Status of Ohio Health Care Profiled in HHS Report

Status of Ohio Health Care Profiled in HHS Report

Average Family Health Premiums up 92% Since 2000

Top 2 Private Insurers Corner 58% of Health Care Market

by John Michael Spinelli

June 26, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: In a report released Friday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources profiling the status of health care for each state, a laundry list of why Ohio needs reform from the status quo was presented as another front in the now explosive, partisan debate taking place in Washington about whether private insurance companies remain at the center of health care delivery or whether a so-called public option, where government is in charge and can use its size and clout to negotiate better deals for its members, is allowed to compete, giving Americans another choice as they decide what's best and most affordable for them.

The HHS report, released under the stewardship of its leader, Kathleen Sebelius, former Governor of Kansas and daughter of former Democratic Ohio Gov. John Gilligan, reflects the public policy stance of President Obama, who says he is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform this year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

"We know that we need health reform to ensure Americans get the high-quality, affordable care they need and deserve. Under the status quo, too many Americans can’t get the affordable care they need when they fall ill. But health reform must make health care more than just sick care," Sebelius said on the Web site HealthReform.gov.

Sebelius, who was chosen to lead HHS after former Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama's first choice, withdrew his name from consideration, says President Obama wants to work with Congress to "enact health care reform legislation that protects what works about health care and fixes what is broken." Ohioans know that inaction is not an option, it said, noting that "sky-rocketing health care costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits, and straining state budgets." It's stark case for change is based on its belief that "millions are paying more for less...and families and businesses in Ohio deserve better."

So what's the profile HHS laid out for Ohio? Here it is in detail:

OHIOANS CAN’T AFFORD THE STATUS QUO

• Roughly 7.4 million people in Ohio get health insurance on the job, where family premiums average $12,689 about the annual earning of a full-time minimum wage job.
• Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 92 percent in Ohio.
• Household budgets are strained by high costs: 20 percent of middle-income Ohio families spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care.
• High costs block access to care: 12 percent of people in Ohio report not visiting a doctor due to high costs.
• Ohio businesses and families shoulder a hidden health tax of roughly $1,000 per year on premiums as a direct result of subsidizing the costs of the uninsured.6
  

AFFORDABLE HEALTH COVERAGE IS INCREASINGLY OUT OF REACH IN OHIO

• 11 percent of people in Ohio are uninsured, and 64 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.
• The percent of Ohioans with employer coverage is declining: from 71 to 65 percent between 2000 and 2007.
• Much of the decline is among workers in small businesses. While small businesses make up 72 percent of Ohio businesses,9 only 47 percent of them offered health coverage benefits in 2006 -- down 5 percent since 2000.
• Choice of health insurance is limited in Ohio. WellPoint Inc. (BCBS) alone constitutes 41 percent of the health insurance market share in Ohio, with the top two insurance providers accounting for 58 percent.
• Choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing conditions. In Ohio, premiums can vary based on demographic factors and health status, and coverage can exclude pre-existing conditions or even be denied completely.
  

OHIOANS NEED HIGHER QUALITY, GREATER VALUE, AND MORE PREVENTATIVE CARE

The overall quality of care in Ohio is rated as “Average.”

Preventative measures that could keep Ohioans healthier and out of the hospital are deficient, leading to problems across the age spectrum:

• 19 percent of children in Ohio are obese.
• 21 percent of women over the age of 50 in Ohio have not received a mammogram in the past two years.
• 39 percent of men over the age of 50 in Ohio have never had a colorectal cancer screening.
• 72 percent of adults over the age of 65 in Ohio have received a flu vaccine in the past year.
  

For those of us over age 60, having access to affordable, quality health care is a top priority. With Ohio under the gun as Democrats and Republicans try to reach accommodation on a budget that is way out of balance, and that can only be brought back by either more harsh cuts, many of which will affect the poorest and least able to fend for themselves, or by raising taxes, a voodoo dance no elected political official wants to engage in. It's one thing to have a sick budget, it's another to have a sick population that seems boxed in by the rules of the road private insurance companies have put in place. Reform at the state and federal level is long overdue. But the final form of reform will be a prescription some will eagerly swallow while others will find unappetizing at best.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com. SOA can be followed on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Brown's IMPACT Act Included in Climate Change Bill Passed by US House

Brown's IMPACT Act Included in Climate Change Bill Passed by US House

Loan Fund for Transition to Clean Energy R&D

by John Michael Spinelli

June 26, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Ohio's junior Sen. Sherrod Brown had something to crow about Friday, when the US House of Representatives included his bill to establish a $30 billion loan fund to help manufacturers transition to a clean energy economy in a climate change bill that squeaked to passage with only 7 votes.

Even though the battle to address issues related to global warming claimed 44 Democratic defectors, Brown rallied around the work of two Ohio congressmen, who he said fought to include his bill designed to help small and medium-sized manufacturers across the nation adapt to the clean energy economy by providing them with much-needed access to credit.

But another Ohio congressman, John Boehner, the Minority Leader, used his privilege as a party leader to stall the vote, according to one published report that said he consumed just over an hour by reading from a 300-page amendment added in the early hours of Friday.

Boehner and other Republicans have framed the bill as a "tax" that would lead to more job losses and to problems in the voting booth for those members who voted for it. Only eight Republicans crossed over to vote for it.

The goal of this bill is to reduce greenhouse gases in the United States to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent by midcentury.

All Ohio's Democratic Congressmen, with the exception of Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland and Charlie Wilson from the southeast, voted for it, while Ohio Republicans voted against it as a block. Ohio currently has 18 Congressional districts, although speculation has it that the next Census will reduce this number by 2 seats.

"Our nation's traditional manufacturing industry, which helped build our nation's middle class and is critical to national security, currently faces significant challenges," Brown said in a prepared statement.

Elected in 2006 when Democrats reclaimed many offices formerly long-held by Republicans, Brown, whose gravely voice and perennially musted-up hair contribute to his trademark style, applauded Ohio Congressmen John A. Boccieri (OH-16) and Zack Space (OH-18), both Democrats, for working to include his IMPACT Act [Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology] in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

The bill, the heart of which is about a "cap-and-trade" system some say will lead to big changes, both positive and negative, in sectors like election power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction. legislation, offers opportunities to use energy better or retool for a new era of jobs realted to clean energy.

Motivated in great measure by the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Ohio, where the demise of the US auto industry as tracked by Chrysler and General Motors going in and out of bankruptcy court where they will be reshaped and reformed, Brown hopes his loan fund will help domestic manufacturers recover from the 30 percent slide since 1987 their sector has had on the nation's gross domestic product or GDP.

The manufacturing sector, which according to Brown is responsible for America's great middle class and that accounts for 12 percent or $1.6 trillion of GDP and nearly three-fourths of the nation's research and development, needs access to credit so they can become a part of and not a victim to the rise of clean energy jobs. The National Association of Manufacturers opposed the bill.

