A Primer on The Civil Rights Act of 1991

Along with the passage of the ADA, another piece of legislation passed about the same time (The Civil Rights Act of 1991) guarantees PWDs the same Constitutional protections as minorities – specifically that they are worth the full “value” of a white man.

The Act was originally passed in the Reconstruction Era and until 1991 only applied to minorities. Ever afterwards, it also applied to the PWD community, even though legal challenges if not a broad understanding of the statute remains oblique and largely untested.

What the statute also essentially does is address not only the “contractual worth” of PWDs, it also ostensibly creates economic “rights” or an economic “floor” for PWDs. This means that, for example, a PWD may not be hired at less than the minimum wage (for example).

What it also does, however, is create mandates for the government where goods and services vital to maintaining that “contractual” worth are provided to this community.

Starting with, of course, healthcare.

While a great many of the failings of the ADA remain to be addressed thanks to aggressive federal push back in the courts (for example), one of the most instructive things to come out of the last twenty years of litigation under the Act was attempts to “define” a covered disability.

The ADA Restoration Act will address many of these issues, we hope, but taking from that line of reasoning, we contend that in fact, since so many people with disabilities require medication to manage their disabilities so as to not meet the federal standards of being “disabled” that this is actually a very interesting legal space right now. Specifically, using that logic, a person with a disability who can manage their disability with medication (starting with diabetes) is therefore guaranteed a certain “floor” of medical service. Without such service (including access to medication, regardless of the ability to pay), such a person very well may be “disabled.” With it, they will be a PWD, able to take their rightful place in society in every place the “able-bodied” now participate. As such, the state has a vested interest if not obligation (starting with a fiscal one if not a civil rights based one) to insure, if not is forced to require, unimpeded access for every PWD to state provided medication to preserve their “contractual value.”

We realize that for the non legal eagles reading this, this may all sound like complicated legal mumbo jumbo.

However in the middle of budget battles, from the federal to the state level, we think this is an important point to raise.

Particularly as we have a service provision model which not only addresses it but creates a very powerful “fix” that will reverberate both directly on the bottom line and in indirect costs that we anticipate will become increasingly obvious as we begin service provision.

A Brief Primer on the ADA (The Americans With Disabilities Act)

There are several laws that protect people with disabilities (PWDs) that are not widely understood.

The ADA is perhaps the most widely cited. This is the landmark civil rights bill passed in 1990.

Today’s blog will discuss the basic premise of the ADA and provide a very (brief) description of its major tenets.

The statute was essentially designed to be “Title VII for PWDs.” Unlike Title VII, the law does not however just cover discriminatory attitudes as they occur between two individuals – the law targets other things too – like infrastructural barriers. Unlike Title VII however, PWDs under the ADA do not get any kind of affirmative action protection.

Despite its relative weakness in comparison with Title VII, however, the ADA goes much further than its immediate predecessor. Unlike The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the ADA also requires the states to comply with federal standards. In this, it very much takes its language from the broader civil rights movement protections. It also expands the coverage of its protection beyond government to the private sector. That said, this is the least successfully implemented or litigated civil rights law to date enacted. Twenty one years after the first President Bush signed it into law, the approximately 20% of the American population that has a disability remains largely marginalized. Most PWDs subsist in abject poverty on a government stipend called SSDI or SSI and “Medicaid.” According to both advocacy groups (such as Easter Seals) and indeed unofficial estimates from the Department of Labor, more than 90% of this population also remains unemployed due to no fault of their own. Because the law is both so poorly understood if not enforced, the overwhelming majority of ADA litigation never sees the light of day. Fewer than 1% of ADA cases are ever won in federal court.

In 2008, President George W. Bush signed The ADA Restoration Act, a bill designed to restore much of the protections of the original bill after almost twenty years of litigation and decisions by the courts that rendered the protections supposedly offered by the Act almost impossible to litigate if not null and void when it came to employment. Chief among those issues was the federal definition of what a disability was – which had become so narrow that it didn’t cover the population it was designed to protect.

