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1. “Making Climate Change Policy Work in Difficult
Economic Times: A Conference Focusing on the Job and Equity Impacts of Carbon
Pricing Policies”
UC Berkeley International House,
Confirmed
Featured speakers include:
* Chris Busch (MPP 1998/MS ARE 2000),
Center for Resource Solutions
* Dan Kammen,
UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Group
2. Commencement Exercises of the Class of 2009
Saturday, May
16,
Featured
Commencement Speaker:
ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS
1. “Economy in 2nd quarter of decline” (Rutland Herald (VT),
2. “Congress expected to pass Obama
budget - with overview in place, actual taxes, spending must be crafted bill by
bill” (St. Paul Pioneer Press,
3. “Kulongoski to paint
4. “UN says money available for anti-malaria bed nets” (The
Associated Press,
5. “Day of pride and celebration” (The Record,
6. “So, what's the deal with electric cars?” (Oregonian,
7. “Today’s Events in
8. “Rural Riddle: Do Jobs Follow Broadband Access? - Two
Hamlets That Got High-Speed Lines Show Wildly Different Results” (Washington
Post,
9. “
10. “Bergen Democrats want Izod
improved; 8 lawmakers defend Meadowlands arena” (Star-Ledger (
11. “Analysts expect to see even less of mayor during race”
(San Francisco Chronicle,
12. “Lobbyists see profit in ‘going green’” (Washington
Times,
13. “
14. “Same-sex marriage backers plan ballot drive” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
15. “State readies stringent fuel standards” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
16. “Fuels must clean up act” (Sacramento Bee,
17. “
18. “Baucus, Kennedy Pledge Bills by June” (American Health
Line,
19. “Duly reported: A day on the cultural district beat”
(Oregonian,
20. “Avian Flu Cases in Egypt Raise Alarms” (New York Times, April 21, 2009); story citing TIM UYEKI (MPP 1985/MD); http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21flu.html
21. “Now that GHGs are deemed a
danger, the issue advances, focused on both EPA and Congress” (Electric Utility
Week,
22. “Firm sparks an idea to run
23. “Women Pay More for Health Insurance - Gender Disparity in Individual Market” (San Jose Mercury News, April 19, 2009); story citing MARIAN MULKEY (MPP/MPH 1989); http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12159324?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
24. “Nov. vote may feature preservation referendum” (Asbury
Park Press (
25. “City Plans Transportation Hub Near
Train Stop” (Santa Fe New Mexican,
26. “U.N. decries 8-year-old girl’s marriage” (UPI,
27. “Applicants seeking city funds to preserve lands” (The
Associated Press State & Local Wire,
28. “Newsom’s budget chief faults public defender” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
29. “Hongjie Yu: monitoring avian influenza in China” (The Lancet [UK], April 11, 2009-April 17, 2009); profile citing TIM UYEKI (MPP 1985/MD); https://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/attachRetrieve.do?csi=227500&A=0.6481148977770675&risb=21_T6405918616&urlEnc=ISO-8859-1&inline=y&smi=7335&componentseq=1&key=4409607145&type=pdf
30. “Analysis: Trade Def Gives US Respite for Now—How Long?” (The Main Wire,
31. “Tougher times, cleaner climate; CO2 emissions fall in
economic crisis” (
32. “FCC Developing Plan To Deliver Broadband - Agency Examining How to Improve Access” (Washington Post, April 9, 2009); story citing S. DEREK TURNER (MPP 2006); http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040804323.html?hpid=sec-tech
33. “East Bay tries to take lead in green economy” (San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 2009); story citing IPA study by GOLDMAN SCHOOL students JOSEPH LEVIN (MPP cand. 2009), RAJAT MATHUR (MPP cand. 2009), NICOLAS NIGRO (MPP cand. 2009); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/08/BA9O16JR6V.DTL
34. “Report: State’s big rivers in big trouble” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
35. “US Hill Democrats Seek To Resolve Handful of FY10 Budg Issues” (The Main Wire,
36. “City skeptical of recent data for
37. “Producers look to next generation of biofuels”
(San Francisco Chronicle,
38. “By Brad Shannon” (Olympian,
39. “Savvy politicos court Bay Area bloggers”
(San Francisco Chronicle,
40. “Getting a Health Policy When You’re Already Sick” (The
New York Times,
41. “Kraft admits it withheld discovery of salmonella.
Bacteria found in late 2007, but the food company stayed mum until two weeks
ago” (Houston Chronicle,
42. “City Insider: Big union’s leaders likely to push budget
deal” (San Francisco Chronicle,
43. “
44. “Gregoire says she is oppo” (Olympian,
45. “Immigration Officials Sued For Holding Detainees in Appalling Conditions at L.A. Detention Facility” (States News Service, April 2, 2009); newswire citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
46. “Cancer Debt: The Hidden Costs Beyond
Insurance” (Morning Edition, National Public Radio (NPR),
47. “Rich Fed’s Green: Cred Mkt Innovation to Resume w/Econ Recov”
(The Main Wire,
48. “At Stake Are More Than Banks” (The New York Times,
49. “Analysis: Carbon-market battle begins” (UPI Energy,
50. “ ‘No’ Worries” (Slate,
51. “Relaxing on
52. “On Prostitution in
53. “UC urged to expand ethnic labels; Middle Easterners at the L.A. campus want to see alternatives to ‘white’ and ‘other’ on university forms” (Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2009); story citing NINA ROBINSON (MPP 1989); http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arab31-2009mar31,3,7937774.story
54. “Sick Around America”
(Frontline, PBS TV, original broadcast
55. “Is the Obama administration
turning
56. “
57. “Across faiths, an appeal for unity - Muslim group event
urges volunteerism” (Record, The (
58. “Students learn business and life skills to succeed” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
59. “Federal stimulus dollars aim to improve Internet access
in rural
60. “Health insurers pull a fast one” (Los Angeles Times,
61. “Critics Say New UC Policy Hurts Asians, Helps Whites” (San Jose Mercury News, March 28, 2009); story citing PATRICK HAYASHI (MPP 1977/PhD 1993) and NINA ROBINSON (MPP 1989); http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12014954?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
62. “Video gamers get new option, but it might be costly -
Streaming could boost Internet bills” (The Record (
63. “New Approach to Reducing Global Warming Without Market Manipulation” (Congressional Documents and
Publications,
64. “Look a little closer ... - ... the green fades away” (Chicago Tribune, March 22, 2009); story citing MARK TREXLER (MPP 1982/PhD 1989).
65. “A Vivid Portrait of India” (Roanoke Times,
66. “Mt.
67. “Film fest offers look at unexplored history” (Middletown
Journal (OH),
68. “Check these out” (Daily Herald (
69. “City Insider: Healthy SF wins another court round” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
70. “Obama green energy initiatives
won’t need to start from scratch, says energy attorney” (Inside F.E.R.C.,
71. “
72. “Regional wind-energy proposal gets mixed reaction” (The
Associated Press State & Local Wire,
73. “Business: The green blog”
(Boston Globe,
74. “Obama Budget Would Hike Oil
and NatGas Taxes; 2012 Cap-and-Trade” (Natural Gas
Week,
75. “Focus on Solutions: Philanthropists work to break cycle
of poverty” (KGO TV,
76. “Report: ‘Companies should disclose water use’” (Associated Press, February 27, 2009); story by GARANCE BURKE (MPP 2005/MJ 2004) and citing MICHAEL KOBORI (MPP 1995).
77. “KIPP supporters plead with district - FUSD, charter
board separately listen to parents” (Fresno Bee,
78. “Heritage Scholars Join Call for Independent Commission
to Address Looming Fiscal Crisis” (Targeted News Service,
79. “Climate change groups finding cap-and-trade interest
shared” (Platts Coal Outlook,
80. “Report recommends re-regulating special-access market;
Study claims backhaul channels still controlled by too few” (RCR Wireless News,
81. “You’ve got to go blue, before you can go green” (Deseret News,
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
1. “Can Technology Save the Economy?” (Technology Review (MIT), May/June 2009); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.technologyreview.com/business/22452/page1/
2. “Dalai Lama: Creating a peaceful 21st century
will take all 6 billion of us” (Berkeleyan,
3. “Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can
We Do It and How?” (Congressional Documents and Publications,
4. “Study Links ADHD Medicine With
Better Test Scores” (
5. “After strong start, Obama
must adjust approach” (San Francisco Chronicle,
6. “60 Minutes: The Dilemma Over
Coal Generated Power” (CBS News,
7. “We Need Public Directors on TARP Bank Boards.
The government’s role should be honest and transparent” (Wall Street Journal,
8. “Former Labor Sec Grades Obama’s
First 100 Days” (Newsroom, CNN,
9. “
10. “Work Efficiently –
It’s Good for Your (Economy’s) Health” (CNBC,
11. “
12. “Goldman Prize boosts Bay Area environmental groups year-round” (Contra Costa Times, April 19, 2009); story citing RICHARD and RHODA GOLDMAN; http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_12173009?source=most_emailed
13. “Gore: 2009 turning point in environment battle”
(San Francisco Chronicle,
14. “Redefining Capitalism After
the Fall” (
15. “Seminar ‘Rethinking Development Agenda’”
(States News Service,
16. “President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts” (The White House Press Office, April 17, 2009); press release citing MICHAEL NACHT; http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-More-Key-Administration-Posts-4/17/2009/
17. “Obama taps Berkeley scholar for high-level job” (San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 2009); story citing MICHAEL NACHT and Visiting Scholar HAROLD SMITH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/18/BACF174HN3.DTL&hw=Berkeley+University+UC&sn=018&sc=224
18. “Professor Nominated for Federal Position” (Daily Californian, April 21, 2009); story citing MICHAEL NACHT, DAN KAMMEN, RICHARD SCHEFFLER, and ROBERT REICH; http://www.dailycal.org/article/105351/professor_nominated_for_federal_position
19. “Is same-sex marriage still a generation
away?” (San Francisco Chronicle,
20. “White House Watch Blog:
Human Beings Without Humanity” (Washington Post
Online,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/torture/human-beings-without-humanity.html
21. “Exxon vs. Obama. The biggest oil company in the world is also the most resistant to the shift to green energy. The White House seems determined to make Exxon Mobil’s life miserable” (Condé Nast Portfolio, April 2009); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/portfolio/2009/03/18/Exxon-vs-the-Obama-Administration
22. “US power company to tap solar energy in
space” (The Guardian [
23. “We need more stimulus,
not more bailout. To jump-start the economy, we need to spur consumer demand.
We can’t do that without additional stimulus” (Salon.com,
24. “California Climate Change Experts to Discuss
Key Findings at Science Summit” (States News Service,
25. “This is not the beginning of the end”
(Salon.com,
26. “Cap-and-Trade: To Auction or Not to Auction”
(Red Herring,
27. “A stronger middle class would bolster the
economy” (Home News Tribune (
28. Pundits escalate attacks against Obama” (San Francisco Chronicle,
29. “Filling a Void in Climate Change. Two new web sites tackle global warming and attempt to raise awareness of the challenges we face” (East Bay Express, April 8, 2009); story citing DAN KAMMEN and MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=958833
30. “Will Geithner fire
corporate
31. “Stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about
workers” (Chicago Sun-Times,
32. “
33. “Goldman
School portal takes the worry out of ‘experiments of concern’. New site
aims to warn synthetic biologists when the fruits of their research could
include biosecurity risks” (Berkeleyan,
34. “G-20 Communique
Contains Just Enough Substance to be Considered a
Success” (CNN Newsroom,
35. “Green buildings and higher rents linked. Certified green buildings earn owners and management companies higher rents” (Business Guru, Mother Nature Network, April 2, 2009); blog citing study coauthored by JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.mnn.com/business/commercial-building/blogs/green-buildings-and-higher-rents-linked
36. “Climate change may cost
37. “Can Obama lay ground for climate talks?” (San Francisco Chronicle,
38. “Invest pollution trading dividends in clean
energy industry” (San Francisco Chronicle,
39. “Money will make Wall Street honest” –
Commentary by ROBERT REICH
(Marketplace [NPR],
40. “
41. “What we need to do to halt climate change.
Mending our ways won’t be easy, especially during a recession” (The Edmonton
Journal,
1. “Economy in 2nd quarter of decline”
(Rutland Herald (VT),
By Jack Healy and Louis Uchitelle - The Associated Press
The economy contracted sharply in the first quarter of the year as businesses scaled back on investments and cut their stockpiles of unsold goods, the government reported on Wednesday. But the numbers suggested that the worst of the recession may be fading as the government’s stimulus filters into the economy.
The gross domestic
product shrank at an annual rate of 6.1 percent from January through March
after a 6.3 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2008. Not since 1958 have
Americans experienced such a sharp contraction over six months. But on Wall Street,
investors barely flinched at the worse-than-expected decline in economic
output. Stock markets rallied 2 percent in
Although economists expect the economy to shrink again in the current quarter, they said it would do so at a slower pace and level off in the second half of the year as one of the longest downturns since the 1930’s begins to lift….
One of the bright spots in the numbers was a 2.2 percent increase in consumer spending, which accounts for some 70 percent of economic activity. After two quarters of sharp declines, economists said consumer spending had stabilized, thanks in part to lower energy prices and higher-than-normal tax refunds, which have put more money in people’s pockets.
And economists said that government spending, which declined 4 percent, would probably turn around and buoy the broader economy for the rest of the year as infrastructure projects from the $787 billion stimulus plan get under way.
“This reads like the
final blow-off quarter of the recession,” said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of
2. “Congress expected to
pass Obama budget - with overview in place, actual
taxes, spending must be crafted bill by bill” (St. Paul Pioneer Press,
By David Lightman; McClatchy Newspapers
The Senate and House of Representatives are expected to pass it today. That’s the easy part, however; the congressional budget is only a blueprint, with key details yet to be worked out bill by bill in Congress.
But it’s a good start, some analysts said, because it puts Obama and Democrats in Congress on the record—and committed by congressional votes—to reduce this year’s projected $1.7 trillion deficit to $620 billion by 2012 and $523 billion by 2014.
“This is fairly significant, because Congress is setting up its plan for the rest of the year,” veteran federal-budget analyst Stan Collender said….
3. “Kulongoski
to paint
By Dylan Rivera, The Oregonian
As
That’s about 2,500 workers a year for the decade or so it would take to build the bridge and dismantle the old one, The Oregonian has learned….
Joe Cortright, a
But Cortright said job growth is not
tied to a bridge but instead the region’s choices for growth. He said greater
4. “UN says money
available for anti-malaria bed nets” (The Associated Press,
Ann Veneman says she hopes that will eliminate the nearly 1 million deaths annually from the killer disease by 2015.
Veneman’s announcement at a
global summit on malaria on Friday was greeted by loud applause, as was the
announcement that President Barack Obama is committed to making the
5. “Day of pride and
celebration” (The Record,
By Monsy
Alvarado, Staff Writer
From left, Staci White, chair of the
Bergen County African American Advisory Committee, Theodora Lacey, president of
the Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Observance Committee of
The monument rock with a
bronze plaque has been in the works for about a year, initiated by a group of
black community leaders who said a memorial was long overdue.
“There needed to be something
dedicated to the African-American slaves and all those who struggled,” said
Clifton Arrington, co-chairman of the
Several state, county
and city officials were in attendance, including state Sen. Robert Gordon of
6. “So, what's the deal
with electric cars?” (Oregonian,
By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
The Zap Xebra plug-in
was a staple at EcoMotion but proved a tough sell.
The
…Q: Are [electric cars] a clear environmental
winner?
A: Yes—if the
electricity comes from natural gas, hydroelectric power or renewables
such as wind and solar. … Turns out, Northwest power planners say, the most
likely power source for any additional nighttime draw …is coal, which happens
to be, by far, our dirtiest power source….
Q: How would coal-fired
cars stack up to gasoline powered cars?
A: Opinions vary, but
most researchers still see a benefit.
A 2007 study by the
Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural
Resources Defense Council concluded that a plug-in hybrid fueled by
gasoline and coal-fired electricity would still knock down greenhouse gas
emissions by about one-quarter. But a hybrid without a plug would perform
better, the study said….
A couple of caveats:
Even with the Northwest's complications, not all the charging would come from
coal. Emissions of health-damaging air pollutants would likely drop.
And power plants'
emissions are likely to fall in the future, said Luke Tonachel, vehicles analyst with the
National Resources Defense Council. "A clean electric vehicle today
will get cleaner over time," he said, "because we will be cleaning up
the power sector." …
7. “Today’s Events in
SHADOW OPEN MARKET -
8. “Rural Riddle: Do
Jobs Follow Broadband Access? - Two Hamlets That Got High-Speed Lines Show
Wildly Different Results” (Washington Post,
By Cecilia
Sarah Jones, 12, helps Hailey Sailor, 8, at Rose Hill Community
Library. Rose Hill got public money for high-speed lines. (Wade Payne)
In the southwest corner of Virginia, where tobacco farms meet the Appalachian Mountains, two towns desperately in need of an economic boost were given what many had hoped would be a kick-start: access to high-speed Internet.
But there the paths of
President Obama has touted broadband as a means toward transforming rural and low-income areas, setting aside $7.2 billion in the stimulus plan to help create jobs and close the “digital divide.” …
Supporters of broadband
as a way to jump-start an economy cite
At a cost of $700,000 for 140 homes, fat fiber-optic pipes came [to Rose Hill]. A local telecom carrier offered in-home service for $49 a month. Free broadband came to the town’s library.
One in three homes signed up for the service. Only a handful of jobs were created….
Derek Turner, research director for public advocacy group Free Press, said the social benefits of providing broadband to all Americans are enormous, as it would allow people in remote areas like Rose Hill to be engaged in cultural and social trends….
9. “
According to a report in
Nature News, similar work has been
done for the
“Everyone has been
scrambling around to come up with an estimate for
10. “Bergen Democrats
want Izod improved; 8 lawmakers defend Meadowlands
arena” (Star-Ledger, The (
By John Brennan, for The Star-Ledger
A week after Newark
Mayor Cory Booker insisted the Meadowlands should be ruled out as a long-term
home for the Nets, eight Democratic lawmakers
yesterday backed the idea of a “modernized
State Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) said if the National Basketball League
team is unable to achieve a planned move to
The latest letter, from state Sens. Sarlo, Loretta Weinberg and Robert Gordon—all Bergen County Democrats—and all but one of their Assembly running mates endorses the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority’s ongoing talks over taking over management of the Prudential Center as well.
“It is our view that a cooperative marketing and operating effort by the NJSEA could help ensure that both facilities will be well-positioned for success,” the lawmakers wrote….
11. “Analysts expect to
see even less of mayor during race” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Heather Knight and Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writers
Mayor Gavin Newsom at an event kicking-off the
city’s ‘Train for Charity’ program at Crunch Fitness on
Mayor Gavin Newsom has been increasingly absent from San Francisco, and his decision to officially enter the 2010 race for California governor prompted speculation he’ll spend even less time at City Hall, as the city copes with one of its worst budget crises in history.
This month alone, Newsom
has traveled to
On Tuesday, the day he
announced his gubernatorial run online, he jaunted to
The jet-setting schedule
comes weeks after The Chronicle reported that the mayor has spent the
equivalent of nine months traveling outside
While Newsom’s critics say it’s hard to imagine him being more disengaged, his supporters say he’s constantly in touch with what’s going on in City Hall when he’s on the road, and he has a strong staff to rely on when he’s away….
Political consultant David Latterman was less optimistic.
