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1. “Global Financial Market Turmoil:
A Panel Discussion”
Panelists:
George A. Akerlof (Moderator), J. Bradford DeLong, Aaron Edlin, Barry Eichengreen, John
Quigley, Nancy Wallace
The Program will be webcast and a video recording of it will
be available for on line viewing at:
BCLBE website: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/bclbe/
CIG website: http://igov.berkeley.edu/
2. “Race and Space: Residential Location and Labor Market
Outcomes”
Colloquium | October 2 |
Steven Raphael,
Professor of Public Policy,
John Quigley,
Interim Dean,
Sponsor: Center for Race and Gender. Event Contact:
510-643-8488
3. “Career and Internship Opportunities in Local Government”
Q&A with GSPP alumni working in
October 3,
Presented by Women in Public Policy (WiPP).
Panel Speakers:
·
Nani Coloretti, Mayor’s Budget Director, Mayor’s Office of
Public Policy and Finance (MPP 1994)
·
Leo Levenson, Budget, Revenue, and Reconciliation Director,
Office of the Controller (MPP 1990)
·
Sandra Naughton, Senior Planner and Policy Analyst, Department
of Children, Youth and Their Families (MPP 2004)
·
Adam
Nguyen, Planning and Evaluation Analyst, Human Services Agency (MPP 2007)
·
Merrick Pascual, Budget Manager, Office of Economic and
Workforce Development (MPP 2005)
·
Todd Rydstrom, Assistant General Manager & Chief
Financial Officer, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (MPP 2000)
·
Greg
Wagner, Senior Fiscal & Policy Analyst, Mayor’s Office of Public Policy
and Finance (MPP 2004)
4. “Political Rhetoric and Civility in the 2008 Presidential
Election”
Homecoming Weekend:
Speakers: Henry Brady,
Professor of Public Policy, co-director of the Class of ‘68 Center on Civility
& Democratic Engagement at the Goldman School of Public Policy; Bruce Cain, Heller Professor of
Political Science, Co-Director of the Class of ‘68 Center on Civility &
Democratic Engagement; Robert Reich,
Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy.
Sponsored by the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Class of 1968. Event contact: 510-643-1674
5. “
Special Event | October 14 |
Professor Robert
Reich, Goldman School of Public Policy, former Secretary of Labor, is the
author of 11 books including “Locked in the Cabinet” and “Supercapitalism.
Professor Reich will read from his works, be interviewed about his writing
process, and take questions on writing from the audience. Event Contact:
510-642-0875
6. “FRONTLINE Investigates What Big Business is Doing to Address Climate Problem”
FRONTLINE Presents HEAT.
Dan Kammen and UC
Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate
Energy Lab are featured in the PBS documentary.
On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and
correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world’s largest corporations
and governments are responding to Earth’s looming environmental disaster. See preview
7. 10th ANNUAL ALUMNI RECOGNITION
DINNER
The Bancroft Hotel,
2008 Alumnus of the
Year: Mike Genest
(MPP 1980), Director of Finance, State of
8. GSPP Fall Alumni
Reception at APPAM Fall 2008 Conference
Wilshire
Grand
RSVP by
9. Washington, DC Networking
Reception
University of
RSVP by
10. “Our Environmental Destiny: Mario
Savio Memorial Lecture”
December 4 |
The 12th
annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture will feature
leading environmental defender Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr. Doors open at
Sponsor: Mario Savio
Memorial Lecture Fund
The evening
includes a presentation of the Mario Savio Young
Activist Award, which recognizes young people engaged in the struggle to build
a more humane and just society. Event Contact: 510-642-3394
ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS
1. “Supes races key to board’s
political tilt” (San Francisco Chronicle,
2. “Oakland budget may cut jobs, close some parks” (San
Francisco Chronicle, September 27, 2008); story citing MARIANNA MARYSHEVA-MARTINEZ (MPP 2000); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/27/MN5P1367MT.DTL
3. “Deal stalls on
4. “Deficit could top $1 trillion” (The
5. “
6. “No quick return for
7.”Pumping Hydrogen” (New York Times,
8. “Global Philanthropy Forum: Women, Children and Conflict”
(It’s Your World—World Affairs Council, KQED-88.5 FM,
9. “Lehman’s loss, Wells’ gain? - Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp
and other regional banks may find opportunities and profit after the extreme
makeover that’s changing the face of U.S. finance” (Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- September 21, 2008); story citing MICKEY
LEVY (MPP 1974); http://www.startribune.com/business/28666389.html?page=2&c=y
10. “Troubled times for McClatchy. CEO says Bee parent faces ‘biggest
challenge in its modern history’” (Sacramento Bee, September 21, 2008); story
citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981/JD
1982); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/1251597.html
11. “Bush: Plan will ease pressure on banks” (Connecticut
Post,
12. “US Budget Recap: Paulson Plan Awaited;
Fiscal Consequences?” (The Main Wire, Market News
International, September 19, 2008); story citing STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).
13. “Study says greening will raise state’s economy” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
14. “
15. “Residents voice concerns, issues at town hall meeting” (Piedmonter,
16. “Candidates’ comments center on economics; Obama, McCain
try to reassure voters on finances” (
17. “Wall Street’s turmoil tests McCain” (Christian Science
Monitor,
18. “Drill with caution, poll of Westerners finds” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
19. “Free Wi-Fi in S.F. expands to Tenderloin” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
20. “The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems
Announces 2008 Broad Residency Class” (Business Wire, September 16, 2008);
newswire citing honor to AMY VASSALOTTI
MALEN (MPP 2005); http://www.broadresidency.org/about-residents-alumni/2008/amy_malen.php
21. “The Farm Foundation holds a forum focusing on issues
rural residents face in accessing health insurance, including cost, quality,
and implications for other rural businesses and healthcare providers” (The
Washington Daybook, September 16, 2008); event featuring KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982).
22. “
23. “Finding Zenn in the slow lane
of
24. “Bill for water fixes stuck in limbo” (Oakland Tribune,
September 12, 2008); story citing RANDY
KANOUSE (MPP/JD 1978); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_10449867?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com
25. “Mr. Clean. Michael Wilson wants the chemical industry to
make products safe before they get to the market” (California Magazine,
September/October 2008); story citing report coauthored by DANIEL CHIA (MPP 2004) and BRYAN
EHLERS (MPP 2004); http://www.alumni.berkeley.edu/California/200809/snell.asp
26. “
27. “Neighborhood brothels in S.F. hard to stop” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
28. “Ousted state student aid board reinstated” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
29. “Voters Weighing Obama, McCain Tax Plans” (Christian
Science Monitor,
30. “Galt to seek greener housing” (Sacramento Bee,
31. “Letters: Sickening loophole on salmon fishing”
(Sacramento Bee,
31. “Comcast’s new bandwidth limit irks some users” (Star
Tribune (
32. “Schools volunteer handbook ready for release” (Alameda
Times-Star,
33. “Opponents fire back at SMART rail plan in court filing”
(Marin Independent Journal,
34. “Public ‘entitled to accountability’” (The Irish Times,
35. “Agriculture businesses top Cap list for payouts” (The
Irish Times,
36. “Lockheed Martin-led Team to Support Department of Energy
under New Hanford Mission Support Contract” (PR Newswire,
37. “Donors, recipients seek to ensure global aid funds not
wasted” (Agence France Presse—English,
38. “
39. “AmerenUE signs three-year $77
million energy efficiency contracts with Lockheed” (Electric Utility Week,
40. “Empowering women with plastic surgery?” (The Fresh
Journal, Summer 2008); food & wellness analysis
and commentary by DAVID BELLER (MPP
2007); http://thefreshjournal.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
41. “Sen. John McCain’s healthcare plan isn’t orthodox
Republican, but it does pay attention to free-market principles. Problem is, healthcare is anything but a free market” (Fort Worth
Star-Telegram (TX) -
42. “Official: Cover
43.”Director to focus on environment issues” (Press Democrat
(
44. “Outlining the tax platforms” (Journal Inquirer (
45. “Household income rose in 2007 - but inflation erased
most of region’s financial gains” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
46. “Wikimedia pegs future on education, not profit” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
47. Letters to Datebook: Farber fans” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
48. “State gas prices drop below $4 today” (San
Francisco Chronicle,
49. “Regents suggest college tuition, fee increases”
(Savannah Morning News (GA) -
50. “Local agencies affected by state budget impasse”
(Oakland Tribune,
51. “Shifting to a Greener Attitude on Tire Ratings”
(Washington Post,
52. “ATV bill fails to muster support. Bill that aimed to
improve safety for youngsters at Oceano Dunes fails
to muster state support” (Tribune (
53. “
54. “City of
55. “Minneapolis Public Schools’ Arts for Academic Achievement
to Host Creativity Summit” (Targeted News Service,
56.”Photo and oral history exhibit explores farming life”
(Oakland Tribune,
57. “12South considers long-term growth” (Tennessean,
58. “Far-Offshore Drilling Legislation Earns Praise. Will
Benefit Taxpayers, U.S. Economy, Natural Gas Spokesperson Says” (Targeted News
Service, August 1, 2008); news release citing R. SKIP HORVATH (MPP 1976).
59. “The Downside of Redshirting. The Trouble with Older
Kindergarten” (Slate Magazine,
60. “Scottish Study Shows Ban Reduced Hospitalizations”
(American Health Line,
61. “Natural Gas Supply Association Warns that America Will
Still Need More Natural Gas” (Targeted News Service, July 30, 2008); news
release citing R. SKIP HORVATH (MPP
1976).
62. “Economic Stimulus, Round 2? Rumblings about a possible
second boost prompt economists to look at alternatives to the ‘tax rebate.’”
(The Christian Science Monitor,
63. “WTO powers seek compromise trade deal amid widespread
skepticism” (Associated Press Worldstream,
64. “U of L, builder team on housing. 500 units for students
planned” (Courier-Journal (
65. “ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Lockheed Martin’s Grumbly discusses company’s work
in efficiency sector” (E&ETV’s OnPoint Vol. 10 No. 9, E&E News PM,
66. “California PUC ALJ’s draft
plan sets high performance level for efficiency” (Electric Utility Week, July
7, 2008); story citing DAVID GAMSON
(MPP 1986).
67. “Landmark Ventures Takes ‘Charity’ to the Next Level
through Program that Inspires Social Responsibility; Annual ‘Doing IT for Good’
Event to Raise Awareness for Year Up” (Business Wire, June 24, 2008); newswire
citing JAY BANFIELD (MPP 1997).
68. “Wind May be Salvation of Aging US Power Grid” (Natural
Gas Week,
69. “Hatch, Rockefeller Divide Over States’ Role in Health
Insurance Reform” (CongressNow,
70. “Governor Schwarzenegger Supports Oil Spill Cleanup
Legislation for Marine Wildlife and
71. “Experts pessimistic about I.E. economy” (Sun, The (
72. “Close 5 Police Stations for Safer S.F., Study Says” (San
Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 2008); story citing PEG STEVENSON (MPP 1994); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/14/MNIT10LJJR.DTL
73. “Vallejo City Council Votes for Bankruptcy” (The Bond
Buyer,
74. “Life and the Single Dad. Greg McClain strives to model
what a dedicated African American father might look like, making use of the
village his wife, Amy, had built” (San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2008);
story citing AMY MUCKELROY (MPP
1994); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/27/CM7IVG2J9.DTL&hw=amy+muckelroy&sn=001&sc=1000
75. “International Deforestation” (CQ Congressional
Testimony,
76. “Costs and parking problems stymie
77. “No end in sight for racial divide - Former President
Bill Clinton tried to heal racial wounds but is now thought by some to be
rubbing salt into them instead” (Buffalo News, April 13, 2008); story citing DAVID CAMPT (MPP 1988).
78. “Center for Clean Air Policy is Awarded Grant From
Rockefeller Foundation to Help Local Communities Build Resiliency to Climate
Change Impacts” (Ascribe Newswire, March 18, 2008); newswire citing NED HELME (MPP 1971).
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
1. “Robert
Reich on the financial crisis” (The 7.30 Report, Australian Broadcasting
Corporation,
2. “Can Obama Heal the Economy?” (Race for the White House with David Gregory, MSNBC, September 29,
2008); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26948341#26948341
3. “The New Shape of Capitalism to Come” (It’s Your World-a World
Affairs Council talk, KQED-88.5 FM, September 29, 2008); program features ROBERT REICH; http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=RD58
4. “Roundtable: What’s Next for Economy?—Debating
the Bailout” (This Week with George Stephanopoulos,
5. “The $700bn question. Never before in the
history of US capitalism has so much been asked of so many for so few” (The
Guardian [
6. “
7. “Why Climate Change Could Wither
8. “A Simple Question” (Congressional Quarterly
Today,
9. “Budget problems expected again next summer” (San Francisco Chronicle,
10. “Democrats: Bailout support is costly”
(Washington Times,
11. “Wall Street Bailout” (Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC,
12. “A Wall Street Week of Biblical Proportions.
