An advisory report to be presented to the Lewiston City Council on Monday recommends that council members reject a proposal by Valley Transit to continue providing bus service to residents.

The city’s community development director suggests that the city can run the program for less money than what Valley Transit proposed in its April 18 outline to continue its operation of a single-loop bus service and dial-a-ride, door-to-door services. Valley Transit’s proposed five-year budget totals about $6.4 million, without new services, while the report claims the city can carry out the same program for an estimated $2.45 million, using what appears to be 6 percent annual increases plus $130,000 for a new route in fiscal year 2011.

Valley Transit officials acknowledge their higher bid, saying it includes the flexibility to take potential cost increases for the commodities, goods and services into account.

Nine buses are charged to Lewiston’s service, which has one fixed route that operates from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week, plus dial-a-ride buses and backups.

A new report ranking entrepreneurial activity across the nation puts Idaho at the top of the list.

The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, which helps track new business creation data in the United States, shows that Idaho had the most new entrepreneurs in 2007. About one half of one percent of all Idahoans jumped into business for themselves in 2007, working at least 15 hours per week on the new venture. The state’s 0.46 percent is up about one tenth of one percent from 2006.

Idaho tied with Arizona for first place, while neighboring states also scored high, including Montana, Wyoming and Oregon. The exception is Washington which ranked in the bottom ten.

West Virginia and Alabama had the lowest rates, with less than one tenth of one percent of residents starting new businesses.

(KTVB)

After winning tax concessions from the Idaho Legislature, French-owned energy services company Areva Inc. says it will build a $2 billion uranium enrichment facility near Idaho Falls.

The plant will be built on a site near the Idaho National Laboratory.

A late-session push in the Legislature to extend a sales tax exemption for production equipment that handles nuclear fuel and to cap property tax valuations at the plant to $400 million helped convince the company to select Idaho over sites in Washington, Ohio, Texas and New Mexico.

Areva plans to add the new plant by 2014 to help compensate for a U.S. nuclear fuel supply that could shrink, as a program in which Russia has been converting weapons-grade uranium to low-enriched uranium and selling it to an Areva rival expires in 2013.

Before the plant is built, Areva still must get approval from local, state and national agencies, including a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct and operate the facility.

The NRC took applications to build seven new commercial U.S. nuclear reactors last year, with 25 more licensing requests expected through 2009. As interest in nuclear power grows, there are two other uranium enrichment plants being built in the United States, one in southeastern New Mexico and another in Piketon, Ohio.

(AP)

Statistics compiled by AAA Idaho shows pump prices reached an average of $3.53 per gallon, a new state record for self-serve regular.

That’s up 22 cents in the last month and is 43 cents more than a year ago.

The Idaho record follows the setting of a new national benchmark last week, when the nationwide average reached $3.63 a gallon. Washington’s average price hit a record high last Friday of $3.74 a gallon.

Historically, gasoline prices peak around Memorial Day, considered the start of the summer driving season, then begin to fall off.

(AP)

A delegation of 16 Idaho companies led by Gov. Butch Otter returned from a week-long trade mission to Mexico with verbal sales commitments of more than $1 million, trial orders with some of Mexico’s largest companies and a host of new contacts for future sales.

A significant part of the governor’s schedule focused on meetings with large Mexican companies in the food processing and distribution business including Wal-Mart Mexico, the bread and tortilla manufacturer Gruma, and snack food manufacturer BARCEL.

In addition to meetings with Mexican companies, Otter met with Mexican officials to discuss bilateral trade relations, including what the governor called unjustified trade restrictions against fresh potatoes, and the prospects of expanding market access beyond the 26-kilometer border zone.

Mexico has long been one of Idaho’s top 10 export markets and is the state’s second-largest export market for agricultural products. Last year, Idaho companies sent nearly $137 million in products to Mexico, an increase of 5 percent from the previous year.

In an effort to reduce United States dependence on foreign oil, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) has introduced legislation that would open the Eastern Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil drilling.

The Domestic Offshore Energy Security Act reintroduces last year’s bill that opens the gulf for production in federal water from 125 miles off shore to 45 miles, the same distance Cuba is currently leasing for production to countries other than the U.S.

Craig spoke on the Senate floor Thursday about the estimated 100 billion barrels of oil available for drilling.

US Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) comments

The measure also directs the Department of Interior to work with the Department of Energy to conduct an inventory of federal resources that could be made available as a strategic alternative to filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with oil that increases consumption of foreign resources.

Senator Craig continues

Craig’s bill allows U.S. companies to compete in Cuban waters while providing stricter environmental protections than are required by Cuba. Some $10 million would be earmarked to conduct an inventory of the gulf this year.

Idaho’s economy continued slowing in April as the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate edged up a tenth to 3.1 percent from March, and for the first time in 5½ years fewer people were working across the state than a year earlier.

Continued sluggishness in construction and a ninth straight month of declining employment in manufacturing contributed to nearly 800 more people looking for work, raising the ranks of the unemployed to just over 23,000 in April – 2,500 more people off the job than a year ago.

At the same time, total employment was down 3,800 from March and over 1,400 from April 2007. The last time monthly employment came in below the previous year’s level was September 2002 in the aftermath of the national recession.

April’s rate was the highest unemployment rate Idaho has experienced since August 2006. Still, the rate was 1.9 percentage points below the national rate of 5 percent and the 79th month that Idaho’s rate has been below the national rate.

Nez Perce County reported 2.7 percent unemployment; Idaho County 4.9 percent; Clearwater County 9 percent; and Lewis County 2.8 percent. The city of Lewiston had 2.5 percent unemployment – the third lowest rate among Idaho’s nine largest cities.

This year’s West Coast salmon fishery is an economic disaster according to a declaration issued this week by NOAA Fisheries in Portland, Oregon. The designation is the first step toward providing federal disaster assistance to commercial and charter salmon fishermen and related businesses in Washington, Oregon and California. The governors of those states have estimated $290 million in losses due to the shutdown of salmon fishing. Fishing was curtailed because of a sudden collapse in populations of Chinook salmon from California’s Sacramento Valley. NOAA Fisheries is the federal agency in charge of ocean fisheries and turning around the long-standing decline in salmon populations.
(AP)