You need to read the entire piece but here are the titles to “techniques” hypermilers use:

1). Driver the Speed Limit

2). Turn off Your Car and Coast (not recommended)

3). Optimize Your Route

4). Watch Your Tire Pressure

5). Change Your Oil (and use thinner oil)

Sound a bit absurd some of it? Don’t tell that to a hypermiler.

Tom Remington

by David A. Ridenour

With his signature on May 8 to S. 2739, the ‘Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008,’ George Bush has now signed on to the establishment of de facto federal zoning along a 175-mile corridor running from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s one of the largest federal land grabs in history.

On April 29, the U.S. House of Representatives passed this massive, pork-laden bill that included a provision creating the Journey Through Hallowed Ground (JTHG) National Heritage Area. Debate was limited to just 40 minutes.

Heritage areas are National Park Service preservation zones in which environmentalists, federal officials and local elitists influence local land-use decisions, frequently in ways that restrict property rights and move property ownership beyond the means of the less well-to-do.

Environmentalists and preservationists love heritage areas, because they can be used to curtail development.

Local elitists like them because they can help keep people they consider to be undesirable out of their communities. Minorities are harmed disproportionately when land-use restrictions cause home prices to soar. (It is perhaps no coincidence that lily-white Waterford, Virginia was at the epicenter of the effort to create the JTHG Heritage Area. Waterford has a rich black history — and history is apparently where the village would like to keep it.)

Politically well-connected developers like heritage areas because they can be used to establish near monopolies on real estate development opportunities. As the Heritage Foundation’s Ron Utt discovered, that’s precisely what the JTHG Heritage Area would do.

And federal bureaucrats love heritage areas because they allow them to get around little inconveniences to their central planning — inconveniences such as local elected officials.

House passage of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Heritage Area was hailed by its chief sponsor, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), and by the Journey Through Hallowed Ground foundation, the chief lobby organization behind the effort. Both noted the overwhelming vote in the House, 291-117.

The bill received support across party lines. In the House, supporters included Representatives Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Don Young (R-AK), William Jefferson (D-LA), Rick Renzi (R-AZ), and John Doolittle (R-CA). (Now all these gentlemen can say they have a second thing in common.)

But it is unlikely that support for the land grab was as great as the tally might suggest, as it was buried in an omnibus bill of over 60 other proposals — some enjoying wide support.

As Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) noted during the limited debate, “Many of the sections of this bill are unable to stand on their own and have subsequently been bundled into a $300 million brew to avoid individual scrutiny… this omnibus was created with enough prizes that inevitably the bad will be overlooked and everything, the good, the bad and the ugly, will be able to cross the finish line.”

Approval of the JTHG Heritage Area is a case study in what is wrong with American politics.

The JTHG Heritage Area wasn’t approved by Congress due to overwhelming public demand for it. Borrowing from the Beatles, perhaps it got by with a little help from Wolf’s friends — a lot of Ben Franklins, Alexander Hamiltons, Abe Lincolns and George Washingtons.

You see, Congressman Wolf slipped a $1 million dollar earmark in the 2005 federal transportation bill — buried among 6,372 other earmarks — for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Foundation. This is the very group that has led the lobbying effort for Wolf’s bill. More unusual still is that at the time of the earmark, the foundation had yet to even be incorporated and was operating out of the personal post office box of its executive director, Cate Magennis Wyatt.

It appears as though Congressman Wolf used taxpayer money to fund the lobbying campaign for his own bill. (Read more about his here)

Then there’s the unseemly Wolf-”K Street” lobbyist connection. Wolf’s land grab bill was written by Don Pongrace, who runs the Indian practice (yes, a lobbyist for Indian gaming interests) for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a large law firm with offices in D.C., London, New York and Moscow.

Not only that, but Pongrace apparently was authorized to speak for Congressman Wolf in meetings about the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Heritage Area.

It turns out that Pongrace serves on the board of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground foundation — the group receiving Wolf’s earmark largesse — and Pongrace’s wife has served the group as vice president.

Apparently, the concept of a conflict of interest is lost on the mega law firm of Akin Gump.

