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eDIGEST January 2007

UPCOMING EVENTS

“Network San Francisco”

January 9, 2007. 6-8:30 p.m., War Memorial Veterans’ Building, San Francisco.

The 2nd Annual Network San Francisco reception provides students with the opportunity to meet and talk with prospective employers and Goldman School alumni from across the Bay Area. /career_resources/events.html

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. “Governor creates panel to tackle pension costs. Schwarzenegger adopts a bipartisan approach” (Sacramento Bee, December 29, 2006); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/100158.html

2. “McClatchy is selling Minnesota newspaper” (Sacramento Bee, December 27, 2006); story citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/98981.html

3. “The changing face of New Jersey. The ethnic and racial makeup of towns large and small is shifting rapidly, and in some cases dramatically” (Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ), December 24, 2006); story citing JESSE ROTHSTEIN (MPP 2003).

4. “State considers restricting waters” (Argus, December 22, 2006); story citing LINDA SHEEHAN (MPP 1990); http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_4884801

5. “McClatchy sets raise, bonus for its CEO” (Sacramento Bee, December 19, 2006); story citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/94682.html

6. “Neighborhood councils’ success limited. A USC study finds the concept of giving residents more say in city government is being hindered by infighting and other factors” (Los Angeles Times December 17, 2006); story citing JULIET MUSSO (MPP 1986); http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-council17dec17,1,7287493.story?coll=la-commun-los_angeles_metro

7.“Consumer prices steady in Nov.” (Newsday (Long Island, NY), December 16, 2006); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

8. “Residents sue UC over Memorial Stadium plan. Panoramic Hill Association questions approval of environmental impact report” (Contra Costa Times, December 15, 2006); story citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/alameda_county/berkeley/16246616.htm

9. “Bates, Hancock allies in business and on home turf” (Contra Costa Times, December 15, 2006); story citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/contra_costa_county/el_cerrito/16246603.htm

10. “New bond measures may not be needed yet. Current funds may make plans for 2008 vote unnecessary” (Oakland Tribune, December 13, 2006); story citing RICK SIMPSON (MPP 1977); http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_4830674

11. “Flipping the switch on electricity conservation” (Sacramento Bee, December 12, 2006); opinion column citing ROB LETZLER (MPP 2003, PhD cand. 2007); http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/90981.html

12. “Oppression of women called harmful to kids” (Sacramento Bee, December 11, 2006); story citing ANN VENEMAN (MPP 1971); http://www.sacbee.com/501/story/90626.html

13. “Political Science. Berkeley scientists step up to the policy plate” (Berkeley Science Review, Issue 11, Fall 2006, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 38-41); story citing LANCE KIM (MPP 2006) and STEVE MAURER; http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=11&article=policy

14. “NANI COLORETTI (MPP 1994) was promoted from Deputy Director of Policy to Director of Policy & Finance for SF Mayor Gavin Newsom”; http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/mayor_index.asp?id=27047

15. “State pushes to revise workers’ comp process. New rules are proposed to penalize insurers that unfairly delay or deny medical treatment” (Los Angeles Times, December 6, 2006); story citing FRANK NEUHAUSER (MPP 1993); http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-comp6dec06,1,19491.story?coll=la-headlines-business

16. “Baffling backlash. GOP leaders only echoing legislative analyst” (San Diego Union-Tribune, December 5, 2006); editorial citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061205/news_lz1ed5bottom.html

17. “Fiscal reality will confront Democrats” (Patriot-News, The (Harrisburg, PA), December 4, 2006); story citing STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).

18. “In the money. Reforms must precede windfall for education” (San Diego Union-Tribune, December 3, 2006); editorial citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/editorial1/20061203-9999-lz1ed3top.html

19. “Extra servings: ‘Add-ons’ heap big bucks on some districts” (Sacramento Bee, December 2, 2006); story citing RICK SIMPSON (MPP 1977) and PETER BIRDSALL (MPP 1974); http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/projects/paying_for_schools/story/7887222p-8825873c.html#more_images

20. “State’s community colleges in need of finishing touches” (Ventura County Star, December 1, 2006); op-ed citing NANCY SHULOCK (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/344/story/84176.html

21. “Annual Budget Drama Needs Script Doctor” (Modesto Bee, November 24, 2006); op-ed citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975).

22. “Budget analyst rains on Capitol’s budget parade” (Daily Breeze, November 22, 2006); commentary citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975).

23. “RB man pleads no contest to fraud charges” (Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA), November 14, 2006); story citing ANN JONES (MPP 1984).

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Gore to scientists: Speak up. Research on climate change must reach a broader audience, former VP says” (MediaNews Group, December 14, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_4840810

2. “Every moment a chance to turn it around. Industry experts talk energy alternatives, the crisis threshold” (VC Reporter [Ventura County’s Newsweekly], December 14, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.vcreporter.com/article.php?id=4095&IssueNum=102

3. “PG&E program lets customers fight global warming” (Mercury News, December 14, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16242575.htm

4. “Minimal consequence” (Granite Bay Press Tribune, December 13, 2006); story citing JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.granitebaypt.com/articles/2006/12/13/news/top_stories/02wage.prt

5. “Film shines light on diamond industry” (Contra Costa Times, December 8, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/16193143.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

6. “Presidential Hopefuls Prod Bush on Iraq” (New York Times Online [*requires registration], December 7, 2006); story citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-2008.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

7. “Robert Reich: The Economics of People” (Baseline.com, December 5, 2006); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,2068687,00.asp

8. “Academia boot camp—University scientists put through three-day session on how to negotiate the hurly-burly of Legislature, insistent reporters” (Sacramento Bee, December 3, 2006); story citing MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/86685.html

9. “Political Junkies—of All Ages—Gather at IGS on Election Night” (Public Affairs Report, Fall 2006/Vol. 47, No. 2); story citing JOHN ELLWOOD and ROBERT REICH; http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/publications/par/fall2006-web.pdf

10. “Panel Examines 9/11 and the Constitution” (Public Affairs Report, Fall 2006/Vol. 47, No. 2); story citing STEPHEN MAURER; http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/publications/par/fall2006-web.pdf

11. “Books: Serving up criticism of food giants” (San Francisco Chronicle, December 3, 2006); book review by DAVID VOGEL; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/03/RVG8MMJE321.DTL&type=printable

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

By Kevin Yamamura - Bee Capitol Bureau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will seek changes in how California funds its public pension obligations, particularly rising health care costs for its growing retiree base, according to an executive order he signed Thursday to create a bipartisan commission.

After the Republican governor’s last venture into public pension revision failed in 2005, his aides promoted the new panel as a cooperative effort with Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, both Democrats with strong labor ties.

Under the executive order, a 12-member Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission, with six gubernatorial appointees and six legislative appointees, will be charged with making recommendations by 2008 on how to pay for the state’s soaring pension costs.

