epidemic of public school closures,’ their report begins. ‘We need the American people to know that the public education sys­tems in our communities are dying,’ their report continues.”


28Privatizing the Oceans

Award winning investigative reporter Lee Van der Voo has written a blockbuster of a book about something most people are unaware of:  the privatization of our oceans.

Fish Market: Inside the Big Money Battle for the Ocean & Your Dinner Plate[28] notes the rise of a cap-and-trade arrangement for fish.  To reduce overfishing, governments create caps on the amount of fish that can be caught.  Then they dole out the rights to fish them among qualifying entities.

“(O)nce those rights are awarded by the government, whoever holds that slice of the pie holds exclusive access to a corresponding percentage of fish. Those rights are privately controlled after that… Now the rights to catch fish are private market assets that trade hotter in places like Alaska than brick-and-mortar real estate.

The private property rights attending catch shares had locked many fishermen and even whole communities out of the oceans. Catch shares created powerful landlords on water and as those landlords grew more powerful, catch shares were converting fishermen from proud family-business sorts into sharecroppers who were leasing their access to the sea from wealthy and increasingly corporate power brokers.”

In a review of Van der Voo’s book, Larry Getlen comments:

“Regulators would cap the number of fish that could be caught, but the right to fish then would be doled out, like property, to the people that had historically fished them…

“Those who own the rights to fish a certain area can rent or sell them like feudal landlords, in perpetuity. That means fishermen, who used to freely fish certain areas, now have to rent those same areas from absentee landlords.

“The bizarre setup means owners of fishing boats have become the equivalent of Uber drivers for share owners who take anywhere from 50 percent to 75 percent of the profit.”

Owners of less than 20 percent of a boat are required to be aboard any vessel catching their fish, but are not required to fish. This has led to boat owners offering amenities such as “big screen and satellite TVs, massive DVD collections, quality grub and staterooms” to attract share owners aboard to relax while the owner and his crew do the back-breaking work of fishing.”

Getlen continues, “The town of St. George, off the Bering Sea near Alaska, was long home to some of the most robust pollock fishing in the country. But due to a fishing rights management scheme called “catch shares,” the town has no rights to fish its own waters and regularly watches their former industry literally pass them by.

“Every year, the industry takes about $2 billion in gains out of this fish resource on the Bering Sea,” St. George Mayor Pat Pletnikoff tells Lee van der Voo in “The Fish Market[29].” “Not one plug nickel sticks to St. George.”


27Privatizing Municipal Services

“Privatization was supposed to yield greater efficiency due to competitive pressures on private providers to produce quality service at a lower cost. However, after 40 years of experience, this result has not been born out,” writes[30] Cornell Professor Mildred E. Warner.

Warner, an expert on local government and public management maintains:

“One of the keys to cost savings from privatization is competition.  But competitive markets in most public services do not exist. So privatization merely substitutes a private monopoly for a public one. Private providers will reduce service quality to enhance profits – especially if competition is not present.

Contracting out to low competitive markets requires local governments spend so much time managing the market that it cuts into their ability to monitor.”

Increasingly cities are revisiting their original infatuation with privatization.  A 2009 survey[31] by the International City Management Association, found that from 2002 to 2007 cities re-municipalized services as often as they contracted them out.  The reasons? Poor service quality, lack of cost savings, improvements in public delivery, and problems with monitoring.  Another factor was the local political support for bringing the work back in-house. It turns out citizens prefer local services to be locally controlled and publicly delivered.

As Warner notes, cities contract with other governments as well as with for profit corporations. However, bringing the function back into the city is 60 percent more likely when the contract is with a for profit partner.

Inter-municipal cooperation is growing in popularity. Indeed, according to Warner, inter-municipal contracting is now larger than for profit contracting. Local governments view cooperation as an effective way to gain economies of scale, better coordinate services in a region and still keep public control.  Rather than being focused on competition as the basis for efficiency, inter-municipal contracting has successfully built on the positive benefits of cooperation.

In an article in the New York Times Elliot Sclar, a Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University and an expert of privatization, notes[32] that ideology often drives a city’s decision to privatize but in the private sector, ideology rarely plays a role in determining “make or buy” decisions.

“Three factors drive the decision: the number of interactions required between the service supplier and the purchasing organization; the ability of the purchasing organization to judge the quality of the product; and the nature of control over the physical assets and people involved in delivering the goods.

The general rule of thumb is that when the number of interactions is high, quality is not easily determined and control over assets is required, you should keep the function in-house. If the reverse is true, you can outsource.

That is why, for example, it makes perfect sense to hire a contractor to paint city hall every few years but why attempting to privatize something as complex as New York City’s employee record keeping system has proved to be a disaster.

Why is this the case? Because success or failure is connected to the complexity of the organizational relationship between buyer and seller and the amount of information that the public buyer continually needs to assess in determining how the project is progressing. These two factors explain virtually all of the reported failures of privatization for functions like prison medical services or highway construction.”


30A Resource Guide to Privatization

Since opening its doors 8 years ago, the non-profit group, In the Public Interest[33] has established itself as the go-to organization for information about privatization.  Its web site contains a treasure trove of current news and short and long reports on the whole spectrum of privatization-related issues and the experience of privatization in various sectors:  education, prisons, water, infrastructure, childcare, transportation, etc.

In 2014 the organization released a resource guide[34] that allows first timers and old timers to easily navigate its rapidly expanding library.  At the time there were over 35 reports available.  I imagine by now there could easily be 50. The two most recent, published in the fall of 2016, are How Privatization Increases Inequality and The Banks That Finance Private Prison Companies.

A sampling of the titles in their library will give you a taste of the information available.

Closing the Books: How Government Contractors Hide Public Records

The Decision to Contract Out: Understanding the Full Economic and Social Impacts  

Shift: How Taxpayers Began Reclaiming Control of their Public Services

Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations

I particularly like the groups’s ability to synthesize dozens, if not hundreds, of reports into easily digestible, sometimes bite-sized information sheets. A prime example is their brief, and I do mean brief publication, Privatization Myths Debunked[35], which exposes the fallacies of the principal arguments in favor of privatization.

Myth #1:  Privatization saves money

The Truth: Privatization often raises costs for the public and governments

Myth #4:  Privatization allows governmental entities more administrative flexibility.

The Truth:  Privatization requires substantial administrative resources for monitoring and oversight.

Myth #6:  If anything goes wrong, the government can easily fire the contractor or adjust the contract.

The Truth:  Reversing privatization involves huge costs and service interruptions.

Sign-up for our monthly Public Good Newsletter[36] and follow ILSR on Twitter[37] and Facebook[38].

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Endnotes:
  1. The Privatization of Everything: #Everything
  2. Privatizing Education: #Education
  3. Privatizing the Oceans: #Oceans
  4. Privatizing Municipal Services: #Municipal
  5. A Resource Guide to Privatization: #Guide
  6. Talking Points Memo: http://talkingpointsmemo.com
  7. The Hidden History of the Privatization of Everything: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/features/privatization/
  8. $563 million: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/parking-meters-garages-took-in-156m-but-city-wont-see-a-cent/
  9. $62 million: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/parking-meters-garages-took-in-156m-but-city-wont-see-a-cent/
  10. parking meters: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/parking-meters-garages-took-in-156m-but-city-wont-see-a-cent/
  11. little: http://www.afscme.org/news/publications/newsletters/works/works-fall-2013/chicago-parking-meters-an-outsourcing-fiasco
  12. undervalued: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-chicago-meters-audit-idUSBRE89E16J20121015
  13. millions: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/parking-meters-garages-took-in-156m-but-city-wont-see-a-cent/
  14. 43 highways: http://www.frontiergroup.org/sites/default/files/reports/Private-Roads-Public-Costs.pdf
  15. include: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=njlsp
  16. discouraging: http://www.frontiergroup.org/sites/default/files/reports/Private-Roads-Public-Costs.pdf
  17. requires: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=njlsp
  18. reimburse: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=njlsp
  19. refused: https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/1213-Out_of_Control.pdf
  20. 700: http://www.frontiergroup.org/sites/default/files/reports/Caution---Red-Light-Cameras-Ahead---vUS-Web.pdf
  21. require: http://www.alternet.org/story/153093/privatization_nightmare%3A_5_public_services_that_should_never_be_handed_over_to_greedy_corporations
  22. impose: http://www.frontiergroup.org/sites/default/files/reports/Caution---Red-Light-Cameras-Ahead---vUS-Web.pdf
  23. declared: http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/08/16/in-the-magazine/trends-and-opinions/american-schools-crisis.html
  24. AlterNet,: http://www.alternet.org
  25. Who Controls Our Schools?: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.alternet.org/images/Who_Controls_Our_Schools_PDF_Ebook_1_1.pdf
  26. Who Controls Our Schools?: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.alternet.org/images/Who_Controls_Our_Schools_PDF_Ebook_1_1.pdf
  27. Journey for Justice Alliance: http://www.j4jalliance.com
  28. Fish Market: Inside the Big Money Battle for the Ocean & Your Dinner Plate: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250079107
  29. The Fish Market: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-Market-Inside-Big-Money-Battle/dp/1250079101?tag=nypost-20
  30. writes: http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/userfiles/Warner_InsourcingandOutsourcing.pdf
  31. survey: http://icma.org/en/icma/knowledge_network/documents/kn/Document/100267/ICMA_2009_State_of_the_Profession_Survey
  32. notes: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/03/is-privatization-a-bad-deal-for-cities-and-states/when-ideology-drives-decisions
  33. In the Public Interest: https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/?everything=everything
  34. resource guide: https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/Resource-Guide.pdf
  35. Privatization Myths Debunked: http://ucw-cwa.org/sites/ucw-cwa.org/files/itpi_privatization_myths_handout.pdf
  36. Public Good Newsletter: https://ilsr.org/sign-up-for-the-public-good-e-newsletter/
  37. Twitter: http://twitter.com/ilsr
  38. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-public-good-newsfeed-december-1-2016-the-perils-of-privatization/


Media Outlets Cover 2016 Colorado Broadband Ballot Initiatives

by Nick Stumo-Langer | December 1, 2016 8:00 am

Various Sources[1] – November 2 – 19, 2016

On November 8th, 2016, 26 Colorado cities and counties joined[2] 69 of their fellow communities in opting out of the restrictive, anti-municipal broadband state law, SB 152. For years, we at ILSR have been covering the developments in Colorado as voters reclaim local telecommunications authority.

The media, both locally and nationally, took notice of our efforts.

Here’s a roundup of stories in which national, state, and local outlets cited our work and provided information to ensure this vital issue gained coverage. Read more in our story covering the votes[3] and in our podcast about the election[4].

MEDIA COVERAGE – “26 Colorado Communities Opt out of Restrictive State Broadband Law”

Pre-Election Coverage:

+ 26 Colorado Communities Will Vote on Building Their Own Internet Networks[5] by Jason Koebler, Motherboard Vice – November 2nd, 2016

Colorado is the only state in the country that has a ballot measure requirement for locally run networks; 22 other states have different laws that restrict local broadband efforts. With so many cities overwhelmingly voting in favor of local government-run broadband, Mitchell says that Colorado’s law hasn’t quite had the effect CenturyLink would have liked.

“If this is the worst barrier we had to deal with, I don’t think anyone would be complaining,” he said. “It’s not as bad as Nebraska or North Carolina[6], where cities basically can’t do anything under the circumstances of their laws.”

+ How Election Day Can Shape States’ Community Broadband Laws[7] by Craig Settles, CJ Speaks – November 7th, 2016

The time for community broadband champions to engage their newly and re-elected state senators and representatives is from November 9 until January 3. Chris Mitchell of motherboard-vice-logothe Institute for Local Self-Reliance says, “Concerned citizens need to organize and speak out. This is a great time for meeting your state representatives by phone, email, or in-person because the big industry lobbyists work them constantly. Let legislators know this is an important issue and you are watching them.”

+ Communities Are Finally Taking Back Their Broadband Destiny from Big Telecom[8] by Jason Koebler, Motherboard Vice – November 8th, 2016

“I can’t explain how different it feels to me than a few years ago,” Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, told me. “For a few years, we basically tracked every single city that was considering building its own network. Now, we’re struggling to keep up—we don’t even know every city that’s interested in doing this.”

Post-Election Coverage:

+ Colorado Communities Preempt State Muni Broadband Limits [9]by John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable – November 9th, 2016

“We have seen overwhelming support for local Internet choice in Colorado” said the institute’s Christopher Mitchell. “These cities and counties recognize that they cannot count on Comcast and CenturyLink alone to meet local needs.”

dsl-reports-logo[10]+ Colorado Voters Oppose Comcast-Written Protectionist State Law[11] by Karl Bode, DSL Reports – November 9th, 2016

According to the Institute for Local Reliance[12], the voting results haven’t even been close: “Results from ballot initiatives varied by modest degree but all left no doubt that the local electorate want out of SB 152.”

+ Colorado Voters Continue To Shoot Down Awful Comcast-Written Protectionist State Law[13] by Karl Bode, TechDirt – November 9th, 2016

In this week’s election, all 26 of the municipal broadband-related referendums on the ballot in Colorado communities, including Aspen, were approved by relatively wide margins[14]:

“Results from ballot initiatives varied by modest degree but all left no doubt that the local electorate want out of SB 152.”

+ Another Set Of Colorado Counties Vote To Toss Restrictive Law, Permit Municipal Broadband[15] by Kate Cox, The Consumerist – November 10th, 2016

MuniNetworks, which supports and advocates for communities to be able to build networks when they choose, reports that[16] every single one of the 26 local municipal broadband networks on ballots in Colorado Tuesday passed with flying colors.

+ DTNS 2900 – Oh, What Tangled Laws We Weave for ISPs [17]by Daily Tech News Show – November 10, 2016

+ Golden, Lafayette and 24 Colorado communities vote yes on broadband Internet alternatives[18] by Tamara Chuang, The Denver Post [Republished in True Viral News[19]] – November 10th, 2016

The cities of Golden, Lafayette and 24 other Colorado municipalities approved ballot measures Tuesday allowing them to explore the idea of offering their own broadband Internet service. They join 69 other counties and municipalities in the state — or 95 total, according to Community Broadband Networks[20] — who voted in years past to opt out of SB 152.

denverite-logo+ Dozens more Colorado communities rejected SB 152, clearing the way for municipal broadband[21] by Andrew Kenney, Denverite – November 10th, 2016

The law is SB 152, passed by the Colorado legislature in 2005. It effectively bans local governments from providing any kind of television or Internet service — unless they get permission from their voters first.

Gradually, governments around Colorado have been doing just that. Seven counties and 19 municipalities put it to a vote in Colorado this season, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[22], a nonprofit that advocates for municipal broadband.

+ County officials tout options after broadband measure [23]by Katharhynn Heidelberg, Montrose Daily Press – November 13th, 2016 [Subscription Required]

+ Superior, Lafayette to probe potential of municipal broadband[24] by Anthony Hahn, Longmont Times-Call [Republished in Boulder Daily Camera[25], Colorado Hometown Weekly[26], Colorado Daily News[27], and Government Technology[28]] – November 19th, 2016

longmont-times-call-logoA fiber optic network — strands of fiberglass bundled together by sheath either above or below ground — is extremely scalable, according to the Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a non-profit that advocates for municipal broadband. He adds that the material is also capable of supporting Internet use long into the future. …

“The main thing is that (municipalities) now have the freedom to do with it what they want,” Mitchell said. “There are models all over Colorado — certainly cities like Longmont and Centennial. The most important thing is to basically look at different options that are available, but it takes time to do that.

If you are interested in receiving weekly updates from the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance please click here[29], follow MuniNetworks[30] and Christopher Mitchell[31] on Twitter. Original MuniNetworks article available here[32].

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Endnotes:
  1. Various Sources: https://muninetworks.org/content/media-outlets-cover-2016-colorado-broadband-ballot-initiatives
  2. 26 Colorado cities and counties joined: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-26-communities
  3. our story covering the votes: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-26-communities
  4. in our podcast about the election: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-conversation-new-ilsr-podcast
  5. 26 Colorado Communities Will Vote on Building Their Own Internet Networks: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/26-colorado-communities-will-vote-on-building-their-own-internet-networks
  6. Nebraska or North Carolina: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition
  7. How Election Day Can Shape States’ Community Broadband Laws: http://cjspeaks.com/how-election-day-can-shape-states-community-broadband-laws/
  8. Communities Are Finally Taking Back Their Broadband Destiny from Big Telecom: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/communities-are-taking-back-their-broadband-destiny-from-big-telecom
  9. Colorado Communities Preempt State Muni Broadband Limits : http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/colorado-communities-preempt-state-muni-broadband-limits/161028
  10. [Image]: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Colorado-Voters-Oppose-ComcastWritten-Protectionist-State-Law-138297
  11. Colorado Voters Oppose Comcast-Written Protectionist State Law: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Colorado-Voters-Oppose-ComcastWritten-Protectionist-State-Law-138297
  12. Institute for Local Reliance: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-26-communities
  13. Colorado Voters Continue To Shoot Down Awful Comcast-Written Protectionist State Law: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161109/09280136004/colorado-voters-continue-to-shoot-down-awful-comcast-written-protectionist-state-law.shtml
  14. were approved by relatively wide margins: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-26-communities
  15. Another Set Of Colorado Counties Vote To Toss Restrictive Law, Permit Municipal Broadband: https://consumerist.com/2016/11/10/another-set-of-colorado-counties-vote-to-toss-restricive-law-permit-municipal-broadband/
  16. reports that: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-26-communities
  17. DTNS 2900 – Oh, What Tangled Laws We Weave for ISPs : http://www.dailytechnewsshow.com/dtns-2900-oh-what-tangled-laws-we-weave-for-isps/
  18. Golden, Lafayette and 24 Colorado communities vote yes on broadband Internet alternatives: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/09/golden-lafayette-colorado-communities-vote-broadband-internet/
  19. True Viral News: http://trueviralnews.com/golden-lafayette-and-24-colorado-communities-vote-yes-on-broadband-internet-alternatives/
  20. Community Broadband Networks: http://muninetworks.org
  21. [Image]+ Dozens more Colorado communities rejected SB 152, clearing the way for municipal broadband: http://www.denverite.com/dozens-colorado-communities-rejecting-sb-152-clearing-way-new-broadband-projects-22207/
  22. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://muninetworks.org/content/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-26-communities
  23. County officials tout options after broadband measure : http://www.montrosepress.com/news/county-officials-tout-options-after-broadband-measure/article_46e75b52-a965-11e6-9ba2-4335bd792886.html
  24. Superior, Lafayette to probe potential of municipal broadband: http://www.timescall.com/business/ci_30586913/superior-lafayette-probe-potential-municipal-broadband
  25. Boulder Daily Camera: http://www.dailycamera.com/superior-news/ci_30586913/superior-lafayette-probe-potential-municipal-broadband
  26. Colorado Hometown Weekly: http://www.coloradohometownweekly.com/news/lafayette/ci_30586913/superior-lafayette-probe-potential-municipal-broadband
  27. Colorado Daily News: http://www.coloradodaily.com/cu-boulder/ci_30586913/superior-lafayette-probe-potential-municipal-broadband
  28. Government Technology: http://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/Colorado-Jurisdictions-to-Probe-Potential-of-Municipal-Broadband.html
  29. click here: https://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  30. MuniNetworks: http://twitter.com/muninetworks
  31. Christopher Mitchell: http://twitter.com/communitynets
  32. available here: https://muninetworks.org/content/media-outlets-cover-2016-colorado-broadband-ballot-initiatives

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/media-outlets-cover-2016-colorado-broadband-ballot-initiatives/


Amazon’s Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip on the Economy Is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities

by Stacy Mitchell | November 29, 2016 11:27 am

placeholder

Download the report
Download the report[1]

 

For all of its reach, Amazon, the company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1995 as an online bookstore, is still remarkably invisible. It makes it easy not to notice how powerful and wide-ranging it has become. But behind the packages on the doorstep and the inviting interface, Amazon has quietly positioned itself at the center of a growing share of our daily activities and transactions, extending its tentacles across our economy, and with it, our lives.

Today, half of all U.S. households are subscribed to the membership program Amazon Prime, half of all online shopping searches start directly on Amazon, and Amazon captures nearly one in every two dollars that Americans spend online. Amazon sells more books, toys, and by next year, apparel and consumer electronics than any retailer online or off, and is investing heavily in its grocery business. Its market power now rivals or exceeds that of Walmart, and it stands only to grow: Within five years, one-fifth of the U.S.’s $3.6 trillion retail market will have shifted online, and Amazon is on track to capture two-thirds of that share.

But describing Amazon’s reach in the retail sector describes only one of the company’s tentacles. Amazon is far more than a big, aggressive retailer. As we show in this report, Amazon increasingly controls the underlying infrastructure of the economy. Its Marketplace for third-party sellers has become the dominant platform for digital commerce. Its Amazon Web Services division provides the cloud computing backbone for much of the country, powering everyone from Netflix to the CIA. Its distribution network includes warehouses and delivery stations in nearly every major U.S. city, and it’s rapidly moving into shipping and package delivery for both itself and others. By controlling this critical infrastructure, Amazon both competes with other companies and sets the terms by which these same rivals can reach the market. Locally owned retailers and independent manufacturers have been among the hardest hit.

amazon-timeline
Download ILSR’s one-page timeline of Amazon’s expansion

Amazon’s bet is that as long as consumers are enjoying one-click ordering and same-day delivery, we won’t pay much attention to the company’s creeping grip. Even as consumers, Amazon’s dominance comes with significant consequences. The company uses its data on what we browse and buy to shape what we see and adjust prices accordingly, and its control over suppliers and power as a producer itself means that it’s increasingly steering our choices, deciding what products make it to market and what products we’re exposed to.

But we’re also much more than consumers. We’re people who need to earn a living, who want to have meaningful jobs, who care about the freedom to build a business. We’re neighbors and we’re citizens, entrepreneurs and producers, taxpayers and residents, with needs and wants from an economy that go beyond the one-click checkout.

Amazon’s increasing dominance comes with high costs. It’s eroding opportunity and fueling inequality, and it’s concentrating power in ways that endanger competition, community life, and democracy. And yet these consequences have gone largely unnoticed thanks to Amazon’s remarkable invisibility and the way its tentacles have quietly extended their reach.

Our new report, Amazon’s Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities, aims to pull back this cloak of invisibility. It presents new data; draws on interviews with dozens of manufacturers, retailers, labor organizers, and others; and synthesizes a broad body of previous reporting and scholarship. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Download the report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ILSR_AmazonReport_final.pdf
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/


Video: Compost Happens, But Training Matters​

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | November 23, 2016 6:00 am

placeholderplaceholderComposting is an age-old practice that still benefits our soils as much today as it did in ancient times. But, what many people may not know is that proper training matters[1] in order to create this “black gold” both safely and effectively. At ILSR’s Composting for Community Project, we’re cultivating a greater awareness of the myriad benefits compost can provide to our soils and ourselves, the critical role community plays in the composting process, and what it takes to create high-quality compost.

Our Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Course[2] has a community-scale focus and a community service component. This course involves ~20 hours of classroom instruction and ~20 hours of hands-on fieldwork covering Composting Science, Soil Science, Compost Testing, Pile and Bin Building, Community Engagement, and much more!

The benefits of composting are maximized when the process takes place locally. That’s why Neighborhood Soils are at the core of our NSR program. We emphasize the art and science of hot composting that can be implemented at schools, churches, urban farms, and community gardens. Here, the members that make up these communities can be engaged in the act of cycling uneaten food back into healthy soils that are used to grow more food. Healthy soils and healthy food are key to community self-reliance. Now that’s worth being thankful for!

Watch our video below and see how you can join the movement!

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[3] and Facebook[4] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[5] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. training matters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljyx-0Ki3nU
  2. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Course: https://ilsr.org/neighborhoodsoilrebuilders/
  3. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  4. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  5. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/video-compost-happens/


Amid Murky Energy Outlook, Some Reasons To Be Thankful [Infographic]

by Karlee Weinmann | November 22, 2016 6:00 am

placeholderWithout a clear policy plan from President-Elect Donald Trump, the nation’s energy future hangs in the balance. But in a year that saw an influx of state-level ballot initiatives[1] targeting action in the energy sector, a murky (or hostile) federal landscape will only deepen calls for action in statehouses and city halls.

Despite the unclear future[2], we share a few things we’re thankful for this year. These policy plays prove it’s possible — at the local level — to overcome obstacles to renewable energy generation, local ownership, and widespread access to both.

final-thanksgiving-energy-infographic
Created by Nick Stumo-Langer[3]

Community Solar Policies

State-level community solar policies are paying off, expanding solar access to residents otherwise unable[4] to tap into renewable generation. Such projects are critical to reach renters and low-income households, in addition to homeowners with shaded roofs.

Though community solar installations continue to pop up nationwide, the East Coast is home to a few showpiece programs that model how to get community solar done. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. influx of state-level ballot initiatives: https://ilsr.org/energy-policies-at-the-ballot-two-weeks-out/
  2. unclear future: https://ilsr.org/trump-white-house-energy-questions/
  3. Nick Stumo-Langer: https://ilsr.org/about-the-institute-for-local-self-reliance/staff-and-board/nick-stumo-langer/
  4. otherwise unable: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/energy-thankful/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/energy-thankful/


Broadband Boosted at the Ballot, An Election Wrap-Up (Episode 5)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 17, 2016 12:00 pm

Welcome to episode five of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Lisa Gonzalez, Senior Researcher for the Community Broadband Networks initiative about the recent election and what it means for municipal broadband networks across the nation. In this podcast, Gonzalez delves into the election results coming out of Colorado regarding the two dozen communities who voted to reclaim their broadband connectivity future. 26 additional Colorado cities and counties opted out of a restrictive, cable monopoly-supported state law, passed in 2005, that prevents these entities from providing service or partnering with the private sector.

Chris and Lisa also discuss the general election results that brought Donald Trump to the presidency, specifically noting the impact that his ascension brings to local communities’ ability to provide Internet connectivity to their residents. The two also discuss the implications of a Trump presidency on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s mission of working across partisan lines in local communities.

“A lot of this has to do with just the fact that they want to have that control,” says Gonzalez of the Colorado communities who voted to be able to control their own broadband future. “They want to be the one to make the decisions for themselves.”

Here’s a map of the communities who have voted to reclaim their local authority:

coloradomapbig[6]

For more information on the issues that Lisa and Chris discussed, read her piece on the Colorado vote: Colorado Voters Choose Local Control in 26 Communities[7]. You can follow the work of our Community Broadband initiative more closely by following MuniNetworks.org[8].

If you missed the first couple episodes of our podcast you can find those conversations with Olivia LaVecchia here[9], Neil Seldman here[10], John Farrell here[11], and David Morris here[12]. Also to see all of our episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[13].

Lisa Gonzalez: A lot of this has to do with just the fact that they want to have that control. They want to be the ones to make the decisions for themselves. Ninety five Chris, that’s the magic number.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Ninety five is the magic number?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Yeah.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Total communities in Colorado, is what we’re talking about?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah.

 

Christopher Mitchell: That’s a good number.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: I know. Let’s do it. I got other work to do.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Yes, you do. So, Lisa.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: That’s me.

 

Christopher Mitchell: What’s your position here?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: I’m senior researcher for the Community Broadband Networks Initiative, and well you should know that Christopher Mitchell.

 

Christopher Mitchell: And I’m Christopher Mitchell, I run the Community Broadband Networks Initiative. I’ve seen you around a few times.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Isn’t that funny, you look familiar to me too.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah, I’m sure all too familiar.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: You’re in my office all the time, interrupting my hard work.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Now’s not the time to critique my management style, that would be after I fire you. The thing we want to talk about today is in fact, community broadband networks and I think, even more broadly, what’s happening in Colorado and the dynamic of cities opting out of state rules and maybe a little of what we think we might see coming from the federal government, which is kind of cities against everyone else in the world, it seems like.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Yep, maybe, it’s hard to say, we’ve talked about predictions in the past week or so since the last election and, you know, now that the chemistry has changed, who knows?

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, well one thing that has not changed and that is the wisdom of creating local power.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: That’s right.

 

Christopher Mitchell: In fact, building local power, is what we’re going to be talking about, and how one goes about doing that. Lisa, I’m wondering if you can explain to us what internet access has to do with building local power.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Local power in terms of internet access is when a community is the one who makes the decisions, how it is they want to improve connectivity in their community.

 

Christopher Mitchell: To be clear, we’re not talking about a community that runs all the existing providers out of business.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: No, absolutely not.

 

Christopher Mitchell: This is like a public option kind of thing.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Absolutely. And, you know, lots of times, they work with private providers, and they create an environment that encourages private providers to come and to serve people and businesses in the community, but they need to be the ones to decide what happens. To use their public infrastructure, to have the right to be able to do that, and that is building local power to approve internet access.

 

Christopher Mitchell: The way I think about it is often, if you go back a hundred years, you have this thing called electricity. Electricity had been around for quite a while. You’ve got lights, you’ve got motors, you have stuff like that. It’s still not entirely clear, it may be a hundred and ten years ago, that’s going to be a big deal. That’s maybe where the internet was ten years ago when we first started working on this issue, when we said, “hey, the Internet’s gone from a nicety to a necessity”, how do you like that turn of phrase?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Pretty snappy.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Pretty bright.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Pretty bright. So basically, the internet access, it’s a big deal for local economies, whether we’re talking about education access, local jobs…

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Healthcare

 

Christopher Mitchell: Healthcare, the ability of government to do services in a rapid and…

 

Lisa Gonzalez: And affordable manner.

 

Christopher Mitchell: And efficient manner, yeah, all of those things. It all comes down to internet access. Today though, I think we’re going to be talking about one state in particular because I think it provides a real window into the pent up demand. Colorado is having all these referenda, ninety five communities now having voted to reclaim authority. Now let’s start back in maybe 2005.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: In 2005, the Colorado state legislature passed a bill. The way I understand it, I think it was Comcast, was it Comcast that was the main…

 

Christopher Mitchell: Comcast is a beneficiary of it, but it was Qwest really, at the time. Just going back, the western states, most of us have US West, which turned into Qwest, which is now Century Link, but it’s an amalgamation of those companies. Embarq, CenturyTel, Sprint, a whole bunch of these landline companies got together, they formed what is today, Century Link. I think when this law was passed, it was Qwest, which lobbied for it, which was actually headquartered in Denver at the time.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right. At the last minute, the Colorado municipal league asked for an amendment that would allow the bill to contain this provision so that local communities could have a referendum to opt out of the bill. This is SB-152. So in 2008, Glenwood Springs was the first community to actually opt out of the bill. And, ever since then, a few communities started doing this and then a few communities more and every year there’s been a few more communities. The only community that we know of that failed to pass it was Longmont and that was their first opportunity to bring it to the voters.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, back in 2009, practically no one else had done it. Yeah, Glenwood Springs had done it, but Longmont in many ways was the precipitating event for so many of these communities to recognize the potential.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: And now Longmont has a network that’s bringing great fiber to the home connectivity and to the community.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, we’ve talked about that on our podcast, Community Broadband Bits several times. Just a little bit context for people. 2004, 2005 that was this time when you were having cities talking about municipal WiFi, which was a business model that was actually largely privately owned and tended not to work because the cost of using WiFi to provide access around the city is too great to do it good, and if you don’t spend that amount of money to provide good access, nobody wants to sign up, and so, as a business model, it really turned out to be really quite terrible.

 

But, you got this major reaction from all the telephone and cable companies which are freaking out and saying “Oh my god, we can’t face competition from wireless, we have these lovely monopolies and duopolies we’ve set up”.

 

And so, we had in 2004, 2005 just battles in more than a dozen states about this issue. Many of those states passed laws that were much worse than Colorado’s and have no provision of opting out. So Colorado is fairly unique in having this opt-out provision that would allow communities, if their voters agree, to say “no, we are going to affirmatively take responsibility and we want to be able to negotiate with a provider or build our own network” because it’s important to note that many of the communities in Colorado have passed this and they haven’t gone out and built the Longmont style network. They’ve done other things.

 

You’ve written about this more than anyone. What are happening in those places? Just briefly, tell us some of the highlights of what’s happening across Colorado.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Well, Durango is doing a dark fiber network. Cortez has an open access network and so they’re also inviting providers to come and offer services on their network. A couple of the communities where the voters decided to opt out in this particular election have already started studies. That’s because they just feel like they really need to do something. But a lot of this has to do with just the fact that they want to have that control. They don’t want Denver making decisions for them.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Being the capital of Colorado.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, and that’s what a lot of this comes down to is a lot of them don’t even have any plans, they just know that they want to have that option down the road. They want to be the ones to make the decisions for themselves.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, and I think you could reasonable believe that in a state that’s served mostly by Century Link and Comcast, companies that are headquartered far outside of Colorado, that these communities recognize that if they just have the authority, they may actually get more investment from the existing providers because Century Link is like, “Oh no, if we don’t keep people happy, they’re going to build their own network”. So I think we’ve actually seen some instances in which these massive companies, like Comcast have prioritized new investments in communities that have decided to opt out.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right. Earlier this year, Colorado Springs was talking about putting this issue on the ballot, and Comcast immediately increased their speeds. So it often just takes just a hint.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Squeaky oil gets the wheel, is what I hear.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: That’s right, just a discussion, just murmurs in the city counsel office, that’s all it takes.

 

Christopher Mitchell: There’s been discussions from people that … even if you have no plans of doing this … you should leak that you’re very seriously considering it and you may find that you’re taken more seriously by a company that, until they heard that you might do this, couldn’t locate you on a map.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: That’s right, that’s right. You know, there’s lots of reasons why they do it. In El Paso county, part of the reason why they’re doing it is they’re having issues with their public safety situation. They’ve had a couple fires, they’ve had some flooding, and because of poor connectivity, the public safety first respondents were not able to connect to each other.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, we actually saw the up here in Northern Minnesota, Northeastern Minnesota along the Canadian border where two of our counties were totally isolated by a single fiber cut a number of years back. And it’s amazing, without connectivity, you’re talking about no 911, no police being able to do background checks or run license plates, banks can’t do anything, ATMs don’t work, businesses can’t accept credit cards. It’s kind of a big deal when you have a problem like that.

 

Now, I just want to note, one of my favorites, Rio Blanco county has an incredible, incredible approach, which I think is very interesting because they’re very conservative and they’ve just said “we’re going to build this network”. Part of this network will be paid for by revenues from the network but part of it’s just going to be tax payer dollars. This is an issue that we see around the country where most municipal networks have been built with investor money, not using tax payer dollars. But Rio Blanco is one of a growing number of communities where they’re saying “this is so important, we’re not going to screw around with different models to try and figure out how we can keep it off the books or keep it half off the books” they said “we’re going to build this, we’re going to take it seriously, and yeah, some of our tax payer dollars, they’re going to to into it”. They’re also building an open network, which I think makes a lot of sense if you’re using tax payer dollars.

 

So, I think Colorado is just an incredible community where there’s all kinds of interesting things happening in this space. I think the Rio Blanco approach is very interesting. It’s very rural, small towns, two small towns, but getting out of Colorado, we see Madison Wisconsin, which is a much larger city, in the order of a quarter million people, and they are doing something very interesting as well. And since this is one of the rare times on Building Local Power, where we’re talking about community broadband networks. I want to spend a couple minutes on that. What is Madison doing?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right now they’re involved in a pilot project. They’re going to be serving 4 different areas of the city, all areas of the city where there’s higher concentration of low income residents.

 

Christopher Mitchell: In fact I think some of the highest, or the highest areas of the city.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, and the goal of the project in Madison is to bridge the digital divide.

 

Christopher Mitchell: And that’s pretty unique, I think.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, but they also have another goal, and that is to try to determine what sort of interest people have in it, what sort of benefits they get from it, and the reason why they’re doing that is because they’re considering a city-wide project. In terms of what a pilot project is, an experiment, a chance to prove the project, that’s exactly what it is in Madison.

 

Christopher Mitchell: I think one of the interesting things I find about Madison is that almost all the communities that had done this, as of a few years ago, they were almost entirely communities that had municipal power, public power, where the city itself owned and delivered electricity. And Madison’s one of those places that does not do that and we see, I don’t know, there’s probably more than ten models now, of communities that do not have a municipal electric department, but have yet found ways of making direct investments to improve access.

 

Madison’s working with a local provider, other communities like …

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Ammon

 

Christopher Mitchell: Ammon, which don’t have that, also working to enable private sector investment, I think that’s probably pretty common. There’s not a lot of places where they’re going to build up their own brand new department out of nothing, although that is a possibility, but there had been for a while this idea for people who were just sort of a little bit familiar with it, they had this sense of, if you wanted to do something to improve internet access, you had to have a municipal electric company, and that is no longer the case at all. We have plenty of models that show, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, and you know, even when people would contact us, just within the past few years, that was always the first thing I would ask them. Do you have a municipal electric utility? And now, I don’t feel so pressured to say that.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, cause you could say “Hey, check out what Santa Monica did, check out what Madison’s doing, look at what Mount Vernon did, look what Ammon Idaho did”. Mount Vernon Washington, I should be very clear…

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right. And that’s been there a long time.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Oh, yeah, almost, well, it’s probably like 17 years. I always want to say going on 20 years, but, they’re getting close. And they were in the New York Times. This is one of the greatest things. You want to talk about building local power, New York Times goes to Mount Vernon to interview them, talks to a local business, which moved to Mount Vernon, this small town in Skagit county, and says “why did you want to come here and take service from this city”, actually service from a private provider that is using municipal infrastructure to deliver it. And the business owner says “well, if something goes wrong, I walk out of my business, I walk down the street, I walk into city hall, I talk to someone who can solve the problem. It’s really quite nice”.

 

It’s not that surprising that nearly a hundred municipalities in Colorado have opted out. We haven’t see a hundred municipal networks. We’ve seen, on the order of, I’d say like ten so far that are either being built or already have started being built with a variety of models, and I think we’re going to see several more from the feasibility studies that we’re seeing. But there’s clearly a lot of enthusiasm, and I’d say that enthusiasm is only growing. Because this is the first show that we’re recording after Donald Trump’s candidacy, really surprised the nation, won the election.

 

I think it’s going to be a whole different world than we expected, in part because we have a republican president, a republican congress, meaning both senate and house. And so, I would expect that we’re going to see a lot of things happening that are actually contrary to what cities want, cities generally being collections of more progressive people that are voting democrat, and we’ve already seen a history of the fights between cities and states, particularly blue cities in red states. I’m just curious if you want to forecast anything, or any of your reactions to what we might expect from this sudden change with a Trump administration.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: I’m not ready to do that yet. This is still kind of tossing around in my head. When we were looking at Colorado the day after the election and we were looking at all of these results, these county results. County after county was electing the Republican candidate.

 

Christopher Mitchell: I think it’s really worth noting what you were just saying. Which is, as we were watching the results, what did you see in terms of the difference between those that supported Trump versus Hillary in terms of their support of this local autonomy when it comes to broadband internet network?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: There was support for Hillary in some areas and Donald Trump in other areas. There’s support for local authority for both Republicans and Democrats. At the local level, yes, the support is there. At the federal level, who knows? How will the two interact?

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right, this is something that I think we’ve long seen, which is that you and I frequently talk with Republicans when we work on this issue.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: We do, yeah, especially out in the western states.

 

Christopher Mitchell: They are all incredibly supportive of this in terms of decision making. They may not want to do a Chattanooga did in terms of building a network and having the city operate it and everything else, but they want to make that decision themselves. Now when you go to the state level, republicans tend to be the ones that have pushed through restrictions preventing communities from being able to make this decision. And when you go to the federal level, then you really have a partisan divide where it has really been, literally every person who excoriated the FCC for supporting municipal broadband was a republican, basically, from what I remember.

 

I hate being so categorical with that, but that is what we saw. We saw extreme whips when it came to votes around this issue where it was very party lined at the federal level. So this is one of those areas where I really hope that … the Institute for Local Self Reliance, we work with independents, we work with democrats, we work with republicans. Fundamentally, we want to see local power and what that means is going to be different in Boulder than it would be in Rio Blanco county. I’m okay with that, I think people should make up their minds locally to the best that they can and this is one of those issues where I think we will still have that ability to work locally with all kinds of different people.

 

But I do worry that, when you look at some of the republicans that take so much money from the cable and telephone companies at the federal level …

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Oh yeah, absolutely.

 

Christopher Mitchell: I’m really worried that we’re going to see attempts to restrict what republicans can do at the local level, and I just think that there’s a major contradiction in the republican party that we just do not see in the democratic party on this issue.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: I agree with you there.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Hey listeners, I just wanted to note that as we talk about recommendations, Lisa Gonzalez and I got into a bit of a discussion, but it talks about the election, a little bit of issues of race and identity and how we wrestle with that, how we respect people who disagree with us and that sort of thing. I think it’s worth noting that I am without a party, I am a fiercely independent and critical of everyone in my life including all political parties. I think some people who listen to this might just assume that we’re all democrats, or all republicans, who knows, but we have a diversity of thought and we’re trying to wrestle with being surprised at the election. If you’re only interested in what local cities can do, feel free to stop listening. But if you want to hear a little bit about two people talking about being surprised by the election and the results and how to talk about America’s history, race issues, and some of the things moving forward, Lisa Gonzalez and I discuss that right now.

 

So Lisa, let’s talk about a reading recommendation, which is something that we mean to do at the end of each show, but your host, Christopher Mitchell, I failed to ask David. I was so caught up in talking about the non-partisan league in North Dakota that I just forgot to ask him for a reading recommendation. So now, you have a heavier weight on your shoulders to make up for the missed show, and to recommend to people who are listening. What should they be reading?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Anna Karenina.

 

Christopher Mitchell: They’ve had time now to read it so…

 

Lisa Gonzalez: No, we had this conversation before that I feel like my …

 

Christopher Mitchell: You hate books …

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, I hate books … that my education was really lacking as far as American history goes. Right? We’ve had this conversation. So that’s kind of like all I feel like I’ve been reading over the past couple of years. But I feel like, considering how, after this election, we are so divided. I feel like there’s a couple of books that people could benefit from.

 

Christopher Mitchell: A couple of books?

 

Lisa Gonzalez: A whole bunch of them!

 

Christopher Mitchell: You’re going to come up with a page total that is the same as Anna Karenina.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: No, these are actually short books. The first one is … after the things that Donald Trump has said and how he’s been considered to be less than inclusive when it comes to …

 

Christopher Mitchell: Woah, woah, woah, let’s be clear about this right? The man ran on a campaign in which he made racists statements and it was uncovered that he has made misogynist statements in the past.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Yes

 

Christopher Mitchell: I don’t want to gloss over that. He is going to be the president of the United States. There are some who have said that the institution shapes the person more than the person will shape the institution. That’s entirely possible that will happen. And, I’m not going to say he’s not my president any more than I’ve said any other person is not my president because fundamentally, I’d like to see a smaller federal government. So, I would just say, I think we can be very honest that he has said things that I would say are horrible. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to be our president, and so, we can just leave it at that.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: OK, well I’m glad that you said that because that gives me freedom to rant if I choose to.

 

Christopher Mitchell: OK.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: But, I was just trying to be diplomatic.

 

Christopher Mitchell: That’s not something I accept.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: You don’t accept diplomacy from me, or just in general?

 

Christopher Mitchell: Oh, I’m a very bad person.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: The first book I recommend is the Journals of Captain John Smith, and the reason why I recommend it is because it gives people an idea of how our country started. It gives people an idea of the way that these people who we say that we are, us, especially when I say that in terms of the white voters who were the ones who elected Trump. We came here with a specific agenda, we came here and we treated people who were already here in a certain way, and we brought people here for a certain purpose. And I feel that things haven’t changed that much.

 

Christopher Mitchell: So, I would just add on to that, because I feel like this is an incredibly important issue and I think it’s worth grappling with the issues that we continue to have around race and also, I think, just the ideas of who an American is.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right

 

Christopher Mitchell: Which is one of my big bugaboos is that I am very frustrated in that I think that people think of white men as being Americans and everyone else as sort of being American-ish. I just want to say that I’ve traveled a lot of places in this world. Not as many as everyone, of course, but I’ve seen a lot of things. I’ve spent 4 months in the Middle East, I’ve been to Africa, I’ve been to Istanbul, I’ve been in Europe, I’ve been in a lot of different places. And, one of the things I’ve seen is that, I think people, when you criticize America, they think that we are suggesting that America is worse than other places. I just want to be very clear that I think America has some work to do to live up to its ideals, but frankly, and I’m the kind of person, I think with my skills, I really could live pretty much anywhere on the planet, I do not want to leave this country, I love this country. So let’s just be clear about that.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: I agree. America is one of the best places to be, but we also need to face the fact that this is where we came from.

 

Christopher Mitchell: We still have work to do and that we do have this history which makes people uncomfortable.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, absolutely. We are not like these perfect little babes that came out of the egg and this is how wonderful we are, you know?

 

Christopher Mitchell: This is a little bit beside the point for Building Local Power, in the sense that this is something that I think all of America is working through, this discussion that you and I are having, it’s a little bit off to the side of the podcast, but I hope this is useful for people who are trying to get a sense of how we’re wrestling with it.

 

As people who, we … I believe that many of the people that voted for Trump are good people. At the same time, I think that we have significant racial issues to overcome as a country and so I think that’s why we’re including this. It would be easy for us to just delete this and to not do this section, but I think this is a part of Building Local Power, is figuring out how to work together. If you still live in one of those communities that has diversity, political diversity, we need to be able to talk to each other, and too much of America, frankly, is becoming either blue or red. And we need to be able to talk to each other with respect and to look at these sorts of things. So, as a host, I’m just trying to think out loud as to why I think this section belongs in our podcast.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Right, and I think the only reason it belongs here right now is because of the election. The results of this election just held a mirror up to what we should have acknowledged years ago. We aren’t as far as we think we are, and there’s reasons for that. It’s ingrained within us.

 

Christopher Mitchell: I agree, and when you say we aren’t as far as we think we are.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: We thought we were.

 

Christopher Mitchell: We thought we were, I just think it’s worth noting that people have been very frustrated with where we were.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: Absolutely. For sure. It depends on who you are, where you thought we were.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Right. So, and there’s people who are probably listening to this who are very happy with the change that’s coming, and I certainly hope that the change that’s coming is the best of what could be expected rather than the worst of what could be expected.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: I agree.

 

So, my other recommendation is sort of similar and it’s called America at 1750, A Social Portrait. And it’s by Richard Hofstadter, and it was actually the first of what was to be a 3 volume book about American history and politics. It just takes that same theme and moves it down the road a little bit. What were the people who helped build the country … right before the American Revolution … our history is much more diverse than we think it is. People just don’t remember that because we weren’t there. It’s not only race, it also has to do with what it’s like to be a woman and all that. Every once in a while, I think we need to go back in time and learn a little bit about how we got to where we are now.

 

Christopher Mitchell: I agree, and since I’m the host, I haven’t asked myself this question before, let me throw in a third book for people who are interested in American history, and that is Founding Finance which is a very short book, I believe it’s by Hogeland.

 

For me, it was fascinating in understanding some of the big issues that we fight about, and we’re going to be fighting about over the next few years, debt and the role of the federal government and a lot of those issues. And I think that Founding Finance will surprise a lot of people in terms of the history of how the federal government was envisioned, the early decisions that were made and how, in dealing with money, how that really set the course and then how that’s changed over the years. In many ways, it’s kind of fascinating how ideas have changed in terms of the proper role of debt and what the role of debt is and who supports debt versus opposes it.

 

And so, anyway, this has been a fascinating discussion Lisa Gonzalez. I’m really glad that you were able to join us for Building Local Power. I think this was the right discussion at the right time, so thank you for coming on.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: And thank you for having me. I’m sure I’ll see you. One of these days.

 

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah, right now in fact. [laughing]

 

Hannah: That was Lisa Gonzalez, senior researcher from the Community Broadband Networks Initiative talking with Christopher Mitchell about local telecommunications authority in Colorado and elsewhere. For episode number 5 of our Building Local Power podcast.

 

Learn more about community networks at our website communitynetworks.org where we describe how communities across America have created their own broadband networks to insure access to affordable, fast, reliable connectivity.

 

Subscribe to this podcast and all of the podcasts in the ILSR podcast family on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Never miss out on our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks Dysfunction Al for the music license through Creative Commons. The song is Funk Interlude. I am Hannah Trostle from The Institute for Local Self Reliance. Thanks again for listening to the Building Local Power podcast.

 

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[19] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[20] license.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2016-11-14-blp005-lisa-colorado-munis.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2016-11-14-blp005-lisa-colorado-munis.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-in-26-communities/
  7. Colorado Voters Choose Local Control in 26 Communities: https://ilsr.org/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-in-26-communities/
  8. MuniNetworks.org: http://muninetworks.org
  9. here: https://ilsr.org/dark-store-tax-dodge-episode-1-of-building-local-power-podcast/
  10. here: https://ilsr.org/the-true-value-of-recycling-episode-2-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. here: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  12. here: https://ilsr.org/powering-a-political-revolution-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  13. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  14. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  15. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  16. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  17. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  18. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  19. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  20. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  21. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  22. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  23. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/broadband-boosted-at-the-ballot-episode-5-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Going Beyond Candidates: Three State Initiatives That Could Change America

by David Morris | November 11, 2016 9:55 am

On November 8th citizens in 35 states vote[1] on 163 ballot initiatives. They cover a wide range of subjects (e.g. marijuana, minimum wage, taxes, gun control). To my mind, initiatives in three states—California on reducing drug prices, South Dakota on revamping its political system, and New Mexico on the inequitable use of bail– stand out as having a potentially broad national impact.

California Takes on Big Pharma

Californians will vote on a ballot initiative that requires state agencies to pay no more for any prescription drug than the lowest price paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the same drug. It would apply to more than 1 million state and public university employees as well as 3 million Medicaid patients (although it would exclude 10 million Californians on managed care Medicaid plans.)

Pharma Exec magazine warns its readers, passage of Proposition 61[2], “would shake the rafters of every single state drug program in the nation, as well as the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs.” It’s a warning well with heeding. Federal law entitles all state Medicaid programs to the lowest prescription drug prices available to most public and private payers in the U.S., excluding the VA. Medicaid discounts ordinarily are in the 20 percent range, but VA discounts[3] can be as high as 42 percent. Thus the California measure could extend the VA’s low drug prices to Medicaid programs serving tens of millions of additional people nationwide.

As of October 20, pharmaceutical companies had spent more than $109 million to defeat the measure compared to just $15 million for supporters. Nevertheless, the initiative appears headed to victory.

The pricing of drugs has become a national disgrace. Horror stories abound. Turing Pharmaceuticals purchased the rights to a generic AIDS drug and promptly raises its price from $13.50 to $750 a pill. According to Forbes[4], prices increased by 100 percent or more between 2013 and 2014, in 222 generic drug groups. Specialty drugs have become astronomically expensive. Reuters[5] reports that in 2014, annual medication costs of 139,000 Americans exceeded $100,000, nearly triple the number who reached that level a year earlier.

The pharmaceutical industry is astonishingly profitable. Median return on assets is more than double the rest of the Fortune 500, according[6] to Alfred Engelberg. The industry is awash in cash. Pfizer holds $74 billion in unrepatriated profits overseas and Merck holds $60 billion, enough to fund their respective annual research budgets for l0 years.

While the industry reaps the financial benefits, the taxpayer bears much of the financial cost. Some observers calculate that direct and indirect government support is such that private industry pays[7] only about a third of R&D costs. Pouring salt in he taxpayers’ wounds, the government gifts these largely publicly funded drugs long-term patent protection. Which is one reason, as the Washington Post[8] reports, drug companies focus on marketing, often spending $2 for marketing for every $1 spent on research.

Despite repeated scandals, the federal government has been unwilling or uninterested in stepping in. Congress hoots and hollers about the outrageous price hikes but specifically prohibits Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for price discounts. Federal law allows the government to unilaterally lower the price of drugs developed with government funds when a company is gouging customers, but the Administration so far has refused to wield this power. The government could also allow the import of less expensive equivalent drugs, but the Administration has refused to exercise this authority either.

Which leaves it up to the people to assert their own authority, in those states where this is possible. That’s what Californians have done. (more…)[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. vote: https://ballotpedia.org/2016_ballot_measures
  2. Proposition 61: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_61,_Drug_Price_Standards_(2016)
  3. discounts: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/64xx/doc6481/06-16-prescriptdrug.pdf
  4. Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/02/27/why-are-generic-drug-prices-shooting-up/
  5. Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pharmaceuticals-costs-idUSKBN0NY08H20150513
  6. according: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/10/29/how-government-policy-promotes-high-drug-prices/
  7. pays: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37111-the-100-000-per-year-pill-how-us-health-agencies-choose-pharma-over-patients
  8. Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-pharmaceutical-companies-are-spending-far-more-on-marketing-than-research/
  9. (more…): https://ilsr.org/going-beyond-candidates-three-state-initiatives-that-could-change-america/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/going-beyond-candidates-three-state-initiatives-that-could-change-america/


Report: Inclusive Financing for Efficiency and Renewable Energy

by John Farrell | November 11, 2016 7:00 am

 

Browse the Report

Executive Summary
A Huge Opportunity
     Challenges to Reaching Most Customers
     A Necessary Paradigm Shift
A Powerful Universal Tool: Inclusive Financing
     Program Design 
     Key Results
     Immediate Savings
     Universal Access
     Simplicity
     Bigger Savings
     High Cost Recovery Rate
 A Time-Tested Tool
 Inclusive Financing in Practice
Conclusion
Sources

Download the Report


Executive Summary

Energy efficiency and renewables represent the most promising pathway to lower energy costs for individual consumers and utilities. Programs that help utility customers pursue home improvements, like better insulation or rooftop solar panels, can slash monthly utility bills and eliminate the need for utilities to add costly — and outdated — power and gas infrastructure. The upside is undeniable, with energy efficiency measures alone predicted to save customers $2 trillion by 2030. But limited access hinders progress. The best energy efficiency programs serve less than 2% of customers each year, and few reach the majority of a utility’s customers, including renters, customers without strong credit, and low- and moderate-income households, who pay disproportionately high energy bills.

Utilities can knock down major barriers to energy efficiency and renewables by allowing customers to make site-specific investments and recovering utility costs through an opt-in tariff. Tariffed on-bill programs are often referred to as inclusive financing because they allow all utility customers the option to access cost effective upgrades. Inclusive financing solves many of the problems dogging the push for a more sustainable, affordable, and equitable energy economy because, unlike loan-based programs, tariffed on-bill programs are open to all customers regardless of their income, credit score, or renter status.

The Opportunity:

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-inclusive-energy-financing/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-inclusive-energy-financing/


As Trump Heads to White House, Lack of Actual Policy Threatens U.S. Energy Future

by Karlee Weinmann | November 9, 2016 12:00 pm

The U.S. energy economy faces unprecedented pressure to integrate clean and renewable fuel sources like wind and solar, but after a distracting 2016 presidential campaign sidelined energy policy, troubling and untenable gaps in the president-elect’s strategy remain unchecked.

In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, the lone flicker of interest in clean energy was promptly extinguished when Ken Bone, who raised the issue during the Oct. 9 town hall-style debate, became an Internet sensation known more for his red sweater than for probing the unknowns clouding the country’s energy future (we wrestled[1] with the answers).

Even as the U.S. tiptoes away from coal and grapples with environmental concerns, reporters and debate moderators sidestepped energy plans. Not unexpectedly, each candidate’s vision generally tracked with their party’s[2] overarching views[3]. But Donald Trump, even as he sits poised to take over the presidency, has yet to offer a comprehensive agenda.

Broadly speaking, the Republican has pledged to revert the U.S. energy economy back to coal and lift regulations on oil and gas production[4], erasing efforts by the Obama administration to bolster clean energy sources. He would repeal federal spending on clean energy, including wind and solar power. And Trump has also famously (and egregiously) claimed that climate change is a “hoax,”[5] diminishing a central political motivation for promoting clean energy.

Trump’s coal-centric vision veers sharply from Democrat Hillary Clinton’s proposed plan, which hinged on jump-starting the clean energy economy. The candidates shared a bit of common ground, though — through the campaign, neither addressed local ownership of energy, a touchstone[6] in the push to expand renewable generation left in flux after Trump’s election.

dems-vs-gop-2016-energy-policies-001

(more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. we wrestled: https://ilsr.org/ken-bone-energy-question/
  2. their party’s: https://www.democrats.org/party-platform#clean-energy
  3. overarching views: https://www.gop.com/platform/americas-natural-resources/
  4. lift regulations on oil and gas production: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-energy-idUSKBN1342DO
  5. climate change is a “hoax,”: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en
  6. a touchstone: https://ilsr.org/distributed-generation-under-fire-q2-2016/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/trump-white-house-energy-questions/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/trump-white-house-energy-questions/


Colorado Voters Choose Local Control In 26 Communities

by Lisa Gonzalez | November 9, 2016 11:30 am

We didn’t need a crystal ball, magic potion, or ESP to predict that local Colorado voters would enthusiastically reclaim telecommunications authority yesterday. Twenty-six more local governments put the issue on the ballot and citizens fervently replied, “YES! YES, WE DO!”

Colorado local communities that want to take action to improve their local connectivity are hogtied by SB 152, the state law passed in 2005. Unless they hold a referendum and ask voters if they wish to reclaim the right to do so, the law prevents[1] local governments from providing service or partnering with the private sector. Since the big incumbents that pushed the law through aren’t providing necessary connectivity, their only choice is to opt out and work with new partners or move forward on their own. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. the law prevents: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/colorado/?source=COLO;CODE&tocpath=1W8KUUS4NW3GOCPFE,21QOEVOFJ8QP3BI8A,3XMEOGS8MAK86ELHP;1HZD0CT5ARQQGD0CM,2P49LASZO4YMFXJ6Y,3TFYKXZSAUIE4O2GU;1QTBVPQ9PSEATXRNL,2RG1B8XN4PTNC0PGZ,337RP2ZVUYM5UD9TJ;16YGAEJWV2OETQX9C,2IAGCSBBSCHJ6JKWC,3AZRRSX7VXTO24DPM&shortheader=no
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-in-26-communities/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/colorado-voters-choose-local-control-in-26-communities/


Powering a Political Revolution, North Dakota’s Non-Partisan League (Episode 4)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | November 3, 2016 12:00 pm

Welcome to the fourth episode of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

nonpartisan-league

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews David Morris, the co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the director of the Public Good initiative about the history behind North Dakota’s Non-Partisan League. In this podcast, Morris goes into detail on the League’s political influence and how their policies set North Dakota on a trajectory of local ownership and a tradition of fighting concentrated economic power. He also notes that North Dakotans are still fending off challenges from major banks and pharmaceutical chains, and that the tradition of local ownership is strong throughout the state.

“This is an example of effective organizing that had an impact,” says Morris. “There are much more examples of that than there are top-down, ‘somebody created a great idea somewhere in Congress or the White House’ and they implemented it. It’s almost always pressure from the grassroots level that moves us forward.”

For more information on the issues that David and Chris discussed, read his piece on the Non-Partisan League: How to Make a Political Revolution[6], and our report on North Dakota’s independent pharmacy law: North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law Leads to Better Pharmacy Care[7].

If you missed the first couple episodes of our podcast you can find those conversations with Olivia LaVecchia here[8], Neil Seldman here[9], and John Farrell here[10]. Also to see all of our episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[11].

David Morris: This was an investment that they were making. It wasn’t a contribution to the betterment of the world. This was a personal investment.

 

Chris Mitchell: What are you going to have for lunch?

 

David Morris: I don’t know what I’m going to have for lunch. Probably a caesar salad, but I may splurge and have a hamburger, I have to ponder that.

 

Chris Mitchell: Today, I’m excited to be talking to David Morris, the co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The guy who makes us all honest, in the office, otherwise I would be totally dishonest without your presence, I have to admit. Welcome to Building Local Power.

 

David Morris: Thank you, Chris, and thanks for the introduction.

 

Chris Mitchell: No problem. I just wanted to say that for people who are not familiar with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, it’s almost forty-three years, now. You’re a co-founder of it. I’m Chris Mitchell, I run the internet related work for the Institute. When I started here almost ten years ago, I didn’t really have a sense of what it would be like to work in an environment like this, but I am very impressed with how seriously you take empirical research, and the truth over just ideology. It’s something that I’ve been inspired by.

 

David Morris: Thank you. I believe in evidence based ideology.

 

Chris Mitchell: Right. Today, we’re going to talk, it’s election season. We’re going to talk today about this populist uprising in North Dakota, and the reason that I find it very interesting is not just that it’s led to almost a hundred years of change, and set the tone for North Dakota, but that people don’t really know about it. Stacy Mitchell, one of our colleagues, incredible mind, here, she believes that the reason people aren’t familiar with it is that liberals don’t want to talk about North Dakota, and that conservatives don’t like the reforms, because they involve the government doing good things. That’s why we’re going to talk about it. What is your interest in talking about this? How would you describe it?

 

David Morris: My interest is that it came out of a certain period of American history, which in some ways is being repeated, in some ways it’s not, because it was a hundred and twenty years ago, but nevertheless, it was a time where people were not only concerned about inequality, but were tackling it, people were very concerned of big corporations. People were very concerned about how big corporations in cities were dominating farmers. There were depressions every ten years in the United States, and there were movements, there was the populous movement, which was also a party, there was the peoples party, there were the progressives, and what they were trying to do was to make structural reform. That’s the context, if you will, out of which the North Dakota political revolution happened.

 

Chris Mitchell: I just think it’s worth noting for people who haven’t studied the history, this wasn’t just sort of a secular thing, this was the first time we had corporations on the scale that they were, and I think, right now, we probably have corporations on a scale that we have not seen, the power of a single corporation to enact its will is not unparalleled, perhaps, but it’s near the peak, it seems like. Then, and now.

 

David Morris: That’s exactly right. In the late nineteen century is when your little businesses became industries, your industries became large manufacturing firms, and you large manufacturing firms consolidated into what they call trusts, what a interesting word, so now when we want to break them up we have to call ourselves, antitrust, I ask you, but in the late nineteen century you literally had industries where you had one dominant firm in each industry, and you had state legislatures, which were controlled by the corporations. It was similar to now. Those corporations were smaller in size, certainly, than those in 2016, but their power was probably even greater.

 

Chris Mitchell: Although, as you say that, I have to immediately think you have oil, and then a few decades later you have standard oil controlling all of it. Right? I mean, oil wasn’t out of the ground, hydrocarbon oil, not whale oil, and eventually any standard oil takes over everything. Now, we have the internet, Facebook, and Google kind of have taken over everything. I think as we talk about what happened in North Dakota, it’s important to recognize that some of the things we just take for granted, the power of Google, and Facebook, I think are very analogous to what we saw with, what people are reacting to there.

 

David Morris: I think that, that’s very true. In North Dakota, the farmers, we’re talking about primarily an agricultural state then, and now, but then it was about 90%, agriculture, and the farmers knew that they were a colony of Minneapolis, which is where we’re conducting this interview. Their railroads were controlled by Hill, who was based in Saint Paul, and he …

 

Chris Mitchell: There’s a wonderful house you can tour there, still.

 

David Morris: Yes. A wonderful house. A house where it’s lit by both gas, and electricity, he wasn’t exactly sure what the future was going to bring, and he had his own power plant.

 

Chris Mitchell: He was diversified. Let’s dig into North Dakota. In North Dakota you are wrestling with these issues, where do you want to start with, what they did?

 

David Morris: The initial thing that they did is they came together, the farmers, and they said, “We want to cooperatively owned, what they call a terminal elevator, which is essentially a mill, and a storage facility, and we would drop off you grain, and cooperatives were a big deal in the late nineteen century in rural areas, so they wanted that. In 1913, in North Dakota, they adopted initiative systems, which meant basically if you got enough signatures on a petition you could put something on the ballot, and you could essentially pass a statute.

 

In this case, they did in 1913, 1914, actually they passed an initiative that said we want a grain elevator, but the legislature had to then make that law, their initiative process was enabling, but not determinants, if you will. The next January, January of 1915 the legislature reported back that it would be catastrophe if they did such a thing, that it shouldn’t be done, and it wouldn’t be done. Two months later, two former socialist party candidates decided that they would create a new party. It would be called the nonpartisan league, that is it would not be a political party that had a label, that ran it’s own candidates on the line on the ballot.

 

What it would do is it would endorse anyone who endorsed their program. Their program would be very concrete and very specific. One other factor, that is important, here is that in 1905, North Dakota adopted an open primary system. Now, the progressive league had essentially introduced primaries around the country as a way to avoid the backroom deals of political parties. It was a fresh air time to enable democracy, North Dakota went one step further and said there would be an open primary, which essentially meant that anybody could vote in any primary. You didn’t have to be a democrat to vote in the democratic primary, and so forth.

 

The nonpartisan league took advantage of that, and essentially it established it’s first convention in March of 2016, it endorsed candidates who would support their program, and their program was very concrete. It wasn’t a 2016 program, which essentially said, “We will help the small businesses, and we will help the poor, and we will help the this,” very concrete. It said, “We’re going to have a state owned flour mill. We are going to have state owned bank. We are going to have a state owned insurance company.” There were about five or six specific planks, that was March of 2016.

 

Chris Mitchell: Yeah. Let’s just pause for a second. They wanted all this stuff to be state owned, because they didn’t want it to be controlled out of Minneapolis?

 

David Morris: That’s right. They wanted to be able to control it themselves, and they felt that the state would be an enabling mechanism for this. Now, we should understand that they weren’t talking about state monopolies, they were talking about if you want to use 2016 jargon, they were talking about public options.

 

Chris Mitchell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

David Morris: In other words, they wanted a state bank, but that didn’t mean that all the banks were going to be eliminated in North Dakota, in fact, when they did get a state bank, it was an enabling bank, it didn’t provide direct loans, it was a partnership bank with the existing small banks in Minnesota. Same thing with the flour mill, not the only one that exists in North Dakota, but they wanted an option, and an option, which would be either owned directly by them, as cooperatives or that would be owned indirectly by them, by the state.

 

Chris Mitchell: I think it’s worth noting. That this public option it’s not just like, and then you have a state owned bank, I think it impacts the entire ecosystem, where then all of the entities that are playing there have to offer better products, better services for the most part.

 

David Morris: Absolutely. I mean, what you do is, it’s not so much that you engender competition into the marketplace as that you engender effective, genuine competition. This is competition by an institution that is owned directly or indirectly by the citizens, and by the customers. This is an institution that’s nonprofit, it’s not profit oriented, this is an institution that has a social mission, but it also has to compete with the private marketplace, if you will. It goes both ways in terms of competition. It’s a very, very effective tool in American history, but North Dakota took that tool, and made it the central part of it’s economy.

 

In March of 1916, the nonpartisan league had, actually, it’s second political convention, it endorsed candidates that embraced it’s program. In June of 2016, they ran in the republican primary and took over, essentially the republican party, which then, as now, has a lock on North Dakota, it is a republican state, the nonpartisan league in November of 1916, literally took over the state, in terms of all state elections. They did not take over the senate, but they took over the house. They then, tried to pass a legislative program, and what they found was what they needed a constitution amendment that would allow the state to participate in business. In other words, they had to, if you want to use 2016 language, again, is that they wanted permission to go socialists.

 

Chris Mitchell: Sure.

 

David Morris: They had the votes to do that in the house, but not in the senate, and the next election they won the senate, as well. Winning the senate, as well, they got the Constitutional Amendment passed by initiative that allow the state to participate in business. With that, sort of opening the dam, they got a grain elevator, they got a bank, they actually put ten initiatives on the ballot, all ten won. Now, you have a completely different structure to the economy of North Dakota.

 

Chris Mitchell: Can I ask, and I just have to wonder, what was the rest of the republican party thinking around the country as the republican party in North Dakota is enacting these changes?

 

David Morris: I don’t know what they were thinking, but we need to remember that this was a moment that the populous movement got the income tax passed, the supreme court declared it unconstitutional, this was a moment where people were busy amending the US Constitution, so they could allow that to happen. People were getting direct election of US senators, at this point, by an amendment to the Constitution, there were antitrust legislation that was passed, there was a lot of things going on.

 

Chris Mitchell: Okay.

 

David Morris: I don’t think, necessarily that the republican party viewed this in the same way as they would, there was no social media at that time. This was not a moment where I think that they saw this as a political earthquake, however, within North Dakota, they did see it as a political earthquake, and there was a push back, and what they did, among other things, the nonpartisan league was to make it easier to get initiatives on the ballot. To make those initiatives be stronger in terms of their implementation and then they also passed a law that said that initiatives could recall elected officials. They were the first in the country to do such a thing.

 

Chris Mitchell: I’m sensing that this might be an agent of their demise.

 

David Morris: It was the agent of their destruction, actually, because there was an opposition, and it  was an opposition that arouse for a number of different reasons that we can talk about, if you are interested, but within two years, 1921, that opposition essentially recalled every official that the nonpartisan league had elected on a statewide basis.

 

Chris Mitchell: Why had the popular tides swung against them?

 

David Morris: One of the things was that they overreached in the sense that they were elected on specific program, and they were beginning to do things that were beyond that program. The second thing is that the price of wheat dropped by 70%, after World War I ended, by 1921, by 70%, so there was a significant dissatisfaction as tends to happen when economies collapse. The third is that when the war ended this thing called the Russian revolution occurred, and therefore the anti Bolshevik, you were communist, and so forth, in fact, the leader of the, the founder of the nonpartisan league, a man named Townley, was actually arrested indited, and tried in Minnesota for preaching sedition, essentially. It was a state anti sedition act, and so the combination of those three things essentially did them in.

 

What was interesting was that, so the opposition took over, and the opposition put, I cannot remember, I believe it was ten items on the ballot for initiatives to essentially overturn, get rid of the bank, I mean so it was essentially to completely strip, and lost every one of them. Not by much, it was close, two thousand vote shift, and the bank of North Dakota would have disappeared, would have been stillborn, essentially. It was still in the process of being created.

 

The point is that the nonpartisan league had done enough good basic organizing, and educating, and doing in terms of enacting, that people, although the didn’t like them personally, for a number of different reasons, they didn’t want that program, that structure to go away. That’s really the most important point, if you will, of the nonpartisan league, because that’s the spirit, the value system, in fact, that continued, that endured. The political structure was gone by 1921, it was essentially gone, the party continued for about ten more years with the movement, the formal movement continued for about ten more years. The sentiment continued, so in 1933, they passed a Constitutional Amendment that prohibited corporations from owning land.

 

Then in 1963, they passed a law, I’m not sure it was a Constitutional Amendment, it might have been, that said that the pharmacies had to be owned by a registered pharmacist, in other words there couldn’t be chain pharmacies. They put that in, and a number of other things that they passed, and now if we want to go fast forward to the current time, there’s been a push back of all of those, and in fact there have been three. First there was two legislative efforts to overturn the pharmacy provision, by Walmart, and Walgreen’s, and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance was involved in that at the legislative level in providing the data that convinced the legislature to not to approve those. Then, Walmart spent nine million dollars to get it on the ballot, and lost by two to one on the ballot, and that was in 2014. Then, last year, there was a major effort to overturn that 1933 prohibition on corporations owning farm land, and that lost, significantly. We still have that value system from a hundred years ago.

 

Chris Mitchell: I think it’s worth making sure people are aware that the resources we put together on the pharmacies, for instance, is all available on our website. I hope people check it out, because for me it’s very fascinating to see that any thought you might have that Walgreen’s, and Walmart bringing economies of scale would lower drug prices, rather than having independently owned pharmacies is not true, and it’s not born out by the data.

 

David Morris: No. It’s not born out by the data, in fact, we did a study, which we submitted to the legislature that compared North Dakota, and South Dakota in terms of pharmacies and found out that North Dakota has many more pharmacies in rural areas. We did a study and compared prices, actually, between the Walmart’s and the family owned pharmacies in North Dakota, and found that they were lower in price. That on any measure that you would use to compare pharmacies, they came out better, and there are of course more pharmacies per capita in North Dakota than there are in South Dakota. It really has been a very, very compelling, they couldn’t get it through the legislature, they lost overwhelming there, and that’s where essentially the peoples representatives are, then they lost on the ballot. The people like it, and it really is a good structure. Similarly, we’ve done studies of the impact of the Bank of North Dakota.

 

Chris Mitchell: This is what I’m really interested in. If the bank had been cancelled out, way back when, how would North Dakota be different?

 

David Morris: When the bank first set up, when it first opened its doors in 1921, the interest rates that were charged to farmers on farm loans, dropped by one-third, it had an immediate impact. Also, the bank of North Dakota in 1930s was not interested in taking over peoples farm land. There were foreclosures because there were private mortgages, but essentially the state was not interested in doing that. If you fast forward to 2016, the Bank of North Dakota, which let’s call it, it is a socialist institution, has enabled the capitalist system to be much more healthy in that the banks sent in North Dakota, and there are more banks in North Dakota, than there are in any other part of the country, and they are family owned banks, 83% of the deposits are in essentially community banks, and they have a return on their assets, which is almost twice that, 50% more than in the big banks.

 

By any measure it has enabled a very healthy economy, significant majority of student loans are given through the bank, and the small business loans are primarily given through the bank. If you look nationwide, and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has all that data on our website, as well. If you look nationwide, you find that the small business loans are coming from small banks, they’re not coming from big banks, the student loans are coming from small banks, they’re not coming from big banks. What big banks do is to provide the loans that would allow AT&T to decide that it wants to take over Time Warner, and they get involved in international trading, and they picked around the derivatives in the like, but if your small banks that actually do what people thought banks were supposed to do all along.

 

Chris Mitchell: Right. Here, we talk often on my internet program related stuff, about US Internet, here in Minneapolis, financed by local banks to get back to North Dakota and to put a bow around it. I think, also North Dakota did better in the housing crisis, and the most recent recession of 2007 through, however long you want to date it. Is that right?

 

David Morris: That’s right. The Bank of North Dakota has generated, I think, in the last 20 years or less than that a billion dollars in quote profits, which half of it went into the state. In 2007, 2008, North Dakota suffered much less than the rest of the country. Now, there’s a kicker, here, in that with fracking there’s an enormous amount of oil that was discovered in North Dakota, so you have to uncouple that from a nonpartisan league. From the Bank of North Dakota, they have a surplus in their budget, and certainly what has happened in the last six or seven years is essentially more to the fact that they have this enormous revenue coming from oil. However, that is temporary, and already the oil prices have been reduced, there’s less drilling, there’s less pumping than there has been before North Dakota now, I believe, this year, has a deficit and they’re having to deal with the fact that they didn’t plan very well. It’s the nonpartisan league was not in control in North Dakota when the oil came in, let’s just say that.

 

Chris Mitchell: I think as we wrap this up, I think, lessons for today are important, and one of them that I takeaway is this idea of talking to people on concrete issues, rather than abstract notions of capitalism, socialism, or this, or that, it’s kind of like, here’s a solution, it’s a policy solution, it’s a state bank, and here’s what it’s going to do for you, and you said concrete maybe five times in talking about the nonpartisan league. Do you think that the lessons from the nonpartisan league can help us to organize today in a time where we’re perceived to be more partisan than ever?

 

David Morris: Yes. I think, absolutely. I mean one thing that the nonpartisan league did was require membership dues that were very stiff. They were very stiff. They were about two percent of peoples income.

 

Chris Mitchell: Wow.

 

David Morris: These were poor farmers, really. Right? Yet, by 1915, very early on forty thousand out of six hundred thousand people in the state were members, so that’s how they got their revenue, and how did they get that revenue? By going to the farmers and looking them in the eye, and saying, “This is an investment, because this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to get you a state owned grain mill, grain and flour mill. As a result you are not going to be having your grain degraded, because it’s owned by a Minneapolis firm. You do not have to pay the truck, the railroad fees to get it to Minneapolis to be turned into flour.” Farmers are smart, they can do that, but on a back of an envelope, they can figure out, so this was an investment that they were making, it wasn’t a contribution to the betterment of the world, this was a personal investment.

 

I think that people can in fact do that, now, in terms of being very concrete. There is some things that we couldn’t do that about, but I think that if we could colorless on sort of half a dozen very concrete institutions, if you will, or laws, or statutes, or policies that we would embrace, we could then go out and we could sell those very specifically, and I think that, that’s important. The other thing that is important is for us to understand how important primaries are. The Tea Party discovered how important primaries were and they took over the republican party not through the open primary process, they literally went into the republican party and took it over at the primary level. We tend to wait until the general election, but because we wait until the general election, we don’t, sometimes we don’t have a choice that we would like to have, and we never really have a choice about specific planks of a program.

 

Chris Mitchell: Thank you, so much, for coming in, and talking about this. I feel like this isn’t one of those issues that could disappear from history. I hope that we can make sure that, that doesn’t happen, because you might think state bank, some of these issues are kind of yesterday’s issue, but this is the effective organizing that makes a difference. These are the minor changes that can make a difference in a state decade in, decade out. It seems to me.

 

David Morris: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, this is an example of effective organizing that had an impact. There are many examples in American history of effective organizing that had an impact. In fact, there are much more examples of that than there topped down, somebody created a great idea, somewhere in congress, or the white house, and they implemented it. It’s almost always pressure from the grassroots level, that moves us forward.

 

Chris Mitchell: We’ll be talking about more of those in the future, as we continue to build local power. Thank you.

 

David Morris: Thank you, Chris.

 

Lisa Gonzalez : That was David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and the man behind the public good initiative. He was visiting with Chris Mitchell for episode number four of our Building Local Power Podcast. Learn more about the nonpartisan league on ilsr.org, by reading David’s article titled, How to Make a Political Revolution. You can also download the 2014 report on North Dakota’s pharmacy ownership law at ilsr.org. Subscribe to this podcast, and all the podcasts in the ilsr podcast family on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get you podcasts, never miss out on our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ilsr.org. Thanks to Dysfunction Al, for the music, license through Creative Comments. The song is Funk Interlude. I’m Lisa Gonzalez, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thanks, again, for listening to the Building Local Power Podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[12] Building Local Power on iTunes[13] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[14]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[15]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[16] on Twitter and Facebook!

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[17] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[18] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[19] and Facebook[20] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[21] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2016-10-28-blp004-david-np-league.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/2016-10-28-blp004-david-np-league.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. How to Make a Political Revolution: https://ilsr.org/how-to-make-a-political-revolution/
  7. North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law Leads to Better Pharmacy Care: https://ilsr.org/report-pharmacy-ownership-law/
  8. here: https://ilsr.org/dark-store-tax-dodge-episode-1-of-building-local-power-podcast/
  9. here: https://ilsr.org/the-true-value-of-recycling-episode-2-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  10. here: https://ilsr.org/energy-democracy-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  11. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  12. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  13. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  14. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  15. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  16. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  17. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  18. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
  19. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilsr
  20. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
  21. sign-up: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/powering-a-political-revolution-episode-3-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/


Vote for the White House Kitchen Garden

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | October 31, 2016 4:15 pm

On a chilly day in late-February, my husband and I received an unexpected visitor[1] to our backyard: First Lady Michelle Obama. We are deeply honored that the First Lady chose our family’s garden (along with a couple of local schools) to act as the launchpad of her Let’s Move! Initiative. The initiative has succeeded in bringing the connection between gardening, homegrown food, and an active, healthy lifestyle into the national spotlight, and it is thought to represent the largest single impact the Obama Administration has had on food issues[2].

To our great surprise, the First Lady was as excited to see our compost system, which we use to recycle our food and garden scraps, as we were to show it to her. We discussed the critical role of composting in minimizing the waste our family creates and maintaining the health of our garden’s soil while the First Lady sifted our compost! After the filming ended, we continued discussing our garden, our compost, and the First Lady’s hopes for the future of the Let’s Move! Initiative. Before departing with her large entourage, as a reciprocation to her visit and as is common courtesy among gardeners, she invited us to tour her own garden at the White House.

screen-shot-2016-10-31-at-12-36-58-pm

Months later, when the growing season was in full bloom, we were hosted at the White House and were blown away with the beauty, bounty and elegance of the First Lady’s White House Kitchen Garden. What we saw were dozens of varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs, all artfully companioned to grow in succession so that something is always ready for harvest — it is clear that a staff of skilled growers is working behind the scenes there. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. received an unexpected visitor: https://ilsr.org/flotus-tours-ilsr-staff-members-backyard-garden/
  2. food issues: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/obama-administration-big-food-policy.html
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/vote-for-the-white-house-kitchen-garden/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/vote-for-the-white-house-kitchen-garden/


A Massachusetts Co-op Makes A Powerful Vintage

by Karlee Weinmann | October 31, 2016 6:00 am

placeholderFor more than five years, Vineyard Power Cooperative[1] has provided electricity customers living in one of Massachusetts’ best-known island communities the chance to buy into an energy future that favors renewables and bolsters their local economy.

vineyard-power-cooperative

This is part of a series released in October 2016 for Energy Awareness Month highlighting

communities and community energy projects on ILSR’s Community Power Map[2].

Vineyard Power serves the small resort island of Martha’s Vineyard, planted off of Cape Cod and famous for drawing well-heeled visitors during summer months. But those who live in the resort area year-round are known for their deep emphasis on community and civic engagement, values reflected in their push for a diverse energy mix.

Owners Not Just Customers

Since it launched in 2009, Vineyard Power has welcomed more than 1,300 community members to its rolls. The cooperative structure means those “customers” don’t merely buy electricity — instead, they are member-owners with an ownership stake in Vineyard Power and a say over its strategic direction. That’s a distinctly different approach[3] from the investor-owned utilities in town.

Leveraging its community-owned cooperative structure, Vineyard Power set out specifically to promote generation from renewable resources on the island. Historically, Martha’s Vineyard has imported virtually all of its energy[4] through undersea cables or by boat — an expensive and unreliable process.

Vineyard Power joins some other enterprising electric co-ops that have emerged as frontrunners in serving member-owners hungry for renewables — in some cases to match their values and in others to drive down costs. Farmers Electric Cooperative[5], which serves a handful of rural farming communities in rural Iowa, for example, is considered a national leader[6] in solar power.

A Competitive Cooperative

Vineyard Power’s business deviates a bit from traditional electric cooperatives. It generates revenue in part through membership fees, but mostly through direct retail energy sales[7] to its member-owners in a competitive retail market. As a nonprofit, it redistributes any net gains into energy savings programs or new generation projects designed to increase cost savings for member-owners.

Unlike other utilities, it doesn’t enjoy the government’s guarantee of a monopoly service territory.  That distinction means Vineyard Power’s success hinges much more directly on its ability to match community needs and values — something cooperatives, rooted in democratic control[8], supports.

The model separates Vineyard Power from investor-owned utilities that often shortchange their customers by leaning on an outdated profit model[9]: selling more power and building fossil fuel-burning plants, despite technology that makes in-demand renewables a more viable choice than ever.

Tapping the Sun and Wind, and Smart Use

The price of installing solar panels, for example, plunged in recent years[10] to historic lows. Lower costs have helped Vineyard Power and its member owners install solar arrays on parking lots and capped landfills — about 300 kilowatts of generation capacity to date.

Vineyard Power has planned to integrate offshore wind power into its portfolio. Aligning with a new requirement[11] for Massachusetts’ investor-owned utilities to buy up to 1,600 MW of offshore wind power over the next decade, the cooperative solidified its partnership[12] with a Danish group that holds the lease to windy areas in the Atlantic near the island.

In addition, Vineyard Power is exploring smart grid technology[13], which better links energy users to energy sources, to boost energy efficiency. Through a pilot project, more than three dozen member-owners received access to a web portal that allows them to more closely monitor energy use. At the same time, some replaced appliances[14] with smart, energy-efficient models, allowing the cooperative to experiment with demand response strategies[15] by adjusting when those appliances run to avoid periods of peak energy use[16].

Guiding Vineyard Power is the idea that communities thrive when they chart their own futures — “Our Island, Our Energy” is emblazoned on its original logo[17]. It offers residents an alternative to

investor-owned utilities, which have a wider-reaching service areas and can still cash in even when customers get a raw deal.

The cooperative’s success hinges instead on its ability to match member-owners’ needs and expectations, and for now, that means finding news ways to save energy and promote the growth of local renewable energy.

To learn more about the national movement toward distributed generation and renewables, visit ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map[2]. The tool showcases programming, policies and projects across the U.S., and compares state-by-state performance. Bookmark it and check back for updates.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[18]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[19] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[20] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Vineyard Power Cooperative: http://vineyardpower.com/
  2. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  3. distinctly different approach: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  4. imported virtually all of its energy: http://www.mvcommission.org/energy
  5. Farmers Electric Cooperative: http://www.feckalona.net/
  6. considered a national leader: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  7. mostly through direct retail energy sales: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57797a98414fb50acf42515d/t/579b838b15d5dbe122ce8577/1469809579601/BusinessPlanAugust2010_0.pdf
  8. rooted in democratic control: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/
  9. leaning on an outdated profit model: https://ilsr.org/why-utilities-are-hating-on-their-solar-producing-customers/
  10. plunged in recent years: http://cleantechnica.com/2016/09/29/the-cost-of-half-a-billion-solar-panels-keeps-going-down/
  11. a new requirement: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/08/at-long-last-the-u-s-offshore-wind-industry-is-ramping-up/?utm_term=.28d0cdbcd2e8
  12. solidified its partnership: http://vineyardpower.com/news/2016/8/25/offshoremw-aquired-by-copenhagen-investment-partners-cip-names-offshore-wind-project-vineyard-wind
  13. exploring smart grid technology: https://www.smartgrid.gov/project/vineyard_power_vineyard_energy_project.html
  14. replaced appliances: https://www.smartgrid.gov/project/vineyard_power_vineyard_energy_project/latest_data.html
  15. demand response strategies: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/
  16. by adjusting when those appliances run to avoid periods of peak energy use: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/
  17. its original logo: http://mapowerforward.com/files/powerforward/logos/VineyardPowerLogo.jpg
  18. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  19. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  20. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/a-massachusetts-co-op-makes-a-powerful-vintage/


Movie Monster Madness At MuniNetworks! Internet Terror Triple Feature!

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 28, 2016 12:00 pm

Much like the the bone-chilling flicks celebrating eerie entertainment that dwells in the depths of our dark imaginations, monster cable and DSL Internet service providers strike terror in the hearts of subscribers…if they survive. Mesmerizing fees, hair-raising customer service, and shockingly slow connections can drive one to the brink of madness.

In celebration of Halloween 2016, our writers each selected a national ISP and reimagined it as a classic horror character. The results are horrifying! Read them here…if you dare!

frankenmerger-attAT&T’s Frankenmerger

by Kate Svitavsky, Broadband Intern

This shocking film tells the horrific tale of a mad scientist in his quest to create the world’s largest telecommunications monopoly monster. The scientist’s abomination runs amok, gobbling up company after company, to create a horrifying monster conglomerate. Watch the monster terrorize towns across America as it imposes data caps[1], denies people access[2] to low-cost programs, and refuses to upgrade infrastructure[3]. What nightmare lies ahead? Will the townsfolk and their elected officials unite to stop the monster, before it acquires Time Warner? Watch and find out!

mummy-last-centurylinkThe Mummy From Last CenturyLink

by Scott Carlson, Broadband Research Associate

Archaeologists unearth the Last CenturyLink Mummy from a rural field of copper wires. Townspeople put the Mummy on display in Hard Luck City Hall. Little do they know the Last CenturyLink Mummy was once Pharaoh of DSL (Dreadfully Slow Line) service. Long ago, he was cursed by subscribers[4] and doomed to remain in the slumber of purgatory, much like the DSL Internet access they endured. He awakes when he hears the City Council talk of launching a muni fiber network and summons his zombie lobbyist worshippers[5]. Will the brave people of Hard Luck prevail against Last CenturyLink Mummy and his lobbyists from beyond the grave? Will Hard Luck finally get the Internet connectivity they need to banish last century technology forever? (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. imposes data caps: http://time.com/money/4353512/att-home-internet-data-caps/
  2. denies people access: https://muninetworks.org/content/att-gets-snagged-giant-loophole-attempting-avoid-merger-responsibility
  3. refuses to upgrade infrastructure: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/25/att-complains-it-needs-more-money-for-infrastructure-upgrades-no-it-doesnt/
  4. cursed by subscribers: https://muninetworks.org/content/small-texas-town-dont-need-no-stinkin-centurylink
  5. zombie lobbyist worshippers: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000024683&year=2016
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/movie-monster-madness-at-muninetworks-internet-terror-triple-feature/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/movie-monster-madness-at-muninetworks-internet-terror-triple-feature/


RePower Madison Challenges Old Electric Monopoly Model

by Karlee Weinmann | October 28, 2016 6:00 am

placeholderAn unconventional approach to grassroots organizing in Wisconsin’s capital city has in recent years tipped incumbent utility Madison Gas & Electric (MGE) toward policies that favor consumers and renewables, a distinct shift in a state held back for years by entrenched monopolies with outdated business plans.

repower-madison

This is part of a series released in October 2016 for Energy Awareness Month highlighting

communities and community energy projects on ILSR’s Community Power Map[1].

RePower Madison[2], a local nonprofit whose mission is to give citizens more flex in the energy economy, led the fight. While state-level efforts failed in front of utility-controlled regulators and an unhelpful legislature, RePower quietly emerged as a pioneer in the fight to grow local power and push MGE away from an archaic business model hinged on building new power plants and selling more electricity.

That outdated model doesn’t sync with a marketplace where renewable energy, including wind and solar power, is more abundant and less costly than ever before. RePower Madison and its allies are making progress, thanks in large part to a strategy that brings the clean energy debate straight to the heart of an investor-owned utility: its boardroom.

https://plus.google.com/101761504097434921295

Photo Credit: Mitch Brey

Activist Shareholders Take Charge

A RePower Madison report released last year[3] showed that MGE sourced roughly 70% of its power from coal, and that its rates were among the highest of any Wisconsin utility. The organization helped to rally shareholders[4] around better policies that support cost savings for customers and greater clean power capacity.

Once a year, the utility’s investors can propose changes to how the company does business, forcing accountability on utility brass and fostering a more public conversation about its strategy.

This boardroom influence puts weight behind clean power proponents who have picketed the shareholder meetings in recent years. Roughly 1,800 people attended MGE’s annual summit last year, where shareholders pressured the utility to sharpen its focus on clean power.

Across virtually all major economic sectors, “activist investors[5]” have elbowed their way into boardrooms clamoring for strategic overhauls during shareholder meetings. When the Madison utility proposed to saddle customers [6]with a substantial across-the-board fee hike in 2014, RePower Madison used the annual get-together to make waves that reverberated across the power sector.

A coalition of investors interested in restoring customer control and keeping costs down used their stake in the utility to force an overhaul of that plan. While MGE had planned to pump up monthly fixed fees from around $10 to nearly $70 over a few years[7], shareholder blowback derailed the plan. The opposition reduced the monthly fee to $19 and created opportunities for customers to offer feedback[8] through several dozen “community conversations”[9] held last year.

Last year, RePower Madison again proved boardroom leverage is a powerful tool to influence investor-owned utilities. The group’s 2015 push united investors in a call for greater accountability as MGE shapes its energy policy.

Together, they urged MGE to shift away from dirty power[10] — it held stakes in multiple coal-fired plants — and flesh out its portfolio with renewables. Ultimately, MGE agreed to a compromise with a pledge to explore alternatives and see whether it could source a quarter of its electricity with renewables by 2025. If successful, this would match state renewable requirements in many states, including neighboring Minnesota.

RePower Madison’s twist on shareholder activism is just one piece of its multi-pronged approach to improving Wisconsin’s clean energy economy. The organization also focuses on maximizing community input on utility policy and educating the public[11] on the pitfalls of dirty power.

Distributed Generation in the Crosshairs

The organization’s actions come at a time when Wisconsin’s most prominent investor-owned utilities — including MGE and We Energies, which serves Milwaukee — have been slow to adopt policies that align with greater demand for renewables and long-range sustainability.

Despite substantially chipping away at the fixed fee proposal, the increase still stung distributed generation. Similar fee hikes across the country[12] threaten rooftop solar, skewing the cost-benefit calculus for such projects. Fixed fees amplify the cost burden even for customers who reduce their energy use or integrate renewables — both moves that ease strain on the grid and give customers more control over their electricity.

Due to increased scrutiny, MGE has made some improvements to its renewables strategy[13]. Last year, the utility touted a series of initiatives, including sourcing 30% of its power from renewable sources by 2030 and planning for a 500 kW community solar project in a Madison suburb.

Gary Wolter, MGE’s chairman and CEO, echoed clean power advocates when he discussed the project with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Challenging traditional utility values, he showcased that the community solar array will feed power back onto the grid and allow more customers to buy locally generated power.

“Importantly, it will give customers, some of whom could never install solar generation themselves, the opportunity to benefit from renewable energy,” he told the paper[14]. The project, expected to serve 250 subscribers, notched approval from state regulators earlier this year.

Still, one community solar project representing a fraction of total energy production will do little by itself to shift power to customers, especially when locally owned.

The utility reported that “a significant majority[15]” of customers surveyed through its community meetings said it was important to them to have more control over their energy use. It committed to develop products and services to support that, potentially including additional community solar and pricing options that reward electric vehicle owners for off-peak charging.

But advocates say it remains to be seen[16] exactly how much and how effectively the utility will factor consumers into its plans.

Madison Redoubles Pressure on MGE

The utility’s playbook — specifically its reluctance to adopt transformative clean energy reforms — defies the city’s longtime focus on sustainability. More than a decade ago, Madison ushered in the Sustainable Madison Committee[17], a body formed within City Hall to spearhead green design and sensible energy policy.

One of the committee’s most notable actions was a developing a plan to push Madison to the forefront of energy innovation.

In June, the City Council adopted an ambitious framework[18] — backed by RePower Madison — that calls for an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 and a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption by 2030.

As part of the plan, MGE agreed to supply 30% of its retail electric sales with renewables by 2030, with 25% of its retail electric sales covered with renewables by 2025.

Achieving that goal will require substantial cooperation between the city and MGE, though the two have not solidified many specific plans for a partnership. So far, the joint effort does not go as far as Minneapolis’ first-of-its-kind Clean Energy Partnership[19], a formalized union between the city and the incumbent gas and electric utilities to further aggressive climate goals.

To date, Madison has said it will work with MGE to broaden customer access to renewables and energy efficiency. For its part, the city will launch a Property Assessed Clean Energy program[20] to promote energy efficiency, and log city-owned properties that could install rooftop solar.

The MGE solar farm lines up with that broader vision, though its output remains relatively paltry. The project could, however, stir complementary grid upgrades[21] to accommodate smart meters and rate design that rewards customers for shifting energy use to off-peak times. An existing utility-run program, Green Power Tomorrow[22], charges customers who opt in a premium for clean power (a practice that defies the low cost of clean power[23]).

“MGE staff are looking forward to working with city representatives to determine how we can partner and where we can advance common interests,” MGE’s Wolter said in a July statement[24]. “The work plan presents a valuable opportunity for the city and MGE to continue working collaboratively toward our shared goals of reducing carbon emissions, increasing renewables and deepening community engagement on energy issues.”

But while the city-led initiative redoubles pressure on the utility to cooperate on clean energy goals, RePower Madison remains committed to its core mission: pressing for deeper changes at the utility that favor renewable generation and community control. Mitch Brey, the organization’s campaign manager, told Midwest Energy News[25] that delivering results will be key.

“There is always more that can be done and I’m hoping the city will not stop after they’ve passed this,” he told the news site. “It’s a start, and it’s clearly a clean energy victory and a victory for everyone in Madison.”

To learn more about the national movement toward distributed generation and renewables, visit ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map[1]. The tool showcases programming, policies and projects across the U.S., and compares state-by-state performance. Bookmark it and check back for updates.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[26]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[27] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[28] updates. Photo Credit: Mitch Brey[29]

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  2. RePower Madison: http://www.repowermadison.org/
  3. RePower Madison report released last year: http://www.repowermadison.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Coal-Truth-Report.pdf
  4. rally shareholders: https://www.facebook.com/MGE-Shareholders-for-Clean-Energy-450276831815182/
  5. activist investors: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/as-activist-shareholders-gain-strength-boards-surrender-to-demands/
  6. proposed to saddle customers : http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/steven_elbow/mge-rate-hike-proposal-raises-concerns-about-future-of-solar/article_66761fa2-eef1-558a-9027-8d2ef45087ae.html
  7. to nearly $70 over a few years: http://www.repowermadison.org/are-consumers-being-penalized-for-saving-energy-at-home/
  8. for customers to offer feedback: http://www.repowermadison.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016-analysis-mge-community-conversation-surveys.pdf
  9. several dozen “community conversations”: http://www.jsallc.com/mge/community-energy-conversations/
  10. urged MGE to shift away from dirty power: http://www.repowermadison.org/mge-shareholder-advocacy/
  11. educating the public: http://www.repowermadison.org/reports-resources/
  12. fee hikes across the country: https://ilsr.org/zapped-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair/
  13. made some improvements to its renewables strategy: http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/12/08/wisconsin-utility-commits-to-clean-energy-but-advocates-remain-skeptical/
  14. he told the paper: http://archive.jsonline.com/business/protesters-urge-madison-gas--electric-to-rely-less-on-coal-to-generate-power-b99503613z1-304334681.html
  15. a significant majority: https://www.mge.com/community-conversations/framework.htm
  16. remains to be seen: http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/12/08/wisconsin-utility-commits-to-clean-energy-but-advocates-remain-skeptical/
  17. Sustainable Madison Committee: https://www.cityofmadison.com/Sustainability/City/sustainCmte.cfm
  18. an ambitious framework: https://madison.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4441101&GUID=ECCA7D2C-11FB-4412-AF1C-F06AB797B4C5
  19. first-of-its-kind Clean Energy Partnership: https://ilsr.org/history-hope-first-in-the-nation-city-utility-clean-energy-partnership/
  20. Property Assessed Clean Energy program: https://ilsr.org/picking-up-pace-after-new-federal-guidance/
  21. stir complementary grid upgrades: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/city-of-madison-wisconsin-plans-to-cut-carbon-80-by-2050/420731/
  22. Green Power Tomorrow: https://www.mge.com/environment/green-power/gpt/index.htm
  23. defies the low cost of clean power: https://ilsr.org/why-is-green-pricing-a-premium-when-wind-power-is-cheap/
  24. in a July statement: https://www.mge.com/customer-service/multifamily/multifamily-update/2016July/1.htm
  25. told Midwest Energy News: http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/06/08/madison-adopts-plan-to-cut-carbon-emissions-80-percent-by-2050/
  26. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  27. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  28. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  29. Mitch Brey: https://plus.google.com/101761504097434921295

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/repower-madison-challenges-old-electric-monopoly-model/


Google Fiber Pauses – But No One Else Should

by Christopher Mitchell | October 27, 2016 4:30 pm

Google Fiber has finally announced its plans[1] for the future after weeks of dramatic speculation that it will lay off half its workforce and give up on fiber-optics entirely. Google has now confirmed our expectations: they are pausing new Google Fiber cities, continuing to expand within those where they have a presence, and focusing on approaches that will offer a better return on investment in the short term.

Nothing Worth Doing Is Easy

In short, Google has found it more difficult than they anticipated to deploy rapidly and at low cost. And in discussions with various people, we think it can be summed up in this way: building fiber-optic networks is challenging and incumbents have an arsenal of dirty tricks to make it even more so, especially by slowing down access to poles.

That said, Google is not abandoning its efforts to drive better Internet access across the country. In the short term, people living in modern apartment buildings and condos will be the greatest beneficiary as Google takes the Webpass model[2] and expands it to more cities. But those that hoped (or feared) Google would rapidly build Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) across the country are likely disappointed (or slightly relieved, if they happen to be big incumbent providers).

This is a good moment to talk about the lessons learned from Google Fiber and what we think communities should be thinking about.

Let’s start by noting something we have often said: Google Fiber and its larger “access” approach have been incredibly beneficial for everyone except the big monopolists. Its investments led to far more media coverage of Internet access issues and made local leaders better understand what would be possible after we dismantle the cable broadband monopoly.

Benoit Felton, a sharp international telecommunications analyst wrote a very good summary of Google Fiber titled Salvaging Google Fiber’s Achievements. Some of my thoughts below overlap his – but his piece touches on matters I won’t address, so please check out his analysis.

I want to focus on a few key points.

This is Not a Surprise

utility-pole-1Google is a private firm that has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns for its shareholders. More to the point, so is Alphabet, which houses Google Fiber. Google’s interest in fiber was not solely pulling revenue out of the network in the same way that Comcast, AT&T, and others do. They wanted to maximize good Internet access to get more people to use the Internet more and thereby increase the value of their ad business. That is why they have been more consumer-friendly in many ways than the big cable and telephone companies. Google believes it wins even when it simply forces other providers to upgrade their networks. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. finally announced its plans: http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/advancing-our-amazing-bet.html
  2. Webpass model: https://muninetworks.org/content/webpass-and-its-fixed-wireless-seek-fix-landlord-abuses-community-broadband-bits-episode-197
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/google-fiber-pauses-but-no-one-else-should/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/google-fiber-pauses-but-no-one-else-should/


A Deep Dive to Answer Ken Bone’s Energy Question

by John Farrell | October 27, 2016 9:45 am

placeholderAt the second presidential candidate debate, one red-sweater-wearing American earned notoriety for his question about little-discussed energy policy. The question deserved a thorough response, given that it brushes on some myths of the clean energy transition but also the challenge of guaranteeing justice for displaced workers.

Midwesterner Ken Bone asked this question:

What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs, while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?

Ken Bone
Credit: Washington Post[1]

There’s a few items to unpack here:

  1. That energy policy must help meet our energy needs
  2. That energy policy should be environmentally friendly
  3. That we should minimize job losses for workers in fossil fuel power plants (and the fossil fuel energy industry more broadly)

Meeting the needs of the energy system is a basic issue of supply and demand, but what many Americans may not realize is that the options for supply are rapidly changing and that we have many new tools to manage demand as a way to meet our needs.

Meeting Needs with Supply, Switching, Savings, and Shifting

Take the supply issue. Most folks realize that we can produce electricity more cheaply[2] from new wind and solar power plants than those powered by coal or gas.

What folks may not realize is that other energy uses, such as transportation and building heating, may also go renewable through electrification. Electric vehicles will allow us to switch from oil to power from the wind and sun. Renewably-powered heat pumps (basically air conditioners that can produce cold and heat with electricity) can supplant propane, fuel oil, and natural gas.

And although it’s conventional wisdom that the cheapest energy supply comes from conservation, Americans may not realize how big the potential savings are. Simply using smiley faces on bills to reward efficient energy users, Opower[3] has motivated electricity customers to reduce energy use by 1% to 3%. Energy efficiency investments like Energy Star appliances and LED lighting go further, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that every $1 spent on efficiency yields $1.24 to $4.00 in economic returns[4]. A McKinsey analysis[5] backs this up, showing that many of the tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (and energy use) will save money.

u-s-mid-range-abatement-curve-2030[6]

The question of supply doesn’t only concern total energy delivered, but also WHEN energy is delivered. A substantial fraction of the electric system (around 30%) is built just for redundancy in periods of peak use, similar to how many lanes on major urban freeways are filled only during the two daily rush hours. But smart thermostats and smart appliances offer new tools to reduce peak use[7] by shifting when we use energy. We can run washers and dishwashers in the evening instead of the afternoon, for example, to avoid expensive and unnecessary grid expansion simply to serve those short periods of highest demand.

In other words, good energy policy allows us to take advantage of cost-effective renewable energy, enabling us to switch from fossil fuels to wind and sun, to replace fuels with electricity, to reduce our energy needs, and to maximize the efficiency of the whole system by diversifying when we use energy.

Easy Environmentally Friendly Energy Policy

We’re in an era when the cleanest energy sources are often the cheapest. Wind provides the lowest-cost electricity of nearly any new power source. Solar energy, whether vast fields of panels or small rooftop arrays, competes with electricity from fossil fuel resources.

But more importantly than what’s cheapest now is how we lay the groundwork for the future. Renewables will be the cheapest option everywhere well within the timeframe (40-50 years) that we plan new power plants and power lines. Smart strategies employed today ensure those investments will not be stranded as the cost of new technology continues its rapid descent, avoiding what economists call “path dependency.” Path dependency is what happens when you buy a Hummer and gas prices rise to $4.50 per gallon. Keeping the car is costly, but high fuel prices also lower its resale value, sticking you with poor options. (See more on path dependency in our 2015 report on Hawai’i[8]).

In the energy sector, environmentally friendly policy means investing in low-cost renewables. It also means very carefully considering proposals for new fossil fuel power plants, gas pipelines, or other infrastructure that won’t serve the energy system of the next decades.

Minimizing Job Losses for Existing Workers

The questions of the employment future for fossil fuel workers, power plant or otherwise, is the most insightful and challenging element of Ken’s question. It’s also the one to which we have the fewest well-developed answers.

Handling transitions in technology isn’t new. We’ve seen cars replace horses, computers replace typewriters, and smartphones replace point-and-shoot cameras. But few of these evolutions have been as policy-driven and fast-moving as the growth of renewable energy. There’s a moral obligation to account for those whose livelihood has depended on jobs in the fossil fuel industry, and whose skills may not translate well to the renewable energy future.

One important note is that job losses across the fossil fuel industry thus far have not been driven by renewable energy, but rather by automation and competition among fossil fuels. The demise of many coal power plants in the past decade has had as much or more to do with the exploitation of inexpensive (not counting environmental harms) natural gas[9] with new fracking techniques. Mechanization of tasks also drove the demise of jobs in the coal industry, replacing humans with machines (a process that continues[10]).

The following chart shows how the productivity of the coal mining industry rose significantly even as jobs decreased three-fold.

u-s-coal-jobs[11]

Although automation may be the major culprit behind job losses in the past, there’s no question that either economics or sound environmental policy will render many (if not all) existing jobs in the fossil fuel industry obsolete by mid-century. So where to turn?

Future Employment for Fossil Fuel Industry Workers

Employment in the fossil fuel industry falls into two categories that will be most impacted by the shift to renewable energy. Oil, gas, and coal extraction jobs will fall sharply as the U.S. reduces dependence on fossil fuels. Employment in traditional power plants will also drop, with those jobs displaced by a 21st century power grid with wind and solar power plants.

In short, we can’t protect the jobs IN the fossil fuel industry, but we can help workers OUT of the industry and into a better future.

As of May 2015, the U.S. coal-mining and oil and gas extraction industries employed[12] 263,000 people, doing everything from digging up coal to processing forms for environmental compliance. Another 60,000 worked in coal power plants, all facing shutdowns due to competitive clean energy.

The good news is that, based on the age of the existing workforce in the extraction business, about 70 percent of the job losses (resulting from a 60% drop in production over the next 20 years) can be addressed through retirement as the workers reach age 65. The remaining 30 percent would need (five years of) wage and benefit insurance, as well as retraining and relocation funds. In a 2016 article[13] in the American Prospect, University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers Robert Pollin & Brian Callaci showcase results of their study[14] pricing these benefits at $200 million per year. Programs like these already exist, such as Solar Ready Colorado[15] that helps displaced coal miners in western Colorado learn skills in the solar industry. Rapid growth ahead signals that employment growth in solar and other renewable energy industries will far outstrip[16] job losses in the fossil fuel sector.

The Prospect article authors also include $90 million per year in their plan to fully fund pension programs for coal miners, which given the recent bankruptcies of multiple coal mining companies are unlikely to be made whole otherwise[17]. Additionally, the authors dedicate $200 million to community-level transition, directing investment in clean energy technology into communities disproportionately impacted by the shrinking fossil fuel industry, such as oil and gas towns like Odessa, TX or Midland, TX.

They peg the total cost of these initiatives around $500 million per year over 20 years, or about 1/500th of a percent of the annual U.S. gross domestic product. Put another way, if every American paid 10¢ more per month on their electric bill, we could fully fund a smooth transition for most fossil fuel industry workers.

It’s also worth noting that leaving behind fossil fuel jobs also means leaving behind significant health and safety hazards. Extraction jobs are among the riskiest in America, as measured by fatalities per worker, and jobs like mining threaten permanent health impairment[18] via conditions like black lung.

Ken Bone has earned notoriety for his red sweater and his online indiscretions, but he should be given credit for a question that gets at the complexity and nuance of good energy policy. The answers aren’t always easy, but they’re worth taking time to address.

Photo Credit: Washington Post[1]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[19]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[20] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[21] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Washington Post: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-10-21/Getty/615956848.jpg&w=480
  2. more cheaply: https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-90.pdf
  3. Opower: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/what-made-opower-so-successful/247044/
  4. every $1 spent on efficiency yields $1.24 to $4.00 in economic returns: http://aceee.org/research-report/u1402
  5. McKinsey analysis: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/reducing-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions
  6. [Image]: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/reducing-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions
  7. new tools to reduce peak use: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/
  8. 2015 report on Hawai’i: https://ilsr.org/report-renewable-hawaii/
  9. natural gas: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Cheap-Natural-Gas-To-Spark-Another-Wave-Of-Coal-Plant-Retirements.html
  10. continues: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/automation-drives-workers-out-of-mining-jobs-20130726-2qph4.html
  11. [Image]: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States
  12. employed: http://prospect.org/article/just-transition-us-fossil-fuel-industry-workers
  13. article: http://prospect.org/article/just-transition-us-fossil-fuel-industry-workers
  14. study: http://prospect.org/article/just-transition-us-fossil-fuel-industry-workers
  15. Solar Ready Colorado: http://www.solarenergy.org/solar-ready-colorado/
  16. far outstrip: https://www.academia.edu/26372861/Retraining_Investment_for_U.S._Transition_from_Coal_to_Solar_Photovoltaic_Employment#_blank
  17. unlikely to be made whole otherwise: http://wvmetronews.com/2016/10/07/thousands-of-retired-miners-widows-receive-letters-announcing-end-of-health-care-benefits-unless-congress-acts/
  18. permanent health impairment: http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/NIOSHletter.pdf
  19. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  20. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  21. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ken-bone-energy-question/


The Public Good Newsfeed – October 26, 2016: California Takes on Big Pharma, South Dakotans Take on the Political Establishment, and more…

by David Morris | October 26, 2016 9:32 am

placeholderA selection of recent news stories with an ILSR insight into “The Public Good.”

Stories in this Newsfeed:

California Takes on Big Pharma[1] | South Dakotans Take on the Political Establishment[2] | New Mexico Takes on Debtors’ Prisons[3]


17California Takes on Big Pharma

This November, Californians will vote on a ballot initiative that, according to Pharma Exec magazine, “would shake the rafters of every single state drug program in the nation, as well as the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs.”

Proposition 61[4] requires that state agencies pay no more for any prescription drug than the lowest price paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the same drug. It would apply to more than 1 million state and public university employees as well as 3 million Medicaid patients (although it would exclude 10 million Californians on managed care Medicaid plans.)

The impact could be even broader.  Federal law entitles all state Medicaid programs to the lowest prescription drug prices available to most public and private payers in the U.S., excluding the VA.  Medicaid discounts ordinarily are in the 20 percent range, but VA discounts[5] can be as high as 42 percent.  The California measure could extend the VA’s significant  discounts to health programs serving tens of millions of additional people nationwide.

As of October 20, pharmaceutical companies have spent more than $109 million to defeat the measure compared to just $15 million for supporters.  Nevertheless, as of two weeks before the election, it appeared well on the way to victory.

The pricing of drugs has become a national disgrace.  Horror stories are an almost every day occurrence. Turing Pharmaceuticals purchases the rights to a generic AIDS  drug  and promptly raises its price from $13.50 to $750 a pill.  In fact, in 222 generic drug groups, prices increased by 100 percent or more between 2013 and 2014, according to Forbes[6]. Specialty drugs have become astronomically expensive. Medivation’s prostate cancer drug Xtandi costs $129,000 a treatment. Reuters[7] reports that in 2014, 139,000 Americans had medication costs in excess of $100,000, nearly triple the number who reached that mark a year earlier.

The pharmaceutical industry’s median return on assets is more than double that of the rest of the Fortune 500, according[8] to Alfred Engelberg.  The industry is awash in cash.  Pfizer holds $74 billion in un-repatriated profits overseas and Merck holds $60 billion, enough to fund their respective annual research budgets for l0 years.

While the industry reaps the benefits, the taxpayer bears much of the cost. Some calculate that direct and indirect government support is such that private industry pays[9] only about a third of R&D costs and much of that goes to develop drugs that offer cosmetic or minor improvements.  The Washington Post[10] reports that while government foots the bill for development, drug companies focus on marketing, often spending $2 for marketing for every $1 spent on research.

Despite repeated scandals, the federal government has been unwilling or uninterested in stepping in.   Congress specifically prohibits Medicare from negotiating with the drug companies for price discounts.  Federal law allows the government to unilaterally lower the price of drugs developed with government funds but has refused to do so.  It can also allow less expensive but has refused to that either.   State governments have largely refused to intervene either.

Which leaves it up to the people to assert their authority, where they are able, to put the issue directly to the voters.  That’s what Californians have done.


19South Dakotans Take on the Political Establishment

On November 8th South Dakotans will vote on three initiatives which, if taken together, could change the face of state politics.

Amendment V[11] converts all state elections into nonpartisan contests. There would be no Democrat or Republican primaries. The top two finishers in the first round of voting would face off in the general election. California, Louisiana and Washington have similar run-off systems but in those states candidates still run with a party label.  That would be prohibited in South Dakota, making it the only state apart from Nebraska to have purely non-partisan elections. (Nebraska had its own political revolution in 1934 when its citizens voted[12] not only for nonpartisan elections but the nation’s first and only unicameral legislature.)

Amendment T[13] creates a commission to redraw state legislative districts every ten years when a new census comes out.  Ordinarily this redistricting is done by legislators themselves but as Matt Sibley, one of the organizers for this initiative, told[14] Governing Magazine,  “There is an inherent flaw in the system when legislators are picking out there own legislative districts.” In-house redistricting often results in a number of uncontested legislative races, diminishing the value of the franchise for those living in that district. The new commission would be barred from considering the party affiliation of voters and location of incumbent lawmakers when drawing new maps. 

Measure 22[15] is the most complex of the three initiatives, requiring as many as 70 changes to election law.  The key is the distribution of two $50 “Democracy Credits” to each registered voter which they could then donate to state legislative candidates who agree to participate in at least three public debates and cap the amount of private money they receive per contributor. Democracy Credits, or Democracy Vouchers as they are sometimes called were first adopted in 2015 by initiative by Seattle voters. (Washingtonians are also voting in November on Initiative 1464[16], which would give every registered voter three Democracy Credits of $50, which they could then donate to state legislative candidates who agree to certain conditions.)


18New Mexico Takes on Debtors’ Prisons

In November, New Mexico will become the first state to decide on whether to directly address a justice system that forces defendants who cannot pay bail to stay in jail.

In 1987 the Supreme Court declared[17], “In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception.”   Nevertheless, in most of America, lower-income people who have been arrested and can’t afford bail sit in jail for weeks, months, even years before seeing a judge. Their involuntary incarceration can result in lost jobs and income and increased family stress which raises the likelihood they will reoffend.

Ninety-five percent of the growth in the jail population since 2000 is attributed to an increase in pretrial detainees, Christopher Moraff reports in Next City[18], according to the Department of Justice. Nationwide, according to a Harvard Law School report, 34 percent of defendants are kept in jail pretrial solely[19] because they are unable to pay a cash bond, and most of these people are among the poorest third of Americans.  National data from local jails in 2011 showed that 60% of jail inmates were pretrial detainees and that 75% of those detainees were charged with property, drug or other nonviolent offenses.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice[20], the average number of days that people stay in jail awaiting trial has increased from 14 days in 1983 to 23 days in 2013.

The perverse and unjust consequences of bail have begun to receive national attention as part of the larger issue of the revival of debtor’s prisons[21].  In March the Justice Department sent a letter to judges advising them that employing “bail or bond practices that cause indigent defendants to remain incarcerated solely because they cannot afford to pay for their release” violates the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection.

In September 2015 Equal Justice Under Law[22] and the Southern Center for Human Rights[23] filed a class action lawsuit against the city of Calhoun, Georgia for their practice of requiring bail for indigent defendants. The case involved a disabled man who was jailed for six days because he couldn’t afford to pay a $160 fixed cash bail bond. “Hundreds of thousands of human beings are held in American cages every night solely because they are too poor to make a payment,” Alec Karakatsanis, co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law told the Huffington Post[24].  In January the District Court ruled[25] in their favor, issuing an injunction against the city of Calhoun, ordering it to implement a new bail scheme and release any misdemeanor arrestees in the meantime.

The city has appealed arguing “the Constitution does not guarantee bail, it only bans excessive bail.”

In August the Department of Justice, for the first time submitted an amicus brief[26] on the subject of bail to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Some jurisdictions have begun to change their pretrial release policies so that danger to the community and likelihood of flight are the main factors to determine pretrial release, not whether the accused can pay bail. In a New York City pilot program[27], 1,100 people were granted supervised relief; 87 percent showed up to court when required without incident.  From July 2013 to December 2014, Mesa County, Colorado was able to reduce[28] its pretrial jail population by 27 percent without negative consequences for public safety.

Washington, D.C. has run an essentially cashless[29] justice system for those accused of misdemeanors for many years. Nearly 88 percent of defendants in D.C. are released with non-financial conditions. Between 2007 and 2012, 90 percent of released defendants made all scheduled court appearances; over 91 percent were not rearrested while in the community before trial.  Ninety-nine percent were not rearrested for a violent crime.

The New Mexico initiative originated with a murder case in which the defendant, remained in jail for more than two years without going to trial even though he agreed to wear a GPS device, make regular contact with the court and was not considered a danger to the community or likely to flee. Not only did the state Supreme Court rule[30] in favor of the defendant, it formed a task force that recommended[31] an amendment to the “right to bail” provision in the New Mexico constitution.

Constitutional Amendment 1 is a legislatively referred initiative with bipartisan support.  No group is campaigning against it.  Perhaps because it is a result of legislative action, it reflects the give and take of the legislative process.  Thus the Amendment also gives judges more discretion to keep dangerous people in jail — even if they can afford bail. A study[32] from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation shows that nearly half of the highest-risk defendants are released pending trial while low-risk, non-violent defendants are frequently detained.

Perhaps more important, negotiations have resulted in final language more opaque than the original.  Originally the Amendment was clearly and directly stated: “A person who is not a danger and is otherwise eligible for bail shall not be detained solely because of financial inability to post a money or property bond.”  The final language reads, “A defendant who is neither a danger nor a flight risk and who has a financial inability to post a money or property bond may file a motion with the court requesting relief from the requirement to post bond. The court shall rule on the motion in an expedited manner.”

Some worry the additional conditions might raise barriers to achieving the objective of the initiative.  But most are optimistic that the New Mexico law will break new ground in efforts to eliminate a debtors prison in the United States. New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles W. Daniels, a prime mover behind the initiative contends[33], “There is nothing I’ve done or will do on the court that is going to be a more important improvement of justice than getting this amendment passed.”

Sign-up for our monthly Public Good Newsletter[34] and follow ILSR on Twitter[35] and Facebook[36].

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Endnotes:
  1. California Takes on Big Pharma: #CA
  2. South Dakotans Take on the Political Establishment: #SD
  3. New Mexico Takes on Debtors’ Prisons: #NM
  4. Proposition 61: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_61,_Drug_Price_Standards_(2016)
  5. discounts: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/64xx/doc6481/06-16-prescriptdrug.pdf
  6. according to Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/02/27/why-are-generic-drug-prices-shooting-up/
  7. Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pharmaceuticals-costs-idUSKBN0NY08H20150513
  8. according: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/10/29/how-government-policy-promotes-high-drug-prices/
  9. pays: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37111-the-100-000-per-year-pill-how-us-health-agencies-choose-pharma-over-patients
  10. Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-pharmaceutical-companies-are-spending-far-more-on-marketing-than-research/
  11. Amendment V: https://ballotpedia.org/South_Dakota_Nonpartisan_Elections,_Constitutional_Amendment_V_(2016)
  12. voted: http://nebraskalegislature.gov/about/history_unicameral.php
  13. Amendment T: https://ballotpedia.org/South_Dakota_Redistricting_Commission,_Constitutional_Amendment_T_(2016)
  14. told: http://www.governing.com/topics/elections/gov-south-dakota-election-ballot-measures.html
  15. Measure 22: https://ballotpedia.org/South_Dakota_Revision_of_State_Campaign_Finance_and_Lobbying_Laws,_Initiated_Measure_22_(2016)
  16. Initiative 1464: https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_State-Provided_Campaign_Financing_Funded_by_a_Non-Resident_Sales_Tax,_Initiative_1464_(2016)
  17. declared: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/481/739
  18. Next City: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cities-alternatives-cash-bail
  19. solely: http://cjpp.law.harvard.edu/assets/FINAL-Primer-on-Bail-Reform.pdf
  20. Vera Institute of Justice: http://archive.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/incarcerations-front-door-report_02.pdf
  21. debtor’s prisons: http://www.arnoldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/LJAF-research-summary_PSA-Court_4_1.pdf
  22. Equal Justice Under Law: http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org
  23. Southern Center for Human Rights: https://www.schr.org
  24. Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/doj-american-bail-industry_us_57b727bde4b03d513687f5e8
  25. ruled: https://www.schr.org/files/post/files/Order%20on%20PI%201%2029%202016.pdf
  26. amicus brief: https://www.schr.org/files/post/files/2016.08.18%20USDOJ%20AMICUS%20BR..pdf
  27. program: http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/07/nyc-will-offer-bail-alternatives-to-nonviolent-offenders.html
  28. reduce: http://www.naco.org/resources/county-jails-crossroads-mesa-county-co
  29. cashless: http://cjpp.law.harvard.edu/assets/FINAL-Primer-on-Bail-Reform.pdf
  30. rule: http://law.justia.com/cases/new-mexico/supreme-court/2014/34-531.html
  31. recommended: http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-new-mexico-bail-ballot-measure.html
  32. study: http://www.arnoldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/LJAF-research-summary_PSA-Court_4_1.pdf
  33. contends: https://www.abqjournal.com/811174/nm-chief-justice-daniels-backs-bail-reform-amendment.html
  34. Public Good Newsletter: https://ilsr.org/sign-up-for-the-public-good-e-newsletter/
  35. Twitter: http://twitter.com/ilsr
  36. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-public-good-newsfeed-october-26-2016-california-takes-on-big-pharma-south-dakotans-take-on-the-political-establishment-and-more/


Energy Policies on the 2016 Ballot, Two Weeks Out

by Nick Stumo-Langer | October 20, 2016 5:00 pm

This is an update of analysis done back in June, state-by-state information has been updated, however, conclusions have largely been left the same, see the original post here[1].

Citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives frequently demand progress on renewable energy implementation (and have for years[2]), oftentimes these occur when state legislatures show little to no political will to increase locally-owned solar or wind energy. In 2016, more states than ever before have attempted to place items on their ballots to change the energy landscape. Sponsored by citizen groups, legislators, and (sometimes) energy industry giants, these initiatives range from encouraging energy choice to placing further limits on the propagation of nuclear energy.

A number of these efforts, particularly those in Florida and Nevada, are the results of unresponsive legislatures and Public Utilities Commissions (PUC), tied down by powerful utility monopolies (where competing initiatives sponsored by the powerful industry incumbents).

The Nevada PUC, for example, completely eliminated net metering benefits[3] for its residents – even refusing to grandfather existing solar projects. This PUC action, at the behest of the utility, Warren Buffet’s NV Energy, motivated citizens of Nevada to propose the Nevada Energy Choice Amendment[4] as well as the Nevada Solar Rate Restoration Referendum[5]. The former would ensure energy market competition and the latter would repeal fixed fees for solar customers (more detail on these and other initiatives is below).

The following map highlights the 12 states with proposed or implemented ballot initiatives in 2016.

Many of these initiatives did not make the ballot in November, but they represent efforts of citizens to reclaim control over an energy system long dominated by powerful private interests.

The following is a list of the initiatives under consideration, by state.

[6]
Jump down to Arizona[7], California[8], Colorado[9], Florida[10], Massachusetts[11], Missouri[12], Montana[13], Nevada[14], Ohio[15], Oregon[16] & Washington[17].

Arizona

Ballot Initiatives Map - Version 2.005[18]The state of Arizona had two proposed initiatives for the 2016 ballot. Both initiatives were withdrawn[19] by their respective parties after an agreement materialized in the Arizona state legislature. Neither initiative seems to be poised for reintroduction in the future.

Net Metering Amendment

The first proposed initiative[20] would have amended the state constitution to “require energy companies to compensate solar users who generate excess power at the same price that the company charges to its customers,” enshrining net metering in the state constitution. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) supported this initiative and it was a solar industry-friendly amendment which prompted a response embodied in the Solar for All Act.

Solar for All Act

The second proposed initiative is a direct refutation[21] of the Net Metering Amendment above, introduced in the state legislature after the first initiative was approved. The initiative “would mandate that solar customers be placed on rate plans that are different from traditional customers and their rates be ‘reasonably based’ on the cost to serve them.” 


 

California

[22]The state of California had two proposed initiatives for the 2016 ballot. Neither initiative gained enough signatures to be considered, but could be considered in the future.

California Nuclear Power Initiative  √

The first initiative[23] expands state regulations on nuclear power plants. The official ballot language requires that a nuclear power plant “has approved technology for permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste” and requires the California Energy Commission to “find on case-by-case basis facilities…with adequate capacity to reprocess power plant’s fuel rods.”

With the frequent[24] cost overruns[25] of nuclear power plants, it seems hard to believe that additional regulation would be required to prevent new construction. This initiative may instead be intended to reduce the economic incentive to continue operating the power plants without a plan for disposing of nuclear waste. Since the federal government has been studying this issue for decades with no solution, this initiative may effectively shutter existing nuclear power plants.

California Publicly-Owned Electric Utilities Initiative  √

The second ballot initiative[26] intends to replace most investor-owned utilities, including San Diego Gas & Electric, Bear Valley Electric, PG&E and Southern California Edison. The initiative would replace them with the publicly-owned California Electrical Utility District, and divide that district into 11, equally-populated wards. Each one of these wards would have a board member elected to 4-year terms. According to the ballot language[27], the district would have “the power to acquire property, construct facilities necessary to supply electricity, set electricity rates, impose taxes, and issue bonds.”

Municipal utility districts have been at the forefront of clean energy innovation. This includes Denton, TX[28], with an already 40% renewable energy supply, Georgetown, TX[29], with its contracts for 100% renewable energy, as well as little Minster, Ohio, with a solar plus storage system[30]. Of course, local ownership is not sufficient to promote clean energy. One of the largest municipal utilities in the country, serving Los Angeles, has been a laggard in developing renewable energy. But local control would give Californians more power to accelerate the transition to cost-effective, renewable energy.


Colorado

The state of Colorado had two proposed initiatives on the ballot during the 2016 voting cycle.

Colorado Local Control of Oil & Gas Development Amendment  √

The first initiative[31] “authorizes local governments to prohibit, limit, or impose moratoriums on oil and gas development.” The entities can limit this development in order to protect their “community’s health, safety, welfare, and/or environment.” The initiative also protects communities from state preemption of local laws meant to curtail local impacts from oil and gas development.

State preemption of local laws, as we’ve written previously[32], frequently works directly against community’s energy concerns. Protecting local ordinances limiting the development of oil and gas is vital for empowering communities to make their own decisions against dirty energy.

Colorado Mandatory Setback from Oil & Gas Development Amendment  √

The second initiative[33] would change the Colorado state constitution to require a 2,500-foot setback for any new oil or gas facility from the “nearest occupied structure[34].” It would, potentially significantly, reduce the ability to extract additional fossil fuels in Colorado.


Florida

[35]The state of Florida had three proposed initiatives on the ballot in 2016: a utility-sponsored, status quo solar initiative, a citizen initiative shifting the right to produce and sell solar energy, and one renewable energy tax measure on the ballot during the 2016 cycle. The citizen-sponsored initiative did not make the ballot but could be considered in future years.

Right to Produce and Sell Solar Energy Amendment  √

This initiative[36], intended for the 2016 ballot, won’t be up for a vote until at least 2018. If passed, the ballot measure would provide businesses and individuals a “constitutional right to produce up to two megawatts of solar power and sell that power directly to others,” language designed to allow solar energy companies to build systems on customer property and sell the power directly to via a power purchase agreement.

This initiative would overturn Florida’s existing policy of only allowing utilities to sell electricity[37], no matter the source, directly to consumers. The organization Floridians for Solar Choice[38] led the campaign for the ballot initiative and is a coalition of conservative activists, environmental groups, and politicians of all ideological orientations.

Right to Solar Energy Choice Amendment  Χ

The status-quo initiative[39] on the 2016 ballot is a constitutional amendment “giv[ing] residents of Florida the right to own or lease solar energy equipment for personal use.” It offers no new power to customers to procure solar energy through a power purchase agreement and adds new statutory language to allow utilities to attempt to undercut the energy savings from those using solar.

The contributors to Consumers for Smart Solar[40], the committee exclusively tasked with passing this constitutional amendment, counts among its donors[41] mainly investor-owned monopoly utilities, including: Duke Energy[42] and Florida Power and Light Company[43]. Representatives from environmental groups as well as conservative, tea party activists have lambasted the proposal[44] as “claim[ing] to support a free-market principle, but…sides with monopolies to stop competition from solar.”

Special note: Recent investigations have revealed[45] that monopoly electric utilities deliberately mis-led Florida voters by selling this amendment as friendly to local ownership of solar energy, despite this not being factually accurate.

Tax Exemptions for Renewable Energy Measure  √

The second constitutional amendment[46] on the ballot this year in Florida would “provide tax exemptions for solar power and other renewable energy equipment included in home values for property taxes.” Previous research has shown that residential property values rise about 1% for each kilowatt of solar installed[47]. The tax exemptions would begin 2018 and continue for 20 years. This measure was approved by a margin of 73%-27% by Florida voters on Primary Election Day on August 30th, 2016. 


 

Maine

Ballot Initiatives Map - Version 2.012[48]Wind Energy Act Repeal and Amendment Χ

This proposed initiative expired for the 2016 election year, however, it could be on the ballot in 2017. The Energy Act Repeal and Amendment would remove[49] specific targets for wind energy development and remove the expedited process implemented for utility-scale wind projects. In any new wind project, new criteria would have to be met and each would have to “receive a public benefit determination from the Commissioner of Environmental Protection.”


Massachusetts

The state of Massachusetts had two proposed energy initiatives on the ballot during the 2016 election cycle.

Renewable Energy Initiative  √

This ballot initiative[50] would have required electricity suppliers to increase the minimum electricity generated by renewable energy generating sources by 1% every year until 2019, 2% every year until 2029, and 3% each year starting in 2030.

By requiring electricity suppliers to gradually and continually increase their percentage of renewable energy each year, Massachusetts is making a commitment that 70% of the energy load be met with renewable energy by 2040.

Solar and Renewable Energy Initiative  √

The initiative would[51] have “establish[ed] a Commonwealth Solar Program.” By 2025, 10% of all retail electricity sales would be coming from community-shared solar or commercial community-shared solar facilities. It would also change net metering by “remov[ing] existing limits on available capacity eligible for net-metering facilities within each electric distribution company service territory.”

Removing net metering caps and requiring substantial sales from community-shared solar would dramatically expand solar power capacity in Massachusetts.


Missouri

This initiative did not gain enough signatures to make it onto the 2016 ballot but still could be on the 2017 election ballot.

[52]Missouri Enhanced Net Metering and Easy Connection Act  √

This ballot initiative[53] would require municipal electric utilities and electric corporations to “make net metering available” to a greater number of customers and increase the amount of net metering capacity available to customers. While there are a number of different versions gathering signatures across the state, the features they hold in common is to remove any interconnection fees for customers utilizing net metering, as well as ensuring customer-generators are compensated at a standardized rate across the state.


Montana

Renewable Energy Initiative I-180  √

This ballot initiative[54] would have required the state of Montana to incrementally supply more of their electricity (80% by 2050) from renewable energy sources, specifically wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric. The measure “would also establish a program for displaced fossil fuel workers and a pension program for fossil fuel workers.” The initiative is important to a state that has yet to establish a renewable energy standard through the legislature. It also caps program costs and provides a safety net for fossil fuel energy workers via retraining programs and pension safety nets, funding with a tax on each kilowatt of electricity produced.

These measures are ambitious but “are necessary”[55] to combat CO2 emissions.


Nevada

Nevada 2016 Energy Ballot InitiativesThe state of Nevada has one proposed, one implemented energy related initiatives on the ballot for the 2016 voting cycle.

Nevada Energy Choice Amendment  √

The first ballot initiative[56] would “make it the policy of the state that electricity markets be open and competitive and minimize the regulatory burden in the electric energy market.” The initiative seeks to end the monopoly of utility company NV Energy.

Like the following one, this ballot initiative arose from the controversial end of net metering in the state by NV Energy-backed public utilities commissioners, which led  multiple solar development companies, such as SolarCity, to pull out of the state. The initiative’s intention is gain “meaningful choices among different providers” and to minimize the “economic and regulatory burdens…in order to promote competition and choice in the electric energy market.” It’s a direct shot at the monopoly power of NV Energy.

Nevada Solar Rate Restoration Referendum  √

The second ballot initiative[57] for Nevada is more typical, and targeted a repeal of a section of Senate Bill 374 that “established a fixed fee for solar customers that differed from the fixed fee for other ratepayers.” The initiative would have removed the discrimination in pricing on solar customers that reduces the value of the net metering program.

As we’ve reported,[58] fixed fees are a way that monopoly electric utilities pass fees onto customers and discourage lower energy use via energy efficiency or on-site power generation.


Ohio

Ohio Clean Energy Initiative  √

The ballot initiative outlined[59] a $14 billion dollar energy program that includes research for alternative energy development and infrastructure projects, spending $1.3 billion per year to develop wind, solar, and geothermal projects. This measure “would create an Ohio Energy Initiative Commission, which would receive $65 million each year and take part in infrastructure capital improvement projects with counties, municipal corporations, townships, and governmental entities.”

With renewable energy investment stonewalled[60] in the Ohio legislature, this initiative would allow renewable energy projects to move forward in The Buckeye State.


Oregon

Oregon Fossil Fuel Expansion Ban Initiative  √

This ballot initiative[61] would have “ban[ned] the expansion of infrastructure related to fossil fuel extraction, processing, shipment, transportation, or distribution in Oregon.” This initiative has been labeled The Clean Economy Initiative and, while it doesn’t directly expand renewable energy resources, it does shift the impetus towards clean energy development and against fossil fuels.

This initiative attacks any expansion[62] of fossil fuel development to the benefit of cleaner energy.


Washington

Ballot Initiatives Map[63]Carbon Emission Tax √

This ballot initiative[64] would impose a tax on “the sale or use of certain fossil fuels and fossil-fuel-generated electricity, at $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide in 2017, and increasing gradually.” By placing economic incentives to move towards carbon-free and renewable energy, the state of Washington is encouraging further development of renewable energy technology.

The organization Carbon Washington[65] sponsored this initiative.

Editor’s Note: The Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy of Washington state was originally reported as being in favor of the Carbon Emission Tax, this was in error and that section has been changed to reflect it.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[66]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[67] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[68] update.

Image Credit: Tom Arthur from Wikimedia Commons[69] via CC BY-SA 2.0[70]

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Endnotes:
  1. see the original post here: https://ilsr.org/2016-election-energy-policies-at-the-ballot/
  2. for years: http://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/detail/2622
  3. completely eliminated net metering benefits: http://knpr.org/knpr/2016-01/rooftop-solar-customers-nv-energy-pulled-bait-and-switch
  4. Nevada Energy Choice Amendment: https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Energy_Choice_Amendment_(2016)
  5. Nevada Solar Rate Restoration Referendum: https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Solar_Rate_Restoration_Referendum_(2016)
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ballot-Initiatives-Map-October-20-UPDATE.001.jpeg
  7. Arizona: #Arizona
  8. California: #California
  9. Colorado: #Colorado
  10. Florida: #Florida
  11. Massachusetts: #Massachusetts
  12. Missouri: #Missouri
  13. Montana: #Montana
  14. Nevada: #Nevada
  15. Ohio: #Ohio
  16. Oregon: #Oregon
  17. Washington: #Washington
  18. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=43180
  19. were withdrawn: http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2016/04/28/voter-initiatives-dropped-solar-cease-fire/83667026/
  20. first proposed initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_Net_Metering_Amendment_(2016)
  21. direct refutation: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/legislature/2016/04/27/how-ms-awareness-morphed-into-rooftop-solar-fight/83616456/
  22. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=43179
  23. first initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Nuclear_Power_Initiative_(2016)
  24. frequent: https://ilsr.org/minnesota-nuclear-plant-cost-overruns-highlight-risk-centralized-climate-solutions/
  25. cost overruns: https://ilsr.org/nuclear-too-costly-build/
  26. second ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Publicly-owned_Electric_Utilities_Initiative_(2016)
  27. According to the ballot language: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/initiative-and-referendum-status/initiatives-referenda-cleared-circulation/
  28. Denton, TX: https://ilsr.org/texas-muni-utility-explains-40-renewable/
  29. Georgetown, TX: https://ilsr.org/can-other-cities-match-georgetowns-low-cost-switch-to-100-wind-and-sun/
  30. solar plus storage system: https://ilsr.org/small-ohio-town-to-feature-large-distributed-solar-and-storage/
  31. first initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Local_Control_of_Oil_and_Gas_Development_Amendment_(2016)
  32. as we’ve written previously: https://ilsr.org/american-democracy-under-siege/
  33. second initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Mandatory_Setback_from_Oil_and_Gas_Development_Amendment_(2016)
  34. nearest occupied structure: http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/results/2015-2016/78Results.html
  35. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=43178
  36. This initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Right_to_Produce_and_Sell_Solar_Energy_Initiative_(2016)
  37. only allowing utilities to sell electricity: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/republican-led-group-launches-ballot-petition-to-boost-solar-power-in/2212659
  38. Floridians for Solar Choice: http://www.flsolarchoice.org/
  39. status-quo initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Right_to_Solar_Energy_Choice_Initiative,_Amendment_1_(2016)
  40. Consumers for Smart Solar: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-nsf-florida-solar-proposal-supreme-court-20151125-story.html
  41. counts among its donors: https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Right_to_Solar_Energy_Choice_Initiative,_Amendment_1_(2016)
  42. Duke Energy: https://ilsr.org/countrys-biggest-utility-power-provider-distributed-energy-game/
  43. Florida Power and Light Company: https://ilsr.org/dear-hawaii-read-your-mail-before-your-utility-sells-out/
  44. lambasted the proposal: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/03/florida-solar-amendment-utility-companies-electricity
  45. investigations have revealed: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article109017387.html
  46. second constitutional amendment: https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Tax_Exemptions_for_Renewable_Energy_Measure,_Amendment_4_(August_2016)
  47. residential property values rise about 1% for each kilowatt of solar installed: http://news.energysage.com/solar-panels-increase-home-values-across-us-confirms-new-berkeley-labs-study/
  48. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=43177
  49. would remove: https://ballotpedia.org/Maine_Wind_Energy_Act_Repeal_and_Amendment_(2016)
  50. ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Renewable_Energy_Initiative_(2016)
  51. The initiative would: https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Solar_and_Renewable_Energy_Initiative_(2016)
  52. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=43183
  53. ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Enhanced_Net_Metering_and_Easy_Connection_Act_(2016)
  54. ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_Renewable_Energy_Initiative,_I-180_(2016)
  55. “are necessary”: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/02/10/montana-ballot-initiative-calls-renewable-energy/80203746/
  56. first ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Energy_Choice_Amendment_(2016)
  57. second ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Solar_Rate_Restoration_Referendum_(2016)
  58. As we’ve reported,: https://ilsr.org/zapped-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair/
  59. ballot initiative outlined: https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Clean_Energy_Initiative_(2016)
  60. stonewalled: http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/ohio-energy-inc/2016/03/ohios-renewable-energy-freeze-needs-to-stop-kasich.html
  61. ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Fossil_Fuel_Expansion_Ban_Initiative_(2016)
  62. attacks any expansion: http://oregonvotes.org/irr/2016/001text.pdf
  63. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/?attachment_id=43175
  64. ballot initiative: https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Carbon_Emission_Tax_(2016)
  65. Carbon Washington: http://yeson732.org/
  66. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  67. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  68. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  69. Tom Arthur from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voting_United_States.jpg
  70. CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/energy-policies-at-the-ballot-two-weeks-out/


Energy Democracy: Customer Control over Renewable Energy (Episode 3)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | October 20, 2016 12:00 pm

Welcome to the third episode of the Building Local Power podcast[5].

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews John Farrell, the director of our Energy Democracy initiative about the concept of energy democracy and about his latest report, Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?[6] John specifically outlines some of the key concepts that make up the principles of energy democracy and how locally-owned renewable energy continues to shape our electric grid in new and exciting ways.

“We have traditionally had these large companies produce energy for us and our role is that we are simply customers,” says Farrell, “What’s really been happening in recent years is that we’re seeing a transition in the rules of the system…and that citizens want a bigger say over the [electric] system and their energy future.”

If you missed the first couple episodes of our podcast you can find those conversations with Olivia LaVecchia here[7] and Neil Seldman here[8], also to see all of our episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage.[9]

For more information on John’s work, follow John Farrell on Twitter[10] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[11] update and read his latest report: Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?[6] and see more fantastic charts like the one below.

Solar Competes at Most Sizes[12]

John Farrell: People definitely resonate with that notion, that once they have an element of control they’re more interested in having more control over their energy future.

 

Chris Mitchell: Hey, welcome back to the third episode of Building Local Power from the Institute For Local Self Reliance. Today we’re talking with John Farrell, the director of our Energy Democracy Program. Welcome to the shown John.

 

John Farrell: Thanks for having me Chris.

 

Chris Mitchell: I’m Chris Mitchell, the guy who heads the internet related program, the Community Broadband Networks Initiative, or program. Depending on how I feel like describing it in a given day. Today we’re going to talk about energy democracy. John, you’ve just released a new report talking about economies of scale. We’re going to get into that, but let’s first start with a general question. For people that are interested in building local power, making sure that their communities empower to make their own decisions, why should they care where their electricity comes from?

 

John Farrell: Well there’s a huge opportunity, and you think about it in a big scale here. We spend collectively in this country about 360 billion dollars a year on electricity. The technology in the electricity system is changing so fast to allow us more and more control over that at a local level. Whether that’s rooftop solar, or the fact that I can sit here on my couch and control my thermostat from my smartphone, or the rising prevalence of electric vehicles, and the fact that those batteries can both take energy from the grid but also give it back to the grid. We just have so many different ways in which we have local control possible thanks to technology, and the fact that it’s becoming cost effective that it really changes the whole dynamic of the system. It’s a really important place for us to look.

 

Even more important than that, electricity is so exciting because it’s basically the only kind of energy source that we have, not that we can actually make renewable, that we can make clean. We know with the wind and the sun that we have cost effective alternatives to fossil fuels. Whether it’s from a local control standpoint, or the economic opportunities, or from the environmental standpoint, electricity is really an exciting place to play.

 

Chris Mitchell: Let’s talk about the newer report that you’ve done, which actually it seems to me this is a continuation of some of the work you did when you first started at ILSR. It’s worth noting, I think our energy program is one of the longest running efforts that the institute has been involved with. Tell us what the new report is all about.

 

John Farrell: Well the report was intended in some ways as an update, you’re right. In 2008 we examined the economies of scale, and wind energy production, and also in ethanol. Basically to look at this question of, “Is bigger best?” There is this conventional wisdom that bigger sized things are more economically efficient. That persists throughout our economy, but also in energy. It was true for a very long time. For decades in fact in the electricity industry, that the bigger you built the power plant the more energy you could get out of it at a lower cost per unit. That myth kind of persisted into renewable energy, even though renewable energy like wind and solar is really very different. The power plant that you build that’s 500 megawatts, or 1,000 megawatts to conserve hundreds of thousands of homes, is kind of one big built custom unit when you’re talking about fossil fuel generation.

 

When you’re talking about renewable energy through we’re talking about modular systems. An individual wind turbine only powers maybe 500 homes. An individual solar panel only produces a couple hundred watts, enough to run your toaster, or something like that. When you build a big power plant you just build lots of them. We have this enormous opportunity with renewable energy to build things at a smaller scale, because we don’t need to have 100, or 1,000, or 500,000 of these units in order to make a power plant, we only need a handful of them. You can build a couple of wind turbines and have it power a small community. You can build a solar on a rooftop and have it power that home. That’s really the opportunity provided by the technology, and what we were investigating in our report then was this question of whether or not it’s cost effective in fact to do so at a smaller scale, versus doing so on a large scale.

 

Chris Mitchell: I feel like when you say, “Cost effective,” I have to wonder where we’re going to draw the boundaries. It might be if you just look at the cost per watt produced, that might be one thing. How do you count in the reliability that comes from having multiple points of electricity production scattered around so they’re not likely to be disrupted by a single tornado, or hurricane, or earthquake? Did you wrestle with issues that are around that, of where you just draw the boundary of what costs are relevant?

 

John Farrell: We didn’t wrestle with that particular issue in the report, although I appreciate you mentioning it because for example, utilities are required to have a reserve. The regional management of our grid system, the regional managers say to all the utilities, “You have to have as a reserve, basically a duplicate of your largest sized power plant, plus a safety margin.” To take into account that issue of when you lose, let’s say that biggest power plant goes out, plus another transmission line goes out and limits the amount of power you have available on your system. It’s funny because that reserve margin is directly related to the scale of the system. If you didn’t have large power plants then your reserve requirements would be relatively low, because you it would take a lot more disruption in order to turn off a lot of your power plants.

 

To be fair we didn’t wrestle with that particular issue, although it is an important one in renewable energy in particular because the more you spread out, the less variable it is. With one solar panel on my home rooftop, if it gets cloudy right over my home the power output from that solar panel drops dramatically. If we have solar powered panels spread out all over a metropolitan area for example, on a partly cloudy day it’s unlikely that all of them are going to be clouded at the same time, and so the system can be more adaptable.

 

To get to the point in terms of where you draw the line, what we really did that was different than what other folks do is we did extend the line to talk about how much does it cost to bring that power to the point where we use it. Most of the analysis that look at this issue of whether bigger is better say, “Oh, well that really huge power plant that we can build out in the desert for solar, it only costs half as much per kilowatt hour as it does to generate solar on a home rooftop.” It sort of ignores the fact that nobody’s out in a remote area of the California desert charging their iPhone, right? We’re doing that in our homes and in our businesses.

 

What we tried to do is to take into account that delivery problem, both in terms of building the infrastructure to make that delivery, and the losses of energy that you have when you try to send it long distance.

 

Chris Mitchell: I’m sitting at the edge of my seat, what’s the result? Is it better to have those giant plants out there in Nevada, or in California? Is it better to distribute it?

 

John Farrell: The answer is it depends a little bit. We looked both at wind energy and at solar energy. What we found if you look just at where that energy is generated, is that the difference between a very small wind power plant with maybe like three or four turbines, and the really big one’s is about a 16% lower cost of energy if you build it really far away. That there are transmission costs that add a significant amount of cost to your project in terms of going distance. What we found was kind of an approximation is the best we could do. If your wind power project is more than, say about 400 miles away from the city where you’re going to be using the energy, it’s probably not going to pay off to try to go seek either that better wind resource, or build that bigger project than it would … instead it would be better to build that project locally and at a smaller scale, that you could make up that transmission difference.

 

We actually have a map in the report that kind of looks at this with some concrete examples, whether that’s Minneapolis, or Chicago, or New York City, and just gives you a sense of what those costs are for that kind of distance to travel, and where it actually ends up being more cost effective to generate closer to home. With solar energy, it even gets a little bit more complicated in the sense that … and this is where that analysis starts to get, I think really into the important piece. Which is, it’s not really an apples to apples comparison. That power plant that’s out in the desert, that solar power plant that’s really large and out in the desert, is going to compete in the wholesale market. They’re selling energy into this big regional market, and they’re competing with all the other kind of stuff. Coal power plants, natural gas power plants, what have you.

 

The solar on the rooftops really competing with whatever it is, whatever the price it is that the utility charges that ultimate customer. When I put solar on my own roof I’m just reducing my energy load, I’m reducing my energy bill. That price is a lot higher than out on a wholesale market when it doesn’t take into account all those delivery charges. There’s a couple things here. One is, yeah you could get cheaper electricity, even with transmission from a solar project delivered into an urban area, maybe. The point is that it’s not even competing with the same energy costs as that rooftop solar project.

 

What we really found was that solar is competitive just about anywhere. That if you build it out in the desert on that large scale, it competes on the wholesale market. If you build it on a commercial rooftop on the top of a warehouse, or on top of a retail store, it competes with the commercial retail energy price. You can put it on a home rooftop, it competes with that energy price as well. I think that’s the most important thing is to say, “It’s going to compete everywhere. That no matter where we put it, the energy that it generates is going to be more valuable than the energy cost, than the energy that we pay for at that location.”

 

Chris Mitchell: Is it even the right question to be asking in terms of whether things are cost comparative today when we’re talking about building a new facility? If you put a panel for solar photo voltaic on your roof, it’s going to last 20 or 30 years. If you build a new coal plant, it’s going to be 50, 70 years I’m guessing. To some extent isn’t there a forecasting element to this?

 

John Farrell: Absolutely. When we compare in our report the price of the large scale wind and solar systems, we don’t compare to what the price is on the grid now from these old fossil fuel plants that are paid off, but that we’ll also have to retire relatively soon, many of them. We instead compare that to what does it cost to build a new power plant. A new natural gas power plant, since we’re not building a lot of coal thankfully. That’s the price that we find appropriate to compete against. When we talk about rooftop solar though, we’re still really only talking about that issue of what’s the price to deliver energy? I pay like, in Minneapolis 11 or 12 cents for every kilowatt hour of energy that I consume from Excel Energy, the electric utility. That’s the price of the competition.

 

This price to get new natural gas power plant producing energy wherever it is on the grid that it plugs, is more like six or seven cents a kilowatt area. That’s what that large scale solar has to compete against.

 

Chris Mitchell: You and I were in grad school together where you first became acquainted with my loud mouth. One of the things that I remember from energy course is the psychological impact from having a solar panel on your rooftop. It makes you think differently. It might make you more willing to get up and turn that light off that you’re not using because you’re thinking about where it’s produced. Whereas your neighbor might just be using power that comes from Manitoba’s hydro electric dams, or nuclear power plant that’s really far away, and they don’t really see themselves as having a relationship to it. I’m curious about the democracy part of your Energy Democracy Program. How does that really play into the electricity production in the United States?

 

John Farrell: It really is a see change in this sort of culture of energy. That we have traditionally had these large companies that produce energy for us, and that we are simply customers. That our only job in terms of managing our energy consumption is to try to use less. What’s really happening in recent years is that we’re seeing a transition in the sort of rules of this system, where regulators are saying, “You know what? We need to focus more on energy efficiency and conservation because those are the cheapest way to get more energy for the whole system.” We’re also seeing more, like you point out, of people thinking about the fact that now that we have the technology at our fingertips, now that we can be producers, we want to have a lot more control and say over the system.

 

Say in Boulder Colorado for example, the city there has now been in about a five year battle with the Incumbent Electric Utility over wanting to have more say in it’s energy future. On behalf of a lot of customers who have solar themselves who are saying, “Look, I individually can make this decision to reduce my reliance on the Incumbent Electric Utility, and our community wants to do that as well because there’s all these economic benefits, and spillover benefits that have nothing to do with energy, but everything to do with kind of the future and the resilience of my local economy that can come from this.” A perfect illustration of this is something like 30 or 40% of electric car owners served by the San Diego Gas and Electric Utility in Southern California, also have solar power. They look at this, they went out, they bought the car, and they realized, “Hey, rather than charging this from the utilities dirty power plants, I can own my own solar panel and I can charge from that. I can further reduce my transportation costs by generating the energy I use to put into my car.”

 

People definitely resonate with that notion that once they have an element of control, they’re more interested in having more control over their energy future.

 

Chris Mitchell: Let’s talk quickly about the, what I sometimes think of as the, “Big guys.” The big incumbent interests. Do they make more money from large central production generation facilities than they would from a grid that is more distributed?

 

John Farrell: Well it’s important to kind of draw a line here and divide. There’s sort of two kinds of utilities. You have role electric cooperatives and municipal utilities, which are effectively owned by their customers. There’s no profit motive here, but there is kind of a cultural dependence on large scale power generation, sort of the relationship … most cities for example that have their own utility are part of a larger network of power purchasers, and power plant operators, and they all buy from the same people. They’re kind of stuck in this paradigm of, “Well we’ve always bought power from these guys, and they’re the one’s who make the power plant decisions, and they like building big things.” That’s kind of the nature of that relationship.

 

With the other kind of utilities we have what are called, “Investor owned utilities.” Those are for profit private companies. In many cases, and probably in most states, about 30 states, they have, they are what called, “Regulated Monopolies.” They have control over all of their customers, there’s no alternative supplier. They make money in two ways. One is selling more electricity, although some recent laws have kind of tweaked that to allow them to make some money even when they’re encouraging conservation. They really make their most money, their return on investment when they spend their own money, when they spend their own capitol. Big utilities don’t like to build small things, they like to build big things.

 

There’s a definitely bias toward building big from investor owned utilities, because that’s where they’re going to make their return on investment. They’re going to build, for example in Minnesota the utility was recently trying to replace a very large coal power plant with about 700 megawatts of natural gas generation. They want to own that themselves of course, because when they build that and own it themselves, however many millions or billions of dollars that costs, they’re going to get about 10% of that back for their share holders.

 

Chris Mitchell: John, one of the things that I hear, and I sometimes think of this as your uncle at Thanksgiving when you’re talking about these sorts of issues will say, “Yeah, well Germany. They have all of this renewable energy and it’s a disaster. They’re just buying all this coal now, and their prices are outrageous. It’s a horrible, horrible disaster.” You talked about Germany in your report, what’s going on there?

 

John Farrell: Well there’s a lot of different pieces to this sort of, “Germany is bad,” or this, “Doubling down on renewable’s is bad myth,” about Germany. What I think is important to understand first of all is that they have a term of what they’ve been doing in Germany, they call it, “Energy [Foreign Language 00:16:22],” which means … and I apologize, my German language skills are very limited. I probably mispronounced that horribly, but the basic concept is that word means, “Energy change.”

 

Chris Mitchell: Just to be very clear for people who might not be familiar, what’s the 30 second thumbnail sketch of what Germany’s actually done?

 

John Farrell: Germany has built more renewable energy, and gets more of it’s electricity from renewable resources than just about any other country in the world. They did this through kind of a crash plan in terms of investment in both wind and solar energy over the past 15 to 20 years. Germany is doing this form a standpoint about changing their energy supply to renewable energy resources, and also doing it in terms of changing the ownership of those resources. I did a comparison in the report for example, in a similar 5 year period both Germany and the U.S. installed about 22 gigawatts of solar, 22,000 megawatts of solar. There was a huge difference in the way that they deployed that. In Germany three quarters of those projects were smaller than 500 kilowatts, which for example is the roof of a fairly sizable retail store. In the United States, it was less than half of those projects, solar projects, were smaller than a megawatt, which would be like a big box store, like an IKEA for example.

 

Way more of the solar that Germany built was built at a small scale. There are some policy differences about what drove that development, but the idea was, “Let’s spread this around to everybody. Let’s let everybody make a return on investment in this switch over to solar.” They also had a similar commitment in wind power. There’s that piece of it that I think is crucially important is that they don’t just look at this standpoint of the cost of the energy, but they look at it in terms of the overall benefit to the economy, and to the people. Millions of German’s are owners in solar individually, or they’re part of wind cooperatives, or energy cooperatives that are financially benefiting from this transition that is much more than just the cost of electricity.

 

I think a second issue that’s important to address with Germany, cause it comes up a lot, is this issue of cost. Yes because of taxes Germany, German’s pay about twice as much per kilowatt hour of electricity as we do here in the United States, sometimes even three times as much. What’s important to understand is that German’s only pay about the same amount per bill as we do, about $100 a month as we do in the United States. They’ve learned to use less. They have tools available to them, like solar, to reduce their energy consumption. It’s not that it’s much more costly in Germany, it’s that they have a lot of different ways to help reduce their bill. Giving customers that control is a huge piece of this energy democracy movement in the United States as well.

 

Chris Mitchell: I think it’s also worth noting that they have metric hours over there. It’s a totally different system.

 

John Farrell: Right.

 

Chris Mitchell: I want to conclude with a question as to recommendation that you can offer for an article, or a book that you’ve recently read that just peaked your interest that you think people should hear about.

 

John Farrell: That’s a really great question. I guess what I would say is basically anything that David Robert’s over at Vox writes. He is a really insightful writer, he gives, I think really excellent perspective on the change in the energy system, but he also occasionally dives into some really fascinating pieces on politics, and the psychology of both energy and politics. The article that was most interesting to me recently was one that he wrote about kind of Donald Trump’s relationship with the truth, and the bad … he has just kind of a different perspective on truth than most American’s do, which I thought was really interesting. It wasn’t a critique per say, it was just sort of an acknowledgement that he sort of operates at a very different way than most of us do with that relationship. I find that he’s very insightful whether he’s writing about politics or energy, and so very much enjoy his work.

 

Chris Mitchell: Great, and he was, I remember his name. He was with Grist before wasn’t he?

 

John Farrell: Yeah. Yeah, he left Grist for Vox a few years ago but has been doing very similar and excellent work at Vox since than.

 

Chris Mitchell: Great, well thank you for talking about these issues with us. We’ll hear back from you in a few months I’m guessing.

 

John Farrell: Sounds good, thanks Chris.

 

Lisa Gonzalez: That was John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Program here at ILSR, visiting with Chris Mitchell for episode number three of our Building Local Power Podcast. To download John’s new report, visit ILSR.org where you can also sign up for updates on the Energy Democracy Program, and you can checkout the latest updates from John. In addition to reports he regularly publishes articles on the Energy Self Reliant States blog, and he interviews guests for the Local Energy Rules podcast. In fact you can subscribe to this podcast, and all of the podcasts in the ILSR podcast family on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. Never miss out on our original research by also subscribing to our monthly newsletter. You can also do that at ILSR.org.

 

Thanks to Dysfunction Al for the music, license suit, creative commons, the song is Funk Interlude. This is Lisa Gonzalez from the Institute for Local Self Reliance, thanks again for listening to the Building Local Power podcast.

 

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating[13] Building Local Power on iTunes[14] or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!  If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage[15]. 

If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org[16]. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower[17] on Twitter and Facebook!

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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude[18] by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[19] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[20] and Facebook[21] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[22] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
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  5. Building Local Power podcast: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  6. Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?: https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/
  7. here: https://ilsr.org/dark-store-tax-dodge-episode-1-of-building-local-power-podcast/
  8. here: https://ilsr.org/the-true-value-of-recycling-episode-2-of-the-building-local-power-podcast/
  9.  Building Local Power Podcast Homepage.: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  10. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  11. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  12. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/
  13. rating: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  14. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558?mt=2
  15. Building Local Power Podcast Homepage: https://ilsr.org/building-local-power/
  16. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  17. #BuildingLocalPower: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BuildingLocalPower
  18. Funk Interlude: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/53756
  19. Attribution Noncommercial (3.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
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Report: Sparking Grid Savings Starts at Home

by John Farrell | October 12, 2016 6:00 am

Click Here for a New Report, Updated in 2020[1]

 

Browse the Report

Introduction
Big Potential Savings
    Peak Reduction from Commercial Buildings
    Peak Reduction from Homes
Deepening of Peak Energy Reduction in Homes
Powerful Examples
Automated or No?
Conclusion
Footnotes

Download the Report


Introduction

In the past decade, two major trends have threatened the ability of electric utilities to meet the needs of the electricity system. The first is that national electricity sales have flattened, a reversal of nearly 100 years of constant growth, while peak energy use has continued to climb. In other words, at certain moments each year, the grid is strained to capacity by the simultaneous electric use of all customers. Traditionally, utilities have built new power plants to accommodate these moments of intense use. But now utilities can’t recover the costs of these power plants as effectively, as more efficient appliances and lighting lower the total amount of energy sold annually. The chart below shows the remarkable reversal of this trend.

Flattening Electricity Consumption per Capita (U.S.)

The second challenging trend is a need for flexibility. Wind and solar energy production are growing, and utilities have traditionally focused on flexible supply rather than demand. Now, utilities need low-cost tools to maximize flexibility, such as ways to adjust energy demand, not just supply. The chart below, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration[2], illustrates this need for flexibility on the California electricity grid.

Source: EIA[3]
Source: EIA

xcel-dr-switch[4]Fortunately, there are solutions. For years, utilities have reduced the problem of peak energy demand by controlling customer energy use. Xcel Energy in Minnesota is one of many utilities integrating basic “demand response,” using radio controls (right[5]) on customer air conditioners to cycle them off over 15-minute intervals, reducing grid-wide peak energy consumption. The company’s Savers Switch program[6] can reduce electricity demand by 300 megawatts by controlling the air conditioners of 400,000 residential and commercial customers.

Other utilities are adopting new technology, from smart meters to smart thermostats. These tools allow the utility to price energy based on the time of use and its actual cost, offering customers an incentive to use power when it costs less to deliver and giving the utility more control over energy use.

These programs have just scratched the surface.

New technology, particularly in the hands of electric customers, is creating an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond air conditioners and tap the many other sources of controllable electricity demand in homes and businesses. Utilities, like Xcel Energy, should harness these lower-cost ways to meet rising peak energy demand.

 

Big Potential Savings

imageedit_83_3656718250Customers empowered with smartphones, smart apps, and smart devices can already adjust their energy use (and lower their costs) in response to the needs of the electricity system. A variety of smart thermostats can be controlled from smartphones, such as the one in the author’s home (right). Customers can restrict when they run appliances or charge electric vehicles to times with low power costs. And in some markets, companies aggregate these empowered customers to lower overall energy demand significantly using “automated demand response.”

Below are a few potent examples of how utilities access available energy resources in homes and businesses when the grid needs more power.

Peak Reduction from Commercial Buildings

overall-load-shed[7]
Source: Siemens

Five large commercial buildings (100,000 square feet or greater) in the Northwest were selected by researchers from Berkeley Labs to participate in an automated demand response program. The building operators used a number of energy-saving strategies, including pre-heating or -cooling before peak energy periods, cycling off heating/cooling units, and reducing lighting levels.

Over the four winter test periods, buildings averaged a peak demand reduction of 14%, a combined 767 kilowatts. Over four summer test periods, buildings averaged a peak demand reduction of 19%, an average of 338 kilowatts. Electric load reduction was possible even with gas heating systems because of the fans used to distribute heat.

During a Texas grid emergency, 100 retail stores using Siemens automated demand response tools were able to reduce energy use by 21%[8] over 3.5 hours without significantly disrupting customers. The graphic to the left[9] illustrates how the utility sees this demand response.

Peak Reduction from Homes

When it comes to managing residential energy consumption, utilities have used radio-controlled devices for more than two decades, but are just beginning to take advantage of Internet-connected devices or smart appliances.

fema_-_63_-_photograph_by_dave_saville_taken_on_10-04-1999_in_north_carolina[10]
Think of this as a giant battery.

One historic example comes from Great River Energy, an aggregation of cooperative utilities in Minnesota, which remotely controls over 100,000 water heaters[11], enough to store more than 1 gigawatt-hour of electricity. That’s enough electricity to power 37,000 homes for an entire day. Xcel Energy’s Savers Switch program, mentioned in the introduction, aggregates air conditioners in 400,000 homes and businesses to control 300 megawatts of energy demand.

Some utilities are pushing the envelope with new technology.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric achieved[12] energy use reductions of 2 kilowatts per home in the first year of its smart meter and smart thermostat program. The utility allowed 40,000 volunteer customers to switch to electric rate plans where the price varied based on the demands on the grid. Customers received[13] smart meters and smart thermostats to shift their consumption accordingly. The 70 megawatts of peak power reduction was 50% to 100% more than the utility anticipated. In addition to cost savings for more than 90% of participating customers[14], the utility’s costs of $300 to $400 per home were far less than the cost of adding new peak-time power plant generation to the electricity system.

By its second year, the utility increased residential participation to over 100,000 households with average load reduction of 1.4 kilowatts, and by year four, 92% of participating customers saved an average of $140 per summer. The 1.4 kilowatt average load reduction is twice that achieved by Xcel’s Saver’s Switch program.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric’s smart meter network was funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, although Arizona utilities have achieved reliable, if less substantial, results[15] (0.2 kilowatts of peak reduction) with smart thermostats alone. Another 1,000-customer pilot by Energate achieved approximately 1 kilowatt of demand reduction[16] per customer with a Canadian electric utility, a program now slated for expansion.

 

Deepening of Peak Energy Reduction in Homes

While most programs so far have targeted home comfort (central air conditioning or electric water heating), there are other sources of electricity consumption that remain untouched.

The following table shows numerous power draw estimates for common household appliances whose operation could be time-shifted during periods of high energy draw. Energy savings from dishwashers and clothes washers may already be captured in programs where customers pay more for electricity during peak periods, but refrigerators and window air conditioning units run on their own schedule.

Typical Energy Consumption of Large Household Appliances (Watts)

Data Source: Reference.com[17] Don Rowe[18] Inverter Company Chabot Space & Science Center[19] Consumer Reports ILSR Estimate
Refrigerator 600 500-750 N/A 725 600
Dishwasher N/A 1,200 1,200-1,500 1,800 1,200
Clothes washer 500-1,000 500 500 425 500
Window A/C units 1,000-1,500 N/A 1,000 1,000 1,000

Using the lower-end estimates for each, we could expect controlling refrigerators to provide around 600 watts, dishwashers 1,200 watts, clothes washers around 500 watts, and room air conditioners around 1,000 watts of power.

Of course, not all these items are available all the time. But the time we most need them is the time of peak energy demand. For this illustration, we’ll use Dakota Electric in Minnesota, a utility with an electricity system that reaches peak use in the summer, between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

We can probably assume that almost every household (99%) has access to a refrigerator and clothes washer. Dishwashers are in about 75%[20] of American homes, while 91% of Midwest homes have air conditioning[21]. About 22% of air conditioned homes (around 20% of total homes) use window units.

So let’s say a Minnesota utility wanted to manage energy demand in 10,000 homes in Minneapolis. The following table shows how many available appliances the utility would have at its disposal, at a maximum, and the total megawatts of capacity.

Maximum Number of Available Controllable Appliances and Capacity (10,000 households)

Appliance Number Total Megawatts
Refrigerators 9,900 5.94 MW
Dishwashers 7,500 9.00 MW
Clothes washers 9,900 4.96 MW
Window A/C units 2,200 2.20 MW

Of course, just because a customer has the appliance does not mean it would be on. Newer refrigerators use smaller compressors that run 80% to 90% of the time[22]. We’ll assume 80% of refrigerators are available to cycle (about 4.7 MW). Dishwashers are much less certain, with the average dishwasher running just one cycle every 3 days[23]. The wash/dry cycle takes about an hour, so in the 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. timeframe, we can only assume we’ll have 1 in 6 dishwashers running at all (assuming half are running in our peak time window), and only 20% of those available each hour (0.3 MW).1[24] Clothes washers are used more frequently — the average American does 400 loads per year[25], so the typical washer is running 1.1 times per day. We’ll assume half of laundry loads are done between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., and that each individual cycle takes one hour. Thus, in a given hour we would have 11% of washers available to control (0.55 MW). Because we’re talking about peak energy times, it’s probably hot out, so we’ll assume 90% of window A/C units are running the full 5 hours (1.98 MW).

Cycling appliances frequently is bad for the compressor (where applicable), so we’ll assume the utility taps at most 20% of available units each hour to cover the entire peak demand period.

Estimated Available Capacity from Controllable Appliances (10,000 households)

Appliance Number Total Megawatts Total % Available Available Megawatts Available Megawatts per hour (20%)
Refrigerators 9,900 5.94 MW 80% 4.7 MW 0.94 MW
Dishwashers 7,500 9.00 MW 03.3% 0.3 MW 0.06 MW
Clothes washers 9,900 4.96 MW 11% 0.55 MW 0.11 MW
Window A/C units 2,200 2.20 MW 90% 1.98 MW 0.40 MW
TOTAL 1.51 MW

We’re left with 1.51 MW of controllable energy demand per 10,000 households. It may seem small, but in a city like Minneapolis with 166,000 households, the utility has 25 megawatts of untapped energy supply, or about 4% of total peak energy demand.

So how could Xcel Energy or another utility start capturing this potential?

Powerful Examples

California utility PG&E offers a market-based automated demand response program[26], with payments ranging from $200 to $400 per kilowatt of load reduction. For comparison, the owners of the five buildings participating in the pilot program in the Northwest could have earned a minimum of $153,000 for participation in the PG&E program, in addition to their reduced energy bills. Our hypothetical 10,000 Minneapolis households, if grouped together, could have each earned up to $76 had they been participating in the PG&E program.

SDG&E, also in California, offers a similar automated demand response program with incentives[27] worth up to $300 per kilowatt of demand reduction. While 60% of the incentive depends upon completion of the project and test of its load reduction potential, 40% is based on actual performance during the year.

Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative’s Energy Wise[28] demand response program has automated and manual components. The utility provides a free smart thermostat that allows it to automatically control cooling and heating during peak energy events. The 44% of customers who participate receive a 10% discount on electricity during summer months. In exchange, the utility pre-cools the house by two degrees in the morning, and allows temperatures to rise by up to 4 degrees five to seven times per month.

The cooperative’s program goes further, encouraging customers to form teams to beat the peak. The highest-performing teams can win gift cards and prizes, and are notified of peak energy events via email, text, or phone the day prior.

Orvibo Smart OutletThe good news is that these successful programs don’t require advanced or smart meters, which have yet to replace older meters for 50% to 75% of customers[29] across the country, including all of Xcel Energy’s Minnesota customers. Energate, one of many companies in the “connected home” space, offers utility programs that simply pair smart devices with an Internet connection — no smart meter required[30]. That could be a significant tool in Minneapolis, where, like many other large cities, over 90%[31] of households have access to a wired, broadband Internet connection (and the city has a citywide Wi-Fi provider[32]).

Weather forecast company WeatherBug offers forecasting analytics as a tool to enhance the savings from smart, connected thermostats. In a Texas trial, smart thermostats using the company’s integrated weather analysis were able to increase peak energy savings by 13% per home.

Automation technology is available off the shelf today. The Orvibo smart outlet plug[33] (shown right), for example, lets customers set a schedule or turn the device on and off from anywhere via a wifi connection. There are dozens[34] more choices, many available for less than $50. These devices are compatible with large appliances and could be deployed as part of utility demand response programs.

 

Automated or No?

Of the four appliances we considered, there are two distinct types. Refrigerators and air conditioners run independently, turning on and off automatically based on their thermostat settings. Interrupting the cycle of a refrigerator or air conditioner is a minimal inconvenience, and can be done remotely without the customer even noticing it’s happening. Central air conditioners are already controlled in this fashion by utilities, but smart outlets could allow utilities to control automatic appliances like refrigerators and window air conditioners, too.

The other kind of appliances—in this case, washers and dishwashers—run manually, typically starting when a human interacts with them. Trying to stop a washer or dishwasher mid-cycle may reset the machine or cause it to fail to complete its task.

In other words, automating demand response may only make sense for the automatic appliances. For appliances run manually, requiring human interface, it may make sense to instead change human behavior. This may be done more effectively by using transparent pricing communicated through talk, text, or social media, as is done in the Energy Wise program. It can be aided by timers built into these appliances, such as dishwashers or clothes washers that can be scheduled to run at a later time.

For manual appliances, there’s also an opportunity to use psychology to obtain savings. Opower[35] has teamed up with many utilities to put smiley or frowny faces on monthly electric bills to motivate customers to use less energy than their neighbors. The strategy has helped reduce energy use, some of which overlaps with peak demand periods.

 

Conclusion

Homes and businesses represent a large source of manageable energy consumption. Decades-old utility programs enable control of a few major sources of household or business energy use, but much untapped potential remains. In one city, Minneapolis, controlling four major household appliances in homes across the city could reduce peak energy demand by 4%.

Utilities can use commercially available smart technology to allow themselves or their customers to cycle automatic appliances—refrigerators and window air conditioners—and reduce peak energy consumption. Transparent pricing based on the actual costs of electricity can motivate customers to shift the time they use manual appliances such as washers and dishwashers, further reducing peak energy demand.

Electric utilities should explore programs for residential and commercial demand response to access this abundant, low-cost source of peak energy supply.

 

Footnotes

  1. We’re obviously simplifying dramatically, since there’s likely a bias toward dishwashers or clothes washers running later in the evening for working families, or at different times of day entirely. [Back to text][36]
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Endnotes:
  1. Click Here for a New Report, Updated in 2020: https://ilsr.org/report-demand-response-2020/
  2. U.S. Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=16851
  3. [Image]: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=16851#tabs_SpotPriceSlider-2
  4. [Image]: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/smart_grids_and_smart_homes_part_2_home_energy_management/
  5. right: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/smart_grids_and_smart_homes_part_2_home_energy_management/
  6. Savers Switch program: https://drive.google.com/a/ilsr.org/file/d/0B8Hmrr6Ve2pvTXh0Y2trU3ptMUk/view?pli=1
  7. [Image]: https://www.downloads.siemens.com/download-center/d/The-5-Simple-Steps-to-Making-Demand-Response-and-the-Smart-Grid-Work-for-You_A6V10702408_us-en.pdf?mandator=ic_bt&segment=HQ&fct=downloadasset&pos=download&id1=A6V10702408
  8. reduce energy use by 21%: https://www.downloads.siemens.com/download-center/d/The-5-Simple-Steps-to-Making-Demand-Response-and-the-Smart-Grid-Work-for-You_A6V10702408_us-en.pdf?mandator=ic_bt&segment=HQ&fct=downloadasset&pos=download&id1=A6V10702408
  9. graphic to the left: https://www.downloads.siemens.com/download-center/d/The-5-Simple-Steps-to-Making-Demand-Response-and-the-Smart-Grid-Work-for-You_A6V10702408_us-en.pdf?mandator=ic_bt&segment=HQ&fct=downloadasset&pos=download&id1=A6V10702408
  10. [Image]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_heating#/media/File:FEMA_-_63_-_Photograph_by_Dave_Saville_taken_on_10-04-1999_in_North_Carolina.jpg
  11. remotely controls over 100,000 water heaters: http://www.wce.coop/sites/wce/files/PDF/coopConnections/May2016.pdf
  12. achieved: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/oklahoma-gets-big-home-energy-savings-out-of-smart-grid
  13. received: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/oklahoma-gets-big-home-energy-savings-out-of-smart-grid
  14. cost savings for more than 90% of participating customers: http://briarcreekonline.com/pdf/SmartHours%20PLUS%20Flyer%20v4%208-12.pdf
  15. reliable, if less substantial, results: http://images.edocket.azcc.gov/docketpdf/0000171892.pdf
  16. 1 kilowatt of demand reduction: http://www.energateinc.com/blog/2016/02/16/energate-and-powerstream-deliver/#.V79WNLWmeY4
  17. Reference.com: https://www.reference.com/home-garden/many-watts-refrigerator-draw-4170bc6d2f11ae7a
  18. Don Rowe: https://www.donrowe.com/usage-chart-a/259.htm
  19. Center: http://www.chabotspace.org/assets/BillsClimateLab/Electrical%20Appliance%20Typical%20Energy%20Consumption%20Table.pdf
  20. 75%: http://qz.com/29147/death-of-a-dishwasher-families-around-the-world-spurn-americas-favorite-appliance/
  21. have air conditioning: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/07/13/good-question-how-many-homes-have-air-conditioning/
  22. 80% to 90% of the time: http://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-search-content?contentId=16932
  23. every 3 days: http://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/dishwasher
  24. 1: #Footnotes
  25. 400 loads per year: http://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/clothes-washer
  26. automated demand response program: https://www.pge.com/en_US/business/save-energy-money/energy-management-programs/demand-response-programs/automated-demand-response-incentive/automated-demand-response-incentive.page
  27. incentives: http://www.sdge.com/business/demand-response/technology-incentives
  28. Energy Wise: http://www.mvec.net/residential/energy-wise/
  29. 50% to 75% of customers: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/what-will-drive-the-next-wave-of-smart-meters
  30. no smart meter required: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/energate-forges-the-broadband-smart-grid-to-home-connection-in-ontario
  31. over 90%: https://mn.gov/deed/assets/2015-broadband-report_tcm1045-190728.pdf
  32. citywide Wi-Fi provider: http://www.usiwireless.com/service/minneapolis/overview.htm
  33. outlet plug: https://www.amazon.com/Orvibo-Socket-Electronics-Anywhere-WiWo-S20/dp/B00KT50HK4
  34. dozens: http://www.postscapes.com/smart-outlets/
  35. Opower: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/opower-evaluating-impact-home-energy-reports-energy-conservation-united-states
  36. [Back to text]: #Commercial

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-sparking-grid-savings/


ILSR Sponsors the Fourth National Cultivating Community Composting Forum, Scholarship Fund Announced

by Brenda Platt | October 11, 2016 5:03 pm

placeholderIn collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle[1], the Institute for Local Self-Reliance announces two events to be held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show[2], COMPOST2017, in Los Angeles:

Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop – 

January 23, 2017

Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2017 –

January 24, 2017

These events will bring together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community-scale composting systems and enterprises. The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2017 is the fourth national forum sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle.

Interested in sponsoring and helping to support this event?[3] Click here to go the sponsorship page[4] and let us know how you can support this event!

Community composters, we invite your participation and input on the agenda! What topics or experts would you most like to hear from? Are you interested in presenting? What are your biggest challenges?

Limited scholarships are available to community composters! Apply by Friday, October 28. We have scholarships up to $500 to help offset COMPOST2017 registration fees, and travel and hotel costs. Community composters are also eligible to receive a waived registration fee (a $350 value) with a commitment to volunteer 8 hours at the conference.

TO APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP OR PROVIDE INPUT ON AGENDA AND TOPICS, info@ilsr.org[5].

ccc-forum-2016-group-photo

(more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/
  2. USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show: http://compostingcouncil.org/compost2016/
  3. Interested in sponsoring and helping to support this event?: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/1zkaye
  4. the sponsorship page: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/1zkaye
  5. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/2017-cultivating-community-composting-forum/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2017-cultivating-community-composting-forum/


Report: North Carolina Connectivity – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

by Nick Stumo-Langer | October 11, 2016 12:00 pm

North Carolina’s digital divide between urban and rural communities is increasing dangerously in a time when high quality Internet access is more important than ever. Rural and urban areas of North Carolina are essentially living in different realities, based on the tides of private network investment where rural communities are severely disadvantaged. The state has relied too much on the telecom giants like AT&T and CenturyLink that have little interest in rural regions.

Download the Report

The state perversely discourages investment from local governments and cooperatives. For instance, electric co-ops face barriers in seeking federal financing for fiber optic projects. State law is literally requiring the city of Wilson to disconnect its customers in the town of Pinetops, leaving them without basic broadband access. This decision in particular literally took the high-speed, affordable Internet access out of the hands of North Carolina’s rural citizens.

The lengths to which North Carolina has gone to limit Internet access to their citizens is truly staggering. Both a 1999 law limiting electric cooperatives’ access to capital for telecommunications and a 2011 law limiting local governments’ ability to build Internet networks greatly undermine the ability of North Carolinians to increase competition to the powerful cable and DSL incumbent providers.

In the face of this reality, the Governor McCrory’s Broadband Infrastructure Office recommended a “solution” that boils down to relying on cable and telephone monopolies’ benevolence. What this entire situation comes down to is a fundamental disadvantage for North Carolina’s rural residents because their state will not allow them to solve their own problems locally even when the private sector abandons them.

“It’s not as if these communities have a choice as to what they’re able to do to improve their Internet service,” says report co-author Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “There’s a demonstrated need for high-quality Internet service in rural North Carolina, but the state literally refuses to let people help themselves.”

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-north-carolina-connectivity-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-north-carolina-connectivity-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/


ILSR’s Testimony at New York City Hearing on Retail Diversity and Neighborhood Character

by Olivia LaVecchia | October 10, 2016 12:16 pm

Locally owned businesses are taking a hit in New York City. In lower-income and affluent neighborhoods alike, long-time businesses are being forced out by chain stores, rising rents, and new development, and the barriers to starting a new enterprise in the city are higher than ever. These businesses are an essential part of the city’s character and of its economy, and though generations of New Yorkers have pulled their families into the middle class by starting a business, now, this traditional route to a stable and prosperous life is diminishing.

On Sept. 30, the New York City Council’s Committee on Small Business and Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a hearing[1] on zoning and incentive ideas to address the crisis. There was heated discussion at the four-hour hearing, including testimony from more than 30 people. A briefing report[2] [.doc] that city staff prepared for the Council draws on ILSR’s work to propose solutions, and we also submitted written testimony.

The City has long discussed[3] taking the kind of policy action that some of its peer cities, like San Francisco, have. While this hearing is a first step, it remains to be seen whether City officials are willing to act to level the playing field for New York’s locally owned businesses.

To see our testimony, download a copy[4] [PDF] or read it below. We also examined the issue of rising retail rents in New York and other cities in our April 2016 report, “Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It[5].”

 

Testimony of Olivia LaVecchia and Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Before the New York City Council Committee on Small Business and Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises
Oversight Hearing on Zoning and Incentives for Promoting Retail Diversity and Preserving Neighborhood Character
September 30, 2016

Thank you, Chairs Cornegy and Richards, and Members of the Committee on Small Business and the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to submit testimony on this critically important issue.

We work at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a 42-year-old national nonprofit research and educational organization with primary offices in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., where Olivia is a researcher and Stacy is co-director. In our work, we examine the many benefits that strong locally owned businesses bring to communities and economies, and public policy tools that support their growth and development. Stacy has presented on this topic at national conferences organized by groups like the American Planning Association and the National Main Street Center, and has advised many communities seeking policy responses. We’re also the co-authors of an April 2016 report titled, “Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It,” in which we outline six broad policy strategies cities can use to maintain and create a built environment where locally owned businesses thrive.[1]

Our testimony briefly examines the importance of locally owned businesses to New York City and the crisis affecting them, and then offers examples of effective and proven policy strategies to level the playing field for these businesses. Promoting retail diversity and preserving neighborhood character are worthy policy goals, and ones that help the City achieve many other goals as well, such as creating jobs, advancing economic opportunity, and strengthening neighborhoods. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. a hearing: http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=504631&GUID=9DC6E89F-76C6-4811-BDE2-85902D517227&Options=&Search=
  2. briefing report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/NYC_Committee-Report_Hearing_2016.09.30.doc
  3. long discussed: http://gothamist.com/2016/10/01/small_business_vs_chains.php
  4. download a copy: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016.09.30-Testimony-of-ILSR_Oversight-Hearing-on-Zoning-and-Incentives-for-Retail-Diversity-and-Neighborhood-Character.pdf
  5. Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It: https://ilsr.org/affordable-space/
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ilsr-testimony-new-york-city-hearing-on-retail-diversity-and-neighborhood-character/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-testimony-new-york-city-hearing-on-retail-diversity-and-neighborhood-character/


In Maryland, Community Solar Pioneers Offer Blueprint

by Karlee Weinmann | October 7, 2016 6:00 am

placeholderA pair of rooftop solar arrays in Maryland spotlight how pioneering communities can pool their resources to expand local access to renewable energy. These “community solar” projects are an increasingly popular approach as electricity customers renounce utilities’ reliance on fossil fuel and look for ways to cut their energy costs.

maryland-community-solar-projects

This is part of a series released in October 2016 for Energy Awareness Month highlighting communities and community energy projects on ILSR’s Community Power Map[1].

The first of the two projects, atop a church in University Park[2] near the border of Washington D.C, went operational in 2010, around the time that legislation promoting community-scale solar projects began to surface nationwide. Back then, these solar projects were much more ad hoc. They cost more, and there were few proven success stories.

But enterprising communities saw the potential and used early solar projects as guides, giving way to a trend that has since brought community solar projects to neighborhoods across the U.S. The roughly 23-kilowatt University Park project directly influenced a separate 22-kilowatt installation in Greenbelt[3], a couple of towns to the east. In both cases, the local investors sell electricity to the host site.

Community Solar Projects and Virtual Net Metering.[4]

Today, more than a half decade after both projects went operational, they deliver the benefits targeted by their backers: they generate renewable energy for local users, replacing some fossil-fueled electricity, while participants steadily earn back the investment made to supplement tax credits and other incentives. Through 2015, they had each earned back $560[5] of their initial $1,000 buy-in.

Both projects used a private financing model to reduce compliance costs with securities regulations, a major barrier[6] for raising capital for community renewable energy projects. With other structures, these compliance costs could rise to as much as 75% of project costs. The graphic below illustrates the strategy, taken from our Beyond Sharing report[7] on community renewable energy.

University Park busting barriers[8]

university-park-maryland

The investor groups are technically for-profit entities, structured as limited liability corporations, so that they can capture perks tied to renewable energy production in Maryland. Among those incentives are renewable energy certificates, earned by generating solar power, that the groups can sell. Investors can profit from the sale of energy produced by their arrays.

“A social benefit like carbon reduction did not preclude a possible return on an individual’s contribution to the project,” the University Park partnership says it in its materials[9].

University Park and Greenbelt seeded community solar in Maryland, showing how to harness the collective investment of individuals to promote renewable energy. But privately run projects have been tough to scale up despite their success at the hyperlocal level, leaving a gap in a marketplace with unquenched demand for community solar. University Park backers, for example, were able to secure pro bono legal help in arranging the project.

That’s where a new statewide pilot program[10] comes in. The three-year initiative aims to add around 200 MW of community solar, according to plans approved in June, with about 60 MW of that capacity focused on low- and moderate-income electricity customers. Through the program, renters and others unable to install solar on their rooftops can still cash in on renewables. If it works similar to other state programs, the big difference is that the participants won’t own the solar projects, but rather just the right to a share of its electricity production, a key distinction in avoiding securities regulations.
16 states with virtual net metering transparentMaryland’s action brings it into a group of about a dozen states with community solar policies[11], typically crafted to diversify the energy mix and drive new investment in the local clean energy economy — goals that guided the University Park and Greenbelt investors years ago.

Under regulations approved over the summer[12], the Maryland program promises utilities will pay community solar subscribers the retail rate for energy use they offset and excess power generated by their arrays. It also guarantees no subscription fees for customers, meaning those opting in as projects go online will see the same payback on their electricity bills as rooftop solar customers.

One utility, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative Inc., challenged the state’s ability to impose the on-bill credit guarantee for electricity that exceeds the customer’s own use and has asked federal regulators[13] to review the pilot program.

For their part, though, local officials have touted community solar as a multi-pronged asset to the state. It aligns, they say, with a broader vision for a more dynamic local energy economy. W. Kevin Hughes, who heads the Maryland Public Service Commission, has cheered the initiative.

“This pilot program will implement the General Assembly’s desire to increase access to solar electricity for all Maryland ratepayers, especially low- and moderate-income customers,” he said in June[14], after it sealed regulatory approval. “It will encourage private investment in Maryland’s solar industry and diversify the state’s energy resource mix.”

To learn more about the national movement toward distributed generation and renewables, visit ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map[1]. The tool showcases programming, policies and projects across the U.S., and compares state-by-state performance. Bookmark it and check back for updates.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[15]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[16] or get the Energy Democracy weekly update[17].

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  2. atop a church in University Park: http://www.universityparksolar.com/
  3. a separate 22-kilowatt installation in Greenbelt: http://www.greenbeltcommunitysolar.com/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing
  5. earned back $560: http://www.universityparksolar.com/documentation.htm
  6. a major barrier: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  7. Beyond Sharing report: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing/
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/report-beyond-sharing
  9. says it in its materials: http://www.universityparksolar.com/
  10. a new statewide pilot program: https://ilsr.org/maryland-scores-3-out-of-4-on-principles-for-a-good-community-solar-program/
  11. states with community solar policies: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-community-solar-program/
  12. approved over the summer: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/maryland-regulators-approve-community-solar-pilot-program/421105/
  13. has asked federal regulators: http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/08/florida-gulf-coast-hunker-down-ahead-of-storm-216095
  14. he said in June: http://www.psc.state.md.us/wp-content/uploads/Maryland-PSC-Adopts-Community-Solar-Regulations_06152016.pdf
  15. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  16. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  17. Energy Democracy weekly update: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/in-maryland-community-solar-pioneers-offer-blueprint/


Mediacom Lawyers Slow Internet Competition With Court Time, Resources

by Lisa Gonzalez | October 6, 2016 7:26 am

When big corporate incumbent providers fear a hint of competition from a new entrant, they pull out all the stops to quash any potential threat. One of the first lines of offense involves the courts. Iowa City now leases its fiber to Cedar Rapids based ImOn[1] and to stop it, Mediacom is reprocessing an old argument. It didn’t work the first time, but they are going for it anyway; this is another example of how cable companies try to hobble competitors; just stalling can be a “win.”

A Lawsuit In Search Of An Offense

Mediacom has a franchise agreement with Iowa City to offer cable television services and it also provides subscribers the option to purchase Internet access and telephone services. As most of our readers are attuned to these matters, you probably already understand that just any old cable TV provider can’t come into Iowa City and set up shop. State and local law require them to obtain a franchise agreement, which often includes additional obligations in exchange for access to a community’s potential customer base.

According to a 2015 Gazette article[2], Mediacom provides annual payments for use of the public right-of-way, operates a local office, and provides free basic cable services to local schools and government buildings. These types of commitments are commonplace as part of franchise agreements and are small sacrifices compared to the potential revenue available to Mediacom.

ImOn started offering Internet access and phone services to Iowa City downtown businesses in January but the company does not offer cable TV services like it does in other Iowa municipalities. ImOn doesn’t have a franchise agreement with Iowa City but Mediacom says that it should. They argue that, because ImOn has built a system capable of offering video service, it should also have to obtain a franchise agreement.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Wolle dismissed the case, stating in a nutshell:

“Although ImOn is constructing in Iowa City a system that may become capable of delivering cable programming, ImOn is not now delivering cable programming. Therefore, ImOn is not presently required to seek a cable franchise.”

Blast From The Past

This isn’t the first time this argument has echoed off the walls of a courtroom. Back in 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit dismissed a similar case between Time Warner Cable (TWC) and the city of North Kansas City. The situation was similar, except the city had not yet decided whether to invest in the required head end to provide video over the fiber-optic network they wanted to deploy. At the time, a Missouri law required a vote if the community planned to build and own a system in order to offer cable TV services. TWC wanted the use the court for a pre-emptive strike: to bar the city from using the network for video services stating that they could not do so because they had never held a vote.

TWC’s argument revolved around the question of whether or not the city owned or operated a cable television facility, which was in violation of state law. Since the network was not offering cable services and there was no head end yet – in fact they didn’t even know if they wanted to invest in one – what really mattered was whether or not North Kansas City owned a “cable TV facility” without prior voter approval. In other words, were they building a network that was capable of offering cable TV services?

As in Iowa City, the court determined that the issue was not “ripe.” From the opinion[3]:

It is factually undisputed that the City’s fiber-optic network is not connected to the required head end facility to receive such signals nor is there any plan to acquire it. Thus, Time Warner’s statutory claim rests on a contingent future event:  the ownership or operation of a cable-television facility by the City;  therefore, Time Warner’s claim that a vote is required under Missouri law is not ripe in that the City does not currently own or operate a cable-television facility because the planned fiber-optic network will not be capable of transmitting cable-television signals and because the City recognizes that in order for it to provide cable-television services a public vote would be required.

Let’s not put the cart before the horse.

Jeff Janssen, vice president of sales and marketing for ImOn said in December that if the provider’s plans change, they will take the necessary steps:

“Franchise agreements are all around cable TV,” he said. “Once we decide, or if we decided to offer cable TV in Iowa City, we would get that franchise agreement, we are required to.”

Every Tool In The Anti-Competitive Toolbox

Mediacom has approximately 4,500 employees and, like the other large corporate providers, they have a highly qualified regiment of attorneys. Not likely they missed the similarities between the North Kansas City and Iowa City cases, but there’s more than one way to win.

Traditionally, winning means presenting the facts and proving to the judge that they fit into the law and that your interpretation of how they work with the law is more correct than your opponent’s. For companies like Mediacom and TWC, however, winning can also mean delaying your opponents project to drive up their costs or cool subscriber interest. In other words, going after the fruit before it is “ripe.”

Winning may also mean forcing the other side to give up and walk away by driving up their legal costs or making them lose progress when construction is delayed and subscribers lose confidence in the project.

Big incumbents have become masters at using the courts for sabotage schemes, no matter how frivolous the perceived infringement. They sue or threaten to sue over poles[4], attempts to streamline[5], and what services a city can and cannot offer[6]. The state legislatures that have passed laws restricting local authority have only helped massive telecoms and cable companies abuse the courts by providing vehicles for their lawsuits. At the same time, they have forced local governments to waste citizen funds and stalled Internet access, typically to the communities most desperate for it.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. Iowa City now leases its fiber to Cedar Rapids based ImOn: http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/local/2016/01/26/mediacom-lawsuit-continues-imon-launches-services/79360904/
  2. 2015 Gazette article: http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/government/local/mediacom-questions-iowa-city-deal-with-imon-20151222
  3. From the opinion: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1199455.html
  4. sue over poles: https://muninetworks.org/content/pole-issue-means-more-delay-lake-county-project
  5. attempts to streamline: https://muninetworks.org/content/att-makes-good-threats-sues-nashville
  6. can and cannot offer: https://muninetworks.org/content/att-groups-lawsuit-wisconsin-fails
  7. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/mediacom-lawyers-slow-competition-court-time-resources

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/mediacom-lawyers-slow-internet-competition-with-court-time-resources/


Report: Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?

by John Farrell | September 30, 2016 6:00 am

Conventional wisdom suggests the biggest wind and solar power plants will be cheapest, but where they deliver power, and who will own them, matters more.

 

Browse the Report

Introduction: The Savings of Size?
    Renewable Energy Economies of Scale
Evidence to the Contrary
    Limits to Scale in Wind
    Limits to Scale in Solar
    Does Big or Small Grow Fastest?
Why Economics Isn’t the Issue
Summary
Footnotes

Download the Report [1]


Executive Summary

Limits to Scale Economies in Wind Power

  • Most of the economies of scale in producing wind electricity are from scaling up from one to two turbines to about ten turbines.
  • Local delivery of distributed wind can compete with avoided costs at the distribution level just as large projects can compete at the wholesale level.

Limits to Scale Economies in Solar Power

  • Solar power is competitive at nearly any scale, if compared to the price of its competition (note: figures for large-scale solar do not include transmissions costs).
  • Community solar projects may hit the sweet spot for competitive solar, capturing economies of scale but delivering power locally.

Why Economics Isn’t the Issue

  • The proper size of solar is a proxy fight: distributed solar isn’t at odds with utility-scale solar as much as it runs counter to the traditional utility business model.
  • The question is whether our regulatory and business models can use 21st century technology to create an efficient and reliable electricity system where profits from participating are distributed according to their value to the system, rather than a legacy of monopoly control.

 

Introduction: The Savings of Size?

For nearly a century, it’s been considered conventional wisdom that larger-scale power generation means lower-cost electricity. This wisdom is built on two basic theories of economies of scale: volume and mass production. In electricity, only one still holds.

The economies of scale of volume stems from the simple fact that larger containers (boilers, storage bins, etc.) are more cost-effective. This simple illustration explains how materials costs don’t rise as fast as the volume of a container. The box on the left has a volume of 1x1x1 = 1 cubic foot. To assemble the box, you need 6 square pieces of material, each with an area of 1, for a total of 6 square feet. The box on the right has a volume of 2x2x2 = 8 cubic feet. The larger box can be assembled of 6 square pieces, each with an area of 2×2 = 4 square feet, for a total of 24 square feet. We’ve increase the volume of our container 8-fold, with only a 4-fold increase in material costs.

Imagine the larger box as the bigger boiler in a coal or oil power plant. As power plants became bigger in the first half of the 20th century, they captured this economy of scale in materials.

The second economies of scale theory is that the average cost of a product decreases the more you make of it. This takes into account the scale economies in material costs (in building the factories), but also the notion that some overhead costs (such as annual registration fees, insurance, etc) are fixed or grow more slowly than the total output of a business.

Both of these theories were well supported by data in the early years of electricity generation in the 1900s, with coal, oil, and then nuclear power plants producing lower cost power from larger sized plants. The advantage to size also supported the conventional wisdom of monopoly utilities. Big power plants required large amounts of capital, and capital markets offered lower interest rates to companies that did not have the risk of competition for their ever-larger power plants.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Download the Report : https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ILSRIsBiggerBestFinalSeptember.pdf
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-is-bigger-best/


Trust In Government: Strongest Close To Home

by H Trostle | September 27, 2016 5:29 am

We have recently covered state laws preempting local control, especially in North Carolina and Tennessee[1]. State governments are supposed to be “laboratories of democracy” and municipalities are sub-parts of the state. Preemption is ostensibly to prevent problems, but instead these state laws limit local governments’ solutions for ensuring better connectivity.

At the same time, people trust their local government, more than their state government, to handle problems. That’s the latest finding from Gallup’s most recent Governance Poll, and that makes sense for all of us following community networks.

It’s no surprise that trust starts with local community leaders. We have spoken to a number of public officials that acknowledge that when you know your elected official – perhaps live down the street from them or run into them at the grocery store – it’s much easier to know that they share your hopes for the community.

Polls, Trends, and Republicans

Gallup’s September 7th-11th Governance Poll[2] found that 71 percent trust their local government to handle problems, but only 62 percent say the same about their state government. This continues a fifteen-year trend of people putting their faith in local government more than in state government.

trust-in-state-government-by-party

Seventy-five percent of Republicans stated that they have a “great deal/fair amount” of trust in local government. (Compare to only 71 percent of Independents and 66 percent of Democrats.)  This corresponds with what we found in January 2015 while analyzing our data. Most citywide, residential, municipal networks are built in conservative cities[3]. They trust local governments to solve connectivity problems when the big providers can’t or won’t deliver.

municipal-broadband-voting-patterns-001

Image of the graph on trust in local and state governments from Gallup[4]

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. North Carolina and Tennessee: https://muninetworks.org/tags-131
  2. Gallup’s September 7th-11th Governance Poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/195656/americans-trusting-local-state-government.aspx
  3. municipal networks are built in conservative cities: https://muninetworks.org/content/most-municipal-networks-built-conservative-cities
  4. Image of the graph on trust in local and state governments from Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/195656/americans-trusting-local-state-government.aspx
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/trust-government-strongest-close-home

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/trust-in-government-strongest-close-to-home/


Connectivity’s Community Impact: Looking At The Numbers

by H Trostle | September 24, 2016 5:09 am

People rave about next-generation connectivity’s possibilities in rural economies, but what does that mean for locals? A recent survey quantified the actual impact of a reliable high-speed Internet connection in an underserved area.

Central Minnesota telephone cooperative, Consolidated Telephone Company (CTC), released the results of an impact survey[1] on their newest fiber Internet service customers. CTC had extended their Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network to an underserved area south of Brainerd[2], with funding from a 2015 state broadband grant.

A Positive for Small Businesses and Farms

The survey of the CTC customers in the grant footprint highlighted the importance of connectivity for the community. Forty percent reported that they could not live in a home without a reliable high-speed connection. At the same time, fifty-six percent of the CTC customers currently use their home Internet connection for work purposes.

The new connectivity had a positive impact on small businesses and farms. More than twenty percent of the CTC customers maintain a home-based business or farm, and thirty-six percent of them reported that Internet service reduced their overall operating costs. Meanwhile, nine percent of all the CTC customers surveyed stated that they plan to start a home-based business in the next few years.

Reaching Goals

These results are especially refreshing for the Border-to-Border Broadband Grant program. CTC received more than $750,000 from the program in 2015 to improve connectivity for telecommuting and home-based businesses[3] in the area.

The previously underserved area sits south of Brainerd and extends to Fort Ripley. To encourage survey responses, CTC offered the chance to win an iPad and sent reminder postcards and emails to their customers. Twenty-eight percent of CTC’s customer base in that area took the survey either online or over the phone

The Co-op Perspective

Blandin on Broadband recently published videos[4] from a co-op panel at the 2016 Minnesota Broadband Conference. In this short video from the conference, CTC representative Kristi Westbrock discusses the survey and the role of rural co-ops in expanding access to high-quality Internet service.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[5].

Photo Credit: Doug Kerr[6] via Flickr (CC 2.0[7])

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Endnotes:
  1. released the results of an impact survey: https://blandinonbroadband.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/ctc-broadband-impact-study-final-report.pdf
  2. Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network to an underserved area south of Brainerd: http://www.connectctc.com/broadband-grant/
  3. to improve connectivity for telecommuting and home-based businesses: http://mn.gov/deed/programs-services/broadband/grant-program/
  4. Blandin on Broadband recently published videos: https://blandinonbroadband.org/2016/09/15/the-role-of-co-ops-in-advancing-the-broadband-vision/
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/connectivitys-community-impact-looking-numbers
  6. Doug Kerr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/6131267569
  7. CC 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/connectivitys-community-impact-looking-at-the-numbers/


At the Two-Year Mark, a Few Lessons from the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership – Episode 40 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by Karlee Weinmann | September 16, 2016 12:00 pm

Karlee Weinmann: The city of Minneapolis has earned wide reaching praise for its innovative, first in the nation partnership with a pair of local utilities formed to advance ambitious goals, to reduce emissions, energy consumption, and more. Two years in, the clean energy partnership is more than a novel tool to propel sensible energy policy. It offers lessons in how cities can better manage their energy futures. You’ve heard John Farrell on this podcast before, he leads the Energy Democracy Initiative at ILSR. And typically he’s the moderator on Local Energy Rules. But this time we’re flipping the script: rather than ask the questions, John will share his perspective on the historic partnership he helped to form, both what he’s learned so far and where he sees things going. I’m Karlee Weinmann, podcast editor and researcher at ILSR, and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast sharing powerful stories about local, renewable energy.

So John, tell me what’s the clean energy partnership origin story. Where did things start for you?

John Farrell: So I sort of found out about the people who were interested in working on this way back in 2012. It was happening at the time when the city of Minneapolis was going through the final process of approving their climate action plan, as has been done in many cities, to figure out how to lower greenhouse gas emissions. And they had some very ambitious goals, including a 25% reduction in emissions by 2025 or maybe by 2030, but it was in the fairly near term. And what we noticed in that development of the plan when the draft plan came out was that about two thirds of the problem was really out of control, that it came from the usage of natural gas for heating and usage of electricity and residential and commercial businesses. And that all of that was in the hands of these two investor-owned utilities that serve Minneapolis: Center Point Energy for gas and Xcel Energy for electricity.

