Energy Choices and the Long Conversation

By David Kay, Senior Extension Associate, Cornell University’s Community and Regional Development Institute (CaRDI)


I once was blind but now I see
American history was not my strong suit in high school. When I entered graduate school some years later, the already fading sign on my new office (an iconic slogan from the not too distant 1960s) prompted me to “Question Authority”. Since I didn’t quite understand at the time how important it was to understand authority in order to question it, I did not read this as an incitement to historical reflection.

Over the years as an Extension Associate at Cornell University, I developed a medley of insights and thoughts about rural and urban, home rule and regionalism, globalism and relocalization, community and identity. Only in the past few years have I begun to understand how these insights are deeply embedded in what some historians have called “the long conversation”.

This long conversation is about the distribution of collective authority in our democracy. About who gets to participate in and decide about which kinds of public decisions.

The conversation predated the founding of the country by more than a century (see for example, the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England, May 19, 1643). And it famously animated the debates in the Federalist Papers, that enduring treasure trove of wisdom sparked by the frictions between those who believed in dispersing versus concentrating power and authority.

The United Colonies of New England, 1643 (source).

The long conversation is, in fact, a never ending one. It has no universal, timeless conclusion. This realization has been driven home for me by my recent work on energy transitions.

Some controversies raised by our fossil fuel dependency are in no small measure debates about federalism, or the way authority is divided between central and distributed political units.

What is at stake? According to one author:

The choice of regulatory forum often seems to determine the outcome of the controversy. That may explain why Americans have traditionally shed so much metaphorical and genuine blood deciding what are essentially jurisdictional disputes between governmental institutions.

Consider three contemporary energy examples of the tensions raised.

1. High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing (HVHF) for Natural Gas Extraction
Hydraulic fracturing is a technology used to extract oil and gas from “unconventional” reserves of shale and other rocks. State authority dominates regulation of natural gas drilling, but is currently being contested by both federal and local government interests. Federal authority does apply to some aspects of HVHF and many other energy issues. However, the federal Energy Act of 2005 exempted key elements of oil and gas operations from national in favor of state regulation. This outcome is now being challenged.

The authority of states to regulate hydraulic fracturing is also being contested by local governments. In several Northeastern shale gas-rich states, state law appears to “supersede all local laws or ordinances relating to the regulation of the oil, gas and solution mining industries” (NYS Environmental Conservation Law §23-0303(2)).

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio's state laws feature similar language on the issue. For example, Section 602 of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act provides that municipal ordinances may not ‘“impose conditions, requirements or limitations on the same features of oil and gas operations regulated’ by the Act” (Keneally and Mathes, 2010). 

However, in New York State alone, at least two dozen communities have adopted seemingly contrary bans or moratoria. Within each state, the stage of litigation, appeal, and legal clarity on this issue differs.

2. Electricity Transmission
Power plant siting and electricity transmission rules have evolved with less media attention than hydraulic fracturing issues. But even as the Energy Act of 2005 exempted HVHF from federal review, it stipulated that a federal agency (FERC) would hold siting authority for certain electric transmission lines.

The Act was intended to reduce state and local obstacles, including procedural friction and political resistance, to transmission investment. Indeed, major upgrades in transmission infrastructure are projected as necessary to deliver new sources of electricity; most will be generated in rural areas remote from the point of use.

Supporters of grid modernization have advocated strengthening FERC’s authority further. Others remain concerned that good decisions require state and local oversight.

3. Power Plant Siting
Similar issues surround the distribution of authority over the siting of electricity generating facilities. For example, New York State recently passed legislation that shifts permitting jurisdiction for smaller commercial facilities (25-80 megawatts) to the state (i.e., away from local government).

A wind farm nearArmenia Mountain, PA.

Though not differentiated as to fuel source, the implications for wind energy have been given particular attention. Advocates and opponents alike see the legislation as an effort to facilitate the siting of new wind farms, in part by reducing the influence of localized opposition that holds greater sway under local government “home rule.”

