With U.S. climate legislation and an international climate agreement both deferred to 2010, the Obama administration is unilaterally pursuing (subscription) several fronts in the battle against global warming. One agency playing a quiet but significant role in this effort is the Department of the Interior, which under Secretary Ken Salazar is initiating renewable energy projects on public lands, putting more acres of land under federal protection, and working with communities to assess local impacts of climate change.
Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes spoke to National Journal last month about the agency's new initiatives, the effects of climate on endangered species, and whether the administration is waging a "war on the West." Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading Interior Takes Up Climate Battle.
Civil libertarians greeted Barack Obama's election last year with high expectations that he would dramatically change Bush administration policies. As President Obama approaches his first anniversary in office, these activists see some bright spots, such as his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, despite the delays in implementation; but they are disappointed, they say, that too often the president has not broken with past practices. Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, recently offered an assessment of Obama's performance. Edited excerpts of that interview follow.
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Nancy Sutley came to the Obama administration with a decidedly beyond-the-Beltway perspective. Before being named chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, she was deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles and a member of the board of directors of Southern California's Metropolitan Water District.
Sutley peppers her conversations with California stories. Explaining why she thinks the nation needs a plan for coping with climate change, Sutley talked about the headaches that rising sea levels could cause local governments. "My last job was with the city of Los Angeles, which owns the Port of Los Angeles," she said. "The port is at sea level. So we've got to think about the impacts on those facilities. The federal government needs to help local governments develop a forward-looking strategy to deal with adapting to climate change."
From 1999 to 2003, Sutley was deputy secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations at the California Environmental Protection Agency. During the Clinton administration, she was first a senior policy adviser to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator in San Franciscoand later a special assistant to EPA Administrator Carol Browner in Washington.
Sutley, who holds a master's degree in public policy from Harvard, sat down with National Journal shortly before heading to Copenhagen for the U.N. conference on climate change. Following are excerpts from that interview.
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It's common knowledge that America's health care spending is out of control, and many have attributed it in part to wasteful spending. But it's been tough to identify just how much spending is wasted. A report released by Thomson Reuters Healthcare Analytics in October tried to put a price tag on health care waste, estimating that $700 billion is misspent every year on everything from administrative costs to useless tests. Bob Kelley, author of the report, and Courtney Morris, also of Thomson Reuters, sat down with NationalJournal.com to discuss their findings and the implications for health care reform.
Continue reading Study Puts Price Tag On Health Care Waste.
Gen. Martin Dempsey heads the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), which is in the final stages of revising a new "Army Capstone Concept" to guide all future doctrinal manuals and training programs. He spoke to reporters from National Journal and other publications about the Army's evolving concepts on Dec. 9. Edited excerpts of the interview follow.
Continue reading Gen. Dempsey: Adaptability Is Power.
At the conclusion of the emergency Democratic caucus meeting late Monday called by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, the doors swung open just wide enough for some reporters to peer inside. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., could be seen standing at the front of the room as senators filed out. Facing a thicket of microphones, the exiting senators hastened away, grim-faced and closed-mouthed. But Lieberman hung back inside, deep in conversation with Reid and Connecticut colleague Christopher Dodd. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois hovered a step or two away. Unaware that they could be seen, all had smiles on their faces as they conversed. All looked relaxed after Reid's let's-hang-together meeting, which was focused on how important it is for Democrats to show Americans that they are capable of "governing."
Lieberman, feeling the health care heat but appearing unruffled, finally strode out to face reporters. For audiences now trying to untangle Lieberman's logic, what follows are excerpts of what he said Monday night about health care reform, the Senate's progress and his current resistance to any expansion of Medicare to a younger demographic.
Continue reading Lieberman Says He's Not Alone On Medicare.
Two months ago, in a case believed to be the first of its kind, Iraq War veteran Jessie Bratcher was found guilty of murder but legally insane because of combat post-traumatic stress disorder. About two weeks ago, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence for a Korean War veteran convicted of murder, ruling that the jury should have taken George Porter's combat PTSD into consideration.
These rulings have left observers wondering how many more cases like these will occur and what their effect will be on veterans' rights in the courtroom.
NationalJournal.com spoke with Floyd Meshad, president and founder of the National Veterans Foundation, about PTSD and capital crimes. The former Army captain counseled U.S. soldiers in Vietnam; he has been working as a therapist for veterans for more than 30 years and is recognized as one of the first to study PTSD. Because of his expertise, he was consulted in the Bratcher case. Meshad is currently working on a book to educate defense attorneys on how to handle cases involving PTSD.
Continue reading The Emerging PTSD Defense.
President Obama signaled his commitment to global food security by appointing Ertharin Cousin, a senior adviser to the presidential campaign, as his ambassador to the three United Nations food agencies in Rome. They are the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, which analyzes the world food situation and helps countries develop policies; the World Food Program, which distributes food aid; and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which helps farmers in developing countries.
Cousin, 52, is a Chicago native and a graduate of the University of Illinois (Chicago) and the University of Georgia Law School. She met Obama when he was conducting a voter-registration drive on Chicago's South Side. She brings to the job experience as an executive with Jewel Food Stores, Albertsons, and America's Second Harvest, a network of food banks now called Feeding America. She was a junior appointee in President Clinton's State Department. In a November 19 interview after the U.N. World Food Summit in Rome, Cousin discussed with National Journal the challenges she faces.