Finance Director Mike Genest estimated Thursday that the state’s two pension funds would need to invest an additional $49 billion right now to cover all of the state’s public employees through retirement. In addition, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated in February that the state needs to invest roughly an additional $40 billion to $70 billion to pay health care costs for state workers and University of California employees through their retirements….

The state currently prepays its public pension accounts, and Genest said that a $49 billion gap to pay public employees through retirement is largely the result of the stock market decline earlier this decade….

2. “McClatchy is selling Minnesota newspaper” (Sacramento Bee, December 27, 2006); story citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/98981.html

By Dale Kasler - Bee Staff Writer

The McClatchy Co. is selling its largest newspaper—at a loss—saying the paper had turned into an underperformer.

By selling the Star Tribune of Minneapolis to a private-equity firm for $690 million, including a $160 million tax benefit, Sacramento-based McClatchy acknowledged it’s now being hurt by the paper that made it a big-league operation eight years ago.

Like many metropolitan papers, the Star Tribune is proving more vulnerable to Internet competition than other McClatchy papers, and the slide was worsening, said Gary Pruitt, McClatchy’s chairman and chief executive.

“I don’t feel good about the paper being sold,” said Pruitt, who engineered the purchase of the Star Tribune in 1998.

But shareholders and most analysts said it was smart for McClatchy to unload a struggling paper with uncertain growth prospects.

Pruitt said the cash from the sale to New York-based Avista Capital Partners will be used to help repay the hefty $3 billion McClatchy borrowed to buy Knight Ridder Inc. six months ago….

Selling the paper will make McClatchy stronger, he said. “It’s a deal looking to the future,” he said in an interview.

In a separate memo to employees, Pruitt said the sale doesn’t mean McClatchy has doubts about “the direction of our company or that the Knight Ridder acquisition has proved ill advised.”

“Thanks to the Knight Ridder additions, our portfolio of newspapers and related enterprises has never been stronger,” he added.

While McClatchy’s advertising revenue was up 0.1 percent the first 11 months of the year, the Star Tribune’s ad sales were down 6.1 percent, Pruitt said in the interview….

Though the price represents a loss, Pruitt said McClatchy did better selling the Star Tribune than it did selling a dozen Knight Ridder papers earlier this year, once tax implications are included. McClatchy generally got high marks from investors on those sales….

By Robert Gebeloff and Mary Jo Patterson; Star-Ledger Staff

New Jersey is changing faster than ever, in more places than ever before.

It can be seen in the faces of children crowding Chinese language classes in an affluent suburb. Or at a Colombian lunch counter in a former Morris County mining town. Or in the movement of African-American city dwellers to once segregated subdivisions….

As it becomes even more diverse, sociologists and others are watching to see if it becomes more integrated residentially—or whether segregation persists….

For decades, many social scientists and the media have accepted the idea that, once the share of minority residents in a neighborhood reaches a certain critical mass, the neighborhood “tips” and whites leave….

In recent years researchers have tested the validity of the theory, using detailed Census tract information available since 1970.

Their conclusions differ.

Neighborhoods - and schools - do indeed “tip” when minorities comprise a certain share of the populations, according to one recent study. Actual tipping points differ according to neighborhood, but center around 13 percent, the study said.

Still, tipping points of 25 or 30 percent are “not uncommon” and some racially tolerant neighborhoods may never tip, said Jesse Rothstein, one of the study’s co-authors and an economics professor at Princeton University.

Rothstein and his colleagues found tipping took place irrespective of the socioeconomic status of minority residents. “We put in different measures of class and income, to see if they drove race out of the model. They never did,” he said.

The study lumped together all nonwhites, but whites may actually react differently to different racial groups, Rothstein said.

“It’s hard to get precision on that,” he said, as widespread Asian and Hispanic immigration is relatively new in many parts of the country….

4. “State considers restricting waters” (Argus, December 22, 2006); story citing LINDA SHEEHAN (MPP 1990); http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_4884801

By Douglas Fischer, Staff Writer

State wildlife regulators Thursday proposed extending a statewide network of marine reserves from Half Moon Bay north to near Mendocino, potentially banning or severely limiting fishing in some of the Bay Area’s most popular fishing grounds.

The move was touted by conservationists as a crucial step toward rebuilding depleted rockfish and other hard-hit ocean stocks.

It is also part of an ongoing—and controversial—effort to create a statewide network of marine reserves….

In August, the state Fish and Game Commission approved a network of 29 marine protected areas from Santa Barbara to Half Moon Bay, with fishing banned from 8 percent of those waters, including the rich upwellings off Big Sur. Fisherman have fought efforts to further restrict their fishing grounds.

The new proposal essentially connects those protected waters with reserves extending north of Mendocino to the Oregon border.

“All of these pieces are essential to bringing the oceans back to health,” said Linda Sheehan, director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance.

“This is an essential piece of the puzzle. We need to set aside some areas and let them recover.”

5. “McClatchy sets raise, bonus for its CEO” (Sacramento Bee, December 19, 2006); story citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/94682.html

By Dale Kasler - Bee Staff Writer

The McClatchy Co.’s chief executive is getting a 4.8 percent raise next year and could make a 125 percent bonus based on company performance.

CEO Gary Pruitt’s base salary will improve to $1.1 million next year, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. He could receive a bonus of up to $1.38 million if the company achieves certain goals, although those goals haven’t been set yet.

Charles Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware, called the bonus plan typical for CEOs of big public companies. “It’s generous, but I wouldn’t call it eye-popping,” he said.

Sacramento-based McClatchy publishes The Bee and 31 other daily papers. McClatchy became the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain last summer by purchasing Knight Ridder Inc….

McClatchy director William Coblentz, chairman of the board’s compensation committee, said Pruitt and other company executives are paid somewhere in the middle, compared with other media companies….

By Tracy Weber, Times Staff Writer

Seven years after a network of neighborhood councils was created to give Los Angeles residents a greater voice in city politics, the groups’ effectiveness remains blunted by infighting, poor community outreach and a lack of influence with key city departments, according to a draft USC report released Saturday.

The councils also do not reflect the ethnic and economic diversity of city residents, and have, in fact, become less diverse over time, researchers from the school’s Civic Engagement Initiative found.

These shortcomings have hindered the ability of the city’s 86 neighborhood councils to significantly influence city policy, the report found….

Juliet Musso, a USC associate professor of public policy and a lead researcher on the report, said one of the councils’ largest obstacles is their difficulty managing conflict, either within their boards or with the myriad groups and businesses they represent.

This infighting hampers their ability to move ahead with basic missions, such as addressing issues important to their communities, recruiting volunteers and developing strong leaders, she said.

Musso said the city needs to provide “ongoing leadership development” to train council members how to run meetings and juggle various viewpoints….

