Find suitable site for mosque in Bernards Township

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Site Admin

The letter below was submitted to the Bernardsville News.  It was published on line on 01-18-17 and in the print edition on 01-19-17.

EDITOR:

Last week you reviewed the dispute over the proposal by the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) to build a mosque in Liberty corner, and you invited comments on it. I will take a break from writing about climate change and accept your invitation.

First, full disclosure: As a 48-year resident of Bernards Township, I love the town and take great pride in it.  I do not recognize our community in the charges of bias and bigotry in the media and letters from outsiders.

I have known Ali Chaudry, president of ISBR, for many years. I respect him and consider him a friend.  I know most of the township officials mentioned in the coverage of this dispute and feel the same way about them.  I have friends who live in Liberty Corner.  These are all good people.

I attended a few of the hearings on the application held by the Planning Board. They were conducted in a courteous and fair manner.  Professional witnesses and members of the public were allowed abundant time to speak.

I have studied neither the materials submitted by the experts nor the record produced before the board. I do not have sufficient knowledge to comment on the merits of the board’s decision to deny the application, and will not do so.

I do know that development proposals, that may affect the character of a neighborhood, are resisted by residents. For most, their home is their major asset.  But there is much more than property value at stake.  People invest their lives in their homes and neighborhoods, and they don’t want them to change.  This attitude is understandable and should be respected.

In the 90s there was opposition to a proposal by the Millington Baptist Church to build a new church on Mine Brook Rd. I recall no charges of discrimination against Baptists.  There was opposition to expansion of the YMCA on Mount Airy Rd.  I recall no charges of  discrimination against people who want to be fit.  In the 70s there was opposition to development of the small park in Rebel Hill.  I recall no charges of discrimination against kids.

If resolution of the mosque issue is left to the courts, there will be no winners. The ill will produced will last a long time.  We must look for a solution that satisfies all parties.  I have a proposal.

The township owns lots of land. I believe that a suitable site can be found for the mosque.  I recommend that ISBR and township officials review what is available and pick a site.  Then transfer the township land to ISBR at a fair price.  ISBR will withdraw its Liberty Corner application and sell or rent the property.

I propose that representatives of both the township and ISBR state publicly that they are willing to discuss in private a transfer of township land. Then do it.

Bill Allen,  01-16-17

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Game Changer

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Site Admin

Letter below was submitted to the Bernardsville News.  It was posted on line on December 6 and in the print edition on December 8.

EDITOR:

Much has been said about the recent election. A frequent word from environmentalists is “disaster.”  I am a volunteer for the national organization Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) and for me a fitting phrase is “game changer.”

Increasing greenhouse gases (GHG)—primarily carbon dioxide–are warming the world, changing the climate, and contributing to sea level rise and ocean acidification. I use the term “climate change” as shorthand for all these things.

Momentum for action to slow climate change has been building, helped by President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and the agreement with China’s President Xi Jinping to cooperate to limit GHG.

In Paris in December 2015, 195 nations signed an agreement to work to limit GHG and global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. In Marrakech this past November, they agreed to finalize the rules in 2018 and to submit action plans in 2020.

Our CCL mission has been to build support in Congress for government action to slow climate change. We have assumed that the White House would continue to lead, and that, with our help, bipartisan  majorities would form in both the Senate and House of Representatives to follow and adopt appropriate legislation.

We must now revise our plan and persuade the Republican controlled Congress to lead. Will this be possible?  For the sake of my grandchildren and children everywhere, I pray that it will be.  Will this be difficult?  Yes.  Will this take more time?  Yes, and we have no time to waste.

History gives us many examples of Republican environmental leadership.

President Theodore Roosevelt protected 230 million acres of public land, including what is now Grand Canyon National Park, and he established the National Forest Service.

President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and strengthened the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.

Former Governor Christine Todd Whitman served as George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator and pressed for action to slow climate change.

Senator John McCain joined eleven of his colleagues to co-sponsor the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz is on CCL’s advisory board of directors.

Our local Republican governments were environmental leaders in the 1970s.

Bernards initiated a recycling program at Pill Hill in 1972.

Bedminster was the first in our region to build a natural resource inventory.   Long Hill followed soon afterwards.

All established environmental commissions and revised development regulations to require environmental impact statements, detention basins, and sediment control measures.

In the 1990s, ten mostly Republican governing bodies in Morris and Somerset formed the Ten Towns Committee to coordinate efforts to protect the water entering the Great Swamp.

A comprehensive survey published last year showed that majorities in the nation, in our state, and in Morris and Somerset believe that “global warming is happening” and that government should act to slow it.

