Phil Gutis's Blog: U.S. Law and Policy

Yes We Can

2008-11-05T14:54:03Z

I'm not much of a party guy so my husband, our laptops and assorted dogs spent last night sprawled around our family room watching the election returns. We'd often speak over the drone of the talking heads to blurt out an interesting statistic from some website or another or to remark on how the evening was going.

But when Barack Obama spoke around midnight, we quietly watched the Democratic candidate transformed into the President-elect of the United States. And when Obama began his "yes we can," I found myself silently chanting along.

I chanted not because NRDC had endorsed the President-elect. As a non-partisan organization, we cannot -- and do not -- endorse candidates for political office. Instead my "yes we can" was aimed primarily at the thought that we now would have the leadership necessary to meet our energy and climate challenges, at building a clean energy economy by manufacturing plug-in hybrid cars, growing dedicated fuel crops and developing clean power sources like wind, solar and geothermal.

I thought yes we can unleash American ingenuity and regain our national competitive edge in this global economy. I thought that yes we can find the solutions to what President-elect Obama called a "planet in peril."

We can do all this through responsible governing and smart planning and by encouraging our new leaders to express an inspiring vision of a better American economy based not on elaborate financial transactions but on the production of cutting edge technology and the delivery of high value services.

And finally, I thought yes we can because I remembered the mailing we received from Rep. Patrick Murphy, our local first-term member of Congress who won wide re-election last night. His mailing featured a huge picture of a wind turbine under construction at a former U.S. Steel site in nearby Fairless Hills in Bucks County, PA. "Quickly," Murphy writes, the abandoned factory "has become a green energy hub, supplying the area with jobs that were lost when U.S. Steel stopped manufacturing at the site."

Over the summer, when chants of "drill baby drill" echoed around the country, many environmentalists were near tears. Being a glass half full kind of guy, I tried to remind my colleagues (or anyone else that would listen) of the often soaring rhetoric we heard from politicians of both political parties about transforming our national infrastructre for the clean energy economy.

Last night, as I closed the laptop and headed off to bed, it felt absolutely wonderful to know that the voters had put into office those who spoke most passionately about seizing the energy and climate opportunities before us. And then I smiled and thought, yes, we can.

Oily, Day Two

2008-09-18T15:30:00Z

Day two and the feeling of being dunked in oil hasn't lifted. In fact, given the financial news rocking Wall Street and the soaring price of oil futures, I'm left feeling greasier than ever.

The latest reports from Washington find the Senate not sure what to do about the House energy bill and the many proposals rising on that side of the Capitol. And unlikely voices are getting louder. This morning's Washington Post has an opinion article from Henry Kissenger and Martin Feldstein:

"The tripling in the price of oil from $30 a barrel in 2001 to around $100 today represents the largest transfer of wealth in human history. The 13 OPEC members alone are expected to earn more than $1 trillion this year from oil sales. Inevitably, this will bring with it major political consequences. Not the least significant aspect of this political and economic earthquake is that it is being exacted upon the world's most powerful nations by some of the world's weakest. Yet the victims stand by impotently as if the price of oil were some natural event determined by a competitive economic market that is not and cannot be influenced by political forces."

In some ways, the solution is quite simple. We need to end our dependence on Big Oil, invest our petrodollars instead in rebuilding our infrastructure. The jobs -- blue, white and green -- that would be created could never been outsourced and would result in real American wealth, not the fantasy Monopoly money that much of Wall Street seemed to be built upon.

NRDC's new friend, Oily, is making his latest appearance on the website of Politico. This time, he's more animated about his message to Washington: Big oil corrupts our government, pollutes our oceans and beaches and leads to national insecurity.

The alternative: clean energy alternatives and efficiency. Tom Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded is an instant bible for those of us who believe we can do much economic good -- and reverse global warming -- by improving our energy policies. In the interestingly titled chapter, "If It Isn't Boring, It Isn't Green," Friedman quotes Rick Duke, the Director of NRDC's new Center for Market Innovation.

"If we do enough to scale energy efficiency, the money we save would be enough to pay to clean up -- to decarbonize -- the remaining supply of electrons and fuels so we could power our economy in a way that is consistent with containing climate change," Duke says.

