Has anyone not heard about the CARS Program and how dealers are complaining that they had to work past midnight many evenings last week due to the rush of demand for new cars?
CFC, Cash For Clunkers (the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) Program), certainly is in the news. Almost no one expected the massive surge of interest in the program such that, within a week, the program required more funding. Now, in the debate about how to stimulate the economy, there has been a divide between those focused on Wall Street (and some form of trickle-down economic theory) and those who argue for focusing on Main Street, getting cash into people's hands to spark retail economic activity that will be respent in the local economy and, eventually, trickle up to Wall Street.
Does this make sense to continue? What are the actual results? What should (could) be improved?
Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, announced this week that her committee won't mark up energy and climate legislation until after the August recess. That's a good thing. It means progressive groups and activists have more time to coordinate their efforts to support the emergence of a progressive bloc of senators on these issues.
Take a slo-mo aerial tour of Earth. Released on June 5th, over two and a half million people have already watched Home. The message is potent: it is too late for pessimism. We can redirect our use of energy, of farming, of transportation. We can and must live a different paradigm.
In adopting California's tough new 35.5 miles-per-gallon fuel emissions standards today, the President made a wise decision that will help the planet continue to exist. Almost more notable than the standards themselves, however, is the fact that Obama decided to abandon the lawsuit through which auto execs and the Bush Administration had sought to block California's right to implement the standards in the first place.
While auto execs are spinning this decision as a great example of the wisdom of enacting a unified set of federal standards instead of a “patchwork” of state rules, the truth of the matter is that this decision is a landmark example of states' power to set national policy by outpacing federal legislation. If it weren't for California pushing to set standards that outpaced the Bush Administration's pitifully low ones, there would be no new regulatory framework to enact today. This observation seems obvious, but it has gone unnoticed in the mainstream media accounts of today's announcement.
However, in all likelihood, the ACES will never be strengthened beyond its current form. All of the progressive climate change groups listed above would do extremely well just if the bill did not get any worse. This is because there are several more hurdles for the bill to leap, which I attempt to describe in detail in the extended entry.
In last week’s New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fascinating article, "How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break The Rules." In his patented style Gladwell weaves together story after story of underdogs who defied convention to defeat much stronger opponents. From the Biblical story of David defeating Goliath, to a junior league basketball team of twelve year-old girls, to the armies of George Washington, Gladwell offers us examples of how an underdog is only an underdog when he plays by his opponent’s rules. He also offers the research of Ivan Arreguín-Toft, a political scientist who analyzed every war fought over the last two hundred years between strong and weak combatants.
The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 percent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time...What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win..."
What an intriguing piece of data. Gladwell’s article got me thinking about the movement to build a clean energy economy and what we can do to turn the tables and put the odds in our favor. By most measures, we face an indomitable opponent. We seek to transition the economy off of fossil fuels, which represent the core business of the largest industry in the history of human civilization. In just the first three months of 2009, these companies spent $79 million lobbying Congress versus $4.6 million by our side--a 16:1 ratio--and a Common Cause study released yesterday shows that members of the critical Energy and Commerce Committee (where the climate and energy bill is currently being watered down) received an average of $107,230 from the energy sector in the last election. 16 to 1. 16 to 1. Those are tough numbers.
I wonder what would happen if we acknowledged our weaknesses and adopted an unconventional strategy. After reading The New Yorker article, I see four principles of a winning underdog strategy that we can apply to the climate movement:
1. Make it a battle of wills, not a battle of skills 2. Empower people to think and act in real time 3. Attack your opponent where they are weak 4. Defy social convention (and be ready to do what is socially horrifying)
Below the fold, I give my take on what some of the implications of these principles are for our movement's strategy.
Yesterday, was the 39th anniversary of Earth Day and to mark the occasion, President Obama was in Newton, Iowa to speak about clean energy. Newton is one of those towns where most of the residents are employed by one major employer, and until October 2007, that employer was Maytag. So when Whirlpool bought Maytag and shut down the Newton plant, over 12% of Newton’s 16,000 residents lost their jobs. If you didn’t lose a job, your husband, sister, or neighbor surely did.
But now Newton’s a shining example of what’s possible. Instead of dishwashers and washing machines, the people of Newton are making wind turbines. That’s why President Obama chose Newton and Trinity Structural Towers to argue that “the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.”