With Talk of an Impending Financial Armageddon, the Gov’t
Takes Unprecedented Action. But Where Will It Lead?” (Sunday Morning, CBS News,
13. “Reich
says Wall Street solution must include more transparency” (Oakland Tribune,
14. “The free market’s not always the fair and
honest market” (Los Angeles Times,
15. “Advisers give clue to candidates on economy”
(
16. “Bovvered in
boardroom” (Tribune Magazine [
17. “Experts Assess Impact of Wall Street
Meltdown” (Voice of America News,
18. “Bush economic advisors meet with Pelosi”
(KGO TV,
19. “Dems lead voter
sign-ups in key states” (The Arizona Republic
20. “What Next For AIG?;
Interview With Former Labor Secretary Robert
Reich” (CNN,
21. “Berkeley Approves City-Backed Loans for
Solar Panels” (New York Times, September 17, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN and program developed by CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18solar.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Berkeley&st=cse&oref=slogin
22. “
23. “Presidential Contenders Call for Financial
Industry Regulation” (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS,
24. “Schwarzenegger to Veto Budget and Other
Bills” (New York Times,
25. “Robert
Reich: Government Needs to Rebuild Trust in the Markets” (U.S. News &
World Report,
26. “Economic Storm” (Rachel Maddow
Show, MSNBC,
27. “Robert Reich easily captivates
audiences at two welcome events for grad students” (eGrad,
September 2008, volume 8, number 1); story citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/publications/egrad/0908.shtml#4
28. “Foreclosure crisis could cause votes to be
lost” (KGO TV,
29. “American Universities Falling Behind in
Clean Energy Research” (SustainableBusiness.com News,
30. “D.C. Election Glitch Blamed on Equipment. No
Change in Outcome Despite Phantom Votes” (Washington
Post,
31. “UC Berkeley hosts federal task force on
sustainable energy. Decades of potential progress have been “frittered away,”
said Berkeley’s Dan Kammen”
(Berkeleyan,
32. “DNA firms step up security over bioterrorism
threat” (New Scientist,
33. “Kammen:
34. “Fannie & Freddie Bailout Good for
Economy” (KCBS Radio,
35. “Questions remain on Palin vetting” (Washington Post,
36. “
37. “Convention roles of corporate reps” –
Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace
[NPR],
38. “A theme of service. Republicans pay tribute
to military veterans, say Gustav shows Katrina’s lessons learned” (Denver Post,
39. “The war against preschool” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
40. “Obama gives unions a Labor Day boost. He courts their votes to win
41. “Inside the Future of Electric Cars, Hydrogen
and Next-Gen Biofuels” (Popular Mechanics, September
2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4279508.html?page=1
42. “What Should Uncle Sam Do?;
Newsweek’s Business Roundtable takes
stock of the real damage—and offer solutions to the economic crisis” (Newsweek
U.S. Edition,
1. “Supes races key
to board’s political tilt” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
The most contested of those three races involves the seat vacated by
Ed Jew last year….
The winner of the District Four seat will almost certainly be either
the woman handpicked by the mayor to replace Jew, or the man who lost to Jew in
a 2006 runoff election.
Carmen Chu was appointed by Mayor
Gavin Newsom in September 2007….
“We have many working families in this district, and for me it’s
really important to protect the things that are very much about the family,
like making sure our streets are safe and that we have good opportunities for
kids,”
District 4 Carmen Chu, 30
-- Experience: Former
deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Public Policy and Finance; helped
create the mayor’s 311 city information program; former public finance
consultant; has a master’s in public
policy from UC Berkeley.
-- Positions: Primary
campaign focus is on middle-class issues, including ongoing park renovations,
especially at
-- Web site: carmenchu2008.com
2. “Oakland budget may cut jobs, close some parks” (San Francisco
Chronicle, September 27, 2008); story citing MARIANNA MARYSHEVA-MARTINEZ (MPP 2000); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/27/MN5P1367MT.DTL
--Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer
Mayor Ron Dellums
says he tried to protect police and fire services as much as possible. (Damian Dovarganes / AP)
(09-26)
“At the end of our review, we came to the conclusion:
The mayor’s review of the city’s finances began after Dellums fired City Administrator Deborah Edgerly in July amid a police investigation into whether
she had tipped her nephew to a gang investigation and after The Chronicle
obtained a finance report that showed she had overestimated revenue projections
for this fiscal year by $38 million….
Former budget Director Marianna
Marysheva-Martinez, hired by Dellums as a policy adviser for the
budget review, and [Dan] Lindheim, the acting
city administrator, said the mayor’s financial review uncovered no malfeasance
or missing funds….
3. “Deal stalls on
By Andy Furillo
Once again, progress has stalled in the efforts to fashion a fix for
In last week’s budget negotiations, lawmakers failed to free up
money set aside last year for prisons.
They also did not act to approve $8 billion in other bonds for
10,000 long-term health care beds for old, infirm and mentally ill inmates.
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Jerry Brown has challenged
medical receiver Clark Kelso’s authority to tap the state for the 10,000 beds
through the federal courts – creating an unlikely alliance with legislative
Republicans.
The result is that 16 months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and
legislators collaborated on Assembly Bill 900 and its $7.4 billion bond
offering, no new beds have been added to a system that confines 171,000 inmates
to prison space built for half that many….
[AB 900] promised 53,000 prison and jail beds. Corrections
officials, however, changed the plan after Schwarzenegger had signed it to
include more celled housing for higher-security inmates and fewer dorms for the
less risky.
The attorney general’s office later told the Schwarzenegger
administration that without incorporating those and other minor changes into a
clean-up bill, they would not be able to issue a clean bond opinion if and when
the securities go up for sale.
Republicans in the Legislature then made it clear they would not
back Kelso’s plan until lawmakers approved the technical fixes.
Democrats in the Legislature last week offered a budget trailer bill
to give the Republicans what they wanted.
In the process, the Democrats threw in a provision that codified the
existing practice of cutting inmates’ sentences in half if the offenders are on
waiting lists to get into a vocational of educational programs….
Now, [Republicans] say they are against it, with or without the AB
900 fix.
“We’re completely cognizant that the (health facilities issue) has
to be resolved,” said Assemblyman Todd
Spitzer, R-Orange. “I just don’t think the receiver should do it. It’s a
separation of powers issue, and we plan to litigate it.”
Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, said his caucus backs Spitzer….
4. “Deficit could top $1 trillion” (The
By Christina Bellantoni and David M.
Dickson, The
Sen. Barack Obama said the economic crisis and $700 billion
government bailout may force him to delay his campaign promises but pledged
nothing would stop him from offering a middle-class tax cut….
“Does that mean I can do everything that I’ve called for in this
campaign right away? Probably not. I think we’re going
to have to phase it in,” Mr. Obama said in an interview for NBC’s “Today Show”
taped Monday. “And a lot of it’s going to depend on what our tax revenues look
like.” …
A hypothetical President Obama or President McCain would need to
face the inevitable ballooning deficit, which experts said will likely exceed
$1 trillion next year if the Bush administration’s $700 billion Wall Street
bailout earns congressional approval….
No one expects all of the $700 billion to be spent right away. But Stan Collender, a
budget expert at Qorvis Communications, said the
bulk of the money will likely be doled out in the first year. “My guess is that
Treasury will want to move very quickly,” Mr.
Collender said.
Under the reasonable assumption that Treasury spends at least $500
billion buying up the “toxic” securities over the next 12 months, the 2009
deficit would top $1 trillion. “And that assumes no stimulus spending or any
other Democratic add-ons,” Mr. Collender added….
5. “
By Dan Walters
… Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the budget Tuesday with none of
the usual hoopla, symbolizing official embarrassment over both its record
tardiness and its failure to close the chronic deficit.
And now there’s a new guessing game: How long until it falls out of
balance? The answer: One nanosecond. Or as state Controller John Chiang says, “Today
we adopted a $103.4 billion budget that was out of balance the moment it was
signed.” …
The months-old revenue estimates are based on an assumption that
economic recovery begins this fall. Real revenue is already falling short of
estimates and as signed, the budget has only a $1.7 billion emergency reserve,
which may mean, in real terms, that the budget is already upside-down.
Those highly questionable revenue estimates have been carried
forward into initial planning for the 2009-10 fiscal year that begins next
July. Budget director Mike Genest said Tuesday that the state is looking at a $6
billion deficit next year, but that the administration is assuming that the
state can sell $10 billion in bonds backed by state lottery revenue and use $5
billion of the proceeds to cover next year’s gap, thus reducing the problem to
$1 billion.
Genest
acknowledges, however, that there’s “a lot of uncertainty about that number.” …
Finally, the state will soon be asking those lenders to advance the
state as much as $10 billion in short-term loans, called “revenue anticipation
notes,” to finance spending until the major income tax revenue rolls in next
year. And while Genest
says the loans “should not be a problem,” the inability to repay RANs almost drove the state to insolvency four years ago
and lenders are being much, much tougher these days on borrowers….
6. “No quick return for
By Jon Ortiz
Although the fiscal fight is over, state workers who lost their jobs
during
Finance Director Mike Genest said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s July 31
executive order that cut thousands of part-time and temporary positions, curbed
overtime and suspended some outside service contracts will remain in effect
through June and save the state about $340 million.
“Some of those people will not be coming back,” Genest said shortly after
Schwarzenegger signed the budget on Tuesday. “Some of those contracts will not
be coming back.”
But, he said, that departments could ask for exemptions that the
state will consider “on a case-by-case basis.” …
7. “Pumping Hydrogen” (
By Jad Mouawad
CLEAN ENERGY
Hydrogen-powered cars from several automakers on a national tour to raise
awareness about the fuel. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
… Most transportation experts say the automobile industry is
inevitably going to shift toward the electrification of the car. The success of
the Toyota Prius hybrid, which has both a gasoline
engine and an electric motor, has stunned the industry. Now most carmakers
offer hybrid models and are furiously working on the next generation, like
plug-in hybrids that rely even more on electrical power. The question is where
hydrogen will fit into this picture.
“There are three horses in the race to replace petroleum—biofuels, electricity and hydrogen—and at various times you
see the fortunes of these various horses ebb and flow,” said Roland Hwang, an automobile expert at the
Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Ten years ago, hydrogen was in the lead, he said, but lately
electric cars and biofuels have taken off because of
new, longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries, and large subsidies for alternative
fuels like ethanol.
“Hydrogen has probably fallen back,” Mr. Hwang said. “That’s because hydrogen is the most challenging in
terms of fuel production, vehicle technology and infrastructure deployment.” …
The National Research Council said that the total cost of deploying
a national hydrogen network could be as high as $200 billion, including $55
billion in government aid through 2023. Some experts, like Mr. Hwang, expect the cost to be more than twice that….
8. “Global Philanthropy Forum: Women, Children and Conflict” (It’s
Your World—World Affairs Council, KQED-88.5 FM,
Panelists:
·
Mary Robinson, President, Realizing Rights: The
Ethical Globalization Initiative
·
Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO, Women for Women International
·
Frank Donaghue, Chief
Executive Officer, Physicians for Human Rights
·
Ann Veneman, Executive Director, UNICEF
9. “Lehman’s loss, Wells’ gain? - Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp and
other regional banks may find opportunities and profit after the extreme
makeover that’s changing the face of U.S. finance” (Star Tribune (Minneapolis,
MN) - September 21, 2008); story citing MICKEY
LEVY (MPP 1974); http://www.startribune.com/business/28666389.html?page=2&c=y
By Mike Meyers ; Staff Writer
Ashes on Wall Street could make fertile soil for the likes of U.S.
Bancorp, Wells Fargo and other traditional banks with a big presence in
Investors -- and the analysts who offer them advice -- have sent up
the shares of many banks far from the scorched earth of lower
The stock market is betting that one bank’s loss can be another’s
gain, with customers and employees of troubled banks up for grabs. Banks able
to snare customer deposits at a low cost also may see their profit margins
fatten as the spread widens between the cost of acquiring money and lending
money….
While regional banks have not been immune from a banking crisis that
has the central bank and the U.S. Treasury pumping tens of billions of dollars
into the financial system, their exposure to bad credit has been modest
compared with money-center banks.
“We’re at the height of the crisis now and I expect things to
dissipate,” said Mickey Levy, chief
economist at Bank of
10. “Troubled times for McClatchy. CEO says Bee parent faces ‘biggest
challenge in its modern history’” (Sacramento Bee, September 21, 2008); story
citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981/JD
1982); http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/1251597.html
By Dale Kasler
GARY PRUITT,
The McClatchy Company CEO
The
McClatchy Co. has slashed its work force by 20 percent, cut its shareholder
dividend in half – and might have to trim some more.
In its 151st year, The Bee’s parent and
Like practically every chain, McClatchy is struggling with a media
revolution. Its newspapers, where it still makes most of its money, are losing
ground to the Internet, though its combined newspaper-online readership is
growing. But because of the insanely competitive nature of the Web, McClatchy’s
own Web sites can’t grow their revenues quickly enough to make up the
difference, even as their audiences grow….
Pruitt said McClatchy has
a growth strategy that’s actually working – marrying newspapers and the
Internet to dominate the audience in each of its local markets. The weak
economy, however, has obscured the progress.
“Audiences are growing, our online revenues are growing, (but) it’s
being masked or overwhelmed by the current conditions,” he said.
The economy overtook Pruitt’s
plans to downsize the company gradually. He had been reducing head count
through attrition and voluntary buyouts for a couple of years, and in January
he OK’d a five-year plan to cut staffing some more, from 14,000 to about
10,000.
Then the bottom fell out. The rate of decline in advertising
doubled. By August, sales were off 16.7 percent for the year. Profitability
fell in half. Although Pruitt said
McClatchy isn’t in any danger of defaulting on its debt, the downturn began
eating into its margin for error….
Similarly, the downturn has put a cloud over McClatchy’s takeover of
Knight Ridder, a move that tripled McClatchy’s size
but raised its risk profile….
Yet Pruitt said Knight Ridder made McClatchy more diversified geographically. It’s
brought important Internet assets, including sizable ownership stakes in online
ad-sales sites like CareerBuilder and Cars.com. He says the Knight Ridder papers are doing better financially than the old
McClatchy papers.
“Our future prospects are better,” Pruitt said.
His recent resignation from four trusts controlling the McClatchy
family’s stock sparked speculation among some analysts and bloggers that he
might be ousted as CEO.
But the family said the trust resignations were a side issue and Pruitt still has their support.
“
11. “Bush: Plan will ease pressure on banks” (Connecticut Post,
By Roger Runningen and Catherine Dodge – Bloomberg
President Bush, accompanied by,
from left, Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox,
delivers a statement about the economy and government efforts to remedy the
crisis,
President George W. Bush said the administration’s new rescue plan
to revive the credit markets and restore market liquidity will ease pressure on
the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions.
“
The president spoke after U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson held
a press conference to describe a plan that would remove troubled,
mortgage-linked assets from the balance sheets of American financial companies.