“The guy has already just not been present,” he said. “He’s running for governor; I don’t know who’s going to run the city for the next year.”…
12. “Lobbyists see
profit in ‘going green’” (Washington Times,
By Amanda DeBard, The
President Obama has promised that passing laws to enhance “green” living would create millions of new jobs. Little did he realize that the growth would start with a surge in federal lobbying….
President Obama and leading Democrats on Capitol Hill want to limit the amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Their chief plan, called cap-and-trade, would require companies to hold permits for each ton of carbon they emit—up to a given limit—and then obtain or purchase additional allowances for each ton above the cap.
Lawmakers have not said how they plan to allocate those allowances, and that’s where the lobbying action has been most intense….
The coal industry launched an $18 million TV advertising campaign promoting clean-coal technology and is asking Congress to invest in new technologies that reduce emissions from coal-using enterprises, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an alliance of industries that produce electricity from coal….
The wind-power industry has put advertisements inside Metro subway cars and Capitol Hill publications and on CNN.com, as well as stepped up its lobbying efforts, said Rob Gramlich, policy director for American Wind Energy Association. The industry spent $950,000 on lobbying in 2008….
13. “
By Jim Downing
If a tree falls in the
Amazon, does it have anything to do with
This week, the California Air Resources Board is set to adopt a plan that says it does.
The low-carbon fuel standard aims to cut the carbon footprint of the state’s motor fuels 10 percent by 2020. It will influence what powers your car – from hydrogen to electricity to biofuels – for decades to come. It’s likely to drive federal policies. And it will guide billions of dollars of investment in alternatives to petroleum.
But the plan doesn’t encourage much of a long-term role for corn-based ethanol, currently the most widely used alternative fuel.
A key provision makes ethanol accountable for a ripple of potential impacts around the world, such as deforestation in the Amazon. That makes ethanol’s carbon footprint larger, and its attractiveness to investors lower….
According to a staff report, the footprint of a gallon of Pacific Ethanol’s product rises by about 60 percent when such side effects are factored in. The company’s fuel still beats gasoline, even after accounting for the poorer mileage ethanol delivers. But the penalty would work against it and other crop-based brews in a future market for low-carbon fuels likely to emerge under the plan….
Other researchers agree with the air board that using farmland to produce fuel has at least some spinoff effects and argue that the impacts could be even larger than estimated. Major environmental groups are backing the air board.
Roland Hwang, Transportation Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the air board’s proposal will put the state on a trajectory to move beyond corn ethanol to other fuels that should be more sustainable – politically and environmentally. The policy, he said, lays out a framework that will help to foster investment in so-called “next-generation” biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, made from grasses or crop waste, as well as hydrogen, electricity and other alternatives.
“Everybody can understand where they should put their money,” he said….
14. “Same-sex marriage
backers plan ballot drive” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer
Supreme Court justices hear Prop. 8 arguments in March.
Supporters of same-sex marriage are putting
together plans for their own ballot measure even before the state Supreme Court
rules on the fate of Proposition 8, which banned those unions last November.
Gay and lesbian groups joined with progressive and civil rights organizations Tuesday to announce they are collaborating on a poll to determine the best time and message for a ballot measure legalizing same-sex marriage….
While same-sex marriage advocates … said they are confident the state’s high court will dump the Prop. 8 ban, the court in the past has been reluctant to overturn successful ballot initiatives….
“While we’re hoping for the best, we also need to sit up and plan to go back to the ballot if necessary,” said Pamela Brown, policy director for Marriage Equality USA. “We’ll be polling the grassroots community ... about which election we should target, what ballot language we need to use and what areas (of the state) to target.” …
The polling by the same-sex marriage advocates will try to determine whether a gay-marriage initiative would have a better chance in 2010, with the governor’s race on the ballot, or in 2012, when Obama will be up for re-election….
If the court rules in favor of Prop. 8, there’s likely to be an instant push by same-sex marriage backers to go to the ballot as quickly as possible. For the political advisers, it could come down to a question of harnessing that surge or convincing people it’s better to wait and link same-sex marriage to a new Obama campaign….
[Pamela Brown was also cited in The Desert Sun, (
15. “State readies
stringent fuel standards” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
… The California Air Resources Board is expected to approve on Thursday a far-reaching rule called the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the biggest step yet in the state’s campaign to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
But the proposal has touched off a fierce lobbying battle among environmentalists, ethanol producers, scientists, economists and oil companies.
Ethanol producers who make their fuel from corn say the standard unfairly blames them for deforestation in the developing world. Scientists have issued dueling studies panning or praising the standard’s methodology.
The Canadian government, meanwhile, fears it could hurt sales of oil squeezed from the country’s vast tar sands, while oil companies want a delay, saying the plan still lacks many key details….
Environmentalists want it approved immediately.
“Every day we delay is a day we fall behind in fighting global warming,” said Roland Hwang, vehicles policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “What we really need now is some certainty about how we’re going to proceed, or we’re going to be in this debate forever.” …
|
Fuel type |
Carbon intensity |
Carbon intensity (including land-use changes) |
|
California gasoline{+1} |
95.85 |
95.85 |
|
Midwest ethanol{+2} |
75.10 |
105.10 |
|
California ethanol{+3} |
50.70 |
80.70 |
|
Brazilian ethanol{+4} |
27.40 |
73.40 |
|
Landfill gas (bio-methane){+5} |
11.26 |
11.26 |
{+1} with 10% ethanol
{+2} with some of the plant’s power coming from coal
{+3} with the plant’s power coming from natural gas
{+4} made from sugarcane and shipped here
{+5} derived from
landfills in
Source: California Air Resources Board
16. “Fuels must clean up
act” (Sacramento Bee,
By Kevin Yamamura
Kaleb
California became the first state in the nation
Thursday to mandate carbon-based reductions in transportation fuels in an
attempt to cut the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.
The [California Air Resources Board] looked at the entire carbon “intensity” of fuels, rather than the impact of emissions from use alone. That meant considering the emissions from the start of production to lasting impacts not directly related to fuel supply….
Ethanol advocates challenged the report’s findings, disputing that their corn-based production had a significant impact on greenhouse-gas increases elsewhere. But they also suggested that petroleum and other fuels were not given the same treatment….
The air board promised to work with ethanol producers to update formulas related to the indirect effects of fuels as warranted by future research. But it stood by its findings that other fuels did not have significant indirect impacts….
Environmentalists and health organizations praised the low-carbon fuel standard as a significant step toward shrinking the state’s carbon footprint and providing cleaner air for residents.
Roland Hwang, transportation program director for the National Resources Defense Council, said the ethanol regulation is appropriate because it will force ethanol producers to seek cleaner and more sustainable forms of fuel production….
17. “
By Dale Kasler
In car-crazy California, a new fuel standard ordered by state officials to curb greenhouse gases could dramatically change how vehicles run….
The petroleum industry and some economists say the new standard adopted by the state Air Resources Board on Thursday will cost motorists billions, because blending gasoline will become considerably more complicated.
But state officials and environmentalists say the “low-carbon fuel standard” will actually save Californians money by reducing oil consumption and ushering in a competitive new era of biofuels and electric vehicles….
A big problem, [Cathy Reheis-Boyd, chief operating officer at the Western States Petroleum Association] said, is that the air board’s standards will limit the use of corn-based ethanol in gasoline – leaving refiners with a major hurdle….
“We have no way to know how we’re supposed to comply with this,” Reheis-Boyd said….
Air board officials and environmentalists said the refiners are crying wolf. The standard will phase in slowly in the early years. Refiners and entrepreneurs will have plenty of time – and economic incentive – to make inexpensive biofuels, hydrogen-based fuels, even ethanol from such “cellulosic” materials as switchgrass.
“The program starts off on a rather gentle slope,” said Roland Hwang, vehicle policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. There are even ways of making ethanol out of corn that can reduce its “total carbon score,” he said….
18. “Baucus, Kennedy
Pledge Bills by June” (American Health Line,
Stan Collender, Roll Call: “[W]hen it comes to health care, reconciliation shouldn’t be an issue at all” because “health care reform will have a substantial impact on federal finances,” and it “can’t be said to be unrelated to the budget, which is one of the critical criteria for using reconciliation,” Collender, a partner at Qorvis Communications, writes in a Roll Call opinion piece. He adds, “[G]iven that at least two of the largest mandatory federal spending programs—Medicare and Medicaid—are health care programs, health care reform and reconciliation would seem to be a perfect fit.” He writes that “including [health care] in reconciliation does not prevent the committees with jurisdiction from producing a bill outside the reconciliation process,” and it “may very well provide a strong incentive for these committees to produce a bill on their own” (Collender, Roll Call, 4/21).
19. “Duly reported: A
day on the cultural district beat” (Oregonian,
Posted by Barry Johnson,
The Oregonian 15:
An early drawing of the Rose Quarter entertainment district, with a baseball stadium replacing Memorial Coliseum. Mayor Sam Adams has put off the vote to demolish Memorial Coliseum for a week to give time to further study.
… 3) The people I talked to today were very
suspicious of the [Trail Blazers/Cordish Corporation
entertainment district] plan and shocked about the amount of taxpayer money
that might be involved (the number $200 million has been floated)….
I talked to the following people: economist Joe Cortright, professor of urban planning and design Ethan Seltzer, Dave Allen (who has been involved in the music business in various ways since his days with the Gang of Four) and Alicia J. Rose (now involved with Mississippi Studios and formerly with Doug Fir—both important independent music venues, among other things). All of them had serious questions about an entertainment district at the very least, and most of them were opposed to the idea in general but especially if a public subsidy was involved.
Part of it was simply a case of fairness: “It’s essentially subsidizing a large business to compete with other businesses in Portland,” Cortright said….
They also got to the
heart of the objections expressed on local websites, describing the district as
a mall or an attempt to suburbanize the city’s cultural life (Allen). “By definition
these entertainment districts tend to be homogenous and inauthentic,” Cortright said.
He went on to suggest that such efforts are a “slap in the face of what
urbanism is about”—the mixing of people in increasingly creative ways, rather
than plopping them down into sanitized enclaves. And it would be especially out
of place in
20. “Avian Flu Cases in Egypt Raise Alarms” (New York Times, April 21, 2009); story citing TIM UYEKI (MPP 1985/MD); http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21flu.html
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
A woman in
An unusual pattern of
avian flu cases in
That would be an alarming development, but other experts, including those at the World Health Organization, say such fears are exaggerated. Although thousands of Egyptians have rushed their children to hospitals this flu season, there is no evidence yet of asymptomatic avian flu cases or any significant mutation in the H5N1 virus….
Bird flu has faded from
world headlines because it has not caused a pandemic. But the disease is still
circulating in poultry in
An April 8 Reuters article from Cairo quoted a visiting W.H.O. expert saying his agency feared “something strange happening in Egypt” and would help the government test the blood of healthy people for antibodies this summer.
Antibodies to the flu would indicate they had recovered from silent infections.
But a W.H.O. spokesman said privately that the agency was just helping the Egyptians with a long-planned study and the article had “jumped the gun.”
Translations of Egyptian media reports posted on flu-tracking sites say dozens of suspected cases have been hospitalized, but some seem to confuse avian flu with seasonal flu and even confirmed poultry cases….
Dr. Tim Uyeki, a flu specialist at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
“Those are the ideal people to look at,” he said. “And there was zero or extremely low prevalence of antibodies,” meaning silent infections were very uncommon.
21. “Now that GHGs are deemed a danger, the issue advances, focused on
both EPA and Congress” (Electric Utility Week,
By Cathy Cash
In a strategic push
toward national climate change policy, the Environmental Protection Agency last
week took its first official step toward federal regulation of greenhouse gases
with an official finding that human-caused GHGs
endanger public health and welfare….
Center for Clean Air Policy President Ned Helme
said options available under the Clean Air Act likely would be less
cost-effective for reducing GHG emissions than new legislation. But the agency
should start to regulate, because a new law will not take effect for some time;
as it does so, it should keep the economy in mind, Helme said.
“A good approach would
be to regulate CO2 via national performance standards for power plants and
cars, particularly if compliance could be designed to include emissions
trading,” he said. “Further, we need a thorough and careful look at which
provisions of the act should remain, be modified or made inapplicable to GHG
emissions as part of new national legislation to regulate GHGs.”…
22. “Firm sparks an idea
to run
--David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Adura CEO Marvin Bush takes the
More than a million buses ply China’s streets and rural roads, burning diesel and spewing soot and greenhouse gases into the air.
Marvin Bush wants to electrify them.
His
With Adura’s power train, a bus can travel 100 miles between charges, Bush said. Hook up the power train to a hybrid engine, and a bus traveling 130 miles in a day can get fuel mileage of 50 miles per gallon.
Bush has no interest in building the buses himself. While other companies are trying to design entire electric vehicles, Adura has focused on just this one critical piece….
“If you’re invested in electric drivetrains, you don’t have to place all your bets on hydrogen, or batteries or any particular fuel,” said Roland Hwang, a vehicles specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council….
Adura’s
price is well above the $55,000 to $75,000 that regular bus power trains cost,
Bush said. But China’s government, which is trying to develop green technology
and cut its dependence on oil, has shown an interest. Adura
signed an agreement last May with the China Automotive Technology and
That concerns Hwang, who wants the
“There’s a question of
whether the
23. “Women Pay More for Health Insurance - Gender Disparity in Individual Market” (San Jose Mercury News, April 19, 2009); story citing MARIAN MULKEY (MPP/MPH 1989); http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12159324?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
By Mike Zapler, Mercury News
When a woman obtains health insurance through her job, the law is clear: She can’t be forced to pay any more than a man for the same coverage.
It’s a different story, though, for the growing number of women who shop for coverage on their own—because they’ve lost a job, perhaps, or are self-employed. Often, they can expect to pay a surcharge of 7 percent or more just because they’re female, according to a Mercury News review of rates for top-selling health plans sold to individuals.
On top of that, most of those plans don’t cover maternity services.
Insurance companies say the difference is because women cost more to insure, but critics say the practice amounts to discrimination….
Two bills pending in the Legislature would bar insurers from charging different rates based on a person’s sex (AB119, by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento) and force them to include maternity care in policies sold to individuals (AB98, by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate)….
The Mercury News review of health insurance rates looked at premiums charged for the 10 bestselling plans for 30-, 45-, 50- and 55-year-olds in San Jose, using the online portal http:// ehealthinsurance.com. The results diverged wildly. In most cases, women are charged more, but in some instances there is no difference, and a handful of policies actually cost more for men….
“There’s no consistency or rationality to the pricing; it’s all over the map,” [Jones, who chairs the Assembly Health Committee] said. “We don’t think it’s based on actuarial science, we think it’s based on discrimination against women.” …
Some health care experts say barring insurers from charging differently based on sex would have a relatively small effect on rates. Insurers, they say, would likely respond by charging men slightly more to even out prices….
“The individual market is flawed—it’s very expensive and often the case that people who need coverage the most find it impossible or very difficult to get,” said Marian Mulkey , a senior program officer at the California Healthcare Foundation. “But it’s hard to think about policy tweaks” such as the gender bill “that can make a significant difference.” …
24. “Nov. vote may
feature preservation referendum” (Asbury Park Press (
By Michael Symons -
Lawmakers appear poised to put a question before voters in November seeking to borrow money to pay for land preservation programs, though the recession makes it unlikely a long-term funding fix will be considered this year.
Advocates for a long-term source of funding to bankroll land purchases, such as Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Essex, have proposed a tax on water consumption they say would equal $30 a year for a typical household….
“We need a long-term source. I, for one, think in this environment it’s very difficult to ask people to pay a water tax,” said Sen. Robert Gordon, D-Bergen….
25. “City Plans
Transportation Hub Near Train Stop” (Santa Fe New
Mexican,
By Tom Sharpe - The New Mexican
The mayor and two city
councilors are pushing to build a transportation hub next to the old state
archives building at the corner of
Preliminary plans call
for a new bus stop, cafe, bicycle-rental shop, information booth, artifact
displays, public restrooms and retail spaces adjacent to the
A resolution sponsored by Mayor David Coss and Councilors Patti Bushee and Chris Calvert would direct city staff to work with the Middle Rio Grande Council of Governments, which operates the Rail Runner train, to lease about 40,000 square feet of land there.
The resolution says the area’s proximity to the train terminal in the Santa Fe Railyard presents “an excellent opportunity to promote and facilitate alternate modes of transportation available to visitors to our city as well as local residents.” …
The Public Works Committee unanimously approved the resolution last week…
Public Works Director Robert Romero said he is looking for federal economic-stimulus money to finance what is expected to be up to $2 million worth of work at the site.
26. “U.N. decries
8-year-old girl’s marriage” (UPI,
UNITED NATIONS -- The director of the U.N. Children’s Fund says the marriage of an 8-year old Saudi Arabian girl to a 47-year-old man violates the girl’s rights.
Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, told CNN the arranged marriage, which has twice been ruled legal by a Saudi judge, is wrong even though it may be deemed legal.
“Irrespective of
circumstances or the legal framework, the marriage of a child is a violation of
that child’s rights,” Veneman
told the
27. “Applicants seeking
city funds to preserve lands” (The Associated Press State & Local Wire,
The Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund receives one-half percent of the county’s annual property tax revenues. Another fund for affordable housing received another half-percent. The conservation fund is now worth $8 million after having received $4 million in each of the last two years.
Six nonprofit
organizations have applied to use $6.75 million of the money for projects,
including one that would block a luxury beach front development in Kahuku and another to preserve
They groups aim to use matching funds from other entities like private groups or federal and state governments to acquire $24.8 million worth of land.
The money the six groups are seeking from the city represents only 2 percent to 57 percent of their projects’ anticipated land purchase prices.
Denise Antolini, chair of the nine-person
commission overseeing the fund and director of the environmental law program at
the
“That’s the smart, new way to do it,” Antolini said. “It allows the city to support conservation in a new way. The potential is really enormous.”
Antolini said the commission expects to solicit applications and disperse money annually, which will help bolster voluntary land conservation plans.
She said
28. “Newsom’s budget
chief faults public defender” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Heather Knight
Watching the budget back-and-forth between City Hall and Public Defender Jeff Adachi feels like sitting in the stands at a tennis match, and our necks are getting tired.
The latest swing? Adachi’s entire office—attorneys and support staff alike—has voted to take five furlough days by June 30, the end of this fiscal year. That means a savings of $331,000 and spares 12 jobs, he said….
But Nani Coloretti, the mayor’s budget director, said Adachi has dug his office into a $1 million shortfall for the current fiscal year by not abiding by his office budget agreed to by the mayor and supervisors.
“He doesn’t look and see whether his budget can handle it—he just fills all positions,” she said, noting she still doesn’t know how the mayor will handle Adachi’s refusal to take cuts next year. “(Adachi) is independently elected. I’m not sure what I can legally do, but we have to bring his office into line.” …
29. “Hongjie Yu: monitoring avian influenza in China” (The Lancet [UK], April 11, 2009-April 17, 2009); profile citing TIM UYEKI (MPP 1985/MD); https://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/attachRetrieve.do?csi=227500&A=0.6481148977770675&risb=21_T6405918616&urlEnc=ISO-8859-1&inline=y&smi=7335&componentseq=1&key=4409607145&type=pdf
By Mark Honigsbaum
… Today, [Hongjie] Yu, who at 37 years old is Deputy Director of the Office for Disease Control and Emergency Response, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), has an even more daunting task: to monitor outbreaks of H5N1 and other emerging animal pathogens before they can trigger global panics….
… However, his big break
came 2 years into the training, in 2003, when severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) emerged in
SARS also underlined the need for better monitoring to contain future outbreaks of new respiratory diseases….
