American Suzuki to file for bankruptcy, stop selling cars

American Suzuki Motor has announced that it plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that it will begin focusing its attention on selling ATVs and motorcycles, rather than cars. According to its statement, this move is unrelated to its Japanese counterpart. There’s no word on when exactly all this is going to take place.

The company is pulling out of the US automotive market due to a variety of reasons, including poor exchange rates and low sales. While it will no longer sell cars, the company is still going to provide all-terrain vehicles, as well as motorcycles and outboard motors. In addition, American Suzuki will also continue to honor existing warranties.

American Suzuki offered this statement. “While the decision to discontinue new automobile sales in the U.S. was difficult to make, today’s actions were inevitable under these circumstances…[Suzuki] intends to work within its current U.S. automotive dealer network to help structure a smooth transition from new automobile sales to exclusively parts and service operations, or, in some instances, an orderly wind-down of dealership operations.”

Suzuki has experienced turbulence lately, selling only 21,188 automobiles, a drop of nearly 5-percent from last year. This comes after an overall increase in the US automotive market of 14-percent through last month. Suzuki has approximately 246 dealers in the United States, which are likely in for some big changes in the coming months.

[via USA Today]

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Congressional Republicans attack another job-creating American company

By David Roberts

Undaunted by their failure to catch so much as a single guppy, Republicans in Congress are paddling on with their fishing expedition through the Obama administration’s clean-energy initiatives. They are nothing if not dutiful.

The latest faux scandal (what are we up to now? a dozen?) has to do with the Ivanpah solar power plant, currently under construction in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California.

Here’s what we know about Ivanpah, a concentrated solar power (CSP) project being developed by BrightSource Energy. It started construction in October 2010, amid great fanfare from politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. It is technically three separate, contiguous power plants, built in phases, with a total of 170,000 heliostat mirrors, spread across 3,600 acres, aiming sunlight at three solar power towers. It will have a gross capacity of around 392 megawatts and will be, when completed, the largest CSP installation in the world.

In April 2011, the project got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy (DOE), allowing it to scale up its already substantial private funding from, among others, NRG Solar and Google. A little over a year later, according to DOE, the project is about one-third completed and is employing over 1,700 people on site. When it’s finished it will “avoid 574,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to emissions of 110,000 vehicles” and “generate enough clean electricity to power approximately 87,000 homes annually.”

In other words, DOE’s investment has not failed. On the contrary, it’s kind of awesome! Everything’s going according to schedule. Jobs are being created. Barriers are being broken. If it proceeds according to plan, taxpayers won’t shell out anything, California will get tons of clean energy and jobs, and the U.S. solar industry will have a domestic success story. Plus the thing is just gorgeous to look at.

Who could possibly object to American jobs and energy? Serial car thief Darrell Issa and his merry band of fisherman (aka the House Oversight Committee), of course.

Why the concern? This Wall Street Journal piece contains the damning details. At least it contains the damning tone. The details turn out to be pretty unimpressive.

Here’s what happened: BrightSource had been scrambling for this Ivanpah loan for more than two years, since before Obama took office. All signs were positive. Problem was, a couple of deadlines were approaching. On March 31, 2011, the conditional agreement with DOE would lapse, and on April 1, “tortoise moving season” would start and delay the project for six more months, which may well have killed it. So BrightSource started sweating, hiring lobbyists, and pestering the DOE to finalize the damn thing. In early March it even proposed having its then-chairman John Bryson write his old friend, then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley, to plead with him to “quarterback loan closure.”

Is there any evidence that this last-minute volley of lobbying had anything to do with the loan guarantee being approved? No. The letter was never sent to Daley. Buried down in paragraph 20, WSJ reveals that when loan-program director Jonathan Silver caught wind of Bryson’s proposed letter, he responded within hours, telling him to tone it down, cut the “quarterback” crap, and chill out — the loan was “on track” to close before the deadline. (Like many DOE loans, it was held up by a plodding review from a passive-aggressive OMB.)

