Thank you Representative Leibowitz! He’s been one of the good guys from the beginning. We all, and especially the constituents of District 117, appreciate his continued support!

Read his letter here.

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NOTE: TxDOT resorts to threats and intimidation to SILENCE citizens and suppress the truth that’s found within their own public documents!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Terri Hall, Regional Director San Antonio Toll Party
PHONE: (210)275-0640 Email: terri@satollparty.com
WEB: www.SATollParty.com

New Braunfels, TX, June 21, 2006 – Concerned citizen and founder of SA Toll Party.com, Terri Hall, physically had the microphone removed from her hand by a TxDOT employee during public comment at a PUBLIC meeting regarding the highway expansion of SH 46 June 20 at New Braunfels High School.

“As soon as I turned to the page in the contract that mentions tolls, TxDOT grabbed the microphone, abruptly and rudely, physically wresting it from my hand!” stated a shocked Hall. “They did the same thing to another supporter, Michael Maurer. They were flanked with police throughout the building. TxDOT is using Gestapo-like tactics to suppress the TRUTH about their plans for Hwy 46 from being made public.”

TxDOT told the crowd that no one could use the word toll or discuss tolls during the public comment period. They also forbid the use of the term “outer loop of San Antonio.” Both terms are relevant to the Highway 46 expansion project since there is a provision in the contract (page 3 of pass through finance agreement) between Comal County and TxDOT that they can toll Hwy 46 in the future as long as the County and TxDOT agree.

Also, during the Transportation Commission meeting last November, TxDOT employee, Jennifer Moczygemba, repeatedly refers to Highway 46 as the “outer loop of San Antonio” (in the November Transportation Commission meeting read it here), which would more than ruffle a few feathers in Comal County…it could well lead to the quick demise of a few politicians! So rather than face the music from their own public documents, they simply SILENCED any discussion from citizens.

“How can bringing up the toll provision in the contract possibly be off-limits? It’s a legitimate concern; it’s in their own contract in black and white. If TxDOT gets away with forbidding citizens from using the word ‘toll’ and expressing legitimate concerns over project financing, how much longer will it be before it’s forbidden to publicly criticize elected officials in this country?” says a concerned Hall. “Where will this suppression stop? I thought this was America where protecting and defending our First Amendment Constitutional Rights are sacred.”

TxDOT and Comal County officials know from constituent feedback and the SA Toll party.com blog that this toll provision in the contract is a MAJOR sticking point with the public, and they also know that the vast majority of folks in Comal County DO NOT want our rural community (and our two lane highway) turned into a new 6 lane truck route between I-10 and I-35 dubbed the “outer loop of San Antonio,” especially on the Comal County taxpayers’ dime. The pass through financing agreement takes $16 million of Comal County tax dollars to pay for the project to be paid back through “shadow tolling” based on traffic volume.

“The PEOPLE are the owners of government and we pay TxDOT’s paychecks and yet they continually get away with gagging citizens from voicing their concerns about highway projects (see prior attempts to gag citizens: here and here, scroll down to March 30), particularly how they’re being financed. TxDOT has lost all objectivity when it comes to toll roads. They want to operate in secrecy like the private, foreign companies they’re brokering deals with in secret,” declares Hall.

The contract negotiations are done in secret (read story here), and given the fact that TxDOT and Cintra are suing to keep even the signed contracts secret from the public (read about it here), SECRECY is now what characterizes arguably one of the most powerful government agencies in this State. TxDOT can seize our private property, and now has the power to levy unlimited toll taxes, even on existing freeways.

Even our elected officials think the Legislature needs to change the focus of TxDOT (Collin County Commissioner Jerry Hoaglund, “I think that the Legislature needs to change the focus of TxDOT.” —McKinney Courier-Gazette, 2/16/06) and that TxDOT needs greater financial accountability (the Senate’s Executive Summary for Fund 006 had this to say about TxDOT’s financial management:
“The sheer size of the budget of the Texas Department of Transportation coupled with the significant new financial authority granted to the agency during the78th Legislative Session calls for improvements to the agency’s financial reporting methods.” Full report here).

