A. When leveraged, of course.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking advantage of this financial magic trick. The stimulus bill (aka American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA) allocated $2.5 billion to USDA to encourage broadband buildout in unserved and underserved rural areas. If USDA gave out all this money as grants, there would be $2.5 billion to be divided among applicants from various states. But USDA has announced that it will give them money out as a combination of grants and low interest loans and will actually be able to give out between $7 and $9 billion. The catch, of course, is that most of this money will have to be paid back. Still, for both stimulation and broadband penetration purposes, this isn't a bad idea because more actual money will go into projects than would have been possible with grants alone. If things go well, more and bigger projects'll get done and more people'll be put to work.

Here's how the leverage magic works: USDA takes some portion of the money and uses it to set up a loan loss reserve. For this calculation they assume that there will be $72,000 in losses for every million dollars they lend; this $72,000 is the COST to the USA of lending $1 million. Of course the USA also has to pay interest but the borrower is expected to pay interest approximately equal to the federal borrowing cost so there is no net interest cost to the treasury. So let's do some math:

First divide one million by 72,000. That answer is approximately 14 meaning that one dollar in loss reserves will "pay for" $14 in loans. Another way of saying this is that RUS believes that it will get back $13 in principal repayments for every $14 it lends. So, if USDA takes $500,000,000 million of the $2.5 billion which it has been allocated and uses this as a loan loss reserve, it can make $7 billion in loans and expect to "lose" no more than $500,000,000. That's apparently what USDA intends to do and, assuming they are discerning enough in making their loans so that their losses aren't higher than anticipated, this is a pretty good way to get lots of programs going.

But now suppose you're a telco which formerly didn't find the reward of building in a rural area worth the cost; will this program convince you to build affordable broadband in areas you previously bypassed? Obviously if you get grants – free money – that can be pretty persuasive. You invest less but get back the same return. But loans have to be paid back. Couldn't you have just borrowed before and built? Why would you want to do that now?

My guess is that the loans will help to incent the development of projects which wouldn't have happened otherwise. I know that there are companies prepared to apply for them in Vermont. One reason these loans are so attractive is simply the fact that they're available. This recession began as a credit contraction and, to a large degree, still is. Credit is very, very hard to get; patient money even harder to find. The rewards from building in a rural area take time. People who didn't have broadband before don't have a perceived need to get it immediately; their neighbors aren't posting to YouTube or living in Facebook; the schools aren't giving online homework. People who couldn't get broadband may not have the equipment to use it. The market develops but it takes time. The availability of any money at all is an incentive; the availability of money which can be paid back slowly as the market develops is further incentive.

Also the interest rate on the USDA loans is approximately the borrowing cost of the US government – just over 3% for five years and under 5% for ten years. On their own, if they could get loans at all, many of the companies who might build in rural areas would have to pay interest rates which are at least twice that. The difference between what loan applicants pay USDA and what they would pay in the open market is just as good as a grant – it's cash that stays with them instead of leaving.

The rules for broadband funding were published last week. The forms and instructions are available online at http://broadbandusa.sc.egov.usda.gov/. The deadline is August 14^th. The scramble is on. USDA making some of its (our) money available as loans means that there are more funds nationwide and more potential for bringing Vermont closer to its goal of universal broadband penetration – a key component of SmartVermont.

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July 13, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

To put this in context, over the life of ARRA, generally two years, the state should receive about $720 million in grants which are allocated to us under various formulae in the stimulus bill (and which we get as long as we jump through the right hoops in the right order and account for it properly). We also hope to get $200 million or more in competitive grants under various stimulus programs. Nationwide ARRA is supposed to spend $787 billion.

The bulk of the money state government has actually received has gone to human services - almost $71 million largely for help paying Medicaid benefits. Just under $5 million was received for transportation projects (these are posted monthly so this number is as of the end of May).

More stimulus money has been spent in Vermont than has been received. This doesn't indicate a problem, however; in most cases you have to spend money in federal programs before you are reimbursed for the expenditure. Washington doesn't want us earning interest on "their money".