And so the big question for us was how can we take charge of this problem? How can the actually do something about the climate change problem and actually do something with its climate action plan? Some folks sat down and started kind of like basically brainstorming ideas. What can we do? We can beg and plead the utilities to do something more than they were already doing. But we had seen over many years that that was rarely successful. We could try to change state policy, but we had a legislature at the time that was not really amenable to improving renewable energy policies or doing climate legislation in particular. At that time, getting anything at the federal level was simply laughable. The Republican Congress was not willing to consider anything. It was only a couple years after the big failure of the climate legislation.

We thought about what was it that the city had within their power. And, you know, we thought, you know, there were some significant things that the city could do. It had control over the water bill and has its own water utility. It could offer incentives in terms of buying down loans for energy efficiency improvements. It could give money to neighborhoods to help do like revolving loan programs, which is something that they had done, but that ultimately whatever the city would do, it would be a rather lonely in terms of trying to attack this problem, but also still insufficient to meet those ambitious goals.

The two last things we talked about then where, you know, the city could take over, it could try to become a municipal utility. And in 40 years, since the adoption of legislation in the mid seventies, kind of upgrading state-based utility regulation. And not only that we knew it would be really laborious. It would take a number of years. It would be very expensive and it would involve lots of money for lawyers. Uh, and so the final thing that we came to was this notion of franchise contracts, which was this agreement between the city and the utility. Utilities were given a monopoly by state law. So we didn’t have control over that except for, with municipalization, but these franchise contracts, which were expiring in the next year or two from this perspective of 2012, governed the use of public property in order to deliver those services. And it felt like, Hey, this might be a place where the city actually could have a conversation with the utilities. So that, that’s how we started thinking about approaching this problem was these franchise contracts.

Karlee Weinmann: How did you decide what to do next?
John Farrell: Well, we were looking at all those different ideas and the franchise contract seemed the most likely place where the utilities had to sit down with the city to renegotiate these things. Even though that negotiation took place, it was usually more of a formal, but we thought it doesn’t have to be, the city really could do something with this, but if we wanted to take charge of this problem around climate for the city, if we really wanted to localize decision making and we wanted to do this through the franchise, what we needed was leverage. And that really became the name of the game for us in the end of 2012 and going into 2013, which happened to be a municipal election year. So we knew that the mayor was not gonna run for reelection. All the city council members were up for election. And so we initiated a campaign called Minneapolis Energy Options.

And the idea behind it was that we have an intentional goal, which is we need the city to be able to pursue this climate action plan, but we’re open to the options the strategies that the city might pursue. So we weren’t saying that we thought any particular way was the right way, but that we knew that we were gonna need leverage if we were gonna get into these negotiations. What we also realized is that the only leverage we were ever gonna have was this notion of a municipal takeover. That was the only real legal leverage that a city would have over its investor-owned and monopoly utilities. And so we knew that what we wanted to do is get that on the ballot, get municipalization on the ballot, not even to say that the city should take over, but just to give it the authority to let the citizens give the city the authority to take over. And we thought that then when the city sat down with the utilities, they could really honestly say to them either give us something substantial or we’ll exercise this authority that we’ve been given to take over.

Karlee Weinmann: It’s gonna bring them to the table.
John Farrell: Exactly, exactly. It’s gonna make them realize that they, the negotiation has to be taken seriously. And so the big next step then was that we had to organize. That we went to neighborhood organizations and went to those monthly meetings. We organized in the party caucuses, mostly in the DFL party in Minnesota, because they tend to control most of city politics in Minneapolis. We went to candidate forums. We did door-to-door canvassing. We did phone banking. We were very successful. We got a number of candidates to endorse the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign, which was essentially saying the city should explore its options. It wasn’t a hard ask, frankly. And so we got a lot of endorsements, including the current mayor when she was a candidate.

But I, one of the biggest successes too, is that we also got the city to put $250,000 into what they called an energy pathway study, which was to say, we recognize as a city that we don’t actually know how we’re gonna meet this climate action plan. So we need to figure out what our, our legal pathways for getting there. And we knew in about July that we had been successful already because we got the utilities attention enough and Xcel energy, the incumbent electric utility, sent a full color opposition mailer to every single customer in the city of Minneapolis saying that this was a horrible idea to put municipalization on the ballot because Xcel was such a great company and was giving the city everything that it wanted. And it was great because there was a lot of skepticism among city officials, among electricity customers or whatever. And I think that letter, in some ways, only heightened it for them like, oh, here’s the utility just being heavy handed, who knows how they paid for this flyer, for example, you know, we sort of paid for that, but we knew that we had their attention.

But the real tension and the struggle was that we weren’t sure that we had the votes. We needed to have seven out of 13 council members willing to put this on ballot. And then we needed to know for sure that we could win having a ballot initiative for municipalization and losing wasn’t something that we thought would be very useful in the long run. So we knew that what we needed was that leverage. And we knew that we had gotten the attention of them. We’d organized well enough that the utilities were paying attention, but we weren’t sure that we could win, you know, in mid-summer there was a lot of debate within our campaign about whether or not we should really keep pushing for this, if we weren’t sure if we could win.

And what ended up happening is right around that time that that big glossy flyer went out from Xcel Energy, CenterPoint Energy gave us a call and asked us to come meet with them. And they said, we’re willing to negotiate. We would like to sign on and say, we’re willing to help the city meet its climate action goals. And as long as you guys basically remove us from the equation, say that when you’re for municipalization, you’re not talking about taking over the gas utility. So it was a huge breakthrough. We signed a memorandum of understanding with them, with their regional president or whatever, and myself and some of the other organizers of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign that they were committed to this that broke the whole thing open because within the next couple of weeks, Xcel energy published a public letter saying they were gonna do you the same, that they were willing to work with the city on its climate action plan. Again, this was, this created some tension for us, cuz what ended up happening of course is that the city council said, well, we’re not gonna take the vote. Then if the utilities are willing to work with us, we’re not gonna go down this road toward municipalization. And there was some question among us about whether or not we had won or whether or not we had lost.

Karlee Weinmann: Where do you go from there? It’s not what you were hoping for, certainly, but it’s something. How did you negotiate that and navigate the next steps?
John Farrell: Well, there was a lot of naval gazing about whether or not what we had done was the right thing and whether or not the outcome was what we wanted. We didn’t get the municipalization vote on the ballot. We felt in a way, like we had lost the fight for the leverage that we wanted. On the other hand, we had actually already gotten something that we wanted, which was, we’d gotten this public commitment from both utilities. We actually got a really lovely letter of response from the current mayor, R.T. Rybak, to Xcel saying essentially, I hope you mean what you say because you’ve made lots of promises before. It was the perfect response to say that yes, we would love to work with you, but it’s gonna have to be more meaningful than it has been in the past.
Karlee Weinmann: How significant was it to have an ally like the mayor being so public about his demands for accountability, or at least follow through in that context?
John Farrell: It was really crucial. You know, it was sort of an accident. We were really focused on the sort of incoming candidates. Like I said, we had worked hard to get into endorsements from candidates in the election. And the fact that the incumbent mayor was willing to step out there and say, no, we are gonna have to pay close attention to what you do was, was really big. We already had a number of allies on city council who were really helpful and really good at pushing for us and whatnot. But I think that really made it clear that the city is on our side in this fight and that the utilities were gonna have to please the city in some ways to get them off their back. And frankly, I think that’s another element to this is the leverage that we had was sort of the public image of the utilities, having municipalization on the ballot, in the hometown of Xcel energy, their headquartered in downtown Minneapolis, was something that they didn’t wanna have to contend with.

At the same time they were through a municipalization fight in Boulder, Colorado. It was starting to look kind of ugly for them. And as I recall that the, CEO of Xcel actually was invited to the Star Tribune editorial board and apparently was very, very emotional and very angry about what was happening about the idea that the city would consider municipalization. They were in the process actually building a new headquarters building downtown and he was angry enough to talk about them all, you know, picking up and leaving town and whatever. So we got under their skin.

And the good news is that the city still had that pathway study I had mentioned earlier and the results of that came out in February. So there were a couple months where we kind of went back and forth about, are we getting what we want? Are we not getting what we want? And that pathway study came out and it had four options that the city had explored, starting with municipal and kind of dismissing it as under the state law that we had very expensive and time consuming. And even if we could in the end, because we had controlled the utility do what we wanted, it would take five to 10 years to actually start down that path because we would have to fight the incumbents to take over for that long. Another thing they looked at was a policy called community choice aggregation, which would’ve involved changing state law. And as I mentioned before, the state legislature was not a hospitable place. And so we thought that that was fairly unlikely. And then the last two things were kind of a modified franchise agreement that included some of these policy ideas, which we weren’t sure was totally legal.

And then this novel idea, this Clean Energy Partnership, which none of us had ever heard of before. And it’s a credit to the Center for Energy and the Environment that in doing the study, the pathway study, that they kind of came up with this concept, but we felt like this was the pathway that we had open to us that we could use and, and the best chance that we have for continuing our campaign. What that meant then was we’re now several months after our aborted attempt to put municipalization on the ballot, the franchise contracts were set to expire at the end of 2014. We’re now in February or March and was to figure out, okay, how do we get an agreement before those franchise contracts have to be signed around this partnership idea? And how do we make sure that that structure gets set up in a way that doesn’t just give the utilities the ability to roll us over? So how do we make sure there’s lots of city power and authority in that group? How do we make sure that there’s a role for community members to have input in this process? So that even if we really believe that the folks at the city are doing the right thing, that if they should all change five years from now that we’re not stuck without a way that we can give input and that we were successful.

And so in October, 2014, the city signed and created this first in the nation clean energy partnership, including a substantive role for community participation called an Energy Vision Advisory Committee, which I actually am still sitting on in my first term, and also a shorter franchise contract. So instead of the 20 year contract that had signed previously, the contract was 10 years, but with an optout provision after five years, which maintained the city’s leverage then over this contract, so that if something went wrong, if we felt like the utilities were not in fact living up to their promises, the city would have some leverage short of municipalization that they could use in a reasonable timeframe.

Karlee Weinmann: Where does the clean energy partnership stand today?
John Farrell: We’re getting to the end of the first two year work plan. The process that was agreed upon was that they would do two year work plans that would be developed about six months in advance of each two year cycle. Most of the first two year work plan was really just kind of a lay of the land pulling together, kind of all the information on what the utility are already offering in terms of energy services, what the local and state based programs were getting some data sharing, going between the gas utility, the electric utility in the city, helping to overlay the utility data with census tracked information. So we could start tracking service delivery by socioeconomic status or by race to get to some of those equity issues that we cared.

And to be honest, in terms of the output, they released the first annual report on the partnership about a month ago for the calendar year 2015, there’s not much in there to brag about. It’s a good comprehensive review of the programs utilities were already offering that overlap with the goals of the first work plan, but it’s not really showing a lot of substantive difference in the way that we’re doing things. And in some cases it’s just sort of a puff piece for things utilities were doing. Xcel, for example, has a program called wind source where you can pay a premium to get all of your electricity from wind energy, and you can buy it in, I think a hundred kilowatt hour blocks. Well, wind energy is the cheapest resource there is when you build new power generations. So why we should still be paying a premium for wind is beyond me. And then the second thing was that there just wasn’t a lot of evidence that other new things were happening.

And so, the key right now is gonna be, what does this next work plan look like? What’s gonna be put into it. What’s gonna come out of it. The one last thing hanging over from the first work plan is this notion of community engagement, which is how do we pivot utilities from simply marketing and like putting in bill inserts and sending out flyers and sending out emails about conservation programs or renewable energy programs to doing serious community engagement, where we are taking folks who are trusted members of communities of color or in low income communities and having them out, going out there and carrying the message of here are the kind of services that can help you reduce your energy costs. And, and the tension is of course that we don’t even have the programs designed in the right way to do that. That’s kind of the key to this next work plan then is what are we gonna put in there that’s gonna accomplish some of those goals.

Karlee Weinmann: So with that sort of coming down the pike, what do you see as the partnership’s main goals and, and how do you measure its success going forward?
John Farrell: There’s sort of two or three hats I wear in this, in answering this question. I think speaking as someone who is working with the partnership on this community advisory committee, measuring success and identifying the goals as easy they’re in the documents, the city’s climate action plan, and also a document called energy vision 2040. And that includes now an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, eliminating disparities in energy access and cost by socioeconomic status, by race, and home ownership status, getting 10% of our electricity from local sources. One of, I think the most important goals, and one of the most challenging is reaching 75% of households in the city with some sort of energy efficiency retrofit within the next nine years. Just to give you some context for that, we currently have reached maybe about 10% of households with all of the programs to date historically, and we do about 1% per year.
Karlee Weinmann: Ambitious.
John Farrell: Yes. And then the, the final goal that’s kind of articulated there is to reduce energy use by 17% between 2013 and 2025. So not just shaving off energy growth, but substantially reducing energy consumption. And I think that really ties into that previous one, ambitious target about the 75% of households. If you can’t reach that many people, you probably can’t make that kind of dent in energy consumption. So that’s really how I see the partnership as measuring success. And I think by those scores, we’re really making very little progress with the caveat there’s a lot of learning that needs to go on in terms of what are the tools that we have at our disposal and what are the new ones that we need.

I also wear in this conversation my hat with Minneapolis Energy Options are now, we’ve called our group Community Power and Minneapolis Energy Options is the campaign that we’re running. And our goals are more ambitious in that we wanna see a hundred percent renewable energy in the city of Minneapolis. We wanna see 75% of it coming from local sources or locally owned sources, but we also share a lot of the city’s goals in terms of eliminating disparities and reducing energy consumption. So I think we measure success under both of those things. So our goal at Community Power is to kind of push the city and the partnership to be even more ambitious, but primarily to make sure that they can even live up to the goals that they have in the existing plan.

Karlee Weinmann: So how effective, in your view, is the partnership at supporting renewables and responsible energy policy versus what might have been done with municipalization?
John Farrell: Well, I think the key here is that municipalization is a really time consuming and expensive process. It’s not to say that it wouldn’t be worth it in the end, but even if we had passed that ballot initiative in 2013 and the city had then done a feasibility study of municipalization and then decided to go ahead with it, we’re probably talking 2020 before the city effectively has control over the grid and was making the decisions. So that’s a lot of years that would pass, you know, years that we need to reach some of these goals that we wouldn’t really be doing anything other than fighting with Xcel and Centerpoint. So I guess the answer to that is we don’t know what would’ve worked better at this point.

I’m optimistic that the partnership will prove more effective because we have more time to work with it. Although the key is whether or not some of the programs that have already launched are gonna be ambitious enough and whether or not the new items that we add can be successful. They just launched a multifamily energy efficiency program to get to renters in a way that they haven’t been able to before. It’s only been active for maybe six months, they’ve got a couple pilots for community engagement, but they haven’t yet even put out the RFP, the request for proposals to deliver those services yet. And what we are really lacking is what, what we like to call inclusive financing, which is to say that probably half or more of the residents of Minneapolis couldn’t get a loan based on their credit score in order to finance renewable energy or energy efficiency in their home, or their apartment. And so we need a tool that allows them to participate if we’re gonna reach 75% of, of households. And so those are kind of the key issues I think, that I think the partnership can allow us to do a lot of that stuff and it can even do that on a better time scale than municipalization, but it remains to be seen.

Karlee Weinmann: So from where you sit, what happens next, what opportunities does a unique partnership like this one create for further policy action? Like the ones you’ve described?
John Farrell: I think the most important thing is just how inspiring this work has been for people in other places. So when we created this partnership, Minneapolis was recognized by the White House as an innovator on climate. This utility partnership has gotten a lot of attention. It’s been something that Xcel and center point have talked about around the country. When they go to conferences, I’ve been invited to go speak in a lot of places. I mean, I can list off five cities right off the top of my head that have all been inspired. Madison, Wisconsin, Tucson, Arizona, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Duluth, Minnesota, all places where there are either official efforts through public agencies or through the city government or groups of activists who have taken inspiration from the campaign here and are trying to do something similar in their communities.

I also think that there’s a lot of really fascinating and interesting things that we can do that combine sort of city policy and utility resources. One of the things that we’re looking at is the city currently has what’s called a truth and sale of housing form. So it’s this boring five page document that you get when you are buying a house and it discloses all sorts of things about the presence of lead paint or asbestos or whether or not the water comes from a well or all those sort of things that you probably need to know in buying a house. But what you don’t learn anything about is whether or not that house consumes a lot of energy or not, or whether or not the house has insulation. You know, many Minneapolis homes actually have none, which is sort of startling in that it’s 2016 and in this climate that you could have a property without insulation. The city, however, has authority to change that they can require that a seller provide information about the energy consumption in that prop.

And so what we’re looking for is that the seller of a home would have to have an energy audit conducted that would give the person who’s going to buy that home an idea of what it would cost month to month to pay the energy bills. So that instead of just talking with their realtor about what kind of house they can afford, based on the mortgage payment, that they’re factoring in energy costs, which can be very substantial. And we hope that’ll do two things. We’ll one is it will create a market for more energy efficient homes, cuz people will be shopping for that alongside the cost of the property, but also that it will, if we tie it together with other things like inclusive financing, allow us to give tools to people to make changes. So maybe in one case, the seller will say, well, my energy score was really bad. Well, I’ll make some improvements before I sell of the house with what some folks call on-bill repayment, the improvements are done immediately. The property is now much more energy efficient. The energy savings will accrue to whoever’s gonna live there and with on bill repayment, the payments actually stay with the property. And so that seller knows that they don’t have to put in a bunch of money and somehow recoup that in the sale price, they can make those improvements and know that their house will look efficient to the person moving in. And that the person who moving in will also assume responsibility for paying for those improvements. So I think there are a lot of interesting ways in which the city and utility resources can combine in the partnership to do some pretty impressive things.

Karlee Weinmann: Looking back on the partnership to date, what are the biggest challenges in informing it and what are its biggest challenges now?
John Farrell: The utilities are always reluctant to do something different. It’s a product of the rules that they operate under that encourage them to kind of be responsive to state regulation and not to individual cities. And also it’s kind of a cultural one in that because little has changed in their business model or their way of operation in decades, that they’re not really used to coming out and trying something new and innovating. And so it was very clear. And, and you could, I think sense that from the fact that we didn’t bother trying to really sit down with the utilities at the beginning of this conversation, we sort of recognized those conversations have been had before and the utilities weren’t particularly helpful. And so we knew that we were gonna have to move em by making them feel like they needed to move rather than just cajoling them along.

I think the second thing though, too, was also making energy an issue that folks in the city and candidates would care about. So making Minneapolis Energy Options a campaign issue was important because it let folks know that it was something that their constituents would be responsive to. I think those were the big challenges informing the partnership and in kind of getting to where we are in terms of the structure and the biggest challenges now are overcoming the inertia that utilities have still toward like doing the same old thing. So, you know, energy conservation is a marketing strategy and not as a community engagement strategy, still wanting to make money by selling more energy and, and also not being very open to new and innovative program designs.

So for example, we’re interested in ways that the city could potentially own renewable energy generation outside of city limits kind of out in rural areas, wind turbines or solar panels, and sell that power to the utility and also keep the renewable energy credits. So keep the renewable attributes to be used for, you know, meeting the city’s climate action goals. Well, that’s kind of a challenge to the utilities way of doing things. They wanna build the power generation and sell it to somebody they don’t wanna lose their market share. So that I think that continues to be an issue that we have to struggle with. And then also pushing people to city, you know, like the city has a franchise fee that’s part of their franchise contract, which is money the city collects on utility bills. They could raise that fee and collect more revenue that could go toward this partnership. You know, you talk to people in the city finance department though. They’re not usually very enthusiastic about you finding ways to dedicate revenue that have been going into the general fund. So it goes both ways. I think both the city and the utilities continue to be pushed to think about new and different ways of doing things.

Karlee Weinmann: You’ve mentioned that this effort has inspired action elsewhere across the country. What lessons should other cities take away from the process that you were a part of?
John Farrell: Well, I think two things. One is that if you really wanna move utilities and elected officials, you need leverage, you need to make them feel like they have to respond to you. So whether that’s making it a campaign issue, as far as getting city officials to pay attention or for the utilities presenting a credible alternative to their business plan, like municipalization, I think the second thing though, is that you always have leverage in a way that you might not imagine. So, you know, I’ve been impressed with folks in Madison, for example, who have kind of taken up the charge in Wisconsin. One of the ways that they have fought their investor owned utility is to get people who are shareholders to do shareholder resolutions and to go to shareholder meetings and to demand change from the inside. And I think that’s a really interesting and innovative strategy and one that we didn’t have to use here. It’s probably one that we could use here in Minneapolis, and that we’ll learn from if we need it. But to me it suggests there’s always a lever somewhere that you can move. And so it’s just a question of identifying where those levers are and how to pull on them.
Karlee Weinmann: That was John Farrell, ILSR’s director of Energy Democracy speaking about the accomplishments of Minneapolis’s Clean Energy Partnership so far, and the challenges that lie ahead. You can find a wealth of information on the partnership at ilsr.org and at mplscleanenergypartnership.org. More Local Energy Rules podcasts are available at ilsr.org as well. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.

 


Minneapolis garnered national attention when it formed a first-of-its-kind partnership[5] with local utilities to advance sustainable, efficient energy policy. Now, as communities across the U.S. increasingly push for influence over their energy futures, the Midwestern city offers a blueprint for what works and a taste of the challenges that come with cooperation.

John Farrell, who leads the Energy Democracy Initiative at ILSR, was a key player in forging the hard-fought Clean Energy Partnership[6] in 2013. He’s still involved as a member of the advisory committee formed to steer the city and its two investor-owned utilities toward policies that favor renewable energy and efficiency.

Officially two years in, the Minneapolis model offers deeper insight to other communities chasing meaningful change. Farrell outlined the key takeaways in the latest episode of Local Energy Rules, the ILSR podcast that highlights innovative pathways to local, renewable energy.

A Historic Partnership

The Clean Energy Partnership, as it’s known, marked a pioneering approach to responsible energy policy. It united the City of Minneapolis and its two investor-owned utilities, electricity provider Xcel Energy and natural gas provider Centerpoint, to advance the city’s goals for shrinking its carbon footprint and promoting a healthy energy economy.

By the time the partnership formed in 2013, Minneapolis had already set ambitious targets for reducing emissions by 30 percent by 2025 — a benchmark out of reach unless households and businesses significantly cut their electricity and natural gas use. That energy consumption was central to the effort, placing utilities at the heart of the issue.

Still, the utilities hopped on board only after a fierce campaign to shake up their outdated business models, including a threat to put power exclusively under the city’s control. Ultimately, the focus shifted away from municipalization toward the unique three-way framework in play today. The compromise guaranteed a change[7] in how the city treats energy.

“We didn’t get the municipalization vote on the ballot. We felt in a way like we had lost the fight for the leverage that we wanted,” Farrell said. “On the other hand, we had actually already gotten something that we wanted, which was we had gotten this public commitment from both utilities.”

The months-long saga spotlighted the need for innovative strategies, like raising municipalization as a viable alternative, to push reluctant utilities and enterprising cities toward better energy policies.

Building Alliances

Organizers in Minneapolis mounted their Minneapolis Energy Options campaign at a key time, when each city council member and the mayor were up for election. Several sitting policymakers had aligned themselves with the city’s Climate Action Plan, but the election season brought a bigger platform to raise energy issues — including municipalization — and demand accountability.

Multiple candidates, as well as the outgoing mayor, threw their weight behind plans to shake up how Minneapolis approaches energy. Against the backdrop of growing community interest, the organizers nailed down commitments from officials and in turn cemented vital alliances at City Hall. Still, as labor-intensive as it was, drumming up support from voters and candidates was the easier part.

The utilities, locked into a decades-old business model that shortchanges renewables and energy efficiency, were tougher sells. Ultimately, they buckled under rising pressure to join forces with the city. They promised to evaluate how they could fit into the city’s aggressive energy plan, and then-Mayor R.T. Rybak made clear the city expected distinct results.

In a letter to Xcel’s brass[8], Rybak set a bar for the partnership to produce a payoff more significant than the utility’s lackluster past efforts to support Minneapolis in going green.

“It was the perfect response, to say that, ‘Yes, we would love to work with you, but it’s going to have to be more meaningful than it has been in the past,’” Farrell said. “That really made it clear that the city was on our side in this fight, and that the utilities were going to have to please the city in some ways to get them off their back.”

Finding Leverage

Pressure from the city exposed new opportunities to prod the utilities to do more. Rybak’s letter put momentum behind the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign, but it also invited officials — and the public — to closely monitor exactly how far the utilities went to propel city goals forward[9]. That particularly stung Xcel, whose headquarters sits in downtown Minneapolis.

A budding fight for municipalization, or at least a notable overhaul, in MInneapolis fanned tensions already brewing in Boulder, CO. There, Xcel was mired in a long-running, messy fight over whether the city should squeeze it out to form its own electric utility. As Farrell remembers it, Xcel’s CEO was so defensive that he hinted the company would move to a different city.

“We got under their skin,” Farrell said, noting that a utility’s public image can be a valuable tool to force change. The specter of ratepayers frustrated with Xcel for doing too little to support the city’s Climate Action Plan became a pressure point in getting the utility to deepen its focus on those goals.

Advocates eyeing similar shakeups in their cities can borrow from the growing crop of cities eyeing similar outcomes, but there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Organizers in Madison, WI, for example, have followed Minneapolis’ lead to motivate meaningful changes in local energy policy. But their approach is decidedly different — it starts in the boardroom.

Shareholders in Madison’s investor-owned utility have called for tweaks through resolutions that outline better long-term strategies[10]. The “activist shareholder” approach has become increasingly common in U.S. boardrooms, and the technique can be useful in bending utilities toward policies and programs that favor customers, renewables and energy efficiency.

“If you really want to move utilities and elected officials, you need leverage,” Farrell said. “You need to make them feel like they have to respond to you.”

Thinking creatively about the individual dynamics at play in each community is key to crafting the solutions that make progress possible. Cities like Madison and Minneapolis both showcase the potential for novel tactics to shape the fight for more sensible energy policy.

“To me, it suggests there’s always a lever somewhere you can move,” Farrell said. “It’s just a question of identifying where those levers are and how to pull on them.”

Charting Progress

Minneapolis’ unique approach to addressing significant gaps in in energy mix offers a loose blueprint for other cities, but the partnership is far from a ready-made solution. While it itself offers a platform for delivering results, growing pains and slow progress showcase the ongoing work needed to capture the opportunity.

The citizen advisory committee, on which Farrell sits, is an important check on the partnership’s progress and priorities — especially considering the inertia prevalent among utilities that leaves them reliant on an old-school business model that hinges big profits on hefty consumption and dirty power generation.

As it stands, Farrell says, the Minneapolis framework through its first years has yet to reach its potential. The group is approaching the end of its inaugural two-year work plan[11], designed mainly to set a foundation for future efforts. Reports so far highlight existing programs that dovetail with the partnership’s goals, but the utilities have yet to introduce new, bigger approaches.

“That’s kind of the key to this next work plan,” Farrell said. “What are we going to put in there that’s going to accomplish some of those goals?”

Going forward, advocates want to see richer data collection and a focus on equitable access to initiatives that support access to renewable energy and efficiency-oriented upgrades. They also want greater community engagement, a callback to an important piece of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign.

Measuring some progress is easy, because benchmarks are spelled out in city documents. That includes emissions reductions of 80% by 2050, a plan to reach 75 percent of Minneapolis households with an energy retrofit by 2025, and an overarching effort to reduce energy consumption. But none of those will happen — and no more ambitious goals will surface — if the utilities don’t debut wider-reaching programs with access in mind. The initial work plan also failed to set any interim goals, making it harder to evaluate efforts in the short run, an issue Farrell is interested in solving for the upcoming two-year plan.

While municipalization would have guaranteed the city more flex over how it achieves its goals, the partnership offers advantages. Rather than wrangle over a city utility takeover for several years, the three-pronged partnership can get to work now.

“I’m optimistic that the partnership will prove more effective because we have more time to work with it,” Farrell said. “Although the key is whether or not some of the programs that have already launched are going to be ambitious enough and whether or not the new items that we add can be successful.”

For further reading, check out Farrell’s review of the first two years of the Clean Energy Partnership[12] and proposals for the next work plan[13] from Community Power (the successor to Minneapolis Energy Options).

This is the 40th edition of Local Energy Rules[14], an ILSR podcast with Director of Energy Democracy John Farrell that shares powerful stories of successful local renewable energy and exposes the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Other than his immediate family, the audience is primarily researchers, grassroots organizers, and grasstops policy wonks who want vivid examples of how local renewable energy can power local economies.

Local Energy Rules is published intermittently on ilsr.org, but you can Click to subscribe to the podcast: iTunes[15] or RSS/XML[16].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[17]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[18] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[19] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/ILSR_Podcast_Farrell.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/ILSR_Podcast_Farrell.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. a first-of-its-kind partnership: https://ilsr.org/history-hope-first-in-the-nation-city-utility-clean-energy-partnership/
  6. Clean Energy Partnership: https://mplscleanenergypartnership.org/
  7. guaranteed a change: https://ilsr.org/grow-city-utility-partnership-sprouts-minneapolis/
  8. a letter to Xcel’s brass: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Rybak-Reply-to-Xcel-letter-Aug-2013.pdf
  9. propel city goals forward: https://ilsr.org/open-letter-urges-xcel-energy-to-adhere-to-minnesota-clean-energy-commitments/
  10. resolutions that outline better long-term strategies: http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/mge-shareholders-file-resolutions/article_d02fd79d-8bf8-567f-9b0e-8c3a6bc27a18.html
  11. inaugural two-year work plan: https://ilsr.org/proposed-2-year-strategy-energy-democracy-minneapolis/
  12. Farrell’s review of the first two years of the Clean Energy Partnership: https://ilsr.org/reviewing-two-years-of-a-novel-city-utility-partnership
  13. proposals for the next work plan: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CommunityPowerproposedCEPWorkPlan2017-18.pdf
  14. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage
  15. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/local-energy-rules/id595698022?mt=2
  16. RSS/XML: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  17. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  18. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  19. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/at-the-two-year-mark-key-takeaways-from-the-clean-energy-partnership-episode-40-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/


Wilson, North Carolina Forced to Turn Off Service to Rural Pinetops

by Lisa Gonzalez | September 16, 2016 7:07 am

Last night, Wilson’s City Council voted to halt Greenlight Internet service to the community of Pinetops[1], North Carolina. City leaders, faced with the unfortunate reversal of the FCC’s preemption[2] of harmful state anti-muni laws, felt the move was necessary to protect the utility. Service will stop at the end of October.

No Other Solution

Before the vote City Manager Grant Goings told the Wilson Times[3]:

“Unfortunately, there is a very real possibility that we will have to disconnect any customer outside our county. That is the cold, hard truth,” Goings said. “Without getting into the legal options that our city attorney will discuss with the council, I’ll summarize it like this: we have not identified a solution where Greenlight can serve customers outside of our county.

“While we are very passionate about reaching underserved areas and we think the laws are atrocious to prevent people from having service, we’re not going to jeopardize our ability to serve Wilson residents.”

When H129 passed in 2011, it provided an exemption for Wilson, which allows Greenlight to serve Wilson County. The bill also states[4] that if they go beyond their borders, they lose the exemption. North Carolina’s priorities are clearly not with the rural communities, but with the big corporate providers that pushed to pass the bill.

After Wilson leaders took the vote, Christopher commented on the fact that they have been put in such a difficult position:

“It is a travesty that North Carolina is prioritizing the profits of the big cable and telephone companies above the well-being of local businesses and residents. The state legislature needs to focus on what is good for North Carolina businesses and residents, not only what these powerful lobbyists want.”

Economic Progress Grinds To A Halt

Vick Family Farms, highlighted in a recent New York Times article[5], is only one Pinetops business that faces an uncertain future. The potato farm invested in a new packing plant that requires the Gigabit connectivity they can only get from Greenlight. Incumbent Centurylink has explicitly stated that is has no intention to upgrade infrastructure in a community of only 1,300 people.

In a letter to Governor McCrory[6], Mayor Burress rightly lays the blame on the shoulders of the state. “In effect,” he says, “the state of North Carolina is turning off our Gigabit entry to the 21st century global knowledge economy.”

He also describes how Gigabit connectivity to rural Pinetops, brightened their future[7] in a number of ways:

“The economic future of my rural community improved immediately when we gained access to Wilson’s broadband service. Compared to what we had been receiving from the incumbent, access to Greenlight services was like being catapulted from the early 1990s into the 21st century. Our small businesses and residents have saved hundreds of dollars and significantly increased their productivity because of the reliable and super fast Greenlight speeds. Our town commissioners also began planning a new economic development strategy, because as a Gigabit giber community we became newly competitive in the region for attracting creative class and knowledge workers from Greenville and Rocky Mount and the new jobs created by the Rocky Mount CSX distribution hub.”

The Pinetops Board of Commissioners passed a resolution[8] after the Wilson vote, calling on the North Carolina General Assembly to repeal H129. Wilson Energy will still use the fiber connections to Pinetops homes will still use but customers will not have the option to use the infrastructure for connectivity. Nevertheless, if there are future changes in North Carolina laws that remove the state barriers, Pinetops could once again be served by Wilson’s Greenlight.

Bigger Than Wilson

When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit made their decision to reverse the FCC’s ruling on the anti-muni laws, their decision immediately harmed the community of Pinetops. Their decision, however, reaches to every rural community where the big Internet Service Providers don’t offer the fast, affordable, reliable connectivity needed in the 21st century.

In the words of Wilson’s City Manager:

“This is bigger than Wilson. This is about the rural areas, particularly in eastern North Carolina, because the majority of the area does not present enough profitability to attract the private-sector investment,” Goings said. “As a community, a state and frankly as a nation, we need to find ways to connect these rural communities, and our city council believes strongly that our state officials should focus on being part of the solution instead of constructing barriers to prevent communities from being served.”

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. community of Pinetops: http://pinetopsnc.publishpath.com
  2. reversal of the FCC’s preemption: https://muninetworks.org/content/sixth-circuit-court-appeals-reverses-fcc-disappointing-ruling
  3. told the Wilson Times: http://wilsontimes.com/stories/Greenlight-likely-to-disconnect-Pinetops,72844
  4. The bill also states: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/PDF/H129v7.pdf
  5. highlighted in a recent New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/technology/broadband-law-could-force-rural-residents-off-information-superhighway.html?_r=0
  6. a letter to Governor McCrory: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2016_Pinetops_Mayor_%20Burress_Letter_Gov.pdf
  7. brightened their future: https://muninetworks.org/content/rural-pinetops-being-gigabit-community-means-business-north-carolina
  8. passed a resolution: https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2016_Pinetops_Resolution_for_Repeal_of_H129.pdf
  9. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/wilson-forced-turn-service-pinetops

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/wilson-forced-to-turn-off-service-to-pinetops/


Eureka Recycling: Efficient, Cost Effective and Socially Beneficial Recycling

by Neil Seldman | September 8, 2016 9:35 am

Grassroots recycling companies were a critical link in the United States as the transition from the drop off recycling centers that sprung up after Earth Day in 1970 and municipal curbside service that emerged in the mid 1970s. Non-profit and for profit enterprises demonstrated the feasibility of curbside collection and by the mid 1980s municipal services were being introduced throughout the U.S. Established hauling companies bought some of the more successful enterprises.[1][1] Several remain in operation today: Recycle North in Burlington, VT, Center for Eco Technology in Pittsfield, MA, Infinity Recycling in Chestertown, MD, EcoCycle in Boulder, CO, Berkeley Ecology Center, Ann Arbor Ecology Center, Resource Center in Chicago, and Eureka Recycling in St Paul, MN.

From these beginnings, the country today enjoys a vibrant recycling industry with over one million workers, 65,000 companies and 40,000 local government programs.

Community based recycling enterprises always out compete the large national haulers, by far. The challenge is to get access to the materials that they control as waste.
– Dan Knapp, Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA

Most recently non-profit Eureka Recycling[2] is demonstrating that local and community focused enterprises are the most cost effective and socially beneficial way to recycle. They are establishing a new and higher standard for municipal contracting for recycling services.  These standards include prohibiting the use of at risk temporary workers with meager pay and no benefits.  Employing well-trained unionized workers under respectful labor conditions leads to less absenteeism, turnover and compensation claims.   (See “Social Enterprise Zero Waste Group Beats Multinationals in Twin Cities Recycling Contracts” – Eureka Recycling,  June 29, 2016 and an Excerpt from Statement from Dan Knapp and Neil Seldman on the US Recycling Archive Project, 2015[3])

Eureka has been the St Paul recycling service provider for 15 years and just won a new 5-year contract for recycling collection and processing to begin January 2017.  Eureka also won the contract to expand its processing services to Minneapolis starting in November 2017, outbidding Waste Management, Inc. These new contracts allow the Twin Cities-based organization to add additional shifts, employ over 80 workers, deploy new green trucks and process more than 80,000 tons of recyclables per year from the Twin Cities. Ten years ago, Eureka built its own materials recovery facility (MRF), as it needed to become independent of MRFs controlled by concentrated hauling companies.  This move has allowed them to expand and grow their business.

eureka-Truck-Side-AngleThe community and workers have benefited from this social enterprise. Many workers, for example, have been with the company for 12 plus years. While others have been with the company for at least 3.5 years. Traditional processing companies rely on temporary workers that sidestep the responsibility to provide fair wages and working conditions. Eureka’s workers are paid a living wage plus health insurance coverage and sick leave. Eureka has won specific praise from the public because they learn that “why you recycle is reflected in the decisions about how you recycle.”

Eureka pledge to its customers includes:

  • Providing living wages and benefits for all employees (not relying on temp labor), including Union drivers
  • All profits reinvested into programming, education and advocacy to benefit our community and provide zero waste solutions that impact climate change, local economic development, and justice
  • Decisions made about where to sell materials based on finding the best price, while aiming for the most environmental benefit and building our local economy

Using their recycling operations as a demonstration towards changing systems that perpetuate waste, Eureka is much more than just a recycler. On October 22, 2016, Eureka will hold a Zero Waste Summit [4]focused on growing the Zero Waste movement in the Twin Cities region and exploring the potential to collaborate across sectors to ensure that waste-reduction solutions are equitable.

The social enterprise remains committed to solving problems through its focus on community service, its workers and the environment. Other cities should pay attention to the new realities of community based recycling that integrates business with education and outreach to spur increased recycling levels.


Notes

[1][5] These included Portland (OR) Recycling Team, Garbagios, Eugene, OR, Recycle Unlimited, Grand Rapids, Recycling Unlimited, St. Paul, MN, Garbage Reincarnation and Santa Rosa Community Recycling Center in Santa Rosa, CA, San Francisco Community Recyclers, Solano (CA) Recycling and Palisades Recycling, Los Angeles.

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Endnotes:
  1. [1]: #_ftn1
  2. Eureka Recycling: http://www.eurekarecycling.org/
  3. Excerpt from Statement from Dan Knapp and Neil Seldman on the US Recycling Archive Project, 2015: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Excerpt-from-the-US-Recycling-Archive-Project-2015.pdf
  4. Eureka will hold a Zero Waste Summit : http://www.eurekarecycling.org/zero-waste-summit
  5. [1]: #_ftnref

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/eureka-recycling-efficient-cost-effective-and-socially-beneficial-recycling/


November 8th: Four Key Factors for the Armchair Strategist

by David Morris | August 31, 2016 10:05 am

Two months to elections and counting. Americans will be voting for the entire House, a third of the Senate and the President, as well as all members of state legislative lower houses and usually half of their state senators.

It may be an historic election, an election in which many states will be operating under rules adopted only in the last half dozen years. These rules affect the value of one’s vote and the ease of voting. All of this is occurring in a setting where fewer and fewer federal races are even competitive. Together these impose considerable challenges for those trying to dislodge incumbents the success of which may depend significantly on the level of voter turnout.

Voter dilution, voter suppression, turnout, the dwindling number of winnable seats. These four key factors will influence the outcome of the 2016 election and determine the future composition of the federal government.

Voter Dilution

Every 10 years, by Constitutional mandate, the U.S. government conducts a Census that determines the number of Representatives allocated to each state. The Constitution largely, although not entirely, leaves the manner in which those Representatives are elected to the states.

According to Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Choosing Senators.”

In 1842, for the first time, Congress intervened in state elections, eliciting howls of protest from states’ righters. Congress demanded that Representatives “should be elected by districts composed of contiguous territory … no one district electing more than one Representative.”   In 1872 Congress added the requirement that districts have “as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants.” In 1901 and again in 1911, Congress also required the district be “compact.”

In 1929 Congress dropped all state election requirements excepting for single member districts. For the next three decades the size and design of voting districts rested entirely in the hands of state legislatures. To protect their seats, incumbents drew wildly unequal and discriminatory election districts. Fearful of losing their legislative dominance as populations shifted to urban areas, rural legislators designed districts whose populations sometimes varied by as much as 100 to 1. Race-based gerrymandering was common.

In 1962, in a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court finally decided[1] that federal courts could intervene to determine the constitutionality of state voting districts.  As Justice William Douglas explained, if a voter no longer has “the full constitutional value of his franchise, and the legislative branch fails to take appropriate restorative action, the doors of the courts must be open to him.” In 1964 the Supreme Court clarified and amplified this decision by ruling[2] that state Congressional districts must be similar in size so that “as nearly as is practicable one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” Still another decision[3] extended this requirement to both houses of a state legislature.

At the same time Congress again intervened, this time with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that banned racially based redistricting and racially discriminatory voting requirements.

Since then courts have repeatedly been asked to intervene. When faced with a clear case of racially based redistricting, they’ve often been willing to do so, but they’ve adopted a hands-off approach when the shape of a district, no matter how oddly drawn, is a result only of political partisanship, no matter how stark. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. decided: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/369/186/case.html
  2. ruling: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/376/1/case.html
  3. decision: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/377/533/case.html
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/november-8th-four-key-factors-for-the-armchair-strategist/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/november-8th-four-key-factors-for-the-armchair-strategist/


Prince George’s County Has Officially Declined To Move Forward With Garbage Incineration

by Neil Seldman | August 25, 2016 12:35 pm

Prince George’s County has officially declined to move forward with garbage incineration as part of its future solid waste and recycling management system. On 9 August, the County notified all bidders that it has “determined that the project may not be in the best interest of the County at this time.”

Robin Lewis of Don’t Burn PG and Energy Justice Network stated to the Prince George’s County citizens’ zero waste network:

“The Prince George’s County Department of Environment (DoE) Request for Qualification (RFQ) for the Waste-to-Energy (incinerator) project has been CANCELLED!  Thanks to the hard work of all who stood up for environmental justice.

Although we won this battle, we still need you to stay engaged as the DoE will now schedule public input sessions on the County’s Zero Waste Plan.  A comprehensive Zero Waste Plan with trash disposal solutions that do not include burning will divert waste from landfills by reducing, reusing, recycling and composting materials.  This would create more jobs and reduce the waste stream by over 90% if done properly.

Please stay tune for the dates of the County’s Zero Waste Plan public input sessions.

Thanks again to those who helped make this outcome happen!!”

The zero waste network in the County includes Energy Justice Network, Community Resources, Zero Waste Prince George’s County and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

In the last few years, proposed incinerators in south Baltimore, Frederick and Carroll Counties, MD and Fredericksburg, VA have been defeated. Now activists have set their sites at phasing out the existing incinerators in downtown Baltimore and in Montgomery County, MD.

ILSR continues to work in these jurisdictions to design and implement the needed infrastructure for zero waste and economic development through implementation of unit based pricing, or “Pay As You Throw,” procurement of compost and development of a regional Resource Recovery Park for the reuse, recycling, and composting industries.

For more information about these efforts, contact Neil Seldman at nseldman@ilsr.org[1].

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Endnotes:
  1. nseldman@ilsr.org: mailto:nseldman@ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/prince-georges-county-has-officially-declined-to-move-forward-with-garbage-incineration/


Introducing the Community Power Map

by John Farrell | August 24, 2016 6:00 am

placeholder[1]Where are communities taking charge of their energy future? Which states give communities the most power?

ILSR’s newly-released Community Power Map[2] provides an interactive illustration of how communities are accelerating the transition toward 100% renewable energy and how state policies help or hinder greater local action. You can help.

If we’re missing a state policy, grassroots energy organization, or local energy project, you can help us add it to the map!

Community Power Map[3]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[4]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[5] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[6] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/u-s-clean-explanation-update/placeholder/
  2. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  4. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  5. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  6. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/introducing-the-community-power-map/


SandyNet Increases Speeds, Keeps Low Prices

by ILSR | August 23, 2016 5:00 am

This post was written by ILSR intern, Alex Dangel.
On July 4th, Sandy, Oregon’s municipal fiber-optic network, SandyNet[1], permanently increased the speed of its entry-level Internet package from 100 Megabit per second (Mbps) to 300 Mbps at no additional cost to subscribers.

The city announced the speed boost for its $39.95 per month tier in a recent press release, calling it “one of the best deals in the nation.” SandyNet customers witness blazing fast download speeds at affordable prices and benefit from symmetrical upload speeds, allowing them to seamlessly interact with the cloud and work from home.

Sandy is still home the “$60 Gig” (see price chart[2]), one of the premier gigabit Internet offers in the nation. Without an electric utility, SandyNet’s unique model can be applied to “Anytown, USA.”

Read our report on Sandy, SandyNet Goes Gig: A Model for Anytown, USA[3], for details on the community’s Fiber-to-the Home (FTTH) and fixed wireless networks and listen to Chris interview Sandy officials in Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 167[4].

Check out our video on Sandy:

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. SandyNet: http://www.ci.sandy.or.us/SandyNet/
  2. see price chart: http://www.ci.sandy.or.us/Residential-Services/
  3. SandyNet Goes Gig: A Model for Anytown, USA: https://muninetworks.org/reports/sandynet-goes-gig-model-anytown-usa
  4. Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 167: https://muninetworks.org/content/benefits-lessons-sandynet-community-broadband-bits-episode-167
  5. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/sandynet-increases-speeds-keeps-low-prices

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sandynet-increases-speeds-keeps-low-prices/


The Beginning of the End of Prison Privatization?

by David Morris | August 18, 2016 1:49 pm

The Federal Government announced today (August 18th) it will stop allowing private companies to operate federal prisons.  Currently private companies run 13 federal prisons.

“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent[1] by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates observed[2].

Here’s hoping the states follow suit.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. recent: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf#page=2
  2. observed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/?utm_term=.91fde763cbfd

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-prison-privatization/


Changing the Language of Renewable Energy, the Electric Monopoly’s Newest Ploy

by Nick Stumo-Langer | August 18, 2016 6:00 am

What happens when utility companies lose ground as their customers cut consumption and seek innovative technologies like rooftop solar? New business ventures to capture customer interest? Other new technologies?

Instead, investor-owned utilities (through the Edison Electric Institute trade organization) poured money into communications consultants, and the result of this “Lexicon Project[1]” says volumes about their plans for the changing electric system. Particularly prominent is an effort to re-cast entrepreneurial customers (wanting to cut their energy bills by installing solar) as doing so only for private benefit (despite evidence to the contrary[2]). On the flip side, the utilities want language to elevate their control over grid investments in renewable energy (and their traditional 10% return on equity).

The language maneuver comes at a time when distributed generation is under fire[3] in 38 of 50 states in the first quarter of 2016 alone, with no signs of slowing down. Many of these fights are led by the utilities interested in preserving market share, and wanting energy policy to reinforce that effort.

What’s in a Word?

The utilities propose a lot of language changes, many of which actually improve clarity and understanding of various industry terms. Talking about “variable” instead of “intermittent” power sources, for example, better illustrates the nature of wind or solar, and is a language change that renewable energy advocates would agree to. Switching from “ratepayer” to “customer” better reflects how customers see themselves, and can help change the discussion from electric rates to electric bills, since most customers only care about how much they pay per month, not per kilowatt-hour.

On the other hand, a number of word changes will be used to obscure or obfuscate.

Using “clean energy” instead of “low-carbon energy” might seem harmless, but when it refers to nuclear or natural gas power, the term-change intentionally hides the environmental costs of nuclear waste or extraction and leakage of gas. Calling an “advanced meter” a “smart meter” may be an exaggeration if the only “smart” part of it is that it can be read remotely. Smart meters ought to be those giving customers access to their own usage data and empowering time-of-use pricing of electricity, not just automated meters that allow utilities to reduce employment of meter readers.

The biggest language changes get to the heart of the utilities’ efforts to quash competition, however.

For example, the proponents of the Lexicon Project hope that “utility-scale solar” versus “rooftop solar” becomes “universal solar” versus “private solar.” The language change is intended to align readers with the utility view that utility-owned or utility-funded solar arrays are better than ones customers build themselves. Similarly, “net metering” (an accurate description of the policy allowing customers to reduce their energy bills with on-site generation) would become “private solar credits.” This is particularly nonsensical, since net metering applies to any kind of renewable energy generation, not just solar. These term changes obfuscate the reality of renewable energy’s benefits for energy customers.

Seeing Utility Spin in Practice

Rather than dive more into the particulars of the Lexicon Project, here’s an illustration of how the conversations around renewable energy would change if the utilities are successful, using this story from January on KNPR[4], about Nevada’s slashing of net metering reimbursement for rooftop solar:

Rooftop Private Solar Customers: NV Energy Pulled a Bait and Switch

by Joe Schoenmann, KNPR

Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission is being criticized for a decision that rooftop private solar companies say will kill that industry in the state.

They also say the PUC was largely influenced by the long relationship between Nevada and NV Energy, the state’s regulated energy monopoly.

Nevada energy regulators are meeting this week to decide whether to hold off on new rates for solar power energy customers.

The Public Utilities Commission scheduled a hearing Thursday for the rates, which took effect Jan. 1.

Under the new rate bill structure, current and future rooftop private solar customers will get less credit from NV Energy for excess electricity energy produced by their solar panels, which is known as net metering private solar credits.

They will also pay more per month in fees. The changes would raise the base service charge for southern Nevada solar customers from $12.75 to $17.90 per month, and from $15.25 to $21.09 for northern Nevada customers.

The service charge will rise and the reimbursement will drop every year until 2020.

We’ve heard a lot about the decision from officials, such as Governor Brian Sandoval. Sandoval even did something unheard of: he issued a statement before the PUC ruling, saying the decision could be challenged.

Ok, but what does this mean for those who have invested thousands in rooftop private solar, or who lease panels from one of the state’s rooftop companies?

Support comes from Las Vegas attorney Phil Aurbach has spent $36,000 to install solar in his home because he also had to install a patio to put the solar panels on.

He said the change will cut seriously into his budget. Before he invested in solar, he said, he paid about $60 a month for energy on his 1,900-square-foot home. After, it fell to $3 a month.

Now, he will be paying more as the fees go up.

“It’s going to be more and ratcheting up more and more, which is kind of ridiculous from my perspective to spend all that money and then have Nevada Power say ‘hey install solar, hey we’ll give you credits, we’ll help you out’ and then turn around and screw you when they realize it may cut into their profits,” Aurbach said.

Charlie Catania also invested in solar energy power. He leased a system, which means a rooftop private solar energy power company installed the system and he pays them for the equipment.

He is now frustrated and not sure what he is going to do about escalating costs.

“You have to understand that I did my due diligence, after the statute was passed and felt that who would renege on something like this?” he said, “This came from the state and Nevada Power. And so I entered into a contractual agreement and low and behold it didn’t stand up. I don’t know what I’m going to do quiet frankly.”

Catania said he feels abandoned by the Legislature and violated by the PUC.

State Sen. Patricia Farley, Republican, called in to talk about the issue. Farley was part of the effort to figure out private solar credits net metering in last year’s legislative session.

At issue was the cap on net metering private solar credits, which was 3 three percent, but supporters of solar energy power wanted moved to 10 percent. After several months of back and forth[5], the Legislature decided to put the question of rooftop private solar into the hands of the PUC.

According to Farley, all parties involved agreed the PUC should make the decision. However, she does want to talk to the commission about the controversial decision.

“I have made phone calls into Commissioner [David] Nobel to make sure the legislative intent was followed through,” she said, “I was the one that added the amendment to make sure the grand fathering, that PUC had the ability to look current folks that were on the net metering private solar credits programs and make sure we were regulating their rates correctly.”

Attorney Tim Hay is a former Nevada Consumer Advocate. He helped write the 1997 law that put net metering private solar credits into place in Nevada.

He said the decision by the PUC raises a number of legal questions and there could be some effective challenges against it.

One of the biggest problems he has with the decision is the retroactive nature of it.

“The retroactive aspect of this decision is particularly pernicious because it in effect has devalued the investment customers had made from the very beginning in solar,” Hay said.

He also disputes NV Energy’s reasoning that non-solar customers rate payers are subsidizing solar users. He said it is essentially a wash, especially in Southern Nevada, where peak power energy capacity generation hits at the same time there is peak demand.

For Bryan Miller with the rooftop private solar company Sunrun, the problem is jobs. Miller said the commissioners legacy would be the loss of thousands of jobs.

“The most important thing about this story is that there are real jobs here that have been lost already, thousands of jobs,” Miller said.

Miller pointed to the decisions by SolarCity to cease operations and Vivint Solar stopping its efforts to set up shop as examples.

Hay agrees that the decision will cost jobs in the state. He believes the PUC did not take economics into consideration and he believes lawmakers would have wanted the commission to include it.

“I believe part of the issue is that we had a number of freshman legislators in both chambers who were not familiar with the state’s history,” Hay said.

State Sen. Farley took issue with that characterization and said many veteran lawmakers were involved in the process. She also stood by the decision to put private solar credits net metering in to the hands of the PUC.

“Every year the Sunrun and the solar folks were coming back to the Legislature asking for increasing in private solar credits net metering and it is a very complicated situation and our job as legislators is protect every customer rate payer not just the SolarCity,” Farley said, “A lot of states have found that the net metering private solar credits program is a subsidy and that on average the customers rate payers are paying for people to have solar on their rooftops and the cost of solar has come down but not significantly.”

Miller responded strongly to that comment.

“Anyone listening today, you just heard the problem,” he said, “Anyone listening if you want to do something about this incredibly anti-business climate that Nevada has created the first thing you can do is vote against politicians like Senator Farley. You just heard her completely parrot NV Energy’s talking points and we’re going to make sure everyone of her constituents hears interviews like this and understands she’s the problem.”

Playing the Word Game

Of course, renewable energy advocates could learn to play the word game, too. Here’s a few ideas, without the high cost of a consultant.

Instead of… Use…
Utility Incumbent monopoly
Fixed charge Monopoly protection fee
Cost-shift Non-monopoly benefits
Baseload generation Inflexible generation

Some of these terms may seem ridiculous, but no more so that “private solar.”

Keep your eyes open and mind ready. The Lexicon Project may play games with words, but the utilities are deadly serious. The simple fact of the matter is that customer-owned energy is competitive,[6] and monopolies ought not to be allowed to quash it by language or by practice.

This post originally published at ilsr.org[7]. Subscribe to our weekly Energy Democracy update[8] or follow us on Twitter[9] or Facebook[10].

Photo Credit: Nic McPhee, Flickr[11] via CC 2.0[12]

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Endnotes:
  1. Lexicon Project: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060039811
  2. evidence to the contrary: http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/2015/09/14/chart.png
  3. distributed generation is under fire: https://ilsr.org/distributed-generation-under-fire-q1-2016/
  4. this story from January on KNPR: http://knpr.org/knpr/2016-01/rooftop-solar-customers-nv-energy-pulled-bait-and-switch
  5. After several months of back and forth: http://knpr.org/knpr/2015-05/compromise-reached-rooftop-solar
  6. customer-owned energy is competitive,: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2016/05/23-rooftop-solar-net-metering-muro-saha
  7. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  8. Energy Democracy update: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  9. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ilsr
  10. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance
  11. Nic McPhee, Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicmcphee/2756494307
  12. CC 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/changing-the-language-of-renewable-energy-the-electric-monopolys-newest-ploy/


Major Media Outlets Cover 6th Circuit Decision Limiting Local Authority

by Rebecca Toews | August 15, 2016 11:40 am

Various Sources, August 10-11, 2016

A circuit court decision this week means the digital divide in Tennessee and North Carolina will be allowed to continue. This week, the 6th Circuit Court of appeals decided to dismiss the FCC’s decision to encourage Internet investment by restricting local authority to build competitive Internet networks.

In February, ILSR and Next Century Cities filed an Amicus Brief in support of the FCC’s position. Here is a selection of media stories which cite ILSR.


MEDIA COVERAGE – “Court of Appeals Overrules FCC Decision”

washingtonpostlogo.gif[1]Cities looking to compete with large Internet providers just suffered a big defeat[2] – by Brian Fung: The Washington Post, August 10

There are signs, however, that municipal broadband proponents were anticipating Wednesday’s outcome — and are already moving to adapt. One approach? Focus on improving cities’ abilities to lay fiber optic cables that then any Internet provider can lease; so far, only one state, Nebraska, has banned this so-called “dark fiber” plan, said Christopher Mitchell, who directs the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative.

“We’re pursuing strategies that are harder for the cable and telephone companies to defeat,” said Mitchell.

fiercetelecom[3]Circuit court nixes FCC’s effort to overturn North Carolina, Tennessee anti-municipal broadband laws[4] by Sean Buckley: Fierce Telecom, August 10, 2016

 

However, pro-municipal broadband groups like the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which filed an amicus brief in support of the FCC’s position, said they are “disappointed that the FCC’s efforts to ensure local Internet choice have been struck down.”

 

POLITICO NO LINES[5]Court Deals FCC a Big Blow in Municipal Broadband Ruling by Alex Byers, PoliticoPro August 10, 2016 (subscription needed)

 

 

For now, proponents of the FCC’s order said they would work state-by-state to change laws restricting municipal broadband networks. Christopher Mitchell, director of the Institute For Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks program, said the FCC order highlighted the issue and inspired other communities.

“The FCC may have lost the case but they’ve still done a service for America,” Mitchell said. “In making the decision that was later overturned, they certainly elevated the issue.”


2000px-Chicago_Tribune_logo.svg[6]Analysis: The government just lost a big court battle over public Internet service[7] by Brian Fung: Chicago Tribune, August 11, 2016

 

 

motherboard[8]Congress Should Support Community Broadband Networks, Advocates Say[9] by Sam Gustin: Motherboard Vice, August 11, 2016

“I would love to see renewed enthusiasm around this bill, and I would love to see it pass,” Christopher Mitchell, Director of Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, told Motherboard. But with Republicans currently in control of both the House and the Senate, Booker’s bill has virtually no chance of becoming law, especially given the tremendous amount of political influence wielded by the likes of Comcast and AT&T, Mitchell said. He warned that even if the legislation moved forward, industry-friendly lawmakers could try to weaken the bill or insert anti-community broadband provisions… “With the GOP in control, Marsha Blackburn would crush this legislation,” Mitchell said. “That’s why she gets more money from the cable and telecom industry than anyone else. She would make sure it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Daily_Dot_logo[10]U.S. court rules FCC lacks authority to upend state bans on community-run broadband[11] – by Aaron Sankin: Daily Dot, August 11, 2016

Last year, the FCC made a bold push to let cities and counties around the county make significant investments in their high-speed internet infrastructure. On Wednesday, a trio of federal judges dealt that effort a major setback…

“We thank the FCC for working so hard to fight for local authority and we hope that states themselves will recognize the folly of defending big cable and telephone monopolies and remove these barriers to local investment,” Mitchell said in a statement. “Communities desperately need these connections and must be able to decide for themselves how to ensure residents and businesses have high quality Internet access.”

statescoop ss-black[12]Federal court blocks FCC efforts to protect municipal broadband expansion[13] by Alex Koma: StateScoop, August 11, 2016

Indeed, Chris Mitchell — director of the community broadband initiative for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance — argues that “states have gotten away with pulling a fast one in terms of lying about their intentions,” claiming that the matter isn’t so easily dismissed as a question of federalism.

“The challenge is understanding whether these states are regulating their cities or regulating interstate commerce, as the FCC argued, and I think that these states are clearly trying to regulate internet access, as opposed to just what these cities could do,” Mitchell said. “I don’t think the court really got that.”

 

broadcasting and cable logo[14]Next Steps Pondered After Muni Cable Ruling[15] by Gary Arlen: Broadcasting and Cable, August 11, 2016

“Once there’s light shined on those laws, enough state legislators will decide it’s time to stand up to the incumbents,” said Mark C. Del Bianco, an attorney who represented Next Century Cities and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, two advocacy groups that supported the efforts of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C., to build competitive high-speed networks for their citizens.”

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/twp_logo_300.gif
  2. Cities looking to compete with large Internet providers just suffered a big defeat: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/10/the-government-just-lost-a-big-court-battle-over-public-internet-service/?tid=pm_business_pop_b
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/fiercetelecom.jpg
  4. Circuit court nixes FCC’s effort to overturn North Carolina, Tennessee anti-municipal broadband laws: http://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/fcc-s-effort-to-overturn-nc-tennessee-s-anti-municipal-broadband-laws-nixed-by-circuit
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Politico-Logo.jpg
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2000px-Chicago_Tribune_logo.svg_.png
  7. Analysis: The government just lost a big court battle over public Internet service: http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-fcc-broadband-competition-20160811-story.html
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/motherboard.jpg
  9. Congress Should Support Community Broadband Networks, Advocates Say: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/fcc-municipal-broadband-congress-review
  10. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Daily_Dot_logo.png
  11. U.S. court rules FCC lacks authority to upend state bans on community-run broadband: http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/fcc-muni-broadband-court-ruling/
  12. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/statescoop-ss-black.png
  13. Federal court blocks FCC efforts to protect municipal broadband expansion: http://statescoop.com/federal-court-blocks-fcc-efforts-to-protect-municipal-broadband-expansion
  14. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/broadcasting-and-cable-logo.png
  15. Next Steps Pondered After Muni Cable Ruling: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/next-steps-pondered-after-muni-cable-ruling/158772

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/major-media-outlets-cover-6th-circuit-decision-limiting-local-authority/


For Rural Pinetops, Being A Gigabit Community Means Business In North Carolina

by ILSR | August 12, 2016 5:00 am

Unless you live in a rural community, you probably assume becoming a Gigabit community is all about the miracles of speed. Speed is important, but so is Internet choice, reliable service, and respectful customer service. It’s also about being excited as you consider future economic opportunities for your rural town.

Businesses Struggling With Old Services

Before Greenlight began serving Pinetops, the best community members could get was sluggish Centurylink DSL. Suzanne Coker Craig, owner of CuriosiTees, described the situation for her business[1]:

Suzanne used to be a subscriber to Centurylink DSL service at her Pinetops home, but years ago she just turned it off. “We weren’t using it because it used to take forever; it just wasn’t viable.” She now has Greenlight’s 40 Mbps upstream and downstream service. “It’s just so very fast,” she said.

Her business, a custom screen printing shop, uses an “on-time” inventory system, so speed and reliability is critical for last-minute or late orders:

“We work with a Charlotte company for our apparel. If we get our order in by 5 p.m. from here, the next day it will be delivered. That’s really important for business.” Before Greenlight, Suzanne described how “We had been sweating it out.”  Suzanne’s tee-shirt store only had access to 800 Kbps DSL upload speed. She would talk to the modem. “Please upload by 5 p.m. Please upload.” Now she can just go home and put her order in at the last minute. “We are comfortable it will upload immediately….It’s just so much faster. Super fast…Having Greenlight has just been very beneficial for our business.”

She also subscribes to Greenlight from home and her fiber connection is able to manage data intense uploads required for sending artwork, sales reports, and other large document transfers. As a Town Commissioner, Suzanne sees Greenlight service in Pinetops as more than just a chance to stop “sweating it out.”

“I just see a brighter future for our town now,” she reflected. “It’s a neat selling point. It’s difficult in small rural areas to get good technology-based companies. This now opens the door for us to recruit just those kinds of businesses…It’s hard to imagine a business that does not need Internet access.”

Without Reliability, Speed Is Nothing

Brent Wooten is a sales agent and Manager for Mercer Transportation, a freight management business with an office in tiny, rural Pinetops, North Carolina[2]. Pinetops is now served by Wilson’s community-owned[3], Gigabit fiber network, Greenlight[4].  Brent’s work, moving freight across the country via trucks, requires being on time; he’s an information worker in a knowledge economy.  “I am in the transportation business,” said Brent. “Having reliable phone and Internet are critical to running my businesses.” Being off line means losing businesses and never getting it back.

Before Greenlight came to town, Brent’s business paid Centurylink $425 per month for a few phone lines, long distance, an 800 number, and Internet access at 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 1.5 Mbps upload. He was also wasting hours and even days each month trying to get his Internet fixed. “Every time they would tell me the problem was my equipment. It was always my fault.” But Brent had an IT expert on hire. “Never once was the problem actually my equipment.” He described long waits to reach customer agents whose heavy foreign accents made communication difficult and about the company’s unresponsive office hours. “I was told they could send someone the next afternoon, but I needed the network to work now….”

Brent’s experience with Greenlight was the complete opposite. When Brent’s corporate office changed the location of their backup servers, Greenlight staff were helping him at 6:00 a.m. and at 10:00 p.m., and were on the phone within seconds of his call. “It is a very refreshing situation for me — the consistency of service, and the responsive and respectful customer service by local workers.”

Internet Choice

When Greenlight came to the community, Centurylink changed their tune. Within hours of his business phone being ported to Greenlight, a Centurylink representative called him. “He offered to cut my current prices in half and double my Internet speed, from 10 to 20 Mbps…My Centurylink 10 Mbps speed never tested at more than 6 Mbps.”

Brent chose to keep his Centurylink phone service, but he kept his 25 Mbps symmetrical Greenlight Internet service because upload speed is critical to his business. “My computer screens don’t freeze up anymore. Greenlight service is flawless. The sheer speed of fiber is amazing and they are available 24 hours a day, I am served by local workers, it is saving me money and I get better service.”

Greenlight brought Brent residential telephone and internet choice for the first time in more than a decade. “Greenlight saves me $140 a month at home,” he bragged. When Greenlight’s marketing director first arrived at Brent’s house, he learned Brent was being charged twice for his internet service. Brent had an in-law suite attached to his house where his mother used to live. “The Centurylink representative on the phone said I needed to have a second DSL account.” Not with Greenlight.

An Odd Way Of Competing

Brent described how he had been a Centurylink residential customer since 1989. “When I called to cancel my home telephone service, the woman just gave me my confirmation number and told me to have a nice day.” No attempt was made to keep Brent’s residential business.  “They did the same thing on my mom’s phone line. She had telephone service since before 1968.” When she passed away, Brent called to disconnect her line. “The person on the other end of the line did not even offer condolences.” He compared that to the human touch that originates from a service company that is community owned: “Greenlight’s installers even cared enough about my welfare to tell me they had discovered a water leak under my house when doing the installation. They told me they would have tried to fix it for me but they did not have the right tools.”

The Intangibles

How do you put a value on the intangibles?  For Brent Wooten, Greenlight fiber service has not only strengthened his ability to do business, but has given the community a sense of hope that didn’t exist before access to fiber.

“As a citizen and Town Commissioner, I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to have access to this service, and super excited about future opportunities that it will make available to us. It is an example of hometown people who care about serving you and bringing a higher quality of living to the community…It gives a sense of hope for Eastern North Carolina … not just lip service.”

Will It Last?

On August 10, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the FCC ruling[5] that permitted Greenlight to expand to its fiber-optic service to Pinetops. What this means for these businesses and residents who now rely on fast, affordable, reliable Internet access remains to be seen. Along with Suzanne, Brent, and the rest of Pinetops, we hope Greenlight is able to continue to serve this rural community. They are using fiber to reach for new economic development opportunities and in only a few months, the community of 1,300 is optimistic about a future with better connectivity.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. described the situation for her business: http://www.localnetchoice.org/clic-nc/for-rural-pinetops-being-a-gigabit-city-is-more-than-a-curiositees/
  2. Pinetops, North Carolina: http://pinetopsnc.publishpath.com
  3. now served by Wilson’s community-owned: https://muninetworks.org/content/wilson-moves-expand-greenlight-network-neighboring-town
  4. Greenlight: https://www.greenlightnc.com
  5. reversed the FCC ruling: https://muninetworks.org/content/sixth-circuit-court-appeals-reverses-fcc-disappointing-ruling
  6. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/rural-pinetops-being-gigabit-community-means-business-north-carolina

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/for-rural-pinetops-being-a-gigabit-community-means-business-in-north-carolina/


Report: Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business

by Stacy Mitchell | August 10, 2016 6:57 am

placeholder

Monopoly Report Cover Image[1]
Click to download the full report.

Note: A version of this paper also appeared in The Antitrust Bulletin under the title “The View from the Shop—Antitrust and the Decline of America’s Independent Businesses[2].” In June 2017, it was recognized as “Best Antitrust and Small Business Article” as part of the annual Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship[3]. 

The United States is much less a nation of entrepreneurs than it was a generation ago. Small, independent businesses have declined sharply in both numbers and market share across many sectors of the economy.  Between 1997 and 2012, the number of small manufacturers fell by more 70,000, local retailers saw their ranks diminish by about 108,000, and the number of community banks and credit unions dropped by half, from about 26,000 to 13,000.  At the same time, starting a new business appears to have become harder than ever. The number of startups launched annually has fallen by nearly half since the 1970s.

As stunning as these figures are, there has been remarkably little public debate about this profound structural shift taking place in the U.S. economy. We tend to accept the decline of small business as the inevitable result of market forces. Big companies are thought to be more efficient and productive; therefore, although we may miss the corner drugstore or the family-owned auto repair shop, their demise is unavoidable, and it’s economically beneficial.

But our new report[4] suggests a different, and very troubling, explanation for the dwindling ranks of small businesses. It presents evidence that their decline is owed, at least in part, to anticompetitive behavior by large, dominant corporations.  Drawing on examples in pharmacy, banking, telecommunications, and retail, it finds that big companies routinely use their size and their economic and political power to undermine their smaller rivals and exclude them from markets.

These abuses have gone unchecked because of a radical change in the ideological framework that guides anti-monopoly policy. About thirty-five years ago, policy-makers came to view maximizing efficiency — rather than maintaining fair and open markets for all competitors — as the primary aim of antitrust enforcement. This was a profound departure from previous policy and America’s long-standing anti-monopoly tradition.  Over time, this ideological shift impacted more than antitrust enforcement. It infused much of public policy with a bias in favor of big business, creating an environment less and less hospitable to entrepreneurs.

This report presents three compelling reasons to bring a commitment to fair and open markets for small businesses back into antitrust enforcement and public policy more broadly:
(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MonopolyPower-SmallBusiness.pdf
  2. The View from the Shop—Antitrust and the Decline of America’s Independent Businesses: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003603X16676139
  3. Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship: http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/content/einer-elhauge-receive-jerry-s-cohen-award-antitrust-scholarship
  4. report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MonopolyPower-SmallBusiness.pdf
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/


Composting Will Help Flint Recover From Its Water Crisis

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | August 9, 2016 2:00 pm

It would be an understatement to say that Flint has been in the news a lot lately—one of the most recent stories has to do with a lapsed trash collection contract[1] that left residents without service. The city still has a long road ahead before it can fully heal from the water contamination crisis that started in 2014: more than 8,000 children[2] are thought to have been effected; 6 city officials have just been charged[3] in connection; and Flint’s Mayor, Karen Weaver[4], used the podium at the recent Democratic National Convention to remind the nation that “The water is still not safe to drink or cook with from the tap”. Like many older industrial cities, Flint also has lead and other heavy metals in its soils[5], exacerbating the effects of the water crisis. As is often the case, low-income communities are more likely to be exposed to the highest concentrations.

In addition to lead contamination, Flint faces other challenges common to Rust Belt communities: declining industry, rising poverty, falling population, and rampant urban blight. Poverty is a problem throughout Michigan, with 1 in 10 people[6] using emergency food programs. But, more than 40% of Flint’s population is considered to be poor and more than half is black—fueling claims that the water crisis is a clear case of environmental racism[7]. Flint has more than 20,000 vacant lots resulting, at least in part, from the overwhelming loss of manufacturing jobs that once fueled the local economy. In order to prevent further damage to property values and to protect public health, these building must either be demolished[8] or otherwise managed[9] by the community.

 

      flint highrise

The 2016 Edible Flint Food Garden Tour featured 15 of the 300+ gardens that Edible Flint and other area organizations support

 

But, behind the devastating national headlines exists another Flint—one that embodies community self-reliance and neighborly collaboration. According to Terry McLean[10], Michigan State University Extension educator, “In my experience, Flint residents have a great track record of volunteerism, resilience and community pride. I feel that we will be a stronger community as a result of the recent water crisis.” Despite the hole that losses like that of the auto manufacturing industry have left, Flint residents are increasingly relying on a different, well-developed local skillset to put food on the table—and because of the work of a number of dedicated organizations and individuals, its fresh and healthy food. Michigan’s second largest industry is agriculture, and it is the second most diverse[11] agricultural producer in the nation. Flint alone boasts more than 300 gardens[12], both personal and community.

 

Edible Flint Tour - Uni-Corn Garden      Edible Flint Tour - Uni-Corn

Uni-Corn Community Garden, featured in the Edible Flint Tour, is managed by a dedicated team of Master Gardeners and grows fresh produce for the surrounding sub-division and apartment complexes

 

On July 27th, ILSR staffers, Linda Bilsens and Joshua Etim visited with various food growing and access groups working in and around Flint to lay the groundwork for bringing ILSR’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Program to the area. ILSR staff were hosted by local friend and fellow community composting trainer and advocate, Amy Freeman, who coordinated meetings with some of the area’s most active and influential healthy food advocates and educators.

 

“This is a different Flint than the one you hear about on the news. These are not just poor people. There is good stuff happening here. It’s not a dire situation.”

-Erin Caudell, healthy food access advocate, farmer and co-owner of Flint-based The Local Grocer

 

Michigan State University is providing applied research, education and outreach to develop regionally integrated, sustainable food systems through its Center for Regional Food System[13]. MSU professor of Horticultural Sciences, Dr. John Biernbaum, provides educational programs and technical assistance for small-scale organic farmers and manages the school’s on-site vermicomposting project. Michigan Food and Farming Systems[14] connects beginning and historically underserved farmers (particularly women, veterans, and migrant populations) to each other and resource opportunities to cultivate social justice, environmental stewardship, and profitability. Edible Flint[15] works to support Flint residents in growing and accessing healthy food in order to reconnect with the land and each other, including hosting an annual garden tour, which ILSR staff were happily able to attend during their visit!

 

MIFFS WIA high tunnel      MIFFS WIA Vermicompost

The Michigan Food and Farming Systems’ Women in Agriculture educational farm is hosted by the Genesys Health Systems’ at their Health Park Campus and features an in-ground vermicomposting system

 

The work of groups like these are critical to Flint’s road to recovery. Healthy foods, particularly those rich in Vitamin C and Calcium[16], are needed to minimize the impacts of lead on human health. Recent studies also show that there is limited absorption of lead when ingested with food[17]. The impact of lead contamination is further minimized when soils are amended with compost—a practice that several studies[18] have shown significantly dilute lead concentrations and reduces its availability. Increasing composting in Flint will have many benefits: healthier soils for food production, pollution mitigation for contaminated soils, more opportunities for neighbors to come together, and greater community self-reliance. ILSR is actively fundraising alongside its local partners to bring the benefits of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders program to Flint in 2017 and is thrilled to help support Flint’s homegrown revival.

 

MSU vermicomposting     

Last year, Michigan State University diverted 200,000 pounds of food scraps generated on-site through its low-tech, mid-scale vermicomposting system

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Endnotes:
  1. lapsed trash collection contract: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/us/no-trash-collection-in-flint-michigan/index.html
  2. 8,000 children: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/us/flint-weighs-scope-of-harm-to-children-caused-by-lead-in-water.html?_r=1
  3. just been charged: http://michiganradio.org/post/flint-water-crisis-aftermath-six-state-employees-charged-and-prosecutors-not-done-yet
  4. Karen Weaver: http://michiganradio.org/post/mayor-weaver-dnc-i-am-voice-flint-and-we-need-your-help
  5. in its soils: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/lead-in-soil-another-known-factor-in-flint/
  6. 1 in 10 people: https://foodcorps.org/where-we-work/michigan
  7. environmental racism: http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/flint-michigan-water-crisis-race-poverty/
  8. demolished: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/flint-michigan-blight-plan-cost-metrics
  9. managed: http://www.thelandbank.org/greening.asp
  10. Terry McLean: http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/flint_leaders_working_to_build_community_sustainability
  11. second most diverse: https://foodcorps.org/where-we-work/michigan
  12. 300 gardens: http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/community_gardens_cultivate_healthier_neighbors_in_flint
  13. Center for Regional Food System: http://foodsystems.msu.edu/about/
  14. Michigan Food and Farming Systems: http://www.miffs.org/about_us
  15. Edible Flint: http://www.edibleflint.org/
  16. Vitamin C and Calcium: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/us/flint-weighs-scope-of-harm-to-children-caused-by-lead-in-water.html?_r=1
  17. when ingested with food: https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/story/2016/feb/wed/risk-of-lead-poisoning-from-urban-gardening-is-low
  18. several studies: http://www.biocycle.net/images/art/0910/bc0910_24_30.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/composting-will-help-flint-recover-from-its-water-crisis/


RS Fiber Cooperative & ILSR Featured in Yes! Magazine

by Rebecca Toews | August 9, 2016 5:00 am

Yes! Magazine[1] – August 3, 2016

Minnesota’s RS Fiber Cooperative[2] is getting well-deserved attention from a variety of sources far beyond the Land of 10,000 Lakes. In addition to kudos from experts in the telecommunications industry, their story was recently shared in YES! Magazine.

Innovative Partnership

On August 1st, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) announced that RS Fiber Cooperative[3] had received that 2016 Community Broadband Innovative Partnership Award. NATOA President Jodie Miller said of this award and the other 2016 distinctions: “These pioneers were selected based on their extraordinary efforts, achievements and innovation in community-based approaches to broadband technology.” NATOA will present the awards in September at their 36th Annual Conference in Austin, Texas.

Earlier this summer, the communities that belong to the co-op were honored with an award[4] from the Minnesota League of Cities.

YES! Magazine Profiles RS Fiber

Ben DeJarnette from YES! Magazine[5] spoke with our Christopher Mitchell about the cooperative:

“I don’t want to say that everyone can do this, but a lot of places could do it if they had this effort,” Mitchell said. “And I don’t think anyone’s going to have to go through the same level of challenge again, because now there’s a model.”

DeJarnette’s article described some the struggles of rural life with poor or absent Internet access based on our report, “RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative[6]”: farmers unable to share crop data with business contacts; local businesses with no access to online commerce; and school children with no way to complete online homework assignments. The article explains how the RS Fiber project is helping this collaboration of small rural communities overcome the rural digital divide.

The article also dedicates sufficient coverage to the way the RS Fiber Cooperative is funding their infrastructure build. With no federal funding, and investment from community banks, this project is truly locally grown. From the article:

As long as local demand meets projections, revenue from the broadband network will more than repay government loans, and taxpayers won’t owe a dime.

“That’s the win-win,” said Chris Mitchell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative, who has studied the project. “It’s a model in which local governments can take on the risk if they’re willing, and local banks can get a very reasonable return.”

The Fifth Utility

Lisa Skubal, vice president of economic development for the Cedar Valley Chamber of Commerce spoke with DeJarnette about the roll that high-quality Internet access plays in Cedar Falls, Iowa. “From an economic development standpoint, fiber optic high-speed Internet is the fifth utility…We live in such a globalized society right now that having broadband connectivity is imperative for businesses.” Last year, President Obama visited the community to highlight the potential of publicly owned Internet infrastructure.

The RS Fiber Cooperative network has already attracted a new endeavor to the region. The Minnesota College of Osteopathic Medicine, attracted by the new fiber network, will be operating out of a building in Gaylord, one of the communities that belong to the co-op.

More On RS Fiber

Learn more about how farmers use this new utility and how the co-op has changed life in rural Minnesota in a recent PBS News Hour video[7], which features RS Fiber and a similar project, in Massachusetts, Wired West.

Get the details on the RS Fiber Cooperative from our report, free to download[8] and to share.

You can also check out our other coverage, including Christopher’s interview with Mark Erickson, City of Winthrop Economic Development Authority Director, and Renville-area farmer Jake Rieke in Episode #198[9] of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. We also spoke with Mark and Coop Vice-Chair Cindy Gerholz early in the process during Episode #99[10]. You can find more at the RS Fiber Coop[11] and Sibley County[12] tags.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[13].

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Endnotes:
  1. Yes! Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/tired-of-waiting-for-corporate-high-speed-internet-minnesota-farm-towns-build-their-own-20160803
  2. RS Fiber Cooperative: http://www.rsfiber.coop
  3. announced that RS Fiber Cooperative: https://www.natoa.org/web/site_issue/issue_detail/22
  4. were honored with an award: https://muninetworks.org/content/ten-cities-honored-rs-fiber-cooperative-project
  5. from YES! Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/tired-of-waiting-for-corporate-high-speed-internet-minnesota-farm-towns-build-their-own-20160803
  6. RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative: https://ilsr.org/report-mn-rural-fiber/
  7. PBS News Hour video: https://youtu.be/txMijyHgAyg
  8. free to download: https://ilsr.org/report-mn-rural-fiber/
  9. Episode #198: https://muninetworks.org/content/new-cooperative-model-fiber-farm-community-broadband-bits-podcast-episode-198
  10. Episode #99: https://muninetworks.org/content/catching-rs-fiber-coop-minnesota-community-broadband-bits-podcast-99
  11. RS Fiber Coop: https://muninetworks.org/tags/tags/rs-fiber-coop
  12. Sibley County: https://muninetworks.org/tags-349
  13. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/yes-rs-fiber-wins-more-recognition

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/yes-rs-fiber-wins-more-recognition/


Missoula Wins Right to Own Its Water Supply

by David Morris | August 4, 2016 10:59 am

In a major victory for the commons, the Montana Supreme Court, by a 5-2 decision, has upheld Missoula’s right to buy its water system from a private company, Nadia Prupis reports[1] in Common Dreams. @commondreams

“The city desired to own the water system that serves its residents because city officials believe a community’s water system is a public asset best owned and operated by the public,” the judges decided[2]. A jubilant Mayor John Engen declared, “Long after people have forgotten any of our names, they won’t have to worry about who owns their water.”

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Endnotes:
  1. reports: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/08/03/missoula-wins-right-control-its-own-water-victory-against-privatization
  2. decided: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/missoulian.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/6e/66e51123-8ab0-5f36-bdf0-a3ca34374bd5/57a155157face.pdf.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/missoula-wins-right-to-own-its-water-supply/


The Next President Will Likely Appoint 4 Supreme Court Justices: Who Do You Want Picking Them?

by David Morris | July 27, 2016 10:25 am

The future of the Supreme Court is at stake in the 2016 election.

We know the numbers. The death of Scalia split the Supreme Court between four Conservative Justices appointed by Republican Presidents (Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy) and four Liberal Justices appointed by Democratic Presidents (Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor.) The Republican Senate, in an unprecedented stance, has refused to call a vote on President Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia.

During the next 4 years the new President will likely nominate not only Scalia’s replacement but also an additional 3 new Justices. Since 1971, the average age of retirement for a Supreme Court justice has been just under 79 years. Ginsburg is 83, Kennedy is 80, and Breyer will be 78 in mid August.

The new Justices will set the direction of the Supreme Court and the values that guide it for the next generation. Scalia, after all, was on the court for 30 years before he died. Thomas has been on the court for 25 years and is still only 68.

We know the numbers, but many don’t seem to truly grasp their central importance. The Supreme Court can enable or disable our work. In the last decade the Justices have made it much harder to challenge wealth and power, to nurture the weak and assist the poor, to extend social justice to minorities, to reduce violence, stop discrimination, and defend the right to vote.

One could write a book about the recent work of the Supreme Court but to make concrete the crucial impact of the court on a progressive future, here is a small sample of what the Court has wrought.

Democracy: The Supreme Court’s most infamous and widely discussed intervention occurred in 2010 when it overturned[1] a corporate campaign spending ban first advanced by Teddy Roosevelt. The infamous Citizens United decision allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money, much of it “dark money”, hidden from public scrutiny.

Citizens United changed the nature of American democracy. In the first five years after the decision one billion dollars poured into super PACs, $600 million of which came[2] from just 195 donors and their spouses. Between 2006, before the Court decision, and 2014, after the decision, independent expenditures increased 25 fold.

In 2014 the Court allowed unlimited individual contributions. Both decisions were by a 5-4 vote. Dissenting Justice Breyer predicted[3], “If the court in Citizens United opened a door today’s decision may well open a floodgate.”

And so it has. In 2012 the Republican National Committee and its two Congressional campaign committees spent a total of $657 million. In early 2015 the Koch brothers announced[4] that they and their friends would spend $889 million on the 2016 election. That is buying an awful lot of dirty tricks, non-profit front organizations, lawsuits and, dare I say, candidates.

There is much talk about the need to reverse Citizens United, but that can’t be done through Congress. Only a Constitutional Amendment or a Supreme Court reversal can. The chances of the former are infinitesimal. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. overturned: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html
  2. came: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150125-column.html
  3. predicted: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-contributions.html
  4. announced: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/kochs-plan-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-campaign.html?_r=0
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-supreme-court-the-public-good-and-the-2016-election/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-supreme-court-the-public-good-and-the-2016-election/


What if…Your Electric Utility Was a Benefit Corporation?

by Matt Grimley | July 21, 2016 6:00 am

The misunderstandings that from time to time occur between communities and the managers of electric-lighting companies will, to my mind, disappear entirely if the relations between the two are correctly founded on the basis of public control, with corresponding protection to the corporations operating this industry.

More than 100 years ago, standing in front of a crowd of investors, Samuel Insull articulated his vision[1] for a responsive and responsible electric utility.1[2]

Fresh from building his own electric utility empire from Thomas Edison’s companies, Insull wanted his electric industry recognized as a natural monopoly with competition viewed as a threat the public good. Public regulation, he argued, would provide a reasonable and steady profit to the monopoly utility, while economies of scale of power plants would allow the utility company to deliver increasingly inexpensive electricity in service of the public good.

A century later, only half of Insull’s rough vision has come true. Most of today’s investor-owned electric utilities retain their century-old monopoly, but insufficient regulation has often left the public good by the wayside. Instead, investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) have kept a laser focus on shareholders’ returns. They have built large, unnecessary fossil-fueled power plants[3] when more energy-efficient approaches would cut consumers’ costs. They try to change electric rates in ways that harm the poor and elderly[4], then use public funds to help the indigent pay their bills. They spurn rooftop solar[5] and customer-owned power generation.

In some sense, this behavior is no surprise. The regulatory scheme Insull imagined shaped two key profit motives[6] for utility companies: selling more power and building more infrastructure. But neither makes sense any longer. Electricity demand has leveled off, and distributed, non-utility power generation is often less expensive[7] than relying on utility shareholder capital.

Adding insult to the injury of the public good, investor-owned utilities frequently lobby against legislation in the public interest, from renewable energy[8] to energy efficiency standards[9] to community solar programs[10]. They use their publicly-granted monopoly profits to oppose the public interest.

One new model is emerging, however, that offers an alternative to the traditional investor-owned utility, and aligns with fantasy of Insull’s original vision to simultaneously protect the public good. It’s the B Corp.

Green Mountain Power B-lines into a B Corp

In 2014, one electric utility in Vermont shuffled away from historic investor-owned electric utility trends. Green Mountain Power transformed itself into a B Corp, a designation that cements its commitment to sustainability, transparency and accountability. The certification, administered by nonprofit B Lab, mirrors legislation in most states allowing businesses to become “benefit corporations” that uphold similar goals.

A benefit corporation is an alternative corporate structure[11]. Essentially, it changes the for-profit corporation, which may consider the public interest, into one that legally must pursue greater social goods[12] and regularly report to shareholders on its progress. Failure to do so could trigger a shareholder lawsuit.

It was an easy decision for Green Mountain Power to join the well over 1,000 corporations publicly committed to working toward the public good. The company wanted to “become the Ben and Jerry’s of the utility world,” according to CEO and President Mary Powell[13]. The ice cream giant, also a B Corp based in Vermont, won praise in the late 1980s for putting its social mission on par with its economic goals.

More than anything, Green Mountain Power’s move reflected its embrace of changes (and threats) to the outdated, centralized business model still used by many electric utilities.

But unlike many of its counterparts, Green Mountain Power helped expand net metering across its home state[14]. It also fronts the cost of retrofitting homes with solar and energy efficiency products (paid back via the utility bill)[15] in a program that generates substantial cost savings for households. Green Mountain Power also built one of the nation’s first all-solar microgrids[16], and finances energy storage for customers.

The utility, has mapped out its distribution circuits[17] (shown below) to help solar developers see where’s there’s room to grow. Even while adding more renewable energy to its fuel mix, Green Mountain Power has lowered its electric rates three times in the past four years.

GMP Solar Map[18]

As a vertically-integrated utility, Green Mountain Power controls everything from power plants to the distribution wires that connect to homes. But it decided to turn its gift of monopoly control into the “un-utility,” Powell says[19], to “really become an organization that was fast, fun, and effective.”

It was a culture shift that enabled the change.

Powell works in the same “colorful Costco” of an office as everyone else. Workers can come and go as they please. Everyone understands that the customer is at the core of the business model — a far cry from the conservative culture of most monopoly, investor-owned utilities, which prioritize shareholder value over the public interest in a decentralized renewable energy future.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast every day,” says Powell.

Like what you’re reading? Listen to our podcast[20] with Mary Powell!

The numbers tell part of the story.

Since Green Mountain Power sealed its B Corp status in late 2014, its net income — a central metric used to gauge the utility’s financial success — has not wavered from its general upward trajectory. The leadership at Green Mountain Power doesn’t expect that to change.

Gaz Metro, the Canadian energy firm that bought Green Mountain Power several years ago, has enjoyed a healthy run so far, Dorothy Schnure, a spokesperson for the Vermont utility, told ILSR in June. But those benefits have not shortchanged customers or the public interest.

“We want to keep a very stable rate path, and we want to earn healthy and stable returns for our investor, which we have done,” Schnure said. “Our approach has been if we serve our customers really well and we delight our customers and we look out for our customers, our investor’s going to be OK.”

GMP Net Income[21]

Green Mountain’s leap to B Corp certification was a natural one. For years before, the utility had focused on policies supporting its customers and their communities. Company leaders insisted on upholding this corporate philosophy through acquisition talks with Gaz Metro a decade ago, when they made clear that the Canadian company’s parent — pipeline operator Enbridge, hotly contested for its environmental impact — needed to stay on the sidelines.

“Before we agreed to that purchase, we did a lot of due diligence in making sure that Gaz Metro’s philosophy would align with ours and that we would be able to continue working as a deeply conscious and socially-conscious entity,” Schnure said. “That’s how we operate and it’s part of what makes us so successful.”

Green Mountain Power might have been well-positioned to pounce on the B Corp process, but that doesn’t mean the utility’s work is done. To keep the certification, it must submit annual reports that support its status — a motivator, Schnure said, for Green Mountain Power to deepen its focus on sustainability and accountability.

B-coming a B Corp

Though Green Mountain Power is still the only utility to secure B Corp status, the path is open to other utilities doing the same. A utility can become a B Corp in any state, and most states offer legal “benefit corporation” designations.

Benefit Corporation State Policy Map.001[22]

Depending on the type of structure a company has, the process for solidifying a commitment to social good may include:

  1. Seeing if its home state has the legal framework to incorporate benefit corporations. To date, 30 states and the District of Columbia[23] have adopted such legislation.
  2. Following the state process to become a benefit corporation. This usually includes amending its governing documents, then sealing support from a majority of shareholders to ratify the change.2[24] State filing requirements for these amendments are usually identical to tweaks related to any other corporate structure.
  3. Seeking the rigorous B Corp certification from B Lab[25], with or without the legal structure of a benefit corporation. The differences between a benefit corporation and a B Corp are listed here[26]. Hint: the legal structure and certification are complementary.

There are more than 3,000 benefit corporations in the world. Of those, there are more than 1,600 benefit corporations registered as B Corps, spanning 42 countries and 120 industries.

B-lieving the Difference a B Corp Makes

Benefit corporations must do things differently than their brethren. If every utility were a benefit corporation, a number of utility actions over the past year might have played out differently. Note that this is not a wish list — benefit corporations must consider public goods.

Structuring as a B Corp or a benefit corporation isn’t a perfect antidote, even for companies considered beacons in the movement like Green Mountain Power. The Vermont utility has fielded blowback in the spring from people who live near an industrial wind project that one critic said[27] is noisy enough to drive down their quality of life and erode home values.

In a letter to the editor[28] published in the Manchester Journal, she questioned whether Green Mountain Power was responsibly building wind infrastructure, or if the the company was simply expanding its power-producing assets to boost its bottom line — a familiar strategy for investor-owned utilities.

Still, the B Corp and benefit corporation designations send a notable message and carry an unmistakable upside that — if widely adopted in the entrenched energy industry — could improve the way utilities engage with consumers.

For example, under a benefit corporation structure, it would have been tougher for NV Energy to lobby the Nevada Public Utilities Commission in 2015 to cut net metering rates[29], including a controversial retroactive measure that reduced reimbursement rates for already-installed projects.

Beyond triggering smaller payments for more than 17,000 Nevadans, the move pushed several solar developers out of the state. The utility justified its campaign by pointing to costs of net metering, but as a benefit corporation, it would have had to also factor in widely acknowledged benefits. Instead of lobbying to cut solar energy, the utility could have fought for it.

Then, in spring 2016, the Public Service Commission in Washington D.C. voted 2 to 1 to approve Exelon’s merger with Pepco — a decision that defied the mayor, numerous stakeholders and even its own prior order[30]. Mergers aren’t unusual in the utility world, especially after the past two decades of unraveling anti-monopoly legislation.

But the consolidation trend exposes conflicts between public and private interests[31], showcasing the toll these deals can take on the public. With Exelon and Pepco, most criticism boiled down to Exelon needing to support its own generation with Pepco’s captive customers. Still, after a two-year fight, the transaction was finalized in June. Opponents plan to sue[32].

Given a benefit corporation law such as the one in play in Delaware — the most common place for U.S. businesses to incorporate — Exelon and Pepco directors would have had to consider all corporate constituencies[33] in their merger application, not just stockholders and the highest bidder.

And then there’s Xcel Energy. After more than three years, and with almost 1,000 applications in the queue, the utility’s community solar program[34] has only three solar garden up and running.

Calling it a “slow start” is understatement that sidesteps Xcel’s delay tactics. First, the utility rejected a value-of-solar pricing program[35] intended for the community solar gardens. Then it refused to answer developer questions about grid location and muddied co-location rules of projects. Even after it started approving applications, Xcel continues to keep technical and financial information[36] from community solar developers.

A community solar law took effect in 2013, but has been slowed down by Xcel Energy ever since. A benefit corporation likely wouldn’t have waited this long. By force of its structure, it could have prioritized the public benefit of the value-of-solar methodology. It could have treated the grid as a commons, freeing up information to solar developers — like Green Mountain Power did[37] — instead of flexing its monopoly power.

It’s not that slapping a B-Corp label on a utility will make it good, but it will give the public additional leverage to demand the utility consider broader interests than its own.

Digging B-low the Surface

A shift toward the B Corp mindset aligns with a swell of public support for rules that favor energy efficiency and increased reliance on renewables. Largely over the past two decades, lawmakers in states nationwide have adopted standards for efficiency and renewable production — both key tools in the fight against climate change.

state energy efficiency[38]

In recent years, Maryland regulators boosted energy savings targets[39] for utilities in their state while California agreed to double its energy efficiency savings[40] goals by 2030. Plus, a recent report[41] from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows states’ aggressive renewables policies — increasingly popular nationwide — deliver distinct benefits without driving up costs.

state res[42]

But it’s not just the public that want electric utilities to change. In the last year, there has been a rash of electric utility shareholder initiatives, all directed toward making their companies more sustainable:

  • Shareholders of Madison Gas & Electric submitted a proposal[43] to force more renewable energy generation, that was eventually withdrawn after the utility agreed to increase its use of renewables and collaborate with shareholders to evaluate opportunities to expand its renewables business
  • Nextera Energy shareholders, facing opposition from the company, crafted a resolution for the to company consider sea level rise[44] even as it reinforces old power plants built along the Floridian coast
  • 8.5 percent of Ameren shareholders in May 2016 voted for a resolution[45] requiring the company to adhere to a 30 percent renewable energy standard by 2030 — not enough support for outright approval, but enough to keep it on the ballot at next year’s shareholder meeting
  • Nearly 40 percent of Entergy shareholders[46] recently demanded that the utility increase distributed, renewable energy throughout its territory

According to a report from the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change[47], electric utilities and their business models face a growing number of liabilities, shown below:

Source: Inves[48]
Source: Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change

Customers and shareholders of electric utilities want them to change in the public interest to address these risks. Regulators want them to change. Legislators are tired of the utilities’ pushback.

Most electric utilities are culturally and structurally reluctant to consider anything beyond shareholder returns, but they don’t have to be. Green Mountain Power shows that there’s a way to reconcile shareholder and the public interest, and that retaining a utility monopoly could make sense even if it’s no longer a natural monopoly[49].

Maybe it’s time for a Plan B.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[50]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[51] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[52] update.

 

More Information:

  1. Bradley, Robert Jr., “The Insull Speech of 1898: Call for Public Utility Regulation of Electricity (The origins of EEI’s support for cap-and-trade in today’s energy/climate bill),” Master Resource, April 29, 2010, https://www.masterresource.org/edison-electric-institute/the-insull-speech-of-1898/[53].
  2. The important text added to the governing documents usually includes: “… [The Director] shall give due consideration to the following factors, including, but not limited to, the long-term prospects and interests of the Company and its shareholders, and the social, economic, legal, or other effects of any action on the current and retired employees, the suppliers and customers of the Company or its subsidiaries, and the communities and society in which the Company or its subsidiaries operate, (collectively, with the shareholders, the “Stakeholders” ), together with the short-term, as well as long-term, interests of its shareholders and the effect of the Company’s operations (and its subsidiaries’ operations) on the environment and the economy of the state, the region and the nation.”
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Endnotes:
  1. articulated his vision: https://www.masterresource.org/edison-electric-institute/the-insull-speech-of-1898
  2. 1: #Insull
  3. unnecessary fossil-fueled power plants: https://ilsr.org/new-fossil-fuel-power-plants-assets-or-liabilities/
  4. in ways that harm the poor and elderly: https://ilsr.org/zapped-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair/
  5. spurn rooftop solar: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nevada-net-metering-decision
  6. shaped two key profit motives: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/29/12038074/power-utilities-suck
  7. distributed, non-utility power generation is often less expensive: https://drive.google.com/a/ilsr.org/file/d/0B8Hmrr6Ve2pvaWk3VGhPZXZSMFk/view
  8. renewable energy: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2016/05/ohio_renewable_energy_and_effi_1.html
  9. energy efficiency standards: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/florida-regulators-meet-to-decide-future-of-energy-efficiency-and-solar/2207845
  10. community solar programs: http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/23/minnesota-community-solar-backers-question-utility-concerns/
  11. alternative corporate structure: http://www.trust.org/contentAsset/raw-data/1d3b4f99-2a65-49f9-9bc0-39585bc52cac/file
  12. pursue greater social goods: http://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2015/11/02/benefit-corporations-do-the-benefits-exceed-the-costs/
  13. according to CEO and President Mary Powell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkhCyl-jijk
  14. expand net metering across its home state: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/vermont-expands-net-metering-program-with-utility-support
  15. retrofitting homes with solar and energy efficiency products (paid back via the utility bill): http://www.greenmountainpower.com/innovative/ehome/
  16. all-solar microgrids: https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/
  17. mapped out its distribution circuits: http://gmp.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Viewer/index.html?appid=546100cc60c34e8eb659023ea8ae03f3
  18. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/mountains-beyond-mountains-how-green-mountain-power-became-more-than-an-electric-utility-episode-38-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/gmp-solar-map/
  19. Powell says: https://ilsr.org/mountains-beyond-mountains-how-green-mountain-power-became-more-than-an-electric-utility-episode-38-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  20. Listen to our podcast: https://ilsr.org/mountains-beyond-mountains-how-green-mountain-power-became-more-than-an-electric-utility-episode-38-of-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  21. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/gmp-net-income/
  22. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/benefit-corporation-state-policy-map-001/
  23. 30 states and the District of Columbia: http://benefitcorp.net/businesses/how-become-benefit-corporation
  24. 2: #governing
  25. B Corp certification from B Lab: http://www.bcorporation.net/become-a-b-corp/how-to-become-a-b-corp
  26. here: http://benefitcorp.net/businesses/benefit-corporations-and-certified-b-corps
  27. one critic said: http://www.manchesterjournal.com/oped/ci_29816082/legislature-must-act-protect-vermonters-from-pollution
  28. a letter to the editor: http://www.manchesterjournal.com/oped/ci_29816082/legislature-must-act-protect-vermonters-from-pollution
  29. cut net metering rates: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nevadas-solar-exodus-continues-driven-by-retroactive-net-metering-cuts
  30. defied the mayor, numerous stakeholders and even its own prior order: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-exelon-pepco-merger-inside-the-debate-over-what-may-soon-be-americas/352889/
  31. conflicts between public and private interests: http://www.scotthemplinglaw.com/files/pdf/tty_direct_testimony_exelon-phi_for_grid2_0_hempling_110314.pdf
  32. plan to sue: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/updated-dc-regulators-deny-rehearing-on-exelon-pepco-merger-opponents-pla/421143/
  33. consider all corporate constituencies: http://www.hblr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/4.2-5.-Strine-Do-the-Right-Thing.pdf
  34. community solar program: https://ilsr.org/why-else-is-xcel-energy-trying-to-axe-minnesotas-community-solar-program/
  35. rejected a value-of-solar pricing program: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2015/11/xcels-solar-slow-walk-casts-shade-energy-savings-thousands
  36. keep technical and financial information: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/minnesota-report-points-to-flaws-in-xcels-community-solar-installations/417231/
  37. like Green Mountain Power did: http://gmp.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Viewer/index.html?appid=546100cc60c34e8eb659023ea8ae03f3
  38. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/state-energy-efficiency/
  39. boosted energy savings targets: http://aceee.org/blog/2015/07/three-cheers-maryland
  40. double its energy efficiency savings: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-climate-change-renewable-energy-20151007-story.html
  41. a recent report: http://www.eenews.net/assets/2016/04/07/document_ew_01.pdf
  42. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/state-res/
  43. submitted a proposal: http://www.jsonline.com/business/protesters-urge-madison-gas--electric-to-rely-less-on-coal-to-generate-power-b99503613z1-304334681.html
  44. for the to company consider sea level rise: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-farago/on-sea-level-rise-shareho_b_9867608.html?utm_content=bufferc0576&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
  45. voted for a resolution: http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/05/02/advocates-see-upside-in-rejection-of-missouri-utilitys-clean-energy-resolution/
  46. 40 percent of Entergy shareholders: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nearly-40-percent-of-entergy-shareholders-demand-clean-energy-transition-as-you-sow-arjuna-capital-resolution-seeks-distributed-resources-like-rooftop-solar-300266494.html
  47. report from the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change: http://www.iigcc.org/publications/publication/investor-expectations-of-electric-utility-companies
  48. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/technology-dynamics/
  49. no longer a natural monopoly: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  50. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  51. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  52. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  53. https://www.masterresource.org/edison-electric-institute/the-insull-speech-of-1898/: https://www.masterresource.org/edison-electric-institute/the-insull-speech-of-1898/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/what-if-your-electric-utility-was-a-benefit-corporation/


California Weighs Fair Pricing for Distributed, Centralized Energy

by John Farrell | July 18, 2016 6:00 am

This article published with the substantial assistance of ILSR intern, McKenna Eckerline.

Everyone hates paying for something that they don’t use (how many cable channels do you have?). In California, local electricity customers may finally get satisfaction about paying for the transmission grid capacity that they don’t use.

At issue is an obscure pricing mechanism known as Transmission Access Charges[1]. These charges are meant to capture the cost of delivering power to customers, but the fees don’t distinguish between distant or local energy sources. So a customer pays a transmission fee on all the power they consume, whether it was produced next door or 500 miles away.

With this problematic pricing mechanism, the charges don’t decline when a customer’s on-site or nearby power generation increases, even though such distributed power generation doesn’t use the greater transmission system. The fees are substantial, adding as much as 3¢ per kilowatt-hour to the cost of distributed energy. Plus, the more Californians install solar technology and reduce demand for long-distance power transmission, the less these charges make any sense.

Getting Traction for Fair Pricing

Beginning in 2009, Southern California’s Clean Coalition began fighting the economic disparity between transmission use and transmission costs, and the seven-year campaign has finally garnered the attention of the Golden State’s transmission manager, or Independent System Operator, CAISO. For the first time, the system operator is inviting[2] stakeholder[3] comments[4] on the issue.

Instead of basing access charges on the amount of electricity a customer consumes (end-use metered customer load [EUML]), the Clean Coalition proposes that California utilities derive transmission assessments on Transmission Energy Downflow (TED), a measure of how much electricity actually travels on the transmission system to reach the customer. Switching to this more accurate measure would result in immediate savings for customers that rely more on distributed energy resources, and it would also bring about institutional change. In grid planning, the current charge discriminates against distributed energy projects that can lower grid costs by delivering power with technology like solar, for example, near demand. The following graphic illustrates this phenomena.

On the left, a centralized project has a lower bid in the “least cost best fit” analysis because the system operator is ignoring actual transmission costs and instead applies the charges to all customers regardless of their usage. On the right, the fair application of transmission fees means that the distributed energy project wins along with customers.

Graphic Courtesy of Clean Coalition[5]
Graphic Courtesy of Clean Coalition[6]

Big Savings from Fair Pricing

The fair playing field would reduce demand for unnecessary and expensive transmission expansion in the long run, saving California customers as much as 3¢ per kilowatt-hour, an average of about $200 per year. The reduced demand for transmission would also mean better utilization of existing grid capacity, more distributed energy (like solar), and fewer fights over the use of eminent domain to take private land for transmission towers.

Apart from reaping benefits for consumers, the proposed switch to more accurate transmission pricing would also remove perverse incentives where investor-owned utilities that are choosing between centralized and distributed projects are financially rewarded for expanding transmission infrastructure (by getting a return on their investment for building more transmission).

Fair and Consistent Pricing

The change to more accurate transmission pricing isn’t novel. Already, California municipal utilities and others that do not own transmission lines are billed for transmission access based on actual instead of aggregate use. Adopting the rule for utilities that own transmission would advance accounting accuracy and align policy across utility service territories.

The policy change many also help remedy a national bias toward transmission building, encouraged by incentives provided by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for transmission expansion[7], even when more cost-effective alternatives are not considered.

Transmission Access Charges may be an obscure pricing concept, but getting it right is a golden opportunity for the Golden State to use fairer pricing to make the most efficient use of its electric grid.

Want to stay informed or get involved?

  • Subscribe[8] to Clean Coalition’s newsletter
  • Email Josh Valentine[9] or Katie Ramsey[10] at Clean Coalition

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[11]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[12] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[13] update.

Photo Credit: Dennis Wilkerson via Flickr[14]

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Endnotes:
  1. Transmission Access Charges: http://www.clean-coalition.org/our-work/tac/
  2. inviting: https://www.caiso.com/informed/Pages/StakeholderProcesses/ReviewTransmissionAccessChargeWholesaleBillingDeterminant.aspx
  3. stakeholder: https://www.caiso.com/informed/Pages/StakeholderProcesses/TransmissionAccessChargeOptions.aspx
  4. comments: https://www.caiso.com/Pages/documentsbygroup.aspx?GroupID=8D34FC22-BB72-4533-BD55-D3B6C58DE56F
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/california-weighs-fair-pricing-for-distributed-centralized-energy/tac-lcbf-02_dm-6-jul-2016/
  6. Clean Coalition: http://www.clean-coalition.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TAC-LCBF-02_dm-6-Jul-2016.png
  7. incentives provided by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for transmission expansion: https://ilsr.org/fercs-high-voltage-gravy-train/
  8. Subscribe: http://www.clean-coalition.org/newsroom/newsletters/
  9. Josh Valentine: mailto:josh@clean-coalition.org
  10. Katie Ramsey: mailto:katie@clean-coalition.org
  11. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  12. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  13. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  14. Dennis Wilkerson via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/djwtwo/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/california-weighs-fair-pricing-for-distributed-centralized-energy/


Montgomery Co. MD Bill Requires Distributed Composting

by Brenda Platt | July 14, 2016 2:25 pm

On June 28, 2016, Montgomery County Council (Maryland) Vice President, Roger Berliner, introduced legislation to require the development of a comprehensive composting and food recovery strategic plan. The bill might be the first in the country to stipulate a diverse and distributed plan that considers food rescue, backyard composting, community scale composting, on-site institutional and commercial composting, on-farm composting, local use of compost to support soil health and the County’s stormwater management program, and more.

ILSR worked closely with Council member Berliner, his staff, and the Montgomery County Food Council in crafting the bill. The “Strategic Plan to Advance Composting and Food Waste Diversion” (Bill 28-16[1]) requires the Director of the Department of Environmental Protection to develop the strategic plan by July 1, 2017, and to submit an annual report each year documenting progress towards achieving the goals of the plan.

The bill already has the endorsement of six of the nine Council members. Joining Council member Roger Berliner in supporting the bill are: Marc Elrich, Tom Hucker, Sidney Katz, Nancy Navarro, Hans Riemer.

A public hearing on the bill will take place Tuesday, July 19th at 1 pm. The hearing will be held in Rockville, Maryland, in the Third Flooring Hearing Room of the Council Office Building (1000 Maryland Ave). Go to public hearings webpage[2] for information on how to submit written testimony to the County Council or to sign up to testify in person.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Bill 28-16: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/COUNCIL/Resources/Files/bill/2016/Packets/20160628_4B.pdf
  2. public hearings webpage: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Council/PHSignUp.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/moco-food-waste-bill-hearing/


The Secrets Behind Partnerships to Improve Internet Access

by Christopher Mitchell | July 14, 2016 11:15 am

placeholder[1]A growing number of US cities have broken up monopoly control of the Internet marketplace locally. They’re promoting entrepreneurship, and giving residents and businesses real choice in how they connect and reach new audiences. They’ve brought a new wrinkle to an old model: the public-private partnership.

“Communities desperately need better Internet access, but not all local governments are bold enough to ‘go it alone,'” says Christopher Mitchell with Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “Here, we’ve outlined a few remarkable cities who have demonstrated how smart strategies are helping them help themselves.”

A city that builds its own fiber and leases it to a trusted partner can negotiate for activities that benefit the public good, like universal access. It may even require (as Westminster, Maryland did) that the partner ISP have real human beings answer the phone to solve a customer’s problems.

The term “public-private partnership” has been muddied in the past. This report clears up the confusion: public entities and private companies must both have “skin in the game” to balance the risks and amplify the rewards.

Inside “Successful Strategies for Broadband Public-Private Partnerships”

  • Partnerships in broadband have never been in greater vogue. Communities are realizing they don’t have to build it entirely themselves to get the benefits of gig networks in Chattanooga or Google cities.
  • The report features the revolutionary Westminster/Ting partnership and notes its first copycat: Cruzio and the city of Santa Cruz. These networks are groundbreaking in terms of offering a “third way” for communities to join the ranks of gigabit cities.
  • This report offers a roadmap for cities and outlines the important questions that need to be asked and answered in order to find the right partner with the right priorities for each community.

VIDEO: Westminster & Ting: The How and the Why[2]

 

ppp_photo[3]
Read the guide to implementing successful public-private partnerships for fiber.

 

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. VIDEO: Westminster & Ting: The How and the Why: http://bit.ly/29Eqj8p
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ppp_photo.png
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ppp-fiber/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ppp-fiber/


How to Make a Political Revolution

by David Morris | July 5, 2016 9:13 am

On June 14th, North Dakotans voted to overrule their government’s decision to allow corporate ownership of farms. That they had the power to do so was a result of a political revolution that occurred almost exactly a century before, a revolution that may hold lessons for those like Bernie Sanders’ supporters who seek to establish a bottom-up political movement in the face of hostile political parties today.

Here’s the story. In the early 1900s North Dakota was effectively an economic colony of Minneapolis/Saint Paul. A Saint Paul based railroad tycoon controlled its freight prices. Minnesota companies owned many of the grain elevators that sat next to the rail lines and often cheated farmers by giving their wheat a lower grade than deserved. Since the flour mills were in Minneapolis, shipping costs reduced the price wheat farmers received. Minneapolis banks held farmers’ mortgages and their operating loans to farmers carried a higher interest than they charged at home.

Farmers, who represented a majority of the population, tried to free themselves from bondage by making the political system more responsive. In 1913 they gained an important victory when the legislature gave them the right, by petition, to initiate a law or constitutional amendment as well as to overturn a law passed by the legislature.

But this was a limited victory for while the people could enable they could not compel.

In 1914, for example, after a 30-year effort, voters authorized the legislature to build a state-owned grain elevator and mill. But in January 1915 a state legislative committee concluded[1] it “would be a waste of the people’s money as well as a humiliating disappointment to the people of the state.” The legislature refused funding.

A few weeks later, two former candidates on the Socialist Party ticket, Arthur C. Townley and Albert Bowen, launched a new political organization, the Non Partisan League (NPL). The name conveyed their strategy: To rely more on program-based politics than party-based politics. According to the NPL its program intended to end the “utterly unendurable” situation in which “the people of this state have always been dependent on their existence on industries, banks, markets, storage and transportation facilities either existing altogether outside of the state or controlled by great private interests outside the state.”

The NPL’s platform contained concrete and specific measures: state ownership of elevators, flour mills, packing houses and cold storage plants; state inspection of grain grading and dockage; state hail insurance; rural credit banks operating at cost; exemption of farm improvements from taxation.

In his recent book, Insurgent Democracy[2] Michael Lansing explains, “Small-property holders anxious to use government to create a more equitable form of capitalism cannot be easily categorized in contemporary political term.” The NPL “reminded Americans that corporate capitalism was not the only way forward.” Supporters of the NPL wanted state sponsored market fairness but not state control. They wanted public options, not public monopolies. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. concluded: https://books.google.com/books?id=Y9kpCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=would+be+a+waste+of+the+people%E2%80%99s+money+as+well+as+a+humiliating+disappointment+to+the+people+of+the+state&source=bl&ots=v55xEknvR7&sig=cNfrjvTDa38v2-0ssZ7ObZ7pEmA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfncav9MrNAhVnwYMKHbGWAKMQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=would%20be%20a%20waste%20of%20the%20people%E2%80%99s%20money%20as%20well%20as%20a%20humiliating%20disappointment%20to%20the%20people%20of%20the%20state&f=false
  2. Insurgent Democracy: http://www.indiebound.org/search/book?searchfor=insurgent+democracy
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/how-to-make-a-political-revolution/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/how-to-make-a-political-revolution/


Liberty and the Farm: Internet Access

by ILSR | July 2, 2016 5:45 am

The 4th of July invites us to celebrate the accomplishments of our country. But, 23 million people in rural areas[1] remain without high-speed Internet access.

Rural areas cannot stay unconnected. Agriculture has become a high-tech endeavor, and high-speed Internet access is necessary. Cooperatives, those democratic institutions formed by rural farmers years ago, are becoming an answer.

The Founding Fathers considered rural communities the life-blood of the country. In 1785, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Jay[2], stated that:

“[C]ultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. they are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it’s liberty & interests by the most lasting bands.”

High-Speed Internet Access Supports Agriculture

The Missouri Farmer Today recently wrote of the sorry state of rural Internet access for one family-owned business in Missouri, the Perry Agricultural Laboratory[3]. They process soil samples and perform other agricultural testing for both local and international customers but the best connections available are via satellite. The lab constantly goes over its data cap and sometimes cannot send their reports to customers across the globe if the weather interferes with their signal. A high-speed cable runs along the edge of the property, but the company would have to pay $40,000 to connect to it.

The cost to build high-speed networks in rural areas is a familiar one. By banding together, members of cooperatives – whether electric, telephone[4], or Internet[5] co-op – strengthen their position and gain the leverage to build networks that will ensure they aren’t left behind. The Missouri Farmer Today also interviewed Jim Gann, the director of business development with the University of Missouri’s office of the Vice Provost for Economic Development. Gann spoke to the success of Co-Mo Electric’s Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) project:

“We believe that in the economy of the future, where you are physically located is less of an issue than it’s ever been before.”

Co-Mo Electric Cooperative Brings FTTH to Rural Areas

At MuniNetworks, we have followed the story of Co-Mo Electric Cooperative[6] since the beginning of their project in 2012. After being passed over for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding twice, Co-Mo Electric Cooperative decided that its members in the rural Ozarks of Missouri could no longer wait for high-speed Internet access. They began a FTTH project, Co-Mo Connect that is now nearing completion. The project will ensure that all the electric cooperative’s members have high-speed Internet access. Co-Mo Connect is now on its 4th and final phase. You can listen to Christopher interview Randy Klindt from the co-op in episode #140[7] of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

Watch this video featured by the Co-Mo Electric Cooperative about the importance of electric cooperatives for rural communities and democracy. Electric cooperatives now have the potential to bring next-generation, future-proof infrastructure to rural communities across the U.S.

 

coo

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks[8], Creative Commons license[9]

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[10]

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Endnotes:
  1. 23 million people in rural areas: https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-reports/2016-broadband-progress-report
  2. in a letter to John Jay: http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/69
  3. Perry Agricultural Laboratory: http://www.perryaglab.com/
  4. telephone: https://muninetworks.org/content/rural-kansas-cooperative-continues-fiber-network-expansion
  5. Internet: https://muninetworks.org/reports/rs-fiber-fertile-fields-new-rural-internet-cooperative
  6. we have followed the story of Co-Mo Electric Cooperative: https://muninetworks.org/content/co-mo-cooperative-bringing-some-fastest-speeds-nation-rural-missouri
  7. episode #140: https://muninetworks.org/content/rural-electric-co-mo-coop-goes-gig-community-broadband-bits-episode-140
  8. woodleywonderworks: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/686020113
  9. license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
  10. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/liberty-and-farm-internet-access

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/liberty-and-the-farm-internet-access/


Local Utilities Have Lost Local Control

by John Farrell | June 23, 2016 6:00 am

This post made possible by the tireless efforts of ILSR intern Abbigail Feola. She dug up the data, identified the story worth sharing, and wrote the following piece below.

Historically, the purpose of both municipal and cooperative utility agencies has been to bring energy services to communities that for-profit corporations thought unprofitable to serve. This philosophy of self-reliance shifted the focus from profit margins towards social goods, and persists today. Municipal utilities are owned by and located in the cities they serve; their primary interest is not the welfare of their investors, but of their city or town. Likewise, cooperatives are owned and run by their members, people with strong social, environmental, financial, and cultural stakes in the activities of the cooperative.

But the ways in which municipal and cooperative utilities procure power undermine this ethic of community service and self-reliance.

Most municipal utilities have long-term contracts to purchase power from joint action agencies, and cooperative utilities from generation and transmission cooperatives. Utilities pursue these long-term contracts to obtain favorable interest rates and credit ratings from the finance industry. Even the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association states[1], “Since the wholesale power contract serves as the basic foundation for G&T [generation and transmission cooperative] financing, and since a multiplicity of stakeholders (such as lenders, regulators, or trustees, for example) have approval rights on any modifications to the contracts, it is nearly impossible to side-step the provisions of all-requirements wholesale power contracts in accessing and using power from sources other than the G&T.” In other words, financiers give better deals for financing big, new power plants when the local utilities are legally obligated to buy the power on a very long-term contract.

Click here to download a ZIP file of the long-term contracts (click the download arrow at top-right once the next page loads)[2]

The more restrictive and longer the term, the less costly it will be to fund energy infrastructure. But the result of this system is a major restriction of utilities’ abilities to operate flexibly and independently. In many cases, small, local utilities are tied into contracts for increasingly-expensive fossil-fuel power for decades, even when they may have options to procure local, renewable electricity at low cost, or with additional local economic benefits.

The loss of local authority, flexibility, and freedom can be solved in whole or part by shifting decision-making authority back to the local level, including expanding options for self-supply.

To understand the current state of the industry and how it could be changed, ILSR contacted various cooperative and municipal utilities, the latter under the Data Practices Act, to collect information on their contract lengths and the costs of electricity paid by utilities. The findings show that decades-long contracts and past and current heavy investments in dirty energy are dramatically limiting utilities’ use of cost-efficient and environment-friendly power sources.

Unwise Investments

The electric industry has always made enormous investments, in the billions of dollars, to generate and transmit electricity. Rising investments in transmission and distribution technology[3], among other factors, have contributed to rising electricity costs. Prior to the last 10 years, rising energy demand allowed utilities to spread these costs over greater sales.

But in the past decade, costs have risen while general demand for electricity (measured in kilowatt-hours, or kWh) has been either unchanging or declining.

The result is higher costs for consumers. For example, Great River Energy, one of Minnesota’s largest generation and transmission cooperatives, made massive investments in coal plants over the past decade, resulting in rising electric costs. (x[4])These include nearly 500 million dollars spent constructing the Spiritwood coal-fired plant, which was shut down due to lack of demand[5].  The Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency has a similar cost problem. Due to the low costs of wind and natural gas power and the inflexible operating system of its coal plant Sherco 3, according to its 2015 annual report, it is having difficulty recovering the costs of operating the coal plant.

Wholesale Contracts.001[6]

 

Costs are also rising to comply with environmental regulations, rules that utilities have known about for decades. U.S. environmental policy has steadily been progressing towards stricter air quality control since the 1963 Clean Air Act[7]. This trend continues today, as represented by the impending Clean Power Plan (CPP), a shift towards renewable and carbon-free energy sources which Minnesota has already begun putting into action.  Because of their past heavy investments in coal (in some cases mandated by the federal government) and current investments in natural gas, municipal and cooperative utilities are at a disadvantage. For example, 78% of the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency’s (SMMPA’s) power is from the coal-fired plant Sherco Unit 3, which was built in 1987[8].  Already, utilities have submitted plans to close Sherco units 1 and 2 in 2023 and 2026[9], respectively. Unit 3 may not be far behind.

These stricter governmental regulations mirror shifting consumer preferences and changing economics[10]. Clean energy technologies (such as wind and solar) are currently outpacing coal in economic efficiency[11], and are projected to continue[12] to do so, as the price of coal continues to rise. For the North Dakota and Minnesota generation and transmission company Minnkota, rising coal prices were responsible for ten million dollars[13] (or 11% of the total cost increases) of the company’s rising operating costs in just one fiscal year.  Such cost increases caused electric prices to rise by 60%.

Wholesale Contracts.004[14]

Such rising costs are symptomatic of the continuing conflict between large power providers (with huge sunk costs into aging and costly power plants) and the autonomy and flexibility of local utilities. Increases in demand for renewable and distributed generation, accompanied by unpredictably rising costs of coal and other fossil fuels, make long-term contracts that support centralized generation increasingly burdensome.

Contract Rigidity and Length

These lengthy and demanding power purchase contracts are increasingly a millstone around the necks of utilities in the sea of rising costs and dropping sales.

Power agencies or generation and transmission cooperatives require decades-long contracts to ensure that they recover their costs for building massive new power plants. These restrict utilities’ choices in power supplies for the duration of the contract; a very, very long duration. The Northern Municipal Power Agency, for instance, has contracts with its members extending as far as 2055[15], including with the cities of Chaska, Anoka, and Moorhead.  The Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Western Area Power Administration, and the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency all also have contracts extending through 2050. The majority of Great River Energy’s contracts end in 2045 (source: conversation with utility representatives).  Not only are such contracts unreasonably lengthy, but generation companies can and often make attempts to stretch them out even further than was originally agreed.  For instance, the Florida Municipal Power Association (FMPA) auto-renews its 30-year contracts[16] with its members each year.

Many of these contracts are “all-requirements,” mandating that utilities buy the entirety of their power supply from the power agency or generation and transmission cooperative (or the maximum amount that the company can supply).  These contracts keep local utilities tied to large investments in dirty power sources, and prevent them from increasing the role of locally-owned and/or locally-procured power generation.  Of the twenty-eight cooperative utilities contracted with Great River Energy, twenty were all-requirements[17], with a five percent allowance for locally owned energy. Other utilities featured smaller allowances or none at all, as was the case with all the Minnesota municipal utilities whose data was available.

Wholesale Contracts.003[18]

The Fruits of Freedom

Although most local municipal and cooperative utilities are tied into long-term contracts, a few had the foresight to avoid being tied down. The Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO), which has no contracts with a generation and transmission cooperative, has installed or is in the process of installing a total of 15.5 MW of solar[19]. In 2002, the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) purchased the utility from for-profit Connecticut-based Citizens Communications.  Due to the import costs of coal, gas, and other resources on the island, Kauai has faced unique pressures in finding alternative sources of energy.  KIUC has set a goal of 50% renewable energy by 2023, and in 2016 reached the mark of 38% renewable energy[20].  The municipal utility in Denton, TX, reached 40% renewable energy supply [21]in 2015.  And after the expiration of its contract in 2012, the town of Georgetown, TX, signed contracts for 100% wind and solar electricity[22] to start in 2017.

Other municipal utilities are taking similar, self-initiated steps towards renewable generation.  The town of Minster in Ohio has utilized its partial-requirements contract to build a solar/storage system consisting of a 3 MW array and a 7 MW battery[23], which is owned by Half Moon Ventures[24].

Rochester Public Utilities (RPU), the largest municipal utility in Minnesota (footnote 1), has opted not to renew its 1978 contract[25] with the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA) when it expires in 2030.  Concordantly, Rochester has set a goal of[26] 100% renewable energy by 2031[27]. Encouraging member leadership and participation in renewable generation is a major part of RPU’s plan: the proclamation states that[28] “[a]t the heart of a successful 100% renewables strategy, it is fundamental to allow open participation in the development and financing of energy infrastructure….”.  Rochester’s new arrangement interweaves its freedom to choose with renewable energy accessibility, with each motivating the other.

Farmers Electric Cooperative is an Iowa cooperative utility that generates 1,500 Watts of renewable power per customer[29], more than any other utility and more than double the next utility’s solar capacity per customer. Customers with their own solar arrays receive between 12.5 cents (the retail price) and 20 cents per kWh produced, depending on the amount produced and how it compares to their own consumption. The cooperative has also constructed a 750 kW solar array[30]; only 20% of their power comes from coal.  This success has been possible because only 30% of FEC’s power[31] is sourced with long-term contracts; the rest is purchased from local generation sources on the spot market.

The Potential of Cooperation

Since few cooperative or municipal utilities can exit their long-term contracts easily, flexibility in the short term may require cooperation with their generation and transmission cooperative or power agency.  Such cooperation can allow utilities to  reap the benefits of economies of scale and coordinated action without sacrificing the needs and desires of their members and communities.

For example, generation and transmission cooperative Great River Energy recently helped twenty of its member cooperatives construct small solar arrays[32] in their communities.  On the other hand, GRE constructs and owns these arrays and may be able to use that ownership in future contract extension negotiations.

In another case, three local Minnesota utilities — the Freeborn-Mower Electric Co-operative, People’s Cooperative Services, and Tri-County Electric Cooperative — jointly built a solar array that sells power to Dairyland, their generation and transmission cooperative.  As economies of scale are usually optimized around the 500 kW[33] to 1 megawatt[34] for solar arrays, planning around designing solar to connect to the distribution network can save wholesale power utilities and their members[35] time and money.

Cooperation between local utilities can also achieve cost savings.  The Michigan Energy Optimization Collaborative[36] was created by eight cooperatives and four municipal utilities in response to a 2008 law mandating an annual 1% reduction in electricity usage. The Collaborative has streamlined and lowered the cost of compliance through rebates for energy efficient appliances, energy audits, and agricultural programs.  With more local negotiating power behind negotiations with power providers, cooperatives are more able to increase renewable energy and efficient usage — or, as in the case of the town of Niles, to break out of a contract early.

Niles, a town of 7,000 people located in Indiana, estimates that it has been spending 20-30% above the market cost of power in its current contract.  This spurred Niles to partner with ten other utilities to end their contracts with Indiana Michigan Power[37] six years early — in 2020, instead of 2026.   By joining forces, these utilities are managing to renegotiate their contract with a large power agency that may have run roughshod over a single utility’s attempt to renegotiate.

Conclusion

The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), an organization founded in 1895 which works to unite cooperatives worldwide, lists autonomy and independence[38] as key principles through which cooperatives can fulfill their commitments to their members. It does so with good reason.  The achievements of utilities such as Rochester Public Utilities and the smaller Farmers Electric Cooperative show the abilities of local utilities to act in financially and environmentally wise manners when freed from lengthy, restrictive contracts.  The cases of I&M-contracted utilities joining forces to leave their contracts early, as well as three Minnesota utilities’ joint project to sell renewable power back to their power provider, show the successes and potentials of cooperation between local utilities to take on widespread problems.  Local utilities, including their members, must continue to work against financial and legal entrapment by power agencies and generation and transmission cooperatives.  Despite these mentioned successes, there remains much work to be done for the majority of local utilities, still chained to contracts with steadily increasing costs and few means to mitigate them.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[39]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[40] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[41] update.

Notes on Municipal Utilities, the Data Practices Act, and Transparency

Under the Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13[42], the Data Practices Act, members of the public have rights to access public data free of charge (in certain forms) and in a timely and accessible manner.  These rights [43]include the right to have public data explained and presented in an accessible form; to see and have copies of summary data; and many others, including the most basic and essential right to view public data unless there is a law classifying that data as protected, trade secret, or otherwise non-public. While cooperatives are not subject to the Data Practices Act, municipal utilities, as government organizations, are.

Unfortunately, we found that there was little to no compliance with this act among municipal utilities.  Despite Data Practices Act requests sent to multiple positions (including city clerks, general utility contact addresses, utilities staff members, city council members) associated with more than twenty-five municipal utilities in Minnesota, we received only six responses.  The Data Practices Act was explicitly cited in the majority of these communications, and the reasons for rejection included not knowing the inquirer’s political beliefs.  We regret this inaccessibility and hope that compliance with the Data Practices Act in the future would allow more thorough research on the energy industries in Minnesota.

Here is a link to download the municipal utility contracts that we obtained[44]. It’s worth noting that the barriers we faced may not be unique to Minnesota. Nebraska public utilities are claiming such information is a “trade secret.”[45]

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Endnotes:
  1. National Rural Electric Cooperative Association states: http://www.nreca.coop/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/NRECA-Cooperative-Utility-Field-Manual-Volume-I-Final.pdf
  2. Click here to download a ZIP file of the long-term contracts (click the download arrow at top-right once the next page loads): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_teABjf3e3yUWJrc2szTUR3UWc/view?usp=sharing
  3. investments in transmission and distribution technology: https://www.db.com/cr/en/concrete-deutsche-bank-report-solar-grid-parity-in-a-low-oil-price-era.htm
  4. x: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/07/18/news/public-utilities-commission-rejects-coop-plan
  5. shut down due to lack of demand: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/07/18/news/public-utilities-commission-rejects-coop-plan
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/local-utilities-have-lost-local-control/wholesale-contracts-001/
  7. has steadily been progressing towards stricter air quality control since the 1963 Clean Air Act: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00022470.1982.10465369
  8. in 1987: http://www.startribune.com/sherburne-county-generation-station/172394551/
  9. in 2023 and 2026: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/02/xcel-sherco-shutdown-plans
  10. shifting consumer preferences and changing economics: http://www.firstsolar.com/REMDigital
  11. are currently outpacing coal in economic efficiency: https://ilsr.org/in-st-peter-mn-a-solar-fee-blossoms/
  12. continue: http://remagazine.coop/tech-surveillance-nuclear-options/
  13. ten million dollars: http://www.nmpagency.com/pdfs/Major%20Rate%20Increase%20Drivers%20Since%202009.pdf
  14. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/local-utilities-have-lost-local-control/wholesale-contracts-004/
  15. as far as 2055: http://www.nmpagency.com/pdfs/annual/nmpa_annualreport_2013.pdf
  16. auto-renews its 30-year contracts: http://www.floridataxwatch.org/resources/pdf/FMPA_FINAL.pdf
  17. twenty were all-requirements: http://greatriverenergy.com/we-provide-electricity/making-electricity/purpa-qualifying-facilities/
  18. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/local-utilities-have-lost-local-control/wholesale-contracts-003/
  19. installing a total of 15.5 MW of solar: http://www.nreca.coop/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/solar-case-studies.pdf
  20. reached the mark of 38% renewable energy: http://website.kiuc.coop/content/clean-energy
  21. reached 40% renewable energy supply : https://ilsr.org/minneapolis-excel-xcel/
  22. signed contracts for 100% wind and solar electricity: https://ilsr.org/can-other-cities-match-georgetowns-low-cost-switch-to-100-wind-and-sun/
  23. 3 MW array and a 7 MW battery: https://ilsr.org/small-ohio-town-to-feature-large-distributed-solar-and-storage/
  24. owned by Half Moon Ventures: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/construction-on-7-mw-ohio-energy-storage-facility-slated-for-mid-october-_100021499/#axzz49tXBX0Z8
  25. its 1978 contract: https://www.rpu.org/about-rpu/history/
  26. has set a goal of: http://blogs.mprnews.org/updraft/2015/10/city-of-rochester-100-renewable-energy-goal-by-2031/
  27. 100% renewable energy by 2031: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/minnesota-town-targets-100-renewable-energy-by-2031/407381/
  28. the proclamation states that: http://blogs.mprnews.org/updraft/2015/10/city-of-rochester-100-renewable-energy-goal-by-2031/
  29. 1,500 Watts of renewable power per customer: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  30. 750 kW solar array: http://solartribune.com/utilities-if-you-cant-beat-solar-buy-it/
  31. only 30% of FEC’s power: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  32. member cooperatives construct small solar arrays: http://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/blog/steele-waseca-cooperative-electric-offers-sweet-community-solar-and-water-heater-bundle
  33. 500 kW: http://cleantechnica.com/2016/02/22/questioning-solar-economies-scale-2015-edition/
  34. 1 megawatt: http://remagazine.coop/solar-roadmap-insert/
  35. save wholesale power utilities and their members: http://remagazine.coop/solar-roadmap-insert/
  36. Michigan Energy Optimization Collaborative: http://remagazine.coop/practical-partnerships-efficiency-programs/
  37. partner with ten other utilities to end their contracts with Indiana Michigan Power: http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/cities-towns-breaking-out-of-i-m-contract/article_f4210ffd-cd3f-5c3b-8f24-33ac48207ec1.html
  38. autonomy and independence: http://ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles
  39. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  40. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  41. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  42. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=13
  43. These rights : http://mn.gov/puc/assets/20150904%20Your%20Rights%20as%20a%20Member%20of%20the%20Public%20to%20Access%20Government%20Data%20v2_tcm14-60172.pdf
  44. link to download the municipal utility contracts that we obtained: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_teABjf3e3yUWJrc2szTUR3UWc/view?usp=sharing
  45. Nebraska public utilities are claiming such information is a “trade secret.”: http://www.omaha.com/money/nebraska-public-power-entities-say-generating-costs-should-stay-confidential/article_76427d41-5e5d-55ec-ba18-d0afdbe31158.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-utilities-have-lost-local-control/


Compost Combats Desertification: Download New Poster

by Brenda Platt | June 17, 2016 7:25 am

June 17th is World Day to Combat Desertification. In 1994, the United Nations declared June 17th the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought[1] to promote public awareness of the issue. While the UN focuses on those countries experiencing serious drought or desertification, particularly in Africa, the United States is not immune.

“The dust storms and floods of the last few years have underscored the importance to control soil erosion. I need not emphasize the seriousness of the problem and the desirability of our taking effective action, as a Nation and in the several States, to conserve the soil as our basic asset. The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law, Feb. 26, 1937

With almost 30% of U.S. cropland eroding above soil tolerance levels – meaning the long-term ability of the soil to sustain plant growth is in jeopardy! – these words ring as true today as in 1937. FDR was responding to the devastation wreaked by the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Today, much of the West remains under severe drought conditions. In the East, we’ve had our share of droughts but extreme storms seem to be reigning lately. Enhancing the ability of soil to retain water, slow stormwater run-off, and resist erosion is vital to life on this planet as we know it.

Fortunately we have one fairly simple solution: amending soil with compost. Compost-amended soil enhances soil properties, stems soil erosion, and protects against soil desertification. In addition, compost converts wasted food and resources into a valuable asset.

In honor of World Day to Combat Desertification, we are re-releasing our popular compost infographic as a series of 13×19” and 18×24” posters.

Composting Enhances Soil and Protects Watersheds[2] Poster (18×23”)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD ALL FULL 18×23 POSTERS

Compost Infographic_FULL

We want you to be able to share these infographics under creative commons license, free of cost.

If you’re publishing on your website, or in one of your publications, please include this sentence:
“The following comes from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[3] (www.ilsr.org[4]), a national nonprofit organization working to strengthen local economies, and redirect waste into local recycling, composting, and reuse industries. It is reprinted here with permission.” 

Please, make sure to let people know they should link to: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts/[5] to download the original content for their own publications. They also should include the above attribution language.

Help us continue to produce content like this. Please consider making a donation today:

Image: Donate Button[6]

 

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Endnotes:
  1. World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought: http://www.un.org/en/events/desertificationday/
  2. Composting Enhances Soil and Protects Watersheds: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/06/Soil-ILSR_IG_18x23.29_v2-1.pdf
  3. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://www.ilsr.org/
  4. www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org/
  5. https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts/: https://ilsr.org/compost-impacts/
  6. [Image]: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Institute-For-Local-Self-Reliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/desertification-and-compost/


Ammon’s Model: The Virtual End of Cable Monopolies

by Rebecca Toews | June 15, 2016 11:04 am

placeholder[1]

 

The city of Ammon, Idaho, is building the Internet network of the future. Households and businesses can instantly change Internet service providers using a specially-designed innovative portal. This short 20 minute video highlights how the network is saving money, creating competition for broadband services, and creating powerful new public safety applications.

We talk with Ammon’s Mayor, local residents, private businesses, and the city’s technology director to understand why a small conservative city decided to build its own network and then open it to the entire community. We explain how they financed it and even scratch the surface of how software-defined networking brought the future of Internet services to Ammon before any larger metro regions.

Ammon’s network has already won awards, including a National Institute of Justice Challenge for Best Ultra-High Speed Application, and spurred economic development. But perhaps most important is that most communities can replicate this model and bring these benefits to their communities.

For more information, see our in-depth coverage on Ammon[2].

Read ongoing stories about these networks at ILSR’s site devoted to Community Broadband Networks[3].  You can also subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks[4].

ABOUT COMMUNITY BROADBAND NETWORKS
http://www.muninetworks.org[5]

MuniNetworks.org works with communities across the United States to create the policies needed to ensure telecommunications networks serve the community rather than a community serving the network. We publish original news, reports, multimedia, and fact sheets.

Christopher Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance works on telecommunications issues — helping communities ensure the networks upon which they depend are accountable to the community. He has consulted the White House and FCC on publicly owned networks speaks at conferences across the United States on the subject, occasionally to directly debate opponents of public ownership.

ABOUT ILSR
http://www.ilsr.org[6]

We believe we make better and more informed policies when those who design those policies are those who feel their impact.

ILSR works with citizens, activists, policymakers and entrepreneurs to provide them with innovative strategies and working models that support environmentally sound and equitable economic policies and community development. Since 1974, ILSR has championed local self-reliance, a strategy that underscores the need for humanly scaled institutions and economies and the widest possible distribution of ownership.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Ammon: https://muninetworks.org/tags-304
  3. Community Broadband Networks: http://MuniNetworks.org
  4. subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  5. http://www.muninetworks.org: http://www.muninetworks.org/
  6. http://www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/video-ammons-model/


To Lease or To Own Your Solar Array (Infographic)

by Nick Stumo-Langer | June 10, 2016 6:00 am

placeholder[1]Is owning your solar array your best option, or is leasing right for you? Along with our existing Solar Calculators (both complex[2] and simplified[3]), we have this new infographic.

This graphic details the two different ownership structures based around a number of important categories. Please note that solar panels typically carry a 20-year warranty, but most panels are expected to continue producing electricity for 30 years or more.

 

To Lease or To Own - Final[4]

This article originally published at ilsr.org.[5] Sign-up for our newsletter updates[6] and follow us on Facebook[7] and Twitter[8].

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/u-s-clean-explanation-update/placeholder/
  2. complex: https://ilsr.org/ultimate-solar-calculator/
  3. simplified: https://ilsr.org/simplified-solar-calculator/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/to-lease-or-to-own-your-solar-array-infographic/to-lease-or-to-own-final-3/
  5. ilsr.org.: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-and-cooperatives-community-solar/
  6. newsletter updates: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup
  7. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance
  8. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ilsr

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/to-lease-or-to-own-your-solar-array-infographic/


Minnesota Broadband Grant Program Gets Funded, Issues Remain

by ILSR | June 2, 2016 9:22 am

The Minnesota Legislature has just approved $35 million for the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant program for fiscal year 2017, the largest annual appropriation in the initiative’s two-year-old history.

But the Legislature’s action still falls short of dramatically helping bring universal, high-speed Internet connectivity to all non-metro Minnesotans. Try to find a Representative or Senator that doesn’t talk about how important rural Internet access is, but compare that list to those who are actually voting for solutions. The Blandin on Broadband website captured a glimpse of this dynamic in a recent post[1].

Nice Gains And Noticeable Failures

The Legislature headed in the right direction this year to increase overall funding for broadband development. But we believe the Legislature’s action, which is moving at a snail’s pace, won’t help thousands of residents and businesses in Minnesota’s non-metro communities hurdle over the connectivity chasm.

The state’s elected leaders also made changes to the program – some good and some bad – in the way projects are selected and the challenge process.

Funding Fizzle? 

First, the funding fizzle. In its first two years, the state awarded about $30 million to 31 Border-to-Border projects. But that has been a miniscule appropriation compared with the Governor’s Task Force on Broadband’s estimate that Minnesota’s unmet broadband need is $900 million to $3.2 billion[2].

And the Legislature’s $35 million funding for the broadband grant program for the upcoming fiscal year seems particularly paltry given that the state has a projected $900 million budget surplus. [3]

“We are disappointed with the [broadband funding] number and the incredibly restrictive language” on eligibility for grants, said Dan Dorman, executive director of the Greater Minnesota Partnership, [4](GMNP), a non-metro economic development group established in 2013 that successfully lobbied for the creation of the Broadband Development Grant program.

During the 2016 legislative session, the GMNP supported Gov. Mark Dayton’s recommendation that the broadband program receive $100 million. The DFL-led state Senate favored $85 million for 2016-17 while the Republican controlled House supported spending $15 million. The House wanted to invest far less and argued for keeping most Greater Minnesota Cities ineligible for grant funds. GMNP’s support was contingent on language changes in the statute that would make grant eligibility easier for non-metro cities.

“Without major reforms to the eligibility for funding we assumed it would be difficult to get to the $100 million that Gov. Dayton and Lt. Gov. [Tina] Smith wanted,” Dorman said in an end-of-the session update website post [5]to his members.

Language Issues

Second, the ongoing language challenges with the Border-to-Border Program. “With 85 percent of people living in cities not eligible for [Broadband Development Grant] funding, it’s hard to get people excited [about the program],” Dorman told us. The Partnership; a 90 member group of economic development authorities, foundations, cities, nonprofits, businesses, and Chambers of Commerce; maintains the broadband program’s rules and criteria inadvertently harm the very cities that conceived the program.

Established in 2014, the Broadband Development Grant program was designed to “bring high-speed Internet access to unserved or underserved areas of the state” and help provide opportunities to help existing businesses and attract new ones. The Legislature, in its 2016 legislation, reaffirmed that an unserved area is one where households or businesses lack access to wireline broadband service at speeds that meet the FCC definition of broadband which is 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.

Because the grant program has focused heavily on unserved areas, it has largely ignored the majority of cities that are “underserved,” those that have some Internet service, albeit poor, Dorman said.

This has created what the Institute for Local Self-Reliance described in our policy paper “Minnesota’s Broadband Program: Getting The Rules Right”[6] as “donut holes,” where a city has much poorer service than its surrounding rural areas.

Our fear is that towns with a moderate level of current business investment could lose that as businesses flock to more rural areas where the Internet infrastructure is better. Other investment would follow and the small cities in Greater Minnesota would find themselves at a disadvantage. It’s an unintended consequence that policy makers need to consider.

Fortunately, lawmakers listened to the GMNP, the Star Tribune, and us[7] as they established rules for funding this session.

In our policy paper, we recommended that the Border-to-Border fund should set some portion – less than half – of its funds aside for applications that would target the underserved population centers and blend them in with nearby unserved areas. Those business and industry centers are the economic heart of many regions and they need modern connectivity for Minnesota to thrive.

Dorman said one significant victory in the newly-passed state broadband grant law is that $5 million of the $35 million appropriation will be set aside for areas that currently have speeds greater than 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up but less than 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. That $5 million will be available to communities that need better broadband service to boost economic development.

In a statement to MuniNetworks.org, officials from state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) said:

“Given the increased interest in the [grant] program, we expect to see a very competitive pool of applications this round, and using the results of previous rounds, expect to see over 12,000 homes and businesses served with wired service as well as increased wireless coverage in some areas of the state.”

“Still,” DEED officials admitted, “It is difficult to estimate how many will be left unserved after this round, given that there is private and federal investments also being made across the state. DEED continues to gather data from the providers and federal sources and will have an updated estimate of the gap in July, 2016.”

The federal “investments” are largely from the Connect America Fund, which has is effectively wasting billions of dollars [8]on antiquated DSL service.

Disappointing “Challenge Process”

On the downside, the Partnership was disappointed in a provision in the broadband law pertaining to a “challenge process” that allows a telecom company to stop a project from receiving a grant if that company currently provides or even promises to provide service at the low state speed goals, Dorman said. This legislative language is a slight reform of the previous “right of first refusal” language, which had been included in the House broadband bill.

“This [challenge language] provision in the bill could make it difficult, if not impossible, for projects seeking to upgrade existing broadband service to receive a grant,” Dorman said[9]. “We will have to see how this all plays out.”

Dorman sees the “challenge process” language as a tool protecting telecom companies “that don’t want to invest” in their Internet networks.

“Any broadband provider in the area can object” to an applicant’s request for grant funding, Dorman said. This is potentially more open-ended than the old language that gave this challenge authority only to incumbent providers in an area, he said.

In a statement, DEED officials told us:

“The current challenge language was introduced to more accurately reflect the process that is already part of the program and to clarify that it is the state that will determine whether or not a challenge to an application is valid, not a provider.  This process was modeled after a federal system that was used in the distribution of the ARRA [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] broadband stimulus funds to address the desire to avoid making public investments where private investments are already being made that meet or exceed the goals of the program. The new aspect that has been added to the process is the allowance of near-term construction plans that meet state standards as a valid basis for a challenge. This is to account for the added presence of CAF (Connect America Fund) II investments. Added protections were also introduced so that if construction commitments aren’t met as outlined in the challenge, the provider may be barred from issuing future challenges. DEED retains the authority to determine the validity of any challenge.”

Whatever the reasons for the legislative changes, Dorman decried the lack of opportunity for public comment on the “challenge” language.

“It is a major change from current law and people had very little time to react interpret and comment on the House bill and no opportunity to comment on the agreed-upon language that made it into the final bill.”

Meanwhile, Dorman blamed industry telecom lobbyists for convincing state lawmakers not to support the language changes sought by Partnership. “This [new Broadband Development Grant law] was written with the help of the [telecommunications] industry,” he said.

Speed Goals Lagging 

In another area, GMNP leaders also believe the state’s connectivity speeds goals are not aggressive enough. Under the law, the state’s goal is that “no later than 2022,[10]” all Minnesota businesses and homes have access to minimum speeds of 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up and the minimum service goals in 2026 should be 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up.

“To say 25 Mbps / 3 Mbps is an acceptable standard is ridiculous,” Dorman told us. “This is equivalent of 1990s dial up service.  We need to step this up.”

That position resonates with us. In our policy paper we said:

“When it comes to its goal, Minnesota should recall the danger of aiming low: you might hit the target. Minnesota should establish a stronger goal and then actually fund the program to achieve it. 100 Mbps symmetrical by 2022 would be both ambitious and worthwhile.”

Moving forward, Dorman said his organization may have to re-evaluate if there is a better and faster way to get high-speed Internet connectivity to greater Minnesota if dramatic improvements don’t come soon to the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant program.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. in a recent post: https://blandinonbroadband.org/2016/05/26/local-elected-official-get-push-back-from-constituent-for-lack-of-broadband-support/
  2. unmet broadband need is $900 million to $3.2 billion: https://www.leg.state.mn.us/docs/2016/other/160115.pdf
  3. has a projected $900 million budget surplus. : http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-has-900-million-budget-surplus-lower-than-expected/370261981/
  4. Greater Minnesota Partnership, : http://gmnp.org/2016/05/end-of-session-update/
  5. an end-of-the session update website post : http://gmnp.org/2016/05/end-of-session-update/
  6. “Minnesota’s Broadband Program: Getting The Rules Right”: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/05/Minnesota-Border-to-Border-Report.pdf
  7. the Star Tribune, and us: https://muninetworks.org/content/local-media-covers-mn-donut-hole-phenomenon-video-editorial
  8. effectively wasting billions of dollars : https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2016/05/31/new-connect-america-funds/
  9. Dorman said: http://gmnp.org/2016/05/end-of-session-update/
  10. the state’s goal is that “no later than 2022,: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF2749&version=3&session=ls89&session_year=2016&session_number=0
  11. here: https://muninetworks.org/content/minnesota-broadband-grant-program-gets-funded-issues-remain

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/minnesota-broadband-grant-program-gets-funded-issues-remain/


Video: Break the Chains, Build Local Power

by ILSR | June 1, 2016 7:00 am

placeholder[1]Since our founding in 1974, we have worked to rewrite the rules and empower communities to choose their own future. Across several vital economic sectors, we help break the corporate stranglehold that extracts wealth from local economies and undermines democracy.

We give communities the tools to build a strong local economy themselves.

From banking to energy, healthy soils to community-owned Internet networks, time and again we have shown that when we level the playing field for individuals and businesses, we improve our economy and the quality of life for all citizens.

To many, ILSR is one initiative that they have followed, learned from, and tried to embody. But we are much more than that. We are a network of initiatives with a coherent philosophy and strategy that link all things community – utilities, internet, shopping, banking, trash, recycling, and – the most important part piece – YOU.

We need your help to expand our reach and multiply our successes.

Donate to our campaign[2] to help us Inspire, Advocate, Empower, Create, and Champion local solutions:

This video illustrates our work, and explains how all of our unique and distinct initiatives, together, build a holistic philosophy of local self-reliance.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Donate to our campaign: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Institute-For-Local-Self-Reliance

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/break-the-chains-build-local-power/


Being Black Still a Barrier to Rural Cooperative Board Membership

by John Farrell | May 23, 2016 6:00 am

placeholder[1]In 1984, the New York Times ran a story highlighting the almost universally white boards of directors[2] among 300 Southern electric cooperatives serving populations with thousands of African American member-owners:

According to Oleta G. Fitzgerald, a staff lawyer with the [Southern Regional Council], a survey of 300 cooperatives in Southern states showed no more than 30 blacks among 3,000 board members elected at annual meetings by members to oversee, among other things, the co-ops’ operations and rates. [emphasis added]

Exempt from state regulation in 33 states because they purportedly offer democratic and local control, new data on the nation’s rural electric cooperatives suggests that skin color is still a major barrier to their democratic representation.

Scant Improvement in Three Decades

In 32 years, little has changed for electric cooperatives in the South. A recent study published by The Rural Power Project shared results of a similar survey (of 313 cooperative boards) and found just 90 blacks among the 3,000 board members[3]. This 4% proportion of African American board leadership is in states where the black population represents more than  22% of the total. The disparity is even higher between men and women, with men representing 90% of board members but only half the population.

The following map (created by ILSR, based on the report data[4]) illustrates the disparity between the racial composition of electric cooperative boards and their respective state populations, ranging from 8% in Kentucky, to over 30% in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Racial Disparity in RECs[5]

Representation by people identifying as Hispanic was similarly low relative to population: just 0.3% of board positions were filled by a person identifying as Hispanic, in states with an average population share of 10% Hispanic.

Largely Unregulated

As mentioned previously, rural electric cooperatives are largely exempted from state oversight because their legal structure implies that members have a say in the governance of the organization. The following map, based on data from the federal GAO, illustrates how few states have any form of state regulation (red), and several that have only a limited form (in yellow):

We updated this map based on 2015 data from the Government Accountability Office. You can still see the 2008 version here.[6]

The above map is somewhat deceptive, because rural electric cooperatives were for many years subject to (minimal) oversight by the Rural Utility Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, due to their reliance on federal financing. n recent years, however, cooperatives have increasingly used their own financing, reducing even that small level of scrutiny.

The parallels across time are striking. The 1984 New York Times story includes a tale of a rigged election (where the board rescheduled the annual meeting to another time, and proxy votes were used to re-elect the entire all-white board), eerily similar to one shared in ILSR’s recently published report on Re-Member-ing Rural Electric Cooperatives[7], where Randy Wilson of Jackson Energy Cooperative found his campaign drowned by proxy votes. Low member engagement reinforces an ailing system of local democracy, with three-quarters of rural electric cooperatives having less than 10% turnout for their board elections.

A Potentially Costly Loophole

The issue of democracy at a utility company would normally be an internal matter, but rural electric cooperatives are notable for their particularly deep reliance on coal-fired electricity[8] and on very long term contracts tying them to this resource. Through these contracts, the smaller, local cooperatives have often ceded nearly all their power to generation and transmission cooperatives, giving them little leverage to embrace the changes wrought by inexpensive renewable energy or smart, two-way technologies. As the country begins to account for the enormous health and environmental costs of coal in its electricity prices, many rural residents may be left holding the bag of the utilities that have been exempted from typical regulator oversight.

The racial disparities unearthed by the Rural Power Project put a new light on an old problem. Many rural electric cooperative members ought to ask about the value of “democratic, member control.”

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[9]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[10] or get the Energy Democracy weekly[11] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/u-s-clean-explanation-update/placeholder/
  2. highlighting the almost universally white boards of directors: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/05/us/electric-co-ops-facing-challenges-on-racial-makeup-of-boards.html?pagewanted=all#h%5BRcaFBB,1%5D
  3. just 90 blacks among the 3,000 board members: http://ruralpowerproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Rural-Power___Final.pdf
  4. the report data: http://ruralpowerproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Rural-Power___Final.pdf
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/being-black-still-a-barrier-to-rural-cooperative-board-membership/racial-disparity-in-electric-cooperatives-003/
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-and-cooperatives-community-solar/state-regulation-of-electric-cooperatives-2015/
  7. Re-Member-ing Rural Electric Cooperatives: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/#The%20Challenges
  8. particularly deep reliance on coal-fired electricity: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/#The%20Challenges
  9. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  10. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  11. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/being-black-still-a-barrier-to-rural-cooperative-board-membership/


Not Just Illegal, Targeting Solar Facilities With Fees is Poor Policy

by John Farrell | May 12, 2016 5:10 pm

Should utilities be able to add special fees on customers that have solar or small wind installations?

Not only is it against Minnesota state law, but in our recent comments to the state’s Public Utilities Commission, we explain how one-off fees on customers using distributed generation to cut their energy consumption violates the spirit of good utility rate design, and inhibits development of a more efficient electricity system.

Six Minnesota utilities were singled out by the Commission in the recent investigation, all guilty of having fees imposed (usually associated with metering) on customers with distributed generation systems. The fees were wide ranging, as were the purported costs they were intended to recover. The fees also directly conflict with the state laws meant to encourage “maximum encouragement” of distributed renewable energy resources.

From our comments:

“Targeted fees on qualifying facilities can hardly be considered consistent with ‘maximum possible encouragement,’ especially when there has been so little evidence presented by the state’s electric utilities that such fees reflect a full and accurate accounting of the costs and benefits of such facilities. A regulatory tool does exist to fulfill this purpose, called the value of solar tariff, but no utility has yet opted to use it.”

It’s unfortunately not unexpected to see utility companies reacting to change on the electric grid in this manner, as several other technological shifts in other industries suggest:

To an extent, this reaction reflects the slow and conservative nature of the electric utility business. Electric utilities are often as unprepared for the rapid technological changes in efficiency or solar as were typewriter manufacturers or landline phone companies were for computers or cell phones. But such a lack of preparation is not an excuse to penalize customers whose own investment of capital can offer system benefits greater than their compensation, as suggested by the premium of Xcel’s 2016 value of solar price over its residential retail rate.

What could utilities do differently? In Minnesota, specifically, they could learn a lot from the Commission’s Alternative Rate Design proceeding, exploring ways to design rates in a way that incentivizes customers to act in a way with maximum benefit to themselves and the electric grid. Examples include time-of-use rates that charge customers less to use electricity when it costs less to deliver, or reward them more for putting power onto the grid at times of high demand.

The fees aren’t just illegal or poorly conceived, as we say in our comments, “they reflect a knee-jerk reaction to change—reflected in inconsistent and incomplete rationale—rather than a thoughtful and transparent approach to appropriate rate design. ”

We can do better.

Download the full comments here[1].

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[2]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[3] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[4] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Download the full comments here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ILSR-comments-on-QF-fees-20165-121108-01.pdf
  2. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  3. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  4. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/targeting-solar-facilities-with-fees/


What Should Bernie Do Now?

by David Morris | May 11, 2016 6:00 am

“What should Bernie do?” That seems to be the question of the month. Permit me to weigh in.

Here’s what we know at this point in the campaign.

For Sanders to have any chance of winning the support of superdelegates he must arrive at the convention with more elected delegates than Hillary.   To do that he needs to win about 65 percent of all elected delegates in the remaining electoral contests.

On March 26 Bernie did win three states (Washington, Alaska, Hawaii) by huge margins. They were all caucus states. He has never won a primary in a state where only Democrats are allowed to vote and 5 of the remaining 10 are in states with closed primaries.

So his chances are infinitesimal. Is this an argument for him to drop out? No. Hillary supporters might recall at this point in the 2008 race she was about the same number of delegates behind Obama as Bernie is behind Hillary and Obama had twice the number of superdelegates pledged to him. Some people did ask her to drop out but she continued to campaign through the primaries.

More importantly Bernie’s campaign is offering a narrative we haven’t heard for at least two generations from a major political candidate. It is a powerful, vibrant, angry, coherent narrative that forcefully runs at the powerful while defending and nurturing the weak. Bernie is as mad at concentrated corporate power and billionaires as Republicans are at government and the poor.

Bernie should continue to educate America. He needs to stay in not only to gather more delegates but also to magnetize more young people to the possibilities of politics.

But his campaign should cease any further attacks on Hillary. He can effectively sell his philosophy and program without attacking her. He can emphasize their differences about how to tackle financial concentration without attacking her for being “bought” by Wall Street.

I am less worried that further attacks will weaken Hillary’s support among the general population than I am that it will harden the hostility his supporters have built up toward Hillary during this vigorous campaign.

Bernie’s support is strongest among young people. These are voters who have yet to internalize an ethic of voting.   Traditionally they are a highly cynical population and cynicism breeds apathy. They could opt out of the election. Indeed, in some polls a quarter of Bernie’s voters say they will not vote for Hillary.

Hillary is a weak candidate. She can’t win without the support of Bernie’s followers. Trump may prove a catastrophe, and his own worst enemy during the campaign, but we can’t count on it. Turnout is the key and this year the turnout in Republican primaries has been the highest in over 50 years while the turnout on the Democratic side has been about average.

Bernie needs to make a convincing case to his supporters that in the general election they should support Hillary without thinking they have sold out. They need not be passionate but they do need to be vocal, at least among their friends. When Trump attacks Hillary they shouldn’t reflexively respond by saying, “Trump is an idiot but he does have a point.”

Bernie can honestly maintain that his differences with Hillary pale into insignificance to the differences between the Democrat and Republican parties. He can argue passionately about the dangers of a one party government. What protections will be left after the furies of a far right wing Republican Party are expressed through the control of all three branches of government, including the Supreme Court?

Bernie can be very supportive of Hillary’s election while at the same time contending that her election is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the dramatic structural changes needed.

In politics there is always a quid pro quo. In return for his support, what should Bernie ask of Hillary?

Certainly Hillary will offer Bernie a prime time slot for his speech at the Convention. I look forward to watching it. That will be an ideal opportunity for Bernie both to present his philosophy while at the same time warmly supporting Hillary and reminding Americans about the urgent importance of this election.

The Sanders campaign will also inevitably influence the platform. That may result in an especially vigorous and perhaps contentious debate, but we should remember that political platforms are usually forgotten the day after the convention closes. Moreover, this platform, like the 2012 Democratic platform, will be devoted largely to touting the accomplishments of Barack Obama. It is not going to include potshots at him.

What Should Bernie Demand from Hillary?

So what should Bernie ask for that are not gimmees? (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/what-should-bernie-do/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/what-should-bernie-do/


How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It

by Olivia LaVecchia | April 20, 2016 6:00 am

placeholder

ILSR’s new report examines how high rents are shuttering businesses and stunting entrepreneurship, and explores 6 strategies that cities are using to create an affordable built environment where local businesses can thrive.

Image: Report cover.[1]In cities as diverse as Nashville and Milwaukee, Charleston and Portland, Maine, retail rents have shot up by double-digit percentages over the last year alone. As the cost of space rises, urban neighborhoods that have long provided the kind of dense and varied environment in which entrepreneurs thrive are becoming increasingly inhospitable to them. Local businesses that serve the everyday needs of their communities are being forced out and replaced by national chains that can negotiate better rents or afford to subsidize a high-visibility location.

This new report from ILSR offers elected officials insights on what’s causing commercial rents to skyrocket, and explores six broad policy solutions, with practical examples, that cities can use to keep commercial space appropriate, accessible, and affordable for independent businesses.

The report finds that the sharp rise in rents is happening across a range of communities, with some of the most intense pressure falling on businesses in lower income neighborhoods. And the trend isn’t limited to retailers. The price of industrial space is rising rapidly too, jeopardizing a budding renaissance in urban manufacturing.

There’s a public interest in the commercial side of the built environment, the report concludes, and smart city policy has an important role to play in creating an urban landscape in which locally owned businesses can thrive.

Read: ONE-PAGE FACTSHEET  |  Press release  |  Full Report  |  MAPPING RISING RENTS[2]

 

Introduction

For 22 years, Lisa Monson ran her business out of a building she rented in Salt Lake City’s 15th and 15th business district. The 2,800-square-foot space was a good size for her hair salon, and she liked being in a neighborhood of locally owned businesses.

Like many business owners, though, the more Monson continued to invest in her business, the more wary she became of losing her space. Her landlord wouldn’t offer her a long-term lease, and every three years, she faced a tough renegotiation. Meanwhile, national chains had started moving into the neighborhood, including a Starbucks and an Einstein’s Bagels that bought out a local bagel shop.

“It kept me in a place where I was completely at risk of being thrown out,” Monson explains. “I knew that if he got an offer for a lot more money, I wouldn’t be able to match it.”

The cost of commercial space is spiking upward around the country, driven both by run-away real estate speculation and the growing popularity of urbanism. As a new generation discovers the appeal of walkable and mixed-use neighborhoods,[1] demand for small commercial spaces in those neighborhoods is far outpacing supply, and rents are rising to match. Locally owned enterprises, which thrive in these areas, are increasingly threatened with displacement from the neighborhoods that they’ve made vibrant, and getting replaced by national chains that can negotiate better rents or afford to subsidize a high-visibility location. As high rents shutter longtime businesses, they also create an ever-higher barrier to entry for new entrepreneurs, stunting opportunity and leading to a scarcity of start-ups in cities once known for their business dynamism.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ILSR-AffordableSpace-FullReport.pdf
  2. MAPPING RISING RENTS: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ILSR-AffordableSpace-Map.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/affordable-space/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/affordable-space/


RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for new Rural Internet Cooperative

by Christopher Mitchell | April 18, 2016 9:46 am

21ST CENTURY FARMS REQUIRE 21ST CENTURY CONNECTIVITY. Denied Access by telephone and cable companies, they created a new model.

Winthrop, MN — A new trend is emerging in rural communities throughout the United States: Fiber-to-the-Farm. Tired of waiting for real Internet access from big companies, farmers are building it themselves. Communities in and around Minnesota’s rural Sibley County are going from worst to best after building a wireless and fiber-optic cooperative. While federal programs throw billions of dollars to deliver last year’s Internet speeds, local programs are building the network of the future.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Next Century Cities present this in-depth case study co-authored by Scott Carlson and Christopher Mitchell.

RSFiber3page

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

In “RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative,” the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) and Next Century Cities (NCC) document a groundbreaking new model that’s sprung up in South Central Minnesota that can be replicated all over the nation, in the thousands of cities and counties that have been refused service by big cable and telecom corporations.

From the technologies to the financing, rural communities can solve their problems with local investments.

“This cooperative model could bring high quality Internet access to every farm in the country,” says Christopher Mitchell, director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks[1] initiative. “It’s time we stop giving billions of dollars to the big telephone companies that have refused to meet local needs. There is a better way, there are better models emerging. We can do this. RS Fiber proves it.”

RS Fiber Fact Sheet image[2]
DOWNLOAD THE FACT SHEET[3]

In the report you’ll meet:

Mark Erickson of the city of Winthrop. Erickson is the local champion that has breathed life into RS Fiber. Without the project, the city of Gaylord would have not attracted the forthcoming medical school. “We have that opportunity because of the FTTH network. Without it, no medical school.”

Linda Kramer of Renville County. Kramer’s family farm relies on the Internet to upload soybean and wheat reports to business partners. DSL connections are simply not fast enough to handle the massive amount of data agricultural businesses need in order to stay competitive with the Farming Industrial Complex that is the reality of the 21st century.

Jacob Rieke, a 5th generation family farmer. Rieke’s motivation for backing the project was his pre-school aged daughters. Not wanting to put them at a disadvantage to their peers in other cities, he considered moving to a different location in order to have access to Internet.

 

Read ongoing stories about these networks at ILSR’s site devoted to Community Broadband Networks[4].  You can also subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks[5].

(more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Networks: http://www.muninetworks.org/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/04/RS-FIBER-REPORT-One-Pager.pdf
  3. DOWNLOAD THE FACT SHEET: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/04/RS-FIBER-REPORT-One-Pager.pdf
  4. Community Broadband Networks: http://MuniNetworks.org
  5. subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-mn-rural-fiber/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-mn-rural-fiber/


The Most Substantive Political Debate in Recent History

by David Morris | April 7, 2016 5:32 pm

Win or lose, Bernie Sanders has made this Democratic primary the most substantive in my lifetime. Not that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is devoid of ideas. She has some thoughtful ones. But the boldness of Sanders’ proposals is what has driven this historic and instructive debate.

The dynamic so far consists of Sanders setting a marker (e.g. free tuition, universal free health care, breaking up the banks, a $15 federal minimum wage, a $1 trillion public works investment); Clinton responds, and their two camps engage in a spirited, intelligent, and surprisingly concrete debate.

This back and forth has forced both candidates to raise their game. When Sanders proposed free college tuition, Clinton responded by unveiling her detailed New College Compact Plan. When Clinton attacked Sanders for failing to identify revenue sources to finance his free tuition and health care proposals, he promptly posted chapter and verse on his web site.

When economics Professor Gerald Friedman concluded that if all Sanders policies were implemented the combined effect would be to stimulate dramatically strong economic growth, four former heads of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) wrote an open letter not only dismissing his conclusions as not credible but admonishing, “Making such promises runs against our party’s best traditions of evidence-based policy making…”

The three-paragraph letter generated a collegial scolding from James Galbraith, former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee, the Congressional counterpart of the CEA. He pointed out the signatories’ own lack of evidence for their conclusion. “I looked to the bottom of the page to find a reference or link to your rigorous review of Professor Friedman’s study. I found nothing there.” That led one of the signers to undertake a far more detailed[1] response, which in turn generated an instructive and much too rare discussion[2] regarding the validity of assumptions inside the black box of conventional economic models.

The back and forth has also revealed strategic differences born of a distinct political philosophies.   Bernie would deal with concentrated economic power through structural change; Hillary would rely on regulatory oversight. Bernie would work to break up giant banks directly. Clinton prefers to strengthen the Dodd-Frank law. Clinton sees Sanders’ proposal as politically untenable. Sanders sees Clinton’s proposal as unworkable.

Sanders’ prescription for structural change often includes using government as a competitive service provider. That is the case with his proposal to revive Postal Banking. From 1910 to 1967 the U.S. Post Office, the most ubiquitous of all public institutions, provided financial services. At its peak 1947 the U.S. Postal Bank had over 4 million accounts and deposits exceeding $3.3 billion. Almost 90 million people in the United States have no bank account and pay[3] about l0 percent of their income in fees and interest to gain access to credit or other financial services. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. detailed: https://evaluationoffriedman.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/romer-and-romer-evaluation-of-friedman1.pdf
  2. discussion: http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2016/03/the-latest-links-on-friedmansanders-romers-etc.html
  3. pay: https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/rarc-wp-14-007_0.pdf
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/the-most-substantive-political-debate-in-recent-history/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-most-substantive-political-debate-in-recent-history/


More Colorado Communities Shut Out State Barriers At The Voting Booth

by ILSR | April 6, 2016 6:31 am

Once again, local communities in Colorado chose to shout out to leaders at the Capitol and tell them, “We reclaim local telecommunications authority!”

Nine more towns in the Centennial State voted on Tuesday to opt out of 2005’s SB 152. Here are the unofficial results from local communities that can’t be any more direct at telling state leaders to let them chart their own connectivity destiny:

Akron[1], population 1,700 and located in the center of the state, passed its ballot measure with 92 percent of votes cast supporting the opt-out.

Buena Vista[2], also near Colorado’s heartland, chose to approve to reclaim local authority when 77 percent of those casting votes chose to opt out. There are approximately 2,600 people in the town located at the foot of the Collegiate Peaks in the Rockies. Here is Buena Vista’s sample ballot.

The town of Fruita[3], home to approximately 12,600 people, approved the measure to reclaim local authority with 86 percent of votes cast. Now, when they celebrate the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival[4], the Fruitans will have even more to cheer.

Orchard City[5], another western community, approved their ballot measure when 84 percent of voters deciding the issue chose to opt out. There are approximately 3,100 people here and a local cooperative, the Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) has started Phase I[6] of  its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network in the region. According to an August article[7] in the Delta County Independent, Delta County Economic Development (DCED) has encouraged local towns, including Orchard City, to ask voters to opt out of SB 152. With the restriction removed, local towns can now collaborate with providers like DMEA.

In southwest Colorado is Pagosa Springs[8], where 83 percent of those voting supported the ballot measure to opt out. There are 1,700 people living in the community where many of the homes are vacation properties. Whether or not to reclaim local telecommunications authority was the only ballot issue[9] in Pagosa Springs.

Silver Cliff[10] began as a mining town and is home to only 587 people in the south central Wet Mountain Valley. Voters passed the ballot measure to opt-out of SB 152 with 80 percent of votes cast.

In the north central part of the state sits Wellington[11], population approximately 6,200. The community has some limited fiber and their ballot initiative specifically states[12] that they intend to study the feasibility and viability of publicly provided services. Their initiative passed with 83 percent of the vote:

WITHOUT INCREASING TAXES, WITH THE INTENT OF STUDYING FEASIBILITY AND IN THE FUTURE EVALUATING THE VIABILITY OF THE TOWN OF WELLINGTON POTENTIALLY PROVIDING SERVICES, SHALL THE CITIZENS OF THE TOWN OF WELLINGTON, COLORADO, ESTABLISH A TOWN RIGHT TO PROVIDE some or ALL of the SERVICES RESTRICTED SINCE 2005 BY TITLE 29, ARTICLE 27 OF THE COLORADO REVISED STATUTES, DESCRIBED AS “ADVANCES SERVICES,” “TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES” AND “CABLE TELEVISION SERVICES,” INCLUDING ANY NEW AND IMPROVED HIGH BANDWIDTH SERVICES BASED ON FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES, UTILIZING COMMUNITY OWNED AND PRIVATELY OWNED AND CONTRACTED FOR INFRASTRUCTURE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO EXISTING FIBER OPTIC NETWORK, EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY WITH PUBLIC OR PRIVATE SECTOR PARTNERS, TO POTENTIAL SUBSCRIBERS THAT MAY INCLUDE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE PROVIDERS, RESIDENTIAL OR COMMERCIAL USERS WITHIN THE Town ?

Another small community, Westcliffe[13] with 568 people, also took the issue to the voters. Of those voting on Ballot Question A, 76 percent voted “yes” to reclaim local telecommunications authority. The town is located at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Custer County.

Two weeks ago, we told you about Mancos[14] where community leaders want to explore the possibility of using existing publicly owned fiber for better connectivity. In Mancos, the Board of Trustees of the community of 1,300 recognized that the bill was anti-competitive and passed a resolution urging voters to approve the opt-out. As the Town Administrator acknowledged, reclaiming local authority, “gives us a lot more leeway.” Mancos wants to have the freedom to investigate public projects and public private partnerships. Voters agreed and 86 percent of those casting ballots approved the measure.

C’mon Already!

Last November nearly 50 local communities[15] sent a message loud and clear to the state legislature that they want the freedom to make their own decisions about connectivity. Opting out of SB 152 does not mean a community will build a muni but allows them to explore the possibility of serving themselves or using their own fiber assets to work with private sector partners.

For these communities, there is no good that comes from SB 152. Its only purpose is to limit possibilities and restrict competition in favor of the big corporate providers who lobbied so hard to get it passed in 2005.

We’ve said it before[16] and we’ll say it again. Rather than force local communities to spend local funds on these referendums to reclaim a right that was taken away from them by the state in 2005, Colorado needs to repeal the barriers erected by SB 152.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[17]

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Endnotes:
  1. Akron: http://www.townofakron.com
  2. Buena Vista: http://www.buenavistaco.gov
  3. Fruita: http://www.fruita.org
  4. Mike the Headless Chicken Festival: http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/mike
  5. Orchard City: http://www.orchardcityco.org
  6. started Phase I: http://www.dmea.com/content/progress-continues-dmea’s-fiber-premises-business
  7. August article: http://www.deltacountyindependent.com/orchard-city-seeks-answers-on-opt-out-question-cms-346
  8. Pagosa Springs: http://www.pagosasprings.co.gov
  9. only ballot issue: http://www.pagosasprings.co.gov/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=9B8D0BD7-1E48-4AC4-B598-2DFDE883E2C5&DE=68D3A4B6-6699-4592-AD8D-0F8A25F7BC66
  10. Silver Cliff: http://silvercliffco.com/index.htm
  11. Wellington: http://www.townofwellington.com
  12. ballot initiative specifically states: http://www.townofwellington.com/documentcenter/view/529
  13. Westcliffe: http://wp.townofwestcliffe.com
  14. told you about Mancos: http://muninetworks.org/content/mancos-voters-latest-decide-local-authority-colorado
  15. nearly 50 local communities: http://muninetworks.org/content/voters-quiet-drums-polls-colorado
  16. We’ve said it before: http://muninetworks.org/content/let-it-be-local-43-colorado-communities-vote-better-broadband
  17. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/more-colorado-communities-shut-out-state-barriers-voting-booth

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/more-colorado-communities-shut-out-state-barriers-at-the-voting-booth/


What Is the Best Medical System in the Country? The Answer May Surprise You.

by David Morris | March 31, 2016 10:59 am

The Veterans Administration (VA). Yes, a medical system 100% financed by the government and run by the government, provides higher quality care, at a lower cost, than private hospitals. That’s the conclusion of dozens of independent studies. But a multi-year, well-financed and highly effective campaign has persuaded Congress to ignore the data because, well, we all know the government cannot do anything efficiently. The tragic result? Congress has begun the process of dismantling the most effective (and largest) medical system in the United States. In the Washington Monthly Alicia Mundy reports[1] the sad and revealing story.

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Endnotes:
  1. reports: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchaprilmay_2016/features/the_va_isnt_broken_yet059847.php

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/what-is-the-best-medical-system-in-the-country-the-answer-may-surprise-you/


Report: Re-Member-ing the Electric Cooperative

by John Farrell | March 29, 2016 7:58 am

by John Farrell, Matt Grimley & Nick Stumo-Langer

Electric cooperatives have been the backbone of the nation’s rural electrical system for more than 80 years. Their mission and business model now face more challenges than ever, from financial to contractual to basic member control. But the opportunity is equally great, with a chance for member-driven investment to power hundreds of local economies across the rural United States.

Download the Report[1]

Executive Summary

Electric cooperatives face diverse challenges, from their power sources to member engagement. This report details those challenges and the tools that cooperatives are using to overcome them.

The Challenges

low turnout for rural electric cooperative board elections ILSR[2]Tied to Coal Power
Coal accounts for about 75% of energy generated by electric cooperatives, compared to just 32% for the United States’ entire electricity sector (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2016).

Captured in Long-Term Contracts
Contracts with electricity suppliers extend for decades, sometimes past 2050, trapping locally-based electric cooperatives into increasingly expensive distant power plants and fossil fuel sources, while forbidding them from buying outside energy.

Losing Member-Owners.
Electric cooperative members have a right to vote for their boards of directors. But 70% of cooperatives have less than a 10% voter turnout, increasing the disconnection between the cooperative and its members.

The Solutions

Fortunately, the solutions lie in the best of the cooperative movement.

Finding Ways Out of Coal Power
A new ruling from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may allow electric cooperatives to purchase local power outside their contractual obligations, providing a novel level of flexibility for most cooperatives.

Using Clean Energy and On-Bill Financing
Electric cooperatives are finding new ways to enable energy savings for member-owners. They’re leaders in experimenting with community solar. A few are supporting the highest penetrations of rooftop solar in the nation. They’re creating cost-effective on-bill financing programs that help members save energy and money.

And Empowering Member-Owners
The member-owners of Pedernales Electric Cooperative, Beartooth Electric Cooperative, Jackson Energy Cooperative, and many others have made their cooperatives more accessible, more dedicated to renewable energy and energy efficiency, and more democratic than ever.

Cooperatives may face their greatest challenge since the inception of rural electrification in the 1930s, but with their members, they have the power to overcome.


(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Download the Report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Report-Re-Member-ing-the-Electric-Cooperative-1.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/low-turnout-for-rural-electric-cooperative-board-elections-ILSR.jpeg
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-remembering-the-electric-cooperative/


AT&T Tries to End the Magic of One Touch Make-Ready

by ILSR | March 28, 2016 5:06 am

On the border of Kentucky and Indiana a fight is brewing as AT&T and Google Fiber have both announced plans to bring Gigabit Internet service to Louisville, Kentucky. Home to over half a million, the city could see major economic development with new ultra high-speed Internet access, but there’s a problem: the utility poles.

AT&T is suing the city[1] over a “one touch make-ready” ordinance. On February 11, 2016, the Louisville Metro Council passed the ordinance[2] in order to facilitate new competitors, i.e. Google Fiber.

Utility Poles: Key to Aerial Deployment

Make-ready is the shorthand for making a utility pole ready for new attachments. Although it may seem simple, this process is often expensive and time-consuming. To add a new cable, others may have to be shifted in order to meet safety and industry standards. Under the common procedure, this process can take months as each party has to send out an independent crew to move each section of cabling.

To those of us unfamiliar with the standards of pole attachment it may seem absurd, but this originally made sense. Utility poles have a limited amount of space, and strict codes regulate the placement of each type of cable on the pole. Competitors feel they have to fiercely guard their space on the pole and cannot trust other providers to respect their cables. Make-ready must involve coordination between multiple providers and the utility pole owners. For some firms, like AT&T, this is an opportunity to delay new competition for months.

“One touch make-ready” simplifies the entire process. A single crew only makes one trip to relocate all the cables as necessary to make the utility pole. Under the amended ordinance in Louisville, the company that wants to add a cable to the utility pole can hire a single accredited and certified crew, approved by the pole owner, which will accomplish the work much more quickly and at lower cost. Also, it must pay for needed fixes or any damages to the pole-owner’s equipment and inform the pole-owner of any changes within 30 days. Such “one touch make-ready” policies quicken network deployments by preventing delays inherent in coordinating many different entities.

Why Oppose It? Private Utility Pole vs. Public Right-of-Way

AT&T is suing to stop Louisville from implementing this new policy in an effort to stop the new competition from entering the market. Ostensibly, AT&T argues they filed the suit because they own many of the utility poles (an estimated 25-40%) in Louisville. The company argues that the municipality does not have the authority to regulate the utility poles and that this is an unjust seizure of property. In other communities where this is the case, the new companies that want to use the utility poles must sign a licensing agreement with AT&T.

AT&T’s argument, however, fails to recognize that local governments are required to manage the public Rights-of-Way (in layman’s terms, that is the land kept for the public interest near a roadway). The utility poles, although privately owned, serve a key function for connecting the public with needed services. That is why those utility poles are permitted on the public Right-Of-Way in the first place. Local governments, moreover, must have the authority to ensure that anything permitted on the public Right-Of-Way, such as utility poles, meet safety and industry standards in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

Further Resources on “One Touch Make-Ready”

Chris interviews Ted Smith, Chief Innovation Officer for Louisville in Community Broadband Bits Episode 193[3]. Smith describes how “one touch make-ready” is quicker, safer, and more efficient to use the utility poles in the public Rights-of-Way to their full potential for the good of the community.

For more information on the importance of “one touch make-ready,” check out analyses from the Coalition for Local Internet Choice[4], Next Century Cities, and FTTH Council[5]. For an in-depth analysis of Right-of-Way regulations, listen to Sean Stokes of Baller, Herbst, Stokes & Lide on Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 169[6].

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. AT&T is suing the city: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/metro-government/2016/02/25/t-sues-city-over-google-fiber-proposal/80881870/
  2. Louisville Metro Council passed the ordinance: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/metro-government/2016/02/11/google-fiber-measure-passed-over-objections/80227296/
  3. Community Broadband Bits Episode 193: http://muninetworks.org/content/one-touch-make-ready-and-wireless-innovation-louisville-community-broadband-bits-podcast-193
  4. Coalition for Local Internet Choice: http://www.localnetchoice.org/connections/clic-supports-the-principle-of-one-touch/
  5. FTTH Council: http://www.ftthcouncil.org/d/do/1959
  6. Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 169: http://muninetworks.org/content/explaining-right-way-basics-community-broadband-bits-episode-169
  7. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/att-tries-end-magic-one-touch-make-ready

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/att-tries-to-end-the-magic-of-one-touch-make-ready/


Mancos Voters The Latest To Decide Local Authority In Colorado

by ILSR | March 25, 2016 3:47 pm

 Mancos[1], a rural community of about 1,300 in rural southwest Colorado, hopes to join over 50 other communities across the state that have reclaimed local telecommunications authority. On April 5th, the town will decide whether to exempt itself from SB 152, Colorado’s 2005 state law that removed local choice from municipalities and local governments.

Located at the base of the Mesa Verde National Park, Mancos is best known for outdoor recreation and as the gateway to the park, home to the historic Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings. Rangeland and mountains surround the community.

The Pine River Times Journal reports[2] that Mancos is looking to utilize 3,300 feet of fiber optic assets already in place. The fiber now connects municipal facilities but community leaders want to have the option to use the network for businesses, residents, or to provide Wi-Fi to visitors. SB 152 precludes Mancos from using their publicly owned fiber for any of those purposes without first opting out.

On March 9th, the Town Board of Trustees approved a resolution encouraging voters to pass the ballot initiative that will reclaim local authority. They have information about the ballot question and what it will mean for the community on their website.

“It’s an anti-competition bill [SB 152],” [Mancos Town Administrator Andrea Phillips] said. “[Exempting out] gives us a lot more leeway.”

Mancos has no specific plans to develop a municipal fiber network but, like many other communities that opted out last November[3], they want the ability to do so or to work with a private sector partner. Nearby Dolores is collaborating with Montezuma County; the two have contracted jointly for a feasibility study.

According a March 16th Pine River Times Journal article[4], Dolores and Montezuma County will put the issue to voters in November. Jim McClain, IT Manager for the county said:

“Opting out unties our hands in order to build up the system. It’s like we build the road, and then private companies provide the service on that road.”

“When people and businesses are thinking of moving here, the first thing they want to know is if there is broadband.”

In Mancos, the local Chamber of Commerce is considering the needs of visitors as well as residents.

“It’s all about economic vitality,” [Mancos Valley Chamber of Commerce Administrator Marie Chiarizia] said.

Mancos potentially could make broadband service available anywhere in the town if it’s exempted from SB 152, Chiarizia said. Outdoor events such as Mancos Days draw temporary vendors, and broadband access would allow those vendors to be able to take credit and debit cards more quickly, she said.

The Mancos Board of Trustees voted to contribute $4,100 to participate in the feasibility study on March 23rd.

“To look to the future and become prosperous you have to look at the infrastructure of the town and offer these services…Mancos is a unique community unto itself, but this will help us promote our town better and place us on a competitive edge,” [Chiarizia] said.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Mancos: http://mancoscolorado.com
  2. Pine River Times Journal reports: http://www.pinerivertimes.com/article/20160321/NEWS01/160329964/
  3. opted out last November: http://muninetworks.org/content/voters-quiet-drums-polls-colorado
  4. March 16th Pine River Times Journal article: http://www.pinerivertimes.com/article/20160316/NEWS01/160319922/0/register.php/Dolores-county-partner-on-telecommunications
  5. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/mancos-voters-latest-decide-local-authority-colorado

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/mancos-voters-the-latest-to-decide-local-authority-in-colorado/


Listen to the Lawyers: Audio of Oral Arguments Now Available in TN/NC vs FCC

by ILSR | March 22, 2016 2:36 pm

Attorneys argued before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on March 17th[1] in the case of Tennessee and North Carolina vs the FCC. The attorneys presented their arguments before the court as it considered the FCC’s decision to peel back state barriers that prevent local authority to expand munis.

A little over a year ago, the FCC struck down[2] state barriers in Tennessee and North Carolina limiting expansion of publicly own networks. Soon after, both states filed appeals and the cases were combined.

You can listen to the entire oral argument below – a little less than 43 minutes – which includes presentations from both sides and vigorous questions from the Judges.

To review other resources from the case, be sure to check out the other resources, available here[3], including party and amicus briefs.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. on March 17th: http://muninetworks.org/content/tn-and-nc-vs-fcc-oral-arguments-scheduled-thursday-march-17th
  2. the FCC struck down: http://muninetworks.org/content/cable-companies-lose-big-fcc-barriers-community-broadband-struck-down
  3. available here: http://muninetworks.org/content/resource-central-tn-and-nc-appeal-fcc-decision-restore-local-authority
  4. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/listen-lawyers-audio-oral-arguments-now-available-tnnc-vs-fcc

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/listen-to-the-lawyers-audio-of-oral-arguments-now-available-in-tnnc-vs-fcc/


CLIC to Host Preconference Day in Austin on April 4th

by ILSR | March 21, 2016 10:35 am

Are you going to the Austin Broadband Communities Conference this spring? If you plan on attending the April 5 – 7 event, you may want to head out one day early so you can check out the Coalition for Local Internet Choice (CLIC) Preconference Day event on April 4.

From the CLIC email invite:

CLIC’s pre-conference day will focus on how communities can facilitate the development of local gigabit networks. Our interactive panel of experts will share best practices and how successful community-led networks have responded to various fiber deployment hurdles, including political, legal, financial, market or resource barriers. You will be able to meet in-person and hear from the public officials who are facilitating, and the private companies who are engaged in and seeking, local public-private broadband partnerships.

The event will be open to all conference attendees and will start at 8:45 a.m. Some of the presentations include:

A Discussion of How Successful Community-Led Networks Have Responded to Barriers and Challenges

  • Overcoming Legal and Political Barriers: Strategies to Advocate for Your Community’s Authority
  • Overcoming Financial Barriers: Strategies to Identify and Use Funding Sources to Finance Networks from Build-outs to Upgrades
  • Overcoming Market Barriers: Strategies to Maximize the Use and Benefits of the Network Once You Have It

Public-Private Partnerships

  • An Introductory Survey of Business Models and Legal Considerations in Building Broadband Public-Private Partnerships
  • Private Perspectives on Partnerships: Meet the Private Sector Gigabit Partners
  • Public Perspectives on Partnerships: Lessons Learned and Best Practices (Chris will speak on this topic)

For more information on speakers, you can review the full agenda here[1].

Join CLIC[2] and register online[3] for the conference. As a member of CLIC, you will receive a special BBC rate of $350 for the entire BBC conference. Use the code CLIC2016 when you register to take advantage of your membership bennie.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. the full agenda here: http://www.bbcmag.com/2016s/pages/16CLICconference.php
  2. Join CLIC: http://localnetchoice.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=09c6fc743c87e862042edd5d5&id=61f9f62069&e=5071b5ca3d
  3. register online: http://localnetchoice.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=09c6fc743c87e862042edd5d5&id=11bcc07bc7&e=5071b5ca3d
  4. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/clic-host-preconference-day-austin-april-4th

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/clic-to-host-preconference-day-in-austin-on-april-4th/


Race and Democracy in Michigan

by David Morris | March 18, 2016 10:30 am

In 2013, 52% of all African-Americans living in Michigan had their voting rights taken away by  Emergency Managers, compared to only 2% of whites. In November 2014 a federal judge concluded[1] that the Emergency Managers law had been applied in a racially discriminatory manner. That law allows the state to appoint a manager to unilaterally govern a city. His decisions pre-empt and supersede decisions by city councils or mayors.  In a November 2012 referendum, the citizens of Michigan had voted to overturn the 2011 law but within weeks the state legislature enacted an almost identical law immune to the popular will.

Some argue[2] the exercise of undemocratic authority was a key to the widespread lead poisoning of residents in the city of Flint.

 

(Photo: Jake May/ MLive.com)

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Endnotes:
  1. concluded: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/19/judge-michigan-em-lawsuit-can-proceed-racial-grounds/19273435/
  2. argue: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-referendum-that-might-have-headed-off-flints-water-crisis

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/race-and-democracy-in-michigan/


Webinar: Crowdfunding for Community Composting

by Rebecca Toews | March 16, 2016 1:51 pm

On March 22, 2016 Brenda Platt was joined by Dustin Fedako of Compost Pedallers and Ethany Uttech of ioby to talk about best practices for community composting. Below is the link to the recording, please pass it along to whomever you think would benefit from the conversation.

If you’d like to be updated on ILSR events, please feel free to subscribe to our newsletter: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup/[1].

Lor Holmes was unable to attend due to technical difficulties, but we’ll be sure to have her on for our next event. If you have any questions, ideas for future webinars, or if you’d like to volunteer to present, let us know that as well.

Crowdfunding and worker-owned cooperatives are just two of the models that have proven to work for community composters around the United States.

Please join Lor Holmes with CERO[2], and Dustin Fedako with Compost Pedallers for a deeper dive into crowdfunding for community composters.

Business planning and financing were among the hot topics community composters identified. In less than a year, CERO raised over $350,000 via nearly 100 community investors. The Compost Pedallers raised $25,000 on Indiegogo from336 backers. They’ll share tips based on their own lessons learned, and attendees will come away with a realistic idea of what to expect in the preparation, launch, live campaign, and reward fulfillment phases of a crowdfunding campaign.


Presenters

CCC2016_Holmes Lor headshot[3]

Lor Holmes is CERO Cooperative’s General Manager. She leads business development, and like all of the CERO worker-owners, Lor shares a passion for environmental and social justice, sustainable economic development and democratic models for community ownership.

CCC2016_Fedako_Dustin_Compost Pedallers[4]Dustin Fedako is the co-founder of the Compost Pedallers in Austin, Texas and has worked as CEO of the company since its founding in 2012. Under Dustin’s leadership, the Compost Pedallers have moved over half a million pounds of organics by bike, and established themselves as leaders in the pedal powered revolution and the community composting movement.

Ethany Uttech headshot jpeg[5]Ethany Uttech with ioby.org[6] will join our webinar discussion as well!

Ioby is a nationwide, nonprofit crowdfunding platform that provides one-on-one coaching to leaders of projects that make communities healthier and more sustainable. They’ll share examples of past successfully funded projects and some top tips for nonprofits or community groups looking to build a local base of support through crowdfunding.

Ethany Uttech focuses on partnership building and outreach to connect with new ioby Leaders across the country. She never tires of meeting people who are dedicated to making positive change in themselves and in the world, and is particularly inspired by projects that increase neighborhood sustainability and livability in tangible ways.

Before joining the ioby team, Ethany led Brooklyn Arts Council’s grant-giving and professional development programs for seven years, and worked in a variety of organizational development, project management, and teaching capacities. She is also a civically engaged resident of Brooklyn and a long-time volunteer activist in the arenas of social and environmental justice.


The event is organized by ILSR and BioCycle.

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Endnotes:
  1. https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup/: https://ilsr.org/newsletter-signup/
  2. Lor Holmes with CERO: http://www.cero.coop/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CCC2016_Holmes-Lor-headshot.jpg
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CCC2016_Fedako_Dustin_Compost-Pedallers.jpg
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ethany-Uttech-headshot-jpeg.jpg
  6. ioby.org: https://www.ioby.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/webinar-crowdfunding-for-community-composting/


Are Rural Electric Cooperatives Driving or Just Dabbling in Community Solar?

by Nick Stumo-Langer | March 11, 2016 9:00 am

Electric cooperatives, member-owned organizations that sell electricity to those within their service area, are perhaps the nation’s largest group of utilities that could champion clean, local power[1]. They tend to cover enormous swaths of the most rural territory, often with excellent wind and solar resources.

In one manner of renewable energy, cooperatives are leading the fray: community solar.

78 different electric cooperatives allow their members to buy into a collectively owned solar project. The total is small— just 92 megawatts (MW), equivalent to only 0.18% of their overall power generation—but these cooperatively-owned utilities are much more likely to experiment with customer-owned generation than their municipal and for-profit peers.

The Solar Opportunity

Electric cooperatives serve an estimated 42 million people in 47 states[2], but their member-ownership structure is what makes them unique. While for-profit, monopoly utilities tend to limit the ability of communities to invest in their own energy, electric cooperatives allow each member to own a stake in their renewable energy future.

Utility Community Solar Projects[3]

Cooperatives have a history of serving local needs[4]. In the New Deal era, thanks to the establishment of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), community cooperatives were essential in bringing electricity to all parts of the country. If these cooperatives hadn’t stepped up and large power companies had had their way, these rural areas’ economies could, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, still be “entirely and exclusively dependent on agriculture.”

Community solar follows naturally from the cooperatives’ historical democratization of the electric system.

The benefits from community solar[5] include savings on your energy bill and a chance to own a slice of the sun whether or not you own a sunny rooftop[6]. This option is a popular one, with many community solar arrays “selling out”[7] within a few weeks.

Below is a map identifying the 78 community solar projects throughout the country separated by ownership structure. The lion’s share are owned by electric cooperatives.

The Trico Community Sun Farm in Marana, Arizona allows individuals[8] to purchase solar panels in quarter, half, or full panel increments, ensuring that the all of the members can make clean energy commitment that works best for them. The credit structure also works in exactly the same way as net metering for a residential rooftop solar system would, reducing members bills on a per-kilowatt-hour basis for every kilowatt-hour generated by their share of the community solar array.

Meanwhile, the Yampa Valley Electric Association markets their Community Solar Garden in Colorado is a renewable energy option for members who “want the benefits of solar ownership without the research, construction and maintenance of a stand-alone system.” They are also committed[9] to flexibility for their members, allowing them to take their energy credits with them if they move within a different utilities’ service area.

Finally, in Michigan, Cherryland Electric Cooperative’s Solar Up North Alliance explicitly utilizes[10] its electric cooperative history when setting up their community solar project: “Today, solar energy is out of reach for a lot of people – it can be expensive to set up, and there’s a lot of maintenance involved. So we thought, why not do something about it?” Hailed as Michigan’s first community solar project, the Solar Up North Alliance allows Cherryland members to purchase solar shares for a one-time investment fee (they can bring the price down via state-based clean energy rebates). Their project is currently fully subscribed.

When the cost benefits to members and the cooperative are paired with a lighter load on the electric grid, relief from volatile fossil fuel pricing, and the sustainability of local energy production, community solar is a win for the subscribers and the entire cooperative.

Potential to Grow?

Although electric cooperatives are dabbling in community solar, it’s not making a large dent in their power generation mix, for a big reason. Currently, many cooperatives purchase power from outside their service area via long-term contracts in an attempt to keep costs low. Coal power accounts for 59%[11] of rural electric cooperative power purchases, more so than any other kind of utility (public or investor-owned). These deals have powered the cooperatives’ past, but with the rising price of coal and growing grassroots support for distributed generation of renewable energy, this continued coal commitment is unsustainable.

Now may be a good time for electric cooperatives to change their practices. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently ruled[12] that some cooperatives with long-term contracts with large-scale, dirty energy producers could — despite those contracts — invest in local, renewable energy. This could include purchases from third parties, but also purchases from local power generators or community solar.

The key for cooperatives is self-determination and collective ownership. Most electric cooperatives are regulated far less than their for-profit counterparts, giving them the potential to fulfill member interest in solar energy.

We updated this map based on 2015 data from the Government Accountability Office. You can still see the 2008 version here[13].

Community solar is one tool, but since cooperatives are collectively owned, any purchase of local solar generation distributes the benefits to all members. Community solar in particular allows for voluntary participation and a new way to raise capital from the cooperative members for new power generation capacity.

Community Solar or Bust?

There was a saying among cooperatives in the 1930s: “if we don’t do it, no one will.” Now it’s the opposite: “if we don’t do it, someone else will.” Like most Americans, cooperative members want their electricity to come from non-polluting resources, and for their utility to seize the free solar resource falling on their community for their benefit. In many states, third parties are serving this need by offering those with sunny rooftops a low-cost solar lease, dramatically reducing the customer’s need for utility electricity.

Developing local, clean energy is about proving the cooperative’s relevance in the 21st century. Electric cooperatives are operating a disproportionate number of community solar projects, but these pilot projects are serving only a fraction of their power needs and member-owners.

Cooperatives that provide a community solar option can wean themselves off of dirty power, broaden the opportunities for members to invest in clean energy, and show that they’re committed to making a renewable energy future of benefit to all their members.

For more information, see ILSR’s other posts on rural electric cooperatives:

  • Just How Democratic Are Rural Electric Cooperatives?[14]
  • Did FERC Just Smash the Biggest Roadblock to Clean, Local Power for Electric Co-ops?[15]
  • Why Aren’t Rural Electric Cooperatives Champions of Local Clean Power?[16]
  • A $6 Billion Opportunity for the Rural Energy Economy[17]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[18]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[19] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[20] update.

Image credit: User:OgreBot/Uploads by new users/2015 January 15 12:00 [21]

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Endnotes:
  1. champion clean, local power: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-cooperatives-champions-local-clean-power/
  2. serve an estimated 42 million people in 47 states: http://www.nreca.coop/about-electric-cooperatives/co-op-facts-figures/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Utility-Community-Solar-Projects-Map.png
  4. have a history of serving local needs: http://www.nreca.coop/about-electric-cooperatives/history-of-electric-co-ops/
  5. benefits from community solar: https://ilsr.org/top-10-reasons-to-support-community-power/
  6. whether or not you own a sunny rooftop: https://ilsr.org/community-solar-power-obstacles-and-opportunities/
  7. “selling out”: http://www.startribune.com/connexus-energy-sells-out-its-first-and-minnesota-s-largest-community-solar-garden/364722461/
  8. allows individuals: https://www.trico.coop/index.php/account/residential/renewables
  9. They are also committed: http://www.yvea.com/content/yvea-community-solar-garden-clean-energy-collective
  10. explicitly utilizes: http://cherrylandelectric.coop/clean-energy/
  11. Coal power accounts for 59%: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/rural-electric-cooperatives-reliant-on-coal-public-citizen.jpg
  12. recently ruled: https://ilsr.org/did-ferc-just-smash-the-biggest-roadblock-to-clean-local-power-for-electric-co-ops/
  13. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/state-oversight-of-electric-cooperatives-2008-ILSR.jpg
  14. Just How Democratic Are Rural Electric Cooperatives?: https://ilsr.org/just-how-democratic-are-rural-electric-cooperatives/
  15. Did FERC Just Smash the Biggest Roadblock to Clean, Local Power for Electric Co-ops?: https://ilsr.org/did-ferc-just-smash-the-biggest-roadblock-to-clean-local-power-for-electric-co-ops/
  16. Why Aren’t Rural Electric Cooperatives Champions of Local Clean Power?: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-cooperatives-champions-local-clean-power/
  17. A $6 Billion Opportunity for the Rural Energy Economy: https://ilsr.org/6-billion-opportunity-rural-energy-economy/
  18. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  19. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  20. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  21. User:OgreBot/Uploads by new users/2015 January 15 12:00 : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:OgreBot/Uploads_by_new_users/2015_January_15_12:00

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-and-cooperatives-community-solar/


American Democracy Under Siege

by David Morris | March 8, 2016 2:45 pm

The founding fathers minced no words about their distrust of the masses. Our first President, John Adams warned[1], “Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy…” Our second President, Thomas Jefferson insisted[2], “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule.” Our third President, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution declared[3], “Democracy is the most vile form of government.”

In his argument against the direct election of Senators Connecticut’s Roger Sherman advised[4] his colleagues at the Constitutional Convention, “The people should have as little to do as may be about the government. They lack information and are constantly liable to be misled.” They agreed. Senators would be elected by state legislatures. And they created the Electoral College to shield the Presidency from a direct vote of the people as well.

In 1776, the year he signed the Declaration of Independence, John Adams presciently wrote[5] a fellow lawyer about the collateral damage that would result from “attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end to it. New claims will arise. Women will demand the vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other, in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level.”

In 1789 the franchise was restricted to white men, but not all white men. Only those possessing a minimum amount of property or paid taxes could vote. In 1800, just three states permitted white manhood suffrage-the right to vote– without qualification.

In 1812, six western states were the first[6] to give all non-property owning white men the franchise. Hard times resulting from the Panic of 1819 led many people to demand an end to property restrictions on voting and officeholding. By 1840 popular agitation by the swelling ranks of propertyless urban dwellers coupled with “Age of Jacksonian Democracy” increased[7] the percentage of white men eligible to vote to 90 percent. And the advent of a new type of presidential electioneering that spoke directly to the people in raucous proceedings lifted turnout from 25 percent of eligible voters in 1824 to a remarkable 80 percent in 1840.

the suffragist, at lastWomen had to wait much longer. A number of colonies did allow women to vote. But by the time the Constitution was ratified all[8] states except New Jersey denied women that right. In 1808 New Jersey made it unanimous.

In 1875 Michigan and Minnesota allowed[9] women the right to vote for school boards. In 1887 Kansas gave them the right to vote in municipal elections. In 1889 Wyoming was the first state to give women full suffrage. Utah and Idaho followed in 1896. By 1920, the year the 19th Amendment was ratified women had achieved suffrage in 19 of the then 48 states.