We think that the combination of the ADA Restoration Act and two huge populations of people with potentially new disabilities will begin to change that. The first population is of course vets from both Iraq and Afghanistan. The second of course are Boomers, who are starting to show signs of age-related disabilities. Combined with the twin forces of a larger demographic (along with planned budget cuts to “Medicare”) we believe that this statute may finally come into its own. What is being left out of the conversation in Washington these days is that there are civil rights implications (both under Title VII and even more specifically under the ADA) that prohibit certain services from being eliminated. This is why we believe that our service provides a much needed solution to many of these problems – and for both stake-holders and the government. Medical services (for one) can not just not be eliminated in the face of budget cuts, they are required under civil rights protections as part of the “contractual” right of being a citizen per the Constitution. Therefore, the task ahead for those like us is to figure out ways to make such service provision the most efficient and cheapest it can be while still providing a required floor of service. We intend to set our standards, for one, very high. The same, in fact, as we provide for the “able-bodied” we also plan to serve.

This is the real idea behind the ADA, which we intend to uphold if not set new benchmarks for in terms of not just cost and efficiency, but service provision and civil rights protection.

There are three basic parts to the ADA. These are described below.

Title I refers to employment. Specifically it prohibits discrimination in all aspects of retention, working or indeed termination. It also covers an issue which is rarely understood much less well implemented in most workplaces – specifically “reasonable accommodations.” Reasonable accommodations refer to the required steps that an employer must, by federal law, implement for an employee with a disability if they do not pose “an undue business burden.” Most accommodations are cheap to implement (costing less than $100). We think that the “greening” of both transport and real estate will actually create huge opportunities for many people (starting with small business) to actually start to be able to implement a much more structurally compliant world. The public sector, which remains the largest employer for PWDs, still only has less than 100,000 employees with disabilities at the federal level. Or to put this another way, about 1% of the federal workforce has a disability. According to statistics, most federally employed PWDs toil at jobs two pay grades below their able-bodied peers.

We intend to give PWDs first hiring preference. We also intend to be the first company to be owned and operated, if not largely staffed by PWDs to ever go public. We think we are the only private sector company in America of this mindset today.

Title III of the ADA refers to access to public space. This is where most of the most contentious ADA litigation has to date been successfully litigated, particularly in states like Florida and California. This is the part of the law that brought us “curb-cuts” (slanted access to sidewalks) as well as wheelchair accessible public transportation (for example).

Section 508 is another interesting section of the statute that will also become far more relevant to most people – specifically that all websites must create access. Online programming and websites can be made “accessible” usually with the addition of tags to programming text. This insures that people who are visually impaired (for example) will be able to use software programs to browse through sites. It also refers to things like subtitling of video – including online video – obviously an area of the world where there is limited closed captioning.

While this would seem to be ostensibly the easiest place to implement such measures, unfortunately cyberspace remains as largely inaccessible as the rest of the world. The UN concluded in a 2008 global study that less than 4% of websites were compliant with the U.N.’s version of the law. There is not a single smartphone that is technically ADA compliant although the software on them could make traveling through cyberspace much easier for many people. To test how “compliant” the major IT players are these days, imagine being blind and trying to figure out Twitter. Neither Facebook or Google are compliant either (and there are other issues and laws that these two IT giants also routinely violate). To see how well “closed captioning” actually works on You Tube (or doesn’t) click on the red “CC” button at the bottom of your favorite video.

The most significant development in this arena happened in the middle part of the last decade with a landmark, national class action suit against the retailer Target, which firmly applied this rule to private sector websites (in the past it had only been applied to government sites). There have been some other interesting cases where technology and telco (telephones) have also been the subject of successful settlements if not litigation, which include a class action settlement brought by the National Association of the Deaf against a major international Wall Street bank to allow the deaf to trade via phone (the company did not provide any accessible technology on its end.)

Perhaps the most powerful section of the ADA, however, is Title II, a still little-understood measure of the law.

Unlike the Rehab Act, and like Title VII, the ADA also applies to state governments. This means that, for example, a state is allowed to create “separate” facilities to serve people with disabilities, but they cannot be demonstrably “unequal.”

And this is where we expect to start a debate about both the state of the disability community and the services that so many of them are forced to rely on.