Energy Federalism
These examples of contested regulation show some of the pressures being exerted on the status quo of federalism. What criteria, other than short-term political advantage on a particular issue, are or should be used to evaluate whether authority should be assigned to local, state, or federal government, or some combination?

In the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, Benjamin K. Sovocool (2008) offers a list of organizing principles derived from theories of “environmental federalism”. These include such competing goals as: 

• ensuring all affected by the decision are fairly represented, 
• promoting consistency of rules across political boundaries, 
• avoiding unfair imbalances in political power,
• enhancing accountability, and 
• promoting flexibility and innovation.

Versions of these and other arguments are not hard to find in the Federalist Papers.
 
Americans are “spilling blood” in a jurisdictional war over whether local, state, or federal government should control the fate of hydraulic fracturing. Blood pressures have also risen over who should permit moderately sized electric generating facilities and control the siting of natural gas and electricity transmission corridors. 
 
Not infrequently, advocates who argue for or against federal or state or “home rule” in one context reflexively take the opposite position in another. This may make strategic sense in the heat of battle over specific policy decisions about particular energy technologies or fuels or sites. However, a danger exists for partisans and policy makers who fail to lift their line of sight above the battlefield. 
 
Unless principled arguments about the benefits and costs of rebalancing federalism are considered, the distribution of power and passion that lead to precedent and victory in one arena may well simply set the stage for defeat in another. 
 

David Kay, a Senior Extension Associate with Community & Regional Development Institute (CaRDI), was trained as an economist, works in the Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, and focuses on land use planning and community/economic development issues. He grew up in California’s burgeoning Silicon Valley but settled in Ithaca, New York, after graduate school, not least because of his growing appreciation of the small city’s uniquely combined scale of community and pace of life.

Visit the Rural Futures Lab website here.

Alternative Energy in the Land of Oil: Who Benefits?

By Adam Blair, Research Assistant, Cornell University’s Community and Regional Development Institute (CaRDI)

As my car crawled west along Interstate 20 in West Texas, the arid October landscape seemed to stretch outward in a quiet perpetuity, punctuated only by the occasional intersection. It was my first time in the Lone Star State, and the magnitude of the Texas plain weighed down on the vehicle in a way that made me feel like a speck on a map. The vacant horizon left nothing but my odometer as a point of reference.

As I approached Abilene that first afternoon, I encountered towering masses of steel sprouting from the ground, their unnatural appearance invoking a sense of disbelief.

This rural landscape that has supported cotton and cattle since the early 19th Century and petroleum since the 20th continues its legacy as a natural resource-dependent economy with the rapid development of commercial wind energy. Now home to thousands of wind turbines generating enough electricity to power over 2.7 million homes, Texas leads the nation in the expansion of this energy source.

But while the industry is creating jobs, boosting local tax revenues, and providing supplemental income to struggling farmers, I found that this burgeoning enterprise has been largely immune from broader questions concerning long-term community and economic impacts. As a student of city and regional planning, I wondered how, and to what extent, local communities were capturing the wealth generated by the wind energy industry. It was also unclear to me how the benefits derived from wind development—monetary or otherwise—were redistributed amongst local populations.

To begin to answer these and other questions for a Rural Futures Lab case study, I first took the time to understand the important rural-urban linkages that support the energy sector of the U.S. Embodied by the string of electrical transmission lines stretching from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex to the communities west of the Brazos River—the very route I had just driven—the concept is one familiar to many rural policymakers.

Linkages between rural industries and urban consumers have existed for centuries in the United States, encouraged and even directed to a large degree by the construction of the transcontinental railroads of the mid-19th century and the Interstate Highway System of the mid-20th. And as the nation continues its trend of urbanization, the reliance on rural America’s bounty will become even more prevalent. In a foundation paper authored for the Rural Futures Lab in June 2011, my colleagues and I explored this trend in more detail. We predict that an increasing remoteness of energy generation, driven in part by a transition to more land-intensive, renewable forms of energy, will have profound impacts on rural communities.