There's much more to explore on this topic and in Friedman's book. But as we await an awakening from our political leadership, I wonder what day three will bring.

Oily

2008-09-17T15:30:09Z

I woke up feeling more than a bit greasy this morning. It was almost as if I someone had snuck into my bedroom and dumped a barrel or two of oil on me. And my shower didn't help all that much.

Why? Last night, the House passed an energy bill that the Los Angeles Times termed a "stunning political turnabout ... aimed at rebutting Republican election-year attacks that the Democratic majority wasn't doing enough to try to ease the public's pain at the pump."

To be fair, there is much good in the House bill. Tax incentives for renewable energy and efficiency and a requirement that utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity by 2020 from cleaner sources, such as the sun and wind.

But the drilling provisions represent another huge giveaway to Big Oil, as NRDC says in an advertisement featuring our new friend "Oily" that are running this morning in the print version of Politico, Congress Daily AM and Congressional Quarterly Today. And they represent the culmination of a campaign designed to dupe the American public into believing that new domestic drilling will do anything to end spiraling energy prices.

The truth is that drilling offshore our coasts will only make things worse. Offshore rigs have a long history of oil spills and there's no guarantee that any oil found on our coasts will be funneled to Americans. We don't need to risk permanent damage to our beaches so the oil companies can make even more profit selling oil to China and India.

Increased drilling only prolongs our dependence on oil and will not lower gas prices. Instead of trying to drill our way out of this problem, we need to act now to become less dependent on oil.

We need to improve energy efficiency as well as invest in renewable energy and new energy technology. We need more choices for energy efficient cars, and ways to make our houses and offices more energy efficient. Where it will work, we need more choices for ways to get around, like buses and trains. We need to build our communities so people have more transportation choices.

Interestingly enough, the few paragraphs above represent not just NRDC policy. They are drawn from the words of voters -- moderates and those more liberal, low and moderate income, from representative communities in the midwest and east coast -- from focus groups in recent weeks.

These voters were quite angry and resigned to the fact that Washington seemed unable to break its addiction to oil.

They believed, as do I, that the American people are resourceful and innovative and that we can build a new energy economy and in the process create a new energy economy with good, well-paying jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.

Let's hope that yesterday's vote in the House marked a low point in the ongoing energy debate and that a new Congress and administration will finally begin to break our addiction to a finite resource that the world is consuming at a rapidly increasing rate.

For the real facts on energy policy and gas prices, see this collection of NRDC materials. They make for a good read, hopefully we can persuade more policy makers in Washington to give them at least a cursory review.

Substance Abuse and Promiscuity

2008-09-10T23:57:40Z

"Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."

So wrote the Inspector General of the Department of Interior today in an eye-popping report decrying "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" in the Bush Administration program charged with collecting royalties from big oil. The language quoted above came at the end of a description of the misdeeds of a program called "Royalty in Kind" or RIK.

We also discovered a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity in the RIK program both within the program, including a supervisor, Greg Smith, who engaged in illegal drug use and had sexual relations with subordinates, and in consort with industry. Internally, several staff admitted to illegal drug use as well as illicit sexual encounters. Alcohol abuse appears to have been a problem when RIK staff socialized with industry.

For example, two RIK staff accepted lodging from industry after industry events because they were too intoxicated to drive home or to their hotel. These same RIK marketers also engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts.

The investigation into more than a dozen employees of a unit called the Minerals Management Service was leading the websites of the New York Times and the Washington Post this afternoon. Neither newspaper missed the irony that the scandal is breaking as Congress prepares to vote on whether to open our coasts to oil and gas drilling, yet another potential huge giveaway to big oil pushed by an Administration that has been plagued for eight years by ethical scandals involving big oil.

I'm sure we'll hear more about this as the story develops, but this latest scandal should stop the push for drilling in its tracks. The reality is that oil is a limited resource and it will eventually run out.

We need Congress to adopt legislation to improve energy efficiency as well as invest in renewables and new energy technology. To do otherwise, would be to award the malfeasance documented today by the Inspector General report.