Which brings up the interesting point of whose money is this anyway. A commenter on Vermont Tiger, where some posts from this blog are reposted, wrote: "Same old tripe repackaged to hide the smell. "We must compete for and win grants" [this quote is from me] translates into OPM [other people's money], for grants are nothing but tax dollars. If it such a good idea, invest your money for a healthy return."

ARRA money is anything but OPM; it's our tax dollars or money that was borrowed in our names or our kid's names. It would be negligent not to bring as much of it as we can use responsibly back to Vermont ; it's even worse if we don't spend this money well. We have to spend it like it's ours because it is.

There is a reasonable argument that this money (and lots of other money) would be better spent if it hadn't made a round trip to Washington, where a fair amount is lost in the handling and from where it comes back in categories we might not have chosen ourselves and with restrictions we would not have placed on ourselves. Our job in the office of Economic Stimulus and Recovery, however, is to deal with ARRA as passed by Congress and assure that it is as constructive for Vermont as it can be. We have a lot more cash yet to come. You can use recovery.vermont.gov to judge whether your money is being used well.

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June 28, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

Is this too good to be true? Look at the pictures below from ISO New England, the grid system which Vermont belongs to.

The top graph is called a load curve. It shows that we New Englanders, like people everywhere else, sometimes consume a lot more electricity than we do at other times. 10% of the time we have meters spinning at over an 18 gigawatt rate at the high end; During the low 10% of the time we consume at less than a 12 gigawatt rate. This by itself would be no big deal until you look at the difference in price per megawatt hour between the heavy use and the low use times – above $100 megawatt hour (except this year) during the high and less than $40 megawatt hour in the lull. The highest prices are over $200 and the lowest near zero.

[cheat sheet: if you light a 100 watt bulb for 10 hours you consume 1000 watt hours or one kilowatt hour (kwh). At retail we pay about $.16/per kwh here in Vermont. 1,000 kilowatt hours are a megawatt hour (mwh). Utilities buying electricity wholesale buy it by the megawatt hour. $100 per mwh is $.10 per kwh; not surprisingly, wholesale rates are lower than retail. 1,000 megawatt hours is a gigawatt hour. Now you know.]

Notice now that the price graph is pretty flat except at the ends while the demand curve is much more slanted. At the ends, price varies much more dramatically than demand. What's going on is that both the fuel and the capacity used to produce "extra" electricity during periods of peak demand are expensive. Here in New England we usually use natural gas for peak power in plants which run only a fraction of the time. BTW, the low price of natural gas this year explains why peak costs in 2009 (red) are so much lower than in 2008 (yellow).

At the low end you can't really turn off a nuclear plant for the night or completely shut down a hydro plant. Sometimes it's literally necessary to give away surplus electricity.

So one smart grid opportunity is to incent and enable consumer to move their use from the left end of these charts over to the right. The more we level out our use, the cheaper the total bill. Sometimes a peak price lasts for only a few minutes; a refrigerator, for example, can safely be turned off for a little while (the process has to be automated to be practical). Cheaper power late at night than during the day is predictable; electric storage heat can and is created off peak. Some day that's when we'll charge our plugin hybrid electric vehicles and electric lawn mowers.

Another smart grid opportunity is incenting generators of renewable energy to make more supply at peak times. For wind or solar, this requires some form of storage like batteries, but the extra cost may be worth the extra revenues. With hydro power, if there's sufficient impoundment space available, water can be stored until power is needed.

It's all about flattening the curves.

There's more on the components of the smart grid we hope to build quickly in Vermont with stimulus money at http://blog.tomevslin.com/2009/03/whats-a-smart-grid-and-why-does-it-matter.html.

