UCAN

Homeowner associations and city codes all over California enforce the watering of lawns even during drought conditions and a water emergency declared by the governor of the State.

A Sacramento couple found themselves caught up in red tape and code when they decided not to water their lawn letting it die instead. Landscaping plans were in the works, but the neighborhood watchdogs reported them before those plans were put into motion. Facing a fine that added up to half their monthly morgage the Sacramento couple was lucky to get public outrage and support after a story appeared in The Sacramento Bee.

The happy ending is that no fine will be meted out and members of the city council admit that city codes may need revising.

Like many Californians this couple's issues stem around agreements with landlords, cities, and HOAs that insist on the watering of grounds. The orderly maintenance of property is one of the factors that helps to keep property values from declining.

Perhaps more than the city of Sacramento can take a lesson from what the couple in the Bee's article lived through. Many contracts and codes need to be revised. Our current drought situation demands it.

Native plants and xeriscaping open many options to beautiful yards that can be maintained with much less water usage than traditional lawns require.

Marty Eberhardt, executive director of the Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College is quoted in a March article at the VoiceofSanDiego.org saying, "It also requires behavorial change, a change of appreciation of a certain kind of landscaping. There are different concepts of paradise, and there's a vision of paradise that fits our weather patterns and soil types."

Paving paradise with lawns or cement has been a decades old vision of loveliness in San Diego County. The time has come to change our vision of paradise.

Click here to read the Sacramento Bee article.

Click here to read the Sacamento Bee follow-up article.

Today the Bureau of Land Management announced the lifting of its moratorium on solar energy applications on federal land.

"We are happy to see that BLM will continue to process solar applications. With consumers facing rapidly increasing energy costs, the United States cannot afford to delay solar projects any longer." Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) President Rhone Resch said in today's statement. Click here to read his more from SEIA.

The Bureau of Land Management issued a press release saying:

"We heard the concerns expressed during the scoping period about waiting to consider new applications," said BLM Director James Caswell, "and we are taking action. By continuing to accept and process new applications for solar energy projects, we will aggressively help meet growing interest in renewable energy sources, while ensuring environmental protections." Click here to read more from BLM.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an independent opinion research group has released a nationwide study finding that "amid record gas prices, public support for greater energy exploration is spiking . . . and an increasing proportion (of people taking the survey) also says that developing new sources of energy - rather than protecing the environment - is the more important national priority.

The survey's found that an increasing number of support for energy exploration came from groups that previously had "viewed this as a less important priority."

Click here to read the entire survey.

Yesterday, the widely anticipated announcement of the winners to Iraq's no-bid contracts was delayed. Today's New York Times reports that Iraq's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani made the announcement at a news conference in Baghdad. Click here to read the entire article.

Expectation was that Iraq would award the contracts to a handful of western oil companies. Instead Iraq invited foreign companies to bid for contracts to develop key oil production fields.

The Financial Times in London reports that:

Iraq's oil minister, specified conditions that illustrate the extreme political sensitivity of allowing western oil companies into Iraq, where many people believe the US-led invasion of 2003 was designed to seize control of the country's resources. Click here to read the entire article.

Telecom political action groups gave twice as much money to Democrats who switched from opposing to supporting legal amnesty to Telecoms that aided the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

Last week Wired reported that Maplight.org had analyzed campaign donations and found that 94 of 220 Democrats who had previously voted against Telecom amnesty had switched their vote to support a bill that expands the government's ability to conduct wiretaps inside American Telecom facilities.

Media General News Service reported that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and others sought immunity from prosecution for cooperation with the government's anti-terrorism wiretapping program. Click here to read the entire article.

The center for independent media, The Washington Independent, weighed in with their article, "FISA vote tied to telecom donation." Much is summed up with a quote from Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman with Common Cause: "We certainly know that contributions go a long way to gaining access and influence," she said. "The appearance is that money buys votes." Click here to read the entire aritcle.

Hey - Maybe it is time to lower the "talking-while driving" age!

Using a cell phone without hands-free equipment while driving is now unlawful. Yet according to the LA Times talking to a fellow passenger while driving is as bad or worse than driving drunk.

What is it that makes a phone so dangerous? Why isn't listening to the radio or talking to a passenger equally deadly?

Is it possible that driving and phoning skills are a function of age?

If you are over the age of 35, you probably learned to relate to the phone differently than younger generations. Young people are far more familiar with multi-tasking, but for the middle-aged, we grew up relating to a phone that had a cord attached to the wall.

