Although I sometimes think that the focus on global warming risks focusing too much on one environmental issue, reducing carbon emissions, to the exclusion of others with an extremely high urgency, like environmental pollution that contributes to water-borne diseases in third world countries, or toxic chemicals in soils around the world, there are many opportunities to deal with both environmental pollution and global warming issues.

The biggest opportunity to address both in one strategy is the reduction of carbon from vehicle emissions into the air. Better fuel economy, reduced driving, and reduced emissions improve air quality, reduce traffic congestion, reduce asthma from bad air, and reduce the carbon footprint of driving.

That is one of the reasons we have advocated substituting remote commerce for face-to-face commerce relative to citizen interactions with government and other private sector transactional activity that reduces unnecessary vehicle trips. What are some of the “no-brainers” here?

• Why not eliminate all toll plazas and substitute either E-Z-Pass-type solutions or photos that capture a driver’s license plate number and result in a bill being sent to the driver? The highest emissions come from car engines running at low or idling speeds, as opposed to 55-mile-an-hour travel. Why do we keep toll plazas in place? For example, Ireland, which I visited this past week, is on the way to eliminating them. (more…)

One of my passions ever since I was a teenager has been government. As a teenager, I actually wrote an op-ed piece for the Rochester, New York, daily newspapers advocating reduction of the minimum voting age from 21 to 18, which happened years later.

Today, I believe strongly that we are best served as a society to the degree that all of our citizens participate in some way in helping government function better.

The first and most important way to help government function better is to vote. I believe strongly in making voting secure and having complete integrity and trust in the voting process, but, at the same time, we need to make it easier for eligible voters to register and vote. That’s why we have provided secure voting-by-mail solutions through our Relia-Vote system. That’s why I have believed that states should allow “no-excuses” voting by mail as an alternative, very much the way California offers voters the choice of either voting in person or registering to vote by mail. The states that have complete voting-by-mail systems, Washington and Oregon, have higher participation rates, on average, than other states. One could argue whether voting by mail is the cause of that or whether an already engaged citizenry in those states demands voting by mail, but I believe it has to help voter participation to add choices on how voters can exercise their right to vote. (more…)

Twice in the past three weeks I have been in Europe to meet with key mailing industry stakeholders to discuss postal issues. During the last week, the European Union has again considered postponing the effective date for full market opening from 2009 to 2011 for many countries, and to 2013 for many others. This reform process was started with a directive issued in 1997.

Why has it been so difficult? Postal issues are indicative of challenges governments all over the world have in effecting fundamental reform:

• While the broader public may benefit, the benefited individuals and businesses are focused on many issues. Those who might be harmed in the short term, in this case, postal workers, are highly focused, well-organized, and often very militant. They will react far more negatively to reform than the benefited public will act positively. Therefore, in the short run, elected officials find reform very risky.
• Competition, privatization, or other reforms are often disruptive in the short run, but beneficial only in the longer term. Politicians are much more likely to think in the short term because election cycles are relatively short.
• The disruption when reform does not work perfectly, which is often the case, is usually a highly-visible media event, whereas improved service quality does not create the same media opportunities.

The U.S. actually made some good decisions in effecting postal reform. We left a great deal of discretion to an independent regulator, and took a great deal of the heat from elected officials. Europe, on the other hand, has issued broad guidelines, but has left postal reform squarely in the hands of elected officials and regulators in each of the member countries. Some countries have dealt with more of the issues through the decisions of elected officials; others, like the UK, have had more active regulators. (more…)