GSPP

Web

Editors

eDIGEST February 2008

UPCOMING EVENTS

1. GSPP Presidential Primary Forum

Feb. 4, 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m., GSPP Living Room & Room 105

GSPP students and faculty will discuss their support for presidential candidates in the Feb 5th primary.

2. “One Nation Divisible: What America Was and What it is Becoming”

Michael Katz, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

with Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy, as respondent

February 21, noon-1:30 p.m., Room 250, Goldman School of Public Policy

Professor Katz's book, One Nation Divisible, and Professor Reich's book, Supercapitalism, will be available for sale and signing.

3. “The Subprime Lending Crisis”

Frank E. Nothaft, PhD, Chief Economist, Freddie Mac

February 25, noon-1:00 p.m., GSPP Living Room

Sponsored by Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, Larry Rosenthal, director; for more info: 643-3507

4. “Reparations Programs in the Wake of Large-Scale Atrocities”

by NAOMI ROHT-ARRIAZA (MPP/JD 1990), professor of law at UC Hastings

March 31, Noon-1:15 p.m., 554 Barrows

Presented by Center for Latin American Studies; http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/series/latinamerican/index.html

5. ANNUAL AARON WILDAVSKY FORUM: “The Social Psychology of Terrorism”

Arie Kruglanski, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland

April 3, 7:30-9:30 p.m., Booth Auditorium, Boalt School of Law; http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/pubpol.html?event_ID=5697&view=preview

6. WILDAVSKY FORUM DISCUSSION

April 4, 9:00-11:00 a.m., GSPP Living Room

7. Students of Color in Public Policy - 3rd Annual Alumni and Friends Dinner

April 18, 6:00-10:00 p.m.

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. “State to probe development of ‘green’ chemicals. Experts are unveiling ideas for a state effort to develop and use ‘green’ substitutes for toxic compounds” (Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2008); story citing report coauthored by DANIEL CHIA (MPP 2004) and BRYAN EHLERS (MPP 2004); http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-green31jan31,1,7119228.story

2. “Berkeley envisions ambitious energy plan” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 2008); story citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000) and DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/29/BAQ7UNP9N.DTL&type=printable

3. “Value of U.S. House’s Carbon Offsets Is Murky - Some Question Effectiveness of $89,000 Purchase to Balance Out Greenhouse Gas Emissions” (Washington Post, January 28, 2008); story citing MARK TREXLER (MPP 1982/PhD 1989); http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012702400_2.html?sid=ST2008012800764

4. “Fishermen question small role in oil spill cleanup” (Oakland Tribune, January 27, 2008); story citing LINDA SHEEHAN (MPP/JD 1990); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_8093025?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com

5. “Home Prices Sank in 2007, and Buyers Hid” (New York Times, January 25, 2008); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974); http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/business/25home.html?scp=12&sq=grynbaum&st=nyt

6. “Hungary sees room to cut EU farm aid; Prime minister challenges a sacred cow; Davos 2008” (The International Herald Tribune, January 24, 2008); story citing JACK THURSTON (MPP 1999).

7. “Judge ousts prison czar, calls for progress. Combative Sillen replaced by McGeorge’s Kelso to work with officials to fix inmate care” (Sacramento Bee, January 24, 2008); story citing TODD SPITZER (MPP/JD 1989); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/658133.html

8. “Whitehall ‘should have risk funds’” (Third Sector, January 23, 2008); story citing RICHARD HALKETT (MPP 2005).

9. “State health reform may be pricey prospect” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 23, 2008); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/23/BADSUK46O.DTL

10. “Newsom discusses warming, economy on road trip” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 23, 2008); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/23/BABKUJNCD.DTL

11. “Forum: Green progress to speed up. Auto execs and environmental leaders agree” (Detroit Free Press, January 23, 2008); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992); http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008801230379

12. “Freno al rezago académico” (La Opinión, January 23, 2008); story citing DEBORAH KONG (MPP 2007); http://www.laopinion.com/archivo/index.html?START=2&RESULTSTART=1&DISPLAYTYPE=single&FREETEXT=%22preschool+california%22&FDATEd12=&FDATEd13=&SORT_MODE=SORT_MODE

13. “UNICEF: Sierra Leone, Angola, Afghanistan have world’s highest child mortality - Simple health care measures would prevent many of the deaths” (Daily Journal (International Falls, MN) - January 23, 2008); story citing ANN VENEMAN.

14. “King’s greatest dream remains unfulfilled. Much work remains to be done to end racism, injustice, inequality” (Charlotte Observer, January 21, 2008); op-ed citing JULIA BIXLER ISAACS (MPP 1985); http://www.charlotteobserver.com/171/story/455787.html

15. “WINE - A green outlook on business - California vineyards are becoming more ecofriendly” (Houston Chronicle, January 16, 2008); story citing ALLISON JORDAN (MPP 2004); http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/food/wine/5449789.html

16. “Legislative analyst criticizes across-the-board reductions” (Sacramento Bee, January 15, 2008); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/634408.html

17. “Schwarzenegger proposes to borrow his way to balanced budget” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 15, 2008); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/15/BAD9UF5QJ.DTL&hw=fitch&sn=001&sc=1000

18. “GM Takes a Stake in Ethanol Maker; General Motors underscores its commitment to ethanol-powered vehicles by investing in a company that claims it can make the fuel more cheaply” (Business Week Online, January 14, 2008); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992); http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/jan2008/bw20080111_703972.htm

19. “Ed Jew tenders resignation from S.F. Board of Supervisors” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 11, 2008); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/11/MN19UD1T2.DTL

20. “Carmen Chu decides to run for Ed Jew’s old S.F. supervisors seat” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 2008); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003) and DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/16/BA40UFLBA.DTL

21. “Governor confirms he wants inmates released. Plan to free 22,000 has a GOP legislator charging ‘betrayal’” (Sacramento Bee, January 11, 2008); story citing TODD SPITZER (MPP/JD 1989) and MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/626302.html

22. “Universities face steeper fee increases; qualified students may be denied entrance” (Contra Costa Times, January 11, 2008); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.contracostatimes.com/localnews/ci_7942414

23. “If it isn't a recession, sure feels like one - Experts agree oil, housing, jobs increase risk” (Record, The (Hackensack, NJ) - January 10, 2008); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

24. “Governor Urges Calif. to ‘Face Our Budget Demons’” (Education Week [*requires registration], January 10, 2008); editorial citing research coauthored by JANNELLE LEE KUBINEC (MPP 1997); http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/16/19calif_sos.h27.html?print=1

25. “Term limit changes would ‘strike a balance,’ ad claims” (Sacramento Bee, January 9, 2008); story citing TIM GAGE (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/620380.html

26. “Analysis: Deficit shoves strategy to the right. Governor’s focus on spending limits appeals to Republicans and disappoints Democrats” (Sacramento Bee, January 9, 2008); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/620563.html

27. “Reports split on payout of casino deals” (Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA) - January 8, 2008); story citing TIM GAGE (MPP 1978); http://www.pe.com/politics/miller/stories/PE_News_Local_D_finances08.33d7097.html

28. “Mental-health care deserves parity” (Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ) - January 7, 2008); op-ed citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975).

29. “Editorial: Time to make the ‘Year of Education’ a reality” (Sacramento Bee, January 7, 2008); editorial citing research coauthored by JANNELLE LEE KUBINEC (MPP 1997); http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/611006.html

30. “They see... - Local experts tell us what to expect in their industries in the year ahead” (Sacramento Bee, January 6, 2008); column citing MARIAN MULKEY (MPP/MPH 1989); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/611053-p2.html

31. “New budget pitch readied. Governor to offer a plan in Tuesday address that would increase his power to make midyear cuts” (Sacramento Bee, January 6, 2008); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/612744.html

32. “The state budget: California never cut up credit card. Despite pledges by the governor, system wasn’t fixed and another deficit looms” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 2008); op-ed citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/06/INDRU2J0K.DTL

33. “S.F. health plan has few takers on 1st day of eligibility expansion” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 3, 2008); story citing TANGERINE BRIGHAM (MPP 1990); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/03/BA31U88R2.DTL

34. “Pay for college chiefs rising fast” (Christian Science Monitor, January 3, 2008); story citing JAMES SAVAGE (MPP/PhD 1978).

35. “Report: No Progress For Kids - Health, Education Status Static In State, Group Says” (Modesto Bee, January 3, 2008); story citing COREY NEWHOUSE (MPP 2003).

36. “High-rises mark changing times in a shifting city” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 2, 2008); story citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/02/BA35U6AGK.DTL&hw=latterman&sn=001&sc=1000

37. “Black-Owned TV Stations Nearly Extinct” (Final Call, January 2, 2008); column citing DEREK TURNER (MPP 2006).

38. “New state laws revise rules on high school exit exam. Students who fail test in 12th grade get entitled to remedial instruction” (Oakland Tribune, January 2, 2008); story citing BRIAN EDWARDS (MPP 1999); http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_7861918

39. “Budget gap looming over 2008” (Sacramento Bee, January 1, 2008); column citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980) and report coauthored by JANNELLE LEE KUBINEC (MPP 1997); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/602141.html

40. “Avian flu virus still a threat 10 years after leap to humans” (Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ) - January 1, 2008); story citing TIM UYEKI (MPP 1985).

41. “Your Town. Economic conference sponsored by AMBAG set for Jan. 25” (Monterey County Herald, December 27, 2007); story citing CHUCK SHULOCK (MPP 1978).

42. “More News” (Progress-Index (Petersburg, VA) - December 25, 2007); story citing AMINA LUQMAN (MPP 2001).

43. “Nutter appoints budget director” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 22, 2007); story citing STEVE AGOSTINI (MPP 1986); http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/12764312.html

44. “Blog: Hey, Harvard, how do you like them apples? Nutter names new Budget Director” (Philly.com, December 21, 2007); blog citing STEVE AGOSTINI (MPP 1986); http://blogs.phillynews.com/dailynews/nextmayor/2007/12/hey_harvard_how_do_you_like_th.html

45. “Jobs growth slows down. Diversified economy in county buoys growth” (San Mateo County Times, December 22, 2007); story citing DOUG HENTON (MPP 1975).

46. “Tax won’t go far enough” (San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, 2007); Letter to the Editor by STEVE 6LINSEY (MPP 1984).

47. “Bali Climate Conference” (Congressional Quarterly, December 19, 2007); Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony by NED HELME (MPP 1971).

48. “Downtown redesign: ‘Green Line’ vision has MARTA, GSU cast as key players” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 13, 2007); story citing CARL PATTON (MPP/PhD 1976).

49. “City housing advocate steps down” (Daily News Tribune (Waltham, MA) - December 13, 2007); story citing ALEX MARTHEWS (MPP 2001); http://www.dailynewstribune.com/homepage/x118899932

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Don’t leave demand out of the equation” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media, January 30, 2008); Listen to this commentary

2. “Climate Plans by New York, Florida Prod U.S. on Global Accord” (Bloomberg News, January 30, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aaNOeTfdMAK8&refer=us

3. “Smarter solar power could revolutionize industry” (Press Democrat, January 30, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080130/NEWS/801300386/1036/BUSINESS01

4. “America’s middle classes are no longer coping” (Financial Times, January 29 2008); comment and analysis by ROBERT REICH; http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5deb45aa-ce7e-11dc-877a-000077b07658.html

5. “Berkeley aims to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050” (Oakland Tribune, January 29, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN and CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_8108639%3EOakland

6. “Careful What You Wish For; Getting elected may be the easy part. A sluggish economy. An ailing health-care system. An immigration mess. The next president’s got issues” (Newsweek, U.S. Edition, January 28, 2008); story citing ROBERT REICH.

7. “Answering the next call for ethanol. ZeaChem in Menlo Park on Leading Edge of Using Wood, Not Corn, in Process” (San Jose Mercury News, January 26, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN http://www.mercurynews.com/greenenergy/ci_8085419?nclick_check=1

8. “The Ad Campaign: Clinton’s Multibillion-Dollar Energy Program” (New York Times, January 25, 2008); analysis citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/us/politics/25cadbox.html?_r=1&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&scp=2&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1201300987-mUUML9nhPowzxOYYEXDwKg

9. “ECONOMY: Darker Days Ahead? Robert Reich warns a recession, or worse, could be coming” (Newsweek Web Exclusive, Jan 23, 2008); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.newsweek.com/id/101108/page/1

10. “Energy Roundup Blog: More Bad News for Ethanol” (Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2008); column citing MICHAEL O’HARE; http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/2008/01/23/more-bad-news-for-ethanol/

11. “How the World Works: Who do you trust on ethanol?” (Salon.com, January 24, 2008); column citing research by MICHAEL O’HARE, DAN KAMMEN, BRIAN TURNER (MPP 2006); http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/01/24/ethanol_vs_gasoline/index.html

12. “The politics of an economic nightmare” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Salon.com, January 23, 2008); http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/23/reich_economy/

13. “How greed, ‘supercapitalism’ and ‘Richistan’ are changing America” (MarketWatch, January 21, 2008); commentary citing ROBERT REICH.

14. “The next question: Does CSR work?” (The Economist, U.S. Edition, January 19, 2008); column citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10491055

15. “I'm voting for an informed populism” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 19, 2008); column citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/19/HOTRUA32E.DTL&hw=robert+reich&sn=001&sc=1000

16. “Buildings and Grounds: Finding the Business Cases for Sustainability and Climate Neutrality” (Chronicle of Higher Education [*requires registration], January 17, 2008); column citing DAN KAMMEN; http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/1465/finding-the-business-cases-for-sustainability-and-climate-neutrality

17. “Don’t blame China for the trade deficit” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media, January 16, 2008); Listen to this commentary

18. “Issues? Policies? In the end, voting is based on ‘gut feeling’” (Reno Gazette-Journal, January 13, 2008); story citing JACK GLASER; http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080113/NEWS/801130334/1232/NEWS19&cid=1126275624&ei=k4eLR_bBDZO8zASHkr2vDA&template=printart

19. “Perspective: Hillary’s emotions were true” (Denver Post, January 11, 2008); column citing JACK GLASER; http://www.denverpost.com/perspective/ci_7937831

20. “Britney’s Law? Not so crazy. The pop singer’s recent episode could prompt a much-needed critique of California’s mental healthcare policies” (Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2008); column citing RICHARD SCHEFFLER; http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-morrison10jan10,1,740818.column

21. “A good candidate connects the dots” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media, January 9, 2008); Listen to this commentary

22. “GOP race still murky—now it’s up to Californians to decide” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 9, 2008); story citing HENRY BRADY; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/09/MN9GUBQC3.DTL&type=printable

23. “The Road to Universal Coverage” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2008); http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119984199293776549.html

24. “Democrats in Sync, Mostly” (New York Times, January 6, 2008); column citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/weekinreview/06powell.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

25. “He has the vision” (Concord Monitor (NH) - January 4, 2008); opinion citing ROBERT REICH.

26. “Report: Expect Candidates to Race-Bait in ‘08” (Chronicle of Higher Education Online [*requires registration], January 3, 2008); blog citing DAVID KIRP and report coauthored with ADAM GOMOLIN (MPP cand. 2008) and LEONA (NINA) HORNE (MPP cand. 2009); http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/1311/report-expect-candidates-to-race-bait-in-08

27. Campaign U. Higher Education and the 2008 candidates: “Did Predictions of Campaign Race-Baiting Come True Early?” (Chronicle of Higher Education [*requires registration], January 15, 2008), blog citing DAVID KIRP; http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/

28. “An Argument for Preschool. The states are spending more and more money to educate children before they start kindergarten. But one expert warns that not all programs are created equal” (Newsweek Online, January 3, 2008); interview with DAVID KIRP; http://www.newsweek.com/id/83832/output/print

29. “What about Edwards-Obama?” (Concord Monitor (NH), January 2, 2008); opinion citing ROBERT REICH.

30. “Robert Reich Takes On ‘Supercapitalism’ and You” (The Corporate Responsibility Officer, Jan. 02. 2008); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.thecro.com/node/591

31. “Senegal’s climate change ruins homes, livelihoods. Environmental disaster left victims to fend for themselves” (Oakland Tribune, January 1, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_7856226?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com

32. “Climate change reduces fish stocks in Senegal” (Oakland Tribune, January 2, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_7861890?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com

33. “Climate change destroys a nomadic life” (Oakland Tribune, January 2, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_7870478?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com

34. “A Toy Maker’s Conscience” (New York Times Magazine, December 23, 2007); story citing DAVID VOGEL.

