Posts by Laura Huggins

National Parks Dodge Shutdown But What About State Parks?

The threat of a federal government shutdown, which included closing national parks, alerted many to the funding woes of national parks. But state parks may be more vulnerable.

As Stephanie Simon pointed out in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday:

Lawmakers in states including California, Washington and North Carolina are weighing budgets that would strip millions of dollars in taxpayer funds from parks, forcing some to close their gates and others to scale back restroom cleaning, trail maintenance, law-enforcement patrols and other services.
On the bright side, concession-operated parks on government lands do not have to close. Leasing state parks to private concessionaires offers a restructuring model states should consider as they contemplate solutions to ensure the long-term fiscal sustainability of state parks.  As Leonard Gilroy wrote in PERC Reports:
One of the largest national recreation concessionaires, Recreation Resource Management, offered to lease six Arizona state parks targeted for closure amid recent budget cuts. They proposed to collect the same visitor fees the state charges today, while taking the operations and maintenance costs of these parks off the state’s books entirely. Further, the concessionaire would pay the state an annual lease payment based on a percentage of the fees collected. The state would retain full ownership of the land, and the company would be subject to strict state controls on operations, visitor fees, maintenance, and other key issues.
In short, the private sector is offering to take over the operations and management of cash-strapped Arizona state parks. And there’s no reason this same model could not work in other states.

As Gilroy concludes, "states should explore the opportunity to let private operators perform these functions—taking parks off the state books while paying the state for the privilege to do so."

More >
Fahey on Fracking

by Laura E. Huggins
PERC media fellow and AP energy writer Jonathan Fahey considers the positive side to fracking for oil.
Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day — more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.

This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years (see interactive graphic). And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half, advancing a goal that has long eluded policymakers.

"That's a significant contribution to energy security," says Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Credit Suisse.

Read more...
More >
Declaring Food Sovereignty

by Laura E. Huggins
Sedgwick, Maine, is the first town in the United States to pass a food sovereignty ordinance. The town officially declared their right to produce and sell local foods of their choosing, without the oversight of state or federal regulation.

According to Grown in the City, "this ordinance allows buyer and seller to enter their own agreement, which overrides the regulation of government when dealing with transactions involving local foods."

For more on this topic be sure to read PERC Enviropreneur Paul Schwennesen's recent post on Agrarian Liberty where Paul writes:

Once upon a time, selling a chicken was not an undertaking fraught with legal implications.  Neither was remodeling a shed.  Today, however, we live in more enlightened times.  Protected from our wayward desires by an empowered bureaucracy, we rest easier knowing that decisions like what we eat and where we habitate is being carefully managed by authorities....It would be wonderful to live in a world where selling a chicken and remodeling a shed weren't rife with official allegations or burdened with state prohibitions.

More >
One Person CAN Make a Difference

by Laura E. Huggins
Founder and president of Living Lands & Waters, Chad Pregracke, is proof that one person can make a difference. Chad told journalists at a PERC conference back in 2003 about his plans to clean up the cluttered Mississippi River.

Turns out he's doing it! Chad was recognized March 21 at the Points of Light Institute’s “All Together Now” celebration, which was shown last night on NBC-TV to a national audience.

The event also honored former President George H.W. Bush for his leadership in American volunteer service. He and three other former presidents — George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter — were in attendance.

Chad has won countless awards for leading a push to clean trash out of the Mississippi River. In his spare time he wrote From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers. You can watch him on ReelCYCLE: The Rivers’ Garbage Man.

More >
PERC and Grist?

Yes, you read it right! Shawn Regan's article, "Debunking myths about free-market environmentalism" appeared on Grist. If you missed his piece be sure to read it and comment!

More >
Tough questions for free market environmentalism?

by Laura E. Huggins
Last summer, PERC held a workshop on the tough questions for free market environmentalism (FME).

The resulting discussions focused on FME's strengths and potential limitations. Topics included local versus centralized control, possible free market solutions to climate change, and how liability and torts could be used as an incentive to prevent environmental damages.

In the next edition of PERC Reports we're going to focus on this theme. We want to know what you think. What do you consider to be the tough questions for free market environmentalism? What topics would you like to see addressed?

More >
Fighting Over Fracking

by Laura E. Huggins
There is a battle brewing between the energy industry and environmentalists concerning the dangers of removing natural gas from shale using a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Fracking involves pushing millions of gallons of water (mixed with sand and chemicals) through wells at high pressure to fracture the shale. Roughly half the fracking fluid remains in the ground. The rest of it comes back out of the well and is considered industrial waste.

This process has been around for more than 60 years. But only in the past several years, with the rising cost of fossil fuels, has it been determined to be cost effective.

Given that fracking is relatively new to the scene many people can’t say if they support this process. The positive economic impact of natural gas drilling is proven, but if this process is contaminating local aquifers there may be unintended consequences, which bring us to property rights.

If there are problems, for example, who is liable, the surface owner or the owner of the lease for sub-surface mineral rights? I would love to read more about hydrofracking and nuisance law or impacts on tribal lands.

One of the few people raising concerns associated with property rights and fracking is Idaho Statesman reporter (and former PERC media fellow) Rocky Barker.

Company officials told the Legislature that they were negotiating both subsurface leases and surface use agreements. But landowners should be sure the agreements they sign protect their rights, experts said.

Another key issue the oil and gas conservation commission will have to address is unitizing the gas field for development. This process, which delineates how the subsurface resource is divided, is ripe for gerrymandering that could cut mineral right owners out on royalties.

More >
Growing crops without sun or soil?

by Laura E. Huggins
In a "Techno-Agrarian Manifesto," Reason's Greg Beato asks if vertical farming is the future of agriculture.

