11-7-08

 11-7-08Merced Sun-StarLoose Lips: Speeding cars? Not on my block!http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/story/535842.htmlJust when Lips thought Supervisor Kathleen Crookham was kissing her political career goodbye, the fire has been stoked once more.And it's burning hot.She's been tapped to be on the Ragsdale Steering Committee, a group set to work with (read: battle) the city on how the G Street underpass is to be built.One resident fears 26th Street, a narrow, quiet tree-lined road, will become a highway for drivers jetting across town trying to get around trains. All of a sudden, driving on 99 doesn't seem so dangerous.The supe put on her citizen's hat Monday to join her neighbors in pleading that the council not let the underpass ruin her quality of life. It's the city's oldest and most stable subdivision, and the project has the potential to wreck it."I just hope we're not forgotten in all of this," one resident said. "We've worked our whole lives for what we have. We've worked too hard to see it disappear."Oh ... wait. That was said by an opponent of Riverside Motorsports Park. Perhaps Crookham took notes from residents before she approved the project two years ago.Looks as though 26th Street may make a better race track than the area north of Castle Commerce Center. It'll probably be built sooner too. Merced's City Council has a little more street cred than RMP, which has been silent since July and needs to win approval once more.Crookham's stance proves that all politics is local, especially when you're trying to keep a project out of your backyard.Calif. drought forces cattle ranchers to downsize...TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writerhttp://www.mercedsunstar.com/105/story/536146.htmlGILROY, Calif. California's worst drought in decades is forcing the state's cattle ranchers to downsize their herds because two years of poor rainfall have ravaged millions of acres of rangeland used to feed their cows and calves.The parched, yellow pastures on Joe Gonzales' cattle ranch attest to the severity of a dry spell that is devastating the economic fortunes of many of the state's beef producers.Gonzales, who normally runs 500 cows on his 2,000-acre spread about 30 miles south of San Jose, cut his herd by half over the past year and may have to sell more if the drought persists."When there's no rain, there's no grass," said Gonzales, 65. "As the drought continues, you have to either continue to feed your cattle or sell them. ... It's the worst I've seen it in more than 30 years."During most dry years, California cattlemen send their herds to places with healthier pastures or buy supplemental feed to sustain their animals until the rainy season. But high fuel prices, a lack of green pastures in California and neighboring states, and the soaring cost of livestock feed have left ranchers little choice but to sell off their mother cows because they can ill afford to feed them...The number of beef cows on California pastures dropped from 700,000 in January 2007 to 655,000 in January 2008, or 6 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture. John Nalivka, president the agricultural research firm Sterling Marketing, expects another 6 percent decline when new cattle numbers are reported in January.The drought has also hurt out-of-state ranchers who normally bring their cattle to graze on California pastures during the winter rainy season. Some of those cattlemen are selling their cows because feeding them is too costly, Nalivka said...In California, cattle ranchers are among the hardest hit by a statewide drought that has forced farmers to reduce crop plantings and leave fields fallow, dealing a major blow to the state's $30 billion agriculture industry.In the first eight months of this year, state officials say, rangeland losses made up $95 million of the estimated $260 million in drought-related agricultural losses.A recent federal report found that 95 percent of the state's rangelands are in "poor" or "very poor" condition."We've been through droughts before, but it's been a long time since we've gone through a drought as severe as this," said John Smythe, executive director of the U.S Department of Agriculture Farm Services Agency in California.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought in May after the state recorded two years of below-average rainfall, a sharp reduction in Sierra Nevada snowpack and its driest spring on record. Late last month, state water officials warned local agencies that their water deliveries could be cut by as much as 85 percent next year.The drought has drained many reservoirs, left lawns and golf courses brown, stranded fish in dried out creeks and forced homeowners and businesses to cut their water usage. It also contributed to an unprecedented wildfire season that scorched hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and rangeland this year...Modesto BeeDOE would expand nuclear dump in Nevada...H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writerhttp://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/490349.htmlWASHINGTON — The Energy Department will tell Congress in the coming weeks it should begin looking for a second permanent site to bury nuclear waste, or approve a large expansion of the proposed waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.Edward Sproat, head of the department's civilian nuclear waste program, said Thursday the 77,000-ton limit Congress put on the capacity of the proposed Yucca waste dump will fall far short of what will be needed and has to be expanded, or another dump built elsewhere in the country.The future of the Yucca Mountain project is anything but certain.President-elect Obama has said he doesn't believe the desert site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is suitable for keeping highly radioactive used reactor fuel up to a million years and believes other options should be explored.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to block the project.Sproat, addressing a conference on nuclear waste, said the Energy Department will send a report to Congress in the coming weeks maintaining that the Yucca site will need to be expanded. He said within two years the amount of waste produced by the country's 104 nuclear power plants plus defense waste will exceed 77,000 tons. Yucca Mountain is not projected to be opened before 2020 at the earliest."We've done enough testing around the site to know that we can make it bigger," Sproat told reporters. But he said Congress will have to remove the capacity limit now in place.If the limit is not removed, said Sproat, the report will urge Congress to give the department authority to begin looking for and evaluating a second nuclear waste repository elsewhere in the country. The law currently prohibits any such search, said Sproat.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must issue a license to build the underground waste dump at Yucca Mountain, a ridge of volcanic rock in the Nevada desert not far from where the government exploded numerous nuclear bombs during the Cold War era. The NRC has four years to make a decision.Sproat acknowledged that the next president could withdraw the license application now before the NRC. But he said that would throw "the whole process...into a lot of confusion and uncertainty" since Congress also has prohibited the government from considering any place other than the Nevada site.An alternative could be a temporary above-ground repository, possibly on a federal site.Sproat said the report, which has been completed, will say either expand Yucca Mountain, begin the process of finding a second repository, or "don't do anything and let this whole thing just sit for another 10 to 20 years and see what happens." He said the department would prefer the go-ahead for a larger Yucca site."We do think there is room for additional storage at Yucca. How much, we're not clear on," said Sproat.Allison Macfarlane, a geologist and associate professor for environmental science and policy at George Mason University who has studied the Yucca Mountain area, said there are clear limits to Yucca expansion because of nearby earthquake fault lines and potential volcanic activity."There are geological constraints on Yucca Mountain. It is not an endless sink for nuclear waste," said Macfarlane at the conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.Fresno BeeMajor housing tract west of Hwy. 99 gains planners' OK...Russell Clemingshttp://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/994928.htmlEven with the local housing market at a standstill, one of the area's biggest builders is making plans for a big new tract west of Highway 99.The McCaffrey Group won approval Wednesday night from the Fresno Planning Commission to build 648 homes on about 127 acres bounded by Hayes, Bryan, Ashlan and Gettysburg avenues. The project won praise from commissioners for its design, which melds higher-than-usual density with amenities such as narrower streets and wider sidewalks to encourage walking and biking over driving.Some of the tract's lots will have garages that open onto alleys. Front doors for those homes will open onto courtyards instead of streets. Getting builders to put more houses on less land and discourage driving is a long-term goal of local and regional planners. Such steps are intended to stop farmland loss and restrain the growth of air pollution from motor vehicles...The site lies east of the Koligian Educational