President Bush Raises Vehicle Mileage Standards

The Bush administration issued a new rule on March 29, 2006 to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for light trucks from the current 21.6 miles per gallon to 24.1 mpg by 2011 in annual steps. The increase will apply to 2008-to-2011 vehicles, The "light trucks" category includes minivans and SUVs. The revised rules include about 240,000 SUVs. It could save an estimated 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of those vehicles.

It is the second time the Bush administration has increased the mileage requirements for these vehicles under the CAFE program. The administration previously raised the target from 20.7 mpg -- where it had been frozen by Congress for almost a decade -- to 22.2 mpg for 2207. These are the most far-reaching changes to fuel economy standards in the 27-year history of the program. The U.S. Department of Transportation manages the CAFE program while the Environmental Protection Agency manages milage estimates.. The rule changes do not apply to passenger cars, which are currently requred to meet a standard of 27.5 mpg.

EPA Recertifies DOE's Nuke Waste Site

EPA recertified the Department of Energy's (DOE) Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) today, confirming that the facility continues to comply with the agency's radioactive waste disposal regulations. The WIPP is a deep geologic repository for the permanent disposal of radioactivewaste. The WIPP site is located outside of Carlsbad, N.M., where waste is entombed in a 2,000 foot thick layer of natural salt 2,150 feet below the surface. This is the first recertification of WIPP since EPA's initial certification decision in 1998.

Congress requires EPA to recertify that WIPP meets the agency's disposal regulations every five years, following the first receipt of waste, for the operational lifetime of thefacility. The first shipment of waste was received at WIPP in March1999. EPA's WIPP website at: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/wipp Another permanent repository for nuclear waste is being prepared at Yucca Mountain in Arizona.

Congestion Plan Moves forward in San Francisco

"In a sign that the musing of one Board of Supervisors member is on course to become reality for Bay Area motorists, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority soon will receive $1.04 million from the Federal Highway Administration -- and add $260,000 in local funding -- to study how to implement a program similar to London's 3-year-old system of charging a flat fee to drive downtown during business hours.

That's $1.3 million to figure out how to collect millions from drivers willing to pay the freight to give a financial boost to public transit systems and perhaps curb traffic congestion.

And that's how, not if."

- This will improve life dramatically in downtown San Francisco. Pedestrians are under constant threat by cars in this area. The transit improvements alone make this plan worthy of a test.

Life in Carfree Housing

"It suddenly didn't seem so bad," says Ms Cameron, who moved in late last year. "I've already been to Ikea in one of the Golfs and it was easy." Now, she is not missing her car at all, but her friends remain astonished. ''They can't believe I moved to a place that bans cars," she says.

The Telegraph (London)

Carfree Central Park moves to critical test

Fans of Central Park, led by some elected officials, want Mayor Bloomberg to prohibit cars from entering the roadway loop around the park for a three-month trial period this summer.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and other elected officials plan to deliver a car-free Central Park petition with more than 100,000 signatures to Bloomberg during a rally at City Hall this month.

- Good Luck TA!

NY Daily News

Clean Air Litigation Merry-Go-Round Keeps Circling

We hate litigation at AAEA because it does not get scrubbers on power plants. We have witnessed over a quarter century of such litigation and it only serves to delay needed emissions equipment retrofits. We also believe the Clear Skies Initiative would have broken this cycle and would have led to scrubber installations.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected EPA's revised New Source Review (NSR) rule whereby a physical change that does not exceed 20% percent of the replacement value of the plant gets excluded from NSR as "routine maintenance" and does not require the installation of expensive new scrubbers. The previous rule triggered NSR if any physical change beynod routine maintenance increased the amount of pollution the plant emited.

So utilities will continue to resist installing scrubbers, environmental groups will continue to sue EPA to enforce the law, EPA will continue to sue the utilities to comply with 'command and control' regulations, consent decrees and other agreements will be negotiated, the process will start all over again, and the air will not be cleaner at the end of the day.

Black Caucus Congress Member Opposes Offshore Drilling

Congressman Bobby Scott (D- VA, 3rd District) supports the federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling that must be re-enacted by Congress every year. A bill (Virginia Energy Plan) introduced in the state General Assembly includes a provision calling for Virginia to seek an exemption from the federal moratorium on offshore drilling for natural gas. The offshore drilling provision has no legally binding effect other than encouraging the governor's office to ask Virginia's congressional delegation to seek approval. The U.S. Department of Interior’s Mineral Management Service manages offshore drilling.

Congressman Scott believes the proposal is contrary to the best interests of Virginia. Congressman Scott is particularly concerned about threats to marine mammals, such as dolphins, coastal marine ecosystems, resort beaches in Virginia Beach, the economy of the commonwealth and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest and most productive estuary. (Hat Tip: BlackElectorate.com)

Taking AIIM at Content Management Systems

Ever imagine gathering a whole bunch of Google partners under one roof? Interested in learning more about extending Google-quality search across your corporate network? Want to take home some colorful Google swag? Together with AIIM, the world's largest content management tradeshow, we've created a Google Enterprise partner pavilion at AIIM's annual shindig.