My interviews with West Texans confirmed many of the concerns we raised in our report, but also highlighted many of the opportunities discussed in Susan Lurie and Michael Hibbard’s recent blog post on the new natural resource economy (NNRE). For instance, while wind development has been embraced by many landowners, the following comment from a West Texas resident demonstrates just one of many difficulties in achieving the balance between natural resource production and protection described under NNRE: “…you’ll find a lot of places in Central Texas that have chosen not to take wind turbines. Some of them call it eye pollution. They get down there and like the rocky areas and like the clear skies and don’t want to see ’em.”

Equally insightful was my conversation with a small business owner in West Texas. He recognized the importance of using tax revenues generated by the wind energy industry to “improve the quality of life” and consequently mitigate some of the negative boom-bust effects discussed in our foundation paper. However, he noted the difficulty in convincing public officials to do anything but provide tax abatements to lure new, outside firms instead of supporting existing small business in the region.

Of course, only history will tell whether Texas’ newest experiment in rural economic development will result in a windfall or washout for local residents and communities. To ensure equitable benefits, it is imperative that new wealth is captured and reinvested in a way that will improve the quality of life for everyone, for this, one rancher reminds us, “is [the] best thing that can happen to a rural community.”

Resilience in the Face of Disaster

By Brian Dabson, Director, Rural Futures Lab

Tornadoes and violent storms ripped through the Midwest Plains states this weekend, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Once again, national attention turns to how communities such as Woodward, Oklahoma, and Thurman, Iowa, can rebuild and recover.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Biloxi, Mississippi and saw the progress that had been made in recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Six years on, the rebuilding continues and the stories of the people who survived the disaster in spite of losing their homes and businesses are testaments to the resilience of the communities along the Gulf Coast. Although many people left and have not returned, it is clear that there is a powerful human force at work which drives not only a desire to rebuild but also to create a better place.

In 2007, a tornado leveled Greensburg, Kansas. The city council passed a resolution stating that all city buildings would be built to LEED platinum standards, making it the first city in the nation to do so.

Regional Resilience Issues
Resilience is the term used to describe the process by which communities and regions bounce back after a disaster, and is the subject of a new report from the Rural Futures Lab. Regional Resilience: Research and Policy Brief was prepared for the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) to review the growing literature on the topic, the approaches being adopted by Federal agencies, and the work of public-private partnerships to improve community understanding and preparedness. The report also includes new analyses of economic, social, and infrastructure vulnerability across the nation.

Here are some of the report’s conclusions:

Research and experience over the past 20 years show a growing understanding of the complexity of anticipating, responding to, and recovering from disasters of all types. It is no longer possible, if it ever was, to focus on a particular type of disaster in isolation, such as terrorism or flooding, because communities increasingly are faced with multiple, and sometimes cascading hazards. This realization demands what is commonly termed an all-hazards approach. Although each hazard presents particular challenges, the processes of preparedness and planning are broadly consistent, and there is general consensus on the main components of these processes.

This map shows the number of FEMA Disaster Declarations per county
against the national average. It covers the time period from 1991 - 2011.

Some communities and regions are clearly more vulnerable than others to disasters, although no community is immune from some sort of threat. Settlements on coastlines, in river floodplains and valleys, in or adjacent to forestlands, on seismic faults, or in the regular paths of major storms can be particularly vulnerable. Some of these communities may well have placed themselves in harm’s way as a result of poor or short-sighted development decisions.

But vulnerability is more than a function of geography, it can also be economic. The disaster may be the closing of a plant or the collapse of a whole industry as a result of changing market conditions or the introduction of new technologies; or it may be a consequence of a natural disaster that has disrupted or even destroyed local businesses. Sustaining businesses and economies has been shown to be a critical part of regional and community recovery but often not give the priority deserved.

