The Pennsylvania Turnpike is part of my heritage. Rolling into a toll booth, I look at it as the gateway to a national treasure of transportation history.

I have a vested interest in supporting and preserving - whether that just means not throwing trash at it or becoming actively involved when it's threatened. It's public, non-profit status gives me a say in it's future and ensures that my toll is actually going to the generational preservation and enjoyment of it. Not to financing a capital investment group; someone else's dream or worse a shady future deal that I am inadvertently supporting with my toll.

When an investment group is pushing very hard to enguage me in a public debate they view it as a sales pitch, but the true beauty of this moment is that I still have control of the power to guide my destiny.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics Public Transportation

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Interesting opinion article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Hidden costs will make Turnpike deal a bad one
Summary:

• Huge unseen financial incentives pull from the tax base during the deal


• Costs associated with ensuring the contract gets inforced


• With tax subsidies greatest in the first 15 years, the profit window will rapidly close, leaving the company with aging and expensive infrastructure and large debt remaining for the rest of a century.


• This deal was negotiated in secret without public input and information. Pennsylvanians now have less than a month to read and digest a 686-page contract and attempt to predict and value how its thousands of conditions might affect the commonwealth through 2084

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics Public Transportation

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I was walking around my village today and a couple neighbors were responding to my blog entry Why can't "WE" keep making a profit on the turnpike? (6/25)

One neighbor was blaming Gov. Ed Randell for siphoning the money off to Philadelphia under the current set-up. I drop off the mail for another neighbor who often is listening to Gary Sutton. She just plain asked my opinion on the merits. I have yet to hear anyone, except the governor, say they think it's a really good idea, "it's slam-dunk" he said.

I believe the heart of the matter is a difference in perspective that has widened between the ever increasing transience of business and what the great population hopes government's long-term commitment is to them.

When you privatize a public entity ownership is moved from government to the interest of a group of investors. Government is you and me because we elect and reject those who represent us.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission was created in 1937 to build, finance, operate and maintain the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The commission is comprised of five members. Four members are appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania. So ultimately the turnpike management is an arm of government, made of people we elect and reject.

Barcelona-based Abertis Infraestructuras, Abertis investor Criteria CaixaCorp of Spain and Citi Infrastructure Investors offered $12.8 billion to lease the turnpike. (AP) I will not be on a seat of the board of directors of a company in Spain or the equally nebulous Citi Infrastructure Investors group. What is my recourse if i had a concern about the business of the turnpike or what my tolls are financing.

Meanwhile, up north 80 percent Interstate 80 needs resurfacing to replace more than half of its pavement, which was applied between 1958 and 1970. Officials proposed replacing 60 bridges within the first 10 years. Sixteen of the interstate's bridges are structurally deficient and 13 are in worse condition, which the turnpike described as "fracture critical." pittsburghlive.com

The scramble is on to get tolls on I-80 because PennDOT cannot fund a complete rebuild. Any bids on I-80? Going once, going twice... hello, any takers? Mmmm, must not be such a good deal.

From personal experience over the past 28 years of driving on it, The Pennsylvania Turnpike have been a very well maintained road in road surface and snow removal. It

The turnpike is currently a non-profit meaning they have to put the revenue from tolls into the road.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics Public Transportation

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I supposed the clinical thing to do would be to calculate cost vs. environmental impact and come up with a nice squeaky green conclusion, but recently my conclusions seem to be made more out a belief that our open ("free" doesn't really apply) market for energy needs to be placed in check by the only force that can bring change.

Calculated, individual consumer choices multiplied by millions of people.

My friend Matt has a company car with paid gas for personal use. He said to me today, "I don't care if the gas is free - I just want to use my motorcycle because it doesn't use (uses half) gas." In 2004, he purchased (which he can't sell now) a Chevy Suburban that gets 15 mpg and never considered the price of gas.

My neighbor Chuck's new full-sized pickup is now collecting dirt around the wheels for sometimes two weeks at a time. He drives a 115 mpg scooter to work.

My retired neighbor on a fixed budget told me today, "I am going to hold on to my economic stimulus check so i can pay for fuel oil this Winter" A tax money give-a-way to spark the economy, funneled into the oil machine that is squeezing the economy in the first place.

We are entering the uncharted free market waters. Huge global energy monopolies that use raw materials that are irresistible to investors and tied to everything as a reason to make it more expensive. We can't regulate it, tax it or force it to do anything. The concept of oil just got too big in business and in our hearts.

The only force that can save the world from suicidal greed; the consumer stands alone with a choice to become super hero or victim.

I like the electric lawn mower more than the gas, simply because it does not use gas. It's two gallons of gasoline that went unsold this Summer.

Posted in All posts from the start Electric History Oil Machine/politics Tax incentives

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Oil closed at $136.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 3.8%, the biggest daily loss in value since March 19.

In a monthly report released on Tuesday, the Energy Information Administration projected that U.S. petroleum consumption will shrink by 400,000 barrels a day in 2008, nearly 40% more than EIA's June projection of a decline of 290,000 barrels.

The change was "based on prospects for a weak economy and record high crude oil and product prices extending into 2009," the EIA said in the report.

