Politics

Assembly Committee kills Niello Public Private Partnership Legislation
Governor Schwarzenegger calls the vote “irresponsible”

SACRAMENTO - Legislation authored by Assemblyman Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks), and sponsored by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, that would have allowed state government agencies to enter into public private partnerships for the development of public transportation systems, schools, water treatment facilities, and other public infrastructure needs was voted down today in an Assembly Committee.”

“California faces a huge backlog of public infrastructure needs. In terms of our system of infrastructure, California is a third world country with world class access to talent and capital. It is high time that we forge these partnerships in the best interests of Californians,” said Niello

According to the Department of Finance, California will need as much as $500 billion worth of new infrastructure in the next 20 years to keep up with the projected needs of the state.

The idea behind public private partnerships is to build essential public infrastructure projects with the use of private funding, while maintaining public ownership of the facility. Upon completion of the project, the private contractor receives a return on the investment by being granted a lease to operate the facility. Public private partnerships have been used successfully in many states and countries.

“While public infrastructure has to be a priority for the State, leveraging private capital to pay for it will help improve the condition of our general fund and keep us from saddling future generations with piles of debt from the sale of bonds,” said Niello. “The lesson we should all learn from this current budget crisis is that we have to be more innovative and we have to change the way we do things.”

As the sponsor of the legislation and a long-time supporter of public private partnerships, Governor Schwarzenegger lamented the vote today. “Given that California is facing huge budget cuts in this economic downturn, it is irresponsible for legislators to turn down billions of dollars in private sector funding for infrastructure projects,” said Governor Schwarzenegger.

Phony Homeowners Group Fronts Phony Ballot Measure
By Jon Coupal

The story is told that to fool Catherine II, Russian minister Grigori Potemkin constructed hollow facades of villages along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River. When the monarch and her entourage sailed by, they were impressed with the prosperity in her new territories.

Backers of a phony property rights measure, Proposition 99 on the June ballot, have borrowed a page or two from Potemkin's book.

Last year, taxpayers, farmers and small business owners began qualifying a measure for the ballot -- Proposition 98 -- that would bar cities and counties from seizing private property from unwilling sellers so it can be turned over to favored developers for strip malls and other for profit projects.

To protect local officials' power over private property, the League of California Cities drafted their own initiative, Proposition 99 -- which is as fake as a three dollar bill. Although designed to be cosmetically attractive, a closer examination reveals that it is just another hollow shell. The non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office states Proposition 99, "is not likely to significantly alter current government land acquisition practices." In other words, Proposition 99 does nothing. Well, it does one thing. If it passes with more votes than Proposition 98, which is the "real deal" for property owners, it invalidates all the protections contained in that measure

Here is why the League of California Cities and their developer allies should be sending a royalty check to Potemkin for using his ideas. Not only have they constructed an initiative that has nothing of substance on the inside, but to further confuse the voters, they are featuring its support by the League of California Homeowners, Inc. While this attractive name may cause many voters to think this is a broad-based statewide homeowners organization, it is actually a corporation whose primary function is to act as a contractor referral service.

In fact, this organization is essentially a one-man-band headed by its president, Upland City Councilman Ken Willis. Apparently, Willis values his power to take property in his community because he is willing to violate his organization's bylaws to back the fake Proposition 99, and oppose the genuine Proposition 98. The bylaws of the League of California Homeowners clearly state, "...the Corporation shall not participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or for or against any cause or measure being submitted to the people for a vote."

However, the website for the deceptive Proposition 99 lists the League of California Homeowners on the top of the list of endorsers. The same website shows this "homeowners group" as an opponent of Proposition 98, which would actually curtail abuses of governments' right to take private property.

What we have here is a contractor referral service with a misleading title being used to screen a phony property rights initiative. Potemkin would be proud. Property owners will get more protection from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" than they will from the League of California Cities, the League of California Homeowners and their fraudulent Proposition 99.

Proposition 98, proudly sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Farm Bureau Federation and the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights, will allow governments to take property only for genuine public purposes, like schools and roads and will bar the seizure of property so that private developers can make a profit.

With the passage of Proposition 98 in June, property owners will get real protection, not just happy talk.

