Drill Here, Drill Now

During the 2008 presidential campaign, environmentalists mocked Sarah Pallin's simplistic slogans of "drill here, drill now."  But, today, President Obama is going to announce a breathtaking proposal to open up vast areas of coastal waters, including in the Arctic, for oil and gas drilling.

I suspect many environmentalists did not hear President Obama during the campaign talk about the "necessity" of opening new areas for drilling nor his endorsement of nuclear power.  The next issue, highly complex one, will be when the US Forest Service begins opening up federally managed forests for the harvesting of woody biomass as a source of biofuels.

Drill here, cut there....

Small Ball

And now President Obama is beginning to play small ball.

Not good.

Can Any Party Really Last?

Everyone and their mother is blogging about the Massachusetts election yesterday. But I thought this short piece about whether any national party can "re-align" and stay in power for years and years in this technologically driven world was very interesting.

We expect immediate results, we want government to fix things, and from my perspective there has been very little collective self reflection on how banks and Wall Street found the openings to prey on us. It's not like we kept the doors closed....

That said, the apparent anger which motivated many Massachusetts voters seems in line with seeking immediate results.

And while jobs, jobs, jobs should be the government's key objective, remember what is lost in all the hub-bub about health care is that if we can spend less (as a nation) on health care, we can spend more on infrastructure, buying cheap TVs, and granite countertops for our kitchens...

State of the Union Scheduled

In case you missed this, the Obama Administration hadn't scheduled his first State of the Union (until today). They were hoping he could announce the passage of some sort of health care "reform." Of course, that isn't happening any time in the next few weeks. The President Obama went to Massachusetts where there is a huge battle for Senator Ted Kennedy's seat. Polls today suggest a Republican may win, although with Obama's appearance on Sunday, who knows what will happen.

But it was announced today that President Obama will deliver the State of the Union next week, giving up on having a signed health care bill in hand.

Hopefully he is listening to what is going on. People are more than a little frustrated that they don't even know what the Lords of the Senate and House are wrangling over in terms of health care "reform." Maybe he can use this speech to let us in on the negotiations.

The fact the Coakley v. Brown race in Massachusetts is so close should say something to the Administration...are you listening?

Death Penalty Death Knell

Why not start off the New Year with an intense topic? The death penalty.

There are a few topics in America that are polarizing, you know, where people stand on one side of the line or the other. But the death penalty is one of them. Either you are for it or against it.

In Texas, there is a raging debate about whether a truly innocent man was executed last fall. This debate is what death penalty proponents have worried about forever and anti-death penalty advocates knew would happen sooner or later. However, it's not quite clear, of course, whether the man was innocent....

Then there were the problems in administering the lethal injection in Ohio, which resulted in suspending the executions of two inmates.

Today's news brought another interesting twist in the debate. The very think tank that crafted the legal underpinnings to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976 by the US Supreme Court, opening the door, again, for capital punishment, is going out of businesses because, essentially, they can no longer justify the death penalty. Now, they didn't say it that boldly, but that is what happened.

It will be interesting to watch as debates over capital punishment begin to unfold in the next few years. It's political hot potatoes to come out against the death penalty, particularly if you're a Democrat. President Obama supported the death penalty in his presidential campaign, even for non-capital but heinous crimes such as child rape. Slowly, very slowly, the US Supreme Court has been narrowing the ability of state's to administer the ultimate penalty.

Which is to say, nothing is every final in our society. The death penalty was abolished in 1962, re-instituted in 1976 and may well be effectively abolished again in the near future.

Don't Start Laughing -- What Agreement?

Well, I guess you could say the negotiations in Copenhagen ended with an agreement to agree?

Whatever.

Afghanistan

It seems President Obama is going to "surge" with 30,000 troops, but he wants them out of the country in 2011.

I hope this works. It's a huge risk in a country where the Brits lost, the Soviet Union lost, the moderate Afghanies have lost...

Fort Hood

Unfortunately, eulogies usually become great speeches. President Obama's talk the the Fort Hood memorial service, on the eve of Veterans Day, is perfect in tone and content.