Majorities of voters in the nation, in our state, in Somerset County, and in my own Bernards Township, voted for Hillary Clinton. She proposed aggressive action to slow climate change.  I find no evidence that those who voted for Donald Trump did so because he denied the risks from climate change.

The Republican Congressmen that I know have good environmental records and listen to their constituents. Those of us who want to leave a world for our children, in which they can survive and thrive and do the same for their children, must persuade them and their colleagues to lead and act to slow climate change.

Let’s all join in that mission.

Bill Allen    12-05-16

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CFD 2.0: Allocation of Dividends to Families with Children

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Site Admin

The Citizens’ Climate Lobby [CCL] advocates a system of Carbon Fee and Dividend [CFD].  It has done, and is doing an excellent job of mobilizing staff and volunteers to lobby members of Congress to enact legislation to implement CFD.  It has done less to improve and refine the design of the CFD system itself.  CFD 2.0 is a collection of proposals that address this need.

This is the first proposal.  It deals with the formula for allocating carbon fee dividends to families with children.

I believe all will agree that some carbon fee dividends should be allocated for children, but that a child should not receive the same allocation as an adult.  The challenge is to find a formula for allocation that is between these two extremes, and at the same time is both fair and perceived to be fair.

The current CCL formula follows James Hansen’s proposal in his 2009 book Storms of My Grandchildren.  A child is defined as a person of 18 years or younger.  One half dividend share is allocated to each of the first two children in a family, and nothing to children after the first two.  Let’s call this Version 1.

I recommend a different formula.  Specifically:

Treat all persons the same, after accounting for age.  Allocate one eighteenth of a share to each child for each year of age up to 18 years.  Allocate one share to each person older than 18.  

Let’s call this Version 2.  A spreadsheet is attached that considers four families that differ by number of children and by age of the children.  It computes the dividends for the children for each family in a typical year using both versions of the allocation formula.  To see this analysis go to spreadsheet.

In the spreadsheet and in the narrative below I assume a dividend share to be worth $1500.  This is the average value over 40 years from a CO2 reduction model made in 2010.  For more on this go to model.

Advantages of Version 2 over Version 1 :  Reasons in Brief  

[1] Dividend amounts are greater for families with 4 children than with 2.  This is reasonable and fair.

[2] Dividend amounts are greater for families with older children than with younger children.  This is reasonable and fair.

[3] No preference is given to families with only one or two children.  This heads off objections from parents with more children and avoids the political minefield of questions concerning proper family size and family planning.

[4] Computation is easy for both versions.  Version 1 requires data on family structures, and these may change every year.  Version 2 requires only birth dates and these never change.

[5] Version 1 must get data from the complicated IRS database.  Work arounds are required for people, who are eligible for dividends and not in that database.  Version 2 can get data from the less complicated Social Security database, and that database can include all persons eligible for dividends.

[6] There is no need to access the IRS database for information on persons, and no need to risk compromise of the privacy of the financial and personal data there.

[7] Version 2 makes it much easier to set up an independent agency to administer CFD.  This produces many more advantages that will be described in another proposal.

Advantages of Version 2 over Version 1:  Reasons Elaborated

Below I elaborate on the reasons listed above and use the same numbers.

[1] The purpose of dividends is to return carbon fee revenue to the private economy in a manner that helps people adjust to the rising costs of fossil fuel energy and learn to use less of this energy.  These rising costs will be greater for families with more children.

It is appropriate to allocate more dividends to larger families.  Version 2 does this.

[2] I helped my wife raise two fine daughters.  I expect that most parents will agree that the costs of raising children, and the energy they consume, increase with age.

It is appropriate to allocate more dividends for older children.  Version 2 does this.

[3] Some people who oppose the implementation of CFD will grasp for any trivial argument, one they may not even believe themselves.  Consider the example of the Affordable Care Act [ACA].  The claim that undocumented immigrants would receive health care under the act was largely bogus and consumed a lot of time.  People acting in good faith could have resolved the issue quickly.

We, who promote CFD, should anticipate and head off as many of these unnecessary arguments as possible.  Some examples follow.

Many thoughtful people believe that rising population aggravates existing problems and produces new ones.  They propose that couples have no more than two children, and they promote family planning to help achieve this goal.  These proposals are controversial in some circles, and arguments over them may become bitter.  They do not belong in discussions of CFD.

Apart from above, the decision to limit dividends to the first two children appears arbitrary.  Some parents with more children will complain that this is unfair.

