John Hennessy III,
P.E.
ENVIRONMENT NORTH CAROLINA
Our coasts are home to stunning wildlife and incredible beaches, from the Jersey Shore to the Outer Banks to the Chesapeake Bay. Unfortunately offshore drilling is putting our natural heritage and marine life at risk. On ‘good’ days, drilling kills and injures wildlife and threatens human health and the economy. When they happen (which is all too frequently) major disasters such as the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout are catastrophic.
SMART GROWTH AMERICA
In this study of 37 projects, Smart Growth America found that Complete Streets projects tended to improve safety for everyone, increased biking and walking, and showed a mix of increases and decreases in automobile traffic, depending in part on the project goal. Compared to conventional transportation projects, these projects were remarkably affordable, and were an inexpensive way to achieve transportation goals. In terms of economic returns, the limited data available suggests Complete Streets projects were related to broader economic gains like increased employment and higher property values.
Businesses need roads and sewer systems and electricity and the internet to function…I think if people step away from ideology and look at how do you make the economy work, how do you create jobs, how do you help business, how do you make business very successful, then I think folks will move forward.
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SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION
Solar energy posted another banner year in the U.S. in 2014. Photovoltaic (PV) installations reached 6,201 MWdc, up 30% over 2013 and more than 12 times the amount installed five years earlier. By the end of the year, a cumulative total of 18.3 GWdc of solar PV and another 2.2 GWac of concentrating solar power (CSP) were operating in the U.S. Over 600,000 homes and businesses now have on-site solar (nearly 200,000 of these installations were completed in 2014), and six states are home to more than 500 MWdc each of operating solar capacity.
Congressman Richard Hanna was re-elected on Nov. 4, 2014 to represent the 22nd District of New York in the United States House of Representatives. Representative Hanna serves on three key committees for the 114th Congress, including the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, on which he is the senior New York Republican.
“People with the job that I have and the other people here have to have a vision of their own. We have to value transportation, value intermodal works and everything along with it. It’s our job to get out there and say, ‘Damn it, this is important.’”
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TRANSPORTATION FOR AMERICA
Over the past 50 years, transportation agencies have focused on tracking a narrow set of goals — typically system condition, safety and sometimes traffic congestion. While these goals are important, they measure the state of the transportation system, not the impact of the system on people’s lives. People want to know that transportation funds are being spent in a way that creates value, supports long-term job growth, makes their communities more attractive to business and talent and will contribute to their economic health and resilience.
PEOPLE FOR BIKES Diversity created the city. But diversity has never been easy. American urbanism has been a process through which communities—diverse in ideology, in interest, in income, in ethnic background and in racial identification—have negotiated space. Some of this evolution has been brutal. Today’s cities are, among other things, the result of generations of racism and classism and struggles in the face of […]
View this complete post...INTERSTATE RENEWABLE ENERGY COUNCIL (IREC)
In recent years, new technologies have emerged on the customer side of the electric system, including distributed energy resources (DER) such as distributed generation, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, energy storage and demand response technologies, among others. These technologies are allowing growing numbers of energy consumers to decrease their electricity demand, act as energy producers and otherwise manage their energy usage…Together, these compounding factors have driven the movement toward a more modern grid that enables significant increases in the amount of clean energy produced; universal consumer access and facilitation of consumer choice, including the adoption of DER; integrated resource planning; two-way flow of energy and information; and increased reliability, security and resiliency.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
With the temporary increase in funding for the federal highway trust fund set to run out by May 2015, states and localities are again facing the prospect that shortfalls in the fund could delay or reduce the federal money they rely on for transportation projects. As they wait to see what federal policymakers will do, many states are taking action to make their own transportation funding more sustainable. These efforts highlight the major challenges that all levels of government face in maintaining investments in highways and transit systems—problems that will require policymakers to make difficult choices in the years ahead.
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