So far only candidate Ken Cuccinelli has presented a Economic Development Plan that outlines what he would do in taxes and spending.  Terry McAuliffe will likely present a plan at some point and I will comment on it when that happens.

The Cuccinelli tax and spending plan released in early May is a comprehensive look at how he perceives the role of government in promoting economic growth – the key to helping everyone in Virginia.  A rising tide lifts all ships so a growing economy helps the whole state.

The Cuccinelli Plan of tax cuts, limiting the growth of the General Fund, and eliminating preferential tax treatment for specific industries in return for a more even-handed approach to tax policy, should encourage investment and job growth at this critical time.  This plan will make Virginia more business friendly for those businesses already here and an even greater magnet for bringing businesses to our commonwealth.  Businesses create the jobs that are the key to economic growth, personal financial stability, and a brighter future.  Growing existing businesses here in Virginia, starting new ones and bringing active businesses to settle in our commonwealth are all necessary to a healthy economy.

And a growing economy will be a huge benefit to all of us.

Limiting the growth of the General Fund will, when the economy finally grows at normal rates, make sure that the burden of state government remains the same on each of us year in and year out.  This is particularly important when the current focus of the federal government seems to be in growing its influence and increasing taxes to fund those new and growing programs.

The idea of a special “Small Business Tax Relief Commission” to be activated right after the election, that will work with the current Governor, is a responsible way to make the first two years of a governor’s term more effective than most. And the elimination of the job destroying taxes (Business Professional Occupational License – BPOL-- Tax, Machine and Tool --M&T-- tax, and the Merchants Capital—MC tax) is a long overdue effort that can be done while keeping the counties and cities that collect these taxes whole so that no financial burden is felt by these localities.

With both candidates for Governor agreeing to consider the elimination of these three job destroying taxes, it clearly shows that these business-stifling taxes have come to the end of the line.  They are on the way out.  Counties, cities and towns that now collect these taxes must be made whole if these three taxes are to be eliminated.  That can happen and both candidates seem interested in pursuing this idea.

Reducing the income tax burden on our citizens, as the Cuccinelli Plan proposes, is also a good idea.  Although Virginia taxes are reasonably low compared to other states, when the federal tax burden is added to our “government bill” our overall tax burden zooms closer to the top of the list nationally.  So tax cuts help us have more money in our pockets to spend on consumer goods and investing in our future. This can be done in a revenue neutral way so that our state budget is not harmed.

The Attorney General says that he will off-set his proposed tax cuts through possibly broadening the sales tax to some services that do not now collect them and by eliminating some tax credits that may no longer be as effective as broader tax cuts that can encourage business growth and put cash into the pockets of our citizens.

The Cuccinelli Economic Plan is a responsible approach in taking the next step after the budget and economic progress made under Governor Bob McDonnell.

We look forward to seeing Terry McAuliffe’s comprehensive economic development plan and to compare the two approaches to the role of government in our growing but still struggling economy.

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Not until resistant local leaders updated the codes to reflect modern capabilities was Levitt able to build what would become the legendary Levittown, sparking a revolution in home ownership and upward mobility.

It’s a lot like that with full-time online learning in Virginia.

In late April, the Carroll County School Board voted to close Virginia’s largest full-time statewide virtual school, leaving only a small school of 130 students in King and Queen County offering full-time online options to the state’s 1.2 million public school students. The decision leaves 350 students – 13 percent of whom are students with disabilities, 10 percent of whom are from active duty military families, and 10 percent of whom are medically unable to be in a traditional school – out in the cold and scrambling for options next year.

In explaining the school system’s decision, School Superintendent Strader Blankenship cited the complexity of administering government rules to students from more than 70 local school systems, noting “We had more than 350 students in the program, and only five were Carroll County students. We were spending a lot of time on students that were not Carroll County students.”

And therein lies the problem.