Someone may propose that all children receive half shares of a dividend.  Because the total dividend amount for a large family will become significant, someone else may argue that this practice will encourage irresponsible parents to have more children.

It is best to avoid all arguments of this kind and treat all children the same, after accounting for age.  Version 2 does this.

[4/5] Administration of dividend payouts will be much easier with Version 2 than with Version 1.

On the CCL website is a report entitled “FAQ:  Paying Dividends from the Carbon Fee to American Residents” and authored by Allen H. Lerman and Danny Richter, PhD.  Mr. Lerman was an economist with the U.S. Treasury for 43 years and worked on tax analysis and policy.  Dr. Richter is CCL’s legislative director.

To review the Lerman/Richter report go to report.

Printed out the report runs over nine pages.  Page 1 is a list of 36 FAQs.  The remaining pages contain the answers to these questions.  There follow some issues raised  by these answers.

[a] Those who administer CFD will require a new database with information on those who are eligible to receive dividends.  The Lerman/Richter report stipulates this in Section 19:  “Even  if handled by the IRS or the SSA, a completely separate staff and completely separate accounting, recordkeeping, and computer systems would be necessary for the Dividend payments.”

A big question for the new CFD database is how to populate it.  Where will the data come from?  The report indicates that most will come from IRS.  I show below that it should come from the Social Security Administration [SSA].

[b] The report lists the information required for a household in Section 11:  “Names, addresses, and social security numbers for the covered adults and dependent children, and bank account information for use in making Dividend  payments.”  These data can be taken from either the IRS or SSA database and put into the CFD database.

I show below that the CFD database should also have birthdates and citizen/immigration status.  IRS does not have these.  SSA does.

[c] The report indicates that most information regarding households and eligible dividend recipients will come from IRS tax filings.  Section 14 states that there were 147 million filings in 2013 that covered about 290 million people.  It estimates that about 25 million other people were not included in the IRS filings and “would have had to be covered on forms with their identifying information in order to begin receiving Dividend payments in that year.”

In other words, about 8% of potentially eligible dividend recipients were not in the IRS database in 2013.  To receive dividends they would have had to file some kind of form.

[d] The CCL recommendation is that carbon fee dividends be subject to federal income tax.  It follows that all dividend recipients should be registered in the SSA system and have numbers that will serve as tax IDs.  When this is done, and the Version 2 formula is used, there will be no need to use IRS data and to supplement this data with filings on a new form.

CFD administrators will not have to get any data from IRS, but they will send 1099 forms to IRS each year to report payments to dividend recipients.

[e] Experience with the ACA shows that opposition to CFD will not end with adoption of legislation to implement the system.  In fact, it may grow as carbon fees grow, prices of things that depend on fossil fuel rise significantly, and people and businesses that have done little to reduce their dependence feel the bite.

The transition from fossil fuel will take decades.  My own goal is to be completely off fossil fuel in the U.S. in forty years [OFF in 40].  It is essential that the program earn and retain broad public support.  Program administration must be seen as efficient and fair.    There follow two examples where policing to assure fairness will be necessary.

I assume here that only those immigrants who have permanent visas will be eligible for dividends.  It follows that CFD administrators must have some means to verify this.

SSA routinely verifies the legal status of persons who apply to be in the system.  IRS does not have an equivalent operation, and will have to set one up to handle the new people who file to get carbon dividends.  This is a reason to use SSA data and not IRS data.

Most people are honest, but not all.   With Version 1, a couple with children of ages 13, 15, and 17 are entitled to two full and two half shares.  I am assuming here that a dividend in a typical year will be worth $1500, so the two full and two half shares  will be worth $45oo.  The parents may lie and declare the older child to be 19.  Then they will get another full dividend worth $1500.

To catch these frauds, CFD administrators will need birthdates for dependent children.  They can get this information from SSA, but not from IRS.

The second policing challenge above will go away with Version 2 dividend allocation and birthdates from SSA.

[f] The most frequent objection to CFD that I hear is that we can’t trust government to return all net fee revenue [gross revenue minus administrative expenses] to the public.  This is a major argument for setting up an independent agency that can be audited easily, and I will return to this in another post.

A similar concern will develop as people understand better the formula for allocating dividends for children.  They will want to be sure that the formula is applied exactly as the law directs.

Administration of the allocation process will be much easier, and less error prone, with Version 2 than with Version 1.  And it will be much easier for an inspector general to audit and report the results.

