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Government Spending on ‘Infrastructure’ Not Quite What You Think
Allow me to explain how my experience with the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and the NFS (National Forest Service) informs my view of BBB (Build Back Better) and other Democrat initiatives. Please bear with me on the background for the next several paragraphs – it’s relevant. I hope you find these patterns as interesting as I do.
Before I moved to the festering swamps of South Carolina, I lived in the majestic mountains of East Tennessee. I lived at 3,300 feet, on 56 acres surrounded by National Forest. There was a National Forest access road that crossed my property for about a mile, and it was the only way into the National Forest for miles in any direction. So I got to know the National Forest guys – they would need the code to my gate to access their road. We got along well – really good guys.
About two miles behind my house was a major power right of way, where huge power lines carried electricity from a power plant on one side of the mountain to the Tri-Cities area on the other. The TVA also needed to cross my property to get to their lines. We had a good relationship as well. Which was good, because the power poles up on top of the mountain were getting old, and there were a lot of power outages, so they had to go up there a lot.
As it turns out, those power poles were rated to last 25 years, and they were over 40 years old. So the whole system up there needed to be replaced. Which would be difficult, because this was extremely steep, rocky terrain. Boulders, cliffs, and rattlesnakes.
So the TVA guy stopped by one day and said, “Hey, look, we need to get some heavy equipment up the mountain. Big track hoes, D8’s, and huge trucks with big poles on them. The trail on your property will be widened a bit, and we may tear some stuff up. We’ll fix it all when we’re done, of course. But this is big stuff, and you’ll know we’ve been here. I’m really sorry.”
I said that I wasn’t real excited about that. He explained about all the power outages in the nearby cities, and how old the equipment was, and that they sort of had to do this – they really didn’t have a choice. He was very nice about it, and I saw his point, so I said ok. He again assured me that they would clean up their mess when they were done. He had always been honest with me in the past, so I agreed.
He then called the National Forest, and explained the same thing to them, that he would be crossing their land on the way to his power right of way. The National Forest said no. Heavy equipment is not permitted on a nature preserve (or wildlife refuge, or however it’s classified). The TVA guy said he understood, but this wasn’t really optional – he had to do this. The National Forest said no. They talked repeatedly over the coming months, with no compromise from either side. The TVA guy had to keep the lights on, and the National Forest guy had rules to follow, so there was really nothing to compromise about. So there you go.
Meanwhile, the repairs of the lines over the mountain were becoming more frequent and more dangerous. One day, when the TVA guy was watching one of his men hanging out of a helicopter in a snowstorm trying to fix a power line while trying not to get electrocuted, he decided that he just had to do this. Somebody was going to get killed if they didn’t just fix the problem.
So when the weather got better, he called me and asked if he could bring his equipment up like we had talked about last year. I said sure, and gave him my gate code. He didn’t bother to ask NFS again. Because he already knew what their answer would be.
The NFS had their own gate, at the back of my property – it was a big metal gate with a protected padlock. The TVA guys just used their track hoe to lift the whole gate out of the ground, and laid it off to the side, to be replaced later when they were done.
They were very busy for about two months, and I was impressed that they didn’t change my trail too much. And true to his word, when they left they took dozers and re-sloped the trail, planted grass seed, re-did the drainage ditches, and left it much better than they found it.
The National Forest trail was the same way – it went from a rutted, washed-out mess to a beautiful road with no erosion, due to better drainage and lots of grass seed. A few months later, you couldn’t even tell they had ever been there, except the trail was in much better shape.
And the lights were on in the cities. All the time. And I didn’t see the TVA guys on my property. There was nothing up there for them to fix anymore.
Nothing happened for a year or two.
Then one day a National Forest guy went up the mountain to check on something, and noticed the beautiful new metal power poles instead of the ancient rickety wooden ones that were there before.
