Why Congress Is Broken

"19th Century solutions to 20th century problems"

Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to you that this is what's wrong with congress. Now, don't jump the gun, go ahead and listen to what Mr. Patrick McHenry has to say. It's a very interesting point that he makes. Let me paraphrase:

I didn't read the bill, I just glanced at it. But it says something about bikes, and bikes are old technology. I'm pretty sure most Americans think old things don't work anymore, so I'm gonna say that's why bikes can't possibly do anything. You see, only things invented this century work. What? Oh, someone is telling me people still ride bikes. Um, they're retarded, they might as well ride horses.

Did I get that pretty close? Basically he just spits out a bunch of rhetoric intended to bring out your beliefs that bikes are for recreation and make the utilitarian use of them sound ridiculous. It's really very smart: Assuming the folks he's talking too are stupid. Luckily for us, our House knew enough to look at the other 10 things in this bill, and maybe even consider that many folks successfully use the individual transportation device (which we fondly call a bicycle) already.

It's apparently been stalled in the senate. 50-44. I haven't been able to track down the votes, but I'm sure Obama and McCain were absent. Oh well, if they're not lying about their green stances that would only have made it 50-46.

Maybe I missed something when I read this bill. But here's what I got out of it:
* A tax credit for building wind farms.
* An individual income tax credit for solar panels (think, those things people put on their roofs).
* An extension of the tax credit for biodiesel
* $20 a month, given through the employer, for commuting by bike

The tax credit for wind farms and solar panels are probably the big items. Home solar panels are already considered to be cost effective, but the period you must wait is something like 8 years. The tax credit would shorten that period, and make the benefits more immediate. This should make these panels more popular, which would decrease the load on power grids. Here in Lincoln, NE this is no big deal: LES is cheap and supposedly has room to expand. But Californians might think about this differently.

Making room in the power grid is going to become more important as electric chargeable cars come to market in a serious way.

As for wind energy, it seems that many states are doing this anyway. It might just be too little and too late.

And the cycling part is just a minor item. It's not much money. However, this will provide one more immediate incentive for riding to work. It doesn't sound like you have to be a everyday rider, but a most of the time rider: Hopefully, just an every fair-weather day rider is enough.
$240 a year should be obvious to most consumers as enough to pay for their bike over a few years (assuming they don't qualify for many of those months and bought a decent bike).

But this bill must struggle, because there are people who think that rhetoric has something to do with reason. People like Representative Patrick McHenry.