Recent News
New Chicago Bike Rental Plan
The Chicago Sun-Timesreports that Mayor Daley's bike-rental program has had a very positive start.
More than 1,500 bicycles were rented and 80 temporary memberships in the pilot program were sold during the first 17 days, prompting operators to lobby for a citywide expansion.
The project was inspired by the mayor's trip to Paris in 2007.
Thanks for your help beating Mama Grizzly
The Washington Post recently reported that Sarah Palin's PAC contributed $87,500 to candidates last quarter. Thanks to your help Committee for a Livable Future or LivPAC outdid this conservative potential presidential nominee by contributing $100,000 to members and candidates who will help Democrats keep the majority in November. And we did it without spending a dime on consultants!
Since its creation in 1996, LivPAC has made contributions to almost 200 Congressional candidates and helped elect and re-elect over 100 Members of the House and Senate from all parts of the country. We have raised more than $1.7 million to support the election of endorsed candidates. LivPAC currently ranks as the second largest environmental PAC and is in the top 15% of all Democratic leadership PACs.
All of these accomplishments could not have happened without your help!
This year Democrats are facing a tough election cycle. Washington pundits are claiming that Republicans have the momentum and there is a real possibility that House Democrats will lose seats and John Boehner could be Speaker - a very scary thought for us all!
Please consider contributing $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can afford so we can continue to elect Democratic candidates and keep our country moving towards a livable future. With your help we can continue to support more candidates than SarahPAC!
Earl Blumenauer Member of Congress, Founder of Committee for a Livable Future
Quarter Of American Bridges Declared Structurally Deficient or Functionally Obsolete
Scholars and Rogues blogs on the 51,394 bridges the federal Department of Transportation lists as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete and the stalled The Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009.
The repair and replacement rate of deficient or obsolete U.S. bridges is rising, however. According to DOT statistics, the number of lousy bridges has been reduced by 14,087 since 2000, an average of only 1,565 a year. So maybe (you remember, of course, all that talk about those shovel-ready stimulus projects?) that repair rate will increase, and we will have licked our bad bridge problem in only 100 years.Read More
Communities Putting Prevention to Work
The National Complete Streets Coalition is joining with the Department of Health and Human Services to to apply stimulus money in a new type of prevention effort. The Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) program is designed to address factors like poor nutrition and inactivity that lead to premature death.
But instead of the approaches you’d expect – ad campaigns and educational efforts aimed at individuals – HHS has determined that success will only come if we can, in the words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ursula Bauer, “redesign our communities to promote health instead of disease.” This is where Complete Streets comes in: as an effort that will help create inviting places to walk and bicycle over the long haul. We were invited to serve as faculty at a recent series of three Action Institutes held for the communities receiving the CPPW funds. Each community has assembled a diverse team that goes beyond public health agencies to include elected officials, planners, business interests, advocacy groups, and others, who are charged with making change in just two years.
Senate Livable Communities Bill Moves Forward
The Senate Banking Committee has held its first hearing on Chris Dodd's "Livable Communities" bill that would provide grants for metropolitan areas and create an office of sustainability within the executive branch.
Dodd described the bill as combining housing development, public transit, and infrastructure and land-use planning into one comprehensive approach to city development. Currently, many of those decisions are made separately from one another, and Dodd and others said the partitions have led to urban sprawl.
Transportation Secretary Shifts Gears
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood visits with the AARP to discuss transportation initiatives and liva communities for people of all ages.
"What we're promoting is that you don't have to be in your car all the time," LaHood said. "I know that a lot of older Americans want to live in rural communities but also want transportation to the city to go to the doctor, the hospital, the grocery store, the drug store, the department store--whatever. We put emphasis on making sure that people that live in the rural communities who can't drive or don't want to drive can have access to transportation, too."
Visit the AARP's Livable Communities Public Policy Team's resource page
Transportation Investments: The Key to Creating Livable Communities
Craig Raphael posts on Project for Public Spaces about the difficulties in implementing livable communities:
One reason is that community and transportation planning and design have become highly specialized fields - instead of community builders, we now have transportation planners, engineers, architects, landscape architects, parks departments, health departments, etc, each of whom have become outstanding in their own fields. Holistic thinking may be a casualty of this specialization.
