Myrtle Beach Wants to Establish Kangaroo Court

Myrtle Beach is really, really trying to crack down on the three motorcycle rallies that occur every year. As such, the city’s attorney has just proposed a giant set of laws that would mandate all sorts of onerous policies on Myrtle Beaches residents and businesses.

You can read all of the legalese at the city’s website: http://www.cityofmyrtlebeach.com/PDF%20Forms/Rally%20Options%20–%20DRAFT.pdf (Yes, I know they had to use spaces in all of their files, but that’s local government for you.)

As a way of quickly “disposing” all of the infractions that these laws will now create, the city has created the position of Administrative Hearing Officer. This officer, who will be chosen by a city administrator and is not publicly accountable, has full sway over all sorts of what are now called nuisance laws.

But basically, the judge can do whatever he or she wants. Rules on hearsay? Gone. Rules on evidence? Don’t need them. Basically, these administrative hearings are going to be the word of the police vs the word of an out-of-town biker. I can really see how this is going to serve justice. Completely.

But just in case you didn’t think that the City of Myrtle Beach came up with such a brilliant idea by itself, look at page 15, line 616:

2. Nothing in this Chapter shall affect the jurisdiction of any City Board, Commission or
Board established by the Code of the City of Des Plaines. Emphasis added

So Myrtle Beach cribbed this administrative judge thing from Des Plaines, Illinois. Some facts about Des Plaines:

• This was the city where John Wayne Gacy was discovered and captured.
• The McDonalds Museum is here.
• The two largest ethnic groups in Des Plaines are the Germans and the Poles. It may be this fact that lead Des Plaines to the establishment of an administrative hearing officer. Once you get those two groups next to each other… well I don’t have to tell you the rest of the story

So the whole idea of Myrtle Beach is to ordinance the bike rallies to death. Given the legal culture of the US, this was inevitably going to happen. But of course, it’s not the fine establishments that will bear the brunt of these laws and regulations, it will be the convenience stores, small hotels and bars that will be targeted. And motorcycles. Don’t forget motorcycles. Because despite all of the rules on motor vehicles in these laws, I bet no more than one or two cars get cited for any of these rules. Remember, this is meant to get those no-good, dirty out-of-towners away from MB so it can be a “family-friendly” tourist area. These laws will NOT be enforced against locals if the police can help it.

Wind Energy is the Ethanol of Electricity

The more I hear about the need to switch to wind energy, the more I think that it’s going to become some government mandated item that’s supported by billions in tax dollars and has unintended economic consequences that nobody (at least in the political arena) will see coming, but will continue to be supported by politicians in key political states through a small group that benefits from the mandates and tax support.

In other words, wind energy will be the next ethanol.

I’d like to take all the credit for thinking of this myself, but I first read it in an article in Reason online (a libertarian magazine) concerning an interview with Robert Bryce, managing editor of the Energy Tribune.

The entire article is a good read, but I want to highlight one specific point that got me started on thinking that wind will be the electric ethanol:

reason: How about domestic renewables as a solution to dependence on foreign oil?

Bryce: I’m not opposed to renewables. I have 3,000 watts of solar panels on the roof of my home. I understand the economics of renewables. But an incurable problem for both solar and wind is intermittency. The sun doesn’t shine at night. I like to have lights and TV at night. Unless we come up with some incredibly efficient method of storing large amounts of electricity, it’s not a viable source because we can’t store it.

It’s the same problem with wind. I consider wind the electric-sector equivalent of the ethanol hype. At a conference recently I asked a wind guy, “Without subsidies, how many projects now under way [regarding wind] would make economic sense?” He said maybe 30 percent.

The point here is to say that there’s a place for wind, just like there’s a place for ethanol. But to make it responsible for 20% of electric generation, like T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore are proposing is economically illiterate. The same way that thinking making ethanol responsible for 10% of gasoline consumption is already causing problems with the nation’s economy.

There’s a reason I like Rush Limbaugh

Rush spent about 75% of his show dissecting the Pickens Plan without going after Pickens himself. A part of it is because T. Boone is in fact a big Republican supporter and Rush has said that he will not pull a Jack Kemp (ie throwing other Republicans under the bus). Thus, he argued against the argument and not the person making the argument. There is a bit to be said about that. Of course, he doesn’t follow the same pattern for Democrats, but at least he’s funny when he does it, if not consistent.