He called his boss. His boss called the TVA guy, and asked if he knew anything about those new power poles. The TVA guy responded, “What? Somebody put new power poles up there? You’re not allowed to do that, you know. Did you get their license plate number? I’ll bet some idiot rednecks snuck up there one Saturday night with some beer, some fireworks, a team of structural engineers, and fifteen million dollars worth of heavy equipment and redid the whole dang thing! My God, if I ever lay my hands on those sneaky kids…”
The National Forest guy was unamused, and filed a lawsuit against the TVA. After all, there are rules. What else could he do?
I didn’t hear anything about it for several years. Until one day in my office, I asked a patient what he did for a living. He said he was an attorney. I asked what type of law he practiced, and he said that he had spent his entire career so far working for the federal government, on a lawsuit between the TVA and the National Forest Service. I can’t remember which side he represented.
It had been over 10 years at this point. He and his legal team had a few other little things come up from time to time, but he said the vast majority of their resources and time were spent on this case. Year after year. They knew the opposing attorneys very well, because they had been working on the same case for so long. Over time, their wives and families became friends, and they often vacationed together. They had one joint Christmas party every year for both opposing legal offices.
I asked if he was going to win the case. He looked a little surprised at the question, and then said, “Yeah, well, it’s more of a process…” I’m not sure what that means, exactly.
I asked if he enjoyed his job, and he said it was a good gig. Pay was ok, job security was outstanding, he didn’t have to move to bigger and bigger cities, no real pressure, great benefits.
I called the TVA guy that night – he and I had a good relationship. I asked him about it. He said that he heard about the lawsuit from time to time, but it wasn’t really part of his world. His job was to keep the lights on. He figured that lawsuit would still be going on in a few decades when his replacement had to replace the power poles that he had replaced.
I wondered aloud whether this was the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars. He just said, “Eh, that’s how the government does things. Just the cost of doing business, I suppose… Gotta keep the lights on, right?”
I wonder how much they spent on repairs for the 10-15 years before they replaced those power poles, working on top of a remote mountain in thunderstorms. I wonder how much they’ve spent on this lawsuit, for the federal government to sue itself over a job that it had no choice but to do?
I wonder what the price of electricity in east Tennessee would be if some woman named Kate was in charge. Someone who has to balance her own checkbook, someone with a high school education who works two jobs to make the payment on her double-wide, and who has more than a bit of common sense.
Federal bureaucrat: “Hey, Kate. We’ve got some extra ‘infrastructure’ money to spend, so we’re going to sue ourselves for environmental destruction that didn’t happen to provide a jobs program for our legal departments.“
Kate: “No.“
But electricity is expensive because Kate is not in charge. No one is, really.
A friend mentioned to me the other day how incredible it was, that when he turned on a light switch, the lights came on every time.
I told him that it was even more incredible than he understood. He just had no idea. He was probably thinking about electrons. I was thinking about bureaucrats.
Under President Biden, the federal government is attempting a rapid takeover of as much of the American economy as possible. When you read the next news story about “Build Back Better” or whatever the program of the day is, think about my story about the TVA and the NFS.
You don’t need to wonder how all those Democrat infrastructure spending bills will work out. You already know:
A lot of money will get spent on stuff that has nothing to do with infrastructure. Lots and lots and lots of money.
Much of this money will be paid to people with white-collar government jobs, who are expected to vote Democrat. Other portions of that money will go to unions, who then donate that very same money back to the Democrat party. Other portions of that money simply disappear, like fog on a beautiful sunny morning.
Very, very little of that Democrat campaign money will be wasted on anything resembling ‘infrastructure.’ Why would they do that? That’s not what it’s for.
But despite their best efforts, things may actually sort of work. The lights may continue to turn on, even in California. The water may continue to be safe, even in Flint. The levees may be maintained, even in New Orleans. Things may actually sort of work. For a while.
Until they don’t.
But don’t worry. The government will fix it.
As long as you agree to increase your taxes again to pay for ‘infrastructure’.
So you shouldn’t complain about your taxes. Your tax dollars are not campaign contributions for the Democrat party. Remember – your taxes are used for ‘infrastructure.’ All this tax money is being spent on you! Not the Democrat party! Really!
I know it’s true – I saw it on CNN…
Published in General
That may have to be done to start with, if it wasn’t already done when the land was developed or something. But from what I’ve read, they’re “always” granted because otherwise the inaccessible land is essentially worthless.