Dave Girouard, VP & GM of Google Enterprise, will deliver the May 17 keynote. In our partner pavilion, attendees will be able to see presentations from us and our partners on topics ranging from integration with CMS to enabling enterprise desktop search. What are you doing May 16-18? Ever been to Philadelphia? We hope to see you there.

Metro (Portland, OR): Drive less. Save more.

Metro: Drive less. Save more.

Oregon's new marketing campaign

Carfree Promotional Materials Clearinghouse

Promotional Materials Clearinghouse

This site has transportation demand management (mobility management/social) marketing materials, ideas and photos for everyone to view and use.

Hummer Bummer

"For Janna Jensen, it was the dirty looks and nasty gestures from other drivers that finally persuaded her to give up the family's $55,000 Hummer H2. Her husband, Michael, meanwhile, was tired of the $300 monthly gasoline cost and the quality problems that began soon after they bought it."

NYT

Join the fun here.

President Bush Picks New Interior Secretary

Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, right, has been nominated by President Bush to be the next Secretary of the Department of Interior. Governor Dirk Kempthorne, 54, was first elected as Idaho's 30th governor in 1998 following a successful six-year term in the U.S. Senate. He was reelected as Idaho's Governor in 2002. As a Senator, he authored and won passage of two major pieces of legislation: a bill to end unfunded federal mandates on state and local governments and a substantial revision of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act

He was elected as Chairman of the National Governor’s Association in 2003. Governor Kempthorne and his wife Patricia are both University of Idaho graduates and have two grown children, Heather and Jeff.

Enterprise search relevancy - in the eye of the user

There's a common misconception that the single factor in Google's relevancy algorithms is link structure (also described as PageRank). And since the enterprise environment doesn't typically have the same link structure found on the Web, the presumption goes, Google search must not work well in the enterprise environment.

Let's set the record straight. Google's enterprise search algorithms rely on hundreds of factors to determine relevancy. PageRank is one of a number of document quality variables that, combined with factors that measure how well the query matches each document, determine the right result for a user. By no means is PageRank the only (or dominant) factor in determining which results are the most relevant. Those of us on the quality engineering team have been coming up with new ideas since 1998; the best of them have ended up in our ranking algorithms.

But we're not comfortable with theoretical arguments, so don't take our word for it. We surveyed the customers of our yellow box, the Google Search Appliance, and here's what they had to say:

• About 75% of customers responding switched to Google from another search provider's product
• Over 50% of customers responding switched to Google due to poor relevancy from their prior search provider
• Over 90% would recommend the Google Search Appliance to another company like theirs

In case you missed it, some Raytheon search experts presented their findings on an enterprise search evaluation at the Semantic Technology Conference. They ultimately chose Google to provide integrated enterprise search across their desktop and network content repositories. Most impressive was the response from their user base who participated in the survey: 84% found the "right" answer (the answer they were looking for) in the top 3 results.

Let's be clear - there's plenty more to do. We're happy to see that a large majority of users are easily finding what they're looking for. It's just that we believe we can do better. Eighty-four percent still means 3 out of 20 queries aren't optimal, and we're not satisfied with that. But we also believe that asking each customer to write their own relevancy algorithms would amount to surrendering and saying "here, you try!" Instead, we're working closely with customers and partners to assess where and when our algorithms work best, and where they need improvement. We welcome you to join us and help improve enterprise search for everyone.

David Elworthy, Lead Engineer
Enterprise Search Quality Team

New Orleans Elections Scheduled for Earth Day

It is being reported by BlackAmericaWeb that civil rights leaders and organizations oppose the New Orleans election being scheduled on April 22 because not enough people (black) have moved back to the city. BlackAmericaWeb reports that a demonstration is scheduled for April 1 in New Orleans that has been endorsed by Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; Rev. Al Sharpton; Bruce Gordon, president of the NAACP; Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, and the Congressional Black Caucus. Wonder how the mainstream environmental movement feels about this.

Bus Chick, Transit Authority (Seattle)

Carla Saulter is one of a growing number of Seattleites who have chosen to live without a car. Because Seattle still does not have in-city rapid transit, she takes the bus everywhere — really, everywhere — she goes. (On any given Saturday night, you can find her running for the number 27 in heels and a backless dress.)

Though she has certainly experienced inconveniences, her decision to give up driving has profoundly and positively changed her life. Some of these positive changes include: enforced exercise, time to read, reduced expenses, and contact with her community on a level that would never have been possible in the isolated bubble of a single-occupancy vehicle.

Bus Chick blog (Seattle P-I)

Interior Secretary Gale Norton Resigns

U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton has announced her resignation after serving for five years. She was the 48th Secretary and first woman to head the 156-year-old department. Secretary Norton focused on restoring the Florida Everglades, reducing the maintenance backlogs on the National Park Service and the National Wildlife Refuge System, and supporting environmentally sensitive energy production on public lands. She helped in creating Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park, the new Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota and the Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area in Montana.