He noted that passage of the climate change bill confirms that clean energy legislation is an opportunity for Ohio manufacturing. "By creating a funding source to help Ohio manufacturers retool, we can revive Ohio manufacturing through investments in clean energy," a move he said will "go a long way toward making Ohio the Silicon Valley of clean energy manufacturing.”

Boccieri, a veteran of the war in Iraq who was elected last year, said, “This legislation represents the next step toward freeing our nation from its dependence on foreign resources and it will help fuel our economic recovery.” He said the bill is about "creating jobs right here at home that cannot be outsourced, protecting our national security, and helping our manufacturers retool to thrive in a new green economy."

The impact of IMPACT is that it will allow small and medium-sized manufacturers to improve energy efficiency, retool for the clean energy industry, and expand the nation’s clean energy manufacturing operations.

In his release today, Brown said the current economic crisis has exacerbated existing problems within the U.S. manufacturing industry, and taht manufacturers continue to face a reduction in demand and a lack of capital.

He cited a survey done in May that found that more than 70 percent of manufacturers anticipate difficulties securing credit to purchase raw material and rehire workers as business conditions improve. For the past 16 consecutive months, U.S. manufacturing has contracted. Moreover, Brown noted, according to the Federal Reserve Board, manufacturing output fell 2.7 percent in January 2009 to a level 13.1 percent below that of only 12 months earlier. And just last month, nearly half of the nation’s job losses were tied to manufacturing.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Strickland Admits High-Speed Rail Won't be High-Speed Anytime Soon

Strickland Admits High-Speed Rail Won't be High-Speed Anytime Soon

GOA Says FRA High-Speed Rail Initiative a "Vision...not a strategic plan."

Chicago-St. Louis Rail Corridor Gains Speed as 1st Route for Midwest Corridor

An Opeditude by John Michael Spinelli

June 25, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Calling into a rough and tumble, shock-jock radio show broadcasting from Cincinnati Wednesday, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said Ohio needs to be included in the passenger rail system known as the Midwest Corridor, but admitted that Ohio's system would only run at slow, conventional speeds "in the near term" and that if ridership was poor, real "high-speed trains would not run in Ohio."

Strickland, a first-term Democratic Governor readying to mount a second-term campaign in 2010, spoke for a few minutes on the powerful station, answering a couple questions on his most recent proposal to plug a $3.2 billion hole in the next state budget, which by law is to start July 1. As Strickland and the Ohio House and Senate wrestle to find accommodation with each other on hundreds of differences between versions of the state budget each chamber passed in the preceding month, the political drama of who will win the day, and at what cost, is only starting to unfold. If this state budget were a weather event, high tides and fierce winds can be seen approaching on the horizon.

Eddie and Tracy, the hosts of the radio show heard on WLW700am, set the stage prior to Strickland calling in by stating their hostility for the Governor's passenger rail proposal. Jibberjabbering to kill time until they could throw questions at Strickland, the duo demonstrated their anti-rail plan bias, saying everyone they had talked to thought his idea to resuscitate long-dead passenger rail service between Cincinnati and Cleveland via Columbus or the 3-C Corridor was "a horrible idea." Others have said that if a billion dollars is going to be spent on it, it ought to at least be fast. But speed, the one essential ingredient that will attract riders, will be absent. Based on speed calculations from the Ohio Department of Transportation, the passenger train will only average 57-mph, a truly turtle pace.

Buoyant and optimistic despite the sour, declining economic health of the state and its next budget, Strickland again repeated his warning that if Ohio didn't take advantage of federal stimulus dollars being handed out by President Barack Obama's administration for the development of high-speed rail (HSR), Ohio will "be an island...because we won't be hooked into a system that involves entire Midwest."

Talking in general terms, Strickland said that if people had real choices of other modes of transportation, "they wouldn't need a car." But Ohio has cut its funding for mass transit by 60 percent over the last decade and intra-city/regional bus service is only poor at best, if it exists at all. Responding to the simple question of what's the economic upside to the state for a first-phase, conventional speed passenger train system that will cost a minimum of $1 billion to build, all the upbeat Governor could say is that all Ohio's "sports teams are urging him to proceed." One can only wonder how enthusiastic those sports team would be if they had to reach into their wallets to pay for it. Such user-fee revenues are fast becoming a tool of choice Washington is looking to more and more, as its spending comes into question by many who say huge deficits will break us all over time.

But even given what he called "modest" yearly public subsidies the system would need to cover its costs, Strickland said investing in passenger rail is less costly that investing in highways. But roads and bridges are what tie us together now, and as cars become more fuel efficient and cooler in terms of technology, drivers will opt for the privacy and convenience of their cars instead of trains that, after a six hour or more slow ride to the past, will dump them in urban cores where other transportation modes are slim to none, affectively marooning them at their destination.

"We won't establish high-speed rail in the near term," said Strickland, adding that spending upwards of $400 million was a "fairly modest first-step that would establish regular-speed [@ 79-mph] rail service." But putting the caboose before the engine, Strickland, whose job approval numbers have been ebbing as Ohio continues to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs on his watch, said, "if people didn't support it to justify further investment, then we wouldn't have to go to high speed." But for Strickland and his railroad advisers at ODOT, top high-speed means reaching 110-mph, a far cry in reality and cost from the HSR speeds Euro-style trains reach, which top out at 220-mph or more. But even with slick trains that fly along specially built, exorbitantly priced tracks that by design minimize cross traffic or signaling, even France's famous TGV trains have average speeds of 120-mph or less for their trips, according to reputable rail sources.

Strickland likely had not read through the seven-page testimony given Tuesday by Susan A. Fleming, Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues for the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safey, and Security, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation of the US Senate.

If Strickland or his Director of Transportation have read it, then they know the GAO has concluded that, while the potential benefits of HSR projects are many, "these projects--both here and abroad-- are costly, take years to develop and build, and require substantial up-front public investment, as well as potentially long-term operating subsidies."

Furthermore, Fleming said President Obama's allocation of a paltry $8 billion for HSR is more a "vision...than a strageic plan," and that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the agency his Director of Transportation headed during the Clinton Administration, has "not established clear goals for the federal government in high-speed rail--other than establishing a 'longer term goal of developing a national high-speed intercity passenger rail network of corridors'--and does not define a clear federal role for involvement in high-speed rail projects other than providing Recovery Act funds."

Fleming said the $8 billion allocated to HSR development is "only a small fraction of the estimated costs for starting or enhancing service on the 11 federally authorized high-speed rail corridors." Sustained funding for HSR will come at the cost of taking federal funds away from other national priorities like health care, national defense, and support for ailing industries, which Ohio has a lot of these days, as Detroit's Big Three automakers try to reinvent themselves or face extinction in the marketplace.

