Wisconsin State Journal, Oct. 14
Time to get real about roads and revenue
If you want good roads, you have to pay for them.
And it’s not just the politicians in Madison and Washington, D.C., who have failed to learn that lesson.
It’s the people in Wisconsin, too.
The latest Marquette Law School poll, released last week, found that nearly two-thirds of respondents - 64 percent - said the roads where they live are in fair (34 percent) or poor (30 percent) condition.
That’s not surprising, given that Gov. Scott Walker has reduced spending on transportation during his eight years in office while refusing to increase the gas tax or vehicle registration fee, which largely pay for road maintenance and construction.
Wisconsin now ranks near the bottom - 44th out of the 50 states - for road quality.
Fixing the problem will require more than scrutinizing projects for savings, though that’s certainly worth pursuing. It will require more money from motorists in user fees.
Unfortunately, nearly as many people who say their roads are in bad shape also say they don’t want to pay more to improve them.
The same Marquette poll, which surveyed 1,000 registered voters across the state this month, found that close to two-thirds of respondents - 61 percent - oppose higher gas taxes and registration fees. Not quite a third - 32 percent - favored higher user fees to increase spending on roads.
Even among those respondents who think roads are in poor condition, less than half - 48 percent - support higher fees to improve the pavement.
So maybe Wisconsin drives on the bad roads it deserves.
But conditions are only going to get worse, because even our current and inadequate spending levels at the state and federal levels are propped up by excessive borrowing. Wisconsin was spending 11.5 percent of its transportation revenue on debt payments before Gov. Walker came into office in 2011. Eight years later, the state is spending 21 percent of its transportation dollars on debt payments.
So even if we keep collecting the same amount money as we used to, it won’t go as far because more and more gets syphoned away. And if anything, the current state gas tax of 32.9 cents per gallon, which has been flat since 2006, is only going to bring in less revenue in the future. That’s because more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles will pump less or no gas.
It’s time to get real.
The simplest way to bring in more money is for Wisconsin to raise its gas tax for the first time in a dozen years. But a more sustainable solution is to charge motorists based on the mileage their vehicles travel each year. The governor’s own study commission recommended that five years ago, along with higher fees on big trucks, which cause the most wear to roads.
Open-road tolling on the interstate system is another strong option. As the gas tax erodes, tolling would keep out-of-state tourists and over-the-road trucks contributing to the major highways they heavily use.
Despite the public’s apparent disdain for higher fees, responsible voters should recognize that inflation and more traffic increase cost. They should vote for candidates who have the courage to support a fiscally responsible solution.
At the same time, the politicians must show real leadership. Often, that requires making hard decisions that may not be popular but are necessary.
Without more revenue, Wisconsin’s roads will continue to crumble.
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The Capital Times, Oct. 10
Leah Vukmir is running a desperate and dishonest campaign
Leah Vukmir is a career politician whose name has appeared on 14 primary and general election ballots over the past 16 years - as a candidate for the state Assembly, the state Senate and now the U.S. Senate.
Vukmir has devoted so much time and energy to politics since she first ran for a Milwaukee-area state legislative seat that she should be good at it by now.
But she’s not.
This year’s U.S. Senate race has been a rough one for Vukmir, who has struggled to get her footing as a statewide candidate. Though she is hardwired into the GOP establishment in Madison and Washington, 51 percent of Republican primary voters signaled that they wanted someone else as their candidate.
Vukmir secured her party’s nomination only because conservatives divided their support among several other candidates - most notably businessman Kevin Nicholson. Nicholson was a political unknown, but he came close to upsetting Vukmir - as least in part because his campaign raised concerns about whether the front-runner was ready for prime time.
Nothing that Vukmir has done since she secured the nomination has calmed those concerns.
Vukmir has run a desperate and often dishonest campaign that constantly goes for gimmicks rather than substance. Through it all, she has treated the voters of Wisconsin as if they are fools.
The vast majority of the Republican’s attacks on her Democratic rival, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, have been identified by PolitiFact as “False,” ’’Pants on Fire,” ’’Mostly False” and “Half True.”
Now Vukmir is spinning another fantasy.
In a breathless column circulated as the U.S. Senate rushed to confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to serve on the Supreme Court, Vukmir attacked the women who went to Washington from Wisconsin and other states to call for more serious scrutiny of the nominee’s troubled background.
To do so, she trashed on Wisconsinites who offended her in 2011 by utilizing their constitutionally protected rights to assemble and to petition for the redress of grievances.
Here’s how the candidate began her screed for a Fox News website: “Senators walked out on hearings to create a media spectacle. Countless delaying tactics were employed to obstruct. Virtue signaling, smears and hyperbole caused widespread chaos. Paid protesters were instructed to corner and confront the so-called ’enemy.’ You may think I’m talking about the latest in the saga of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and how extremist Democrats are doing everything in their power to block his confirmation. You are correct. But what we’re seeing today with the Kavanaugh nomination are the same intimidation schemes those on the left implements whenever their ideas don’t win at the ballot box.”
According to Vukmir, “In my home state of Wisconsin, we saw the full force of what liberals are willing to do when our state Capitol was under siege in 2011 during the debate over collective bargaining. When we Republicans proposed giving local government more flexibility over how tax dollars are spent - rather than caving to the public-sector unions - you would have thought we were proposing the end of the world.”
