Thursday, May 30, 2013

How to Totally Eliminate Flood Damage

May 30, 2013, 10:45 a.m.

Water Will Have Its Way
If we continue to build on flood plains, we can expect continued destruction. To stop this, we need to remove structures from flood plains or we need to better tend the uplands so that they can limit flooding. Today, we instead work on the theory that we can use both flood plains and uplands intensively, as we wish, for maximum profit. We are paying the price.

-- Connie Mutel

My brother has a grass-based dairy farm in southeast Minnesota. . . . [A] rainfall simulator put 4 inches of rain on his hilly pastures in one hour. No water ran off. They waited four hours and applied 4 more inches in an hour, and still no water ran off. Last fall, when floods raged in southeast Minnesota, my brother's farm got 15 inches of rain overnight. Area corn and soybean fields were destroyed by erosion, and whole towns got washed out. On his farm, there was virtually no sign of erosion.

-- Francis Thicke

Note: Since this blog essay was posted May 30, 2013, there have been a number of opinion pieces by others coming to similar conclusions (as there have been over the years). Rather than embed them here, they have been made available as a "page."

There are three simple rules that, if followed, would totally eliminate property damage from floods:
1. Don't locate homes and other structures in flood plains.

2. Don't locate homes and other structures in flood plains.

3. Don't locate homes and other structures in flood plains.
Actually, it's a little more complicated than that -- but not by much. Water will have its way. We can dam it, we can channel it, we can sandbag and barricade our buildings, but we can't (at least not yet) control how much or where the rain falls, and how much property damage overflowing rivers (and overflowing reservoir spillways) can do to structures in a flood plain.

We can (and do) argue about what is causing "climate change," but few still argue about whether we're experiencing it. Someone reported this morning that this spring has been the wettest ever. Climate change means more unpredictable and extreme weather, more often -- droughts and floods, hotter summers and colder winters, more severe tornadoes more often, "500-year" and "100-year" floods coming every decade instead of every century.

We know the value of preventive maintenance for machinery and structures -- although we've failed to apply what we know to our nation's 600,000 bridges. We know that billions of dollars are needlessly spent on our healthcare for totally preventable conditions we've brought on ourselves, by ignoring the near-universal advice regarding dozens of diseases and conditions: weight control, diet and exercise.

I wrote about all of this the last time the Iowa River went out of its banks in 2008. It's worth repeating.

"Flooding: 'We've Found the Enemy' -- And the Answers,"
July 17, 2008

Note: Undoubtedly, although the links, below, worked in 2008, many (possibly all) of them are no longer correct. (I have made no effort to check and correct them.) A Google search may reveal that some of these documents now have other URL addresses on the Internet. If not, a library search for hard copy versions, or contacting the authors or publishers, may be your only options.

As the flood waters slowly recede, the dramatic damage emerges from the muddy water and remaining muck, and the long cleanup continues, our thoughts turn to the future.

"What did we do to deserve this?" "What's the best way to keep it from happening again?"

Thankfully, the answers to both -- coming from a diverse group of scientists and evangelicals, civil engineers and creative writers, farmers and journalists -- are coming to be more and more consistent.

Last evening my wife and I watched a DVD of Arthur Miller's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play, "An Enemy of the People." ["Enemy of the People (Broadway Theatre Archive)," 1966; DVD available for purchase from amazon.com or by subscription from Netflix.] We'd both read Ibsen's play as college students, but had forgotten much of it (I always forgetting more than Mary). As occasionally occurs in life, Ibsen's insights and lessons from 120 years ago are as spot on as if the play had been written yesterday. Even more to the point, the setting involves a conflict between science and profit/politics regarding a community's toxic water. More I won't say, to avoid the risk of spoiling it for you. Watch it. The message is applicable to so many of the problems we confront today.

Many (including myself) wrote -- prior to our invasion of Iraq -- of what would likely happen. They were subsequently proven right. Ditto for what's wrong with our K-12 educational system. Ditto for how to deal with oil prices and our energy needs. Ditto for banks' practices regarding mortgages. Ditto for universal, single-payer health care. Ditto for campaign finance reform. And on and on.

In general, as Ralph Nader (and many others) have observed, "This country has more problems than it deserves and more solutions than it uses."

In short, as Walt Kelly famously put it in his "Pogo" comic strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Again relevant to our concern with flooding, though Kelly alluded to the idea in the early 1950s, the phrase was first used by him on an Earth Day poster in 1970.

The proposition is nowhere more true than with regard to flooding.

At the outset, let me acknowledge that I have no professional credentials or expertise in the flood-related areas of science. I'm simply trying to absorb what I can of the views of those who do, and pass it along, by way of this blog and in other ways, into the public marketplace of ideas.

Apparently, the one certainty is that rivers will flood. It may be every year, every 100 years, 500 years -- or even every 10,000 years -- but it will flood. We can and should reduce the severity of those floods -- and there are a number of things we can do to accomplish that. But it is folly to believe we're never going to get another flood along the Iowa River, or any other river -- especially given all the things we're now doing that tend to increase both the recurrence and the severity of flooding. [Photo credit: www.theepochtimes.com.]

Where will it flood? In the area along any river that geologists, geographers, or engineers can identify as its "floodplain."

When we build roads, parking lots, large buildings, homes, and shopping malls in flood plains a number of undesirable consequences flow with the water. More rain water runs off, and runs off faster, and runs off with more pollutants in it, than if it fell on forests, grassland, pasture, prairies, parks, wetlands, wildlife habitats, and recreation areas -- and then worked its way through "filters" of trees and tall grasses close to the river. [Photo credit: stock footage from www.picturesoforegon.net.]

And when, up and down a river, more water is running off, and faster, and with more pollutants, the result is more floods, more often, that are more costly, and of greater severity -- as we continue to experience.

As is so often the case, retrofitting anything is ever so much more expensive than doing it right in the first place. Had we left the Iowa River's floodplain as we found it 170 years ago there would have been zero cost to this natural and virtually maintenance-free flood prevention (or minimization) program. As it is, cleaning up after this last one will cost well over $1 billion for Johnson and Linn Counties alone. And with the number of University buildings, businesses and homes involved there are very powerful political forces to deal with as well -- as Ibsen/Miller have dramatized for us.

