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As Congress continues to debate a federal climate policy, cities and counties throughout the United States have already begun to implement energy efficiency standards and policies to help reduce emissions. During today's E&ETV Event Coverage of the USEA's 19th Annual Energy Efficiency Forum, Trenton, New Jersey Mayor Douglas Palmer, Seattle, Washington Mayor Greg Nickels, and York, Pennsylvania Mayor John Brenner, explain what their cities have done to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. The panelists give their take on why there is such a disparity between federal and local action and also discuss the issues that may arise once a federal climate bill is passed and there are a patchwork of regulations throughout the country. The panel is moderated by E&ETV host Monica Trauzzi.
Dave Meyers: Thank you and welcome back. As we've heard this morning, Congress has had a great deal of work to do to develop a national climate change strategy. There's lots of great ideas and figuring out how to do it most effectively is going to be a key topic debated for the next several years. The good news is that work is already being done in cities and counties and different locations throughout the country. And that's what our panel today is here to discuss. While the media and television in particular is often criticized for not covering energy issues until they reach crisis level, our moderator focuses almost solely on those topics. Monica Trauzzi is the editorial director and host of E&ETV, an online source for the news that's not often available anywhere else. Her background is with CNN and Italian television. Since 2005 she has conducted hundreds of interviews with policymakers, experts, industry leaders, and academics in the energy and environment field. Please welcome Monica Trauzzi.
Monica Trauzzi: Thank you, Dave. Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill was famous for coining the phrase, "All politics is local." And many believe that's especially true when it comes to energy and environment policy. In the United States the National Governors Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National Association of Counties all have vigorous programs encouraging green government and the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives expands its reach to cities around the world. With us today are mayors from three cities who have seen the need for local leadership when it comes to reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. For the next half hour or so we are going to discuss current strategies, barriers to implementation, and the impact on their communities. Along the way I'm going to ask questions, but we're also going to open it up to the audience for your questions. Your programs have more detailed bios, so I'm going to begin with some brief introductions of our mayors. First, I'm pleased to welcome Mayor Douglas Palmer of Trenton, New Jersey, population 84,000. Mayor Palmer serves on the Energy Efficiency Forum Executive Council and was extremely helpful in reaching out to the other mayors to participate. Mayor Palmer is the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Next we have Mayor Greg Nickels from Seattle, Washington with about 3.9 million people in the metro area. Mayor Nichols is the chair at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Advisory Board. He also is the author of the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Under the agreement, participating cities commit to strive to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities. As of this week some 850 mayors representing a total population of over almost 80 million citizens have signed on. And John Brenner is the mayor of York, Pennsylvania, with a population of 41,000. He has signed the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and is undergoing a massive campaign to reduce energy in city buildings to help meet the agreement's goals. So with that, I'd like to start off by having the mayor's highlight the most important and influential ways their individual cities have committed to energy efficiency and emissions reduction. And I know that you're all very passionate about the topic, so if we could keep it short and maybe just highlight the top three things that your cities have done, that would be perfect. Mayor Palmer, why don't we start with you?
Douglas Palmer: I'll set the stage. I'll be brief because Greg Nickels, who's the Godfather of our movement here, could talk forever. It's great to be, he is! He's the Godfather of the Climate Protection Agreement. What we're doing in the city of Trenton and, of course, mayors, we can't afford to wait for the federal government. We had to act. Mayor Nickels is one of many mayors that have acted and we're continuing to act because it is our cities. One of the things that I'm doing in Trenton is I created the Trenton Green Initiative and it's a task force made up of the governor, of course; our county executive; Public Service Electric and Gas, which is a major supplier of energy in our region; the Department of environmental protection workforce development; and some community-based organization called Isles. And we've created a partnership and we're working on how we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how we can change behavior, which is the most important and probably one of the most challenging things to do. And also to come up with ways in which we can provide green collar, not just jobs, but green collar careers as we try to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. And so we're working on that. We're coming up with, I love this term now, we're coming up with our green print and we will be putting that forward in our areas, whether it's planting trees, whether it's in energy-efficient buildings, whether it's changing our traffic signals, whether it's creating career paths. So that's one of the major initiatives that we're working on in the city of Trenton. Following Mayor Nickels lead of course.