Vukmir portrays the teachers and nurses, snowplow drivers and firefighters, retirees and schoolchildren who objected in 2011 to legislative assaults on public education, public services and public employees as violent and destructive. She recalls “belligerent” protests and “smear” tactics. It just sounds awful.
Were the protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 legislation really as wild and dangerous as Vukmir suggests? Or is this Senate candidate playing politics with history?
Certainly, there were tense moments during the weeks that saw mass demonstrations not merely in Madison but in communities across the state. To be sure, passions ran high on all sides. It was pretty intense when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and other right-wing personalities flew in to lead a protest against the protests. And we are sure there were days when Vukmir felt every bit as frustrated and threatened as Palin was by so large and continual an expression of opposition to the Republican agenda.
Yet when the demonstrations were at their largest, when tensions were at their highest, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said: “The men and the women of the Madison Police Department train for crowd situations where an agitator or provocateur may try to create safety risks for citizens and officers. During recent demonstrations around the Capitol Square no such situation has arisen. Crowd behavior has been exemplary, and thousands of Wisconsin citizens are to be commended for the peaceful ways in which they have expressed First Amendment rights.”
Madison’s mayor at the time, Dave Cieslewicz, complimented protesters for working with the police to maintain the peace.
Law enforcement leaders agreed.
On the day that activists left the Capitol, Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said, “I think what we’ve seen over the last two weeks is a role model of democracy for the world, and a model of law enforcement working with the community to protect the safety of the people and to protect the right of people to express their views on both sides. We are protecting people and their rights to free speech and assembly and their access to their Capitol.”
We understand that Leah Vukmir is running a political campaign, and that it is not going as well as she might like at the moment. We recognize that she is struggling to get some kind of traction for a challenge to an incumbent who is well regarded by Wisconsinites from across the political spectrum. But, with just a few weeks to go before Election Day, perhaps it is time for Vukmir to focus on actual issues rather than criticisms of Wisconsinites who dared to disagree with her.
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Leader-Telegram, Oct. 4
Frack sand industry faced with challenges
Hi-Crush announced recently it would idle its frack sand dry plant operations on Highway Q in Whitehall.
Although wet plant operations at the site will remain operational, the move resulted in the layoff of 37 employees. The reduction began Sept. 28 and will be completed around Nov. 9. It’s expected to be temporary, but the duration “is unknown at this time.”
“The layoff has been prompted by unforeseen business circumstances,” wrote Mark Skolos, general counsel for the company, in a filing with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. “We have no choice but to halt production at our Whitehall plant due to industry-wide conditions related to the drastic decrease in demand for sand and the derivative impact of these pressures on the sand industry.”
Hi-Crush CEO Robert Rasmus was slightly more optimistic in a news release.
“Despite temporary market dislocations,” he said, “we continue to expect strong demand for northern white frac(k) sand and are continuing with the expansion of rail capacity at Whitehall, as well as our customer-driven expansion of our Wyeville (Tomah) plant and the construction of (a) second Kermit (Texas) facility.”
Wet and dry plants remain operational in Tomah, according to the release, and at Hi-Crush’s other Wisconsin mines in Augusta and Blair.
Nevertheless, there are concerns about Wisconsin’s role in the industry moving forward.
Demand in the frack sand industry is growing. According to IHS Markit, which provides analysis of industries and markets, demand for proppant (most often frac sand) in North America will exceed 168 billion pounds in 2018, a 27 percent increase from the previous year. The percentage growth rate is expected to be in the double digits for years to come.
Proppants are used in hydraulic fracturing, which allows access to oil and gas deposits. Northern white sand in Wisconsin and neighboring states is considered a superior product because of its uniformity and other characteristics. Brown, or regional, sand is less expensive because it’s mined near oil and gas operations in states such as Texas.
“Transportation costs continue to comprise more than 65 percent of sand costs, so reducing those costs and securing supply are very valuable to operators,” Brandon Savisky, senior market research analyst, wrote in an IHS Markit report on the industry. “The cost (of sand) landed at the well site is heavily weighted on the logistics premiums, so transportation, coupled with proximity of supply and storage, is valuable to operators trying to manage both cost and supply chain risk.”
Samir Nangia, IHS oilfield services analyst, said in a recent Wisconsin Public Radio story that 13 new sand mines are operating in the Permian Basin of west Texas. He said buying local allows energy companies to avoid paying $50 per ton to ship sand from Wisconsin.
“The thing to keep in mind is that we have enough local sand now between the Permian and the Eagle Ford to satisfy most of the demand from Texas with local sand alone, which is definitely a problem for the mines in the Midwest,” he said.
Jim Wicklund, Credit Suisse managing director of equity research, said in the WPR story that Wisconsin mines have lost market share and that they have to increasingly rely on companies drilling for natural gas in states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The Bakken oil fields of North Dakota will remain a market for Wisconsin sand, he said.
“So, sand prices look to ratchet down the cost curve to the marginal producer, and while many Wisconsin mines are very efficient and well down the cost curve, the rail cost that has to be added, the delivered cost to the well, is the better cost curve to use,” Wicklund said. “So, some Wisconsin sand mines, the most marginal producers, are likely to close over the next three years or so.”
Nangia agreed, adding that some Wisconsin mines could be bought by larger companies.
All signs point to a growing demand for frack sand in an expanding industry. Wisconsin, however, has a battle on its hands to ensure announcements such as Hi-Crush’s in Whitehall are more the exception than the rule.
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