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eDIGEST August 2006

UPCOMING EVENTS

GSPP’s 8th Annual Alumni Recognition Dinner

October 6, 2006 at The Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue

5:30 pm - cocktail reception, 7:00 pm - dinner

QUICK REFERENCE LIST

In addition to the print media referenced below, broadcast media coverage includes numerous interviews with DEAN NACHT by KRON TV, KGO TV and KTVU, among others.

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

1. “UNICEF chief wants a cease-fire” (Modesto Bee, July 31, 2006); story citing ANN VENEMAN (MPP 1971); http://www.modbee.com/local/story/12525212p-13239347c.html

2. “San Francisco Taxicab Industry Report” (SF Board of Supervisors City Operations & Neighborhood Services hearing, July 17, 2006, broadcast on SFGTV-San Francisco Cable Channel 26); testimony presented by STARR TERRELL (MPP cand. 2007) and KAREN LEUNG (MPP cand. 2007) based on GOLDMAN SCHOOL IPA; video on demand at (select meeting dated 07/17/06; jump to item #11, which begins at 2:14:00): http://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=8

3. “Extending the Outreach: College programs for disadvantaged youth facing tough questions” (Oakland Tribune, July 17, 2006); story citing ANTHONY SIMBOL (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_4059311

4. “University outreach needs to be evaluated” (Oakland Tribune, July 24, 2006); editorial citing ANTHONY SIMBOL (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_4088310

5. “The 20^th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco” (CBS5 TV Sunday Morning News, July 16, 2006); features interview with MARK CLOUTIER (MPP 1993). http://www.aidswalk.net/sanfran/index.html

6. “FDA OKs new pill to fight AIDS. 1-a-day dose of 3-drug combination marks a milestone in 25-year history of the disease” (San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 2006); story citing MARK CLOUTIER (MPP 1993); http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/13/MNG20JU7ON1.DTL

7. “Funds for colleges raise objections. Research: Critics of lawmakers’ earmarks say the best projects can lose out to the best-connected ones” (The Press-Enterprise, July 9, 2006); story citing JAMES SAVAGE (MPP 1978) and ROBERT BERDAHL; http://www.pe.com/digitalextra/metro/housewatch/stories/PE_News_Local_D_schools09.d2c08d.html

8. “New rule prompts Medi-Cal concern. Proving citizenship may be tough for vulnerable recipients, advocates say” (Sacramento Bee, July 6, 2006); story citing report by DAVID CARROLL (MPP 2000); http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14275249p-15084876c.html

9. “Medicaid’s New Proof-of-Citizenship Requirements Gain Some Flexibility. Federal officials announce exemptions for elderly and disabled recipients of benefits” (Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2006); story citing study by DAVID CARROLL (MPP 2000); http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicaid7jul07,0,4840803.story?coll=la-home-nation

10. “Military Equality Alliance organizes grassroots efforts to achieve equality in our armed forces” (Military Equality Alliance press release, July 5, 2006); news announcement by JIM MALONEY (MPP 2005); http://www.militaryequality.org

11. “$131 billion state budget signed on time. But legal action likely over changes to drug rehab law” (San Francisco Chronicle, July 1, 2006); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/01/BAG30JNJ9A1.DTL&hw=mike+genest&sn=002&sc=526

12. “Arnold’s balanced budget” (Sacramento Bee, July 5, 2006); Letter to the Editor by MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14274755p-15084495c.html

13. “Polluters could face heavy fines” (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, June 27, 2006); story citing THOMAS ADDISON (MPP 1991).

14. “Transit faces more cuts, higher fares. Proposed 2007 budget may not be enough to cover liability for retiree health benefits, official says” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 26, 2006); story citing STEVE AGOSTINI (MPP 1986).

15. “Their roots are showing. Fans becoming proud to show their colors” (Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ), June 14, 2006); story citing STEVE AGOSTINI (MPP 1986).

16. “Testimony of Angie Rodgers, Policy Analyst, DC Fiscal Policy Institute” (Public Hearing on The Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force Report of 2006, District of Columbia Committee on Economic Development, June 13, 2006); public testimony by ANGIE RODGERS (MPP 2003); http://www.dcfpi.org/61306hous.pdf

17. “Water planning program gets $1 million in budget” (State Journal-Register, The (Springfield, IL),

June 6, 2006); story citing STEVE FRENKEL (MPP 2000).

18. “Wind Interconnection: Bridging the Divide” (Electric Light & Power, May/June 2006); story citing ROBERT GRAMLICH (MPP 1995); http://uaelp.pennnet.com/articles/article_display.cfm?Section=ARTCL&C=Ind&ARTICLE_ID=256363&KEYWORDS=gramlich&p=34

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Subsidies are the wrong road to biofuels” (San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 2006); op-ed by MICHAEL O’HARE; http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/30/EDG7BIQ76D1.DTL

2. “2006 Best Of The Bay: A Vision Of The Future. Best Way To Listen To Your Food” (San Francisco Bay Guardian, July 26, 2006); story citing GOLDMAN SCHOOL lecture series; http://www.sfbg.com/2006bob/food.php#Listen

3. “New test promises safe fish faster” (Marketplace, National Public Radio, July 24, 2006); features commentary by MARGARET TAYLOR; Listen to this story

4. “Idea Lab: After the Bell Curve” (New York Times, July 23, 2006); op-ed by DAVID KIRP; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/magazine/23wwln_idealab.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

5. “Hetch Hetchy plan feasible, report says. But cost to restore the valley could be much higher than estimated” (Sacramento Bee, July 20, 2006); story citing MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14279971p-15088430c.html

6. “Dyleski trial highlights jury selection difficulties” (Contra Costa Times [*requires registration], July 18, 2006); story citing ROBERT MacCOUN; http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/email/news/15063385.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

7. “Middle East Crisis” (KTVU Morning News, July 17, 2006); features interview with MICHAEL NACHT.

8. “Democratic National Committee: Reich Rips Bush Fiscal Policy, Failed Leadership on Economy” (US Fed News, July 14, 2006; podcast featuring commentary by ROBERT REICH. To listen to the entire commentary, click here: http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v003/democratic1.download.akamai.com/8082/audio/podcast/20060714_reich.mp3

9. “Climate shift may squeeze wine grapes” (Sacramento Bee, July 11, 2006); story citing MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/14276642p-15085989c.html

10. “Economists Divided over Impact of New Deficit Figures” (The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, July 11, 2006); features commentary by ROBERT REICH; audio and streaming video available at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

11. “The Immigration Equation” (New York Times [*requires registration], July 9, 2006); story citing STEVEN RAPHAEL; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/magazine/09IMM.html

12. “Minimum wage: An easy solution” Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Kansas City Star, July 6, 2006); http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/14973469.htm

13. “Former labor secretary Robert Reich and Steve Moore of The Wall Street Journal discuss North Korean missile issues…” (Kudlow & Company, CNBC News, July 6, 2006); features commentary by ROBERT REICH.