But towns like Newton aren’t just losing jobs, they are losing talent too. Young people have been hit hard by this recession. According to the Education and Labor Committee, of the 1.2 million jobs lost last year, 60 percent were held by workers under the age of 25. Mobile and in search of opportunity they are moving to bigger cities and mega regions that promise greater opportunity. Iowa, in particular, has been hurt by this “brain drain,” losing more college graduates than any other state in the country.
So while we replace dishwashers with wind turbines, and re-open empty auto manufacturing plants with solar manufacturing facilities, let’s also work to build truly whole communities. The communities that define themselves by one industry or one employer will be increasingly at risk. A healthy, 21st century economy demands that we become increasingly self-sufficient in the resources we use—the food we grow, the water and energy we consume, and the products we build. Revitalizing local living economies can create jobs, conserve energy, and keep young talent in the community.
Joseph Romm is one of the most respected writers on climate policy. Here is a summary of his thoughts on what is necessary to avert catastrophic warming:
We have to bring down the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to between 350-450 parts per million (ppm) to avoid the hellish worst of climate change. Economically and technologically, this is quite doable. However, it is not plausible in the current political climate. Because the alternative is unacceptable, we will get there, but to do so we must all become familiar with the best solutions, and then loudly push our political leaders toward them.
Over the last several years as more people, organizations and governments began to take the prospect of global warming and human influenced climate change more seriously there has arisen a kind of 60 cycle background hum over the potential dangers of social unrest, disease, famine and mass movements of populations resulting from such change.
We tend to hear a lot of nonsense from the right about how raising taxes will supposedly prevent things from happening. When it comes to energy development, for instance, we're told that raising taxes on oil and gas companies will slow down or stop their exploration and development, thus hurting their industry. Except, a new study from Headwaters Economics shows that's just not true:
States can increase effective tax rates and realize higher revenue from energy development with little risk of affecting the local energy economy. The oil, natural gas, and coal industries are guided chiefly by the location of reserves, and are less able to relocate than are industries with mobile capital resources (such as textile mills or auto-makers)...
We also find no evidence to suggest that the dramatically different effective tax rates in the Intermountain West we have led to more or less investment from state to state. Montana reduced its tax rates and extended incentives to the oil and natural gas industries in the late 1990s. At the same time, Wyoming studied the issue, finding that new incentives were unlikely to stimulate new exploration and drilling, and chose not to alter its tax structure.
The results of these choices are clear: Wyoming has captured proportionately higher benefits than Montana from the current surge in energy production value, and there is no evidence that Montana's tax breaks worked-Montana has stimulated less, not more, energy development than Wyoming and left more than half a billion in revenue on the table.
The first point in this excerpt is about what I've called captive-industry populism - lawmakers have far more regulatory leverage over industries that are geographically captive than those that can simply move away. The second point is about taxes in general - it destroys the right's entire argument that when you raise taxes on something, it automatically creates a market-altering disincentive to do that thing.
So the next time you hear a conservative say that if we raise taxes on X, that means companies won't produce X anymore or won't hire people to produce X anymore, you know that's not necessarily an ironclad axiom. It may be true, it may not be true - but the idea that it is automatically and always true is just not grounded in fact. Not even close.
According to the draft of the stimulus that is floating around, here is the itemized spending sorted into categories. It is worth noting that, despite all the talk about new bridges and highways, mainly the stimulus is about tax cuts, health care, education, energy, the environment, and unemployment.
Total itemized spending: $518.7 billion
Health Care: $150.1 billion
$87 billion for a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate;
$39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid;*
$20 billion for health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients and introduce cost-saving efficiencies;
$4.1 billion to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective healthcare treatments.
Education, Science and Technology: $132.6 billion
$41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology program ($1 billion);
$39 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas;
$15.6 billion to increase the Pell grant by $500;
$15 billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures;
$10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation;
$6 billion to expand broadband internet access so businesses in rural and other underserved areas can link up to the global economy;
$6 billion for higher education modernization.
Energy and Environment: $104 billion
$32 billion to transform the nation's energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology;
$31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure with investments that lead to long term energy cost savings;
$19 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments;
$16 billion to repair public housing and make key energy efficiency retrofits;
$6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes
Unemployment Compensation: $63 billion
$43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training;
$20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by over 13% in order to help defray rising food costs.
