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eDIGEST June 2007

UPCOMING EVENTS

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. “EPA panel gets an earful. Daylong hearing is held on state push to enforce tougher emissions rule” (Sacramento Bee, May 31, 2007); citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992); http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/200356.html

2. “Bush calls on Congress to double global AIDS spending” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 31, 2007); story citing MARK CLOUTIER (MPP/MPH 1993); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/31/MNGCIQ487D1.DTL&hw=cloutier&sn=001&sc=1000

3. “Tainted school shut - Paramus parents demand investigation” (Record, The (Hackensack, NJ), May 30, 2007); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975); http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk0JmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MTQzNDQy

4. “Free area transit blows in as Spare the Air season begins. Three free transit days planned; other initiatives are being discussed” (Oakland Tribune, May 30, 2007); story citing STUART COHEN (MPP 1997); http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_6019300

5. “Nursing shortage nears, analyst says. Bonuses for colleges are urged to improve graduation rates” (Sacramento Bee, May 30, 2007); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/198563.html

6. “Census to track foster youth” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 29, 2007); editorial citing MICHELE BYRNES (MPP 2003); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/29/EDGGTP3F2J1.DTL&hw=census&sn=001&sc=1000

7. “Vallejo revamps building permit process” (Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), May 27, 2007); story citing CRAIG WHITTOM (MPP 1985).

8. “In Search of the American Dream: Higher Education” (KALW-91.7 FM, May 24-30, 2007); program featuring commentary by NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978) and ABEL GUILLEN (MPP 2001); Listen to the program

9. “IT WON’T BE EASY BEING GREEN. Berkeley sets tough course for its residents to follow to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in city” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 24, 2007); story citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000) and DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/24/MNGJSQ0N671.DTL

10. “California economy on plateau” (Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2007); column citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/187500.html

11. “A Change in Climate / Global Warming and Wisconsin - $3.40 gas or not, big vehicles roll” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 20, 2007); citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992).

12. “Parents chafe at eviction of preschool” (Boston Globe, May 20, 2007); story citing MELISSA GLENN HABER (MPP 1995); http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/05/20/parents_chafe_at_eviction_of_preschool/

13. “Governor to detail plans to curb fuel emissions. Supporters say policy will transform global debate over clean-energy sources” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 2007); citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992) and DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/18/MNGR2PTFOD1.DTL&type=printable

14. “Getting the hook? - Assembly panel OKs bill to curb predatory towing” (Record, The (Hackensack, NJ), May 18, 2007); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975); http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MTM2MDY1

15. “Berkeley intent on cutting gas emissions” (Contra Costa Times, May 18, 2007); story citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.contracostatimes.com/bayandstate/ci_5930121

16. “Move toward privatization has investors licking chops” (Sacramento Bee, May 18, 2007); story citing TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/184903.html

17. “Minister of Planning Discusses Cooperation Between Jordan and UNICEF” (Jordanian News Agency Distributed by UPI, May 18, 2007); story citing ANN VENEMAN (MPP 1971).

18. “EPA gives $200,000 to Fremont” (Argus, The (Fremont-Newark, CA), May 16, 2007); story citing DAN SCHOENHOLZ (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5907625

19. “Health czar rips prison bed plan. He suggests a need to take over the hiring of officers to bolster medical care” (Sacramento Bee, May 16, 2007); story citing TODD SPITZER (MPP/JD 1989); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/181444.html

20. “Budget revise draws mixed views. Governor’s housing outlook is debated” (Sacramento Bee, May 15, 2007); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/179762.html

21. “Battle looms on list of cuts. Schwarzenegger says tight revenues require difficult choices; Dems blast proposal” (Sacramento Bee, May 15, 2007); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/180073-p2.html

22. “Huge budget shortfall seen. Legislative analyst says Schwarzenegger plan for 2007-08 could add a $3 billion deficit” (Sacramento Bee, May 16, 2007); story citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/181446.html

23. “How a lotto lease adds up. Raising billions upfront would help pay off deficit bonds, says finance chief” (Sacramento Bee, May 17, 2007); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/183301.html

24. “May Budget Revise” (Forum, KQED-88.5 FM, May 18, 2007); features commentary by ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975) and MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); Listen to the program

25. “Prisons’ budget to trump colleges’. No other big state spends as much to incarcerate compared with higher education funding” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2007); story citing TODD SPITZER (MPP/JD 1989) and MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/21/MNG4KPUKV51.DTL

26. “Healthcare Reform/Genetic Discrimination” (Talk of the Nation – Science Friday, NPR, May 11, 2007); program features commentary by KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982); Listen to the program

27. “Growing Numbers on L.I.R.R. Ride Against Commuter Tide” (New York Times, May 10, 2007); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).

28. “Clash over prison project. Corrections official says governor’s aides knew of death chamber work” (Sacramento Bee, May 9, 2007); story citing TODD SPITZER (MPP/JD 1989); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/172549.html

29. “Changes in parole urged to help ease crowding in prison. Top Democrat says governor should act” (San Diego Union-Tribune, May 8, 2007); story citing BRIAN BROWN (MPP 2003).

30. “State retiree liability pegged at $48 billion” (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 8, 2007); story citing MIKE GENEST (1980); http://www.sgvtribune.com/search/ci_5842871

31. “Clarification on school testing” (Davis Enterprise, May 7, 2007); Letter to the Editor by RAY REINHARD (MPP 1978); http://www.davisenterprise.com/articles/2007/05/10/opinion/letters/238letters.txt

32. “Many foster youths face a future of homelessness” (Argus, May 6, 2007); story citing AMY LEMLEY (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5831877

33. “What the heck is in those water bottles?” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 4, 2007); column citing RANDY KANOUSE (MPP/JD 1978); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2007/05/04/BUGUSPKP6D1.DTL

34. “Political blogging growing like a vine - Blogs keep the young plugged in, but do they bring in votes?” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 4, 2007); column citing BRIAN LEUBITZ (MPP 2007).

35. “Cell phones, support make strong asthma medicine” (San Mateo County Times, May 4, 2007); op-ed citing SUSAN EHRLICH (MPP 1984); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5816434

36. “Politics, activists merge in agreement” (Oakland Tribune, May 1, 2007); story citing STUART COHEN (MPP 1997); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5791486

37. “Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California Board of Directors Declares a $3.7 Million Dividend. 2,700 California Nonprofits to Benefit” (NIAC, May 1, 2007); story citing PAMELA DAVIS (MPP 1987); www.insurancefornonprofits.org

38. “Anti-sprawl laws receive tepid review. Plan would require people in newly developed areas to drive 10 percent less” (Oakland Tribune, April 29, 2007); story citing STUART COHEN (MPP 1997); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5779382

39. “Is China outdoing US in curbing carbon?” (Christian Science Monitor, April 27, 2007); story citing NED HELME (MPP 1971).

40. “Cost of living: Somers Point may double charge for birth certificates” (Press of Atlantic City, April 27, 2007); story citing KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982).

41. “Cashing in on history” (Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), April 22, 2007); story citing CRAIG WHITTOM (MPP 1985).

42. “Central Eastside” (Oregonian, April 22, 2007); story citing JOE CORTRIGHT (MPP 1980).

43. “Oregon Universities” (Oregonian, April 22, 2007); editorial column citing JOCK MILLS (MPP 1981); http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1177120504151710.xml&coll=7&thispage=2

44. “Dream Catchers” (New York Times, April 22, 2007); story citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978).

45. “Oregon’s bioscience: A boom or a blip?” (Oregonian, April 21, 2007); story citing JOE CORTRIGHT (MPP 1980); http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/117701250317670.xml&coll=7

46. “Development Department opens office in Brentwood” (Contra Costa Times, April 20, 2007); story citing JASON CRAPO (MPP 1999); http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_5712351

47. “Judge dismisses lawsuit by gun show promoters” (Oakland Tribune, April 19, 2007); story citing RICHARD WINNIE; http://www.insidebayarea.com/search//ci_5702319

48. “Blue Cross Sees Threat in Universal Health Plan - Huge Insurer Has Much to Lose” (San Jose Mercury News, April 15, 2007); story citing RUTH LIU (MPP 1999); http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_5672462?nclick_check=1

49. “Gasoline prices soften according to BOA report” (Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT), April 10, 2007); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

50. “Doctors Predict Fewer Taxi Craniofacial Injuries” (New York Sun, April 2, 2007); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).

51. “Debate over taxi rules - Lawmakers propose bill that partially deregulates industry” (Rocky Mountain News (CO), March 13, 2007); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).

52. “Women testify in favor of bill” (Topeka Capital-Journal, March 7, 2007); story citing TRACI GLEASON (MPP 2000).

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Climate Wise - Transportation’s Next Big Thing is Already Here” (GreenBiz.com, May 2007); op-ed by DAN KAMMEN; http://greenbiz.com/news/columns_third.cfm?NewsID=35189

2. “Everybody’s green now. How America’s big companies got environmentalism” (The Economist, May 31, 2007); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.economist.com/surveys/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9217982

3. “Together we can prevail. These are the steps that the world’s richest countries must take to provide clean, sustainable energy for all” (The Guardian [UK], May 31, 2007); commentary citing research coauthored by DAN KAMMEN; http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/viktor_khristenko_and_koichiro_matsuura/2007/05/sharing_the_energy_by_viktor.html

4. “Is The Troop Surge In Iraq Working? Deaths Of 10 More American Troops” (KGO TV News, May 29, 2007); program featuring commentary by MICHAEL NACHT; http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=5350780

5. “US pre-school advocate to speak here” (The University of Melbourne Voice, Vol. 1, No. 6, 28 May - 11 June 2007); story citing DAVID KIRP; http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_4236.html

6. “Riding the hydrogen highway” (Globe and Mail [Canada], May 26, 2007; story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070526.wxhydrogen26/BNStory/National/home

7. “Private equity tax loophole, take two” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 24, 2007); Listen to this commentary

8. “Is ethanol really worth it? The perfect storm of agribusiness lobbies, national security and environmentalists” (The Journal Press, May 23, 2007); story citing DAN KAMMEN and study coauthored with MICHAEL O’HARE and BRIAN TURNER (MPP 2005); http://www.journalpress.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=189&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=3636&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1139&hn=journalpress&he=.com

9. “Op-Ed: Preschool for California Kids in Areas Served by Low Performing Elementary Schools Needs Continued Funding in State Budget” (California Progress Report, May 23, 2007); op-ed citing DAVID KIRP; http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/05/preschool_for_c.html

10. “Housing’s Roof Won’t Cave In. Homeowners may well spend through the slump” (Business Week, May 21, 2007); commentary citing JOHN QUIGLEY;

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_21/b4035056.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

11. “Student loans on a graduated scale” – commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 16, 2007); Listen to this commentary

12. “Special Report with Brit Hume” (Fox News TV, May 14, 2007); program features commentary by DAN KAMMEN; http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,272514,00.html

13. “Profiles. Branson’s Luck: The business world’s high roller is betting everything on biofuels” (New Yorker Magazine, May 14, 2007); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_specter

14. “Save the Earth. Sacrifice your Returns? Investing With Your Conscience Has Its Rewards but May Affect Your Bottom Line” (Washington Post, May 13, 2007); story citing DAVID VOGEL; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/12/AR2007051200112_pf.html

15. “Close the private equity tax loophole now” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 9, 2007); Listen to this commentary

16. “Lawmakers quietly considering universal preschool” (Mercury News, May 7, 2007); op-ed by DAVID KIRP; http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_5836386?nclick_check=1

17. “Carbon sequestration report” (PRI’s The World, May 4, 2007); features commentary by DAN KAMMEN; listen to the story

18. “Wall Street’s up, Main Street’s down” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 2, 2007; listen to the commentary

19. “THE ENERGY CHALLENGE. Recruiting Plankton to Fight Global Warming” (New York Times, May 1, 2007); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/01plankton.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

By Chris Bowman - Bee Staff Writer

California’s much-vaunted law restricting greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles won’t make a dent in global warming, even if adopted worldwide, a group of automobile manufacturers declared Wednesday.

“This regulation will never have any measurable impact whatsoever on global climate change, even if adopted nationwide or worldwide,” said Andrew Clubok, an attorney for the auto alliance….

Roland Hwang, vehicles policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the argument “the last gasp of the auto industry in a losing battle against mandatory carbon dioxide controls.”

In an opinion favoring California’s position last month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the auto industry’s assertion that the global impact doesn’t justify the state’s tailpipe restrictions….

By Sabin Russell; Chronicle Medical Writer

President Bush picks up Baron Mosima Loyiso Tantoh, 4, of South Africa after making his remarks in the Rose Garden.

President Bush called Wednesday for a doubling of overseas AIDS spending by proposing a $30 billion, five-year extension of his emergency relief program that has brought antiviral drugs to more than 1 million people since it was started in 2003….