Center in the Central Unified School District, in an area where most roads are still narrow two-lane affairs intended to serve farms and rural home sites. As a result, the tract will be required to pay about $110,000 toward improvements at the Shaw and Ashlan Highway 99 interchanges. It is also to contribute more than $773,000 toward a new Highway 99 interchange at Veterans Boulevard between Shaw and Herndon avenues. The cost of that interchange is estimated at $97 million, with $60 million to come from Measure C, Fresno County's half-cent transportation sales tax. Part of the remainder is expected to come from fees on new development. Sacramento BeeBush officials moving fast to cut environmental protections...Renee Schoofhttp://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/v-print/story/55441.htmlWASHINGTON — In the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to relax environmental-protection rules on power plants near national parks, uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and more mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia.The administration is widely expected to try to get some of the rules into final form by the week before Thanksgiving because, in some cases, there's a 60-day delay before new regulations take effect. And once the rules are in place, undoing them generally would be a more time-consuming job for the next Congress and administration.The regulations already have had periods of public comment, and no further comments are being taken. The administration has proposed the rules and final approval is considered likely.It's common for administrations to issue a spate of regulations just before leaving office. The Bush administration's changes are in keeping with President Bush's overall support of deregulation.Here's a look at some changes that are likely to go into effect before the inauguration.GRAND CANYONHigher prices for uranium, driven by expanded interest in nuclear power, have resulted in thousands of mining claims being filed on land within three miles of the Grand Canyon.The House of Representatives and Senate natural resources committees have the authority under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to order emergency withdrawals of federal land from future mining claims for three years, while Congress decides whether a permanent ban is needed. The House committee issued such a withdrawal order in June for about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon, including the land the claims were filed on.Now the Department of Interior has proposed scrapping its own rule that puts such orders from the congressional committees into practice.The Interior Department could decide to use its own power to halt new claims, but it doesn't see any emergency that would prompt such action, department spokesman Chris Paolino said. The department would require environmental impact studies before it approved any mining on the claims, he added.One of the main hazards from uranium mining is seepage from tailings piles that poisons water. A report for the Arizona Department of Game and Fish said people would be at risk if they ingested radium-226, arsenic and other hazardous substances from water and tainted fish.Environmental groups say the government must consider the possible danger of uranium leaching into the Colorado River, a source of drinking water for Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano in March urged Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to halt new claims and order a study of uranium mining near the canyon.MOUNTAINTOP-REMOVAL COAL MININGAnother proposed rule change from the Department of Interior would change rules on dumping the earth removed for mining into nearby streams.The current rule, dating from the Reagan administration, says that no surface mining may occur within 100 feet of a stream unless there'd be no harm to water quality or quantity. The rule change essentially would eliminate the buffer by allowing the government to grant waivers so that mining companies can dump the rubble from mountaintops into valleys, burying streams.The new rule would let companies explain why they can't avoid dumping into streams and how they intend to minimize harm. A September report on the proposal by the department's Office of Surface Mining said that environmental concerns would be taken into account "to the extent possible, using the best technology currently available."The government and mining companies have been ignoring the buffer since the 1990s, said Joan Mulhern, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm for environmental protection.Before the rule can be changed, however, the Department of Interior must get written approval from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson."In order to concur, the EPA would have to find that the activities authorized by the rule would not violate water-quality standards, and all the evidence is to the contrary," Mulhern said.AIR POLLUTIONTwo rule changes would apply to electric power plants and other stationary sources of air pollution.The first mainly concerns older power plants. Under the Clean Air Act, plants that are updated must install pollution-control technology if they'll produce more emissions. The rule change would allow plants to measure emissions on an hourly basis, rather than their total yearly output. This way, plants could run for more hours and increase overall emissions without exceeding the threshold that would require additional pollution controls.The other change would make it easier for companies to build polluting facilities near national parks and wilderness areas. It also would change the way that companies must measure the impact of their pollution.ENDANGERED SPECIESThe Endangered Species Act prohibits any federal actions that would jeopardize the existence of a listed species or "adversely modify" critical habitats. The 1973 law has helped save species such as the bald eagle from extinction.Bush administration officials have argued that the act can't be used to protect animals and habitats from climate change by regulating specific sources of greenhouse gas emissions.A proposed rule change would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether timber sales, new dams or other projects harm wildlife protected under the act. In many cases, they'd no longer have to consult the agencies that are charged with administering the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.OTHERSAmong the rule changes and plans that might become final are commercial oil-shale leasing, a new rule that would allow loaded, concealed weapons in some national parks, and oil and gas leasing on wild public lands in West Virginia and Utah.My View: Carbon bank demands an honest accountant...Laurie Wayburn, president and co-founder of the Pacific Forest Trust and a 2008 recipient of The James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for pioneering market-based solutions to protect forests as a way to address climate change. http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1377772.htmlCalifornia's forests have always been an important part of our heritage and our daily lives. We rely on them for water, wood and recreation. We are likely to rely on them even more as a powerful resource to help combat climate change.Recent polls indicate that almost 90 percent of Californians support protecting forests because they naturally remove global warming pollution from the atmosphere. The good news is that the state's Air Resources Board, charged with implementing California's landmark global warming policy, wisely included forests among the sectors that must help the state meet its targets for reducing carbon dioxide, the primary global warming pollutant.The board's challenge is to ensure that the true climate benefits of forests are accounted for accurately, realistically and over time. Getting these numbers right is the key to success. Failure to do so will have serious consequences for our forests – and the climate benefits that we need from them. Forests have a natural role in regulating our climate and can be managed like a growing, long-term "carbon bank." They use photosynthesis to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester, or hold, it as carbon for very long periods of time. The older forests are, the more carbon they hold. That is why California's legendary redwood and Sierra forests are some of the best carbon banks in the world.Keeping track of forest carbon requires double-entry bookkeeping: Trees absorb carbon through photosynthesis when they grow. But when trees are cut down faster than they grow back and forests are cleared for development, most of that stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere, and our bank is depleted.In other words, depleting our forests actually contributes dramatically to climate change. In fact, forest loss and depletion is the second largest source of global carbon emissions.The board's current plan rightly recognizes the value of our forests as carbon banks by proposing a target of "no net loss" of forest carbon while seeking to increase net savings in our carbon banks. The plan also recognizes that forests have a role in meeting climate goals in other sectors, like land-use, construction and energy.The fact that many sectors rely on forests presents an accounting challenge. For example, right now the plan only addresses the climate benefits of burning wood as a low-carbon biomass fuel in the energy sector