Diversity also remains an issue, with board members more likely to be white and highly educated than the average person in Los Angeles. The study found that the number of board members with post-graduate degrees grew from 35% in 2003 to 40% in 2006.

Musso said city department administrators cited this lack of diversity as one reason they don’t consider the councils important.

“They perceive that [the councils] didn’t necessarily represent the diversity of interests in their neighborhoods,” she said….

[JULIET MUSSO was also quoted in the Associated Press report on her USC study, published in the Sacramento Bee; http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/94184.html ]

7. “Consumer prices steady in Nov.” (Newsday (Long Island, NY), December 16, 2006); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

--From staff and wire reports

Consumer prices were unchanged in November, surprising economists who projected an increase and reassuring Federal Reserve policy makers that inflation will be held in check.

The Labor Department said yesterday in Washington that its consumer price index held steady after a 0.5 percent decrease in October. Core prices that exclude food and energy also didn’t budge, the first month without an increase since June 2005. From a year ago, core prices climbed 2.6 percent, down from 2.7 percent.

Treasury notes rose immediately after the report as traders speculated the figures will encourage Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to keep interest rates steady or cut them in the first half of next year….

“There is moderate economic growth, and inflation is in the process of peaking,” said Mickey Levy, who is chief economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York. “We have the Fed easing modestly in 2007, and this doesn’t change our view.”…

By Doug Oakley - MediaNews Staff

A group of neighbors near UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium sued the school this week over plans to build a $125 million athletic training facility and refurbish the stadium.

The Panoramic Hill Association, which includes owners of about 200 homes, filed the suit in Alameda County Superior Court “challenging the validity of the approval of the environmental impact report” that was approved by a subcommittee of UC Regents on Dec. 5, said Michael Kelly, who is on the board of the association.

Kelly said the suit also invokes the Alquist-Priolo Act, which forbids building new structures on top of earthquake faults. The Hayward Fault runs through the middle of Memorial Stadium….

The Berkeley City Council voted to sue the school over the project, and has 30 days from the date the regents approved the environmental report….

“The city has identified significant legal concerns regarding the California Environmental Quality Act and the Alquist Priolo Act, and unless some dramatic change happens between now and three weeks from now, a suit is a virtual certainty,” said Cisco DeVries, chief of staff for Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates….

By Martin Snapp - Staff Writer

As the most powerful political couple in the East Bay, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Assemblywoman Loni Hancock agree on almost every important political issue. The one thing they can’t agree on, however, is when to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

“We got married on the Sunday after I was first elected (Berkeley) mayor in 1986, which happened to be Nov. 12,” Hancock said. “He thinks we should celebrate on Nov. 12, but I think we should celebrate on the first Sunday after the first Tuesday in November.”

“So in odd years we celebrate on my date, and in even years we celebrate on hers,” Bates added.

This year they had a lot to celebrate as their 20th anniversary came five days after both were re-elected by landslides.

Bates won 63 percent of the vote, the first Berkeley mayor to top 60 percent in almost 40 years.

“But she did even better,” he said. “She got 80 percent, and the Democratic registration in the district is only 62 percent. That means a lot of independents and Republicans voted for her, too.”…

Unlike other power couples who say the secret of their success is leaving it all at the office, Bates and Hancock talk shop 24/7.

“It’s our avocation as well as our vocation,” Bates said. “Our staffs dread it when we go on vacation because we always come back with all these ideas.”

After a vacation in July 2005, they came back with 16 items, including retrofitting old City Hall, neighborhood conservation zones and a mayor’s award for green buildings and businesses.

“And they didn’t even wait for vacation to be over,” said Bates’ chief of staff, Cisco DeVries. “We were getting e-mails the whole time they were away.”...

By Steve Geissinger, Medianews Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO — Voters may not face another round of huge public works bonds in two years, as originally planned, according to state officials who gathered Tuesday to eye effective use of a $37 billion bond package approved last month.

While acknowledging the measures as a down payment on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $200 billion infrastructure repair and construction plan, legislative representatives said there may not be a need for another transportation bond proposal as soon as 2008.

The $20 billion transportation bond voters approved Nov. 7—together with a voter-approved measure that ensures gasoline taxes earmarked for use on roads is always used for that purpose—may provide enough funds.

“The ongoing revenue stream may well be sufficient to sustain our transportation plans,” said Rick Simpson, an aide to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, D-Los Angeles. The need for additional bonds for other uses, such as school construction and housing, will depend on myriad factors, officials agreed at a forum sponsored by the Bay Area-based Public Policy Institute of California….

By Daniel Weintraub - Bee Columnist

Imagine two scenarios.

In the first, your electric company charges you a premium rate for power when demand is highest—typically on a super-hot summer afternoon when air conditioners everywhere are churning out cold air.

In the second, the utility gives you a refund for not consuming electricity during those peak-demand hours.

Which one would you be more likely to accept? Robert Letzler figures it’s the second, where you get paid not to consume, rather than penalized for doing what comes naturally.

And his assumption might some day lead to a more efficient and effective way for Californians to manage their electricity supply.

Letzler, a graduate student [in the Goldman School] at UC Berkeley, is exploring the way people respond to conservation initiatives and why the most effective programs have a hard time attracting consumers who are given the chance to enroll. In a paper prepared for the UC Energy Institute, he suggests that regulators add some psychology to their economics if they really want consumers to change their behavior.

“It feels unfair to people to say that when I most want my air conditioning, you’re going to be charging me more for it,” Letzler says.

Letzler’s insight is important because California, and other places, could reap huge benefits if consumers would conserve more during times of high electricity demand. Since electricity cannot be efficiently stored, supplies must be available to meet any level of demand. In California, that means the utilities must have extra power plants standing by all the time that are used only a few days a year, or be able to buy power on the spot market at very high rates when supplies are scarce. In either case, the electricity supplies called upon to meet peak demand are not only expensive, but are also usually the least efficient and the dirtiest, causing more air pollution and other problems….

So far, though, the new rate programs are going to be strictly voluntary. Legislators don’t want to force homeowners to pay a variable price for their electricity. And while people who enter these programs typically save money and report high levels of satisfaction, according to Letzler, very few people sign up when given the option.

Why not? Because people tend to focus on the negative….

Letzler’s solution is to reverse the psychology the conservation programs employ. He wants to change a penalty into a reward.

Instead of reducing rates as low as possible at times of low demand, and raising them to super-high levels at times when demand is high, Letzler proposes to lower the off-peak rates significantly but still include a small surcharge in the monthly bill. This extra money collected would be placed into an account that would be under each consumer’s control.

During times of high demand, consumers would have the right to buy a certain amount of peak power that they could pay for out of their reserve accounts—or conserve and earn a rebate. People who did not cut back their consumption would have most of their costs covered by the reserve. But people who reduced their peak usage would be rewarded with a refund tied specifically to that behavior.

