Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

A good site for general data – demographic, economic and so on – around the Northwest: Co-backed by the Community Action Partnership and the University of Idaho, the site Indicators Northwest is well worth a look.

It describes itself as “a one-stop source of up-to-date information on states, counties, reservations, and tribes. Whether you work for a non-profit group, private firm or public agency, this site is for you. Here, you’ll find text summaries that highlight major trends in each indicator. You’ll also find information displayed with graphs and maps. Users who want to analyze the indicators further can download data in Excel spreadsheets.”

Check it out.

The gas budget for our vehicles travelling roughly from Portland to Boise is about $60, each way. Craig Henderson, originally of Tacoma, plans to drive about twice as far – from the Canadian to the Mexican borders, on Interstate 5 – for $42. Or less.

It has to do with the way his car is designed, to get more than 100 miles of travel per gallon.

As the Northwest (Oregon most notably) gets more into alternative forms of powering motor vehicles, this would be a story worth reading.

Among the stories not happening in the Northwest . . . wildfires.

There was a substantial fire this week, more than 100 acres and since put out, in the flat desert lands of the Idaho National Laboratory, west of Idaho Falls. But early indications are that it wasn’t natural, that it resulted from some human action, or inaction. And that’s about it.

The National Interagency Fire Center at Boise reports that so far this year, Idaho has had 122 wildland fires, Oregon 36 and Washington 165. Acres burned amounted to about 1,000 in Washington and Oregon together, and about 31,000 in Idaho. Those sound like large numbers but they’re actually relatively small, smaller than most of the time by now.

Fingers crossed.

Mortgage delinquency rates/Fed of NY

The yellow counties on this map are uncounted: They are among the smallest 10% of counties in the country, and trying to reasonably gauge how they fit into the rates for delinquent mortgages is too difficult, since a single case or two could drastically throw off the percentages.

Still, the map, developed by the Federal Reserve of New York, has a lot of useful stories to tell. Note how the rates run highest among many of the highest-growth counties in the last decade. In Oregon, the Bend area accounts for many of the highest rates. In Idaho, Canyon, Teton and Valley were among them. In Washington, Snohomish, Pierce and Clark (but not so much King).

But what’s Bear Lake County doing here? Or maybe there’s something going on in Bear Lake . . .

Before heading out to wherever for doings on the 4th, you might want to consider your relative risk.

Of getting a traffic ticket, that is.

The National Motorists Association (which isn’t a fan of lower speed limits) has crunched some numbers and come up with a list. Within the Northwest, you’re most likely to get a ticket in Washington (which ranks 17th among the 50 states), and least likely in Idaho (which ranks 44th). Oregon falls into the less-likely camp, at number 41.

Top ranking – better watch out when traveling there – is Florida, with Nevada and Georgia tied for second place. Least likely place to get ticketed? Montana.

The census city estimates for 2009 for cities nationwide were released today; they’re always worth a good ponder. A note: These are not the official decade census numbers – only the annual estimates.)

Nationally, the city of Seattle now ranks at 23, Portland at 30, Boise at 100, Spokane at 104, Tacoma at 108, Vancouver at 143, Salem at 150, Eugene at 155.

Of the 19,510 places on the census list, the smallest in the Northwest (ranking 19,480 nationally) is Warm River, Idaho, with 10 people. (Yes, it is an incorporated city.) Next smallest is Hamer, Idaho, with 12.

Most of the key rankings of cities within states aren’t much disturbed. In Washington, it remains Seattle-Spokane-Tacoma (though the latter two remain close, and the estimate said that Tacoma was growing about twice as fast as Spokane). In Oregon, it’s Portland-Salem-Eugene (with Salem gently expanding that thin lead over Eugene). In Idaho, it remains Boise-Nampa-Meridian, with Meridian becoming much the fastest-growing city in raw numbers in the state, adding people much faster than Boise. Also in Idaho, the number 4 or 5 spots switch, with Idaho Falls regaining its occasional lead over Pocatello.