without taking into account the climate cost of harvesting that wood in the forest sector.It's like having a family checkbook, where different family members can write checks from the same account – in this case, the same carbon storage bank. Someone needs to know what everyone is drawing from the account in order to maintain a healthy balance and ensure that we don't exceed the limit.When it meets Nov. 20 to finalize the plan for implementing Assembly Bill 32, the Air Resources Board should add provisions for much tighter accounting for all forest-related climate costs and benefits. They must require that any impacts on forests' carbon banks are accurately tracked across different sectors, like the family checkbook, so we can track unwanted withdrawals. This will give us "accounting with accountability" and the ability to clearly identify the causes of unexpected gains or losses and to respond accordingly with forest management that maximizes climate benefits and minimizes losses.The plan also needs to take a long-term view. Forests increase their carbon stores as they get older, much like compound interest in a bank account. Clearing our forests to generate more products, like woody biomass, might look like a big win for climate in the first few years. But when we factor in the long-term, compounded impact of lost carbon storage, it's likely a climate disaster.Conserving and restoring our forests using sustainable management that increases carbon stores over time should be central to California's efforts at healing the climate. But using fuzzy math to calculate the climate impact of forests won't just cook the books – it will cook our planet. Home Front: Home builders hear more bad news...Jim Wassermanhttp://www.sacbee.com/103/v-print/story/1378155.htmlThe annual real estate forecast season is on, and Sacramento-area home builders caught a fresh earful of unfriendly predictions Thursday.The consensus of economists, consultants and home-building executives regarding 2009 is the same as they all predicted in November 2007: This numbing housing slump has a long way yet to run."You saw how October went," Tim Lewis, owner of Roseville-based Tim Lewis Communities told 250 industry people. "That was one of the toughest months this market has ever seen. Anyone that's still standing right now must be doing something right." This year's North State Building Industry Association forecast seemed to find builders bleaker than ever about immediate prospects. Bank repos are killing sales, and the economy is worsening. Hopes are largely pinned now on a distant future when inevitable population growth again stirs demand for what they build.Until then, Folsom building industry tracker Greg Paquin had these predictions:• Builders will sell 5,300 homes this year in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties and perhaps 10 percent more next year. That's if the economy improves in the second half. At the peak in 2004, more than 18,000 new homes were sold.• New home prices – averaging $374,000 across the region – are about as low as they can go. He said, "We feel we're getting real close to the bottom in the Sacramento market."• When the market does return, it will favor builders in Placer County, El Dorado Hills and Folsom. High fees, he said, will discourage builders in Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova, while flood-control work will be a barrier to building in West Sacramento and Natomas.Economist Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, said he sees not a typical V-shaped fast rebound this time, but a long bottom."The news is all fear, fear fear. I call it the Paulson Panic," he said, criticizing the U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for badly frightening consumers with talk of economic collapse.Scared consumers, fueling 72 percent of the economy, may well make the bust worse."In the long run, we need to save more and spend less," he said, "but you don't want to do it all in one quarter."There are more forecasts soon for those who earn their living building new homes. Next is by Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors on Tuesday. It asks: "Are there any promising signs?"Afterward comes the California Building Industry Association with a 2009 forecast in the first week of January.Mortgage interest rates are back on the downswing side of their continuing volatility. Fixed-rate 30-year loan rates dipped to 6.20 percent early this week, down from 6.46 percent last week. (Last week's sudden rise was from 6.04 percent the week before that, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac.)Financial Web site Bankrate.com pegged overnight rates even lower Thursday, at 6.03 percent. At one point Tuesday afternoon, Sacramento-based Comstock Mortgage reported rates had fallen by one-quarter of one percent in just a few hours.Rates have been extremely jumpy, rising and falling on the economic news of the day. Freddie Mac economists said they fell this week "amid new indications of a pullback in consumer spending and a weaker jobs market."Meanwhile, a new 2008 survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that caution and conservatism are definitively back in vogue among borrowers.• Fixed-rate 30-year mortgages accounted for 78.5 percent of home loan dollar volume during the first half of this year, the MBA said. That's up from 63.6 percent the second half of 2007.Remember when? During parts of the housing boom, almost three-fourths of Sacramento-area mortgages were adjustable-rate loans.• Old-fashioned prime loans were 82.7 percent of all mortgage activity the first half of this year. Subprime loans, which accounted for 20 percent of mortgages in 2005 and 2006, according to the Federal Reserve, fell to 3.8 percent.The old days of all pedal and no brakes are certainly gone.Well, it's true that banks are finally rewriting more loan terms to help borrowers avoid foreclosure. But there are plenty more discounted repos to arrive in the market, says an auction company executive."I think (the modifications) will definitely slow down the short-term pace of foreclosures," said Mike Davis, president of transaction services for Los Angeles-based Zetabid. "But there is so much excess inventory still out there that auctions are going to be held two or three more years."Zetabid is one of the newest auctioneers in this lucrative real estate arena. The firm has scheduled a regional event in Stockton on Nov. 22 to auction 80 homes foreclosed in Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto.It starts at 10 a.m. at the Sheraton Waterfront Hotel.Zetabid has two other auctions in the region this month. One is for 80 Bay Area repos in San Ramon on Nov. 20. Another is for 60 San Joaquin Valley repos in Fresno on Nov. 23."There is still a lot of inventory left to clear," Davis said. Hefty job losses imperil economy's future...Kevin G. Hallhttp://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/v-print/story/55471.htmlWASHINGTON — Employers slashed 240,000 jobs in October, sending the unemployment rate soaring to 6.5 percent, its highest level since March 1994, the Labor Department reported Friday. The agency also sharply revised September's jobless figures, saying that the preliminary estimate of 159,000 jobs lost that month was far off, and there were 284,000 workers tossed into the ranks of the unemployed that month. It revised August estimates of 73,000 job losses to 127,000.The revisions are as significant as the higher-than-expected October losses because they suggest that the economy was suffering a steep drop even before the financial crisis exploded into a global problem in September. Many of the September job losses preceded the financial meltdown. "Employment has fallen by 1.2 million in the first 10 months of 2008; over half of the decrease has occurred in the past three months," the Bureau of Labor Statistics report says. "In October, job losses continued in manufacturing, construction and several service-providing industries."The dismal numbers are the latest indicator to suggest that the U.S. economy is deep in recession. That's defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, and virtually all mainstream economists think that the last three months of this year will show a much larger contraction than the 0.3 percent shrinkage of the economy from July through September."Over the last year, unemployment has risen almost 2 percentage points, with greater increases for construction and production workers," John Silvia, the chief economist for the Charlotte, N.C.-based national bank Wachovia, said in a note to investors.Job losses were across almost all sectors.Manufacturing employment dropped by 90,000 jobs. Construction fell by 49,000 jobs, and by 663,000 since its peak in employment in September 2006. Professional and business services shed 51,000 jobs, retail employment fell by 38,000 posts and financial services trimmed another 24,000 jobs in October. Only health-care employment and mining added payrolls, 26,000 and 7,000 jobs respectively.Most mainstream economists had forecast job losses of around 200,000 and a jump in the unemployment rate to 6.3 percent. The steep revisions to numbers from previous months suggest that the first estimate of 240,000 jobs lost in October also may be low.The grim jobs report gives new impetus to a plan by the Democrats who control Congress to pass some sort of stimulus package when they meet in a lame-duck session beginning Nov. 17. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., met with the chief executive officers of U.S. auto manufacturers Thursday and is hoping to pass a stimulus plan that could cost as much as $100 billion.The Bush administration is reserving comment on such stimulus plans."Some of the projects we're hearing about may be good projects but may not be of immediate impact. We would have to look at it in the context of what the vehicle is and how they are thinking about doing it," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in an interview Friday.Many analysts fear that the unemployment rate could get above 8 percent next year, suggesting that President-elect Barack Obama will be inheriting a bigger economic crisis than even he expected."We are on track for the longest and deepest recession of the postwar era, and policy will go all out to try to mitigate it," said John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, partners in the economic research firm RDQ Economics in New York.The two analysts, in a research note, expect the Federal Reserve to take its benchmark federal funds rate below where it stands now at 1 percent and into record low territory in a bid to spark the economy. They call on Obama to work with Congress to pass a jobs-oriented economic stimulus package quickly."Dear President-elect Obama: The honeymoon is over and we await your economics transition team with great interest," the pair say.Obama was to meet with his economic transition team in Chicago on Friday afternoon, and then was expected to have a news conference. Financial markets are hoping for word on his choice as treasury secretary. The favorites are Larry Summers, who held that job for the last two years of the Clinton administration, and Tim Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.The number of unemployed Americans through the end of October stood at 10.1 million, or about one in eight active workers. A closer look at those numbers shows that the long-term unemployed — those who've been jobless for 27 weeks or more — grew by another 249,000 to 2.3 million. They accounted for 22.3 percent of total unemployment, meaning that more than one in five unemployed workers has been without a job for half a year or more."These workers are front-line casualties of the unrelenting economic crisis. Already, more than 800,000 have exhausted their emergency federal benefits, and more than 1 million will do so by the end of the year," said Christine Owens, the executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group that's arguing for extending and expanding unemployment benefits.The number of newly unemployed — those without jobs for five weeks or less — rose by 212,000 to 3.1 million in October, the Labor Department said.A deeper dig into the government numbers points to an ever-worse employment picture. The number of people who are working part time because they can't find full-time jobs rose by 645,000 to 6.7 million in October. That number has grown by 2.3 million over the past 12 months.About 1.6 million people in October were classified as marginally attached workers. This means they wanted to work and were available but hadn't sought employment in the past four weeks.Editorial: Foreclosure plan largely on targethttp://www.sacbee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1377902.htmlGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has grasped a fundamental fact: Unless California boldly addresses the root cause of the problem, rising home foreclosures, the economy and state revenues will continue their downward spiral.As part of the emergency special session he called on Thursday, Schwarzenegger has proposed immediate foreclosure relief and long-term mortgage reform. As David Crane, the governor's special adviser for jobs and economic growth, said Wednesday, to protect the California economy, the state needs to keep more people in their homes. So the administration has crafted a proposal to encourage lenders to do more loan modifications.The key element is a 90-day stay on foreclosures unless loan servicers adopt a "robust modification program" similar to the one pioneered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. after it took over California-based IndyMac Bank. Under that model, the lender (or its loan servicer) goes through all loans where borrowers are 60 days late and paying more than 38 percent of income in monthly payments. These loans are reworked with lower interest rates, longer terms or smaller principal amounts so that a borrower's monthly payments for principal, interest, taxes and insurance equal no more than 38 percent of income.This model is a good starting point.And as an incentive to get more servicers to adopt this comprehensive program of mass loan modifications, the governor's proposed 90-day stay on foreclosures is an important step.But the proposal has serious weaknesses that legislators will have to remedy:• If servicers don't follow through on their modification programs, there's no accountability. The plan has no public reporting of loan modifications by specific servicers. Legislators should insist that any loan servicer that wants to avoid the 90-day stay on foreclosures must provide information on loan modifications that will be publicly reported.Only through sunshine can the public see which servicers are actually doing the needed loan modifications. This requirement should apply equally to all servicers sending out notices of default in California, whether licensed by the state or federal government, because regulating foreclosures is the province of the states. There is no federal foreclosure law.• The governor's plan does nothing for borrowers not yet late in their payments. This provides a perverse incentive for people to skip payments.Legislators should insist that the plan include borrowers with adjustable-rate loans who could soon fall behind in payments when rates reset, as well as those who are making only minimum payments that increase (rather than decrease) their loan balance over time. JPMorgan Chase & Co. already has announced it will do this.No one should doubt the need to act during the special session. Until the state addresses rising home foreclosures, the revenue bleeding will continue – and the state's budget mess will continue to get worse. The governor and legislators need to staunch foreclosures and do it now. Capital Press2009 planning and planting risky business...Capital Press StaffThe report was compiled by Capital Press staff members Hank Shaw and Cecilia Parsons and freelance writers Wes Sander, Julia Hollister, Judy Bedell and Dan Weisman.http://www.capitalpress.com/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=45969&TM=42436.36EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a look around the state of California to see how the various sectors of agriculture are planning to deal with an uncertain 2009, a year in which they will no doubt see higher fuel and feed costs and in many cases, lower allocations of water.It's been raining in Northern California, but unless the recent rains continue this winter, drought could be a very real possibility in California. For agriculture, that means fallowed fields, dying orchards and vineyards and sell-offs of livestock.Water isn't the only potential pitfall looming: Fuel, fertilizer and feed costs soared in 2008, and even the recent relief brought by lower prices has left many input costs at historic highs. Few producers expect them to fall far anytime soon.Farmers and ranchers are responding with belt-tightening and a wary conservatism when making planting decisions or choices about whether to increase a herd or put in another acre of vines.DairyHay and grain prices are the unknown factor for California dairy producers. Although milk is the state's top agricultural commodity, bringing $1.35 billion to farmers in 2006, there are plenty of drawbacks to anyone planning expansion this year. Turlock dairy farmer Ray Souza said the ability to expand cowherds in 2009 would also depend on availability of credit, land prices and plant capacity. Capacity is limited and producers won't know if their petition to get a temporary $1 per hundredweight price increase will be approved by the state until January. "It's more difficult in the north end of the (Central) Valley due to higher land prices," Souza said. Producers in the southern part of the valley might have an easier time, because there are still dairy sites that can be permitted. Milk plant capacity also has producers thinking twice about adding more milk to the tank. Banks have typically found dairies to be good investments, but with lower milk prices and higher production costs, there could be a credit crunch, Souza said. "With another dry year, feed prices may have the biggest impact of all," he said.Hay prices have softened in recent weeks, but so have milk prices. The milk-feed ratio has stayed the same, but there has been no improvement in margins, he said.Vegetables"We are all doing the rain dance," said Salinas Valley vegetable grower Dirk Giannini of Christensen and Giannini. Giannini, a third generation farmer in the Salinas Valley, knows that something has to change. "When we don't get the rainfall, we have to pre-irrigate in order to plant. Then the electrical power costs increase and we have to factor that in," Giannini said.Giannini has noticed a decrease in production of the traditional Salinas Valley crops. Known as the "Salad Bowl" for the abundant planting of a variety of lettuces and spinach, new