[g] Version 2 proposes that dividends be sent to individuals, not to households, roughly doubling the number of payments.  Section 8 of the report talks about “the extremely low cost of making payments by electronic transfers to bank accounts…”  Section 21 states that “automated payment costs are very low…”

The total cost of using Version 2, even with the additional payments, will probably be much less than using Version 1 with the IRS database, that must be supplemented with additional filings.

[h] The Lerman/Richter report describes a complicated process for allocating and distributing dividends, and it prompts more questions than I have addressed above.  This post is already long and I will leave those questions for another day.

[6] The IRS has tons of private financial and personal data, and there is a strong tradition that this data should not be disclosed and used for other purposes. The Lerman/Richter report notes this in Section 36:  “Yes, section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code generally imposes strict nondisclosure requirement on IRS’ taxpayer information including information IRS receives from other government agencies.”

The report further states:  “Thus, the enabling legislation for the Dividend program would need to include the appropriate amendments to section 6103 … to permit the relevant government agencies and contractors to have access to the IRS data that they will need to implement the Carbon Fee and the Dividend.”

There is a similar statement for SSA data.

I propose that the CFD database be populated initially by a one-time transfer of all the necessary SSA data.  Limit future data transfers to persons that are added to the SSA database.  Hold dividend recipients responsible for notifying CFD administrators directly of address or bank account changes, and provide convenient ways for them to do this.

Some persons may be in the initial SSA data transfer, who have SS numbers because they have temporary work permits, but who are not permanent residents and not eligible for dividends.  If their visa status changes to permanent, hold them responsible for notifying CFD administrators directly and providing appropriate proof.

With this system there will never be any reason for CFD administrators to use or access IRS data.  And no reason for tax filers to worry that the privacy of their data will be compromised.  And no reason for those, who are not tax filers now, to start filing.

Of course, anyone who wants a dividend will have to register in the SSA database.

Limit transfer of SSA data to that for new people after the initial large data transfer.

[7] Because CFD administrators will need nothing from IRS, and they will need little from SSA after the CFD database is populated the first time, it will be very easy to put them in a new independent agency.  This is something I strongly advocate and will address again in another post.

Wrapup

There are many reasons for CCL to replace the Version 1 dividend allocation formula with Version 2.  They fall into three categories:

  • The change will distribute dividends to families with children in a manner that better reflects the needs of the families.
  • It will open a path for a simpler and lower cost method for allocating and distributing dividends.
  • It will remove many potential sources of argument that can undermine support for a system of Carbon Fee and Dividend, both before and after its implementation.

I see no downsides to a change from Version 1 to Version 2, apart from making and reporting it.  The longer we wait to make this change, the more difficult it will become.

Bill Allen    08-08-16 new    08-24-16 revised

 

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Fire and Flood

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Site Admin

The article below mirrors a letter submitted to the Bernardsville News today, except that the letter does not include the charts.  Bill Allen,  06-27-16

The letter was posted on the paper’s web site on 07-12-16 and in the print edition today.    Bill Allen,  07-14-16

EDITOR:

Fire and flood led the evening news this past weekend. Fires in California, that are not yet under control, have killed at least two people and destroyed 200 homes.  Flooding from the greatest rainfall in 100 years has claimed at least 26 lives in West Virginia.  (This is written on June 27.)

A fire began in Alberta in early May. It raged for several weeks and became the most costly natural disaster in Canadian history.  There was severe flooding in Texas in late May.

Scientists believe global warming is contributing to the severity and frequency of these events. Fire and flood are two sides of the same climate coin.  My focus here is on fire.

I recently finished the book Tipping Point for Planet Earth by Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly, a husband and wife team who have dedicated their professional lives to the study of ancient climates and their effects on living organisms.  Hadley was doing field work in Yellowstone National Park in 1988 and had to evacuate her site when the huge forest fire of that year got too close.

Looking back she believes that this signaled a tipping point. Since then large fires have occurred more frequently and more acreage has been burned.  Let’s look at some data reported for the U.S. by the National Interagency Fire Center.

In the 28-year period ending in 1987, there was only one year in which total burned acres of “wildland” exceeded 7.1 million acres. In the 28-year period that followed there were nine such years.  The worst year of record was 2015 with 10.1 million acres.   This is 2.2 times the size of New Jersey.

Burned acres vary greatly from year to year, so it’s best to group results and look at averages. Below are averages for 10-year periods.

  • 1966 to 1975   3.7 million acres burned per year
  • 1976 to 1985   3.3 million acres burned per year
  • 1986 to 1995   2.9 million acres burned per year
  • 1996 to 2005   5.5 million acres burned per year
  • 2006 to 2015   7.0 million acres burned per year

Click here for charts with above data.