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June 24, 2009 in Energy | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

There is no specific program in ARRA for libraries. But Vermont did receive a two year allocation of $17.1 million which it is free to use for any government service. The Morrisville library would have been eligible for this money – known variously as the discretionary part of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) or the General Services Fund (GSF). So would the lists of building and rehabilitation projects submitted by the University of Vermont, the state colleges, the hospitals, and some towns and school districts. People in my home town of Stowe hoped to use GSF for its long-sought and already-permitted hockey rink. The Preservation Trust listed over $27 million of shovel-ready projects on their website. There were at least $200 million of request for this money. It was obvious that most would be disappointed and, of course, they were.

Different states have different procedures for appropriating federal funds. Here in Vermont they are appropriated by law, not by the Governor unilaterally. Governor Douglas proposed spending all $17.1 million on economic development, mostly through the Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA). State money invested in VEDA attracts private funds into the same companies, and the hope was that the as much as $160 million would actually have been available for Vermont businesses as a result of this allocation.

The budget passed by the Legislature over the Governor's veto appropriates only half of the money, $8.5 million, for the State's fiscal year 2010 which begins on July 1, 2009. The rest remains to be appropriated next year.

$4.4 million was appropriated to the Public Safety Department. Since no new programs were created with this money nor any new positions created, this money is being used as a stop gap to lessen Vermont's budget deficit problem.

$2.15 million will go to VEDA to set up a venture capital fund to help early stage Vermont businesses.

$1 million will go to VEDA for a Vermont Jobs Fund to help otherwise healthy businesses weather tight credit conditions caused by the recession.

$200, 000 will go to the department of economic development for operation of the Vermont Training Program.

$500,000 will go to the department of tourism and marketing.

$100,000 will go to the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Funds for the Farm-to-Plate Investment program.

$150,000 will go the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Funds for operation of the funds.

Since the Governor will almost surely make a recommendation for the remaining $8.6 million to the next session of the Legislature and since the Legislature will certainly appropriate that money, you do have a voice in how the money is spent next year. You'll probably have a hard time making the case that it should be spent for a specific project in your town since it won't cover very many local projects but you can certainly try. You can advocate for statewide projects, for economic development, or to use the rest of the money to plug one more year of budget gap. The right people to contact with your recommendations are the Governor and your elected representatives.

An AP story on this subject is at http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090610/NEWS04/906100378.

An earlier post on the most popular money in the stimulus bill is here.

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June 15, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

There are 25 community access centers which operate 43 local cable channels and serve 100,000 cable households in Vermont according to the about page of CCTV in Burlington. These channels are funded by a percentage of the gross revenue of cable companies and sometimes contributions as well. Each access center produces and hosts shows and broadcasts them on local cable channels. You can't get them over the air or on satellite or out of the region in which they're produced except when the access centers share shows with each other, which they sometimes do. And, very importantly, the access centers make some of their shows available on the Internet so you can get them anytime and anywhere you have a good enough broadband connection.

Making coverage of events like select board meetings, local interviews, speeches at local events accessible to everyone is just one of the reasons all Vermonters need to have broadband access. But I digress.

Last month Congressman Peter Welch (D – VT) and I were luncheon speakers at a daylong conference in Burlington called Stimulating Green. The topic of both of our talks was the stimulus bill and what it means to Vermont. You won't get lunch but can hear what we both had to say at http://www.cctv.org/watch-tv/programs/stimulating-green-conference-keynote-addresses-rep-peter-welch-vermont-recovery-of. The conference and the talks were targeted to businesses looking for stimulus so the webcast is most interesting to small business people although it also has some general information on how your stimulus dollars are being spent.

A few weeks ago I was interviewed on another community access station, PEGTV in Rutland on their Insight show hosted by Laura Vien. Laura and fellow panelists Randal Smathers, editor of the Rutland Herald, and Royal Barnard, owner and publisher of the Mountain Times, asked me some good questions about the stimulus act and what it's likely to mean for Vermont. You can find that interview by going to http://www.pegtv.com/ipegvideo.php and typing "recovery" in the search box.