Those spots are of some interest in Oregon, too. Gresham remained fourth and Hillsboro fifth, but Hillsboro is growing a lot faster. In the 2000 census, Gresham had about 20,000 more people; now that lead has been cut by about three-fourths.

There are, of course, population losers as well as outright gainers. The largest city in the Northwest reported to lose population over the year was Bremerton (35,191), down 95 people over the year and still below the 2000 census numbers. Next largest was Grants Pass (32,829), off by 14 in the year but still considerably above the 2000 numbers. The next two largest were also in Oregon – Roseburg and Klamath Falls. (Southwest Oregon has taken a hit.) The largest in Idaho was Mountain Home (12,266) though that may have to do more with the shifts of military activities at its base. Next largest in Idaho was the (now) Boise bedroom community of Emmett, off by 27; maybe the recession had some impact here.

Curious at all about who in the Northwest political sphere that British Petroleum – they of the endless Gulf oil spout – consider their friends?

You can probably make some assessment through looking at whose campaigns they have contributed to.

In the current cycle, according to the invaluable Open Secrets.org: Doc Hastings, R-WA6 ($1,000); Rick Larsen, D-WA2 ($1,000); Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA5 ($1,000); Greg Walden, R-OR2 ($1,000).

In the 2008 cycle, you get these: Larsen ($2,000), McMorris Rodgers ($1,000), Walden ($1,000), Jay Inslee, D-WA1 ($1,000), and former Oregon Senator Gordon Smith ($2,000). No one in the Idaho delegation in either cycle.

A great resource for visualizing where people in the Northwest are coming from and where they’re going: A map on Forbes.com generated from Internal Revenue Service Data. county by county, it shows where people around the country are arriving from, and where they’re headed.

Click on Multnomah County, and you can see where people in Portland are coming from (mainly California and the Washington/New York pole), if you can work through the heavy run of stats (represented here by black and red lines). But some of the most interesting bits are in the smaller counties. Idaho County, Idaho, for example, sends people to other nearby rural counties but draws them from more urban places, notably the Boise area.

Lots to play with here. (Hat tip to Jack Bog’s Blog.)

We keep seeing the “full out your census form and send it in” comments in a range of places, but with a glitch: We haven’t seen our form yet.

Tried calling a census office to find out what the situation is, and got referred to another office, where all we got was a telephone answering machine.

Have other people been getting their census forms? Or not?

UPDATE A friend from Roseburg writes to say that he hasn’t gotten his form either – and gives an indication as to what we may have in common: The post office doesn’t deliver to our houses, only to our post office boxes. It’s a mail system that works perfectly well (for us in Carlton at least) but might be confounding the census bureau, might may be sending a lot of people to addresses that could be reached via box.

And how did the Northwest delegation vote on the health care bill? Well, it was party-line, with one exception.

The yes votes:

Washington: Inslee, Larsen, Baird, Dicks, McDermott, Smith.

Oregon: Wu, Bluemenauer, DeFazio, Schrader.

The no votes:

Washington: Hastings, McMorris Rodgers, Reichert.

Oregon: Walden.

Idaho: Minnick, Simpson. Minnick was the one Northwest Democrat to vote in opposition; all Republicans from the region did so.

The idea of a competitive health insurance marketplace sounds not too bad, but it’s a long way from the reality.

A report from Health Care for America Now (dating from May 2009 but useful again in the current debate) has broken out the concentration of health insurers by state. How did the Northwest states rank?

Idaho had the 16th most concentrated – least competitive, most monopolized – health insurance markets among the 50 states. Blue Cross of Idaho (46% of the market) and Regence Blue Shield (29%) together take up 75% of the Idaho market.

The report: “For family health coverage in Idaho during that time [2000-07], the average annual combined premium for employers and employees rose from $5,160 to $11,432. . . . During that time, health insurance premiums for Idaho working families rose four times faster than median earnings.”