Even though the 3-C Corridor is on the periphery of the federal Midwest corridor, the heart of this system is Chicago, which all train watchers expect to benefit from handsomely, given President Obama's long ties to Illinois and the Windy City, his home prior to the White House.

Making the point that Ohio, where passenger trains stopped running nearly 42 years ago and whose rail plans are so ill formed when compared to plans of states around it, likely won't fair well in snagging any meaningful Obama dollars, the governors of Illinois and Missouri, Quinn and Nixon respectively, have teamed up to lobby for an important share of Midwest Corridor funds to complete a high-speed train route connecting Chicago to St. Louis. For Michigan Governor Jennifer Grandholm, Chicago is at the other end of a HSR route from Detroit. And for Ohio, Toledo should be more energized to connect to this route, because it will be a long, long time [if ever] until it is connected to an intra-state line that would link it to Columbus, the middle C on the 3-C route.

The fanfare of returning passenger rail service to Ohio has caused state and local officials to day dream about their village or burg being a stop on the HSR network. With the absence of state dollars in the near- or long-term to properly fund the astronomical amount needed to build a system that will still need public subsidies for as far as the eye can see into the future and that will never have the ridership capacity to make it eve break even because it will be so slow and time consuming, Strickland and his Transportation Director will need more than pom-poms and smiles to convince hard working Ohioans [those who still have jobs] that they should build and subsidize a system that only a handful of riders will ride.

The Buckeye Institute, a fiscally conservative research outfit based in Columbus, entered the fray over HSR yesterday, when it said the vision of licky-split passenger trains is just too costly to all of us and that few people would ride even fewer miles each year. Much of what the BI said appears to be sourced to Randal O'Toole, of the Libertarian think tank The Cato Institute, who makes a strong case against HSR but fails to identify viable alternatives.

But if Ohio is so desperate for cash that it is ready to shutter many of its libraries, eliminate basic health care coverage to many of its poor including children by cutting Medicaid payments and taking away food from food banks, is it really a smart move to venture down a costly path to subsidize freight rail companies who own tracks passenger trains must run on when so many other human safety nets have such gaping holes in them?

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Ohio Home to 2 of Nation's 25 Worst Neighborhoods, Crime Study Shows

Ohio Home to 2 of Nation's 25 Worst Neighborhoods, Crime Study Shows

by John Michael Spinelli

June 23, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Both Buckeye cities have been perennial favorites to make the list of the nation's biggest poor cities, so it comes as no surprise that Cincinnati and Cleveland are listed on a crime survey as home to two of the nation's top 25 worst neighborhoods.

While the Cleveland neighborhood ranked 21st, a Cincinnati neighborhood took top honors, as measured by a study performed by Dr. Andrew Schiller at NeighborhoodScout.com, that relied on data from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies about eight crimes the FBI combines to produce its annual crime index.

For Cleveland, the chances of being a victim in the Cedar Ave./55th St. neighborhood are 1 in 9. The predicted annual violent crimes are 69, or a violent crime rate (per 1,000) of 113.67.

For Cincinnati, which lead other big cities like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Kansas City or Baltimore, the Central Parkway/liberty street neighborhood has a predicted annual violent crimes of 457, or a violent crime rate (per 1,000) of 266.94. Chances of being a victim here are 1 in 4.

Of the top 25, Chicago was home to 4 neighborhoods, with cities like Baltimore, Kansas City, Memphis and Dallas each boasting of two worst neighborhoods each.

According to information on the Web about Dr. Schiller, he is the Founder, President and Chairman of Location, Inc. and is responsible for inventing the methods and technology that power NeighborhoodScout .com. Schiller has designed similar studies and reports for various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Money Magazine, Parade Magazine, Smart Money, The New York Times, and others.

As for FBI's crime index, information describing it said it it "seeks to overcome differences in individual state statues - that would ignore how the individual is charged - and create a standardized definition of crime classification."

Defining serious and non-serious offenses falls into two categories. Part I crimes are comprised of serious felonies and Part II crimes are comprised of non-serious felonies and misdemeanors. Together, the study methodology says, these two types of classifications make up the crimes reported in the Uniform Crime Reports.

These offenses include willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, larceny over $50, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In order to compare statistical information on a national basis the FBI came up with this common definition for crime comparison.

25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods

25) Chicago, Ill. (Winchester, Ave./60th St.)
24) Chicago, Ill. (Wallace St./58th St.)
23) Detroit, Mich. (Mount Elliott St./Palmer Ave.)
22) Orlando, Fla. (East-West Expy/Orange Blossom Trl.)
21) Cleveland, Ohio (Cedar Ave./55th St.)
20) Baltimore, Md. (Orleans St./Front St.)
19) Chicago, Ill. (66th St./Yale Ave.)
18) New York, N.Y. (St. Nicholas Ave./125th St.)
17) Tampa, Fla. (Amelia Ave./Tampa St.)
16) Philadelphia, Pa. (Broad St./Dauphin St.)
15) Little Rock, Ark. (Roosevelt Rd./Bond St.)
14) St. Louis, Mo. (14th St./Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.)
13) Springfield, Ill. (Cook St./11th St.)
12) Dallas, Texas (2nd Ave./Hatcher St.)
11) Memphis, Tenn. (Bellevue Blvd./Lamar Ave.)
10) Richmond, Va. (Church Hill)
9) Dallas, Texas (Route 352/Scyene Rd.)
8) Kansas City, Mo. (Forest Ave./41st St.)
7) Memphis, Tenn. (Warford St./Mount Olive Rd.)
6) Kansas City, Mo. (Bales Ave./30th St.)
5) Baltimore, Md.(North Ave./Belair Rd.)
4) Jacksonville, Fla. (Beaver St./Broad St.)
3) Miami, Fla. (7th Ave./North River Dr.)
2) Chicago, Ill. (State St./Garfield Blvd.)
1) Cincinnati, Ohio (Central Pky./Liberty St.)

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Why Not Fund Ohio's 3-C Turtle Train with Video Slots?

Why Not Fund Ohio's 3-C Turtle Train with Video Slots?

Strickland's Policy Switch on Slots Would Let Rail Passengers Spin Their Wheels Too

by John Michael Spinelli

June 21, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: The Great State of Ohio has failed four times over nearly two decades to convince its voters to allow casino gaming interests to set up shop inside its borders. From former Republican Gov. George Voinovich to today's Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, the mantra of one chief executive after another has been that gambling is a bad idea that would make the poor poorer, unlock the door to criminals and crime and enrich gaming interests at the expense of state coffers, which would be hard pressed to fund services to combat the social ills opponents of gambling say would be unleashed if the Satan of sin is allowed to run wild here.