From 1991 to 1999, she served as Attorney General of Colorado. She also worked as Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and, from 1979 to 1983, as a Senior Attorney for the Mountain States Legal Foundation. Norton graduated magna cum laude from the University of Denver in 1975 and earned her law degree from the same university in 1978. Before becoming Interior Secretary, Norton was senior counsel at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, P.C. She is married to John Hughes.

Pre Spring Organic Weeding Report

If you did not hand-pull yard weeds this Winter you are in big trouble. Winter only slowed growth and it was important to bend your back, squat and kneel down to really see and pinch those weeds out by the root with your ungloved index finger and thumb. The true aficionado will reap great rewards and a significant reduction in weed and feed. Diligent winter weeding has its rewards.

Organic weeding enhances mental and physical health because it is so relaxing and provides some exercise. If you have been too busy to scan the front and back yards for juvenile weeds and pluck them, then your life is out of balance. There is still time to regain balance in your life. Just as the daffodils are about to announce Spring by displaying their blossoms, eliminating competition for nutrients by hand pulling weeds will be greatly appreciated by your lawn grass and Mother Nature. Such activity can simulate real outback adventure and provide great communion with nature in a sterile suburb.

Los Angeles without a car (video)

Living without a car in Los Angeles, the epicenter of America's love of the automobile, traveling via public transportation and a skateboard.

Google Video

Alaska Oil Pipeline Spill

Trees stand over icy water in Prince Willam Sound near Valdez, Alaska. An oil pipeline leak on Alaska's North Slope has spewed up to 220,000 liters (58,000 gallons) of crude onto the tundra, causing one of the region's worst spills, officials said.

- Thank you for driving.

Car-Free Housing in Europe

"A PhD project investigating the contribution urban ecology, community and mobility management innovations in residential neighbourhoods can make towards the sustainable transformation of our cities."

Jan Scheurer

Carfree Golden Gate Park on Saturdays?

Join the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in their effort to make Golden Gate Park a carfree oasis on Saturdays.

By the way, have you heard about the big news from Central Park in New York City?

Quarry Village: Carfree in California?

"Quarry Village is designed to provide a convenient, friendly, healthy, safe and affordable place to live, with less dependence on cars. The Village is designed around people, walking, transit, and quality of life rather than parking and streets for cars. The design supports ample mobility without car ownership or, for car owners, greatly reduced trips."

Quarry Village

Carfree UK Launched

Carfree UK will be a World Carfree Network member organisation, pushing forward the agenda of larger, high quality, carfree residential areas in the UK, for which the group's founders feel there is great potential. They would like to hear from anyone with an interest in furthering the carfree agenda in the UK.

Congestion Plan in Stockholm a Success!

Bodes well for a similar plan in San Francisco.

The success in Stockholm of a program to charge drivers fees for heading into the highly congested heart of the city could bode well for a similar proposal in San Francisco, according to officials.

Since being implemented on Jan. 6, downtown traffic in Sweden’s capital has plunged 25 percent and transit usage has increased by about 40,000 riders per day, dramatically decreasing rush-hour travel times, data released today shows.

“It’s fabulous,” said San Francisco County Transportation Authority Executive Director Jose Luis Moscovich, who hopes a similar system might be implemented in The City. The transit authority in January won a $1 million federal grant and has contributed another $200,000 toward studying the feasibility of so-called congestion pricing over an 18-month period.

San Francisco Examiner

Counting on Cars

A Disaster in the Making

The ironic fact that Lilly Teng, an attorney, works for Chevron didn’t help her find gas to escape from Houston. Fifteen hours after she, her husband and two small children set out for the home of relatives in Jackson, Mississippi, they were still in their car near Beaumont, Texas, having traveled only 90 miles. “We are trying to get out, but there is no way out, now,” she said, as she helped push the stalled vehicle. “This is an evacuation route. It is not evacuating. We are ready to go, but we can’t go.”

E Magazine

Google Mini for a mini price

Why do I look so smug? No, it's not because I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance. In fact, I just figured out a way to save you a bunch of money on a Google Mini.

OK, in all seriousness (if you can take me seriously now), I'm happy because we're releasing a lower-cost version of the Google Mini that indexes up to 50,000 documents for $1995.

When we launched the Google Mini last year, our vision was to make Google-quality search available to businesses everywhere at an affordable, transparent price. We believe that search is critical for every business, both for customers finding information on a public web site as well as employees finding documents within an organization. Users are now used to navigating information via search, so they tend to expect great search wherever there is information.

Since our launch, we've strived to cut costs and continually pass these savings on to our customers. But, in keeping with our goal to satisfy our users, we've made this change without affecting the quality of the product or services we deliver. Customers will get the same great software, hardware, and support that they have come to expect from us, but at a lower price.

So for the price of a good office chair, you can get great search for your office. Learn more here

AAEA President Meets With EPA Administrator

AAEA President Norris McDonald recently met with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson at the EPA Headquarters in Washington, DC. They discussed local, national and international environmental issues.

AAEA believes that EPA has an excellent team assembled to address planetary environmental issues during the second term of the Bush administration. We will continue to support EPA in addressing innovative solutions to persistent pollution problems at the local, national and international levels.