“We’d really be focusing on the 1 percent of hours that really cause us headaches,” Letzler said….

12. “Oppression of women called harmful to kids” (Sacramento Bee, December 11, 2006); story citing ANN VENEMAN (MPP 1971); http://www.sacbee.com/501/story/90626.html

By Michael Doyle - Bee Washington Bureau

Ann Veneman

WASHINGTON-Poverty, violence and discrimination assault women worldwide and undermine their children’s futures, a U.N. agency concludes in a new report being issued today.

The global numbers are sobering and unassailable. Some potential solutions are controversial.

Women in developing countries work longer hours for lower pay, UNICEF found. Girls are less likely to get past elementary school. In many countries, women are shut out of household decisions.

“Where you see extreme discrimination against women, you see more problems for children,” UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said in an interview.

In its data-packed State of the World’s Children Report, UNICEF spells out the problems nation by nation. The microscope can be painfully acute. In Nigeria, 1 million children under age 5 die annually. Half of Azerbaijan’s residents lack adequate sanitation.

A third of the young pregnant women in Botswana’s capital are HIV-positive.

This year, the organization also identifies potential solutions. Some raise eyebrows, if not hackles.

Gender quotas can be a “potentially effective vehicle for bolstering women’s representation” in legislatures, UNICEF notes as one example. The 160-page report favorably cites, as well, the international U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

“When you empower women,” Veneman said, “you benefit children.”

A native of Modesto, Veneman has her own experience as a gender trailblazer. She was the first female head of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and, between 2001 and 2005, she served as the nation’s first female secretary of agriculture.

The Bush administration in which she served, though, has steadfastly argued against quotas in this country. The United States is also the world’s only industrialized nation not to ratify the U.N. treaty on discrimination against women….

More women can lead to better policies, UNICEF suggests. In the Indian state of West Bengal, for instance, researchers examined village councils that had reserved at least one-third of the council seats for women.

“Investment in drinking water facilities was double that of villages without quotas,” UNICEF notes, “and the roads were almost twice as likely to be in good condition.”…

Comparisons with past studies can be illuminating.

In 1995, for instance, UNICEF found that 54,000 Iraqi children under age 5 died. At the time, dictator Saddam Hussein was in charge.

Last year, though, with Saddam gone and the United States occupying the country, 122,000 Iraqi children under age 5 died.

by Kayte Fischer

UC Berkeley STEP members Erik Douglas (left) and Lance Kim (2^nd place winner in the 2006 White Paper Competition and judge in the 2007 competition) (right) and UCLA member Jay Fahlen (center) represented STEP at the May 2006 meeting of the California Council on Science and Technology in Sacramento.

Most Berkeley students can tick off the major science policy issues in the news—the environment, stem cells, energy independence, nuclear technology, Mars exploration, and so on, but Congress has different priorities. Following recommendations from a recent National Academy of Sciences report, the 2007 Congressional budget focuses on improving and maintaining American competitiveness in innovation as well as supporting defense research. The new budget leaves funding for NASA and the National Institutes of Health at current levels (and thus falling behind inflation), preferring to promote basic science and defense applications through the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Science and Technology, and the Department of Energy.

Unsatisfied by simply reading about such policy decisions in the news, a group of science and engineering students has embraced Berkeley’s activist tradition and gotten involved in the debate over how government spends its money. The Science, Technology, and Engineering Policy group (STEP) formed to allow interested students to participate in the political process.

In its attempt to raise policy awareness on campus, STEP has two main goals: first, to encourage thinking about broader impacts of science, and second, to educate students about the impacts of scientific research at Berkeley and elsewhere. The group hosts a seminar series addressing a wide variety of issues; past topics have included innovation in science and engineering, open source biology, energy policy, and American scientific competitiveness. Along these lines, STEP recently held a white paper competition as a concrete way to initiate thoughtful discussion in the community….

Perhaps most importantly, the students were encouraged to interact with STEP’s advisers and other UC Berkeley professors. Steve Maurer helped first place winner Krishanu Saha refine his paper, “Navigating to the Right Stem Cell Line.” Saha’s proposal—to form a comprehensive database to track human stem cell lines—was inspired by problems he noticed during his doctoral research on adult neural stem cells (from rats). His ideas were refined at a recent Boalt Hall conference on the ethical, legal, and societal implications of the California stem cell initiative, and in discussions with Maurer about current database policy….

Fortunately, part of the white paper competition’s first place prize is a trip to Washington, D.C. for potential meetings with influential directors in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the NIH, and Congress….

According to STEP president Kate Hammond, Saha’s experience embodies exactly what STEP hopes to do for many Berkeley students. “Ultimately, we want to provide people with both [the] access and [the] abilities to pursue interests in science policy.”

As a start, STEP hopes to improve students’ ability to communicate complex scientific ideas to the public. Hammond notes that there was noticeable improvement in the white papers where the students had sought advice from professors in the policy school. “When people with a deep science background approached professors in policy, they got help shaping the proposal for a wider audience. The process was integral because the relationship to the advisers is key to the learning process.”…

In addition to the white paper competition and the seminar series, STEP plans to expand student involvement in legislation….

Most importantly, STEP hopes to develop depth in specific areas of interest to students, and prepare task forces to advise the California Council on Science and Technology and legislative groups….

Adviser Steve Maurer goes a little further. “It’s really valuable to think about things engineering students can do that have real public policy implications. STEP could organize projects to get people involved in real world issues.”…

[For more info, visit STEP’s website at http://step.berkeley.edu ]

14. “NANI COLORETTI (MPP 1994) was promoted from Deputy Director of Policy to Director of Policy & Finance for SF Mayor Gavin Newsom”; http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/mayor_index.asp?id=27047

By Marc Lifsher, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration is preparing to punish insurance companies that wrongly delay or deny medical care for workers hurt on the job.

Acknowledging growing complaints from workers, the state said new rules were necessary to ensure that workers were not unfairly refused drugs, surgery and other medical procedures that their doctors recommended….

The changes come more than two years after the governor and Legislature heeded the calls from businesses and overhauled the workers’ comp system….

As a result, workers’ comp premiums paid by businesses fell by more than 50% and insurers earned their highest profits in three decades. But workers said it was sometimes at their expense.

Now, the state is proposing to require regular state audits of insurers and fines of as much as $50,000 for a violation.

The proposed regulations, which are undergoing public comment and could go into effect next year, have drawn strong support from worker advocates and opposition from insurers.

They represent “a first major thrust by the agency to balance out some of the potential downside of the reform legislation,” said Frank Neuhauser, a researcher who studies workers’ comp and other types of social insurance at UC Berkeley….

California’s finances are in sorry shape. Despite stunning growth in revenue over the past two years, the state faces a deficit of at least $5 billion in 2007-08 and beyond because spending has gone up even faster. Meanwhile, using borrowing to paper over recent deficits has quickly come back to haunt taxpayers.