Yet despite the moral hazards opponents of gambling predict would happen if slot machines or casino-style gambling were to come to a state already surrounded by states that allow them, the announcement last week by Strickland's budget mavens that Ohio's next budget, which by law starts July 1, has a $3.2 billion hole in it, has caused the good Governor, who has long opposed gaming and gambling, to turn the other cheek by signaling he is ready to permit the state's seven horse racing tracks to add video slot machines to their operations. Unable to resist the lure of maybe as much as $765 million coming to the aid of future budgets, by holding his nose on the ascent of maybe 14,000 one-armed bandits into Ohio's frantic search for public revenues, Strickland can no longer backtrack now that the slot machine proposal is out of the barn.

While the topic of video slot machines has percolated throughout Buckeyeville for a while, the question that sounds like a joke but which might be one practical way to fund Strickland's proposal to spend millions the state doesn't have on a slow train to the past that would chug diagonally from Cincinnati to Cleveland over more than six hours is to replace passenger seats with video slot machines. Doing so would be a perfect passenger-rail user fee, one that would allow those riding the rails to spin their wheels and have their losses fund the slow train to the past, whose need and ridership are simple but important questions state transportation leaders cannot answer with certainly but only with estimates that will only lead to real jaw-dropping if and when any real bids are let and returned.

This kind of user fee, which Washington is smiling on more and more as once dependable road and bridge funding sources like the Highway Trust Fund go broke as driver's drive less and fewer gas taxes are collected, would also liberate the rest of Ohio's taxpayers, who don't live along the corridor and who won't be using the train for various reasons, from funding the $1 billion-plus plan for a train that will only average 57-mph and will take until 2025 to be fully realized as out-dated plans project.

While it sounds like a joke to spend so much one-time federal stimulus money on a train loaded with slots, the idea was raised in all seriousness by one railroad historical society that said Strickland should do just that. One person who attended the meeting and contacted SOA, said the Ohio-only train could have the on-board slots so that the revenues would stay in the state. How would an intercity or interstate train handle slot business when traveling through states that don't permit gambling? Simple, just turn off the power to them while the train is in that state.

For such a sky-high price tag, Ohio's train to the past would be slow. Over the projected six hours or more it would take paying passengers to traverse the approximately 250 miles between Cincinnati and Cleveland, they could spin their wheels while the train spun it's steel wheels. If Lady Luck wasn't riding with them, so much the better for Ohio coffers.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and desperate times have come to Ohio. If a Methodist minister like Strickland who has long viewed gambling as a secular revenue trap and a Biblical moral hazard can reverse course on it, maybe it's not such a far-fetched joke to think that locomotives running on steel wheels can also have scores of other kinds of spinning wheels on it, too.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

J'aime l'Energie Nucléaire

J'aime l'Energie Nucléaire

Or Why Buckeyes Should Stop Hating the French and Start Learning to Love Nuclear Power

by John Michael Spinelli

June 17, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: The French have a word for it: l'énergie nucléaire, or nuclear power. While the French are usually derided by red-blooded Americans as too sissified and certainly not able to defend themselves, they have mastered many crafts, from making chocolate and cheese to little cars and great fashion. Another important but cruder craft they have mastered, one America has not seen since the late 1970s and one Russia is still haunted by, is making safe, reliable and affordable nuclear power.

So When Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland announced Wednesday that a new nuclear power plant was the project Duke Energy and other partners including French nuclear powerhouse Areva were involved with, I didn't exactly breath a sigh of relief, but I was able to exhale knowing the Frenchies would bring their brand of producing and distributing nuclear power to the southern Ohio hills of Piketon, which has its battle scars and war stories to tell of its decades long involvement with the production of nuclear fuel.

Unlike America, where movies have been made of nuclear accidents and where nuclear accidents have in fact occurred, the French now accept nuclear power without question. Their familiarization with and support of nuclear power dates from the events in the Middle East in 1973 that PBS Frontline producer Jon Palfremanthey said was their response to the "oil shock"

His program, Why the French Like Nuclear Power, show how cozy and unfearful of the China Syndrome the baguette-eating crowd has come with nuclear power.

Ohio's history with nuclear power is not without blemishes, a contrast to the track record of our democracy-loving, cafe-sitting friends abroad.

In the heady days of Arab oil embargoes that took car-centric America by surprise, Palfremanthey said the quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC nations was indeed a shock for France because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. France had and still has very few natural energy resources, he notes, summing up France's stock of natural reserves of oil and coal as very poor.

Nuclear energy was one avenue French policy makers took to make themselves energy independent. Ready to unleash and control the mighty power only nuclear power can produce, the French proceeded to introduce the most comprehensive national nuclear energy program in history. A statistic that Americans can only marvel at, is that 56 nuclear reactors were turned on over a period of 15 years. Such a wide spread program in a country the size of Texas was able to quench its domestic thirst and have enough left over to export to other European countries. More curious is that the technology the French used wasn't their own creation, but borrowed from the U.S. and replicated at each plan, making them less expensive to build that the hodgepodge of designs we have here.up

Where France has no coal, Ohio has huge reserves of the black rock. But burning Ohio coal creates toxic emissions that affect others as it drifts eastward to New England. So while burning Ohio coal keeps some miners employed, it creates substantial health problems down wind.

In addition to what Palfremanthey pegs as the pride of independence that everyone Frenchman is born with, is their central management of big technology projects. For the average Ohioan, talk of government being competent to undertake big projects smacks of socialism. But for the French, big national projects like supersonic jets and high-speed rail, done and managed well, are par for the course.

Another big difference is the mindset Americans and French have toward scientists, engineers and lawyers. In America, lawyers rule. In France, scientists and engineers are generally looked upon highly as are educators. The average Frenchman respects and trusts technocrats, whereas the average American probably wants them fired because they represent the kind of big government some have been taught to despise.

Ohioans can also take a lesson from how the French dealt with their fear of nuclear waste and what to do with it. In addition to reusing nuclear waste in ways that delayed eventually having to deposit it safely somewhere, the French became less skittish about it when they learned that instead of burying it somewhere forever, it could be accessed in the future when future advances could better deal with it.

The alliance of companies working to build the Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park says the 700 jobs needed to operate the facility may not materialize for another ten years or more. So while the announcement is good news, it will do little now to help Ohioans who have lost their jobs as Ohio's economy twists in the wind from faltering auto sales and a national recession that is slowing but still dangerous.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter at OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Ohio's Slow Train Plan Likely Not Fast Enough to Snag Much HSR Funding

Ohio's Slow Train Plan Likely Not Fast Enough to Snag Much HSR Funding

US DOT Unveils Grant Criteria for High-Speed Rail Corridors

With States Paying Operating Costs, Can Ohio Handle it?

by John Michael Spinelli

June 17, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced in April their new vision for developing high-speed rail in America. The troika of leaders outlined a collaborative effort among the Federal Government, States, railroads, and other key stakeholders to help transform America’s transportation system through a national network of high-speed rail corridors.