Over the first 30 years the trend was slightly down. But in the past 20 years the average burned acres have more than doubled.  The trend is strongly up.

We are on a path for another record year. The National Research Council reports that 1.6 million acres were burned through May of this year, compared to 0.4 million acres for the same period last year.

Scientists cite these factors to explain what they see:

  • Rising global temperatures bring earlier springs.
  • Snow melts earlier.
  • Higher temperatures dry out the land and vegetation, making it easier to burn.
  • The fire season starts earlier and lasts longer.

They estimate that a rise in one degree Celsius (equal to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increases burned acreage in our West by a factor of four.

I enjoyed talking with people about climate at our Citizen’s Climate Lobby booth at Charter Day, and at similar events in Bridgewater and south Hunterdon. I found that about half have some concern for climate change.  But very few understand that it is happening now and already producing costly and potentially very dangerous impacts.

Many are acting in their own lives to conserve energy and use alternative energy, like solar power. This reduces the burning of fossil fuel and the production of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

But these individual actions are not enough.  We need a worldwide effort to phase out fossil fuels.  The U.S. should lead.  Sadly, today it is lagging.

I repeat here a recommendation I have made several times in this space: Congress should enact legislation to implement a system of carbon fee and dividend.

More discussion of this proposal, and charts that display the data used above, are on my website JerseyGrandpa.com.

Bill Allen    06-27-16

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The Carbon Tax Debate

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Site Admin

Economist Paul Krugman writes a column in the NY Times twice weekly and blogs almost daily.  He has an excellent blog post on April 28 on the issue of “carbon taxes”, which are taxes on the CO2 that is produced when a fossil fuel is burned.  See Krugman April 28.

In the post he refers to two very interesting columns in Vox by economist David Roberts.  The links are Roberts April 22 and Roberts April 26.  The latter column ends with a good discussion of a system of carbon fee and dividend.  He sees both pros and cons.

There were 100+ comments on the Krugman post, and some discussed carbon fee and dividend.  I submitted the comment that follows.

Bill Allen,    04-30-16

===========================================================

Let’s begin with some basics.

The earth is warming and climate is changing.

Humans can slow this warming by reducing burning of fossil fuels.

A good way, perhaps the best way, to reduce the use of something is to raise its price.

A fee imposed on fossil fuels will do this.

A fee on fossil fuels, usually called a “carbon tax”, has been proposed by some for decades.

The word “tax” is toxic in the current political environment.

Now consider a system of “carbon fee and dividend” that is mentioned in some earlier comments. Here’s how it will work.

  • Put gradually rising fee on all fossil fuels.
  • Divide revenue into equal shares and return it to citizens as dividends.
  • Rising price of fossil fuels will send price signal to conserve energy and to replace fossil energy with non-fossil sources.
  • Business community will respond with more energy efficient products and alternative energies like solar and nuclear.
  • Dividends will help citizens adjust and facilitate transition from fossil fuels.

The fee will not be a tax, because government will not keep the revenue or control how it is used.

Billions of private purchase decisions in consumer and business communities will drive the transition to a low carbon economy. Hundreds of billions of dollar will fuel the transition.

The government can get out of the business of regulating or subsidizing the transition.

What’s there not to like?

Bill Allen    04-29-16

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A better way to slow global warming and climate change

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Site Admin

The letter below was submitted to the Bernardsville News on 03-27-16 and published in the print edition on 04-07-16.

EDITOR:

I expect that most of your readers know that the earth is warming and changing our climate, and that we contribute to this warming when we burn fossil fuels and produce the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).

And there may be some who resist the evidence of warming, and even deny that there is a problem, because they fear that action to slow this warming will grow government and regulation. I write here for them.

Under authority granted by the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed and promulgated the Clean Power Plan (CPP) to reduce overall CO2 emissions to 68% of 2005 levels by 2030. This plan assigns a CO2 reduction goal to each state and directs the state to submit a plan to achieve its goal.

Twenty-seven states and other organizations sued EPA and claimed it had exceeded its authority. These challenges were consolidated into one case to be heard before the D.C. Circuit Court.  In February the Supreme Court stayed further action to implement the CPP until the issues are argued and decided in the lower court.

The CPP illustrates what some people fear: Regulations will be designed, implemented, and enforced by governments.  Compliance will be monitored, reported, reviewed, and probably questioned.  The work of federal and state agencies will grow, and so will costs.  Regulations may be controversial and generate costly litigation, producing delays and unpredictable outcomes.

The CPP has two other critical flaws:  The American people will not be fully engaged in solving the warming problem.  If implemented, the CPP will solve only a small part of the problem.