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

1. “UNICEF chief wants a cease-fire” (Modesto Bee, July 31, 2006); story citing ANN VENEMAN (MPP 1971); http://www.modbee.com/local/story/12525212p-13239347c.html

By the Bee staff. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

UNICEF director Ann Veneman, a former member of the Bush Cabinet and a Modesto native, joined U.N. SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan in calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East conflict.

Veneman, who leads the U.N. agency dedicated to helping the world’s children, said she was especially outraged by the toll the war is taking on Lebanese civilians.

“The attacks today in Qana are dramatic evidence that children are once again paying the price of war,” Veneman said in a statement.

Veneman was President Bush’s secretary of agriculture until early last year, when the White House recommended her for the UNICEF job.

Her call for a cease-fire is a break with her former boss. The Bush administration has been reluctant to call for an immediate cease-fire, saying it wants a solution that would bring “sustainable peace.”

Starr and Karen gave a presentation based on their IPA study (mentored by Prof. Eugene Bardach), “The San Francisco Taxicab Industry: An Equity Analysis,” co-authored with fellow Goldman School students, John Lyman, Rick Wilson and Debby Lam (MPP cands. 2007).

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who commissioned the report, introduced it with these remarks: “[The Goldman School students] have done admirable work. I think you’ll find it has a lot of creative ideas and certainly worthy of a full board meeting, as we’re doing today. I wanted to make sure that this report, unlike some others…, was not left on the shelf somewhere.”…

By Michelle Maitre - Staff writer

It’s a sunny day in June and a dozen high school students are hunched together in a university classroom, getting a jump on college by building motors from common household items....

In order to be here, the students must maintain high grades in a college preparatory curriculum, but enrollment priority is given to low-income students and students who will be the first in their family to attend college. Experts say such students aren’t as likely to go to college without extra help.

The students have enrolled in the Pre-College Academy at the University of California, Berkeley, a six-week college-preparatory program in which they take classes in writing, advanced mathematics such as algebra, calculus, geometry and trigonometry, and an “enrichment” elective, which can include classes in ethnic studies, business or pre-engineering.

The students pay nothing to be here. The academy is funded by the state, the university and private foundations....

But academic preparation programs have fallen on hard times, with the governor and some legislators asking tough questions about their funding, their sheer numbers and whether they’re working as intended.

“It’s still unclear which programs are more effective than the others, and if so, how so,” said Anthony Simbol, principal fiscal and policy analyst at the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, which repeatedly has cited the need for better research on the effectiveness of academic preparation programs.

“We would hope these programs are effective,” Simbol added, “but are we getting the most bang for our buck?”….

Academic preparation programs were an early casualty of the state’s historic $35 billion deficit in 2002.

At UC, which operates or oversees the lion’s share of outreach programs in public schools, state funding dropped from $85 million in 2000-01 to $17 million today, according to university figures. In his budget proposal for 2006-07, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed yanking even the $17 million from UC outreach, although the Legislature restored the funding in the final budget….

“For many students, it’s a lifeline,” said Margaret Heisel, executive director of new student preparation at UC. “They would not be able to go to college without these programs.”

While there is no question the programs are beneficial, Simbol and others say there is insufficient research to determine just how these programs boost college-going rates.

Murray Haberman, executive director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, sees a chicken-or-the-egg type of conundrum in the outreach data provided by UC and CSU. Do the programs help the students, Haberman asks, or do the students help the programs?

Haberman, like the LAO’s Simbol, says it’s unclear whether the outreach programs are truly taking students who wouldn’t otherwise make it to college and giving them the tools they need to succeed, or whether the students who enroll in these programs are highly motivated in their own right and would make it to college regardless of intervention from UC or CSU….

CPEC and the LAO have called for a more quantitative analysis of outreach programs, one that compares students in the programs to a cohort of students with similar backgrounds and college aspirations, yet who aren’t involved in the programs. Such a baseline comparison could help researchers and policymakers single out which efforts are most effective, and direct scarce resources accordingly….

UC’s own data suggest that success rates are phenomenal. According to university data, 66 percent of the students who graduate from EAOP, MESA or Puente, the three largest programs, enroll in a two or four-year college immediately after graduating from high school. Statewide, only 46 percent of high school graduates enroll in college the following fall….

Most of the program evaluation comes from UC and CSU itself, said Simbol, who said the programs would benefit from an outside, independent review.

“The state should have someone look at these programs and evaluate them, not UC and CSU,” Simbol said. “They’re the ones that administer the programs, and typically we want an outside party.”…

4. “University outreach needs to be evaluated” (Oakland Tribune, July 24, 2006); editorial citing ANTHONY SIMBOL (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_4088310

Before a multimillion-dollar government program gets the ax or is considered a success, it ought to be evaluated on its merit.

Agencies with a vested interest tend to be less objective than third parties in evaluating such programs. Independent groups become even more necessary when a program becomes a political football.

We’re at that point with outreach programs for low-income and minority students conducted by the University of California and California State University.

As it is now, they’re being whittled away by the state budgeting process without lawmakers having any idea whether they work or not. Academicians working with the programs swear by them, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration keeps chopping away at the funding….

The universities say 66 percent of those who complete UC’s top three programs enroll in college….

Enter the California Postsecondary Education Commission and Legislative Analyst’s Office advocating that an independent quantitative analysis compare students in the programs with those of similar backgrounds who don’t participate. Anthony Simbol, LAO’s principal fiscal and policy analyst, has proposed that the state fund a study. If these programs help disadvantaged students improve and go to college, it may be a worthwhile investment. It’s also worth knowing which programs work and which don’t….

5. “The 20^th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco” (CBS5 TV Sunday Morning News, July 16, 2006); features interview with MARK CLOUTIER (MPP 1993). http://www.aidswalk.net/sanfran/index.html

Mark Cloutier, Executive Director, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and Craig R.
Miller, AIDS Walk Founder and Producer, celebrate the total of $3,778,925!

“People from all over the Bay Area came together today to show their continued commitment and unwavering compassion for people living with HIV,” said Mark Cloutier, executive director, San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “This money will help fund services for those with HIV, forward-thinking social marketing campaigns and innovative new approaches to prevent HIV infection.”

[Cal AIDS Walk team sets record — More than 400 UC Berkeley students, staff, families and friends — the largest number ever — joined the Cal team for this year’s AIDS Walk San Francisco on July 16. The totals are still being tallied, but it appears Berkeley walkers will top the $30,000 fundraising goal set by Chancellor Birgeneau. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/index.html#aids ]

By Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer

A quarter-century after the discovery of AIDS, the Food and Drug Administration approved for the first time on Wednesday a single pill that can be taken just once a day by some patients to keep their HIV infections in check.

A combination of two AIDS drugs made by Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City and a third antiviral medicine from rival Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. of New York, the new three-in-one pills should be ready for sale within a week.