“TxDOT is out of control and continues to overstep its authority. My question is, who is going to put a stop to the trampling of citizens’ free speech and our legal right to make public comment on highway projects? There is a dizzying number of public meetings and hearings this summer. TxDOT cannot be allowed to continue intimidating ordinary citizens into silence. They used similar tactics for public meetings for 281 (scroll down to March 30, on this post). If toll roads are the silver bullet to all of our problems, then why are they forbidding ANY discussion of them in public? Why won’t they answer the public’s questions? Are they accountable to no one? We’re the owners of government, and we’re simply trying to get to the truth,” shares a concerned Hall.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how our politicans have been so short-sighted on our looming energy crisis, and how they fail to connect the dots to see that tolling nearly every highway Texas on top of record high gas prices is a recipe for economic disaster! This article notes the ever increasing squeeze Americans feel at the pump and how it’s now affecting their ability to maintain their current standard of living. So if TxDOT in their arrogance thinks San Antonians, whose median wage is well below those of all other major Texas cities, can afford to pay tolls on top of climbing gas prices, they’re delusional. This is a financial house of cards, not to mention fraught with problems like DOUBLE TAXING us for freeways and rights of way we’ve already paid for, eminent domain abuse, secret contracts with foreign companies granting them monopolies over our PUBLIC highways, etc. No Nation has EVER taxed themselves into prosperity. Alan Greenspan is one of the most noteable economists in recent weeks to note that the skyrocketing cost of transportation is hurting the economy (read about it here).

Link to Texas Insider article here to see retail gas price graphic.

Bringing Down Gasoline and Oil Prices
by Kenneth P. Green
Published in Texas Insider: 06-15-06

The national average price of gasoline is approaching the record high of $3.21 per gallon (adjusted for inflation) set in 1981. The public is upset, and politicians are scrambling to find ways to reduce the pain of high prices or, failing that, to appease their constituents by investigating, penalizing or punitively taxing oil companies.

The price pinch at the pump is causing serious consumer discomfort. An April 2006 poll by CNN found 69 percent of respondents felt that high gasoline prices were causing them hardship, and 59 percent said high gasoline prices were affecting their ability to maintain their current standard of living. The CNN results were reinforced by an April 10, 2006, Washington Post /ABC News poll that showed 70 percent of respondents felt recent gasoline price hikes have caused them some hardship.

Why Are Gasoline Prices High? The primary reason for high gasoline prices is simple: demand for oil and gasoline is high, and the available supply is limited.

Supply Disruptions and the Demand for Oil. By far, the largest factor determining prices at the pump is the international price of oil. About 85 percent of the fluctuations in gasoline prices over the last 20 years were due to changes in the price of crude oil in the world market, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the Energy Information Administration, world oil prices have risen sharply since 2000 due to strong demand growth in developing economies, such as China, coming on top of supply disruptions and “inadequate investment to meet demand growth.”

The causes of supply disruptions are fairly obvious — for instance, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq all undoubtedly played a role. In 2003, Iraq contributed 2.6 million barrels per day to the world oil market, an outflow already lowered by United Nations sanctions before the war. At the end of 2005, however, total Iraqi oil exports amounted to only 1.2 million barrels per day.

Moratoria on Exploration and Production. According to the Interior Department, there are 102 billion barrels of oil under the Outer Continental Shelf of the lower 48 states and Alaska — enough oil to fuel 85 million cars for 35 years. Regrettably, most of that oil has been placed off-limits to production by presidential, congressional and state moratoria on exploration and development. For example, had Congress opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to development 10 years ago, it would already be producing a million barrels per day of domestic oil, or about 6 percent of total U.S. consumption.

Boutique Fuel Requirements. Another factor increasing gasoline prices, according to the Federal Trade Commission, is the proliferation of boutique fuels. In order to fulfill various air pollution reduction plans, gasoline sold in the United States has been fractionated into about 17 different boutique fuels sold in dozens of discrete markets.

With three grades of gasoline per fuel, refiners are producing over 50 separate blends. The situation will only get worse as the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new ozone standards force more areas to require reformulated gasoline.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, producing these blends requires the installation of expensive new equipment. The different blends of gasoline must be transported separately, which has limited pipeline and storage capacity, as well as the number of suppliers. Furthermore, it is difficult to replace supplies when there are disruptions, since the required blends of gasoline may be located hundreds of miles away.

Ethanol Mandate. The supply of gasoline has been further constrained recently by congressional actions mandating the rapid substitution of ethanol — a scarce and expensive fuel additive — for MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether). Congress passed an energy bill in the summer of 2005 mandating the use of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. As a result, the cost of ethanol has risen 91 percent. Ethanol is produced in a number of countries, but tariffs on ethanol — currently $0.54 per gallon — raise the price of imports.

