LETTERS
Transportation, Fuel
No one questions the need for more efficient transportation in our community: well- maintained roadways, less pollution and congestion, economic growth and a better quality of life for citizens who work and live in Southern California.
But funding for transportation projects hangs in a perilous balance until the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, which governs all federal highway and transit funding, is reauthorized by Congress.
TEA-21 actually expired Sept. 30, and it now has been extended three times. The U.S. Senate passed a $318 billion bill earlier this year, while the U.S. House of Representatives passed its own version at $275 billion in early April. The White House has threatened to veto any bill over $256 billion. Unless a breakthrough in negotiations occurs, it could be several months before a resolution is reached.
In recent years, Orange County residents have more than stepped up to the plate, and voted for additional funding sources. But despite that, without our guaranteed source of federal transportation funding, we may be faced with the potential of future delays on major projects. Worse yet, local officials may be forced to cut budgets on other important programs affecting healthcare, public safety or the environment.
According to the Transportation Infrastructure House Committee, California stands to receive $17 billion from the federal reauthorization bill. However, California’s budget deficit already has derailed many statewide transportation projects. Without adequate state funds, our transportation agencies will have difficulty meeting the local match requirement for federal funds.
While our local and state leaders have worked hard to establish innovative funding solutions, federal funding through reauthorization of TEA-21 is critical to the long-term solutions that will help our transportation system address the traffic demands in our region.
David R. Anderson
Manager, Southern California Operations
HNTB
Santa Ana
It seems as though everyone in Congress has an opinion about tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Regardless which way GOP or Democratic winds blow, the price of oil is going to remain high until we stabilize the production of liquid fuels and devise other ways to power vehicles.
The advent of the hydrogen highway,the on-ramp to a new econometric model,enjoys widespread support among political leaders and environmentalists alike. Many of them live in Japan, Canada, China or Brazil.
With their pocketbooks focused squarely on increasing production of biomass to ethanol, these countries quickly are developing strategic plans that bridge the gap between their dependence on oil imports and their desire for energy independence. We need to be doing the same thing here in Orange County and around the nation.
Technologies developed in the U.S. and commercialized around the world produce ethanol from wood waste, paper and much of what ends up in sanitary landfills. The production of homegrown ethanol from waste will create more than 20 billion gallons of new fuel domestically. This means there will be an extended life of landfills, a reliable source of energy, and a price reduction at the pump.
Diverting the current Strategic Petroleum Reserve fill rate of 105,000 barrels per day, or about one-half of 1 percent of America’s total daily oil consumption, is hardly enough to make a dent in the gasoline market. What truly will make a difference is adding billions of gallons of ethanol, much of it made in Orange County, to a national energy strategy.
To ensure that the hydrogen highway is paved with more than good intentions, ethanol from waste needs to be part of a comprehensive plan that is technically feasible, economically smart, environmentally sound, and homegrown.
Arnold R. Klann
President
Arkenol Fuels
Irvine
Putting an end to the shell games being played with the state budget in the name of flexibility is definitely a step in the right direction to bring California’s financial mess under control. One such effort is to develop safeguards to prevent the raiding of accounts that voters have identified for specific purposes, such as Proposition 42 funds.
Prop. 42, passed by 69% of voters in 2002, allocates the state’s sales taxes collected on gasoline purchases be used solely to improve California’s transportation system.
However, using legal loopholes, Prop. 42 funds, from the inception, have been either borrowed or outright diverted for non-transportation-related uses. These diversions, combined with other borrowing schemes, have resulted in the loss of over $4.3 billion that was supposed to be available for transportation infrastructure improvements.
Assembly Constitutional Amendment 29 is a step in the right direction. It preserves these funds for transportation improvement projects as demanded by California voters.
Hamid Bahadori
Transportation Legislative Committee Chair
Orange County Branch, American Society of Civil Engineers
Santa Ana
Reagan
What a great article in the June 14 Comment on Ronald Reagan. Rick Reiff’s experience in moving from liberal to conservative parallels my own.
Ernie Schneider
Executive Director
Hunsaker & Associates
Irvine
Great Park
Did anyone notice that Irvine’s plans for the very first 200 acres of its so-called “Great Park” involve taking virgin land south of the runway and pouring concrete on it? Yet at the same time, the former concrete runways and tarmac at El Toro supposedly will be converted into “parkland” at a later date. Something smells fishy.
The activity that will mark the “ground-breaking commencement” of this imaginary park will be the expansion of a local auto mall. Since the voters of this pseudo park basically were sold a lemon, it is quite fitting that there will be used car salesmen running all over the place.
Rex Ricks
Huntington Beach