crops are now being introduced because of water issues. "The folks from over in the San Joaquin Valley are looking at our area because they can't get water over there. But the rent and overhead on the land in the Salinas area is high. We need another crop to make it pencil out," he said.What might that crop be? "We are seeing more processing tomatoes for one. And garlic, onions, peppers and tomatillos. I have seen the pumping levels drop tremendously over the past couple of years so we are looking for diversity and planning with less water in mind," Giannini said.OrchardsFranz Niederholzer, a University of California crop advisor in Yuba and Sutter counties, says it's tough for peach and prune growers to anticipate next year's water conditions. The severity of the situation is unprecedented in recent times, he says."I can't remember a time when there was a potential of no water deliveries," he said. "Since we've never had that experience, I can't tell a grower what to expect."Niederholzer says he advises local farmers to remove cover crops, which can make orchard maintenance easier but increase water usage. Peach and prune growers are investing in water-saving measures while trying not to cut water to their trees. Reducing water can affect a tree's health, which puts future harvests in peril.Matt Little, a peach and prune grower, says he may invest in water-saving equipment if allocations are reduced significantly next year. Little says he has installed microjet sprinklers in some of his orchards with the help of a government funding program."Coming into this next year, if our water is cut back, it's going to definitely make us think about going to microjets or (something similar)," Little said. "It's expensive, but you've got to provide your trees with enough water."For the most part, growers are relying on such measures to keep orchards healthy, hoping for better news in the coming months, Niederholzer said."I'm kind of in denial myself," he said. "You get to a point where there's not much else you can do. I hope we get a wet winter."Ripon almond farmer Dave Phippen says he's planning on holding the line in 2009."We're not planting anything," Phippen said. "I think a lot of people who are sitting on older orchards are making decisions about pulling them out. If you don't need to do anything, it's a good time not to do anything."AlfalfaAlfalfa isn't a crop that growers can jump into or out of quickly, said Los Banos alfalfa grower Philip Bowles. Even as one of the more extraordinary alfalfa growing years comes to a close, the crop isn't going to lure many neophytes to the table. Water, harvest and transportation costs can be deal-breakers for growers."It's like opening a restaurant and hoping customers will come in," Bowles said.He doesn't see a giant increase in alfalfa acres for 2009, but, despite a recent think-tank report that hammered alfalfa for its water usage, Bowles has a hunch acreage will move up. Growers who are already in business - and have affordable water and a steady market - will remain, Bowles said. Those who had a hard time this year, even with record high prices, may not. "If you're marginal, don't even think about it," he said.The crop is key to the state's billion-dollar dairy industry. But with hay growers' biggest customers facing lower milk prices, there is a lot of market uncertainty, Bowles said. Prices for hay have also fallen $20-30 per ton in recent weeks as growers store higher-quality hay and sell off lower-quality hay.To stay in the alfalfa hay business in California, Bowles said it takes a reliable water supply and regular paying buyers - two things that may be in short supply."There's sobriety back in the market, and it really depends on the profitability of dairies and the export market."WinegrapesThe winegrape industry is in pretty good shape overall. Prices were good in 2008 and are expected to remain so in 2009, For the moment, the balance between supply and demand appears to be somewhere near even. A serious drought could change things. Grape vines are generally resistant to drought, but there are limits. "Water supply is always an issue and a good steward of the land always plans for these drought issues," said Andrew Avellar of Carneros Vineyard Management in Sonoma County. "We never design a vineyard at 100 percent of the well's capacity but below that capacity."Avellar said he's also seen an increase in dry farming in Sonoma."This is not because of the lack of water but because this authentic style of farming will produce desirable fruit for high-priced wines. The first two years the deep-rooted vines are irrigated and once the vines are established we let them struggle and forage for their own water."Stacie Jacob, executive director of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, said wine grapes use very little water each year, but it's necessary to have water at critical points in the growing cycle is important to maintaining vine health. "In times of low rainfall salts tend to build up so an average amount of rainfall is necessary," Jacob said. "Water is an area of concern for the Paso Robles region and in certain microclimates within our region it may be a limiting factor to overall growth."Mark Chandler of the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission said the industry as a whole is doing well. Demand for Pinot noir and Cabernet sauvignon is high and Merlot is recovering from the beating it took after a character in the 2004 hit movie "Sideways" disparaged the varietal. Al Wagner, past president of the Napa County Farm Bureau and vineyard manager for Clos de Val, said the risk for them will be planting new acreage."If our vineyards don't have enough water we won't be able to plant," he said. "It takes water to establish young vines. In that sense another cold year could have impact into harvest."RiceDon Bransford, a rice grower near Colusa, says growers are planning for a normal year while hoping for better news in the next few months."It does make it difficult to plan, knowing you face potential cuts," he said. "It's a long time between now and spring. I believe growers are concerned, but they also know there's a long time to go."The water shortage has caused the local district to restrict water pumping since the end of October, Bransford said. That means growers face restricted options in disposing of rice straw. With most field burning outlawed, the preferred alternative is flooding for decomposition, followed by disking.Without water, the only option is to cut and bail the straw - which likely won't be used because of limited markets. Still, if November's rainy beginning persists, field flooding could return, Bransford said."If it continues to rain, at some point the district can begin to pump water again," he said. Nicole Van Vleck, a managing partner of Montna Farms near Sacramento, said she is planning on normal planting next year. "Without rain this year we're going to have a terrible situation," she said. "Fortunately for us, we have not been affected by (the shortage) for fall decomposition. So far, we have not been affected as some other growers have, who have had their water cut back."CottonTulare farmer Mark Watte calls himself a die-hard cotton grower, but even he has his limits. On the second to the last day of this year's harvest, Watte said he is looking at only planting 600 acres of cotton in 2009. That's down from 2,100 acres two years ago."And I'm probably foolish for going with 600," he said. "There's no money in it."Watte's father began growing cotton in Tulare County in 1958. Cotton was their main crop for many years. Higher value crops are pushing out cotton statewide. Rising fuel, fertilizer and water costs dictate better returns, but Watte said there are still reasons to plant cotton. "I need another crop in the rotation and I don't want 100 percent dairy feed crops. I hope this will turn around again one day."Watte isn't alone in his decision to plant less cotton next year. Bob Norris, president of the cotton cooperative Calcot, predicted cotton acreage in the San Joaquin Valley could fall to 150,000 acres in 2009. As recently as 1995 the state's upland cotton acreage topped 1 million acres.Cost of inputs is seen as a major reason why cotton is losing ground. According to the National Cotton Council, costs per acre in California have topped $628. Ginning costs alone are $217 per acre of cotton. BeefHolly Foster, a fourth generation cattle rancher in Butte County said the last two years of hard culling has stretched ranchers so thin they can't tighten up another notch. What they do next depends on rainfall. "That will be a big indicator for us, especially with the forage we lost to the fires last summer," Foster said."The cattlemen are having it rough because of the rangeland situation and they are affected by conditions in areas where they move their cows outside the county," said Bob Perkins, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau.Last spring ranchers did quite a bit of culling and declined to keep any replacement heifers. Foster said most of neighboring ranchers did the same. "We cut deeper than normal and don't want to lose more," Foster said. Even if there is a good, wet winter, she said some ranchers may need to sell their heifers to pay bills. The tight spot that cow-calf operators find themselves is also reflected in the lower sales averages at some of the bull sales around the state. "We're all in a pinch," Foster said.Many ranchers have