The US Department of Transportation announced Wednesday the application requirements, procedures and evaluation criteria that would identify which of four funding tracks rail projects from states would qualify for.

While the Midwest Corridor is among the ten high-speed rail corridors the Obama administration and the Federal Railroad Administration have identified, Ohio may be riding in the caboose based on its failure after nearly 42 years of little or no passenger rail service and on the ability of its imploding budget to handle the costs of operation, which DOT said falls squarely on state shoulders.

With about $3.2 billion dollars in budget adjustments starring down Gov. Ted Strickland and Columbus lawmakers, the news of how grim state services could get real fast would argue that Ohio needs to think twice or more about spending unknown millions on a yearly public subsidy for a slow train to the past, that seems to fall short of many DOT funding criteria when those funds could go instead to shore up government services or to pay for basic social services for needy Ohioans hit hard during this Great Recession.

Ohio is like every other state who since the announcement by Obama that $8 billion in stimulus money would be offered as a down-payment on his vision that America can have Euro-style trains flashing across the nation has cultivated its own dream of re-establishing passenger rail service, more than four decades after the last train running from Cincinnati in the southwest to Cleveland in the northeast stopped service.

Strickland and his transportation director, Jolene Molitoris, have been boldly promoting a revival of passenger rail service that would top out at 79-mph but only average 57-mph and take over six hours to make a one-way trip along the so-called 3-C Corridor. The duo had repeatedly said start up costs would be about $250 million until last week, when Strickland upped that figure to $400 million. For rail watchers, the increase of $150 million with nothing to point to was a red flag signaling that the numbers for the plan, until they are backed by real bids, will be as slippery to grasp as holding mercury in your hand. But those figures will likely not be known for years to come, based on the state master rail plan date of 2025, when we'll know whether all the time and investment put into it has been worth it.

But a preliminary review of DOT's evaluation criteria show Ohio may not be as thrilled with what it gets after states like California, Illinois, Texas or Florida take the lion's share of federal funds that will be handed out by DOT in round one this September.

A harbinger of things to come arrived in the form of an AP article that reported that the Obama administration informed Ms. Molitoris, the first woman to head Ohio's $7 billion Transportation Department (ODOT), that she should not spend $57 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars on more studies, including about $7 million for the HUB or high-speed rail plan. Federal officials said she should spend it instead on actual ready-to-go infrastructure projects.

Other troubling hurdles ODOT will have to overcome include describing the public return on investment, including factors such as what the transportation benefits will be, the purpose and need of the 3-C Corridor, whether a Service Development Plan is in place and, most importantly, identifying the source of operating costs for the system, which cannot come from ARRA funds but fall to states to provide.

So while nearly all Ohio cities will not become stops on the ODOT's slow train to the past, many small town mayors still harbor dreams that their community will not only be a stop but that the train will bring jobs and prosperity along with riders to their towns.

The irony of this fallacy is that high-speed trains can not travel at high-speeds if they make too many stops along the way. This point was confirmed recently when a spokesman for the Ohio Rail Development Commission issued a reminder that the more small towns that think they should be on the train route, the slower the train will be. Some small-town mayors want a train to pull into either an old, nonfunctional station or one they don't have the money to build.

But DOT makes it clear that trains that cannot hit 110-mph will take a backseat to those that can, such as the California high-speed rail project which wants to connect Los Angeles with San Francisco with trains that run above 200-mph.

Other criteria Ohio and other states will have to meet relate to economic development or jobs created especially in economically-distressed areas, energy efficiency and how it will make communities more livable.

Moreover, additional success factors such as Ohio's track record of comparable projects or reasonableness of schedule and availability of operating financial support could side-trackODOT, which is still waiting for results contained in a special study on ridership due this summer.

Molitoris, the first woman to head the FRA back in the early 1990s, has often said the 3-C is a great business opportunity even though she has had little in the way of firm or fast figures to back up her upbeat assessment of a passenger rail ride that must share existing freight tracks and will go slower than a car would and take 30 percent more time to do it in.

A possible speedbump for ODOT's slow train to the past is the mandate included in the HSR guidelines that require it to produce a National Environmental Policy Act report, that shows it has considered "reasonable alternatives," which it said is "typically conducted during the environmental review process."

The 3-C Corridor won't quality for Track 1 funding because it's not ready to go, or shovel-ready in Washington parlance, it cannot produce the kind of leverage with non-federal investments. projects this category smiles on and because it can't be completed within two years of the award.

For Track 2 projects, which focuses on collective efforts and requires a Service Development Plan be in place, including a business and investment justification with sufficient project cost and benefit estimates -- such as purpose and need, service and operations plan, and prioritized capital investment plan for infrastructure, fleet and stations/facilities, project management, stakeholder agreements and a financial plan for funding both capital and operations.

Buckeye leaders may fall into Track 3 funding, designed to build a pipeline of future high-speed inter-city rail projects by funding planning activities for applicants at an early stage of development. Fifty percent non-federal funding is required, and participation in this category is a prerequisite for participation later in Track 1 and 2 funding. Track 4, the final category, time-lines for project completion are set at 5 years.

In the end, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican and former congressman from Illinois, will have final say. The FRA said it may at its discretion not ward all $8 billion, so funds for potential future rounds of solicitations and awards that which occur after 2009 will be available.

DOT's guidelines say there is no predetermined allocation between Tracks 1 and 2 or between this and any future solicitations, and that all such distributions will cumulatively reflect the nature and timing of the selected applications.

Excluded from funding is commuter rail passenger transportation, which DOT defines as “shorthaul rail passenger transportation in metropolitan and suburban areas usually having reduced fare, multiple ride, and commuter tickets and morning and evening peak period operations.” It said Federal funding for commuter rail projects is available from Federal Transit Administration programs.

DOT noted that Amtrak may enter into a cooperative agreement with one or more States to carry out an eligible project.

As for innovation, the 3-C Corridor plan hardly seems able to make an water-tight case that it is pursuing new technology and innovation where the public return on investment is favorable, while ensuring delivery of near-term transportation, public and recovery benefits.

In answering the question about whether such a plan would promote domestic manufacturing, supply and industrial development, including U.S.-based equipment manufacturing and supply industries, much of the rail equipment used on the 3-C Corridor will come from overseas. Unlike this scenario, an innovative, advanced-train technology as has been patented by Tubular Rail of Texas, could be manufactured nearly entirely within Ohio's borders.

While Ohio mainstream media sources faithfully print the talking points of state transportation officials without questioning them on their sources or statements, which performs a disservice to the readers who need to know real facts and not fantasy, this correspondent knows that Ohio's slow train to the past, while romantic to some, is a bad idea at a bad time.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter at OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com
The Impact of IMPACT

The Impact of IMPACT

The Impact of IMPACT

Brown Bill to Help Manufacturers Retool for Energy Industry

Brown More Open Minded Now about Nuclear Power

by John Michael Spinelli

June 16, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Junior Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown announced Wednesday that he and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, (D-Michigan) will introduce a bill to help auto suppliers and other manufactures retool for the arrival of the energy industry, as prospects dim for Ohio manufacturers in response to the shifting sands of the U.S. auto industry.

