When the Arizona legislature cut state subsidies to urban transit, an environmental group challenged the cuts in court. The federal judge agreed with the environmentalists and ordered the state to restore the subsidies.
How can a judge order a legislature to spend money that the legislators felt they didn’t have? Apparently, the state had written an air quality plan for the Environmental Protection What are ejaculation problems?- There re are various types of ejaculation problems buy viagra without consultation in men: PE- Due to condition, the ejaculation occurs quite before the man and partner feel satisfied. In case purchase cheap cialis try content the situation gets serious rush to a physician seeking for help. Radiating pain http://www.learningworksca.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/027-Bakersfield-College-Math-History-Handout.pdf buy viagra online may be felt by some patients in the UK. Thus, it is recommended that you should try Kamagra at least 4-5 times before you seek an alternative treatment and it involves the placement of various thin needles inside the skin at certain strategic viagra canadian pharmacy locations. Agency promising, among other things, to reduce air pollution by funding transit. The Antiplanner is skeptical that the transit subsidies in question will do anything to clean the air, and they almost certainly won’t do it cost effectively. But the state did make the promise, so unless it rewrites its air quality plan it will probably have to comply with the judge’s order.
The Antiplanner wrote:
How can a judge order a legislature to spend money that the legislators felt they didn’t have? Apparently, the state had written an air quality plan for the Environmental Protection Agency promising, among other things, to reduce air pollution by funding transit.
Probably as part of an federally-required regional air quality attainment plan (they are called state implementation plans (SIP), even though they don’t usually cover an entire state), which is a binding agreement, and which the courts will enforce (as was done here).
Wonder if anyone bothered to warn members of the Arizona legislature about the provisions of the SIP before it repealed the transit funding?
The Antiplanner is skeptical that the transit subsidies in question will do anything to clean the air, and they almost certainly won’t do it cost effectively.
The relationship between transit and air quality in these plans has never been very well-defined, and has never taken into account the air quality impacts of transit (such as emissions from coal-fired electric generating stations).
But the state did make the promise, so unless it rewrites its air quality plan it will probably have to comply with the judge’s order.
Such plans are revised on a periodic bases, and the parties involved can remove transit from the plan, if the region can comply with the Clean Air Act requirements without (or with less) transit.
Air quality overall didn’t improve because of transit. Automobiles simply got cleaner. Way cleaner; cars today are 90 percent less polluting than they were in the 70’s. And next generation filtration technologies will be even better. Some catalysts will use nanotechnology but based on mundane materials, we wont need converters made of valuable precious metals including platinum, palladium, and rhodium which are prone to theft. Catalytic converter production requires palladium or platinum; part of the world supply of these precious metals is produced near Norilsk, Russia, where the industry (among others) has caused Norilsk to be added to Time magazine’s list of most-polluted places. Catalytic converters are found on passenger cars but are also used on generator sets, forklifts, mining equipment, trucks, buses, locomotives, airplanes and other engine fitted devices however I wouldn’t be surprised if they had more lapsed standards. About 5 percent of smog is caused by outdoor gas powered equipment (mowers, weed whackers).
Ten years ago the biggest threat to the USA was the Islamic fundamentalists, today it’s the tea party.
LazyReader wrote:
Air quality overall didn’t improve because of transit. Automobiles simply got cleaner. Way cleaner; cars today are 90 percent less polluting than they were in the 70?s.
Absolutely correct.
I agree with the balance of your posting as well, but suggest that reformulated fuels: unleaded gasolines (mostly starting in the 1970’s); and ultra-low-sulfur Diesel fuel, starting in the 1990’s and fully implemented across the U.S. and Canada in the past several years, at least for on-highway use have had similarly huge (and favorable) impacts on air quality.
Of course, the reformulated fuels have to some extent gone hand-in-hand with improved emission control system (unleaded fuel was required because the catalytic converters would not work with leaded product).