Mark Cloutier, executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said that timing the announcement to the G-8 summit showed strong leadership on the part of the president, who needs to prod other countries to increase their donations as well.

AIDS advocates point out that, although the program is being described as a doubling of the initial five-year, $15 billion commitment, there is less to the proposed $30 billion than meets the eye….

If annual spending stayed flat at the 2008 rate for the new five-year cycle, it would add up to $27 billion. So the new Bush plan adds only $3 billion for expansion of the program in the second five-year cycle—an increase averaging $600 million a year. In that sense, Cloutier said the proposed expansion of the program is modest.

Cloutier said Congress should drop the requirements that one-third of prevention dollars be spent on abstinence programs. “We have to eliminate this requirement that has no basis in science,” he said….

By Michael Gartland, Staff Writer

Eighth-grader Michael Woods wasn’t taking chances: He went to school wearing a gas mask. Tariq Zehawi / The Record

Paramus Mayor James Tedesco on Tuesday ordered the closing of West Brook Middle School amid an uproar by parents concerned that contaminated soil found there could harm their children.

“The facility will be locked down by the Police Department until we can get proper testing,” he said during Tuesday night’s council meeting. “I am invoking my power as mayor to shut down West Brook.”…

More than 150 parents attended the meeting, with many demanding to know why the district waited months before notifying them that dangerous pesticides had been discovered on school grounds.

The school district knew of contamination up to 39 times state safety guidelines in January, but told parents about the tainted soil only last week….

[The school’s principal, Joan Kelly] Broe said that West Brook teachers are also concerned about the high levels of aldrin, dieldrin and chlordane found in the soil. She said officials assured her that more soil would be tested this week….

State Sen. Joe Coniglio, D-Paramus, and Assemblyman Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, both attended Tuesday’s meeting and called for state involvement.

“We have passed laws to address this,” Gordon said. “You will have the full resources of the state of New Jersey on this.”…

By Douglas Fischer and Erik N. Nelson, Staff Writers

Heavy smog covered the skylines of Oakland and San Francisco Thursday, prompting the first Spare the Air alert of the season. (D. Ross Cameron - Staff)

OAKLAND — Spare the Air season kicks off Friday, but rather than spend $7.5 million on three free transit days, there might be a better way to lure commuters out of their cars: Knock down a freeway span or two….

After a fiery truck crash April 29 closed a key section of the MacArthur Maze funneling traffic from the Bay Bridge to Interstate 580 and Highway 24, BART ridership eclipsed any gain seen with Spare the Air’s free offerings.

Indeed, the 2.1 million riders using BART in the week after the maze collapse were the most in BART’s nearly 35-year history….

No one, of course, is advocating more tanker crashes….

But many transit advocates have urged regulators to employ both carrot—free transit—and stick—higher tolls—on Spare the Air days. And critics counter free transit’s environmental benefits don’t justify the considerable expense.

The MTC said last year the program cost $411,000 per ton of smog-creating emissions reduced, 10 to 100 times more than other smog-fighting programs, such as paying people to scrap their old, higher-emission vehicles.

Higher bridge tolls on Spare the Air days could potentially pay for the program, said Stuart Cohen, director of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. It also encourages more commuters to find a way to the bus or BART station.

“Right now we’re doing free transit out of funding that could be expanding transit options or go for other transit projects,” he said….

By Peter Hecht - Bee Capitol Bureau

California faces a shortfall of 12,000 full-time registered nurses in seven years unless state universities and community colleges admit more nursing students and reduce dropout rates, a report by the state’s top budget analyst declared Tuesday.

The report by nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill urged lawmakers to award “completion bonuses” that would increase the nursing school budgets of community colleges that improve graduation rates from nursing programs.

It also called for increasing the number of educational loan grants offered to lure additional nursing faculty. The grants, initiated under a budget program last year, can forgive up to $25,000 in education loans for graduates of nursing programs who go on to teach for three years at a state college or university….

By 2014, the report said, the state will need 40,000 more full-time nurses to meet demands of population growth, including an increase in residents age 65 or older. But the state’s nursing ranks are expected to grow by only 28,000—12,000 fewer than needed, the report said….

THE U.S. Census Bureau has decided after all to keep track of foster youth.

Its initial decision to exclude the “foster child” category from the 2010 Census—in order to keep its form to a single page—touched off vigorous objections from advocacy groups and a Missouri Democrat who chairs the House Information, Policy, Census and National Archives subcommittee. As we argued on April 22, the elimination of the foster child category was more than a symbolic slap at young people who are our collective responsibility. It would have deprived policymakers of data that could help illuminate the conditions in foster homes, such as how many caregivers were employed and how many were living in poverty….

The annual survey collects information on a household’s income, its family size, whether the foster parents are renters or homeowners, disability status of the caregivers, number of other children in the house and whether a language other than English is spoken in the house.

“It will give us a better sense of what foster youth are experiencing—and none of that information is available in state foster care records,” said Michele Byrnes of the San Francisco-based John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes, which teamed up with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to pressure the census bureaucrats on behalf of foster youth.

“I see it very much as a victory from the advocacy perspective,” Byrnes said.

It is indeed. But this is no time to start sending bouquets to Washington for its treatment of the nation’s foster children. The federal government still makes it far harder than necessary for grandparents or aunts and uncles to take over the care of a child who has been removed from his or her parents’ home. Next up should be passage of legislation (Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Olympia Snow, R-Maine, in the Senate; Danny Davis, D-Ill., in the House) to allow government payments (for both monthly support and services such as drug treatment or mental-health counseling) to follow the child into a relative’s home….

7. “Vallejo revamps building permit process” (Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), May 27, 2007); story citing CRAIG WHITTOM (MPP 1985).

By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen/Times-Herald staff writer

Anyone hoping to build anything in Vallejo will likely soon face higher fees, as the city streamlines its permitting process, city officials said.

For most people, however, the spike won’t be that noticeable, said Development Services Director Brian Dolan.

Staff members have met with Vallejo Chamber of Commerce economic development subcommittee members and a meeting is planned this week with a group of developers, Dolan said….

“We’re holding these meetings as a way to engage the stakeholders on this issue, and get their input early, instead of four days before a council meeting,” said acting city manager Craig Whittom.

Today we’re considering the pathway of higher education to the American dream.

In the 60s about half of California’s high school graduates went on to college, a rate that far outpaced the national average. Now, however, only Mississippi has a lower rate of sending students on to college.

…Spiraling tuition costs and poor preparation in high school may be holding many back from going on to higher education. But those factors don’t put college completely out of reach. That’s because millions turn to community college as the most accessible pathway up the higher education ladder. “They are the most expensive to teach and yet—not just in California, but nationwide—they receive the fewest dollars per student.” That’s Cal State Sacramento University Professor Nancy Shulock…. “Does this represent a lost priority or lessening in priority of educating what I call the new California? Well, the new California doesn’t exactly look like the old California that votes and pays the most taxes.”

California’s community college system accepts everyone who graduates from high school or anyone over the age of 18 even if they dropped out of school, and the system has the lowest fees in the nation…. But there’s a growing concern that while community colleges bring students to the door of opportunity, the system is not moving them across the threshold to a degree….

“…[W]hat [the Laney College] campus looks like, this is what the future of California looks like.” Abel Guillen is a recently elected trustee of the Peralta Community College District. He notes over half the students in California community college are people of color. 80% of students work full-time or part-time in addition to their course of study. And about 8% of California community college students never graduated from high school, which makes getting them a higher education even more challenging…. “So you have to catch up students in algebra, in English, in all the basic skills they should have learned in high school.”

According to the chancellor’s office, only 27% of students who take the assessment test are ready for college-level English and only 9% are ready for college-level math….

“We offer assessment of basic skills. But if students want to bypass that assessment, they have that right.” Professor Nancy Shulock is executive director of the Institute for Higher Education and co-author of The Rules of the Game: How State Policy Creates Barriers to Degree Completion and Impedes Student Success in the California Community Colleges. She explains that in 1988 the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund threatened to sue the California community college system for using assessment methods that, they asserted, disproportionately placed Hispanic students in remediation. Shulock says that in response to the legal challenge the system adopted regulations that allowed students to bypass the assessment tests and the remediation coursework they need to prepare for advanced classes. Shulock says this hands-off policy sets students up for failure. “The system is not working. We are open access, and since we want to be open access, when we let students in we have to help them succeed. It’s not enough to just sort of hands-off. We’re calling for mandatory assessment and mandatory placement, and we would like much more setting of course prerequisites and really helping students not get into a situation where they fail and then they feel like failures and they’re discouraged, and they drop out.”

Community college students get the least funding per pupil among the California educational system. They get just $5000 per student, California state universities gets twice that, while the UC system gets $20,000 per student…. …[T]he bottom line is community colleges are left with a lack of resources. Trustee Abel Guillen says, for example, counseling suffers. “For every counselor, you have about 6- to 7,000 students that counselors are responsible for. With those kinds of loads, it’s difficult to get an appointment to see those counselors, or to get the kind of attention you need.”…

Abel Guillen says meeting that challenge [of making up for what students don’t get in primary and secondary school] is crucial and raising the funding to meet the needs is paramount. “I think that the future of our state is at stake here. The odds are high. Do we make the choice of investing for future generations, just like previous generations made an investment in education? Or do we not make the investment and have a situation where the wealth gap grows? Do we want to invest in our future, to train those nurses, to train those biotech workers? Or do we throw the California promise back by the wayside?”….

--Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

In Berkeley’s green future, there will be no incandescent lightbulbs, Wedgewood stoves or gas-powered water heaters. The only sounds will be the whir of bicycles and the purr of hybrid cars—and possibly curses from residents being forced to upgrade all their kitchen appliances.

Six months after Berkeley voters overwhelmingly passed Measure G, a mandate to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, the city is laying out a long-term road map for residents, business and industry. It includes everything from solar panels at the Pacific Steel foundry to composted table scraps.

While San Francisco, Oakland and other local governments in the Bay Area have approved policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Berkeley is the first to begin spelling out how people would be expected to reduce their carbon footprints.

Some measures will be popular and easy, like a car-share vehicle on every block and free bus passes. But others will be bitter pills, such as strict and costly requirements that homes have new high-efficiency appliances, solar-powered water heaters, insulation in the walls and other energy savers.

“It will challenge people, and it will be difficult,” said Cisco DeVries, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Bates and one of those coordinating the city’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts. “But if Berkeley’s niche isn’t leadership on this issue, then what is it? This is what we should be doing.”…

The city is omitting Interstate 80, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from its calculations because those are controlled by state agencies that have their own, and in some cases tougher, greenhouse gas reduction plans, DeVries said….

But the accounting details are irrelevant, said Dan Kammen, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resource Group.

“Berkeley is one of the first cities to do this, and I think they’re entitled to some creative bookkeeping,” he said.

He also doesn’t think the city will suffer economically from these measures. Developers still will build in Berkeley, housing prices will remain among the highest in the Bay Area, and business will continue to operate. It is Berkeley, after all.

“There’s still a huge cachet to be in Berkeley. I think we’ll see that these plans will actually improve Berkeley’s economy,” he said. “And let’s face it, a lot of cities will be doing the same thing in the future. If we don’t, we’re cooked.”…

10. “California economy on plateau” (Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2007); column citing ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/187500.html

By Dan Walters - Bee Columnist

A red-hot housing market, fueled by loose credit and low interest rates, pulled California out of the brief economic slowdown after the collapse of the dot-com boom—but now housing has flattened, casting a pall of uncertainty over the state’s economic future.

Whether the post-housing plateau is equally brief or the harbinger of a longer-term slide will affect millions of workers and their families, but state and local government officials, whose budgets were fattened by the housing boom, are nervous as well.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger adopted a modestly optimistic view as he released a new version of the 2007-8 budget, seeing “little evidence that the weakness in the housing sector has spread to other parts of the national and California economies.”…

A somewhat more detached economic appraisal comes from the Legislature’s budget analyst, Elizabeth Hill, who, while saying the administration estimates are “reasonable,” warns that the extent of the housing downturn is still being plumbed and that rising oil prices could generate a broader downturn. She also warns that because of the state’s revenue structure, heavily weighted toward personal income taxes, “relatively small differences in actual growth rates ... could generate revenue swings of hundreds of millions of dollars.”…

11. “A Change in Climate / Global Warming and Wisconsin - $3.40 gas or not, big vehicles roll” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 20, 2007); citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992).

By Thomas Content and Lee Bergquist; Staff; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Janesville — The Chevrolet Suburban and the other sport utility vehicles built here have long been popular with car buyers who covet them for their size and power.

But SUVs are under heavy pressure as sales slide and Congress and the White House press for stronger fuel economy standards.

On Saturday, gasoline prices in Milwaukee climbed to a record average high of $3.43 a gallon. And concerns about global warming and reliance on foreign oil continue to grow.

Because they consume so much fuel, SUVs and other light trucks are among the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gases in the country.