There is no question that Medicaid/Disability needs reform. Starting with service delivery. We argue that transportation is also a huge area where this reform should happen, and not just with the use of “green ADA compliant” taxis. That’s just the starting point.

Since most people on “Medicaid” are in fact people with disabilities (on Disability Benefits), this of course profoundly if not disproportionately affects PWDs.

We believe that the ADA if not other associated legislation (the Civil Rights Act of 1991) requires the kinds of changes we have in mind.

What those are we will gradually elaborate on in future blogs.

The ADA is actually a very simple law. It requires that PWDs have the same access to life as the majority of the population.

We hope, not only in our service provision model but also in the car we use (the first ADA compliant taxi ever factory assembled) to continue to open doors for this community, as much as intend to provide top-quality “green” travel for the “able-bodied.”

The Costs of Conversion

While there are many reasons, we believe, to switch to “alt” fuel of all kinds, H.R. 1380 now pending in the House of Representatives would create a massive incentive for the “alt” industry if not our economy in ways that have yet to be publicly dissected. We assume that much of this discussion will come up in hearings, but we thought we would take the first stab at some of the economics behind the bill.

While in theory, just the rebates and incentives sound large, we thought we would put this into an actual bottom line analysis that will, we think, show how significant this bill really is not to mention the bottom line benefit for the middle class. We are not always a fan of tax breaks and subsidies, and right now think, of all times in American history, it is a patriotic duty to sign up for a revised tax code if not a more equitable system of “taxation.” H.R.1380 does that in a very interesting way. Remember that government subsidies of the oil business do not flow to consumer’s pockets, but to date have created a situation where they drain them. In a period of massive global speculation on petroleum, even price subsidies cannot adequately protect the consumer. Therefore, these subsidies, we would argue are a waste of money. Right now, the petroleum industry gets a whopping annual $4 Billion federal subsidy.

The one thing we don’t see in this bill is regulation and any sort of environmental analysis. There is a cost to the environment for natural gas extraction that also affects us all as well as the continued reliance on a fossil fuel. While CNG is dramatically lower in carbon pollution than petroleum, it is not an entirely carbon free source of fuel. We hope that these are the kinds of debates that come up during hearings. We for one want to see the country begin to address the mistakes of the past (specifically what we think are far too loose regulations if not financial support of the petroleum oil business). That said, this is our standard take on any kind of energy business. As we have noted here before and probably will do so again, even wind and solar farms have serious environmental impacts if not correctly installed, or as California (in particular) are installed in environmentally fragile areas (starting with deserts).

We will, no doubt discuss all of these issues in future blogs, but as a company that also has a focus on health and managing disabilities, we can never walk away from the fact that our energy has a price and that policy must address that.

This said, H.R. 1380 poses significant possibilities for creating a “space” for government (for one) to do that. Starting with finding ways to both cut the budget and strengthen consumer protection.

In this vein, we thought we would include a few facts and figures here to demonstrate what a potential boost this bill will give to the average business or even consumer (and not just at the pump).

H.R.1380 gives large incentives both for the fuel and for conversions (not to mention brand new car sales). While we of course intend to buy new cars (the MV-1 comes with a factory installed option to go CNG) we also know that not everyone is in our position. The idea of buying a whole new fleet to replace an existing one asap just to convert to CNG is probably not an option for most, not to mention the average consumer just running out and buying a new vehicle in the current state of the economy. And that’s where the conversion numbers start to make a lot of sense.

But where, do many ask, do you get the money to convert these vehicles? The typical conversion of a NGV (natural gas powered vehicle) runs between $12,000-$20,000. At the high end, in fact, as much as buying a new car. However when dissected and put into another context, this giveback is extremely significant when you figure in the added savings on fuel.

For simplicity’s sake, we have taken the average fuel cost of a taxi, which uses about 5,000 gallons of fuel a year. In a world of $4.00/gallon petroleum and approximately $1.50/gallon for CNG (also taking into consideration the $0.50 at the pump federal tax incentive for CNG fuel included in the bill) and the numbers not only add up, they begin to create imperatives rather than just “incentives.”

