A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:
Transcript
A new report on competition in the electric utility industry says
costly times may be ahead for residential ratepayers. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details:
Several states in the Midwest and elsewhere have tried to foster
competition in the utility industry. The National Association of State
Public Interest Research Groups says some business customers have been
able to save money by shopping around, but most residential electric
customers have not seen the same benefits. In fact, study author Tony
Dutzik says in some states with market restructuring, rate caps are
coming off.
“And there has been widespread concern in a number of those places that
when those rate caps do come off, consumers could be facing significant
increases in rates, and indeed has happened in a couple of instances
where rate caps have been lifted already.”
Dutzick says electric competition has also led to a lack of long-term
planning that could trigger more blackouts and other reliability
problems, but utilities in some states say to make the system more
reliable they’re trying to boost the supply of electricity. The
companies say rates in the region are still a relative bargain.
For the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.
A new study finds that building “green” is better for the bottom line than originally thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports this is the first study to compile economic data from green buildings across the nation:
Transcript
A new study finds that building “green” is better for the bottom line than originally thought. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports this is the first study to compile
economic data from green buildings across the nation:
This study was funded by several California state agencies, but looks at a couple hundred
buildings across the nation that were designed to be environmentally friendly. Gregory Kats is
the principal author of the study. He says because the buildings are more efficient, they save
money in areas such as maintenance costs and energy usage.
“The net benefits are, over a twenty year period, about ten times larger than the additional cost.
So, it represents a substantial opportunity for building investors to have higher financial returns
and create buildings that are more comfortable, higher performance, better for the environment,
healthier work and living environments.”
Kats says that means public officials such as school board members can justify on economic
grounds alone, building “green” buildings, and at the same time know that they’re healthier for
the kids in the classroom.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
There’s a plan in place to clean up a PCB-contaminated river. It could be one of the most comprehensive, and most expensive, river cleanups ever done in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:
Transcript
There’s a plan in place to clean up a PCB-contaminated river. It could be one of the most comprehensive, and most expensive, river cleanups ever done in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:
The Fox River, which flows into Green
Bay, is the biggest source of PCBs
emptied into Lake Michigan.
Tom Skinner is with the EPA’s Great
Lakes National Program Office. He
says the Fox cleanup will be one of
the most ambitious ever.
“There’s a lot of talk about the
Hudson River project. This project has
the Hudson beat in a number of different ways.”
Such as: the cleanup may cost
400-million dollars, and Skinner says
the amount of contaminants to be
removed is also significant.
“The analogy we’ve used previously is that a
cubic yard is equivalent to a very
compact refrigerator. We’re
going to take probably over 7 million
of those out of the river.”
Seven paper companies that
dumped the PCBs in the river will
pay the cost of the project.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Patty Murray.
The EPA wants communities to do more to protect drinking water from a harmful microorganism. That could mean several changes for cities around the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
The EPA wants communities to do more to protect
drinking water from a harmful microorganism. That could mean
several changes for cities around the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Ten years ago, a Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee led to
the deaths of more than 100 people who had weakened immune
systems. The outbreak sickened 400,000 other people.
Since that time, Milwaukee has made 100 million dollars in water treatment plant
improvements. Milwaukee waterworks superintendent Carrie Lewis
says the EPA’s plan to make all drinking water treatment
systems monitor and guard against the microbe means some
cities face new construction at their water treatment buildings.
“Because one doesn’t easily add more barriers to
organisms like Cryptosporidium without adding more physical plant
to the water treatment plants.”
Lewis expects some cities to debate the cost and benefits of the
rule package.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chuck
Quirmbach reporting.
Economists and urban planners are beginning to look at the hidden costs of sprawl. They're finding many people pay, but only a few benefit from the costs. Photo by Lester Graham.
Even if you don’t live in an upscale suburb in a sprawling metropolitan area, you’re likely paying to support that suburb. Economists and urban planners find there are hidden costs that are not paid by the people who live in those suburbs. Instead, much of the costs are paid by the majority of us who don’t live there. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Even if you don’t live in an upscale suburb in a sprawling metropolitan area, you’re likely paying to support that suburb. Economists and urban planners find there are hidden costs that are not paid by the people who live in those suburbs. Instead, much of the costs are paid by the majority of us who don’t live there. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
If you just bought a home that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a neighborhood of similar big expensive houses… you probably think you’ve already paid your fair share to attain the good life. The mortgage is a monthly reminder. And the real estate taxes are another. But the price you’re paying is just the beginning of the costs that make it possible for you to live there. Much of the rest of it is paid by people outside of your suburb; people who never realize the benefits.