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

By Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

In an effort to reduce industry’s reliance on toxic compounds, state environmental officials today will lay out a framework for transforming California into a leader in the development and use of “green” chemicals….

State officials today will unveil the initial ideas for spurring innovation that could lead to nontoxic substitutes for many of the thousands of chemicals on which industries rely. The strategy, if adopted, would be the first in the nation.

About 80,000 compounds are used commercially in the United States, and many are polluting the water and air, accumulating in human bodies, spreading globally in the environment and harming wildlife. For nearly all of them, the effects on human health are unknown….

The state’s initiative was spurred by a UC Berkeley report [coauthored with Daniel Chia and Bryan Ehlers] in March that said the United States had fallen behind in protecting people and the environment from toxic chemicals. The report, commissioned by the Legislature, encouraged California to act in the wake of weak federal regulations.

Among eight recommendations considered fundamental is changing the state’s procurement process to take into account the environmental effects and “life cycle” costs when contracts are awarded and products purchased….

“These foundational recommendations are a good start,” said Michael Wilson, a research scientist at UC Berkeley’s Center for Occupational and Environmental Health who was the lead author of the report that spurred the state effort….

[The UC Berkeley report was: “Green Chemistry in California: A Framework for Chemicals Policy and Innovation,” by Michael P. Wilson, with Daniel A. Chia, Bryan C. Ehlers (University of California Policy Research Center, March 14, 2006)]

--Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer

Homes and businesses in Berkeley would be required to produce as much energy as they use by 2050 under an ambitious city plan that aims to combat climate change.

The plan released Monday also envisions a city where residents and workers rely on public transit, walking and biking. Cars would run on alternative fuels and electricity. No waste would be sent to landfills. And most of the food eaten in Berkeley would be produced within a few hundred miles.

These measures and goals, which would be realized in stages over the next four decades, are part of the blueprint proposed by city staff members to meet a voter-approved mandate to reduce Berkeley’s greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050. The measure passed in November 2006 with 81 percent of the vote….

One addition spawned by community input was buildings that are considered to have no overall energy consumption, said Cisco DeVries, the mayor’s chief of staff.

Such a requirement would be achieved by a combination of conservation efforts and the use of renewable energy, such as solar power. The city would help with things like financing and finding energy-saving tactics, he said. A chief component would be a previously announced city program [first proposed by DeVries] to enable residents to finance solar installations through assessments on their property tax bills in the expectation that the extra assessment could be offset by savings on electric bills.

Requiring zero net energy use would be achieved over many years through gradually stricter standards that build on the city’s current energy-efficiency requirements for buildings, he said.

The plan also calls for Berkeley to join with other cities and local agencies to assess their vulnerability to damage from climate change and to develop strategies for adapting to it.

The Bay Conservation and Development Commission estimates, for example, that San Francisco Bay has risen 7 inches in the past 150 years and agrees with scientific projections that sea levels will rise between 1 and 3 feet by 2100. Although Berkeley wouldn’t be flooded under such a rise, its vast sewer system would back up, DeVries said….

UC Berkeley Professor Dan Kammen, who spoke at Monday’s event and is one of the campus’ leading experts on energy and climate change, said he expects Berkeley will be able to cut greenhouse gases by 80 percent by the 2050 target, particularly since the city is excluding emissions from Interstate 80 in its calculation.

“It’s the bigger picture, the region, that’s going to be the real issue,” he said.

By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff Writer

Graphic: Washington Post - January 28, 2008

The House of Representatives has presumably learned that money cannot buy love or happiness. Now, it turns out it’s not a sure solution to climate guilt, either.

In November, the Democratic-led House spent about $89,000 on so-called carbon offsets. This purchase was supposed to cancel out greenhouse-gas emissions from House buildings—including half of the U.S. Capitol—bby triggering an equal reduction in emissions elsewhere.

Some of the money went to farmers in North Dakota, for tilling practices that keep carbon buried in the soil. But some farmers were already doing this, for other reasons, before the House paid a cent.

Other funds went to Iowa, where a power plant had been temporarily rejiggered to burn more cleanly. But that test project had ended more than a year before the money arrived….

The carbon offset market has taken off in the United States—worth an estimated $55 million, according to a study last year—despite its odd-sounding premise. Its stock in trade is, in essence, a claim that some pollution might have been emitted but wasn’t….

Many environmental groups say any offset must meet one all-important criterion, called “additionality”: Buying an offset must cause some new reduction in emissions that wouldn’t have happened if the money hadn’t been paid.

“If you don’t have additionality,” said Mark Trexler , a consultant in Portland, Ore., who advises companies on offset purchases, “you know what you’re getting. You’re getting nothing.”…

By Julia Scott, Staff writer

Commercial fisherman Mike Duffey, who had been certified in oil spill cleanup ,would have volunteered for the Cosco Busan incident but nobody asked him for his help. (San Mateo County Times/John Green)

When they got word of the Cosco Busan oil spill, commercial fishermen at Pillar Point Harbor figured their training as certified oil-spill responders meant they would be called into action.

They emptied their boats of crab pots to make room for oil booms. But the call for help never came.

Out at San Francisco’s Pier 45, 30 fishermen with oil-spill response credentials dating back to the late 1990s received the news late that night that the oil spill was 150 times bigger than they had originally been told….

Some groups have raised the question of whether the state should continue to rely solely on nine private oil-spill-response organizations whose equipment and manpower are controlled by the oil industry and shipping companies.

“We need to have an ‘all hands on deck’ policy for San Francisco Bay. In this case there was equipment, but it took quite a while to get out to the site. The right amount of equipment didn’t go out there fast enough,” said Linda Sheehan, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, who also sits on the Technical Advisory Committee for the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR).

Since OSPR and the governor have ultimate responsibility for oil-spill response under the law, Sheehan would like to see less overt reliance on private companies by the federal and state agencies.

Testifying before the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources in November, she called for a greater level of government oversight of how the private companies spend their money on training and equipment, and asked state officials to step in and provide the Bay Area with enough of its own equipment to respond to the next oil spill.

“They were chasing oil that they shouldn’t have had to chase. There was a lot of damage that should have been avoided,” said Sheehan. “There are only nine private companies that we know of operating in California. Their equipment is scattered. And, in this case, they were clearly not up to the job for some reason.”…

In 2000, state lawmakers altered the Lempert-Keene Act to reflect that prevailing view. Under the changes, any vessels, equipment and workers dispatched to an oil spill, at least in the first six hours, had to be owned and controlled by an oil-spill response corporation—which meant no fishermen….

Under the Lempert-Keene Act, oil responders must provide the “best achievable protection”….

Sheehan, who was also part of the team formed to analyze the response to the Cosco Busan oil spill under direction of the Coast Guard, said the agency’s internal standards aren’t specific enough.

“The letter of the law allows you up to six hours to get dedicated response folks out there. The letter of the law may not be enough,” she said….

Both MSRC and the Coast Guard blamed thick fog and poor visibility for the fact that no one knew the size of the spill had reached 58,000 gallons until after 4:30 p.m., when an inspection by the Coast Guard and OSPR was complete.

That’s extremely unlikely, said Sheehan.

“Once they got out there, it would be virtually impossible not to know it was more than 10 barrels,” she said….

By Michael M. Grynbaum

The New York Times Graphic

The median price of an American single-family home fell in 2007 for the first time in at least four decades, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade group.

"It's the first price decline in many, many years," the group's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said Thursday. "And possibly going back to the Great Depression." The median price of a single-family home fell 1.8 percent, to $217,800, the first annual decline since reliable records began in 1968.

And even as prices plummeted, buyers vanished. Over all, sales of previously owned single-family homes dropped 13 percent in 2007, the biggest decline in a quarter-century. (The group's survey excludes newly constructed homes.)

Economists now say the housing market, plagued by its worst downturn since the early 1990s, will not bottom out until at least the summer, and even then sales are expected to remain sluggish.

"Housing activity remains weak," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America. "What more can be said?"

Last month alone, total sales dipped 2.2 percent from November, slowing to a 4.89 million annual rate. Condominium sales were off 25 percent from the year-ago period.

Home sellers are grappling with a combination of elevated inventories and tighter lending standards, which make it harder for potential buyers to take out a mortgage. Concerns over the health of the economy have not helped: a slowdown may make Americans more reluctant to undertake large purchases.

"The weak demand is reflecting uncertainty about the economy, higher unemployment, and expectations prices are going to fall further," Mr. Levy said….

“Hungary sees room to cut EU farm aid; Prime minister challenges a sacred cow; Davos 2008” (The International Herald Tribune, January 24, 2008); story citing JACK THURSTON (MPP 1999).

By Stephen Castle - The New York Times Media Group

DAVOS, Switzerland—A European Union leader on Wednesday broke new ground in challenging one of the bloc’s most sacred cows, arguing that the need for agricultural subsidies was evaporating in light of rising demand and prices for farm products globally.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany of Hungary set the scene for a vigorous debate by linking rising long-term commodity prices and the need to scale back agricultural spending.

The argument, later backed by Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, opened a new front in the battle over the 56 billion, or $82 billion, that is spent each year by the EU to support its farmers….

World wheat stocks are expected to hit a 30-year low this year and corn prices rose about 17 percent in 2007. Together with the rising demand for biofuels, prices for agricultural commodities are expected by many to withstand an economic downturn….

The comments made Wednesday in Davos, however, will not necessarily make it to Brussels, one analyst noted.

“I think it is very significant that Gyurcsany is saying this—though it is one thing to say it at Davos,” said Jack Thurston of farmsubsidy.org, which campaigns for transparency on agriculture payments. “Whether it is made a top priority in EU policy is a different question.”

‘Certainly this gives a window of opportunity for reform but farmers are good at taking the money when times are good and running to governments when there is a downturn,” Thurston added….

6. “Judge ousts prison czar, calls for progress. Combative Sillen replaced by McGeorge’s Kelso to work with officials to fix inmate care” (Sacramento Bee, January 24, 2008); story citing TODD SPITZER (MPP/JD 1989); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/658133.html

By Andy Furillo

When it came to hitting state government over the head, few people got the attention of policymakers like Bob Sillen did.

But in removing Sillen from his post as the California prison medical care receiver, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson signaled Wednesday that it’s time to get past the confrontations with the Legislature, the threats about hauling slow-footed bureaucrats into court on contempt citations, the warnings about raiding the state treasury….

In the end, the judge decided that Sillen, who had been on the job 20 months, had failed to come up with such a plan or an approach to his liking. So the judge replaced him with a longtime California government troubleshooter, McGeorge School of Law professor J. Clark Kelso.

Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer of Orange, perhaps the most vocal critic of the former receiver in Sacramento, called Sillen’s ouster “long overdue.”

“Mr. Sillen alienated every party necessary to effectuate constitutional health care for prisoners,” Spitzer said. “He made it very clear to me it didn’t matter what I said or did or how I acted as a legislator. It was irrelevant. He would determine what constitutional health care is and he would spend whatever amount of money he needed to spend.”…

7. “Whitehall ‘should have risk funds’” (Third Sector, January 23, 2008); story citing RICHARD HALKETT (MPP 2005).

By Helen Warrell

Government departments should be given designated venture capital budgets so they can fund innovations without putting public money at risk, a new report says.

Social Innovation: new approaches to transforming public services is a joint policy briefing published today by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and the Young Foundation.

According to the briefing, government is perceived to be risk-averse and ‘more at ease with bureaucracy, rules and regulations than an open culture of experimentation, creativity and innovation’.

Richard Halkett, executive director of policy and research at Nesta and report co-author, said: ‘Innovation involves risk and risk means that there will be failure in some cases.’

8. “State health reform may be pricey prospect” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 23, 2008); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/23/BADSUK46O.DTL

--Tom Chorneau, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

(01-23) 04:00 PST Sacramento -- The proposed overhaul of California’s health care system could cost taxpayers billions of dollars in unanticipated expenses within five years of being launched, according to a review released Tuesday by the Legislature’s nonpartisan analyst.

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, warning that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other proponents of the legislation may have underestimated the cost of providing care to millions of uninsured Californians, said more than $1 billion in federal support is also uncertain as is the number of people who may need state support.

The report comes on the eve of a critical hearing about the bill before the state Senate’s health committee.

The overhaul legislation, AB 1X, was approved by the state Assembly in December, but senators have been skeptical of its cost and workability. The warnings from Hill may provoke even more concerns….

Hill said the state cost for subsidized care is based on monthly premiums of $250 per month per person. She said that figure might be unrealistic.

If it turns out the state cannot get premiums of $250 per month—and costs actually end up being closer to $300—the program could have a shortfall of $1.5 billion by the end of five years.

Annual costs, she said, would increase by $300 million by the fifth year of the program—and $1 billion by the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015—if supporters have underestimated the increase in medical inflation by just 0.5 percent per year.

Hill added that the number of uninsured Californians is likely to increase in the coming months if the economy slows down, increasingly the problem facing lawmakers….

[Elizabeth Hill was also seen on KNTV-TV news and cited in other newspapers, e.g.: http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_8052614 ]

9. “Newsom discusses warming, economy on road trip” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 23, 2008); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/23/BABKUJNCD.DTL

--Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is in the nation’s capital this week, where he is meeting with some of the biggest names in the Democratic Party to talk up the city’s myriad efforts to combat global warming before he heads off to Switzerland to attend the prestigious World Economic Forum….

Newsom tapped his allies on the Board of Supervisors—Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier and Sean Elsbernd—to be the city’s acting mayors during his absence.

10. “Forum: Green progress to speed up. Auto execs and environmental leaders agree” (Detroit Free Press, January 23, 2008); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992); http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008801230379

By Joe Guy Collier, Free Press Business Writer

DETROIT - The green movement will gain even more steam in the next few years as the United States tries to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and cut carbon dioxide emissions, a panel of auto executives and environmental experts agreed Tuesday at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit.

The push for change took place more quickly in the past year than most industry experts anticipated, said Roland Hwang, vehicle policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a group headquartered in New York.

Both the Democratic-controlled Congress and Republican White House lined up behind efforts to raise fuel-efficiency standards as gas prices rose and global warming became a high-profile issue, Hwang said.

The auto industry, betting against dramatic change, missed a chance to influence legislation and possibly get financial incentives to make the transition, he said. With a new round of environmental and energy legislation coming, Hwang urged the auto industry to take a more active step.

“The auto industry needs to be at the table now,” Hwang said….

11. “Freno al rezago académico” (La Opinión, January 23, 2008); story citing DEBORAH KONG (MPP 2007); http://www.laopinion.com/archivo/index.html?START=2&RESULTSTART=1&DISPLAYTYPE=single&FREETEXT=%22preschool+california%22&FDATEd12=&FDATEd13=&SORT_MODE=SORT_MODE

--Araceli Martínez Ortega

SACRAMENTO.— El superintendente estatal de Educación Pública de California, Jack O’Connell reveló un ambicioso y amplio plan para cerrar la brecha educativa en el estado que dará flexibilidad a los distritos escolares, mejorará la calidad del preescolar y creará un sistema informativo. Con estas estrategias, O’Connell busca abatir la desventaja educativa en que se encuentran los estudiantes de las minorías, aquellos que están en la etapa de aprender inglés, viven en la pobreza o padecen algún tipo de discapacidad….

Crear los cimientos que está proponiendo el superintendente O’Connell para tener un mejor preescolar requiere poco o nada de financiamiento del presupuesto 2008-2009, dijo Deborah Kong , directora de comunicaciones de Preschool California….

12. “UNICEF: Sierra Leone, Angola, Afghanistan have world’s highest child mortality - Simple health care measures would prevent many of the deaths” (Daily Journal (International Falls, MN) - January 23, 2008); story citing ANN VENEMAN.

By Eliane Engeler; Associated Press Writer

GENEVA (AP) - A newborn in Sierra Leone has the lowest chance in the world of surviving until age 5, and the prospects are almost as bad for children in Angola and Afghanistan, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday. In 2006, nearly 9.7 million children died worldwide before their fifth birthdays, mostly from preventable causes such as diarrhea, malaria or malnutrition, the U.N. Children’s Fund said in its annual report….