Virginia educational governance and funding was designed for a time when students learned in a bricks and mortar building closest to where they lived. They did not anticipate a digital world in which students could live anywhere in the state and learn from anywhere in the state. And online schools for students without borders don’t fit well into a system designed exclusively on local control – it’s like fitting the idiomatic square pegs into round holes.

Basing governance and funding on the local school division model means there will never be a local school system with a vested interest in developing a robust state-wide online presence; indeed, its interest will always run in the opposite direction. The intricacies of education funding means enrolling too many students from outside the county raises local costs to educate “outside” students. Special education students from around the state means dealing with local Individualized Education Plans in each of their residential counties.

And a reliance exclusively on state funding that can range from $2200 to $6800 per child for the sponsoring school division means only a limited number of school systems could even afford to sponsor a full-time virtual school.

The Thomas Jefferson Institute has suggested reforming the funding mechanism (see here) to ensure not only equal funding for any student but also an accountability system basing a portion of funding on successful student course completion. Delegate Richard “Dickie” Bell (R-Staunton) proposed legislation last January (see here) that took elements of the Jefferson Institute proposal and restructured virtual school governance to create a state-wide Virginia State Virtual School, recognizing that an online student is not limited by school division borders.

More than 275,000 students in America are enrolled in full-time virtual schools, a number that is growing 30 percent a year – even as Virginia appears to be slipping into reverse. To be sure, most students who learn online will do so through single courses or through Blended Learning models in which part of their instruction is in a regular classroom. But building healthy full-time virtual schools will provide lessons in curriculum, classroom management and instructional practices that will improve the development of other models.

The age in which we live has fewer and fewer barriers. Online learning tears down the political barriers between school divisions, providing new options for Virginia’s students to learn. These students might be from military families, students on homebound instruction with medical needs, students with special education or gifted needs, or any of a variety of students who would use a virtual school because it fits their requirements better.

Creating a state-wide virtual school model would provide opportunities to those students. It would provide those opportunities without burdening local school divisions. And it would lower the costs of education which once could be delivered only in expensive bricks and mortar buildings.

Virginia’s system of constitutionally-mandated free public education has generally worked well since its creation, but its infrastructure rules weren’t designed for an age of broadband, ipads, and digital learning.

Like the building codes of old, reforming those rules to reflect modern capabilities will spark a revolution in education, expand the ability of the Commonwealth’s students to learn, and ensure their competitiveness in an international marketplace.
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The reality is that 30 million American households earn less than $25,000 a year – fully one in every four American families. It’s much worse if you are an African-American where 40 percent of households earn less than $25,000 a year – 6.5 million households.

Truth is, the cost of energy for 25 percent of Americans is massive. An average household spends $1,244 on electricity and $4,668 on gasoline. Think about what this means to the 4.2 million households who earn less than $5,000 a year.

Despite these well known facts, 30 states believe they must mandate use of renewable electrical energy. The price tag for renewable mandates is huge to the poor and that is despite federal and state subsidies. In hearings in Colorado last month, the myth of affordability was exposed. Under Colorado law, utilities are supposed to be able to increase consumer bills by no more than 2 percent in order to cover the cost of mandated renewable energy. Didn’t happen. The Public Utility Commission and the utilities conspired to create new “fees” that covered the rest of the renewables’ bill. The actual price tag? Some 13% over the cost of normal coal and natural gas generated electricity.

So let’s look at the equities. You live in one of 4.2 million households and bring in less than $5,000 a year. You can’t afford a car, so you rely on friends and the bus system. You walk a lot. But, electricity you must have. You are paying 25 percent of all the cash you earn on electricity. If your state has a renewable energy standard, however, 160 bucks a year goes to feeling good about the greenness of your electricity. You don’t get anything else from that $160, just the knowledge that you are using green energy.

Let’s look at the rich for a moment. You live in Fairfax County, Virginia, home to several of the highest income communities in the nation. A truly rich county. For a few years the county government decided to purchase 10 percent of its electricity from wind. Then the economy went south, property values dropped and even a far left liberal board of supervisors could not raise tax rates quickly enough to avoid serious budget cuts. What cut came first? Yep, the wind energy. They went back to coal and nuclear.