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There's a rum war brewing between Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Diageo, purveyor of Captain Morgan rum, is preparing to split for the Virgin Islands, where the company will enjoy millions in tax breaks. San Juan is balking, and Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi (D), Puerto Rico's nonvoting representative in Congress, is pushing legislation that he says would level the playing field. (See Wednesday's Insider Interview with Virgin Islands Gov. John deJongh for more.)
Pierluisi spoke with NationalJournal.com's David Gauvey Herbert about fair trade, an anonymous smear campaign against the Virgin Islands and his relationship with his Caribbean neighbors.
Continue reading P.R. Seeks 'Fair Competition' With Neighbors.
Updated at 12:22 p.m. on Dec. 9.
It's hard to imagine the Virgin Islands -- of aquamarine waters and calypso drums -- at war, but the U.S. territory has been locked in a rum-fueled brouhaha with neighboring Puerto Rico for months.
The Virgin Islands are punch-drunk after inking a 30-year contract last year with British-based spirits giant Diageo to open a new factory in the territory. Diageo will crank out Captain Morgan rum, generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in excise taxes and creating new jobs, while the Virgin Islands has agreed to build the company a state-of-the-art processing plant and give them a sweetheart tax deal for the next three decades. (Disclosure: Until recently, Diageo sponsored a semi-regular poll with The Hotline, which is also published by Atlantic Media Co.)
Diageo's Caribbean operations are currently based in Puerto Rico, and San Juan is steamed to see the company (and its tax revenue) go. So upset, in fact, that its non-voting representative in Congress, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi (D), has tried to scuttle the deal by introducing legislation that would cap the amount of tax subsidies the Virgin Islands can offer Diageo.
Both sides have spent more than $800,000 on lobbying this year alone. The Congressional Black Caucus even weighed in Tuesday, writing a letter to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY, support the Virgin Islands' position.
But Virgin Islands Gov. John deJongh (D) is eager to downplay the dispute. He spoke with NationalJournal.com's David Gauvey Herbert about the origins of the deal, how the Virgin Islands is coping with the economic downturn and why he still loves Puerto Rico.
Continue reading Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico Rumble Over Rum.
Concerns about economic issues topped Washington's agenda with more urgency this week. President Obama convened a jobs summit today to combat unemployment over 10 percent; meanwhile, answering calls to rein in a financial sector held largely responsible for last year's economic collapse, the House Financial Services Committee passed a broad financial reform package on Wednesday. The bill, which comprises a set of smaller pieces of legislation, is to reach the chamber's floor next week, according to two congressmen.
At a policy breakfast co-sponsored by National Journal and the Credit Union National Association, Reps. Brad Miller, D-N.C., and Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., both members of the Financial Services Committee, sat down with National Journal's John Maggs to discuss the bill's prospects for passage, changes to the Federal Reserve and why Republicans should get on board with reform.
Continue reading Financial Reform Still Crucial, Dems Say.
Rep. Michael McMahon, D-N.Y., came out in support of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy this week despite misgivings among his Democratic colleagues about increased troop levels.
The freshman congressman from Staten Island argues that the strategy refocuses the country on the fight against the forces that attacked New York on Sept. 11, 2001. McMahon is the first Democrat in more than two decades to represent his district, which was won by Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008.
A member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, McMahon spoke with National Journal after praising Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a panel hearing on the strategy on Dec. 2. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading 'Make Sure They Can Never Attack Us Again'.
The climate science community has been in an uproar since Nov. 19, after the unauthorized release of more than 1,000 e-mails and 2,000 documents from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, in the United Kingdom.
The unit, and its director, Phil Jones, are central players in the global climate forecasting community, and their work informs the reports released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In turn, those IPCC reports are a foundation for the myriad advocacy campaigns to cap or tax carbon output, to promote "green" technologies, and to regulate the world's energy sector. Critics say the released e-mails and reports show Jones and his U.K. and U.S. colleagues -- such as Michael Mann of Penn State -- sabotaging skeptics, spinning data and evading transparency requirements. Although Jones temporarily stepped down from his post Tuesday, he and his allies have denied wrongdoing and advocates of carbon regulation have downplayed the controversy.
But the e-mails and documents have been an embarrassment to some climate scientists, including Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Curry complained in a Nov. 22 post on the skeptics' blog climateaudit.org about a "lack of transparency in climate data, and 'tribalism' in some segments of the climate research community." She explained her concerns to National Journal's Neil Munro on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
Continue reading Climate Scientist: Time For More Transparency.
Health care reform legislation before Congress promises to get insurance coverage to most of the nation's 47 million uninsured people. But Gary Lauer, chairman and CEO of eHealth Insurance, a large online insurance broker, worries that policymakers aren't paying enough attention to enrollment strategies. He's particularly concerned that the House-passed legislation would require people who receive premium subsidies to buy their insurance through an exchange-type entity, and that cutting out brokers such as eHealth, or keeping subsidized people from going directly to insurance carriers, could hamper enrollment.
The following are edited excerpts from a recent interview with Lauer.
Continue reading Making Sure The Rolls Are Filled.