They will be sold under the name Atripla, and the two companies said they will sell the new pill at the same price that its three components together cost today: $1,051 for a 30-day supply.

“It’s great news,’’ said Mark Cloutier, executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “These are the most commonly recommended drugs in triple therapy today.”

The announcement is a milestone in the history of AIDS treatment. When researchers first discovered in 1996 that combinations of three drugs could save lives, it was not uncommon for an AIDS patient to take 30 pills a day.

Such a regimen is very difficult to keep consistently, so patients would forget to take pills, and the virus would quickly develop mutations that rendered the medicines less effective….

Combining Truvada and Sustiva into one pill will not only make it easier for patients to be sure not to miss a dose, it will save them money. “It is one less co-pay, one less deductible, every time you have a prescription filled,” Cloutier said….

Although the new drug is the first once-a-day AIDS treatment, Indian drugmakers were the first to come up with the idea of combining three drugs into a single pill. In 2003, the World Health Organization endorsed Cipla’s Triomune -- a combination of generic copies of three older AIDS medications -- as an easy to administer treatment for people in poor countries. Two Triomune pills are required per day.

“Ironically, the generic companies have created a new wave of innovation,” Cloutier said….

By Douglas Quan

Dr. James M. Slater had a big idea in the 1980s—build a facility at Loma Linda University Medical Center that would treat cancer patients by zapping proton beams into their bodies. Unlike regular radiation, proton therapy can treat cancerous tumors without damaging nearby tissues, the hospital says.

There was one hitch: The project needed big money. Turned down by private industry, the radiation oncology specialist found a sympathetic ear from his local congressman. Since 1988, Rep. Jerry Lewis has secured more than $127 million for the proton beam facility’s construction and research through congressional earmarks....

Critics say academic earmarking is not so much about rewarding the most deserving projects but about political influence, that schools with ties to high-ranking lawmakers on powerful appropriations committees get a disproportionate share of earmarks....

Agencies such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health typically award federal dollars only after projects have been screened by a panel of independent experts. When a lawmaker earmarks dollars from the same agencies’ budgets for a project, no peer review is required.

That raises a lot of questions, said James Savage, author of “Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel.” Is that the best school to perform the research? Are they using the best testing methods? Should that research even be done?

“Part of our ethos in this country is competition. Here’s one area where rather than go through the furnace of competition, you basically have favoritism that’s based on political influence,” he said.

Savage, a University of Virginia politics professor, said peer review is required when schools choose which professors get tenure or which articles get printed in academic journals….

In October 2005, the Association of American Universities, which represents 62 leading public and private research universities, including Harvard, Stanford and UCLA, issued a statement urging schools to refrain from seeking or accepting earmarks....

Critics say they don’t blame lawmakers for bringing money to their constituents—that’s part of their job. However, the only way to ensure limited federal dollars are going to the best projects is to do it through a competitive process, they say. Rather than relying on earmarks, schools should lobby to expand competitive grant programs.

“We aren’t trying to tell Congress how to do their business. What we’re saying is that American science is enhanced by a competitive-review, peer-review process,” said [former UC Berkeley chancellor and Professor of Public Policy] Robert Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities....

A study by Abigail Payne, an economist at McMaster University in Canada, has raised questions about the quality of research funded by earmarks. The study suggests that while earmarked funding may drive up the number of academic publications at a school, it can also decrease the quality of those publications….

Another study by John de Figueiredo of UCLA and Brian Silverman of the University of Toronto, due to be published in October in the Journal of Law and Economics, says schools in areas represented by a congressman or senator on an appropriations committee get a disproportionate share of earmarks.

The study found that a $1 increase in lobbying expenditures yields a $1.56 increase in earmarks for schools in areas not represented by someone on an appropriations committee and a $4.50 increase in earmarks for schools in areas represented by someone on an appropriations committee.

“Once Mr. Lewis retires, Loma Linda, Cal State San Bernardino, and UCR will be lucky to get anything,” Savage, the University of Virginia politics professor, said.

Savage said he doubts that congressional representatives or their staffs spend much time reviewing a project proposal before deciding whether to grant an earmark….

By Tomio Geron -- Bee Staff Writer

Advocates for immigrants, foster children and the poor are worried that a new federal law requiring proof of citizenship for millions of Medicaid recipients may leave many of those eligible for services without access to care….

Signed as part of the Deficit Reduction Act by President Bush on Feb. 8, the rule requires that new Medi-Cal applicants and existing Medi-Cal recipients who are U.S. citizens produce a passport, birth certificate or other documentation to prove citizenship….

A Congressional Budget Office study estimated that of the approximately 50 million people nationwide who receive Medicaid benefits, about 30,000, or 0.06 percent, are not here legally and thus not eligible, according to Sandra Shewry, director of the state Department of Health Services….

[Bruce Wagstaff, director of the Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance] said he is concerned about the elderly, who may not have birth certificates, for example, and about children in foster care.

“You have to remember the situations these kids are in: these are children who have been taken away from their parents who have abused, neglected or abandoned them,” he said….

Advocates for the poor voiced concerns that the new law would delay, interrupt or prevent care for other vulnerable citizens as well, such as homeless people, Hurricane Katrina evacuees, and people who cannot communicate due to Alzheimer’s, mental illness or hospitalization….

Another group likely to be affected are those who were never given birth certificates, advocates say.

In particular, many elderly African Americans were born at home because hospitals would not receive them, [Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project] said. As a result, they were never given birth certificates….

A report by [David Carroll of] the Budget Project released in May estimated that 650,000 people could lack a birth certificate or passport.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Scrambling to keep millions of low-income U.S. citizens from unintentionally being denied healthcare benefits, federal officials Thursday proposed alternatives that states can use to carry out a controversial law requiring Medicaid recipients to prove their citizenship.

The law, which took effect July 1, requires new applicants and current beneficiaries to submit such documents as passports to establish their legal right to benefits. But many of the 50 million people covered by Medicaid lack such documentation, and advocates and state officials feared that as many as 3 million could lose benefits.

In California, where Medicaid is known as Medi-Cal, experts estimated [in David Carroll’s report, “New Medicaid Documentation Requirement Could Create a Barrier to Health Care”] that about 650,000 of nearly 7 million beneficiaries might not be able to comply with the law’s requirements. They included people with severe disabilities and many nursing home residents.

Advocates say it is not unusual to find people in their 70s and 80s who lack birth certificates, particularly if they were born poor and in small towns.

“We want to make sure people eligible for Medicaid get their benefits, and we want to do it without imposing additional burdens on the states,” Mark McClellan, administrator of the Medicaid and Medicare programs, said in announcing the anxiously anticipated regulations….

The regulations, which would become final later this summer, would exempt from the documentation requirements some 8 million elderly and disabled people who are enrolled in Medicare or receiving Supplemental Security Income through Social Security.

Additionally, people who are making a “good faith effort” to prove their citizenship would not face loss of coverage.