I, on the other hand, do not have any qualms about calling Pickens out if he’s being self-serving in his motives. Sure he may say that he’s not gaining anything financially from this, but then why lobby for government incentives and regulations? Why lobby the government for tax breaks? If he’s not in it for the money, then he should be more than willing to put up the money to produce wind energy and not be afraid to take a loss.

But he’s not. He’s lobbying for more tax breaks and further regulation (like requiring all fleet vehicles to run on natural gas) that would benefit him personally. So for all of the talk that he’s not in it for the money, he sure seems to be taking actions that suggest otherwise.

Why Focus on Electricity?

Every plan for long term transportation use involves moving cars and trucks to electric vehicles, powered by alternative energy sources. But why use electricity, a delivered by the bulk power system?

One reason could be that there’s possible efficiencies in making energy in bulk and distributing it. It delivers lower prices than would be done if everyone generated their own energy. Efficiencies of scale, in economic terms. There’s also the efficiency of generation of electricity in terms of getting the most bang for the fuel. Steam generators operate at a higher efficiency than internal combustion engines. So we would be able to use less energy for transportation needs from electricity than from automotive fuels.

However, this does not take into account for the transmission losses as electricity moves from the generator to the consumer. This takes alot of the generational benefit out of the electricity. But even saying that this is a wash, there’s a different, more political reason why people like moving to electricity.

Control.

Governments, generation companies and environmentalists are heavily represented in the process of setting electricity prices and what types of generation are allowed. Note that consumers, and in particular, small consumers are not represented very well in these proceedings. Those who have a larger stake in power have a greater interest in the proceedings. Residential consumers aren’t going to take the time or energy out of their day to attend a commission meeting on electric rates. States try to get around this by setting up consumer advocates in the government itself, but is at best an imperfect representative.

However, in gasoline production, prices and quantities consumed are determined by largely economic forces. This is opposed to electricity, where prices and quantities consumed are largely non-economically determined. This is because of monopoly control of the electric distribution and how electricity is priced, which is very secretive. Most people have little idea of how much they are paying for electricity, the units of electricity and how their actions determine how much it costs.

Contrast this with gasoline. Everyone knows what gas costs, how it’s delivered and how their actions affect them. Thus, it makes it easy to know how their actions are influencing the costs. Also note that government (outside of a flat additional tax) has little say in how prices are determined. They make plenty of investigations into how prices are determined, but doesn’t have direct say in the price. This is a good thing, as markets, especially the gas market, works when allowed to work.

So moving from electricity from gasoline would allow government more control over a very large segment of the economy that it has relatively little control over currently. Also, it allows for other actors to become more important as well. That’s why these people have been driving this change to electricity, instead of focusing on other solutions.

What Robert Novak Can Teach Us About Driving (and the Media)

I saw this article on Friday and was all set to post it this week about the scourge of aggressive driving and how the elites think they can get away with anything:

Novak cited after hitting pedestrian

You can just see in the article all of the ways that the writers try to paint Novak in a bad light. His previous record. His driving off from the scene, only to be stopped by the vigilante biker. Even the caption on the photo says it all: “Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver.”

It’s pretty easy to see how one could see how Novak is the bad guy. And his only excuse was that “he didn’t see him. I didn’t know he was there.” Pretty lame excuse, right?

Not so much: Robert Novak diagnosed with brain tumor

This makes it quite clear that Novak was telling the truth. But the problem now becomes whether a $50 citation is enough. There’s no reason for Novak to be on the roads right now, but he’s not going to be required to turn in his license or be medically cleared to drive. At least that’s not what it’s looking like. Heck, he might even get a handicapped sticker for his illness.

But this brings up the larger question of how to treat older drivers as the general population of the United States ages. Just this week, there was a story in South Carolina about a taxi driver who had a heart attack, while driving his taxi, and hit a telephone pole:

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – New information has been released in the death of a Columbia tax driver.

The driver died of a heart attack before the crash happened, according Richland County Coroner Gary Watts.

The crash happened Wednesday afternoon on Broad River Road at Greystone Boulevard.

State troopers say 54-year-old Johnny Dotson was driving the taxi when it crossed the median and hit a pole.

Dotson worked for the Blue Ribbon Taxi Company.

There was a passenger in the car who was also injured; authorities expect her to be fine.

