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State of the Region 2006 (Southern California)
Ping Chang (principal author), Southern California Association of Governments
[From the Preface]
The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is the largest regional planning organization in the nation. For the past four decades, SCAG has been working collaboratively with local governments, stakeholders and partners in developing a shared regional vision and resolving regional challenges….
The SCAG region, also referred to as Southern California in this report, includes six counties (Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura) and 187 cities. Currently, the region ranks 10th among the world economies.
…Finally, recognizing the growing significance of energy issues for Southern California and beyond, the third essay focuses on the challenges facing local governments with respect to energy. In addition, a new section on energy has been included in this report.
[The Energy section, p.114-135, gives statistics on the region’s energy use and a report on the region’s impact on global warming]
… California ranked fifth lowest among the states in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption per unit of Gross State Product. However, in terms of total CO2 emissions, California is second only to Texas in the nation and is the 12th largest source of climate change emissions in the world, exceeding most nations. The SCAG region, with close to half of the state’s population and economic activities, is also a major contributor to the global warming problem.
[A guest essay essay on pages 124-35 discusses peak oil and its impact on local governments. The author is Energy Bulletin contributor Ronald Cook (The Cultural Economicst. The essay is also (also posted in standalone form.)]
…Southern California is vulnerable to an energy shortage. A long term, forever, chronic, downtrend in energy consumption because it is no longer affordable or readily available is coming. We are going to learn to live in an energy detensive world. Our energy intensive lifestyle will give way to a daily routine that consumes less hydrocarbon energy.
…Local government can make a positive contribution to the successful creation of localized, self-sustaining, neighborhood communities; interconnected public transportation systems, and the development of an energy efficient infrastructure. Community leaders must be willing to challenge conventional wisdom with pro-active adaptation and practical flexibility. Existing assumptions, policies, codes and regulations may not be appropriate in an energy detensive world. We must be willing to review our infrastructure investment decisions within the context of an energy detensive environment and a genuine desire to work toward energy independence. Localization requires we pay attention to addressing a better balance between local jobs and housing. And finally – we must pro-actively include civic, fraternal, and religious organizations in our long term planning for community services.
(14 Dec 2006)
The 4.5-MB PDF for the document is online.
New Call for Reducing US Dependence on Foreign Oil
Meredith Buel, Voice of America
A group of leading U.S. businessmen and former top military commanders has called on the White House and Congress to reduce America’s dependence on oil from overseas, a move it says is necessary for the country’s national security. VOA correspondent Meredith Buel narrates for producer Zulima Palacio.
In a recently released report, the non-profit Energy Security Leadership Council says the United States must significantly improve the nation’s energy security by taking a series of steps to decrease the country’s reliance on foreign oil.
(19 Dec 2006)
They advocate improved vehicle fuel efficiency, ethanol production, and investments in domestic production through enhanced oil recovery, and drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR.
See full report (3.3MB PDF)
-AF
Oil, Security, and Energy Independence
Peter Coy, BusinessWeek.com
Fred Smith, FedEx founder and chairman, is a dedicated advocate of free markets-except when it comes to energy, which he believes requires government intervention
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The man who built FedEx (FDX) into one of America’s most successful companies calls himself a “market liberal,” which is more or less the opposite of a political liberal. FedEx Chairman, President, Chief Executive, and founder Frederick Smith wants government to keep its hands off business as much as possible. He even sits on the board of directors of the Cato Institute, which advocates “limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and peace.” In a speech last year to Cato benefactors, he said: “It is impossible, from a managerial standpoint, for the federal government to do the things it is trying to do today.”
But on one important issue-energy independence-Smith opposes the Cato line and actually advocates greater government involvement. Smith believes so strongly that more must be done to secure U.S. energy independence that he became co-chairman of the Washington-based Energy Security Leadership Council, along with General P.X. Kelley (Ret.), former Marine Corps commandant and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This month, the council put out a 64-page report detailing what it thinks should be done. Among the proposals: higher, though more flexible, standards for vehicle fuel efficiency; incentives to manufacture hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles in the U.S.; funding for research on alternative fuels; and government permission for energy companies to drill for oil in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf.
(18 Dec 2006)
Mississippi salt dome selected to expand U.S. oil reserves
Star News Online
A salt dome in southeastern Mississippi has been chosen for expansion of the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Energy Department announced Friday.
The site near Richton, Miss., will help the government eventually expand the size of the emergency oil stockpile to 1 billion barrels.
(9 Dec 2006)
5 oil and gas companies to pay royalties
H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Five oil and gas companies, including Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP, have agreed to pay royalties on future production under flawed drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, the government said Thursday.
The companies are among 59 energy producers that hold the leases at issue from 1998 and 1999. Because of a government mistake, the leaseholders have avoided royalty payments on oil and gas taken from federal waters. The leases omitted language requiring royalties when prices reached a certain level.
(14 Dec 2006)
Royalty Rip-Off
Editorial, NY Times
The American treasury is already short more than a billion dollars because of the Interior Department’s failure over the last decade to collect all the royalties owed from oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico. The new Congress needs to fix the problem, or persuade a sluggish Bush administration to do so.
This failure – and how much it is costing the American taxpayer – has been richly detailed over the last year by The Times’s Edmund Andrews.
The problems are twofold. The first is a loophole in leases signed by the Clinton administration in 1998 and 1999 to encourage deep-water exploration at a time when oil and gas prices were relatively low. The leases gave companies a break on royalty payments, but did not include a standard escape clause that would have restored full royalties when prices went up. The loophole has already cost the taxpayers $1.5 billion and, if not corrected, could cost $10 billion more over the course of the leases.
A bill that would have forced companies to renegotiate these flawed leases before being granted new ones failed by only two votes in the House last Friday. Unless the Interior Department succeeds in renegotiating the leases quickly, the new Congress should pass the legislation.
The more serious problem involves royalty enforcement and collection, which is the responsibility of the department’s Minerals Management Service. Whistleblowers have testified to the service’s shortcomings, and last week, the Interior Department’s inspector general said that the service relied too heavily on statements by oil companies, instead of independent audits that would give a more accurate account of production and royalties owed.
Officials say they are trying hard to renegotiate the flawed leases. As for the broader management failures, they have hired new people and begun an internal review. This is all to the good, but the Interior Department has a long history of accounting failures and a more recent history of giving the oil and gas industry much of what it wants on public lands. When Congress summons Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to testify, it will want more than promises.
(12 Dec 2006)