We're Talking Salmon

It's been over 10 years since the federal government declared several "runs" of salmon here in the Pacific Northwest threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in all sorts of salmon habitat restoration projects all over the Puget Sound region as well along the mainstem and tributaries of the Columbia River, both major salmon spawning areas. Hundreds of hours of conferences and seminars have been held. And literally whole stands of timber have been used to create the paper filed in litigation after litigation on salmon issues, much less the voluminous (and sometimes disingenuous) habitat conservation plans.

And yet, the Pacific Northwest, like much of the country, ravenously ate up land during the real estate boom, new developments with amenities like golf courses and even vineyards sprung up in desert lands, fed by water from the Columbia and other rivers. Miles and miles of pavement were laid to feed cul d' sacs and growing commuter populations. And no matter how well engineered to prevent massive run-offs, millions of gallons of storm water contaminated with God-knows-what, entered every watershed. The salmon continue to suffer.

Now, the Obama Administration, with great fanfare, announced it's salmon recovery plans. Which are much like the Bush Administration. No dams on the Snake River will be removed or decommissioned. And the requirements for habitat protections continue to be lame at best.

As wild salmon populations continue to decline, this once abundant anadromous fish is slowly becoming a prisoner of politics. All the money spent by hydro utilities, timber companies, municipalities, and state governments on habitat restoration is not going to fix the causes of salmon declines nor enhance their restoration. At some point, then, rather than continuing the charade that we are trying to prevent the extinction of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps we really need to begin the conversation about what extinction really means.

Anyone seen a Passenger pigeon recently?

Rio 2016!

Despite heavy lobbying from even President Obama, Chicago was rejected in it's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Rather, those summer games were awarded to Rio de Janeiro, the first time the Olympic Games will be in South America.

In this country there is a lingering debate whether President Obama should have gone to Copenhagen, Denmark, to lobby for his hometown. After it was announced Rio won the bid, a pundit who is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from President Obama commented that it is appropriate for a President to advocate for commercial interests in his country. And I would agree with that. Unfortunately, the Olympics have been reduced to a commercial interest.

Having been the the summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, and watching every single Olympiad since birth, I will say they continue to be amazing events where once every four years, for two weeks, the world is able to stop and glorify amazing feats of athleticism. Despite all the corporate sponsorships and mega-money made by athletes from endorsements, the events are still able to capture our collective imaginations. Now I find myself watching the less glamorous events, such as the equestrian, where rider and animal become one, gliding over jumps, trying to match grace and time. But of course, like every other sports junkie, I can not resist Michael Phelps or Dana Torres, the amazing marathoners or the bikini clad beach volleyball spikers.

I can not wait to watch the opening ceremonies from Rio. Congratulations!

What Do We Want? Change

I am beginning to sound like a one-note trumpet player. Perhaps more like watching a violinist while Rome burns. But the reforms of the United States financial industry ain't gonna' happen. You know it isn't when a pundit in Forbes even admits it isn't going to happen.

To Arianna Huffington's credit, she has been writing about the failure to pursue reform last winter when the "policy window" was wide open (even President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel admitted that a crisis provides opportunities for policy changes). Now, with Wall Street's lobbyists out moneying and out gunning everyone, the likelihood for change is, well, zip.

This time around it's up to us to watch our own backs.

A New Hero

As promised a few weeks ago, US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the settlement between Bank of America's Merrill Lynch and the Securities Exchange Commission. The initial complaint by the SEC was over the mega-bonuses that Merrill awarded it's employees prior to the end of the year. Remember? Merrill is the one who ran into the arms of Bank of America because it was going belly-up? But the so-called geniuses of Merrill apparently still "deserved" a bonus? Go figure. Anyway, the SEC filed a complaint because of Bank of America's failure to disclose this information to it's shareholders.

Here it is, in the judge's own words, the settlement "does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice or morality."

Gotta' love it. On the same day President Obama remembered that his administration promised to reform Wall Street (oh, yeah, that idea) having lost their window of opportunity, it took a federal judge to begin the process. Hello! Wall Street! Even the SEC was willing, yet again, to go lightly on who it was regulating (in this case Bank of America) and this brave, heroic judge said it wasn't enough.