What Does 'Livability' Mean to the U.S. Government?
Recently, the US Department of Transportation released its Strategic Plan for 2010 through 2015 to the public. Infrastructurist puzzles out what "livable communities" means in the Executive Summary.
American Institute of Architects Report on Livable Communities
The challenge to making livable communities a reality lies in convincing policy makers to revamp a complex tax code that encourages sprawl and traffic congestion at the expense of "walkable," mixed-use development and mass transit.
That is the primary conclusion of a report issued Monday by the American Institute of Architects and partnering organizations at the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Financing Forum, which will bring together national housing, development, public and private finance, transportation practitioners and policy leaders to discuss the complexities of financing TOD. The forum is being held at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and will also highlight the opportunity for federal transportation reform and encourage connections and linkages for accelerating the development of TOD.
The Push for the Livable Communities Act
The National League of Cities is working closely with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) is support of the Livable Communities Act (S. 1619/H.R. 4690) to ensure that the bills meet local needs.
Sec. Ray LaHood speaks at Piedmont Triad Livable Communities Summit
How livable communities can be realized in Philadelphia
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
Leading voices from the philanthropic, institutional, development and government sectors offered a chorus on creating sustainable communities Monday night at the Academy of Natural Sciences.
The participants in the program, "Livable Communities and Philadelphia," sponsored by the Academy, PennPraxis, and U.S. Reps. Allyson Y. Schwartz of Philadelphia and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, offered some clear definitions of sustainable living, noted the challenges in attaining the goals, and found that the city is on its way to achieving them.
The President's Budget
The Committee for a Livable future applauds Obama administration's FY 2011 Budget for livable communities. Livability funding included $150 million for the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Sustainable Communities, $100 million of which would be available for planning grants for communities to support the linking of transportation and land use planning; $527 million for the Department of Transportation to help state and local governments invest in smarter transportation infrastructure that leverages sustainable development; and $11.23 million for the Environmental Protection Agency to participate in the Partnership with HUD and DOT, as well as to provide technical assistance to state, tribal, regional, and local governments. Many LivPAC supported candidates sent letters to the Appropriations Subcommittees on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Interior, Environment and Related Agencies expressing support for these programs.
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) creates new website on Livable Communities
On Feb. 24, 2010, the FTA announced that they had launched a new Livable and Sustainable Communities Website. The purpose of the site is to provide information about the Department of Transportation's role in livability initiatives, including the inter-agency partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Committee for a Livable Future Endorses Administration's Livability Principles
In accordance with the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, the Livable Communities Task Force endorses the following six livability principles. Successful incorporation of these principles into policy making at all levels of government will greatly enhance the livability of all rural and urban American communities. It will also help communities across the country proactively address and adapt to the threats of global warming, spur economic growth, preserve natural resources and open space, and contribute to cleaner air and water. The principles are as follows:
- Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable, and economical transportation choices to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote public health.
- Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location- and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.
- Enhance economic competitiveness. Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers, as well as expanded business access to markets.
- Reinvest in existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities - through strategies like transit oriented, mixed-use development, and land recycling - to increase community revitalization and the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.
- Coordinate and leverage federal policies and investment. Align federal policies and funding to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage funding, and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy.
- Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods - rural, urban, or suburban.
Victory for Livability!
On January 13th, the Department of Transportation announced a major change in transportation policy that will facilitate the development of transit projects that not only boost local economies, but also improve the environment and reduce congestion. In line with President Obama's commitment to promoting livable communities, USDOT will drop a Bush-era practice that emphasized out-dated analyses focused primarily on travel-time savings for suburban commuters. This means that transportation projects under the New Starts and Small Starts Programs will be evaluated based on their potential for congestion relief as well as the environmental, community and economic development benefits.
This is an important step that shows the administration is walking the walk and taking livability seriously.
"Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it," said Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. "We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities, and how it makes our communities better places to live."
This is an important reversal from the previous policy that focused on out-of-date suburban commute formulas.
"This announcement highlights President Obama's and Secretary LaHood's commitment to community livability," said Congressman Blumenauer, Chairman of the Livable Communities Task Force and author of the Small Starts program. "Rescinding this Bush administration restriction will unleash funding for important transportation projects across the nation, jumpstarting local economies and creating good jobs. This means quicker and better funding for streetcars, light rail, and bus projects that improve transportation, revive local economies, and reduce global warming pollution. After much hard work with the administration and my Congressional colleagues, this is an exciting outcome that will create better and more transportation opportunities."
ACES Passes House, Heads to the Senate!
The House of Representatives passed the most historic piece of environmental legislation its taken up in the past 20 years on Friday June 26, 2009.
The Democratic majority held firm as the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act garnered 219 votes. Thirty-one of those votes came from LivPAC-endorsed candidates, including a couple, such as Rep. Rush Holt, (D-N.J.) that The Politico referred to as "a key fence-sitter."
The American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act will significantly reduce the country's greenhouse gas output by imposing a "cap and trade" pollution policy that limits how much carbon polluters can emit.
The bill has been controversial in several congressional districts across the country that rely either on coal-powered plants or coal mining to sustain their economy. Thanks to the work Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) did through LivPAC to help Democrats in conservative districts talk about environmental values, several members of Congress, including Reps. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), Betsey Markey (D-Colo.), Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), and Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) were able to take a critical stand for tougher environmental regulation of greenhouse gases.
The bill now goes onto the Senate where LivPAC Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Kirsten Gillebrand (D-N.Y.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) will be responsible for making sure that the body passes legislation that will reduce carbon output and help save the planet.
What Congress Must Do by the End of 2009 to Create Jobs, Reduce Oil Use and Cut Pollution
New industries. New jobs. Lower energy bills. Oh, and less global warming. This is why the Center for American Progress' Daniel Weiss says Congress must pass legislation dealing with climate change. And here's what he says they should do.
by Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy Center for American Progress Action Fund
President Obama knows that a transition to clean energy sources is one of the pillars of a strong 21st century economy. This would boost employment, cut oil use, strengthen national security, and reduce global warming pollution. In an April 14th speech at Georgetown University, the President declared that a "new foundation for growth and prosperity," requires "the renewable energy that can create millions of new jobs and new industries."
In response to this need, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman and House Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Edward Markey recently released the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. This draft bill establishes a three-part program to increase energy efficiency, invest in renewable energy resources such as the wind and sun, and reduce global warming pollution. The Committee plans to pass the bill by Memorial Day, with full House action likely this summer. Congress must pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act to create jobs, reduce oil use and cut pollution.
Energy efficiency is the "low hanging fruit" of clean energy policies. The US uses significantly more electricity per person than other nations. US per capita consumption is 14,240 kilowatt-hours per year, compared to 8,459 kilowatt-hours per year in Japan. Investments in simple and advanced efficiency technologies would pay for themselves through lower energy use and bills.
ACESA includes a national Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS). It would require utilities to reduce electricity demand, slashing energy costs while creating jobs manufacturing energy efficient technologies, weatherizing homes, and installing energy efficient appliances. An EERS would create 220,000 net permanent jobs and reduce energy costs by $168.6 billion for consumers and businesses.
An EERS could help cut pollution too. McKinsey & Company found "Almost 40 percent of [emissions] abatement could be achieved at 'negative marginal cost,' meaning that investing in these [efficiency] options would generate positive economic returns over their lifecycle."
Eighteen states already have EERS programs that have reduced electricity demand. While Oregon does not currently have one, the Energy Trust of Oregon has created incentives for upgrades in efficiency and for the use of renewable energy.
Another program to create jobs, develop new technologies, and cut pollution is a national renewable electricity standard (RES). ACESA would require that 25 percent of U.S. electricity come from wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy sources by 2025. This would create nearly 300,000 jobs, save consumers $64.3 billion, and help the U.S. regain its lost leadership in the development of new clean energy technologies. Currently, Oregon, 27 other states and in the District of Columbia have an RES.