... One of Yu’s first tests
came in 2005, when a boy from
…To stop further human
infections, Yu now wants to see Chinese fresh poultry markets disinfected
weekly and the birds slaughtered under close supervision, as occurs in
That will be music to
the ears of Tim Uyeki
of the Influenza Division of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
who has been working with China CDC
on a series of studies looking at H5N1 and has been greatly impressed by what
he calls the team’s “dedication to excellence”. From Yu’s point of view,
international collaboration also has benefits for
30. “Analysis: Trade Def
Gives US Respite for Now—How Long?” (The Main Wire,
By Steven K. Beckner
Market News
International - It took a financial crisis and the worst economic contraction
since the Great Depression, but the
This has to please
officials at the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund and
elsewhere, who have been worrying mightily about the size of the
The concern has been that a shortfall of U.S. savings relative to its investment needs—due in no small part to the burgeoning of the federal budget deficit over the past 10 years—is causing the United States to depend more and more on foreign savings….
The worry has been that,
at some point, foreign investors will sate their appetite for
Such worries have not gone away despite the reduction in the trade and current account deficits.
At a Richmond Federal
Reserve Bank conference last week, Bank
of
31. “Tougher times, cleaner
climate; CO2 emissions fall in economic crisis” (
By Traci Watson
The worldwide economic
slowdown is having an unexpected positive impact in the fight against global
warming: Emissions of carbon dioxide are falling, records collected by
governments show.
From the
A recession-driven drop
in emissions “is good for the environment,” says Emilie Mazzacurati of Point Carbon, an energy
research company. "In the long term, that's not how we want to reduce
emissions." …
*Carbon dioxide from
industrial facilities in 27 European nations in 2008 plummeted 6%, according to
Point Carbon's analysis of data
published last week by the European Commission….
Some experts fear lower
emissions may make companies and governments less likely to spend money to cut
carbon output. "There's a risk that it will push back needed investment
into ... cleaner production," Mazzacurati says.
32. “FCC Developing Plan To Deliver Broadband - Agency Examining How to Improve Access” (Washington Post, April 9, 2009); story citing S. DEREK TURNER (MPP 2006); http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040804323.html?hpid=sec-tech
By Cecilia
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday began mapping out a plan to bring high-speed Internet service to the entire nation, starting with questions on how to increase its availability, improve its quality of service and make it more affordable.
In a meeting yesterday, acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps invited comments from the public on the national broadband plan the agency has been ordered by Congress to complete by February 2010. He said the process for creating the plan will be “open, inclusive, out-reaching and data-hungry.” …
Already telecommunications companies and public interest groups have weighed in at the FCC on things they think should be in the plan. Some carriers want rules on how much large network operators can charge carriers to use parts of their networks. Others say a $7 billion federal phone subsidy program for rural areas should instead be used for broadband.
Free Press, a public interest group, said the last administration dropped the ball on broadband deployment.
“If we want to see any improvement in the availability and adoption of broadband in this country, we need a strong government watchdog and a broadband plan that puts the public interest ahead of Wall Street’s whims,” said S. Derek Turner, Free Press’s research director….
33. “East Bay tries to take lead in green economy” (San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 2009); story citing IPA study by GOLDMAN SCHOOL students JOSEPH LEVIN (MPP cand. 2009), RAJAT MATHUR (MPP cand. 2009), NICOLAS NIGRO (MPP cand. 2009); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/08/BA9O16JR6V.DTL
--Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
More than a year ago,
four
They intended, in the words
of Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, to make the
The East Bay Green Corridor Partnership - which also includes Oakland, Richmond and Emeryville - planned to incubate new green companies spawned by Berkeley’s academic research, particularly that fed by millions of new dollars for next-generation biofuels. And they would retain those enterprises in the region by providing them with adequate facilities, newly trained green workers and financial incentives….
And while billions of new dollars for alternative energy are expected to flow from the federal stimulus package, there is stiff competition for such funds and for the title of the nation’s green capital….
Leading the race to
become the green
A study last year by grad students at UC Berkeley’s
34. “Report: State’s big
rivers in big trouble” (San Francisco Chronicle,
By Garance Burke, Associated Press
American Rivers, a conservation group that compiles the annual list, chose the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system because its collapse could threaten the water supply of 25 million Californians, flood the state’s capital and damage the delicate freshwater delta where the two rivers twine.
“The Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta is on the verge of losing important fish species, and the
communities that surround it already don’t have adequate protection from their
levees,” said Steve Rothert,
The
The delta also forms the
heart of the state’s water-delivery system, where snowmelt from the
President Barack Obama signed a wilderness
bill last week that implements a 2006 legal settlement to bring water and
Chinook salmon back to a portion of the state’s second-longest river, the
35. “US Hill Democrats
Seek To Resolve Handful of FY10 Budg Issues” (The
Main Wire,
By John Shaw
Reconciliation bills can be created by budget resolutions. Unlike budget resolutions which are non-binding blueprints for Congress, a reconciliation bill has the force of law. Reconciliation legislation seeks to “reconcile” spending and tax laws with the deficit reduction goals set out in the budget resolution.
Reconciliation bills are protected from filibusters in the Senate. Debate in the Senate is limited to 20 hours and the types of amendments in order are tightly restricted. They also require only a simple majority for passage.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said allowing for a reconciliation bill would allow Democrats to push health care legislation later in the year under an expedited procedure, if a bipartisan health care reform effort fails.
“The only serious issue out there on the budget resolution between the House and Senate is reconciliation,” says Stan Collender, a budget expert at Qorvis Communications.
“From the Democratic perspective, reconciliation is a tool that helps ensure that Republicans will deal with them on health care. I assume the final budget resolution will allow for reconciliation, but leadership will say they will use it only as a last resort,” he says….
36. “City skeptical of
recent data for
By Dave Davies
IF CITY COUNCIL members go along with Mayor Nutter’s proposal for a two-year hike in city property taxes, they’ll be increasing real estate taxes that already are among the highest in the region.
An analysis [by Select Greater Philadelphia, a non-profit group] of effective property-tax rates shows that Philadelphians are paying higher property tax rates than home and business owners in 211 of the 240 townships and boroughs in Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks and Chester counties….
City officials are skeptical of the calculations, and many point out that suburban communities don’t confront the range of social-service needs that the city has.
And many suburban communities
don’t provide or charge for some services, including trash collection. In
City budget director Steve Agostini said he wasn’t convinced that Philadelphians are necessarily paying higher property taxes than suburbanites.
He said city officials had done some property-tax comparisons of individual properties in the city and suburbs in recent weeks, and reached no clear conclusion about where the property-tax burdens are heaviest.
“We’ll certainly look at this data,” Agostini said of the tax-comparison tables provided by the Daily News. But he said the decision to raise property and sales taxes was based on the need to preserve services and not “go back to the well” of wage and business taxes.
In November, Nutter canceled planned reductions in wage and business taxes, and Agostini said with proposed temporary real estate and sales tax hikes, “the burden would be spread fairly evenly across the city.” …
37. “Producers look to
next generation of biofuels” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
--David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Researcher Anna Coragliotti works with a type of algae whose cells are rich in oil, showing potential as a fuel alternative. Bay Area firms also are exploring the synthetic breakdown of sugars and even the use of microbes from termite guts to make ethanol from wood.
For
The Bay Area teems with entrepreneurs trying to replace oil with new, renewable fuels. Their experiments are attracting investment despite the global recession, with venture capitalists pouring $96 million into the industry in this year’s first quarter.
The federal government wants to expand biofuel production by nearly two-thirds in the next five years, with specific quotas for advanced biofuels made from such ingredients as grass, algae, enzymes or yeast.
But older biofuel companies are facing financial ruin, hammered by low fuel prices.
“When oil prices were high and gasoline prices were high, they were flying,” said Roland Hwang, a vehicles specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “At the height of the bubble, these guys [corn-ethanol companies] were making money hand over fist. And they flat-out overbuilt.” …
They’re fighting another
battle in
Supporters of the low-carbon fuel standard support next-generation biofuels because ethanol made from grass or crop waste should yield fewer greenhouse gases during production [and not drive up food crop prices].
“How do we transition from corn ethanol to second- and third-generation biofuels that have much less impact on the environment?” asked Hwang. “That’s the big question right now.”
38. “By Brad Shannon”
(Olympian,
By Brad Shannon, The Olympian
State Democratic lawmakers are looking at new taxes as a way to fill holes in the state budget, less than a week after the release of budget proposals that would cut almost $4 billion from government services.
The budget proposals were introduced last week—on the 78th and 79th days of the legislative session. The Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have yet to coalesce around a single concept….
Republicans have lined
up solidly against any new revenue, voting in a bloc against a 25-cent phone
tax for
It also appears that leaders in the House and Senate have conflicting approaches in mind. In the House, Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, says there are about 15 ideas getting “kicked around,” including Senate leader Lisa Brown’s preference for an income tax on millionaires….
Against that political backdrop, a coalition of teachers, hospitals, labor unions and community health-care clinics is doing polling to learn what kind of tax package the public might support.
The coalition has kept most of its poll results close to the vest, but Rebecca Kavoussi of the Community Health Network of Washington said there are signs the public does support taxes.
She estimated that cuts to health care would leave 160,000 to 200,000 Washingtonians without insurance by cutting the size of the Basic Health Plan and reducing health-care offerings to disabled people on the General Assistance Unemployable program, among other cuts….
39. “Savvy politicos
court Bay Area bloggers” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Dennis Herrera is
running for re-election as
Herrera is one of a handful of forward-thinking local politicians - such as San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, a candidate for state attorney general; East Bay congressional candidate Adriel Hampton; and Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough - who are reaching out to bloggers as if they were another constituent group….
It’s a relationship bloggers and politicos think can be mutually beneficial - particularly for the candidate, as the relationship is largely free of the adversarial pushback pols receive from traditional media. Even President Obama plans to meet soon with liberal bloggers as a way to spread his message to a potentially friendlier audience.
Local and statewide politicians realize that as traditional media outlets cut their staffs and reduce coverage, bloggers can offer a more efficient way to spread their messages - and, occasionally, their planted stories - to a wider audience. Because of the rapid pace of downsizing in mainstream media, these days it is also more frequently the local blogger who is following the minutiae of planning commissions and neighborhood concerns….
Many bloggers see themselves as serving an adjunct function to journalists. Sure, Brian Leubitz regularly breaks news on the Calitics blog he founded ( www.calitics.com ). “But then a (traditional media) reporter will pick it up and do the reporting that I don’t necessarily want to do,” Leubitz says….
40. “Getting a Health
Policy When You’re Already Sick” (The New York Times,
By Walecia Konrad
Melissa Klettke’s insurer dropped her
coverage, saying she had a pre-existing condition, when she was undergoing
tests for symptoms that can signal multiple sclerosis. She does not have the
disease. (Lisa Bauso for The New York Times)
INSURANCE executives held out hope to the afflicted late last month by announcing their willingness to end a notorious industry practice: charging higher premiums to people with health problems or denying them coverage altogether….
‘‘It is arguably the
biggest minefield out there when it comes to getting and keeping your health
insurance,’’ said Karen Pollitz, project director at the Health Policy Institute at
Until the system changes, here is basic guidance for people with pre-existing conditions, whether you’re currently covered or shopping for insurance….
SEEK OTHER GROUP COVERAGE. Even as an individual, you may be able to join a group health plan, especially if you run your own business. Your chamber of commerce may offer health coverage for local business owners. And professional and trade associations sometimes offer group insurance to qualified members regardless of their health.
But ‘‘be very careful when dealing with associations,’’ Ms. Pollitz warns. ‘‘This has been an area riddled with fraud and insolvencies.’’ Check out any potential group carefully with your state insurance department….
BEWARE OF TEMPORARY POLICIES. Relatively inexpensive policies offering coverage for a limited period, usually six months to a year, have become a popular alternative for people who may be out of work but hope to soon have a job with employer coverage.
But if you get sick or injured while holding one of these policies, Ms. Pollitz said, the insurer will most likely deny you coverage when you try to renew—because now you have a pre-existing condition. If possible, she said, you’re better off paying for a longer-term, more comprehensive policy.
41. “Kraft admits it withheld discovery of salmonella. Bacteria found in late 2007, but the food company stayed mum until two weeks ago” (Houston Chronicle, April 4, 2009); story by GARANCE BURKE (MPP 2005/MJ 2004).
By GARANCE BURKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Workers at one of
Kraft’s manufacturers in
Only after thousands of tests could the company pinpoint the source for the second positive test as California-based Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, Inc., said Kraft spokeswoman Susan Davison.
Last week, the food products giant recalled or destroyed all suspect foods, and notified its suppliers and the Food and Drug Administration, which on Monday issued a sweeping national warning against eating the nuts….
On Friday, Lee Cohen, a
production manager for Setton’s
Dr. David Acheson, FDA’s assistant commissioner for food safety, said Kraft first told the administration about the problems last week.
Neither federal nor state laws require food manufacturers to test the safety of their products or to report any findings of contamination, though many do if they plan to recall a product, Acheson said….
42. “City Insider: Big
union’s leaders likely to push budget deal” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Marisa Lagos
Pay up and don’t forget to vote: City College of San Francisco owes the city about $500,000 in election costs from 2006 and 2008 - and San Francisco could be eligible for millions more in reimbursements from outside agencies such as BART and the San Francisco Unified School District.
The reimbursements from the likes of City College and BART are supposed to repay the city for including those agencies’ measures on city ballots….
City College wants to pay $247,161 for the most recent election. But Vice Chancellor Peter Goldstein said the college, which is looking at an $8 million budget hole next year, is hoping the city will waive the 2006 fees. He said demands for more money are akin to “squeezing blood out of a turnip.”…
43. “
ATHENS, Ga. -- The University of Georgia has announced speakers for its spring commencement ceremonies for undergraduate and graduate students on May 9….
Stan Collender, a managing director at Qorvis Communications and an expert on federal fiscal and monetary policies, will speak at the ceremony for students receiving master’s, doctoral and specialist in education degrees. The ceremony will be in Stegeman Coliseum at 2:30 p.m….
[S]aid UGA President Michael F. Adams, “Stan Collender’s extensive experience dealing with the complexities of the federal budget and monetary policies enables him to provide important perspective and context for the economic problems currently facing our country.
“These speakers will bring messages of wisdom, hope and inspiration and we are delighted to have them address our graduates this spring.” …
Collender has a 30-year background in financial and public affairs communications and is an authority on the U.S. budget and the congressional budget process. He has worked for budget committees in both the U.S. Senate and House and was on the staffs of three members of the House Budget and Ways and Means committees. He writes a column on fiscal matters for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call and is author of The Guide to the Federal Budget, a widely used textbook. He is also founder of “Capital Gains and Games,” a popular financial and political blog. Before joining Qorvis Communications in 2006, he was general manager of the Washington office of Financial Dynamics Business Communications. He has worked with leading public relations firms including Fleishmann Hillard and Burson-Marsteller, and was director of federal budget policy for the accounting firms of Price Waterhouse and Touche Ross….
44. “Gregoire
says she is oppo” (Olympian,
By Brad Shannon, The Olympian
... Republicans denounced the idea Thursday, and so did Gov. Chris Gregoire, who put out a statement opposing the concept.
Senate Majority Leader
Lisa Brown broached the idea in a posting on her blog,
and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles of
Brown made clear it’s just an idea so far, but she said that “President Obama ran on essentially the same platform” in favor creating a fairer tax system. But a version of Kohl-Welles’ bill from 2007 was estimated to raise $80 million in its first two years, too little to blunt the nearly $4 billion in cuts lawmakers are poised to make….
A coalition of labor, health-care and environmental groups has been polling to identify what kind of tax package voters might support. Cassie Sauer of the Washington Hospital Association and Rebecca Kavoussi of the Community Health Network of Washington both offered cautions about an income tax.
Both said it would lead to court challenges and not raise funds soon enough to address the problem, because it could take a few years before the income tax would take effect.
“While we definitely support absolutely a more rational sustainable tax structure in this state, we are also looking at people about to lose their health insurance,” Kavoussi said. “We are looking for revenues that are as timely as the need is urgent. An income tax has a lot of merit but does not raise funds in the time it’s needed.” …
45. “Immigration Officials Sued For Holding Detainees in Appalling Conditions at L.A. Detention Facility” (States News Service, April 2, 2009); newswire citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
LOS ANGELES,
The facility, known as “B-18,” was intended to temporarily house detainees for no more than 12 hours. But in a perverse distortion of its original purpose, immigration officials have kept detainees in this basement facility for weeks by shuttling them to local jails in the evening and on weekends, and returning them to the facility the next business day….
“The shell game
officials are playing with human lives has left detainees without the ability
to access basic services that any detention center must provide. Detainees at
B-18 have no access to outdoor recreation and cannot send or receive mail, even
for legal purposes,” said Karen Tumlin, a staff attorney with the
“The plain fact is that B-18 was never intended to be used as a detention facility,” Tumlin continued. “The facility fails on every level to house detainees in a way that comports with basic notions of dignity. B-18 does not provide soap or a change of clothes to detainees and routinely denies menstruating women sanitary napkins. Detention under such conditions is not only unlawful, but downright cruel.” …
[Karen Tumlin was also cited in reports in the Associated Press and City News Service.]
46. “Cancer Debt: The
Hidden Costs Beyond Insurance” (Morning Edition,
National Public Radio (NPR),
RENEE MONTAGNE, host: ... Just because you have insurance doesn’t mean your cancer care will be covered. NPR’s Joanne Silberner reports that you have to be very careful and very aware to get what you’re due.
JOANNE SILBERNER: Susan Braig got the bad news five years ago.
Ms. SUSAN BRAIG (Cancer Patient): In July, 2004 a shadow on a mammogram indicated I had a Stage 2 invasive breast cancer tumor.
SILBERNER: She’s a
part-time artist and a part time grant proposal writer in
Ms. BRAIG: I thought that at least I would be covered for the big stuff, and the small stuff I would just have to take care of it myself. I thought cancer was the big stuff.
SILBERNER: Cancer is a big deal medically, but much of the care can be done in a doctor’s office. Her hospital-only insurance didn’t pay for her chemotherapy, MRIs, bone density scans, blood tests, doctors visits and more. As a result, Braig is now about $40,000 in debt….
In
Mr. JOHN ROWE (Former Aetna Executive): The first thing you should do is you should take out your insurance card and turn it over and call the number that says questions, help, call this number. Every insurance card has a number….
SILBERNER: All well and
good, says health insurance expert Karen
Pollitz of
Ms. KAREN POLLITZ (Cancer Patient): And it had been denied. And you know, it turned out to be a mistake. But there I was, you know, a health policy expert. I worked for the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I was pretty wired. You know, my husband worked for a Fortune 500 company. And I sat down on my kitchen floor and cried. I did.
SILBERNER: Her advice: be careful what you buy in the first place. Co-payments can add up when you have cancer. And a policy with a $10,000 annual cap won’t even get you through your first surgery….
… And this tip from insurance expert and cancer survivor Karen Pollitz of Georgetown University:
4) Buy the right insurance policy in the first place. High co-payments for doctors’ visits, or a $10,000 or $20,000 annual limit on coverage, can be financially devastating to someone who gets cancer. Pollitz says to check for a comprehensive list of what’s covered and pay attention to how much you have to spend before your policy will take over all expenses. Many policies make it difficult to reach that point.
47. “Rich Fed’s Green: Cred Mkt Innovation to Resume
w/Econ Recov” (The Main Wire,
By Steven K. Beckner
CHARLOTTE N.C. -- A top Richmond Federal Reserve executive predicted Thursday that credit market innovation will resume once economic recovery arrives, but will be chastened by the experience of the financial crisis….