Flap Over Van Jones

Apparently for a number of weeks, Fox News commentator, Glenn Beck, has been ranting about Obama Administration hire (working in the White House) Van Jones. Mr. Jones, a well known West Coast activist, was "recruited" to work on "green jobs," which is something he has worked on, along with prison reform and environmental justice campaigns.

Glenn Beck, known as an extremely conservative commentator (in the style of Rush Limbaugh) picked up on several issues about Jones: the fact Jones called Republicans assholes, that he talked about white polluters and white environmentalists harming black communities, that Jones belonged to a group in the mid-1990s that advocated Marxist solutions to economic injustices, and maybe because Jones had been arrested in San Francisco in post-Rodney King riots and for the rioting and property destruction in Seattle during the World Trade Organization meetings in 1999 (Beck linked Jones with the anarchists who took "credit" for the Seattle riots).

Jones was hired by the White House, who, this weekend, distanced themselves from him by saying the hire did not go through the normal "vetting" process. It seems to me that an Administration that says it wants change should have taken more care to vet their hires. But more importantly, change also means not doing the usual Washington, DC shuffle. In other words, not ditching people when something about their pasts become controversial. Like so many other Administrations, particularly the Clinton one, loyalty to staff seems rather thin with the Obama Administration. This was a good moment, a teaching moment, for Obama, to talk about how people evolve in their thinking, how we tend to moderate our wild ideas as we grow older, but from those pasts, many good things can grow.

Prior to this weekend, Jones was a hero of many in the progressive movement, and seemingly could do no wrong among the newly minted environmental/social justice opinion makers. He was loved by everyone from Arianna Huffington to Rachel Maddow. He was feted by corporate American, seeming to fit their idea of having Van Jones around will fulfill environmental justice concerns. Check.

Now of course, since his resignation, attributed by the anti-Beck crowd as being hounded out of the White House, Jones stock is soaring. He is a martyr to the cause of being against Fox News and conservative political commentators.

And many in the Washington, DC establishment are wondering whether the "new" political atmosphere is being held accountable for comments made (and refuted) in your past. I think about Senator Ted Kennedy's eloquence when he talked about how none of us are defined by one incident, one or two moments in time. We are vastly more complicated than that. Jones should not be judged, least of all by a hyperbolic, bombastic commentator, for things he said or petitions he signed. He was hired by the Obama Administration because many many people in the business sector, including Meg Whitman, the former CEO (and Republican candidate for California governor) thinks Jones is a catalyst for change when it comes to jobs, the environment, and social justice.

On one list serv that I am a member, which caters to journalism, the emails have been flying over Glenn Beck's irresponsibility and how he was unjust to Jones.

Here is how I look at it. There is no doubt that Van Jones is a charismatic and charming leader of a many pronged movement to link social justice, environmental issues, and economic class. There have been many who have toiled in these trenches for decades before Van Jones swept onto the scene, and many who will continue the work long after Van Jones moves onto other issues. His leadership skills, however, are far far better off in the advocacy arena than the political milieu where caution and extraordinary care with words and actions are the norm. In the advocacy arena, hyperbole and pushing caution to the side are keys to success. In the White House, his particular skills, are stifled.

Also, if Jones is as a sophisticated leader as has been advertised, surely he can understand the delicacy of the Obama Administration. President Obama must, at all times, appear to be the president of all Americans (including Glenn Beck). While there is no doubt that issues of environmental justice (as in pollution affecting poorer communities) impact people of color far more than others, increasingly issues of desperate impacts are based on economic class rather than color of skin. Jones should not be held accountable for his prior advocacy comments, but on the other hand surely Jones knew his prior comments and beliefs would haunt the Obama Administration if and when someone cared to spend the time looking at them. A simple Google or Bing search will reveal Jones and his prior comments (as well as a view of Breaking the Chain a video done by Eugene anarchists about the Seattle WTO protests/riots will show an energetic Jones) and hopefully he knew someday, someone would check him out.