Black Suffrage

For blacks the road was much, much longer and far more treacherous. Even as the states extended voting rights to all white men it took away existing voting rights to black men. In the 1790s, African American males who owned property could vote in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Maryland. All effectively stripped their black citizens of voting rights in the first quarter of the 19th century.

(more…)[10]

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Endnotes:
  1. warned: https://books.google.com/books?id=KCXc85Q0i7MC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=Democracy+will+soon+degenerate+into+an+anarchy&source=bl&ots=xmWpho6eOJ&sig=BN6yCCVdwJsM4ttvB_6_srb9Qso&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtqcbOjJbLAhUYzmMKHcZ4DOUQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=Democracy%20will%20soon%20degenerate%20into%20an%20anarchy&f=false
  2. insisted: https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/democracy-nothing-more-mob-rule
  3. declared: http://madison.thefreelibrary.com/
  4. advised: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/notes-of-debates-in-the-federal-convention-of-1787-2/
  5. wrote: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s10.html
  6. first: http://classroom.synonym.com/people-gained-right-vote-early-1800s-16200.html
  7. increased: http://www.ushistory.org/us/23b.asp
  8. all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women
  9. allowed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women
  10. (more…): https://ilsr.org/american-democracy-under-siege/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/american-democracy-under-siege/


Is Recycling Stagnating? The Case of Los Angeles

by Neil Seldman | March 8, 2016 1:38 pm

Introduction

In the past several months, journalists in major publications such as Forbes, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Mother Jones have concluded that recycling rates have stagnated. They tend to blame the recent downturn in materials prices. They’re half right. Recycling levels have stagnated in many cities and towns, largely in the South and Midwest, and the national average of 35 percent[1][1] has not moved much in more than a decade.

But it is not economics that keeps recycling stagnant in parts of the country. Rather it is a stagnation of citizen activism. Where citizens remain active, recycling levels continue to rise to unprecedented levels. Even as markets for recycled materials fluctuate advanced recycling cities realize that avoided costs of replacement landfills and incinerators and an expanded economy more than compensate for temporary low market prices.[2][2]

Since the advent of the modern recycling movement post Earth Day 1970 advocates have faced great odds. Not only did they have to persuade a skeptical public to embrace recycling before it was economically viable, but even more a skeptical and often downright hostile solid waste bureaucracy that abhorred the idea of having to rely on tens of thousands of households and small businesses changing their daily behavior rather than as they traditionally had, on a handful of large haulers and landfills and incinerators and expensive compacting trucks. They had to deal with Wall Street firms that embraced capital intensive waste handling strategies, large hauling and landfill companies that dominated market share, virgin material companies that did not want to compete with 40,000 local governments, federal government subsidies and several national environmental organizations that enthusiastically embraced the most capital intensive strategy of all—incineration— as a benign waste-to-energy solution. Recyclers often had to create a market for recycled materials and convince manufacturers to use them and retail stores to buy them. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [1]: #_ftn1
  2. [2]: #_ftn2
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/is-recycling-stagnating-the-case-of-los-angeles/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/is-recycling-stagnating-the-case-of-los-angeles/


Happy Birthday National Endowment for the Humanities

by David Morris | March 7, 2016 4:16 pm

On the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Richard H. Brodhead argues[1] the New Deal made possible the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts.  For the first time Americans endorsed a federal role in promoting the general welfare and creating public goods. In the 1960s the Great Society expanded that role to include supporting the arts and humanities.  Today the very notion of “public goods” has become suspect and federal involvement in creating them is viewed by many as an outdated and even dangerous concept.

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. argues: http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/novemberdecember/feature/the-fate-and-fortunes-public-goods

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/happy-birthday-national-endowment-for-the-humanities/


Berta Cáceres Died For Our Sins

by David Morris | March 4, 2016 3:44 pm

On March 3rd Honduran Goldman Prize winner Berta Cáceres was assassinated because of the stunning victories she achieved with and on behalf of indigenous people.  And she did it against the greatest of odds. Beverly Bell of the Institute for Policy Studies gives us some details[1] about this remarkable woman and the sad role our country played in her demise.

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Endnotes:
  1. details: http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=669937dec2&e=a3866e7df2

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/berta-caceres-died-for-our-sins/


Watch: Stacy Mitchell Speaks on Amazon and Empty Storefronts

by ILSR | March 4, 2016 11:57 am

ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell spoke about a strategy to rein in Amazon’s expanding market power in this presentation at the 2016 Winter Institute. The annual conference and educational event, hosted by the American Booksellers Association[1], was held in Denver on Jan. 25 and 26.

The panel discussion, “Amazon and Empty Storefronts,” focused on how Amazon is transforming the retail industry. The conversation covered a new study[2] from Civic Economics that quantifies the costs of Amazon’s expansion in terms of fiscal and land use impacts, as well as local and national policy considerations that will be critical to creating an equitable and sustainable economy.

Mitchell spoke with Matt Cunningham and Dan Houston of Civic Economics, with a welcome from ABA CEO Oren Teicher. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. American Booksellers Association: http://www.bookweb.org/
  2. a new study: http://www.civiceconomics.com/empty-storefronts.html
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/watch-stacy-mitchell-speaks-on-amazon-and-empty-storefronts/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/watch-stacy-mitchell-speaks-on-amazon-and-empty-storefronts/


Watch: Stacy Mitchell Speaks on the New Localism

by ILSR | March 4, 2016 11:27 am

ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell spoke about policy to shape the next phase of the local economy movement at the 2016 Winter Institute. The annual conference and educational event, hosted by the American Booksellers Association[1], was held in Denver on Jan. 25 and 26.

In this plenary panel, “The New Localism,” Mitchell spoke in conversation with other thought leaders and experts in local economies. The discussion covered how the U.S. is poised to begin a new phase of the local economy movement, and how, even as more consumers shop locally, we’re also facing critical policy decisions that will affect and shape the economy for years to come.

The other panelists were Joe Minicozzi, principal at Urban3, and Matt Cunningham and Dan Houston of Civic Economics. The panel was moderated by ABA CEO Oren Teicher.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. American Booksellers Association: http://www.bookweb.org/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/watch-stacy-mitchell-speaks-on-the-new-localism/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/watch-stacy-mitchell-speaks-on-the-new-localism/


Report: Mighty Microgrids

by Matt Grimley | March 3, 2016 10:00 am

Communities all over the country are finding ways to break the macro barriers to microgrids. As we flip from a top-down to bottom-up grid management structure, major policy barriers must be lifted in order to expand energy democracy to customers and producers.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT[1]

 

Executive Summary

The electric grid is no longer a 20th-century, one-way system. A constellation of distributed energy technologies is paving the way for “microgrids,” a combination of smart electric devices, power generation, and storage resources, connected to one or many loads, that can connect and disconnect from the grid at-will.

Microgrids:

A group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources within clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid and that connects and disconnects from such grid to enable it to operate in both grid-connected or island mode.

 

Expanding Uses

For years, microgrids were most common at hospitals and military bases — places that require more reliability than the aging grid offers. Today, microgrids are increasingly used for more:

  • To integrate very high portions of renewable energy, such as Kodiak Island (Alaska) or Stafford Hill (Vermont).
  • To manage energy costs or “arbitrage” to buy energy from the grid at low prices and self-generate when prices are high, such as the University of California San Diego.
  • To provide resilient and safe public spaces during times of natural disaster, including many new microgrids planned in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Opportunity to Grow

The economic case for microgrids grows as the cost of distributed generation and energy storage continue to fall. Some companies already offer turnkey “nanogrids” that serve a single building. Larger, community microgrids are also being built, testing out the technology, and the business and legal models.

A few states such as New York and California are changing the rules and offering funding to accelerate development of microgrids.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/03/Report-Mighty-Microgrids-PDF-3_3_16.pdf
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/


Clean Coalition’s Community Microgrids – Episode 29 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by Matt Grimley | March 3, 2016 1:07 am

Most microgrids today are single buildings that rely on diesel generators to run when the grid is out. They’re simple backup, redundant power.

But some more advanced microgrids, such as the Clean Coalition’s planned community microgrids[5], are looking into the future, when multiple sources of generation can support a community of homes and businesses[6].

In anticipation of the release of ILSR’s new report, “Mighty Microgrids,” ILSR is releasing two podcasts with the developers, regulators, and practitioners of microgrids in the United States today. This is the first.

Feature Community Microgrid Traditional Microgrid
Scale Spans an entire substation grid area, securing benefits for thousands of customers. Covers only a single customer location or a small number of adjacent locations
Cost Offers a more cost-effective solution by: 1) achieving much broader scale of DER deployment and 2) utilizing a systems approach that identifies optimal locations for DER in context of existing local distribution grid assets and loads. Maximizes benefits for single customer but does little for the local grid. Replicating this approach across an entire community area would be: 1) extraordinarily expensive and 2) fail to leverage and optimize the existing distribution grid assets
Grid resilience and security Provides backup power to prioritized loads that are critical to the entire community, such as police and fire stations, water treatment centers, emergency shelters, etc. Provides backup power to only a single location or customer.
Scalability Enables easy replication and scaling across any distribution grid area. Requires tedious work to implement at each individual location; starting from scratch in terms of both analysis and physical assets.

Chart from Clean Coalition

Intended for Long Island[7] and Hunters Point in San Francisco[8], these microgrids are designed to to optimize local, rooftop solar energy. That means moving distributed solar to 25 to 50 percent of a local area’s annual energy consumption, a feat unprecedented in microgrid technology today, let alone on the larger electric grid.

Craig Lewis, the executive director of the Clean Coalition, joined John Farrell last week to talk about these microgrid projects, why microgrids are moving beyond use in just single buildings, and what policy changes would help his initiative the most.

Planning Ahead

In the town of East Hampton, the Long Island Community Microgrid Project will be designed around the distribution network under a single substation, serving several thousand customers, says Lewis. A substation, where cross-country transmission lines move energy to the smaller distribution power lines, is in this case a building block to remaking the electric grid from the ground-up. Specific solar, storage, demand response technologies, and onsite generators will be used to provide almost “indefinite” backup to critical facilities such as a water filtration plant and a firehouse.

“You’re getting the highest performance at the least cost,” says Lewis.

While deferring more than $300 million of new transmission investment for the local utility, PSEG Long Island, all 15 MW of the local solar will be procured through a feed-in tariff. Property owners and third parties renting roofs will be directly reimbursed for their power production. In all, the Clean Coalition estimates that of every dollar invested here and at their Hunters Point Community Microgrid, 50 percent will remain local, largely in the form of local wages and jobs.

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 2.49.13 PM

The Hunters Point substation area (above) serves more than 35,000 customers.
Image credit: Clean Coalition

Behind-the-meter and Behind-the-times

Microgrid rules across the states support only behind-the-meter microgrids, those that serve only one building’s load and do not produce excess energy for other entities. In its Reforming the Energy Vision[9], the New York Public Service Commission is beginning to encourage by microgrids to produce energy for more than one user. In the end, the NY PSC seeks to reform electric utilities into grid market operators that will be disinterested in who owns, sells, and distributes electricity. While the NY PSC has been quick to incentivize third-party ownership, Lewis acknowledges there needs to be more work done on the technological end.

“If you try to design market mechanisms before you know what the technologies are capable of, you end up with very suboptimal outcomes,” says Lewis. There is a need still to incentivize everybody to cooperate, including the incumbent utility, to understand the full extent of the benefit to the ratepayers. Then regulators can design market incentives to award microgrids and other distributed resources.

Tension in the Wires

Right now distributed energy resources represent a small, small precentage of the total annual energy usage across the United States. But as distributed energy such as rooftop solar becomes cheaper and more common, more microgrids will come online. In the end, the need for large power plants and transmission lines will decline 

“You can’t local resilience if you’re getting all your resources from remote locations,” says Lewis.

One big boost to microgrid development would be the creation of a distribution-level wholesale energy market for distributed energy, and not just in terms of pure power, or kilowatt-hours, generated. “The default has been to reward kilowatt-hours,” says Lewis. “That’s real power. But there’s also reactive power. There’s also grid services to provide frequency.”

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 2.45.45 PM

You can serve your own loads, or build a huge power plant to serve the wholesale market over transmission lines…
but there is still no local wholesale market for serving energy to your neighbors.

That means the market must be designed to reward frequency balancing and voltage support.

When it comes to providing frequency balancing, the most important metric is speed. There’s nothing that can react faster than local energy storage, both in discharging and storing excess energy. A fossil-fueled power plant cannot react fast enough to sudden local load changes.

In addition, distributed energy better supports voltage than centralized generation. Voltage decays over while being sent on long transmission and distribution lines. 

It seems that local, distributed energy is getting a play within microgrids, and within the next few years, the Clean Coalition’s community microgrids hope to show the full potential of community power.

More information on the Clean Coalition’s Community Microgrid Initiative and their other initiatives can be found on their website.[10]

This is the 29th edition of Local Energy Rules[11], an ILSR podcast with Director of Democratic Energy John Farrell that shares powerful stories of successful local renewable energy and exposes the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Other than his immediate family, the audience is primarily researchers, grassroots organizers, and grasstops policy wonks who want vivid examples of how local renewable energy can power local economies.

It is published intermittently on ilsr.org, but you can Click to subscribe to the podcast: iTunes[12] or RSS/XML[13]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[14]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[15] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[16] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/clean-coalition-short-podcast.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/clean-coalition-short-podcast.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. community microgrids: http://www.clean-coalition.org/our-work/community-microgrids/
  6. community of homes and businesses: http://www.clean-coalition.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Community-Microgrid-Initiative-Executive-Summary-16_gt-16-Sep-2015.pdf
  7. Long Island: http://www.clean-coalition.org/our-work/community-microgrids/long-island-community-microgrid-project/
  8. Hunters Point in San Francisco: http://www.clean-coalition.org/our-work/community-microgrids/hunters-point-community-microgrid-project/
  9. Reforming the Energy Vision: http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/CC4F2EFA3A23551585257DEA007DCFE2?OpenDocument
  10. their website.: http://www.clean-coalition.org/
  11. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  12. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/local-energy-rules/id595698022?mt=2
  13. RSS/XML: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  14. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  15. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  16. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/clean-coalition-podcast/


MD Bill Introduced That Names ILSR to State Task Force

by Brenda Platt | February 26, 2016 1:35 am

Maryland House Bill 743 – Yard Waste and Food Residuals Diversion and Infrastructure Task Force[1], sponsored by Delegate Shane Robinson (District 39), would create a Task Force to identify means to promote investment in infrastructure to expand food waste recovery, evaluate the current recovery of food waste in Maryland, identify opportunities for expansion, and more. The Task Force would report its findings and recommendations to the Governor and the General Assembly. ILSR helped to write the bill and is named as 1 of 20 organizations to be represented on the Task Force.

On February 24th, the bill was heard before the House of Delegates’ Committee on the Environment and Transportation.  ILSR arranged the panel of experts to testify at the hearing in Annapolis in support of the bill, which is unopposed.

Testimony and Resources

  • Mike Toole, the MD-DC Compost Council (written testimony here[2])
  • Christopher Bradford, Organic Agriculture Recycling
  • Brenda Platt, ILSR (written testimony here[3])
  • Vinnie Bevivino, Chesapeake Compost Works (written testimony here[4])
  • Beth LeaMond, Greenbelters for Zero Waste (written testimony here[5])
  • Audio and video of the hearing is available here[6]. See minutes 32:38 – 46:15 for HB 0743 testimony.
  • The Montgomery Council Food Council submitted supporting comments (written testimony here[7])
Christopher Bradford (Organic Agriculture Recycling), MD Delegate Shane Robinson, Josh Etim (ILSR), Brenda Platt (ILSR), Mike Toole (MD-DC Composting Council), Vinnie Bevivino (Chesapeake Compost Works), and Beth LeaMond (Greenbelters for Zero Waste).[8]
Christopher Bradford (Organic Agriculture Recycling), MD Delegate Shane Robinson, Josh Etim (ILSR), Brenda Platt (ILSR), Mike Toole (MD-DC Composting Council), Vinnie Bevivino (Chesapeake Compost Works), and Beth LeaMond (Greenbelters for Zero Waste).

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Maryland House Bill 743 – Yard Waste and Food Residuals Diversion and Infrastructure Task Force: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=hb0743&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2016RS
  2. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/MD-DC-Compost-Council-testimony-MD-HB0743-Feb-2016.pdf
  3. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ILSR-testimony-HB0743-02-24-16.pdf
  4. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Testimony-of-Vinnie-Bevivino-HB-743.pdf
  5. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Greenbelt-testimony-HB0743-02-24-16.pdf
  6. here: http://mgahouse.maryland.gov/mga/play/2941b8f9-3a57-4069-a13f-29bdbdff188b/?catalog/03e481c7-8a42-4438-a7da-93ff74bdaa4c
  7. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/HB0743MontgomeryCountyFoodCouncilSupport-Letter2016.pdf
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Annapolis-photo-HB743-02-24-16.jpg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/initiativescompostingmd-hb743/


Google Fiber’s Dark Fiber Announcement Will Change How Cities Build Networks

by Rebecca Toews | February 22, 2016 12:19 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 22, 2016

CONTACT: Rebecca Toews, rebecca@ILSR.org[1],

(612)808-0689 

Google Fiber’s Dark Fiber Announcement Will Change How Cities Build Networks

This morning, Huntsville, Alabama put a nail in the coffin of telephone and cable monopolies. The city is building a dark fiber network for any ISP to use– and Google Fiber was the first to jump on board.

Fiber is the gold standard, offering faster and more reliable Internet access than cable and DSL, but ISPs have generally struggled with its high capital costs.

“Now, cities can ensure everyone has access to the fiber and let ISPs compete over it, much as cities build roads and businesses use them to compete,” says Christopher Mitchell[2], the director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “Think of this like a shopping mall with an anchor tenant. This provides legitimacy for the model, will help cities secure financing, and entice other city leaders to follow Huntsville’s lead.”

This decision means the investment in dark fiber becomes more viable and valuable to cities. They retain ownership to maximize public benefits, and open up space for independent ISPs to innovate and provide options for the local businesses and residents..

We applaud Huntsville for its innovation and Google for encouraging a model that will result in more competition and choice.

About Christopher Mitchell

Christopher Mitchell is the go-to national expert on Municipal Networks. He advises the White House on publicly-owned networks, the FCC on policy improvements, and city government officials on what they need to do to bring their communities access and competition. MuniNetworks.org[3] tracks publicly owned Internet networks and gathers resources for cities like Huntsville so that they can implement smart policies that help bring them toward a 21st century future.

For interviews please contact Rebecca Toews at 612-808-0689[4]  or at rebecca@ILSR.org. For more on the goals met by community broadband providers, please visit: http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap[5].

 ###

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Endnotes:
  1. rebecca@ILSR.org: mailto:rebecca@ILSR.org
  2. Christopher Mitchell: http://mailstat.us/tr/t/ql9rcfkkmlsorikydz2v4/m/http://www.muninetworks.org/
  3. MuniNetworks.org: http://mailstat.us/tr/t/ql9rcfkkmlsorikydz2v4/n/http://muninetworks.org/
  4. 612-808-0689:
  5. http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap: http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/google-fibers-dark-fiber-announcement-will-change-how-cities-build-networks/


Small Ohio Town to Feature Large Distributed Solar and Storage

by John Farrell | February 22, 2016 11:31 am

Energy storage is the “next charge[1]” for distributed renewable energy, and the small town of Minster, OH, provides a powerful illustration.

Committed to building a 3-megawatt (AC) solar facility, the village’s energy department[2] (municipal utility) was blindsided by the state legislature in mid-2014. The state’s energy policy had previously favored purchase of solar from in-state resources, but an abrupt change to the state’s solar renewable energy credit market[3] removed this provision, sharply reducing the long-term potential revenue for the Minster solar array.

The village wasn’t put off, but instead decided to see how battery storage could recoup the lost solar credits. A 7-megawatt battery (one of the largest in the country) will allow the village to reduce energy costs by deferring transmission and distribution costs, improving power quality, and shaving peak demand[4]. The contractor, Half Moon Ventures, will also be able to sell “frequency regulation services” into the regional grid system, helping improve overall system reliability. Don Harrod, village administrator, says the “revenue stacking” from the multiple uses of the battery is what makes the project so attractive for the village and the investor.

The solar array came online just weeks ago[5], and will sharply reduced the town’s need to purchase power from the wholesale market, and Harrod reports that the energy storage facility should be online by mid-March. The solar array is projected to provide about 13% of the village’s total electricity needs on an annual basis, and it provides a similar portion of the village’s peak energy demand of 23 megawatts.

The village isn’t done with solar, either. In the coming weeks, the village council will be discussing a community solar array to allow residents and businesses to buy in.

At just under 3,000 residents, the village of Minster is rather small, but it’s renewable energy and storage project is anything but.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[6]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[7] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[8] update.

Photo credit: USDA via Flickr[9] (CC BY 2.0 license)

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Endnotes:
  1. next charge: https://ilsr.org/energystoragethenextchargefordistributedenergy/
  2. energy department: http://www.minsteroh.com/municipal/electric-department
  3. abrupt change to the state’s solar renewable energy credit market: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/construction-on-7-mw-ohio-energy-storage-facility-slated-for-mid-october-_100021499/#axzz3xLBlaSeJ
  4. deferring transmission and distribution costs, improving power quality, and shaving peak demand: http://www.minsteroh.com/town-crier-blog/solar-energy-storage-facility
  5. came online just weeks ago: http://www.minsteroh.com/town-crier-blog/village-receiving-power-solar-field
  6. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  7. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  8. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  9. via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/16550221514/in/photolist-rdudfN-hFgdyF-ffbZnB-8N26oV-6Htihq-aCYkQJ-9zCVjC-3eczq5-hFhsLV-7Q7Gzb-fgG13i-efPd9N-ffbZtz-arfYY1-9zCVjs-9zCVfq-9zzVUK-aCYkCU-9NUibi-9NWJms-ffbYh4-9zzVUc-e8hBbv-7mUFM5-avKbVD-daLpMC-9RZmYS-sarBMk-pjX4i7-rT2TQz-9NX8eC-cMcxSQ-aokjpN-9NTU5X-2zG3um-cMcAkE-5ynjtZ-5EXipW-98e9Qs-4DvxJx-paDHv3-rSU3RA-77zDU7-auYcBs-aCYkDW-8vVJnG-auYcrE-uEQY6s-rC3KyX-BCZdS5

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/small-ohio-town-to-feature-large-distributed-solar-and-storage/


New Research Finds Water Privatization Raises Rates

by David Morris | February 19, 2016 6:06 pm

Food & Water Watch has issued a thoroughly researched report[1] on water privatization. A survey of more than 200 public and private water systems found that private suppliers charge significantly more than public systems. The 10 largest initiatives increased water rates  on average 15 percent a year after privatization. After local governments brought water systems back in-house their rates, on average, were 21 percent cheaper.

Many cities privatize their water systems to generate a much-needed quick infusion of revenue.  But the report offers compelling evidence that this decision is penny-wise and pound-foolish. “The funding that a city receives by selling or leasing its water system is effectively an expensive loan that a water company will recover from consumers through water bills. A Food & Water Watch analysis estimated that the typical interest rate on this loan would be 11 percent. This is 56 percent more expensive than public financing through a typical municipal revenue bond.”

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Endnotes:
  1. report: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/Trends%20Water%20Privatization%20Report%20Nov%202010.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-research-finds-water-privatization-raises-rates/


Where Do The Presidential Candidates Stand On The Proposed Trade Pact?

by David Morris | February 18, 2016 1:21 pm

In early February 12 nations, including the U.S. signed the highly controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This trade agreement would diminish U.S. sovereignty, undermine democracy and create a new world court where corporations can sue governments and corporate lawyers decide the cases. The TPP now goes to Congress for a vote.

If you want to know about TPP and keep up with its progress, visit Public Citizen[1]. If you want to know where the Presidential candidates stand on the trade agreement go here[2]. You’ll note some hemming and hawing by the candidates and a few about-faces. Bernie Sanders has been the most consistently and outspokenly opposed.

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Endnotes:
  1. Public Citizen: http://www.citizen.org/TPP
  2. here: https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_the_Trans-Pacific_Partnership_trade_deal

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/where-do-the-presidential-candidates-stand-on-the-proposed-trade-pact/


With 269 Stores Closing, Is this the Beginning of the End for Walmart?

by Stacy Mitchell | February 17, 2016 10:51 am

All great empires eventually fall.  This is as true in retail as it is in geopolitics.  Often the descent into oblivion takes decades.  A&P, which was once such a formidable market power that it was the subject of antitrust hearings in Congress, began to falter in the 1950s, some 80 years after cloning its first store.  At the time, it was by far the largest grocer in the country.  It would remain the industry leader for another quarter of a century, even as its stores seemed increasingly outdated and its corporate practices inexplicably unable to keep up.  After several rounds of store closures in the 1970s and 1980s, and a bankruptcy filing in 2010, A&P finally threw in the towel for good just last year.  By then, it was a two-bit player in the grocery business, its once continent-spanning empire now confined to the Northeast.

The fall of Montgomery Ward was also a long time coming.  The company altered the course of 20th century retailing by pioneering the general merchandise store, and then it tripped and stumbled[1] for nearly 50 years before its final Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2000.  Those decades saw the company undergo various retrenchments, corporate takeovers, and attempted reinventions.  “A very difficult retail environment simply did not permit us to complete the turnaround that might have been possible,” Montgomery Ward’s last CEO still maintained on the day the lights finally went out, 84 years after the retailer opened its first store.

And so when Walmart, which turns 54 years old this year, announced[2] that it would close 269 stores, including 154 in the U.S., one had to wonder if this might be the beginning of the chain’s inevitable end.  We’ll only know for sure in hindsight, perhaps decades from now.

But at the moment, it would be a mistake to leap to any conclusions.  Walmart is a global powerhouse.  It has half a trillion dollars in annual revenue and a track record that warns against underestimating it.  Walmart is so vast that these newly shuttered stores account for less than 1 percent of its total real estate footprint.  And when it announced the closures, the company clarified that it’s still planning to open over 140 new stores in the U.S. this year, and more than 200 internationally.

Walmart’s store closures may be less an initial stumble along a path toward demise than a move to abandon communities that Walmart has decided simply aren’t worth the trouble.  The company’s U.S. pullback really consists of two distinct events.  One is the closure of 52 stores, across 20 states, that Walmart claims are underperforming.  The other is Walmart’s across-the-board abandonment of its Express format, a group of 102 small stores, each about the size of a Walgreen’s and stocked with groceries and pharmacy goods. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. tripped and stumbled: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/29/business/montgomery-ward-to-close-its-doors.html
  2. announced: http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2016/01/15/walmart-continues-sharpened-focus-on-portfolio-management
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/with-269-stores-closing-is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-walmart/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/with-269-stores-closing-is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-walmart/


Downton Abbey and Obamacare

by David Morris | February 16, 2016 9:36 pm

As the rightly acclaimed tv series Downton Abbey unspools its final episode some fans have criticized the producers decision to devote so much time to a debate about the future of Downton’s Cottage Hospital. The show makes the issue mostly personal with delightfully snippy exchanges between Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham who speaks for a way of life that is passing, and her cousin Isobel, widow and daughter of physicians and trained as a nurse during WWI, who is the voice of modernity. But underneath the repartee lies a serious and persistent issue: what should be the relationship of the community to the emerging age of a high tech, highly capitalized and highly specialized medical system?

As Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, Senior Vice President of the Washington State Hospital Association, who has taken a keen interest in the show told me, “They’re asking the right questions. Who will be in charge? Will someone tell me what to do? Will we be able to continue to provide free care?”

The US and British health systems, while dramatically different, have had to grapple with these same questions. And in their exploration they’ve discovered that case can be made for big and for small but the weight of evidence suggests that the optimum medical configuration is when high tech and specialization is in service to responsible and accountable community hospitals.

In 1859, in real life, Albert Napper opened the first cottage hospital in Cranley. As Doctor Irvine Loudon at Oxford University observes[1], it was “built explicitly as a warm, clean idealized version of the farm labourer’s cottage in order to reassure patients.” A familiar doctor would treat people in a familiar atmosphere. Communities rallied around the concept. Hundreds of cottage hospitals sprang up and over the decades evolved into relatively sophisticated operations, often with state-of-the-art medicine and surgery.

In a very early episode in the series a farmer John Drake was admitted to the hospital with a terminal case of Dropsy. Isobel suggested to a Dr. Clarkson they use a very new technique. He reluctantly agreed and Drake promptly revived. By 1925, the year in which the final season of the tv series is set, voluntary hospitals constituted about 40 percent[2] of all hospitals. They were largely supported by contributions and staffed with volunteers. There were government hospitals as well: The infirmaries that grew out of the much-despised workhouses of the 19th century. But to many people these remained unwelcome venue.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. observes: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/25175341_THE_COTTAGE_HOSPITALS_1859-1990_Arrival_survival_and_revival
  2. 40 percent: http://the-toast.net/2016/01/12/watching-downton-abbey-with-an-historian-in-sickness-and-in-health/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/downton-abbey-and-obamacare/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/downton-abbey-and-obamacare/


Cultivating Community Composting Forum and Workshop Bring Composters Together

by Rebecca Toews | February 16, 2016 3:19 pm

ILSR and BioCycle magazine teamed up for the National Cultivating Community Composting Forum at the US Composting Council’s International Conference & Trade Show January 25-28, 2016, in Jacksonville, Florida.

More than 70 community composters from all over the US gathered in Jacksonville to discuss best practices for community composting. From bike pedallers to urban farmers and local public works and sanitation departments, experts and entrepreneurs brainstormed ways to make their businesses and organizations more effective and efficient in recovering compostable materials from the waste stream at the community level.

BEST PRACTICES IN COMMUNITY COMPOSTING WORKSHOP (View Agenda[1])

Moderated by Brenda Platt of ILSR, this half-day workshop featured community composters sharing their best practices in a peer-to-peer format. Topics included: creative financing, operator training, food scrap collection, equipment and small-scale systems, outreach and communications, cooperative structures, volunteer management, and best management practices for the compost process. Our goal was for participants to learn about other initiatives and how to adapt lessons learned to their projects.

Presentations:
  • Composting Best Management Practices[2]: James McSweeney, Compost Technical Services, Cambridge, MA
  • Composting Equipment & Systems[3]: Charlie Bayrer, NYC Compost Project at Earth Matter, @NYCzerowaste @earthmatterNY
  • Bike Collection Equipment & Systems[4]: Dustin Fedako, Compost Pedallers, @compedallers, Austin, TX
  • Volunteer & Staff Management[5]: Tim Ledlie, Manager, DPR Community Compost Cooperative at Twin Oaks Garden, on behalf of Joshua Singer, DC Department of Parks & Recreation (DPR) @dcdpr
  • Creative Financing & Fundraising[6]: Lor Holmes, Worker-Owner and General Manager at CERO Co-op, @CEROcoop, Boston
  • Master Composter Train-the-Trainer Programs[7]: Linda Bilsens, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, @ILSR, DC
  • Outreach & Telling the Story[8]: Justin Senkbeil, Co-founder, CompostNow.org, @compostnow, Raleigh, NC

 

CULTIVATING COMMUNITY COMPOSTING FORUM (View Agenda[9])

In collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle[10], the Institute for Local Self-Reliance held this Forum in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show[11], #COMPOST2016,  in Jacksonville, Florida. This was the first time the USCC’s annual conference featured Pechu Kucha-style lightning presentations followed by interactive panels of responders to spark dialogue. Community composters presented on three core topics: equipment needs, collaboration with commercial haulers and sites, and government-supported programs.

The first session featured innovative strategies to grow community composting – from the NYC Compost Project to DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation, best management practices, and why local and state government should care about community composting. The second session focused on why equipment manufacturers, commercial food waste haulers, and commercial composters should care about community composting.

Presentations:

Why Local Government Should Support Community Composting:

  • The City of New York’s Investment in Community Composting[12], Jeremy Teperman,  Project Coordinator of the NYC Compost Project hosted by Queens Botanical Garden, @queensbotanicl @NYCzerowaste
  • DC Community Compost Cooperative Network[13], Joshua Singer, Community Garden Specialist, DC Department of Parks & Recreation, Washington, DC
  • Community Equity & Access,[14] Lor Holmes, Worker-Owner and General Manager at CERO Co-op, @CEROcoop, Boston

Community Composting: Why You Should Care:

  • Recognizing Best Management Practices for Urban Compost Sites[15], Renee Crowley, Project Manager of the NYC Compost Project hosted by Lower East Side Ecology Center, @NYCzerowaste @lesecologyctr

Why Equipment Manufacturers Should Support Community Composting:

  • From Manual to Equipment-Assisted — An Evolution[16], Erik Martig, Urban and Community Composting Specialist, formerly of NYC Compost Project, GrowNYC, and founder of Composting Gowanus of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy
  • Small-Scale Systems for Community Composters: Meeting the Needs,[17] Eriks Brolis, Co-founder, Urban Farm Plans, @UrbanFarmPlans, Washington, DC

Why Commercial Haulers & Composters Should Support Community Composting

  • Working with Commercial Haulers and Composters[18] Justin Senkbeil, Co-founder, CompostNow.org, @compostnow, Raleigh, NC
  • Rural Farmer & Commercial Composter Collaborations[19], James McSweeney, Compost Technical Services, Cambridge, MA

Links to community composter blogs and other articles:

Dustin Fedako, “A Composter’s Dream” Compost Pedallers

Jorge Montezuma, “COMPOST2016: Community Composting & ReFED” (2/3/16) Soil Masons

Andrea Carter, The Falmouth Enterprise (2/6/16) Local Composter Represents Community At National Compost 2016 Conference[20]: article featuring Mary Bunker Ryther and Compost With Me

Peter Moon, O2 Compost Winter 2016 newsletter Food Waste Collection, Composting and Urban Farming [21]

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. View Agenda: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Best-Practices-in-Community-Composting-agenda-01-24-16-version-1.pdf
  2. Composting Best Management Practices: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/01-James_McSweeney_Composting-Best-Management-Practices.pdf
  3. Composting Equipment & Systems: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Charlie-Bayrer_CCC_Workshop.pdf
  4. Bike Collection Equipment & Systems: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Dustin-Fedako-Bike-Collection-Equip-and-Systems-CCC-Workshop.pdf
  5. Volunteer & Staff Management: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/04-Tim-Ledlie-Volunteer-Staff-Management.pdf
  6. Creative Financing & Fundraising: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/05-Lor-Holmes_-Creative-Financing.pdf
  7. Master Composter Train-the-Trainer Programs: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/06-Linda-Bilsens_Master-Composter-Training-.pdf
  8. Outreach & Telling the Story: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/08-Justin-Senkbeil_Outreach-and-Storytelling.pdf
  9. View Agenda: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/01/Cultivating-Community-Composting-Forum-agenda-01-22-16-version.pdf
  10. BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/
  11. USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show: http://compostingcouncil.org/compost2016/
  12. The City of New York’s Investment in Community Composting: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Jeremy-Teperman_CCC_Forum.pdf
  13. DC Community Compost Cooperative Network: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/07_Joshua-Singer_Pecha-Kucha.pdf
  14. Community Equity & Access,: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/09_Lor-Holmes_Pecha-Kucha.pdf
  15. Recognizing Best Management Practices for Urban Compost Sites: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Renee-Crowley_CCC_Forum.pdf
  16. From Manual to Equipment-Assisted — An Evolution: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/17_Erik-Martig_Pecha-Kucha.pdf
  17. Small-Scale Systems for Community Composters: Meeting the Needs,: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/19_Eriks-Brolis_Pecha-Kucha.pdf
  18. Working with Commercial Haulers and Composters: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Justin-Senkbeil_PechaKucha.pdf
  19. Rural Farmer & Commercial Composter Collaborations: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/James-McSweeney_CCC_Forum.pdf
  20. Local Composter Represents Community At National Compost 2016 Conference: http://www.capenews.net/falmouth/news/local-composter-represents-community-at-national-compost-conference/article_cc2bd08a-537d-502e-9cd9-2002ef5cc7db.html
  21. Food Waste Collection, Composting and Urban Farming : http://www.o2compost.com/page56005.aspx

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ccc2016-forum-and-workshop/


Independent Businesses Report Growing Sales and Hiring, but Policies Tilted in Favor of Large Companies Hold Them Back

by Olivia LaVecchia | February 10, 2016 10:24 am

A large national survey has found that public support for independent businesses led to brisk sales and a sharp increase in hiring in 2015, but biased policies and other obstacles are limiting their success.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.  (Feb. 10, 2016) — Independent businesses experienced healthy sales growth in 2015, buoyed by their strong community ties and growing public awareness of the benefits of locally owned businesses, according to a large national survey released today. (Download the full report.[1])

The Independent Business Survey[2], which is conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[3] in partnership with the Advocates for Independent Business[4] and is now in its 9th year, gathered data from over 3,200 independent businesses. The respondents reported brisk sales in 2015, with revenue growing an average of 6.6 percent. Among independent retailers, who comprised just under half of survey respondents, revenue increased 4.7 percent in 2015, including a 3.1 percent gain during the holiday season. These figures contrast sharply with the performance of many national retail chains, and overall holiday retail sales, which rose just 1.6 percent in December according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

This growth led to a significant increase in hiring. Overall employment at the independent businesses surveyed expanded by 5.6 percent in 2015, with more than 30 percent of respondents reporting the addition of at least one employee.

Local First initiatives are part of what’s strengthening independent businesses, the survey found. Two-thirds of respondents in cities with an active Local First, or “buy local,” campaign said that the initiative is having a noticeable positive impact on their business, citing benefits such as new customers and increased loyalty among existing customers.

About one-third of businesses in Local First cities also said that the initiative had led them to become more engaged in advocating on public policy issues, and 44 percent said that the campaign had made elected officials more aware and supportive of independent businesses.

That’s significant because the survey also found that independent businesses are facing a number of challenges, many related to public policy.

One obstacle is a lack of credit for businesses seeking to grow. The survey found that one in three independent businesses that applied for a bank loan in the last two years failed to secure one. That figure was 54 percent among minority-owned businesses, and 41 percent among young firms, whose expansion has historically been a key source of net job growth. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Download the full report.: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016_Survey_Report_FINAL.pdf
  2. Independent Business Survey: https://ilsr.org/surveys/
  3. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/
  4. Advocates for Independent Business: http://indiebizadvocates.org/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/2016-independent-business-survey/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2016-independent-business-survey/


Zapped by the Utility: 5 Reasons Raising Fixed Fees is Unfair

by John Farrell | February 5, 2016 3:47 pm

Like mine, your eyes probably glaze when you see items like “fuel cost adjustment clause,” but tucked in your monthly electric bill are two big components that matter. One is a fixed amount you pay to be connected to the grid every month. The second is a variable portion is based on what you use.

Your utility—like those in Reading, CA; Lincoln, NE[1]; or Indianapolis[2]—may already be planning to shift more of your bill to the fixed portion, undercutting your power to reduce your energy costs.

There are five reasons this shift isn’t fair or reasonable.

1. Economics 101: The Wrong Incentives

When fixed charges rise, customers have a smaller portion of the bill they can control. This reduces the financial incentive to reduce energy use, because energy savings won’t result in significant cost reductions. It reduces the incentive for customers to produce their own energy, again because energy savings won’t be rewarded. It’s particularly hard on customers with fixed incomes[3].

It also changes the utility’s incentive. With more fixed charges, main[4]utilities can make costly investments in un-needed new power plants, because customers can’t avoid those costs by reducing their energy use. It discourages more efficient deployment of infrastructure. Evidence from regional grid operators shows this is already happening, with the ratio between peak energy demand and the average energy demand [5]growing[6], meaning many power plants are lying idle much of the year, waiting for the few periods of very high energy use.

2. Economics 101: The Myth of Cost-Price Symmetry

Utilities have suggested that because they have high fixed costs, they should have high fixed fees. But few other industries work this way, because of the wrong incentives it creates (see #1). The post office encourages efficient use of the mail system by charging per letter based on weight, not per customer, a policy that would make little distinction between Grandma Josie sending a birthday card to her grandson or Netflix mailing 100,000 DVDs. Starbucks charges more based on the complexity of the beverage, not $5 to enter the store. Both of these businesses have high fixed costs for employees, premises, and equipment. High fixed charges would create an unfair shift in costs to occasional users, who incur minimal costs.

This slideshow illustrates the absurdity of fixed cost = fixed price.

Zapped by the Utility: What if other industries could shock consumers like electric utilities? from John Farrell[7]

3. Abuse of Monopoly

One major distinction between Netflix or Starbucks and your electric utility is that the latter is likely a monopoly. This government-sanctioned market power means that, unlike competitive business, its customers can’t switch to a different electric company when they’re treated unfairly. As a monopoly, the electric company has a responsibility to the public interest, and that does not include a pricing structure that is unfair, and that reduces incentives for wise behavior.

4. Energy Producers Add Value

An increasing number of electric customers are producing their own energy, usually from solar. These customers sharply reduce their electricity consumption, reducing payments to the utility. In response, utilities seek higher fixed fees to guarantee higher payments from these customers. But utilities are ignoring the value of this energy. Numerous “value of solar” studies [8]have shown that the total benefits from solar-producing customers outweighs the cost to the utility, and often that the value of solar energy—produced at time of costly peak energy use and close to where energy is consumed—is more than the producer is receiving.

Using higher fixed fees is unfair to solar producers and non-solar customers who receive the economic benefits of having more distributed solar on the electric grid.

5. It’s Short-Sighted

Despite clear financial and economic reasons to avoid fixed fees, utilities that increase them are also undermining their long-term interest. When customers have reduced flexibility and choice to reduce their energy costs, they will necessarily seek alternatives. And if higher fixed fees reduce the incentive to conserve or install grid-connected solar, lower battery costs in the next few years may encourage[9] customers[10] to disconnect entirely, exacerbating the utility’s revenue problem.

What’s the Fair and Reasonable Price Model?

There are a number of options for utility regulators to align pricing and incentives in a way that covers system costs and makes the grid more efficient.

  • Use time-varying pricing, so that customers pay more for energy when it actually costs more to produce.
  • Give/sell customers tools to shift their electricity use and reduce their costs and grid costs.
  • Consider market-based approaches, even within monopoly markets, by setting appropriate prices for distributed energy or demand response (e.g. paying customers to not use energy when it’s in high demand).

Want to learn more? See this article on the future of utility rate design [11]and a report from the Regulatory Assistance Project suggesting the optimum design for residential electricity pricing includes a low fixed charge, time-of-use pricing, and inclining block rates[12]. Finally, this report from Synapse Energy[13] contains great charts near the end on the impact of fixed charges.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[14]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[15] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[16] update.

Photo credit: Timothy Vogel via Flickr[17] (CC BY-NC 2.0 license)

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Endnotes:
  1. Lincoln, NE: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/nebraska-municipal-utilities-move-to-increase-fixed-charges/411061/
  2. Indianapolis: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060020220
  3. customers with fixed incomes: http://states.aarp.org/proposals-to-increase-monthly-fixed-charges-on-electricity-bills-discourage-conservation-and-unfairly-penalize-low-income-consumers/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/main.png
  5. the ratio between peak energy demand and the average energy demand : http://www.utilitydive.com/news/tong-and-wellinghoff-why-fixed-charges-are-a-false-fix-to-the-utility-indu/364428/
  6. growing: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/tong-and-wellinghoff-why-fixed-charges-are-a-false-fix-to-the-utility-indu/364428/
  7. John Farrell: //www.slideshare.net/farrell-ilsr
  8. Numerous “value of solar” studies : http://environmentamerica.org/sites/environment/files/reports/EA_shiningrewards_print.pdf
  9. encourage: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Fixed-Charges-May-Cause-Grid-Defection
  10. customers: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10905624/utilities-rooftop-solar-storage
  11. the future of utility rate design : http://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-future-of-rate-design-why-the-utility-industry-may-shift-away-from-fix/409504/
  12. a low fixed charge, time-of-use pricing, and inclining block rates: http://www.raponline.org/document/download/id/7842
  13. this report from Synapse Energy: http://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/Caught-in-a-Fix.pdf
  14. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  15. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  16. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  17. via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vogelium/3170524207/in/photolist-6vZc1Y-C6aPuB-5QaLot-4APGiH-8eJf8s-9gR8UT-eLdjxq-9gUeML-aNd3tz-NnwTu-nJK1nJ-7XYLAk-paCn2j-6QQ4e4-9omJ43-eLdm51-eL1Wn4-eLdjLh-eL1V48-jwdHDE-47fHWL-dJSDja-ceEQCb-eLdjyo-eL1Vve-itLZS2-o8gAXJ-8uhjbL-8eJf9u-78Nh9i-c4mcFo-c4mcCW-c4mcAy-6pvhkR-c4mcRq-6pzr21-c4mcNL-6RZTcz-c4mcLu-dN29cz-su1A3x-paCLKE-dGibfv-dGitMi-eiHfDz-8B53TV-3vtS91-9eZCTn-mUBaEH-3vpnrR

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/zapped-5-reasons-raising-fixed-fees-is-unfair/


Seniors, Low-Income, Disabled Communities Pay the Price in St. Paul

by ILSR | February 1, 2016 11:02 am

For seniors, low-income residents, and the disabled in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a Comcast discount within the city’s franchise agreement is not all it was cracked up to be. The Pioneer Press recently reported[1] that, as eligible subscribers seek the ten percent discount guaranteed by the agreement, they are finding the devil is in the details – or lack of them.

This is a warning to those who attempt to negotiate with Comcast for better service. Comcast may make deals that it knows are unenforceable.

“No Discount For You!”

For years, Comcast held the only franchise agreement with the city of St. Paul. In 2015, the city entered into a new agreement with the cable provider and, as in the past, the provider agreed to offer discounts for low-income and senior subscribers. Such concessions are common because a franchise agreement gives a provider easy access to a pool of subscribers.

It seems like a fair deal, but where there is a way to squirm out of a commitment, Comcast will wriggle its way out.

Comcast is refusing to provide the discount when subscribers bundle services, which are typically offered at reduced prices. Because the contract is silent on the issue of combining discounts, the city of approximately 298,000 has decided it will not challenge Comcast’s interpretation:

The company notes that the ten percent senior discount applies only to the cable portion of a customer’s bill. Comcast has maintained that it is under no legal obligation to combine discounts or promotions, and that bundled services provide a steeper discount anyway.

Subscribers who want to take advantage of the discounts will have to prove their senior status and/or their low-income status. In order to do so, Comcast representatives have been requesting a copy of a driver’s license or state issued i.d.

CenturyLink Picks Up the Baton

In November, the city approved an additional franchise agreement with competitor CenturyLink. That agreement also provides that seniors, low-income households, and disabled residents are eligible to receive a ten percent discount. CenturyLink can, in the alternative, offer a discount of $5 off a subscriber’s cable bill if a subscriber applies for the low-income discount. In order to receive this discount, the subscriber must prove they are enrolled in a public assistance program. CenturyLink is not compelled to provide both the $5 reduction and the ten percent discount under the terms of the agreement.

The CenturyLink contract states that bundling discounts will not forfeit the $5 discount but does not say the same for the alternative ten percent discount.

centurylink-seeks-apartment-buildings-for-gigabit-in-portland

Seniors on the Chopping Block

Discounts for low-income seniors are at risk in the CenturyLink contract reports the Pioneer Press. The contract offers the company an “out” by allowing it to exchange a senior discount to residents for free gigabit per second (Gbps) service at centralized locations. Rather than offering a ten percent discount to senior subscribers at their homes, CenturyLink can provide the high-speed connectivity to two St. Paul senior centers or to one senior center and a community center and present two training session per year on using the Internet.

My own parents, who are elderly and leave the house less frequently than they have in the past, depend on their Internet connection to stay in touch with their kids. A number of elderly folks are lower-income. Ten percent, a modest sum to a profit machine like Comcast, could be the tipping point for whether or not elderly people living on fixed incomes subscribe.

Would I rather have Mom trudging through the St. Paul snow to wait in line at the senior center to Skype in a noisy room filled with other seniors? No. Will Mom go to the senior center? Probably not. This trade-off is not equitable.

When You’re All Lawyered Up, It’s Easy to Break Promises

As franchise agreements expire[2] across the country, communities like St. Paul will be negotiating new contracts or considering other options[3]. Companies like Comcast and CenturyLink, backed by armies of lawyers, have turned backhanded negotiating into an art form. Cities like St. Paul employ smart, capable attorneys, but telecommunications is highly specialized; few communities have legal staff experienced in this field.

Lose The Big Companies, Gain Control

Contrary to the typical behavior of Comcast and CenturyLink, publicly owned networks have a history of lowering prices or increasing speeds[4] for free. When we ask why, decision makers usually tell us they make the change because it’s good for the community. Subscribers are the shareholders when a network is publicly owned.

Communities that invest in municipal networks shake off dependence on big providers like Comcast and CenturyLink. By investing in their own infrastructure, they spur economic development[5], save public dollars, and become more self-reliant.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. recently reported: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_29161162/st-pauls-comcast-centurylink-cable-deals-clarified-sort
  2. franchise agreements expire: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/small-city-fights-comcast-over-institutional-network
  3. other options: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/bar-harbor-maine-studies-muni-fiber-replace-time-warner-cable-franchise
  4. lowering prices or increasing speeds: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/lighttube-lowers-price-gig-increases-speeds-free-again
  5. economic development: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  6. here: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/seniors-low-income-disabled-communities-pay-price-st-paul

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/seniors-low-income-disabled-communities-pay-the-price-in-st-paul/


New Fossil Fuel Power Plants: Assets or Liabilities?

by John Farrell | January 28, 2016 4:35 pm

In any conversation about the transition to a renewable energy economy, solar and wind advocates will eventually come up against the term “stranded assets.” It’s a misleading term, usually deployed in defense of legacy fossil fuel power plants (and their owners).

But as times change, “stranded assets” can be redefined and in the next few years it could become a powerful tool for advancing a 100% renewable energy future.

Defining a Stranded Asset

An asset is something you have of value, like a house or a car. In the power sector, it can mean a power plant, a substation, or a power line. “Stranding” an asset means shutting it down either a) before the end of its scheduled life or b) before you’ve finished paying for it, like scrapping a 5-year old car. Under threat of scrapping power plants built 5, 15, or even 50 years ago, utilities warn regulators of the cost of “stranded assets.”

But defending old, dirty power plants as “stranded assets” uses accounting terminology to paper over the tension between the interests of a utility interests and its customers.

Shuttering Old “Assets”

SC_IG_Part01[1]Take a coal power plant, for example. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity it produces, it also generates these negative outputs:

  • 7,200 Btu of wasted heat
  • 3.9¢ in health damages just in Appalachia,
  • 13.3¢ in air pollution, mercury, and climate damage
  • 0.8¢ in damages from destroyed land, abandoned mines, mercury emissions, transportation fatalities, and subsidies

Cumulatively, the Harvard School of Public Health estimates the environmental and health burden adds 18¢ per kilowatt-hour of power[2]—$345 billion per year in total—far outstripping the cost to produce the electricity. For comparison, a new coal power plant produces electricity alone for a minimum of 6.5¢ per kilowatt-hour, while wind power (with none of the health and environmental damage) produces power for 4-8¢ per kilowatt-hour.

In other words, the full cost of energy from a coal power plant far outstrips the value of its electricity. In accounting speak, a power plant that produces more costs than benefits could be characterized as a “liability.”

Uncovering Old Liabilities

Utilities defend these liabilities with arguments that millions (maybe billions) of dollars were spent to build and upgrade these power plant to be marginally more efficient and marginally less polluting. And recovering those costs requires running that coal plant until the end of its scheduled life (40, 50, 60 years or more). Debts were incurred, suggest utility executives, and today’s electric customer is bound to pay them or risk stranding these power plant “assets”.infographic-image4[3]

Of course, utilities don’t pay most of the costs mentioned above, so in their narrow view a coal plant can be considered an asset even as it remains a major liability to the average electric customer.

Furthermore, the assumption that electric customers should be on the hook for these legacy costs assumes that they were rational at the time. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that investments made in coal power plants, even decades ago, were bad bets. The evidence includes:

  • The availability of less expensive expensive power from energy efficiency[4].
  • The growing body of scientific knowledge since the 1970s showing that climate change is near and present danger.
  • The 1970 Clean Air Act and its 1990 amendments reducing the amount of allowable pollution from power plants.
  • Economically competitive clean energy alternatives like large scale wind power that has been price competitive with fossil fuel generation since the late 1990s (p58).
  • Economically competitive large and small scale renewable power generation[5] in the past 10 years (including wind and solar) that costs less in pennies per kilowatt-hour but also billions less in environmental and health damages.

Decisions to invest more customer dollars in these power plants in the past 20 years were irresponsible in light of the available alternatives.

In other words, legacy fossil fuel power plants are not assets, but liabilities, and electric customers are better off if utilities close them down and replace them with inexpensive, less polluting energy sources.

The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign[6] has been very successful by getting utilities to admit that their old coal fired power plants are liabilities that should be shuttered.

Building New Fossil Fuel Liabilities

Unfortunately, in the past fifteen years, utilities have largely replaced this coal-fired power with natural gas[7].

us new power plant capacity 2003-15 ILSR[8]

While marginally cleaner to burn than coal, these new power plants are at risk of becoming liabilities just as their coal-fired predecessors, in 4 ways.

For one, the total carbon footprint of natural gas power plants may be the same, because methane leakage during extraction may eliminate the relatively lower carbon emissions during combustion. New laws restricting carbon emissions will result in compliance costs that power plant owners will pass on to electric customers.

Second, the cost of renewable energy resources has been falling rapidly (wind by 61%, solar by 82% since 2009[9]) and wind is already less costly than new baseload natural gas power. If utilities have to sell this power in competitive markets, their power plants will be unable to compete. If not, they are being poor stewards of their captive customers’ resources when they have less expensive generation options.

Third, new gas power plants put the risk of fuel price volatility onto electric customers, who have these costs passed through directly onto their bills. Natural gas prices are at historic lows, but there’s little guarantee that will last the 40-year life of the power plant.

natural gas prices for electricity generation ilsr[10]

Finally, as the world moves toward meaningful action to combat climate change, the 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 will cut off the useful economic life of new fossil fuel power plants. After 2050, it will be nearly impossible to meet emissions targets and still be operating any fossil fuel electricity generation. A natural gas plant approved in 2016 might come online in 2017 at the earliest. The 33 years between then and 2050 are already seven years less than utilities typically plan for a “useful economic life.” In other words, a new proposed fossil fuel power plant is already a stranded asset if the utility has not shortened the useful economic life (a calculation that would likely make the power plant uneconomic).

This issue is coming up all across the country as monopoly utilities file their 15-year resource plans. A perfect example is Xcel Energy in Minnesota, seeking to replace much of the generating capacity from two old coal plants[11] with new natural gas plants. (We’ve already sent their president an open letter[12] asking them to identify a better replacement option).

For existing power plants, “stranding” assets may make the utility balance sheet look worse, but it can be the best thing for the health and welfare of the public. For financiers of new power plants, it’s unlikely to be economical to finance a new fossil fuel power plant ever again.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[13]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[14] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[15] update.

Photo credit: Ross Catrow via Flickr[16] (CC BY-SA 2.0 license), text added.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SC_IG_Part01.png
  2. the environmental and health burden adds 18¢ per kilowatt-hour of power: http://www.chgeharvard.org/resource/explore-true-costs-coal
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/infographic-image4.png
  4. less expensive expensive power from energy efficiency: http://slideplayer.com/slide/5898067/
  5. Economically competitive large and small scale renewable power generation: https://www.lazard.com/media/1777/levelized_cost_of_energy_-_version_80.pdf
  6. Beyond Coal campaign: http://content.sierraclub.org/coal/
  7. largely replaced this coal-fired power with natural gas: https://ilsr.org/ilsrs-distributed-solar-capacity-quarterly-update/
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/us-new-power-plant-capacity-2003-15-ILSR.jpg
  9. wind by 61%, solar by 82% since 2009: https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-90.pdf
  10. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/natural-gas-prices-for-electricity-generation-ilsr.jpg
  11. generating capacity from two old coal plants: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/02/xcel-sherco-shutdown-plans
  12. letter: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Community-Power-letter-to-Chris-Clark-on-IRP-supplement-2016-01261.pdf
  13. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  14. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  15. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  16. via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/maxpower/5099650062/in/photolist-8LD3i5-av9Vpk-av9Vtn-av9Vqx-aoVR5c-sabuUd-p4KhNs-soz5tQ-bT8vyg-6ETSuE-mqCWQQ-7oxFYr-ygBT7u-4ZfiSf-dzaWEp-qx55NP-9zD2Xn-6NoP2n-8wKJWA-bkjpVB-5VDfn8-9ciRfV-7Abh3w-7zAst1-b9271F-dAyagC-8WCdvE-vP4zF-2dVL6V-6wRGZU-8ZVfk-5WnjeB-6Ku7UK-CfHscq-g7RK3f-duZS5d-6rHPUv-eP8wta-efb85C-o6MrBj-pVG6pw-bDwtQM-CfHFCo-7jLuTp-uMVPFB-Ar3gKk-5UoY69-CduZck-cHenG5-oZKG4J

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-fossil-fuel-power-plants-assets-or-liabilities/


David Morris Interviewed on KFAI’s Truth To Tell Radio Show

by Nick Stumo-Langer | January 21, 2016 12:47 pm

In 2014, on ILSR’s 40th anniversary co-founder David Morris sat down with Siobhan Kierans and Tom O’Connell, co-hosts of TruthToTell[1], a weekly public affairs program on KFAI radio in Minneapolis to talk about our history, our approach and our decentralist perspective.

 

TruthToTell Description:

AIRING MONDAYS @ 9:00 a.m., TruthToTell is produced by CivicMedia/Minnesota as part of KFAI’s public affairs programming schedule.  TruthToTell delves into issues often not covered in depth by other regional news and public affairs outlets and too often not with the goal of engaging citizens in resolving the critical state, local, and regional issues they face day-to-day. Stream KFAI Live here[2].

 

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Endnotes:
  1. TruthToTell: http://www.kfai.org/truthtotell
  2. here: http://www.kfai.org/sites/default/stream/jplayer.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/david-morris-interviewed-on-kfais-truth-to-tell-radio-show/


Just How Democratic are Rural Electric Cooperatives?

by Matt Grimley | January 13, 2016 2:30 pm

Randy Wilson knew you had to start somewhere.

Knocking on doors and hanging around retail store parking lots, he and volunteers from the citizen group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth[1] collected signatures. After weeks of holding out clipboards, they collected the more than 500 signatures needed to run for the board of the Jackson Energy Cooperative in Appalachian Kentucky.

It was unprecedented for Wilson in 2009 to challenge a sitting board member. Never in the cooperative’s 71-year history had a board member run opposed.

“The conversation needed to be had,” says Wilson, a folk musician, educator and first-time politician. His picture turned up on the front page of the newspaper. His voice reverberated on the local radio show. He spoke to his platform of financing energy efficiency improvements on the electricity bill (known in energy policy circles as on-bill financing), and moving the local economy past its dependency on coal to alternative energy sources like solar.

Wilson notes that he had a challenge getting his message to resonate with the cooperative’s membership.

“People didn’t say anything about, ‘We gotta save our coal miners,’” he says. “They never said that, nor did they say anything about the environment. Not neither of those was on their mind. The only thing on their mind was that damned electric bill.”

The cooperative’s annual meeting, where the election for board of directors was held, was more of a festival[2], so as to encourage participation. Cooperative member-owners dished up plates of food. A band played gospel music. Teenagers accepted scholarships for college. Co-op staff passed out energy-efficient light bulbs. An antique car show revved up with almost a hundred participants. A skydiver jumped out overhead with one of the world’s largest American flags trailing behind him. Civil war re-creators fired off cannons[3].

firing cannons[4]

At the end, Wilson wasn’t surprised that he lost the election 740 votes to 151. Less than two percent of members turned out to vote. But the use of “proxy” votes made a huge impression on him. Mostly used at corporate shareholder meetings, proxy votes allow one member to delegate his or her voting ability to another member. In the case of Wilson and Jackson Energy, the electric cooperative had collected hundreds of proxy votes from its members, then handed them to other members present at the meeting, telling them to vote as they saw fit (meaning, for the incumbent).

There’s no blame in Wilson’s voice, only laughter. He knows the cooperative’s board of directors was scared.

“It was all new to them,” says Wilson about the election. “Nobody had really spoken. It had all been cut and dry before.”

The Roots of Democracy

Incumbents running unopposed, questionable election procedures, low turnout: for many cooperatives, Wilson’s story is not unusual.

It wasn’t always this way. Conceived during the violent winds of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, electric cooperatives — like many other rural cooperatives — were a way for rural people to band together and better their lives. Formed from five-dollar contributions from prospective members, electric cooperatives went where investor-owned utilities wouldn’t, stringing wires into the rural and rustic corners of America. With cooperatives, profits don’t go to distant shareholders. They go to local members, who own the very business that sells them electricity.

Today, there are some 900 electric cooperatives serving 13 percent of the population, and span about three-quarters of the nation’s land.

With democratic control, cooperatives have the potential to be very responsive to member interests. Roanoke Electric Cooperative (REC) in North Carolina recently undertook an on-bill financing program to help their low-income members save energy and money[5] while paying for energy efficiency measures on their monthly bills (what Randy Wilson was proposing for his cooperative). Farmer’s Electric Cooperative (FEC) in Iowa employs more solar energy per capita than other utility in the nation[6]. The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) in Hawai’i guided the cooperative to attain close to 40 percent of its energy from renewable resources[7] while stabilizing sky-high electric rates.

But even for these progressive cooperatives, voter turnout ranges from not-so-good to not-good-at-all, according to voting data acquired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. From 2006 to 2011:

  • Roanoke member-owners voted for their board with an average turnout of 4 percent;
  • 17 percent of member-owners turned-out for Farmer’s Electric board elections;
  • Kauai maintained a 31 percent voter turnout, among the highest rates in the nation.

In all, according to research from ILSR, more than 70 percent of cooperatives have voter turnouts of less than 10 percent (including Wilson’s Jackson Energy Cooperative, which averages just under 3 percent turnout).

low turnout for rural electric cooperative board elections ILSR[8]

Low member turnouts come at a harrowing time for electric cooperatives and the energy industry. Electric sales are stagnating[9]. Distributed energy such as rooftop solar is becoming cheaper[10] and more pervasive. Electric cooperatives, mostly dependent on coal for power, will face higher costs[11] from the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan if they attempt to hew to the status quo.

Assuming Ignorance (or Apathy)

The low turnout for cooperative elections could be lumped with historically lower turnout in federal election turnouts. Municipal election turnouts are even worse, according to a University of Wisconsin study[12]. But compared to both of these, electric cooperative voting rates are still low.

lower turnout for rural electric cooperative board elections than many other elections ILSR[13]

Rory McIlmoil, a Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation member-owner and energy policy director at Appalachian Voices[14], says cooperative members usually don’t play an active role in utility affairs. He suspects it’s “mostly due to the fact the co-op members don’t quite understand what their rights and responsibilities are as member-owners of the utility.”

Typically, jobs and families come before bill savings and energy policy. Co-op members really only get involved when it hits them at home, and hits them hard.

Jan TenBruggencate, the board chair of the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative[15], says that interest and turnout spikes when electricity prices are too high, or there’s a contentious issue. The utility’s turnouts—almost the highest among cooperatives—run from the low 20s to 43 percent, but KIUC’s own surveys suggest that more co-op members claim to have voted than actually do.

“As board members, it would be convenient to believe that turnout is low because people believe we’re doing a good job,” he wrote in an email. “Another option is that turnout is low because folks are frustrated and don’t feel they can make a difference. Or that they simply don’t understand the mechanics of the utility business and don’t feel competent to select a candidate. Or perhaps candidates don’t do enough to distinguish themselves. Lots of possibilities.”

Geography further worsens the matter of cooperative-member connection. Small, remote cooperatives such as KIUC or those in Alaska typically have higher voter turnout, in the 20 to 30 percent range, while those focused around populated metropolitan areas tend to have lower turnouts, often lower than five percent.

larger electric cooperatives have lower election turnout ILSR[16]

Many electric cooperatives, started to serve rural areas, now serve growing, spread-out swaths of suburbs. Many members don’t even know they are members. One cooperative organizer (preferring to be anonymous) suggests that voting rates aren’t that much different from other credit unions and other cooperatives, such as REI or Land O’Lakes.

“The trend seems to be,” the organizer continued in an email, “the less important co-ops make themselves [relevant] to their constituents’ understandings of their lives and their interests, the less likely those members will vote or engage with the co-op outside of the commodity transactions.”

In all, according to research from the Filene Research Institute[17] and others, only one to five percent of worldwide cooperative members participate by voting in their cooperative elections.

An Alternative Explanation: Malicious Intent

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, several electric cooperatives in the South suppressed voter turnout, gouged members with high electric rates, and abused their power. The Co-op Democracy Project organized against them, helping to empower a mostly black membership to gain seats on mostly white boards of directors. The group had some success, but the anchors of local incumbency, burdened with difficult-to-access meetings, elections, and voting requirements, were often too heavy for members to lift. From the link above:

“[Electric cooperative] boards perpetuated their rule by manipulating election bylaws and by using co-op resources to gather proxy votes and ballots for themselves sometimes offering green stamps or even cash prizes in return for proxies. No one, not even [Rural Utilities Service, the federal funder of electric cooperatives] officials in Washington, appeared willing to stop them. Unchallenged, with co-op members purportedly uninterested in operations, these men simply reappointed themselves year after year.”

Since then, the political process at most electric cooperatives remains unchanged. Nominating committees made of board-nominated members still act as arbiters for candidates to run for the board. Proxy voting is still used among some electric cooperatives (though, according to anecdotes, not in food cooperatives or credit unions). These detours add to a sometimes tortuous nomination and election process, full of obscure waiting times and petition requirements, that allow the utility and its board to swing votes toward incumbents. The graphic below explains the process, also shown in the text underneath the graphic.

Rural Electric Cooperative Voting Graphic[18]

So you want to run for your electric cooperative’s board of directors? Following these steps might not be so easy.

    • Step 1: Review your electric cooperative’s bylaws. These contain the election information you need. But even in the digital age, co-op bylaws can sometimes be hard to find online.
    • Step 2: Find out if board of director seats are open in your region. District maps might not be available or current, as one Kentuckians for the Commonwealth member found out. His cooperative told him he no longer lived in the open-seat district. After the election was held, the district maps reverted back, placing him within the district he had supposedly not been in.
  • Step 3: Get on the ballot. Usually, current directors make a nominating committee of other members to nominate candidates to recruit or choose from a pool of applications. The nominating committees act as arbiters of candidates, acting within an obtuse range of dates. Petitions can bypass these committees, but the amount of signatures needed varies significantly by cooperative. St. Croix Electric Cooperative requires only 15 signatures about a month before election, whereas Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative requires 250 signatures. Other cooperatives have and do require more.
    • Step 4: Get your name out. You have to reach co-op members, many who don’t realize they have a vote at all. As Randy Wilson’s election run[19] showed, it can be difficult running against an incumbent with strong community ties.
  • Step 5: Hope for votes at the annual meeting. Some cooperatives only vote by mail. Some break ties by flipping a coin. Others employ a variety of voting methods[20]. But beware the proxy vote, whereby members (or appointed committees) can apportion votes how they see fit.

The use of proxies may explain Missouri’s Citizen’s Electric Corporation, which had turnout regularly above 90 percent in our data, more than double the next highest. Its cooperative policy[21] brings a clue. If a member has ever used a proxy voter ballot (to allow a board member to vote on their behalf), but didn’t return a ballot in the current election, a board committee is empowered to cast a vote in their name. The member, therefore, may have her vote cast without her express permission.

When carried to extremes, these policies have resulted in the worst cases of electric cooperative abuse. Un-democratic cooperative boards have allowed paid managers to run effectively unchecked. At Choctaw Electric Cooperative in Oklahoma, the board of trustees raised member bills by as much as $150 per year[22], gave the CEO a gift of $2.1 million and allowed him to use cooperative heavy equipment for personal use. With a highly compensated board, the former CEO of the Cobb Electric Membership Cooperative in Georgia defrauded his cooperative out of millions of dollars to fund his own side-businesses and a proposed coal plant. Since 2009, at least 14 lawsuits[23] have been brought against 12 other electric cooperatives that have failed to refund capital credits to their members.

But more than the prevention of the occasional, heinous scandal, electric cooperatives are simply in need of new blood to bring the cooperative up-to-date with current energy industry trends. Board members are usually old, white, and male, with incumbencies that stretch back years if not decades. Their jobs are usually less than half-time but pay anywhere from a few thousand dollars to more than $50,000[24] per year. That money is often a huge difference for rural places often without much other opportunity. Some folks simply want the job for pay and prestige of running an institution that serves as a cornerstone of the local community.

“Most electric co-ops are boys’ clubs that re-elect the same people, that develop policies that favor their children or their buddies,” says Tom “Smitty” Smith of the consumer rights advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen. Most states, Smitty adds, still believe in the myth of member-led rule and don’t regulate electric cooperatives at all (the following map illustrates state electric cooperative regulation as of 2008).

state oversight of electric cooperatives 2008 ILSR[25]

The electric cooperative has become increasingly obscure, and members, without realizing it, are losing control of the organization they own.

Democracy Reclaimed?

About a decade ago, says Smitty, the Pedernales Electric Cooperative was in trouble.

It started when a Pedernales member wanted information on how to upgrade his home with rooftop solar. Finding that the cooperative had no such program, he wanted to talk to the board, but he couldn’t get board member names. Everything, he soon found, was off limits to him, from board meetings to utility records. (FYI, it seems this anonymous member detailed everything in a pretty good documentary.)

Scandal ensued when a group of members and local newspapers dug deeper. It turned out that the Pedernales manager was stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars[26], and the board was deeply complicit and richly compensated.

Through bad press, pressure from legislators, and lawsuits, the board and management were forced out. Reform candidates were elected. A member bill of rights was passed, opening up the elections, nominations, and giving members full access to records and meetings for the first time.

The new board members formalized goals for 30 percent renewable energy in power capacity by 2020 and new energy efficiency savings. On the other hand, more conservative board members also passed through a fixed charge on the members and blocked rebate programs for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Other cooperatives across the nation continue to expand voting and open records policies. Georgia Watch, a consumer protection advocacy group, even made a helpful study and checklist[27] to determine if an electric cooperative is truly democratic.

Other cooperatives expanded voting and open records policies. At Kauai’s cooperative, in particular, the assurance for the democratic process has been extensive.

“We promote all candidates with campaign videos posted on our website,” board chairperson TenBruggencate says. “We publish an election guide. We have supported community candidate forums in some years. We have purchased advertising about the election. And we have made voting as easy as possible. We allow voting by phone, via internet, by mail and people can drop off ballots at our offices. The election is run and ballots are counted by an independent outside agency.”

Increased engagement at KIUC has helped soothe the strain of high electric bills, integrate record levels of rooftop solar, and bring innovative new projects in line with the members’ will, including a potential pumped hydro plant[28] and the nation’s first utility-scale solar-plus-storage plant[29].

“Electric cooperatives need to stay in touch with their members,” TenBruggencate says. “Higher voter turnout gives directors indication of which platforms are resonating with those members. It can be used to provide strategic direction for the cooperative. An engaged membership will recognize threats to the cooperative, and help bring resources to bear to solve problems.”

Back in Kentucky at Jackson Energy Cooperative, Randy Wilson’s landslide loss wasn’t for naught. Proxy votes were outlawed[30] shortly after the election. On-bill financing was instituted at the cooperative in 2010 as part of a pilot program with MACED. In 2013, an incumbent board member was defeated by a newcomer.

Change can happen at electric cooperatives. Wilson knows this. He remembers from the day of his election attempt, when he informed an election official that people were cutting in line to use their proxy votes.

“He said, ‘I guarantee this will not happen again,’” says Wilson. “I was warmed by his respect. I kind of hugged him… I didn’t feel any competitiveness.”

For more information, see ILSR’s other posts on rural electric cooperatives:

  • Did FERC Just Smash the Biggest Roadblock to Clean, Local Power for Electric Co-ops?[31]
  • Why Aren’t Rural Electric Cooperatives Champions of Local Clean Power?[32]
  • A $6 Billion Opportunity for the Rural Energy Economy[33]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[34]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[35] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[36] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth: http://www.kftc.org/
  2. more of a festival: http://www.rockcastlelibrary.org/libraryarchives/mvsignal/2009/MVS20090702B03.pdf
  3. fired off cannons: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/35268593/spotlight-jackson-energy-cooperative
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/firing-cannons.png
  5. an on-bill financing program to help their low-income members save energy and money: http://www.roanokeelectric.com/usda-eeclp
  6. more solar energy per capita than other utility in the nation: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  7. close to 40 percent of its energy from renewable resources: http://website.kiuc.coop/content/renewable-energy-projects
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/low-turnout-for-rural-electric-cooperative-board-elections-ILSR.jpeg
  9. stagnating: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/is-strong-electric-sales-growth-ever-coming-back/296987/
  10. rooftop solar is becoming cheaper: https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/tracking-sun-viii-install
  11. higher costs: https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-34190607-15142
  12. University of Wisconsin study: http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-voter-turnout-municipal-elections.html
  13. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/lower-turnout-for-rural-electric-cooperative-board-elections-than-many-other-elections-ILSR.jpeg
  14. Appalachian Voices: http://appvoices.org/
  15. Kauai Island Utility Cooperative: http://website.kiuc.coop/
  16. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/larger-electric-cooperatives-have-lower-election-turnout-ILSR.jpeg
  17. Filene Research Institute: https://filene.org/blog/post/strengthening-association-cooperative-success
  18. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/REC-Voting-Graphic-Final.png
  19. Randy Wilson’s election run: http://www.appalachiantransition.org/randy-wilson-s-story/
  20. a variety of voting methods: https://www.blueridgeemc.com/elections-and-voting
  21. cooperative policy: http://www.cecmo.com/content/board-directors#Proxy
  22. the board of trustees raised member bills by as much as $150 per year: http://www.hugonews.com/cec-petition-group-continues-gather-signatures-removal-board/
  23. 14 lawsuits: http://www.sutherland.com/NewsCommentary/Legal-Alerts?find=152035&printTo=pdfwd&pagePath=NewsCommentary%2FLegal-Alerts&preferredSection=
  24. more than $50,000: http://www.baldwinemc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014-Form-990.pdf
  25. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/state-oversight-of-electric-cooperatives-2008-ILSR.jpg
  26. stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars: http://kut.org/post/former-pedernales-electric-cooperative-manager-guilty-felony-theft
  27. a helpful study and checklist: http://www.georgiawatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/GEORGIA-EMCs_Report-on-IRS-Compliance-and-Transparency.pdf
  28. pumped hydro plant: http://kiuc.coopwebbuilder2.com/sites/kiuc/files/PDF/presentations/2015-0528-pumpedstorage.pdf
  29. solar-plus-storage plant: http://kiuc.coopwebbuilder2.com/sites/kiuc/files/PDF/pr/pr2015-0909-solar.pdf
  30. Proxy votes were outlawed: http://psc.ky.gov/pscecf/2013-00219/markkeene@jacksonenergy.com/08302013073256/JacksonEnergy_R-PSCDR1_083013.pdf
  31. Did FERC Just Smash the Biggest Roadblock to Clean, Local Power for Electric Co-ops?: https://ilsr.org/did-ferc-just-smash-the-biggest-roadblock-to-clean-local-power-for-electric-co-ops/
  32. Why Aren’t Rural Electric Cooperatives Champions of Local Clean Power?: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-cooperatives-champions-local-clean-power/
  33. A $6 Billion Opportunity for the Rural Energy Economy: https://ilsr.org/6-billion-opportunity-rural-energy-economy/
  34. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  35. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  36. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/just-how-democratic-are-rural-electric-cooperatives/


New Studies Reveal 5 Reasons Policymakers Should Prioritize Local Business in 2016

by Olivia LaVecchia | January 12, 2016 10:01 am

It’s the season of resolutions, and creating a better environment for locally owned businesses to succeed ought to be near the top of every elected official’s list of priorities.

That’s the suggestion of a raft of recent research from prominent economists, sociologists, and other researchers, which finds that small, local businesses are critical to overcoming many of our biggest challenges, from reducing economic inequality to building resilient communities.

Here’s a roundup of the new studies that give five compelling reasons for policymakers to focus on local business in 2016.

 

1. Fewer new businesses are starting, and that’s bad news for long-term job creation.

Employment is finally on the rebound, but high rates of underemployment and minimal wage growth suggest all is not well in the U.S. job market.  One disturbing trend may be to blame: the creation of new businesses has fallen sharply.

While startups accounted for 16 percent of all businesses in the late 1970s, that share has fallen by half, to 8 percent, explains a new brief[1] from the Kauffman Foundation. The brief also explains why that’s so troubling. The authors round up the recent research on firm age and job creation, and find that young firms are the major contributor of new jobs to the U.S. economy.

“New businesses account for nearly all net new job creation and almost 20 percent of gross job creation,” they write, adding, “companies less than one year old have created an average of 1.5 million jobs per year over the past three decades.”

While no one is certain what’s caused the drop in new businesses, the same policies and conditions that have made it harder for small, local businesses to succeed may well be impeding new entrepreneurs.

2. Places with a high density of locally owned businesses experience higher income and employment growth, and less poverty.

Counties in which locally owned businesses account for a larger share of economic activity are more prosperous, according to a new study[2] [PDF] by an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Using data on every U.S. county in the period between 2000 and 2008, the author, Anil Rupasingha, finds that local entrepreneurship has a positive effect on three critical indicators of economic performance: It increases county per capita income growth, increases county employment growth, and decreases county poverty rates. Rupasingha finds that this effect of local ownership is most pronounced when businesses are also small, defined as having fewer than 100 employees.

3. Small businesses make communities more resilient during hard times.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. a new brief: http://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/resources/entrepreneurship-policy-digest/the-importance-of-young-firms-for-economic-growth
  2. new study: https://www.frbatlanta.org/-/media/Documents/commdev/publications/discussionpapers/2013/1301.pdf?la=en
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/5-reasons-for-policymakers-to-prioritize-local-in-2016/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/5-reasons-for-policymakers-to-prioritize-local-in-2016/


Key Studies: Why Independent Matters

by Stacy Mitchell | January 8, 2016 9:27 pm

[1]In recent decades, policy across the country has privileged the biggest corporations. Yet a growing body of research is proving something that many people already know: small-scale, locally owned businesses create communities that are more prosperous, entrepreneurial, connected, and generally better off across a wide range of metrics. Here’s a roundup of the important findings that are putting numbers to the harms of bigness and the benefits of local ownership, and that policymakers can use to craft better laws, business owners can use to rally support, and people can use to organize their communities.

We’ve organized these studies into the following categories:

  • Start-Ups[2] These studies find that as the economy has become dominated by fewer and larger companies, there’s been a sharp decline in the formation of new businesses.
  • Inequality[3] These studies find that the increasing size of corporations is driving inequality, while local and dispersed business ownership strengthens the middle class.
  • Economic Returns[4] These studies find that local businesses recirculate a greater share of every dollar in the local economy, as they create locally owned supply chains and invest in their employees.
  • Jobs[5] These studies show that locally owned businesses employ more people per unit of sales, and retain more employees during economic downturns, while big-box retailers decrease the number of retail jobs in a region.
  • Wages and Benefits[6] These studies show that locally owned businesses are linked to higher income growth and lower levels of poverty, while big-box retailers, particularly Walmart, depress wages and benefits for retail employees. Studies in this section also quantify the costs of these big companies’ low wages to state healthcare programs and other forms of public assistance.
  • Social and Civic Well-Being[7] These studies find that a community’s level of social capital, civic engagement, and well-being is positively related to the share of its economy held by local businesses, while the presence of mega-retailers like Walmart undermines social capital and civic participation.
  • Public Subsidies[8] These studies document the massive public subsidies that overwhelmingly favor big businesses and have financed their expansion, and how this subsidized development has failed to produce real economic benefits for communities.
  • Taxes[9] Building on the studies included in the previous category, “Public Subsidies,” these studies examine the differing impacts of locally owned businesses and big-box retailers on public finances. They find that large retailers systemically tilt the playing field in their favor by skirting their tax obligations, as well as that locally owned enterprises generate more tax revenue for cities, with less cost, than sprawling big-box shopping centers.
  • Existing Businesses[10] These studies demonstrate how big-box retailers have significant negative effects on the number and vitality of nearby local businesses, in that they both lead to a loss of existing businesses, and contrary to the claims big-box retailers themselves often make, do not serve as a catalyst for new growth.
  • Consumers & Prices[11] These studies find that chains are not always a bargain.

 

Interested in local economies? Check out more of our work[12], and sign up for our monthly newsletter[13] so that you don’t miss our latest research.

 

1. START-UPS These studies find that as the economy has become dominated by fewer and larger companies, there’s been a sharp decline in the formation of new businesses that fuel economic growth.

“Declining Business Dynamism in the United States: A Look at States and Metros[14].” Ian Hathaway and Robert E. Litan, The Brookings Institution, May 2014.

Though start-ups occupy a large place in the U.S.’s present tech-fueled imagination, new business formation has in fact been in steady decline. This study from researchers at the Brookings Institution and Ennsyte Economics quantifies this decline, finding that during the three decades between 1978 and 2011, the share of firms less than one year old fell by nearly half. This slump has accelerated in recent years in what the authors term a “precipitous drop” since 2006, which they call “noteworthy and disturbing.” In fact, the authors find, “the number of business deaths now exceed business births for the first time in the 30-plus year history of our data.” The study determines that this trend isn’t geographically isolated, and that business dynamism has declined in all 50 states and in all but a handful of more than 360 U.S. metropolitan areas.

“The Importance of Young Firms for Economic Growth[15].” Jason Wiens and Chris Jackson, Entrepreneurship Policy Digest, Kauffman Foundation, Sept. 14, 2015.

This brief, which is a roundup of recent research, underlines the reasons why the decline in new business formation is so troubling. As the authors explain, young firms are the major contributor of new jobs. “New businesses account for nearly all net new job creation and almost 20 percent of gross job creation,” they write, adding, “companies less than one year old have created an average of 1.5 million jobs per year over the past three decades.” They link to several recent papers, such as two 2013 studies titled “How Firms Respond to Business Cycles: The Role of Firm Age and Firm Size,” and “Who Creates Jobs? Small Versus Large Versus Young,” that delve deeper into the economic and statistical analysis behind these findings.

 

2. INEQUALITY These studies find that the increasing size of corporations is driving inequality, while local and dispersed business ownership strengthens the middle class.

“Wage Inequality and Firm Growth[16].” Holger M. Mueller, Paige P. Ouimet, and Elena Simintzi, LIS Working Paper 632, March 2015.

This paper finds that much of the dramatic increase in income inequality over the last two decades may be owed to consolidation in the economy and the growing market power of a small number of very large firms. Large firms pay higher wages on average than small firms do, but there’s significant variation across different types of workers, the authors find. At large firms, low- and medium-skilled employees earn about the same or a little less than their counterparts at small firms, while high-skilled employees are paid significantly more than similar positions at smaller companies. In other words, the gap between the best-paid workers and everyone else is much greater at big corporations than it is at small and medium-sized businesses. Using data from 1981 to 2010 on wages and the size of firms in 15 countries, the authors find a strong relationship between growth in the average firm size and rising levels of income inequality, particularly in the U.S. and U.K. They also find that in counties, such as Sweden and Denmark, where average firm size has stayed the same or declined, income inequality has grown much less. The paper concludes: “Our results suggest that part of what may be perceived as a global trend toward more wage inequality may be driven by an increase in employment by the largest firms in the economy.”

“A Firm-Level Perspective on the Role of Rents in the Rise in Inequality” [PDF]. Jason Furman and Peter Orszag, Oct. 2015.

This paper explores the possibility that a major factor driving economic inequality is corporate consolidation — the growing market share of a few big companies. The authors present data showing that a small number of firms now earn “super-normal” returns of roughly ten times the median return for all firms. This is up significantly since the mid-1990s, when the most successful companies earned about three times the median return. These “super-normal” returns, the authors suggest, could be the result of growing monopoly power that allows a few dominant firms to extract economic “rents,” or more income than they would earn in a truly competitive market. While the authors emphasize that their paper is not conclusive, they note that this hypothesis is consistent with data showing that much of the rise in inequality is due to an increasing disparity in how much workers, especially those at the top, earn at different firms in the same industry. That is, companies with super-normal returns are distributing those returns to both their shareholders and their top-level employees, helping to expand wage inequality.

 

3. ECONOMIC RETURNS These studies find that local businesses recirculate a greater share of every dollar in the local economy, as they create locally owned supply chains and invest in their employees.

“Independent BC: Small Business and the British Columbia Economy[17]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, Feb. 2013.

Commissioned by the British Columbia division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, this study analyzes the economic impact and market share of the province’s independent retailers and restaurants. With regard to economic impact, the study finds that, for every $1,000,000 in sales, independent retail stores generate $450,000 in local economic activity, compared to just $170,000 for chains. Among restaurants, the figures are $650,000 for independents and $300,000 for chains. Across both sectors, this translates into about 2.6 times as many local jobs created when spending is directed to independent businesses instead of chains. The study concludes that a shift of just 10 percent of the market from chains to independents would produce 31,000 jobs paying $940 million in annual wages to BC workers. With regard to market share, the study finds that while BC’s independent retailers captured just over half of all retail sales as recently as 2003, they have since lost ground. By 2010, independents accounted for 45 percent of BC’s overall retail sales and only 34 percent of the market with automobile and gasoline sales excluded. Although BC has a reputation for innovative planning initiatives, on this measure it lags the rest of Canada, where independents account for 42 percent of retail spending. Among restaurants, BC’s independent sector accounts for 72 percent of full-service dining and 19 percent of limited-service dining.

“Indie Impact Study Series: Salt Lake City, Utah[18]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, Aug. 2012.

In this study, Civic Economics analyzed data from fifteen independent retailers and seven independent restaurants, all located in Salt Lake City, and compared their local economic impact with four national retail chains (Barnes & Noble, Home Depot, Office Max, and Target) and three national restaurant chains (Darden, McDonald’s, and P.F. Chang’s). The study found that the local retailers return a total of 52 percent of their revenue to the local economy, compared to just 14 percent for the national chain retailers. Similarly, the local restaurants recirculate an average of 79 percent of their revenue locally, compared to 30 percent for the chain eateries. What accounts for the difference? In a handy graphic, Civic Economics shows the breakdown. Independent businesses spend more on local labor, goods procured locally for resale, and services from local providers. This means a much larger share of the money spent at a locally owned store stays in the local economy, supporting a variety of other businesses and jobs.

“Going Local: Quantifying the Economic Impacts of Buying from Locally Owned Businesses in Portland, Maine.[19]” Garrett Martin and Amar Patel, Maine Center for Economic Policy, Dec. 2011.

On a dollar-for-dollar basis, the local economic impact of independently owned businesses is significantly greater than that of national chains, this study concludes. Analyzing data collected from 28 locally owned retail businesses in Portland, Maine, along with corporate filings for a representative national chain, the researchers found that every $100 spent at locally owned businesses contributes an additional $58 to the local economy. By comparison, $100 spent at a chain store in Portland yields just $33 in local economic impact. The study concludes that, if residents of the region were to shift 10 percent of their spending from chains to locally owned businesses, it would generate $127 million in additional local economic activity and 874 new jobs.

“Thinking Outside the Box: A Report on Independent Merchants and the Local Economy[20]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, Sept. 2009.

This study examined financial data from 15 locally owned businesses in New Orleans and compared their impact on the local economy to that of an average SuperTarget store. The study found that only 16 percent of the money spent at a SuperTarget stays in the local economy. In contrast, the local retailers returned more than 32 percent of their revenue to the local economy. The primary difference was that the local stores purchase many goods and services from other local businesses, while Target does not. The study concludes that even modest shifts in spending patterns can make a big difference to the local economy. If residents and visitors were to shift 10 percent of their spending from chains to local businesses, it would generate an additional $235 million a year in local economic activity, creating many new opportunities and jobs. Likewise, a 10 percent shift in the opposite direction – less spending at local stores and more at chains – would lead to an economic contraction of the same magnitude. Another noteworthy finding of the study is that locally owned businesses require far less land to produce an equivalent amount of economic activity. The study found that a four-block stretch of Magazine Street, a traditional business district, provides 179,000 square feet of retail space, hosts about 100 individual businesses, and generates $105 million in sales, with $34 million remaining in the local economy. In contrast, a 179,000-square-foot SuperTarget generates $50 million in annual sales, with just $8 million remaining in the local economy, and requires an additional 300,000 square feet of space for its parking lot. See our New Rules article for more background on this study.

“Local Works: Examining the Impact of Local Business on the West Michigan Economy[21]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, Sept. 2008.

This study concludes that if residents of Grand Rapids and surrounding Kent County, Michigan, were to redirect 10 percent of their total spending from chains to locally owned businesses, the result would be $140 million in new economic activity for the region, including 1,600 new jobs and $53 million in additional payroll. The study calculates the market share of independent businesses in four categories: pharmacy (41 percent), grocery (52 percent), restaurants (50 percent), and banks (6 percent). It analyzes how much of the money spent at these businesses stays in the area compared to national chains. Local restaurants, for example, return more than 56 percent of their revenue to the local economy in the form of wages, goods and services purchased locally, profits, and donations. Chain restaurants return only 37 percent. Measuring the total economic impact of this difference, including indirect and induced activity, the study estimates that $1 million spent at chain restaurants produces about $600,000 in additional local economic activity and supports 10 jobs. Spending $1 million at local restaurants, meanwhile, generates over $900,000 in added local economic activity and supports 15 jobs. The study also analyzes the economic impact of independent vs. chain businesses on a square footage basis, noting, “In a largely built-out city like Grand Rapids, policy dictates seeking the highest and best use of available properties, and this analysis strongly supports the idea that local firms should be the preferred tenants for city sites.”

“The San Francisco Retail Diversity Study[22]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, May 2007.

This study finds that San Francisco remains a stronghold for locally owned businesses, which generate sizable benefits for the city’s economy. The study has three parts. The first calculates market shares for independents and chains in several categories: bookstores, sporting goods stores, toy stores, and casual dining restaurants. In all four categories, independent businesses capture more than half of sales within the city of San Francisco, a much larger share than they have nationally. The second part examines the economic impact of locally owned businesses versus chains. It finds that local businesses buy more goods and services locally and employ more people locally per unit of sales (because they have no headquarters staff elsewhere). Every $1 million spent at local bookstores, for example, creates $321,000 in additional economic activity in the area, including $119,000 in wages paid to local employees. That same $1 million spent at chain bookstores generates only $188,000 in local economic activity, including $71,000 in local wages. The same was true in the other categories. For every $1 million in sales, independent toy stores create 2.22 local jobs, while chains create just 1.31. The final part of the study analyzes the impact of a modest shift in consumer spending. If residents were to redirect just 10 percent of their spending from chains to local businesses, that would generate $192 million in additional economic activity in San Francisco and almost 1,300 new jobs.

For additional studies on this topic, see:

  • “The Andersonville Study of Retail Economics[23]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, October 2004.
  • “The Economic Impact of Locally Owned Businesses vs. Chains: A Case Study in Midcoast Maine[24]” [PDF]. Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Friends of Midcoast Maine, September 2003.
  • “Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study[25]” [PDF]. Civic Economics, December 2002.

 

4. JOBS These studies show that locally owned businesses employ more people per unit of sales, and retain more employees during economic downturns, while big-box retailers decrease the number of retail jobs in a region.

“The Contribution of Large and Small Employers to Job Creation in Times of High and Low Unemployment[26]” [PDF]. Giuseppe Moscarini and Fabien Postel-Vinay, American Economic Review, October 2012.

This study, by economists at Yale University and University of Bristol, finds that in times of high unemployment, small businesses both retain and create more jobs than large firms do. During the recession of March 2008 to March 2009, for instance, the employment growth rate of large employers fell 1.65 percent more than the growth rate of small employers, compared with the previous year. In every other recession and recovery in the study’s sample, large firms took years to recover relative to small firms. The authors use data on U.S. businesses spanning 1979-2009, and find that this correlation remains consistent across a variety of measures, including age of the firm, excluding entering and exiting firms, and within broad industries. They also examine Denmark, France, the U.K, and Canada, and find that their conclusion holds in other countries of different sizes. “Large employers on net destroy proportionally more jobs relative to small employers when unemployment is above trend, late in and right after a typical recession” the authors write. “Overall, this picture corroborates in part the common wisdom that small businesses are the engine of job creation: small firms appear to create more jobs as a fraction of their employment only when unemployment is high (which is, arguably, when jobs are most needed).”

“The Effects of Walmart on Local Labor Markets[27]” [PDF]. David Neumark (University of California-Irvine), Junfu Zhang (Clark University), and Stephen Ciccarella (Cornell University), Journal of Urban Economics, March 2008.

This study presents the most sophisticated analysis to date of Walmart’s impact on retail employment and wages. Analyzing national data, the study found that the opening of a Walmart store reduces county-level retail employment by 150 jobs. Because Walmart stores employ an average of 360 workers, this suggests that for every new retail job created by Walmart, 1.4 jobs are lost as existing businesses downsize or close. The study also found that the arrival of a Walmart store reduces total county-wide retail payroll by an average of about $1.2 million. This study improves substantially on previous studies by convincingly accounting for the endogeneity of the location and timing of Walmart’s entry into a particular local market. That is, Walmart presumably does not locate stores randomly. When expanding into a particular region, it may, for example, opt to build in towns experiencing greater job growth. Unless this location selection bias is accounted for, one might compare job growth in towns that gained Walmart stores versus those that did not and erroneously conclude that Walmart caused an expansion in employment. The authors of this study have devised a persuasive method of accounting for this bias. They also argue that the method developed by Basker (see next item below) to account for this bias is flawed and therefore her conclusion that Walmart has a small positive impact on retail employment is not reliable.

“Job Creation or Destruction? Labor-Market Effects of Walmart Expansion[28].” Emek Basker (University of Missouri), Review of Economics & Statistics, Feb. 2005.

Often cited and typically misrepresented by Walmart supporters, this study examines the impact of the arrival of a Walmart store on retail and wholesale employment. It looks at 1,749 counties that added a Walmart between 1977 and 1998. It finds that Walmart’s arrival boosts retail employment by 100 jobs in the first year—far less than the 200-400 jobs the company says its stores create, because its arrival causes existing retailers to downsize and lay-off employees. Over the next four years, there is a loss of 40-60 additional retail jobs as more competing retailers downsize and close. The study also finds that Walmart’s arrival leads to a decline of approximately 20 local wholesale jobs in the first five years, and an additional 10 wholesale jobs over the long run (six or more years after Walmart’s arrival). (Walmart handles its own distribution and does not rely on wholesalers). This works out to a net gain of just 10-30 retail and wholesale jobs, and the study does not examine whether these jobs are part-time or whether they pay more or less than the jobs eliminated by Walmart. The study also found that, within five years of Walmart’s arrival, the counties had lost an average of four small retail businesses, one mid-sized store, and one large store. It does not estimate declines in revenue to retailers that survive. Basker looked at the effect of Walmart on retail employment in neighboring communities, but found that the confidence intervals were too large (meaning the results showed wide variation) to draw any conclusion about Walmart’s impact. (Her initial working paper, published in 2002, reported an average decline of 30 retail jobs in surrounding communities, but, after correcting an error, she determined the confidence intervals were too large to produce a precise result.)

 

5. WAGES AND BENEFITS These studies show that locally owned businesses are linked to higher income growth and lower levels of poverty, while big-box retailers, particularly Walmart, depresses wages and benefits for retail employees. Studies in this section also quantify the costs of these big companies’ low wages to state healthcare programs and other forms of public assistance. In addition to the following studies, see this resource[29] from Good Jobs First detailing states that have disclosed how much they spend providing health insurance for employees of Walmart, Home Depot, Target, and other big-box retailers.

“Locally owned: Do local business ownership and size matter for local economic well-being?[30]” [PDF]. Anil Rupasingha, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Aug. 2013.

In this analysis, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta examines the relationship between locally owned businesses and economic performance, and finds that counties with higher percentages of employment in locally based, small businesses have stronger local economies. Using data on every U.S. county in the period between 2000 and 2008, Rupasingha finds that local entrepreneurship has a positive effect on county per capita income growth and employment growth and a negative effect on poverty rates. He also finds that this effect of local ownership is more pronounced in the case of businesses that are also small, defined as those with fewer than 100 employees. Rupasingha’s dataset also reveals that locally owned, or “resident,” businesses employ a far greater number of people than non-resident establishments across every size category of business.

“Employers Who Had Fifty or More Employees Using MassHealth, Commonwealth Care, or the Health Safety Net in State Fiscal Year 2010[31]” [PDF]. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, February 2013.

This report from the state of Massachusetts discloses the 50 companies that have the most employees enrolled in the state’s Medicaid and other publicly funded health insurance programs for low-income people. About half of the 50 companies identified are retail and restaurant chains. Walmart ranks third overall, with 4,327 employees, approximately one-fifth of its Massachusetts workforce, relying on state health care assistance at a cost to taxpayers of $14.6 million per year. Target ranks fourth with 2,610 employees enrolled, approximately 36 percent of its Massachusetts workforce, at a cost of $8.3 million per year. Other retailers on the list include CVS, Shaw’s, Home Depot, May Department Stores, Sears, Kohl’s, Walgreen, Lowe’s, Best Buy, and Whole Foods.

Also see similar reports released in 2013 from Wisconsin[32] and Missouri[33] [PDF].

“Walmart’s Low Wages and Their Effect on Taxpayers and Economic Growth” [PDF]. Democratic Staff, U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, May 2013.

Extrapolating from data released by the state of Wisconsin on the number of Walmart employees and their dependents enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, this analysis estimates that Walmart employees require an average of about $3,000 per year in public assistance, such as Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance. That works out to a taxpayer cost of about $4.2 billion per year for all of Walmart’s U.S. stores. Covering that cost would require Walmart to forgo about one-quarter of its profits or raise prices at its U.S. stores by 1-2 percent.

“Does Local Firm Ownership Matter?[34]” Stephan Goetz and David Fleming, Economic Development Quarterly, April 2011.

Goetz and Fleming analyze 2,953 counties, including both rural and urban places, and find that, after controlling for other factors that influence growth, those with a larger density of small, locally owned businesses experienced greater per capita income growth between 2000 and 2007. The presence of large, non-local businesses, meanwhile, had a negative effect on incomes.

“A Downward Push: The Impact of Walmart Stores on Retail Wages and Benefits[35]” [PDF]. Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester, and Barry Eidlin, UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, Dec. 2007.

This study analyzes the impact of the opening of Walmart stores on the earnings of retail workers. (It uses a similar technique to account for possible biases in Walmart’s store location decisions as the study described in the “Jobs” section above, “The Effects of Walmart on Local Labor Markets.”) This study focuses on stores that opened between 1992 and 2000 and concludes, “Opening a single Walmart store lowers the average retail wage in the surrounding county between 0.5 and 0.9 percent.” Not only did Walmart lower average wage rates, but “every new Walmart in a county reduced the combined or aggregate earnings of retail workers by around 1.5 percent.” Because this number is higher than the reduction in average wages, it indicates that Walmart not only lowered pay rates, but also reduced the total number of retail jobs. The study goes on to look at the cumulative impact of Walmart store openings on retail earnings at the state level and nationwide. “At the national level, our study concludes that in 2000, total earnings of retail workers nationwide were reduced by $4.5 billion due to Walmart’s presence,” the researchers find. Most of these losses were concentrated in metropolitan areas. Although Walmart is often associated with rural areas, three-quarters of the stores it built in the 1990s were in metropolitan counties.

“Walmart and County-Wide Poverty.” Stephan Goetz and Hema Swaminathan, Social Science Quarterly, June 2006.

The presence of a Walmart store hinders a community’s ability to move families out of poverty, according to this study. After controlling for other factors that influence poverty rates, the study found that U.S. counties that had more Walmart stores in 1987 had a higher poverty rate in 1999 than did counties that started the period with fewer or no Walmart stores. The study also found that counties that added Walmart stores between 1987 and 1998 experienced higher poverty rates and greater usage of food stamps than counties where Walmart did not build, all other things being equal. Although the study does not attempt to draw a conclusion about why Walmart expands poverty, the study’s authors suggest several possible factors, including a loss of social capital that occurs when locally owned businesses close and the shift from comparatively better paying jobs at independent retailers to lower paying jobs at Walmart.

“Hidden Cost of Walmart Jobs[36]” [PDF]. UC Berkeley’s Institute for Industrial Relations, August 2004.

California taxpayers are spending $86 million a year providing healthcare and other public assistance to the state’s 44,000 Walmart employees, according to this study. The average Walmart worker requires $730 in taxpayer-funded healthcare and $1,222 in other forms of assistance, such as food stamps and subsidized housing. Even compared to other retailers, Walmart imposes an especially large burden on taxpayers. Walmart workers earn 31 percent less than the average for workers at large retail companies and require 39 percent more in public assistance. The study estimates that if competing supermarkets and other large retailers adopt Walmart’s wage and benefit levels, it will cost California’s taxpayers an additional $410 million a year in public assistance.

 

6. SOCIAL CAPITAL AND WELL-BEING These studies find that a community’s level of social capital, civic engagement, and well-being is positively related to the share of its economy held by local businesses, while the presence of mega-retailers like Walmart undermines social capital and civic participation. See this ILSR article[37] for more background.

“Small, Local, and Loyal: How Firm Attributes Affect Workers’ Organizational Commitment[38].” Katie L. Halbesleben and Charles M. Tolbert, Local Economy, Oct. 2014.

The authors of this paper — a professor and a Ph.D. candidate at Baylor University — find strong positive relationships between local ownership, firm size, and employee loyalty, which they refer to as organizational commitment. Using data from a nationally representative public opinion survey, they find that 57.2 percent of small firm workers scored in the highest commitment category, compared to 40.5 percent of large firm workers. They find a similar relationship for ownership, with 56 percent of workers at locally owned firms having high commitment scores, compared with just 38.7 percent of workers at non-locally owned firms. When they plotted the scores on a 16-point commitment scale, the authors found that, together, the two civic measures accounted for as much as a 1.7 point increase in organizational commitment, effects which held up when they included relevant control variables. “The analysis presented here clearly demonstrates a positive consequence of small, local businesses from the perspective of employees,” the authors conclude. “Clearly, small, local businesses do matter.” This study also reviews the literature on the benefits that employee loyalty confers on the business and on the surrounding community, and notes that strong ties between employers and employees create deeper roots in the community and less impetus for out-migration. “In this way,” the authors write, “the civic community perspective views small, locally owned businesses as lynchpins of community attachment and sustainability.”

“College Graduates, Local Retailers, and Community Belonging in the United States[39].” Samuel Stroope, Aaron B. Franzen, Charles M. Tolbert, and F. Carson Mencken, Sociological Spectrum, Feb. 2014.

College-educated residents are an asset for a city. With higher education, however, comes increased geographic mobility, and cities and communities are increasingly challenged to retain their highly-educated residents. This study finds that the presence of locally owned retailers is one factor that leads all residents, and particularly college-educated residents, to stay put. “A retail environment not indicative of ‘anywhere America,’” the authors hypothesize, “help[s] those able to move to be less prone to feel that they could replace their current place of residence with anywhere else in America.” The authors prove their thesis by examining U.S. Census data and county-level data, and find that states with a greater share of locally owned retail experience a less-steep slope of college graduates migrating out from their counties. “In other words, stronger civic community provides a buffer in the migration of county residents as education increases,” the authors find. They conclude: “Though locales that encourage or allow absentee-owned retail may experience competitive advantage in the short run, they will not hold their own in the long run—in this instance, their own highly skilled workers… when counties cooperate together in order to protect and promote a broad localized retail climate from the ground up, they may also retain more of their highly educated and skilled residents. In a globalized world of increasing isomorphism, local places and regions’ spaces and establishments creatively infused with local flavor become one of the few resources that are not available elsewhere.”

“Rolling Back Prices and Raising Crime Rates? The Walmart Effect on Crime in the United States” [PDF]. Scott E. Wolfe and David C. Pyrooz, The British Journal of Criminology, Jan. 2014.

This paper finds a “Walmart effect” on crime. After matching counties in which a Walmart expanded or opened and counties without a Walmart, and controlling for some of the strongest predictors of crime, the authors find that in counties with a new Walmart, crime declined less than it did in counties where Walmart did not open. The study focuses on the period from 1990 to 1999, a decade when crime in the U.S. declined overall and also a decade in which Walmart expanded dramatically. “If Walmart did not build in a county, property crime rates fell by an additional 17 units per capita from the 1990s to the 2000s,” the authors write. They conclude, “Put simply, United States counties where Walmart built in the 1990s did not experience the same crime decline as counties without Walmart growth.”

“The Health and Wealth of US Counties: How the Small Business Environment Impacts Alternative Measures of Development[40].” Troy C. Blanchard, Charles Tolbert, and Carson Mencken, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society, 2011.

This is one of several studies that have drawn a link between an economy of small-scale businesses and improved community well-being, including lower rates of crime and better public health. “Counties with a vibrant small-business sector have lower rates of mortality and a lower prevalence of obesity and diabetes” compared to places dominated by big firms, the authors conclude. They surmise that a high degree of local ownership improves a community’s “collective efficacy” — the capacity of its residents to act together for mutual benefit. Previous research has linked collective efficacy to population health, finding that engaged communities tend to create the kinds of infrastructure that foster healthier choices.

“Street Survey of Business Reopenings in Post-Katrina New Orleans[41]” [PDF]. Richard Campanella, Tulane University, Jan. 2007.

To understand how businesses respond to catastrophe, Campanella, a geographer at Tulane, surveyed 16 miles of three major commercial arteries in New Orleans for the 15 months after Hurricane Katrina. He found that national chains were much slower to reopen than locally owned businesses. Almost half of locally owned businesses reopened within a month, compared to one-quarter of chains. After 15 months, 75 percent of locally owned businesses had reopened, compared to only 59 percent of national chains. By reopening promptly, locally owned businesses helped neighborhoods recover by providing goods and services, as well as creating community gathering spots for residents to commiserate and find mutual aid.

“Walmart and Social Capital[42]” [PDF]. Stephan J. Goetz and Anil Rupasingha, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Dec. 2006.

The presence of a Walmart store reduces a community’s level of social capital, this study found. The study examined communities that had or gained Walmart stores in the 1990s and controlled for other variables known to affect social capital stocks in a community, such as educational attainment. “Both the initial number of [Walmart] stores and each store added per 10,000 persons during the decade reduced the overall social capital measure,” Goetz and Rupasingha found. Communities that gained a Walmart had fewer non-profit groups and social capital-generating associations (such as churches, political organizations, and business groups) per capita than those that did not. Walmart’s presence also depressed civic participation and is associated with lower voter turnout in the 2000 presidential election. Goetz and Rupasingha hypothesize that the drop in social capital is owned to the disappearance of local businesses and the decline of the downtown following Walmart’s arrival.

“The Configuration of Local Economic Power and Civic Participation in the Global Economy[43].” Troy Blanchard and Todd L. Matthews, Social Forces, June 2006.

This study finds that residents of communities with highly concentrated economies tend to vote less and are less likely to keep up with local affairs, participate in community organizations, engage in reform efforts or participate in protest activities at the same levels as their counterparts in communities with dispersed economies composed predominantly of locally owned small businesses.

 

7. PUBLIC SUBSIDIES These studies document the massive public subsidies that have overwhelmingly favored big businesses and financed their expansion, and how this subsidized development has failed to produce real economic benefits for communities.

“Shortchanging Small Business: How Big Businesses Dominate State Economic Development Incentives[44].” Greg LeRoy, Carolyn Fryberger, et. al., Good Jobs First, Oct. 2015.

Giving strong empirical support to long-time fairness arguments, this report looks at state economic development programs that purport to be open to businesses of any size, and finds that they in fact overwhelmingly favor large companies. For the study, Good Jobs First examined 4,200 economic development incentives awarded through programs in 14 states, and found that of a $3.2 billion total pot, 90 percent went to large firms, defined as those with 100 or more employees or 10 or more locations. In some states, that figure climbed as high as 96 percent. In its recommendations for reform, Good Jobs First urges states not to simply reallocate subsidy dollars to small businesses, and instead to tighten their rules to exclude the largest companies from these giveaways and institute dollar caps per deal and per company. With the savings, the recommendations continue, states should invest in expanding credit access for small businesses and in the types of broad public goods, like transportation and job training, that benefit all employers. The report is the second in a series of three on economic development subsidies, and builds on an earlier report, “In Search of a Level Playing Field[45],” that surveyed leaders of small business organizations and found that they overwhelmingly agree that their states’ economic development incentives favor big businesses at the expense of small firms looking to grow.

“Tax Breaks and Inequality: Enriching Billionaires and Low-Road Employers in the Name of Economic Development[46].” Philip Mattera, Kasia Tarczynska, and Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First, Dec. 2014.

This report analyzes the subsidies awarded to companies linked to Forbes 400 billionaires, as well as the subsidies awarded to firms that pay low wages, and finds that cumulatively, local and state governments across the country have given these companies $21.4 billion. Both categories include Walmart, which pays low wages, has catapulted four members of the Walton family to the top 10 of the Forbes list, and has received 284 subsidies with a total worth of $161 million (a conservative estimate, as the report’s methodology notes). Both also include Amazon, which pays low wages at its distribution and data centers, has supplied founder Jeff Bezos’s $30.5 billion fortune, and has won $419 million in subsidies. When so much local and state funding that purports to fuel economic development is going to companies that do not need tax breaks and other awards in order to finance a project, the report explains, the subsidies serve mainly to increase those companies’ profit. When they go to companies with billionaire owners or a low-road employment model, they also intensify income inequality, by using taxpayer funds to enlarge private fortunes and concentrate wealth, by expanding low-wage employment, and by sticking working families with a larger share of the bill for essential public services—among other effects. What’s more, they disadvantage small, locally owned businesses—the kinds of enterprises that subsidies like training grants, credit access, or infrastructure improvements are supposed to help—by tipping the scales even further in favor of big corporations. As the report concludes, “The preservation of the middle class is a frequently invoked justification for economic development subsidies. But when one reads the fine print and digs into actual outcomes, that justification is routinely undermined.”

“Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent: Subsidy Tracker 2.0 Reveals Big-Business Dominance of State and Local Development Incentives[47].” Philip Mattera, Good Jobs First, Feb. 2014.

This analysis of Good Jobs First’s Subsidy Tracker database examines the share of total state and local economic development awards that have been granted to major corporations, and finds that the subsidies are heavily concentrated among big business. “We estimate that at least 75 percent of cumulative disclosed subsidy dollars have gone to just 965 large corporations,” the report states. It also finds that Walmart is near the top of the list for companies that have received the largest number of awards, with 261 individual subsidies.

“An Assessment of the Effectiveness and Fiscal Impacts of the Use of Local Development Incentives in the St. Louis Region[48].” East-West Gateway Council of Governments, January 2011.

This study finds that over the last 20 years local governments in the metropolitan St. Louis region have diverted more than $5.8 billion in public tax dollars to subsidize private development. About 80 percent of these subsidies supported the construction of big-box stores and shopping malls, mostly in affluent suburbs. Despite this large public expenditure, the region has seen virtually no economic growth. “The number of retail jobs has increased only slightly and, in real dollars, retail sales or per capita have not increased in years,” the authors conclude. The subsidies have almost exclusively benefitted large chains, the study finds, and the region’s retail sector has grown increasingly concentrated. More than 600 small retailers (under 10 employees) have closed in the last ten years. “Both municipal finance and quality of life suffer when a city loses its base of small retail establishments,” the study notes. While some municipalities have seen gains in revenue as a result of luring retail development, these gains have come entirely at the expense of neighboring municipalities. Today, most of the region’s local governments are in financial trouble. “A significant number of municipalities faced budget deficits, lay-offs and service cuts between 2000 and 2007, even though that was a period of time when the economy had generally fared well,” the study finds.

“Fishing for Taxpayer Cash[49]” [PDF]. Andrew Stecker and Kevin Conner, Public Accountability Initiative, June 2010.

This report documents how Bass Pro, an outdoor sporting goods chain, has won over $500 million dollars in taxpayer subsidies from cities and states by promising jobs, tourism and growth. But as this report shows, in city after city, Bass Pro has failed to deliver on its promises. In Mesa, AZ, for example, taxpayers put up $84 million for a development anchored by Bass Pro, but a year after opening the project was described as a “ghost town” that had done little more than undermine the viability of other retail areas. A taxpayer-subsidized Bass Pro in Harrisburg, PA, meanwhile, created only one-third of the jobs promised.

 

8. TAXES Building on the studies included in the previous category, “Public Costs,” these studies examine the different impacts of locally owned businesses and big-box retailers on public budgets. They find that large retailers systemically tilt the playing field in their favor by skirting their tax obligations, as well as that locally owned enterprises generate more tax revenue for cities, with less cost, than sprawling big-box shopping centers.

“Thinking Differently About Development[50].” Joe Minicozzi, Government Finance Review, Aug. 2013.

While the economic development policies of many municipalities and counties favor sprawling projects, this analysis draws on data from more than 30 jurisdictions across 10 states to show that regardless of their size, municipalities receive a greater level of tax revenue from dense, walkable, mixed use urban development. Minicozzi assesses land use on a “per acre” measurement of its tax revenue generation, just as one would judge the efficiency of a car on a “per gallon” basis, and calculates that while a county earns just $7.11 in property taxes per acre on a typical big-box retail store, it earns $287.55 per acre on a mixed-use, mid-rise Main Street-style business district. “Research shows that regardless of the size of the municipality, its most potent tax-generating areas are its downtown or Main Street,” Minicozzi concludes. In another example, Minicozzi compares two prospective multi-family unit developments in Sarasota County, Fla., in 2009, and finds that, after factoring in land consumed, public facility costs, annual county tax yield, and taxes generated, the county loses $5 million on the suburban development over a 20-year period, while it profits more than $20 million off the urban development over the same period.

“Skimming the Sales Tax: How Walmart and Other Big Retailers (Legally) Keep a Cut of the Taxes We Pay on Everyday Purchases[51]” [PDF]. Philip Mattera with Leigh McIlvaine, Good Jobs First, November 2008.

This study highlights little-noticed laws in 26 states that allow retailers to keep a portion of the sales taxes they collect from shoppers. The stated purpose of these policies is to compensate retailers for the costs they incur collecting the tax. However, while half of these states cap the amount retailers can keep, the other 13 states have no cap. Because the cost of collecting sales taxes declines with volume, states without caps are providing big retailers with outsized compensation that bears little relationship to their actual costs. This practice is costing states over $1 billion a year and lining the pockets of large chains, notably Walmart. The report breaks down the losses for each state. Additionally, this study exposes how local governments subsidize the large chains by giving them sales tax rebates or funding part of their projects with sales tax increment financing. Using these two strategies, Walmart has received $130 million in sales tax diversion over the past decade.

“Rolling Back Property Tax Payments: How Walmart Short-Changes Schools and other Public Services by Challenging Its Property Tax Assessments.” Philip Mattera, Karla Walter, Julie Farb Blain, and Colleen Ruddick, Good Jobs First, Oct. 2007.

This first-ever investigation of Walmart’s local property tax records finds that the retail giant systematically seeks to minimize its payment of taxes that support public schools and other vital local government services. It includes online appendices with lists of stores and distribution centers examined.

“Understanding the Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Ohio” [PDF]. Randall Gross, Development Economics, August 2004.

This report reviews and summarizes the findings of fiscal impact studies conducted in eight central Ohio communities between 1997 and 2003. In seven of the eight communities, retail development created a drain on municipal budgets (i.e., it required more in public services, such as road maintenance and police, than it generated in tax revenue). On average, retail buildings produced a net annual loss of $0.44 per square foot. “The concept that growth is always good for a community does not seem to correlate with the findings from various fiscal analyses conducted throughout central Ohio,” the report concludes. It cautions cities not to be taken in by the promise of high tax revenue from a new development without also considering the additional costs of providing services. Unlike retail, office and industrial development, as well as some types of residential, produced a net tax benefit.

“Fiscal Impact Analysis of Residential and Nonresidential Land Use Prototypes[52].” Tischler & Associates, July 2002.

Big-box retail, shopping centers, and fast-food restaurants cost taxpayers in Barnstable, Massachusetts, more than they produce in revenue, according to this analysis. The study compares the tax revenue generated by different kinds of residential and commercial development with the actual cost of providing public services for each land use. The study found that big box retail generates a net annual deficit of $468 per 1,000 square feet. Shopping centers likewise produce an annual drain of $314 per 1,000 square feet. By far the most costly are fast-food restaurants, which have a net annual cost of $5,168 per 1,000 square feet. In contrast, the study found that specialty retail, a category that includes small-scale Main Street businesses, has a positive impact on public revenue (i.e., it generates more tax revenue than it costs to service). Specialty retail produces a net annual return of $326 per 1,000 square feet. Other commercial land uses that are revenue winners include business parks, offices, and hotels. The two main factors behind the higher costs for big box stores, shopping centers, and fast-food outlets, compared to specialty retail shops, are higher road maintenance costs (due to a much greater number of car trips per 1,000 square feet) and greater demand for public safety services.

“Understanding the Tax Base Consequences of Local Economic Development Program[53]” [PDF]. RKG Associates, 1998.

Big-box retail, shopping centers, and fast-food restaurants cost taxpayers in Barnstable, Massachusetts, more than they produce in revenue, according to this analysis. The study compares the tax revenue generated by different kinds of residential and commercial development with the actual cost of providing public services for each land use. The study found that big box retail generates a net annual deficit of $468 per 1,000 square feet. Shopping centers likewise produce an annual drain of $314 per 1,000 square feet. By far the most costly are fast-food restaurants, which have a net annual cost of $5,168 per 1,000 square feet. In contrast, the study found that specialty retail, a category that includes small-scale Main Street businesses, has a positive impact on public revenue (i.e., it generates more tax revenue than it costs to service). Specialty retail produces a net annual return of $326 per 1,000 square feet. Other commercial land uses that are revenue winners include business parks, offices, and hotels. The two main factors behind the higher costs for big box stores, shopping centers, and fast-food outlets, compared to specialty retail shops, are higher road maintenance costs (due to a much greater number of car trips per 1,000 square feet) and greater demand for public safety services.

 

9. EXISTING BUSINESSES These studies demonstrate how big-box retailers have significant negative effects on the number and vitality of nearby local businesses, in that they both lead to a loss of existing businesses, and contrary to the claims big-box retailers themselves often make, do not serve as a catalyst for new growth.

“The Impact of an Urban Walmart Store on Area Businesses[54].” Julie Davis, David Merriman, Lucia Samayoa, Brian Flanagan, Ron Baiman, and Joe Persky, Economic Development Quarterly, Oct. 2012.

The opening of a Walmart on the West Side of Chicago in 2006 led to the closure of about one-quarter of the businesses within a four-mile radius, according to this study by researchers at Loyola University. They tracked 306 businesses, checking their status before Walmart opened and one and two years after it opened. More than half were also surveyed by phone about employees, work hours, and wages. By the second year, 82 of the businesses had closed. Businesses within close proximity of Walmart had a 40 percent chance of closing. The probability of going out of business fell 6 percent with each mile away from Walmart. These closures eliminated the equivalent of 300 full-time jobs, about as many Walmart added to the area. Sales tax and employment data provided by the state of Illinois for Walmart’s zip code and surrounding zip codes confirmed that overall sales and employment in the neighborhood did not increase, but actually dipped from the trend line. Although Walmart claims its urban stores recapture dollars leaking to the suburbs, the findings of this study suggest that urban Walmart stores primarily displace sales from other city stores. “There is no evidence that Walmart sparked any significant net growth in economic activity or employment in the area,” the researchers conclude. The study also examines Walmart’s Job and Opportunity Zones initiative, which provided marketing for five local businesses, and found it largely ineffective.

“Business Churn and the Retail Giant: Establishment Birth and Death from Walmart’s Entry[55].” Carlena Cochi Ficano, Social Science Quarterly, 2012.

Within 15 months of a new Walmart store opening, between 4.4 and 14.2 existing retail establishments close, while at most 3.5 new retail establishments open, according to this study. The study’s methodology accounts for Walmart’s expansion strategy and controls for a variety of other economic and demographic factors likely to influence the birth or death of businesses. The author notes that, while the findings on store closures are robust, those on new store openings are not and should be interpreted cautiously. Also, the study only accounts for Walmart’s effect on businesses that have at least one employee and does not track the impact after the first 15 months. The results explain the seeming discrepancy in other studies finding that Walmart has a relatively modest effect on retail employment, but causes a substantial increase in poverty rates. This study suggests that Walmart triggers significant churn in the local labor market, with large numbers of people laid off, facing periods of unemployment followed by new jobs that may be only part-time or lower paying.

“Mom-and-pop Meet Big-box: Complements Or Substitutes?[56]” John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and C.J. Krizan, Journal of Urban Economics, 2010.

In this study, economists John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and C.J. Krizan analyzed about 1,200 big-box store openings and looked at the impact on two sets of independent and small chain businesses in the vicinity: those competing directly with the new big box and those offering different products and services. For competing retailers, the study found “large, negative effects” on those within a 5-mile radius of the new big box, including a substantial number of store closures, and smaller but still significant impacts on those in a 5-10 mile radius. As for non-competing businesses, the study found that big-box stores generate no positive spillover. Nearby businesses offering other products and services neither increased their growth nor expanded in numbers after the big box opened.

“Major Flaws Uncovered in Study Claiming Walmart Has Not Harmed Small Businesses[57]” [PDF]. Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Dec. 2008.

A new and widely publicized study, “Has Walmart Buried Mom and Pop?”, claims that there is no evidence that Walmart has had an overall negative impact on the small business sector. A close inspection of the study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, however, found major flaws. The authors failed to use the correct U. S. Census data when attempting to show that “mom and pop” businesses have not experienced a net decline over the past two decades. When the correct data set is used, it is clear that the small business sector is much less robust now than it once was, with the number of retail businesses with fewer than 10 employees declining by one-fifth from 1982-2002. This decrease is even more drastic when measured relative to the population. During the 20-year period, the number of retail firms with 1-4 employees per 1 million people fell by 38 percent and retail firms with 5-9 employees per 1 million people declined by 30 percent.

“The Impact of ‘Big-Box’ Building Materials Stores on Host Towns and Surrounding Counties in a Midwestern State[58]” [PDF]. Kenneth E. Stone and Georgeanne M. Artz, Iowa State University, 2001.

This study examines several Iowa communities where big-box building supply stores, such as Menards and Home Depot, have opened in the last decade. Sales of hardware and building supplies in the host community and surrounding counties are tracked over several years to test what the authors call the “zero-sum-game theory,” namely that the retail sales gains generated by big-box stores are offset by sales losses at existing, often locally owned, retail stores. The results confirm the theory, finding that sales of hardware and building supplies grow in the host communities, but at the expense of sales in smaller towns nearby. Moreover, after a few years, many of the host communities experienced a reversal of fortune: sales of hardware and building supplies declined sharply, often dropping below their initial levels, as more big box stores opened in the surrounding region and saturated the market.

“What Happened When Walmart Came to Town? A Report on Three Iowa Communities with a Statistical Analysis of Seven Iowa Counties.” Thomas Muller and Elizabeth Humstone, National Trust For Historic Preservation, 1996.

This study examined the impact of Walmart on several Iowa communities. It found that 84 percent of all sales at the new Walmart stores came at the expense of existing businesses within the same county. Only 16 percent of sales came from outside the county—a finding which refutes the notion that Walmart can act as a magnet drawing customers from a wide area and benefiting other businesses in town. “Although some suggest that the presence of Walmart outside of, but near to, the downtown area results in additional activity downtown, both sales data and traffic data do not show this gain,” the study concludes. “None of the nine case studies was experiencing a high enough level of population and income growth to absorb the Walmart store without losses to other businesses.” The study documents losses in downtown stores after Walmart opened. “General merchandise stores were most affected,” the study notes. “Other types of stores that closed include: automotive stores, hardware stores, drug stores, apparel stores, and sporting goods stores.” The supposed tax benefits of Walmart did not materialize either: “Although the local tax base added about $2 million with each Walmart, the decline in retail stores following the opening had a depressing effect on property values in downtowns and on shopping strips, offsetting gains from the Walmart property.”

“Competing with the Discount Mass Merchandisers[59]” [PDF]. Kenneth Stone, Iowa State University, 1995.

The basic premise of this study and others by Ken Stone is that the retail “pie” is relatively fixed in size, and grows only incrementally as population and incomes grow. Consequently, when a company like Walmart opens a giant store, it invariably captures a substantial slice of the retail pie, leaving smaller portions for existing businesses, which are then forced to downsize or close. This study of Walmart’s impact on Iowa towns found that the average superstore cost other merchants in the host town about $12 million a year in sales (as of 1995), while stores in smaller towns nearby also suffered substantial revenue losses. These sales losses resulted in the closure of 7,326 Iowa businesses between 1983 and 1993, including 555 grocery stores, 291 apparel stores, and 298 hardware stores. While towns that gained a Walmart store initially experienced a rise in overall retail sales, after the first two or three years, retail sales began to decline. About one in four towns ending up with a lower level of retail activity than they had prior to Walmart’s arrival. Stone attributes this to Walmart’s strategy of saturating regions with multiple stores.

10. CONSUMERS AND PRICES These studies find that chains are not always a bargain.

“Pharmacy Buying Guide[60].” Consumer Reports, Dec. 2015.

Consumer Reports‘s survey of pharmacies has consistently found that independent pharmacies earn top marks on a range of metrics, and are competitive on price, and its Dec. 2015 update to its pharmacy information is no exception. Not only are independents the preferred option for speed and accuracy, courtesy and helpfulness, and pharmacists’ knowledge, Consumer Reports found, but also offer “real bargains.” At independents, “pharmacists may have more flexibility to match or beat competitor prices” for customers who are paying out-of-pocket. In a national price scan in six areas around the U.S., Consumer Reports found that big pharmacy chains such as CVS and Rite Aid had the highest out-of-pocket prices, and the undercover shoppers “found some of the best deals at mom-and-pop stores.” For those with health insurance who have met their deductible, the co-pay is usually the same regardless of the pharmacy. In terms of service, independents easily beat their competition. Writes Consumer Reports: “At least 90 percent of shoppers at independents rated their pharmacy as Excellent or Very Good in speed & accuracy, courtesy & helpfulness, and pharmacists’ knowledge. No other type of drug store came close. Readers who shopped at independent stores were twice as likely as chain-drug-store shoppers to characterize their druggist as easy to talk to and able to give them a one-on-one consultation.”

“North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law: Ensuring Access, Competitive Prices, and Quality Care[61].” Olivia LaVecchia and Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Oct. 2014.

This report finds that thanks to a forward-thinking state law that keeps ownership and control of pharmacies in the hands of local pharmacists, instead of large chains, North Dakota’s prescription drug prices are among the lowest in the country. Over the most recent five-year period, North Dakota ranked 13th in lowest prescription drug prices among the 50 states, and compared with South Dakota, the average prescription price is not only lower, but has increased much more slowly over the last five years. The report also finds that North Dakotans experience an unparalleled level of pharmacy access and care.

“Wrestling with Walmart: Tradeoffs Between Profits, Prices, and Wages[62].” Jared Bernstein, Josh Bivens, and Arindrajit Dube, Economic Policy Institute, June 15, 2006.

This analysis refutes the findings of a 2005 study by Global Insights (GI) that found that Walmart saves U.S. consumers $263 billion annually, or $2,329 for the average household. The Economic Policy Institute concludes that the GI study is “fraught with problems.” It identifies major internal inconsistencies in GI’s figures and finds that the firm’s statistical analysis “fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks.” The authors state, “Once we addressed these weaknesses the statistical and practical significance of Walmart’s price effects effectively vanished.”

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Start-Ups: #1
  3. Inequality: #2
  4. Economic Returns: #3
  5. Jobs: #4
  6. Wages and Benefits: #5
  7. Social and Civic Well-Being: #6
  8. Public Subsidies: #7
  9. Taxes: #8
  10. Existing Businesses: #9
  11. Consumers & Prices: #10
  12. Check out more of our work: https://ilsr.org/independent-business/
  13. monthly newsletter: http://ilsr.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ebfe77c732e7192553aef5712&id=5c034248dd
  14. Declining Business Dynamism in the United States: A Look at States and Metros: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/declining-business-dynamism-litan
  15. The Importance of Young Firms for Economic Growth: http://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/resources/entrepreneurship-policy-digest/the-importance-of-young-firms-for-economic-growth
  16. Wage Inequality and Firm Growth: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2540321
  17. Independent BC: Small Business and the British Columbia Economy: https://ccednet-rcdec.ca/sites/ccednet-rcdec.ca/files/ccednet/pdfs/independant_bc_small_and_the_british_colombia_economy.pdf
  18. Indie Impact Study Series: Salt Lake City, Utah: http://nebula.wsimg.com/09d4a3747498c7e97b42657484cae80d?AccessKeyId=8E410A17553441C49302&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
  19. Going Local: Quantifying the Economic Impacts of Buying from Locally Owned Businesses in Portland, Maine.: https://www.mecep.org/maines-economy/going-local-quantifying-the-economic-impacts-of-buying-from-locally-owned-businesses-in-portland-maine/
  20. Thinking Outside the Box: A Report on Independent Merchants and the Local Economy: http://www.independentwestand.org/wp-content/uploads/ThinkingOutsidetheBox_1.pdf
  21. Local Works: Examining the Impact of Local Business on the West Michigan Economy: https://www.independentwestand.org/wp-content/uploads/GR_Local_Works_Complete.pdf
  22. The San Francisco Retail Diversity Study: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SFRDS-May07-2.pdf
  23. The Andersonville Study of Retail Economics: http://nebula.wsimg.com/0d5203ffcac30fe852f544a21a475256?AccessKeyId=8E410A17553441C49302&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
  24. The Economic Impact of Locally Owned Businesses vs. Chains: A Case Study in Midcoast Maine: /wp-content/uploads/files/midcoaststudy.pdf
  25. Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study: http://www.portlandbuylocal.org/studies-and-research/economic-impact-analysis-a-case-study/
  26. The Contribution of Large and Small Employers to Job Creation in Times of High and Low Unemployment: https://campuspress.yale.edu/moscarini/files/2017/01/large_employers-wqq557.pdf
  27. The Effects of Walmart on Local Labor Markets: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~dneumark/walmart.pdf
  28. Job Creation or Destruction? Labor-Market Effects of Walmart Expansion: http://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco6352/papers/basker.pdf
  29. this resource: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/hidden-taxpayer-costs
  30. Locally owned: Do local business ownership and size matter for local economic well-being?: https://www.frbatlanta.org/community-development/publications/discussion-papers/2013/01-do-local-business-ownership-size-matter-for-local-economic-well-being-2013-08-19
  31. Employers Who Had Fifty or More Employees Using MassHealth, Commonwealth Care, or the Health Safety Net in State Fiscal Year 2010: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/massachusetts-50-plus-employers.pdf
  32. rom Wisconsin: http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/badgercareplus/enrollmentdata/enrolldata.htm
  33. Missouri: https://dss.mo.gov/mhd/general/pdf/2011-employer-match-report.pdf
  34. Does Local Firm Ownership Matter?: http://edq.sagepub.com/content/25/3/277.abstract
  35. A Downward Push: The Impact of Walmart Stores on Retail Wages and Benefits: http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/retail/walmart_downward_push07.pdf
  36. Hidden Cost of Walmart Jobs: http://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/walmart.pdf
  37. this ILSR article: https://ilsr.org/locally-owned-businesses-communities-thrive-survive-climate-change/
  38. Small, Local, and Loyal: How Firm Attributes Affect Workers’ Organizational Commitment: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267506705_Small_local_and_loyal_How_firm_attributes_affect_workers
  39. College Graduates, Local Retailers, and Community Belonging in the United States: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02732173.2014.878612
  40. The Health and Wealth of US Counties: How the Small Business Environment Impacts Alternative Measures of Development: http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/14/cjres.rsr034.short?rss=1
  41. Street Survey of Business Reopenings in Post-Katrina New Orleans: http://cbr.tulane.edu/PDFs/campanella3.pdf
  42. Walmart and Social Capital: http://www.nercrd.psu.edu/BigBoxes/WalMartandSocialCapital2.pdf
  43. The Configuration of Local Economic Power and Civic Participation in the Global Economy: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/social_forces/v084/84.4blanchard.html
  44. Shortchanging Small Business: How Big Businesses Dominate State Economic Development Incentives: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/shortchanging
  45. In Search of a Level Playing Field: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/levelfield
  46. Tax Breaks and Inequality: Enriching Billionaires and Low-Road Employers in the Name of Economic Development: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/taxbreaksandinequality
  47. Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent: Subsidy Tracker 2.0 Reveals Big-Business Dominance of State and Local Development Incentives: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/subsidizingthecorporateonepercent
  48. An Assessment of the Effectiveness and Fiscal Impacts of the Use of Local Development Incentives in the St. Louis Region: https://www.ewgateway.org/library-post/development-incentives-in-the-st-louis-region/
  49. Fishing for Taxpayer Cash: http://public-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/fishing_for_taxpayer_cash.pdf
  50. Thinking Differently About Development: http://gfoa.co/thinking-differently-about-development
  51. Skimming the Sales Tax: How Walmart and Other Big Retailers (Legally) Keep a Cut of the Taxes We Pay on Everyday Purchases: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/skimming.pdf
  52. Fiscal Impact Analysis of Residential and Nonresidential Land Use Prototypes: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/files/barnstable-study.pdf
  53. Understanding the Tax Base Consequences of Local Economic Development Program: https://ccednet-rcdec.ca/sites/ccednet-rcdec.ca/files/ccednet/pdfs/understanding_the_tax_base_consequences_of_local_economic_development_programs.pdf
  54. The Impact of an Urban Walmart Store on Area Businesses: http://edq.sagepub.com/content/26/4/321.abstract
  55. Business Churn and the Retail Giant: Establishment Birth and Death from Walmart’s Entry: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2012.00857.x/abstract
  56. Mom-and-pop Meet Big-box: Complements Or Substitutes?: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15348.pdf
  57. Major Flaws Uncovered in Study Claiming Walmart Has Not Harmed Small Businesses: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/files/wm-smallbusiness.pdf
  58. The Impact of ‘Big-Box’ Building Materials Stores on Host Towns and Surrounding Counties in a Midwestern State: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/files/stone-study.pdf
  59. Competing with the Discount Mass Merchandisers: http://www.econ.iastate.edu/faculty/stone/1995_IA_WM_Study.pdf
  60. Pharmacy Buying Guide: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/pharmacies/buying-guide.htm
  61. North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law: Ensuring Access, Competitive Prices, and Quality Care: https://ilsr.org/report-pharmacy-ownership-law/
  62. Wrestling with Walmart: Tradeoffs Between Profits, Prices, and Wages: http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/wp276
  63. monthly newsletter: http://ilsr.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ebfe77c732e7192553aef5712&id=5c034248dd

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/key-studies-why-local-matters/


Albuquerque Extends a Helping Hand to the Homeless

by David Morris | January 6, 2016 4:43 pm

While other cities try to regulate or ban panhandlers, Albuquerque, N.M., offers them an income and social services for the day. Twice a week, a city van rolls through downtown Albuquerque, N.M., stopping at popular panhandling locations, Governing[1] magazine reports. The driver asks panhandlers if they want a day job. Work pays $9 an hour, higher than the state’s $7.50 minimum wage. In May, the city started posting signs at intersections with a 311 phone number and a website. Panhandlers can call to connect with services. Motorists can visit the website  to donate to a local shelter, food bank or an employment fund to pay panhandlers’ wages.

At the end of the day the van drops the day laborers off at St. Martin’s Hospitality Center, a nonprofit that connects people with housing, employment and mental health services.

Albuquerque calls its initiative A Better Way. I agree.

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Governing: http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-albuquerque-gives-panhandlers-jobs-not-tickets.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/albuquerque-extends-a-helping-hand-to-the-homeless/


Michigan Denies Free Speech to Public Officials

by David Morris | January 6, 2016 4:12 pm

On December 28th at 10:52PM, a few minutes before the New Year holiday recess, without public notice or hearings, the Michigan legislature, on a straight party line vote passed[1] a law prohibiting any public official from using “Public funds or resources for a communication” about a local ballot question within 60 days of the election.

The muzzling of the public sector does not extend to the private sector. Corporations and large political donors can still spend unlimited sums telling their side of the story. Indeed, adding insult to injury the same law allows campaigns to wait until after the elections to report their financial contributions.

So when Michigan’s citizens make up their minds how to vote on key ballot initiatives regarding issues like fracking or school bonding or municipal broadband their public officials will not be able to communicate with them.

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. passed: http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/19/educators-cities-worry-over-bill-limiting-ballot-education/77593062/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/michigan-denies-free-speech-to-public-officials/


Congress Gets Renewable Tax Credit Extension Right

by John Farrell | January 5, 2016 3:09 pm

placeholder[1]In case you missed it over the holiday, Congress passed a new federal budget, notably extending tax credits for solar, wind, and other renewable energy technologies. The extension differs from previous ones in two ways: it extends the credits for multiple years but also (as ILSR has been discussing[2] since[3] 2012) phases them out over time.

In other words, while the expiration of the solar tax credit wasn’t doomsday[4] (and even had a few silver linings[5]), Congress came up with a reasonable compromise to maintain incentive parity between clean energy and fossil fuels and provide the energy market with several years of predictable policy.

Extensions with a Phase Out

Here’s what it looks like. The production tax credit (a per kilowatt-hour incentive paid over 10 years) has been extended to projects that begin construction before 2020. However, for projects that begin construction after 2016, the incentive amount paid over the 10 years will be reduced. The following chart illustrates.

federal-wind-tax-credit-phase-out-ILSR-2015-v3[6]

The solar tax credit was similarly extended, but with no decrease through 2019, and a phase out beginning in 2020. The language of the credit also shifted the deadline from “in service” to “commencing construction,” giving projects more time to access the full credit. The following chart illustrates the tax credit decrease after 2019, from 30% down to 10% (or 0% for solar projects on residential property owned by the resident).

federal solar tax credit phase out ILSR 2015[7]

For those who like combination charts, here’s both tax credits in one:

federal-wind-and-solar-tax-credit-phase-out-ILSR-2015 v3[8]

Still Not the Optimal Policy

The upside of the tax credit extension is obvious: continuing to make the cost renewable energy favorable relative to the cost of fossil fuel power generation. The downside is that the tax credit remains a lousy way to incentivize renewable energy[9] in an equitable manner, favoring Wall Street participation over Main Street. And promising tools[10] for reducing the cost of financing clean energy may have to wait while the tax credit crowd continues their dominance over clean energy financing. Finally, while the phase out is smart policy design, it also raises the specter of parity: will fossil fuel subsidies be similarly reduced as clean energy incentives are reduced?

At the end of the day, discounts for clean energy are a good thing, and this extension is worth cheering. But we hope that as the market matures, Congress will look for ways to give more ordinary Americans a way to buy into our clean energy future, whether they have tax liability or not.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[11]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[12] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[13] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. discussing: https://ilsr.org/planning-phasing-incentives/
  3. since: https://ilsr.org/phase-out-federal-wind-tax-credit-good-thing/
  4. wasn’t doomsday: https://ilsr.org/its-not-doomsday-but-neither-is-ending-the-solar-tax-credit-good-policy/
  5. a few silver linings: https://ilsr.org/the-federal-solar-tax-credit-extension-can-we-win-if-we-lose/
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/federal-wind-tax-credit-phase-out-ILSR-2015-v3.jpg
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/federal-solar-tax-credit-phase-out-ILSR-2015.jpeg
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/federal-wind-and-solar-tax-credit-phase-out-ILSR-2015-v3.jpeg
  9. a lousy way to incentivize renewable energy: https://ilsr.org/why-tax-credits-make-lousy-renewable-energy-policy/
  10. promising tools: https://ilsr.org/securitization-democratize-solar-power/
  11. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  12. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  13. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/congress-gets-renewable-tax-credit-extension-right/


Obama’s Two Mistakes That Lost the Country

by David Morris | December 29, 2015 10:44 am

Early this year President Obama spoke before the Cleveland Club. After the speech 7th grader Alura Winfrey inquired, “If you could go back to the first day of your first term what advice would you give yourself?” Obama reflected for a moment and then blithely explained he would have worked harder to sell his economic policies.

Ms. Winfrey asked the right question but might have elicited a more revealing response if the question was given more context and phrased more insistently. Something like this: “Given that under your watch your party lost the country, in retrospect what would you have done differently?”

The data clearly would have supported her. When Barack Obama took office Democrats controlled the White House, both houses of Congress and had outright control (both houses of the state legislature and the governorship) of 27 states. Republicans controlled 17. In 2010 Democrats lost the House and the number of Democrat to Republican-controlled states almost exactly reversed. In 2014 Republicans won the Senate and the score regarding state control now stands at an astonishing 32 to 7 in favor of Republicans. And Republicans could complete the federal trifecta in 2016.

Nothing Obama could have done would have avoided the tsunami of vicious racist and xenophobic hatred that washed over him and the country, aided and abetted by the savagely partisan and vitriolic FOX news. Nothing would have stopped obscenely rich and intensely self-interested individuals like the Koch brothers from pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns to discredit and defile the President and the government in general.

But Obama might well have stunted the emergence of a rightwing populist movement if he had pursued an aggressive populist strategy of his own, one that demonstrated government could effectively challenge giant corporations and unbridled private greed on behalf of small business and the average family.

Obama certainly had the opportunity. The economy was in free fall. Millions faced the prospect of losing their homes. Millions more were losing their jobs. After freeing itself of most government restrictions and oversight the financial sector had become dysfunctional. Even stalwart defenders of laissez faire capitalism were confessing the error of their deregulatory ways. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?” Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) asked[1] Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve in October 2008. “Yes, I’ve found a flaw,” Greenspan reluctantly conceded, and added, “I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

The crisis in the health care sector was less visible but the sector’s inefficiencies and callousness were manifest. At a cost 30-100 percent higher than other nations were paying for universal health care, the America health care “system” left over 40 million uninsured. As many as 45,000[2] people died each year because they lacked health insurance. Medical expenses caused[3] 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies and had been rising by twice the inflation rate for several decades. Shrinking numbers of companies were offering employees adequate health care insurance and those that did were requiring more of the premium to be paid out of the workers’ paychecks even while insurance companies increased the level of deductibles.

To his credit Obama did try to make systemic changes in both the financial and health care sector. To his everlasting discredit he tried to make these changes without actually structurally changing the system. Instead of confronting power he bribed the powerful: $700 billion in direct support and trillions in low cost money for the banks, $500 billion for the health insurance companies. He enlisted the support of giant pharmaceutical companies, among the most profitable of all manufacturing firms, by refusing to cap drug prices. He enlisted the support of giant insurance companies by embracing an individual mandate he had opposed during the campaign, thus guaranteeing the companies millions of new mostly healthy younger customers, whose premiums would be heavily subsidized by the government. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. asked: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business-july-dec08-crisishearing_10-23/
  2. 45,000: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/
  3. caused: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-healthcare-bankruptcy-idUSTRE5530Y020090605
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/obamas-two-mistakes-that-lost-the-country/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/obamas-two-mistakes-that-lost-the-country/


Wilson Moves to Expand Greenlight Network to Neighboring Town

by ILSR | December 18, 2015 10:45 am

Thanks to a new interlocal agreement, the City of Wilson, North Carolina will soon expand[1] its Greenlight community broadand network[2] to the nearby Town of Pinetops. Officials expect to complete the expansion of the gigabit fiber network by April 2016. Pinetops, a town of 1,300, is less than 20 miles from Wilson, population 50,000.

We’re Waiting…

For Brenda Harrell, Pinetops Interim Town Manager, the agreement has been a long time coming after years of frustration over their limited broadband access options.

“Current providers haven’t made significant upgrades to our broadband service through the years,” “They haven’t found us worth the investment. Through this partnership with Greenlight and our neighbors in Wilson, we are able to meet a critical need for our residents.”

As far back as 2010, city leaders in Wilson were in negotiations with Pinetops officials on a proposal to expand the Greenlight network to reach Pinetops, a town of about 1,300. But those negotiations reached an impasse in 2011 when the State of North Carolina passed H129. Since then, officials in Wilson and in surrounding communities have been waiting for a time when Wilson could extend their the Greenlight network footprint.

The new agreement became possible in the wake of the FCC decision in February to overturn North Carolina’s anti-muni HB 129, allowing North Carolina communities to start considering the option to build their own broadband networks or expand on existing networks. While the state has appealed that decision in hopes of preserving the law, this agreement indicates Wilson officials are looking confidently ahead with the expectation that the state’s appeal will fail.

Looking Back, and to the Future

Last November, when the New York Times wrote about the fight[3] in communities around the nation for the right to build and expand community broadband networks, they talked to Gregory Bethea, the now retired town manager of Pinetops, North Carolina:

“If you want to have economic development in a town like this, you’ve got to have fiber,” Bethea told them.

And that’s what this agreement is about: giving Pinetops the local authority necessary to create their own economic opportunities.

In that article the Times also quoted Will Aycock, the General Manager of Wilson’s Greenlight network. At the time, Aycock was already looking beyond the state’s anti-muni law to future expansion:

“We would probably be building tomorrow if the law changed today,” Mr. Aycock said. “We’re not saying that we’re going to build out all of eastern Carolina or even all of our service territory tomorrow. But there are areas where we’d like to go now.”

With this new agreement in place, Aycock is now able to see those plans for expansion come to fruition. Upon reaching the agreement, he said:

“Our commitment to improving the delivery of City services through our smart grid initiatives has made broadband service to Pinetops possible, as the same fiber that supports the smart grid system will be leveraged to deliver next generation broadband.”

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. soon expand: http://www.localnetchoice.org/connections/wilson-greenlight-stretches-its-gigabit-to-its-rural-neighbors/
  2. Greenlight community broadand network: http://www.localnetchoice.org/connections/wilson-greenlight-stretches-its-gigabit-to-its-rural-neighbors/
  3. wrote about the fight: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/technology/in-rural-america-challenging-a-roadblock-to-high-speed-internet.html
  4. here: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/wilson-moves-expand-greenlight-network-neighboring-town

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/wilson-moves-to-expand-greenlight-network-to-neighboring-town/


Watch: Don’t Take the Bait – Exelon’s Feeding Frenzy Won’t Stop with Pepco

by John Farrell | December 17, 2015 6:55 am

[1]Exelon, a monopoly electric utility and the nation’s largest nuclear power generator, made a $6.8 billion offer[2] to purchase Pepco, Washington D.C.’s electric utility in April of 2014. Since then, they have swarmed across Pepco’s service area, getting the approval of federal regulators, state utility commissions, and shareholders. Washington D.C.’s Public Service Commission has, however, halted Exelon in its tracks by deeming the merger “not in the public interest.”

Not to be thwarted, Exelon donated D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser with a $25 million “land use contribution” just a few days before she became an Exelon-Pepco merger champion. Share our video below and learn how to help stop the Exelon-Pepco merger.

Take action by:

  • Submitting comments[3] to Washington D.C.’s PSC
  • Sharing on Facebook[4] and Twitter[5]
  • Read more at Crain’s Chicago Business[6], Midwest Energy News[7] & on our website[8].
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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. $6.8 billion offer: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=23432
  3. Submitting comments: http://www.powerdc.org/take-action.html
  4. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Energy-Self-Reliant-States-132578100187572/
  5. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  6. Crain’s Chicago Business: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140621/ISSUE01/306219983/how-exelon-lost-its-spark
  7. Midwest Energy News: http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/09/10/big-windfall-for-exelon-plants-in-pjm-capacity-auctions-weakens-case-for-illinois-bailout/
  8. our website: https://ilsr.org/dont-take-the-bait-exelons-ambitions-go-beyond-d-c-s-power-episode-28-of-local-energy-rules

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dont-take-the-bait-exelons-feeding-frenzy-wont-stop-with-pepco/


Watch: Can Energy Democracy Energize the “Good Life” in Nebraska?

by John Farrell | December 15, 2015 12:00 pm

placeholder[1]The following presentation was given by ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy John Farrell, this year’s keynote speaker at the Sierra Club of Nebraska’s Annual Event on November 21st, 2015.  The presentation illustrates the march towards energy democracy by highlighting the spread of affordable distributed energy resources (such as wind and solar) and the intense pressure it puts on the 20th century business model for electric utilities.

John outlined how Nebraska is particularly well-suited to capitalize on added distributed solar capacity. With an active citizenry and publicly-owned utilities, Nebraska can ensure that their energy future is a clean one.

Click through the slides[2] or watch the video below.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[3]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[4] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[5] update
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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Click through the slides: //www.slideshare.net/farrell-ilsr/can-energy-democracy-energize-the-good-life-in-nebraska
  3. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  4. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  5. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/can-energy-democracy-energize-nebraska/


ILSR’s Distributed Solar Capacity Quarterly Update

by John Farrell | December 14, 2015 11:23 am

Renewable energy continues to dominate new power plant capacity and distributed generation has contributed an increasingly large share. We’ve been tracking this phenomenon since April of 2014, and, finally, the Energy Information Administration has recognized the prevalence of distributed solar and is going to report estimates of this added capacity[1] in their monthly updates. This is a big victory for tracking an individually-small but collectively-large power resource!

See previous updates: 2015 Q2[2], 2015 Q1[3], 2014 Q4[4], 2014 Q3[5], 2014 Q2[6]

Renewables Dominate New Annual Capacity

It’s been nearly 10 years since fossil fuel power plants represented more than 60% of new power plant capacity (2006), and it looks like three years running where distributed solar will represent at least 10% of new power capacity. Below is the annual data since 2003.

us new power plant capacity 2003-2015 annual ILSR[7]

Despite some fluctuation, when added capacity is broken down by quarter the growth of distributed solar has been consistently 10% or more of new power plant capacity. This has been aided by steeply falling prices and victories against utilities in the war on solar and other distributed power[8].
us new power plant capacity 2014-2015 quarterly ILSR[9]

The growth in distributed solar continues to expand the opportunity for electric customers to own a slice of their energy future[10], an economic windfall that could cumulatively shift as much as $48 billion[11] from electric utilities to their customers in the next 10 years.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[12]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[13] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[14] update.

Photo credit: Andrew _ B via Flickr[15] (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)

 

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Endnotes:
  1. is going to report estimates of this added capacity: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=23972
  2. 2015 Q2: https://ilsr.org/ever-greater-share-of-new-power-from-distributed-solar/
  3. 2015 Q1: https://ilsr.org/distributed-solar-surges-in-early-2015/
  4. 2014 Q4: https://ilsr.org/small-scale-solar-contributes-13-power-plants-2014/
  5. 2014 Q3: https://ilsr.org/distributed-solar-substantial-portion-2014-power-plant-capacity/
  6. 2014 Q2: https://ilsr.org/2-charts-show-solars-jump-top-spot-u-s-power-generation/
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/us-new-power-plant-capacity-2003-2015-annual-ILSR.jpeg
  8. war on solar and other distributed power: https://ilsr.org/a-plan-b-for-every-monopoly-electric-utility/
  9. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/us-new-power-plant-capacity-2014-2015-quarterly-ILSR.jpeg
  10. own a slice of their energy future: http://www.ilsr.org/report-advantage-local-clean-energy-ownership-matters/
  11. $48 billion: https://ilsr.org/u-s-utility-customers-save-48-billion-solar-efficiency/
  12. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  13. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  14. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  15. via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrew_bolin/3728622781/in/photolist-6FuaDF-sByaQe-5YXm2i-nZYBrH-mMGKV9-qXTgvH-eMFzpr-acicoX-sGJNvf-PjdND-6htDJ1-oL8bSf-87WR12-8718iq-aaf8hf-piTyH7-zKSeiw-dsx6VK-z767Pu-rCEuLC-89Dx8Q-bpUVar-56zbV2-pyYHAZ-4LMZBA

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsrs-distributed-solar-capacity-quarterly-update/


With New Wave of Mega-Mergers, the Big Aim to Get Bigger

by Olivia LaVecchia | November 23, 2015 10:43 am

In the middle of October, after months of courtship, Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller struck a $104.2 billion deal to merge. The global beer conglomerates behind Budweiser, Miller, and a stable of other beer brands will, if approved by regulators, become a single company with control over nearly 70 percent of the U.S. beer market, and 30 percent of the market across the globe.

Two weeks later, Walgreens and Rite Aid announced an agreement to combine into the country’s largest pharmacy company, on the heels of rival giant CVS buying Target’s pharmacies in June. Meanwhile, Staples is moving ahead with its $6.3 billion acquisition of Office Depot (which itself acquired OfficeMax in 2013), Bass Pro Shops is exploring a bid for the hunting and fishing chain Cabela’s, and last week, in a transaction that will create the country’s largest hotel chain, Marriott announced its acquisition of Starwood Hotels.

Even as craft breweries, farmers markets, and other small-scale, locally owned enterprises experience renewed vitality, at the other side of the economic spectrum, there’s more consolidation than ever. Mergers and acquisitions are expected to hit a record $4.58 trillion this year, the American Prospect recently reported[1]. And nearly a third of industries qualify as “highly concentrated” under current federal antitrust standards, found a recent Wall Street Journal analysis[2], up from about a quarter of industries a decade ago.

Much of this concentration is invisible to consumers. When AB InBev bought Chicago’s Goose Island Brewery for $38 million, for instance, it kept the well-loved craft brewer’s recipes and label, a pattern that it’s continued with its other craft acquisitions. Bar patrons still see a variety of beers on tap, and might not realize that their dollars now flow to AB InBev when they choose any number of them. Or take milk. Grocery shoppers choosing between 31 milk brands around the country rarely know that they’re all owned by one milk processor, Dean Foods, which controls 36 percent of the U.S. market for milk. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. reported: http://prospect.org/article/bring-back-antitrust-0
  2. analysis: http://www.wsj.com/articles/wave-of-megadeals-tests-antitrust-limits-in-u-s-1445213306?alg=y
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/new-wave-of-mega-mergers-means-the-big-get-bigger/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-wave-of-mega-mergers-means-the-big-get-bigger/


It’s not Doomsday, but Neither is Ending the Solar Tax Credit Good Policy

by John Farrell | November 19, 2015 2:47 pm

I took the “no” side in a point/counterpoint in the Wall Street Journal this week on the topic: Will Solar Energy Plummet if the Investment Tax Credit Fades Away[1]? It’s been a great conversation-starter, but also an opportunity to clarify ILSR’s position on the tax credit extension.

In short, while allowing the 30% tax credit to expire is not doomsday for solar, it’s bad policy. Congress should maintain support for a zero-fuel, zero-carbon energy resource that can decentralize the economic benefits of the power system.

The biggest problem with killing the tax credit is that, as a blunt instrument, the tax credit doesn’t equally affect all communities. A solar array in Missouri or Minnesota, for example, produces 30% less (or more) electricity per year than one in California or Arizona. While the cost of solar electricity will be at parity with (or better than) electricity prices in the Southwest and some Northeast states by 2017, it will take several more years to reach parity elsewhere. Letting the tax credit expire will mire these markets at a crucial opportunity to get them launched. The following screenshot from ILSR’s interactive solar parity map[2] shows the regional disparity in cost-competitive solar with no incentives in 2017.

Screen Shot 2015-11-19 at 12.07.33 PM[3]

There’s also little point in reducing incentives for clean energy when we continue to subsidize dirty energy. In the last 70 years, the federal Department of Energy has spent twice as much money on fossil energy development as on renewables. And renewable energy has received only 14% of the tax break largess[4] showered on fossil fuels through the last century, and less than half on an annual basis. That’s despite the fact that while solar has no meaningful environmental or health impact from generating electricity, fossil fuel sources like coal continue to socialize their costs.

tax-breaks-630 cropped[5]

The high health cost of coal[6]
Credit: EDF

Finally, solar energy gives most electric customers, for the first time, the power to choose their energy source, often as an alternative to an increasingly expensive product from a monopoly power company. These companies would like nothing better than to cripple competition for their increasingly costly electricity.

While it’s true that there may be some silver lining to the solar tax credit expiration cloud[7], it would create more harm than good to give coal and natural gas (and electric monopolies) a free pass while roadblocking solar by cutting the Investment Tax Credit.

Opportunities to Improve

Policy-making is rarely perfect, however, so I can’t resist suggesting a few ways Congress could make the solar incentive better rather than killing it.

1. Make it a cash payment. Cities, counties, schools, and other non-profit organizations can’t use tax credits at all, and many Americans lack the tax liability to use it even as new financing tools are allowing more of them to go solar. The result is the rise of middlemen[8] that suck up much of the tax credit’s value.

2. Adjust it to the solar resource. Awarding the same $4,500 to identical 5-kilowatt solar arrays in Minnesota and California makes the former just competitive with retail electricity prices and the latter a windfall investment. In coastal Oregon, the same tax incentives may not be enough to provide any payback at all. Adapting the incentive to the solar resource would focus its power on the regions that need it most to get the solar market running.

3. Pay for performance. How do we make sure solar arrays are installed properly to maximize electricity production? If we pay for output, rather than simply discount the price up front.

4. Phase out, don’t do lights out. If we truly care about allowing the solar industry to adjust to an incentive-free market, then copy one of the best solar programs out there—the California Solar Initiative. Incentive payments were tied to existing market capacity, stepping down as the market grew. The federal incentive could also be phased out on a predetermined schedule, reducing by 5% per year until it zeroed out in 2022.

csi_steps[9]

The solar tax credit was a blunt instrument for energizing the solar market and it worked. It may be less efficient and less nuanced than it could be, but killing the tax credit isn’t the solution. Instead, ending the credit amounts to unilateral disarmament of solar energy in the face of fossil fuel competition, at an unacceptable cost to the environment, consumer choice, and the coming of energy democracy.

For further reading:
The Federal Solar Tax Credit Extension: Can We Win if We Lose?[10]
Will Solar Energy Plummet if the Investment Tax Credit Fades Away[1]?

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[11]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[12] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[13] update.

Photo credit: 1upLego via Flickr[14] (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)

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Endnotes:
  1. Will Solar Energy Plummet if the Investment Tax Credit Fades Away: http://www.wsj.com/articles/will-solar-energy-plummet-if-the-investment-tax-credit-fades-away-1447643512
  2. ILSR’s interactive solar parity map: http://www.ilsr.org/projects/solarparitymap/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-19-at-12.07.33-PM.png
  4. 14% of the tax break largess: http://bit.ly/1OhAsXM
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/tax-breaks-630-cropped.png
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CBC344F5-D16E-47C4-B824-32BE7CB1B5A7.png
  7. some silver lining to the solar tax credit expiration cloud: https://ilsr.org/the-federal-solar-tax-credit-extension-can-we-win-if-we-lose/
  8. the rise of middlemen: https://ilsr.org/cost-solar-middleman/
  9. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/csi_steps.jpg
  10. The Federal Solar Tax Credit Extension: Can We Win if We Lose?: https://ilsr.org/the-federal-solar-tax-credit-extension-can-we-win-if-we-lose/
  11. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  12. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  13. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  14. via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/1uplego/6992092654/in/photolist-bDSixC-q6f2uE-8EGNRp-dgGB9V-HJbSz-5q5Wzc-dBsZH8-pchss8-7p2ptR-5PSUYq-7Ef19a-ckY4vo-7XneLD-dPmkVd-azgT4K-azgSY6-c7sVC-exHwxS-ai2Nfc-anPCv6-raL9TY-CAsBx-8NLVdJ-9cBYQp-azjxrU-49vavZ-7N2E54-6hanXd-dD2r1q-59Tuo7-6v49Wp-dD16Ru-7ZL6Ft-847d9S-55RZQY-p2EwTb-fLejdy-rwY8QD-7YosrD-jQL3ht-anb5S1-akFnAm-5G3pPB-9cBYsx-9cBYh8-sPLae-sRGak-gZQYbo-rdJ6h-5rUUd4

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/its-not-doomsday-but-neither-is-ending-the-solar-tax-credit-good-policy/


Hillary Clinton: Stop State Laws that Restrict Local Choice

by ILSR | November 14, 2015 8:04 am

In a position piece[1] released in October, Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for local authority:

“Three-quarters of US households have at most one option for purchasing the Internet service families now depend on for shopping, streaming, and doing homework. When alternatives do emerge, however, as they have in places like Kansas City, prices go down and speeds go up……Closing these loopholes and protecting other standards of free and fair competition—like enforcing strong net neutrality rules and preempting state laws that unfairly protect incumbent businesses—will keep more money in consumers’ wallets, enable startups to challenge the status quo, and allow small businesses to thrive.”

The effort to stop state laws that limit local choice on broadband initiatives requires more political leaders to take a stand like the one Mrs. Clinton takes here against local monopoly power in favor of fair competition. Voters must become better informed about the insidious impact of centralized corporate power on their local freedom and demand that elected officials embrace policies to decentralize power.

As the Federal Communications Commission has made clear, broadband access is crucial to addressing quality of life issues including economic development[2], government performance[3], education[4], medical care[5], public safety[6], energy & environmental innovation[7], and civic engagement[8]. Regardless of party affiliation, candidate platforms must acknowledge that fast, affordable, reliable Internet access for all is one of the biggest challenges facing communities around the nation.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. position piece: http://qz.com/529303/hillary-clinton-being-pro-business-doesnt-mean-hanging-consumers-out-to-dry/
  2. economic development: http://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  3. government performance: http://www.broadband.gov/issues/government-performance.html
  4. education: http://blog.ed.gov/2013/06/closing-the-broadband-gap-for-students-and-teachers/
  5. medical care: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/04/01/closing-the-rural-health-connectivity-gap-how-broadband-funding-can-better-improve-care/
  6. public safety: http://urgentcomm.com/blog/fcc-broadband-initiatives-could-benefit-public-safety
  7. energy & environmental innovation: https://bsc.poole.ncsu.edu/library/article/how-will-fiber-impact-sustainability
  8. civic engagement: https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/760940/Fox_georgetown_0076M_12892.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
  9. here: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/hillary-clinton-stop-state-laws-restrict-local-choice

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/hillary-clinton-stop-state-laws-that-restrict-local-choice/


The People United

by David Morris | November 9, 2015 8:10 am

New York makes it hard for citizens to influence policy.  They cannot put an issue on the state ballot no matter how many signatures they gather. And although the state Constitution has a home rule provision, cities and counties lack authority to undertake some of the most basic initiatives. Even mighty New York City, with over 8 million people, must go hat in hand to Albany to request permission to reduce city speed limits, install red light cameras, open their courts at night, or raise taxes other than those imposed on property.

Which makes it even more impressive that in the past few years initiatives from the bottom up have won two and a half significant victories in the face of vigorous opposition from giant corporations and ongoing hostility from state government. (I explain below why I list a partial victory.)

Minimum Wage

In 2012 New York’s minimum wage was identical to that of the federal government: $7.25 an hour.

That November workers at Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Burger King in Manhattan walked off the job to protest low pay and poor working conditions. With the assistance of the Service Employees International Union the Fight for $15 campaign was born and later spread across the nation.

In 2013 Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature did agree to slowly raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour by December 2015. But there they drew the line. In January 2014, in his first State of the City address New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged the legislature to let cities set their own minimum wage. Cuomo quickly rejected the proposal. Doing so, he explained[1], could lead to a “chaotic situation.”

In June 2014 two events occurred that moved the Fight for $15 to another level. Seattle became the first city to embrace that wage and Cuomo did what the New York Times called[2] an “about-face on raising the minimum wage” by supporting a higher minimum wage for high cost cities like New York than lower cost cities in upstate New York.

The about-face, the Times noted, was an outcome of negotiations with New York’s Working Families Party (WFP).   A little background might be helpful here. New York is one of the very few states with a fusion system of voting. In the vast majority of states an independent party must not only win a certain number of votes to get a line on the ballot but must nominate its own candidate. That often leads them to play a spoiler role: taking votes from a candidate the party’s members would have liked to endorse. Fusion states like New York allow a new political party to endorse another party’s candidate. Which in turn allows third (and fourth and fifth) parties to quantifiably demonstrate their clout and that affords them real political leverage.

In 2014 Governor Andrew Cuomo was seeking a lopsided victory in the upcoming election to boost his presidential ambitions. To achieve this he needed the endorsement and votes of the WFP. But most WFP members opposed Cuomo’s indifference to the power of big money on politics and the worsening plight of workers. They were ready to nominate Zephyr Teachout, a law professor who in 2004 had been on-line coordinator of Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign.

On the last day of May, the day before the WFP convention convened Cuomo finally agreed to support WFP’s program and by a close vote he gained its endorsement. That agreement included supporting a higher statewide minimum wage for NYC of $13.13 an hour.

To no one’s surprise Cuomo did not fully live up to his promises but in January 2015 he did ask the legislature to raise the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour in New York City and $10.50 an hour in the rest of the state. “We applaud Governor Cuomo’s proposed increase…”, Bill Lipton, the state director of the WFP said[3]. “But $11.50 is almost $2 less than what he endorsed last spring.” The legislature rejected Cuomo’s proposal.

In May Cuomo convened the New York Wage Board, an agency established in 1933 with the power to raise wages for specific groups of workers without legislative approval, and asked it to recommend a minimum wage for the state’s 180,000 fast food workers. In July, after hearing testimony from scores of workers the Board recommended a wage of $15 an hour.

In September Cuomo signed the recommendation into law and announced his support for a statewide $15 minimum wage. “Cuomo Pivots Again as He Seeks a $15 Minimum Wage,” the Times reported[4]. “Just six months ago he said $15 an hour, the minimum that fast-food workers demanded, was ‘too high’ and proposed $10.50 as an alternative.”

Fracking

In the late 1990s horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic fracking opened up vast new energy sources from shale. One of the richest deposits is in the Marcellus Shale formation underlying all of West Virginia, much of Pennsylvania and southwestern New York.

Between 2005 and 2010 the country’s shale-gas industry grew[5] by 45 percent a year. As drilling sites proliferated people discovered their mostly rural communities were being turned into industrial free fire zones. In 2009, 13 water wells in Dimock, a Pennsylvania town near the New York border were contaminated with methane. One exploded. The incident received national publicity.

People living on the other side of the border took note and launched a huge, decentralized, region-wide teach-in. Discussion groups met in basements and living rooms and city halls. And as they learned, they expanded their educational network. In Dryden, Judy Pierpont recalls[6], “We started out with about eight of us but then friends, and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends joined.” Kelly Branigan, an activist in Middlefield told[7] Ellen Cantarow, “In Middlefield, we’re nothing special. We’re just regular people who got together and learned, and reached in our pockets to go to work on this. It’s inspiring, it’s awesome and it’s America—its own little revolution.”

Within two years the little revolution had become a big revolution. To Jack Ossont, a former helicopter pilot fracking had become[8] “the tsunami issue of New York. It washes across the entire landscape.” Sandra Steingraber, a biologist at Ithaca College described[9] the movement as “the biggest since abolition and women’s rights in New York.”

To be successful activists had to overcome a key obstacle. A 1981 state law encouraged drilling and specifically declared, “The provisions of this article shall supersede all local laws or ordinances relating to the regulation of the oil, gas, and solution mining industries; but shall not supersede local government jurisdiction over local roads or the rights of local governments under the real property tax law.”

Enter Helen and David Slottje, two corporate lawyers who had moved from Boston to Ithaca a few years before. Helen remembers attending a forum in 2009 and being “horrified” by what she saw. She and her husband looked for a solution. “With a corporate law background, you don’t ever tell a client that they can’t do what they want to do. You find any number of ingenious ways to get it done,” she said[10].

And find a way they did. The Slottjes concluded that the state law preempted cities’ right to regulate gas and oil drilling but not their right to impose an outright ban. “While you couldn’t regulate the industry, you could just say no.” she said[10]. They later counseled more than 50 municipalities around the state pro bono. In 2014 Ms. Slottje received the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work.

In late 2009 the state Department of Conservation (DEC) issued fracking guidelines. After blistering public criticism they were withdrawn and Governor David Paterson imposed a moratorium pending DEC revisions. That moratorium gave activists some breathing room to organize.

Relying on the Slottjes’ activists began organizing to convince their local governments to ban fracking.  In Ulysses people went door to door, ultimately persuading 1500 of the town’s 3000 registered voters to sign petitions against fracking. Ulysses imposed a ban as did Dryden, a city 20 miles east of Ulysses, and Middlefield, 120 miles east of Ulysses.

Almost immediately both Middlefield and Dryden were sued by energy corporations that argued bans violated the law and their property rights.

In November 2011 scores of anti-fracking candidates displaced pro gas incumbents as town councilors town supervisors and county legislators. By January 2012 about 80 towns and counties had outlawed fracking.

At the end of 2011 the DEC issued new guidelines. By that time the anti-fracking movement was in full roar. In early 2012 a DEC spokesperson told[11] reporters she expected total comments “to be more than 40,000” No other issue had ever received even 1000 comments. The guidelines were again withdrawn. The moratorium continued.

In February activists received a huge boost when 2012 two court decisions validated the Slottje’s legal strategy by upholding Dryden and Middlefield’s bans.

Governor Andrew Cuomo took office in January 2011. He supported fracking but continued the moratorium pending still more new studies. In early 2013 he proposed a pilot program. A few dozen “test” wells would be drilled and large portions of the state would be off-limits. James Smith, a spokesman for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York told[12] the Times, “We view it as a positive step.” In February 2013 Cuomo bowed to environmentalist pressure and the growing number of towns who were banning fracking and withdrew his proposal until the completion of another study.

The Washington Post summed[13] up Cuomo’s stance in June 2014, “Cuomo, widely believed to have national political ambitions, has avoided taking sides…”

In December 2014 New York’s Court of Appeals by a 5-2 vote upheld the lower court decisions regarding bans imposed by Dryden and Middlefield. By then over 170 communities had enacted bans.

Right after the court decision Cuomo finally imposed a permanent moratorium. The New York Times observed[14], “For Mr. Cuomo, the decision on fracking seemed likely to help repair his ties to his party’s left wing. It came after a surprisingly contentious re-election campaign in which Zephyr Teachout, a primary challenger who opposed fracking, won about a third of the vote.”

School Testing

The 2003 No Child Left Behind Law dramatically increased the emphasis on school testing but it was President Obama’s 2009 Race to the Top that made testing the centerpiece for education reform.

To be eligible for a share of the $4.35 billion in grants, states had to adopt rigorous Common Core standards for math and English and use the test results not only to evaluate students but teachers and schools. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia signed on even though only a score or so actually received any money.

Opposition to testing finally erupted in Seattle in January 2013 when teachers refused to administer standardized tests. With the introduction of state mandated Common Core tests opposition intensified. In April 2013 New York became the second state to administer tests aligned to Common Core State Standards (Kentucky was the first). In New York some 10,000 students refused to take the tests. Mark Naison, a professor at Fordham University in New York City called[15] it, “the largest test revolt in modern American history,”

In June 2013 an estimated 10,000-plus educators and parents from all over New York converged at the state capitol in Albany to demonstrate their opposition to high stakes testing.

Opt outs worried state officials but the results of the tests shocked them. The proficiency rate for English dropped[16] from 55.1 percent to 31.1 percent from 2012 to 2013 while in math it plunged from 64.8 percent to 31 percent.

In 2014 state legislators partially responded to growing protests by prohibiting districts from making promotion or placement decisions “solely or primarily on student performance” on standardized test.

Nevertheless that year between 55,000 and 60,000 students opted out.

In late March 2015 Governor Cuomo and the legislature raised the stakes still higher by requiring that student test scores comprise 50 percent of teacher and principal evaluations. Any teacher rated ineffective two years in a row could be fired. Depending on how long a school has been struggling, local districts would have one or two years to make “demonstrable improvement”. If a school failed to improve, it would be placed in receivership.

Carol Burris, New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year worried[17] about the impact of high stakes testing on students. “(W)hat will be the likely effects on students when their performance on tests determines half of their teacher’s evaluation?…every high-school teacher will be incentivized to push weaker students out of challenging classes like Advanced Algebra, Physics and Chemistry….Narrow teaching to the 3-8 Common Core tests and test prep will be further incentivized

In 2015 some 20 percent of all students, over 200,000 opted out. “The governor and legislature spoke on April 1 with their plan for our children’s education,” said[18] Lisa Rudley, a parent with children in the Ossining Union Free School District. “Parents are responding in force, ‘We do not consent!’

A group called The Concerned Teachers of New York State wrote an open letter to Governor Cuomo asserting, “We are hard-pressed to find any reference literature that supports staking such a large portion of a teacher’s overall evaluation rating on how his/her students perform on a standardized exam.” They noted that most studies found that teachers account for only 1-14 percent of the variability in test scores,

Cuomo still backed standardized tests but in the face of massive opposition he conceded[19], “We must have standards for New York’s students, but those standards will only work if people — especially parents — have faith in them and in their ability to educate our children. The current Common Core program does not do that. It must.” He convened a task force to review the state’s Common Core program.

The state also delayed by two years the date that the results of the Common Core exams will be counted in student assessments. It did not delay the implementation of test scores to evaluate teachers and schools. Nevertheless a majority of the more than 700 school districts in New York will probably be exempted[20] from implementing the new system at least until March 2016. In late October the Board of Regents convened a panel[21] to “consider improvements” to the teacher evaluation system.

All three examples prove that where there’s a will—and good steady organizing—there’s a way. Fast food workers took to the streets and, combined with strong support by organized labor and an increasingly influential independent political party, gained a victory. Opponents to fracking discovered a novel legal theory that allowed cities to ban fracking and then convinced hundreds of cities to do so.

Here’s where the half victory comes in. Whether ultra high stakes testing will continue is still undecided. But in the last two years grassroots opposition by parents and teachers and widespread civil disobedience by students clearly has changed the conversation and the dynamic.

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. explained: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/nyregion/cuomo-rejects-another-plan-by-de-blasio-minimum-wage.html
  2. called: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/05/nyregion/higher-minimum-wage-gains-support.html
  3. said: http://observer.com/2015/01/andrew-cuomo-calls-for-10-50-minimum-wage-statewide-11-50-in-new-york-city/
  4. reported: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/nyregion/cuomo-pivots-again-as-he-seeks-a-15-minimum-wage.html
  5. grew: http://www.economist.com/node/21556242
  6. recalls: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/banning-fracking-in-new-york2014for-good
  7. told: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175492/ellen_cantarow_shale-shocked
  8. become: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175492/tomgram%3A_ellen_cantarow,_an_environmental_occupy_fracks_corporate_america/
  9. described: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175492/tomgram%3A_ellen_cantarow,_an_environmental_occupy_fracks_corporate_america/
  10. said: http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/ny_attorney_wins_goldman_environmental_prize/
  11. told: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175492/tomgram%3A_ellen_cantarow,_an_environmental_occupy_fracks_corporate_america/
  12. told: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/nyregion/hydrofracking-under-cuomo-plan-would-be-restricted-to-a-few-counties.html
  13. summed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/18/heres-the-grassroots-political-story-behind-the-new-york-fracking-ban/
  14. observed: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/nyregion/cuomo-to-ban-fracking-in-new-york-state-citing-health-risks.html
  15. called: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/pencils-down
  16. dropped: http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2013/08/07/test-scores-fall-sharply-statewide-but-nyc-fares-relatively-well/
  17. worried: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/03/what-the-thoughtless-n-y-government-just-did-to-teachers/
  18. said: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/16/parents-opt-out-standardized-tests/25896607/
  19. conceded: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/statement-governor-andrew-m-cuomo-common-core-standards
  20. exempted: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Most-districts-in-state-get-waiver-on-teacher-6593789.php
  21. panel: http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/10/board-of-regents-will-form-panel-to.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-people-united/


ILSR Sponsors the Third National Cultivating Community Composting Forum

by Brenda Platt | November 5, 2015 2:30 am

In collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle[1], the Institute for Local Self-Reliance announces two events to be held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show[2] in Jacksonville, Florida:

Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop –
January 25, 2016

 

Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2016-
January 26, 2016

These events will bring together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community scale composting systems and enterprises. The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2016 is the third national forum sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle.

 

Scholarships are available to community composters!
Click here[3] to apply.
Application deadline: November 13th

 

Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop
1 to 4:30 pm, Monday, January 25th, 2016

In this half-day workshop for community composters, we will walk through practices that work. Topics include: creative financing, operator training, engaging community and recruiting participants, food scrap collection, equipment and small-scale systems, site planning, complying with regulations, outreach and communications, cooperative structures, technology platforms, marketing compost, measuring impact, managing the compost process, and overcoming roadblocks. We will address how to take your community-scale composting to the next level. Walk away knowing how to adapt the efforts and achievements of other programs for your community. Open to community-scale composters who are composting on-site at schools, community gardens and farms or otherwise keeping the process as local and small-scale as possible while engaging the community through participation and education. Pedal-powered collectors welcome.

Practitioners: A diverse team of community composters will lead this workshop. If you’re interested in participating, please email Joshua Etim at info@ilsr.org[4].
Facilitators/hosts: Brenda Platt, Institute for Local Self-Reliance; Nora Goldstein, BioCycle

Workshop Cost: USCC Member Price: $175 / Non-Member Price: $225

Register on the USCC web site, here[5].

Scholarships available to community composters! Apply here[6] by November 13th. After that, email Joshua Etim at info@ilsr.org[4].

Cultivating Community Composting Forum
2:30 to 6:00 pm, Tuesday, January 26th, 2016

This Forum will take place as a track on the first day of the US Composting Council’s International Conference and Trade Show (January 25th-28th). (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/
  2. USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show: http://compostingcouncil.org/compost2016/
  3. here: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-offers-scholarships-to-attend-national-compost-conference/
  4. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  5. here: https://www.cvent.com/events/compost2016-us-composting-council-s-24th-annual-conference-tradeshow/registration-7aa2a8eb4fb74b7ea638c381b4d9b9e8.aspx
  6. here: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-offers-scholarships-to-attend-national-compost-conference/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/cultivating-community-composting-forum2016/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cultivating-community-composting-forum2016/


Voters Quiet the Drums At the Polls in Colorado

by ILSR | November 3, 2015 4:53 pm

The “constant drumbeat” of complaints about poor connectivity pounding from Colorado communities ended with a climactic crash at the polls on Tuesday. Referenda in 43 communities[1] – 26 cities and towns; 17 counties – all passed overwhelmingly to reclaim local telecommunications authority.

Staggering Approval

The landslide victory was no surprise. Last year, nine communities asked voters the same issue of whether or not they wanted the ability to make local telecommunications decisions. That right was taken away 10 years ago by SB 152. Two other communities took up the question earlier this year with 75 percent[2] and 92 percent[3] of voters supporting local telecommunications authority.

A few larger communities, such as Boulder[4], Montrose[5], and Centennial[6], presented the issue to the voters and reclaimed local authority in prior years. This year, most of the voting took place in smaller, rural communities where incumbents have little incentive to invest in network upgrades.

This year, results were similar as the majority of voters supported local measures with over 70 percentage of ballots cast. In Durango, over 90 percent of voters chose to opt out of restrictive SB 152; Telluride voters affirmed their commitment to local authority when over 93 percent of votes supported measure 2B. Many communities showed support in the mid- and upper- 80th percentile.

Schools Win, Too

In addition to economic development, Colorado communities are looking to the future by planning for students and tomorrow’s workforce. Ballot questions in a number locations asked voters to allow school districts to have the option of investing in telecommunications if necessary. They don’t have faith that incumbents will keep up with their growing needs.

Colorado Mountain College[7], also unsure of the future, asked voters in six different communities for permission to provide their own Internet, if necessary. Voters in all locations said “yes.”

 

Out From Under The “Dark Cloud”

Virgil Turner, Director of Innovation from the City of Montrose, describes[8] what it is like when a community opts out of SB 152:

“We didn’t know exactly what we’d do,” Turner said. “But we no longer are under this dark cloud of not being able to be innovative.”

SB 152 first passed through the state legislature in 2005 after heavy lobbying from Comcast and CenturyLink. Legislators and lobbyists backing the law argued its intent was taxpayer protection but the past 10 years have proved otherwise. The real motivation behind the bill was to protect incumbent de facto monopolies and prevent potential competition by municipal networks.

The law hurts taxpayers by discouraging private investment. It prevents local governments from working with private sector ISP partners who may want to use publicly owned fiber infrastructure. It stalls economic development because employers can’t get the connectivity they need. It stifles growth in the small communities that need growth the most.

These communities have waited patiently for incumbents to invest in better infrastructure but communities will no longer wait and watch while places like Longmont[9], Rio Blanco[10], and Estes Park[11] leave them behind.

Until the State Legislature decides to strike SB 152 and the expensive hoops communities must jump through to opt out of it, places like Fort Collins, Steamboat Springs, and Pitkin County will be forced to spend precious public dollars on this type of referenda.

The Time to Act is Now

Ken Fellman, general counsel with the Colorado Communications and Utility Alliance told the Denver Post[12]:

It’s not that we want to compete with the private sector — it’s that the private sector isn’t providing the level of service the community needs.

Now that these communities have recovered the right to determine their broadband destiny, they have a choice. They can rest in the comfort of knowing they comply with the law or explore endless possibilities now open to them. They can stop pounding drums and start innovating.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[13]

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Endnotes:
  1. Referenda in 43 communities: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/let-it-be-local-43-colorado-communities-vote-better-broadband
  2. 75 percent: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/grand-junction-voters-we-want-local-authority
  3. 92 percent: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/grand-junction-voters-we-want-local-authority
  4. Boulder: http://muninetworks.org/content/republicans-and-democrats-alike-restore-local-authority-colorado
  5. Montrose: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/voters-approve-local-telecommunications-authority-montrose-colorado
  6. Centennial: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/denver-suburb-seeks-take-back-local-authority
  7. Colorado Mountain College: http://coloradomtn.edu
  8. describes: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29053351/colorado-communities-trying-lift-limits-municipal-broadband
  9. Longmont: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/international-media-covering-nextlight-strides-longmont
  10. Rio Blanco: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/rio-blanco-county-has-big-plans-open-access-network
  11. Estes Park: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/carrier-neutral-facilities-creates-big-savings-steamboat-springs
  12. the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29053351/colorado-communities-trying-lift-limits-municipal-broadband
  13. here: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/voters-quiet-drums-polls-colorado

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/voters-quiet-the-drums-at-the-polls-in-colorado/


A Plan B for Every Monopoly Electric Utility?

by John Farrell | October 28, 2015 12:29 pm

Electric companies seemingly face a business “death spiral[1]” because the 20th century rules for the electric grid make it a challenge to address stagnant energy demand and competition from energy-producing customers. The result is a utility-funded war on solar and other distributed power[2], and retrenchment on last century’s business model as many utilities try to gain certainty by taxing solar[3] or requiring customers to pay more regardless of how much energy they use[4]. But one investor-owned utility—Green Mountain Power[5]—is bucking the trend and embracing a 21st century electricity system that’s driven from the ground-up by distributed renewable energy, storage, and smart grids.

A Different History

Green Mountain Power has distinguished itself from its peers for nearly a decade. In 2008, this utility serving 75% of Vermont’s electric customers testified to the state’s Public Service Board that it wanted to expand net metering[6] by increasing project sizes, the capacity cap on projects, and pay a premium of 6 cents per kilowatt-hour—in addition to the retail energy rate—to solar producers because of the value of offsetting dirty, peak energy production.

In 2011, the utility completed its campaign to install 10,000 solar panels in 1,000 days[7], beating its goal by installing 26,000 panels.

In 2013, the utility was the first in the nation to rent cold-climate heat pumps[8] to assist with residential heating and cooling.

In 2014, unlike many of its utility peers, Green Mountain Power supported[9] quadrupling the capacity cap on net metering[10] from 4% to 15%. The law also allowed projects under 15 kilowatt to be registered within 10 business days. The utility followed up on its support for expanding solar by breaking ground on a microgrid for Rutland, VT[11], combining 2.5 megawatts of solar with 4 megawatts of battery storage. The project provides resilient power in the event of a larger grid outage, and contributes to the utility’s goal of making Rutland the “solar capital of New England.”

Also in 2014, the utility announced a partnership with NRG to “remake the Vermont grid[12]” by offering “community solar, energy management systems, micropower, personal power, electric vehicle charging and similar distributed energy offerings.” More broadly, the partnership is intended to “transform the distribution grid ‘to a market-based platform designed to create efficiencies and distributed energy solutions.'”

In 2015, the utility launched a program for customers to “share solar,” allowing customers with sunny roofs to host solar arrays at no cost. The customer would receive a portion of the energy, reducing their energy costs, and the remaining production would be available for purchase by other electric customers.

A Different Orientation

While Vermont’s largest utility has sided with its customers, other utilities continue to battle against them, in fights covering more than two-thirds of U.S. states (Vermont is notably absent from the list).distributed-generation-under-fire-map-ILSR-2015-1028[13]

The difference?

Green Mountain Power is the only electric utility in America organized as a Benefit (or “B”) Corporation[14]. B Corps are for-profit companies, but include “positive impact on society and the environment in addition to profit[15]” as their legally defined goals. It’s like the “fair trade” label for coffee or the LEED standard for buildings, a way to differentiate between companies whose only goal is profit maximization and those that want the legal flexibility to think more broadly.

The utility has a vision for using the energy system[16] to the greater benefit of all its customers:

GMP is at the forefront of a new energy system for Vermont that can improve lives, reduce costs, and be produced in a more environmentally and economically sustainable way. They are leading the transition from the traditional grid of the past, to one that is more resilient and reliable, and that uses a series of microgrids through renewable and clean energy generation and innovative energy storage solutions. This work will empower their customers like never before and increase their comfort in all Vermont seasons while fostering healthier, stronger communities.

Why Not All Monopoly Utilities?

The fundamental rule of the 20th electric utility system is granting government-sanctioned monopolies to most for-profit utility companies, to avoid costly duplication of electrical infrastructure and capture economies of scale for power generation. But the grid is built, and the scale economies for fossil fuels are undermined by the socialized health and environmental costs as well as competition from cost-effective distributed renewable power. The utility’s monopoly is increasingly un-natural[17].

One solution is to follow New York into the brave new world of regulated de-monopoly[18], changing the distribution system from just one piece of a utility behemoth into an open, competitive platform for delivering energy services. It’s removing the conflict of interest for utilities that own power plants that compete with customer-driven solar, energy storage, and energy management.

But an alternative to cracking open archaic monopolies would be to incorporate the public benefit into their corporate charter.*  Instead of requiring utility commissioners and legislators to endlessly battle well-funded utility companies over incremental shifts toward a cleaner and more equitable energy system, bake it into their legal structure. Make every utility monopoly company a B corporation.

Most utility companies aren’t prepared to embrace the transformative opportunity to democratize the electricity system, whether due to inertia, conservative culture, or perceived conflicts with their profit-maximizing mission. They can’t envision a system in which the customer is king, and not the utility. And the tools we have to move utilities require enormous time, energy, and money to overcome the power of their economic and political incumbency.

Maybe it’s time for Plan B.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[19]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[20] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[21] update.

Photo credit: Martin Ringlein via Flickr[22] (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license)

*Note: this wouldn’t change anything for government-owned municipal utilities or rural electric cooperatives, that operate under the auspice of democratic control.

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Endnotes:
  1. death spiral: http://grist.org/climate-energy/rooftop-solar-is-just-the-beginning-utilities-must-innovate-or-go-extinct/
  2. utility-funded war on solar and other distributed power: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  3. taxing solar: http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2015/04/02/aps-asks-raise-solar-fees/70848750/
  4. requiring customers to pay more regardless of how much energy they use: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060020220
  5. Green Mountain Power: https://www.bcorporation.net/community/green-mountain-power
  6. it wanted to expand net metering: https://www.dropbox.com/s/omx1dwxhnblfgbn/GMP%20PSB%20Testimony%20May%2015%202008.pdf?dl=0
  7. 10,000 solar panels in 1,000 days: http://vtdigger.org/2011/11/06/green-mountain-power-installs-26000-solar-panels-in-1000-days/
  8. rent cold-climate heat pumps: http://vtdigger.org/2013/07/31/gmp-begins-groundbreaking-heat-pump-pilot-program-in-rutland/
  9. supported: http://votesolar.org/2014/04/02/vermont-expands-net-metering-program-with-utility-support/
  10. quadrupling the capacity cap on net metering: http://www.irecusa.org/2014/04/vermont-raises-net-metering-cap-to-15/
  11. microgrid for Rutland, VT: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2014/08/us-state-launches-solar-storage-microgrid-that-can-provide-backup-power.html
  12. remake the Vermont grid: http://microgridknowledge.com/nrg-gmp-strike-deal-remake-vermont-grid/
  13. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/distributed-generation-under-fire-map-ILSR-2015-1028.jpg
  14. Benefit (or “B”) Corporation: https://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps
  15. positive impact on society and the environment in addition to profit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
  16. a vision for using the energy system: https://www.bcorporation.net/community/green-mountain-power
  17. utility’s monopoly is increasingly un-natural: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  18. the brave new world of regulated de-monopoly: http://www.vox.com/2015/10/5/9453131/new-york-utilities-rev
  19. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  20. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  21. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  22. via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mringlein/1403246089/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/a-plan-b-for-every-monopoly-electric-utility/


Top 10 Reasons to Support Community Power

by John Farrell | October 26, 2015 9:00 am

placeholder[1]

Building local equity is the key to campaigns for 100% renewable energy, giving everyone a chance to own a piece of their energy future.

What does control of our electric grid look like? Check out these images to help illustrate the importance of clean, local energy.

Click through to discover the top 10 reasons to support Community Solar:

10. Savings

Every 1-kilowatt share of a community solar project can cut your electricity bill by 13%.

9. Clean Energy

With a 25-year warranty, solar means you get free, clean energy from the sun for decades.

8. Access to All

Over half of U.S. households don’t have a sunny rooftop, but everyone can be part of community solar.

7. Ownership

Community solar means owning a share of your energy future, and it might come from a library or school rooftop near you!

6. Local Dollars

Spending a dollar on community solar electricity means you don’t pay for mines or fracking or pollution.

5. Jobs

Every megawatt of solar creates up to 20 jobs in the local economy.

4. Control

Your electric utility can’t raise rates on energy that you own.

3. Competition

Most utilities are monopolies, but community solar gives you a choice.

2. Equity

Community solar means you can own solar without being rich or having a good credit score.

1. Community Power

Owning a share of community solar is the first step toward taking charge of your – and your community’s – energy future.


Give your support today to celebrate 10 reasons for community solar[2] and ILSR’s work to expand community power!

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://www.razoo.com/story/Community-Solar-Power-1-000-In-10-Days
  2. 10 reasons for community solar: https://ilsr.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/top-10-reasons-to-support-community-power/


New Analysis: Amazon Warehouses Impose Hidden Costs on Communities

by Stacy Mitchell | October 22, 2015 9:41 am

Amazon is on a building spree, and many local officials are eager to bring one of its giant fulfillment centers to their own backyard.  But a new analysis from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) indicates that communities are losing more than they gain in these projects.

Contact: Stacy Mitchell, 207-232-3681
Co-Director, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)

Cities are so eager to lure Amazon that many have resorted to offering the company lavish tax breaks and other public assistance.  Between 2012 and 2014, public records show, Amazon picked up $431 million in local tax incentives to finance its warehouse expansion.

Yet, Amazon fulfillment centers impose so many hidden costs on local economies, ILSR contends, that cities ought to reconsider welcoming them at all, much less greasing the way with public funds.

According to 5 Things Local Officials Need to Know Before Welcoming an Amazon Warehouse[1], a factsheet released today by ILSR:

  • Amazon doesn’t deliver real job growth.  The company employs just 19 people per $10 million in sales, compared to 47 people per $10 million in sales at local brick-and-mortar retailers. This means that as Amazon grows and crowds out other businesses, the result is a net decrease in jobs.
  • Amazon’s regular fulfillment center employees are paid about 16 percent less than the U.S. average wage for warehouse workers.  Most of those working in its warehouses earn even less than that: as many as two-thirds are temporary workers hired through staffing agencies.
  • In sharp contrast to businesses that rely on local supply chains, Amazon warehouses deliver virtually no spin-off benefits for area firms.
  • Even as it collects public subsidies, Amazon often sidesteps its tax obligations.  For more than 20 years, the company sought to avoid collecting sales tax, even going so far as to conceal its physical presence in some states. Today, Amazon still does not collect sales taxes in 19 states.
  • Amazon warehouses place a heavy burden on public services and infrastructure, most notably the roads surrounding its warehouses.  This causes traffic, safety, and pavement wear impacts, all of which lead to higher public costs.

“Community leaders have barely begun to grapple with the implications of Amazon’s growth,” said Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher and co-director at ILSR.  “Amazon is upending the age-old relationship between commerce and place, and with this shift comes significant costs for local economies.  Our analysis puts hard numbers to some of these costs.  It should spur cities that are courting Amazon warehouses to reconsider.”
###
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a 41-year-old nonprofit research and educational organization based in Minneapolis, MN, Portland, ME, and Washington, DC. ILSR’s mission is to provide innovative strategies, working models, and timely research to support strong communities and local economies.More at http://www.ilsr.org[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. 5 Things Local Officials Need to Know Before Welcoming an Amazon Warehouse: https://ilsr.org/5-things-local-officials-need-to-know-about-amazon/
  2. http://www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-analysis-amazon-warehouses-impose-hidden-costs-on-communities/


5 Things Local Officials Need to Know Before Welcoming an Amazon Warehouse

by Stacy Mitchell | October 22, 2015 8:01 am

placeholderImage: Amazon Factsheet[1]Amazon is on a building spree, and many local officials are eager to bring one of its giant fulfillment centers to their own backyard. They are so eager, in fact, that some have resorted to offering the company lavish tax breaks and other public assistance. Between 2012 and 2014, Amazon picked up $431 million in local tax incentives to finance its warehouse expansion.

Yet, as our analysis shows, Amazon fulfillment centers impose so many hidden costs on local economies that cities ought to reconsider welcoming them at all, much less greasing the way with public funds.

Download the Factsheet[2]

Here are five things local officials need to know before welcoming an Amazon warehouse:

  1. Amazon Has a Track Record of Dodging Taxes and Demanding Subsidies It Doesnt Need

Amazon is a master at getting money from taxpayers. From 2012 to 2014, it extracted $431 million in tax incentives and other subsidies from local and state governments.[i][3] Amazon hardly needs taxpayers to finance its expansion. In 2014, it invested over $5 billion in acquisitions and capital expenditures, and reported an additional $2 billion in free cash flow.[ii][4]

As much as Amazon asks from taxpayers, it also has a long history of sidestepping its own tax obligations. For 20 years, the company has worked hard[iii][5] to avoid collecting sales tax, even going so far as to conceal its physical presence in some states.[iv][6] Today, Amazon still does not collect sales taxes in 19 states.[v][7]

  1. Amazon Warehouses Place a Heavy Burden on Services

Amazon is infrastructure-intensive. It makes heavy use of the roads surrounding its warehouses, causing traffic, safety, and pavement wear impacts. Instead of offsetting these costs, Amazon expects local governments to pick up the tab and often even asks them to extend and upgrade services.

In Shakopee, Minn., for instance, the company convinced the city to spend about $8 million on road improvements and other infrastructure fixes around the site of a planned warehouse.[vi][8]

  1. Amazon Wont Bring Many Jobs

In fact, Amazon actually destroys more jobs than it creates. While local brick-and-mortar retailers employ 47 people for every $10 million in sales, Amazon employs just 19 people per $10 million in revenue.[vii][9] This means that as Amazon grows and crowds out other businesses, the result is a net decrease in jobs.

Over time, the number of jobs that Amazon creates will drop even lower. The company’s new generation of warehouses is equipped with robots that do much of the sorting, stacking, and moving of products. “It’s obvious that humans are going to lose these jobs,” an analyst recently told the Los Angeles Times.[viii][10] (more…)[11]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/AmazonFactSheet_2015.pdf
  2. Download the Factsheet: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/AmazonFactSheet_2015.pdf
  3. [i]: #_edn1
  4. [ii]: #_edn2
  5. [iii]: #_edn3
  6. [iv]: #_edn4
  7. [v]: #_edn5
  8. [vi]: #_edn6
  9. [vii]: #_edn7
  10. [viii]: #_edn8
  11. (more…): https://ilsr.org/5-things-local-officials-need-to-know-about-amazon/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/5-things-local-officials-need-to-know-about-amazon/


Sweden Experiments With A 6-Hour Work Day

by David Morris | October 21, 2015 1:42 pm

Swedish experiments with a 6-hour day find it costs a little more but workers are less stressed, more energetic, happier and more productive. Plus it is a terrific job generator for the nation as a whole. One’s reaction to these findings depends on one’s ideology. When the left governs cities the experiments blossom but when penny-wise, pound-foolish Conservatives are in power the experiments end.@TheGuardian

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sweden-experiments-with-a-6-hour-work-day/


Distributed Renewable Energy Under Fire

by John Farrell | October 21, 2015 11:45 am

placeholderThis subject has been updated, please read our newest piece: Distributed Generation (Still) Under Fire[1], published May 2016.

placeholder[2]Need evidence that utilities are fighting back against their customer’s desire to generate their own power? This map shows where policies like net metering are undermining the ability of utility customers to exercise their desire for self-reliance.

I developed this map as a side project while I was working on explaining the value of solar[3] and its potential role in addressing conflicts between utilities and customers over distributed renewable energy like solar. I’ve received several updates since it was originally published[4].

distributed-generation-under-fire-map-ILSR-2015-1028[5]

Sources and links available from this Google spreadsheet.

For some context on the contention about the costs and benefits of distributed renewable energy, see this compilation report from the Rocky Mountain Institute.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[6]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[7] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[8] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Distributed Generation (Still) Under Fire: https://ilsr.org/distributed-generation-still-under-fire/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  3. explaining the value of solar: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-solar-winner/
  4. originally published: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/battlegrounds-over-net-metering-and-distributed-generation-.002.jpg
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/distributed-generation-under-fire-map-ILSR-2015-1028.jpg
  6. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  7. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  8. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/


States Shower Big Companies with Economic Development Incentives, at Small Businesses’ Expense

by Olivia LaVecchia | October 21, 2015 11:18 am

Over the last decade, Kerry Olvera and her co-owners have expanded Supermercado Mexico near Grand Rapids, Mich., to three grocery stores and a commercial bakery. They’ve quadrupled the staff from 12 full-time equivalent employees to 50.

To finance all of this growth, they relied entirely on their own scraped-together capital and hard-won bank loans.

“We’re 100 percent invested in this, our houses, everything,” says Olvera.

While local entrepreneurs like Olvera finance their own growth, they’re largely cut off from a plentiful stream of public capital available to their larger competitors, according to a study released Tuesday by the research group Good Jobs First. The group looked at state economic development programs that purport to be open to businesses of any size, and found that they overwhelmingly favor large companies.

The study, titled Shortchanging Small Business[1], analyzes 4,200 economic development incentives awarded through programs in 14 states, and finds that 90 percent of a $3.2 billion total pot went to large firms, defined as those with 100 or more employees or 10 or more locations. In some states, that figure climbed as high as 96 percent.

“It’s really surprising, and it’s frustrating, and it’s angering,” says Olvera of the study’s findings. “We’re really working hard to make ends meet.”

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Shortchanging Small Business: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/shortchanging
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/states-shower-big-companies-with-economic-development-incentives-at-small-businesses-expense/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/states-shower-big-companies-with-economic-development-incentives-at-small-businesses-expense/


Mississippi Schools Would Save $107 Million By Using Public Employees, Not Private Contractors

by David Morris | October 20, 2015 2:41 pm

A recent report[1] by the Mississippi State Auditor finds that K-12 schools would have an additional $107 million to spend on classrooms if they stopped contracting out services and instead provided them in-house with their own public employees.

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Endnotes:
  1. report: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQFjAAahUKEwj8q66YlaTIAhXFPB4KHR7UBx8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.osa.ms.gov%2Fdocuments%2Fperformance%2F2015_Education_Savings_Brief.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFCUy0Iuf8Yx0y2YZA5LVJsw3RtCg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/mississippi-schools-would-save-107-million-by-using-public-employees-not-private-contractors/


Cities Taking Back Their Water Systems

by David Morris | October 20, 2015 2:33 pm

Wall Street continues to promote the privatization of municipal water systems here and abroad.  But cities are fighting back. In the past 15 years 180 cities in 35 countries have returned control of their water supply to municipalities. The remunicipalization[1] movement is alive and well.@truthout

 

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Endnotes:
  1. remunicipalization: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32963-reversing-the-tide-cities-and-countries-are-rebelling-against-water-privatization-and-winning

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cities-taking-back-their-water-systems/


EPB Turns Up The Speed To 10 Gigs

by ILSR | October 15, 2015 2:22 pm

Chattanooga’s EPB Fiber Optics now offers 10 gigabit Internet access to all households and businesses in its service area. The ultra-fast service is available for $299 per month with free installation, no contracts, and no cancellation fees, announced community leaders at a press conference on October 15th.

In addition to 10 gig service, EPB is also offering “Professional” products available in 3 gig, 5 gig, and 10 gig for large businesses. Smaller businesses have the option of choosing 5 gig or 10 gig Internet products. According to the press release, prices on all the new products vary.

Since the network was launched in 2010, Chattanooga has transformed from one of the “dirtiest cities in America” to a haven for the entrepreneurial culture[1]. Chattanooga experienced explosive economic development leading to thousands of new jobs, substantial public savings[2] due to the network’s smart grid capabilities, and new educational opportunities[3] for students and workforce development.

From the press release:

Chattanooga’s fiber optic network has produced tangible results. A study recently released by University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Finance professor Bento Lobo shows “the Gig Network” helped the Chattanooga area generate at least 2,800 new jobs and at least $865.3 million in economic and social benefits. The study also found the EPB smart grid, which is the cornerstone application of the utility’s community-wide fiber optic network, has allowed customers to avoid an estimated 124.7 million minutes of electric service interruptions by automatically re-routing power (often in less than a second) to prevent an outage or dramatically reduce outage durations.[read the study here[4]]

The city created a standard other communities strive to achieve; we often see communities aiming for the $70 gigabit price point offered by EPB. As a leader for other municipalities, it is only fitting that Chattanooga has taken this next step forward.

Also from the press release:

“Chattanooga’s 10 Gig fiber optic network is a world-class platform for innovation,” [Harold DePriest, president and CEO of EPB] said. “In recent years, the need for faster Internet speeds has increased rapidly. Chattanooga is the perfect place for companies to enhance their productivity today and test the applications everyone in the country will want tomorrow.”

Read more about Chattanooga’s journey to become a gigabit community in our 2012 report, Broadband At the Speed of Light: How Three Communities Built Next-Generation Networks[5].

