When Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared war on Pentagon bloat this summer, he put Ashton Carter, the Department of Defense's top arms buyer, in charge of the campaign.
A theoretical physicist by training and former Rhodes Scholar, Carter serves as the under secretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, one of the most powerful jobs in the Pentagon. He oversees hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of programs, from the purchase of thousands of armored vehicles for Afghanistan to the hiring of the tech-savvy contractors who help manage military computer networks.
Like his boss, Carter openly acknowledges that the post-Sept. 11 spike in defense spending is rapidly coming to an end. He has worked with Gates to scrap or restructure more 30 high-profile programs, halting new purchases of the expensive F-22 fighter jet and scrapping the centerpiece of the Army's $200 billion Future Combat System.
This week, he announced dozens of contracting changes designed to help Gates wring $100 billion in savings out of the Pentagon's budget over the next five years. Carter sat down with National Journal to discuss what will likely be the biggest challenge of his professional career.
Edited excerpts of the interview follow.
Continue reading Pentagon's Top Arms Buyer On Cutting Back.
At some point in the next week, BP will likely initiate the "bottom kill" procedure that permanently plugs the Macondo well, bringing to an end the worst maritime oil spill in American history. No more 24/7 video of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. No more weekly tutorials on the intricacies of deepwater oil drilling. No more sludge cloud shadowing the Obama administration's every move in the 2010 summer of discontent. Now only the clean-up and long-term repercussions remain to sort out.
Perhaps no one has a better first-hand grasp of the Deepwater Horizon disaster than retired Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander who also coordinated the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Recently, National Journal spoke with Allen about lessons learned from the crisis and federal response, and how they might affect future policy. Edited excerpts from that interview follow.
Continue reading Deepwater Horizon's Enduring Lessons.
The Obama administration appointed its drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, a year ago this month, shortly after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton led a delegation to Mexico to assess its devastating drug war and announced that America's appetite for drugs was a significant part of the problem.
While Kerlikowske has done away with the rhetoric about an endless war on drugs in his search for practical, cost-effective drug policy, the drug-funded violence of Mexico's cartels has been a persistent problem during his tenure.
Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began taking aggressive steps to shut down the cartels, he has received American aid, and Kerlikowske has met numerous times with him and other high-level officials. Kerlikowske recently spoke with NationalJournal.com about this conflict, how it affects the border region, and how the administration hopes to deal with it going forward. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading Drug Czar Looks South Of The Border.
The Internet may have revolutionized communication, but the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan is poised to revolutionize just about everything else -- including your energy use.
The plan is designed in part to give consumers -- and utilities -- more detailed information about electricity usage in order to encourage the smarter energy management required to cushion the transition from traditional to renewable energy sources.
According to Nick Sinai, director of energy and environment for the FCC's broadband initiative, the "smart grid" may become a reality in the next decade. The federal government has a daunting to-do list, which includes revamping the current grid, harmonizing a patchwork of regulatory regimes, enacting measures to protect consumer privacy, and standardizing energy information. But Sinai imagines the day a consumer can adjust his freezer's icemaker while away on vacation, or monitor his family's energy consumption in real time.
"Imagine a home security system, like an ADT or Tyco system, but it also lets you control your lights and monitor your home remotely and set temperature points and so forth," he said. "... That's an example that is outside of the utility business model, and it's outside of the purview of a state regulator on energy, but it's an example of how customers could get value in controlling their energy consumption, value in understanding their energy consumption, and perhaps would be willing to pay that 30 or 40 dollars a month to an integrated home security and home automation company."
NationalJournal.com spoke with Sinai about these and other smart grid issues. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading An Unexpected Energy Solution?.
EPA is expected to announce in April its finalized "tailoring rule" regulating greenhouse gas emissions of stationary sources. The forthcoming regulations have prompted two separate efforts by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to rein in the agency's regulatory power. Rockefeller's plan would temporarily delay EPA's regulations over stationary sources, while Murkowski's would effectively veto EPA's "endangerment finding" that gives the agency authority to regulate emissions.
While on the Hill this week to testify about the agency's budget, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has spent much of her time seeking to allay concerns about the regulations. She spoke with reporters after a hearing on Wednesday. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading Jackson Cagey On Efforts To Block EPA Regulation.
