Fresh Loaf

Just a hunch, but that’s what one person is whispering. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is in town today to make an announcement. Ariel Hart of the AJC provides a solid write-up about the official’s visit and background and focuses, but she focuses more on Peters’ penchant for public-private partnerships.

We’re all about rumors here, so here’s another take from a source on why Peters visited our tiny hamlet:

We are told that Transportation Secretary Mary Peters today will unveil proposed “reforms” for consideration next year by Congress, when it takes up transportation legislation.

Among those “reforms,” we are told, includes elimination of a much-needed program to reduce congestion and clean up air pollution. (The Transportation Dept. boasts of it here: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/cmaqpgs/index.htm ) This program goes by the ugly acronym of CMAQ.

It was revised a few years ago by Congress, which ordered DOT to focus more spending on cleaning up dirty diesel engines – absolutely the most cost-effective use of such money. DOT, unfortunately, has basically tried to sandbag the program, and now wants to kill it altogether.

This would be a missed opportunity to clean up dirty diesel pollution and improve air quality across much of the nation.

We are told that DOT also may propose weakening or the Clean Air Act program aimed at making sure that transportation projects don’t worsen air quality. (Known in the jargon as conformity) and may seek to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act as well.

Under the Bush administration, DOT has often been viewed as an arm of the car industry. (You may recall that DOT lobbied Congress to try to block California’s attempt to enforce its greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.) Now it appears to be a leg of the asphalt lobby.

Again, it could be totally wrong. But don’t be too surprised if it’s right. Congress has the final say in the matter.

Bookmark It

DAMMED IF HE DOESN’T: Jimmy Carter revives an old gubernatorial quest of his to prevent three dams from being built on the Flint River.

CARRYING CAPACITY: The Chicago Tribune examines recent revolutions against gun control, from Disney World to Hartsfield-Jackson to the Windy City.

WHAT BROWN CAN DO FOR YOU: Medical College of Georgia researchers identify brown rice’s health benefits.

FALCONS: New running backs Michael Turner and Thomas Brown prepare for the first day of training camp.

SMOG: Bad enough weekday afternoons that experts say exercising then does more harm than good.

ADVANCE VOTING: For runoff elections begins today.

Bookmark It

CLINTON: To suspend campaign for the presidential nomination Saturday; begins campaign for the vice-presidential nomination. Jimmy Carter says Obama picking her would be “the worst mistake that could be made.”

PAIN IN THE GAS: Drivers are increasingly procrastinating buying gas as prices skyrocket go up, meaning they run out more. In Georgia, taxpayer-funded HERO trucks will give a gallon or two of gas to stranded motorists, but HERO truck drivers say they’re starting to be spread too thin.

REEF MADNESS: Since our governor prioritized a fishing initiative over sustainable development or transportation relief, it would be nice if we at least had good coastal fishing in Georgia. So the DNR is sinking old ships and building artificial reefs to build fisheries up from the bottom of the food chain.

SMOLTZ: Out for season with shoulder injury. Could be career-ending, but Smoltz is famously resilient.

HOLYFIELD: Losing $10 million home in Fayette County and falling behind on child support.

I HATE THE 90s: Temperatures will start reaching the 90s today and through the weekend, combining with a code orange smog alert to make breathing unpleasant.

Bookmark It

FEE FOR ALL: Atlanta City Councilman Jim Maddox proposes taxing $1 for tickets to pro sporting events and major concerts in the city to help soften the looming $140 million budget shortfall.

14TH STREET BRIDGE: Dead to us.

GET OUT OF MY CAR: Between March 2007 and March 2008, American driving dropped at the steepest rate since record keeping began in 1942.

ABATED BREATH: Beginning next year, asthma sufferers will have to switch to the more expensive CFC-free inhalers for environmental reasons, good for ozone but a blow to Atlantans who already live in an asthma-unfriendly city.

YOU GOT CONSERVED: As utilities start raising rates to make up for reduced usage, the dark side of conservation is rearing its head across the Southeast.

ONE FLU OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST: Study released Monday says strains of bird flu are getting closer to conditions that could lead to a human pandemic.

GETTING BROWSY: The “browser wars” of the mid-’90s are heating back up, as Mozilla readies Firefox 3.0 for release in June and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 is due later this year.

FRIGHTENING IN A BOTTLE: Orlando man sells bottles that he claims have ghosts in them.

Bookmark It

Atlanta is getting me down.

I’m losing my hope that Atlanta’s most serious chronic problems are going to improve any time soon.

I’ve got the municipal blues.

It’s not any one thing. It’s all the things: the city’s budget woes, crime woes, environmental woes, crap schools, and the entirely predictable botching of the Beltline’s funding scheme.

And then there’s the leadership — or lack of it.

Mayor Franklin was either too inattentive or too incompetent to notice the city’s budget projections were wildly off-base.

Instead of being apologetic, Franklin veers between self-aggrandizement and self-pity. She began a recent news conference about the city budget with a whiny recital of her greatest hits and a complaint that the media is too hard on her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah you fixed the sewers and you’re not Bill Campbell. Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. “I’ll make you proud” has morphed into “I’ll make you less ashamed than the last guy did.” And she expects us to be happy with that.

State leadership is, remarkably, even worse. It doesn’t just fail to fix things, it sabotages other people’s efforts to fix things. Last month the state scuttled an effort by county leaders who wanted to pool their resources to address regional transit.

No place is perfect, but the stuff I don’t like about Atlanta, the stuff I assumed would get better with time, seem only to have gotten worse. If Mayor Franklin can’t hire more cops, reform public schools, or even synchronize traffic lights during economic good times, I doubt very much its going to make many improvements in those areas during lean times. If the state won’t pay for (or allow state residents to pay for) transit during good times, I can’t imagine it will do any better during a downturn.

