I grew up in a different America. I watched our country race ahead to plant our flag on the moon. Our leadership in science, technology, and engineering made us proud and gave us hope for the future. I also remember the drumbeat narrative about the dysfunctional bureaucracy in the Soviet Union that sacrificed everything in a desperate attempt to win the arms race and ultimately dominate the world. There were stories from every podium and pulpit of long lines in the Evil Empire to buy what little food and poor quality goods made it to store shelves. The only anxiety I remember having for a gleaming future was some lunatic in the Kremlin deciding to put the theory of mutually assured nuclear destruction to the test.
Those memories came back to haunt me as I read a Bloomberg article by James Russell about Europe and Asia racing ahead of America in rail transportation infrastructure ("As U.S. Dithers, China, U.K. Push Ahead on Major Rail Projects"). Instead of a bang, there is only the whimper of Tea Party Republicans.
Taxing stupidity
In America's corner, Russell reminds us how Tea Party Republican governors have killed paltry rail projects in Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey, costing these states money, infrastructure, and jobs. He then regales us with ambitious projects being built in London and Hong Kong. I came away with a bitter taste of techno-envy at the determination of other countries to move people efficiently while reducing traffic congestion, emissions, and dependency on oil.
Picture source: Crossrail UK
Russell describes America's stone age mentality when it comes to transportation this way:
Unlike almost every other developed nation, the U.S. has no national transportation strategy. The nation fails to raise taxes that are supposed to pay for roads and rails. Gasoline taxes, for example, cover only about 50 percent of road projects, much lower than in the past, according to recent Federal Highway Administration figures. America certainly isn’t developing the design, construction and management capacity to build on a large scale to global standards.
I agree with the symptoms, but not the disease diagnosis. We do have a national transportation policy based on the delusion that oil will remain cheap. Our transportation infrastructure is funded by fuel taxes and focuses almost exclusively on highways. Fuel taxes are regressive, which hurts those who can least afford them and creates pressures against raising revenues to meet infrastructure needs. The effects of this inertia against adequately funding our transportation systems are evident all around you. Crumbling bridges and highways. Laughable public transportation outside of a few large metropolitan areas. Little money to fund innovation.
There are more insidious effects of this fuel tax-based transportation policy. Can you guess why there has been so much political opposition to increasing fuel efficiency standards? The answer should be obvious. More fuel efficient cars and trucks mean less revenue to finance an already underfunded transportation system.
Texas is the perfect example of failed transportation policy at the state level. Transportation demand has increased with population growth and transportation infrastructure costs have risen, yet state fuel taxes have not increased since 1991. As a result, Texas has dug itself into a financial hole.
"Our financial resources are declining in proportion to our needs," said Deirdre Delisi, the chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Texas Department of Transportation, in testimony before the Legislature earlier this year. "As this trend worsens, it severely impacts our ability to maintain the highway system in rural areas."
Texas is projected to need to invest $315 billion by 2030 to keep its roadways in good shape. That's more than $14 billion per year — larger than TxDOT's entire budget of $8 billion in fiscal 2010.
Texas Tribune, Dec 21, article by Kate Galbraith
To add to this self-inflicted wound, Texas fuel taxes are used to fund schools and other state programs. Tea Party Republican governor Perry wants to end the diversion of fuel taxes to fund schools, but that will create a billion dollar shortfall in public education. He will have to decide which shortfall will least hurt his political ambitions.
Last, but not least, Texas is fretting about a 2% decline in fuel tax revenues over the past three years, courtesy of rising fuel efficiency standards and the Great Recession. To make up for the effects of less gas-guzzling vehicles, the state is exploring alternatives to a per gallon tax, such as tracking miles driven on state highways.
A longer-term alternative, concurrent with the rise of electric and other fuel-efficient vehicles, is the possibility of assessing a tax in a different way — on the amount of miles a vehicle travels. This could be assessed through a low-tech annual odometer reading, or via an electronic chip that would track miles (including in and out of the state).
Texas Tribune, Dec 21, article by Kate Galbraith
Texas is not alone in small thinking. All states are wrestling with fuel revenues that have not kept pace with transportation needs. Federal gas taxes have not increased since 1993. It is the perfect environment to stifle innovation and maintain dependency on oil, particularly for radical conservatives opposed to increasing revenues. As noted by Russell, rail alternatives to oil can easily be drowned in a proverbial bathtub.
... newly elected governors and members of Congress who have pledged to cut rail investments, even projects already approved. Meanwhile, the tax-cut package just signed into law leaves little room for direct investment.
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That which cannot be named
Russell missed a golden opportunity to raise the issues of why developing transportation alternatives to oil are so important. It is not really a case of techno-envy.
There are two things conservatives are not allowed to talk about in polite company -- climate change and peak oil. The disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting climate science has been well documented. However, the same astroturf organizations are hard at work "debunking" peak oil.
Even conservatives are smart enough to realize that an economy built around cheap oil will collapse when oil becomes too expensive. Economists are not sure how expensive oil can become before our economy crashes and burns. When the Great Recession hit, oil cost $140 a barrel and pump prices for gasoline and diesel were over $4.00 a gallon. Since wages for most of us have remained stagnant or fallen, rising oil prices strangles demand by increasing the costs of all goods and services. Even though no one is sure when we will be driven into energy poverty, we will not escape without reducing our dependency on petroleum products.
Peak oil skeptics like to whisper that oil supplies are not projected to drop off in the near future. Projections by the International Energy Agency seem to support that argument. The most recent World Energy Outlook has production levels remaining virtually unchanged for decades to come.
There are two flies in the drill, baby, drill ointment. First, even though production levels may remain stable, demand has been rapidly rising thanks mostly to China and India. When demand meets supply, all hell breaks loose in terms of cost. Many analysts are predicting that will happen by end of this decade. Skeptics like to blame recent spikes in oil prices on speculation in the commodity market. There is no question that speculation exists and increases volatility in commodity prices. However, speculation games only thrive when supplies are limited relative to demand. It is hard to game the price of oil when supplies are abundant.
The second fly is that the projected plateau in oil supply levels is maintained by offsetting declining production from cheap conventional sources with production from more expensive unconventional sources, particularly deep water wells and tar sands. Production from conventional sources peaked in 2005. The U.S. is looking to oil from Canadian tar sands as a major source of petroleum in the future, which have a very high cost to produce due to poor energy return on investment.
These two big and hairy flies mean the end of cheap oil is on the horizon. Our national transportation policy is to rely on oil until it kills our economy. Everyone knows it is cheaper to prevent disease than cure it.
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Brain drain
Russell points out an indirect cost of our dithering on rail in moving people. Our technological base is weak and getter weaker. Ironically, the architects responsible for the Hong Kong mega-terminal are lead by an American firm run by Andrew Bromberg.
Global firms like Bromberg’s can take advantage of rapidly advancing building technology and computer-aided design. They help make complex assemblies easier to construct and their costs easier to track. U.S. firms can’t ride this wave of innovation if they have no projects to apply it to.
Once the U.S. recognizes that it needs diversified and integrated air, rail and road transportation, it could well end up importing the technologies, products and expertise it has failed to develop. Already talented architects like Bromberg, as well as engineers, builders and managers, are taking their acumen to places more welcoming.
We are going to go from importing expensive oil to importing expensive alternatives. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. We have gone from a can-do spirit that put us on the moon to a can't-do malaise that will keep us addicted to oil until we are the laughingstock of generations to come.
In honor of incoming Tea Party Republican Speaker of the House (and tobacco lobbyist extraordinaire) Napoleon Boehner-parte, a blast from the past.
Change the corporate logo to ExxonMobil and you have our stone age future.