Slightly off topic for today's agenda, Brown responded to a reporter's question about his position on nuclear power, with the announcement to day by Gov. Ted Strickland that a new nuclear power plant will be built in southern Ohio at the former nuclear material processing facility in Piketon, south of Columbus, the capital.

Brown said he has come a long way from how he thought of nuclear plants decades ago, and says he is now open minded about it. Supporters of the nuclear power plant, the first to be developed since the near meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, say its power, because it doesn't release emissions long attributed to causing global warming, is in today's parlance, "Green."

What Brown didn't say but what this reporter thinks will bode more confidence in everyone that it will be built correctly, was the announcement that one parter in the project will be Areva, a French energy company. Franc's nuclear energy industry is state owned and standardized and has a long history of producing save, reliable and affordable energy for the nation.

What does IMPACT, or Investment for Manufacturing Progress in Clean Technology Act, mean to Brown, who has added today's announcement to a list of others on energy he has made recently that include the announced release of $3.2 million to support clean energy research and development projects in Akron and Canton, a visit to a solid waste authority in Central Ohio as a backdrop to discuss his proposal to expand the use of municipal solid waste as a source of clean energy and his role in the release of a Pew Charitable Trust report on "repowering jobs, businesses and investment across America," a study he referenced again today.

Speaking on a conference call with reporters, Brown said he expects his bill to be included in congressional legislation on climate change, and that enabling small- to medium-sized manufacturers to transition to become more energy efficient or retool to manufacture parts for wind, solar or bio-fuels or for other industries is also a good public policy goal.

He noted that manufacturing auto components is the largest single category of manufacturers in the nation, employing over 680,000 workers, so any help that can be directed toward this sector to keep them going, if not in the same line of work but in a different one like energy, is good.

Wendy Patton of Policy Matters Ohio joined Brown by supplying research information her non-profit, non-partisan group compiles, showing on a county-by-county basis the possible potential of Ohio businesses that would be eligible to participate in a program to be administered and run by states that meet certain national criteria, including having produced their own plans for addressing high-unemployment areas and assistance directed at building manufacturing supply chains.

Patton said PMO's report identified 3,000 Ohio manufacturers, employing 250,000 workers, that could benefit from Brown's proposed federal initiative.

In prepared remarks, Brown said the backdrop to his initiative is that as Congress is weighing sweeping energy and climate change legislation, but the more immediate immediate challenges faced by auto suppliers and the manufacturing industry, which means federal help is needed to support the development of domestic clean energy manufacturing and production.

Supported by leaders in the business, environmental, and labor communities, Brown said his bill, capitalized by $30 billion in treasury funds, would convert to a revolving loan fund after two years. If passed, the bill will become a new funding source designed to help auto suppliers and other manufacturers retool for the clean energy industry. Over time, Brown said his initiative would lead to the creation of 180,000 direct jobs and three-times as many in indirect jobs.

To accomplish these goals, Brown's bill would improve manufacturers’ access to capital and invest in energy-efficient technologies, which he said would create new jobs and increase the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing.

In questions from reporters, Brown said that not only would wind, solar and other energy-related sectors be welcome, but he said any transportation technology that is clean and energy-efficient would also be a good fit for his bill.

For states, who Brown said will process applications, they will need to show proof of their plans for high-unemployment areas, the development of manufacturing supply chains and increasing steel production, which has plummeted of late, among other national criteria his bill sets out.

Brown is right to be energized to by stopping the abuse the country's economic woes have visited on manufacturers, Buckeye or otherwise. The state's largest paper by circulation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, ran a story of two reports out today [MSNBC and Brookings] that showed Ohio will again lag behind other states in recovering from the Great Recession, which next to Pennsylvania has hurt Ohio the most.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter at OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com
The Impact of IMPACT

Ohio Cities Fare Poorly on Worldwide Quality of Life Rankings

Ohio Cities Fare Poorly on Worldwide Quality of Life Rankings

Only Ohio City Listed is Cleveland

by John Michael Spinelli

June 16, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Analysis of a report that ranked 215 cities worldwide on their quality of life (QOL) and infrastructure showed that European cities again dominated, with only a handful of American cities making the list. For Ohio, whose major cities have drifted down instead of up in recent years, Cleveland was the only city to make the list for both QOL and infrastructure.

According to Mercer, a leading global provider of consulting, outsourcing and investment services owned by Marsh and McLennan Companies, its 2009 Quality of Living Global City Rankings Survey showed Vienna, Austria as the highest for overall quality of living and Baghdad, Iraq, the worst.

With respect to city infrastructure, Singapore ranked first with Baghdad again bringing up the rear.

For North American cities, Canadian cities still dominated the top of the index, with Vancouver (#4) retaining the top spot and Honolulu (#29) being the top-ranked U.S. city for QOL. Washington D.C. and New York ranked 44 and 49 respectively. For purposes of scoring, New York was the base city.

In the list of 215 cities based on QOL, the U.S. scored rankings for San Francisco (#30), Boston (#37), Portland, Oregon (#48), Washington, D.C. and Chicago tied (#44), New York (#49), Seattle (#50), Lexington, KY (#51),Pittsburgh (#52), Winston Salem (#53), Los Angeles and Cleveland tied (#59), Minneapolis (#61), Houston (#62), Miami #63), St. Louis and Detroit tied (#65) and Atlanta (#67). No other U.S. cities made the grade.

For its ranking of cities based on infrastructure, Singapore was first, Munich second and Copenhagen placed third. Infrastructure was based on electricity, supply, water availability, telephone and mail services, public transport, traffic congestion and the range of international flights from local airports. For fans of Ohio, this adds some fuel to the discussion of whyNCR moved from Dayton to Atlanta, which was the first U.S. city to make the list, coming in at #15.

It was followed by Washington D.C. (#24), Chicago (#28), New York (#32), Boston (#33), Honolulu (#41), Miami ($47), Houston (#49), Seattle ($49), San Francisco (#52), Minneapolis (#56), Los Angeles (#57),Pittsburgh (#61), Detroit (#62), Portland, Oregon and St. Louis tied (#63), Winston Salem (#66), Lexington, KY (#68) and Cleveland (#69) being the rear guard of U.S cities.

Performed to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments, Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer, said, "As a result of the current financial crisis, multinationals are looking to review their international assignment policies with a view to cutting costs."

On the topic of infrastructure, Parakatil said it has a "significant effect on the quality of life of living experienced by expatriates" and that while it is often taken for granted when functioning to a high standard, "a city's infrastructure can generate severe hardships when it is lacking." He noted that companies need to provide adequate allowances to compensate their international workers for these and other hardships."