Carbon dioxide emissions from these vehicles jumped 74% from 1990 to 2005, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Emissions from cars rose less than 1%….

An SUV made in Janesville will produce more than twice the amount of carbon dioxide emissions as a vehicle that gets 40 miles per gallon, according to the EPA.

“From our perspective, individual households need to right-size their vehicles for their needs,” said Roland Hwang, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group….

Fuel economy of GM SUVs has risen 2 to 3 mpg in five years, federal figures show, and they now get an average of 16 to 18 mpg when combining city and highway driving.

But Hwang, an expert on fuel economy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, believes GM and other automakers have used loopholes in federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards to sidestep fuel efficiency requirements.

The law gives companies credits for building E85 vehicles that help boost fuel economy for a company’s entire fleet. But because the fuel is not yet widely available, Hwang said, “a lot of it isn’t getting into the tank.”…

By Janice O’Leary- Globe Correspondent

Lily Brinkman plays at the Agassiz Cooperatiive Preschool, which must move. (Dina Rudick/Globe Staff)

Lily Brinkman plays at the Agassiz Cooperatiive Preschool, which must move because of Lesley University expansion.

Though the Agassiz Cooperative Preschool seems resigned to its forced move, resentment lingers among parents who want the school to remain in the same green nook it has occupied for the last 35 years.

In the spring of 2006, Lesley University announced that as part of its expansion plans in Porter Square, it would purchase and renovate the former church where the popular preschool leases the basement. The university also said it would construct a building on the 11,000-square-foot lot the preschool uses for a garden and playground, and initially set the eviction date for this fall….

After pleas from surprised parents, Lesley agreed to push the eviction date to August 2008. Despite the extension, many harbor hard feelings toward Lesley.

Lesley, which has a strong early-education program, has long sent student-teachers to work at the preschool. When the preschool’s board learned the church was going up for sale, said Melissa Glenn Haber, whose husband served on the board at the time, it approached Lesley, thinking it would be an ideal partnership.

“We thought we had an understanding, though nothing was ever said,” said Glenn Haber, a Somerville writer whose children attended Agassiz. “We were not disabused of the notion that their education school would be occupying the church building” and the preschool could remain.

Lesley did not announce right away that it would relocate its arts school to Porter Square because it was uncertain of the move, said spokesman Bill Doncaster. The arts school is expected to take up the space in the renovated church and the new building.

“It was a huge shock in negotiations when we learned the time frame,” Glenn Haber said. “We thought we would have at least five years.”

Now they have slightly more than a year, with few possibilities on the market….

Glenn Haber said the preschool needs to find a new space by November. “That’s when enrollment for the next year begins,” she said. “You can’t enroll another class of children if you don’t know where you’ll be.”…

“Unfortunately, the school is not part of a community rich enough to save it or so poor that it qualifies for charity,” Glenn Haber said. “It’s in a tough spot.”

13. “Getting the hook? - Assembly panel OKs bill to curb predatory towing” (Record, The (Hackensack, NJ), May 18, 2007); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975); http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MTM2MDY1

By Eric Hsu, Staff Writer

Photo - Aldo Martinez Jr./Special to The Record

Trenton — Lawmakers have taken the first step toward a comprehensive crackdown on excessive towing fees and “predatory” practices allegedly used by some tow-truck companies.

A bill approved by a state Assembly committee Thursday would target tows from private property, as opposed to police tows from public streets. Legislators drafted the bill after a rash of complaints last year from North Jersey towns where drivers were regularly charged $350 to $400. Others who reached their cars before they had been removed were charged $150 and $200 just to have their cars unhitched.

“This whole area of non-consensual tows is essentially the Wild West,” said Assemblyman Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, the main sponsor of the bill. “The towers can do what they want, and charge whatever they can extract, and they do.”

The bill would establish a standard fee schedule and licensing process for all towing companies in the state, specify the placement and content of warning signs and require towers to accept credit cards. Fees that exceed 150 percent of an average in any given county would be considered excessive….

The law would also partially ban a practice sometimes known as “cruising,” or “patrol towing,” in which towers lie in wait for motorists and swoop in without being summoned by a specific complaint. The new law would stipulate that property owners must be present to sign off on individual tows during business hours.

“This is really a quality-of-life issue,” said Gordon, who said he has fielded a steady flow of complaints from customers clutching what they feel are unreasonable bills.

“People are going into these restaurants, and five minutes later their car is gone. A person goes to the hairdresser five minutes beyond the permissible time and finds her car towed,” he said….

The New Jersey bill will move before the Assembly for consideration for a vote this fall, and Gordon said he would seek a sponsor for a matching measure in the state Senate.

14. “Governor to detail plans to curb fuel emissions. Supporters say policy will transform global debate over clean-energy sources” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 2007); citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992) and DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/18/MNGR2PTFOD1.DTL&type=printable

--Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer

Four months after announcing a program to reduce the global-warming emissions from transportation fuels, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will unveil today details of the plan that supporters say could transform the international debate over green sources of energy.

The implementation report—which will be released by Schwarzenegger and the two University of California professors who were picked to write it—will create a complex, path-breaking method to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of all fuels sold in the state from the moment of production through final consumption….

The plan is expected to displace one-fifth of California’s gasoline consumption with lower-carbon fuels and put more than 7 million alternative fuel or hybrid vehicles on the roads.

Today’s report was co-authored by Alexander Farrell, a professor in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group [founded and headed by Dan Kammen], and Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis…. The state’s Air Resources Board is expected to incorporate both reports into a new emissions plan for the state, to be announced next month. The new fuel standard is likely to be copied worldwide as governments adopt similar measures….

The state formula is often viewed as a direct challenge to the Bush administration’s new push for alternative energy sources, which has brought worldwide criticism. Bush’s “20-10” proposal, which would reduce America’s use of gasoline by 20 percent over the next decade, is centered on two fuels that environmentalists love to hate—corn-based ethanol and liquefied coal. Roland Hwang, vehicles policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that Bush’s plan calls for doubling the amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels blended into gasoline to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012, with an ultimate target of 35 billion gallons by 2017.

“The danger is that we’re going to be going backward-by increasing emissions rather than decreasing them,” Hwang said. “The low-carbon fuel standard is the way to reverse that trend and to instead use lower-carbon fuels.”…

Nearly every major oil company is spending heavily on alternative sources for ethanol such as switchgrass and elephant grass, and they are casting themselves as environmental pioneers.

Some UC scientists say the new research must pay keen attention to its international impact.

“The low-carbon fuel standard shouldn’t be thought of as an endpoint,” said Daniel Kammen, a UC professor and a member of the Energy Biosciences Institute’s five-person executive board.

“I know the word ‘sustainable’ is seen as mushy and Berkeley- esque, but we need to follow this with something like ‘fair trade’ coffee, a sustainability fuel standard. There are huge issues at stake for developing nations.”

Kammen cited the example of China, where environmental degradation linked to global warming has caused dramatic declines in crop yields and public health. “So if China can get sustainable, low-carbon biofuels, it would have much quicker returns than here, on a much bigger scale.”

15. “Berkeley intent on cutting gas emissions” (Contra Costa Times, May 18, 2007); story citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.contracostatimes.com/bayandstate/ci_5930121

By Kristin Bender - MediaNews Staff

During a five-year period, the city of Berkeley reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 9 percent, the equivalent of taking more than 12,000 medium-sized cars off the roads.

But with a voter-mandated directive to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050, Berkeley has a long way to go toward its goal.

Six months after 81 percent of voters approved Measure G, a greenhouse gas emission initiative, the big question in Berkeley is: now what?

“I don’t think anybody can say that we know exactly how we can get to an 80 percent reduction,’’ said Cisco DeVries, the mayor’s chief of staff, who is working on the city’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts.

But the city is off to a solid start.

“The 9 percent is hopeful, and it shows that people care about this issue and are already making choices to reduce their energy use. It’s great to have success to build on, but we have a long way to go,” DeVries said….

The emissions study was done by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives by collecting and analyzing data from PG&E, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the city and other sources to determine emissions relating to all electricity, natural gas and transportation in the city.

City leaders say the decrease is among the largest any city has documented in the United States and puts Berkeley on a path to meet its goals under Measure G….

16. “Move toward privatization has investors licking chops” (Sacramento Bee, May 18, 2007); story citing TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/184903.html

By Dale Kasler - Bee Staff Writer

If California tries to lease its state lottery to private investors or unload a state-owned student-loan business, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes, there will likely be no shortage of interested parties.

Providing capital to a growing privatization movement, investors are offering billions for state lotteries, toll roads and other government-owned assets nationwide.

Indiana sold the operating rights to its main toll highway last year to an international consortium for $3.8 billion. Chicago has leased out its Chicago Skyway toll road for $1.8 billion and is thinking of auctioning off Midway Airport. Texas just passed a law authorizing privately financed construction of several highways….

The idea is to remedy budget problems without raising taxes. “States often face budget crunches in any given year, and it’s tempting to look at fixed assets that aren’t generating as much revenue as they could,” said Tracy Gordon, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California….

17. “Minister of Planning Discusses Cooperation Between Jordan and UNICEF” (Jordanian News Agency Distributed by UPI, May 18, 2007); story citing ANN VENEMAN (MPP 1971).

May 17 (Petra) -- … Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Suhair Al Ali today met with Executive Director of UNICEF Ann Veneman and discussed with him [sic] this program. Al Ali said that Jordan appreciates the efforts exerted by the organization, since the establishment of the cooperation program with Jordan back in 1952, in the field of supporting women and children’s rights in addition to its different programs targeting health, food and education sectors….

For her part, the UNICEF official hailed the key role Jordan plays in the family development field, adding that Jordan was within the first countries expressing commitment to the human development and achieving the millennium developmental goals.

18. “EPA gives $200,000 to Fremont” (Argus, The (Fremont-Newark, CA), May 16, 2007); story citing DAN SCHOENHOLZ (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5907625

By Chris De Benedetti, Staff Writer

FREMONT—The Fremont Redevelopment Agency has been given $200,000 in federal funds to help pay for the environmental cleanup of a Niles neighborhood parcel.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant will go toward removing contaminated soil at the 5.25-acre property where city officials plan to build the Niles Town Plaza project.

The money is part of the EPA’s Brownfields program, which helps communities turn “blighted eyesores into community assets,” said Wayne Nastri, administrator of the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Office in San Francisco.

“That’s exactly what the (Niles Town Plaza) project is doing,” said Dan Schoenholz, Fremont’s special projects manager. “We’re taking a Redevelopment Agency-owned parcel that is underutilized because of contamination and ... with EPA help, we’re turning it into a beautiful public plaza.”…

By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau

California’s prison medical czar expressed deep reservations Tuesday over recently enacted legislation to increase bed capacity in the state corrections agency and moved to expand his oversight authority to cover construction and its hiring operations.

Robert Sillen, the federally appointed receiver in charge of correctional medical care, said in a report that a key component of the $7.9 billion prison construction and rehabilitation package signed into law May 3 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “may well jeopardize prisoner patient health care.”…

Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn told reporters Tuesday that the Republican governor’s “first priority” in closing the deal with GOP and Democratic legislative leaders was to come up with a plan “that does not encourage or cause the early release of any criminals.”…

Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer of Orange was even more critical of the receiver.

“He’s completely overreaching,” Spitzer said. “He won’t stop until he’s running every aspect of the Department of Corrections.”…

20. “Budget revise draws mixed views. Governor’s housing outlook is debated” (Sacramento Bee, May 15, 2007); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/179762.html

By Dale Kasler and Jim Wasserman - Bee Staff Writers

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s revised budget forecast reflects his belief that the state’s economy has largely withstood the ravages of the housing slump….

The housing market is “pulling our numbers down slightly,” said Michael Genest, the governor’s finance director.

He said forecasters have been taking the housing slump into account since last spring.

The new projections reflect that the downturn “is just getting a little deeper and lasting a little longer than we thought,” he said….

By Judy Lin - Bee Capitol Bureau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed a revised budget that would dig deeper into social welfare programs while selling a state student loan guarantee business to raise $1 billion in one-time cash, a plan Democrats immediately denounced as mean-spirited and unlikely to win their votes….

Also built into Schwarzenegger’s budget is an incentive for the Assembly to pass half a dozen Indian compacts that allow for expanded gambling. Mike Genest, director of the state Department of Finance, said that because the state is relying on $314 million from added slot machines, the state will lose $1.26 million in possible gambling revenue each day, starting today, that the compacts are not approved.

By Judy Lin - Bee Capitol Bureau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger based his May budget revision on overly optimistic assumptions that could lead to a $3 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and more than a $5 billion problem the following year, the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget adviser said Tuesday.

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said the Republican governor overstated the state’s reserve by $1.7 billion in 2007-08 by making several assumptions, including the legality of shifting money from public transit and forecasting high estimates from gambling and property tax revenue.

“Our bottom line: The concern we have is that the state’s outyear fiscal situation has actually worsened,” Hill said.

