Gavin Newsom and Sam Adams trash talk in the battle for electric-car supremacy
Kari Chisholm
It seems that the mayors of San Francisco and Portland are gearing up a fight between their two cities for dominance in the effort to be the first to develop full-scale electric-car usage.
Earlier this month, at a press conference, Mayor Sam Adams issued the challenge:
"Working with the Governors office, Portland General Electric, and others, we will be announcing the most aggressive in-garage and on-street wired up charging station strategy that I think any city in the United States has sought to achieve. And that even means you Gavin Newsom, who’s trying hard to make the Bay Area the EV capital of the world. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh… That’s gonna be Portland.”
Over at Gas2.org, they got a pointed response out of Mayor Gavin Newsom:
“It gets me that Portland is always edging us out to win this or that sustainability competition and I thought I’d finally gotten a leg up on them with our aggressive EV development plan. Portland is a worthy competitor and it’s a fair game. It’s an enlightened competition. I don’t know the details of Portland’s plan yet, but mark my words, once we hear the details you can be sure we’ll be on top of it.”
Well, earlier today, the two Mayors went further - each in their own blog posts at Gas2.org. Mayor Newsom went first:
As car companies lined up in Washington, DC last November for the first round of federal bailout money – in San Francisco we announced another way – our comprehensive plan to make the San Francisco Bay Area the “Electric Vehicle (EV) Capital of the US.”Our efforts to advance electric vehicles are not limited to San Francisco. We’ve engaged the entire Bay Area – a region of 7.3 million people – to make our region the cornerstone of the coming market for EVs. Not just governments, but key companies, business associations, policy advocates, and international car and EV infrastructure companies are all working together to make the San Francisco Bay Area the EV Capital of the U.S. ...
Portland and San Francisco have been battling for the title of the most sustainable city for years. We welcome Portland’s latest challenge and hope that this EV competition will spread across the country, creating thousands of new jobs and helping establish the United States as an EV leader. In turn this will transform our automotive industry and combat climate change by reducing green house gas emissions.
Noting that San Francisco -based SustainLane has named Portland the most sustainable city in the USA for two years running, Mayor Adams proffered a retort:
Portland just launched our joint City/County Climate Action Plan which aims to reduce our emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. This will take bold steps, and one step is replacing our fossil-fueled vehicles with zero emission vehicles. Portland already boasts a number of EV startups, and we’re gunning for more. This industry will bring jobs, technology, innovation and recognition.Which is why today, I am joining with colleagues from across the region and private industry in unveiling our newest charging station in downtown Portland. And, we’re unrolling an electric vehicle strategy to make sure that Portland is working side by side with our neighboring cities, counties and private partners to bring an integrated solution to EV developers, owners and enthusiasts. And my colleagues and I on City Council just passed a resolution this morning supporting all efforts to grow Portland’s EV industry and position our city, our region, as the nation’s hub for yet one more industry of sustainability.
I respect San Francisco’s commitment to being the EV leader. And I’m sure that EV’s make a lot of sense in the noise and congestion of bumper-to-bumper bay area traffic. But when you’re driving through the forests of Oregon on your way to a parking spot in downtown Portland, sometimes all you want to hear is the sound of silence.
Now that's some trash talking that I can get behind.
Full disclosure: In 2008, my firm built the campaign website for Sam Adams. In 2005, I helped organize a Portland fundraiser for Gavin Newsom. Also, Gavin's my cousin's cousin (though I don't think that actually makes us related in any way.) As always, I speak only for myself.
 |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
Apr 30, '09
[Off-topic comment deleted. -editor.]
Apr 30, '09
If the big bridge gets built as planned, Portland will forever lose that sustainability crown.
Apr 30, '09
Here's a link to a video from the Christian Science Monitor of a Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway) designed mostly electric/small sterling engine powered hybrid. His idea to add the small stirling engine reduces battery size and weight needed to run the mostly electric car by 50%. Sterling engines burn any fuel that you throw in them.
http://is.gd/vyKv
Very interesting concept.
Apr 30, '09
View all of Sam's actions as pandering for supporters for the upcoming recall election.
Hey Sam: How much do you want to shower on the convention hotel builders? How much are you cutting the police & fire departments? How much money did you score for the streetcar profiteers and how much for congestion relief? How about our potholes? How about our roads?
Apr 30, '09
Let's say we actually do convert a signinficant percentage of cars to EV's. Where does the electricity come from?
Apr 30, '09
from God.
Apr 30, '09
Think of the reduced emissions and blessed silence we'd enjoy if these two guys would just shut-up and go away...
8:21 a.m.
Apr 30, '09
I applaud both mayors and our governor for pushing development of infrastructure for electric cars. I think Portland can out-think and out-innovate San Francisco and the Bay area.
8:41 a.m.
Apr 30, '09
I think Portland can out-think and out-innovate San Francisco and the Bay area.
Amen.
Apr 30, '09
A worthy challenge. (It's not trash talk, and it would be sad to see Blue Oregon go the way of Rupert Murdoch's tabloids in its framing)
A large number of silicon valley venture capitalists have gone green and sustainable in their investments. The city's efforts to draw that funding and startup business here is critical.
9:08 a.m.
Apr 30, '09
Rob -- I meant "trash talk" only in the most innocuous of ways. Kind of like the way I trash talk about football with some of my very best friends.
Besides, how else would you describe this? "And that even means you Gavin Newsom, who’s trying hard to make the Bay Area the EV capital of the world. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh… That’s gonna be Portland."
This is the good kind of trash-talkin'.
Apr 30, '09
anonymous:
If the big bridge gets built as planned, Portland will forever lose that sustainability crown.