Vulnerability can also be social, as the events following Hurricane Katrina very publicly demonstrated. Differential impacts on segments of the population based on race, income, mobility, language capability, and other factors are not only unfair and unjust, but undermine recovery efforts.

National Policy
The federal policy response to disasters has been transformed over the past decade. Driven after 9/11 by heightened concerns over terrorism, it has evolved into an all-hazards approach following Hurricane Katrina and a succession of other major disasters both at home and abroad.

The development of the National Response and National Disaster Recovery Frameworks have brought to the forefront the need for seamless coordination of federal, state, and local efforts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Elaborate processes and structures have been introduced to pursue planning, coordination, training and exercises, and certification across the country.

Interestingly, this concerted federal effort has generated at least two very important initiatives that have engaged collaborations across the private, public, academic, and nonprofit sectors.

• One is primarily focused on the security of critical infrastructure. It is called the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), and was published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2009. 
• The other initiative focuses on building the capacity of local communities and regions to drive preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in line with their own vision for their future. It is called the Community & Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI).

Disasters pay no attention to jurisdictional boundaries or to whether a place is designated urban or rural, metro or nonmetro. But in rural areas, many counties and localities do not have the personnel or technical or fiscal capacity to engage in planning and preparation. Many of these communities may be vulnerable. The national network of regional development organizations represents an infrastructure that can address this capacity and vulnerability challenge.

All regions and communities need to plan and prepare for disasters in ways that are holistic and fully engaging of all sectors of the community. It is fair to say that there is an ingrained suspicion of, if not outright resistance to, the idea of planning across much of America. But as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, oil spills, wildfires, floods, and other natural and human-made disaster continue to assail our communities, there may be a window of opportunity to recast old and worn-out planning efforts and to help communities and regions see a better future for themselves, with or without a disaster. Moreover, in times of fiscal stringency, where the public sector is less able to function as the principal protector and responder, engaging the resources and talents from all parts of communities and regions may be the best way to proceed.

Visit the Rural Futures Lab here.

Rural Design: A New Design Discipline

By: Dewey Thorbeck, Director, University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design

Rural design and urban design both embrace "quality of life" as a primary goal. Rural design is, however, fundamentally different: It incorporates the unique characteristics of open landscapes and ecosystems. Buildings and towns are components of the larger landscape, rather than shaping community infrastructure and public space.

Rural regions in America and around the world are experiencing considerable stress in responding to global issues, changing demographics, changing agricultural practices, population growth, and urban expansion. However, the design schools and professions have generally ignored rural issues by concentrating on urban issues because that is where most people live. And, when involved in a rural issue, they generally bring an urban perspective to the endeavor.

To rectify this omission I founded the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design in 1997 as a program jointly sponsored by the College of Design and the College of Foods, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences.

Design is a powerful tool for integrating knowledge and making connections across disciplines, and rural design brings the problem-solving process of design to rural issues. If urban design is one side of a coin then rural design is the other.

Community Design & Engagement

It is essential that urban and rural issues be considered together without concern for boundaries. The well understood notion of community design as a methodology for community engagement may be an effective vehicle to bridge the gap between urban and rural issues.

Community design is often considered as design involvement with a single urban community. However, the “community” can have many different definitions in rural regions, ranging from an agricultural production group in one region to a cluster of small towns working together for economic advantage in another. Rural design can use community design to resolve a rural (or regional) problem by seeking to connect the dots, cross borders, and create synergy.

An Example of Rural Design in Action

The City of Roseau, Minnesota, is located near the Canadian border on the large, flat geographical area formed by glacial Lake Agassiz 11,000 years ago. On June 8, 2002, fourteen inches of rain fell on the surrounding area. The flood damage to the city was enormous, with significant damage to 150 commercial buildings and over 50 homes destroyed.

Roseau, MN, during the flood of 2002.



The leadership in the city wanted to engage citizens in the reconstruction process. They called on the Center for Rural Design to help develop a community-based vision for the future. The vision plan was the result of a broad-based steering committee consisting of community leaders representing the city, county and township working closely with the Center for Rural Design. The power of community-based planning and citizen participation in identifying values and making choices as stakeholders in the planning process proved to be very successful.

