Free Market Champions storm Augusta for welfare checks.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

State truckers, loggers may get more fuel help

By Nick Sambides Jr.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - Bangor Daily News

Albert Raymond looks forward to seeing past today to what he hopes will be the first of several bills aimed at helping the state’s trucking industries combat the crushing burden of high diesel fuel prices.

Founding members of the Coalition to Lower Fuel Prices in Maine, Raymond and his wife, Belinda, will be in Augusta when the Senate convenes to consider LD 2155. The emergency bill would increase truck weight limits from 100,000 pounds to 105,000 pounds for six-axle trucks until April 1, allowing truckers to haul more wood less often.
<snip>
Several other bills should be considered in the next several weeks, Belinda Raymond said, including:
A temporary suspension of the sales tax on forest products equipment, including parts, supplies and tires, for forest products industry workers such as truckers and loggers.

"It’s nothing more than what the farmers and fishermen have already had all along," said Brian Souers, owner of Treeline Inc., a logging and trucking company in Lincoln.
<snip>
A coalition member, Souers hopes Baldacci will introduce the measure as an emergency action by Thursday. If he doesn’t, the legislation is written and a legislator will introduce it, said Sandy Brawders, executive director of Professional Logging Contractors of Maine.
<snip>
Once the first emergency measure clears, Belinda Raymond said, more legislation will start coming.

"We just have to get over this first hurdle," she said.

http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=159213&zoneid=500

Web surfing this week one couldn't help but notice the absence of the usually very vocal "Free Market Champions."
Further investigation revealed that they were all in Augusta locking on to the Nanny State Teat they love to hate.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
--George Orwell.

[mainegreen]

1. The softwood lumber dispute has been heating up again as well.

I think the real problem is that with the economy, and new housing in particular, down it's much harder to pass on costs.

Be interesting to see what happens with this. Of course, we rooting for it, but purely for selfish reasons: my FIL is an independent logger, and diesel prices have hit him pretty hard. Skidders aren't very fuel efficient.

[Shorebound]

2. Guess it all depends

on whose ox is being gored.

Prices are already trending downward again. I expect we'll see $80 oil before the end of the year as the recession takes hold and demand drops. Odd, isn't it, to think of $80 a barrel as low? I've already noticed a small drop in gasoline prices. The big question mark is how the devaluation of the dollar will affect oil prices. This latest Fed rate cut won't help on that score. If the dollar really nosedives, oil prices may stay up there.