Those bad assets would be placed in a new institution so credit markets can
function again….
Bulging Deficit
“I think we’re talking about a deficit next year between $800
billion and a trillion, depending on exactly the details and whether this gets
enacted,” said Stan Collender,
a former analyst for the House and Senate budget committees, now at Qorvis Communications.
In July, the White House budget office projected a deficit of $482
billion in 2009….
12. “US Budget Recap: Paulson Plan Awaited;
Fiscal Consequences?” (The Main Wire, Market News
International, September 19, 2008); story citing STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).
By John Shaw
When pressed to give a ballpark, Paulson said “We’re talking
hundreds of billions.” …
Stan Collender,
a budget expert at Qorvis Communications, said
that fiscal consequences of this new plan could be “huge.”
“Obviously when you have a huge national crisis
like this, budget considerations go out the window. In this case, we are
talking huge sums that will add to already record deficits,” he said.
Collender
said that when some of the costs of Paulson’s plan are added to an already
massive deficit, it is “not hard to crunch some numbers and see an FY09 budget
deficit of over $800 billion.”
“We could soon be dealing with (deficit) numbers that we once
thought of in the realm of science fiction,” he said….
13. “Study says greening will raise state’s economy” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
--Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
(09-17) 20:16 PDT -- Taking strong measures to reduce greenhouse
gases to combat global warming would help California’s economy, boost
employment and increase household savings and personal income, according to a
new analysis.
The study, released Wednesday by the state Air Resources Board,
predicts the results of a series of proposed measures requiring energy savings
by 2020, the state’s self-imposed deadline for rolling back carbon emissions to
1990 levels.
… These changes, along with others, would result in 100,000 new
jobs, boost the state economy by $27 billion and increase personal income by
$14 billion, the study said.
Households would save $400 a year because of improvements in energy
inefficiency, and per capita income would rise by
$200, according to the analysis….
If agriculture, forestry, construction, manufacturing and other
business sectors followed the carbon-cutting measures proposed by the air board
in June, each sector would see growth and an increase in jobs, according to the
analysis….
The air board staff based the economic analysis on two models, both
developed by UC Berkeley economics professors [including Michael Hanemann]….
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonpartisan energy-policy
group, said the analysis released Wednesday affirms other studies that show
efficiency saves money.
“
“There is no need to out-source the effort through offsets,” Busch said. “In fact, the promise of
job creation and economic growth could be put at risk if too many offsets are
allowed.”
14. “
--Carolyn Jones
New big-box retail stores will be banned from
The ordinance, approved unanimously on Tuesday, prohibits retail
stores larger than 90,000 square feet that devote more than 10 percent of their
floor area to non-taxable merchandise.
“The council has seen what’s happening in other communities, and
they wanted to take a stand,” said Lisa Goldman,
deputy city manager. “
15. “Residents voice concerns, issues at town hall meeting” (Piedmonter,
By Jennifer Rumple, Piedmonter
correspondent
Six months after Mayor Abe
Friedman was sworn in, he made good on his promise to listen to Piedmont
residents, their issues and concerns and to figure out ways to resolve them….
More than two dozen people, including Piedmont parents, long-time
residents, school board members and law enforcement officials, had an informal
discussion about topics such as traffic safety issues and low-income housing
concerns to heightened crime near the city’s borders and the Civic Center
Master Plan.
“I thought it was great,” Friedman
said. “I got to hear from the residents directly some of the issues that they
really care and are concerned about. Folks brought up things
tonight that I have never heard about or hadn’t thought about and that’s
the absolute perfect outcome, right?” …
Other community members brought the lack of public transportation to
and from BART stations and questions about seismic retrofitting for public
facilities to the table.
Most, however, wanted an update on the $32 million Civic Center
Master Plan.
Friedman encouraged
people to check out the model on display in City Hall and said “there’s still a
lot of meat to put on the bones.”
“The pool facilities themselves are old, tired and can’t go on
forever. We own those facilities, the question now is, what are
we going to do with them,” Friedman
said. “My personal vision, based on a lot of feedback is to not only improve
the pool substantially, but do something meaningful civically.”
He mentioned a possible arts center, library or reading room and
plaza.
“I want to look back and say we got something was done during this
time, that I had the chance to lead and step up and make a difference in the
community,” he said….
16. “Candidates’ comments center on economics; Obama, McCain try to
reassure voters on finances” (
By David Jackson
Democratic presidential
candidate Sen. Barack Obama hugs a supporter at a Tuesday campaign rally in
Golden,
In a week in which investment bank Lehman Bros. declared bankruptcy,
brokerage firm Merrill Lynch was merged into Bank of America and insurance
giant American International Group was bailed out by a federal loan, the
presidential candidates refocused their campaigns on the economy….
Presidents “don’t set interest rates and can’t stop people from
making bad investment decisions,” said non-partisan
financial analyst Stan Collender of Qorvis Communications. But there are ways they can
influence markets, from “jawboning to appointing the Treasury secretary to
proposing legislation.”
Collender
said presidents must rely on “the power to persuade” and ease voters’ fears
about their savings and investments. “Ultimately, any economy is built on
confidence,” he said….
17. “Wall Street’s turmoil tests McCain” (Christian Science Monitor,
By Linda Feldmann - Staff Writer
… At the very least, the collapse of Wall Street giant Lehman
Brothers and the shotgun sale of Merrill Lynch over the weekend, followed
Monday by the largest one-day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since
the 9/11 attacks, have abruptly ended the campaign’s lipstick on a pig detour
and dampened the all-Sarah-Palin-all-the-time media frenzy….
Obama has typically scored better with voters than McCain on his
ability to handle the economy—but not by much, and he does not do as well as
generic Democrats vs. generic Republicans on the economy.
This is where Obama’s youth and relatively short resume may be
holding him back. Thus the effort to put out a little more detail Tuesday on
what he would do as steward of the economy and of a financial system in turmoil….
For Obama there may be a danger in putting out a detailed plan to
address the crisis.
One thing you learn in presidential campaigns is that specifics don’t
win you elections, says Stan Collender, a budget expert at Qorvis
Communications, a Washington, corporate communications firm. In fact, it
probably loses you votes in many cases. I would think that what he’s going to
try to do is talk about this as the excesses of the Bush years come to light….
18. “Drill with caution, poll of Westerners finds” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
--Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
The “drill, baby, drill” chant may fire up supporters of Big Oil,
but it does not reflect the feelings of most Western voters, according to a new
poll that will be released today.
If anything, the poll indicates voters in
The survey of 1,100 voters conducted by David Binder Research shows
that although 50 percent of those polled in the three states would agree to
more offshore oil drilling, their support is contingent on plans to protect the
environment and develop renewable energy sources to minimize the need for oil.
“My immediate reaction was surprise at the extent to which Western
voters were aligned on this issue,” said Shanan Alper, an analyst for the research firm,
based in
Republicans have recently dominated the debate, demanding more
domestic drilling. President Bush and Republican presidential aspirant Sen.
John McCain want to lift the congressional ban on offshore oil drilling and
open the eastern
But the latest poll, commissioned by Oceana, an international
environmental group dedicated to oceans and marine wildlife, shows that there
is more to the drilling question than meets the eye….
Most of those surveyed expressed a desire for a cautious,
science-based approach to drilling. Support for oil exploration diminished when
they were informed that it could take seven to 10 years for drilling to have
any effect on gasoline prices. Sixty percent of voters felt more information is
needed about the impacts of oil drilling.
“It was striking that support fell so quickly after providing them
with just minimal information,” Alper said. “Once voters start learning just a little bit
about the issue, the majority end up opposing offshore oil drilling in the
The majority of those polled supported development of fuel
alternatives, and 56 percent said they would like to tax oil profits as part of
a strategy to move toward cleaner, renewable energy sources.
“People are really struggling right now, yet still they are willing
to take that step toward renewable energy,” Alper said. “There is a great
concern about global climate change, and people are very reluctant to place the
environment in jeopardy. People aren’t opposed to all drilling, but they want
sound science.” …
19. “Free Wi-Fi in S.F. expands to Tenderloin” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
--Erin Allday
… Mayor Gavin Newsom
announced the expansion of a free wireless network to the Tenderloin on Tuesday
morning. Which raises the obvious question: How many folks in the Tenderloin
actually have computers?
The answer: not many.
But a handful of nonprofits are working on providing free or very low-cost refurbished
laptops and PCs. And the truth is, a monthly $30 to $50 broadband bill is a lot
more foreboding for many low-income residents than a one-time computer
purchase, said Don Falk, chief executive
of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp.
The Wi-Fi is being
provided by Meraki, a South of Market hardware
company that is slowly building a wireless network as a way to showcase its “repeater”
technology. So far the network is available to about 150,000 people in 40
20. “The Broad Center
for the Management of School Systems Announces 2008 Broad Residency Class”
(Business Wire, September 16, 2008); newswire citing honor to AMY VASSALOTTI MALEN (MPP 2005); http://www.broadresidency.org/about-residents-alumni/2008/amy_malen.php
LOS ANGELES—Thirty-one
emerging executives with top business, public policy and law school degrees
have been chosen to become leaders in urban school systems as part of The Broad
Residency in Urban Education program, The Broad Center for the Management of
School Systems announced today….
Broad Residents in this
new class all have M.B.A.s or other advanced degrees.
Most come from leading business, public policy and law schools such as Harvard,
Kellogg or
Amy (Vassalotti) Malen
M.P.P.,
A.B., Molecular Biology,
“The greatest injustice
in our country today is that we can still predict student achievement and
outcomes by zip code, income level, and race. I was reminded of this injustice
every day as a teacher and now every day as a district leader. This injustice
is what keeps me passionate about this work, and until it no longer exists, I
cannot imagine another challenge more worthy of addressing.”
21. “The Farm Foundation
holds a forum focusing on issues rural residents face in accessing health
insurance, including cost, quality, and implications for other rural businesses
and healthcare providers” (The Washington Daybook, September 16, 2008); event
featuring KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982).
LOCATION: National Press
Club, 14th and F Streets NW,
PARTICIPANTS: Mark Rukavina of the Access Project; Karen Pollitz of the Health Policy Institute
at Georgetown University; and Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute
22. “
--Carolyn Jones,
Chronicle Staff Writer
The City Council is
slated to approve a new tax district that residents could join voluntarily to
finance solar energy systems for their homes. The city would reimburse the
homeowner for the installation and material costs, and the homeowner would pay
back the money at a fixed rate over 20 years. The advantages for homeowners are
that the city can borrow money at a lower interest rate than an individual can
and that the tax program would stay with the house if the homeowner sells….
“If this works, it’ll be
the most important thing we’ve done to fight global warming and climate change,”
said Mayor Tom Bates. “But the devil’s been in the details.” …
“Cities all over the
state are struggling to reduce emissions, and this is a way they can really
make a difference,” said Cisco De Vries, who drew up the original plan as Bates’ former chief
of staff and who now works as a public policy energy consultant. “I have
yet to meet a city that thinks this is a bad idea.” …
23. “Finding Zenn in the slow lane of
By Jennifer Weiss,
Star-Ledger Staff
Lisa Westheimer
calls her car Sluggo. But don’t think for a minute
she’s not in love with her new two-seater Zenn, an
electric vehicle that runs quiet, clean and cheap.
You just can’t be in a
hurry when you drive one, since it tops out at 25 mph. And while Sluggo is relegated to the slow lane, who cares when you
can get the equivalent of 245 miles to the gallon? …
While electric vehicles
like the Zenn and the Gem are gaining a foothold in
the auto market, a number of companies are continuing work on highway-ready
plug-in vehicles that operate at speeds comparable to traditional cars.
The Prius,
a hybrid, blends electric-car technology with gas-car stamina and speed. Its
estimated average city gas mileage is 48 mpg. But Zenn
says its car gets the equivalent of 245 mpg. And while Prius
is a partial zero-emission vehicle, Zenn is
zero-emission, producing no tailpipe pollutants. After all, there’s no
tailpipe.
Critics of electric cars
and plug-in hybrids worry the technology simply trades one type of pollution
for another, since much of the nation’s electricity comes from coal.
Luke Tonachel, a vehicles analyst with the
Natural Resources Defense Council, said electric vehicles are cleaner than
the average gas car, and as more roll out, “we have to take measures to make
sure our power grid is producing the cleanest energy possible.” …
24. “Bill for water
fixes stuck in limbo” (Oakland Tribune, September 12, 2008); story citing RANDY KANOUSE (MPP/JD 1978); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_10449867?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com
By Mike Taugher - Contra Costa Times Staff Writer
It contains about $30
million to help pay for the Contra Costa Water District’s new intake, which
will help the district draw cleaner water from the Delta, and more than $100
million to prepare for levee breaks and shore up levees that protect pipes that
deliver water to the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s 1.3 million
customers.
It also contains funding
to link supply systems so that water can be better moved around and to clean up
polluted groundwater in
Water officials say many
of those projects could be done quickly and could even help if this winter is
dry enough to turn a mild drought into a severe one.
“The sooner that bill is
signed, the sooner work can commence on all of these fixes,” said Randy Kanouse,
the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s lobbyist….
But with a threat from
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that he will veto any bill that comes to his desk
before there is a state budget, this bill and many
others have not been sent to him….
25. “Mr. Clean. Michael
Wilson wants the chemical industry to make products safe before they get to the
market” (California Magazine, September/October 2008); story citing report
coauthored by DANIEL CHIA (MPP 2004)
and BRYAN EHLERS (MPP 2004); http://www.alumni.berkeley.edu/California/200809/snell.asp
By Marilyn Berlin Snell
… [S]ince
2003,
First, the nearly total
lack of information about the effects of most industrial chemicals—a “data gap”—makes
it difficult for firms to identify hazards in their supply chain, and for
workers and consumers to choose less-toxic products. Without that information,
government agencies cannot meaningfully identify or prioritize chemical
hazards, and so cannot use their legal tools to regulate toxic compounds.