The Schwarzenegger administration stood by its projections, but legislative leaders from both parties agreed with Hill’s warnings and began emphasizing different priorities, possibly signaling tough budget negotiations ahead. Under the state constitution, the Legislature has until June 15 to pass a balanced budget.

Hill recommended the administration hold off on making $1.6 billion in early debt payments—a move that would free up cash to address the current budget gap….

She called Schwarzenegger’s proposal to redirect $830 million in public transit funding “legally unworkable,” and warned the administration failed to build in pay and benefit increases for the state’s 31,000 correctional officers even as the state is negotiating new contracts, which could easily burden the budget with another $300 million.

In forecasting potential new gambling revenue, Hill slashed the state’s projected revenue from $314 million to $130 million. The analyst predicted that five Indian gambling compacts won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2008, or halfway through the budget year….

The analyst also found a calculation error in education spending to the tune of $366 million, and Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, called on the governor to restore the money….

Administration officials say they were “heartened” by Hill’s statement about the proposed sale of the state student loan guarantor EdFund for potentially $1 billion in one-time cash.

Hill said the proposal “merits consideration,” but raised concerns about the impact on students and staff….

By Judy Lin - Bee Capitol Bureau

Finance Director Mike Genest. Sacramento Bee/Brian Baer

The sooner lawmakers endorse a plan to lease the lottery to a private company, the sooner the state can raise cash and bring the budget in line, California’s finance director said Wednesday in promoting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s multibillion-dollar plan.

“I definitely think we can get it done,” Finance Director Mike Genest said in a breakfast meeting with The Bee Capitol Bureau. “I hope we do.”…

But Schwarzenegger left it out of his May budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Genest said, for fear of being called too “gimmicky,” “speculative” or “aggressive.”

Rather than giving up lottery revenue for the 40-year life of the lease in exchange for a huge upfront payment, Genest said the state will likely accept less and seek a revenue-sharing deal to secure education funding. Currently, the California Lottery generates $3.1 billion in ticket sales, of which $1.1 billion goes toward public schools.

“If a private entity came in to operate the lottery, they wouldn’t feel good about their future five, 10, 20 years from now if the state didn’t give a dang what happened to them,” Genest said. “They would like to have a partner in the state that cared that there was growth in the revenue.”…

Genest said the lottery lease idea marks the start of the administration’s interest in forming more partnerships with the private sector. The governor included the sale of a student loan guarantor business in his proposed budget to raise $1 billion. Genest did not rule out toll roads.

“We think there’s a great deal of potential for private sector to come up with large amounts of money to help us build infrastructure,” he said.

24. “May Budget Revise” (Forum, KQED-88.5 FM, May 18, 2007); features commentary by ELIZABETH HILL (MPP 1975) and MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); Listen to the program

In a special broadcast from KQED’s Sacramento studios, the program discusses the California state budget and deliberations over the May revise. Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

· Elizabeth Hill, legislative analyst for the State of California

· Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project

· John Myers, Sacramento bureau chief and capitol correspondent for KQED

· Mark Leno, California assemblymember from the 13th District in eastern San Francisco

· Mike Genest, director of the California Department of Finance

By James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer

Inmates sleep in three-high bunks in a gymnasium due to overcrowding at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, one the most overcrowded prisons in California.

As the costs for fixing the state’s troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone—for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities.

Based on current spending trends, California’s prison budget will overtake spending on the state’s universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities….

“I’m not defending the damn department,” said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, the chairman of a state Assembly committee overseeing the state’s prison construction efforts. “The department is a shambles. They couldn’t build their way out of a paper bag. Everyone has a reason to be skeptical. Everyone is holding their breath, hoping that this time they’re successful.”…

Michael Genest, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s finance director, said that he, too, was uncomfortable with the state committing such a large sum to prisons, but that mismanagement and failed rehabilitation programs in the past made it unavoidable.

“I don’t think it’s a good thing,” said Genest. “It’s unfortunate.”

He said that one of the key drivers was the fact that the state pays the guards and other prison employees far more than any other state, a policy choice the state had made in past years. In addition, he said, the porous border allowed too many lawbreakers from Mexico to enter the state, where they eventually ended up in prison.

But Genest defended the increases in spending as needed to institute better rehabilitation programs, which would eventually save money, although he said it was uncertain when or if they would show results.

“It’s not going to happen overnight, and no one can say how much it’s going to save,” said Genest. “But it should eventually save money.”…

“We all have a wish that prison spending would take a smaller percentage of our budget,” said Spitzer. “However, that’s a decade away, in my opinion. For another decade we’re going to need large infusions of money to deal with this and our off-the-chart recidivism rates.”…

26. “Healthcare Reform/Genetic Discrimination” (Talk of the Nation – Science Friday, NPR, May 11, 2007); program features commentary by KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982); Listen to the program

Many experts say the U.S. healthcare system is ailing. But is it terminal, or can it be saved? In this hour, the talk turns to prescriptions for a sick healthcare system, including a new plan proposed by a coalition of big businesses that would insure everyone. Several states are introducing health plans, but some say those plans will only work with reform at the national level. What steps would you take to overhaul healthcare in the US -- and deal with the nation’s 45 million uninsured people?…

Host: Ira Flatow

Guests:

Karen Pollitz

Research Professor

Project Director, Health Policy Institute

Georgetown University

Washington, DC….

27. “Growing Numbers on L.I.R.R. Ride Against Commuter Tide” (New York Times, May 10, 2007); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).

By Ken Belson

As city residents continue to take more jobs in the suburbs, the number of reverse commuters during the morning rush on the Long Island Rail Road has jumped 76 percent since 1998, according to a study to be released today….

“Metro-North has been very accommodating in handling reverse commuters because of the flexibility they have,” said Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant who has studied regional traffic patterns. “The L.I.R.R. has been constrained because of the capacity at Penn Station. It’s difficult to service other needs when you’re trying to meet your peak rush hour volume.”…

By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau

Despite administration denials, a top corrections official told a legislative hearing Tuesday that members of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s staff knew that construction had begun earlier this year on a new execution chamber at San Quentin Prison.

“I would say yes,” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Undersecretary Kingston “Bud” Prunty said, when asked if gubernatorial staff members knew about the project, even though corrections officials told reporters last month that they didn’t….

The execution chamber exploded into an issue last month after legislators learned that construction on the project had begun before anyone from the administration told them about it….

At least one death penalty supporter said Tuesday that the controversy over the death chamber appears to be designed as a backdoor effort to hold up the execution process.

“They’re using this as one more way to stop the death penalty in California,” said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange….

29. “Changes in parole urged to help ease crowding in prison. Top Democrat says governor should act” (San Diego Union-Tribune, May 8, 2007); story citing BRIAN BROWN (MPP 2003).

By Ed Mendel; Staff Writer

The Senate Democratic leader is urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to use his administrative power to change parole rules to ease severe prison crowding, possibly by as many as 8,100 inmates.

Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland, said Republican opposition kept parole reform out of a $7.8 billion plan to ease overcrowding through a building program and transferring some prisoners to other states….

About 70 percent of inmates released from California prisons return in three years, the highest recidivism rate in the nation. California and Illinois are the only states that put all released inmates on parole.

The governor’s budget proposal is expected to reduce the number of prison inmates because having fewer people on parole, now about 120,000, would reduce the number of people returned to prison for parole violations.

One reform, “12-month clean,” would shorten the three-year parole period for more parolees if they have no violations for a year. Under the other, “direct discharge,” some inmates who have served their sentence would be released without parole.

The governor has the power to expand the “12-month clean” program. But “direct discharge” without parole, which accounts for about 7,000 of the estimated reduction of 8,100 prison inmates, is not authorized under current law, said Brian Brown of the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

30. “State retiree liability pegged at $48 billion” (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 8, 2007); story citing MIKE GENEST (1980); http://www.sgvtribune.com/search/ci_5842871

By Harrison Sheppard, Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO - Over the next 30 years, California taxpayers will have to come up with an extra $48 billion to pay health benefits for state retirees, according to a new study by State Controller John Chiang.

The study, required under new federal accounting rules, found that next year alone, escalating health-care expenses for retirees will cost taxpayers an extra $3.6 billion.

Still, other officials say the study underestimates the future burden, which they say will range between $70 billion and $100 billion….

In the past, efforts to reform the pension and health benefit system have met with stiff opposition from the state’s powerful public employee unions. In 2005, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to switch the state’s pension system to a defined contribution plan, similar to a 401(k).

But after the unions charged that he was cutting off benefits to widows of firefighters and police officers, the governor quickly retreated and withdrew his plan.

This year, he has taken the more cautious approach of creating a commission to study the problem.

“As the governor has said, we have to find the best way to meet these obligations without harming other government programs and taxpayers—or handing the problem off to future generations,” state Finance Director Mike Genest said in a statement. “That’s exactly what the commission he created is in the process of doing.”…

There continues to be a great deal of confusion regarding the relationship between the state’s Academic Performance Index and the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s requirement that schools demonstrate Adequate Yearly Progress toward the goal of ensuring that 100 percent of students are fully proficient in English and math by 2013-14. (See “Fewer opt out of tests at schools,” April 29.) …

In fact, a school’s API has almost no impact on whether it makes AYP. Instead, this determination is primarily based on whether the percentage of its students scoring “proficient” or above in the English/language arts and math STAR tests meets or exceeds federally specified targets.

In addition, the school must: 1) achieve a specified minimum graduation rate (if it serves high school students), 2) show at least a one-point increase in its API, and 3) test at least 95 percent of its students. It is this latter requirement, not whether a school has a valid API, that is the real reason why it is so important to minimize the number of students not tested.

If more than 5 percent (not 10 percent) of [Davis High School] students fail to take the STAR test (as was apparently the case), it simply cannot make AYP. This is important because, if a school fails to make AYP for two or more years in a row, No Child Left Behind mandates increasingly severe interventions, ultimately culminating in the required restructuring of the school.

Contrary to the headline in last Sunday’s Enterprise, however, failure to make AYP has no bearing whatsoever on a school’s receipt of federal Title I funding.

The only nexus between AYP and Title I funding is that only schools that accept such funding are subject to the requirements No Child Left Behind. Thus, if DHS were to refuse Title I funds, it would no longer have to worry about AYP and its consequences.

Ray Reinhard

Davis

32. “Many foster youths face a future of homelessness” (Argus, May 6, 2007); story citing AMY LEMLEY (MPP 1998); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5831877

By Sara Steffens, MediaNews Staff

When a foster youth becomes homeless, no one social worker, guardian or child welfare department is to blame.

Like most states, California has failed to provide an effective safety net for the more than 4,000 children who age out of its foster care system each year.

In ordinary circumstances, young adults count on continued financial and emotional support from their families and are almost never completely on their own after turning 18….

By contrast, foster youths get a median of $5,000 in public support after aging out of care.

One study says that at least one in five former foster children become homeless within a few years of becoming legal adults. Other research, using broader criteria for homelessness, sets the figure at as high as half….

Two bills pending in the state Legislature this year could help prevent foster youths from becoming homeless.

One, AB845, would add $10.6 million to THP-Plus, a state-funded transitional housing program for former foster youths ages 18 to 24.

Right now, the program can house only 167 young adults statewide.

The new money, also recommended in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget, would expand that to 1,000 — enough for about a quarter of those who become homeless after aging out of foster care, said Amy Lemley, policy director at the John Burton Foundation for Children without Homes.

“It’s still not meeting the goal, but it would be a significant investment,” she said….

Another bill, AB1331, would allow teenagers with serious mental or physical disabilities to apply for Supplemental Security Income before aging out of foster care.

About 15 percent of youths leaving the foster system potentially are eligible for SSI, but only 3 percent receive the payments, Lemley said….

“For a youth with a serious mental health or physical disability, they’ve often just disappeared by then,” Lemley said.

Although not on the current legislative agenda, two larger reforms could brighten the future of foster youths, Lemley said.

The first is allowing youths to voluntarily remain in care until age 21, as New York and Illinois do. Because of California’s large caseload and the potential cost that would result, such a move likely would require federal support, Lemley said.

Equally important are efforts to support fragile families, keeping children out of foster placement in the first place, Lemley said.

“Foster care was never designed to be a long-term environment to raise children,” she said. “It just doesn’t have the rich support that a family provides. A family’s a lot more than just a program.”

Only a fraction of families contacted by child protective services departments end up having children removed from their home. New models offer voluntary services to the rest, and many take them up on it, Lemley said. Such strategies can be nudged along by waiving rules to allow federal child welfare dollars to be spent on children not in foster care….

By David Lazarus

If you’re a bottled-water drinker—and you know you are—do you know what exactly is in the bottle? Probably not.

One reason is because the bottled-water industry isn’t required to make such info readily available to consumers. It isn’t even required to let people know that much of the bottled water consumed in the United States is actually tap water.