For example, in this world, the average cost to a taxi operator per year for petroleum in this model is now about $20,000. Per vehicle. Yup. Pretty shocking, right? The same taxi driven on CNG would only cost $7,500 per year to fuel.

This creates an immediate, year 1 incentive to convert. If the average cost of conversion runs $12,000-$20,000 per car (minus the bill’s proposed floor of $7,500 per conversion) this means that potentially a converted vehicle driver could see cost savings even in the first year. Even at the high end for conversion, a driver in this scenario could save up to $1,000 their FIRST YEAR after conversion. Every year thereafter, they would save an extra $13,500.

Our one thought here is that the government should probably also create some kind of financing option, allowing the cash-strapped to convert (for one) or some other way to insure that people have the opportunity to take advantage of “tax breaks” even if they can’t front the dinero. This is a very, very important part of the equation and insures that those this bill could help the most get a chance to benefit. Particularly now.

We also note that this provision will create another impact on the economy – the increase in “clean” conversion shops and green mechanics. Those are jobs that will impact every community who takes the CNG plunge.

We welcome the day, and applaud these provisions. For a cash-strapped America right now, this is the kind of tax break we can support. It will also pay government back in dividends. Every single government fleet, from cars to buses to trash trucks, costs the consumer the same kind of premium.

Taking the “gas” out of government is just as important as draining it from the private sector. If nothing else, it will reduce the cost of government itself in some rather dramatic ways.

We don’t think there will be many on Capital Hill who can argue with that equation, even if passage of the bill will do absolutely nothing to “convert” other kinds of “gas” which always seems to float out across the country from Washington D.C.

The Petroleum Market Watch Equation

It is a truism that understanding the basic elements to any subject is the key to understanding it. We decided to do a brief primer in today’s blog about the math behind our “inevitability calculations” of the increased speed now at which the country will convert to “alt” (whether CNG or not). Since we have done the calculations with CNG however, we will stick with that for today’s blog.

The first standard to set is to rethink your energy calculations in “scientific geek speak.” In that world, a gallon of petroleum equals 124,000 BTUs (or British Thermal Units) of energy.

The cost, in other words of 124,000 petroleum-fueled BTUs is now hovering around, well, let’s just bite the bullet for the sake of a few week’s relativity, $4.00. We know what we are about to tell you is shocking so in the interests of apples-to-apples comparisons, remember that this is “retail” price. The next one is “wholesale” price, which is usually about ½ to 1/3 of what consumers pay at point of purchase. It’s a bit harder (for us at least) to give readers a better benchmark for petroleum but let’s just assume for appreciably equal comparisons, we are actually talking about $1.00 a gallon “wholesale” petroleum costs.

Now, to this end, consider an entry in a recent MarketWatch report that came out a day after the Natural Gas Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives last week (H.R. 1380).

That story, which appeared on April 7, 2011, discussed that the price for natural gas fell $0.07 for supplies to be delivered in May to a number that should sound quite familiar to most motorists these days of $4.07. Of this year we hasten to add. We also must note here that this price decrease for natural gas (amidst a month of a $0.25 cent retail price at the pump at least – increase per (approximately) $1.00+ a-gallon of petroleum or 124K of petroleum BTUs) is for a whopping 1 million BTUs of natural gas powered energy.

To think of it this way, there are approximately 8 “gallons” of petroleum-fueled energy in a million gas powered BTUs. Now, if you compared the approximate price of “BTUs” fueled by different kinds of energy, the price of a BTU fueled by natural gas is approximately half that of petroleum.

And that is where the first real analysis should, we think be made. It is for that reason we hope that our cars at least open the doors to new innovation in the continued alteration of the combustion engine to another “hybrid dot one” version if not a whole other “dot oh” upgrade.

We do want to note with some humor that apparently the market had bet against natural gas, specifically that there was a smaller than expected decline in weekly supplies. We note this merely because we know the market, along with apparently many policymakers, does not understand what the every-person at the pump does.

As the perfect segue to end today’s blog, we were out for our morning dog walk this morning and happened upon a neighbor fixing his car. It turns out he is an employee at one of the largest cab companies in Charlotte. He does not look or sound like he was born in this country, in one of the long, proud, traditions of many immigrants to establish a (legal) foothold on these shores by working as a taxi driver (in many cities across this country). When we told him what we are doing, he looked at us for a minute, translating semi-unfamiliar words.