Interestingly, at the very time Frank Wolf was collaborating with Akin Gump on his bill, he criticized the firm for working for the Chinese government in its bid to acquire Unocal.

Wolf wrote to Akin Gump, “I question the appropriateness of an American firm… being on the payroll of the Chinese government… I immediately thought, ‘Is there no bright line to separate who lobbyists in Washington will and will not represent?’”

Is there no bright line, indeed.

Congressman Wolf introduces a bill written by a “K Street” lobbyist, arranges a $1 million earmark for the group lobbying for that bill — and employing the lobbyist’s wife — and he asks about bright lines?

Congressman Wolf also received help pushing his bill from National Park Service employees, who acted contrary to the Service’s official position, which calls for the creation of no additional heritage areas until a formal NPS program is created through legislation. Nonetheless, the NPS’s Brenda Barrett and Alma Ripps were dispatched to defend creation of the JTHG Heritage Area.

The full extent of the National Park Service’s assistance with the legislative effort is still unknown, as the Service has so far failed to fully comply with a Freedom of Information Act request. In violation of the FOIA law, it provided only incomplete records and documents that obviously had been altered (helpful hint for NPS employees: if you plan to alter documents, you might want to avoid using ruled paper).

Ethical questions surround the process through which this national heritage area was approved. A presidential veto was warranted.

-David A. Ridenour is vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Prof. Armstrong and colleagues originally undertook their audit at the request of the State of Alaska. The subsequent study, “Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public Policy Forecasting Audit,” is by Prof. Armstrong, Kesten G. Green of Monash University in Australia, and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It is scheduled to appear in the September/October issue of the INFORMS journal Interfaces.

According to Science Daily, Armstrong says that in order to list a healthy species as endangered, you have to have “valid forecasts”.

“To list a species that is currently in good health as an endangered species requires valid forecasts that its population would decline to levels that threaten its viability. In fact, the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions. Assuming these restrictions remain, the most appropriate forecast is to assume that the upward trend would continue for a few years, then level off.

“These studies are meant to inform the US Fish and Wildlife Service about listing the polar bear as endangered. After careful examination, my co-authors and I were unable to find any references to works providing evidence that the forecasting methods used in the reports had been previously validated. In essence, they give no scientific basis for deciding one way or the other about the polar bear.”

Armstrong says that his group examined nine U.S. Geological Survey Administrative Reports and found that the most relevant study, “properly applied only 15% of relevant forecasting principles”. They also determined that these same studies showed that 69% of the information was “contravened”, to some degree.

The group further states that the studies failed to substantiate “assumptions” of melting sea ice or the ability of the polar bear to adapt to changing climate patterns.

In short, Armstrong has determined that any ruling, whether to list or not list, cannot be scientifically substantiated using the flawed studies the Department of Interior is using.

Next!

Tom Remington

Senator Clinton no more deserves gun-owner votes than Lord Voldemort deserves the Muggle vote. In the Senate, she has voted in favoring of abusive lawsuits against law-abiding gun manufacturers, for banning cosmetically incorrect guns which are falsely labeled “assault weapons,” and for allowing federal funds to be used to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens after a natural disaster—as was done following Hurricane Katrina.

Tom Remington

My plan was for a live broadcast of Open Air today but with this persistent cough and sneezing from pollen, I am going to cancel the show today. Thank you for your considerations!

Tom Remington

Just as interesting though is that 39%, a total of 39 readers, want the polar bear listed as endangered - not threatened but endangered. As far as anything in between, there wasn’t a lot of interest.

Here are the results of the Polar Bear Poll!

Should The Polar Bear Be Further Protected With Endangered Species Act?

* List the bear as Endangered.: 31% (39)
* List the bear as Threatened.: 6% (7)
* Leave well enough alone.: 6% (7)
* Put Al Gore on an iceberg and set him adrift.: 58% (73)

Total Votes : 126

Thanks for participating and check out the latest poll to the right.

Tom Remington

Tom Remington

Tom Remington

There’s a lot of empty heads in Washington that could hold decades of this stuff.

Tom Remington

Tom Remington