“This doesn’t make sense to me,” said state Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro. “More and more, people are treating bottled water as their primary source of drinking water. They ought to be able to know what’s in it.”

To remedy this situation, she’s introduced legislation—SB220—that would require bottled-water companies to compile an annual “consumer confidence report” detailing results of water-quality tests….

The bottled-water industry opposes Corbett’s legislation. It says there are already plenty of regulations to keep consumers safe.,,,

Randy Kanouse, chief lobbyist in Sacramento for the East Bay Municipal Utility District, said the law needs to reflect the fact that bottled water now plays a vital role in the lives of millions of Californians. EBMUD is co-sponsoring Corbett’s bill.

“You don’t want to regulate bottled water like you regulate orange soda,” Kanouse said. “You want to regulate it like you regulate tap water.”

[Stephen] Kay at the International Bottled Water Association said there’s been no such demand from consumers, “and no instances where consumers have been placed at risk due to substandard bottled water regulations.”

Kanouse responded by citing the experience of his cousin, whose 8-year-old son has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. He said a doctor determined that the boy had an unusually high level of metals in his body and advised that steps be taken to limit further exposure.

“My cousin was able to find out from her municipal water supplier how much metal was in her tap water,” Kanouse said. “She couldn’t find out for bottled water.”…

34. “Political blogging growing like a vine - Blogs keep the young plugged in, but do they bring in votes?” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 4, 2007); column citing BRIAN LEUBITZ (MPP 2007).

By Jennifer Hunter; The Chicago Sun-Times

…When I walked into the California State Democratic Convention last Saturday in San Diego and saw all the bloggers, I realized that not only was I a Luddite, hauling around my ailing microcassette tape recorder, but that this trend of political blogging is growing like a kudzu vine, snaking around a dozen newspaper boxes… overnight.

Of the 400 media credentials handed out for the convention, 49 were given to bloggers, and that doesn’t include the traditional journalists who have blogs of their own….

It was the first time the California convention had set up a table specially for bloggers inside the hall where candidates spoke. In fact, one of the blogging groups, Calitics.com, had a bigger contingent—nine staffers—than any of the regional newspapers….

But blogging is also being embraced by most of the Democratic and Republican candidates in their attempt to catch the attention of the young. According to a study by Kristin Hanks, a graduate student at Indiana University School of Informatics, only 2 percent of campaign Web sites had blogs or “visitors’ comments” in 2002. Today, it’s 74 percent.

“The resources being expended on these Web sites are incredible,” says Brian Leubitz, founder of Calitics and a master’s student in public policy at the University of California at Berkeley….

35. “Cell phones, support make strong asthma medicine” (San Mateo County Times, May 4, 2007); op-ed citing SUSAN EHRLICH (MPP 1984); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5816434

By Adrienne J. Tissier [The writer is a San Mateo County supervisor.]

Across America, children do not breathe easily. The culprit is asthma, and May is National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month…. [O]nly one in five children has the disease under good control. Physicians often don’t realize how severe symptoms are. There’s a growing realization by physicians … of the need to shift the focus from asthma’s severity to managing care so that a child has no symptoms or limitations.

A remarkable story of success fighting asthma exists at the San Mateo Medical Center, San Mateo County’s hospital….

In 2005, physicians at the San Mateo Medical Center increased their efforts to help children with severe asthma. Then-current approaches weren’t producing the desired results, and a small number of children had symptoms so severe that they made multiple visits to emergency rooms.

After extensively examining medical records, the physicians identified 100 children ages 5 and up with significant problems. …30 were selected for intensive care management because they had multiple visits to the emergency room in prior years, and they were most at risk from their uncontrolled disease. These 30 children … were given lung capacity measurement devices…, cell phones, and extensive training in how to use these tools to evaluate and communicate their condition at any given time.

The cell phone prompts the child/parent at various times during the day through eight questions…. If problems are indicated, the phone rings. A case manager seeks more information. The cell phone also offers encouraging messages if the indicators are themselves encouraging, for example, “Doing great! You go girl!”

Over this past year, none of these children has experienced symptoms so severe as to require a visit to the hospital emergency room. Not one. ... Bottom line: These children are gradually learning how to take better care of themselves. Their health has improved….

This intensive support and cell phone pilot was sponsored by the California Healthcare Foundation, a nonprofit focused on demonstrating high-value solutions for serious medical problems. Parents and physicians in the region who may be interested in learning more about this asthma success story should contact Dr. Susan Ehrlich at the San Mateo Medical Center via e-mail at sehrlich@co.san mateo.ca.us. Patient support plus cell phone technology really can be strong asthma medicine.

36. “Politics, activists merge in agreement” (Oakland Tribune, May 1, 2007); story citing STUART COHEN (MPP 1997); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5791486

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen, MediaNews Staff

The Bay Area is infamous for its political brawls over transportation projects.

Just look at the new Bay Bridge, which won’t open for two decades after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake damaged the original span.

But the reconstruction of the Oakland freeway maze, portions of which melted in a fuel truck crash Sunday, seem likely to avoid protracted debate and delays.

In a rare moment of harmony, politicians, transportation leaders and environmental activists who push for transit investment agree the maze needs to be repaired as quickly as humanly possible.

“I wish I could make a statement about global climate change, but given how crucial the maze is to our transportation system, I don’t think people will have patience for a debate on reducing our dependence on automobiles right now,” said Stuart Cohen with the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition, an Oakland-based pro-transit, environmental lobbying group. “If we had time, we could talk about adding carpool and bus lanes, but there’s no political will to draw this out.”…

Santa Cruz, CA. At its March Board meeting, the Board of Directors of the Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC) declared a $3.7 million dividend to be paid to 2,707 nonprofit insureds in California. The dividend reflects better than anticipated claims experience in the policy years 2000 through 2002.

“When I founded NIAC in 1989, I had my sights on the announcement we are making today. I knew it would happen someday, I just didn’t know that it would happen so soon,” states Pamela Davis the Founder, President & CEO of NIAC….

“NIAC has changed the world for nonprofits in California. Just by its presence, it has stabilized the entire insurance market for us. Before NIAC began, we were at the mercy of a few capricious companies”, states Ken Berrick, CEO of Seneca Center for Children and Families. Seneca Center has been insured with NIAC since 1990.

Established in 1989, the Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC) is a 501(c)(3) charitable risk pool. Developed from Ms. Davis’ graduate school thesis at UC Berkeley, NIAC has grown to more than 5,500 nonprofits in California, $40 million in premium and is rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best….

By Erik N. Nelson, Staff Writer

As progressive-minded as the Bay Area is, one might expect regional transportation planners to embrace a law aimed at limiting suburban sprawl, relieving congestion and fighting global warming.

But in the litigious and competitive dimension where goals and reality collide, they’re agonizing over just such a measure.

State Assembly Bill 842, authored by a Sacramento-area legislator, asks that regional growth plans require people in newly developed areas to drive 10 percent less than people in the rest of the region.

If they do, the bill would give those regions a better shot at cashing in on $500 million approved by voters in November as part of the $2.85 billion Proposition 1C housing bond. That bond was approved as part of a $42 billion package of infrastructure bonds….

Even groups that have long fought for reductions in driving have some misgivings about the bill.

“It’s a great bill in terms of really forcing us to look at a broad range of strategies to reduce vehicle travel and climate change solutions,” said Stuart Cohen, executive director for the Oakland-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition. But the bill puts the area in “kind of in a bind because the bill could essentially punish the region financially.”

It could do that because the statistical models used by area agencies to calculate travel habits aren’t focused on individual parcels, so would not show driving reductions even if they were accomplished.

“Even if we wanted to do the right thing,” Cohen said, “the transportation models still wouldn’t predict a 10 percent reduction in driving.”

39. “Is China outdoing US in curbing carbon?” (Christian Science Monitor, April 27, 2007); story citing NED HELME (MPP 1971).

By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

If the United States starts charging people and businesses for the greenhouse gases they emit but China does not, America’s economy could fall behind its fast-growing Asian competitor.

It’s a crucial issue now bogging climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill. No lawmaker wants to push through laws that are likely to raise US energy costs and hand an advantage to global-warming scofflaws….

But new evidence suggests that, despite a fast-growing economy that could make it the world’s largest carbon-dioxide emitter as early as this year, China may be getting on board. In a bid to cut energy costs, boost energy security, and reduce air pollution, it could be essentially creating the largest greenhouse-gas-reduction plan on the planet.

Indeed, if the nation’s leaders follow through, it may be the US playing catch-up with China—not the other way around. “You hear people in Washington saying we can’t do anything if China doesn’t do anything to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP), a Washington think tank. “But that’s basically a myth. China is really doing quite a lot, not under treaty but on their own.”

Make no mistake, China’s greenhouse-gas emissions are projected to increase rapidly through 2020. With its roaring economy and demand for coal-fired power, China will surpass the US as the largest producer of greenhouse gases sooner than expected….

Yet China’s rate of growth in emissions could slow thanks to sweeping reforms, started in 2001, to slash energy use at cement, steel, and paper factories, and for automobiles, Mr. Helme’s group reported this week. Those reforms are on track to cut 168 million tons of greenhouse gases by 2010, says the CCAP.

That’s a pittance compared with the nearly 6 billion tons of carbon-dioxide China emits annually. But that amount nearly matches the Bush administration’s goal of reducing US emissions, voluntarily, by 183 million tons a year by 2010, says the CCAP report.

That small start may be just the beginning for China. Last year it embarked on a dramatic plan to boost energy efficiency 20 percent nationwide by 2010, a move that could eliminate as much as 1.4 billion tons of carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analysis.

“They’ve really done a lot already to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency,” says Mark Levine, who heads the China Energy Group at the lab….

China is … currently lagging behind its ambitious 2010 efficiency goals, Dr. Levine says. Instead of a 4 percent energy-efficiency gain, the nation achieved only a 1.2 percent cut last year, the first year of the program. But even if China gets only halfway to its goal, the reductions in emissions growth would be larger than the EU’s Kyoto goal of cutting 682 million tons annually by 2012, Helme say.

Such a large cut means China could end up by 2010 with “by far the most aggressive global warming pollution reduction policy of any country in the world,” Douglas Ogden, director of the China Sustainable Energy Program at the Energy Foundation, an organization in San Francisco promoting renewable energy and efficiency in China and the US, wrote in an e-mail….

…[I]f China’s new efforts were recognized, it might deflate what Helme calls a pair of “myths” that are inhibiting Congress from acting on global warming.

One myth, he says, is that developing nations like China aren’t taking meaningful action to curb emissions. Another is that China and other developing nations, like Brazil, will be pollution havens that suck jobs out of the US. (An exception to the rule so far may be India, he says.)…

But if Congress doesn’t recognize China’s actions, the US might end up delaying climate-change policy for no good reason, some say….

40. “Cost of living: Somers Point may double charge for birth certificates” (Press of Atlantic City, April 27, 2007); story citing KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982).

By Martin DeAngelis Staff Writer

About 5,000 people went or wrote to City Hall here last year, asking for official copies of their birth certificates….

[O]fficials say that just a small difference [from $10 to $20] in what they charge for all those official birth-certificate copies could add up to big money—and better service for customers….

If everything works the way [City Councilman Patrick Bingham] sees it … [he] believes that the city could bring in $150,000 a year for copies of vital statistics.

And again, if that sounds like big money, consider this: A recent study by Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute struggled to come up with an average price of having a baby in the U.S., an official there said. Because of medical variables and regional differences, Karen Pollitz explained, prices “were all over the map. ... But $10,000 to $15,000 was the range we kept tripping across.”

And even if your health insurance is paying most of that, when you see a bill for $10,000 for your baby, a $10 bump in the bill for the birth certificate has to be the least of your worries.

41. “Cashing in on history” (Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), April 22, 2007); story citing CRAIG WHITTOM (MPP 1985).

By J.M. Brown/Times-Herald staff writer

After staring at the tall cranes jutting over Mare Island’s dry docks every day for years on end, you might lose a bit of imagination about their luster.

But all it takes is a fresh set of eyes to show you what a moneymaker the rusty old relics might be.

Assistant City Manager Craig Whittom said he gleaned several good ideas Friday from heritage tourism experts who toured Vallejo to recommend how the city could turn historic assets into cash by promoting them as a historic destination.

Whittom said “more could be done to take advantage” of the historic lore of Mare Island and downtown, but it comes down to dwindling resources.

As the city targets deep cuts to public safety, transportation and nonprofit groups to shore up a $9 million deficit, finding money to spend on new tourism ventures would be difficult. But, Whittom said, he will continue to support groups who want to help market Vallejo’s assets.

“The city is not going to suddenly create a historic preservation department,” but officials will be cheerleaders for preservation groups, he said….

Carol Shull, the former keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, said Vallejo’s waterfront location and proximity to San Francisco and the Napa Valley make it a natural tourism destination….