Transportation: $40 billion
$30 billion for highway construction;
$10 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption.
Misc: $29 billion
$25 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education;
$4 billion for state and local law enforcement funding.
* -= Applicable to either Health Care or Unemployment Compensation
Now, the summary indicated that the bill will have $550 billion in spending, so either the remaining $30-$35 billion is not itemized here, or there are still debates over how to spend it. The remaining $275 billion for the stimulus will come in the form of tax cuts, mainly what appears to be the middle class tax cut Obama kept talking about during the campaign, but also energy tax benefits.
I support the growing consensus that, while this is a start, overall there is not enough spending here. While it is an important and promising shift away from Bush-era governance, we need to aim even higher.
Stingy credit markets and high regulatory hurdles have spurred Houston-based Dynegy to step back from new coal-fired power plant projects by ending a joint venture with LS Power Associates.
Dynegy will keep the right to expand its 27 existing coal, natural gas and oil-fired plants in 13 states, and it retains stakes in a pair of Texas and Arkansas coal projects.
But Dynegy will pay New York-based LS Power $19 million as part of the split and let it take full ownership of new projects under consideration in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan and Nevada.
Shares of Dynegy closed up 38 cents, or 19 percent, to $2.38 on Friday.
Dynegy Chairman and CEO Bruce Williamson said the power plant development landscape has changed since the company entered into the joint venture with LS in the fall of 2006. Funding new projects is much more difficult given the worldwide credit crunch and the possibility of new climate change legislation under the Obama administration.
"In light of these market circumstances, Dynegy has elected to focus development activities and investments around our own portfolio where we control the option to develop and can manage the costs being incurred more closely," Williamson said in a statement.
According to local news reports millions of yards of ashy toxic sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation. Coal ash can carry toxic substances that include mercury, arsenic and lead, according to a federal study.
Greenpeace is calling today for there to be a criminal investigation into the matter. "Every facility like this is supposed to have a spill contingency plan to prevent this kind of disaster," said Rick Hind, Greenpeace Legislative Director.
This is not an ordinary environmental disaster; 500 million gallons of toxic coal ash spilling into the drinking water of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama is going to kill a lot of people. Eastern Kentucky saw a similar spill in 2000 due to negligence from coal companies, and the Bush administration covered it up.
The region still hasn't recovered, with much of the waters and lakes unable to support fish or wildlife. And it may never recover. Just watch the video above, it's rather breathtaking. 500 million gallons of mercury, arsenic, and coal dust is now a permanent part of Tennessee's ecosystem, and probably part of the DNA of the people that live there and drink the water.
Next week Barack Obama will nominate key members of his energy and environmental team and among the likely choices are some to be happy about including Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Chu.
On Tuesday Obama met with Al Gore and, sandwiched between comments on the Blagojevich case, succinctly outlined most of the big plan I summarized a few days ago:
(transcript below)
I think it is clear from these comments that Obama is not aiming for incremental change. To achieve the kind of change Gore talks about, a switch to clean power in ten years, will require not only implementation of technologies we currently have but new breakthroughs. That's what makes Chu's appointment so encouraging: he leads the lab that has been working on the breakthroughs.
Still, there are skeptics who say the cost and the time necessary for a conversion to cleaner power make this undoable during a severe recession. More on that below.
If this comes to pass, mark it down in my "makes me excited" category of Obama's cabinet picks:
But officials close to the transition team privately say that Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, appears to be increasingly on track to become energy secretary.
A Chinese-American, Chu is a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley and has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, where he has pushed aggressively for research into alternative energy as a way to combat global warming.
It is the oldest of the Energy Department's national laboratories, but does only unclassified work and in recent years under Chu has been at the center of research into biofuels and solar technologies. Chu has been a strong advocate for the need to engage scientists in the search for ways to combat global warming by replacing fossil fuels with other energy sources such as biofuels and the sun.
Placing a scientist at the head of the Department of Energy is very exciting to me, because we will be dealing with a true expert on the subject matter. Further, it is not just any scientist, but the scientist at the center of solar and biofuel research, meaning that industry lobbyists won't stand a chance when talking to him. Yet further, it means that his closest colleagues will also be alternative energy scientists, thus resulting in some excellent deputies and assistants. Even yet further, having a physicist like this in the cabinet means there will be a true science and technology expert within the cabinet, which could bleed over into decisions in other areas. This is someone who will know what is possible in the field, and who should make an excellent contribution to the nation and the world.