The EIA also said global oil consumption will grow by 900,000 barrels a day in 2008, as demand growth in developing countries will more than offset declines in the U.S. and other developed countries. marketwatch.com

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics

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I was stretched out on my deck tonight gazing at the sky while a storm rolled in.
I came to the conclusion that only the sun and the rain, as long as they fall above my property, are free. What comes from the sky above my head cannot be taxed nor can it be repackaged, marketed and sold back to me at compounded profit and then taxed.

Harnessing these things in my backyard, I could take control of my increasingly squeezed and controlled by corporate entity - life.

The secret is in the invention, not buying the product.

I am going to build a rain collection system to water my garden. I can tell you right now that it will probably take 40 years to pay for the parts since water is pretty cheap, but it will be an exercise in securing freedom and independence. A working sculpture of hope for my future.

Posted in All posts from the start Innovation Oil Machine/politics Solar Water Power Wind Power

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I just received a hard sell email from Pennsylvania Transportation Partners for leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It seems that their plan is the "only" source and "only" plan. It will create "safety". Perhaps the most telling part of the email is "there are more than $12.8 billion reasons to lease the turnpike". I can't help to notice a the Citi logo embedded below the PTP logo in the link penntransportation.com

If the turnpike is so desirable as a lease option it is because it will be so profitable for some entity. The people of Pennsylvania should profit long-term from the proceeds of their own toll road rather than a third party extracting profit. Sure we will get a pile of money upfront, but what will we loose in funding down the road when the profits of the lease are being funned to a private party for the next greater part of a century.

It goes on to say that the deal will help finish projects and there is even a YouTube video with two guys whining in traffic congestion bashing the turnpike commission for their 67 years of control of the turnpike that has prevented privatization...(and keeping a private entity from taking a long-term chunk of the money?)

Such a hard sell... demanding an open debate of more hard sell?

I have one question for the debate: If an entity wants the turnpike so badly because it can turn a profit, then why can't the people of Pennsylvania just keep that profit - ALL the money that we will pay in tolls over the next century and use ALL of it for our roads and infrastructure. And if it's so "badly" run, as the PTP seems to say, then WE can use our democracy to petition government and make a change.

Once it's leased and the money is spent, the long-term revenue potential for consumers is history.

According to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission:

(April 08)
The Turnpike has already provided PennDOT with $520 million in new funding under Act 44. By the end of April, the Turnpike will have provided a total of $750 million in new funding for local roads, bridges and mass transit agencies around the state. Over the 50 years of Act 44, the Turnpike will provide PennDOT with annual average payments of $1.67 billion per year - a total of $83.3 billion.

Below is a screen shot the Pennsylvania Transportation Partners appeal.

Posted in All posts from the start History Oil Machine/politics

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices sank nearly $5 on Thursday after China said it would raise gas prices by lifting subsidies that have been blamed for driving oil prices higher. The move could curb demand from the country's rapidly growing economy.

"The news out of China surprised the market," Ray Carbone president of Paramount Options, said from the NYMEX floor.

In the United States, gas prices fell for the third day in a row. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas fell two-tenths of a cent to $4.073 from $4.075 the day before, according AAA.

Not really a surprise. China subsidies their fuel price and fixes Chinese currency to promote their own growth, however, the rapid rise of fuel prices threatens their global export demand.

If an American family is pumping all their dollars into gas, there is no money left to buy Chinese goods that dominate local retailers.

Fear of market destruction forces correction.

There appears to be no "fear" of this (or few checks and balances) in the oil/political/speculation machine here to protect our own economy.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics

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I was just listening to President Bush making an appeal to open Alaska and the coast for drilling. His argument is that this will provide price relief to consumers. He mostly blamed the Democrat controlled congress (controlled by Republicans for the first six years of his administration) for not acting. I didn't hear anything in the speech about conservation which would reduce demand and price.

The rebuttal after the speech:
An agreement to take more land will not effect price tomorrow, next year... it will take years to develop that oil stream. Oil companies already currently hold land leases on land about the size of two states (about 68 million acres,AP) in the United States that aren't drilled.

Keeping land and not developing it holds potential for oil investors and controls the amount of oil on the market keeping price high.

Some short term solutions to high gasoline prices not offered in the speech:

• Investigate illegal manipulation of the oil market.


• Impose a fee on oil companies for holding land already turned over by the American people and not drilled


• Open the strategic oil reserve a crack

However, all of these would reduce price not increase the inventory of oil leases shortly before a change in presidential power and ensure a long-term profit stream for the oil industry.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics

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June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Republicans thwarted Democratic-supported legislation that would increase windfall- profit taxes on oil companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. as Democrats set their sights on tighter energy trading scrutiny.

Democrats fell nine votes shy today of 60 needed to proceed to debate. The White House Office of Management and Budget today threatened a veto of the measure.

The proposal, announced last month, would have imposed a windfall profit tax of $10 billion to $12 billion this year on oil companies, according to Senate Democrats. It also included new margin requirements on oil-futures trades, and aimed to outlaw price gouging as energy prices have soared to records.

It's catch-22 legistation guided by people with a broken moral compass. What is really worth thinking about here is whether the balance of greed and government control are entirely out of whack; the personal interest of individuals in power to grab every last penny available rather than acting in a way that may sustain rather then destroy the bed they sleep in.

Perhaps we have lost the checks and balances of a free market. Perhaps the moment has come where you need to take the knife out of the child's hand, one who has already poked out both eyes yet is still running around the room grabbing for candy.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics

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