Articles by Adam Stein

Gas tax revenue falling, feds seek to raid mass transit budget to pay for highways

From The New York Times:

Gasoline tax revenue is falling so fast that the federal government may not be able to meet its commitments to states for road projects already under way, the secretary of transportation said Monday.

The secretary, Mary E. Peters, said the short-term solution would be for the Highway Trust Fund's highway account to borrow money from the fund's mass transit account, a step that would balance the accounts as highway travel declines and use of mass transit increases. Both trends are being driven by the high price of gasoline and diesel fuel.

Got that? High gas prices are shifting people from cars into mass transit. The only appropriate response, clearly, is to rob the mass transit accounts to pay for highway projects.

Energy efficiency is cornerstone of ambitious plan

Everyone's favorite McKinsey study suggests that America can shed a huge chunk of its emissions through costless measures, primarily in the realm of energy efficiency. The fly in this delicious low-carbon ointment is that the freebie cuts haven't so far happened by themselves, and it's never entirely clear how well an analyst's report is going to translate into reality. How nice, then, that New York City is gearing up to provide the proof point we've all been waiting for.

Mayor Bloomberg's office recently released a plan to drop the carbon emissions of the municipal government 30 percent from 2006 levels by 2017. The plan will cost about $2.3 billion, but the city expects to recoup these costs by 2015 -- an average payback of less than eight years across a large portfolio of projects.

Congressional Dems consider preventing oil drilled offshore from export

Any article on how politicians are gearing up to "do something" about oil prices is bound to contain more than the usual share of silliness. Still, though, this managed to stop me cold:

Mattel worth more than GM on strong outlook for Matchbox, Hot Wheels cars

At the present moment Mattel, the maker of Hot Wheels and Matchbox toy cars, is worth $6.2 billion, putting it at a premium to GM, worth a mere $5.7 billion.

Created in 1952, Matchbox cars were instantly popular because they were hard for children to swallow and required no batteries.

With the price of a fill-up now topping $100, drivers are likewise finding GM's line up of trucks and SUVs very hard to swallow.