A new article posted at Civitas discusses a House bill that could lower your local phone bill.A sample: A bill recently introduced in the North Carolina House would help ease the financial strains being felt in households across the state by making more affordable phone service options available. House Bill 1180 would enable local phone [...]
- Apr04
Charlotte Observer’s Water Heads
Here’s the Charlotte Observer on their water woes (since dried up): First things first. It’s encouraging news that drought conditions have improved enough in the Catawba River Valley for an advisory group to OK limited lawn irrigation. Presumably, that decision reflected hard and fast data, not pressure by landscapers or a desire to refill depleted [...]
- Mar31
Getting Government out of Water
Great piece by a former EPA administrator on why the government shouldn’t be in the water business and businesses should.-Max Borders
- Mar13
Climate Change? Ah, Water Markets
Read Jonathan Adler’s paper on water marketing as an adaptive tool for changes in climates like, oh, I don’t know, droughts?-Max Borders
- Mar10
Common Sense Rains on Raleigh
After weathering restrictions, radical conservation proposals and other nonsense, Raleigh adopts a sensible water policy. Not perfect, but it’ll probably work: The Raleigh City Council has now agreed to a tiered-rate water-pricing structure, in which those who used more than the normal amount of water for an individual, family or business would pay more. It’s [...]
- Feb04
Dome: Dry Idea Number 5?
Maybe I missed Dome’s post on how water pricing will help cure us of overconsumption. But interestingly, while Ryan Teague Beckwith touts Seattle as a city of H2O transparency (no pun), as far as I know he’s failed to mention that Seattle, among a number of more arid cities in the arid Western U.S., uses [...]
- Feb04
Cess Pool of Ideas
Town planners are central planners. The ideas just keep getting stupider (and more intrusive).-Max Borders
- 2Feb01
Dear Water Nazis and “Conservationists”…
…I’d like for "officials" and the editorialists over at the N&O to think back, back, back to a time when you were in highschool and they made you take economics. It was probably 11th grade or so. Now, remember those supply and demand curves? I know. You’re writers. Not economists. But just try to remember. [...]
- Dec03
Tiered Water Rates in Raleigh? Hallelujah
Sometimes you holler till you’re blue in the face. Then, every once in a while, someone listens. OK, so it’s not a "unique idea." (HT: Hayes) But: According to UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Government, rate structures are used to encourage conservation in about one in five water systems in the state — including two in [...]