Technorati Tags: ARRA, community access tv

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June 08, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

The electrical system of tomorrow, the health care system of tomorrow, and the education system of today all depend on universal broadband penetration. Oh yeah, communication, commerce, and entertainment all need broadband too. So does e-government (coming soon) and research.

The electrical system of tomorrow will be smart. That means demand, supply, capacity, and outage data flow unimpeded and in near realtime from meters to utilities and back to consumers and generators. Much of this data flow is machines communicating with other machines. Some information flow is back to consumers both large and small so they can control their energy bills by using electricity when it's abundant and cheap and shunning or selling it back to the grid when it's rare and expensive. Taking advantage of the smart grid requires a broadband connection.

Part of e-health is electronic health records. Better information means better, cheaper, and less mistake-prone care. But we can't replace paper records with electronic ones until we can be sure that very doctor's office and place of treatment is online with enough bandwidth for bandwidth-hungry objects like x-rays. In the case of home health care, the place of treatment is the home. A home health worker needs the same access to medical records and the same ability to update them that a doctor or a hospital does. The home of the future will have health monitoring devices when needed. Homes need to be online for the delivery of health care.

When I was in school a million years ago I was taught to do research in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. That was then and this is now. Students need to know how to separate the wheat from the chaff on Google and wikipedia; their homework needs to be online just as mine was in the library. But a teacher can't responsibly give online homework to a class if even a small fraction of the students don't have the equipment and connections to get online when they go home. We can't reinvent pedagogy the way we need to until we know that all students have broadband connections – and that schools have scads of bandwidth

So everyone needs to be online. Geography can't be an obstacle but neither can poverty, lack of equipment, or lack of training.

The platform for SmartVermont – the Vermont we hope to build with stimulus money, State money and bonding authority, and private investment – is universal broadband penetration. The first application on that platform will be smart grid, e-health, and e-education. With lots of hard work, some luck, and our fair share of federal (our!) dollars, we can build that future for ourselves and our children.

Technorati Tags: ARRA, e-education, e-healt, smart grid, universal broadband

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May 31, 2009 in E-State, economic stimulus, Telecommunications, Web/Tech | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

Sounds good but it's bullshit.

Do we do physics with a slide rule and log tables anymore? Would that make us more like Einstein? Do young programmers have to learn to keypunch because that's what I had to do a million years ago to prepare my programs for execution? Do stone cutters have to practice chipping a softer stone with a harder stone because that's what their predecessors did? Of course not!

I know why generation x doesn't want generation x+1 to use the latest technology; it's because the kids are better at the new technology than their elders. And the elders don't want to be bested. The great fear of the greybeards whose skill was tedious drafting of commonplace designs is that a young genius with a computer'll output a masterpiece that breaks the old rules without even serving a decent humble apprenticeship.

The rules favor the incumbents, no surprise. You can't get your degree without following some of the rules and it's hard to be a practicing architect (or many other things) without a degree. What a waste.

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May 18, 2009 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

Nothing subtle about this. We intend that our use of this $22 million plus another $7 million of state funds to develop small and medium scale renewable energy projects will help convince the federal Department of Energy that we ought to receive a healthy allocation of the $4.5 BILLION which is available nationwide for smart electrical grid projects. It takes a smart grid to make full use of electricity generated from sun and wind; the smart grid is more valuable if there are a variety of energy sources for it to coordinate. Vermont already has a number of renewable energy projects up and running and in process. We estimate that we can use $29 million of ARRA and state money to bring another $150 million worth of projects online which will generate more than 3 million megawatt hours of electricity over the next twenty years ; generating this electricity from natural gas would release 860 million pounds of CO2 .

On most nights Vermont has no carbon footprint for electrical generation; our power comes from HydroQuebec and Vermont Yankee. Moreover this offpeak power is cheap at wholesale, in comes cases – believe it or not - almost free because there's no easy way to shut down its production temporarily and it has to go somewhere. On the other hand the power for peak times is generated by burning natural gas in plants that are only used for hours a day if even that. This peak power is very expensive.