Whittom said developers “are committed to maintaining the (historic) assets.” He noted that Triad, the downtown developer, was helping to restore the Empress Theatre, and Lennar Mare Island has worked to achieve a “balance between preservation and demolition.”…

42. “Central Eastside” (Oregonian, April 22, 2007); story citing JOE CORTRIGHT (MPP 1980).

Research by Portland economist Joe Cortright shows Portland attracted 25- to 34-year-olds at five times the national rate, outpacing other cool stops such as Seattle, San Diego and San Francisco.

By David Sarasohn

Dan Bernstine warmly remembers his first legislative session, in 1999, when a Republican Legislature actually put some more money into higher education.

“That year, we got a bump,” recalls the president of Portland State. “I’ve been cutting budgets ever since.”

It seems that after this session, the president of Portland State will be cutting again.

But it won’t be Bernstine. This summer, after 10 years, he’s leaving, moving to Pennsylvania to take over the company that runs the Law School Admission Test….

Which doesn’t mean that the people staying in the system aren’t tired of cutting—and wondering why, with a strong state economy and a Democratic Legislature that says all the right things about higher education, they’re likely to be hacking away at themselves one more time….

That situation’s unlikely to improve with the co-chairs of the Ways and Means Committee shaving Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s proposed capital budget from $325 million to $53 million, along with cutting $35 million from his proposed operating budget. Aside from the effect on any new construction, the $53 million also retreats before the system’s $640 million in deferred maintenance….

At rapidly growing PSU, and also at Oregon State, even the governor’s full budget produces cuts, as the institutions try to absorb more students without enough state support. Not wanting to reduce student access, the co-chairs’ budget fully funds the governor’s proposed financial aid budget.

The universities appreciate the financial-aid funding, says Jock Mills, director of government relations at Oregon State, but without resources and facilities to deal with the new students, “these funds and efforts are an empty promise.”…

44. “Dream Catchers” (New York Times, April 22, 2007); story and documentary citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978).

By John Merrow

Matters were simpler 100 years ago, when junior colleges were created to prepare deserving students for the final two years of a university. In fact, the very first public junior college, in Joliet, Ill., was set up in a high school, as the equivalent of grades 13 and 14.

Community colleges today do far more than offer a ladder to the final years…. And charged with doing the heavy remedial lifting, community colleges are now as much 10th and 11th grade as 13th and 14th….

According to the most recent federal statistics, 42 percent of public community college freshmen take remedial courses. Experts insist the number is vastly higher, because data collection is spotty….

In my visits to remedial classrooms around the country, I saw students wearing headphones, text-messaging and reading nonclass material during class time. On one occasion a class that began with 20 students had only six after the break. Most of the teachers told me they had not been trained to work with at-risk students. They were biology or English majors and, in one case, a college’s full-time Webmaster.

Classrooms like these do not surprise Nancy Shulock, who studies community colleges. A professor at Sacramento State University, she says two-year colleges “are trying to do remediation on the cheap.”

Her analysis: “They don’t have the money, and they don’t have the money because society thinks that it is cheap. It’s a circular logic that’s not going to get us out of this box.”…

On the day of her final, Krystal Jenkins [who had repeatedly failed in math but wanted to be a veterinarian] was nowhere to be found….

What happened here? Should Ms. Jenkins have been counseled into making a more realistic career choice? Would a different approach to instruction have made the material stick?

Professor Shulock admits the obvious but asks for understanding: “Community colleges are unprepared to teach the unprepared,” she says, “but who is doing it better?”…

[Reshma Tharani, 21] expects to graduate next month from New York University, prepared to teach either special education or elementary school. N.Y.U. is one of the nation’s most expensive colleges (tuition, room and board come to around $50,000 a year), but she has managed to pay a fraction of that.

Her strategy: she lived at home, worked part-time jobs, including telemarketing, and paid less than $2,000 a semester at Nassau Community College on Long Island….

“As the tuition has been going up more steeply in four-year institutions, community colleges are an increasingly attractive alternative for savvy kids who want to save money, “ says Prof. Nancy Shulock, of Sacramento State University. “They know what they need, know how to get it, and don’t need a lot of the student services community colleges are struggling to provide students. They can get through in two or three years and transfer.”…

But access to the high end is not necessarily a shoo-in….

Depending on what measures are used, only about 35 percent to 50 percent of potential transfers make it, according to a Department of Education study. A major hurdle is simple confusion. “A student could be ready to transfer to one institution,” Ms. Shulock says. “Then your life circumstances change and you move, only to find that the requirements are different at another college.” In many states, transferring credits is hit or miss. Unless a two-year college has an articulation agreement that makes a university comfortable with the material covered in its courses, transfer students are not likely to enjoy full credit for their efforts.

In California, Ms. Shulock says, “we do not have one standardized set of courses that a community college student can take and know they are transfer-ready to any of the 23 Cal State campuses or the 10 University of California campuses.”…

45.“Oregon’s bioscience: A boom or a blip?” (Oregonian, April 21, 2007); story citing JOE CORTRIGHT (MPP 1980); http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/117701250317670.xml&coll=7

-- Andy Dworkin

One problem with gauging Oregon’s chances for a $1 billion bioscience business: No one can agree how big the industry is today, in Oregon or nationwide.

The billion-dollar dream derived from assumptions that the U.S. biotech industry would grow from revenues of $47 billion in 1999 to more than $150 billion by 2006. Dr. Peter Kohler, then president of Oregon Health & Science University, cited those figures and said Oregon should win 1 percent of that growth, equal to its share of the U.S. population.

But the revenues of all U.S. biotech companies were only about $51 billion in 2005, according to a report by the accounting firm Ernst & Young.

Some people estimate a bigger industry, usually by folding in companies not typically thought of as biotech, said Joseph Cortright, vice president of Portland-based economic consultants Impresa Inc. The Biotechnology Industry Organization trade group, for instance, recently expanded its definition beyond drug makers and research labs to include companies that make tear gas, Bunsen burners, tapioca or margarine….

46. “Development Department opens office in Brentwood” (Contra Costa Times, April 20, 2007); story citing JASON CRAPO (MPP 1999); http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_5712351

EAST COUNTY -- Residents seem to appreciate the county coming to them instead of having to battle Highway 4 traffic to do their business in Martinez.

“The response is confirming that this is something that definitely will continue,” said senior deputy county administrator Jason Crapo of the presence that the county’s Community Development Department now has in Brentwood.

Employees from that department have started sharing space in the county’s Building Inspection Office, where area residents can bring their questions and plans for home additions….

Those specialists review architectural plans to ensure that a proposed room addition or other residential construction project is consistent with county zoning ordinances and doesn’t harm the environment….

The Brentwood site was the first of three satellite offices that the Community Development Department has established around the county, said Crapo, adding that it plans to open 10 to 12 altogether….

-- Rowena Coetsee

47. “Judge dismisses lawsuit by gun show promoters” (Oakland Tribune, April 19, 2007); story citing RICHARD WINNIE; http://www.insidebayarea.com/search//ci_5702319

By Chris Metinko, MediaNews Staff

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by two gun show promoters that challenged an Alameda County ordinance banning possession of guns on county property.

Russell and Sallie Nordyke brought the suit against the county because the ordinance outlawed their gun shows at the county’s fairgrounds in Pleasanton.

According to the ruling, the Nordykes’ gun shows were drawing up to 4,000 people when the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved the ordinance in 1999, following a July 4, 1998, shooting at the fair in which eight people were shot….

“I don’t think anyone can doubt the importance of this ordinance who reflects on what we’ve just seen happen at Virginia Tech,” Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie said. “All we are trying to do is prohibit firearms in public places where people should be safe. People should be able to walk around a park or the fairgrounds or a campus and feel safe.”…

By Mike Zapler, MediaNews Sacramento Bureau

When Blue Cross sells health insurance to someone who isn’t covered at work, the company typically makes a 27 percent profit. By the time salaries and other administrative costs are accounted for, only half the money the company collects in premiums from that person goes for medical care.

Those figures may help explain why Blue Cross—the insurance provider for roughly one in four people in the state who have health coverage, and with political heft in the Capitol to match—so far is the only major insurer opposing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s universal health care plan.

State records show that among the state’s top insurers, Blue Cross profits most from the current system—to the detriment, critics charge, of consumers. And so the company may have the most to lose if the governor succeeds in reforming the system….

Schwarzenegger’s plan could sharply curtail Blue Cross’ industry-leading margins in a few key ways. Among the state’s largest insurers, it would have by far the hardest time complying with a requirement that 85 percent of premium dollars go toward medical care. Blue Cross devotes significantly less than that—from 51 percent to 79 percent, depending on the type of insurance plan—according to financial data filed with state regulators….

Limiting profits and administrative costs to 15 percent, with the rest for medical care, ‘‘is going to force all plans to think about how they’re spending premium dollars,’’ said Ruth Liu, an adviser to Schwarzenegger and undersecretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. ‘‘We think it’s a legitimate request because we’re sending a lot of business their way’’ in the form of millions of newly insured people. ‘‘We’re not singling out any particular health plan.’’…

49. “Gasoline prices soften according to BOA report” (Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT), April 10, 2007); story citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

By Harlan Levy - Journal Inquirer

A new Bank of America report predicted Gross Domestic Product growth of about 1.5 percent through the first half of this year, gradually increasing to 2.5 percent to 3 percent by the fourth quarter.

“While the U.S. economic trajectory still favors a soft landing, the current soft patch has become somewhat more pronounced,” authors BOA Chief Economist Mickey Levy and Senior Economist Peter Kretzmer wrote.

A decline in retail in February and downward revisions to December and January sales, “in part the result of poor weather but also rising gasoline prices, further softened the outlook for aggregate demand in the first half of this year,” Levy and Kretzmer explained….

Levy and Kretzmer noted that the Fed has emphasized that the risk that inflation will fail to moderate as expected remains its predominant policy concern.

50. “Doctors Predict Fewer Taxi Craniofacial Injuries” (New York Sun, April 2, 2007); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).

By Gabrielle Birkner - Staff Reporter of the Sun

With most owners of gas-conserving hybrid taxis opting for security cameras rather than plastic partitions, some doctors expect to see a decline in craniofacial injuries, often caused when passengers slam into the bullet-resistant shields.

“I see not just broken noses, but broken faces,” an Upper East Side plastic surgeon, Paul Lorenc, said, referring to partition-related injuries….

In accidents, yellow cab passengers wearing seatbelts are twice as likely to sustain serious or fatal injuries as seatbelt-wearing riders of other vehicles, according to a 2006 city-commissioned study by Brooklyn-based Schaller Consulting. This gap, which is even wider among non-restrained passengers, could be “linked to the presence of partitions in most medallion cabs, which introduce a very hard surface in an otherwise cushioned environment,” the study said. Though crash rates for taxicabs are one-third less than those for other vehicles, 3,349 medallion taxi accidents involved injuries or fatalities in 2004…. Among those seriously injured in an accident, 68% of yellow cab passengers experienced head or face trauma, compared to 49% of those riding in liveries and 35% in other vehicles, another Schaller Consulting study released last year showed. In an interview, the principal of Schaller Consulting, Bruce Schaller, said partitions create “a very real safety hazard.” He said he favors giving more taxi owners the option to use cameras as a crime deterrent….

51. “Debate over taxi rules - Lawmakers propose bill that partially deregulates industry” (Rocky Mountain News (CO), March 13, 2007); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).

By Chris Walsh, Rocky Mountain News

Supporters of a push to relax taxi regulations in Colorado say the move could lower prices, bolster service and benefit cab drivers by opening up a market largely closed to new competitors.

Opponents argue the opposite will occur: A flood of new cabs will lead to price gouging at peak times and an overall erosion of service as drivers focus on higher-paying trips at the expense of shorter, less-profitable ones.

So which side is right?

Neither ... and both, say consultants, economists and transportation experts who have studied taxicab regulation….

Taxi regulation “must be carefully tailored to market needs and local conditions,” transportation consultant Bruce Schaller wrote in a study released last fall. “While there is much to learn from the experiences of other cities and counties, taxicab regulatory decisions also give heavy weight to each jurisdiction’s unique attributes.”…

In some cities, heavy regulation essentially created market dominance among only a handful of cab companies, leading to poor service for certain geographical areas. In other cities, deregulation created some of the same service problems and led to financial hardship for individual drivers….

“A lot of markets have ended up someplace in between” regulation and deregulation, said Schaller, who worked for nearly a decade as the director of policy development and evaluation at the New York City Taxi and Livery Commission. “One successful approach, possibly for an area like Denver, is to control who can service the airport and then open up the market elsewhere.”

52. “Women testify in favor of bill” (Topeka Capital-Journal, March 7, 2007); story citing TRACI GLEASON (MPP 2000).

By James Carlson - The Capital-Journal

A bill requiring pregnant minors and their companions to show photo identifications when the girl is seeking an abortion could help bring sexual predators to light, said Kathy Ostrowski, legislative director of Kansans for Life.