Public Enemies

2008-06-23T14:31:44Z

Today's Guardian newspaper quotes NASA climate scientist James Hansen calling for the executives of large fossil-fuel companies to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one [of] the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organizations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime," he tells the newspaper.

Crime is an interesting word. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I do believe massive malfeasance is at work. And not particularly at the oil companies. They have a product to sell and the world stupidly keeps buying it.

Where I think the finger should be pointed is at our political leaders, people like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma who tells the Washington Post today that Hansen, Al Gore and everyone's favorite punching bags -- the media -- "have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980's."

"But Americans are not buying it," Inhofe says, citing the recent failure of climate legislation to reach the 60 votes necessary to end a Senate filibuster. "It's back to the drawing board for Hansen and company as the alleged 'consensus' over man-made climate fears continues to wane and more and more scientists declare their dissent."

Interesting stuff, Senator. Yes, the climate legislation was unable to climb past your obstructionist roadblock although it received more support than ever before.

And perhaps some scientists are coming out against the idea that humankind has warmed the planet and continues to spew increasing pollutants into our atmosphere. If so, they are awful quiet about their challenge. Perhaps they should post their arguments here and let NRDC's real climate experts take them on.

But truthfully, what proves that Senator Inhofe is part of an increasingly isolated cabal is that much of corporate America understands that we cannot continue unabated our polluting ways. The United States Climate Action Partnership includes some of the biggest names in business and the environment coming together to say this issue is real and a solution must be found. The daily newsletter Environmental Leader cites business after business scrambling to take steps to cut carbon pollution.

Is some of it greenwashing? Probably so. Is a good deal of it real? Most certainly.

The First Amendment correctly protects folks like Senator Inhofe from prosecution for their political views. But the Constitution certainly cannot protect Inhofe's future standing in American history. It is there that his behavior is likely to be judged criminal in the broadest sense of the word.

Pascal's Wager and Global Warming

2008-06-21T03:37:12Z

Public opinion research is part of my responsibilities at NRDC and its a piece of my job that I love. There's nothing quite like watching a group of folks from behind a one-way mirror talk about the issues that NRDC works on each day. Often it is an enlightening experience; sometimes it can be deeply humbling.

As part of our research program, we recently cosponsored some work on public attitudes toward global warming. The results were, as suggested above, both enlightening and humbling as researchers from SRI Consulting Business Intelligence looked at the motivations behind views, opinions and behaviors around climate change. This was diagnostic research, designed to help organizations like NRDC understand best how to tell the critical story of climate change and energy consumption so I cannot go into too much detail here.

But there was one area that I found particularly fascinating.

The idea is based on a theory developed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who in the 1600s argued that believing in God was a useful "wager" since the potential consequences of being wrong about the existence of a higher power were so scary.

Applying that theory to the question of climate change, the researchers said, could be a powerful argument for action. Even if not completely persuaded that global warming is real (remember what I said about humbling!) voters could be persuaded to cut global warming pollution when they considered the potential consequences of being wrong.

Personally, I love this line of reasoning. It speaks to a hard-headed realism that I've consistently found in our public opinion research. This realism helps balance the helpings of humble pie we often must eat when we find that public opinion lags on the specifics of one environmental challenge or another.

I'll be writing more about our public opinion research in future posts. While never the final word, our research helps us understand how to approach our work. And I think that understanding should be shared as widely as possible. So stay tuned.

It'll Cost You

2008-06-18T17:45:36Z

Couldn't resist this nugget from the front page of today's USA Today: "Speeders to Pay Extra for Police Fuel."

According to the paper, the City Council of suburban Holly Springs, GA, decided to help cover the spiraling cost of gasoline by charging speeders an extra $12 "fuel surcharge."

Holly Spring Police Chief Ken Ball tells the paper:

"I was hearing that Delta, pizza deliverers, florists were adding fuel charges to their services and I thought, why not police departments."

Why not indeed. In some ways this seems to be the perfect response to high gas prices because in addition to being against the law speeding cuts your gas mileage.