There is a better way, one that is driven by free market forces and that engages all participants in the economy. I have discussed it several times in these pages.  It is a system of “carbon fee and dividend” (CFD).

Impose a “carbon fee” on each fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) and collect it at its source (mine, well, port of entry). Base the fee on the amount of CO2 produced when the fuel is burned.  Start the fee low and raise it by a set amount each year until total CO2 emissions decline to a target level, say to 10% of the current level by 2050.

A fundamental holding in economics is that the use of something tends to decrease when its cost increases. The cost of almost everything we buy is influenced by the cost of energy, and fossil fuels are the source of most of that energy.

Rising fees on fossil fuels will gradually raise the costs of most products and services. The prices of things that depend most on fossil fuels will rise most rapidly and push buyers away from those things most rapidly.  The business community (entrepreneurs, inventors, investors, manufacturers) will see profit opportunities and act to facilitate this transition.

A key provision of CFD is that all revenue be divided into equal shares and returned to citizens as “dividends.” These dividends will facilitate their transition to smaller “carbon footprints” and their purchases will do the same for businesses.

Example: The national transition will be decades-long.  A family may choose to improve its home insulation, buy more efficient appliances, live in a smaller house, and/or live closer to work or mass transportation.

Example:  The nuclear power industry may project the phase out of fossil fuels from electricity generation, recognize the ongoing need for 24/7 baseline power, and commercialize small modular nuclear power plants, for which many designs already exist.

CFD has important features that should appeal to those who want smaller government and less regulation.

First: The transition to a lower national carbon footprint will be driven by billions of private purchase decisions in consumer and business communities, not by governments.

Second: It will be fueled by hundreds of billions of dollars of fee revenue, all of which will be returned to the economy.  None will be captured by government.

Third: The federal government can discontinue subsidies relating to conservation and commercial energy production (no more Solyndras), and then focus on support of basic research where it has historically done a good job.

What’s there not to like?

Bill Allen     03-27-16

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Supreme Court justices: 18 years and out

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Site Admin

The letter below was submitted to the Bernardsville News on 02-29-16 and published in the print edition on 03-04-16. 

EDITOR:

Two writers here on February 25 commented on filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court produced by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Both made suggestions for dealing with this critical issue.

The choice of the person to fill a vacancy is enormously important for two reasons.

First: Supreme Court rulings become the law of the land and often are in opposition to strong opinions of large segments of the American people.  Recent examples:

  • The Citizens United ruling in 2010 facilitated greater election spending by the rich and powerful.
  • The Affordable Care Act was upheld in 2012.
  • The court ruled against a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, and made it easier for states like North Carolina and Texas to make voting more difficult for poor people and students.
  • The Defense of Marriage Act was overturned in 2013.

Each of these cases was decided by a vote of 5 to 4.

Second: A justice will probably serve for a long time.  Four justices have left the court since 2005 for reasons of death or resignation.  They served for an average of 28 years.  The average age of those who replaced them was 53 years at the time of their appointment.

I propose here a simple change that will facilitate a more orderly and less contentious process: Appoint a new justice in July of each odd numbered year to serve for a term of 18 years.  I see several benefits.

  • Each president will have two scheduled opportunities to appoint a justice during a 4-year term. He or she and the Senate can plan for these.
  • Fresh judicial blood will be added every two years. The court will more accurately reflect the philosophies of recently elected presidents and senators.
  • There will be no incentive to appoint young justices.
  • Justices will know when their terms will end.
  • Appointments will not be in an election year.
  • The stakes will be lower in any specific appointment.

Follow the standard practice for nomination by the president and advice and consent by the Senate.

There should be fewer vacancies caused by resignation or death. If one occurs, follow standard practice to fill the unexpired term.

This proposal will require an amendment to the Constitution. With today’s polarized politics, amendment proposals are usually dead on arrival.

The change proposed here will be fair and produce no advantage for any part of the political spectrum. It will reduce the likelihood of disputes like the one we see today.  It could, and should receive bipartisan support.

Bill Allen    02-29-16

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Terrorist Acts and Climate Change

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Site Admin

The letter below was submitted to the Bernardsville News on 12-06-15 and published in the print edition on 12-10-15.  A small correction in the third paragraph was made here on 01-28-16.

EDITOR:

Terrorist acts and climate change have dominated the headlines this past week, and there have been arguments about which is the greater threat and requires more urgent action.  This is a pointless dispute.

Terrorist acts threaten the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands in this generation.  Climate change threatens the lives of millions in future generations.  These threats are related and we must address both.