Myron Orfield is the author of the book “American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality.” He says the people who live in the upscale suburbs get the advantages of the good schools and the nice roads… but they don’t pay all of the underlying costs. Much of that is passed on to others…
“Most of us don’t-aren’t able to live in the communities with 400-thousand dollar houses and massive office parks and commercial industrial. Only about seven or eight percent of us can afford to live there and the rest of the region really pays the freight for that.”
That’s because the rest of the region pays the county and state taxes that make the roads and nice schools possible. Orfield says a residential area alone doesn’t generate enough tax revenue to pay the full costs.
“So we all subsidize that development and so when all the resources of the region concentrate in six or seven percent of the region’s population, it really hurts the vast majority of the people.”
And while the cost of supporting the upscale neighborhoods is substantial, that’s just the beginning of the hidden costs of sprawl.
In most cases, those nice suburbs are nice because they’re situated away from the hub-bub of the daily grind of work and traffic and hassle. The people who live there might have to drive a little farther to get to work, but, hey, when they DO get home, it’s a complete escape, worth the extra drive time. Right?
William Testa is an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. As an economist, he measures things by how efficient they might be. He says driving a little farther from the nice suburbs to work and back wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
“If people want to travel further because they can live better, then it’s their choice and they feel they live better with a longer commute, then we wouldn’t necessarily call that an inefficiency. When it can be inefficient is when people don’t pay
for the costs of their own travel.”
And that’s the rub. If you decide to drive 30 miles to work instead of ten miles, the taxes on the extra gasoline you burn don’t begin to pay the extra costs of that decision… Again, William Testa…
“The spill-over costs that they don’t internalize when you decide to get in your car and drive someplace, such as to your job, is environmental degradation, the cost of road maintenance isn’t directly paid for when you decide how many miles to drive, maintain the road, the police, ambulance services and the like. So, economists would say that driving is not priced correctly to have people efficiently choose how many miles they choose to drive.”
While urban sprawl’s economic costs to society are substantial, there might be larger costs.
When an upper-middle income family chooses to live in an enclave of others in their tax bracket, it’s a given that the people who teach their children, who police the neighborhoods, and fight the fires are not going to be able to afford to live there.
In fact, those who would work in the restaurants and at the service stations in many cases can’t take those jobs because they can’t afford the housing and they can’t afford the commute.
Emily Talen is an urban planner at the University of Illinois. She says
that’s a cost that can’t always be measured in dollars and cents. It’s a separation of the haves and the have-nots.
“Social cost is that fragmentation, that separation, that segregation really on an income level more than anything else.”
Talen says when people decide they can afford the good life in the nice suburb, the new American dream, they often only think of their own success, but not about the costs to others.
“This is what our nation is founded on. I mean, it is founded on the pursuit of happiness and I think that that has been kind of problematic for people thinking in terms of their own individual happiness rather than issues about the common good.”
And so, Talen says when a town decides it will only allow expensive houses to be built, it’s decided that all labor for its services will be imported from out of town. The expense of that decision is borne by everyone else… especially the lower-income people forced to commute.
William Testa at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago says in the end, that cost might be the greatest one to society at large.
“This, it seems to me, is un-American and very un-democratic and something that we ought to think about very seriously. Could we really live with ourselves in a society where there aren’t housing options available for people to make a livelihood, to follow the opportunity for their livelihood.”
The experts say there’s nothing wrong with pursuing the good life, as long as everyone is paying their fair share of the cost. They say right now, that’s not happening… and those who never benefit from a pleasant life in the suburbs are paying much of the cost for others to do so.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Economists and urban planners are beginning to look at the hidden costs of sprawl. They're finding many people pay, but only a few benefit from the costs. Photo by Lester Graham.
Economists and urban planners are beginning to calculate some of the hidden costs of urban sprawl to society. The experts say those costs are often borne by people who don’t enjoy the benefits of living in the expensive new suburbs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Economists and urban planners are beginning to calculate some of the hidden costs of urban sprawl to society. The experts say those costs are often borne by people who don’t enjoy the benefits of living in the expensive new suburbs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
When a town in a sprawling metropolitan area limits development to big expensive houses, that means the people who work in the service stations and the restaurants have to live somewhere else. They are forced to commute. That means a greater demand for roads. And that costs all of us. William Testa is with the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. He says an even greater cost is lost opportunity for those who can’t even afford to make the commute to the jobs…
“The higher costs may be on people in the inner-city – or wherever – in low-income areas who can’t afford to live close to the places where the job demand is, where the jobs are being created.”
Testa says developing suburbs should consider building affordable housing for workers. If that doesn’t happen, he says society should find a way for those suburbs to pay the cost of their decisions.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