And seems like if TVA already had a right-of-way, they shouldn’t need to sue again for access to it.
The law on access to property does differ by state, and often it matters how the property became “landlocked.” There are also issues not just about access, but how much access.
A friend in the property title business in New York told me about a property owner who discovered a prior owner had in the late 1800s granted to a neighboring farm a seasonal easement for farm equipment. The neighboring farm could use the easement only during certain times of year, and only for the large equipment (not for regular use by ordinary transportation vehicles).
The law tends to be unsympathetic if the owner of the landlocked property created the landlocked situation himself. For example, if the landowner keeps one part of a property when subdividing and relies on an informal easement rather than creating the formal easement. Here in my county in Texas there is such a situation in which the property was divided as part of a divorce. Since the divorce involved many issues other than the property, not enough care was taken with the property access, and pieces of the property have subsequently been further sold, leaving the original property owner’s retained parcel landlocked. Further complicating the original owner’s problem is that his retained parcel is County B, while the rest of the land that used to be his is in County A. Since it doesn’t matter to County A’s property tax revenue if the retained parcel in County B has no value, County A has no incentive to help the property owner.
I’m pleased to hear that you were satisfied with the TVA’s restoration of the property after the construction project. Disputes about the adequacy of property remediation are common. Near to me a pipeline company recently put in a new oil pipeline. Several property owners who sold easements to the pipeline company are complaining that during pipeline construction the company destroyed more trees than they said they would, and did not adequately restore parts of the properties to the extent the company had supposedly promised. Of course in hindsight people wish the easement agreements were more precise in their language about property remediation, but defining that ahead of time is not so easy. One person may be pleased a trail is “nicer” with more grass, while another person may want the trail to end up looking more like it did before construction.
My subdivision has some empty lots in the southwest corner of the subdivision that look odd if one didn’t know that there is a preexisting natural gas pipeline under those lots. So both safety and access easements prevent building on those lots. (Further oddly, despite the natural gas pipeline extending under the neighborhood, there is no retail natural gas distribution available in the neighborhood, so all the houses are all electric.)
That wasn’t the issue.
The land is classified as a ‘wildlife preserve’ or something. Which means no motorized vehicles. That’s the rule, as I understand it.
So a forest fire in a wildlife preserve is sort of like a faith healer with appendicitis.
It’s obvious where the system failed here. As soon as it was clear the forestry couldn’t be persuaded to grant access, the power company should have contacted your US senator. Daily if need be. Give the person a little time then go to the media and start shaming people. It really isn’t that hard with a little determination.
I am on a water resources committee. I need to come up with $14M of infrastructure funding for only 630 households. That is 22K per without debt service. I am going to pull back as much of our money as I can from Build Back Bummer. Believe me, every dollar we receive will be spent tighter than Kate will do. For instance, we just put in four miles of pipe. We pushed this to the top priority because the state is going to pave the main road next year. We just reused the survey data and the state (us) is paying for paving.
No, that will never happen. They may sue each other, but they are not going to start shaming each other. You can be even more certain that they are never going to argue that their department needs more money in its budget, and that the place to get it is from the USDA Forestry budget, whose funds are being ill-used.
Back in the 90s I suggested that government agencies that think they need more money should also propose which agencies the money should be taken from. The local newspaper editor thought I had blasphemed all that was holy, though those weren’t the exact words he used in an editorial against the idea. (This editor was actually a decent guy that one could argue with, and I did push back against his editorial. But he is no longer in the newspaper editor business, nor is anyone else like him still in the business, as far as I can tell.)
Once that hits the media, the power company would lose automatically. They want to destroy the environment just so billionaires can use unnecessary electricity to heat their Olympic sized hot tubs. Tell me senator, why do you want millions of Pacific Islanders to die from global warming flooding?
This may sound silly. But tens of millions of Californians would tell you that this is how public policy is made…
In a cynical moment, I once told my kids that government existed solely to sequester as much wealth for itself as possible. Turns out I was less cynical than realistic.