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. haven for the entrepreneurial culture: http://muninetworks.org/content/chattanooga-best-place-startups-and-outdoor-play
  2. substantial public savings: http://muninetworks.org/content/epb-fiber-keeps-electric-rates-check
  3. new educational opportunities: http://muninetworks.org/content/epb-and-chattanooga-will-lower-price-internet-low-income-students
  4. read the study here: http://media-cdn.timesfreepress.com//news/documents/2015/09/15/realizedvalueoffiberlobofinaljune18201515650443634.pdf
  5. Broadband At the Speed of Light: How Three Communities Built Next-Generation Networks: http://muninetworks.org/reports/how-chattanooga-bristol-and-lafayette-built-best-broadband-america
  6. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/epb-turns-speed-10-gigs

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/epb-turns-up-the-speed-to-10-gigs/


The Government Is About To Give Prisoners a Fair Deal When They Call Home

by David Morris | October 10, 2015 3:45 pm

Most jail and prisons phones are owned by profit making corporations that charge unconscionable[1] (dare I say criminal) rates as high as $1 per minute for phone calls.  The federal government is about to change the rules. Later in October the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to slash[2] the average telephone rate by as much as 90 percent. And the businesses will still make a profit!

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Endnotes:
  1. unconscionable: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/
  2. slash: http://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc-wants-to-cap-cost-of-phone-calls-to-and-from-prison-1443729197

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-government-is-about-to-give-prisoners-a-fair-deal-when-they-call-home/


Norway Owns Its Oil. Canada Doesn’t. And That Has Made All The Difference

by David Morris | October 9, 2015 8:58 am

Canada and Norway produce[1] about the same amount of oil and gas. Through a combination of public ownership and taxes Norway captures about 85 percent of the net revenue from sales. As a result its 25 year old Sovereign Fund has $1.1 trillion in assets that has been used to make Norway one of the most prosperous and least unequal countries on earth. Canada’s oil and gas system is 100 percent privately owned. Alberta, the heartland of Canadian oil, and Canada only captures about 20 percent of the revenue from sales.  As a result their Heritage Savings Fund, created 14 years before Norway’s, boasts just $17 billion in assets.

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Endnotes:
  1. produce: http://behindthenumbers.ca/2015/09/15/norway-canada-economic-and-fiscal-management-of-petroleum-wealth/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Norway%20and%20Canada%3A%20Economic%20and%20fiscal%20management%20of%20petroleum%20wealth&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2009/16/2015

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/norway-owns-its-oil-canada-doesnt-and-that-has-made-all-the-difference/


Four Strategies For Reducing Ridiculously Inflated Drug Prices

by David Morris | October 9, 2015 8:42 am

American consumers pay hundreds of billion of dollars in inflated pharmaceutical prices because drug companies are legal monopolies, a result of current patent laws. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research evaluates[1] 4 separate strategies for slashing the cost of drugs and seeing drugs as a common good.

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Endnotes:
  1. evaluates: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/intellectual_property_2004_09.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/four-strategies-for-reducing-ridiculously-inflated-drug-prices/


A Tool to Find Banks that Invest in the Local Economy

by Olivia LaVecchia | October 8, 2015 3:14 pm

The reasons to choose a community bank or credit union[1] range from getting the same services at a lower cost to supporting productive investment instead of speculative trading. But while it’s one thing to think about the qualities that are important in our banks, it’s another to find particular local banks that are enacting them.

A new tool, called Bank Local[2], aims to make that process easier.

Bank Local maps every banking institution in the U.S., and uses data from three federal agencies, plus its own algorithm, to assign them a Local Impact Rating. Users can type their address into a bar on the site’s homepage, and find a map and list of how nearby financial institutions compare.

The project was created by Bob Marino and Nick Plante, who initially schemed it up as a tool for their own area. Both are board members of Seacoast Local[3], a local economies non-profit that works in eastern New Hampshire and southern Maine. They wanted to come up with something to help people move their money to a local bank or credit union, and take what they describe in an early post on their website as a “small, pragmatic action” against “the problem of Bigness in banking.”

“We thought that one of the venues for change would be to put that information out there for consumers who care about these issues,” Marino says.

Working with experts, including Stacy Mitchell here at ILSR and the economist Olga Bruslavski with the National Credit Union Administration, they came up with criteria to quantify a bank’s local impact. They decided on seven[4]: Small business lending, location of headquarters, branch concentration, bank ownership, bank size, small farm lending, and speculative trading.

Take small business lending, the factor that Bank Local weighs most heavily. Small businesses, which create the majority of new jobs, depend heavily on small, local banks for financing. In 2014, even though community-based financial institutions controlled just 24 percent of all banking assets, they made 60 percent of all[5] small business loans. As the banking sector has become increasingly concentrated[6], small businesses have had a harder time[7] accessing the capital that they need to grow.

In Bank Local’s algorithm, if a bank dedicates 20 percent or more of its total assets to small business lending, it earns three points toward its total score and is marked as “outstanding” in that category. The lowest tier is for banks that devote less than 5 percent of their total assets, which receive a score of zero and a rank of “insignificant.” In Oakland, Calif., for instance, Mission National Bank uses 24 percent of its assets for lending to small businesses, and none for speculative trading, which helps it earn a high overall score for local impact. Citibank, meanwhile, deploys just 1 percent of its assets for small business loans and 9 percent for speculative lending.

Once Marino and Plante had come up with the criteria and the algorithm for scoring, they were able to expand their new tool to cover the rest of the country. They pulled all of the data they needed, and then used a service that geolocated every financial institution. (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. choose a community bank or credit union: https://ilsr.org/top-5-reasons-choose-community-bank-or-credit-union/
  2. Bank Local: http://banklocal.info/
  3. Seacoast Local: http://www.seacoastlocal.org/
  4. seven: http://banklocal.info/our-data
  5. 60 percent of all: https://ilsr.org/small-business-lending-by-size-of-institution-2014/
  6. increasingly concentrated: https://ilsr.org/concentrated-banking-sector-video/
  7. harder time: https://ilsr.org/understanding-small-business-credit-crunch/
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/a-tool-to-find-banks-that-invest-in-the-local-economy/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/a-tool-to-find-banks-that-invest-in-the-local-economy/


Op-Ed: Community Broadband Networks Drive NC Economy

by Christopher Mitchell | October 1, 2015 10:27 am

logo-roanoke-daily-heraldThe Roanoke Daily Herald published this op-ed about local government action for broadband networks on September 25, 2015. We were responding to an earlier Op-Ed, available here. Christopher Mitchell wrote the following op-ed.
It is stunning any legislator can look at the constituents they serve in rural North Carolina and think, “‘These people don’t need the same high quality Internet access now being delivered in Charlotte and the Triangle. They should be happy with whatever cable and telephone companies offer.” But that’s just what I think Representatives Jason Saine and Michael Wray are implying in their recent opinion piece on community broadband networks. By supporting U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’ legislation to remove local authority for building broadband networks, the two lawmakers are siding with big cable and telephone firms over their own communities. It is hardly a secret that Time Warner Cable, AT&T, CenturyLink and others are investing too little in rural communities. The majority of residents and local businesses in North Carolina have no real choice today and can expect their bills to go up tomorrow. Areas served by coops or locally-rooted companies are more likely to see upgrades because they are accountable to the community in ways that national firms are not. Local firms are more willing to invest in better networks and keep prices low because they live in the community. North Carolina communities stuck with no broadband or slow DSL and cable at best are disadvantaged in economic development and property values. This is why hundreds of local governments have already invested in fiber optic networks — with remarkable success. Wilson is one example, where the city built the first gigabit fiber optic network in the state. The network has paid all its bills on time and the largest employers in the area all subscribe to it. One local business, which was a vocal opponent of the idea at first, now credits the municipal fiber network with helping her business to expand and reach new clients. The General Manager of Central Computer, Tina Mooring, argues that restrictions on municipal networks hurt the private sector, noting that her clients in areas near Wilson strongly desire access to the high capacity services they cannot get from cable and DSL networks. Just across the Virginia state line is another approach, where Danville has built a fiber network that is available to private ISPs to offer services. The network has led to new investment and high tech jobs as well as helping existing businesses to expand. Not only have they paid all their bills on time, they make enough net income to contribute $300,000 per year to the general fund. The fastest citywide network in the nation, offering 10 Gbps was just announced in Salisbury, north of Charlotte. Again, city owned. This strategy is rarely a partisan issue at the local level. Some 75 percent of the communities that have a citywide municipal network voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. From Maine to Louisiana to California, municipal broadband is a pragmatic question of whether it will improve quality of life and spur economic development. U.S. Senator Thom Tillis’ legislation to challenge the FCC is not a win for local autonomy. It is an example of distant officials micro-managing local issues. It is unfathomable the state Attorney General, whose job it is to protect residents and local businesses, has sided with Time Warner Cable and AT&T rather than champion the cause of fast and affordable Internet access for North Carolinians. The state is literally using taxpayer dollars to protect the monopolies of big telecom firms that prevent communities from having a real choice in providers. This is yet another decision that should be made locally, not in Raleigh or D.C. Christopher Mitchell is the director of Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis and is @communitynets on Twitter. He writes regularly on MuniNetworks.org.  

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/op-ed-community-broadband-networks-drive-nc-economy/


We Now Have A Private Judicial System Just for Corporations

by David Morris | September 28, 2015 5:32 pm

In the last 20 years the Supreme Court has created a parallel judicial system to resolve disputes involving corporations that is effectively run by the very corporations whose behavior is under investigation.

Here is how that judicial coup against an independent judiciary occurred.

In 1925 Congress passed a simple 4-page law, the Federal Arbitration Act[1] (FAA). Businesses that preferred a simpler and faster arbitration process in business-to-business transactions to costly and protracted court battles urged Congress to act because federal courts often refused to enforce many arbitration clauses.

A one court explained[2], “… nothing would be easier than for the more astute party to oust the courts of their jurisdiction. By first making the contract and then declaring who should construe it, the strong could oppress the weak, and in effect so nullify the law as to secure enforcement of contracts usurious, illegal, immoral, and contrary to public policy.”

The FAA was a legislative attempt to satisfy businesses’ desire for speedy and affordable dispute resolution while also satisfying the judges’ desire for justice.

The result was a law very narrowly focused on commercial contracts voluntarily entered into by businesses of relatively equal strength. In a House floor debate Representative George Scott Graham (R-PA) summed[3] up his colleagues’ intent, “[t]his bill simply provides for one thing, and that is to give an opportunity to enforce an agreement in commercial contracts and admiralty contracts—an agreement to arbitrate, when voluntarily placed in the document by the parties to it.”

For the next 60 years the law worked as intended. Courts consistently upheld arbitration awards between businesses but also consistently held that the FAA was procedural not substantive. Arbitration did not trump federal and state laws. The FAA did not apply to employment or consumer contracts.

A New Conservative Supreme Court Steps In

And then the composition of the Supreme Court dramatically changed. Richard Nixon came to office declaring[4] his intention “to nominate to the Supreme Court individuals who shared my judicial philosophy, which is basically a conservative philosophy” and during his first term promptly put four Justices on the Court. In his two terms Ronald Reagan also put four Justices on the Court.

In 1984 the Supreme Court flexed its new conservative muscles. In a case[5] involving the right of Southland’s 7-11 franchisees to sue under the California Franchise Law the Court reinterpreted the 1925 law as a Congressional declaration of a “national policy favoring arbitration”. It further ruled that this national policy applied not only to federal courts but to state courts and was substantive as well as procedural. No matter how one-sided the balance of bargaining power once a business signed a contract with an arbitration clause it was forced to abide by the decision of arbiters even if they ignored relevant state and federal laws and even if the decision-making processed was biased against the complainant.

Dissenting Justices vainly pleaded with their colleagues not to ignore the clear will of Congress and derail more than a half-century of uncontroversial implementation of the FAA. As Sandra Day O’Connor observed, “One rarely finds a legislative history as unambiguous as the FAA’s.”

In 2001 the Court, by a 5-4 vote, extended[6] the FAA to cover employment contracts. The four dissenters beseeched their brethren not only to look at the original intent of the law but to its actual text. Section 1 of the law states, “nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” The clause was inserted at the bequest of the International Seamen’s Union and the more broadly based American Federation of Labor. “History amply supports the proposition that it was an uncontroversial provision that merely confirmed the fact that no one interested in the enactment of the FAA ever intended or expected (it) would apply to employment contracts,” noted the dissenters. (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. Federal Arbitration Act: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/chapter-1
  2. explained: http://www.digitalsmarttools.com/eGODR/Arbitration_Fairness_Act.htm
  3. summed: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-1379.ZD.html
  4. declaring: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3196
  5. case: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/465/1/
  6. extended: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-1379.ZD.html
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/we-now-have-a-private-judicial-system-just-for-corporations/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/we-now-have-a-private-judicial-system-just-for-corporations/


Call to Action! Sign People’s Brief Supporting Network Neutrality

by ILSR | September 21, 2015 9:27 am

To try to stop the Network Neutrality rules established earlier this year, big cable has filed suit against the FCC in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Advocates have drafted a brief to let the court know that the people are not willing to give up Network Neutrality. In a matter of days, that brief will be filed with the court.

We urge you to read the brief[1] and sign on to show your support[2]. Then spread the word on social media, email, and word of mouth, so we can present the brief with as many signatures as possible.

From the Net Neutrality Brief website:

Without Net Neutrality, the big cable companies would control the Internet, and make it harder for us to access information that doesn’t align with what’s best for the companies’ bottom lines or that disagrees with their political leanings. If Net Neutrality weren’t the norm, we might even have been blocked from engaging in the online activism that helped secure the Net Neutrality rules that we’re now working to defend!

Read the brief. Sign the brief. Spread the word.

This article is a part of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. read the brief: http://netneutralitybrief.com/pdf/Draft%20Net%20Neutrality%20People
  2. sign on to show your support: http://netneutralitybrief.com/?action_id=16813011&akid=.1729014.VNtiyu&ar=1&form_name=act-petition&rd=1#sent
  3. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/call-action-sign-peoples-brief-supporting-network-neutrality

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/call-to-action-sign-peoples-brief-supporting-network-neutrality/


Paul Connett’s Zero Waste and Anti Incineration Presentation

by Neil Seldman | September 16, 2015 11:53 am

Paul Connett is a zero waste super star.  A trained chemist, Paul threw himself into the anti garbage incineration movement while teaching as a chemistry professor at Lawrence University in Canton, NY.  Now retired he travels constantly to garbage trouble spots, teaching, inspiring, singing and entertaining audiences around the globe.

He is author of, “The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community At A Time,” produced the video, “Pieces of Zero,” and is featured in the film “Trashed” by Jeremy Irons. Connett takes no fees for his work. ILSR and Dr. Connett have been working partners for the past 25 years.

Watch and enjoy Paul’s presentation below and fight against garbage incineration and for zero waste, recycling and economic development strategies in your community.


 

Dr. Paul Connett speaks against proposed Crowsnest/Pincher Creek landfill incinerator

See comments and slides here.[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. See comments and slides here.: http://www.pinchercreekvoice.com/2015/08/dr-paul-connett-speaks-against-proposed.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/paul-connetts-zero-waste-and-anti-incineration-presentation/


Salisbury Fibrant Launches 10 Gbps Citywide – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 168

by ILSR | September 15, 2015 11:38 am

Salisbury’s municipal FTTH network, Fibrant[1] is the first citywide 10 Gbps network in the nation. Located in North Carolina, Salisbury is also one of very few municipal citywide fiber networks that was built by a city without a municipal electric plant. This week, Salisbury Director of Broadband and Infrastructure, Kent Winrich, joins us for Episode 168 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

We talk about why Salisbury opted to build its own fiber network and then supercharge it with enough upgrades to be able to offer 10 Gbps capacity throughout the community. We discuss economic development opportunities and how those outside of Salisbury would like to see it expand.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us[2] or leave a comment below.

This show is 22 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes[3] or via the tool of your choice using this feed[4].

Listen to other episodes here[5] or view all episodes in our index[6]. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here[7].

Thanks to bkfm-b-side[8] for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Raise Your Hands.”

This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. municipal FTTH network, Fibrant: http://fibrant.info/
  2. e-mail us: mailto:podcast@muninetworks.org
  3. via iTunes:
  4. this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits
  5. other episodes here: http://muninetworks.org/broadbandbits
  6. view all episodes in our index: http://muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-bits-podcast-index
  7. download this Mp3 file directly from here: http://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/audio/comm-bb-bits-podcast168-kent-winrich-fibrant.mp3
  8. bkfm-b-side: https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1232293/raise-your-hands
  9. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/salisbury-fibrant-launches-10-gbps-citywide-community-broadband-bits-podcast-168

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/salisbury-fibrant-launches-10-gbps-citywide-community-broadband-bits-podcast-168/


How One State Escaped Wall Street’s Rule and Created a Banking System That’s 83% Locally Owned

by Stacy Mitchell | September 1, 2015 4:52 pm

placeholder[1]Across the country, people are suffering the consequences of a banking system that’s dominated by a handful of giant banks. Local businesses can’t get[2] the credit[3] they need to grow. College graduates are stumbling under the weight of student debt with sky-high interest rates. Neighborhoods are being stripped of their assets through predatory mortgages and consumer loans. And taxpayers are on the hook for municipal finance schemes[4] peddled by Wall Street and loaded with hidden costs.

Banking has become untethered from communities, and indeed, from the very economy it is supposed to serve. The nation’s biggest banks have managed to invert the natural order of things, so that their profitability is no longer predicated on the health of the broader economy. Instead, as much recent scholarship[5] has shown, the growth of these giant conglomerates is actually harming the rest of the economy.

Remarkably, one state has largely escaped this predicament: North Dakota.

In North Dakota, the banking sector bears little resemblance to that of the rest of the country. North Dakotans do not depend on Wall Street banks to decide the fate of their livelihoods and the future of their communities, and rely instead on locally owned banks and credit unions. With 89 small and mid-sized community banks and 38 credit unions, North Dakota has six times as many locally owned financial institutions per person as the rest of the nation. And these local banks and credit unions control a resounding 83 percent of deposits in the state — more than twice the 30 percent market share that small and mid-sized financial institutions have nationally.

Map: Number of banks by state.[6] (more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. can’t get: https://ilsr.org/2015-independent-business-survey-independent-businesses-report-strong-sales-growth/
  3. credit: https://ilsr.org/small-business-lending-by-size-of-institution-2014/
  4. municipal finance schemes: http://www.refundproject.org/#report
  5. recent scholarship: http://time.com/3736713/american-finance-problem/
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/map-banks-by-state-2013.jpg
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/map-shows-how-well-the-bank-of-north-dakota-works/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/map-shows-how-well-the-bank-of-north-dakota-works/


Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders in Action

by Linda Bilsens Brolis | August 31, 2015 3:00 pm

Why Size Matters in Community Composting

ILSR has long touted the many benefits of composting[1] and amending soil with compost, such as: recovering food waste, enhancing soil fertility and structure, reducing soil erosion and stormwater runoff, cutting landfill methane emissions, and sequestering carbon in soils. Yet few jurisdictions are embracing a diversified composting infrastructure that encompasses, let alone prioritizes developing locally-based capacity over centralized, far-away composting sites. Far-away facilities make it harder to return finished compost back to the community for use. Fortunately, one of the many beauties of composting is that it can be small-scale, large-scale and everything in between. Residents can compost in their backyards. Schools can teach students how to compost and use it for school gardens. Colleges and other institutions can install in-vessel enclosed systems to handle their food wastes. Community gardens and urban farms can connect composting to healthy soil needed for local food production.

If implemented, a decentralized approach that combines home and community-scale composting with on-farm and medium-sized operations would create jobs[2], reduce private and public sector costs for managing waste, and better tie compost to healthy soils and local food production, thereby reinforcing a community culture of sustainability and engaged environmental stewardship. But, even at the small-scale, composting sites required trained operators. It is for this kind of well-managed, diversified resource recovery approach that ILSR’s Composting for Community Project advocates.

 B

The Evolution of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Program

In 2014, the Composting for Community Project researched, identified and surveyed existing master composter training programs operating around the country. The intention of this outreach was to connect these programs with one another, as well as to glean best practices to develop and launch a model Master Composter and Advanced Master Composter train-the-trainer apprenticeship program in and around the nation’s capital. This initiative is now called the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders (NSR) Composter Training Program. The NSR Composter Training Program, a collaboration with ECO City Farms[3], aims to increase and improve community-based composting throughout the country by enhancing and expanding Master Composter training programs in metropolitan DC and in select cities nationwide.

As of August 2015, we have held a fall 2014 and a spring 2015 Master Composter course, have trained a total of 28 individuals and have supported the implementation of community composting projects throughout the DC metro area. Upon completion of the Advanced Composter course, participants are required to develop a “capstone” project—a project that advances community composting in their neighborhoods—as part of the NSR Advanced Composter program. The different types of capstone projects range from: building and/or operating a two- or three-bin composting system at a community garden to serve as a local organics drop-off composting hub and educational demonstration site in collaboration with ECO City Farms or the DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) Community Compost Cooperative Network[4]; initiating a residential backyard composting program by installing single-bin composting systems at local private residences; developing a condominium vermicomposting system by installing worm bins with fellow apartment dwellers; implementing school composting programs to teach youth composting as well as other core curriculum subjects like math and science, and conducting community events to install composting systems with students, parents, school staff, and environmental clubs; and working with churches and youth-led entrepreneurship to use composting as a “green” job training skill and activity for at-risk youth in crime-ridden, impoverished urban environments.

While participants from the spring 2015 course actively delve into their capstone projects and continuous NSR programming will grow the number of project locations, to date, these projects are being implemented at as many as 22 backyard and community level composting sites in the DC Metropolitan Area. All capstone projects involve teamwork as NSR participants champion the development of community composting by recruiting support from neighborhood citizens, school faculty and staff, business owners, government officials, church clergy and parishioners, and others. These capstone projects consist of teams led by a single NSR as well as NSRs that are partnering to co-lead a project. In sum, the fall 2014 Advanced Composter class has conducted approximately 123 community engagement activities thus far, reaching a total of 1,562 community members. Through hands-on composting activities and bin builds, capstone project development, and community-composting education and advocacy, NSRs completed approximately 635 hours of community service benefiting the National Capital Region.

 B

Take a tour of some NSr Capstone Projects:

2015 NSR Capstone Project Site Tour from lbilsens[5]
B
A hearty thanks to the Ittleson Foundation, the City Fund, the Town Creek Foundation, the Marisla Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, the 11th Hour Project, and the Mead Foundation for their generous support of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilder composter training program!
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Endnotes:
  1. many benefits of composting: https://ilsr.org/composting-key-soil-health-climate-protection-reports/
  2. create jobs: https://ilsr.org/paydirt/
  3. ECO City Farms: http://www.ecoffshoots.org/education/neighborhood-soil-rebuilders/
  4. DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) Community Compost Cooperative Network: http://dpr.dc.gov/page/community-compost-cooperative-network
  5. lbilsens: http://www.slideshare.net/lbilsens

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/neighborhood-soil-rebuilders-in-action/


New Municipal Broadband Feasibility Study Underway in Firestone, CO

by ILSR | August 31, 2015 10:41 am

The Board of Trustees for the city of Firestone, CO is evaluating the feasibility of a new municipal broadband service for this growing town of about 10,000 people that sits just 30 miles north of Denver. This according to a recent report[1] in the Times-Call newspaper in Longmont, Colorado.  The feasibility study will compare Firestone’s existing telecommunications infrastructure with those in nearby communities such as Longmont[2] and Boulder[3] that already have municipal networks. It will also assess the potential for growth of the service in Firestone to a nearby 3,500-home community development project.

It would be travesty to build a 3,500 home development without having a plan for high quality Internet access. Even if CenturyLink or Comcast were to deploy fiber optics there, the community should ensure there are plans for conduit or an open network to allow multiple service providers to provide a real choice.

A 2005 Colorado state law barring municipalities from providing internet service to their citizens has been an obstacle for Longmont and Boulder in their pursuit of their own city-run broadband services.  Telecommunications companies in the Longmont area spent $200,000 on a campaign that helped defeat the referendum in 2009 and $400,000 more in 2011[4].  But citizens in Longmont successfully voted in the 2011 referendum to exempt their town from the law and build their own community broadband network. As we wrote in May[5], Longmont’s NextLight fiber-based municipal broadband service, which started just 2 years ago, is now among the fastest internet services in the United States.

In Boulder, 84% of citizens voted in a 2014 referendum to restore the local government’s rights to restore local telecommunications authority. The city now provides free municipal Wi-Fi throughout the downtown civic area[6] and additional fiber-optic infrastructure servicing city facilities with plans for further expansion.

As the Longmont Times-Call wrote in December[7], Longmont’s struggles and eventual success in starting their own fiber-based municipal network helped to pave the way for Boulder.  The success of those efforts also provide favorable local precedents for Firestone officials and other local advocates to demonstrate how well fiber-based municipal networks can benefit a community. According to Firestone spokeswoman Kristi Ridder, the possibility of Firestone eventually getting its own municipal broadband service is still a ways off, with no ballot question planned yet on Colorado State Bill 152.  But she acknowledged that inquiries from residents have prompted town boards to discuss the possibility of a community broadband service over the past several years.

This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. recent report: http://www.timescall.com/news_region-news/ci_28325938/firestone-commissions-municipal-internet-study
  2. Longmont: http://muninetworks.org/tags-216
  3. Boulder: http://muninetworks.org/taxonomy/term/736
  4. spent $200,000 on a campaign that helped defeat the referendum in 2009 and $400,000 more in 2011: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/19/longmont-internet-service/19294335/
  5. As we wrote in May: http://muninetworks.org/content/longmonts-nextlight-offers-businesses-residents-third-fastest-internet-us
  6. provides free municipal Wi-Fi throughout the downtown civic area: http://muninetworks.org/content/boulder-releases-rfp-broadband-feasibility-study
  7. the Longmont Times-Call wrote in December: http://www.timescall.com/longmont-local-news/ci_27175133/road-municipal-internet-boulder-benefits-from-longmonts-journey
  8. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/new-municipal-broadband-feasibility-study-underway-firestone-co

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-municipal-broadband-feasibility-study-underway-in-firestone-co/


Procurement Can Be a Powerful Tool for Local Economies, but Takes More Than a Policy Change to Work

by Olivia LaVecchia | August 27, 2015 11:00 am

When Bill de Blasio took office as New York City’s mayor in 2014, his administration began to tackle a less-than-flashy issue: How to change who was winning city contracts.

De Blasio had swept the election with a campaign promise of reducing income inequality, and re-directing NYC’s vast purchasing power was one of the wonky cornerstones of his plan to do it. So his administration started looking for ways to strengthen the city’s Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise program, designed to help businesses owned by people of color and women bid on, and win, city contracts. It appointed committed staff, integrated the program into housing policies and Hurricane Sandy recovery projects, and launched new online tools for business owners.

The program became “a core part of the mayor’s strategy on inequality,” one of de Blasio’s top aides said[1], and the administration identified it as a “top priority[2].”

It worked. That year, New York City awarded $690 million in contracts to businesses majority-owned by minorities or women, a 57 percent increase from the year before — though still only about 4 percent of the city’s overall $17.7 billion in spending. Since then, de Blasio’s administration hasn’t let up. It’s commissioned an in-depth study of the program, sought changes to state laws that would strengthen it, and set a goal of increasing city awards to minority- and women-owned firms by $16 billion over 10 years.

New York City’s new emphasis on who it does business with is just one of the recent events that’s bringing the often-overlooked power of procurement into the spotlight.

The decision of which firm will get the food service contract at the City Hall cafeteria doesn’t always make it into the news, but local governments spend a lot of money. In towns, counties, and states everywhere, there are roads to be paved, lawyers to be hired, and office supplies to be purchased, and the rules set up to govern those contracts—procurement policies—can be important mechanisms for advancing other public aims.

At least 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, have procurement policies designed to give a preference to businesses that meet certain characteristics, such as those that are owned by veterans, pay certain wages, use environmentally sustainable practices, or manufacture within the state. Of these, about half have adopted an explicit preference for businesses that are small and/or local. These policies vary considerably. Some apply only in narrow circumstances; others are broader. In addition, more than thirty states have policies aimed at steering purchasing to minority- and women-owned businesses. Looking beyond state governments, large numbers of counties, cities, and towns have procurement policies of their own.

In these policies lies the potential for governments to grow their local economies. When dollars are spent at locally owned firms, those firms in turn rely on local supply chains, creating an “economic multiplier” effect. Numerous economic impact studies[3] have quantified this effect on dollars, jobs, and wages. A 2009 study from California State University at Sacramento, for example, found that the State of California generated approximately $4.2 billion in additional economic activity and 26,000 new jobs between 2006 and 2007 by contracting with disabled veteran-owned businesses and local small businesses instead of larger companies.

But while many states and cities have local procurement policies on the books, in a far smaller number of them are these policies delivering on their potential. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. top aides said: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/02/8562686/city-plans-expanded-study-minority-business-contracts
  2. top priority: http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/512-15/de-blasio-administration-record-breaking-4-100-certified-m-wbes-last-fiscal-year
  3. Numerous economic impact studies: https://ilsr.org/key-studies-why-local-matters/#1
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/procurement-more-than-a-policy-change/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/procurement-more-than-a-policy-change/


Buy America? Of Course. But You Can Do Even Better

by David Morris | August 24, 2015 8:01 am

“Every person ought to have the awareness that purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act,” Pope Francis announced[1] early this year. How can we spend our money as if our values matter?

In some sectors and for some values this is fairly easy. Food is an obvious example. Those who want to protect the environment and human and animal health will find abundant labels guiding them to the appropriate product: USDA Organic, free range, hormone free, grass fed. For those who want to strengthen community, shrink the distance between producer and consumer and support family farmers a growing number of grocery stores label locally grown or raised.

For those who want to support farmworkers as well as farmers, however, little guidance is available. The recently launched Equitable Food Initiative[2] and Food Justice Certified[3] labels hope to fill this gap. The former identifies food that has been harvested by workers paid a fair wage and laboring under safe and fair conditions. The latter offers three tiers of certification covering farm, processor and vendor/retailer. Only farms have been certified.

As for grocery stores, we can easily identify those cooperatively or locally owned. Going one step further along the supply chain we can use the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC)’s Diners Guide to Ethical Eating[4] downloadable app to identify restaurants that treat their workers well. Extra credit is given to non-chain businesses. To earn a favorable rating the restaurant must pay its non-tipped workers at least $10 an hour and tipped staff at least $7 an hour, grant all employees paid sick days and enable internal promotion.

The ethical consumer who wants to patronize a locally owned retail store in general can visit Independent We Stand[5] and download its mobile app. Or go to AMIBA[6] and BALLE[7] to find a list of independent business alliances in over 100 cities many of which have hundreds and even thousands of individual member businesses.

There are few guides to locally and rooted manufacturers. But 3-year-old San Francisco Made offers an excellent model, interconnecting and nurturing its 325 member manufacturers located in that city.

The vast majority of products we purchase will come from regional and national firms. One can easily check to see if the company is American and sometimes that will be necessary even when we think we know from the product’s name what nationality the company is. As Roger Simmermaker, author[8] of How Americans Can Buy American and My Country ‘Tis of Thee points out, “Swiss Miss is American (based in Menomonie, Wisconsin) and Carnation is owned by the Swiss.” (more…)[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. announced: http://m.vatican.va/content/francescomobile/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20141208_messaggio-xlviii-giornata-mondiale-pace-2015.html
  2. Equitable Food Initiative: http://www.equitablefood.org
  3. Food Justice Certified: http://agriculturaljusticeproject.org/?page_id=13
  4. Diners Guide to Ethical Eating: http://rocunited.org/dinersguide/
  5. Independent We Stand: http://www.independentwestand.org/introducing-the-independent-we-stand-mobile-app/
  6. AMIBA: http://www.amiba.net/about_ibas/find-iba
  7. BALLE: https://bealocalist.org/localist-champions
  8. author: http://www.howtobuyamerican.com/index.php
  9. (more…): https://ilsr.org/buy-america-of-course-but-you-can-do-even-better/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/buy-america-of-course-but-you-can-do-even-better/


Conservatives Have Hijacked Our Language

by David Morris | August 23, 2015 12:11 pm

placeholder[1]“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me.” A fine sentiment, but any child subjected to cyber bullying knows that words do indeed matter.

Words mixed upLanguage evolves. Sometimes a word that once was negative becomes positive, like “terrific” which originally meant terrifying. Sometimes a word that was once positive becomes negative, as when “awful” changes from awe inspiring to very bad.

In politics too words matter, and in politics too language evolves. In the last 50 years we have witnessed a politically motivated sea change in the meaning of old words and the introduction of new words, all intended to undermine our sense of compassion.

Liberal

The prime example is how we’ve changed the meaning of the word “liberal”. For almost 700 years the word meant generous, selfless, noble, tolerant. When the word began to describe a political philosophy it mostly retained its original meaning.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, aside from being “broadminded” a liberal is someone “favoring political reform tending toward democracy and personal freedom for the individual.”

And then the 1960s happened. The Great Society, and civil rights legislation, spawned a change in the definition of liberal. We began to hear the phrase “bleeding heart liberal” to describe someone excessively softhearted.

The miracle of Google’s ngram allows us to trace the popularity of words and phrases in million of books. As we can see, “bleeding heart liberal” comes of age in the 1960s.

Bleeding heart liberal[2]

Within 20 years the word “liberal” had been demonized. Long time Chicago based columnist Mike Royko wondered why the term had become so negative if the major criticism of it was that a liberal was too compassionate. He thought the reason was racism. “So I learned that in Chicago, as in many parts of the South and other big cities, the word liberal has one basic, simple definition. It’s just another word for ‘nigger lover’”, Royko concluded[3]. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/conservatives-have-kidnapped-our-language/bleeding-heart-liberal/
  3. concluded: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-10-27/news/8802100772_1_word-liberal-broad-minded-confession
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/conservatives-have-kidnapped-our-language/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/conservatives-have-kidnapped-our-language/


WEBINAR: The State of the Art of Extended Producer Responsibility

by Rebecca Toews | August 17, 2015 4:06 pm

The nature of US discussions on EPR in general and for packaging have changed significantly in the past year. The California Product Stewardship determined to focus on EPR for toxic and hard to recycle materials. The Berkeley City Council and  the Global Recycling Council of the California Resource Recovery Association passed resolutions calling for public control rather than corporate control over EPR programs. The implementation of corporate controlled EPR in British Columbia and other Canadian provinces have provide revealing experiences for analysis.  During this period major US consumer goods corporations formed the Closed Loop Recycling Fund and the Recycling Partnership – new voluntary initiatives to provide loans and grants to communities for recycling.

What exactly is the role of EPR in the U S recycling movement?

On Wednesday, August 12, six experts came together to discuss the future of EPR in the US. This is a recording of that discussion.

Part 1: Presentations: Matt Prindiville and Neil Seldman[1]

Part 2: Panelist Discussion: Dan Knapp, Mary Lou Van Deventer, Dick Lilly[2]

Part 3: Panelist Q&A: Moderated by Maurice Sampson[3]

The Webinar discusses the transition of thinking and practice of EPR for packaging. Neil Seldman, ILSR and Matt Prindiville, from UPSTREAM presents. Maurice Sampson, Niche Recycling and board member of Clean Water Action, moderates.

In addition to those presentations, the Webinar featured responses to the presentations by key participants in the national EPR dialogue: Dan Knapp and Mary Lou Van Deventer, Urban Ore, and Dick Lilly, former Seattle Metropolitan Solid Waste Authority.

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Endnotes:
  1. Part 1: Presentations: Matt Prindiville and Neil Seldman: https://youtu.be/MmpO83Pf9GM
  2. Part 2: Panelist Discussion: Dan Knapp, Mary Lou Van Deventer, Dick Lilly: https://youtu.be/CO8YS28rjQg
  3. Part 3: Panelist Q&A: Moderated by Maurice Sampson: https://youtu.be/cxNL8Mk97ps

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/epr-webinar/


Who Has Citywide Gigabit Internet Access for $100 or Less?

by ILSR | August 10, 2015 3:56 pm

As Westminster begins serving customers with its new FTTH network and partner Ting[1], we were curious how many communities are there where a residential subscriber can obtain affordable gigabit access? We estimate the number of networks, large or small, where a majority of residents in a community can obtain gigabit service for $100 or less to be 12. Westminster will be there in a few years.

Municipal citywide, sub $100 gigabit providers:

  • Leverett, Massachusetts
  • North Kansas City, Missouri
  • Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Tullahoma, Tennessee
  • Sandy, Oregon
  • UTOPIA Cities, Utah

Cooperatives:

  • Paul Bunyan Communications, Minnesota
  • Farmer’s Telecom, Alabama
  • Co-Mo Connect, Missouri

Private Companies:

  • Google – Kansas City, Provo
  • MetroNet – Crawfordsville, Indiana (formerly a muni)
  • Burlington, Vermont – (currently privately owned, formerly a muni with future in limbo)

We included municipal networks, cooperatives, and privately owned companies. When considering networks that cover multiple jurisdictions in a single area, we counted it as one (thus Google counts as 1 in KC, Chattanooga is 1 in TN). And we were looking for gigabit networks – not just gigabit download. While we prefer to see symmetrical connections, we accepted 500 Mbps up for our threshold.

We could not identify any cities served by AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, Comcast, Cox, or any other similar company where the majority of the community has access to a gig. Those providers tend to cherry pick and even then, their prices are over $100 typically. For example, CenturyLink advertises a gig at $80 but then requires other services and hidden fees that make the monthly bill closer to $150.

We found affordable residential gigabit service from networks in urban, suburban, or rural communities from 12 networks (some of which cover multiple communities). Trying to determine how much of the community has access to a service is challenging, so please contact us[2] with any corrections. In a few years, munis like Longmont and private companies like Ting will join the list.

While the number of providers are few, many of them do serve multiple communities. The coops, including Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative[3] in Alabama and Missouri’s Co-Mo Cooperative[4], provide the service to a long list of smaller communities within their service areas. There is also the open access network UTOPIA, with at least 7 providers[5] that offer gigabit FTTH below our price point in nine communities currently served by the network (to various degrees, some cities have little coverage whereas others are almost entirely built out).

Prices range from $0 to $99.95 per month with the highest concentration at $70 or higher. In North Kansas City[6], residents pay $300 for installation and receive gigabit Internet access for $0 per month for the next 10 years. This incredible offer is available due to the presence of LiNKCity, a network deployed by the city and now managed and operated by a private partner.

AT&T has launched its $70 GigaPower in parts of 12 different metro areas[7], although the price requires users to submit to a special web based advertising program. Even when these big firms finally invest in high capacity connections, they find new ways to exploit their subscribers – a reminder that who deploys a technology can be as important as what that technology is.

Now that the gig barrier has been blasted away (primarily by municipal networks and smaller ISPs) we expect to see more networks and providers offering affordable gig service to residents.

Gigabit Cat photo courtesy of Michael Himbeault[8] and shared through a Creative Commons license.

This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[9]

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Endnotes:
  1. and partner Ting: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/gigabit-muni-fiber-partnership-westminster-and-ting
  2. contact us: mailto:broadband@muninetworks.org
  3. Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/cooperative-lights-88-gigabit-northeast-alabama
  4. Missouri’s Co-Mo Cooperative: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/co-mo-cooperative-bringing-some-fastest-speeds-nation-rural-missouri
  5. at least 7 providers: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/utpoia-latest-network-offer-super-affordable-gigabit
  6. North Kansas City: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/free-high-speed-internet-coming-north-kansas-city-missouri
  7. 12 different metro areas: http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/att-launches-gigapower-charlotte/391375
  8. courtesy of Michael Himbeault: https://www.flickr.com/photos/riebart/5378242988/
  9. here: http://muninetworks.org/content/who-has-citywide-gigabit-internet-access-100-or-less

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/who-has-citywide-gigabit-internet-access-for-100-or-less/


Environmental Justice Victory in DC, as Mayor Pulls Incinerator Contract

by Neil Seldman | August 6, 2015 3:47 pm

Recycling advocates had stopped any ideas of building a garbage incinerator in the District of Columbia. Now, we are trying to stop the city from sending its garbage to Fairfax County for incineration. Mike Ewall of Energy Justice Network, coordinator of this latter effort, describes the recent victory as the city has tabled a proposal to sign a 5-11 year contract with the Fairfax County incinerator.

Energy Justice Network and ILSR will continue to insist that DC’s garbage does not become a feedstock for incineration; as we continue to press the city to double its current recycling rate, 25%, in the next few years.

Read the full story here[1] from Energy Justice Network, July 27, 2015

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Endnotes:
  1. Read the full story here: http://www.energyjustice.net/content/we-won-environmental-justice-victory-dc-mayor-pulls-incinerator-contract

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/environmental-justice-victory-in-dc-as-mayor-pulls-incinerator-contract/


Sanding Down the Rough Edges of Capitalism Is Not Enough

by David Morris | August 6, 2015 9:48 am

The catalyst for a recent column[1] by David Brooks was a speech delivered by his New York Times colleague Anand Giridharadas at the Aspen Action Forum. (Giridharadas writes the Letter from America[2] column for the Global Edition of the Times) Giridharadas questioned[3] the “Aspen Consensus” that the wealthy and powerful, the benefactors of the Aspen Institute, could be asked to “do more good” but not to “do less harm”. He challenged his well-to-do, well-intentioned audience not to settle for making “an unjust and unpalatable system a little more digestible” and confront the “underlying system” that has created massive inequality and injustice. In short, he bluntly urged his audience to be “traitors to our class.”

Giridharadas received a standing ovation.

Brooks was collegially horrified, particularly by what he saw as Giridharadas’ inevitable embrace of government being “more heavily involved.”

“The coming debate about capitalism will be between those who want to restructure the underlying system and those who want to help people take advantage of its rough intensity,” Brooks insists. “It will be between people who think you need strong government to defeat oligarchy and those who think you need open competition.”

I prefer the word “savagery” to “rough intensity” but congratulate Brooks for conceding that we do have an oligarchy. And I prefer to use the verb governing rather than the noun government. Brooks description of government conjures up a stifling, bumbling bureaucracy whose interventions usually do far more harm than good. But the debate is not about how to grow a bureaucracy but how to exercise collective authority to change rules that enable and encourage a system that, in Giridharadas’ words, generates “extreme winners and extreme losers.”

Brooks’ refusal to support government as a key tool in restraining and eventually eliminating an oligarchy is disingenuous. For he knows that government has been the key tool enabling and encouraging the massive concentration of wealth and power.

The modern corporation, for example, may be the most enduring and extensive of all government interventions. In the 17th century, governments created a fictitious creature: the limited liability corporation. Investors could amass unlimited personal wealth but if the business failed or was engaged in criminal acts the investors were liable for no more than the amount they had invested. In the 19th century governments endowed corporations with unlimited life and charters so broad they could engage in all forms of commerce. In the 20th century courts bestowed on corporations personhood and in the 21st century allowed these artificial persons to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

To my knowledge David Brooks has yet to rail against this most enduring and heavy-handed of all interventions by government. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. column: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/opinion/david-brooks-two-cheers-for-capitalism.html?_r=0
  2. Letter from America: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/world/americas/when-thriving-comes-at-a-price.html
  3. questioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP7HajXJD3s
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/sanding-down-the-rough-edges-of-capitalism-is-not-enough/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sanding-down-the-rough-edges-of-capitalism-is-not-enough/


To Lease or To Own: Simplified Solar Calculator

by Matt Grimley | August 4, 2015 12:23 pm

Now simplified, the new solar lease calculator is here.

Just enter in your zip code, electric utility, and solar array size. Then set the terms of your loan or lease to see how solar ownership stacks up against third-party options.

Purchase (cash): Customer owns the PV system from day one, pays upfront with cash
Purchase (loan): Customer owns the PV sysytem starting Day 1. It is purchased with a loan, sometimes with a down-payment and paid back at a fixed interest rate
Lease, 15-year buyout: Install company or developer owns the PV System. Customer pays a fixed monthly payment that is adjusted for inflation. At 15 years, the customer elects to purchase the system and assumes full ownership.
Lease, extension: Same as “Lease, 15-year buyout” except that in Year 15 the customer elects to extend the lease with the leasing company

We assumed a $4 cost per watt, along with the 30% federal ITC. Note that utility data is based on residential rates from EIA-861 forms[1], so some electric utilities’ rates might be out of date. Also note that insolation rates by zip code were gleaned from U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory data.

Have fun! And be prepared for our complex solar lease calculator — meant for more data mushing — due out out soon.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[2]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[3] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[4] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. EIA-861 forms: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861/
  2. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  3. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  4. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/simplified-solar-calculator/


Clean Power Plan: 50 Ways to Get More Clean, Local Energy

by John Farrell | August 3, 2015 11:26 am

The Obama administration released the Clean Power Plan[1] today requiring substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions from the electricity sector. The plan sets targets from the top down, but largely leaves the details to states, providing a significant opportunity to craft rules that encourage energy development and ownership from the bottom up.

These 50 state plans have huge stakes.

Collectively, U.S. electric customers spend over $360 billion each year buying power. Most of that is generated from fossil fuels, frequently extracted outside their own state. In other words, most of that money leaves their community to pay for dirty energy. But the electricity system is undergoing enormous transformation.

Driven by improvements in energy efficiency, electricity consumption peaked in 2007 and has been stagnant ever since. Distributed solar, like that found on home rooftops, has provided more than 5% of newly added power plant capacity since 2011. In 2013, nearly one-third of all new power plant capacity was from solar energy. The profusion of smartphones is giving customers innovative ways to control energy use, from web-connected thermostats to light bulbs. Consulting firm Accenture estimates that these disruptive and economical technologies could save electric customers up to $48 billion over the next 10 years[2].

Electric utilities are aware of the threat. Already, they’ve mounted serious fights against rooftop solar[3] in over two dozen states, despite ample proof that it’s of benefit to electric customers and the grid[4]. Once they’ve exhausted their legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan, utilities will be interested in compliance strategies that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and threats to their business model. That’s likely to mean big infrastructure investments—utilities have traditionally made their profit by earning a return on new power lines and power plants—and utility control or ownership of cleaner power generation.

But electric customers shouldn’t settle for last century’s centralized control and ownership of a grid dominated by this century’s decentralized technology.

For example, several cities[5] and counties[6] in California are forming community alternatives to incumbent electric utilities, delivering cleaner (often local) power at a comparable or lower cost. Grassroots action in Minneapolis, MN, has driven its utilities into a novel clean energy partnership[7] with the city.  Community solar[8] programs are expanding rapidly, allowing electric customers to reduce their energy bills, even when they lack ownership of or sunshine on their rooftop. And community energy projects[9] are allowing Americans to pool their resources and own a share in the clean energy transformation.

The Clean Power Plan is a breath of fresh air from the federal government too often known for climate inaction, but it shouldn’t reinforce an increasingly un-natural electric company monopoly[10] over the electric system. Instead, use each states’s implementation of the Plan as a catalyst for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for individuals and communities to take charge.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[11]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[12] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[13] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Clean Power Plan: http://www.vox.com/2015/8/2/9086559/obama-climate-plan-preview
  2. $48 billion over the next 10 years: http://www.ilsr.org/u-s-utility-customers-save-48-billion-solar-efficiency/
  3. serious fights against rooftop solar: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  4. benefit to electric customers and the grid: http://www.ilsr.org/solar-net-metering-a-subsidy-to-utilities/
  5. several cities: http://www.ilsr.org/local-33-renewable-sonoma-clean-power-cca-launches/
  6. counties: http://www.ilsr.org/leading-community-energy-aggregator-episode-19-local-energy-rules/
  7. novel clean energy partnership: http://mplscleanenergypartnership.org/
  8. Community solar: http://www.ilsr.org/minnesotas-community-solar-program/
  9. projects: http://www.ilsr.org/600-investors-south-dakotas-premier-community-wind-project-episode-7-local-energy-rules-podcast/
  10. increasingly un-natural electric company monopoly: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  11. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  12. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  13. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/clean-power-plan-50-ways-to-get-more-clean-local-energy/


AT&T, Comcast, Lies Hurt Homeowners

by ILSR | August 1, 2015 10:27 am

As of this January[1], the FCC defines broadband as 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream, but in some rural areas in the United States, people are still struggling to access DSL speeds of 768 kbps. In a few extreme cases, individuals who rely on the Internet for their jobs and livelihoods have been denied access completely.

The sad state of affairs for many Americans who subscribe to the major Internet service providers like AT&T and CenturyLink was recently chronicled in an article on Ars Technica[2] that examined AT&T’s stunning combination of poor customer service, insufficient infrastructure, and empty promises to subscribers. It tells the unfortunately common story of the little guy being systematically overlooked by a massive corporation focused solely on short-term profit maximization.

Mark Lewis of Winterville, Georgia, and Matthew Abernathy of Smyrna, Tennessee, are two examples of AT&T subscribers who, upon moving into new homes, found that not only were they unable to access basic DSL speeds, but that they had no Internet access whatsoever. Alternatively citing a lack of DSL ports and insufficient bandwidth, AT&T failed to provide Lewis Internet access over the course of nearly two years. As for Abernathy, the corporation strung him along for 9 months without providing DSL, forcing him and his wife to rely on a much more expensive Verizon cellular network to go online.

The struggle that Lewis and Abernathy, as well as others cited in the article, face speaks to the larger problem of individuals relying on large, absentee corporations for their Internet access. Though AT&T has claimed that it intends to expand broadband access to rural and underserved communities[3], it hasn’t lived up to that promise. Ars Technica estimates that even if AT&T’s merger with DirecTV is approved[4], which the company says would facilitate the construction of new copper lines in underserved regions, 17 million subscribers would be stuck with slow DSL connections or no Internet at all.

This isn’t the first time that a company like AT&T has been called out for promising broadband service and failing to deliver it. Ars Technica reported on a similar story in April[5] of this year. And tales of Comcast’s incompetence[6] are also easy to find.

For residents of rural communities who rely on the Internet for work, the paucity of broadband options can even be a legitimate reason for individuals to sell their houses and move, which — spoiler alert — is what Lewis eventually did:

With no wireline Internet available, Lewis and his wife have relied on Verizon Wireless service. This has limited Lewis’ ability to work at home. Luckily, they won’t be there much longer — Lewis, his wife, and their kids are putting their house on the market and moving to Massachusetts, where he’s secured a new job at a technology company.

The new job is “the main reason we’re moving,” he said. “But in the back of my mind this whole time, I’m saying we can’t continue to live here.”

And while things turned out OK for Lewis and his family, limited broadband access in rural communities remains an obstacle for many. Individuals and communities should continue to demand accountability from their ISPs, who have for too long reneged on their not-so-ambitious broadband promises.

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Endnotes:
  1. As of this January: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-media-roundup-february-13-2015
  2. chronicled in an article on Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/internet-nightmare-att-sells-broadband-to-your-neighbors-but-not-to-you/
  3. AT&T has claimed that it intends to expand broadband access to rural and underserved communities: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/05/att-home-internet-falls-short-years-after-promising-100-coverage/
  4. AT&T’s merger with DirecTV is approved: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-broadcasters-fcc-dispute-att-directv-merger-review-20150508-story.html
  5. reported on a similar story in April: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/04/when-att-promises-broadband-but-delivers-only-300kbps/
  6. tales of Comcast’s incompetence: http://consumerist.com/2015/03/25/new-homeowner-has-to-sell-house-because-of-comcasts-incompetence-lack-of-competition/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/att-comcast-lies-hurt-homeowners-2/


Brenda Platt: State of Composting Presentation – Maryland 2015

by Brenda Platt | July 24, 2015 12:39 pm

ILSR co-director, Brenda Platt, gave a presentation at the Maryland Recycling Network’s 2015 Annual Conference.  Her talk, State of Composting in the US: What, Why, Where & How, provided and update and overview of ILSR’s report[1] that documents what is currently happening in organics management across the U.S.

View or download Brenda’s presentation[2] to the Maryland Recycling Network – June 26, 2015

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Endnotes:
  1. ILSR’s report: http://www.ilsr.org/state-of-composting/
  2. View or download Brenda’s presentation: http://www.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/brenda-platt-2015-composting-presentation.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/brenda-platt-state-of-composting-presentation-maryland-2015/


Comcast’s Big Gig Rip-Off

by Rebecca Toews | July 22, 2015 10:21 am

For some five years now, many have been talking about gigabit Internet access speeds. After arguing for years that no one needed higher capacity connections, Comcast has finally unveiled its new fiber optic option. And as Tech Dirt notes[1], it is marketed as being twice as fast but costs 4x as much (even more in the first year!).

We decided to compare the Comcast offering to muni fiber gigabit options.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Tech Dirt notes: https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150713/08413731626/comcasts-answer-to-google-fiber-service-thats-twice-as-fast-four-times-as-expensive.shtml
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/comcasts-big-gig-rip-off-2/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/comcasts-big-gig-rip-off-2/


Watch: Is Socialism What’s Stopping a Fair Value for Solar?

by John Farrell | July 21, 2015 2:16 pm

Complete nonsense. The most socialistic thing I’ve ever heard. That’s just two quotes from a value of solar conversation between ILSR’s John Farrell and Karl Rábago of the Pace Energy and Climate Center that took place online on July 8, 2015.

More and more people are installing solar, significantly reducing their purchase of electricity from utility companies. In response, many utilities are proposing changes to fees and compensation to reduce the incentive to go solar. In 2013, Minnesota lawmakers tried to identify a compromise, called the value of solar[1], to have utilities accurately calculate the value of electricity from customer-owned solar arrays. While the policy has helped add to the mountain of evidence[2] that solar energy has significant value, no utility has adopted it.

The following summary is of a webinar conversation to uncover what solar is worth, and how legislators and energy regulators can implement policies to support that value. The webinar was largely based on this post: We Have Value of Solar, But Should We Use It?[3]. Note: the video below cuts out 10 minutes early but has some useful annotations. Click here for the un-annotated full video[4].

John began with a 10-minute overview of the value of solar policy, and then he began with some “sponsored questions” from solar luminaries for Karl to answer.

Not Buy-All Sell-All

Karl opened by clarifying a further point about the value of solar policy: it’s not a feed-in tariff where customers buy all their power from the utility and sell their solar production to the utility. Rather, it’s a twist on the bill credit concept of net metering, but changes the value of the bill credit from kilowatt-hours to a calculated value of solar energy. The transaction remains behind the meter.

How Can Customers Make an Informed Investment?

Rick Gilliam of Vote Solar asked, how can customers anticipate their investment with value of solar instead of net metering? Karl notes that net metering allows customers to understand how their consumption will be reduced, and to assume that if electric rate rise, so will their savings. As designed in Minnesota, customers would lock in a known price for their solar energy, and if they can count on their solar array to produce as much as they expect, they could accurately know better what their expected revenue would be over time.

In other places, however, the value of solar price isn’t locked in. In that case, it would be more like net metering where the future of electric rates is not known.

Can Utilities Implement New Policies?

electric meter - flickr Joe[5]Jigar Shah notes that net metering is a legacy of antiquated utility billing systems, where the mechanical utility meter could only tell the utility how much energy was consumed since the last time it was read. The rotating disk could go forward or backward, and if a customer had solar, show the net use. New technology enables new policies, such as pricing based on time of consumption.

If a utility has only the original mechanical meters, it won’t be able to implement anything more sophisticated. For example, Xcel Energy in Minnesota may not be able to implement the state’s value of solar tariff without upgrading their mechanical meters.

How Will the Value of Solar Change?

In the most sophisticated system, a utility with minute-by-minute knowledge of the cost of power delivery would be able to price the value of solar all the time. It would be the polar opposite of long-term, fixed price power purchase contracting, the more typical practice.

interest rates - flickr Mike Mozart[6]The level of stability is a policy choice, and Karl suggests that customers should be able to choose. Those who want a long-term, fixed price could accept a modestly lower price for solar generation. Those who are willing to accept the risk of fluctuation could get a higher rate (the reverse of home mortgages, where adjustable rate mortgages are cheaper—initially—than 30-year fixed mortgages).

Net metering, based on retail electric rates, is a mix. Rate cases don’t necessarily happen every year, but rates can go up or down, changing the compensation for solar producers (in the past decade, rates have gone up steadily). Karl notes that “I’ve only done a few hundred of them…but in [no rate case] that I’ve seen has the solar industry appeared to say, when you set this retail rate remember that this is going to be the substitute rate for solar.” In other words, utilities don’t consider the retail rate to be a substitute for the value of solar, and a rate case considers many more factors than solar value. They’ve often been the vehicle for utilities to insert unfavorable charges against solar customers.

Demand and Fixed Charges

Charges based on peak energy use or fixed fees are policy tools utilities can (and have) used to reduce the economic value of conservation or solar energy. They are costly and also economically irrational, says Karl.

“How easily a utility could go to a customer…and use some demand response or solar or some storage and find a far less expensive way to reduce their peak [energy use] than just to charge them for it and to build the system for it…This is a rate that says ‘please, make us overbuild the system…starbucks logo w cover - flickr Barbara Piancastelli and JFF[7]make us find the most expensive solution to customer behavior that’s out there. Make us ignore all the other alternatives.'”

Such charges are also unjust.

No utility should be allowed…to impose charges on customers that customers have no tools to manage against.” It incentivizes overbuilding the electricity system in a way that is profitable for shareholder owned utilities to the detriment of electric customers.

Karl skewers another utility company sacred cow: that fixed fees are necessary to recover fixed costs. It’s “Complete nonsense…just a way of securing monopoly rents.” He illustrates with Starbucks. It’s a “high fixed cost business. But they are very competitive with a variable pricing scheme. They would not survive if they had a $10 cover charge.”

Average Rates are the Bigger Issue

Utilities lump customers into very large classes—e.g. commercial, residential, industrial—that create unreasonable expectations. Karl notes, “Most of the utility argument today about the problem of solar is that customers with solar are using less electricity than the utility hoped they would.” Utilities “calculate an average rate for an entire customer class (whether it’s a low income household with fridge and box fan or a rich suburbanite with 10-ton air conditioner). They complain that when you go spend some of your hard-earned money…to reduce your electric bills, that they have to be able to charge you back because you’re not using average in your class. It’s the most socialistic thing I’ve ever heard.”

another duck chart[8]The Impact of Solar on Demand (the Duck Chart)

Some utilities are crying “fowl” with a “duck chart[9]” that illustrates how solar’s impact on mid-day electricity demand could—with no other action—cause a rapid ramp in energy demand as the sun sets. Karl suggests that his duck chart (right) is just as useful for understanding the issue, and notes that Jim Lazar from RAP (and many others) have shown a host of resources we can use.

The Big Picture

Perhaps no comment was as illustrative of the battle over value of solar than Karl’s anecdote from a question he asked of a utility executive. In that conversation, Karl said, “How do you value behind the meter generation?” The utility person replied, “Because we neither own nor control it, we assign it no value at all.”

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[10]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[11] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[12] update.

 Photo credits:

  • Electric meter, Joe via Flickr[13] (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license)
  • Interest rates, Mike Mozart via Flickr[14] (CC BY 2.0 license)
  • Starbucks store, Barbara Piancastelli via Flickr[15], edited by John Farrell (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)
  • Duck chart, Gary David Bouton[16]

 

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Endnotes:
  1. value of solar: http://www.ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-of-solar/
  2. mountain of evidence: http://www.ilsr.org/solar-net-metering-a-subsidy-to-utilities/
  3. We Have Value of Solar, But Should We Use It?: https://ilsr.org/value-of-solar-use-it/
  4. un-annotated full video: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/6840227131003518722
  5. [Image]: http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/electric-meter-flickr-Joe.jpg
  6. [Image]: http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/interest-rates-flickr-Mike-Mozart.jpg
  7. [Image]: http://www.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/starbucks-logo-w-cover-flickr-Barbara-Piancastelli-and-JFF1.jpg
  8. [Image]: http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/another-duck-chart.png
  9. duck chart: http://www.ilsr.org/solar-supporters-open-season-utilities-duck/
  10. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  11. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  12. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  13. Joe via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/theophilusphotography/5347619425/in/photolist-99xWWV-4eRpMQ-8WXQY-8WXPU-8WXSD-8WXTJ-iXUSHi-EP23f-8NsmHS-nxhSUg-4TSBHW-a3G5dJ-uaLSJV-8avDUh-6PjP2o-9BUq-jCF1En-8fcLiu-n3oZXe-dQdFrH-pgezAQ-6WxcDA-8asdAP-56etu-ti65NN-4moJ68-4V1tjK-5Sy8SW-6prGBN-bnX8zJ-8V88Ee-rfHSTd-m1vmf-YhFp2-nzTvf-ocKXz2-aRTcX4-9B953c-nS874E-jL8ggy-4i1NRb-GtKhY-dSpSVA-25Mg5-dW5Kwk-2EXk8b-999gkB-7QQdX6-p1Xjcb-dLT9ca
  14. Mike Mozart via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/16561640905/in/photolist-reuJQR-qWURYW-qWVVUb-qX2Whc-82yEZ1-bta2Lz-6bwUVR-iqcCDf-u4QP78-5hZTNz-rUnka6-bkKpAb-85Rv2C-tMiaTN-u2xWu5-u52Tdx-tM6tVG-tMicpo-u4jTeh-rbxk2y-9ceEYF-nzNKRM-nRZsTV-nQf2h1-s99P28-nS5WvQ-nzKdri-nSe2Qp-rSnWAE-7ktTVR-e4vLUU-rbxkgS-xm4x2-M9XLv-e4qaE6-e4vLTE-e4vLU5-e4qaDX-rbxkSb-rt7K3e-qwkk7R-aWwndX-s96H1x-rbsxch-rPPVtV-s8YMq9-nQbwau-nzNdMA-nzMYfN-nS9tXw
  15. Barbara Piancastelli via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/babichasingrainbows/11649321535/
  16. Gary David Bouton: http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?65595-December-2013-Xara-Xone-Tute-Make-Pie-Slices-to-Any-Size-in-Xara

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/is-socialism-whats-stopping-a-fair-value-for-solar/


Greece, The Troika and Maggie Thatcher

by David Morris | July 18, 2015 12:47 pm

In its policies toward Greece, the “Troika” — a new shorthand for the combined will of the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund — has actively and enthusiastically embraced Maggie Thatcher’s social and political philosophy, memorably captured in her chilling assertion, “There is no such thing as society.”

That philosophy has found its fullest and most concrete exposition in a 2014 “competition assessment[1]” of Greece made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  The OECD analyzed 555 Greek regulatory restrictions and made 329 specific recommendations the Troika expects Greece to enact with dispatch. Again and again the report views as virtually criminal regulations that favor small business, local ownership, and a reliance on local and domestic suppliers.

The OECD, for example, points an accusing finger at a Greek regulation requiring milk labeled “fresh” to have a maximum shelf life of 5 days. The regulation makes Greek “fresh” milk, on average, more expensive than in other EU countries. Why? “The high retail price of milk in Greece is a direct consequence of the high prices paid to Greek producers, since the five-day regulation makes imports next to impossible.” To the economists at the OECD and the Troika price is all. But the majority of Greeks, and I daresay many of the rest of us, might well support an agriculture policy that asks us to pay a few more cents for a bottle of milk to sustain and nurture an ecosystem of small, domestic dairy farmers.

The OECD demands Greece abolish any laws restricting the days or hours a business can operate (e.g., Sunday closing laws) — despite the fact that several European countries have enacted such policies to protect workers and small businesses. Germany has some of the most restrictive rules on opening hours of all.

The OECD insists, “The current retail price regulation of books should be abolished…” Why? “(N)ew retail channels such as the Internet will be developed.” The market demands that small publishers and bookstores make way for Amazon.

The OECD bids Greece abolish ownership provisions to “allow the development of retail pharmacy chains not owned or run by pharmacists.” The country’s pharmacy care should be opened to giant drugstore chains.

Each of these examples reveals a full-throated assault on Greek society by the Troika. Let’s examine the OECD and the Troika’s bid to overturn Greece’s pharmacy laws more closely. These require, as noted, that pharmacies be owned and operated by a licensed pharmacist, prohibit a pharmacist from owning more than one store, require that over-the-counter drugs be sold only in pharmacies, and cap the price of these medicines. The OECD’s demands galvanized a 24-hour strike by pharmacists in mid June. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. competition assessment: http://www.oecd.org/daf/competition/Greece-Competition-Assessment-2013.pdf
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/greece-the-troika-and-maggie-thatcher/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/greece-the-troika-and-maggie-thatcher/


Introducing… MuniNetworks Economic Development Page

by Rebecca Toews | July 16, 2015 3:11 pm

Access to high-speed, broadband Internet facilitates economic development. Over the years, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has documented economic successes brought about by community broadband networks. We chose some of the most compelling examples, organized them by topic, and put them in one place for easy reference.

Check out our new economic development page[1]. The benefits of municipal networks are separated into various categories – ranging from job creation to advances in healthcare – with concrete examples from community broadband networks across the country.

Unfortunately, in some communities, a lack of broadband Internet continues to stunt economic growth – and has even forced businesses to relocate or shut down. In many cases, incumbent Internet service providers like AT&T and CenturyLink are not willing to provide business customers or local residents with next-generation fiber networks.

To boost economic development, local communities create their own fiber networks. Municipal fiber networks typically provide faster, more reliable, more affordable Internet access than incumbent networks because municipalities have a vested interest in seeing their community succeed.

Stories and examples of economic development resulting both directly and indirectly from community broadband networks abound, but until now these anecdotes and statistics were not consolidated into one place.

Take a look.[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. new economic development page: http://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development
  2. Take a look.: http://muninetworks.org/content/municipal-networks-and-economic-development

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/introducing-our-economic-development-page-2/


Neil Seldman: Letter in Response to Washington Post Recycling Article

by Neil Seldman | July 4, 2015 9:04 am

Neil Seldman – Letter to Editor

Dear Editor,

The Washington Post’s feature “American recycling is stalling[1]” (June 20), correctly points to problems caused by large single-stream recycling bins. But clarifications are needed.

Avoided costs: Cities do not make money from recycling. They reduce their overall costs of solid waste management because recycling costs less than managing garbage. Materials markets always fluctuate, but disposal costs only go up. DC did not make a profit from recycling. They received money from sales of materials, but these did not cover the cost of collection and transfer of materials. Garbage disposal and recycling both cost money. Recycling costs less when avoided costs are added to revenue.

Poor design: Cities also do not take full advantage of recycling. DC succumbed to the single-stream recycling and a well-run dual stream system, operated by a local company with over 20 workers, was put out of business. As a result the city is now spending about $1 million annually in hauling costs alone to truck recyclables to Elkridge, MD. Dual stream (keeping paper separate from mixed plastic, glass and metal) would also help the city get better participation because it is more instructive than single-stream recycling. A bottle bill would go a long way to recovering high quality glass to feed to regional glass manufacturers in Virginia while reducing contamination of recovered paper.

WMI complaints about the markets: This ignores the low quality of the product they produce by oversized machines run at over capacity. High garbage disposal costs are assured by concentrated ownership of processing plants, landfills and incinerators. Remember, WMI is in the business of collection and disposal and reluctantly added recycling due to citizen pressure but has never really been supportive of it. The company makes much more money landfilling than recycling.

US recycling has not stalled: The US recycling rate is closer to 48% than 34% when construction and demolition waste is counted. In addition to rapidly increasing recycling of C & D materials, electronic scrap and food waste are rapidly growing sectors. Many cities are increasing recycling levels to 50%-70% with plans to go higher.

Any city or county can reach high levels of recycling by using proven methods: monetary incentives, smart collection, use of the education system and developing local markets instead of looking to China. More than 50% of the waste stream can be recycled and marketed locally (construction & demolition, food discards, yard and storm debris). Lawrence, KS, and Austin, TX, have arranged for small scaled high-grade paper and cotton recycling mills to be built and create local markets as well as hundreds of good jobs.

Sincerely,

Neil Seldman

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Endnotes:
  1. American recycling is stalling: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/american-recycling-is-stalling-and-the-big-blue-bin-is-one-reason-why/2015/06/20/914735e4-1610-11e5-9ddc-e3353542100c_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop_b

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/neil-seldman-letter-in-response-to-washington-post-recycling-article/


Trade and Sovereignty

by David Morris | June 21, 2015 1:06 pm

On May 8th at Nike’s headquarters, President Obama denounced[1] opponents of the hotly contested Trans-Pacific Partnership as ill informed. “(C)ritics warn that parts of this deal would undermine American regulation….They’re making this stuff up. This is just not true. No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.”

On May 18th the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a final ruling in favor of Canada and Mexico in a case involving a US law requiring country-of-origin labels on packages of beef, pork, chicken and other kinds of meat. The WTO three judge panel estimated economic damages of more than $3 billion. These will be meted out by Canada and Mexico as retaliatory tariffs on a potentially wide array of U.S. industries, from “California wines to Minnesota mattresses,” as Gerry Ritz, Canada’s Minister of Agriculture predicted[2].

“The only way for the United States to avoid billions in immediate retaliation is to repeal COOL,” Ritz announced[3].

Congress hastened to comply. The day the WTO issued its ruling Rep. Michael Conway (R-TX) introduced legislation to overturn the COOL law. On June 10th the House overwhelmingly passed the bill, 300-131.

The COOL decision and its almost immediate legislative impact demonstrated in real time the inaccuracy of President Obama’s comments. Encompassing 12 Pacific Rim countries with 40 percent of the world’s economy the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be the largest trade agreement since the WTO was formed in 1995. But to call it a trade agreement is both accurate and misleading for it conjures up images of agreements that largely target tariffs. That is no longer the case. Of TPP’s 29 draft chapters, only[4] five deal with traditional trade issues.

Modern trade agreements have less to do with trade than with sovereignty. The primary focus of modern trade agreements is the elimination of existing national and subnational laws that regulate commerce.

The decision about whether a country can force the livestock industry to reveal where their animals were reared and slaughtered is behind us. Currently under consideration by the WTO is whether a country can force businesses that sell a lethal product to make the packaging of that product unattractive.

The product is tobacco. Before the 1990s the US government actively assisted American tobacco in opening up markets in Asia by threatening trade fights with countries like Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea that refused to overturn domestic laws impeding companies from using sophisticated marketing techniques.

In the 1970s and 1980s, as evidence of the malignant effects of tobacco accumulated states and cities began to enact anti-smoking initiatives. In the 1990’s lawsuits by states resulted in a $200 billion settlement with tobacco companies and the discovery of concrete evidence that they had willfully kept from the American public the evidence that smoking can and in many cases does cripple or kill.

The increasingly schizophrenic nature of US tobacco policies led the GAO to issue a report[5] aptly titled: Dichotomy Between U.S. Tobacco Export Policy and Antismoking Initiatives. The GAO asked lawmakers to clarify which values would guide their decision-making. “If the Congress believes that trade concerns should predominate, then it should do nothing to alter the current trade policy process. The U.S. government can simultaneously continue to actively help U.S. cigarette exporters overcome foreign trade barriers and promote awareness of the dangers of smoking and further restrict the circumstances in which smoking may take place,” it advised. “If Congress believes that health considerations should have primacy, the Congress could grant the Department of Health and Human Services the responsibility to decide whether to pursue trade initiatives involving products with substantial adverse health consequences.” (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. denounced: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/08/remarks-president-trade
  2. predicted: http://www.agri-pulse.com/Canada-seeking-3-billion-in-retaliatory-measures-in-COOL-dispute-06042015.asp
  3. announced: http://kansasagnetwork.com/2015/us-could-be-hit-with-about-3-billion-in-retaliation-in-cool-dispute/
  4. only: http://www.citizen.org/TPP
  5. report: http://www.gao.gov/products/NSIAD-90-190
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/trade-and-sovereignty/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/trade-and-sovereignty/


For Cities, Big-Box Stores Are Becoming Even More of a Terrible Deal

by Olivia LaVecchia | June 16, 2015 4:41 pm

Big-box retailers’ new tactic to slash their taxes is the latest example of why cities are better off saying no to the boxes and cultivating Main Streets instead.

 

In February, the library in Marquette, Mich., announced that it was cutting its hours.

It wasn’t that its Sunday programming was any less popular, or that it had gotten the short end of the stick in next year’s budget planning. Instead, thanks to a new method that big-box stores are using to game the tax system, Marquette Township owed a $755,828.71 tax refund to the home improvement chain Lowe’s. Essential services like the library, the school district, and the fire department were on the hook to pay for it.

The Peter White Public Library would now be closed on Sundays.

Marquette has been hit hard by a tactic that the country’s biggest retailers are using to slash their property taxes. Known as the “dark store” method, it exemplifies the systematic way that these chains extract money from local governments. It’s also the latest example of the way that, even as local governments across the country continue to bend over backwards to attract and accommodate big-box development, these stores are consistently a terrible deal for the towns and cities where they locate.

Marquette is one of the countless places that has bought into big-box economic development. Over the years, the township in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan spent millions extending water mains, law enforcement, and other infrastructure and services to its big-box commercial corridor along U.S. 41. When the Lowe’s opened there in 2008, local officials including the mayor turned out for a “board-cutting” ceremony—the home improvement center version of a ribbon-cutting.

Then, less than two years later, Lowe’s flipped the script. The mega-retailer, which reports annual net sales of about $50 billion, went to tax court to appeal its property tax assessment. Marquette had pegged the taxable value of the store, which had just been built for $10 million, at $5.2 million. In front of the Michigan Tax Tribunal, an administrative court whose members are appointed by the state governor, Lowe’s won assessments that were, instead, $2.4 million in 2010, $2 million in 2011, and $1.5 million in 2012.

“We honestly thought there had been a mistake,” says Dulcee Atherton, the assessor for Marquette Township. “We had the building permits that said it was worth $10 million. We couldn’t believe the audacity, really.”

What was worse was the methodology that Lowe’s, and the tax tribunal, had used to arrive at the lower figures. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/dark-store-tax-tactic-makes-big-box-stores-terrible-deal-for-cities/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dark-store-tax-tactic-makes-big-box-stores-terrible-deal-for-cities/


Treaties, Trade Agreements and Government by the People

by David Morris | June 15, 2015 3:49 pm

For much of our history, trade agreements were considered treaties. According to the Constitution they had to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. The House does not participate in ratification of treaties (Article II, Section 2).

By the late 19th century Congress realized it was far too cumbersome to require a Congressional vote to change individual tariffs, so they delegated to the President the authority to use tariffs as a flexible tool in the exercise of foreign policy.

In the 1970s trade agreements stopped focusing on tariffs and began addressing an increasingly broad group of rules (e.g. procurement, copyrights and patents, product standards, subsidies, environmental standards) called non-tariff trade barriers. Modern multi-faceted trade pacts have more to do with pre-empting national, state and local rules that could favor communities or regional economies or domestic businesses or the environment than with lowering tariffs.

Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution gives Congress a little wiggle room by making a distinction between “treaties” and “agreements”. Congress can change the ratification process for agreements. But it is highly probable that the Constitution’s Framers would have expected Congress to do so only with respect to agreements of limited importance.

In 1974 Congress made clear it thought otherwise. That year Congress acquiesced to a dramatic reduction in its and by extension the citizenry’s authority over trade rules. Under the new procedure the President was allowed to unilaterally negotiate the final terms of a trade agreement. He would then present the final agreement to Congress, which would be unable to change it in any way and would have a limited time for debate. Instead of requiring ratification by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, trade pacts would require only a simple majority from both chambers.

In 1993 Congress ratified the far-reaching North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) under the new fast track provisions. NAFTA not only limited national and state sovereignty over a variety of issues but it also established for the first time what has come be known as investor state dispute settlement procedures. Corporations, rather than only governments would have the right to sue. And they could sue for loss of potential profits. And they would do so via a new extra-territorial judicial system that favors commerce over community and corporations over governments.

The NAFTA vote was close: 234-200. Three-quarters of Democrats voting against while 80 percent of Republicans voted in favor. The ratification process of NAFTA was challenged in federal courts, but the courts rejected[1] the challenge, ruling in essence that Congress can at its discretion decide when a treaty is not a treaty and can make the process for ratification as undemocratic as it sees fit.

The authority to pursue fast track expired in 2007. But in December 2009, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), on behalf of the President, notified[2] the country that the President intended to enter into negotiations for a regional, Asia-Pacific trade agreement as if that authority continued to apply.  

Today the President is asking Congress to ratify his illegal use of the fast track.

Last week, after the House overwhelmingly rejected a trade assistance act that was formally tied to the approval of fast track authority it passed a standalone fast track bill by a tiny majority of 219-211. Eighty-five percent of Democrats voted against while 78 percent of Republicans voted in favor.

As Paul Ryan (R-WI) has noted[3], “We’re not talking about passing a trade agreement right now. TPP is still being negotiated. It doesn’t exist yet as an agreement. We’re talking about whether we can even consider a trade agreement…” Representative Ryan is correct that Congress is not voting on TPP. But he’s wrong that if fast track fails Congress will be unable to “even consider a trade agreement”. Of course it can. The question before Congress right now is about how transparent and democratic that consideration will be.

We the people would like it to be as transparent and democratic as possible. Public opinion[4] consistently favors trade but just as consistently solidly opposes fast track. We oppose the remarkable, indeed unprecedented secrecy in which the trade pact has been drafted and the inability of the average citizen, unlike giant corporations, to play a part in that drafting. We condemn the prohibition against changing the document in any way after submission.

And perhaps most of all we are furious about fast track’s foreclosure of extensive and intensive debate on a complex document of far reaching consequence.

If fast track fails the President can still submit a trade bill. And we can then launch a much needed and long overdue national conversation about the benefits and limitations of trade and the dangers of ceding sovereignty to a new international constitution whose goal is to limit democracy and expand corpocracy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. rejected: http://openjurist.org/242/f3d/1300/made-v-united
  2. notified: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-2009-12-16/E9-29841
  3. noted: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/paul-ryan-the-president-has-a-lot-of-work-to-do/
  4. opinion: http://www.citizen.org/documents/polling-memo.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/treaties-trade-agreements-and-government-by-the-people/


Watch: Dear Hawaii – Read Your Mail Before Your Utility Sells Out

by John Farrell | June 12, 2015 2:50 pm

placeholder[1]If your electricity—generated from imported oil—is the most expensive in the country and your solar resource is terrific, you’d expect your electric company to be making great strides toward renewable energy. On Hawai’i, the progress toward clean energy is in limbo, because island’s largest electric utility—largely owned by islanders—is likely to be acquired by mainland utility conglomerate NextEra, parent company of another regulated utility, Florida Power and Light.

Should Hawaiians accede to the wishes of NextEra and sell their largest electric utility to off-islanders?

These postcards from Florida (inspired by a campaign by Vote Solar) shine a little light on what Hawaiians can expect from their proposed utility overlord.

For more on the takeover, check out ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy commentary[2] during the Maui Energy Conference, ILSR’s 2012 report—Hawaiian Sunblock[3]—on the unexpected barriers to low-cost solar on the islands, Vote Solar’s Postcards from Florida campaign, and the continuing coverage[4] of the utility acquisition on Utility Dive.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[5]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[6] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[7] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. commentary: http://www.ilsr.org/somebody-wants-something-getting-the-most-from-a-proposed-takeover-of-hawaiian-electric-company/
  3. Hawaiian Sunblock: https://ilsr.org/hawaiian-sunblock-solar-facing-unexpected-barriers-cost/
  4. continuing coverage: http://www.utilitydive.com/search/?q=hawaii
  5. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  6. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  7. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dear-hawaii-read-your-mail-before-your-utility-sells-out/


Expert thwarts progress of pro-incineration bill in Philippines

by Neil Seldman | June 11, 2015 11:51 am

The Philippines is the only country that has banned garbage incineration. Constant vigilance is required to keep it that way. The following press release from the Ecowaste Coalition[1] explains the role of Dr. Jorge Emmanuel in presenting to the Philippines’ Congress.


An environmental scientist told pro-incineration representatives during a committee meeting that burning wastes is bad, foiling a pro-incineration bill’s passage by the body.   “There is no such thing as clean incineration. They all produce pollutants,” Dr. Jorge Emmanuel said on Tuesday, during Philippines House of Representative’s Committee on Ecology meeting on House Bill No. 3161, authored by Caloocan City Representative Edgar Erice.

The Erice bill, which was hoping to move up to the plenary level, was instead sent back to the technical working group on incineration for further discussion. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Ecowaste Coalition: http://www.ecowastecoalition.org/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/expert-thwarts-progress-of-pro-incineration-bill-in-philippines/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/expert-thwarts-progress-of-pro-incineration-bill-in-philippines/


LD 1185 Advances in Maine With Overwhelming Support

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 9, 2015 11:57 pm

On June 5th, the Main House of Representatives voted 143 – 0 in favor of LD 1185[1], the Maine bill to provide state planning and implementation grants for local municipal networks. Representative Norm Higgins, the sponsor of the bill, contacted us to let us know about the incredible support for the bill.

LD 1185 proposes to provide $6 million this year for local communities seeking to establish networks that want to take advantage of the state’s middle-mile network, the Three Ring Binder. The House amended the bill to include general goals for the fund and its purpose in bringing better connectivity to Maine.

The amendment also creates specifications between planning and implementation grants and establishes caps on awards. Planning grants cannot exceed $25,000 and implementation grants cannot exceed $200,000. Implementation grants require a 25 percent match from the requesting municipality; planning grants require a one-to-one match. The amendment is available online[2].

Now that the House has put their stamp of approval on the bill, it is up to the Maine Senate to  approve the measure and send it on to the Governor. According to Higgins, it appears to have strong bipartisan support; funding is the only area of uncertainty. He anticipates it will be before the Appropriations Committee within the next two weeks.

This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. LD 1185: http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/getPDF.asp?paper=HP0818&item=1&snum=127
  2. available online: http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/getPDF.asp?paper=HP0818&item=2&snum=127
  3. here: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/ld-1185-advances-maine-overwhelming-support

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ld-1185-advances-in-maine-with-overwhelming-support/


ALEC in Savannah: Local News Video Exposes the Corrupt Process of Lawmaking

by Lisa Gonzalez | June 5, 2015 3:38 pm

We have reported on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the past and stories about ALEC sponsored legislative retreats pop up in the news on a regulary basis. Most recently, NBC Channel 11 from Atlanta reported on the shadowy world of big corporate influence in Georgia.

None of this will be new to anyone familiar with ALEC’s shadowy way of doing business, but having it on video makes it more compelling.

Brendan Keefe visited Savannah and tried to observe one of these meetings between ALEC corporate members and state legislators. Even though Keefe and his crew had an official press pass, they were blocked from entering the meeting.

Keefe spoke with a Georgia State Senator Nan Orrock, who once belonged to ALEC. She told him about the meetings, paid for with ALEC funds or “legislator scholarships,” and pointed out the true nature of the closed door gatherings:

It’s really a corporate bill mill…the truth be told, they write the bills.

Even though Keefe was not able to attend one of the meetings, he did encounter a legislator and several lobbyists in the bar the night before. They didn’t mind describing what they were doing in Savannah and who paid the bill. Watch the brief expose below.

We also include a 2013 Real News video with Branden Fischer from the Center for Media and Democracy. He goes more indepth on ALEC’s modus operandi and its membership.

Video:
See video[1]
See video[2]

This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MHYOB5uptc
  2. [Image]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ISLRYKRCE0
  3. here: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/alec-savannah-local-news-video-exposes-corrupt-process-lawmaking

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/alec-in-savannah-local-news-video-exposes-the-corrupt-process-of-lawmaking/


Report: Public Rooftop Revolution

by John Farrell | June 1, 2015 4:31 am

[1]5 gigs municipal solar[2]There are a lot of stories on residential rooftop solar but few if any on what cities are doing to make themselves energy self-reliant by using their own buildings and lands to generate power.

In Public Rooftop Revolution, ILSR estimates that mid-sized cities could install as much as 5,000 megawatts of solar—as much as one-quarter of all solar installed in the U.S. to date—on municipal property, with little to no upfront cash. It would allow cities to redirect millions in saved energy costs to other public purposes.

Download the full report[3]

Read the Executive Summary[4]

Read Part 1 of the report[5]

Read Part 2 of the report[6]

Read Part 3 of the report[7]

Read Part 4 of the report[8]

Read the full report in (poorly formatted) ePub[9] or Kindle[10] format


Podcast Conversations:

Lancaster, CA city manager Jason Caudle, listen to the podcast, read the interview summary[11].

Raleigh, NC renewable energy coordinator Robert Hinson, listen to the podcast, read the interview summary[12].

Kansas City project manager Charles Harris, listen to the podcast, read the interview summary[13].


Executive Summary

In 2012, ILSR published a pair of reports[14] that projected, by 2021,10% of electricity in the U.S. could come from solar and at a lower price—without subsidies—than utility-provided electricity. In 2014 and 2015, Environment America’s Shining Cities reports examined how cities were catalysts for solar development.

However, there has been a missing piece in the examination of how cities can support solar energy: what city leaders have done and can do to use solar on their own buildings.

ILSR estimates that over 5,000 megawatts (MW) of solar could be inexpensively installed almost immediately on municipal property—more than a quarter of the nationwide total solar capacity through September 2014. This includes just the municipal buildings of the approximately 200 cities with 100,000 or greater population. But it requires city officials to overcome a few, surmountable barriers.

The Public Rooftop Solar Opportunity

The opportunity of municipal solar spans financial savings, pollution reductions, and job creation:

Energy Savings: New Bedford, MA, is saving $6 to $7 million per year on electricity through its 16 MW of solar installations on municipal properties, which is 2.5% of the entire city budget.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions: Maximizing New York City’s solar potential with 410 MW of solar would reduce emissions by 1.78 million metric tons, 3.7% of the city’s total emissions.

Significant Economic Impact: Maximizing Kansas City’s municipal solar potential of 70 MW could create 1400 jobs and add $175 million to the local economy.

Overcoming the Economic Barrier with 3rd Parties

The primary incentive for solar is the 30% federal tax credit, a deal that doesn’t apply to local governments[15]. The federal government also provides accelerated depreciation for solar projects, resulting in a tax write-off worth nearly another 30% of a project’s value. The following charts illustrates how the limitations of federal incentives make the economics more challenging for municipally-owned solar. 

Although cities face a number of challenges, economic and otherwise, to installing solar, the third party ownership option—if available—ought to trump most of them. For suitable sites that won’t need a near-term roof replacement, third party ownership removes virtually all of the financial barriers to solar, and covers maintenance and operations. While some barriers (like lack of aggregate or virtual net metering) remain, most cities have a substantial solar opportunity.

(more…)[16]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: http://www.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/5-gigs-municipal-solar.png
  3. the full report: http://www.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Public-Rooftop-Revolution-report-ILSR.pdf
  4. Executive Summary: #exec
  5. Part 1 of the report: #intro
  6. Part 2 of the report: #pubsolarecon
  7. Part 3 of the report: #thirdpartytrump
  8. Part 4 of the report: #spillovereffects
  9. ePub: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Hmrr6Ve2pvN05mTEZrTzYxWE0/view?usp=sharing
  10. Kindle: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Hmrr6Ve2pvTmRDNllmeDdYUlk/view?usp=sharing
  11. listen to the podcast, read the interview summary: http://www.ilsr.org/lancaster-the-leading-solar-city-episode-23-of-local-energy-rules/
  12. listen to the podcast, read the interview summary: http://www.ilsr.org/duking-it-out-over-municipal-solar-in-raleigh/
  13. listen to the podcast, read the interview summary: http://www.ilsr.org/kansas-citys-royal-effort-to-solarize-city-rooftops/
  14. a pair of reports: https://ilsr.org/rooftop-revolution/
  15. doesn’t apply to local governments: https://ilsr.org/public-solar-often-no-go-feds-favor-solar-tax-incentives/
  16. (more…): https://ilsr.org/public-rooftop-revolution/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/public-rooftop-revolution/


Adam Smith vs. Ayn Rand

by David Morris | May 29, 2015 3:44 pm

In a 2011 CNN/Tea Party Express Republican Debate moderator Wolf Blitzer famously asked[1] prominent libertarian Representative Ron Paul a “hypothetical question” about the soon-to-be-operational Obamacare: What should be done when a 30-year old man decides not to buy health insurance and then requires significant medical intervention that he cannot afford? Paul predictably responded. He should “assume responsibility for himself…That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks…”

Blitzer followed up by asking Paul if he meant, “society should just let him die?” Members of the audience yelled, “Yeah”. It was a Tea Party meeting after all. Paul waffled. He conceded intervention might be necessary but insisted the cost should be borne voluntarily by “(o)ur neighbors, our friends, our churches.”

Now Obamacare is in place. The hypothetical has become real. In the last few weeks we’ve learned of at least two Republicans who refused to buy health insurance and then launched GoFundMe initiatives when they encountered medical difficulties.

In November 2014 self-employed Richard Mack’s wife was hospitalized and then in early January he himself suffered a heart attack. His son launched a GoFundMe[2] campaign. “It is difficult and humbling to say that we need your help but we do.” He’s raised $45,000 so far toward a $60,000 goal from a little over 1,000 donors.

Mack’s opposition to Obamacare is political. A former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona he is the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a group he described as “the army to set our nation free”. He serves on the board of Oath Keepers, a right-wing group made up of police and military veterans. He’s been an outspoken opponent not only of the American Care Act (ACA) but of all federal authority. “The States do not have to take or support or pay for Obamacare or anything else from Washington, DC,” says[3] Mack. “The States are not subject to federal direction.”

More widely reported is the case of Luis Lang, a 49-year-old self-employed resident of Fort Mill, South Carolina who always prided himself on paying his own medical expenses. He suffered a series of mini strokes earlier this year and ended up with bleeding in the eyes, a partially detached retina and a need for very expensive medical care to save his eyesight. He’s been out of work since December. His GoFundMe campaign has raised $26,000 toward a $30,000 goal from over 1300 donors.

Ron Paul might view Richard Mack’s situation as a perfect example of his libertarian philosophy. He chose not to buy insurance. He now needs financial assistance. His family and friends have rallied to his support, largely because of his political activities. One donor wrote, “Thank you for your sacrifice in the fight for our freedom.” Another said, “Keep up the fight and with the full armour (sic) of God we will prevail. Thanks be to God for your stand for freedom and for not giving in to the Obama care demands.” Another commented, “May God continue to watch over you and bless all that you do for this nation under siege.” And another declared, “Thanks for never surrendering to federal tyranny.”

To me, however, Lang’s case is more instructive. Lang is not a public figure. He’s not a political rallying point. Moreover, his is a case study in personal irresponsibility. He is a long time smoker who has been lax in controlling his diabetes. He knew that his eyes needed serious medical attention for some time.

When the Charlotte Observer first wrote about Lang he was angry at Obamacare. When confronted with significant medical expenses he tried to sign up but discovered enrollment had closed a month earlier. He is now poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but South Carolina’s Republican controlled legislature has refused to expand Medicaid. Nevertheless, his wife Mary said, “(My husband) should be at the front of the line, because he doesn’t work and because he has medical issues.”

Lang was asking for help primarily from strangers who didn’t know who he was. Revealingly, a significant majority of those who gave were self-described liberals[4], according to Charles Gaba. One donor wrote, “The party of personal responsibility (has) left you hanging on your own consequences. Progressives like me think that’s just cruel.” Another disclosed, “From a first generation immigrant Communist. Good luck brother.” Another reflected, “From a godless liberal feminist but my 89 y/o dad has macular degeneration and so my heart goes out to anyone who’s having vision trouble.” Still another pointed out, “Sir, I know if the shoe was on the other food you would expect me to ‘pull myself up by my own boot straps” and wouldn’t contribute. But I’m compassionate and think we all owe something to each other.” Another commented, “I want to say something clever and sassy about your right wing stupidity, but all I can feel is compassion. I hope you get the medical care you need.” And still another observed, “I too am a bleeping liberal who thinks no one should suffer due to bad choices, bad luck, or bad policies of conservative dogma.”

After reviewing the comments, Lang reflected on his GoFundMe page, “I have to give a big thumbs up to the liberal side. Even though you have crucified me in your comments but you spoke with your heart with donations…As far as the conservative side I wish they would step up to the plate and do there (sic) part.”

Which brings us to the crux of the debate about Obamacare or any government sponsored health insurance. Conservatives, circa 2015 do not believe it is their obligation to help. Lang made his choice and he must live with the consequences. The modern day conservative’s guru is Ayn Rand, who viewed compassion as inherently dehumanizing, an emotion that, if acted upon, diminishes the self. “Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others…” she declared[5]. “The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction….” (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. asked: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnntea-party-debate-audience-cheers-letting-uninsured-comatose-man-die/
  2. GoFundMe: http://www.gofundme.com/helpsheriffmack
  3. says: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sheriff-mack-gofundme-medical-bills
  4. liberals: http://acasignups.net/15/05/12/not-breaking-generous-progressives-bail-out-hypocrite-conservative-updated
  5. declared: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/adam-smith-vs-ayn-rand/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/adam-smith-vs-ayn-rand/


North Carolina Files Petition Opposing FCC Ruling to End Anti-Muni Laws

by Lisa Gonzalez | May 22, 2015 10:34 am

It took a while, but the State of North Carolina finally decided to take its turn at the throat of the FCC. Attorneys filed a Petition for Review in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals similar to the one filed by the State of Tennessee[1] in March. The Petition is available for download below.

Our official comment:

“Attorney General Cooper must not realize the irony of using state taxpayer dollars to ensure less money is invested in rural broadband, but we certainly do,” says Christopher Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “State leaders should stand up for their citizens’ interests and demand good broadband for them, rather than fighting alongside paid lobbyists to take away those opportunities.”

Like Tennessee, North Carolina makes an attempt to stop the FCC’s well-considered Opinion and Order by arguing that the FCC overstepped its authority in violation of the Consitution. The FCC addressed this argument in its Opinion and Order along with a myriad of other potential arguments. For detailed coverage of the FCC’s well-considered decision, we provided information on highlights[2]of the decision back in March.

According to WRAL[3], Wilson is taking the new development in stride:

The City of Wilson was not surprised that North Carolina sued.

“We are aware of the suit,” said Will Aycock, who manages the Greenlight network. “We knew that this would be an ongoing process.”

The Attorney general’s has not contacted Wilson about the suit, he added.

We have to wonder if North Carolina is a bit embarrassed in arguing that rural areas should not be allowed to build their own networks even as the metro regions in Charlotte and the Triangle are seeing gigabit investment. State elected officials in North Carolina seem committed to two-tier Internet access: fast for the metro and stiflingly slow in rural regions.

“Wilson filed this petition [last year to restore local authority] not with immediate plans to expand into its rural neighboring communities, but to facilitate the future advancement of its critical Gigabit fiber-optic infrastructure over the long term.”…Wilson does not expect to incur any legal costs related to the North Carolina suit, Aycock said. “We told our story,” he explained.

Unfortunately, this is another example of big telecom dollars asserting influence over  state leaders. Wilson’s Greenlight has proven itself over and over again to be an economic development tool[4], a way for the municipality to save precious public dollars, and an agent to encourage better connectivity for citizens[5].

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Endnotes:
  1. filed by the State of Tennessee: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/tennessee-files-appeal-fcc-order-scaling-back-state-barriers
  2. provided information on highlights: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/fcc-opinion-and-order-striking-down-local-authority-limits-tn-and-nc-highlights
  3. According to WRAL: http://wraltechwire.com/north-carolina-sues-fcc-over-wilson-community-broadband-decision/14647645/
  4. economic development tool: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/being-gig-city-incubating-small-businesses
  5. better connectivity for citizens: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/what-does-it-mean-be-gigabit-city-sharing-positive-outcomes-together-spot

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/north-carolina-files-petition-opposing-fcc-ruling-to-end-anti-muni-laws/


ILSR Seeks Recycling and Economic Development Specialist

by Neil Seldman | May 18, 2015 3:32 pm

The Waste to Wealth Initiative of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance is looking to fill a full time, associate-level position. The job involves developing recycling, composting and reuse enterprises throughout the US.

The associate will be responsible for assisting local governments, small businesses and community develop organizations develop viable value added enterprises and policies that nurture such enterprises.  The job involves being responsible for representing ILSR’s Waste to Wealth Initiative within regional, national and international networks.

Full job description and information on how to apply here[1].

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Endnotes:
  1. Full job description and information on how to apply here: http://www.ilsr.org/about-the-institute-for-local-self-reliance/jobs-and-internships/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-seeks-recycling-and-economic-development-specialist/


Obama’s Advance Team Should Be Fired

by David Morris | May 18, 2015 11:08 am

The Obamas are proving singularly inept at choosing appropriate venues to highlight their initiatives.

In June 2011 Michelle invited giant retailers, including Walmart to the White House to launch her effort to persuade the country’s largest retailers to move into inner city “food deserts.” She later visited a Walmart in Springfield, Illinois to applaud its corporate expansion into urban areas. My colleague at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Stacy Mitchell chided[1] Ms. Obama, “If you were to rank the factors that have contributed to the disappearance of neighborhood grocery stores over the last two decades, Walmart would be a pretty formidable contender for the top spot.”

Walmart has captured[2] 25 percent of the nation’s grocery market and in 29 metropolitan areas commands a 50 percent share. It has almost saturated rural and suburban America and now wants to massively move into urban areas. That is not sitting well with many of its targeted neighborhoods. Ms. Obama’s advance team should have been aware that a vigorous, sustained protest against Walmart moving into a historic downtown neighborhood was ongoing in Springfield.   Only a few days before Ms. Obama’s visit the City Council ultimately approved the Walmart by a vote of 5-4. The outcome may have been less an endorsement of Walmart than an effort to avoid embarrassing Michelle.

Mitchell noted that 1400 small and independent food stores had opened between 2002 and 2011, many of them serving inner city neighborhoods. “Independent grocers should have been at the center of this announcement,” she insisted[3]. “After all, independent food retailers, including co-ops and farmers markets, have been instrumental in the success of the only program so far to make a real dent in the problem (affordable, nutritious food in inner cities) the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing initiative. Of the 93 stores created or expanded by the initiative to date, almost all are independently or cooperatively owned.”

Ironically, 8 months after Ms. Obama praised Walmart for bringing affordable food to Springfield, a Walmart in Ohio was discovered collecting food donations for its own employees. Walmart workers survive in large part because their inadequate pay is supplemented by public benefits (e.g. food stamps, welfare, Medicaid). A May 2013 report by the Democrat staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce estimated these benefits cost taxpayers $3015 per worker, or about $1.50 an hour for a full time employee.

Under extreme public pressure and to ward off unionization, Walmart recently announced it is boosting wages by about $1 per hour for about a third of its US workforce. In 2013 Stephen Gandel of Fortune magazine calculated[4] Walmart could have increased salaries by more than $5 per hour without negatively affecting its stock price.

Walmart not only pays its own workers little; it drives down domestic wages overall or forces domestic suppliers to relocate abroad by compelling them to match prices offered by low wage foreign suppliers.

While the workers suffer, the Walton family, owners of 50 percent of Walmart stock have become the poster children of inequality. In 2014 the family received[5] dividends of about $3 billion, three times the cost of Walmart’s recent modest wage increase. Since 2007 the six heirs to Walmart’s cofounders Sam and Bud Walton have seen their wealth[6] more than double to $148.8 billion. They now earn as much as 42 percent of American families combined!

In mid 2013 President Obama flew to an Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee to celebrate that company’s creation of middle class jobs. It was a bizarre choice. His advance team must have known of the increasingly public infamy of Amazon warehouses. In 2011 reporter Spencer Soper in the Allentown newspaper the Morning Call, described[7] the brutal working conditions at Amazon’s Allentown, Pennsylvania warehouse during the early summer of 2011. Fifteen workers had collapsed from heat exhaustion. “Calls to the local ambulance service became so frequent that for five hot days in June and July, ambulances and paramedics were stationed all day at the depot.” Amazon apparently found it cheaper to pay for ambulances than to install air conditioning. A 2012 story in the Seattle Times described[8] a similar Dickensian situation at Amazon’s Campbellsville, Kentucky warehouse.

Amazon and its owner Jeff Bezos not only believe they owe nothing to their workers; they insist they owe nothing to the country. In an interview[9] with Fast Company, Bezos confessed he had “investigated whether we could set up Amazon.com on an Indian reservation near San Francisco.”  The idea was to get “access to talent without all the tax consequences.”  He ended up setting up shop in Seattle, a state with no sales tax. And for almost 20 years he took advantage of a loophole in the law that allowed him to avoid paying sales tax for online purchases, giving Amazon a 6-8 percent price advantage over Main Street stores right out of the gate. As for paying corporate taxes Jim Hightower comments[10], “Through a convoluted system of inter-corporate payments, a major portion of Amazon’s global revenue is funneled into the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg[11]. There, its tax rate is shriveled to barely five percent!”

A few weeks ago President Obama hit the trifecta for maladroit event planning when he made a speech promoting an expansion of unregulated trade at Nike’s headquarters in Oregon.

Nike is infamous for having pioneered the massive corporate outsourcing of middle class jobs to low wage countries. Only 1 percent of its workforce resides in the United States while almost a million workers are in low wage countries. Nike continues to hemorrhage domestic jobs. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich reports that in 2014 a third of Nike’s remaining 13,922 Americans production workers were laid off.

When wages rose in China Nike switched most of its production to Vietnam, where wages[12] are a third what they are in China. In April, after Vietnam approved a modest 15 percent wage hike, foreign and local companies reportedly warned[13] that any further wage hikes should be considered “very carefully” in order not to undermine the competitiveness of the Vietnamese economy.

About the same time that Obama was standing in Nike’s headquarters the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, issued a report condemning Nike’s labor practices. The report’s author Charles Kernaghan observes, “Let’s be honest. For years, Nike has been exploiting the 330,000 Vietnamese workers, mostly young women, who are poorly paid and denied their most fundamental rights.” He likens Nike to “the canary in the coal mine…pointing us to what unfettered ‘free trade’ looks like, and what the world will look like under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).”

Kernaghan told[14] the Huffington Post, “The fact that President Obama would … be at the side of Nike just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”

No it doesn’t. Nor does it make sense that the President and the First Lady would commend Amazon for creating middle class jobs or Walmart for bringing groceries to urban neighborhoods. Not if workers and communities matter to them as much as they do to those who won the White House for them.

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Endnotes:
  1. chided: http://grist.org/food/2011-07-21-walmart-michelle-obama-and-the-future-of-food/
  2. captured: http://grist.org/food/2011-12-30-eaters-beware-walmart-is-taking-over-our-food-system/
  3. insisted: http://grist.org/food/2011-07-21-walmart-michelle-obama-and-the-future-of-food/
  4. calculated: http://fortune.com/2013/11/12/why-wal-mart-can-afford-to-give-its-workers-a-50-raise/
  5. received: http://walmart1percent.org/how-rich-are-the-waltons/
  6. wealth: http://walmart1percent.org/how-rich-are-the-waltons/
  7. described: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html#page=1
  8. described: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-warehouse-jobs-push-workers-to-physical-limit/
  9. an interview: http://www.fastcompany.com/27309/whos-writing-book-web-business
  10. comments: http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/3764#.VVi-WDdnCm8
  11. Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/us-tax-amazon-idUSBRE8B50AR20121206
  12. wages: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2015/03/chinas-golden-age-for-foreign-companies-is-over-whos-moving-to-vietnam.html
  13. warned: http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/vietnam-approves-minimumwage-hike-of-15-percent-in-2015-33793.html
  14. told: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/06/obama-tpp-nike_n_7223256.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/obamas-advance-team-should-be-fired/


Video Available: Connecticut Gigabit State Event

by Lisa Gonzalez | May 10, 2015 10:38 am

On May 5th, Christopher participated in a panel conversation presented by the City of New Haven and the Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel. Video of the event,Moving Towards A Gigabit State: Planning & Financing Municipal Ultra-High-Speed Internet Fiber Networks Through Public-Private Partnerships, is now available.

You can watch it from the Connecticut Network website[1]. The final panel has, in order of appearance, Bill Vallee, Joanne Hovis, Christopher, Monica Webb, and Jim Baller. It begins around 3:18 and Christopher begins his presentation at 3:36. The entire video is approximately 4 hours, 30 minutes.

The event included a number of experts from the industry. From the event announcement:

A conversation on the “Nuts and Bolts” of Internet Fiber Networks targeting municipal officials and other public officials to provide information for municipalities interested in creating ultra-high-speed networks. The networks would be created via public-private partnerships through Connecticut to enable innovations in areas such as health care, education, business development and jobs creation, and public safety.

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Endnotes:
  1. the Connecticut Network website: http://ct-n.com/ondemand.asp?id=11499

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/video-available-connecticut-gigabit-state-event/


How Washington Punishes Small Business

by Stacy Mitchell | May 8, 2015 10:09 am

This article, by Stacy Mitchell and Fred Clements, was first published as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal[1].

Small business looms large in American political rhetoric. From the campaign trail to the floor of the U.S. House and Senate, members of Congress love to evoke the diner and dry cleaner, the neighborhood grocer and local hardware store. Ensuring the well-being of Main Street, we might easily assume, is one of their central policy aims.

The legislative track record tells another story. It is one in which the interests of big corporations are dominant, and many laws and regulations seem designed to bend the marketplace in their favor and put small, independent businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

Since the late 1990s, the overall market share of firms with fewer than 100 employees has fallen from 33% to 28%, according to U.S. Census data. There are nearly 80,000 fewer small retailers today than in 1999. Starting a new business also appears to have become harder. Despite their prominence in our tech-fueled imagination, the number of startups created annually fell by about 20% between the 1970s and the 2000s, Census data shows.

Dismissing these trends as merely the product of market forces misses the powerful way that government policy has tilted the playing field.

A report last month by the research organization Good Jobs First, for example, found that two-thirds of the $68 billion in business grants and special tax credits awarded by the federal government over the past 15 years went to big corporations. State and local economic development incentives are similarly skewed. While the members of our business associations—mostly independent retailers—must finance their own growth, one of their biggest competitors, Amazon, has received $330 million in tax breaks and other subsidies to fund its new warehouses. Indiana, for example, gave the company a $5 million tax credit to open a distribution center in 2009.

Multinational companies also benefit from a host of tax loopholes. A local pharmacy or bike shop cannot stash profits in a Bermuda shell company or undertake a foreign “inversion.” The result is that small businesses pay an effective federal tax rate that is several points higher on average than that paid by big companies, according to a Small Business Administration study from 2009.

At a time when price competition is fierce and margins razor thin, these cost differences have a real impact on the ability of small businesses to survive. Yet efforts to reform corporate subsidies and close tax loopholes have gone nowhere.

Congress’s tacit support for further consolidation in the banking system is also undermining small independent businesses. From our perspective, local community banks are the most important part of the financial system, because they supply the lion’s share of small business loans. Yet Congress hasn’t lifted a finger as more than 500 have collapsed since 2008, according to federal data, swept away by the aftermath of a financial crisis they didn’t create. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-washington-punishes-small-business-1431040539
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/how-washington-punishes-small-business/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/how-washington-punishes-small-business/


One in Four Local Banks Has Vanished since 2008. Here’s What’s Causing the Decline and Why We Should Treat It as a National Crisis.

by Stacy Mitchell | May 5, 2015 3:43 pm

Here’s a statistic that ought to alarm anyone interested in rebuilding local economies and redirecting the flow of capital away from Wall Street and toward more productive ends: Over the last seven years, one of every four community banks has disappeared. We have 1,971 fewer of these small, local financial institutions today than at the beginning of 2008. Some 500 failed outright, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stepping in to pay their depositors. Most of the rest were acquired and absorbed into bigger banks.

To illustrate this disturbing trend and highlight a few of the reasons we should treat it as a national crisis, we’ve published a trove of new graphs[1]. These provide a startling look at the pace of change and its implications. In 1995, megabanks — giant banks with more than $100 billion in assets (in 2010 dollars) — controlled 17 percent of all banking assets. By 2005, their share had reached 41 percent. Today, it is a staggering 59 percent[2]. Meanwhile, the share of the market held by community banks and credit unions — local institutions with less than $1 billion in assets — plummeted from 27 percent to 11 percent. You can watch this transformation unfold in our 90-second video[3], which shows how four massive banks — Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo — have come to dominate the sector, each growing larger than all of the nation’s community banks put together.

“If we continue to go down this path, we’ll kill this concept of relationship banking,” contends Rebeca Romera Rainey, the third-generation CEO of Centinel Bank[4] in Taos, New Mexico. Like other community banks, Centinel makes lending decisions based on its relationships with its customers and deep knowledge of the local market. It underwrites a wide range of business loans and home mortgages to local families. Many of these borrowers would likely not qualify for big-bank financing because they do not fit neatly into the standardized formulas megabanks use to evaluate their risk of default. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. trove of new graphs: https://ilsr.org/?contenttype=charts-graphs-resource-archive&initiative=banking
  2. staggering 59 percent: https://ilsr.org/bank-market-share-by-size-of-institution/
  3. video: https://ilsr.org/concentrated-banking-sector-video/
  4. Centinel Bank: https://www.centinelbank.com/index.htm
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/vanishing-community-banks-national-crisis/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/vanishing-community-banks-national-crisis/


Charles Benton, Champion of the Public Interest in Telecom, Passes

by Lisa Gonzalez | May 1, 2015 10:58 am

The world of media education, communication policy, and philanthropy is mourning the loss of Charles Benton who passed away on April 29. He lived a long life encouraging and empowering individuals and communities to use technology to improve their quality of life. But beyond that, specifically working to remove barriers that discourage historically marginalized communities from benefiting from communications technologies.

In addition to serving on the National Museum and Library Services Board for the Obama Administration, Charles advised President Bill Clinton as a member of the Parental Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligation of Digital Television Broadcasters.

He also served his country as Chairman of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) and as Chairman of the First White House Conference on Library and Information Services, held in November of 1979. He continued to serve on the NCLIS for another five years, during which time he was unanimously elected Chairman Emeritus.

He and his wife, Marjorie, established the Benton Foundation in honor of his father, William, a public servant and U.S. Senator.

These are only a few of his many accomplishments. Throughout his life, Charles Benton shined the spotlight on the link between communications, media, education, and democracy. To learn more about his life and his achievements, read his obituary[1] on the Benton Foundation website.

This from Chris:

We are deeply saddened at Charles’ passing but incredibly inspired by his life. Every time we interacted with Charles, we came away with fresh energy to work in this space. I cannot think of a time when he wasn’t smiling during our conversations — his passion and optimism will carry on.

Charles Benton, and support from the Benton Foundation, were instrumental in our ability to publish Broadband At the Speed of Light: How Three Communities Built Next-Generation Networks[2]. The report is an in-depth look at the municipal fiber optic networks in Chattanooga, TN, Lafayette, LA, and Bristol, VA.

We miss you, Charles.

Photo of Charles Benton from the Benton Foundation

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Endnotes:
  1. read his obituary: https://www.benton.org/blog/charles-benton-1931-2015
  2. Broadband At the Speed of Light: How Three Communities Built Next-Generation Networks: https://ilsr.org/broadband-speed-light/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/charles-benton-champion-of-the-public-interest-in-telecom-passes/


Public Officials Must Say No to Amazon’s Request for Tax Breaks

by Olivia LaVecchia | April 30, 2015 10:48 am

This piece was written by ILSR’s Olivia LaVecchia, and first ran as an op-ed[1] in the Star Tribune.

The news that Amazon wants to expand its footprint in Minnesota — but only if it wins significant public subsidies — should put both taxpayers and public officials on high alert.

Amazon is seeking about $5 million in tax breaks to build a new distribution center in Shakopee, not including the costs of significant upgrades to infrastructure and roads. In announcing the project, Shakopee Mayor Brad Tabke heralded the news as “economic development.”

If economic development means quality new jobs and a stronger economy, then the research suggests that subsidizing Amazon’s warehouse would result in just the opposite.

Amazon is a master at getting money out of local governments. A December 2014 report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research group that tracks public subsidies, found that Amazon has won $419 million in subsidies from local and state governments. Amazon is big enough that it doesn’t actually need tax breaks to finance its expansion, which means that these subsidies serve mainly to increase its profit and enlarge private wealth, like the $30.5 billion fortune of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. first ran as an op-ed: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/301752081.html
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/public-officials-must-say-no-to-amazons-request-for-tax-breaks/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/public-officials-must-say-no-to-amazons-request-for-tax-breaks/


The benefits of public solid waste services: Lessons for Toronto

by Neil Seldman | April 29, 2015 10:46 am

Public municipal solid waste services are fundamental to the quality of life in our communities. How we collect and dispose of our garbage and recycling is essential to our health, our environmental future and the appearance of our cities and towns.

Landfills are reaching the end of their lifespan, and carry a high financial and environmental price. Extended producer responsibility legislation and a decline in the market price of recyclables add to the pressure on municipalities struggling to deliver high-quality, affordable public services.

In order to meet these challenges, it is vital that municipalities retain accountability, flexibility and control when it comes to their solid waste services. Publicly-delivered services are efficient, committed to service and environmental sustainability, and accountable to the public.

Read the full story here from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, March 27, 2015

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-benefits-of-public-solid-waste-services-lessons-for-toronto/


Update on Digital Rights

by Neil Seldman | April 21, 2015 6:06 pm

Do citizens and businesses have a right to repair their computers and related products? ILSR asked Sophia MacDonald to describe the efforts of Digital Right to Repair Coalition (DRTR) to secure these rights for consumers.    See ILSR’s story, Repair & re-sell: Do you have the right to fix your own gadgets? [1]

New York State’s pro-repair legislation is under consideration (S3998 and A6068) . It can be a game changer by influencing other states to undertake similar legislation which reduces costs, increases repair and reuse of machines and reduces the environmental footprint of the electronics sector. Repair and non-profit enterprises also helps bridge the digital divide in the US by making powerful machines available to low income schools, organizations, families and individuals.

New Yorker’s Can Take Action: Tell Your State Legislators to Support S 3998 and A6068

Digital Right to Repair Coalition focuses on all products which include digital electronic parts. Kyle Wiens penned this piece[2] not only to promote DMCA Exemption requests filed in support of tractor repair, but also to promote Fair Repair Bills (NY and MN) and several new bills presented in Congress.  This is all part of the Coalition’s strategy.

Another story from Wired Magazine –  We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership [3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Repair & re-sell: Do you have the right to fix your own gadgets? : https://ilsr.org/digital-repair/
  2. penned this piece: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-high-tech-farm-equipment-nightmare-farmers/
  3. We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership : http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/update-on-digital-rights/


Just How Concentrated Is Our Banking Sector? [Video]

by Olivia LaVecchia | April 20, 2015 12:07 pm

placeholder[1]

As a result of changes in regulations and public policy, over the past 20 years, giant banks have devoured the banking sector. This 90-second video shows just how concentrated the banking industry has become.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/concentrated-banking-sector-video/


Testimony to Congress: Overhaul Federal Policy to Support Strong Local Economies

by Stacy Mitchell | April 16, 2015 4:55 pm

This week, I had the opportunity to share ILSR’s research with members of Congress at a hearing[1] organized by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  The forum, chaired by Representatives Keith Ellison and Raúl Grijalva, focused on how federal contracting and other forms of financial support for business should be overhauled to reflect American values and build the kind of economy we need.  The hearing featured perspectives from both low-wage workers and independent businesses.

As I noted in my testimony, much of federal policy now works to bend the marketplace in favor of big corporations, putting both workers and small businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Federal subsidies,  tax credits, loan guarantees, and other public benefits skew heavily in favor of large, low-wage corporations over responsible small businesses.

I highlighted one opportunity in particular for reform: loan guarantees provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).  Over the last ten years, the SBA has backed loans to over 30,000 retail and fast food franchises, like Quiznos and Subway.  Not only do these outlets often pay rock-bottom wages, but the local entrepreneurs who ostensibly own these businesses generally have very little control over them and forfeit much of the revenue to the franchise parent company.   Worse, more than one in four of these businesses failed, leaving both the local owner and the SBA on the hook, while the franchise parent company made off with sizable profits and no liability for the default.

The eligibility criteria for SBA loan guarantees, ILSR believes, should be revised to eliminate support for low-wage franchises and instead expand lending for independent businesses that contribute to the well-being of their communities.

Watch a video with excerpts from this testimony here[2].

Testimony of Stacy Mitchell
Co-Director, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Ad Hoc Hearing of the Congressional Progressive Caucus
April 15, 2015

Good afternoon, Congressman Grijalva, Congressman Ellison, and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYZtwSMDaF8
  2. here: https://ilsr.org/watch-stacy-mitchell-testifies-on-federal-policy-to-support-strong-local-economies/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/testimony-congress-overhaul-federal-policy/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/testimony-congress-overhaul-federal-policy/


Can Other Cities Match Georgetown’s Low-Cost Switch to 100% Wind and Sun?

by John Farrell | April 14, 2015 2:02 pm

This is probably not the first place you’ve read about Georgetown, TX, the town of 55,000 that will be getting the equivalent of 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2017. But few articles hit upon the two key reasons Georgetown was able to make this move when so many other cities with abundant renewable resources (e.g. Tucson, AZ[1]) are stuck with a majority-coal-fired electricity supply.

If cities had these keys, many could obtain 100% renewable energy at a surprisingly low cost.

Key #1: Local Ownership

Just 1 in 7 Americans gets their electricity from one of about 2,000 municipal utilities, but these locally controlled utilities allow a community to chart its own electric future. It’s the key behind Palo Alto’s surge toward carbon neutral electricity[2], toward Austin’s 35% renewable by 2020 goal, and Sacramento’s ability to pursue a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 2050[3].

Unfortunately, this local self-determination isn’t enough, because there are many other municipal utilities with only a pittance of renewable energy on their grid system. And that leads to…

Key #2: No Contracts

The Georgetown municipal utility closed its last power plant in 1945, and has contracted with third parties to provide electricity ever since. With the expiration of its major supply contract in 2012[4], it was free to sign new contracts. This freedom is what has allowed other utilities like tiny Farmers Electric Cooperative in Iowa to become the number one solar utility in the country[5].

Georgetown didn’t pursue renewable energy for environmental reasons, but simply because it was the best investment for their customers. The 150 megawatts of solar PV and 145 megawatts of wind power will supply as much as double the town’s annual electricity use, ensuring sufficient supply year round even with fluctuations in sunshine and wind, and allow the town to sell the excess into Texas electricity markets. As attractive as the price—which was lower than the town’s current wholesale electricity costs[6]—the solar and wind contracts have zero volatility because they have zero fuel cost, insulating Georgetown electric customers from rising fossil fuel prices.

Self-Reliance not Self-Sufficiency

It’s worth noting that the solar and wind contracts don’t mean that Georgetown will be completely reliant on the sun and wind. Their grid remains interconnected to the rest of the Texas electricity system, so in periods of zero wind and zero sun, the town can still tap into the ERCOT spot market for power. However, the wind and solar resource tend to balance one another. As the city’s press release[7] notes, “This means that wind power can most often fill power demand when the sun isn’t shining.”

A Low Cost Copy?

Could other cities follow suit? If they had the two keys that Georgetown did, almost certainly. ILSR’s analysis suggests that path to 100% renewable energy is surprisingly inexpensive.

Our approach was to analyze the path to 100% renewable energy via wind and solar power alone, for the largest municipal electric utility in each state (i.e. cities with Key #1, and hopefully a timeline to obtain Key #2). The following map shows that 15 of the largest city-owned electric companies (mostly in the Midwest) could contract for 100% renewable energy at 7.5¢ per kilowatt-hour (kWh) or less. Another 18 could do so for less than 9¢ per kWh. The final 14 could contract for 100% wind and solar for 10.3¢ per kWh or less. Detailed assumptions and calculations are shown at the bottom of this post.

everyone a georgetown 100pct renewable energy municipal ILSR[8]

The map is pretty clear: Georgetown may be the first municipal utility to procure 100% renewable energy (and not just renewable energy credits), but it won’t be the last. As costs continue to fall for renewable energy, many more cities can make the rapid shift to 100% wind and sun.

Photo credit: Jim Nix[9] via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[10]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[11] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[12] update.

Assumptions

Costs

The cost of solar and solar resource potential was calculated using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory System Advisor Model, with an installed cost of $2.55/Watt, $20 per kilowatt annual maintenance costs, use of both federal accelerated depreciation and 30% tax credit, financing 100% of the system cost at 8% interest on a 10 year loan, a 5% real discount rate over 25 years, and a 2¢ per kWh margin for the developer.

The cost of wind power was calculated by ILSR assuming an installed cost of $1.63/Watt (source[13]), $49 per kilowatt annual maintenance costs, use of federal accelerated depreciation but no tax credits, financing 100% of the system cost at 8% interest on a 10 year loan, a 6% real discount rate over 20 years, and a 1¢ per kWh margin for the developer. The wind resource was based on a weighted average of Wind Action’s 2011-13 capacity factor analysis where available, LBNL’s Wind Technologies Market Report or an ILSR estimate of 20% capacity factor (used for all states in the Southeast with no current wind power installed).

The reported cost on the map is the weighted average price of power, based on the mix of wind and solar resources.

Renewable Energy Mix

Cities (the largest municipal utility in each state) were assumed to get a minimum of sufficient wind and solar capacity to meet their annual peak energy use, from each technology (e.g. a city with a 150 MW peak use would acquire a minimum of 150 MW of solar and 150 MW of wind power). The capacity of the less expensive technology was then doubled to ensure sufficient annual output to meet the city’s energy needs (based on 2013 retail sales data from the Energy Information Administration). In 6 cities, this figure (for solar) had to be increased further to make sure that 100% of annual energy sales could be met with wind and solar energy production.

For example, Rochester, MN, has a peak energy demand of 279 MW and was assumed to purchase 279 MW of solar PV and 558 MW of wind power capacity, producing 367,000 and 1,600,000 megawatt-hours per year, respectively. The cost of purchased solar (9.3¢) was averaged with the cost of purchased wind power (6.6¢) to get a blended cost of 100% wind and sun of 7.1¢ per kWh.

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Endnotes:
  1. Tucson, AZ: https://ilsr.org/utilities-solar-expensive/
  2. Palo Alto’s surge toward carbon neutral electricity: https://ilsr.org/city-utility-carbon-neutral-today-episode-21-local-energy-rules/
  3. 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 2050: https://www.smud.org/en/about-smud/environment/climate-change.htm
  4. expiration of its major supply contract in 2012: http://ti.me/1za1pU9
  5. Farmers Electric Cooperative in Iowa to become the number one solar utility in the country: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  6. lower than the town’s current wholesale electricity costs: http://cl.ly/3I3Z3U3y2e1L
  7. press release: http://cl.ly/3I3Z3U3y2e1L
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/everyone-a-georgetown-100pct-renewable-energy-municipal-ILSR.jpg
  9. Jim Nix: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimnix/4749029784/in/photolist-8eE26S-4A6xaP-dZHYfR-bErGVu-6sHKEW-gvjfAt-Pvww5-PvwUJ-7McFNE-7McFWf-7M8GyP-HqMe6-5RcwSi-7McG27-aCe6Ki-4Kmszr-9i1qN-btPsG-9i1qQ-arJQW-cnsRT-btQEh-9MWSq-iB9Xpu-9R8A2o-4FZ82P-dZPFPQ-4p2ign-Pvvgj-5eiCWP-76euNY-6xnA1Z-dpYzFk-e92yEs-e91FQN-oG4Cq2-5rqmGR-pWqZmL-bvmS1U-9c8FBb-a5M1TC-9uVcTV-oYLAdr-oG4AtB-9umL7x-6xaKC7-bypWkA-oYyRtP-5CmA3n-oG3X1F
  10. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  11. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  12. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  13. source: http://emp.lbl.gov/publications/2013-wind-technologies-market-report

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/can-other-cities-match-georgetowns-low-cost-switch-to-100-wind-and-sun/


Tale of Comcast Woe

by Lisa Gonzalez | April 9, 2015 12:06 pm

Ideally, working from home allows one to choose the environment where he or she can be most productive. In the case of Seth that was Kitsap County in Washington State. Unfortunately, incompetence on the part of Comcast, CenturyLink, and official broadband maps led Seth down a road of frustration that will ultimately require him to sell his house in order to work from home.

The Consumerist recently reported on Seth’s story, the details of which ring true to many readers who have ever dealt with the cable behemoth. This incident is another example of how the cable giant has managed to retain its spotless record as one of the most hated companies in America.

Seth, a software developer, provides a detailed timeline of his experience on his blog. In his intro:

Late last year we bought a house in Kitsap County, Washington — the first house I’ve ever owned, actually. I work remotely full time as a software developer, so my core concern was having good, solid, fast broadband available. In Kitsap County, that’s pretty much limited to Comcast, so finding a place with Comcast already installed was number one on our priority list.

We found just such a place. It met all of our criteria, and more. It had a lovely secluded view of trees, a nice kitchen, and a great home office with a separate entrance. After we called (twice!) to verify that Comcast was available, we made an offer.

The Consumerist correctly describes the next three months as “Kafkaesque.” Comcast Technicians appear with no notice, do not appear for scheduled appointments, and file mysteriously misplaced “tickets” and “requests.” When technicians did appear as scheduled, they are always surprised by what they saw: no connection to the house, no Comcast box on the dwelling, a home too far away from Comcast infrastructure to be hooked up. Every technician sent to work on the problem appeared with no notes or no prior knowledge of the situation.

It was the typical endless hamster wheel with cruel emotional torture thrown in for sport. At times customer service representatives Seth managed to reach over the phone would build up his hopes, telling him that his requests were in order, progress was being made behind the scenes, that it was only a matter of time before his Internet access was up and running. Then after a period of silence, Seth would call, and he would be told that whatever request he was waiting for was nonexistent, “timed out,” or in one instance had actually been completed.

Seth usually had to be the one to make the call to Comcast for follow up. There was one notable exception, however on February 26th:

Oh, this is fun. I got a call from a generic Comcast call center this morning asking me why I cancelled my latest installation appointment. Insult to injury, they started to up-sell me on all the great things I’d be missing out on if I didn’t reschedule! I just hung up.

In mid-March, Comcast discussed the possibility of building out its network to Seth’s house but he would have to pay for at least a portion of the costs; he was interested. Pre-survey estimates were up to $60,000. A week later, Comcast contacted Seth and told him that they would not do the extension even if Seth paid for the entire thing.

Comcast was not the only provider Seth contacted. When he first learned that Comcast did not connect his home, he contacted CenturyLink. He was told by a customer service tech he would be hooked up right away but the company called him the next day to tell him that CenturyLink would not be serving his needs. They were not adding new customers in his area.

Nevertheless, he was charged more than $100 for service he never could have received. Seth had to jump through hoops to get his “account” zeroed out. CenturyLink’s website showed that they DID serve Seth’s address, reports the Consumerist and, even though they have claimed to have updated the problem, the error remained as of March 23rd.

Official maps created by the state based on data supplied by providers, are grossly incorrect. As a result, Seth’s zip code is supposedly served by a number of providers. While that may be true on paper, it doesn’t do Seth much good. A number of those providers, including Comcast and CenturyLink (as Seth is painfully aware) do not serve his home. Satellite does not cannot the VPN connection he needs due to latency inherent in satellite Internet connections. He is using cellular wireless as a last resort now, but only as a short term solution because it is limited and expensive.

Ironically, Seth’s new home is not far from the Kitsap Public Utility District fiber network. Because state barriers require the Kitsap PUD to operate the network as a wholesale only model, however, Seth cannot hook up for high-speed Internet. He would only be able to connect if a provider chose to use the infrastructure to offer services to him.

Here we have the perfect storm of harmful state barriers, corporate gigantism, and “incumbetence.” From his blog:

I’m devastated. This means we have to sell the house. The house that I bought in December, and have lived in for only two months.

I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know if there’s any kind of recourse. I do know that throughout this process, Comcast has lied. I don’t throw that word around lightly or flippantly, I mean it sincerely. They’ve fed me false information from the start, and it’s hurt me very badly.

This whole thing would have been avoided if only Comcast had said, right at the start, that they didn’t serve this address. Just that one thing would have made me strike this house off the list.

I don’t know exactly how much money I’m going to lose when I sell, but it’s going to be substantial. Three months of equity in a house isn’t a lot of money compared to sellers fees, excise taxes, and other moving expenses.

So, good bye dream house. You were the first house I ever owned, I’ll miss you.

But putting all the blame on Comcast ignores the failed public policy that allows Comcast to act like this. Providers like Comcast lobbied legislators and DC to ensure no map could be created that would be useful. The carriers have refused to turn over data at a granular level that would prevent these mistakes from happening. And whether it is the states, the NTIA, or the FCC, they have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on maps that do little more than allow carriers to falsely claim there is no broadband problem in this country.

And we have utterly failed to hold our elected leaders to account for this corrupt system. Something needs to change – but it won’t until people stand up and demand an end to these stories.

 

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/tale-of-comcast-woe/


Update on One-Bin Systems in Medina, OH, and Houston, TX

by Neil Seldman | April 8, 2015 5:31 pm

Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) and the Zero Waste Houston coalition have been organizing for two years against a misguided proposal to replace an increasingly successful single-stream recycling program with a dirty MRF, referred to as a ‘one-bin’ system. A stream of support from many groups has aided our efforts across the country that have weighed in on a decision that would likely impact other cities’ recycling and composting goals not just in Texas.

See One Bin posts by Neil Seldman, ILSR[1].

The news account below of the Envision Waste dirty MRF in Medina, Ohio is the latest report on the poor performance of this technology. The system reached a recycling rate of less than 4%.

Local governments should commit to the education and other investment necessary to increase sorting of discards and compost at the source. Communities can rethink, reduce, reuse, compost and recycle as we have seen in scores of cities and counties in the U.S. that have gone beyond 50%, some reaching over 60% by traditional recycling methods. Fast track alternative like dirty MRFs and incinerators merely perpetuate the mindless cycle of wasteful product and toxic byproduct. They also present taxpayers with financial boondoggles.

Most recently, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle found that bidders on the City of Houston’s “One Bin for All” program have raised serious questions about the feasibility and costs of the project even if it would not include expensive incineration technologies such as gasification.

See City’s One Bin proposals raise financial, technology concerns[2] – Houston Chronicle, March 29, 2015

See Ohio county hits mixed-waste processing crossroads[3] – Resource Recycling, April 7, 2015

Mayor Annise Parker, however, says that her administration has not come to a conclusion about whether or not to move forward with a remaining bidder, and she will make that conclusion at some point before she leaves office in November. For now, Zero Waste advocates in the City are celebrating that all neighborhoods are finally enrolled in the existing single-stream recycling program, and they are encouraging Mayor Parker to pass a Zero Waste Plan that would expand composting programs and apartments recycling as part of a strategy to reduce 90% or more of waste from landfills in the next few decades. Austin has a zero waste goal and San Antonio and Dallas also have long-term plans to reach over 60% and 80% diversion respectively in the next few decades.

Note: Information for this article from Melanie Scruggs, Texas Campaign for the Environment[4].

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Endnotes:
  1. See One Bin posts by Neil Seldman, ILSR: https://ilsr.org/houston-one-bin-proposal-wrong-choice/
  2. City’s One Bin proposals raise financial, technology concerns: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/City-s-One-Bin-proposals-raise-financial-6166862.php
  3. Ohio county hits mixed-waste processing crossroads: http://resource-recycling.com/node/5834
  4. Texas Campaign for the Environment: http://www.texasenvironment.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/update-on-one-bin-systems-in-medina-oh-and-houston-tx/


How to Maximize the Economic, Environmental and Social Value of E-Scrap: Does EPR Make A Difference?

by Neil Seldman | April 7, 2015 12:52 pm

There are two highly successful non-profit, community based e scrap enterprises operating in Oregon. They have stellar records of efficiency and integrity. They are rivers of wealth for the two cities in which they thrive.

The NextStep[1] in Eugene, OR is a repair and distribution center founded in Lorraine Kerwood’s garage as MacRenewal. By 2002 NextStep was a formal non-profit corporation with many awards and accolades to follow. It now has 37 workers plus 12 volunteers/mentors comprised of regular folks as well as highly skilled technicians and trainers. The organization has trained over 15,000 participants with computer and social skills required for fulfilling jobs and careers.

The key to the operation is access to old but powerful machines generated by local government agencies, businesses, households and institutions and donated to the non-profit. “NextStep works with CEOs and janitors to keep up the flow of repairable inventory,” remarks Kerwood.  “It is these relationships that are the mainstay of our program.”

Since its start up, NextStep has handled over 3.5 million pounds of e scrap.  Repaired products are both sold and donated to low-income individuals, schools and community organizations, creating a closed loop of generators and customers.

Starting in 2000, Kerwood served as the Macintosh refurbisher for FreeGeek in Portland, traveling up the coast once each week to collect Macs, as FreeGeek’s initial focus was LINUX OS installs.  When Mac hardware became available friendly enough to LINUX installs, FreeGeek took on Macs.

FreeGeek[2] operates a similar non-profit entity from a city-block sized facility in Portland. Since 2000, FreeGeek also functions as a community based social enterprise. Donations of computers and related electronic products are dropped off at the main facility or satellite sites. In 2014, FreeGeek handled an estimated 700,000 pounds of e scrap. A staff of 38 workers and an average of 500 volunteers per month process the incoming products. Repaired products are made available for free through grant applications from non-profit organizations. Other repaired products are sold at the main thrift store and on line through EBay. The bulk of sales revenue derive from computers, printers, cables, audiovisual equipment, power strips and monitors. Steel and non-ferrous metals are sold to local scrap dealers. Free Geek must pay to dispose of plastics.

Free Geek, like NextStep, relies on word of mouth and on going relationships with local e scrap generators. Both NextStep and FreeGeek rarely get products through the state’s licensed processors/consolidators. These enterprises shred e scrap for recycling.

The OR e scrap law created in 2006 is a highly regulated e scrap Extended Producer Responsibility Program.  Registered companies collect and process e scrap in association with Original Equipment Manufacturers. Since the EPR law has lead to the centralization of collection with limited access to repairable products, NextStep and FreeGeek probably would not exist if they had not emerged prior to the Oregon EPR law. They had years to develop their network of donor relationships with schools, government agencies, businesses and individuals; as well as a constituency/market for their end products.

Is there a lesson here for states contemplating e scrap EPR programs or states that have them and want to improve efficiency and value added to the local economy? There are excellent models of non-EPR e scrap programs that stimulate local enterprise development and localize value added. California’s advanced deposit system allows for redistribution of funds to collectors and processors, thus building the infrastructure for long term economic growth. (The California container deposit system also builds infrastructure for recycling and supports excellent training programs for young workers.)

What is needed is for EPR and take-back advocates to incorporate local reuse in their policies and programs. A debate on these issues is sorely needed as the shredding of valuable machines for the convenience of Brand Name OEM companies is too high a price to pay when we know what local reuse can accomplish in jobs, skill, environmental, social and economic pay back.

In my home town, Washington, DC, the value added opportunities can provide decent jobs, new small companies and help bring relief to the city’s underclass separated from the American dream by a deep digital divide. Yet, new legislation on e scrap gives control of this socially and economically invaluable resource to the Brand Name computer industry with no concern for keeping this resource local. What DC and all jurisdictions need is some quality control on EPR: How to use the fastest growing part of the waste stream to solve endemic social and economic problems. Recycling of e scrap is not enough! We need policy research to identify a fix for existing EPR e scrap laws and a model for maximum value from e scrap discards. EPR has a role surely. But what is it exactly?

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Endnotes:
  1. The NextStep: http://www.nextsteprecycling.org/
  2. FreeGeek: http://www.freegeek.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/how-to-maximize-the-economic-environmental-and-social-value-of-e-scrap-does-epr-make-a-difference/


Freedom to Connect – Long Term Muni Strategies

by Rebecca Toews | April 2, 2015 4:35 pm

If you were not able to attend Freedom to Connect in New York on March 2 – 3[1], you can now view archived video of presentations from Chris and others.

Now that the FCC has made a determination that may change the landscape of Internet access, it is time to consider the future of municipal networks. In this discussion, Chris discusses passive infrastructure, including dark fiber and open accessmodels as a way to encourage competition on the local level. Chris also looks at financing municipal networks in a fashion that takes into account public benefits created by fiber. He suggests steps elected officials can take now that will contribute to long term ubiquitous access in their communities.

You can also watch videos from other presenters including Joanne Hovis, Hannah Sassaman, and Jim Baller at the F2C: Freedom to Connect 2015 Livestream page[2].

Chris’s presentation is posted here and runs just over 20 minutes:

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Freedom to Connect in New York on March 2 – 3: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/still-time-register-f2c-2015%E2%80%A6-hurry
  2. F2C: Freedom to Connect 2015 Livestream page: http://new.livestream.com/internetsociety/F2C2015/videos

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/freedom-to-connect-long-term-muni-strategies-3/


Why Utilities Are Hating on Their Solar-Producing Customers

by John Farrell | April 1, 2015 9:50 am

I have the privilege of talking to a lot of reporters about rooftop solar energy, and particularly about why utilities seem hell bent on stopping their customers from using their own money to add clean, renewable energy to the electric grid. If this seems confusing to you, too, here’s a quick primer with some key resources.

Utilities Don’t View Customer-Owned Solar Power as a Resource

mn value of solar v cost[1]Read a utility integrated resource plan (their 15-year plan for the electric grid), and you can see an electric utility wax eloquent about a shiny new 100 megawatt power plant that could provide energy during peak energy periods with zero fuel cost. But if instead of a big utility-built power plant we’re talking about 10,000 individual solar arrays on customer rooftops, utilities lose all perspective.

Most utilities see a solar array on a customer rooftop the same as they see an energy efficient refrigerator. It means the customer buys less electricity. In some states, policies called “decoupling” tend to hold utilities harmless to these sales losses in order to encourage more investment in cost-effective energy efficiency. But with solar, utilities tend to ignore the benefits that this energy provides to the electricity system unless someone tells them to account for it.

In Minnesota, for example, the state legislature passed a “value of solar[2]” program that requires the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, to calculate how much solar energy is worth to its grid. In 2014 and 2015, the utility has reported that the value of solar energy is higher than the cost to the utility in buying it from customers via net metering. Other studies have shown similar results, including one in Maine[3], in Missouri[4], and in many other states.

Faced with compelling evidence of the value of customer-produced solar power, why haven’t utilities come around?

The Utility Business Model Seems Broken

For most investor-owned (for profit) utilities in particular, this new data can’t be squared with their old business model. In a study by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, researchers found that the ratepayer impact of lots of customer-owned solar is quite small[5], but the larger impact falls on utility shareholders. Solar may mean modest revenue reductions for electric utilities, but by offsetting the need for new, large-scale power plants, solar’s real threat is in choking off the for-profit utility’s source of shareholder returns. The following graphic from the report shows the impact of distributed solar on two hypothetical utilities’ shareholders—return on equity (ROE) and earnings—and also on retail electric rates—ordinary ratepayers.

solar impact on utility ROE earnings rates[6]

In short, a utility that’s spent the past several decades making money by selling more electricity and building new infrastructure doesn’t look favorably on a competitor.

Municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives don’t have this dissonance between shareholders and customers, but the notion of customer-provided power as a resource is often just as shocking.

It Seems Easier to Fight Than Innovate

In a competitive business it would seem mad to fight your own customers, but most utilities aren’t in competition (even in states where there is competition in selling electricity to ultimate customers, the ownership of the distribution grid remains a monopoly). That means there are only a few prominent examples of utilities—such as Green Mountain Power[7] and Farmers Electric Cooperative[8]—working to change yesterday’s business model to accommodate today’s technology.

For the rest of electric utilities, they’ve largely chosen to fight their customers rather than accommodate the rise of distributed, customer-owned renewable energy. But that choice is because while they see distributed renewable energy as an opportunity, most have no idea how to make a business around it[9].

In Wisconsin, electric utilities have shifted more of the monthly bill onto fixed charges, reducing the incentive for their customers to save energy with solar (or any other manner). In Arizona, utilities are slapping fees on solar energy producers, to recoup their lost revenue. In over half of U.S. states (shown below in red), utilities have introduced legislative or regulatory proceedings to fight their customers over solar energy[10].

freedom to generate under fire ILSR 2015-0325[11]

The state-by-state battles are part of a coordinated effort by utility executives to address what they see as “a serious, long-term threat to the survival of traditional electricity providers[12].”

So far, utilities have lost more than they’ve won, but even in winning individual battles utilities may still lose the war because their “victories” in containing customer generated solar power are temporary props to an electricity system that is increasingly archaic.

The Electricity System is Fundamentally Changing

It’s easy to pick on electric companies for overlooking the value of their customer’s energy (and for lashing out with retrograde policies), but it’s not entirely their fault. The 100-year-old rules of the electricity system—written by legislatures and governed by public regulatory commissions—granted most electric companies a monopoly over their area of the electric grid. Even as some states introduced competition in selling power to ultimate customers, utilities maintain over the distribution poles and wires that bring power to homes and businesses (and thus much of the power). This monopoly made sense in the 20th century to raise capital for large-scale, low-cost power generation. It worked, giving us reliable and affordable electricity (at any environmental price). It gave utilities comfortable, reliable returns on their investments from regulators at Public Utilities Commissions.

In an era of incremental change where stability was prized over innovation, this monopoly was largely in the public interest.

No more[13].

Consider the difference between a 20th century and 21st century electricity system. In the 20th century, power was generated in large-scale power plants at a distance from population centers, sent by large transmission lines to cities, and managed in a centralized, top-down fashion by a monopoly electric company. There was no viable alternative to this model.

Today, we can generate power on rooftops or farm fields, manage it in real-time with smart thermostats or appliances, and control it remotely with smartphone apps and automation software. In this environment, do we need a traditional, top-down electric utility?

Most utilities won’t change by themselves, however. The inertia and cultural stagnation of monopoly make them much better at playing defense than offense. That has regulators in at least one state, New York, saying “no.”

The Reforming the Energy Vision[14] process just released its first orders, and among them the New York regulators are telling utilities that they will no longer own and operate distributed renewable energy resources. It’s the first step toward flattening the electricity system, from a one-way, top-down grid to a massively networked and democratized[15] energy delivery marketplace. Similar processes are underway in Washington, Minnesota, and other states.

Electric Utilities Use Enormous Power to Resist

Imagine how typewriter companies felt upon the introduction of personal computers, how landline phone companies felt a decade ago. Electric utility executives are in a similar position, locked in an outdated paradigm and without a strategy for reaching a different future.

The key difference is that electric companies wield enormous market and political power over their system. They have publicly-sanctioned monopolies, and huge streams of monopoly-shielded revenue they use to hire lobbyists and lawyers to dominate state legislatures and utility commissions. Open Secrets tracks electric utility lobbying at the federal level and reports that utilities collectively spent $121 million on lobbying Congress in 2014[16], and an additional $16.5 million in contributions to legislators. Lobbying is even more intense at the state level, where most regulation takes place. For example, Florida’s four largest utilities collectively employ one lobbyist for every two legislators[17] in that state.

In nearly every fight to align the electricity system with the technological and economic opportunity—energy efficiency, renewable energy, net metering—utilities have pitted their resources squarely against progress.

Get to the Root Cause

The best analogy for today’s battle for the electricity system might be the AT&T telephone monopoly. In the early years, users couldn’t even connect third party devices to the telephone network and AT&T could wield its monopoly power to quash market or political competition. In the end, the government rightly recognized that breaking up the monopoly and introducing competition (for long distance service, at least) was the only way to reduce AT&T’s economic and political power.

Electric utilities are right that distributed renewable energy like rooftop solar threatens their business model. But that model is increasingly out of step with the interests of the modern electricity customer, from energy efficiency to clean energy to energy management. States have papered over the inconsistencies with policies mandating renewable energy and energy efficiency—the utility leaders in renewable energy and energy efficiency almost all hail from states with the best policies[18]—but only at great political cost and over the strident objection of utility companies.

The root cause of the battle between utilities and their (captive) customers is the utility monopoly. And the best hope for a democratic energy system is to smash it.

 

Photo credit: Mike Fleming[19] via Flickr (CC BY 2.0 license)

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[20]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[21] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[22] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/mn-value-of-solar-v-cost.jpg
  2. value of solar: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-of-solar/
  3. Maine: http://www.pressherald.com/2015/03/12/the-value-of-power-solar-goes-sky-high/
  4. Missouri: http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/27/study-finds-net-metering-to-be-a-net-benefit-in-missouri/
  5. the ratepayer impact of lots of customer-owned solar is quite small: https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/financial-impacts-net-metered-pv
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/solar-impact-on-utility-ROE-earnings-rates.png
  7. Green Mountain Power: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/vermont-expands-net-metering-program-with-utility-support
  8. Farmers Electric Cooperative: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  9. no idea how to make a business around it: http://app.assetdl.com/landingpage/utility-survey-2015/
  10. fight their customers over solar energy: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  11. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/freedom-to-generate-under-fire-ILSR-2015-0325.jpg
  12. a serious, long-term threat to the survival of traditional electricity providers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/utilities-sensing-threat-put-squeeze-on-booming-solar-roof-industry/2015/03/07/2d916f88-c1c9-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html?hpid=z1
  13. No more: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  14. Reforming the Energy Vision: http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/26BE8A93967E604785257CC40066B91A?OpenDocument
  15. massively networked and democratized: https://ilsr.org/report-energy-democracy/
  16. utilities collectively spent $121 million on lobbying Congress in 2014: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E08
  17. one lobbyist for every two legislators: http://watchdog.org/135464/utility-lobbying/
  18. states with the best policies: https://ilsr.org/utilities-states-leaders-renewable-energy-efficiency/
  19. Mike Fleming: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flem007_uk/3168011294/in/photolist-5NUMKx-5PWToo-5PWTEs-Q8FRP-GGhLq-8fSEir-97bBe7-978vNH-ixpiWC-5K9FTi-4Jxr67-8VPUQK-97bBT1-978wxv-44jHEk-5mwGN7-978xwV-LzpHL-5Yem7N-4Ea8mA-7Njvxw-5K9GAX-5K9GgM-9vR1m6-ixpHrc-5RQ9Nj-dVoeL3-4rBUES-bSr87x-9vU2XE-cvB5Dd-6fJjh-2WSTw-7avENJ-5VYXFq-PYw-75AndJ-aBP4Xr-jaSwKc-7kwaBk-jaSxd6-aBjygo-8raS3S-FMegi-qPMizS-978vtP-kggVyq-978uLv-978vca-fgLRMS
  20. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  21. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  22. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/why-utilities-are-hating-on-their-solar-producing-customers/


The Politics of the NCAA Sweet Sixteen

by David Morris | March 25, 2015 10:48 am

When television cameras zoomed in on Kansas Governor Sam Brownback in the middle of the Kansas-Wichita State NCAA basketball game a thunderous chorus of boos broke out. Viewers gained a rare glimpse of the politics behind March Madness. The announcers pointedly ignored the boos.

Viewers might have been better served if the announcers had offered some context for the crowd’s hostility. Both the University of Kansas and Wichita State are public universities. Brownback and the Republican dominated legislature have savaged state university budgets, resulting in rising tuition and more burdensome student debt.

In fact, twelve of the Sweet Sixteen teams are state universities. (Three are Catholic schools. Duke is the only non-religious private school.) Eleven play in states totally controlled by Republicans. (UCLA is the only team in a totally blue state.) In virtually all of these state spending on state universities has been slashed. Between 2008 and 2014 per capita state spending for state universities, adjusted for inflation, has shrunk[1] by more than 40 percent in Arizona, almost 30 percent in Michigan, about 25 percent in Utah and Wisconsin. And in 2015, even though their state economies have significantly improved, many red states are seeking to further punish their state universities. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, for example, has just proposed[2] a budget that would decrease spending on public universities by $300 million over the next two years, the steepest reduction in state history.

The largely student crowds at NCAA games may also be upset that their states justify cutting spending on state universities in order to reduce state deficits when the deficits have been caused almost entirely by tax reductions that overwhelmingly favor the wealthy. Since taking office in 2011, Walker has steered[3] over $2 billion in tax cuts through the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature. By one estimate[4] the state of Kansas lost $803 million in 2014 because of 2012 tax cuts and the cumulative revenue loss will exceed $5 billion by 2019.

While the vast majority of NCAA teams in the Sweet Sixteen play in red states, almost all play in blue cities: Chapel Hill, Durham, Lexington, Louisville, Madison, Tucson, Lansing, Wichita, South Bend, Norman. And many of them are blue in large part because of how their students and recent graduates vote. Responding to the needs of their constituents, blue city councils have tried to lift their income, sometimes by increasing the local minimum wage. But when they try, red state legislatures often step in and strip them of their authority to do so.

In 2007, when Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin raised the local minimum wage, the legislature passed a bill to preempt its right to do so but the effort failed when Democratic Governor Jim Doyle vetoed the bill. In 2011, however, Republican Governor Walker signed a bill abolishing any Wisconsin city from enacting a local minimum wage higher than the state’s. That bill became a template used by more than a dozen other red states, most recently Oklahoma, to enact their own preemption statutes.

For the next week, we can concentrate on basketball and marvel at the remarkable athletes playing their hearts out and set politics aside. But perhaps, maybe during the commercials, we can reflect on the fact that the vast majority of these games are being played by teams from public universities in states whose governments are hostile to public universities and whose policies increase the already considerable financial burden on the students at these universities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. shrunk: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4135
  2. proposed: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-s-proposed-million-higher-education-cut-comes-as/article_eff99f4e-154b-56a7-badc-57db547f9d82.html
  3. steered: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-18/wisconsin-to-skip-debt-payments-to-make-up-for-walker-s-tax-cuts
  4. estimate: http://www.cbpp.org/files/3-27-14sfp.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/politics-ncaa-sweet-sixteen/


Listen: Can an Old Utility (dog) Learn New Tricks?

by John Farrell | March 16, 2015 10:29 am

Arnie Arnesen interviewed ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy John Farrell[1] on WNHN’s The Attitude last week, seeking an answer to this question: can we expect electric utilities to embrace the energy sources of the future, like solar?

Electric Utilities Play by the (Old) Rules

Arnie and John discussed the hesitance of utilities to embrace innovation and new, clean technology. In many states, utilities are fighting back against clean, local energy[2] by fighting rules like net metering and proposing taxes and fees on solar producers.

As Arnie says, “Whenever you talk solar, for some reason you find John Farrell”

 

John suggested that we can’t expect better if the rules of the system remain mired in the 20th century.

Utilities have been given monopolies and the charge of delivering reliable, affordable power. They’ve done that job effectively, to the exclusion of anything else, and the decades of inertia make it hard for utilities to change.

John shared an anecdote from his recent trip to Tucson, where a utility employee noted that their conservative institution doesn’t innovate, doesn’t do “beta tests.” The utility in question gets 80% of its electricity from coal, despite being in the sunniest climate in the United States.

The utilities are reluctant to change because the old rules meant they made money from the old habits: selling more energy and building more (dirty) power plants. But what many utilities don’t realize is that change isn’t optional, because the old way can’t be profitable anymore.

What’s the New System?

Electric utilities are used to having centralized control over the grid system, but it’s a monopoly that no longer makes sense[4]. We no longer need to concentrate capital to build power plants because they can be built on rooftops and parking lots and open fields wherever there’s sun and wind. But we do need a facilitator to make sure that the grid infrastructure—the valuable network connecting all of these energy producers—can allow electric customers to transact with each other (instead of the utility).

It’s sometimes called “energy democracy[5].”

How do we Change the Rules?

Utilities will have to operate under new rules to move from centralized utility control to energy democracy. These rules will get them out of the business of selling electricity or building power plants and into the business of operating a public network for electricity system participants to transact with each other: a market.

Several states are already piloting these concepts, from Maine to California to New York. The basic premise is that the utility monopoly must be broken up, but primarily its monopoly over the distribution system—the network of poles and wires serving our neighborhoods. It’s on this network that innovation will be unleashed by customers with rooftop solar, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, and energy storage. But only if the electric utility is out of the way.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[6]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[7] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[8] update.

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Endnotes:
  1. Arnie Arnesen interviewed ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy John Farrell: http://www.wnhnfm.org/the-attitude-with-arnie-arnesen-3112015/
  2. utilities are fighting back against clean, local energy: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  3. https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/John-Farrell-with-Arnie-Arnesen-Attitude-WNHN-2015-0311.mp3: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/John-Farrell-with-Arnie-Arnesen-Attitude-WNHN-2015-0311.mp3
  4. it’s a monopoly that no longer makes sense: https://ilsr.org/electricitys-unnatural-monopoly/
  5. energy democracy: https://ilsr.org/report-energy-democracy/
  6. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  7. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  8. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/utility-dog-learn-tricks/


Key Passages and Arguments From The FCC Decision to Remove Barriers to Municipal Networks in TN and NC

by Rebecca Toews | March 13, 2015 3:16 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 13, 2015

CONTACT: Rebecca Toews, rebecca@ILSR.org[1],

(612)808-0689

 

Key Passages and Arguments From The FCC Decision to Remove Barriers to Municipal Networks in TN and NC

The Federal Communications Commission has released the order that allows Chattanooga and Wilson, as well as many other cities in North Carolina and Tennessee, to build, expand, and partner for improved Internet access.

This decision is not the end of the fight. We expect appeals and petitions from other cities to be filed, which follow Chattanooga and Wilson’s lead. Because of this, we isolated some of the key arguments and passages in a tip sheet below.

While the ruling extends only to communities in Tennessee and North Carolina, it stands to benefit communities all over the nation that want to reap the benefits of high-quality Internet connections at lower costs by overturning laws that create barriers to Internet networks. In fact, the order offers many clues as to how this precedent may impact restrictions in other states.

“The FCC’s order is a tremendous step forward to enabling better Internet access in North Carolina, Tennessee, and ultimately the whole country,” said Chris Mitchell, director of Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “As an organization that cares deeply about a proper balance of power, we believe this decision represents an appropriate tradeoff between local, state, and federal authority.”

 

Summarizing the Decision

The FCC has found that it has the authority to remove aspects of Tennessee and North Carolina law that limit local authority to build or expand Internet networks. In short, states retain the authority to restrict municipalities from offering service at all. However, if states allow local governments to offer services, then the FCC has the power to determine whether any limitations on how they do it are a barrier to the deployment of advanced telecommunications services per its authority in section 706 of the Telecommunications Act.

The FCC has removed a restriction in Tennessee law that prevented municipalities with fiber networks from expanding to serve their neighbors, per a petition from Chattanooga.

In North Carolina, the FCC has removed multiple aspects of a 2011 law, HB 129, that effectively outlawed municipal networks by presenting local governments with a thicket of red tape, including territorial restrictions on existing networks. The city of Wilson had petitioned the FCC for this intervention.

 

Key Points in the FCC Decision to Remove Barriers to Local Choice (each bullet starts with the paragraph number from the order):

Read Full FCC Decision Here[2]

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. rebecca@ILSR.org: mailto:rebecca@ILSR.org
  2. Read Full FCC Decision Here: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-25A1.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/key-passages-fcc-local-authority-decision/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/key-passages-fcc-local-authority-decision/


Can a Single Union Save the Post Office?

by David Morris | March 12, 2015 3:50 pm

Let’s begin with the bad news. The U.S. Post Office, the oldest, most respected and ubiquitous of all public institutions is fast disappearing. In recent years management has shuttered half the nation’s mail processing plants and put 10 percent of all local post offices up for sale. A third of all post offices, most of them in rural areas, have had their hours slashed. Hundreds of full time, highly experienced postmasters knowledgeable about the people and the communities they serve have been dumped unceremoniously, often replaced by part timers. Ever larger portions of traditional post office operations— trucking, mail processing and mail handling– have been privatized. Close to 200,000 middle class jobs have disappeared.

Since 2012 the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has lowered service standards three times, most recently in January when in preparation for closing an additional 82 mail processing plants it announced the end of one day delivery of local first class mail and an additional 1-2 days for all mail. Subscribers to Netflix’s DVD delivery service may soon discover the cost effectiveness of a monthly subscription has been cut in half because the number of DVD’s they receive in a month has been cut in half.

The Postal Service, we are told, has fallen so deeply into debt (more on this in a moment) that it has exhausted its borrowing capacity. There’s no cash left. It’s been challenging to invest in capital projects. Post offices are in disrepair. Trucks are out of date.

Now for the good news. On November 12, 2013 a slate of insurgents won seven of nine national offices at the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). What? Can the election of new officers in a single union, even one with over 200,000 members possibly save the post office? Certainly not if they try to do it singlehandedly but there’s a chance, just a chance they could turn the tide if they build an effective national movement. And that’s what they’re trying to do.

The APWU Strategy

The APWU’s new officers are unusually experienced and talented organizers. After leading the Greater Greensboro Area Local for 12 years and co-founding the Greensboro Chapter of Jobs with Justice, President Mark Dimondstein was appointed APWU’s National Lead Field Organizer in 2000 in a new campaign to organize workers in privatized mail trucking and processing operations. That afforded him important experience in the rough and tumble world of the private sector where workers have the legal right to strike (post office workers can’t) and corporations have the legal right to do almost anything they want to thwart union organizers. The campaign had many susccesses but prolonged strikes against several companies eventually exhausted the union’s strike fund and its national leadership refused repeated requests by Dimondstein and others to replenish it,

Other new officers include Political Director John Marcotte who organized a local coalition that stopped the consolidation of his Michigan plant and Executive Vice President Debby Szeredy who led her Mid-Hudson local in fighting their plant closure. Both she and the new Clerk Craft Director Clint Burelson also participated in a hunger strike in 2012.

The activist stance of these new leaders is evident in the tactics they embrace. Dimondstein insists[1], “We’re not afraid of the streets. We’re not in the streets enough. We need to picket, march, sit-in–not leave it to lobbying or one-on-one negotiations.” He often pointedly praises the actions of postal workers who 55 years ago this March took their future into their own hands by defying union leaders and staging an illegal strike against low pay and benefits and poor working conditions. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. insists: http://www.shoppok.com/worcester/a,12,3200,--The-American-Postal-Workers-Union-Elects-a-New-Leadership-.htm
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/single-union-save-post-office/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/single-union-save-post-office/


Model Recycling Communities: Lane County, OR, Pop. 350,000

by Neil Seldman | March 9, 2015 4:22 pm

There is no one best way for communities to recycle. San Francisco has a highly successful program under an exclusive franchise system. Across the Bay, Berkeley has an equally successful program under a highly decentralized system based on for-profit, non-profit and government agency operations. One of the main reason why recycling grew so fast from the 1970s on, was that cities and counties learned from each other as they implemented their own unique systems. So today we have a wide variety of local recycling models.

Lane County, OR, is an interesting model for a number of reasons. Lane County is one of the only counties in Oregon that does not franchise, license or otherwise regulate garbage collection. Yet the community reached an impressive recovery rate of 61.5% in 2012. The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) confirms that recycling and composting achieved 55.5% recovery, while the County’s backyard compost-at-home, repair and reuse and source reduction programs each earned 2% toward the total recovery rate. The rate declined to 56.9% in 2013 (see note below); recycling and composting achieved 50.9% and Lane County’s backyard composting, repair and reuse and waste prevention programs each earned 2% more as a DEQ credit toward the total recovery rate.

Residents and businesses in the County may choose among one or more private haulers each of which must provide recycling services only inside the urban growth boundaries of any city of over 4,000 and additional services in cities over 10,000. The system is overseen by city and county governments per state statutes and rules.  The Lane County Department of Public Works, Division of Waste Management operates 16 rural transfer stations to fill in the gaps in lieu of a franchise, license or other regulatory program. Lane County’s comprehensive education and outreach includes a Master Recycler Program (much like popular Master Gardener programs). This as well as their website, www.lanecounty.org/recycle[1] presents a very rich and layered approach directing residents and businesses to reuse and repair shops to self-haul and transfer station recycling, with many stops in between.

The information can help cities and counties that are early in their recycling program development as well as experienced recycling jurisdictions looking for novel approaches to common challenges and opportunities.

Here are key websites for more about Lane County, OR’s broad range of programs:

www.lanecounty.org/waste
www.lanecounty.org/recycle[1]

For additional information contact: Sarah Grimm, Lane County Recycling Coordinator at (541) 682-4339.

NOTE:  There is no clear reason for the decline from 2012 to 2013. Most likely factors are: continued market insecurities due to China’s Green Fence, fewer buyers of wood waste (low cost and low emissions of natural gas causing the market to fall out), voluntary reporting by scrap metal industry, accounting for contamination in co-mingled collections, and adjustment of local data to state-wide data.

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Endnotes:
  1. www.lanecounty.org/recycle: http://www.lanecounty.org/recycle

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/model-recycling-communities-lane-county-or-pop-350000/


March 11th Waste to Wealth Event: Bringing Recycling and Composting Jobs to Baltimore

by Neil Seldman | March 6, 2015 5:26 am

The Waste to Wealth = Green Jobs event (free to attend) is being held to present the potential for developing small minority-owned companies in the reuse, recycling and composting sectors in the Baltimore area. ILSR is co-sponsoring this event.

Wed, March 11, 2015; 7pm–9pm
Baltimore City Community College
2901 Liberty Heights Ave, Baltimore, MD 21215 (map[1])

Expert Panel Includes:

* Adrienne Houel – Executive Director, Park City Green, operator of a mattress recycling plant in Bridgeport, CT
* Shabaaz Jackson – Principal, Greenway, composting designer and operator, Poughkeepsie, NY
* Mark Foster – Director, Second Chance, building deconstruction, resale, Baltimore, MD
* Sidney Wilson, Jr. – President, DoxicomGlobal, recycling hard to recycle materials, Jackson, TN
* Justen Garrity, Founder, Veteran Compost, Aberdeen, MD

The Waste to Wealth event is being held to present residents and city leaders to the potential for developing small minority-owned companies in the reuse, recycling and composting sectors. Businesses such as these are popping up all over the U.S., including many owned and operated by minority business people and community development companies.

Some of these businesses are already operating in and around Baltimore. Others would like to create joint ventures with local community development corporations and social service agencies.

Other mid-sized manufacturing firms want to locate in Baltimore, taking advantage of acres of idle industrially zoned land. One such company is Greys Paper Company of Edmonton, Canada. This company produces 100% recycled high grade paper stationery, copy paper, envelopes on a five acre site that needs 120 workers. The company has asked the Institute for Local Self-Reliance to suggest sites for several plants to be built in the U.S. in the next few years. Baltimore is an ideal site given the availability of land and location near Washington, DC – the high grade paper capital of the world. City officials in charge of economic development should attend this event to find out more.

The combination of small companies and mid-sized manufacturing based on materials and used products that can be recovered from the Baltimore waste stream can lead to over 1,000 new jobs in the city, each paying a minimum of $14/hour, some with health insurance benefits.

Information about these companies will be presented by their operators and representatives at this Baltimore Zero Waste panel and networking event.

For more information, contact Robin at 301-836-1405 or email robin@energyjustice.net[2].

More info here: www.energyjustice.net/zerowastejobs[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. map: https://goo.gl/maps/Xzpm3
  2. robin@energyjustice.net: mailto:robin@energyjustice.net
  3. www.energyjustice.net/zerowastejobs: http://www.energyjustice.net/zerowastejobs

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/march-11th-waste-wealth-event-bringing-recycling-composting-jobs-baltimore/


The Other FCC Decision

by David Morris | March 5, 2015 10:05 am

On February 26th the Federal Communications Commission issued two decisions. One concerned net neutrality, the other municipal broadband. The first garnered by far the most attention, as it should. Net neutrality affects everyone and locks down a fundamental principle for Internet access.

But as another presidential campaign looms the FCC decision on municipally owned broadband may offer more fertile ground for a vigorous political debate on the role of government and the scale of governance.

The decision arose from a petition to the FCC by Chattanooga, Tennessee and Wilson, North Carolina asking it to overturn state laws that prevent them from extending their highly successful publicly owned networks to surrounding communities eager to connect. The FCC’s decision affects just those two states’ laws but will undoubtedly become a precedent to evaluate most of the other 17 states’ restrictions on municipal broadband.

Republicans grumbled at the net neutrality decision but they positively shrieked their dismay when the FCC ruled in favor of local authority. Within hours of the vote Republicans introduced a bill stripping the FCC of its authority to do so. A year ago Republicans tacked on an amendment to another bill that would have prevented the FCC from even taking up the issue. That amendment passed the House. Republicans voted[1] 221-4 in favor. It died in the Senate.

The Economic Argument: Protecting Shareholders and Taxpayers

Republicans marshal both economic and political arguments in their case against public networks. The economic argument is simply put: By pre-empting local authority Republicans are protecting shareholders from unfair competition and taxpayers from unwise investments by local governments.

That municipal telecommunications networks have unfair advantages is a well-worn trope of telecom giants and Republicans. On the face of it, the proposition is preposterous. Does anyone truly believe that Salisbury, North Carolina whose public network at the time North Carolina passed its law had only 1,000 customers and whose municipal budget was only $34 million could have a competitive advantage over Time Warner, with 14 million customers and annual revenues of $18 billion?  The compensation Time Warner paid[2] its CEO Jeffrey Bewkes for 2013 exceeded the cost[3] of Salisbury building its entire network.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. voted: http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/house-votes-to-save-bans-on-city-internet-service-20140716
  2. paid: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/time-warner-ceo-jeffrey-bewkes-697982
  3. cost: http://www.coalitionfortheneweconomy.org/blog/2014/12/salisbury-nc-bond-rating-downgraded-due-to-municipal-broadband/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/fcc-decision/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fcc-decision/


Blackburn and Tillis Introduce Bill Aimed to Undo FCC Decision to Restore Local Authority

by Lisa Gonzalez | March 2, 2015 10:53 am

Last week, the FCC made history[1] when it chose to restore local telecommunications authority by nullifying state barriers in Tennessee and North Carolina. Waiting in the wings were Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Senator Thom Tillis from Tennessee and North Carolina respectively, with their legislation to cut off the FCC at the knees. [A PDF of the draft legislation[2] is available online.]

Readers will remember Blackburn from last year[3]. She introduced a similar measure in the form of an amendment to an appropriations bill. Blackburn has repeatedly attributed her attempts to block local authority to her mission to preserve the rights of states. A Broadcasting and Cable article quoted her[4]:

 

 

“The FCC’s decision to grant the petitions of Chattanooga, Tennessee and Wilson, North Carolina is a troubling power grab,” Blackburn said. “States are sovereign entities that have Constitutional rights, which should be respected rather than trampled upon. They know best how to manage their limited taxpayer dollars and financial ventures.”

Thom Tillis, the other half of this Dystopian Duo, released a statement[5] just hours after the FCC decision:

“Representative Blackburn and I recognize the need for Congress to step in and take action to keep unelected bureaucrats from acting contrary to the expressed will of the American people through their state legislatures.”

Considering that networks in Chattanooga and Wilson are incredibly popular [6]and an increasing number of communities across the country are approving municipal network initatives through the ballot[7], it is obvious that Tillis is rather confused about the expressed will of the American people. He needs to sign up for our once weekly newsletter![8]

No doubt the decision will be tied up in court proceedings for some time to come as state lawmakers attempt to control what municipalities do with their own connectivity decisions.

In keeping with the drama of the recent days, I have to say, The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” If Blackburn and Tillis are so convinced the FCC is overstepping, why not let the matter be decided in the courts? They know the law is not on their side, that’s why.

We encourage you to contact your elected officials[9], and let them know that you think about the Blackburn/Tillis bill: “that dog won’t hunt,” in the words of Chairman Wheeler[10]. The victory of February 26th was a significant first step in a long road to ensuring fast, affordable, reliable Internet for every one. Let’s keep the momentum rolling.

Jim Baller is the Senior Principal of Baller Herbst Stokes & Lide, the lead counsel to Wilson and the Chattanooga EPB. You can read Jim’s full statement at the firm’s website[11]:

“This is an important moment for communities in North Carolina, Tennessee, and other states that have barriers to local investments in advanced communications networks,” said Jim Baller, senior principal of Baller Herbst Stokes & Lide. “Not only has the Commission confirmed that it has authority to remove such barriers, but it has also compiled a massive record documenting the critical role that local Internet choice can play in fostering strong, vibrant communities and in ensuring that the United States will remain a leading nation in the emerging knowledge-based global economy.”

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Endnotes:
  1. FCC made history: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/cable-companies-lose-big-fcc-barriers-community-broadband-struck-down
  2. PDF of the draft legislation: http://blackburn.house.gov/uploadedfiles/states_rights_muni_broadband_act.pdf
  3. Blackburn from last year: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/revisiting-blackburn-amendment-debates
  4. Broadcasting and Cable article quoted her: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/bill-introduced-block-fcc-municipal-broadband-preemption/138351
  5. released a statement: http://www.tillis.senate.gov/content/tillis-blackburn-introduce-bill-stop-fcc-nullifying-state-municipal-broadband-laws
  6. incredibly popular : http://www.muninetworks.org/content/wilsons-greenlight-leads-north-carolina-connectivity-community-broadband-bits-episode-70
  7. through the ballot: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/republicans-and-democrats-alike-restore-local-authority-colorado
  8. once weekly newsletter!: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  9. contact your elected officials: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members
  10. “that dog won’t hunt,” in the words of Chairman Wheeler: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/fcc-municipal-broadband-ban-vote/
  11. full statement at the firm’s website: http://www.baller.com/2015/02/baller-herbst-stokes-lide-statement-on-the-fccs-decision-to-remove-north-carolina-and-tennessee-barriers-to-community-broadband-initiatives/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/blackburn-tillis-introduce-bill-aimed-undo-fcc-decision-restore-local-authority/


Who Decides?

by David Morris | February 26, 2015 4:38 pm

Who decides? Conservative Republicans in Texas are split on the issue. Darren Hodges, a Tea Party councilman in the West Texas city of Fort Stockton, fiercely defends his town’s recent decision to ban plastic bags. City officials have a “God-given right” to make that decision he tells[1] the New York Times.

James Quintero of the conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation disagrees, “What we’re arguing is that liberty, not local control, is the overriding principle that state and local policy makers should be using.” He apparently would strip communities of the right of local control, at least to regulate commercial behavior. Quintero is Director of TPPF’s Center for Local Governance. Perhaps they should change the “for” to “against.”

The new Republican Governor of Texas Greg Abbott stands with Quintero. In a speech last month to the TPPF he condemned how democracy run amok threatens Texas with becoming “California-ized.” “Large cities that represent about 75 percent of the population in this state are doing this to us,” he declared. Huh? Who does Abbott think are “us?” Might not 75 percent of the population more accurately be described as “we the people?”

Despite the Governor’s comments the debate about local authority in Texas appears vigorous.   The demise of local democracy is by no means foreordained. About a dozen Texas cities already banned plastic bags before Fort Stockton. The Times reports that many Texas cities restrict texting while driving. Twenty Texas cities approved identical ordinances that curb the interest payday lenders can charge.

In other Republican states the debate has been far less robust and public. In state after state a clear pattern has emerged. Cities legislatively address a local problem. Big business complains. State legislatures clamp down. And as Republicans become more conservative and gain control of more state governments the pace and intensity of those clamp downs have increased.

Nineteen states currently preempt[2] local minimum wage laws: Half of these laws were enacted in the last 5 years. Nineteen states restrict or abolish the right of communities to build municipally owned broadband networks. At least five states have preempted local regulation of e-cigarettes.

These efforts to circumscribe local authority often have been led and coordinated by the non-profit conservative organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC insists it does no lobbying but if it walks like a duck…

Consider ALEC’s role[3] in fostering state preemptions of municipal ordinances demanding that private businesses offer employees sick leave. A few months after Scott Walker shepherded a bill through the Wisconsin legislature in 2011 repealing a Milwaukee sick leave law approved by a 2008 ballot initiative supported by 69 percent of the voters, ALEC passed out copies of the bill at its Annual Meeting. Legislators were handed a target list and map of state and local paid sick leave policies[4]. In the next three years 10 more states had replicated the Wisconsin law. (In the next few weeks Missouri may become the 11th.) (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. tells: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/us/govern-yourselves-state-lawmakers-tell-cities-but-not-too-much.html?_r=0
  2. preempt: http://grassrootschange.net/preemption-takes-center-stage-in-2015/
  3. role: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/alec-paid-sick-leave_b_3007445.html
  4. map of state and local paid sick leave policies: http://www.prwatch.org/files/NRA_Map.pdf
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/decides/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/decides/


The Do-It-Yourselves Downtown

by Olivia LaVecchia | February 23, 2015 3:55 pm

A new investment co-op model lets communities own and develop their commercial spaces. Though new, this model holds potential for the many neighborhoods whose business districts are decaying, controlled by distant landlords or faraway retail chains.

The intersection of Central and Lowry Avenues in northeast Minneapolis is bustling. On the northwest corner is a trifecta of local businesses: A bike shop, a cooperative brewery, and a bakery, in buildings with eye-catching exteriors of rough-hewn wood and silvery porcelain bricks. The neighborhood grocery coop is one block up the street.

This commercial stretch didn’t always look like this. In 2011, where these three businesses sit, there were two vacant buildings. The empty space was not uncommon along Central Avenue, a long corridor that was created to be the Main Street of the neighborhood, but that had suffered from decades of disinvestment. While a few businesses dotted the avenue, many other storefronts were neglected.

“A lot of people looked at it as too big to tackle,” explains Leslie Watson, who lives nearby.

In 2011, a group of dedicated neighbors came together to change that. In November of that year, five of them, including Watson, became the founding board of the Northeast Investment Cooperative[1], a first-of-its-kind in the U.S. cooperative engaged in buying and developing real estate. NEIC created a structure where any Minnesota resident could join the coop for $1,000, and invest more through the purchase of different classes of non-voting stock. The group began spreading the word to prospective members, and started looking for a building to buy.

One year later, NEIC had enough members to buy the two buildings on Central Avenue for cash. The coop quickly sold one of the buildings to project partner Recovery Bike Shop, and after a gut renovation, which it funded with a 2 percent loan from the city and a loan from local Northeast Bank, it leased the other building to two young businesses that had struggled to find workable space elsewhere, Fair State Brewing Cooperative and Aki’s BreadHaus. Today, NEIC’s impact spreads beyond the intersection of Central and Lowry. It’s catalyzed the creation of new jobs, engaged its more than 200 members in reimagining their neighborhood, and given residents a way to put their capital to work in their local economy.

“Collectively, that wealth will stay in our community,” says Watson. “If you want to take the long view, that’s the goal.”

While NEIC is unique in the U.S., similar investment cooperatives are sprouting up in Canada, where they’re aided by programs designed to help them grow, as well as favorable policies. Though the model is new, and small, it holds outsize potential for the many communities struggling with northeast Minneapolis’s familiar set of problems, from business districts languishing half-vacant, to essential commercial spaces being controlled by far-away landlords or big retail chains with no regard for neighborhood needs. In the vacuum left by both traditional economic development and Wall Street’s approach to finance[2], community real estate investment cooperatives offer a glimpse of a better way to channel capital, with benefits that include new jobs in the neighborhood, strong incentives for people to shop locally, local sources for key goods, closer ties with neighbors[3], and a return on investment.

And it represents a way for these communities to do it themselves. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Northeast Investment Cooperative: http://neic.coop
  2. Wall Street’s approach to finance: https://ilsr.org/banking-for-the-rest-of-us/
  3. closer ties with neighbors: https://ilsr.org/local-ownership-healthier-wealthier-wiser/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/do-it-yourselves-downtown-investment-cooperative-model/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/do-it-yourselves-downtown-investment-cooperative-model/


Zero Waste Community Enterprises in Atlanta

by Neil Seldman | February 18, 2015 1:58 pm

In 2009 Atlanta declared four neighborhoods within the city as zero waste zones. The effort’s goals include helping local businesses find ways to reduce trash, create jobs, save money and educate others about the advantages of zero waste.

In addition to reducing consumption, raising recycling rates, and establishing new resources for composting, Atlanta businesses and individuals must focus heavily on increasing reuse to meet their ambitious goals. They are lucky to have four growing reuse organizations that are assisting with this effort by diverting items from landfills and changing public opinion about waste. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which provides resources and information to support environmentally sound and equitable community development; and the Cascade Alliance, which helps nonprofits across the country turn discarded goods into stable revenue streams and high-quality jobs, are assisting this process.

Lifecycle Building Center

Lifecycle Building Center is one of a handful of Atlanta nonprofits recovering valuable building materials from the waste stream. Adam Deck, a longtime employee at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Raleigh, NC, wrote Lifecycle Building Center’s original business plan because he wanted to bring a building materials reuse organization to his hometown of Atlanta. Architect Shannon Goodman, who serves as the organization’s executive director, joined him after struggling to find a home for high-quality goods coming out of a demolition project she was involved in.

“It was really obvious that there was a huge opportunity to reuse commercial building materials,” she says. “There was so much great material but there was not an effective system in place to make it available to people.” Together, she and Deck set up Lifecycle Building Center and started accepting donations from private businesses, government entities, educational institutions and individual homeowners. Goods go into a 70,000-square-foot warehouse, where they are sold to the general public or donated to local nonprofits.

“Our higher goal is to engage with homeowners and provide them access to resources to help make their homes function more efficiently,” Goodman says. Most low- to moderate-income homeowners can’t afford to pay for assessments that identify energy efficiency upgrades. Even if they can, they can’t pay a contractor to make the changes. Lifecycle Building Center offers classes that teach people about the basics of home performance and provide tips for solving common problems. For example, she says, in the first class they discuss how to examine ductwork to make sure it’s properly sealed and how to fix it if it’s not. If the homeowner needs supplies to make those repairs, they can likely find them at the center.

In three short years Lifecycle Building Center has diverted 760,000 pounds of material from the waste stream, donated goods to about 35 nonprofits and schools, and created eight jobs. They recently set some aggressive goals to do even more. One major part of their future work plan is moving into the field of deconstruction. Trained professionals would go into buildings and take them apart piece by piece. This process leads to much higher rates of salvage than typical demolition projects and would yield more donations for the program.

Goodman admits that “it’s been hard to get people to understand how important it is to address these issues around waste. If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind.”    Still, she says, there is much cause for optimism. “It’s been so obvious there are people in this city who have been doing reuse on their own before we ever existed. There’s this whole network of people who have just been waiting for this. All we really are is the manifestation of that desire to do what makes sense. Because in the end that’s all we’re doing: preventing people from throwing away reusable materials.”

Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta

Founded in 1988, the Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta started with a mission of getting furniture to families in need. For years they’ve operated a pick-up service to collect donated household goods from local residents. Those items were then distributed to families who couldn’t afford to purchase them. Right now the Furniture Bank serves about 1,300 households every year.

The need for more staff, as well as an expanded view of how they could meet their mission, is leading the Furniture Bank down a path toward doing more with reuse and recycling. Investing in waste-based business will allow the organization to earn more of its own revenue and provide job-training opportunities for low-income residents.

Reed Irvine, facilities and logistics manager for the Furniture Bank, says they started their foray into social enterprise by up cycling headboards and footboards into stylish benches. They plan to start taking appliances for the scrap metal value, and are now recycling non-reusable plastic and wood products rather than throwing them away.

Irvine is also planning to start a mattress recycling program. Following the model of other successful nonprofit mattress recyclers around the country, the Furniture Bank would gather mattresses and assess them for reuse or recycling. Some of the mattresses would be good enough to share with the low-income families they serve. Others could be rebuilt using a sanitary process. The rest would be deconstructed by hand. Commodities such as steel and polyurethane foam would be recycled.

Right now, Irvine says, the Furniture Bank receives about 15,000 mattresses annually. The goal is to get to 40,000 mattresses during the first year of the recycling program. That would represent a big increase in the 1,500 tons of furniture they divert from the waste stream every year.

“There are unbelievable benefits to recycling mattresses and keeping them out of the landfill,” Irvine says. “No one can deny that it’s a healthy choice to make, and on top of that it’s creating jobs and helping communities. The health of the community is directly integrated with people who are jobless and relying on services. By giving jobs to difficult-to-place individuals we’re taking the strain off local governments.”

Support for the mattress recycling program and many of the Furniture Bank’s other initiatives comes from the Cascade Alliance, a new organization that helps nonprofits start successfully waste-based businesses. The Alliance is led by St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County, which has over 50 years of experience turning second-hand goods into jobs and profits to support its charitable mission. The Furniture Bank is one of ten organizations receiving free consulting, sample business plans, best practices in reuse and recycling, and networking opportunities with similar social enterprises nationwide.

“The Cascade Alliance has been an amazing resource for us,” Irvine says. “It makes stepping into this oasis a little bit easier for our board and the executive director because it seems like a scary world. It’s not what we’ve been doing. We have to evolve with the time, though, and the way the government is reducing funding for agencies like ours. It’s important for us to find ways to create capital on our own.”

The Furniture Bank employs six people, but Irvine envisions growing that number to between 15 and 20 in the coming years. Many of those employees would come from the low-income south Atlanta neighborhood where the Furniture Bank is located. Other potential staffers could come from the Veteran Employment Program, a United Way-sponsored program that provides job training to veterans. The Furniture Bank currently has about a dozen veterans on their site at any given time. During the eight to 12 week program, these temporary employees help organize the warehouse, pick up donations, build the up cycled benches, and do other tasks. They receive job skills such as driving a forklift, and the agency gets help serving people in the community.

Irvine has high hopes Atlanta’s zero waste effort will prove successful. “I think the southeast is a very wasteful region of the country, but Atlanta is a progressive hub. It’s really important for our future, our children’s future, the future of the world to be aware of the consequences of how much we waste and how much we throw away. Atlanta adopting zero waste will be a good influence on the region. I think we can influence some laws and some practices that can hopefully trickle down into the other states around us.”

City of Refuge

IMG_3429 The City of Refuge (COR) was founded in 1970 to provide hope and assistance to residents of challenged neighborhoods in the middle of Atlanta. COR serves over 10,000 people annually from its eight-acre campus, including short-term transitional housing for up to 320 women and children. COR also hosts a 6th to 12th grade academy for students from at-risk communities, day care, library, sports and recreation activities and kitchen facilities. In cooperation with Mercy Care Services, COR offers a full complement of medical, dental and mental health services.

In 2012 COR and Bioponica, a local aquaponic design-build company, worked together to install onsite a first-of-its-kind sustainable farming system. The grow unit was funded by Kaiser Health Foundation of Georgia, is a 20’ x 36’ square foot greenhouse, with two to three grow beds and fish tanks to raise organic vegetables simultaneously, utilizing “bioponics” a process of nutrient cycling that Bioponica have pioneered. David Epstein, D.O. and Kenneth Lowell, P.E. founded Biponica in 2010 with the goal “to make farming, gardening and the harvest of organic food, simple and sustainable.” The system became operational in June 2013.
Bioponica installed its first operating units at the Atlanta City Park Outdoor Activity Center (Department of Parks and Recreation) in July of 2011, as demonstration. Bioponica has refined their process of recycling nutrients to create fertilizer and fish with no cost and little labor, while recycling loads of pre-consumer food discards and lawn clippings.

TIMG_3814he COR-Bioponica project of waste recycling to support organic plants and fish gives COR great flexibility in achieving self-reliance in high quality and cost effective food production while residents can be trained in greenhouse management and horticulture. In addition to supplementing food imports to prepare 20,000 meals per month, the produce, including herbs, tilapia, crawfish and a garden variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, reaches the surrounding community via COR’s food truck service.

The greenhouse and Biogarden grow beds are owned by City of Refuge and operated by Bioponica. Bioponica provides ongoing technical assistance, service and upgrade technology and management and worker training.

Charitable Connections/Reclaim It Atlanta

Charitable Connections, which runs the new building materials, reuse organization Reclaim It Atlanta, got into the business by accident. Charitable Connections is a community foundation that focuses on leadership development. They were working on a neighborhood revitalization project and started receiving a lot of donated construction materials they couldn’t use in the homes they were remodeling, explains Reclaim It Atlanta co-founder Michelle Uchiyama. Employees and friends stored the items, but eventually they had far more than they could keep in people’s basements and garages. They were able to secure some donated warehouse space, and someone suggested they post the materials they couldn’t use on Craigslist to raise money.

“People started overwhelming us with interest in what we were doing,” Uchiyama says. In partnership with the Fuller Center for Housing of Greater Atlanta, Charitable Connections decided to open the warehouse to the public a couple days a week so people could come and shop. Within 18 months they had formalized the program as Reclaim It Atlanta and moved to a 14,000 square feet warehouse. They also started opening the resale shop every day of the week.

Opportunities to offer more services in Atlanta continue to present themselves. In January 2014 Reclaim It Atlanta deconstructed 280 hotel rooms that were being turned into apartments. The process took six weeks and yielded tons of good quality building materials, carpet, furniture, even curtains. “We blessed about 40 different homeless organizations with materials they wouldn’t have been able to buy,” Uchiyama says.
That experience “started us on a whole different track of doing deconstruction.” Reclaim It Atlanta believes it’s important to create jobs for people rather than using volunteers, so they hire contract labor to do the deconstruction. Up to 20 people are employed when they have work available. They join a shoestring permanent staff of three part-time employees.

The staff may be small, but it’s mighty. They’ve diverted over 100 truckloads of material in the last year. “We began to do some home shows and trade shows to raise awareness with consumers about the importance of recycling when remodeling,” Uchiyama says. “We’ve built really strong relationships with people who are interested in recycling but didn’t know how to recycle building materials.”

The program doesn’t show signs of slowing down anytime soon. Their most recent venture is the Elf Shop, with the motto: “Find the elf in yourself: Where Christmas is all year-round.” The store will provide reusable goods to local artists. “We believe the market for up cycled art materials is greater than the need for building materials right now,” Uchiyama says. It also compliments the work of a new program called the Green Shape Foundation, which provides a combination of art therapy and wraparound services for residents living in local subsidized housing complexes. In addition to helping people make nice things for their homes, the program aims to inspire people to make products for resale and earn money for their families.

Uchiyama is a two-time cancer survivor, and she sees strong links between environmental issues and health. “There are a lot of bad things in the environment that cause health problems. There’s also a lot of environmental disparity in the city. We need to change policies to decrease pollution in low-income areas. If we don’t implement zero waste philosophies in what we do every day, people will keep getting sick. Medical expenses will continue to be high, and we won’t be better off in terms of quality of life. The more people that take on the zero waste concept, the more awareness and movement we can make toward getting there.”

___________________________________

This article was written by Sophia McDonald Bennett for ILSR’s Waste to Wealth Initiative.  Ms. Bennett is an environmental writer based in Eugene, OR. She is a reuse expert and worked for many years at one of the nation’s premier reuse enterprise development agency, St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County.  ILSR prepared a Zero Waste Plan for the City of Atlanta, Office of Sustainability in 2010-11.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/waste-community-enterprises-atlanta/


Open Letter to Carroll County Citizens – from Neil Seldman

by Neil Seldman | February 18, 2015 1:45 pm

Dear Neighbors,

Carroll County citizens now join tens of thousands of their peers across the nation who have stood up to the silly and dangerous plans to build incinerators. Since the 1970s over 300 such efforts have succeeded. In 2014 alone 14 planned garbage incinerators were defeated by coalitions of organized citizens, small businesspeople and progressive officials. In January 2015 the first victory for these coalitions has been on the Big Island in Hawaii. In February, a plasma arc garbage facility in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada was cancelled, as the investment community deemed the financing too risky.

Like the many others before it, a combination of local citizens and national technical assistance organizations, that serve the grass roots, proved to be the undoing of a proposal for Carroll (and Frederick) County that had no social, environmental or economic redeeming qualities. In the process local citizens became experts in their own right, and are now helping other communities fight off their garbage incineration deals.

Further, Carroll County citizens by preparing their own alternatives report led to the formation of a formal County Citizens Solid Waste Advisory Council to continue research and advise Carroll County officials on solid waste and recycling matters. The chairman of the Council is Don West, a leading activist against the proposed incinerator. This pattern follows exactly the pattern of citizens defeating a bad idea and interposing the right idea such as in Los Angeles, Austin, King County, WA, and Alachua County, FL, among other locales.

Finally, your efforts prove once again that garbage incineration and recycling alternatives are neither a liberal nor conservative position. In Carroll County, for example, the folks involved in stopping the planned incinerator, are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Tea Party and independent minded voters. The anti incineration movement and pro recycling movement is, if anything, an anti incumbent movement focusing its attention on officials in office who refuse to listen to environmental and economic reason.

So, a big thank you to the folks who made this happen in Carroll County and spill over to Frederick County as well. You made your elected officials see the light that helps all of us. The wind makes neighbors of us all.

Sincerely,

Neil Seldman
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Washington, DC

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/open-letter-carroll-county-citizens-neil-seldman/


Baltimore’s Curtis Bay Community Says No to “Clean” Incinerator Electricity

by Neil Seldman | February 18, 2015 1:39 pm

Curtis Bay is an industrial area located at the southern tip of Baltimore, MD. Residents have been subject to heavy doses of industrial pollution for decades. When a 4,000-ton per day garbage incinerator was proposed, students and alumni of Benjamin Franklin High School reacted with a sophisticated organizing campaign to stop the plant that has been supported by the city’s establishment. The student organization Free Your Voice, with support from the Environmental Integrity Project and United Workers-Baltimore, lead a city wide community organizing campaign featuring a home made video of student and resident concerns for reducing, not adding to the community’s pollution, and for environmentally sound jobs. Energy Justice Network and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance have supported these efforts.

Last week the effort had a breakthrough. The Baltimore and Annapolis school systems, downtown Baltimore museums and other local institution had agreed to purchase “clean electricity” from the proposed incinerator. These institutions became a target for anti incineration organizing by Free Your Voice.

Last week the Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee (BRCPC), announced that its members would not purchase electricity from the garbage incinerator. Greg Sawtell, United Workers, stated that the planned incinerator “lost a major portion of their energy buyers while already struggling to secure financing” to proceed with the plant’s construction. At the same time the community is seeking a positive outcome from their efforts; solar energy farm and an eco-industrial park to host recycling, reuse and composting companies.

See Baltimore City Paper[1], February 16, 2015

Here are additional comments from Curtis Bay:

“Fighting this incinerator had me, personally, thinking into what are the basic human rights. I realized that with my experience with asthma and growing up close to Curtis Bay, that the people living there don’t deserve an incinerator. There’s already a lot of pollution and Curtis Bay has been treated like a dumping ground for far too long. Breathing clean air is a basic human right. This milestone shows that public entities are acknowledging that this incinerator isn’t a good idea and that there are humans whose lives could be affected if it were to be built. The residents of Curtis Bay are human just like the people running these big polluting businesses.”

-Joshua Acevedo (Free Your Voice)

Just stopping the incinerator isn’t enough. We understand that the population of Baltimore needs electricity; we understand that the incinerator was to create jobs and stimulate the local economy. However, we believe there are other alternatives to the proposed incinerator, alternatives that will not involve poisoning the already-toxic environment within and around the Curtis Bay community. One of those alternatives gaining popular community support is a solar facility, a solar farm, on the tract of land currently owned by FMC Corporation.

-Amanda Maminski Curtis Bay Resident

More Media Coverage

City Paper story[2]
Baltimore Sun story[3]
Videos:
https://stoptheincinerator.wordpress.com/get-involved/[4]
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Endnotes:
  1. See Baltimore City Paper: http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcp-another-setback-for-energy-answers-proposed-incinerator-in-baltimore-purchase-contracts-terminated-20150216,0,4850918.story
  2. City Paper story: http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcp-another-setback-for-energy-answers-proposed-incinerator-in-baltimore-purchase-contracts-terminated-20150216,0,4850918.story
  3. Baltimore Sun story: http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82886943/
  4. https://stoptheincinerator.wordpress.com/get-involved/: https://stoptheincinerator.wordpress.com/get-involved/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/baltimores-curtis-bay-community-clean-incinerator-electricity/


Heads Up from Zero Wasters in Wales, and the Zero Waste International Trust, Plasnewydd, Wales, UK

by Neil Seldman | February 11, 2015 11:07 am

Mal Williams, director of the Zero Waste International Trust, alerts us to some good news from the UK by forwarding the recent government report on just how much potential there is in the Zero Waste world for wealth creation and sustainable jobs, “Resource Management: A Catalyst for Growth and Productivity[1],” UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. February 2015.

Does this mean that the wave of enthusiasm for garbage incinerators in the UK is over? Mal says, “The slumbering giant that is our Westminster government is waking up to our messages.” Maybe, Mal muses, it’s because now it is their idea.

Mary Lou Van Deventer, Urban Ore, reminds us of another government report that moved Zero Waste and total recycling forward.

Once upon a time, when Dan Knapp and I were talking about total recycling and being scorned for it even among some recyclers, Dan went to Canberra, Australia, and came back to the US with a government-stamped report called “No Waste By 2010.”  It was a draft at the time but was later adopted by Parliament in 1996.  Since it had a governmental stamp, it was credible.  The Zero Waste concept swept across the continent like a wildfire, and total recycling was no longer to be scorned.  Bill Sheehan, Grass Roots Recycling Network (GRRN), put the report on the internet and worked with a Georgia legislator, who proposed the first Zero Waste state-level legislation.

Today the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government in Canberra still retains the name “No Waste” for its agency and garbage trucks, although it failed to implement the ideas.  It even shut down the then-successful Australian reuse group Revolve, which came up with the ideas the ACT developed and adopted.  Gerry Gillespie worked for the ACT government when the idea emerged, then sat on the board of Revolve.  He was at the heart of the resistance for agonizing years as the government changed its direction and killed off the organization that once inspired it.

But the idea, once revealed in public, cannot be shut down everywhere.  Not only won’t this genie go back into the bottle, it will work a lot of magic when it is given a chance.

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Endnotes:
  1. Resource Management: A Catalyst for Growth and Productivity: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/resource-management-a-catalyst-for-growth-and-productivity

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/heads-wasters-wales-waste-international-trust-plasnewydd-wales-uk/


The Labor and Small Business Alliance Behind San Francisco’s Landmark Retail Workers Bill of Rights

by Stacy Mitchell | February 5, 2015 10:44 am

by Stacy Mitchell and Walter Wuthmann

As San Francisco labor groups campaigned late last year for a landmark law that protects workers at retail and restaurant chains from the tyrannies of computerized scheduling systems, they were backed by a rather unusual ally.  The San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance (SFLOMA), which represents hundreds of independent retailers, came out in support of the bill, testifying at hearings and contacting members of the city’s Board of Supervisors.

“A couple of [the supervisors] were really surprised to have heard from me and surprised at our stance on this,” said Rick Karp, a board member of SFLOMA and second-generation owner of Cole Hardware, a local, independent chain of five hardware stores.

The political interests of labor and small business are often seen as pitted against each other — a perception corporate lobbyists work hard to perpetuate[1]. But the two groups actually share broad common cause these days.  Both stand to gain from building a more humane economy in which ruthless efficiency does not trump all else.  “If you are an independent business and you feel like your business is part of the community and you want your employees to last, you are doing all of this stuff for your employees already,” Karp explained.  “It’s reprehensible for Target and Walmart to have these scheduling systems that rip apart peoples’ lives.”

If you worked at a retail or restaurant chain ten years ago, or if you work at almost any small, locally owned business today, a real person put together the work schedule and posted it in advance.  Because repeating the previous schedule was the simplest approach, your shifts tended not to move much week-to-week, and last-minute scheduling changes were as much a hassle to management as to workers.

Then, in 2007, Walmart pioneered a new way to cut costs by subjecting the daily lives of its workers to the same kinds of computer algorithms it was using to precisely predict the inventory needs of each of its stores.  Now ubiquitous among large retail and service sector companies, “just-in-time” scheduling software alters workers’ hours, often on the day of a scheduled shift, based on real-time weather, sales, and store traffic data.  While these scheduling systems save companies money, they do so only at great cost to workers and their communities.  According to a University of Chicago study  unpredictable scheduling, which impacts about one-quarter of the U.S. workforce, destroys workers’ ability to “arrange caregiving, pursue education, secure a second job, and earn an adequate income.”  Rather than truly eliminating costs, these scheduling systems simply externalize them.

San Francisco’s Retail Workers Bill of Rights was designed to change that.  Enacted by a unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors in December, the bill will help an estimated 40,000 workers by requiring chains (defined as businesses with 20 or more outlets and 20 or more employees in the city) to post schedules with at least two weeks notice.  If a store changes an employee’s hours within one week of a scheduled shift, the employer must compensate the employee by paying them for one to four hours’ worth of work, depending on the shift and how late the change was made.  The law also protects part-time workers by requiring employers to offer them additional hours before hiring more part-timers.

Unanimous votes are rare at the Board of Supervisors.  This one may be owed to the coalition that Jobs With Justice San Francisco (JwJSF), which spearheaded the bill, put together to pass it.  (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. perpetuate: https://ilsr.org/misrepresenting-small-business/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/labor-small-business-alliance-san-franciscos-landmark-retail-workers-bill-rights/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/labor-small-business-alliance-san-franciscos-landmark-retail-workers-bill-rights/


ILSR Joins Independent Business Groups in Pushing for Disclosure of Corporate Subsidies

by Stacy Mitchell | February 4, 2015 10:24 am

ILSR joined other members of the Advocates for Independent Business[1] coalition in submitting a joint public comment letter [2]in support of an important proposal to change the accounting rules that local and state governments follow. The change would require governments to disclose the tax breaks and incentives they provide companies for economic development purposes.

The proposed rule change[3] comes from the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), a professional association that establishes standards of accounting and financial reporting for state and local governments. (Although GASB has no legal authority, the vast majority of states and localities follow its rules, in part because doing so is necessary in order to sell bonds.)

Local and state governments spend an estimated $70 billion a year providing subsidies to companies in the name of job creation and economic development. Most of this spending is in the form of foregone revenue (i.e., tax breaks) rather than direct outlays.  Under current GASB rules, governments are not required to disclose these expenditures in their financial reporting, as they must for spending on things like roads and schools.  This lack of transparancy makes it difficult for citizens to monitor, evaluate, and challenge these corporate giveaways.

In its letter, the coalition, which is coordinated by ILSR and includes 14 national organizations representing about 150,000 independent businesses, noted that the vast majority of tax incentives go to large companies, including retailers like Walmart and Amazon, that compete with locally owned businesses and often do not produce an increase in jobs:

We have a deep interest in this proposed policy, because the tax expenditures that local and state governments make for economic development directly affect the competitive landscape in which our members operate.

Many cities, for example, have provided tax abatements to new big-box retail projects that compete directly with the Main Street businesses that we represent, sometimes leading to business closures and job losses. There is evidence that the public may not be getting their money’s worth from some of these expenditures. For example, a 2011 study produced for the East-West Gateway Council of Governments found that cities and counties in the St. Louis metro area had diverted more than $5.8 billion in public tax dollars to finance private development, with more than 80 percent of these funds supporting retail projects. Yet the region saw virtually no economic growth. “The number of retail jobs has increased only slightly and, in real dollars, retail sales per capita have not increased,” the study found. According to the study, more than 600 small retailers closed in the St. Louis metro area during the period, producing job losses that apparently offset the new jobs created by the subsidized development.

While expressing strong support for the disclosure required by the rule, AIB urged the board to modify two aspects of its draft. It asked GASB to ensure that its definition of “tax abatement” covered tax increment financing, a common way cities subsidize chain retail development.

It also urged the board to specify that state and local governments must not only report the total value of tax incentives, but also disclose details on each individual tax break, including the name of the company that received the subsidy. “This information is essential if citizens and policymakers are to be able to evaluate the costs and benefits of these expenditures, which vary widely from deal to deal. In retailing, for example, this information would reveal whether a new abatement recipient is a known competitor of existing employers,” the coalition wrote.

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Endnotes:
  1. Advocates for Independent Business: http://indiebizadvocates.org
  2. public comment letter : http://www.gasb.org/cs/BlobServer?blobkey=id&blobnocache=true&blobwhere=1175830301035&blobheader=application/pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Length&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue2=548091&blobheadervalue1=filename=TAD_ED_CL241.pdf&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs
  3. proposed rule change: http://www.gasb.org/jsp/GASB/Document_C/GASBDocumentPage?cid=1176164497029&acceptedDisclaimer=true

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-joins-independent-business-groups-pushing-disclosure-corporate-subsidies/


Another Contraction in the Garbage Incineration Industry

by Neil Seldman | January 26, 2015 8:17 am

The Big Island of Hawaii has just pulled back from a garbage incinerator planned for the town of Hilo. The Hawaii County mayor withdrew a Request for Proposal (RFP) in response to widespread and intense organizing against the proposal. “We had an educated public and no way were we going to be steamrolled into a 25-year contract,” stated Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, a leading opponent of the incinerator. See story inWest Hawaii Today, January 24, 2015.

No Burn Hawaii, among other groups, will now work for a county/island-wide incineration ban or a local air pollution law that restricts incineration.

The announcement marks the first garbage incinerator defeated in 2015. According to Energy Justice Network, 14 incinerators were cancelled in 2014. In addition, in December 2014 an existing plant in Broward County, FL, announced it will shut down because it could not get enough garbage after it lost its 20-year monopoly control over the waste stream. See more on that story here[1].

In 2009, ILSR worked with Richard Anthony Associates and Recycle Hawai’i under contract with the County Department of the Environment. We prepared a zero waste plan for the Big Island’s Department.

Download the report:  Zero Waste Implementation Plan for County of Hawai’i[2].

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Endnotes:
  1. See more on that story here: https://ilsr.org/waste-incinerator-broward-county-fl-compete-economically-monopoly-trash/
  2. Zero Waste Implementation Plan for County of Hawai’i: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/hawaii-zero-waste-plan-2009.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/contraction-garbage-incineration-industry/


Trash Incinerators: Don’t Call it a Comeback

by Neil Seldman | January 22, 2015 5:37 pm

Mike Ewall, director of Energy Justice Network (EJN), Washington, DC, responded to the recent article in The New York Times on garbage incineration. ILSR works closely with EJN assisting grassroots organizations to stop planned garbage incineration and move their communities to recycling, local economic development and zero waste.
 
Here is the link to his Letter to the Editor.[1]
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Endnotes:
  1. Here is the link to his Letter to the Editor.: http://www.energyjustice.net/content/trash-incinerators-dont-call-it-comeback

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/trash-incinerators-call-comeback/


What Might Have Been

by David Morris | January 12, 2015 2:38 pm

Since its passage in 2009, ferocious opposition to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)  had proven a devastatingly effective electoral strategy for Republicans. In 2010, they gained a net 63 seats and control of the House of Representatives. They gained control of 11 additional state governments, bringing their total to 25. When the ACA went into effect virtually all 25 were refusing to expand Medicaid, a decision they were permitted to make by a June 2012 Supreme Court ruling[1] overturning the mandatory expansion provision in the law.

In October 2013, in the midst of a Republican-led government shutdown designed to stop the implementation of the ACA, I invited[2] President Obama to embrace a bold strategy: Let the red states secede from Obamacare, under three conditions.

First, states must withdraw from all benefits. (e.g. children being able to be on parents insurance up to age 26, insurance companies no longer being allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, etc.) They couldn’t pick and choose.

Second, Congress must move forward the date states would be given great latitude in designing their own system from 2017 to 2014, thus allowing blue states to experiment with insurance systems like single payer.

Third, and most importantly for the future of the ACA and the Democratic Party, state legislatures must ask their citizens to vote directly on Obamacare.

I argued then that the downside of letting the red states secede would be modest. The red states had already decided not to expand Medicaid, dramatically restricting the ACA’s direct benefits. In Kentucky, for example, a state often viewed as a model for aggressive and competent ACA implementation[3], 400,000 people, 9 percent of the entire population signed up under Medicaid expansion; only 80,000 signed up for health plans through Kynect, the state exchange.

