I just wanted to keep everyone up on the city use vehicle situation.

This has been stalled.  Some valid concerns have come to light after the last finance meeting.  Vested property rights were raised with two employees and Engineering has equipment in 3 vehicles instead of 1 vehicle.

The city may end up keeping the cars and developing car use policies and logging procedures.

A garbage sorting plant in Edmonton, Alberta (where the IRL is racing today) will be home to an ethanol facility that will turn 100,000 tonnes or 100,000,000 kilograms of plastic, cardboard and paper into the fuel additive starting in 2010,

Read it all here

At this plant in Canada they got it right.  I have not problem with ethanol as a by-product.  Here they are using garbage.  I don’t like the subsidies we have left on ethanol in the U.S. as the product is fully in the market and should stand on its feet.  Only then will the companies making it look to reduce its cost, which may include the corn they buy and switch to something like garbage.  As I have said we need to drill for more oil, but we need a plan and future with alternatives not to supplant oil in the short term.  This is for the long term and it needs to be multiple points of attack on the problem.

I just wanted everyone to know that the Finance Committee voted to sell off the cities car fleet.  One will be kept for the engineering department.  The other 7 are to be sold off. 

Also the committee, directed the Mayor to create a car use reimbursement policy.

So if someone has a meeting in Green Bay they can drive their own car and get paid mileage.

I hope the proper records will be kept for the mileage reimbursement.

I would like to thank Aldermen Mark Otto and Joe Mikolajczak for the updated info.  It is very nice when people in city government have the lines of communication open and share the info freely and without asking for it. 

Thanks again!!!

While I do not support a Windfall Tax on the oil companies I have been reminded that during the golden years of 1980-1989 of Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush had a windfall tax that was signed into to law by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.  It is my understand that at any time the sitting president could have taken it out.  It was not taken out until 1989.

When it comes to gas and oil I have to differ with my fellow conservatives.  I have blogged on that fact that I feel ethanol fuel is fine as long as it is not being made by taking away from food, but rather by waste by-products.

I do feel we need to open up more drilling and push for other alternative fuels.  I would even go as far as adding tax breaks and a tax income for startup companies to pioneer in alternates.  Yes, you read that correct a tax.  It would not be an added/new tax, just take a small percent of the federal gas tax that has to be used for roads and like wise and use that money.

 Instead of going to oil companies or chemical companies, this would be for small business looking at R/D.  Once they are gobbled up by a big company, pull the money.  Once they have a product, take the subsidy away.  This would be an incubation for businesses to look for alternate methods and solutions with “seed” money. 

Our economy is truly done on the small companies and this is who needs to help take charge.  Now a few of my friends say to add a windfall tax and use that money to do that very thing.  It sounds appealing, I just don’t know if it would work.

Instead of looking for one fix, we need to attack this from many directions with many different ideas.  We can drill our way out of the problem, but we need to be working on the next step now.  We have to drill now so our economy and that of the people is not damaged beyond repair.  There is noting wrong with make an incentive for the next thing now while we do have plenty of oil rather then wait until there is a real problem.  It has to be a two step process to work correctly for now and the future.

Is Ford going to have “Cylinder deactivation, Variable Cylinder Management, Displacement on demand” on any cars in the near future?  I know GM and other manufactures have them in place now.  Why has Honda been able to get a hydrogen car to market without Ford having one as well.

Dear Randy,

Thank you for contacting the Ford Motor Company Customer Relationship Center regarding the availability of Variable Cylinder Management in our vehicles.

There are no details at this time reflecting plans to put this vehicle option into commercial production.  From time to time, vehicle options are added, deleted or modified.  Decisions to make these changes take into account factors such as market trends, customer demands, engineering advances, and dealership input.

The Customer Relationship Center is unaware in advance of changes that our Engineering and Design Team may be making and the specific reasons that the changes may be made in the future.  This type of information is considered confidential until the appropriate media statement is released. 

I can tell you Ford is committed to raising fuel standards while lowering emissions.  Ford is moving forward on bring back the turbo and moving the Hydrogen based cars from concept to production models.  Our competition currently has them out on a lease-based option.  Currently they will only be made available for the California market, as their law dictates a percentage of zero emission vehicles.  Ford sees this as the future of the auto industry.  Ford is working on making this happen in the not so distant future, within the next ten years or so.  Hydrogen cars will be the norm once the infrastructure is in place throughout the United States.

Honda Begins Production of Zero-Emission Hydrogen Cars

Honda Motor Co. has begun commercial production of its new zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell car, called the FCX Clarity.

Source: Foxnews