Posted on 10/26/2006 5:20:33 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry faces Democratic challengers Chris Bell and Independents Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn in the 2006 gubernatorial race.
In the fourth part of News 8 Austin's five-part gubernatorial forum, the candidates discuss transportation and energy.
Q: Now, let’s combine public transportation and developing renewable energy. What do you think we should be doing to make Texas the leader in the nation in these areas and why should Texans care about that?
Strayhorn: Well, we certainly need every renewable energy and we need wind generation and we also need telecommuting. Fifteen percent of my employees are telecommuting at the Comptroller’s Office now. But, we need an efficient freeway system that once was and again can be the envy of the nation. As governor, I will blast off the bureaucratic books this governor’s $184 billion boondoggle that crams toll roads down Texans throats. TxDOT’s budget has increased 117 percent. We have the dollars to have an efficient freeway system on existing right-of-ways and Texas property belongs to Texans, not foreign companies, and this largest land grab in Texas history that the governor calls the Trans Texas Corridor, I call Trans Texas Catastrophe. And we will have an efficient freeway system on existing right-of-ways today.
Bell: I think the state needs to be doing everything it can to support local municipalities when it comes to public transportation. It is something that I was very supportive of as a member of the Houston City Council and will continue to be supportive of as governor of Texas. Also, I think that it’s time for Texas to step up. If we are going to remain the energy capital here in the United States, then we’re going to have to be spending more on the research and development of alternative sources of energy, and the good news is, whether you talk about wind or solar or biodiesel, Texas is perfectly positioned to be a leader in those areas. But, we risk falling further and further behind California if we don’t get serious about funding the research and development of alternative sources of energy.
Friedman: Solar power, wind power are the watch words of the future. We have been following this American parade in every category. Executions, dropouts, toll roads, property taxes. We’re number one in all of those things of all the states. It’s time we became number one in something good. I’m suggesting that renewable fuel is the easy one because Willie Nelson is the man who really is an authority on this, and there’s hundreds of millions of people around the world who love and respect his music and his spirit, including the farmers of Texas. So, we will have a farmers’ coop selling ethanol and biodiesel all over the state. I will put 35,000 school buses on biodiesel. Very soon, truckers, all these other people will be trying biodiesel. Just like Willie’s bus. It runs on a 100 percent vegetable oil. When that happens, when we get a sizable minority of Texans trying biodiesel, you’ll see the prices at the pump dropping and you’ll see the environment getting cleaner. Then the soccer moms are going to get aboard. Everyone wants a clean environment. We’re running out of dinosaur wine, folks. We’ve got to go with renewable fuel. Then, we can lead the American parade in something really, really good, which is renewable fuels that you can grow and we’ll have clean energy and clean government.
Perry: You know, it’s really interesting that you would combine those two together, because the fact of the matter is that wind energy and the generation of that wind energy is going to be one of the big factors in driving Texas forward. That’s zero emission and with the concerns that we have over our environment having wind energy, which will be developed mostly in West Texas, that’s the area of the state where you’ll see those big wind turbines being built up on the high plains. So, how do you move that energy from West Texas, the high plains, down to where the population centers are? That’s where these corridor-type concepts are really going to come into play, the Trans Texas Corridor, Ports to Plains, the Amarillo-Lubbock type of corridor that they are talking about being built. Those go hand in hand, and I was in Lubbock this last week and the people in Lubbock were really excited about the opportunity for those wind generation plants to be built, that zero emission type energy source, and the transporting that back to where the population centers are. Those Trans Texas Corridor type concepts are going to be the future, not only of our transportation infrastructure of moving people more safely, more quickly, addressing the air quality issues and getting those hazardous materials out of our city centers, but also give Texans the option. If they don’t want to pay a toll, I-35 will still be there and people can get on it and drive to their heart’s content. It may take them a little longer to get there, but the options are going to be there for the future, and Texas will be seen as the leader in transportation infrastructure in the world.
Horse Feathers
bump.
Energy costs money, energy IS money, and the love of money is the root of all evil. What I'm referring to is the naive assumption that wind/solar/green energy will somehow replace CO2 emitting CxHx sources, thus reducing global warming. The problem is a lack of self discipline. You bring on line your green sources and CxHx useage rates won't go down, it will just be more total energy to play with, I know human nature too well. How many people wisely save/invest excess capital vs how many max out credit cards with no hope of repayment? It's like a cocaine addiction, the addict must always have more, more, MORE; instead of self control. Better a dry morsel and peace therein than plenty...with strife......Thus it is laudable that texans are developing alternate energy sources as REPUBLICAN entrepreneuers, but hand in hand must go WISE use of energy. You don't leave a loaded gun in a nursery for children to play with, nor let a 5 year old drive a semitruck on the freeway. What if a fantastic new energy source became available, far beyond the ones you mention? Do you see my point?
There is a lot of other info at that website.
I would like to see Strayhorn get a chance to run our state for awhile
She had her chance when she was mayor of Austin...........what a nightmare. Like My Wife says, "She's good at being the comptroller because you need to be a b@%ch to do that job"
The movie is CHAIN REACTION : The problem has been too little energy but what happens when everyone has TOO MUCH available energy? What if you gave 7 x 10^9 people a FREE KW of energy, IMMEDIATELY they would DEMAND a FREE MW, then GW...where does all the WASTE HEAT go? You see, you naively think that all the energy(lights, motors, etc)you use just "goes away". It doesn't "go away", it becomes lower WASTE HEAT, thermal garbage if you will. And the ONLY way our biosphere gets rid of WASTE HEAT is via blackbody radiation to space(no conduction/convection). Thus the current developments in new energy sources HAS to be controlled rationally, or we all COOK......This may be an extreme example but consider the fruit fly analogy : the earth is made of green cheese and you introduce 2 fruit flies that reproduce every 1/2 hour. At that 2^168x2 rate, in one week the earth becomes a solid mass of FRUIT FLIES. But in actual fact they'd COOK themselves long before that, from WASTE HEAT. We could easily become those "fruit flies".....bottom line : either a BALANCED energy input = output or we go extinct like 98% of all species that have ever lived on the earth-stage...tomorrow's DIRT.
No, the only reason clinton wasn't convicted by the senate on impeachment charges was that algore as president would have been too painful for US. No, what I'm saying is that we become responsible adults in our energy use or become self-exterminating fruit flies, a virus in the biosphere, exploding out of control. You are looking thru the microscope of too little energy, I'm looking thru the telescope of TOO MUCH energy. If you think global warming is bad now, imagine what happens when EVERYONE has whole atomic bomb's worth of energy to play with. Some 40,000 americans die in traffic accidents every year, and that's just CxHx-run CARS; put a THOUSAND TIMES as much energy under the hood...see what I mean?
And yet everything I wrote is true and easily fact-checked.
That's my point : with higher energy prices people are FORCED by cost to husband that part of the budget. And yet if energy is virtually free and unlimited, where are the controls, the self discipline?
As Dennis Lee said to us in his energy presentation-show : What you don't know about...you don't know about.
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