Lack of New Refineries. Another factor contributing to the increased price of gasoline is the reduction in the number of operating refineries in the United States over the last 30 years. The number and capacity of U.S. refineries peaked in 1981. Since then, 171 plants have closed, although the remaining plants have increased output (through on-site expansion and improved levels of operating efficiency) to partially offset the loss of production. In addition, extremely tight environmental restrictions and opposition from local communities have hampered the ability to site new refineries and significantly increased the costs of building new ones.

Steps to Increase Supply. There are a number of steps Congress and the administration could take to relieve short- and long-term pressure on oil and gasoline prices.

Open ANWR to Development. Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for exploration and eventual oil production would not lower gasoline prices in the short-term but over time would increase supplies to the world market, thus providing a buffer against price fluctuations.

Facilitate Exploration and Development of Offshore Oil Reserves. Modern technology allows environmentally conscientious offshore oil and gas exploration and production. Congress and the president should end their separate moratoria that preclude exploration in coastal areas. In addition, the current approval process for offshore exploration requires satisfying the regulatory requirements of four different agencies or departments. It should be streamlined to a one-stop process that simplifies access and increases the predictability that applications for exploration and eventual development of offshore reserves will be successful.

Lift Federal Boutique Fuel Requirements Permanently. Removing all reformulated gasoline requirements could eventually lower the cost of gasoline as well as smooth regional spikes in gasoline prices. Due to improving technology, air pollution levels will continue to decline, independent of reformulated gasoline requirements.

The federal government can remove its own boutique requirements easily, but to eliminate all boutique fuel markets, the federal government would have to curtail the ability of California and other states to set higher environmental standards than the EPA does under the Clean Air Act.

Terminate the Ethanol Mandate and Tariffs. Congress should eliminate the requirements in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for increased ethanol use. It should also end tariffs on ethanol imports. This would help regions which continue to use ethanol-blended gasoline to acquire it at the least cost.

Reduce Regulatory Barriers to Building and Expanding Refineries. The administration should convene a task force specifically mandated to find and implement realistic short-term measures to reduce the negative impacts of environmental compliance procedures and opposition to new facilities on the petroleum refining industry, thus allowing market forces to determine refinery growth. Such measures could include streamlining the regulatory process and allowing new refineries to be located on federal lands, possibly on already-polluted Superfund sites or closed military bases.

Conclusion. Instead of wasting time and causing speculative distortions in the market for gasoline with talk of addiction, attacking Iran, windfall profit taxes, price gouging, executive compensation, alternative fuels and so forth, Congress and the administration should focus on removing impediments to supply and production, and ending actions that raise the cost of energy.

Kenneth P. Green is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an NCPA E-Team adjunct scholar.

NOTE: Bill Thornton went on a tirade against me dismissing my comments as coming from someone who “doesn’t even live in this community”…these are STATE highways we ALL drive, there’s no statute of limitation at county lines! As an ordinary citizen redressing my government for grievances in the few 3 minute spurts given to us in these government meetings, he accused me of misleading people with “old news.” He seemed to think that because they signed some meaningless “Memorandum of Understanding” with TxDOT that all the public’s objections to government operating in SECRECY and taking our land and handing it over to foreign companies in 50 year sweetheart deals (that, WE, the taxpayers, have to pay for) should suddenly be erased.

He also, almost unintelligibly (the reasoning of this tirade was hard to follow, we obviously hit a nerve), tried to somehow say that SECRET contracts are somehow OK because TxDOT gave them $7.5 million and the rights to toll Bandera, Wurzbach, and I-35. Well, yippee, but what does that have to do with the price of potatoes? TxDOT financing the RMA only makes them a child of TxDOT all the more…hardly “independent” or “local control.” Sorry, Mr. Thornton, but ordinary citizens’ moral compass isn’t influenced by MONEY….it’s influenced by what’s right and what’s wrong. And negotiating and signing SECRET agreements and suing the taxpayers to keep them secret even after the Attorney General and a Judge ORDERED them to be made public, violates open and transparent government that this Nation was founded upon! The RMA is a party to negotiating the 281/1604 CDA (see for yourself here near bottom of story) and the Bandera Rd. Feasibility Study clearly states TxDOT plans to use a CDA for it, through the RMA (see for yourself here). So this RMA is up to its eyeballs in the dirty corruption of TxDOT’s SECRET agreements (public-private partnerships) known as CDAs.