A single issue election would have allowed an engaged and focused discussion impossible in a general election. Which would have allowed a considered response to some of the Republicans most effective 20-second sound bites. For example, their insistence that the ACA established government panels that will make life and death decisions. When Republicans called them “death panels” Democrats quickly scuttled the provision, lending credence to the Republican claim that that’s what they were. Indeed, according to a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, some 41 percent of Americans continue to believe this.

In 2014 in Kentucky, as elsewhere, Obamacare was a key issue. The New York times reports[4] that Kentuckian Amanda Mayhew enrolled in Medicaid and had been to the dentist five times to begin salvaging her neglected teeth, had visited a dermatologist to remove a mole and had received medication for her depression, all free. “I am very, very thankful that Medicaid does cover what I need done right now,” Ms. Mayhew said but pointedly added, “I don’t love Obamacare….There are things in it that scare me and that I don’t agree with…would I gladly give up my insurance today if it meant that some of the things that are in the law were not in place? Yes, I would.” She was referring to death panels.

A single-issue election would have given Democrats the opportunity to go from defense to offense. They could have explained that the provision Republicans vigorously opposed actually offered money to doctors so they could spend time with terminally ill patients discussing end of life issues. And Democrats could have used the opportunity to educate the public about the widespread need for such discussions, and their value.

In his new book[5], Being Mortal, physician Atul Gawande describes the results of one large-scale study about the impact of such conversations.

Two thirds of the terminal cancer patients…reported having had no discussion with their doctors about their goals for end-of-life care, despite being, on average, just four months from death. But the third who did have discussions were far less likely to undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation or be put on a ventilator or end up in an intensive care unit…They suffered less, were physically more capable, and were better able, for a longer period, to interact with others. In addition, six months after these patients died, their family members were markedly less likely to experience persistent major depression.   In other words, people who had substantive discussions with their doctors about their end-of–life preferences were far more likely to die at peace and in control of their situation and to spare their family anguish.

In a single-issue referendum Democrats could have engaged the Republican claim that the wave of cancellations of individual health policies in 2013 was a result of Obamacare. In October 2013 the Associated Press estimated[6] 4.8 million persons with individual coverage had their policies cancelled because of the ACA. The estimate was widely quoted. But any referendum on the ACA would have been held in mid to late 2014 by which time more realistic estimates had dramatically reduced the number of persons affected to 1.6-1.9 million persons. More importantly, they could have explained that in pre-Obamacare America most individual health policies were for one year and the normal churn rate is remarkably high. One study found that only 27 percent continued to have individual coverage after two years.

Democrats could also have responded to the almost weekly horror story issued by Republicans about dramatic price hikes in premiums under Obamacare (most of which proved untrue) by noting that health insurance companies had been hiking[7] premiums and deductibles for a long time. Insurance premiums rose by 50 percent between 2003 and 2010 and the average deductible had soared by 145 percent. In 2013 average insurance premiums represented 20 percent of median income in 37 states, up from 2 in 2003.

Democrats could have responded to the Republican’s horror stories about price hikes with their own far more numerous and heartrending stories about the bankruptcies, deaths, and sicknesses caused by insurance companies denying or rescinding coverage. Rather than Democrats having to defend Obamacare, Republicans would have had the unenviable task of defending giant health insurance companies’ treatment of often-helpless individuals.

Obama ignored my advice. And in the 2014 election most Democrats refused to defend Obamacare. In Kentucky for much of the campaign Alison Grimes ran neck and neck with Mitch McConnell but when the issue of Obamacare came up she ran for the hills. As did virtually all Kentucky Democrats. According[8] to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, Republicans ran more than 10,000 broadcast television spots attacking the ACA in that state from January 2013 to November 2014. Kantar found only one positive television ad, from a Congressional Democratic candidate. Nationwide Senate Republican candidates ran 36,000 anti-Obamacare ads just from October 6-26.

In November 2014 Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate. The number of Republican governors swelled to 31. The Republican Party won control of 67 state chambers, five more than their previous record in the modern era. In 24 states they gained total control, winning both the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is technically nonpartisan, but in practice Republicans control the chamber by a wide margin).

Would the 2014 election outcome have been different if the red states had held health care referenda? No one can tell. Certainly the election demonstrated that when given the opportunity to vote on issues rather than candidates Americans are often quite liberal. For example, voters approved every initiative to raise the minimum wage, including in red states (Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota).

Democrats would still have had to overcome the cognitive dissonance of people like Robin Evans, a warehouse worker earning $9 an hour who after signing up for Medicaid is being treated for high blood pressure and Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder, after years of being uninsured and rarely seeing doctors. “I’m tickled to death with it,” she told[9] the New York Times. “It’s helped me out a bunch.” But the Times adds, “Ms. Evans scowled at the mention of President Obama — ‘Nobody don’t care for nobody no more, and I think he’s got a lot to do with that,’ she explained — and said she would vote this fall for Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, who is fond of saying the health care law should be “pulled out root and branch.”   To summarize: The Democrats helped Mr. Evans “a bunch”. But under the Democrats nobody cares for nobody. So he will vote for Republicans who have railed against Democrat sponsored measures that would help him.

OK, it would have been a challenge. But it would have presented a wonderful opportunity as well.

And then there is the distinct possibility that Republicans would have rejected an offer by President Obama to secede if they had to ask their voters to approve. They might have realized that a genuine public debate on the Affordable Care Act could make Americans wonder what else they were lying about.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. ruling: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
  2. invited: http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/why-we-should-let-red-states-secede-obamacare
  3. implementation: http://www.acasignups.net
  4. reports: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/30/us/kentucky-health-plan-is-flooded-with-the-poorest-and-sickest.html
  5. book: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780805095159
  6. estimated: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/06/17/cancelled-non-group-plans-what-we-know-now-that-we-did-not-know-in-october/
  7. hiking: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/business/health-premiums-rise-more-slowly-but-workers-shoulder-more-of-cost.html?_r=0
  8. According: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/us/politics/kentucky-elections-obama-health-care-act.html
  9. told: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/us/politics/kentucky-elections-obama-health-care-act.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/what-might-have-been/


“The Secret Side of Global Trade” – David Morris, International Forum on Globalization

by Rebecca Toews | January 8, 2015 12:00 pm

David Morris spoke at Riverside Church for the International Forum on Globalization in 1995 about local self-reliance and global trade. His words still ring true today. You can listen to the audio from the speech below, download it in your podcast player, or watch it on our YouTube channel[1].

David Morris[2] is co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and runs the From the Desk of David Morris[3] blog. We encourage you to send us your feedback, suggest topics, and offer ideas. Contact us at info@ilsr.org.

 

Self-Reliance Podcast Episode 2

Click to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes[8].

 

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Endnotes:
  1. watch it on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ilsr08/videos
  2. David Morris: https://ilsr.org/about-the-institute-for-local-self-reliance/staff-and-board/david-morris/
  3. From the Desk of David Morris: https://ilsr.org/david-morris-desk/
  4. https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/self_reliance_podcast_2.mp3: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/self_reliance_podcast_2.mp3
  5. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/self_reliance_podcast_2.mp3
  6. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/self_reliance_podcast_2.mp3
  7. Embed: #
  8. Click to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/institute-for-local-self-reliance/id810197556

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-secret-side-global-trade-david-morris-international-forum-globalization/


Democratic Energy Media Roundup – January 5, 2015

by Rebecca Toews | January 7, 2015 10:47 am

This week in democratic energy, community solar projects are predicted to rule 2015 and net metering policies are opening the market for a brighter future.

Jeff St. John started us off [1]with why he thinks 2014 could be dubbed the year of the “smart grid.”

From building on the prior wave of investment in AMI networks [advanced metering infrastructure] and grid intelligence, to bridging the gaps between utilities and their customers, and laying the groundwork for a marriage of distributed energy and utility operations, 2014 saw some key developments that help indicate where the industry must go from here, if it’s to grow.

We’re with him, and would like to see it go much farther than “2.0.” Check our our Democratic Energy Report for the dawning of Utility 3.0![2]

The Motley Fool’s Justin Loiseau[3] made an interesting connection between NY Governor Cuomo’s move to ban fracking and his $1 billion solar commitment.

“The state made its decision based on public health threats outlined in a seminal 184-page Department of Health report, but it did so at the expense of around 141 trillion cubic feet of untapped natural gas — equivalent to 128 times the state’s current annual consumption.

New York has bid farewell to fracking, and its support for solar will shape its energy future for decades to come.”

CNBC’s Brad Quick [4]reports that New York City is embracing solar investments, and other New York communities are getting on board as well. Heather Leibowitz and Kevin Parker praised a public library solar installation[5] in Brentwood, and William Kremble with the Freeman Online reports that Woodstock’s town board and Kingston, nearby are both looking at solar energy options– Woodstock could start a municipal initiative[6] to buy solar panels, Kingston is looking at installing panels on the school roof[7].

Tonya Maxwell with Greenville News[8] in South Carolina reported this week on the double whammy that residential solar owners are seeing. They get to be environmentally conscious, but also they are saving about 80% on their power bill.

“It was the tree hugger in us that looked into solar. It was the economics that had us looking at what best ways would could recoup our costs,” said the mother of two. “It was a financial decision that made sense.”

Not to be outdone, Massachusetts is making a name for itself in the solar arena. Ann O’Connor thought of a nice way to visualize the solar boom[9]:

For every seat in Fenway Park, there are 47 solar panels in Massachusetts. There are also 346 solar companies employing 8,400 people throughout the state, doing everything from making parts to installing systems… Those shiny panels on rooftops are becoming commonplace.

And Stephanie Shor’s report on Kake, Alaska’s alternative energy investment[10] shows how a cooperative model can work for some communities:

Adam Davis, community and economic development specialist for the Organized Village of Kake, said the system on the government building has produced 11,985 kilowatts so far, with an estimated fuel savings of $7,550…

He [also] said the school had an $110,000 surplus in its budget last year, and he has plans to propose switching the school to LED lights. This would reduce the building’s electricity usage by 60 percent, and the savings would pay for another full-time teaching position.”

Back in the Midwest, another cooperative energized its newest solar project. LaReesa Sandretsky with the Lake County News Chronicle [11]covered the story:

“We are happy to have this solar project installed in our service territory,” said Steve Wattnem, CEO of Cooperative Light & Power. “Our members will benefit from the solar output as we, along with Great River Energy, learn about the performance of solar with this local project.”

In addition to the Two Harbor’s solar site, Great River Energy is working with 18 other member cooperatives throughout the state to construct similar solar arrays.

Still, some states are lagging behind in solar energy because of restrictive policies, and residents are taking notice. Nick Hylla kicked off 2015 with a plea to Wisconsin lawmakers, and others should take note as well: Stop Pushing Wisconsin’s Energy Policy Backward! [12]

“The public is frustrated with the coordinated, special-interest efforts to slow public and private investments in clean energy. The rate cases in Wisconsin demonstrate an especially alarming trend: the alignment of the manufacturing lobby behind the monopoly utilities’ rate “fairness” campaign.

The investors in these industries stand to garner significant returns as “pay for use” electricity markets are transformed into “pay for access” (like paying more to park in front of the gas pump than for the fuel itself). With increasing meter fees and decreasing use rates, utilities fix their profits and build financial incentives for increased energy use. Large energy users benefit as costs shift to the many meters attached to homes, businesses and municipalities.

The losers in this new regime are the thousands of homes and businesses that have made efficiency investments, taken conservation measures, and/or installed their own renewable energy system (not to mention all of the businesses that serve them). The new utility strategy will also cause significant collateral damage to those in low and fixed income households who simply can’t afford large increases in fixed energy costs.”

In Michigan, a torn-down coal plant may make way for green energy. Stephen Kloosterman with MichiganLive[13] highlighted the historic changes ahead[14] for utility companies and energy customers.

Three Mississippi Counties will be testing out the power of solar. Jeff Ayres with the Clarion-Ledger [15]reported this week that the state’s Public Service Commission is piloting a $4.3 million study to determine if solar is a viable option for electricity production.

Some Hawaii lawmakers are getting nervous about who bought their state’s largest utility. Florida Power & Light recently purchased Hawaiian Electric Industries.  Doreen Hemlock with the Sun Sentinal:

“Florida is not known for rooftop solar. It’s known for utility-scale projects,” Leslie Cole-Brooks, executive director of the Hawaii Solar Energy Association, told a Hawaii TV station. “And here in Hawaii, the Hawaii Solar Energy Association is all for maximizing all of our resources.”

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, has said she hopes FPL’s parent comes to her state with a “different attitude” on rooftop solar, adding that the purchase “deserves careful scrutiny.”

Ivan Penn with the Tampa Bay Times echoed that concern[16], and noted the difficulties Florida residents often have when trying to change energy policy.

As it stands, rooftop solar threatens the traditional utility business model. Homes and businesses would use less power from the utilities, decreasing their revenue — something the industry fears.

At a time when the utilities are expressing concern about the impact of solar, state regulators voted in November to gut energy-efficiency goals and to end solar rebates administered by the utilities, saying they are not “cost-effective.”

From the “for-once-and-for-all-can-this-debate-finally-be-resolved” file: John Moore with Sustainable FERC Project in Chicago writes:

Despite years of successful experience, dozens of studies, and increasing utility support for clean energy, urban myth holds that electricity from renewable energy is unreliable. Yet over 75,000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power have been integrated, reliably, into the nation’s electric grid to date. That’s enough electricity to supply 17.9 million homes.

Maybe this video will help? Even on the shortest day of the year, solar can power our cars and homes:

Happy 2014!

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Endnotes:
  1. Jeff St. John started us off : http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/top-smart-grid-trends-of-2014
  2. Democratic Energy Report for the dawning of Utility 3.0!: https://ilsr.org/report-energy-democracy/
  3. Motley Fool’s Justin Loiseau: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/30/new-york-is-trading-fracking-for-solar-panel-kits.aspx
  4. CNBC’s Brad Quick : http://www.cnbc.com/id/102301952#
  5. public library solar installation: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/solar-power-is-already-growing-rapidly-in-new-york-heather-leibowitz-and-kevin-parker-1.9750243
  6. Woodstock could start a municipal initiative: http://www.dailyfreeman.com/20141231/at-woodstock-town-board-meeting-group-pitches-municipal-purchase-of-solar-energy-equipment-in-bulk
  7. Kingston is looking at installing panels on the school roof: http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20141231/kingston-school-district-ponders-solar-energy-options
  8. Tonya Maxwell with Greenville News: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2014/12/26/solar-net-metering-opens-door-green-energy-green-dollars/20923949/
  9. Ann O’Connor thought of a nice way to visualize the solar boom: http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_27227592/townsend-leader-solar-energy#ixzz3Nxb7vTYA
  10. Stephanie Shor’s report on Kake, Alaska’s alternative energy investment: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/4/kake-turns-to-solar-power-for-energy/
  11. LaReesa Sandretsky with the Lake County News Chronicle : http://www.twoharborsmn.com/news/business/3642458-clp-gets-new-solar-panels
  12. Stop Pushing Wisconsin’s Energy Policy Backward! : http://www.stevenspointjournal.com/story/opinion/2015/01/02/special-interests-push-energy-policy-backward-column/21182199/
  13. Stephen Kloosterman with MichiganLive: http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/12/theyve_got_the_power_three_thi.html
  14. historic changes ahead: https://ilsr.org/report-energy-democracy/
  15. Jeff Ayres with the Clarion-Ledger : http://www.clarionledger.com/story/money/business/2015/01/01/pair-solar-energy-projects-planned-mississippi/21175381/
  16. Ivan Penn with the Tampa Bay Times echoed that concern: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/net-zero-communities-that-make-solar-power-work-expand-in-florida/2211425

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/democratic-energy-media-roundup-january-5-2015/


The Three Biggest Solar Charts of 2014

by John Farrell | January 6, 2015 12:35 pm

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. democratizing of the electricity system: http://www.ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/residential-solar-and-power-plant-capacity-2013.002.jpg
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/us-power-plant-capacity-additions-2014-ILSR-white-v2.jpg
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/us-installed-cost-of-solar-power-ilsr.jpg
  6. flashpoint in state policy battles between electric companies and their customers: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  7. the future business model of the electricity system: https://ilsr.org/report-energy-democracy/
  8. a $48 billion opportunity: https://ilsr.org/u-s-utility-customers-save-48-billion-solar-efficiency/
  9. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  10. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  11. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/biggest-solar-charts-2014/


Building Community, Strengthening Economies: ILSR’s 2014 Annual Report

by ILSR | December 29, 2014 10:29 am

placeholder[1]

Image: Donate Button[2]As we confront the daunting challenges of a severely compromised climate, crippling inequality, and a failing federal government, ILSR’s forward-thinking, bottom-up solutions have never been more needed. 

We need your support today. Help us fight against the concentration of corporate power, the loss of control of our local economies and government, and the growing threats to our environment.

Please help us expand our impact in 2015 by making an online tax-deductible donation[3] to ILSR,


 

Image: ILSR 2014 Annual ReportILSR was founded 40 years ago out of a conviction that solving even our most complex problems begins with people exercising collective authority at the local level.  Since then, we have been at the forefront of helping communities take charge of their local resources and build an equitable, environmentally viable, and democratic future.

This year, working alongside a diverse range of allies, we made significant progress in realizing this vision.  We are thrilled to share the stories of change in our 2014 Annual Report: Building Community, Strengthening Economies.

As you’ll see when you read the report, this year we produced critical research and developed new tools and policies that have helped communities:

  • Expand rooftop solar, which is revolutionizing the electricity system by shifting ownership of energy generation from utilities to households.
  • Ditch big telecom companies and build their own locally owned broadband networks.
  • Rebuild local, neighborhood retail, creating new jobs and keeping dollars local.
  • Reclaim their waste streams and establish composting enterprises that convert the value inherent in food scraps into more fertile and climate-friendly soil.
  • Grapple with questions central to reinvigorating a bottom-up democracy capable of solving complex problems.

Transforming our economy entails not only building new enterprises and systems, but fighting the forces that stand in the way.  In the report, you can read about the leading role we played this year in a Minneapolis clean energy initiative that is a model for how citizens can leverage their authority over corporate utilities; see how we helped defeat a Walmart-led ballot initiative in North Dakota that would have overturned a state law that mandates that all pharmacies be locally owned; and learn more about our successful campaign in Kansas to kill a cable industry-inspired bill that would have blocked cities from building their own public broadband networks.

Image: Donate Button[2]As we confront the daunting challenges of a severely compromised climate, crippling inequality, and a failing federal government, ILSR’s forward-thinking, bottom-up solutions have never been more needed. 

We need your support today. Help us fight against the concentration of corporate power, the loss of control of our local economies and government, and the growing threats to our environment.

Please help us expand our impact in 2015 by making an online tax-deductible donation[3] to ILSR, or donating by mail or phone[4].

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/donate/
  3. making an online tax-deductible donation: https://ilsr.org/donate/
  4. donating by mail or phone: http://www.ilsr.org/donate

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/annual-report-2014/


Failure of the Wilmington Compost Facility Underscores Need for a Locally Based and Diverse Composting Infrastructure

by Neil Seldman | December 18, 2014 9:32 am

The rapid increase in community-scale composting in the Mid-Atlantic is sorely needed. The recent closing of the Wilmington Organics Recycling Center[1] in Delaware, due to the loss of its operating permit, has pushed the need for a distributed and diverse composting infrastructure to the fore. Source separated food discard programs from New York City to Washington, DC, are now scrambling to find alternative sites to tip their loads.

The Wilmington Organics Recycling Center was at the center of expanded food discard collections in the Mid-Atlantic region. Developed, sited, permitted, financed and built by The Peninsula Compost Group (TPCG), the facility was designed to receive 600 tons per day of source separated organic materials from government institutions, grocery chains, schools, food processors, sports venues, restaurants, and other large food waste generators. A separate company, named the Peninsula Compost Company (PCC), was set up to own the plant. Its original members included the EDiS Company and Greenhull Compost LLC (both of Wilmington, Delaware), as well as the developers, TPCG. The facility commenced operations in late 2009 composting around 200 tons per day. For the first two years, TPCG was the managing and operations partner. During that time there were no verified odor complaints or Notices of Violation from the State of Delaware and the compost produced met every Federal and State standard for unrestricted use. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Wilmington Organics Recycling Center: http://www.peninsulacompostcompany.com/facilities/WORC.html
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/failure-wilmington-compost-facility-underscores-locally-based-diverse-composting-infrastructure/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/failure-wilmington-compost-facility-underscores-locally-based-diverse-composting-infrastructure/


The Comic Book that Started a Movement: The Lone Recycler

by Neil Seldman | December 16, 2014 10:16 am

Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when the Lone Recycler, lead citizens in the SF Bay Area against the cruel intentions of the garbage incineration industry; which lead to a national movement that continues to this day.

From 1980 through 1982, five planned garbage incinerators in the SF Bay Area were defeated. In rapid succession the defeat of incinerators in the SF Bay Area resulted in the cancelation of 30 planned incinerators in California.

From 1980 through 1997 over 300 planned garbage incinerators were defeated by spontaneous action by organized citizens, small businesses and progressive officials.

Introduction – by Mary Lou Van Deventer, Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA

A new wave of approximately 100-150 garbage incinerators have been proposed since the mid 2000s. To date one has been built. A look back at the history of anti garbage incineration is well in order.

In the early 1980s the conventional wisdom was that recycling could recover only 35% of discards, and even some recyclers called incineration “resource recovery.”  But the recyclers in Berkeley, California, led by Dan Knapp and including Mary Lou Van Deventer and Mark and Nancy Gorrell, had a bigger dream of recycling everything.  The city council voted unanimously to begin the procurement process for a garbage incinerator.

The recyclers tried to convince the council that burning the resources would foreclose the recycling options and cause pollution.  At first the council members wouldn’t even meet with recyclers, and when they finally did, they wouldn’t change their plan.  The frustrated recyclers decided direct democracy was their only recourse, so they gathered signatures for a citizens’ initiative, and they put a five-year moratorium on incineration on the November 1982 ballot.  Their campaign slogan was “Give Recycling a Chance.”  They won more than 60% of the votes!  Afterward Dan and Mary Lou helped citizens in several other San Francisco Bay Area cities defeat incinerators too.  Seven incinerators were planned; none was built.  One joint powers authority even dissolved itself.

In 1984 Dan and Mary Lou swapped a lot of dinners, beer, and wine with their friends architect Mark Gorrell and illustrator Nancy Gorrell, and they laughed a lot as they wrote the saga of The Lone Recycler to envision a Zero Waste future.  Step by step Nancy took the developing bones of the story into her studio and fleshed out the group’s characters, wrote dialogue, invented incidental characters and games, and illustrated everything.  The San Francisco grass roots recycling group Richmond Environmental Action, provided funds for the publication.

The intention was to promote citizen activism and sustainable resource management instead of centralized control of waste and destruction.  In the end they transformed Slobberg into Wonderberg and even recycled the bad guys.

CAUTION TO PARENTS: Children tend to take this comic into a corner and spend a long time reading.  If you prefer that they play more with their electronics, don’t give them this comic.

Download the full issue of The Lone Recycler[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. Download the full issue of The Lone Recycler: http://urbanore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/LONE-RECYCLER.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/comic-book-started-movement-lone-recycler/


Will Pope Francis Put His Institution Where His Values Are?

by David Morris | December 16, 2014 10:09 am

On December 10th the Vatican released the text of still another vigorous message[1] by Pope Francis in support of oppressed workers. “(M)illions of people today – children, women and men of all ages – are deprived of freedom and are forced to live in conditions akin to slavery,” he asserts. “I think of the many men and women laborers, including minors, subjugated in different sectors, whether formally or informally, in domestic or agricultural workplaces, or in the manufacturing or mining industry; whether in countries where labor regulations fail to comply with international norms and minimum standards, or, equally illegally, in countries which lack legal protection for workers’ rights.”

The Pope’s statement is not a call to reflection but to action, “Every person ought to have the awareness that ‘purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act’.” Francis wants us to buy as if someone else’s life depended on it. And he wants us to act not only as individuals but collectively. “We ought to recognize that we are facing a global phenomenon which exceeds the competence of any one community or country. In order to eliminate it, we need a mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself.”

When he personally delivers his message on January 1st I trust the Pope will point out that there is no other institution more capable of generating a “mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself” than the one he himself leads.

The statistics[2] are very impressive. In 2014 there were over 220,000 Catholic parishes serving 1.23 billion Catholics worldwide. The Church directly employs 414,000 priests, 53,000 religious brothers and 705,000 religious sisters. There are 140,000 elementary and secondary Catholic schools. The Church has some 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals. The Church’s Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers has estimated[3] the Catholic Church manages more than a quarter of the world’s health care facilities.

In 2012 the Economist concluded[4] the Catholic Church spent about $170 billion a year making it one of the world’s largest purchasers of goods and services. Catholic organizations already exist that aggregate the purchasing power of parishes and dioceses. The Catholic Purchasing Services, for example claims[5] to “consolidate the buying power of over 40,000 Catholic institutions in the purchase of a wide variety of equipment, furniture, supplies, and services.”   Currently CPS does so to obtain the highest quality at the lowest price. The Pope could order them to take into account the human dimensions of their purchases.

I say “order” not “suggest” because the Pope is the CEO, President and Chairman of the Board of the Catholic Church all rolled into one. He and the Vatican have never been reticent about telling Catholic institutions what to do. The clearest example is in the health area. Catholic hospitals are prohibited from buying or prescribing contraceptives or engaging in a number of procedures, such as sterilization or abortion. Those who want to make their own end of life decisions should avoid Catholic hospitals which are directed to ignore an individual’s advanced health directives.

If the Pope were to order his institution to heed his message he would find a ready network of government agencies and non-profit organizations that have already done the spadework. The Department of Labor regularly releases[6] a list of products made with forced labor.   The list is long and contains many products the Catholic Church would regularly purchase, including carpets, garments, cotton, rubber, coffee, rice, rubber.

Many non-profit organizations try to monitor factories suspected of treating their workers poorly. But their resources are small and their network thin. The track record of businesses monitoring their own contractors is very spotty[7]. The Catholic Church’s worldwide network of parishes and parishioners could become the eyes and ears on the ground to ensure these workers are treated decently.

The Pope demands action on a global scale to protect tens of millions of ill-treated workers. Will he order his own institution to take the lead?

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. message: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20141208_messaggio-xlviii-giornata-mondiale-pace-2015.html
  2. statistics: http://cara.georgetown.edu/caraservices/requestedchurchstats.html
  3. estimated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_health_care
  4. concluded: http://www.economist.com/node/21560536
  5. claims: http://www.ecinteractiveplus.com/6183/AboutUs
  6. releases: http://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-products/index-country.htm
  7. spotty: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/business/global/superficial-visits-and-trickery-undermine-foreign-factory-inspections.html?pagewanted=all

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/pope-francis-put-institution-values-are/


Working Partner Update: Recycling Advances in Delaware

by Neil Seldman | December 16, 2014 9:40 am

Rick Anthony recalls a conversation he had in 2007 with officials from the Delaware Chamber of Commerce about recycling. An official stated that the only way to require recycling in Delaware was to show a considerable economic payoff. Anthony and Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, under contract with the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), provided just that information in a report that laid out a plan for implementing comprehensive recycling and economic development.

The report identified $50 million market value that was then flowing to three state operated landfills annually in the form of recyclable and reusable materials. Further, the report found that this lode would support over 2000 new good jobs in the state.

See Resource Management in the State of Delaware[1], May, 2007.

In 2010 the state required source separation for homes, apartment houses, businesses and restaurants; all haulers must provide services for source separated materials. Other recycling incentives were introduced as well.

Last week Gov. Markell announced that the state reached a 42% recycling rate.  Since 2006 the state’s 900,000 people have doubled the recycling rate. Since recycling measurement began in 2006 the Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA), which manages the state’s landfills, reports that over 500,000 tons of single stream materials have been diverted from disposal.

See “Governor Highlights Progress in Recycling[2],” DNREC, November 30, 2014.

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Endnotes:
  1. Resource Management in the State of Delaware: http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/dwhs/SiteCollectionDocuments/AWM%20Gallery/AWM-DelawareILSR060407.pdf
  2. Governor Highlights Progress in Recycling: http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/News/Pages/Governor-Markell-highlights-Delawares-progress-in-recycling.aspx

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/working-partner-update-recycling-advances-delaware/


Training The Zero Waste Workforce

by Neil Seldman | December 15, 2014 10:10 am

Community Environmental Services, part of Portland State University, trains and employs students to offer zero waste management services to companies, institutions and public agencies. CES works in the private sector with clients such as supermarkets to establish a baseline for material flow and then deliver specific recommendations for reducing waste.

The movement for zero waste in the U.S. has literally exploded in the last few years in both theory and practice. Scores of communities have resolved to start on the pathway to zero — defined as reducing waste generated by 90 percent or more. Cities taking strong steps to achieve this goal within the next decade include Austin (Texas), San Francisco and Los Angeles. Elsewhere, Alachua County, Florida, Portland, Oregon and Seattle have implemented zero waste (ZW) programs without formally announcing a ZW goal. The learning curve for cities and counties that may follow has been made easier by new resources such as the Zero Waste Business Plan adopted by the Resource Recovery Department in Austin, and the statements on Extended Producer Responsibility issued by the Global Recycling Council of the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) and the Zero Waste International Association. Paul Connett’s recently published book, The Zero Waste Solution, is the newest asset now available for zero waste planners and advocates.

Read the full article on CES[1] by ILSR’s Neil Seldman, appeared in the November 2014 issue of Biocycle.

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Endnotes:
  1. Read the full article on CES: http://www.biocycle.net/2014/11/17/training-the-zero-waste-workforce/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/training-waste-workforce/


The New Rules for Retail Workers

by David Morris | December 14, 2014 9:19 am

Every month the federal government issues a new jobs report. The stock market gyrates, pundits pundify, politicians politic. Whether employment expands slowly or fast one central fact remains. The fastest growing occupations all pay low wages: retail salespersons, cashiers, food preparation and food service workers such as waiters and waitresses.

Since February 2010 industries whose jobs pay between $9.48 and $13.33 an hour have accounted[1] for 44 percent of job growth. The salary of many full time workers in these industries keeps them in poverty. And even this miserable situation is getting worse. The average retail worker earns about 12 percent less, adjusted for inflation, than a similar worker in 1979, according[2] to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

It gets worse. An increasing number of retail jobs are part time. “Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm told[3] the New York Times. Their hourly wages are almost 35 percent lower[4] than those of full-time employees. They often do not receive health benefits and are scheduled too few hours to earn a living.

Part-time jobs are no longer the domain of the young. Many are adults in their prime working years—25 to 54. Part ti employment used to be voluntary. Today involuntary part timers total 7.5 million, up from 4.4 million in 2007.

Retail employment, especially for part timers, is an uncertain situation. A University of Chicago study found[5] part time schedules fluctuated between 17 and 28 hours per week. Many employers schedule shifts as short as 2-3 hours. Some 47 percent of part timers received advance notice of only a week or less on their work schedules. Many are on call, finding out just hours ahead of time if they have to go for work.

From an employer’s perspective this is efficient. Computer algorithms successfully used to pare the need for inventory by matching the supply of products and parts to the demand are now used to allocate work hours. But as Marianne Levine at Politico writes[6], “Trouble is, getting moved around at the click of a mouse is more disruptive to human beings than it is to refrigerators and automobiles”.

The human cost in disrupted lives is enormous. Uncertain schedules undermine workers’ efforts to fulfill their caregiving responsibilities or maintain stable childcare or pursue education or training or juggle a second part time job.

The unfettered market brought us below poverty level wages, uncertain part time employment, and the disruption of tens of millions of lives. Clearly the market needs a little help. Congressional Republicans will have none of it, stalling several federal bills that would alleviate the hardship. So state and local Democrats and Republicans and Independents have stepped in.

After November’s elections in which four red states—Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota—passed minimum wage increases in 2015 a majority of states will have minimum wages higher than the federal rate.

In 2006 San Francisco was the first city to enact a paid sick leave requirement. Today 15 other cities and 3 states have such laws.

On November 26th San Francisco again led the way by passing a bill that will require retail stores with more than 20 locations globally to treat their workers more decently. Employers must give employees at least 2 weeks advance notice of work schedules changes. If notice is less than a week they must pay up to 4 hours at the worker’s regular hourly rate. If an employee is required to be on call and is not called the employer must provide 2-4 hours of pay. Employers must offer any extra work hours to current part timers before hiring new workers or subcontractors. Employers must provide equal treatment for part timers compared to full timers, including starting hourly wage, access to time off and eligibility for promotions. If the business is sold, the successor employer must retain for at least 90 days all employees who had worked there at least six months.

The San Francisco law will apply to 12 percent of all retailers that employ almost half of all retail workers in the city.

Retail laws do not apply to much beleaguered retail managers. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act did help supervisors by limiting the percentage of the day he or she could spend on non-managerial duties and still be exempt from overtime. Until 2004 that was understood to be no more than 50 percent. That year President Bush’s Department of Labor changed the threshold under which supervisors qualified for time and a half overtime pay. According to EPI[7], in 1975 65 percent of all salaried workers fell under the threshold and were thus entitled to overtime. By 2013, just 11 percent of salaried workers were automatically due overtime pay. Adding insult to injury, under the new rules people could be defined as managers exempt from overtime, for example, while doing grunt work and supervisory work simultaneously.

Overworked store managers often are evaluated based on whether they meet monthly (or weekly) targets for payroll as a percentage of sales. Managers don’t have much control over sales but they do control payroll. So when sales decrease, they immediately reduce staffing levels.

The Chamber of Commerce railed against the SF law as many business associations across the country have railed against municipal and state minimum wage or mandatory paid sick leave laws. They argue that retail is cut throat competitive with small margins and customers who demand the lowest price. But the evidence reveals that good management can make a business competitive and profitable even while treating workers humanely.

Treating workers poorly has its costs: lower morale, higher absenteeism and tardiness and turnover. Studies have found that hiring and training a replacement employee costs between $3300 and $6000. Untrained or poorly trained employees are less productive and make more errors. On-site management becomes even more difficult.

Zeynep Ton, associate professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management describes[8] a study she and Ananth Raman of the Harvard Business School conducted for Borders, a major bookstore chain. Analyzing data from 1999 through 2002 from more than 250 Borders stores, “We found that there was a huge variation in operational performance among stores that used the same information technology and offered the same incentives to employees. The performance of the best store was a whopping 43 times better than that of the worst store.”

Ton’s book, The Good Jobs Strategy[9] offers many examples of highly successful retail chains—such as Quik­Trip convenience stores, Trader Joe’s supermarkets, and Costco wholesale clubs—that complement higher investment in store employees with investments in operational practices. The combination makes work more efficient and more fulfilling while it lowers costs, boosts sale and profits and improves customer satisfaction.

Costco employees earn 40 percent more than those working at Sam’s Club and sales per employee are almost double those at Sam’s Club. Full-time employees at Trader Joe’s earn more than twice what competitors offer and sales per labor hour are more than 40 percent higher while sales per square foot are three times higher than those of an average U.S. supermarket. And turnover among full-time employees is less than 10 percent. QuikTrip’s wages and benefits are far higher than those of other comparable stores but its sales per labor hour are 50 percent higher. Its 13 percent turnover rate among full-time employees is remarkably lower than the 59 percent average rate in the top quartile of the convenience store industry.

Local and state government intervention is helping tens of millions of workers while forcing retail corporations to up their game. Those who continue to operate inefficiently will go out of business. Those who treat their workers (and customers) with respect will increase sales, reduce operating costs and increase profits. That’s a private public partnership I fully endorse.

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. accounted: http://systemicdisorder.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/scapegoating-the-unemployed/
  2. according: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/future-retail-work-many-see-low-pay-little-flexibility-n140606
  3. told: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/business/a-part-time-life-as-hours-shrink-and-shift-for-american-workers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  4. lower: http://work.chron.com/average-hourly-wages-parttime-employees-retail-25276.html
  5. found: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/business/a-push-to-give-steadier-shifts-to-part-timers.html
  6. writes: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/san-francisco-limits-on-worker-schedules-113177.html
  7. EPI: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/26/being-a-manager-is-the-most-powerless-job-in-retail-thats-changing/
  8. describes: https://hbr.org/2012/01/why-good-jobs-are-good-for-retailers
  9. The Good Jobs Strategy: http://zeynepton.com/book/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rules-retail-workers/


Alaska’s Enlightened Approach to Drugs and Privacy

by David Morris | December 4, 2014 10:11 am

Politicians left and right often use pet phrases to justify their positions:  states rights, individual liberty, personal responsibility.  Rarely are these consistently applied.  Even more rarely do politicians or political parties offer a coherent framework for deciding when a higher level of government should preempt a lower level of government or when individual liberty trumps state regulation.  Which makes what has happened in Alaska so refreshing and instructive.  The issue addressed was the right of individuals to use drugs when the state outlaws their use.

In August 1972, a little more than 13 years after Alaska became a state, its citizens voted overwhelmingly (86-14%) to add a two-sentence amendment to their state Constitution. “The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section.”

In 1972 being caught in possession of marijuana got you the equivalent of a traffic ticket in Alaska. When attorney Irwin Ravin refused to sign his traffic ticket he was arrested.  The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court.  In 1975 the Court held that Alaska’s new Constitutional right to privacy protected an adult’s right to use marijuana in the home.

The Constitutional provision led the Court to set a high burden of proof for the state to justify its invasion of Ravin’s privacy. “Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling.” The Court opined that the law must be shown “necessary, and not merely rationally related, to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy.”

The Court found the state had not met that standard.  It had not proven that the health and safety benefits to the community outweighed the right of individual privacy when it came to using marijuana. After extensively reviewing the evidence the Court determined, “the use of marijuana, as it is presently used in the United States today, does not constitute a public health problem of any significant dimensions. It is, for instance, far more innocuous in terms of physiological and social damage than alcohol or tobacco.”

Later, when Alaskans became infected with the same reefer madness as the rest of the country and imposed stiffer penalties the Alaska Supreme Court continued to rule that using marijuana in one’s home was Constitutionally protected.

In 1978 the Court again examined the balance between state authority to protect the health and safety and the right to personal use of drugs.  This time the drug involved was cocaine.  The Court again examined the evidence but this time found cocaine a far more dangerous drug than marijuana. For example, cocaine, unlike marijuana, can cause death. In its 1978 decision the Court reaffirmed the 1972 framework that would guide its decision making, declaring “the balance [of the individual’s interest in privacy and the government’s interest in health and safety] requires a heavier burden on the state to sustain the legislation in light of the (privacy) right involved.” But in this case it came down on the side of the state, finding a “sufficiently close and substantial relationship” between the prohibition and the legislative purpose of protecting the general health and welfare.

In 1984 the Court again explored the tension between the state’s right to protect the health and safety of its citizens and the right of the individual to be left alone.  This time the drug involved was alcohol.  In 1979 the Alaskan legislature had given communities the “local option” of the importation and sale of alcohol, although it they could not ban its use within the home. Hugh Harrison was convicted of importing alcohol into the village of the dry community of St. Mary’s. He challenged the constitutionality of the local option law, arguing, among other things that it violated his Constitutional right of privacy.  The Court disagreed, finding that alcohol was more like cocaine than marijuana, “The evidence presented at the omnibus hearing unmistakably established a correlation between alcohol consumption and poor health, death, family violence, child abuse, and crime…. Given this evidence, we conclude that the state has met its burden of justifying the local option law as a health and welfare measure.”

In 1986 the local option law was amended to allow communities to ban possession of alcohol.

In November 2014, Alaskan voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana, making the 1975 Court decision moot. But a number of Alaskan communities have asked the legislature to extend their local option to include marijuana as well as alcohol.  The legislature may well delegate to them the authority to ban the import, sale and public use of marijuana within their borders.  But the Court decision will prohibit communities from banning the possession or personal use of marijuana in one’s home.

One might disagree with the Court’s reasoning in any one of its decisions.  But I trust we can all support its transparent and accessible decision making framework and its reliance on scientific evidence to determine the balance between the right of the state to protect its citizens with the right of its citizens to be left alone.  The U.S. Congress and Supreme Court have much to learn from the next to last state to join the Union.

 

 

 

 

 

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/alaskas-enlightened-approach-drugs-privacy/


Maryland Counties Scrap Waste-to-Energy Project

by Neil Seldman | November 21, 2014 9:56 am

Organized citizens and small business owners in Carroll and Frederick Counties, MD just completed a 10-year battle to stop the implementation of a 1,500 ton per day mass burn garbage incinerator facility. The effort brought out the best in local activism: careful analysis of the contract and its financial implications, sophisticated use  of media, many small meetings with civic groups, public demonstrations, confronting elected officials and state authority on conflict of interest as well as failure to understand the contracts before them, and, above all, perseverance in pursuit of sound recycling and economic alternatives. The rest of the US will benefit from this outcome as several citizens who became involved in the local battle are now national experts and are helping other communities face similar challenges.

ILSR has been part of this effort since being invited to intervene at the request of a small business woman in 2004. The Frederick-Carroll incinerator was one of three that ILSR helped defeat in the last year. ILSR remains engaged in the effort to stop a planned 4,000 ton per day garbage incinerator in south Baltimore.

Read the story here[1] from the Frederick News Post, November 21, 2014

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Endnotes:
  1. Read the story here: http://www.wastenotcarroll.org/apps/blog/show/42858527-county-scraps-waste-to-energy-project

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/maryland-counties-scrap-waste-to-energy-project/


New Report: Walmart’s Dirty Energy Secret

by Stacy Mitchell | November 20, 2014 12:00 pm

placeholder[1]WalmartDirtyEnergyCoverImageWalmart talks a lot of talk about its renewable energy initiatives, but a new ILSR report finds that all that hype is just slick greenwashing hiding the company’s massive coal consumption.

In this first-of-its-kind analysis, ILSR calculated that Walmart is one of the nation’s largest users of coal-fired electricity.  Despite pledging nearly a decade ago to shift to 100 percent renewable energy, Walmart today derives only 3 percent of its U.S. electricity from its renewable energy projects — far less than many small businesses and competing chains.

Several national environmental leaders — including Michael Brune of Sierra Club[2], Bill McKibben of 350.org[3], and Jeremy Hays of Green For All[4] — joined ILSR in releasing the study and calling for change.

Read:  Executive Summary[5] | Press Release[6] | Full Report

How much climate pollution does Walmart generate by consuming coal in your state?  See the appendix of the report to find out!

Also see our Grist post, Walmart is a Huge Consumer of Dirty Coal Energy[7].

Executive Summary

In October, at an event broadcast live from Walmart’s Arkansas headquarters, the company’s top executives took the stage to extol its environmental leadership. The announcements they made that day would be covered widely by the press, including the Boston Globe, Guardian, and New York Times. The event opened with a video listing Walmart’s achievements over the preceding months: “We signed our largest multi-state solar power purchase agreement,” the narrator says, over a shot of workers installing new, glossy solar panels. “We were recognized by President Obama for announcing that we will double the number of on-site solar energy projects.” Then Walmart’s CEO, Doug McMillon, and its vice president of sustainability, Manuel Gomez, addressed the crowd. “You get one point for launching a goal,” said Gomez, “and nine points for execution… and what you saw in the video is exactly what we’re doing: executing against these goals.”

But off the stage and out in the real world, Walmart’s sustainability initiatives are heavy on admiration- inducing goals and astonishingly light on execution. Nearly a decade ago, the company pledged to shift to 100 percent renewable energy and acknowledged its responsibility to reduce its climate emissions as quickly as possible. Today, however, Walmart remains as deeply committed as ever to the dirtiest fuels, especially coal. It derives only 3 percent of its U.S. electricity from its renewable energy projects, down from 4 percent two years ago.

In this first-of-its-kind analysis, ILSR provides new information about Walmart’s energy mix and environmental footprint. We calculate the total electricity use, coal-fired power consumption, and resulting carbon emissions of every Walmart store and distribution center in the country in 2013. We also evaluate the company’s renewable energy projects, finding that they are too small and located in the wrong places to have much of an impact on Walmart’s coal use and climate emissions.

Our analysis finds that Walmart’s electricity consumption entails burning a staggering amount of coal: 4.2 million tons a year. That’s enough to give every kid in America a stocking filled with 126 pounds of the sooty stuff as a holiday present. Or, to measure it another way: If you dumped coal on a football field, you’d have to pile it 35 feet high, from end-zone to end-zone, just to power Walmart’s U.S. stores for one week. Walmart sources more of its electricity from coal (40 percent) than the U.S. as a whole (39 percent) — a remarkable fact for a company that has touted its environmental responsibility for years. Indeed, we find that Walmart alone consumes 0.5 percent of all the electricity produced from coal in U.S., a stunning figure given the size of the entire national economy and population. Walmart’s use of coal-fired electricity in the U.S. accounts for 37 percent of its total reported global greenhouse gas emissions, and 74 percent of its U.S. emissions from electricity. (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Sierra Club: https://www.sierraclub.org
  3. 350.org: http://350.org
  4. Green For All: http://greenforall.org
  5. Executive Summary: #ExecSummary
  6. Press Release: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-dirty-energy-secret-release/
  7. Walmart is a Huge Consumer of Dirty Coal Energy: https://ilsr.org/walmart-huge-consumer-dirty-coal-energy/
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/walmarts-dirty-energy-secret/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-dirty-energy-secret/


The History and Hope for a First-in-the-Nation City-Utility Clean Energy Partnership

by John Farrell | November 17, 2014 11:05 am

In the past month, the city of Minneapolis and its two investor-owned utilities adopted the nation’s first clean energy partnership[1], with a wide range of goals including meeting the city’s ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. How did it happen and what can it accomplish? The following 8-minute video[2] from one of the “lead rabble rousers” on the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign, John Farrell, explains what got things started and where the partnership may lead.

Full video transcript[3]

The Beginning

One of the primary motivators of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign was to say, “How much money do we spend collectively as a city on these energy services, and how much of that is actually leaving the city of Minneapolis.” The answer is $450 million each year, for electricity and gas services, with most of the profits leaving town. “A lot of it is money that can be recaptured within the local economy, especially…when you’re talking about a transformation taking place in the technology in the electricity sector allowing you to generate energy much closer to home than we ever have before.”

Organizers of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign started around a conference table asking how this notion of the local energy dollar could be addressed, and immediately thought of the municipalization fight in Boulder, CO[4]. But “it seemed sort of silly to be saying, “let’s go out and form our own utility” [when] we haven’t even really talked to the ones that we’ve got about what we could do with working with them.” On the other hand, the city needed leverage in its negotiations with utilities since most of the power in utility regulation is at the state and federal level. So the campaign was meant to elevate the notion of the city’s energy options, up to and including the formation of a city-owned utility.

The campaign was hottest during municipal elections in 2013: “we had a lot of candidates talking about it, the mayoral candidates talking about it, city council candidates talking about the campaign. We had the specter of a ballot initiative around municipalization.”

The result of the campaign was that the utilities came to the table to negotiate.

A Novel Partnership

As of October 2014, “we have a first-in-the-nation partnership between a city and its utilities to explore not only the two-thirds of climate emissions that are the result of electricity and gas consumption that the city really didn’t have any opportunity to influence before. But also that 450 million dollars that’s being spent in the local economy and how that can be kept more local.”

As one testifier at city council said, ‘Our job now is to figure out how this doesn’t become the quarterly coffee clatch for the city folks and the utilities, and how do we make sure we actually have real substantive conversations about it.'”

“What are the possibilities?”

Three Big Opportunities

“There are three key things at stake. The first one is, what ideas can we generate that are innovative and ambitious and measurable and achievable within a short time frame? Because we’ve established for ourselves that this partnership can go on as long as ten years. We’ve got a check-in point of about five years. Which means we really have to start having stuff happen within two to three years if we want to know whether or not this is working.” All of the parties – Minneapolis Energy Options (Community Power), the city, and the utilities are going to come with great ideas.  “What can this city put on the table with its regulatory authority over local property? What can utilities bring to bear with the data that they have about our local grid and the knowledge that they have about installing local solar?”

“Number two is, can we…set ourselves real benchmarks for accomplishing these things? Can we say two years from now that we are going to make meaningful and substantial progress on energy efficiency by retro-fitting a certain number of homes? Can we do it in a way that focuses on communities that have been traditionally disadvantaged, where folks pay a disproportionate share of their monthly income on energy?  What can we accomplish with community solar over the next couple of years in Minneapolis? What are going to be the opportunities to get synergies between energy savings programs for electricity and gas?

Number three is, “how do we then let this be part of the bigger national conversation about how do we structure a utility business model (see forthcoming ILSR report, to be released 12/2/14) that serves the principles and goals not only of the city of Minneapolis, but – writ-large – all of the utility customers who care about things like clean energy?”

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[5]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter[6] or get the Democratic Energy weekly[7] update.

Photo credit: Matthew Paulson[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. the nation’s first clean energy partnership: https://ilsr.org/grow-city-utility-partnership-sprouts-minneapolis/
  2. 8-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghrAwxyF2zI&feature=youtu.be
  3. Full video transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V_lQv_WxBtANzVPPZuP6GG3RIPq7tjFnpLkQi5qbIPI/edit?usp=sharing
  4. municipalization fight in Boulder, CO: https://ilsr.org/communities-leverage-energy-future-episode-17-local-energy-rules/
  5. ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  6. Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  7. Democratic Energy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  8. Matthew Paulson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewpaulson/7820480682/in/photolist-cV51rQ-dafME2-dpBTFY-fZQLEz-cZWiFy-dwF5Xi-8VUHgA-jXLiit-Kq8ZU-jVDUhz-8novYy-5SVpaj-adckuF-Kq8YW-6kLqY1-6CVe1M-87b43u-eiRr3x-8jUbZQ-dvdBz6

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/history-hope-first-in-the-nation-city-utility-clean-energy-partnership/


Get the Facts on Shopping Local for the Holidays with this Infographic

by ILSR | November 14, 2014 1:47 pm

placeholder[1]Independent businesses are poised to draw more people this holiday season.  To illustrate the ways that local businesses are growing in popularity, delivering stronger economic returns, and expanding in numbers, the Advocates for Independent Business[2], a coalition of 14 groups coordinated by ILSR, put together this infographic.

HolidayShopping_Infographic_final_HR[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Advocates for Independent Business: http://indiebizadvocates.org
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/HolidayShopping_Infographic_final_HR.jpg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/shopping-local-infographic/


ILSR Presenting on Food Waste Composting to Philadelphia City Council – Nov. 12th

by Brenda Platt | November 6, 2014 2:26 pm

ILSR’s Brenda Platt will be presenting on the benefits of food waste composting before the The Joint Committees on Streets and Services & The Environment of the Council of the City of Philadelphia on November 12th.   The public hearing will cover the feasibility of and benefits to the City of residential food waste recycling including its impact on environmental quality, hunger prevention, economic savings and job creation.

Local recycling advocates RecycleNow Philadelphia[1] are urging the public to turn out a strong presence at this first hearing to demonstrate that a citywide food waste recycling program is a priority for the residents of Philadelphia and to give residents an opportunity to be active participants in the discussion from start to finish.  More on their effort here[2].

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2014, at 2:00 PM,
Location: Room 400, City Hall, Philadelphia, PA (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. RecycleNow Philadelphia: http://www.recyclenowphila.org/
  2. More on their effort here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GGJLnPPaQqtTKyokncl90G6bqQEw0YeSEeShr7MbCFI/viewform?edit_requested=true
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ilsr-presenting-food-waste-composting-philadelphia-city-council-nov-12th/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-presenting-food-waste-composting-philadelphia-city-council-nov-12th/


Democrat Candidates Lost. Democrat Issues Won

by David Morris | November 5, 2014 2:40 pm

On Tuesday Democrats lost big when they ran a candidate but won big when they ran an issue.

In 42 states about 150 initiatives were on the ballot. The vast majority did not address issues dividing the two parties (e.g. raising the mandatory retirement age for judges, salary increases for state legislators, bond issues supporting a range of projects). But scores of initiatives did involve hot button issues. And on these American voters proved astonishingly liberal.

Voters approved every initiative to legalize or significantly reduce the penalties for marijuana possession (Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Washington, D.C.) It is true that a Florida measure to legalize medical marijuana lost but 57 percent voted in favor (60 percent was required.)

Voters approved every initiative to raise the minimum wage (Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota). Voters in San Francisco and Oakland approved initiatives to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. The good citizens of Oakland and Massachusetts overwhelmingly approved more generous paid sick leave.

Both Colorado and North Dakota voters rejected measures that would have given the fertilized egg personhood under their criminal codes.

Washington state voters approved background checks for all gun sales and transfers, including private transactions.

By a wide margin Missourians rejected a constitutional amendment to require teachers to be evaluated based on test results and fired or demoted virtually at will.

By a 59-41 margin North Dakotans voted to keep their unique statute outlawing absentee owned pharmacies despite Walmart outspending independent pharmacist supporters at least ten to one.

The vote in Colorado offers a good example of the disparity between how Americans vote on candidates and how we vote on issues. A few years ago the Colorado legislature stripped cities and counties of the right to build their own telecommunications networks but it allowed them to reclaim that authority if they put it to a vote of their citizens. On Tuesday 8 cities and counties did just that. Residents in every community voted by a very wide margin to permit government owned networks even while they were voting by an equally wide margin for Republican candidates who vigorously oppose government ownership of anything.

Republicans did gain a number of important victories. Most of these dealt with taxes. For example, Georgia voters by a wide margin supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting the state legislature from raising the maximum state income tax rate. Massachusetts’ voters narrowly voted to overturn a law indexing the state gasoline tax to the consumer price increase.

What did Tuesday tell us? When given the choice between a Republican and a Democrat candidate the majority of voters chose the Republican. When given a choice between a Republican and a Democrat position on an issue they chose the Democrat. I’ll leave it up to others to debate the reasons behind this apparent contradiction. My own opinion is that ballot initiatives more accurately take the ideological pulse of the people because debates over issues must focus on issues, not personality, temperament or looks. Those on both sides of the issue can exaggerate, distort and just plain lie but they must do so in reference to the question on the ballot. No ballot initiative ever lost because one of its main backers attended a strip club 16 years earlier.

 

 

 

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/democrat-candidates-lost-democrat-issues-won/


In Big Win for Local Ownership, North Dakota Votes to Keep State’s Pharmacy Law

by Olivia LaVecchia | November 5, 2014 2:23 pm

At North Dakota polls on Tuesday, local ownership was the winner.

The state voted overwhelmingly to keep its forward-thinking Pharmacy Ownership Law, defeating Measure 7, the Walmart-funded effort to overturn it. Final returns came in with 59 percent of the vote in favor of the law, the Fargo Forum reports[1].

As Governing magazine notes[2], “It wasn’t even close.”

North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law ensures that the state’s pharmacies are run by pharmacists, not by corporate chains.

In October, ILSR released a report[3] that provided new data and analysis of the law’s impact, and made a compelling case for keeping it.  The report found that, thanks to the state’s local ownership policy, North Dakotans receive pharmacy care that outperforms care in other states on every key measure, from cost to access to quality.  The findings were covered by both newspaper and radio outlets in North Dakota.

The opposition campaign, called North Dakotans for Lower Pharmacy Prices, was fueled by misinformation, and funded exclusively by Walmart, which sank more than $3 million into the group. That’s more money per North Dakota resident than either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney each spent during the 2012 presidential race.

Measure 7 marks the fourth time in the past five years that North Dakota has fielded off corporate-funded attempts to overturn the law. Now, it has survived challenges in court, in the state legislature, and at the polls.

As we wrote[4] earlier this week, “It’s more important than ever to ensure that everyone has convenient access to a high quality pharmacy, where decisions are made by local people whose first allegiance is to health care, not to the profits of a distant chain.”

In Tuesday’s vote, North Dakota again showed that it agrees.

For the full rundown on how North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law delivers superior care, read our report[5]. For more information on Pharmacy Ownership Laws as a policy tool in other places, check out our Rules Library[6].

Photo courtesy of Andrew Filer[7].

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Endnotes:
  1. the Fargo Forum reports: http://www.inforum.com/content/measure-7-north-dakotans-say-no-pharmacy-measure
  2. notes: http://www.governing.com/topics/elections/gov-north-dakota-pharmacy-law.html
  3. report: https://ilsr.org/report-pharmacy-ownership-law/
  4. we wrote: https://ilsr.org/north-dakota-should-vote-for-pharmacy-law/
  5. our report: https://ilsr.org/report-pharmacy-ownership-law/
  6. Rules Library: https://ilsr.org/rule/pharmacy-ownership-laws/
  7. Andrew Filer: https://www.flickr.com/photos/afiler/3547783045/in/photolist-72CNA2-72CNLr-86dzTi-72GJxS-f93tGm-8MZCS5-f8NdjP-6RK29C-4zoFSg-bUQ1xZ-6pvjic-ou7ihk-ow9p9r-ocUYMP-5b85K-ccc7Vy-6vd5bZ-9VNKDc-ccc5xE-cccaqd

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/big-win-local-ownership-north-dakota-votes-states-pharmacy-law/


Why North Dakotans Should Vote to Keep the State’s Unique Pharmacy Law this Election Day

by Olivia LaVecchia | November 3, 2014 12:23 pm

This Tuesday, North Dakota voters will decide the fate of the state’s Pharmacy Ownership Law. Those working against the law—namely Walmart, which has sunk more than $3 million into a front group called North Dakotans for Lower Pharmacy Prices—contend that abandoning the long-standing policy would lead to an increase in the number of pharmacies serving North Dakota.

Our research suggests just the opposite. In a report released last week[1], we reviewed data from state pharmacy boards and the U.S. Census and found that without the Pharmacy Ownership Law, North Dakotans, particularly those in small towns, would have fewer pharmacies than they have today, forcing many to drive long distances or rely more heavily on mail order firms, which study after study find provide inferior care.

For an idea of what’s at stake for North Dakota with Measure 7, we can look across the border to South Dakota, where the pharmacy landscape is very different. In South Dakota, there are fewer pharmacies per person than there are in North Dakota. Those pharmacies that do exist are clustered around urban areas, leaving rural areas and small towns without this basic service. In fact, we found that North Dakota not only beats South Dakota, but has 20 percent more pharmacies per person than Minnesota, and 30 percent more than the national average.

The difference between North Dakota and South Dakota is even more striking when you look at rural areas and small towns. About one-third of the population of each state lives in these places, but North Dakota’s rural areas are 51 percent more likely to contain a pharmacy than similarly-populated areas of South Dakota. Even in urban areas, there’s much more pharmacy competition in North Dakota than in South Dakota. Residents of North Dakota’s two largest cities, Fargo and Bismarck, have 38 percent more competing pharmacies to choose from than residents of Sioux Falls and Rapid City do, because many of the pharmacies in these South Dakota cities are owned by the same chains.

This heightened competition may explain why, over the past five years, North Dakota has ranked 13th on average in lowest prescription prices among the states, beating both South Dakota and Minnesota, according to leading prescription price data from Symphony Health. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. report released last week: https://ilsr.org/report-pharmacy-ownership-law/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/north-dakota-should-vote-for-pharmacy-law/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/north-dakota-should-vote-for-pharmacy-law/


Job Opening: Director of Development

by ILSR | October 30, 2014 4:34 pm

placeholder[1]The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a 40-year-old national nonprofit organization that challenges concentrated corporate power and provides research and policy models to enable communities to take charge of their local economies and build a more equitable and environmentally sound future.  ILSR has a staff of 12 with offices in Minneapolis, MN; Portland, Maine; and Washington, DC.

ILSR is seeking a Director of Development, based in any of our three offices.

Reporting to ILSR’s Co-Directors, the Director of Development will be responsible for leading ILSR’s fund development strategy, setting and achieving fundraising benchmarks, engaging supporters, and establishing new relationships with prospective funders. The Director of Development will collaborate closely with ILSR’s Initiative (Program) Directors to jointly develop proposals and execute fundraising strategies.

Core Responsibilities:

Planning

  • Develop and implement an overall fundraising plan for the organization with specific benchmarks.
  • Work with the finance team to develop and track core and growth budgets.
  • Provide guidance on fund development and program priorities and strategy.

Implementation

  • Be responsible for and oversee all development work, including meeting reporting and proposal deadlines.
  • Identify prospective foundation donors, set up meetings with ILSR staff, and work with ILSR’s program staff to develop and write grant proposals.
  • Work with ILSR staff to deepen stewardship across all funding sectors and develop new strategies for financial support.
  • Identify, cultivate, and solicit major individual donors.
  • Represent ILSR’s mission and work at key conferences and meetings.
  • Supervise part-time support staff to ensure the timely maintenance of development tracking systems.

Key Qualifications & Skills:

  • 3+ years nonprofit development experience.
  • Strong background in foundation fundraising and demonstrated success securing foundation grants
  • Exceptional writing skills, including the ability to convey complex ideas in a clear and compelling way.
  • Strong verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
  • Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to manage multiple deadlines.
  • Computer and web savvy.

Compensation:

ILSR provides a competitive salary and compensation package including health insurance, paid vacation, and a retirement plan.

How to Apply: 

Please send a cover letter, résumé, and two writing samples reflecting your original work to info@ilsr.org[2].  The subject line should read “Director of Development Application.”  No phone calls, please.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. info@ilsr.org: mailto:smitchell@ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/job-opening-director-development/


Second National Cultivating Community Composting Forum – October 25th

by Brenda Platt | October 13, 2014 5:18 pm

ILSR is pleased to announce — along with co-organizers BioCycle and Civic Works — the second national Cultivating Community Composting[1], a day-long forum (10:00 AM-4:30 PM) on October 25th, 2014 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Like the first forum (held in Columbus, Ohio), this event will bring together composters to network, share best practices, and build support for community scale composting systems and enterprises.

The second national Cultivating Community Composting Forum is being held at the Rita Church Community Center in Baltimore, Maryland’s Clifton Park, where Civic Works’ Real Food Farm is located.

The forum will address a range of topics, including composting methods, permitting and financing, training, bike-powered collection, integrating composting into food production, and community engagement.

The fee to participate is $35 and includes lunch and a tour of the Real Food Farm’s on-site composting and farm.

More information and Online Registration.[2]

Community composting programs range from urban to rural and include demonstration/training sites, schools, universities, pedal-powered collection systems, worker-owned cooperatives, community gardens, and farms employing multiple composting techniques. Many but not all are non-profit mission driven enterprises.  Their distinguishing feature is keeping the process and product as local as possible while engaging the community through participation and education.

Click for more information on ILSR’s community composting work[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Cultivating Community Composting: http://www.biocycle.net/communitycomposting/
  2. More information and Online Registration.: http://www.biocycle.net/communitycomposting/
  3. Click for more information on ILSR’s community composting work: https://ilsr.org/growing-local-fertility/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cultivating-community-composting-forum/


Scotland and Catalonia: Fraternal but not Twins

by David Morris | October 10, 2014 11:12 am

Scotland and Catalonia are brothers in arms. Independence movement leaders communicate regularly.  On September 18, when Scotland voted on uncoupling from the United Kingdom Catalans were there.  When Catalonia votes on independence, a vote originally scheduled for November 9th but delayed pending a court decision, Scots will certainly be in attendance.

Scotland and Catalonia have much in common: similar populations (Scotland 5.5 million, Catalonia 7.5 million), a similar fraction of their Mother Country’s population (Scotland 8.4 percent, Catalonia 16 percent), a similar historical moment when they lost their sovereignty (Scotland 1707, Catalonia 1714), a similar historical discrimination against their native languages (Gaelic and Catalan).

But in key ways the two are quite different. All of Scotland was never militarily conquered by England.   It voluntarily entered into what became the United Kingdom and retained many of its institutions, although not its Parliament. Catalonia, on the other hand, fell to the Bourbon King Felipe V after a brutal two-year siege of Barcelona.  In the aftermath Catalan institutions were wiped out and the use of the Catalan language severely constrained.  In the 1930s Catalonia was the center of resistance to Franco and fascism and when Franco, with the aid of Germany, won he deepened its cultural annihilation to the point where even reading in Catalan made one subject to arrest.

In Catalonia language is an essential point of dispute.  In Scotland it is not.  While both countries revived education in their ancient languages in the 1980s, Catalonia was much more aggressive.  Catalan is Catalonia’s official language.  Schools teach Spanish only as a foreign language.  Today less than 2 percent of Scotland speaks Gaelic while more than 45 percent of Catalonia speak Catalan.

One of the major factors spurring Scots to vote for independence is their opposition to what many Scots view as the mean spirited policies embraced by Whitehall.  When Scotland has the authority to make decisions, theirs are quite different than the Tories. Unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom, the costs of a university education, and care services for the elderly are free in Scotland. There are many other policy differences. Scots are much more favorable to continued membership in the European Union. Scotland wants to eliminate nuclear weapons.  In contrast, policy differences, except with regard to language and fiscal flows, do not appear to be a major factor in the drive for Catalonia’s independence.

If Scotland were to go independent, it would almost certainly endure fiscal hardship.  Catalonia, on the other hand, would handsomely benefit.

Scotland accounts for 8.4 percent of the UK population and 8.3 percent of the UK’s total output.  Under the current spending formula Scotland receives about £31000 ($5000) more per capita than England.  By one calculation[1] even if Scotland were to receive 90 percent of the North Sea oil revenue, something the UK would never allow, the subsidy would simply drop to £2100 ($3400).

Most of the people voting for Scottish independence seemed to understand this.  Economic betterment wasn’t a persuasive factor for the Yes voter.  Only 20 percent were guided[2] by the belief that “on balance, Scotland’s future looked brighter as an independent country.”  Some 70 percent embraced “the principle that all decisions about Scotland should be taken in Scotland.”

Catalonia has 16 percent of the Spanish population while comprising 20 percent of Spain’s economy. Although most wealthier regions of Spain and other European countries run fiscal deficits (they generate more tax revenue than they receive back) Catalonia’s deficit is comparatively much greater. For example, southeast England is 17 percent wealthier than other English regions and has a fiscal deficit of a little over 6 percent.  Paris is 51 percent richer than other parts of France and runs a fiscal deceit of a little over 4 percent.  Catalonia is 22 percent richer than the average Spanish region but runs a fiscal deficit of 7-10 percent.  By one estimate Catalonian annual subsidies to the rest of Spain may be as much as £2600 ($4200) per capita.  Catalonia argues that the fiscal deficit is one of the reasons that its economic growth in recent years has been slower than other regions. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. calculation: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-16477990
  2. guided: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Lord-Ashcroft-Polls-Referendum-day-poll-summary-1409191.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/scotland-catalonia-fraternal-twins/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/scotland-catalonia-fraternal-twins/


Waste as a Boon for Economic Development with Neil Seldman – October 22nd

by Neil Seldman | October 8, 2014 12:35 pm

How can we create jobs from our recycling program? What are other communities and regions doing to reduce waste while supporting economic development? What type of impact can community composting programs have on job creation?

On October 22nd, from 10am-12 noon, the Town of DeWitt Sustainability Committee, the CNY Recycling Jobs Task Force, NYS Assemblyman Sam Roberts, and County Legislators Linda Ervin and Dave Knapp, in cooperation with other local partners will host Neil Seldman, ILSR, at DeWitt Town Hall (Onondaga County, NY) to address local elected official, local businesses and the public regarding potential benefits of recycling and related jobs.

Mr. Seldman will discuss programs like pay as you throw, deconstruction and resale of building materials, household food recovery programs, zero waste planning, municipal purchasing, and other initiative from communities throughout North America that have been successful in supporting the growth and development of local economies.

More information[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. More information: http://www.townofdewitt.com/Calendars.aspx?EventID=696&Date=10%2f19%2f2014&EventDate=10%2f22%2f2014&Mode=Week

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/waste-boon-economic-development-neil-seldman-october-22nd/


A Localist Agenda: Policy and Politics for Building a Community-Scaled Economy (Video)

by Stacy Mitchell | October 1, 2014 12:51 pm

placeholder[1]

Chief among the barriers we face in trying to transform our economic system is a web of local, state, and federal policies that concentrate economic power, undermine community-scaled enterprises and systems, and strip citizens of their capacity and authority to determine their own economic future.

In this panel at the New Economy Coalition’s 2014 conference, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell, together with Barry Lynn of the Open Markets[2] and Aaron Bartley of PUSH Buffalo[3], talk about crafting a countervailing political narrative and shared policy framework for devolving economic power and building a community-scaled economy.

Lynn speaks first, reflecting on the anti-monopoly thinking that guided America’s political economy from the country’s founding until the 1980s and how it might be resurrected in today’s context.  Mitchell then presents an emerging policy agenda that outlines concrete municipal, state, and federal proposals for countering corporate power and rebuilding community-scaled enterprises.  Finally, Bartley discusses organizing strategies and how PUSH is building power in Buffalo.  The session is moderated by Lew Daly of Demos[4].

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Open Markets: https://openmarketsinstitute.org
  3. PUSH Buffalo: http://pushbuffalo.org
  4. Demos: http://www.demos.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/localist-agenda-policy-politics-building-community-scaled-economy-2/


All Hands On Deck: Minnesota Local Government Models for Expanding Fiber Internet Access

by Christopher Mitchell | September 30, 2014 1:01 am

Minneapolis, MN —In 2010 the Minnesota legislature set a goal: universal access to high speed broadband throughout the state by 2015. As 2015 approaches we know that large parts of Greater Minnesota will not achieve that goal, even as technological advances make the original benchmarks increasingly obsolete.

But some Minnesota communities are significantly exceeding those goals. Why? The activism of local governments.

A new report by ILSR, widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable organizations on municipal broadband networks, details the many ways Minnesota’s local governments have stepped up. “All Hands On Deck: Minnesota Local Government Models for Expanding Fiber Internet Access” includes case studies of 12 Minnesota cities and counties striving to bring their citizens 21st century telecommunications.

“When national cable and telephone companies have refused to modernize their communications systems, local governments have stepped up. And in the process saved money, attracted new businesses, and made it more likely that their youth will stick around,” says Chris Mitchell, Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s (ILSR) Community Broadband Networks Initiative.

  • Windom, which is one of the most advanced networks in the state, built their own network after their telephone company refused to invest in their community.
  • Dakota County showed how a coordinated excavation policy can reduce by more than 90 percent the cost of installing fiber.
  • Lac qui Parle County partnered with a telephone cooperative to bring high speed broadband to its most sparsely population communities.

ILSR’s report is particularly timely because this week, the governor’s office began accepting applications for the state’s new $20 million initiative Border-to-Border program.  “We hope that before communities submit their applications they read this report to learn what others have done,” says Mitchell.

 

Cover All Hands HifijpgClick here to read and download the full report.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance presents this in-depth case study co-authored by Lisa Gonzalez and Christopher Mitchell.

Read ongoing stories about these networks at ILSR’s site devoted to Community Broadband Networks[1].  You can also subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks[2].

 

ABOUT Community Broadband Networks (http://www.muninetworks.org[3]):

At MuniNetworks.org, we provide resources for those joining the movement to build broadband networks that are directly accountable to the communities they serve.

As more community leaders realize the economic benefits of faster, more reliable Internet services, they are pursuing local control of connectivity through public ownership, cooperative models, and other nonprofit approaches.

The vast majority of community broadband networks, particularly fiber-to-the-home networks, have lowered prices and spurred job growth in their communities. We find out what works, and help other communities replicate these results. MuniNetworks.org is a trusted voice for community networks, our team advises high-ranking broadband decision-makers, and speaks on radio and television programs in markets across the United States.

 

ABOUT ILSR (http://www.ilsr.org[4]):

We believe we make better and more informed policies when those who design those policies are those who feel their impact.

ILSR works with citizens, activists, policymakers and entrepreneurs to provide them with innovative strategies and working models that support environmentally sound and equitable economic policies and community development. Since 1974, ILSR has championed local self-reliance, a strategy that underscores the need for humanly scaled institutions and economies and the widest possible distribution of ownership. 

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Networks: http://MuniNetworks.org
  2. subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  3. http://www.muninetworks.org: http://www.muninetworks.org
  4. http://www.ilsr.org: http://www.ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/all-hands-on-deck-mn/


Demos and ILSR Co-Host a Convening on Building a Policy Movement for New Economy Transformation

by Stacy Mitchell | September 29, 2014 2:37 pm

Image: Convening Cover[1]In September, ILSR partnered with Dēmos[2] to co-host a convening on New Economy Transformation: Building a Policy Movement[3]. The event, held in New York City, brought together about 30 leading thinkers and organizers to begin forging a new phase of policy development and campaigning with the aim of fundamentally reorganizing economic power to be rooted in and serve communities.

ILSR and Dēmos collaborated with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies[4] and its Local Economy Fellowship Program in designing meeting.  The fellows helped orient the discussion, in part, around the potentially significant role of local business leaders in achieving an equitable and sustainable future.

Over the course of two days, participants developed a shared vision for a new economy; discussed substantive challenges for growing this movement, particularly around worker justice, racial equity, and job creation at scale; assessed and prioritized high-impact policy ideas; and began identifying strategies for coordinated policy campaigns in multiple states and cities.

We hope and anticipate that the conversation begun at this convening will be the starting point for building a long-term movement to transform public policy.  Stay tuned for more details from the convening and next steps.

 

Working Paper-A Local Business Policy Roadmap[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Demos-ILSR-Convening-OrientationPacket.pdf
  2. Dēmos: http://www.demos.org
  3. New Economy Transformation: Building a Policy Movement: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Demos-ILSR-Convening-OrientationPacket.pdf
  4. Business Alliance for Local Living Economies: https://bealocalist.org/
  5. Working Paper-A Local Business Policy Roadmap: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Working-Paper-A-Local-Business-Policy-Roadmap.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/demos-ilsr-convening-building-policy-movement-economy-transformation/


Review: Zero Waste: “Nil to Landfill” Is Now a Practical Goal

by Neil Seldman | September 18, 2014 2:41 pm

A Review of a March 2014 social impact report from the Wharton School of Business, Philadelphia, PA, by Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC

Changes in solid waste management have indeed made a great social impact in the past few years. However, the Wharton School’s Social Impact March 2014 report, Zero Waste: “Nil to Landfill” Is Now a Practical Goal[1], gives only a glimpse of how new expectations have shifted attitudes, technologies and practices about what recycling can do for a local economy in the near future. Another flaw in the review is its lack of precision when using the terms “zero waste,” and “Extended Producer Responsibility” or “EPR.” As a result, while the report introduces interesting and innovative information on businesses and projects, it leaves the reader behind when it comes to appreciating the current state of the art.

The “nil to landfill” claim is a new approach by companies trying to win customer support for their green works. The reality is that, while claiming “zero waste to landfill,” these companies send their wastes to incinerators. All incinerators need landfills for ash and bypass wastes; these byproducts make up about 20% of the waste stream by volume. For decades, the counties in southern Florida counties have reached the “zero waste to landfill” goal. So when Florida declared a 75% goal to diversion, these counties were already covered. Alachua County has a goal of 75% without incineration. The current flirtation with garbage incineration in all its forms is, in fact, a repetition of 1980s and ’90s efforts to build more than 300 facilities. Only a few of those ended up being built. Today’s wave—an estimated 100 garbage incineration proposals—is meeting a similar demise at the hands of citizen and environmental activists and small businesses. Most recently, there has been a big shift in strategy. The industry is moving away from building new incinerators: rather, companies like WMI will focus on prepared or processed fuels from mixed garbage to be burned in relatively small facilities that are below the EPA threshold for pollution controls, with no community opposition.

Wharton’s report presents good information on real zero waste developments: for example, it includes a description of Paul Connett’s new book, The Zero Waste Solution (Chelsea Green, 2013). This book is the best source of up-to-date information from around the world. The report also cites achievements in Italy—in Capannori, for example—that  Connett documents in his book. There is a growing European movement against incineration: officials are backing away from the practice in favor of recycling and composting.

At the same time, European countries are moving away from the EPR system that gave industry a monopoly over recycling. This program is being demonopolized as recycling costs have soared without competition. As new companies are allowed to enter the sector, officials are seeing a 50% reduction in the costs of recycling. The report does not cover the dramatic changes in US EPR policies, which are eschewing brand-name corporation control of EPR in favor of individual company EPR that supports the local recycling industry instead of replacing it. Corporate control over EPR and recycling has been proposed by leading environmental and industry groups such as Recycle Reinvented and NRDC.

There has been strong recycling industry push back against the corporate dominated model. The city of Berkeley, Calif. originally adopted a corporate EPR ‘Framework’ espoused by the Product Packaging Institute, renamed Upstream. The Citizens Zero Waste Commission proposed an alternative approach to EPR that establishes local agency control, subject to citizen discussion and debate. The City Council approved the new EPR policy.  In British Columbia, monopolization, nexus with incineration, confusion and business resistance followed the introduction of the unpopular EPR System. These events reinforced the negative posture to this concentrated form of EPR. Sims, Inc., the largest metals recycling company in the world, closed its facilities in Ontario and British Columbia as a result of their EPR policies. The retrenchment from corporate EPR was a grassroots effort on the part of recycling practitioners and activists acting to protect a robust industry that has been nurtured for the past 40 years, and that has achieved one million jobs, 65,000 companies, and 10,000 local government programs. It regularly delivers 100 million tons of raw materials to US agriculture and industry.

The discussion of EPR also must distinguish between discarded materials that are not wanted in the community—e.g. toxic materials—and what materials are wanted in the community, e.g., materials and products to which you can add value through manufacturing and processing jobs and tax base. EPR works well on the former, not on the latter.

The report mentions the achievements of San Francisco’s recycling and composting systems, but overlooks perhaps a more interesting situation across the Bay. In Berkeley, the recycling rate is equal to that of San Francisco, but a community-based ecology of commerce has flourished. Six agencies—nonprofits, for-profits and city departments—accomplish what in San Francisco requires a unique city charter monopoly.

Alas, the report does not focus at all on composting, which is expanding rapidly to over 200 municipal collection programs and hundreds of new companies and community-based eco-farms. A new generation of equipment has been introduced to meet the needs of this new sector of the recycling industry. Similarly, the report fails to mention reuse enterprises, which are also expanding rapidly. These companies focus on the 5% of the waste stream that is repairable and reusable, and can add value that is equivalent to 50% of all other recovered recycled materials.

It is  true that the economy is on the path to zero waste, but not because of the factors enumerated in the Wharton Report. Rather, as has always been the case, the prime movers in recycling, reuse and composting are organized citizens and small businesses, focused at the local level of government. This is where decisions on recycling and waste are made. Yes, individual companies do at times introduce better products and packaging, but the engine of reform and change has come, and continues to come, from the ground up.

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Endnotes:
  1. Zero Waste: “Nil to Landfill” Is Now a Practical Goal: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/zero-waste-nil-landfill-now-practical-goal/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/review-waste-nil-landfill-practical-goal/


Scotland, Sovereignty and Corporations

by David Morris | September 12, 2014 8:14 am

Since 1945 the number of nations has soared from about 60 to more than 180.  The first wave of new sovereign states came with the decolonization movement of the 1960s and 1970s; the second in the early 1990s with the break-up of the Soviet Union. Scotland’s independence movement is part of a third wave. Dozens of would-be nations are waiting in the wings:  Wales, Catalonia, Flanders, Brittany, the list is long.

In 1957 in his classic book The Breakdown of Nations economist and political scientist Leopold Kohr persuasively and rigorously argued that small nations are the natural order having been throughout history the engines for enlightenment, innovation, mutual aid and the arts.  The large nation state, he argued is not a reflection of improved efficiency but of superior force.

It is the great powers which lack the real basis of existence and are without autochthonous, self-sustaining sources of strength. It is they that are the artificial structures, holding together a medley of more or less unwilling little tribes. There is no Great British’ nation in Great Britain. What we find are the English, Scots, Irish, Cornish, Welsh, and the islanders of Man. In Italy, we find the Lombards, Tyroleans, Venetians, Sicilians, or Romans. In Germany we find Bavarians, Saxons, Hessians, Rhinelanders, or Brandenburgers. And in France, we find Normans, Catalans, Alsatians, Basques, or Burgundians. These little nations came into existence by themselves, while the great powers had to be created by force and a series of bloodily unifying wars. Not a single component part joined them voluntarily. They all had to be forced into them, and could be retained by them only by means of their division into counties, Gaue, or departments. . . .”

With a population of 5.2 million, a sovereign Scotland would rank just below the median size of the world’s nations.  It could rest assured that nations of its size can thrive.  Think Finland, Costa Rica, Ireland, Norway.  Small nations are easier to administer, more nimble in policy and their governments are more accountable to and reflective of their communities. Indeed, it is the divergence between the values of the Scottish culture and those of the Conservative government in Whitehall that has been a major impetus for independence.   That divergence is reflected in the fact that today only one Tory holds a seat from Scotland in the British Parliament.

Prime Minister Cameron’s Conservatives advocate welfare cuts, austerity and privatization.  They enthusiastically embrace what the Scots would call the mean values of the Conservatives heroine Maggie Thatcher who summed up her thinking with the famous phrase,  “There is no such thing as society.”

The Scots most definitely believe there is a thing called society. The Scottish National Party, which controls the Scottish government and supports independence, wants to get rid of nuclear weapons, raise the minimum wage in line with inflation and begin a sweeping extension of child care. It is also more favorable toward immigration and the European Union than the British government.

“There is more of a communitarian viewpoint in Scotland that sees the value of coming together to provide public services, to acknowledge the strength of community in Scotland,” Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s deputy first minister told[1] the New York Times.

But if Scotland does become sovereign it will quickly discover that that sovereignty has been severely restricted by new global rules promoted by increasingly dominant global corporations.   Nations may be getting smaller, but corporations are getting larger. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, more than half are global corporations. The Top 200 corporations’ combined sales represent over one quarter of the world’s GDP. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. told: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/world/europe/the-chasm-tilting-scots-toward-independence.html?_r=0
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/scotland-sovereignty-corporations/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/scotland-sovereignty-corporations/


Webinar September 16, 2014 – Community Composting: Lessons from NYC

by Brenda Platt | September 10, 2014 9:21 am

ILSR’s Brenda Platt presented at a free webinar, “Community Composting:  Lessons from New York City & Beyond,” on September 16, 2014.

Community composting presents a scalable food diversion option that is applicable in virtually any community, whether urban, suburban, or rural. Community compost programs can be established at community (neighborhood, urban, or tribal) gardens, farms, schools, or other locations. They can be operated by not-for-profit organizations, governments, private sector, schools, housing associations, cooperatives, or through other arrangements.

Operations can serve as demonstration or training sites and/or serve as an effective solution for initiating food scrap processing. Food scrap drop-off collection can take place at community compost sites, farmers markets, transit stations, or other locations. An essential role that community composting can play in the evolution of food scrap diversion is to educate and involve residents in learning about food scrap diversion, the benefits of composting, the uses for compost products, and how the resulting compost products can benefit the community.

New York City’s Compost Project is a community-scale composting network that works to increase capacity and participation in composting in NYC. The city has developed partnerships to provide collection and processing of residential food scraps through its community composting network, along with pilot food scrap collections at multi- family units and schools. In NYC, an estimated 200,000 people participate in the community food scrap collection.

Presenters and Topics

Community Composting—a Model for any Community – Brenda Platt, Co-Director, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Director, Composting Makes $en$e Project, & lead author of the new report Growing Local Fertility: Guide to Community Composting

Growing Organics Collections in NYC: The Evolution of the GrowNYC Food Scrap Collection Program & More – David Hurd, Director, Office of Recycling Outreach & Education, GrowNYC

Community Composting in Action – Christine Datz-Romero, Executive Director, Lower East Side Ecology Center

Sponsored by the Northeast Recycling Council • Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) • New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/webinar-september-16-2014-community-composting-lessons-nyc/


Debating the Role of Government in Somerset Kentucky

by David Morris | September 10, 2014 9:08 am

When two politicians debate the role of government, it is almost always Democrat vs. Republican.  Which is why it was so refreshing and instructive to read of the debate taking place among Republicans in a small city in southeastern Kentucky.

On July 19, after years of complaints about local gasoline prices being higher than those in surrounding communities, the City of Somerset decided to take matters into its own hands and began selling gasoline directly to the public.  Two term State Senator Chris Girdler immediately declared, “socialism is alive and well in Somerset.”  Two term Mayor Eddie Girdler, a distant cousin responded[1], “If government doesn’t do it to protect the public, then who does it?”

In an interview State Senator Girdler, paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum insisted,  “the government is not the answer – government’s the problem.”    Regrettably the interviewer did not remind the readers that government laid the very foundation of Somerset’s economy.  In 1950 the Army Corps of Engineers completed construction of one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. A little over 100 miles in length with an average depth of 85 feet, Lake Cumberland “transformed[2] Somerset from a sleepy rural community into one of the largest recreation centers in Kentucky, drawing more than 1.7 million visitors annually.”   It would have been instructive to discover whether Senator Girdler would describe Lake Cumberland as a “socialist enterprise.”

Girdler wants to protect us from big government. Senator Girdler approvingly cites[3] Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum, “You can’t be for big government, big taxes and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.” Mayor Girdler wants to protect us from the predations big giant corporation and he views government as a proper vehicle for doing so. “It’s the role of government to protect us from big business,” he maintains[4].

Somerset’s foray into retail gasoline sales is not the first time it has used its collective authority on behalf of the little guy. In 1951 the city established a municipally owned natural gas company. In the mid 1970s, regular natural gas shortages spurred this city of 11,000 to borrow $4.5 million from Farmers Home Administration to build a natural gas pipeline to previously landlocked producers in eastern Kentucky as well as a pipeline westward to a Texas Eastern Transmission terminal. Today Somerset owns and operates 155 miles of pipelines that connect to three major national natural gas transmission companies.  It purchases natural gas directly from more than a dozen producers while also transporting producers’ gas to more distant markets.

In 2011 Somerset opened a natural gas stripping plant to upgrade the quality and monetary value of the natural gas.  In 2012 it began converting its public vehicle fleets to compressed natural gas, a conversion that by now is almost complete and became the first in Kentucky to sell natural gas to privately owned vehicles.

In 2010 storage capacity for 100,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel became available at a bargain price. Entrepreneurial Somerset quickly snapped it up, gaining the ability to control costs by purchasing gasoline when prices are low.  Mayor Girdler estimates the city recouped its investment within two years and has been sharing the savings with 11 other public entities as well as Somerset’s independent schools.

The retail gasoline station comes after years of resident complaints about the high price of gasoline in Somerset compared to the surrounding area.  In 2011 the city extended an open invitation from city to local gasoline state business owners to explain why that is so.  All declined to attend.

In June, after two years of public debate, the city council voted 10-0 to authorize the city to sell gasoline. “We couldn’t get anywhere, and we decided that hey, we might as well take a stand in a small way of saying that we’re tired of it…and it is working”, says[5] Mayor Girdler.

Somerset’s new public gasoline fuel center is consciously designed not to drive local gas stations out of business.  It sells only regular gasoline, has no convenience store and doesn’t advertise.  Its goal from day one has been to make the local price of gasoline competitive with the regional price. In fact, the price of gasoline at the Somerset Fuel Center is set at the average regional gasoline price. So far the venture appears to be accomplishing its objective. The day the public gas station opened prices in Somerset dropped to or below those in surrounding communities.

Ultimately, Somerset is not targeting local gas stations but rather global Marathon Oil.  As Mayor Girdler explains[6], “We are one community that decided we’ve got backbone and we’re not going to allow the oil companies to dictate to us what we can and cannot do.”

Marathon’s acquisition of Ashland Oil in 1998 virtually eliminated the competitive gasoline market in much of Kentucky.  After an investigation of price gouging the Kentucky Attorney General’s office noted[7],  “It doesn’t matter if you’re at Chevron. It doesn’t matter if you’re at Thornton’s or Shell or Speedway. It is all Marathon Oil.”  Marathon sets the wholesale price and varies the price depending on how much it can get from the local market.

For decades Marathon had a wee bit of competition in the Somerset market from a small local refinery. But the Somerset Refinery declared bankruptcy in 2008.  In 2009 it reopened under new ownership.  The new owners should have found a ready supply of crude oil from local small oil producers eager to save $5-6 per barrel by transporting to Somerset rather than to Marathon’s more remote refinery. But Marathon began offering handsome incentives to trucker brokers who would go 172 miles northeast of Somerset to deliver to its refinery in Catlettsburg.

On December 15, 2009 the CEO of Somerset Energy Refining wrote[8] an open letter to Marathon pleading with its CEO to cease this anti-competitive practice.  Marathon refused. In early 2010 Somerset Refinery’s biggest supplier diverted to Marathon.  The company declared bankruptcy.  “We simply weren’t able to buy enough crude oil to process to keep our doors open,” said Ed Phelps, spokesman for the company.

In 2011 the local refinery reopened once again under new management, this time with a new name, Continental Refining Company (CRC).  CRC’s refinery is 2 percent the size of Marathon’s but the new owners have long experience in the oil and gasoline business and deeper pockets than the previous owners.  So far it seems to be faring well and has played a key role in allowing Somerset to set up a competing gas station.

Mayor Girdler is up for reelection this November.  Whatever happens, a tip of the hat to Somerset, Kentucky for making concrete the sometimes abstract and always ideological debate about the role of government and the value of collective action.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. responded: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/kentucky-city-battles-high-gas-prices-public-fuel/story?id=24680171
  2. transformed: https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Somerset,_Kentucky.html
  3. cites: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/07/25/somerset-business-running-business/13145633/
  4. maintains: http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Kentucky-Town-Public-Gasoline-Station-Big-Oil/2014/07/24/id/584712/
  5. says: http://www.npr.org/2014/08/13/340085122/city-run-gas-station-makes-waves-in-southeastern-kentucky
  6. explains: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/kentucky-town-opens-retail-filling-station-is-criticized-as-promoting-socialism/2014/07/19/2d3dc5b0-0f61-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html
  7. noted: http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/FTC-could-investigate-Kentuckys-high-gas-prices-soon-261189351.html
  8. wrote: http://irjci.blogspot.com/2009/12/repoened-rural-refinery-in-kentucky.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/debating-role-government-republican-somerset-kentucky/


Ultimate Solar Calculator “App” Helps You Choose: To Own or Lease?

by John Farrell | September 4, 2014 12:10 pm

Note: the “Ultimate Solar Calculator” has been updated and simplified[1]. Stay tuned for an updated complex version of this same calculator.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the comeback of solar ownership[2] relative to leasing, as the cost of rooftop solar PV continues to fall and new financing options make ownership easier than ever.

Is owning a solar panel right for you? Find out now!

The calculator below lets you compare (leasing) apples to (ownership) apples, and the chart below the calculator shows the value of your solar investment over 15, 25, and 30 years.

The default inputs are good estimates based on ILSR’s research, but you can customize the comparison extensively. The key elements in the ownership v. leasing comparison are in orange, but other options (like nearest city) will make the actual numbers accurate to your location.

Scroll below the calculator for explanations of the inputs[3].

Keep in mind that solar panels typically carry a 20-year warranty, but most panels are expected to continue producing electricity for 30 years or more.

The Ultimate Solar Calculator from ILSR


Embed this calculator on your website[4]

Calculator Terms

Solar project size, cost, and electricity production

  • Annual kWh – the estimated amount of kilowatt-hours of electricity produced by the solar array each year.
  • Nearest city – (used to estimate the solar production)
  • Annual output degrade – the annual decrease in the solar production of the solar array, typically 0.5%
  • System size – the size of the solar array in kilowatts
  • Cost per Watt – the cost, including hardware and labor, to install the solar array per Watt of capacity
  • Total installed cost – self-evident, I hope
  • 30% federal tax credit – the cash value of the 30% federal tax credit (available through 2016)
  • State tax credit – state tax credit, if applicable
  • Utility/State rebate – utility or state rebate, if applicable

Economic Assumptions

  • General price inflation – estimated inflation in prices, for estimating the long-term investment value
  • Discount rate – an economists calculation of the time value of money. Default of 8% suggests that you’d value 92¢ today as much as $1.00 next year
  • Real discount rate – discount rate minus inflation rate
  • Net metering rate per kWh – the price for solar energy produced, in dollars per kilowatt-hour. Typically the same rate as is paid for electricity from the utility.

Financing Terms

  • Interest rate – the interest rate on the loan
  • Down payment (financing terms) – the down payment on the loan
  • year term – the term, in years, of the loan
  • Note: some solar loans now include a maintenance-free contract[5], like a solar lease

Leasing Terms

  • Down payment (leasing terms) – the down payment on the lease
  • Lease price inflation – the annual increase in the lease payment
  • 1st monthly payment – the initial monthly payment for the lease
  • Electricity. price inflation – the expected annual increase in electricity prices (historically 3%, but higher in many areas in the past 5-10 years)
  • 15-year buyout price – the price, in dollars, for a leasing customer to buy the solar array after the lease expires (if available)

Embed Code:
<iframe width="762" height="897" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=6BF9122C0EDC4359&resid=6BF9122C0EDC4359%21152&authkey=APphyo05DnZCF54&em=2&AllowTyping=True&Item=NPVChart&wdHideGridlines=True&wdDownloadButton=True"></iframe>
Photo credit:  Derek Gavey[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. updated and simplified: http://www.ilsr.org/?p=40986
  2. the comeback of solar ownership: https://ilsr.org/solar-ownership-poised-comeback/
  3. explanations of the inputs: #glossary
  4. Embed this calculator on your website: #embed
  5. some solar loans now include a maintenance-free contract: https://ilsr.org/solar-ownership-poised-comeback/
  6. Derek Gavey: http://www.flickr.com/photos/derekgavey/6160041079/in/photolist-aokPAP-6Hh8rk-kvNTUB-8Hj1Cg-7JVDCE-dfexY3-9Ajs9g-6bLJqe-dfeyG3-eqnud-99WnKp-eqi7Q-eqi7H-eqi7P-7CifQq-9aMcna-4ftXGe-fcjfv3-dAT72J-36CYxR-hZygMk-a8c9GZ-5y7iff-D9JLg-4kr4Fj-8HSBLq-7QM9Nq-6kb6Cs-5pfpjj-8hYLvj-5XVXnf-eqnub-eqnuc-eqi7J-eqi7M-eqi7L-7CerbB-9nd4Wb-9hj4id-yu31a-7ADeR9-4k2hrk-4syeRB-66PU2s-as6oSo-7x9bNo-a1z1ib-2N1oq2-a2wArk-753DfN

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ultimate-solar-calculator/


UK Rail Privatization 20 years Later

by David Morris | September 2, 2014 4:26 pm

The United Kingdom privatized its national rail system in 1993. Some 20 years later the unsurprising consequences of transforming a public monopoly into a private monopoly are clear. Higher prices. Worse service. Even more public subsidies. Read the article.

 

 

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/uk-rail-privatization-20-years/


This November We Can Regain Local Authority Over the Internet

by David Morris | September 2, 2014 3:53 pm

In July the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stirred up a hornets’ nest by announcing it might overturn state prohibitions on municipally owned broadband networks. Republicans protested that Washington should keep its grubby hands off state authority. Giant cable and phone companies contended that local governments are incapable of managing telecommunications networks and the resulting failure will burden taxpayers.

The national debate is both welcome and timely.  Welcome because it is grounded while addressing some of the most fundamental issues of our time: What is the role of government?  What is the value of competition?  What is the meaning of democracy?  Timely because we are entering the home stretch of an election year where most state legislators are up for re-election.  And because we confront the prospect of mergers between giants Comcast and Time Warner and AT&T and DIRECTTV that may operate under new rules that allow them greater ability to discriminate against other providers.

Some background to the FCC’s decision may be in order.  In the early 2000s, exasperated by poor service, high prices and the condescending refusal of cable and phone companies to upgrade their networks, cities began to build their own.   Today 150 cities have laid fiber or cable to every address in town. Another 250 offer Internet access to either businesses or residents. About 1,000 have created school or library networks. See map[1].

The vast majority of these networks have proven wildly successful.  The borough of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, for example, saved an estimated $2 million in just the first few years after constructing one of the nation’s first fiber networks, a result of lower rates by the muni network and price reductions by the incumbent cable company in response to competitive pressure. Bristol Virginia estimates its network has saved residents and businesses over $10 million. Lafayette, Louisiana estimates savings of over $90 million.  (The benefits of muni networks have been amply catalogued by the Community Broadband Initiative[2].

Competition by public networks has spurred cable and phone companies to upgrade. After Monticello, Minnesota moved ahead with its citywide fiber network TDS, its incumbent telco, began building its own despite having maintained for years that no additional investments were needed. After Lafayette began building its network, incumbent cable company Cox, having previously dismissed customer demands for better service as pure conjecture scrambled to upgrade.

It’s true that some public networks have had significant financial losses, although it is usually bondholders, not taxpayers who feel the pain.  But compared to the track record of private telecoms, public sector management looks like a paragon of financial probity.

In 2002, after disclosing $2.3 billion in off balance sheet debt and the indictment of five corporate officials for financial shenanigans Adelphia declared bankruptcy.  In 2009 Charter collapsed resulting in an $8 billion loss after four executives were indicted for improper financial reporting. In 2009 FairPoint Communications declared bankruptcy, resulting in a loss of more than $1 billion. WorldCom, TNCI, Cordia Communications, AstroTel, Norvergence.  The list of private telecommunications companies that have been mismanaged to the point of collapse is long.

We should bear in mind that investors will deduct the losses from their taxes.  Thus the cost to taxpayers of private corporate mismanagement arguably has been far greater than that caused by losses in public networks.

In any event, as FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told[3] a House Communications Subcommittee in May, “I understand that the experience with community broadband is mixed, that there have been both successes and failures. But if municipal governments want to pursue it, they shouldn’t be inhibited by state laws that have been adopted at the behest of incumbent providers looking to limit competition.”

If forced to, private companies will compete, but they much prefer to spend tens of millions of dollars buying the votes of state legislators to enact laws that forestall competition rather than spend hundreds of millions to improve their networks.

Today 4 states have outright bans.  Fifteen others impose severe restrictions.  In Utah, for example, if a public network wants to offer retail services, a far more profitable endeavor than providing wholesale services, it must demonstrate that each service provided will have a positive cash flow the first year!

After five North Carolina cities proved that muni networks could be hugely successful, Time Warner lobbied the state legislature to prohibit any imitators. Dan Ballister, Time Warner’s Director of Communications insisted[4], “We’re all for competition, as long as people are on a level playing field.”

Level playing field? Time Warner has annual revenues of $18 billion, more than 500 times greater than Salisbury, North Carolina’s $34 million budget. It has 14 million customers while Salisbury’s Fibrant network has about 2500.

Level playing field? Incumbent telephone and cable companies long ago amortized the costs of building their network. When a new competitor enters the market, it must build an entirely new network, passing the costs onto subscribers or investors in the form of higher prices or reduced margins. Large incumbents have far more leverage when negotiating cable channel contracts. A new network serving a single community might pay 25- 50 percent more for its channels.

The law Time Warner wrote and persuaded the North Carolina legislature to pass slants the playing field even more in favor of the giant telecoms. Time Warner can build networks anywhere in North Carolina but the public sector is limited to its municipal boundaries.  A public network must price its communication services based on the cost of capital available to private providers even if it can access capital more cheaply.

The North Carolina law, as with many such state laws, prohibits public networks from using surpluses from one part of the city to finance the telecommunications system. But the law doesn’t prohibit private networks from doing so. Time Warner can tap into profits from its vast customer base (largely in uncompetitive areas) to subsidize predatory pricing against muni competition. When Scottsboro, Alabama built a city wide cable network Charter used profits from other markets to offer Scottsboro customers a video package with 150 channels for less than $20 per month, even while Charter was charging customers in nearby communities over $70 for the same package. In a proceeding at the FCC, experts estimated[5] Charter was losing at least $100-$200 year on these deals and even more when factoring in the cost of six major door-to-door marketing campaigns.

Existing North Carolina law already required a referendum before a city can issue bonds to finance a public network. The new law specifically exempts cities from having to obtain voter approval “prior to the sale or discontinuance of the city’s communications network”.

Terry Huval, Director of Lafayette’s LUS Fiber describes[6] still other ways state laws favor incumbents.  “While Cox Communications can make rate decisions in a private conference room several states away, Lafayette conducts its business in an open forum, as it should. While Cox can make repeated and periodic requests for documents under the Public Records Law, it is not subject to a corresponding… Louisiana law limits the ability of a governmental enterprise to advertise, but nothing prevents the incumbent providers from spending millions of dollars in advertising campaigns.”

The FCC’s current proceeding came in response to petitions from two cities: Chattanooga, Tennessee and Wilson, North Carolina.  Both have very successful world-class muni networks.  Surrounding communities are clamoring to interconnect.  The Chattanooga Times Free Press[7] recently described the frustration and anger of people living tantalizingly close to these public networks.

 

“When Joyce Coltrin looks outside the front door of her wholesale plant business, her gaze stops at a spot less than a half mile away.

All she can do is stare in disbelief at the spot in rural Bradley County where access to EPB’s fiber-optic service abruptly halts, as mandated under a Tennessee law that has frozen the expansion of the fastest Internet in the Western Hemisphere…the small business owner has no access to wired Internet of any type, despite years of pleas to the private companies that provide broadband in her community.

‘The way I see it, Comcast and Charter and AT&T have had 15 years to figure out how to get Internet to us, and they’ve decided it’s not cost-effective,’ Coltrin said. ‘We have not been able to get anything because of these state laws, and through no fault of our own, we are treated as second-class citizens. They’ve just sort of held us hostage.’”

On July 16, House Republicans voted 221-4 to freeze FCC funding if it attempts to overturn state prohibitions.  Sixty Republican House members sent a letter to Wheeler declaring, “Without any doubt, state governments across the country understand and are more attentive to the needs of the American people than unelected federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.”  Eleven Republican Senators agreed, “States are much closer to their citizens and can meet their needs better than an unelected bureaucracy in Washington, D.C… State political leaders are accountable to the voters who elect them…”

But if state legislatures are closer to and more accountable to the people than the FCC or Congress surely city councils and county commissions are even closer and more accountable.

Ultimately then, this is a fight about democracy. Corporations prefer to fight in 50 remote state capitols rather than 30,000 local communities. But genuine democracy depends on allowing, to the greatest extent possible, those who feel the impact of decisions to be a significant part in the decision making process. Harold DePriest, head of Chattanooga’s municipally owned broadband network (and electricity company) poses the fundamental question this way, “(D)oes our community control our own fate, or does someone else control it?” Decisions about caps and rates and access, about the digital divide and net neutrality can be debated and made at the local level, not in some distant boardroom or having to rely on federal agencies to act and federal courts to support their actions.

If the FCC decides in favor of Chattanooga and Wilson the issue will be tied up in courts for years. But we shouldn’t need the federal government to come to our rescue. The elections this fall will revolve around many issues.  But given the centrality of high speed, affordable, reliable broadband and the looming prospect of even more corporate consolidation citizens this issue should be front and center. In 90 days, in 19 states that restrict municipal broadband, voters will be given the chance to overturn that decision by throwing out those who said no to local democracy.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. map: http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap
  2. Community Broadband Initiative: http://www.muninetworks.org/
  3. told: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/wheeler-praises-municipal-broadband-partnership/131463
  4. insisted: http://stopthecap.com/2010/11/02/salisbury-launches-fibrant-service-bringing-fiber-fast-broadband-to-more-north-carolinians/
  5. estimated: http://www.muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/breaking-bb-monopoly.pdf
  6. describes: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.muninetworks.org%2Fcontent%2Flafayette-and-level-playing-field&rct=j&q=lus%20fiber%2C%20While%20Cox%20Communications%20can%20make%20rate%20decisions%20in%20a%20private%20conference%20room%20several%20states%20away%2C%20Lafayette%20conducts%20its%20business%20in%20an%20open%20forum%2C%20as%20it%20should&ei=gGYDTqmSAYa3tgexiJX0DQ&usg=AFQjCNFkg3kCGMCZMEJG3rbsHGEQ9fu6sw&cad=rja
  7. Chattanooga Times Free Press: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/aug/29/high-speed-broadband-brings-high-stakes-battle/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/states-rights-local-democracy-future-broadband/


David Brancaccio Lets Us Down

by David Morris | September 2, 2014 3:39 pm

David Brancaccio is a solid reporter.  Perhaps the cognitive dissonance of talking about public ownership on a program called Marketplace caused him to go astray.  Nevertheless a few days ago he did his listeners a disservice when he commented[1] on the city of Somerset, Kentucky’s new venture: Selling gasoline directly to city residents.

Somerset’s entrepreneurialism got him to explore other municipal enterprises,   “I looked around for some precedents and they are interesting.”

So far so good.  Tens of thousands of precedents exist public ownership and they are indeed interesting.  But a listener to Brancaccio could not be faulted for coming away with the impression that public enterprises are few and far between.

Brancaccio began by observing, “Some cities have long had municipal public utilities. The power company in San Francisco is owned by the city and county, for instance.”

That’s an oddly understated way to talk about municipal electric companies.  Yes San Francisco owns a power company.  But the Hetch Hetchy’s series of dams were built primarily to provide water and the electricity they generated is delivered only to the public sector.  No sales are made to residences or businesses.  That’s the province of an investor owned utility, PG&E.

Much more instructive would have been the revelation that more than 2000 cities boast full fledged electric power companies, including big cities like Los Angeles, San Antonio, Austin and Seattle.   Better yet, Brancaccio might have described one or two of the many titanic struggles between plundering private, unresponsive corporations and the people that preceded the creation of these government enterprises.

Despite abundant evidence to the contrary Brancaccio insists that public enterprises are the exception.  “More typically however, the response to high prices or other perceived market failures has not been ownership of the retail outlet by a municipality. Instead, the solution is more often local citizens banding together. Heating fuel co-ops are common, in which locals pool resources to get a better price on oil by buying in bulk.”

Actually heating fuel coops are not at all common.  Only a few dozen exist and many of them are buying clubs, not genuine cooperatives.  On the other hand, more than 100 cities own their own natural gas companies, including Somerset, Kentucky where sales of compressed natural gas for vehicles anticipated the sale of gasoline.

Brancaccio might have educated his listeners about the latest wave of public enterprises– municipal broadband networks. In the last decade over 150 cities laid fiber or cable to every address in town. Another 250 offer Internet access to either businesses or residents. About 1,000 created school or library networks.

These municipal networks offer some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the country.  And their service is incomparably better than that offered by Comcast and Time Warner, although admittedly that is a very low bar.

Brancaccio is correct that often citizens band together to create cooperatives when the private sector fails them. But rather than talk about heating fuel coops he could instead have told his listeners about the great resurgence of the nation’s credit unions–7200 with 100 million members, up by 10 million in just the last six years, and $1 trillion in assets.

As I said, perhaps Brancaccio felt inhibited in talking about the virtues of public and cooperative ownership under the auspices of the Marketplace. When Marketplace reporters talk about business listeners can almost always be assured they are referring to private business not public enterprise.  Nevertheless, I hope Brancaccio revisits the issue in future broadcasts and lets people know that cooperative and government enterprises are not on the periphery of the economy but are a successful and growing component of it.

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Endnotes:
  1. commented: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/indie-economics/tale-city-service-station

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/david-brancaccio-lets/


Stafford Incinerator in Virginia Not “Financially Beneficial”

by Neil Seldman | August 22, 2014 11:46 am

The Regional Solid Waste Management Board that oversees the County and City of Fredericksburg landfill will not pursue a garbage and industrial waste incineration-gasification facility. The County received no bid that it considered financially beneficial to the County and City and dropped the project.

  • StopTheStaffordIncinerator.com[1] has submitted an FOI Request to obtain copies of the proposals submitted.
  • See local news story, R-board expected to toss alternative trash ideas.
  • Also see, Don’t make county an incinerator guinea pig
  • Also see, Stafford nowhere near landfill capacity

Citizens who have been opposed to the project for several years were pleased with the decision and are now pressing the County to implement expanded recycling and composting. Despite having decades left of landfill capacity, the regional authority wanted an incinerator. Now Bill Johnson, StopTheStaffordIncinerator.com[1] activist, wants to unite the government, business and citizens to plan and implement recycling and enterprises expansion under a zero waste policy initiative. The county and city have decades of landfill capacity available; a key reason, why there was no need to rush into an incinerator-based solution. “Now, is the time to expand recycling and composting so that the landfill will serve households and businesses for generations to come”, said Johnson.

Mike Ewall, director of Energy Justice Network[2], has been the prime source of technical assistance observes that this is the second politically and fiscally conservative county in the Mid Atlantic region to reject garbage incineration as an acceptable solid waste management approach. Carroll County, MD paid $1 million this year to get out of a contract for garbage incineration. In June, Energy Justice Network helped citizens in Lorton, VA get their Fairfax County, VA to reject a 50 year expansion of a construction and demolition landfill due to close in 2016.

ILSR and Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA supported the citizens in Stafford County and Lorton through workshops and guest articles in the local media.

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Endnotes:
  1. StopTheStaffordIncinerator.com: http://StopTheStaffordIncinerator.com
  2. Energy Justice Network: http://www.energyjustice.net/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/stafford-incinerator-virginia-financially-beneficial/


Federal Study Confirms “Too Big To Fail” Gives Megabanks a Hidden Funding Advantage

by Olivia LaVecchia | August 20, 2014 6:25 pm

When the country’s giant banks were teetering on the verge of collapse during 2008’s financial crisis, the U.S. government stepped in to bail them out. The banks were, in a phrase that has since become infamous, “Too Big To Fail.”

Would the government do it again? And does the expectation that it would step in give megabanks an unfair competitive advantage over local community banks?

Those are the questions at the heart of an eagerly awaited report[1] released at the end of July by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal department. In a conclusion that highlights the need for more regulatory action to reduce concentration in the banking system, the G.A.O. found that the answers to both questions are “yes.”

Six years after the bailout, the country’s biggest banks have only grown bigger. Just four megabanks, each with more than $1.5 trillion in assets, control 45 percent of the country’s banking industry, up from 37 percent in 2007, according to FDIC data. The consequences for the economy — higher consumer fees, fewer small business loans, and more risky speculative trading — are substantial.

To Senators David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, these are among the signs that “Too Big To Fail” works as a kind of implicit insurance — and as such, a subsidy — for the megabanks. Because creditors and investors believe taxpayers will rescue the banks if anything goes awry, they are willing to finance big banks at much lower interest rates than they offer smaller institutions.

The Senators have introduced a bill, the “Terminating Bailouts for Taxpayer Fairness Act,” that aims to end this implicit government subsidy, and create a fairer playing field for community banks.

The Senators are also the ones who called for the G.A.O. report, in order to get a better sense of just how big the megabanks’ advantage is.

In the report, the G.A.O. looked at one particular benefit that the taxpayers’ guarantee nets the megabanks: whether they’re able to borrow money – issue debt – more cheaply than smaller financial institutions. Using 42 models, the G.A.O. found that though the benefit has tapered off in recent years, during the heart of the financial crisis, in 2008 and 2009, megabanks were able to borrow at significantly lower rates. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. report: http://gao.gov/products/GAO-14-621
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/federal-study-confirms-too-big-fail-megabanks-hidden-funding-advantage/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/federal-study-confirms-too-big-fail-megabanks-hidden-funding-advantage/


Why Aren’t Rural Electric Cooperatives Champions of Local Clean Power?

by John Farrell | August 18, 2014 2:20 pm

When it comes to ownership, there are few better structures for keeping a community’s wealth local than a cooperative. So why is it that America’s rural electric cooperatives are tethered to dirty, old coal-fired power plants instead of local-wealth generating renewable power?

There are a lot of answers to this question, but it might start with this: electric cooperatives aren’t quite like other cooperatives.

The Seven Slipping Cooperative Principles

Cooperatives around the world adhere to the “Seven Cooperative Principles[1],” but electric cooperatives (at least in the United States) fail on several of these principles.

  1. Voluntary and open membership. Nope. If you want electric service in cooperative territory, you sign with the cooperative. While it’s no different than rules for other types of utilities in the 30 states that grant utilities a monopoly service territory, it violates the principles of cooperatives.
  2. Democratic control (one member, one vote). Not always. Some electric cooperatives award one vote per meter, and some customers (e.g. farmers, industry) have more than one meter. Furthermore, many cooperatives filter potential board candidates with “nominating committees.” And look, here’s a board election with no opposition!There’s also a big gap between cooperative member support for (paying more for) renewable energy and cooperative behavior. This 2013 survey in Minnesota[2], for example, shows little separation between urban and rural areas (where cooperatives are dominant) in support for renewable energy, yet cooperatives opposed every bill[3] favoring clean energy in the 2013 legislative session.
  3. Members control the capital of the cooperative.
  4. Cooperatives maintain their autonomy and independence even if they enter into agreements with other entities. Questionable. Many cooperatives sign 40- or even 50-year purchase contracts with power suppliers to supply 95% of their entire sales, mostly from coal-fired power plants. Standard and Poor’s explains this in an evaluation of a Seminole Electric in Florida, a generation & transmission cooperative that sells to rural cooperatives. In their words, one of the utility’s credit strengths is, “A captive retail market and the ability to set rates through take-and-pay, all-requirements wholesale power agreements with nine of 10 members through 2045.”
  5. Cooperatives provide educational opportunities to their members and the public on the benefits of cooperatives. Questionable. If you read rural electric cooperative newsletters, you’ll hear a lot about climate change but you’ll often find the phrase in quotes
  6. Cooperatives work best when cooperating with other cooperatives. Questionable, refer to #4. Some of these power suppliers are “co-ops of co-ops,” but these long-term contracts have tethered the economic fortunes of cooperative members to the vagaries of the coal market (see below). More than any other type of utility (public or investor-owned), rural electric cooperatives are reliant on coal[4] for their electricity fuel. The average U.S. utility is 38% coal-fired power.rural electric cooperatives reliant on coal - public citizen[5]coal prices 2000-11.001[6]
  7. Cooperatives work for sustainable development of their community. Not enough. Most cooperatives rely heavily on imported power purchased on long-term contracts with the goal of cheap power, but that ironically leave them at the mercy of unfettered price increases. They also have missed an enormous economic development opportunity from renewable energy. For example:Renewable energy provides significant economic impacts ($1 million per megawatt of wind, $250,000 per megawatt for solar) with multipliers for local (i.e. cooperative) ownership[7] (up to 3.5 times more local economic impact, and twice as many jobs). Wind and solar provide more jobs per megawatt of power capacity, as well.RE-fossil-jobs-per-MW[8]Finally, rural electric cooperatives have organized a 1 million comment campaign against EPA regulations of carbon pollution from power plants. Hardly a commitment to “sustainable development.”

How Can Cooperatives Change?

Restoring their 7 principles could do a lot. Improving their structure so that the cooperative directors reflect member opinion on renewable energy would restore the principle of democratic control. Avoiding ridiculously long power purchase contracts would provide local cooperatives with real autonomy and control of their energy costs and options. Broadening their focus on economic development beyond cheap power to include renewable energy would make “sustainable development” much more realistic.

Can it happen? It already has, in Iowa and on[9] Kaua’i[10], and there are more tools that ever[11] at their disposal. But as with electrification, no one will do it unless they do it themselves.

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Endnotes:
  1. Seven Cooperative Principles: http://www.ncba.coop/7-cooperative-principles
  2. 2013 survey in Minnesota: http://www.mepartnership.org/2013-mep-poll-results/
  3. opposed every bill: http://www.mrea.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/MREA-Legislative-Bulletin-02272013.pdf
  4. reliant on coal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2014/06/01/5-dense-carbon-polluters-in-epa-crosshairs/
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/rural-electric-cooperatives-reliant-on-coal-public-citizen.jpg
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/coal-prices-2000-11.001.jpg
  7. multipliers for local (i.e. cooperative) ownership: https://ilsr.org/jobs-and-economic-impact-community-wind/
  8. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/RE-fossil-jobs-per-MW.png
  9. Iowa and on: https://ilsr.org/1-solar-utility-in-iowa-episode-12-local-energy-rules/
  10. Kaua’i: https://ilsr.org/perfect-storm-renewables-episode-18-local-energy-rules/
  11. more tools that ever: https://ilsr.org/6-billion-opportunity-rural-energy-economy/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-cooperatives-champions-local-clean-power/


The Birth of Community Broadband – Video

by Christopher Mitchell | August 15, 2014 9:11 am

ILSR is excited to announce a new short video examining an impressive municipal broadband network, Glasgow Kentucky. Glasgow was the first municipal broadband network and indeed, seems to have been the first citywide broadband system in the United States. We partnered with the Media Working Group to produce this short documentary and we have the material to do much more, thanks to the hard work of Fred Johnson at MWG and the cooperation of many in Glasgow, particularly Billy Ray. People who only recently became aware of the idea of community owned networks may not be familiar with Billy Ray, but it was he and Jim Baller throughout the 90's and early 2000's that paved the way for all the investment and excitement we see today. I'm excited to be helping to tell part of this story and look forward to being able to tell more of it.
Video:

Birth of Community Broadband from Media Working Group on Vimeo.

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/the-birth-of-community-broadband-video/


FCC Releases Notice of Inquiry on Broadband Progress

by Rebecca Toews | August 14, 2014 3:39 pm

 

Section 702 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to report annually on whether “advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The FCC kicked off its tenth such report on Tuesday by releasing a “Notice of Inquiry[1],” (NOI) in effect asking individuals and groups around the country to offer relevant data and comments.

This process amounts to a kind of crowdsourced “State of the Union” on broadband issues. In addition to determining how many people in what areas have broadband access, this NOI also asks the critical question of how exactly the FCC should define broadband. The current definition of 4mbps download capacity and 1mbps upload may have been sufficient in the past, but isn’t adequate for even recreational household use by many Americans today, let alone the demands of running a business and conducting commerce online.

This NOI also asks some arcane but important questions about other aspects of broadband definitions, including latency (the speed of data moving within a network, a different measure than bandwidth) and the widespread use of data caps and other policies in the telecom industry.

Obviously the answers to all these questions have significant implications for municipal networks. Inadequate or overly-loose definitions of broadband allow incumbents to claim that they are providing excellent service to just about everyone in a given area, when that is often far from the truth. Many restrictive state laws limiting municipal networks, as well as federal grant programs that may support such networks, are based on whether an area is defined as already served or underserved, which may be dependent on FCC benchmarks. As is often the case in regulatory issues, the devil is in the details.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler introduced the NOI[2] with the following statement:

Congress has instructed us that all Americans should have access to robust broadband services, no matter where they live. Because consumers demand increasing levels of bandwidth capacity to support the applications they want to use online, we are asking if it is time to update the benchmark broadband speed. And as more people adopt faster broadband speeds, we are asking if all consumers, even in the most rural regions, should have greater access to better broadband.

We here at ILSR believe the answer to both questions is a resounding “YES.” The due date for initial comments is September 4th, and ILSR intends to make its voice heard.

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Endnotes:
  1. Notice of Inquiry: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db0805/FCC-14-113A1.pdf
  2. introduced the NOI: http://www.fcc.gov/article/fcc-14-113a2

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/fcc-releases-notice-inquiry-broadband-progress/


Listen: A Solar Ownership Comeback? John Farrell Talks with Arnie Arnesen on WNHN

by John Farrell | August 13, 2014 3:16 pm

A month ago I wrote about the potential for a comeback for solar ownership[1] (instead of leasing) as the economics and options for ownership continue to improve. Yesterday I discussed this trend in depth on “The Attitude” with Arnie Arnesen on WNHN. Subscribe to the podcast here, or listen by clicking the player below:

 
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Endnotes:
  1. comeback for solar ownership: https://ilsr.org/solar-ownership-poised-comeback/
  2. https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AAA_140812-jff.mp3: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AAA_140812-jff.mp3
  3. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AAA_140812-jff.mp3
  4. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AAA_140812-jff.mp3
  5. Embed: #
  6. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/podcast/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/solar-ownership-comeback-john-farrell-talks-arnie-arnesen-wnhn/


Working Partner Update: Community Purchasing Alliance, Washington DC

by Neil Seldman | August 4, 2014 3:57 pm

Based in Washington, DC, the Community Purchasing Alliance (CPA) leverages the buying power of its member community organizations to lower operating costs while supporting vendors committed to a greater social purpose. CPA is owned entirely by its members, which include religious institutions, charter schools, and other nonprofits. Together, CPA helps these organizations realize that by working together they can advance their commitments to social and environmental values while also improving their bottom lines.

CPA started as an electricity-buying group in 2011. It has since grown to more than 100 organizations and helps its members save around 15% on their electricity bills by purchasing at fixed group rates that include 100% renewable energy and a rebates. The fixed rates help members with greater budget predictability and the clean energy component aligns with their sustainability principles. CPA expects 30 to 40 new religious congregations to join this program in the fall. They hope to soon help members more closely track their utility usage to determine additional ways to save money.

Members expanded their cooperative purchasing to waste and recycling pick-up, because of the significant cost savings potential in this area. CPA signed contracts that will save 25%, or $96,000 in the upcoming year, for the 45 participants in this program. Information was collected on the current practices of dozens of members to inform the Request for Proposal (RFP) process. They found members were being significantly over-charged to have their trash collected and on top of that had little recourse in their service agreements. For example, one church was paying $2,300/month for the same level of service that is now being provided for $490/month. CPA created its own service contract within the RFP but allowed respondents to propose changes. The RFP offered additional points for local, minority-owned companies that paid its workers living wages and used transfer stations and materials recycling facilities that share these values. This year, CPA selected two local companies that together employee 250 local residents as the winning vendors.

Other cooperative purchasing programs include installation of solar panels, copier leasing, office supply purchasing and payroll services. CPA also has a discount program with nine ACE Hardware stores in which members receive 10% off any item and 25% off bulk purchases. CPA estimates that, on average, members save $6,000/year by participating in the electric, trash and recycling, and supplies purchasing programs. This savings stays local and enables the nonprofit members to continue serving the community while staying committed to their social and environmental values. CPA believes the model will become self-sustaining once it reaches 180 members in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Once the concept is proven, CPA aims to work with partners to replicate the model in cities across the country.

Contact Information: Web page  http://cpa.coop/[1]; contact person Felipe Witchger, felipe@cpa.coop


This article authored by Megan Loeb and Neil Seldman

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Endnotes:
  1. http://cpa.coop/: http://cpa.coop/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/community-purchasing-alliance-washington-dc-working-partner-update/


Chattanooga and Wilson Comment Period Open; Tell the FCC You Support Local Authority

by Lisa Gonzalez | July 29, 2014 4:45 pm

Last week, the communities of Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina, filed petitions with the FCC. Both communities requested that the agency remove state barriers preventing expansion beyond their current service areas. On July 28, the FCC established a public comment calendar for the request. It is imperative that all those with an interest in better access take a few moments to express their support for these two communities.

Opening Comments are due August 29, 2014; Reply Comments will be due September 29, 2014. That means you need to submit comments by the end of this month. If you want to reply to any comments, you can do that in September.

This is a pivotal moment in telecommunications policy. For months municipal network advocates have been following Chairman Wheeler's stated intentions to remove state barriers to local authority. Within the past few weeks, federal legislators - many that rely on campaign contributions from large providers - pushed back through Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Blackburn introduced an amendment to a House appropriations bill preventing FCC preemption if the amendment becomes law.

ILSR and MuniNetworks.org encourage individuals, organizations, and entities to file comments supporting the people of Wilson and Chattanooga. These two communities exemplify the potential success of local Internet choice. We have documented their many victories on MuniNetworks.org and through case studies on Wilson [PDF] and Chattanooga [PDF].

Now is the time to share your support for local decision-making. This is not about whether any given community should build its own network so much as it is about whether every community can decide for itself how to best expand and improve Internet access, whether by investing in itself or working with a trusted partner.

ILSR will be filing comments in support of Wilson's and Chattanooga's petitions. As a service to those who plan to express their support for local authority, we will continue to provide information, guidance, and resources throughout the comment period. In the near future, there should be a guide to help you submit comments. But if you are really enthusiastic or already know the process, here are some links.

File comments electronically for Wilson's petition at Proceeding 14-115; Chattanooga's petition is Proceeding 14-116. Petitions and exhibits are available at the filings pages or at the links below.

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/chattanooga-and-wilson-comment-period-open-tell-the-fcc-you-support-local-authority/


Republicans Again Violate Their Own Principles

by David Morris | July 25, 2014 4:22 pm

By the time you read this, Congressional Republicans will have overwhelmingly voted to violate one of their most cherished guiding principles: A service should be paid for by those who use the service. If we don’t fully pay for services, Republicans usually insist, markets can’t work effectively.  We undervalue and overuse services, resulting in wasteful overspending.

All of which makes the debate about renewing and replenishing the months-long federal highway trust fund so revealing. This spring Republicans made clear their position:  No new taxes.  Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), speaking for himself and his party declared[1], “I do not support, and the House will not support, billions of dollars in higher taxes to pay for more spending” on transportation.

Camp’s position might be reasonable if he and his fellow Republicans were at the same time willing to abide by another of their basic principles: Live within your budget.  If you don’t have the money, don’t spend it.  In this instance, if drivers are unwilling to pay the road budget then cut federal highway spending by 28 percent, which would reduce overall national road spending by about 7 percent.

But Republicans don’t want to cut road expenditures.  They just don’t want drivers to pay.  The result has been months devising strategies to divert money from other sources.  In May, in a memo to rank and file House Speaker John Beohner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) insisted[2] they had come up with a perfect “way to ensure continued funding of highway projects in a fiscally responsible manner.” They would make up the highway-financing gap by eliminating Saturday postal delivery!   To ensure that the roads are adequate for delivering the mail they will no longer deliver the mail.

Eventually Republicans decided that sacrificing the post office to ensure that drivers could use the roads more cheaply was politically unworkable.

By now I know many readers are asking, “What about Democrats?”  After all, the House proposal was passed by a bipartisan vote of 367-55.  True. But Democrats swear no fealty to the proposition that all services should, whenever possible, be fully paid by users.   They believe I should pay for the public library even if I don’t use it.  I should pay for the public park even if I don’t use it. They believe these are public goods available always to all.  Republicans, or at least Republicans circa 2014 don’t seem to believe there are public goods.

Certainly some aspects of roads may be considered public goods. Even those who don’t drive may need them to deliver fire or police protection or ambulance services.  Which would argue that some part of the road budget could justifiably come from the general public purse.

But the Republicans don’t make that argument.  And if they did they would have to confront the fact that there are public costs as well as public benefits to roads.  The environmental damages caused by driving, for example, far outweigh the taxes paid at the pump.  To redress these damages some propose raising the gas tax by $1 or $2 per gallon or more. Republicans refuse to even entertain the notion.  If they are so ideologically hidebound that they won’t even require drivers to pay for their roads, how could they possibly ask them to pay for the actual damages caused by their driving?

Republican have not always been willing to so quickly violate basic conservative economic principles.  Prior to l956 highways were financed directly from the federal Treasury.  Then in 1956, at the insistence of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower the Highway Trust Fund was established with revenue generated from a dedicated fuel tax.  The original tax was 3 cents per gallon.  Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush each[3] raised the tax by 5 cents per gallon. In 1993 President Clinton raised it by a little over 4 cents.  And there, at 18.4 cents per gallon, it has remained for the last 21 years.

In 2008 the highway trust fund experienced a shortfall, a result of reduced driving due to sky-high oil prices.  Congress made up the shortfall with $8 billion from general funds.  In 2009 and 2010 Congress again supplied general funds.

The hope was that eventually Congress would develop a long term funding plan that would include a gas tax increase.   In 2013 none other than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported such a move.  The Republicans would have none of it.

Washington Republicans are not the only ones violating the user pays principle.  The Tax Foundation estimates[4] that overall state and local governments finance only 32 percent out of user fees.  Federal funding brings this total up to 50 percent.  The rest comes out of general funds.  In the case of cities the majority comes from property taxes.

Recently states, Republican as well as Democrat have begun raising gas taxes.  Eighteen states currently impose a gasoline sales tax whose revenue rises with gas prices or pegs the tax to the rate of inflation.  But 16 states have not raised their gas taxes for two decades or more.  Recently Wyoming raised its gas tax for the first time in 16 years. New Hampshire hiked its gas tax for the first time in 23 years.  But states and cities have a long way to go before they could consider their transportation funding mechanisms self-sustaining.

By the time you read this, Congress may have jimmy rigged a temporary solution to the highway funding shortfall.  Which means we get to have the same debate again next year.  Perhaps Republicans will propose slashing food stamps or Medicare or Pell grants.  Anything to avoid having to require those who use the roads to pay for the roads.

 

 

Image:  Dan Reed, Creative Commons[5]

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. declared: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3179987/posts
  2. insisted: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-31/house-proposal-to-boost-highway-fund-hits-senate-resistance.html
  3. each: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund
  4. estimates: http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pay-only-third-state-local-road-spending
  5. Dan Reed, Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecourtyard/8726338754/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/republicans-violate-principles/


Will Labor Solidarity Save the Post Office?

by David Morris | July 23, 2014 3:31 pm

The United States Postal Service (USPS) management just ran into a possible game-changing obstacle to its shameful pursuit of a fully privatized post office:  labor solidarity.

Here’s the background. For a decade the USPS has been aggressively shrinking, consolidating, and outsourcing the nation’s postal system.  In July 2011 management upped the ante by announcing[1] the rapid closure of 3600 local post offices, a step toward the eventual closing of as many as 15,000, half of all post offices in the nation.

A groundswell of opposition erupted.  Citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes defining role in their communities.  In December 2011, after Congress appeared ready to impose a six-month moratorium on closures USPS management voluntarily adopted a freeze of the same length.

In May 2012, the moratorium ended but management, possibly concerned about reviving a national backlash, embraced an ingenious stealth strategy. Rather than closures, management moved to slash hours at 13,000 post offices.   That could be accomplished quickly.  Reduction in hours, unlike outright closures, requires little justification.  Appeals are limited. Moreover a reduction in hours doesn’t generate the same level of outrage as a closure. The building remains open even though its value to the community is dramatically diminished.

By the end of this year management may achieve its goal.  Already 9,000 post offices have had their hours cut[2] drastically.  Part time inexperienced non-career employees have replaced full time experienced career postmasters. Management duly held meetings in every affected community but refused to heed or even respond to the counsel of local residents and businesses or provide them the data used to justify its decision

Postal clerks and letter carriers are the personal face of the most ubiquitous, trusted and respected of all public institutions.  By gradually replacing to-the-door service with delivery to more remote cluster mailboxes management has already reduced our personal interaction with letter carriers.

Last fall USPS management proceeded with the second phase in its campaign to sever our personal links to the postal clerks by quietly launching a pilot project in 82 Staples stores.  After the news became public management ingenuously announced that nothing had changed. “Staples joins with more than 65,000 retailers . . . who currently provide expanded access to postal products and services.”  Management conveniently forgot to mention that these 65,000 locations just sell stamps or flat boxes. None hosts a postal counter staffed by a retail employee that sells services.

The arrangement with Staples is different.  As management conceded, Staples “is the first retailer to take part in a USPS pilot program dubbed the Retail Partner Expansion Program.” The Retail Partner Expansion Program creates mini post offices into big box stores.

If the pilot proves successful the USPS expects to expand it to all 1,500 Staples. And then to all big box retail outlets.  Steve Hutkins, creator of the inestimable SaveOurPostOffice.org runs the numbers. We can now buy stamps at 7,450 Walgreens; 3,830 Wal-Marts; 1,632 Staples; 1,200 Office Depots; 847 Safeways; 609 Sam’s Clubs; and 426 Costcos. That adds up to over 14,000 locations.  “If all of those arrangements were converted from selling stamps on consignment to setting up postal counters, the Postal Service would have an instant infrastructure of “mini post offices” to replace real post offices…”

A bill introduced by Rep. Darrell’s Issa (R-CA) would make this replacement much easier.  According to Section 103 of the Postal Reform Act of 2013[3] the right to appeal a post office closing to the Postal Regulatory Commission “shall not apply to a determination of the Postal Service to close a post office if there is located, within 2 miles of such post office, a qualified contract postal unit.”  There are 1,200 post offices within two miles of just the Staples retail network.

For management replacing a real post office with a fake post office is a good deal. USPS average pay[4] is about $25 an hour.  Staples retail clerks earn[5] about $8.50 an hour.

For the customer this is a bad deal.  Staples’ employees receive[6] just four hours of “classroom” training for postal retail duties. Postal retail clerks receive 32 hours of intense classroom training, followed by 40 hours of on-the-job training alongside experienced window clerks. Postal workers must pass a test before they are considered qualified to work the window. Given the turnover at Staples it’s unlikely the employee at the postal counter is going to be around long enough to acquire the experience or expertise of a career postal worker.

For the community this is an awful deal. A cherished local institution created to serve the public interest would be replaced by a counter in a business created to serve distant shareholders and management. If its economic self-interest dictated Staples could decide to close the store.  To underline the reality of this threat in March Staples announced[7] it will shutter up to 225 stores. That would leave the community without any postal services at all.

Labor Solidarity to the Rescue

The American Postal Workers Union  (APWU) responded to management’s hostile action by organizing protests around the country. On April 24th a Day of Action resulted in hundreds of pickets, marches and rallies in more than 50 cities across 27 states under the rallying cry, “Stop Staples: The U.S. Mail is Not for Sale”.

In late May Staples Vice Chairman Joe Doody nervously acknowledged the USPS deal “could become a problem if more unions backed the postal workers.” He told[8] the Boston Globe, “The retailer will continue to evaluate the situation to determine whether the negative backlash is worth the benefits of the partnership,” Staples had signed the deal because it was desperate to gain more traffic through its stores.  If the deal actually reduces traffic and sales, Staples would reconsider.

State labor unions and national federations began to endorse the ‘Don’t Buy Staples’ campaign. On May 30, when the AFL-CIO, comprised of 56 unions representing 12.5 million members came out in support of the boycott.  In mid June California’s Service Employees International Union 32BJ, representing 145,000 union members in 11 states and the District of Columbia, voted for a boycott. In a letter to the Staples CEO SEUI 32BJ President Héctor Figueroa observed, “The Postal Service is the largest single civilian employer of union middle-class jobs for African Americans, and Veterans (including disabled veterans), and is the largest single civilian union employer. We need more of these types of jobs to strengthen our economy and the middle class, and we will not accept your efforts to undermine them through low-wage privation.”

After July 4th more unions formally joined the boycott. Perhaps they were inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s enduring comment at the signing of the Declaration of Independence,  “We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

In July the International Association of Firefighters representing more than 300,000 backed the boycott. AFSCME union, representing 1.6 million public-sector workers, followed suit.  Then on July 12th the 1.5 million member American Federation of Teachers (AFT) delivered the coup de grace when it signed on. APWU President Mark Dimondstein made[9] the case for solidarity to the convention, “We too are in the public sector, we too are meeting the needs of people. We’re facing some of the same problems you are—I call it divert, defund, demoralize, demonize and dismantle.”

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten responded. “Who does Staples really want and need to come into its stores every single day? Teachers. The best way we can help is if we say to Staples: ‘You do this to the postal workers, and we aren’t buying supplies in your stores.’”

School supplies are a key market for Staples, accounting[10] for up to one-third of its sales. Last year teachers spent[11] about $1.6 billion of their own money on school supplies. Back-to-school supply-buying gets going in earnest in late July.

On July 14th Staples announced it had withdrawn from the Retail Partner Expansion Program.

The celebrations have been muted. Management hasn’t thrown in the towel.  It’s simply changed the name of the program. As one USPS spokesperson explained[12], “We look forward to continuing the partnership whether it’s called Retail Partner Expansion or approved shipper.”  The USPS wants to establish a beachhead in thousands of retail stores.  Once a postal counter staffed by low paid non union non postal service employees begins to sell services it will be easy to expand the kinds of services it offers.

But Staples announcement and USPS’ obfuscation demonstrates that retail stores are vulnerable to boycotts, especially those organized by people in the communities they serve.  Teachers, firefighters, government workers, service employees live in significant numbers in every community.  They can form the backbone of an effort that puts big box retailers and USPS management on notice.  Hands off our post office!

And who knows?  Hands off our post office could evolve into Give us back our post office. A successful boycott to stop the further privatization of the post office could then move demand that the post office be restored to its former glory and effectiveness by reopening processing centers, extending local post office hours and rehiring experienced staff.   Benjamin Franklin, the first Postmaster General of the United States, would be pleased.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. announcing: https://ilsr.org/steps-save-incredible-shrinking-post-office/
  2. cut: http://www.savethepostoffice.com/postplan-postponed-3200-postmasters-get-reprieve
  3. Postal Reform Act of 2013: http://oversight.house.gov/postalreformact/
  4. pay: http://work.chron.com/average-pay-postal-worker-2050.html
  5. earn: http://www.nextnewdeal.net/post-office-piles-shift-low-wage-economy-staples-deal
  6. receive: http://www.apwu.org/news/web-news-article/staples-deal-still-secret-%E2%80%94-hearing-reveals-disturbing-truths
  7. announced: http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/06/news/companies/staples-store-closing/
  8. told: http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/20/postal-service-union-confrontation-over-mail-service-staples-stores/soV6Agpjdfr9uX7n50CnWI/story.html
  9. made: http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2014/071214e.cfm
  10. accounting: http://nhlabornews.com/tag/staples/
  11. spent: http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/07/01/k12-teachers-out-of-pocket-1-point-6-billion-on-classroom-tools.aspx
  12. explained: http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/07/14/staples-post-offices-going-away-but-services-won/UU4Sc5BEgGTGOkX6ehK5FJ/story.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/labor-solidarity-save-post-office/


Composting Key to Soil Health and Climate Protection, According to Two New Reports

by Rebecca Toews | July 14, 2014 4:39 am

Washington, DC — Composting reduces waste and builds healthy soil to support local food production and protect against the impacts of extreme weather, from droughts to heavy rainfall. That’s the message of two new reports from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR): State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How [1]and Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting[2].

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Rebecca Toews

PHONE: 612-808-0689

EMAIL: info@ilsr.org[3]


Download both reports:

https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting[4]

Compost is the dark, crumbly, earthy-smelling material produced by the managed decomposition of organic materials such as yard trimmings and food scraps. Compost is valued for its ability to enhance soil structure and quality. It adds organic matter to soil, improves plant growth and water retention, cuts chemical fertilizer use, and stems stormwater run-off and soil erosion. In the U.S., 99 million acres (28% of all cropland) are eroding above soil tolerance rates, meaning the long-term productivity of the soil to support plant growth cannot be maintained.

“Applying a meager half-inch of compost to the 99 million acres of severely eroded cropland would require about 3 billion tons of compost,” says Brenda Platt, the lead author of both reports and director of ILSR’s Composting Makes $en$e Project. “There is not enough compost to meet that need.  No organic scrap should be wasted.”

Compost also protects the climate:  it sequesters carbon in soil and it reduces methane emissions from landfills by cutting the amount of biodegradable materials disposed. (Methane is a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 72 times more potent than CO2 in the short-term.) A growing body of evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of compost to store carbon in soil for a wide range of soil types and land uses.

Yard trimmings composting programs are fairly well developed in the U.S. Of the 4,914 composting operations identified in the U.S. for State of Composting in the U.S., about 71% compost only yard trimmings (based on 44 states reporting). Food scrap recovery is slowly growing. More than 180 US cities and counties are now collecting residential food scraps for composting, up from only a handful a few years ago.

“There is more demand for composting, especially from businesses and institutions that want to source separate food scraps and not throw them in the landfill,” says Nora Goldstein, Editor of BioCycle, which conducted the state-by-state assessment of composting infrastructure and policies, “We not only need more infrastructure to compost these materials, we need more infrastructure to manufacture high quality compost that our soils — and climate — desperately need.” (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How : https://ilsr.org/state-of-composting/
  2. Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting: https://ilsr.org/growing-local-fertility/
  3. info@ilsr.org: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  4. https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/composting-key-soil-health-climate-protection-reports/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/composting-key-soil-health-climate-protection-reports/


Size Matters! New Report Shows The Value of Small-Scale, Community-Based Composting

by Brenda Platt | July 14, 2014 4:30 am

Composting can take place at many levels – backyard, block, neighborhood, schoolyard, community, on-farm, and regional – and in urban, suburban, and rural areas.  Composting at the local level circulates dollars in the community, promotes social inclusion and empowerment, greens neighborhoods, builds healthy soils, supports local food production and food security, embeds a culture of composting know-how in the community, sustains local jobs, and strengthens the skills of the local workforce.  When materials are collected and transported out of the community for processing, few if any of these benefits are realized at the local level.

Community composting is thriving but needs support to grow further.  ILSR’s report, Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting, describes successful initiatives, their benefits, tips for replication, key start-up steps, and the need for private, public, and nonprofit sector support. Produced in collaboration with the Highfields Center for Composting[1] in Hardwick, Vermont, Growing Local Fertility profiles 31 model programs in 14 states and the District of Columbia. Programs range from urban to rural and include demonstration/training sites, schools, universities, pedal-powered collection systems, worker-owned cooperatives, community gardens, and farms employing multiple composting techniques. Many but not all are non-profit mission driven enterprises.  Their distinguishing feature is keeping the process and product as local as possible while engaging the community through participation and education.

DOWNLOADS:

Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting – FULL REPORT

ILSR’s Survey Results of Community Composters – October 2013

Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting is based upon work supported under a grant by the Utilities Programs, United States Department of Agriculture and was produced by ILSR’s Composting Makes $en$e Project[2] and the Highfields Center for Composting[1].

We welcome feedback on this guide and invite community composters to share their lessons learned and tips for replication.

Contact us at communitycomposting@ilsr.org[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Highfields Center for Composting: http://www.highfieldscomposting.org/
  2. ILSR’s Composting Makes $en$e Project: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/composting/
  3. communitycomposting@ilsr.org: mailto:communitycomposting@ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/growing-local-fertility/


State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How

by Brenda Platt | July 14, 2014 4:30 am

Composting is a proven approach to reduce waste and build soil health and fertility. Amending soil with compost improves its quality and structure and thus its ability to withstand the impacts of extreme weather, from severe droughts to heavy rainfall. When added to soil, compost enhances water retention, controls erosion, and stems sedimentation and stormwater run-off.  It also protects the climate:  it sequesters carbon in soil while reducing methane emissions from landfills by cutting the amount of biodegradable materials disposed. Given that 28% of all U.S. cropland (99 million acres) is eroding so fast that the long-term productivity of the soil cannot be maintained, adding organic matter via compost to soil is critical. Erosion reduces the ability of soil to store water and support plant growth.  These are among the findings of State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How[1], a new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, funded under a grant from the 11th Hour Project.

The 131-page report reviews composting basics, provides national and state-by-state statistics and job generation data, summarizes model programs, technologies and systems, and concludes with recommendations on how to grow composting in the U.S.


Downloads:

State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How – Full Report

State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How – Executive Summary

Press Release, July 14, 2014[2]

“State of Composting in US” cover article, July 2014 issue of BioCycle[3]:
– read online[4]
– download pdf[5]


Co-authored by Nora Goldstein (BioCycle Magazine[6]), Craig Coker (Coker Composting & Consulting[7]), and Sally Brown (University of Washington[8]), State of Composting in the U.S. calls for new rules and initiatives to advance composting: streamlined permitting for facilities, training programs, technical and financial assistance, strong recycling and composting goals, disposal bans, compost procurement policies, and more.  It also recommends that communities embrace development of a diverse composting infrastructure.

Large-scale centralized facilities can serve wide geographic areas and divert significant quantifies of materials from disposal. Composting locally at the neighborhood and community-scale level has other benefits:  improved local soils, more local jobs, greener spaces, enhanced food security and fewer food deserts, less truck traffic hauling garbage, and increased community composting know-how and skills.

State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How[1] has four main sections:

  • Section 1, What Is Composting and Compost, defines composting, describes what materials can be composted, summarizes the variety of composting systems in use, and explains the many markets and applications for compost.
  • Section 2, Why Compost?, discusses the key benefits of composting to create jobs, protect watersheds, reduce climate impacts, improve soil vitality, and build more resilient communities.
  • Section 3, Where Is Composting Happening, provides a national snapshot of composting infrastructure, policies, and model programs that could be replicated.
  • Section 4, How to Advance Composting, outlines key policies for growing composting and compost production, and describes the importance of both a diverse infrastructure and development of a national soils strategy.

See ILSR’s companion report, Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting[9], for detailed information on how to strengthen expansion of community-scale composting. This guide describes successful initiatives, their benefits, how these initiatives can be replicated, key start-up steps, and the need for private, public, and non-profit sector support.

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Endnotes:
  1. State of Composting in the U.S.: What, Why, Where & How: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/state-of-composting-in-us.pdf
  2. Press Release, July 14, 2014: https://ilsr.org/composting-key-soil-health-climate-protection-reports
  3. July 2014 issue of BioCycle: http://www.biocycle.net/current-issue/
  4. read online: http://www.biocycle.net/2014/07/16/state-of-composting-in-the-u-s/
  5. download pdf: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/biocycle-stateofcomposting-us-article-july-2014.pdf
  6. BioCycle Magazine: http://www.biocycle.net/
  7. Coker Composting & Consulting: http://www.cokercompost.com/
  8. University of Washington: http://faculty.washington.edu/slb/
  9. Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting: https://ilsr.org/size-matters-report-shows-small-scale-community-based-composting/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/state-of-composting/


Working Partner Update: Austin Gets $1 Million Grant for Eco-Industrial Park

by Neil Seldman | July 9, 2014 12:28 pm

ILSR and the City of Austin, Texas, have been working partners since the late 1980s, when a coalition of environmental groups, small businesses and progressive City Councilors rejected a garbage incinerator already under construction. The City Council closed down the project and initiated a path toward recycling, composting and use of low cost landfill which would save the $120 million over the planned life of the incinerator. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/working-partner-update-austin-1-million-grant-eco-industrial-park/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/working-partner-update-austin-1-million-grant-eco-industrial-park/


Celebrate Independence with 3 Steps Toward Energy Self-Reliance

by John Farrell | July 2, 2014 5:25 am

Being from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, I’m often asked, “You want everyone off-grid and independent with their own solar array and a battery, right?”

In a word, no.

But our mission of economic and energy self-reliance has several similarities to the kind of (economic) independence being sought by England’s American colonists in the 1770s and celebrated this week. And in the spirit of that overlap, I’d like to offer three ways Americans can celebrate their independence by increasing their energy and economic self-reliance.

Step 1: Do What You Can, Recruit Your Friends

The citizen “meter watchers” of SOUL Wisconsin find that modest changes can cut electricity consumption by 13% or more, saving $140 per year. They find that with some pretty low energy tasks like swapping out inefficient light bulbs, using power saving power strips and inexpensive light timers, or putting off-the-shelf foam insulation on hot water pipes, households can get high energy savings. Their energy tracking tool shows kilowatt-hours and dollars saved, and also greenhouse gas emissions avoided, from your energy conservation efforts.

If you like energy saving and reducing carbon emissions, chances are your friends will, too.  Expand the impact (and savings) by recruiting your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues.

Step 2: Generate Your Own Energy

Even the best conservation practices can only do so much, and chances are you’re still sending a sizable sum to your utility company every month.  If you’re one of the lucky 1 in 4 residents that owns a sunny rooftop, you can invest in solar power to reduce or eliminate your solar bill.  Join your neighbors in a bulk purchase or finance a system with a crowd-funded loan[1].

Maybe you lack a sunny rooftop, but you’re in one of the few states with policy supporting community-based renewable energy[2]. That local grocery store would be just the place for a solar array owned by you and your neighbors.

Step 3: Organize to Change the Rules

Unfortunately, somewhere between steps 1 and 2 most Americans will find that generating their own power often requires an exercise in political power. Your utility company may erect significant barriers, charge high fees, or pay pennies for energy from your own solar array. It may not allow community-based energy projects at all. It’s because they’re reluctant to see the inevitable, monumental shift in power generation – from large-scale fossil fuel power plants to decentralized renewable energy systems – result in a similarly monumental shift in ownership of the energy system, from them to you.

Some utilities will hide behind the spurious[3] “technical limitations” of the electricity system or the purportedly[4] low cost[5] of their existing, dirty power plants.  They’ll fight good policy like community solar[6], feed-in tariffs[7], incentives for clean energy[8], and net metering[9].*

And that’s why there’s something to be learned from the English colonists nearly 250 years ago.  When your (East India) company is giving you a bad deal, it’s time to dump them.

 

Photo Credit: Deval Patrick

*Some utilities embrace the notion of self-reliance[10].

 

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Endnotes:
  1. finance a system with a crowd-funded loan: https://joinmosaic.com/blog/press-release-home-solar-loan/
  2. community-based renewable energy: http://mncommunitysolar.com/
  3. spurious: https://ilsr.org/archiac-utility-rules-stall-local-solar-infographic/
  4. purportedly: http://www.skepticalscience.com/true-cost-of-coal-power.html
  5. low cost: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/08/study-the-coal-industry-is-in-far-more-trouble-than-anyone-realizes/
  6. community solar: https://ilsr.org/community-solar-gardens-sprouting-minnesota/
  7. feed-in tariffs: https://ilsr.org/feedin-tariffs-america-driving-economy-renewable-energy-policy-works/
  8. incentives for clean energy: http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/csi/index.php
  9. net metering: https://ilsr.org/distributed-renewable-energy-fire/
  10. Some utilities embrace the notion of self-reliance: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2014/05/why-a-vermont-utility-ceo-is-embracing-solar-and-net-metering

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/celebrate-independence-3-steps-energy-self-reliance/


ILSR’s Brenda Platt Delivers Keynote for US Zero Waste Business Conference 2014

by Rebecca Toews | June 18, 2014 1:44 pm

ILSR co-Director, Brenda Platt attended this year’s USZBC conference, hosted in Atlanta, Georgia at the beginning of May. Elemental Impact’s online magazine highlighted Platt’s keynote presentation in their blog[1]:

For the 2014 USZWBC Conference[2] – Creating Value Through Zero Waste, the superb program topics substantiated the zero waste industry’s continued evolution. Hosted in Atlanta, GA – a city entrenched with zero waste roots via the 2009 Zero Waste Zones[3] launch – the conference sessions addressed the far-reaching impacts of zero waste practices.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. their blog: http://zerowastezone.blogspot.com/
  2. 2014 USZWBC Conference: http://zerowastezone.blogspot.com/2014/05/uszwbc-conference-theme-zero-waste.html
  3. Zero Waste Zones: http://elementalimpact.org/Zero-Waste-Zones
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/ilsrs-brenda-platt-delivers-keynote-waste-business-conference-2014/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsrs-brenda-platt-delivers-keynote-waste-business-conference-2014/


Brenda Platt Presenting At Maryland Recycling Network – June 19, 2014

by Brenda Platt | June 17, 2014 2:34 pm

ILSR co-Director, Brenda Platt, is speaking on a zero waste panel on June 19, 2014, at the Maryland Recycling Network’s annual conference[1].   Her presentation, “The State of Composting in the U.S.,” will highlight cutting edge composting programs around the country.  Management and reduction of organics in our waste streams is a hot topic for many communities and represents a key step in meeting future zero waste goals.

The Maryland Recycling Network and SWANA Mid-Atlantic Chapter have put together a two day event at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum, MD where you’ll find:

  • Technical sessions that cover the hottest topics in the industry including changing waste management and recycling models, policy & regulation, commodities markets, new technologies & more.
  • Exhibits – Come see a wide variety of products and services from vendors in the region who can help you do your job better.
  • Network with your peers – Step out of your office environment and be among those that understand what you’re faced with day in and day out.  It recharges your thinking and inspires creative approaches.  The ideas you generate could improve your program – and your career.
  • Social Events – Some of the best exchanges occur during business-related social events.  You’re not going to want to miss what this event has in store for you!

mdrecyclingnetworkRegistration Information here.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Maryland Recycling Network’s annual conference: http://www.marylandrecyclingnetwork.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/brenda-platt-presenting-maryland-recycling-network-june-1-2014/


Same Price, More Renewables. San Diego’s Fight for Community Choice – Episode 23A of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by John Farrell | June 5, 2014 4:47 pm

“San Diego and its community choice energy district would be able to offer a diverse energy mix with all of the solar, biodiesel, biogas, and energy storage resources that we have in San Diego.  A product that is price competitive and yet at the same time would strive for and achieve a higher level of renewable content.”

See how this southern California city is striving for more clean energy and more local control in this interview with Lane Sharman, co-founder and chair of the San Diego Energy District Foundation. This podcast was recorded via Skype on May 21, 2014.

Lane Sharman: San Diego and its community choice energy district would be able to offer a diverse energy mix with all of the solar biodiesel, biogas, and energy storage resources that we have in San Diego, a product that is price competitive, and yet at the same time, would strive for and achieve a higher level of renewable content.
John Farrell: Can San Diego follow in the footsteps of other community driven power efforts in California and Illinois, or will a new monopoly protection act moving through the California Legislature put an end to city’s ability to control their energy future? Joining me this week to explore the possibilities is Lane Sharman, co-founder and chair of the San Diego Energy District Foundation. I’m John Farrell and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast sharing powerful stories of successful local energy and exposing the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Lane, welcome to the program.
Lane Sharman: Thank you so much, John, for having me on the program. It’s a real pleasure.
John Farrell: Now you founded the San Diego Energy District Foundation in 2011, as I understand it, to help fight the solar taxes that have been proposed by the incumbent monopoly utility San Diego Gas and Electric. How did that fight turn out?
Lane Sharman: Well, it was successful in the end. The state of California ruled that the application by San Diego Gas and Electric was illegal. It had been a law that had been proposed by San Diego Gas and Electric that would have retroactively assessed new fees on customers in San Diego Gas & Electric service territory that had put solar on their rooftops with the understanding that the energy provided would be credited under current net metering rules. And this would have rolled back that the probation of net energy metering for those customers.
John Farrell: You know, that was a great first step in, I think one of many fights that is happening around the country, but I, I understand that your foundation has some higher aspirations than just, you know, defeating the utilities efforts to tax solar customers. You’re looking at this notion of community choice aggregation. There are other ones and some that we’ve interviewed for this program, like Marin Clean Energy or Sonoma County also in California, where the local folks are in charge of the utility. Is that effort moving forward in San Diego too?
Lane Sharman: It is it’s moving forward beautifully. As a result of the San Diego Energy District Foundation’s early efforts in 2012, a nonprofit by the name of Protect Our Communities dedicated $50,000 to a technical feasibility study, which the city of San Diego has now absorbed and is bringing to publication in the August, September timeframe. And that study, it’s my belief will show that a community choice aggregation district in San Diego will be cost effective and offer the citizens of San Diego an opportunity for energy choice and competition.
John Farrell: And the evidence seems to be from the other CCAs that have launched in Marin County and in Sonoma County that you can in fact be competitive on price, and yet still have a significantly higher portion of renewable energy than incumbent investor utilities.
Lane Sharman: That is correct John, as the Marin Energy Authority offer as a baseline product, an energy mix that’s 50% renewable. And at the same time, now lower than Pacific Gas and Electric. Sonoma Clean Power is offering a product, a baseline product that has 30% renewable content and is priced just a tiny bit of fraction lower than Pacific Gas and Electric. Lancaster, the city of Lancaster is planning its community choice aggregation unit as we speak. And therefore it’s safe to assume that San Diego and its community choice energy district would be able to offer a diverse energy mix with all of the, solar, biodiesel, biogas and energy storage resources that we have in San Diego, a product that is price competive, and yet at the same time, would strive for and achieve a higher level of renewable content and therefore be a safer energy product for the citizens of San Diego.
John Farrell: It raises kind of an interesting big picture question in this conversation, you’ve sort of implied that there are some benefits to a not for profit utility structure, like you have with community choice aggregation, but the sort of conventional wisdom is that in the for profit world, the profit motive drives innovation. It drives competition. Why might we be better off with power in the hands of the public sector or the people directly?
Lane Sharman: Well, that’s a great question, John, and it raises the larger philosophical question of what belongs in a public agency and what belongs in a for profit company. And if you have energy in a for profit company, the question is, will the company pursue the lowest cost energy source in order to maximize its profits? I mean, that’s just as a logical thing to do. Luckily in the state of California, the energy is not a, by the IOUs is not actually a source of profit realization, is actually the maintenance of the hardware network. But when you in law, large, the hardware network to buy and procure more energy, you increase the profits of the industrial utility. So there is an indirect reason for increasing the quantity of energy. And I think it just raises the question of energy is the source of our problems with climate change, combusting fossil fuels, and therefore like water and education, it may be that energy is better managed as a publicly accountable resource, like education and water.
John Farrell: Well, and I have to add too, this came out actually in the municipalization effort in Boulder, which you referenced the investor owned utility there had really been hammering down on this notion of public ownership, suggesting that the public sector couldn’t in fact, do a good job of managing energy services. And I believe it was a president of the American Public Power Association, which is the trade group representing all these municipal utilities, kind of stepped out and said, you know, we have 2,000 municipal utilities in the United States. We serve, you know, one in seven electricity customers across the country. We’re not for profit. So we have community interests at heart. We don’t pay taxes, but we put money into the general fund of the cities that represent, you know, I think he did a fairly good job mentioning a lot of the upsides and why, whether or not you would argue that one is better than the other, that there’s certainly at least plenty of evidence that both are workable models.
Lane Sharman: I think that’s exactly right. And I I’d also would just like to point out where energy is concerned, we do have a clear understanding that combusting fossil fuels is externalizing a cost that the public is now being asked to pay for John. We’re seeing tremendous drives in the transformation of the energy model and paradigm from unsafe energy to safe energy. And that’s where we’re headed and that’s where we need to go. And all of the policies and regulations ought to be focused on recognizing the cost of combusting fossil fuels and the socialization of those costs ought to be internalized within the fossil fuel companies that are profiting from the mining and sale of that material.
John Farrell: Well, and I think there’s some other good evidence out there too, in, in doing some research about the work you’ve done in San Diego, I came across a 2010 study done by the county, San Diego County, showing a route toward a hundred percent renewable energy and all of the available resources there. Costs have come down dramatically since then, especially for solar energy. And I understand you’ve got another study coming out later in 2014, that is also going to, I think make the case fairly well that even when we’re talking about costs, uh, there’s a lot of, uh, good reason why we should be shifting toward renewables because we cannot only save the environment, but save money as well.
Lane Sharman: Absolutely. John is a, a great segue into the fact that in Texas, the most bare knuckle of markets, which is all cost based there, there’s not really any pressure on any of the utilities to procure energy at anything other than the lowest possible cost. Several utilities recently went, let out a, a contract for the procurement of new energy and the energy that was being sold by a new energy that was being sold by new power plants came in at under $50, a megawatt hour by solar, significantly less expensive than energy that could be produced by natural gas plants, new natural gas plants. So yes, in San Diego, we see the future as being a hundred percent safe, renewable energy and not dependent any longer on fossil fuel based, combusted energy.
John Farrell: Yeah. I wanna hop back from the technology to the policy issues for a minute. You know, as you said, the, the, the city is moving forward in a conversation about community choice aggregation. You got this study coming up and, and some good conversation, but the investor owned utility San Diego Gas and Electric, hasn’t been, I, it, it seems like they among other investor owned utilities are back at the legislature trying to undo the opportunities there. And as I understand it, they’ve got a bill that would change local aggregation. And instead of being able to, by default, everybody joins this new local utility and folks can opt out, the bill that they’ve proposed would require people to opt in. Can you explain why this is a, essentially a poison pill for community choice aggregation? And are you confident that you’ll be able to overcome that?
Lane Sharman: Well, I’m hoping that we will be able to overcome AB 2145, which is a bill that was put forward by a Democrat, Steven Bradford, an assembly member in Sacramento, who also worked for 12 years for Southern California Edison, and happens to be the greatest recipient of utility money in the assembly, in the assembly of California. So it’s no wonder that he would produce a bill would, severely in fact, actually, in my opinion, be the poison pill for community choice aggregation law. Imagine forming a cooperative and you have no members. That’s exactly what this bill does, is it says, look, you, you guys can form a cooperative, but you can’t have any members until each one of them individually opts in. That’s not my idea of choice. That’s my idea of limitation. And that’s exactly what this bill is designed to do, is designed to limit the ability of a jury and then to form a community energy district and have all of its citizens opted in at once. So that the buying power of that cooperative is viable on day one. It’s designed for one and only one reason. And that is to protect the investor owned utilities. And that’s why we called it the monopoly protection act in California.
John Farrell: That was John Farrell, ILSR’s director of Democratic Energy speaking with Lane Sharman, co-founder and chair of the San Diego Energy District Foundation. You can learn more about San Diego’s fight for its energy future at senergydistrict.org, and learn more about the policy tool it’s hoping to use — community choice aggregation — at leanenergyus.org, or at ilsr.org, where you’ll also find 22 other episodes of our Local Energy Rules podcast. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.


A Fight Against ‘Solar Taxes’

The rise of the San Diego Energy District Foundation was in response to fees proposed on solar customers by San Diego Gas and Electric in October 2011[5].  Thanks to the efforts of Lane, Bill Powers, and others in and outside of the foundation, the solar-crushing “Network Usage Fees” were not adopted. It was a particularly important win, because the fees would have applied to those customers who had already installed solar, with the expectation that they wouldn’t pay extra for going solar.

Pursuing More Local Energy Control

The Energy District Foundation wasn’t satisfied with stopping their monopoly utility from implementing bad policy, it wanted to create an energy system that put the community in charge of implementing policy that was positive for the economy and the environment. In 2012, members of the Foundation worked with Protect Our Communities, a nonprofit organization focused on using California’s community choice aggregation law, to create a local entity in charge of greening up the city’s energy supply with local power. They hope to follow in the footsteps of Marin County[6] and Sonoma County in prioritizing local control of a cleaner energy system, at competitive prices.

Why Public Power?

The interest in local control over energy purchases is rooted in the inherent conflict of interest between ratepayers and their existing for-profit utility. Utilities in California make money by investing in hardware (power plants, power lines, and the like) and not finding the cleanest, lowest cost power for their ratepayers. In part, this is because taxpayers pick up the tab for pollution from fossil fuels.  A public entity is more likely to incorporate those externalities. Water, sewage, and education all provide examples of where the public sector provides excellent local service.

How Renewable Can San Diego Be?

A 2010 study called the San Diego Regional Plan for 100% Renewable Energy outlines the technical potential for clean energy in the region. But it’s the market prices for clean power than are most encouraging.  Open bids for new energy in Texas, for example, had solar bidding in at 5¢ per kilowatt-hour compared to retail energy prices of 15¢ or more. The county has approved (in 2013) a comprehensive energy plan[7] that will include an investigation of a local energy aggregation.

A ‘Monopoly Protection Act’

Incumbent utilities don’t much like the San Diego Energy District Foundation and its plan for local control of the energy system. The big three corporate monopoly utilities in California are behind a new bill (AB 2145[8]) that would completely undermine community choice aggregation by changing a key provision of implementation.  Currently, when a local government establishes a local aggregation to purchase power on behalf of its residents and small businesses, these individuals may opt out. If AB 2145 passes, all potential participants would have to opt in. It effectively shields the monopoly utilities from competition, requiring a yet-to-be-operational local utility to spend thousands of dollars to attract customers before it sells a single kilowatt-hour. Furthermore, it would make energy procurement nearly impossible for the local utility, which would be unable to effectively plan and purchase power without a reasonable estimate of their market share.

For more information on community choice aggregation, Lane recommends the San Diego Sierra Club[9], the local 350.org[10], the Local Energy Aggregation Network[11], and the San Diego Energy District Foundation [12]

This is the 23rd edition of Local Energy Rules[13], an ILSR podcast with Senior Researcher John Farrell that shares powerful stories of successful local renewable energy and exposes the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Other than his immediate family, the audience is primarily researchers, grassroots organizers, and grasstops policy wonks who want vivid examples of how local renewable energy can power local economies. It is published twice monthly, on 1st and 3rd Thursday. Click to subscribe to the podcast: iTunes[14] or RSS/XML[15]

Sign up for new podcast notifications[16] and weekly email updates from ILSR’s energy program[17]!

Thanks to ILSR intern Jake Rounds for his audio editing of this podcast.

Photo credit: Rick Naystatt[18]
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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/local-energy-rules-lane-sharman-ep23-2014-0605.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/local-energy-rules-lane-sharman-ep23-2014-0605.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. fees proposed on solar customers by San Diego Gas and Electric in October 2011: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/a-conversation-with-sdge/2011/oct/17/proposed-solar-fee/#
  6. Marin County: https://ilsr.org/marin-clean-energy-illustrates-benefits-local-energy-self-reliance/
  7. The county has approved (in 2013) a comprehensive energy plan: http://www.countynewscenter.com/news/board-takes-step-toward-renewable-energy-plan
  8. AB 2145: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/05/06/californias-ab-2145-threatens-community-choice-aggregates/
  9. San Diego Sierra Club: http://sandiego.sierraclub.org/home/index.asp
  10. local 350.org: http://sandiego350.org/
  11. Local Energy Aggregation Network: http://www.leanenergyus.org/
  12. San Diego Energy District Foundation : http://www.sdenergydistrict.org
  13. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  14. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/local-energy-rules/id595698022?mt=2
  15. RSS/XML: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  16. new podcast notifications: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9
  17. weekly email updates from ILSR’s energy program: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9
  18. Rick Naystatt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_110803-N-UN340-067_A_view_of_solar_panels_recently_installed_on_the_roof_of_Space_and_Naval_Warfare_Systems_Command_Headquarters,_Old_Town.jpg#filelinks

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/price-renewables-san-diegos-fight-community-choice-episode-23-local-energy-rules/


International Conversation on Zero Waste, May 2014

by Neil Seldman | May 5, 2014 7:17 pm

During a recent e-mail interchange, Mal Williams of Zero Waste Wales, Plasnewydd, Cardiff, reported on disappearing waste in that country. In order to maximize efficiency, add value to collected recyclables and reduce available materials for incineration, co-mingled recycling (single stream), is being phased out.

Nancy Gorrell, Berkeley, CA commented:
Hooray for Wales! Here in Berkeley, we are having to restructure rate fees, because recycling has replaced garbage.

Mary Lou Van Deventer, Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA, commented:
Quite so. Berkeley’s rates are based on garbage, which is dwindling, and therefore income is falling, leading to higher rates to pay for everything.  Garbage income finances recycling, so as garbage falls and recycling increases, recycling is doing more work but there’s less money to cover it.  Moreover, City Hall actually refuses to restructure the rates because they are convinced the people want to think recycling is free.  And they won’t tell.  (Recyclers want to get paid – shh.) (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/international-conversation-waste-2014/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/international-conversation-waste-2014/


Amazon’s Big Assist from Government

by Stacy Mitchell | May 1, 2014 11:24 am

Amazon’s sales have fallen in states where it is now required to collect sales taxes, according to a new study[1] by three economists at Ohio State University. The study offers striking evidence of how much Amazon’s dominance of the retail marketplace is owed to nearly 20 years of favorable tax treatment.

The economists examined credit and debit card data for 246,000 households, focusing on five states that recently enacted laws requiring Amazon to collect sales tax: California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. They analyzed household spending at Amazon three months before and after the law took effect, and then compared the findings to spending patterns in states that did not adopt an online sales tax law.

Households cut their spending at Amazon by about 10 percent when the company begins collecting sales tax, the economists found. The effect is even greater for larger purchases. Spending falls 16 percent for purchases larger than $150 and 24 percent for those over $300.

That sales tax still matters this much to Amazon’s fortunes is quite remarkable. One might imagine that the company’s size and efficiency, its vast online marketplace and formidable distribution logistics, would be more than enough to outrun its competitors. But in fact, not having to collect sales tax in most states still provides a significant competitive edge, even at this late date.

We can only imagine how different the retail landscape might be today had Congress passed an internet sales tax bill a decade ago, when Amazon was big — it had revenue of $7 billion in 2004 — but not yet in possession of the level of market power it now has. Amazon posted $73 billion in sales last year. The retailer, which owns dozens of internet brands, including Zappos and Diapers.com, now accounts for a staggering one-third of all the items Americans buy online.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has long downplayed the importance of sales tax, as have the company’s supporters. Writing in the Daily Beast last year, columnist Megan McArdle declared[2], “Amazon’s competitive advantage no longer derives from its tax-free status.”

But this study reveals what Jeff Bezos has undoubtedly known for years: Amazon’s success, its track record of shuttering local businesses, is as much a product of government favoritism as it is of its own ingenuity. Indeed, Amazon’s actions from its founding in 1995 provide ample evidence that having a sales tax advantage has always been pivotal to its strategy:

  • Avoiding sales taxes drove the company’s decision to locate in Seattle. In an unguarded interview[3] with Fast Company in 1996, a year after Amazon launched, Jeff Bezos explained: “It had to be in a small state. In the mail-order business, you have to charge sales tax to customers who live in any state where you have a business presence. It made no sense for us to be in California or New York… We thought about the Bay Area, which is the single best source for technical talent. But it didn’t pass the small-state test. I even investigated whether we could set up Amazon.com on an Indian reservation near San Francisco. This way we could have access to talent without all the tax consequences. Unfortunately, the government thought of that first.”
  • As it grew, Amazon went to great lengths to ensure that it’s activities (more…)[4]
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Endnotes:
  1. study: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2422403
  2. declared: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/06/why-is-amazon-supporting-a-plan-to-tax-the-internet.html
  3. unguarded interview: http://www.fastcompany.com/27309/whos-writing-book-web-business
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/amazons-big-assist-government/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazons-big-assist-government/


Webinar: The Power of Community Composting

by Brenda Platt | April 30, 2014 11:15 am

Across the nation, grassroots action to capture and recycle organic resources from communities by communities are expanding. The solutions are as diverse as the places and people where these efforts originate, yet the commonalities show a clear trend of an emerging movement. To kick off International Compost Awareness Week, ILSR and Highfields Center for Composting held a “The Power of Community Composting” webinar on May 5th at 4 pm. Brenda Platt, ILSR Co-Director and Director of the Composting Makes $en$e project, presented. To get more information on the International Compost Awareness Week and the Highfields Center for Composting, see here[1]

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. here: http://highfieldscomposting.org/news-resources/events/international-compost-awareness-week

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/community-composting-webinar/


To Save the Internet We Need To Own The Means Of Distribution

by David Morris | April 28, 2014 10:20 am

map-stories[1]With the announcement by the FCC that cable and telephone companies will be allowed to prioritize access to their customers only one option remains that can guarantee an open internet:  owning the means of distribution.

Thankfully an agency exists for this. Local government.  Owning the means of distribution is a traditional function of local government.  We call our roads and bridges and water and sewer pipe networks public infrastructure for a reason.

In the 19th century local and state governments concluded that the transportation of people and goods was so essential to a modern economy that the key distribution system must be publicly owned.  In the 21st century the transportation of information is equally essential.

When communities own their roads they can and have established the rules of the road.  The most fundamental and ubiquitous is what might be called road neutrality. Everyone has equal access regardless whether they drive a Ford or a Chevy, a jeep or a moped.

About 20 years ago, exasperated by high prices, poor service and a callous disregard by cable and phone companies for the future communications needs of their host communities, American cities began building their own networks.  Initially these were based on cable and later on fiber.

Today almost 90 communities have citywide fiber networks.  Another 74 have citywide cable networks.  Scores more have partial fiber networks that serve public institutions—local government, libraries, schools, networks—and could easily be extended.  See here[2] for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s comprehensive map of muni networks in the United States.

More than 3 million people currently live in communities with a publicly owned communications network.

Unlike the FCC, cities that own their telecommunications networks can, and undoubtedly will respond to the will of their citizens by embracing the principle of net neutrality.

Many of today’s muni networks are in cities that a century ago built their own electricity networks after private companies proved unwilling to provide universal, affordable, reliable power. Today over 2000 cities still own the electric means of distribution.   Their price and reliability is comparable or better than those of investor owned utilities and they are, unsurprisingly, far superior in responding to the needs of their communities.

Publicly owned telecommunications networks offer lower prices and higher speeds than Comcast and AT&T and Time Warner.  It is instructive that the first gigabit network was built not by a private company but by Chattanooga, a muni network. Today 40 cities in 13 states have locally owned gigabit networks.

Cities that have built their own networks have found them a singularly successful economic development investment, especially for retaining and attracting the growing numbers of businesses that require high speed, high capacity networks. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap
  2. here: http://www.muninetworks.org
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/save-internet-means-distribution-2/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/save-internet-means-distribution-2/


Understanding the Small Business Credit Crunch

by Stacy Mitchell | April 16, 2014 12:59 pm

Even as their big competitors are awash in capital, many locally owned businesses are struggling to secure the financing they need to grow.  A new ILSR analysis[1] has found that, since 2000, bank lending to large businesses is up 36 percent, while small business loan volume has fallen 14 percent and  “micro” business loans — those under $100,000 — have plummeted 33 percent.

(The largest corporations do not even need to rely on bank loans, of course, but can finance their growth through the soaring stock and corporate bond markets.)

The problem is not a lack of demand.  In our 2014 Independent Business Survey[2], 42 percent of business owners that needed a loan in the previous two years reported being unable to obtain one.  Startups, businesses with fewer than 20 employees, and enterprises owned by minorities and women are having an especially difficult time.  Even with the same business characteristics and credit profiles, small businesses owned by African-Americans and Latinos are less likely to be approved for loans, according to one recent study[3].

One consequence of this credit shortage is that many small businesses are either not adequately capitalized or have been forced to rely on high-cost alternatives, such as credit cards.  Both scenarios make them more vulnerable to failing.

The broader consequences for our economy are significant.  Studies show locally owned businesses are a primary source of net new job creation, contribute to higher median household incomes, and increase social capital.  Yet independent businesses in many sectors are losing market share, while the number of new startups has steadily fallen over the last two decades.  Insufficient capital is a key culprit driving these trends.

To shed light on this problem and help inform policy discussions,  ILSR has published an overview of the small business lending landscape[4]. Among the key takeaways:

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. ILSR analysis: https://ilsr.org/rule/financing-local-businesses/
  2. 2014 Independent Business Survey: https://ilsr.org/2014-survey/
  3. one recent study: http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/rs403tot(2).pdf
  4. overview of the small business lending landscape: https://ilsr.org/rule/financing-local-businesses/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/understanding-small-business-credit-crunch/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/understanding-small-business-credit-crunch/


Two Big-Box Decisions Show How Smart Planning Policies Protect Good Jobs

by Stacy Mitchell | April 1, 2014 10:30 am

Although few cities take full advantage of them, planning and zoning powers are among the most potent tools communities have for shaping their economies. Two recent decisions, in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, underscore why land use planning matters and how smart policies can strengthen the local economy and protect good jobs.

The first was a decision by the Cape Cod Commission to deny Lowe’s a permit to build a store in the town of Dennis. As I wrote in a piece last year (“Here’s One Smart Way to Handle Big-Box Stores[1]“), Cape Cod is one of the few places in the country that embeds economic criteria in its planning policies and requires that large projects (commercial development over 10,000 square feet) win approval from both the host town and a regional planning body, the Cape Cod Commission, which is made up of representatives from each of the Cape’s 15 towns.

Guided by Cape Cod’s Regional Planning Policy[2], the commission does not limit its review to conventional zoning issues, such as the number of parking spaces or the distance the building is set back from the street. Instead it focuses on how the development would affect Cape Cod’s economy and environment.

After looking closely at the Lowe’s proposal, the Cape Cod Commission concluded[3] that “the probable benefit of the proposed development is not greater than the probable detriment.”

A pivotal issue was the store’s projected impact on jobs and wages. One of the region’s primary planning goals is to increase household income. Lowe’s would have the opposite effect, the commission concluded. In a region already saturated with building supply stores, Lowe’s arrival would cause many existing local businesses to downsize or close. The result would be a net decline of 48 jobs after Lowe’s opened.

Moreover, the new jobs at Lowe’s would pay $9,000 less on average than the jobs lost at local stores, resulting in a total income loss of over $3 million for the region’s residents.

Armed with this kind of analysis, the Cape Cod Commission has approved relatively few big-box stores in its 24-year history. Walmart has only one store in the region. It’s less than half the size of a typical supercenter and located in a building that used to house another department store. Not surprisingly, Cape Cod has significantly more independent businesses per capita than the national average.

Another example of the value of smart planning policy was last month’s unanimous decision by the Green Bay (Wisconsin) City Council to deny Walmart’s petition to build a 154,000-square-foot store in a historic industrial area adjacent to the downtown.

Green Bay has been looking to redevelop this area. In a similar situation, many cities might leap on a 15-acre Walmart store on the theory than anything is better than nothing. But Walmart’s suburban-style store did not fit the vision that residents and city officials had developed through a series of planning exercises. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Here’s One Smart Way to Handle Big-Box Stores: https://ilsr.org/heres-smart-handle-big-box-stores/
  2. Regional Planning Policy: http://www.capecodcommission.org/regionalplans/RPP
  3. concluded: http://www.capecodcommission.org/resources/regulatory/DRIdecisions/TR13005LowesDennisDenialDec010914.pdf
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/smart-planning-policies-protect-good-jobs-cities-vote-big-boxes/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/smart-planning-policies-protect-good-jobs-cities-vote-big-boxes/


Lifecycle Building Center, Atlanta, GA, Established in December 2011

by Neil Seldman | April 1, 2014 9:32 am

ILSR prepared a zero waste plan for the Atlanta Office of Sustainability in 2011-12. During site visits ILSR and Saint Vincent De Paul provided assistance to several community based reuse enterprises. In turn these new community businesses became working partners in ILSR’s and Saint Vincent De Pauls’ national networks. Neil Seldman serves as an advisor to the Lifecycle Building Center.

The Lifecycle Building Center (LBC) was co-founded by Adam Deck, a former store manager for Raleigh’s Habitat ReStore and a professional deconstruction expert, and Shannon Goodman, an architect formerly with Perkins+Will. (P+W) (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lifecycle-building-center/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lifecycle-building-center/


Report: Energy Storage – The Next Charge for Distributed Energy

by John Farrell | March 26, 2014 6:00 am

Browse the Report

Introduction
What is Energy Storage?[1]
Empowering Local Energy[2]
Community Solar and Storage[3]
Removing Barriers to Storage[4]
Supporting Renewable Energy[5]
Summary[6]
Footnotes

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT


Executive Summary

Distributed energy storage promises to change the electricity system during the next decade, as fundamentally as distributed renewable energy has in the last decade.

Already, promising examples of local renewable energy combined with energy storage illustrate how the powerful combination can allow for more thorough adoption of renewable energy and support greater local control of the energy system.

 

When Storage and Renewables Meet

Examples of energy storage that enhances distributed renewable energy include:

  • Electric vehicles (EVs) – EVs provide an economical alternative to driving on petroleum fuel, and offer a broadly distributed method of storing grid electricity for future use.
  • Community solar – local solar projects can more effectively meet local energy demand and storage increases the potential scale of local solar projects.
  • Island power grids – modeling remarkably high penetrations of variable renewable energy (40% and higher), island grid energy storage can maintain reliability and the match between supply and demand.
  • Microgrids – localized power systems can reduce costs, increase reliability, and scale up renewables, made possible by combining local energy production and storage.

Energy Storage Technology and Uses

Over 95% of deployed energy storage is in the form of water stored in hydropower reservoirs. But new promising technologies are being commercialized to support distributed renewable energy and meet the reliability and quality needs of the electricity system.

Energy storage can serve a number of important roles on the electricity grid, much more than simply storing daytime solar electricity for nighttime use, for example.

Uses for energy storage include:

  • Managing Supply and Demand – energy customers can reduce their bills by shifting energy use to low demand periods or by reducing their maximum energy use in a given month. energy storage can cost-effectively supply capacity and backup power that has historically been provided by expensive quick-response fossil fuel power plants.
  • Delivering Ancillary Services – at every moment supply and demand of electricity must be in balance. Energy storage can respond more quickly than most existing technologies, helping maintain the voltage and frequency of the electricity system to avoid damage to connected electronics and motors, and avoid power outages.
    Energy Storage Chart
    Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
  • Reinforcing Infrastructure – power lines, transformers and other grid infrastructure wears more quickly when operating at peak capacity. Energy storage can shift energy demand to ease stress on expensive equipment. It also allows energy users to manage their own energy use.
  • Supporting Renewable Energy – renewables are often variable, and variable energy can be challenging for inflexible utility power plants to accommodate. Energy storage responds quickly and effectively to variations in renewable energy output, enabling higher penetrations of wind and solar on the electric grid.

How Energy Storage Will Grow

Use of energy storage will continue to grow significantly, for three reasons:

  1. Falling costs will permit utilities to more efficiently integrate high percentages of renewable energy;
  2. Electric vehicle use will continue to grow quickly as a cost-effective alternative to petroleum fueled vehicles; and,
  3. Businesses, individuals, and other entities will seek more control over their energy system, enabled by energy storage.

Energy storage will also change the political dynamic of local renewable energy development. Utilities that have tried erecting barriers to on-site power generation may find that cost-effective energy storage enables their customers to leave the grid. Although most will not leave, the option to defect (described in a recent Rocky Mountain Institute Report[7])1[8] will give electricity customers unprecedented leverage and control over their energy future.

Energy storage stands at the cusp of major growth. Its adoption will accelerate the transformation toward a democratic energy system.


Introduction

The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a remarkable rise of renewable energy on the U.S. electric grid. The second decade will see an equally impressive rise of energy storage.

For 100 years, the electric grid remained relatively the same. Electric utilities ran large, fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants around the clock and have met fluctuations in power demand with fast-response gas, diesel and other (often inefficient and dirty) power plants. When the grid was designed, engineers anticipated periods of peak energy use, typically the late afternoon on a summer’s day.

Meeting demand meant layering power generation. The lowest level was big, inflexible, expensive-to-build but cheap-to-run, always-on “baseload” coal and nuclear power plants. The highest level was flexible, smaller, cheap-to-build but relatively expensive-to-run, “peaking” generators, until the energy supply was sufficient. Figure 1 illustrates.

Figure 1 - 20th century grid design

Today, 30 state renewable energy standards, combined with the rapidly falling cost of wind and solar power have changed everything, including the basic operation of the power grid. In the near term, renewable energy – especially solar – is rapidly reducing demand for all traditional fossil and nuclear power generation.

Figures 2-4

Instead of layering additional power plant capacity to meet a period of peak demand, future-forward utilities will focus on flexibility. In the long run, renewable energy will completely transform the grid’s design.

Utilities will start leveraging smart grid technology to adjust the top of the electricity demand curve, as illustrated in Figure 5. They will do this by helping customers shrink their usage and shift their electric demand. Overall, this will reduce the size and duration of peak energy demand.

In addition, utilities will seek flexible sources of power to fill the shrinking gap between renewable energy supply and more flexible demand. Energy storage will be particularly effective at managing very short periods of variability in energy use or production.

The ability of many energy storage technologies to respond quickly to demand will help maintain the quality and reliability of grid electricity. The electricity system requires several basic elements to remain in balance at all times:

  • Quantity – the amount of energy being consumed must match energy being produced.
  • Quality – the voltage of electricity (e.g. 110 volts for household use) and the frequency (60 cycles per second, or 60 Hertz) must remain within narrow tolerances.

Thus, quick and accurate response is the key characteristic of power sources providing “ancillary services” to balance quantity and quality of electricity. Battery storage is the fastest and most flexible electricity source.

Figure 5

The Coming of the Duck

The changes to the U.S. electricity system have been negligible until now, but the particularly fast rise of solar power in California illustrates how renewable energy is changing the grid.

Figure 6 Duck Chart

Figure 6 shows the net supply/demand on the California grid (courtesy of the California Independent System Operator) for 2012-13 and forecast through 2020. Until 2012, daily energy demand looked like a two-humped “camel,” with peaks mid-morning and early evening. Utility operated power plants supplied most of the needed energy. But the substitution of local solar power to meet local energy needs affects the demand for mid-day energy from the grid. The daily demand curve transforms, from a camel (orange line) to a (forecast) “duck” (bottom green line).

The duck has utility companies calling “fowl.” In particular, the trough created by mid-day renewable energy production may cut into baseload power generation, as well as potentially requiring a dramatic ramp up in power generation in the late afternoon, as solar wanes. This alarms utilities, because they stand to lose revenue from their baseload power plants as well as from their peaking power plants that will run less frequently. Due to the bottom line threat, utilities point to the duck chart as evidence that renewable energy development should be stopped.

Ultimately, the duck highlights the limitations of using a twentieth century grid model (Figure 1) for a twenty-first century electricity system (Figure 2). Organizations like the Clean Coalition and Regulatory Assistance Project have “decoded the duck.” Their work has shown how a smarter grid and energy storage can easily solve the purported problems[9].2[10]

Flipping the Grid

The transition to a twenty-first century grid is largely about changing two factors: economics and grid operations.

Economically, an abundance of low-cost renewable energy will change the profitability of baseload and peaking power plants. Baseload power plants will suffer from a drop in wholesale electricity prices, as has happened in Germany[11].3[12] Fast-response power plant operators will also struggle, because while peak energy prices may remain high, more solar energy on the grid will shorten periods of peak energy demand for these power plants.

Operationally, it means the grid layering process (Figure 1) gets flipped on its head. Although renewable energy generation still has some inflexibility, like old baseload coal and nuclear power plants, it has no fuel costsand near-zero operating costs. Thus, it’s the first power a utility should want to use on the grid.

Fluctuations in wind and solar power production, however, mean grid operators want remaining power generation to be flexible and at a low capital cost. This conundrum leads some researchers to suggest that[13] “baseload is not compatible with a renewable energy future.”4[14]

With quick, flexible response to electricity supply becoming more important in a renewable energy future, energy storage technologies may provide a crucial solution.

The Rise of Distributed Energy Storage

Options for cost-effective bulk energy storage – using large water reservoirs, underground salt caverns, or even railroad cars – do exist. In fact, over 95% of the 25,000 megawatts of deployed energy storage in the U.S. is pumped hydro reservoir storage (described more in the next section).

But the notion of large-scale energy storage doesn’t necessarily reflect another ideal, the democratizing effect of renewable energy on the grid system.

Solar power in particular is allowing large power users, small businesses, and even individuals to reduce or eliminate their reliance on utility-delivered electricity. Their on-site energy production is meeting on-site needs, and in some cases, delivering excess power to the grid, thereby localizing the supply-demand balancing act of utilities.

The cost-effectiveness of on-site energy production demands immediate changes to the utility planning process. In fact, it should have changed 10 or even 20 years ago, long before the rise of distributed renewable energy made clear that large-scale, centralized power plants may become un-economical before they would reach the end of their useful 40- to 50-year useful life.

The changes to the grid aren’t happening at the same pace everywhere. Some parts of the power grid (southern California, for example) have much more local renewable energy generation than others (e.g. Utah). Thus, the shift to a twenty-first century grid isn’t a pressing, nationwide phenomenon (yet), but will soon become an urgent issue in some regions of the country.

Federal and state policies have begun to anticipate the need for energy storage. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued two orders in July 2013 requiring transmission markets to pay more and more accurately for services provided by energy storage. Also in 2013, California passed a first-in-the-nation energy storage mandate[15] that divides the 1.3 gigawatt (G W) target into transmission, distribution, and customer-sited storage.5[16]

These timely policies will support innovative ways that that energy storage is already being introduced to the local energy grid, supporting local power production and the democratization of the energy system. This includes electric vehicles, community solar, island power grids, and microgrids.


What is Energy Storage?

Storing energy is a simple concept that encompasses a number of technologies. A simple Thermos® for example, uses insulation to store thermal energy by keeping “hot things hot and cold things cold.”TM

In the electricity system, energy storage means electricity storage. The difference between types of storage is the medium of storage. Figure 7 provides a few examples of energy storage based on the storage medium.

Types of Storage

Energy Storage Chart
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance


Chemical storage
includes batteries and fuel cells, which store electricity by reversing the chemical reaction that produces energy.

Thermal storage includes options like making ice or chilling water with electricity to be used to avoid electricity use at a later time for cooling or air conditioning. For example, the U.S. FDA microgrid (mentioned later) has cold water storage to operate chillers for air conditioning when grid power is lost. Some solar power plants also store heat in the form of molten salts, heat that can be used to make electricity when the sun doesn’t shine.

One way to envision potential energy storage is moving something uphill with electricity and then generating energy when the thing moves downhill. A widely used technology involves pumping water up to reservoirs and then running it through turbines downhill at a later time.

An emerging concept (the first project is under construction in Nevada) is to use electricity[17] to move gravel-loaded rail cars up a steep grade, generating electricity with regenerative braking on the way down.6[18]

Kinetic energy storage involves storing energy in motion. A simple example is an electric vehicle like the Tesla Model S, which recaptures vehicle motion to charge the battery as the car slows. Pure grid storage models use flywheels, specially designed wheels that spin thousands of times per minute at low resistance.

The different storage media have varying strengths and weaknesses for meeting grid needs. Some are quick to respond, but slow to re-charge. Others are slow to respond, but very cost-effective. Even within particular technologies there are differences.

Differences in Batteries

Traditional dry-cell batteries (e.g. AA, lithium ion laptop batteries, or lead acid car batteries) have internal cells with an electrolyte solution that generates energy. Because the components are integrated and self-contained – the “juice” is on the inside – maximum instantaneous output of a dry cell battery and the maximum total energy capacity are fixed.

Alternatively, flow batteries literally keep the juice on the outside, in separate storage tanks. The levels of fluid in the tanks represent the storage capacity of the battery, and they supply electrolytes to a fuel cell. The size of the fuel cell limits the instantaneous output of the battery, but because the electrolyte tanks can vary in size, a flow battery can provide much longer periods of energy storage at the same capacity as a dry cell battery.

Based on design and materials, batteries also have different charging speeds, charging cycles (number of times battery can be fully charged), and cost.


Empowering Local Energy

The electricity system has several energy storage applications, including enabling individuals and communities to maximize their use of local renewable energy resources. With storage, more locally produced renewable energy can be used on-site and more can be successfully integrated into a local grid system.

Already this is happening. Electric vehicle owners have installed solar panels, using clean energy from their rooftop to supplant fossil fuels in their cars. Community solar projects have added batteries to help solar serve early evening demand and smooth solar output. Utilities are using storage to increase the use of distributed renewable energy. Corporate and college campuses have created microgrids, using storage with renewable energy to create a mini electric grid that can remain powered even when the larger utility grid goes down.

The following examples illustrate how energy storage is helping increase distributed renewable energy development, and/or supporting individuals and communities in their effort to take control of their energy future.

Electric Vehicles

Figure 7 - Percent of EV Owners with a PV System
Source: Center for Sustainable Energy California u-Vehicle Survey Results May 2

An electric vehicle (EV) may be the ultimate in democratic energy storage, and for good reason. It can store on-site energy production from clean solar energy and offset expensive and dirty petroleum fuels. EVs enable the expansion of both energy storage (the vehicle’s energy source) and renewable energy (through its ability to utilize variable solar and wind resources).

With grid electricity, electric vehicles can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions[19] from driving compared to typical gasoline power vehicles.7[20] Combined with on-site solar power production, electric vehicles can use clean solar power for emission-free driving. With implementation of existing technologies, the car battery can also serve as a crucial backup when grid power fails.

Owners of electric vehicles recognize the opportunity, with 39% of surveyed electric vehicle owners in California already owning a solar array, and a further 17% planning to invest in one (Figure 7).8[21]

On-site solar has benefits regardless of storage, reducing energy bills and retaining more of an individual’s energy dollar within their community.

Figure 8Likewise electric vehicles possess inherent benefits. At typical grid electricity prices (about 12¢ per kilowatt-hour), the cost of driving an electric vehicle is equivalent to driving a gas vehicle for $1.20 per gallon of gas.9[22] More efficient and simple electric motors also mean one-third lower maintenance[23] costs over the life of the vehicle than gasoline combustion engines.10[24]

Although rooftop solar electricity is typically more costly[25] than grid electricity for most homeowners (for now),11[26] it’s still a cheaper fuel than petroleum, as the following table (Figure 9) illustrates for drivers in 9 large metropolitan areas (see endnote[27] for cost assumptions).12[28]

Figure 9The cost of driving an electric vehicle can be reduced further with tailored utility billing plans, such as ones offered by southern California Edison. Their EV plans offer discounted prices for vehicle charging in late evening or overnight hours. For moderate energy users, charing their vehicle after 10pm could cut the annual cost of their vehicle fuel by 33%. For higher energy users (using more electricity overall per month[29]), the cost savings rises to 60% (Figure 10).13[30]

Some utilities have an even better deal. Texas utility TXU is offering “free charging nights”[31] to EV owners, from 10pm to 6am because of an abundance of overnight wind energy production.14[32]

Combining solar and electric vehicles can accelerate the clean energy benefits and help Americans keep more of their energy dollar local. Already, electric vehicle manufacturers like Ford are offering low price solar arrays[33] to electric vehicle buyers.15[34]

Figure 10An electric vehicle could also provide valuable energy backup when power from the grid fails. A typical electric vehicle battery (22 kWh) could power a refrigerator for nearly two weeks (at 1.4 kWh per day). With a rooftop solar array, an individual with an EV connected to their house could have backup power for a long period of time, if needed (Figure 11).

Using an EV battery for backup requires the spread of vehicle-to-home communication technology as well as potential policy changes to prevent battery power from flowing back to the grid.

Figure 11Charging electric vehicle batteries with local solar could power most of the driving Americans currently do. The 2.5 kW solararray offered by Ford and Solarcity for buyers of the Focus Electric would produce enough energy on an average day (in an average city) to fill 40% of the battery. The resulting range of 30 miles is more than the daily distance driven[35]16[36] for 60% of America’s cars (Figure 12). If 10% of those vehicle owners converted to electric drive and installed a solar array, it could cut annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 31 million metric tons[37], the equivalent of removing 6 million vehicles from the road.17[38]

(Note: the vehicles would not always be home to charge off the solar array, so the greenhouse gas emissions is a net effect, not a direct one).

Figure 12Electric vehicle storage can also be used in aggregate to increase penetration of renewable energy on the grid. A 2006 study conducted by Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware and Cliff Murley of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District suggested that EV batteries could provide ancillary services[39] but also enable a “much larger penetration of18[40] intermittent renewables.” A 2011 study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories[41] illustrated how large-scale deployment of electric vehicles in the seven-state Northwest Power Pool could double the wind power on the regional grid system by absorbing excess wind power production at times of low demand, adding 10 gigawatts.19[42]

Finally, when vehicle batteries no longer have the capacity to power vehicles, they may still have enough capacity[43] to provide energy services to the electric grid.20[44]

The bottom line:

  1. Solar and electric vehicle batteries can combine to allow for carbon-free driving at a lower cost than using a gasoline car;
  2. An EV battery could provide a home with a useful battery backup in case of emergency, and;
  3. Many EV batteries together, during and after their use in vehicles, can help expand renewable energy on the grid.
Electric Vehicles
A 2011 study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories illustrated how large-scale deployment of electric vehicles in the seven-state Northwest Power Pool could double the wind power on the regional grid system by absorbing excess wind power production at times of low demand adding 10 gigawatts.

Wright-Hennepin Community SolarCommunity Solar and Storage

Energy storage may become a key feature of community solar projects, also called “solar gardens.” Although ownership structures vary for community solar projects, a number are owned and operated by cooperative electric utilities on behalf of their members.

In one project recently completed in Minnesota, the Wright-Hennepin Electric Cooperative combined 40 kW of locally manufactured solar panels with 36 kW of 21 locally manufactured battery storage.21[45]

The batteries provide the project with at least two key advantages, with more possible as the grid system changes upon the arrival of more renewable energy.

The battery’s primary value is solving the “duck” problem mentioned in the introduction – shifting the use of solar energy[46] produced in the afternoon into the peak early evening period.22[47] But the unique configuration of the batteries and solar panels is helping in several subtle ways. Steve Nisbet of the cooperative utility explains:

“We’re using the same inverters [which convert direct current solar energy into grid-appropriate alternating current] for the batteries and the solar panels, [saving] the cost of having two sets of inverters.”23[48]

In addition to hardware savings, the utility is achieving higher efficiency. The solar panels can pump energy directly to the batteries (without the loss during conversion to alternating current) because the panel links directly into the batteries.

Also, the link through the batteries gives the utility fine-tuned control over the amount of electricity that goes to the grid. The utility can put exactly as much energy as it desires onto the local grid, any excess power continues to charge the batteries.

“One other oft-missed benefit is that I can use the batteries and inverters to maintain a stable output while I’m servicing parts of the system, which minimizes any lost energy production from the solar panels during maintenance windows.”24[49]

The batteries may offer other (monetary) benefits in the future. Nisbet explains:

“We’re not using them for anything but demand reduction…right now. In the future we may use the batteries for [frequency regulation, voltage support, or capacity firming]. Frequency regulation is done in other [independent system operator or ISO] markets around the country (California for example), but right now, the [Midwest] market hasn’t needed it (at least on the scale we’re talking about).

At some point in the future that will change. The same goes for firming and voltage support. The solar penetration in our area is so small right now that the existing grid equipment can follow the voltages just fine.

As we’ve seen in Hawaii, Arizona, and California, as the penetration goes up, . . . energy storage at the local, or distribution, level becomes an imperative.”

Figure 13Maximizing Local Storage and Kaua’i

When talking of balancing local supply and demand on the grid, there’s no better example than an isolated, island power grid. On the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, the cooperative electric utility is rapidly increasing the amount of solar energy on its 65 megawatt (MW) grid, supported by energy storage.

Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative was formed in 2002, when a group of the island’s business leaders helped finance a purchase of the existing electric company. Over the ensuing decade, the island’s utility has started a massive transformation to renewable energy, all while giving its 30,000 members a growing ownership share in their utility.

The KIUC transformation to renewable energy was catalyzed by the 2008 spike in oil prices that struck all Hawaiian utilities and dramatically increased the cost of electricity. The cost of energy to consumers has risen by 10-15¢ per kilowatt-hour, 33% or more. Prices in Hawai’i are now 3-4 times higher than for average electricity customers in the rest of the United States.

By 2015, KIUC will likely quintuple its renewable energy from a decade earlier. In 2006, 8% of their electricity sales derived from renewable resources, rising to 15% of sales in August 2013. The utility projects a near-tripling to 42% renewable in two years, (by the end of 2015), split between biomass, hydro, and solar25[50] power. More than a third of this, or 15%, will come from customer-owned solar arrays.26[51]

The utility’s strategic plan illustrates the remarkable level of customer-owned solar:

“By the end of 2012, more than 1,200 PV systems had been installed on Kaua’i, generating nearly 7 megawatts. In 2013, 1, 500 more systems representing an additional 9 megawatts are scheduled to come on line.”27[52]

Already, KIUC is ranked #2 among U.S. utilities in solar, with 282 solar Watts per customer installed in 2012.28[53]

Solar is a good resource for Kaua’i, but not extraordinary. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates[54] electricity output of 1343 kWh for every installed kW DC of capacity per year, just 4.5% better than for Minneapolis, MN.29[55]

Figure 14Energy storage has played a key role in the expansion of solar energy. The utility has deployed distributed battery storage (of up to 3 MW capacity) at two of its major substations, Koloa and Port Allen, to support utility-owned solar arrays ranging from 1.5 MW to 12 MW (under construction). In particular, “KIUC uses battery energy storage systems at the Koloa substation and at Port Allen to help stabilize the intermittent energy generated by solar projects.”30[56]

On the Hawaiian island of Lanai, utility managers have explicitly mentioned three ways energy storage helps accommodate solar power. First, it overcomes limitations of existing fossil fuel generation to handle “ramp rates,” or the speed with which intermittent cloud cover can cause solar arrays to go from low to maximum production in a matter of seconds. It also backs up the solar capacity for cloudy days (called “firming”). Finally, the batteries help maintain[57] a constant frequency for the grid’s alternating current.31[58]

The presence of storage has helped the Kaua’i utility push solar energy generation to unprecedented levels. The forthcoming 12 MW solar project being constructed at its Koloa substation will provide 30% of the island’s daytime electricity demand, supported by[59] an32,33[60] additional 2 MW of battery storage. This will join an existing 6 MW solar PV project completed in 2012.

Beyond Net Metering Text Box

Figure 15Combined with other projects in the pipeline, the utility plans[61] to meet half of the daytime energy use on Kaua’i with solar by the end of 2015.34[62]

Energy storage has other benefits, as well. It can reduce operations and maintenance costs for the island’s fossil fuel power plants. An energy storage study conducted by the utility and Sandia National Labs showed an annual net savings of $135,000 (about 1% of the utility’s operations budget) in operations and fuel costs for the utility using energy storage with existing diesel and gas power plants.35[63] Some have called this the “Prius effect,” referencing how the car’s battery helps the internal combustion engine run at its most efficient.

As solar and wind prices continue to fall, and fossil and nuclear prices continue to rise, other utilities must learn from KUIC’s use of energy storage to provide balancing on the grid, and to maximize the deployment of renewable energy.

Figure 16Microgrids

Released after this energy storage report, ILSR dives deeper with Mighty Microgrids[64], released in March 2016.

A microgrid is an area of the electricity system that – at the flip of an automated switch – can operate on its own (managing supply and demand) independent from the larger electric grid.

Microgrids are rising in popularity as affordable distributed renewable energy generation and energy storage make it possible to operate a small scale version of the electric grid with local control, to dramatically increase renewable energy, to maintain a reliable power supply, or all of the above.

According to[65] microgrid developer Green Energy Corp., in late 2013, there were only 30 “commercial-scale” microgrids in operation, but no description of the 30 or their size.36[66] Navigant Research predicts[67] exponential growth in microgrids – to as much as 6 gigawatts by 2020 – as the costs of locally generated and controlled power fall relative to grid electricity prices.37[68]

A Key Role for Storage

Energy storage enables two key features of microgrids: islanding and local grid management.

Independent operation – “islanding” – is an essential characteristic of a microgrid, but it’s not the only one. There are many other useful features that have motivated businesses, government agencies, and college campuses to develop microgrids.

As mentioned in the UC San Diego case study, reliable power supply was essential for sensitive electronic equipment. On-site power generation and energy storage allow it to avoid costly down-time and re-calibration of such equipment when the grid goes down.

Energy storage plays a particularly important role in managing ancillary services for a microgrid. Storage, like a battery, can not only supply real power when other generators aren’t functioning, but can also provide ancillary services ordinarily found on the larger electric grid’s distribution network, including frequency regulation, load following, and voltage management.

The following microgrids feature energy storage for their islanding/backup capability.

Laurel, Maryland

One microgrid model was christened by the Maryland governor and the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2013. It includes 402 kW of solar PV over carports along with a shipping container stuffed with lithium ion batteries at a mixed-use development in Laurel, MD. The solar energy provides 20 percent[69] of the site’s energy needs, and the batteries have enough capacity[70] to provide 50 kW of power for 4 hours.38[71]

The site has the two essential elements of a microgrid: on-site power generation (from solar) and backup (from batteries) that allow the site to operate for hours without grid power.

Interestingly, the system pays for itself with its grid connection rather than its ability to be disconnected.

The battery system provides value to the grid in the form of frequency regulation. In short, the microgrid operator signs up as a regulator with a stated capacity in the regional market. When sent a signal that regulation is needed, they must respond or pay penalties for being unavailable. Batteries are particularly effective for this task, because they can respond almost instantly to the needs of grid operators. Quick bursts of power from the site’s batteries replace expensive and polluting power from natural gas power plants that normally previously helped the utility regulate grid frequency, and pay for the cost of energy storage.

However, this commercial opportunity is limited to a few grid regions, like PJM Interconnection in the northeast, that have active markets for frequency regulation and reasonable prices.

