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There are solar calculators through the Energy Trust of Oregon that clearly show that your view on the residential payback is patently incorrect.  

http://www.energytrust.org/solar/residential/calculator.html

The residential energy tax credit is the biggest limiter. At $3/watt, it is capped at $6000.  A 2 kW system. 

The net cost in my PGE territory for the average 2 kW system is $7580. With net metering, the savings per year is $184.  That's 41 years at our current energy costs.  Granted, the rates will increase, but... 

For a business, it is quite a different story.  A 50% business energy tax credit (BETC), Energy Trust of Oregon incentives, 30% federal energy tax credit, property tax exemptions and accelerated depreciation of the system.  Easily paid off in the 5 year period that the BETC is paid off.  But, as I mentioned in another post, 80% of the BETCs are using 3rd parties.  

We are investing tax dollars in the investor class.  BAD POLICY! Support HB 3069 for a feed-in tariff.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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PV Watts calculates the energy from PV ind different parts of the country.

http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/version1/

Portland metro residents can anticipate ~1000 kW/h for each 1 kW system put on the roof.  Redmond Oregonians benefit with ~1400 kW/h for each kW.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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Schools are struggling to invest in solar.  Because they (along with nonprofits, municipalities, tribes, and governmental buildings) don't have any tax liability, they cannot use tax credits.  Thus, schools have had to go through many hoops, requiring legal, accounting and other third parties to figure out how to get them installed.  Rieke School spent months doing that.  The negotiations are not transparent.  

How much are the third parties profiting--and eroding our general fund???

Solar World's support for the German American school is a public relations coup because the school is in Washington County and is German-centric.  But Solar World would never be able to donate panels for all schools.  

A feed-in tariff can accommodate schools, paying the schools for the energy over a 15 to 20 year period, during which the schools pay off the system with low interest bond money.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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You are absolutely correct that the current incentives (which include a 30% federal income tax credit that is no longer capped) require an extremely long payback.  This is not true for the incentives for businesses.  Businesses have a 50% business energy tax credit.  Turns out that 80% of businesses are requiring a third party to either buy the credit in a lump sum or in partnership over the 5 years the credit is given.  That's because businesses don't have the tax liability or priorities to invest in solar.

Besides that, these credits erode our general fund.  And we hide the cost of renewable energy--creating less of an incentive to conserve.

But we need to make these investments. That's why we need to push for a bill that is Salem right now.  HB 3039 is a bill for a pilot "feed-in tariff" that amortizes the payback over 15 to 20 years.  This is the German model for financing renewable energy and has led to the success of that country as the world's leader in renewable energy. Summit Blue analyzed different financing models for solar energy for New Jersey to comply with their 2.1% by 2021 renewable portfolio standard.  The feed-in tariff was the cheapest model for ratepayers.

We need to support HB 3039 to get a feed-in tariff and join Vermont as the 2nd state in the nation.

Go to the website for the Portland Alliance for Democracy and click on Democratizing the Grid.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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Today the Senate Finance and Revenue Committe is deliberating SB 609.  The Association of Oregon Industries has requested this committee to consider this bill.  While I understand that the AOI would protect "trade secrets," I don't know why they need a law to create "rebuttable presumption" regarding tax returns so that these returns remain confidential.  I have to assume that this is to protect the corporate behemoths who don't want to be embarrassed if it is found that they only pay a corporate minimum of just $10.  Why don't we have corporate transparency?

http://tinyurl.com/csy7zg

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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I am distrustful of the education reformers, when they are not allowing us to use outcome measures on them!

Corporations provide less than 1/3 of what they did 3 decades ago in Oregon. The business community killed an initiative petition two years ago that would have shed a light on taxes corporations pay.
www.fairelections.net/fe5.ppt
http://www.ocpp.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?page=060612update

Here is a document from the Oregon Department of Revenue. While we can see the average Oregonian's income taxes are high (reflecting a compensation for no sales tax), Oregon corporation's income taxes are smack in the middle--which results in their total taxes (as percentage of income) ranked at 42nd in the nation.
http://www.leg.state.or.us/comm/lro/2007_final_basic_facts.pdf

Ed, I hope you have read Greg LeRoy's book, The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation. And I hope that you are following what is happening in the Revenue Restructuring Committee in Salem. I am sure if the corporations have their way, Oregon?s tax structure will become more regressive, placing more tax burden on the average taxpayer.