This leaves the question of what to do with older drivers on the road as America ages. Given the political clout of America’s seniors, I doubt anything is going to get done. But there’s going to be more accidents of these types as drivers age. Anything mandatory for seniors has already been met with fierce resistance, since these are the drivers who vote and have time to pepper their representatives with phone calls. I think the first thing to keep in mind is that driving is a privilege, not a right, granted by the state. There are already restrictions on commercial drivers for health reasons. It will only take more high profile cases to start introducing restrictions on non-commercial licenses as well.

Liveblog of T. Boone Pickens interview with Sean Hannity

I heard on the way home that Sean Hannity was interview T. Boone Pickens on the Pickens Plan. Since I was in the car, I couldn’t post directly to the internet, so I had to write it down and copy it now. As Pickens is a Republican supporter (he sponsored the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth), I can now look in hindsight that Hannity would throw softballs at Pickens. But I was expecting at least some questions that were more critical than were asked.

You can read the liveblog after the cut…

Dumbest Bill Ever

I heard this on the Sean Hannity Show this afternoon and I couldn’t believe my ears, so I had to look it up myself. What I found was quite possibly the dumbest piece of legislation ever created.

The American Energy Act

It supposed to do a little of everything in order to appeal to everyone. And all this is going to do is increase the size of government at the expense of taxpayers. Going through the list of goodies for everyone includes:

• Allowing the drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (no later than… 2010)
• Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Extending the current tax credits for alternative energy (which T. Boone was arguing for in Congress a few days ago)
• Extending the tax credits for energy efficient appliances
• The creation of a new “home energy audit” tax credit
• Creating a new “American Renewable and Alternative Trust Fund” slush fund/piggy bank to be funded out of the proceeds from the off-shore and ANWR lease sales
• The creation of the Prizes that John McCain stumped for on the campaign trail.

Basically, this is an attempt by the Republicans to graft off-shore drilling onto proposals that would pass without a problem. It’s a me-too bill. The new parts are the Trust Fund (which Congress has shown that it cannot handle, see the Highway and Social Security Trust Funds), and the prizes. The prizes have been touted by economists, such as George Mason professor Tyler Cowen. From that post:

One drawback of prizes is that they tend to be awarded in the interests of the prizegiver, and not necessarily to stimulate maximum scientific output… Still, prizes make the most sense when you cannot predict where new innovation is coming from, and thus you do not know who should get the grants. As our world becomes more complex, less hierarchical, and more decentralized, I predict a greater reliance on prizes to stimulate science.

I agree entirely with this, and is an example of why government should not give out prizes. Government knows exactly where the research will come from and that this will not necessarily stimulate scientific output, but manage it to the best of a government bureaucrat. The fact that for at least one of the prizes, the conditions for winning are codified is good, but that can be changed down the road as seen fit, especially if someone offers up a good enough campaign contribution (A couple million for $500 million is a pretty good investment).

The 60 MPH Challenge

Thanks to Senator John Warner of Virginia, we’re back on our way to re-living the 70’s. Warner, who’s on his last legs as a public servent, dipped into the Bucket List a second time (after coming up with the Warner-Lieberman climate boondoggle) and found the 55 MPH speed limit.

I guess he wants to have a lasting legacy, although I have no idea who’s going to want to remember Sen. Warner fondly as a result of government heavy-handedness. Here’s the money quote from his comments on the Senate floor:

He is a wonderful mechanic and an engineer on cars. He said the carburetion system–he argued with me about this when I spent the past weekend with him–shook his fist at me: I don’t want this 55-mile-per-hour limit. And that is good advice.

So what does Sen. Warner propose? The 60 MPH speed limit. That will go down much easier than a 55 MPH national speed limit, as that 5 MPH will make all the difference to travelers. (How does sarcasm translate on the internet?)

In typical senatorial fashion, Sen. Warner also requires the federal government to reduce gas consumption by… a whopping 3%. There’s no force behind this and there’s no concrete steps that his bill puts into place.

I have an idea Sen. Warner. Since you like the 55 MPH speed limit so much, why don’t you make the government try it out first. Basically require that all new gov’t cars be fitted with a 55 MPH speed governor. It’s not that hard, as most passenger cars have governors on them already (although they’re set at a much higher 120 MPH or so). Just have the engineers at GM/Ford/Chrysler cut that down and problem solved. Instantly enforceable gas savings. And the gov’t gets to be the guinea pigs.

Of course, this will never happen because, as with all laws, the government applies the law to itself last, if ever. Just try to think of the last time you saw a government car pulled over for speeding? If never comes to mind, you’re not the only one.

So in honor of the Senator’s idea, I’ve decided to make my own little study of the plan and see what it’s effects, if any are. You can see what I’m going to do below the cut.