Instead of requiring beneficiaries to take steps such as obtaining a passport, states could use several different kinds of government program databases to establish eligibility.

In rare cases where no documentation of citizenship can be found, sworn affidavits from the beneficiary and at least one other person could be used.

Moreover, states that provide Medicaid coverage for legal immigrants would be able to keep using their current procedures.

Advocates for the poor and the elderly reacted cautiously to the announcement late Thursday afternoon. California officials said they needed more time to analyze the 94-page regulation….

Although the new law is estimated to generate some modest savings for taxpayers, federal and state officials have said that there is no evidence of widespread Medicaid fraud by immigrants, whether legal or undocumented. Illegal immigrants in particular run the risk of being discovered and deported if they apply for government benefits….

[David Carroll’s report, “New Medicaid Documentation Requirement Could Create a Barrier to Health Care,” can be read at: http://www.cbp.org/2006/0605_bb_citdocumentation.pdf]

Jim Maloney, MEA Executive Director

San Francisco, Calif. -- This Fourth of July Military Equality Alliance “declares its independence” as a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization dedicated exclusively to grassroots lobbying for the passage of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law and allow patriotic American volunteers to proudly serve openly in our armed forces regardless of sexual orientation….

MEA’s executive director, Jim Maloney, former director of the Military Education Initiative (MEI), said, “We realized that we could contribute in a very significant way by focusing on gaining the support of the public in key Congressional districts and states. We look forward to working with the many other LGBT activist organizations, many of which have already given us so much assistance and advice, in helping deliver what we believe will be the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community’s first national legislative victory.”…

By Lynda Gledhill; Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the state’s $131 billion budget into law with a round of bipartisan self-congratulation, but part of the spending plan is headed to court because critics say it makes illegal changes to a voter-approved ballot measure that provides drug treatment for nonviolent criminals….

A UCLA study of the program [created by the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act], the only one done to date, shows that more than 60 percent of drug offenders either do not enter or complete treatment. Lawmakers said the study shows that judges need more tools to get people to stick with their treatment plans, which would earn the program a higher success rate.

A bill passed as part of the budget lawmakers approved earlier this week allows judges to incarcerate people who violate the terms of their diversion into drug treatment. The court would be able to send offenders to jail for two days for a first violation or relapse into drug use and five days for a second. Currently, nonviolent offenders are sent to drug treatment programs no matter how many times they relapse.

Daniel Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Drug Policy Alliance, which sponsored Prop. 36, said the changes made by lawmakers and the governor are unconstitutional….

A majority of both Democrats and Republicans supported the changes.

“We did the best that we could to try and produce reforms that are consistent with the initiative,” said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles.

Schwarzenegger’s finance director, Mike Genest, said administration officials would not put anything in the budget that they did not believe was constitutional….

12. “Arnold’s balanced budget” (Sacramento Bee, July 5, 2006); Letter to the Editor by MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14274755p-15084495c.html

In response to “Goaaaal! (More or less) No overtime period this year on a budget,” editorial, June 29: The budget signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger puts California in a strong position to complete the fiscal recovery that he began when he took office. Since then, he has reduced the 2006-07 deficit to $3.5 billion from the $16.5 billion estimated for this year. The budget sets aside 4.7 percent of all funds that were available for spending -- more than any other budget in the last 25 years establishing a $2 billion reserve and putting $2.8 billion towards prepaying debt.

This unprecedented restraint was no accident. We anticipated higher state revenues in February, and at Schwarzenegger’s direction I advised state agencies that any additional revenue would be used to build the reserve, meet constitutional requirements and prepay debt.

While this budget does not eliminate the state’s structural deficit, as the governor says, we did not get into this mess in one year, and we will not get out of it in a single year, either. What’s important is that the budget is balanced; it contains no new taxes; it contains a large reserve and pays off debt; it fully funds education and enhances public safety; and it puts us one year closer to finally solving the state’s lingering structural deficit.

- Mike Genest, Sacramento

Director of Finance, State of California

[MIKE GENEST’s letter was also published in the San Francisco Chronicle; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/03/EDGOBIPTEI1.DTL&hw=mike+genest&sn=001&sc=1000 ]

13. “Polluters could face heavy fines” (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, June 27, 2006); story citing THOMAS ADDISON (MPP 1991).

By Mike Sprague - Staff Writer

The Assembly Natural Resources Committee on Monday approved state Sen. Martha Escutia’s bill to increase penalties on air polluters and use the extra fine money to fund local children’s health programs.

SB 1205 - also known as the Children’s Breathing Rights Act of 2006 - was approved 7-3 by committee members and now goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee for approval. It was approved May 30 by the Senate, 21-13.

The bill would increase the cap on fines for an air-pollution violation from $40,000 per day to as much as $100,000 per day.

It also will create a statewide Internet database of major air polluters. Supporters say that provision will allow for more uniform enforcement of air-quality laws….

But opponents called the bill unnecessary.

“This bill is misguided and a punitive solution in search of a problem,” said David Farabee, an attorney representing businesses opposed to the bill. “All it does is increase penalties.”…

But Escutia’s bill is also opposed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which governs air pollution regulations in Southern California. Air quality officials also oppose the bill’s data base provision, saying much of that information already exists. The bill would simply require enforcement officers to spend their time updating the database instead of going after polluters, officials said.

Thomas Addison, senior advanced projects adviser for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in the San Francisco area, said his district supports the goals of the bill but doesn’t think it will help it.

“This bill won’t give us better tools,” said Addison.

By Larry Sandler; Staff; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee County Transit System might need to cut routes far deeper or raise fares much higher than transit officials have proposed to balance its 2007 budget, warns county budget chief Steve Agostini.

In their 2007 budget request, transit officials are already recommending that County Executive Scott Walker and the County Board end four bus routes, reduce service on nine others and boost the prices of weekly adult passes, student fares and van service for the disabled. That would be $2.6 million in fare increases and $2.3 million in service cuts.

But all that might not be enough to cover the transit system’s liability for retiree health care, Agostini said. If transit officials can’t satisfy him that they have dealt with that issue adequately, he said, he could insist on another $11 million in service cuts and fare increases, boosting the total budget impact from almost $5 million to nearly $16 million.

Agostini said he is also concerned that the budget request assumes transit management will win union concessions on health care in contract talks that haven’t even started yet….

Agostini said he had seen figures projecting the bus system’s retiree health care liability at $19 million to $20 million, of which only $8.5 million was covered in the transit budget, leaving a shortfall of about $11 million. He said he feared a hole that large would threaten the integrity of the entire county budget and jeopardize the county’s bond rating….

The transit system’s budget request also says it assumes that “significant changes” in health care for both active employees and retirees will be negotiated in union contracts taking effect in the spring. Because the transit union has voiced its intention to fight to preserve free retiree health care, Agostini questioned whether that assumption was realistic….

15. “Their roots are showing. Fans becoming proud to show their colors” (Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ), June 14, 2006); story citing STEVE AGOSTINI (MPP 1986).