Of course, Fairfax County had a choice. The poor black household in a renewable energy mandate state doesn’t get a choice. That family has to pay.

These facts show Energy Injustice. State and federal energy policies are not merely inequitable; they demonstrate the hidden face of racism and injustice, clothed in green sheets. With 13 percent of the American labor force out of work or underemployed, it is time to go back to basics. Let the marketplace decide what kind of energy we want to buy. Let the marketplace bring the prices of energy down and let the marketplace create jobs and increase wealth. Let those 4.2 million families who can hardly keep themselves in house and home receive a measure of fairness and let the American public know the truth about this silliness known as green energy.

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A recent essay in the New York Times by a Stanford academic, Sean Reardon, (“No Rich Child Left Behind”) has won a lot of praise for its dissection of those trends and its collection of data showing that the gap between children born in affluent homes and their middle and lower income peers is growing. But Reardon’s analysis is also worth examining for a blind spot it reveals in the left’s critique of educational inequality: despite a laundry list of mostly proposals to grow government services, Reardon never mentions two words, vouchers and parental choice. Not even in passing, not even for the purpose of debunking them. It’s as if Reardon is wholly oblivious to the idea that what plagues many parents is not so much an absence of more social welfare, but a lack of capital to buy mobility into better educational options for their children.

And while Reardon captures the extent to which affluent parents are gaining an edge for their kids by pouring cash into extracurricular programs and by devoting more of their own time and knowledge to their child’s life after school hours, he oddly gives no consideration to the most vital thumb these parents place on the scale: they cut the check necessary to enroll their child in the most elite private school they can find, or they buy a home in a neighborhood with a track record of sustaining top flight schools.

Reardon is perceptive in his suggestion that fixating on school quality can mask other decisive factors like parental involvement. But that insight does not challenge the obvious: parental support can still be undermined by weak or poorly run schools, and what the most engaged parents bring to the table can be augmented by schools that are exemplary. For those reasons, liberals and conservatives have spent a lot of energy attacking the problem of failing schools, with the right tending to focus on more accountability from teachers and principals, and the left embracing challenges to state funding formulas that disadvantage low income districts in various ways, typically by forcing them to rely on inadequate local property tax bases

To be sure, conservatives have sometimes been guilty of seeming more enthusiastic about reining in teachers unions than they are about the plight of under-served minority and low income youngsters. But most left-leaning critics are guilty of a blatant contradiction: they spend enormous energy worrying about the deficit between richer and poorer school districts while seeming un-engaged in the even more prevalent reality that richer parents have a considerable edge in maneuvering the menu of school options.

Empowering middle and lower income parents, in Reardon’s view, requires expanding their access to an array of social services, from day-care to pre-K. He is right about that, and it’s worth acknowledging that notably red states like Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma have been trend-setters in setting up ambitious pre-K programs.  But providing those parents the full range of empowerment means strengthening their ability to participate fully in the educational market: it requires giving them the flexibility to transfer their kids  out of a failing district and providing vouchers or tax credits to pay tuition at private schools that are ordinarily out of their reach. States should also pursue a worthwhile innovation recently launched in Virginia, the Education Improvement Tax Credit, which incentivizes contributions to scholarship foundations that enable middle and low income families to afford private schools.

In other words, to attack inequality, it’s time to recognize that school choice really already exists in every jurisdiction in America, but typically only for the affluent, and that the same choices must be widened to families whose circumstances let them only imagine those options today.

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Economic growth and progress are dependent on private sector development and public sector infrastructure. In his seminal work, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote that in addition to defense of society and administration of justice, “the third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and, which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain.” He went on to write, “the works and institutions of this kind are chiefly those for facilitating the commerce of society and those for promoting the instruction of the people”.