Medical ecologist and author Dickson Despommier describes the vertical farm as a utopian future where green skycrapers rise out of the "squalid urban blight" to produce high tech veggies. Imagine green beans on the ground floor and "peppers in the penthouse."

Critics of this approach wonder if  sunlight  will  provide enough energy to grow plants on multiple levels--even if the building is highly transparent. There is also concern that revenues from vertical farms will not cover the costs of erecting a plastic skyscraper or the cost of the land it sits on.

PERC's enviropeneur Josh Hottenstein is tackling these concerns by turning shipping containers into grow boxes. Lettuce can now grow in the back of a semi-truck without sun, soil, or pesticides. If you think this is science fiction, check out his article in PERC Reports or watch him on TEDx:

More >
Annual Enviropreneur Issue of PERC Reports

By Laura E. Huggins

“Every private sector entrepreneur has this incredible bias toward letting enlightened self-interest pull things along, and I fully believe this will happen,” says Gregg Carr who is creating a national park in Mozambique. Carr is finding that the fastest way to solve most environmental problems is with “economics not public policy”—a concept that PERC’s Enviropreneur Institute (PEI) has been teaching over the past 10 years. In this year’s special enviropreneur edition, PEI director emeritus, BOBBY McCORMICK, reflects on the past and future of this powerful program.

For ERIC KIHIU, PEI class of 2010, the problem is the disappearing populations of black rhino and bongo antelope in Kenya. The economic solution: a motorsport race that attracts not only a bold batch of off-road warriors but also substantial financial resources for wildlife conservation.

Traveling west from Kenya, author G. PASCAL ZACHARY goes deep into Uganda to tell a tale of entrepreneurial villagers. One such villager, Ken Sakwa, lacks land titles but that hasn’t stopped him from creating contracts, leasing land, and building a farming enterprise. Zachary views such developments as an important journey toward property rights.

JOSH HOTTENSTEIN, CEO of Verdant Earth Technologies and PEI class of 2010, is busy transforming shipping containers into sun-free, soil-free, pesticide-free farms. For Josh it’s all about getting the most out of limited resources. With no soil, Verdant can grow a head of lettuce with one percent of the amount of water used to grow lettuce in a good old fashion field.

But as demonstrated by CORY CARMAN, class of 2008, enviropreneurs are finding ways to keep the old fashion farm alive and well. Carman’s ranch is discovering how the efficiencies of the large-scale food system, which once threatened to put many traditional family farms out of business, might be a mid-sized farmer’s best bet. The USDA refers to such farms as the “the disappearing middle.” Journalist SETH ZUCKERMAN explores agricultural easements as another path to “protect habitat for farmers.”

Turning to eco-fashion, SUMMER RAYNE OAKES, class of 2010, had her work cut out for her educating fellow enviropreneurs about fashion in Bozeman, Montana, where couture is chunky heeled hiking boots paired with a puffy down vest. Summer is co-founder and CEO of Source4Style. “When it comes to what we wear, we seldom consider how it affects the natural, cultural, and economic world around us,” she writes. Source4Style is creating an online marketplace allowing designers and brands to search and source eco-friendly materials and services from a network of global suppliers.

CHRIS CORBIN attended PEI in 2008 as a Big Sky Brewing Company marketing man with an idea for a water marketing start-up. Today, his company, Lotic LLC, has completed 30 water rights consulting projects across 18 states. Lotic’s work focuses on the confluence of economic prosperity and resource conservation, or as Chris puts it, “where blue turns into green.”

More >
More of the same for the great outdoors

by Laura E. Huggins
Earlier this week, the Obama administration released its much-anticipated report on the America’s Great Outdoors initiative. The report is the culmination of 51 listening sessions held over the past year by administration officials to gather ideas on land management and outdoor recreation from across the country.

The result, however, is just more of the same.

The initiative is pitched by the administration as a bottom-up, grassroots campaign, but in reality, the proposal is merely a repackaging of existing programs run by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, EPA, and Council on Environmental Quality. Indeed, the cornerstone of the report, a fully-funded Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), is more about politics than about actual conservation.

The LWCF is the government’s primary land acquisition program. The president proposes to use revenues from federal oil and gas leases to fully fund the LWCF at $900 million a year.

But here’s the problem: the LWCF only provides funding for acquisition of new lands. The program provides no funding to conserve existing lands. This type of “park-barrel politics” benefits politicians eager to cut ribbons on new parks, but neglects the conservation needs on public lands the government already owns. If you set aside land for conservation, don’t you have a responsibility to provide the resources necessary to conserve it?

On the 650 million acres of existing federal land, conservation projects are going unfunded. Maintenance of infrastructure is already lacking—as evidenced by leaky sewer systems, crumbling roads, and dilapidated buildings. The National Parks Conservation Association notes that despite millions in stimulus funding, a chronic backlog of about $8 billion (with a B!) exists for current maintenance and preservation projects. Decades of neglect on Forest Service lands have also led to a multi-billion dollar backlog.

Besides conservation, the program also plans to increase Americans’ awareness of the outdoors—especially for children. It is true that children are spending less time outdoors. Indeed, visits to national parks have been trending downward for 23 years. According to the National Park Service there were 281 million visitors in 2010—six million visitors less than in 1987, despite a larger population.

Parents are no longer sending their kids to camps or even outside to play. Author Richard Louve coined this phenomena "nature deficit disorder." As a parent and an environmentalist, this situation concerns me, but is it the federal government’s job to solve this problem? This special report on outdoor education has some interesting alternatives.

I attended one of the first listening sessions in Montana. During the session a video explained that President Obama intended to build on a “breathtaking legacy of conservation” started by Theodore Roosevelt, whom Obama described as “one of my favorite presidents.”

More >

Pages

Subscribe to PERColator posts by Laura Huggins