Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, in a June 7 New York Times op-ed, says the erstwhile Steel City’s air quality “remains among the worst in the nation.”
It appears he’s relying on the latest assessment from the American Lung Association (ALA). In an April report, it labeled the Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton area as the 17th most-polluted region in the nation.
But the ALA report for years has been criticized by newspaper editorial boards and think tanks alike (including the Allegheny Institute) for its lack of scientific oomph.
To wit, 10 years ago last month, institute scholars Jake Haulk and Frank Gamrat concluded, in a lengthy op-ed in the Tribune-Review, that the ALA’s study that year failed “to tell the real and accurate story about air quality” in Greater Pittsburgh. It cited “an analytical approach devoid of rigor.”
Subsequent reports were so suspect that the Trib either declined to write stories about them or truncated them and buried them on inside pages.
Sound public policy should be based on clean facts, not polluted fictions.
In the same New York Times commentary, noting that the majority of electricity in the state of Pennsylvania still is generated from fossil fuels, the mayor says “Pittsburgh will be 100 percent powered by renewable energy by 2035,” 18 years hence. But it’s unclear exactly what that means.
Does it mean government buildings will be 100 percent powered by renewable energy? Or does it mean even private buildings and homes will be forced to use renewable energy?
And if it’s the latter, how practical and how cost-effective would that be? The current state of renewables suggests neither.
And how in the world could such a diktat be legally enforced?
President Trump again has used Pittsburgh as an example to make a larger point. It came during a June 5 visit to Cincinnati to discuss America’s infrastructure needs. The Ports of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are the busiest inland ports in the nation (based on 2014 statistics).
But his comments led to a modicum of head-scratching.
The president cited a backup of barges near Pittsburgh last December because of a damaged lock on the upper Ohio River. “We simply cannot tolerate a five-day shutdown of a major thoroughfare for American coal, American oil and American steel,” Trump said.
Indeed, we cannot. For the Port of Pittsburgh Region, which encompasses 12 Pennsylvania counties, is (based on 2014 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers data) the fourth busiest inland port in the nation and the 23rd busiest port of any kind in the nation.
But as the Post-Gazette reminded, the administration’s latest budget funds only one lock project in the new fiscal year – in Kentucky. Observers note, however, that the last administration also zeroed out funding for local locks and dam upgrades but that funding still materialized.
Barge owners pay a premium – a tax on diesel fuel – to cover the cost of locks vital to American commerce. It’s past time they received a better and more consistent return on their investment.
An early draft of a new study on “The Hidden Costs of Stadium Subsidies” yet again concludes that public underwriting of sports stadiums is a bad deal for not only taxpayers but for the economy.
From the conclusion to the study by researchers at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center:
“In spite of the accelerating trend in stadium subsidies, and the support offered for them by private consultants, city officials, and sports fans, the body of academic literature consistently finds they have little or no economic impact.
“Nor do stadium subsidies pay for themselves via increased tax revenues. … We cannot find a situation wherein it makes sense for a community to subsidize professional sports because of the many better options that those same public funds could be used for.”
Sadly, it’s a lesson too few in public leadership positions have any interest in learning.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