already been feeding hay for a month and have identified which cows they will sell if early rains don't bring some relief and green grass soon.Southern CaliforniaPossible drought conditions and water allocations are having some impact on growers in the Coachella and Imperial valleys, whose the growing year is just getting started. The desert region is the nation's chief winter vegetable producer.Imperial County growers are more affected by supply-and-demand and market prices than water allocations for the near future, according to Mark Osterkamp, an Imperial County alfalfa grower and president of the Imperial County Farm Bureau. Growers won't cut acreage although they will convert some land to other crops and change watering tactics, he said."I cultivate 1,200 acres of alfalfa, but I might be leaning more towards converting some acreage to wheat, which needs less water," Osterkamp said. Potential California drought conditions won't directly affect the Imperial Valley since its water comes exclusively from the Colorado River. However, a new allocation system is in place this year with plans for it to become permanent next year. This will affect growing.Growers were nervous, Osterkamp said. "I'm glad we're trying it now when not facing a major shortfall this year, so we can get problems worked out rather than a real problem situation," he said. "We're not being reduced by near as drastically as the other areas." Growers in the Imperial Valley growers generally don't have contracts. They must go on price estimates and deal with market conditions closer to planting, so final 2009 decisions won't be made until next summer. In some cases, growers needing more water will buy water from growers not using their entire allocation, Osterkamp said.Coachella growers are still working through how much water will be available next year, with expectations that only 15 percent of water requests will be filled next year, according to Steve Pastor, Riverside County Farm Bureau executive director.Tracy PressState audit critical of Delta College A preliminary audit by state controllers heaps another helping of criticism on how San Joaquin Delta College trustees handled voter-approved bond money...Jennifer Wadsworth   http://tracypress.com/content/view/16382/2268/Delta College trustees overstepped their authority when they extended two-year terms of a bond oversight committee this year, say investigators from the State Controller’s Office in a draft report after a seven-week audit in which the agency raised several other charges. The 20-page draft also found committee members “passive, perfunctory and ineffective,” in large part, it continued, because trustees are too controlling. The audit team said that their goal going into the investigation was to figure out what caused any shortfalls in $250 million of Measure L bond money voters approved in 2004, why construction exceeded original budgets and if the college cancelled or delayed anything because it spent beyond its means. The audit was supposed to be shielded from public view until the final report gets released, according to State Controller spokeswoman Haylle Jordan, who was surprised to learn that the college decided to review it publicly at a meeting tonight. However, the college planned to have on hand hard copies of the rough draft at the quarterly citizen’s oversight committee meeting, but listed it as an attachment in the agenda, which legally bound the school to disclose the report to the public. The college posted it online this afternoon, when it was brought to attention. When the final version gets released, it will include the college’s rebuttal to the findings and one of the five findings — which charged the college with spending bond money on travel expenses, among other things — will get retracted. College spokesman Greg Greenwood decried the report as politically motivated. Two weeks before the state agency announced it wanted to examine how the college handled public money, Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden, had asked the controller’s office for another investigation. “So here we are,” Greenwood said today. “And now we’ve got this bug audit book, and they spent probably tens of thousands of dollars doing this.” The upside for the college, he said, is that school leaders might decide to agree with one or two of the findings. He said the college will likely concede that trustees acted illegally by overriding the Education Code when they extended term limits for bond oversight committee members. But no new candidates came forward, Greenwood added, so the governing board though it necessary at the time. Auditors said a college employee told them on Sept. 18 that as many as 16 interested candidates had come forward. Trustees and administrators disagreed, though, that the committee is ineffective. The report also alleges that college audits of the bond money were incomprehensive and the employees responsible for them “apparently were liberal in their interpretation” of what constitutes an appropriate expense. Greenwood said the college will challenge that finding, defending the thoroughness of the school’s internal audits. Additionally, the college misspent $10.6 million of the bond money on batting cages, a baseball stadium, electronic scoreboards, parking lots for the softball field and new soccer and football fields, according to the report. Measure L was originally marketed to voters as a way to pay to repair leaky roofs, decaying walls and aging electrical wiring, make the college more fireproof, clean up asbestos and construct better buildings and classrooms. Voters were also told it would pay for satellite campuses in the northern and southern reaches of San Joaquin County and remodel existing ones in Manteca, Tracy and the foothills.San Francisco ChronicleWater systems ordered to monitor for E. coli...APhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/06/state/n113610S34.DTL&hw=epa&sn=004&sc=408The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says 10 public drinking water systems in California are facing possible fines for failing to monitor for E. coli bacteria in their source water.EPA officials said Thursday they are ordering the agencies to start monitoring for the pathogen, whose presence in water is a strong indicator of sewage or animal waste contamination.The 10 agencies supply drinking water to small communities in Alpine, Fresno, Glenn, Humboldt and Trinity counties.They are required to conduct pathogen monitoring plans under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.The EPA says the 10 water systems face fines up to $32,500 per day for each violation.Los Angeles TimesAnimal rights activist convicted of contempt of courtPamelyn Ferdin violated an injunction against demonstrations near the homes of UCLA researchers. Sentencing is set for Nov. 18...Larry Gordonhttp://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-animal7-2008nov07,0,2807873,print.storyPamelyn Ferdin, an activist who has protested the use of animals in scientific experiments, was convicted of contempt of court Thursday for violating an injunction against demonstrations near the homes of UCLA researchers.Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John L. Segal, who conducted Ferdin's hearing in Santa Monica, scheduled sentencing for Nov. 18, according to a court clerk.Ferdin was found to have violated an injunction, issued in April at UCLA's request, when she demonstrated in June near the Westside homes of UCLA faculty members and distributed fliers that included scientists' home addresses and phone numbers. Reached by telephone Thursday, Ferdin said she planned to appeal her conviction but was proud of her involvement in the protests. She said the injunction covered other people and did not name her."I have every right to hand out the leaflets," said Ferdin, 49, of Agoura Hills.In cases that remain under investigation by the FBI, the homes of UCLA animal researchers have been targeted in recent years with flooding and attempted firebombing. No arrests have been made in those incidents and Ferdin said she had nothing to do with them.UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said he was heartened by Thursday's court decision."It's important to send a message that the tactics used by anti-animal research extremists are illegal and will not be tolerated," Block said in a statement.UCLA has said that all animals used in the university's research are treated humanely and that their use is important to find cures for disease.Unemployment rate hits 6.5%, a 14-year highThe economy lost 240,000 jobs in October, bringing the total to 1 million jobs lost this year...Maura Reynoldshttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs8-2008nov08,0,316273,print.storyReporting from Washington — Employers slashed jobs from one end of the economy to the other, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.5% -- the highest in 14 years -- and making a deep recession a virtual certainty.The Labor Department reported today that the economy lost 240,000 jobs in October, the steepest one-month decline in a contraction that began last January. It also revised downward the number of jobs lost in September, to 284,000 from an initially reported 159,000.Normally, the economy must create about 100,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth. So far this year, the economy has shrunk by over 1 million jobs.The stock market, which fell over 400 points on Thursday in anticipation of