Based on the science, what we need to do is rather obvious -- whether we take 2-5 years to get it done, or follow a longer-range (and perhaps more politically feasible) 20-50-year plan. Do we have the political leadership in place? (Yes? And just who do you have in mind?) And even if we did, does the public have the will to follow?

At a minimum, can we at least hold to a policy -- to the extent taxpayers' money is going to be provided to businesses and home owners who knowingly built in floodplains -- that such money will only be provided to those who will use it by rebuilding in a location that is not in a floodplain?

Take a look at a map of Iowa City even as late as 1930. [Click on "Remove Overlays" (to get rid of the street names), focus on the area along the Iowa River between the Burlington Street and Iowa Avenue bridges, work your way up/down to the "2m pixels" level, and then move the map north and south along the river.] Notice the open, and often forested, flood plain along the River.

Now take a look at the current "City of Iowa City, Iowa, Flood Map," showing the floodplains for "100-year floods" and "500-year-floods," and recall (or go visit to see) what we have deliberately constructed in those areas, knowing that they would inevitably flood, and knowing that, by building there, we would be increasing the likelihood, and severity, of that flooding and the dollar value of the damage those floods would cause.

From the creation of the University until well into the 20th Century our predecessors either knew enough not to put costly buildings in a floodplain or through dumb luck built on the bluffs along the River (e.g., the Old Capitol and Pentacrest, and in the 1920s the hospital and athletic facilities on the West side).

Now, as a result of decisions since, with University administrators and Regents choosing building locations that flew in the face of the science of the time (which I can't believe wasn't made available to them by knowledgeable professors), we're left with nearly a quarter-billion-dollar loss for the University's buildings alone. Erin Jordan, "U of I flood-loss estimate balloons to $232 mil," Des Moines Register, July 9, 2008 ("University of Iowa officials predict it will cost nearly $232 million to repair damage to the campus from June floods, an amount that's triple an estimate from last week.").

For a map of the forests along Iowa's rivers in the 1850s, see "1850s Landcover Map of Iowa" ("Early surveyors' notes suggested that trees covered about 6.7 million acres or 19 percent of Iowa around the time of statehood in 1846. Settlers steadily cleared the forests, however, as they grubbed out trees for cropfields, rail fences, log buildings, and lumber. By 1857, the Iowa State Agricultural Society had issued a plea calling for more careful use of timber resources."), from Iowa Department of Natural Resources, "Iowa: Portrait of the Land" (2000), entire book available as a pdf file. And see, especially, Chapter 9: "A Vision for Iowa's Land."
Would this flood have happened if we were back in the tall-grass prairie days with no tile drainage, no tillage compaction and all those wetlands diked by beaver? It is our human economics that changed the natural tall-grass ecosystem to the tilled, fertilized, pesticided, compacted and simplified condition we found in June 2008.

Would any USDA-funded riparian buffer program, or mandatory no-till planting, or even just more crop rotation with hay and pasture make any difference at the rate runoff left the land? I realize we had some heavy rains falling on saturated soils, but I also believe rain fell on a tighter, less spongy watershed upstream from Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

The rate that water drains off tilled upland fields determines the water’s momentum energy. More momentum on tilled soil scours more soil particles along with the solubles like the fertilizer and pesticides. Though the runoff goes away, we can find it redistributed where we don’t want it — in the reservoir pools, on flooded neighborhoods and further down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We Eastern Iowa locals are all touched by this flood and a bit changed — but our first desire seems to be “put it back as it was” and hope that never happens again for another 500 years.

For those who are now our leaders, a new part of the job description is to protect us from the next flood, which now has a bigger dimension than imagined back in mid-June. It’s rapidly getting down to money, politics and business. Now what to do? . . .

Iowans appreciate wisdom — especially when presented in a humble, honest and “nice” way. We now need a fact-finding watershed SWAT team beyond a committee that seeks only to put it back and protect their interests. This is the time for getting the facts to understand the science underlying the root causes beyond the rain of this disaster.

Many Iowans won’t like what they hear because it means a lifestyle change — but in our guts we know that changes are needed for how we live and farm on our beloved Iowa land.

This record wet spring and resulting flood disaster provides our educable moment to “Listen to the land.”
"Louis Licht of North Liberty is president/founder of Ecolotree Inc., a company that uses poplar trees to clean up soil contamination. He’s also an adjunct associate professor in the University of Iowa Civil-Environmental Engineering Department." Louis Licht, "Flood's Message: Listen to Land," The Gazette, July 17, 2008, p. A5.

The Press-Citizen's editorial is consistent:
[P]olicymakers now need to:

o Rely more on rivers' natural floodplains rather than on levee and pump systems.

o Provide homeowners with better information about the risks of living in floodplains; and

o Provide more flood buffers by returning at-risk land to forests and wetlands.
Editorial, "Seeking Advice for Floodplain Management," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 17, 2008, p. A11.

In the same issue, Tom Pickering says of the 2008 flood, "Mother Nature reclaimed some of the land that we altered over the years." Tom Pickering, "Restore the Wilds of City Park," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 17, 2008, p. A11.

The paper's editorial also notes -- consistent with my earlier observations about "An Enemy of the People" and ignored advice and solutions -- that hydraulics engineering Professor Joseph Howe (father of one of my best friends and classmates at U-High) and the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission, warned the City Council 50 years ago not to permit home building in the Parkview Terrace area. As is so often the case, politics and profits trumped science -- and led to the predictable disasters that followed.

For more details about this political disgrace and ecological disaster, see Marc Linder, "Give land back to the Iowa River; Before the Iowa River takes back Parkview Terrace -- yet again," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 12, 2008.

Last Sunday's Des Moines Register had two pieces also hitting consistent themes. Francis Thicke provided some pretty dramatic data regarding the impact of planting on the runoff that creates flooding:
Studies have shown that native prairie soils can absorb 5 to 7 inches of rainfall per hour. When corn and soybeans are grown on those same soils, the water absorption rate is reduced to just 0.5 to 1.5 inches of rainfall per hour. Sixty-five percent of Iowa's land area is planted to corn and soybeans. The manyfold reduction in the soil's ability to absorb rain on so many acres - in combination with extensive tile drainage to remove water from crop fields as fast as possible - makes corn and soybean cropland clearly the major contributor of flood waters to Iowa rivers during heavy rainfall.