By Dan Graziano; Star-Ledger Staff

Philadelphia—Whenever the Mets come to this town, it floods with Mets fans. They pile into their cars, trek down the Turnpike and cram into Citizens Bank Park in numbers large enough to annoy the easily annoyed baseball fans of the City of Brotherly Love.

But if you were looking for some real die-hards last night, they were sitting in a pair of field-level seats behind home plate an hour before the game.

Steve Agostini and his wife, Nicole Else-Quest, are expatriate Mets fans living in Wisconsin (Steve’s originally from Queens), and they flew out just to see the Mets play. They travel several times a year to different cities to see their favorite team. They were in New York just last week, proudly wearing their Mets caps around town, and they noticed something.

They weren’t alone.

“I can’t remember the last time we saw so many Mets hats,” Nicole recalled. “Usually, we’re the only ones.”

Ah, but times are changing in and around New York City. The fresh, exciting, first-place Mets are the hot team in town. The banged-up, perpetually playoff-bound Yankees may still be the bigger draw, but these days, Mets fans are increasingly unashamed to show their faces.

“This is a fun team,” Steve said. “I mean, even in 2000, they had good players, but they had folks who didn’t have the same kind of personality these guys have now. This team has kids and young players and some stars ... it’s a nice team to root for.”…

“There’s something special going on here,” [Rev. Kevin] Carter said. “It does remind you of `86, the way they’re finding ways to win games….”

Carter’s confidence is strong. Others seem a little more cautious. Steve and Nicole, the transplants, went to see the Mets in Milwaukee on May 13 and met relief pitcher Duaner Sanchez before the game. That night, Sanchez gave up four runs in the eighth inning and got ejected.

“I’m not allowed to talk to him anymore,” Nicole said.

Of course, the rest of the story is that the Mets came back to win that game in Milwaukee, 9-8.

“There’s still a lot of those nail-biting Mets moments,” Steve said. “I guess it’s got to be a little tough, or it wouldn’t be the Mets. But they sure are fun to watch.”

…DCFPI supports the detailed and careful work that the Task Force put into this set of comprehensive recommendations to shape our housing strategy over the next ten to fifteen years. Particularly, we support those recommendations that speak to creating and preserving spaces and resources for the city’s most vulnerable residents in the future—preserving the federal section 8 program, creating our own local rent subsidy program, both rehabbing and creating new affordable housing for families and singles including the homeless, and creating an emergency assistance program to begin mending the city’s safety net for low-income residents….

…While homeownership is important, I do not want us to forget that when we talk about which District households are spending more on housing than what is considered affordable, we are talking mainly about low-income renters. Some 73 percent of all households that spend more than half of their income on housing costs have incomes below 30 percent of the area median. Some 90 percent have incomes below 50 percent of the area median. The majority—78 percent—of these households are renters…. In a report last year, we calculated, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, that while there were over 47,000 renting households in the District with income below $20,000, there were only 27,000 apartments (costing $500 or less per month) that would be affordable to them, creating an affordable housing gap of 20,000 units for households with income below that level….

17. “Water planning program gets $1 million in budget” (State Journal-Register, The (Springfield, IL),

June 6, 2006); story citing STEVE FRENKEL (MPP 2000).

By Mike Ramsey - Copley News Service

Chicago - A new program will assess the state’s water supply, including the Mahomet Aquifer in central Illinois, and suggest ways regions can stretch the valuable resource amid rising population and development pressures.

Growth-management experts and conservation advocates announced the Illinois Water Supply Initiative in Chicago on Monday.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources will begin administering the five-year project this summer with $1 million in startup money that is included in the latest state budget.

“Now is the right time to take stock of our demand for water and our available supply,” Steve Frenkel, an environmental adviser to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said at a news conference along Lake Michigan, the water source for Chicago. “Responsible water-supply planning is critical to ensuring continued economic growth.”…

The launch of the initiative follows the January release of a study by Openlands Project and other groups that reported water use in Illinois is expected to increase nearly 28 percent by 2025, with growth to occur in 89 of 102 counties….

By Jessica Morrison and Diane Broad

Renewable generation is expected to become increasingly prominent in the nation’s electricity mix.

Project developers and grid operators have a history of battling over the benefits and process of integrating alternative energy into the transmission grid. This conflict is driven primarily by the perception that renewable generation, particularly wind, is at odds with the grid operator’s objective to provide service to customers at the lowest possible rates and maintain a robust, stable grid. Developers focus on completing projects quickly to secure financing and tax credits, and this conflicts with the grid operator’s system planning process. Tension between the two parties frequently leads to stalled, cancelled or unexpectedly expensive projects, which negatively impacts the grid operator’s ability to diversify generation and meet customer demand, and the developer’s objective to deliver the product to market at an acceptable rate of return. When both parties keep the lines of communication open and make an effort to understand the needs of the other, they are more likely to find common ground….

Open communication and a willingness to understand the other’s position is essential to build trust and respect. One way to build collaboration is to encourage staff to become more educated about the needs of the other party. According to Robert Gramlich, American Wind Energy Association’s policy director, more experience and education is needed among the utility planning staff with regard to wind energy.

“Integrating wind is a new engineering task for utility planners, requiring training in the experiences of other utilities in the U.S. and abroad, and best practices for integration methods. Likewise, developers need to have experts on staff that have either worked for utilities in the past, or are knowledgeable about utility planning and operations to know how to help them maintain grid reliability,” Gramlich said.

Gramlich suggests that transmission planners become involved in the Utility Wind Integration Group, and that developers attend North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) meetings….

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Subsidies are the wrong road to biofuels” (San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 2006); op-ed by MICHAEL O’HARE; http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/30/EDG7BIQ76D1.DTL

Michael O’Hare is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

By Michael O’Hare

Ethanol and other biofuels allow us to use solar energy (collected by plants or even salvaged from trash) instead of fossil fuels just by mixing them with the gasoline and diesel we already use. There is a lot to be said for them, and the government is right to encourage their use. Unfortunately, the package of policies for these promising technologies is enough to drive a reasonable person to the ethanol (liquor) cabinet.

The main pieces of this policy are a flat subsidy of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol used in fuel (about a third of what it costs to make), a mandate to use 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels a year nationally by 2012, and a 50 cents or $1-a-gallon subsidy for biodiesel. A whole forest of more specific and obscure programs provide (for only one example) accelerated depreciation for biomass electric-generating equipment, which means tax savings, and another set of rules forces automakers to sell vehicles that use less fuel altogether. These are piled on top of farm and import policies that prevent the Brazilians from selling us sugar-cane ethanol (that they are very good at making very cheap), and distort the behavior of U.S. farmers of every large crop. It’s a lunatic salad of ill-designed, inefficient and uncoordinated giveaways.