a dismal jobs report, rose over 90 points in early trading in relief that the numbers weren't even worse.Peter Kretzmer, senior economist at Bank of America in New York, said that job losses were only likely to accelerate in coming months and the unemployment rate could rise to near 8% by the end of next year."The October employment report indicated that businesses sped up their layoffs as the financial crisis deepened in September," Kretzmer said in a note to clients. "With the economy in recession and GDP declining at about an average 3% . . . we expect rapid payroll declines to continue well into 2009, before gradually abating."Jared Bernstein, a labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said the deteriorating conditions for U.S. workers are likely to intensify calls for Congress to pass another economic stimulus package."Job loss is very pervasive right now across industries," Bernstein said. "It's hard to find industries that are creating jobs, other than health care and government . . . and not coincidentally, those sectors both have heavy government involvement.""When the private sector engine stalls, the public sector engine needs to kick in," Bernstein said.The unemployment rate soared 0.4% in one month, rising from 6.1% in September to 6.5% in October -- a sign that employers, facing slackened demand for their goods and services, are responding by cutting jobs."A consumer-led recession is upon us, and it promises to be a serious one," said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., a New York economic forecasting firm.The last time the unemployment rate was so high was in March 1994, when the economy was still struggling to recover from a recession.The unemployment rate is a survey of those who have lost employment and are actively looking for new work. It does not include people who are working part-time because they can't find a full-time job, or workers who have become so discouraged that they have stopped applying for jobs.When the discouraged and part-timers are included in the sample, the unemployment rate jumped to 11.8% in October, the Labor Department estimated, up from 11% in September.Bernstein noted that job losses are a "lagging" phenomenon -- unemployment tends to peak well after the economic shocks that cause it, and take longer to abate even after the economy recovers.He noted that the lag has lengthened in recent business cycles, with it taking roughly two years after a recession for the economy to regain the lost jobs."Employers often wait to be sure that the economy is really tanking before laying people off in earnest. And they want to be quite sure that consumers are back before they take on another workers," Bernstein said. "Unfortunately, that lag has gotten a lot longer in recent years."The dirty side of clean coal...Geoffrey Mohan, Greenspacehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2008/11/the-dirty-side.htmlDouglas Fischer at The Daily Climate has a long feature on mountain-top removal, a coal mining practice common in Appalachia. He writes it out of Dorothy, W.Va.:            Larry Gibson lives on an island in the sky.It didn't start that way: His land was once a low hill in a rugged hardwood forest -– cherry, oak, hickory -– skipping from ridge to ridge across one of the poorest, most rural areas of the Lower 48.Then came the mining companies with their dynamite and their trucks. They clear-cut the forest, blew the tops off the ridges and scraped the rocks into the hollows, pushing hundreds of feet of mountains into the valleys below.They came for the coal -– energy that provides half of the nation's electricity and has been touted as a major plank in the United States' bid for energy independence. They left, in Gibson's view, a swale of extirpation and death.This is mountaintop removal mining, the underbelly of the promise of clean, home-grown energy touted by industry and politicians.No place in the United States has seen the damage and the benefits of mountaintop removal like Appalachia, where one third of the nation's coal is mined. Today about 30 percent of all the coal coming out of the central and southern Appalachians comes via such surface mining."There is no such thing as clean coal," Gibson said, talking to a group of journalists under the canopy of his forested knob, where the sylvan sounds of birds and wind carried an undertone of heavy machinery and tumbling rocks."I want you folks to write what you see," he said. "And if you write truthfully, you will end one of the most barbaric practices on the planet."Gibson is legendary for his stand against mountaintop removal, and has been featured in many stories, a fact Fischer acknowledges in his piece, which also ran in Environmental Health News. He talks with other residents, and mining officials, who show restoration efforts that include reforestation with hardwoods such as black cherry, sugar maple, oak and white ash:Such work tends to get dropped from press coverage of mountaintop removal, advocates note.Confronting the same group of journalists that had crossed Hell's Gate with Gibson, Coal Association President Bill Raney had to vent a bit of steam: "You say that mining's not protecting the resources," he said. "It drives me nuts when y'all use that same paragraph. It's absolutely meaningless in terms of what we do out here."Men like [mine operator Andrew] Jordon and Hackworth move the earth, mine the coal, reshape the hills and reforest them. Or they leave a patch of level ground for a school, a ballpark, a Wal-Mart –- no small asset for a state with preciously few flat spots.The next ridge over from Jordon's operation is Kanawha State Forest."I've got a church full of people who use that forest," Jordon said. "When we got control, I promised those people I'd clean this place up.He's making good on that promise, too: From the front porch of that hunting shack, looking out over the mining and the earth-movers, an approaching autumn rain engulfs two forested knobs -– artificial to be sure, and reclaimed from the mine, but growing anew nonetheless.President-elect Barack Obama has spoken out against mountaintop removal. But coal is bound to return to the national energy debate, despite the lack of proven industry-scale technology to remove and sequester carbon emissions from coal-fired plants. Washington PostWidespread Complaints About a Rudderless Government...Carol D. Leonnig http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602572_pf.htmlWhen President Obama takes over in January as manager-in-chief of nearly 2 million federal employees, he will need a plan to reinvigorate a frustrated and demoralized workforce, career employees warn. In numerous agencies, federal civil servants complain that they have been thwarted for months or even years from doing the government jobs they were hired to do. Federal workers have told presidential transition leaders they feel rudderless, their morale impacted by the Bush administration's opposition to industry regulation, steep budget cuts or the departures many months ago of Bush political appointees. Though they fear publicly identifying themselves, numerous federal workers said in interviews that they are down, but also excited about new leadership."Many we talk to are weary, but cautiously optimistic that with this change in administrations they will get to do their job again," said Jeff Ruch, of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "In the environmental agencies we deal with, they weren't allowed to do their jobs because the Bush White House operated on a very centralized basis. The rule was, that which the White House doesn't want to hear shall not be said." Federal employees said that they are not a passionately partisan group, but some are hopeful about an Obama presidency, assuming that their lot will improve. Several took heart from Obama's campaign trail statements that he wanted to make federal government work "cool again." John Kamensky, a senior fellow and transition expert at the IBM Center for the Business of Government, said that in tracking the Bush administration's recent work and searching for any new initiatives, his center noticed the business of government had slowed to a near crawl over the last year."We've been saying that for a year: the administration checked out early," Kamensky said. "I am hearing people [civil servants] are demoralized and waiting for some leadership."White House spokesman Tony Fratto said regulatory agencies have a bias in favor of more regulation, and he suspects workers voicing frustrations with the Bush administration's opposition to excessive regulation are now those clamoring for new leadership. "There's no support in the surveys for a demoralized workforce," he said noting that 58 percent reported being satisfied with their agencies and 68 percent with their jobs overall. Regulatory agencies -- including the Departments of Interior and Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Consumer Protection and Safety Agency -- have been the hardest hit by morale issues, mainly because of Bush's anti-regulatory posture, workers and union officials said. Hundreds of federally-employed scientists, researchers and agency lawyers have drafted, studied and restudied regulations that went nowhere.At EPA, a regional staffer who works on wetlands protection said the agency's political appointees have stalled and erected roadblocks on work to clean air, water and soil. Headquarters waited a year to advise staff on how to handle a Supreme Court decision that threw wetlands rules into doubt, then issued vague, "useless" guidance, he said. "There's been an inability for people to do their jobs and do it well, " said the staffer, who asked to remain anonymous. "The administration's purpose has been to do nothing." At Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), career scientists were told in 2001 by arriving Bush appointees to stop work on nearly completed regulations to reduce exposure to four well-documented workplace poisons. The new leadership explained that it wanted the office to focus on regulating other workplace hazards, but even then, little progress was made."It was discouraging for many employees to sit for so long," said Charles Gordon, a Labor Department career attorney who recently retired after 33 years overseeing OSHA matters. "They felt they weren't fully utilized." One veteran OSHA staffer who asked not to be named said her agency has now worked for 15 years on the same draft regulation, most recently on management-ordered revisions, without completion. "Even though we can show bodies on the floor from this danger, nothing gets out the door," said the OSHA veteran, who ticked off a list of Ph.D.