Why doesn?t Oregon use data driven decision making for corporate tax breaks and tax policy (such as single sales factor formula)?
http://www.cbpp.org/3-27-01sfp.htm

Oregon voters would be reassured if there were clawbacks requiring taxpayer money be returned to the general fund if living wage jobs are not created or jobs are shipped overseas or given to lower paid professionals imported with H-1 B visas.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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I have a hard time understanding how this will work, Ed. We are no where near the Quality Education Model for funding. And when it comes to using Title I funding dollars, I have demonstrated to the Beaverton School District that 38% of our money is going to kids who are above free and reduced guidelines. That's because ALL the money is funneled to the elementary schools, which allow this money to be distributed to all kids in a Title I school. The level for schools to qualify as Title I can be as low as 35% free and reduced kids. And given that our wealthier school district has nearly 31% F&R kids, we should expect that more kids above poverty level will be benefiting.

In the meantime,Five Oaks Middle School should receive money, but they don't because they would be hit with punitive NCLB sanctions.

Further, the federal government comes no where near full funding for these poor kids. We get our money based on census figures, which estimate the numbers of kids who are at or below the poverty level. Those poor kids who make up to 185% federal poverty level just don't count. In the BSD that means we get 25% additional funding for slightly less than one in ten poor kids.

Since our district concentrates funding to elementary schools, only 34% of kids who qualify from free & reduced lunches benefit from Title I funding.

So, with $200 to $300 million dollars targeted for intervention, you think that our Oregon teachers can overcompensate for the growing numbers of poor/working poor and ELL/minority kids?

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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So sorry! It's hard to connect the dots if they are not all on one page!

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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$200 to $300 million dollars? Superintendent Castillo also recommended in last week's City Club address that Oregon has full day kindergarten and universal pre-K. The vague recommendation was that we increase the corporate minimum.

How could this minimal increase in funding be adequate for all these goals?

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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While there will be quibbling about whether the drop-out rates will be increasing with our new graduation requirements, this figure says it all. Only 29% of poor kids with high test scores complete college--the same college completion rate for wealthy kids with low test scores.
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/02/SWA06_Fig2F.jpg

Classism and mediocrity.

The experts in education "reform" get their paychecks from foundations, business alliances and corporations. Their advice is sought as the sanctions of NCLB loom. In the meantime, the parent "stakeholder" (yep, that's what a school administrator referred to me in a private meeting two summers ago) who points out valid concerns ranging from teaching to the test, spun test scores and assistance with the test by paraprofessionals (bordering on cheating), to curriculum that don't work (National College of Teachers of Mathematics reform based math, Reading First) and inattention to gifted kids is dismissed.

While we "parent stakeholders" pay the taxes, the reformers have the say.

The 17th Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education, "The First Time
?Everything Changed? was published in October 2007 Phi Delta Kappan. Bracey states:

"The most recent effort to lay blame for societal problems
at the feet of the schools is the ?ED in ?08? campaign
from Strong American Schools. The Broad Foundation
and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation front
this campaign to the tune of $60 million.'
http://www.america-tomorrow.com/bracey/EDDRA/k0710bra.pdf

He further states:
Twenty years ago, or even 10, ?falling behind? would have been defined
in terms of test scores. But the TIMSS data from
1995, 1999, and 2005 showed American students making
larger gains than students in many other nations,
so test scores are no longer available as evidence for
that charge. Now, ?falling behind? usually means other
nations have overtaken the U.S. in high school graduation
rates ? the ?fact sheet? at the ED in ?08 website
says the U.S. is now 19th out of ?the top developed
countries.? (The fact sheet does not define ?top developed? or
specify how many nations fall into that category.)

In Oregon, E3 (Gates Foundation), the Wallace Foundation, West Ed, the Chalkboard Project and corporations (Nike Innovation Fund) are the voice of the business reformers at the state, district, and school levels.

Now parents of means must seek private schools, chartered and magnet schools, district boundary gerrymandered "gated community" schools, or private tutoring to ensure quality education. The market place has also quickly responded to the gilded age of home schooling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/education/05homeschool.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In the December 2007 NY Times, Michael Winerip reported that the Educational Testing Service concluded low test scores had more to do with poverty and government's lack of support.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/09Rparenting.html?pagewanted=1

I believe that the fear-mongering and cries for "reforms" are distracting Americans. We don't have our eye on the real ball. Plutocracy has been reborn, surpassing the pre-depression gilded age.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/extreme_inequality

This time our robber barons are much smarter. They have their manufacturing plants abroad; they have their off-shore accounts; they outsource their human capital (demanding that H-1 B visa caps be eliminated.
By perpetuating the "Great Labor Shortage Lie" and the "Great Education Myth" they squander wealth and natural resources internationally.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080623/sirota

Economic uncertainty faces the new college grad.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20070509

Marian Wright Edelman has stated, "Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts."