Critique of the Pickens Plan – Part 2 (Transportation)

In Part 1, I looked at how the Pickens Plan has problems in his goal of converting natural gas electricity generation to wind and solar powered generation.  In this part, I’m going to look at the second half of his plan: using natural gas as a power source for transportation in the US to reduce reliability on foreign oil.

I have three issues with using natural gas as a fuel in transportation: economical, political and technological.

1. Political ProblemsWhile most people complain about gas prices quite heavily, the retail gasoline market is probably of the few markets today that fit the definition of a Competive Market. Illustrating this point is the fact that most retailers of gasoline make a very small profit on each gallon of gasoline, which is what economic theory would predict for a competitive market. So much that ExxonMobil doesn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.

   So what problem do I have moving to natural gas distribution? We’re moving from a competitive market with lots of choices to a market with lots of monopolies and run at almost every part of the supply chain by government bureaucrats. Let me explain. Natural gas is lot like electricity where one company has dominion over a certain territory and controls all of the sales in the area. There are certain areas where you can choose whom you get the physical gas from but not who delivers it. That is controlled by the government. Contrast this with gasoline, where no one company has dominion over a territory (by anti-trust law) and there are many players in each market, from national brands to mom and pop stores selling generics.

   While government has involvement in the composition and selling of gas, it has very little say in the pricing of gas. This is not the case for natural gas, where local companies have their prices SET by the government. (This doesn’t apply to states that have open-choice markets, see a list here). So there would be further government involvement in the use and consumption of transportation fuel, with completely new territory of regulating the PRICE of these fuels. This will not be a positive transition for those who believe in limited government. Those who think consumers are getting shafted will welcome the change, no matter what the consequences (shortages mostly).

2. Technological Problems

   While using natural gas for propulsion is alot further along than, let say electricity, there’s still mostly infrastructure issues to be dealt with. Mostly the dearth of fueling stations, but also some safety issues. There’s a reason that natural gas has the rotten egg smell added to it. It’s a gas, and there’s the risk of explosions, which gasoline does not have. There’s a fire risk with gas, but not with natural gas. Also there’s the accident factor, which could make both filling tanks and collisions alot more… spectacular and less likely to survive in (just imagine the shrapnel). I’d imagine that the self-serve natural gas station may start off being the case, but is one or two high-profile accidents from making natural gas like gasoline in New Jersey and Oregon. Which will only serve to increase costs, both from wasted time and wasted money.

   Finally, there’s the running out of natural gas issue. The idea of running out of gas is problematic but solvable. You get a gas can and you bring it to the car, problem solved. Bringing a tank of natural gas might be a bit more of a problem. I could see it being like a propane tank, but there’s connection issues and how much would be needed to get the car to the nearest filling station (again bringing up the issue of the development of distribution infrastructure, especially in rural areas).

3. Economical ProblemsOne of the benefits that Pickens uses in his commercials to tout his plan is that natural gas is cheaper than gasoline, so moving to this technology will make things cheaper. However, it’s pretty ignorant to use today’s situation and pricing to extrapolate to what things will look like when everyone is using natural gas to power their vehicles. The transportation demand is extremely weak, and even suggesting that moving all of natural gas from electricity to transport will result in no net gain in demand is kinda silly. Especially if the technology takes off.

   In addition, there’s no current incentives for developing more natural gas in the US. Natural gas is found and developed in the same way that oil is. So when Pickens says “We can’t drill our way out of this problem,” he’s making the assumption that we’re not bringing more natural gas online, in the same way that we’re not bringing more oil online. So supply remains the same… well at least in the US.

   Which brings us to the other economic criticism of Pickens’ Plan, which is the transfer of money overseas. Combining increasing demand with non-increasing supply will mean a big gaping hole in the market. Which means that prices will rise further OR other suppliers will enter the market. Like those nasty foreigners that Pickens’ complains that are causing economic ruin in the US. Currently, 16% of natural gas consumption is taken in by imports and that figure has been rising along with oil imports. Of course, most of this right now is coming from Canada, but there’s only so much we can get from Canada. So this limited supply will only go to further increase reliance on foreign sources of energy in the future.

   So what’s the end result of the Pickens’ Plan? Definitely increased prices with increased government control of energy use, especially in the transportation sector, in exchange for cleaner emissions. If that’s the trade you want, that’s fine. But don’t think of Pickens’ Plan as a panacea to all things energy related.