Repaying this debt already adds billions each year to the budget, making red ink even more intractable. Should revenue actually drop from one year to the next—which has happened five times in the past 20 years—the state could face a deficit of at least $15 billion, which would require both big spending cuts and tax increases to cover—unless Sacramento just puts it all on the credit card again.

Against this backdrop, there’s something disconcerting about all the hand-wringing in political circles over indications that Republicans in the Legislature will fight much harder to keep spending down next session. This is just what respected nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill has urged all lawmakers to do for years.

So why is it when Hill knocks heavy spending, she is treated as a needed voice of sobriety, but when new GOP Assembly Leader Mike Villines or GOP Senate Leader Dick Ackerman do the same thing, they are trashed for abandoning the “can-do” spirit of the last legislative session?…

If the state’s media and political establishment insist on treating Villines and Ackerman like skunks at a picnic for pointing this out, that display of denial goes a long way toward explaining why we’re in this mess in the first place. They’re truth-tellers, not skunks—and the budget is no picnic….

17. “Fiscal reality will confront Democrats” (Patriot-News, The (Harrisburg, PA), December 4, 2006); story citing STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).

By Brett Lieberman; of our Washington Bureau

On the campaign trail, U.S. Sen.-elect Bob Casey Jr. and other Democrats called for fully funding the federal No Child Left Behind education program and increasing spending for veterans programs, and advocated the need to expand health insurance for all Americans, especially children….

Such promises proved popular with many voters but could come back to haunt lawmakers such as Casey as they grope with limited resources to implement proposals, keep supporters happy and keep spending in check….

The realities that Democrats face begin with the $8 billion the United States spends on Iraq each month….

But spending on the Iraq war is just one issue that will tie Democrats’ hands.

Democrats might be constrained by their pledge to reinstitute pay-as-you-go rules that prohibit any new spending without identifying offsets or new federal revenues—budget cuts, tax increases or higher tax revenues—to pay for proposals….

“We will see some marginal changes but not massive changes. There just isn’t the willingness or desire,” said budget expert Stan Collender, a former Capitol Hill staffer who is managing director of Qorvis Communications’ Washington office.

“A lot of what you’ll see here is rhetorical flourishes,” he said. “There will be some changes at the margins that allow Democrats to say they have changed the direction. But massive changes in policy almost never happen in U.S. history.”…

Democrats, including Casey and [Tim] Holden, frequently mention rolling back Bush tax cuts on the top 1 percent of earners to generate billions of dollars to pay for proposals.

But some analysts such as Collender believe such issues could prove to be winners for Democrats even if never enacted. Their proposals for health care and education, for example, are likely to prompt veto threats from President Bush, which would allow them to blame him for opposing initiatives to help the middle class….

Schools in California weathered some tough budgets from 2001-03. Then the cash started rolling in. Now an avalanche is coming.

Elizabeth Hill, the state’s respected, neutral legislative analyst, recently issued a five-year budget forecast. The news for schools was staggering: Taxpayers are about to hand an extra $6 billion to educators.

Put another way, schools will be able to pay for all ordinary growth in costs (salaries, utilities, debt repayment and such). Then, because flat or modestly declining enrollment will combine with the Proposition 98 autopilot spending formulas, lawmakers will have $6 billion left over that they must spend on schools.

Hill gently suggested that the next several months represent an “opportune time to plan for education reform.”…

By Deb Kollars -- Bee Staff Writer [Third of four parts]

Some schools in California get millions, some get a few dollars and some get no money at all through several good-sized layers of education funding with a casual little name.

Known around the Capitol as the “Three Little Pigs,” the cash streams have endured like brick houses. Their odd histories and rules have led to widespread inequities, patterns of manipulation, and even tax dollars going to districts that don’t deserve the money.

The three sources of money—Meals for Needy Pupils, Continuation School funding and Unemployment Insurance reimbursement—quietly flow out year after year as part of California’s massive $29 billion system for giving schools their basic operating dollars.

The system, called “revenue limits,” doles out per-pupil allowances that range from $4,345 to $8,270, and average about $4,800 for every child. To get their money, districts must go through a lengthy series of calculations and adjustments every year.

… In an analysis of state funding data for 2002-03, The Bee found wide discrepancies in how much money districts received from revenue limit adjustments, commonly known as “add-ons.”…

Through the meals funding calculation, the Taft Union High School District in Kern County received $14,000 more for every student, while Newark Unified in Alameda County got 77 cents.

Under the Continuation Schools adjustment, the data showed two dozen districts received $10,000 to $100,000 more for each of their continuation students, while another two dozen districts received $50 or less for each teenager in the same kind of school. For Unemployment Insurance, the statewide range per student was $1 to $113….

“We used to call those the Three Little Pigs,” said Rick Simpson, the Assembly’s veteran education consultant. The point to the nickname was that these were odd calculations that did not constitute big enough pieces of the budget for anyone in power to worry about….

But over time, the specks can add up. Together, the “Three Pigs” cost taxpayers about $180 million last year; 10 years at that rate, and the tab would hit nearly $2 billion….

The revenue limit adjustment for continuation schools is just as uneven as the meals add-on. It is also a quarter century old and rooted in history rather than current-day needs.

Continuation schools serve students who are not succeeding in regular high schools. Such schools offer smaller classes and more counseling, so the state gives them extra money to cover the higher costs.

However, as part of a complex response to Proposition 13, only those that opened after 1979 get the extra money. The way it is doled out has little to do with actual needs.

“It’s totally nonsensical and indefensible,” said Peter Birdsall, a longtime lobbyist for continuation schools….

20. “State’s community colleges in need of finishing touches” (Ventura County Star, December 1, 2006); op-ed citing NANCY SHULOCK (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/344/story/84176.html

By Peter Schrag [columnist for the Sacramento Bee]

Locked in the attic over the shiny door to California’s huge community college system, there’s a crazy uncle called “completion.” That’s the percentage of beginning students who actually get a degree, transfer to a four-year college, or complete the vocational program they began.

In California, getting in is easy—and cheap—but often it doesn’t lead to anything defined as success. And as higher education policy analyst Nancy Shulock at California State University, Sacramento, points out, the colleges get funded solely on the basis of warm bodies. There’s no state incentive—and pathetically few resources—to raise the system’s low completion rate.

A recent Public Policy Institute of California report provides another reminder of how low that is. Roughly 15 percent of full-time community college students eventually transfer to a four-year college; another 3 percent get an associate degree; 3 percent get some other certificate; 79 percent get no credential. Half of entering students never go past the first year….

Shulock and her colleagues, who are preparing to issue a study in January into the causes and policy implications of the low completion rates, say that state finance policies and regulations are funding “the wrong end of a student’s career. The state is buying enrollment (not success).”