What’s wrong with this approach? Almost everything, except that it does vaguely push us toward more responsible energy use. The first problem is that an ethanol subsidy (for example) makes this chemical cheap, no matter how it’s made. Among the most important things my colleagues and I have found in studying ethanol is that its benefits for the planet (reduced global warming) and the nation (reduced dependence on imported petroleum) depend a lot on how it is made, and what it is made of….

What we should be doing, instead of the current incredibly complex and ill-targeted package of subsidy programs, is to charge for using the Earth’s limited ability to accept carbon dioxide in the air….

Until we do this, we will weave an ever-more-complicated and tangled patchwork of intrusive government. To see how complicated, look at the Governor’s Climate Action Team Report from March:

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/climate_action_team/reports/2006-04-03_FINAL_CAT_REPORT.PDF

….

[To learn more about the biofuel energy study developed by Prof. O’Hare and his colleagues—including DAN KAMMEN and BRIAN T. TURNER (MPP 2005)—go to http://rael.berkeley.edu/ebamm/ .]

[The Governor’s Climate Action Team includes Prof. MICHAEL HANEMANN, CHUCK SHULOCK (MPP 1978), PATRICK WRIGHT (MPP 1987), and ROBERT SCHLADALE (MPP 1980).]

This year an extremely popular local lecture series [organized by Visiting Lecturer Marion Nestle] publicly tackled the issues of agricultural sustainability, the economics of organics, and American attitudes about eating—and featured all of the leading names on the subject, including luminaries Michael Pollan and Alice Waters. Best of all, it was free and open to the general public. The Food Politics lecture series was put on by UC Berkeley’s Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, and we applaud the school for contributing to the Bay Area’s food politics education. The school also offers lectures and panel discussions on such things as the environmental impact of coal and the future of urban housing development, many of which don’t cost a dime. And we, the freeloading public, love it.

3. “New test promises safe fish faster” (Marketplace, National Public Radio, July 24, 2006); features commentary by MARGARET TAYLOR; Listen to this story

There’s been increasing concern about fish and mercury levels lately, and now there’s a company that hopes to reel in profits with a new method of testing fish for mercury.

Photo: Justin Sullivan © Getty Images

Swordfish steaks for sale TESS VIGELAND: Head to the fish department of your local grocery store and you’ll find lots of warnings about mercury. Children and pregnant women are supposed to watch their fish intake because of mercury levels. For the rest of us it’s not about dropping fish from our diets. Experts agree fish provide great health benefits. It’s about watching the type and volume consumed. A new technology could help monitor that. And the company that makes it is hoping to reel in a windfall. Rachel Dornhelm reports….

[Fish Shop Owner] DAVE PARRISH: We saw a huge decrease in sales, especially on swordfish. Our swordfish sales dropped at least 50 percent, if not more at times, and it was all due to the mercury warnings….

Then he heard about a program in development called “Safe Harbor.” It’s a new technology that measures mercury levels in minutes….

PARRISH: The neat thing about this is we aren’t doing random testing. We test every single fillet or every single fish….

Malcolm Wittenberg is founder and CEO of Micro Analytical Systems, which certifies the fish. He says his company’s standards are rigorous.

MALCOLM WITTENBERG: We’re rejecting probably about 50 percent of the fish that we test, and on some days we’re rejecting 90 percent of it.

Wittenberg says he thinks the federal agencies are doing a good job, just without the technology to enforce their limits. Meanwhile the FDA has said it’s a better use of its time and money to focus on education, not more testing. And the government hasn’t approved Wittenberg’s device as a diagnostic tool. Still, Wittenberg says he thinks he’s ahead of the curve on policy.

WITTENBERG: I think capitalism, entrepreneurism, does that. I mean there is that profit motive that drives people that of course you don’t have in a government agency.

UC-Berkeley public policy professor Margaret Taylor says Wittenberg has lots of company among environmental entrepreneurs.

MARGARET TAYLOR: In many cases you’ll see individuals or small firms getting into an area before the federal government or the state government really gets involved because they recognize a need.

She says one example is wind power where 60 percent of patents are held by individual inventors. Taylor says many green entrepreneurs dream of their innovations becoming the government’s gold standard.

MARGARET TAYLOR: And so a lot of times if you’re an environmental technology producer, you actually would kind of like to see your thing being enshrined in regulation as the best available technology, because anybody who’s dealing with this problem has to use your device.

When it comes to mercury there don’t appear to be any policy changes on the horizon. For now, Wittenberg is focused on the private sector. He says he is currently in talks with seafood outlets like Whole Foods and tuna canner Chicken of the Sea….

David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, is writing a book about the universal preschool movement.

By DAVID L. KIRP

When it comes to explaining the roots of intelligence, the fight between partisans of the gene and partisans of the environment is ancient and fierce. Each side challenges the other’s intellectual bona fides and political agendas. What is at stake is not just the definition of good science but also the meaning of the just society. The nurture crowd is predisposed to revive the War on Poverty, while the hereditarians typically embrace a Social Darwinist perspective.

A century’s worth of quantitative-genetics literature concludes that a person’s I.Q. is remarkably stable and that about three-quarters of I.Q. differences between individuals are attributable to heredity. This is how I.Q. is widely understood — as being mainly “in the genes” — and that understanding has been used as a rationale for doing nothing about seemingly intractable social problems like the black-white school-achievement gap and the widening income disparity. If nature disposes, the argument goes, there is little to be gained by intervening….

But what if the supposed opposition between heredity and environment is altogether misleading? A new generation of studies shows that genes and environment don’t occupy separate spheres — that much of what is labeled “hereditary” becomes meaningful only in the context of experience. “It doesn’t really matter whether the heritability of I.Q. is this particular figure or that one,” says Sir Michael Rutter of the University of London. “Changing the environment can still make an enormous difference.” If heredity defines the limits of intelligence, the research shows, experience largely determines whether those limits will be reached. And if this is so, the prospects for remedying social inequalities may be better than we thought….

The push for universal preschool is not a red-state-blue-state issue; the pioneers in the area are Oklahoma and Georgia, not generally known for social progressivism. And with the support of business groups and prominent philanthropists like Susan Buffett, the daughter of Warren Buffett, it may enter the national agenda. If it does, it will be a small step toward a society in which not only the most fortunate children will be able to “max out” their potential.

By Matt Weiser -- Bee Staff Writer

The Hetch Hetchy Valley before it was flooded. The Tuolumne River meanders its way westward through the valley. Sacramento Bee archives.

Efforts to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park got a boost Wednesday from a long-awaited state study, which finds the idea is “technically feasible” but possibly much more expensive than previous estimates.

Demolishing Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and providing another water supply for 2.4 million San Francisco Bay Area residents could cost between $3 billion and $10 billion, the report finds. Even the low end is double what independent studies have estimated….

Environmental groups cheered the report, saying it verifies that restoring one of the nation’s natural wonders is feasible….

Sierra Club founder John Muir called Hetch Hetchy the “wonderful exact counterpart” to nearby Yosemite Valley, one of the most spectacular national park attractions in America.