Every four years the Pentagon engages in a Quadrennial Defense Review and issues a report.  The last was issued in March of 2014.  It contains this paragraph:

“Terrorists remain willing and able to threaten the United States, our citizens, and our interests – from conducting major and well-coordinated attacks to executing attacks that are smaller and less complex. … Foreign terrorist groups affiliated with al Qaida, as well as individual terrorist leaders, may seek to recruit or inspire Westerners to carry out attacks against our homeland with little or no warning. Homegrown violent extremists, for instance, have attacked DoD personnel and installations.”

Threats, like the tragic shootings in San Bernardino, are anticipated.

The report continues:

“Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large.  As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world.  These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.”

The concept of “threat multiplier” in the concluding sentence above is key, and the rise of the Islamic State shows how this can work.

For decades climate scientists have warned that global warming will produce more extreme weather, including severe droughts.  Northeastern Syria suffered the worst drought in 40 years in 2006-10.  A million farmers moved off the land into cities crowded with another million refugees from the Iraq war.  The Assad government did little to help them.  Unrest, encouraged by the Arab spring, developed into a civil war.

Leadership of what has become the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL) grew from the remnants of al Qaida that had been crushed during the “surge” in the Iraq war in 2007-08.  In the turmoil of civil war it established a new base in northeast Syria and eventually expanded back into Iraq.

The drought did not alone produce the Islamic State that we see today.  But it was a threat multiplier and provided sparks that helped light the fire.

Another example in brief:  There is reason to believe that war in the Darfur region of Sudan in the 2000s was triggered by declining water supplies, and that these were caused by climate change.

There are many reasons for moving aggressively to slow global warming and climate change.  Civil unrest and terrorist activity are ones that have received too little attention.

I write this as the Paris climate talks are winding down.  My hope is that some substantive agreements will emerge.  However, I am also sure that these will not match the magnitude of the problem.

We must do more and attack vigorously both climate change and terrorist activity.

Bill Allen,    12-06-15,

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Americans support government action to slow global warming and climate change

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Site Admin

Letter below was submitted for publication to Bernardsville News on 04-17-15.  It was published with some minor edits in the print edition on 04-23-15 and is published on line here. 

EDITOR:

In a letter published here on February 26, I proposed that President Obama and Congress adopt compromise legislation that would authorize the Keystone XL pipeline and include sense-of-Congress language that follows:

“Human activities are increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and thereby contributing to global warming and climate change.  The federal government should act to reduce these activities.”

New data show broad support in America for this finding and proposal.  The Yale project on Climate Change Communication has surveyed public attitudes on these issues for many years.  On April 6 it published an extensive analysis on line.  It lists fourteen claims and proposals, and the percentages of agreement and disagreement with each.

There are data for the whole country, for individual states, and for individual counties and congressional districts within each state.  Maps allow one to point and click on a region to select data.  I report some percentages of agreement below.  (Click Yale Climate Opinion Maps and see more.)

The analysis begins with this claim:  “Global warming is happening.”

Large majorities agree:  All US (63%) and all NJ (68%).  Results for counties in our region are Morris (66%) and Somerset (70%).

The next claim is: “Global warming is caused by mostly human activities.”

About half agree:  US (46%), NJ (52%), Morris (46%), Somerset (54%).

Four statements are proposals for government action:  fund research for renewable energy;  regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant;  set limits on CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants;  require electric utilities to produce 20% of electricity from renewable sources.

The averages for these four proposals to regulate CO2 emissions and use more renewable energy show support by large majorities:  US (69%), NJ (74%), Morris (71%), Somerset (73%).

I have argued several times in this space that the most effective government action will be implementation of a system of carbon fee and dividend.

  • Impose a fee on each fossil fuel, based on the quantity of CO2 produced when it is burned.
  • Start low and raise the fee by a fixed amount each year.
  • Divide fee revenue into equal shares and return it to citizens as dividends.
  • Allow consumers, business community, and free market to pick winners and losers.

This system will require Congressional authorization, so it’s useful to look at survey results for our local congressional districts.  Data for District 7, represented by Leonard Lance, average 71% support for the four government actions in the survey, and data for District 11, represented by Rodney Frelinghuysen, average 72%.  Voters in these districts tend to be conservative, so the broad support for government action is surprising and very significant.

The last survey statement is:  “A carbon tax if refunded to every American household.”

This appears to be a proposal for a system of carbon fee and dividend, and I could be discouraged by the relatively low levels of support:  US (44%), NJ (49%), Morris (46%), Somerset (45%).  The 43% support in both District 7 and 11 is lower than the state average.  For three reasons I am not discouraged.