[Sally Green, the Richmond Fed’s first vice president and chief operating officer] introduced a pair of top economists from Charlotte-based banking organizations—Bank of America’s Mickey Levy and Wachovia’s John Silvia—who gave cautiously optimistic economic forecasts and issued some warnings to policymakers.
Levy said the economy is now in “the steepest part” of its decline and predicted the economy will begin a “moderate” recovery by the end of the year with the help of “very aggressive” monetary and fiscal policies.
Levy said consumers will have to adjust to a $40 trillion global
loss of wealth, a fourth of it in the
GDP contraction is becoming due less to weak consumer spending and more to inventory liquidation, weak capital investment and falling exports, and those are “signs of economic stability,” Levy said….
While the size of the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus is “appropriate,” [Levy] said it is “very poorly designed.” He noted than “only one of eight dollars goes to infrastructure,” and “the tax reductions are of a temporary nature, not permanent reductions in tax rates.” What’s more, tax hikes are included in the fiscal 2010 budget.
“If (Obama’s top economic advisor) Larry Summers was still a Harvard professor and you submitted that, you would get a gentleman’s ‘B,’” Levy remarked.
Levy, a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee and an advisor
to the Federal Reserve Bank of
“The Fed is really in a grey area,” Levy said. “It’s in a credit allocation process now.... It is determining credit allocation.”
Levy said the Fed “has also gotten into a gray area of fiscal policy.” For example, he said, the Fed went along with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner by participating in the Public-Private Investment Program for removing toxic assets from financial firms’ balance sheets.
He said that program would better have been put entirely on the books of the Treasury. By involving itself in fiscal policy and credit allocation, “the Fed is in a way sacrificing its independence,” he warned.
Levy also warned that the Fed’s massive expansion of bank reserves and the monetary base threatens “significant inflation” if it does not train that liquidity in time. He said bond yields are apt to rise and the yield curve is likely to steepen in coming years as the Fed “monetizes” the federal debt….
48. “At Stake Are More
Than Banks” (The New York Times,
By Nicholas D. Kristof
As world leaders gather
in
And that’s the best-case scenario. The World Bank says it’s possible the toll will be twice that: an additional 400,000 child deaths, or an extra child dying every 79 seconds.
‘‘In
That’s what makes the
G-20 summit—and
Ann Veneman, the executive director of Unicef, says that reports coming in from the field suggest that malnutrition rates are rising.
‘‘If you have prolonged malnutrition in kids, it will have a long-term impact on cognitive abilities,’’ she said. ‘‘It impacts your ability to learn in school and to earn as an adult.’’
Impoverished parents in developing countries often try to keep their sons alive in famines by taking food from their daughters, so mortality is disproportionately female. The United Nations Development Program says that in some countries, the increase in child mortality during an economic downturn is five times higher for girls than for boys….
49. “Analysis:
Carbon-market battle begins” (UPI Energy,
By Rosalie Westenskow
The U.S. Congress kicked off a long-anticipated battle over climate-change legislation Tuesday, when two Democratic representatives released draft legislation that could dramatically cut emissions—and raise energy prices, Republicans say.
The 684-page American Clean Energy and Security Act includes sweeping energy-policy changes, ranging from a mandate that 25 percent of U.S. electricity come from renewable sources by 2025 to a funding program for states that adopt energy-efficiency codes for new buildings.
The most controversial
aspect of the bill is its proposal to place a price on carbon and other
climate-changing gases by implementing a cap-and-trade system. The program
would require any entity that emits more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases
per year—such as oil companies, electric utilities or large industrial
plants—to own a federal share, or allowance, for every ton they emit. The
program would cover entities responsible for 85 percent of total
Each year the number of allowances available would decrease, forcing companies in the program to cut their emissions by 83 percent of 2005 levels by 2050….
Energy prices aside,
environmentalists are heralding the bill for its tough action on carbon emissions.
Not only will it cut emissions at home, many environmentalists said, but if
it’s passed, the bill will give President Barack Obama the clout he needs to lead international talks this
December. During that month, world leaders will meet in
“Successfully engaging
developing countries in the international negotiations is within our reach,”
said Ned Helme,
president of the Center for Clean Air
Policy, a non-profit policy group. “Encouraging developing countries to
take stronger unilateral actions to reduce their emissions greatly depends on
strong
50. “
‘No’ Worries” (Slate,
By Christopher Beam
… Opposition parties typically present an alternative … to the administration’s budget. But it’s by no means required. And for good reason: If the party doesn’t control Congress, the budget stands little chance, anyway, making it more important as a rhetorical device than as a fiscal blueprint. And when the process is rhetorical, the minority generally does better when forcing the majority to defend its position rather than explaining its own….
Yet somehow Obama managed to goad the opposition into producing its own full-blown alternative. First it was the DNC, labeling the GOP the “party of ‘no.’ “ Obama joined in at his press conference last Tuesday: “[T]here’s an interesting reason why some of these critics haven’t put out their own budget. … And the reason is because they know that, in fact, the biggest driver of long-term deficits are the huge health care costs that we’ve got out here that we’re going to have to tackle.”
The Republicans took the bait, and the results have not been pretty. The first draft—more a statement of principles than a budget—was widely mocked…It also allowed White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to twist the knife on prime time: “The party of ‘no’ has become the party of no ideas.”
The second draft … does little more than reiterate familiar GOP policies. It cuts entitlement spending, extends the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, simplifies the tax system so people pay either 10 percent or 25 percent on income, and imposes a five-year spending freeze….
That takes care of the “ideas” charge. But it doesn’t mean the ideas are new, or popular, or that they make sense….
... But electoral defeats usually chasten the losing party somewhat…. The GOP’s alternative budget shows that they are taking the opposite tack, doubling down on conservative favorites like coastal drilling and dropping the capital-gains tax.
Meanwhile, the roll-out process has been one long tale of internal backbiting and forced displays of unity…. Now alternative alternatives are emerging, reinforcing the impression that the party is fractured.
Which raises the question: Would the GOP have been better off with no alternative at all? Outright rejection vs. constructive engagement is a perennial dilemma of opposition parties. In the last eight years, Democrats argued constantly whether “Not Bush” was enough of a platform to win an election. “You can play this either way,” says longtime budget guru Stan Collender. “On the one hand, they rose to the challenge and can now say they’re more than just the party of ‘no.’ On the other hand, every time you put out a detailed budget, you give people the opportunity to attack it.” (Democrats don’t mind if they do.) …
51. “Relaxing on
By William E. Gibson -
Sun Sentinel
After years of trying, a
bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress is ready to pass
legislation to allow all Americans to travel to
A Senate press
conference on Tuesday and one in the House set for Thursday reflect intensified
attempts to lift the travel ban, a key part of the
[President] Obama has ordered a review of
If travel limits were
lifted, about 3 million Americans would visit
The increase in air travel, cruises and a ripple effect through the travel industry would produce between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion a year, the group estimated.
This economic activity would create 16,888 to 23,020 new jobs in this country, according to the report.
The estimates are unlikely to change substantially over time, though the recession could reduce the number of trips, said Dorothy Robyn, an economist and one of the authors of the report.
“It’s nothing to sneeze
at,” she said, noting that much of the travel to
“That’s a meaningful
expansion,” she said, “but I wouldn’t say it’s going to turn around the
51. “On Prostitution in
For too long, sex trafficking
in
The confusion could end if a package of reforms gets the attention and political support it needs from the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Carmen Chu and Mayor Gavin Newsom are backing a series of changes to get several agencies working together to shut down prostitution operations masquerading as massage services or health clubs.
At issue are the shady
business operators who recruit women, many from
Until now, one problem area was the Public Health Department hearing process. The department oversees basic health and safety issues, meaning it did little about vice complaints from police who made arrests for solicited sex. Under the new rules, police reports could be used by health officials as grounds to suspend or revoke a massage license.
The planning department would join in by requiring a wide-ranging conditional use hearing and giving neighborhood notice if an existing business such as a nail salon or health club seeks to add massage work….
... The changes aren’t intended to crack down on the masseuses themselves. The aim is fixed squarely on the operators, not women obliged to enter the sex trade under threats of violence or financial duress….
The intent of new
legislation proposed by Supervisor
Carmen Chu and Mayor Gavin Newsom is to put
52. “UC urged to expand ethnic labels; Middle Easterners at the L.A. campus want to see alternatives to ‘white’ and ‘other’ on university forms” (Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2009); story citing NINA ROBINSON (MPP 1989); http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arab31-2009mar31,3,7937774.story
By Raja Abdulrahim
Nicole Salame says she does not agree with
the UC policy that Arabs are considered white. “It did not make sense to me,”
said Salame, who ended up checking “Other” on her application
to the university. (Stefano Paltera,
for The Times)
… For years the federal
government has classified Arab Americans and Middle Easterners as white. But
confusion and disagreement have led some students to check “Asian” or
“African,” depending on what part of the
Now several UCLA student groups—including Arabs, Iranians, Afghanis and Armenians—have launched a campaign to add a Middle Eastern category, with various subgroups, to the University of California admissions application. They hope to emulate the Asian Pacific Coalition’s “Count Me In” campaign, which a few years ago successfully lobbied for the inclusion of 23 ethnic categories on the UC application, including Hmong, Pakistani, Native Hawaiian and Samoan….
… Syrian immigrants, who were considered Asian, waged a legal battle in the early 1900s to be classified as white and thus eligible for citizenship. At the time some were barred by the courts under the Asian Exclusion Act.
That classification was cemented in the late 1970s when the Office of Management and Budget, a federal agency, listed all Middle Easterners as white.
But in the last few decades there has been a push to establish a separate category as the general population has grown more diverse and because of the possible benefits it could bring.
“Back then, to get
rights you needed to be white,” said Yasi Chehroudi, president of the Iranian Student Group, which is
helping spearhead the
UC officials are aware of the UCLA students’ campaign and are exploring the possibility of changing the ethnic categories on the university’s application form, said Nina Robinson, director of policy for the Department of Student Affairs. A decision could come in the next six months.
But any change in ethnicity categories could affect data trends, Robinson said. For example, if those who in the past would have checked white were to start checking another category, it would appear as a sudden drop in white applicants.
“It’s reasonable that Middle Eastern people don’t like to be lumped in with white, so I think there’s a lot of sympathy for the issue,” Robinson said. “But there are also a lot of issues” to consider….
53. “Sick Around America” (Frontline, PBS TV,
NARRATOR:
Twenty-three-year-old Matt Johnson works at Menards,
a regional home improvement store near
Matt was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis. To save his life, doctors put him on a regimen of powerful and very expensive drugs. As a full-time student, Matt was still covered by his parents’ family plan, but weeks after he graduated, Matt lost that insurance and faced monthly drug bills of nearly $1,000 and costly physician visits, so he tried to find individual coverage.
MATT JOHNSON: We looked at some of the individual health insurance policies, but most of them were either astronomically expensive or did not cover pre-existing conditions.
NARRATOR: Matt realized he needed a job with good health insurance immediately, so he put his career dreams on hold and went to work for Menards. Its comprehensive health plan covers everything and costs Matt only about $200 a month. Matt has found life-saving health care by temporarily trading in his dreams….
But for now, he’s locked in his job. And even this job, which six months ago looked secure, seems less so in a global recession.
KAREN POLLITZ,
I think people do make kind of heroic changes in their lives, take a job or keep a job that they don’t want, decisions about getting married, decisions about retiring driven by health insurance. That’s got to be a drag on our whole society at some point….
[Health Insurance Advice
page offers video Q&A with Prof.
Karen Pollitz of
54. “Is the Obama administration turning
… INES FERRE, CNN
CORRESPONDENT: Conservative critics say the Obama
administration is turning
President Obama insists he does not want to be in the business of making cars. But he is. His auto task force is demanding a more aggressive restructuring plan and the firing of GM CEO Rick Wagoner….
GM’s warranties are only possible with government backing. Chrysler is being pushed toward a shotgun marriage with Fiat. One critic says the current path risks repeating the great depression.
PETER SCHIFF, AUTHOR, “CRASH PROOF”: What we did wrong is that we interfered too
much with the free market. The government tried to stimulate the economy, both
under
FERRE: And some say the current strategy only gives other governments a free pass.
SEAN WEST, EURASIA GROUP: It’s providing cover to other governments that are much more interventionist, and may also consolidate power with less altruistic motives….
55. “
DNV is expanding its
worldwide expertise in climate change services with the opening of offices in
Globally, DNV was the first entity accredited as a verifier under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change….
A key hire just
completed is the addition of veteran
climate consultant Mark C. Trexler, Ph.D. along
with eight colleagues in the
“Mark Trexler has been a pioneer in the
development of climate change mitigation strategies and policy in the
Dr. Trexler brings more than 20 years of climate change expertise to DNV. He previously was Director at EcoSecurities Consulting, Ltd., where he led an international team providing carbon inventories and footprinting, carbon market forecasting, strategic environmental planning and other climate-change advisory services. Prior to that, Dr. Trexler was president of Trexler Climate and Energy Services, Inc., which he founded in 1991 and which was the first consulting firm to specialize in providing climate change related services to corporate clients. Dr. Trexler was previously with the Climate, Energy, and Pollution Program of the World Resources Institute, and has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change….
56. “Across faiths, an
appeal for unity - Muslim group event urges volunteerism” (Record, The (
By Mary Jo Layton, Staff Writer
An immigration advisory
panel’s report will be released today, a blueprint for how
The governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Immigrant Policy is expected to address such controversial topics as letting undocumented immigrants obtain a “driver privilege card” and to attend college at in-state tuition rates….
The president of the grass-roots organization sponsoring the event encouraged Muslims to volunteer or contribute to school programs, community centers, soup kitchens and other organizations….
State Sens. Loretta Weinberg of
Gordon warned that as the nation experiences the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, acts of discrimination can increase, as history has shown.
“Your Legislature and your governor stand for zero tolerance when it comes to discrimination, for this or any other community,” Gordon said….
57. “Most Teens Do Not
Get Recommended Preventive Care, UCSF Study Finds” (States News Service,
Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey a major national survey of families and medical providers about key healthcare issues the researchers examined several aspects of preventive care for adolescents, including the extent to which they had received care in the past year, whether they received counseling about various health issues, and whether they had any time alone with their provider. Findings indicated that only 38 percent of children 10 to 17 years old had a preventive visit in the past year….
Findings from the study
are published in the
In addition, the study looked at whether income level and insurance status were associated with the extent to which adolescents received preventive care. Findings indicated that significantly smaller percentages of adolescents from low- and middle-income families had a preventive visit in the past year, compared with those from high-income families, with 32 percent, 36 percent, and 48 percent of each group reporting a visit, respectively. Similarly, adolescents who were privately insured were more likely to have received preventive care in the past year than those who were publicly insured or uninsured….
Additional co-authors of the paper were M. Jane Park, MPH, of the UCSF Department of Pediatrics, and Paul Newacheck, DrPH, of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF….
58. “Students learn
business and life skills to succeed” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Julian Guthrie, Chronicle Staff Writer
Beaunca Wilson, 20 (left), social entrepreneur Jay Banfield, Dazy Afalava, 21, Karey Hollinquest, 22, and Carl Chatman, 21, have a discussion at Year Up in San Francisco.
Not long ago, Beaunca Wilson passed her time hanging out with drug dealers and users, feeling like she had no plans and even fewer options.
Today, the 20-year-old single mom, a former foster youth who lives in Oakland, has traded her sweats for business attire and is spending her days learning how to use Excel spreadsheets and network at events.
“I’m learning about information technology and learning things like how to greet people, how to show respect even if you don’t get it, and what language is appropriate for professional settings,” said Wilson. “This is a new and wonderful world for me.”
Wilson is one of 40 students ages 18 to 24 participating in a new program in San Francisco that combines the hard skills of intensive computer training with softer skills of how to shake hands, make eye contact and send professional e-mails.
This month, Year Up celebrated the first anniversary of its founding. Students with high school diplomas or equivalency degrees attend the program for free for one year. The first half of the year is spent in class and the second half in apprenticeships at companies including Wells Fargo, Kaiser and Salesforce.com. Students can earn $10,000 and college credits….
An estimated 85 percent of Year Up graduates find jobs within four months of graduation and earn on average $15.59 an hour, the company said.
The San Francisco chapter was started by Jay Banfield, a former development manager at Oracle Corp. who built up the company’s corporate volunteer program and participated in the creation of the Clinton administration’s AmeriCorps program.
“I grew up on public assistance,” Banfield said. “I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. There were a lot of people who gave me opportunity because they thought it was the right thing to do. I think of my first employer, my scholarship to Stanford, my start at Oracle. What I’ve seen in my career is that there is a market failure on one side and a community failure on the other side.” …
Students who join Year Up sign a contract agreeing to a number of things, from arriving and leaving precisely on time to wearing professional attire. For men, that means slacks, belts, and a shirt and tie.
“We have students who start with us and they need us to show them how to tie a tie,” said Banfield, adding that donated business clothing is available to students….
Carl Chatman, who is 21 and lives in the lower Fillmore, where he said he is surrounded by people who are into “robbing and selling drugs,” said he is finally back to making his grandmother proud. “When I started attending Year Up, I would come home and tell my grandmother I got an 85 percent on my test. My experience at Year Up has already changed my life. I am honored to be in this program.” …
Corporate sponsors say they are pleased with the program and the apprentices.
“I’ve been thrilled with the program,” said Ginny Kraus, a chief technology officer at Wells Fargo. She has apprentices from Year Up who are working on network and desktop services.
“They arrive extremely energetic and they’ve been well prepped for the do’s and don’ts of the corporate world,” Kraus said. “At the end of their apprenticeships, we anticipate we will be hiring several students.”
For information on Year Up, call (415) 512-7588 or visit www.yearup.org . Applications are being accepted for the next class, which begins Sept. 2 and graduates in July 2010….
59. “Federal stimulus
dollars aim to improve Internet access in rural
Workmen install the electronics on the 100 ft. wooden pole that will be used to transmit wireless internet signals to homes in Wildwood. This is part of an experiment Wildwood is conducting in hopes of making all Wildwood homes internet accessible. (J.B. Forbes/P-D)
By Tim Barker
On a recent Thursday afternoon, Rick Kallaus peered skyward and smiled as the Internet came to his remote corner of Wildwood.
It showed up on wooden poles towering 90 feet above the Babler Forest subdivision, as workers installed wireless transmitters promising high-speed access to an area that’s been doomed by its trees, hills and sparse population to the purgatory of dial-up….
For now, it’s just one small patch of Wildwood, but it promises to spread further if it works. It could also be just the sort of thing President Barack Obama and Congress had in mind when they set aside $7.2 billion in stimulus funding to improve Internet access for Americans who live in areas considered rural or in low-income areas of larger cities.
... It’s about fostering economic development, education and health care in areas of the country—including distant rural areas and underserved suburban areas such as Wildwood—threatened by their inability to keep up in an information age.
Businesses have come to view high-speed Internet as a basic piece of infrastructure, not unlike access to highways, airports and railways. They use it daily to transfer and store data, participate in videoconferences, collect orders from customers and communicate with the world….
It may sound like a lot of money to spend on Internet access, but it’s not nearly enough to finish the job. Experts say it could take another $30 billion or so to reach the 10 million U.S. households stuck in slow motion.
“It’s just a down payment,” said Derek Turner, research director for Internet advocacy group Free Press. “It’s just going to make a dent in the problem.” …
60. “Health insurers
pull a fast one” (Los Angeles Times,
By David Lazarus
It might have looked as if real progress toward healthcare reform was made last week when leading insurers proposed ending their long-standing practice of charging higher rates to sick people and denying coverage to those with chronic conditions….