“An adult male who has criminally impregnated a minor should not be allowed to manipulate the state abortion law to shield his crimes,” Ostrowski said of the bill, which was heard Tuesday in the House Health and Human Services Committee.

But opponents of the bill said a small section about judicial bypass of parental notification would open the door for anti-abortion activists to harass judges….

… Currently, a minor has to inform one of her parents of her intent to abort a fetus. If she wishes not to tell her parents, however, she can petition a judge to waive notification.

A provision of the bill would mandate the courts report to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment how many bypasses were granted and break down that information by judicial district.

Traci Gleason, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said this could lead to anti-abortion protesters targeting judges.

“How can [judges] be expected to weigh the interests of a vulnerable minor against the specter of having Operation Rescue’s ‘Truth Truck’ circling their home?” she asked.

Gleason said 28 teens requested bypass in 2005, but Ostrowski said she knows of one judge alone who has granted 50 waivers….

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Climate Wise - Transportation’s Next Big Thing is Already Here” (GreenBiz.com, May 2007); op-ed by DAN KAMMEN; http://greenbiz.com/news/columns_third.cfm?NewsID=35189

by Daniel M. Kammen

In the 1970s the big thing in vehicles, fuels and the environment was “get the lead out,” an effort to remove lead from gasoline. After initial uncertainty and some opposition, the transition to unleaded fuels proved both remarkably easy and effective. I.Q. levels in children in urban America rose in direct response to the reduction in ambient lead levels….

A combination of technological innovation, economic, and environmental necessity is once again altering the vehicle efficiency landscape, and if sustained could significantly alter the energy and environmental footprint of transportation. The new wave of innovation is reminiscent past effort to “get the lead out,” only this time the focus is to “get the carbon out” of our transportation fuels and miles traveled.

Perhaps most interesting—and most hopeful—about the current wave of innovation: it seems so obvious once formulated. What could be simpler than regulating the carbon intensity of fuels, namely the amount of greenhouse gases per unit of fuel….

Based on the just-released Low Carbon Fuel Standard prepared by the University of California for the Governor, “regular” gasoline has a value of 85-92 g CO2 eq / MJ, while natural gas has a value of about 80 g CO2 eq / MJ. Electricity in California has an average value of 27 g CO2 eq / MJ (when used to drive an electric vehicle), and cellulosic ethanol derived from municipal solid waste is about 5 g CO2 eq / MJ.

Now we’re off to the races: set standards for the average fuel mix for a state, or nation, and then regulate the value down over time, much like the standards in the Clean Air Act….

Daniel M. Kammen is the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley. He co-directs the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and is founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. He has appointments in the Energy and Resources Group and the Goldman School of Public Policy.

MEETINGS of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for the American power utilities, do not normally make waves. But the one that took place at Scottsdale, Arizona, on January 10th of this year was different….

But this year the new chairman, Jim Rogers of Duke Energy, asked each of the 50 chief executives present what they thought the government should do about carbon. “It was pretty clear going round the table that the vast majority wanted to move on,” says Mr Rogers. Afterwards the EEI announced that it was calling for “regulation”. It balked at the word “mandatory”, but the implication hung in the air….

Attitudes in corporate America have changed in part because a federal system of controls has come to look like the lesser of two evils. America’s states have already started to legislate to cut emissions. California is leading the charge….

For companies, a diverse patchwork of state-wide systems is much harder to cope with than a single nationwide system…. And since the Democrats took over Congress last November, the chances of America adopting federal controls have risen sharply. Bills are proliferating. Dan Kammen, of the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California at Berkeley, says he has never had so many calls along the lines of: “I’m Congressman X and I need to write a high-profile bill on climate change. What should it say?”…

--Viktor Khristenko and Koíchiro Matsuura

… Germany, chairing this year’s G8 Summit, has declared Africa to be one of its prime concerns. For many in that continent, the “energy question” is literally a question of life or death. The lack of energy holds back Africa’s progress in every way—it bars the development of industry, and it cuts off its people from the benefits of the IT revolution, on which much of the world has come to depend….

Whilst Africa is rich in natural power sources (oil, coal, gas, but also water and sunshine), in rural areas, up to 95% of energy consumption is based on the harmful and inefficient burning of biomass (wood, animal dung, crop waste). Unless drastic steps are taken, the International Energy Agency expects the number of people who rely on biomass to increase steadily.

According to estimates of non-governmental organisations, many women in rural sub-Saharan Africa carry 20 kilograms of fuel wood an average of five kilometres a day. Researchers [Dan Kammen et al.] at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University have found that more than 1.6 million people worldwide, primarily women and children, die prematurely each year from respiratory diseases caused by the pollution from wood fires used for cooking and heating. By 2050, wood fires will release about seven billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere—six percent of the Africa’s total expected greenhouse gases. The transition from biomass fuels to kerosene and liquid propane gas alone could prevent 1.3 to 3.7 million premature deaths. The use of wind, solar and micro-hydropower would have further social benefits while reducing greenhouse gas emissions….

[See the study by Dan M. Kammen et al., “Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Impacts of Biomass and Petroleum Energy Futures in Africa,” Science, Vol. 308, April 2005.]

By Mark Matthews

May 29 - KGO - In Iraq tonight the month of May has become the worst month for U.S. casualties in two-and-a-half years, one of the deadliest months of the war.

It’s not the success the president had hoped for when he announced the surge….

So how will congress decide if the surge is working? …

[Retired Brigadier General] Raymond Franck, Naval Post Graduate School: “One of the key indicators I would look for in that case would be the quantity and quality of intel information that comes from Sunni sources on foreign fighters, especially al Qaeda.” …

But at U.C. Berkeley the Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy and an expert in national security says Washington lawmakers will be looking at another more important factor.

Prof. Michael Nacht, U.C. Berkeley Goldman School: “There has to be a decline in American combat fatalities, which is the essential measure.”

And Nacht says the insurgents will try to kill more Americans as September nears.

Prof. Michael Nacht, U.C. Berkeley Goldman School: “And if they do kill more Americans they will influence the debate and it’s not going to be positive for the president.”...

5. “US pre-school advocate to speak here” (The University of Melbourne Voice, Vol. 1, No. 6, 28 May - 11 June 2007); story citing DAVID KIRP; http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_4236.html

Professor David Kirp

A committed academic campaigner for universal, publicly-funded pre-school education, Professor David Kirp, will visit the University of Melbourne in June to give a series of professional and public seminars and forums.

David Kirp, a professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, is a leading US public policy commentator.

He strongly advocates a ‘kids-first’ policy where governments make a serious commitment to education – starting when children are born and following through to pre-school education and, eventually, to higher education.

He maintains pre-school is the cornerstone of education and stresses that it cannot be done ‘on the cheap’. Using untrained staff and scant resources, he warns, is not only worthless but could be harmful to children….

In September, his new book, The Sandbox Investment: The Universal Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics, will be published by Harvard University Press.

At Melbourne, Professor Kirp will give a public lecture, “National Curriculum in Early Childhood: What Could and Should Be Achieved?”, hosted by the University’s Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood (6 June) and a University public ‘conversation’ on “Does Pre-School Matter” (7 June)….

--Shawn McCarthy

Mark Rossetto of the Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation fills up a hydrogen fuel cell powered Ford Focus at the hydrogen fuel Pacific Spirit Station. (Rafal Gerszak/The Globe and Mail)

When California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger visits Vancouver next week, he and Premier Gordon Campbell will be touting the “hydrogen highway” as a key initiative in the pursuit of a more environmentally sustainable transportation sector....

Daniel Kammen, an environmental researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and adviser to Mr. Schwarzenegger, says hydrogen fuel cells could play an important role in transportation in the future, but expectations have to be tempered with a clear-eyed view of the challenges.

“It’s serious in the long term, but none of these people are going to be in office when it is anything more than an R&D [research and development] project,” Prof. Kammen said. “It’s part of the long-term strategy for sure, but it is definitely not part of the short-term strategy.”...

7. “Private equity tax loophole, take two” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 24, 2007); Listen to this commentary

Robert Reich got a lotta mail about his suggestion to tax private equity earnings as income. Seems folks think fund managers would just move that money offshore instead. He says if that’s the case, they should follow their cash and get the heck out.

ROBERT REICH: After suggesting a couple of weeks ago that the stratospheric earnings of equity-fund managers ought to be considered income rather than capital gains and therefore taxed at 35 percent rather than 15 percent, I was deluged with e-mails telling me the plan wouldn’t work. It would just drive fund managers into offshore tax havens....

Corzine and my other critics may have a point.... Maybe….

But I’ve been thinking a lot about the immigration bill now pending before Congress, especially the conditions undocumented workers will have to meet if they want to become American citizens. One of them is to pay all the taxes they owe....

So when the super-rich use offshore tax havens to avoid paying what they owe in taxes, they’re reneging on their duties as citizens. It seems only fair to me that the consequence of that kind of tax avoidance ought to be loss of citizenship....

MOON: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich teaches public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

By Kat Ballentine

Corn planting is up 15 percent from 2006 and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that the 90.5 million acres that will be planted this year will be the highest since World War II....

The fuel for the expansion of corn crops and production centers is politics. The federal government has legislated increased use of ethanol. In 2005 the United States used four billion gallons of ethanol and 140 billion gallons of gasoline. If corn is going to supplant the demand for cheap oil and natural gas, then according to various studies approximately 36 percent of the landmass will have to be devoted to corn production....

The team of Dan Kammen and Alex Farrell of the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley [with Michael O’Hare and Brian Turner] has made its model, the Energy and Resources Group Biofuels Meta Model (EBAMM), available to the public on its Web site.

The group defines the benefits of ethanol to greenhouse gas emission reduction as small (maybe ten to fifteen percent better than gasoline) and the commitment of large amounts of farm land as a small net energy gain that raises serious questions about the effects of soil erosion.

But they did find that producing ethanol from corn uses less petroleum than producing gasoline. “It is better to use various inputs to grow corn and make ethanol and use that in your cars than it is to use the gasoline and fossil fuels directly,” said Kammen, who is co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and UC Berkeley’s Class of 1935 Distinguished Chair of Energy.

“The people who are saying ethanol is bad are just plain wrong,” he said. “But it isn’t a huge victory - you wouldn’t go out and rebuild our economy around corn-based ethanol.”

The UC Berkeley researchers think the future of biofuels lies in the development of better ways to convert cellulose sugar polymers into simpler sugars, which could then be used to produce ethanol….

The transition would be worth it, the authors point out, if the ethanol is produced not from corn but from woody, fibrous plants: cellulose. Some grasses produce over three times as much energy per acre as corn. In theory producing ethanol from such grasses could be far more favorable in terms of both the ratio of energy out to energy in and also in terms of the size of the amount of land needed….

By Catherine Atkin

President, Preschool California

A vast body of evidence consistently shows us that, when done right, preschool is a proven investment in school success. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Governor Schwarzenegger included in his 2007-08 May Budget Revision a proposed $50 million increase for California’s state pre-kindergarten program—an investment that would make preschool programs available to more than 12,000 children in California.

The Governor and State Legislature worked together to pass Assembly Bill 172 last year, which invested an additional $50 million in increased access to pre-kindergarten programs for kids living in the areas surrounding California’s lowest-performing elementary schools. Once again, it is time for the governor and legislative leadership to work together to ensure this new installment for preschool remains in the final 2007-08 budget.

Effective pre-kindergarten provides eager young learners with early academic and social skills that prepare them for later learning. Pre-kindergarten is a time for children to learn about self-control, curiosity, cooperation, paying attention, and other skills that will prepare them for kindergarten and beyond. In a recent op-ed published in the San Jose Mercury News, UC Berkeley public policy professor David Kirp says that when you enter an effective preschool classroom, “you’ll marvel at how the teacher can stir kids’ imaginations.”...

10. “Housing’s Roof Won’t Cave In. Homeowners may well spend through the slump” (Business Week, May 21, 2007); commentary citing JOHN QUIGLEY;

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_21/b4035056.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

By Peter Coy

With builders, lenders, and realtors slashing jobs, the housing bust is a serious drag on the economy. But there’s a case to be made that despite the weakness in home prices, homeowners will keep spending enough to keep the economy on solid ground....

People look at the devastation in the housing sector and are amazed that there hasn’t been more damage to home prices. But that’s just it: Builders have borne the brunt of the slump by cutting the supply of new homes. Their cutbacks are keeping the growing backlog of unsold houses from getting completely out of control, thus sparing homeowners from having to lower their prices much, says Karl E. Case of Wellesley College.

Even if prices do fall significantly, it may not kill consumption, judging from research on past regional price declines by Case, Robert J. Shiller of Yale University, and John M. Quigley of the University of California at Berkeley. To their surprise, they found that while more housing wealth stimulates consumption, less doesn’t reduce it. “People get into a spending pattern given their level of wealth that is hard to adjust downward,” speculates Case....