It's sad to see the bifurcation of advocacy and politics. In other words, that making the transition from advocacy work to politics is harder and harder. This difficulty in the transition also makes politics less interesting, more driven toward the cautious and easy resolution, rather than tackling large picture issues with zeal and energy. But, the silver lining to this is that perhaps people who are in advocacy will not be inclined to join the government, but rather be far more effective standing on the outside lobbing bombshells, pushing the slow moving political process to take heed or we'll take it to the streets.

Disintegrating Conversations on Health Care

It's been said time and time again, the national conversation over health care seems to be disintegrating rather than arriving at resolution.

I thought this piece by Mark Penn was spot-on. The Obama Administration, as great a messenger as it was during the campaign, seems to be muddled. There is no uplifting message on what they see as their vision for Americans through any changes to the current systems that provide health care and health insurance in this country (remember, health care and health insurance are two different things).

Maybe I'd be moved to contact legislators if I knew what, exactly, this Administration is for, not against. Before anything else, we need some clarity and leadership from the President.

ObamaCare

President Obama has moved onto two issues which have been a part of political dialogue for at least thirty years: health care and education. It seems we have been debating these issues for ions. I am beginning to feel we are in an Orwellian "forever crisis" in education and health care. And I actually wonder if there is a crisis in either.

There is no doubt that the cost of health insurance has increased. Dramatically. I have been a consumer of private health insurance for many years, juggling the costs, squinting at computer screens trying to find lower premiums and still have care when/if I need it. I am extremely healthy. I do all the things this current Administration wants to "nudge" us into doing: I have never smoked, exercise like crazy, keep my weight in check. I don't eat a lot of sweets, drink a lot of coffee, and don't visit the doctor often! But my premiums kept going up. Somewhere in this scenario, someone was making a lot of money off of my monthly payments.

On the other hand I am of the age where the medical profession likes to recommend lots of tests. Going to the doctor is no longer an hourly visit, it's days and days of hourly tests: mammograms, colonoscopies, bone densities. And when I sat down with the doctor for my "pre-surgery" exam for the colonoscopy, I realized all of this had become way overblown. I mean, millions of people before me had lived great lives without having some doctor stick a laser down their colon. But this doctor went through this draconian lecture about how often people get colon cancer, and oh, you're co-pay is $15 and the surgery is over $2000! Yikes!

While I have been supportive of addressing the costs of health care, I think we are still not ready, as a society, to deal with this issue full on. Just as other sensitive problems have taken years, sometimes decades, to solve, this one may just need more seasoning. It's personal, whether it is should Medicare cover hip replacements for our parents or whether a private insurer can decide not to allow a defibrillator. In the abstract we all "get it," but at the moment, when it's our mother, our brother, our child, we want what is best and available. We need time to have a longer national discussion. And frankly, our minds have been on the economy. On our neighbor's foreclosure, our bills, our friend's job.

And then there is education. I have also been an avid consumer of education. I've been to elite private universities and state schools. I have taught at both. I have lectured at elementary schools deep in the ghettos and private elite schools that have graduated some of our country's finest minds. While I am not a professional educator, it seems to me our education system is doing just fine. We're producing great kids who are smart, motivated, committed. Cranky up the education system to rely on "indicators," such as test scores or other quantifiable measurables always seems regressive to me. Measuring doesn't account for learning and the multiple ways we absorb life.

I am wondering about President Obama right now. He has mis-stepped on these two issues. And seems to have lost focus on financial industry reform, the economy, and other front burner issues. We need Obama to care, every moment, about those kinds of things rather than get bogged down in "problems" that seem to have been around for a very long time and are dug out of the closet by every single politician when they want easy votes.

Fear Itself

I thought this piece in today's New York Times was perfect. Obama is not Franklin Roosevelt. The President's financial overhaul proposals reek of compromise and caving in to the banking industry.

The barn door was shut months ago and the cows and horses are laughing all the way to the fields.

It seems the Obama Administration is fearing the worst thing for a "change" politician. Getting re-elected.

Green Shoots Doused?