But progress has been made in a number of regions and strengthening local health services holds great promise for reducing the child mortality rate, said the document, ‘‘The State of the World’s Children 2008.’’

In 2006, the latest year for which statistics were available, Sierra Leone had the highest child mortality rate, with 270 deaths per 1,000 births….

The rate worldwide in 2006, in contrast, was 72 deaths per 1,000 births. The average rate in industrialized countries was six deaths per 1,000 births.

‘‘The loss of 9.7 million young lives each year is unacceptable, especially when many of these deaths are preventable,’’ said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman.

Sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate has dropped only 14 percent since 1990, is the region of greatest concern, the report said. It is home to 28 of the 30 countries with the highest child mortality rates.

Simple health care measures, such as vaccinations, insecticide-treated bed nets and vitamin supplements, would prevent many of the deaths, the report said….

13. “King’s greatest dream remains unfulfilled. Much work remains to be done to end racism, injustice, inequality” (Charlotte Observer, January 21, 2008); op-ed citing JULIA BIXLER ISAACS (MPP 1985); http://www.charlotteobserver.com/171/story/455787.html

--Lewis Diuguid - McClatchy Newspapers

If the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had succeeded, racism, discrimination, poverty, injustice and inequality wouldn’t still boldly assault the nation.

King’s dream remains unfulfilled, and that’s the greatest failing of the movement he led. Picking up where King left off is what people now must do as we celebrate the national holiday commemorating his birthday…. Some recent reports show that a lot of work needs to be done.

A study by Julia Isaacs with the Brookings Institution found that economic gains lifted many black families into the middle class following the civil rights movement.

But those gains have actually reversed for their children. The study said “a majority of blacks born to middle-income parents grow up to have less income than their parents.”

“Only 31 percent of black children born to parents in the middle of the income distribution have family income greater than their parents, compared to 68 percent of white children from the same income bracket,” the study notes. “White children are more likely to move up the ladder while black children are more likely to fall down.”…

The report also said that in 2004 the median family income of blacks age 30 to 39 was $35,000, or 58 percent of the $60,000 for white families in the same age group….

14. “WINE - A green outlook on business - California vineyards are becoming more ecofriendly” (Houston Chronicle, January 16, 2008); story citing ALLISON JORDAN (MPP 2004); http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/food/wine/5449789.html

By Chris Sherman, St. Petersburg Times

Ridge Vineyards in Healdsburg, Calif., is one of a growing number of California wineries using environmentally friendly techniques. The exterior walls of the building housing this Ridge tasting room were constructed with bales of hay. Scott Keeler: New York Times

SONOMA COUNTY, CALIF. - Wine tasters say “straw” to describe a pale shade of yellow, but at Ridge Vineyards in Healdsburg, they mean literal straw in thousands of bales of hay to build an environmentally sound and efficient winery.

Visitors can sample Ridge’s fabulous zinfandels and get a taste of green living in the cool shelter of radical innovation.

So it goes throughout California wine country as sustainable agriculture and winemaking extends the spectrum beyond red, white and rosé to green.

It’s a subtle tinge. You can’t see, for instance, the hundreds of new caves dug to age wine in nonelectric cool, or that bio-diesel fuel runs the tractors in the Parducci vineyards in Mendocino, the first carbon-neutral winery.

A new commitment is definitely there to ecofriendly, energy-saving, organic and biodynamic practices in farming and building. The tools range from carefully tuned Space Age solar panels to an ancient reliance on falcons and goats to control pests….

The environmental sensitivity is more than personal. The industry and public utilities have promoted it so heavily that wineries are exciting and instructive for organic gardeners, solar buffs and green builders as well as wine tasters.

The key for most wineries was a hefty chunk of paper, a 490-page manual from the Wine Institute, used by more than 1,000 wineries and vineyards. It provides tools and forms to assess sustainability, and tips and suggestions on improvement.

Its motivation, says Allison Jordan, executive director of the institute’s California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, is not so much marketing or to build good will and image. The appeal, she says, is practical economics: “It has a big payoff.”…

16. “Legislative analyst criticizes across-the-board reductions” (Sacramento Bee, January 15, 2008); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/634408.html

By Judy Lin

Elizabeth Hill, the head of the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Brian Baer / Sacramento Bee file, May 2007

At the same time the state’s bond outlook took a negative turn, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget was criticized by a top budget analyst Monday for failing to prioritize which programs are most critical for California’s future.

In her report on the governor’s proposed spending plan, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said the administration’s across-the-board reductions would leave programs “operating in a less than optimal manner and provide lower quality services to the public.”

“On its face this has an element of fairness, but … we’re not setting state priorities,” Hill said. She suggested that vital payments could be made, with reduced discretionary spending rather than across-the-board cuts.

Hill encouraged the Legislature to consider eliminating tax credits or adding fees to raise more revenue.

… In releasing his much-anticipated budget last week, the governor resurrected a plan to create a rainy-day fund during good years and impose automatic spending cuts during bad years.

However, the nonpartisan fiscal analyst expressed concerns about Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget change, which she said would seriously dilute the Legislature’s appropriation authority….

--Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

(01-15) 04:00 PST Sacramento -- Despite deep cuts in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to bridge the state’s $14.5 billion deficit, nearly half of his budget-balancing plan involves borrowing money, deferring debt payments and counting future tax revenue, according to a report released Monday by the nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office.

The governor is proposing to issue $3.3 billion in bonds, delay a scheduled early payment on debt worth $1.5 billion and shift $2 billion of tax revenue that would otherwise be counted in the 2009-10 fiscal year to the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, the report says.

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill questioned the shifting of revenues from one fiscal year to another.

“In our initial review, we have not yet been able to determine whether this proposal is a reasonable change in accounting practices or merely a convenient way to generate a one-time revenue bump,” she wrote in her 23-page report released Monday….

The analyst also argued that another way to shave the budget deficit would be to cut this year’s education budget to the minimum level required by Proposition 98, which sets school funding levels according to the state’s revenue.

And with the state tax receipts faltering as a result of the slumping housing market and the overall economy, the state’s Prop. 98 obligation is expected to be about $1.5 billion less than what was already approved when the governor signed the budget in August.

Hill said she believes the cuts are possible without hurting classroom instruction by either eliminating or delaying unspent education budget items….

The legislative analyst’s report also called the governor’s proposal for a spending cap and to potentially expand his powers to make mid-year spending cuts “flawed,” arguing that the Legislature should maintain the power to control the state’s purse strings….

Hill also said that the spending cap is not needed because most of the cuts could already be made if policymakers could agree….

By David Welch

Here’s a tough sell. General Motors thinks it can make ethanol a big player in the quest to cut greenhouse gas emissions and wean America from its addiction to foreign oil.

GM is so adamant that ethanol can be a good solution that the automaker bought an undisclosed stake in Coskata, a private Warrenville [Ill.] company that claims it has developed an advanced process to make ethanol cheaply. GM announced the move Jan. 13 at the Detroit Auto Show.

GM and Coskata say that the company’s highly efficient methods for making ethanol can take away many of the problems that have kept the fuel on the back burner. First, they plan to use agricultural waste and household garbage to make ethanol, which means fuel production wouldn’t push food prices up. And second, Coskata claims its production will be so efficient that it won’t give back all the oil savings just making the stuff….

This is one issue where even the environmentalists agree with GM. The Natural Resources Defense Council backs ethanol as a renewable energy source, but only if it is made with more efficient methods than corn, says Roland Hwang, the NRDC’s vehicles policy director.

“We can’t gauge if [Coskata] can do what they say,” says Hwang. “But it’s the right approach. They’re using waste products instead of food.”

There is a catch. [Bill Roe, president and CEO] says Coskata could even use wood. The company plans to take waste, such as bark, stumps, and thin branches from the paper and lumber industries. But he says the company could grow and harvest trees to use as a fuel source, which could prompt opposition from environmentalists. Those groups won’t want to see the nation’s forests thinned out to make fuel. “We are worried about that,” Hwang says. “We’ll have to be confident that the feedstock is harvested in a sustainable way.”

That’s why NRDC and others are pushing for requirements that govern what materials are used to make biofuels such as ethanol and how trees are harvested. “We won’t put our green stamp on it yet,” Hwang says.

But if Coskata and other ethanol producers can deliver what they say, they might be willing to push it.

--Wyatt Buchanan, Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writers

Carmen Chu, who has been serving as District Four’s temporary supervisor, is weighing her options.

San Francisco - Suspended San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew resigned from his seat on the Board of Supervisors Thursday, and now it’s up to the political novice who has been serving as his temporary replacement to decide whether she wants to enter the cutthroat world of local politics and campaign for the job this fall.

… His decision to step down almost eight months after FBI agents raided his office in connection with an alleged extortion scheme means the District Four seat he landed in a surprise victory in 2006 will be up for grabs in November’s election.

To replace Jew, Mayor Gavin Newsom said he “most likely” would name acting District Four Supervisor Carmen Chu. He appointed Chu, a former staff member in his budget office, to the post on a temporary basis in September, when Jew was suspended from office after the filing of official misconduct charges against the first-year lawmaker at the city’s Ethics Commission.

“The first question is, does she want to continue?” Newsom told reporters Thursday, later adding, “I’m hopeful that she is” interested in continuing.

When Chu, 29, was plucked from obscurity as a City Hall number-cruncher and named as Jew’s interim replacement, she said she had never even considered running for political office. She now acknowledges that she needs to make a significant decision—and fast….

“I know it’s time to make a decision on this issue, and I will do that,” Chu said to a wall of reporters and TV cameras that had descended on her office shortly after Jew’s resignation was announced during a City Hall news conference in City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office.

She gave no indication of what that decision would be. She thanked the mayor, her fellow supervisors and the residents of District Four for the experience of three-plus months in office thus far….

Board President Aaron Peskin predicted that the District Four race would be the most closely watched local contest on the Nov. 4 ballot and said he would like to see Carmen Chu in it.

“Both she and the mayor will have to make the decision of whether she will just serve as caretaker or roll up her sleeves and jump into the rushing water of politics,” he said. “She’s been a breath of fresh air. I hope she gives it serious consideration.”

20. “Carmen Chu decides to run for Ed Jew’s old S.F. supervisors seat” (San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 2008); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003) and DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/16/BA40UFLBA.DTL

--Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Carmen Chu talked to media in City Hall before filing intent to become a candidate in November.

San Francisco Supervisor Carmen Chu completed on Tuesday her transformation from a behind-the-scenes city employee to out-front politician, announcing that she would run for election in November.

Chu, who at 29 is the youngest member of the Board of Supervisors, was appointed to the board’s District Four seat on a temporary basis by Mayor Gavin Newsom in September and reappointed late Friday afternoon. She is filling the seat held by former Supervisor Ed Jew, whom Newsom suspended for alleged official misconduct and who last week resigned….

“I think anyone would agree it is hard to be in the public eye,” Chu said outside of the city’s Department of Elections, where she filed papers making official her intention to campaign for the job. “But I think there are certain things worth doing, and this is one of them.”

Chu spoke to reporters in English and Cantonese and gave a preview about how she would campaign for the job, just five months after moving across City Hall from Newsom’s budget office to the board.

She noted her budgeting background and her training in public policy, which includes a master’s degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley….

Chu’s first piece of legislation—her fee rollback for outdoor dining permits for restaurants—received final approval by the board Tuesday.

The rollback will save restaurants as much as $327 and was made possible by earlier reforms that streamlined the permitting process.

“If we’re able to find more opportunities like that, where the city is more efficient and can do a better job, we should pass that along,” said Chu, who was born and raised in Los Angeles and worked in her parents’ restaurant there….

Political observers said Chu has a good chance of holding on to the seat. The only potential challenger to emerge so far—Ron Dudum, who came in second to Jew in the 2006 election—said Tuesday he is not sure whether he will take on Chu….

Without substantial political differences—and with the advantages Chu will now enjoy running as the incumbent and as a Chinese American in a strongly Chinese American district—Chu could prove too much for anyone to beat in the fall, including Dudum, said David Latterman, a political analyst who monitors board races.

“It’s going to be tough, but if she plays her cards right she’ll be OK,” Latterman said. “The cards are set in her favor.”

“Carmen Chu cannot be more different than Ed Jew in virtually every way,” [David Lee, executive director of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee] said, pointing to her policy background and her indirect entry into politics. “After Ed Jew’s scandal, I think District Four residents want competent leadership and qualified leadership.”…

Many constituents in the district have praised Chu’s leadership in office and some are ready to endorse her for supervisor.

“Of course, I would endorse her because I think she is doing a bang-up job at this point. She is pretty much untouchable in how she is moving things in leaps and bounds,” said Dallas Udovch, president of the Taraval-Parkside Merchants Association….

By Andy Furillo

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presents his state budget plan Thursday at a news conference in Sacramento. Photo: Randy Pench

…Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made it official Thursday – he really does intend to open the prison gates next fiscal year to 22,159 lower-risk inmates and enact new parole policies that could result in some 6,249 fewer reincarcerations the year after that.

His $1.1 billion corrections budget-cutting proposal would mean 6,000 job cuts in the prison department, including 2,000 layoffs, although attrition could knock that number way down.

But if the day of reckoning is at hand for California’s tough sentencing policies, somebody forgot to tell the Republicans.

Some were restrained and some were bombastic, but all were definitive: Letting prisoners out in the final 20 months of their term, even if they’re low-risk, as the governor is proposing, is about the worst way imaginable to fix the state’s $14 billion budget deficit.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, the GOP point man on corrections, said the proposal amounts to a sucker punch to Republicans who last year supported Assembly Bill 900, the $7.9 billion prison expansion and rehabilitation plan.

“It’s a betrayal,” Spitzer said. “AB 900 promised us no early releases, and that’s why Republicans voted overwhelmingly for it. Now, some people will be doing less time if they’re sentenced to prison than if they’re sentenced to county jail.”

Schwarzenegger, Spitzer said, “reneged on a promise.”…

The governor’s proposal would save the state $17.9 million this fiscal year, $378.9 million in 2008-09 and $782.7 million in 2009-10. But his declaration of fiscal emergency and call for a special legislative session would require legislation no later than March 1, and with a two-thirds vote of the lawmakers.

With Republicans bombing the proposal, finance director Mike Genest sounded dubious about the administration getting support from its own party.

“I don’t know,” Genest said. The budget’s overall cost-cutting and avoidance of new taxes ought to be enough to get GOP support, he said. “I don’t think you can have it both ways,” Genest said of the Republicans….

By Matt Krupnick

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget-balancing act would chop $1.1 billion from California’s public colleges and universities and could force higher-than-expected fee increases while limiting enrollment.

More than half the cuts—$645 million—would come from the California State University and University of California systems and more than $483 million from community college budgets.

UC and Cal State were scheduled to raise fees next year by 7.4 percent and 10 percent, respectively, but the budget could require steeper increases. Enrollment limits could, perhaps for the first time, deny entrance to qualified students….

Severe budget cuts would violate an informal 2004 funding agreement between Schwarzenegger and the two university systems. The compact permits annual budget increases in exchange for rising student fees.

State finance director Michael Genest acknowledged that the state probably would suspend the compact for at least a year….

23. “If it isn't a recession, sure feels like one - Experts agree oil, housing, jobs increase risk” (Record, The (Hackensack, NJ) - January 10, 2008); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

--From News Service Reports

Is there a recession in our future? Some say it's already here. Experts weighed in on the subject Wednesday, continuing the drumbeat that intensified with last Friday's report that showed the U.S. added a paltry 18,000 jobs in December as the unemployment rate climbed to 5 percent—a two-year high….

While we won't know officially whether we are in a recession until and unless we have two consecutive quarters of negative growth, here is a sampling of what economists, business leaders and government institutions are saying:

The U.S. will skirt recession as consumer spending slows without collapsing, a survey of economists showed.

Economic growth will average 1.5 percent in the first six months of 2008, matching the fourth quarter's pace, according to the median estimate of 62 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News from Jan. 3-8. The rate of expansion would be the weakest since the last nine months of 2001.

"It's soft economic activity that feels like a recession, but we probably won't have one," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York.

"The state of the consumer is clearly softening, but spending is not declining. That's very important."…

By Linda Jacobson

Although this was supposed to be the “year of education” in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presented a much less ambitious agenda for public schools during his 2008 State of the State address last week than he had been vowing to pursue last year....