Between 20% on-site renewable energy and the cost-effective use of batteries, the Laurel microgrid holds much promise for replication in areas where grid operators pay for frequency regulation on ancillary services markets.

San Diego, California

The University of California at San Diego illustrates how microgrids work well for corporate or college campuses. Originally, the school had[72] backup power installed to protect fragile research equipment.

“We have an electron microscope that every time we have a supply disruption, it takes six weeks to recalibrate. We can’t let that happen,” says the University’s research director.39[73]

Figure 17By 2013, the campus had evolved its basic backup systems into a sophisticated microgrid, including renewable and conventional power sources such as:

  • 2.2 MW of solar
  • 2.8 MW from a methane-powered fuel-cell (methane from landfill gas)
  • Two 13.5 MW combined-heat-and-power gas turbines
  • A 3 MW steam turbine
  • Several hundred kW of battery storage
  • Steam and electric chillers to store cool water at night for building cooling during daytime

The microgrid supplies[74] over 92% of campus electricity needs and 95% of heating and cooling, with both thermal and battery energy storage.40[75]

The next phase of the microgrid will saturate campus rooftops with solar power. Combined with new research[76] into solar energy forecasting, it will help the campus significantly increase the portion of its energy that comes from renewable energy, currently less than 15% (from solar and the fuel cell).41[77]

The 42 MW of power generation capacity (enough to power over 8,000 homes) and ability to isolate from the larger electric grid provides “low-cost, high[ly] reliable electric service to the buildings” on campus, says John Dilliot[78], Energy Utilities Manager.42[79] During a 2011 blackout, for example, the campus was able to reduce power consumption[80] in buildings, tap into thermal energy storage (cold water tanks), and cycle off building cooling to maintain power for essential services.43[81]

The campus is also being redesigned to support charging of electric vehicles from renewable resources (solar and methane fuel cells) during peak periods. Several dozen fast charging stations will be set up[82], and on-site solar panels will allow for direct charging of vehicles, preventing power losses associated with transforming the power from direct current to alternating current (and back again).44[83]

UC San Diego will continue to be a model for microgrid design, especially cost- effectiveness; the microgrid[84] “saves [UC San Diego] an estimated $850,000 a month on its electricity bill,”45[85] largely due to the economics of generating their own power at high efficiencies with combined-heat-and-power.

U.S. FDA – White Oak, MD

The White Oak Federal Research Center has sufficient on-site generation from gas turbines and diesel generators to power the entire campus, with chiller backup for air conditioning, based in large cold water thermal energy storage tanks.

Borrego Springs, CA

This jointly-funded pilot project of SDG&E and the U.S. Department of Energy was designed to test out advanced energy storage, reduction in local peak loads, and local resilience. The microgrid (including customer-sited solar, battery storage, and diesel generators) automatically restored power[86] to 1/3 of local customers after storm outage knocked out all power in Sept. 2013.46[87]


Removing Barriers to Storage

Several policy barriers have limited opportunities for energy storage to participate in the electricity marketplace, but that may be changing. Two recent orders (July 2013) by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), numbers 755 and 784, require grid operators[88] – often called Independent System Operators – to factor in speed and accuracy of ancillary services into their market prices.47[89] Because energy storage, like batteries and flywheels, is more responsive and accurate than traditional services (like natural gas power plants), this should result in more economic opportunity for energy storage (and higher quality grid power).

Markets for Ancillary Services

The FERC orders will help remedy a lack of consistent markets to sell energy storage services. Ancillary services like voltage support and frequency regulation are handled exclusively by monopoly utilities in many regions of the country, and regional grid operators have not necessarily established pricing and policies for including third parties. The FERC orders promise to change this in time, but it will likely be several years before they are fully implemented by regional grid authorities.

Figure 18Net Metering

Net metering is a billing policy that simply compensates solar owners for their energy generation. It spins the meter backward during the day when there is excess solar generation, for example, and forward at night. It treats on- site renewable energy production like any other method for reducing energy consumption, by having customers pay for their “net” energy usage (total use less on-site production) on their electricity bill. The policy mixes interconnection rules (how to connect), a technical and administrative set of requirements, with economics of billing (net metering).

Such policies typically make it much easier to connect a solar array to the grid, for example, than without them.

California utilities have recently raised objections to allowing energy projects that combine solar and batteries to use net metering. Their problem is that it isn’t generally possible with net metering customers to tell if the energy they send to the grid comes from their solar array or their battery storage system. Utilities insist[90] they should not be paying for energy stored from the grid in addition to power produced from solar.48[91]

But blocking batteries from net metering isn’t just about what kind of energy is fed to the grid, but about the ease and cost of connecting to the grid. Projects connecting under net metering rules cannot be charged “standby” fees (ostensibly to cover the utility’s cost for having backup power available 24/7) or hefty fees for interconnection to the electric grid. The additional meter for the battery system that utilities desire, for example, could increase[92] project costs by more than $1,300.49[93]

In other words, the economic and policy battle between utilities and distributed energy storage may just be getting started.

What Storage Does

The most common notion about energy storage – storing electricity for use at another time – explains just a small fraction of the technology’s potential. In fact, other uses for energy storage like maintaining consistent voltage (and other “ancillary services”) are often more useful and more lucrative.

Figure 18, from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)[94], shows the many potential functions for energy storage based on where it connects to the grid: on the transmission system, the lower-voltage distribution system, or behind the customer’s electric meter.50[95]

CPUC explains some of the enormous range of possible applications for energy storage. However, distributed energy storage may be the most economical and practical today. That’s because grid-scale storage is better suited to large-scale services, but distributed storage can provide value at the local level. The following table, Figure 19, shared by GreenTech Media smart grid analyst Zach Pollock[96], highlights how local storage provides access to more opportunities to earn a return with energy storage.51[97] Peak shaving, especially for commercial customers, is particularly cost- effective.

Figure 19Different energy storage technologies have different economic implications. For this report, we focus on energy storage in batteries because they are the most commonly deployed and versatile technology. Other storage technologies, such as pumped hydro, have little opportunity for expansion or limited applicability integrating with distributed energy projects.

Balancing Energy Supply/Demand

Energy storage technologies (batteries in particular) allow customers to manage the time and amount of energy used from the power grid, and to insulate themselves from grid failures. These services fall into three broad categories.

Reducing Peak Demand

Figure 20Many commercial electricity customers have a two-part electricity bill: one part for energy consumption and one for maximum demand. A hose metaphor helps explain: if these business were connected to the utility by a garden hose, they pay for all the water used (energy consumption) and for the hose to be large enough to meet their maximum need at any given time (maximum demand). This is in contrast to most residential customers that are charged only for the amount of water used, not for the size of the hose. Quote often[98], the demand charge is a large portion of the electric bill, sometimes as much or more than the charges for energy actually used.52[99]

Shifting Energy Use

Electric customers can also save money with energy storage if they are on a time-of-use billing plan, where electricity is more costly at certain times of day. The energy storage device allows them to buy power when it’s cheap (at night or on weekends), store it, and tap that stored energy during the expensive periods (e.g. weekday afternoons).

Time-shifting using energy storage also benefits solar energy producers, who may find that they can get a better price from their utility when delivering energy later in the day while demand is high but there is less sun.

Finally, some utilities offer discounts to electric customers to provide controllable demand. For example, many utilities will provide a credit for customers that let the utility remotely cycle off their air conditioner for up to 15 minutes during periods of peak demand. Similar programs are available to commercial and industrial customers with large energy loads. Energy storage allows them to participate in demand response programs without having to turn off their air conditioners or electric motors.

Figure 21Replacing “Spinning” Reverses

Since power demand can sometimes change unpredictably, electric utilities typically have one or more fossil fuel power plants operating as a “spinning reserve.” In this instance, the power plant is primed to put more power onto the grid on very short notice. It does so by[100] burning fuel, heating water, generating steam, and spinning its generators.54[101] If unused, the utility dumps the energy produced into the ground rather than the grid.

Energy storage provides utilities with quick- response reserves, reducing the need for polluting and wasteful spinning reserves and allowing time for power plants that are off to spin up.

When not in use for other services, energy storage also represents excess capacity that utilities can tap into during periods of peak energy use. Energy storage is extra capacity utilities can use to meet unanticipated demand.

Providing Backup

Energy storage can also serve as a backup in the event of a grid power failure. The value of this varies based on the customer and their needs: from the cost of refrigerated goods to the cost of recalibrating electron microscopes (as at UC San Diego).

Delivering Ancillary Services

Figure 22Everything designed to use electricity, from motors to iPad chargers, has certain expectations about the power it receives from the grid. In the U.S., most devices expect power delivered at approximately 120 volts. This is the akin to the water pressure in a pipe and it helps describe how fast the electrons are moving from the grid into our devices and motors. The reason for 120 volts is buried in the history of the electric grid.

U.S. electricity is also delivered via alternating current with a frequency of 60 Hertz (meaning the voltage reverses 60 times per second). Most electricity in the U.S. is generated from the spinning motion of magnets within a coil of wire that creates a magnetic field. As the magnet spins, the magnetic field moves, causing alternating current. In a power plant, fossil fuels or nuclear reactions heat water to produce steam, which spins a turbine (with a magnet and coil inside).55[102]

Small deviations in voltage and frequency are normal. But electrical equipment can malfunction and the local power grid itself can collapse if delivered voltage deviates significantly from 120 V or the frequency deviates significantly from 60 Hz.

Utilities can use energy storage to address variations in the voltage and frequency of grid energy. In fact, batteries are often more accurate and quicker to correct deviations in frequency and voltage than traditional power generation. Utilities can also network storage systems together[103] (e.g. SMUD in Rancho Cordova, CA) to use distributed storage systems as though they were one large system.56[104]

Figure 23, shows how energy storage has historically been rewarded in competitive electricity markets.

Furthermore, supporting voltage is more efficient the closer a power plant is to demand. Traditional power plants are large, often dirty or noisy, and therefore frequently geographically distant from major population centers.

Energy storage, like electric vehicle batteries, can add power to the grid close to where energy is being used.

Maintaining a constant 60 Hz frequency is also essential for the power grid. Flywheels, along with fast battery technologies have the capability to follow variations quicker and more accurately than generators, leading to increased efficiency and less wear and tear on equipment.

Figure 23

Absorbing Excess Energy

Sometimes an imbalance in voltage or frequency is the result of too much power supply, rather than too little. Unlike traditional power plants, energy storage can help restore balance by absorbing excess power.

By being able to affect both sides of the supply-demand equation, energy storage can more efficiently help balance grid energy and support power quality.

Note: Under current market rules the operator of the system may have to pay for the energy absorbed off the grid, even if it was done for the sake of regulation.

Smoothing Ramp Rates

Improved forecast data is helping utilities plan for variable output from renewable energy power plants, but energy storage can help compensate for the sometimes rapid changes in energy output from renewable energy generators.

On the Hawai’ian island of Lanai, for example, battery storage is helping an isolated grid accommodate power fluctuations caused when intermittent cloud cover rapidly shades or uncovers a local solar PV system. While the PV array has a nominal output of 1500 kW, attached battery storage can absorb fluctuations of 360 kW every minute, giving grid operators time to deploy other resources to keep supply and demand in balance.

Figure 24 shows a very simplified model of how energy storage can smooth energy output from renewable energy systems.

Already, some areas of the electric grid, such as the Northeast, have markets where non- utility providers can bid to provide these ancillary services. Orders from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2013 will require markets to be established in all regions.

Reinforcing Infrastructure

Even if overall energy demand doesn’t grow, demand in certain areas of the grid may grow faster than others. In the past, utilities have responded with more infrastructure – power plants and power lines – to make available more capacity to areas in need.

Strategically placed energy storage units (or distributed power generation, like solar) – near energy demand – can help utilities meet increasing peak load without new infrastructure.

“We can avoid that $100 million investment in transmission lines, distribution lines, in capital infrastructure,” says Michael Deering[105], speaking of a recent solicitation by the Long Island Power Authority for 40 megawatts of new solar energy on the south fork of Long Island.58[106] If successful, the Long Island program will help the utility[107] avoid over $100 million in new power lines and power plants to meet rising local demand.59[108]

Local power sources can also help reduce stress and extend the life of critical equipment (e.g. substations and transformers), by facilitating operation at less than full capacity.

Similarly, energy storage can help avoid capital expenses and extend the life of existing assets by shifting non-peak energy production to peak demand periods.

Supporting Renewable Energy

In combining a variety of useful features such as smoothing ramp rates and voltage/ frequency management, energy storage allows the local electric grid (micro or otherwise) to accommodate more renewable energy.

Hawai’ian utilities are the perfect example, as each island serves as a functional microgrid. Battery storage is paired with solar and wind energy to allow for much higher levels of renewable energy delivery (up to 40%) than are seen elsewhere.

Energy storage can be especially important for distributed renewable energy, because the grid impact will be localized and relatively small, allowing distributed energy storage of modest size to work well in tandem with renewable energy.


Figure 24The Future

Use of energy storage will continue to grow significantly, for three reasons:

  1. Falling costs will permit utilities to more efficiently integrate high percentages of renewable energy;
  2. Electric vehicles will continue to grow quickly as a cost-effective alternative to petroleum fueled vehicles; and
  3. Businesses, individuals, and other entities will seek more control over their energy system, enabled by energy storage.

In all three cases, storage will aid the rapid deployment of renewable energy.

Batteries are likely to be the key storage technology. Already in wide commercial use in electronic devices from laptops to tablets to phones, millions of lithium-ion batteries are manufactured each year.

Mass production has drive the cost down. Figure 25 shows historical price decreases[109] for lithium-ion batteries for consumer electronics.60[110]

More recently, we can track decreases in battery costs from the consumer side. Price history of common laptop batteries on Amazon.com shows prices decreasing[111] by two-thirds since mid-2010.61[112]

Other reports suggest that[113] prices (for bulk buyers) are down 75% in the past five years.62[114] Tesla Motors’ proposed “gigafactory” could, by itself, dramatically increase worldwide battery production capacity.

The potential for widespread use of batteries in distributed grid storage (as in Hawai’i), in electric vehicles, and as on-site energy storage for microgrids or individuals means that batteries are a potentially disruptive entrant into the electricity sector.

Large-format batteries suitable for use on the electric grid are already 60% cheaper than they were in 2009, according to Navigant Research[115].63[116] Navigant suggests they will decline in price by another 40% by the end of 2015, and a total of 60% from today’s prices by 2020.

Bloomberg Energy agrees[117], estimating a 57% drop in cost of energy per kWh from batteries by 2020.64[118] According to Sam Jaffe of Navigant Research[119], “At that point, EVs will carry only a small premium over their gasoline counterparts, and battery-based energy storage will be almost as inexpensive as natural gas generation in a peaker plant.”65[120]

Integrating Renewables

Batteries and other energy storage will help overcome the biggest drawbacks of grid connected renewable energy projects: variability.

In particular, utilities need to be able to accommodate a potentially rapid rise and fall of energy supply. Already, several reports illustrate[121] strategies that utilities are implementing, with existing technology, to make renewable energy integration easier.66[122]

If energy variability can’t be handled with advanced forecasting and demand response, variability can be smoothed with batteries. In high-cost regimes like Hawai’i, batteries are cost-effectively enabling utilities to get as much as 40% of their energy from solar and wind by storing energy for cloudy or non- windy periods.

As the cost of energy storage falls, it will be increasingly cost effective for utilities of all types to use energy storage to blow past originally conceived limits on local and grid- wide renewable energy.

Powering Vehicles (and the Grid)

At the end of 2013, the U.S. had nearly 170,000 electric vehicles on the road, and the International Energy Agency predicts[123] this will rise to 5.3 million by 2020.67[124] The sticker cost premium for EVs will largely evaporate by then, and the cost of ownership will be lower, due to lower maintenance needs and the lower per mile costs of driving on electricity.

With vehicle-to-grid technology, EV batteries will also aid electric utilities by providing support for more renewable energy. A 2011 study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories[125] showed that the seven-state Northwest Power Pool could add an additional 10 gigawatts of wind power – doubling the current installed capacity – if 1 in 8 vehicles in the region were battery operated.68[126] This finding is supported by research from Denmark[127],69[128] and could make an enormous difference in accommodating the variability of renewable energy generation.

Enabling Local Control

Perhaps most importantly, energy storage is the catalyst allowing individuals and entities to separate from the electric grid entirely. Electric utilities have increasingly fought back against the threat of distributed renewable energy to their business model, and energy storage could allow electric customers to figuratively or literally cut the cord to the electric company a la cellphone users and the landline phone company.

With energy storage, microgrids will become increasingly prevalent and cost-effective alternatives to grid power, with the potential to operate increasingly on renewable energy alone.

Figure 26Sparked by poor grid resilience in the face of weather disasters like Hurricane Sandy, the $1.20 public sector and regulators are pushing ahead. Connecticut created a statewide $0.90 microgrid program that invested $18 million in 9 new projects in 2013. In New York, the governor has created[129] a prize pool of $40 million to support the development of more disaster-resilient microgrids, each capable of serving 40,000 people.70[130]


Summary

The rise of energy storage is the second stage of a 3-stage booster rocket that’s transforming the electricity system the way the Apollo mission did our view of outer space.

The first stage was the rise of renewable energy and the hint that the twentieth century fossil fuel electricity system was not immutable. It sparked the notion that electricity generation and ownership could be democratic rather than dictatorial. However, in places like Hawai’i or California, distributed renewable energy is ascendant and the fuel from that first booster stage is no longer sufficient to continue the journey to a twenty- first century electricity system.

Energy storage is the second booster stage. The examples in this report – community solar with storage, electric vehicles, and island grids – highlight the opportunity. Storage enables greater integration of renewable energy on the larger grid, high-renewable microgrids, and democratization of the electricity system, not just electricity generation. Already, new policies for energy storage in California, microgrids in New York, and energy services from FERC are enabling the continued growth of energy storage on the larger grid. Falling storage costs will make microgrids and electric vehicle ownership more effective, multiplying the capacity for local energy management and renewable energy production. Ultimately, as energy storage grows, the power in the energy system continues to trickle away from utilities and into the hands of their former customers.

The third stage begins now, anticipating cost- effective longer-term storage and cheap short- term storage. These grid-flipping technologies will be cost-effective long before new utility power plants and power lines reach their 40- to 50-year lifespans. When they arrive, they not only make such investments obsolete, but inexpensive storage will aid in the retirement of legacy fossil fuel power plants. Inexpensive grid alternatives, enabled by cheap storage and local renewable energy, will be interconnected to create a more robust and resilient energy grid. In other words, the rules for today’s electricity system must be changed to prepare for the third stage of the grid transformation.

Unfortunately, utilities haven’t internalized what the combination of distributed renewable energy and energy storage mean for their monopoly energy model. Many still operate as though putting up defensive walls around their existing investments will secure their economic future, despite evidence that the coming decades will allow their customers to economically and completely cut the utility cord if it’s no longer worthwhile to remain connected.

The completion of the 3-stage journey will be dramatic. It will transform the electricity system into a 100% renewable, distributed network of intermingled energy producers and consumers, coordinated but no longer controlled by electric utilities.

The future of the electricity system is likely to reinforce the saying that “change is inevitable, growth is optional.” The electricity system will transform, but we don’t know yet if utilities will grow into their new role.


Footnotes

  1. The Economics of Grid Defection. (Rocky Mountain Institute, March 2014). Accessed 3/14/14 at http://bit.ly/1e09Hq4[131].
  2. Flattening the Duck. (Clean Coalition, 12/16/13). Accessed 2/5/14 at https://tinyurl.com/kkxpq3e[132]. & Lazar, Jim. Teaching the Duck to Fly. (Regulatory Assistance Project, 2/5/14). Accessed 2/5/14 at https://tinyurl.com/l3uowge[133].
  3. Hope, Mat. The Energiewende and energy prices: Public support and Germany’s long-term vision. (The Carbon Brief, 7/26/13). Accessed 3/7/14 at https://tinyurl.com/mk6qnp2[134].
  4. Mills, David. Busting the baseload power myth. (ABC Science, 12/2/10). Accessed 1/22/14 at https://tinyurl.com/3mc8uwm[135]. & EnergyShouldBe.org. To Allow Lots of Renewables, Baseload Coal & Nuclear Must Go. (YouTube video, 12/2/12). Accessed 1/22/14 at https://tinyurl.com/l2oxlx8[136]. & Holden, Gary. Wide-scale Implementation of Solar Power: The Most Economic Energy Source of All. (GRH Strategic Ltd, Nov. 2012). Accessed 1/22/14 at https://tinyurl.com/kh7yh4a[137]. & Renewable Energies and Baseload Power Plants: Are They Compatible? (German Renewable Energies Agency, June 2010). Accessed 1/22/14 at https://tinyurl.com/l9grhzw[138].
  5. Glick, Devi. Inside California’s new energy storage mandate. (GreenBiz, 12/11/13). Accessed 3/7/14 at https://tinyurl.com/kacerre[139].
  6. Quick, Darren. ARES system to put energy storage on the right track. (Gizmag, 7/22/13). Accessed 3/5/14 at http://tinyurl.com/kqqmv5e[140].
  7. Anair, Don and Amine Mahmassani. State of Charge: Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings Across the United States. (Union of Concerned Scientists, June 2012). Accessed 1/22/14 at https://tinyurl.com/d4wotjd[141].
  8. Solar-Powered Electric Vehciles: Panacea or Hype? (Seeking Alpha, 9/16/13). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/k57432r.
  9. EV Life Cycle Cost. (Clean Car Options). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/m6uhjw6.
  10. Ingram, Antony. Electric Car Maintenance a Third Cheaper than Combustion Vehicles? (Green Car Reports, 12/6/12). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/lvcak6o[142].
  11. How Much Unsubsidized Solar Power is Possible? (ILSR interactive map, December 2012). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/bzs8639[143].
    1. Cost per “gallon” based on the following assumptions: $3.15 per gallon of gas; 23.6 miles per gallon average fuel economy for cars and trucks in 2012 (source below); 2.5 miles per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for electric vehicles, 9.44 kWh per mile.
    2. Assumptions for solar electricity cost: installed cost of $4/Watt; use of 30% federal tax credit; 80% of cost is financed at 5% interest; levelized cost over 25 years.
    3. Source for fuel economy figure: Plumer, Brad. Cars in the U.S. are more fuel-efficient than ever. Here’s how it happened. (Washington Post Wonkblog, 12/13/13). Accessed 1/8/14 at https://tinyurl.com/mwux3wt[144].
  12. Get Charge Out of Your Electric Vehicle. (Southern California Edison, 6/1/13). Accessed 2/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/mf4wpse[145]. For the chart, customers were assumed to:
    1. Plug in their car at midnight.
    2. Charge the battery from half full to full.
    3. Be in Tier 2 pricing for SCE for Moderate Users.
    4. Be in Tier 3 pricing for SCE for Heavy Users.
  13. King, Danny. Go ahead Texas, charge up with TXU Energy’s ‘Free Nights’ (AutoBig Green, 8/8/13). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/mqya643[146].
  14. King, Jenny. Solar panels gives electric cars another path. (Chicago Tribune, 10/9/13). Accessed 11/20/13 at http://tinyurl.com/ly4ty93[147].
  15. van Haaren, Rob. Assessment of Electric Cars’ Range Requirements and Usage Patterns based on Driving Behavior recorded in the National Household Travel Survey of 2009. (Solar Journey USA, July 2012). Accessed 11/20/13 at http://tinyurl.com/jwb46ty[148].
  16. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle. (Environmental Protection Agency, December 2011). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k[149].
  17. Bailey, John and Morris, David. Electric Vehicle Policy for the Midwest – A Scoping Document. (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, December 2009). Accessed 1/22/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nyllf38lj[150].
  18. Farrell, John. With Electric Cars, U.S. States Can Boost Energy Self-Reliance. (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 10/4/11). Accessed 1/22/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k[149].
  19. Neubauer, Jeremy, et al. Secondary Use of PHEV and EV Batteries – Opportunities & Challenges. (Presentation to the 10th Advanced Automotive Battery Conference. May 19-21, 2010). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/48872.pdf[151].
  20. Nikula, Rod. Bringing Renewable Energy into the Mainstream. (Presentation to the Rocky Mountain Electric Utility Exchange Conference, 10/10/13). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/kfoom8j.
  21. Haskard, Joel. Wright-Hennepin’s Community Solar Display in Minnesota. (CleanTechnica, 9/11/13). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/lsczuj4[152].
  22. Email conversation with Steve Nisbet, VP of Technology Operations for Wright-Hennepin Electric Cooperative, 12/9/13.
  23. Ibid.
  24. 2013-2025 Strategic Plan. (Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative, 8/27/13). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/kfoom8j.
  25. KIUC Annual Report 2012.
  26. 2013-2025 Strategic Plan. (Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative, 8/27/13). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/kfoom8j.
  27. 2012 SEPA Utility Solar Rankings. (Solar Electric Power Association, 2013). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/nxu2ops.
  28. PV Watts Calculator. (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2014). Accessed 2/12/14 at http://tinyurl.com/lh7g843[153].
  29. Renewable Energy FAQs. (Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative). Accessed 11/15/13 at http://tinyurl.com/mx282bn.
  30. DOE Energy Storage Database. (U.S. Department of Energy). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/opvw8sg[154].
  31. Hydro. (Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://website.kiuc.coop/content/hydro[155]. & Shimogawa, Duane. Work starts on Kua’i Island Utility Cooperative’s Koloa solar farm. (Pacific Business News, 11/7/13). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/lkn76j4[156].
  32. Ibid.
  33. Alexander & Baldwin finishes work on largest PV farm in Hawaii. (Pacific Business News, 12/28/12). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/mtmnhsn[157].
  34. Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative Energy Storage Study. (Sandia, 2009).
  35. Wells, Ken and Chediak, Mark. EBay, Ellison Embrace Microgrids to Peril of Utilities. (Bloomberg, 10/20/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33[158].
  36. Ibid.
  37. Rocky Mountain Institute. Maryland Microgrid Enhances Clean Energy. (EarthTechling, 11/19/13). Accessed 1/13/14 at http://tinyurl.com/qmqv7f[159]. LaMonica, Martin. 3 Factors Driving the Marraige of Solar and Energy Storage. (GreenTech Media, 10/25/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/m9caheg[160].
  38. Wells, Ken and Chediak, Mark. EBay, Ellison Embrace Microgrids to Peril of Utilities. (Bloomberg, 10/20/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33[158].
  39. Washom, Byron. Replicability and Scalability of UC San Diego’s 42 MW Microgrid for Pacific Islands. (Presentation on 9/9/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w[161].
  40. Ibid.
  41. Newcomb, James. The UCSD Microgrid – Showing the Future of Electricity… Today. (Rocky Mountain Institute, 1/18/12). Accessed 3/7/14 at http://tinyurl.com/728lsku[162].
  42. Ibid.
  43. Washom, Byron. Replicability and Scalability of UC San Diego’s 42 MW Microgrid for Pacific Islands. (Presentation on 9/9/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w[161].
  44. Wells, Ken and Chediak, Mark. EBay, Ellison Embrace Microgrids to Peril of Utilities. (Bloomberg, 10/20/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33[158].
  45. SDG&E. Microgrid powers Borrego during emergency. (San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/10/13). Accessed 12/3/13 at http://tinyurl.com/k3ja9pu[163].
  46. Rader, Bohdi and Wetzel, Dan. Maryland Microgrid Enhances Clean Energy. (Earth Techlong, 11/19/13). Accessed 1/29/14 at http://tinyurl.com/lqmqv7f[164].
  47. St. John, Jeff. CA Regulators May Challenge Utilities for Blocking Hybrid Solar-Storage Systems. (GreenTech Media, 12/4/13). Accessed 1/27/14 at http://tinyurl.com/odaznz2[165].
  48. Clover, Ian. Californian utilities hit out against battery stored solar power. (PV Magazine, 10/8/13). Accessed 1/28/14 at http://tinyurl.com/p4xspn3[166].
  49. Pierobon, Jim. Energy Storage Is Ready to Earn a Scalable Role in Utility and Commercial Portfolios. (The Energy Collective, 10/1/13). Accessed 1/23/14 at http://tinyurl.com/k7ggpks[167].
  50. St. John, Jeff. Energy Storage on the Grid Edge. (GreenTech Media, 11/11/13). Accessed 1/28/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nekxf9r[168].
  51. Woodroof, Eric. How to Do a Basic Energy Audit. (Environmental Leader, 6/14/12). Accessed 1/23/14 at http://tinyurl.com/6mhnarl[169].
  52. Staker, Doug. Distributed Energy Storage Benefits on Both Sides of the Meter. (Renewable Energy World, 5/2/13). Accessed 1/28/14 at http://tinyurl.com/qxtp44k[170].
  53. Some newer natural gas turbines do not generate steam, but are essentially large jet engines who spinning motion turns an electric generator.
  54. Ibid.
  55. Fortune, Jon. CPUC Energy Storage Use Case Analysis: Customer-Sited Distributed Energy Storage. (Prepared for discussion with CPUC, 1/4/13). Accessed 1/21/14 at http://tinyurl.com/n7vb4fh[171].
  56. Denholm, Paul, et al. The Role of Energy Storage with Renewable Electricity Generation. (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2010). Accessed 1/23/14 at http://tinyurl.com/ljhtswm[172].
  57. Farrell John. How Solar Saves on Grid Costs – Episode 13 of Local Energy Rules. (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 12/19/13). Accessed 2/18/14 at http://tinyurl.com/kwuxqs4[173].
  58. Ibid.
  59. Anderson. David. An Evaluation of Current and Future Costs for Lithium-Ion Batteries for Use in Electrified Vehicle Powertrains. (Duke UnIversity, MAY 2009). Accessed 3/11/14 at http://bit.ly/1i9Xctu[174].
  60. Price data from camelcamelcamel.com. Accessed 2/18/14 at http://tinyurl.com/n6vql3u[175].
  61. Jaffe, Sam. The Lithium Ion Inflection Point. (Battery Power, 10/9/13). Accessed 1/23/14 at http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz[176].
  62. Ibid.
  63. Dumaine, Brian. Storing solar energy for a rainy day. (CNN Money, 11/6/13). Accessed 1/28/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nxkajcg[177].
  64. Jaffe, Sam. The Lithium Ion Inflection Point. (Battery Power, 10/9/13). Accessed 1/23/14 at http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz[176].
  65. Lazar, Jim. Teaching the “Duck” to Fly. (Regulatory Assistance Project, January 2014). Accessed 2/18/14 at http://tinyurl.com/lvn8to4[178]. & Flattening the Duck. (Clean Coalition, 12/16/13). Accessed 2/18/14 at http://tinyurl.com/kojdt3x.
  66. Electric Vehicles Initiative. (International Energy Agency). Accessed 1/29/14 at http://tinyurl.com/oc2hptv[179].
  67. Farrell, John. With Electric Cars, U.S. State Can Boost Energy Self-Reliance. (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 10/4/11). Accessed 1/29/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k[149].
  68. Farrell, John. Storage Potential of Electric Vehicles. (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 10/19/10). Accessed 1/29/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nje4wa6[180].
  69. St. John, Jeff. New York Plans $40M in  Prizes for Storm-Resilient Microgrids. (GreenTech Media, 1/9/14). Accessed 1/28/14 at http://tinyurl.com/nuvzhz3[181].

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Ken Regelson, John Bailey, and Suzanne Stenson O’Brien for their extensive review and comments. All errors are my own responsibility.

  • John Farrell, jfarrell@ilsr.org[182]
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Endnotes:
  1. What is Energy Storage?: #What
  2. Empowering Local Energy: #Empowering
  3. Community Solar and Storage: #Community
  4. Removing Barriers to Storage: #Removing
  5. Supporting Renewable Energy: #Supporting
  6. Summary: #Summary
  7. recent Rocky Mountain Institute Report: http://bit.ly/1e09Hq4
  8. 1: #Footnotes
  9. easily solve the purported problems: https://tinyurl.com/l3uowge
  10. 2: #Footnotes
  11. happened in Germany: https://tinyurl.com/mk6qnp2
  12. 3: #Footnotes
  13. researchers to suggest that: https://tinyurl.com/3mc8uwm
  14. 4: #Footnotes
  15. passed a first-in-the-nation energy storage mandate: https://tinyurl.com/kacerre
  16. 5: #Footnotes
  17. use electricity: http://tinyurl.com/kqqmv5e
  18. 6: #Footnotes
  19. significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions: https://tinyurl.com/d4wotjd
  20. 7: #Footnotes
  21. 8: #Footnotes
  22. 9: #Footnotes
  23. one-third lower maintenance: http://tinyurl.com/lvcak6o
  24. 10: #Footnotes
  25. typically more costly: http://tinyurl.com/bzs8639
  26. 11: #Footnotes
  27. see endnote: #Footnotes
  28. 12: #Footnotes
  29. using more electricity overall per month: http://tinyurl.com/mf4wpse
  30. 13: #Footnotes
  31. offering “free charging nights”: http://tinyurl.com/mqya643
  32. 14: #Footnotes
  33. offering low price solar arrays: http://tinyurl.com/ly4ty93
  34. 15: #Footnotes
  35. more than the daily distance driven: http://tinyurl.com/jwb46ty
  36. 16: #Footnotes
  37. by 31 million metric tons: http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k
  38. 17: #Footnotes
  39. could provide ancillary services: http://tinyurl.com/nyllf38lj
  40. 18: #Footnotes
  41. study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories: http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k
  42. 19: #Footnotes
  43. may still have enough capacity: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/48872.pdf
  44. 20: #Footnotes
  45. 21: #Footnotes
  46. shifting the use of solar energy: http://tinyurl.com/lsczuj4
  47. 22: #Footnotes
  48. 23: #Footnotes
  49. 24: #Footnotes
  50. 25: #Footnotes
  51. 26: #Footnotes
  52. 27: #Footnotes
  53. 28: #Footnotes
  54. National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates: http://tinyurl.com/lh7g843
  55. 29: #Footnotes
  56. 30: #Footnotes
  57. help maintain: http://tinyurl.com/opvw8sg
  58. 31: #Footnotes
  59. supported by: http://website.kiuc.coop/content/hydro
  60. 32,33: #Footnotes
  61. the utility plans: http://tinyurl.com/mtmnhsn
  62. 34: #Footnotes
  63. 35: #Footnotes
  64. Mighty Microgrids: https://ilsr.org/report-mighty-microgrids/
  65. According to: http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33
  66. 36: #Footnotes
  67. Navigant Research predicts: http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33
  68. 37: #Footnotes
  69. provides 20 percent: http://tinyurl.com/qmqv7f
  70. batteries have enough capacity: http://tinyurl.com/m9caheg
  71. 38: #Footnotes
  72. the school had: http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33
  73. 39: #Footnotes
  74. microgrid supplies: http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w
  75. 40: #Footnotes
  76. Combined with new research: http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w
  77. 41: #Footnotes
  78. says John Dilliot: http://tinyurl.com/728lsku
  79. 42: #Footnotes
  80. able to reduce power consumption: http://tinyurl.com/728lsku
  81. 43: #Footnotes
  82. will be set up: http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w
  83. 44: #Footnotes
  84. the microgrid: http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33
  85. 45: #Footnotes
  86. automatically restored power: http://tinyurl.com/k3ja9pu
  87. 46: #Footnotes
  88. require grid operators: http://tinyurl.com/lqmqv7f
  89. 47: #Footnotes
  90. Utilities insist: http://tinyurl.com/odaznz2
  91. 48: #Footnotes
  92. could increase: http://tinyurl.com/p4xspn3
  93. 49: #Footnotes
  94. California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC): http://tinyurl.com/k7ggpks
  95. 50: #Footnotes
  96. shared by GreenTech Media smart grid analyst Zach Pollock: http://tinyurl.com/nekxf9r
  97. 51: #Footnotes
  98. Quote often: http://tinyurl.com/6mhnarl
  99. 52: #Footnotes
  100. It does so by: http://tinyurl.com/qxtp44k
  101. 54: #Footnotes
  102. 55: #Footnotes
  103. network storage systems together: http://tinyurl.com/n7vb4fh
  104. 56: #Footnotes
  105. says Michael Deering: http://tinyurl.com/kwuxqs4
  106. 58: #Footnotes
  107. help the utility: http://tinyurl.com/kwuxqs4
  108. 59: #Footnotes
  109. shows historical price decreases: http://bit.ly/1i9Xctu
  110. 60: #Footnotes
  111. shows prices decreasing: http://tinyurl.com/n6vql3u
  112. 61: #Footnotes
  113. suggest that: http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz
  114. 62: #Footnotes
  115. according to Navigant Research: http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz
  116. 63: #Footnotes
  117. Bloomberg Energy agrees: http://tinyurl.com/nxkajcg
  118. 64: #Footnotes
  119. According to Sam Jaffe of Navigant Research: http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz
  120. 65: #Footnotes
  121. several reports illustrate: http://tinyurl.com/lvn8to4
  122. 66: #Footnotes
  123. International Energy Agency predicts: http://tinyurl.com/oc2hptv
  124. 67: #Footnotes
  125. 2011 study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories: http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k
  126. 68: #Footnotes
  127. research from Denmark: http://tinyurl.com/nje4wa6
  128. 69: #Footnotes
  129. governor has created: http://tinyurl.com/nuvzhz3
  130. 70: #Footnotes
  131. http://bit.ly/1e09Hq4: http://bit.ly/1e09Hq4
  132. https://tinyurl.com/kkxpq3e: https://tinyurl.com/kkxpq3e
  133. https://tinyurl.com/l3uowge: https://tinyurl.com/l3uowge
  134. https://tinyurl.com/mk6qnp2: https://tinyurl.com/mk6qnp2
  135. https://tinyurl.com/3mc8uwm: https://tinyurl.com/3mc8uwm
  136. https://tinyurl.com/l2oxlx8: https://tinyurl.com/l2oxlx8
  137. https://tinyurl.com/kh7yh4a: https://tinyurl.com/kh7yh4a
  138. https://tinyurl.com/l9grhzw: https://tinyurl.com/l9grhzw
  139. https://tinyurl.com/kacerre: https://tinyurl.com/kacerre
  140. http://tinyurl.com/kqqmv5e: http://tinyurl.com/kqqmv5e
  141. https://tinyurl.com/d4wotjd: https://tinyurl.com/d4wotjd
  142. http://tinyurl.com/lvcak6o: http://tinyurl.com/lvcak6o
  143. http://tinyurl.com/bzs8639: http://tinyurl.com/bzs8639
  144. https://tinyurl.com/mwux3wt: https://tinyurl.com/mwux3wt
  145. http://tinyurl.com/mf4wpse: http://tinyurl.com/mf4wpse
  146. http://tinyurl.com/mqya643: http://tinyurl.com/mqya643
  147. http://tinyurl.com/ly4ty93: http://tinyurl.com/ly4ty93
  148. http://tinyurl.com/jwb46ty: http://tinyurl.com/jwb46ty
  149. http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k: http://tinyurl.com/nybjr7k
  150. http://tinyurl.com/nyllf38lj: http://tinyurl.com/nyllf38lj
  151. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/48872.pdf: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/48872.pdf
  152. http://tinyurl.com/lsczuj4: http://tinyurl.com/lsczuj4
  153. http://tinyurl.com/lh7g843: http://tinyurl.com/lh7g843
  154. http://tinyurl.com/opvw8sg: http://tinyurl.com/opvw8sg
  155. http://website.kiuc.coop/content/hydro: http://website.kiuc.coop/content/hydro
  156. http://tinyurl.com/lkn76j4: http://tinyurl.com/lkn76j4
  157. http://tinyurl.com/mtmnhsn: http://tinyurl.com/mtmnhsn
  158. http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33: http://tinyurl.com/o72tw33
  159. http://tinyurl.com/qmqv7f: http://tinyurl.com/qmqv7f
  160. http://tinyurl.com/m9caheg: http://tinyurl.com/m9caheg
  161. http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w: http://tinyurl.com/lgdj78w
  162. http://tinyurl.com/728lsku: http://tinyurl.com/728lsku
  163. http://tinyurl.com/k3ja9pu: http://tinyurl.com/k3ja9pu
  164. http://tinyurl.com/lqmqv7f: http://tinyurl.com/lqmqv7f
  165. http://tinyurl.com/odaznz2: http://tinyurl.com/odaznz2
  166. http://tinyurl.com/p4xspn3: http://tinyurl.com/p4xspn3
  167. http://tinyurl.com/k7ggpks: http://tinyurl.com/k7ggpks
  168. http://tinyurl.com/nekxf9r: http://tinyurl.com/nekxf9r
  169. http://tinyurl.com/6mhnarl: http://tinyurl.com/6mhnarl
  170. http://tinyurl.com/qxtp44k: http://tinyurl.com/qxtp44k
  171. http://tinyurl.com/n7vb4fh: http://tinyurl.com/n7vb4fh
  172. http://tinyurl.com/ljhtswm: http://tinyurl.com/ljhtswm
  173. http://tinyurl.com/kwuxqs4: http://tinyurl.com/kwuxqs4
  174. http://bit.ly/1i9Xctu: http://bit.ly/1i9Xctu
  175. http://tinyurl.com/n6vql3u: http://tinyurl.com/n6vql3u
  176. http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz: http://tinyurl.com/my3t3xz
  177. http://tinyurl.com/nxkajcg: http://tinyurl.com/nxkajcg
  178. http://tinyurl.com/lvn8to4: http://tinyurl.com/lvn8to4
  179. http://tinyurl.com/oc2hptv: http://tinyurl.com/oc2hptv
  180. http://tinyurl.com/nje4wa6: http://tinyurl.com/nje4wa6
  181. http://tinyurl.com/nuvzhz3: http://tinyurl.com/nuvzhz3
  182. jfarrell@ilsr.org: mailto:jfarrell@ilsr.org

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/energystoragethenextchargefordistributedenergy/


Could Minnesota’s “Value of Solar” Make Everyone a Winner?

by John Farrell | March 13, 2014 4:27 pm

placeholder[1]On Wednesday, Minnesota became the first state to allow utilities a new method of contracting with distributed solar producers, called the market-based “value of solar.” If adopted by utilities, it will fundamentally change the relationship between solar-producing customers and their electric utility.

Following Minnesota’s Value of Solar Process? Here are a few resources:

  • Part 1[2] and Part 2[3] and Part 3[4] and Part 4[5] of ILSR’s series of posts on the process
  • The MN Department of Commerce final comments[6] and draft value of solar methodology[7] (January 2014)
  • My comments to the Department of Commerce[8] on value components to include (PDF and slideshow[9])
  • Live tweets and context with Twitter hashtag #MNVOST[10]
  • The Department’s value of solar stakeholder resource page
  • The enabling law (see Art. 9, Sec. 10 and following) – HF 729[11]

Until now, producing on-site energy from a solar panel has been treated much like any other activity reducing electricity use. Energy produced from solar is subtracted from the amount of energy used each month, and the customer pays for the net amount of energy consumed.  This “net metering[12]” policy has guided the growth of distributed solar power in the United States to an astonishing 13 gigawatts GW by the end of 2013.

But net metering has been the focal point for the utility war on the democratization of the grid, a phenomenon made possible by enormous reductions in the cost of on-site power generation from solar. The following map illustrates the many states where utilities have sought to undermine policies and/or incentives supporting distributed renewable energy generation.

battlegrounds over net metering and distributed generation[13]

The transformation of the grid has utilities crying foul (or fowl[14]) because lots of customers using net metering reduces their balance sheet revenue. However, increasing evidence suggests that the overall economic benefits to the utility’s electric grid may outweigh the loss of revenue.

Value of solar creates a market price for distributed solar energy in an effort to answer the utility’s cry. And Minnesota’s rigorous formula suggests that in crying “foul,” utilities may have been crying “wolf.” That’s because the initial estimates of the market value of solar peg it at more than the retail electricity price.  In other words, utilities have been getting a sweet deal on solar power.

Will Value of Solar Work?

Will the value of solar market price be sufficient to maintain growth in distributed solar generation?

Yes, according to preliminary calculations.

Xcel Energy, the state’s largest electric utility, shared estimations for the value of solar in its comments (to reduce the value) to the Public Utilities Commission in mid-February. Their calculations follow:

Minnesota value of solar calculation Xcel Energy [15]

The solar market price includes eight separate factors, but the largest four account for the lion’s share of the value: 25 years of avoided natural gas purchases, avoided new power plant purchases, avoided transmission capacity, and avoided environmental costs.

The value of avoided fuel cost recognizes that utilities cannot buy natural gas on long-term contracts the way they can buy fixed-price solar energy, and it internalizes the risk of fuel variability that utilities have previously laid on ratepayers.

The avoided power plant generation capacity value recognizes that sufficient solar capacity allows utilities to defer peak energy investments (like Xcel’s recently requested 3 natural gas peaking power plants that an administrative law judge discarded in favor of distributed solar).

Avoided transmission capacity costs rewards solar for on-site energy production, saving on the cost of infrastructure and energy losses associated with long-range imports.

The environmental value may be the most precedent setting, because it means that when buying solar power under Minnesota’s value of solar tariff, a utility is for the first time paying for the environmental harm it had previously been socializing onto everyone else. This value is based on the federal “social cost of carbon” as well as non-carbon externality values adopted by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

All told, the preliminary market value of solar estimate by Xcel Energy (14.5¢ per kilowatt-hour) for Minnesota comes fairly close to the levelized cost of energy from solar projects in Minnesota using the federal 30% Investment Tax Credit (ITC). Residential projects installed at $4/Watt will cost 17.2¢ per kWh over 25 years (and be eligible for state incentives). Commercial projects installed at $3/Watt will cost 12.9¢ per kWh over 25 years.

Market Value of Solar v. Levelized Solar Cost[16]

Will Utilities Adopt Value of Solar?

The crucial remaining issue is whether Minnesota utilities will adopt value of solar in place of net metering. The adopted methodology may require utilities to (in the short run) pay more for solar electricity than they do under net metering. The following chart shows that a representative residential customer with a 5 kW solar array would net an extra $200 bill credit this year with the value of solar than they would using net metering.

Market Value of Solar v Net Metering[17]

Within five years, however – based on recent utility rate inflation of 4-5% per year – the premium falls to just $12.  And over the life of the value of solar contract – 25 years – the net present value (5% discount rate) of utility payments for solar production is $3,000 less under value of solar than under net metering.

Not only that, utilities lock in the market value of solar when the signed a 25-year contract, not bad for a business rocked by volatile fuel prices.

Who Wins?

In theory, everyone is a winner if utilities adopt Minnesota’s market value of solar. In the near term, solar energy producers will get a better price than they have under net metering. In the long term, the cost of solar will fall (perhaps significantly) below the market value (accelerating the development of solar energy), and the 25-year, fixed price contract will help small-scale producers secure financing.

Utilities should also come out ahead. Over the 25-year life of solar projects, they will pay less for solar energy than under net metering. Furthermore, greater amounts of solar on the grid will (over time) erode the market price for solar energy since much of its value is based on low (zero) fuel costs and environmental advantage over fossil fuel generation.

The market value of solar should also be a victory for ratepayers. First, it’s transparent and without subsidy. In fact, it removes hidden subsidies for polluting fossil fuel generation. Ratepayers also get to purchase this renewable resource based on its value to the grid and not an awkward and obscure retail price proxy.

Is the market value of solar the best thing to come out of Minnesota in 2014? If nothing else, it beats the polar vortex[18].

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Part 1: https://ilsr.org/setting-solar-part-1-minnesotas-process/
  3. Part 2: https://ilsr.org/debating-solar-pt-2-minnesotas-process/
  4. Part 3: https://ilsr.org/sticking-points-solar-pt-3-minnesotas-process/
  5. Part 4: https://ilsr.org/rec-final-comments-minnesotas-proposed-solar/
  6. final comments: http://cl.ly/3y063s413M2b
  7. draft value of solar methodology: http://cl.ly/462S0Z0C1n1J
  8. My comments to the Department of Commerce: https://ilsr.org/essential-elements-solar/
  9. slideshow: https://ilsr.org/debating-solar-pt-2-minnesotas-process/#slideshow
  10. #MNVOST: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23MNVOST&src=typd
  11. HF 729: https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bills/text.php?number=HF729&version=4&session=ls88&session_year=2013&session_number=0
  12. net metering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yVgPrhvwyc
  13. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/battlegrounds-over-net-metering-and-distributed-generation-.002.jpg
  14. fowl: http://www.raponline.org/document/download/id/6977
  15. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mn-vost-calculation-xcel-2014-02.001.jpg
  16. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mn-vost-calculation-xcel-2014-02.002.jpg
  17. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mn-vost-calculation-xcel-2014-02.003.jpg
  18. polar vortex: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/01/17/article-2541506-1ABFBEA400000578-649_634x402.jpg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-value-solar-winner/


Crimea, Anschluss and the Enduring Quest for Autonomy

by David Morris | March 11, 2014 4:24 pm

The upcoming Crimea referendum is both ordinary and extraordinary. Ordinary because more than 100 times since World War II geographically concentrated ethnic or linguistic groups have voted on the question of independence.  Extraordinary because never before have a people encountered a ballot allowing them to choose only between continuing subservience within their existing nation or subservience to another nation.

The quest for autonomy is ubiquitous.  When given the choice most regions choose statehood. Since World War II the number of nations has mushroomed from 51 to 193.

Sometimes the desire for autonomy results in devolution rather than independence as nations concede authority in order to maintain territorial integrity.  That was the outcome of Quebec’s political awakening in the late 1970s.  In the wake of Franco’s death in 1975 Spain constitutionally evolved into what is now sometimes called a “State of autonomies”.  In 1998 Scotland won the right to elect its own parliament.  In 2005 South Sudan gained autonomy within Sudan.

Devolution whets but often does not quench the thirst for full independence. This fall Scotland will vote on nationhood.  The Parti Quebecois, expected to handily win provincial elections in April, likely will revive the issue of separation. After Spain rejected their recent demands for near full sovereignty the autonomous Basque Country and Catalan began to take steps toward nationhood. Indeed, Spain’s recent promise to veto Scotland’s entry into the European Union if Scots voted for independence was clearly borne of a fear for its own dissolution.

Uncoupling has sometimes occurred peacefully as happened with Norway and Sweden a century ago and the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.  More often it has involved considerable violence. The 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia into 7 nations and one autonomous province took 10 often-bloody years. In late 1975 East Timor declared independence but an invasion and occupation by Indonesia delayed actual independence until 2002. South Sudan’s independence in 2011 followed two civil wars; violence continues to wrack the new nation.

In 1991 Crimea itself voted for autonomy within the Soviet Union.  After the USSR’s breakup the continuing separatist movement from Ukraine led many observers to view Crimea as the next international flashpoint.  In 1993 the Economist warned[1] of a ‘long-running, acrimonious, possibly bloody and conceivably nuclear, dispute over Crimea’.  The dispute was peacefully but uneasily resolved when the ‘Autonomous Republic of Crimea’ was embedded in the 1996 Ukrainian constitution and the 1998 Crimean constitution.  But Crimea’s political authority remained weak.

The overthrow of a Ukrainian government that found its strongest backing among Russian speakers coupled with its new parliament’s passage of a bill eliminating the use of Russian as an official language (later withdrawn under heavy international pressure) spurred the initial Crimean crisis.

If history were the norm, we might expect Crimeans to vote on whether they preferred more autonomy or full independence.  Tragically that choice has never been offered.  The original referendum offered by Ukraine and set for May 25 (later pulled forward to March 30) allowed Crimeans to vote only on greater autonomy.

The options offered in the March 16th referendum are even worse. Crimeans will have the opportunity to choose between subservience to Ukraine or Russia. Such a ballot appears to be unprecedented.  The closest we came to such a vote was in 1938 when the Austrian government proposed a plebiscite on the annexation of Austria by Germany.  Fearing he would lose such a vote, Hitler invaded Austria under the guise of quelling alleged violence against Germans.  Hitler not only swallowed up Austria but to this day he continues to win the language battle.  We use the term Anschluss to describe the takeover of Austria, a German word meaning unification rather than using the German word for annexation.

Ukraine and the West insist that Crimeans do not have the right to vote on independence. Russian agrees.  This tragic meeting of minds moves us toward a potentially tumultuous showdown.

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. warned: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/03/crimean-autonomy-a-viable-alternative-to-war/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/crimea-anschluss-enduring-quest-autonomy/


Faulty Study Ignores Small Business Benefits

by Stacy Mitchell | March 5, 2014 12:07 pm

Photo by Cale Bruckner[1].  This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Last month, San Francisco’s Office of Economic Analysis waded into the debate over whether the city should beef up its policy restricting the spread of chain stores[2]. In a new study, the OEA concludes that the city’s regulations are harming the local economy and that adding additional restrictions would only do more damage. But this sweeping conclusion, hailed by proponents of formula retail, rests on a deeply flawed analysis. The study is riddled with data problems so significant as to nullify its conclusions.

San Francisco is the only city of any significant size where “formula” businesses, defined as retail stores or restaurants that have 10 or more outlets, must obtain a special permit to locate in a neighborhood business district. The law’s impact, in one sense at least, is readily apparent: Independent businesses account for about two-thirds of the retail square footage and market share in San Francisco, compared to only about one-quarter nationally. Although chains have been gaining ground in San Francisco, the city far outstrips[3] New York, Chicago, and other major cities in the sheer numbers of homegrown grocers, bookstores, hardware stores, and other unique businesses that line its streets.

San Francisco’s policy has gaps, however, which have prompted a slew of recent proposals to amend the law. Members of the Board of Supervisors have proposed a variety of changes, such as extending the policy to cover more commercial districts (it only applies in neighborhood business districts) and broadening the definition of what counts as a formula business.

The OEA presents its study as an injection of hard economic data into this policy debate. There are three pieces to its analysis. Let’s take each in turn.

First, the OEA reports that chains provide more jobs than independent retailers do. It presents U.S. Census data showing that retailers with fewer than 10 outlets employ 3.2 workers per $1 million in sales, while chains (10 or more outlets) employ 4.3 people.

One major problem with this statistic is that the OEA includes car dealerships. Retail studies generally exclude the auto sector, because car dealers differ in fundamental ways from other retailers and car sales account for such a large chunk of consumer spending that they can skew one’s results. The OEA’s analysis is a classic example of this. Because the vast majority of car dealerships are independently owned and employ relatively few people per $1 million in sales, by including them, the OEA drags down the employment figure for local retailers overall.

If you take out car dealers, which are not subject to San Francisco’s formula business policy anyway, and also remove “non-store” retailers, a category that includes enterprises like heating oil dealers and mail order houses, a different picture emerges. Retailers with fewer than 10 outlets employ 5.3 people per $1 million in sales, compared to only 4.5 for those with 10 or more locations.

The actual difference is even a bit more than this, because chains handle their own distribution, employing people to work in warehouses, while independents typically rely on other businesses for this. And, of course, a portion of the jobs chain stores create are not local jobs; they are housed back at corporate headquarters. The OEA fails to mention either of these fairly obvious caveats.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Cale Bruckner: http://www.flickr.com/photos/palmit/9255369363/sizes/z/
  2. policy restricting the spread of chain stores: https://ilsr.org/rule/formula-business-restrictions/2321-2/
  3. far outstrips: https://ilsr.org/san-francisco-dealing-chains/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/bogus-chain-store-study-ignores-small-business-benefits/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bogus-chain-store-study-ignores-small-business-benefits/


Santa Monica City Net: An Incremental Approach to Building a Fiber Optic Network

by Lisa Gonzalez | March 5, 2014 8:51 am

Santa Monica has built a fiber network called City Net that has lowered its own costs for telecommunications, helped to retain businesses, and attracted new businesses to the community. Built incrementally without debt, it offers a roadmap any community can draw lessons from.

Unlike the majority of municipal fiber networks, Santa Monica does not have a municipal power provider – City Net is run out of the Information Systems Department. The vision for the network and its expansion was created in the Telecommunications Master Plan in 1998, standardizing the procedure that we now call “dig once.” Careful mapping and clever foresight laid the foundation for growth.

The first goal of the network was to save public dollars by eliminating leased lines from private providers. The first $530,000 investment in fiber infrastructure ultimately resulted in an ongoing savings of $700,000 per year. As part of their long term strategy, the City reinvested those savings in expanding the network. Over the past ten years, the network has expanded to offer dark fiber and services of 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps to area businesses as well as free Wi-Fi to the public in many areas.

Money that could have been spent on leasing slower, less reliable connections from existing providers has instead been used to expand public infrastructure and other public amenities. Free Wi-Fi, public safety video cameras, and realtime parking info are just a few niceties that enhance the quality of life in Santa Monica.

Learn more about Santa Monica’s journey from idea to reality. Download Santa Monica City Net: An Incremental Approach to Building a Fiber Optic Network.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance presents this in-depth case study co-authored by Eric Lampland and Christopher Mitchell.

Read ongoing stories about these networks at ILSR’s site devoted to Community Broadband Networks[1].  You can also subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks[2].

About ILSR: Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) proposes a set of new rules that builds community by supporting humanly scaled politics and economics. The Telecommunications as Commons Initiative believes that telecommunications networks are essential infrastructure and should be accountable to residents and local businesses.  www.ilsr.org[3]

About Lookout Point Communications: Lookout Point Communications was established in 1997 to offer consulting in various aspects of communications technology. The company has assisted individuals, companies, schools and governments to understand choices in communication networks and implement positive solutions.lookoutpt.com[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Community Broadband Networks: http://MuniNetworks.org
  2. subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks: http://muninetworks.org/content/sign-newsletters
  3. www.ilsr.org: https://ilsr.org/
  4. lookoutpt.com: http://lookoutpt.com/about/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/santa-monica-city-net/


Zero Waste Symposium – Comments By Neil Seldman

by Neil Seldman | February 24, 2014 5:13 pm

Comments (edited version) by Neil Seldman at the Zero Waste Symposium – held February 4, 2014

Sponsored by Zero Waste San Diego and the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA)

February 4, 2014

Thank you very much, Rick. It’s always a pleasure to come back to California – certainly San Diego. Many of you know that I learned my recycling in California many years ago. And, my first assignments were helping to replace planned incinerators in LA and San Diego with recycling. And here are two of the people here who taught me – Jon Michael Huls and Rick Anthony; Kathy Evans, is still an active recycler in Berkeley; Cliff Humphrey is working in Kansas City. Mike Anderson and Bernie Meyerson have retired. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/waste-symposium-comments-neil-seldman/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/waste-symposium-comments-neil-seldman/


When It Comes to Public Services, Government Knows Best

by David Morris | February 20, 2014 8:29 pm

Minneapolis will soon vote to shift nearly 180 privately owned bus shelters to public ownership following numerous complaints about the lack of maintenance and upkeep.  When it does it will join the burgeoning ranks of cities who have discovered that when it comes to public services government knows best.

In the post-Ronald Reagan era Americans take as indisputable that the private sector is more nimble and more innovative and the profit motive commands efficiency.  But a mountain of evidence points in the other direction. The government is highly competitive.  Indeed privatized services often come at a higher price and lower quality.

The examples are legion.  Medicare boasts a tiny overhead cost compared to that of private insurance companies.  Federal unsubsidized student loans are cheaper and more flexible than private bank student loans. Private contractors cost Washington almost twice as much as federal employees for the same tasks.

Evidence of government excellence is equally abundant at the state and local level.   In a growing number of jurisdictions governments are reassessing the value of privatizing services.

In the Public Interest[1] reports that in 2010 the Hernando County, Florida sheriff’s office took over management of its jail from the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) after the CCA failed to adequately maintain the facility and engaged in practices that compromised safety and increased the chance of escapes and incidents of violence.  The sheriff increased annual salaries of corrections officers by more than $7,000 to attract the highly qualified, significantly improved the quality of the facility and saved $1 million the first year of public operation to boot.

In 2011 Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett considered outsourcing many city services, including the maintenance of fleets, facilities and streets but had the good sense to open the bidding process to public workers. The public proposal was chosen over local and national firms for its significant taxpayer savings.

In 2012, San Diego sought to sell its landfill to a private corporation. Several companies submitted bids.  Once again the city had the foresight to allow public service workers to submit a bid.  The review board concluded the city would save money and get better service by keeping the operation of the landfill in-house.

In 2012, Illinois awarded the Maximus one of country’s largest private social service providers a $77 million contract to review Medicaid eligibility. A 2013 independent investigation found errors in almost 50 percent of the cases.  Illinois terminated[2] the $77 million contract last December. One analysis found that state employees would save Illinois more than $18 million annually while replacing unqualified call center hires with trained caseworkers.

Every year, the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s (MnDOT) eight districts solicit bids m private contractors as well as MnDOT’s own striping division to paint lane stripes n every highway in Minnesota. Without fail, MnDOT’s public striping crew beats the private competitors by a large margin.

Outsourcing not only tends to cost more and provide lower quality services; it also has unquantifiable but very real other costs.  After Minneapolis outsourced its information management system to Unisys about 10 years ago it found it had lost much needed in-house expertise, including the ability to properly oversee the Unisys contract.

Last fall the Jonesboro Sun asked the CEO of Tiger Correctional Services, a company that contracts for jail commissary services with the Craighead County Arkansas Sheriff’s Department for financial information that was public when the services were operated by that department.  Tiger’s attorneys asserted that because it is a private company none of the company’s records were subject to public open records laws.

With regard to private military contractors, Major Kevin P. Stiens and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Susan L. Turley observed[3] with regard to private military contractors, “Not only did the cost savings fail to materialize, outsourcing caused other tangible losses. The government lost personnel experience and continuity, along with operational control, by moving to contractors.” Air Force Colonel Steven Zamperelli added,  “Private employees have distinctly different motivations, responsibilities and loyalties than those in the public military.”

One city shifting 180 bus shelters back into public hands is a minor development with a one-day news life. But it reflects a much larger story, the growing reevaluation by governments of the efficacy of privatizing public services.

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. In the Public Interest: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/
  2. terminated: http://leftlaborreporter.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/arbitrator-rules-that-outsourced-work-in-illinois-must-be-returned-to-state-employees/
  3. observed: https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=65+A.F.+L.+Rev.+145&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=bf73240d21a5e31cc3617bb13382efc4

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/public-services-government/


Webcast: ILSR & Allies Respond to Walmart’s Environmental Claims

by Stacy Mitchell | February 19, 2014 2:16 am

placeholder[1]On Feb. 17th, during a 90-minute event broadcast live from Walmart’s Arkansas headquarters, the company’s top brass, including its new CEO Doug McMillon, presented what they claimed was remarkable progress to green Walmart’s operations and protect the planet.

ILSR, together with our allies at Environmental Action[2] and OUR Walmart[3], organized a live webcast response attended by hundreds of environmental activists.

Click below to watch this 45-minute event, which includes analysis of Walmart’s environmental impact and greenwashing by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell; perspective from Dominic Jamal Ware, a Walmart worker and leader with OUR Walmart who connects the dots between the company’s environmental harms and its destructive labor practices; and details on Environmental Action’s growing grassroots campaign on Walmart.  (Get involved in that campaign by sharing this event[4] and signing the petition.)

For more background, see our report, Walmart’s Assault on the Climate: The Truth Behind One of the Biggest Climate Polluters and Slickest Greenwashers in America[5]. 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Environmental Action: http://www.environmental-action.org
  3. OUR Walmart: http://forrespect.org
  4. sharing this event: http://www.environmental-action.org/action/live-planets-official-response-walmart
  5. Walmart’s Assault on the Climate: The Truth Behind One of the Biggest Climate Polluters and Slickest Greenwashers in America: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ILSR-_Report_WalmartClimateChange.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/webcast-ilsr-responds-walmarts-environmental-claims/


Independent Business Owners Report Growing Public Support, Call for Policies to Level the Playing Field

by Stacy Mitchell | February 6, 2014 9:37 am

Image: 2014 Independent Business Survey Cover

A national survey of independent business owners conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[1] in partnership with the Advocates for Independent Business[2] coalition has found that Local First initiatives are boosting customer traffic and improving the outlook on Main Street, but policymakers need to do more to create a level playing field and ensure that small local businesses have an equal opportunity to compete.

The survey gathered data from 2,602 independent businesses across the country.

Among the survey’s key findings:

Sales Growth — Independent businesses reported revenue growth of 5.3% on average in 2013. The retailers surveyed experienced a 1.4% increase in same-store holiday sales, comparable to many competing chains.

Buy Local — Over 75% of businesses located in cities with active Local First campaigns reported increased customer traffic or other benefits from these initiatives. They also reported sales growth of 7.0% on average in 2013, compared to 2.3% for independent businesses in places without such an initiative.

Challenges — Competition from large internet companies was rated as the biggest challenge facing independent businesses, followed by supplier pricing that favors their big competitors, high costs for health insurance, and escalating commercial rents.

Graph12[3]Policy Priorities — Among independent retailers, the top policy priorities are extending the requirement to collect sales tax to large online retailers, eliminating public subsidies and tax breaks for big companies, and regulating the swipe fees that Visa and Mastercard charge.

Internet Sales Tax — More than three-quarters of independent retailers said that the fact that many online companies are not required to collect sales tax had negatively impacted their sales, with 41% describing the level of impact on their sales as “significant.”

Access to Credit — Of those businesses that applied for a bank loan in the last two years, 42% either failed to obtain a loan or received a loan for less than the amount they needed.

“This comprehensive survey makes clear the unparalleled role that local businesses play in the health and vitality of communities,” said Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association[5] and Co-Chair of Advocates for Independent Business[2]. “And it highlights, too, the challenges that these businesses are facing regarding equitable governmental policy and a level competitive playing field. However, the widespread acceptance of the localism movement — which shows the potential of small business advocacy — is a clear sign for optimism.”

(more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. Institute for Local Self-Reliance: http://www.ilsr.org%20
  2. Advocates for Independent Business: http://indiebizadvocates.org
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Graph12.jpg
  4. View a presentation of the key findings: https://ilsr.org/findings-2014-independent-business-survey/
  5. American Booksellers Association: http://www.bookweb.org
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/2014-survey/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2014-survey/


Show Me Solar: Parity, Value, and Opportunity for Solar Power

by John Farrell | February 4, 2014 5:16 pm

placeholder[1]What can solar power do for a single state? How about 21% of its energy, $14 billion in economic activity, and over 150,000 jobs. At a discount to existing electricity costs. Without subsidies.

ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy, John Farrell, shared this message with the Missouri Solar Energy Industries Association on Feb. 1, 2014 in Kansas City. Click below to view or download the presentation, or read the short report on Solar Jobs for Missouri.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. John Farrell: //www.slideshare.net/farrell-ilsr

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/show-solar-parity-value-opportunity-solar-power/


Bill to Limit Internet Investment Introduced in Kansas

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 30, 2014 1:00 pm

Kansas is the latest legislative battle ground in the fight to preserve local self-reliance. The Kansas Legislature is taking up SB 304[1] to limit local municipalities’ authority to invest in publicly owned networks.

While the language of the bill states the purpose is to “encourage widespread use of technological advances” for video and broadband at competitive rates, it actually discourages investment and competition.

The bill provides an obligatory exemption but our analysis[2] finds:

The bill contains what will appear to the untrained eye to be an exemption for unserved areas. However, the language is hollow and will have no effect in protecting those who have no access from the impact of this bill.

The first problem is the definition of unserved. A proper definition of unserved would involve whether the identified area has access to a connection meeting the FCC’s minimum broadband definition delivered by DSL, cable, fiber-optic, fixed wireless or the like. These technologies are all capable of delivering such access.

However the bill also includes mobile wireless and, incredibly, satellite access. As we have noted on many occasions, the technical limits of satellite technology render it unfit to be called broadband, even if it can deliver a specific amount of Mbps. Satellite just does not allow the rapid two-way transmitting of information common to modern Internet applications. Mobile wireless comes with high costs, prohibitively low monthly caps, and often only works in some areas of a rural property. This is not a proper measure of having access to the Internet.

The second problem with the fake unserved exemption is the challenge of demonstrating an area meets it. If one suspected that a territory with over 90% of the residents did not meet the overly broad definition, one would have to engage in an expensive survey to prove it at the census block level. Data is not ordinarilly collected at that granular level – and even when it is, it is often based on unverified claims by existing carriers.

Even if anywhere in Kansas qualified as unserved under this definition, the cost of proving it would only add to the extremely high cost of building to such a low density population, breaking any business plan that could attempt it.

Every legislative session we contend with at least one state bill like SB 304 (Georgia faced similar legislation in 2013[3]). Barriers to municipal network investment exist in nineteen states[4], preventing local communities from serving their own needs as  powerful incumbents turn away. Those incumbents’ business model dictates they consider shareholder interests above all else but municipal networks first serve and provide accountability to the community. Even though billion dollar incumbents refuse to invest in places like Chanute[5] or Ottawa[6],  they use political connections to restrict local communities from making the investment on their own.

From our story on MuniNetworks.org:

These types of bills make a mockery of our political system. Whether to invest in essential infrastructure (or how to) is a decision that should be made at the local level, where people know how their unique mix of assets and challenges relate to ensuring everyone has fast, affordable, and reliable access to the Internet. There is no need for the state or federal authority to overrule local decision-making. The only reason we see it popping up in state after state (most recently Georgia) is because powerful cable and telephone companies want to ensure they face no competition – even in the most rural areas of the country.

 

Stay current on this and other stories by subscribing to [7]our once a week MuniNetworks.org newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. SB 304: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/sb304_00_0000.pdf
  2. our analysis: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/kansas-legislature-introduces-bill-limit-internet-investment
  3. Georgia faced similar legislation in 2013: http://muninetworks.org/content/georgia-bill-limit-internet-investment-dies-house-floor
  4. exist in nineteen states: http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap
  5. Chanute: http://muninetworks.org/taxonomy/term/568
  6. Ottawa: http://muninetworks.org/tags/tags/ottawa-ks
  7. by subscribing to : https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dF9ZdmFsam5FNHN1MTJXNkt4V3VsRGc6MA

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bill-limit-internet-investment-kansas/


Can Cities Tackle Inequality?

by David Morris | January 30, 2014 12:00 pm

After Bill de Blasio was elected mayor of New York City on a promise to narrow the gap between rich and poor, former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (D) lectured[1] him on the facts of local government life. “The point is, you’re a mayor, buster, you’ve got to make sure the snow gets plowed. You’ve got to make sure the garbage gets picked up. You’ve got to make sure the bad guys get locked up. Mayors have to run cities. Governors have to balance budgets. Washington, D.C., they get to talk about inequality.”

Perhaps Mr. Schweitzer can be forgiven his cramped view of local authority because his home state does keep its cities on a very tight leash.  But many states do not, and a growing number of cities are moving into the power vacuum left by a dysfunctional Washington and too cautious state governments to tackle inequality.  So far theirs has been a three-pronged strategy.

1. Taking on Corporations:  Demanding a Living Wage

The longest locally focused effort to lift family income began twenty years ago when Baltimore required businesses paid with tax dollars to pay a living wage.  Today over 140 cities and counties have[2] living wage ordinances and at least 20 percent of the country’s population lives somewhere that has such a law on its books.

The first living wage ordinances focused on businesses that received municipal contracts but later these were soon broadened to include companies who receive subsidies such as tax abatements or low-interest loans and firms that operate on city property (for example, in convention centers, parks, or on golf courses). A Los Angeles ordinance covers airlines operating at LAX, a city owned airport. San Francisco ‘s law covers homecare workers funded through state Medicaid money.

San Jose boasts[3] the nation’s highest living wage.  Covered employers must pay at least $17.03 if they do not offer health benefits and $15.78 if they do.  De Blasio is proposing an $11.75 living wage including cash and benefits.

However, living wage laws still cover a small fraction of the local labor force.  Beginning a decade ago, cities began to apply the principle of a just wage more broadly by enacting citywide minimum wage laws.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. lectured: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-sen-rand-paul-sen-charles-schumer/story?id=21417330&page=8
  2. have: http://www.cows.org/_data/documents/1556.pdf
  3. boasts: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_24712556/living-wage-san-jose-should-not-weaken-its
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/cities-tackle-inequality/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cities-tackle-inequality/


Self-Reliance Podcast Episode 1: Local Self-Reliance in the Modern Economy

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 30, 2014 11:19 am

What is the role of local self-reliance in the modern economy?

As world travel, global commerce, and communications across the oceans bring us closer together, the role of localism changes. In our inaugural podcast episode, we bring together three ILSR veterans to look at the issue.

Christopher Mitchell[1], Director of the Telecommunications as Commons initiative at ILSR interviews Stacy Mitchell[2], the Director of ILSR’s Community-Scaled Economies initiative and David Morris[3], co-founder of the Institute and Director of the Defending the Public Good initiative come together to tackle the question. With expertise from a broad range of policy areas and decades of working with local communities, the conversation is sure to ignite some neurons in your grey matter.

Self-Reliance Podcast Episode 1[4]

Click to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes[9].

As we develop this series, we encourage you to send us your feedback, suggest topics, and offer ideas for new guests. Contact us at info@ilsr.org.

 

We want to thank Fit and the Conniptions for their song Many Many[10], licensed through Creative Commons.

For Creative Commons License Info: (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US[11]).

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Christopher Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/about-the-institute-for-local-self-reliance/staff-and-board/christopher-mitchell/
  2. Stacy Mitchell: https://ilsr.org/stacy-mitchell/
  3. David Morris: https://ilsr.org/about-the-institute-for-local-self-reliance/staff-and-board/david-morris/
  4. Self-Reliance Podcast Episode 1: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/self_reliance_podcast_1.mp3
  5. https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/self_reliance_podcast_1.mp3: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/self_reliance_podcast_1.mp3
  6. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/self_reliance_podcast_1.mp3
  7. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/self_reliance_podcast_1.mp3
  8. Embed: #
  9. Click to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/institute-for-local-self-reliance/id810197556
  10. Many Many: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Fit_and_the_Conniptions/Sweet_Sister_Starlight/Fit_and_the_Conniptions_-_Sweet_Sister_Starlight_-_07_Many_Many
  11. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/self_reliance_podcast_episode_1/


Update on the Proposed Frederick County and Carroll County, MD Garbage Incinerator

by Neil Seldman | January 29, 2014 1:05 pm

Organized citizens and small business people of Carroll and Frederick Counties, MD have been fighting a proposed garbage incinerator for 8 years. Most recently the news has been filled with suggestions that the deal may be dissolving. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/update-proposed-frederick-county-carroll-county-md-garbage-incinerator/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/update-proposed-frederick-county-carroll-county-md-garbage-incinerator/


A Zero Waste Paradigm for Denmark

by Neil Seldman | January 29, 2014 12:34 pm

Transitioning from incineration to recycling and composting in Denmark — A detailed article on this important policy  turn around is helpful in the debates on garbage incineration in the US, where incineration proponents point to the “success” of this technology in Northern Europe.

Click here to read the full article[1] on the Zero Waste Europe web site.

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Endnotes:
  1. Click here to read the full article: http://www.zerowasteeurope.eu/2014/01/the-story-of-denmarks-transition-from-incineration-to-zero-waste/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/waste-paradigm-denmark/


Republican Rhetoric Changes Depending On Whether They Are Dealing With Labor Or Capital

by David Morris | January 21, 2014 8:14 pm

Are Republicans inconsistent when they sometimes support using offsets and indexing and sometimes don’t?  Not at all.  They’re actually very consistent.  When capital comes asking for gifts Republicans act like Santa Claus.  When labor is the supplicant they conduct themselves more like Scrooge.

Consider the Republicans’ different approach to the estate tax, the minimum wage, and jobless benefits.

When George Bush came to office the federal government taxed the value of estates over $675,000.  Congress immediately raised the exemption to $1 million and in 2009 to $3.5 million.  In 2010 Congress boosted it again to $5 million and in 2012 indexed the exemption to inflation.  This year an individual will pay taxes only for the value of an estate over $5.25 million.  A couple will receive an exemption of $10.5 million.

In sum, over 13 years Congress increased the estate tax exemption almost 800 percent and then indexed it to inflation.  During that time the cost of living rose by 32 percent.

From 1997 to 2007 Congress refused to raise the minimum wage a penny.  Then in 2007 it reluctantly raised it by $2.10 over three years.  Since 2009 Congress has again refused to revisit the issue.  Today and for the foreseeable future any proposal to index the federal minimum wage is dead on arrival.

In sum, over 16 years full time workers earning the federal minimum wage have seen their income rise by 40 percent, to $15,000.  During that time the cost of living rose by 45 percent.

Ten states do automatically increase the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. But last year Congress all but erased the impact of those increases when it refused to extend the 2 percent payroll tax reduction.   The increased dollars subtracted from workers paychecks almost completely offset the dollars added to paychecks from the indexing of the minimum.

Congress takes the same mean spirited and miserly approach to the long term unemployed. In 2009, as part of its stimulus package, Congress extended jobless benefits to as much as 99 weeks.   In 2012 it slashed the maximum to 73 weeks and for all but a dozen of the highest unemployment states, to 63 weeks. This was done even though unemployment remained at the highest levels in a generation and about 43 percent of the nearly 13 million unemployed were out of work for more than 6 months, double the rate of any other economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The average unemployment benefit is $300 per week.

In 2014 Republicans insist they won’t support an extension of jobless benefits without comparable reductions in spending.  GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists[1], “There is no excuse to pass unemployment insurance legislation—without also trying to find the money to pay for it so we’re not adding to a completely unsustainable debt.”

Republicans do not apply the offset principle to deficits created by reducing taxes.  “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending and that’s what Republicans object to”, asserts[2] Senator Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AR).   “But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.”

At the end of 2012 corporate tax breaks that cost the Treasury upwards of $50 billion a year expired.  Congress is expected, as it has done many times in the past, to extend the tax breaks and to do so retroactively.   No one is talking about the need for offsets.

But even here Republicans demonstrate their consistency.  At the end of 2011 the payroll tax reduction expired.  Republicans flatly refused to extend it through 2012 without offsetting the loss of revenue.  After a protracted battle they reluctantly abandoned their principled effort. As Brian Beutler wrote[3] in TPM the “development represents a dramatic reversal for GOP leaders, who nearly allowed the payroll tax cut to lapse in December in part because of their insistence that the package be financially offset.”

No principle is involved here unless the eagerness to engage in class warfare is a principle.  Support for the working class must be offset because it increases the deficit but tax cuts for billionaires, which increase the deficit just as much if not more, do not.  The minimum wage should be raised at most every decade and god forbid it should rise automatically with inflation but the estate tax exemption should be raised every year and indexed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. insists: http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/free/20140107us-jobless-benefits-bill-clears-senate-hurdle.html
  2. asserts: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/07/11/106938/kyl-tax-cuts/
  3. wrote: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/brian-beutler/82

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/republican-rhetoric-depending-dealing-labor-capital/


New Help for Cities Auditing Private Trash and Recycling Contractors

by Neil Seldman | January 21, 2014 10:41 am

New Help for Municipal Officials: Forensic Audits of Private Trash and Recycling Contractors, and Efficiency Analysis of Municipal Trash and Recycling Programs

ILSR and Sustainable Environmental Management Company (SEMCO) have joined to make state-of-the-art analytical tools available to city and county agencies overseeing solid waste and recycling programs. ILSR president Neil Seldman, and SEMCO president Jon Michael Huls will direct this new outreach effort. Seldman and Huls have been working partners for over 30 years in the field of resource management.

ILSR is partnering with SEMCO because of its unique understanding and longstanding involvement with nonprofit organizations and agencies, to help local governments get the most recycling for the least cost.  ILSR helps local governments maximize recycling and composting, and SEMCO will be a critical asset for communities to do this.

SEMCO pioneered the field of forensic analysis of municipal refuse management firms, focusing on the efficiency and effectiveness of solid waste programming and financial management.  ILSR is now working with SEMCO to help local governments improve their waste management and recycling systems and to recover revenues where appropriate.

What is a forensic audit and why should a community consider an audit to address several important challenges facing city and county agencies.

Forensic waste auditing is an investigative practice used to identify and quantify service and fee anomalies and inconsistencies in municipal waste and recycling collection, processing and disposal systems. “Forensic” means “suitable for use in a court of law.”  It is to this standard and potential outcome that forensic waste auditors generally have to work.  Forensic waste audits can be used to resolve actual or anticipated disputes or litigation; provide for financial recovery in communities from contractors’ fraudulent or inappropriate activities; and can be very helpful in negotiation processes for municipal related contract and franchise services.

  • Evaluate the performance of hauler with respect to Agreement(s) – is your community getting the best deal in light of recent price increases? Are all services rendered?
  • Compare the performance of hauler(s) with respect to the industry standard – is the franchisee’s service comparable to nearby cities and their customers? Are prices consistent? Does your hauler attempt to burden smaller generators with higher per unit costs so they can reward larger accounts with lower prices?
  • Analyze the financial circumstances – is the City receiving services paid for? Is the community benefiting from the franchise, and do all dollars add up?
  • If the performance has been unsatisfactory, what recourse does the City have? What compensation is due?
  • Cities and counties to evaluate in-house recycling and trash collection services, or inspire local businesses to implement zero waste programs that save money or generate revenue can also use the audit process.

How successful have forensic waste audits been?

In the past few years the forensic waste audit process as proposed by ILSR and SEMCO has resulted in the following:

  • Nearly $2 million in unpaid fees collected in one city in the Los Angeles area
  • $35 million over 10 years in franchise fees generated without having to raise residential and commercial rates in a Southern California city, along with numerous upgrades in services and new programs at no additional cost to the community
  • $50,000 in rebates obtained for multifamily complexes in a city due to fraudulent collection practices
  • Avoidance of steep collection rate increases in numerous cities through the disclosure of market and industry conditions unknown to local governments but used by contractors to try to extract higher fees
  • Hundreds of thousands of dollars in added revenue from negotiated settlements on host fees for communities that bear the environmental costs of solid waste facilities
  • Over $50,000 per year in added revenue to a local business through cost avoidance and recycling, in forensic waste auditing performed under contract with a local government

ILSR was established in 1974 to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support environmentally sound and equitable community development. ILSR’s program areas include recycling and economic development, broadband communications, small-scale energy production, and retail and finance.

SEMCO was established in 1995 to serve local government in all aspects of integrated environmental management. SEMCO is particularly adept at designing, implementing, and funding innovative and sustainable refuse and recycling programs.

Contact Neil Seldman at nseldman@ilsr.org[1]

Contact Jon Michael Huls at  semco.info@sustainable-env.com[2].

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Endnotes:
  1. nseldman@ilsr.org: mailto:nseldman@ilsr.org
  2. semco.info@sustainable-env.com: mailto:semco.info@sustainable-env.com

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cities-auditing-private-trash-recycling-contractors/


Circuit Court to FCC: You Can Restore Local Authority to Build Community Networks

by Lisa Gonzalez | January 16, 2014 1:00 pm

This article originally ran January 15 on MuniNetworks.org[1], our site dedicated to broadband and community networks. Our analysis zeros in on the Court’s take on local authority, an issue near and dear to our mission at ILSR. 

As we noted yesterday[2], the DC Circuit of Appeals has decided that the FCC does not have authority to implement its Open Internet (network neutrality) rules as proposed several years ago.

But the court nonetheless found that the FCC does have some authority to regulate in the public interest, particularly when it comes to something we have long highlighted: state barriers to community owned networks. For example, see North Carolina[3] and recent efforts in Georgia[4].

States have been lobbied heavily by powerful cable and telephone companies to create barriers that discourage community owned networks. Nineteen states have such barriers (see our map with the states shown in red[5]), largely because communities have nowhere near the lobbying power of massive cable and telephone companies, not because the arguments against municipal networks are compelling.

For those who remember a certain Supreme Court decision called Nixon v Missouri, the Court has once weighed in the matter of state barriers to community networks. In the ’96 Telecom Act, Section 253 declares “No State or local statute or regulation, or other State or local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service.”

However, the Supreme Court decided in 2004 that Congress was insufficiently clear in its intent to preempt state authority – that “any” did not mean “any” but rather meant something else. In making this decision, it ignored a legislative history with plenty of evidence (see Trent Lott for instance[6]) that suggested Congress meant “any” to mean “any.”

map-preemption[7]

ANYway, we lost that one. States were found to have the right to limit the authority of communities to build their own networks. But we have long felt that a different grant of authority gave the FCC the power to overrule state limits of local authority to build networks, Section 706.

And this is where yesterday’s decision comes in. Circuit Judge Silberman concurred in part and dissented in part – but more importantly for us, he explained Section 706. Read along with your own copy from here [pdf][8].

The statute directs the Commission to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans . . . by utilizing . . . price cap regulation, regulatory forbearance, measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.”

As I said, we have long felt the FCC had the power to remove state barriers that limit local authority to build fiber networks under its section 706 authority but we did not know whether the courts would read it in the same way. In describing the difference between its authority to promote competition vs. its power to remove barriers to infrastructure investment, he notes:

An example of a paradigmatic barrier to infrastructure investment would be state laws that prohibit municipalities from creating their own broadband infrastructure to compete against private companies.

The footnotes cites this Wired article[9] for further information. It’s “kind of a big deal.”

We now have a clear roadmap: Section 706 gives the FCC the authority to remove barriers to infrastructure investment and to promote competition. Restoring local authority to build networks achieves both. The Nixon v. Missouri decision is irrelevant, based on a different section of law. And we have plenty of evidence that when allowed to build their own networks, communities can do a wonderful job… that is what we have been documenting for years.

We encourage you to subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks[10]. Stay current on developments in community network news.

Image of the Meade and Prettyman Courthouse By AgnosticPreachersKid (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0[11] or GFDL[12], via Wikimedia Commons[13]

 

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Endnotes:
  1. MuniNetworks.org: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/circuit-court-fcc-you-can-restore-local-authority-build-community-networks
  2. noted yesterday: http://muninetworks.org/content/network-neutrality-decision-and-importance-community-owned-networks
  3. North Carolina: http://www.muninetworks.org/content/big-bucks-why-north-carolina-outlawed-community-networks
  4. recent efforts in Georgia: http://muninetworks.org/content/georgia-bill-limit-internet-investment-dies-house-floor
  5. see our map with the states shown in red: http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap
  6. Trent Lott for instance: http://www.muninetworks.org/quotes/trent-lott-supported-muni-broadband
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/map-preemption.png
  8. Read along with your own copy from here [pdf]: http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf
  9. this Wired article: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/05/community-fiber/
  10. subscribe to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks: https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dF9ZdmFsam5FNHN1MTJXNkt4V3VsRGc6MA
  11. CC-BY-SA-3.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
  12. GFDL: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
  13. via Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMeade_and_Prettyman_Courthouse.jpg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/circuit-court-to-fcc-restore-local-authority/


A David and Goliath Fight to Tap World Class Solar – Episode 14 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by John Farrell | January 16, 2014 12:54 pm

“It’s the most inspirational work that I’m doing…this is an inspirational and aspirational effort…at the heart of it is love of place and energy democracy.”

Citizens of Santa Fe, NM, are exploring the economic and environmental benefits of more local and locally-controlled energy production.  Is their city ready to take the lead?

Find out in this interview with Executive Director Mariel Nanasi of New Energy Economy[1], recorded via Skype on November 22, 2013.

Mariel Nanasi: The city of Santa Fe exports 10 million to wall street every year in profits. If that money went back into the city’s budget, it could be used for schools or parks or education or whatever the city decided.
John Farrell: This week, we learned how one Southwestern city is trying to keep more of its energy dollars at home. Listen in to hear Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy in Santa Fe, New Mexico, explain how a move to a city owned utility could mean more local solar and more local investment. I’m John Farrell, and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast sharing powerful stories of successful local energy and exposing the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Welcome to the program, Mariel.
Mariel Nanasi: Thank you for having me.
John Farrell: I’m really curious about the motivation in Santa Fe to switch from a private electric company to a city owned municipal utility, to public power. Is it reliability, which motivated the switch in Winter Park, Florida, or is it more about clean energy, like in Boulder, Colorado?
Mariel Nanasi: I think that it’s closer to the Boulder, Colorado model. The current incumbent utility in New Mexico is called Public Service Company of New Mexico. PNM is what we call it. And it’s a monopoly that relies on 60% coal, 20% nuclear, and some gas, a little bit of wind, and 1% solar in a state that has the sun as its symbol on its flag. And some people refer to the solar potential in New Mexico as being world class solar. And that it’s the Saudi Arabia of solar and we have not taken advantage of that potential. And I like to say to, to people, you know, I look at my kids and I look at them in their eyes and I don’t say, oh, you have so much potential and leave it at that. I say, I want them to actualize or maximize their potential.

And we have abundant solar and wind resources in New Mexico. And the monopoly, the electric monopoly has failed to take advantage of that. And to our disadvantage and coal is the single greatest driver of climate change, but it also has enormous local health impacts. PNM had 60,000 air quality violations. And they spew into our air, into the commons — which belongs to all of us, not just to PNM — they spew 12 million tons of carbon dioxide and lots of other hazardous pollutants and toxic carcinogens, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxides and mercury. It’s really having an enormous local health impact. I’ll just say this one last thing, we did a study last year. We commissioned a study from the New York University School of Medicine, and it found that PNM had externalized costs of hundred and 40 million in just the last five years in healthcare costs. And that was asthma and hospital visits and lung disease and heart disease. They’re not paying for the waste, but the public is.

John Farrell: So I clearly hear, uh, a strong environmental motivation. Now, what I thought was interesting in reading a bit about your efforts in Santa Fe is that you had almost 2,000 people in the city sign a petition asking the city to look into forming a public power entity, a municipal utility, and this study, which came out last December, is the result of that petition. And, and it says this city could get more than double its renewable energy. It could double energy efficiency, savings, get more local energy, and have lower electric rates. Were you surprised by the results?
Mariel Nanasi: I was encouraged by the results. I think that while it’s true that we want to do this for, for climate change and environmental reasons, I also believe that it has, and this study evidenced that we have the potential to create leading edge innovations in energy efficiency and renewable energy and related economic development. That’s some of what this study showed or interested in, in continuing to stabilize rates, but also, to create competitive advantages and jobs, that would come with a public power effort. So it’s very exciting. The Santa Fe community college is graduating young people with solar certificates and then they’re getting jobs as solar installers and the installers in Santa Fe quadrupled their employment practices and that has real local benefits and those people that are not spending their money on Wall Street, those people are spending their money in Santa Fe and there’s a local multiplier effect that has enormous potential for our area. But also if the money wasn’t going to high executive pay and bonuses and to Wall Street, frankly, the city of Santa Fe exports 10 million to Wall Street every year in profits, if that money went back into the city’s budget, it could be used for schools or parks or education or whatever the city decided.
John Farrell: So between the economic benefits, the opportunities around affordability, local control, it seems like this study is really making this case for public power a very simple one. But nearby in Las Cruces, you know, they failed after a 10 year effort to form a city owned utility in the 1990s. Is that having an impact on the conversation in Santa Fe?
Mariel Nanasi: Yes, but can I say one thing that’s really important and then answer that question? It goes to this, the heart of what you’re asking and that is that PNM used to own the water utility in Santa Fe and the city of Santa Fe bought it 10 years ago. And it is now one of the most respected water utilities in the entire country, mostly for the efforts on conservation and education or education about conservation. And we’ve done amazing work on reducing consumption. It is now profitable for the city of Santa Fe. So we have a local example that highlights our ability to put our values to work here.

But back to your questions, Las Cruces is really interesting. We have had a forum about a month and a half ago. And one of the people who came was the attorney who represented the city of Las Cruces and its bid to supplies or take over the public power. And what happened was everything was on track and they were 30 million short of final deal. And what happened was that El Paso Electric ran a candidate who was opposed to their public power efforts. And then they had to have a vote on the last 30 million as part of the bid and that candidate voted against it. And it literally lost by one vote. Her message to the entire public was this is not about, is it better for Santa Fe? In fact, she said, the answer is clear, sort of like the beginning premise of your question. She said though, political will, and we’ve seen this happen just out in Boulder where Xcel tries another way, uses more money, uses a nonprofit run. New candidates will do all the things that they wanna do because they are fighting for their life. They’re fighting for their business’ life. And so we expect do shady things or will do everything in their power and they will ask their friends at Edison Electric Institute to help them create phony nonprofits and try to pay off people. I mean, this is part of the modus operandi. If you look at the history of efforts to quell public power, and you might, your listeners might know that there was actually a textbook written just about how to defeat public power efforts. So why it failed in Las Cruces is something that we’re looking at, are definitely cognizant of that. PNM is already talking to the mayoral candidates who are running in the next election. So this is part of the power scheme. This is part of the David and Goliath fight.

John Farrell: So what is the next step for the city? You know, you covered, and I have also written about the process in Boulder, which was many years in building before even the first vote to pursue a municipal utility in 2011. And, and like you said, they had to defend against a utility funded effort to set them back here in 2013. What’s the next step in Santa Fe?
Mariel Nanasi: Well, we are, are doing our due diligence and I will leave it at that. Um, but definitely doing research. One of the things I will divulge is that we are working on a, what I’m calling a lessons learned from the municipal utility, the water municipal utility purchase. And we’re gonna be providing that kind of research and to our city counselors and to our county commissioners. And when we launch a public campaign, which we hope to do in 2014, if we have all our research in place, there is always more research to be done. But some of it is about management structures and best practices. We did a best practices piece on Austin, which is one of the best, if not the best green municipal utilities that are out there and learning about what they’ve done and how they’ve gotten there, they set out some standards and they’ve already exceeded their carbon reduction goals.

So what we wanna do is set out what we would like to see in this municipal utility work to make sure that we have all the research done and then push our city counselors and county commissioners to vote. And they have to take a vote to do two things, to agree to work together, which they’ve also done in the past, including a recent one around securing water and creating water durability for Santa Fe. But then also to use their authority on eminent domain to take over both the poles and wires of PNM and also their customer base, a vote will happen eventually within the city council and county commission, but we really have a lot of education and outreach to do in this city. And that’s what we are looking to inform and then elevate.

John Farrell: Well Mariel, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.
Mariel Nanasi: Thank you so much. It’s actually the most inspirational work I’m doing. I think that there’s a real hunger and appetite. There’s sort of like a low-grade fever going on with people’s worry around climate. And this is an inspirational and aspirational effort that really, at the heart of it, is love of place and energy democracy. And that’s why it’s just so, so fun and exciting to be involved in.
John Farrell: That was ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell speaking with Mariel Nanasi of New Energy Economy in Santa Fe. You can learn more about Edison Electric’s anti municipalization playbook, and about the remarkable results of the study of Santa Fe’s renewable energy potential with the city-owned utility at ilsr.org. Until next time, keep your energy local, and thanks for listening.

 


A Failure to Take Advantage

The incumbent electric monopoly serving Santa Fe, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), gets just 1% of its energy from solar in a state that some call the “Saudi Arabia of solar.” The result is a citizen-driven movement to explore a city-owned utility, and to make the most of the local renewable resource.

Mariel says, “I look at my kids in their eyes.  I don’t say ‘you have so much potential’ and leave it at that.  I want them to maximize their potential….We have abundant solar and wind resources in New Mexico.  The incumbent monopoly has failed to take advantage.”

New Energy Economy commissioned a study to see what would happen if the city, becoming the electric utility, did take advantage of its local resource.  The results are remarkable.

Doubling Efficiency, Doubling Renewables, Cutting Costs

In a study released in December 2012 and benignly titled “Preliminary Economic Feasibility Assessment of a Publicly-Owned Electric Utility for the City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County,” the city learned that an energy switch to public power could be momentous:

  • It could double savings from energy efficiency from 8% to 20%
  • It could more than double renewable energy production from 20% to 45%
  • It could cut coal’s share of their energy supply from 60% to zero
  • It could increase the percent of local energy fivefold (and possibly much further with local utility-scale solar and city ownership of a combined-cycle natural gas power plant)
  • It could increase customer-sited and -scaled energy from a pittance to over 11%
  • It could cut energy bills by 10-15%

As Mariel says, the study says Santa Fe has “the potential to create leading edge innovations in energy efficiency and renewable energy and related economic development.”

Lessons from Las Cruces: A David and Goliath Fight

Santa Fe has two local examples that will inform their quest for cleaner, more local, public power.

The first is the local water utility, which “highlights our ability to put our values to work.”  The city purchased the water utility from a private monopoly 10 years ago and it is now “one of the most respected water utilities in the country” for its efforts on conservation and furthermore, “It is profitable for the city of Santa Fe.”

The second is a failed attempt to municipalize the electric utility in nearby Las Cruces.  After a 10 year effort, the bid to take over the electric system from El Paso Electric failed by a single vote in the 1990s, after the incumbent corporate utility helped finance the successful campaign of a city council candidate who voted against the last $30 million appropriation necessary to complete the deal.

The lesson from Las Cruces, according to the lawyer that represented the city, is that the question of municipalization is not about which entity is better – that’s self-evident (see the study) – but ‘is there sufficient political will to fight the incumbent monopoly?’

“PNM will do shady things…will do everything in their power…will ask their friends at Edison Electric…create phony nonprofits…try to pay off people…to quash public power,” notes Mariel.  There’s even a corporate utility-written handbook[6] for defeating public power efforts.  (There’s a response, too, from the American Public Power Association called Straight Answers to False Charges Against Public Power[7]).

Already, PNM is already talking to mayoral candidates in Santa Fe in preparation for the political battle.  It is, Mariel says, “Part of the David and Goliath fight.”

What’s Next

New Energy Economy and its partners in Santa Fe are going to spend 2014 “doing our due diligence.”  Their research will focus on the lessons learned from the city’s recent purchase of the water utility, as well as best practices from leading utilities like Austin, TX.

Ultimately, they intend to push their city council and county commissioners to vote on the issue of a public electric utility in 2014.

 

This is the 14th edition of Local Energy Rules[8], an ILSR podcast with Senior Researcher John Farrell that shares powerful stories of successful local renewable energy and exposes the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Other than his immediate family, the audience is primarily researchers, grassroots organizers, and grasstops policy wonks who want vivid examples of how local renewable energy can power local economies.

It is published twice monthly, on 1st and 3rd Thursday.  Click to subscribe to the podcast: iTunes[9] or RSS/XML[10]

Sign up for new podcast notifications[11] and weekly email updates from the energy program[12]!
Photo credit: gholmes[13]
Thanks to ILSR intern Jake Rounds for his audio editing of this podcast.
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Endnotes:
  1. New Energy Economy: http://newenergyeconomy.org/
  2. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Local-Energy-Rules-Mariel-Nanasi-Santa-Fe-ep14-2013-1122.mp3
  3. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Local-Energy-Rules-Mariel-Nanasi-Santa-Fe-ep14-2013-1122.mp3
  4. Embed: #
  5. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  6. corporate utility-written handbook: http://cl.ly/0b2K1v3w1228
  7. Straight Answers to False Charges Against Public Power: http://cl.ly/0Y1s3T1t2O1z
  8. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  9. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/local-energy-rules/id595698022?mt=2
  10. RSS/XML: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  11. new podcast notifications: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9
  12. weekly email updates from the energy program: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9
  13. gholmes: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/gholmes/5768168949/sizes/m/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/david-goliath-fight-tap-world-class-solar-episode-14-local-energy-rules/


Ten Ways to Strengthen DC’s Proposed Ban on Polystyrene

by Brenda Platt | January 15, 2014 12:20 pm

Last week the DC City Council held a public hearing on Mayor Vincent Gray’s Sustainable DC Omnibus Act of 2013 (Bill 20-573), which aims to improve the quality of life and economic opportunity for District residents.  Brenda Platt, director of ILSR’s Sustainable Plastics and Composting Makes $en$e projects, testified in support of the bill’s ban on expanded polystyrene foodservice products (Subtitle A, Title IV, “Protecting the District’s Waterways through Pollution Prevention”) and outlined 10 ten ways to strengthen passage of the bill and its impact. Brenda also emphasized the potential public health hazard of using polystyrene (resin code #6), and urged the City Council not to allow a polystyrene recycling loophole as New York City recently did.  She presented sample legislative language from existing cities around the country that could be a model for DC and elsewhere.

Health Implications of Polystyrene[1]

Ten Ways to Strengthen DC’s Proposed Ban on Polystyrene

Reasons to Restrict Polystyrene for Foodservice Ware[2]

Sample Legislative Language from Select Cities[3]

To download full copy of ILSR Testimony, click here.

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Health Implications of Polystyrene: https://ilsr.org/health-implications-polystyrene-2/
  2. Reasons to Restrict Polystyrene for Foodservice Ware: https://ilsr.org/reasons-restrict-polystyrene-foodservice-ware/
  3. Sample Legislative Language from Select Cities: https://ilsr.org/sample-legislative-language-select-cities-restricting-polystyrene-foodservice-ware/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ten-ways-strengthen-dcs-proposed-ban-polystyrene-2/


Republican Principles Change Depending On Whether A Bill Favors Labor Or Capital

by David Morris | January 14, 2014 10:02 am

Are Republicans inconsistent when they sometimes support using offsets and indexing and sometimes don’t?  Not at all.  They’re actually very consistent.  When capital comes asking for gifts Republicans act like Santa Claus.  When labor is the supplicant they conduct themselves more like Scrooge.

Consider the Republicans’ different approach to the estate tax, the minimum wage, and jobless benefits.

When George Bush came to office the federal government taxed the value of estates over $675,000.  Congress immediately raised the exemption to $1 million and in 2009 to $3.5 million.  In 2010 Congress boosted it again to $5 million and in 2012 indexed the exemption to inflation.  This year an individual will pay taxes only for the value of an estate over $5.25 million.  A couple will receive an exemption of $10.5 million.

In sum, over 13 years Congress increased the estate tax exemption almost 800 percent and then indexed it to inflation.  During that time the cost of living rose by 32 percent.

From 1997 to 2007 Congress refused to raise the minimum wage a penny.  Then in 2007 it reluctantly raised it by $2.10 over three years.  Since 2009 Congress has again refused to revisit the issue.  Today and for the foreseeable future any proposal to index the federal minimum wage is dead on arrival.

In sum, over 16 years full time workers earning the federal minimum wage have seen their income rise by 40 percent, to $15,000.  During that time the cost of living rose by 45 percent.

Ten states do automatically increase the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. But last year Congress all but erased the impact of those increases when it refused to extend the 2 percent payroll tax reduction.   The increased dollars subtracted from workers paychecks almost completely offset the dollars added to paychecks from the indexing of the minimum.

Congress takes the same mean spirited and miserly approach to the long term unemployed. In 2009, as part of its stimulus package, Congress extended jobless benefits to as much as 99 weeks.   In 2012 it slashed the maximum to 73 weeks and for all but a dozen of the highest unemployment states, to 63 weeks. This was done even though unemployment remained at the highest levels in a generation and about 43 percent of the nearly 13 million unemployed were out of work for more than 6 months, double the rate of any other economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The average unemployment benefit is $300 per week.

In 2014 Republicans insist they won’t support an extension of jobless benefits without comparable reductions in spending.  GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists[1], “There is no excuse to pass unemployment insurance legislation—without also trying to find the money to pay for it so we’re not adding to a completely unsustainable debt.”

Republicans do not apply the offset principle to deficits created by reducing taxes.  “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending and that’s what Republicans object to”, asserts[2] Senator Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AR).   “But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.”

At the end of 2012 corporate tax breaks that cost the Treasury upwards of $50 billion a year expired.  Congress is expected, as it has done many times in the past, to extend the tax breaks and to do so retroactively.   No one is talking about the need for offsets.

But even here Republicans demonstrate their consistency.  At the end of 2011 the payroll tax reduction expired.  Republicans flatly refused to extend it through 2012 without offsetting the loss of revenue.  After a protracted battle they reluctantly abandoned their principled effort. As Brian Beutler wrote[3] in TPM the “development represents a dramatic reversal for GOP leaders, who nearly allowed the payroll tax cut to lapse in December in part because of their insistence that the package be financially offset.”

No principle is involved here unless the eagerness to engage in class warfare is a principle.  Support for the working class must be offset because it increases the deficit but tax cuts for billionaires, which increase the deficit just as much if not more, do not.  The minimum wage should be raised at most every decade and god forbid it should rise automatically with inflation but the estate tax exemption should be raised every year and indexed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. insists: http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/free/20140107us-jobless-benefits-bill-clears-senate-hurdle.html
  2. asserts: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/07/11/106938/kyl-tax-cuts/
  3. wrote: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/brian-beutler/82

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/republican-principles-change-depending-bill-favors-labor-capital/


The End Of Personal Space

by David Morris | January 14, 2014 9:39 am

The natural tendency of the private sector, when unrestrained, is to strip us of our personal physical and psychic space.  Just look at what has happened in the airline and broadcasting industries.

When it comes to air travel, private companies’ profits depend on maximizing revenue per cubic inch of space inside a plane.

Fifty years ago, when regulated airlines competed primarily on service rather than price expanding personal space was part of their strategy for attracting customers.  As the Wall Street Journal reports seats on the first Boeing 707 were 17-inches wide, a dimension based on the width of a US Air Force pilot’s hips.  In the 1970s and 1980s seat width increased to 18 inches and in the early 2000s, seats on the new Boeing 777 and Airbus 380 were widened still further to 18.5 inches.

But the increased concentration resulting from airline deregulation reversed this dynamic.  Today just 4 airlines control[1] 85 percent of the national market.  In many major airports, a single company may account for 80 percent of the flights.  Their near monopoly power has allowed airline companies to boost revenue by adding a seat in every row and in some cases adding rows too.  This is achieved by shrinking seat width and pitch and narrowing aisles.

The WSJ notes that new Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliners may have 17-inch-wide seats.  Seats on a new Airbus A330 can be as narrow as 16.7 inches.

Airlines not only squeeze our waists and shoulders, they cramp our legs as well. Independent Traveler reports[2] that over the last two decades the space between your seat and the one in front of you has been reduced from 34 inches to as little as 30 inches.  Some airlines shoehorn passengers into 28 inches.

While the private sector shrinks our personal physical space, our need for space has grown. In the last 4 decades the average American man and woman’s waistline has increased[3] by 2.5 inches and their weight by over 20 pounds.  Their height has increased[4] by more than an inch.    The result is air travel that for a growing number of people feels like persecution.

When it comes to broadcasting, private companies’ profits depend on maximizing revenue per minute of air time and cubic inch of screen.  They accomplish this by delivering less product per hour and making it more difficult for us to effectively watch the product delivered.

In the 1960s a typical hour-long show would run 51 minutes excluding advertisements.  Today[5] it is down to 42 minutes. Every ten minutes or so commercials interrupt programs and their story lines and their dramatic rhythm. (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. control: http://www.cntraveler.com/features/2013/07/airline-industry-changes
  2. reports: http://www.independenttraveler.com/travel-tips/travelers-ed/the-shrinking-airline-seat
  3. increased: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/business/on-jammed-jets-sardines-turn-on-one-another.html?_r=0
  4. increased: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/healthcare/a/tallbutfat.htm
  5. Today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/personal-space/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/personal-space/


It’s Been A Very Bad Month For the Private Sector

by David Morris | January 13, 2014 11:44 am

The private sector has had a very bad month.   Its most widely publicized failure occurred when UPS and FedEx fumbled their Christmas deliveries while the U.S. Postal Service scored a touchdown.   

“An unlikely Star of the Holiday Shipping Season:  The U.S. Postal Service” is how Business Week described[1] the clear victory of the public over the private. “The government-run competitor was swamped with parcels just like UPS and FedEx were, with holiday package volume 19 percent higher than the same period late year. But there were no widespread complaints about tardy deliveries by USPS. The postal service attributes its success to meticulous planning.”

Less publicized but even more damning has been the growing public evidence regarding the epidemic of incompetence and lofty costs of private contractors. A recent Op Ed in the New York Times by David A. Super, Professor of Law at Georgetown University offered[2] a litany of private contractor failings, including a flawed Colorado Benefits Management System that took four years to fix.  When first implemented it reportedly refused food stamps to anyone who did not have a driver’s license from Guam! Last October a contractor’s glitch made food stamps inaccessible to recipients in 17 states.

Then there was what the Times deemed the “disastrous rollout” of a privately created and managed system to oversee unemployment benefits in Florida by Deloitte Consulting.  In December Florida penalized[3] the contractor $6 million and begin fining it $15,000 a day until the problems are fixed. Privately managed systems from Massachusetts to California have experienced dramatic delays and enormous cost overruns.

In mid December Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton fired[4] off a 5 page letter to the CEO of IBM demanding the company “immediately deploy whatever people or resources are needed to correct the defects in your product that are preventing Minnesotans from obtaining health insurance through MNsure.”  Dayton noted that when IBM had responded to the state’s request for bids it had promised the software was “90 percent complete and ready out-of-the-box.”  “We now know that the product is still not 90 percent complete in December of 2013”, Dayton wrote, “and that your product has significant defects, which have seriously harmed Minnesota consumers.”

IBM is a subcontractor on the $46 million Minnesota contract.  The primary contractor, Maximus, has its own record of shoddy service.   In 2012 Illinois awarded Maximus a $77 million contract to review Medicaid eligibility. A 2013 investigation concluded[5] that its recommendation to change benefit levels were found in error 50 percent of the time

In December Illinois terminated the $77 million contract after an arbitrator found it guilty of violating a collective bargaining agreement.  One analysis found that allowing state employees to do the job would save the state more than $18 million annually while replacing unqualified call center hires with trained caseworkers.

Washington now spends about $500 billion on private contractors, more than double what it spent in 2000 even though a thorough investigation by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found[6] that Washington pays private contractors almost twice as much as federal employees.  In 33 of 35 occupational classifications, federal employees were less expensive.

Last March Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri told a Senate hearing that federal contractors charged overhead of 50 percent or more, even when federal space was provided free. In 2012, contractors were allowed[7] to charge the government as much as $693,000 per worker.

The inability of the private to compete with the public seems to matter little who’ve drunk the private-sector-is-always-better Kool-Aid.  We might recall it was Bill Clinton who first aggressively pursued the privatization of the federal workforce.  It allowed him to brag about his reduction of federal employees while conveniently ignoring the commensurate rise in the number of private employees, meticulously documented by Paul Light, Professor of Public Service at NYU in his book The True Size of Government and the multi hundred billion dollar cost to taxpayers.

It may be time to take a page from the Ronald Reagan playbook and adapt one of his most famous lines to the new reality.  “The 10 (now 11) most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the private sector and I’m here to help you.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. described: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-30/an-unlikely-star-of-the-holiday-shipping-season-the-u-dot-s-dot-postal-service
  2. offered: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/opinion/an-error-message-for-the-poor.html?_r=0
  3. penalized: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/us/faulty-websites-confront-needy-in-search-of-aid.html
  4. fired: http://www.startribune.com/business/238634681.html
  5. concluded: http://leftlaborreporter.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/arbitrator-rules-that-outsourced-work-in-illinois-must-be-returned-to-state-employees/
  6. found: http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2011/co-gp-20110913.html
  7. allowed: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg73681/html/CHRG-112shrg73681.htm

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bad-month-private-sector/


The High Cost of the Solar Middleman

by John Farrell | January 9, 2014 5:17 pm

If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, then how can Americans get solar on their roof with “zero money down” and lower their electric bill?  Solar leasing, as it’s often called, is a clever market solution to poor federal and state policy design that otherwise requires Americans to do financial acrobatics to power their home or business with solar.

But solar leasing adds significantly to the cost of solar energy.

New data from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources published last year[1] suggests that state taxpayers that will pay (a lot) more to make solar easy to install for individuals and businesses, and to make solar energy lucrative for solar leasing companies.

The report estimates the necessary production based incentive (in dollars per megawatt-hour of electricity produced) to support the development of solar. Specifically, the researchers priced a “10-year levelized incentive…that allows system owners to achieve their target economic rate of return.” The analysis notably focused on ownership structures, either 3rd party ownership (solar leasing) or host ownership (owned by the home or business owner).  The following chart shows the difference in state incentives necessary to support a small-scale (15 kW or less) solar array that is either owned by a 3rd party or the actual electric customer.

host v 3rd party ownership solar incentive mass[2]

The bottom line is that leased solar arrays require more than double the incentive needed to support customer-owned solar arrays.  Not only do leasing companies require more revenue, but customers of leasing companies get less than solar owners, because they presumably sign contracts for electricity that are less than the net metering they would receive in owning a solar array.

Why does solar leasing cost more?

In the words of the report authors, “These transactions often require attracting additional tax-motivated parties to the project financing, and at considerable expense for transaction and capital.”  How much more expensive?  A host-owned solar array is expected to get financing at 4% interest and have a return on equity expectation of 4%.  A solar leasing company is expected to pay 6% interest on shorter-term debt and to require 15% return on equity.

It might seem convenient to blame solar leasing companies for this problem, but they’re merely opportunists in a poor policy environment.  Making your money back on solar in America is complicated.  It requires a combination of tax savvy, skilled navigation of state bureaucracies, persistence at a local permitting office and limited options for low-cost financing. Compared to Germany, with a simple, non-nonsense long-term contract that permits low financing costs and broad participation, America’s solar market is a joke (and the installed cost of solar is much higher[3] as a result).

Furthermore, big banks have also played a role in inflating solar leasing costs[4] to taxpayers, using a legal loophole to collect tax incentives based on (higher) estimated costs of solar installations instead of actual costs.  Leasing company SolarCity was notable targeted by the Treasury Department for its participation[5] in the practice.

In other words, we pay twice for bad solar policy in America.  Complicated tax incentive, interconnection, and contract policy makes solar cost more to install than in mature markets like Germany. Solar leasing middlemen simplify the complications, but at a price premium to (complicated) individual ownership.

Even though sunshine is free, no kind of solar power is a free lunch.

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Endnotes:
  1. published last year: http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/doer/rps-aps/doer-post-400-task-1.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/host-v-3rd-party-ownership-solar-incentive-mass.png
  3. the installed cost of solar is much higher: https://ilsr.org/why-pay-double-solar-america/
  4. big banks have also played a role in inflating solar leasing costs: https://ilsr.org/big-banks-inflate-solar-project-value-boost-tax-credits/
  5. SolarCity was notable targeted by the Treasury Department for its participation: https://ilsr.org/treasury-dept-fingers-solarcity-leasing/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/cost-solar-middleman/


Democratic Energy’s Top 5 of 2013

by John Farrell | January 2, 2014 5:02 am

commercial-grid-parity-FB-images.004-1-320x239[1]Rooftop Revolution

A combination resource of our two reports on residential and commercial solar grid parity, including a slideshow, infographic, and an amazing interactive map (#5 on this list by itself).

 

 

 

1360282556772.jpg.CROP_.article568-large-320x246[2]Germany Has More Solar Power Because Everyone Wins

It got press because someone at Fox News thought Germany was sunnier than America (the reverse is true), but the real revelation is that the renewable energy revolution in Germany is largely people powered.

 

 

 

gchart-share-of-germany-renewable-energy-market-2011[3]Half of Germany’s 53,000 Megawatts of Renewable Energy is Locally Owned

Actually, it’s up to 63,000 MW[4], and it’s the average German who is powering the transition to a renewable energy future.

 

 

greenhousesolar1[5]Community Solar Power: Obstacles and Opportunities

It’s no surprise that this report[6] still catches the eye three years after its publication.  Over 3 in 4 Americans want to go solar affordably, but only 1 in 4 have a suitable roof for solar.  Community power is the answer, but it’s not yet easy.

 

 

solar-grid-parity-interactive-map-screenshot-150x150[7]Mapping Solar Grid Parity

Want to know when solar beats grid prices – without subsidies?  This is your interactive map, covering every utility in every state for the next decade.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/commercial-grid-parity-FB-images.004-1-320x239.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/1360282556772.jpg.CROP_.article568-large-320x246.jpg
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gchart-share-of-germany-renewable-energy-market-2011.png
  4. it’s up to 63,000 MW: https://ilsr.org/germanys-63000-megawatts-renewable-energy-locally-owned/
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/greenhousesolar1.jpg
  6. this report: https://ilsr.org/community-solar-power-obstacles-and-opportunities/
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/solar-grid-parity-interactive-map-screenshot-150x150.png

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/democratic-energys-top-5-2013/


The Single Best Article on the End of the Social Contract in the U.S.

by David Morris | December 19, 2013 12:37 pm

In the recent issue of the American Prospect [1]editor-at-large Harold Meyerson has written what may be the single best piece on the reasons behind the decline and fall of the American worker since the 1960s and the rise of the age of anxiety.

The disparity between then and now is stark.

In the 25 years before 1974, U.S. productivity increased by 97 percent and median wages rose by an almost equivalent 95 percent. In the 1950s GM and later other companies contractually agreed to guarantee their workers a cost of living increase plus additional raises based on increases in national productivity.

Labor’s share of the national income was 50 percent. The three largest employers in 1960 were high wage, unionized companies: AT&T, GM and Ford.

Almost one third of the labor force was unionized. It was a period of robust give and take between labor and capital. In the 1950s the number of annual major strikes, on average, was 300. Labor won concessions but also seemed to have changed many a CEO’s mindset. In the early 1980s the Conference Board surveyed CEOs and found 56 percent agreed that “employees who are loyal to the company and further its business goals deserve an assurance of continued employment.”

That was then. This is now.

In the 37 years since 1974, productivity grew by 80 percent while median wage compensation l0 percent. Since 2000 productivity has grown 23% while real wages have stagnated.

Today the three largest employers are low wage, retail companies: Wal Mart, YUM!, and McDonalds.

Today only 6.6 percent of the private sector is unionized. The number of annual major strikes has plunged to below 20. Genuine collective bargaining has virtually ceased. The share of national income going to labor has dropped to 43 percent, a shift of about $1.2 trillion from labor to capital. In the late 1990s, the Conference Board found that only 6 percent of CEOs agreed that loyal, productive employees deserved any reciprocal loyalty from their companies.

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Endnotes:
  1. American Prospect : http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/single-piece-social-contract-ended-united-states/


How Solar Saves on Grid Costs – Episode 13 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by John Farrell | December 19, 2013 6:13 am

“We can avoid that $100 million investment in transmission lines, distribution lines, in capital infrastructure…”

How can a utility like Long Island Power Authority[1] avoid all that new capital expenditure?  Find out in this interview with Vice President of Environmental Affairs Michael Deering, recorded via Skype on November 25, 2013.

Customer-Powered Utility

The first question we asked Michael was why one of the largest municipal utilities in the country was looking to its customers for power generation.  The answer was simple: 1) for the environmental value of solar energy but more importantly, 2) for the economy.  To generate jobs and economic development on Long Island.

Solar Programs Helping Meet Peak Demand

The Long Island Power Authority isn’t new to customer-owned solar.  They launched their first solar rebate program in 2001, and now have solar on over 7300 homes and businesses on Long Island.  They’ve added another ~50 megawatts (MW) with a few utility-scale projects, and then launched the feed-in tariff program in 2012.  In total, the utility will have 170 MW of solar installed by the end of 2014, sufficient to meet about 3% of its peak demand.

Limited Line Capacity Means High Value for Local Solar

LIPA isn’t a typical municipal utility.  It’s literally at the “end of the line,” and that limited import capacity puts a premium on locally generated energy.  The new iteration of the feed-in tariff program, launched in 2013, asks for 40 of the 100 MW to be developed on the south fork of Long Island (Montauk).  If they can attract the investment, the utility will pay an additional 7¢ per kilowatt-hour for energy from those solar projects because the energy will help defer big investments in transmission and power plants to serve growing peak demand.

What’s Next?

LIPA has plans to procure more large-scale renewable energy through a 280 MW request for proposal (RFP) in 2014 as well as a third wave feed-in tariff program, focused on non-solar renewable energy technologies, with a total capacity of 20 MW.

You can learn more about feed-in tariff programs from our 2012 report[6] or about the way utilities are valuing solar power from our series on Minnesota’s value of solar law[7].

This is the 13th edition of Local Energy Rules[8], an ILSR podcast with Senior Researcher John Farrell that shares powerful stories of successful local renewable energy and exposes the policy and practical barriers to its expansion. Other than his immediate family, the audience is primarily researchers, grassroots organizers, and grasstops policy wonks who want vivid examples of how local renewable energy can power local economies.

It is published twice monthly, on 1st and 3rd Thursday.  Click to subscribe to the podcast: iTunes[9] or RSS/XML[10]

Sign up for new podcast notifications[11] and weekly email updates from the energy program[12]!
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Endnotes:
  1. Long Island Power Authority: https://www.psegliny.com/
  2. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Local-Energy-Rules-Michael-Deering-LIPA-ep13-2013-1219.mp3
  3. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Local-Energy-Rules-Michael-Deering-LIPA-ep13-2013-1219.mp3
  4. Embed: #
  5. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  6. 2012 report: https://ilsr.org/u-s-clean-programs-now-learned/
  7. series on Minnesota’s value of solar law: https://ilsr.org/rec-final-comments-minnesotas-proposed-solar/
  8. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  9. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/local-energy-rules/id595698022?mt=2
  10. RSS/XML: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  11. new podcast notifications: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9
  12. weekly email updates from the energy program: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/solar-saves-grid-costs-episode-13-local-energy-rules/


Airline Deregulation: A Triumph of Ideology Over Evidence

by David Morris | December 6, 2013 11:43 am

In November, in what history may judge the ultimate triumph of ideology over evidence, the U.S. Department of Justice dropped its lawsuit against the merger of American Airlines and US Airways.

It is altogether fitting that the green light for allowing just 4 airlines to control 85 percent of the domestic market was given by a Democratic administration.  For airline deregulation, the precursor for all things deregulatory, was a liberal cause.  In 1978 Democrats controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Teddy Kennedy, Chair of the Senate Judicial Committee was deregulation’s principal architect. Ralph Nader was one of its most passionate advocates.

The argument they made would not be out of place at a Tea Party meeting today.  Industry had captured the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the airlines regulatory agency.  As a result fares were much higher than necessary. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/airline-deregulation-triumph-ideology-evidence/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/airline-deregulation-triumph-ideology-evidence/


Building a Better Economy: ILSR’s 2013 Annual Report

by ILSR | December 4, 2013 2:53 pm

placeholder[1]2013 Annual Report cover screen shot[2]2013 was a big year for ILSR.  We successfully countered attempts by big corporations like Walmart, Xcel Energy, and Time Warner Cable to expand their market power and override local decision-making authority.  And we worked with communities and policymakers across the country to advance new models and policies that build strong, sustainable, locally owned economies.

ILSR’s 2013 Annual Report highlights how our analysis and strategic partnerships are shifting the public debate about our economic future and securing policy change at the federal, state, and local level.

Download our report[3] to read more about our progress in 2013, which included:

  • Defining a Localist Policy Agenda and helping to launch the Advocates for Independent Business.
  • Designing Minnesota’s Solar Energy Jobs Act of 2013, which has triggered the nation’s first statewide regulatory process to achieve the best possible market value for solar power.
  • Defeating a Georgia bill that would have barred local communities from building their own Internet networks.
  • Promoting the replication of local composting projects with two major reports on the economic and environmental benefits of composting and compost use and co-convening the first national Cultivating Community Composting Forum.
  • Transforming the public debate about the Public Good through essays published in Alternet, Huffington Post, Common DreamsOn the Commons, and Guernica.

Download the Institute for Local Self-Reliance 2013 Annual Report[4].

We can’t do our work without YOU!
Please contribute today!

DONATE[5]

We need your support today.[6] Help us continue the fight against the concentration of corporate power, the loss of control of our local economies and government, and the growing threats to our environment.

Join us by making a one-time or recurring donation[7] to help communities take control of their economies and their futures by:

  • Building locally-controlled, renewable energy systems
  • Expanding community-owned broadband networks
  • Increasing the number of successful independent, local businesses
  • Creating jobs in new reuse and composting businesses
  • Protecting the public commons
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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ILSR-Annual-Report-2013.pdf
  3. Download our report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ILSR-Annual-Report-2013.pdf
  4. Institute for Local Self-Reliance 2013 Annual Report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ILSR-Annual-Report-2013.pdf
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/donate/
  6. We need your support today.: https://ilsr.org/donate/
  7. Join us by making a one-time or recurring donation: https://ilsr.org/donate/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/annual-report-2013/


What Is Good for Microsoft Turns Out To Be Bad For the Public Schools–And Microsoft

by David Morris | November 26, 2013 2:41 pm

Schools have a lot to learn from business about how to improve performance Bill Gates declared in an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal in 2011.  He pointed to his own company as a worthy model for public schools.

“At Microsoft, we believed in giving our employees the best chance to succeed, and then we insisted on success. We measured excellence, rewarded those who achieved it and were candid with those who did not.”

Adopting the Microsoft model means public schools grading teachers, rewarding the best and being “candid”, that is, firing those who are deemed ineffective.  “If you do that,” Gates promised[1] Oprah Winfrey,  “then we go from being basically at the bottom of the rich countries to being back at the top.”

The Microsoft model, called “stacked ranking” forced every work unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.

Using hundred of millions of dollars in philanthropic largesse Bill Gates persuaded state and federal policymakers that what was good for Microsoft would be good for the public schools system (to be sure, he was pushing against an open door).  To be eligible for large grants from President Obama’s Race to the Top program, for example, states had to adopt Gates’ Darwinian approach to improving public education.   Today more than 36 states have altered their teacher evaluations systems with the aim of weeding out the worst and rewarding the best.

Some states grade on a curve.  Others do not.  But all embrace the principle that teachers continuing employment will depend on improvement in student test scores and teachers who are graded “ineffective” two or three years in a row face termination.

Needless to say, the whole process of what has come to be called “high stakes testing” of both students and teachers has proven devastatingly dispiriting.  According to the 2012 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, over half of public school teachers say they experience great stress several days a week and are so demoralized that their level of satisfaction has plummeted from 62 percent to 39 percent since 2008.

And now, just as public school systems have widely adopted the Microsoft model in order to win the Race to the Top, it turns out that Microsoft now realizes that its model has led that once highly competitive company in a Race to the Bottom.

In a widely circulated 2012 article[2] in Vanity Fair two-time George Polk Award winner Kurt Eichenwald concluded[3] that stacked ranking “effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “  He writes, “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees.  It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

This month Microsoft abandoned the hated system.

On November 12 all Microsoft employees received a memo from Lisa Brummel, Executive Vice President for Human Resources announcing[4] the company will be adopting “a fundamentally new approach to performance and development designed to promote new levels of teamwork and agility for breakthrough business impact.”

Ms. Brummel listed four key elements in the company’s new policy.

•More emphasis on teamwork and collaboration.

•More emphasis on employee growth and development.

•No more use of a Bell curve for evaluating employees.

•No more ratings of employees.

Sue Altman at EduShyster[5] vividly sums up the frustration of a nation of educators at this new development. “So let me get this straight. The big business method of evaluation that now rules our schools is no longer the big business method of evaluation? And collaboration and teamwork, which have been abandoned by our schools in favor of the big business method of evaluation, is in?”

Big business can turn on a dime when the CEO orders it to do so.  But changing policies embraced and internalized by dozens of states and thousands of public school districts will take far, far longer.  Which means the legacy of Bill Gates will continue to handicap millions of students and hundreds of thousands of teachers even as the company Gates founded along with many[6] other businesses, have thrown his pernicious performance model in the dustbin of history.

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. promised: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Shocking-State-of-Our-Schools/7
  2. article: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer
  3. concluded: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
  4. announcing: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/12/5094864/microsoft-kills-stack-ranking-internal-structure
  5. EduShyster: http://edushyster.com/?p=3646
  6. many: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-12/yahoos-latest-hr-disaster-ranking-workers-on-a-curve

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/good-microsoft-turns-bad-public-schools-and-microsoft/


Foreign Aid At Its Best

by David Morris | November 20, 2013 3:35 pm

Sierra Leone map[1]I support foreign aid because it reflects a willingness of rich nations to share resources with those less fortunate.  I criticize foreign aid because it tends to go from government to government, often encouraging corruption and wastefulness.  Or is driven primarily by self-interest, often undermining rather than nurturing a country’s independence (e.g. U.S. food aid that has to be spent importing US food and ends up driving local farmers off the land).

Which makes this short video[2] from UpWorthy[3] so inspiring.   The focus is on Kelvin Doe, an ingenious 15 year old from Sierra Leone.  The foreign aid in this case resulted a 3-week guest residency at MIT for Kelvin, the result of yeoman efforts by MIT’s Media Lab’s David Sengeh who is also from Sierra Leone.

Sengeh is on a mission.  He firmly believes that countries like his own will not progress until they identify and nurture tens of thousands of rooted and committed young people who view problems as challenges and opportunities and possess the ingenuity and persistence to make the most of the opportunities.

Kelvin is one of those young people.  Even in this brief video we are witness to an unusual combination of talent and humility and an abiding love of family and community.

Kelvin taught himself electronics and when he discovered the lights in his village sometimes come on only once a week he scrounged used materials and parts to build a battery.  To give youth a voice and the community a vehicle for participating in decisions he built a radio transmitter and generator.

His visit to MIT expanded his horizons but didn’t diminish his devotion to family and community.  Whatever I’ve learned here I will go back and share and do it as a team he calmly and assuredly says.  “I want to help my family,” he notes, and the pictures indicate a very large family indeed.  And a tear runs down his cheek.

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/foreign-aid/sierra-leone-map/
  2. video: http://www.upworthy.com/a-15-year-old-with-a-huge-brain-and-an-even-bigger-heart-blows-mit-away-3?c=upw1
  3. UpWorthy: http://www.upworthy.com

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/foreign-aid/


Yes to Amazon. No to the Rest of Us.
Welcome to the New Post Office

by David Morris | November 18, 2013 5:07 pm

The announcement that the US Postal Service will deliver packages for Amazon on Sundays came just a few days after a federal judge halted USPS’ sale of Stamford’s historic downtown post office.  The juxtaposition of the two events throws into stark relief the new Janus-like philosophy of the postal service:  a big hug to big business, the back of the hand to the public.

For its first 175 years the US Post Office also served business.  But protecting[1] the public took precedence. When private carriers began to siphon away the most profitable parts of the mail delivery system, raising the cost and lowering the quality of services the Post Office could provide the general public Congress created an effective post office monopoly.  Which enabled a sharp reduction in the price of a stamp and mail delivery to the doors of urban, and later rural residents and businesses.  When private packaging companies mistreated their customers, the Post Office established Parcel Post.  When shaky banks didn’t pay their depositors the post office established the Postal Bank.

In 1971 Congress transformed the cabinet level Post Office Department to the quasi-public United States Postal Service.  Nevertheless the Postal Reorganization Act explicitly noted its public purpose, “The United States Post Office shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people.”  Or, to paraphrase Lincoln’s immortal phrase, the postal service was to be, as the Post Office had been, an institution “of the people, by the people, for the people”.

But the actions of USPS management mock those words.  The USPS not only gives business access; it gives them handsome subsidies. Companies that preprocess their mail qualify for a discount.  By law discounts cannot exceed the avoided costs of USPS doing the work, but the Public Regulatory Commission, an independent agency, estimated in 2012 that businesses were given $1.5 billion annually in excess discounts.  Indeed, as William Burrus, former President of the American Postal Workers Union notes[2] that as the cost of USPS handling a letter dropped discounts actually increased.

The agreement with Amazon should be viewed in this pro-business light. The Washington Post reports[3], “For years Amazon wanted to deliver seven days a week but was stymied by the cost of getting packages from distribution centers to doorsteps.”  Normally a business would have to pay a premium to have the post office deliver on a Sunday.  Under the new deal Amazon will not be charged a premium.  Why?  According to the USPS they will be served by part time, low paid employees, a growing part of a USPS workforce that has been reduced by over half a million career employees since 2000.

While the Postal Service bends over backwards to help big business it often takes an in-your-face attitude towards the general public.  Casual readers of USPS’ proposal earlier this year to end Saturday delivery might have missed the fact that it would apply only to first class mail not to junk mail. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. protecting: https://ilsr.org/the-post-office-past-present-and-future/
  2. notes: http://www.apwu.org/news/webart/2010/10-043-house_hearing-100512.pdf
  3. reports: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/amazon-to-deliver-on-sundays-using-postal-service-fleet/2013/11/10/e3f5b770-48c1-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/amazon-rest-us-welcome-post-office/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazon-rest-us-welcome-post-office/


New Report Reveals Walmart’s Climate Impact

by Stacy Mitchell | November 13, 2013 10:50 am

placeholder[1]Cover Image: Walmart Climate Report[2]Today, ILSR issued a report on Walmart’s rapidly expanding climate pollution and joined with leading environmental organizations in calling for change.

The new report, Walmart’s Assault on the Climate: The Truth Behind One of the Biggest Climate Polluters and Slickest Greenwashers in America, finds:

  • Nearly a decade after launching its sustainability campaign, Walmart’s greenhouse gas emissions have grown substantially and continue to rise.
  • When calculating its emissions, Walmart fails to account for major, fast-growing sources of pollution in its operations, including those from international shipping, new store construction and product manufacturing.
  • Despite its many media announcements about solar and wind projects, Walmart lags competing chains and many independent retailers in making the switch to renewable power.
  • Walmart is a major contributor to the campaigns of lawmakers who are blocking action to address the climate crisis.

“A closer examination of what Walmart is actually doing behind all of its climate announcements shows the company continues to externalize its costs on people and the environment,” said Stacy Mitchell, ILSR Senior Researcher and author of the report.

The report comes as leading environmental organizations call for change.  In an open letter to the company[3], several organizations, including Sierra Club[4], Rainforest Action Network[5], Friends of the Earth[6], and Energy Action Coalition[7], call on Walmart to implement a publicly verifiable, accurate tracking of all of their climate change emissions, make an overall 20 percent reduction in emissions, and stop funding the campaigns of those who oppose legislation to address the climate crisis.

Download:  Report  |  Press Release[8]   |  Open Letter[9]

The Sierra Club made the following statement, which was delivered by Michael Marx, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Oil Campaign:

“Walmart is failing on climate exactly like it is failing on worker’s rights. The company’s carbon pollution is up 14 percent while it pours millions of dollars into a misleading PR campaign around sustainability and anti-environmental public officials who obstruct solutions to climate disruption. If Walmart wants us to live better it can start by treating its workers with the dignity and respect they deserve and taking real steps to cut carbon pollution.”

Philip D. Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA, said:

“As the nation’s largest employer, and the largest company in the world, Walmart has an obligation to match its clean energy commitments with a greater commitment to reducing its global warming pollution and improve how it treats its employees.”

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ILSR-_Report_WalmartClimateChange.pdf
  3. an open letter to the company: https://ilsr.org/walmart-climate-letter/
  4. Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org
  5. Rainforest Action Network: http://ran.org
  6. Friends of the Earth: http://www.foe.org
  7. Energy Action Coalition: http://www.energyactioncoalition.org
  8.  Press Release: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Walmart-Climate-Report-Release.pdf
  9. Open Letter: https://ilsr.org/walmart-climate-letter/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-climate/


Brenda Platt Talks Bioplastics on Toxic Free Radio

by Brenda Platt | November 9, 2013 3:14 pm

On November 6, 2013, Debra Lynn Dadd’s Toxic Free Talk Radio Show had ILSR’s Brenda Platt as a guest representing the Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative and talking about bioplastics. Brenda is Director of the Sustainable Plastics Initiative, Co-Chair of the Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative (www.sustainablebiomaterials.org), and co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, based in Washington, DC. She has worked 26 years on waste reduction, recycling and composting issues.

The show focused on compostable bioplastics, made from renewable resources instead of fossil fuels. Brenda is working as part of several coalitions to spur the use of biobased products that are sustainable from cradle to cradle. The Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative has developed environmentally sustainability criteria for biobased plastics, and recently released purchasing specs for biobased compostable food service ware.

Listen to the Toxic Free Radio Show

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/brenda-platt-talks-bioplastics-toxic-free-radio/


Five Steps To Save The Incredible Shrinking Post Office

by David Morris | November 4, 2013 1:50 pm

In July 2011 the United States Postal Service (USPS) management announced it would rapidly close 3600 local post offices and eventually as many as 15,000.  And shutter half the nation’s mail processing centers.

A frenzy of grassroots activity erupted as citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes a defining role in their communities.  Only when Congress appeared ready to impose a six month moratorium on closures and consolidations that December did USPS management agree to a voluntarily moratorium of the same length.

That moratorium ended in May 2012.  Rather than proceed with closings, management embraced a devilishly clever new strategy.  Instead of closing 3600 it would slash the hours of 13,000 post offices.   That could be accomplished very quickly because reduction in hours, unlike outright closures, requires little if any justification while appeals are very limited.

Germany circa 1940 would have envied the efficiency of the USPS’s blitzkrieg against itself and America’s rural communities.  By November 2013, almost 8,000 post offices already have seen hours whacked.

As required USPS held community meetings but they went not to listen but to dictate.  As the web site Save The Post Office, the go to source of information about the ongoing assault on the post office observes[1], “The decision to reduce the hours was made almost a year ago and what the new hours will be comes as an announcement, not a matter for discussion.  There’s no need for a lot of talk about the options because there aren’t any.”

When communities ask the postal service management for the data upon which it made the decision they are invariably rebuffed.  Postal management considers it none of their business.

A reduction in hours doesn’t generate the same level of outrage as a closure but its impact on a community may, even in the short run, be almost as negative.  The building remains open but its value to the community is dramatically diminished.   Hours may be cut in half.  A part time inexperienced non-career employee replaces a full time experienced career postmaster.

At a meeting in Great Capacon, West Virginia small business owners talked about how the abundant knowledge of the current postmaster, Rick Dunn, helped them cut costs and improve service.  One resident offered another measure of Dunn’s value, relating how he had called in a wellness check on a senior he hadn’t seen in a few days.  It turned out the man needed medical attention. Dunn may have saved his life.

A reduction in hours may set up a slippery slope to full closure because the postal service reviews the workload and revenues of individual post offices annually.  As one resident in Greenwood, Virginia reasonably inquired[2], “How in the world can our revenue increase if they’re reducing the hours that our window can perform retail sales?” (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. observes: http://www.savethepostoffice.com/post-topics/postplan
  2. inquired: http://www.cvilletomorrow.org/news/article/13828-greenwood-usps/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/steps-save-incredible-shrinking-post-office/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/steps-save-incredible-shrinking-post-office/


Indie Trade Associations Form New Coalition

by Stacy Mitchell | November 1, 2013 12:35 pm

In an exciting new development for the local economy movement, seven independent business organizations have come together to launch the Advocates for Independent Business[1] (AIB), a new coalition dedicated to ensuring that locally owned, independent businesses succeed and thrive.

The coalition was founded by the American Booksellers Association[2], American Independent Business Alliance[3], American Specialty Toy Retailing Association[4], Independent Running Retailers Association[5], National Bicycle Dealers Association[6], Professional Association of Innkeepers International[7], and Record Store Day[8].

AIB will provide a structure for its member organizations to exchange information about successful programs that deliver value for their members, generate new ideas to support independent businesses, and work together to advocate for shared public policy goals.

ILSR helped the coalition get off the ground and is coordinating its work.  We think building a national coalition  will give independent businesses a stronger voice on critical public policy issues.

AIB has its roots in the Advocates for Independent Retail Summit[9] organized by the American Booksellers Association two years ago. The day-long meeting drew over 50 people from more than 30 trade associations covering a broad range of independent businesses.

Recognizing the significant opportunity represented by that gathering and the value of having an ongoing vehicle for sharing ideas and collaborating to support independent businesses, the founding members of AIB began meeting earlier this year to create the coalition.

They anticipate that it will grow in the coming months as other organizations join.  Membership is open to organizations that primarily represent independent, locally owned businesses.

More on the AIB’s website[10].

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Endnotes:
  1. Advocates for Independent Business: http://indiebizadvocates.org/
  2. American Booksellers Association: http://www.bookweb.org/
  3. American Independent Business Alliance: http://amiba.net/
  4. American Specialty Toy Retailing Association: http://astratoy.org/
  5. Independent Running Retailers Association: http://www.theirra.com/
  6. National Bicycle Dealers Association: http://nbda.com/
  7. Professional Association of Innkeepers International: http://www.innkeeping.org/
  8. Record Store Day: http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home
  9. Advocates for Independent Retail Summit: http://www.bookweb.org/news/aba-host-summit-advocates-independent-retail
  10. AIB’s website: http://www.indiebizadvocates.org%20%20

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/indie-trade-associations-form-coalition-2/


Review: The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community At a Time

by Neil Seldman | October 30, 2013 3:15 pm

A Review of The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community At a Time
(By Paul Connett, published by Chelsea Green Publishing[1])

Review by Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC

Neil Seldman is President and co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). He is a specialist in recycling and the history of ideas. He is co-founder of the National Recycling Coalition, 1980, Grass Roots Recycling Network, 1995 and Zero Waste International Association, 2003. Seldman wrote the “Introduction” to the International Zero Waste Dialogue, Anthony and Liss, Editors, Grass Roots Recycling Network, 2000.

Disclosure: Neil Seldman and Paul Connett have worked together for over 25 years fighting against waste incineration and for total recycling and economic development, or zero waste, in the US and UK. The book under review includes discussion of Neil Seldman’s and ILSR’s ideas and work.

Paul Connett’s newly released book displays his personal charisma, scientific knowledge and applied wisdom to the deadly serious, though mundane, world of waste. It is a book worthy of the man who Richard V. Anthony, president of the Zero Waste International Association, refers to as the ‘rock star’ of the anti-incineration, pro zero waste movement.

Indeed, Professor Connett’s lectures are scientific tarantellas of facts, consequences, warnings and solutions, accompanied by charts, tables and slides that lay out the biological and chemical realities of wasting and poor management of residuals. They are also wonderfully entertaining, generating more than one side splitting laugh at his metaphors, similes and profound aphorisms — the Devil Burns, God Recycles, Make Love Not Waste, and for older folks, Make Friends Not Waste. The lectures end with a most spirited rendition, lead by Connett, of “No Incineration Forever”, with words set to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Audiences clamor for more.

What a boon to the US and international zero waste movement! This is one super star who charges no money for his participation in thousands of grass roots events over the decades.

Connett is a retired chemistry professor who currently works on fluoridation issues, while still maintaining a heavy schedule of anti wasting speeches and workshops. He initiated and coordinated the Citizens Dioxin Conferences and produced the videos Zero Waste: Idealistic Dream or Realistic Goal? and Road to Zero Waste in the l990s[1]. Most recently, Connett has worked with Rossano Ercolini, a former schoolteacher and winner of the 2013 Goldman for Excellence in Protecting the Environment in Europe for his anti incineration in Italy.

Connett, a native of the UK, fits in well with the US tradition of citizen scientists Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner who used their scientific skills for grass roots rather than corporate or bureaucratic interests. These environmental and scientific heroes strive to apply the benefits of scientific knowledge for the common good, the ideal form of science hailed in Rousseau’s First Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, those that make for a better and happier world.

The text is grounded in Connett’s optimistic belief that there can be a world where local decision making counts. Garbage is just the tip of the iceberg. Wasting is a paradigm that encompasses energy, jobs and small businesses, climate change, toxicity, the fate of the oceans. The solutions to wasting open up a world of renewed possibilities for the human race and nature.

Nothing if not specific, Zero Waste educates us about the Five Rs (Recycle, Reuse/Compost, Redesign, Reduce, Responsibility) and the Four Cs (Common Sense, Community, Creativity, Children). These simple, yet profound, concepts and practices are critical for sustained resource management and broad prosperity. Zero waste is not one big solution for waste management, a large incinerator or mega landfill. Rather the solutions are small scale, locally owned and environmental sound. These policies, programs and enterprises are ‘pieces of zero waste’ that have spontaneously emerged in every part of the globe, the instinctual human response to the bourgeoning and threatening waste stream.

Zero Waste identifies the needs for citizen and small business organizing and solidarity as the necessary socio-political context for zero waste technologies, policies and businesses to thrive. With localism and citizen participation at every stage of development, zero waste is a pathway to a stable, steady state economy as envisioned by previous economic visionaries John Stewart Mill, Frederick Engels, Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly.

Zero Waste also includes the stories of US and world grass roots leaders who have shaped the new paradigm in resource management and made it possible for business people and residents to say no to incinerators and landfills that destroy resources and pollute. There are essays written by leading activists and thinkers in the zero waste movement:  Eric Lombardi links the practicalities of zero waste to world peace, Dan Knapp and Mary Lou Van Deventer, pioneers in reuse entrepreneurialism, the leading theoreticians of the US total recycling and zero waste movement, Jeffrey Morris a leading zero waste economic analyst, Buddy Boyd a recycling practitioner who discusses the need for political leadership, Richard V. Anthony and Gary Liss describe zero waste efforts in the private sector. I have an essay linking recycling to resilient communities and cities.

Following these essays, Connett provides detailed updates and lessons learned from local accomplishments in Canada. Europe, Asia, Mid East, South America and Australia-New Zealand.

The book’s publication took two years.. Yet, even as the essays contain older information, they are quite useful. They need updating in some places as ideas and projects around the world have grown and new issues emerged. The sections on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as they stand are inadequate. They are not informed by the latest push back against the rigid, ideological, EPR Formula and Framework that have resulted in zero waste dystopias in British Columbia, Canada and Europe where Extended Producer Responsibility has been diverted from core values of zero waste including small scale, local ownership entrepreneurialism, anti monopoly and anti incineration. Most pertinent are the recent policy statements that place EPR under local government rather than industry control, the Zero Waste Commission, Berkeley, CA, and the Global Recycling Council of the California Resource Recovery Association, the dialogue within local and national Sierra Club chapters and committees, and the Grass Roots Recycling Network.  Connett addresses these inconsistent policies, but EPR deserves more sophisticated essays on its own. Recyclers and cities are not willing to turn over their cities, companies and industries to the concentrated corporations that produce wasting in the first place.

The history section could use more details from the pre-1985 period. During the late 1960s and l970s and early l980s, the infrastructure of the post World War II recycling movement was rebuilt on the remaining paper and metal scrap industries by private consulting firms (SRD and SCS Engineers), dozens of community based recycling companies (Santa Rosa Community Recycling, EcoCycle in Boulder, Ann Arbor Ecology Center) and regional anti toxics groups (Western Washington Anti Toxics Coalition, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles, ReClaim, Springfield, MO), and direct technical assistance groups (ILSR, NYPIRG, BioCycle). It was this groundswell of activism that finally, by 1985, caught the attention of the national environmental organizations, which then formed their own response to garbage and wasting.

Finally, I disagree with an assessment cited to the effect that the current challenge posed by the incinerator industry is greater than in previous decades (1970-1995) and that the industry is now better organized. The current number of proposed incinerators is half of that in previous decades. The current grass roots institutions that have emerged and proved their mettle as a firewall against mass propaganda for technological fixes, false science, financial patronage and a government-industry revolving door still serve every corner of the country. Years ago these local and regional organizations had to pull themselves together as they fought off incinerators, which benefited from far more comprehensive government support and subsidies than today. The anti incineration movement is as vibrant and diversified today as it was yesteryear when 300 planned incinerators were defeated.

These shortcomings are minor compared to the enormous value of this book. Zero Waste will contribute greatly to the public discussion of waste. It will become a standard text for students of all ages. No longer can business and government leaders ‘sleepwalk’ through an era of “socially sanctioned wasting that characterized the Twentieth Century.”[2]

In my last book review, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash [2][3], I praised its lively description of the social history of wasting in the US economy. Zero Waste by Paul Connett complements this history. It is required reading for those who seek to understand the recycling phenomenon and avoid the economic and environmental pain that will certainly follow if zero waste is not introduced immediately throughout the world.

One further recommendation, after reading Zero Waste, watch the movie “Trashed: No Place for Waste,” which features Dr. Connett.[4]

 


[1] www.AmericanHealthStudies.org[3], click on videos

[2] Helen Spiegelman, Zero Waste, page 47.

[3] https://ilsr.org/book-review-garbology-dirty-love-affair-trash/

[4] http://www.trashedfilm.com/[4].

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Chelsea Green Publishing: http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_zero_waste_solution:paperback
  2. Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash : https://ilsr.org/book-review-garbology-dirty-love-affair-trash/
  3. www.AmericanHealthStudies.org: http://www.AmericanHealthStudies.org/
  4. http://www.trashedfilm.com/: http://www.trashedfilm.com/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/review-waste-solution-untrashing-planet-community-time/


New Report: 8 Ways Local Energy Policies Can Boost the Economy

by John Farrell | October 7, 2013 2:22 pm

Minneapolis, MN (October 7, 2013) – The economy has stalled and so has the war on climate change. But a new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance describes how dozens of cities are boosting their local economies while dramatically reducing greenhouse gases.

City Power Play:  8 Practical Local Energy Policies to Boost the Economy[1] reports on how Chattanooga, TN, is adding over $1 billion to its local economy in the next decade by implementing one of the most advanced smart grids while delivering the fastest internet service in the country.  Sonoma County, CA, has created nearly 800 local jobs retrofitting over 2,000 properties for energy savings with city financing. Babylon, NY, repurposed a solid waste fund to finance retrofits for 2% of the city’s homes, saving residents an average of $1,300 a year on their energy bills at minimal cost to the city.

“These savings weren’t dependent on state or federal grants,” said report author John Farrell, ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy. “These cities used their own resources to seize control of their energy future and economy.”

The report highlights eight practical energy policies cities can and have used to their economic advantage, from more rigorous building codes to solar mandates and easier permitting to the use of a wide array of financing tools to spur renewable energy and energy efficiency.  The brief case studies link to the text of the relevant ordinances.

The policies aren’t tied to a political ideology, but a practical and local one.  Cities have identified where they have untapped resources and deployed them to generate jobs and keep more of their energy dollars in the economy.

“Not every city can use every policy,” notes Farrell, “but every community can find at least one that will help them strengthen their local economy while contributing to the worldwide effort to reduce climate change.”

The report is freely available from ILSR’s Democratic Energy program: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. City Power Play:  8 Practical Local Energy Policies to Boost the Economy: https://ilsr.org/city-power-play/
  2. https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/report-8-ways-local-energy-policies-boost-economy/


Report: City Power Play – 8 Practical Local Energy Policies to Boost the Economy

by John Farrell | October 7, 2013 12:43 pm

Browse the Report

Introduction[1]
Municipal Utilities[2]
Community Choice[3]
Building Codes[4]
Local Taxing Authority[5]
Solar Mandates for New Homes[6]
Permitting[7]
Energy Disclosure Ordinances[8]
PACE Programs[9]
The Limits of Local Authority[10]
Summary[11]
Footnotes[12]

Executive Summary

The economy has stalled and so has the war on climate change. But dozens of cities are creating jobs and cleaner energy using their own power.

Download the Report[13]

 

Keeping Energy Dollars Local

Csunshine means local dollars[14]hattanooga, TN, is adding over $1 billion to its local economy in the next decade by implementing one of the most advanced smart grids and delivering the fastest internet service in the country with its municipal utility.

Sonoma County, CA, has created nearly 800 local jobs retrofitting over 2,000 properties for energy savings with city-based financing.

Babylon, NY, has re-purposed a solid waste fund to finance retrofits for 2% of the city’s homes, saving residents an average of $1,300 a year on their energy bills at minimal cost to the city.

 

 

(more…)[15]

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Endnotes:
  1. Introduction: #Introduction
  2. Municipal Utilities: #MunicipalUtilities
  3. Community Choice: #CommunityChoice
  4. Building Codes: #BuildingCodes
  5. Local Taxing Authority: #LocalTaxing
  6. Solar Mandates for New Homes: #SolarMandates
  7. Permitting: #Permitting
  8. Energy Disclosure Ordinances: #EnergyDisclosureOrdinances
  9. PACE Programs: #PACEPrograms
  10. The Limits of Local Authority: #TheLimits
  11. Summary: #Summary
  12. Footnotes: #Footnotes
  13. Download the Report: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/10/City-Power-Play-8-Practical-Local-Energy-Policies-to-Boost-the-Economy.pdf
  14. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-4.38.22-PM.png
  15. (more…): https://ilsr.org/city-power-play/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/city-power-play/


Let The Red States Vote on Health Care

by David Morris | October 5, 2013 5:18 pm

In 2009, when Congress passed the health care bill, only one Republican voted in favor.  In 2010, with opposition to the new health care law as their rallying cry, Republicans gained a net 63 seats and control of the House of Representatives.  They also won control of 11 additional states, bringing their total to 25.

On October 1st, the first day of the new federal fiscal year and the launch of the new health care exchanges, the victors of 2009 collided with the victors of 2010.  The entire nation felt the impact.

Even when it ends, the government shutdown will have demonstrated the willingness, indeed the eagerness, of Republicans to do everything possible to stop the health care law. Already well-funded campaigns are trying to persuade healthy 25 year olds not to purchase health insurance through the exchanges.  If successful, these campaigns will result in higher premium rates for those who do sign up, which will spawn dissatisfaction with the new law.

The health care law finances “navigators” to help people sign up, similar to what Medicare has.  But red states are hamstringing navigators, often requiring them to pass licensing exams, obtain insurance bonds, and pay heavy fees.  Tennessee recently adopted[1] an emergency rule requiring any “enrollment assister” to undergo a criminal background check, fingerprinting and take 12 hours of course work.  The more problems people have with the exchanges the greater their dissatisfaction will be with the new law.

Given this level of intransigence what is to be done?  President Obama and the Democratic Party are resolute about rolling out the health law in all 50 states.  They refuse to give in to what they see as blackmail.  But I believe the country, and the Democratic Party itself would be better served if Republican controlled states were allowed to opt out of the Affordable Care Act, but only under three conditions.

First, opting out requires opting out of all provisions of the law. No individual mandate.  No health exchanges.  No requirement that insurance companies spend 80 percent of the premium dollar on health care and cover people with pre-existing conditions.  No federal incentives contained in the new law will be provided.

Second, those states that are implementing the health care law will be given great latitude in designing their new health systems. Several states, for example, want to create a single payer insurance system similar to that which Canadian provinces have had for almost 50 years.  The existing law allows significant autonomy only in 2017.  A bill should be passed that gives them the authority to do so immediately. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. adopted: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2013/10/07/131007taco_talk_gawande
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/red-states/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/red-states/


Setting the Value of Solar – Part 1 of Minnesota’s Process

by John Farrell | September 27, 2013 1:13 pm

What is solar worth to a utility? It’s an issue of national debate, but one unexpected state – Minnesota – is engaging a formal process for determining the methodology for setting the value of solar. As the first multi-utility process, it’s likely to set a precedent nationwide for what the “value of solar” will mean and whether it will aid the continued growth of distributed solar power.

So what’s happening with solar in Minnesota?

Starts with a Standard

It starts with the recently adopted solar energy standard[1], which requires investor-owned utilities to get 1.5% of their energy from solar by 2020, establishes a standard, long-term contract for buying distributed solar, and allows utilities to file for a “value of solar” tariff (VOST).

The Value of Solar Concept

The “value of solar” concept is designed to solve one of the most pressing problems with expanding solar power. Utilities see customers generating their own energy as a mortal threat to their business model, because the regulatory structure and their business rely on selling kilowatt-hours. The policy in place, net metering[2], allows customers to get a credit on their bill that’s the same whether they made power from the sun or reduced their energy use by turning off lights. Either way, it means less sales for the utility, but while the utility can’t fight conservation, they can make trouble for solar.

The value of solar concept is a means to catalog and make transparent the many benefits solar energy provides to the grid system (producing energy at times of high demand, being very close to where people use energy).  The idea is that utilities would pay solar producers that full value (on a per kilowatt-hour basis) and that customers would reduce their energy bill with the money from that sale, rather than a credit based on how much energy they produce.  The benefit to the utility would be transparent, and customers would continue to see how much energy they are using.

Minnesota’s Value of Solar Law

The law sets out the required components of the VOST:

  • Energy
  • Generation capacity
  • Transmission and distribution value
  • Transmission capacity
  • Environmental value

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. solar energy standard: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-standard-offer-solar-energy-standard/
  2. net metering: https://ilsr.org/rule/net-metering/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/setting-solar-part-1-minnesotas-process/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/setting-solar-part-1-minnesotas-process/


ILSR co-Sponsoring Cultivating Community Composting Forum

by Brenda Platt | September 23, 2013 12:56 pm

ILSR is pleased to announce — along with BioCycle, Highfields Center for Composting, and the Organics Recycling Association of Ohio — Cultivating Community Composting[1], a day-long forum (11:00 AM-4:30 PM) on October 19, 2013 in Columbus, Ohio. The forum is inspired by the excitement, energy and innovation emanating from the rapidly growing number of community composting sites in the U.S. that are processing source separated household, commercial and institutional food scraps.Cultivating Community Composting is being held at the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Garden in Columbus — which operates a large community garden and education program (Growing To Green) that includes on-site composting. The forum starts with a panel of community composters who will address a range of topics, including site footprint, composting methods, permitting and financing, volunteer management and sourcing/collecting food scraps. A variety of models and scales of community composting — from a bin system at a community garden to windrows and aerated static piles at stand-alone sites — will be covered. The forum includes lunch and a tour of the Conservatory’s garden, composting site and educational facilities
.More information and Online Registration.[2]
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Endnotes:
  1. Cultivating Community Composting: http://www.biocycle.net/2013/08/21/cultivating-community-composting-forum/
  2. More information and Online Registration.: http://www.biocycle.net/communitycomposting/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ilsr-co-sponsoring-cultivating-community-composting-forum/


Defending the Public Good: FDR’s Portland Speech

by David Morris | September 11, 2013 10:36 am

A month before the 1932 election, Franklin Roosevelt traveled to Portland, Oregon to deliver a speech about government and governance. Some 80 years later, his talk, given in the depths of the Depression to a nation that had yet to accept that government should play an important role, remains one of the clearest and most accessible explications of the relationship between the public and the private.

FDR specifically addressed the relationship of government to electric utilities but one could easily translate the theory and principles he proposes to today’s banks, or cable companies or airlines.

In the decade before FDR’s visit to Portland the electricity sector had undergone a sea change. Power companies that once served neighborhoods now served cities and even states.  The era of competition when Chicago had 29 electric companies and New York at least 6 had given way to a consensus that the inherent nature of electricity production and distribution lent itself to monopolies.

The key question after 1920 was who would own and control these monopolies.  At the local level, the war between the public and the private raged for a decade.  More than 2200 smaller cities eventually built their own electric networks.  Most large cities lost the battle although a few like Los Angeles, Seattle and Cleveland emerged victorious.

FDR began with the basic question, then and now. Why not leave electricity production and distribution in private, unregulated hands?  He answered: (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/defending-public-good-fdrs-portland-speech/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/defending-public-good-fdrs-portland-speech/


Review: 40 Years of Curbside Recycling

by Neil Seldman | September 11, 2013 7:46 am

A Review of 40 Years of Curbside Recycling: A Celebration of Our Culture’s Greatest Environmental Movement, Waste & Recycling News, Detroit, August 2013, 42 pages

By Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC
(Neil Seldman is President of ILSR and a specialist in recycling and economic development. He works for cities and counties, community and environmental organizations, and small businesses.)

And a worthy celebration it is! Recyclers should be grateful that the editors and publishers of Waste & Recycling News (WRN) invested their time in preparing this retrospective. Despite some curious lapses in their recounting of the history of recycling, the essays and tables they present will significantly add to the growing literature of recycling for the next generation of Americans.

“No other environmental movement,” the report begins, “can come close to changing the way we think about garbage in our daily lives. None other can match recycling’s economic, cultural and ecological impact…on humanity’s greatest environmental idea.”

Oddly, WRN begins by incorrectly crediting the “hippies” of the 1960s for the recycling revolution. Nothing can be further from the truth, as readers soon find out when they delve into the text. Cliff Humphrey of Modesto Environmental Action, Penny Hansen of the EPA, and the children and grandchildren of 19th century immigrant scrap entrepreneurs hardly fit the image of hippie culture. To be sure, Cliff and Mary Humphrey’s mock funeral for a new car was hippie-like in its irreverence for materialism and counter-culture message. But these activists were no flash in the pan. They and thousands more followed up with years of hard work and political organizing.

Praise is duly noted for the “scrappies” who, out of necessity, built viable businesses in scrap metal and paper that kept recycling alive as it withered under the emerging post-World War II throwaway economy. Mayor Sam Yorty’s 1960 campaign to end curbside recycling in Los Angeles as a spoil of victory of World War II is duly noted as the harbinger of wastefulness and hubris. In Washington, DC, it was ABC Salvage that preserved markets for materials, and invested money and equipment in community-based drop-off centers—an important building block for the curbside recycling that was soon to follow. Hundreds of “scrappies” from across the country did the same. WRN estimates that 1 billion tons of raw materials derive from US recycling efforts since curbside was reintroduced in the early 1970s.

The retrospective covers individual and community accomplishments, the evolution of collection and processing equipment as curbside recycling reappeared, and the change in the economics of recycling during the mid-1980s emergence of a recycling culture. WRN correctly emphasizes the staying power of recycling through the 2008 recession and the current stagnant economy.

WRN also walks us through the latest recycling effort: the one bin, “dirty MRF” system being rolled out in Houston and other cities. Dirty refers to the fact that processing lines recover recyclables and compostables from mixed waste streams, thus reducing the quality of materials recovered. Recyclers also object to dirty MRFs: if people no longer sort their own garbage, efforts to educate them about the waste stream will be for naught, and previous behavior modification surrounding recycling will be lost. Dirty MRFs may also end up as feedstock for planned incinerators, as proponents in Houston and elsewhere anticipate.

Throughout WRN’s report, there are stories that reinforce lessons learned over the past 30 years, and that remind us of both the conventional and unconventional people and ideas that formed and continue to drive the movement to this day.

There are, however, significant omissions in the retrospective that deserve attention. The subtitle is misleading in that it separates the recycling movement from the prior emergence of a larger environmental movement. One could not have been possible without the other: Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner and other scientists prepared the groundwork for the general population’s acceptance of recycling by revealing the appalling state of the environment and the imminent dangers of current practices. These citizen scientists were the midwives of modern recycling. Their work led directly to the national consensus that allowed for 1965’s groundbreaking National Solid Waste Management Act, which marked the first time in a century that the federal government paid attention to garbage. New federal, state and local rules began to change quickly. Like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, recyclers starting aiming for a Clean Land Act, as reflected in the now unfolding zero waste paradigm.

Despite WRN’s initial focus on the grassroots origin of the movement, there is little follow-up on grassroots activism. The l980 Fresno Recycling Congress is omitted in the timeline completely, as is the 1995 emergence of the Grass Roots Recycling Network, a critical development in reaction to the takeover of the National Recycling Coalition by industry consultants and corporations. It would have been helpful to describe the critical role of environmental educators in spreading recycling literacy in schools and in the public’s consciousness. Recycling education has been a vehicle for public knowledge about closely related issues of water, energy and air issues.

The report omits mention of transformative works that deserve attention include Brenda Platt’s 1990s EPA-supported case studies Beyond 25% Recycling, Beyond 40% Recycling and Cutting the Waste Stream in Half, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and Tania Levy’s Garbage to Energy: The False Panacea, Santa Rosa (CA) Community Recycling Center.
Levy’s 1979 booklet launched the anti-incineration movement. Recyclers and ad hoc local groups eventually scuppered over 300 planned incinerators in virtually every major US city and county. WRN chooses to highlight the Mobro Garbage Barge incident as the source of vitality for the recycling movement in the mid l980s. It’s true that the daily images of Long Island garbage floating around the world on the nightly news—ultimately to be returned to NY—were indeed powerful. The threat of massive pollution and the high cost of incinerators in cities, however, were what really galvanized local actions and raised the recycling movement to the forefront of people’s imaginations as a viable alternative to incineration and, later, the parallel development of mega-landfills.

Surprisingly, WRN’s retrospective does not focus on how important citizen- and small business-led anti-incineration activism was to the recycling movement. The prospect of 1000 ton per day plus garbage incinerators led to a broad, locally based movement in opposition. Citizens learned that recycling was a viable alternative to incinerators but that to become the predominant way we handled garbage, we needed to change the rules.

My colleague Brenda Platt’s work appeared as a crucial antidote to industry and EPA periodic assertions in the 1970s that only 10% (later raised to 25%), of MSW could be recycled. Platt’s case studies changed the solid waste narrative by showing communities what other communities had already accomplished. Once people could see successful recycling in action, it became much easier to replace the “burn and bury” paradigm with the recycling and economic development paradigm. Today, hundreds of communities in the US are recovering over 50% of their discarded materials. Some have reached over 70% diversion, while striving for 90%. Recycling has, remarkably, continued to expand its hold on the public’s imagination and practice to this day.

The timeline of WRN’s report focuses mostly on the business side of the movement. Readers should supplement their understanding of the recycling movement by comparing WRN’s timeline with ILSR’s grassroots-oriented timeline[1].

Despite these omissions, the “40 Years” report is a most welcome addition to our history. It provides insights and context that are required if current and future generations are to understand and learn how grassroots democracy can work when decision-making remains in the hands of local government where organized citizens can change the rules.

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Endnotes:
  1. ILSR’s grassroots-oriented timeline: https://ilsr.org/wasting-and-recycling-in-the-united-states-2000/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/review-40-years-curbside-recycling/


A “shot across the bow” for Real. Local. Power.

by John Farrell | September 5, 2013 4:58 pm

In 2011, citizens of Boulder, CO, opted to oust their monopoly, corporate electric utility[1] for a locally owned, cleaner, more affordable model despite being outspent 10-to-1.  They’ve since shown[2] that a locally owned utility could deliver 54% renewable energy, lower greenhouse gas emissions by half, and all at a cost as good or better than the incumbent utility.

But Xcel Energy is doubling down after their 2011 loss, preparing to spend well more than $1 million (what they spent in 2011) to protect their profits (and their outmoded business model).  They’ve sponsored a new ballot initiative[3] that would spike Boulder’s wheel and make running a municipal utility nearly impossible.  It’s a textbook example of a corporation looking to buy the election result they want, and all that’s standing in their way is a committed group of local citizens.

But the citizens aren’t giving up without a fight.  This video – headlining their crowdfunding campaign[4] – shows what’s at stake, and how you can be part of a solution to deliver real. local. power. in Boulder, and across the country.  Boulder might be the first to fight to be energy deciders for a cleaner energy future, but it’s not fighting alone.  Already their campaign has raised 3 times it’s goal of $40,000, and with a little more help (from you[5]), they can put up a terrific people powered campaign to stop one utility’s dirty money, and put a shot across the bow on local climate action.

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Endnotes:
  1. citizens of Boulder, CO, opted to oust their monopoly, corporate electric utility: https://ilsr.org/citizens-give-going-boulder-new-meaning-local-energy-self-reliance/
  2. since shown: https://ilsr.org/unequal-options-local-energy-control/
  3. a new ballot initiative: http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_23930826/xcel-linked-measure-at-bottom-boulder-ballot
  4. crowdfunding campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/campaign-for-local-power
  5. from you: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/campaign-for-local-power

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/shot-bow-real-local-power/


Book Review: Garbology – Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash

by Neil Seldman | August 16, 2013 4:33 pm

A Review of Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash, by Edward Humes
Penguin Group, NYC, NY, 2012 

By Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC 

Pulitzer Prize-wining writer, Edward Humes, has turned his attention to garbage. Most recently, in a Cato Institute publication, he wisely observes, recycling is America’s first line of defense against waste, when it should be the last. His book, Garbology, contains an excellent concise history of how the US became addicted to garbage and the socioeconomic and environmental dilemmas of today. It also introduces us to extraordinary individual activists and entrepreneurs attempting to solve problems, and provides useful summary charts and tables to further inform readers. Garbology also addresses key issues of corporate bigness and incineration with less success.

Proper Setting but Improper Analysis

In presenting garbage as “nothing less than the lens on our lives, our priorities, our failings, our secrets ands our hubris”, Humes uses the 102-ton-per-life generated by each of us in the USA as a metaphor for the garbage crisis and the opportunities to turn the waste stream into a raw materials stream.

The waning days of the vast Puente Hills landfill in Los Angeles County is the setting. This ‘temporary’ facility has stayed open for decades as the planned network of incinerators for Los Angeles city and county never materialized due to citizen and small business financial and environmental concerns. This pattern of frustrated incinerator deals has impacted New York, New Jersey and other major urban areas. Alas, Humes concludes that European style garbage incineration is the key to any realistic solution. Yet the conditions that make European systems appealing (use of steam for district heating, public ownership, small scale) are virtually impossible to replicate in the US. The conditions that defeated 300 planned garbage incinerators in the l970s, 1980s and 1990s have become stronger than ever before. In 2013 facing a new round of garbage incineration proposals, anti incineration efforts have defeated or stalled all but one proposed facility.

Humes unfortunately takes short cuts with his research and analysis of landfills and incinerators. He praises Waste Management, Inc. CEO David Steiner for the insight that the millions of tons the company handles is worth billions of dollars, an insight that has been recognized for over 40 years. He fails to point out that the company still makes more money from landfill than recycling, that its recycling program was forced upon WMI by new rules imposed by citizens, that the company is trying to repeal yard debris bans from landfills and incinerators, and that the key to WMI success was its ability to raise tons of capital to buy out competitors and build RCRA prescribed landfill systems that cities and smaller companies could not afford.

Misplaced admiration grows worse with Nickolas Themelis who heads a pro-incineration industry think tank at Columbia University. Data presented on incineration costs, environmental or economic impacts are unreliable. Nor does he present the depth of the justified anger against proposed incinerators by citizens and small businesses owners that propel the anti incineration and pro recycling movement. Finally, the discussion on European garbage incineration omits the fact that recyclable plastic and paper are burned because of overbuilt incineration capacity and industry dominated Extended Producer Responsibility programs. Western Europe incinerates an estimated 54 million tons of garbage annually, but has an estimated 64 million tons of incineration capacity. This explains the significant increase in international transport of garbage on the continent and the burning of recyclable and compostable materials. To remedy this, the European Parliament is developing a policy framework to phase out the destruction of these valuable materials by 2020. (See this report for more information)

Humes, provides plenty of data but fails to properly analyze it. He emphasizes the high cost of recycling some materials but does not compare this to the multi billion dollar cost of incineration; capital, bond debt, high operating costs.

Readers must balance Humes’ caricature of garbage incineration with accurate information, analysis and context from Bradley Angel, GreenAction for Health and the Environment, Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network, Paul Connett, professor of chemistry (ret), Caroline Eader, No Incineration Frederick County, MD and Jean Marc Simon, Global Anti Incineration Alliance/Europe. In Carroll County, MD, conservative county commissioners refused to move forward on garbage incineration after citizens showed them that the plant would have to be subsidized through a new System Benefit Charge on their homeowner tax bill.

The Political Economy of Garbage in the US

The book’s history of the US garbage generation is well worth reading. While Humes overlooks two early social critics — Thorstein Veblen who first alerted Americans to the bourgeoning social, economic and moral crisis of over and conspicuous consumption (Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, 1899, Theory of the Business Class, 1904) and William Leiss focuses on the psychological impacts of the our society’s embarrassment of riches (The Domination of Nature, 1972, Limits to Satisfaction, 1976) — his narrative is highly educational. It makes us take a good look at ourselves for falling under the sway of what Stuart Ewen refers to the ‘captains of consciousness’ that is the base cause of consumption without responsible discard management. It would also have been good if Humes considered the work of economist Kenneth Boulding who described the US as a ‘cowboy economy’ to extend the waste discussion to a broader economic context.

Humes picks up the sordid tale in the late 1940’s with marketing and design genius Gordon Lippincott’s pivotal notions of the ‘super consumer’: one who is ready to consume unneeded products and discard and replace useful products to support the national prosperity. This American willingness to part with something before it is worn out is a phenomenon of no other society in history, he observed. Based on the economy of abundance, this willingness “must be further nurtured even though it runs contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity, the law of thrift,” Lippincott taught companies and their ad agencies. The failure to waste was the enemy, Hume writes, and the message has been carried to the highest levels of mass communication through Presidents Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush. Hume continues by aptly describing the companies and products that eased these unnatural habits of consumption (TV dinners, Styrofoam, Coca Cola’s one-way bottle and a river of other disposable products and packaging) that introduced the ‘Throw-Away Society’. Here too are presented the financial, cultural and technology changes that catered to the consumption fest: plastic bags, credit cards, compaction garbage trucks and the Golden Age of TV which made all of this seem so natural and inevitable. Along with mass consumption with no thought to disposable, Humes underscores, the idea of thrift was erased from consciousness, and the resulting historic low individual savings in the US.

Against the tidal wave of consumption, Vance Packard’s brilliant warning about the insidious use of subliminal advertising and general veneration of promoting consumption (The Hidden Persuaders, 1957, The Waste Makers, 1960), made no headway. By l960, Packard notes, “The people …are becoming a tiger….They are taught to consume more and more…or their magnificent machine may turn and devour them….Their ever-expanding economy demands it.” “Not even Packard imagined”, Humes writes, that Americans would achieve a 102-ton legacy.”

The Wrong Direction

In addition to this excellent social history, Hume describes the efforts of individual citizens who have opted to live without ‘stuff’. Others have joined efforts to document and halt the plasticization of the oceans. Still others were inspired to start businesses to serve a zero waste economy such as TerraCycle and Chico-Bag. Humes concludes with a compilation of practical steps that individuals can take to reduce the environmental impacts of their discards.

This is the wrong message. The garbage crisis will not be solved by individual heroics. Community organizing, anti incineration organizing and local political campaigning are the strategic tools to take against the war on waste. Cooperative and combined efforts by citizens and small businesses is the only strategy that can challenge the onslaught of stuff that makes our economy and environment unsustainable. These are in fact the ways and means that the ‘burn and bury’ paradigm has been transformed to the ‘recycling and economic development’ paradigm in the last 40 years. Humes does not see the critical nature of combined efforts, because he focuses on the individual. He does not know the history of the recycling movement.

Curiously, Humes does not address the issues of Extended Producer Responsibility or Bottle Bills, although these are hotly debated among professionals in the field and public at large.

Garbology will remain a curiosity to veteran recyclers and solid waste planners based on its uneven treatment of the field. For those new to the fascinating world of garbage, parts of the book will be very helpful in understanding the scale of garbage dilemma and the history of how the US got into the mess that we must clean up. For a more thorough analysis these readers will have to read on.

—-

Neil Seldman is president and co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He works with cities, businesses and community organizations start and expand recycling, reuse and composting businesses and implementing policies that nurture a homegrown economy. Seldman also assists communities in implementing alternatives to garbage incineration and landfill. His book and movie reviews appear in Bicycle Magazine, Greenyes Listserve and ILSR’s Waste to Wealth web page.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/book-review-garbology-dirty-love-affair-trash/


Stop the Presses: Washington Discovers Mergers Reduce Competition, Increase Prices

by David Morris | August 16, 2013 9:59 am

In 1985 the United States was home to 24 airlines.  Today there are 7.  The Justice Departments under Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II and Obama welcomed all mergers. Then in August 2013 the antitrust division of the Justice Department suddenly discovered why there is an antitrust division.

According to the New York Times[1], “But antitrust officials said on Tuesday that despite the cost savings for the carriers from consolidation, domestic airfares, on average, had increased much faster than inflation over the last several years, prompting the department to revise its thinking about what was best for the consumer…And the fares varied greatly, often depending on the level of competition.”

“Justice Dept. Alters View of Mergers By Airlines.” New York Times. August 15, 2013

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Endnotes:
  1. New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/business/justice-dept-alters-view-of-mergers-by-airlines.html?pagewanted=all

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/stop-presses-washington-discovers-mergers-reduce-competition-increase-prices/


“We Can Never Make Enough Money” CEO Tells Ever-Poorer Workers

by David Morris | August 15, 2013 4:29 pm

200px-Caterpillar_logo.svg[1]“Caterpillar has pioneered a two-tier wage system in which workers hired after a certain date are consigned to a significantly lower wage scale than others and it recently pressed its longer-term employees into accepting a six year wage freeze.  Many Caterpillar workers ask why the company insisted on a pay freezer when it reported repeated record profits-$5.7 billion last year, amounting to $45,000 per Caterpillar employee.  Caterpillar’s chief executive, Douglas Oberhelman (whose compensation has increased more than 80 percent over the last two years) says the freeze was vital to keep wages competitive with rival companies.  “I always try to communicate to our people that we can never make enough money”,  he recently told Bloomberg BusinessWeek.  “We can never make enough profit.”

Steven Greenhouse, “Fighting Back Against Wretched Wages[2].” New York Times. July 28, 2013

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/we-money-ceo-ever-poorer-workers/200px-caterpillar_logo-svg/
  2. Fighting Back Against Wretched Wages: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/sunday-review/fighting-back-against-wretched-wages.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/we-money-ceo-ever-poorer-workers/


The Tea Party vs. the Public Library

by David Morris | August 15, 2013 4:14 pm

In September 2012 the Library Board of Pulaski County raised property taxes $1 per year for a typical homeowner to maintain the existing level of services in its five libraries. Voters were not given the opportunity to reject the increase; in 2006 however, they were and resoundingly approved a much larger increase to finance a new library.

But in 2006 the county and the country did not have a Tea Party.  That grassroots movement sprang up early 2009 in fury at the federal government’s attempt to help millions of people facing foreclosure stay in their homes.  In 2010 it escalated into a full-throated attack on the federal government’s attempt to expand medical care access to tens of millions.  By 2012 the Tea Party movement’s virulent anti-government, anti-tax philosophy and take-no-prisoners, I’m-not-my-brother’s-keeper attitude had come to define American politics.

Pulaski County Tea Partiers, justifying their fury by noting the $1 increase had not been voted on by the people began circulating a petition to dissolve[1] the library tax district completely.  The effort’s leader declared[2] her group would stop accumulating signatures only if all members of the current library board resigned.

The Board did not resign and ultimately the petitioners found they had too little time to gather the necessary signatures.  But the Tea Party had demonstrated its strength and revealed its willingness to use scorched earth tactics.

A year before the Pulaski library district raised property taxes without asking voter permission, the Campbell County Library Board proposed a $20 per year tax increase to finance the construction of a new library in the underserved southern part of the County. It would submit the proposal to voters on the November 2012 ballot.

In six public hearings Tea Party members tried to stop the project from being on the ballot. When they failed they asked[3] a lawyer to identify ways to halt the project.  He came across a 1964 statute that prohibited library taxing district formed by a petition from voters – as the Campbell County district was – to change its tax rate without a petition signed by at least 51 percent of voters in the last election.  In January 2012, eleven months before the voters were to decide the issue (they rejected the project) several Tea Party members went to court. A few months later tea party members in Kenton, a neighboring County, did the same.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. dissolve: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/26/2421370/fight-over-tax-increase-could.html
  2. declared: http://somerset-kentucky.com/local/x86847712/Sanders-wants-library-board-out
  3. asked: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/04/litigation/kentucky-library-suits-threaten-district-tax-funding-statewide/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/tea-party-vs-public-library/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/tea-party-vs-public-library/


Medical Marijuana: 40 Years of Sanity from the Bottom and Insanity from the Top

by David Morris | August 13, 2013 10:47 am

Our attitude toward medical marijuana has unfolded like a sisyphean tragedy in three acts.

Act I:  The People Press Their Case, Again and Again

In 1937 Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which made the recreational use of marijuana illegal.  But it affirmed the right of physicians and pharmacists to prescribe and dispense it. The American Medical Association opposed the Act not because it allowed medical marijuana but because it required doctors to register with federal authorities and pay an annual tax or license fee that the AMA felt would unduly inhibit doctors ability to offer their patients this medicine.  The AMA was right.  Few doctors were any longer willing to prescribe marijuana.  In 1942 cannabis was removed from the United States Pharmacopeia of existing medicines.

In 1961, 74 nations signed the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs[1].  Again the treaty criminalized the recreational use of marijuana but allowed it for medical purposes.  Indeed Article 49 specifically advises, “The use of cannabis for other than medical and scientific purposes must be discontinued as soon as possible…”

Physicians retained the ability to legally prescribe marijuana until the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 made marijuana a Schedule I drug, equivalent to heroin and, according to the Congress, with no medical uses.  In the debate leading up to its passage the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs, responding to a Congressional request for guidance noted[2] there was “still a considerable void in our knowledge of the plant and effects of the active drug contained in it” and recommended it be retained within schedule I temporarily while “certain studies now underway to resolve the issue.”

Those studies were undertaken by the newly created National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse Commission, chaired by Pennsylvania Governor Raymond P. Shafer, who had earned a reputation as a tough-on-crime U.S. Attorney.

President Nixon had already made up his mind.  In May 1971 he told[3] H.R. Haldeman, “I want a goddamn strong statement about marijuana. Can I get that out of this sonofa-bitching, uh, domestic council? I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them.”  And Nixon told[4] Shafer directly, “You’re enough of a pro to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we’re planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell.”

In June 1971, to pre-empt the Commission’s report Nixon declared a War on Drugs. “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”  Over the next year marijuana arrests jumped by over 100,000.

In March 1972 the Shafer Commission’s submitted its report to Congress.  Revealingly titled Marijuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding[5] the Commission concluded, “The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only ‘with the greatest reluctance’.”

(more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/convention_1961_en.pdf
  2. noted: http://www.cannabis-med.org/data/pdf/2001-01-8.pdf
  3. told: http://www.csdp.org/research/nixonpot.txt
  4. told: http://norml.org/pdf_files/Nixon_Transcript_1.pdf
  5. Marijuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/medical-marijuana-40-years-sanity-bottom-insanity-top/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/medical-marijuana-40-years-sanity-bottom-insanity-top/


The Truth about Amazon and Job Creation

by Stacy Mitchell | July 29, 2013 6:44 pm

Of all the places President Obama might give a speech on rebuilding middle-class jobs[1], an Amazon warehouse is an especially perplexing and troubling choice. Here are five ways Amazon is costing our economy and undermining real job growth.

1. Amazon destroys more jobs than it creates.

Brick-and-mortar retailers employ 47 people for every $10 million in sales, according to an analysis by ILSR of US Census data. (If you exclude chains and look just at independent retailers, the figure is even higher — 52 57 jobs.) But Amazon employs only 14 people per $10 million in revenue[2]. As Amazon grows and takes market share from other retailers, the result is a decline in jobs, not a gain.  In 2012, Amazon expanded its share of retail spending in North America by $8 billion, which works out to a net loss of about 27,000 jobs.

2. Most Amazon jobs are awful.

How does Amazon manage to sell so much stuff with so few workers? The online giant is technologically efficient, yes, but it also excels at squeezing a back-breaking amount of labor out of its employees. Amazon’s workplace abuses, including life-threatening temperatures inside its warehouses[3], injury-inducing workloads[4], and neo-Nazi guards[5], have been well-documented by investigative journalists.

At the Amazon warehouse Obama is visiting in Chattanooga, workers are paid about $11.20 an hour, according to Glassdoor.com[6].  That’s 17 percent less than the average wage for U.S. warehouse workers reported by the U.S. Labor Department.

3. Amazon pilfers value created elsewhere in the economy.

Another way Amazon gets by with such a small workforce is by leaning on the services provided by brick-and-mortar stores. Through its mobile app, Amazon actively encourages consumers to try-out merchandise in stores and then buy online. This allows Amazon to free-ride on the value created by other businesses. Take books, for example. Amazon now accounts for about one-third of book sales. But, if you ask Amazon book shoppers where they learned about a book, only rarely is the answer Amazon. Far more often, according to research by Codex Group[7], they discovered the book while browsing in an actual bookstore.

A similar dynamic is at play across a wide variety of products, from toys to cameras. The threat Amazon’s free-riding poses to the U.S. economy is that, over time, brick-and-mortar stores will no longer be around to showcase new products, depriving both consumers and manufacturers of a valuable service that stimulates demand and innovation.

4. Amazon drains dollars from local economies. (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. speech on rebuilding middle-class jobs: https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/30/4571926/president-obama-amazon-speech
  2. only 14 people per $10 million in revenue: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTc5ODc3fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1
  3. life-threatening temperatures inside its warehouses: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/
  4. injury-inducing workloads: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2017901782_amazonwarehouse04.html
  5. neo-Nazi guards: http://world.time.com/2013/02/19/amazon-fires-neo-nazi-security-firm-at-german-facilities/
  6. according to Glassdoor.com: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Amazon-com-Chattanooga-Salaries-EI_IE6036.0,10_IL.11,22_IM164.htm
  7. research by Codex Group: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/19/amazon_could_be_a_victim_of_its_own_success/
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/amazonfacts/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazonfacts/


VICTORY! Arizona Court Overturns Renewable Energy Credits for Incinerators

by Neil Seldman | July 18, 2013 3:59 pm

For the first time a court of law has disqualified trash burning as a non-renewable energy source. The Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter in Arizona has been victorious in its challenge to the Arizona Corporation Commission’s ruling that trash burning could qualify for renewable energy credits.

On July 16, the Maricopa County Superior Court ruled that the Commission erred and abused its discretion in deciding to give renewable energy credits to the Mohave Electric Cooperative for the project it planned near Phoenix by the Reclamation Power Group.

The Sierra Club argued that burning trash to produce power was not a use intended under the state’s renewable energy standard, and that funds should be redirected to support truly renewable energy resources such as wind and solar. The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit last September challenging the Commission’s decision to allow trash burning to be considered a renewable energy resource.

“This decision is good news for clean renewable energy such as solar and wind,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter. “Promoting polluting and dated technologies such as burning trash to produce electricity would be a step backward for Arizona’s renewable energy programs.”

ILSR’s Brenda Platt worked with Jeff Morris of Sound Resource Management in preparing expert testimony for the case and assisting the Sierra Club and the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest in its analysis and submissions.  According to Brenda Platt, “This is a critical precedent as state renewable energy incentives perversely subsidize trash burners, making it more difficult for non-burn and safer reuse, recycling, and composting options to compete.  Now in Arizona this money can support legitimate renewable energy systems. Trash is not renewable.”

The average value of a renewable energy credit in 2010 in Massachusetts was between $20 and $40 per MWh.  (“Burning Recycling, “Resource Recycling, May 2013.)

For more information on the Arizona decision, view:

Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter & Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest press release.

Arizona News Tribune July 16th article, “Judge rules burning trash isn’t renewable energy”  here.

Arizona Star Net July 16th article: “Maricopa Superior Court: Trash burning not a renewable resource – Utility Can’t Use Incineration to Meet Mandate, Judge Says”  here[1].

For information and fact sheets on ILSR’s 2011 work in Maryland fighting the weakening of that state’s renewable portfolio standards, go to:
Trash Is Not Renewable[2]

For additional data on the environmental, energy, and climate problems posed by trash incineration, see ILSR’s 2008 report, Stop Trashing the Climate[3].

trash is not renewable[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. here: http://azstarnet.com/business/local/maricopa-superior-court-trash-burning-not-a-renewable-resource/article_6ef9b711-3ea1-5f88-8385-7db4aa97a1a4.html
  2. Trash Is Not Renewable: https://ilsr.org/trash-is-not-renewable/
  3. Stop Trashing the Climate: https://ilsr.org/stop-trashing-the-climate/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Screen-shot-2013-07-18-at-3.32.18-PM.png

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/az-incinerator/


Does the Citizens Recycling Movement Face a Hostile Takeover?

by Neil Seldman | July 8, 2013 11:54 am

Neil Seldman provides an update and review of recycling and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) developments based on his interviews with recycling practitioners,  local officials and environmental leaders.

Download the policy review.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/does-recycling-movement-face-hostile-takeover/


Towards a Localist Policy Agenda

by Stacy Mitchell | July 5, 2013 4:35 pm

placeholder[1]

Toward a Localist Policy Agenda from Stacy Mitchell[2]

This presentation was delivered on June 14, 2013, at the BALLE Conference in Buffalo, New York.  Download a PDF version of the text[3]. 

Welcome, everyone.  Thanks for being here.  (Slide 2)  I’m Stacy Mitchell.  I direct the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community-Scaled Initiative[4], which provides research, policy analysis, and tools to help communities gain greater control over their own economic futures.

Let me begin by offering a little background on this session. (Slide 3)  The movement for local economies has grown dramatically over the last decade.  We’ve attracted public support and engaged tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and community leaders.  But I think we’ve reached a point where we can’t get much further solely with the strategies we’re using now.  We’re at a stage where we need to up our game.  I want to suggest to you today that moving a policy agenda is a key part of what we need to do.

I’m hoping we can tackle four key questions in this session (Slide 4):

  • Why is changing public policy essential to our success?
  • How can we frame a compelling narrative for policy change?
  • What would be the primary components of our agenda?
  • What are the initial steps we need to take?

The format for today is that I’m going to kick off the session by providing some thoughts on each of these questions. Then we’re going to turn to the panel.  We have four terrific panelists today: Kimber Lanning of Local First Arizona; David Levine of the American Sustainable Business Council; Micaela Shapiro-Shellaby of the Coalition for Economic Justice here in Buffalo; and Jonathon Welch, owner of Talking Leaves Books, also here in Buffalo.  They each have a story to share about a policy win that will help us reflect on some of these themes.  And then we’re going to have a roundtable discussion. I’ll be bringing in all of you at that point for what I hope will be a lively conversation.  So, with that, let me dive in. (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Stacy Mitchell: //www.slideshare.net/smitchell-ilsr
  3. PDF version of the text: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Towards-a-Localist-Policy-Agenda.pdf
  4. Community-Scaled Initiative: https://ilsr.org/initiatives/independent-business/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/localist-policy-agenda/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/localist-policy-agenda/


Here’s One Smart Way to Handle Big-Box Stores

by Stacy Mitchell | July 1, 2013 8:56 am

This article was originally published on Grist[1].

This month, citizens and planning officials in Cape Cod, Mass., will get a chance to do what almost no one else in the U.S. is allowed to do when deciding whether to approve or reject a big-box retail development: weigh the likely impacts on the region’s economy.

Thousands of proposals to build big-box stores and shopping centers will be submitted to cities and towns this year. (Walmart alone is pushing to open 220 new stores by January.) In almost every case, local planning policies will limit any review of these projects to conventional zoning issues, like how much traffic the store will generate and whether the site has sufficient landscaping.

Questions about the economic impacts of these projects will be off the table. Residents who want to talk about how a new shopping center will affect the viability of Main Street business districts, wage rates for local workers, or even the cost of public services will be told that those issues cannot be considered as part of the planning board’s deliberations.

This narrow approach to land-use policy strips communities of an important tool for shaping their own economic future, constraining the reach of extractive corporations, and moving toward less carbon-intensive economic systems and shopping patterns.

One exception to this common state of affairs is Cape Cod, a peninsula home to about 217,000 people.

Mindful of the Cape’s fragile environment and economy (despite pockets of wealth, the peninsula’s median household income is below the state as whole), residents voted to create the Cape Cod Commission[2] in 1990. Made up of representatives of each of the Cape’s 15 towns, this regional planning body has the authority to review, and reject, large development projects that could significantly impact the local economy or environment, including any commercial building over 10,000 square feet. The commission does not supplant municipal planning boards, but rather adds a second layer of review for large projects, in which all of the region’s towns are given a say.

Guided by a Regional Policy Plan[3] that frowns on development outside of town centers and favors projects that protect the Cape’s character, expand local ownership, and enable the region’s communities to meet more of their own needs instead of relying on imports, the Cape Cod Commission has turned down several big-box stores over the last two decades, including a Walmart in Falmouth, a Sam’s Club in Hyannis, a Costco in Sandwich, and a Home Depot in Yarmouth.

A few big retailers have made it in, but only by proposing much smaller stores and locating them on sites that were already developed. Walmart finally won approval to open its one and only store on the peninsula when it applied to put a 73,000-square-foot store (one-third the size of a typical supercenter) into a building in Falmouth previously occupied by a defunct regional department store chain. Home Depot likewise was given the green light to take over an empty retail space in Hyannis, opening a store about half its standard size. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/cities/heres-one-smart-way-to-fight-big-box-stores/
  2. Cape Cod Commission: https://ilsr.org/rule/economic-impact-review/capecod/
  3. Regional Policy Plan: http://www.capecodcommission.org/resources/RPP/2012RPP_webJan2013.pdf
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/heres-smart-handle-big-box-stores/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/heres-smart-handle-big-box-stores/


The One Thing Obama’s Climate Policy Can’t Leave Out

by John Farrell | June 20, 2013 5:04 am

When President Obama unveils his climate policy proposal in the coming days, he should focus on the one key element of successful climate and energy policy.  It’s not about utilities or incentives or numbers, it’s about ownership.

Climate-protecting energy policy succeeds when communities can keep their energy dollars local by directly owning and profiting from investments in renewable energy.

Look at Denmark, with wind power capacity sufficient for 28% of its electricity use.  When the world’s nations descended on Copenhagen in 2009 for the climate conference, attendees could have gleaned their most important lesson by gazing across the water at the Middelgrunden offshore wind farm – 50% owned by over 10,000 Copenhagen residents.  Local ownership like this was the centerpiece of building over 4,000 megawatts of wind power in Denmark, increasing energy independence by letting ordinary citizens collectively own wind farms that brought money right back into their community.  Ownership let Danes focus on their own energy independence and economy.  Concern for the climate was secondary.

Andrew Cumbers of the UN Research Institute for Social Development explains the ongoing strength of the Danish commitment to renewable energy:

The participation of communities in the ownership and development of the technology has been a critical factor in the successful growth of renewable energy capacity.  Surveys suggest around 70 per cent of the population are in favour of wind farms with only around 5 per cent against (Soerensen et al 2003), figures that are far higher than found elsewhere. (emphasis added)

Germany’s roaring success reinforces why ownership should be President Obama’s highest priority.  Over 60% of mid-day electricity demand was met with wind and solar on a recent sunny day, and almost 25% of annual German electricity usage comes from renewable sources.  Once again, it’s a people-powered transition (or as the Germans like to call it, Energiewende[1], or “energy change”).

Nearly half of all German renewable energy capacity is owned by individuals[2], not utilities.  These small, quickly built distributed energy projects multiplied quickly under simply policies that made it easy for Germans to own a share in their energy future.

Despite numerous attempts by various political factions to curtail the renewable energy transition (most frequently citing high costs), Germans remain stolidly committed to growing renewable energy, with over 60% willing to pay more to continue its expansion[3].  A survey of Germans towns[4] suggest that ownership, more than anything else, has built this steadfast political support for a low carbon energy future.

Evidence that ownership holds the key to political success lies closer to home, as well.  After a near-death experience at the polls, Ontario’s Liberal Party revised their renewable energy program[5] to prioritize new wind and solar projects that sport local ownership and public support.  Most U.S. state renewable portfolio standards include language that requires or prefers qualifying projects to be in state,* to link the economic and environmental outcomes.  These statutes have survived an all-out assault[6] by the corporate-funded conservative lobbying group ALEC.  And one should not ignore the power of having the Atlanta Tea Party testifying alongside solar power advocates against monopoly utility Georgia Power, arguing that more people should be able to generate their own energy.

Ownership is good politics not just because of who wins, but how much they win.  A study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows local ownership dramatically multiplies the economic returns of renewable energy[7] for the host community.

No climate proposal from President Obama will sail past Republican opposition (see: Waxman-Markey), but his greatest chance for a climate legacy lies in empowering Americans to take control – with their votes and their dollars – of their own energy future.

 

Photo credit: Black Rock Solar[8]

*Note: a recent court decision struck down this provision in Michigan, jeopardizing the in-state preference for all states that include this policy.

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Endnotes:
  1. Energiewende: http://energytransition.de/
  2. half of all German renewable energy capacity is owned by individuals: https://ilsr.org/germanys-63000-megawatts-renewable-energy-locally-owned/
  3. over 60% willing to pay more to continue its expansion: https://ilsr.org/democratic-energy-policy-means-strong-public-support-renewables/
  4. survey of Germans towns: https://ilsr.org/political-and-technical-advantages-distributed-generation/
  5. renewable energy program: https://ilsr.org/expect-delays-reviewing-ontarios-buy-local-renewable-energy-program/
  6. These statutes have survived an all-out assault: http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/06/04/state-renewable-energy-laws-survive-repeal-attempts-so-far/
  7. local ownership dramatically multiplies the economic returns of renewable energy: https://ilsr.org/jobs-and-economic-impact-community-wind/
  8. Black Rock Solar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/freethesun/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/obamas-climate-policy/


On Liberty and Security Democrats and Republicans Drastically Differ

by David Morris | June 18, 2013 10:19 am

The gridlock that plagues Washington leads many, fairly or unfairly, to lump together the two parties and declare a pox on both their houses.  But most state governments are not gridlocked. Just the opposite.  In almost two thirds one party controls both legislative houses (Nebraska has a unicameral legislature) and the governorship:  Republicans 20, Democrats 13.

In these states, parties can translate ideology into policies virtually unimpeded.  An examination of these policies allows us to get behind the name-calling and 30-second sound bites and discover the remarkable difference between the two parties on fundamental issues.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats is not on the size of government but the purpose and goals of government.  Both parties believe in taxing heavily and spending lavishly when it comes to protecting our nation from external attack.  Both parties fervently embrace the Declaration of Independence’s insistence that among our “unalienable rights” are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.  But their conceptions of security and liberty differ radically.

Democrats believe that governments should not only secure our borders but also advance our personal security.  As reflected in recently enacted state laws, that belief translates into policies extending health care access to as many as possible, raising the minimum wage and expanding unemployment insurance. Republicans vigorously oppose this use of government.  They insist we should not be compelled to be our brothers’ keeper. Of the 13 states that so far have refused the federal government’s offer to pay 100 percent of the costs of expanding health care coverage to millions of their residents, for example, Republicans dominate 12.  All six of the states that are leaning that way are Republican controlled.

What Democrats see as steps to enhance security Republicans view as steps that restrict liberty.  They assert that government-created health exchanges interfere with the right of insurance companies to manage their own affairs while the requirement that everyone have health insurance constitutes an act of tyranny.  Minimum wage laws interfere with the economic liberty of business and the freedom of the marketplace.

Republicans argue that taxes, especially those that tax the rich at higher rates than the poor, interfere with our liberty to pursue happiness by amassing unrestrained wealth.   In the last legislative session Democrat-controlled California, Maryland, Massachusetts and Minnesota raised the income tax rate on millionaires while in the last two legislative sessions, Republican-controlled Kansas reduced such rates by 75 percent and legislators in Kansas as well as in North Carolina and Nebraska are openly pushing for the complete elimination of the income tax.

It is important to note that these Republican actions often result less in a tax reduction than in a tax shift from income taxes to sales or property taxes that burden lower income households most heavily.

When it comes to personal liberty, however, Republicans believe in big government. As former Republican Senator and Presidential candidate Rick Santorum observed, “The idea is that the state doesn’t have rights to limit individuals’ wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire.”  Even if their wants or passions do not harm others.

This legislative session Rhode Island, Delaware and Minnesota joined 9 other states and the District of Columbia in extending the freedom to marry to include those of the same sex. Meanwhile, of the 25 states with constitutional prohibitions on same sex marriage, 22 are completely controlled by Republicans.  None are Democrat dominant.

Of the 17 states that have enacted medical marijuana laws, 10 are Democratic and only two are Republican. (The rest are not controlled by a single party.) As if to put an exclamation point on this difference, the same day last November that voters in Washington and Colorado approved the legalization of marijuana, voters in Arkansas handily defeated a proposal to allow the drug to be used for medicinal purposes with a doctor’s prescription.

Gun control is an issue that for Republicans and Democrats affects both liberty and security. For Republicans the ability to own unlimited numbers of guns and carry them whenever and wherever one wants with a minimum of government oversight, constitutes an essential part of freedom while allowing the owner to protect herself from physical harm.  For Democrats widespread gun ownership significantly contributes to physical violence inside and outside the gun owner’s household; thus in this case unrestrained liberty must give way to regulation.

In this legislative session while Democratic states like New York and Connecticut and Maryland tightened gun laws, more than a dozen GOP states scaled back their already minimal gun laws. Statistician Nate Silver insists, “Whether someone owns a gun is a more powerful predictor of a person’s political party than her gender, whether she identifies as gay or lesbian, whether she is Hispanic (or) whether she lives in the south…”

For both Democrats and Republicans liberty means being able to participate in influencing the political decisions that affect our lives and futures.  But here again their conception of liberty differs significantly. For Republicans it means the liberty of money, allowing individuals to spend unlimited amounts to elect candidates and lobby legislators while restricting the liberty of people by making voter access more difficult.  For Democrats it means the opposite.

Recently Colorado, Delaware and Maryland have enacted laws making it easier for people to register and vote while Arkansas, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee and Virginia have made it harder. Nine of ten states that have voter photo ID laws are Republican dominated.

One could hope that in 2014 the stark evidence emerging from state capitols about the difference between the parties can lay the foundation for a nationwide debate on the purpose of government and the ends to which collective authority should aspire that goes beyond the are-you-for-it-or-against-it attitude that contaminates and diminishes that debate.

 

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/liberty-security-democrats-republicans-differ/


Why Master Limited Partnerships are a Lousy Policy for Solar, Wind, and Taxpayers

by John Farrell | May 30, 2013 6:04 am

Read reactions to this piece here[1]

If you follow the renewable energy industry and haven’t been sleeping, then you’ve probably heard about one of the few pieces of federal legislation purported to help clean energy that’s actually moving: expanding Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) to cover wind and solar energy. (H.R.1696)

This is not a good thing.

MLPs originated in 1986, when Congress decided that to allow certain businesses (oil and gas pipelines) to avoid paying corporate income tax.  These partnerships function a lot like publicly traded corporations, with publicly traded stock, but don’t pay income taxes. Most folks who’ve touted expanding MLPs to include renewable energy projects see this move as “leveling the playing field.”  And it will, allowing big energy corporations to avoid paying taxes on their renewable energy projects just like they do for pipelines.

But that’s not the worst.  Several years after the MLP was created, the federal agency responsible for setting the prices to use these oil and gas pipelines (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) allowed the not-paying-corporate-income-tax companies to charge rates for access as though they DID pay the corporate income tax.  Including this phantom tax payment in rates amounted to a 75% increase in after-tax profits for pipeline companies. This policy wasn’t even set in a public forum (such as a docket with public hearings), but through a shadow “policy statement” released after private meetings with the oil and gas industry (and after a federal judge had previously struck down the absurd notion that users of pipelines should have to pay phantom taxes).

This makes two big problems in adding renewable energy companies to the list of eligible Master Limited Partnerships.

First, there are many powerful, regulated industries that would love a bite at this apple, like the existing electric and gas utilities.  The cost to taxpayers from letting these hogs get to the trough is likely much, much larger than the opportunity for renewable energy.  These big industries – with huge lobbying budgets – are not likely to miss the opportunity.

But even more important, the extension of MLPs to renewable energy is likely to reinforce centralized, corporate control of the energy system.  Right now, renewable energy – particularly solar – is transforming the energy system.  It’s turning energy consumers into producers, re-routing energy dollars back into community economies, and giving cities and towns more control over their energy future.  Half or more of new solar power in the U.S. is being put on the rooftops of homes and small businesses.  New community solar policies (like one just adopted in Minnesota[2]!) are giving even more Americans a chance to have skin in the energy game and share in the profits of a transition to renewable energy.

The average American isn’t going to be a shareholder of a Master Limited Partnership, but they probably will pay a share of phantom taxes in their electric and gas rates if MLPs are expanded to other energy industries.  Even if Congress miraculously limits the MLP expansion to just the renewable energy industry, subsidiaries of most of the large corporations in the energy business (Shell, BP, Exxon) are building wind and solar projects.  These subsidiaries would certainly be reorganized as MLPs, giving them a tax advantaged opportunity to crowd out competitors (like community solar or other distributed generation) AND make larger profits off their renewable energy business.