Public investment in such institutions and works is not merely justifiable to fulfill government’s Constitutional responsibility to “promote the general welfare,” but necessary. The commerce of the nation – the opportunity for individuals and companies to engage in business transactions that create wealth, generate income, and provide the basis for taxes to pay for those inherently governmental services we need as a functioning society – depends on highways and other surface transportation.

While there may not be profit in every aspect of roads, bridges and other parts of our surface transportation, there are opportunities for greater private sector participation in the financing and delivery of infrastructure or public works.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is embarking upon on a public-private partnership (P3) to build 29 miles of high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on I-95/395 to ease congestion and speed the flow of commuter traffic from Stafford County, through Prince William and Fairfax Counties, to points inside the Beltway. The HOT lanes will operate similar to those on the Beltway between I-95/395 to north of the Dulles Toll Road.

Local citizens are opposed to a terminus ramp being built at Turkeycock Run, just north of Edsall Road. The selection of this site is advantageous for several reasons. It is the only location available that permits the efficient flow of traffic without taking private property, thus saving money, as it will be co-located with the ramp at an existing interchange. It will provide access for motorists heading to the Duke and King Street corridors, thus collecting a significant number of auto users.

The project has been through all required federal air quality and environmental reviews. Federal approval has been granted by the Environmental protection Agency (EPA) and Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) and all requisite environmental standards have been met. Few have accused the Obama Administration’s EPA of being lax on such environmental analysis, so here should be no question about the project meeting all regulations affecting air, water and noise and protecting public health. In fact, three different studies show the project, including the terminus ramp, is well within federal guidelines.

The project will help motorists on the congested I-95 corridor with new choices, added capacity, and extend and improve the performance of the existing HOV system. The HOT lanes are market-based alternatives that allow consumers to make choices. At a time of severely limited public funds for infrastructure and tax increases are unpopular, the HOT lane project will be accomplished through an innovative public-private partnership. A recent survey found 71 percent of Americans said they would be willing to pay tolls in order to save time and avoid congestion, while 80 percent agreed state DOTs should enter into public private partnerships to bring roadway, bridge, and other transportation improvements to the public. Other surveys show a strong preference for tolls over taxes. Tolls are the ultimate “user fee” and, on projects such as I-95, are voluntary. Innovative financing arrangements, authorized by the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) are being implemented across the country. Indeed, the United States is playing catch-up to other nations around the globe on implementing such P3 projects.

The well publicized infrastructure report card of the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the United States an overall grade of D+ and a D for roads (Virginia gets an overall D+). When innovative financing is combined with solid engineering design and planning, NIMBY complaints prevent Northern Virginia from - literally – getting moving again. The I-95/395 project, with its intended ramp, should be built on schedule.

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Governor McDonnell did all elected officials, and  the two candidates for Governor this year, a huge favor by moving the transportation discussion from “where are we going to get the money?” to a more management focused question of “how are we going to spend the money?”

And this is an incredibly important change in focus.  Taxpayers and those who vote will be carefully looking to see if these new monies are well-spent.  Will the new taxes truly be spent on credible transportation projects or spent on silly “niceties” that don’t impact our daily driving lives?  Folks will be watching.

If these new monies aren’t spent in a way that relieves congestion and helps  grow our economy then a massive failure of leadership will be the result.  A good example of “wise spending” is in Northern Virginia: the years of delay and the complaints of “Lexus lanes” aimed at the recently opened High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes have disappeared as the traffic congestion in the mornings and evenings on Virginia’s Capital Beltway has dramatically improved.  And the rapid pace of building additional HOT lanes south from Springfield into Prince William County on I-95 shows that transportation construction can proceed  quickly. This public private partnership needs to be completed in order for the return on investment to begin. So the private sector involvement is key to moving this project quickly. We should learn from this experience.