Yet if you read the fine print in their plan, it turns out that they’re reserving the right to charge different prices for different levels of coverage—a practice that would effectively keep us where we are, with sick (or potentially sick) people paying more for insurance.
The loophole was included—”hidden” is a more apt word—in a letter sent to prominent senators from a pair of industry leaders: Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Plans, an industry group; and Scott P. Serota, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Assn.
The letter featured insurers’ willingness to adopt a more inclusive coverage policy in return for “an effective, enforceable requirement that all Americans assume responsibility to obtain and maintain health insurance.”…
But Ignagni and Serota go on to say, almost in passing, that “benefit design” will be needed to keep policies affordable.
That’s insurance-speak for offering bare-bones coverage at relatively low prices and more complete coverage at higher prices—basically the same sort of system we have now.
“We’re telegraphing that if people are allowed to buy more, then it will cost more,” Ignagni told me. “You wouldn’t charge the same for a Cadillac as you would for a Ford.”
The danger, however, is that younger, healthier people would probably gravitate toward the cheaper basic policies, while older people with more health issues would feel compelled to buy the more comprehensive plans.
“It’s a very potent way of segregating sick people from healthy people,” said Karen Pollitz, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. “It’s essentially a way of continuing to charge more based on people’s health.” …
61. “Critics Say New UC Policy Hurts Asians, Helps Whites” (San Jose Mercury News, March 28, 2009); story citing PATRICK HAYASHI (MPP 1977/PhD 1993) and NINA ROBINSON (MPP 1989); http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12014954?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News
A new University of California admissions policy, adopted to increase campus diversity, could actually increase the number of white students on campuses while driving down the Asian population….
… Asian activists also noted the policy will result in negligible increases in African-American students and only a modest climb in the number of Latinos….
Since its adoption by the UC Regents in February, the policy has triggered Asian suspicions of the UC entry system not felt since the mid-1980s, when a change in admissions policy caused a decline in Asian undergraduate enrollment. In 1989, then-UC-Berkeley Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman apologized for the policy.
“I fear a general sense that there are too many Asians in the UC system,” said Patrick Hayashi, former UC associate president….
Meanwhile, supporters of the change, which results from a faculty study and is backed by president Mark G. Yudof, see it as a way to ease the widening achievement gap on their campuses….
“The president would not have supported the policy had he not felt it was fair and created opportunity,” said Nina Robinson, UC’s director of policy and external affairs for student affairs.
Many students—especially low-income and/or minority students—become ineligible to apply because they do not take the subject matter tests, she said.
But an analysis of the change predicts that the
number of Asians admitted to UC could decrease because Asians tend to excel on
the “subject tests,” which are no longer part of the application.
The number of admitted whites could increase, because more weight will be given to the “reasoning SAT,” which favors American natives….
Critics say they are frustrated because UC has not made public the statistical analysis on which their decision was based.
But the report that created the data for that analysis, called the 2007 CPEC Eligibility Study, is deeply flawed, according to New York University education professor Robert Teranishi….
Added Hayashi: “A public university should be more responsive. Private schools can do anything they want. But public schools have a different set of objectives. It will have a devastating impact on our community. It is a fatal mistake to think it will blow over.” …
62. “Video gamers get
new option, but it might be costly - Streaming could boost Internet bills” (The
Record (
By Peter Svensson, The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Parents might get a new reason to yell at their kids for playing video games too much: In the future, it could lead to big increases in their Internet bills.
A service unveiled this week aims to stream video games over the Internet, setting gamers on a collision course with cable and phone companies that are seeking to curb growing demands on their networks by charging for heavy usage.
OnLive Inc., a start-up from Palo Alto, Calif., revealed its service Tuesday night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users would get a small, simple device to connect to their TVs, or … PC. Their screens would receive the game video from OnLive’s servers, which would do the data-crunching needed to render a richly detailed environment. No game console or high-end gaming PC would be needed.
... It is clear, though, that it would consume large amounts of bandwidth, far higher than that required for current online games, where most of the content is stored on the computer or console….
Internet service providers are already girding for rising use of Internet video by placing monthly limits on the amount of traffic their subscribers can use…. For instance, Comcast Corp., the country’s second-largest ISP, limits usage to 250 gigabytes per month, and cuts off repeat violators….
However, other Internet service providers are trying lower limits, then charging extra for those who go over. It’s not clear which approach will win out, but subscribers on low-limit ISPs could quickly find themselves paying far more for their Internet connection, particularly since many gamers spend more than 20 hours a week on a game….
Derek Turner, research director at media and Internet advocacy group Free Press, said the bandwidth caps are “misguided” because they can stifle new applications like OnLive that add value to an Internet connection.
Also, he said, the profit margins on Internet connections are very high, and it’s not clear that ISPs need to increase their fees to finance upgrades, especially since the cost of network hardware keeps falling.
63. “New Approach to
Reducing Global Warming Without Market Manipulation”
(Congressional Documents and Publications,
Washington, D.C. - Today, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tenn.) and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a co-author of the 1990 acid rain cap-and-trade system, are introducing the Safe Markets Development Act, an innovative piece of climate legislation that will ensure emission reduction goals while containing costs, avoiding volatility in emission allowance prices and preventing market manipulation that could lead to destructive booms and busts in a US carbon market.
Rep. Cooper commented:
“We have to thread the needle very carefully if we’re going to implement a successful carbon cap-and-trade program. An efficient, stable carbon market will produce the necessary reductions at a dependable price. Environmental and business groups alike should welcome the Safe Market Development Approach because it provides the right amount of protection and certainty in the early years of this important program.”
**”The Safe Markets Development Act is a new idea that should appeal to all those who are looking for an acceptable, middle ground solution to passing climate legislation. This bill will meet our environmental goals, create predictable prices and prevent market manipulation and excess speculation in the early years of a cap and trade program.” -- Ned Helme, President, Center for Clean Air Policy….
Cosponsored by a broad coalition of House members, including members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition … as well as members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Safe Markets Development Act was drafted in cooperation with the Center for Clean Air Policy which works closely with businesses, nongovernmental organizations and governments to develop smart climate policies that balance environment with economic development….
64. “Look a little closer ... - ... the green fades away” (Chicago Tribune, March 22, 2009); story citing MARK TREXLER (MPP 1982/PhD 1989).
By Michael Hawthorne, Tribune reporter
Mayor Richard Daley promised long ago that his administration would start fighting global warming by buying 20 percent of its electricity from wind farms and other sources of green energy.
But more than two years after the deadline he set, the city continues to get nearly all of its power from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants, according to records obtained by the Tribune.
Daley administration officials contend they have kept the mayor’s promise by buying carbon credits, a controversial way of offsetting pollution by paying money to producers of green energy. The credits are supposed to lower the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere.
But most of the credits Chicago has bought over the last two years didn’t reduce carbon emissions at all, energy experts and the city’s own broker on the deal said.
As a result, taxpayers paid the full bill for the city’s normal electricity usage, then the city paid again—more than half a million dollars in all—for credits with questionable environmental benefits. Buying carbon credits fights global warming only if they help finance new sources of renewable energy, such as new wind turbines, energy experts said. Yet 87 percent of the credits Chicago has purchased sent money to a wood-burning power plant that has been operating for nearly two decades….
This month the federal Government Accountability Office joined energy experts and environmental groups in criticizing the lack of standards for carbon offsets. The Federal Trade Commission also is investigating whether the environmentally friendly claims of credit brokers amount to false advertising, or “greenwashing.” …
“If the money is just gravy for some energy provider,” said Mark Trexler, a Portland, Ore., consultant who advises corporations about the carbon offset market, “how does that benefit the environment? It doesn’t.” …
65. “A Vivid Portrait of
India” (Roanoke Times,
Reviewed by Claire Craft
Secret
Keeper By Mitali Perkins.
Delacorte
Press Books. 240 pages. $16.99
Mitali Perkins’ newest young adult novel, “Secret Keeper,” is set amid a war of worlds.
It’s 1974, and a wave of feminism in the West is going full steam ahead, breaking down barriers and mending inequalities. To the east, the movement is gathering notice. “Secret Keeper” is the story of Asha Gupta, a young Indian girl whose dreams for herself are at odds with the customs of her people.
... Baba, Asha’s father, is on his way to New York in search of work. Asha and her mother and sister are traveling from Delhi to Calcutta to stay with relatives until they can join him. The train chugs through the Indian countryside, and Asha watches farmers tending rice paddies and herding livestock. As they near Calcutta, the cows become skinnier and the street beggars more plentiful. But more changes are about to come….
Perkins paints a vivid portrait of India that gives young readers a look into the nation’s culture and traditions. It is a story of India, yet Asha’s story resonates universally.
66. “Mt.
By Theresa Harrington
“We want to try to have
some idea of what we can do before next school year, that's for sure,” said Associate Superintendent Alan Young,
who has begun meeting with athletic directors and concerned parents. “If we're
going to do athletics next year and all the other 'ifs' don't come out the way
we want them to, then we want to have something moving really soon.” …
67. “Film fest offers
look at unexplored history” (Middletown Journal (OH),
--Eric Robinette, Staff Writer
… Three documentaries were screened in the first African-American Film Festival: “Revolution ‘67,” about riots in Newark; “Traces of the Trade,” about the impact of the slave trade in the Union states; and “Fauborg Treme,” about what might be the oldest African-American neighborhood in the United States.
Juanita Brown, a co-producer of “Traces of the Trade,” was very surprised to find out just how pervasive slave trading was in the northern states. The Rhode Island family the film profiles traded as many as 10,000 slaves, she said. Brown believes remnants of that mindset still linger, which is why that part of history must be studied more.
“Until we have that, we won’t be as effective in solving the problems of today,” she said….
68. “Check these out”
(Daily Herald (
The Vernon Area Library in Lincolnshire suggests these titles on Pluto:
* “The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What
Happened to Pluto,” by Elizabeth Rusch
69. “City Insider:
Healthy SF wins another court round” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--John Coté
San Francisco’s groundbreaking universal health care program withstood a legal challenge from restaurant owners today, setting up the possibility for a showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a split decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which challenged the program’s employer-spending requirement.
The restaurant group had sought to have an 11-judge panel review an earlier decision that found the employer-spending requirement legal. The court today let that ruling stand….
Under San Francisco’s plan, businesses with 20 workers or more must offer health coverage in one of three ways: sign up for private insurance, pay the city for coverage at a network of city and private facilities or set up health care accounts.
The spending requirement opposed by the restaurant association mandates that businesses with 20 to 99 workers spend $1.23 per worker per hour on either health care or payments to the city. The fee jumps to $1.85 per hour for companies with more than 100 employees.
The overall cost of the plan is currently estimated at about $170 million a year, with employers having contributed about $35 million since January 2008, when the program expanded beyond just those under the federal poverty line, said Tangerine Brigham, director of Healthy San Francisco….
70. “Obama
green energy initiatives won’t need to start from scratch, says energy
attorney” (Inside F.E.R.C.,
By Esther Whieldon
When it comes to building renewable power projects and transmission lines to send renewables-sourced power to customers, the Obama administration is not starting with a blank slate, a Washington energy attorney said Thursday.
More than half of the states in the US have renewable portfolio standards and many utilities have proposed “significant transmission expansion projects” that are expected to reach areas rich with renewable resources, David Goroff of the firm Bruder, Gentile and Marcoux said a briefing hosted by the SNL Center for Financial Education….
The economic slowdown has made it more difficult to finance wind power projects and transmission lines, said Rob Gramlich, of the American Wind Energy Association. “We’re actually in a pretty tough situation here” and things were looking pretty dire until Congress passed the stimulus package. “We got a great fix in that package,” he said….
71. “
By Lisa Weinzimer
As more states eye efficiency-promoting utility rate devices such as decoupling, California, one of the few states already using that approach, is struggling with a program it put in place a few years ago to add incentives so utilities would reach for more ambitious energy efficiency targets.
The incentive program approved for 2006-2008 by the state Public Utilities Commission fines or rewards investor-owned utilities up to $450 million for meeting or missing efficiency targets set for those years. The idea is to put utility investments in efficiency on par with investments in generation resources.
But the effort has been marred by clashes over when the ratepayer-funded awards should be triggered and other thorny issues — highlighting obstacles other states could face if they pursue this approach.
The PUC in December on a split vote gave the state’s largest IOUs about $82 million of the $152 million they requested in incentive payments for energy efficiency program savings in 2006-2007, based on utilities’ self-reported, rather than verified, efficiency savings.
The much-disputed move came after a draft staff verification report found that three of the state’s four major IOUs’ efficiency performance warranted few if any incentive payments. The final report, released soon after the PUC decision, contained similar findings.
At the same time, the commission acknowledged the incentive mechanism may need to be revamped, and it opened a rulemaking to evaluate potential changes.
David Gamson, the administrative law judge for the proceeding, wanted to wait until the final report was issued before giving utilities $82 million….
In another wrinkle, the IOUs are pressing the PUC to remove Gamson from the incentive review proceeding, saying they do not believe they can get a fair hearing before him.
The PUC’s chief administrative law judge will issue a ruling either reassigning the proceeding to another judge or explaining why that move would not be appropriate, said PUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper.
“The utilities are hoping that a different judge will modify the current incentive mechanism to favor their shareholders in the new rulemaking. Nevertheless, DRA looks forward to presenting its position before the new judge, whom we know will be as fair as Judge Gamson in relying on the evidentiary record,” the PUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates said in a statement.
72. “Regional
wind-energy proposal gets mixed reaction” (The Associated Press State &
Local Wire,
ITC Holdings of Novi,
Mich., wants to build a 3,000-mile, 765-kilovolt power line that would stretch
from the
Most renewable energy advocates say poor transmission is stifling plans to bring resources to the mainstream. But others say the push for high-voltage lines is expensive and unnecessary….
CapX
officials, who come from local utilities concerned only with strengthening
But Doug Collins,
executive director of ITC Midwest, a subsidiary of ITC Holdings that’s managing
the project, said the project could serve “load centers” such as the
“We need robust systems, and as the amounts of power needed for further growth increased, the need increased to transport them further away to load centers,” Collins said.
The American Wind Energy Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, agrees.
“We have almost 300,000 megawatts of wind projects on paper in the interconnection queues, and they won’t move forward until more transmission is built,” said Rob Gramlich, the energy association’s policy director….
73. “Business: The green
blog” (Boston Globe,
By Beth Daley
Google Earth tool lets you see the CO{-2}
A team led by [Kevin Gurney at]
The Vulcan project now allows you to view how much heat-trapping CO{-2} emissions in each county are coming from factories, power plants, aircraft, vehicles, and industrial and residential sectors….
The Vulcan Project used 2002 EPA emissions data, and the maps will get more current and detailed as the data improve. For now, it’s a fascinating way to understand where the bulk of our emissions come from.
Click on
“We hope to eventually turn it into an interactive space where the public will feed information into the system to create an even finer picture of emissions down to the street and individual building level,” said Kevin Gurney, who led the project.
74. “Obama
Budget Would Hike Oil and NatGas Taxes; 2012
Cap-and-Trade” (Natural Gas Week,
By Lauren O’Neil,
The Obama administration plans to impose new taxes on oil and natural gas producers to help pay for alternative energy, according to a 2010 budget outline released by the White House last week.
The president’s plans …
would authorize the Department of Interior to levy a new excise tax on offshore
oil and gas production in the
Obama hopes “to close loopholes that have given oil companies excessive royalty relief.” He plans to end several tax deductions, including some associated with production from marginal or depleted wells, and make the oil and gas industry ineligible to receive manufacturing tax credits….
The various proposals reflect a long-standing desire among Democrats to make oil and gas production a source of funding for other priorities. The government estimates they would generate as much as $31.5 billion in revenues from the industry over the next 10 years.
Additional revenue generated from oil and gas production is being eyed as a way to help fund $15 billion in proposed alternative energy expenditures in 2010, including incentives for solar, biomass, geothermal, wind, clean-coal technology and improvements in the power grid….
Oil and gas producers
were quick to condemn Obama’s budget proposals,
saying they placed an unfair burden on the industry and would damage the
“If enacted as presented, the budget would negatively impact the amount of investment needed to bring more natural gas to market and raise the price of natural gas. That is not the right signal to send to US manufacturers who rely on natural gas. The unintended consequence of this budget will be to send manufacturing jobs offshore,” said Natural Gas Supply Association President Skip Horvath.
“We are in danger of continuing a failed strategy of the past: Promoting the use of natural gas, such as converting the Capitol power plant from coal to natural gas, while squeezing its supply. We learned at the beginning of this century that doing so only makes energy more expensive for American consumers,” he said….
75. “Focus on Solutions:
Philanthropists work to break cycle of poverty” (KGO TV,
By Cheryl Jennings
“When I first got here, I was really shy, I was pretty unconfident. I would never look anyone in the eye, but through Year Up I’ve learned to gain a whole lot of professional skills, such as etiquette, learning how to make eye contact, the importance of body language and even active listening,” said 18-year-old Ryan Antipuesto of San Leandro..
Antipuesto
is one of many young people enrolled in a new program in
“We provide opportunities for young adults to enter into the economic mainstream and into corporate careers,” said Jay Banfield, executive director of Year Up.
Banfield says key businesses in
the Bay Area are investing in the program because they want trained entry level
workers with computer and business skills. Year Up offers that training to
students 18 to 24, along with college credits at
“The MIT business school has done an analysis to show what the Year Up effect is of what your earning potential is if you go through the program, versus not. Over the lifetime, it’s more than $400,000,” said Banfield. “Think about their families and their children and what kind of ripple effect that has.”
Year Up is one of nearly two dozen Bay Area groups that get support from the Tipping Point Community. Some agencies deal with education and youth development, others focus on employment and asset building. Tipping Point was founded in 2005 by 31-year-old Daniel Lurie who works with other very young philanthropists on his board of mostly thirty-somethings. They want to fight poverty by finding and helping the most effective organizations.
“What we’re finding out is that people of our generation want to get involved and they want to get involved now,” said Lurie. “They don’t want to wait.” …
“I met Daniel, I went to an event where he was speaking and just was sort of immediately compelled by the whole idea,” said Tipping Point president Alec Perkins. “Having taught in Hunter’s Point for five years, I realized that there is a huge need out there.”…
The Tipping Point Community also funds programs to help with homeless and housing assistance. It includes child and family wellness. It offers critical support in different ways.
“We provide legal trainings, technical support, we provide them with management assistance, we team up with consulting firms to provide strategic planning support for our groups so that they can plan for the future,” said Lurie.
Every dollar that comes
in will go out in the form of grants to non-profits like the
“It’s going to change my life for the better,” said [Year Up student Simone] Puckett. “I’ll be able to provide an income for myself and become more independent.” …
[Tipping Point] Board members each commit to around $100,000, more or less, per year—no overhead, no salaries, no endowment.
To learn more about Tipping Point, visit www.tippoint.org .
76. “Report: ‘Companies should disclose water use’” (Associated Press, February 27, 2009); story by GARANCE BURKE (MPP 2005/MJ 2004) and citing MICHAEL KOBORI (MPP 1995).
By GARANCE BURKE - The Associated Press
Major corporations such as Coca-Cola Co. now disclose the amount of water they use in financial reports, in an attempt to show investors they can confront threats to their water supply, according to a study released Thursday by the nonprofit Pacific Institute.
But dozens of high-tech companies, farms and soda bottlers have lost millions because they didn’t foresee the risks posed by droughts and floods tied to global warming, researchers found in a survey of 121 companies in water-intensive industries.