But Hetch Hetchy was flooded in 1923 with the completion of O’Shaughnessey Dam, owned and operated by the city and county of San Francisco. The 312-foot-high dam stores 360,000 acre-feet of water that is used by several Bay Area cities.

Restoration has been a dream of environmental groups ever since. The idea gained strength in 2004 after UC Davis and the groups Restore Hetch Hetchy and Environmental Defense produced studies showing the valley could be restored, without reducing Bay Area water supplies, at a cost of about $1.6 billion….

But unlike the independent studies, which rely mainly on water transfers to meet Bay Area needs, the state’s review includes new surface storage. This adds $1.4 billion alone to the costs for a project such as enlarging Calaveras Reservoir in Santa Clara County….

Spreck Rosecrans, a senior analyst at Environmental Defense, said the state study looks at providing up to four times more water than Hetch Hetchy currently provides, which is a big reason the costs are so high….

Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, said restoring Hetch Hetchy could be part of a larger plan to improve the state’s overall water supply. A champion of the restoration effort, she plans to hold hearings on the issue when the Legislature reconvenes in two weeks….

The National Park Service would have to play a role in further studies that could cost $65 million. But Yosemite National Park spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said that is beyond the park’s charter.

“We have worked with the city of San Francisco for a long time to maintain the pristine quality of that watershed, and that was mandated a long time ago,” Freeman said. “In the future, if there is any change, it will have to be mandated by the Department of Interior and by Congress.”

That is also unlikely, since the project is opposed by San Francisco politicians, notably U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein….

Michael Hanemann, a professor of resource economics at UC Berkeley, said California’s water supply and open spaces are both under pressure. But the Hetch Hetchy debate suggests they need not be at odds.

“This is a difficult calculus, because the value that people would place on having a second Yosemite just grows exponentially over time,” he said. “We have to be prepared to look for more storage, but obviously we have to make it smarter than in the past.”

By Matt Krupnick, Contra Costa Times

In the ongoing struggle to persuade people to be jurors, Monday’s gasp perhaps explained the battle most effectively.

The collective intake of breath Monday afternoon was from potential jurors in the murder trial of 17-year-old Scott Dyleski, when Judge Barbara Zuniga said the case could take as long as five weeks to finish. While Zuniga cautioned that five weeks would be the “worst-case scenario,” she also told prospective jurors it was their job to serve....

While it’s relatively easy to eliminate jurors whose opinions clearly conflict with either side’s attorneys, there’s little to suggest that jury selection is a science, some experts said. Juries always will be subject to the emotional and factual twists and turns that are part of most murder trials, they said.

“Neither lawyers nor social scientists are very good at picking jurors,” said Robert Maccoun, a Professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School Of Law. “There’s very little correlation between the choices they make and the outcomes of the verdicts.”

7. “Middle East Crisis” (KTVU Morning News, July 17, 2006); features commentary by MICHAEL NACHT.

Ross McGowan talks with national security expert, Michael Nacht, Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, at UC Berkeley, about the escalation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, the danger of widening instability in the region, and prospects for cease-fire.

Washington -- This week, the DNC’s Podcast hosts Robert Reich, former United Sates Secretary of Labor during President Bill Clinton’s Administration. Reich discusses how the Bush Administration’s “irresponsible” fiscal policies and misleading rhetoric have left Americans with record budget deficits, tax breaks for the wealthy and stagnant wages for American workers.

“You can’t pull the wool over the people’s eyes with regard to the economy because they live in it. They see it every day. They know that their jobs are not secure; they know that their wages are going no where; they know that their benefits are drying up. They know that they have to work harder; they know that the cost of things that they depend on like fuel at the pump and health insurance is going up faster than they can afford it. So, no amount of public relations verbiage coming from the White House is going to change what average working people see and feel every single day,” said Reich.

“This administration promised a much better fiscal picture, promised that revenues would be far better than this when they sold their tax cuts, mostly to the rich, in 2001 and 2003. Obviously, the Bush Administration is grasping at straws. They’re trying to find anything they can to show that the economy is good when the economy for average working people is lousy,” he added….

[The DNC’s Podcast, an audio broadcast that listeners can download for play on portable music devices or on computers, gives listeners a chance to regularly hear from party leaders, newsmakers, strategists, policy makers, and the grassroots of the Democratic Party.]

9. “Climate shift may squeeze wine grapes” (Sacramento Bee, July 11, 2006); story citing MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/14276642p-15085989c.html

By Charlie Emrich -- Bee Staff Writer

The hotter days and warmer nights that global warming may bring could compel most premium wine grape growers to lower their quality or move to cooler sites by century’s end, say scientists who developed a new climate model of the United States.

This has huge implications for California’s wine-producing industry, which has grown to $17 billion in retail sales, according to the Wine Institute, a trade group in San Francisco….

Growing premium wine grapes requires the right climate: hot during the day and cool at night. Temperature extremes can ruin otherwise good wine grapes, and were the focus of a study published in Monday’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using a finely detailed model of the nation’s climate, scientists created daily temperature maps for the end of the century. These temperatures were then used to determine the “Winkler region” for the wine, an industry gauge of the quality of a winemaking climate that considers total heat accumulation over a year.

Based on an increase in number of days on which the temperature exceeds 95 degrees, the researchers found an 81 percent decrease in the acreage suited to growing premium wine grapes.

“We’re talking about anywhere between 40 to 60 more days” annually above 95 degrees in those areas, says Noah Diffenbaugh, climate scientist at Purdue University in Indiana and one of the study’s authors. “You’re really talking about a new heat regime in these areas.”

Some level of climate change is nothing new to wine-growing regions, said Greg Jones, climate scientist at Southern Oregon University and another study author. “The growing season in Napa is 85 days longer now than in the 1930s and ‘40s.”…

But when temperatures get too high, about 95 to 100 degrees, the grapes “pretty much shut down,” says Leon Sobon, of Shenandoah Vineyards in Amador County. “If you get to about 100 degrees, the vine shuts down, and if you get to 100 day after day, the leaves start burning.”…

The National Academy of Sciences recently released a report confirming that the earth is warming by one degree over the past century, and at an increased rate over the past 20 years.

“There’s abundant evidence that we’re getting warmer,” said Michael Hanemann, director of the California Climate Change Center at UC Berkeley, and a member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Climate Action Team. “The question is, how will this trend continue, and that’s where the (climate) models come in.”

Hanemann also notes that many economic theories assume that changes in temperatures have a “symmetric” relationship to agricultural output, meaning that if the weather is hotter or cooler, the crop yield decreases equally. But the yield of many crops, such as wine grapes, has a temperature threshold, or tipping point, beyond which “the decline is like falling off a cliff.”…

President Bush said larger than expected tax revenue has cut the federal deficit, validating his tax cuts. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, currently professor of public policy at the Goldman School at the University of California at Berkeley, and Wall Street Journal writer Stephen Moore debate what the new numbers mean for the health of the economy.