-carrying colleagues who retired to be more productive elsewhere. Some agencies are also suffering from double-digit percentage cuts in staff and resources, and the strain on federal workers has been noted in several independent reports. The staff of the Small Business Administration, for example, dropped from 2,975 to 2,166 since Bush took office. The volume of federal contracting has nearly doubled during that same period, from $207 billion in 2000 to $400 billion last year, while the number of staff monitoring contracts has declined. Also, some agencies have gone through much of this year with no leaders in the big window offices. In May, eight months before Bush was to leave the White House, half the administration's top 250 political positions were vacant or filled by temporary appointees. The jobs left in limbo at that early stage included, to name a few, five of the seven senior Justice Department positions, two deputy secretary jobs at HUD overseeing public housing and community development, and a senior adviser to the Treasury Secretary on economic policy. Since this is the first election in 50 years in which neither the president nor his vice president ran for office, Kamensky surmised that many appointees may have expected to be replaced and felt no need to await election results. Frank Buono, a retired National Park Service employee, argued that the administration did a poor job of hiding "a fundamental hostility" toward his agency's job of conserving national parks. Obama's challenge, he said, will be getting the workforce to trust its leadership again. "The atmosphere in the agencies, even among career people, is pretty negative," he said. "They have been completely browbeaten." But there are rays of hope, Kamensky noted.CNN MoneyStates face unemployment cash crisisRising unemployment drains state trust funds, forcing them to borrow from Washington to continue paying claims...Tami Luhbyhttp://money.cnn.com/2008/11/07/news/economy/unemployment_insurance/index.htm?postversion=2008110709NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- State unemployment insurance trust funds are rapidly running out of money amid soaring job losses. This is prompting state officials to consider raising employer taxes or curtailing benefits, while forcing them to borrow from the federal government to cover claims."Some states didn't have adequate reserves built up," said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project. "They are having significant problems paying out the increased number of benefits."The number of people collecting state unemployment benefits hit a 25-year high of 3.84 million, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said Thursday. The following day, the department announced that 240,000 jobs were lost in October, pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.5%, up from 6.1%. It's the highest rate since March 1994. Nearly 1.2 million jobs have been lost this year.With companies unveiling mass layoffs almost daily, states are likely to see further strains on their trust funds. This comes at a time when the weakening economy is already putting great stress on governments and employers alike.The trust funds are financed through unemployment insurance taxes levied on businesses. States must pay out the claims promised under the law, even if they have to borrow the funds from the feds.The trust funds of five states are insolvent - meaning they have reserves of three months or less - while another eight state funds are nearly insolvent with reserves of four to six months, according to the National Employment Law Project. Six other states don't have enough money to cover a year of payments.Michigan is hurtingMichigan, hit hard by the collapse of the auto industry, has essentially nothing left in its trust fund, said Norman Isotalo, spokesman for state's Department of Labor & Economic Growth. New initial claims are up 21% over a year ago, while the unemployment rate hit 8.7% in September, up from 7.3% a year earlier.Though it has borrowed money from the feds to cover claims since 2006, Michigan has avoided paying interest on the loan by repaying it quickly. The state, however, no longer has the funds to repay the loan, which currently totals nearly $473 million. The debt will starting accruing interest in January, and the state will pass along the additional fees to employers. Businesses already shell out between .06% and 10.3% on the first $9,000 of earnings of each worker, depending on how many of their former employees are drawing benefits. About 20% of companies soon will start paying up to $67.50 in an additional solvency tax, levied on employers who have paid less in unemployment taxes than their former employees have received in benefits.The state realizes the additional tax will impose yet another burden on struggling companies, but the law does not allow exceptions, said Stephen Geskey, director of Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency."It is not an optimal time for the solvency tax to kick in," Geskey said. "But there's really no wiggle room."The Michigan fund is being squeezed, in part, because of changes lawmakers made over the past 12 years, Geskey said. When times were good -- the fund had a $3 billion balance in 2001 -- officials lowered the tax rate. This resulted in a loss of $1.1 billion in contributions, he said.Spurred by the looming interest payments, legislators are only now planning to address the matter. Discussions should begin soon, said Democratic state Sen. Michael Switalski."Now it has our attention," Switalski said. "We're going to have to deal with it."Ohio contemplates benefit freezeIn Ohio, claims are running 40% above last year's levels. The state's trust fund is running an uncomfortably low balance of $305.6 million. Its own calculations show it needs $2.3 billion to withstand a moderate recession, said Sara Hall Phillips, labor policy analyst with the state's Department of Job and Family Services.Ohio lawmakers failed to act on recommendations by a state advisory council to replenish the fund. The council had proposed raising taxes paid by employers and freezing workers' benefits for three years, Hall Phillips said.Employers in Ohio pay between 0.5% and 9.2% on the first $9,000 of earnings of each worker. The maximum weekly benefit is $365 for a worker with no dependents.Even though the fund will likely run out of money by early January, lawmakers likely won't address the issue before the middle of next year.The rising number of claims is not the only reason the fund is running out of money, Hall Phillips said. The law calls for benefits to increase annually, though there's no provision for taxes to do the same.When Ohio faced a similar fiscal crunch in the 1980s, forcing it to borrow from the feds from 1980 through 1988, it had to temporarily freeze benefits and raise taxes."Claimants will still receive unemployment compensation benefits and that will continue no matter what happens with the trust fund or with the legislature," she said. But "benefits may be locked at that level for a few years."Wall Street woes hit New YorkThe implosion of Wall Street and the weakened economy around the state has led to a surge of unemployment claims in New York. The state now pays benefits to 148,000 people, up from 113,000 a year ago, said Leo Rosales, spokesman for the state Department of Labor.As a result, New York's trust fund has dwindled to $357 million, down from $538 million a year ago. To meet its obligations, the state has been borrowing from the feds for years, receiving nearly $1.1 billion over the past three years alone. In 2006, the state had to pay $7 million in interest of $1.5 billion it borrowed in 2005.The state legislature tried unsuccessfully in the spring to increase unemployment insurance taxes, while also raising the maximum weekly benefit, which now stands at $410, to $550. The bill would have increased the wage base to $11,500 over time, from its current $8,500.Tuesday's election left Democrats in control of both chambers of the state legislature, and the bill now has a better chance of getting passed, said Assembly member Susan John, a Democrat, chair of the labor committee."Members are back home in their districts and are recognizing how much people are struggling," John said