Fuel our Fall Fund Drive
It’s like an NPR pledge drive. After all, Sightline is pretty similar to NPR…we provide news and information, and we also depend on our readers to make it possible.
Can you help? Please make a secure online gift here.
Your gift supports the Sightline products you enjoy—like this blog and the Sightline Daily news service. Clark and Eric’s research, maps, and graphics on why the Northwest should enact powerful, equitable climate policy.
THEN your gift keeps right on going. It fuels the positive change our region needs to thrive. Here are some accomplishments Sightline donors have helped set in motion:
The Politics of Plastic
Starting next year, Seattle will have a new 20 cent fee on grocery sacks. Portland is thinking about following suit. So is the Vancouver, BC region.
But as the Seattle P-I reported this morning, the American Chemistry Council (aka the plastics industry) has spent more than $180,000 to put Seattle's measure before voters. Clearly, they want to kill these bag fees before they spread. So much so, in fact, that they dropped about $8 per signature to gather enough signatures to put the thing on the ballot.
Personally, I don't think the whole grocery bag debate is worth anywhere near the heat that's expended on it. The paper or plastic question is pretty far down my list of things to worry about. But this opposition campaign is just silly. And over at the Seattlest blog, Katelyn nails it:
Just for comparison's sake, the group could have purchased 903,125 plastic grocery bags with that money. 903,125 bags they could have then distributed to the unfairly burdened poor folk whose cause they are championing, as a sign of good faith that plastic will never fade away in the hearts and ecosystems of America. It's also worth noting that if the ACC had taken their dollars to Safeway, they could have purchased 180,625 cans of nourishing, environmentally friendly beans or 126,311 bags of Safeway yellow cornmeal. Or hell, some of each. They could have wrapped all of those bags and cans up in saran wrap, packaged the saran wrap bundles in flimsy beige plastic bags, and given that food to poor people.
Dear Seattle, buy your $1 canvas totes online here or just pick up a couple at your nearest grocery store. This whole anti-bag fee campaign is nigh unto ridiculous.
Really, I can't improve on that.
Photo is by Seattle resident Chris Jordan.
The Transit Crunch
Tom Downs of Citiwire has a great article on the nationwide transit fiscal crunch. High gas prices, coupled with a sluggish economy, have created a spike in bus ridership all across the U.S., as people have looked for a cheaper way to get to work. But costs for transit agencies have also gone up; they're facing the same fuel price increases that the rest of us are. So just when transit demand is rising, transit is facing budget shortfalls all across the country. The only choices left for many transit agencies: raise fares; raise taxes; or cut back bus service, at the very moment when it's most needed.
Quite a dilemma.
Of course, that's not the only transportation financing crunch around. With people driving less, gas tax receipts are cratering -- which is drying up the federal highway trust fund. Apparently, the nation's governors are lobbying Congress for an emergency appropriation to fill the highway funding gap.
But Downs asks the right question:
Why respond to state highway departments anxious to keep funding roads and bridges, but ignore the compelling immediate needs of the local transit systems and their riders?
I think that's a smart take. There's a real short-term need for bus service that's every bit as pressing as the long-term need to repair roads & bridges. The nation's governors ought to be looking out for both needs, not privileging highway contractors over bus commuters.
Cap and Trade Comparison
Finally, it's all in one place. World Resources Institute just released a fabulous little summary that compares all the federal US cap and trade proposals. It's chock full of helpful (if slightly wonkish) graphics and tables, like this one:
The summary deals only with questions of "scope" -- which sectors of the economy are capped -- and the reduction schedules in each policy. There's no comparison of auctioning regimes or offsets or other market features. Still, it's pretty handy.
Hat tip to Becky Kelley at Washington Environmental Council.