When middle-aged people talk on the phone, we tend to mentally revert to the "phone attached to the wall" mode. We get engaged in the conversation and start driving like old people ... really old people.

Just imagine for a moment, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Chelsea Clinton in a NASCAR style road race where each of them had to drive and answer tricky policy questions on a cell phone. Who do you think would win? I'm betting that Obama and McCain would come in dead last, with an emphasis on dead.

This is one area where young adults (not teenagers) have superior skills, because they have grown up learning how to multi-task. Perhaps younger people who have learned this skill should be exempted from laws that limit driving while talking. We don't allow people over the age of 40 to enlist in the military because of their advanced age, so why should they be allowed to use a phone while driving?

Just a thought.

With age comes wisdom, but youth could well come with the ability to talk on the phone while driving safely.

The Bureau of Land Management has struck a blow to the alternative energy industry by placing a moratorium on new solar projects on public lands.

The New York Times reports that BLM says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western States. Click here to read the entire article.

Memo to Congress:

Our troubled economy and skyrocketing energy prices are hurting some of our nation’s most vulnerable – our senior citizens.            

Seniors on fixed incomes have seen their savings and the value of their homes diminished. Many depend on programs that provide home-delivered hot meals or meals at senior centers as well as transportation to medical appointments and social activities.

 One example: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that drivers with the Alameda County Meals on Wheels program cover 1,600 miles a day delivering 2,200 meals to homebound seniors -- two-thirds of them 75 and older.  

Executive Director Cindy Houts said: “Our programs are just reeling from the double whammy of increased fuel and food costs. It’s happening throughout the county and throughout the country.”

Locally, Meals on Wheels told KPBS that it has lost 30% of its drivers since the first of the year.  This means fewer drivers must deliver to more homes (about 1,500 a week in San Diego).  

These costs will be magnified further in the face of a population that is growing older and will need even more of these services.

Senior citizens on fixed incomes may increasingly become victims in this economy as they skimp on medication and medical care, scale down their daily nutrition due to rising grocery prices, and find themselves isolated at home because of rising gas prices and transit programs that are curtailed.

These factors can trigger depression and other medical problems that will cost our economy even more in terms of increased costs for medical treatment and early institutionalization of seniors who rely on these programs to maintain their independence. For America’s seniors in this economy, the “golden” years are in jeopardy and many will suffer in silence.  

Cc:  John McCain

       Barack Obama

Yesterday the San Diego County Water Authority had a busy day. First it suspended its artificial turf incentive program in response to a Centers for Disease Control health advisory that cited concerns about lead levels found in certain kinds of artificial turf recently tested in New Jersey.

The Water Authority says in a news release issued Thursday that it will suspend its program as a precautionary measure until more definitive information and a recommendation on the safety of artificial turf is made available by the CDC or other proper public health and consumer product regulatory agencies.

The Water Authority also is requesting the concurrent suspension of all other water agency artificial turf incentives within its service area. To read this news release, click here.

Then, the Water Authority increased the 2009 water rates by 11.9 percent. In a news release issued yesterday the Water Authority states that regionwide, they estimate that the rate increase's impact on the average household's monthly water bill will be $3.42. To read this news release, click here.

The U.S. Energy Department has released its Annual Energy Outlook 2008 report with projections to 2030 this week. The following excerpt is under the title, Oil Production:

There is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future of unconventional crude oil production in the United States. Environmental regulations could either preclude unconventional production or raise its cost significantly. If future U.S. laws limited and/or taxed greenhouse gas emissions, they could lead to substantial increases in the costs of unconventional production, which emits significant volumes of CO2. Restrictions on access to water also could prove costly, especially in the arid West. In addition, environmental restrictions on land use could preclude unconventional oil production in some areas of the United States.
Click here to find all of the reports.

Today, Jim Jelter of Marketwatch covers the reports in his column. He says:

The Energy Department reasons that much of the supply tightness currently gripping the market, whether real or imagined, is likely to ease as major new oil fields come on line in Brazil, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and even here in North America. That would signal a fundamental shift in the supply-demand picture, even though output would need to increase by about 12 million barrels a day -- over half the 20 million barrels of oil the U.S. currently burns in a day -- to keep pace with global demand.

Investors have a choice in the weeks and months ahead. They can either pay attention to underlying fundamentals in the marketplace or, like Macbeth, they can continue to listen to witches playing on their innermost fears and succumb to madness. Click here to read more from Marketwatch.