The Shulock study will almost certainly call for better assessment and counseling of students. Many of them are not just academically underprepared but unable to choose the proper courses and negotiate the system to best advantage….

21. “Annual Budget Drama Needs Script Doctor” (Modesto Bee, November 24, 2006); op-ed citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975).

By Daniel Weintraub [Columnist]

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill must feel much like Bill Murray’s character in “Groundhog Day.” The movie involves a weatherman who finds himself reliving the same day over and over. He tries everything to break the pattern, but every morning he wakes up it’s Groundhog Day again.

For the last several years, Hill has found herself in a similar spot. Her budget forecasts in November generally warn of multibillion-dollar deficits, even in years that California’s economy is humming. She urges state leaders to close the perennial gap between spending and revenues, known as the “structural deficit,” but they refuse because that would involve raising taxes or slashing spending.

To break the pattern, Hill attempted to drop a guilt bomb on state leaders this year. She noted that other states are stockpiling revenues to save for a rainy day, but not California. “At this advanced stage of the current economic expansion, California should be running projected operating surpluses instead of deficits,” she warned.

Unfortunately, Gov. Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata seem impervious to guilt bombs. Both cling to a budget script straight out of “Fantasia” ….

22. “Budget analyst rains on Capitol’s budget parade” (Daily Breeze, November 22, 2006); commentary citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975).

[Daniel Weintraub is a columnist for The Sacramento Bee]

Working from cramped quarters on the upper floors of a plain concrete-clad office building catty-corner from the state Capitol, California’s nonpartisan legislative analyst is all but unknown to state residents. But think of Elizabeth Hill and her mostly anonymous crew of professional budget watchers as the conscience of the Capitol. Collectively, they are the skunk that ruins the budget garden party the governor and the Legislature would otherwise enjoy each year.

Every fall, just before Thanksgiving, Hill offers a five-year forecast that typically delivers a dose of reality amid the wishful thinking that permeates this part of Sacramento.

This year is no exception. After a campaign in which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger all but refused to discuss the state’s fiscal condition other than to express repeated optimism that economic growth would make everything right, the pesky analyst has returned right on schedule with a more sober diagnosis of the situation.

The state, Hill says, is facing a $5 billion shortfall next year between the amount the government is projected to spend and the amount of taxes collected….

23. “RB man pleads no contest to fraud charges” (Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA), November 14, 2006); story citing ANN JONES (MPP 1984).

From news services

A Redondo Beach man who pleaded no contest to charges involving an investment club in which authorities said investors were defrauded was sentenced Monday to three years of probation.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ann Jones also ordered Richard Gellersen, 62, to pay more than $50,000 in restitution and gave him credit for 235 days he had already done in county jail, said Deputy District Attorney Richard Lowenstein….

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

By Douglas Fischer, Staff Writer

SAN FRANCISCO -- Former Vice President Al Gore, who brought the message of a climate in crisis to the general public, carried the gospel back to those who gave him the data, urging more than 5,000 scientists studying the Earth and its climate to vociferously educate the public to the graveness of global warming.

“I’m asking you very seriously to become much more active,” Gore told researchers gathered here for the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting, the world’s largest scientific meeting. Some 15,000 scientists are at the conference; more than one-third filled two giant ballrooms at the Marriott Hotel to capacity hear him talk. “Get involved,” he said, “because so much is at stake.”…

Dan Kammen, co-director of the University of California’s Institute of the Environment and a professor in the Energy and Resources Group, said being a scientist activist has its price. He’s lost out on grants because of his political positions on energy and climate issues, he said.

“Some of us have been doing this for some time and at some risk,” Kammen said.

Are more scientists likely to heed Gore’s call? In a few weeks, a pack of climate scientists and politicians are planning a demonstration in front of the White House.

“There is a lot of frustration” with inaction on curbing carbon emissions, Kammen said. “But science is inherently a discipline of skepticism.”…

By Saundra Sorenson

Immediate environmental concerns and sustainable energy alternatives were the hot topics at California State University Channel Islands last week, when its biology program hosted “Go Beyond Petroleum: Plant Biotechnology and Alternative Fuels,” a symposium of invited guests and faculty….

Central to the state of the planet discussion was Daniel Kammen, professor of nuclear engineering of the University of California, Berkeley. Kammen began his hour-long presentation by effectively demonstrating what he called our “threshold.” Currently in our climate system, he estimated, there are 750 gigatons of carbon dioxide, while there were only an estimated 560 gigatons (1 billion metric tons) prior to the Industrial Revolution.

“We are shifting the planetary system,” he said, explaining that the ocean is a vital part of the earth’s carbon cycle.

“If we slow down ruffles of ocean, it will absorb less and the ocean could stop sucking down as much as it does. Anything you do to perturb that system should worry you. There are thresholds where systems will go into other [unpredictable] states.”…

“We are running out of atmosphere much faster than fossil fuels,” he said, drawing attention to tar sand mines in Alberta, Canada, that are believed to contain more oil than Saudi Arabia….

Citing energy efficiency as the crucial factor in decreasing emissions, Kammen referred to a small company in San Francisco known as CalCars, which converts Priuses to plug-in models.

By leaving the car’s gas tank and overhauling its electric system, the Prius is redesigned to function predominately as an electric car, which will revert to the gas reserve when needed. According to Kammen’s data, this puts the efficiency of the car at somewhere near 120 miles per gallon, giving gas the equivalent cost of around 75 cents per gallon.

“This is disruptive technology,” Kammen noted. “Changes come overnight.”…

The over-reaching atmosphere of the symposium was one of optimism. As Kammen’s exhaustive visuals showed, changing behaviors—for example, if 6 percent of the driving public in California, roughly one million drivers, were to use plug-in hybrids instead of the conventional automobile—we would be dramatically closer to breaking even on emissions, and ultimately living in a world where human output would no longer threaten climate balance….

3. “PG&E program lets customers fight global warming” (Mercury News, December 14, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16242575.htm

By Paul Rogers

Concerned about your contribution to global warming?

Now you can clean up your mess.

In what is believed to be the first such effort by a major utility in the United States, Pacific Gas & Electric won approval [from the California PUC] Thursday to launch a program that will tell customers—house by house and business by business—how much carbon dioxide they emit every month, and then allow them to offset it to become “carbon neutral.’’

The program, called ClimateSmart, will begin in March or April. Participation is voluntary and will cost $4.31 a month for a typical household….

… Under the PG&E program, customers who sign up will be given a monthly statement showing how many tons of carbon dioxide they were responsible for based on their use of electricity and natural gas. The burning of fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide, which traps heat in the earth’s atmosphere.

An average home generates about 5.3 tons of carbon dioxide a year, PG&E says, about the same as driving a Honda Civic for 15,000 miles.