“Government can work, it can be efficient, it can lead,” he said.

But no mention was made of “Getting Down to Facts,” the massive research report [coauthored by Jannelle Kubinec] released in 2007 that called for a major overhaul of the state’s education finance and governance systems. (“California’s Schooling Is ‘Broken’,” March 21, 2007.)

Neither did Gov. Schwarzenegger make any statements about the recently completed recommendations of his own Committee on Education Excellence on how to address the issues raised in the report. (“Ideas for Revamping Calif. Schools Emerge From Study,” Oct. 31, 2007.)...

25. “Term limit changes would ‘strike a balance,’ ad claims” (Sacramento Bee, January 9, 2008); story citing TIM GAGE (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/620380.html

By Jim Sanders ; Bee Capitol Bureau

Former State Finance Director Tim Gage appears in an ad for Prop. 93. www.termlimitsreform.com

Supporters of Proposition 93 on the Feb. 5 ballot launched their media campaign Tuesday with a 30-second television advertisement featuring former state Finance Director Tim Gage.

The TV spot stresses a campaign theme, claiming the initiative would “strike a balance” that combines the “benefits of term limits” with the “benefits of experience.”

Proposition 93, on the Feb. 5 ballot, would alter the state’s existing term limits that allow six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate.

Passage would reduce total years from 14 to 12, but allow all to be served in one house. It also would permit incumbents to remain in office beyond their current term limit.

The following is a text of one ad and an analysis by Jim Sanders of The Bee Capitol Bureau:

TIM GAGE: Here’s California’s budget—over $145 billion dollars. Making that budget work in a bad economy is a tough job. It takes experience—and that’s what we get with Prop. 93.

ANNOUNCER: Prop. 93 cuts terms from 14 years to 12, and lets legislators serve all that time in the Senate or Assembly. More time to solve problems.

TIM GAGE: Prop. 93 strikes a balance—the benefits of term limits, the benefits of experience….

ANALYSIS: Term limits are popular with California voters, so the ad’s pitch is that Proposition 93 would improve them, even tighten them, certainly not diminish them….

Gage was the state’s finance director from 1999 to 2003 under Gov. Gray Davis. He later founded Blue Sky Consulting Group, which specializes in economic and public policy. Gage said that neither he nor his firm was paid for the TV ad or to support Proposition 93….

By Kevin Yamamura

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledges applause, with Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, left, joining in, before giving his State of the State address Tuesday on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol. Photo: Brian Baer

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “post-partisan” strategy for two years has relied on merging support from majority Democrats with his personal brand of moderate Republican beliefs, almost entirely without support from other GOP members in the Capitol.

But judging by his State of the State address Tuesday, the governor is now reaching out to his fellow Republicans and shifting his political strategy rightward as he faces a $14 billion shortfall.

Schwarzenegger made a long-term state spending cap the centerpiece of his address, a plan that Republican lawmakers praised but Democrats and education groups slammed….

In 2005, Schwarzenegger backed a spending cap initiative that limited expenditures to an average level of growth based on the three previous years. That proposal, Proposition 76, would have enabled the governor to unilaterally cut spending, including school funds in some situations.

That plan was defeated after it came under attack by unions and school groups who charged that Schwarzenegger was undermining education funding.

Department of Finance Director Mike Genest acknowledged Tuesday that the governor’s new proposal could mean less education money than under the current system in years when the state has an excess of funds.

But he said schools would benefit in lean years because they stand to get more money from the new reserve fund that would exist.

The proposal allows Schwarzenegger to cut spending in deficit situations if the Legislature does not specify how to do so. Genest said there would be safeguards for education….

By Jim Miller, Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO—For weeks, supporters of ballot measures that would let four Southern California tribes operate thousands more slot machines have run TV ads saying that the deals would earn the state more than $9 billion in revenue-sharing payments through 2030.

Monday, critics of the deals sought to pour water on that claim.

In their first detailed review of the agreements’ finances, the campaign trying to overturn the pacts released a report [coauthored by Tim Gage] that concluded that the state could receive as little as $3.4 billion in revenue-sharing payments over the life of the deals, known as compacts, and that the overall fiscal impact on state and local governments could even be a negative….

The opposition’s study based its findings partly on research from other states that have tribal casinos, including Connecticut.

It concluded that, in Southern California’s case, larger tribal casinos will have little effect on how many residents go to Las Vegas to gamble. Instead, the report found, the enlarged casinos would pull almost three-quarters of their business from other generally taxable entertainment activities, such as dining out and going to movies.

Depending on the shift and how the tribes calculate their payments to the state, the overall impact to state and local governments ranges from a $60 million loss to a $166 million gain annually, said Tim Gage, a former state finance director and one of the study’s authors….

Besides the disagreement over how much money the state would get, Monday’s reports highlighted differences between the camps over how the payments would be calculated.

The actual revenue for the state, Gage and co-author Matthew Newman said, depends on whether the tribes take advantage of what they called ambiguous language in the renegotiated compacts.

Tribes could pay less to the state if they calculated their payments based on the amount of time the additional slot machines actually are in operation, such as during busier weekends, they said….

28. “Mental-health care deserves parity” (Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ) - January 7, 2008); op-ed citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975).

Assembly bill 2512 is good for the state budget and the state economy. It will reduce current cost-shifting from the private sector to the public sector, thereby saving the state money and expanding access to mental-health treatment without more state resources. This cost-shifting has increased expense to the state by as much as 20 percent. The bill, written by Assemblyman Robert Gordon, D-Bergen, and co-sponsored by 38 Assembly legislators, requires health insurance plans to provide parity benefits for all mental health disorders….

The consequence of untreated or undertreated mental health exacts a heavy financial burden on the state, as well as on large and small businesses…. It represents a wise investment for the state, county and local governments, as well as small and large employers….

Pete Trabucco

Director of Public Affairs, National Association of Social Workers, New Jersey/Edison

…The governor announced long ago that 2008 would be the “Year of Education,” so expectations are high for Tuesday’s State of the State address. Secretary of Education David Long has told Californians to expect “a very comprehensive plan, a plan that is going to be very bold, and a plan that is going to be very passionate.”

The opportunity is ripe. While the short-term budget picture is grim, by 2010 the picture for education improves dramatically. That’s because with flat student enrollment, the Proposition 98 guarantee of 39 percent of the budget for education will create a new, larger funding base. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects that within five years the K-12 education system will get about $5.9 billion in permanent, new funding….

As an LAO slide aptly notes: “New monies offer opportunity to buy reform. But new monies used in the same ways might result in no improvement.” That’s the challenge ahead for Schwarzenegger and legislators….

Data should be the Year 1 priority. California has dragged its feet in tracking performance, programs and resources. We need to know what’s working and what’s not. Get the data piece passed and funded.

Then rethink how we distribute money to schools. As last year’s research package, “Getting Down to Facts” [coauthored by Jannelle Kubinec], noted, California needs radical change in the “irrational” and “inflexible” way it distributes money to schools….

HEALTH CARE

Forecaster: Marian Mulkey, senior program officer for the California HealthCare Foundation, a nonprofit research group. For more than eight years, she has analyzed trends in the health insurance market and health policy areas.

Health care costs will continue to rise and exceed the overall inflation rate by a significant margin. Employers will continue to struggle to find affordable options, and some will decide to opt out of offering coverage.

Those that do continue to offer benefits will offer benefits that are a little more restrictive or require their employees to contribute more.

Employers are going to face difficult decisions. Is health insurance valued enough to pay the costs? The efforts to invest more into prevention and wellness to try to get employees better engaged in their health have some marginal benefits in terms of moderating—but not reducing—health care costs.

One of the unique features driving health care rates in the next few years is the pressure for seismic retrofitting in California. Hospitals will have to put up a lot of capital to rebuild or retrofit facilities. I would expect the nursing shortage and the strikes that have been affecting hospital care in the past year to continue….

By Judy Lin

Heading into a week in which he’s expected to deliver grim news about the state’s fiscal health, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also preparing to propose changes to the budgeting process.

The Republican governor will offer a “budget reform” plan when he outlines his goals in his State of the State address Tuesday. Such a proposal, if successful, would likely give the executive office more authority in making cuts even after the Legislature has passed an annual spending plan….

…[F]ormer Gov. Pete Wilson said in a Saturday radio address that the state needs a law requiring government to ratchet down spending whenever the economy slows….

Schwarzenegger’s finance director said in another recent radio address that other state governments have a way to cut spending when revenue falls short.

“That is exactly what California needs,” said Finance Director Mike Genest….

In 2005, as part of his “Year of Reform,” Schwarzenegger proposed Proposition 76, which would have created spending limits and given the governor new power to make unilateral spending cuts under some circumstances.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure, 62 percent to 38 percent.

A few months before, Schwarzenegger unsuccessfully negotiated with the Democratic-led Legislature for a provision to allow the governor to make midyear spending cuts….

His failed proposal to grant the governor authority to make midyear cuts was viewed by many as a power grab aimed at siphoning appropriation power away from the Legislature….

But Genest, the current finance director, maintained in his radio address that had either of Schwarzenegger’s proposals been adopted, “we could not have a multibillion-dollar deficit.”…

--Greg Lucas

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses the state budget in May, when he said the net operating deficit was being reduced by not spending money the state doesn’t have. Associated Press photo, 2007, by Rich Pedroncelli

…This is what the GOP governor said … in his January 2004 State of the State speech shortly after taking office.

“When individuals overspend themselves into trouble, financial counselors often tell them to consolidate their credit card balances so they can work their way out of trouble, and also tear up their credit cards.”

The $15 billion bond approved by voters in March of that year to pay down California’s persistent gap between spending commitments and revenue collections was the same kind of consolidation, Schwarzenegger said.

“We tore up the credit card,” Schwarzenegger said. “Never again will government be allowed to spend money it doesn’t have. Never again will the state be allowed to borrow money to pay for its operating expenses.”…

Fast forward to January 2008.

The governor will present his fifth State of the State speech. He is certain to devote part of the talk to how he plans to deal with what he says is a $14 billion gap between money coming in and the cost of government services….

Isn’t it supposed to be fixed?

California consolidated its debt. It snipped the credit card into itsy little bits back in 2004. How can there possibly be a $14 billion fiscal emergency?

Because, as it is with so many holiday shoppers, the credit card is still very much in use….

The respected legislative analyst, Elizabeth Hill, isn’t quite so dire in her predictions for next year. She sees a $10 billion hole. Of that amount, $4 billion represents the debt payments the state is obligated to make on $20 billion it borrowed to balance previous budgets.

“While the past borrowing helped the state get from one fiscal year to the next, it created additional spending pressures to pay for past rather than current services,” Hill wrote with customary understatement in her November state economic forecast.

She has made the same point for seven years running.

Borrowing is what Hill calls the budgetary “path of least resistance.” Democrats don’t want program cuts. Republicans don’t want tax increases. So let’s just borrow money from transportation or future tobacco settlement payments or sell some bonds that our kids get to retire and blow this whole mess off into the future….

Worth noting is that Hill’s 2004 five-year economic forecast estimated state general fund spending at $114 billion for the fiscal year that starts in July. Hill’s most recent forecast uses the same number, which says something about the inadequacy of spending reductions made over the past five years.

As is her custom, Hill offers plenty of practical advice on how to bring spending in line with revenue—reduce the size of automatic cost-of-living increases in various state programs, deliver services better, get rid of tax credits, charge fees. And raise taxes.

Those are practical rather than political solutions. And usually political solutions trump sound policy. Here’s the deal as Hill described it in an interview:

“Based on our latest forecast, the state has not brought current law spending and revenues into balance. Absent corrective action, the imbalance remains for each year through 2012-13.”…

--Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer

Ivan Zelaya at the new eligibility office completes the paperwork that Juana Conejo will sign to join Healthy San Francisco.

Blame it on confusion over a federal judge’s recent ruling. Blame it on a postholiday slump. Whatever the case, San Francisco’s expansion on Wednesday of its landmark plan to provide health care to its 73,000 uninsured city residents had all the excitement of an annual physical.

The program, dubbed Healthy San Francisco, previously had been available only to uninsured city residents whose earnings didn’t exceed the federal poverty level—about $10,200 a year. On Wednesday, it expanded to include those making up to about $32,000 a year, meaning roughly 47,000 people now qualify….

Tangerine Brigham, director of Healthy San Francisco, attributed the slow start to the holidays and confusion over a ruling last week in a lawsuit brought against the city by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which objected to a requirement that some employers contribute financially to the program. The judge ruled against the city, saying it had no business regulating employee benefits.

Brigham said she is confident the program would pick up steam in the coming weeks….

Another potential challenge for Healthy San Francisco is the city’s anticipated $229 million budget shortfall for the next fiscal year, starting July 1. Newsom recently called for an immediate hiring freeze and cuts in all departments….

Brigham said that so far, the mayor’s office has approved all hiring requests for Healthy San Francisco and her program hasn’t yet been affected by the hiring freeze….

Juana Cornejo, the lone person enrolling in Healthy San Francisco at the eligibility unit Wednesday morning, hadn’t heard about the court case.

The 63-year-old Excelsior resident doesn’t work and is supported by her 25-year-old daughter. Cornejo, who suffers from diabetes, would have qualified to enroll in Healthy San Francisco last fall, but didn’t know about the option until recently.

“I’m happy—it’s a good benefit for me,” she said in Spanish….

34. “Pay for college chiefs rising fast” (Christian Science Monitor, January 3, 2008); story citing JAMES SAVAGE (MPP/PhD 1978).

By Randy Dotinga - Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

When former Sprint Nextel executive Gary Forsee landed a job as president of the University of Missouri system in December, his annual salary dropped from $21.3 million to $400,000, reflecting the huge disparity in pay between the private sector and academia. Still, Wall Street and ivy towers share this in common: charges that the top dogs make too much money.

To the dismay of professors and students, many leaders of public universities make well above $500,000 a year, while several private colleges pay seven-figure salaries to their presidents.

And their pay is growing at a rapid clip: Last fall, a new study found that compensation of university presidents has grown by 28 to 37 percent over the past five years, depending on the type of university. During that time, inflation lifted the cost of living by 13 percent….

The University of California, for one, is looking for a new president to replace Robert Dynes, who announced plans to resign in 2007 after the system gave hefty pay raises and perks to executives without disclosing them publicly or alerting the university’s overseers. Mr. Dynes reportedly approved some of the raises and later admitted missing “red flags” amid a culture of “paranoia.”…

“The university’s defense is, ‘We have to pay for the best people.’ They should say that and be upright and straightforward about it,” says James Savage, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

35. “Report: No Progress For Kids - Health, Education Status Static In State, Group Says” (Modesto Bee, January 3, 2008); story citing COREY NEWHOUSE (MPP 2003).

By Ken Carlson

A report found no noticeable improvement in the health and education status of children in California, and warns that it doesn’t bode well for the state’s future.

Children Now, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for children, releases its California Report Card 2008 today as lawmakers prepare to deal with a $10 billion state budget shortfall that will require cuts to spending.

The organization is concerned that children often are neglected when the state government tightens its purse strings.

“Although we are thrilled to hear frequent pronouncements that all children should have access to health insurance, we don’t have legislation signed or money committed to pay for those policy changes,” said Corey Newhouse, a senior policy associate for Children Now and lead author of the report.

The Legislature should maintain its commitment to education funding and proceed with a November 2008 ballot initiative to expand access to health insurance, the report recommends. About 763,000 children in the state do not have health coverage; almost a million don’t have regular access to a doctor, the report says….

Newhouse, the report’s lead author, said the issues need to be addressed if the state is to remain an economic leader.

“In the long term, this can have a profound effect on California’s vibrant economy,” she said. “If our next generation is poorly educated and plagued by health problems, we are going to have a problem building a strong work force and taking care of members of our society that need care.”…

--Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

The new year marks the beginning of something big in San Francisco. One Rincon Hill, the tallest residential tower west of the Mississippi, opens this year. So does a luxury hotel at the once-bleak corner of Fifth and Howard streets. A condo development at Seventh and Mission, only a block from Skid Row, is described in the newspaper as trendy….

It's part of a trend that began after the city picked itself up after the dot-com bust of a few years ago. There are plans for more condos, bigger high-rises, so many fine restaurants that more San Franciscans will recognize the name of a celebrity chef than the quarterback of the 49ers….