Eight years after the flood, Todd Peterson, the Community Development Director, described what happened:

The City of Roseau could not have achieved success in reconstructing the community without having public buy-in of the vision plan prepared by the Center for Rural Design. The City did 100 years of building in 6 years because the plan had strong public support.

Symbolic of the reconstruction is the new Roseau City Center building
constructed on top of new levees adjacent to the river.
It replaced the destroyed city hall, county museum, and library,
along with a new ice arena.

An Emerging Design Field 

My book, Rural Design: A New Design Discipline, recently published by Routledge, is the first ever book on rural design as an emerging new design field. The book establishes the theoretical base for rural design and outlines ways that rural communities can work together to resolve issues and shape their future. The impact of rural design, however, is yet to be determined.

As defined in the book, the guiding ethic of rural design is not imposing a vision or solution on a community, but rather to:

• Provide the tools, information, and support that rural communities need to address their problem;
• Help rural citizens manage change caused by economic, cultural, or environmental reasons;
• Assist in connecting the dots to create synergy for environmental wellbeing, rural prosperity, and quality of life;
• Clearly envision and help citizens achieve the quality of rural future for their community that they deserve.

Rural design, as a new design discipline, can help rural communities manage change through the lens of spatial arrangement. In the process, it provides a link between science and society to improve rural quality of life.

The principles of rural design, as evolved by the Center for Rural Design and outlined in the book, can help in understanding, analyzing, and creating solutions for sustainable rural environments worldwide. These rural design principles include:

• Social, cultural, artistic, and environmental diversity is rewarding for all people who live, work, and play in rural communities and their quality of life. The arts can become a vehicle for learning, social interaction, entertainment and inspiration and an integral aspect of economic development.
• Empowering women to become community leaders is more likely to provide effective resolution of the complexity of rural issues.
• Making connections between human, animal, and environmental health is crucial to understanding wellness. Keeping people, animals, and environments healthy is economically preferable to taking care of them when they are sick.
• Sustainable rural development is directly connected to sustainable rural production. It is finding and enhancing the connections between them that will best impact social, economic and environmental issues.
• Design of sustainable buildings and landscapes must reflect uniqueness of cultural and landscape character—form follows function, climate, and place.
• Food, including its supply, production, distribution, and security, is an interdisciplinary rural design problem. Rural food systems can be mapped and their interactions studied to develop strategic plans and farming practices that are unique to place, helping to ensure safe and adequate food supplies in the future.
• Economic and community viability is crucial for short-term as well as long-term rural design endeavors; however, long-term objectives must take precedence over short-term gain.
• Renewable energy from solar, wind and biomass can be considered as an integral aspect of rural agriculture by “harvesting” the sun and wind. This includes using agriculture for carbon sequestration and reduction of greenhouse gases.
• Improving rural quality of life is the primary goal of rural design.

The world is changing very rapidly, with most people living in cities that are expanding and adapting to global impacts. Likewise, rural regions are changing, with people who are passionate about rural life and their connections to the land. Managing change is critical to rural futures and the time is right for rural design to emerge as a new design discipline.

Do you see ways that rural design principles can be applied in your home community? Do you use arts to promote community participation in planning and visioning for the future?

Dewey Thorbeck founded the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design. He has a new book out, which you can find here, if you want to learn more about rural design and its applications.

Visit the Rural Futures Lab home website here.

Photos and images provided by the author.

Counties Take Action on Big Challenges

By Erik Johnston, Associate Legislative Director, National Association of Counties

Growing up in southwest Virginia I was oblivious to the investments made by my state, federal and local government that made life better for my family and community.  That all changed in high school, when my government teacher ran and won a seat as a supervisor representing the mostly rural and suburban western portion of Roanoke County.  I shadowed him and got a sense for the important role that local governments play in creating a quality of place through investments in education, infrastructure, job training, justice, public safety, health, social services, homeland security, environment, land use, community and economic development and numerous other roles.