In an ideal world the sun would shine on our solar collectors and the wind would turn our turbines during times of high demand and save us from buying peak power and burning hydrocarbons to produce it. Unfortunately we don't live in that ideal world; the sun shines at random and the wind blows willfully. We need a smart electrical grid to help match supply and demand.

Among the projects that Vermont utilities will almost certainly seek ARRA smart grid funding for is electricity storage – essentially big high tech batteries. These are particularly effective when used with wind power. The wind blows when it will and charges the batteries ; the grid draws from the batteries before importing fossil-fueled power.

A smart grid is good at dispatching electricity to areas of demand from areas of surplus. Even a small state like Vermont can be half cloudy and half sunny on any given day. Methane in cow power digesters can be hoarded until extra electricity is needed. Water can accumulate behind dams while the wind blows and be released on still days.

A smart grid is used to manage demand as well as supply. When there's a surplus of power, low prices encourage consumers to dry their clothes, charge up their electric vehicles and appliances, and store up heat. When power is in short supply, higher prices and information about those higher prices encourage consumers to avoid electrical consumption.

In context yesterday's announcement of incentives for distributed generation of electricity from renewable sources means that Vermont will be ready to demonstrate all of the benefits of a smart grid for energy independence and reduction of CO2. We hope the Department of Energy will see it that way when they consider our applications for smart grid projects. If they do, we'll have a smart grid sooner than otherwise and get even more value from all of our generation and transmission capacity.

That's called synergy. We should know much more about how close we come to accomplishing this plan in the next few months.

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May 15, 2009 in economic stimulus, Energy, Vermont | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

So how well are we doing here in Vermont at putting ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aka the stimulus bill) money to work?

We've done a good job of getting highway projects underway. It's taken us slightly longer to sort out the priorities for water projects but we're getting there. We can't make our own rules for alternative energy and energy efficiency and some economic development programs until both houses of the Legislature and the Governor agree on a budget (hopefully'll happen by the end of this week). With hindsight I wish that I had pushed for separate legislation to get some of these projects going faster; but it's not clear whether that could've happened or even that the Legislature should have looked at a budget for ARRA money out of context of the rest of the state budget.

The Douglas Administration has proposed that large amounts of the ARRA money which has been allocated to the state by the Department of Energy be spent for alternative energy and energy efficiency projects. The intent is to distribute this money through open processes –either competitive or first come, first served for eligible projects – depending on the anticipated demand for a particular program. The idea is to make sure that the most effective projects are the ones that get done.

We can't write the precise rules for these programs until we know what the Vermont legislature finally authorizes. But we know we have to get the rules written and the awards made quickly to take as much advantage as possible of this year's summer construction season, put people to work, and quickly start reaping the long term benefits of less dependence on imported fossil fuels. You should judge us by whether we meet these goals.

We in Vermont decided to go ahead and prepare for the competitive ARRA broadband, smart grid, education, and e-health awards even in the absence of final regulations from Washington. It'll probably turn out that we've "wasted" some of this work when we see the rules under which grants are to be awarded. We rushed to be ready to file applications for broadband and smart grid grants as early as the beginning on May; looks like we didn't have to move quite that quickly. On the other hand, since we know now how we'd like to proceed in these areas, we find ourselves well-positioned to comment on both proposed regulations and the proposed (but too slow!) schedule of awards.

States have an incentive to move very quickly once ARRA money has been granted. If the money is not spent quickly, it will be reclaimed by the feds and redistributed to speedier states. Our ambition is to have Vermont benefit from these reallocations. Our small size and the important fact that we already have projects in broadband, smart grid, and health information systems underway will help; some of our permitting and review processes could be a problem. Stay tuned.

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May 03, 2009 in E-State, economic stimulus, Energy, Vermont | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

For example, planned alternative energy projects are being put on hold in the hope that there will federal money for them. If there were no promise of federal money, some of these projects would be underway. You can't blame the project organizers for seeing if they can get some of their costs defrayed; after all, they may have to compete with projects which do get federal funding. You can blame us in government for not moving fast enough to make the rules clear, end the uncertainty, and let the projects get underway. We're delaying the day Americans will have the benefits they deserve from these programs and, for the moment, we're discouraging job creation with our unfulfilled promises.