Reduction of fossil fuel energy use through these two programs, however, will not reduce greenhouse gas pollution by enough to slow the growing threat of global warming. ACESA also includes a cap-and-trade program to require companies to pay for their greenhouse gas pollution rather than emit it into the atmosphere for free. This program would achieve a 20 percent reduction (from 2005 levels) in pollution by 2020, and an 83 percent cut by 2050. These reduction targets were endorsed by a number of Fortune 500 companies, including Duke Energy, Shell Oil, and General Electric.
ACESA includes measures to prevent sudden price hikes in the cost of pollution allowances. Banking and borrowing allowances should prevent price volatility. When allowance prices are low, companies could "bank" them, and "borrow" them when they are high. In addition, companies could "offset" their emissions by investing in projects that capture carbon pollution, such as forest protection.
A policy to reduce pollution has strong potential to bolster the economy. The EPA noted: "[S]ubstantial cost savings could be achieved by combining direct emissions policies (e.g. cap-and-trade or carbon tax) with technology push policies (e.g. technology and R&D incentives) that correct for the market failure associated with the fact that the inventor of a new technology can not appropriate all of the associated social benefits."
Congress must follow President Obama's lead by enacting a real plan to create jobs, reduce oil use, enhance natural security, and cut pollution. This would help revitalize the economy and launch us on a path towards long term sustainable growth.
Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, where he leads the Center's clean energy and climate advocacy campaign. Before coming to American Progress, he spent 25 years working with environmental advocacy organizations and political campaigns. Weiss is an expert in energy and environmental policy; legislative strategy and tactics; and advocacy communications.
From China With News:
In alternative energy, a new China Syndrome, David Sarasohn, The Oregonian, June 5th, 2009
...As Oregon prides itself on its alternative energy efforts, there may be some people ahead of us.
In fact, there may be a billion and a half people ahead of us.
China, Blumenauer told the editorial board of The Oregonian Friday, is now spending $200 billion on alternative energy. He rode a high-speed train from Beijing to the coast, covering 80 miles in 29 minutes, a system the Chinese want to expand all over their country.
"We visited an amazing facility doing thin-film photovoltaic systems," a form of solar power, he reported. "On the windows of buildings, they not only generate enough energy to power the building, they have power left over."
The system is not only powerful but ironic; it's being developed by DuPont, an American company, but the development center is in Hong Kong and the factory is in China.
"We're going to end up," Blumenauer warned, "buying our own technology back from China and Europe."...
How Our Cities Were Built, and What it Means to The Future
Barnes-Gelt: For Denver, "Road to the Future" Denver Post, Sarah Barnes-Gelt, May, 17th, 2009
...We know how small-town, livable Denver morphed into Mega-Denver. The malling and sprawling of the region was symbolized by Highlands Ranch - wide streets, skinny sidewalks, front yards dominated by oversized garages and lack of buses, bike trails or neighborhood centers. Our horizontal and now unsustainable auto metropolis was the consequence of federal policy, the 1956 Federal Highway Act. The program offered metro areas 90 cents on the dollar to build a national freeway system. Denver, like most other cities, agreed, and the die was cast.
Fast-forward to the 1970s, the beginnings of Highlands Ranch and its counterpoint. Then-Gov. Dick Lamm threatened to "drive a silver stake" through the Interstate 470 beltway. This federal honey-pot again offered easy money, quick real estate plays and the American dream - an oversized garage attached to a mortgage and a back yard. Lamm succeeded in delaying the beltway, but the wrath of real estate interests and the press transformed his stake into a boomerang, thoroughly marginalizing the young governor.
While Lamm was left licking his wounds, Portland was being tempted by the same siren's song: big federal dollars to build the Mount Hood Freeway. But then-City Councilman Earl Blumenauer (now a congressman) rallied local activists to oppose speculators who were determined to demolish miles of historic urban fabric to build an eight-lane freeway through the heart of southeast Portland...
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