RMA Statement that sparked such venom from public officials:
What a difference a year makes…from last summer, I’d like to read the comments from some of our City Council members and even Mr. Thornton regarding the use of CDAs.

From the Express-News last June:

“State officials have promised to let local leaders have input on a recent proposal by Spain-based Cintra and locally owned Zachry American Infrastructure to take over planned toll roads in San Antonio. But to protect trade secrets, state law prohibits public discussion of details.

‘It’s absolutely out of the question,’ said Councilman Chip Haass, who says private sector dollars to solve traffic problems is otherwise tempting, ‘You could not convince the constituents of San Antonio that this is a good deal.’

Officials can’t even see the Cintra-Zachry proposal without signing confidentiality agreements, which would prevent them from talking to anyone who hasn’t signed an agreement. Local leaders might end up taking shots in the dark at what is sure to be a moving target.

‘This whole deal scares the hell out of me, quite frankly,’ Councilman Roland Gutierrez said. ‘There’s so many details that we can’t even begin to contemplate.’”

Then from the Houston Chronicle last June 27:

“On Friday Cintra Zachry, the only developer under contract with the state for a leg of the project, asked a court in Austin to block release of its development and financing plans, which Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has said are public record.

The Houston Chronicle sought Abbott’s opinion after the Texas Department of Transportation refused to reveal its plans for the project, called TTC-35…

…Abbott’s opinion had rejected similar arguments (made by Cintra). Attorney Joe Larsen, who represents the Chronicle on open records matters, called the lawsuit “a waste of taxpayer money” and “simply a further effort to conceal the terms of a contract that the Texas taxpaying public will have to live with for the next 50 years.”

Cintra Zachry also took heat last week for inquiring about a low-interest loan of $320 million from the Federal Highway Administration.

The corridor idea was sold to the public as costing nothing to taxpayers.

Although a loan is very different from a taxpayer-funded grant, this type of loan carries interest rates well below market levels.”

Then in the Express-News July 1 last year:

San Antonio officials were left out of Thursday’s decision, said Bill Thornton, chairman of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority. He said he wasn’t even notified that it would be on the agenda.

‘So I’m a little uneasy to know where my place is at the table,’ he told commissioners….

…Richard Monroe, general counsel to the state transportation department, said he did (have a problem with giving local control). The state can’t just turn over its legal responsibilities to a local entity, Monroe advised.

“That’s turning the state constitution on its head,” he told commissioners.

So there you have it, you were left out, stomped on by TxDOT no less, but by simply signing some memorandum of understanding on a piece of paper that’s worthless since we know TxDOT doesn’t honor what it puts in writing, and now suddenly every objection is miraculously overcome?

Let’s not forget what Collin County officials said of CDAs and the illusion of local control you’re fond of touting:

“’They (TxDOT) are so sold on this CDA process. I don’t think they are going to let anybody do a toll road on their own,’ Hatchell said.

…’It’s a money-grab,’ said County Judge Ron Harris.

…Harris said that other counties who have used CDAs have reported problems with them. ‘The problem is I can’t look at anyone here and tell them I’ve seen the documentation and that it’ll work because it’s all done in secret,’ he said.

Hoagland said he would not support allowing a private company to build and operate S.H. 121 through a CDA, and called it ‘another Robin Hood.’

‘When the state sells out to the highest bidder, that automatically translates into the highest tolls for our citizens,’ he said. ‘I think that the Legislature ought to go in and change the focus of TxDOT. That’s what’s going to have to happen. We’re going to have to pass a law saying that’s not the way we finance roads.’”

And that’s just what we’ll do. It’ll take a change of administration and it’s coming, very soon!

The public who has to foot the bill for this nightmare still has no say since this Board refuses to listen to the public or stand up to TxDOT’s intimidation and threats to withhold money, and this Board seems bent on kissing the feet of TxDOT. So much for local control. Say what you want, think what you want, but until this Board starts to look at other ways than tolls and secret agreements to accelerate projects, you will face untold fury from the public and witness a total revolution at the ballot box in November that will clean house and put power back in the hands of the PEOPLE.