In his report,
Legislators including
Joe Simitian and Mike Feuer
were quick to respond, introducing three green chemistry bills within months of
the report’s release. Another, AB 1879, introduced in 2008, would regulate
consumer products containing lead, mercury, phthalates, and four other known
neurotoxins while giving the Department of Toxic Substances Control more
autonomy to adopt safeguards based on scientific findings….
26.
“
By Margot Roosevelt,
The new measures are
designed to encompass 80,000 chemicals now in circulation, rather than focus
narrowly, as previous bills have, on specific substances in products such as
baby bottles, toys, mattresses, computers or cosmetics. State regulators are to
inventory the most dangerous, widespread chemicals first and control them at
the manufacturing stage, before they are handled in workplaces, incorporated
into products or allowed to escape into air and water.
The “green chemistry”
initiative, [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger said, will propel
The laws come as public
alarm is on the rise over dangerous substances in consumer products. The
federal Toxic Substances Control Act, passed three decades ago, has failed to
control an explosion of hazardous materials, according to consumer and
environmental groups. It exempted existing chemicals and requires the
Environmental Protection Agency to prove a chemical is toxic before requesting
data from manufacturers….
A more controversial
decision removed a provision in the Simitian bill
that would have required industries to disclose to the state all of the
chemical ingredients used to manufacture their products and any information
about their health effects. Aides to Schwarzenegger agreed with businesses that
the provision would encroach on trade secrets.
In the end, the bills
were endorsed by diverse groups, including the Sierra Club, the Breast Cancer
Fund, DuPont and the Chemical Industry Council of California.
Michael P. Wilson, a UC Berkeley public health researcher
who wrote a 2006 report
[coauthored with Daniel Chia and Bryan Ehlers] on the need for a state toxics
program, praised
27. “Neighborhood
brothels in S.F. hard to stop” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--C.W. Nevius
Art Tom, a leader in the
Art Tom knew something was up at the house near
his in the Sunset District.
Unfamiliar men were
congregating on the street at all hours. They’d stand outside, smoking and
talking on cell phones. At some point, they’d walk up the steps and in the
front door. They’d stay about half an hour and leave.
“Sometimes they would
even ring the doorbell at the wrong house and ask for a massage,” he said.
Tom didn’t need a police
detective to figure out what was going on. It was a house of prostitution.
Increasingly,
authorities say, rental houses in the Sunset and other neighborhoods are being
turned into brothels. Even more shocking is that little ever happens to the
people inside.
Critics say it hardly
matters what voters in November decide on Proposition K, the local ballot
measure to decriminalize prostitution. Investigating and prosecuting the world’s
oldest occupation is already a low priority in the city—even in the outer
residential neighborhoods….
“It is illegal and it
shouldn’t be happening,” said Supervisor
Carmen Chu, who represents the Sunset. “Particularly in neighborhoods like
this.” …
28. “Ousted state
student aid board reinstated” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Matthew Yi, Chronicle
Staff Writer
In a two-page letter to
the commission, Finance Director Mike Genest
said Friday that any action that may affect the value of the EdFund portfolio needs to be cleared by him first. It is an
authority given to the finance director in legislation approved last year as
part of the state’s effort to privatize EdFund and
put it up for sale.
The Student Aid
Commission on Thursday voted 7-1 to remove EdFund’s
board of directors, saying the commission has oversight responsibility over EdFund and there is no need to have a separate board….
29. “Voters Weighing
Obama, McCain Tax Plans” (Christian Science Monitor,
By Mark Trumbull | Staff
writer
With both John McCain
and Barack Obama offering tax cuts, the 2008 election promises a boost for the
typical family budget. But it could also strain the much larger budget of the
In polls, nearly 3 in 4
voters see taxes and budget deficits as “extremely” or “very” important – a
ranking not far behind energy, healthcare, and the war in Iraq. Tax policy
experts say Americans are right to feel concerned.
Both major candidates
want to maintain Bush-era income-tax rates on most Americans. With those rates
set to expire at the end of 2010, a failure to do this could tar the next
president and Congress as imposers of a mammoth tax increase.
But worry about federal
deficits may impose some limits on tax cuts.
For one thing, remember
the way an economic slump in 2001 caused the budget deficit to widen to
unexpected proportions as dotcom-era tax revenue evaporated.
Moreover, campaign pledges
to curb government spending alongside tax cuts have a way of going awry.
“I’m not sure anybody is
going to make substantial reductions in spending. It looks to me like all the
pressure is going in the other direction,” says one veteran watcher of budget
matters, Stan Collender,
a managing director at Qovis Communications in
“For anyone earning over
about $150,000 a year, taxes are almost certainly going up regardless of who
gets elected,” Mr. Collender
predicts.
He says the top
income-tax rate won’t go higher than where it stood when Bush took office –
39.6 percent.
Pollsters anticipate a
more Democratic Congress, but many of them “are relatively fiscally
conservative,” Collender
says. And Senate Republicans may retain enough seats to use filibuster leverage
against measures they oppose.
30. “Galt to seek
greener housing” (Sacramento Bee,
By Loretta Kalb
The mayor of Galt says
the Berkeley City Council doesn’t know squat about the role of Marine
recruiters.
But he says the city is
right on target when it comes to solar energy financing.
Accordingly, Galt Mayor
Andrew Meredith has proposed a solar energy financing plan patterned after one
[developed by Cisco DeVries]
in
The
Galt is not the only
city to find the
“This is the favorite
phone call of the day,” said Nils Moe, assistant to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates,
when asked to talk about the pilot program.
The council approved the
concept in late 2007. Now the city is working with the
The calls are coming in “from
31. “Letters: Sickening
loophole on salmon fishing” (Sacramento Bee,
I have been sick at heart
all day long after reading how, due to a loophole in Fish and Game regulations,
fishermen are using a vicious method of “catch and release” that mutilates and
traumatizes salmon (“Spawning salmon
traumatized by fishing technique“ Page A1, Aug. 30). I cannot fathom why someone
would do this. It’s certainly not sport, and it interferes with salmon
spawning. I hope your article leads the Department of Fish and Game to ban the
catch and release of our endangered salmon and to make every effort to enforce
the ban.
– Judy Day,
32. “Comcast’s new
bandwidth limit irks some users” (Star Tribune (
By Steve Alexander, Star
Tribune (
The idea is to keep
bandwidth hogs from ruining the Internet experience for other residential
customers, because the cable network is a shared medium of limited bandwidth
capacity, Comcast said.
But that’s got some
Comcast customers worried.
“Your typical Comcast
Internet user will not be affected, but the power users … will be hurt,” said
Ryan Coleman, a Comcast Internet customer in
Others are concerned
about what this means for the Internet’s future.
“It’s absolutely
critical that the Internet remain a level playing field, and that no one have
control over what runs over it,” said Steve Borsch of
Some analysts agree.
“A bandwidth limit
discourages consumers from downloading or streaming Internet video,
particularly of high-definition video,” said S. Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a
Massachusetts-based nonprofit public policy group dealing with Internet and
media issues. “That helps preserve Comcast’s traditional cable TV service.”
Comcast says such
concerns are overblown. The company’s monthly bandwidth limit is so high … that
fewer than 1 percent of its customers are likely to be
affected, said spokesman Charlie Douglas at Comcast’s
But Turner said the bandwidth limit is likely to affect more Comcast
Internet users in the near future because of products such as Apple TV that can
transfer Internet video to television sets.
“Comcast’s 250-gigabyte
bandwidth cap, while very high now, won’t be high in the future,” Turner said. “The way the Olympics were
viewed on the Internet signals that consumers are ready to embrace online
content.”
Even today, someone
watching eight hours a day of a standard-definition video or four hours a day
of high-definition video could run afoul of Comcast’s bandwidth cap, Turner said….
33. “Schools volunteer
handbook ready for release” (Alameda Times-Star,
By Shelly Meron, Staff Writer
After months of
discussion, public comment and edits, the
The guidelines divide
those who give their time to
Volunteers are those who
assist the district, schools, educational programs, or students “on a regular
and ongoing basis, and who may at times work with students outside the direct
supervision of staff.” Volunteers include coaches, mentors, safety patrol
coordinators, volunteer band instructors, and others who may do volunteer work “in
isolation with students.” Volunteers must complete a volunteer application, as
well as a Megan’s Law background check and a state and federal background check
before volunteering.
The guidelines detail
acceptable behavior by volunteers and visitors, and other screening and
application steps they must take….
Rick Holtzman,
a volunteer track coach who was dismissed from his position at the Middle
School last year and has been outspoken about the volunteer guidelines,
attended the meeting.
In a later interview, Holtzman said he was “happy with the guidelines. I think it’s
a good step forward.”
Still, Holtzman said he had been dismissed after the parents of a
girl on the track team he was coaching complained he had gotten too close with
their daughter, and after he exchanged e-mails with her and her parents … outside
of school hours. The new guidelines do not regulate volunteers’ activities “outside
the school day or school sponsored events.” Holtzman
said those activities aren’t covered by the new handbook….
Eileen Sheehan, a parent of a child on the high school track team
and an outspoken proponent for Holtzman’s
reinstatement, told the board she was glad they took the time to work on the
policy carefully. But she supported Holtzman’s
argument that his dismissal more than a year ago was a result of behavior that
is still not prohibited by the new guidelines….
34. “Opponents fire back
at SMART rail plan in court filing” (Marin Independent Journal,
By Mark Prado
Opponents of the SMART
rail tax plan submitted a response Wednesday in Marin Superior Court defending
their ballot arguments and calling a legal move against them “a blatant attempt
to use the legal process as a political tool.”
The Sonoma-Marin Area
Rail Transit District filed a lawsuit last week challenging the language of a
ballot argument opposing its rail project and asked a judge to force a re-write
of the wording.
“Our statements were
made with care and are supported by ample evidence, including SMART’s own statements and data,” said Joy Dahlgren, one of the signers of the opposition to Measure Q on
the Nov. 4 ballot….
35. “Public ‘entitled to
accountability’” (The Irish Times,
FARMERS MAY not be happy
with the decision to have the money they receive in EU payments put into the
public domain, but other professions have had to come to terms with it as a
matter of course.
Doctors, pharmacists,
dentists, barristers and solicitors are all subject to full public disclosure
of earnings coming from the State….
The issue of public
disclosure was first taken up by the former
The result was a new
financial regulation, adopted in 2006, which sets out the principle that member
states have to ensure the publication of a list of all recipients of all forms
of EU agricultural and rural development funds for each financial year.
To date the disclosures
have confirmed the suspicions of those who believe that EU farm subsidies are
more of a benefit to rich farmers and companies than they are to poor ones.
The European Commission
said that
36. “Agriculture
businesses top Cap list for payouts” (The Irish Times,
By Seán
Mac Connell Agriculture Correspondent
THE TOP 10 Irish
recipients of money from the Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) are not farmers
but big businesses, the man who runs a watchdog website on EU subsidies said
yesterday.
Jack Thurston, adviser to former UK agriculture minister Nick Brown,
said billions which should be going to help struggling farmers were being paid
instead to companies.
The website, Farmsubsidy.org,
lists Bord Bainne, the
Irish dairy board, as the top Irish recipient of EU subsidies at EUR 76.5
million based on the latest information available….
Calling for a debate on
how the Cap funding could be used, [Thurston]
said that even the distribution of the single farm payment which is based on
supports paid to farmers showed that 37 per cent of these went to the top 10
per cent of farmers…
Two recipients, Walter
Furlong from Co Wexford and Terence Coughlan from Co
Cork, had objected to being identified in the media. Traditionally, the
Department of Agriculture claimed it could not give out names of people who
objected to their identities being revealed.
But in this case, an
Information Commissioner upheld the right of the media to publish the names and
amounts received….
37. “Lockheed Martin-led
Team to Support Department of Energy under New Hanford Mission Support Contract”
(PR Newswire,
SEABROOK, Md. -- A team
led by Lockheed Martin has been selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to
provide a broad range of site services for its
“As the federal
government’s leading systems integrator, we are committed to bringing
innovative ideas and proven best practices to our continued work in
38. “Donors, recipients
seek to ensure global aid funds not wasted” (Agence
France Presse—English,
Ministers and senior
officials from more that 100 governments are meeting with representatives of
donor nations and agencies to check on progress achieved in the way aid has
been handled over the past three years….
Tens of billions of
dollars of donors’ funds are poured into developing countries each year, but
often the impact is not felt as it gets held up in bureaucracies.
The executive director of UNICEF, Ann Veneman,
said urgent action to counter bureaucracy held the key to aid delivery.
“I have met with some
ministers in developing countries who tell me they spend as much as 60 percent
of their time meeting with individual donors and organisations
and their staff spend more time complying with separate bureaucratic procedures
than delivering results,” she said….
“In 2007, less than half
of aid was disbursed according to schedule,” Veneman added.
“More progress must be
made in meeting commitments to quality and quantity of aid to better contribute
to achievement of the MDGs (millenium
development goals).” …
39. “
By Joe Truini
Development of a
transmission line to deliver wind energy from
The Wyoming-Colorado
Intertie Project sold 585 megawatts of its 850 megawatts of transmission
capacity through a recent open season auction. Most of the transmission line’s
capacity will be used for delivering wind-generated electricity from
“This is another
important step in the development of additional transmission capacity so that
GreenHunter
Wind Company LLC and Duke Energy Corp., which are developing wind farms near
“Expanding transmission
capacity is one of the major challenges facing
The successful auction
is proof of wind power’s growing status as a mainstream electricity source in
the western
The WCI Project is a
public-private partnership between the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority,
Trans-Elect Development Company LLC and the Western Area Power Administration,
which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy….