But change is also sobering—some experts worry that a new San Francisco of high-rises and fine living will be a city of the very rich and very poor, a boutique city and not a real one….

"It's not the kind of housing to raise a family in," [political consultant Jim Ross] said. "If you had kids, would you want to live in a two-bedroom condo?"

The solution, some say, is political, and that could change, too. San Francisco has a moderate mayor in Gavin Newsom, but the Board of Supervisors has a so-called progressive majority that leans left. But the progressives have allowed much of the new high-rise and condo development. On the one hand, the tall buildings have a small footprint; they do not sprawl all over the streets. On the other, they have changed the city skyline.

The shape of the board could change with elections in November, when a number of seats are up for grabs.

For one thing, said political consultant David Latterman, San Francisco might have three Asian Americans on the Board of Supervisors instead of one. For another, he thinks it likely that a Latino will replace Supervisor Tom Ammiano in District Nine, which represents the Mission and Bernal Heights.

USF's [Corey] Cook thinks the new board could have a decisive influence. "The city has a monopoly on land use," he said. "The city is actually in a position to make real decisions on how it looks."

Latterman is not so sure. "A lot depends on the business cycles, not the political cycles," he said. "A lot depends on jobs, on how good the Muni is, and how well BART works moving people in and out. The forces are economic and not political.

"It's bigger than a few tin-pot supervisors," he said. "It's like a river. The supervisors can dip their hands into the river, but they can't control the current."

Latterman is not so sure a new board will make that much of a difference. "Where's the voice for real change?" he asks. "Who's going to step up and go beyond their identity base and represent the whole city?"…

37. “Black-Owned TV Stations Nearly Extinct” (Final Call, January 2, 2008); column citing DEREK TURNER (MPP 2006).

By Nisa Islam Muhammad

Over the last year Black TV station ownership dropped by 60 percent with the total number falling from 19 to eight and making Black ownership almost non-existent, according to a recent report.

The dwindling numbers of Black-owned broadcast outlets was also discussed during a Dec. 5 congressional hearing about media consolidation and how having fewer owners control more stations contributes to the problem.

“Minority television ownership is in such a precarious state that the loss of a single minority-owned company results in a disastrous decline,” said S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press and lead author of “Out of the Picture 2007,” an updated analysis of the impact of consolidation on minority and female television station ownership.

“Permitting any more consolidation will only further diminish the number of minority-owned stations,” he warned….

While many are alarmed at the drastic decline the Federal Communications Commission is practically mute on the topic, they complain. Critics charge Chairman Kevin Martin with pushing new rules that allow proposal to eliminate the longstanding “newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership” ban. That ban prohibits ownership of a television station and major newspaper by the same company in particular instances.

If Mr. Martin removed the prohibition in the top 20 markets and only let newspapers combine with broadcast stations outside of the four top-rated channels, minority ownership would suffer serious negative consequences, said Free Press. Nearly half of the stations currently owned by people of color are in the top 20 markets, and none of these are among the top four stations, it noted….

Increased consolidation only decreases opportunities for people of color to enter the market and purchase stations of their own, advocates maintain.

“The best, most effective way to boost minority and female ownership is by rolling back consolidation,” said Mr. Turner. “Piecemeal policies will have limited impact on the level of minority ownership in the face of unchecked media concentration.”

By Neil Gonzales, Staff Writer

A new state law will help students pass the California High School Exit Examination, even if they are already two years removed from high school….

AB347 now entitles students who have failed to pass the exam by the end of 12th grade to supplemental instruction for up to two additional years. It included nearly $73 million for schools to provide that extra remedial help.

[Susan Alvaro, board member for the San Mateo County Office of Education] said the legislation could particularly benefit English-language learners, giving them more time and assistance in a subject in which they’ve been playing catch-up from the start….

Alvaro also said she’s concerned that the legislation might not reach those who struggled the most in school and will cost districts “a lot of money.”

Brian Edwards, senior policy analyst for the Mountain View-based nonprofit research organization EdSource, said the legislation does require districts to notify those who did not pass the exam and are out of high school about the additional help.

He added that districts may have to tap other funds to comply with the legislation. “They could be on the hook to pay for the kids coming after the 12th grade,” he said….

By Dan Walters

This was supposed to be the “year of education” in the Capitol, so declared by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after an immense package of critical studies on public schools by a Stanford University-directed team [including Jannelle Kubinec] was unveiled early last year.

Never mind. The governor’s education declaration assumed that last year would be a successful “year of health care,” but by year’s end he had managed only to move a half-finished plan through just one house of the Legislature….

Most of all, however, 2008 will be, whether the Capitol politicians like it or not, the “year of the budget” because years of deficits are finally becoming an inescapable crisis, thanks to a cooling economy. They didn’t balance the budget when the state was enjoying huge increases in revenues, and now they face an 18-month deficit of at least $14 billion as revenues flatten.

The central question is whether Schwarzenegger and lawmakers will try to skate through another year or finally confront the chronic gap between income and outgo, created by multiple decisions of voters and politicians to lock in certain levels of spending while eroding the revenue base through tax cuts….

Initially, the governor and his minions are claiming that they’ll attack the deficit with spending cuts. “Some of these cuts will be tough,” his budget director, Mike Genest, said in a year-end radio broadcast on Schwarzenegger’s behalf. “But we have no choice for the next budget. We have to make those tough choices and balance the books.”…

40. “Avian flu virus still a threat 10 years after leap to humans” (Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ) - January 1, 2008); story citing TIM UYEKI (MPP 1985).

By Anita Manning - USA TODAY

In Hong Kong, when a mysterious avian flu virus jumped from poultry to people for the first time, killing six of the 18 people infected, world health experts sounded the alarm, warning that the stage was set for a global flu pandemic.

That was 10 years ago, and the virus, known as H5N1, has not yet changed in a way that would allow it to spread easily from person to person. But health experts say the danger has not diminished….

Since 2003, the WHO has confirmed 346 infections in 14 countries, and 213 deaths.

The virus has traveled far, turning up in countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, says Tim Uyeki , a medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Just in 2007, we’ve seen the first reports of human cases in Laos, Nigeria and Burma (Myanmar),” he says. Cases tend to coincide with poultry outbreaks and spike in winter, he says, “so it would not be surprising to see cases increasing.”

Uyeki says the highly pathogenic form of H5N1 has never turned up in North America in wild birds, poultry or people. And because of heightened awareness of the pandemic threat, governments around the world have started to prepare.

“There has been a lot of progress in this area, but more needs to be done,” Uyeki says. “We need much better collaboration, communication and sustained funding for strengthening of both animal health surveillance and public health surveillance.”…

Meanwhile, Uyeki says, preparedness for a flu pandemic should not stop. “The risk continues, people continue to be infected, we’ve had new countries affected and the mortality rate is higher than 60 percent,” he says. Though human infection with H5N1 is rare, especially compared to seasonal flu that causes 36,000 deaths each year in the United States, he says, “the pandemic threat is ongoing.”

41. “Your Town. Economic conference sponsored by AMBAG set for Jan. 25” (Monterey County Herald, December 27, 2007); story citing CHUCK SHULOCK (MPP 1978).

The 14th annual Tri-County Economic Conference will take place from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Jan. 25 at Embassy Suites Hotel Monterey Bay.

The event is sponsored by the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, in association with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and others.

Speakers will include AMBAG Executive Director Nick Papadakis and Charles Shulock, assistant executive officer of the California Air Resources Board….

42. “More News” (Progress-Index (Petersburg, VA) - December 25, 2007); story citing AMINA LUQMAN (MPP 2001).

By T. Devon Robinson, Staff Writer

PETERSBURG - When Amina Luqman-Dawson lived in Richmond, a pictorial book on African-American history in Richmond piqued her interest. Upon moving to Petersburg, she discovered there wasn’t a similar book for the city but heard of some interest. “It was clear that there was a need,” Luqman-Dawson said. “Part of what interests me is that there is a great deal of rich black history in Petersburg.”

She then approached Wayne Crocker, director of library services for the Petersburg Public Library, to collaborate. He not only agreed to participate, he said he was excited by the prospect of the book on the life of black residents of Petersburg….

Crocker and Luqman-Dawson are now looking for submissions to the book, which they hope to complete in late 2008….

Topics they are most interested in include businesses and proprietors of businesses in the Halifax Street Triangle….

Additionally, they are looking for photographs or postcards of scenes and people from the civil rights movement, political figures during reconstruction, people and places on Pocahontas Island during the early 1900s, military life, civic organizations and other notable people….

Once the book is completed, Crocker and Luqman-Dawson say they hope this will only be the beginning of additional surveys into topics in black history in Petersburg….

“We hope it’s just the beginning of the conversation, not the end-all,” Luqman-Dawson said.

Anyone interested in submitting old photographs to the project may get in touch with Luqman-Dawson at 338-1749 or send amina.luqman@yahoo.com or Crocker at 733-2387 or wcrocker@ppls.org….

43. “Nutter appoints budget director” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 22, 2007); story citing STEVE AGOSTINI (MPP 1986); http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/12764312.html

By Marcia Gelbart; Inquirer Staff Writer

Stephen J. Agostini is introduced by Mayor-elect Michael Nutter. The incoming finance director, Rob Dubow (left), aided in the selection. ED HILLE / Inquirer Staff Photographer

Mayor-elect Michael Nutter yesterday named Stephen J. Agostini, a municipal-finance expert, to be his budget director.

Agostini, 47, is chief financial officer for the Economics and Statistics Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

His municipal-finance experience comes from a variety of positions he held in Milwaukee and San Francisco.

In announcing Agostini’s appointment, Nutter lauded him as somebody who will help “to put this city back on firm financial footing for the years to come.”

Among the city’s fiscal challenges are rising pension and health-care costs as well as the immediate task of negotiating contracts with Philadelphia’s four municipal unions, whose deals expire June 30.

Agostini said he saw his position as “an extraordinary opportunity for somebody who has been in city government for two decades.... There is a lot of hard work to do.”

He echoed Nutter’s belief that it is a “false premise” to believe that reducing taxes means reducing services….

A native of New York City, Agostini moved to Philadelphia last year from Milwaukee with his wife, Nicole Else-Quest, an assistant professor of psychology at Villanova University. He had been the fiscal and budget administrator for Milwaukee County.

Before that, as an economic development adviser in San Francisco, he worked on plans for the San Francisco Giants’ new baseball stadium. In Milwaukee, he influenced plans for that city’s baseball stadium….

Stephen J. Agostini

Experience: Fiscal and budget administrator, Milwaukee County, Wis., 2004-06; director of performance evaluation office, State of Wisconsin, 2001-03; executive assistant, Office of the Secretary, State of Wisconsin, 1999-2000; deputy executive director of Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority, 1998-99; deputy executive director, San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, 1997-98; director of finance, City of San Francisco, 1996-97; budget and management director, City of Milwaukee, 1994-96.

Personal: Married to Nicole Else-Quest, assistant professor at Villanova University; father of 8-month-old Raeka Zoraida

Mayor-elect Nutter named Stephen Agostini to be city Budget Director.

According to his bio, Agostini is a Harvard grad and has a Masters in Public Policy from the Goldman School at Berkeley. So... yeah... he’s a sm-ah-t guy. He’s a New York City native and his wife teaches at Villanova so he’s looking forward to moving back to the Philadelphia area….

It would seem that Agostini is one of the first high profile appointments to answer the call for the “best and brightest.” … [Finance Director Rob] Dubow said that once Agostini “came through the door” it was very clear that he was someone whom the administration would want to have….

[From the mayor’s press release: “Stephen was the perfect candidate. He clearly understands budgets, local government and most importantly, how to deal with people,” said Finance Director Designate Rob Dubow. “I am looking forward to working with him as we tackle the financial challenges facing the city.”]

45. “Jobs growth slows down. Diversified economy in county buoys growth” (San Mateo County Times, December 22, 2007); story citing DOUG HENTON (MPP 1975).

By Tim Simmers, Business Writer

Job growth on the Peninsula continued to slow down in November, though it outpaced the state and most other metropolitan areas in California, a new report revealed Friday. The county’s unemployment rate inched up to 4.0 percent in November from 3.9 percent in October, but still ranked the second-lowest of any county in California, according to the state Employment Development Department.

“The county is not immune to the state and national slowdown, but its economy is diversified and more connected with the global economy, so job growth is still fairly solid,” said Doug Henton, economist at Collaborative Economics in Mountain View, which does economic research.

Henton said the county’s job growth is being buoyed by strong exports, growing biomedical and software industries, and rising tourism and business travel through San Francisco International Airport….

46. “Tax won’t go far enough” (San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, 2007); Letter to the Editor by STEVE LINSEY (MPP 1984).

The Chronicle’s recent editorial on empty calories gets it partly right (“Tax it, and they’ll drink milk,” Dec. 18).

San Francisco should not single out over-sugared, high-fructose soda as a target of taxation. San Francisco should systematically seek to tax a broad spectrum of foods that contribute to obesity.

The stuff should be taxed whether it comes from a fast-food restaurant, a big-box store or your local friendly grocer.

The very products that most contribute to our collective waistline are made too cheap by federal crop subsidies. Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors should do whatever it takes to stop the subsidies.

STEVE LINSEY, San Francisco

47. “Bali Climate Conference” (Congressional Quarterly, December 19, 2007); Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony by NED HELME (MPP 1971).

Committee on House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming

…My name is Ned Helme and I am the President of the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP), a Washington, DC and Brussels-based environmental think tank.

Since 1985, CCAP has been a recognized world leader in climate and air quality policy and is the only independent, non-profit think-tank working exclusively on those issues at the local, national and international levels. CCAP helps policymakers around the world to develop, promote and implement innovative, market- based solutions to major climate, air quality and energy problems that balance both environmental and economic interests.

CCAP played a leadership role helping to design the European Union Emissions Trading System. Today we are advising states—particularly California—on implementing climate policy and advising key developing countries such as China, Brazil, and Mexico on climate and energy policy. We are running a dialogue and providing in-depth analyses for climate negotiators from 30 nations to help them shape the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the post-2012 international response to climate change. CCAP also facilitates policy dialogues with leading businesses, environmental groups and governments in the European Union (EU) and U.S. on designing the details of future climate change policies….

Bali marks a sea change in the global climate change debate. For the first time, key developing countries have played a major role in the debate, committing to take “nationally appropriate mitigation actions...in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner” and pressing the developed world to set more stringent “quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives”….

In Bali, my organization released a new study, developed with teams from each of [China, Brazil and Mexico], that demonstrates if those new laws and policies are fully implemented, those three nations will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 below their “business as usual” levels….

48. “Downtown redesign: ‘Green Line’ vision has MARTA, GSU cast as key players” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 13, 2007); story citing CARL PATTON (MPP/PhD 1976).

By Maria Saporta, Kevin Duffy; Staff

An ambitious new vision for an oft-forgotten stretch of downtown would create a linear park ringed by pedestrian-friendly development, stretching from the state Capitol area to Philips Arena.

The conceptual plan, unveiled Wednesday by Central Atlanta Progress, envisions massive commercial development near Philips and CNN Center on the west end of the 94-acre site, an overhaul of the Five Points MARTA station in the middle and new Georgia State student housing on the east, all connected by green space and walkways….

GSU President Carl Patton said the university needs to build 500 units of student housing each year for 10 years. He said he supports a complex along the Green Line as long as GSU is not the only player transforming the area….

49. “City housing advocate steps down” (Daily News Tribune (Waltham, MA) - December 13, 2007); story citing ALEX MARTHEWS (MPP 2001); http://www.dailynewstribune.com/homepage/x118899932

By Nicole Haley; Daily News Staff

WALTHAM - After two and a half years leading the fight for affordable housing in the city, Alex Marthews is moving on to new challenges. Marthews is stepping down from his post as executive director of the Waltham Alliance to Create Affordable Housing to give his full attention to his family.

His wife is pregnant with identical twin girls and the pregnancy encountered a serious complication called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. The condition, Marthews says, occurs when blood passes unevenly from one baby to another in the placenta, putting both at risk of death.

“It was not possible for me to do justice to my obligations at WATCH and my obligations to my family,” Marthews said in a phone interview yesterday. The Alliance, founded in 1988, works to maintain and develop affordable housing and lend a hand to low-and moderate-income people through tenant advocacy and outreach….

