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Your Home as a Power Plant

04 Mar 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

Residential solar systems are becoming an increasingly popular trend in the United States. By the end of 2018, the U.S. had installed enough solar panels to power 12.3 million homes, and the solar industry managed to generate a $17 billion investment in the economy. These statistics indicate that the implementation…

New Report: The Revenue Failure of the Highway Trust Fund

25 Feb 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts, Press Releases

The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) released a new report today highlighting the declining revenue into the Highway Trust Fund and the looming insolvency that has cast a decade-long shadow over the Fund. In the report, the fuel tax is identified as insufficient –even if increased–for supporting our roads…

Looming Highway Trust Fund Insolvency

24 Feb 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

    The Highway Trust Fund is the federal fund for road and bridge maintenance and repair. It once built the Interstate Highway System and helped keep our roads safe and smooth. Now, it is under the shadow of looming insolvency, with revenue failing to keep pace with spending. The…

What is Fuel Dumping and Why Does it Happen?

14 Feb 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

You are enjoying your day, looking up at the shapes in the clouds when all of a sudden, a pilot far above you releases thousands of gallons of jet fuel. It is jarring, confusing, and seemingly illegal, but it is an accepted practice known as fuel dumping. The relatively uncommon…

It’s Time for Nationwide Adoption of Enhanced Positive Response

23 Jan 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

As technology improves, law and regulation must improve for the sake of public safety. Excavation damage has been a leading – and in many years the leading – cause of pipeline incidents for decades. More than ten years ago, Congress addressed what was then the leading contributor to these incidents…

Has the Car of the Future Arrived?

17 Jan 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

  Throughout the past century, the public has sought to predict what the ‘car of the future’ would entail. And, with the release of the VISION AVTR, a new concept car from Mercedes-Benz, any past predictions have been completely surpassed. This show vehicle was developed in tandem with the upcoming…

Fires, Climate Change, and More

07 Jan 2020, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

  s the immense tragedy in Australia continues apace, helpless onlookers are grappling for emotionally and intellectually satisfying explanations. How could such a conflagration begin, grow, and seemingly thwart all efforts to extinguish? As human lives are threatened, property burns, and animal losses rise to nearly incalculable tolls, pinning all…

Congress Moves forward with NDAA, blocking Chinese metro and bus activity

12 Dec 2019, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

Congress has moved forward with reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with the House voting to include language known as the Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act (TIVSA). This language blocks certain foreign powers from access to federal taxpayer dollars in public infrastructure bidding contracts. At issue is the…

How Green Are Electric Vehicles Really?

09 Dec 2019, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

To many, the Tesla brand has become synonymous with sustainability, an unprecedented feat considering the automobile industry has often been deemed the antithesis of a ‘green’ enterprise. Even when disregarding Tesla’s SolarCity subsidiary and other sustainable ventures, Tesla has pioneered the production of innovative electric vehicles and has prevented over…

3 Unintended Consequences For Regulators to Consider

26 Nov 2019, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

Everyone makes mistakes, but regulators have a higher responsibility to be careful and deliberate. Institutional speed bumps help keep the pace slow, reducing the speed at which bad decisions can be made and forcing more deliberation over good ones. Some of these features like checks and balances or notice and…

Data as a solution to potholes

26 Nov 2019, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

  hile it may not be the main reason that roads across the country are in disrepair, lack of information is one starting point to find solutions. Simple intuition suggests that officials cannot know about every pothole, collapsed sign, or damaged median. While perfect knowledge is impossible, we have the…