Corvallis Spends Tax Dollars to Modify People’s Behavior
Teaching people to screw in Green Light Bulbs and Ride Bicycles So far behind they’ll never catch up! Unattainable goals within grant period Not a proper role of government!
SALEM-Oregon Capitol Watch Foundation’s Executive Director and former State Representative Jeff Kropf announced Petunia the Pork Detective’s latest recipient of the highly coveted ‘Porker Award’ to the city of Corvallis for the ‘Climate Showcase’ grant failure.
In early 2001, the EPA awarded Corvallis a three year grant to teach their residents and businesses how to reduce energy use and carbon emissions using a program called ‘Energize Corvallis’. Unfortunately, after a year and a half of spending tax dollars the program is so far behind in reaching it’s goals, it appears to be another taxpayer funded ‘green’ failure.
“How many more government funded ‘green’ programs have to fail before the taxpayers demand this type of wasteful spending stops” asked Kropf. “They’ve spent 40% of their tax dollars and they have reached only one tenth of one percent of their main goal”.
According to the city’s latest report to the EPA, they have reduced CO2 by an estimated 22.95 tons, when their main goal over the three years is an 18,000 ton reduction, for a success rate of .001%. Equally disturbing, is the .002% success rate in their effort to reduce electrical consumption (kWh) as they have achieved only a 9,640 kWh reduction towards their 3,800,000 kWh goal. The city’s official grant application states they intend to accomplish these goals by “through resident’s behavior changes”.
“It’s not government’s role to use tax dollars to fund a program whose goal is to change people’s behavior” said Kropf. “I mean really, you’d think the highly educated and environmentally aware citizens of Corvallis could figure out to screw in green light bulbs and ride bicycles without government help”
Resources:
http://energizecorvallis.org/
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/article_d5470eba-6703-11e0-af9a-001cc4c002e0.html
http://epa.gov/statelocalclimate/local/showcase/corvallis.html#results
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7626627/Climate%20Showcase%20Corvallis-Proposal%20%286%29.pdf
Tax Dollars Pay for Study to Study Other Studies
Government doesn't know the cost!
Project had no budget!
Government doesn't even know who authorized it!
Congratulations to the Oregon Health Authority for the 'Shadow Flicker' study (officially titled the Wind Energy Health Impact Assessment). 134 pages that took 18 months to complete concluding that giant wind turbine blades don't trigger epileptic seizures and there is no evidence that wind turbine sounds cause human stress.
Spending $370,600 to purchase a solar project. According to The Oregonian, the funding sources for the project include subsidies and other TriMet indebtedness that will result in a 65 year pay off of the debt...for an experiment. Is this a wise use of transporation dollars?
An alternative energy experiment?