“Green taxis?” he said. “No gas?” We didn’t have the heart to say, well, sort of, but the point, we think should speak volumes.

He gave us the thumbs up at our affirmative, and may in fact be one of our earliest “poach” hires to the extent that we do much of that (and we don’t intend to do much). However having someone in the neighborhood who can walk to work and is enthusiastic about the core premise of our company in any language is something that is clean, green music to our ears.

Green Tipping Points

There is an inevitability to the direction we are headed, even if for example “we” as Freedom Riders do not succeed in our current venture. The realities if not greenbacks of “real-politik” if not directly in consumer’s (and government’s) wallets are dictating the lockstep of our strategic guidance.

This is no-where more true right now than in the “green” action that is going on in Washington D.C. at the moment, ostensibly even with cutbacks at such agencies as the EPA. In another classic “behind the scenes,” not to mention “I’m not an insider but I play the game” hall and vote jockeying move by Obama, there are some political realities lining up that are decidedly bipartisan and seem to meet everybody’s goals at the moment. This starts with all the careful posturing of the President yesterday about the cuts he has “allowed” in the budget to date along with the “invest in the future” rhetoric. It also happened about a week ago with far less drama on the (mostly) Republican side of the House with the introduction of H.R. 1380, the so-called “Natural Gas Act.” We will examine that piece of nascent legislation in another post no doubt. The White House has already praised the vehicle we plan to use (the MV-1) in a press statement we link to elsewhere on this site. It boggles the mind in the spider-web sensitivity of the White House to the Hill, particularly in this administration, that this legislation didn’t at least make a mention at some White House briefing in the last week. Nor, we surmise, was it entirely unrelated to Obama’s subsequent remarks and actions on the federal budget negotiations.

On the local level, we see these federal developments as a boon (not the one in Watauga County) for North Carolina and even more specifically Charlotte. The region is staggering right now under a very high 11% unemployment rate (the fourth highest of any city in the country), that will prove to be stubborn to combat unless some kind of investment and retraining of a large segment of the population occurs quickly. It will also be inevitably helped by creating opportunities for this cash-strapped (and very petroleum dependent) region to cut their transportation energy costs dramatically. Charlotte is also, for those without the regional knowledge, one of the major North-South transportation hubs for long-haul truckers on the East Coast. This legislation and Charlotte’s early mover advantage in converting to CNG city-wide, could directly (and positively) impact the price of many different commodities (starting with food) on a regional (as in East Coast) basis if not nationally.

If there was ever a “ground zero” for the “green tipping point” to make an (excuse the mixed metaphors) economic “atomic blast” the size of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki domestically with the least amount of other kinds of investment (both public and private), we believe that Charlotte would be it.

We continue to push forwards on all fronts to help make our company one of the ones that is in the forefront of the coming “green” revolution that we hope begins to bloom right along with the azaleas this year.

Pain At The Pump

As MS-NBC reported yesterday, the average price of gasoline has risen to almost $3.75 a gallon nationwide, hitting a new high in San Francisco (of anywhere between $4.25 and $4.50). In North Carolina, the prices are about the national average, but it is obvious to all and sundry that (at least) a $0.25 cent per gallon increase (in a month no less) is not the direction we need to go to keep the fragile economic recovery going.

It’s also something which is going to cause an existential crises at most government agencies, particularly those which have line items for petroleum expenditure that is required under federal civil rights law. We understand the impetus to “suck it up and take the bus,” but the reality is that for many people that just isn’t possible. Starting, by the way, with everyone who lives in a rural community and going all the way to the state’s busiest cities (Charlotte and Raleigh).

We don’t mean to brag, but we think we have the silver bullet to put the ever-lurking zombies and werewolves of rising gas prices firmly back where they belong. We are hard pressed in fact, to figure out how government services (at least) can resist the siren song of instant and easy savings without any additional service model adaptations (although ours is highly efficient in that regard too).