Now I serve as the National Association of Counties’ (NACo) Associate Legislative Director for Agriculture and Rural Affairs issues and work as staff liaison to NACo’s Rural Action Caucus. NACo’s bipartisan Rural Action Caucus serves as the voice of America’s rural counties before Congress and the Administration.  In my role, I’ve worked with county elected officials and staff from across the country who inspire me by their dedication to improving opportunity and quality of life in rural America. 

However, it is clear that these public servants and the rural counties they serve are facing challenges that have not been seen in a generation.  NACo’s Deputy Executive Director, Ed Ferguson recently wrote a commentary regarding the difficult landscape facing county governments in NACo’s County News Publication. 

In the commentary, Ferguson sums up the situation facing counties, “The continuing effects of the most severe and extensive downturn in the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and increasingly negative public attitudes toward government and government employees have made the job of governing and managing counties difficult. At the same time, these pressures have presented county officials with opportunities — opportunities for improved service-delivery models, opportunities for partnering and consolidating, and opportunities for new approaches toward revenue generation and spending.”  A recent NACo survey reinforces the current challenges and opportunities enumerated above. 

For many rural counties these challenges are not new, but have existed for decades.  ERS’s recently released poverty geography demonstrates the longstanding challenges facing many portions of rural America, including the 340 persistent poverty rural counties.  

So what can be done in the face of such a difficult landscape?

There are 3,068 counties and they all are seeking to meet these challenges in unique ways.  Many are implementing improved service-delivery models, partnering and consolidating, and finding opportunities for new approaches toward revenue generation and spending.

As a representative for rural counties in Washington, DC my members are asking me to focus on three main items at the federal policy level.  First, we are educating members of Congress and the Administration about the key federal investments and commitments that are critical to serving rural America and investing in its potential.  This includes maintaining funding for transportation and aviation infrastructure, rural development programs, rural health funding including Medicaid and historic federal commitments to counties with public lands through Payment in Lieu of Taxes and Secure Rural Schools. See link to NACo’s Rural Action Caucus Priorities.

Right now the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is making decisions that will impact rural counties for decades to come.  NACo is advocating for a balanced approach.  All expenditures should be considered, including defense, foreign aid and federal entitlement reform, along with other domestic spending. Additionally, revenue enhancements should not be left "off the table".  Although reducing discretionary domestic spending is part of the answer, it cannot -- and should not -- be the only sector that is considered.  See NACo’s recommendations to the committee.

Second, NACo’s rural members are advocating for increased flexibility to collaborate within their region to deliver services and promote economic development.  A major weakness of many federal rural economic development programs is that they are not structured to serve rural regions.  The NACo led Campaign for a Renewed Rural Development is working to reorient and improve USDA Rural Development programs through the Farm Bill process so that the agency has greater flexibility to encourage the local and regional partnerships that are currently encouraging innovation in rural regions across the country.  The Campaign’s Farm Bill principles were released in September.

Lastly, NACo’s Rural Action Caucus is strengthening its focus on advocating for relief from unfunded federal mandates.  Unfunded federal mandates burden rural taxpayers and counties with significant costs.  These mandates are especially burdensome in the current economic climate and can range from overly burdensome financial reporting requirements for small rural grants to proposed environmental regulations that threaten to force counties to obtain permits to clean county owned ditches.

Local government is often the forgotten form of government.  Like me, before my introduction to the world of counties, most rural citizens do not think about the critical role that their rural public servants play in creating a thriving place.  The current challenges facing rural local governments require more rural people to look under the hood and be part of the solution to the challenges facing their community.  As a rural advocate, I ask you to also communicate to your state and federal legislators the critical need for the federal government and states to maintain a strong partnership with rural counties, cities and towns.  Passing all problems down to the local level is not a solution for America, rural or urban.