Jon Coupal is President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association - California's largest taxpayer organization -- which is dedicated to the protection of Proposition 13 and promoting taxpayers' rights. www.hjta.org

Corn Can't Save Us:
Debunking the Biofuel Myth, By David Pimentel

Dwindling foreign oil, rising prices at the gas pump, and hype from politically well-connected U.S. agribusiness have combined to create a frenzied rush to convert food grains into ethanol fuel. The move is badly conceived and ill advised. Corporate spin and pork barrel legislation aside, here, by the numbers, are the scientific reasons why corn won't provide our energy needs:

First, using corn or any other biomass for ethanol requires huge regions of fertile land, plus massive amounts of water and sunlight to maximize crop production. All green plants in the U.S. - including all crops, forests, and grasslands, combined - collect about 32 quads (32 x 1015 BTU) of sunlight energy per year. Meanwhile, the American population currently burns more than 3 times that amount of energy annually as fossil fuels! There isn't even close to enough biomass in America to supply our biofuel needs.

Second, biofuel enthusiasts - including agribusiness lobbyists and PR firms - suggest that ethanol produced from corn and cellulosic biomass (like grasses), could replace much of the oil used in the United States. But consider that 20 percent of the U.S. corn crop was converted into 5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, but that amount replaced only 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption. If the entire national corn crop were used to make ethanol, it would replace a mere 7% of U.S. oil consumption - far from making the U.S. independent of foreign oil.

Third, ethanol production is energy intensive: Cornell University's up-to-date analysis of the 14 energy inputs that go into corn production, plus the nine energy inputs invested in ethanol fermentation and distillation, confirms that more than 40 percent of the energy contained in one gallon of corn ethanol is expended to produce it. That expended energy to make ethanol comes mostly from highly valuable oil and natural gas.

Some investigators conveniently omit several of these energy inputs required in corn production and processing, such as energy for farm labor, farm machinery, energy production of hybrid corn-seed, irrigation, and processing equipment. Omitting energy inputs wrongly suggests that a corn-ethanol production system offers a more positive energy return. In reality, corn is an inefficient choice from an energy-cost and transport standpoint.

Cellulosic ethanol is also touted loudly as a replacement for corn ethanol. Unfortunately, cellulose biomass production requires major energy inputs to release minimal amounts of tightly bound starches and sugars needed to make fuel. About 70 percent more energy (coming again from precious oil and gas) is required to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass than the ethanol produced. That makes cellulosic ethanol an even poorer performer than corn ethanol.

Also, the production of corn ethanol is highly subsidized: state and federal governments pay out more than $6 billion per year in subsidies, according to a 2006 report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Geneva, Switzerland. These subsidies for a gallon of ethanol are more than 60 times those for a gallon of gasoline.

Moreover, the environmental impacts of corn ethanol production are serious and diverse. These include severe soil erosion of valuable food cropland, plus the heavy use of nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides that pollute rivers. Fermenting corn to make one gallon of ethanol produces 12 gallons of noxious sewage effluent. Making ethanol requires the use of fossil fuels, releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to global warming.

Finally, using food crops, such as corn, to produce ethanol raises major nutritional and ethical concerns. Nearly 60 percent of the people on earth are currently malnourished according to the World Health Organization. Growing crops for fuel squanders land, water, and energy vital for human food production.

The use of corn for ethanol has led to major increases in the price of U.S. beef, chicken, pork, eggs, breads, cereals, and milk - a boon to agribusiness and bane to consumers. Director General of the U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization Jacques Diouf reports that using 22 pounds of corn to produce one gallon of ethanol is already causing food shortages for the world's poor.

One last set of statistics: The global population stands at 6.6 billion: a quarter-million mouths to feed are added daily. Energy experts report that peak oil production has already been reached. As cheap oil supplies decline, fuel prices will rise, causing food prices to climb too (because maximum agricultural production requires fossil fuel inputs).

As global population soars to 8 or 9 billion toward mid-century, and as we burn more grain as fuel, shortages and production costs could cause grain prices to skyrocket, taking food from the mouths of the world's poorest people.