I would substitute ‘power’ for ‘wealth’ in your statement. But since the government gains power largely by controlling money, our semantic debate is not likely to be important…
Tighter than Dick’s hatband?
Well this seems like a regional difference. It would work here. Our liberals are the billionaires. Liberals here don’t mind hurting the environment as long as they don’t have to see it. It makes them feel good. They want electric cars that charge at night with electricity generated by coal. Here is your example x1000. There is not one spec of opposition to mow down a swath of forest to connect MA to Canada. Maine people aren’t happy but it’s getting done anyways.
https://wgme.com/news/local/work-on-cmp-power-line-continues-despite-maine-voters-rejecting-the-project
https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-lawmakers-massachusetts-gov-charlie-baker-cmp-corridor/38336190
Fortunately, we’re not California.
From the introduction to Try Common Sense:
Thank you. Added the books to my list.
Yeah, no kidding. It was just wonderful up there.
But I had to leave for business reasons. Tragic…
I can also attest. My first job in Madison was a joint Federal/State agency. I personally sat in meetings near the end of the fiscal year where the feds would talk about sending people out on overnight trips to use up the travel budget. No other purpose for the trip. Just overnight in a motel somewhere.
The screwy part of that is, it can actually make sense. If they don’t spend it, and their budget is automatically cut as a result, then next year they may not be able to do some of those things even if they actually need to.
And, these are the people who will save the planet from global warming/global freezing/climate change. Not very likely, but at least it will keep us from thinking of the general bureaucratic incompetence.
Not really.
But Tennessee is not California. I should think that the number of Tennesseans who want reliable electricity has to far outnumber the ones who are willing to let the system fall apart rather than send some machinery into the forest.
That’s their mandate if they put in this kind of infrastructure – restore it to its prior state or improve it. I’m sure there are a zillion horror stories out there, but utilities aren’t like fire departments. They do their best to return the work site to its prior condition.
They don’t necessarily do this stuff because they’re “nice”. Ultimately the ratepayers are paying for this niceness, but it also avoids complaints and negative press when rates get approved by utilities commissions, etc. Last thing a utility wants to hear at a rate hearing/public comment session is how that damn power company tore up my lawn real good.
Can we burn down the National Forest Service? If we did, would anybody notice?
No it doesn’t. You don’t spend money on useless things – period. I’ll understand buying of capital assets to one degree or another, which is basically buying ahead to meet a spend target (budget) in the current year. But the assets will get used.
Money spent to travel somewhere to consume budget is an insult to the people footing the bill. Taxpayers and people not yet born who will pay off the debt they had zero voice in getting saddled with.
I am already black pilled enough.
I am convinced that civil was is the only answer. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a good outcome of that is very low.
That seems to have mattered here in Michigan. Last week I was explaining to the local tree service guy how after last summer’s outage, the power company not only replaced the broken power pole in my old barnyard (now a lawn) better than it had before, and upgraded the transformer just because, but sent out a crew to come out and fix the lawn, rolling it flat, putting new topsoil in the ruts that remained, and reseeding it. It all came out well. It was certainly better than what happened 10 years ago, when they left ruts in the barnyard that were still a nuisance to mow. Our tree guy explained that they’ve gotten a lot better at it in the past few years, in response to complaints. (Those complaints probably were of interest to regulators.)
You forgot the most corrput persons in this whole saga. The Federal Judges that let this absurdity go on for so long. Sonds like a sweet gig so they dont have to due real court cases. I am convinced Judges are the biggest treat to this nation. Way more than any terrorist ever has or could be. They have about a 1000 times plus more innocent lives blooding their hands. This is just bread and butter every day judiciary corruption that is common.
You can’t imagine a situation where specific instances of travel that weren’t necessary last year, might be necessary the following year? But they can’t do it, because the funding was taken away? You think that anyone, even a government agency, knows exactly how much travel will be required NEXT YEAR? And how much it will cost?
I came to the conclusion long ago that the fundamental priority of judges is to keep lawyers employed. It’s a gild thing.
You mean like gilding the lily?