Since in the previous post, Governor Perry sings the praises of the TxTag (EZ Pass) electronic toll system where bug Daddy government gets to monitor your comiongs and goings in order for you to drive to work, here’s a post on a blog from a person who thinks the “EZ Passes” are fraught with false allegations of toll violations and invasions of privacy. (See other posts on our blog here and here) Taxpayer-funded San Antonio Mobility Coalition led by Joe Krier is hosting a bus tour to Houston’s first all electronic toll road July 7 to wine and dine local politicans into the idea that an electronic toll system is the silver bullet for San Antonio’s congestion “problems.” Ordinary users say otherwise…buyer and politicians BEWARE!

Free Republic post here.

E-ZPass Stinks
moi | ML/NJ
Free Republic blog
Posted on 12/16/2001 7:30:57 AM PST by ml/nj

This is a tale of bad faith, or possibly fraud, on the part of the government which collects highway tolls here in the northeast. But for those outside the northeast, I should probably explain first what E-ZPass is. And before I do that I should also explain that we are routinely stopped while driving on our highways here by highwaymen demanding tribute. The highwaymen here call the tribute “tolls,” but a rose by any other name … you know. If I want to drive from my home in New Jersey to Belmont Park on Long Island, about an hour away, I must pay $11 to $13 tribute during the course of my round trip.

It’s not just the money that is stolen from me. They steal my time too. It is not uncommon to have to wait a half hour to pay a fifty cent toll to leave the New Jersey Turnpike. Even a person who makes minimum wage loses $3 every time this happens, but to the people who whine about the minimum wagers that time is worthless.

Under the guise of making things better, the highwaymen have come up with a new system they call E-ZPass. Drivers request and receive transponders linked to their credit cards, and optionally to their license plates too. Cars equiped with these transponders can drive through special lanes which can detect the transponders without stopping. (Usually there is a speed limit of five to 15 mph to drive through.) Of course “special lanes” don’t just materialize by themselves, especially on roadways leading to bridges and tunnels where real-estate is scarce. “Special lanes” are created from lanes where cash had formerly been accepted. It is so bad that on one recent trip through the Queens Midtown Tunnel into Manhattan on a Saturday evening, it appeared to me that there was only one lane accepting cash.

Fortunately (?) for me, I had already acquired an E-ZPass transponder so I did not have to find out how long the poor people on that line had to wait to use the tunnel and, in fact, the growing waits to pay with cash is what drove me to get my transponder.

I had resisted E-ZPass for as long as I could. I don’t like the idea of an electronic record being made of my comings and goings. I’m not doing anything I shouldn’t be doing. I just don’t like it. I think most Freepers will understand. I also believe the entire system to be illegal. One of the legal principles of our monetary system is a concept known as legal tender. Legal tender is that which must be accepted by law for goods, services, or debts. In the United States, one must accept Federal Reserve Notes, just as if they were the equivalent gold or silver coin they pretend to be. Refusal to accept legal tender voids the debt. Paper money is so ingrained in our psyches that one has to reach for a history book to read of times where merchants would accept only gold or silver, and they would refuse to accept paper claimed to be equivalent. When the government would force the merchants to accept the paper, it would hardly have tolerated a scheme where the merchant said he would accept the legal tender if the purchaser would just cool his heels for half an hour while some low level clerk figured out how to account for the payment, but gold and silver was accepted immediately. The E-ZPass scheme is no different.

Now, on to the bad faith …

Back in October, shortly after I received my E-ZPass transponder, I drove down to Virginia from New Jersey. The tolls begin as soon as one gets on the Garden State Parkway and they don’t stop until he gets through one of the Baltimore tunnels. All of the highwaymen, about ten in each direction, now accept E-ZPass. One of the places that accepts E-ZPass is the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I don’t cross it very often. I don’t recall what the toll is. I don’t even recall if it is collected in both directions.

Last week I received a “Notice of Toll Violation” on a piece of paper bearing logos of both “E-ZPass” and the “Delaware River and Bay Authority.” They tell me, “Your licence plate was recorded by the system for violation(s) listed below. Our records indicate that your vehicle used the ‘E-ZPass Only’ land without a valid E-ZPass account or failed to pay the required toll in a staffed lane. In addition to the toll, a $25 administrative fee has been imposed for each violation listed below.”

Now I guess their equipment failed to register my transponder on my return trip. It is completley within their ability to have matched my license plate to my E-ZPass account and have sent me a note that they were charging my account an extra $3 because they detected this mistake on the part of their equipment.