40. “AmerenUE
signs three-year $77 million energy efficiency contracts with Lockheed” (Electric
Utility Week,
By Gail Roberts
AmerenUE,
an Ameren subsidiary which serves 1.2 million customers in eastern
The contracts are
structured, according to Lockheed Martin, so that AmerenUE
must save 550,000 MWh over the next three years in
order for Lockheed “to make money,” said Tom
Grumbly, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for energy
and security services. “If we don’t actually hit the reduction targets,
then we will suffer fairly significantly. We made the contracts much more
performance-based than the traditional industry standard.”
Grumbly said management costs
for the programs — a recent issue after the Florida Public Service Commission
canceled Florida Power & Light’s green-power program because of high
marketing and administrative costs — are “substantially lower than 30%.” ….
AmerenUE
has committed to using energy efficiency “as a tool to bridge the gap between
their current supply portfolio and future power plant construction,” said Grumbly. The
550,000 MWh is roughly equivalent to the amount
supplied by a 90-MW plan, and AmerenUE will save “millions,”
he said….
Two years ago, Grumbly said,
Lockheed’s energy services business was $10 million. This year, it has grown to
$50 million. “Our plan for next year is to go to nearly $100 million….”
“The markets have
changed dramatically in the last two years and we see the whole energy
efficiency area as the first thrust to where energy policy needs to go,” said Grumbly. “There’s
not a lot of politics around this. It’s driven almost entirely by economics.”
41. “Empowering women
with plastic surgery?” (The Fresh Journal, Summer 2008);
food & wellness analysis and commentary by DAVID BELLER (MPP 2007); http://thefreshjournal.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
Plastic surgery normally
doesn’t have much in common with women’s wellness and empowerment, except maybe
at Oregon Health and
The University recently
spearheaded a bizarre local
I counted advertisements
for plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures on fifteen pages of the pamphlet
compared to just nineteen pages of health information….
A business promoted as
the self-described Portland Eyelid Specialists asks, “Are your eyes the true
window to your soul... or do they just make you look older than you feel?” They
claim to, “specialize in procedures to restore the
youthful appearance of your eyes to match your soul within.” …
I wrote to Dr. [Joanna
Cain, editor of the publication and the director of OHSU’s Center for Women’s
Health] to point out the contradictions in her publication….
[The full issue of The
Fresh Journal (Summer 2008) features articles on: Nip n’ Tuck Health Plan, Schools
Lunches...that don’t make the grade, Bovine Growth Hormone Gone Sour,
Demographics & Obesity Reconsidered, and more. (Copyright by David Beller 2008, ldbeller@gmail.com )]
42. “Sen. John McCain’s
healthcare plan isn’t orthodox Republican, but it does pay attention to
free-market principles. Problem is, healthcare is
anything but a free market” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) -
By Steve Jacob,
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The wrinkly white-haired
dude, as Paris Hilton calls him, makes Barack Obama and even the much-maligned
Hillary Clinton seem downright spineless on healthcare reform.
John McCain’s plan is
audacious. If enacted intact, it could:
Significantly alter an
employee benefit dating to World War II. Health insurance provided or
subsidized by employers would be treated as taxable income. The current tax
break for businesses and individuals is an estimated $212 billion annually,
according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. That’s bigger than the
home mortgage tax break….
Create a class system
based on health rather than income. Insurance companies would compete hardest
for young and healthy policyholders, who would see lower premiums while those
in poorer health would pay much higher prices—if they could get insurance at
all….
Insurance companies do
not want to cover people with chronic conditions such as cancer, heart disease,
diabetes and high blood pressure. That includes 58 million Americans younger
than 65 and nearly 16 million who are now uninsured. Chronic-disease treatment
accounts for 75 percent of the $2 trillion spent on healthcare every year, and
insurance companies want no part of paying for that if they can avoid it.
McCain talks vaguely of
a federal-state partnership in creating government-subsidized high-risk pools.
His advisers say the additional annual federal outlay would be $7 billion to
$10 billion. Karen Pollitz,
a Georgetown University professor and expert on high-risk pools, scoffed at
the estimate and told The New York Times
that “it may cost $7 to $10 billion a week.” …
42. “Official: Cover
By Lucas L. Johnson II,
Associated Press Writer
NASHVILLE Tenn.-- Tennessee is dealing with national health care reform by
sticking to an innovative program that’s showing increased enrollment without
mandates or “a tremendous subsidy” from the federal government, state officials
say….
The Cover Tennessee
program targets the uninsured who aren’t eligible for
Medicaid with four components. Enrollment started off slowly, but officials say
it has picked up in recent months….
Brian Haile, the program’s deputy director,
attributes much of the increased enrollment to strong marketing and people
adjusting to a tight economy. The programs that draw the most interest are CoverTN and CoverKids.
Under CoverTN, the state kicks in a third of the monthly premium,
while employers have the option of paying for another third. The program is
open to companies that employ no more than 50 workers, at least half of whom
make less than $43,000 per year. It is also available to individuals who work
for companies that don’t offer health insurance or the state program.
As states look for ways
to reform health care, Haile
said he believes CoverTN is one of the better
approaches, compared to the radical comprehensive plan launched in
Haile stopped short of saying a
non-mandated program is more attractive, but he said states don’t have to worry
about trying to get “a tremendous subsidy from the federal government” in order
to do an individual mandate. The federal government has been looking to reduce,
not increase, the Medicaid funding it gives the
states.
“In the absence of a
solution at the national level, we’re going to ... find every uninsured person
who needs that care and coverage and try to enroll them in relatively
innovative programs,” Haile
said. “That’s what Cover
Enrollment was slow
during the first three months of each of Cover Tennessee’s components, but Haile said it started
to pick up around the sixth and ninth months and is continuing to increase. In
the case of CoverTN, he attributed part of the spike
to people adjusting to the slow economy.
“Some people said, ‘I
can’t afford it this month, but I’m going to come back to you,’ and that’s what
happened,” Haile
said. “Maybe it took people a couple of months to finish paying off that car,
or adjusting their spending.”
A strong marketing
campaign has also been effective, he said, especially in regard to CoverKids….
[Governor] Bredesen set a goal to cover 40,000 children by fiscal year
2009, and Haile
said that goal seems reachable….
43. “Director to focus
on environment issues” (Press Democrat (
By Kevin McCallum
The Wine Institute has
appointed Allison Jordan as director of
environmental affairs, a new department to oversee the sustainable
winegrowing program and environmental issues.
Jordan, who joined the Wine Institute in 2004, was previously
communications programs manager and also executive
director of the
44. “Outlining the tax
platforms” (Journal Inquirer (
As you’re probably
vaguely aware, the tax and health care platforms of presidential candidates
John McCain and Barack Obama provide stark contrasts.
And as responsible
consumers and voters, you should probably know what the major differences are,
so you can vote intelligently in the upcoming extremely important election. A
new report from Bank of
This is dense reading,
but ignorance is no excuse these days. So, here’s the comparison, as derived
from the candidates’ published materials by Chief Economist Mickey Levy, Senior Economist Peter Kretzmer, and Economist Gary Bigg:
* Tax policy: Individual
McCain: Make permanent
the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, with 35 percent the highest rate. Increase the
dependent exemption from $3,500 to $7,000….
Obama: Cut taxes for
middle and lower income families and completely eliminate income taxes for an
additional 10 million Americans, and raise taxes on higher income households.
Make permanent child tax credits and tax cuts for lower and middle income households.
Raise taxes on those with incomes over $250,000; raise the highest rate to
pre-2001 levels (39.1 percent in 2001 and 39.6 percent from 1993 to 2000).
Cut taxes for low income
households. Eliminate income tax for seniors with incomes below $50,000. Have a
refundable mortgage credit for non-itemizers. Expand the refundable Earned
Income Tax Credit for low income workers. Mandate automatic 401(k)s. Have a refundable $4,000 tax credit for college
education.
Increase taxes on
capital gains to between 20 and 28 percent from 15 percent, and raise taxes on
dividends to an unspecified rate. Raise Social Security taxes for higher income
earners. Eliminate deductibility of state and local income taxes. …
45. “Household income
rose in 2007 - but inflation erased most of region’s financial gains” (Seattle
Post-Intelligencer,
By John Iwasaki, P-I
reporter
Working as a prep cook
at a SeaTac restaurant, James Hale has earned the same wage—$10 per hour—since
February 2006.
His wife relies on
Medicare for treatment for muscular dystrophy. Hale, 48,
can’t afford health insurance for himself.
“My rent went up $135
from a couple of months ago,” he said Wednesday as he drove to work. “Utilities
are going sky high. So is food. So I really juggle.”
Data released this week
from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show that median household
income in 2007 rose from the previous year in
King, Snohomish and
Pierce counties had a 2007 median household income of $63,895, an increase of
$3,232 from the previous year.
When adjusted for
inflation, the regional gain was only $878, or 1.4 percent, said Howard Greenwich, research director for
“The economy was really going
strong last year. Unemployment picked up a bit, but was not much greater than
2006, so I expected median earnings to go up a bit. It’s a little surprising it
went flat,”
46. “Wikimedia pegs
future on education, not profit” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--Chris Cadelago, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sue Gardner,recently
appointed Wikimedia executive director, instituted a code of conduct for
employees and introduced criminal background checks.
… Wikipedia articles are
sometimes known to the non-tech public as the Internet incarnation of the
wisdom of crowds. But the editing system, made up of about 7.6 million
registered users and countless more who are
unregistered, has become quite structured.
Contributors range from
volunteer editors, who create and proofread articles, to elected administrators
with the power to block users, lock articles (mostly because of tampering or
disagreement within the community) and cancel entries altogether. To help smooth
the process and ensure quality, the foundation is exploring a feature on the
English-language Wikipedia called “flagged revisions,” which allows trusted
editors to affix quality labels to articles that are true and vandalism free.
Like most tech organizations,
Wikipedia now faces competition from Google, which in July launched Knol, a compilation of user-written articles. But unlike
Wikipedia, the articles on Knol include bylines and
must be written by experts. MediaWiki, offered by
Wikimedia as free, open-source software, also powers Citizendium,
an online encyclopedia spearheaded by former Wikipedian
Larry Sanger.
“I don’t see any
competition, direct or indirect, that will significantly change Wikipedia,”
said John Broughton, a registered editor
of the site and the author of “Wikipedia: The Missing Manual.” Broughton said he believes the
foundation must continue to expand Wikipedia beyond its core of smart, geeky
and mostly male contributors to become a fully representative, mainstream encyclopedia….
47. “Letters
to Datebook: Farber fans” (San Francisco Chronicle,
Editor - I
read with sadness and deep appreciation Kenneth Baker’s appreciation of Manny
Farber (“Farber’s critical vision shaped painting,” Friday). He was a mentor
and friend to me when I was a student at UC San Diego in the early 1970s. I was
his teaching assistant, he helped me get into graduate school at
NINA ROBINSON
48. “State
gas prices drop below $4 today” (San Francisco Chronicle,
--David R.
Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
(08-21) 10:23 PDT -- California’s average price
for a gallon of gas fell below $4 Thursday for the first time in three months,
as the oil market’s recent slump slowly works its way to the pump….
In a very
real sense, drivers are reaping the rewards of their own thrift.
Propelled
skyward by a bull market for crude oil, gas prices rose so high this summer
that famously car-loving Americans started driving less. The amount of gasoline
sold throughout the country dropped, something that almost never happens
outside a deep recession. That cut the demand for crude oil, and crude prices
finally fell, bringing gasoline prices down….
Some
transportation analysts expect to see an increase in driving as prices decline.
Americans drove 4.7 percent fewer miles in June than they did a year earlier,
according to the U.S. Department of Transportation…
“Will people
be driving more at $4 than they would have if gas went up to $5? The answer has
to be definitely yes,” said Roland
Hwang, a vehicles specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But
$4 is not $2. It’s still a big hit to your pocketbook.” …
49. “Regents suggest
college tuition, fee increases” (Savannah Morning News (GA) -
By Brandon Larrabee
Deeper budget cuts could
drive up the cost of a college degree in
Chancellor Erroll Davis told regents that the “Fixed for Four”
program, which he and Gov. Sonny Perdue announced two and a half years ago, was
always built on the assumption that state lawmakers would follow the funding
formula used to decide how much money the system should receive….
Facing an anticipated
$1.6 billion statewide budget shortfall this fiscal year, Perdue has asked
agencies to prepare individual plans for cuts of 6 percent, 8 percent and 10
percent.
At least one college
president suggested the Fixed for Four program might
have been a mistake in the first place.
“I think Fixed for Four,
while it’s a very nice political concept, is not an economically viable
concept,” said outgoing Georgia State
University President Carl Patton. “Our electricity is not fixed for four.
Our water is not fixed for four.” …
50. “Local agencies
affected by state budget impasse” (Oakland Tribune,
By Shaun Bishop -
Laura Walker [chief
executive of the Child Care Coordinating Council] began writing letters this
week to childcare providers in
Local agencies are
starting to feel the pinch from the impasse over the state budget, as lawmakers
quarrel over how to close a $15.2 billion deficit. The budget was due July 1….
The Health Plan of San Mateo, which administers the state’s Medi-Cal program to some 50,000
As in past years when
the budget was late, Altman said the
agency had been digging into its reserves, which she said were between $30
million and $40 million. No one has been denied health care yet.
But with the agency
paying out about $10 million per month to its clients, the money won’t last
forever. She said the plan may need to ask for a loan from the county.
“We’re OK right now,” Altman said. “If it drags on into
September, we’ll start to get worried.” …
51. “Shifting to a
Greener Attitude on Tire Ratings” (Washington Post,
By Cindy Skrzycki
As Americans try to
squeeze every last mile out of a gallon of gasoline, one regulatory option hasn’t
been given much of a road test: telling consumers the fuel efficiency of their
tires.
Now, as gas prices have
hit $4 a gallon and more, the idea of reducing tire “rolling resistance” to
improve vehicle gas mileage is gaining traction. After 12 years of blocking any
such standard, Congress has ordered a consumer information program by next year
to inform buyers on what to expect from tires on fuel economy.