How bad is my Metro outlook today? The only civic improvement I can see on the horizon in metro Atlanta in 2008 is Thursday’s opening of an H&M store in Alpharetta.

I’ve got the municipal blues.

Bookmark It

Gather round, all Atlantans, and breathe through a handkerchief for the rest of the day. The Clean Air Campaign has issued a Code Orange Smog Alert — meaning that the air quality in the region today is unhealthy for such sensitive segments of the population as asthmatics, the elderly and people with heart or lung disease. Those groups should limit outdoor exercise or exertion to the early morning hours and late evening.

It’s always about the people. Won’t anyone think of the bees!?! In the meantime, think about using other ways to travel to help improve the region’s air quality. The campaign says that if one person opted not to drive one day a week for every week in the year, he or she would reduce the amount of pollutants emitted into the air by more than 2,080 pounds.

(Graphic courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security)

Bookmark It

GAME 6 TONIGHT: I’ve seen Celtic Pride. We have to keep Daniel Stern and Dan Akroyd away from Joe Johnson today.

GANGBUSTERS: Gang experts say the NBA only drew attention to Paul Pierce’s apparent gang sign during the Celtics Game 4 loss in Atlanta by fining him for it.

TEAT-TOTALING: Three out of four moms now breast-feed their babies, according to the CDC, an “all-time high” since the mid-’80s.

BRIDGE JUMPERS STANDERS: I-985 closed down yesterday; I-20 closed down this morning. Neither jumper jumped.

LOW FLOW: The state wants to extend lower flows from Lake Lanier through May 31, but just about everyone south of Atlanta doesn’t.

CLAYTON SCHOOLS: Gov. Perdue signs two bills into law to safeguard Clayton students and hold the school board more accountable as de-accreditation looms closer.

AIR ABERRANT: If you’re waiting for Atlanta to get off the list of top 10 most polluted cities, don’t hold your breath. Actually, maybe you should.

Bookmark It

MAYDAY: Smog season starts today.

ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPETBAG: Niagara County, New York, assuming companies in the South are too lethargic from dehydration to move elsewhere, considers venturing down here to liberate them to the Great Wet North.

FLEXING ITS MUSSELS: Florida pulls the marine-life card again in response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent water-sharing proposal.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Mission to sugarcoat and obfuscate Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner snafu accomplished.

BOSTON MASSACRE: Home teams keep winning as the Celtics handily take Game 5 from the Hawks. Game 6 is here tomorrow night.

DEMOCRATIC SENATE RACE: Getting melodramatic.

LIAISONS LEAVING: State liaisons assigned to help Clayton County save its accreditation ask Gov. Perdue to excuse them from what they call an impossible task, saying the school board has only gotten more dysfunctional since the SACS report was released in February.

OH REALLY? Unhelpful headlines today:

Bookmark It

As if we didn’t have our hands full already — you know, there’s that whole water-sharing dilemma, as well as the potential for a border dispute with Tennessee — it’d make for great theater if Georgia decided to take a stab at the water, land and air trifecta and sue the Environmental Protection Agency for its recent tightening of the air quality standard.

This morning I received an e-mail that included a message purportedly from the National Association of Attorneys General and addressed to members of the organization. It stated that Mississippi’s attorney general was eying a possible law suit against the EPA for its recent tightening of air quality standards. The message from NAAG asked its members if any other states — including Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, South Carolina and Indiana — were considering similar action. A spokesperson for NAAG said the association often communicates internally with its members and could not comment on the authenticity of the e-mail.

Earlier this year, Gov. Sonny Perdue was one of 12 governors who urged the EPA to not enact a stricter air quality standard prior to the agency’s ruling last month. State Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon, pushed a resolution earlier this legislative session that would have urged the EPA not to tighten that standard.

As of right now, however, there are no plans for Georgia to take such litigious action. Russ Willard of state Attorney General Thurbert Baker’s office said in a phone interview their office was contacted by Mississippi this morning, but that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which has authority over such actions, has not expressed a desire to pursue a lawsuit against the federal agency.

“Neither the Governor or EPD have expressed the desire to [join or file a lawsuit],” Willard says.

Bookmark It

After initially scheduling a press conference earlier this afternoon, the federal environmental agency pushed back the time to 6 p.m. The announcement, which would be one of President George W. Bush’s final environmental decisions, would specify the new standard cities and counties would have to meet in regard to the amount of ground-level ozone. That’s the nasty stuff that’s emitted from cars, trucks, factory smokestacks and electric utilities. Metro Atlanta is notorious for its poor air quality.

Word coming from sources is that the new standard will be .075 parts of ozone for every million parts of air, or ppm. The current standard is .08 ppm.

The manufacturing lobby doesn’t like the sound of it and has stressed that a stringent standard would result in astronomical financial losses if required to comply with the measure. Proponents of the change, such as health care professionals and environmentalists, say the cost of living with filthy oxygen is much more expensive than living a little greener. What are some of the best ways to improve Atlanta’s air quality? Use public transit or look into telework programs — the Clean Air Campaign will pay you — and push for alternative energy sources.

Bookmark It

The state Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on two of its famed “urgings,” wherein the General Assembly would vote as a whole to recommend the federal government take action on a certain issue.

The two tomorrow: A thoughtful request to the Environmental Protection Agency not to strengthen federal air-quality standards and a plea to the U.S. Congress that it amend the Endangered Species Act to exclude regions experiencing a drought.

Both urgings respectfully ask our federal overlords to do some bad, bad things.

(more…)

Bookmark It