The new transportation dollars need to focus on congestion relief and economic development.  As traffic moves more quickly, the positive corollary impact is that pollution that belches out of our cars on jammed roads will be significantly reduced.  It will be the job of our next Governor and his Secretary of Transportation to be sure that state monies are not wasted on unnecessary projects such as bike paths where there are few  if any bike riders, garden patches that clearly don’t relieve congestion,  and $1 million bus stops as has been the case in at least one jurisdiction.  These are unnecessary and not what those caught in traffic, trying to deliver goods or hoping to get one more service call in a day want to see paid for out of these new transportation dollars.

This is the time for  policy makers to review the important study released by the Reason Foundation in August 2006 that looked at the needs nationwide over the next 25 years to relieve congestion, both current and projected based on where people will be living. That study showed where Virginia’s long term needs could be significantly helped by building  a transportation spine through and to the congested  areas of the state (Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and the I-95 corridor toward Richmond) and the areas where population growth is expected to be the greatest such as Charlottesville.  This study showed that about $14 billion was needed in 2006 dollars to build this needed spine.  This $14 billion can be easily met between federal and state spending now that the transportation funding issue in Virginia is behind us.  And any additional monies can be used to build and improve connector roads, car pool parking lots, etc.  This study should be updated and seriously considered as a long-term transportation plan that will proceed.

Let’s look at other reasonable ways to spend these new found dollars:

1. Require new construction and maintenance funds to be made through public private partnerships as the first option if the finances work.  Private companies can usually spend dollars  more wisely than can government.  And if private funds are required to be part of new construction and maintenance projects the amount of total funds spent on transportation will be much greater than what the new transportation bill projects from tax money alone.

2. Require all transportation over $25 million be spent in public private partnerships with competitive bids that do not require union workers.  When this concept was instituted for the expansion of Metro in Northern Virginia, the bid for the second half of this project came in over $100 million less than projected.  And when concrete was finally allowed to compete with asphalt on road bids in Virginia the price of the first project came down, as I understand it, by tens of millions of dollars.

3. Funds should be spent on relieving “choke points” around the state where traffic builds up because an intersection is out-of-date – let’s build left turn lanes and extend current left turn lanes so that traffic doesn’t “bleed” into the other lanes of traffic, etc.

4. Let’s properly synchronize traffic signals as has been suggested for years and let’s review these “Timed lights” on a regular basis to be sure they are truly relieving congestion.

5. Let’s consider reversible lanes in neighborhoods where traffic is backed up in the morning and the evening in different directions.  Why expand a road to four lanes when three lanes (one reversible lane) would solve the congestion problem for less money and without destroying so much land.

I am sure there are many other good ideas on how to spend the transportation “windfall” in effective and efficient ways.  If our leaders spend these new monies in ways that relieve congestion and help improve our economic growth, and we can see improvements in a several months and not years, we will be able to say “good job.”  If these new monies are spent on projects that don’t relieve congestion, don’t fix the potholes, don’t dissolve the “chock points” then government will once again prove that it is not a good steward of our tax money.  The choice is up to those we elect to office this year.

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The problem, of course, is that the federal government is broke, with unimaginably enormous deficits whose abatement, too, seems unimaginable when we consider where the various big-ticket entitlements and their weak finances are headed. So a long-term commitment to nearly total funding of Medicaid expansion seems unlikely. And for the same reason, even the short- and medium-term commitment, or at least its size, must be questioned. Fiscally responsible legislators and governors around the country thus have a keen dilemma.

In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell has opposed Medicaid expansion without major cost-cutting reforms, and permission for those reforms' state-enacted elements must come from the federal government. Already, he told Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius in early March, Medicaid takes up a remarkably high 21 percent of the commonwealth's general-fund budget, up from 5 percent three decades ago.

In terms of recipients, a good estimate, according to a recent study for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA), is that there will be 310,000 new ones over the first several years of Medicaid expansion should Virginia opt for it. Most new enrollees would be parents, childless adults, and disabled people, for whom the state's now very tough eligibility threshold would be loosened, under the Obamacare expanded-Medicaid standard, to include the somewhat poor and not just the desperately poor. In addition, another 90,000 already-eligible people are likely to join Medicaid. (Study found here).

