Daily Score Blog

Let's say, just hypothetically, that Washington were facing a ginormous budget shortfall. And let's also say that the state had made an ambitious -- but mostly unfunded -- commitment to cleaning up Puget Sound. That would be a real pickle. But do you know what I'd do?

I'd levy a tax on the cruise industry, that's what.

Washington's cruise ships are only lightly regulated, sometimes to the detriment of the local marine environment. And cruise ships visiting Washington do not pay head taxes as they do in Alaska, which means that Washington is missing out on badly-needed revenue that can be used for environmental protection and oversight. Consider how they do it up north:

• Ketchikan levies a $7 per passenger tax on cruise ships that visit the port.
• Juneau levies a $8 per passenger tax.

By contrast, Seattle -- now the most popular point of departure in the Northwest -- levies nothing. But if the city were to to charge a comparable fee on the roughly 886,000 cruise passengers that left Seattle in 2008 it would have netted around $7 million. Granted, that's not going to fund the complete restoration of Puget Sound, but it might fully fund an important program or two -- the very sorts of programs on the chopping block of budgetary constraints.

But that's not the half of it. The state of Alaska also levies a $50 per passenger tax. What would happen if Washington did that?

Just wanted to let folks know that we have an updated and corrected version of our grizzly bear range-map. The former version of the map incorrectly showed that grizzly bears no longer live on the southeast Alaskan Islands of Chichagof, Baranof, or Admiralty. In fact, grizzlies are still present -- and in extremely high numbers. Still, the major lesson of the map -- that grizzly range is drastically reduced -- is probably the more important point that the map makes.

An animated version can be downloaded here; static versions in several sizes can be found here.

A big hat tip is in order to sharp-eyed reader Bill Walker of Billings, Montana who caught the mistake.

As I've written before, voters in Alaska's Mat-Su Borough are confronted with 2007's only regulatory takings ballot initiative. Or rather, they were.

The initiative, Proposition 1, was a near carbon copy of Oregon's Measure 37 and the raft of 2006 initiatives. It would have led to a development free-for-all. And I'm pleased to report that on Tuesday, voters handed out a stunning victory to sensible planning and public policy: the ballot measure was defeated by 71 to 29 percent.

The Mat-Su election comes on the heels of last year's spate of so-called "property rights" measures. You remember? The ones that Western voters overwhelming shot down? (One did pass in Arizona, mostly because the ballot in that state was crowded and much the natural opposition was preoccupied with other issues.) The most surprising result at the time was conservative Idaho which delivered the most crushing defeat to a takings measure, trouncing it 76 to 24.

In a way, it's not surprising that the public keeps rejecting these initiatives. Consider how the sponsor of the Mat-Su ballot measure described the outcome to the press: he called the vote "a stunning victory for socialism."

Yikes.

This is not the sentiment of a guy who believes in community, or even the basic tenets of local democracy. It's the ranting of an ideology that is wildly out of step with American life.

In light of the Mat-Su vote, it's becoming abundantly clear that no matter what a handful of "property rights" activists like to believe, Americans really and truly like having a say in their communities. It's not that local government is perfect, or that zoning is uncontroversial, or that everyone always gets what that want. It's just this: Americans believe in democracy.

I'm happy to say that I have not yet finished annoying readers of this blog with my climate change maps. Because now they look professional thanks to awesome designer Laurie Kellogg.

Each map shows places with equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. 

Behold, a glimpse of a straightforward state-to-country version:

Here are bigger and better versions.

And behold again, a peek at a more conceptual map showing groups states compared to large countries (and continent) emitters:

Bigger and better versions here.

When in comes to property rights, all eyes are on Oregon as voters there consider trimming back Measure 37. But in some ways, Oregon isn't the most interesting game in town. That honor may belong to Alaska, where voters in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough will weigh 2007's only regulatory takings ballot initiative in the form of Proposition 1.

While the "Mat-Su" isn't known much outside of Alaska, it will be an interesting laboratory for examining the next round of "property rights" arguments. It's likely that activists will try to improve their rhetoric and strategies after their not-terribly-successful outing to the polls in 2006.