  • The proposal uses the inappropriate word “tax”, a turnoff for most people and a show-stopper for many.  A system that refunds carbon fee revenue to households is not a tax.
  • The concept of a system, that will collect fees, divide the revenue, and return it to citizens, is novel and not well understood.
  • Most important, the survey data show that large majorities support government action to reduce CO2 emissions and move to renewable energy.

Those of us, who share these objectives and propose a strategy of carbon fee and dividend, have a two-part challenge:  persuade members of Congress and their constituents that implementation of a system of carbon fee and dividend really is the best strategy, and that a fee, that is returned to people to use as they decide, is not a tax.  We will work to meet this challenge.

Bill Allen    04-17-15

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Do higher auto fuel prices lead to higher fuel efficiency?

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Site Admin

History says:  Yes!

Baby boomers, and those of us who are older, remember the rapid rise of gasoline prices in the 1970s and the long lines at the gas pumps.  The rise began after the OPEC petroleum cartel decided in 1973 to reduce overall production.  It was given another boost when Iranians revolted and deposed the Shah in 1979.

I have found  data on average fuel prices (gasoline and diesel) since 1970 and on average fuel efficiency for cars and small trucks since 1975.  These are displayed in a spreadsheet with charts at Auto Fuel Cost and MPG.  The charts in Sheet 1 show the price by year in dollars per gallon ($PG) and the fuel efficiency in miles per gallon (MPG).  All prices are adjusted for inflation to 2005 dollar equivalents.

(Tip:  Open this narrative and the spreadsheet in separate windows, narrow them, and position them side by side.  You will be able to read the text and see the charts at the same time.)

A low price of $1.35 per gallon appears in 1972.  It jumps to $1.73 in 1974 after the OPEC cutback and peaks at $2.59 in 1981.  Then begins a decline into the 1990s that hits bottom at $1.30 in 1998.

(Tip:  You can hover over a dot on a chart and read the data values.)

Another steep rise begins in 1999 and tops out at $3.06 in 2008.  This rise is more orderly and was the result of gradually expanding world demand.  The economic meltdown of 2008 started another downward trend in 2009.  The data stops at 2010.

Those of us, who advocate adding a fee to the price of a fossil fuel at its source, based on the quantity of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced when the fuel is burned, look for empirical evidence that this “carbon fee”, that raises the price of the fuel, really does lead to a reduction in that fuel’s consumption.

The data presented here demonstrate that higher auto fuel prices led to higher fuel efficiencies during two periods in our nation’s history.  Chart 1A on Sheet 1 shows prices and Chart 1B shows fuel efficiency.  Both charts show rises in the 1970s and again in the 2000s, but the efficiency rises lag the price rises.  This lag is two years in the 1970s and five years in the 2000s.

In Sheet 2, Chart 2A contains a scatter plot for the fuel efficiency and price in the 1970s, and Chart 2B contains the same for the 2000s.  Both show good correlations.

I remember the 1970s.  Rising prices caught everyone’s attention.  People wanted more fuel efficient cars and quickly.  Toyota and other Japanese car makers could provide these cars and Detroit could not.  This enabled the Japanese to gain a foothold in the U.S. market.  The trendline on Chart 2A shows that the average MPG improvement during this period was 6.0 miles per gallon for each dollar per gallon of fuel price increase.

The price rise in the 2000s was less dramatic and the response was slower and weaker.  The average MPG improvement was 2.8 miles per gallon for each dollar of price increase.

A fundamental holding in economics is that a rise in the price of a commodity (material, product, service) tends to reduce the demand for that commodity.  Economists use the statistic “price elasticity of demand” to measure this tendency, and define it as the percentage change in demand divided by the percentage change in price.

The commodity analyzed here is auto fuel and the demand is the quantity of fuel consumed.  The quantity of fuel consumed is the product of the miles driven and the fractional gallon consumed for each mile.  Each is a component of the overall price elasticity of demand, and rising auto fuel prices during the two periods could have affected each component independently.

This analysis, however, deals only with the second component.  The fractional gallon consumed per mile (GPM) is the reciprocal of MPG.  Our data shows a positive correlation of MPG with $PG, and this corresponds to a negative correlation of GPM with $PG.

Sheet 2 shows the calculations of price elasticity of demand for each period and the results.  They are -0.64 for the 1970s price rise and -0.27 for the 2000s price rise.    The average of these is -0.46.

Bill Allen    04-04-15 revised

 

 

 

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