Bush Pushes Reduction Of Foreign Oil Dependency, Greenhouse Gases

US President George W. Bush is pushing his administration proposal which is aimed at reducing foreign oil dependence and decreasing greenhouse gases. This is also aimed at increasing the supply of alternative and renewable fuels around the globe.
Earlier, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established the nation s first comprehensive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. At the recent press conference, Stephen L. Johnson, EPA administrator; and Nicole Nason, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator, discussed the essence of RFS program which is increasing the use of alternative fuels and modernizing CAFE standards for cars.
"The Renewable Fuel Standard offers the American people a hat trick - it protects the environment, strengthens our energy security, and supports America s farmers," said Johnson. "Today, we re taking an important first step toward meeting President Bush s "20 in 10" goal of jumping off the treadmill of foreign oil dependency."
"Increasing the use of renewable and alternative fuels to power our nation s vehicles will help meet the President s Twenty in Ten goal of reducing gasoline usage by 20 percent in ten years," Samuel W. Bodman, the Secretary of Energy, said. "The Administration s sustained commitment to technology investment will bring a variety of alternative fuel sources to market and further reduce our nation s dependence on foreign sources of energy."
"While we must look at increasing the availability of renewable and alternative fuels, we must also continue to improve the fuel efficiency of our passenger cars and light trucks," said Nicole R. Nason, the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). "As a part of the President s "20 in 10" energy security plan, we need Congress to give the Secretary of Transportation the authority to reform the current passenger car fuel economy standard."
The RFS, as authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, mandates that the equivalent of at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel be blended into motor vehicle fuel sold in the United States by 2012. The program is aimed at slashing petroleum use by up to 3.9 billion gallons and reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by up to 13.1 million metric tons by 2012. It means that the program is preventing the emissions of some 2.3 million cars.
The RFS is an essential step toward meeting Bush s call to slash the use of gasoline 20-percent within ten years. This could be done by switching to renewable and alternative fuel use to 35 billion gallons by the year 2017. The goal behind the RFS is the promotion of the use of fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. These alternative fuels are largely produced from American crops.
The program is also aimed at creating new markets for farm products. This is also done to increase energy security and promote the formulation of sophisticated technologies to help make renewable fuel cost competitive with the traditional gasoline. Additionally, the program establishes special incentives for producing and using fuels derived from cellulosic biomass. Examples of which include woodchips and switchgrass.
The RFS program requires major American refiners, blenders, and importers to use a minimum volume of renewable fuel annually starting 2007 through 2012. The minimum level or "standard" which is determined as a percentage of the total volume of fuel a company produces or imports, will increase on a yearly basis. For this year, 4.02 percent of all the fuel sold or dispensed to American motorists will have to come from renewable sources and that is approximately 4.7 billion gallons.
The RFS program is based on a trading system that provides a flexible means for industry to comply with the annual standard by allowing renewable fuels to be used where they are most economical. To achieve the goal of Bush Administration s Alternative Fuel Standard (AFS), it is necessary to enforce the RFS. The latter requires the use of 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017. It is nearly five times the RFS target in 2012. The said program necessitates an in-depth study and testing to come up with compatible DC sports cold air intake, engines and more.



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Business Financing Decisions

The goal of business finance is to raise sufficient capital at the least cost for the level of risk that management is willing to live with. The risk is that a business will not be able to service the debt and be forced into bankruptcy.

Broadly speaking there are 5 main ways of funding a company s needs:

Receive credit from suppliers
Obtain lease financing
Obtain bank loans
Issue bonds
Issue stock

Supplier credit

This is the easiest way that companies obtain funding. Companies buy goods and services and have anywhere from seven days till 6 months to pay for them; when companies need more credit from suppliers the financial controllers will negotiate longer credit terms or larger credit lines. The payment terms can also be stretched and this can work well because the creditors do not want the customer to go into bankruptcy taking their money with them.

Lease financing

Instead of buying equipment, many companies choose to lease equipment - this is a form of franchising.Cars,computers and heavy equipment can be financed for short periods or indeed longer periods.

If it is a short period it is referred to as an operating lease and at the end of the lease the property is still useful and is returned to the finance company.

Long term leases are, in substance, ways are ways of funding a purchase rather than buying the temporary services of a piece of equipment. These are often referred to as capital leases.

For capital leases the leased assets and the financing liability are recorded on the leasing company s books as though the company had bought the equipment outright.