There are many ways the federal government could improve its policy toward renewable energy.  A CLEAN Contract or feed-in tariff could supplant tax credits that act as a barrier to production-based payment for energy and avoid paying for panels that don’t produce power[3].   The feds could remove ridiculous bonus incentives for long-distance, high-voltage transmission[4] that gives electric companies an incentive to build power lines for 20th century power plants instead of distributed solar and wind power.  They could set a federal distributed renewable energy standard that requires utilities to procure energy from places close to where people use it.

But let’s not expand a tax loophole to big renewable energy companies.  This is one playing field best left unmoved.

(most of this article is based on a book, The Fine Print[5] by former New York Times writer David Cay Johnston)

Photo credit: Michael Fleshman[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. here: https://ilsr.org/reactions-master-limited-partnerships-renewable-energy/
  2. one just adopted in Minnesota: http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/29/minnesota-plants-seeds-for-community-solar-gardens/
  3. panels that don’t produce power: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/business/energy-environment/solar-powers-dark-side.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  4. ridiculous bonus incentives for long-distance, high-voltage transmission: https://ilsr.org/fercs-high-voltage-gravy-train/
  5. The Fine Print: http://www.commongoodbooks.com/ebook/9781101476307
  6. Michael Fleshman: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fleshmanpix/6958125632/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/master-limited-partnerships-lousy-policy-solar-or-business/


Report: Expect Delays – Reviewing Ontario’s “Buy Local” Renewable Energy Program

by John Farrell | May 20, 2013 7:07 am

placeholderLaunched in 2009, Ontario’s “buy local” Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program promised to deliver hundreds of megawatts of new renewable energy and create 50,000 new jobs by the end of 2012. The program has had some notable achievements, and the province has worked hard to remedy some of the remaining roadblocks to success.

The bottom line is that the FIT program and its predecessors (despite facing significant threats) have jumpstarted renewable energy development in Ontario: the province would rank #4 and #11 for solar and wind deployment, respectively, if it were a U.S. state. It has created 31,000 jobs. It has also enabled widespread participation in renewable energy generation: 1 in 7 Ontario farmers is participating, earning a return on their investment.  Finally, it has enabled the province to shut down all of its coal-fired power plants by the end of 2014.

Learn more:

Read the report:[1]expect delays Ontario FIT thumb[2] View the infographic:[3]ontario infographic thumb[4] View presentation:
Expect Delays - Presentation cover[5]
Help support more research like this![6]

Ontario FIT program solar wind capacity[7]

Huge Interest

The biggest challenge for the FIT program is the overwhelming demand. Already, signed contracts for nearly 5,000 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity will allow the province to meet most of its 2030 renewable energy target, 12 years early. Actual deployment has kept pace with many U.S. states, but poor preparation has meant that less than 10% of energy under contract (thus far) is actually producing electricity.

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. Read the report:: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/expect-delays-ontario-fit-ilsr-2013.pdf
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/expect-delays-ontario-fit-ilsr-2013.pdf
  3. View the infographic:: https://ilsr.org/democratic-energy-ontarios-buy-local-renewable-energy-program-infographic/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/democratic-energy-ontarios-buy-local-renewable-energy-program-infographic/
  5. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/expect-delays-presentation-reviewing-ontarios-buy-local-renewable-energy-program/
  6. Help support more research like this!: https://ilsr.org/donate
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ontario-FIT-program-solar-wind-capacity.png
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/expect-delays-reviewing-ontarios-buy-local-renewable-energy-program/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/expect-delays-reviewing-ontarios-buy-local-renewable-energy-program/


Can We Save the Commons that is the Post Office?

by David Morris | May 13, 2013 4:14 pm

For 225 years the U.S. Post Office has been the most admired and ubiquitous manifestation of government. From 1789 until the 1960s, the Cabinet level agency saw its mission not only to deliver the mail but to aggressively defend the public good.  In the late 19th century when oligopolistic mail order delivery companies abused their rural customers the Post Office launched parcel post.  The competition quickly forced private companies to reduce their exorbitant prices and dramatically improve the quality of their service.  In the early 20th century, when bank collapses resulted in depositors losing their life saving the Post Office created postal banks that for half a century provide security and attractive interest rates to millions of small depositors.

In 1970 Congress stripped the post office of its cabinet status and stopped providing public funding.  The new quasi public corporation was urged to adopt a more business like attitude.  Its name, the U.S. Postal Service, reflected a circumscribed mission statement.  No longer was it to be a tool to check the predations of the private sector.  Its sole mission would be to deliver the mail.

The USPS used its new flexibility and ability to borrow to dramatically increase productivity.  By the 1990s, despite the elimination of a public subsidy that in 1970 had accounted for 25 percent of its total budget the USPS was generating a consistent profit.  But to USPS management the mandate to operate in a more businesslike manner was viewed as a mandate to operate more like a private business, improving its internal balance sheet at the cost of weakening the balance sheet of the communities it served.  Again and again Congress had to step in to prevent USPS management from pursuing actions that would have inflicted harm on the nation:  stopping closing Saturday delivery, closing rural post offices willy-nilly.

In 2006, in an accounting maneuver I’ve discussed in more detail elsewhere[1] Congress forced the USPS to pay $5.5 billion a year to do what no other public agency or private corporation does—prepay 100 percent of its future health insurance costs. As the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) later observed, these payments quickly “transformed what would have been considerable profits into significant losses.”  Today the USPS deficit has reached $20 billion.  Headlines constantly use the word “bankruptcy”, conveying the message that the post office is an antiquated institution doomed to irrelevancy in the age of the internet, but 80 percent of this huge deficit has been caused not by a decline in first class mail but by this human contrived financial burden.

The debt may be contrived, but its impact is real. USPS management is cutting its “deficit” by eviscerating the institutional commons it oversees.  By closing rural post offices the USPS is delinking the institution from the community.  By closing half of its processing centers, the post office is eliminating local overnight delivery of the mail, a severe burden on weekly newspapers and undermining another sense of geographic community.  In 2012 the USPS announced that first class mail delivery would take at least one more day.  USPS is selling off dozens of magnificent buildings constructed during the New Deal that have served as testaments to a time when the very design of public buildings was seen as part of the commons.  Tens of thousands of workers with the most experience have taken early retirement, resulting in an increasingly less knowledgeable and lower paid workforce.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. elsewhere: http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/how-post-office-being-destroyed-phony-budget-crisis
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/save-commons-post-office/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/save-commons-post-office/


Why Won’t Conservatives Let Communities Decide for Themselves?

by David Morris | May 11, 2013 4:50 pm

In his 1996 State of the Union Address Democratic President Bill Clinton famously declared, “the era of big government is over.”  And during his tenure he did everything he could to make that true–deregulating the telecommunications and the financial industry, enacting a free trade agreement severely restricting the authority of the federal government to protect domestic jobs and businesses and abandoning the 75 year old federal commitment to the poor.

Seventeen years later I fully expect a Republican Governor or two to declare in their state of the state address, “the era of small government is over”.  For again and again, Republican governors and legislatures are preempting and abolishing the authority of communities to protect the health and welfare of their communities.

Earlier this year Wisconsin passed a law eliminating the authority of cities villages and counties to require public employees to live inside city limits and voiding any existing requirements.

A few weeks ago Kansas passed a law prohibiting cities, counties, and local government units from requiring private firms contracting with the city to provide leave, benefits or higher compensation than the state minimum wages.

The Florida House recently voted to preempt local governments from enacting “living wage” laws and “sick time” ordinances.  If signed into law, the bill would also overturn counties like Miami-Dade and Broward that have “living wage” ordinances that require companies that contract with the county to pay wages higher than the federal minimum wage, and sometimes provide certain benefits.

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/conservatives-communities-decide-themselves/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/conservatives-communities-decide-themselves/


Composting Supports Jobs and Healthy Watersheds, Say New ILSR Reports

by Brenda Platt | May 8, 2013 7:00 am

Two new reports from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Composting Makes $en$e Project document the importance of expanded composting and compost use to enhance soils, protect watersheds, reduce waste, and create green jobs and a new made-in-America industrial sector.

For press release, click here.

With compostable material making up almost one-half of municipal solid waste, there is an enormous opportunity to achieve higher recycling levels with comprehensive composting.  Increasing composting and compost use are also drivers of local economic growth and vital for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and other watersheds.  When added to soil, compost has the unique ability to filter pollutants and absorb water, reducing flash runoff that causes erosion and pollution downstream. It’s a win-win for local economies and the environment.

Pay Dirt: Composting in Maryland to Reduce Waste, Create Jobs, & Protect the Bay

This 47-page report summarizes the current composting infrastructure in the state of Maryland, compares the number of jobs sustained through composting versus disposal facilities, outlines the benefits of expanding composting and compost use, underscores the importance of a diverse composting infrastructure, and suggests policies to overcome obstacles to expansion. One key finding is that 1,400 new full-time jobs could potentially be supported by converting the 1 million tons of yard trim and food scraps now disposed in Maryland into compost and using that compost locally in green infrastructure and low-impact development.

For full report, click here.
For Executive Summary, click here.
For Key Findings, click here[1].
For List of Benefits of Composting & Compost Use, click here.
For Job Potential Summary Tables, click here.

Building Healthy Soils with Compost to Protect Watersheds

This 12-page report highlights the importance of organic matter to healthy soils, and links healthy soils in turn to a healthier watershed.  It makes the case that amending soil with compost is the best way to increase the level of organic matter.  This report identifies watershed problems, the benefits of compost-amended soils, model initiatives and policies, frequently asked questions, and resources for more information.

For full report, click here.

Pay Dirt and Building Healthy Soils with Compost to Protect Watersheds were produced by ILSR’s Composting Makes $en$e Project under funding support from the Town Creek Foundation and from the University of the District of Columbia’s Water Resources Research Institute.

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Endnotes:
  1. here: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Pay-Dirt-Key-Findings-final.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/paydirt/


Watch: 5 Barriers To and Solutions for Community Renewable Energy

by John Farrell | May 3, 2013 11:13 am

placeholder[1]Community renewable energy has significant political and economic benefits, but is often hindered by five major barriers. Watch this vividly illustrated presentation to learn how communities can overcome the barriers and advance more local renewable energy.

ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell gave this presentation as part of a Sustainable Economies Law Center[2] webinar on April 30, 2013.

You can also download or view just the slide show[3].

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Sustainable Economies Law Center: http://www.theselc.org/
  3. download or view just the slide show: http://www.slideshare.net/farrell-ilsr/community-renewable-energy-presentation-sustainable-economies-law-center

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/5-barriers-solutions-community-renewable-energy/


Happy 39th Birthday, ILSR!

by ILSR | May 1, 2013 3:52 pm

On the first of May 1974 Neil Seldman, Gil Friend and David Morris self-consciously incorporated the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.   We thought it made for a suitable birthing day.

A little history might be in order.

Traditionally May Day marked the beginning of spring.  In the Middle Ages it belonged to the workers. No work was done and the landlord of was required to provide a huge feast for all his tenant farmers and employees. The day was totally given over to enjoyment: dancing, singing, games, feasting.

After the Civil War as the industrial revolution moved into high gear, workers organized for an 8-hour day and used May 1st as the day for demonstrations. On May 1, 1886, protests erupted across the United States. Some 340,000 workers took part. An estimated 190,000 went out on strike.

As a large peaceful protest was winding down in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886 someone threw a dynamite bomb that killed a policeman.  That led to a battle in which 12 were killed. A widely publicized trial followed and the eventual hanging of four anarchists.

What came to be known as the Haymarket Massacre became a powerful symbol for workers around the world. In 1889, the Second International, a group comprised of leading communists and anarchists officially initiated the tradition of May Day labor demonstrations. In 1894, the first Monday in September was established as a federal holiday in the United States.

May Day celebrations later spread to Communist governments.  Which led President Eisenhower, in 1958, to proclaim May 1 as Law Day.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/happy-39th-birthday-ilsr/


Locally Owned Businesses Can Help Communities Thrive — and Survive Climate Change

by Stacy Mitchell | April 26, 2013 9:24 am

Originally published on Grist[1].

Cities where small, locally owned businesses account for a relatively large share of the economy have stronger social networks, more engaged citizens, and better success solving problems, according to several recently published studies.

And in the face of climate change, those are just the sort of traits that communities most need if they are to survive massive storms, adapt to changing conditions, find new ways of living more lightly on the planet, and, most important, nurture a vigorous citizenship that can drive major changes in policy.

That there’s a connection between the ownership structure of our economy and the vitality of our democracy may sound a bit odd to modern ears. But this was an article of faith among 18th and 19th century Americans, who strictly limited the lifespan of corporations and enacted antitrust laws whose express aim was to protect democracy by maintaining an economy of small businesses.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that this tenet of American political thought was fully superseded by the consumer-focused, bigger-is-better ideology that now dominates our economic policy-making. Ironically, the shift happened just as social scientists were furnishing the first bona fide empirical evidence linking economic scale to civic engagement.

In 1946, Walter Goldschmidt, a USDA sociologist, produced a groundbreaking study comparing two farming towns in California that were almost identical in every respect but one: Dinuba’s economy was composed mainly of family farms, while Arvin’s was dominated by large agribusinesses. Goldschmidt found that Dinuba had a richer civic life, with twice the number of community organizations, twice the number of newspapers, and citizens who were much more engaged than those in Arvin. Not surprisingly, Dinuba also had far superior public infrastructure: In both quality and quantity, the town’s schools, parks, sidewalks, paved streets, and garbage services far surpassed those of Arvin.

At about the same time, two other sociologists, C. Wright Mills and Melville J. Ulmer, were undertaking a similar study of several pairs of manufacturing cities in the Midwest. Their research, conducted on behalf of a congressional committee, found that communities comprised primarily of small, locally owned businesses took much better care of themselves. They beat cities dominated by large, absentee-owned firms on more than 30 measures of well-being, including such things as literacy, acreage of public parks, extent of poverty, and the share of residents who belonged to civic organizations.

One might expect such findings to have had a powerful influence on government policy. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/cities/locally-owned-businesses-can-help-communities-thrive-and-survive-climate-change/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/locally-owned-businesses-communities-thrive-survive-climate-change/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/locally-owned-businesses-communities-thrive-survive-climate-change/


Four Victories for the Public Good

by David Morris | April 17, 2013 11:51 am

I’m not saying it’s time to break out the champagne and start chanting, “The people united will never be defeated”.  But the past few weeks have brought us some heartwarming demonstrations that the popular will still has a bite.

February 22:  After a major public outcry, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directed federal agencies to make published results freely available to the public.  Director John Holdren declared, “Americans should have easy access to the results of research they help support.”

The announcement by the Obama Administration came after 65,000 people petitioned the White House to make publicly supported research available to the public and 6 weeks after the suicide of Aaron Swartz who was facing up to 35 years in prison for freely distributing nearly 5 million scholarly articles from a privately owned digital archive.  The death of Swartz, whose 2008 manifesto declared sharing information a “moral imperative” and the “privatization of knowledge” a curse, became a rallying cry for those who wanted to honor his legacy by changing a federal bias toward the privatization of public information first adopted by Ronald Reagan.

March 3:  By more than 2 to 1, Swiss voters approved the “fat cat initiative”, a Constitutional amendment that bans big payouts to new and departing managers, gives shareholders the right to veto executive compensation and makes prison the penalty for executives who defy the new rules. All 26 Swiss cantons approved the amendment.  A few weeks before the vote the nation was both outraged and energized by the $78 million payoff offered to the outgoing Chairman of Novartis even as the firm was cutting jobs. The vote reflected a deep-seated public sense “that company managers have been ransacking the coffers at the expense of society”, noted one Zurich newspaper.

March 21:  The European Right to Water Initiative announced it had gathered 1.3 million signatures on a petition to demand the European Commission stop mandating or encouraging the privatization of water utilities.  To be formally recognized by the European Union, the petition needs not only a million signatures but also a sufficient number from 7 EU member states.  Currently 5 states have exceeded that level; several more are close.

April 10:  The US Postal Service reversed its February 6th decision to end Saturday mail delivery as of this August.  The Postal Service blamed Congress for requiring six-day delivery in a continuing budget resolution in March, but the culprit really was the groundswell of public opposition to its decision.  Indeed, the leading advocate of privatizing the Post Office, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee declared, “Despite some assertions, it’s quite clear that special interest lobbying and intense political pressure played a much greater role in the Postal Service’s change of heart than any real or perceived barrier to implementing what had been announced.”

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/victories-public-good/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/victories-public-good/


Proposed Solar Standard is Cheap Compared to Minnesota Utilities’ Rate Increases

by John Farrell | April 17, 2013 11:25 am

If you’re a state legislator in Minnesota, here are a few grains of salt to season the message you’ve been getting from electric utilities about the proposed solar energy standard.  The bill (HF956[1]/SF901[2]) requires most utilities to get 4% of their energy from solar by 2025 and offers a standard, fixed-price contract to distributed solar energy producers (the same deal utilities get when they build their own power plants).  The bill works by combining a utility-financed, revenue-neutral, market-based “value of solar” tariff and a ratepayer-financed incentive that is explicitly capped at a one-time 1.33% increase in electric rates.

Utilities are crying foul over the cost, the same utilities that have raised electric rates by 35-40% in the past decade.  Let’s start with the average retail price of electricity, as reported by the utilities to the federal Energy Information Administration.

  average Minnesota retail electric price by customer class (1990-2013)[3]

The average retail rate for Minnesota electricity customers has increased by 40% in the past decade, spread fairly evenly over the three customer classes: residential, commercial, and industrial.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. HF956: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=house&f=HF956&ssn=0&y=2013
  2. SF901: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=Senate&f=SF0901&ssn=0&y=2013
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/average-retail-electric-price-by-customer-class.png
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/proposed-solar-standard-cheap-compared-minnesota-utilities-rate-increases/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/proposed-solar-standard-cheap-compared-minnesota-utilities-rate-increases/


VICTORY against Maryland’s “Waste Portfolio Standard” — the Latest Creative Way to Prop Up Incinerators

by ILSR | April 10, 2013 7:02 am

Reposted from Energy Justice – http://www.energyjustice.net/content/victory-against-marylands-waste-portfolio-standard-latest-creative-way-prop-incinerators[1]

by Mike Ewall

What does an incinerator industry do when they can’t compete?  Change the rules.  Biomass[2] and trash incinerators[3] are the most expensive way to make energy, and trash incineration costs more than directly landfilling the waste.  These industries survive to the extent that they can change the rules to get monopoly waste contracts, become ‘renewable’ energy in state mandates, or as we’re seeing in Maryland: worse.

In 2011, Maryland became the first state to change their state Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) law[4] — a law that mandates “renewable energy” use — to move trash incineration from the dirtier “Tier II” to the not-quite-as-dirty “Tier I” (where wind and solar, but also biomass[5] and landfill gas[6] compete).  Many states with RPS laws have two tiers, where the cheaper, already-built, and dirtier technologies (usually trash incineration and big old hydroelectric dams) are put in a second tier menu of options where the credits are cheaper, and in Maryland’s case, where the mandate gets phased out over time.  Putting trash incineration in the same tier as wind power creates a much larger and growing market with more valuable credits.  Since this, several other states have seen proposals to do the same.

In 2013, Maryland tried to set an ever worse precedent.  Covanta (the nation’s largest waste incinerator corporation) wrote a bill that gets more creative: a municipal solid waste portfolio standard[7].  Taking the notion from renewable energy laws, this law would phase in a 50% recycling goal, but also phase out direct landfilling of waste.  By doing so, the law would create a strong incentive to incinerate waste before burying the ash.  Zero waste[8], as defined by the Zero Waste International Alliance[9], means diverting as much waste as possible (90%+) from both landfills AND incinerators.  However, the incinerator industry has managed to hijack the “zero waste” idea by pushing this “zero waste to landfill” rhetoric which many cities and corporations are mimicking — which really means “toxic ash to landfills.”

On April 8th, the Maryland legislature came very close[10] to passing this awful precedent, but thanks to work by Community Research, Clean Water Action, Energy Justice Network and 15 other groups who lent their name to opposing this bill, it died a quiet death in the state House after passing the state Senate earlier in the last day of the 2013 legislative session.  Covanta’s lobbyist was fuming and we can now focus back on stopping the two large new waste incinerators planned for the state, without worrying that they’ll be propped up by yet another pro-burn state policy.  Keep an eye out for this tactic in your state.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. http://www.energyjustice.net/content/victory-against-marylands-waste-portfolio-standard-latest-creative-way-prop-incinerators: http://www.energyjustice.net/content/victory-against-marylands-waste-portfolio-standard-latest-creative-way-prop-incinerators
  2. Biomass: http://www.energyjustice.net/biomass/
  3. trash incinerators: http://www.energyjustice.net/incineration/
  4. change their state Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) law: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2011rs/bills/sb/sb0690e.pdf
  5. biomass: http://www.energyjustice.net/biomass/
  6. landfill gas: http://www.energyjustice.net/lfg/
  7. municipal solid waste portfolio standard: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/bills/sb/sb0799f.pdf
  8. Zero waste: http://zwia.org/standards/zw-definition/
  9. Zero Waste International Alliance: http://zwia.org
  10. came very close: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=03&id=sb0799&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/victory-against-maryland-incinerator-bill/


Why Walmart’s Death Grip on Our Food System Is Intensifying Poverty

by Stacy Mitchell | March 27, 2013 9:08 am

Originally published on Alternet[1], Truthout[2], and Salon.

When Michelle Obama visited a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri, a few weeks ago to praise the company’s efforts to sell healthier food, she did not say why she chose a store in Springfield of all cities. But, in ways that Obama surely did not intend, it was a fitting choice. This Midwestern city provides a chilling look at where Walmart wants to take our food system.

Springfield is one of nearly 40 metro areas where Walmart now captures about half or more of consumer spending on groceries, according to Metro Market Studies.  Springfield area residents spend just over $1 billion on groceries each year, and one of every two of those dollars flows into a Walmart cash register.  The chain has 20 stores in the area and shows no signs of slowing its growth. Its latest proposal, a store just south of the city’s downtown, has provoked widespread protest.  Opponents say Walmart already has an overbearing presence in the region and argue that this new store would undermine nearby grocery stores, including a 63-year-old family-owned business which still provides delivery for its elderly customers. A few days before the First Lady’s visit, the City Council voted 5-4 to approve what will be Walmart’s 21st store in the community.

As Springfield goes, so goes the rest of the country, if Walmart has its way. Nationally, the retailer’s share of the grocery market now stands at 25 percent. That’s up from 4 percent just 16 years ago.  Walmart’s tightening grip on the food system is unprecedented in U.S. history.  Even A&P — often referred to as the Walmart of its day — accounted for only about 12 percent of grocery sales at its height in the 1940s.  Its market share was kept in check in part by the federal government, which won an antitrust case against A&P in 1946.  The contrast to today’s casual acceptance of Walmart’s market power could not be more stark.

Having gained more say over our food supply than Monsanto, Kraft, or Tyson, Walmart has been working overtime to present itself as a benevolent king. It has upped its donations to food pantries, reduced sodium and sugars in some of its store-brand products, and recast its relentless expansion as a solution to “food deserts.” In 2011, it pledged[3] to build 275-300 stores “in or near” low-income communities lacking grocery stores. The Springfield store Obama visited is one of 86 such stores Walmart has since opened.  Situated half a mile from the southwestern corner of a census tract[4] identified as underserved by the USDA, the store qualifies as “near” a food desert. Other grocery stores are likewise perched on the edge of this tract.  Although Walmart has made food deserts the vanguard of its PR strategy in urban areas, most of the stores the chain has built or proposed in cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. are in fact just blocks from established supermarkets, many unionized or locally owned.  As it pushes into cities, Walmart’s primary aim is not to fill gaps but to grab market share.

***

The real effect of Walmart’s takeover of our food system has been to intensify the rural and urban poverty that drives unhealthy food choices.  (more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/food/walmarts-death-grip-groceries-making-life-worse-millions-people-hard-times-usa
  2. Truthout: http://truth-out.org/news/item/15404-walmarts-death-grip-on-groceries-is-making-life-worse-for-millions-of-people
  3. pledged: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/us/21food.html?_r=0
  4. half a mile from the southwestern corner of a census tract: http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2013/02/michelle-obama-talks-business-at.html
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/walmarts-death-grip-food-system-intensifying-poverty/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-death-grip-food-system-intensifying-poverty/


Steve Johnson – Episode 3 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

by John Farrell | February 21, 2013 3:15 pm

In this edition of Local Energy Rules, John Farrell and Wade Underwood speak with Steve Johnson of Convergence Energy about a successful 660 kilowatt community solar project near Delavan, WI. The project required 33 separate LLCs to take advantage of the state’s net metering rules, and also used the limited-time federal cash grant program to pull it together. Unfortunately, the policy environment isn’t as favorable for repeats, and Convergence has interest in, but no plans to replicate the project.

Just north of Delavan, Wisconsin, is Dan Osborne’s nursery farm. Where you once found a bean field now sit 80 solar panels on 100 tracking towers, generating power for over 125 homes. It’s a small, but successful energy harvest.  The solar farm was developed by Convergence Energy of Lake Geneva, WI. Steve Johnson, vice president of business development, spoke to John Farrell and Wade Underwood about the solar farm in Delavan,

“The genesis of the project from the beginning was to try and provide an offsite location for individuals interested in investing in solar.”

Many individuals interested in going solar can be stymied because their property has tree cover or inadequate roof space, so Dan Osborne’s fields offered a better option, a community solar project.

Dan, who had worked with Convergence in the past, offered up 14 acres of his farm for the 660 kilowatt (kW) facility outside of Delavan. From there, Convergence arranged for 33 individual Limited Liability Companies to invest in 20 kW increments, which are sold back to the utility at retail price as a part of the net-metering policy (note: the utility’s net metering policy does not require the solar project to offset on-site load).  The state’s net metering policy caps projects at 20 kW, hence the 33 separate companies.

In addition to receiving the retail electricity price for solar electricity produced, the projects also received grants from the state’s Focus on Energy program[5] and used the cash grant option (since expired) in lieu of the 30% federal tax credit.  Project investors signed up for either an 11-year or 20-year investment term (with an 8% return on investment) after which the project ownership reverts to Convergence Energy.

As Steve says, their investors are happy with the solar farm, but there have been precious few opportunities for similar networked projects to grow.  The federal cash grant program has expired and the Focus on Energy incentives have been reduced.  Despite the changed landscape, Steve and Convergence Energy are keeping their eyes open for opportunities where the success from the Osborne farm might be replicated. It’s small seed that they want to see growing in many places.

This is the third edition of Local Energy Rules[6], a new ILSR podcast that will be published twice monthly, on 1st and 3rd Thursday.  In this podcast series, ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell talks with people putting together great community renewable energy projects and examining how energy policies help or hurt the development of clean, local power.  

Click to subscribe to the podcast: iTunes[7] or RSS/XML[8], sign up for new podcast notifications[9] and weekly email updates from the energy program[10]!

Photo credit: Dan Lassiter, from Walworth County Today

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Steve-Johnson-interview-on-Local-Energy-Rules.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/Steve-Johnson-interview-on-Local-Energy-Rules.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  5. Focus on Energy program: http://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/detail/2085
  6. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  7. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/local-energy-rules/id595698022?mt=2
  8. RSS/XML: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  9. new podcast notifications: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9
  10. weekly email updates from the energy program: http://eepurl.com/tlKE9

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/steve-johnson-episode-3-local-energy-rules-podcast/


Watch: How a City Can Get More Clean, Local Energy

by John Farrell | February 19, 2013 4:54 pm

Like many cities attempting to solve climate change at a local level, Minneapolis is finding the prospect more challenging that it may have imagined. The lion’s share of emissions (two-thirds in the case of Minneapolis) come from electricity and gas sold by two monopoly, corporate utilities. Minnesota’s state-level policy is helping: a renewable energy standard pushes the electric utility to 30% clean energy by 2020 and a conservation standard aims to reduce the growth in energy consumption. But state (and federal) policies aren’t enough[1], and Minneapolis has had no leverage to force its utilities to de-carbonize.

But an opportunity is coming soon.

In a short time, the city’s “franchise” contracts with its electric and gas utility will expire, giving the city a once-in-20-years chance to negotiate new terms for its energy services. These contracts are largely focused on right-of-way agreements, discussing an annual payment to city coffers in exchange utility use of city right-of-way to deliver energy services (in other words, payments for poles and wires in the alleys). But the contracts need not be limited to such mundane matters, especially when the city has a commitment to a climate-safe future and a populace strongly supportive of more clean, local energy. Already, the city’s franchise working group – a select four city council members – is examining alternatives to the status quo, options for energy services that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But there’s a catch. State law gives the utilities a monopoly on serving Minneapolis customers, regardless of their interest in negotiation. In other words, there’s not much incentive for Xcel Energy or CenterPoint Energy to talk turkey with Minneapolis when their citizens are a captive audience.

That’s the motivation behind Minneapolis Energy Options, giving the city an option and giving residents and businesses a choice for more control over their energy future. To do it, the city needs to put a municipal utility on the ballot this fall. If passed, it would authorize the city to create a municipal utility but only if it could be cleaner, more affordable, more reliable, and generate more local energy than the incumbent utilities. (see the video below for more about Minneapolis Energy Options[2]).

It’s been done before, in Boulder, Colorado. After many years of fruitless negotiation with their monopoly electric utility (Xcel Energy, by coincidence), citizens in Boulder narrowly approved authorization of a city-owned utility in fall 2011[3]. It hasn’t closed the door to negotiation; in fact, Xcel continues to ply the city with alternatives[4] to forgo losing tens of thousands of customers and millions in profits. The utility’s motivation should not be lost on Minneapolis or other cities with an eye on meeting ambitious climate and energy goals:

If you want investor-owned, for profit, monopoly utilities to work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they need a financial incentive. And there’s no better incentive than losing customers.

In the next two years, Minneapolis will have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take charge of its energy future in its utility franchise negotiations. But it’s only likely to make a difference if they have options on the table. Here’s hoping city council gives citizens that chance.

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Endnotes:
  1. state (and federal) policies aren’t enough: https://ilsr.org/new-report-lessons-pioneers-tackling-global-warming-local-level/
  2. see the video below for more about Minneapolis Energy Options: https://ilsr.org/clean-energy-minneapolis/
  3. citizens in Boulder narrowly approved authorization of a city-owned utility in fall 2011: https://ilsr.org/citizens-give-going-boulder-new-meaning-local-energy-self-reliance/
  4. Xcel continues to ply the city with alternatives: http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_22173819/boulder-officials-debate-xcel-partnership-ideas

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/city-clean-local-energy/


Germany Has More Solar Power Because Everyone Wins

by John Farrell | February 8, 2013 4:49 pm

Suddenly everyone knows about Germany’s solar power dominance because Fox Newsheads made an ass of themselves[1], suggesting that the country is a sunny, tropical paradise.  Most media folks have figured out that there are some monster differences in policy (e.g. a feed-in tariff[2]), but then latch on to the “Germans pay a lot extra” meme.  Germans do, and are perfectly happy with it[3], but that’s still not the story.

The real reason Germany dominates in solar (and wind) is their commitment to democratizing energy.

Half of their renewable power is owned by ordinary Germans[4], because that wonky sounding feed-in tariff (often known as a CLEAN Contract Program in America) makes it ridiculously simple and safe for someone to park their money in generating solar electricity on their roof instead of making pennies in interest at the bank.

It also makes their “energy change[5]” movement politically bulletproof.  Germans aren’t tree-hugging wackos giving up double mochas for wind turbines, they are investing by the tens of thousand in a clean energy future that is putting money back in their pockets and creating well over 300,000 new jobs (at last count).  Their policy makes solar cost half as much to install as it does in America[6], where the free market’s red tape can’t compete with their “socialist” efficiency.

Fox News’ gaffe about sunshine helps others paper over the real tragedy of American energy policy.  In a country founded on the concept of self-reliance (goodbye, tea imports!), we finance clean energy with tax credits that make wind and solar reliant on Wall Street[7] instead of Main Street.  We largely preclude participation by the ordinary citizen unless they give up ownership[8] of their renewable energy system to a leasing company.  We make clean energy a complicated alternative to business as usual, while the cloudy, windless Germans make the energy system of the future by making it stupid easy and financially rewarding.

I’m all for pounding the faithless fools of Fox, but let’s learn the real secret to German energy engineering and start making democratic energy in America.

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Endnotes:
  1. Fox Newsheads made an ass of themselves: http://grist.org/climate-energy/fox-news-solar-power-only-works-in-germany-because-germany-is-a-tropical-paradise/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
  2. feed-in tariff: https://ilsr.org/clean-contract-feed-in-tariff-101/
  3. perfectly happy with it: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/most-germans-support-shift-to-renewable-energy-despite-cost-1.1004492
  4. Half of their renewable power is owned by ordinary Germans: https://ilsr.org/half-germanys-53000-megawatts-renewable-energy-locally-owned/
  5. energy change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBx493I0W7k
  6. cost half as much to install as it does in America: https://ilsr.org/why-pay-double-solar-america/
  7. tax credits that make wind and solar reliant on Wall Street: https://ilsr.org/why-tax-credits-make-lousy-renewable-energy-policy/
  8. give up ownership: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Third-Party-Owned-Solar-Drives-California-Market

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/germany-solar-power-wins/


The End of the Post Office as a Public Institution?

by David Morris | February 6, 2013 3:34 pm

“When the post office is closed, the flag comes down.  When the human side of government closes its doors, we’re all in trouble.”   Senator Jennings Randolph (West Virginia) 1958-85

For the post office the end game is on.  This year the post office will close half its processing centers.  By late spring a first class letter will take 1-3 days longer to arrive at its destination. By the end of this summer Saturday delivery is scheduled to end.  Over the next year the Post Office plans to close over 3000 local post offices while slashing some 220,000 of the its 650,000 employees.

How did we come to this place?  In retrospect, it is easy to distinguish three discrete stages in the 221-year life of the Post Office.

Stage 1:  The Post Office Has a Broad Public Mandate

The first stage began in 1792 when President George Washington signed legislation making the United States Post Office a Cabinet level Department. It was a public institution with a clear mandate:  to enable universal low cost access to information.   In its early years this led it to initiate free and low cost delivery of newspapers and eventually, to offer a special rate for periodicals and books.

The post office helped tie the country together physically as well as intellectually.  Post roads were essential to the early development of the country.  Rural free delivery established in the late 19th century, spurred improvements in roads and bridges since the post office would not offer service where roads were bad.  In the 20th century mail contracts underwrote the embryonic aviation industry

In the 1820s, when private companies began charging a handsome fee to deliver information faster, enabling cotton speculators to make a killing on the difference in prices at the docks of New York and the plantations of Alabama, the post office responded by establishing its own express mail service.  The private sector complained.  A Congressional investigation concluded “(T)he Government should not hesitate to adopt means…to place the community generally in possession of the same intelligence at as early a period as practicable.

In the 1840s, when the private sector began siphoning off the most profitable mail routes, leaving to the post office only money losing routes, Congress gave the post office a monopoly, enabling it to dramatically reduce the price of postage and initiate free door to door delivery in cities.  In 1858 the first mailboxes appeared on street corners.

At the end of the 19th century, when private parcel companies began treating their customers badly, the post office introduced parcel post.  The competition resulted in reduced prices and improved customer service.

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/post-office-public-institution/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/post-office-public-institution/


Survey Finds Independent Businesses Benefit from “Buy Local First” Campaigns, But Challenges Loom

by Stacy Mitchell | February 6, 2013 11:29 am

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  (Additional contacts below)
Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 207-774-6792

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (Feb. 6, 2013) – An annual survey has found that independent businesses experienced solid revenue growth in 2012, buoyed in part by “buy local first” initiatives and growing public interest in supporting locally owned businesses.

But the survey also documented significant challenges facing independent businesses, most notably an increase in “showrooming” and competition from online retailers, tax and subsidy policies that favor their big competitors, difficulty obtaining loans, and a customer base still reeling from the recession.

The 2013 Independent Business Survey, which was conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in partnership with several business associations, gathered data from 2,377 independent businesses across 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Among its findings:

  • Survey respondents reported revenue growth of 6.8% on average. More than two-thirds experienced revenue growth in 2012 — a larger share than in our 2011 and 2010 surveys.
  • Independent businesses in communities with an active “buy local first” initiative run by a local business organization reported average revenue growth of 8.6% in 2012, compared to 3.4% for those in areas without such an initiative.
  • Among survey respondents in cities with a “buy local first” initiative, 75% reported that the initiative had had a positive impact on their business.
  • “Showrooming” — i.e., customers examining products and seeking information in local stores and then buying online — was identified by independent retailers as one of their biggest challenges. More than 80% said showrooming was affecting their business, with 47%  describing the impact as “moderate” or “significant.”
  • Lack of financing was another top challenge, with 23% businesses surveyed reporting that they had been unable to secure a needed bank loan for their business in the last two years. (more…)[1]
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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/2013-independent-business-survey/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2013-independent-business-survey/


MD Seminar on Compost BMPs for Watershed Protection

by Brenda Platt | February 5, 2013 4:03 pm

Tools exist that can remove up to 96% of stormwater pollutants. Are you interested? Attend this FREE seminar on March 5, 2013, to learn how compost-based BMPs can dramatically reduce sediment and targeted pollutants entering the Chesapeake Bay.

ILSR has partnered with local watershed and organizations to sponsor this event. Scientists from Filtrexx International and representatives from EPA, Anne Arundel County, and others to share insight on the challenges facing the watershed and the natural systems that can be harnessed for ecological and economic benefits.

SPACE IS LIMITED. To register download the PDF and follow the instructions to submit your RSVP.

Compost BMPs: EPA-WIP/TMDL Challenge

Date: March 5, 2013
Time: 9 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST
Location: Annapolis Maritime Museum
723 2nd Street, Annapolis, MD 21403

Compost BMPs Seminar Invitation (PDF)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. Compost BMPs Seminar Invitation (PDF): https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Compost-BMPs-Invitation-Final.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/md-seminar-compost-bmps-watershed-protection/


Decentralized Recycling Models for Cities: Berkeley and El Cerrito, CA

by Neil Seldman | January 28, 2013 6:52 pm

placeholder[1]Berkeley, CA, and El Cerrito, CA, in the San Francisco Bay area have been special examples of government, grassroots, and private business collaboration in recycling and reuse for the past 30 years. Below are comments on the decentralized model by one of its key advocates and activists, Dan Knapp. Dan is the founder of Urban Ore[2], which operates in both cities. Urban Ore is a reuse enterprise that handles 7,000 tons of materials a year with just 2% going to landfill.  Among other achievements, Dan has authored the 12 categories of materials and products in the discard supply to allow for proper planning for each subset of materials and products.

Urban Ore and ILSR are long-term working partners.

Decentralized Recycling Models for Cities: Berkeley, CA, population 113,000, and El Cerrito, CA, population 24,000

by Dan Knapp, Ph.D.

Berkeley is a good example of a city that has an interlocking set of specialized operators with access to different subsets of the discard supply. All the operators cooperate with one another on policy, compete with one another for supply, and even trade resources with one another on a daily basis.  All together, there are six major enterprises: one for-profit, two nonprofit, and three that are municipally owned and operated.  They are: Urban Ore[2] (transfer station salvage, reuse, some recycling including regulated materials); Community Conservation Centers[3] (clean MRF operator, buyback and drop off operator, regulated materials operator), Ecology Center[4] (residential CleanStream split-cart curbside pickup); and three City Operations: commercial curbside pickup including separate pickup for mixed plant debris and putrescibles, transfer station management, including more regulated materials and hard-to-recycle materials, and construction and demolition materials recovery from mixed loads.  The City also provides garbage pickup service, but I don’t include that as recycling.

All this has been built up incrementally over time, in a process that is ongoing. Berkeley’s biggest problem, apart from periodic upsets caused by people who think a monopoly would be better, is that our facility is old and the customer interface is too small because the whole thing was designed to feed an incinerator that was never built.  Altogether the City-owned discard management center occupies 9.6 acres; Urban Ore’s Ecopark adds another 2.6 to the total footprint of materials recovery in West Berkeley.  There are other smaller companies dealing with smaller subsets of the discard supply, but these are the main ones.

For a community pursuing essentially the same model as Berkeley, consider the City of El Cerrito, about five miles to the north.  They opened their source-separation facility in the early 1980s, and rebuilt it in 2011 after citizens rejected the idea of closing it down.  The rebuilt facility opened in 2012 on Earth Day and has been a big success.  It features quick in-and-out traffic flow, a fine and welcoming administration building, and a large customer interface with over thirty drop-off options.  It is city-owned and operated, but there are a number of contractors, including Urban Ore, that also provide specialized recovery services onsite.

I personally think there are many advantages to this decentralized model.  Last year at the CRRA (California Resource Recovery Association[5]) conference held in Oakland, Berkeley’s operators presented their businesses as a case study of the ecology of commerce in action.

Photo credit: Urban Ore. A sculpture was made mainly from materials salvaged at Urban Ore by Bay Area artist Nemo Gould.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Urban Ore: http://urbanore.com/
  3. Community Conservation Centers: http://berkeleyrecycling.org/index.php
  4. Ecology Center: http://www.ecologycenter.org/
  5. California Resource Recovery Association: http://www.crra.com/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/decentralized-recycling-models-cities-berkeley-el-cerrito-ca/


New Mexico Recycling Industry Poised to Add 5,000 Jobs

by ILSR | January 21, 2013 10:39 am

Reposted from New Mexico Recycling Coalition[1]

Many people associate recycling as something that is good for the environment.  But, not many realize the number of jobs created and what a significant economic driver the recycling industry plays in our state and country. In fact, nationally the recycling industry represents more jobs than the car manufacturing industry. A general rule of thumb is that for every landfill job there could be 10 recycling jobs for that same amount of material handled.  The recycling industry is a $236 billion industry compared to the $45 billion waste industry.

A new report released by the New Mexico Recycling Coalition (NMRC) details the estimated number of jobs in the recycling industry and predicts how many jobs could be gained through increased recycling activities. It is estimated that close to 5,000 new direct, indirect and induced jobs will be created in New Mexico when the state recycling rate reaches 34%.

With recent investments and commitments made in both rural and urban areas, New Mexico is poised to meet this goal. Recycling activity is measured by the New Mexico Environment Department: Solid Waste Bureau, which calculates the state’s 2011 recycling rate at 21% of the municipal solid waste stream. That rate has witnessed a 16% average annual increase over the previous 5 years. If this trend continues, reaching the national average of 34% could be attained by 2015. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. New Mexico Recycling Coalition: http://www.recyclenewmexico.com/jobs.htm
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/nm-recycling-industry-poised-add-5000-jobs/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/nm-recycling-industry-poised-add-5000-jobs/


The Most Amazing, Interactive U.S. Solar Grid Parity Map

by John Farrell | January 14, 2013 1:16 pm

placeholder[1]Within a decade, 300,000 megawatts of unsubsidized local solar power could compete with utility electricity prices in almost every state, enough clean energy to produce 10% of U.S. electricity.  Grid parity is building like a relentless wave, but how much solar is at parity today?  In 2016?  In 2020?  On homes or businesses?  With incentives or without?

Answer all of these questions with the Greatest, Most Interactive U.S. Solar Grid Parity Map from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance[2].  Click the link or the map image below to interact.

Screen shot of the Greatest Most Interactive U.S. Solar Grid Parity Map from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance [3]

For more on the data behind the map, see ILSR’s Rooftop Revolution resources[4].

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. the Greatest, Most Interactive U.S. Solar Grid Parity Map from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/projects/solarparitymap/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/projects/solarparitymap/
  4. ILSR’s Rooftop Revolution resources: https://ilsr.org/rooftop-revolution/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazing-interactive-u-s-solar-grid-parity-map/


Who Should Pay the Costs of Climate Disasters?

by David Morris | January 4, 2013 4:54 pm

Who should pay the costs of climate disasters?  In light of the current debate in the United States about federal assistance to Hurricane Sandy victims and the recent debate at the recent Doha Climate Conference about international assistance for climate change victims, that has become an increasingly pressing question for humankind.

The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rapidly increasing. Since the 1980s the number of billion dollar natural disasters in the United States has tripled[1] from two to six.  In 2011 there were 14 separate $1 billion plus weather events and losses topped $60 billion.  This year Hurricane Sandy alone will exceed that total.

As costs have exceeded the ability of insurance companies, individual homeowners, businesses and communities to pay, some states have created statewide pooled risk funds.  After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, for example, Florida created the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.

An increasing federalization of disaster relief has been occurring since the 1988 passage of the Stafford Act that required Washington to assume at least 75 percent of the costs of federally declared disasters. Predictably, the number of such declarations has increased[2] dramatically, from 53 in 1992 under George H.W. Bush to 110 in 1999 under Bill Clinton, to 143 in 2008 under George W. Bush.  In 2011 President Obama set a record by declaring federal disasters 242 times.

But as Hurricane Sandy has demonstrated, natural disasters are exceeding even FEMA’s expanded financial capacity, leading to the need for additional ad hoc Congressional appropriations.  This has given a boost to efforts to create a natural catastrophe insurance fund that would pool the risk nationally, similar to the terrorist catastrophe fund we put in place immediately after 9/11 with the passage[3] of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act.  The fund created by that Act eventually paid out about $7 billion to more than 7400 victims.

In 2002 Congress passed[4] the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The program is triggered if losses exceed $100 million and cost to an individual insurance company is more than 20 percent of premiums paid. When the program is triggered, the federal government pays 85 percent of insured terrorism losses in excess of individual insurer trigger/deductibles while the insurer pays 15 percent.  The program is capped at $100 billion per year.

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. tripled: http://www.voxxi.com/costly-natural-disasters-increase/
  2. increased: http://www.fema.gov/disasters/grid/year
  3. passage: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/hr2926
  4. passed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Risk_Insurance_Act
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/pay-costs-climate-disasters/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/pay-costs-climate-disasters/


Should We Subsidize Giving?

by David Morris | December 19, 2012 4:37 pm

Robert J. Shiller, Professor of Economics and Finance at Yale recently weighed in with his perspective on subsidizing charity with a New York Times column[1] whose title clearly conveys his message: “Please Don’t Mess With the Charitable Deduction.”

There is a case to be made for charitable deductions.  Regrettably, this isn’t it.

Shiller offers three arguments.

First, giving is a fundamental part of who we are.  He cites anthropological research by Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi that contends reciprocal gift giving ”has pervaded healthy human society from its Neolithic beginnings.”  And he points to recent brain imaging research revealing, “reciprocity is supported by fundamental structures in the brain.”

But Shiller misreads this evidence and its implications.  Reciprocity is the key word.  Polanyi and Mauss, and more recently, Lewis Hyde have argued that socially obligatory gift giving was the glue that held many societies together.  It was the material expression of cohesive relationships.

Polanyi and Hyde made clear that market economies have undermined the concept of reciprocity, made relationships more impersonal, severely injured the culture of sharing and caused grievous social harm.  In a review of Hyde’s 1983 book, The Gift, Detroit librarian JoAnn Schwartz notes[2] the fundamental difference between a market economy and a gift economy.   “In a market economy, one can hoard one’s goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding— although we generally call it ‘saving’.  In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase— increase in connections, increase in relationship strength.”

Our declining sense of reciprocity is not an argument for subsidizing charity but for reducing the dominance of market thinking.  Not surprisingly, Professor Shiller does not pursue this argument.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. column: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/business/the-charitable-deduction-and-why-it-needs-to-stay.html
  2. notes: http://www.southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/subsidize-giving/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/subsidize-giving/


The Headlines Say It All. When Guns Are Involved, People Die

by David Morris | December 18, 2012 12:40 pm

[1]A letter to the editor in today’s New York Times succinctly makes the case that when guns are involved, people die. When they’re not, people are hurt.

To the Editor:

The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2012:

Page A1: “Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut[2].” Twenty children shot, 20 died.

Page A9: “Man Stabs 22 Children in China[3].” Twenty-two received knife wounds, 22 survived.

National Rifle Association claim: Guns don’t kill. People do.

Case closed.

JOHN ISRAEL
. Decatur, Ga., Dec. 16, 2012

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/headlines-all-guns-involved-people-die/gun-and-knife/
  2. Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html
  3. Man Stabs 22 Children in China: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-children-in-china.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/headlines-all-guns-involved-people-die/


Report: Rooftop Revolution

by John Farrell | December 14, 2012 2:30 pm

At the start of 2012, the United States had over 4,000 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaics (PV) connected to the grid, with the pace of new installations accelerating as the price continues to fall. There has never been a better opportunity for Americans to generate their own electricity on-site nor such a challenge to the electricity system paradigm and for its policy makers and regulators.  The greatest challenge is to prepare: although only 0.1% of electricity is generated by solar power in 2012; within a decade, 300,000 MW of unsubsidized solar power will be at parity with retail electricity prices in most of the United States and more than 35 million buildings may be generating their own solar electricity sufficient to power almost 10% of the country.

Learn more:

Read the reports:
View the interactive map:
View the infographic:[1][2] View presentation:
rooftop revolution presentation screengrab[3]
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Endnotes:
  1. View the infographic:: https://ilsr.org/get-ready-solar-rooftop-revolution/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/get-ready-solar-rooftop-revolution/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/utility-ready-solar-rooftop-revolution/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/rooftop-revolution/


Lincoln, the Movie, and The Rest of the Story

by David Morris | December 7, 2012 10:34 am

Lincoln is a magnificent movie. But as I left the theatre, to echo Paul Harvey, the late radio commentator, I wanted to know “the rest of the story”.

The movie begins in January 1865, exactly 2 years after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves of the Confederate States “thenceforward and forever free. ”

As Lincoln himself told Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles issuing the Proclamation was a “military necessity. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.”   Indeed, Lincoln wanted to issue the Proclamation in July 1862 but Secretary of State William Seward cautioned that the series of military defeats suffered by the Union army that year would lead many to view such a move simply as an act of desperation.   The victory at Antietam in September gave Lincoln the opportunity he needed.

The Emancipation Proclamation helped the Union immeasurably.  It converted a war to preserve the union into a war of liberation, a change that gained widespread support in key European nations.  And by rescinding a 1792 ban on blacks serving in the armed forces, the Proclamation solved the increasingly pressing personnel needs of the Union Army in the face of declining number of white volunteers. During the war nearly 200,000 blacks, most of them ex-slaves joined the Union Army, giving the North additional manpower needed to win the war.   As historian James M. McPherson writes, “The proclamation officially turned the Union army into an army of liberation…And by authorizing the enlistment of freed slaves into the army, the final proclamation went a long step toward creating that army of liberation.”

Abolitionists viewed arming ex-slaves as a major step toward giving them equality.  Frederick Douglass urged blacks to join the army for this reason. “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.”

The movie focuses on one month—January 1865–and the Congressional vote on the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Indeed, it could have been subtitled, “How a bill becomes a law.”  The film ends with triumphant celebrations by whites and blacks after the Amendment that ended slavery throughout the nation passed by the razor thin margin of two votes.  But earning the rights of citizenship was to prove a much more protracted affair.

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lincoln-movie-rest-story/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lincoln-movie-rest-story/


Report: Commercial Rooftop Revolution

by John Farrell | December 4, 2012 4:50 pm

[1]The United States has over 4,000 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaics (PV) connected to the grid, with the pace of new installations accelerating as the price continues to fall. There has never been a better opportunity for Americans to generate their own electricity on-site nor such a challenge to the electricity system paradigm and for its policy makers and regulators.  The greatest challenge is to prepare: although only 0.1% of electricity is generated by solar power in 2012; within a decade, 300,000 MW of unsubsidized solar power will be at parity with retail electricity prices in most of the United States and more than 35 million buildings may be generating their own solar electricity sufficient to power almost 10% of the country.

Download Commercial Rooftop Revolution

Solar parity begins in areas with strong sun and high electricity prices.  In some places (like Hawaii) that has already occurred.  In several parts of the country, e.g. southern California, New York, parity is just around the corner.  Commercial solar represents a third of the total installed base for solar PV and it has grown faster and the price has fallen more rapidly (by nearly 30% in two years) than for residential solar. Meanwhile, retail electricity prices have risen by 3% per year in the past decade.

Until now, the solar energy boom has largely been driven by federal tax incentives and state-based incentives.  But incentive policies will also need to change to accommodate the uneven geographic distribution of unsubsidized solar at price parity.

Furthermore, almost all attention on solar power has been focused on cost, but industry, utilities, and policy makers need to begin addressing significant non-cost barriers that will become prominent as parity arrives.

Key Findings

  • Falling solar costs will result in 33,000 MW of unsubsidized commercial rooftop solar achieving price parity by 2016, enough to meet 2.7% of commercial electricity demand.
  • Falling solar costs mean 122,000 MW of unsubsidized commercial rooftop solar will be at price parity by 2022, enough to meet 10% of commercial electricity demand.
  • Although commercial solar is growing faster, unsubsidized residential solar has a significantly larger parity potential (190,000 MW by 2022, compared to 122,000 MW for commercial solar).
  • Together, unsubsidized residential and commercial solar at price parity could provide 9% of total U.S. electricity by 2022.
  • As the economic barrier shatters, other barriers to rooftop solar emerge: archaic utility rules (e.g. the 15% Rule), net metering caps, limits of local permitting offices, and a dearth of state virtual net metering policies.

 

Year-by-Year Solar Parity Potential

The following table shows the parity potential for residential and commercial solar power by year.  For example, in 2016 when the installed cost of solar will approach $3 per Watt, there’s a potential to install 75,000 MW of residential solar and 33,000 MW of commercial solar in utility service territories at prices competitive with retail electricity.

[2]

Existing federal and state incentives expand and accelerate the parity opportunity, but also create pitfalls.  The sudden reduction of the federal tax credit in 2016 could set back solar markets in several states by 5 to 6 years.  But without incentive changes, the tax credit may over-reward producers in sunny states at the expense of those in states with nascent solar markets.

Policy makers need to replace a one-size-fits-all incentive program with one that can adapt to the rapidly falling cost of solar and variations in regional competitiveness (e.g. a CLEAN Contract). It will also be necessary to address unexpected barriers to solar that emerge as the cost issue fades away.

A Decade Spreads Solar Parity Far and Wide

The following maps illustrate the enormous potential for the spread of solar at retail price parity.  An impressive 5.5 gigawatts of solar is already at price parity in 2012, rising to 122 gigawatts in 2022.

[3]

 

Like what you see?  Get email updates on ILSR’s energy work![4]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Screen-Shot-2012-12-04-at-3.14.14-PM.png
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Screen-Shot-2012-12-04-at-3.14.00-PM.png
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/commercial-solar-parity-2012-20221.png
  4. Get email updates on ILSR’s energy work!: http://ilsr.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3x5/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/commercial-roofop-revolution/


Why We Can’t Shop Our Way to a Better Economy: Stacy Mitchell’s TEDx Talk

by Stacy Mitchell | December 1, 2012 3:00 pm

[1]In this TEDx talk, delivered on October 20, 2012 at TEDxDirigo[2]‘s Villages conference at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, conference, ILSR Senior Researcher Stacy Mitchell argues for a new phase in the local economy movement. She notes that there’s been a resurgence of support for small farms, local businesses, and community banks, but argues:

“As remarkable as these trends are, they are unlikely to amount to more than an small sideshow on the margins of the mainstream if the only way we can conceive of confronting corporate power and bringing about a new economy is through our buying decisions… What we really need to do is change the underlying policies that shape our economy. We can’t do that through the sum of our individual behavior in the marketplace. We can only do it by exercising our collective power as citizens.”

Please watch and leave us your comments, and help us share widely.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. TEDxDirigo: http://tedxdirigo.com

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/ted/


How Walmart is Devouring the Food System (Infographic)

by Stacy Mitchell | December 1, 2012 2:41 pm

[1]Walmart now captures $1 of every $4 Americans spend on groceries. It’s on track to claim one-third of food sales within five years. Here’s a look at how Walmart has dramatically altered the food system — triggering massive consolidation, driving down prices to farmers, and leaving more families struggling to afford healthy food.

This infographic was also published on Grist[2] and Huffington Post[3].

Infographic: Walmart is Taking Over the Food System[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Grist: http://grist.org/food/how-walmart-is-devouring-the-food-system/
  3. Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-mitchell/how-walmart-is-devouring-_b_2231974.html
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Walmart-food-infographic.jpg

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/infographic-walmart-food/


Seeking a Director of Strategy and Development

by ILSR | November 14, 2012 1:36 pm

We are expanding our team and are looking for an energetic individual passionate about ILSR’s mission to serve as Director of Strategy and Development.  This is a great opportunity for an experienced fundraiser and nonprofit leader to help ILSR grow and develop new strategies during an important time. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/director-strategy-development/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/director-strategy-development/


Creating Jobs and Saving Money through Reuse – A Deconstruction Case Study

by Neil Seldman | November 13, 2012 9:34 am

The joint venture between Westmoreland Community Action[1] (WCA), Greensburg, PA, and The ReUse People[2] (TRP), Oakland, CA, completes a circle begun over a decade ago when HHS engaged ILSR to explore the feasibility of building deconstruction as a community development tool. The ILSR technical assistance work that followed led to the start up and expansion of numerous deconstruction companies and projects. As advisor to TRP, ILSR suggested that WCA would be a suitable partner as TRP expanded from its base in CA to nine additional sites throughout the US. WCA and TRP have been working together for the past two years.

Background

Westmoreland Community Action, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in Greensburg, PA, has been serving disadvantaged residents in Westmoreland County and surrounding counties in southwestern Pennsylvania since 1980.  WCA’s mission is to “strengthen communities and families to eliminate poverty,” and the organization currently runs 22 programs to achieve its organizational goals.  WCA provides housing services including the construction of 10-20 homes per year.  The organization also offers emergency assistance in addition to employment, mental health, and child development programs. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Westmoreland Community Action: http://www.who-inc.org/
  2. The ReUse People: http://thereusepeople.org/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/westmoreland-deconstruction-case-study/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/westmoreland-deconstruction-case-study/


Finding Value in Distributed Generation, Before it Finds You

by John Farrell | November 9, 2012 4:17 pm

[1]ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell is giving this presentation to a collaborative meeting of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) this weekend.  It highlights the proven value of distributed solar to utility grid systems and the urgent need for regulators and utilities to incorporate this value into their long-term plans, because distributed and unsubsidized solar is poised to explode as it reaches retail price parity.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. John Farrell: //www.slideshare.net/farrell-ilsr

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/finding-distributed-generation-finds/


Even Superstorm Sandy Couldn’t Stop the Mailman

by David Morris | November 8, 2012 11:29 am

[1]“Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds.” Bill Fletcher Jr. of the Institute for Policy Studies tells of how he was reminded of that covenant when in the middle of superstorm Sandy he saw a postal van traveling on his street. And he reminded us that we should not expect such commitment and dedication by a public institution and public servants if private companies and private employees delivered the mail.

Postal Service Undeterred by Superstorm Sandy

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/superstorm-sandy-stop-mailman/foreverstamp-1/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/superstorm-sandy-stop-mailman/


What Utilities Can Do for Distributed Solar

by John Farrell | October 31, 2012 1:06 pm

Last week the Minnesota Public Utility Commission had a rare live public comment period on Xcel Energy’s long term planning process (called an Integrated Resource Plan).  At the urging of several fellow clean energy advocates, I gave my 3 minute testimony about the enormous gulf between Xcel’s 10-year plan for solar power and the solar opportunity.

In their plan, the state’s largest electric utility indicated an interest in adding 20 megawatts (MW) of solar power to their Minnesota system (in comparison to a current statewide capacity of around 6-7 MW).  If that seems small, consider that our forthcoming report on commercial solar grid parity indicates an opportunity to construct 940 MW of commercial rooftop solar at a price (without subsidies) that matches or beats retail electricity prices.  The opportunity for residential solar is 2-3 times greater.  Combined, 4400 MW of unsubsidized rooftop solar could compete with utility retail prices statewide by 2022.

In other words, Xcel’s plan is remarkable under-estimate of Minnesota’s likely solar market in the next decade.

Minnesota is a utility-regulated state.  In other words, Xcel is a government-sanctioned monopoly with guaranteed customers and a guaranteed profit.  Being the public utility for half the state means Xcel also has a public responsibility to the citizens of Minnesota, many of whom will want to take advantage of the chance to generate their own power, cut their electric bills, and keep their energy dollars local.

There are several ways Xcel could meet that public responsibility:

  • Conduct and publish a study of the solar rooftop potential in their service territory on all public and private buildings, as has been done in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, and many other places.
  • Publish an interactive, publicly accessible map of available capacity on the distribution system to help guide local distributed generation into locations most beneficial to the grid (as has been done by all three major investor-owned utilities in California).
  • Provide a long-term, but declining incentive for solar power (and other distributed renewable energy) that helps create a stable market for steady growth from today until price parity is reached (like Germany’s feed-in tariff or California’s Solar Incentive).

As a government-sanctioned monopoly, Xcel should enable its customers to make energy decisions that reduce their bills, generate clean energy, and keep their energy dollars local.  It’s the least they can do for their guaranteed shareholder return.

Photo credit[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cocreatr/5386929721/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/utilities-distributed-solar/


Sandy and the Importance of Government

by David Morris | October 30, 2012 4:49 pm

If this election is a referendum on the benefit of government then superstorm Sandy should be Exhibit A for the affirmative. The government weather service, using data from government weather satellites delivered a remarkably accurate and sobering long range forecast that both catalyzed action and gave communities sufficient time to prepare. Those visually stunning maps you saw on the web or t.v. were largely based on public data made publicly available from local, state and federal agencies.

As the storm neared, governors and mayors ordered the evacuation of low lying areas. Police and firefighters ensured these orders were carried out and helped those needing assistance. As the storm hit, mayors imposed curfews.

Government 911 and 311 telephone operators quickly and effectively responded to hundreds of thousands of individual calls for assistance and information. Indeed, the volume of those calls may lead us to propose a different answer to the question asked by those famous lines from the movie Ghostbusters. “If there’s something weird and it don’t look good who ya gonna call?” Government.

Public schools and other public buildings were quickly converted into temporary shelters. Transit systems and bridges were closed when public safety might be compromised.

Tens of thousands National Guard troops were mobilized to assist at evacuation shelters, route clearance, search and rescue and delivery of essential equipment and supplies. USNORTHCOM placed its forces on 24-hour alert to provide medium and heavy lift helicopters and rescue teams and activated local military bases for possible use by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Before the storm hit state agencies required emergency preparedness plans from publicly regulated utilities and after the storm hit monitored their responses.

The President quickly issued Major Disaster Declarations that allowed states and communities to access funding for recovery efforts. His ongoing hands-on role earned him the fulsome praise of New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie who told Good Morning America, “I have to say, the administration, the president himself and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate have been outstanding with us so far.”

Public agencies swung into action to protect bridges, and roads, and sewer plants and subways and to plan for a cleanup that will require clearing debris, repairing infrastructure, and providing financial and other assistance to homeowners and businesses.

Seven years ago, Katrina showed the tragic consequences when government fails its duty to respond to natural disasters. But that was the exception that proves the rule. When disasters hit, the government is the only agent with the authority and capacity to marshal and mobilize resources sufficient to the undertaking. It can coordinate across jurisdictions and with both public and private actors. And its mission is not to enhance its balance sheet but to preserve the well being of its citizens. And in October 2012 it has shown how effectively it can perform that task.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/sandy-importance-government/


Six Small Business Issues at Stake in this Election

by Stacy Mitchell | October 22, 2012 9:45 am

A number of critical small business issues are at stake in next month’s federal and state elections. Below we take a look at six of these issues.

1. Restructuring the Banking System

Nearly half of all small businesses have been unable to secure adequate financing, according to recent surveys. Even as the economy recovers, lending is unlikely to improve significantly because the problem is largely structural. Big banks, which increasingly dominate the banking system, do relatively little small business lending[1]. Since 2007, the share of bank assets held by the largest 18 banks grew from 52 to 60 percent[2]. Meanwhile, small and mid-sized banks, which provide most small business loans, have been losing ground. Over 900 of these banks have disappeared since 2007, casualties of the recession and government policy responses that have favored big banks.

What to look for in Congressional candidates:

  • Supports the SAFE Banking Act[3], which would cap the size of banks and force the largest banks to be split up.

Presidential positions: Romney has said that he does not support breaking up big banks. The Obama Administration opposed an amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that was similar to the SAFE Banking Act.

What to look for in candidates for state offices:

  • Supports depositing public funds with local banks[4]. The state of Massachusetts, for example, has spurred 2,500 new small business loans in the last year by moving $278 million in public funds to local banks.
  • Favors creating a public partnership bank similar to the Bank of North Dakota[5], which has expanded the lending capacity of local banks and thereby made credit more available for local businesses. Bills to create state partnership banks have been introduced in many states.

2. Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. do relatively little small business lending: https://ilsr.org/big-lend/
  2. 52 to 60 percent: https://ilsr.org/small-business-lending-charts/
  3. SAFE Banking Act: https://ilsr.org/rule/market-share-caps/market-share-cap-safe-banking-act/
  4. depositing public funds with local banks: https://ilsr.org/rule/depositing-public-funds-in-local-banks/
  5. Bank of North Dakota: https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/small-business-issues-stake-election/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/small-business-issues-stake-election/


What a Difference a Court Makes

by David Morris | October 16, 2012 12:40 pm

In a democracy the majority wins. Which makes minority groups vulnerable.  At the dawn of the Republic John Adams warned about “the tyranny of the majority.”

Almost a century later, the 14th Amendment finally declared that no State shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  Despite its being passed specifically to protect the rights of ex-slaves from the south’s new Black Codes, the Supreme Court astonishingly ruled the 14th Amendment did not apply to states as it dismissed indictments for lynching two blacks that had been issued based on violations of the Amendment.

Sixty years later the Court reversed itself. In the 1950s and 1960s the Warren Court, now viewed by conservatives as engaging in unwanted judicial activism, intervened to protect minorities from state legislatures.

In 1966, the Supreme Court struck down a $1.50 tax imposed on each voter (equivalent to about $10.50 today).  Legislators in southern states defended the poll tax as a way to prevent “repeaters and floaters” from committing voting fraud. The Court disagreed.  It rules that voting is a fundamental constitutional right and thus the burden was on the state to prove that a discriminatory law was necessary.   The Court argued[1] that introducing a “wealth or payment of a fee as a measure of a voter’s qualifications” violated the equal protection clause by unfairly burdening low-income, mostly black voters.

In 1967, the Court overturned[2] bans on interracial marriage that remained on the books, and in some cases the constitutions of 16 states.  The defendant, the state of Virginia argued that marriage laws are traditionally under the control of states and it had a rationale for treating interracial marriages different from other marriages because some studies found that children of interracial couples suffered intellectually and emotionally and the Bible clearly revealed God’s intention to separate the races.  The Virginia Supreme Court had agreed, “Both sacred and secular history teach that nations and races have better advanced in human progress when they cultivated their own distinctive characteristics and culture and developed their own peculiar genius.”

“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” the Court declared.  “Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.”  And because the freedom to marry is a fundamental right, the burden of proof is heavily on the state to offer substantial evidence that limiting access to that fundamental right was necessary to achieve a compelling government interest. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. argued: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0383_0663_ZO.html
  2. overturned: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0388_0001_ZO.html
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/difference-court/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/difference-court/


Exemptions/Exclusions Added to Atlanta Airport Info Packet

by ILSR | October 11, 2012 9:37 am

Reposted from Elemental Impact’s Zero Waste in Action blog[1]
By: Holly Elmore

The Sustainable Food Court Initiative[2] (SFCI) Airport Pilot, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, [3]works closely with the SFCI Team to bring sustainable operating practices to their operations, especially regarding food waste. In early 2012 the Atlanta Airport made a bold statement in the new concessionaire contract, the largest foodservice contract executed in North America. In the new contract, airport food vendors must meet the following provision:

“Concessionaire shall use compostable serviceware along with consumer facing packaging and source separate all food service wastes for direct transport to off airport composting facilities.” (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Zero Waste in Action blog: http://zerowastezone.blogspot.com/2012/10/exemptions-exclusions-added-to-atlanta.html
  2. Sustainable Food Court Initiative: http://elementalimpact.org/SFCI
  3. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, : http://www.atlanta-airport.com/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/atlanta-airport-exemptions-added/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/atlanta-airport-exemptions-added/


Is It All About Hormones?

by David Morris | October 9, 2012 11:40 am

[1]Sometimes everywhere I turn, the story line seems to pivot on hormones.

Recently the Boys Scouts denied[2] Ryan Anderson, a gay 17 year-old the rank of Eagle Scout because “he does not meet scouting’s membership standard on sexual orientation.”  Last April, Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian parent in Ohio, was forced out[3] as a den mother of her son’s Tiger Scouts group. (Can it be the Tiger Scouts were worried their boys would become lesbians?)

Way back in 1991, the Girl Scouts also grappled with the issue of homosexuality, but they came to a starkly different conclusion[4] than their male counterparts. “As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference.”  They’ve never found it necessary to revisit that policy nor, apparently have they been under much pressure to do so.

And then there’s the Catholic Church.

A few months ago, on orders from male Pope Benedict XVI, the all male Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (popularly known as the Holy Inquisition) appointed a male Archbishop from Seattle to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).  The LCWR is an association comprised of 80 percent of America’s Catholic sisters.  What was the nuns’ heresy?  Focusing too much on promoting social justice and too little on opposing contraception and same-sex marriage.  The head of the church’s doctrinal office informed[5] the nuns they should regard their receivership as “an invitation to obedience.”

And Wall Street.

Unlike the Catholic Church, Wall Street cannot use scripture to justify excluding and diminishing women.  Yet its organizational ranks eerily echo those of the Vatican.  Women comprise only[6] 2.5 percent of U.S. CEOs of finance and insurance companies.  And Wall Street also treats its heretical women with contempt.

In 1997, in Congressional testimony Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned that unregulated trading in derivatives could “threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it.” She called for greater transparency.  The New York Times later revealed[7] that Alan Greenspan treated her with “condescension”.  Larry Summers “chastise(d) her.”  When she persisted Greenspan, Robert Rubin and the head of the SEC, Arthur Levitt, Jr., called on Congress “to prevent Ms. Born from acting.”  Months later, the huge hedge fund Long Term Capital Management nearly collapsed–confirming Born’s warnings. (Bets on derivatives were a key reason for the collapse.) “Despite that event,” the Times reports,” Congress ‘froze’ Born’s Commissions’ regulatory authority.” The next year, she left as head of the Commission.

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/male-female-images1.jpg
  2. denied: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/gay-boy-scout-denied-eagle-award-believes-god/story?id=17407747
  3. forced out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/boy-scout-den-mother-lesbian-_n_1434307.html
  4. conclusion: http://humanraceandothersports.com/columns/632/religious-and-sexual-orientation-in-the-bsa
  5. informed: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/us/us-nuns-weigh-response-to-scathing-vatican-critique.html?pagewanted=all
  6. only: http://m.cutimes.com/2012/01/13/editors-column-women-executives-key-to-the-success
  7. revealed: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?pagewanted=all
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/hormones/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/hormones/


Illinois’ Game-Changing E-scrap Law

by Neil Seldman | October 4, 2012 5:00 pm

The Illinois Electronic Products Recycling and Reuse Act[1] is breaking the mold of 25 state e-scrap laws. Under the law, passed in 2008 and amended in 2011, companies that reuse machines get twice the credit of those companies that recycle the materials.

The law addresses the fastest growing part of the U.S. waste stream, mandating that manufacturers pay for recycling their products after consumers are through with them. According to Mel Nickerson, of the Environmental Law & Policy Center[2], over 130 million cell phones are discarded annually in the U.S. Most e-scrap is sent overseas where improper “recycling” burden people and the environment with dioxins, mercury, lead and other toxics. When these materials go to U.S. landfills they act as filters for rain, which then pollutes groundwater with these same toxic materials. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Illinois Electronic Products Recycling and Reuse Act: https://ilsr.org/rule/escrap-illinois/%20
  2. Environmental Law & Policy Center: http://elpc.org/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/illinois-game-changing-e-scrap-law/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/illinois-game-changing-e-scrap-law/


We’re the NFL. We don’t have to care.

by David Morris | September 26, 2012 10:14 am

Watching professional football these days reminds me of Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine the telephone operator on Saturday Night Live and her famous punch line, “We don’t care.  We don’t have to.  We’re the phone company.”

Or in this case the National Football League.  For those who don’t follow football, let me bring you up to date.  In June the NFL locked out its referees and has been using replacements ever since.  Referees at major college conferences refused to become scabs so the NFL reached down into the lower college and even high school ranks.

The result, as many predicted, has been a disaster.

“We have all seen officials have bad games. We have even seen bad officials. This is different, and unlike anything I can remember,” writes Michael Rosenberg of Inside NFL. “These guys are overwhelmed. They look like they spent 20 years riding a bicycle and now they have to fly a plane, and they keep looking around the cockpit for the handlebar brakes.”

Mike Pereira, who used to oversee NFL officiating before he went on Fox t.v. reveals[1] that his on-the-air commentary has become much more challenging. “I’m not sure how refs arrive at rulings when they aren’t using NFL rules.”

Games are longer and much more tedious as replacement officials huddle and huddle and huddle trying to figure out what to do.  “They’re killing the tempo and flow of the game,” CBS’ Shannon Sharpe asserts[2].

Typically, the home team wins a little more than 50 percent of the time. This season, the home team is 31-17 writes[3] Marc Tracy at The New Republic.  Some believe this is a result of replacements being intimidated by hometown fans.

It’s gotten so bad that Mitch Mortaza, founder of the Lingerie Football League, a league that has fined players for wearing too many clothes, recently tried to make his league look good by comparison. “Due to several on-field incompetent officiating we chose to part ways with a couple crews which apparently are now officiating in the NFL,” he writes[4] on the league’s Facebook page.  “We have not made public comment to date because we felt it was not our place to do so. However in light of tonight’s event, we felt it was only fair that NFL fans knew the truth as to who are officiating these games.”

The “event” he was referring to occurred on Monday Night Football.  With a few seconds to go the Seattle Seahawks QB launched a Hail Mary pass into the end zone.  A Packer caught the ball and a Seahawk quickly grabbed on to it. According to NFL rules that meant the pass was an interception.  Two replacement officials, positioned perfectly on either side of the corner of the end zone, made two opposite calls. They huddled and huddled and after reviewing the play ruled it a touchdown.  Only the hometown fans were happy.  Others are already calling[5] it the play that will live in infamy.

The assault on the integrity of the game, and the safety of the players, has not fazed the NFL.  Before the season began Dave Zirin and Mike Elk predicted[6] in The Nation, “The NFL clearly believes with no small amount of justification that they can do this because no one will care.”   At the time NFL Vice President Ray Anderson apparently agreed, “You’ve never paid for an NFL ticket to watch someone officiate a game.”

By the second week of the new football season coaches and players were vigorously complaining about the officiating.  The NFL quickly responded by threatening to discipline those coaches or owners who publicly protested.  “We contacted them to remind them that everyone has a responsibility to respect the game,” said NFL’s Ray Anderson.  A few days later the fines began.

On SportsCenter, former Forty Niner QB Steve Young forthrightly explained[7] to fans that nothing could be done, “Everything about the NFL now is inelastic for demand. There’s nothing they can do to hurt the demand for the game. So the bottom line is they don’t care. Player safety—doesn’t matter in this case. Bring in the Division III officials–-doesn’t matter. Because in the end, you’re still going to watch the game, we’re going to all complain and moan and gripe and say there’s all these problems, all the coaches say it, the players say it—doesn’t matter. So just go ahead, gripe all you want.”

After griping, Josh Levin at Slate grudgingly agrees[8],  “It’s crappy to know that you and I and all the NFL fans out there provide the NFL’s leverage against its workers. But what are we supposed to do—not watch football? … Being a silent accomplice to Roger Goodell’s union-busting barely even registers.”

The key bargaining issue between owners and workers has to do with money.  No surprise there.  What is surprising is how little money is involved–$3.3 million a year according[9] to Peter King of Sports Illustrated.  That’s the amount the NFL wants to cut from its current pension contributions.

Compare that to the $3 billion a year the 32 owners of the NFL are dividing up in t.v. revenue, plus the tens of millions of dollars more they make from selling tickets, merchandise, concessions, etc.   The cost of keeping referees pensions where they are is about $100,000 per team.  A few days ago Forbes came out with its 2012 list of billionaires.  Three more NFL owners made the list, bringing the total number of billionaire football owners to 18.

Ironically, there is another sticking point between referees and owners.  The owners want to be able to “bench” referees who make mistakes in order to hold them accountable.  But no replacement referee has yet to be benched.

And who will hold the owners accountable for the way they have undermined the sport?  Apparently no one.  We like our football too much.

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Endnotes:
  1. reveals: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/story/2012/09/23/fox-rules-analyst-pereira-lone-winner-in-nfl-replacement-officials-saga/57834462/1
  2. asserts: http://www.cbspressexpress.com/cbs-sports/releases/view?id=33021
  3. writes: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/107712/the-nfl-replacement-refs-reach-the-tipping-point
  4. writes: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/replacement-refs-working-nfl-fired-lingerie-football-league-report-article-1.1167796
  5. calling: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000065969/article/seahawks-hail-mary-vs-packers-will-live-in-infamy
  6. predicted: http://www.thenation.com/blog/169593/why-are-nfl-refs-locked-out-its-all-game
  7. explained: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/09/18/steve-young-rips-nfl-replacement-referees/70000551/1
  8. agrees: http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/features/2012/nfl_2012/week_2/replacement_refs_the_nfl_will_win_the_referee_lockout_no_matter_how_much_you_complain_.html
  9. according: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/25/monday-night-football-ending-brings-more-heat-to-replacement-refs/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/were-nfl-dont-care/


John Farrell Presents on Local Energy Options for Minneapolis

by John Farrell | September 20, 2012 2:19 pm

[1]What happens when a city’s franchise contracts with its incumbent electric and gas utilities expires?  A once-in-20-year opportunity to consider how its energy can be cleaner, more affordable, more reliable, and more local.  ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell presents to Environment Minnesota’s Green Ideas and Ham policy breakfast, discussing the implications of an expiring franchise and some examples of how municipal utilities are pushing the envelope on clean, local energy.

Listen to the presentation audio[2] as you click through the slides.

Minneapolis Energy Options from John Farrell[3]

 

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[4]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[5] or Marie Donahue[6] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[7] update. Also check out over 50 episodes of the Local Energy Rules podcast[8]!

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. Listen to the presentation audio: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/john-farrell-green-ideas-MEO.mp3
  3. John Farrell: https://www.slideshare.net/farrell-ilsr
  4. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  5. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  6. Marie Donahue: https://twitter.com/mlynndonahue
  7. Energy Democracy weekly: https://mailchi.mp/74e2d8e4cb9b/energy-self-reliant-states-newsletter
  8. Local Energy Rules podcast: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/john-farrell-presents-local-energy-options-minneapolis/


The Times They Are A’Changing. Or Are They?

by David Morris | September 13, 2012 3:19 pm

The recent colorful tirade by Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe against a legislator who demanded the Baltimore Ravens owner fire linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo for supporting gay marriage and the overwhelmingly positive response to it by football fans and players alike are heartwarming developments.  It shows how far we’ve come.  But the fact that voters in four states—Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Washington—will have an opportunity this November to ban same sex marriage and voters in 31 states have already approved constitutional amendments to that effect, usually by wide margins, shows how far we have to go.

The path from prejudice to understanding and acceptance has been much smoother in other countries.  Eight European countries have legalized same sex marriage, including predominantly Catholic countries like Portugal and Spain.  In Europe this is not a left-right issue.  The new Socialist-led government in France promises to legalize same sex marriage next year.  The Conservative-led government in Britain will introduce similar legislation.

On this continent, in 2000 the Canadian Parliament, by a wide margin, banned same-sex marriage.  Five years later, after a series of court decisions overturned bans on same-sex marriage in several Canadian provinces the nation’s legislators revisited the issue, reversed themselves and legalized same-sex marriage.

In this country, by contrast, whenever state courts have overturned a ban on same sex marriage as a violation of state constitutions, Americans often have reacted by changing state constitutions or enacting federal laws that devalue same sex marriage in those states that do legalize it.  In 1996, for example, after a Hawaiian court concluded that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the equal rights provision of its constitution Congress quickly passed the Defense of Marriage Act denying federal benefits to same-sex couples even if they are legally married under state law.  And Hawaiians promptly changed their constitution to allow their legislature to ban gay marriages, which it just as promptly did.

As I was doing research for my recently published book, The Thoughtful Voter’s Guide to Same Sex Marriage:  A Tool for the Decided, the Undecided and the Genuinely Perplexed[1], I was struck by how many times we’ve addressed and changed the institution of marriage.  We’ve upgraded the status of wives (originally subordinate to their husbands in the eyes of the law), enabled no-fault divorce (initially a spouse had to prove adultery), permitted family planning (initially in many states the sale of contraceptives was illegal), and overturned bans on interracial marriage.

I was also reminded of how often scripture was used to justify opposition to change.  Believe that wives must be subservient?  Cite Genesis 2:24.  Oppose allowing divorce simply when both parties want one?  Cite  Matthew 19:3-9. Oppose contraception?  Cite Genesis 1:28.  Oppose interracial marriage?  Cite Acts 17:24-26.

Opponents of same sex marriage argue they are defending the institution of marriage but their arguments have little to do with marriage.   After all, the institution of marriage has suffered grievously in the only-heterosexuals-can-marry era.  The percentage of households comprised of married couples plunged from 78 percent in 1950 to just 48 percent in 2010. Meanwhile the 2010 Census reported about 600,000 same sex households in this country.  Allowing those among them who want to abandon cohabitation and choose marriage to do so can only strengthen the institution of marriage.

Nor does the argument opponents make that they are defending the psyche and safety of children have anything to do with marriage. Same sex couples already parent 115,000 children and study after study after study finds them at least as well-adjusted as children of heterosexual couples.  In 2008 a Florida Circuit Court judge, after taking voluminous testimony from both sides on whether to overturn that state’s ban on adoption by same-sex couples flatly concluded, “… based on the robust nature of the evidence available in the field, this Court is satisfied that the issue is so far beyond dispute that it would be irrational to hold otherwise; the best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption.” Indeed, as psychologist Abbie Goldberg points out, the fact that gays and lesbians do not become parents by accident, compared to almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rates among heterosexuals “translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement”.  And allowing same sex couples with children to marry can only benefit the child.

No, the arguments against same-sex marriage are not about marriage;  they’re about homosexuality. We should remember that only a generation ago an admission of homosexuality could not only get one fired but arrested.  In 1970 the IRS rejected the application of The Pride Foundation for a non profit tax exemption by declaring the organization’s goal of “advanc(ing) the welfare of the homosexual community” to be “perverted or deviate behavior…contrary to public policy and therefore not ‘charitable’”.

We’ve come a long way since then, but the road has been bumpy and we have yet to arrive at our destination.   In a cover story, Entertainment Weekly noted that just 15 years ago when Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet the story became the cover of Time magazine, a major story on Oprah and the subject of an editorial in the New York Times.  Today t.v. and movie actors come out with little publicity.  “What was impossible 60s year ago and dangerous 40 years ago and difficult 20 years ago is now becoming no big deal.”

Nevertheless, prejudice against homosexuals is still widespread. In 34 states it is still legal for lesbian and gay employees to be fired simply because their employers disapprove of their sexual orientation. And the vitriol of opponents of same sex marriage, especially among the clergy, has lent legitimacy to that prejudice.  The FBI reports a significant increase in hate crimes directed at gays and lesbians.

In several states the Catholic Church is leading the fight against legal recognition of same sex couples. In Minnesota virtually all funding for the opposition to same-sex marriage has come from the Catholic Church.  Earlier this year the Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis declared the banning of same sex marriage one of the most important ambitions of the Church and made clear he would brook no dissent on this issue from any member of the clergy.  He then ordered priests to sermonize on the sins of same sex marriage and say a prayer for its prohibition every Sunday and began sending teams to high schools to tutor seniors on the definition of marriage.

The Archbishop has had trouble finding scriptural justification for his frenetic campaign.  In a letter to the clergy early this year he offered two pieces of biblical evidence to support his crusade.   A passage in Genesis that says Adam was lonely so God made Eve and they, the only two people on earth, had sex (even though they weren’t married.)  And a passage from Matthew that contains Jesus’ opposition to divorce and has nothing to do with homosexuality, which Jesus never condemns) nor same sex marriage.

The Catholic Church, regrettably, doesn’t point to the part of the New Testament that conveys the essence of the values that Jesus hoped would be the foundation of Christianity.  Matthew relates the story of a Pharisee asking Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” His answer is both instructive and revealing as to which side of the debate He might take.   “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (22:36-40)

I suspect that for Jesus what is important is not a family structure based on biology or even heterosexual relationships but the quality of love exhibited in relationships.  Unfortunately, those who oppose the right of loving, committed individuals to become married often seem driven more by hate than love.

In 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the constitutional amendment approved by the voters that banned same-sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution.  After taking weeks of testimony from both sides he concluded,  “The considered views and opinions of even the most highly qualified scholars and experts seldom outweigh the determinations of the voters.  When challenged, however, the voters’ determinations must find at least some support in evidence… Conjecture, speculation and fears are not enough.  Still less will the moral disapprobation of a group or class of citizens suffice, no matter how large the majority that shares that view. The evidence demonstrated beyond serious reckoning that Proposition 8 finds support only in such disapproval.”

To date no ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage has been defeated.  We will see in November whether that string continues or whether we will be able to say we have turned a corner and are willing to join the increasing part of the rest of the western world that accepts the diversity of the human condition and truly honors the precept, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 

 

 

 

Wedding rings (c) Jeff Belmonte. Published under a creative commons license.

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. The Thoughtful Voter’s Guide to Same Sex Marriage:  A Tool for the Decided, the Undecided and the Genuinely Perplexed: https://ilsr.org/thoughtful-voters-guide-same-sex-marriage/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/times-achanging-they/


Minnesota’s First Community Solar Project is Minnesota-Made

by John Farrell | September 7, 2012 4:32 pm

Update 12/20/12: This project includes battery storage.

Just last month, the Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association[1], serving communities just north and west of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, announced Minnesota’s first community solar project.  The 40 kW solar array will be located at the cooperative’s headquarters, with members allowed to purchase individual panels in the project for $869.   In exchange, members will receive a credit on their bill equal to the electricity production of their portion of the 40 kW array.

[2]Participation in the community solar project lowers the payback period for solar, as compared to individual ownership, by 7-12 years.

The project is organized by the Clean Energy Collective[3], a Colorado-based firm that has already built two community solar projects with rural electric cooperatives in that state and with plans to build several more.  Their projects are noteworthy for being the only consistently replicable community solar model, as evidenced by their success.  (for more on community solar projects, see our 2010 report[4]).

Partnership is the key to CEC’s success, with the company providing cooperatives with “RemoteMeter” software allowing them to handle the accounting part of the community solar project (and a smartphone app to allow participants to track production).  They also handle all of the project financing and development, with utilities having merely to market the program to their members and help oversee the project interconnection to their electric grid.

The community solar project provides a good deal for members, for three reasons.  Most Minnesotans lack an appropriate, sunny space for a solar array (75% of people rent or have a roof that is unsuitable for solar).  With Wright-Hennepin’s community solar array, participants can own a share of a local, centralized system that will be maintained by the cooperative, and still get their share of the electricity as though it were on their own rooftop.

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association: http://www.whe.org/
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/gchart-community-solar-mn-payback1.png
  3. Clean Energy Collective: http://www.easycleanenergy.com/
  4. 2010 report: https://ilsr.org/community-solar-power-obstacles-and-opportunities/
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-community-solar-project-minnesota-made/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/minnesotas-community-solar-project-minnesota-made/


The Thoughtful Voter’s Guide to Same-Sex Marriage

by David Morris | August 31, 2012 11:04 am

This November voters in four states–Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington–will be voting on whether to legalize or ban same-sex marriage.

After 20 years of debate one might reasonably ask why another report on same-sex marriage would be necessary. Our reply is that although the debate has been long it has often generated more heat than light.

We learn best through debate, by listening to both sides and sifting through the evidence they present. Too often, outside the courtroom where examination and cross-examination are the basis of judicial decision making, we hear only one side or the other. And in this case we too often lose the forest for the trees, failing to step back and examine the heated debates over the definition of marriage that have occurred throughout U.S. history and abroad.

That’s why we wrote, The Thoughtful Voter’s Guide to Same-Sex Marriage: A Tool for the Decided, the Undecided and the Genuinely Perplexed

We begin with a background that puts the current debate about same-sex marriage in a historical context. We then present both sides of the debate, with extensive footnotes that allow the interested reader to dig deeper.

We opted for thoroughness rather than sound bites. The result, we concede, is a long document that demands a willingness to spend some time on the issue. We believe the reader will find the time spent rewarding. The issue itself is one of the most important ever put before voters.

Download The Thoughtful Voter’s Guide to Same-Sex Marriage: A Tool for the Decided, the Undecided and the Genuinely Perplexed

The Guide is also in print.  Bulk copies are available for as little as 50 cents apiece if ordering over 50.  For more information contact David Morris at dmorris@ilsr.org

 

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/thoughtful-voters-guide-same-sex-marriage/


How San Francisco is Dealing With Chains

by Stacy Mitchell | August 30, 2012 9:19 am

No other large American city has done as much to check the spread of chain stores as San Francisco. Under a city law enacted in 2006, a “formula” retail store or restaurant cannot open in any of the city’s neighborhood commercial districts unless it undergoes a public hearing and obtains special approval from the Planning Commission.

The restrictions have helped San Francisco maintain a relatively vibrant independent retail sector. The city has twice as many independent bookstores per capita as New York. It is home to some 80 local hardware stores. It also boasts more than 900 independent retailers selling fresh food, including more than 50 locally owned grocery stores of at least 5,000 square feet.

But San Francisco’s policy has major gaps. The law, for example, covers only neighborhood business districts, leaving the city’s downtown and other commercial areas unprotected. Its guidelines for approving formula businesses, which were written with smaller stores like Walgreens in mind, are also ill-suited to evaluating the impacts of big-box stores and large supermarket chains, which recently began pushing their way into San Francisco and other urban areas.

These gaps have allowed scores of new chain stores to slip into the city over the last couple of years. Target is opening two stores this fall. Fresh & Easy, a subsidiary of the British mega-retailer Tesco, has won approval for four stores and is working on a fifth. Whole Foods has opened half a dozen outlets. Several new malls[1] are under construction. Even Walmart is scouring the city for sites. And, while San Francisco still has half as many Starbucks stores per capita as Manhattan, it’s now home to a staggering 66, along with about the same number of chain drugstores.

“San Francisco is perceived to be a tough place for big businesses and corporate formula retail chains. The facts don’t bear this out,” said Supervisor Eric Mar, who chairs the city’s Land Use and Development Committee. “We continue to hear from neighborhood merchants and residents that they feel the city is being steadily overrun by chain stores.”

Should that trend continue, it will not only erode the city’s distinctive character. It will also weaken its economy. According to a 2005 study[2] by Civic Economics, local retailers have a much larger market share in San Francisco than they do nationally. This high proportion of local ownership is great for the city’s economy, because every $1 million in consumer spending the flows to independent businesses instead of chains generates about twice as many local jobs. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. new malls: http://www.sfbg.com/2012/07/10/malling-san-francisco
  2. study: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SFRDS-May07-2.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/san-francisco-dealing-chains/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/san-francisco-dealing-chains/


Stacy Mitchell Talks Walmart and the Future of Big-Box Retail on San Francisco’s KALW

by Stacy Mitchell | August 22, 2012 1:01 pm

ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell was a guest on Your Call[1] on San Francisco public radio station KALW. She joined host Rose Aguilar and Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect, for an hour-long conversation about how Walmart came to dominate the economy and what local business owners and retail workers are doing to counter its market power.

Listen to the show[2].

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Endnotes:
  1. Your Call: http://yourcallradio.org
  2. Listen to the show: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/082112yc.mp3

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/stacy-mitchell-interview-kalw/


Encouraging Corporate Crime

by David Morris | August 16, 2012 3:09 pm

Almost daily we read about another apparently stiff financial penalty meted out for corporate malfeasance. This year corporations are on track to pay as much as $8 billion to resolve charges of defrauding the government, a record sum, according to the Department of Justice.  Last year big business paid the SEC $2.8 billion to settle disputes.

Sounds like an awful lot of money. And it is, for you and me.  But is it a lot of money for corporate lawbreakers?  The best way to determine that is to see whether the penalties have deterred them from further wrongdoing.

The empirical evidence argues they don’t. A 2011 New York Times analysis[1] of enforcement actions during the last 15 years found at least 51 cases in which 19 Wall Street firms had broken antifraud laws they had agreed never to breach.  Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, among others, have settled fraud cases by stipulating they would never again violate an antifraud law, only to do so again and again and again.  Bank of America’s securities unit has agreed four times since 2005 not to violate a major antifraud statute, and another four times not to violate a separate law. Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America acquired in 2008, has separately agreed not to violate the same two statutes seven times since 1999. Outside the financial sector the story is similar. Erika Kelton at Forbes reports[2] that Pfizer paid $152 million in 2008; $49 million a few months later; a record-setting $2.3 billion in 2009 and $14.5 million last year. Each time it legally promised to adhere to federal law in the future.  Each time it broke that promise.

The SEC could bring contempt of court charges against serial offenders, but it doesn’t. Earlier this year the SEC revealed it has not brought any contempt charges against large financial firms in the last 10 years.  Adding insult to insult the SEC doesn’t even publicly refer to previous cases when filing new charges.

We know that CEOs of big corporations never go to jail.  We probably didn’t know they often benefit financially even when the corporations under their control violate the law. GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty recently received a significant pay boost to roughly $16.5 million just four months after Glaxo announced it will pay $3 billion to settle federal allegations of illegal marketing of many of its prescription drugs. Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO William Weldon received a 55 percent increase in his annual performance bonus for 2011 and a pay raise despite a settlement J&J is negotiating with the Justice Department that could run as high as $1.8 billion.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. analysis: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/business/in-sec-fraud-cases-banks-make-and-break-promises.html?pagewanted=all
  2. reports: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikakelton/2012/04/02/fraud-shouldnt-be-so-rewarding/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/encouraging-corporate-crime/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/encouraging-corporate-crime/


Independent Businesses Deliver Bigger Economic Benefit, Study Finds

by Stacy Mitchell | August 16, 2012 2:23 pm

[1]Choosing a locally owned store generates almost four times as much economic benefit for the surrounding region as shopping at a chain, a new study[2] has concluded.  The analysis also found that eating at a local restaurant produces more than twice the local economic impact of dining at a chain restaurant.

The research firm Civic Economics analyzed data from fifteen independent retailers and seven independent restaurants, all located in Salt Lake City, and compared their impact on the local economy with four chain retail stores (Barnes & Noble, Home Depot, Office Max, and Target) and three national restaurant chains (Darden, McDonald’s, and P.F. Chang’s).

The study found that the local retailers return an average of 52 percent of their revenue to the local economy, compared with just 14 percent for the chain retailers.  Similarly, the local restaurants re-circulate an average of 79 percent of their revenue locally, compared to 30 percent for the chain eateries.

What accounts for the difference? In a handy graphic, Civic Economics shows the breakdown. Independent businesses spend much more on local labor.  They also procure more goods for resale locally and rely much more heavily on local providers for services like accounting and printing.  This means that much of the money a customer spends at a local store or restaurant is re-spent within the local economy, supporting other businesses and jobs.

[3]

Chains have little need for local goods and services, and keep local labor costs to a minimum.  Most of the revenue that these stores and restaurants capture leaves the community.

This study was sponsored by Local First Utah.  “Most of us have a natural sense that local businesses are good for communities,” said Betsy Burton, who co-chairs the organization’s board and owns the King’s English Bookstore. “And studies[4] in other parts of the country have borne this out… Now we have hard evidence right here in our own city that consumers can have a huge impact on the local economy, just by shifting some of their purchases to local businesses.”

The study is part of a nationwide research project being conducted by Civic Economics in partnership with the American Booksellers Association.  Other communities where a similar data analysis is underway include Bainbridge Island, Washington; Chicago, Illinois; Las Vegas, New Mexico; Louisville, Kentucky; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Pleasanton, California; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. new study: http://www.localfirst.org/images/stories/SLC-Final-Impact-Study-Series.pdf
  3. [Image]: http://www.localfirst.org/images/stories/SLC-Final-Impact-Study-Series.pdf
  4. studies: https://ilsr.org/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/independent-businesse-deliver-bigger-economic-benefit/


For Quality Customer Service Go to Government, Not Business

by David Morris | August 14, 2012 10:52 am

In 2012 we accept as received wisdom that government is unresponsive while a competitive marketplace forces private business to offer quality customer service.  So when Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) introduced his warmly received bill, The Government Customer Service Improvement Act, we considered his announcement a truism, “When taxpayers interact with a government agency, they deserve the same timely, reliable assistance they would expect from a private sector business,”

Ironically, just as we achieve a bipartisan consensus that to improve customer service government should act like a private business both the empirical and anecdotal evidence is telling us it should be the other way around.

Consider the results of a new study by the Commonwealth Fund that compares private health insurance companies to government Medicare.  Government was the hands down winner. People covered by private health plans were much more likely than Medicare beneficiaries to forego needed care, experience access problems, encounter medical bill problems, and be less satisfied with their coverage.  Is anyone who’s had a conversation, or tried to have a conversation, with his or her private insurance carrier surprised?

Indeed, the evidence that government is far better than business at delivering health insurance is so compelling that anti-government Americans have adopted an ingenious strategy to avoid conceding the point.  They have simply decided that Medicare is a private insurance program.  Recall the signs and letters and talk show host warnings during the health reform debate that President Obama better keep the government out of Medicare!

We no longer even expect personal customer service in the fastest growing part of the economy and the one with which we interact the most–internet based services.  “Twitter’s phone system hangs up after providing Web or e-mail addresses three times,” the New York Times recently reported[1].  “At the end of a long phone tree, Facebook[2]’s system explains it is, in fact, “an Internet-based company.” …LinkedIn[3]’s voice mail lists an alternate customer service number. Dial it, and the caller is trapped in a telephonic version of the movie “Groundhog Day,” forced to work through the original phone tree again and again until the lesson is clear: stop calling.” Google’s phone system (what, you didn’t know Google has a phone number?) sends callers back to the Web no less than 11 times.

Internet based companies argue that with millions of users, they cannot possibly pick up a phone.

But of course they could. They certainly have the resources. This year Google’s profits will hit $10 billion with revenues approaching $50 billion.  Diverting just 10 percent of its profit, 2 percent of its revenue to customer service would allow Google to hire an additional 80,000 people to answer the phone.

“Mikkel Svane, the chief executive of Zendesk, which helps companies manage incoming requests offers the companies’ 21st century perspective on customer service, “People get aggressive or aggravated; people are depressed or crying. It’s just hard talking to customers.”

Yes dealing with humans is messy.  But hard as it is, government, unlike private business, appears equal to the challenge. In 1996 Baltimore launched the nation’s first 311 number, a single non-emergency number that residents can call to complain, ask advice, or request service.  The number now receives 1 million calls a year.  New York City 311, activated in 2003, receives 20 million calls a year on a remarkable range of issues.   My mom once called to ask why the reception of her beloved local public television station had become intermittent after the conversion to digital.  The 311 operator politely and efficiently shifted her to a person at Channel 13 who provided her with a clear (albeit ultimately unsatisfying) explanation.

Unlike Google, New York devotes about 2 percent of its revenues to this most personal and effective customer service. “We consider 311 one of the most used and most critical city services,” says[4] Joseph Morrisroe, executive director of NYC 311.

Budget difficulties have led several cities to launch online options to reduce costs. But they don’t see them as a replacement for a human answering the phone. Spencer Stern, a 311 consultant for more than 10 years notes, “Technology is an important tool, but everyone I’ve worked with — from city managers to county executives — is also very much focused on human interaction…They realize having that human touch is important to their constituents — no matter what the cost.”

Despite the cost, and shrinking budgets, cities don’t appear to be slowing their embrace of 311.

Why do big businesses all but ignore customer service?  Because the profits of Facebook and Google and Humana do not depend on providing high quality customer service. In fact, some keen observers of the giant companies that have come to dominate the private sector have concluded that good customer service actually hurts the bottom line.  The New York Times reports[5] on the epiphany of one such observer, Richard X. Bove, an analyst with Rochdale Securities about customer service in the banking sector. “Spending time solving problems with people is not selling products. It’s wasting time.”  “One of the core beliefs you have about any company is that the quality of their product is the determinant of the company’s financial success,” says Mr. Bove. “The point is, it doesn’t work here.” He adds, “I’m struck by the fact that the service is so bad, and yet the company is so good.”  Good to an analyst means the stock price has increased.

Mr. Bove gained this insight from personal experience.  He was a longtime customer of Wachovia, acquired by Wells Fargo in 2007.   Since then investors have pushed up Wells Fargo’s stock price so much that it is now the largest American bank by stock market capitalization. Meanwhile its customer service ratings have plunged.  In 2007, J. D. Power & Associates rated Wachovia among the banks with the highest level of customer satisfaction. After it was taken over its banks received below-average customer service ratings. In Florida, where Mr. Bove lives, Wachovia/Wells Fargo was 10th out of 11 banks.

Mr. Bove recently upgraded his recommendation on Wells Fargo stock to a buy.  At about the same time he began to move his personal accounts to another bank.

A few years ago Kevin Drum, a writer at Mother Jones, after describing his infuriating experience dealing with customer service at another corporate giant, Verizon nicely encapsulated what may become the new received wisdom. “Frankly, my dealings with the government, on average, are better than most of my dealings with corporations.  The government might sometimes provide poor customer service just because they lack the motivation to do better, but corporate America routinely provides crappy customer service as part of a deliberate and minutely planned strategy.”

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Endnotes:
  1. reported: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/technology/tech-companies-leave-phone-calls-behind.html
  2. Facebook: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org
  3. LinkedIn: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/linkedin-corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org
  4. says: http://www.govtech.com/budget-finance/Cities-Aim-to-Slash-311-Phone-Bills-Without-Affecting-311-Services.html
  5. reports: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/business/bank-analyst-sees-no-payoff-in-customer-focus.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/quality-customer-service-government-business/


How Archaic Utility Rules Stall Local Solar [Infographic]

by John Farrell | August 8, 2012 11:02 am

[1]

Many people expect that solar power will dramatically expand once it bursts through the cost barrier and becomes less expensive than grid electricity.  But archaic utility rules can effectively cap local solar development at just 15% of peak demand.  Fortunately, pioneering states like Hawaii and California are exploring ways to lift the cap and bring utility rules into the 21st century.

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/archaic-utility-rules-barriers-infographic-ILSR.png

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/archiac-utility-rules-stall-local-solar-infographic/


Supportive Rules For Small-Scale Composting

by Brenda Platt | August 6, 2012 10:07 am

Composting is inherently local; it supports local green jobs, farmers and other businesses. Indeed, farmers have a vital role to play in producing and utilizing compost to restore depleted soils. They also have land, a necessary factor for developing the capacity to compost. State permitting rules can facilitate on-farm and other small-scale operators, thus helping to expand and diversify the composting infrastructure.

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/supportive-rules-small-scale-composting/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/supportive-rules-small-scale-composting/


Charter Schools and Kudzu

by David Morris | August 5, 2012 2:36 pm

On this, the 20th anniversary of the opening of the first charter school, kudzu comes to mind.

In the 1930s the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) paid farmers $8 per acre to plant this Japanese vine whose deep root structure helps reduce erosion and enrich depleted soil. Farmers planted more than 1.2 million acres.

Twenty years later the SCS declared kudzu a virulent, parasitic weed. Its rapid growth shades the native flora, blocking their access to life-sustaining light. As these plants die, nutrients previously used by them become available to kudzu.

Initially, charter schools were embraced as a strategy to enrich what many viewed as an increasingly sterile public school landscape. Early promoters included most famously Albert Shanker, President of both the United Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers. The first charter school opened in Minnesota, one of the nation’s most liberal states.

“Groups of teachers and administrators who wanted to innovate and try new things would band together and little laboratories of education would emerge,” Dr. Gary Miron, Professor of Evaluation, Management and Research at Western Michigan University recalls[1], “The idea was simple: anything valuable culled from these experiments could be copied by the district…”

Within a decade the goals of experimentation and innovation were replaced by a focus on kudzu-like growth. Charter schools were less and less viewed as a way of improving public schools and more and more seen as a direct competitor and eventual replacement for them. For conservatives, charter schools are an effective weapon for undermining Democratic strength in big cities and teacher unions. For investors, charter schools are cash cows as local non-profit public school laboratories morphed into multi-state non-profit and eventually for-profit corporations. More than a third of all charter schools are now operated by private corporations. Student enrollment in for-profit charter schools has soared from approximately 1,000 in 1995-1996 to slightly less than 400,000 in 2010-2011. About 80 percent of Michigan’s charter schools are operated[2] by for-profit corporations.

As charter schools began to vie with public schools for supremacy Congress and the White House titled the playing field sharply in their favor. To improve public education No Child Left Behind (NCLB) enthusiastically embraced what came to be known as “high-stakes accountability”. Parents of children in public schools that fail to make continued improvement on standardized tests for two years can transfer them to charter schools. If progress continues to stall the public school is closed. The NCLB pointedly does not apply to charter schools. To be eligible for funding from Obama’s Race to the Top program states must eliminate caps on charter schools.

Today 2 million students attend[3] some 5,600 charter schools in 41 states, with a waiting list of more than 600,000. In the last 18 months, 23 states have approved[4] new laws aimed at promoting their growth. Meanwhile, last year cities announced the closing of about 2000 public schools. And the cycle feeds on itself. The more charters the less money for public schools, the more public education deteriorates and the greater the popularity and number of charter schools.

(more…)[5]

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Endnotes:
  1. recalls: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/29/80-of-michigan-charter-schools-are-for-profits/
  2. operated: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/29/80-of-michigan-charter-schools-are-for-profits/
  3. attend: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=22163
  4. approved: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2012/06/twenty_years_in_lots_of_charter_school_activity_in_the_states.html
  5. (more…): https://ilsr.org/charter-schools-kudzu-2/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/charter-schools-kudzu-2/


Atlanta Airport Launches Compostable Foodservice Ware Packet

by Brenda Platt | July 30, 2012 8:11 pm

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (HJAIA) sends more than 19,000 tons of waste to Georgia landfills each year.  Food scraps are the single largest component of HJAIA waste, making up about one-third of this tonnage.  In fact, food waste is the most prevalent material disposed in the landfills in the State of Georgia. Non-recyclable paper and plastic foodservice ware represent significant volumes of HJAIA’s trash as well.  HJAIA has a goal to divert 50% of its waste from landfill disposal by 2015.  Composting food waste is essential to reach this goal, and switching to compostable food packaging will enable successful food residuals recovery. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/atlanta-airport-launches-compostable-foodservice-ware-packet/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/atlanta-airport-launches-compostable-foodservice-ware-packet/


The Health Care Debate: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

by David Morris | July 27, 2012 11:10 am

Nowhere is the phrase American Exceptionalism more appropriately used than when describing our debate over health care.  Outside the bubble that is the United States health care is viewed as a right, recognition that sickness and injury can strike anyone despite their best efforts and an acknowledgement of a basic obligation civilized societies have to its members.

If members of those societies were to tune in to the American debate I suspect they’d be baffled to watch grown men and women come up with ingenious ways to complicate a very simple moral issue.

From the Sublime

Consider Richard Epstein’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold most of the health reform law. Epstein, an influential law professor at the University of Chicago chided[1] Chief Justice Roberts in the New York Times for relying on Congress’ Constitutional power to “lay and collect Taxes.”  He reminds us that the Constitution restricts the use of that power solely “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence (sic) and general Welfare of the United States.”  And he insists that extending health care to 30 million Americans does not meet this standard because “general welfare” means “benefits that must be given to all citizens, if given to any,” that is, “matters that advance the welfare of the United States as a whole.”(Italics in the original)

Extending health care to 30 million does not enhance the general welfare, argues Epstein, because it does not extend health care to all 330 million Americans.

Now consider the argument by the vast majority of the Supreme Court who voted to strike down the law’s provisions regarding states’ expanding Medicaid.  Under existing law the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the right to withdraw Medicaid funding from any state that does not meet minimum standards of access and coverage.  The new law gave the Secretary the authority to strip states of their existing Medicaid funding if they do not expand Medicaid.  The Court struck down this provision, arguing,[2] “the expansion accom­plishes a shift in kind, not merely degree. The original program was designed to cover medical services for particular categories of vulner­able individuals. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid is trans­formed into a program to meet the health care needs of the entire non-elderly population with income below 133 percent of the poverty level.”

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. chided: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/opinion/a-confused-opinion.html
  2. arguing,: http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/11-393/case.pdf
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/debating-health-care-american-bubble/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/debating-health-care-american-bubble/


Report: Hawaiian Sunblock – Solar Facing Unexpected Barriers Despite Low Cost

by John Farrell | July 26, 2012 12:51 pm

[1]First in the U.S., Hawaii residents and businesses can install solar power – without incentives – for less than the cost of grid electricity.  But as local Earthjustice lawyer Isaac Moriwake notes, “the gates of heaven do not open just because solar is cheap.”  Instead, a number of unexpected barriers have kept the solar market from to its full potential or growing as quickly as it might.  ILSR’s new report, Hawaiian Sunblock: Solar Facing Unexpected Barriers Despite Low Cost, explores these barriers and how Hawaii’s experience might provide valuable lessons as the cost of solar makes it competitive across the country.

Learn more:

Download the report:
hawaiian-sunblock-report-ilsr-cover
View the infographic:[2]archaic utility rules barriers infographic ILSR[3] View presentation:
hawaiin sunblock presentation.001[4]
Read ebook[5]
hawaiian sunblock ebook

 

Executive Summary

[6]An island state reliant on imported oil for 83% of its electricity generation, Hawaii has become the pioneer for solar grid parity in the United States.  It had an early commitment to solar power in the name of energy independence and state energy mandates and incentives encouraged the development of more solar power.

A rapid rise in the price oil and a rapid decline in the cost of solar have suddenly removed the economic barrier to solar, but like a receding tide, it has also uncovered unexpected and previously hidden barriers.

Solar is Profitable

With abundant sunshine and falling solar costs, solar power in Hawaii can pay back in a remarkably short time.  Since 2010, electricity from solar has cost less than electricity from the utility, with the gap steadily growing.  Without any incentives, an investment in a residential solar project pays back in just 10 years while adding significant value to the property.  Adding in federal and state tax credits reduces that payback period to 5 years.  Payback periods for commercial solar are even better, thanks in part to federal accelerated depreciation.

[7]

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/placeholder.png
  2. View the infographic:: https://ilsr.org/archiac-utility-rules-stall-local-solar-infographic/
  3. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/archiac-utility-rules-stall-local-solar-infographic/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/hawaiian-sunblock-presentation-barriers-cost-solar/
  5. Read ebook: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8Hmrr6Ve2pvM3p1anRqSmdzM2s&authuser=0
  6. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/hawaii-residential-solar-crossover-2010.png
  7. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Simple-payback-solar-Hawaii-2012.png
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/hawaiian-sunblock-solar-facing-unexpected-barriers-cost/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/hawaiian-sunblock-solar-facing-unexpected-barriers-cost/


The Chutzpah of Peter Orszag

by David Morris | July 26, 2012 10:27 am

[1]If chutzpah is killing your parents then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you’re an orphan then Peter Orszag is the poster child for chutzpah.  In his recent article[2] in Bloomberg News he insists the best fix for the post office is to take it private.  Where does the chutzpah come from?  Orszag was Director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB), an agency that played a key role in crippling the USPS with a manufactured financial crisis.

Here’s the back-story.  In 1970, after almost two centuries, the Post Office was transformed from a Cabinet agency to the quasi-independent US Postal Service (USPS).  In keeping with its new status, Congress eventually moved its finances off budget.  Yet, as I’ve discussed before[3], the OMB and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ignored Congress and continued to include the USPS in the unified budget, the budget they use for “scoring” legislation to estimate its impact on the deficit.

Fast forward to 2001. The Government Accountability Office put the Postal Service on its list of “high-risk” programs because of rising financial pressures resulting from exploding demand from both the residential and commercial sectors.  Then in 2002 the anxiety level fell dramatically when the Office of Personnel Management found the Postal Service had been significantly overpaying into its retirement fund.

It seemed a simple matter to reduce future payments and tap into the existing surplus to pay for current expenses.  And would have been if the OMB and the CBO did not insist on adhering to their make-belief accounting system.

Several times between 2002 and 2005 Congress did overwhelmingly approved tapping into the existing surplus. Each time the White House nixed the idea because it would increase the deficit.

Finally, in 2006 the Post Office and Congress agreed to literally buy off the CBO and OMB.  Budget neutrality over a ten-year period was achieved by requiring the USPS to make ten annual payments of $5.4-5.8 billion. The level of the annual payments was not based on any actuarial determination.  They were produced by the CBO to equal the amounts necessary to offset the loss of the escrow payments. Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 the USPS was forced to prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in ten years, something no other government agency or private corporation is required to do.

The Postal Regulatory Commission noted that those payments “transformed what would have been considerable profits into significant losses.”  Indeed, 90 percent or more of the current deficit is a result of these artificially created debts.

The Post Office is indeed in a financial crisis, but not one of its own making.

Enter Peter Orszag who still subscribes to the make believe world created by his old agency. His article lists three problems the USPS faces.   The artificial debt is not among them.  He lists three counterarguments people might use to oppose privatization.  The artificial debt is not among them.

A real world solution to the USPS fiscal crisis would be to remove the artificially generated financial noose from its neck and then build on its two most important assets:  its ubiquitous physical infrastructure and the high esteem in which Americans hold it.  In combination, these assets offer the post office an enviable platform upon which to generate many new revenue-producing services.

But for Peter Orszag the solution is to ignore the fraudulent financial burden imposed on the USPS and sell off and dismantle its ubiquitous infrastructure. “In addition to its 32,000 post offices, it has 461 processing facilities[4], monopoly access to residential mailboxes and an overfunded pension plan,” he writes. “These assets would attract bidders. Consider, for example, that many processing facilities and post offices sit on valuable real estate, and it may be smarter to sell many of them than to keep them.”

Did I forget to mention that Peter Orszag is currently vice chairman of corporate and investment banking at Citigroup?   Citigroup certainly be in the running to oversee the privatization of the post office, a process that would generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and undoubtedly handsomely benefit Mr. Orszag personally.

Now that’s chutzpah.

 

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/chutzpah-peter-orszag/post-office-300x262-2/
  2. article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-24/best-fix-for-postal-service-is-to-take-it-private.html
  3. before: https://ilsr.org/phantom-accounting-destroying-post-office/
  4. 461 processing facilities: http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2012/pr12_058.htm

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/chutzpah-peter-orszag/


Texas Judge Rules The Sky Belongs To Us All

by David Morris | July 25, 2012 9:31 am

“Texas judge rules atmosphere, air is a public trust”, reads the headline in the Boston Globe[1].  A tiny breakthrough but with big potential consequences.  And as we continue to suffer from one of the most extended heat waves in US history, as major crops wither and fires rage[2] in a dozen states, we need all the tiny breakthroughs we can get.

Back in 2001, Peter Barnes, a co-founder of Working Assets (now CREDO) and On The Commons[3] and one of the most creative environmentalists around, proposed the atmosphere be treated as a public trust in his pathbreaking book[4], Who Owns the Sky: Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism (Island Press).

In 2007, in a law review article[5] University of Oregon Professor Mary Wood elaborated on the idea of a Nature’s Trust. “With every trust there is a core duty of protection,” she wrote. “The trustee must defend the trust against injury. Where it has been damaged, the trustee must restore the property in the trust.”

She noted that the idea itself is not new. In 1892 “when private enterprise threatened the shoreline of Lake Michigan, the Supreme Court said, ‘It would not be listened to that the control and management of [Lake Michigan]—a subject of concern to the whole people of the state—should . . . be placed elsewhere than in the state itself.’ You can practically hear those same Justices saying today that ‘[i]t would not be listened to’ that government would let our atmosphere be dangerously warmed in the name of individual, private property rights.”

In 2010 Wood, along with Julia Olson, Executive Director of Our Children’s Trust[6] “had the vision to organize a coordinated international campaign of attorneys, youth, and media around the idea that the climate crisis could be addressed as a whole system,” Barnes observes, replacing a situation in which “legal solutions were fragmented, focused on closing down a particular power plant or seeking justice for a particular endangered species, threatened neighborhood or body of water impacted by our fossil fuel abuse.”

On behalf of the youth of America, Our Children’s Trust, Kids Versus Global Warming and others began filing suits around the country, arguing the atmosphere is a public trust.   So far cases have been filed in 13 states.

The “public trust” doctrine is a legal principle derived from English Common Law. Traditionally it has applied to water resources.  The waters of the state are deemed a public resource owned by and available to all citizens equally for the purposes of navigation, fishing, recreation, and other uses. The owner cannot use that resource in a way that interferes with the public’s use and interest.  The public trustee, usually the state, must act to maintain and enhance the trust’s resources for the benefit of future generations.

In Texas, after a petition to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to institute proceedings to reduce greenhouse gases was dismissed, the Texas Environmental Law Center sued on behalf of a group of children and young adults. The Center asserted the State of Texas had a fiduciary duty to reduce emissions as the common law trustee of a “public trust” responsible for the air and atmosphere

(more…)[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/07/11/texas-judge-rules-atmosphere-air-public-trust/KidpxrAyYllPPnrijt3OjI/story.html
  2. rage: http://wildfiretoday.com/2012/07/01/list-of-the-26-largest-fires-currently-uncontained/
  3. On The Commons: http://www.onthecommons.org/
  4. book: http://www.skybook.org/
  5. article: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=ealr
  6. Our Children’s Trust: http://ourchildrenstrust.org/
  7. (more…): https://ilsr.org/texas-judge-rules-sky-belongs/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/texas-judge-rules-sky-belongs/


Local Ownership Makes Communities Healthier, Wealthier and Wiser

by Stacy Mitchell | July 18, 2012 3:32 pm

When policymakers debate anything having to do with economic development — approving a new big-box store, say, or handing out tax breaks to large companies — most don’t imagine that the decision will have any effect on such things as voter turnout or the prevalence of chronic disease.

But a growing body of research is finding that scale and ownership of business matter in ways that extend far beyond economic outcomes.

A study[1] recently published in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, for example, found that people who live in communities where small, locally owned businesses are the norm are healthier than those who live in places where large corporations predominate. “We find that counties with a vibrant small-business sector have lower rates of mortality and a lower prevalence of obesity and diabetes,” conclude the study’s authors, Troy Blanchard, Charles Tolbert, and Carson Mencken.

They surmise that a high degree of local ownership improves a community’s “collective efficacy” — the capacity of its residents to act together for mutual benefit, to solve problems, and to further local goals. Previous research has identified a strong relationship between collective efficacy and population health, because high-functioning communities tend to build initiatives and infrastructure that foster healthier choices and prevent disease.

Another study[2], by Blanchard and Todd Matthews, found that counties dominated by a few big firms have lower levels of social capital and less engaged citizens than those in which economic activity is dispersed across many locally owned businesses. “We find that residents of communities with highly concentrated economies tend to vote less and are less likely to keep up with local affairs, participate in associations, engage in reform efforts or participate in protest activities at the same levels as their counterparts in economically dispersed environments,” they conclude.

Sociologists Stephan Goetz and Anil Rupasingha have linked this decline in civic participation to Walmart specifically.  With each Walmart store that opens, social capital erodes, their research[3] finds. Communities with more Walmart stores have lower voter turnout and fewer active nonprofit organizations. In their latest study[4], published in June, they’ve documented a correlation between Walmart and the presence of hate groups.

Still other research[5] has linked the regional market share of large retail chains with higher rates of poverty, infant mortality, and crime.

Why is local ownership so nourishing to the social and civic fabric of communities? (more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. study: http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/14/cjres.rsr034.short?rss=1
  2. study: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/social_forces/v084/84.4blanchard.html
  3. research: https://ilsr.org/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail/#6
  4. study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2012.00854.x/abstract
  5. research: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/social_forces/v083/83.4tolbert.html
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/local-ownership-healthier-wealthier-wiser/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-ownership-healthier-wealthier-wiser/


Living in Another Financial Reality

by ILSR | July 15, 2012 10:50 am

[1]Sally Sorbello, a grassroots organizer with the No Incinerator Alliance[2], is a small business women and citizen activist from Frederick, MD. Small business people and citizens have been fighting a proposed garbage incinerator in their County for seven years. Ms. Sorbello’s letter to her local newspaper captures the essence of the case against the incinerator. It is based on years of research and analysis of solid waste management in Frederick County and the state of Maryland.

The No Incinerator Alliance has an excellent web page[3] filed with information about the Frederick, MD anti-incinerator fight that can be applied to other locales fighting incineration of garbage.

ILSR is pleased to be part of the process in which citizen and small business activists get involved in anti-incineration organizing and emerge as leaders for other citizens in other communities. (more…)[4]
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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Smokestake.jpg
  2. No Incinerator Alliance: http://no-incinerator.org/
  3. web page: http://no-incinerator.org/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/living-financial-reality/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/living-financial-reality/


Walmart Claims Its Stores are Magnets for Small Businesses; Not So, Research Finds

by Stacy Mitchell | July 13, 2012 8:15 am

Lately Walmart has taken to claiming that its stores are actually good for nearby small businesses, at least those that do not compete in the same product lines.  As Walmart tries to elbow its way into cities from New York to L.A., this assertion has become a standard part of the company’s PR rhetoric, repeated in media interviews and marketing materials.

On a website[1] set up to promote its expansion in Seattle, the company contends: “Walmart stores often serve as magnets for other new businesses, large and small. The small businesses that surround our stores generally have products and services we don’t offer or are strong in areas where we can’t compete.”

On a similar web site devoted to its Chicago plans, the retailer even provides a list of the types of small businesses[2] that supposedly thrive in the shadows of Walmart stores.  The list includes everything from appliance stores to specialty grocers.

The empirical evidence, though, indicates otherwise.

In a study[3] published in the Journal of Urban Economics[4], economists John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and C.J. Krizan analyzed about 1,200 big-box store openings and looked at the impact on two sets of independent businesses in the vicinity: those competing directly with the new big box and those offering different products and services.

For competing retailers, the study found “large, negative effects” on those within a 5-mile radius of the new big box, including a substantial number of store closures.  Although the impact was greatest in the immediate vicinity, the researchers also documented significant negative effects on competing businesses as far away as a 10-mile radius from the new store.

In addition to the closures, the number of new retail stores opening in the neighborhood dropped sharply.

As for non-competing businesses, the study found that big-box stores generate no positive spillover whatsoever.  Nearby businesses offering other products and services neither increased their growth nor expanded in numbers after the big box opened.

The  study found that small chains did not fare any better, with the exception of small chain restaurants, which experienced a modest positive effect when a big-box store opened nearby.

Most ominous for cities like Chicago, where about half a dozen Walmart stores have already been approved, the study found that big-box stores have a greater negative impact on local businesses in densely populated cities, compared to low-density suburbs, and the effects are worse still in low-income neighborhoods.

  • Mom-and-pop Meet Big-box: Complements Or Substitutes?[5] — by John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and C.J. Krizan, Journal of Urban Economics, 2010.
  • For information on dozens of other studies, see Key Studies on Big-Box Retail & Independent Business[6]

 

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Endnotes:
  1. website: http://washington.walmartcommunity.com/community-impact
  2. list of the types of small businesses: http://chicago.walmartcommunity.com/small-businesses/
  3. study: http://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/09-34.html
  4. Journal of Urban Economics: http://ideas.repec.org/s/eee/juecon.html
  5. Mom-and-pop Meet Big-box: Complements Or Substitutes?: http://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/09-34.html
  6. Key Studies on Big-Box Retail & Independent Business: https://ilsr.org/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-claims-stores-magnets-small-businesses-so-research-finds/


Why We Pay Double for Solar in America (But Won’t Forever)

by John Farrell | July 10, 2012 5:24 pm

Update 12/21/12: Corrected chart.  Overhead and Sales Tax had been switched in the German data column.

I often get flak when I publish research on the cost trajectory for solar (e.g. my Rooftop Revolution report[1] estimates 100 million Americans reaching grid parity by 2021).  About half think I’m too conservative, and half think I’m too overconfident that solar will continue to drop in price by 7% per year indefinitely.

But I’m not alone in perceiving an enormous cost reduction opportunity for solar in the United States.  An article in Forbes last week suggested that we can “Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape[2]“.  It provides a chart (reproduced below) like one I published in March[3], that shows how a similarly sized residential solar array in Germany costs 60% less than one built in the U.S.

[4]

This anecdote from a colleague illustrates the ridiculous disparity in red tape between the two nations (and consequently, the enormous opportunity):

There’s an article in the most recent issue of PHOTON describing a German family that got a 4.6 kW PV array installed and interconnected to their roof 8 days after calling a solar installer for the first time. The homeowner had a proposal from the installer within 8 hours. The installer called the utility the morning of the installation to request an interconnect that afternoon. The installer called at 10am, the utility came and installed 2 new meters and approved the interconnect at 2:37pm– the same day. The online registration of the PV system with Federal Grid agency and approval of the feed-in tariff took 5 minutes.

I’m sure that not every project gets completed that fast in Germany, but an interconnection and permitting process that takes less than a day?! 10 times that…would still be just incredible.

By comparison, New York City’s permitting goal under Solar America Cities was 100 days (before Solar America Cities it took 365 days).

[emphasis mine]

As I’ve mentioned before, the difference is mostly in “soft costs,” not hardware, and these cost barriers are solved by policy, not technological, innovation.  For example, soft costs include an enormous paperwork burden for U.S. solar installers, pictured at the top (photo taken from the Forbes post on cutting costs[5]), and already there are policy[6] ideas[7] that significantly reduce these costs.

So is it too ambitious to assume the price of solar continues to fall by 7% per year?  On the contrary, if the cost of solar continues at that pace, it will take the U.S. until 2025 – 13 years! – to match today’s cost of solar in Germany.  Can anyone honestly claim we’ll remain so far behind for so long?

When you add potential hardware innovations (e.g. like this[8]) to the soft cost reduction opportunity, the cost of solar is likely to keep falling rapidly in the United States.

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Endnotes:
  1. Rooftop Revolution report: https://ilsr.org/rooftop-revolution-changing-everything-with-cost-effective-local-solar/
  2. Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/07/05/cut-the-price-of-solar-in-half-by-cutting-red-tape/
  3. one I published in March: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/20/german-policy-could-make-solar-in-america-wunderbar/
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/gchart-US-vs-German-solar-cost-2012-revisedDec2012.png
  5. photo taken from the Forbes post on cutting costs: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/07/05/cut-the-price-of-solar-in-half-by-cutting-red-tape/
  6. policy: http://www.sunrunhome.com/solar-lease/cost-of-solar/local-permitting/
  7. ideas: https://ilsr.org/vermonts-streamlined-solar-permitting/
  8. like this: http://t.co/ycl7CJm5

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/why-pay-double-solar-america/


Walmart: 50 Years of Gutting America’s Middle Class

by Stacy Mitchell | July 5, 2012 12:08 pm

This op-ed is cross-posted from Other Words, which distributes commentary articles to newspapers.  It is licensed for use under a Creative Commons “Attribution-No Derivatives Work[1]” license.

Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, 50 years ago this month. Sprawled along a major thoroughfare outside the city’s downtown, that inaugural store embodied many of the hallmarks that have since come to define the Walmart way of doing business. Walton scoured the country for the cheapest merchandise and deftly exploited a loophole in federal law to pay his mostly female workforce less than minimum wage.

That relentless focus on squeezing workers and suppliers for every advantage has paid off since July 1962. Walmart is now the second-largest corporation on the planet. It took in almost half-a-trillion dollars last year at more than 10,000 stores worldwide[2].

Walmart now captures one of every four dollars Americans spend on groceries. Its stores are so plentiful that it’s easy to imagine that the retailer has long since reached the upper limit of its growth potential. It hasn’t. Walmart has opened over 1,100 new supercenters since 2005 and expanded its U.S. sales by 35 percent. It aims to keep on growing that fast. With an eye to infiltrating urban areas, Walmart recently introduced smaller “neighborhood markets” and “express” stores.

While the big-box business model Sam Walton pioneered half a century ago has been great for Walmart, it hasn’t been so great for the U.S. economy.

Walmart’s explosive growth has gutted two key pillars of the American middle class: small businesses and well-paying manufacturing jobs.

Between 2001 and 2007, some 40,000 U.S. factories closed, eliminating millions of jobs. While Walmart’s ceaseless search for lower costs wasn’t the only factor that drove production overseas, it was a major one. During these six years, Walmart’s imports from China tripled in value from $9 billion to $27 billion.

Small, family-owned retail businesses likewise closed in droves as Walmart grew. Between 1992 and 2007, the number of independent retailers fell by over 60,000, according to the U.S. Census.

Their demise triggered a cascade of losses elsewhere. As communities lost their local retailers, there was less demand for services like accounting and graphic design, less advertising revenue for local media outlets, and fewer accounts for local banks. As Walmart moved into communities, the volume of money circulating from business to business declined. More dollars flowed into Walmart’s tills and out of the local economy.

In exchange for the many middle-income jobs Walmart eliminated, all we got in return were low-wage jobs for the workers who now toil in its stores. To get by, many Walmart employees have no choice but to rely on food stamps and other public assistance.

Walmart’s history is the story of what has gone wrong in the American economy. Wages have stagnated. The middle class has shrunk. The ranks of the working poor have swelled. Whatever we may have saved shopping at Walmart, we’ve more than paid for it in diminished opportunities and declining income. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Attribution-No Derivatives Work: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
  2. 10,000 stores worldwide: http://www.walmartstores.com/pressroom/news/10821.aspx
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/walmart-50-years-gutting-americas-middle-class/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-50-years-gutting-americas-middle-class/


Twenty Jobs Created at Bridgeport Mattress Refurbishing Plant

by Neil Seldman | July 3, 2012 8:03 pm

ILSR, working under a recycling and economic development grant from US EPA Region 1 and the Office of Mayor Bill Flint of Bridgeport, CT, facilitated the development of a mattress refurbishing and recycling plant that opened for business on June 27. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/twenty-jobs-created-bridgeport-mattress-refurbishing-plant/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/twenty-jobs-created-bridgeport-mattress-refurbishing-plant/


Justice Department Abets Amazon’s E-Book Monopoly

by Stacy Mitchell | June 20, 2012 3:30 pm

For years, Amazon has used its size and market power to bully publishers and keep other retailers from competing in the e-book market.  And, for years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has done nothing to constrain Amazon’s abuses or bring about a more competitive marketplace.

So it was quite a shock last month when the Justice Department decided to intervene in the book industry, but, instead of going after Amazon, filed suit against five publishers that had dared to challenge Amazon’s dominance and Apple, an e-book retailer with a modest market share. In filing the case, the DOJ moved from ignoring concentrated market power to actively abetting a monopolist.

Two of the publishers and Apple plan to fight the lawsuit in court, but the other three publishers, facing sizeable legal costs, have agreed to settle.  If the DOJ’s proposed settlement is accepted by a federal judge, it could spell disaster for the book industry.  The proposed settlement would return control of e-book pricing to Amazon.  It would likely push the online giant’s only viable e-book competitors, including about 400 independent bookstores, out of the market, helping Amazon regain the 90 percent market share it held as recently as two years ago.

(Public comment on the proposed settlement is being taken through Monday, June 25th.  We urge you to submit comments.  More details on how to do so at the end.)

E-Book Pricing

The case alleges that the five publishers (HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster), with Apple’s help, colluded to fix e-book prices.  The activities in question took place as Apple was preparing to launch the iPad in early 2010.  At the time, Amazon was essentially the only outlet for e-books, and it was selling new releases at a steep loss in order to maintain its monopoly.  Amazon paid publishers a wholesale price of about $12-14 for top new titles and then retailed them for $9.99.  Other retailers, including Barnes & Noble, did not have the cash to sustain similar losses and were thus locked out of the growing e-book market.

Publishers feared Amazon’s tactics would ultimately destroy competing retailers, leaving the industry in the hands of a single dominant player.  With the launch of the iPad and the iBookstore, they saw an opportunity to renegotiate terms. They signed deals with Apple to sell e-books through an “agency” pricing model, under which publishers set the retail price of their books and retailers collect a 30 percent commission on each sale.  Publishers then insisted on the same terms with Amazon.

There is nothing illegal about agency pricing.  In fact, it’s a common pricing model for electronic goods.  It is, for example, the same approach that Apple uses with its App Store: app makers set the retail price and Apple keeps a commission.  It’s also the way both electronic and print books are sold in many European countries[1]. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. both electronic and print books are sold in many European countries: https://ilsr.org/why-publishers-not-amazon-should-set-book-prices/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/dojs-lawsuit/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/dojs-lawsuit/


Crowdfunding for Community Power?

by John Farrell | June 19, 2012 6:24 am

Back in April, President Obama signed the JOBS Act and one of the most-heralded elements was so-called crowdfunding. The law sought to solve a major problem: it’s hard to finance small-scale business ventures.  Wall Street only cares about multi-million dollar plays and securities regulations make small-dollar projects rather difficult (and costly) to jointly fund.

The Act could have big implications for community-based renewable energy projects.

Right now, there are two kinds of community-based renewable energy projects, the charitable or the persistent.  Solar Mosaic, for example, was founded and funded on the concept that many environmentally-motivated people would help finance local solar projects with 0% interest loans.  They succeeded in building several projects, but the model is constrained by the limited universe of people who have money at hand and are willing to let it be used for no reward.

The other kind of renewable energy project allows participants to get some kind of financial reward through sheer persistence, overcoming enormous regulatory and legal barriers to success (some of which I covered in this 2007 report[1]).  It means finding a complex legal structure to capture federal tax credits despite needing investors with “passive tax liability” or sacrificing federal incentives for simple ownership structures like cooperatives or municipal utilities.  It means having “accredited” (rich) investors or only soliciting investors through personal relationships.  This community wind project is an illustration[2], as are several solar projects in this report[3].

The JOBS Act may finally allow thousands of regular folks to make a modest return (5-10%) by investing in local renewable energy projects.  The Act allows for crowdfunding under the following circumstances:

  • The project raises less than $1 million
  • The project owner discloses certain financial information, such as income tax returns, financial statements reviewed by an accountant, or fully audited financial statements.

The $1 million limit is the approximate cost of a 200 kW solar project, so crowdfunding could mean a significant boost for community-based solar arrays, especially in states with virtual net metering (allowing those potential investors to share the electricity output).

Crowdfunding won’t mean much for wind projects, where a single turbine costs well over the dollar limit, but the JOBS Act also opened the door for more community-based wind with changes to SEC exemption Regulation A.  (For more on this, read my 2007 report on wind energy ownership[4] and then this article on the changes to Regulation A[5]).

It’s not all roses and unicorns.  There are still several potential hangups for the crowdfunding model:

  • The SEC still has to implement the new regulation (likely in early 2013)
  • Websites that host crowdfunding opportunities (e.g. Kickstarter) will have to comply with new regulations
  • The information disclosure requirements[6] for potential project owners mentioned in the Act are not insignificant
  • Upfront costs such as legal fees, even for a modest crowdfunding venture, could still be $10,000 to $15,000
  • It’s not clear how crowdfunding solves the problem of capturing federal tax incentives

I’ll be interested to see how it develops.

 

Photo credit[7]

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Endnotes:
  1. this 2007 report: https://ilsr.org/broadening-wind-energy-ownership-changing-federal-incentives/
  2. community wind project is an illustration: https://ilsr.org/change-federal-incentive-enables-cooperative-own-wind-project/
  3. several solar projects in this report: https://ilsr.org/community-solar-power-obstacles-and-opportunities/
  4. 2007 report on wind energy ownership: https://ilsr.org/broadening-wind-energy-ownership-changing-federal-incentives/
  5. this article on the changes to Regulation A: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/beyond-crowdfunding-why-regulation-a-reform-is-the-most-vital-piece-of-the-jobs-act/2012/06/13/gJQAHnVQaV_story.html%20
  6. information disclosure requirements: http://www.thecorporatecounsel.net/Blog/2012/04/more-on-the-jobs-act-crowdfunding.html%20
  7. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hepburnwind/6317368974/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/crowdfunding-community-power/


Report: U.S. CLEAN Programs – Where Are We Now? What Have We Learned?

by John Farrell | June 11, 2012 8:00 am

This report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance identifies all of the existing CLEAN (Clean Local Energy Accessible Now) programs in the United States (also known as feed-in tariffs) and examines the lessons learned from the early adopters.

Download the report [pdf]

Read the ebook[1] version

Executive Summary

CLEAN programs (Clean Local Energy Accessible Now) provide long-term contracts with utility companies whose price is set to guarantee a modest return for investors.  They have long been used in Europe (as “feed-in tariffs”) to spur renewable energy development, often with remarkable success.  In Germany for example, CLEAN contracts have been credited with developing over 50,000 megawatts of wind and solar power.  Indeed, so successful have these contracts been that Germany recently all but eliminated the premium paid for solar energy and re-directed the premium to encourage innovation in on-site use and storage systems.

While late to the game, Americans are finally in the game.  In 2012, all or part of fourteen American states have adopted CLEAN contracts for renewable energy.  Many more are in development.

U.S. States With CLEAN or Similar Program

[2]

The recent surge in popularity coincides with the recognition that on-again, off-again federal tax incentives undermine renewable energy investments and that the falling price of solar energy creates a need for a more flexible and regionally tailored transitional incentive.

But U.S. CLEAN programs still suffer from four common shortcomings.

Program Caps: A key shortcoming of U.S. programs is very small program size, especially given that these are multi-year, cumulative caps.  Evidence from other countries is that larger scale programs achieve greater cost reductions.

Scant Support for Small Scale: Another shortcoming, as discussed in greater detail in the full report, is the lack of support for on-site residential solar.  Sacramento, for example, allocated almost all of its 100 megawatt (MW) allocation to projects 1 MW and larger.  Palo Alto’s program is restricted to projects 100 kilowatts (kW) and larger.  Although there may be some cost savings involved in focusing on larger projects, these are modest.  On the other hand, the benefits of having tens of thousands of households with on-site solar and therefore an economic self-interest in supporting expanded renewable energy far outweigh the possible increased costs.  Europe has found this to be the case.  Nearly 90% of Danish wind turbines are locally owned, as is most of German solar and half its wind power. (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. ebook: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8Hmrr6Ve2pvNGJUMThvdzVVRU0&authuser=0
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/CLEAN-states-map.png
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/u-s-clean-programs-now-learned/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/u-s-clean-programs-now-learned/


Report: Solar Power for Minnesota

by John Farrell | June 8, 2012 3:26 pm

This report, done for the Solar Works for Minnesota campaign, explores the value of solar power on schools, libraries, and other public buildings in Minnesota.  It was co-authored by John Farrell[1] of ILSR[2] and Christina Mills[3] of IEER[4].

Download the Report

Highlights

  • Minnesotans spend more than $20 billion dollars every year on these energy imports.
  • With an estimated $378 million dollars in electricity costs for Minnesota’s public buildings, there is a significant opportunity for cost savings.
  • Hennepin County alone pays more than $9 million every year to provide electricity to its offices, hospitals, jails, libraries, courts, and other buildings. That’s equivalent to over $8 per resident.
  • 87% of Minnesota voters support increasing the use of solar power in the state, and 82% of Minnesota voters support policies that encourage the use of solar specifically on Minnesota’s schools.
  • Solar PV could generate as much as 30% of the electricity needs of all Minnesota’s schools.

What Policies Would Help

  • A study of the precise solar potential for public building rooftops
  • A solar energy standard (e.g. 10% by 2030)
  • A CLEAN (Clean Local Energy Accessible Now) program to promote simple financing for solar
  • Enable the public sector to partner with the private sector to install solar
  • Streamline the local permitting process[5]
  • Establish spending criteria for Xcel Energy’s Renewable Development Fund that promotes solar on public buildings
  • Modify Minnesota’s net metering law to allow buildings to size their on-site solar array to load, even if the latter is greater than 40 kilowatts
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Endnotes:
  1. John Farrell: https://ilsr.org/john-farrell/
  2. ILSR: http://www.ilsr.org
  3. Christina Mills: http://ieer.org/about-ieer/staff/
  4. IEER: http://ieer.org/
  5. local permitting process: https://ilsr.org/rule/solar-permitting/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/solar-power-minnesota/


Amazon Infographic: How a Single Company Gained a Stranglehold over Online Shopping and the Future of Retail

by Stacy Mitchell | June 5, 2012 5:10 pm

[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/amazon-infographic.png

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/amazon-infographic/


Business Can’t Win the Privatization Game Without a Handicap

by David Morris | June 4, 2012 5:31 pm

Handicapping occurs in sports to equalize the winning chances of contestants of varying abilities. Sometimes, as in horse racing, superior horses, based on past performance, are required to carry more weight.  Sometimes, as in golf, poorer players are allowed more strokes.

Unbeknownst to most of us, the competition between the public and private sectors is also handicapped.  But contrary to the popular wisdom, it is the private sector that often cannot compete without being given more strokes.

Everywhere we look this principle seems to hold true.

School busing

About 75 percent of Pennsylvania’s school districts now use private firms to bus their students. Yet according to a new report[1] by the Keystone Research Center (KRC), “Contracting out substantially increases state spending on transportation services. We estimate that if all districts switched to the self-supply of transportation services, total spending on student transportation services would fall by $78.3 million dollars…”

Despite the higher costs school districts continue to contract out.  Why? Because, to use the golf analogy, the private sector receives a handsome handicap. Back in 1970 the Pennsylvania School Code added a provision requiring the state to reimburse school districts that contract out at a higher rate.  Legislators knew the private sector couldn’t compete without a handicap.

The result is that while bus privatization costs Pennsylvania taxpayers more, the state subsidy often slightly reduces the cost to the contracting school district itself.

Medicare

In 1994 the Republicans took over the House of Representatives and immediately began to privatize Medicare.  Their first step, achieved in 1997 with the support of President Clinton was Medicare+Choice.   But the Republicans made a serious tactical mistake.  They were so confident in the inherent superiority of the private sector they didn’t ask for a handicap.  Private insurers received the same amount as the service cost under Medicare.

The private sector lost the race. Badly. Private insurers began pulling out en masse. In 2000, more than 900,000 patients were dropped from the program.

No one should have been surprised.  Private insurers overhead costs-marketing, profits, etc.—dwarf those of Medicare: Slightly under 17 percent compared to about 5 percent for Medicare.  So to become competitive the private sector required at least a 12 percent handicap.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. report: http://keystoneresearch.org/sites/default/files/RunawaySpending.pdf
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/private-sector-isnt-competitive-subsidy/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/private-sector-isnt-competitive-subsidy/


How Phantom Accounting Is Destroying The Post Office

by David Morris | May 29, 2012 5:23 pm

As every 6 year old learns, there is real and there is make believe. The massive Post Office deficit that is driving management to commit institutional suicide by ending 6 day delivery, closing half of the nations’ 30,000 or so post offices and half it’s 500 mail processing centers, and laying off over 200,000 workers, is make believe.

Here’s why.  In 1969 the federal government changed the way it did accounting.  It began to use what was and is called a unified budget that includes trust funds like social security previously considered off budget because they were self-sustaining through dedicated revenue.

At that time the Post Office was, as it had been since 1792, a department of the federal government like the Department of Energy or the Department of Agriculture.  While generating most of its revenue from postage it also received significant Congressional appropriations.

In 1970 Congress transformed the Post Office into the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The new quasi-public agency was intended to put the Postal Office on a more business like footing.  The Postal Service was allowed to borrow to make needed capital investments and was given more flexibility in how it spent its money.  In return Congress required the Postal Service to become self-sufficient.  The subsidy, at that time running about 15 percent of total revenues (close to $10 billion a year in 2012) was phased out over the next 15 years.  After the mid 1980s the only taxpayer funds involved, amounting today to $100 million a year, subsidizes mail for the blind and official mail to overseas voters.

In keeping with the new philosophy that the Postal Service should be independent Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget administratively moved its finances off budget in 1974.  In 1989 Congress did it by statute.

None of this made any difference, as exhaustively detailed by the USPS Inspector General in a 2009 report[1].  The OMB and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) continued to treat the postal service as part of the unified budget, the budget they use for “scoring” legislation to estimate its impact on the deficit.

And that’s where the make believe comes from.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. report: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=federal+budget+treatment+of+the+postal+service&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uspsoig.gov%2Ffoia_files%2FESS-WP-09-001.pdf&ei=Zo2-T4mnCsSSgwfx4sS4Dw&usg=AFQjCNENSx5V1GF2O-mnIaggUsMZjQH-gA
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/phantom-accounting-destroying-post-office/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/phantom-accounting-destroying-post-office/


The Euro and Local Self-Reliance: A Flashback

by David Morris | May 24, 2012 2:27 pm

In May 1998 the European Union voted to adopt a single European currency.  A few days later David Morris set down his thoughts about that momentous decision from a local self-reliance perspective.  Fourteen years later, as Greece and Europe revisit the costs and benefits of the Euro, we thought it appropriate to offer that column on our front page.   Not to say “we told you so” but to demonstrate that in an age of globalization, local self-reliance can still be a powerful analytical tool.

A Single European Currency: High Risk, Low Returns

David Morris

Saint Paul Pioneer Press. May 7, 1998.

“A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only and ignorant with its ignorance”, Henry David Thoreau wrote. “Observe how the greatest minds yield in some degree to the superstition of their age.”

What is the superstition of our age? Globalization. In its name we are willing to take any risk, no matter how great, to achieve benefits no matter how small.

Consider what happened last weekend. Eleven nations, in an unprecedented political and economic leap of faith, formally adopted a single European currency. A New York Times headline accurately describes the experiment, “The euro: High Wire Without a Net”.

On January 1, 1999, the euro will come into existence. National currencies will begin to disappear. New government bonds will be issued in euros; old ones will be redenominated. Stocks and other financial assets will be redenominated as well. European businesses will keep their books in eros. On January 1, 2002, euro notes and coins will enter general circulation. On July 1, 2002, national currencies will cease to be legal tender within participating countries.

The transition to a single currency is expected to cost as much as half a trillion dollars.

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/euro-local-self-reliance-flashback/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/euro-local-self-reliance-flashback/


Walmart Heirs Quietly Fund Walmart’s Environmental Allies

by Stacy Mitchell | May 16, 2012 7:21 pm

A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran a story on the front page of the business section under the headline “Unexpected Ally Helps Walmart Cut Waste[1].” The retailer’s accomplice, readers of the article learned, is the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the largest and most influential environmental groups in the country. EDF has been working closely with Walmart on its sustainability efforts since 2005, and has even opened an office in Bentonville, Ark., where Walmart is headquartered.

The Times noted that EDF “does not accept contributions from Walmart or other corporations it works with.” EDF itself often mentions this when the subject of Walmart comes up, making note of it on its website[2], as well as in blog posts and other communications about its work with the company.

But, while it’s true that Walmart does not fund EDF (either directly or through its internal, company-run foundation[3]), the environmental group does receive an awful lot of money from the Walton Family Foundation. Since 2004, the foundation has given EDF more than $53 million. Last year, the foundation’s $13.7 million grant to the group amounted to about 15 percent of EDF’s budget[4]. After readers brought this to the attention of The Times[5], the newspaper amended its story and ran a correction noting the Walton foundation’s grants to EDF.

Established by Walmart founder Sam Walton in 1987 and run today by his children and grandchildren, the Walton Family Foundation has quietly grown into one of the largest foundations in the country. Last year, it ranked second in the nation based on total giving, behind only the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

It’s impossible to untangle all the connections between the Walton Family Foundation and the Walmart corporation. They are separate entities, but the Waltons pull the strings within both — the family has complete control over the foundation and significant control over the corporation.

The foundation’s board is made up entirely of Waltons. Walmart’s board includes three family members: Rob Walton, who’s been a director since 1978 and chair since his father Sam died 20 years ago; Jim, another of Sam’s sons; and Greg Penner, who is married to Rob Walton’s daughter, Carrie, one of the more visible and active directors of the foundation.

More important than board seats is stock: The Waltons own about 50 percent[6] of Walmart’s stock. Yes, it’s mind-boggling, but a single family owns half of the second-largest company[7] on the planet, a corporation whose revenues last year exceeded the GDP of all but 23 countries. (more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. Unexpected Ally Helps Walmart Cut Waste: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/business/wal-mart-and-environmental-fund-team-up-to-cut-waste.html?_r=3
  2. website: https://www.edf.org/health/walmart-partnership-leads-safer-products
  3. foundation: http://www.walmartstores.com/CommunityGiving/203.aspx
  4. EDF’s budget: http://www.edf.org/finances
  5. brought this to the attention of The Times: http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/nyt_obscures_wal-mart_edf_link.php
  6. about 50 percent: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/04/23/wal-mart-shares-slump-after-mexican-bribe-investigation/
  7. second-largest company: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/snapshots/2255.html
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/walmart-heirs-quietly-fund-walmarts-environmental-allies/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-heirs-quietly-fund-walmarts-environmental-allies/


Are Lightly Regulated States Really More Friendly to Small Businesses?

by Stacy Mitchell | May 9, 2012 6:39 pm

Number of Small Firms per 1,000 People, By State[1]

 

A new ranking of states based on “small business friendliness” was released this week by Thumbtack[2]. Thumbtack, an online directory that helps people find local service providers, surveyed over 6,000 small business owners who list their services on its site and, based on their responses, assigned letter grades to each state.

The survey-takers were asked to rate their state across several measures of small business friendliness. Many of the questions dealt with regulations. Business owners were asked how friendly or unfriendly their state is with regard to environmental, labor, health & safety, licensing, and land use regulations.

In the final results, which you can see in this interactive map[3], states that have more regulations tend to rank low, while those with fewer and looser rules top the list. The five states deemed least friendly to small businesses are Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, California, and New York. The five most friendly are Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, and Louisiana.

In a press release, Thumbtack put a point on the findings by quoting the owner of a roofing business in Texas:  “With comparatively few regulations or government oversight on small businesses, Texas is truly a small-business-friendly state.”

The trouble with this analysis, though, is that many of the “unfriendly” states are actually home to much larger numbers of small businesses than the “friendly” states. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/sm-biz-by-state.png
  2. Thumbtack: http://www.thumbtack.com
  3. this interactive map: http://www.thumbtack.com/survey#states
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/lightly-regulated-states-friendly-small-businesses/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/lightly-regulated-states-friendly-small-businesses/


Romney, Hoover, Eisenhower and that Pipeline

by David Morris | May 9, 2012 6:17 pm

After winning the Illinois primary, Mitt Romney delivered a victory speech[1] in which he deplored America’s lost “can do spirit”.  Unsurprisingly, he blamed it on government.  If elected he promised, “We’re going to get government out of the way”.   Then he offered a few examples of what he meant.  “We once built the interstate highway system and the Hoover Dam. Now we can’t even build a pipeline.”

Romney liked the line, and the thunderous applause it generated so much that a few weeks later at a Tea Party gathering in Pennsylvania he used it again[2].

Rachel Maddow[3] and many others have pointed out the fundamental flaw in Romney’s argument.  The government built both the Hoover Dam and the interstate highway system.   Republican administrations championed both projects. They were testaments to the can-do spirit of government, grand collective undertakings that benefited generations to come.

How grand?  The Hoover Dam cost the equivalent of $24 billion in today’s dollars, notes Steve Benen[4].  Congress appropriated $25 billion to build the first 40,000 miles of the interstate highway system, equivalent to $830 billion in today’s dollars.

Few have commented on Romney’s second sentence. “Now we can’t even build a pipeline”.  Having cited two examples that contradicted his thesis that government lacks the can do spirit, he offered an example of how government is preventing the private sector from having the can do spirit that may be even more problematic.

Romney, as everyone in his audience and most of the country knew, was talking about the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama had delayed construction while a detailed environmental impact study is completed, generating universal Republican outrage.

If completed, the pipeline will transport crude oil extracted from Canadian tar sands through the United States and to Gulf Coast refineries where it will then be exported. Demonstrating that private sector can-do spirit Romney so exalts, TransCanada, the company that owns the pipeline, is continuing to acquire land to construct the pipeline despite Obama’s decision. “We don’t need a presidential permit in order for us to obtain the easements that we need for the right of way for this project,” says[5] TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha.

Apparently, the foreign corporation also doesn’t think it needs permission of the landowners to move ahead.  When some farmers refused to sell their land, TransCanada began the process of seizing their private property.   Which has led many of Mitt Romney’s most ardent supporters to rebel.

A month before Romney’s speech this major story appeared[6] in the Texas Tribune, “Keystone Pipeline Sparks Property Rights Backlash”.  The reporter conveyed the anger of Julia Trigg Crawford who manages a 600-acre farm in Lamar County that’s been in her family since 1948. “I’m just an angry steward of the land. A foreign-owned, for-profit, non-permitted pipeline has taken a Texan’s land. Doesn’t sound right, does it?”

Does it?  The Texas Constitution requires that eminent domain, that is, the right to seize private property, can only be exercised for “public use.”  In the past courts have routinely dismissed challenges to pipelines by landowners.

But last year the Texas Supreme Court ruled that a company that wanted to build a CO2 pipeline for its own use was a private carrier and couldn’t use eminent domain to get an easement on a Houston-area rice farm.  In his opinion for the majority, Justice Don Willett wrote that “even when the Legislature grants certain private entities ‘the right and power of eminent domain,’ the overarching constitutional rule controls: no taking of property for private use.”

“The ruling sent shockwaves through the oil and gas lobby, which is now urging the Supreme Court to rehear the case,” the Texas Tribune observes.

Ms. Crawford successfully obtained a rare restraining order from the courts that halted any further encroachment on her land until questions surrounding TransCanada’s right to condemn her property are resolved.

The case is going to court.   There will be a hearing in June and possibly a trial in July. I hope they are televised.  Texas’ two Republican Senators and its Republican Governor have come out against the Crawford Family

The Hoover Dam and the interstate highway system were built by the people for the people.  They were and are public assets, huge public undertakings that have generated huge public benefits. The Keystone XL pipeline is proposed by a private company for private gain. The private company insists it has the right to seize private land to enhance the value of its private asset.

Perhaps an enterprising reporter on the campaign trail could ask Mitt Romney if he would like to revisit his comments?

 

This article first appeared on On The Commons.  www.onthecommons.org[7]

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. speech: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/03/20/mitt_romneys_illinois_victory_speech_113565.html
  2. again: http://www.politicspa.com/romney-critical-of-obama-war-on-economic-freedom-at-philadelphia-tea-party-gathering/34228/
  3. Rachel Maddow: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=rachel%20maddow%20hoover%20dam%20video&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFIQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Ds0gNga6v9EY&ei=-6iqT4SCHIOy8ATqiPDFAw&usg=AFQjCNGantBuvQuMwakuR2UH4QpvwNH9Vg
  4. Steve Benen: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=equivalent%2C%20hoover%20dam%2C%20steve%20benen&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaddowblog.msnbc.msn.com%2F_news%2F2012%2F03%2F22%2F10810874-hoover-dam-political-metaphor%3Flite&ei=rKaqT9SCJo2I8QS6n4zJDA&usg=AFQjCNG8UpKzqOmmTFwFBvXps9igEZXoxQ
  5. says: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=we%20don%E2%80%99t%20need%20a%20presidential%20permit%20in%20order%20for%20us%20to%20obtain%20the%20easements%20that%20we%20need%20for%20the%20right%20of%20way%20for%20this%20project&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CF4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oilandgaslawyerblog.com%2F2012%2F02%2Ftexas-debate-over-pipeline-con.html&ei=r6eqT9GODZCQ8wTir_meAw&usg=AFQjCNFYS5xTkhUlNz8ZEpHKIZcUGrFn1w
  6. appeared: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-energy/oil-and-natural-gas/keystone-pipeline-sparks-property-rights-backlash/
  7. www.onthecommons.org: http://onthecommons.org/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/romney-hoover-eisenhower-pipeline-2/


Profiles in Political Courage

by David Morris | May 3, 2012 7:12 pm

A few weeks ago Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA who is retiring from the House this year, gave a memorable interview[1] to New York magazine in which he criticized President Obama for aggressively pushing health care reform.  Frank says he warned Obama the Democratic Party would pay “a terrible price.”

Apparently Frank was not alone in counseling Obama to take health care off the front burner. “At various points, Vice President Joe Biden, senior advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel advised the President to focus entirely on the economy and leave comprehensive health care for another day,” Jonathan Alter, senior editor of Newsweek reports[2]. “‘I begged him not to do this’, Emanuel told me when I was researching my book about Obama’s first year in office.”

After the law passed Alter asked Obama why he overruled his team.  The President responded,  “‘I remember telling Nancy Pelosi that moving forward on this could end up being so costly for me politically that it would affect my chances’ in 2012.”  But he and Pelosi agreed that if they didn’t move at the outset of the his Presidency “it was not going to get done.”

In 2009 Obama put country above party.  Bringing health security to over 30[3] million Americans, strengthening the social compact and laying the foundation for a major restructuring of our health system were sufficient rewards for him to accept the political risks.

Almost exactly 45 years before Obama’s decision we witnessed another profile in political courage. Former Texas Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, after becoming President on the death of JFK, aggressively and decisively ended the south’s filibuster against a Civil Rights Act, ensuring its passage in July 1964.  In 1965 he secured enactment of the Voting Rights Act.

As is the case with the health care law, the Constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act was tested.  Southern states argued the federal government had no right to force the private sector to treat blacks and whites the same.  The Supreme Court ruled it did.

One hundred years after the Civil War, millions of southern blacks effectively gained the right to vote.  LBJ also put country above party, at least the country that strives to honor the foundational moral values of the Declaration of Independence.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. interview: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/barney-frank-full-transcript-2012-4/
  2. reports: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=Vice%20President%20Joe%20Biden%2C%20senior%20advisor%20David%20Axelrod%20and%20Chief%20of%20Staff%20Rahm%20Emanuel%20advised%20the%20President%20to%20focus%20entirely%20on%20the%20economy%20and%20leave%20comprehensive%20health&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmobile.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2F2012-04-19%2Fbarney-frank-makes-a-misdiagnosis-on-obamacare%3Fcategory%3D&ei=LtSiT8zlMYPq9AS3qIDoCA&usg=AFQjCNE-12ijHKfW2vGDz4XM2j4j1ES4Ww
  3. 30: http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/apr/08/eric-hovde/newcomer-and-wisconsin-gop-senate-candidate-eric-h/
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/profiles-political-courage/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/profiles-political-courage/


Local Solar Could Solve ‘Massive Supply-Demand Imbalance’ in Renewable Energy Financing

by John Farrell | May 1, 2012 9:12 pm

In the next two years, the U.S. may get a lot less solar and wind power than it could.

It’s not a shortage of solar panels or the cost of turbines.  Rather, it’s a problem of the perverse nature of federal incentives for renewable energy.  Right now, the owner of a solar or wind energy project can get a federal tax credit based on the value of the project or the electricity it produces.  But many owners don’t have enough tax liability to make use of the entire credit, and their search for a “tax equity” partner has created a logjam in the renewable energy market.

As reported in Greentechmedia[1],

CITI calculates there is a need in solar for $10 billion to $12 billion in tax equity for 2012 through 2014,  but not more than $5 billion in tax equity is available. That, Salant said, is “a massive supply-demand imbalance” that is not “going away anytime soon.” [emphasis mine]

The following graphic (from the article) illustrates:

[2]

A big part of this big money problem is a focus on big projects (and technologies that can’t economically be done at small scale):

“PV can be done on a much smaller scale and be economic, and a large project can be done in phases. It’s a lot easier to finance $250 million or $500 million than it is to get $3 billion all at once.” [Concentrating solar power] requires vital economies of scale “so you’ve got to raise $2 billion all at once. That’s a lot harder to do than to raise $500 million four times.”

That’s a small-scale solution to a big problem.  There may be a handful more folks who can invest $500 million than $2 billion.

But there are millions more Americans who could invest a few thousand dollars in community-based solar and wind power.  In 2009, American taxpayers cumulatively paid $865 billion in federal income taxes.  If just 1 in 100 could invest in a renewable energy project, it would nearly quadruple the tax equity market (from $3.2 billion to ~$12 billion).  And since 1 in 3 Americans will be able to get electricity from rooftop solar for less than their utility provides in the next decade[3], policy makers should find a way to open the small investor floodgates

The answer is community-based solar and wind projects, for three reasons:

  1. Economies of scale (without excessive size)
  2. Smaller investment increments (financed with bank loans and paid back with energy savings)
  3. Much greater political support[4]

 

But there are three policy solutions needed to enable community power:

  1. Community net metering – to allow project owners to share the project’s electricity output.  Right now, most state policies require utilities to allow net metering, but only for a solar or wind project on your own property.
  2. Simplified securities law – to make community-based projects easier.  Right now, there’s little difference between setting up a mutual fund and setting up a community solar project, and both take a lot of lawyers.  (Learn more in this report[5])
  3. Smarter federal tax incentives – to allow community-based institutions to host community-based projects.  Non-profits, cooperatives, cities and counties are logical entities to build projects, but they can’t (easily) use federal tax incentives for solar and wind power.  This raises the stakes for problem #2.

 

Some of these policy solutions are already in play.  As many as eight states already offer community net metering.  The federal 1603 cash grant (now expired) was one of the best tools for community-based projects (like this one[6]); President Obama has proposed another solution[7].

The U.S. could spend the next few years letting wind and solar power development lag because of artificial financing constraints.  Or policy makers could use two or three carefully crafted tools to open the floodgates to a massively democratic investment in local, clean energy.

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Endnotes:
  1. reported in Greentechmedia: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Banking-Part-1-Smart-Financial-Engineering-Funds-the-Big-Solar-Proj/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+greentechsolar+%2528GreentechSolar%2529
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/3SmithersFinanc.jpg
  3. 1 in 3 Americans will be able to get electricity from rooftop solar for less than their utility provides in the next decade: https://ilsr.org/rooftop-revolution-changing-everything-with-cost-effective-local-solar/
  4. Much greater political support: https://ilsr.org/political-and-technical-advantages-distributed-generation/
  5. this report: https://ilsr.org/broadening-wind-energy-ownership-changing-federal-incentives/
  6. like this one: https://ilsr.org/change-federal-incentive-enables-cooperative-own-wind-project/
  7. President Obama has proposed another solution: https://ilsr.org/refundable-federal-tax-credit-remove-barrier-community-wind/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/massive-supply-demand-imbalance-for-solar-and-wind-project-financing/


The Walmart de Mexico Scandal: Here’s a Punishment that Befits the Crime

by Stacy Mitchell | April 27, 2012 12:33 pm

This article originally appeared on Grist[1].

Walmart spent much of last week burnishing its green image[2] and touting its progress “toward becoming a more sustainable, responsible company.” All the while, those at the very top of the company, including CEO Mike Duke, knew that The New York Times was about to publish an explosive story[3] that would lay to waste the notion that Walmart cares about anything other than its own growth.

The Times story presents credible evidence that Walmart’s Mexican subsidiary spent millions of dollars bribing local officials in order to speed up permits for new stores, get “zoning maps changed,” and make “environmental objections vanish.” When top executives, including Duke, learned of the bribes in 2005, they declined to notify U.S. and Mexican law enforcement, shut down Walmart’s own internal investigation, and continued to lavish promotions on the alleged ringleader, Eduardo Castro-Wright, who currently serves as Walmart’s vice chair.

In the days since the Times story broke, attention has turned to the potential punishment Walmart might face. A criminal investigation is underway at the U.S. Department of Justice, which, under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, could pursue prosecutions that might lead to substantial fines and even jail time for Duke and others implicated. The Mexican government, meanwhile, has initiated its own inquiry.

If justice is to be served in this case, though, Walmart must not only face fines and prison terms, but also be forced to sell off a sizeable number of its ill-gotten Mexican stores. By bribing officials, Walmart was able to crush its competitors, opening new stores so fast they had no time to react. In just a few years, Walmart came out of nowhere to dominate the Mexican economy.

But, as any athlete or other competitor knows, if you’re caught cheating your way to a win, then you most certainly do not get to keep the prize.

Walmart’s expansion into Mexico began in earnest in 1997 when it bought a controlling stake in one of the country’s largest retail chains. Walmart then began to build new stores with stunning speed. By the time the bribery allegations reached executives at the company’s Arkansas headquarters in the fall of 2005, Walmart had more than 750 stores in Mexico and was opening new ones at the rate of almost two per week.

As Walmart grew, Mexico’s traditional vendors, open-air markets, and independent businesses declined. Competing supermarket chains were left in the dust too, unable to match Walmart’s speed and financial muscle.

Although Walmart’s expansion plans often encountered strong grassroots opposition, as its stores frequently do in the U.S., the company consistently outmaneuvered local residents, in part, we now know, by using bribes to skirt land-use rules and quickly win approvals. (more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/business-technology/the-walmart-de-mexico-scandal-heres-a-punishment-that-befits-the-crime/
  2. burnishing its green image: http://grist.org/business-technology/top-10-ways-walmart-is-failing-on-sustainability/
  3. explosive story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/business/at-wal-mart-in-mexico-a-bribe-inquiry-silenced.html
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/walmart-de-mexico-scandal/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-de-mexico-scandal/


The More Local the Energy, the More Valuable

by John Farrell | April 24, 2012 8:38 pm

[1]

Local ownership of a wind project accounts for half of its lifetime economic value to the community!

 

From: Value Creation for Local Communities through Renewable Energies[2] [pdf]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Screen-Shot-2012-04-24-at-3.32.14-PM.png
  2. Value Creation for Local Communities through Renewable Energies: https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=value%20creation%20for%20local%20communities%20through%20renewable%20energies&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC4QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.germany.info%2Fcontentblob%2F3097466%2FDaten%2F1196468%2FRenewsSpecial_DD.pdf&ei=pA2XT5jLHoa08ASWzqyYDg&usg=AFQjCNGXZILKB5u-4X4mX3wFeAWtrFt2JA&cad=rja

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-valuable/


Are Republican Governors Truly Representing Their Citizens on Health Care?

by David Morris | April 16, 2012 4:14 pm

A few days ago 26 states argued before the Supreme Court that the health law’s dramatic extension of Medicaid coverage constitutes unconstitutional federal coercion.  “Congress easily could have designed an act that encouraged rather than forced states to expand their Medicaid programs,” their brief submitted[1] to the Court argues. “By making a conscious decision to deprive states of any choice in the matter, Congress has effectively forced this court’s hand.”

Since virtually all these states are headed by Republican Governors, we can consider this the Republican Party position.

What form does this coercion take?   According to the states, it is the unprecedented federal generosity[2] that allows them to achieve the required expansion at virtually no cost. They believe the federal government is making them an offer they can’t refuse, which rises to the level of an unconstitutional invasion of state prerogatives.

A little background may be in order.  Medicare guarantees health care to those over 65.  It is funded from payroll taxes.  Enacted at the same time as Medicare, Medicaid is aimed at lower income households.  It is funded out of general revenues.  State participation is voluntary but if states offer minimum levels of coverage, the federal government will pay the majority of the costs.  Currently the average federal share[3] is 57 percent but it can be much higher for specific states.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires participating states to extend Medicaid eligibility to all households with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (in 2012 about $15,000 for an individual and $30,000 for a family of four). In return for their doing this the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the costs of Medicaid for new entrants for the first three years.  Then states will pick up a tiny share of the cost, gradually growing to 10 percent by 2020, and remaining there.

I have a question for these 26 mostly Republican Governors.  Whom do you think you are representing?  It’s hard to believe it’s the citizens of your states.

Consider the impact of the law on Alabama, one of the signatories to the Supreme Court brief. Medicaid in Alabama is a $6 billion-a-year program. The federal government covers[4] more than $4 billion of that.  Under the new law, the number of Alabamans covered by Medicaid, currently about 1 million of its 5 million residents, would rise by 500,000. That may increase[5] Medicaid spending between 2014 and 2019 by $470 million but federal expenditures in Alabama would increase by $10.3 billion. For every additional dollar Alabama will spend on health care for new Medicaid enrollees out of its general budget, federal spending in the state on health care will increase by more than $20.

(more…)[6]

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Endnotes:
  1. submitted: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=congress%20easily%20could%20have%20designed%20an%20act%20that%20%22encouraged%20rather%20than%20forced%20states%20to%20expand%22%20their%20medicaid%20programs&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.al.com%2Fsweethome%2F2012%2F03%2Falabama_opposes_medicaid_expan.html&ei=li6MT_iOD4jM9QTwvunSCQ&usg=AFQjCNGgRvcW9aEEGRxG63b9Gjk9GK-2Hw&cad=rja
  2. generosity: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=p%5Baul%20clement%2C%20generosity%20of%20federal%2C%20medicaid&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flawprofessors.typepad.com%2Fconlaw%2F2012%2F03%2Fcourt-equally-skeptical-or-more-on-medicaid-expansion.html&ei=ES-MT8boG4uW8gS_5bC6CQ&usg=AFQjCNGhtBDRKYEmGcKhT2lKeTwbevmycA&cad=rja
  3. share: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=average%20federal%20share%20is%2057%20percent%20%2C%20medicaid&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kff.org%2Fmedicaid%2Fupload%2F8193.pdf&ei=NS-MT8yyMI-i8gTAxuW3CQ&usg=AFQjCNFdKUG4YrsbsC77YzMAyTS2xP097g&cad=rja
  4. covers: http://blog.al.com/sweethome/2012/03/alabama_opposes_medicaid_expan.html
  5. increase: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=2014%2C%202019%2C%20%24470%20million%2C%20alabama&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kff.org%2Fhealthreform%2Fupload%2FMedicaid-Coverage-and-Spending-in-Health-Reform-National-and-State-By-State-Results-for-Adults-at-or-Below-133-FPL.pdf&ei=hjGMT7z9Como8QTq8dDjCQ&usg=AFQjCNFCELDpSgAiD65jabm0DaGdPBkg1g&cad=rja
  6. (more…): https://ilsr.org/republican-governors-representing-citizens-health-care/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/republican-governors-representing-citizens-health-care/


Post Offices: Too Important To Be Stamped Out

by ILSR | April 10, 2012 7:11 pm

Star Tribune, April 9, 2012

In this piece in the Star Tribune David Morris speaks out on the need to stop the tidal wave of post office closings that will occur when the Post Office’s self-imposed moratorium ends in mid May.

Last year, 3,600 communities, about 90 in Minnesota, were notified that they’ll probably lose their local post office. Last December, a popular uprising persuaded members of Congress to speak out, which led U.S. Postal Service management to impose a 6-month moratorium on further closings.

That ends in mid-May. We need to demand that it be extended indefinitely. Our local post offices are too valuable to lose.

Tens of millions of Americans will be negatively affected by the closures, while the Postal Service’s own estimates are for savings that are trivial. Closing all 3,600 would save $200 million — 0.03 percent of its $64 billion budget.

“We’re not the only ones going through this trend,” insists Dean Granholm, vice president of delivery and post office operations for the Postal Service. “All sorts of retailers are trying to find ways to do this.”

But the post office is not Starbucks or McDonalds or Wal-Mart. It is a commons, a public service — and a significant part of that service is the ubiquity of post offices themselves.

Postal Service management is deciding which post offices live or die using a cost-benefit methodology almost identical to that used by private retailers. Only half the equation is included: the savings to the USPS. The other half, the costs to the community, is ignored.

Consider the post office closure in Prairie City, S.D. It saved the Postal Service $19,000 a year. The community it served will spend far more each year to travel to a more distant post office.

But it is the qualitative costs that haunt the community. The Prairie City post office was a gathering place where people could keep up with one another and with the local news. Prairie City postal clerks kept a pot of coffee brewing and posted birth and death notices.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the area’s only major hospital and pharmacy is in Hettinger, N.D., 40 miles away. Before, when an elderly person or farmer in Prairie City quickly needed an antibiotic or other medication, a pharmacist in Hettinger would rush prescriptions to the Hettinger post office, catching the mail carrier who each day traveled from Hettinger to the Prairie City post office.

The closing eliminated that direct route, and now Prairie City mail is sorted and delivered on a rural route out of Bison, S.D., delaying the delivery of medicine from Hettinger by two or three days.

The Postal Service is our most ubiquitous and admired public institution. Six days a week, it delivers an average of 563 million pieces of mail, 40 percent of the entire world’s volume, often directly to our front doors.

For the price of a 44-cent stamp, the lowest postal rate in the world, you can mail a letter anywhere within the nation’s borders. And if the recipient can’t be found, the Postal Service will return it at no extra charge. Business Week calls it “the greatest bargain on earth.”

After the 1970s, the Postal Service became its own agency. Congress eliminated its taxpayer subsidy. Productivity soared. By the 1990s, it often generated a profit. As of 2005, it was free of debt.

So how is it that today the service is being forced to decimate itself to pay off a huge deficit?

Here’s the back story. The Postal Service pays into several retirement and health funds. Almost everyone agrees that in the past it has vastly overpaid, some estimate by as much as $100 billion.

One would think it a simple matter for Congress to allow the USPS to tap into these excess funds to pay current health benefits. One would be wrong. The Congressional Budget Office counts the surplus funds as part of the existing budget.

Thus if the Postal Service were to use its own money, it would increase the deficit. In 2006, it finally agreed to buy off the CBO. Budget neutrality over a 10-year period was achieved by requiring the USPS to make annual payments of $5.4 billion to $5.8 billion.

This manufactured financial crisis legitimized the privateers attack on the Postal Service. Proposals include ending Saturday delivery, which would open the door to private companies; divesting half the service’s physical infrastructure, and even ending door-to-door delivery.

Eventually the Postal Service plans to close more than 15,000 post offices. A nationwide grass-roots resistance has emerged that cuts across party lines, uniting rich and poor, rural and urban, black, white and Hispanic.

They are fighting to save a government institution that fundamentally contributes to their sense of community, of social cohesion, of well-being.

We need to demand that Congress end the manufactured financial crisis and cease forcing the transformation of the nation’s oldest public institution into an increasingly private enterprise that looks to strengthen its internal balance sheet by weakening the balance sheets of hundreds of millions of Americans it serves.

This is a public institution worth fighting for.

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/post-offices-important-stamped/


Democracy Under Attack

by David Morris | April 4, 2012 2:33 pm

For its first 200 years the American Republic slowly, sometimes infuriatingly slowly and at horrific human cost (e.g. the Civil War) expanded the franchise.

In 1870 the 15th Amendment gave blacks the right to vote.  In 1920, the 19th Amendment extended the franchise to women. In 1924 Congress granted Native Americans citizenship and thus the right to vote.  In 1961 the 23rd Amendment gave the residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote for President.  In 1971 the 26th Amendment gave l8 year olds the vote.  In 1986 Congress gave military personnel and other US citizens living abroad the right to use a federal write-in absentee ballot for voting for federal offices.

The right to vote, however, did not ensure that one could vote.  Beginning at the end of the 19th century, states began passing legislation directed at restricting minority voting with often dramatic effect, especially in the South where turnout fell[1] from 64.2 percent in 1888 to 29.0 percent in 1904.

For 100 years after the Civil War the Supreme Court ruled that even where state voting rules were discriminatory, the federal government had no right to intervene.  Then in 1965 Congress finally gave blacks and other minorities the effective vote by passing the Voting Rights Act, eliminating most voting qualifications beyond citizenship for state and federal elections, including literacy tests and poll taxes.  In 1966 the Supreme Court affirmed that law.

Since 1970 federal and state voting reforms have all moved in one direction: facilitating access. In 1993 the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) offered citizens the opportunity to register or re-register to vote at many public facilities, including Motor Vehicle offices and post offices.

Between 1973 and 2009 nine states enacted[2] Election Day registration laws. States made provisions for early voting and eased the rules on absentee voting.  Some allowed voting by mail. Between 1997 and 2010 twenty-three states either restored[3] voting rights or eased the restoration process of voting rights for those convicted of felonies.

Virtually all these laws were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by Republican and Democrat Governors alike.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. fell: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=south%20where%20turnout%20fell%20from%2064.2%20percent%20in%201888%20to%2029.0%20percent%20in%201904&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vote.caltech.edu%2Fdrupal%2Fnode%2F16&ei=Xex1T8_qDsq4tweoqondDg&usg=AFQjCNGCCzvfhTV2ZT2CPqvkyyDsu2hcYQ&cad=rja
  2. enacted: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=nine%20states%20enacted%20election%20day%20registration%20&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.projectvote.org%2Felection-day-reg.html&ei=n-x1T6iKMM6btwfjruzyDg&usg=AFQjCNHFzHFnBVd7KHQ-IkgcR03n9a6GRA&cad=rja
  3. restored: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=between%201997%20and%202008%20twenty-three%20states%20either%20restored%20voting%20rights%20&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sentencingproject.org%2Fdoc%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%2Fvr_ExpandingtheVoteFinalAddendum.pdf&ei=xOx1T9TjJcjftgeDyOHQDg&usg=AFQjCNEBB9clmso5qtLss4pqXzl-ekfPkg&cad=rja
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/democracy-attack/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/democracy-attack/


What Happened to the New Rules Project?

by ILSR | April 2, 2012 5:54 pm

New Rules logo[1]We have combined the NewRules.org and ILSR.org websites to better coordinate and publicize our work. All of the New Rules Project activity, research, and information continues here, on Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s new web site.

The New Rules Project had an extensive collection of rules — policies, bills, regulations, and ordinances — has also been transferred here. These policy models can be found in a long unorganized list under the Rules Library[2].

For subject specific rules in the archive of the New Rules Project, please use these links:

  • Agriculture Rules[3]
  • Banking Rules[4]
  • Broadband Rules[5]
  • Composting Rules[6]
  • Energy Rules[7] and more recent policy in our Community Power Map[8]
  • Environment Rules[9]
  • Equity Rules[10]
  • Governance Rules[11]
  • The Public Good Rules[12]

As always, we welcome your questions and feedback[13].

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/newrules_logo_21.jpeg
  2. Rules Library: https://ilsr.org/rule/
  3. Agriculture Rules: https://ilsr.org/agriculture-rules-library/
  4. Banking Rules: https://ilsr.org/banking-rules-library/
  5. Broadband Rules: https://ilsr.org/broadband-rules-library/
  6. Composting Rules: https://ilsr.org/composting-rules-library/
  7. Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/energy-rules-library/
  8. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  9. Environment Rules: https://ilsr.org/environment-rules-library/
  10. Equity Rules: https://ilsr.org/equity-rules-library/
  11. Governance Rules: https://ilsr.org/governance-rules-library/
  12. The Public Good Rules: https://ilsr.org/public-good-rules-library/
  13. we welcome your questions and feedback: https://ilsr.org/contact/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/what-happened-to-the-new-rules-project/


Banking For the Rest of Us

by ILSR | April 1, 2012 4:01 pm

Soujourners Magazine, April 1, 2012

In this cover story for Sojourners Magazine[1], Stacy Mitchell writes that there is remarkably little evidence to support the idea that bigger banks are superior and calls for a new set of rules—banking policies for the 99 percent.

One meaning of the word “occupy” involves asserting sovereignty over a place. For the demonstrators who set up camp in lower Manhattan last fall, “occupying” was a reassertion of popular sovereignty at the very epicenter of our economic system. It was a challenge to the power that giant corporations—and Wall Street banks in particular—have amassed. It was a challenge to the way these firms have captured the levers of government and rigged policy to protect their own positions and profits at the expense of everyone else.

More than three years after their reckless greed triggered the Great Recession, the nation’s biggest banks have paid almost no penalty and are bigger than ever. In 2007, the top four banks—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo—held assets of $4.5 trillion, which amounted to 37 percent of U.S. bank assets. Today, they control $6.2 trillion, or 45 percent of bank assets, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. For them, the recession was a brief hiccup, promptly ameliorated by a public bailout and a return to robust profitability. Last year, these four firms, together with the next two largest banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, paid out $144 billion in compensation, making 2011 their second highest payday ever. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average bank teller made $24,980 in 2010. Such rank-and-file employees didn’t benefit from the big bonuses and compensation packages which were heavily concentrated at the top of the corporate ladder.

Meanwhile, joblessness, staggering debt, and foreclosure have devastated countless families. Many have shared their stories on the We Are the 99 Percent Tumblr website, which should be required reading for the 1 percent. It provides a heart-breaking account of living in a society “made for them, not for us,” of drowning in debt and struggling merely to secure a means of keeping food on the table.

The Occupy movement brought this injustice to the forefront and reawakened American populism. It set the public discourse in a new direction and launched a conversation about the scale and structure of our banking system. Many Americans seem quite eager to have this conversation, and to act on it. Last fall, more than 600,000 people, citing the issues raised by Occupy, closed their accounts at big banks and moved to small local banks and credit unions. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. cover story for Sojourners Magazine: http://sojo.net/magazine/2012/04/banking-rest-us
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/banking-for-the-rest-of-us/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/banking-for-the-rest-of-us/


New Report: Walmart’s Greenwash

by Stacy Mitchell | March 7, 2012 7:05 pm

Report: Company Fails to Deliver on Much-Publicized Sustainability Campaign

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Stacy Mitchell, ILSR, 207-774-6792, smitchell@ilsr.org[1]

March 7, 2012 | Minneapolis, MN — In a report released today, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance documents how Walmart’s heavily promoted sustainability initiatives are falling short. The report, “Walmart’s Greenwash”, examines all aspects of the major retailers environmental impact to see how sustainable Walmart really is.

Download the Report: Walmart’s Greenwash

“Walmart’s sustainability campaign has done more to improve the company’s image than to help the environment,” said Stacy Mitchell, the report’s author and a senior researcher at ILSR. Since Walmart unveiled its sustainability campaign in 2005, the number of Americans with an unfavorable view of the company has fallen by nearly half, from 38 to 20 percent.

The report’s key findings include:

— At its current pace, Walmart will need roughly 300 years to reach its goal of 100 percent renewable energy. As of 2011, Walmart was deriving only 2 percent of its U. S. electricity from its wind and solar projects.

— Walmart’s greenhouse gas emissions are increasing rapidly. Its energy efficiency and renewable projects are too modest to match the scale of the company’s operations.

— Walmart’s price pressure on manufacturers is undermining the quality and durability of consumer goods, which has contributed to a sharp increase in the amount of stuff Americans buy and a doubling of the trash households generate.

— Walmart has not addressed the habitat and climate impacts of its land development practices. The retailer continues to build sprawling stores on undeveloped land, often just a few miles from older, vacated Walmart stores.

— Walmart has made little progress toward its goal of developing a Sustainability Index to rate consumer products. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. smitchell@ilsr.org: mailto:smitchell@ilsr.org
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/new-report-walmarts-greenwash/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-report-walmarts-greenwash/


Where is Kropotkin When We Really Need Him?

by David Morris | February 10, 2012 6:13 pm

On February 8, 1921 twenty thousand people, braving temperatures so low that musical instruments froze, marched in a funeral procession in the town of Dimitrov, a suburb of Moscow. They came to pay their respects to a man, Petr Kropotkin, and his philosophy, anarchism.

Some 90 years later few know of Kropotkin. And the word anarchism has been so stripped of substance that it has come to be equated with chaos and nihilism.  This is regrettable, for both the man and the philosophy that he did so much to develop have much to teach us in 2012.

I am astonished Hollywood has yet to discover Kropotkin. For his life is the stuff of great movies.  Born to privilege he spent his life fighting poverty and injustice.  A lifelong revolutionary, he was also a world-renowned geographer and zoologist.  Indeed, the intersection of politics and science characterized much of his life.

His struggles against tyranny resulted in years in Russian and French jails.  The first time he was imprisoned in Russia an outcry by many of the world’s best-known scholars led to his release.  The second time he engineered a spectacular escape and fled the country.  At the end of his life, back in his native Russia, he enthusiastically supported the overthrow of the Tsar but equally strongly condemned[1] Lenin ’s increasingly authoritarian and violent methods.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. condemned: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/kropotlenindec20.html
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/where-is-kropotkin-when-we-really-need-him/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/where-is-kropotkin-when-we-really-need-him/


Challenging the Republican’s Five Myths on Inequality

by David Morris | February 3, 2012 3:34 pm

Recent comments by Mitt Romney, the probable Republican nominee for President all but guarantee the inequality issue will remain front and center this election year.

When asked whether people who question the current distribution of wealth and power are motivated by “jealousy or fairness” Romney insisted, “I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare.” And in this election year he advised that if we do discuss inequality we do so “in quiet rooms” not in public debates.

A public debate, of course, is inevitable. And welcome. To help that debate along I’ll address the five major statements that comprise the Republican argument on inequality.

1. Income is Not All That Unequal

Actually it is. Since 1980 the top 1 percent has increased its share of the national income by an astounding $1.1 trillion. Today 300,000 very rich Americans enjoy almost as much income as 150 million.

Since 1980, the income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans has increased a meager $303 or 1 percent. The top 1 percent’s income has more than doubled, increasing by about $500,000. And the really, really rich, the top 10th of 1 percent, made out, dare I say, like bandits, quadrupling their income to $22 million.

Meanwhile a full-time worker’s wage was 11 percent lower in 2004 than in 1973, adjusting for inflation even though their productivity increased by 78 percent. Productivity gains swelled corporate profits, which reached an all time high in 2010. And that in turn fueled an unprecedented inequality within the workplace itself. In 2010, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, the average CEO in large companies earned 325 times more than the average worker.

2. Inequality doesn’t matter because in America ambition and hard work can make a pauper a millionaire.

This is folklore. A worker’s initial position in the income distribution is highly predictive of how much he or she earns later in the career. And as the Brookings Institution reports “there is growing evidence of less intergenerational economic mobility in the United States than in many other rich industrialized countries.”

The bitter fact is that it is harder for a poor person in America to become rich than in virtually any other industrialized country.

(more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/challenging-the-republicans-five-myths-on-inequality/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/challenging-the-republicans-five-myths-on-inequality/


Four Ways Enviros Can Keep Walmart in the Hot Seat

by Stacy Mitchell | February 2, 2012 10:37 pm

This is the ninth and final article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

Walmart’s sustainability campaign is not your typical corporate greenwash. It is more complex and clever than that. It has enough substance mixed in with the spin to draw you in. It’s easy to get swept up in the big numbers Walmart can roll out — like the 30 tons of plastic hangers it recycles every month — and to be charmed by the very fact of this giant company, with its hard-nosed corporate culture, using a word like “sustainability.”

More than a few environmentalists have been won over. With their endorsements and the flood of positive press that seems to follow each of Walmart’s green announcements, the company has managed to turn around flagging poll numbers[3], shift its labor practices out of the limelight, and, most crucially, crank up its expansion machine.

The environmental consequences of Walmart’s ongoing growth far outweigh the modest reductions in resource use that the company has made. Walmart’s business model and its future success depend on further accelerating the cycle of consumption[4], industrializing our food supply[5], and exacerbating sprawl[6]. It’s not just Walmart, but also Target, Home Depot, and other big chains. The big-box model is “efficient” only to the degree that many of its costs are borne by the planet and the public at large. As these retailers take over an ever-larger share of the economy, more sustainable enterprises and systems of production and distribution are squeezed out.

Walmart’s expansion is not inevitable. The rise of Big Retail, much like Big Ag, has been aided and abetted by government policies and a host of hidden and not-so-hidden subsidies (which I detail in my book Big-Box Swindle[7]).

Lately, though, instead of advocating for new and better policies, mainstream environmental groups having been abetting Walmart’s growth and helping to secure its future supremacy. It’s time to drop that failing strategy.

(more…)[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. turn around flagging poll numbers: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  4. accelerating the cycle of consumption: http://grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-11-is-your-stuff-falling-apart-thank-walmart/
  5. industrializing our food supply: http://grist.org/food/2011-12-30-eaters-beware-walmart-is-taking-over-our-food-system/
  6. exacerbating sprawl: http://grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-29-can-you-say-sprawl-walmarts-biggest-climate-impact-goes-ignored/
  7. Big-Box Swindle: http://www.bigboxswindle.com/
  8. (more…): https://ilsr.org/four-ways-enviros-can-keep-walmart-in-the-hot-seat/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/four-ways-enviros-can-keep-walmart-in-the-hot-seat/


Independent Businesses Report Strong Holiday Sales

by Stacy Mitchell | January 26, 2012 9:56 pm

“Buy Local” on the minds of more shoppers, businesses report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: (Additional contacts below)Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 207-774-6792

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (Jan. 26, 2012) – An annual survey has found that independent businesses had strong sales growth over the holidays and appear to be benefitting from growing public interest in supporting locally owned retail stores, banks, restaurants, and other enterprises. (more…)[1]

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Endnotes:
  1. (more…): https://ilsr.org/independent-businesses-report-strong-holiday-sales/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/independent-businesses-report-strong-holiday-sales/


Eaters, Beware: Walmart is Taking Over our Food System

by Stacy Mitchell | December 30, 2011 10:28 pm

This is the eighth article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

Aubretia Edick has worked at a Walmart store in upstate New York for 11 years, but she won ’t buy fresh food there. Bagged salads, she claims, are often past their sell-by dates and, in the summer, fruit is sometimes kept on shelves until it rots. “They say, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ but they don ’t. As a cashier, you hear a lot of people complain,” she said.

Edick blames the problems on the store’s chronic understaffing and Walmart’s lack of respect for the skilled labor needed to handle the nation ’s food supply. At her store, a former maintenance person was made produce manager. He’s often diverted to other tasks. “If the toilets get backed up, they call him,” she said.

Tracie McMillan, who did a stint working in the produce section of a Walmart store while researching her forthcoming book, The American Way of Eating[3], reports much the same. “They put a 20-year-old from electronics in charge of the produce department. He didn ’t know anything about food,” she said. “We had a leak in the cooler that didn’t get fixed for a month and all this moldy food was going out on the floor.” Walmart doesn’t accept the idea that “a supermarket takes any skill to run,” she said. “They treated the produce like any other kind of merchandise.”

That’s plenty to give a shopper pause, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reasons to be concerned about Walmart’s explosive expansion into the grocery sector.

Growth of a giant

In just a few short years, Walmart has become the most powerful force in our food system, more dominant than Monsanto, Kraft, or Tyson.

It was only 23 years ago that Walmart opened its first supercenter, a store with a full supermarket inside. By 1998, it was still a relatively modest player with 441 supercenters and about 6 percent of U.S. grocery sales. Last year, as its supercenter count climbed above 3,000, Walmart captured 25 percent of the $550 billion Americans spent on groceries.

As astonishing as Walmart’s national market share is, in many parts of the country the chain is even more dominant. In 29 metro markets, it accounts for more than 50 percent of grocery sales.

Seeking an even bigger piece of the pie, Walmart is campaigning to blanket New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other big cities with its stores. It has made food the centerpiece of its public relations strategy. In a series of announcements over the last year, Walmart has deftly commandeered high-profile food issues, presenting itself as a solution to food deserts, a force for healthier eating, and a supporter of local farming.

It is a remarkably brazen tactic. On every one of these fronts, Walmart is very much part of the problem. Its expansion is making our food system more concentrated and industrialized than ever before. Its growth in cities will likely exacerbate poverty, the root cause of constrained choices and poor diet. And the more dominant Walmart becomes, the fewer opportunities there will be for farmers markets, food co-ops, neighborhood grocery stores, and a host of other enterprises that are beginning to fashion a better food system – one organized not to enrich corporate middlemen, but to the benefit of producers and eaters.

The big squeeze

[4]Walmart’s rise as a grocer triggered two massive waves of industry consolidation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. One occurred among supermarkets, as regional titans like Kroger and Fred Meyer combined to form national chains that stood a better chance of surviving Walmart’s push into groceries. Today, the top five food retailers capture half of all grocery sales, double the share they held in 1997.

The second wave of consolidation came as meatpackers, dairy companies, and other food processors merged in an effort to be large enough to supply Walmart without getting crushed in the process. The takeover of IBP, the nation’s largest beef processor, by Tyson Fresh Meats is a prime example. “When Tyson bought IBP in 2001, they said they had to do that in order to supply Walmart. We saw horizontal integration in the meat business because of worries about access to the retail market,” explained Mary Hendrickson, a food systems expert at the University of Missouri. Four firms now slaughter more than 80 percent of cattle. A similar dynamic has played out in nearly every segment of food manufacturing.

“The consolidation of the last two decades has created a food chain that’s shaped like an hourglass,” noted Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, explaining that a handful of middlemen now stand between 2 million farmers and 300 million eaters.

Their tight grip on our food supply has, rather predictably, come at the expense of both ends of the hourglass. Grocery prices have been rising faster than inflation and, while there are multiple factors driving up consumer costs, some economic research points to concentration in both food manufacturing and retailing as a leading culprit.

Farmers, meanwhile, are getting paid less and less. Take pork, for example. Between 1990 and 2009, the farmers’ share of each dollar consumers spent on pork fell from 45 to 25 cents, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. Pork processors picked up some of the difference, but the bulk of the gains went to Walmart and other supermarket chains, which are now pocketing 61 cents of each pork dollar, up from 45 cents in 1990.

Another USDA analysis found that big retailers have used their market power to shortchange farmers who grow apples, lettuce, and other types of produce, paying them less than what they would get in a competitive market, while also charging consumers inflated prices. In this way, Walmart has actually helped drive overall food prices up.

What Walmart means when it says “local”

Last year, Walmart announced that it would double the share of local produce it sells, from 4.5 to 9 percent, over six years.

This doesn’t necessarily mean shoppers will soon find a variety of local produce at their nearest Walmart, however. Walmart counts fruits and vegetables as local if they come from within the same state. It can achieve much of its promise by buying more of each state’s major commodity crops, such as peaches in Georgia and apples in Washington, and by using big states like California, Texas, and Florida, where both supercenters and large-scale farming are prevalent, to pump up its national average.

“It speaks to the weakness that we’ve all known about, which is that ‘local’ is an inadequate descriptor of what we want,” said Andy Fisher, former executive director of the Community Food Security Coalition. “It’s not just geography; it’s scale and ownership and how you treat your workers. Walmart is doing industrial local.”

Walmart’s sourcing is becoming somewhat more regional, but the change has more to do with rising diesel prices than a shift in favor of small farms. It’s a sign that Walmart’s Achilles heel – the fossil-fuel intensity of its far-flung distribution system — might be catching up with it. According to The Wall Street Journal[5], trucking produce like jalapeños across the country from California or Mexico has become so expensive that the retailer is now seeking growers within 450 miles of its distribution centers.

“They see the writing on the wall. They know the cost of shipping from California back to Georgia and Mississippi is high now,” said Ben Burkett, a Mississippi farmer who noted that Walmart is now meeting with producers in his region. He’s hoping to sell the chain okra through a cooperative of 35 farmers. “We’ll see. My experience in the past with Walmart is they want to pay as little as possible.”

That skepticism is shared by Anthony Flaccavento, a Virginia farmer and sustainable food advocate. “If multimillion-dollar companies like Rubbermaid and Vlasic can be brought to their knees by the retail behemoth, how should we expect small farmers to fare?” he asks.

Walmart’s promise to increase local sourcing is reminiscent of its pledge five years ago to expand its organic food offerings. “They held true to their corporate model and tried to do organics the same way,” said Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute. For its store-brand organic milk, for example, Walmart turned to Aurora Organic Dairy, which runs several giant industrial milking operations in Texas and Colorado, each with as many as 10,000 cows. In 2007, the USDA sanctioned Aurora for multiple violations of organic standards. Earlier this year, the agency stepped in again, this time revoking the organic certification for Promiseland Livestock, which had been supplying supposedly organically raised cows to Aurora.

These days, Walmart’s interest in organic food seems to have ebbed. “Our observation is that they sell fewer organic products and produce now than four years ago,” said Kastel. Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association agrees. Today, he says, “the proportion of their sales that is organic is the lowest of any major supermarket chain.”

Leveraging food deserts

Walmart has renewed its push to get into big cities, after trying and failing a few years ago. This time the company has honed a fresh strategy that goes right to the soft underbelly of urban concerns. In July, Walmart officials, standing alongside First Lady Michelle Obama, pledged to open or expand as many as 300 stores “in or near” food deserts[6].

Walmart sees underserved neighborhoods as a way to edge its camel’s nose under the tent and then do what it’s done in the rest of the country: open dozens of stores situated to take market share from local grocers and unionized supermarkets. Stephen Colbert dubbed the strategy Walmart’s “Trojan cantaloupe[7].” For example, an analysis by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office estimates that if Walmart opens in Harlem, at least 30 supermarkets, green grocers, and bodegas selling fresh produce would close.

For neighborhoods that are truly underserved, it seems hard to argue with the notion that having a Walmart nearby is better than relying on 7-11 and McDonald’s for meals. But poor diet, limited access to fresh food, and diet-related health issues are a cluster of symptoms that all stem from a deeper problem that Walmart is likely to make worse: poverty. Poverty has a strong negative effect on diet quality, a 15-year study[8] recently concluded, and access to a supermarket makes almost no difference.

Neighborhoods that gain Walmart stores end up with more poverty and food-stamp usage than communities where the retailer does not open, a study[9] published in Social Science Quarterly found. This increase in poverty may owe to the fact that Walmart’s arrival leads to a net loss of jobs and lowers wages, according to research [PDF] by economists at the University of California-Irvine and Cornell.

Walmart has also been linked to rising obesity. “An additional supercenter per 100,000 residents increases … the obesity rate by 2.3 percentage points,” a recent study[10] concluded. “These results imply that the proliferation of Walmart supercenters explains 10.5 percent of the rise in obesity since the late 1980s.”

[11]
Check out the whole series on Grist.

The bottom line for poor families is that processed food is cheaper than fresh vegetables — and that’s especially true if you shop at Walmart. The retailer beats its competitors on prices for packaged foods, but not produce. An Iowa study found that Walmart charges less than competing grocery stores for cereals, canned vegetables, and meats, but has higher prices on most fresh vegetables and high-volume dairy foods, including milk.

The future of food?

We stand to lose a lot if Walmart keeps tightening its grip on the grocery sector. Signs of a revitalized food system have been springing up all over — farmers markets, urban gardeners, neighborhood grocers, consumer co-ops, CSAs — but their growth may well be cut short if Walmart has its way.

“People need to keep an eye on the values that are at the root of what is driving so much of this activity around the food system,” said Kathy Mulvey, policy director for the Community Food Security Coalition.

Walmart is pushing us toward a future where food production is increasingly industrialized, farmers and workers are squeezed, and the promise of fresh produce is used to conceal an economic model that leaves neighborhoods more impoverished. Are we going to let it happen, or are we going to demand better food and a better world?

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. The American Way of Eating: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781439171950?&PID=25450
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/grist-7.jpg
  5. According to The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304223804576448491782467316.html
  6. pledged to open or expand as many as 300 stores “in or near” food deserts: http://grist.org/food/2011-07-21-walmart-michelle-obama-and-the-future-of-food
  7. Trojan cantaloupe: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/372963/february-01-2011/wal-mart-collaborates-with-obama-administration---leslie-dach
  8. study: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/171/13/1162
  9. study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2006.00377.x/abstract
  10. study: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1263316
  11. [Image]: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/eaters-beware-walmart-is-taking-over-our-food-system/


Walmart spends big to help anti-environment candidates

by Stacy Mitchell | December 23, 2011 10:20 pm

This is the seventh article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

In 2006, Walmart made headlines when its vice president for corporate strategy and sustainability, Andrew Ruben, told a congressional committee that the company “would accept a well-designed mandatory cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases.” Other major U.S. companies had spoken favorably of cap-and-trade, but Walmart made a bigger splash. Not only was it America’s second-largest corporation; it also had deep roots in the country’s coal-burning heartland.

But even as Ruben was delivering his testimony, Walmart’s political action committee (PAC) was funneling a river of campaign cash into the coffers of lawmakers who would ensure that the U.S. did absolutely nothing to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. During the 2007-2008 election cycle, 80 percent of Senate campaign contributions that came from Walmart’s PAC and large donors employed by the company went to senators who helped block the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill, according to data on political giving published by the Center for Responsive Politics. (When the bill arrived on the floor in 2008, it came up 12 votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.) (more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/walmart-spends-big-to-help-anti-environment-candidates/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-spends-big-to-help-anti-environment-candidates/


Occupy Economics Departments

by David Morris | December 13, 2011 10:49 am

On November 2nd nearly 70 students walked out of an introductory economics class at Harvard in solidarity with the Occupy movement. The mainstream media largely ignored the protest.  That’s regrettable since the economics profession has provided the intellectual framework and justification for the inequality and centralization of corporate power the Occupiers are challenging.

“You can ’t get into so disastrous a situation as we are in now without extraordinarily bad thinking and the economics departments were the source of that bad thinking,” observes Steven Keen, Professor of Economics at the University of Western Sydney and author of Debunking Economics[1].

The Harvard students were protesting EC 10.  The course is taught by Professor N. Gregory Mankiw, author of the world’s best selling[2] economics textbook, Principles of Economics, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush and regular New York Times columnist.  A prerequisite for social studies and economics majors, the class may be taken by nearly half[3] of all Harvard students before they graduate.

“Today we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics class,” the protestors explained in a letter to Mankiw. The course “espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today.”

On December 3rd Mankiw responded[4] in the Times.  He expressed “sadness at how poorly informed the Harvard protesters seemed to be”.  “If my profession is slanted toward any particular world view, I am as guilty as anyone for perpetuating the problem.  Yet, like most economists, I don ’t view the study of economics as laden with ideology.”

Quoting Keynes, Mankiw maintained he teaches “a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique for thinking, which helps the possessor to draw correct conclusions.”

Regarding Mankiw’s insistence that his textbook and course simply instruct students in “a method rather than a doctrine” Moshe Adler, Professor of Economics at Columbia University and author of Economics for the Rest of Us[5] notes the singularly consistent conclusions that result from the application of that “technique of thinking”.  “(W)henever it is necessary to choose sides between the rich and the poor, between the powerful and the powerless, or between workers and corporations, economists are all too often of one mind…”

The Consistent Conclusions of Conventional Economics

Consider the issue of inequality. “We economists can try to estimate the cost of redistribution —that is, the negative impact on efficiency that comes with attempts to achieve more equality,” writes[6] Mankiw. “But in the end, picking the best point on the tradeoff between efficiency and equality comes from policy preferences about which we, as economist must be agnostic.”

Translation.  The economist’s role is to help us understand that we will all be poorer if we reduce inequality but to abstain from advocating specific polices. Of course, no economist worth his or her salt, including Professor Mankiw would refrain from advocating specific policies.

“Reasonable people can disagree about whether and how much government should redistribute income,” Mankiw’s observes[7]. “But don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that when the government taxes the rich, only the rich bear the burden.” We can tax the rich but the result will be a smaller overall economic pie.