11. “The Immigration Equation” (New York Times [*requires registration], July 9, 2006); story citing STEVEN RAPHAEL; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/magazine/09IMM.html

By Roger Lowenstein

… To [George] Borjas, a Cuban immigrant and the pre-eminent scholar in his field, the truth is pretty obvious: immigrants hurt the economic prospects of the Americans they compete with. And now that the biggest contingent of immigrants are poorly educated Mexicans, they hurt poorer Americans, especially African-Americans, the most….

It turns out that Borjas’s seemingly self-evident premise — that more job seekers from abroad mean fewer opportunities, or lower wages, for native workers — is one of the most controversial ideas in labor economics….

You can find economists to substantiate the position of either chamber, but the consensus of most is that, on balance, immigration is good for the country. Immigrants provide scarce labor, which lowers prices in much the same way global trade does. And overall, the newcomers modestly raise Americans’ per capita income. But the impact is unevenly distributed; people with means pay less for taxi rides and household help while the less-affluent command lower wages and probably pay more for rent….

Easily the most influential of Borjas’s critics is David Card, a Canadian who teaches at [the University of California at] Berkeley. He has said repeatedly that, from an economic standpoint, immigration is no big deal and that a lot of the opposition to it is most likely social or cultural. “If Mexicans were taller and whiter, it would probably be a lot easier to deal with,” he says pointedly….

In a recent paper, “Is the New Immigration Really So Bad?” Card took indirect aim at Borjas and, once again, plumbed a labor-market surprise. Despite the recent onslaught of immigrants, he pointed out, U.S. cities still have fewer unskilled workers than they had in 1980. Immigrants may be depriving native dropouts of the scarcity value they might have enjoyed, but at least in a historical sense, unskilled labor is not in surplus…. Thus, in 1980, 24 percent of the work force in metropolitan areas were dropouts; in 2000, only 18 percent were….

I talked to half a dozen vintners and a like number of roofing-company owners, both fields that rely on Mexican labor, and frequently heard that Americans do not, in sufficient numbers, want the work….

If you talk to enough employers, you start to gather that they prefer immigrant labor over unskilled Americans. The former have fewer problems with tardiness, a better work ethic. Some of this may be prejudice. But it’s possible that Mexican dropouts may be better workers than our dropouts….

The issue is charged because the group with by far the highest rate of incarceration is African-American dropouts. Approximately 20 percent of black males without high-school diplomas are in jail. Indeed, according to Steven Raphael, a colleague of Card’s at [the University of California at] Berkeley, the correlation between wages and immigration is a lot weaker if you control for the fact that so many black men are in prison….

12. “Minimum wage: An easy solution” - Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Kansas City Star, July 6, 2006); http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/14973469.htm

By ROBERT REICH - Columnist

Between now and the midterm elections in November, Senate Democrats will be looking for every opportunity to add a minimum-wage amendment to anything that moves in the Senate.

The reason is simple: In poll after poll, more than 80 percent of Americans say they favor an increase. Every time Republicans vote it down, they look like grinches....

We can’t raise the minimum wage too much — probably not more than $2 an hour — without causing some employers to decide it’s not worth hiring that extra person. From a purely economic perspective, a better way to make sure poor workers get a decent wage is by expanding the earned income tax credit, a reverse income tax that supplements the wages of workers on the bottom. Right now, that credit gives them about $3,000 a year.

But the minimum wage is also a moral statement about the value of work in our society. And it’s been dropping....

The basic question is what a decent society can afford to pay its lowest-paid workers. Between 2002 and 2005, American productivity grew 10 percent, yet workers in the bottom tenth of the income range still lost ground, with average wages dropping 3 percent in real terms….

Robert B. Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-founder of The American Prospect magazine.

MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA, host: …[J]oining us now is our dynamic duo: Bob Reich, former labor secretary and professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, and Steve Moore, senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. …Let me start with you, Steve. What do you make of this mess with North Korea?

Mr. STEVE MOORE: … I think Bush is exactly right. This is—recall that North Korea is one of the axis of evil, and to take steps as we did in Iraq, to try to nip this in the bud I think is completely appropriate. … I mean, if diplomacy breaks down, then I think, you know, bombing some of these silos and taking out North Korea’s nuclear capability is an extremely important step. Remember, this is a very dangerous man. This is man who starves his own people. So he doesn’t have a high regard for human life.

Mr. ROBERT REICH (Former Labor Secretary): Well, I think that’s just irresponsible. Look… I’m no foreign policy expert either, but I don’t think that bombing, particularly if we don’t have any troop strength. I mean, we are bogged down in Baghdad right now. And Kim Jong Il and the people who run Iran, they all know that we are bogged down, that we do not have flexibility, that we cannot promise any troop strength at all. And to launch a missile attack to actually start bombing is absolutely irresponsible.

Mr. MOORE: Well, Bob, what do you suggest that we do if North Korea moves forward with this program?

Mr. REICH: The six-party talks have gone absolutely nowhere. I mean, I think it’s time to say those are not moving. We’re going to have to try something else. If we tried direct diplomacy—now I know the Bush administration does not want to sit down with Kim Jong Il at all…

CARUSO-CABRERA: And why should they?

Mr. REICH: Why not at least try?

Mr. MOORE: Because I think this is an extremely dangerous situation. Not just for the United States, but the whole Asian area where Korea is now developing technology that could do real damage to the peace in the area.

Mr. REICH: But why not at least try direct diplomacy? …

Mr. MOORE: What if diplomacy breaks down?

Mr. REICH: Steve, we’re not the foreign policy experts here. We do know something about the economy. This is not only dangerous militarily, it is also dangerous for the economy. Oil prices are already heading upward because of the uncertainty. They could continue to head upward. We could be facing a real economic slowdown, a recession. All of this made much more difficult because we don’t have any strategy here…. But you talk about danger, if you’re talking about direct bombing, what are you going to do, bomb the missile silos? Who are you going to bomb, and how are you going to prevent them from retaliating by bombing Seoul?

CARUSO-CABRERA: Well, [the North Korean missiles] haven’t been very effective yet….

Mr. REICH: Yes, but you know that they can not only bomb Seoul, they can send troops right across the demilitarized zone. We could be back in a war and we do not have—let me stress this right now—we don’t have many options. We don’t have a lot of troop strength. Our troops are already way, way overextended in Iraq….

FACULTY SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & EVENTS

June 29, 2006 “Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles: A California Vision for Kicking America’s Oil Addiction and Reducing Transportation’s Impact on Global Climate.” DANIEL KAMMEN, Director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, UC Berkeley; Professor, Energy and Resources Group, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley, spoke at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco. (Broadcast on KALW, July 25, 2006); audio available at: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/index.php?filter=audio&sort=releasedate

VIDEOS & WEBCASTS

An archive of GSPP programs on UCTV is accessible at: http://www.uctv.tv/series/index.asp?show=show&number=57

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(This digest was edited by Theresa Wong)