Saving energy saves you money!!.....or maybe not

[Dr Mordrid]

At least in Missouri, for now....

Link....

Analysis | With new charge, saving electricity could end up costing Missourians

JEFFERSON CITY | Some Missouri residents and businesses soon could see a new charge on their electric bills — a fee for using less energy.

Though it might seem illogical, the new energy efficiency charge has support from utilities, most lawmakers, the governor, environmentalists and even the state’s official utility consumer advocate. The charge covers the cost of utilities’ efforts to promote energy efficiency and cut power use.

The assumption is that charging consumers for those initiatives ultimately will cost less than charging them to build the new power plants that will be needed if electricity use isn’t curtailed.
>

And this one stinks to high-Heaven of Big Brother with GPS tracking of a cars movements....

Link....

By-the-mile road tax could replace by-the-gallon federal fuel tax

By STEVE EVERLY
The Kansas City Star

The year is 2020 and the gasoline tax is history. In its place you get a monthly tax bill based on each mile you drove — tracked by a Global Positioning System device in your car and uploaded to a billing center.

What once was science fiction is being field-tested by the University of Iowa to iron out the wrinkles should a by-the-mile road tax ever be enacted.

Besides the technological advances making such a tax possible, the idea is getting a hard push from a growing number of transportation experts and officials. That is because the traditional by-the-gallon fuel tax, struggling to keep up with road building and maintenance demands, could fall even farther behind as vehicles’ gas mileage rises and more alternative-fuel vehicles come on line.
>

[Fat Tone]

That absolutely stinks!

In the UK the gov't has just quietly u-turned away from pay-as-you-drive. Public opinion was extremely against it.

[cjolley]

What would prevent one from putting the gps unit in the garage some, or even most, of the time?

[Dr Mordrid]

An RFID tag in the sealed device, very likely inside a new cars computer or a mandatory addon to a used car, that doesn't show up on the compliance officers 'scope when you pass him on the way to the pub.

That and you can bet every cop car that does traffic patrol will have readers if for no other reason than to drive up how many charges they can glom onto every ticket they write.

[UtwigMU]

Here the government wants GPS pay as you drive system. I'm surprised this hasn't rang a bell with privacy/human rights... advocates:
- Government having GPS in your car is IMO a huge privacy invasion. Government has no business tracking free honest citizens in a democratic society.
- The system will be costly to implement, will take 2-3 times as long as planned and loads of funds will probably disappear in pockets of contractors.
- There will be overhead in management, how will they tax foreigners transitioning...

The current system with vignette stickers is simplest and has least impact on road travel and privacy (compared to toll stations or GPS tracking). EU thinks it's discriminatory to foreign tourists but IMHO it privileges commuters and small business and makes doing business less costly which is a good thing.

[WxDude]

If they want to charge by the mile, get the mileage from the yearly car inspection that everyone needs to do. They are already taking the mileage down, all they need to do is take that info, and come up with the tax bill. This is the ONLY mileage based tax that I find acceptable (assuming they remove the Fuel tax....HAH!). Anything else is an invasion of your right to privacy.

Like others have said, the GPS based solution is SOLELY for tracking your every movement. The US government (pushing it BIG TIME with Bush II) has been trying to do an end run around the US Constitution and the current administration sees no need to "Change" that policy. Witness this administration's stance on the warrantless wiretapping court cases. The Obama DOJ holds the same position as the Bush DOJ. You can not sue because of "state secrets" concerns.

There is a movement to remove your right to privacy. And I wish I knew how we could stop it. When will people wake up to what is happening and elect GOOD people.

[Dr Mordrid]

Problem with that idea is that most states do not have yearly vehicle inspections, only those whose air quality is not meeting federal specs. We stopped having them almost 15 years ago when our air quality improved to below federal limits.

I agree: it's a major privacy violation. That plus some states, like Michigan, have an Open Records and Meetings Act of some form, which isually means anyone can get any data the State generates by way of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Example: I can go to the police department offices and pull every traffic ticket issued to whoever in this city for $10. I can also pull every city record on a house including owners, tax records, liens, plans, inspection reports etc. etc.

That info could be put on a website and re-sold and it's perfectly legal. Hell...some cities put it up for free. When we were looking for a house we spent a lot of time checking that info.

Imagine a wife/husband who suspects their spouse of cheating - they could pull those GPS records and use it in legal actions. Doesn't mean they were cheating, but even a coincidental proximity to a suspected third party could be used to make it look that way.