We take a moment here to pause in reflection about how much things have really changed in America over the last decade. Despite all the bad news that seems to still surround us about the economy if not energy independently, the reality is when both are looked at together, we see silver, if not green linings to all those dark, seemingly everpresent clouds.

We encourage visitors to our site to take a look around at some of our “wonkier” offerings, including of course our tabs on “Green Business Math.” We actually hope that what we are doing is going to provide a cheaper alternative in transportation if not efficiencies of scale in other areas of non-negotiable transportation and energy expenditure costs. That goes for both the public and private sectors.

Tune in on a regular basis to find out what our plans might be as we continue to build up to company launch.

As a final note, we were tempted yesterday to update our price of petroleum as we have denoted it on a tab herein, but we then paused and thought perhaps we should just leave it there to establish a benchmark (if not to allow people to realize yet again what sticker shock at the gas pump means for the long term). This is not your parent’s (1970’s) petroleum shortage. This one is here for good. Perhaps it’s a tad gauche and may seem like gloating for us to constantly bring this up but that is not the intent. The real motive here is to finally wean America off it’s petroleum dependence. We think we have a few (but by far from all) of the answers in helping us get there or at least in beginning to take some of the earliest, easiest baby steps.

Downwind, Downstream, Downplanet From Tokyo

It is impossible as an eco-company, or even a fledgling eco-company to be, to not take lessons from Japan at the moment. Not the least of which is that at the time of Chernobyl’s implosion, Japan’s economy was the global power that gave American business leaders and policy makers the willies.

The effect of a major energy collapse, particularly when the literal “fallout” is so deadly, is a discussion that was largely avoided (at least in the mainstream) in the case of Chernobyl because of the faltering Russian economy which surrounded the event and the relative secrecy which the Russians were able to maintain.

While today Japan has already slipped behind China as the U.S.’ main economic rival, the country’s economy could never be dismissed as a “communist failure.” Ditto for the safety factors that supposedly went into “preventing” such a catastrophe. One doesn’t have to be (the formerly Communist) Chinese to see the benefit of investing in “alt” if not “green” energy of all sorts. With sea, air, water and food sources (starting with fish the staple of Japanese protein) now all contaminated, it is obvious that discussions about nuclear power that have never been had before (or maybe were had once but were conveniently “forgotten”) are starting to happen for the safety of everyone.

It also may not be popular, politically or otherwise to also mention the effect of a direct strike of another “Tsunami” that directly affected U.S. energy production (and prices) if not the environment not too long ago, but the truth always sets one free. The effects of both the energy-related and economy-related “Katrina” have been washing up on the figurative shores of the U.S. economy far north of New Orleans ever since. It is also worth noting that almost a year ago exactly last spring the U.S. felt the twin shocks of another economic, oil-related disaster, this time in the Gulf. It is too early yet to really understand the damage, but if it’s worse than the Valdez accident (which happened shortly before Chernobyl in the dim reaches of the 1980’s) this means that whole communities will be destroyed forever.

We don’t advise investing in any Tokyo real estate right now nor counting on a retirement account augmented by the BP Trust Fund. The Supreme Court (with its oil-stock owning members) has already ruled that its okay for an energy company to create a holocaust and escape relatively economically unscathed.

As a company, we are here to provide (we hope) some solutions to the pressing effects of an energy crunch the likes of which the “modern” if not “industrialized” world has never seen before. We will always be a Lilluputian player in a world stalked by Gullivers, nevertheless we believe there is finally a business case for a company like ours to succeed.

We had another couple of very good days over the last few “business” days, but there is nothing that can be reported with authority as a definite “development.” That said, we are continuing to bubble on slow boil and are pleased with the continued progress to date on all fronts.

Onward greenly…

The “Greening” of Medicaid

It’s no accident that the real targets of “Republican” attempts to cut the federal budget focused on the environment (EPA) and of course “entitlements” (which always includes government-funded health insurance of some sort).  These are both complicated issues which of course our company is designed to address.  That said, we aim to tackle the problem as a private sector, bottom-line and profit-focused business.  As such of course we straddle a lot of divides, starting with “partisan identification.”