"Virginia," the governor wrote Secretary Sebelius, "will not consider any expansion of Medicaid before there are dramatic, verifiable cost saving reforms of the program at the state and federal level." He went on to cite quite a few of them. But McDonnell's position will be politically relevant for less than another year, because his term is up and Virginia governors cannot seek re-election (here).

The General Assembly's recent decision to set up Medicaid expansion in Virginia (by conditionally authorizing the use of federal funds for this purpose) without actually voting to approve the policy leaves the question, under its adopted language, to a specially appointed committee of legislators. Unless the legislature changes its mind. The provisions have been incorporated in the current state budget, but a new budget must be adopted in 2014. So a year from now, the General Assembly and the new governor could decide to change those budgetary provisions, meaning the rules of the game.

Here's how it works--for now. The expansion is authorized if a newly appointed Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission, whose members are from the state Senate and House of Delegates, decides sufficient cost-controlling reforms are underway. If enough senators or delegates on the panel remain unconvinced that Virginia is moving toward major savings in the expensive program and vote accordingly, Medicaid expansion is blocked. Majorities of both the House and the Senate commissioners must agree that enough progress toward reform has happened.

Politically, the bottom line is this: Four of the five members from the House of Delegates are Republicans, so if three of those Republicans (or conceivably two Republicans and the Democrat, said to be fiscally cautious on the question) are willing to take the heat for an unpopular decision against Medicaid expansion, Virginia will stay out. Otherwise it will join what increasingly looks like a majority of states, including more than a few with cooperating Republican governors, in taking this immediately attractive but worrisome fiscal step.

What Medicaid expansion opponents in the General Assembly lost when the decision was structured this way was safety in numbers. Since the legislators as a whole, including the heavily Republican House, apparently won't be voting on Medicaid, the spotlight will focus on a handful of their colleagues.

Comments from the two Republican commissioners who were quoted in a press release from the office of Speaker William Howell (R-Stafford) announcing the House appointees are encouraging to expansion opponents. Serious reforms are needed to ensure that Virginia doesn't get stuck "if and when the federal government breaks its promise to pay" for it, said Del. Jimmie Massie (R-Henrico). "I have been around long enough to know there is no such thing as free money from the federal government and no such thing as a bigger program that costs less and works better."

In a similar spirit, Del. John O'Bannon (R-Henrico), a practicing neurologist, said "Medicaid expansion without significant reforms could wreck Virginia's finances." But another recent quote from Dr. O'Bannon, in a Richmond Times-Dispatch news story, is more conciliatory: "I'm not saying it's a slam dunk ... but I think there's a possibility there" for expanding Medicaid.

Of the two candidates for governor, it probably goes without saying that Democrat (and former Democratic National Committee chairman) Terry McAuliffe supports the Medicaid expansion. It's also no surprise that his Republican opponent Ken Cuccinelli, who was among the many state attorney generals suing to stop Obamacare on constitutional grounds, opposes the move without major cost-cutting.

The state budget isn't the only consideration, though, from an economic standpoint, and even the budgetary issue is more complicated than some opponents may suggest. A recent study for the VHHA health care association, conducted by Chmura Economics & Analytics, says Medicaid expansion should allow the state government to reduce its current spending on needy people's otherwise-uncompensated emergency care while also collecting new tax revenue from the larger health-care sector (and its added jobs) that would result from more Medicaid. The Chmura study also sees significant economic benefits outside that sector--and an annual boost to the Virginia economy totaling $3.9 billion.

Of course, all that must be viewed against a worst-case scenario in which the commonwealth holds the bag if the prediction by Delegate Massie, for instance, comes true.

In the second half of our Medicaid update, we will look into the complicated list of reforms McDonnell and other fiscal conservatives are urging, as well as early successes with Medicaid cost-cutting in Florida.