The Obama Administration is touting "green shoots," their language for signs on progress the economy is turning around. Small pieces of data, they say, indicate that their stimulus package is beginning to work. One such data point is the unemployment rate which was announced last week. While 9.5% is the highest in over 20 years, the Administration asserts that the rate of increase in unemployment is slowing down. I feel better already.

But really, the economy is still reeling and the slightest hiccup can cause problems. Over the past few weeks gas prices have soared. The price of a barrel of oil has risen even more and for the first time in a long long time, gas prices have not even kept up with the price of oil. Increasing oil prices are frequently a sign that the economy is growing. Most oil traders subscribe to the notions of supply and demand. If the economy is growing, demand for oil increases and given the oil cartels and, well, er, greed of the big oil companies, supply is often limited. When the Obama Administration announces there are green shoots, in other words, hope for the economy, oil traders boost the price of oil and gas prices soar.

But here is the problem. Over 9.5% of Americans are unemployed. In most places it takes a car to look for work. Go to the unemployment office, to job interviews scattered throughout the area, pick up kids from school, network with employed parents on the sidelines of the soccer game, you get the idea. If the cost of gas increases, as it has, then something on a fix income has to go. Green shoots wither.

And of course, there are the transportation wonks who advocate increasing federal gas taxes so people can not afford to drive (one of these days I will talk about all my environmental colleagues who owned large cars and drove to work, every day).

I don't envy the economists and budget gurus advising President Obama. This is a delicate and tough time. Hopefully, however, they are paying attention to the little things that can send families over the edge. Gas prices are certainly one of them.

Imprisoning Terrorists

I remember driving up Prospect Street in New Haven the morning of June 24, 1993. Fire trucks and aid cars were blocking the street and I had to take a detour to get to Sage Hall, the Yale School of Forestry. I later learned David Gelernter, a computer science professor, had opened a package which contained a bomb. While his injuries were not fatal, he was lucky. Gelernter was another victim of what the FBI called at the time, the UNABOMer, or as we now know, Ted Kaczynski.

Earlier that year, I was returning from lunch along Broadway when I heard hundreds of sirens and watches police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances careen through lower Manhattan traffic. It was February 23, 1993. The first attempt at bombing the World Trade Towers. That night, when I left the subway at Grand Central Terminal, there were armed National Guardsmen along the train platforms. Eery sight at the time.

Both Kaczynski and the militants responsible for the World Trade bombing in February, 1993, were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced in federal courts. Kaczynski and Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade bombing, are now incarcerated at the federal super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

Recently, the federal Bureau of Prisons has established other prisons within prisons to incarcerate terrorists. So far, there are two Communications Management Units, one in Marion, Illinois and Terre Haute, Indiana. Among other inmates in these units are two of the Earth Liberation Front members who committed a number of arsons throughout the west. These CMUs constrict communication by the inmates with the outside world and closely monitor the inmates while they serve their sentences, but they are not held in solitary confinement as the inmates are in Florence, Colorado.

As the Obama Administration begins resolving what to do with the more than 200 detainees held at Guantanamo, Cuba, the politicians concerned about public backlash against these so-called "bad guys" have raised a strawman argument that these men should not be incarcerated in federal prisons because of safety issues. And President Obama has rightly responded by saying no one, not one convicted terrorist, has escaped from a federal prison.

If it is one thing we do well here in America, it's our prisons.

Today, the first detainee from Guantanamo was brought to the United States for a trial on his involvement with the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Our justice system is a model of fairness and impartiality. While there are many things wrong with our system, it sure beats what we have witnessed recently in North Korea or Iraq.

If this man is found guilty, he should be incarcerated in one of our prisons. They work well. Often too well, but that is another discussion. It is the role of politicians to help calm unjustifiable fears. In this case, our leaders are not serving us well by flaming the fires of fear that we can not imprison the convicted terrorists.

Post Script: After I did this entry, I found a piece on Huffington Post by Daniel McGowan, one of the more vocal ELFers. He is currently incarcerated at the Communication Management Unit in Marion. It's amazing, frankly, that this piece somehow managed to get out of the prison, which essentially shoots down my theory the federal Bureau of Prisons can "contain" terrorists! But it's an interesting read, nonetheless.