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States launched the most sweeping reorganization of the federal government in half a century, in part to help harden the homeland against another attack and to better coordinate response to a future disaster. The government's initial, fumbling response in 2005 to Hurricane Katrina -- the costliest and one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history -- indicated just how much work remained.
When the after-action reviews of the recent catastrophic earthquake in Haiti are finally written, the tragedy will likely prove another major milestone in gauging U.S. disaster response. For an early preview, National Journal spoke with the man tasked with salvaging the Katrina operation and an insider during the Haiti crisis, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. Edited excerpts from that interview follow.
Continue reading U.S. Disaster Response From Katrina To Haiti.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., took Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag to task at a February 2 Senate Budget Committee hearing on President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal, arguing that the Obama administration was seeking to illegally use $30 billion from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program for a small business lending effort, instead of for deficit reduction. In a February 2 interview with National Journal following the hearing, Orszag sought to clarify the administration's plans, and also talked about the administration's job creation efforts. Edited excerpts follow after the jump.
Subscribers can also read further excerpts from National Journal's interview with Orszag in this week's issue.
Continue reading Orszag Explains TARP Plan.
Speaking with political reporters the morning after President Obama's State of the Union, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer signaled both optimism and flexibility about moving the health care reform bill through Congress. He was interviewed as part of a "Congressional Debriefing" hosted by National Journal and The Atlantic. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading WH Aide Discusses 'Redefining' Health Bill.
With nearly $100 billion to distribute from the economic stimulus, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has had an unusual first year in office. Devising ways to dole out the money -- more than one and a half times the amount appropriated to the department the previous year -- has shaped Duncan's role as America's education chief. Race to the Top, the Obama administration's $4.35 billion grant competition for stimulus funds, sent states into a legislative scramble to boost their chances of getting a share -- 40 states applied last week for the first round of the competition. Signaling a longer-term commitment to the program, President Obama recently announced that he would ask Congress for an additional $1.35 billion.
In 2009, Duncan also conducted a "listening and learning tour" to gather feedback on the reauthorization of President Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind law, which is three years overdue for renewal. The Education secretary sat down with National Journal recently to reflect on the past year and the next one.
Read extended excerpts from the interview here.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on Internet freedom last week sounded like an American manifesto for the digital age. Clinton sided with Google in its fight against China's Internet censorship and cyber attacks, rallied other American companies to stand up against state-sponsored censorship and surveillance, and warned ominously of a "new information curtain" descending across much of the world. To flesh out these expansive ideas, National Journal spoke with Alec Ross, Clinton's senior adviser for innovation. Edited excerpts of their discussion follow.
Continue reading State Department: One Internet, Indivisible.
Was last week's Massachusetts Senate result a referendum on President Obama? Not according to Anita Dunn, who served as interim White House communications director for six months last year. Dunn told National Journal in an interview on Wednesday that Washington is drawing the wrong message from Republican Scott Brown's victory against Democrat Martha Coakley to fill the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's Senate seat. The election result was not a reflection on the president, Dunn said, but the product of a strong campaign by Brown and voter anger with Washington.
Dunn also discussed the way Democratic candidates should approach the midterms, the challenge of appealing to both base and independent voters, and the relationship between health care and the economy. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading Dunn: Don't 'Over-Interpret' Massachusetts.
Putting a price on carbon emissions should be an "integral" part of a comprehensive energy bill, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters on Thursday after testifying to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He said it was not too late for the chamber to move such a bill this year but demurred from drawing a line in the sand on a cap-and-trade system. Excerpts from his Q&A with reporters follow.
Continue reading Chu: Cap On Carbon 'Integral' To Energy Bill .
The recent hack of Google's China Web site adds new impetus to President Obama's efforts to coordinate cybersecurity policy between the government and the private sector. NationalJournal.com spoke with James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Technology and Public Policy Program, about what kind of domestic oversight might work and how the situation with China might reform the global computing market.
Continue reading Google's Clash With China Could Spur Cybersecurity.
Anyone who believes bad publicity is better than no publicity should take a look at Nigeria.
Africa's most populous nation has seen its international stature tumble in recent weeks after a run of dismal headlines. A Nigerian student attempted to bomb a Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, landing the country on a terror screening list. An autumn cease-fire with Niger Delta rebels looked to boost oil production and foreign investment, but rebel activity has resumed. And ailing Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua hasn't been seen in public for months, leading to rumors of his death and a constitutional crisis.