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Entire shelves in this shoebox establishment were given over to beer, soda, candy, pork rinds, potato chips and sugar-drenched cereals. The healthiest (or should I say “least unhealthy”) foods were ordinary starches like rice and potatoes whose sole nutritional virtue is that they were not drenched in sugar, fat and salt. If there is any correlation between the percentage of shelf space stocked with junk food and the nutritional intake of neighborhood residents, there should be no mystery whatsoever why Richmond’s inner-city population is suffering an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

I totally subscribe to the doctrine that people should be held accountable for their behavior. We should not make excuses for poor people who blow their slender resources on cigarettes, lottery tickets, a six-pack of beer and a bag of Tom’s Bacon Cheddar Fries. But I also acknowledge that the story is much bigger than the irresponsible lifestyle choices of the poor. Rent-seeking corporations and a spineless federal government bear their share of the blame.

Last week, Coca-Cola held its annual meeting. If all went according to schedule, David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, was planning to criticize the company for lobbying to keep soft drinks eligible for food stamps. Currently, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) forbids only the purchase of alcohol and tobacco. Through SNAP, American taxpayers subsidize the purchase of about $4 billion worth of soda products yearly.

My thinking on the subject coincides exactly with Almasi’s sentiments:

I’m all for freedom of choice and respecting peoples’ personal decisions, but Coke lobbying for its share of food stamp money is above and beyond altruism. While publicly promoting so-called ‘sustainability’ by hyping good nutrition and active lifestyles, Coca-Cola lobbyists are quietly seeking to ensure that American taxpayers subsidize the company’s high-calorie, sugary beverages. Both political parties carp about cutting the budget and fixing the deficit. How about stopping this virtual river of soda being paid for with our tax dollars?

I also agree with Justin Danhof, director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project:

In a free marketplace, folks should be able to purchase what they want. That is why Coca-Cola was right to fight New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to ban large beverages, but wrong when it fought his efforts to limit SNAP funds to healthier items. SNAP does not operate in a free market. It is taken from folks’ paychecks. It is reasonable to limit how those benefits are administered and for what items.

Actually, I would go a step further. I would apply the same logic to snack foods as well. If hunger is still a problem in the inner city, as many say is the case, public funds should be limited to products that meet basic nutritional guidelines. Surely, this is an area where do-gooder liberals and skin-flint conservatives can join forces to create better public policy and improve the health of the poor.

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On March 29, 2013, a U.S. District Court judge found against the Animal Welfare Institute and two of its lawyers. They must pay for bringing frivolous, unreasonable and groundless lawsuits using the Endangered Species Act (ESA). (The animal rights plaintiffs used a paid plaintiff who was determined by the court to be a liar.)

Feld sought legal fees against all of the parties and lawyers involved in the case against it. The court said attorney fees are "warranted, jointly and severally against all plaintiffs under the ESA." Also, it said that a lawyer and her law firm by "clear and convincing evidence" violated appropriate legal standards and must be sanctioned!

Feld had argued, from the beginning of this case which started in 2000, that the plaintiffs lacked standing and that plaintiffs had engaged in frivolous, unreasonable, and groundless conduct. TRUE! The result was Feld receives attorney fees under the ESA! (The litigation is now in its 13th year and includes over 500 court docket filings, a six-week trial and two appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.)

The court also said that the animal rights plaintiff's counsel and her law firm were jointly and severally liable for Feld's attorneys' fees regarding a portion of a motion to compel. The animal rights law firm had refused to provide financial information regarding an individual plaintiff's relationship with the animal rights groups.

The Endangered Species Act is critical to this case. The ESA has a section which allows private citizens to have an opportunity to "…vindicate their rights and to ensure citizen enforcement of important federal policies." One court has said, however, that bringing "frivolous suits" undermines citizens bringing legitimate suits and if frivolous, scarce judicial resources are wasted.

The court found that the animal activist groups brought a law suit against Feld that was "…from the beginning, frivolous and vexatious. There was no legal or factual basis on which to find Rider or API had standing to bring this action."