There are reasons, of course, for the delay; but there are no good excuses.

At the federal level, it is difficult to write regulations for competitive grants which make sense nation-wide and satisfy at least a majority of political constituencies. Typically regulations have to first be proposed and published in the federal register, then there is a comment period, finally there are final regulations. The proposed regulations have been slowed by the fact that the stimulus bill was passed at the very beginning of a new administration; most agencies didn't even have secretaries yet, let alone all the deputies and assistants who actually make the policy decisions which become regulations. When the regulations are final, grant requests will be written and submitted; then an evaluation period; and, at the end, awards; only then can work begin.

It doesn't have to be this slow. In many cases the agencies would have been well within the letter and intent of the law if they'd made preliminary allocations to the states by formula and allowed work to get underway; in other cases Congress can amend the law. Later allocations could be competitive and could depend, partly, on how well the states were spending the initial allocations. Vermont and other states ARE already doing highway projects because that money was deliberately allocated by formula. It's not too late to release some money for broadband, smart grid, e-health and other priorities by formula and get that work going now. With the help of our congressional delegation, we're urging that approach in Washington; you'll be able to read here whether or not we're successful. More important, you'll benefit from more jobs and better infrastructure sooner rather than later if we can get these processes underway.

It's fine to criticize the feds but are we moving qucikly enough in Vermont? See here for some of the answer to that.

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April 29, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

"Netbook, yes maybe...but I read your blog from a facebook link and responded here on the couch via my apple iPod touch (home wifi). It's not a netbook . It's an Internet appliance about the size of a playing card."

He's right; it's not just netbooks but all sorts of devices which are replacing PCs in our lives. During the day my Blackberry is now my take-along email machine, not my much heavier Toughbook which used to be my constant companion. Blackberry's good integration with Exchange makes this practical since I can reply, delete, and folder from the Blackberry and not have to redo any of it when I go back to my desk. Sent mail ends up in my sent mail folder no matter where I read it from.

Since the Exchange Web Client which runs in a browser (officially Office Outlook Web Access) is now very good (formerly it was awful) and since I'm online so much of the time, I don't use the standalone Outlook client on my PC to do my State of Vermont email when I'm out of the office; I do it all in a browser window. That's great in an Internet café where I don't have my own machine. More important to the future, since I'm just working in a browser, I don't really need the PC; I could be on a netbook or some other connected device.

Web sites are developing mobile-friendly versions of themselves and the iPhone shows how even websites authored for PCs can be reasonably accessible on smaller screens. During our recent trip to Greece, we used Kindle's onboard dictionary for word disputes (in English) and Google Search and wikipedia on Mary's connected iPhone for settling all other bets. Even if I had a cellular data plan for my PC on this trip (too complicated and expensive in Greece), using the iPhone was faster than booting up a computer; and, like a PC, the iPhone took advantage of WiFi in hotspots (We didn't get Skype working on it, though).

Perhaps a sign of times to come (and certainly partly a result of recession), Microsoft reported a 32% revenue decline in quarterly profits and the first ever decline in quarterly revenue since it went public twenty-three years ago. People aren't buying as many computers, of course; they're not upgrading as often. But this from the Wall Street Journal story on MSFT earnings:

"In addition to slumping PC sales, Microsoft faces a challenge from netbooks, the inexpensive laptop computers that are the only segment of the PC business enjoying growth. Microsoft hasn't been able to charge as much for the versions of Windows that are generally bundled with netbooks as it can for software included with other types of PCs."

Even worse for the future of Microsoft is that netbooks almost never come with Office and some, like the one I bought, don't have Windows on them at all.