Political instability in Africa isn't new, of course, except that this particular African country is America's fifth-largest supplier of foreign oil. Nigerian politicians, upset at being lumped in with the likes of Iraq and Libya on Washington's terror radar, have batted around withholding oil exports to the United States. Such an embargo, however unlikely, would be disastrous.
But David Goldwyn, the State Department's coordinator for international energy affairs, isn't panicking. Goldwyn traveled to Nigeria in November, and he spoke with NationalJournal.com about the state of relations between Washington and Abuja, how to stop rebel attacks in the Niger Delta and his hopes for embattled country. Read a previous interview here.
Continue reading An Oil Partner Fighting To Right Itself.
During a Jan. 7 interview with National Journal, White House senior adviser David Axelrod described the legislation President Obama would like Congress to complete this midterm election year and said that even with persistent high unemployment, Democrats can make the case to voters that they are improving their lives. Axelrod also discussed how Democrats can frame their message going into the election.
Subscribers can continue reading the full interview.
During his campaign, Barack Obama said we "need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution." In February, he created the White House Office of Urban Affairs. The move gave hope to cities, which have suffered federal disinterest for decades. But observers have wondered if the office will actually be effective in changing the urban and economic development landscape.
NationalJournal.com sat down with Adolfo Carrion Jr., director of the office, to discuss the accomplishments and challenges of its first year and his hopes for 2010. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading Carrion: 'We're Not The Lead Actor'.
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.
Subscribers can continue reading the full interview
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.
Subscribers can continue reading the full interview.
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.
Subscribers can continue reading the full interview
As President Obama contemplates what may well prove the most momentous decision of his presidency, what to do about a failing war in Afghanistan, he has not suffered from a lack of advice. Many Republicans have accused him of dithering, recommending that he immediately grant Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for as many as 44,000 additional troops. Meanwhile, many Democrats argue that he should narrow the mission and refuse to escalate a war they fear is becoming an unwinnable quagmire.
Less has been heard in public recently from the president's top military adviser, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Nov. 4, National Journal staff correspondent James Kitfield and Government Executive editor in chief Tim Clark spoke with Mullen about his views on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Edited excerpts from that interview follow.
Continue reading Top Military Adviser: Obama Isn't Dithering.
After 9/11, the foreign policy establishment turned its eye on West Africa as a potential oil supplier without all the political complications of the Middle East. African crude exports to the U.S. duly increased from 15 percent of total crude imports in 2004 to 22 percent in 2006. But with oil prices down, terrorism worries replaced with economic headaches and the Obama administration focused on renewable energy, American efforts to bring political stability -- and secure a steady flow of oil -- in West Africa have been uneven.
Enter David Goldwyn, who in August became the State Department's first coordinator for international energy affairs. He has advised Nigeria on its transparency initiatives, and he held numerous posts during the Clinton administration, including assistant secretary of Energy for international affairs. Goldwyn sat down with NationalJournal.com to talk whether there is any hope for Nigeria, the threats posed by China and what to do about Africa's up-and-coming oil giants.
Continue reading Obama's Oil Man In Africa.
White House science and technology director John Holdren yesterday expressed optimism -- fueled in part by President Obama's speech to the U.N. on Tuesday -- that the Senate will pass an energy bill before the U.N. climate change talks in December. "It would be nice for the United States to be able to go to Copenhagen with the ingredients of a forward-looking national climate policy through both houses of the Congress," Holdren told a knot of reporters during a conference on energy competitiveness. Holdren said it wouldn't be detrimental if a bill didn't pass by December, but it would require the U.S. government to be a bit more "creative" with what it presents as its policy in Copenhagen. Edited excerpts of the interview can be read on NationalJournal.com's energy blog.
As the Peace Corps approaches its 50th anniversary, the service program is at something of a crossroads. The agency never fulfilled President Kennedy's dream of sending 100,000 Americans abroad every year, and it has been criticized for parachuting too many inexperienced college grads into development jobs they aren't prepared for. But friends in Congress have secured a 10 percent budget increase for the Peace Corps, and some of the agency's boosters are hoping for more soon.