The $34 billion tire
industry was long divided on the issue. Michelin North America has favored a
standard and has started running ads extolling the gas-saving virtues of its
tires. Other manufacturers lobbied Congress to block any rule requiring that
tires be labeled to indicate their fuel efficiency….
Michelin supported a new
tire efficiency grading standard proposed by the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration in 1995. A year later, the agency said it dropped its
proposal because of opposition, which included a funding cutoff….
“Right now, that [tire
efficiency] data is not widely available,” said Luke Tonachel, vehicles analyst with the
Natural Resources Defense Council in
One reason consumers are
in the dark over whether the tires they choose will cause them pain at the pump
is that there is no federal mandate to disclose the efficiency of tires as
there is for temperature, tread wear and traction.
The congressional ban, first
passed in 1996, said there could be no federal rule adding to existing grading
standards that would require a certain level of fuel efficiency.
Some manufacturers
argued that an emphasis on rolling resistance could affect tread wear, safety,
cost and the number of tires that ended up as scrap.
“This was their effort
to prevent a national performance standard,” Tonachel said of the bans….
52. “ATV bill fails to
muster support. Bill that aimed to improve safety for youngsters at Oceano Dunes fails to muster state support” (Tribune (
By Bob Cuddy
Mike Hernandez of
A bill that intended to
improve safety for youngsters riding all-terrain vehicles at the Oceano Dunes and other off-road areas died quietly in a
legislative committee last month, after ATV enthusiasts and State Parks opposed
it.
State
Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, introduced SB 1228 at the behest of Larry
Foreman, an emergency room doctor at
Foreman has been
lobbying for greater ATV safety since he became disturbed at treating so many
youngsters who were hurt in off-road vehicle accidents at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area….
Phil Jenkins, chief of
the Off Highway Division, and Roy Stearns, deputy director of communications,
said Maldonado withdrew the bill after State Parks estimated it would cost $9
million to $12 million to implement it and after they asked him where the money
was going to come from….
Steve Archibald of the Assembly Committee on Appropriations, who
worked on the bill, wrote that ATV enthusiasts opposed the measure because they
did not like the limits placed on ATV riders….
In a legislative
analysis, Archibald’s estimates were
lower than those of Jenkins and Stearns.
“The bill’s requirement
that all children under 16 years of age, when operating an ATV on public lands,
possess an ATV safety certificate (could) result in about 4,000 additional
children requesting free ATV training each year,” he wrote.
Archibald noted that the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported
that there were 740 deaths in ATV accidents in 2003, including an estimated 250
children younger than 16. Every year, ATVs seriously injure more than 40,000
children younger than 16, the commission said….
53. “
By Angela Woodall -
The Oakland Civic
Auditorium was dedicated to the intellectual and industrial progress of
But
Where once fans of
Buffalo Bill, Elvis, Black Sabbath and 2 Live Crew thronged is now cavernously
empty.
That could change,
though, and soon.
The city is in talks
with a management group to operate the entertainment colossus that is able to
hold a total of 9,024 people in the arena on
“We anticipate having an
agreement signed within the next two to three weeks,” said Anne
54. “City of
… “What this means is
that more than 90 percent of the City’s employees, all but 2,400 of 28,000 city
employees, have already agreed to be at the table in the coming months as we
engage in a first-ever, comprehensive effort to find A NEW WAY of ensuring the
health of all public employees….
“Because healthcare
costs is a key issue that has resulted in the ever-growing structural crisis in
our city budget….
“Before I conclude here,
on behalf of all Philadelphians, I want to thank the city’s negotiating team for
the long and difficult hours they have spent working on this Herculean task.
“Specifically, I’d like
to thank Shannon Farmer and Ken Jarin, Joe Tolan, Camille Barnett, Shelley Smith, Clay Armbrister, Rob Dubow, Steve Agostini,
Tia Burke and Al D’Attilio….
55. “Minneapolis Public
Schools’ Arts for Academic Achievement to Host Creativity Summit” (Targeted
News Service,
56. “Photo and oral
history exhibit explores farming life” (Oakland Tribune,
By Hilary Costa - East
Since Tuesday, the
building’s lobby has played host to an exhibit, “Shifting Perceptions on the
Urban Edge,” that combines oral history with photographs to showcase the
changing lives of the county’s farmers.
The project consists of
13 hanging panels, each of which focuses on one of the
“I try to take a moment
to pay attention to them and try to understand what they’re about,” Crapo said one recent morning,
gesturing toward the row of panels. “I’m really impressed by the sense of
history.”
The exhibit was
conceived and carried out by local artist Gail Wadsworth, who interviewed
57. “12South considers
long-term growth” (Tennessean,
By Nancy Deville, Staff
Writer
The
Many credit redevelopment
funds from Metro that rebuilt sidewalks, added period lighting and streetscaping, and made room for parallel street parking
between
Property and business
owners, along with residents, in the
“Twelfth Avenue South
has experienced significant change in recent years, and given its proximity to
downtown, Belmont and Vanderbilt, it’s likely to continue to attract
redevelopment,” said Jennifer Carlat, community plans manager with Metro Planning.
“With the DNDP,
developers who want to work in the 12th Avenue South area have a blueprint for
what the community will feel comfortable in a future zone change or
development, and it gives developers more certainty into what is expected and
desired by the community.” …
58. “Far-Offshore
Drilling Legislation Earns Praise. Will Benefit Taxpayers, U.S. Economy,
Natural Gas Spokesperson Says” (Targeted News Service, August 1, 2008); news
release citing R. SKIP HORVATH (MPP 1976).
“If the technical
details are as clean as they look upon our first reading, this bill will
benefit American taxpayers and boost the
The legislation,
sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Peterson (R-PA), would allow companies to drill in
an environmentally sensitive manner no closer than 25 miles from shore.
“Even in the face of
hurricanes, modern recovery technologies have demonstrated our industry’s
ability to protect our shorelines,” Horvath
said, “and at 25 miles out, if you stood on the beach, you couldn’t see the
nearest drilling rig.”
He noted that when
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in 2005, some offshore platforms experienced 5
to 6 hours of sustained winds of 170 miles per hour. Production was shut down
and safety valves were activated as personnel evacuated. “The safety systems
worked and there were no spills to cleanup,” Horvath said.
He added that at least
250 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of recoverable natural
gas is estimated to lie under the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
“With calls to power
cars and trucks with natural gas, opening up the far-offshore areas for natural
gas exploration and development makes a lot of sense,” Horvath said….
59. “The Downside of
Redshirting. The Trouble with Older Kindergarten” (Slate Magazine,
By Emily Bazelon
Illustration by Robert Neubecker
At what age should children go to kindergarten?
At what age should your child go to kindergarten? What if these questions
appear to have different answers?
Increasingly, that seems
to be the conclusion of upper-middle-class parents who redshirt their kids when
it’s time for kindergarten. The calculus goes like this: You look at your
4-year-old, especially if he’s a boy, and consider that his summer or fall birthday
(depending on the state and its birthday cutoff) means that he’ll be younger
than most of the other kids in his kindergarten class. So you decide to send
him a year later. Now he’s at the older end of his class. And you presume that
the added maturity will give him an edge from grade to grade….
Individually
speaking, no harm done, perhaps, though the presumed benefit is an open
question. But collectively, delaying kindergarten is a bad idea—especially
for poor kids, for whom it often means one more year of no school. Kindergarten
is free. In most states, preschool and pre-K are not. Sending kids to school
early is a major initiative of the childhood education movement. Putting off
kindergarten takes us in the opposite direction, toward less access to school
for younger kids.
Fine, but choosing to
keep your little
… As Elizabeth Weil
noted in a great piece on redshirting in the New York Times Magazine last year,
almost half the states have pushed back their birthday cutoffs since 1975,
several of them fairly recently.
It’s easy to see what
the states are up to: They’re worried about test scores, and they figure that
older kids plus academic kindergarten will produce better ones. But this
approach turns out to be extremely shortsighted, according to new research by David Deming of Harvard’s
One more knock against
delaying kindergarten: It doesn’t produce better test scores over the long run.
If this delay did help, we could expect to see a cheery rise in the scores of
17-year-olds along with the rise in the number of 6-year-old kindergartners.
Instead, the basic level of proficiency of 17-year-olds on the National
Assessment of Education Progress “has not risen at a rate that would suggest
the majority of students are learning at a grade level higher than they were 20
years ago,” Deming and Dynarski write….
60. “Scottish Study
Shows Ban Reduced Hospitalizations” (American Health Line,
A public ban on smoking
in
... According to the
report, nonsmokers accounted for 67% of the drop in heart disease
hospitalizations. Admissions for nonsmokers were down 20% one year after the
ban took effect, compared with 14% for smokers, the report found. [Lead author
Jill] Pell said the size of the decline suggests that the smoking ban, not some
other trend, reduced the hospitalizations….
Edith Balbach, director of the Community
Health Program at Tufts University, said the findings “should add
considerable oomph to the pressure for smoking bans” elsewhere (Wall Street
Journal, 7/31).…
61. “Natural Gas Supply
Association Warns that America Will Still Need More Natural Gas” (Targeted News
Service, July 30, 2008); news release citing R. SKIP HORVATH (MPP 1976).
WASHINGTON -- A new
report released today by the American Clean Skies Foundation indicates that the
United States may have much more natural gas than previously believed, and that
in turn earned praise and caution from a spokesman in the natural gas industry.
“This new report is
exciting documentation that natural gas from shale holds great potential for
future
“That being the case,
this study is useful in demonstrating how necessary it is to diversify our
natural gas portfolio and keep downward pressure on natural gas prices,” Horvath said.
Shale fields are
generally predicted to produce natural gas over longer periods of time—as much
as 30 years—than from traditional wells, which generally produce more quickly
but deplete after only a few years. “That means that we will need to tap into
faster-producing wells along the way,” Horvath
said….
62. “Economic Stimulus,
Round 2? Rumblings about a possible second boost prompt economists to look at
alternatives to the ‘tax rebate.’” (The Christian Science Monitor,
By Ron Scherer | Staff
writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Weekend shoppers converge at The Grove, a retail/entertainment
complex in
No one can remember the last time Congress
enacted two major economic stimulus packages in one year. But 2008 may see a
sequel to the $100 billion worth of checks that started filling individuals’
bank accounts in early spring.
Democrats say they will
proceed this fall with a “Son of Stimulus.” Whether it materializes is
questionable; President Bush currently opposes such a move, preferring to wait
to see the full effect of the first stimulus package….
Some budget watchers say
Congress is unlikely to act unless the economy is in crisis.
“There would have to be
an unambiguous perceived need, such as a big stock market drop, a major bank
failure, or something that would scare the members,” says
63. “WTO powers seek
compromise trade deal amid widespread skepticism” (Associated Press Worldstream,
By Bradley S. Klapper, Associated Press Writer
Expectations are low,
however, for negotiations whose framework reflects the world of 2001 without focussing on new problems such as biofuel
tariffs and energy supplies.
U.S. President George W.
Bush at the G-8 summit of world leaders last week cited the “critical
importance of concluding” the talks, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva said another debacle in the dragging
World Trade Organization talks would destroy the “best basis for continued
economic growth.” …
The standoff is
complicated by dozens of figures and formulas, but boils down to a simple
scenario: the
But both sides have
balked at the grand trade-off, even if they would have at least five years to
change laws. A binding treaty would have to be ratified by all 152 WTO members.
“Even the most
optimistic analysts place the chance of a deal being
concluded before the
64. “U of L, builder
team on housing. 500 units for students planned” (Courier-Journal (
By Sheldon S. Shafer -
The Courier-Journal
“Despite state budget
cuts, we must move forward to make sure our university offers the best possible
accommodations and services for our students,” said U of L President James
Ramsey, referring to the plans of Edwards Communities of Columbus, Ohio.
Fewer than 10 percent of
U of L’s students lived on campus in 1998. But now about 3,300 out of 22,000
enrolled — 15 percent — live in student housing, and the numbers are expected
to increase annually for the foreseeable future, U of L officials said….
Edwards plans to build
366 apartments that can accommodate 800 students in phase one, which is to be
completed by the fall 2009 semester, said Larry
Owsley , U of L’s vice president for business affairs.
A second, $30 million
phase calls for six buildings with about 150 apartments to house 500 students.
Those units are expected to be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2010, Owsley said.
The Province will
include a clubhouse with an outdoor pool, a lake, a spa/fitness center, sun
deck, parking and a pedestrian bridge across the CSX railroad tracks to the
campus.
Owsley said Edwards will own and manage the housing, while U of L
commits to providing residents the same programs and services offered to
students living on campus….
The development of public-private
partnerships is critical at a time when there is a severe shortage of state
funds….
Two other developers
have announced plans to build student housing near Belknap, but Owsley said that U of has not signed
deals with them yet and that those units probably won’t be ready before the
fall of 2010….
65. “ENERGY EFFICIENCY:
Lockheed Martin’s Grumbly
discusses company’s work in efficiency sector” (E&ETV’s
OnPoint Vol. 10 No. 9, E&E News PM,
Primarily known for its
work as a government contractor for defense-related projects, Lockheed Martin
is now using its technological expertise to help companies improve their energy
efficiency. What are the major trends in the world of efficiency? Who is
leading the way? What is needed from policymakers to help make efficiency
mainstream? During today’s OnPoint, Tom Grumbly, vice
president of energy and security services for Lockheed Martin, discusses
his company’s energy efficiency projects and the business community’s push to
go green.
Click
here to watch today’s OnPoint.
66. “California PUC ALJ’s draft plan sets high performance level for efficiency”
(Electric Utility Week, July 7, 2008); story citing DAVID GAMSON (MPP 1986).
By Lisa Weinzimer
An administrative law
judge with the California Public Utilities Commission has released a draft plan
underscoring energy efficiency’s front-and-center role in
The proposal, released
on Tuesday, establishes efficiency savings goals for 2012-2020 totaling 4,500
MW, or the equivalent of about nine major power plants, while leaving many dots
to be connected on how goals will be satisfied. Additionally, savings of more
than 16,000 GWh of electricity and 620 million therms are expected over that time frame.