Monica Trauzzi: Mayor Nickels?
Gregory Nickels: Well, the challenge as we see it is really a fundamental change in culture from a culture of conspicuous consumption to a culture of conspicuous conservation. And so we've taken three steps in that direction and those are the three things I'll highlight. One is the city decided to lead by example and so we cut our corporate emissions by 60 percent from 1990 levels to show that we could do that and we could continue to deliver the fundamental services that we're charged with. Second, we engaged the political and civic and business leadership in our community to draw up a plan for how we would meet or exceed the reductions called for in Kyoto. And they presented that to me a couple of years ago. And then third, we're engaging the entire community in the effort to reduce our emissions. So that individuals who often would look at a global challenge and say, "What in the world can I do?" have very specific things that they can do in their homes, their businesses, and their neighborhoods in order to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce our impact on global warming.
Monica Trauzzi: Mayor Brenner?
John Brenner: Thank you. As the shortest and youngest mayor I'm just honored to be up here with my colleagues. Those of you who have been through York and remember the old York International company, if you haven't been to York, Pennsylvania lately, I cordially invites you to come and see what we're up to. Regarding energy efficiency of course, our big number one initiative that we're doing right now is with the help of Johnson Controls. And we're saving over $2 million, projected over a 15-year period, to update a number of our older city buildings and, of course, to improve efficiency in one of our newest builds, which is the highest energy user, a $7 million dual-pad ice arena. And I know many of you know something about cooling and certainly know about this new product called Ice Max to help raise the temperature on the ice and shut off those compressors once in awhile to help save money in our facility. So, Johnson Controls has been instrumental in that major initiative to help us move forward. We've also had some small successes. We started off with our Christmas tree on the square, which used to cost $700 for a 45-day period to light it up. And after we put the brand-new LED blue light bulbs on, Mayor Nickels, we're now costing seven dollars for our city taxpayers for the 45-day period. Now, that's the kind of thing that the average person can understand and then they can get involved and help do their own thing at home and at their business. Those are a couple of the specific examples we're working on right now.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, this next question is, again, for all three mayors. What's your take on the climate talks happening on the federal level right now? Please feel free to give me your opinions on the Lieberman-Warner debate last week. And how do you think the federal legislation could impact the things you're trying to do on the local level?
Douglas Palmer: Well, why don't you take part, I'll take part --
Gregory Nickels: OK.
John Brenner: I'll clean up.
Douglas Palmer: And the young guy here can clean up. The young whippersnapper here.
John Brenner: I just do what I can.
Gregory Nickels: Well, I think it's a disappointment that the debate actually didn't happen. The debate was over whether to have a debate and that's why mayors have decided not to wait for the federal government, but rather to step forward and lead by example. There's a great history in our country of grassroots movements that started locally and then that became safe for the politicians in our state capitals and then it became safe for the politicians in Washington, DC. So, this issue, I suspect, will wait until there's a new president and perhaps a new mix in Congress for the policy framework to really happen. But it's important that it happen. You know, we're a city that's been trying to do this for some time and, as was mentioned in the morning sessions, there's really no way to measure. There's no agreed-upon way to measure what our emissions are and what our reductions are. We figured out a model that we think is fair and works for us, but it's certainly not standard and we're going to need to come up with a federal system to be able to keep score, if you will, and send the right economic signal. So, it's important the federal government step up if only for that reason and it's important we not wait for them.