Even though Cleveland has garnered the ignominious honor of being ranked high among America's poorest big cities on several occasions, it can be proud that it stands head and shoulders above all other Ohio cities, none of which made Mercer's top 215 city list.

As Ohio seeks to restore jobs and prosperity to itself, it should work to bolster those QOL criteria that others see as important. Otherwise, we'll be talking a good game without actually taking the field to make it happen.

But with Ohio's next biennial budget in free-fall, it's little wonder the state will have a decreasing ability to follow through on larger statewide policy goals, leaving locals, strapped for cash themselves, to figure out how to keep their boats floating with so many leaks to tend to.

Mercer press contacts said the data was largely collected between September and November of 2008 and is regularly updated to take account of changing circumstances. In particular, Mercer said the assessments are revised in the case of any new developments. The Mercer database contains more than 420 cities, ,but only 215 have been considered for the QOL 2008 ranking in order to compare them from one year to the next.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter at OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Ohio Bill New Tool to Boost Regional Transportation Projects, Sponsors Say

Ohio Bill New Tool to Boost Regional Transportation Projects, Sponsors Say

Government, Business Potential Partners on Qualified Projects

Lawmakers Vest Final Vote with State Transportation Director

by John Michael Spinelli

June 14, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Ohio governments and businesses could form investments teams to construct and operate regionally significant intermodal systems including public transit, freight and passenger rail systems, according to testimony provide last Wednesday by two prominent Ohio senators from opposite ends of the state and political spectrum, who have teamed up to propose the formation of Transportation Innovation Authorities (TIA).

The senators, Capri Cafaro, a Democrat whose district is in northeast Ohio, close to Cleveland and Lake Erie, and Tom Niehaus, whose district is in the southwest, close to Cincinnati and the Ohio River, stood next to each other last week, when the Senate Highways and Transportation Committee convened for business.

In addition to a first hearing on the outline of TIAs (SB121), the approval of Governor's appointment including the naming by Ted Strickland earlier this year of Jolene Molitoris to be the Director of Transportation was also on the agenda. Molitoris became the first woman Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration when then-President Clinton appointed her in 1993 and the first woman to break the glass ceiling at the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) when Gov. Strickland promoted her this January to hold the reigns of and director the horsepower of the $7-plus billion agency that oversees federal and state funds.

Strickland and Molitoris are backing the re-establishment of passenger rail service, diagonally across the state from Cincinnati to Dayton to Columbus to Cleveland, they hope $400 million in one-time federal stimulus dollars will cover the estimated costs for re-starting a service that has not left or arrived in any station in nearly 42 years. Strickland said he does not want Ohio to be left behind as an island as federal plans to fund more passenger rail gathers momentum despite the few funds President Obama has made available for such uses.

Cafaro, whose dozen-member caucus elected her as its leader last November, said in written testimony that it was her hope that the bill "will enhance the efficiency of Ohio's transportation system by encouraging the investment of public and private resources in the planning and implementation of innovative transportation Projects."

Creating a new authority for a defined period of time, in a defined geographical jurisdiction, where various government subdivisions or agencies can rally around a common regional transportation project with private business would be a boon for a state whose state budget is imploding, leaving locals to look to each other instead of Columbus for help with transportation priorities and plans.

Addressing Chairman Sen. Tom Patton, a Republican from Cleveland, and committee members, Cafaro said that among the various funding sources made available to TIA by the bill, taxes imposed by the authority itself would be prohibited.

Niehaus, a term-limited Republican by 2012, said the "newness of the concept and the many questions surrounding its proposed utilization," were two reasons to yank it from the State Transportation bill agreed to in March. "TIAs offer a unique ability for the pubic and private sectors to partner on the construction and operation of conventional transportation investments, as well as on intermodal, light rail or intercity rail projects,"Niehaus said in prepared remarks.

While Molitoris was not personally in the room, the authority vested in the transportation director was. As currently proposed, the bill would give the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) authority to approve a TIA or any of its projects. Projects qualified for ODOT approval would be contingent upon local entities adopting planning and zoning guidelines with the TIA' defined geography that would "assure that land use is conducive to the purpose of the district and does not set the stage for unintended, unplanned and unprogrammed additional improvements."

Once a partnership is struck between ODOT and a TIA, the transportation fun could begin. ODOT, in return for the TIA meeting standards established in the bill, would be free to provide planning and project development funds, favorable financing and improved project scheduling to the communities of the TIA. One helpful resource would bee access to a "new generation of investment" by ODOT's State Infrastructure Bank. The OSIB could offer low interest loans for public transit, multi-modal projects and intercity rail, an extension of what it currently does for roadway and bridge projects. Niehaus said ODOT is working to identify $170 million over the next two years to expand the OSIB.

Responding to questions from Senators, Cafaro reminded them that, as the Highway Trust Fund runs dry due in part due to less gas tax being collected as people drive fewer miles as the price of gas rises, locals looking to each other is better than looking for help from Washington.

The inclusion of the word "innovation" in the new authority's title should extend to not only innovative ways of financing a shared public interest with infrastructure we are familiar with, but also to the "innovation" of the transportation technology being considered. For an advanced train technology like Tubular Rail, whose capital costs are significantly lower than traditional railroads, the news of what a TIA can do is good news. Other technologies that bring new solutions to old problems should be embraced not as red-haired outliers but as a new way of moving people and goods in new ways.

The debate over investing untold billions in roads and bridges and other conventional transportation modes, no matter how familiar we are with them, is an important one. The cost of standard infrastructure, including water, sewer and energy facilities, is at an all-time high. The cost of transportation infrastructure, from trolleys, to light rail to high-speed trains, is even more expensive, which means TIAs and the planning groups they are tied to need to look either for ways to reduce project costs or look for innovative transportation technology that is less capital intensive.

The Senate bill is the upper house's version of the House version, which Niehuas characterized as a "starting point for consideration."

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. SOA is now on Twitter at OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to owners of Amazon's Kindle. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

American Idol for Train Transportation Needed in Ohio

American Idol for Train Transportation Needed in Ohio

Strickland Increases Cost, Time for 3-C Rail Plan

Texas TV Covers "Big Dig" for TR Technology Prototype

by John Michael Spinelli

June 10, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: In Washington Tuesday with other state officials like Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan who hope to snag a share of federal stimulus dollars to spend to launch a comeback for passenger rail service, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Jolene Molitoris, the state director for transportation, have revised the cost upward and pushed back the time to connect Cincinnati to Cleveland by rail, according to one published report.

"If we don't do this we will be left behind," Strickland told Ohio reporters at the state's Washington office before his meetings with the federal officials," as reported by The Columbus Dispatch. "Ohio will be an island in the middle of this nation without passenger rail service -- we will not be appropriately connected to a system that will be broad-based, and it would be intolerable for us."