“We wish Alex the best,” said board President Marci Diamond. “We really appreciate everything that he was able to contribute to the organization while he was there.”…

Marthews said he is devoting his time to his wife who is now eight months pregnant.

The couple traveled to Florida in September where Catherine underwent laser surgery to seal off the blood vessels that carry blood between the fetuses. Without the surgery, Marthews said, there would have been a 90 percent chance both twins would develop heart problems and die in the womb.

“The babies appear to be doing OK at this point,” Marthews said. “Catherine has needed very intensive medical care ... we are going in for ultrasounds every two days.”

Since finding out about the condition, Marthews said he was alarmed by how common a diagnosis it is. He said twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome affects one in six identical twin pregnancies and yet most people know very little about it.

“It’s definitely something I’m interested in bringing some attention to,” he said.

Marthews said the surgery carries a 60 percent success rate that both twins will survive and 85 percent chance one of them will.

“We are hopeful,” Marthews said, adding that the girls will be the couple’s first children. Once born, twins with the syndrome have a high risk of developing cerebral palsy, a condition affecting muscle control, he said.

“I knew it would be simplest if I stepped down and took care of my family ... it will just work out better for me to be available and on hand to take care of Catherine and the girls.”…

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Don’t leave demand out of the equation” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media, January 30, 2008); Listen to this commentary

Scott Jagow: The checks are half-way in the mail. The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to rush tax rebate checks to most Americans….

ROBERT REICH: Perhaps the silliest part of an already silly stimulus bill is a provision giving corporations big tax deductions this year on the costs of new machinery. These deductions are normally spread out over several years. The idea is to get businesses to invest in more machinery, which will stimulate the economy.

But accelerated depreciation, as it’s called, doesn’t work. Almost the same tax break was enacted in 2002, and studies show just about no increase in business investment as a result. Why? Because companies won’t invest in more machines when demand is dropping for the stuff the machines make. And right now, demand is dropping for just about everything.

This tax break exemplifies the illogic of what’s called supply-side economics. The thinking goes: If you reduce the cost of investing, you’ll get more investment. What’s left out is the demand side of the equation. Without consumers who want to buy a product, there’s no point in making it, regardless of how many tax breaks go into it….

Jagow: Commentator Robert Reich was Labor Secretary under President Clinton. His latest book is called “Supercapitalism.”

By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Adam Satariano

George W. Bush delivers the State of The Union address at a joint Session of Congress in Washington, on Jan. 28, 2008. Photographer: Tim Sloan/Pool via Bloomberg News

President George W. Bush is pressing allies in Europe for a global warming agreement based on voluntary targets for pollution reduction. State officials in the U.S. have already left him behind.

Twenty-two U.S. states with about 145 million people are exploring mandatory carbon-dioxide caps and emission-credit markets similar to one in the European Union. The proposals are pressuring Congress to pass legislation that would supersede the state and regional programs with a single national plan….

In getting ahead of federal policy, states also are competing against one another for clean-energy companies that bring jobs, said Daniel Kammen, who was involved in drafting California’s climate-change law as director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. A million U.S. jobs could be created in renewable energy and efficiency programs, he said.

“It’s not going to take a lot more states doing this before the imperative for the U.S. government is to actually catch up,” said Kammen, a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change….

[Dan Kammen was also cited in Xinhua [China] newspaper: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/31/content_7529646.htm ]

By Kevin Mccallum, The Press Democrat

Enphase Energy engineers, from left, Tibor Bolfan, Mark Dailey and Brian Acker work in the research and development laboratory at the company’s Petaluma facility. Mark Aronoff/PD

A Petaluma solar startup emerged from stealth mode Tuesday, announcing plans to roll out technology that makes solar panels significantly more efficient and easier to manage.

Enphase Energy, a 2-year-old company founded by Sonoma County telecom veterans, claims to have created a solar energy management system that could revolutionize the way electricity is gathered from solar panels.

Its technology is based on micro-inverters, devices that convert the direct current generated by solar panels to the alternating current needed for use in homes and businesses….

The promise of micro-inverters is well known within the solar industry, said Dan Kammen, a professor in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and a vice president of Enphase.

“I actually think this is, in some sense, the most important technological breakthrough solar has ever seen,” he said.

Tests have shown efficiency improvements of 20 percent to 30 percent over traditional systems, Kammen said.

And because the technology works with any solar panel, it has the potential for wide adoption, he said.

By Robert Reich

It is an election year and the US economy is in peril of falling into recession or worse. Not surprisingly, Washington is abuzz with plans to prevent it. President George W. Bush has proposed a $150bn stimulus package and all the main presidential candidates are offering similar measures, including middle-class tax cuts and increased spending on infrastructure.

Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have reduced interest rates another three-quarters of a point. But none of these fixes will help much because they do not deal with the underlying anxieties now gripping American voters. The problem lies deeper than the current slowdown and transcends the business cycle.

The fact is, middle-class families have exhausted the coping mechanisms they have used for more than three decades to get by on median wages that are barely higher than they were in 1970, adjusted for inflation. Male wages today are in fact lower than they were then: the income of a young man in his 30s is now 12 per cent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Yet for years now, America’s middle class has lived beyond its pay cheque. Middle-class lifestyles have flourished even though median wages have barely budged. That is ending and Americans are beginning to feel the consequences….

The candidate who acknowledges this and comes up with ways not just to stimulate the economy but also to boost wages—through, say, a more progressive tax, stronger unions and, over the longer term, better schools for children from lower-income families and better access to higher education—will have a good chance of winning over America’s large, and increasingly anxious, voters.

The writer is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He is former US secretary of labour and author of Supercapitalism.

By Kristin Bender, Staff Writer

BERKELEY - City leaders on Monday took a hydrogen-powered bus to a solar-powered building made of rice straw bales to unveil an innovative new program to reduce Berkeley’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050….

“Berkeley is putting meat on the bones of Measure G, which is important. It’s a very (inclusive) effort and it’s the sort of thing that cities don’t usually do,” said Dan Kammen, who directs the UC Berkeley Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab and helped the city develop the program.

Kammen credited Berkeley for tackling some of the problems that aren’t theirs alone.

“All of the residents in the East Bay get their power from the same power provider and we all drive vehicles, and no one stops at the edge of their city,” Kammen said….

“[The Climate Action Plan] is not supposed to just be a list of policies for the city. It does have policies in it, but it’s also about a vision on how we are going to change as a city and how we are all can participate in this effort,” said Cisco DeVries, Mayor Tom Bates chief of staff who has worked on the plan since its inception.

The plan aims to:

· Send zero waste to landfills

· Make sure that the majority of resident’s food produced within a few hundred miles

· Make public transit, walking, and biking the primary means of transportation and get personal vehicles to run on alternative fuels or electricity….

“It’s set up so you can spend as much or as little time as you want on it,” DeVries said. “The point is to take a look and give your feedback (online) at any part or any level that you like to...”

[More information is available at www.Berkeleyclimateaction.org. ]

Economy: A Meager Inheritance

…The ability to further stimulate the economy—through tax cuts or spending increases—will be constrained by a second known known: the budget deficit. Slowing economies bring higher spending—more money spent on unemployment benefits, greater demand for social services—and lower tax revenue. And so the fiscal picture will undoubtedly be worse next January than it is now. In January 1993, as Bill Clinton was poised to take office, the first Bush administration revealed data showing the projected deficit for 1997 would be $60 billion greater than expected. So whether it’s making the Bush tax cuts permanent or covering uninsured children, it will be tough to follow through on campaign promises. The new president should thus be prepared for a tough internal debate—as happened in early 1993 between economic adviser Robert Rubin and Labor Secretary Robert Reich—over which priorities are affordable…. --Daniel Gross

By Matt Nauman - Mercury News

Dan Verser, co-founder of ZeaChem, which has invented a way to turn wood into ethanol. (Karen T. Borchers/Mercury News)

U.S. energy policy-makers see ethanol as a way to help solve global warming as well as reducing the country’s “addiction” to oil from foreign, often volatile, sources like the Middle East.

But critics of ethanol … fret that it now comes from corn, in an energy-intensive, environmentally damaging, costly process that also leads to higher grocery bills.

ZeaChem, a Menlo Park company, thinks it has a solution to those drawbacks. Using a proprietary combination of biotechnology and chemistry, ZeaChem says it can produce more affordable ethanol with wood chips, not corn, using less energy in the process.

The size of the market—about 146 billion gallons of gasoline are consumed in the United States each year—has attracted many other players.

Dan Kammen, a UC-Berkeley professor and director of its Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, said 20 U.S. companies are doing the “real nuts-and-bolts work” of making ethanol, with 50 more or so still in stealth mode or formulating business plans….

Impressed by the pace of technological development in the segment, Kammen still offers caution about how fast it’ll all take place. From securing steady supplies of feedstock to building refineries to figuring out how to get the fuel to market to actually building enough E85 pumps and making enough cars that can use the fuel means that, at first, ethanol makers will only fill a market niche. “They’ll be hard-pressed to produce enough to really register as a big chunk,” he said….

By Sarah Wheaton

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign began broadcasting this spot, “Serious,” on Wednesday in California. The state, whose primary is on Feb. 5, is the ultimate prize for Democrats, assigning 441 convention delegates….

Mrs. Clinton says at a rally: “We’ve got to get serious about ending our dependence on foreign oil. We could create millions of new jobs through new energy. Let’s start investing in what I call the Strategic Energy Fund that would put $50 billion to work. And where would I get the money? I would take away the tax subsidies from the oil companies. They don’t need your tax dollars anymore.” An announcer says, “If you are ready for change, she is ready to lead.” …

Over all, Mrs. Clinton’s plan appears feasible, but it would face an uphill battle. Of creating five million jobs through alternative energy, Prof. Daniel M. Kammen of the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, said that “a little bit less than half than that” was feasible. “We’d have to scale up a lot of energy programs faster than we’ve seen it right now,” Professor Kammen said. Political realities could also prevent rescinding enough oil tax breaks to finance her $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund. Congress’s effort to include a smaller cut in subsidies in the last energy bill did not succeed. The commercial aims squarely at the many Californians who prize environmental protection and alternative energy….

By Arlyn Tobias Gajilan

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters-Corbis

Think the last few days have been bad for Wall Street and the rest of the world’s markets? Hang on, things are probably going to get worse, says Robert Reich, President Clinton’s former secretary of Labor and author of the recent book “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life.” According to Reich, who currently teaches public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, the United States might even be headed toward a depression.

NEWSWEEK’s Arlyn Tobias Gajilan talked to Reich about the Fed’s surprise rate cut Wednesday, the “D word,” the growing criticism of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and whether a stimulus package will include $500 check for each American. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Many investors had hoped for an interest-rate cut, but this cut’s size and timing took people by surprise. Were you taken aback by the Fed’s three-quarter basis-point cut, the largest single-day reduction in the Fed’s history? And do you think it’s necessary?

Robert Reich: Yes and yes. The Fed is clearly becoming aware of the serious potential of an economic meltdown. The size of the cut is larger than anyone expected because the Fed usually moves in [increments of] .25 or .50 percentage points. But the danger of a cut this size is that it may panic the investors. They may conclude that the Fed has determined that the economy is even worse than assumed and that there is still a way to go before we hit bottom. Yet the Fed has to [cut]. Credit markets are still uncomfortably frozen, and the housing slump continues to worsen….

Q: …From the indicators you’ve been watching, how bad do you think things are really going to get in the next six months to a year? Is a recession avoidable at this point?

Robert Reich: It’s going to be difficult to avoid a recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Difficult because the scale of the problems is so much larger than any stimulus package or Fed rate cut can readily deal with. The stimulus package now being considered on the Hill is in the range of $140 [billion] to $150 billion. But at the rate housing prices are dropping, consumer purchases are likely to be hit by $360 [billion] to $400 billion. Similarly the Fed rate cuts, under normal circumstances, would free up money, but lenders are afraid of lending because they don’t know how much risk of default they face, even at lower interest rates. It’s a little like offering a lobster dinner to someone who is so constipated that they can’t take in another mouthful….

10. “Energy Roundup Blog: More Bad News for Ethanol” (Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2008); column citing MICHAEL O’HARE; http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/2008/01/23/more-bad-news-for-ethanol/

Posted 2:19 pm by Keith Johnson

Out of LUC. Wikipedia

Another brick in the wall against ethanol. Academics tasked with plotting California’s transition to a low-carbon fuel have delivered more bad news: Ethanol appears to come with a higher greenhouse-gas price tag than previously thought—higher, indeed, than fossil fuel….

The University of California at Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center told the California Air Resources Board that ethanol could be twice as bad as gasoline, from a carbon-emissions point of view. How? Basically by turning land now covered with trees, grass, and other natural “carbon sinks” into farmland for corn and other crops used for ethanol….

“Simply said, ethanol production today using U.S. corn contributes to the conversion of grasslands and rainforest to agriculture, causing very large GHG emissions,” wrote Berkeley profs Alex Farrell and Michael O’Hare in a January 12 memo to California regulators. “Even if only a small fraction of the emissions calculated in this crude way [through land use change] are added to estimates of direct emissions for corn ethanol, total emissions for corn ethanol are higher than for fossil fuels.”

The Berkeley team warned about the land-use-change bogeyman (“LUC” in shorthand) in a pair of lengthy reports submitted to California authorities last year. But only this month did the team report the startling, if preliminary, numbers. Current wisdom in California says gasoline produces about 92 grams of carbon dioxide for every megajoule of energy produced; ethanol is reckoned to be slightly cleaner at 75.9 grams. But the land-use penalty alone from growing more biofuel crops could add as much as 140 grams/MJ—a “really enormous” number, professors Farrell and O’Hare wrote….

The solution, according to Berkeley? Newer technologies to squeeze more ethanol out of every acre of food crop, or, better yet, ethanol from non-food cellulose such as switchgrass, which wouldn’t require a land-use change. In the meantime, the burning question is how to juggle this hot potato.

What California does about these new numbers, the professors write, “will have major implications” for the state’s low-carbon-fuel push.

--Andrew Leonard [Columnist]

Pity the scientist who actually strives for the truth. She will receive no mercy from the raging hordes who troll the Net, ready to denounce any findings that contradict their own preconceptions as paid propaganda delivered by corporate tools. Case in point: On Wednesday, writing in the Wall Street Journal’s Energy Blog, Keith Johnson cited the research of two University of California professors who had calculated some distressing numbers for the greenhouse gas emissions generated by corn-based ethanol production.

One of the selling points of ethanol and other biofuels has been their purported environmental friendliness relative to fossil fuels. But if you take into account the land use changes that will occur, globally, as a result of increased ethanol production in the U.S., wrote Alex Farrell and Michael O’Hare in a January 12 memo to the California Air Resources Board, corn-based ethanol could be worse than gasoline….

Farrell and O’Hare’s assertions upset some commenters on the blog. The second comment: “I would like to know who are backers of The University of California at Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center? Exxon, Shell and Chevron?”…

I had the opposite reaction as soon as I saw Farrell’s name. In January 2006 I wrote about research published by Farrell and several co-authors [including Michael O’Hare, Dan Kammen, Brian Turner] in Science that found corn-based ethanol was more energy-efficient than some of ethanol’s leading critics had long contended. Energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions are different beasts, of course, but the point is that his research in early 2006 gave fuel to supporters of ethanol, and his current research is pointing out some of its drawbacks. This predisposes me to trust him, a trust that is only amplified upon reading the memo, which appears to be a model of careful science….

12. “The politics of an economic nightmare” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Salon.com, January 23, 2008); http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/23/reich_economy/

By Robert B. Reich

Reuters/Chip East

A possible economic meltdown is worrisome enough, but a possible meltdown in an election year is downright frightening…. President Bush has now responded with a stimulus package more than twice as large as the one Bill Clinton briefly entertained at the start of 1993 but couldn’t get passed.

Not to be outdone, Democrats want to appear at least as bold, which means they’ll suspend pay-go rules and throw fiscal responsibility out the window. In other words, hold your noses, because the “bipartisan” stimulus package that’s about to be introduced could be a real stinker, including tax cuts for everyone and everything under the sun—except, perhaps, for the key group of lower-income Americans….