Douglas Palmer: Yeah, and I was very disappointed and the U.S. Council of Mayors were very disappointed about the inaction and, again, as mayors, we can't afford to sit around and wait for the federal government. And we also believe that you can be patriotic about more than just war and, certainly, reducing the dependence on foreign oil and reducing our energy consumption is something that we can all do as Americans. A little over a year ago the U.S. Council of Mayors put forth an initiative called an Energy Environment Block Grant, because we recognize that if you want to talk about reducing your carbon footprint and creating green collar jobs and doing the kinds of retrofitting in, first of all, our public buildings first, to lead by example, we're going to need help. We're going to need partnership with the federal government that can help supply some of the financial resources to help us go green. And so we put forth a very aggressive campaign with the help of John and certainly Greg and mayors all across the country. We lobbied Congress with the help of Senator Menendez and, of course, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reed and other leadership. We modeled an Energy Environment Block Grant, which will be $2 billion a year for five years that would go to cities, towns, and counties to help give us the resources based on like a CDBG community development block grant model, how to disperse those funds so that we can use those funds to help our cities go green. The president, in the energy bill, signed it, the Congress passed it, but they didn't appropriate any money. And so we're pushing very hard that it be appropriated. A city like Trenton would receive, based on our formula, a little over $400,000 a year for five years, so that's four times five is $2 million. Even in these inflationary times its $2 million and we will use that to help, whether it's to give grants or help us retrofit. Certainly a city the size of Greg's, I don't know Greg, do you remember how much money you were going to get?
Gregory Nickels: Seven million.
John Brenner: And you were going to share some of that with me.
Gregory Nickels: Yes, we were going to send much of it back to John.
Douglas Palmer: Because they've done most of the work, you guys have got to help me out a little bit here in Trenton. So that's what we feel the federal government can and should do and hopefully, after January, there will be a real spirit of moving this forward because it's in our country's best interest.
Monica Trauzzi: Mayor Brennan.
John Brenner: And just to piggyback on what President Palmer said on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, you all could be very helpful in helping to get that block grant funded properly. And timing, as we all know, in politics, and particularly in this town, is critically important. So, we believe timing is on our side. So, regardless of things that have happened recently, we think the timing is here and we all need to speak with one voice. We've got to get it done. Why are the mayors doing this stuff and some of our states are, some aren't, and the federal government is doing some things as we heard this morning? I think it's because, as mayors, we're on the front line. And when we go to the grocery store we can't go running and hiding in a public hearing some place or in a back room. Our constituents are right in front of us. They get their hands on us! They know how to call us. They know how to get ahold of us. And to be a good, effective mayor like the two gentlemen that are sitting here, you have to understand that and be in constant touch with your constituents. And our constituents, ladies and gentlemen, get it. The question is are we going to take advantage of that opportunity and, as a nation and as a collection of communities in this great country, are we going to help push that envelope now that the timing is right for it?
Douglas Palmer: You know, and just to follow up on that, this is a perfect storm. I know we've been holding the energy forum for like, what, I think 19 years. And in the beginning probably people are saying, "Oh, what are they talking about?" But now, we have the perfect storm, high energy prices, what's happening with our economy and the loss of jobs, and a change in what's going to be happening federally in terms of leadership. So now is the time. I mean we're talking about things that aren't as abstract anymore, about what we can really do with resources. And so this is a perfect storm, where all of us, whether you're educators in the school systems, whether you're in business, we can all work together and push what has to be done. And just to piggy, I'm not using that word piggyback, but what he said. Mayors, we can't hide and we have influence and that's why we have to lead by example, because I'll tell you a story. You know, I go to the supermarket. I don't know about you Greg, but I still go to the supermarket.
Gregory Nickels: Oh, yeah.
Douglas Palmer: I go to the supermarket and people look at what I buy. I mean I've got to be careful. You know, you can't eat that! I'm going in the checkout line, and I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't have hair, so I use these razor blades, certain razor blades. And a bald-headed guy behind me says, "Are those any good?" And I said, "Yeah, I like them." So he went back and bought the razor blades that I'd bought and so I figure, certainly, if we can influence what a guy puts on his head, we certainly can influence what goes in people's heads and this is one of the issues.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, so --
Gregory Nickels: And only Mayor Palmer could turn that into that analogy. And next he will announce a grant from Gillette for energy efficiency.