That’s it. As usual with these faux scandals, the media conspicuously fails to note that the last-minute lobbying and emails to the White House were all about hurrying up the review process, i.e., they came after the guarantees had been approved by DOE. There’s not a shred of evidence that political connections or lobbying affected any of the loan decisions made by DOE staff. Here, as with the other faux scandals, there is only dark insinuation.

Insinuation has no legal power, of course. These shows trials of individual DOE loans haven’t uncovered any wrongdoing, much less anything worthy of official censure or criminal charges. And House Republicans have been fishing for over a year now. But this is post-truth politics — they don’t need the reality of a scandal. That would be an unexpected bonus at this point. All they need is the atmospherics of scandal; they just need to keep floating broad charges and having the media cover them. The purpose is to keep DOE and Obama on the defensive, to hound them, to waste their energy, and to discredit clean energy.

If a thriving American business has to be sacrificed on that political altar, so be it.

——

For kicks, here’s a slideshow from DOE on their clean energy programs:

And here are links to three independent assessments of DOE’s loan program:

All these assessments found roughly the same thing: The program is making smart, low-risk investments and has cost over $2 billion less than expected. Unsurprisingly, the media has largely ignored them.

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Parks and recreation: The best American cities for green spaces

By Claire Thompson

Photo by Jeremy Blanchard.

With the revitalization of American cities has come increased excitement about public parks; we may have less land to spare than in Frederick Law Olmsted’s day, but we’re finding creative ways to squeeze more open space and greenery out of brownfields, empty lots, and old train tracks. The mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., even turned his unused parking space into a mini-park.

Now, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL) has devised a system that allows you to keep tabs on your city’s progress, and compare your hometown to the burg next door. It’s called ParkScore, and it measures and ranks the park systems of the country’s 40 largest cities. It’s not like Walk Score, where you can type in your address and get a walkability rating for your immediate neighborhood, but I’m sure the data could be used the same way (and similarly co-opted as a real-estate selling point).

And the winners? San Francisco came in first, followed by Sacramento, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Bringing up the rear is Fresno, Calif., where more than 60 percent of the population lacks easy access to public parks. Charlotte, N.C., Louisville, Ky., and Indianapolis are also at the bottom of the heap.

TPL calculated the rankings using a formula that gives equal weight to acreage (both median park size and park acres as a percentage of the city area), service and investment (park spending per resident and playgrounds per 10,000 residents), and access (how much of the population lives within a 10-minute walk of a city park). While dense San Francisco got high marks for access, spending per resident, and park land as a percentage of city area, it fell short on playgrounds and median park size (1.97 acres); other than the famous 1,500-acre Presidio, most of the city’s parks must be pretty damn small. In Phoenix, on the other hand, median park size is 14.5 acres, but at least half the population lacks easy access.

TPL mapped areas in need of more parks by looking at population density, percentage of population 19 and younger, and household income. They assumed that lower-income neighborhoods are generally more in need, which makes sense: higher-income neighborhoods already have more greenery, more single-family homes with yards, and streets safer to play on. Imagine being among the 60 percent of Fresno residents more than a 10-minute walk away from a park, and imagine living in a small apartment with no balcony on top of that. It would be hard to stay sane.

Surprisingly, TPL actually found little discrepancy between low- and high-income groups or old and young when it comes to existing park access. This is a good thing, because it means that although young, dense, lower-income neighborhoods should be prioritized, it’s still in everybody’s interest to advocate for more, and better, parks.

And ParkScore’s ratings suggest that we should be doing just that. The fact that San Francisco came in No. 1 with only 74 points out of 100 shows that there’s plenty of room for improvement in every city.

Parks are an important part of making communities more livable, and not just because they’re pretty-looking and fun; the Trust for Public Land  has documented their myriad economic and health benefits. With more Americans seeking city life over the suburbs, urban parks will only become a more valuable resource. (And if it’s true that trees can help reduce crime, then the greener and leafier the park, the better.)