As a practical matter, our only real hope for avoiding a deep recession or worse depends on loans and investments from abroad … combined with export earnings as the dollar continues to weaken. But this is something no politician wants to admit, especially in an election year….None will likely admit the truth: We’re going to need the rest of the world to bail us out.

Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. He is also a blogger and the author of “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life.”

13. “How greed, ‘supercapitalism’ and ‘Richistan’ are changing America” (MarketWatch, January 21, 2008); commentary citing ROBERT REICH.

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) …Imagine the scene in boardrooms at companies such as Merrill, Citi, Bear, Countrywide, Moody’s, even at the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. Imagine their bosses asking: “Raise your hand. Do you want to save your soul? Or will you bend the rules to save the market and economy, your job and your bonus?” Well today, the metastasizing credit meltdown makes clear their compromises: For them, morals are negotiable, greed is always good….

The sad truth is: We’re all selling our souls to the “company store.” Not just the boardroom “suits” …. No, today everybody is selling their soul, everybody secretly wants to become a millionaire and retire rich. And the media panders to this darker side.

In “Supercapitalism,” Robert Reich reminds us: “America is assumed to best exemplify the idea that capitalism and democracy go hand in hand.” But in the past three decades America’s “free-market capitalism has triumphed. Yet democracy has weakened.” We have become super-materialistic robots.

“In this transformation, we in our capacities as consumers and investors have done significantly better. In our capacities as citizens seeking the common good, however, we have lost ground,” Reich writes. Power has shifted “away from us in our capacities as citizens and toward us as consumers and investors.” Yet even as investors we’re no match against a $12 trillion fund industry. And as consumers and employees, we’ve given away our power to mega-retailers bargaining with suppliers.

Yes, says Reich, we do have “more choice than ever before, and can switch to better deals. Yet as supercapitalism has triumphed, its negative social consequences have also loomed larger ... widening inequality as most of the gains go to the very top, reduced job security, instability of or loss of community, environmental degradation, violation of human rights abroad, a plethora of products and services pandering to our basest desires.”

Supercapitalism is killing American democracy. So we substitute MySpace, Facebook, iPods, videogames, game shows and insignificant egocentric communities for our rights as American citizens, while still working in the “coalmines.” Worse yet, political rhetoric aside, we really don’t expect change. Why? Because “the same competition that has fueled supercapitalism has spilled over into the political process,” as Reich writes….

14. “The next question: Does CSR work?” (The Economist, U.S. Edition, January 19, 2008); column citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10491055

Illustration by Ian Whadcock

… [John Ruggie of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government] and others claim that the real question about corporate responsibility today is “not whether but how”. But the debate has not entirely vanished….

… Last summer, for example, Robert Reich, a former labour secretary under Bill Clinton, now at the University of California at Berkeley, launched a broadside against CSR in his book, “Supercapitalism”. The CSR industry had learnt to shrug off criticism from free-marketeers such as Milton Friedman … or, for that matter, this newspaper. But here was a cruel cut from a Clintonite….

Mr Reich argues that the energy spent on CSR diverts attention from establishing rules that advance the common good—rules that help to prevent oil spills, say, or protect human rights abroad. In a democracy, he says, that should be the job of elected governments, not profit-maximising companies. It is easy to see the potential for a corrupt bargain: lobby groups find it more rewarding to put pressure on corporate executives because they respond faster than governments; governments are only too happy to duck the issue or let business pick up the bill….

--Lynette Evans

…Some may attribute the focus on real people and how we live to the ubiquity of the Internet and the rise of the green movement, and those are certainly factors….

In speaking about his book "Super Capitalism," former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich told a Commonwealth Club audience that Americans have abrogated their roles as citizens as they have gained power as investors and consumers. It's not all the corporations' fault for acting like corporations when we play along by continuing to invest in the very corporate activity we may otherwise deplore and to purchase the products they offer ever more cheaply, no matter the cost to ourselves in environmental devastation, job loss, health and safety….

And if we, as consumers, helped get the country into this mess by turning our economy into a consumer culture, we, as citizens, should think about exercising some tough love and just saying no to buy-buy culture. Let 'em come up with a sustainable economy, which would undoubtedly go a long way toward creating a sustainable life on the planet as well….

--Scott Carlson

This month, Anthony Cortese, higher education’s leading sustainability advocate, gave a speech at the recent Council of Independent Colleges conference in Marco Island, Fla., reminding college leaders once again of the perils of climate change and the difference colleges could make in creating a sustainable world. It was a variation on an inspirational speech Mr. Cortese has given at a number of venues—reminding people of higher education’s moral responsibility to improve society….

This week the National Wildlife Federation released a report, “Higher Education in a Warming World: The Business Case for Climate Leadership on Campus.” The report is full of stories of efforts at colleges to reduce emissions and cut energy use, and the paybacks on those projects. According to a 2001 survey conducted by the federation, 64 percent of campus leaders said that environmental stewardship and sustainability efforts fit with their colleges’ values, but almost 50 percent also said that such efforts were good for public relations, 40 percent said they were cost effective, and 17 percent said they helped recruit students….

But colleges are in the business of educating students, not setting up methane digesters and landfill-gas generators, and the report addresses the business case in academics, too. The report cites a study by Daniel M. Kammen, director of a renewable energy laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, which said that more than 160,000 jobs in renewable energy will be created by 2020—more growth than the fossil-fuels industry will see. The nation will also face challenges, relevant to scores of disciplines, in reviving local agriculture, preserving soils, constructing energy-efficient and renewable buildings, and retooling our transportation systems and city designs….

17. “Don’t blame China for the trade deficit” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media, January 16, 2008); Listen to this commentary

ROBERT REICH: Don’t be surprised if in 2008 Congress threatens China with tariffs unless it does more to raise the value of its currency against the dollar and thereby, it is assumed, save good American jobs.

But the trade deficit numbers are deceptive. Much of what we buy from China today we used to buy from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, but now parts from these countries go to China for final assembly and because the goods are exported from China, they’re counted as Chinese. Subtract what’s merely assembled in China and more than half of China’s trade deficit disappears….

The real problem is that America as a whole is living beyond its means. If anything, China has been an enabler, lending us heaps of money to continue our buying binge including homes with low-interest mortgages….

--Anjeanette Damon

First, she glanced skyward and rested her chin in her hand. Then Hillary Clinton’s voice choked with emotion as she answered a New Hampshire voter’s question.

The next day, the New York senator won a come-from-behind victory in the state’s presidential primary….

“While there’s a lot of hand-wringing and deliberation about issues and policy positions, often the decision comes down to a gut feeling,” said Jack Glaser, a social psychologist at the Goldman School of Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley. “Emotion is very influential.”…

Glaser argues that voters draw much about a candidate’s character, credibility and competence by reading his or her emotions. A hopeful candidate can more easily persuade an electorate gripped by fear. An angry electorate will likely respond to angry candidate.

But the emotions displayed better be appropriate for the occasion. An extreme display of emotion or extreme lack of emotion can also turn voters off, he said….

“Hillary Clinton did not cry,” Glaser said. “That is important. People don’t want a weepy president. But someone who shows a little emotion, and maybe even is able to control it: That, in some ways, is a sign of strength.”

Primary candidates with a lead in the polls, or who have won early nominating contests also enjoy a powerful psychological draw for voters.

“You like to think that people make decisions based on the merits, but the fact is we are very strongly influenced by what other people say and do,” Glaser said.

And that’s where Nevada voters come in.

This year two different candidates—on both the Republican and the Democratic sides—won the first two primary contests.

That’s in contrast to 2004, when Democrat John Kerry couldn’t be stopped after winning Iowa and New Hampshire, despite the fact most Americans didn’t know much about him.

This year, instead of falling in lockstep with the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada voters will have to practice more discernment in choosing each party’s nominees.

“It’s really good for Americans that Iowa and New Hampshire went different ways this year,” Glaser said.

19. “Perspective: Hillary’s emotions were true” (Denver Post, January 11, 2008); column citing JACK GLASER; http://www.denverpost.com/perspective/ci_7937831

By Douglas Brown

Hillary Clinton did not cry in a New Hampshire diner last week. She welled up.

The distinction, though only slight in physiological terms, is in politics like the difference between skiing to the lip of a cliff and stopping, and skiing to the lip of a cliff and … not stopping….

“I think there’s something legitimate to saying someone who feels emotion but can stop himself from going over the edge shows some self-control and strength,” says Jack Glaser, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley who studies intersections of politics and emotion. “You can’t help welling up, and it reflects some kind of real, normal, human emotional response to the circumstances. But being able to cap it is probably even better.”

The conventional wisdom said female pols can’t show emotion on the campaign trail. The punditocracy squealed about how voters might interpret Clinton’s display as a desperate entreaty for their votes….

“There is an important line that best not be crossed, from welling-up to tearing-up and sobbing,” Glaser says. The approach to that line amounts to a political high-wire act. Had Clinton taken one more step—had tears trailed down her cheek, had she ducked her head and brought a hand to her eyes, had a sob escaped—things might have turned out differently in New Hampshire….

Glaser says one thing that may have diverted Clinton’s dewy-eyed talk from schmaltz was her turn away from the navel-gazing that the question—”How do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?”—allowed. Instead, she directed the answer toward the nation at large.

“She said [she persists] because she cares so deeply, which is far better for her: caring a lot for the country [rather] than feeling sorry for herself,” he says.

--Pat Morrison

Wouldn’t it be something if the giants of mental healthcare reform in California turned out to be three men named Lanterman, Petris and Short—and a pop singer by the name of Britney Spears?

The first three were state legislators. More than 40 years ago, impelled by film and fiction horrors such as “The Snake Pit” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and even more by true-to-life mental hospital outrages, they drafted what they called a Magna Carta for mental patients.

… And Spears may just turn out to be a sad enough and famous enough Hollywood head case to get some changes going on that Magna Carta’s flaws.

Last week, Spears barricaded herself in her bathroom for three hours in a custody dispute, until police had her hustled off for physical and psychological evaluations. Now the entire gossip blogosphere knows about California’s Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150 …, one piece of a set of mental health laws that make it very hard to commit people against their wishes, if not their needs—maybe too hard….

In the 1950s and ‘60s, care for the mentally ill gave off a Dickensian vibe. People were locked away in state hospitals for months, years, for life. Too many times, they weren’t insane—just old and dotty, or inconvenient, or different and difficult….

Those three legislators decided to stop it. Frank Lanterman, Nicholas Petris and Alan Short made seminal laws that give mental patients rights and make it much harder to lock them up for long periods against their will. The laws ended the “warehousing” of the mentally ill and encouraged more humane, individual, local care.

California’s mental health dollars were supposed to follow patients back home, to clinics and board-and-care residences. It didn’t always work that way. Gov. Ronald Reagan famously used the new rules to close state hospitals and whack the mental health budget, a combination that turned the streets and sometimes the jails into de facto mental institutions….

In 2004, Californians voted for Proposition 63, a 1% tax on millionaires to expand mental health services. Richard Scheffler, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health [and director of the Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets & Consumer Welfare], calls it “a kind of Robin Hood tax” for a “starved” mental health system.

…Before those reforms were passed, Petris was rightly appalled by how casually someone could be locked away after a five-minute hearing before a judge….

Yet, as Petris himself later found, “we moved from a stage where people were being railroaded and there were no standards to a situation where people [are] not getting treated because [commitment] standards are rigid.”…

21. “A good candidate connects the dots” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media, January 9, 2008); Listen to this commentary

ROBERT REICH: Comparing candidates issue by issue or policy by policy is seriously misleading….

Start with foreign policy. The major challenges today are centered in the Middle East, Russia and China. They’re linked together, and that linkage is oil. Even absent Islamic extremism and Russia’s remaining nuclear warheads, we’d still focus on these places because more than two-thirds of the world’s oil supply comes from the Middle East and Russia, and our economy still critically depends on oil. And why is China building up its military? Most likely to protect its own global lifelines to oil.

Global oil consumption, in turn, is the leading cause of global warming. And reducing global warming depends on alternative sources of energy. Nuclear energy is a top candidate, but how can it be generated safely and kept out of the hands of terrorists? Meanwhile, agricultural-based energy sources like ethanol are expensive, and agricultural subsidies inevitably distort world commodity markets. Which brings us to global poverty….

RYSSDAL: Fifteen years ago Robert Reich was the secretary of labor for President Clinton. He’s now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

--Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sen. John McCain’s victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday spun the race for the Republican presidential nomination into a battle royal, fracturing the party after its first two contests and leaving the race wide open—allowing Californians to crown a winner when they vote Feb. 5.

Well, it seems chaotic if you like your presidential primaries wrapped up in a little bow after six days. In this year’s compressed race for the White House, one person’s chaos is another’s competitiveness as McCain’s seven-point win Tuesday over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney revived the senator’s campaign….

Yet after Tuesday, the Republican Party coalition that Ronald Reagan assembled—a fusing of social and economic conservatives—”is in tatters,” said Henry Brady, a professor of politics and public policy at UC-Berkeley. “It probably bodes badly for Republicans in the general election.”…

23. “The Road to Universal Coverage” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2008); http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119984199293776549.html

By ROBERT B. REICH

Democrats should be celebrating. Their three major candidates have put health insurance front and center on the domestic agenda, and with plans that are remarkably similar. They’ve done so at a time when the public seems readier than ever before to embrace universal health insurance, and readier to trust a Democratic president to put it into effect.

But instead of celebrating, the candidates and left-leaning pundits are squabbling over whether the plans should include so-called mandates that require everyone to purchase health insurance. Talk about self-inflicted wounds. Mandates are a sideshow, and fighting over them risks turning away voters from the main event….

This fight is little more than a distraction, given that a mandate would matter only to a tiny portion of Americans. All major Democratic candidates and virtually all experts agree that the combination of purchasing pools, subsidies, easy enrollment and mandatory coverage of children will cover a large majority of those who currently lack insurance—even without a mandate that adults purchase it….

Who’s left? Only around 3% of the population. So the question they’re really battling over is whether it’s better to require this 3% to buy insurance, or lure them into buying it with low rates and subsidies….

The public is ready for universal health insurance, but getting any plan through Congress will still be tricky. To get it enacted after January 2009, Democrats need to start building a movement in support of the big and important reforms universal health insurance requires—and on which they happen to agree.

Mr. Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, is author of “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

24. “Democrats in Sync, Mostly” (New York Times, January 6, 2008); column citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/weekinreview/06powell.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

By Michael Powell

DEMOCRATS might be forgiven for wearing shades, so bright are their days just now.

The Democratic turnout in Iowa more than doubled that of the Republicans. National polls show the party’s top candidates edging out the best of the Republican field….

And, whatever their differences in emphasis and philosophy of government, the Democrats have danced to remarkably similar themes. They favor universal health care, withdrawing troops from Iraq, combating global warming, hiking taxes for the very rich, and slashing taxes for the working and middle classes….

“It’s a remarkable consensus,” said Robert B. Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “This is the greatest degree of unanimity I’ve seen in at least three decades and we owe it to George Bush and all he represents.”…

“You have to be a Talmudist or into deep textual analysis to a find a substantive argument,” Mr. Reich said.

On social and cultural questions, the Democrats tend to answer sotto voce. To wit, we support gay rights, stem cell research and a woman’s right to choose an abortion, but please, please, please don’t make us talk about these topics too loudly during the general election.

What Democratic candidates should talk loudly about, Mr. Reich argues, is that middle-class voters have 70 percent of their wealth wrapped up in homes that are rapidly declining in value. They can also pit the “middle-class” against the 2 percent of Americans who are rich beyond measure.

“The biggest rift in American society used to be between the poor and the middle class and the Republicans exploited that brilliantly,” Mr. Reich said. “Now the words ‘middle class’ have become shorthand for the working poor, the working class and the middle class. Whether you make $16,000 a year or $66,000 a year, your job is more precarious, you have no pension.”

“It’s much easier for the candidate to talk about unfairness,” he said….

25. “He has the vision” (Concord Monitor (NH) - January 4, 2008); opinion citing ROBERT REICH.