Having learned from my prediction in 1984 that mainframes were on the verge of extinction, I know that PCs will be with us for years to come. But the future is a world where all sorts of appliances are used to get online and where applications and data usually live in the cloud with access through a browser. No one will consider it necessary to have a PC to go online. No one will be offline for very long.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, mobile computing, msft, netbooks, outlook web access

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April 26, 2009 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

What a deal! Mary went on Priceline and got us three nights in the Athenaeum InterContinental Athens for $100 night, just a little more than we paid for the three star Acropole Hotel in Delphi.

At check-in, knowing we were paying so little, I accepted the €30/night upgrade offer to a renovated room on a high floor. The room is nice and we can see the Acropolis, which is lit up at night. I'll never know what the un-upgraded room would've been like.

Well, of course the Acropole had free WiFi; it's €19.95/day for the cheapest option at the InterContinental up to €49.95 if you want 10Mps and need it to work not only in your own room but in public areas and meeting rooms.

Breakfast was included at the Acropole. It's €30/each at the InterContinental (but you can get your eggs other than hard boiled). Mary and I like cheap, greasy breakfasts (she actually prefers sticky to greasy) but the InterContinental is in a commercial zone which seems to be free of competing restaurants. That also meant that last night, when we were tired from a day on the Acropolis, in the Agora (birthplace of democracy), and walking around the old city, we ate in the hotel restaurant. Pretty good food but ouch! A bottle of three buck chuck equivalent goes for €26. A bottle of Jack Daniels (which we didn't have) is €140.

Ryanair will famously fly you for a single euro plus tax on some routes. But then there are the booking fees, credit card fees, baggage fees (where do you think US airlines learned that trick?), priority boarding fees (no assigned seats so you want to be able to make a dash to stay out of the middle), lots of opportunity to buy things inflight, and nada for free.

Has lnterContinental learned to use Priceline as a low cost lure? Probably not but it wouldn't be a bad strategy.

See http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/03/easyjet_is_chea.html for my experience with Ryanair clone easyJet.

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April 22, 2009 in Travel | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

What's eligible for funding?

Only certain categories of project are eligible for funding and only so much money is available within each category. Famously, swimming pools and casinos are NOT eligible. Less well-known is the fact that there is no money aimed specifically at school construction, although a small amount of Government Services Fund money could theoretically be allocated for this purpose (see previous post) as can some community development block grants and rural development grants. Likewise there is no money aimed at libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions. Some projects at schools and cultural institutions may, however, qualify as energy-saving. There is money for energy saving projects.

As you may already know, candidates for ARRA funding must be nearly "shovel-ready". The idea is to create jobs now so a project which still needs to get environmental permits may well not qualify no matter how desirable. What you may not know is how long it can take to go through various environmental reviews; twenty years for a major road project is not uncommon. The Vermont Legislature is considering various ways to speed up permitting under Vermont law without sacrificing our environmental values. If these bills become law, Vermont will better be able to use ARRA funding for its highest priority projects. However, no federal environmental laws have been waived nor have their processes been streamlined. For this reason alone most highway projects, for example, have to come from an existing list of projects already well-along in the permitting process.

Even given categorical restrictions and the requirement that projects be shovel-ready, there are still many more projects than dollars in almost every category.

Who decides which projects get funded?

The answer is "it depends".

In some cases various federal agencies will make the funding decisions, usually according to more-or-less objective criteria which they will publish or are in the process of publishing. The Obama Administration has been adamant that "politics as usual" will not play a role in determining how this money is allocated. However, Vermont's congressional delegation as well as the delegation from every other state will try to assure that the rules are written in ways that are most helpful to the states they represent and that their states get at least fair consideration under the rules. The agencies will almost surely try to spread the money across states – in some cases because this is what the law requires; in others because it's customary to do so. Early indications are, however, that merit and not politics will be most important when competitive grants are awarded directly from Washington.

It is already clear that in certain cases like broadband infrastructure, Smart Grid, and E-health, regional cooperative applications will be considered to have greater merit than uncoordinated, stand-alone grant requests. It's part of the job of the Office of Economic Stimulus and Recovery in Vermont to provide coordination in these areas.