Instead they pretend that they tracked me down through the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles database which matches my license plate, my address and me. Of course they have all of this information in their own, presumably smaller database which is probably where they got the information from anyway. They even have a record of my having passed through the toll barriers just before and after the one in question, duly recorded by their equipment and entered into their database. I guess they just forgot to look. In their notice to me they never consider the possibility that I might have one of their transponders even though I would guess that the ratio of “violators” who have an E-ZPass transponder and weren’t detected to those who are actually trying to beat the toll is quite high. But some government fool thinks this is a fun new way to exact tribute from the little people.

If there’s some lawyer here on Free Republic who wants to take these people on with the intent of dismantling the whole system, I might be willing to make myself a test case.

ML/NJ

Link to article here.

Greenspan warns of energy crisis
Former Fed chief urges speedy development of non-oil sources
By KEVIN G. HALL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Published in Monterey Herald
June 8, 2006

WASHINGTON – Rising energy prices are pushing up inflation and increasingly threatening the U.S. economy, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified Wednesday.

He called for speedily developing alternative energy sources such as ethanol and liquefied natural gas.

In his first appearance on Capitol Hill since he ended his nearly 19-year Fed tenure Jan. 31, Greenspan testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that America had better reduce its dependence on foreign oil or suffer damaging economic consequences.

A recent terrorist attack on Saudi Arabia’s main oil refinery, though thwarted, should serve as a warning that a successful hit on an oil installation could spark a global price shock that would create “a significant contraction in the economy,” Greenspan said.

While the U.S. and global economies have shown surprising resiliency to rising oil and natural-gas prices since 2002, Greenspan said “recent data indicate we may finally be experiencing some impact.”

The former Fed chief also detailed how investors, rather than users of oil, have come to set the price of oil through purchasing futures contracts. These speculators are betting that oil will cost more than $60 a barrel six or seven years out, he said, suggesting there won’t be a significant retreat for oil prices in coming years.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, told Knight Ridder last week that oil producers are being blamed for high prices when speculators have added $15 or $20 to the price per barrel in today’s tight market.

“Traders are taking advantage of this issue,” the ambassador said.

Greenspan noted that three-quarters of the world’s oil reserves are state-owned. The run-up in prices is resulting in huge amounts of cash “to countries that are not friends of ours,” he said. This “is a very serious issue.”

Greenspan said financial speculators are doing the country a favor by accelerating the move away from oil. “What the financial system has done is preventive medicine” by encouraging less expensive alternatives to oil, he said.

The bulk of his nearly three-hour testimony focused on reducing oil dependence and boosting energy security.

The influential former Fed chief said repeatedly that cellulosic ethanol, a next-generation alternative fuel that could be made from virtually any plant fiber, appeared to be the most promising solution to America’s oil addiction.

“I’d move as quickly as I could to find out whether cellulosic is a practical alternative,” he said.

He said conventional corn-based ethanol holds little promise to reduce America’s oil dependence significantly. If every bushel of corn grown in the United States went to producing ethanol, it would displace only about 10 percent of projected U.S. gasoline consumption, he said.

To make cellulosic ethanol, scientists deploy mass-produced, biologically engineered enzymes that can break down virtually any plant stock for fermentation and conversion into ethanol. Among its benefits is that, unlike gasoline or conventional ethanol, its production doesn’t produce gases that contribute to global warming.

Pressed repeatedly, Greenspan frowned on the idea of a federal “man-to-the-moon”-type project to create alternative fuels. As a political conservative and market-oriented economist, Greenspan typically prefers private-sector to governmental solutions.

“I would hope we don’t have to do that,” he said. “At the moment, I think markets are working in the direction of a solution.”

If cellulosic ethanol proves viable, he said, hedge funds and other investors will pour money in to develop the industry. In May, investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. took a $30 million stake in Iogen Corp., a Canadian company that’s pioneering cellulosic ethanol technologies.

America’s energy future, he said, doesn’t turn on a choice between good and bad, but between “not so good or worse. We have to make a choice of one or the other.”

Greenspan also touted liquefied natural gas as an important tool in reducing dependence on oil and gasoline.

For years, he’d lamented the lack of liquefied natural-gas terminals in the United States. On Wednesday he complained that Japan and other countries had locked up supplies in long-term contracts.

“This could be another source of replacement for petroleum,” he said.