Bank financing

The next level of financing involves banks. If a company has a credit line or revolver with a bank it draws down and pays back up to set limits of credit as cash is needed and generated by the business. The credit is often secured by assets of the firm however if a business runs into trouble it may not be able to pay the bank and go into bankruptcy

Bond Insurance

Bonds have fixed interest rate contractual payments and a principal maturity. The risk comes to the firm s owners if they cannot be serviced. The principle bond owners can then exchange them for ownership of the company and oust the owners.

The After-Tax cost of Borrowing

Interest payments for borrowing from vendors, bankers or bondholders are tax-deductible, while dividends to shareholders are not. The after-tax cost of borrowing is the interest cost less the tax benefit.

Stock Issues

Stock issues have non-contractual, non tax deductible dividend payments. Stock represents an ownership in the business and in all of its assets. If additional shares of stock are issued to raise cash, this is done at the at the expense of the current shareholders ownership interest. New shareholders share their ownership interest equally on a per-share basis with the current shareholders this is why analysts say that the new shareholders dilute the interest of existing shareholders.

Summary

In summarising, the higher the percentage of debt to total capital, the higher a company s value, to a point. At the point where the risk of bankruptcy becomes significant, values fall. The cost of financing decreases as a company adds lower-cost shielded debt to displace the higher returns required by equity investors.



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New Point of View Yields Marketing Benefits

As a business owner, you are intimately familiar with your company from the perspective of an insider with a passionate interest in the service and a personal need for the venture to succeed. But have you ever wondered how your customers see your company and what you could learn if you could see through their eyes?
Good marketing is more than fancy literature and memorable ads. Every action is a form of communication, every verbal interaction is a type of advertisement, and every visual impression is a billboard. Do you know what you are communicating and how it leads your customers to think of your business? Here are five tips to see your company through your customers eyes.
Call your public phone number. How often do you dial in to the number your customers call? Or to your 800 line? If your company has more than one phone and more than one extension, you probably dial directly to the individual you need. Put yourself in the customers position and call the advertised store number. How many times does the phone ring before it is answered? What is the tone of the greeting? If you get a recorded message or are put on hold, how repetitive, annoying or understandable is the recording? Can you leave a message without being cut off? If you leave your number without identifying yourself as the boss, how quickly do you get a return call?
Visit your own company web site. Sure, you know what you meant for the site to say. But if you decide to look for a specific product or service, can you find it easily without multiple clicks and dead links? Is the site easy to navigate? Is the information current? Must you scroll down to read long pages of copy? Try filling out your own interactive form. Is it easy? Supposed you email a question anonymously from your home account. Do you get a reply? How long does it take?
Walk around your parking lot. Don t park in your usual spot in the back. Park out front, where the customers park. Was it hard to find a space? Now sit in your car for a moment and look really look at your company s entrance. Is there trash in the parking lot? Does the entrance need to be painted? Are there weeds around the bushes? How about your signage is it freshly painted and well lit? Does the overall impression say thriving business or barely scraping by?
Try to buy your own product. If you sell a product that is sometimes purchased over the phone, call in like a regular customer and try to buy one. Is the salesperson knowledgeable and helpful? Does he or she offer suggestions of complementary products or additions? Are you informed about sales and specials? Must you be put on hold? If you have multiple locations and counter staff who may not recognize you, stroll in one day and be a customer. See how long you wait for service, and how friendly the employees are.
Go talk to your front-line people. You ve played undercover detective long enough. Now it s time to do some management by walking around. Go to the people who deal directly with your customers the sales clerks, repair staff, maintenance people and customer service reps. Talk to your telemarketing people the ones with the headsets, not the managers and the folks on the loading docks. Ask them what they hear from the customers and then listen. They know if people grumble about poor service or return products that don t work. They know about vendors who deliver late and inaccurately and thus delay customer orders. You can learn a wealth of information from the folks who see your customers every day.
If you find areas for improvement, avoid a punitive tone and explore the reasons for the problem. Approach what you learn in a positive way and ask your front-line people to help devise workable solutions that get buy-in and raise pride in the job.
Find out what you are really communicating about your company by seeing through your customers eyes.
Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications and helps companies in the U.S. and Canada tell the Real Story of their business through exceptional writing and marketing. Gail has an MBA in marketing and over 20 years of corporate and non-profit experience at senior executive levels. She leads webinars and teleseminars for organizations and professional associations on marketing topics, and she is the author of The Summoner and The Blood King novels in the Chronicles of the Necromancer fantasy adventure series.
Sign up for a FREE email mini course, FREE marketing conference call and a FREE teleseminar on Telling Your Real Story, at http://www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com. Find out more about Gail s books at http://www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com. Contact Gail at gail@dreamspinnercommunications.com to start telling the Real Story of your business.



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