The goals, for the first
time, take into account savings from the entire energy efficiency sector,
rather than focusing solely on investor-owned utility efforts, according to Administrative Law Judge David Gamson’s draft plan.
The plan includes energy
savings from state building standards, expected federal appliance standards,
and installation of more efficient lighting systems required by
“Recognizing the
comprehensive nature of energy savings in
Energy savings goals
will be updated in 2010 and include utility-specific goals as well as total
market gross goals, which encompass utility savings from programs, building
codes state and federal appliance standards, and “market transformation”
measures….
67. “Landmark Ventures
Takes ‘Charity’ to the Next Level through Program that Inspires Social
Responsibility; Annual ‘Doing IT for Good’ Event to Raise Awareness for Year Up”
(Business Wire, June 24, 2008); newswire citing JAY BANFIELD (MPP 1997).
“We realize the
tremendous value of our corporate network and wanted to tap into that power in
a tangible way,” said Zeev Klein, General Partner, Landmark Ventures. “Our hope is to change the way executives
look at philanthropy and provide a forum for nonprofits to highlight their work
in the community.” …
Year Up is a one-year
training program for urban youth that culminates in a six-month apprenticeship
at leading US corporations. Year Up provides 18-24 year-olds with critical
business skills and on-the-job experience to create successful careers in IT….
“We work every day to
empower our participants with the tools necessary to become leaders in the IT
community,” said Jay Banfield,
Executive Director, Year Up
68. “Wind May be
Salvation of Aging US Power Grid” (Natural Gas Week,
By Bobette
Riner,
The winds of change blew
through Capitol Hill last week, as the Senate Energy & Natural Resources
Committee held Congress’ first hearing focused exclusively on renewable energy
and transmission.
Robert Gramlich, policy director for the
American Wind Energy Association (Awea), said one
utility executive told him he felt “a tectonic shift in that hearing.”
Nine senators, including
Harry Reid, (D-Nevada) heard testimony on the benefits of wind—ideally, natural
gas usage for electricity could be cut by 50%. That could reduce the nation’s
overall gas consumption by 11%, according to Awea
board member Donald Furman….
Indeed, the heretofore
reputation of renewable energy resources as being “off the grid” and small
scale is now being taken seriously on a national scale, with the concern over
climate change, Gramlich
told Natural Gas Week .
But for wind to fulfill
its perceived potential of meeting 20% of the nation’s electricity needs by
2030, Furman and other advocates say certain logistical issues must be solved.
The current transmission
grid is balkanized, with 140 balancing authorities scheduling power among three
separate interconnects: east of the Rockies, west of the Rockies and most of
Ironically, wind and
solar, natural resources often found in states where relatively few live, just
may bring more reliability to the spots with burgeoning power demand.
“The EPA added
transmission incentives, but incentives were never the problem,” Gramlich said. “There’s
plenty of money to be invested at 12%, with low risk.” …
But it’s more
problematic for the other two interconnects. In the West, more transmission is
needed to get power to
Unless the federal
government steps in and requires an entity to be a member of a regional
transmission organization, Gramlich said, they have the ability to game the system, to
use the grid without paying for the wires. That’s what’s causing the current
migration from PJM to MISO, by those who wish to avoid capacity market charges.
In the Southwest Power
Pool, Gramlich
said, “there’s no mechanism to prevent free riding.” …
The quest nonetheless
for renewable energy sources is turning out to be precisely the market driver
for upgrades to the country’s patchwork of aging transmission infrastructure.
69. “Hatch, Rockefeller
Divide Over States’ Role in Health Insurance Reform” (CongressNow,
By David Belian, CongressNow Staff
Members of the Senate
Finance Committee today divided over a proposal to increase the federal role in
reforming the health insurance market, though they vowed to address the issue
when Congress begins a new session next year.
In a health care policy
summit called to address the committee’s future plans, Sen. Orrin Hatch
(R-Utah) called insurance market reform the “central issue in health care
reform” and said that a change to the current is system is “obviously necessary
for individuals and small businesses.”
However, Hatch and Sen.
Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) divided over whether the
federal government or the states should take the lead.
Rockefeller advocated
for a greater federal role in the process….
Rockefeller also took
issue with a provision currently employed by some states providing tax benefits
to individuals who purchase their own insurance.
“Tax credits do nothing
to ensure there is any meaningful health insurance for those who need it,” he
said, adding that the individual market is allowing insurers to “exclude people
entirely” and discriminate against “older and sicker people.” …
Karen Pollitz, a research professor at the
Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, said that state efforts were
not sufficient. She called for a greater federal role.
“There need to be
national standards, and they need to be high and not
dive down to the lowest common denominator,” Pollitz said….
70. “Governor
Schwarzenegger Supports Oil Spill Cleanup Legislation for Marine Wildlife and
SACRAMENTO, Calif.-- Today
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support for a package of oil spill
cleanup bills, including legislation to establish a cleanup program for inland
oil spills and legislation to improve the state’s ability to rescue wildlife
during oil spills. The three bills that the Governor will be supporting
represent a portion of a larger package of oil spill cleanup bills introduced
into the legislature this year as a response to the lessons learned in the
devastating Cosco Busan spill….
“In 2007, the amount of
oil spilled into the state’s creeks, rivers and lakes was over nine times the
volume of the Cosco Busan
oil spill into San Francisco Bay, with only a small fraction of the cleanup
effort,” said Linda Sheehan, executive
director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. “Oil
spilled into our local waterways has significant and long-term effects. AB 2911
takes on this problem by increasing penalties on inland oil spills and making
the chain of command for enforcement and cleanup clear.”
The new amendments to AB
2911 revives efforts by Defenders [of Wildlife] and the California Coastkeeper Alliance to create
an inland oil spill program by giving the Office of Spill Prevention and
Response (OSPR) clear authority to respond to inland oil spills, initiate
cleanup and enforcement actions, and assume incident command authority….
71. “Experts pessimistic
about I.E. economy” (Sun, The (
By Robert Rogers, Staff
Writer
BANNING - The
Regional leaders in
economics, education, health care and work-force training gave presentations.
The unifying theme was that inadequate support on the federal level and new
pressures on state budgets threaten to slow or even reverse growth in a number
of socioeconomic indicators….
Inland Empire Health Plan Executive Officer Bradley Gilbert said
the health-care provider had helped improve a number of health indicators,
including providing services to nearly 300,000 families in the two counties.
But Gilbert cautioned that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget
proposal, which calls for a 10 percent cut in health-services spending and
eligibility-tightening measures, could knock 125,000 families out of the
program.
“It’s incomprehensible,”
Gilbert said….
72. “Close 5 Police
Stations for Safer S.F., Study Says” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 2008);
story citing PEG STEVENSON (MPP
1994); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/14/MNIT10LJJR.DTL
--Cecilia M. Vega and Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle
Staff Writers
The Tenderloin might be
one of San Francisco’s most violent neighborhoods, but a controversial report
released Tuesday calls for closing its police station—along with four others
around the city—in an effort to fight crime.
Five of
Police stations in some
of the city’s most crime-plagued neighborhoods, like the Mission District and
the Bayview, should be expanded, the report found.
But it also concluded
that other stations, including the city’s newest station in the Tenderloin, do
not meet the needs of the department and instead could be used to house
specialized units, like gang or drug task forces, the report said….
Consolidating the police
districts into five quadrants based on the geographical layout of the city … would
eliminate coverage redundancies and evenly distribute the workload around
various stations, the report said.
It calls on the Police
Department to build a new, larger station to serve the city’s northeast
section, where the majority of crime occurs in places like the Tenderloin and
South of Market.
“The universal agreement
is people want more police presence in their community,” said Peg Stevenson, director of the city
services audit division of the Controller’s Office, which released the
report Tuesday. “The way you get that is not by having police stations but by
having police out on patrols.” …
73. “Vallejo City
Council Votes for Bankruptcy” (The Bond Buyer,
By Andrew Ward
VALLEJO, Calif. -- The
long, slow financial bleed of Vallejo, Calif., reached the low point of bankruptcy
Tuesday night, as city leaders admitted they would run out of cash in a couple
of months and be forced to shut down the government….
The city’s general
fund-supported debt is unrated. Standard & Poor’s yesterday downgraded the
Vallejo Public Financing Authority’s Vallejo-Glen Cove Community Assessment
District revenue bonds to B from A-minus.
The city’s bankruptcy
lawyer has said he expects such dedicated revenues to continue to flow to
bondholders, but Standard & Poor’s
analyst Lisa Schroeer said there are few
precedents in municipal bankruptcies and a judge may decide otherwise.
“The bonds will likely
qualify as special revenues,” Standard & Poor’s said in a report. But “it
is possible that the debt service reserve could be deemed inaccessible by the
courts and this could further compromise bond payments.” …
74. “Life and the Single
Dad. Greg McClain strives to model what a dedicated African American father
might look like, making use of the village his wife, Amy, had built” (San
Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2008); story citing AMY MUCKELROY (MPP 1994); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/27/CM7IVG2J9.DTL&hw=amy+muckelroy&sn=001&sc=1000
By Ron Kroichick
McClain family photo with Amy front and center.
Chronicle photo by Mike Kepka
One August morning, at a
government office in downtown
His mother, Minnie,
traveled from her home in
The counselor started
with the standard questions. She reached the query about marital status and Greg
told her he was married. “I’m sorry,” she said gently, “but you’re not married.”
…
But beyond the
heartbreak rests a tale of resilience and hope, a village of people propping up
one man and helping him navigate an unfamiliar road. They watch the kids, pick
up groceries, cook dinner, listen when Greg wants to
talk. They care.
Amy’s memory, in many ways, serves as the driving force. The dining
room of Greg’s home includes a photo of her and Charles, beaming, on a camping
trip. Another shows her at a school walk-a-thon, strolling hand-in-hand with
Ellis. And there, in an unremarkable brown box atop an old dresser, sit Amy’s
ashes. They offer Greg a measure of comfort as he moves on with his life….
Amy Muckelroy was tall and athletic, with
a sparkling smile. She rowed at Berkeley High and
Amy held a full-time job
at Catholic Charities, but she also handled most of the duties around the house….
She also kept the family’s
social life humming, a natural extension of her gregarious personality. Amy
long envisioned herself surrounded by a bustling circle of family and friends,
which helps explain why she convinced Greg to move back to the Bay Area after
two years in
This community of family
and friends covers a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds, something Greg
traces to Amy’s upbringing—she was the result of a biracial marriage and grew
up in famously inclusive
He now leans on many of
these friends and family members, a practical benefit of the goodwill Amy
fostered. She built the village and he’s tapping into it.
“I’m so glad that was
Amy’s nature,” Greg says. “For her, it replaced religion in a way—she wasn’t a
religious person in the way we think about it today, but she had faith she
could have her community of family and friends around her to make her life
experience very positive. It was a positive environment for us and our kids.” …
He finds hope not only
in the presence of several strong role models, but also in the color-blind
environment he and Amy created for the kids. What better example than a
biracial mom who welcomed friends of all ethnicities into her home? Or the balance of having one white grandmother and one black
grandmother? Greg once told Wanda his joy at her presence in the family,
to help expand his children’s experience and add a “wonderful perspective” to
their lives.
Now, as Wanda
contemplates the long-term impact of Amy’s death, she speaks of her daughter’s
strength and “I can do it” view of life. Amy always was assertive, tumbling
into the world as a 10-pound, 11-ounce baby, chatting up adults as a
preschooler and seldom backing down from her older sister.
Wanda talks of an
obligation to these memories, saying, “To lose yourself in years and years of
grief, you can’t do that to Amy. The boys are her legacy, and you have to be
there for them and yourself. ... We have to take Amy’s death as a
responsibility. If we don’t take it that way, we would not be giving her death
the importance it deserves.” …
75. “International
Deforestation” (CQ Congressional Testimony,
Statement of Kevin Robert Gurney, Associate Director,
Committee on Senate
Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign
Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection
With the entry into
force of the Kyoto Protocol in February of 2005, the Parties to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have begun to consider
how and when developing countries might adopt greenhouse gas emissions
reduction commitments [1]. Consideration of developing country participation in
the Kyoto framework will need to recognize that the majority of emissions from
many developing countries arise from non-industrial emitting activities
including deforestation [2,3]….
Thus far, proposals to
limit deforestation within the UNFCCC process have followed the model established
for limiting fossil fuel/industrial emissions, relying on percentage reduction
targets of current deforestation rates relative to an historical or “business-as-usual”
baseline [12,14-16]. It is not clear, however, if the
baseline/emission reduction model is an appropriate one for the problem of
deforestation. To begin with, emissions limits effectively allocate the
atmosphere’s sink capacity to absorb GHGs - a
globally distributed, unowned part of the “global
commons” and beyond the control of any individual nation or private actor.
Forests and soils, by contrast, are already subject to widely recognized claims
of exclusive national control. It seems unlikely,
therefore, that a policy designed for an open access resource would be the most
appropriate for resources subject to strong existing national claims.
In addition,
deforestation is distinctive from fossil fuel/ industrial emissions in that the
quantity and quality of the unextracted resource
(standing forest) is itself associated with social, biological, as well as
economic value. For example, the very existence of unextracted
coal or oil at particular locations is generally not of direct social or
biological concern. In the case of deforestation, however, significant social
and biological implications arise when large contiguous forests are reduced to
remnant status because forests provide a host of benefits in their unextracted form. These implications extend beyond CO2
emissions to include reducing biodiversity, critical habitat, and undiscovered
medicinal flora, while potentially compromising the future of local communities
dependent upon sustained forest resources….
These difficulties with
the fossil fuel/industrial emissions analogy suggest an opportunity to consider
a different approach to deforestation policy. Instead of negotiating
deforestation targets relative to historical levels, countries might consider a
national target related to the amount of untouched forest they are willing to
preserve and the necessary change in deforestation rates required to get there. Such an approach, which attempts to strike a
compromise between conservation and emission reduction goals, can be called a “Preservation
Pathway”….