The Washington bureau chief for "Ohio's Greatest Newspaper" reported that Strickland, who knows his Republican challenger for re-election in 2010 is John Kasich, and Molitoris , whose confirmation to her post will be considered this week by the Republican-led Ohio Senate, are still tap dancing around the cost and time-frame to return passenger rail service to Ohio via the existing network of freight tracks that cannot handle high-speed trains. Jonathan Riskind of The Columbus Dispatch reported the duo saying the cost to launch their runaway train to the past has escalated from $250 million to $400, while pushing its launch date back another six months to the first quarter of 2011. Strickland said the costs could be less, depending on findings from a passenger rail study to be finished this year by Amtrak. He didn't say and no reporter asked if they might also be more.

3-C CORRIDOR PLAN NOW MORE COSTLY, LATER TO ARRIVE

Hedging on the costs of an idea that has turned into a runaway policy train Strickland, Molitoris and supporters of the slow train to the past are stuck on, the governor told Riskind that "it wouldn't require too much in the way of state funding for annual operation costs - in the neighborhood of $10 million or less."

Keep in mind that Strickland and House Democrats who support the so-called 3-C Corridor rail plan are engaged in a battle royal with Senate Republicans over Ohio's worsening budget picture, which some sources say could require a $2-billion patch job just for the current fiscal year that expires at the end of June. Combining this sour situation with the growth in Ohio's jobless benefits and a shrinking state GDP, why are Gov. Strickland and Director Molitoris so headstrong about a rail plan that doesn't deliver speed but will still cost a lot and may not be fully functional, if ever, for decades to come?

Draconian cuts wait in the wings for various state programs and agencies. Eschewing a public subsidy as far as the eye can see for a train system that few will ride even though all tax payers will be tapped to pay for it appears both tone deaf to economic reality and blind to the dangers of politics, especially if Kasich and Republicans decide to make the 3-C rail plan a campaign issue that shows just how far out of touch the good governor and his eminence gries are with newer, faster, greener train technologies.

Molitoris, appointed by President Clinton in 1993 to be the first woman Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, has been the Casey Jones of Ohio's ill-conceived passenger rail plan, high-balling a likely $1 billion investment plan down a freight track that will never accommodate truly high speed trains that need separate, purpose-driven tracks on which to attain truly high speeds as Euro-style trains do.

In a separate story this week showing the advantage of a grade-separated system like Tubular Rail offers over the surface-based system state officials want to push, a tractor-trailor ran into a CSX train in Worthington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. Such a collision is impossible with TR technology.

AMERICAN IDOL FOR OHIO TRANSPORTATION

Ohio should do for train transportation what American Idol does for singers who think they have talent, namely, sponsor and conduct an audition for any train or transport technology that thinks it has a smarter, faster, greener, emission free, affordable and less disruptive idea to current infrastructure when compared to current technology to come forward and audition for state leaders and their technology advisers, who would give them fair and balanced consideration and select those they want to "pass through to Hollywood" for further R&D funding or even outright investment in, so Ohio could enter the future confident that they had found a future-ready train system it would use to create jobs and spur economic development.

At a meeting recently between officials of Tubular Rail, a Texas-based company who holds patents for its "trackless train" technology, and top officials for the Ohio Department of Development, the idea to use ODOT's pavilion at the Ohio State Exposition and Fair to showcase advanced transportation technologies -- like Tubular Rail, Monomobile, MegaRail, Personal Rapid Transit or other innovative systems -- was well received by Mark Barbash, ODOD's interim director at the time. Barbash no longer is heading ODOD due to IRS tax problems that arose after Tubular Rail met with him on the 6th of May.

DC CONSIDERS GAS TAX, VMT OPTION

Lurking on the periphery of this discussion, as The Hill reports, is the notion favored by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) that an expanded federal transportation bill should be funded by a boost in the gas tax or a "vehicle miles traveled" tax, two ideas that while they may be needed to replenish an otherwise depleted Highway Trust Fund, Republicans will hang Democrats with it if they actually become part of the bill.

Molitoris oversaw an Ohio committee that looked into the future of state transportation planning and saw a need for increasing the state gas tax as a reliable, sustainable means to fund a so-called seamless inter-modal transportation committee. A couple hours after she made the major finding of her committee public, Strickland, a gun-rights supporter, shot it down like a low flying duck at close range. The Governor took apart in a few minutes what the committee had spent months devising as their big idea for funding Ohio's transportation future.

TUBULAR RAIL IN TEXAS

Meanwhile in Pecos, Texas, Tubular Rail inventor and founder Robert Pulliam caught the attention recently of two mainstream media stations who assigned TV crews to cover the digging of a hole that the Mayor of Pecos, Richard Alligood, said could turn the small West Texas town into a "center of transportation," if Tubular Rail is on the winning end of a $20 million federal Department of Energy grant it applied for two weeks ago.

In a letter dated early June to Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn about Tubular Rail's plans to build its prototype in Pecos, Robert M. Tobias, Jr., Executive Director of the Pecos Economic Development Corporation, says his group is working in partnership with the Governor’s Office, Texas A&M, Texas Transportation Institute, TXDOT and other state and regional partners "to bring these types of projects to fruition." News reports said 150 jobs could come to Pecos if TR technology takes off. In a related story, ODOD told TR officials it is ready to help the company build a supply chain of Ohio manufacturers, who stand to benefit should the DOE grant for energy projects that "disrupt the status quo" find its funding footing.

Tobias correctly notes that having the research funds to test this technology "is an integral component of moving this opportunity forward." Continuing, he says the recent announcement by President Obama on making funds available to transportation projects of this type "could serve as the impetus" to TR technology rising from the scrub brush landscape of the test-track facility located close by. "Therefore, your support and assistance in connecting this transportation project to research funding is greatly appreciated," Tobias told a staffer in Sen. Cornyn's office.

Watch the reports here:
CBS 7 West Texas, Midland-Odessa
http://www.cbs7.com/news/details.asp?ID=12513

NBC 9 West Texas, MIdland-Odessa
http://www.kwes.com/global/category.asp?c=163304&clipId=&topVideoCatNo=121765&topVideoCatNoB=83259&topVideoCatNoC=83262&topVideoCatNoD=138849&topVideoCatNoE=124443&clipId=3824569&topVideoCatNo=121765&autoStart=true

As Ohio's political range war rages over whether Strickland let Dayton-based National Cash Register be lured to Georgia or whether the company's move was already a done deal, Ohio officials know that companies, by and large, are not beating a path to their door despite Strickland's cryptic comments today about landing one that will bring jobs here. Accordingly, state officials ought to consider all comers, like Tubular Rail, and consider what its advanced train technology can do for the state's future, instead of being stuck in the past of status quo technology that will only lead us back to the past even as we move forward in time.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com