11. “Student loans on a graduated scale” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 16, 2007); Listen to this commentary

Commentator Robert Reich says that by changing the rules on how student loans are paid off, more graduates could pursue their true callings and enrich their communities.

ROBERT REICH: One of my former students who graduates from business school next week has already landed a job with a private-equity firm paying $240,000 next year….

On the other hand, several of my students who will graduate next week tell me they would have liked to go into social work or into the nonprofit sector, or provide legal services to the poor. One had his heart set on becoming a painter. Another became passionate about archeology and had wanted to go on a dig in the Sahara. But they can’t do any of these things because they have tens of thousands of dollars of debt. They need jobs that pay the rent while they repay their loans....

But America’s increasing reliance on student loans to pay for higher education is directing millions of young people away from what they really want to do—from careers that could contribute a great deal to their communities and to the nation as a whole, but don’t get them out from under their college loans.

So here’s an idea: Make repayment of government-subsidized loans depend on how much money they earn. Say everyone has to pay 10 percent of their income for the first 10 years of their fulltime work. And then the loans are considered paid off....

Ryssdal: Robert Reich used to work for President Clinton. He’s got a job now teaching public policy at the University of California Berkeley.

12. “Special Report with Brit Hume” (Fox News TV, May 14, 2007); program features commentary by DAN KAMMEN; http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,272514,00.html

… Claudia Cowan, Fox News Correspondent (voice-over): U.C. Berkeley is on the verge of becoming the nation’s premier biofuel research center, beating out a who’s who of other top schools for the largest corporate funding package in American university history, 500 million dollars from energy giant B.P., formerly British Petroleum.

ROBERT BIRGENEAU, UC BERKELEY CHANCELLOR: It’s not good enough to do work in the laboratory. We have to figure out how to translate it to the marketplace. so we have to bring energy companies along. And that’s what we’re doing….

DAN KAMMEN, UC BERKELEY PUBLIC POLICY PROF: Berkeley is not selling out. Berkeley is finding a way to redirect what former oil companies are doing in a more sustainable way….

13. “Profiles. Branson’s Luck: The business world’s high roller is betting everything on biofuels” (New Yorker Magazine, May 14, 2007, pp. 114-125); story citing DAN KAMMEN; Read the abstract

By Michael Specter

… Despite recent increases in the production of ethanol and in the purchase of hybrids, the fundamental relationship between oil and prosperity remains unbroken. And so does a system of subsidies that discourages investments in alternatives. “I can’t think of an example in human history of a bad technology having been replaced by another product whose only improvement was a social good,” Daniel Kammen told me when we met recently in his office at the University of California at Berkeley, where he founded the Energy and Resources Group at the Goldman School of Public Policy. [Richard] Branson has hired Kammen and Daniel Prull, one of his graduate students, to devise a scheme of eliminating carbon emissions on Necker [an island owned by Branson]. New technologies arise out of ingenuity, sophistication, and need, Kammen argues, not necessarily because they are good for the planet. “Look at iPods,” he said. “They play music. But they do it in a useful, remarkably portable, digital way that serves many purposes—which is why they have spread through our world like a virus. We need to do that with alternative fuels; but, when you look at what most people are advocating, the changes—more use of wind power, and solar energy, for example—are simply not radical enough to create this contagion effect.”…

Daniel Kammen’s office is home to the pragmatic, hardheaded faction of the green movement. He is not romantic about saving the earth, and neither are many of his colleagues at Berkeley, who are only too aware that people need incentives to change their behavior. The Berkeley team helped write the legislation that has made California the most environmentally aggressive state with regard to cutting carbon emissions.

“It’s hard to stress fully enough Richard’s importance right now,” Kammen told me. “What is still lacking here is what I call the ‘third wave’ of environmentalism. The first wave was Rachel Carson: recognizing the problem, and understanding that we need to protect the environment. That led to Stage 2: the system of regulations and taxes that helped make it possible to implement the Clear Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other vital legislation.” They all worked very well, and the environment improved immensely. But regulation has its limits. “Kyoto is not going to save us,” Kammen said. “No global treaty is going to be sufficient. We also need a couple of big actors.” Political decisions like implementing carbon taxes, lowering speed limits, and raising mileage requirements for motor vehicles will all be essential. “What we need more, though is a charismatic megaphone,” Kammen said….

At present, Kammen explained, the national power grid flows in one direction, from big central utilities to the consumer. That prevents people with solar panels, say, or windmills from selling excess energy back into the system. “The model we want for the energy market is more like eBay,” Kammen told me. “Sell what you don’t use to somebody who wants it. If I can sell power to my utility by demonstrating that I regularly put power into the grid at 4 P.M. on a hot summer day—when demand goes up and it costs the most—that is worth knowing. We could have a rating system, just as they do on eBay, that would let people judge us with confidence as we sell our excess. Renewable sources of energy would go from being the last thing a utility wants to take on board to being the first, because it would cost the utility next to nothing.” If California and other states adopted policies that strongly supported plug-in hybrid automobiles, there would be much more demand for clean electricity at night (so people could charge their cars at times when energy was less expensive to use). That would provide a huge incentive for people to install wind farms on their real farms….

By Jeff Brown, Special to the Washington Post

Architect Kendall Wilson believes in protecting the environment. When he designs a house or office building, he makes a point of using energy-efficient designs and sustainable materials, such as bamboo instead of oak.

So when Wilson, 50, had his company on its feet and was ready to start building up his retirement savings a few years ago, he wanted his holdings to support his environmentally friendly values. The Alexandria resident and his financial adviser settled on Winslow Green Growth, a mutual fund that owns stock in small companies in the wind power, solar energy and other “green” industries....

Whether social investing results in changes to corporate policies is the subject of debate.

Theoretically, banning a stock should reduce demand for shares, driving down the price and spurring a company to mend its ways. In fact, social investing, though growing, is too small a niche to have much clout, according to many who have studied it.

“I don’t think it has any effect on share prices,” said David Vogel, a professor of business ethics at the University of California at Berkeley who has studied social investing. “I think there’s very little evidence that it’s changing the world….No tobacco firm is going to stop producing tobacco.”...

15. “Close the private equity tax loophole now” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 9, 2007); Listen to this commentary

Lisa Napoli: Private equity buyers are swarming around the phone company Alltel. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that suitors are holding meetings with the $22 billion phone company. Meanwhile, how to account for the incomes of private equity partners is the subject of informal meetings on Capitol Hill this week. Marketplace commentator Robert Reich has some advice for them.

ROBERT REICH: Way back in the 1970s, newly-minted MBAs with dollar signs in their eyes wanted to be CEOs....

Now, it’s private equity.

Why? Well, the average big-company CEO has to do with a measly $7 million a year, taxed at 35 percent. But private-equity partners raking in hundreds of millions a year are taxed at 15 percent—less than the tax rate paid by middle-class Americans.

And what exactly do private-equity partners do? They use the investment money of pension funds and college endowments and wealthy investors to buy up publicly-held companies and turn them briefly into privately-held companies….

And then a few years later, the private-equity partners resell the company to the public—usually at a big profit, with a fat cut of billions of dollars for themselves.

And those billions are only taxed at 15 percent. That’s because those billions are considered a capital gain from investment. And courtesy of the Bush tax cuts, that tax rate is the lowest ever….

Now, the tax-writing committees of Congress are taking a look at this giant loophole and private-equity partners are besieging them.

And of course, screaming: “No! You can’t do this to us. We won’t work as hard if we’re taking home only $60 million a year instead of $80 million. And that will cripple the American economy.”

Baloney.

Napoli: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich now teaches public policy at the University of California Berkeley….

16. “Lawmakers quietly considering universal preschool” (Mercury News, May 7, 2007); op-ed by DAVID KIRP; http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_5836386?nclick_check=1

By David L. Kirp

After California’s voters last June defeated a $2.3 billion universal preschool initiative, Proposition 82, the issue of early education seemed dead. But reports of its demise have proved premature.

The debate over how much to spend on pre-K and for which kids is now in the hands of the state politicians, and the issue will resurface this week when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger releases his revised 2008 budget….

Clearly he got the message: there’s a mountain of evidence that preschool, when done right, can achieve small miracles that have lifelong implications. “By investing in our preschoolers, reaching out to the parents, we can give our kids a really strong foundation for education and a strong foundation for their life,” he said.

Schwarzenegger pledged a $50-million-a-year expansion of the preschool budget for each of the next three years ….

Some modest fixes working their way through the legislative labyrinth have a better chance of becoming law. These measures aren’t the stuff of sound bites, but they’ll make for a better pre-K program.

One bill obliges California to collect the basic information—which kids are going to what caliber of preschools—needed for policy-makers to improve the program. Another awards scholarships to preschool teachers working toward their college degrees and also pays off the college loans of pre-K teachers. That’s a particularly important and doable reform. Preschool teachers have always been the least respected and worst compensated in the field—glorified babysitters, their critics call them—yet the quality of pre-K teaching is crucial in determining whether it’s a godsend or a hoax….

17. “Carbon sequestration report” (PRI’s The World, May 4, 2007); features commentary by DAN KAMMEN; listen to the story

It seems everyone is worried about decreasing his carbon footprint. What if we could literally remove the carbon dioxide from the air? That’s the idea behind carbon sequestration. One method would transfer CO2 from the air to the ocean depths. Jason Margolis reports.

…Like plants on land, phytoplankton takes in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. The thought is that if we could stimulate more phytoplankton to grow in the ocean, we could remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Engineering professor Ian Jones of the University of Sydney thinks it could work. Jones is working on an experiment to deliver the nutrient nitrogen to phytoplankton. “We propose to deliver it by ship or after a little while by pipeline from factories at the seaside.” Some California companies are also experimenting with delivering iron to phytoplankton…. But Ken Bissler, senior scientist at Wood’s Hole Oceanic Institute at Cape Cod, says there’s just not enough research done yet. The nutrient doesn’t always reach the depths of the ocean. “And if you change the ocean from blue to green, that will change its ecology…”

Dan Kammen is a professor with the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley. He understands why removing carbon dioxide from the air sounds appealing. “Carbon sequestration is the thing that would allow us to continue with our use of fossil fuels somewhat guilt-free.”

But Dan Kammen says what we should concentrate on are technologies that we know work, like wind or solar energy. He says it’s fine to research other methods like carbon sequestration, but he just doesn’t see any near-term promise in them. “So I’m pretty skeptical over a lot of these methods, like burying carbon under the sea floor or giving creatures in the ocean the nutrients they need. These are all possible, but the number of downsides are pretty high, and there are many things that we know essentially nothing about that might take us years or even decades to figure out.”

Today’s IPCC report echoes that sentiment. It says: “Options such as ocean fertilization to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere are speculative and unproven, and with the risks of unknown side effects.”

18. “Wall Street’s up, Main Street’s down” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [NPR], May 2, 2007; listen to the commentary

Kai Ryssdal: Of the last 24 trading days on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has finished higher than where it started 21 times. Today’s close of 13,211 was yet another record high. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 are on quite a run themselves. But commentator Robert Reich would like to point out that raw stock market numbers really have very little to do with the economy most of us live in.

ROBERT REICH: I’m spending my spare time these days debating supply-siders who are convinced that the record-breaking Dow proves the correctness of the Bush tax cuts.

Yes, the Dow did reach a record high last week. But the Commerce Department also reported that economic growth slowed to its weakest pace in four years. Now how can investors do so well, while the real economy is doing so poorly?

My supply-side friends don’t have an answer, but I do. It’s because of two great decouplings that have occurred in recent years. First, the rest of the worlds’ major economies have decoupled from the United States economy. China, India, Japan and Europe are now such large markets they can grow briskly even as America slows.

Second, America’s largest corporations have decoupled from the United States. Their overseas subsidiaries are booming, even as their American operations languish....

Ryssdal: Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley. He was secretary of labor during the first Clinton administration.

By Matt Richtel

SAN FRANCISCO — Can plankton help save the planet?

Some Silicon Valley technocrats are betting that it just might. In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean. It is an idea, debated by experts for years, that still sounds like science fiction—and some scholars think that is where it belongs….

The financial returns for reducing carbon could be considerable, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley….

“The cost of offsetting carbon through these technologies is less than the cost of building solar panels or windmills,” Mr. Kammen said. “There’s no question that this is going to grow,” he said of various carbon offset strategies….

[This story also appeared in the <a href=“http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/01/news/plankton.php“>International Herald Tribune</a>]

FACULTY SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & EVENTS

May 21-22 RUCKER JOHNSON spoke on “Income and Family Support for Children” at the National Summit on America’s Children, at the invitation of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

May 27 ROBERT REICH gave the commencement address at Pacific Lutheran University.

May 31 DANIEL KAMMEN moderated the panel, “Driving Growth: How Alternative Clean Energy Solutions Can Fuel Your Business Success,” at the Pacific Economic Summit, attended by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Premier Gordon Campbell, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

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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Annette Doornbos

Director of External Relations and Development