Obviously, we are not going to return all of Iowa to pristine prairie. However, we could make some key changes in agriculture that would make a big difference in how much water soaks into the soil instead of going down the river to create flooding during heavy rainfalls.

A perennial grass and legume pasture that is rotationally grazed mimics the prairie/buffalo system that built Iowa's productive soils, and it absorbs water about as well as native prairie. My brother has such a grass-based dairy farm in southeast Minnesota. At a field day on his farm, the Natural Resources Conservation Service used a rainfall simulator to put 4 inches of rain on his hilly pastures in one hour. No water ran off. They waited four hours and applied 4 more inches in an hour, and still no water ran off.

Last fall, when floods raged in southeast Minnesota, my brother's farm got 15 inches of rain overnight. Area corn and soybean fields were destroyed by erosion, and whole towns got washed out. On his farm, there was virtually no sign of erosion. The pond at the bottom of his steep, hilly pastures did not even overflow. The soil absorbed the rain. . . .

If we could convert Iowa ethanol feedstocks from corn to prairie grass, we would make an enormous gain in reducing flooding potential. Ethanol production uses 20 percent of Iowa's corn acreage - nearly 3 million acres. Converted to prairie grass for ethanol, this large acreage would absorb five to 10 times more water during heavy rainfalls. . . .

Some will say it is too expensive to change Iowa agriculture. However, estimates of flood damage in Iowa are in the billions of dollars. If we factor in costs of soil erosion, the Gulf dead zone and other externalized costs, we might conclude it is too expensive to not change Iowa agriculture.

Francis Thicke, "To cut runoff, switch from crops to grass,"
Des Moines Register, July 13, 2008.

There was also an interview with Connie Mutel in that issue of the paper which I cannot now find online. Don't know why the Register wouldn't have uploaded it, but it doesn't seem to be there. Anyhow, here are some excerpts from my hard copy version:

[U]ntil the 1830s, Iowa had no soil erosion, no water pollution, and was covered by some of the most diverse and resilient communities [of plant and animal life] on our continent. . . .

[Today we] are discarding the soils upon which our agricultural economy is based. Our waters are among the most polluted in the nation . . .. Is Iowa being "used up" in our effort to produce food (and energy) for the world? . . .

If we continue to build on flood plains, we can expect continued destruction. To stop this, we need to remove structures from flood plains or we need to better tend the uplands so that they can limit flooding. Today, we instead work on the theory that we can use both flood plains and uplands intensively, as we wish, for maximum profit. We are paying the price.
Mike Kilen, "Author Maps Her Vision to Restore Iowa Ecology," Des Moines Register, July 13, 2008, p. OP5 (an interview with Connie Mutel).

And, of course, don't miss Connie Mutel's The Emerald Horizon: The History of Nature in Iowa (2008); and the Web site of vast resources on this and related subjects at http://resourcesforlife.com/goiowa, and Nicholas Johnson, "Greenbelts, Greenways and Flood Prevention," June 16, 2008; Nicholas Johnson, "Gazette's Flood Plan, Floodplains & Greenbelts," June 21, 2008.

And note:

Code of Iowa, Chapter 161A: Soil and Water Conservation

Division I – Division of Soil Conservation

(Sections 161A.1–4)This chapter is also known as “Soil Conservation Districts Law.” The policy of the legislature is described in Section 161A.2:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the legislature to integrate the conservation of soil and water resources into the production of agricultural commodities to insure the long-term protection of the soil and water resources of the state of Iowa, and to encourage the development of farm management and agricultural practices that are consistent with the capability of the land to sustain agriculture, and thereby to preserve natural resources, control floods, prevent impairment of dams and reservoirs, assist and maintain the navigability of rivers and harbors, preserve wildlife, protect the tax base, protect public lands and promote the health, safety, and public welfare of the people of this state.” (emphasis supplied) Code of Iowa, Section 161A.2.
_______________

These basic truths haven't changed during the five years since I put them on this blog.

(1) The only sure-fire way to prevent property damage from floods is not to have property in flood plains -- at a minimum, just don't build or rebuild there, especially with the incentive of taxpayers' money.

(2) Instead of putting parks on the highlands, and homes and other buildings near the rivers, do the reverse -- as we have with the the Iowa City Park and Scott Park. Trying to beat back Mother Nature in order to maintain a dry flood plain just makes the flooding worse for others -- and often for ourselves as well.

By contrast, this photo shows the Iowa City Park from Park Road this afternoon. That's what a flood plain looks like. Note that not a single home or business has been flooded, just a park. Consider that, with a levee or other wall, all that water would be going downstream to cause flood damage to homes and businesses in other Iowa towns. The Park may need a little cleanup when the waters recede and evaporate, but not much, if any. [Photo credit: Nicholas Johnson.]

(3) Runoff is a major source of flood waters. Roads and parking lots don't absorb water. Trees, bushes, and grasses do. Remember Francis Thicke's story, above, about the brother's farm? Proper planting around farm fields, and in wide swaths along streams and river banks could make an enormous difference. There's a small example of this along the River bank near the old Hancher Auditorium.

Who is the enemy in our "War on Flooding"?

As Walt Kelly reminded us, linked above, "We have met the enemy and he is us."



This 45-second video shows where the "Iowa River" begins for folks living in Coralville and Iowa City: the controlled outflow from the Coralville Reservoir. The quotes are there because, since the Coralville Dam and Reservoir were built in the 1950s, it has been the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that determines how much water will flow along the riverbed of what was once Mother Nature's river. What the photo shows is what I've often taken Iowa City's visitors to see: the most excitement Johnson County has to offer; our equivalent of the deck of a cargo ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the winter. This afternoon it was passing 14,000 cubic feet of water per second. That's what it looks like.