Forests and Obama

President Obama batted 1000 on his Supreme Court nominee.  But when it comes to our national forests, he may have been a little quick.  Homer Wilkes is a career bureaucrat with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which happens to be part of the Department of Agriculture (where the US Forest Service also resides).  But to the chagrin of foresters, forest activists, and more than likely the employees of the US Forest Service, Wilkes was nominated to be the Undersecretary for natural resources and the environment.  

Certainly westerners, who believe the Forest Service belongs in their domain, are upset because the nominee is not a westerner, much less any experience in forests.  In fact, his role with the NRCS has been strictly focused on urban issues.

While President Obama seems enamored with the big environmental issues of the day, such as global climate change, he seems disinterested in land based controversies, as if he can simply throw a little attention toward oil and gas leases, forest issues, national park management conflicts, and they will go away simply by the force of his charm.  It's curious that when President Obama signed the credit card reform act he mentioned nothing about the rider allowing loaded guns into National Parks, which according to Park employees, could be a potential problem (although I am not sure it will be given we probably don't have a clue how many loaded guns already went into the parks anyway).

To turn the huge ship around on global climate change will not only require modifications on greenhouse gas emissions, but also a long and thoughtful look at how we manage our natural resources, particularly forests.  Appointments dealing with national forests and other resource based lands is not a throw-away.  

Empathy on the Supreme Court

No matter who President Obama picked for his Supreme Court nominee, you knew they would be bright and well qualified to be one of the Supremes.  It certainly seems that Sonia Sotormayor fills the bill.  Obama clearly loved his time at Harvard Law and teaching at the University of Chicago Law School.  He loves the give and take.  The intellectual stamina it takes to wade through US Supreme Court opinions.  So here she is, Sonia Sotomayor.  Princeton, Yale, both public service and private practice experience.  Years as a District Court judge where her days are filled listening to criminal drug cases, civil lawsuits between disgruntled plaintiffs and lawyered-up defendants, and appeals from bankruptcy cases and magistrates rulings.  She saw it all as a District Court judge in New York City.

Prior to making his decision, President Obama apparently stated that he wanted a justice who had empathy.  The right-wing went nuts, equating empathy with being an activist judge, assuming that if a justice was empathetic they would always rule for the underdog.  But they mistook the definition of empathy.  To be empathetic is to listen to all sides, to try and understand someone else's point of view.  That however is not sympathetic.  And one can and should be empathetic without being sympathetic.  For instance, Judge Sotomayor may have been empathetic to a drug dealer's life story, trying to make a buck on the streets of South Bronx.  But you know, that doesn't mean she was sympathetic.  She may have chastised the dealer for bringing drugs to her childhood neighborhood, for not trying to find other, legal ways, to make a living.  

Being empathetic, however, is the most important quality for a Supreme Court Justice.  If there ever was a governmental position that is isolated and detached from the every day lives of Americans, it is being a Supreme.  They have clerks who come from the creme de la creme of law schools, who research and indeed, write most of the opinions.  They work with eight other people, also appointed for life, who apparently rarely interact except for their meetings to decide on a scant 80 or so cases to hear during a session that runs from October to June.  It's a cool job if you can get it!

So having someone on the court who may remember what it was like to be hungry, or whose neighbors might have been broke, or who had to work through high school...well, it adds a bit of American values to an American institution.  And in those 80 or so cases, maybe when some of the justices want to decide the case on a procedural ground, throwing out a convict's last appeal because he didn't know the filing date, maybe her voice will be the one to ask to look at the matter on substantive grounds.  That maybe that one person should have a second look at the merits of his case.  And if that is judicial activism, well, that's just fine.

We could have used empathy when the interned Japanese sought relief from their rounding up and imprisonment without cause during World War II.  We could have used empathy during Plusey v. Ferguson.  We could have used empathy in the recent Leadbetter case.  

Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  Princeton Phi Beta Kappa.  Yale Law Review Editor.  Smart, gutsy, moderate, empathetic.  It's a good day.