In fact, the Alliance to Save Energy says that road rage activities such as "speeding, rapid acceleration and rapid braking can lower gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds." My colleague Deron Lovaas writes often about these issues on his Switchboard blog. His posts are well worth reading.

Apparently the Atlanta city council has already passed a similar surcharge and Chief Ball says he is being inundated with calls from other government officials around the country eager to follow his lead.

As Holly Springs Mayor tells USA Today: "This is a self-taxing system. If you don't break the law, you don't pay the tax."

San Francisco Does it Better

2007-11-19T18:14:17Z

When you are deep in home renovation land, there are few places you visit more often than Home Depot and Lowes. Most weekends involve at least once visit and sometimes we actually end up going on both Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday, we stopped by Home Depot to pick up some stuff and I was delighted to see that they too were offering branded reusable cloth bags. (I wasn't so delighted when I tried to buy one and use it at the checkout counter and the staff could not figure out how to open it; in fact, in trying to open the bag, they broke it and we just carried our few items out to the car.)

Scenes like this (without breakage, I hope) are increasingly common across the United States where more and more stores are selling reusable bags. And starting tomorrow in San Francisco, the retail scene will be changing even more dramatically.

That's when, as the San Francisco Chronicle writes today, "plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone."

"The 180 million plastic bags city officials estimate are handed out in the city each year end up as litter on city streets, clog storm drains, harm wildlife, and contaminate and jam machines used in recycling," the paper writes. "And then there is the giant patch of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that scientists are monitoring, estimated to weigh 3 million tons and cover an area twice the size of Texas. The patch is about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, but plastic dumped in the ocean here can end up there."

Even better, San Francisco is requiring that paper bags must be made of at least 40 percent high-grade recycled paper and Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator for the SF Department of the Environment, told the paper that many stores are using bags made from 100 percent recycled paper.

That makes the most sense. While there are some creative re-uses of plastic bags emerging these days, I think its better that we as a society switch back to paper while we train ourselves to bring our own.

And since we can't probably rely completely on business to do this on its own, I think the San Francisco model makes the most sense. Forward looking local governments can often do it better.

If it Bleeds ...

2007-10-20T22:56:45Z

There's a saying in television journalism: if it bleeds, it leads.

That's why whenever you switch over to the local news in your placid community, you could be forgiven for feeling as though you live in a level 10 crime zone.

Television news choices are also why, whenever polled, people generally put crime way at the top of the list of things that deeply bother them. Even if they live in a community like mine, where speeding and littering seem by far the biggest "crime" issues around. The environment, by contrast, often barely registers on top concern lists but that's a topic for another blog post (or two or three or more).

But what would happen if crime were firmly linked to environmental quality?

This weekend's New York Times Magazine poses just that question in a column by Jascha Hoffman, who writes about a recent study from Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, an economist at Amherst College, linking the elimination of lead in gasoline in the '70s and '80s under the aegis of the Clean Air Act to steady drops in crime.

"Reyes found that the rise and fall of lead-exposure rates seemed to match the arc of violent crime, but with a 20-year lag — just long enough for children exposed to the highest levels of lead in 1973 to reach their most violence-prone years in the early ’90s, when crime rates hit their peak," Hoffman writes.

Another researcher that Hoffman cites -- Rick Nevin, a senior adviser to the National Center for Healthy Housing -- published a study in the journal Environmental Research that found confirmed the lead hypothesis. "

“It really does sound like a bad science-fiction plot,” Nevin said. “The idea that a society could have systematically poisoned its youngest children with the same neurotoxins in two different ways over the same century is almost impossible to believe.”

Interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I doubt the lack of crime -- and its causes -- will qualify as sensational in anyone's book and therefore won't receive much coverage.

In contrast, the latest incident of isolated crime or terrible fire and accident draws attention far beyond its impact on our lives.

Here's an idea: We hook up NRDC lawyers and scientists sirens and bright flashing lights. Then when they pull up to the scene of a significant-but-not-so telegenic environmental crime just perhaps they'll find TV reporters chronicling the event and raising public concern.

After all, a local crime or accident generally impacts only those directly involved. As Hoffman writes in the Times Magazine, environmental crimes can impact tens if not hundreds of millions.