Want to know how much 14,500 cubic feet of water per second is? One cubic foot of water is about 7.48 gallons. You may use about 100 gallons each day around your house. By contrast, 14,500 cubic feet a second would be over 9 billion gallons a day (9,370,944,000 gallons). That doesn't help? OK, imagine a one gallon plastic milk bottle. Imagine stacking enough of them to hold this much water; your stack of milk bottles would reach nearly 15,000 miles into the sky (14,796) -- and would be very unstable, my assistant, Kelley Winebold, reminds me. Still doesn't help? Ever driven across the United States, from one coast to the other? The height of this stack of milk bottles is roughly the equivalent of five cross country drives. Oh, well. Never mind. Just go watch the tail water these days. You'll see.

Some 200 years ago we didn't have the Coralville Reservoir to control flooding. We had trees and sturdy prairie grasses to absorb the water and prevent it from running off into streams and rivers. It was we who cut down those trees and plowed under that prairie, we who paved roads and parking lots, we who built homes and other buildings in our rivers' flood plains -- and we who are now paying the price, in numerous ways.

We know what to do to prevent those losses; just as we know what to do to prevent obesity, wars of choice, banking abuses, under-performing K-12 schools, growing national debt, and the ever-accelerating rates of incarceration of Americans.

What we are lacking in each of these cases is the will, the courage, to substitute long-term benefits for ourselves and future generations for the short-term benefits of greed, convenience and complacency. As Connie Mutel says, for this "We are paying the price." And what a heavy price it is.

# # #

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Targeting the IRS

May 28, 2013, n:nn a.m.

Playing Politics or Just Doing Their Job?

"Tax Exempt"
David Fitzsimmons

Arizona Star, May 23, 2013



If you're having trouble reading what the Section 501(c)(4) applicant is saying, it goes like this:

"I'd like to apply for 501c4 tax exempt status as a "social welfare' group."
"No politics, here, Hawkeye. I'm Mother Theresa with tea bags. Don't tread on my fat cat backers."
"Government is not the solution. (Unless you're a corporation.)"
"Never thought I'd be using the words 'social' or 'welfare' in the same sentence." Giggle, snicker.
[And I should note, if either the Arizona Star or the brilliant and insightful David Fitzsimmons, would prefer that I take down my recommendation that you subscribe to the Star and follow David Fitzsimmons' site -- along with this particular editorial cartoon -- all they have to do is ask.]

If you guessed I'm about to say something about the recent IRS flap, you're right. If you went on to guess I'm about to suggest that IRS employees be prosecuted, or exonerated, you're wrong. ("The more information that comes out about the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service, the harder it is to say employees there erred completely in putting more scrutiny on particular groups seeking tax-exempt status. According to the New York Times, for example, several of the tea party groups targeted by the IRS were engaged in overt political activity. One group — the Wetumpka Tea Party in Alabama — sponsored get-out-the-vote training 'dedicated to "the defeat of President Barack Obama."'” Jamelle Boiule, "Some tea-party groups examined by the IRS indeed crossed the line," Washington Post, May 27, 2013.)

Why am I not yet taking sides? Because I don't think anyone -- and certainly not I -- has a clue as to what was going on in their minds when they began investigating Tea Party organizations that were seeking tax exempt Section 501(c)(4) status. And that is the information, and essentially the only information, that is needed before coming to conclusions about what went on.

If it was the case that a small cabal of partisan, rogue IRS employees decided to strike a political blow for their President during a re-election year, and focused on making life as difficult as possible for anything that smelled of right wing Obama haters, then yes, we have a problem here.

That may yet turn out to have been the case. And I haven't been following every twist and turn of this saga. But as of today I am unaware of any evidence that was the case. If it was, possibly criminal prosecutions are in order, and President Obama deserves his lumps.

But if that is not what happened, the best that can be said of the tsunami of contempt and pre-judgment that has wafted over IRS employees is that it has been grossly unfair -- and fully as much a political act as serious as what they have been falsely accused of. The worst that can be said is that these attacks do serious harm to our democracy.

Whether you think it is the role of government to care for what Jesus called "the least of these," or whether you think the only proper role of government is fighting our continuous wars and paying down our debt, the federal government needs tax revenue. And the way it gets that revenue is by way of what comes very close to being a voluntary system. There are far too few IRS employees to insure that everyone pays his or her fair share. Tearing down Americans' confidence in the integrity of their IRS comes close to being a treasonous act -- regardless of whether it comes about as a result of what IRS employees have done, or as a result of what they have been falsely accused of having done.

For starters, the use of the word "targeting" is as unfortunate as it has been deliberate. Whether we are targeting a dart board, an archery target with a bow and arrow, or a fellow human with a gun, "targeting" suggest at a minimum an intention to use force against something, sometimes out of hostility.

As I have often said, "The problem is not that corporations violate the laws; the problem is that they write the laws." There is a difference between "tax avoidance" (using the tax laws, whether you or others have written them, to legally minimize your taxes -- as Apple argues was all it was doing), and "tax evasion" (lying, or otherwise violating the tax laws).

To paraphrase former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "You don't collect taxes with the law you wish you had, you collect taxes with the law Congress hands you." If you and your tax lawyer think the Internal Revenue Code is more complex than it either should or needs to be, at least you only deal with it once a year. IRS employees have to deal with it many times every day.

I used to have to deal with the requirements of sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) when chair of the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting. Both are made up of pretty fluffy stuff for even the most honorable among us. For those who wouldn't qualify for membership in that tiny group, the Code offers a great many temptations.

If the IRS doesn't have enough employees to thoroughly investigate every tax return, or request for special status, how can they decide where to put their limited resources?

The same way every other institution does. Doctors on the battlefield, or in an overcrowded hospital emergency room, use something called triage, separating the sick and injured into three groups: those who will die no matter what treatment they receive, those who will live regardless of how long their treatment is postponed, and those who will live if treated promptly and die if they are not. They are not "targeting" the last group; they are simply engaged in rational prioritizing. The management guru Peter Drucker would point out to some businesses that they were spending 90 percent of their sales force's efforts generating 10 percent of their gross sales, and 10 percent of their effort on the customers producing 90 percent. He didn't suggest they "target" those producing 90 percent, just give them a little more tender loving care. If a company is concerned that its sales force's travel expenses have been increasing too rapidly, it may chose to first focus on those employees who are the 5 percent top outliers. As we've recently learned, roughly one-quarter of the nation's 607,000 bridges need attention -- 66,749 are structurally deficient, 84,748 are functionally obsolete. We've been putting this off for at least a half-century. Now that we're going to do something about it, and we can't fix or replace all of them in a year or two, wouldn't a similar kind of prioritizing and focus be a good idea?