We aim to avoid that.  To create our business case, we have assumed that just about everyone needs clean air to breath, clean water to drink and well, when you get sick, you need care.

That doesn’t mean that you can always throw money at the problem, which is why we are attempting to be so bi-partisan.  The reality is that our first service model aims to actually increase and improve service while reducing the annual expenditure by the federal and state government of North Carolina by about $300 Million a year.  At present, the state only picks up about 1/3rd of the cost of Medicaid/Medicare in-state, so we are pretty confident that no matter what impact we have, the Feds, logically, will be twice as enthused as the neighbors.  We think also it’s hard to argue with our motives, no matter where on the political spectrum you place yourself.

The fact is that Medicaid, like most government services (and let’s face it, the private sector) is shot through with the costs of petroleum that until recently were all but invisible to both policymakers and advocates alike because of the drum-beat of pro-petroleum forces.  With the cost of petroleum now over $100 a barrel (again), and of course alternatives like ours readily available, there is no getting around this 600lb guerrilla in the living room.

As we were recently tasked to do, our first guidepost is to remove about 240,000,000 BTUs of petroleum-based energy (annually) from Medicaid (in Department of Energy lingo).   That’s only from our Charlotte HQ, FYI, at the smallest number of taxis we plan to operate.  The demand is so great that we could easily save far more than that.  Our first service model is so efficient, in fact, that it will also drastically reduce the amount of energy it takes (from a strictly scientific perspective) for the government to help Medicaid patients get their meds refilled (a requirement under both the ADA and Title VII).   As much wind that blows from Washington on the “people’s mandate” to cut the budget, when it comes to some government services (such as Medicaid) there is no getting around the reality that civil rights cost money.  That’s something that is always left out of these discussions.  It can’t be anymore.  It creates a “floor” of service provision that the federal government is required to meet per the Constitution.  The states must also follow under some “tricky” legal quirks, known broadly as “Title II.”

We know that this is an awfully academic subject filled with tiring legal mumbo jumbo, so in the interests of brevity, we are used to just saying “it’s required.”  Unlike say strict “treehuggers” however, we have the luxury of pointing to a document that can’t be dissed (too much), although it appears these days that everyone and their little sister is a Constitutional scholar (no matter how much some people also seem to think that other historical dates enshrined in paperwork, such as the 14th Amendment, happened at the time of George and Tom.)

We do advocate the recycling of paper and other appropriate items, but we are rather partial to the Constitution and think it shouldn’t be shredded for inclusion in the local landfill.  For that reason, we are taking the stance that we are.  We think ultimately, it will be seen as no more inciteful of anything other than a very comfortable and healthy if not “green” bottom line.

“Alt” Fuel & Energy Conservation Here to Stay

Those of us old enough to remember ill-fated early “green” sprouts and initiatives at the national policy level (such as solar panels installed and then torn down from the White House) are probably doing a very green jig this spring as much as we wince at certain throwbacks.

We’ll skip out on the controversy here by summarizing we are just glad nobody is considering any off-shore drilling in the immediate vicinity (or just as bad, upstream).  Those who are snarking at our supposed faulty sense of nautical proximity should brush off their Civil War history books (Charlotte served as the Confederate Navy Yard).  As the founder has North Carolina roots that go back to the Revolutionary War not to mention had a great-great die as a Johnny Reb with his boots on, this situation is not one that can be commented on except to remember who lost that fracus and wonder if such logic and similar strategic derring do had anything to do with it.

The reality is in a post-Tolkyo world, everyone lives downstream (or downwind) from the “oops” of somebody else’s energy source.

We here at Freedom Riders are focusing our attention on the pillars of sustainability.  The reality is that cars pollute as much as houses (and often for the same kinds of reasons).  We aim to take shot at both of those, as much as we are ostensibly a “green transport” company.

What those plans are we hope should keep you on your toes as much as it should (we hope) make you breath a little easier.  In the short term, it is gratifying to know that we are certainly on the right side of history as recent events rather clearly validate.

The President has also embarked on a mission to help shield Americans from the rising cost of petroleum.  We would like to sign up now as a small but energetic helper in that fight, as much as we encourage him to set higher goals and benchmarks.