Monica Trauzzi: So, you're leading by example.
Douglas Palmer: Yeah.
Monica Trauzzi: That's clear, but are we going to have a real problem here when a federal law is enacted to cap emissions and we have sort of this patchwork of policies throughout the country? What are we going to do about that? Should we be waiting for the federal government to lead so we have one uniform policy throughout the country?
Gregory Nickels: Absolutely not. If we were to wait on this issue, and the next Congress adopts something in its first hundred days even, we would be so far behind the rest of the world. So, what we're trying to present are 850 different laboratories where we have been on the ground trying out different strategies and building upon that. So, the next president will come in, the Congress will adopt a federal system and we're actively lobbying for that and we have some ideas on what that should look like. But we will not be starting from ground zero and I think that's really important.
Monica Trauzzi: But cities might have to change their policies.
Gregory Nickels: Well, that's great, because Kyoto is 7 percent from 1990 levels. As everyone in this room knows, we need to go in order of magnitude beyond Kyoto. We can show that we can change the trend and we can pass it onto the next generation in better shape, but it's going to take another generation of leadership to take us that order of magnitude beyond it. So there's lots of work left to be done.
John Brenner: Just to echo that comment, the creativity, right now, at the local level is particularly important. We can do things at the local level with great public and private partners. And many of you are involved in those initiatives. I know there are many folks here from our universities. Carnegie Mellon has a crew here, Penn State University and even small York College of Pennsylvania. And you all can help to be that incubator as we get ready for this.
Douglas Palmer: Yeah, we've worked with President Clinton and signed a Clinton Climate Protection Agreement and we're looking at ways in which, because of what we're doing to get our own city buildings, we have to get our city buildings first equipped, in terms of energy efficiency so that we can then go after the private sector and even residents. And working with the Clinton initiative, we're going to look at ways in which we can flood the market and reduce the price of what we need to do to retrofit our buildings. And plus, with the U.S. Council of Mayors we have our energy climate protection center. And, as John said, we have over 850 or Greg said, little laboratories where we have best practices so that we can steal each other's ideas and put our face on them and name on them at home and say, "This is what we're going to do." But we're not going to wait. We can't wait, especially when you look at in our cities whether it's congestion because of traffic or whether it's buildings which create most of the carbon. It's not the cars. The buildings are going 24 hours a day, which is why I'm so glad that Johnson Controls helped, they're working with us too, John, by the way. They're not just in York, they're in Trenton too.
John Brenner: They're saving us more money.
Douglas Palmer: We'll see, OK, OK. See, it's friendly competition.
John Brenner: It's a healthy competition.
Douglas Palmer: But, you know, they're helping us too as it relates to creating jobs, because that's another issue that's critically important where you get segments of your community to buy in that may not buy in. I know I'm talking too much, but it's just like when we were in Seattle in November with our Climate Protection Summit. And we talked about the polar bears and ice caps and where are polar bears going to go? And you're there three days, like that's all you think about. Now, if I went back to Trenton, back to the hood and told people, you know, we've got to worry about the polar bears, and we've got to worry about climate change, they'd look at me like I was crazy and say, "Well, yeah, but we want our climate to change right here in these neighborhoods." So, what I did was some people get it, like they know about changing their light bulbs or reducing energy or walking more. But some people, especially in some of the lower income neighborhoods that aren't as involved because of a whole lot of issues, but they know about creating jobs and what can happen if you reduce your energy and how much money you'll have for prescriptions if you're a senior citizen or creating real jobs for their sons or daughters or just people in the community. So you have to utilize this issue on many fronts so that more and more people can understand what you're talking about. And that's also a part of what we're doing as mayors that go out in our own communities and speak to what they see and what they can understand and then have them take action.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, so there's this public acceptance issue. You want to get the public on board. What are some of the other barriers though that your cities have faced in implementing sustainable strategies? And I'm talking about in your buildings and then also in local businesses.