I'll have more to say on Proposition 1 in the coming months, but in the meantime you can find good newspaper coverage here and here.

And here the local paper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersmen, inveighs against the measure in an editorial that appears to have been truncated on the web. Still, I thought there was some apt language, so I'll close with an excerpt:

In this case, one's rights can make a wrong for all. Hogtying the borough, a city or any special district in how it makes public land use policy will result in a chaotic, expensive system no agency could possibly afford.

Oh, I almost forgot: I do have one big criticism of the editorial's language. Prop 1 isn't really a threat to what an "agency" can afford; it's a threat to what the public -- you know, citizens and taxpayers -- can afford.

(*Update: Newer and better versions of  these maps are here and here.)

Because I love maps so much that I just can't stop making them.

This version is a bit a more conceptual than the previous map. But even though it's a bit weirder, but I actually like it more because it really drives home the outsize significance of US climate policy.

Each state, or cluster of states, is labelled with a country or continent that has equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

See the full US map here.

The 291 million in Americans (in 2004) is the greenhouse gas equivalent of the more than 3 billion residents of other countries listed on the map.

The detailed population comparison is below the jump...

*Update: Newer and better versions of  these maps are here.

Ever wondered if your state's climate policy really makes a difference in the big global scheme of things?  If so, here's a little map I made.

For each state, the map shows a nation with equivalent greenhouse gas emissions from energy.

The full US version is here.

When I've shown drafts to people, almost everyone wants to compare populations. The Western states population comparison is after the jump. The full data are here (xls).

Meet Justin our new research intern. He recently moved to Capitol Hill, in Seattle, from Corvallis, Oregon, where he got a Master’s Degree studying the effects of climate change on forest productivity, and where he tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible. 

There has already been a mess of state climate legislation passed in Cascadia during 2007. But who has the time to make sense of all those targets, standards, and dates? (Who’s promising 10% below 1990 levels by 2020? How does Idaho compare to California? And wasn’t there some kind of renewable energy standard?) Well never fear, because I’ve sorted it all out in this nifty table. You can see how your state (or province) stacks up.

Full version here.

The upshot is that Cascadian lawmakers are trying to follow California’s lead on regulating greenhouse gas emissions. In the 2007 legislative session, both Oregon and Washington passed statewide goals for reducing GHGs. It was a good first step to establish a framework, and the goals themselves are ambitious. But ultimately, they’re only that: goals. Unfortunately, they don’t include binding enforcement mechanisms. Only California did that, with its AB 32 bill.

Property rights activists are floating a new regulatory takings measure -- this time in Alaska.

A new ballot initiative is being proposed in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, an area north of Anchorage that is expected to experience rapid growth in the coming decades.

Why a "property rights" bill in "Mat-Su"? Tough to say. Property is so lightly regulated there that the borough's website prominently includes this explanation:

Zoning, Land Use and Building Regulations DO Exist in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Be advised that permits may be required.

That's right: may. Is there any legitimate need for regulatory takings measure here? Or is there something else going on?

Here's a theory.

Sure, it's one of the cornier lesser-known holidays, but I've always liked the idea of Arbor Day. I mean, it's a day to celebrate trees fer gosh sakes. And yesterday -- which I spent very pleasurably in my backyard with a raft of new plants -- I got to thinking about how we should spend more time celebrating growing things.

But it wasn't until I came to work this morning, planning to write a little Arbor Day post, that I learned that every day is Arbor Day. No, seriously: every day is Arbor Day.

If you live in Oregon, it's actually Arbor Week right now. But I (and everyone else in Washington), only get a single Arbor Day, and it's on April 11 this year. Idaho's is April 27, the same day as Montana's. California, I missed yours -- sorry. Your Arbor Week ended two weeks ago. Alaska, on the other hand, has to wait until May 21.