The customer then would be charged several dollars a month, based on their energy usage. PG&E will use the money to offset the carbon dioxide, starting first with projects to replant trees and to buy and preserve forests in California. Trees absorb carbon dioxide.

As the program progresses, PG&E plans to spend the money on other efforts, including putting electricity in at truck stops to stop diesel engines from idling, and capturing methane from landfills….

Environmentalists and energy experts are generally supportive.

“This is a big deal,’’ said Dan Kammen, director of the renewable energy lab at UC-Berkeley. “The big benefit of this program is that it will to get people interested in global warming and talking more about it.’’

Kammen noted, however, that to make significant reductions in carbon dioxide, Congress will need to adopt a mandatory national program to cut emissions. He said that would have to include a tax on carbon use, offset by reductions in other taxes.

“We’re going to have to tax what we don’t want,’’ he said.

[To learn more, go to www.pge.com/environment ]

4. “Minimal consequence” (Granite Bay Press Tribune, December 13, 2006); story citing JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.granitebaypt.com/articles/2006/12/13/news/top_stories/02wage.prt

By Ansel Oliver, The Press-Tribune

Ansel Oliver/THE PRESS-TRIBUNE At the drive through with José Landeros, manager of Carolina’s Mexican Food. He said minimum wage increases would not affect his employees, as they already earn $7.50 per hour or more.

As California ups the minimum hourly wage in January from $6.75 to $7.50, local business owners and employees are weighing in on issues of fair compensation for employees and interests of business owners who may have to cut employee hours or raise prices to compensate.

Many local business owners said they are opting for small price increases in their products and services. Others aren’t affected as their businesses are family owned, or workers already make $7.50 or more.

Some economists admit the issue is politically charged. One even said economists can be more political than politicians. What many agree on, however, is that small increases in minimum wage affect few people and to a small degree….

“Small changes phased in minimum wage don’t have much of an effect,” said John Quigley, professor of economics at UC Berkeley, citing evidence from the last decade.

“I think before that there was a much stronger consensus among economists that increases in the minimum wage had larger effects on the amount of labor employed and therefore might be counterproductive for workers.”…

By Randy Myers

The half-carat diamond engagement ring Lucreeita Campbell sports on her finger leaves her feeling conflicted….

Today, the scrutiny on the diamond industry—estimated to have rung up $34 billion in sales last year—will intensify with the release of the thriller “Blood Diamond.”

The Oscar-buzzed film starring Leonardo DiCaprio digs up old dirt on the diamond business, shedding light on how in the 1990s as much as 15 percent of the gems—dubbed “blood diamonds”—were sold to fund wars in Africa, including the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s that’s depicted in the film.

The December release of “Diamond” comes just as jewelry stores have geared up for the profitable crush of the holiday shopping season. Coincidence? Not likely, says UC Berkeley nuclear engineering professor Dan Kammen.

“Half the jewelry stores are having campaigns on slipping that mahogany box (with a diamond) under the tree,” said Kammen, who is part of the university’s Energy and Resources Group. “I suspect this is not an accident.”…

The mistreatment of mine workers, including allegations that they are frequently subjected to invasive body cavity searches, is of great concern to Kammen and others….

By Jim Kuhnhenn, The Associated Press

Washington (AP) -- Ultimately, one of the 2008 presidential contenders will sit in the White House and have to deal with the consequences of President Bush’s policy in Iraq.

No wonder, then, that many of them used Wednesday’s release of the Iraq Study Group report to prod the president to change his policy now....

Most Democrats heeded the advice of strategists who encouraged them to keep the war focus on Bush and not turn the Iraq Study Group report into a blueprint of their own strategy for Iraq.

Among those warning Democrats was Robert Reich, the secretary of labor under President Clinton and now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Writing in his Web log last month, Reich predicted Democrats would try to use the report to push for a bipartisan strategy for Iraq.

‘‘It may make Dems feel relevant and important, but it will also make them complicit in the impending failure,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Come 2008, they will share the responsibility for the horror of Iraq.’’...

[This story also appeared in dozens of sources around the world, including the <a href=“http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/07/america/NA_GEN_US_Iraq_Presidential_Candidates.php“>International Herald Tribune</a>, <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120700183_pf.html“>Washington Post</a> and <a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/12/07/politics/p005329S39.DTL&type=printable“>San Francisco Chronicle</a>]

7. “Robert Reich: The Economics of People” (Baseline.com, December 5, 2006); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,2068687,00.asp

By Allan Alter editors@cioinsight-ziffdavis.com

Robert Reich headshot Equal parts economist, professor, polemicist and politician, Robert Reich is quite unlike any other business thinker on the current public scene. These days, the former Labor Secretary under President Clinton is a professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, National Public Radio commentator and sought-after public speaker. But in his spare time, Reich worries that the U.S. has reached an economic crossroads and could take the wrong path, choosing protectionism over globalization and failing to take advantage of its most important resource: its people.

"We shouldn't be afraid of globalization. It creates tremendous opportunities to create value," Reich told members of the Society for Information Management at its annual conference in September. "That's where all of you come in. Because if we have the right human capital, and companies can continue to innovate, and the people in those companies are sufficiently linked together to take advantage of their talent, then technology, demographics and globalization are on our side. If that's not the case, we will have to pay the piper." CIO Insight Executive Editor Allan Alter explored these issues with Reich in multiple interviews. The following is an edited version of their conversations.

CIO Insight: You told CIOs we're at an economic crossroads because of three structural changes: globalization, technological change and demographic change. What's happening, and what's at stake?

REICH: Essentially, America's broad middle class is not sharing in the nation's prosperity to the extent that the middle class shared in it 15, 20, or 25 years ago. Not only that, but many more people are worried about the security of their jobs. There is more widespread economic insecurity than we've seen at any time since the Great Depression. There are three reasons why….

None of this economic uncertainty is due to malfeasance or nonfeasance of corporations of government. But that doesn't mean we should sit back and simply accept it. There are two great political parties in this country, and they are not the Republicans and Democrats. One is the "let 'er rip" party, which stands for the proposition that the economy should just be allowed to do whatever it's doing and let the chips fall where they may. The other is the "preserve and protect" party, which stands for the proposition that all jobs in all communities ought to be kept as they have been in the past. The problem is, neither of those positions is tenable.

That's why we need to embark on a whole different way of thinking about economic change and our people. And that means giving people the tools they need to adapt to a fundamentally different economy, beginning with early-childhood education and improved K-12 education access to post-secondary education. It means a job-training system that gives people the wherewithal to get the skills they need, when they need them, and provides unemployment insurance while they get those skills. We need a tax system that encourages and rewards people not just for taking financial risks, but also for being more flexible. We need social insurance that enables people to move from job to job and location to location without huge penalties and risks. Healthcare should no longer be linked to employment, so that people can change jobs without fear of losing their family's health insurance. And so on….