Bob T:
Don't worry -- Sam's giving out corporate welfare for sports to a multi-millionaire father/son team so we can get our minds off our problems. By the way, any progressive protests planned to kill that deal? Oh, I guess not.
Bob Tiernan Portland
Apr 30, '09
Gavin and Sam are both idiots and EVs are silly toys. Even a progressive should be able to figure that out.
Apr 30, '09
i'm not worried about where the electricity will come from as much as where the EV's are going to come from.
10:46 a.m.
Apr 30, '09
Word, trishka. Maybe we can retrofit the Bend Cessna plant.
Apr 30, '09
I think that friendly competition between Portland and SF is a good thing in this innovative area. Bring it on! How do you get Seattle invloved also?
Bob T:
Don't worry -- Sam's giving out corporate welfare for sports to a multi-millionaire father/son team so we can get our minds off our problems. By the way, any progressive protests planned to kill that deal? Oh, I guess not.
Kurt C. --- Bob, I wrote a guest column last week about the lates as reported in the O about the great sports stadia giveaway. Of course being one of the great unwashed (i.e. not a democrat OR die-hard progressive); I'm sure the guest column will sit and gather dust. It seems that BO would rather ignore that the promises made regarding jobs are evaporating, that the City ALREADY subsidizes incomes for stadium employees, and that the City will take on the muninciple (sp?) version of junk bonds to fund this thing than take a true progressive viewpoint. When did progressives enshrine public debt for sports teams?
Apr 30, '09
Who is that in the car next to Sam?!
Apr 30, '09
I'm very much behind the transition away from fossil fuel powered vehicles and I think EV's and EV-hybrids are strong contenders for the foundation of future private transportation. To that end we've installed 16KWs of solar panels on our store's roof and our Prius has been converted to PHEV. We were on track to install a charging station at the curb outside our store. The one impediment that has yet to be resolved is that even though we have to pay PGE for the PGE-logoed charging station, pay PGE for its installation and pay PGE for the power, PGE is requiring us to sign a contract to "..defend and hold PGE harmless for any and all damages... including... injury or death... from the use of the Charging Station...". Like we're going to hire an attorney to defend PGE if someone thinks their vehicle was damaged by the station. Obviously there are still some issues to be ironed if the City intends to have local companies sponsoring these stations. The rate at which this EV program is progressing, however, does make me hopeful.
Apr 30, '09
At the moment, there's still a serious lack of EVs capable of even basic commuting (by which I mean capable of 40mph and a 40 mile range or thereabouts). There's also the question of what curb-parkers are supposed to do outside of the city center, where charging stations would likely be installed first.
Reliance on automobiles is the primary problem, not how they're fueled.
Apr 30, '09
Seldom do you see two dopier pols than these two. Perhaps they ought to actually start thinking about what they're doing. Does the city really want to get involved in something it obviously knows nothing about? The nearest timeframe that anything like this makes evena little sense is years and technologies away. These Tweedle Dees and Tweedle dumbs haven't a clue as to exactly what the situation will be when there is need for public rechargingstations, much less what the hookups will look like. Until you know ,specifically, the charging interfaces and power demand, you are just grasping straws. But then, this is all about a couple of publicity-seeking politicians. I suppose if they weren't stumbling and bumbling this issue, they might be involved in something serious where they could do real damage. What a joke.
Apr 30, '09
Sounds like a who has a longer extension cord pissing contest.
Apr 30, '09
I'm not seeing the point. I mean who wins? We have two guys with a lot of chin music and not much knowledge.
I mean it is easy to build stuff, but getting jobs and providing good schools and infrastructure at a fair cost - I'd love to see them one up each other on that sort of thing.
Apr 30, '09
Kurt Chapman:
When did progressives enshrine public debt for sports teams?
Bob T:
Whenever one of their own does it. And other times, I suppose. You see, they have a dilemma with this one. Giving out corporate welfare reinforces their misguided view that "the free market" needs to be subsidized in order to work, and by doing this sports stuff they provide more examples. Of course, they're wrong -- it's not written anywhere that pro-sports needs such expensive stadiums and arenas, and multi-million dollar salaries etc. After all, it existed for many decades without either. And they cover themselves not by trashing and blaming Adams and Leonardo, but by trashing the team owners who have no power to take the money (but still, they are to be trashed for being political entreprenuers).
By the way, you're correct about the subsidized wages for at least the PGE Park employees, ever since the deal made by people like another progressive hero, Erik Sten. Sounds compassionate, of course, but by using out taxes to pay extra wages that the Glickmans and now Paulson won't pay, it's corporate welfare just the same.
Did you know old man Glickman was paid at a rate of $75,000 per year by his son (Portland Family Entertainment) for sitting in an office playing computer solitaire? Thanks, Erik Sten.
Bob Tiernan Portland
May 2, '09
Mr. Tiernan,
I think the way the dynamic works with the public funding of sports facilities is that the city or county governments are afraid they aren't going to get or keep the team (rather than engaging in some abstraction about the viability of capitalism). The impetus for these deals is coming from the teams' ownership and the sports leagues, in the continuing tradition of private business playing one government off against another in order to extort the best deal. This has been going on with the citing of industrial plants for years (as we know, with "free trade", business not only plays city against city or state against state but also country against country).
Too bad it's not more commonly known that sports teams don't bring economic growth. But maybe it is known- maybe the governments merely want the prestige of having a high-profile team.
Anyway, I predict Saltzman will change his vote and the deal will die. And the House Transportation Committee has removed the $30 mil. for study of the stupid bridge. And Ted Wheeler is doing everything he can to stop the stupid hotel. Things are looking up.