Now we can say, "Educators and parents have become so convinced that foundations, business alliances and corporations know what is best for children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts."

How should Oregon and the rest of the nation respond to poverty, classism and tax inequities and revenue inadequacies that shortchange opportunity and shortchange our future?

How can we restore balance in "data-driven decision making"?

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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If we truly had a representative democracy, the initiative system would be unnecessary. The SOS should be a champion of campaign finance reform. Money in politics effectively gag the voice of the people.

Do the candidates support
1. a constitutional amendment for contribution limits?
2. public financing?

posted 5 years ago
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?You may call them special interests. I think they?re special,? Brown said.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=95288&sid=4&fid=2

Trouble is that these special interests are all seeking different slices of the Oregon pie and that may not correlate well to the values of the average Oregon voter.

Oregon is one of 5 states that has no limits on contributions to candidates.
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/about/ContribLimits.htm

The most stringent limits are in Montana. With reforms there, self-financing increased by 11%, while decreases of 33%, 49% and 31% were seen from businesses and special-interest donors, organized labor and political party committees respectively.
http://www.followthemoney.org/press/Reports/MT_9-cycle_FINAL.pdf

Of Montana's races, 43% are considered competitive, while in Oregon only 23% are. Races in Maine and Arizona (states where public financing is prominent) are the most competitive.
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/graphs/competitive/index.phtml
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=507399

In commenting for a lack of televised political news coverage, Bill Johnstone, president of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, claimed that viewers get " 'more than their fill,' and that covering what politicians say is not in the public interest because few of them tell the truth." He has further said that people who are interested in politics should tune in to political ads or use the Internet.
http://rgweb.registerguard.com/news/2007/01/02/ed.edit.tvnews.jlw.0102.p2.php?section=opinion

How does the voter evaluate campaign rhetoric, sound bites and political endorsements?

Will improved ethics rules and increased transparency of campaign contributions and expenditures be adequate to level the playing field, such that "serious" candidates can be more "electable?"

What are the views of these SOS candidates regarding campaign contribution limits and public financing?

posted 5 years ago
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I find it brilliant, one way or another, how the voter owned process is being undermined here. Now that Mr. Dozono has had blaring headlines for months, he is the aberrant candidate, just as Tom Potter was four years ago, in being able to run a "grassroots" campaign. He not only achieved name recognition, but mud was cast on VOE.

The argument (especially if he wins) will be that mayoral candidates can run grassroots campaigns without public financing. That all you need to do to run a good mayoral campaign is run on issues.

After all, who needs public financing when you have campaign strategists/lobbyists like Len Bergstein?

By the way, has anyone contemplated what this all means regarding Portland and the Gorge casino?

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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Indeed, Mr. Bergstein seems to have a habit of insinuating himself and his conflicts of interest in mayoral campaigns. Bergstein was last hired by Jim Francesconi, who lost his bid to Mayor Tom Potter. Whether representing Clear Channel or the Warm Springs Tribes, a lobbyist like Len Bergstein should not be running campaigns.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/299744.shtml
http://communique.portland.or.us/04/10/just_who_is_this_len_bergstein_person_anyway

Sam Adams campaigned in 2004 to register city hall lobbyists. It is no wonder corporate lobbyist Bergstein opposed that effort.
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/2008/03/meet_the_contenders_mayors_rac_8.php

PR firm Gard & Gerber negatively campaigned against public financing in its inception, claiming that "money will be taken out of vital city programs and services?like schools, police, parks, roads and neighborhoods."

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/product-compint-0000806634-page.html
http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/11/first_things_fi.html
http://wweek.com/story.php?story=6889

Willamette Week debunked their negative campaign, describing the endorsers of the First Things First Committee as "[skewed] toward utility employees and their families, acolytes of former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, and clients of the public-relations firm Gard & Gerber."

We should give voter owned elections their due credit and discredit lobbyist-run-campaigns instead.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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Paul Krugman outlines the problems well. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
This idea comes from Voices for America's Children: "a temporary funding boost to states in the form of a Medicaid funding increase so that children and their families continue to have access to health care services during a time of economic uncertainty. The Congressional Joint Economic Committee estimates that an economic downturn could add as many as 1 million new SCHIP enrollees and another 1.5 million individuals in Medicaid in 2008."
This begins to address a shameful hole that is growing and will stimulate our economy in the service sector. They ask us to call our Senators and urge them to reach out to Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA).

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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