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.
Freedom Riders 