In 2001 Mankiw wrote[8] a blistering Op Ed in the Boston Globe decrying a student sit-in aimed at gaining a living wage for janitorial staff. “The living wage campaign wants to repeal the law of supply and demand”, Mankiw insisted, as if the “law” of supply and demand were actually a law and thus more incontrovertible than, say the theories of evolution or gravity.  If Harvard were to pay its janitors more, Mankiw predicted, the result would be lost jobs, more teenagers dropping out of school and fewer adults making the transition from welfare to work.

In his Presidential Address to the Eastern Economics Association (AEA) Mankiw used economics-speak to explain[9] why janitors don’t deserve a living wage while Wall Street executives deserve billions. “Under a standard set of assumptions, a competitive economy leads to an efficient allocation of resources…it is also a standard result that in a competitive equilibrium, the factors of production are paid the value of their marginal product.  That is, each person’s income reflects the value of what he contributed to society’s production of goods and services.  One might easily conclude that, under these idealized conditions, each person receives his just deserts.”  Oh.

Before Mankiw, EC 10 was taught by Martin Feldstein former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ronald Reagan.  Feldstein used Mankiw’s book as his text. In 2004 Feldstein’s Presidential Address to the AEA focused on health insurance.  He informed[10] his colleagues that the principal problem facing the health system isn’t its lack of universal coverage but low deductibles and copayments that encourage people to visit the doctor too often.  In economics jargon, “They (low payments)…lead to an increased demand for care that is worth less than its cost of production.”

Professors Mankiw and Feldstein, of course, would not consider any of these conclusions biased or ideologically driven.  That they always favor the rich and powerful and disfavor the poor and weak must be chalked up to simple coincidence.

The Conclusions From Unconventional Economics

Those who rely on a different “way of thinking” often arrive at diametrically opposite and far more equitable conclusions.

Consider Feldstein’s thesis. Americans actually visit doctors less[11] often than their counterparts in countries with universal health coverage.  Yet the level of medical spending in those countries is 30-50 percent less than ours and achieves better outcomes.  Might one conclude that enabling Americans to visit their doctors more rather than less could improve the efficiency of the overall system?  If people don’t see a doctor they can end up in vastly more expensive hospital beds.  Sometimes common sense trumps complex models.

In his 2001 column, Mankiw dismissed the widely disseminated finding by economists David Card and Alan Krueger in Myth and Measurement that raising the minimum wage does not reduce employment.  Mankiw considered them outliers and noted that many economists had “attacked their data, methods and results”.  Indeed they did, often and aggressively.  For as John Cassidy pointed[12] out, “Card and Krueger didn’t just question the conventional wisdom; they attacked it in a novel and powerful way. Instead of concocting a mathematical model and `testing’ it with advanced statistical techniques, which is what most economists call research, they decided to test the theory in the real world.”

Recently Arindrajit Dube, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an expert in studies of the effects of minimum wage policies reviewed the impact of Card and Krueger’s work.  Their methodology as well as their empirical results have stood the test of time, he concludes. Indeed “today, writing a paper arguing that moderate increases in minimum wage do not have any appreciable effect on jobs because the labor market exhibits search friction is not a conversation stopper or a career ender.” Perhaps raising the minimum wage reduces turnover and hiring and training costs?  Just a theory.  Not a law.

Mankiw insists[13] that workers are paid based on how productive they are. “Our real wages are ultimately determined by our productivity.” Yet the evidence argues that the proportion of the wealth generated by increased productivity that accrues to labor is highly dependent on the percentage of the work force that belong to unions. As union membership has dwindled and workers are forced to negotiate as individuals with ever-more-powerful and mobile corporations that proportion has plummeted while corporate profits are at an all time high.

Mankiw and other conventional economists argue that increasing taxes on the rich reduces economic growth and dismiss the idea that lowering taxes on the wealthy has played a significant role in increasing inequality.  Recently two Professors of Economics, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez examined[14] data from 18 OECD countries and came to the opposite conclusions.  They found little evidence that low taxes on the rich raise productivity and economic growth. And they found “a strong correlation between the reductions in top tax rates and the increases in top 1% pre-tax income shares from 1975–79 to 2004–08”.   For example, the U.S. slashed the top income tax rate by 35 percent and witnessed a large ten percent increase in its top 1% pre-tax income share. “By contrast, France or Germany saw very little change in their top tax rates and their top 1% income shares during the same period.”

And in what can only be considered a direct repudiation of virtually all conventional economic theory, the researchers’ rigorous analysis estimated the top tax rate could be as high as 83% without slowing economic growth.

The Economic Crisis And Conventional Economics

How has the economic crisis changed what Mankiw offers in his freshman course? “…not as much as you might think,” he answers[15].  “Despite the enormity of recent events, the principles of economics are largely unchanged.”

Mankiw does admit that the precipitous collapse of most western economies has convinced him to entertain some “subtle” changes.  For example, he might introduce a few overlooked factors into his course such as the role of FINANCE or the importance of LEVERAGE.

Many economists who are not slaves to conventional economic models with their “standard assumptions” and “idealized conditions” recognized the importance of these issues long before the crisis.  In 1994, for example, Marxist economist Paul Sweezy told[16] Harvard economic graduate students.  “In the old days finance was treated as a modest helper of production. By the end of the decade (1980s) the old structure of the economy, consisting of a production system serving a modest financial adjunct, had given way to a new structure in which a greatly expanded financial sector had achieved a high degree of independence and sat on top of the underlying production system.”

In 2001, economist Steven Keen bluntly challenged[17] conventional economics. “An economic theory that ignores the role of money and debt in a market economy cannot possibly make sense of the complex, monetary, credit based economy in which we live.”

What about the failure of the economics profession to forecast the economic collapse?  Mankiw concedes[18], “It is fair to say that this crisis caught most economists flat-footed.”  But he insists; “Yet this is no reason for embarrassment….Some things are just hard to predict.”

Mankiw is certainly correct that most conventional economists were caught flat-footed.  Indeed, many boasted that their “method not a doctrine” had led to policies that had achieved enduring prosperity and stability.  The “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,” declared[19] Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas in his 2003 Presidential Address to the AEA.

Before 2008, conventional economic theory championed the deregulation and expansion of the financial sector as a strategy to enhance economic efficiency and lower risk. It taught us that speculation is not a problem because all of the actors have all the information necessary to make the right decision.

It ignored the tsunami of increasing private debt while concentrating its attention and disapproval on a much slower growing public debt.

“The problem is that economists (and those who listen to them) became over-confident in their preferred models of the moment:  markets are efficient, financial innovation transfers risks to those best able to bear it, self-regulation works best and government intervention is ineffective and harmful,” Dani Rodrik, Professor of Economics at Harvard comments[20].

Again Keen is more blunt. “Neoclassical economists were effectively trained to not see this crisis coming, by theoretical fallacies that led them to ignore crucial real-world phenomena like the ballooning levels of private debt, and rampant speculation and fraud in the private sector.”

In 2003, when Feldstein taught EC 10, students first rose up against its perceived bias.  Some 700 students and alumni signed a petition asking Harvard to offer an alternative economics course.   After much deliberation, Harvard agreed, but refused to allow economics majors to receive credit for taking the alternative course.

Economics Professor Stephen Marglin teaches the alternative class.  The author of The Dismal Science he believes the methods of economists do embody a doctrine. Their assumptions embody certain values and predetermine outcomes.

In an interview Marglin points[21] out several potentially fatal flaws in conventional models.

It is highly misleading about how society actually works. Not only do you have to leave out all the fine print about monopoly and oligopoly, externalities, public goods, asymmetric information…you have to separate individuals, focus on the individual, and leave out of the analysis the connections between individuals. You have to leave aside the limits of rational calculation. You have to assume that it is human nature always to want more, never to be satisfied with ‘enough.’ … you have to assume these rational, isolated individuals are completely self-interested. Because as soon as they are not self-interested anymore-even if that non-self-interest takes the benign form of altruism-then the theorems about Pareto optimality, the efficiency of markets, break down.

Marglin addresses an issue ignored by most economists:  the effect of their models and the policies derived from them on our sense of community. How Thinking Like An Economist Undermines Community is the subtitle of his book.

“Community is important to a meaningful life,” he maintains[22].  “Community is about human connections; we need community to foster and maintain these connections.  And we are diminished as our human connections are diminished.”  “The economics we have constructed makes it virtually inevitable that we will leave community out of consideration when we ask questions about economic policy.”

He offers students advice that would be considered heretical in a conventional economics course. “Choose very carefully which markets you will allow and which you will not in terms of what they do to communities.”

Remember. It’s the Bank of Sweden Economics Prize not the Nobel Prize

A few weeks ago the Nobel Prize for Economics was announced.  The press dutifully noted that it wasn’t  one of the official Nobel Prizes inaugurated in 1901.  Yet the media continue to call it the Nobel Prize rather than by its actual name: The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Knowing that the prize is issued by a bank might help people understand why, since its inception in 1969, 70 percent of these economics prizes have been awarded[23] to Americans compared[24] to only 39 percent of the real Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, literature and medicine.  And why ten have been won by University of Chicago faculty.

The study of economics may indeed help us understand the world and design appropriate policies.  But we need to drop the pretense that economics is a science based on laws and objective models and accept that it is a normative discipline.  We need to own up to the bias inherent in conventional economic models and the social damage policies based on those models has wrought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Debunking Economics: http://debunkingeconomics.com/
  2. best selling: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDkQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FEconomics-McGraw-Hill-Campbell-McConnell%2Fdp%2F0073375691&ei=6mvnTt2AM4bi0QGSqpH1CQ&usg=AFQjCNEaa0m2Zb5CL-L6Fiztozg48p0bOg
  3. half: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dollarsandsense.org%2Farchives%2F2003%2F0703dimaggio.html&ei=KGznTtrONOnl0QHGiKz0CQ&usg=AFQjCNGgkJAhX3NuA17AicsuPnYXdY2_eg
  4. responded: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2011%2F12%2F04%2Fbusiness%2Fknow-what-youre-protesting-economic-view.html&ei=g2znTuLoEKPb0QGKoZDvCQ&usg=AFQjCNGeuGR7IaBE_NbgtlnH4n-Y0vsVJA
  5. Economics for the Rest of Us: http://thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1581
  6. writes: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEAQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economics.harvard.edu%2Ffiles%2Ffaculty%2F40_Spreading%20the%20Wealth%20Around.pdf&ei=6WznTvbKMMTL0QG4scSPCg&usg=AFQjCNEZls9Um-baZWqF_NgvMnH8xykNmw
  7. observes: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2010%2F10%2F10%2Fbusiness%2Feconomy%2F10view.html&ei=KW3nTpOgAseAgweturnMCA&usg=AFQjCNHKe9VaBDuQ6GM3nkwnoG4BFySrpw
  8. wrote: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economics.harvard.edu%2Ffiles%2Ffaculty%2F40_bglobejune01.html&ei=Sm3nTv-2C4qbgwfnyrj1CA&usg=AFQjCNFczBA304foPKDnqHrSvwTT-ry8Xw
  9. explain: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEEQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economics.harvard.edu%2Ffiles%2Ffaculty%2F40_Spreading%20the%20Wealth%20Around.pdf&ei=bm3nTpi4BI3pggeq6ezLCA&usg=AFQjCNEZls9Um-baZWqF_NgvMnH8xykNmw
  10. informed: http://books.google.com/books?id=CxVa0zM3y9kC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=feldstein,+health,+lead+to+an+increased+demand+for+care+that+is+worth+less+than+its+cost+of+production&source=bl&ots=6UhoohN7y2&sig=sCN1dHqIigU4unwZqd12iQH6IRk&hl=en&ei=n23nTo79HYSKgwfk9ejwCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA
  11. less: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwikileaks.org%2Fwiki%2FCRS%3A_The_U.S._Health_Care_Spending%3A_Comparison_with_Other_OECD_Countries%2C_September_17%2C_2007&ei=7W3nTvDVOMWSgwfouqDzCA&usg=AFQjCNHNBV4NXsNseSyw8ksNF-B8TRUoWQ
  12. pointed: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpup.princeton.edu%2Ftitles%2F5632.html&ei=MnrnTvqMGcnO2gWK1s3KCA&usg=AFQjCNHU-RFYAJKgru1I2GjJct9A2dy94g
  13. insists: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgregmankiw.blogspot.com%2F2006%2F05%2Foutsourcing-redux.html&ei=HXvnTo3IDITo2gWtxKCGCg&usg=AFQjCNEnLyr-zvVI7MAqpSFZIuLTzhpEsQ
  14. examined: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voxeu.org%2Findex.php%3Fq%3Dnode%2F7402&ei=SnvnToTKJbO_2QXd8IXMCA&usg=AFQjCNFnHtK2E_2pcoWkn0gaa9NoxAAtew
  15. answers: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fopeneconomicsnd.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F05%2F24%2Fgreg-mankiw-on-the-future-of-econ-101%2F&ei=bXvnTq68FYrY2gXp5dmsCQ&usg=AFQjCNHveIzKbrZ4-9SJBbSL8EY_0vZRew
  16. told: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftomweston.net%2FFinancialization.pdf&ei=mXvnTpKgOdPs2AXRoejICA&usg=AFQjCNHh1adH-CLypNkNHPWjeAmjZ27-7Q
  17. challenged: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdebunkingeconomics.com%2Fsamples%2Fpredicting-the-unpredictable%2F&ei=xHvnTsGSBIPY2QW2ytG8CQ&usg=AFQjCNEJaR4zCNC7Ok14B5nBosAQC8jNxw
  18. concedes: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economist.com%2Fblogs%2Ffreeexchange%2F2009%2F05%2Frevisiting_economics_101&ei=83vnTuq8LYz-2QXotr3RCA&usg=AFQjCNFae3UTBb6Ll8PChIZRL2vuC6lAyg
  19. declared: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDYQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2009%2F09%2F06%2Fmagazine%2F06Economic-t.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall&ei=FXznTqn_KfO42gXilY2ECg&usg=AFQjCNH6VYpoAl9gbk80mdOD37JRn8YoeQ
  20. comments: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aeaweb.org%2Feconwhitepapers%2Fwhite_papers%2FDani_Rodrik.pdf&ei=QHznTtekI8OI2gWR_-HUBw&usg=AFQjCNG9bcRaObxm55xzUXkIWHYzC6Z4XQ
  21. points: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.challengemagazine.com%2Fextra%2F013_026.pdf&ei=gnznTt7rNsWe2wWn-oywCQ&usg=AFQjCNFxnqLxkoVh_7pJyOXr0npsezOVcg
  22. maintains: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fca.vlex.com%2Fvid%2Fgiving-gift-blood-builds-community-65093688&ei=z3znTvrZCIi02gWehJ3cCA&usg=AFQjCNGV672_QhzrxQ8UFI8W8j0emQBFEw
  23. awarded: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Feconbonus.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F09%2Fforecasting-2011-nobel-prize-in.html&ei=F33nTvbdGMrO2AWOxenBCQ&usg=AFQjCNFAVAAWSF15s31bPCsU-4a0KR4vGg
  24. compared: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&sqi=2&ved=0CEsQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jinfo.org%2FUS_Nobel_Prizes.html&ei=OH3nTt7DN-be2AXdxpXMCA&usg=AFQjCNEyT8w2l5883hdQ11AL_MBAeLEaJw

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/occupy-economics-departments/


Can you say ‘Sprawl’? Walmart’s Biggest Climate Impact Goes Ignored

by Stacy Mitchell | November 29, 2011 10:53 pm

This is the sixth article in a special series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

Earlier this year, the New Jersey Sierra Club[3] and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance[4] tried but failed to block a permit for a new Walmart supercenter in the small coastal town of Toms River. The development, now moving forward, will destroy habitat for the threatened northern pine snake. What’s especially frustrating about the project, local environmentalists say, is that Walmart already has a store in Toms River. It’s just a mile down the road and will be shuttered when the new supercenter opens.

The Toms River site is one of several environmentally sensitive areas Walmart aims to pave over in the coming months. Many follow a similar pattern. In Copley, Ohio, Walmart wants to develop 40 acres of fields and wetlands, and then close another store a mile away. In Davie, Fla., the chain is seeking permission to destroy 17 acres of wetlands to build in a location that’s just a 15-minute drive from six other Walmart stores.

The chain now has 698 million square feet of store space in the U.S., up from 530 million in 2005, plus another 287 million around the globe. Its U.S. stores and parking lots cover roughly 60,000 acres.

Walmart’s imprint on our landscape is “their most serious legacy for the environment,” according to Kaid Benfield, director of the Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth program[5] at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “In terms of global warming, it’s a huge issue,” he notes. “Our per-person emissions are much higher in sprawl locations than they are in more walkable locations.”

In fact, it’s likely that Walmart’s land-use impacts indirectly contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere than all of its reported greenhouse gas emissions combined, including those from the electricity that powers its stores and the fuel that runs its trucks.

And, yet, land use is utterly absent from Walmart’s sustainability program. Its 2007 sustainability assessment briefly mentions “the unintended consequences associated with land development.” But annual sustainability reports[6] since then have been silent on the issue. Words and phrases like sprawl, compact, mixed-use, pavement, impervious, runoff, auto-oriented, household driving, transit, and pedestrian do not appear anywhere in these reports.

Vacant Walmarts litter the landscape

Next year, Walmart plans to open at least 210 new stores in the U.S. A handful of these will be its new Express stores[7], which, at 10,000-15,000 square feet, are about the size of a Walgreen’s; they sell groceries and pharmacy items, and are designed to fit into dense urban areas without triggering a zoning review. But almost all of its new stores will be 185,000-square-foot supercenters built on virgin land at the edge of sprawling communities. Even in cities, Walmart still favors a big suburban-style store with a moat of parking. It only resorts to Express stores where necessity dictates. “They are not replacing the suburban model, but adding to it,” says Benfield.

Walmart’s development projects often encounter a host of local and state environmental regulations, but the retailer is remarkably adept at getting around them. In California, for example, Walmart has been using the initiative process to evade the requirements of the state’s Environmental Quality Act. As Will Evans recently reported on California Watch, by gathering signatures and submitting its development proposals as ballot initiatives, Walmart ensures they won’t be subject to the act. Under the initiative process, city governments must either approve the projects outright, with no conditions, or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold a special election. Facing daunting budget problems, most cities just give in. Over the last two years, Walmart has used this technique to secure approval for at least seven new supercenters across the state.

The last thing the U.S. landscape needs is more retail space. At more than 40 square feet per capita, we now have twice as much retail space as we did in the early 1990s and nearly three times as much as Europe — and a shocking amount of it now sits empty. Even before the recession, Americans were unable to spend enough to support all of this development. The Denver metro area, which currently has at least 70 vacant big-box stores[8] and a swelling supply of defunct malls, is typical of many American cities.

Walmart’s commitment to “zero waste,” which has led it to recycle a growing share of waste at its stores, does not, unfortunately, extend to reusing cast-off retail space — not even its own. The company’s realty website[9] lists 150 available Walmart stores, some less than a decade old and most located barely a stone’s throw from a new supercenter. Apparently, Walmart has found there’s more profit to be made by building shiny new stores than by updating and expanding existing ones.

Walmart has signaled that it plans to continue treating its buildings as disposable. Last year, when it negotiated with SolarCity[10] to put solar panels on some of its California stores, Walmart insisted on 10-year power-purchase agreements, rather than the usual 20 years, because it would not commit to occupying these locations for more than a decade.

How Walmart’s sprawl drives climate change

New Walmart stores are made mostly of cement and steel, two materials with high levels of “embodied” carbon, meaning they require a lot of energy to manufacture. These emissions are not counted in Walmart’s annual tally of its contribution to climate change. Nor does the company count the impact of turning CO2-absorbing forests and fields into asphalt.

Far more significant, though, is how Walmart’s development patterns change our communities, reconfiguring their geography so that day-to-day errands require ever more driving. Between 1990 and 2009 — a period when Walmart grew from a regional chain to a national juggernaut — the number of miles the average American household logged each year for shopping grew by more than 42 percent, according to the National Household Travel Survey[11]. By 2009, the average household was driving nearly 1,000 miles more to and from stores each year than it did in 1990.

Driving in general increased during these years as more people moved to the suburbs, but shopping-related driving expanded six times faster than driving for all other purposes, including work, school, and recreation. Indeed, almost half of the total increase in driving in this period can be attributed to errands. It’s not that we’re taking more trips to the store. Households still report about 9 shopping trips each week on average. But each of those trips is about 2 miles longer. For the country as a whole, that’s an extra 149 billion miles on the road each year.

Not all of this extra driving can be attributed to the rise of Walmart and other big-box retailers, but a sizeable chunk of it can. There used to be many more small and medium-sized stores — independent grocers, pharmacies, hardware stores, and so on — dispersed across city neighborhoods and town centers. Most people only had to go a short distance to pick up something for dinner or buy a can of paint.

This more sustainable pattern, rooted in a time before most families had cars, began to fray with the advent of malls in the 1950s and ’60s. But it was the growth of retailers like Walmart, Home Depot, and Target that really decimated neighborhood businesses. While malls mainly sell clothing, the big boxes compete more directly with local stores catering to the day-to-day needs of a community. Today, retail is concentrated in a much smaller number of giant stores, each serving a larger geographic region than the many small stores it replaced. The inevitable result is that most households must drive a few miles more for most errands.

Walmart affects more than just shopping. Its arrival often shifts traffic patterns so dramatically that other businesses, and even institutions like churches and schools, are compelled to abandon older neighborhoods and move to the new center of activity, making every aspect of life more auto-dependent. “What they do on the landscape is hugely influential,” notes Kaid. “In many cases, [Walmart] went early to a location, not late. It’s partly a result of how much land they want to use. From their point of view, they couldn’t follow suburban development and still get that much land at a price that they wanted to pay. They go early and more sprawl comes in around them.”

The climate implications of all this are huge. To get a sense of the magnitude, say we attribute 10 percent of the increase in shopping-related driving since 1990 to Walmart. That’s probably conservative given how fast the company grew and the degree to which its stores have altered land use and traffic patterns, but 10 percent is Walmart’s current share of retail spending, so it’s a fair number to use. That would mean Walmart’s share of the extra miles driven is resulting in more than 5 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year in the U.S. That’s almost a quarter of the company’s reported global CO2 emissions, which were at 21 million tons in 2009. Add in all of the other untallied climate effects of Walmart’s sprawl strategy and you can see how the company’s true carbon footprint balloons.

So, while Walmart claims to be taking a leadership role on climate change, it is refusing to address — or even acknowledge — one of the most significant ways its practices affect the earth’s atmosphere.

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://www.grist.org/article/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable
  2. here: http://www.grist.org/article/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable
  3. New Jersey Sierra Club: http://newjersey.sierraclub.org/
  4. Pinelands Preservation Alliance: http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/protection/work/currentissues/development/walmarttomsrivermanchester/
  5. Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth program: http://www.nrdc.org/smartgrowth/
  6. annual sustainability reports: http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/7951.aspx
  7. Express stores: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-27/business/ct-biz-0727-walmart-express-20110727_1_wal-mart-stores-walmart-express-walmart-supercenter
  8. 70 vacant big-box stores: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18773673
  9. realty website: http://walmartrealty.com/
  10. SolarCity: http://www.grist.org/article/wal-mart-says-thin-solar-is-in
  11. National Household Travel Survey: http://nhts.ornl.gov/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/can-you-say-sprawl-walmarts-biggest-climate-impact-goes-ignored/


Walmart’s promised green product rankings fall off the radar

by Stacy Mitchell | November 22, 2011 1:56 pm

This is the fifth article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

In 2009, Walmart created a stir when it announced that it would develop a Sustainability Index to assess the environmental impacts of every item on its shelves and provide an easy rating system to help shoppers make greener choices. CEO Mike Duke described[3] [PDF] the index as “a simple tool that informs consumers about the sustainability of products” and helps them “consume in a more sustainable way.” This, in turn, would induce Walmart’s 100,000 suppliers to shrink their footprints.

The company set a five-year timetable. Many commentators gushed. The New York Times found the news so momentous that it dedicated an editorial[4] to it, noting, “Given Wal-Mart’s huge purchasing power, if it is done right it could promote both much-needed transparency and more environmentally sensitive practices.”

More than two years on, this ambitious project doesn’t have much to show for itself. A consumer label “is really far off and maybe not a reality,” according to Elizabeth Sturcken, a managing director at Environmental Defense Fund, which has partnered with Walmart on its sustainability initiatives. “This information is really complex. Getting it reduced into a simple label for consumers is very challenging.”

Still, Sturcken thinks the project could produce valuable information for Walmart and manufacturers, and drive product improvements behind the scenes. “I think getting it into a system that product buyers and suppliers could use is much more attainable,” she said.

But even that seems to be proving elusive.

To do the necessary product analysis, Walmart founded the Sustainability Consortium[5], a university-hosted group. It has since attracted 75 corporate members[6], including Monsanto and McDonald’s, each of which must contribute at least $100,000 to the effort. To run the consortium, Walmart chose two academic institutions with which it has close ties: the Applied Sustainability Center, which is part of the University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business and was established in 2007 with a grant from the Walmart Foundation, and Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability, whose board of directors is co-chaired by Rob Walton, son of Walmart founder Sam Walton and chair of Walmart’s own board.

Barbara Kyle, director of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, is skeptical that such an industry-dominated endeavor could produce a meaningful rating scheme. “You end up with manufacturers voting only for criteria that they already meet,” she said, adding that many critical issues, such as the durability of products[7] and the impact of toxic inputs on factory workers, are excluded when corporations define sustainability. Kyle, who was on the task force that developed the EPEAT[8] environmental rating system for computers, volunteered to take part in a Sustainability Consortium meeting on electronics last year, but was rebuffed. “They have all this stuff on their website about transparency and accountability, but they are anything but,” she said.

In the first year or two after its founding in July 2009, the Sustainability Consortium was close-lipped about its progress. In the last few months, the consortium has finally said that it is not in fact developing a rating system or even product-specific information. It is assembling general lifecycle data for types of products — a typical environmental footprint for orange juice or detergent, say, but not for specific brands within those categories. Spokesperson Jon Nicol says this data could be a starting point for a rating system should a company wish to develop one. So far, the consortium has finished just 10 assessments. A Walmart supercenter carries roughly 140,000 items across thousands of product types.

Was Walmart woefully naive about what it would take to create the kind of Sustainability Index it promised? Was it a miscalculation to have corporations play a big role in developing environmental standards for their own products? Should Walmart have put its efforts instead into refining and adapting an existing rating system, one not controlled by industry, such as GoodGuide[9]? Was the index just a PR ploy from the start?

Raising questions about Walmart’s sustainability questionnaire

Although the Sustainability Index may never materialize, Walmart has been taking environmental issues to manufacturers in other ways. The company sent all of its suppliers a “sustainability assessment[10]” [PDF] last year, asking them to answer 15 questions about their practices. But that survey has been criticized by some sustainable business experts. Joel Makower, a green business strategist, described the questions[11] as “superficial at best, voluntary in nature, and the answers are largely yes-or-no, self-reported, and unverified.” Some suppliers privately grumbled that the survey was merely a tool for Walmart to better understand their cost structures and use that knowledge against them.

In China, where Walmart sources roughly 70 percent of everything it sells, the company has been undertaking other efforts. In 2008, Walmart organized a Sustainability Summit for its Chinese suppliers. Both outgoing CEO Lee Scott and incoming CEO Mike Duke gave speeches[12] to the more than 1,000 attendees. Much of the coverage of the event framed it as Walmart getting tough with suppliers: You had better dramatically reduce the environmental impact of your factory or we’ll stop buying your goods.

What the company’s executives actually said was that Walmart had two main environmental goals[13] [PDF] for its Chinese suppliers. The first: “we will require all our suppliers here to clearly demonstrate their compliance with Chinese environmental laws and regulations.” In other words, Walmart will no longer look the other way when its suppliers violate water-pollution and air-pollution laws. It’s good that Walmart is now on the side of the law, but then what are we to make of the company’s previous assertions over the years that its sourcing practices were ethical?

Walmart’s second stated objective was: “By 2012, our goal is for the top 200 factories we source from directly in China to achieve 20 percent greater energy efficiency.” There is plenty of low-hanging fruit when it comes to energy efficiency in China’s industrial sector and Walmart seems to be picking some of it. It has a clear financial incentive: Reducing energy use cuts costs, which presumably could result in Walmart paying suppliers less. Last December, the Environmental Defense Fund, which, at the time, was working in China to help Walmart achieve these reductions, reported that the company was on track to meet this goal by next year. Among the success stories that Walmart likes to highlight is the towel-maker Loftex, which has cut its electricity use by 25 percent and water use by 35 percent.

But the top 200 factories in China constitute less than 1 percent of the 30,000 factories in the country supplying Walmart, so a key question going forward is whether the others will follow in large numbers and in a way that can be verified. “[E]nergy efficiency in supplier factories still seems to be viewed as extracurricular by Walmart managers. It is not, in the lexicon of the Walmart world, seen as a ‘core activity,'” wrote Andrew Hutson, a project manager for corporate partnerships at EDF, in a blog post[14] last December. Hutson said the program lacked mandates for supplier participation and a solid system for measuring progress. “For the program to be impactful and meet its potential, it needs to up its game. Dedicating sufficient resources to get the job done would be a good place to start,” he wrote.

So far, there’s no evidence that Walmart’s purchasing patterns have been changed at all by the answers it’s received to its questionnaire, by its energy-efficiency efforts with Chinese suppliers, or by the Sustainability Index program. Aside from a handful of examples like concentrated laundry detergent and CFL bulbs, it doesn’t appear that greener products are edging out more damaging ones on Walmart’s shelves. The company has not established incentives for its buyers to favor more environmentally friendly products; their performance continues to be measured on sales volume and profit margins. Walmart also refuses to make longer-term purchasing commitments to its suppliers, which leaves many wary of investing in new technologies that may take years to pay off.

While Walmart may have made sustainability part of its conversation with manufacturers, so far this has done little to alter business as usual.

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. described: http://walmartstores.com/download/3880.pdf
  4. editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/opinion/07fri4.html?scp=10&sq=%2522sustainability%20index%2522&st=cse
  5. Sustainability Consortium: http://www.sustainabilityconsortium.org/
  6. 75 corporate members: http://www.sustainabilityconsortium.org/members/
  7. durability of products: http://www.grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-11-is-your-stuff-falling-apart-thank-walmart
  8. EPEAT: http://www.epeat.net/
  9. GoodGuide: http://www.goodguide.com/
  10. sustainability assessment: http://walmartstores.com/download/4055.pdf
  11. described the questions: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/07/19/walmart-and-sustainability-index-one-year-later?page=full
  12. speeches: http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/8685.aspx
  13. two main environmental goals: http://walmartstores.com/download/3271.pdf
  14. blog post: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/12/17/energy-efficiency-aint-rocket-science-it-could-use-boost?page=full

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-promised-green-product-rankings-fall-off-the-radar/


Think Walmart uses 100% clean energy? Try 2%

by Stacy Mitchell | November 18, 2011 2:08 pm

This is the fourth article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

Context is critical to understanding Walmart’s sustainability initiatives and their impact on the retailer’s overall environmental footprint. But context has been sorely absent in the news media’s coverage of Walmart’s green efforts. Even within the environmental community, conversations about Walmart tend to miss the big picture.

Walmart’s renewable-energy activities provide a perfect example. Six years ago, the company announced that it was setting a goal of being “supplied by 100 percent renewable energy.” Succinct, powerfully stated goals are a signature of Walmart’s sustainability campaign — in part, it seems, because journalists often repeat these goals verbatim, so they function like stealth marketing slogans that infiltrate media coverage. Walmart’s renewable-energy goal has been especially effective on this front, appearing in thousands of newspaper articles and countless blog posts. Many of these stories use the goal as a jumping-off point to highlight the retailer’s renewable-energy projects, which include putting solar panels on 130 stores in California and buying 180 million kilowatt-hours of wind power in Texas annually. These stories create the overall impression that Walmart is making great progress on renewable energy.

But what if, rather than repeating Walmart’s stated goal of 100 percent renewable power, these news stories had instead reported that the company currently derives less than 2 percent of its electricity from its solar projects and wind-power purchases? That’s not a figure Walmart has published, and journalists have done little to bring it to light. At its current pace of converting to renewables, it would take Walmart about 300 years to get to 100 percent clean power. Some of its competitors are already there. Kohl’s and Whole Foods (both of which, I should add, have their own problems when it comes to the gap between their environmental PR and reality) have fully converted to renewable power, as have many independent retailers.

What’s holding Walmart up? It doesn’t want to spend the money.

“Because wind and solar power generally cost more than electricity from coal, nuclear or natural gas in most places, Walmart can’t or won’t buy clean energy on a scale that matters,” sustainable-business reporter Marc Gunther wrote earlier this year[3]. Walmart, which reported operating profits of $25.5 billion last year, said as much in its latest sustainability report[4]: “it has sometimes been difficult to find and develop low-carbon technologies that meet our ROI [return-on-investment] requirements.”

This a very different picture from the one the media have presented so far, which has portrayed Walmart as taking a leadership role on renewable power.

Another step back adds even more context: While the company has been talking big about renewable energy, its greenhouse gas emissions have been rising steadily. Between 2005 and 2009, Walmart’s reported emissions in the U.S. grew by roughly 7 percent. In Asia, they doubled. The company says its operations produced 21 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2009, and it expects 30 million metric tons of cumulative growth in emissions by 2015.

Neither Walmart’s renewable-energy projects nor its efficiency efforts are operating at a scale even remotely in league with the company’s size and growth trajectory. In the U.S., Walmart’s energy-efficiency steps have reduced energy use in stores built before 2006 by 10 percent, on average, saving about 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually. But new stores built in the U.S. since 2006 have added at least 3.5 million metric tons to Walmart’s yearly CO2 output.

The big payback

Commentators often note that cutting use of fuel and electricity saves Walmart money. But this is small change compared to the real payoff: a greener image and an enormous amount of positive publicity. This PR boost has enabled Walmart to accelerate the pace of its expansion. Six years ago, even the retailer’s own customers were starting to avoid its stores, while its development plans in cities like New York and Washington faced an impenetrable wall of opposition. Today, public opinion has shifted. Walmart’s store proposals, especially in the environmentally conscious Northeast and West Coast, are moving forward with less friction than before.

With fewer obstacles in its way, Walmart is anticipating big growth[5] over the next couple of years. In the fiscal year that will end on Jan. 31, 2012, Walmart expects to have added between 36 and 39 million square feet of store space worldwide, and over the next year, between 45 and 49 million more — altogether, the equivalent of up to 470 average-sized supercenters. It also expects, next year, to grow sales by 5 to 7 percent, or $21 to $29 billion.

The company’s growth and sales goals always have specific time frames attached, of course, while its renewable-energy goal remains as undefined as ever. So as Walmart expands, thanks in part to goodwill generated by its green campaign, its environmental footprint will keep expanding right along with it.

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. wrote earlier this year: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/04/25/walmarts-csr-report-shows-power-limits-efficiency
  4. latest sustainability report: http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/7951.aspx?sourceid=sustainabilityreport&ref=http%3a%2f%2fwww.google.com%2furl%3fsa%3dt%26rct%3dj%26q%3d%26esrc%3ds%26source%3dweb%26cd%3d1%26ved%3d0CDYQFjAA%26url%3dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwalmartstores.com%2Fsustainabilityreport%26ei%3d8ALEToSiBojc0QHW7qXEAQ%26usg%3dAFQjCNFmZa_OT9InaqC6RlBqDIDoTzS0Xg%26sig2%3dplkl2D4fZr2Y-39ea8Wv4w
  5. anticipating big growth: http://investors.walmartstores.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=112761&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1616558&highlight=

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/think-walmart-uses-100-clean-energy-try-2/


Is your stuff falling apart? Thank Walmart

by Stacy Mitchell | November 11, 2011 2:19 pm

This is the third article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

My friend Tony’s closet is as good a place as any to begin an investigation of Walmart’s environmental impact. Tony has a pair of Levi’s that date back to high school more than 20 years ago. They still fit him and they’re still in rotation. The fabric has a smooth patina that hints at its age, but, compared to another pair of Levi’s he bought only a couple of years ago, this pair actually looks far less worn. The denim is sturdier, the seams more substantial, the rivets bigger.

Tony’s old pair of Levi’s may well have been made in the U.S, and they likely cost more than his new pair. The new ones were manufactured abroad — Levi’s closed its last U.S. factory in 2003 — and, though Tony didn’t buy them at Walmart, their shoddy construction can be blamed at least in part on the giant retailer and the way it’s reshaping manufacturing around the world.

Since 1994, the consumer price of apparel, in real terms, has fallen by 39 percent. “It is now possible to buy clothing, long a high-priced and valuable commodity, by the pound, for prices comparable to cheap agricultural products,” notes Juliet Schor[3]. Cheapness — and the decline in durability that has accompanied it – has triggered an astonishing increase in the amount of clothing we buy. In the mid-1990s, the average American bought 28 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy 59 items. We also throw away an average of 83 pounds of textiles per person, mostly discarded apparel, each year. That’s four times as much as we did in 1980, according to an EPA analysis of municipal waste streams[4] [PDF].

Most consumer products have followed a similar trajectory over the last two decades. Walmart has done more than any other company to drive these changes, though other retailers have since followed its model. Where once we measured value when we shopped, Walmart trained us to see only price. Its hard bargaining pushed manufacturers offshore and drove them, year after year, to cut more corners and make shoddier products. As union-wage production jobs and family-owned businesses fell by the wayside, many Americans could no longer afford anything but Walmart’s cheap offerings.

Today Walmart says it wants to reduce the amount of pollution involved in making some of the stuff it sells. That seems like a good thing – except that everything else Walmart does is designed to undermine the durability of consumer goods, accelerate the flow of products from factory to landfill, and get us to buy more stuff. Even if Walmart does succeed in reducing the resources used to make a T-shirt or a television set, those gains will be more than outstripped by growth in the number of T-shirts and TVs we’re consuming.

The six-dollar toaster

On a recent visit to Walmart store No. 2659, just outside of Portland, Maine, I tried to find evidence of a shift to more sustainable products, but I didn’t see much beyond CFL bulbs and reusable shopping bags. There were no Seventh Generation cleaning supplies or organic cotton clothes, for example.

I did, however, spot a toaster[5] that retails for $6.24 — a price that renders its longevity virtually irrelevant. If it breaks, just buy another.

Prices on general household goods have fallen by about one-third since the mid-1990s. Given how awash in stuff we were in those boom years, it’s shocking just how much more we buy now. Since 1995, the number of toasters and other small electro-thermal appliances sold in the U.S. each year increased from 188 million to 279 million. The average household now buys a new TV every 2.5 years, up from every 3.4 years in the early 1990s. We buy more than 2 billion bath towels a year, up from 1.4 billion in 1994. And on and on.

While there are certainly factors beyond Walmart that have contributed to this ever-expanding avalanche of consumption, the company has been a major driver of the trend. Its growth and profitability rest on fueling an ever-faster churn of products, from factory to shelf to house to landfill.

In a paper[6] [PDF] that came out last year, three business professors illustrate how inducing manufacturers to cut product quality enhances Walmart’s competitive position. “Because lower quality products are usually cheaper to produce, it is often argued that discount retailers induce lower quality in order to drive down prices. Our model suggests, however, that the competitive and bargaining position effects provide incentives to induce lower quality regardless of changes in production costs,” the authors write.

In other words, getting manufacturers to make shoddier products doesn’t just mean that Walmart can offer super-cheap wares; it also helps Walmart marginalize its competitors and gain more dominance over its suppliers. By using its market power to drive down the quality of manufacturing, Walmart gains an advantage over department stores and independent retailers because quality (and the knowledgeable service that typically goes with it) is no longer an important factor in a consumer’s choice about where to shop. If you are going to end up with a crappy to mediocre blender anyway, then why bother spending more or availing yourself of the advice and service of a specialty retailer? Reducing the overall quality of products thus destroys a key competitive advantage of Walmart’s smaller rivals.

Even when a manufacturer responds to Walmart’s cost-cutting pressure by producing a separate, cheaper line to sell only in big-box stores — as many name-brand companies now do — the brand’s reputation for quality can suffer, making it hard for specialty retailers to persuade customers that the higher-quality, longer-lasting versions they offer are worth more.

As local stores and other competing retailers are weakened, manufacturers become more dependent on Walmart. Many major consumer products companies now rely on Walmart for one-quarter or more of their business. According to the study, this gives the chain greater bargaining power over its suppliers, who have fewer options for bringing their wares to market and thus little leverage to resist the retailer’s demands.

Walmart is also a master at getting shoppers to buy more than they came for. It employs all of the techniques that have been shown to spur “unplanned buying,” according to a recent study [PDF] in the Journal of Marketing. The study found that large stores that promote the concept of one-stop shopping and can only be reached by car generate the most impulse buys. Marketing messages that evoke abstract shopping goals are also highly effective at inducing people to put more stuff in their carts. The authors cite Walmart’s “Save Money, Live Better” slogan as a leading example.

According to the study, the least amount of unplanned buying occurs when a shopping trip involves multiple stores, each with a specific product focus, and the customer arrives on foot or by mass transit – in other words, when you shop at small neighborhood and downtown retailers.

A low-tar cigarette

Walmart has a powerful incentive to increase the scale of consumption. Sustainability will never be more than a modest sideshow to this larger endeavor. Nowhere in Walmart’s pronouncements about greening its supply chain does the company mention the durability of products or the pace at which households burn through the stuff its stores sell.

As consumers, we’re hardly innocent in all of this, of course. With prices falling below the real human and environmental costs of production, we have been happy to upgrade to a bigger TV or buy four T-shirts when one would suffice. But imagining that Walmart might be part of the cure is like putting tobacco companies in charge of ending smoking. Walmart’s sustainability plan is the low-tar cigarette of the environmental movement: it admits there’s a problem, but offers a kind of pseudo solution that’s really aimed at keeping us all puffing.

As Walmart takes over an ever-larger share of the global economy, companies that favor a more durable and sustainable model of production are squeezed to the margins. The business press is replete with tales of storied U.S. brands, like Levi’s, which held out against Walmart for years before finally giving in, moving overseas, and figuring out how to make a $10 pair of jeans. Some still resist. Stihl, for example, the world’s leading maker of chain saws, has been vocal about retaining the quality of its products by not selling to the big boxes. But if Walmart and those that follow its model continue to grow, there may soon come a day when no producer can escape its dictates.

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. notes Juliet Schor: http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v55y2005i3p309-320.html
  4. EPA analysis of municipal waste streams: http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/msw2009rpt.pdf
  5. toaster: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Rival-2-Slice-Toaster-White/15231388
  6. paper: http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/dukes16_retailincentivesforquality_02-17-10.pdf

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/is-your-stuff-falling-apart-thank-walmart/


Crowdfunding Bill Would Allow People to Invest in Local Businesses

by Stacy Mitchell | November 8, 2011 3:11 pm

Under a measure that passed the House last Thursday, you may soon be able to invest in a portfolio of your favorite independent businesses. The bill[1], which won bipartisan support and cleared the House on a 407-17 vote, would overturn long-standing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules that make it nearly impossible for small businesses to raise capital (or borrow money) from their customers and communities.

Current SEC rules divide investors into two categories. Wealthy people (“accredited” investors) are assumed to have a certain degree of financial sophistication. Businesses are free to approach them for funding. The rest of us are covered by safeguards that bar businesses from soliciting our investments without registering a public offering of securities with the SEC, an arduous and expensive legal process that is well beyond the reach of a neighborhood restaurant or start-up clothing maker. The current rules do exempt some small investment offerings, but these exemptions are too narrow for most independent businesses to use without running afoul of the law.

The result is that, even as enthusiasm for independent businesses and locally produced goods has grown, the savings of almost all American households remains invested in the stocks and bonds of large corporations. We may buy local, but we invest transnational. There are few alternatives.

Many independent businesses, meanwhile, are short of the capital and credit they need. The rise of giant banks over the last twenty years has sharply reduced the ranks of local banks, making it harder for small businesses to obtain credit. For those that cannot secure a bank loan, but have an avid following, raising funds in small increments from the public can be a viable option. Some that have managed to do so without violating SEC rules, like Greenlight Books (read their story[2]), have also discovered that grassroots financing has it advantages. It helps to build the relationships and community loyalty that can be so critical to surviving in the age of Amazon and Walmart.

Crowdfunding is further along in Europe, where the rules about offering small securities are more generous, according to Amy Cortese, whose new book Locavesting[3] provides an inspiring look at the many ways our investment dollars might be redirected locally. One active platform is the UK-based Funding Circle[4]. Since its inception in August 2010, Funding Circle has facilitated about £15 million ($24 million) in loans to 404 businesses. The site features a list of loan requests that have been vetted by Funding Circle’s underwriters and rated according to risk. Individuals can lend to as many as they like. A single loan may involve hundreds of lenders. Lenders are encouraged to join Circles, which are groups of people that have a common investing interest. Many are geographically focused — businesses in Edinburgh or Bristol, for example. So far, there have been two defaults and no cases of fraud.

Hoping to legalize crowdfunding in the U. S., the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC)[5] sent a petition to the SEC in July of 2010 requesting that the agency establish an exemption for businesses seeking up to $100,000 with individual investments capped at $100. Although the SEC received more 150 letters of support for the petition, nothing much happened until September of this year, when President Obama endorsed an exemption for crowdfunding and said that he would work with the SEC to change the rules.

Within weeks, Representative Patrick McHenry had organized a committee hearing on the issue and introduced HR2930[6], which sailed through the House at breakneck speed. The legislation requires the SEC to exempt businesses seeking to raise up to $1 million, with the amount an individual could invest limited to no more than 10 percent of his or her income, a much higher threshold than the SELC proposed. The measure establishes disclosure and other standards for the companies soliciting funding, as well as third-party intermediaries that link borrowers and lenders.

Although the crowdfunding bill won overwhelming support in the House, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate. The SEC opposes the bill, saying it would create too many openings for fraud. But, as some in Congress have noted, it’s hard to defer to an agency whose oversight failed to protect investors from Bernie Madoff and a mountain of toxic mortgage-backed securities. “It’s a legitimate concern, but we feel that the regulatory focus should be happening more at the top [of the market], not at the grassroots,” says Jenny Kassan, co-director of the SELC.

Another source of opposition is state regulators. Their laws and rules governing offerings under $1 million would be preempted by McHenry’s bill. While states play an important role in securities oversight, Kassan says that their specific regulations vary so widely that it’s prohibitively expensive for an expanding small business or start-up to comply with 50 different sets of requirements.

Perhaps a more significant concern about McHenry’s bill is whether it would allow crowdfunding to stray too far from its community roots. This kind of financing works well when it’s grounded in real relationships — when those investing are also the company’s suppliers, customers, or neighbors. Nothing in the bill so far requires borrowers and investors to have a connection or something in common beyond the financing (a shared geography, say). Should McHenry’s legislation open the way for crowdfunding to become more national, web-based, and anonymous, the risk of defaults and fraud may grow.

Although Kassan, Cortese, and other advocates of community-based crowdfunding share this concern, they say that the legislation is still a good move on balance. As Cortese notes, “This could tap a huge pool of capital for companies that need it, and allow people to invest in companies they love.”

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Endnotes:
  1. bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.02930:
  2. read their story: https://ilsr.org/grassroots-financing-underwriting-new-crop-neighborhood-businesses/
  3. Locavesting: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780470911389
  4. Funding Circle: http://www.fundingcircle.com/
  5. Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC): http://www.theselc.org/
  6. HR2930: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.02930:

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/crowdfunding-bill-would-allow-people-to-invest-in-local-businesses/


Walmart by the Numbers

by Stacy Mitchell | November 8, 2011 2:32 pm

This is the second article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

Walmart’s six-year-old sustainability campaign has helped improve its public image[3], enabling the company to grow bigger and faster. That growth, ironically, has dramatically increased the retailer’s environmental footprint, and hurt local economies and the U.S. job market along the way.

2005 — year Walmart launched its sustainability campaign

38 — percentage of Americans who had an unfavorable view of Walmart in 20051

20 — percentage of Americans who had an unfavorable view of Walmart in 20102

530 million — total square footage of Walmart’s U.S. stores in 20053

698 million — total square footage of Walmart’s U.S. stores in 20114

641 million — approximate area of the island of Manhattan in square feet

1,587 — number of Walmart stores outside of the U.S. in 20055

4,557 — number of Walmart stores outside of the U.S. in 20116

60,000 — approximate number of acres covered by Walmart’s U.S. stores and parking lots7

0 — number of times since 2007 that Walmart’s annual sustainability reports have referenced the company’s impact on land-use patterns and household driving

152 — number of abandoned Walmart stores in the U.S. listed as available for lease or sale on the company’s realty website8

210 — minimum number of new stores Walmart plans to open in the U.S. in 20129

1.5 million — approximate metric tons of CO2 saved each year by energy-efficiency improvements Walmart has made to U.S. stores built before 200610

3.5-3.9 million — approximate metric tons of CO2 emitted each year by Walmart stores built in the U.S. since 200611

<2 — percentage of Walmart’s U.S. electricity consumption that currently comes from its solar projects and specially purchased wind energy12

300 — approximate number of years it would take for Walmart to reach 100 percent renewable energy at its current pace

1988 — year Walmart opened its first supercenter selling a full line of groceries

25 — percentage of U.S. grocery sales now captured by Walmart13

29 — number of U.S. metro areas where Walmart captures more than half of all grocery spending14

196,000 — number of U.S. jobs lost from 2001 to 2006 as a result of Walmart’s imports from China15

1,940 — number of small retail firms (fewer than 20 employees) per 1 million population in the U.S. in 199216

1,455 — number of small retail firms per 1 million population in the U.S. in 200717

$312 billion — Walmart’s revenue in 200518

$419 billion — Walmart’s revenue in 201019

$8.81 — average hourly wage at Walmart’s U.S. stores20

$943 — average annual cost to taxpayers of providing Medicaid, food stamps, and cash assistance for each Walmart employee, based on data from Ohio21

 

Sources and footnotes:

1. Zogby International poll[4] conducted in November 2005.

2. Walmart data as reported by the American Prospect in May 2011.

3. Walmart 2005 Annual Report[5] [PDF] (figure includes Sam’s Club).

4. Walmart 2011 Annual Report[6] (figure includes Sam’s Club).

5. Walmart 2005 Annual Report[5] [PDF].

6. Walmart 2011 Annual Report.[7]

7. Author’s calculation based on store data in Walmart’s annual reports and the typical number of parking spaces provided per 1,000 square feet of retail store space.

8. Site[8] searched on Oct. 28, 2011.

9. Walmart press release[9], Oct. 12, 2011.

10. Author’s calculation based on data in Walmart’s annual sustainability reports.

11. Author’s calculation based on data in Walmart’s annual sustainability reports.

12. Author’s calculation based on data reported in Walmart’s annual sustainability reports. A small percentage of the electricity delivered by utilities around the country is also from wind and solar, so Walmart does get some additional renewable power that way, as we all do.

13. Estimates range from 22 to 28 percent.

14. Data reported for the year 2009 by Metro Market Studies, a commercial market share data provider.

15. Robert E. Scott, “The Wal-Mart effect: Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U. S. jobs[10],” Economic Policy Institute, June 2007.

16. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census[11].

17. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census[11].

18. Walmart 2006 Annual Report[12] [PDF].

19. Walmart 2011 Annual Report.[7]

20. “Is Wal-Mart Worse?[13]” Gotham Gazette, Feb 14, 2011, citing wage data supplied by the independent market research firm IBISWorld.

21. Data provided by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and published in a report by Policy Matters Ohio, “Public Benefits Subsidize Major Ohio Employers: A 2008 Update,” July 31, 2008.

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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. helped improve its public image: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-greenwash-why-the-retail-giant-is-still-unsustainable/
  4. Zogby International poll: http://www.zogby.com/news/2005/12/01/new-national-zogby-poll-finds-americans-hold-diverse-strong-increasingly-negative-opinions-about-wal/
  5. Walmart 2005 Annual Report: http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2005annualreport.pdf
  6. Walmart 2011 Annual Report: http://walmartstores.com/sites/annualreport/2011/
  7. Walmart 2011 Annual Report.: http://walmartstores.com/sites/annualreport/2011/
  8. Site: http://www.walmartrealty.com/
  9. press release: http://investors.walmartstores.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=112761&p=irol-newsArticle_pf
  10. The Wal-Mart effect: Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U. S. jobs: http://www.epi.org/publication/ib235/
  11. Economic Census: http://www.census.gov/econ/census12/
  12. Walmart 2006 Annual Report: http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2006_annual_report.pdf
  13. Is Wal-Mart Worse?: http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/searchlight/20110214/203/3463

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmart-by-the-numbers/


Walmart’s greenwash: Why the retail giant is still unsustainable

by Stacy Mitchell | November 7, 2011 2:55 pm

This is the first article in a special 9-part series written by ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and published by Grist[1].  You can read the whole series here[2].

Walmart adopted sustainability as a corporate strategy in 2005. It was struggling mightily at the time. Bad headlines stalked the chain, as its history of mistreating workers and suppliers finally caught up with it. One analysis found that as many as 8 percent of Walmart’s customers had stopped shopping at its stores. Grassroots groups were blocking or delaying one-third of its development projects. Stockholders were growing nervous. Between 2000 and 2005, Walmart’s share price fell 20 percent.

As then-CEO Lee Scott told The New York Times, improving labor conditions would cost too much. It would also mean ceding some control to employees and perhaps even a union. Going green was a better option for repairing the company’s image. It offered ways to cut costs and, rather than undermining Walmart’s control, sustainability could actually augment its power over suppliers. Environmentalism also had strong appeal among urban liberals in the Northeast and West Coast — the very markets Walmart needed to penetrate in order to keep its U.S. growth going.

Since Scott first unveiled Walmart’s sustainability program, the company’s head office in Bentonville, Ark., has issued a steady stream of announcements about cutting energy use, reducing waste, and, more recently, selling healthier food. Most of these announcements declare goals, not achievements. But the goals sound audacious enough to reliably produce sweeping headlines and breathless accounts of how Walmart could remake the world by bending industrial production to its will.

By 2010, the number of Americans reporting an unfavorable view of Walmart had fallen by nearly half, from a peak of 38 percent in 2005, to 20 percent.

What the news media haven’t reported

As I started to work on this series, I looked back at the coverage of Walmart’s sustainability campaign over the last six years and was shocked by just how much of a public relations boost the media have given the company and how little public accountability they have demanded in return.

Some of the most serious environmental consequences of Walmart’s business model simply aren’t on the table. Walmart doesn’t talk about them and, despite expending a lot of ink and airtime on the company’s green activities, the news media don’t either. Indeed, journalists rarely stray beyond the parameters of what Walmart has put in front of them.

More surprising is the absence of basic information essential to evaluating what Walmart is actually accomplishing. Take, for example, the share of Walmart’s electricity that comes from renewable sources. There have been thousands of news stories and blog posts on the company’s renewable energy activities since 2005, so one would think this number would be reported often. I couldn’t find it anywhere. (I did eventually dig up enough data to figure it out myself. The answer: less than 2 percent[3] of the company’s electric power in the U.S. comes from its wind and solar projects.)

Or take the case of the Sustainability Index, Walmart’s much-publicized effort to put a green rating on every product it sells. Two years after the media fanfare surrounding the announcement, no journalist, as far as I can tell, has investigated what progress, if any, Walmart has actually made. (According to my research: not much.)

This series aims to fill in some of these gaps and, hopefully, inspire other writers and journalists to take a closer look at what Walmart is and isn’t doing.

What environmentalists haven’t paid attention to

“Walmart is here to stay” — that’s the refrain I often hear from the many environmental organizations and green-business advocates who have applauded the company’s sustainability efforts. The world’s largest retailer isn’t going away, the thinking goes, so anything it does to reduce its footprint is a good thing.

But Walmart circa 2005 is, in fact, long gone. Today’s Walmart is much, much bigger. It sells 35 percent more stuff in the U.S., and its international store count has almost tripled, from about 1,600 to 4,600 stores.

For Walmart, sustainability is a growth strategy — and a highly effective (and darkly ironic) one at that. Six years ago, Walmart was facing widespread opposition, including legislation that would have required better labor practices and limited the company’s growth. Thanks at least in part to its sustainability campaign, and the warm reception from many environmentalists, those roadblocks have eroded and Walmart’s expansion is once again rolling at full speed.

As it grows, Walmart pushes out existing enterprises and local economic systems and replaces them with its own, often far more polluting, global supply chain and sprawling stores. If any single fact could sum up what’s at stake, it would be that Walmart now controls one-quarter of our country’s grocery sales and aims to capture half — a prospect with disastrous implications for the environment, social justice, and local economies.

So far, though, most mainstream environmental organizations have focused on the small bits of good that Walmart could do — reduce PVC in packaging, for example — while ignoring the much larger consequences of its ever-expanding business model.

This series will mark, we hope, the beginning of a more comprehensive and critical response to Walmart’s sustainability initiatives.

Read the articles in the series:

  • Walmart by the numbers: Green vs. growth[4]
  • Is your stuff falling apart? Thank Walmart[5]
  • Think Walmart uses 100% clean energy? Try 2%[6]
  • Walmart’s promised green product rankings fall off the radar[7]
  • Can you say ‘sprawl’? Walmart’s biggest climate impact goes ignored[8]
  • Walmart spends big to help anti-environment candidates[9]
  • Eaters, beware: Walmart is taking over our food system[10]
  • Four ways enviros can keep Walmart in the hot seat[11]
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Endnotes:
  1. Grist: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  2. here: http://grist.org/series/2011-11-07-walmart-greenwash-retail-giant-still-unsustainable/
  3. less than 2 percent: http://grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-17-walmarts-progress-on-renewables-has-been-very-slow
  4. Walmart by the numbers: Green vs. growth: https://ilsr.org/walmart-by-the-numbers/
  5. Is your stuff falling apart? Thank Walmart: https://ilsr.org/is-your-stuff-falling-apart-thank-walmart/
  6. Think Walmart uses 100% clean energy? Try 2%: https://ilsr.org/think-walmart-uses-100-clean-energy-try-2/
  7. Walmart’s promised green product rankings fall off the radar: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-promised-green-product-rankings-fall-off-the-radar/
  8. Can you say ‘sprawl’? Walmart’s biggest climate impact goes ignored: https://ilsr.org/can-you-say-sprawl-walmarts-biggest-climate-impact-goes-ignored/
  9. Walmart spends big to help anti-environment candidates: https://ilsr.org/walmart-spends-big-to-help-anti-environment-candidates/
  10. Eaters, beware: Walmart is taking over our food system: https://ilsr.org/eaters-beware-walmart-is-taking-over-our-food-system/
  11. Four ways enviros can keep Walmart in the hot seat: https://ilsr.org/four-ways-enviros-can-keep-walmart-in-the-hot-seat/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/walmarts-greenwash-why-the-retail-giant-is-still-unsustainable/


It’s Labor vs. Capital, Stupid

by David Morris | October 6, 2011 2:18 pm

A few months ago Nassim Taleb, author of the Black Swan, an influential book about the crucial importance of unpredictable, unforeseen events on our financial system was asked whether the hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in Greece was a Black Swan event. He replied[1], “No. The real Black Swan event is that people are not rioting against the banks in London and New York.”

They are now.  Not rioting perhaps but vigorously protesting.  Occupy Wall Street is moving into its second month.  Twenty thousand strong demonstrated in New York City this week.  Similar demonstrations are spreading nationwide.

In the 1976 movie, Network, anchorman Howard Beale tells his viewers,

Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore. That is the message of the sit-ins by U.S. Uncut, the protests against Bank of America, the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. to protest the war, Occupy Wall Street and the growing numbers of #Occupy demonstrations around the country. (more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. replied: http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/06/21/greek-citizens-head-into-streets-by-hundreds-of-thousands-to-protest-austerity/
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/its-labor-vs-capital-stupid/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/its-labor-vs-capital-stupid/


How State Banks Bring the Money Home

by Stacy Mitchell | September 15, 2011 9:39 am

This article originally appeared in Yes! Magazine[1].

One of the most significant, but least noticed, consequences of the rapid and dramatic consolidation of the banking industry over the last decade is how much it has hindered the U.S. economy’s ability to create jobs.

To begin to understand this, take a look at each end of the banking spectrum. On one end are the nation’s 6,900 small, locally owned, community banks. These institutions control $1.4 trillion in assets. That’s 11 percent of all bank assets. They currently have $257 billion in loans to small businesses and farms on their books.

On the other end, four giant banks—JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo—now command $5.4 trillion in assets, or 40 percent of the total. Given that they are nearly four times as large as all local banks combined, one might expect that they would have made four times the small-business loans, or about $1 trillion. In fact, these banks have a mere $85 billion in small-business and farm loans on their balance sheets.  (See this graph[2].)

Why do giant banks make so few small-business loans? Automation is the short answer. The only way these sprawling institutions can function efficiently is by taking a mass production approach to lending: Plug credit score, income, and appraisal into the computer—out comes the loan. That’s why the mortgage business was supposed to be so safe. The economic meltdown of 2007 shows that it’s actually very risky.

Small-business loans are not so easily mechanized. Each is a custom job, requiring human judgment to evaluate the risk associated with a particular entrepreneur, a particular business plan, and a particular market. Community banks excel at this. Their lending decisions are made locally, informed by face-to-face relationships with borrowers and an intimate understanding of their hometown economies. Big banks, whose decision-making is long-distance and dictated more by computer models than judgment, are pretty bad at it. So they don’t make many small-business loans.

(more…)[3]

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Endnotes:
  1. Yes! Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/new-livelihoods/how-state-banks-bring-the-money-home
  2. graph: /news/charts-small-banks-small-business-lending
  3. (more…): https://ilsr.org/how-state-banks-bring-money-home/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/how-state-banks-bring-money-home/


And the Winner is….The Public Sector

by David Morris | May 18, 2011 9:51 am

Unlike the public sector, the private sector is bred for efficiency. Left to its own devices, it will always find the means to provide services faster, cheaper, and more effectively than will governments.
James Jay Carafano, Private Sector, Public Wars[1]

I suspect the vast majority of Americans would agree with Mr. Carafano.  They probably consider the statement self-evident.  The facts, however, lead to the opposite conclusion.  When not handicapped by regulations designed to subsidize the private sector, the public sector often provides services faster, cheaper and more effectively.

Consider the results of recent privatization initiatives in three key sectors:  health, education and national defense.

Health

Alone among all industrialized nations, the US relies on private for profit insurance companies to manage its health care system.  The result?  The US has by far the most expensive health care system in the world both in total cost and as a percentage of GDP.

But we don’t have to look abroad to evaluate the comparative costs of private and public health systems. Consider Medicare.

Small privatization efforts under Medicare began in the 1980s but did not become full-borne until 1997 when the Republican Congress, with the support of President Clinton, created Medicare+Choice.   Secure in their faith that the private is always superior to the public the Republicans agreed to a program in which private insurers would receive the same amount as the service cost under Medicare.

[2]The private sector proved uncompetitive. Private insurers began pulling out en masse. In 2000, more than 900,000 patients were dropped from the Medicare+Choice program.

No one should have been surprised.  Private insurers have a huge handicap.  Their overhead costs-marketing, profits, etc.—dwarf those of Medicare: slightly under 17 percent compared to about 5 percent for Medicare.

How did the Republican Party react to this real world challenge to their foundational belief in the efficiencies inherent in a private enterprise system?  They changed the rules. Having proven unable to win in a fair fight, private insurers were now given a handsome subsidy when Medicare Advantage replaced Medicare+Choice. The federal government now pays private insurers on average 14 percent[3] more per member than the same care would cost under traditional Medicare.

The huge subsidy allowed private insurers not only to make a profit but to offer some low cost goodies, like membership to gyms, Medicare doesn’t offer.  Today, about 8.5 million Medicare beneficiaries nationwide are enrolled in some form of private Medicare plan—nearly 20 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries.

[4]Astonishingly, having proven that private health insurance costs more Republicans have now made the further privatization of Medicare the centerpiece of their budget deficit plan.  Instead of directly insuring seniors their new plan would have the government give them a voucher to buy private insurance.  The government would save money because the value of the vouchers would rise at a slower rate than health care costs.

New Yorker business writer James Surowiecki sums[5] up the conclusions of an analysis of the plan by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office[6], “seniors would have to spend more and more of their income on private insurance and out-of-pocket expenses, or go without… Ryan’s plan would actually increase the amount of money Americans spend on health care, since private insurers aren’t as good at curbing costs as Medicare.  But taxpayers would pay less.”

Education

In 1958, the federal government established a student loan program.  The federal Treasury made the loan directly.  In 1965, as part of his Great Society initiative, LBJ wanted to dramatically expand the program, but ran up against budget rules that discriminated against direct lending. A direct loan showed up as a total loss in the year it was made, even though most of it would be paid back with interest in future years.  A guaranteed loan, on the other hand, which placed the full faith and credit of the United States behind a private bank loan, would appear to have no up front budget cost at all because the government’s payments for defaults and interest subsidies would not occur until later years.

Knowing that a major direct loan program would show up as increasing a deficit already growing because of the expanding Vietnam War, the Democratic Congress opted to replace direct loans from the government with bank loans guaranteed by the government.

For the next 27 years, the direct loan program disappeared.  Finally, in 1990 Congress eliminated the unfair rules.  The new unbiased regulations led the Bush Administration to conclude that direct loans would be less costly and simpler to administer.  In 1992, Congress created a direct lending pilot program.  In 1993, President Clinton proposed replacing the guarantee program with direct loans as part of his own deficit reduction plan.

But in 1994 Republicans took over the House of Representatives.  And as conservatives are wont to do, they refused to let facts get in the way of ideology. Led by Newt Gingrich, they tried to completely eliminate direct lending. To their surprise, college and university officials, frustrated by a guaranteed loan system the Government Accountability Office labeled[7] a “complicated, cumbersome process” involving thousands of middlemen, fought back.

Ultimately, Congress stopped short of eliminating direct lending. Instead, it prohibited the Department of Education from encouraging colleges to switch to the direct loan program.   Even without such encouragement, colleges recognized a good deal when they saw one and began shifting to direct loans.  By 1998, about 35 percent of all student loans were direct loans from the government.

The private sector, having tasted the profits of guaranteed loans, fought back, led by Sallie Mae, the former Student Loan Marketing Agency.  Set up in 1972 as a non-profit, government sponsored enterprise (GRE) supervised by the US Treasury, in 1997 Sallie Mae obtained Congressional approval to privatize.  That allowed it to originate its own loans and acquire other companies. The new private profit making company quickly bought out its two major rivals.

 

Sallie Mae also purchased student loan collection companies.  By 2006 it dominated all aspects of the student loan industry. According to CBS[8] News, in 2005 nearly a fifth of its revenue came from collection agencies.  Sallie Mae’s fee income increased by 228 percent between 2000 and 2005, from $280 million to $920 million while its stock price increased 1,600 percent from 1995 to 2005.

Colleges began to shift back to guaranteed loans.  Wondering why they would do so to the detriment of their students, U.S. News and World Report investigated.  It found that private lenders were supplying college official with free meals and drinks, golf outings and sailboat cruises. “Lenders offer the prospect of millions of dollars in profits to universities–if they drop out of the Education Department’s direct-loan plan.

 

A 2006-2007 investigation by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo uncovered a pattern of kickbacks and bribes to universities.

Private lenders worked not only to maximize their share of the market but to maximize their profits from each loan by changing the rules.  U.S. News and World Report noted, the student loan industry “used money and favors, along with their friends in Congress and the Department of Education, to get what they wanted.”

In 1998, Congress allowed massive penalties and fees to be imposed on delinquent student loans, making it more profitable for the lenders and guarantors when students defaulted than when they repaid the loan on time.  Congress also allowed for collection rates of up to 25 percent to be applied to the debt.

[9]In 1999, lawmakers created a new interest-rate formula that boosted the lenders profits.

 

Student loans were specifically exempted from state usury laws and from coverage under the Truth in Lending Act.

Adding insult to injury, in 2005, the private lenders convinced Congress to make all student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

 

The loss to the taxpayers ran into the tens of billions of dollars.  The loss to students may have run even higher.

In 2005 the Congressional Budget Office compared[10] the impact on taxpayers of a guaranteed loan and a direct loan.  For every $1 of loan guarantee the federal government incurred taxpayers lost 15 cents.  For every $1 loans made directly by the federal government, taxpayers made 2 cents.

On a $3,000 student loan repaid in 10 years, the CBO estimated the cost to taxpayer for a guaranteed loan would be $450.  A direct loan, however, would benefit taxpayers by $63.

The 2008 elections gave us a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President.  In 2010, they ended 40 years of giveaways to the private sector and eliminated the guarantee loan program.  Today all federal student loans are direct loans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates[11] this will generate almost $68 billion in savings over the next ten years.

Military

 

As early as the late 1970s the federal government began contracting out but privatization took center stage with Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s Reinventing Government initiative.

From then on politicians would boast about how much they had reduced federal payrolls while at the same time avoiding the unpleasant fact that on their watch the number of private contractors had increased even faster.

The Pentagon embraced privatization most eagerly, contracting out for a wide variety of services, including weapons engineering, security enforcement, training, tech support, food and outfitting management, and even frontline military strength to a new entity,  the Private Military Company (PMC).

 

Secretary of Defense William Cohen led the effort. “During the summer of 1997 he assembled a committee that included leading executives from private industry to offer their wisdom about the road ahead”, Duke law professor Laura Dickinson writes in Outsourcing War & Peace[12].  “Cohen then proceeded to pursue a reform path that aimed to modernize defense by embracing the rhetoric, practices, and methodologies of American businesses. This embrace is perhaps most apparent in his Defense Reform Initiative, which he launched in the fall of 1997 as an effort to ‘aggressively apply to the Department those business practices that American industry has successfully used to become leaner and more flexible in order to remain competitive.’

The Pentagon has always employed contractors for specialized functions that were not large in scope and not fundamental to regular military operations. This changed in the early 1990s.  Peter Singer writes, ”In 1992 a relatively little-known, Texas-based oil services firm called Halliburton was awarded a $3.9 million Pentagon contract. Its task was to write a classified report on how private companies, like itself, could support the logistics of U.S. military deployments into countries with poor infrastructure. … it is hard to imagine that either the company or the client realized that 15 years later this contract (now called the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program or LOGCAP) would be worth as much as $150 billion.”

The number of private military contractors soared, exceeding by 1999 the total combined number of active military troops, civilian employees, reserves and National Guards.

[13]The result?  An unmitigated mess.   Contracts were shoveled out the door so fast the military lacked even basic information about the burgeoning force of private contractors. This was clearly evident when Congress asked the Army how many contract service workers it had.  The Army’s answer?  Somewhere between 124,000 and 605,000!

Did privatization save money? Usually not.  One Congressional study found[14] that contracts for intelligence support cost, on average, almost twice as much as in-house work.

Almost all of today’s logistics firms operate under “cost-plus” contracts–a structure ripe for abuse.

But privatizing the military has cost us more than just money.  As Maj Kevin P. Stiens and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Susan L. Turley observed[15], “Not only did the cost savings fail to materialize, outsourcing caused other tangible losses.  The government lost personnel experience and continuity, along with operational control, by moving to contractors.”

Walter Pincus opined in the Washington Post[16], “Particularly frustrating for organizations that require specialized expertise and experience, such as intelligence agencies, are organic personnel who leave for better pay with contractors after the government has trained them, obtained their security clearances, and given them experience…The government pays to get the worker qualified, then ends up leasing back . . . former employees.”

Our national security now depends on millions of workers with divided loyalties. “Private employees have distinctly different motivations, responsibilities and loyalties than those in the public military, Air Force Colonel Steven Zamperelli writes[17], “[T]hey are hired, fired, promoted, demoted, rewarded and disciplined by the management of their private company, not by government officials or the public.”

“The privatized military industry introduces very real contractual dilemmas into the realm of international security”, Peter Singer maintains[18],  “For governments, the public good and the good of the private companies are not identical . . . [and] these two parties’ interests will never exactly coincide.”

In 2008 at least 12 U.S. soldiers were accidentally electrocuted inside their bases in Iraq.  Later it was discovered that the private contractor, KBR, knew there were potentially serious electrical problems in the facility’s construction. But its contract didn’t cover “fixing potential hazards.” It only required repairing items already broken!

Singer offers another reason many are concerned about our increasing reliance on private contractors,  “Many worry that the lack of control due to outsourcing could weigh even heavier and even put an entire military operation at risk. Consider what happened during the 2004 Sadr uprising, where a spike in attacks on convoys caused many companies to either withdraw or suspend operations, causing fuel and ammunition stocks to dwindle.”

 

It may be too late to turn the clock back on private military companies so long as government officials boast about reducing the size of the federal workforce while actually increasing it and lack the political courage to reinstitute a draft that would bring troop and troop support levels back to where they need to be.

Nevertheless, the pendulum seems to be swinging back. For the first time in 30 years, the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act encouraged what has come to be known as “insourcing”, bringing back in house tasks that have been outsourced.  Stiens and Turley drily assert, “one of the primary benefits of insourcing is to undo outsourcing efforts that brought neither cost savings nor improved mission performance.”

So there we have it.   Three disparate examples of privatization, all leading to the same conclusion. Privatization hurts.  Unlike the public sector, the private sector is bred to maximize profits.  Left to its own devices, it will always find a more profitable way to provide services even when that means increasing their cost, reducing their effectiveness and endangering the national security.

 

 

 

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Endnotes:
  1. Private Sector, Public Wars: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDQQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPrivate-Sector-Public-Wars-Contractors%2Fdp%2F0275994783&rct=j&q=james%20carafano%2C%20private%20sector%2C%20public%20war&ei=J6nOTfqoNImWtwf0jqH9DQ&usg=AFQjCNFRVqQ6YdGpZokCLOtNpIa3p7hREg&cad=rja
  2. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/health-as-percent-of-gdpfull-size.png
  3. 14 percent: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/the_medicare_advantage_scam.html
  4. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/percent-overhead-in-insurance.jpg
  5. sums: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Ftalk%2Ffinancial%2F2011%2F05%2F02%2F110502ta_talk_surowiecki&rct=j&q=As%20a%20result%2C%20seniors%20would%20have%20to%20spend%20more%20and%20more%20of%20their%20income%20on%20private%20insurance%20and%20out-of-pocket%20expenses%2C%20or%20go%20without.%20&ei=vo_NTaG8MdG3tgffuNiKDg&usg=AFQjCNF7K8Db84gW0-iRBrkYLXUDJGnEGQ&cad=rja
  6. Congressional Budget Office: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbo.gov%2Fftpdocs%2F121xx%2Fdoc12128%2F04-05-Ryan_Letter.pdf&rct=j&q=congressional%20budget%20office%2C%20ryan%20budget%20plan%2C%20medicare&ei=PYDRTYmNEIiFtgeWsfz6DQ&usg=AFQjCNGWHgl4uyxQLmztJsqj0mmDZGPgZw
  7. labeled: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcshe.berkeley.edu%2Fpublications%2Fdocs%2FROP.Shireman.Loans.10.04.pdf&rct=j&q=gao%2C%20%E2%80%9Ccomplicated%2C%20cumbersome%20process%E2%80%9D%2C%20guaranteed&ei=0oLNTdP-KMm2twebwYD9DQ&usg=AFQjCNEAgnIP_tkxdT03UPoHJDGuwV66jQ&cad=rja
  8. CBS: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCYQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fstories%2F2006%2F05%2F05%2F60minutes%2Fmain1591583_page2.shtml&rct=j&q=sallie%20mae%2C%20in%202005%20nearly%20a%20fifth%20of%20its%20revenue%20came%20from%20collection%20agencies.&ei=ooTNTb_FKoa3twfLr8DkDQ&usg=AFQjCNHVHe5QWS5FAsbCg8s4yXJSXFhXtg&cad=rja
  9. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/taxpayer-cost-or-benefit-in-loan1.jpg
  10. compared: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbo.gov%2Fdoc.cfm%3Findex%3D6874&rct=j&q=comparing%20subsidy%20for%20direct%20loan%20and%20guaranteed%20loan%20student&ei=uanOTZnkNpK5tweSsbzuDQ&usg=AFQjCNGEnl34QPn7JFuiJfJLnfKp4VoV3Q&cad=rja
  11. estimates: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffebp.newamerica.net%2Fbackground-analysis%2Ffederal-student-loan-programs-history&rct=j&q=Congressional%20Budget%20Office%20estimates%20that%20the%20elimination%20of%20the%20FFEL%20program%20under%20the%20law%20would%20generate%20%2468.7%20billion%20in%20savings%20over%20the%20next%20ten%20years.%20%20&ei=aI_RTZzWKoTAtgfMrfXjDQ&usg=AFQjCNGppqu4yCyw0IXFmhHLoXXG9RfPEA&cad=rja
  12. Outsourcing War & Peace: http://www.law.duke.edu/news/story?id=5180&u=26
  13. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/private-contracts-outpacing-public.jpg
  14. found: http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP240.html
  15. observed: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCYQFjAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Flitigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com%2Fwebcd%2Fapp%3Faction%3DDocumentDisplay%26crawlid%3D1%26doctype%3Dcite%26docid%3D65%2BA.F.%2BL.%2BRev.%2B145%26srctype%3Dsmi%26srcid%3D3B15%26key%3Dbf73240d21a5e31cc3617bb13382efc4&rct=j&q=Not%20only%20did%20the%20cost%20savings%20fail%20to%20materialize%2C%20outsourcing%20caused%20other%20tangible%20losses.%20%20&ei=nqfOTca0PJOjtgf73JH1DQ&usg=AFQjCNGW4sG3s0bLm3RQgaQmWpNeTo0Qyg&cad=rja
  16. Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031900978_pf.html
  17. writes: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CDgQFjAF&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afresearch.org%2Fskins%2Frims%2Fq_mod_be0e99f3-fc56-4ccb-8dfe-670c0822a153%2Fq_act_downloadpaper%2Fq_obj_758c95ac-e44c-4ca8-bef2-7597eb9e3457%2Fdisplay.aspx%3Frs%3Denginespage&rct=j&q=Private%20employees%20have%20distinctly%20different%20motivations%2C%20responsibilities%20and%20loyalties%20than%20those%20in%20the%20public%20military&ei=LqLOTdX7G4TAtgfMrfXjDQ&usg=AFQjCNGMdFIw40IhlSYn18DcpHcIxgHFTA
  18. maintains: http://books.google.com/books?id=IOQjNuxMrOEC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=The+privatized+military+industry+introduces+very+real+contractual+dilemmas&source=bl&ots=Sgu3kJNVaj&sig=HPuTCbNg9ez0_AcgoLkebjj-zYo&hl=en&ei=HqXOTfGdHoWUtwffppiIDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20privatized%20military%20industry%20introduces%20very%20real%20contractual%20dilemmas&f=false

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/and-the-winner-is-the-public-sector/


All Hail the PUBLIC Library

by David Morris | April 29, 2011 2:15 pm

“The word “public” has been removed from the name of the Fort Worth Library. Why? Simply put, to keep up with the times.“From the Media release[1] on the rebranding of the Fort Worth Library

Fort Worth, you leave me speechless.  You’re certainly correct about one thing.  The public library is indeed an institution that has not kept up with the times.  But given what has happened to our times, why do you see that as unhealthy?  In an age of greed and selfishness, the public library stands as an enduring monument to the values of cooperation and sharing.  In an age where global corporations stride the earth, the public library remains firmly rooted in the local community.  In an age of widespread cynicism and distrust of government, the 100 percent tax supported public library has virtually unanimous and enthusiastic support.

(more…)[2]

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Endnotes:
  1. release: http://tinyurl.com/6aoyofq
  2. (more…): https://ilsr.org/all-hail-the-public-library/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/all-hail-the-public-library/


Why Republicans Hate Warren’s CFPB But Love Another Bank Regulator

by Stacy Mitchell | March 18, 2011 4:03 pm

Stepping up their attacks on Elizabeth Warren and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week, House Republicans painted a picture of an all-powerful agency — Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus called it “the most powerful agency that’s ever been created in Washington”– whose director will rule the banking industry by fiat, be accountable to no one, and even determine her own budget.

Many have already pointed out how factually untrue these claims are. What’s also striking about them is how accurately they describe another financial regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC is the nation’s top dog in charge of overseeing banks. Its powers are vastly broader than those of the CFPB and subject to far less oversight. Yet the OCC is well-liked by many of these very same Republicans, so much so that they went to bat last year to ensure that its authority would not be constrained in the slightest by the Dodd-Frank Act.

The difference between the two agencies is that the OCC sees its mission as protecting, not consumers, but big banks. Over the last two decades, the OCC has used its powers to ensure that the nation’s largest banks don’t have to play by the same rules that govern small community banks, can operate outside the jurisdiction of state attorneys general, and are immune from many consumer protection laws.

Unlike the CFPB, whose rules can be vetoed by the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council, a panel of nine federal regulatory agencies (including the OCC), the OCC is subject to little in the way of checks and balances. It operates unilaterally and has spent much of the last two decades preempting state laws that big banks don’t like, including rules on credit card disclosures, payday lending, bank fees, and more. Most disastrously, in early 2000s, the OCC overturned numerous state laws that outlawed certain risky and predatory mortgage practices[1].

Throughout all of this, the OCC has been accountable to no one. When Congress reprimanded the OCC for its “inappropriately aggressive” preemption practices, the agency thumbed its nose and continued to obliterate state laws. When states sought relief through the courts, they ran headlong into a precedent that forces judges to defer to the opinions of the OCC. Nor has there been any accountability to citizens. Between 1995 and 2007, the OCC brought just 13 enforcement actions against banks for consumer protection violations. Even now, consumers in throes of the mortgage foreclosure debacle report that the OCC does not respond to their calls.

As with other major financial regulatory agencies, neither the CFPB’s budget nor the OCC’s are subject to the Congressional appropriations process. What does distinguish the two agencies’ budgets is where the money comes from. The CFPB’s expenses will be paid through a transfer from the Federal Reserve (with its budget capped and subject to annual GAO audits and reports to Congress), while the OCC derives almost all of its funding directly from the very banks it regulates. The largest 20 banks contribute two-thirds of the agency’s revenue.

What makes this set-up problematic is that banks can choose either a state or national charter. By giving nationally chartered banks a green-light to ignore state laws, the OCC has made its charter highly desirable and, indeed, its budget has soared as more banks have switched to a national charter. In other words, preempting consumer protections and running roughshod over state authority has profited both banks and the OCC itself.

All of this goes to show that what’s really at issue in the fight over the CFPB is not how the agency is structured or how much power it will have, but whose interests it serves. As Bachus himself put it recently, “In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

 

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Endnotes:
  1. the OCC overturned numerous state laws that outlawed certain risky and predatory mortgage practices: https://ilsr.org/what-big-banks-fear-more-cfpa/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/why-republicans-hate-warrens-cfpb-love-another-bank-regulator/


And The Academy Award for Cowardice Goes To….

by David Morris | March 1, 2011 10:49 am

From all accounts, Charles Ferguson’s acceptance speech was the highlight of the Oscars. After winning an Oscar for Best Documentary for Inside Job, a compelling and searing indictment of Wall Street’s role in the economic crisis, Ferguson injected some much-needed real world relevance amidst the fabulously glitzy proceedings. “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail — and that’s wrong.”

That bears repeating.  Not a single financial executive has gone to jail.

The government was not always so cowed by Wall Street.  In the 1980s, after deregulation led to the takeover of Savings and Loans by aggressive entrepreneurs who committed fraud on a massive scale, the federal government swung into action.

Joe Nocera in the New York Times[1] recalls, “There were a dozen or more Justice Department task forces. Over 1,000 F.B.I. agents were involved. The government attitude was that it would do whatever it took to bring crooked bank executives to justice.”

Nearly 1,000 savings and loans — a third of the industry — collapsed, costing taxpayers over $200 billions. And the Department of Justice won 1,000 felony convictions in major cases.

The Department of Justice still prosecutes cases of financial malfeasance, as long as the perpetrators are not heads of major financial institutions. Consider its vigorous prosecution of Martha Stewart, who was convicted in March 2004, not even of insider trading but of lying to the SEC and the FBI about insider trading.  She served five months in a West Virginia federal prison.

Compare that to the way the Department of Justice approached the investigation of John Mack that same year.  Mack had just stepped down as President of Morgan Stanley and would soon become its CEO and Chairman of its Board.   Matt Taibbi relates the story in the most recent of what are rapidly becoming iconic pieces of an era in Rolling Stone[2].

One day, with no advance research or discussion, Samberg had suddenly started buying up huge quantities of shares in a firm called Heller Financial. “It was as if Art Samberg woke up one morning and a voice from the heavens told him to start buying Heller,” Aguirre recalls. “And he wasn’t just buying shares — there were some days when he was trying to buy three times as many shares as were being traded that day.” A few weeks later, Heller was bought by General Electric — and Samberg pocketed $18 million.

Aguirre identified Mack, a close friend of Samberg’s, as the person most likely to have tipped Samberg off. Mack had been begging Samberg to cut him into a potentially lucrative deal involving a spinoff of the tech company Lucent.  “Mack is busting my chops” to give him a piece of the action, Samberg told an employee in an e-mail.” A few days after Samberg sent that e-mail, Mack flew to Switzerland to interview for a top job at Credit Suisse First Boston. Among the investment bank’s clients was Heller Financial.

As soon as Mack returned from that trip, he called Samberg. The next morning, Mack was cut into the Lucent deal, an investment that made him more than $10 million. And as soon as the market reopened after the weekend, Samberg started buying every Heller share he could, right before it was snapped up by GE.

The deal looked like a classic case of insider trading. But in the summer of 2005, when Aguirre told his boss he planned to interview Mack, things started getting weird. His boss told him the case wasn’t likely to fly, explaining that Mack had “powerful political connections.” (The investment banker had been a fundraising “Ranger” for George Bush in 2004, and would go on to be a key backer of Hillary Clinton in 2008.)

Aguirre was contacted by Morgan Stanley’s regulatory liaison, a former top aide to Eliot Spitzer. A few days later, another of the firm’s lawyers, Mary Jo White, formerly U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York, called the SEC director of enforcement.

Taibbi caustically and accurately assesses the situation.

Pause for a minute to take this in. Aguirre, an SEC foot soldier, is trying to interview a major Wall Street executive — not handcuff the guy or impound his yacht, mind you, just talk to him. In the course of doing so, he finds out that his target’s firm is being represented not only by Eliot Spitzer’s former top aide, but by the former U.S. attorney overseeing Wall Street, who is going four levels over his head to speak directly to the chief of the SEC’s enforcement division — not Aguirre’s boss, but his boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. Mack himself, meanwhile, was being represented by Gary Lynch, a former SEC director of enforcement.

Aguirre didn’t stand a chance. A month after he complained to his supervisors that he was being blocked from interviewing Mack, he was summarily fired, without notice. The case against Mack was immediately dropped: all depositions canceled, no further subpoenas issued.

In 2011 neither Congress nor the White House has much stomach for prosecuting Wall Street.  Indeed, the four Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) voted to strip the following words from its report: “Wall Street,” “deregulation”.

As Finance Guy[3] writes on his blog, “Which is sort of like writing the history of apartheid in South Africa and not being allowed to use the words “race,” “white,” “black” and “prejudice.””

President Obama did not use the words Wall Street in his State of the Union Address.  The final report of the FCIC did.  But it drew the line at using the “F” word:  fraud. William Black, currently Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City and formerly the key person in the prosecutions of S&L executives in the 1990s slammed the FCIC, telling Real News[4], “They’ve drawn the picture of the horse, but they refuse to call it a ‘horse'”.  Black notes that by the Commission’s own evidence, the financial crisis could only have occurred with fraud by the most senior ranks of the big banks.  He estimates the incidence of fraud on their liars loans, mortgage where the lender does not verify the borrower’s income, was upwards of 90 percent and insists, “The only reasons you’d have millions of liars loans was to create fictional accounting income and loot the institutions

This latest financial crisis is some forty times as large as the S&L crisis. But the number of FBI agents assigned to look at white collar crime is only a fraction of those working in this area in 1992.

As for the Executive Branch, in January President Obama named William M. Daley as his Chief of Staff.  Until his appointment, Daley had served on J.P. Morgan & Co’s Executive Committee since 2004.

At a November 2010 conference attended by hundreds of Wall Street lawyers, Robert Khuzami the SEC’s current director of enforcement, who had served as general counsel for Deutsche Bank proudly announced to Mary Jo White who introduced him,  “You’ve spawned all of us”.  Recall that White, the former U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York, one of the top cops on Wall Street., was a Morgan Stanley lawyer in 2005 when she intervened to stop the investigation of John Mack.  In December 2005, in an interview with Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter[5], she effectively said that criminal cases should not be brought against financial corporations.  “In the vast majority of cases, they should not be seeking anything from the company itself except its cooperation.

Lynn Turner, the former chief accountant for the SEC, told Taibbi,  “I think you’ve got a wrong assumption—that we even have a law-enforcement agency when it comes to Wall Street.”

As the successful prosecutions of Savings and Loan executives in the early 1990s proves, the federal government has the tools to put in jail dozens if not hundreds of those responsible for millions of foreclosures, millions more unemployed and unprecedented federal and state deficits.  It simply lacks the inclination to do so.

The Academy Award for Cowardice must be shared.

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Endnotes:
  1. New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/4komgyt
  2. Rolling Stone: http://tinyurl.com/4vxkg89%20
  3. Finance Guy: http://tinyurl.com/4vnempt
  4. Real News: http://tinyurl.com/4lnbkpx
  5. Corporate Crime Reporter: http://corporatecrimereporter.com/maryjowhiteinterview010806.htm

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/and-the-academy-award-for-cowardice-goes-to/


Taking Financial Reform into Our Own Hands

by Stacy Mitchell | July 14, 2010 8:20 am

Note: This article originally appeared on Huffington Post[1] as part of a partnership with their Move Your Money campaign[2].

With the now-expected passage of the financial reform bill, giant banks see a golden opportunity to finally put the financial crisis, along with their culpability for wrecking our economy, in the rearview mirror.

“We are very pleased to have this certainty and closure,” declared Steve Bartlett when the House-Senate conference committee had finished negotiating. Bartlett is the president of the Financial Services Roundtable, a powerful big bank lobbying group that would like nothing more than to make this legislation the one and only policy response to the banking system’s catastrophic failure.

It’s up to all of us to make sure that it is not.

The economic crisis is not over, and the rot and malfunctioning at the heart of our banking system remains. Indeed, since the collapse, giant banks have only grown bigger and more powerful, and less responsive to the needs of the real economy. While the financial reform bill includes several worthwhile measures, it will not set the industry right or entail a fundamental alteration of its scale and structure.

It leaves us at best only modestly less vulnerable to another meltdown. And it fails utterly to confront a deeper problem: even in the best of times, our banking system does not serve us very well. The two main reasons to have banks, after all, are to facilitate the growth of businesses and help families build assets and financial security. Yet, its hard to find more than a trace of these core functions on the balance sheets of the giant banks that now dominate the industry.

Instead, much of what big banks have been up to over the last two decades has involved devising ways to extract ever more wealth from households and the real economy. They’ve saddled their own customers with high fees and dangerous products, swindled borrowers and investors, orchestrated corporate mergers that harmed employees and even shareholders, and cut off the flow of credit to small businesses while channeling ever more investment capital into derivatives and other complex gambling schemes.

In short, big banks have not been facilitating the real economy so much as consuming it.

What would a banking system truly aligned with the interests of households and businesses look like? For one, it would be composed primarily of small, locally owned banks and credit unions. Unlike big banks, local financial institutions devote nearly all of their resources to core banking activities, namely taking deposits and making loans. Their fortunes are thus inextricably linked to the well-being of their depositors and borrowers. They prosper only when their communities do.

It wasn’t that long ago that most Americans banked at local institutions. As recently as the 1980s, they held a majority of our deposits. But big banks and their allies in Congress have spent 25 years rewriting the nation’s laws to their own benefit. By 1995, the share of U.S. deposits held by small banks and credit unions had dropped to 34 percent and a brand-new class of supersized banks had emerged. Today, these giant banks — there are 19 of them, each with more than $100 billion in assets — have taken over nearly half of U.S. deposits, while the share held by small banks and credit unions has fallen to 21 percent.

This transformation succeeded because so many in Congress, undoubtedly predisposed by campaign cash from Wall Street, bought into the bigger-is-better dogma pedaled by Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and the like.

But it turns out that small is in fact superior by nearly every measure.

Take, for example, small business lending, the lack of which is now impeding economic recovery. Although the crisis made it worse, the availability of credit for small businesses has been shrinking for some time. That’s because big banks do relatively little small business lending (see this graph[3]). One reason is that they are not all that good at it: the computer models these vast corporations must rely on to evaluate loan applications are not very adept at gauging the nuances of risk associated with a particular local enterprise in a particular local market.

Local banks generally excel at this. Their lending decisions are made by people who are intimately familiar with local market conditions and who spend time getting to know the borrower and his or her enterprise. This enables them to better assess risk and to successfully extend credit to a broader range of small businesses. Indeed, research has found that, all else being equal, regions with more small banks are home to more small firms.

Or consider the idea, often touted in 1994 and 1999 as Congress dismantled long-standing rules restricting the growth of banks, that bigger banks would lower costs for consumers. In fact, interest rates are generally better at small banks and credit unions, studies have found, and fees are an astonishing 20-30 percent lower[4] on average than at big banks. And most offer the same array of sophisticated services, from online banking to credit cards, that big banks do.

How can it be that small banks are such a better deal? Bigger is suppose to deliver economies of scale, after all. But economists have found that, in fact, banks peak in efficiency when they reach the size of roughly $5 billion in assets. Beyond that they become weighted down by bureaucracy and actually operate less efficiently.

Today’s giant banks are orders of magnitude larger than what economies of scale alone would dictate. Bank of America is 468 times that optimal size — which suggests that it is not market forces that have spawned these behemoths. Rather, their dominance owes more to their political power and the many subsidies that flow to those deemed too-big-to-fail.

So how do we change course and revive a banking system that is more local and responsive to the needs of communities? Ultimately, Congress must deliver another round of reform that tackles the problem of bigness head-on. That may seem a tall order given the current political dynamics, but it’s worth remembering that the stronger aspects of the reform bill actually gained support as the process wore on. That’s highly unusual and may bode well for future rounds. It’s also worth noting that it took Franklin Roosevelt years to enact his full suite of banking reforms.

The best way to spur Congress to act, however, isn’t to wait around for it to do so. We can and should take financial reform into our own hands.

That means moving our money[5] — and not just our savings, but our borrowing too[6]. Tens of thousands of people have already broken up with big banks and moved to locally owned institutions. Although the cascade has not yet been large enough to make a sizable dent in the finances of big banks, it has already been a boon to many small banks and credit unions, which are seeing a surge in deposits and lending.

Second, we must rally our state governments. Despite intense lobbying by big banks, the financial reform bill preserved a fair degree of state regulatory authority over banks. States should hold banks to a higher standard. Good policy models can be found in Vermont and, believe it or not, Texas, which have long prohibited many of the mortgage shenanigans that precipitated the crisis. Both states have suffered fewer foreclosures as a result and now have unemployment rates well below the national average.

Another smart move some states are beginning to consider is establishing a publicly owned “bankers’ bank” modeled on the Bank of North Dakota[7]. By serving as a secondary market for loans, BND has helped North Dakota’s community banks thrive. The state has more local banks per capita than any other. And while that’s not the only reason North Dakota escaped the Great Recession, it hasn’t hurt.

As much as Citigroup, Goldman, and Chase may wish it to be, the overhaul of our banking system is not over. Round two begins now: in our wallets, our communities, and our state governments.

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Endnotes:
  1. Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-mitchell/taking-financial-reform-i_b_645587.html
  2. Move Your Money campaign: http://www.moveyourmoney.info/
  3. graph: /news/charts-small-banks-small-business-lending
  4. astonishing 20-30 percent lower: /chart-average-consumer-fees-size-financial-institution-2009/
  5. moving our money: http://www.moveyourmoney.info/
  6. our borrowing too: /move-your-borrowing-along-your-money-2/
  7. Bank of North Dakota: /rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/taking-financial-reform-our-own-hands/


Tools for Starting a Local Move Your Money Campaign

by Stacy Mitchell | April 19, 2010 12:11 pm

We have compiled the following resources to help community groups, including Independent Business Alliances and Local First organizations, develop local public educational campaigns that convey the benefits of choosing a locally owned community bank or credit union and help people make the switch.

Please let us know[1] if you have questions, suggestions on what else to include here, or campaign materials from your community to share. We’ll be adding more to this page over time, so please check back or sign-up for periodic updates[2].

We also encourage you to visit the Move Your Money[3] site.

(more…)[4]

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Endnotes:
  1. let us know: https://ilsr.org/contact/
  2. sign-up for periodic updates: mailto:info@ilsr.org?subject=Community%20Banking%20Initiative%20Updates
  3. Move Your Money: http://www.moveyourmoney.info
  4. (more…): https://ilsr.org/resources-starting-local-banking-campaign-your-community/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/resources-starting-local-banking-campaign-your-community/


Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses

by Stacy Mitchell | December 1, 2009 3:39 pm

Where to Buy Big-Box Swindle:

  • Independent Bookstores — Visit your favorite local bookstore or buy online from an independent bookstore near you[1].
  • Institute for Local Self-Reliance — Contact ILSR[2] for discounts on orders of 10 or more

Reviews

One of the top ten business books of the year.
— Booklist

“. . . a galvanizing eye-opener that deserves the widest possible audience. This is one of those urgent, revelatory volumes that could change how many readers conduct their daily lives, since it illuminates a stunning collection of business outrages, government favoritism, environmental damages, hidden economic and societal costs, debunked myths and a rising swell of consumer activism against big-box blight. . . Big-Box Swindle could have been a downer to read, but Mitchell devotes the final quarter of her powerful book to. . . inspiring lessons from places that are turning the tide.”
—John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“This is the ultimate account of the single most important economic trend in our country—the replacement of local businesses, and all they represent, with the big boxes. What Nickel and Dimed did for the Wal-Mart worker, Stacy Mitchell does for the community threatened by mega-retailers.”
— Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

Continue reading reviews…[3]

 

From the book jacket:

In less than two decades, large retail chains have become the most powerful corporations in America. In this deft and revealing book, Stacy Mitchell illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement—and she shows how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back.

Mitchell traces the dramatic growth of mega-retailers —from big boxes like Wal-Mart and Home Depot to chains like Starbucks and Old Navy—and the precipitous decline of independent businesses. Drawing on examples from virtually every state in the country, she unearths the extraordinary impact of these stores and the big-box mentality on everything from soaring gasoline consumption to rising poverty rates, failing family farms, and declining voting levels. Along the way, Mitchell exposes the shocking role government policy has played in the expansion of mega-retailers and builds a compelling case that communities composed of many small, locally owned businesses are healthier and more prosperous than those dominated by a few large chains.

More than a critique, Big-Box Swindle provides an invigorating account of how some communities have successfully countered the spread of big boxes and rebuilt their local economies. Since 2000, over 200 big-box development projects have been halted by groups of ordinary citizens, and scores of towns and cities have adopted laws that favor small-scale, local business development which limit the proliferation of chains. From cutting-edge land-use policies to innovative cooperative small-business initiatives, Mitchell offers communities concrete strategies that can stave off mega-retailers and create a more prosperous and sustainable future.

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Endnotes:
  1. buy online from an independent bookstore near you: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807035016
  2. ILSR: mailto:info@ilsr.org
  3. Continue reading reviews…: http://www.bigboxswindle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/bigbox-swindle-true-cost-megaretailers-and-fight-americas-independent-businesses/


Fashioning Minnesota Energy Policy: The Legislature’s Role

by David Morris | February 7, 2002 2:42 pm

Fashioning Minnesota Energy Policy: The Legislature’s Role
By David Morris
February 7, 2002

Testimony before the Minnesota Senate Telecommunications, Energy and Utilities Committee
On S.F. 2672 – Minnesota Economic, Environmental and Energy Security Act of 2002

My name is David Morris. I am Vice President of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I have worked on energy policy for almost 30 years. I have been a consultant or advisor to the federal energy departments of Presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton and the current Bush administration. I have been actively involved in Minnesota energy policy work since consulting with Mark Dayton when he was Commissioner of the Department of Energy and Economic Development in the early 1980s. I am the author of three books and over a dozen monographs on energy technologies and energy policies at the local, state and national policies.

Having, I hope, presented my bona fides to discuss this issue with the Committee, I want to spend my few minutes talking about the bill before you in a larger context.

This Committee and its predecessors have been making energy policy in incremental fashion for several decades. In the last few years the focus has been on electricity. The legislature has appropriated and presumably spent over $500,000 to intensively educate its members about electricity technologies and regulatory changes in order to inform your policymaking initiatives.

That education did inform this Committee last year when it developed and passed an energy bill that developed a more expedited and coherent system for transmission line planning. Unfortunately, the state’s utilities decided last October not to use that new planning process. As a result, the Public Utilities Commission has delayed by a year or more the implementation of this expedited process.

The Committee would do well to understand the problems attendant to developing an expedited approval process it has already designed before imposing another type of expedited process in this bill.

Often this Committee has acted in reactive fashion and crafted bills designed to benefit a single company or technology without examining the implications of those bills on overall state energy policy. The result is an incremental, often contradictory and sometimes just plain incoherent state energy policy.

Last year this Committee, if memory serves me right, unanimously passed out a bill that declared that the highest and best use of turkey manure was for generating electricity and formally declared this to be in the public interest. Although developed in response to a state biomass mandate, the bill was consciously designed so that only one company could qualify.

This bill before you today is another case of incremental decision making in response to the interests of an individual company. This time however, an incremental decision could profoundly affect the structure and direction of Minnesota electricity policy for the next decade or longer.

The title of the bill is broad, the Minnesota Economic, Environmental and Energy Security Act but it is written so as to allow only one technology and one company to qualify. It declares by legislative fiat that the state will need some 2,000 MW of new baseload capacity by 2012, when I am aware of no projection by utilities or regional power pools that Minnesota will need such an increase in baseload capacity as opposed to peak load capacity. Moreover, this bill states, also by fiat, that state policy is to give very large scale centralized electrical generation a priority over decentralized electricity generation. This is the implication of the sections that allow the coal gasification plant to bypass existing public review and require an unusually long power contract of 25 years and allow a premium of 10 percent in the price utilities pay for the electricity generated.

The gasification plant is being justified as an economic development project. But the premium permitted in the bill translates into $40-60 million a year in subsidies when the plant becomes fully operational, or about a billion dollars in subsidy over the life of the power contract. Power plants are the most capital intensive business in the economy. Thus if jobs were indeed the goal, the $40-60 million in subsidies would be better spent on other economic ventures in northern Minnesota.

I may surprise you by saying that I am in favor of coal gasification as a way to avoid an increasing reliance on natural gas. We have hundreds of years of coal supply in the upper midwest. If we can harness the energy the coal contains in a way that is environmentally benign, I would favor it. The gasification process is indeed far less polluting than the conventional coal combustion process.

But there’s no reason to support a 2,000 MW coal gasification plant. It would be the largest such power plant in the world. And would constitute the largest single electric generation facility in Minnesota. It would require an entirely new transmission infrastructure from northern Minnesota to southern Minnesota. It would inhibit the development of decentralized and renewable electric generation in the state for some time to come.

I would favor a much smaller coal gasification project, something in the order of 200 MW, the size of existing gasification plants in Tampa, Florida and Wabash, Indiana. Such a plant would not require an extensive new transmission system.

I would also strongly recommend that the plant also be required to store the carbon emitted underground. Carbon dioxide is the single largest greenhouse gas and coal gasification only marginally reduces CO2 emissions. Underground storage of CO2 has been done in Canada by natural gas pipeline companies and in Norway by electric power companies. It will raise the cost of electricity generation modestly, but it is a premium that Minnesotans may well be glad to pay for a project that demonstrates that coal can be used to generate electricity with little or no greenhouse gas impact. Indeed, the commercial trading of “carbon offsets” has already begun around the world. We can expect that as it expands, power plant owners that store carbon emissions will be rewarded. Thus the premium paid could be tied to the value of the stored carbon and as the latter goes up, the former would go down.

Thank you.

David Morris
Vice President
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/17037/


A San Diego Solar Takeover — Episode 206 of Local Energy Rules

by Maria McCoy | March 27, 2024 4:43 pm

Local solar offers relief from exorbitant electric rates, but San Diego may need a different utility business model to see dramatic savings.

For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast[1], host John Farrell is joined by Dorrie Bruggemann and Bill Powers, Campaign Coordinator and Campaign Chair of the Power San Diego ballot initiative. They discuss how a publicly-owned electric utility would be more supportive of distributed solar, offer lower rates thanks to that solar, and what it will take to bring the municipalization decision to San Diego voters.

Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation.

Bill Powers: Those highest rates in the country that we’re paying have a big element of transmission and even distribution, but not distribution in the city, such that we can focus on solar to lower rates. And so our whole mantra is lower rates and how are we going to lower rates? We’re going to lower rates by maximizing solar and battery storage in the city. Not because it’s a feel good thing, even though it is, but because that is the most effective way for us to lower rates. So our whole mantra is Lower rates. Lower rates.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Yeah. So it’s really a win-win win because as it turns out, focusing on a very logical and sensible clean solution to our energy needs, which is local rooftop solar, is also the more affordable way of powering our city for our rate payers.
John Farrell: Why rent the grid when you can buy? That’s the appeal of Power San Diego ballot initiative campaign, asking residents to join them in addressing some of the highest electric rates in the country. In this episode, recorded in March, 2024, Bill Powers and Dorrie Bruggemann, campaign chair and campaign coordinator with Power San Diego ballot initiative, discuss the growing popularity of the campaign to change ownership of the electric grid in San Diego. I’m John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. And this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast about monopoly power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system. Dorrie and Bill, welcome to Local Energy Rules.
Bill Powers: Thank you, John.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Thank you. Glad to be here.
John Farrell: Well starting with you Dorrie. One thing I love to ask my guests is how did they get to what it is that they’re doing now – that is, the exciting thing that we’re talking about on the podcast. So Dorrie, could you talk a little bit about what motivated you to join in on this campaign Power San Diego? Or do you have a background in clean energy or climate work or politics? What is it that got you here?
Dorrie Bruggemann: I would say the main thing that got me here at this moment in time was definitely some serendipity. I have experience in campaigning. I’ve worked on a couple campaign cycles as a field organizer, as a coordinator. But prior to this role, I had actually been working for a couple of years in tech for a tech company, and I had that position because I needed some stability in my life. After working in the 2020 campaign cycle, I got a little burnt out. I got a job that was stable, but I always knew that that was something that was going to be temporary. I knew that I wanted to find a job full-time in advocacy once I got my feet underneath me a little bit. So as 2024 loomed closer, I started looking at campaign jobs more and more. I knew I wanted to be engaged to some degree with a campaign, with something that was important to me. And environmentalism is a cause that is near and dear to my heart.

A lot of my free time here, since I’ve been living in San Diego, I’ve spent volunteering more in the urban planning, transportation sector of advocacy. But I was very lucky that I was told about this campaign and I was not a public power advocate. I didn’t know a lot about the energy space and about public power, but I was educated by people who I trusted and people who I respected with their environmental work. And I saw this opportunity and I wanted to jump in. It seems like a great cause and I’ve been very lucky to have learned a lot about public power since then. So it’s definitely a cause that I now care a lot about myself as well.

John Farrell: That’s great. I love the idea that you slew the political dragons in 2020 and were like, you know what? I want a bigger challenge. Let’s take on a monopoly utility this time.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Yep.
John Farrell: Maybe you wouldn’t describe it that way, but that’s the way I picture it.

Bill, tell me a little bit about how you got here to be working on this public power campaign.

Bill Powers: Well, going back 25 years, we had a major energy crisis here in California in 2000, 2001. And frankly at the time or just before that, I thought the So-called public utilities were like the fire department, the investor-owned utilities. And that was a wake-up call for me and I was working for myself. I’m a professional engineer, Powers Systems, working independent consultant and realized that I’m probably one of the few people who has enough freedom of movement to engage in this as an activist and working with nonprofits who often are right on the money with common sense and understanding what’s happening, but don’t have the resumes to be effective before the utilities commission or in a courtroom, that type of thing. And I saw that as added value I could provide to the process working with nonprofits in communities.

And fast forward, I think you and I met 10 or 12 years ago in California when it was a community choice aggregation conference in San Francisco. You had that wonderful opening slide of a hammer and sickle on a eastern European sedan to give a visual to all of us of what an investor-owned utility was all about, private monopoly. And so that one of the best images I’ve ever seen, John, so congratulations. But we were fighting for community choice aggregation, I know we’ll talk about it a little bit in this podcast, as maybe the holy grail. Maybe if we can get supply, then we can say we want rooftop or we want all these things that we think we should do and we’ll talk more about that. But community choice aggregation really hasn’t lived up to its promise out here in California. So I’ve been constantly engaged in pushing back not only on our local utility, San Diego Gas and Electric, other California investor-owned utilities, other investor-owned utilities in their holding companies around the country.

And yes, I agree with you a hundred percent. It’s basically the same story everywhere. And the same co-opted entities that are ostensibly regulating and looking out for the public are not doing it effectively. And so fast forward to last summer, it’s called exhausting your administrative remedies. I’ve done everything I can think of to try and change the bow of the boat with how the investor-owned utility is handling its infrastructure projects, rooftop solar. And I don’t think I’ve moved the bow of the boat much in all of those interventions. And so we have been talking for years out here about we have the fundamental right to provide utility services to our residents. We do have a public utility for water and wastewater. We don’t for electric, we don’t for gas, but we have a model here in town.

We also essentially, this relationship with our investor-owned utility San Diego Gas and Electric, not that different between you and your plumber, it’s a contractor. It’s just in a very elaborate contracting relationship, but it’s a contractor. And also in our city charter, we have the right to terminate that relationship at any time if we see it to be in the welfare of the residents to do so. And so at least last summer, paying the highest rates in the country, our utility has been relentlessly attacking rooftop solar for potential new owners. And it is now relentlessly attacking existing owners of rooftop solar with proposal for graduated fixed fees that would selectively hit existing rooftop solar owners. And so last summer it was, you know what? This is the right time. Our community is fed up with the utility. The utility is working in full daylight on all of these efforts to undercut everything we care about here. And this is a unifying issue for our community. Democrats, independents, Republicans, and we get a big election coming up, so we’re going to have everybody out. So over lunch at a restaurant, several of us who have been energy activists for a long time said, let’s just do it. Let’s just go for it. And that’s how it started. And that was Midsummer last summer and it’s picked up momentum from there.

John Farrell: You have a great short video that I saw on the campaign’s website, We Are Power San Diego, that outlines one major reason that you’ve been interested in public power high electric bills. You’ve kind of alluded to the issue around rooftop solar. Are there other reasons that you feel like have really motivated you or motivate people who hear about the campaign who are like, yeah, this is why I think this is a great idea?
Dorrie Bruggemann: So I think that high rates is really what we’ve been putting forward with this campaign because it’s such a nonpartisan issue. It’s something that really every person on every end of the spectrum can relate to, especially here in San Diego, which is one of the highest cost of living cities in the country. I would say a lot of people who care about the environment who are environmental activists, including myself, are the ones who really get excited about this campaign, really want to support this campaign on that level. So I think that that’s definitely a big thing that pushes people forward. But I like to tell people that there’s really no angle that you cannot wrap somebody into this campaign and show them why public power applies to them, whether it’s economic justice, whether it’s, I even like to say even if you’re a hardcore capitalist, it’s about anti-monopoly. There are a lot of reasons why public power is important in our region and why doing something about the SDG&E monopoly is important. So those would be the ones that I would highlight.
Bill Powers: Yeah, we actually assumed that our innate constituency would be existing rooftop solar owners, about 20% of the residential customers in San Diego have rooftop solar and we have a very high level of rooftop solar penetration. And to our chagrin, what we found is that this constituency that we intended to protect figured they were already protected. I got rooftop, I’m good. Good luck with your public power effort. No, no, no, you don’t understand. You’re about to get hit with this fixed charge that is specifically targeting you and you should care about this. But we have to talk to rooftop solar owners to let them know that no, you are not for now and forever forward free of the utility and the shenanigans that the utility can play.
Dorrie Bruggemann: And I would also add that there’s also just a general justice and accountability and transparency angle to public power. The fact that we have these for-profit monopolies that have really infiltrated our government, our systems, they have a lot of money in the community, in various, various avenues. They’ve been very strategic with how they’ve allocated their power and built connections. So if you’re somebody who wants the government to be free of corporate interests, there’s a lot to say about public power and what it means to shift the balance in society towards public ownership and more power to the people and more transparency in our leaders.
John Farrell: Can you talk a little bit about how on the costs, on the solar, on the corporate power, how does public power help solve these problems? Just to be really clear.
Bill Powers: Well, in our particular case, what public power and what we’re specifically addressing in this ballot initiative is we want to take the electric distribution grid in the city public. Transmission, interconnection with our distribution grid will stay with the investor-owned utility SDG&E. But what that would do is it would make us basically an island nation and we would have a toll booth with those transmission and distribution substations, meaning whatever we generate on this side of those toll booths is our business. Everything we bring in over those transmission lines, we have to pay the toll, which is the transmission fees and numerous other fees that our California Public Utilities Commission puts on that power. We would not have to pay those anymore if we are a local public utility. So what does that mean here? We pay the highest transmission charges in the country, San Diego Gas and Electric specifically, those charges are actually greater than a one-off commercial rooftop solar array on a Walmart or on a Costco.

And so though it sounds counterintuitive and our focus is our focus is primarily on commercial rooftop and parking lot or ground mounted solar in the city, not unlike those community solar arrays that you talk so much about in Minnesota, that kind of scale and as well as supporting residential rooftop, but those highest rates in the country that we’re paying have a big element of transmission and even distribution, but not distribution in the city, such that we can focus on solar to lower rates. And so our whole mantra is lower rates and how are we going to lower rates? We’re going to lower rates by maximizing solar and battery storage in the city, not because it’s a feel-good thing even though it is, but because that is the most effective way for us to lower rates. So our whole mantra is lower rates, lower rates.

Dorrie Bruggemann: So it’s really a win-win win because as it turns out, focusing on a very logical and sensible clean solution to our energy needs, which is local rooftop solar, is also the more affordable way of powering our city for our rate payers. In order to focus on this, we have to have public power because we need to have a utility that prioritizes sensible, logical solutions and doesn’t prioritize instead their profits and their shareholder values. So in doing so, switching to public power, we’re getting the lower rates, we’re investing in local clean energy and we’re reducing the influence of a massive for-profit monopoly that has control over our city.
John Farrell: Maybe just to drive the point home, I know I talk about this a lot in my writing and whatnot, can you just briefly talk about why it is that San Diego Gas and Electric doesn’t want to do this? So you’ve already made the point that this process or this focus on local solar would save a lot of money on this toll booth that you’re otherwise having to pay to bring electricity into the community. Why wouldn’t they want to do this if it’s a win-win?
Bill Powers: As an entity that for a Century plus has gotten its revenue and its profit from building infrastructure, the problem, the conundrum for San Diego Gas and Electric and all the investor-owned utilities is if customers start empowering themselves and taking care of themselves, even if it’s diesel generators, we’re talking about rooftop solar, but anything that reduces the dependence of the customer on the utility reduces the potential for the utility to expand and grow its revenue base through its own infrastructure. And so there have been efforts around the country, the performance base rate making, hey, is there a way now that all the customers can generate their own power? Is there a way we can adapt this model so that the investor-owned utility had some incentive to support this common sense loved by customers approach?

And I think for the investor-owned utilities and holding companies, investors just like this bird in the hand is worth 10 in the bush. I mean, this is such a gravy train that we will never see a gravy train like this again, and we will defend it to the maximum extent in the right. This is an over the top gravy train, and I would expect this will be like the dinosaurs. There won’t be a negotiation where we sit around and intelligently talk about performance-based rate making and make that shift. This will be communities getting fed up that have the fundamental right to take this service back to the community as a public community-based operation. And they just do it.

Dorrie Bruggemann: To put it in the most simple words possible, local rooftop solar customers investing in their own rooftop solar, it doesn’t make SDG&E any money. It doesn’t make the for-profit utilities money. So they don’t like it and they fight it.
John Farrell: I think that’s very clear. Let me talk about something else. A big issue, and you kind of alluded to this before, Dorrie, about some of the motivation that folks would have to care about public power. One of the big motivations we have in our clean energy transition is trying to address some of the disproportionate health and financial risks to indigenous communities, communities of color, folks who have often borne the heaviest penalty from the fossil fuel economy, having to live near gas pipelines and transfer stations and power plants. Are there members of these communities involved in the campaign? Is there some intentionality in this public power campaign thinking about how do we address the needs of those communities?
Dorrie Bruggemann: So there are some folks involved with the campaign who belong to frontline communities, and for me coming into this campaign, it definitely has been a goal of mine to continue to do more in that regard. I say we have some folks involved and we do. I’d like to have more. And signature collection for this ballot initiative, it does represent an opportunity to reach out to more communities to extend a hand and provide some of that education on what is public power and what are we trying to do and bring those people in. So that is something that we certainly have on our minds in this campaign are working towards doing more and more. And I’d really like to see here in San Diego that coalition continue to grow and to build so that we can be elevating the voices of frontline communities.
Bill Powers: As the primary author of the ballot initiative language, one tool that I have really been attracted to for years that the utilities have paid lip service to for years is on bill financing and on bill financing tied to the meter, not to the individual, which is what’s being pioneered out in Hawaii as a tool to get rooftop solar and battery storage on the homes of renters, the homes of people with poor credit, the homes of people that could really not aspire to own and operate systems like this ever is to build a tariff base so that you can legitimately say it’s equitable, that if you want it, there’s a way for you to get it in a way that works for you economically. So that’s actually something that we baked into the mission statement of the public utility.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Yeah, and one thing about also our campaign is that there has been activism in San Diego for a while on this issue. There is, as you mentioned John, and our communications with the franchise renewal and the franchise fights, there has been an ebb and flow of coalitions and groups that have come together and fought in certain key moments. I think the key here is just continuing to recognize that every time we are doing that coalition building work that we’re keeping a very keen eye for, are we representing all of the communities that are here in San Diego? And making sure that that’s always something that we’re thinking about doing more of every time we’re doing any form of organizing.
Bill Powers: Another comment on this is long before this ballot initiative launched, we were having meetings with the local credit unions about, hey, you’ve got these, we have some interesting programs for financing green upgrades in California, and the most active player are credit unions and the most active player is my credit union. And the office of my credit union is 30 feet from this window here. I mean, it’s my neighbor in this office area. And so I’ve had meetings with them saying, look, you invest almost exclusively in home loans and auto loans, but you also have this lead in this nascent program for funding green energy conversions for primarily lower and middle income folks, but it’s based on credit score, kind of a traditional credit review, but they’ve got billions and billions of dollars that they’re turning over every year collectively the credit unions in this city. And that’s the kind of economic clout that could do major conversions in neighborhoods that historically have had relatively little involvement in clean energy. And so we’ve had those discussions. They’re like, you set up the program we’re in.
John Farrell: That’s great. I’m so glad you mentioned the on-bill financing. I just interviewed Matt Flaherty from Clean Energy Works. The term of art they’re using now is inclusive utility investments, but it was noteworthy that most of the leading utilities that have done that are cooperatives and other member owned institutions and not investor-owned utilities. But I’m really excited to hear that you’re thinking about that as part of this, because in that interview he talks about just how transformational it can be to reaching some of those folks who are otherwise not covered.

We are going to take a short break. When we come back, I ask my guests how public power addresses problems that community choice energy cannot, we talk about the key moment recently when a 50 year franchise agreement was dramatically shortened, and the nature of their campaign’s opposition. You’re listening to a Local Energy Rules podcast with Bill Powers and Dorrie Bruggemann with the Power San Diego ballot initiative campaign.

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John Farrell: You mentioned a little bit the community Choice Energy as part of the history of this work, and I remember, I think I interviewed someone who was part of the community choice effort in San Diego maybe 10 years ago who may still be involved in the work that you’re doing now about the effort. Can you talk a little bit about why that isn’t enough? I think you kind of alluded to that before about this transmission toll booth and maybe that’s it, but the idea behind community choice was of course cities could choose where the electrons came from, but they wouldn’t have to buy the poles and wires, which is usually what’s involved in municipalization and frankly is one of the most contentious points of it, where the utility will do a little Austin Powers or Dr. Evil thing with their finger and say, that grid will cost you $10 billion. And then the city will litigate back and say, actually it’s only a billion dollars or half a million dollars. And then of course there’s also the whole mythology of you have to buy the grid, but it’s like, yeah, but I’m also buying the customers who are going to be shopping for me. I dunno, the whole thing bothers me the way that we have the conversation about the cost of the grid.

So now that I’ve taken a nice detour, bring me back home. Why public power instead of just community choice? What is so important about having ownership of the grid system in the context of the goals around reducing energy bills and the other things that are motivating the campaign?

Bill Powers: Touching for a moment on community choice energy or aggregation. The concept has merit fundamentally, but the power in energy politics of this state, which is what I know best rests squarely with the utilities and their holding companies and even our editorial board at the paper of record here, San Diego Union Tribune, identifies the California Public Utilities Commission as the captured regulator captured by the investor-owned utilities. And the utilities, community choice energy, they have expertly ratcheted down its range of motion so that it’s essentially now just become, and this is my personal view, that community choice energy by and large across the state, they see their role as very limited to just looking to get big remote solar and wind capacity at a couple of dollars a megawatt hour less than what the investor-owned utility would have gotten for the same project so that they can come in and say, hey, the generation side of your bill, which is small, is going to be 1 or 2% less in cost than if it were the utility. And it’s still only a small part. So fractions of 1% savings by going with community choice energy over the utility.

And a lot of people say, well, really, I mean that’s all we’re getting out of all this drama about having this entity. And I’ll put that partly on the ability of the utilities to control the game and impose conditions on those community choice aggregators that make it very hard for them to do anything but status quo type work. But it’s also I think CCA myopic understanding of what their mission is, and if you just look at it as our mission is just to provide power supply at some incrementally lower rate than the utilities are providing. Okay, well what about the fact that if you’re buying New Mexico wind power and you’re a coastal Southern California CCA, or if you’re buying solar power in Arizona, how’s it going to get here If you sign a thousand megawatts of contracts, how does it get here? Somebody’s got to build a transmission line. Right. Do you think that may play into why the utility seemed quite comfortable with your role at this point? If all you’re doing is what they would’ve done anyway to facilitate multi-billion dollar transmission expansion, you’re welcome at the table.

And so I’ve also had conversations with them saying, since I was one of the promoters of this 10 years ago, what was our concept? We were clear about it that we would concentrate on massive build out of solar in the city. It doesn’t have to be rooftop, on residences or only that, but you can aggregate 10, a hundred, 500 kw or megawatt rooftops into huge projects just as big as those desert projects. And maybe they cost a penny more collectively than the desert project. That’s okay. That’s what we want. It’s not so much you knocking a percent or two off the power supply bill. It’s about implementing a vision that takes us in a different direction and that has not happened.

Dorrie Bruggemann: Yeah. One thing that we like to say when we’re talking about the difference between community choice energy and public power, obviously as you said John, it’s the ownership part of the equation is really the significant difference there. And I empathize and relate to what you’re saying that people, they worry a lot about that price tag with getting to the point of public ownership. So one analogy that we use a lot in the campaign is community choice energy here in San Diego, we’re effectively having to pay rents on our grid. We have to pay the owner for the rights to use the poles and the wires. And we all know, especially maybe some of the younger folks here that paying rent, paying rent is real drag and it really, really brings down your pocket books. So in contrast, ownership, paying a mortgage, is it something that still costs some money? Yes. But it’s something that allows you to invest in the community to invest in what we need here in San Diego versus paying rent to really an owner who’s just here to make money off of us. So that’s what I try to say to maybe change how people are thinking about that, but it’s a work in progress.
John Farrell: One of the things I thought was interesting in looking at some of the history of the campaign in San Diego around clean energy and affordability and public power, it looked like there was sort of a key moment about two years ago when the city was voting on the renewal of its franchise agreement with the electric utility, San Diego Gas and Electric. Could you talk about, maybe give people a little preview of what does this franchise contract mean? What does it do? We have some information on our website, but I think in your own words, what does that contract mean? Can you talk about what happened with that vote and how it impacts the public power campaign? And then also I know that there was a fee attached to that and some revenue as part of that conversation. If you could delve into that once you’ve explained the basic concept there and how it might’ve interfaced with the public power effort.
Bill Powers: Sure. This is about a three hour comment. John, do you have that time? I’ll shorten it.
John Farrell: It’s okay. We will ask people at this point, please, on your podcast listening device, turn the speed up to three times. We’ll all sound like chipmunks, but we’ll get through it.
Bill Powers: So our gas and electricity provider since the 1880s has been San Diego Gas and Electric. And so basically the 11th commandment was San Diego shall have San Diego Gas and Electric as its gas and electricity provider forever. And so the city signed a 50 year franchise agreement for gas and electricity with SDG&E in 1920. They again, in 1970, signed a 50 year agreement. Though you may recall, 1970 was a tumultuous year in the United States and there was a dog fight in this city in 1970 over the renewal of that franchise agreement. And the consultant to the city said, hey, but for very high interest rates at this time, you should go public power. That was 1970. So as we approached the 2020 year, those of us in energy in politics to the city said, we got to prepare for this. I mean, we should make sure that we have some kind of off ramp to public power. This is not working.

So I was part of a nonprofit effort to do a public power study. We contacted Boulder, Colorado, got a good consultant out in North Carolina, did a good study on public power. It said it’s a winner, especially distribution grid only. Great. We shopped that around to the city council, let everybody know, and just kind of built some anticipation as this became more of a political issue in the city. The city also commissioned a public power study. The consultant in that case said, look, public power is a winner for this city. And they gave us pricing on the grid, the assets, and said, you write the franchise agreement terms you want for electric, and if the bidders do not agree to exactly what you want, you go straight to public power. Interest rates are dirt cheap. This is the time to do it.

So that’s what we got from the consultant to the city. Then we had a change in administrations and we went from an R to a D, but it actually, as you know, doesn’t necessarily change anything. All depends on who was closest to whom. And so it actually got less favorable with that change for public power. And the new administration signed a very favorable agreement to San Diego Gas and Electric. However, there was a dog fight on the city council. We kind of had the votes briefly to stall that franchise and get a good public power off ramp, which is, let’s put some rigorous but doable requirements in the franchise agreement for clean energy, local rooftop power serving the underserved. We know this utility is going to trip over it. Sooner or later, they’re going to trip over a requirement. And let’s just say you trip over any requirement, we go straight to public power. That’s what the consultant was advising.

But that didn’t happen. I mean, SDG&E got basically a free pass. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why we have some strength going now on ballot initiatives. That happened very recently. That was only two to three years ago in that span. That was a marquee issue in this city in 2021. That was a big deal. Everybody remembers. And so we have somewhat educated populace about SDG&E basically getting its cake and getting to eat it too. And so there was a lot of public dissatisfaction with how that came down.

And so that’s really where we’re at. And you can see these relationships here now that we’d actually recommended to the city that the consultant that did the work in 2020 be rehired for yet another study. The third study that we’ve had in six years is mostly complete at this point. They did bring in that consultant, consultant has a good reputation, but it’s really what you do is dependent on what your client instructs you to do. There’s no reference in the new study that we’ve ever had prior public power study. We’re not looking at a distribution electric grid anymore. Now we’re looking at T&D. But what does T&D do? It involves a lot more actors and it greatly extends the review time. And so we’re in a position as a campaign to say, because now the utility is saying, well, let’s just wait. There are multiple phases to our municipalization study. Let’s circle back in 2025, we’ll have another chat. Then next phase will be done in 2040. We’ll circle back down, and I’m exaggerating when I say next phase in 2040, but you know what I mean. This is, I think, the analysis paralysis is what I call it. Is let’s throw the community a small bone. Let’s tell ’em we’re thinking about it and let’s just keep thinking about it until the cows come home.

And so what we’re saying is we’ve got plenty of studies, and unlike many communities, we pretty much know exactly what the assets cost. We know the different governmental structures we have available to us. We’ve chosen one. And just to underscore, and you can probably sense a little frustration in my voice this second phase, that first phase, which covered everything, finished in July of 2023, this next phase finishes in mid-summer 2025. What’s the primary happenings in that next phase? It’s consultations with the community. What should have happened before the first phase even started? Consultations with the community, consultations with the community choice aggregator. But the study says, we’ll just continue to take power from the community choice aggregator.

So what’s to consult? That’s what’s in the study. That’s what we’re assuming, but what are the bulk of the consultations? The consultant in the city will go out to get insights from San Diego Gas and Electric. The city will go out and get insights from the San Diego corporate electricians union, IBEW 465. Well, we’ve seen those insights at our meetings, which are hell no to any discussion of public power. And so it just gives you a sense of, insights when you’re talking about a hostile takeover, what insights do you anticipate getting from your opponent in the ring other than a knockout punch? And so just to give you the flavor of the politics, and Dorrie and I were just talking about this before the call, is that this could not have happened any other way, meaning the institutional players in the city have directly or indirectly some kind of tie with the investor-owned utility or its holding company. That makes inconvenient any significant discussion about a wholesale change out that the only way this could have gotten started is as grassroots. We’ve had enough initiative because if they’re too embedded, they’re too embedded in the political structure of the city to have been able to negotiate some kind of momentum to then get funding. And it just had to be, you know what, this is the moment and we’re not sure how we’re going to get it done, but this is the time to move.

John Farrell: I want to reference one thing really quick in this conversation about the money to buy the grid system. Dorrie, you made, I think, a really helpful top line reference to how you can talk about this with people. It’s the difference between renting and owning. One thing that’s really struck me about this from, we did a public power podcast series. I did six episodes about public power kind of campaigns that had been done, what people were trying to get out of it, what had happened with a lot of the campaigns and how they had played out. And almost every campaign did some sort of feasibility study. Almost every feasibility said, this is a good deal. You should do it. Because of course, the major difference between private ownership and public ownership is the profit margin that the private utility is taking that they’ll no longer be taking.

And so it’s like, how can you possibly do this and not save money knowing that you’re going to cut that profit margin in half or more in terms of interest rates and cost of capital? And it really comes down to this issue I discussed with Scott Hempling, who has a long history in doing utility law and regulation has been an administrative law judge in this issue. And I think he covered it in his book, but in a podcast where we talked about it, that it’s essentially the utility is taking this public asset, the distribution grid that we’ve all paid for. So we’re renters, but it’s paid off, right? Sure. They’re doing some upgrades to it. We basically own it or we would own it if it was any kind of justice in the structure of the system. And then they’re selling it to us at a premium. That’s the only possible way that we could not get a good deal here is if they’re somehow being able to profit off holding this monopoly ownership of a system that we gave them. So it’s like we gave it to them as part of their operation and now they’re going to sell it back to us at a premium, which is the only plausible way. It couldn’t be cheaper to operate the system. I don’t know. That just drives me crazy.

So I don’t know if you have anything you want to say to that, but just I keep thinking about that every time I talk with folks like you who are working on these public power campaigns, everybody gets hung up on the economics when the truth is the utility is just making a buck off something we gave them in order to sell it back to us at a price premium. It’s ludicrous.

Bill Powers: Stay angry, John.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Yeah, I mean, they get to charge us. They get to charge us three times for the same thing. They charge us, especially in the case of SDG&E, when they charge rate payers to build these massive transmission lines from these far away solar farms in the desert. So they charge the rate payers to build the transmission line. They charge the rate payers for delivery of the energy on the transmission line. And then in the case of the delivery that’s happening within the city, the distribution, they’re also charging again if we want to own it ourselves. So they really get to charge for both the existing grid that’s been around for a long time and for new projects, they get to charge us several times over for the privilege to operate the electric grid.
Bill Powers: It’s a motivator.
John Farrell: Yeah, absolutely. This last question I have for you about who’s the opposition and what is their issue? I think we’ve probably nailed this down pretty well already, that the utility is not a fan. You also mentioned the IBEW and there is a long history of unions representing workers at utilities sometimes because they have to in their union contract and other times just because they see alignment in continuing their jobs, being in lockstep with utilities, private utilities, to oppose public power. Are there other folks that you’re finding maybe that are sort of surprising or not surprising, but big players in terms of opposition? And are there any particular ways that they’re going about it that is really complicating your work?
Bill Powers: I might start on one issue for us is, and this was much more transparently done than I would’ve anticipated, but San Diego Gas and Electric has formed a solely by them funded political action committee who has one role, which is to stop our ballot initiative. And I didn’t check, I was meant to check before this call because they keep pumping money into it. Last I checked, they put $560,000 into it. And what they’re doing is the same game plan that they have used. So in this case, they are the sole funder, the officers of the PAC are senior executives at the utility, they claim that they’re a big coalition that unions community groups, but they’re the only funder. But when you talk about surprises, there really aren’t too many surprises. And this is one of the advantages of all the reporting that the commission requires is every year they have to report their charitable contributions.

So we can just look down this voluminous list and say, well, this entity that represents lower income people of color gets $25 or $30k a year from utility, and now they’re writing about the nuances of income graduated fixed charges. And so what we focus on is just calling out that you see these op-eds from groups, one member of an earlier coalition that is earlier iteration of a coalition fighting for fixed charges was Meals on Wheels, for example. It’s like, well, how, one might ask, does Meals on Wheels have the chops to opine on how these fixed charges work? And they get quite a bit of money from the utility. And so what we’re doing is what we’ve done in past campaigns. I mean, this really should just be required that if you’re writing op-eds that at least acknowledge you can talk about your degrees and the good works that your entity does, and you probably do do good work, but also acknowledge that you’re a recipient of significant contributions from the electric utility to be fair to the reader. So the reader doesn’t assume that remarkably, you just got up one morning and felt compelled to write an op-ed about fixed charges even though it has nothing to do with your trajectory.

John Farrell: I’m really struck by that. There’s some excellent work out there by Energy and Policy Institute and the NAACP about that insidious connection between the charitable contributions that utilities make and then political support they get from what would otherwise be very unexpected quarters.
Bill Powers: Exactly. And one of the interesting things that we have learned in the course of this campaign is we have 501c3 foundations and funds that want to contribute to our ballot initiative, some of them operating through our biggest umbrella foundation in the city, but that biggest umbrella foundation in the city is the number one recipient of charitable donations from the electric utility. And so it becomes a gatekeeper in some ways for money that might otherwise flow to grassroots campaigns like this one but cannot due to that structure. And so I had mentioned earlier that it couldn’t have happened any other way and not to comment on our chances for success. I mean, this is an uphill battle, but it couldn’t have launched any other way because the utility has embedded itself so completely in our community that it had to be an outside grassroots issue.

And I must say that no matter how it shakes out, I think it’s just given the community of bigger vision of what’s possible. I mean, until this campaign launched, it was like, in fact, I got that from many people that, hey, good luck to you, but you just can’t take on the investor-owned utility. I mean, it’s just too big a fight. Like you said, your training wheels were earned in 2020, and now you’re ready for the real political combat which is trying to knock out the investor-owned utility, which is in part true because it’s remarkable to see these interlocking relationships and webs. And I must acknowledge many people in the community stepping up despite that, despite being caught to a degree in those webs and still showing the courage to support us. But I’m glad we’re doing this for our community.

In fact, can I read when we’re among the faithful, can I read you a statement we read at all of our presentations? Can you tell me who it came from?

John Farrell: Yes, please do.
Bill Powers: I believe in municipal ownership of these electric monopolies because if you do not own them, they will in time own you. They will destroy your politics, corrupt your institutions, and finally destroy your liberties, quote from a book Power Struggle. Do you know who that was?
John Farrell: Oh, I’m going to guess Franklin Roosevelt, but I’m not sure.
Bill Powers: Close. Tom Johnson, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio 1901. And Tom could have said that yesterday and it would’ve been spot on. And so we’re trying to just frame this issue. What is this about? Fundamentally, it’s about kind of an insidious form of corruption of our whole social network here, and it happens to be electric power in this case, or gas and power, but it does, it impacts our politics. It impacts the legitimacy of our nonprofit institutions, everything.
John Farrell: It’s really striking too because as a student of U.S. political science, there was a huge effort in the progressive reform era about a hundred years ago to get money and patronage out of the bureaucracy. And so that it wasn’t the case that you would win a municipal election and then you would just hire all your friends in the government. I mean, there’s sort of famous examples like the Chicago political machine or in Boston or in New York City where the whole concept of government was basically a place where I reward my friends. And it’s funny that as you talk about this, I’m sort of thinking like, well, that’s funny, but we let our electric utility do that through charitable contributions and through all these other ways of just basically buying friendships as the incumbent, which does make this effort to unseat them as you would in a political campaign, all that more difficult. What gives you hope about being able to win, knowing that you’re in an uphill fight, or what advice would you have for other folks who are trying to think about maybe undertaking a similar challenging effort?
Dorrie Bruggemann: So I have to interject here before I answer your question with a personal comment here, because now it’s been a couple of times down this conversation that you guys have referenced my 2020 experience. I seem to be creating a pattern here because the campaign that I worked on in 2020 was a statewide proposition for undoing the property tax loophole of Prop 13. So I think I’m starting to create a little pattern here of myself, of taking on massive recessive propositions and initiatives for undoing mistakes of the past from a long time ago that some seriously money backed powers are extremely interested in maintaining. So that’s just a little insight I had just now thinking about this in this conversation.
Bill Powers: Very interesting.
John Farrell: Well, let me give Dorrie the chance to answer this question first. What gives you hope then, knowing that you have taken on some very challenging things and knowing how uphill this fight is? And then we’ll give Bill the last word.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Yeah. So I would say for me, in my heart of hearts, I’m really an activist and a people power person, and I’m all about the strength of the community. And what drives me in these jobs is seeing just the power of organizing. And I think this is an issue that, especially what we were just talking about here when it comes to public power with all that we’re facing, this is where the power of organizing really comes into play. And it’s been really amazing to see what’s happening here in San Diego. I mean, it started not with this campaign, but with past efforts to organize lots of people coming together, people are angry at SDG&E and when people are told that we can actually do something, there is a solution, we don’t have to just be angry and feel helpless, people are so excited, they are so excited, and they want to get involved.

And we’re doing signature gathering with volunteers. We have paid signature gatherers in the area. People who do this for their income or for a side hustle, they want to carry our petition for free because when they have, they’re able to put forward, oh, I’ve got the Power San Diego petition. People are coming to them and they are approaching them and they want to sign. So what gives me hope is knowing that there is so much potential for massive organizing in this region. What we have seen with this campaign and how the work that we’ve done, whether we get on the ballot or not, whether it passes or not in the primaries, the way that elected hopefuls were talking about public power and really having to talk about it in a way that they would not have if we did not have this organizing over the past few years over the issue. So that’s what gives me hope is that to me, it’s inevitable. We want to make it happen as fast as we can because it needs to, because people are hurting now. But I just feel that SDG&E’s time is nigh. So it’s exciting to see, and that’s what gives me hope.

Bill Powers: I don’t know if I have a lot more to add to that other than to say that part of this for me was, it’s so easy to be disillusioned. It’s so easy to say you can’t fight the boss, or you can’t fight this monolithic thing. But that just the fact of taking the fight to them and making it a fight, making it a debate in the city that this isn’t a done deal. This isn’t forever, that if we want to make a change, we got to start somewhere. And it just makes what I’m doing seem more vital. I’m not just in yet another proceeding at the PUC trying to change the bow of the boat a half a degree. This is changing a lot more than that, and you even see it in that PAC to throw a half a million dollars or more at us because we actually wrote a very good ballot initiative. It will pass muster if the citizens vote us vote this in and it will work, and they know it, and so they’re trying to stop it.
John Farrell: Sometimes I like calling what they do the cash cannon based on how much those utilities spend on these efforts in other places. Well, Bill and Dorrie, thanks so much for joining me to talk about your work in San Diego and frankly, the inspiration of going for something that is meaningful change. I mean, I think, Bill, the way that you put it is so important. It’s not just about little incremental degrees, but trying to ask for what you actually want and what might actually accomplish something meaningful in the world. And so I’m glad that you’re providing that inspiration for others.
Bill Powers: Oh, thank you for giving us a chance to talk about it, John.
Dorrie Bruggemann: Yeah, thank you, John.
John Farrell: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Local Energy Rules with Bill Powers and Dorrie Bruggemann with the Power San Diego ballot initiative. On the show page, look for links to the campaign website and the short video I mentioned, as well as a TV news segment covering a protest organized by the campaign against utilities high profits. Also on the show page, we’ll have links to related podcasts, including ILSR’s six-part Public Power podcast series, the interview about inclusive utility investment, and the work by NAACP and the Energy and Policy Institute showing how utilities buy political support with charitable contributions. Local Energy Rules is produced by myself and Maria McCoy with editing provided by audio engineer Drew Birschbach. Tune back into Local Energy Rules every two weeks to hear how we can take on concentrated power to transform the energy system. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.


The Power San Diego Ballot Initiative

Residents of San Diego pay some of the highest electric rates in the country. Meanwhile, the investor-owned utility charging these rates profits over a million dollars a day from San Diego alone. The Power San Diego[6] ballot initiative is a campaign to fire San Diego Gas and Electric, take the distribution grid public, and serve San Diego affordable electricity through a publicly-owned utility.

As Bruggemann and Powers explain, a public utility could reduce rates by supporting solar generation within the city[7] and cutting out costly power transmission charges. San Diego Gas and Electric opposes local solar because distributed generation cuts into its revenue base and utilities do not profit off of customer-owned generation facilities. The public utility would also support on-bill financing[8], adds Powers, which can help customers go solar with no upfront cost.

We have to have public power because we need to have a utility that prioritizes sensible, logical solutions and doesn’t prioritize their profits and their shareholder values… switching to public power, we’re getting the lower rates, we’re investing in local clean energy, and we’re reducing the influence of a massive for-profit monopoly that has control over our city.

— Dorrie Bruggemann

Campaign staff and volunteers are in the middle of a push to gather signatures and put public power on the ballot.

Why Community Choice Energy Wasn’t Enough

California is one of the nine states that allow community choice energy[9]. Through community choice, local governments can aggregate together and form a community choice entity. The entity then assumes responsibility for electricity procurement, while the incumbent utility still owns the distribution system and bills customers on behalf of the entity.

Powers was once an advocate for community choice energy, but feels the concept has become too limited. While community choice entities are getting power at slightly lower rates than for-profit utilities, they are often procuring distant generation and driving transmission expansions. It’s also a matter of renting the grid versus owning it, explains Bruggemann.

Ownership, paying a mortgage, is it something that still costs some money? Yes. But it’s something that allows you to invest in the community, to invest in what we need here in San Diego, versus paying rent to an owner who’s just here to make money off of us.

— Dorrie Bruggemann

As Support Grows, So Does Utility Opposition

Although the city already has two recent municipalization feasibility studies, another one is underway — Powers describes this effort as “analysis paralysis” that is delaying what must necessarily be a “hostile takeover.” The utility’s ties to local electeds and community leaders increases the challenge of a municipalization campaign. San Diego Gas and Electric has also poured half a million dollars into a political action committee to stop the ballot initiative.

No matter how it shakes out, I think it’s just given the community a bigger vision of what’s possible… it’s remarkable to see these interlocking relationships and webs. And I must acknowledge many people in the community stepping up despite that, despite being caught to a degree in those webs, and still showing the courage to support us.

— Bill Powers

Episode Notes

See these resources for more behind the story:

  • Explore the Power San Diego campaign website[10].
  • Watch the news coverage of a Power San Diego demonstration[11] outside of Sempra Energy headquarters.
  • Listen to a six-part special series of Local Energy Rules: The Promise and Peril of Publicly-Owned Power[12].
  • Listen to a Local Energy Rules interview with Matt Flaherty[13] of Clean Energy Works on inclusive utility investment.
  • Dig into research by the NAACP[14] and the Energy and Policy Institute[15] on how utilities use charitable giving to influence policies and regulations.

For concrete examples of how towns and cities can take action toward gaining more control over their clean energy future, explore ILSR’s Community Power Toolkit[16].

Explore local and state policies and programs that help advance clean energy goals across the country using ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map[17].


This is the 206th episode of Local Energy Rules[18], an ILSR podcast with Energy Democracy Director John Farrell, which shares stories of communities taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system.

Local Energy Rules is Produced by ILSR’s John Farrell and Maria McCoy. Audio engineering by Drew Birschbach.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[19]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[20] on Twitter, our energy work on Facebook[21], or sign up to get the Energy Democracy weekly update[22]. 

Featured Photo Credit: iStock

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Endnotes:
  1. Local Energy Rules Podcast: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  2. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/2024-3-ler206-bruggeman-powers-san-diego.mp3
  3. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/2024-3-ler206-bruggeman-powers-san-diego.mp3
  4. Embed: #
  5. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  6. Power San Diego: https://wearepowersandiego.com/
  7. supporting solar generation within the city: https://ilsr.org/investor-owned-utilities-myths-costs-rooftop-solar/
  8. on-bill financing: https://ilsr.org/scaling-up-home-energy-investment-ler199/
  9. community choice energy: https://ilsr.org/report-community-choice-energy/
  10. campaign website: https://wearepowersandiego.com/
  11. news coverage of a Power San Diego demonstration: https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/sdge-parent-company-announces-nearly-3b-in-profits-in-2023/509-2e0b5f29-5901-4212-9ce3-6e7d463e7ae9#:~:text=SAN%20DIEGO%20%E2%80%94%20While%20many%20San,headquarters%20in%20downtown%20San%20Diego
  12. The Promise and Peril of Publicly-Owned Power: https://ilsr.org/the-promise-and-peril-of-publicly-owned-power/
  13. Local Energy Rules interview with Matt Flaherty: https://ilsr.org/scaling-up-home-energy-investment-ler199/
  14. NAACP: https://naacp.org/resources/fossil-fueled-foolery-20
  15. Energy and Policy Institute: https://energyandpolicy.org/strings-attached-how-utilities-use-charitable-giving-to-influence-politics-increase-investor-profits/
  16. Community Power Toolkit: https://ilsr.org/community-power-interactive-toolkit/
  17. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  18. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage
  19. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  20. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  21. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Energy-Self-Reliant-States-132578100187572/
  22. Energy Democracy weekly update: https://ilsr.wufoo.com/forms/r1r50rsn1r1p4ky/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/san-diego-solar-takeover-ler206/


In The American Prospect: Pandemic-Era Corporate Bullying

by Susan Holmberg | March 27, 2024 1:36 pm

In a new study, the Federal Trade Commission found that big retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Amazon — threatened to punish suppliers unless they got first dibs on food and household goods during the pandemic. Senior Researcher Ron Knox explains it in The American Prospect[1], and recommends what the agency should do next.

“It’s a big deal when America’s top monopoly cop, the Federal Trade Commission, spends its finite time and resources studying an industry. The agency was created a century ago precisely to figure out which markets were working and which weren’t, but for decades the agency did very little of that kind of inquiry. Under Joe Biden, the FTC’s leadership has rekindled that core function, and last week the agency published the results of its examination of one of the decade’s most vexing problems: the fracturing of the grocery supply chain, and the subsequent and ongoing price hikes seen during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The FTC’s supply chain study[2], two years in the making, was succinct but clear: Documents and data from some of America’s largest grocery retailers, producers, and wholesalers showed that in those first months after the onset of the pandemic, dominant mega-retailers had flexed their muscle as the country’s largest buyers of food, shampoo, toilet paper, and every other consumer good to demand their suppliers fill their shelves first, likely at the expense of smaller stores around the country.”

Read the rest of the article here[3].


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Endnotes:
  1. The American Prospect: https://prospect.org/economy/2024-03-25-pandemic-era-corporate-bullying/
  2. study: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p162318supplychainreport2024.pdf
  3. here: https://prospect.org/economy/2024-03-25-pandemic-era-corporate-bullying/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/in-american-prospect-pandemic-era-corporate-bullying/


DIY Community Composter Screener

by Brenda Platt | March 26, 2024 10:10 am

DIY Screener at BK ROT

Composting equipment is typically not readily available in sizes that community sites can use. This is true for turning and mixing systems as well as compost trommel screeners and sifters. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” In this age of open-source collaboration, it is encouraging to note that there is an entire online community of folks in various countries sharing trommel screen designs. The same basic rotating cylinder design is available in different configurations: manual turning, bicycle powered, motorized, and solar powered. Many utilize repurposed materials such as bike wheel rims. Users share their YouTube videos, modify each other’s designs, then come back to post their improved versions.

[1]
Download DIY Trommel[2]

Do It Yourself Trommel[3] is a step-by-step guide by Bruno Navarro of Nexus Bau[4] to building an electric trommel compost screener intended for use at community gardens, schools, urban farms, and other community venues. ILSR supported Bruno in documenting his design in this guide. This screener design is not a new design but rather modifies a common design to incorporate a metal frame rather than a wooden one. In general, metal is stronger and less prone to cracking and rot than wood. To build it, knowledge in welding, electronics, hand tools, and common sense is needed. Find one or more individuals in your community versed in the areas you might not have training or expertise in.

DIY Screener at BK ROT

This design was first built and installed at BK ROT,[5] a youth-engaged community composting operation in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. By increasing the site’s capacity to screen compost, BK ROT was able to double the radius of clients it served. Bruno also partnered with the Lower East Side Ecology Center to build the trommel screener at East NY Farms over two weekends (2 hours each day), collaborating with the community and staff. It’s also been replicated at GoodLife Garden and two other New York City sites. In New York City, materials and labor are expensive and might run ~$5,000. The design can be scaled up and tailored to different needs.

 

Watch Youtube instructions: NexusBau – Making A Compost Trommel[6] (15 min.) or download the PDF instructions.[7]

 

About Bruno Narravo

Bruno is a freelance woodworker, designer, inventor, and video producer.  He graduated from The Cooper Union in 2008 with a B.S. Architecture degree. In 2010, he formed a design/build company called “NexusBAU” in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, that focuses on unique and singular custom works. Since then he has worked not only with private clients but nonprofit organizations, community gardens, and The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. He has also taught “How To” classes to individuals who have been marginalized in our society. 

All photo credit: BK ROT Instagram[8]

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Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/HowToBuildATrommel.pdf
  2. Download DIY Trommel: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/HowToBuildATrommel.pdf
  3. Do It Yourself Trommel: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/HowToBuildATrommel.pdf
  4. Bruno Navarro of Nexus Bau: https://www.nexusbau.com/about
  5. BK ROT,: https://www.bkrot.org/
  6. NexusBau – Making A Compost Trommel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhahjYovUeI
  7. download the PDF instructions.: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/HowToBuildATrommel.pdf
  8. BK ROT Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bk_rot/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/diy-compost-screener/


New Power Generation Quarterly: 2023 Q4

by Maria McCoy | March 25, 2024 4:26 pm

14 gigawatts of new power generation capacity came online in the fourth quarter of 2023 — a doubling of the new capacity from quarter three[1]. Over eight gigawatts of this fourth quarter surge was large-scale solar, with distributed solar contributing another two gigawatts. Wind power development also swelled to more than three gigawatts this quarter. Fossil gas had its poorest quarterly showing of the year with less than a gigawatt of buildout.

In the chart below, we illustrate the past two years of new electric power capacity in the U.S., disaggregated by energy source on a quarterly basis.

Key takeaways:

  • 73 percent of all generation capacity installed in the fourth quarter of 2023 was solar; 58 percent from utility-scale solar farms and 15 percent from small solar installations (residential, commercial, and community solar).
  • Small-scale solar buildout stepped up slightly in the fourth quarter of 2023 — thanks to Californians rushing to take advantage of NEM 2.0[2].
  • All of the wind generation capacity installed in 2023 was onshore, but expect to see some offshore wind in the first quarter of 2024, as South Fork Wind[3] began delivering power to New York.
  • Gas contributed only six percent of power generation buildout in the fourth quarter of 2023.
  • Nearly two gigawatts of utility-scale storage came online in the fourth quarter of 2023.

For more on the advancement of clean, distributed energy, see these recent ILSR resources:

  • The 2024 Community Power Scorecard[4]
  • Arizona’s High Stakes Utility Election — Episode 205 of Local Energy Rules[5]
  • Smarter Rules for Smart Meters — Episode 204 of Local Energy Rules[6]
  • Why Utility Execs Hate Distributed Solar[7]
  • The Concrete Benefits of Virtual Power Plants — Episode 203 of Local Energy Rules[8]
  • 10 Years of Minnesota’s Community Solar Program — Episode 202 of Local Energy Rules[9]
  • Scaling Up Home Energy Investment — Episode 199 of Local Energy Rules[10]

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[11]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[12] on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly[13] update.

Featured Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture[14] via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

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Endnotes:
  1. quarter three: https://ilsr.org/new-power-gen-update-2023-q3/
  2. rushing to take advantage of NEM 2.0: https://ilsr.org/california-rooftop-solar-nem-ler192/
  3. South Fork Wind: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1238593852/first-large-offshore-wind-farm-opens-long-island-south-fork?utm_source=Climate+Advocacy+Lab+Members&utm_campaign=f6f768cd3b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_19_05_58&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-f6f768cd3b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
  4. The 2024 Community Power Scorecard: https://ilsr.org/2024-community-power-scorecard/
  5. Arizona’s High Stakes Utility Election — Episode 205 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/arizonas-high-stakes-utility-election-ler205/
  6. Smarter Rules for Smart Meters — Episode 204 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/smarter-rules-smart-meters-ler204/
  7. Why Utility Execs Hate Distributed Solar: https://ilsr.org/why-utility-execs-hate-distributed-solar/
  8. The Concrete Benefits of Virtual Power Plants — Episode 203 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/concrete-benefits-virtual-power-plants-ler203/
  9. 10 Years of Minnesota’s Community Solar Program — Episode 202 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/10-years-minnesota-community-solar-ler202/
  10. Scaling Up Home Energy Investment — Episode 199 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/scaling-up-home-energy-investment-ler199/
  11. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  12. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  13. Energy Democracy weekly: https://ilsr.wufoo.com/forms/r1r50rsn1r1p4ky/
  14. U.S. Department of Agriculture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/5684401186/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/new-power-gen-update-2023-q4/


On More Perfect Union: What Dollar General Doesn’t Want You to Know

by Susan Holmberg | March 25, 2024 11:09 am

Dollar General is stealing from its customers. It’s a major scam that’s siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from the poorest people in America. In a new More Perfect Union video, ILSR Co-Director Stacy Mitchell explains how the chain’s business models rips people off. “I’ve begun to really see Dollar General as a criminal organization,” Stacy warns. Watch the video here[1] or below.

 


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Endnotes:
  1. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE5THiD-kTk&t=6s

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/on-more-perfect-union-what-dollar-general-doesnt-want-you-to-know/


Response to FTC report on grocery supply chain disruptions during COVID-19

by Stacy Mitchell | March 21, 2024 3:21 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director[1]

 

“We hope that this study will be followed in short order by renewed enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act,” Stacy Mitchell says in response to FTC findings on grocery supply chain disruptions.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 21, 2024) – Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), made the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) report on grocery supply chain disruptions[2] during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The FTC’s findings provide more evidence of how large retailers exploit their power over suppliers to harm smaller grocers, eliminate competition, and drive up prices. When Walmart can flex its muscle over grocery manufacturers to commandeer scarce supplies and secure unwarranted discounts, communities served by independent grocers are left with empty shelves and higher prices — or worse, no grocery store at all. We hope that this study will be followed in short order by renewed enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act and other action to level the playing field for small grocers and food companies.”

 

For more from ILSR on large grocery retailers and market power issues, see:

  • Boxed Out: How Big Retailers are Flexing Their Supply Chain Power to Kill Off Small Businesses[3], Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Sept. 2022
  • The Real Reason Your Groceries Are Getting So Expensive[4], New York Times, May 2023.

 

###

 


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Endnotes:
  1. Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director: mailto:reggie@ilsr.org
  2. report on grocery supply chain disruptions: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/03/ftc-releases-report-grocery-supply-chain-disruptions
  3. Boxed Out: How Big Retailers are Flexing Their Supply Chain Power to Kill Off Small Businesses: https://ilsr.org/boxed-out/
  4. The Real Reason Your Groceries Are Getting So Expensive: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/technology/apple-doj-lawsuit-antitrust.html

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/statement-ftc-report-grocery-supply-chain-disruptions/


It Takes an Avalon Village

by Luke Gannon | March 21, 2024 5:00 am

Mama Shu’s journey began with a profound commitment: healing her community. Despite the challenges faced by her hometown of Highland Park, Mama Shu felt a deep connection to the area. Determined to make a difference, she embarked on a mission to reclaim neglected spaces, tirelessly working to steward the land, organize the community, and secure resources for revitalization.

Today, Avalon Village owns 45 lots that have been transformed into vibrant community spaces, including gardens, parks, a homework house, markets, a cafe, an entrepreneurial hub, a healing space, and more. Yet, Mama Shu’s impact extends beyond physical infrastructure. Her holistic approach to community development embraces spiritual and cultural revitalization, honoring and celebrating her departed loved ones while nurturing a loving space for future generations.

Avalon Village stands as a testament to the resilience of communities and the transformative power of collective action.

Check out: Avalon Village [5]

  • If you live in Detroit, they have lots of upcoming events!

From Blight to Beauty | Shamayim Harris | TEDxDetroit[6]

CNN Heroes Tribute: Mama Shu[7]

Highland Park’s ‘Mama Shu’ is among USA Today’s 2024 Women of the Year[8]

Ellen Meets The Amazing Mama Shu[9]

Mama Shu Interview with Roadtrip Nation[10]

Mama Shu’s Book Recommendation:

  • Sacred Woman: A Guide to Healing the Feminine Body, Mind, and Spirit[11] by Queen Afua
Mama Shu: My job as a feminine entity on this planet is going to help to heal it, help to bring it back into balance, I would say. And so that is what my work is about, is about to helping to bring things back into balance. Sometimes it’s the feminine touch or whatever sometimes that’s missing in things and that right there. And so I believe that Highland Park, I believe that Avalon Village is a place that is being healed.
Reggie Rucker: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Building Local Power Detroit, our first stop in a multi-city series where we explore how to build local power from the experiences of people who are doing just that on the ground in their respective cities.
If you’re just jumping into the series midway, these are the people who are proving what’s possible when a community comes together to shape its future. We talk to community leaders, advocates, activists, entrepreneurs, and elected officials, all who have powerful stories about the drive to write Detroit’s next chapter. We think these stories will be illuminating in their own right, but we also hope they inspire you on your journey to build local power wherever you’re listening from. So excited as always to do this tour with my co-host, Luke Gannon. What’s up, Luke?
Luke Gannon: Hey, Reggie. I am so excited to be here. We have quite a special guest today. Shamayim Harris, or Mama Shu, was named USA Today’s 2024 Women of the Year. Mama Shu was also on The Ellen Show and was given a house from Ellen. Yep, you heard me. More on that later. And was named CNN Hero in 2023, and was introduced at their 17th year Heroes event by Sterling K. Brown. Yeah, it’s crazy. And now she’s talking on our podcast.
Reggie Rucker: I know, right? When I saw the Sterling K. Brown clip, that just blew me away. I immediately went into fanboy territory. And it’s funny, because she talked about Avalon Village being infectious, like those ideas and that vision being infectious, but honestly, I’m going to take it a step further and talk like, it’s her, like she’s infectious. Sitting here listening to her, and I was thinking, like, “Mama Shu, what are you doing this weekend?” Or, “Where are you going to be?” Because that’s what I’m doing. That’s where I want to be. Right?
Luke Gannon: I know, seriously. I’m practically ready to head over to Avalon Village to meet Mama Shu in person.
Reggie Rucker: It’s just really incredible. I took away so much from Mama Shu’s story, but one certainly is this idea that we all want the same thing. So when she was building her vision, she knew it wasn’t hers alone. We all want and deserve beautiful spaces and safe spaces and healing spaces, spaces we can learn and find joy and all of these things. We are one in that regard. And that’s what creates the shared humanity, which is the foundation that we can build anything on, including this beautiful village.
Luke Gannon: So after decades of stewarding the land, keeping it clean, organizing community, buying property, designing lots, Mama Shu has literally built a village. Let’s hear how she did it.
Mama Shu: My name is Mama Shu. I’m the founder and CEO of Avalon Village, and I’m just over here building a eco village. We’re transforming blight to beauty, and we’re in the city of Highland Park, which is 2.9 miles, and it’s a small suburb inside of Detroit, Michigan. The population is close to 10,000. We’re just basically making things better and better here in the community out of distress or something that was distressed before, because we believe that we deserve to live in a beautiful environment and grow up in a beautiful environment, and grow our families up and prosper in a clean, healthy, and safe environment.
My relationship to Detroit was, well, I was born in Highland Park, actually, and as a little girl, we moved on, a baby, actually. My family, we moved to Detroit, which is almost right across the street, because it’s just so close and everything. So grew up on the east side of Detroit, actually Field Street between Palmer and Medbury. And grew up over there and went to Rose Elementary School, graduated from Kettering High School in Detroit. And just grew up on Field Street as a young person, and just loved my neighborhood. I was always fascinated by the neighborhood and would walk my block and visit the elders and just do stuff, and sell Avon and Tupperware and everything. I hustled on that block in my neighborhood. All of the most beautiful comfortable things happen on that block.
So yeah, I love building neighborhoods, because I believe that neighborhoods are foundations for family and for growth, for spiritual growth, mental growth, all of that. That’s like the beginnings to me. And if the neighborhoods are not together, if they’re neglected and full of blight and just all kinds of things going on, it’s hard to grow.
And I see other beautiful spaces like downtown, it’s just looking real beautiful. But I think that the neighborhoods, to bring these neighborhoods up to be able to create a community that we want. So that’s like my mission, is to basically transform blight to beauty just on this block here in Highland Park, Michigan. I felt that I could just take that little chunk and try to do what I can. And sometimes I think that’s crazy or whatever, and they’re like, “What the heck are you doing?” But it’s turning out good.
Luke Gannon: In 2007 and 2008, Mama Shu would drive past what is now Avalon Street and see the neglected streets, mattresses strewn about, dumpsters and homes, boarded homes and broken down cars. Yet Highland Park was Mama Shu’s home, so she embarked on a journey to turn blight into beauty.
Mama Shu: I’m a minister too of 21 plus years as well, and I was like, “I’m going to go over there on that block and fix up my ministry and put my ministry in the house that I’m in right now.” And I said, “And then I’m going to go ahead and clean up the block and I’m going to build the village.” It’s because I wanted a beautiful space to live in, but I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay where I was. And I felt that this is something that we can do. We can clean it up and we can get it in order.
And so I would just drive past the street every day. And then six months after my Jakobi, he was two years, one month and six-days-old, he got killed in a hit-and-run accident. And then I’m driving to my school job, okay, driving to my school job, and something said, “Just go down the block.” And I saw a dumpster in the driveway of this house that I’m sitting in right now, and I saw a dumpster. I said, “Wow.” I said, “Okay, this house is for sale.” I saw a For Sale sign in the window. And then I just decided to let me just call and get on this block, get over here, put my ministry on this block and get to work. And ended up buying this house for 3,000 bucks and started fixing it up and stayed in it when it was boarded up.
And I always say that some people look for a beautiful place, and I just want to create. We can create a place and make it beautiful. That’s basically what it is. We don’t have to run away. A lot of people leave and they go to other towns and everything, but I wanted to stay. I really did. I’m like, “You know what? This is cool. This is a block. It’s only 2.9 miles. We can really do and grow and make things better in this city as a whole.” And my goal was to fix this house up and also to build Jakobi Ra Park, which is the very first entities, the name of my nonprofit. The first one is the Moon Ministry, and then we built the park simultaneously.
I was born here in Highland Park, so I’m really proud of where I was born. This is my city. Hey, we fall down on hard times. There is places like this everywhere in all different kinds of states. And so I just wanted to begin to just initiate some beauty, and how we can transform and how we can revive the space, in hopes that it will spread and be infectious and catch on and actually help the rest of the city grow and maybe see possibilities, different possibilities.
Luke Gannon: In 2010 and 2011, Highland Park was grappling with challenging economic circumstances. Schools were shuttering, financial hardships loomed large, and essential infrastructure was being neglected. But Mama Shu recognized the potential for change. She decided to bridge the gaps.
Mama Shu: So I just wanted to make this place a better and more desirable to live in, and so I figured the very first entity was The Homework House. Why? Because when you move into a new city or a new town or a new village, people look for a place to raise their children, to be able to nurture their children, and you got to have spaces where you have children being taken care of. It’s just a natural thing. And so when you got a place where the schools are being torn down, I just have a problem with that. And so I just like, okay, so that to me, made the most sense.
Luke Gannon: Jakobi Ra Park and The Homework House were two of the first entities Mama Shu brought to fruition. Today, Avalon Village makes up 95% of the entire block, but it took years of hard work, dedication, and community organizing to get to this point.
Mama Shu: A lot of my visions comes from what I envision for myself, what’s going to make myself what I feel that I deserve in the neighborhood. I believe that I should have eclectic coffee shops and a nice park to sit in and a space to put my dog in a dog park and get training lessons in there, and a spot where you can have ice cream, and somewhere where you can party at and the children can learn. So I just envisioned those things for myself first, and then I knew that other people wanted the same thing.
And so I’m no urban planner as far as like I don’t have a degree or anything in that. Most of it came intuitively and organically. You just know what to put, you know what’s missing, and I know what used to be here, and I just had to do it in a way that was economically feasible and that I could actually do it.
So how I even started buying the lots, I sold fish sandwiches for $5. Yep, I sold fish sandwiches. I used my own work money from my school job, my income tax check. That’s how I bought this house. My sister friend gave me $1,500. I used… My income tax check had came in the mail. I was so excited about that. And then I used my work check and I patched it together. So this process takes a little more time, because if you don’t have the whole big giant funding to do it, but at the same time, I really love this process too. So it was just started off of selling fish sandwiches, just chipping my own money together.
I did get a donation from the Big Sun Foundation. That was where the big chunk of the seed money came, to like, okay, I’m getting ready to build the village. Let’s get this started so we can get the Kickstarter started to actually initiate the build. It was all of that. Just gathering up a bunch of activists and folks that I know, construction workers and my civil engineer friends, and like, “Okay, y’all, we going to do this.”
There was eight years or so that I just basically cleaned up the block first. So really, I just took stewardship of the land, and I didn’t own it yet. We just helped, did our part as citizens. Well, I don’t want to sit in the trash. I don’t want to look at it, and so I cleaned up a lot almost every year. The guys from over here at the shelter across the street here off of Woodward Avenue, and then I was in the school system, so a lot of my students and stuff, “Hey, you want to earn community service hours? Come on over here, help Mama Shu clean up, because we building a village over here. We’re going to make it better.” So it was little things.
What I did was embedded our energy into it, in the soil, and cleaned it up and all the glass, and it was just, well, the houses were torn down, but sometimes some of the debris was still stuck in this. It was like that took actually some years to do that. And then started buying the property, I’m going to say, in like 2016, 2017, really like, okay, now here’s the deeds to it.
So we own about 95% of this block now, about 45 properties over here, so we have space. We’re able to build what it is that we want to. The block that I’m on is slated as mixed use as it relates to the master plan in the city of Highland Park. And I didn’t know that either. That was like an organic thing too. I know I want to put a playground, I want to do this. I want to put The Homework House and the school and this and all of that, but didn’t know that that was possible. Because sometimes you just can’t sit and just build something on a residential, but it just so happens that all of my vision actually fit. I was in alignment with that just intuitively.
Luke Gannon: After years of stewarding the land, Mama Shu started implementing her vision to give residents and neighbors the types of businesses, spaces, and education they deserved.
Mama Shu: The Goddess Marketplace is… Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing. Actually, we’re working on the expansion this year. The Goddess Marketplace is an economic initiative for women entrepreneurs. And so what we’ve done is that it started off as pop-ups, a collective of pop-ups for women back in 2001. And I said, “Okay, we’re building a village. We’re going to start that and we’re going to put it in the shipping container.” And so we have two shipping containers, a 40-foot and a 20-foot that house the Goddess Marketplace. And it’s an open season marketplace. It starts in May and it ends in October. And women entrepreneurs are able to put out their tables, pop their tents and stuff around that time. And so that’s what the Goddess Marketplace is about, basically nurturing and supporting women businesses. And so we have that.
And we also have another shop called the Whine and Tea Shop. It’s W-H-I-N-E. It was our 20-footer that we just got remodeled and everything. So that is just different wine tastings and wine swag, gifts and different things like that. So those are made out of shipping containers. Those are also ran by solar, so those are lit by solar, so there is nothing on the grid. So that’s one space.
Also, we have the Imhotep STEM Lab or STEAM Lab, and it is another shipping container that was remodeled for the children to learn science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics in. And it’s beautiful. It has a beautiful mural on it. We like to use a lot of local artists to paint and put vibrant colors on a lot of the things that we do. We were fortunate enough to be on The Ellen Show, and she donated a house that we have. And I had an option to live in it or use it as retail, but I’m like, “You know what? This is going to be The Village Hall.” Because every city has a city hall, village hall or a place of business. So I’m like, this is where we have our security offices on one side of it, and the other part is multipurpose for meetings and everything. So we have that. The Moon Ministry, the spiritual base is also the admin building as well.
And we have Invincible Gardens, the My 3 Sunz Basketball Court, Jakobi Ra Park. Those are spaces that are dedicated to my ancestor sons, my sons that are ancestors now. The Invincible Garden is in memory of my Chinyelu. He was murdered in 2021, so it’s been three years. And so we built a beautiful garden with a gazebo. It’s a sign and it’s just Garden Diva here at the village. Yesterday she was in there getting everything ready, because there’s getting ready to be some beautiful flowers. So Chinyelu’s Garden is total flowers in his.
Jakobi, we built the park. There’s a Starlight Amphitheater. His name is Jakobi Ra. The Egyptian god of the Sun, Ra, and Jakobi means stars. So we did something like a Starlight Amphitheater. So we have our concerts there. I marry people on that. It’s just a platform. It’s really nice. And so it’s all lit with solar lighting. So we have just so many parties and gatherings and stuff in the summer, in the spring, in the summer. So those are some of the entities that we had.
We even changed our street sign too. We went and there was a resolution passed to change our street to Avalon Village. So when you roll up on us, whenever y’all come and just take a trip, you’ll see that we actually have the street sign changed. So that was just kind of cool to get that done.
We have our own security team, what’s called the Avalon Village Peace Team. Police officers back in the day were called peace officers. And so our logo is basically we take our peace seriously, and we do. It’s just a village. And so we have all of those departments and everything economical.
We even have a space called the Avalon Village Healing House, which is under construction now. And it is a space for holistic practitioners, Reiki therapists, doulas, all of that where you can come right in the neighborhood and receive holistic care.
We’re going to build a cafe, the Blue Moon Cafe, with attached greenhouse and some holistic businesses. So that is our health and wellness phase that’s down there on the corner. So that’s how we got things kind of blocked off around here.
Luke Gannon: Every part of Avalon Village is envisioned and built from love. Mama Shu’s departed sons are ancestral guardians who oversee the village. Over the years, most people embraced Mama Shu’s vision because of her consistency and commitment to bring positive change to the whole neighborhood.
Mama Shu: If someone doesn’t understand or even just seek to understand what’s going on and how it’s happening and everything, that can be a limiting thing to them. I think that some people just openly embrace because they know they want change and they want to see something different, and they understand that somebody’s actually doing it. And usually it’s the ones that’s not really doing this that’s thinking the other.
One of the things is that I stayed consistent and I was very serious and I didn’t change up, and that’s one thing that people need. They need consistency and they don’t need folks to change up and actually do. So those that actually see what’s going on, like, “Wow. Okay, okay.”
This block right here, what you got to understand is this was one of the most notorious blocks in Highland Park, and so people are just really shocked. And I was actually spiritually drawn to it to actually do something. I didn’t know that it was this horrible block, but I’m over here, “Do-da-do, let me just… Oh, we going to plant flowers here. I’m going to do this and that.” Man, I learned the history of the block, and there was a lot of murders over here of young men, and my son was actually shot here. This place was a Phoenix coming from the ashes, and I know that, from what it used to be. And so I have a lot of guys that tell me, “You know what used to go on Avalon Street?”
So there’s a lot of people who love and enjoy watching what actually happens, and are very supportive, are very consistent in their support. And some just kind of look by the wayside, and then they’ll come a little closer and everything. And if it’s for you, it’s for you.
Luke Gannon: If you persist and follow the moral arc of the universe, others will follow your lead. Mama Shu’s unwavering self-belief inspired others to join the journey.
Mama Shu: That’s all I did, really, just stuck to it and just kept going no matter what. I done buried children and everything, but this was important to me. I don’t even care what the obstacles are. The things that have happened in the journey throughout that, it’s like… You know, after losing the kids and stuff, it’s like, okay, then somebody going to say no? I don’t even worry about nothing like that because I don’t care. I just keep it moving. If somebody want to nay-say, or they want to sit up there and try to block and all of that? None of that, it just don’t work with me, that’s all.
You’re going to draw the people who are really digging what you’re doing. Those are the ones that you want. You want the ones that’s going to dig in. And those other ones help to strengthen things too, because sometimes they can keep you on your toes. You’re not in alignment, you always get the folks that are in alignment what you’re doing, always. They always come, so you’re good.
Luke Gannon: On the anniversary of Jakobi Ra’s passing, Mama Shu opened The Homework House.
Mama Shu: One of the moments that really stands out to me, I’m going to say that it took me about five years plus to finish The Homework House. And so when I got that all finished, and I didn’t get that totally finished, y’all, until September 23rd when I did the ribbon cutting in 2022. And even though I still had lower hanging fruit projects to work, that was my main entity, so in my heart, that was really a big thing. Some beautiful magical moments and different things that just let me know, just indications that say you’re on the right track and I’m connecting and everything, and that’s important to me to accomplish and to get done, and like, “Wow, okay.”
But I’m going to tell you one that’s kind of made me proud. The CNN Heroes did. But the USA Today Woman of the Year, that really kind of… I’m like, “Okay. I’m Woman of the Year.” Sometimes when I get awards and different things like that, it’s like, “Man, I’m just doing my work.”
Local self-reliance means really being a solutionist, being able to solve the problems within an area that you think that you can actually do something about. When you make a commitment to a space, to a place, and you take charge and you start putting that in order. And somebody has to be the one that’s in charge or the one that they’re going to throw the tomatoes at, build you a nice team. You know how that goes and all of that. But I say take charge and do things consistently.
Consistency is the key. Keep doing it over and over again and show people that you are actually there for the long haul, and be real intentional. And I think that once you do that, and really it all boils down to you just got to do the work to make sure that that happens, to be able to be empowered locally. Do the work. Do what it is that you say you’re going to do, and just keep doing it, and keep growing and organize, organize, organize.
Luke Gannon: Developing solutions that are both by and for the community embodies the very essence of local self-reliance. Mama Shu has spearheaded the creation of a village complete with parks, businesses, organizations, and communal spaces that foster peace and prosperity for its residents. She has transformed blight into beauty.
Mama Shu: There’s this sister, her name is Queen Afua, and she has a book called The Sacred Woman. But basically it was a process in this book to really help to build that I was able to use. It was a tool to be able to help to build myself spiritually, physically, how to eat right. To be able to, I guess, arm myself with what I needed and what I need for my work and to live a beautiful life. It’s some practical things. Different teas, exercise and everything. And I went through this book, it’s like nine sections of it, and I’ve went through it several times, just going through it and just getting tighter.
So I really love it, because I know and I believe that my job as a feminine entity on this planet is going to help to heal it and help to bring it back into balance, I would say. And so that is what my work is about, is about to helping to things back into balance. Sometimes it’s the feminine touch or whatever sometimes that’s missing in things, and that right there. And so I believe that Highland Park, I believe that Avalon Village is a place that is being healed.
Luke Gannon: Mama Shu, thank you so much for sharing your story with us on the show today.
Reggie Rucker: Luke, great job. Thank you for bringing us this story. And Mama Shu, look. I have a trip to Paris coming up in a couple of months, and for as excited as I am for that real talk, I cannot wait to get to Highland Park and to come visit Avalon Village. Thank you for your infectious optimism and joy and persistence and vision. This was truly, truly, truly a blessing.
And thanks to all of you, our listeners, for tuning in. We’ll be back again in two weeks with another story out of Detroit. But in the meantime, check out the show notes from today’s episode to dive deeper into today’s discussion. And as always, you can visit ilsr.org for more on our work to fight corporate control and build local power. And we always welcome emails to buildinglocalpower@ilsr.org. Let us know what’s on your mind.
This show is produced by Luke Gannon and me, Reggie Rucker. The podcast is edited by Luke Gannon and Tea Noelle. The music for this season is also composed by Tea Noelle. Thank you so much for listening to Building Local Power.

 

If you want your city to be a focus in an upcoming season, send an email to buildinglocalpower@ilsr.org[12].

Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by sharing Building Local Power with your family and friends. We would love your feedback. Please email buildinglocalpower@ilsr.org. Subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.

 

Subscribe: Spotify[13] | Apple Podcasts[14] | Google Podcasts[15] | Android Apps[16] | RSS[17]

 

Music Credit: Mattéa Overstreet

Photo Credit: Em McPhie, ILSR’s Digital Communications Manager

Podcast produced by Reggie Rucker and Luke Gannon

Podcast edited by Luke Gannon and Mattéa Overstreet

Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)[18] license.

Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter[19] and Facebook[20] and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up[21] for our ILSR general newsletter.

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Endnotes:
  1. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/It_Takes_an_Avalon_Village_ILSR_2024.mp3
  2. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/building_local_power/content.blubrry.com/building_local_power/It_Takes_an_Avalon_Village_ILSR_2024.mp3
  3. Embed: #
  4. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/buildinglocalpower/
  5. Avalon Village : https://www.theavalonvillage.org/
  6. From Blight to Beauty | Shamayim Harris | TEDxDetroit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGdJyyolmSw
  7. CNN Heroes Tribute: Mama Shu: https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2023/12/12/cnnheroes-tribute-mama-shu.cnn
  8. Highland Park’s ‘Mama Shu’ is among USA Today’s 2024 Women of the Year: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/02/29/shamayim-mama-shu-harris-highland-park-michigan-women-of-year/72094887007/
  9. Ellen Meets The Amazing Mama Shu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaBK3AKlxkA
  10. Interview with Roadtrip Nation: https://roadtripnation.com/leader/mama-shu
  11. Sacred Woman: A Guide to Healing the Feminine Body, Mind, and Spirit: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sacred-woman-a-guide-to-healing-the-feminine-body-mind-and-spirit-queen-afua/9054889?ean=9780345434869
  12. buildinglocalpower@ilsr.org: mailto:buildinglocalpower@ilsr.org
  13. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Jk0z51Q3tmCyv4y3SrYmk
  14. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-local-power/id1158105558
  15. Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbHNyLm9yZy9mZWVkL2J1aWxkaW5nbG9jYWxwb3dlci8
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Source URL: https://ilsr.org/it-takes-an-avalon-village/


The 2024 Community Power Scorecard

by Maria McCoy | March 20, 2024 2:05 pm

In the 2024 Community Power Scorecard from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance — a measure of state policies related to energy democracy and utility accountability — state scores suggest lawmakers must take immediate action to improve. Of the 50 states and D.C., only one state scraped an above average grade (a B), 11 hit the C average, 13 received Ds, and 26 states received a failing F grade.

Want to know how your state could earn an A? Our full scoring methodology is available in this document — including explainers of the policies we track, and model policies you can advocate for today[1]. Last year’s scores are available in our 2023 Scorecard[2].

This annual scorecard goes beyond greenhouse gas reductions or renewable generation capacity to evaluate how state policies help or hinder local clean energy action — because community power is necessary for an equitable, democratic transition away from the status quo. The states that score the highest support locally owned distributed generation, empower communities to pursue their own goals, and plan for an equitable transition to clean energy. High scoring states also hold utilities accountable, protecting ratepayers from inflated costs and other abuses of monopoly power.



ILSR’s Community Power Scorecard evaluates state policies as they are written[3], not their implementation. The work of advancing energy democracy requires continued advocacy, vigilance, and effort. The 18 policies evaluated in the scorecard are worth a maximum of 88 points, and you can view state scores below.



In addition to our own state legislative tracking, our scoring compiles data from the Center for Biological Diversity/Energy and Policy Institute[4], Clean Energy Works[5], DSIRE[6], Energy Justice Lab[7], Freeing the Grid[8] (IREC and Vote Solar), Inside Climate News[9], NARUC[10], and SolarReviews[11].

To compare state policy environments, explore our interactive Community Power Map[12].


This article originally posted at ilsr.org[13]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[14] on Twitter, our energy work on Facebook[15], or sign up to get the Energy Democracy weekly[16] update.

Featured Photo: illustration by Maria McCoy

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Endnotes:
  1. available in this document — including explainers of the policies we track, and model policies you can advocate for today: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-Scorecard-Methodology.pdf
  2. 2023 Scorecard: https://ilsr.org/2023-community-power-scorecard/
  3. as they are written: https://ilsr.org/promising-policies-community-power-ler153/
  4. Center for Biological Diversity/Energy and Policy Institute: https://energyandpolicy.org/utility-disconnections-in-the-united-states/
  5. Clean Energy Works: https://www.cleanenergyworks.org/2023/01/01/introduction-to-inclusive-utility-investments/
  6. DSIRE: https://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/maps
  7. Energy Justice Lab: https://http-149-165-173-211-80.proxy-js2-iu.exosphere.app/
  8. Freeing the Grid: https://freeingthegrid.org/
  9. Inside Climate News: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26042023/transmission-utilities-right-first-refusal/
  10. NARUC: https://pubs.naruc.org/pub/B0D6B1D8-1866-DAAC-99FB-0923FA35ED1E?_gl=1*ko2lsj*_ga*NjY2OTA3NzEzLjE3MDU1OTgxMzA.*_ga_QLH1N3Q1NF*MTcwNTU5ODEzMC4xLjAuMTcwNTU5ODEzMC4wLjAuMA..
  11. SolarReviews: https://www.solarreviews.com/
  12. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  13. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  14. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  15. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Energy-Self-Reliant-States-132578100187572/
  16. Energy Democracy weekly: https://ilsr.wufoo.com/forms/r1r50rsn1r1p4ky/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/2024-community-power-scorecard/


Arizona’s High Stakes Utility Election — Episode 205 of Local Energy Rules

by Maria McCoy | March 13, 2024 5:42 pm

An April election could make an Arizona utility accountable to all of its customers.

For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast[1], host John Farrell is joined by Charlie Fisher, Executive Director of Arizonans for a Clean Economy[2]. They discuss the upcoming Salt River Project election and how clean energy advocates could flip the public utility’s board and reverse anti-solar and anti-democratic policies.

Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation.

Charlie Fisher: Our mission as an organization is to make that a reality. To make Arizona a national leader in solar, but also in wind, and geothermal, and EVs, and storage technology. We have all of the ingredients. And changing the makeup of this SRP board is one of the first steps in realizing that.
John Farrell: If you think a publicly owned utility means a paragon of openness and democracy, you might be surprised to hear of the Salt River Project, where the mantra is one acre for one vote. In an upcoming election, clean energy advocates have the opportunity to flip the SRP board and potentially reverse several years of policy blocking the use of solar energy in the U.S. state that has 330 sunny days per year. Joining me in March, 2024, Charlie Fisher, executive director with Arizonans for a Clean Economy, discussed the organizing effort around this utility board election and its implications for Arizona Electric customers. I’m John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast about monopoly power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system.

Welcome to Local Energy Rules. I just want to start off by asking you what got you into clean energy work? How did you land with this organization or how did you even get started in the climate and clean energy space?

Charlie Fisher: Thank you so much, John, for inviting me on. I’m really excited to talk to you. So I first got interested in clean energy as a freshman in college. Actually, my first week during freshman orientation had the opportunity to hear Bill McKibben, who I’m sure you’re familiar with, a fairly famous advocate, author, professor, and he gave remarks to our class about sort of the subversive nature of the influence wielded by extractive industries and even on our liberal arts campus, what percentage of our endowment was either held in fossil fuel stocks or controlled by fossil fuel interests, and how did that kind of permeate to decisions that we didn’t even see or think about? And so that sort of set me down the path of really designing a lot of my bachelor’s degree around clean energy and communications and advocacy work. I am very excited after it’s been about almost 12 years now of doing different things in Arizona, but really, really excited to be at Arizonans for a Clean Economy and focus on these critical issues.
John Farrell: So I’ve talked to some folks previously on this podcast, but also many of our friends and allies who have worked in Arizona over the years, and it’s sometimes been a challenging state for clean energy work. The investor-owned utilities, for example, have put a lot of money into the election of their own regulators on the Arizona Corporation Commission, but there have also been some tangles with publicly owned utilities. So we want to talk a little bit today about the Salt River Project. Could you just kind of introduce us to this public utility, explain how it’s organized, how is it a public entity, and also maybe preview what’s happening soon that its customers should be aware of?
Charlie Fisher: There has been no shortage of shenanigans pulled by some of the investor-owned utilities here. Salt River Project is a different beast altogether. So they are a public power company here in Arizona, so they’re technically a political subdivision of the state, which means that they’re not regulated for the vast majority of things by the Arizona Corporation Commission, which is our public utility regulator here in Arizona. And so the Salt River project has been around really since statehood, before statehood. And the original deal was that early 20th century land-owners, landholders, most of the agricultural interests put up their property as collateral so that the federal government would come in and build the Roosevelt Dam, which played a huge role in the development of the Phoenix metro area and building of the Central Arizona project and our local canal systems here.

In a hundred plus years since then, SRP has grown into a massive utility provider and they provide both water and electric power to Arizona families and businesses largely here in Maricopa County, the Phoenix, Phoenix metropolitan area, and have become almost as big as our largest investor-owned utility and I believe the largest public power company in the country. And so what started as this incredibly important and sort of selfless act by early settlers here in the valley has now become an incredibly powerful utility company with very, very little oversight or accountability. And so yeah, we’ve been getting involved to try to raise awareness about how people can make their voices heard and the leadership decisions.

John Farrell: So you have an election coming up for the board of directors, the governing body of this entity. When is this election and who can vote in it?
Charlie Fisher: Yes, like I mentioned, the SRP is not regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission. Instead, they are regulated by a series of governing boards and it’s a little convoluted, so bear with me. You have the district, which is the power side of SRP, and then you have the association, which is the water side. They each have their own board. One is called the board of the directors, one is called the Board of Presidents. And then under those boards you have council. And so they work closely with each other and there’s a lot of overlap between board members and council members. You can be both, but essentially the boards set rates for utility and water for rate payers, and they are required to approve any large infrastructure investments, building new power plants, building substations, building large transmission lines, the hardware of the grid that keeps the lights on and keeps things moving.

On the council side, they do more of the internal governance piece. They set rules, they set bylaws, they establish the processes by which the board and the broader utility has to function and operate. The frustrating thing about this is only landowners are eligible to vote in SRP elections. As you can imagine, not everyone who pays for SRP electricity or water owns their property. About 700,000 people, in fact, who are SRP ratepayers rent, which means they are off the bat completely ineligible and voiceless in the direction the priorities and the decisions of their utility company.

John Farrell: SRP doesn’t really have a great history of energy leadership, although it’s hardly alone among Arizona utilities, which is kind of crazy since you’re basically ground zero for awesome and inexpensive solar energy in the U.S. But SRP has also had some other issues. They were successfully sued for antitrust violations when they slapped high fees on solar customers. The utility recently censured its own board members for expressing opposition to a controversial gas power plant expansion. And on that particular issue, I spoke with Autumn Johnson in episode 174.

Could you just talk about when is this election, how soon do people need to act in order to have a voice? And what do you see as being at stake in this election?

Charlie Fisher: Great questions, and I’m going to take the most important one first, which is election day is April 2nd. And folks are able to either deliver their early ballot or vote in person at the SRP administrative building up until 7:00 PM on Tuesday, April 2nd. So that is just around the corner. Another really important date here, if you are a Maricopa County homeowner, landowner, you are able to request that they mail you your ballot online up until March 22nd. So we’ve got another week and a half or so where they’ll actually just send you your ballot in the mail and you can fill it out and put it back in the mail. So those are some of the key dates here in terms of the opportunity. This is what is so motivating and energizing for me. A group of folks, you just mentioned them who are clean energy advocates, understood this opportunity much earlier I’ll admit than we did here at Arizonans for a Clean Economy and started with shoestring budgets filing to become candidates for SRP district board and council positions, and then just did grassroots organizing work, created some basic literature and went and talked to their neighbors and their friends, and talked to folks in the community about existing policies and have had incredible success over the last four or six years.

On the district board side, that’s a 14 member body and every two years, seven of the 14 seats are up. So a full half of the body. Over the last two elections, clean energy advocates have picked up five seats on the district board, and there are currently six clean energy advocates running in this April’s election. So if we’re successful and we elect three of those candidates and hold one of the seats that we currently have, we will have immediately changed the majority of the board from one that is very tied to the status quo, to one that is very forward looking and very much prioritizing advocating for rate payers and really pushing management to invest in clean energy and to make it more affordable and more accessible to everybody in their service territory. And just in terms of recent history, it is funny because not that long ago, before 2015, SRP was seen as one of the most solar friendly utilities in Arizona, and that all changed in early 2015 when they repealed their net metering program, added additional demand charges and fees and obstacles to adopting rooftop solar, which shortly thereafter was replicated by the Arizona Corporation Commission and implemented by all investor owned utilities.

So if we’re successful, we pick up three additional seats in April, it’s sort of hard to overstate the change and the improvement, dramatic improvement that we’ll see and hopefully see in SRPs policies towards solar customers. And that’s both, that’s utility scale, that’s community solar, and that’s distributed rooftop solar. Our position is that we should be leading the country in all three areas, and that SRP has a big role to play in that.

John Farrell: We’re going to take a short break. When we come back, I ask Charlie about what’s at stake in this election and we explore the controversial one acre one vote rule for SRP participants. You’re listening to a Local Energy Rules podcast with Charlie Fisher, Executive Director with Arizonans for a Clean Economy.

Hey, thanks for listening to Local Energy Rules. If you’ve made it this far, you’re obviously a fan and we could use your help for just two minutes. As you’ve probably noticed, we don’t have any corporate sponsors or ads for any of our podcasts. The reason is that our mission at ILSR is to reinvigorate democracy by decentralizing economic power. Instead, we rely on you, our listeners. Your donations not only underwrite this podcast, but also help us produce all of the research and resources that we make available on our website and all of the technical assistance we provide to grassroots organizations. Every year ILSR’s small staff helps hundreds of communities challenge monopoly power directly and rebuild their local economies. So please take a minute and go to ilsr.org and click on the donate button. And if making a donation isn’t something you can do, please consider helping us in other ways. You can help other folks find this podcast by telling them about it, or by giving it a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more ratings from listeners like you, the more folks can find this podcast and ILSR’s other podcasts, Community Broadband Bits and Building Local Power. Thanks again for listening. Now, back to the program.

John Farrell: So it’s amazing where you are. It would be one thing you were just getting started and had to flip the entire 14 member board, but here the results of this election could really change the direction of the utility. But that being said, this utility has some truly bizarre eligibility requirements for participation. Can you talk about how that works?
Charlie Fisher: Yeah. This is one of the really, one of the most ludicrous pieces, and so I believe I already mentioned, but only landowners are eligible to begin with. The voting territory map for SRP also contains sort of strange splotches where people who live in those areas are only eligible to vote for either the district or the association. And then there are also areas that are ineligible entirely. You can be a landowner, you can be in SRP territory, and you are still ineligible just because of the way that this map is drawn. And there’s very little explanation as to how they came up with these areas. On top of that, for the division based seats, so the way that the district is structured, there are 10 territory specific seats like a congressional or a legislative district, and then there are four at large seats that are elected territory wide.

For the division seats, it’s an acreage based vote, which means, for example, my family, we have a 0.3 acre property in central Phoenix, which means my wife and I each get 0.15 votes in the SRP district board election on April 2nd. John, if you happen to live near me in Maricopa County, and you had 500 acres, frankly, even if you didn’t live there, you still lived in Minnesota but had 500 acres in Maricopa County, you would get 500 votes. And so it is as antiquated a system of representative democracy as I can think of, and certainly needs reform in addition to some of the policies that are currently in place.

John Farrell: I can imagine that one impact of the way that votes are allocated or voting power is allocated is that it exacerbates existing racial or socioeconomic disparities because if you’re wealthier, if you’re white, you’re probably more likely to be able to own land, which gives you more votes. Has that been something that you’ve thought about, talked about at all in terms of how this voting system works?
Charlie Fisher: It’s absolutely something that we, along with several other partner organizations here that are focused on raising awareness about this election and increasing participation, have thought a lot about, and you’re exactly right in a system structured this way, intentionally or not, what you’re doing is saying to the rate payers who are – we have a closed utility system here, if that’s the right language, right? Folks are captive. We have monopoly utilities. You don’t get a choice in your provider. That only the most well off of their rate payers should have the right to have an influence on the utilities priorities, decisions, investments. And that absolutely inevitably means that’s going to reflect some of the disparities that you talked about, whether that’s racial, it’s economic, geographic, all of those things are very much at play. And so historically, the folks that know about SRP elections and vote, which is less than 1% of those that are eligible, those people are very, very much tied to maintaining the current system. And so it has led to an SRP leadership structure that is not at all focused on really what’s best for the broad rate payer community and the broader Arizona community, but what’s best for the largest landowners and landholders.
John Farrell: And the other thing I wanted to ask you about this is that you alluded to in its history that perhaps the reason for the voting structure was that the landowners were putting up their land as collateral to get the initial infrastructure built to allow for distribution of water and power. I’m imagining that that original infrastructure is all paid off by now. So doesn’t seem like there’s a rationale necessarily to keep this division when you have many, many other customers who are paying in through their bills all the time, and that people are paying for their own use based on their own usage at this point. So I guess one of the questions I just have is are there any candidates who are talking about changing the voting structure as part of their candidacy or the SRP board?
Charlie Fisher: Yeah, there are. I agree with your assessment. I would imagine, without being one of the original landowners myself, that more than 100-year-old collateral has been well paid off by now. Yes, is the answer to your question. There is a team of folks, and actually they’re working together and their website if listeners are interested, is srpcleanenergy.org. And that’s very much one of the reasons that many of them have been motivated to run is the more that you understand about the way that this current system is structured, the more unfair and more obviously unfair it is. And so that slate of folks has said it is one of their priorities to change some of these rules and to change the system that SRP leadership and board members are elected so that we can really make sure that folks who are eligible, whether you own land or you just are an SRP rate payer, that you really do have a voice.

Because I mentioned it a little bit earlier, but although SRP is not regulated by the Corporation Commission, they very much follow each other’s lead. And so in 2015 when SRP repealed their net metering policy, it was just a year later that the Corporation Commission did it. And so from a broader impact perspective, if we have success and the candidates have success on April 2nd and are able to implement friendlier policies to clean energy, the likelihood that that will also impact the investor-owned utility space here is all but certain.

One fun fact, if I can, as an aside, I believe in the 1970s, the SRP election structure was litigated and upheld. I don’t believe that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. I think it was just at the state superior court level, but it has been litigated. It’s been about 50 years. So I think maybe it’s time to get some attorneys to take a second look. But yes, it is highly unusual and certainly tilts the playing field in favor of large landowner interests.

John Farrell: So we’ve already talked about what people can do now they can request their ballot if they’re an SRP customer and they own land and can get that quickly or they can vote in person on April 2nd. Is there anything I didn’t ask you about, about what’s at stake here about the structure of the utility, about the kinds of things that candidates are hoping to do? I guess that would be one thing, and feel free to add on if there’s others that you’ve been thinking about. But what are some of these candidates running on? What is it that they’re talking about wanting to do differently? Maybe the election structure would be one piece of this. The governance obviously seems like a big deal here, but what do they hope to change in the way that the utility is run?
Charlie Fisher: First and foremost is increasing the share of SRPs generation portfolio that comes from renewable energy, but we’re in Arizona, so solar is going to be the primary driver of that. SRP going from one of the friendliest, most pro solar utilities in the mid 2010s or early 2010s now is the least friendly, has invested the least amount of resources in solar energy. And so I know one of the first priorities of the Clean Energy Slate is to roll back some of these demand charges, Interconnection charges, many of the fees and additional costs that have been both retroactively and proactively imposed on folks who’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars in energy security and trying to reduce their own energy costs and be thoughtful. That very much is top of mind here in Arizona.

It sort of just boggles my mind. Coal was a huge part of our generation portfolio a decade ago, and thankfully that number decreases year after year and more coal power plants are scheduled to come offline. Instead of replacing that horrible, dirty, dirty, polluting energy with our single most abundant resource in Arizona, which is 330 days every year, sunshine, we’ve replaced it with natural gas and we have exactly zero natural gas here in Arizona. And so we have now put ourselves in this position where we buy huge quantities of natural gas, mostly from Texas and other southern states, transported hundreds of miles across New Mexico, across beautiful parts of the southwest, to Arizona where we burn it here and pollute our air and damage the lungs of our kids and family members, and then are also completely subject to the wildly fluctuating prices of the natural gas market.

So at a time when the number one concern of Arizonans is rising energy costs and also energy independence and energy security, it makes absolutely no sense for 40% of our energy to come from natural gas when we could power the entire country with the sunshine that hits the ground in Arizona every single day. Our mission as an organization is to make that a reality, to make Arizona a national leader in solar, but also in wind, and geothermal, and EVs, and storage technology. We have all of the ingredients and changing the makeup of this SRP board is one of the first steps in realizing that.

John Farrell: Well, Charlie, thanks so much for coming on, and on such short notice too, to talk about the SRP elections and the implications for Arizona. I think you paint a very compelling vision that people are going to be interested in following what happens. I wish the clean energy advocates in Arizona the best on April 2nd and hope that it does lead to some change. It would be lovely to see a utility in Arizona and in the sunny Southwest be a real leader in pursuing clean solar energy.
Charlie Fisher: Absolutely. No, thank you so much, John. And I would be remiss if I didn’t quickly mention folks can also learn more about the SRP structure and the candidates that we are supporting at azce.org/srp. But thank you so much for the time and the opportunity and for focusing on this very obscure, but very, very important election here in Arizona.
John Farrell: My pleasure. And we will have the link that you just mentioned and other links to related resources that we mentioned during the interview on the show page for the podcast as well. So Charlie, thanks again. Great to talk to you.
Charlie Fisher: Thank you.
John Farrell: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Local Energy Rules with Charlie Fisher, executive director with Arizonans for a Clean Economy. On the show page, look for a link to their website about the SRP election azce.org/srp, as well as links to two previous Local Energy Rules episodes about this public utility that has a struggle to match its public interest: Episode 174 with Autumn Johnson, which touches on the secrecy and hidden decision-making characteristic of the utility. And episode 136 with Jean Su about the landmark antitrust case against the utility’s anti-solar rates. Local Energy Rules is produced by myself and Maria McCoy with editing provided by audio engineer Drew Birschbach. Tune back into Local Energy Rules every two weeks to hear how we can take on concentrated power to transform the energy system. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.

 


Arizona Utility Ruins its Solar Reputation

The Salt River Project (SRP) is a public utility and a subdivision of the state of Arizona — though in many ways it behaves more like an investor-owned utility[7]. Like other public utilities, it is not subject to state regulation, and is instead overseen by an elected board. The Salt River Project serves both water and electricity to customers in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

What started as this incredibly important and sort of selfless act by early settlers here in the valley has now become an incredibly powerful utility company with very, very little oversight or accountability.

SRP was once considered a very solar-friendly utility, says Fisher, but lost that reputation when it repealed net metering in 2015 (a decision that got the utility sued for anti-competitive behavior[8]).

The Push to Elect a Pro-Clean Energy Board

Half of the Salt River Project board is up for election on April second, however, only landowners can vote in SRP elections. This frustrating rule silences the 700,000 renters who pay for SRP service, says Fisher. The four at-large board seat elections are also based on acreage, meaning landowners are given voting power in proportion to how much land they own.

It has led to an SRP leadership structure that is not at all focused on really what’s best for the broad rate payer community and the broader Arizona community, but what’s best for the largest landowners and landholders.

Despite these unfair rules, Fisher hopes that clean energy advocates can pick up a few more seats on the SRP board and make some proactive changes. Arizona has incredible solar potential — ILSR predicts the state could generate a third of its electricity needs[9] from rooftop solar alone. Plus, a group of SRP board and council candidates[10] are running on the platform to give all customers a vote in future elections.

Episode Notes

See these resources for more behind the story:

  • Check out Arizonans for a Clean Economy’s work on the Salt River Project election[11].
  • Learn more about how Salt River Project punished dissenting board members in episode 174 of Local Energy Rules[12].
  • Learn more about the lawsuit against Salt River Project’s attacks on rooftop solar in episode 152 of Local Energy Rules[13].

For concrete examples of how towns and cities can take action toward gaining more control over their clean energy future, explore ILSR’s Community Power Toolkit[14].

Explore local and state policies and programs that help advance clean energy goals across the country, using ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map[15].


This is the 205th episode of Local Energy Rules[16], an ILSR podcast with Energy Democracy Director John Farrell, which shares stories of communities taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system.

Local Energy Rules is Produced by ILSR’s John Farrell and Maria McCoy. Audio engineering by Drew Birschbach.

This article originally posted at ilsr.org[17]. For timely updates, follow John Farrell[18] on Twitter, our energy work on Facebook[19], or sign up to get the Energy Democracy weekly update[20]. 

Featured Photo Credit: iStock

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Endnotes:
  1. Local Energy Rules Podcast: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  2. Arizonans for a Clean Economy: https://www.azce.org/
  3. Play in new window: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/2024-3-ler205-fisher-srp-election.mp3
  4. Download: https://media.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/content.blubrry.com/local_energy_rules/2024-3-ler205-fisher-srp-election.mp3
  5. Embed: #
  6. RSS: https://ilsr.org/feed/localenergyrules/
  7. behaves more like an investor-owned utility: https://ilsr.org/salt-river-project-public-utility-ler174/
  8. sued for anti-competitive behavior: https://ilsr.org/defense-production-act-srp-antitrust-ler152/
  9. a third of its electricity needs: https://ilsr.org/report-energy-self-reliant-states-2020/
  10. a group of SRP board and council candidates: https://srpcleanenergy.org/
  11. Salt River Project election: https://www.azce.org/srp
  12. episode 174 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage/
  13. episode 152 of Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/defense-production-act-srp-antitrust-ler152/
  14. Community Power Toolkit: https://ilsr.org/community-power-interactive-toolkit/
  15. Community Power Map: https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/
  16. Local Energy Rules: https://ilsr.org/local-energy-rules-podcast-homepage
  17. ilsr.org: http://ilsr.org/initiatives/energy/
  18. John Farrell: https://twitter.com/johnffarrell
  19. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Energy-Self-Reliant-States-132578100187572/
  20. Energy Democracy weekly update: https://ilsr.wufoo.com/forms/r1r50rsn1r1p4ky/

Source URL: https://ilsr.org/arizonas-high-stakes-utility-election-ler205/