We millennials may be more interested in urban living than our baby boomer parents, but city dwellers still crave open space and delight in the sight of things growing. In order to thrive in cities, we’ll need better park systems.

And in case your mayor isn’t already as pumped on parks as Ithaca’s, maybe ParkScore can help get the message through.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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American Reunion: Is there life left in the American Pie franchise?

It's safe to say that when American Pie debuted in 1999, no one imagined that the raunchy teen sex comedy would spawn two theatrically released sequels and four straight-to-video spinoffs. Yet 13 years later, the eighth film in the franchise, American Reunion, is hitting theaters this weekend. The movie reunites nearly the entire original cast — mostly absent from the direct-to-video spinoffs — including Jason Biggs as Jim and Seann William Scott as the hedonistic rogue Stifler. (Watch a trailer below.) The now-adult characters all return to their hometown for their 13-year high school...

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The American Airlines Bankruptcy and Your Frequent Flier Miles

On November 29, AMR Corp. — American Airlines' parent company — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy isn't exactly a surprise. Up until this point, American was the only "legacy" carrier to not have declared it — in fact, a few of the major airlines have even been through bankruptcy twice, and they're still flying the (somewhat) friendly skies.

The main concern many consumers have now is whether their frequent flier miles and reservations will be honored by the ailing air carrier. American Airlines sent an email to their AAdvantage frequent flier members, stating "We want to assure you that your AAdvantage miles are secure." Likewise, they promised that they are "honoring all tickets and reservations as usual" throughout the bankruptcy process. (See also: The 5 Best Travel Reward Credit Cards)

"Throughout the bankruptcy process" is the key phrase here, and it means both good news and uncertainty for consumers. One important point to remember, after all, is that Chapter 11 bankruptcy is not the end of a company; it's a restructuring to help make the company profitable again. Thus, those who already have reservations or miles built up with American have little to worry about, and customers will continue to earn miles as they fly.

However, there are several other long-term concerns. If the company does survive, they'll be operating leaner — which could mean fewer flights, higher ticket prices, and more difficulty in booking rewards trips.

There is also, of course, concern that the company could go under even after restructuring. All hope isn't lost in terms of miles, however. Bruce Watson from AOL's DailyFinance reported Tuesday that,

In previous bankruptcies and mergers, the companies that bought failed airlines generally went to great lengths to maintain their relationships with the failed fliers' customers. In the case of Eastern, TWA and Pan Am, this included honoring the failed carriers' frequent flier miles.

So what should you do for the moment if you're an AAdvantage member? Fly your regularly scheduled flights, and don't panic. After all, many of the air carriers that went through bankruptcy are still operating, including Delta, US Air, and Continental. If you do have enough frequent flier miles saved up to get a free ticket, though, some experts are recommending using them soon just to be safe. FoxNews.com interviewed Katie Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org, who said that "people should use up their frequent flier miles and, if they can, book on co-chair partners who aren't filing for bankruptcy. The passengers are the last creditor on the list and the last to know."

Are you an AAdvantage member, or do you have travel booked on American Airlines? Are you worried about your miles or reservations? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Announcing The 2011 Chinese American Film Festival

November 3, 2011 | Adam Cuttler |

“Everybody was kung-fu fighting” From November 16th to the 22nd San Francisco’s 4-Star Theatre (Clement St @ 23rd Avenue) will play host to the Chinese American Film Festival.  With an admission price of just $5.00 for any one of the 19 films and a fairly good mix of different genres there really is no good excuse as to why you shouldn’t make it to at least one of these screenings.  As for me, I’m mostly excited for the action flicks, Bodyguards and Assassins, My Kingdom, and the Chinese animated answer to that kung-fu fighting Jack Black Panda, Legend Of A Rabbit.

The complete schedule along with trailers for most of the films can be found after the jump

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