If you look at the history of the Department of Energy, you'll find that there's never been a Secretary who actually was an expert on energy. The closest we've ever gotten was Charles Duncan who had a chemical engineering degree and had a cup of coffee out of school at Humble (later Exxon). For some reason it just never occurred to the President to install a person who was qualified for the position.
Instead we've been subjected to a long line of career politicians, military men and folks that were as far away from energy as you could get (Reagan's first Secretary of Energy was an oral surgeon) . Is it any wonder that our energy policy is set by industry since the person who is supposed to do that doesn't have a clue?
Not only does Chu have a clue, he's a Nobel-prize winning scientist and is already working under the auspices of the Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. A scientist, ya'll. As the Secretary of Energy. Oh. My. Gawd.
Steven Chu sounds like a great pick for Secretary of Energy to me. Hopefully, unlike Raul Grijalva for Interior, this one won't fall through in favor of a Blue Dog. There are other possibilities, and none of them can even come close to bringing the expertise of Chu.
Even as King Coal is trying to put a $6 billion coal plant in Virginia, Al Gore and a whole lot of DC green groups are beginning a campaign to point out that there is no such thing as clean coal. Their web site is This is Reality. This is part of a larger movement to wean us off of fossil fuels, which Congresswoman Donna Edwards has already endorsed.
The Reality campaign is the first TV campaign to go after the coal industry directly, and hopefully it will demystify this industry's power.
The campaign schedule has been pretty intense over the last week and will continue to be so until the BIG day on Tuesday, November 4th. I want to congratulate everyone for putting so much effort into this year's election, not just for an individual campaign, but for the entire Democratic ticket. I've seen people in every community throughout the 5th district working to make sure the message is getting out.
I want to remind everyone it is important that we finish strong. Don't take anything for granted, ignore the polls and work like the polls show our candidates 5 points down. Remember, while all indications show Barack Obama will be our next president, if we believe the polls, Al Gore would be concluding his second term or we would be working to re-elect President John Kerry right now.
Time and time again Ralph Hall tells voters that American soldiers will have to "fight a war and take some energy away from someone." Does this represent your values? It doesn't represent mine. I believe it's time to stop talking about stealing and to start investing in America.
My campaign has produced a short video using Hall's own words to expose his values. Please circulate it to your family and friends.
We have twelve days left to spread the word and fight for change in Texas. Donate today and help put this commercial on the air: https://secure.actblue.com/con...
There was a lot of excitement in the IAM (Int'l Assoc. of Machinists) union hall this morning in Huntington Beach, where DFA's Jim Dean and a host of local officials testified to the worthiness and strength of Debbie Cook, the Democratic candidate in CA-46, seeking to retire certified nutjob Dana Rohrabacher in Congress. But the best reaction was for the candidate herself, who gave a straight-shooting, no B.S. speech that made clear the stakes in this election.
"Do-Nothing Dana has been in Congress for 20 years and hasn't done a thing," Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, said to a pancake breakfast of around 120 volunteers who were ready to precinct walk for her. Referring to a claim from the campaign's latest ad, that Rohrabacher has sponsored a bill to protect the country from an asteroid, she said, "he needs to worry less about asteroids and more about planet Earth."
This is a substantive debate on the issues, with the moderator (Brunswick News reporter Jess Davis) sitting between the two candidates and pitching real questions.
Jack seems peeved to have to be on the same forum as some upstart; sound like certain other debates? Bill was the keynote speaker at the Valdosta Obama office opening.
Bill Gillespie wants to get us out of Iraq by handing over to the Iraqis, preferably within 18 months. Jack Kingston wants any timetable to be decided by the general in Baghdad.
Jack Kingston promotes himself as a champion of renewable energy (although local students don't agree) but then gets off on offshore drilling.
Photo by 
We tend to hear a lot of nonsense from the right about how raising taxes will supposedly prevent things from happening. When it comes to energy development, for instance, we're told that raising taxes on oil and gas companies will slow down or stop their exploration and development, thus hurting their industry. Except, 