Not to mention the trouble that could be caused by some stupid bureaucrat or cop checking for supposedly "suspicious patterns of travel".

Huge can of worms.

[Tjalfe]

Here they ask for current milage whenever you renew your licence plates, which usually is yearly. You would think it would be cheaper and easier to just implement that again in e.g. Michigan, than rolling out some new GPS based system, no?

[gt40]

Here they ask for current milage whenever you renew your licence plates, which usually is yearly. You would think it would be cheaper and easier to just implement that again in e.g. Michigan, than rolling out some new GPS based system, no?

Ah, maybe, but I usually have a few vehicles to renew, and never bother getting the mileage readings. I just take a guess

[Fluff]

A bit unrelated but in the UK the cost for passports has risen to around £77 because apparently less people are applying for them in the recession. Go figure... Shouldn't they be reducing staff etc instead...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iTj3YN3rt_oUbAuLYruLkXOmnSpg

[paulw]

If there's a way for Gov and there hangers on to steal more money from you they will.

Here in NZ where I live the local water supplier has increased their charges because people are using less. So much for conservation

Road tax: Down here there are two ways, Gasoline, CNG, LPG tax is paid at the pump. Diesel you pay mileage tax separately in multiples of 1000Km. For my pickup I usually buy 10,000Km at a time for about $370.. I can see road tax going up as people buy smaller cars, hybrids and EVs.

[KRSESQ]

I can foresee the government requiring a seperate meter for the car-recharge outlet in your garage and basing a tax scale off of that.

Kevin

[WxDude]

A bit unrelated but in the UK the cost for passports has risen to around £77 because apparently less people are applying for them in the recession. Go figure... Shouldn't they be reducing staff etc instead...

You and me (and just about anyone else with at least 5% of a functioning brain would think
they should make cuts. But, as the tax collector for my town told the local newspaper when
actual housing values (and thus assessments) started to drop, "Revenues must continue to
increase. If the assessments drop, we'll just raise the tax rate. It is my job to bring in more
money year-to-year". I kid you not. Those might not be his exact words (it was ~2 years ago),
but he did say that taxes would continue to go up as the prices dropped (and they have).

Cuts will never be made. It would just be unacceptable to CUT personnel/costs (like the
private sector does).

<sarcasm>
They are ENTITLED to their jobs.
</sarcasm>

I am not surprised that the companies are charging "Efficiency fees". They can't have their
revenues start dropping because people are using less electricity/gas, now can they.
Everyone thinks that revenues must always GROW. Profits must get bigger. Eventually,
you get to a point that is unsustainable. And when things start to collapse (for whatever
reason), the fees get added so they can keep on growing. What's wrong with making a good
profit (even if it doesn't grow year over year)? You are still making money, getting a good return
on your investment.

I'm not looking to punish people. But I think that the constant drive to continually GROW
is just going to end up failing.

[Dr Mordrid]

Going in the opposite direction is our city; Westland, Mi.

When property values dropped their response was to reassess property taxes downward - ours went down over $600 this year. They also cut back in city hall, parks and the DPW.

While doing this they also instituted a new recycling plan where collections are done in a single RFID'd huge can and homeowners get vouchers good at local merchants including the hypermarkets. The amount of the vouchers depends on the weight recycled. Pickups are every 2 weeks.

Never thought we'd get paid for putting out the trash

[WxDude]

Hey, at least you are getting something back for recycling.

Here, they are doing all they can to reduce their trash collection while not increasing their recycling pickups. They reduced the number of barrels allowed from 5 to 4/house per week. They will NOT take any cardboard/paper (except for pizza boxes) in the trash. They are talking about reducing the number of barrels to 2 per house. They want us to do MORE recycling.

Like you, they only pickup recycling every 2 weeks. They give us up to 2 recycling containers (crates) and you can get some stickers for barrels if desired. But as they want us to recycle more, they see no need to increase the pickups. So, basically they want everyone's house to be a staging area for the town recycling. I have a 35 Gallon trash can specifically for all of the bottles/cans/plastic. If I aggressively recycle the paper goods, then I will have at least 4-5 paper shopping bags every 2 weeks for the recycling. And I onyl put out 1-2 cans of trash per week.

I have no problem recycling, but if they want me to do more of it, don't make me turn my house into a recycling center with waste all over. It is their responsibility to pick it up. The last town I lived in had an alternating weekly paper/plastic schedule. Which was slightly better since I didn't have all of it around for the 2 weeks.