Dozens of letters have been written by people supporting Barack Obama as to why he would be a great president and a historic one: his childhood spent in other parts of the world allowing him at a young age to experience other cultures; his years of community organizing; raised by a poor single parent; his stance against the war early on; his ability to bring people together; his vision for change as a means to refocus our priorities…. Obama’s strengths also include his long list of policy advisers. They are some of the best minds in the United States today and include Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Clinton; Tony Lake, national security adviser under Clinton; Major General Merrill McPeak, chief of staff of the Air Force; Federico Pena, energy and transportation secretary under Clinton; Ted Sorensen, speechwriter and policy adviser to President Kennedy; Zbigniew Brzezinksi, national security adviser under President Carter; William Daley, commerce secretary under Clinton….

--Carol Moore, Concord

26. Campaign U. Higher Education and the 2008 candidates: “Report: Expect Candidates to Race-Bait in ‘08” (Chronicle of Higher Education Online [*requires registration], January 3, 2008); blog citing DAVID KIRP and report coauthored with ADAM GOMOLIN (MPP cand. 2008) and LEONA (NINA) HORNE (MPP cand. 2009); http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/1311/report-expect-candidates-to-race-bait-in-08

A report by several scholars at the University of California at Berkeley predicts the emergence of race-baiting in the 2008 presidential campaigns and says e-mail, blogs, and Internet videos are likely to play a key role in such attacks.

The report—which lists as its lead authors Christopher Edley Jr., dean of the university’s law school, and David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy—acknowledges that no major race-baiting incidents have occurred in the presidential campaigns so far. But, based on an analysis of a dozen elections since 1983, the paper argues that appeals to racial bigotry are likely, especially if Barack Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Kirp rejected the idea that Senator Obama will somehow be insulated from race-based attacks by being regarded part of a new generation of black candidates who do not make their race an issue. The professor pointed to the case of former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, of Tennessee, who, he says, was thought of in similar terms and “did everything he could” to avoid making race a central issue in his 2006 campaign for the Senate. The outcome was uncertain as late as two weeks before the election, but Mr. Ford fell behind after his Republican opponent, Bob Corker, ran a radio ad alleging that Mr. Ford had attended a party featuring Playboy Playmates, and a television ad in which a scantily clad white woman suggestively urged Mr. Ford to call her. The report by the Berkeley scholars says the ad “tapped into deep-seated white fears regarding sex between races.”…

--Peter Schmidt

In a report issued last month, several scholars at the University of California at Berkeley predicted that race-baiting would eventually emerge as a factor in the 2008 presidential campaigns. But most of the historical precedents cited in the report involved cases in which Republican candidates for public office had allegedly used appeals to racism against their Democratic opponents. And David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy who was one of the report’s lead authors, said in an interview with Campaign U. that he did not expect the Democratic candidates to use such tactics against one another in the primaries. “At this point,” he said, “it is unlikely we are going to get serious race-baiting until the election itself.”

Mr. Kirp was unavailable for comment today on the widely publicized, racially charged volleys exchanged by the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the past week. But Joshua A. Green, a doctoral student in Berkeley’s political-science department who helped produce the “Race Bait ‘08” report, argues in an interview today that neither the Obama or Clinton campaign has done anything that should be called “race baiting.”…

By Peg Tyre, Newsweek Web Exclusive

In the 1970 and ‘80s, the notion that three- and four-year-olds should be taught in classrooms was a provocative idea. Today 40 states spend about $4.8 billion a year providing schooling for preschoolers. Although a bill to create universal preschool in California recently faltered, state legislators across the country are finding that preschool—which has been associated with higher rates of high-school graduation and, later in life, employment—is a good investment. Last month, as Sen. Ted Kennedy looked on, President Bush signed a bill into law that expanded Head Start, which provides early education for poor children. In his book “The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics” (Harvard University Press), author David Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, explains the importance of keeping educational quality high for our littlest learners. Kirp spoke with Newsweek’s Peg Tyre.

Newsweek: What is driving the expansion of state-funded preschools across the country?

David Kirp: What’s driving it is the good long-term research that shows that if a child goes to preschool they will have a higher income, are less likely to be involved in crime, more likely to graduate from college and have happier lives. There is also brain science that has shown the incredible importance of brain development in the earliest years....

Are we going to see the spread of preschools continue?

I believe that it’s got to. It’s good science, good economics and good demographics. Most mothers work. Kids need experiences so they can grow and develop. It is widely recognized now that preschool is the easiest place to start….

29. “What about Edwards-Obama?” (Concord Monitor (NH), January 2, 2008); opinion citing ROBERT REICH.

One result of fewer government regulations is that America has the costliest national health care system, with many uninsured. Texas publishers gave us No Child Left Behind, with its millions in sales of required test materials. Subsidized oil companies met secretly to craft the energy bill, and legislators were given false data before voting for the drug bill now in effect…. We will not have decent health care and schools, sensible energy policies, environmental protections, sized-down military expenses, or better Social Security benefits until corporations do not run our lives. After all, war and sickness are very profitable for a few. The profits recycle to influence our vote.

Before the Jan. 8 vote, note these words of former labor secretary Robert Reich: “Political reforms cannot be achieved as long as officials are dependent on the very corporations whose influence is to be limited.”…

--Helen Charpentier, Sunapee

30. “Robert Reich Takes On ‘Supercapitalism’ and You” (The Corporate Responsibility Officer, Jan. 02. 2008); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.thecro.com/node/591

By Dennis Schaal

You phone Robert Reich, the former U.S. Labor Secretary, at the appointed hour and he asks you to hold on for “half a second” because he’s “in the middle of a sentence.” For two minutes, you hear him pecking away in the background on a computer keyboard, perhaps writing one of the three books he’s working on simultaneously these days. A public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Reich says these manuscripts-in-progress will emerge in no particular order as an economics textbook, a collection of narratives on American public life, and a title on leadership and social change.

One such Reich-authored book, “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life,” published a few months ago, has drawn a lot of attention for its slant on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which Reich describes at one juncture in the book as being “as meaningful as cotton candy.”…

And, what’s worse, corporate efforts to convince the public of their do-goodism tend to mislead citizens and mute democracy, which is declining under the blare and increasing clout of corporate arm-twisting and special-interest lobbying. The answer is citizen empowerment, argues Reich, an expert in all things Washington, and stronger regulations and laws….

Reich offers that in this era of heightened competition and shareholder scrutiny, CEOs have less discretion to contribute “to what might be considered good causes.”…

Reich adds: “Companies are going green these days. You can’t open a newspaper without seeing a corporate press release to that effect. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who say, ‘Why should we worry about global warming? The corporations are taking care of it.’ That is dangerous thinking.”

A veteran of three national administrations, Reich makes a valid point about corporate efforts to head off or limit more regulation.

After all, the more than three dozen corporations in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership didn’t call for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions because coalition members are getting warm and fuzzy and ready to join Greenpeace. Instead, they are pushing for a level playing field and trying to forestall stricter curbs.

“In my value system, I happen to believe that global warming is an imminent threat,” Reich says. “But, frankly, I don’t know whether a cap-and-trade system is better than a carbon tax or whether we ought to have a carbon auction. I don’t know whether the United States ought to reopen the Kyoto Protocol and exactly what our policy ought to be with regard to China and India and global warming. I have absolutely no confidence that a coalition of corporations knows any better than I do. I want a democracy that is responsive to the people, not necessarily responsive to corporations.”…

By Bob Butler, Special to the Tribune

Young boys watch as people attempt to free one of the Land Cruisers that became stuck in the sand near Darou Fal. (Photo by Bob Butler)

THIAWLENE, RUFISQUE, SENEGAL — Mbaye Dieng awoke to find water rising in his bedroom. He ordered the small children to be placed on the roof for safety, tried to retrieve as many belongings as possible and then waited for help….

…[T]he Senegalese government says Dieng’s ordeal is a clear example of how climate change is devastating communities all over Africa. The combination of wind, sand and water is destroying homes, ruining livelihoods and changing the way people live. Climate change experts say what happened in Thiawlene this summer will be repeated in coastal communities around the world in coming decades.

Like New Orleans residents, the residents of Thiawlene had to fend for themselves until the government could provide aid. However, the Senegalese government was unable to relocate people whose homes were flooded….

“From the Fourth of July to the 20th of July, we stayed here draining the water. That was all we could do,” said Lt. Col. Mamadou Adje, the unit’s commanding officer….

About a 15-foot-long stretch of bricks and a couple of pillars are all that remain of the sea wall. “We started to intervene here first so that we can protect the cemetery before protecting the people.”…

But no one expects the levee to hold back the sea for very long….

For many, the question is what is causing the country’s devastation and forever changing its landscape.

Environmental experts hesitate to point to global warming as the only cause of Thiawlene’s flooding.

“There could be subsidence from pumping out water. There could also be salt water intrusion in places because of canals and projects that allow water to get into soils, bog them up and, like sponges with weight on top, they sink,” said professor Daniel M. Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy.

Kammen admits, however, “this is exactly the kind of thing we expect to see in the future.” And that does not bode well for low-lying coastal regions like Thiawlene.

“Most of the sea level rise that we expect to see, even from the greenhouse gas we have already emitted, hasn’t yet happened,” Kammen said….

If everyone is right about the sea and it continues to rise, the Diengs will be forced out again and, this time, they would have no place to go…

By Bob Butler, Special to MediaNews

Saliou Ba founded the Young Fisherman’s Association of Thiawlene in an effort to save their livelihood. (photo by Bob Butler)

THIAWLENE, RUFISQUE, Senegal—The fish market at Soumbebioune … in the capital of Dakar is literally on the shores of Senegal Bay.

The boats go out about 5 a.m. and by mid-afternoon, the market is bustling as fishermen return to sell a variety of fish including tuna, snapper, shark, flounder and squid, right there on the beach.

Saliou Ba started working as a fisherman at the age of 15. But climate change is making it harder for him and the 40 percent of this West African nation’s population that depends on fishing to feed their families, according to government environmental experts. Since he can remember, Ba and the other fishermen used to return with their catch about noon or 1 p.m. They now have to work longer hours to catch the same amount of fish they caught just 10 years ago.

Fishermen and government officials agree the nation’s fishing infrastructure is under increasing pressure from declining fish stocks caused by salt-water intrusion from rising sea levels. The change that Thiawlene has experienced is only the beginning of what climate change experts predict will be decades of sea level increase.

“In my childhood, say 10 years ago, fisherman didn’t have to go too far to get fish. But now (we) have to go as far as Guinea-Bissau [200 miles south] or to some neighboring countries to get fish,” said Ba, 25….

…57 years ago, Thiawlene was located a quarter mile to the west in an area that is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean.

The rising sea has sent salt water into crucial mangrove marshes … where many fish reproduce, including flounder, bluefish and shrimp….

Professor Daniel M. Kammen, the director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley’s, Goldman School of Public Policy explains that one of the effects of climate change is that as the water warms it expands, and that effect takes decades.

“While there’s not much evidence that we’ve seen massive amounts of this so far, we are seeing warming of the ocean,” Kammen said. “It’s very well documented and over the coming two to three centuries, we expect to see a significant increase in sea level rise from greenhouse gases that we’ve already emitted, to say nothing of future emissions.”…

“For us to stay here and do our economic activities, the greatest help we need is to find a way to stop the sea from advancing,” [Ba] said.

And, according to Kammen, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon…

By Bob Butler, Special to MediaNews

The past meets the present in Thiawlene. (Photo by Bob Butler)

DAROU FAL, Senegal—As a boy, Pathe Kane’s family farmed a large plot of land on which sat deep lakes filled with wildlife.

In his youth, Ousman Sow wandered the land raising cattle with his Fulani nomad tribe. Over time, sand from the Sahara Desert drove Kane’s family from its farm, and drought forced Sow’s tribe to forgo its nomadic lifestyle.

The Senegalese government believes the advance of the desert and the drought are results of climate change that are having a dramatic impact on several countries in Africa—forcing whole communities to relocate, changing entire lifestyles and making it harder for people to make a living….

[F]or years, strong winds have covered fertile land with tons of sand and stopped all farming activity. The transformation was hastened by 30 years of drought….

The Senegalese government said the Sahara was advancing at least 15 feet a year. Concerned it would encroach on more farmland each year, the country began an ambitious program to reclaim land from the desert by blocking the winds and sand.

Using fir and eucalyptus trees that withstand drought well because they don’t need as much water, the government is planting a “green wall” of trees along the edge of the Sahara Desert….

The recent climate change conference in Bali that resulted in a road map to a solution to curbing greenhouse gases has sparked cautious optimism among officials in Senegal. But that optimism may be premature, said Professor Daniel M. Kammen, the director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.

“One of the things I found by working on the IPPC process, the intergovernmental panel on climate change process, is that experts in almost each area of environmental change who are the most knowledgeable are the most worried,” Kammen said….

Kammen said experts who are the most knowledgeable about climate change are the most worried because change is happening a lot faster than they thought—and few of the impacts being experienced in Senegal actually can be tied directly to climate change at this time.

“But,” he went on to say, “when we look back on this decade, I bet we’re going to tie a huge number of things that we’re right now not totally sure of, but suspect are climate change, very clearly to exactly that.”

34. “A Toy Maker’s Conscience” (New York Times Magazine, December 23, 2007); story citing DAVID VOGEL.

By Jonathan Dee

…In early July, a European retailer discovered lead paint on some of Mattel’s toys; on Aug. 2, Mattel announced the recall of 83 different toys, a total of 1.5 million items. Twelve days later, more than 400,000 additional toys were recalled for containing lead-based paint…. The company faces at least one class-action lawsuit in the wake of the recall….

In September, Mattel’s chairman and chief executive, Robert A. Eckert, apologized to Congress for the lead-paint failures…

Apologies notwithstanding, Mattel executives assigned blame for the lead-paint fiasco.… The company named seven contractors and subcontractors involved in producing the recalled toys, at least four of which have since had their connections with Mattel severed. The co-owner of one of those factories, Lee Der Industrial -- which made Mattel products for more than 15 years -- apparently hanged himself inside his plant within days of the announcement.

“The suppliers have conflicting incentives,” says David Vogel , a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who writes about corporate social responsibility more skeptically than many. “They want to reduce their costs because they have to keep prices low in order to hold onto the business, but at the same time they have to comply with the standards in order to hold onto the business. The real black box of this issue is, what does it cost the suppliers to comply with these codes, and who bears those costs? We know remarkably little about that.”…

…According to a poll by Nima Hunter, a marketing research firm, 91 percent of chief executives believe that a good corporate social-responsibility program creates shareholder value.

Which is interesting, because there isn’t a great deal of evidence that that’s true. So-called socially responsible investing firms are more and more in vogue but still account for only about 2 percent of total assets in mutual funds in the United States. And you need look no further than Mattel itself—a company with one of the highest corporate social-responsibility profiles in the world—to see that there’s a limit to what it can protect you from in terms of lawsuits, regulatory threats, brand loyalty or unfavorable press. “They got no positive press coverage in any of the lead-paint stories for their strong performance on labor standards,” Vogel says. “C.S.R. doesn’t buy you much credit when things go wrong.”

FACULTY SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & EVENTS

Jan. 6-12 Richard Scheffler was featured speaker at the Global Health Leadership Forum, presented by the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, San Francisco, CA.

Jan. 15 Steven Raphael presented his paper, “Incarceration and the Employment Prospects of Former Inmates” at the Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Jan. 23 Robert Reich spoke on the publication of the new book, “Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom” by Charles Halpern, at the UC Berkeley Law School.

Erik Solheim, Norway's minister of the environment, discusses his nation's efforts to combat global warming—and the need for U.S. leadership—as part of a Focus the Nation panel discussion by campus and student leaders, moderated by professor Dan Kammen (far right), co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment. The daylong I-House teach-in was one of hundreds held on campuses across the nation Thursday (January 31). http://bie.berkeley.edu/ftn

Jan. 31 Robert Reich discussed the rising economic powers of China and India and what effect they have on the United States in North Carolina State University's Millennium Seminar Series. http://www.ncsu.edu/millenniumseminars/speakerreich.html

VIDEOS & WEBCASTS

To view a complete list of GSPP videos, visit our Events Archive at: /news-events/archive.html

Recent events viewable on UC Webcast: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/archive.php?select2=36

If you would like further information about any of the above, or hard copies of cited articles, we’d be happy to provide them.

We are always delighted to receive your material for inclusion in the Digest. Please email the editor at wong23@berkeley.edu .

Sincerely,

Annette Doornbos

Director of External Relations and Development