Capital Account: Full speed ahead

The Ebrard administration's recent "Green Consultation," which arranged for Mexico City residents to vote on 10 city proposals for improving the environment, has been criticized as a window-dressing exercise aimed only at manufacturing support for projects already roaring down the tracks.

To which the only reasonable response is — so what if it was?

The news value here is that a Mexico City mayor is finally trying to do something about the capital's unlivable condition. None of the previous city administrations, including recent PRD governments, paid much attention to the environment, beyond mouthing the obligatory homages and presiding over feel-good events. Ebrard is actually changing priorities, and trying new approaches.

But even the baby steps he's proposing will face opposition from the Calderón administration, which still has purse string and limited administrative powers over the Federal District. The feds are already blocking a debt-restructuring plan that would finance a laundry list of proposed D.F. reforms, as the PAN continues the same strategy it used during the D.F. mayor vote in 2006 — painting the PRD as fiscally irresponsible in its management of the capital.

The sniffiness between Marcelo Ebrard and Felipe Calderón would exist under any conditions. The PAN doesn't want to go on forever ceding the DF vote to the PRD, and will naturally do its best to prevent its rival from getting credit for governing well.

But fertilizing the ill will is Ebrard's refusal to publicly recognize Calderón as president, even declining to appear with him or have their picture taken together. As the world knows, most of the PRD and its supporters are convinced that Calderón's 2006 victory was tainted, to put it mildly. Ebrard, unlike fellow PRD governors in Zacatecas, Michoacán and other states, has stuck to the strategy of denying Calderón's legitimacy. He has the local popularity to get away with it.

In a practical sense, the issue is silly. Other than missed photo-ops, nothing official is done differently as a result of Ebrard not "recognizing" Calderón, whatever that means. It's a statement of principle, a posture. It has no procedural effect.

But the Calderón administration’s capacity to undermine Ebrard's environmental reforms, or any other project for that matter, is very real. Given the palpable antagonism, Ebrard can be forgiven his little dog and pony show in the form of a "Green Consultation." Whatever helps get the job done . . .

Predictably, seven of the 10 ideas got 90+ percent approval from the "voters." One proposal, to make it official policy to target transportation funds toward mass transit (Metro, Metrobus, bus system) rather than automobiles, fell just short at 88 percent approval.

The 90+ percenters were:

* Replacing all existing microbuses with newer and more efficient vehicles.

* Requiring all new buildings to include green spaces with trees on the rooftops.

* Obligating all taxis to use clean alternative fuels or hybrid cars.

* Upping the penalty for building illegally in protected areas or destroying forest land.

* Restricting the routes and hours of large cargo trucks passing through the city.

* Constructing 500 absorption wells to capture and treat rainwater that would otherwise be lost among the sewage runoff.

* Overhauling the garbage collection system by creating a central authority.

It should come as no surprise that the two proposals that went over poorly were the only two that would demand personal sacrifices. One would require all vehicles not to circulate one Saturday each month. The other would make school bus use obligatory for public school students. Those two ideas received 74 percent and 66 percent approval ratings respectively. Given the stacked nature of the poll, that victory margin amounts to a defeat.