John Brenner: I'll be happy to take a shot at that. Obviously, even in a city the size of 40,000 people, every municipality has its own bureaucracy. And, of course, traditionally public works departments have been the places where a lot of these things get attention. And we've been lucky to have a creative public works director and a core group of people that understand the mission and are part of it. I think the other thing that's happening here is that a lot of our young people today are helping to drive this train. And a lot of folks, even younger than I am, are out there and they understand this issue and they want to be part of it. And they know it's their future and they know that we have this opportunity to act. So, a local bureaucracy can be a barrier. I think we can get over those. I think we can continue to have partnerships with the public and private sector. And, you know, we haven't talked a lot about the state level, but governors have been very creative. In Pennsylvania our Governor Ed Rendell has been very creative in helping us to create a greater atmosphere. And I think, as an example, you all do this great forum the past 19 years, right? Wouldn't it be something if we could do this at the state level in our state capitals and get our state bureaucracies and our local government leaders together with all of you and a whole host of other experts to really hit the ground in our states in a more effective way? And I think we could certainly partner with our state league of cities and our municipal leagues across the country to put together, I mean there are some, but to do it in 50 states, to really grab ahold of this opportunity and I'm sure the conference and the National League of Cities would be happy to partner with you on that.
Douglas Palmer: Yeah, one of the biggest problems, as in anything, is to change human behavior and what we're talking about is really changing human behavior where you start to walk more, where you start to plant more trees and where you start to turn your lights out. I mean I'm following my wife around the house when she leaves, because she leaves the lights on. It's driving me crazy! Not to mention my light bill. I got the CFLs, but if you're burning them all day, you know…but anyway, I don't want to digress. So anyway it's to change human behavior and you have to continue to do that and work with young people. I've got a task force of like third-graders now that are involved and we're going to have high schools, because young people are the ones that can help their parents, like we did with recycling, to change behavior. And another barrier also is funds. You need funds to be able to do some things. I'll give you an example. We got our carbon footprint and we're looking at low-hanging fruit. How can we juice this low hanging fruit? And one of the things, we had like 3000 traffic signals and they said, "You know, if you go to LED, like with the Christmas trees, we can save," they said, "Mayor, we could save $110,000 a year on out." Now, it costs about 250,000 to retrofit and we did get a grant from BPU, which is great, for about 50,000. But even if we have to spend that money, that investment, on our own, in a year and a half we will make that back and then you will continue to see those savings. So the more help we get from the federal government we can jumpstart and do those things even quicker.
Gregory Nickels: I think the biggest challenge is convincing people that what they do in their daily lives makes a difference. One of the reasons that I started the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement was I knew that I could stand up and say, "Seattle will reduce our emissions." But if it's only us, then it's purely symbolic and it's really hard to get people to change behavior for purely symbolic reasons. So with 850 cities and roughly the population of Germany represented in those cities, it isn't symbolic anymore and I can go out and I can say, "There are 849 cities watching what we do and if we don't walk our talk, they're not going to either." And that will make a huge difference. So, I proposed recently a $0.20 fee on all disposable bags, paper and plastic, at our grocery stores. And speaking of being at the grocery store, people are watching me when I go up at the head that line. I better have my reusable bag with me or the checkers will let everyone know about it.
John Brenner: Aisle seven!
Gregory Nickels: And in fact have. So, we've talked about that, that we, in just our city, dispose of 360 million of those bags a year. That's huge, 600 per person. We talked about disposable water bottles and I used a prop. We have great water. It's literally melting snow that we capture. Every 37 minutes we fill up a container 10 feet x 20 feet by 6 feet of disposable bottles. That's how many are going into our garbage stream and we're a pretty good city about recycling. So, it's the little things that you can do in convincing people if they take that action it leads to bigger action. And once you get past that, I think, that our culture will have changed.
John Brenner: Tell them how good you changed the culture with your conserving water with the showers and the great marketing tool.