That's what IRS employees have to do every day. That's what I think, based on what I've read, they did here. If an increasing number of taxpayers are claiming that they are entitled to a business deduction for the portion of their living quarters in which they are "working on their business," that might call for a little more attention being devoted to taxpayers making that claim. Given the way Congress wrote the law, "more attention" might require a lot of questions the taxpayers consider unduly intrusive. The same would be true of businesses claiming expenses as non-taxable "business expenses" when the items look more like monkey business.

Whether an organization wants to offer its donors a tax deduction for contributions (501(c)(3)) or simply not have to pay taxes on its income or disclose the names of donors (501(c)(4)) each is a request to the IRS for special treatment resulting in less tax revenue for the government. And the answers, under the law, may well turn on who is doing what, and how much of it, and what can fairly be called "political" activity. The only way to find out what is necessary to make such judgments is to ask a lot of questions. That's not the IRS employees' fault. They are just doing their job. It's Congress' fault for not making more precisely clear what their standards are. And it seems to me that, like a doctor doing triage, with all the changes in corporations becoming people, the restraints off on anonymous million-dollar donations, and the new grassroots organizations on the left and right, it was a perfectly sensible thing for the IRS to do to give some attention to possible abuses.

It will be awhile before at least I have any confidence in answering the question of whether these IRS employees were "Playing Politics or Just Doing Their Job." And until we do know the answer it seems to me the less tearing down of Americans' confidence in their IRS, the better.

# # #

Friday, May 17, 2013

Bike to Work, Bike for Life

May 17, 2013, 10:15
Bicycles as Problem Solvers

Every year about this time, Iowa City devotes a week to reflecting upon, and riding upon, bicycles as a preferred system of small town transportation. See, e.g., Alesha L. Crews, "Leave the car, take the bike; Events this week celebrate two-wheeled travel," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 15, 2013, p. A1 ("Many locals are leaving their cars at home this week to take part in the annual Bike to Work Week challenge, a change organizers hope will continue throughout the rest of year."); "Iowa City's Bicycle Friendly Community rating upgraded to silver," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 13, 2013 ("Iowa City received a silver status upgrade by the League of American Bicyclists May 13" for its additional bike racks and bike lanes).

One of the annual features of the week is the "race" that compares the speed of traveling around the Iowa City-Coralville area by car, bus, and bicycle. Lee Hermiston, "Neuzil, Bike Make for Winning Team; Officials Enjoy Competing in Annual Race," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 14, 2013, p. A3. As usually happens, the bicycle won. As Hermiston reported, "[Johnson County Board of Supervisors member Terrence]Neuzil squared off against Iowa City Councilor Jim Throgmorton who, reluctantly, drove his car and University Heights City Councilor Mike Haverkamp, who hitched his bike to a Coralville Transit bus. The race took the men from the Coralville Public Library to the Iowa City Public Library. Neuzil won the race ahead of Throgmorton by about three minutes. Haverkamp was several minutes behind Throgmorton."

That pretty well puts away one of the oft-proffered excuses for not biking: "I just don't have the time." What you don't have the time for is driving. It's like I say to folks standing at a bus stop as I pass by on my one-mile walk to town (when the roads are too icy to bike). They ask, "How can you walk in the winter? It's so cold." "No," I reply. "What's cold is standing at a bus stop for longer than it takes me to walk. Walking's comfortable."

But there are more false excuses for not biking than time -- almost all of which have equally persuasive answers and solutions. And many more benefits of biking than speed. Here are some of them:

Costs. Even without $4 or $5 gas, operating a car is extraordinarily expensive -- and even more in time than in money. Years ago, when the average mileage was 7500 miles a year, I calculated (a) the total costs of car ownership: amortization of the purchase price, gas and oil, repairs, insurance and license fees, parking fees, tolls, and so forth. (b) The amount of time it would take the average car owner to earn the money to pay these costs -- plus the time it takes to drive the car, take the car to the mechanic and pick it up, pump the gas, look for parking, and similar non-transportation, car-related time consumption. (c) The total time totaled 1500 hours a year. (d) To take 1500 hours to go 7500 miles is an average of 5 miles an hour -- something you can do without an automobile with a very brisk walk -- not to mention with a bicycle. (e) Can't get from Iowa City to Des Moines that way? Think again. You start working, I'll start walking. I'll be there before you. And that's walking! A biker who's in shape ought to be able to average 15-20 miles an hour and get there days before you do. (Bike racers go 30-40 mph.) This may not be a reason to never own, rent, or otherwise operate an automobile. But unless you are so wealthy that "money is no object," it is certainly something to think about for trips around town when a bike would do as well, or better than, a car. You can acquire, operate, maintain and insure a bicycle for roughly 1% of the cost of a car. [Photo credit: Google/multiple sources.]

Time Saving, Convenience. Parking in an urban area can be a real hassle, as well as an added cost, whether navigating a parking garage or looking for street parking. My rule of thumb when looking for street parking in the Georgetown area of Washington years ago was to pick the first parking space I could find within one mile of my destination. The 15-minute walk would take less time than driving around and around looking for a closer place to park. Iowa City's not that bad, but you can no longer pull up in front of your downtown destination (and not have to deal with parking meters!), as was the case when I was a boy. And don't talk to me about parking garages! The ticket often turns into nothing more than a hunting license, as you drive around and around, ever upward, until you end up parking on the roof. And allow plenty of time to exit, especially if you're coming from an event where numerous other attendees are in line ahead of you trying to get out.

You don't have to warm up your bike in the winter. You don't have to search for your car keys (if you have a combination lock for the bike). The odds are good there will be either a bike rack, or something else to lock your bike to, right outside the front door of your destination. And you will be taking up about 1/30th the space required for a car when you do so.