Now, as markets are reeling, investors can’t afford to ignore the crucial role water plays for some of their favorite blue chips, and how it could affects their retirement accounts, said Anne Stausboll, who manages the nation’s largest public pension fund….
Water scarcity also has
caused companies across the world to shut down plants: A few years ago, both
Pepsi Co. and Coca-Cola’s bottlers lost their licenses to use groundwater in
Shortages also could drain away profits in the high-tech industry, which relies on billions of gallons of pure water for producing silicon chips, the report found….
The Pacific Institute
plans to present some of their findings at the World Water Forum in
Some are already well on their way.
Levi Strauss & Co., the San Francisco-based maker of 501 jeans, has reduced the amount of water used to make some styles of jeans by 30 percent in the last year, company officials said.
“We did a study and found that one pair of 501s consumed 918 gallons of water in its life cycle - everything from growing the cotton that’s used to make the jeans, to the number of times it goes in the washing machine,” said Michael Kobori, a vice president for supply chain social and environmental sustainability. “The water we use is one of our most significant impacts on the environment, and we saw we had to reduce our footprint.”
77. “KIPP supporters
plead with district - FUSD, charter board separately listen to parents” (Fresno
Bee,
By Anne Dudley Ellis, The
Supporters—and detractors—of the KIPP Academy Fresno jammed the Fresno Unified school board meeting and overflowed into another room Wednesday night as the struggle between the school and the district continued….
More than 30 parents, KIPP employees, students and others wanted to speak; the district cut off discussion after 30 minutes because of time constraints…. Most pleaded for Fresno Unified to help keep the school going….
The school, which opened in 2004, is known for strict discipline and preparing students for college. KIPP has soared academically, posting a score of 850 on the state’s test index.
While praising the school’s accomplishments, Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson said the district could not endorse KIPP. He questioned why the KIPP Foundation, with significant philanthropic backing and more than 60 schools nationwide, had not stepped forward with financial help….
KIPP officials said they are providing financial backing. At the KIPP board meeting, general counsel Nolan Highbaugh said the KIPP Foundation would guarantee up to $500,000 of the state grant for 10 years….
78. “Heritage Scholars
Join Call for Independent Commission to Address Looming Fiscal Crisis”
(Targeted News Service,
President Obama’s intention to convene a fiscal responsibility summit is a very welcome development. It offers a valuable opportunity to focus public attention on our nation’s unsustainable budget outlook and to highlight various approaches to meaningful action….
Tackling these problems will require a degree of sacrifice impossible under the existing policy process, which discourages bipartisan compromise and encourages procrastination and obstructionism. Unless those procedures are modified, and the American people are engaged in the process, future legislative attempts to address the looming fiscal crisis will almost certainly fail.
... We have found that when Americans are given the facts and options in a neutral and bipartisan way, they want action and are willing to make difficult trade-offs.
We also believe that for this policy commitment to produce tangible results, the President and others who share the goal of fiscal responsibility must address the fact that the regular political process has been incapable of dealing with long-term fiscal issues. We see no alternative but to create an independent and truly bipartisan commission or other mechanism capable of bringing about decisive action that has broad public support….
Signatories:
Joe Antos, American Enterprise Institute
Will Marshall, Progressive Policy Institute
Robert Bixby,
Pietro Nivola, Brookings Institution
Stuart Butler, Heritage Foundation
Rudolph Penner, Urban Institute
Alison Fraser, Heritage Foundation
Robert Reischauer, Urban Institute
William Galston, Brookings Institution
Alice M. Rivlin, Brookings Institution
Ron Haskins, Brookings Institution
Isabel Sawhill, Brookings Institution
Julia Isaacs, Brookings Institution
C. Eugene Steuerle, Peter G. Peterson Foundation
79. “Climate change
groups finding cap-and-trade interest shared” (Platts
Coal Outlook,
By Carla Bass
Politicians, industry
and environmental groups are starting to find common ground on elements of
Participants in the effort have generally settled on a cap-and-trade scheme, under which carbon dioxide emissons would be capped at a certain level and pollution allowances would be traded, [Environmental Defense Fund Managing Director Mark] Brownstein said at the CERAWeek 2009 event.
There is also agreement that emissions certificate trading should be global and economy-wide, rather than limited to within countries or specific economic sectors, he said. In addition, legislative proposals are shaping up to aim regulation at downstream entities and embrace offsets, including international offsets as long as there is a strong verification process….
Several other issues, however, are still uncertain, including oversight of what will be a massive program with important implications for the economy.
Oversight is “alarmingly unsettled” and there is “little appreciation for the magnitude of the carbon market and its interaction with the overall economy,” said Skip Horvath, president and CEO of the National Gas Supply Association.
Other unsettled issues include the speed of reduction and whether credits should be allocated or auctioned, he said.
In addition, Horvath said freshman legislators in the US Congress “are still finding their way around ... and still very much coming up to speed” on proposals for climate-change legislation.
Despite this, he said he thinks “we will see some action soon from Senator Waxman” on a legislative proposals….
80. “Report recommends
re-regulating special-access market; Study claims backhaul channels still
controlled by too few” (RCR Wireless News,
By Jeffrey Silva
A new report recommending re-regulation of the multibillion-dollar special-access market could help reignite debate at the Federal Communications Commission over an issue that deeply divides national wireless providers and that reform advocates claim is inexorably linked to President Obama’s push for economic recovery and universal broadband.
The National Regulatory Research Institute’s study concluded that while the level of competition in the special-access sector is monolithic from one market to another, dominant providers — AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc. — nonetheless retain significant clout. The study said large landline telephone companies in 2007 enjoyed hefty double-digit profit margins on special access, bringing them $16 billion, or 22% of their revenues….
Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc., the No. 3 and No. 4 mobile-phone carriers, have been urging the Federal Communications Commission in recent years to recalibrate special-access pricing. In context for the wireless industry, special-access lines are dedicated links used to carry traffic from a wireless base station to a mobile-switching center and/or onto the public switched telephone network. For Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA, that means buying special-access services from the parent companies of No. 1 Verizon Wireless and No. 2 AT&T Mobility.
“If the U.S. is going to grow the economy and create high-wage, high-tech jobs, it will do so by deploying wireless and wireline broadband to Americans across the country,’’ said Vonya McCann, VP of government affairs at Sprint Nextel. “But as Sprint Nextel has long known, realizing the promise of this future and creating these jobs depends upon fixing the failed and broken special access market. … At Sprint Nextel, we’d much prefer to invest our earnings into building out our 3G network and offering the country more 4G services and devices, as opposed to sending these important investment dollars to the parent companies of our two biggest competitors.’’ …
81. “You’ve got to go
blue, before you can go green” (Deseret News,
By Lynn Arave -
You’ve got to go blue,
before you can go green. Ocean blue, that is. That is the message that Sylvia
Earle, one of the world’s leading experts in ocean conservation, brings to
Another ocean expert, Duane Silverstein, executive director of Seacology, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving
endangered species, habitats and cultures of islands throughout the world, is
also in
1. “Can Technology Save the Economy?” (Technology Review (MIT), May/June 2009); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.technologyreview.com/business/22452/page1/
By David Rotman
Part 1 of 2
By any measure, $100 billion is a staggering amount of money. That’s how much the federal stimulus bill devotes to the discovery, development, and implementation of various technologies. Some $20 billion will fund the increased use of electronic medical records; another $7.2 billion will support the extension of broadband Internet access to areas currently without such services. Most impressive, roughly $60 billion will be spent on energy, funding everything from energy-efficiency programs to loan guarantees for the construction of large facilities that use new biofuel and solar technologies….
Most audacious, the spending bill does all this with the intention of both stimulating the economy in the immediate future and creating growth in the long term. President Obama and others in his administration have repeatedly connected the stimulus spending with the need to begin creating “green jobs” and building a “clean-energy economy.”…
But just how realistic are the expectations behind the stimulus package? Can huge jumps in technology funding boost the economy? And will this sudden windfall of funding really be a positive force in encouraging new technologies?
Almost all economists agree that technological progress drives long-term economic growth. Many proponents of the technology provisions in the stimulus bill go further, however, arguing that the funding will alsocreate jobs immediately. Daniel Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that investments in renewable energy create three to five times as many jobs as the equivalent investments in fossil-fuel energies. “Energy efficiency and solar, in particular, have been shown to be two of the highest job-creating industries that we know,” he says. And he believes there is clear evidence that spending on energy research will improve the performance and reduce the cost of renewable technologies already on the market….
2. “Dalai Lama: Creating a peaceful 21st century
will take all 6 billion of us” (Berkeleyan,
By Cathy Cockrell
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with his Cal Bears cap, along with UC Board of Regents Chair Richard Blum and musicians, on stage at the Greek Theatre. (Jeffery Kahn photo)
His Holiness did not disappoint. Sitting cross-legged in an armchair on the proscenium, beneath strings of fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, the 73-year-old monk called for conscious development of our human capacity for compassion. “Peace does not equal absence of problems,” he said. Peace is when, despite “disagreement and the possibility for open conflict,” people exercise restraint and will power to “seek ways to solve it” without coming to blows.
While the Dalai Lama touched on Buddhist understandings of reality, on animal behavior, and the mind-body connection, his signature humility and comic timing were in play, in spontaneous asides on his childhood aversion to caterpillars and his difficulty finding the right words in English. (“As I become older, my English becomes older,” he declared.) One visitor, Associate Professor of Public Policy Jane Mauldon, described His Holiness as “extraordinarily available, disarmingly human, and very intimate.” …
Prior to the talk and in the presence of the Dalai Lama, [Chancellor Robert] Birgeneau presented Richard C. Blum, a Cal alum and chair of the UC Board of Regents [and founder of the Blum Center for Developing Economies], with the campus’s highest award, the Berkeley Medal, in honor of his contributions to the campus and the university….
3. “Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can
We Do It and How?” (Congressional Documents and Publications,
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration,
Border Security and Citizenship Hearing
Testimony by Doris Meissner,
Director, U.S. Immigration Policy Program Migration Policy Institute
… Legalization and economic recovery
a) Higher wages: In general, immigration raises
The wage benefits of immigration are minimized—and
the harmful wage effects of migration on low-skilled workers increase—when
workers are unauthorized. Although IRCA's employer
sanctions have failed to deter illegal employment, employers have internalized
the risk of workplace fines by lowering wages. On average, unauthorized
immigrants are paid 10 to 55 percent less than legal workers with similar
skills and experience, depending on the industry and the study. n20
n20 … Cynthia Bansak
and Steven Raphael, “Immigration
Reform and Earnings of Latino Workers: Do Employer Sanctions Cause
Discrimination?,” Industrial and Labor Relations
Review, 54, no. 2 (January 2001): 275-295….
4. “Study Links ADHD Medicine With
Better Test Scores” (
By Lindsey Tanner - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO (AP) -- Children on medicine for attention deficit disorder scored higher on academic tests than their unmedicated peers in the first large, long-term study suggesting this kind of benefit from the widely used drugs.
The nationally representative study involved nearly 600 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder followed from kindergarten through fifth grade.
Children’s scores on several standardized math and reading tests taken during those years were examined. Compared with unmedicated kids, average scores for medicated children were almost three points higher in math and more than five points higher in reading. The difference amounts to about three months ahead in reading and two months in math, the researchers said.
Both groups had lower scores on average than a separate group of children without ADHD. The researchers acknowledged that gap but said the benefits for medicated youngsters were still notable.
‘‘We’re not trying to say in this study that medication is the only answer,’’ but the results suggest benefits that parents, educators and policy-makers shouldn’t ignore, said Richard Scheffler, the lead author and professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
The researchers agreed that other treatment ADHD children often receive—including behavior therapy and tutoring—can help, but the study didn’t look at those measures….
Previous evidence suggests teachers give higher grades to ADHD kids on medication, but the study authors said that might simply mean teachers prefer them because they’re better behaved than unmedicated children.
They said theirs is the largest, longest-duration study based on objective standardized academic tests suggesting that medicated kids may be better learners, too.
[University of Illinois-Chicago psychiatry professor] Dr. Bennett L eventhal, who was not involved in the study, called the results impressive….
The study appears in the May issue of Pediatrics, released Monday. A federal grant paid for the research; the authors said they have no financial ties to ADHD drugmakers….
Blake Taylor, a 19-year-old [UC]
Medication ‘‘doesn’t make me smarter,’’ he said, ‘‘it allows me to focus, to be more organized.’’ .
[This story appeared in more than 200 sources
worldwide, including the <a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs27-2009apr27,0,5517818.story“>Los
Angeles Times</a>, <a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_12233873“>San
Jose Mercury News</a>, <a href=“http://www.sacbee.com/832/story/1812147.html“>Sacramento
Bee</a>, <a href=“http://www.contracostatimes.com/health/ci_12233873“>Contra
Costa Times</a>, and <a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/27/MN27179E2D.DTL&hw=Berkeley+University+UC&sn=003&sc=130“>San
Francisco Chronicle</a>. <a href=“http://uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKN2443725920090427“>Reuters</a>
also issued a story, and a blog appeared in the <a
href=“http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/adhd-drugs-linked-with-higher-test-scores/“>New
York Times Online</a>]
5. “After strong start, Obama
must adjust approach” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Robert B. Reich
President
Obama met with G-20 leaders, Chinese President Hu Jintao (front) and (from left)
Silvio Berlusconi of
Before
Inauguration Day, President-elect Barack Obama said he wanted to hit the ground running. Instead, he
hit the ground sprinting and hasn’t stopped.
Consider: A $787 billion stimulus package. A 10-year budget including universal health insurance and a cap-and-trade
system to combat global warming. Subsidies to help
distressed homeowners stay in their homes. Public-private
partnerships to clean up the big banks. A bailout of
the auto companies. New regulations to clean up Wall
Street. A G-20 meeting to harmonize global economic
policies. A proposal to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions. A thaw in relations with
Yet Obama’s success has rested on several delicate balancing acts. Whether he continues to succeed will depend on how well he shifts his balance in the months ahead….
Robert B. Reich is professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He was secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.
6. “60 Minutes: The Dilemma Over
Coal Generated Power” (CBS News,
(CBS) The
future of our climate might be summed up in one question: what do we do about
coal? Coal generates nearly half the electricity in the
... The problem is, clean coal makes putting a man on the moon look easy. The technology is called carbon capture and sequestration….
Dan Kammen says carbon capture would be an enormous
national engineering project. He’s a
“Can enough carbon capture and sequestration facilities like this one be built in time to prevent climate change from coal?” Pelley asked.
“I don’t think anyone knows the answer to that precisely. We know we have to try. And we know these facilities do work. Whether we can build enough of them to preserve the coal industry as we know it today I think is a question,” Kammen said.
Kammen told Pelley that there are
hundreds of coal-fired plants in the
“What are we talking about here in terms of infrastructure?” Pelley asked.
“So, we’re talking about hundreds of billions, to a trillion dollars or so, and every power plant needs to capture its greenhouse gases,” Kammen estimated….
7. “We Need Public Directors on TARP Bank Boards.
The government’s role should be honest and transparent” (Wall Street Journal,
By ROBERT
B. REICH
I don’t know whether Bank of America shareholders will oust Ken Lewis from his chairmanship next week. I don’t know if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will eventually do it, either. What really worries me is I don’t know who would actually be responsible for doing the deed, or by what criteria….
The $45 billion we’ve sent to the Bank of America should give the public some say over whether Mr. Lewis remains in his job because he is now accountable to us as well as to his shareholders. But to which group should he be more accountable?
And: Is Mr. Lewis’s main job still to make money
for his shareholders, or does he now have a higher public responsibility to
lend more money to
That’s the problem right now. Bank of America’s Ken Lewis is fully accountable to no one. AIG’s public trustees have no charter or public mission to guide them. GM is trying to satisfy the Treasury and its shareholders simultaneously, and is doing neither very well. Even as the public takes larger ownership stakes in big Wall Street banks, the public has no systematic means of expressing its growing interest, whatever it is….
Mr. Reich is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.
8. “Former Labor Sec Grades Obama’s
First 100 Days” (Newsroom, CNN,
… KYRA PHILLIPS: … Now we know everyone has an opinion, including Robert Reich. He’s a former labor secretary under President Clinton, now a professor at UC Berkeley. And fittingly enough, he’s graded the president’s first 100 days…. Let’s … start with … the ten-year budget. What would you give him on that?
ROBERT
REICH, PROFESSOR, UC BERKELEY: I give an “A.” I
think it’s an extraordinarily bold document that includes not only his campaign
promises but also a vision for where
REICH: I’d grade the stimulus package at a “B.” I think it is definitely as good as it goes, but it needs to be probably larger….
PHILLIPS: But $787 billion over the next two years, it’s—can we afford bigger than that?
REICH: Well, I suppose the question, Kyra, is can we afford not to? If we don’t get the economy growing again and people back to work, then we’re going to be in not only the recession for a very long time, but tax revenues are not going to be coming in…. So, we do need to, at least in the very short-term, have a stimulus big enough to get people back into their jobs.
PHILLIPS: All right, usually we save the best for last. But in this case, it’s going to be the worst for last. What do you give the bank bailout?
REICH: Well, first of all, I’m a great fan of this administration. I think the president is doing a wonderful job…. But on the bank bailout, I have to give, reluctantly, Obamanomics an F because so far it hasn’t worked. The banks are lending less now than they were lending five months ago. The bank executives are still giving themselves very sweetheart deals in terms of executive pay. They are still providing dividends and thinking about acquisitions and hoarding money.
The money is not getting to
The people on the right of the political spectrum generally think … that the banks ought to be in some form of bankruptcy or negotiating with creditors, that there’s no reason for the government to protect them from their creditors, no reason for creditors to get a free ride.
People who tend to be on the left of the political center say we ought to nationalize the banks. Now, I could probably make a pretty good argument for either the right view or the left view, but almost nobody agrees with the administration right now that we ought to continue the policies that Hank Paulson began under the George W. Bush administration and continue to shove money in the direction of the banks, public money, shareholder money….
9. “
“It will mean that the blend of liquid fuels that we’re putting into our cars is cleaner than it is today, meaning there will be less greenhouse gas emissions per mile driven,” said energy professor Dan Kammen at U.C. Berkeley.
“This is not expected to change the price of gas very much, it’s expected to essentially reward the companies that find the cleanest blend,” said Kammen….
[Professor Kammen was also interviewed for a story on <a href=“http://www.kgoam810.com/Article.asp?id=1289124&spid=20399“>KGO Radio</a> (link to audio)]
10. “Work Efficiently –
It’s Good for Your (Economy’s) Health” (CNBC,
Posted By: Gary Hirshberg
…More studies than you can count pour in daily, illuminating the incredible job growth and economic savings to be had simply by getting serious about energy efficiency and renewable energy….
In a recession, it’s instructive to look at what industries are succeeding:
• The energy efficiency industry grew about
twice as fast as the overall
• In the distressed building sector, green buildings still enjoyed strong growth; the U.S. green building industry is now worth $12 billion; 10 years ago, it was unquantifiable.
• The renewable energy industry grew more
than twice as fast as the
According to Dan Kammen, a leading researcher on energy and jobs, renewable energy produces twice as many jobs as traditional fossil energy for the same amount of power. It’s not hard to see why: more labor goes into designing, manufacturing, selling, shipping, installing, and maintaining hundreds of small distributed renewable generation sources (e.g., windmills, solar photovoltaic arrays, etc.) than capital-intensive power plants and transmission lines. Better yet, more of that money stays in the local economy instead of being “exported” out of state – or worse, out of the country….
11. “
Reported Marjorie Sun
This week,
DAN KAMMEN: One of the most important features of the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard is that every fuel is being treated equally.