Gregory Nickels: Yeah, we've given out some 300,000 shower heads. Now, the past practice was to gives out shower heads that never felt like you were really getting a shower. You've tried those water-saving ones. These actually felt like you were getting a shower and people have changed over. We use less water today in our city and our metropolitan area than we did in the 60s and we have 400,000 more customers, less water even though there are 400,000 more people. So you can, you can make a difference.
John Brenner: Tell them how you did it though. What was the concept?
Gregory Nickels: Oh, we had a young Olympic swimmer who was willing to demonstrate the shower, the potential of the shower head. The cameras were right there and she did a great job and testified right on camera as she was showering that it felt like a real shower.
John Brenner: She had a bathing suit on, right?
Gregory Nickels: She did, yes.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, I think it's a good time to turn it over to the audience.
Gregory Nickels: Thank you Mayor.
John Brenner: I'm sorry, I can't help myself.
Monica Trauzzi: If you have any questions just feel free to raise our hand and I believe there are people in the audience with microphones and they'll come up to you. Yes?
Question: Thank you very much. I'm with a firm that's involved in water conservation and I know Al Dietemann in Seattle has put forth a big effort in the conservation. I imagine you're supporting that. Do you have an idea, mayors, how much energy is used to pump and treat water in the city? And so the benefit of conserving water then also conserves on the energy as well?
Gregory Nickels: Well, it's certainly in the amount of energy used to heat water, that's why when you save water on the shower you're also saving a great deal of electricity to bring that water up to temperature. So, yes, I mean those things are all connected. We are very fortunate to have a system that requires relatively little treatment and we're pleased about that. But we certainly end up pumping it all over the place and the less that we use, the less energy that we're using in conjunction. Go ahead.
Douglas Palmer: We have a filtration plant that we're upgrading now, $70 million upgrade, and we're looking at the ways we can do that to conserve energy as well as water. And the great thing is, and what I've found, you have citizens in our city that were farther ahead than I was even on this whole green issue. I've sort of caught up a little bit, but you'd be surprised, people in City Hall that are looking at things or coming up with ideas. And then with my cabinet, you know, I've challenged them to show how they can get involved in the green movement. How do you feel you can conserve? What can you do? And they're thinking of all kinds of things and people that work for them are coming up with ways in which, whether it's the screensaver or turn off the computer at lunch or doing those kinds of things. And it's just getting everybody involved and recognizing that we all can make a difference and what you do, as Greg says, matters. And certainly our public works folks looked at that when we talked about energy efficiency and even from recreation and human resources, everyone is looking at ways in which they can get involved and help in the way they can to reduce our carbon footprint and be more efficient.
John Brenner: The city of York does not own our own water system. We are one of the few places where we have a private water company. In fact, it's one of the oldest in the nation, the York water company. So it would be nice, certainly at budget time, to be able to own that system when you're looking to make ends meet. But we don't have that opportunity in the city of York, but we have a very well run and very efficient operation at York Water Company.
Monica Trauzzi: We have time for another question or two. Yes, in the back?
Question: Mayors, New York City is changing out its entire taxi fleet to hybrid cars under mandate. They also just passed another lot changing out all the black cars, all the town cars also to hybrids and other high mile per gallon cars. What are your thoughts, both in terms of those kind of fleets, as well as the fleets of the municipality itself, as well as UPS, FedEx, USPS? There's been some movement on the part of UPS and FedEx to test some hybridized type delivery vehicles. But it's only been a few hundred so far across all those fleets. Any thoughts on those three or four types of fleets in your cities?