The science is clear: The use of corn and other biofuels to solve our energy problem is an ethically, economically, and environmentally unworkable sham.

David Pimentel is a professor of entomology at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University.

© 2008 Blue Ridge Press www.blueridgepress.com

Health Care Tough Love
by Ron Getty

In 1941, a woman was given a one-page, hand-written hospital bill for $73.75 after an 11-day stay following the caesarian birth of her son. Based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index, the same hospital bill today should be $1,023. However, the actual hospital bill would be closer to $13,300. This means that since 1941 medical costs have risen at twice the rate of the CPI.

Is it possible to make health care as affordable as it was back in 1941?

First, two truths need to be understood about basic economics. Prices rise when demand exceeds supply. Prices fall when supply exceeds demand

Achieving the increased supply of health care needed with a concurrent reduction in the bureaucracy in claims processing can reduce the cost of health care. However, let's acknowledge some relevant factors affecting health care costs and provide some health care tough love.

With aging Baby Boomers hitting retirement, demands on the health care system will increase and health care prices will rise. The uninsured create another dynamic that affects health care prices.

The witches' brew of HMOs, Medicare, Medicaid, and private and group medical insurance induces increases on the costs and supply of health care through the reimbursement process of what is and isn't covered. The massive paperwork and administration needed to process claims and payments by government agencies, insurers, and health care providers causes further ripples in the cost of medical care. Legislation dictating to medical insurers and providers what is to be covered also adds to health care costs.

The Food and Drug Administration creates additional disruption. The FDA's red-tape ridden bureaucratic process for approving new medications and medical equipment dramatically increases health care costs for medicine and medical equipment.

Overall, the biggest and gravest major factor that must be addressed is in the health care personnel needed to provide medical services

Thousands of retiring Baby Boomer personnel will reduce accessibility to trained and experienced medical staff, and cause long lines and lessened competition. To offset the loss of retirees, more people must enroll in training programs for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians, and medical lab personnel. This means more training facilities for medical personnel and qualified medical teachers.

Public schools will have to stop graduating functional illiterates who need remedial math and English at the college level if we hope to have the number of necessary people capable of entering those medical training programs.

The American Medical Association and state licensing requirements further exacerbates the cost of medical care. The extensive mandatory training standards place barriers – some medically necessitated – in the way of additional health care personnel entering the field and competing for patients.

We need a physician-light program without the 12-year doctoral training program. A physician could specialize in specific types of medicine, like podiatrists are doing, with reduced training required. We also need an accelerated licensing program for qualified foreign-trained health care professionals, and we need to allow RNs to run bumps, bruises, scrapes, and basic shots medical clinics where MDs aren't needed.

More community hospitals, medical clinics, and medical training facilities must be opened to increase consumer options for health care, which will reduce costs through competition. As a result, we will need to rethink zoning and building permit processes to allow more such facilities.

Yes, these things can happen. However, to make an omelet, eggs are going to get broken. The biggest eggs to break will be politicians and their misguided efforts to omnisciently determine how health care must be provided for everyone at taxpayers' expense.

Radical measures are called for to increase the supply of health care and reduce prices through competition. This means doing the following:

• Eliminate licensing standards for hospitals, pharmacies, doctors, nurses, medical personnel, medical colleges and medical clinics
• Eliminate the FDA
• Deregulate the medical insurance industry
• Repeal the HMO Act of 1970
• Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid and all other involuntarily, taxpayer-funded, government programs providing medical benefits at the federal or the state level and
• Eliminate legislatively mandated employer health insurance

The tough love solution to the health care crisis is getting politicians and the government out of the health care business. Let free enterprise medical providers address the market demands for health care at a price anyone can afford. Affordable health care can happen when there are no politicians or government agencies infecting the medical marketplace.

Ron Getty is the senior staff member of a tax attorney with his practice located in San Francisco. His background includes an electrical engineering degree and 30 years of sales, marketing and advertising with small to large corporations. A Vietnam Veteran of Chu Lai - I Corps, he brings personal perspectives on veterans and their treatment by the government.

Libertarian Party of California | 14547 Titus Street | Suite 214 | Panorama City | CA | 91402-4935 | www.ca.lp.org

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