War for Oil. We send our brave soldiers off to war around the world in search of an answer to the perplexing question: "How did our oil get under their sand?" It costs taxpayers trillions of dollars to provide this military protection for our oil companies -- not to mention tens of thousands of lives, and hundreds of thousands of wounded, Americans and others, military and civilian. Bicycles do require a little lubricant for the chain from time to time, but aside from that their only demands for energy involve peddling with your leg muscles.

And Speaking of Muscles -- and Obesity. You can bike outdoors all over town for a month for far less than what your favorite fitness center will charge you to bike in one place indoors. And if you're interested in firming up, and losing a little weight (whether for yourself or your kids) -- and who isn't -- biking just may be your answer. It's cheaper than Lipitor and better for your heart -- as well as a positive for prevention of diabetes and cancer. In fact, virtually every bit of advice about our health, regardless of the disease or injury in question, ends up coming back to "diet and exercise."

Multitasking. "Don't move your thumbs while I'm talking." Students sit in class with their laptops, managing their Facebook pages. Couples sit in restaurants, each on their cell phone. Kids think they can do their homework while watching TV, talking on the phone to one person, while texting another. Whatever you think about those kids of electronic multitasking, bicycling offers another that is in no way socially offensive.

You have to go to work, or shop for groceries. If you drive, maybe you'll listen to the radio, music, or engage in the risky behavior of talking on a cell phone or texting. But if you hop on your bike, instead of hopping into the car, for those trips (or even portions of them; drive to cheap parking, with a bike rack and your bike; bike the rest of the way) you're multitasking: building exercise into your day in a way that takes no additional time (or money!) whatsoever. Bike baskets can carry many of the items you formerly drove to the store to get; and if you want to do more, the relatively cheap bike trailers will enable you to carry almost anything -- up to and including your small child.

Stress Reduction. Driving can be noisy, aggravating and stressful. Biking makes virtually no noise and is more calming and peaceful; the additional oxygen to the brain makes you more creative. You are closer to nature and know you're doing something that uses no fuel, is non-polluting, and healthier for both you and the Planet. And that's just for the commuting and shopping trips. With 80 miles of bike trails locally, there's also safe recreational riding -- such as the Clear Creek trail from Iowa City to the Coral Ridge Mall, or the Iowa River Corridor Trail from the City Park to the new Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and lake along Sand Road. That will really clear your mind.

This listing of bicycling's benefits could go on and on, but as a concession to the necessary shortness of a blog essay, and life itself, it will stop here.

Finally, for old time's sake, a republication of a column I wrote on the subject for the New York Times 40 years ago. A little background: I was then working as an FCC Commissioner in downtown Washington, D.C., living in Maryland, and commuting by bicycle each day along the C & O Canal towpath. The facts it contains are from 1973, and the theme of the column is as much an anti-automobile-petroleum-based transportation system tirade as pro-bicycle -- as befits the early '70s. But many of the points are still valid. Chapter 7 ["Antidote for Automobiles"] in Test Pattern for Living, published by Bantam Books at about that time, and scheduled for reissue sometime this summer, strikes a similar theme.

"Bicycles are Model Citizens"
The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking
New York Times
August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2

I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.

I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.

It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.

Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.

No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.

You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.

And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.

You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.

Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.

Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.

Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.

The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.

One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.

Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.

Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.
__________

Happy biking -- not just for "Bike to Work Week," but the other 51 weeks as well.

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Wednesday, May 08, 2013

The Morning After

May 8, 2013, 11:07 a.m.

More Jail Cells ("Justice Center") Strikes Out; Third Time's Not Charm

"There is no joy in Mudville -- Mighty Casey has struck out."

Ernest Lawrence Thayer, "Casey at the Bat"

And there is no reason for anyone in Iowa City to feel a sense of joy this morning either.

A proposal for a substantial expansion of the number of jail cells in Johnson County, Iowa, and doing some refurbishing of the Courthouse, went down to defeat for the third time last evening after the votes were counted. As a taxpayer-approved bond issue, it needed 60% to pass, and lost by a slightly larger margin than when last up for a vote last November.

Nobody "won" that election. I hadn't even thought of it in terms of a "campaign" that one "wins" or "loses." I was not a member of either the "Yes" or "No" organizations; contributed no money to either; didn't have a yard sign. Indeed, I wrote an op ed column urging a "Yes" vote last November -- along with some conditions in the form of my hoped-for reforms of that proposal: "Voting 'Yes, but. . .' for the Justice Center," Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 15, 2012, p. A7, embedded in "Prisons: The Costs and Challenges of Crime" October 15, 2012.

It was only during the weeks following that November vote that I came to perceive the proponents' resistance, defensiveness, and "There Is No Alternative" stance as being so intransigent that they ultimately pushed me over to the realization that the least worst of our two choices -- "Yes" and "No" -- was going to have to be "No."

As a result, I have written a number of columns and blog essays since that October 15 op ed column (some of which reproduce those columns) on the subject during the past eight months:

"There Are Alternatives," April 30, 2013
"Justice Center's Proponents' Faulty Logic," April 27, 2013
"Why TINA's Wrong; There Are Alternatives," April 25, 2013
"Criminal Justice Center: My Response to McCarragher; The Discussion Continues", April 17, 2013
"Vote 'No' to Justice Center; 'Yes' to Courthouse, Detached Criminal Facility," April 12, 2013
"Johnson County Can Lead Incarceration Reform; 'If not now, when? If not us, who?'" March 8, 2013
"'Iowa Nice' & the Compromise Three-Step; How the County Can Get to 'Yes' on the Justice Center", November 16, 2012
"Prisons: The Costs and Challenges of Crime" October 15, 2012.
Neither you nor I is interested this morning in rehashing all the discussion of the issues in those columns and blog entries. But there is one more that I wish to record here to complete this record of commentary, one that is especially timely since I was asked to address "What should happen next if voters say 'no'?" -- the situation we are all confronting this morning. (Obviously, the columns linked immediately above also explore both the possible alternatives to what we've been doing, both in terms of substance and process.)

The Press-Citizen invited a number of individuals to address one each of three questions. The questions and responses can be found here:

Question 1: Some critics of Johnson County’s plan for a new justice center oppose building more jail space because of racial disparity in the jail and because some non-violent criminals are incarcerated. Are those reservations relevant to the justice center vote? What can be done locally to address those concerns? Contributors' responses to Question 1 are here.