Washington was somewhat better off, at 34th among the 50. There, Premera Blue Cross had 38% of the market and Regence Blue Shield 23%, for a total between the two of 61%.

Family coverage cost increases in Washington? On average, from $6,496 to $12,120, or 5.3 times faster than median earnings.

Of the three states, Oregon was actually best off, ranking 40th. Providence Health & Services had 25% of the market, and Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield 23%, for a total of 48% – not quite half.

Family coverage in Oregon rose in those years from $6,654 to $12,321, about 4.7 times faster than median earnings.

Of course, those skyrocketing figures are somewhat out of date; they’re obviously larger by now.

Ben Bernanke was confirmed today to remain as chair of the Federal Reserve. the Senate vote was 70-30, a clear win margin.

But two-thirds of the Northwest delegation was against him.

Both of Idaho’s Republicans, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, voted against; most of the 30 opposition votes were Republicans.

But the area’s four Democrats split – seniors against juniors. The senior senators in Washington and Oregon, Patty Murray and Ron Wyden, voted in favor. The juniors, Maria Cantwell and Jeff Merkley (who has been loud for some weeks in his opposition to Bernanke), voted against.

A new decade brings with it that wonderful political tradition known as redistricting. And just in time for the new year, a fine online (and free!) toy for all the political wonks . . .

Dave’s Redistricting App is a 50-state map/database device (reliant on Silverlight), and maybe the best free device for political mapmakers around. The best thing about it is that it drills down to the precinct level, which is unusual for free interactive political maps.

This will be fun for Washingtonians and Oregonians who contemplate the possibility of a new congressional district. But it also allows for redistricting on the state legislative level, so Idahoans can join in the fun.

One of the great dividing lines between the regions west and east of the Cascades is attitudes toward church and religion. Oregon and Washington have (largely on account of their west-of-Cascades population bases) for years been rated among the “least-churched” states in the country, and Idaho toward the other end.

A just-out Pew study suggests that both are moderating in those regards, albeit gently.

Among people who say that religion is very important in their lives, Idaho (at 58%) ranks 19th-highest among the states – not especially far above the median – while Washington (46%) ranks 36th and Oregon (48%) 40th. (Number 1 is Mississippi, at 82%, and the least is New Hampshire/Vermont at 36%. California is almost identical to Washington.)

There are some interesting variations. Utah ranks only 12th on the most-important scale (which seems low), but second in worship attendance. Idaho is 19th on imporance but 15th of regular worship attendance.

H/t to Jeff Mapes at the Oregonian for the alert on this.

There’s a tendency to think that conservation is something that helps only at the edges, if there. But it can amount to more than that. What’s more surprising is how much it evidently has amounted to already.

From the Northwest Power & Conservation Council, which recently oversaw a study on electric power conservation in the region:

Improved efficiency reduced demand for electricity in the Northwest in 2008 by an amount equal to the power use of about 148,000 homes, the highest annual accomplishment since recordkeeping began 30 years ago, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

The 2008 efficiency improvements — energy conservation — totaled 234 average-megawatts (an average-megawatt, a unit of electricity measurement, is 1 million watts delivered continuously for a year). That is equal to the output of an average-size natural gas-fired power plant.

Efficiency improvements have a cost, but it is lower than the cost of building new power plants. In 2008, the average cost of efficiency for the region’s electric utilities was just $20 per megawatt-hour (2 cents per kilowatt-hour), or approximately one-fifth the cost of power from a new generating plant fueled by either natural gas or wind. Total spending by the region’s electric utilities to achieve the improved efficiency was $251 million or just 2.2 percent of regional retail electricity revenues.

The report isn’t absolute: It comes from 64 reporting electric utilities, to 51 that haven’t reported yet. (You didn’t think there were that many in the Northwest, did you?) But pretty indicative of the potential.