California Prop 87 was voted down
Posted by Frugal on November 10th, 2006
To tell you the truth, I thought that prop 87 will definitely pass without a doubt. Who doesn’t want to beat up the big guys, in this case, the Big Oil companies? But prop 87 to tax oil companies for raising additional 4 billion dollars for alternative energy was voted down with 45% yes, and 55% NO. I guess the recent price fall at the pump probably helps the understanding of the general public that oil price CAN fall as well as rise, according to the crude oil price.
On the other hand, California has passed the measure for issuing transportatioin bonds on expanding freeways/etc. If you are a stauch peak oil believer, you probably would say that majority of those money is going to be wasted on the freeways. I don’t know for sure whether peak oil is real or not, but I do believe that the country desperately needs to build up the alternative energy sources. If prop 87 was better written and had the full accountability, I would have supported it.
On the peak oil, I really hope that it’s not like the story about crying wolf. You cry once, and then twice, and then no one believes in you anymore. But then, the real wolf comes. Back in 70s oil crisis, it was quite real, but once it’s over, people quickly forgot about it.
I think a good preparation is always better than nothing, and that’s also true for peak oil production.
P.S. I’m “back” from my vacation just for 1 day for a quick post, in case you wonder, 
.
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November 10th, 2006 at 9:45 am
After reading a couple of Yes-on-87 vs No-on-87 articles at VentureBeat, Prop 87 didn’t make too much sense. I posted a quick summary on my blog: No on Prop 87 (Yes on new gas usage tax):
http://breydel.blogspot.com/2006/10/no-on-prop-87-yes-on-new-gas-usage-tax.html
I you have a chance, read the articles by Robert Rapier in Venture Beat.
November 12th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Hi Frugal, have you read either of the peak oil investing books by Stephen Leeb? If so, I would be interested to know what you think of the investing strategy he proposes. Basically he says to avoid index investing and diversification. Similar to the 1970s, investors will need to concentrate their holdings in the few sectors whose returns exceed inflation.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:26 am
I too voted no on 87, the bill was far to vague and the lack of structure and accountability was a turn off. The way it was written it was unlikely to produce meaningful results.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:54 pm
Jan. Thanks for your link.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Emily,
I’m aware of Leeb’s work. I would not advise focusing on a few sectors in general. Predicting the future is always difficult. However, despite my general advice, that’s exactly what I’m investing with my own money. But I have my stock options for hedging in case when I’m wrong. Most people don’t have this luxury.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Barrell,
I totally agreed with your assessment. More regulation usually leads to more waste.
December 18th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Argggh. More of the same excuses that really make little sense against the passing of prop 87.
I listened to the commercials, as someone who has won a regional emmy, I can tell you that NO MATTER what had been written into the proposition, the no side could have had a field day coming up with why the proposition should not pass.
Example. “this 12,000 word document”…… sounds scary, but in essence, it’s completely irrelevant.
If Prop 87 had had fewer words in it, the no side would have called the Proposition “a scant explanation that spends billions of dollars with no visible guidelines in place. If Prop 87 had had more words, well, they would have further bleated on about the hordes of pages…
Example… “they do not have to produce results”…. If the prop mandated that all results had to be tangible, the argument would have been “and this proposition forces new technologies down our throats whether they are ready or not”…
Example…”It creates a new bureaucracy”…NO IT DOES NOT! The money was to go to an existing “bureaucracy” specificially so it would NOT create a new bureaucracy.
Example… “Not one dollar goes to public education”….actually, over 600 million was to be allocated towards college research studies on alternative energies and over another 100 million was to replace the older smoke belching buses with newer, safer and cleaner burning buses.
Example… “This proposition will cost 4 billion dollars a year”. No, it will cost 4 billion dollars over 10 years, aka less than 3 cents a gallon.
Example… “This proposition will never make back it’s money”….huh? using the word NEVER when giving out an opinion, an opinion that was used to steer votes, is criminal. By the way, the sooner we get in gear on alternative fuels, the less likely we fight future wars in places like Iraq, meaning the propostion could easily pay for itself many times over.
Example…. “Firefighters will have less resources to spend because of this proposition”….huh? this one, in my opinion, is so stupid as to not even warrant a response, yet sadly, it was an effective commercial, for misleading and confusing voters. I also heard but have not verified that the firefighters union was paid a fee to appear in the commericals, which should have been mentioned in every commercial they were in…”compensated” should have appeared in the ads.
Those of you who blog just voted against something that would have allowed you all to make a difference. In voting no, you basically took the position that you are impotent and incapable of making sure that the money would have been spent properly. I on the other hand believe that if you could have seen through the confusing tactics put up by the no side and the propositon had passed, you all would have done a wonderful job monitoring the progress of this proposition and making sure that our state and our country would have gotten an amazing bang for the buck.
December 20th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Alessandro Machi,
You’re entitled to your opinion, and same as I and everyone else. That’s why we vote to determine what to do. Otherwise, a tyrant could have determined that for all of us, right?
But of course, the voting results say nothing about whether the results are “good” or “bad”. They are all relative, and also can vary in respect to the timeframe that you look at.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Sure “good” is a “relative” term. The underpinning of what “good” means to me is to not consume a resource (oil) that takes millions of years to make, in a scant few centuries.