Sun: Dan Kammen is at an expert on energy issues at UC Berkeley.
DAN KAMMEN: While this sounds like an ongoing process of science battling it out over numbers, what you’re really seeing, I think, is the birth pangs of a new metric. We’re used to thinking in terms of money; now we’re thinking in terms of money and carbon and then towards a larger view of sustainability where impact on communities worldwide, impact on rivers, impact on land are all going to be factored in….
12. “Goldman Prize boosts Bay Area environmental groups year-round” (Contra Costa Times, April 19, 2009); story citing RICHARD and RHODA GOLDMAN; http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_12173009?source=most_emailed
By Suzanne Bohan - Contra Costa Times
Maria Gunnoe,
of
On Monday, the Goldman Environmental Prize reaches its 20th anniversary, and 3,300 people from around the nation and the world will attend the invitation-only event….
The prize and ceremony began in 1989, after an
The couple, both UC Berkeley graduates, in 1951 founded the Goldman Fund, a philanthropic organization.
But 20 years of annual pilgrimages to
“It’s my favorite day of the year,” said Carl
Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, based in
13. “Gore: 2009 turning point in environment
battle” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Yuyun Ismawati, Olga Speranskaya, Hugo Jabini, Marc Ona Essangui, Rizwana Hasan, Wanze Eduards and Maria Gunnoe at the end of the Goldman Prize ceremony.
Former Vice President Al Gore said Monday that
this year is “the
Gore made the comments during his keynote
presentation of the Goldman
Environmental Prize at the War Memorial Opera House in
Gore said the winners of the prize showed unusual heroism and commitment while working on the grassroots level….
Gore insisted, however, that the crisis of global warming cannot be resolved unless all citizens make a commitment to do their part….
For more information about the winners, go to http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipients/current
14. “Redefining Capitalism After the Fall” (
By Richard W. Stevenson
In a series of comments in recent weeks, Mr. Obama has begun to sketch a vision of where he would like
to drive the economy once this crisis is past. His goals include diminishing
the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the
Mr. Obama is stepping into the debate characteristically intent on avoiding polarizing labels, and his advisers describe his philosophy in terms of pragmatism rather than ideology….
Those on the left who have criticized Mr. Obama for being too timid in addressing the immediate crisis are similarly concerned that he will miss an opportunity to reshape American capitalism more fundamentally once the economy recovers. And even liberals allied with him suggest that the risk is that his ambition will prove too limited rather than too expansive.
“Again and again, Obamanomics, as well as his instincts in other areas of domestic policy, has been animated by a bold vision of what we need to do but has been quite cautious in practice,” said Robert Reich, who was labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and advised Mr. Obama in the campaign.
“The benefit is that he can feel his way,” Mr. Reich said. “The downside is that none of the initiatives may be quite bold enough to solve the problems at the scale they present themselves.” …
15. “Seminar ‘Rethinking Development Agenda’”
(States News Service,
... I have the feeling that some people don’t realise quite how serious the crisis we are facing is. It is not simply a crisis of the global financial system, but a total collapse of credit. A crisis of confidence at every level. A crisis caused in no small measure by the fact that, in the West over the past few decades, the balance between public and private interests has been lost. Short-term interests have prevailed over longer-term considerations, while many have become slaves to unbridled greed. As a result:
our democratic institutions are less able to defend collective interests and curb excesses
and our model for economic growth is characterised by severe imbalances that are simply not sustainable
Let me start with the first of these effects. For years, sociologists have been observing the process of individualisation taking root in many Western societies. This process has brought us many good things, but compared with only twenty years ago, our circle of loyalty is shrinking in every respect. We are all increasingly focused on ourselves and those closest to us. Our sense of community involvement has grown more abstract. In many cases it has been replaced with resentment….
This process of individualisation has taken place against a backdrop of many years of deregulation and unrestrained belief in the free market. The combination of the two has damaged our traditional structures of consultation and accountability and has shifted power away from the citizen towards the investor and consumer. In his book, Supercapitalism, the American former Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes this process. He notes that while capitalism thanks to technological innovation and falling transport costs has got better and better at serving our individual desires, our democracy has grown progressively weaker when it comes to delivering what we as citizens collectively desire. This makes people less inclined to work for the collective interest, and more inclined to give in to their own personal cravings.
Every day, you can see the results all around you. Our identities as consumers and citizens seem to be locked in an ongoing Faustian struggle, in which Mephistopheles always seems to get the upper hand. As citizens we are filled with righteous indignation when an employee of a major airline is laid off after seventeen years loyal service, yet as consumers well go online the very same day, searching for bargains from low-cost carriers. Or take another example. As good citizens, we all love dolphins and urge our governments to protect them. Yet as consumers, its all too easy to opt for the cheaper, dolphin-unfriendly tuna simply because it saves us ten cents. This kind of hypocrisy, prompted partly by the inadequacy of our democratic institutions, is, as Reich rightly says, the real crisis of democracy….
16. “President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts” (The White House Press Office, April 17, 2009); press release citing MICHAEL NACHT; http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-More-Key-Administration-Posts-4/17/2009/
President Obama said, “I am grateful that these fine individuals have made the admirable decision to serve their country. Their expertise and dedication will be a valuable asset both to my administration and our nation as we work to bring about the real change that the American people need today.”
Michael Nacht, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of Defense (Global Strategic Affairs), Department of Defense
Michael Nacht is currently Professor of
Public Policy and former Aaron Wildavsky Dean at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California - Berkeley. Nacht served a three-year term as a member of the U.S.
Department of Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee, for which he chaired
panels on counter terrorism and counter proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, reporting to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. He continues to
consult for Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory. From
1994-1997, Nacht
was assistant director for Strategic and Eurasian Affairs at the Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency, leading its work on nuclear arms reduction negotiations
with Russia and initiating nuclear arms control talks with China. He
participated in five summit meetings with President Clinton—four with Russian
President Boris Yeltsin and one with Chinese President Jiang
Zemin. Nacht has testified before Congress on subjects ranging
from arms control to the supply and demand for scientists in the
workplace. Nacht
earned his B.S. in aeronautics and astronautics at
[Senate Armed Services Cmte. Hearing on Defense & Energy Nominees,
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) chaired a nomination hearing of the Senate Armed Services Cmte. for Defense and Energy department appointments. Michael Nacht is heard in the second panel (at 2 hr. 20 min.).]
17. “Obama taps Berkeley scholar for high-level job” (San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 2009); story citing MICHAEL NACHT and Visiting Scholar HAROLD SMITH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/18/BACF174HN3.DTL&hw=Berkeley+University+UC&sn=018&sc=224
--Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer
President
Obama has once again reached into the Bay Area to
build his administration’s brain trust, this time tapping a UC Berkeley
professor for a cutting-edge position at the Department of Defense, overseeing
strategy involving emerging threats facing the nation.
Michael Nacht, a professor
of public policy at UC Berkeley’s
The newly redesigned position, part of a Defense Department organizational shakeup, oversees three deputy assistant secretaries focusing on countering weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and missile defense policy and space and cyber policy, said Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon….
Harold Smith, a visiting scholar at the Goldman School who spent five years at the Pentagon as assistant to the secretary of defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs under President Bill Clinton, said Nacht will be a good fit for the new position.
“I’m really not worried about a World War III. I am worried about cybersecurity, nuclear terrorism,” Smith said. “Those things are the real threats to the country.”
Michael May, a professor emeritus at
“Michael
[Nacht] is
a very honest and knowledgeable individual,” he said. “He is very much a voice
of moderation, he understands past
18. “Professor Nominated for Federal Position” (Daily Californian, April 21, 2009); story citing MICHAEL NACHT, DAN KAMMEN, RICHARD SCHEFFLER, and ROBERT REICH; http://www.dailycal.org/article/105351/professor_nominated_for_federal_position
By Leslie Toy - Contributing Writer
Michael Nacht, a professor
at the
If approved, Nacht will be involved in both defense and military affairs, according to Dan Kammen, professor of public policy.
“For me, he’ll be the new go-to person to talk to about what’s going on with both science and policy for the Department of Defense,” Kammen said….
“Michael
has been advising the president on defense issues all along—now he has the
opportunity to continue his work in
Robert
Reich, a professor at the school
who served as Secretary of Labor under
“Michael Nacht is one of the most original and insightful
figures in
19. “Is same-sex marriage still a generation
away?” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--David L. Kirp
Champagne corks were popping last week among
supporters of same-sex marriage. No wonder: In the span of five days, the
number of states where gays and lesbians could tie the knot doubled, from two
to four. The Supreme Court of Iowa, a state not usually in the progressive
vanguard, declared that gays had a right to marry. A few days later,
It’s a nice thought, but far too rosy. Nationwide, same-sex marriage may well be a generation away….
In 2004, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court became the nation’s first tribunal to recognize same-sex marriage, the opponents mobilized. Well-heeled and well-organized, they convinced voters in 26 states to rewrite their constitutions, defining marriage as a heterosexuals-only affair. Anticipating a pro-same-sex marriage decree, three states had already passed such amendments. And 30 states don’t even protect gays against discrimination….
Political mobilization—persuading the voters to
rewrite their state constitutions—is the most promising way to make
David L. Kirp, a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, writes regularly on social issues.
20. “White House Watch Blog:
Human Beings Without Humanity” (Washington Post
Online,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/torture/human-beings-without-humanity.html
By Dan Froomkin
The profoundly disgusting memos made public yesterday—in which government lawyers attempted to justify flatly unconscionable and illegal acts—provide a depressing reminder of a time when the powerful and powerless alike were stripped of their humanity.
These memos gave the CIA the go-ahead to do things to people that you’d be arrested for doing to a dog. And the legalistic, mechanistic analysis shows signs of an almost inconceivable callousness. The memos serve as a vivid illustration of the moral chasm into which the nation fell—or rather, was pushed—during the Bush era.
President Obama deserves great credit for defying members of the intelligence community who wanted to keep these memos secret. But in calling for the nation to move on without any further looking back, Obama put his political needs above his moral and legal obligations….
Berkeley
public policy professor Michael O’Hare blogs: “Obama has made it national policy to ignore violations of
international law, human decency, and stepped on everything we’ve believed
since
“Torturing people systematically is not just criminal but outrageous, unspeakable. Having orders to do it is no excuse: we need every citizen and every spook to think before obeying orders that may for whatever reason be illegal, especially orders that are cruel, vengeful, and compromise the mission: this principle is so obvious movie plots are built on its universal validity.” …
21. “Exxon vs. Obama. The biggest oil company in the world is also the most resistant to the shift to green energy. The White House seems determined to make Exxon Mobil’s life miserable” (Condé Nast Portfolio, April 2009); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/portfolio/2009/03/18/Exxon-vs-the-Obama-Administration
By Peter Waldman
VERY BIG OIL An Exxon Mobil refinery in
…For
years, critics have skewered Exxon Mobil for funding skeptics of global
warming, claiming that its corporate denial campaign has endangered the
planet….
By refusing to seriously invest in a world beyond oil, Exxon Mobil marks itself not merely as politically incorrect but as a company that seems oddly indifferent to the business risks of its intransigence. It seems increasingly likely that Obama and Congress will slap a price on carbon in coming years that could put oil at a competitive disadvantage to such carbon-free energy sources as wind, solar, and biomass. That could reduce demand for crude, sharply cutting its price….
Obama’s energy agenda
calls for eliminating oil imports from the
“You can’t defeat the incumbent without fundamentally changing the rules of the game,” Kammen says....
22. “US power company to tap solar energy in
space” (The Guardian [
By Suzanne Goldenberg,
Ground-based solar installations require huge tracts of land, and cannot produce a constant supply of electricity. Photograph: OLIVIA HAMPTON/AFP/Getty Images
A leading American power company is hoping to turn science fiction into reality by supporting a project to set up solar panels in outer space and beam the electricity generated back to Earth.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which serves San Francisco and northern California, has agreed to buy electricity from a startup company claiming to have found a way to unlock the potential power supply in space.
The firm, Solaren Corp,
says it will launch solar panels into orbit and then convert the power
generated into radio-frequency transmissions, which will be beamed back down
into a depot in
The sunlight hitting solar panels 200 miles in space would be 10 times as powerful as the light filtering down to Earth through the atmosphere. The satellite would then convert the energy into radio waves and beam them down to a receiving station on Earth….
[Solaren’s CEO, Gary Spirnak] argued that the science behind the orbiting solar farms was little different to that of communications satellites. “This is the exact same thing that satellites do every day. The basic technology is there,” said Spirnak. “The bottom line is that this is not really a technology issue.”
Daniel Kammen, a professor in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, agreed: the most daunting challenge to Spirnak is cost.
“The ground rules are looking kind of promising. Whether we can do it at scale, whether we can do it affordably, whether it is too much of a technological leap or not, those are all factors,” Kammen said. “It is doable. Whether it is doable at a reasonable cost, we just don’t know.”…
23. “We need more stimulus,
not more bailout. To jump-start the economy, we need to spur consumer demand.
We can’t do that without additional stimulus” (Salon.com,
By Robert Reich
With
only $110 billion remaining in the TARP bailout fund, all signs are that Tim Geithner is preparing to return to Congress seeking more
bailout money. He’ll bring along the results of his bank “stress tests,” which
will probably show many that big banks are still technically insolvent, along
with bankruptcy scenarios for General Motors and Chrysler, and a couple of CEO
scalps…. Congress won’t be happy, but in the end it will cough up another $300
billion to $500 billion.
Geithner believes the only way to rescue the economy is to get the big banks to lend money again. But he’s dead wrong. Most consumers cannot and do not want to borrow lots more money. They’re still carrying too much debt as it is….
That’s the big issue -- the continued lack of enough demand in the economy. The current stimulus package is proving way too small relative to the shortfall between what consumers and businesses are buying and what the economy could produce at full capacity….
Worse yet, the states are pulling in the opposite direction. States cannot run deficits, which means that as their revenues drop in this downturn they’re cutting vital services and raising taxes to the tune of $350 billion over this year and next. This fiscal drag is wiping out about half of the current federal stimulus….
… At most, the administration is going to get only one more bite at the congressional apple. Make that more stimulus rather than more bailout.
Robert Reich, a professor of public policy
at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the
24. “California Climate Change Experts to Discuss
Key Findings at Science Summit” (States News Service,
Members of the science team who conducted the assessment will address the report’s findings and field questions from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday, April 20, at the Robert Paine Scripps Forum for Science, Society and the Environment (Scripps Seaside Forum), located at 8610 Kennel Way (formerly Discovery Way) in La Jolla. The public will have the opportunity to ask questions and give comments to the science team. The feedback will be used to guide future CAT Research Group actions….
California Energy Commission Vice Chair James Boyd will preside over the science meeting, which will include a wide range of presentations: …
Water and Overall Economic Impacts: Michael Hanemann, Chancellor’s professor and professor of environmental and resource economics, UC Berkeley….
25. “This is not the beginning of the end”
(Salon.com,
By Robert Reich
Are we at the beginning of the end? Mortgage interests are now so low … that President Obama has begun urging Americans to refinance their homes so they can save money and start spending again….
But we’re not at the beginning of the end. I’m not even sure we’re at the end of the beginning. All of these pieces of upbeat news are connected by one fact: the flood of money the Fed has been releasing into the economy….
Cheap money, you may remember, got us into this mess. Six years ago, the Fed (Alan Greenspan et al.) lowered interest rates to 1 percent. Adjusted for inflation, this made money essentially free to large lenders….
Some of the big banks will claim to be profitable, but don’t bank on it. Neither they nor anyone else knows what their assets are really worth. Besides, the big banks are sitting on over $500 billion over taxpayer equity and loans. Who knows how they’re calculating profits? Most importantly, there’s still a yawning gap between the economy’s productive capacity and what it’s now producing, and absolutely nothing will turn the economy around until that gap begins to close…..
Robert
Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley,
was secretary of labor during the
26. “Cap-and-Trade: To Auction or Not to Auction”
(Red Herring,
By Justin Moresco
The debate over a nationwide cap-and-trade system took yet another turn this week, with the White House signaling its willingness to compromise on a key issue affecting the greenhouse-gas limiting program. That issue is how to distribute the emission permits that would allow companies to emit carbon dioxide and other gases: give them away for free, auction them off for a fee, or do a combination of the two….
Those favoring the 100 percent auction believe
emitters should have to pay for the right to pollute because the people,
collectively, own the air, said Lee
Friedman, professor of public policy at the
“To some extent, it is a matter of property rights,” Mr. Friedman said. “Who owns the right of clean air? If citizens own the right, then anyone who wants to soil it needs permission from those who own it and must pay a fee.” …
Some businesses, like those in such capital-intensive industries as power generation, also appeal to a sense of fairness, Mr. Friedman said. They say that they spent millions of dollars to build power plants decades ago when people weren’t as concerned about emissions….
The big debate in
But U.C. Berkeley’s Mr. Friedman said whatever is agreed to won’t have an effect on the larger goal of the cap-and-trade system. That aim is to gradually decrease the total emissions of the country to 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, according to Obama’s proposal.
“It is a matter of fairness and equity. It has nothing to do with meeting the targets,” Mr. Friedman said.
27. “A stronger middle class would bolster the
economy” (Home News Tribune (
About 200 people recently staged a mock funeral at the Trenton Statehouse to protest the death of the middle class.
Amid widespread wage freezes and mandatory worker furloughs, not to mention scaling back property tax rebates and curtailing property tax reductions, who could blame the protesters for making a statement about their own, dwindling economic status? …
In recent columns and speeches on the dire state
of the
Reich notes that middle-class Americans have coped with their dwindling spending power over the past three decades by sending women into the workplace, borrowing against their homes and by working longer hours.
Now, Reich says, they’ve run out of ways to increase their purchasing power, and the economy as a whole is suffering because of it.
Reich suggests policies should be enacted to help reverse this trend and bolster the purchasing power of middle-class Americans. He says he would use tax credits to increase wages of the bottom two-thirds of Americans and he calls for stronger unions….
Many economists agree on the benefits in having a
strong middle class, and it’s encouraging to see our congressional delegation
in
28. “Pundits escalate attacks against Obama” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Carla Marinucci, Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writers
In
March, an anti-war rally in
It
took fewer than 100 days for conservative critics to start lobbing the F-bomb
at President Obama.
“F” as in “fascist.”
Take Glenn Beck, the bombastic Fox News host, who in recent weeks has repeatedly used the term—along with references to Mussolini and pictures of Hitler and Lenin—to describe Obama’s efforts to revive struggling banks and automakers.
The American Spectator, a conservative publication, earlier this month ran an essay on Obama titled “Il Duce, Redux?”
And TownHall.com’s
David Limbaugh went even further: He called Obama the
head of a “Gestapo government” during a recent
Maybe it is the approach of Obama’s 100-day milestone, the crowded agenda of domestic and international issues or the fact that the president is no longer a White House newbie. But the recent high level of hysteria from conservative pundits—which has been dubbed the “Obama Derangement Syndrome” by the leftist blogosphere—underscores a crucial marker that might say as much about Obama’s critics as it does about Obama himself.
Jack Glaser, associate professor of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, says the use of such hyper-heated language from the right so early into the Obama administration “seems pretty clearly to be an act of desperation.”
“They can’t get any thing to stick to him,” he said, citing a New York Times poll this week that showed that two-thirds of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance in office, while a record low of 31 percent said they have a favorable view of the Republican Party.
