May 24, 2007
Greg Nickels, Guzzler of Gas
The Seattle Weekly gives us an update on Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' campaign to encourage city residents to get out of their cars and reduce their greenhouse emissions: "After Adding a Hybrid to His Fleet, Mayor Nickels Gulped Even More Gas: The mayor has two cars at his disposal, including a Ford Explorer"
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 24, 2007
10:37 AM | Email This
1. Um, his consumption went down, not up, according to the article.
The article says "From October through December of last year, when the gas-saving hybrid was in service, the mayor charged 400 gallons of gas, costing $1,140; compared to 260 gallons at a cost of $870 from March through August, when the Cadillac was in service." But that compares a 6-month period with a 3-month period; gas consumption per month declined by 23% during that period.
Is that enough decline? Does Nickels ride public transit enough? I don't know. But the Weekly article seems flawed.
2. Hizzoner, the Mayor, thinks he is His Highness, the Mayor and the rules don't apply to him.
3. Oops. I just re-did my math and my previous comment got it precisely backwards; his consumption went way up, not down. Mea culpa.
4. Bruce--
I'm glad you checked your math before I could correct you. At least you show some sign of intelligent life interested in FACTS not just buying the Nickels "dream".
I also found this quote interesting:
"Our systems don't track the information in a way to allow one to make [car-to-car] comparisons," says Fleets and Facilities spokesperson Katherine Schubert-Knapp. "When the fuel clerks enter a charge into the system, they pick the [vehicle] number they think applies to the car."
This is a clear lack of internal controls that the State Auditor should address with a finding. It is important to track mileage by vehicle & reconcile that with Employee Reports on driving. Otherwise employees could be "STEALING" fuel. At $3.50/gallon, it becomes mighty tempting....especially if the City has no decent internal controls to track usage & hold employees accountable.
Comprende???
5. His gas consumption went through the roof in part, it appears, because the "Green" mayor had three cars - two SUVs and a Cadillac - at his disposal! Now he is down to JUST two SUVs - the hybrid and a big old Ford Explorer. How is any of this "green"? You also notice that the mayor said he had "traded in" his Caddy when in fact he had it for three more months and then turned it in with five months to go on a pre-paid lease, costing taxpayers $5,000. When he's not guzzling gas, he's eating money.
6. Note also that his hybrid, according to consumer road tests, got only 20 miles to the gallon, not the 31 he claims.
7. I had a dream. The Mayor planted his fat ass on bicycle seat and embarked on survey trip to evaluate existing and planned bicycle routes in the city. Sadly, he quit after the first mile. He was physically incapable of riding further. It remains to be seen if and how the Mayor's cardio-vascular fitness will have any influence on expanded route planning.
8. Re: the above comment.
It goes with this "excess baggage" line from the story
"It all depends on how your mayor drives the car, or how it's driven for him," says Washington, D.C.-based EPA spokesperson John Millet. "Drive gently, make sure the car is maintained, and of course you'll get better mileage, if you don't have any excess payload or baggage."
9. He's a leftist. It's ALWAYS different when the leftists do it... why do you think they gave that idiot Murtha a pass over his blatant, obvious and complete violation of House rules with his laughable intimidation of another Member over his "no" vote on Murtha pork?
10. When Mayor Gridlock starts using the buses that he wants the rest of us to get on, maybe I'll consider it. Until then, he's just another hypocritical politician.
I suspect if you could get access to his electric bills, you would find he uses much higher than the average Washingtonian as well (a la Algore).
11. It's no secret there has been concern about the MPG posted on new cars. The methods used to calculate this number are generally outdated, but the EPA has never been one to stay on top of technology.
However, what did Nickelbag expect when he bought this large engine hybrid? Duh! He's just going to be honked because once again he has been caught in the typical liberal "do as I say, not as I do" mode. I am sure he will have numerous reasons why he has to put so many miles on his vehicles, but until he leads by example, only the clueless will listen to this idiot.
On a side note, his son has just been indicted for stealing money from casinos,so maybe the defense will use the argument that junior was just trying to raise funds to pay for dad's carbon offsets.
12. His kid was indicted for taking a bribe to further a criminal enterprise. It's what the old man has been doing for years: taking campaign contributions from ST's contractors. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree . . . .
13. He's going to be driving to and from his son's hearings a lot in the coming months too:
link
14. IMO, hybrid cars are fool's gold. It is more impactful to the environment to manufacture them, it costs more to buy, it costs more to maintain, and it depreciates faster than regular engine cars. In addition, it will be very expensive to replace the batteries in excess of replacing an engine in about 6-10 years, and no one dares to say how bad it will be to the environment when the old batteries are disposed.
15. I think Nickels needs to get himself on a bike. All Seattle promotes Bike To Work Month, yet there's Mayor McCheese sitting there with a fleet of autos.
Looking less than healthy to say the least. Another limousine liberal, do as I say not as I do.
16. OMG.... I actually agree with you people. How the heck did that happen?
17. Hybrids are like my environmentalist neighbor's electric lawnmower. Yeah, it makes the owner feel so good that they aren't spewing CO2 into the atmosphere, but where does all that electricity come from? And when it comes to having to haul a real load or do real work, suddenly the combustion engine looks pretty good. For example my neighbor spent about 2 hours mowing 40' x 25' lawn with her electric mower. That would have only taken a few minutes with a gas lawnmower. The neighbor is so obsessed with feeling good about carbon based emissions, and fails to see the bigger picture of having to run the machine much longer to do the same amount of work.
If Nickels cared more about the environment that just his rhetoric and appearances, he'd be using a different vehicle that actually got better mileage under the conditions in which he uses the vehicle with multiple passengers, etc. And he's obviously not considering the long term economic and environmental effects of battery manufacture, replacement and other higher maintenance costs.
I think he's content just to do like Al Gore. The name plate says it is a Hybrid, so it must be good for the environment, right? Talk is cheap.
18. more liberals leading by example...waiting for a Tent City to go up in his yard or on his street to walk the talk.
19. Watchu looking for in a politician, an example? As far as "Green Seattle, Gore, Nickels, etc goes the other sid eof the story can be found on www.jonhs.net. Their article about the "Great Global Warming Swindle" adds a new dimension to this topic.