Plaintiffs lacked standing to sue in the very first instance and falsely paid an individual to claim that he had standing. The court was very harsh on the plaintiffs when it said, "…they either knew or reasonably should have known that they did not have sufficient facts to establish standing and therefore that the claim was groundless from its inception." (There is a real lesson to be learned from this assertion.)

This further explains the court accusing the lawyers of providing false and incomplete information to the court and forcing Feld and the court to spend years and resources to handle this case.

Sanctions against HSUS were also sought regarding being jointly and severally liable for all attorneys' fees. There are numerous disputed factual and legal issues regarding HSUS' status in this case. Because Feld had not made sufficient arguments against HSUS, the court declined to deal with HSUS' participation in the context of a motion to strike, and the result was that HSUS was not at this time held jointly and severally liable for legal fees. However, Feld can refile a motion to go after HSUS for legal fees.

In addition to the court concluding Feld is entitled to recovery of its legal fees, it left open the question to what is an appropriate amount -- so this story is still not over. The parties were to file a joint status report on how to proceed by April 15, 2013. Feld claims it has spent over $20 million so far to defend in this case. One animal rights plaintiff has settled with Feld and paid $9.3 million.

The three ring circus continues because Feld has filed a lawsuit against the animal rights plaintiffs and their attorneys alleging that their conduct in this law suit violated the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act.

There are many lessons to be learned from this ESA fee decision. Case… continued!
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The first is a three-page article taking up the entire Science and Technology department of the March 30, 2013 edition of The Economist. It reports that despite high temperatures recorded in 2012, the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade. As the magazine notes, "The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now." It goes on from there to a thoughtful discussion of the limitations of current climate models. It also points to several recent studies, by reputable researchers, that come up with lower projected increases in global temperature than "mainstream" climate science as reflected in periodic reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The question under review here is climate sensitivity to CO2 increases: "If temperatures are likely to rise by only 2̊ C in response to a doubling of carbon emissions . . . perhaps the world should seek to adjust to (rather than to stop) the greenhouse gas splurge." The article goes on to discuss several different approaches to climate modeling and such unresolved questions as the impact of clouds; the IPCC itself notes that "cloud feedback remains the most uncertain radiative feedback in climate models."

Another surprising article is a major feature in the current (Vol. 116, No 2) issue of MIT's Technology Review. Editor David Rotman's article, "A Cheap and Easy Plan to Stop Global Warming," provides a careful pros-and-cons assessment of Harvard physicist David Keith's proposal to mitigate global warming by injecting sulfate aerosols at 20 km. altitude over a period of many decades. Once dispersed globally, the aerosols will reflect a portion of the incoming solar radiation back into space, increasing Earth's albedo and partially offsetting the warming effect due to growing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Keith's proposal falls in the category of geo-engineering, and it is considered almost sacrilege by some climate scientists and environmental groups. Rotman's article gives plenty of space to scientist critics, but ends up concluding that Keith's proposal is definitely worth a serious test, and that if it works, it might be far more cost-effective (as well as more do-able) than drastic, worldwide reductions in CO2 emissions.

What is notable about both articles is who published them. Over the past decade, both The Economist and Technology Review have mostly presented what the former dubs "mainstream" climate science, while just about ignoring other approaches to modeling and mitigation. Neither publication could remotely be categorized as a "climate skeptic," but both are seriously interested in improved understanding of climate change and of sensible policy approaches to deal with it.

And that brings me to a third article, in its own way also something of a milestone change. In its March 25th issue, National Review published a thoughtful article by Oren Cass, "The Next Climate Debate," arguing that "conservatives should accept the science and focus on policy." It's an excellent piece, pointing out the absurdly low cost-effectiveness of a number of what I would consider "feel-good" policies that produce miniscule reductions in greenhouse gases (on a global scale) at very high cost. Developing sensible policies for dealing with global warming is the real challenge, in transportation as well as the broader realms of energy use. It's good to see thoughtful conservatives moving in this direction.

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