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Thursday, July 26, 2007
730 Wyoming`s low, low gasoline tax
Some folks think it`s time to raise Wyoming’s gasoline taxes. We are, by far, the lowest taxed drivers in the lower 48 states.
Our state tax is just 14 cents a gallon for gas and 13 cents for diesel.
Travelers passing through our state pay much higher taxes in every state around us. For example: Nebraska 28 cents, Utah 24.5 cents, Colorado 22 cents, Idaho 25 cents, Montana 27 cents and South Dakota 22 cents.
A legislative panel has concluded that we need money to repair our roads and will push for a 10-cent increase over three years. It would raise $70 million to repair roads. Frankly, $70 million does not go as far as it used to. Would not fix much of I-80, that is for sure.
This proposal has about as much chance to survive as a snowball in my backyard during the 101-degree heat this afternoon.
However, there is a way to make it palatable to Cowboy State citizens.
We should consider such a tax increase but only in the context that Wyoming people deserve an energy rebate along with it.
Because of interstate regulations, often our citizens cannot benefit from the fact that so much energy is generated here. Often we pay an interstate price based on cost of moving energy from its origin to a processing plant and then back, even though it never leaves the state.
It is not fair to people here. Not by a long shot.
People in Oregon can buy timber cheaper. People in Iowa can buy corn cheaper. People in Florida can be buy oranges cheaper. Why? Because those products are produced locally.
So why can’t we pay lower prices here for energy? Is there a way around this?
One way would be to go ahead and charge the high prices but then send a rebate back to our consumers. This could be done as a sales tax rebate like Minnesota did for its citizens a few years ago.
Creative people could find a way if they wanted to.
Over in Jackson Hole, visionary Clay James says: “We need to do something as our roads are growing worse by the day. I think tourism is way up this year as people think gas is going to $5 per gallon next year.”
Another smart guy is Lander B&B owner Marv Brown who contends gas prices are normal right now: “I maintain that the price of gas today, in terms of hourly wages, is about the same as it was when I graduated from college in Wichita, Kansas in 1959.
“Gasoline then was 29 to 33 cents a gallon depending on the status of gas wars. Hourly wages were 80 cents to $1 per hour. About a third of an hour`s work for a gallon of gas.
"Today gasoline has been around $2.94 to $3.06 per gallon. Wages in Lander for the working man is around $8 to $10 per hour. Or about one third of an hour`s work for one gallon of gas,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Utah lawmakers are so upset about their roads, they are contemplating putting in an additional 4.5 cent tax on their fuel, making it the highest in the Rocky Mountain Region.
Gov. John Huntsman, though, has been dealing with complaints from citizens far and wide about price gouging by gas retailers. He even convened a governor’s commission to talk about it.
And there are the folks at the Peak project which, essentially, means they believe we are at near “peak” production of gasoline fuels world-wide and the resulting shortages could push a gallon of gas to $7 levels.
Their unique study talked about what would we do if that happened?
One Rocky Mountain aspect of it concerned how would people in the west feed themselves? The point is that it could become prohibitive to transport food.
Did you know that 55% of all gas taxes paid in the state are paid by out of state residents? Those legislators say that alone could be an argument for raising our tiny state tax.
Did you also know that those semis have to pay gas taxes for crossing our state even if they gas up here or not? Quite an interesting system in place, that is for sure.
Such a gas price hike might solve the problem of all those semi-trailer trucks traveling on I-80 across Wyoming. And it would eliminate the need for a gas tax because the roads won’t be getting wear and tear, after all.
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
729 It`s all about will power
Think globally. Act locally. – Environmental slogan.
It was during a hot and dry August four years ago that parts of the east coast went dark. The demands of air conditioners and other appliances over-taxed the national power grid and it shut down.
Utility officials are worried right now that the hot weather forecast for late July and August this year could cause another major breakdown.
And with all the talk about global warming, such a breakdown will be bring into focus the critical issue the people of this country have to face: Are we willing to endure cuts in available electricity as a way to save the planet from future global warming disasters?
The majority of the people of America are believing the concepts of global warming but do they have the will to change their lifestyles as a way to deal with it? What does this mean to Wyoming?
The state of California has gained world wide positive publicity because their leaders say they will limit their buys of electricity that is generated by coal fired plants in places like Wyoming.
The widespread concern over the environment means that publicly, we will also see some situations like that in Texas where buyers of a huge utility company canceled the construction of eight coal fired power plants in the face of environmental opposition.
That decision, alone, could negatively affect upwards of 7 percent of the coal produced in Wyoming in the next 10 years. That coal had been destined for these new Texas plants.
On the surface, you would think both of these headline-grabbing events would bode bad news for Wyoming‘s energy-driven economy. These apparently good-hearted actions fall under the label of the “ideal” versus the “real.”