Question 2: Is the justice center proposal the most cost effective solution for addressing the problems that come with the overcrowded jail and century-old courthouse?” Contributors' responses to Question 2 are here.

Question 3: What should happen next if voters say "no"? Contributors' responses to Question 3 are here.

I chose Question 3, "What should happen next if voters say 'no'?" Here is my response for the online version:
Vote again, but separate courthouse from jail


If the vote fails? We should vote again.

Proponents proposed a false choice, both in their own thinking and on the ballot.

As a syllogism: (1) We need more jail cells and courthouse refurbishing; (2) We propose specific details to fix that; (3) Therefore, you must vote “Yes” for our plan or be called a naysayer.

The fallacy was their “therefore.”

In fact, most opponents agreed on the need to do “something.” Disagreement wasn’t about need. It focused on the “something”: what it is, how much of it, where it should be, and what alternative approaches should accompany construction.

Let’s “get to ‘Yes.’” There’s little debate regarding the Courthouse’s interior needs. Let’s vote on that, approve it and do it.

Then let’s give serious consideration to the suggestions from opponents that have largely been rebuffed by the “Yes” crowd. “There Is No Alternative” (“TINA”) is no way to reach compromise, whether in Washington, D.C., or Johnson County.

Years ago “There Is No Alternative” consumed hundreds of acres of farmland with landfills. Today’s innovative, creative alternatives — reuse, recycling, composting among them — save that land for better use.

Can’t we be just as innovative with our justice system needs?

Next steps? Many people have suggestions. Here’s mine: Vote to fix the courthouse — for civil trials only.

Design a more efficient, detached, one-stop criminal justice center — as many other Iowa counties have done — to preserve our courthouse’s appearance.

Explore and implement all best practices for reducing the need for additional jail and prison cells.

There’s more at http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, as the Cable Guy says, “Let’s get ‘er done!”
_______________
Nicholas Johnson teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org.

_______________

Excerpts from this blog content were combined into the hard copy edition of The Gazette in a section it calls "Blogfeed." Nicholas Johnson, "Blogfeed: From DC2 Iowa," May 12, 2013, p. A10, as follows:

A proposal for a substantial expansion of the number of jail cells in Johnson County, Iowa, and doing some refurbishing of the Courthouse, went down to defeat for the third time last evening after the votes were counted. As a taxpayer-approved bond issue, it needed 60% to pass, and lost by a slightly larger margin than when last up for a vote last November.

Nobody "won" that election. I hadn't even thought of it in terms of a "campaign" that one "wins" or "loses." I was not a member of either the "Yes" or "No" organizations; contributed no money to either; didn't have a yard sign. Indeed, I wrote an op ed column urging a "Yes" vote last November -- along with some conditions in the form of my hoped-for reforms of that proposal.

It was only during the weeks following that November vote that I came to perceive the proponents' resistance, defensiveness, and "There Is No Alternative" stance as being so intransigent that they ultimately pushed me over to the realization that the least worst of our two choices -- "Yes" and "No" -- was going to have to be "No." . . .

In fact, most opponents agreed on the need to do “something.” Disagreement wasn’t about need. It focused on the “something”: what it is, how much of it, where it should be, and what alternative approaches should accompany construction.

Let’s “get to ‘Yes.’” There’s little debate regarding the Courthouse’s interior needs. Let’s vote on that, approve it and do it.

Then let’s give serious consideration to the suggestions from opponents that have largely been rebuffed by the “Yes” crowd. “There Is No Alternative” (“TINA”) is no way to reach compromise, whether in Washington, D.C., or Johnson County.

_______________

A portion of the online response I provided to the Press-Citizen's questions, above, was later used by the Press-Citizen as a Letter to the Editor in the hardcopy edition:

Still Many More Options for Jail
Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 6, 2013, p. A7

If Tuesday’s vote fails, we should vote again.

Proponents proposed a false choice, both in their own thinking and on the ballot.

As a syllogism: (1) We need more jail cells and courthouse refurbishing; (2) We propose specific details to fix that; (3) Therefore, you must vote “Yes” for our plan or be called a naysayer.

The fallacy was their “therefore.”

In fact, most opponents agreed on the need to do “something.” Disagreement wasn’t about need. It focused on the “something”: what it is, how much of it, where it should be, and what alternative approaches should accompany construction.

Let’s “get to ‘Yes.’” There’s little debate regarding the courthouse’s interior needs. Let’s vote on that, approve it and do it.

Then let’s give serious consideration to the suggestions from opponents that have largely been rebuffed by the “Yes” crowd. “There Is No Alternative” (“TINA”) is no way to reach compromise, whether in Washington, D.C., or Johnson County.

Next steps? Many people have suggestions. Here’s mine: Vote to fix the courthouse — for civil trials only.

Design a more efficient, detached, one-stop criminal justice center — as many other Iowa counties have done — to preserve our courthouse’s appearance.

Explore and implement all best practices for reducing the need for additional jail and prison cells.

There’s more at http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, as the Cable Guy says, “Let’s get ’er done!”
_______________
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City


This produced the following response from John Whiston, to which I responded, below:

John Whiston
Having separate criminal and civil courthouses is a terrible idea. It was a terrible idea when it was studied in depth and rejected by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee 2-3 years ago. The plan is inefficent. It requires duplicate service at both locations. Courtrooms are used much more often for criminal cases, on the order of 10 to one. So the courtrooms in the old courthouse will sit there and gather dust. There is no place to put the facility. The University refuses to sell land downtown, so it would have to be built on the edge of town like the Polk and Cedar County facilities. Inaccessible to the poor by regular public transportation and imposing additional costs on lawyers, judges, jurors and employees.

Finally this proposal wjould require years of study, design, site acquisition,etc. In the meantime, Prof. Johnson is sentencing thousands of the indigent to serve time in terrible conditions in the current jail.

Here is what I wrote by way of response:

Nicholas Johnson
John and Dorothy Whiston are both solid citizens, with years of positive contribution to Johnson County's justice system, and related institutions and challenges, worthy of the admiration we accord them. Each has recently written thoughtful and civil op ed columns in the Press-Citizen (May 3 and 4) urging support of the proposed facility.