John Brenner: I'll give you one quick example. In our small city in York, we have a small fleet of municipal vehicles and we have been converting, the last few years, to biodiesel for the diesel vehicles. And we had a company, a local company, headed by twentysomethings that were looking to really get this thing off the ground. And we formed a relationship with them and they've been doing a great job and that helped us at the city government. But the real connection we made for them was we put them together with our local transportation, our bus company called Rabbit Transit, you hop on at the next stop, you get it? All right. Anyway, Rabbit Transit, they'll thank me in the end, believe me, they'll thank me in the end. It's a speedy ride. Anyway, they have a great program and, now, what they're doing is they're transferring the entire fleet of the Rabbit Transit buses to biodiesel and they did that because we were able to put the partnership together. We didn't say you have to do it. We didn't force them to do it. We helped to get the relationship going and now they're doing it on their own because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, Greg is way ahead of everybody, because I was at his office, I came in the garage, he had a car hooked up on electricity, so you know, they're doing all that kind of stuff. But I have to tell you, I had a Lincoln Continental and the lease was up. This was just a little over a year ago and so I'm getting another Lincoln and they said, "Well, you're supposed to be the green mayor now. You've got to get a hybrid." So my security guys hated it, but I said, OK. So we got hybrids and my cabinet who already had hybrids were looking at, as Mayor Bloomberg shows, great leadership looking at now having our taxi fleet go hybrid. I'm getting some of that information that we're going to put it in our overall plan. But I have to tell you, deciding what kind of hybrid to get was really a problem. And so I happened to be on the plane, I'm not name dropping, but with President Clinton, former President Clinton last year coming back from Selma, on his plane. And we touched down on the tarmac and he's got these hybrids. I'm not going to say what kind, because they're not paying me to say it. But I'm curious, so I asked the president, I said, "Mr. President," and now the Secret Service guys are behind him. He can't see them. I said, "I see you have X hybrid. Are they any good?" He said, "Yeah, they're great. They're great." And the Secret Service guys behind him are going like… so as I'm walking they say, "Yeah, it's great on him. He just pulls the seat all the way back and he stretches out. But it's a little…you know." But, you know, we're doing it and I'd do it. And we're leading by example now. People even in our community say, first they laughed at me, said I was in a little car, but now they're like, hey, that's cool. You know, I'm getting a hybrid. And you have to lead by example. We're looking at turning our whole fleet over where we can, biodiesel and the whole nine yards.
Monica Trauzzi: We can do one more question.
Douglas Palmer: Let me just respond on the taxi.
Monica Trauzzi: OK.
Douglas Palmer: I've proposed to our city council that we require all taxis in the city to get at least 30 miles per gallon by 2013. Taxis put out an inordinate amount of carbon because they're running essentially 24 hours a day. And in our city the taxi drivers have been buying be used police vehicles, great classic Crown Vics and running those around. Now, it turns out that if you do a lifecycle cost it's cheaper for them to run the hybrid vehicle. But the key is the financing of that initial purchase. So we're working with them and with banks to make sure that our taxi drivers and owners who are, by and large, immigrants to the country and don't have a huge amount of capital, that they're going to not be pushed out of the industry. So that's one of the keys from our perspective.
Gregory Nickels: And could you show me that too, because I'm interested in it.
Douglas Palmer: OK, you bet.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, last question, if we can get it in quick. The woman in the back.
Gregory Nickels: Well, it's interesting how the media sees things as half-full or half-empty. We finished sixth out of the 100. You'd think that was pretty good, and our media ran that as we're behind L.A. What in the world is up with that? So I think that the response to the Brookings study release shows why it is necessary for us to have kind of an even playing field, a set of metrics that we all vet and agreed to and that we measure going forward using that. You're not going to be able to do that, really, until there is a federal engagement in this. To me, it's not quite as important what those metrics specifically are, as that they get established, they get vetted. They'll be changed over time. You know, we went and put a lot of effort into biodiesel and now we're seeing there are some issues there they continue to be worked out. So we need to take some risk and be willing to put something on the table and try it. And if it doesn't work, not condemn that as failure, but rather learn from it. And I guess those are the thoughts I would have on it.
Monica Trauzzi: Do either of you want to respond?
John Brenner: He knows it all.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, well, with that we are out of time. Thank you mayors.
Douglas Palmer: Thank you.
[End of Audio]
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