We all want a cleaner environment. Here, it is easy to support efforts to develop clean coal technology. Wyoming has a 200-year supply of low sulphur coal – we are the Saudi Arabia of the world when it comes to coal. We think we can burn it cleanly here to power future plants.
Is Wyoming’s coal business threatened by these big national decisions concerning a turn away from conventional coal-fired power plants?
The reason there have been so many new plants on the drawing board is the public’s insatiable thirst for more energy for their computers, air conditioners and other devices.
When you look at the projections for power demands in this country, the forecast keeps going up. There is no anticipated decline in the demand for power anywhere in the country.
And both California and Texas are among the fastest-growing and largest economies in the USA. Both states have economies that are the size of other medium sized countries around the world.
My question is about willpower. Do the people of American (including California and Texas) have the will to change their lifestyles so that global warming, which is apparently caused by pollution, is curtailed?
Many politicians and concerned citizens are happy to see the headlines from places like California and Texas. But it all begs the question: Will they also be happy when the power goes off? What happens when blackouts and brownouts occur in these states?
Many Americans just think electricity comes from the receptacle in the wall. They do not realize that there is a coal-fired power plant somewhere in the intermountain west that is churning out megawatts, which are then transported a thousand miles and then delivered to each home.
Right now, it is oh-so-fashionable to talk about changing our light bulbs and driving hybrid cars. But it could take a dramatic amount of change in personal habits for our citizens to really make a difference that cuts pollution.
And as citizens of this country struggle with pollution, both in the ideal and the real, perhaps the real culprit is farther west. Way farther west.
China is building a new coal fired power plant every three weeks big enough to power a city the size of San Diego. That country has vast amounts of coal and intends to build 2,000 new plants in the next 23 years.
All that smoke and pollution from China then heads west into the atmosphere. As the world’s fastest-growing economy, its citizens are even more demanding than Americans in wanting and needing a secure source of electricity.
So when we ask if Americans have the will to turn down the power, can we also ask, what about citizens of other countries, too?
The answer is at the beginning of this column. Yes, we have to do what we can do to lessen our power usage, too, despite what is happening in other places.
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
728 Yellowstone dazzles foreigners
“You take us to heaven. Then you take us to hell.” – Uri Dan, journalist.
We in Wyoming know how wonderful Yellowstone is but the secret is out – all over the world. Today nearly one in four visitors to the world’s oldest national park, which is located here in our state, are from outside our country.
“Beel, do you realize how lucky you are to live near such a place?"
T hat question was posed to me some years ago while taking four international journalists on a tour of Yellowstone. They were in Jackson Hole attending a conference and wanted to see the park first-hand.
Heinz Tomek, head of the Austrian News Service and Adrian Weber, a reporter from Luxembourg, sat in the front seat of the rented mini-van.
Beside and behind me were two cantankerous Israeli reporters who aggressively disagreed with each other on almost everything. They were Uri Dan, a veteran reporter for the New York Post (who died Dec. 26 of lung cancer) and Yossi Sarid, formerly a long-time member of the Israel Knesset. Sarid is also an author and founder of an Israeli political magazine.
Yellowstone is my favorite place in the world, which qualified me as a pretty good tour guide. I am always surprised by people`s reactions to the wonders of the big park. This was going to be an interesting trip.
The talkative Yossi was speechless at the beauty of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was one of those classic Wyoming fall days when the sky is a deep blue with a bright yellow sun peeking through occasional wisps of white clouds. There was very little wind and the power of the unique waterfalls enveloped us. Yossi turned to me and said, “This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is all so clear. The air so pure.”
The power of the waterfall was dizzying as the water relentlessly flowed over the cliff in front of us and tumbled to the pool below.
All four men were heavy smokers and steady coffee drinkers although they complained about how weak American coffee can be.
It was amusing to see the lunch ordered by Uri and Yossi. Both ordered a spicy dish and then poured Tabasco sauce over the chili. No ulcers for these folks. They were debating each other constantly, usually in Hebrew.
Our next stop was the Norris Geyser Basin, which is the largest such thermal area in the world. It has a science fiction feel about it as you descend into this strange area of bubbling water, steam, shooting geysers and unstable ground.
“Beel,” Uri said. “One hour ago, you take us to heaven. Now you take us to hell! And we thought we lived in the land of the bible.” Other comments ranged from “Fellini must have designed this place.” Or “so, you have your Dead Sea, too.”
Uri and Yossi were both addicts of the CNN. They said they can`t live without it and were stunned to find a place in America without television sets. The conference was at Jackson Lake Lodge where the cabins didn`t have TVs at the time.
After three days, Uri said he was “finally getting weaned from CNN, but it is very, very difficult.”
As our tour continued, I told them about Colter`s Hell and the Lewis and Clark Expedition and why the park was created in the first place. And we talked about the history of the Lake Hotel and the Old Faithful Inn.