By Chris Bowman - Bee Staff Writer

Anthony Eggert, associate research director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, wasn’t more than a minute into his debut testimony as an expert legislative witness when a gruff voice from the dais interrupted.

“What’s cellulostic fuel?”

Next, Eggert was admonished for including on his list of global warming remedies a “carbon fee” at the gasoline pump—a political nonstarter in California.

Then, asked how the Legislature might otherwise wean Californians off fossil fuels, Eggert said, “There’s no silver bullet, only silver BBs.” He had no specific solutions. In short, he bombed.

Luckily for Eggert, this was a dry run.

He and 13 other scholars from the University of California, Davis, UC Berkeley and Stanford University were at the state Capitol last week to undergo special training on how to engage with politicians and navigate the rough-and-tumble politics of the state Legislature….

Organized by the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford, the Inter-University Scholar Program is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, said Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson, director of the institute.

The need for better networking with politicians became apparent at a climate change policy workshop that the institute convened at the Capitol last May that brought leading researchers from the three universities together with key decision-makers from government, industry and environmental groups.

The senior researchers already are skilled ambassadors of climate science and well known for their contributions in developing and implementing Assembly Bill 32: California’s landmark law to fight global warming by clamping down on vehicle and power plant emissions of heat-trapping gases.

They include Stephen Schneider, a climate scientist at Stanford; Michael Hanemann, an economist at Berkeley; and Dan Sperling, director of UCD’s transportation institute.

The three helped instigate the boot camp to develop a new generation of scholars who will “bridge the historic divide between the academic community and the public decision makers,” Thompson said.

Contributions from scientists, economists and engineers are especially sought after as California takes on the daunting job of implementing AB 32 [the newly enacted law requiring California to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the level emitted in 1990 without specifying how the state will achieve the benchmark by the 2020 deadline.]….

“Any time that is diverted from research receives zero appreciation from your peers,” Hanemann said. “It’s considered odd behavior” to network with lawmakers and regulators.

“As long as you don’t mention it, you’re OK.”…

More than 100 people crammed in to hear election commentary from a distinguished panel of experts: … public policy professor John Ellwood, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich….

“I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade here, but I just don’t think our lives are going to very different,” said Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor under President Clinton and now teaches public policy at Berkeley.

“The Democrats who are being added to the House are in marginal districts,” Reich noted. “These are people who are not going to want to be bold and adventuresome Democrats. These next two years are going to happen in the shadow of 2008. Democrats don’t want to get a reputation for being big taxers [or] big spenders.”

But Reich’s colleague on the public policy faculty, John Ellwood, predicted that Democratic control of the House of Representatives would slow down much of the conservative agenda.

Many Republican policy initiatives in recent years, Ellwood said, have been contained in reconciliation bills, which are advantageous because they can’t be filibustered in the Senate. But with a Democratic House, those conservative policy changes will never be included in such bills to begin with. It’s an important change, he said, but one that many people will never see….

Reich said it’s unclear how aggressive newly empowered Democrats will be in challenging the Bush Administration. Many observers have argued that congressional oversight has withered under Republican leaders who did not want to create political problems for the GOP president.

“There is a debate going on in the Democratic Party and the Democratic caucus on whether they ought to spend a lot of time holding sort of show trials with regard to malfeasance and nonfeasance in the Bush Administration,” Reich said. “Some people really do want to just expose the administration at its worst. The argument on the other side, which is the predominant argument right now, is ‘Why are we doing this? Bush is not up for reelection…. The public is tired of mudslinging anyway. They don’t want the party that just won to be negative. If anything, let’s do something positive. Let’s have hearings about what we might do about executive pay or health care or something.”…

10. “Panel Examines 9/11 and the Constitution” (Public Affairs Report, Fall 2006/Vol. 47, No. 2); story citing STEPHEN MAURER; http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/publications/par/fall2006-web.pdf

IGS helped Berkeley recognize Constitution Day by hosting “National Security, the War on Terror, and the Constitution,” a panel discussion on the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

Panelists included famed investigative journalist Lowell Bergman, former congressman Pete McCloskey, law professor Vikram Amar, historian Richard Abrams, public policy professor Stephen Maurer….

Bergman described a possible “watershed moment” in American history, when we will have to decide whether the greater threat to American society is terrorism or our response to terrorism….

That sense of a balancing act was picked up by Maurer, the director of the Goldman School of Public Policy Project on Information Technology and Homeland Security. He said the problem is striking the “proper balance” between protecting civil liberties and pressuring terrorist groups. Because they do not have to maintain this balance, Maurer said, totalitarian governments rarely have problems with terrorism….

[A webcast of this discussion is viewable at: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/details.php?webcastid=17370 ]

Reviewed by David Vogel

David Vogel is a professor at the Haas School of Business [and Goldman School of Public Policy] and the department of political science at UC Berkeley. His most recent book is “The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporation Social Responsibility” (Brookings).

Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back

By Michele Simon (Nation Books; 416 Pages; $14.95 Paperback)

Stories on Americans’ unhealthy eating habits, and the health problems linked to them, such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes, flood the media. According to “Appetite for Profit,” the food industry is facing a “public relations nightmare.” What troubles its author, Michele Simon, a public health lawyer and noted food policy advocate, is that the major food producers—particularly McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and General Mills—have responded to the mounting evidence of America’s “toxic food environment” by labeling themselves as “socially responsible.” Under this banner, big food companies have changed the way some foods are produced, provided additional nutritional information, sponsored school exercise programs, offered some healthier foods and sponsored advertisements extolling the benefits of exercise and better eating habits.

“Appetite for Profit” argues that most of these displays of corporate virtue are superficial, insincere and often misleading. Most important, they have lulled many Americans, including some public health advocates and most politicians, into a false sense of complacency. Simon contends that we cannot depend on the good intentions of the large food companies to protect the public’s health because they care only about making more money for their shareholders. Some of her indictments of the industry’s well-publicized efforts to behave, or at least give the appearance of behaving more responsibly, are persuasive. But one can only imagine how much more disturbed she would have been had the industry denied any responsibility for the nation’s health problems—as the tobacco industry did for so many years....

At times Simon engages in a bit of hyperbole, such as her implausible claim that “today’s generation of children may be the first to have shorter lives than their parents.” She also unfairly impugns the integrity and findings of every research scientist whose work has received any food industry funding. Nonetheless, this impassioned, well-documented book provides a wealth of information for those who want to take on the food industry. But it also demonstrates the formidable obstacles that stand in the way of those who advocate healthier eating.

FACULTY SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & EVENTS

December 7 DAN KAMMEN was featured speaker at the biology symposium: “Go Beyond Petroleum: Plant Biotechnology and Alternative Fuels,” California State University Channel Islands.

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.

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Director of External Relations and Development

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(This digest was edited by Theresa Wong)