Enter Aaron Williams, a volunteer in the Caribbean in the late-1960s who has now returned to lead the agency. He spoke to NationalJournal.com's David Gauvey Herbert about putting a price tag on the Peace Corps experience, the dangers of tying the agency too closely to American foreign policy and his own experience in the Dominican Republic.
Continue reading As The Peace Corps Turns 50, What Now?.
In his most expansive comments since President Obama appointed him chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in May, Greg Jaczko spoke recently with NationalJournal.com's Amy Harder at the agency's headquarters in Rockville, Md. The new chairman, who was nominated to the commission in 2005 and worked previously as science adviser to Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., discussed the current bottleneck in new reactor applications -- which Republicans are trying to speed up -- as well as the agency's role in nuclear waste disposal.
Continue reading NRC At Center Of Nuclear Regulatory Bottleneck.
After 10 years as inspector general of the Interior Department, Earl Devaney is on leave to head up the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, an oversight panel set up to put details of the $787 billion economic stimulus spending online by Oct. 10 and otherwise prevent waste, fraud and abuse of the money. His mild manner belies a zeal for rooting out abuses of the public's trust, and he believes the retooled Recovery.gov will profoundly raise the bar for accountability throughout government.
Devaney recently sat down with National Journal Group reporters. Edited excerpts follow.Continue reading Transparency Will Be Embarrassing, Stimulus Inspector Says.
As first lady Michelle Obama raises her profile on issues of importance to her husband's administration, Jocelyn Frye is likely to be at the center of the action. Frye, who went to Harvard Law School with Mrs. Obama in the 1980s, is the first lady's policy chief, with an office in the East Wing, but she also has a seat on the president's Domestic Policy Council with other West Wing officials.
Frye sat down last month with National Journal's James A. Barnes to talk about her dual roles, her friend Mrs. Obama and how to think "outside the box". What follows is an edited transcript of that interview.Continue reading East Wing Meets West Wing On First Lady's Staff.
There are no job descriptions for being first lady. Each spouse of the president brings unique interests and qualities to the East Wing that define her role in the life of the nation. Working with a first lady as dynamic as Michelle Obama requires a unique approach.
When Jackie Norris, Mrs. Obama's first chief of staff, left to advise the Corporation for National and Community Service, it was no surprise that the first lady would turn to White House associate counsel Susan Sher, an old friend, to step into the breach.
As the first woman to be Chicago's corporation counsel -- the city's top lawyer -- Sher met Mrs. Obama in 1991, when she interviewed her for a job in the city's legal department. The two later worked together at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Prior to becoming chief of staff, Sher had been advising the first lady's office on legal issues as well as working on health care reform and outreach to the Jewish community -- two areas she hoped to continue while she works in the East Wing.
A few days before she completed her move from the West Wing to the East Wing, Sher sat down to talk about her new assignment with National Journal's James A. Barnes. Edited excerpts follow after the jump below the video.
Continue reading Michelle Obama's Inner Circle On The First Lady.
Continue reading For Jackson, EPA Feels Like Home.
What's it like being in charge of the agency charged with, among
other things, insuring customer deposits and taking over insolvent
banks in the midst of the largest financial crisis in eight decades?
For starters, making sure the meltdown never repeats.
To Federal
Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila Bair, that means "common-sense regulation" that includes a panel of regulators with "ownership of the system."
Bair spoke with National Journal's Julie Kosterlitz about the job in early June. Edited excerpts follow.
Continue reading At FDIC, A Check On 'Free-For-All Markets'.
Since moving from the Senate to the Obama administration early this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has wasted no time making his mark. The former senator from Colorado raised eyebrows on the right by canceling sales of oil and natural-gas leases in Utah. His decision came after a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Management had not adequately weighed the effects of lease development on nearby protected areas. Senate Republicans responded to Salazar's move by temporarily blocking confirmation of Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes.
At the same time, Salazar drew criticism from environmentalists when he declined to use the Endangered Species Act to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, which wildlife advocates say are endangering polar bear habitats. The secretary did, however, overturn a Bush administration rule that allowed federal agencies to begin construction projects without first checking with the Fish and Wildlife Service on potential threats to endangered species.
Continue reading edited excerpts from a National Journal interview with Salazar.
Continue reading 'I've Ended The War On Drugs'.