But the vast fires baffled them. They had heard about the 1988 fires but stared in disbelief at the extent of the damage still covering the forests and mountainsides. The size of the blaze was beyond their comprehension and the stark areas of burned timber depressed them. “How could something so awful happen in a place so beautiful?” Heinz asked. They were all familiar with the answer that this was supposedly nature`s way but they just couldn`t buy it.
While leaving the park, we spotted a big old bull elk near three cow elk. Over my objections, they jumped out of the van and ran over to the animals. They were able to get fairly close in the dense timber and watched in awe. The monarch easily moved through the closely aligned trees without hitting limbs with his antlers.
Then the bull elk started to bugle. It raised the hair on the back of my neck. What a wonderful, wilderness-type of sound. My friends were paralyzed in their tracks. “Why is he making that strange noise?” they asked.
I wanted to answer because he was so happy to live in such a place, too, and maybe in a way, that was true.
It might have sounded better than to just say he was wooing some girl friends.
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Thursday, July 5, 2007
727 This fire wants to burn
Those gorgeous red sunsets and that haze in the air, well, scare the heck out of people in my part of Wyoming. For we live next to the Shoshone.
The Shoshone National Forest is a jewel. It is so remarkable that it was the first “national” forest ever created. It was the first huge stand of trees with that declaration anywhere.
The mountains in this 3-million acre reserve in west central Wyoming are the tallest in the state. The views in the area are breathtaking and I am lucky enough to live within five miles of its border.
And the common fear of people near the Shoshone is that it will soon burn up. There are many reasons for this fear of fire danger. Two of the biggest are:
1) Successful fire fighting efforts have prevented fires in the forest over the past 60 years, creating huge amounts of deadfall.
2) The Northern Rocky Mountain Region is enduring its worst drought in 500 years.
You can add those two reasons to increased visitation by campers, hikers and horseback enthusiasts and increased housing subdivisions in and near the forest as danger signs.
Then there are oddball situations like the huge Colorado fire started in 2002 when a USFS employee Terry Barton was emotionally upset over a letter from her husband. So she burned the letter (and the forest). The subsequent fire destroyed 100,000 acres!
Somes years ago, a colleague and I were headed back to Lander from Jackson Hole late in the evening. An out of control wildfire was burning between Thermopolis and Riverton near Wind River Canyon. It was the Kates Basin Complex fire and burned 180,000 acres.
We stopped the car and stood there in the clear night and watched the mountainside burning.
Even though we were 50 miles away, the air smelled of smoke and you could clearly see plumes of fire arcing into the dark night. One fireman died in that blaze and another was severely injured.
As we stood there along highway 287 looking east, I had this eerie feeling that behind me was the potential of a much worse fire.
I recall looking over my shoulder at the huge blackness of the Shoshone National Forest and the Wind River Mountain Range at night. Nary a spark of light.
When would it erupt into flame? The sight in front of us that night was awesome and frightening. But the potential of that fire was small compared to what was possible in the Shoshone.
Five years later, the Shoshone still has not burned. But this year does not bode well. We had a wet spring so grass growth is high. Then late June was much hotter and windier than usual. It could be dry as tinder in some places up there.
As I write this, rivers are running somewhat above average in the wake of the annual runoff. It has even snowed on the Shoshone on June 7.
Fire danger? Despite a brief shower on the night of July 4, which partially snuffed some fireworks, the stage is set for serious fires all over Wyoming.
The Riverton National Weather Bureau office issued stern fire warnings for this past holiday week. They accurately predicted temperatures in the high 90s, winds in the high 30s and humidity less than 10 percent – well, you get the picture.
It was in late July and on into the fall of 1988 when Yellowstone burned.
Found an interesting account of fighting that fire, written by Jon Horton, who was both journalist and ex-fire fighter. Parts of his story go like this:
“I had experience on fires and years with helicopters so I was qualified to go to the remotest fire lines. Luckily, my first immediate supervisor was Pat Kaunert, a Class I Fire Information Officer from California`s Stanislaus National Forest.
“Let me add at this point that during the height of the fire activity one veteran that I worked with, said, in awe as we watched a thirty thousand foot-high column of smoke, ‘This country wants to burn.’
"Nothing in his experience had prepared him for the scale of the Yellowstone fires. Millions of acres seemed to be in the process of being wholly consumed. This was according to the best information that could be obtained - from sources as varied as infrared-sensing aircraft flying over the area by night to horseback scouts who returned with stories of whole drainages on fire and smoke obscuring the trails so badly that horses stumbled blindly in the dark of noon. This event was taking on the form of something outside of anyone`s experience, outside the accumulated knowledge of generations of fire management professionals.”
This description tells about the Yellowstone fires about as well as anything printed.
And it describes what will happen when the Shoshone decides, “this forest wants to burn.”
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