I just disagree with John's position regarding a detached, separate, unified, stand-alone facility. At the time I proposed it I was unaware how widely this approach has been adopted. It was just that intuitively, logically, it seemed to make the most sense to me. Only subsequently did I discover that a great many others, with experience equal to John's, also support the idea.

(For additional views on the proposal, see "There Are Alternatives," http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/04/there-are-alternatives.html.)

Indeed, if it is such a "terrible idea" and "inefficient" how come it is so widely used -- not just in Iowa, but throughout the nation and in other countries?

As for "inefficiency" as a result of "duplicate service at both locations," quite the contrary is the case; putting everything related to criminal proceedings in one place is much more efficient, not less, than going back and forth between two facilities (e.g., co-locating jail cells, sheriff, judges, courtrooms, meeting rooms for lawyers and inmates families, clerks, their records, and assistant county attorneys focused on criminal proceedings).

If a part of proponents' idea was to improve the interior of the Courthouse, and provide more space for needed meeting rooms and offices -- even more courtrooms -- why should its present courtrooms "gather dust"?

As for "no place to put the facility" and "years [spent on] site acquisition," since the idea "was studied in depth . . . 2-3 years ago," it's odd it wasn't noticed then that the Courthouse was in the unusual position of having at least potentially available adjacent land to the southeast, south, west, and northeast of the city block on which it sits, for which negotiations could have been undertaken. It would not be necessary to locate the facility beyond the City limits anymore than there was when the administrative offices were moved out of the Courthouse years ago into a similarly detached, separate, unified, stand-alone facility -- generally regarded locally as neither "a terrible idea" nor "inefficient."

Since its design and construction is almost identical to what the proponents want to attach to the Courthouse, why should it "require years of study, design"?

Given that construction of the facility, wherever it is located, will take, what?, two or three years, whether it's attached to the Courthouse or located elsewhere, aren't both of us equally "sentencing thousands of the indigent to serve time in terrible conditions in the current jail" until it's completed?

OK, I recognize my colleague's expertise; and I am not contending that following the example of other counties and building a detached facility is something that has to be done, that "There Is No Alternative."

Quite the contrary. There are many other alternatives that have been put forward by thoughtful and concerned citizens who believe that "something" needs to be done, but do not believe that what's on today's ballot is it.

My point is to simply use this as an example of the proponents' process, their knee-jerk instinct to reject every idea "not invented here" -- by them; their insistence that "There Is No Alternative" to every single detail of their proposal; John's suggestion that because some folks rejected the idea of a detached facility 2-3 years ago that therefore absolutely no respect should be given the idea today, end of discussion.

Proponents are perfectly capable of designing what they believe to be their most effective campaign strategy, but my own view is that the impression their universal rejection of others' ideas has been counterproductive in "winning hearts and minds" of voters. We'll see; my guess is, given their great expenditures, and the likelihood of who votes, they'll probably get their 60% today.

But, as I have written elsewhere, I much prefer the process and substance of the School Board's current seeming openness to consideration of the widest possible range of options in dealing with their increasing student population -- analogous in some ways to the pressures on the jail. Or, another example, the way Iowans responded to the argument that "There Is No Alternative" to building more landfills -- with re-use, composting, and recycling programs that have demonstrated there are alternatives, alternatives that have saved hundreds of acres of good Iowa farmland.

"There Are Alternatives," "There Are Alternatives".
# # #

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Somewhere Between Bizarre and Outrageous

May 2, 2013
Tom Wheeler, nominated by President Barack Obama on Wednesday to become the next U.S. communications regulator, is expected to face tough scrutiny from senators over his past close ties to the very industries he would oversee.

Alina Selyukh, "Obama Taps Former Lobbyist Wheeler as Telecoms Regulator," Reuters, May 1, 2013



Why is this man smiling?

As a former FCC commissioner, I was asked by the Institute for Public Accuracy, and numerous media, for a statement regarding President Obama's nomination of Tom Wheeler to be chair of the Federal Communications Commission. Here is a variation on my reaction. [Photo credit: Reuters.]


President Obama Picks Communications Industry Lobbyist to
Regulate the Communications Industry

President Obama’s choice of Tom Wheeler as FCC chair is somewhere between bizarre and outrageous.

Sure, Wheeler was one of Obama's major campaign contributors -- even a bundler of others’ large checks -- reportedly totaling $700,000 to $1 million for 2008 and 2012. But being appointed FCC chair is not like becoming an ambassador to a small country, or spending a night in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House -- the usual kinds of reward for top contributors to a president's campaign.

There is no single independent regulatory commission that comes close to the impact of the FCC on so many aspects of every American’s life. That’s why Congress, in creating the agency, characterized its mission not as maximizing corporate shareholders' return on investment, but as insuring that Americans receive from their communications and media industries that which best serves "the public interest" -- a focus throughout the Act.

Wheeler’s background is as a trade association representative for industries whose companies appear before the Commission, a lobbyist in Congress for others asking for FCC favors, and a frequent visitor at the White House. He's been a venture capitalist investing in and profiting from others whose requests he’ll have to pass on.

He has no record during his multiple careers, of which I am aware, of devoting substantial quantities of his time and talents to helping consumers and the poor challenge corporate abuse of power.



In fairness to the President, and Tom Wheeler, I include here this video, which from 1:34 to 2:20 includes the President's best effort to explain why he thinks this appointment is a good idea. For the reasons I've explained, both above and below, I do not find his reasoning persuasive.

This is neither the kind of FCC chair Congress had in mind when creating the FCC, nor what those in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party had in mind when voting for Obama. Where is our "Hope"? Where is the "Change"? It looks like business as usual to me.

The business community has been doing very well at the FCC. They don’t really need any additional help from Wheeler. Parents, children, the poor, rural residents, small business, minorities, women and consumers have not done so well. They do need help.

Nor does Wheeler’s membership on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board bode well for those who believe Americans’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights should be getting at least as much attention as the government’s perceived need to engage in even more secret snooping.

Oh, I suppose Wheeler is not all bad. Rumor has it that he’s kind to tiny children and small animals. I’m just not sure that’s enough.

# # #