Critics are “grabbing on to whatever they can,” Glaser observed, a tactic that is sometimes head-spinning. During the 2008 election, Obama was accused by many of these same voices of being socialist and “he wasn’t patriotic enough,” Glaser notes. “And now, he’s fascist.” …
29. “Filling a Void in Climate Change. Two new web sites tackle global warming and attempt to raise awareness of the challenges we face” (East Bay Express, April 8, 2009); story citing DAN KAMMEN and MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=958833
By Robert Gammon
In
the 20th century, the environmental movement focused on combating air and water
pollution and protecting endangered species. But, without question, the biggest
environmental threat of this century is global warming. We all know the polar
ice caps are melting, and that sea levels are going to rise throughout the
world, thereby flooding coastal areas. But what about
The web site, California Climate Change Extension, features video interviews with some of the leading global warming experts in the state, including two UC Berkeley professors, Dan Kammen and Michael Hanemann….
The
site’s quick topic videos, in particular, provide excellent primers on
But the micro-docs also make it clear that,
despite
Currently, the web site ( Groups.ucanr.org/CAClimateChangeExt ) is geared toward the general public, but the micro-docs also could be valuable for classroom use, especially at community colleges, high schools, or even middle schools….
30. “Will Geithner fire
corporate
By Robert Reich
Tim Geithner said on Sunday’s “Face the Nation” that the Treasury might fire the heads of big banks that depend on financing from the federal government, just as it summarily deposed Rick Wagoner, the former CEO of General Motors—and before Wagoner, the heads of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “Where that requires a change in management and the board, then we will do that,” said Geithner.
I suppose it’s comforting to know our government stands ready to fire corporate executives and directors whenever taxpayer money is on the line. But I suspect Geithner’s new tough line is mostly designed to reassure a public that’s lost all faith in the wisdom of bailing out Wall Street….
All told, about one out of every five large American companies depends on government contracts, and a majority of these firms are losing money right now….
Robert Reich, a professor of public policy
at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the
31. “Stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about
workers” (Chicago Sun-Times,
By Robert
Reich, Special to The
The March employment numbers, released on Friday,
are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs
lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying to
find a job, the real unemployment rate is 9 percent. And if you include people
working part time who’d rather be working full time, it’s now up to 15.6
percent. One in every six workers in
... Almost every American right now is within two degrees of separation of someone who is out of work. This broader anxiety expresses itself as less willingness to spend money on anything other than necessities. And this reluctance to spend further contracts the economy, leading to more job losses….
This is still not the Great Depression of the
1930s, but it is a depression. And the only way out is government spending on a
very large scale. We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about
American workers. Use money to build up
Energy independence and a non-carbon economy should be the equivalent of a war mobilization. Hire Americans to weatherize and insulate homes across the land. Don’t encourage General Motors or any other auto company to shrink. Use the automakers’ spare capacity to make buses, new wind turbines and electric cars (why let the Chinese best us on this?). Enlarge public transit systems.
Meanwhile, extend our educational infrastructure. So many young people are out of work that they should be using this time to improve their skills. Expand community colleges. Enlarge Pell Grants. Extend job-training opportunities to the unemployed, so they can learn new skills while they’re collecting unemployment benefits.
Finally, accelerate universal health care.
Robert Reich was secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.
[Robert Reich was cited on the topic in numerous other reports including Bloomberg News (April 6, 2009); http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=apllk4murp0I&refer=us and The Seattle Times (April 3, 2009); http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/soundeconomyblog/2009/04/03/why_the_unemployment_epidemic.html ]
32. “
By Jeanine Benca, Valley Times
Board members in March OK’d the transformation of
the former kindergarten through fifth-grade
… Anecdotal evidence suggests the K-8 trend may be growing, said Robert Maccoun, a UC Berkeley public policy expert....
A recent UC Berkeley study co-authored by MacCoun supports the idea that children who stay in grade school longer perform better than those who don’t.
The study, in which sixth-graders who went from K-5 to a traditional middle school were compared with those who attended a K-6 school before moving on to a seventh- and eighth-grade-only middle school, found that sixth-graders in the latter group had higher test scores and fewer behavioral problems.
“They were statistically identical in fifth grade, but the kids who went to (a 6-8 school) saw a significant increase in delinquency and significant decrease in standardized test scores,” MacCoun said. Still, he called the results of the K-8 debate “inconclusive.”
“On the one hand, not moving sixth-graders is beneficial, but on the other hand, having seventh- and eighth-graders in the same building on campus is probably somewhat detrimental for the younger kids,” MacCoun said.
33. “Goldman
School portal takes the worry out of ‘experiments of concern’. New site
aims to warn synthetic biologists when the fruits of their research could
include biosecurity risks” (Berkeleyan,
By Barry Bergman, Public Affairs
Steve Maurer (Photo by Peg Skorpinski)
Yet just how concerned we need be about such experiments is an open question. Now Steve Maurer, director of the Information Technology and Homeland Security Project at the Goldman School of Public Policy, is about to launch an online advice portal he hopes will not only provide some answers, but will also represent a significant step toward mitigating the dangers — whatever they might be — of well-intentioned synthetic-biology research.
The Berkeley-based website, created under the technical supervision of Goldman IT manager Jason Christopher, aims to give researchers a terrorist’s-eye view of the possible weaponry applications of their work before they begin an experiment, much less try to publish their findings. Maurer has lined up a stable of some two dozen volunteer reviewers — including security experts from academia, D.C. think tanks, and national laboratories — who will form rotating three-person panels to weigh in on the wisdom of moving ahead with a given project.
Although the advice won’t be binding, Maurer hopes the existence of the portal — along with a new virulent-gene database, VIREP, he and Christopher are working to create — will give the synthetic-biology community a meaningful way to regulate its own behavior….
The seeds of the project were planted in 2005,
when the
“We said to them, ‘Look, since Sept. 11 everybody in synthetic biology —a big new advanced discipline at Berkeley — has been talking about, Gee, could this science be misused, and is there anything that the government or the community or somebody should do to manage the risk?’” …
The technological challenge of VIREP [a
state-of-the-art bioinformatics database intended to aid gene-synthesis
companies in their efforts to keep short DNA sequences away from all but legitimate researchers],
explains Christopher, is to create a
site where commercial suppliers of genetic material can share and preserve
information about suspicious genes — information that’s typically discarded
after a company, prompted by a request from a researcher, searches the
scientific literature — so that genetically engineered threats can be nipped in
the bud. He traveled with Maurer last year to
Efforts to keep synthetic-biology research from being weaponized are themselves experimental, Maurer stresses, and don’t readily lend themselves to government regulation. “It’s very important to grasp this nettle and do it,” he says. “We’ll put down the best effort we can, and if other people do it better — and they surely will, because they will have seen what we did — that’s great.
“My best outcome,” he adds, “is that the government can take it away from me eventually.”…
34. “G-20 Communique
Contains Just Enough Substance to be Considered a
Success” (CNN Newsroom,
HEIDI COLLINS: … The world leaders walked away from the G-20 on a positive note with some new policies and ideas in their pockets. But we want to know what comes next… Secretary Reich, so we have this communique, and you’ve heard some of the details, I’m sure. But a lot of people are wondering, now what? I mean, is there any sort of guarantee that this has really stopped the downturn of a global economic crisis?
ROBERT REICH, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF LABOR: Heidi, absolutely no guarantee at all. I mean, the good news coming out of the G-20 is what did not happen. Nobody walked out. The global leaders did not say, we’re going to resort to protectionism, we’re going to protect our own jobs and our own companies instead of joining together.
And there was a commitment to a trillion dollars for poor nations to help their economies. Look, …nobody ever expected the G-20 was going to be the turnaround for the global economy, but it was a step in the right direction….
… Well, I can tell you as somebody who has been at international conferences and cabinet ministers, these things are so big, so unwieldy, it is so difficult to get different leaders with different political agendas together on the same page, marching in the same direction. It’s a miracle they came out with something actually quite positive.
And I don’t want to understate how positive it was. This trillion dollars for developing nations is very important. But the big action is going to be back in individual nations in terms of stimulus packages and getting the banking systems actually working again, and that means the leaders go back home, and then the work really starts….
... They are facing electorates that are
suffering from increasing joblessness. Here in the
And now, where we are right now, one out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. This is—it’s not a depression officially, Heidi, but it’s pretty close to what we might call a depression….
(VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: We can’t give up on open markets, even as we work to ensure that trade is both free and fair. We cannot forget how many millions that trade has lifted out of poverty and into the middle class. We can’t forget that part of the freedom that our nation stood for throughout the Cold War was the opportunity that comes from free enterprise and individual liberty….
COLLINS: Secretary Reich, to you first. Free markets, free trade going to suffer here?
REICH:
Well, they already are suffering, Heidi. I mean, even giving extra money to
General Motors and to Chrysler and not to the Japanese automakers in the
And every other government around the world right now is also having enormous pressure, coming under enormous pressure from its own companies and its own workers to protect them and to favor them, with regard to all kinds of subsidies and tax credits…. So … protectionist pressures are inevitably growing….
COLLINS: …[W]e just passed this budget yesterday, as you heard last night, $3.53 trillion. You know, I know I’m not alone when I think about the deficit….
KEITH HENNESSEY: … My big problem is massive increases in spending and massive increases in taxes. I just think it’s bad in the short run, and I think with the long-term entitlement spending trends we’ve got, we’ve got to deal with spending. We’ve got to start getting it under control now….
REICH: Well, here’s where I would disagree with Keith. I think right now, when consumers are not spending and businesses are not spending and export markets are dead in the water, there is only one spender left, the spender of last resort, and that is government. If we want people to get jobs back, if we want the economy to get actually back on track, there’s no substitute for government spending that stimulates the economy. My big fear is that the stimulus package we have now may be just too small….
35. “Green buildings and higher rents linked. Certified green buildings earn owners and management companies higher rents” (Business Guru, Mother Nature Network, April 2, 2009); blog citing study coauthored by JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.mnn.com/business/commercial-building/blogs/green-buildings-and-higher-rents-linked
By Melissa Hincha-Ownby’
Photo by infraredhorsebite
Green makes green, makes sense, right? A new study has shown that green buildings are linked to higher building rents so green (buildings) makes green (money). Today, GreenerBuilding News reported about the new study, Doing Well By Doing Good.
The study was conducted by individuals [John Quigley] from the
“The survey of almost 900 buildings found that buildings with an Energy Star certificate attracted rental premiums of three per cent per sq ft compared with “non-green buildings” of the same size, location and function.
When rental concessions were removed from the equation the premium was higher still with Energy Star buildings attracting a premium of over six per cent.
[The study can be downloaded in its entirety from GreenerBuildings: Doing Well By Doing Good (PDF).]
36. “Climate change may cost
By Peter Henderson
Smoke from a wildfire rises
over Avalon on the
Thirsty cities may be able to buy water from farmers and high-altitude forests are expected to benefit for most of the century as trees enjoy the warmer weather, but a long-term effort to understand the details of climate change suggests costs will be higher than expected.
Much depends on whether global efforts to slow the Earth’s heating are successful.
“Climate change will impose substantial costs to Californians in the order of tens of billions of dollars annually,” the Climate Action Team draft report said, adding that “costs will be substantially lower if global emissions of greenhouse gases are curtailed.”
“On the whole, I am actually less optimistic,”
said Michael Hanemann,
an economist co-director of the
The summary of 37 climate change studies is the
latest in a series that
“Today’s new research reveals that
Heat may increase the output of some crops, but water will be a limiting factor. The study concluded the impact of climate change on the water sector itself could be modest—but Hanemann said studies thus far assumed a perfect market where cities could buy extra water from farms, a situation that he said was not possible.
One of the major changes in the new report, based
on an hourly look at
The report is available here
[Other stories on this topic appeared in the <a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12047842“>San Jose Mercury News</a>, <a href=“http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_12047842“>Contra Costa Times</a>, and <a href=“http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_12047842“>Oakland Tribune</a>. <a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-climate2-2009apr02,0,1696993.story“>Los Angeles Times</a>]
37. “Can Obama lay ground for climate talks?” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Robert Collier
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and President Obama attend a dinner on the eve
of the G-20 summit in
As he meets with other world leaders in
In fact, there are plenty of signs that
King Coal, which has been deservedly painted as
the greenhouse-gas villain that must be phased out, is being rescued instead.
About 40 new coal-fired plants are reportedly scheduled to be built across
For California, where support for action to
reduce emissions is far stronger than elsewhere in the United States, there is
a more close-to-home reason to care what happens in December in Copenhagen. Any
deadlock there would offer an inviting target for some developing nations and
their environmentalist allies.
Above all, this standoff over clean tech shows how
easy it is for progress to be blocked in the climate talks. If no treaty is
signed in December at
Robert Collier is a visiting scholar at the Center for Environmental Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.
38. “Invest pollution trading dividends in clean
energy industry” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Phil Angelides, Dan Kammen
A March 24 decision by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gases are dangerous moves the global warming discussion from assessment to action. Here is a line of action: Use proceeds from pollution-credit trading to invest in new energy sources.
President Obama gave a
historic and clear signal in his first budget plan that he intends to work with
Congress, the states, local communities and business leaders to limit future
greenhouse gas emissions that harm our planet. The president proposes creating
a carbon-trading market that rewards environmentally friendly industries and
makes renewable, nonfossil-fuel energy sources more
competitive. By auctioning off pollution permits at the start of such a
program, we can create a $600 billion-plus investment pool to steer
Cleaning the air and arresting the degradation of our planet will help our economy. That’s why we believe most of the revenue from a cap-and-trade system such as the president has proposed should be invested in domestic clean-energy solutions, such as energy efficiency, renewable power and transit. This will help accelerate the development of the nation’s vast clean-energy resources and move us toward energy security, climate stability and economic prosperity….
Our addiction to fossil fuels - and the
associated $800 billion annual price tag for imported energy - is equivalent to
the need to bail out the financial sector every year and represents the single
largest drain on the
… We believe Americans are willing to be called
to action for a big and bold initiative to protect and invest in
Phil Angelides, the former treasurer of California, now chairs
the Apollo
39. “Money will make Wall Street honest” –
Commentary by ROBERT REICH
(Marketplace [NPR],
ROBERT REICH: The administration is about to launch a new plan designed both to stimulate the economy and also clean up Wall Street at the same time. The plan consists of a one-time tax credit going to Wall Street executives and traders equal to their individual share of responsibility for the nation’s financial collapse.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates overall losses from the collapse to be about $7 trillion, but the CBO figures only about 10 percent of that sum will be claimed by Wall Streeters seeking the tax credits, because of the natural reluctance on the part of some executives and traders to take responsibility. That would put the cost of this new program at about $700 billion—roughly the amount the federal government is now paying to bailout the Street.
The really ingenious part of the plan is it will redirect the bailout money to these honest executives and traders who fess up and take responsibility. Get it? They get to clear their consciences, which is a first step to clearing up their balance sheets. At the same time, they get big tax breaks which will cause them to spend more, and thereby stimulate the economy.
And the plan doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime more than we’re already spending on the bailout, since the bailout money will just be redirected to these honest executives and traders. Everybody wins.
Believe me, this plan will work. Happy April 1.
Chiotakis: You didn’t think we could let this day go by without pulling your leg just a little bit? Our thanks to Robert Reich for cooking up this imaginary plan. He teaches public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
40. “
By Jere Downs - The Courier-Journal
With the reintroduction of federal legislation
designed to empower union organizers in Congress this month, the battle is
heating up in
The bill includes a controversial provision that allows a majority of workers to organize a union simply by signing cards — although employees also could use a traditional secret-ballot election….
Kentucky sits on the border between more unionized Northern manufacturing states and Southern states like Tennessee that have attracted nonunion manufacturing jobs thanks to state laws that allow an employee to opt out of union membership in a unionized workplace.
“The opportunity to organize has been so limited
and restricted under the current law,” Londrigan
said. “The Employee Free Choice Act would give the UAW a fair opportunity to
organize the
Kay Tillow , director of the Nurses Professional Organization, which
has been trying to unionize employees at
In December, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Audubon managers coerced nurses to vote against the union in an election scheduled a year ago. Earlier this month, the nurses group withdrew a petition for a union election at the hospital.
Should the bill become law, Tillow said, “You could have an optional way of showing majority support without having to go through that massive intimidation.” …
“Ending that intimidation is the key purpose of the act,” former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said in a conference call about that report with reporters last month. “Workers want to form unions. Union workers earn 30 percent higher wages on average than nonunion workers and are 59 percent more likely to have health insurance.” …
41. “What we need to do to halt climate change.
Mending our ways won’t be easy, especially during a recession” (The Edmonton
Journal,
By Daniel Kammen
Last week in Copenhagen, over 2,000 climate scientists gathered for an update on the science of global warming, and analysis of opportunities to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) and the needs to respond to change we have already committed to (adaptation). The scientific news is not surprising, but not good. Climate change is progressing as fast, or faster than expected, and changes in sea ice, the timing of seasons, and extreme weather events are all showing up as clear changes from what we would expect without human greenhouse gas emissions. While acknowledging the many areas where the details of the climate story need added investigation, we clearly need to accelerate the discussion of policy measures to truly launch the low-carbon economy.
The recent downturn in the economy makes launching significant new programs all the more politically challenging. An energy agenda focused on innovation and sustainability provides the opportunity to usher in a new energy system that combines significant job creation, stabilized energy costs, and global leadership for an economically and environmentally sustainable 21st century.
The international scientific consensus is that an 80 -per-cent or more reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions is needed. This is the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on which I serve as a participating member. Even with reductions of this magnitude, however, the risk of major ecological and environmental harm remains significant; a 15- to 30-per-cent chance that major environmental change is possible….
Daniel Kammen gave the University of Alberta School of Business’s EPCOR Distinguished Lecture in Calgary last week, on Innovations for a Low-Carbon Future. He is professor of energy at the University of California. Kammen is also a co-ordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
April 2 DANIEL KAMMEN spoke on “Power Sector
Development in
April 7 ROBERT REICH, Former Secretary of Labor, author of Supercapitalism, discussed the economy and the bailout with Ronn Owen on KGO-AM radio; http://www.kgoam810.com/Sectional.asp?id=32105
April 18 DAN KAMMEN gave a talk on “How Do Cars Fit into a Clean-Energy Future?” on Cal Day 2009 Open House.
April 21 DAN KAMMEN gave a talk on “Innovations for a Low-Carbon Society” for the Science Literacy Project, San Francisco Bay Area; http://www.scienceliteracyproject.org/workshops/san-francisco-bay-area-april-2009/session-descriptions
April 22 DAN KAMMEN was featured in a segment on “Cap-and-Trade” on Reuters TV.
April 23 DAVID KIRP spoke on “Centralized and
Decentralized Strategies in Education Reform:
History, Tradeoffs, and Implications for the Obama
Administration”, presented by the Interdisciplinary Graduate Committee on Youth
Policy,
DAN KAMMEN is interviewed on “Alternative Energy” for California Climate Change Extension, UC Cooperative Extension; view video
MICHAEL HANEMANN is interviewed on “The Economics of Climate Change” for California Climate Change Extension, UC Cooperative Extension; view video
STEPHEN MAURER published a paper on a new kernel for drug discovery for tropical diseases (Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 27, No. 4, April 2009): http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n4/pdf/nbt0409-320.pdf
To view a complete list
of GSPP videos, visit our Events Archive at: http://gspp.berkeley.edu/events/webcasts
Recent events viewable
on UC Webcast: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/archive.php?select2=36
If you would like further information
about any of the above, or hard copies of cited articles, we’d be happy to
provide them.
We are always delighted to receive your material for inclusion in the Digest. Please email the editor at wong23@berkeley.edu .
Sincerely,
Annette Doornbos
Director of External Relations and Development