A new report questions whether the 358 US cities that pledged to meet Kyoto's targets will be successful. That's a fine question, but it's perhaps easy to misconstrue as an implicit criticism that the promises were meaningless.

There is every reason to think that the cities can meet the targets. (And, heck, the pledge is only 18 months old!) Portland, in fact, is already well on its way. 

What the report should serve to highlight is that:

1. Reducing emissions requires a real plan with real teeth. (Seattle--the pledge's founding city--has a good start on this.)
2. Cities are working against tough odds. Most cities have very little control over their major sources of emissions--they're laced with state and federal roads, they have limited authority to tax or regulate consumer carbon, and they mostly don't have control over utilities, just to name a very few obstacles. City climate pledges are great, but they really need to be supported at the state and federal level to work properly. 

Story in the Seattle P-I.

Below the jump, all the climate news you ever wanted. And then some...

We normally don't do promotional posts on this blog, but this event is just too important to pass up.

April 14 will be a national day of action on climate change. Here's how instigator Bill McKibben describes it:

A few of us are trying to organize a nationwide day of hundreds and hundreds of rallies on April 14. We hope to have gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key West.

We need rallies outside churches, along the tide lines in our coastal cities, in cornfields and forests and on statehouse steps.

Every group will be saying the same thing: Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromises-the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate.

Details here.

Update 1/11/07: First-rate article on this subject by Timothy Egan in the New York Times. It's easy to see how he won the National Book Award.

***

There's been a lot of talk recently about the 110th Congress raising the federal minimum wage. One thing you hear a lot is that raising the minimum wage leads to higher unemployment. (Here's one risible example; and here it is filleted by David Goldstein.)

But is this canard actually true? I'm skeptical -- here's why.

First off, in deference the economists out there, I should mention that there has been any number of academic papers arguing this question. But one thing that I've never seen -- although I don't follow the debate closely -- is an argument with recourse to a fairly obvious natural experiment: What's happening in each of the 50 states?

In this corner, we have 21 states who share the federal minimum wage of $5.15, the lowest allowable wage. Among these states, some have the same wage as the feds, some no state minimum wage, and one, Kansas, has a lower wage. But federal law trumps.

In the other corner, there are 30 states (counting DC), that have a minimum wage higher than $5.15. There's not much uniformity among these states' wages and the details vary considerably. Still, we have something like a rough comparison between the stingy states and the generous states.

So what's the difference in the unemployment rates of stingy and generous states? Exceedingly little.

For the fourth year running, Minnesota is the healthiest state in the nation, at least according to the United Health Foundation's annual ranking. Casadian states were mostly better than average, but not by much:

• Washington ranked 15th
• Oregon and Idaho tied for 19th
• Montana ranked 22nd with California close behind at 23rd.
• Alaska ranked 31st, the only state partially in the Northwest that did worse than the national average.

Interestingly, Idaho posted the nation's second largest one-year health decline, a worsening that researchers attributed to rising obesity, increased rates of occupational injuries, and the number of reported "poor physical health days."

In happier news, Oregon, California, and Alaska were all in the top five states for health improvements over the period from 1990 to 2006.

Of course, there's lots more to tease apart with a study like this (see media coverage here and here). But to me the biggest questions are simply:

1. Given that Minnesota has been one of the top two healthiest states for the past 17 consecutive years, what is that state doing right? 
2. And what can other states do to replicate Minnesota's success?

Any thoughts?

New report on obesity from Trust for America's Health. The US obesity rate has risen to 32 percent--an increase from just 15 percent in 1980. And 66 percent of adults are "overweight," a classification that also includes obesity.

But one curiosity gets overlooked: national rates of adult obesity and overweight have risen almost not at all since 2000. (That's not true for children.) See the charts on page 3 of this pdf for details.

What's going on? Why have the rates of adults who are overweight and obese hit a plateau at roughly two-thirds and one-third, respectively? Could we be doing something right that's helping to arrest adult weight gain--something that's not working equally well for children?

It's a mystery to me.

Meanwhile, US Cascadians are neither the fittest nor the fattest in the nation....