In other cases money comes directly to a state and it is up to the state through its own procedures to decide how the money gets allocated. The Douglas Administration, like the Obama Administration, would like to see funds allocated on merit rather than politics. How funds actually get allocated in Vermont depends, however, on what the Governor and the Legislature are able to agree on during the budget process. For example, Governor Douglas has recommended that $10 million dollars be put into a revolving loan fund for zero interest loans to public institutions to use for energy-saving projects. If this is approved by the Legislature, then the Pubic Service Department will draw up objective rules to determine which projects actually get access to these funds (we already know that there will be more projects than funds in this category).

There are some bills in the Vermont legislature which favor specific projects. If these bills become law and the projects are eligible under federal law and regulations, these projects will get priority for scarce dollars.

What doesn't happen is the Vermont Office of Economic Stimulus and Recovery making arbitrary allocations of ARRA funds although, as mentioned above, we are coordinating some competitive grant requests to help the State as a whole. Put bluntly, even if we were convinced that you had the most worthy request or important project in the whole state, the money is not ours to give. We're glad to hear about what you want to do. It's our job to help direct you to the state or federal agency which is making the decision – if any. We may be able to help with advice on how best to make a grant request. If you don't see the answers you need at recovery.vermont.gov, you'll find various ways to reach us at http://recovery.vermont.gov/contact_us.

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April 19, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

Not going to happen. The goal of executing flawlessly for something that hasn't been practiced over and over is not only silly but counter-productive.

You can't both act quickly and flawlessly. You can't try new things without making mistakes. Three bad things happen when "execute flawlessly" is the mantra: you move extremely slowly because you're over-studying every move; you don't innovate because you can't predict the results if you do; and you hide mistakes when you make them (perhaps even from yourself) because it's career-limiting to have been wrong. I saw all three of these bad results up close when I was at the old AT&T; posted about that experience here.

In an innovative environment you KNOW you're going to make mistakes; the important thing is to recognize them quickly and learn from them. It's not making mistakes that's wrong; it's not recognizing them or, worse, covering them up.

The transparency requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA aka the Stimulus Bill) are a good idea. People ought to be able to see how their government works, mistakes and all. By the way, if you spot a mistake or worse, you can report it to us on the form at http://recovery.vermont.gov/contact_us/report_concerns. That's one way you can help us do our job better.

My colleagues and I in the Office of Economic Stimulus and Recovery DON'T promise to execute flawlessly; we know we're not going to. We have to move quickly and we have to innovate so we'll make mistakes. I'm sure we've made some already. We do promise to be transparent and to recognize and fix our mistakes as quickly as we can. And we do expect to take our lumps in the press when we make mistakes – the press won't be doing their job if they don't watch how we do ours.

In the interest of transparency, just want to set expectations realistically.

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April 16, 2009 in economic stimulus | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post

Ironically an op-ed in today's New York Times, written before the rescue, says:

"So we end up with the spectacle of an American destroyer, the Bainbridge, with enough Tomahawk missiles and other weaponry to destroy a small city, facing off against a handful of Somali pirates in a tiny lifeboat. This is not an efficient use of American resources. It indicates how pirates, like terrorists, can attack us asymmetrically. The challenge ahead for the United States is not only dealing with the rise of Chinese naval power, but also in handling more unconventional risks that will require a more scrappy, street-fighting Navy."

Apparently we do have a "scrappy, street fighting navy". All three pirates were shot in the head while bouncing on a choppy sea. The one with the AK-47 pointed at the back of the American captain never got to shoot.

Not every attempt to fight back will end as well; we have to be prepared for that. But fighting back discourages piracy and saves lives; paying ransom to pirates finances extortion and murder. Thank you to both American crews for the sailors whose lives they've just made safer.

Technorati Tags: Alabama, piracy, USS Boxer

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April 12, 2009 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Blogroll | Books | Podcasts | Search blog | Subscribe | Email this post