76. “Costs and parking
problems stymie
By Sarah Hinckley - Times
Argus Staff
The center’s nine
advisory board members are scheduled to meet today at
The idea of an expansion
was part of discussions when the school district asked voters to approve a
$1.49 million bond for a number of improvement projects within the districts’ buildings….
Richard Sheir was a vocal opponent of the
$1.49 million bond. One of his concerns was that more money would be requested
of the taxpayers for the
“As people that voted
against this, our fears have been allayed,” said Sheir. “I’m really glad that
people were able to project out like that—and sooner rather than later.” …
77. “No end in sight for
racial divide - Former President Bill Clinton tried to heal racial wounds but
is now thought by some to be rubbing salt into them instead” (Buffalo News,
April 13, 2008); story citing DAVID
CAMPT (MPP 1988).
By Jerry Zremski - News
A decade after managing
President Bill Clinton’s “Initiative on Race,” Judith Winston is a proud
supporter of Sen. Barack Obama—and a disillusioned critic of the former
president.
“His instincts for
winning have overcome his principles, I think,” Winston said of Clinton, who
worked with her on his national dialogue and search for solutions on race in
his second term as president….
Winston is not alone. Of
a dozen former leaders of the
The
In
And on the day of the
primary, the former president said: “Jesse Jackson won
Michael Wenger, who
served as deputy director of
“I felt like I was
losing a friend,” Wenger said. “I thought his comments in
David Campt, a diversity expert nicknamed
“the Race Doctor” and another former initiative
staffer, agreed.
“The purpose was not
kind,” he said. “Just because Bill Clinton was president doesn’t mean that he
isn’t subject to racial bias, too.” …
78. “Center for Clean
Air Policy is Awarded Grant From Rockefeller Foundation to Help Local
Communities Build Resiliency to Climate Change Impacts” (Ascribe Newswire,
March 18, 2008); newswire citing NED
HELME (MPP 1971).
The Urban Leaders
partners are representatives from Chicago, King County (Wash.), Los Angeles,
Miami-Dade County (Fla.), Milwaukee, Nassau County (N.Y.), Phoenix, San
Francisco and Toronto. Through the Initiative, these nine local governments are
advancing the climate policy discussion beyond mitigation and leading the way
to ensure that future infrastructure and land use decisions bolster the
resilience of their communities to the expected impacts of climate change.
“In the coming years and
decades, climate change will become a key factor in infrastructure development
and a host of planning and policy decisions,” said CCAP President Ned Helme. “It is critical
that private entities and governments at all levels start integrating adaptation
considerations into their regular decision making processes. The Urban Leaders
Adaptation Initiative will equip CCAP’s partners with
the knowledge and tools to get started on implementing adaptation measures and
provide a framework for policy issues that will enable the federal government
to support local resiliency efforts.” …
“We applaud CCAP’s pioneering work in supporting these municipalities
to plan, in advance, for the inevitable impacts of climate change to their
communities,” said Maria Blair, associate vice president and managing director
at the Rockefeller Foundation. “The Rockefeller Foundation is delighted to
support the CCAP Urban Leaders Adaptation Initiative and we expect that many of
the lessons learned will be applicable to communities elsewhere around the
world.” …
1. “Robert Reich on the
financial crisis” (The 7.30 Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Reporter: Ali Moore
ALI MOORE: Robert
Reich is an economist and author, who was Bill Clinton’s secretary of labour in his first term as President. His most recent book
is titled ‘Supercapitalism’. He’s now professor of public policy at the
PROFESSOR ROBERT REICH,
But, of course, the big question is whether
Republicans will sign on, because the Democrats don’t want to have this
extremely unpopular legislation hanging around their neck alone.
They want Republicans, and the big failure today
was to get enough Republicans….
The turbulence, tribulations in financial
markets, the huge drop on Wall Street will light a fire under the many of these
recalcitrant Republicans….
And every member of the House is up for
election; every Republican is listening for constituents. And those
constituents are saying, ‘Don’t do this’….
ALI MOORE: … Could we see a recession that turns
into a depression …?
PROFESSOR ROBERT REICH: Well we’re in completely
in unchartered waters. Here’s why it’s not 1929 or 1930 or 1931 again, because
we do have a global capital market that is much more sophisticated than the
global capital markets were back then.
We know that all Central Banks can push more
liquidity into the market, into the global market. We also know that there’s
something called fiscal policy, Franklin D Roosevelt didn’t know about, where
the Government is the purchaser of last resort.
Government can run big deficits, because money
and spending are necessary in order to employ more people. That is, we have the
tools, and a global marketplace that is more sophisticated.
Does that mean we will not have a depression?
No, but the odds are far less than in 1929 or the 1931….
2.”Can Obama Heal the Economy?” (Race for the
White House with David Gregory, MSNBC,
Robert Reich was secretary of labor
under Bill Clinton and is now professor
of public policy at UC Berkeley.
ROBERT
REICH: [T]his is not economic Armageddon….
We will be in a deeper recession next year, bailout or no bailout….
3. “The New Shape of Capitalism to Come” (It’s
Your World-a World Affairs Council talk, KQED-88.5 FM, September 29, 2008); program
features ROBERT REICH; http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=RD58
The program’s speaker is Robert Reich, one of
4. “Roundtable: What’s Next
for Economy?—Debating the Bailout” (This Week with George Stephanopoulos,
George Stephanopoulos discusses the economy with
UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich (of The American Prospect),
Newt Gingrich, George Will, and Steven Pearlstein.
ROBERT
REICH: “This entire deal gives new meaning to the word ‘extortion’.”…
5. “The $700bn question. Never before in the
history of US capitalism has so much been asked of so many for so few” (The
Guardian [
Robert Reich
The frame was set, the die cast. Treasury
secretary Henry Paulson, presumably representing the Bush administration but
indirectly representing Wall Street, and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke,
this week asked Congress for a cheque for at least
$700bn to take bad debt off Wall Street’s balance sheets. Never before in the
history of US capitalism had so much been asked of so many for, at least in the
first instance, so few….
The public doesn’t like the fact that this could
be a blank cheque. They think this whole idea is
nuts. They see fat cats on Wall Street who have raked in zillions for years,
now extorting in effect $8,000 from every family to make up for their own
nonfeasance, malfeasance, greed, and plain stupidity…
Put simply, they wanted strict conditions
imposed on Wall Street. What sort? I’ve been urging the following five….
Wall Streeters may not
like these conditions. That’s too bad. They wanted the money; they should be
made to accept them. Bailing out Wall Street’s bad debts when millions of
Americans can’t pay their bills is like bailing out a boat springing leaks
while the sea is rising….
Congress should not go soft on Wall Street. But
Congress also needs to pay direct attention to what’s happening in
• Robert B
Reich is professor of public policy at UC at Berkeley, author of Supercapitalism
and was US secretary of labour under Bill Clinton
from 1993-97, robertreich.org
6. “
By Kathy Jones | NEWSWEEK
What do
Wall Street titans have in common with Ada Noda, an
80 year-old grandmother? They have all found themselves deeply in debt and
desperate for a way out. From her mobile home in
According to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson,
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Bush, that’s pretty much
what’s happening to several major financial institutions in the current
economic crisis. In the last month, the government has brokered three bailouts
(Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG) totaling nearly $400 billion. In
Noda’s options were fewer, far less complex—and
didn’t include an emergency influx of cash. A child of the Depression, she
learned from her parents how to live on a tight budget but had a difficult time
after double-bypass surgery stopped her from working on the housekeeping staff
at a local hospital. Though she’d worked all her life—into her mid-70s—her
$968-a-month Social Security check couldn’t cover her bills—especially the new
medical debt. By 2005, She’d run up $8,000 in credit-card debt and had her car
repossessed.
The following year, she had to do something that
horrified her: she declared bankruptcy….
It disturbs Noda that Wall Street isn’t
following her path—and instead is asking for what could be the mother of all
credit cards. “The corporate people that are getting all the big bucks—they
should investigate them and see who’s to blame before they bail out anybody,”
she said.
So far, 166 economists, critics from both
parties and the majority of the nation (55 percent, according to a Los Angeles
Times/Bloomberg poll), agree with her. “The government can ensure a
well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers,
without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved
unwise,” the economists’ letter to Congress said. Former labor secretary Robert Reich argued “the process should
resemble Chapter 11 under bankruptcy.”…
7. “Why Climate Change Could Wither
By Sam Kornell
…
“We are teetering on the edge of disaster right
now,” said Sam Frye, a longtime Montecito citrus and avocado farmer. “We haven’t
planned for the future in the last 30, 40 years, and the population has
outstripped the water supply.” … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been trying
to push a $9 billion water bond through the state Legislature for more than a
year. But one problem could confound even the most rigorous action in
infrastructure and conservation planning, and that is the steady disappearance
of the Sierra snowpack.
It is well known that the world’s storehouses of
ice are melting away, from shelves and sheets in
[Hayhoe, K., W. Michael
Hanemann et al. 2004. “Emissions Pathways,
Climate Change, and Impacts on
8. “A Simple Question” (Congressional Quarterly
Today,
By Kerry Young, CQ Staff
The proposed bailout of the financial services
industry won’t allow top executives of some of Wall Street’s most troubled
companies to escape congressional hearings....
Perhaps the most pointed question that might come up in hearings is being
raised by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich,
now a professor at the
“Wall Street’s request for a blank check comes at the same time most of the
public is worried about their jobs and declining wages, and having enough money
to pay for gas and food and health insurance, meet their car payments and
mortgage payments, and save for their retirement,” Reich wrote this week in a blog posting.
“The public is asking: Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m
getting screwed?”
9. “Wall Street Bailout” (Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC,
...Rachel Maddow:
Joining us now Robert Reich,
secretary of labor under President Clinton. He’s now a professor of the
Robert Reich: ...Wall Street has been on a sugar high for years. And,
obviously … when you go on a sugar high like that, you’re going to come down.
And it came down with a crash. Your metaphor was exactly right about
six-year-olds, except these are very wealthy six-year-olds. The top people on
Wall Street … have been raking in tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars the
past few years when that sugar high was very high.
Maddow: And, is the point of the metaphor right as
well, though, is this giant bailout, essentially, the price we are now paying
for a lack of supervision all these years?
Reich: Yes, absolutely. And it’s a
kind of it’s an extortionate price because what Hank Paulson, our treasury
secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the Fed chief, are saying to Congress and to the
public is: you’ve got to do this, provide $700 billion, $800 billion, maybe $1
trillion… and if you don’t, the whole financial system is in danger of melting
down.”...
10. “Budget problems expected again next summer”
(San Francisco Chronicle,
--Matthew Yi, Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle
Staff Writers
(09-21) 16:55 PDT -- Even as Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger signs a spending bill this week to end the state’s record-long
budget impasse, officials say a crisis of equal magnitude looms next year
because of the weakened economy, uncertainties about the use of future lottery
revenue and political gridlock among state legislators.
But that number could easily balloon to $7
billion or more, according to Capitol observers and experts on the state
budget, particularly given uncertainty over whether voters will approve
Schwarzenegger’s plan to borrow against future state lottery sales to generate
$5 billion next year and the same amount the year after that….
Another big question is the state of the
economy. Last week’s meltdown on Wall Street caught the attention of budget
advisers and lawmakers who say the slowing economy, which already has taken a
toll on the state’s coffers, may create more havoc before revenue begins to turn
around.
“All these (projected deficit) numbers will be
dwarfed if in fact we are heading into a serious recession because with what’s
happening nationally—the credit crunch, people spending less money—projections
of state revenues will go into the toilet,” said John Ellwood, a professor at the
11. “Democrats: Bailout support is costly”
(Washington Times,
David R. Sands (Contact)
Nancy Pelosi (Associated
Press)
Lawmakers
are engaged in a $700 billion game of chicken this week over the Bush
administration’s push to pass an economic bailout proposal for Wall Street.
Key Democrats in Congress, backed by party presidential
nominee Sen. Barack Obama on the campaign trail, made it clear Sunday that
their support for the rescue blueprint offered by Treasury Secretary Henry M.
Paulson Jr. comes with a price.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat,
vowed late Sunday to push for an independent oversight board for the Treasury
bailout effort, as well as protections for homeowners facing foreclosure and
new restrictions on lucrative Wall Street executive salaries, both of which Mr.
Paulson has opposed….
Robert B.
Reich, labor secretary under President Clinton and now a professor at the
“Wall Streeters may
not like these conditions,” Mr. Reich
said on his Web site (http://robertreich.blogspot.com ). “Well,
you should tell them that the public doesn’t like the idea of bailing out
12. “A Wall Street Week of Biblical Proportions.
With Talk of an Impending Financial Armageddon, the Gov’t
Takes Unprecedented Action. But Where Will It Lead?” (Sunday Morning, CBS News,
Reporter: Martha Teichner
… “This could be comparable to the Great
Depression in terms of just its effect on financial markets,” said Robert Reich.
Now a professor at Berkeley, Reich was Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton.
We asked him what lots of Americans are asking: How did it come to this?
“The people who were issuing warnings were not listened to,” he said, “partly
because Wall Street is very powerful in
People were also making piles of money by trading in packages of questionable
mortgages and complicated, unregulated securities, called derivatives.
“Derivatives, essentially, are bets on how stocks or how bonds are going to
move, and they’re called derivatives because they are derived from those
movements,” said Reich....
So will the bailout end the crisis? …
“Until we know for certain we’ve reached the
bottom, that up-and-down motion is just going to continue,” Reich said….
13. “Reich
says Wall Street solution must include more transparency” (Oakland Tribune,
By Matt O’Brien -
“I’m not against bailouts that are necessary and
bailouts that have conditions on them,” said Reich, speaking at the Oakland Museum of California about his
concerns over an American economic system he said is becoming “capitalism on
the upside and socialism on the downside.”
The former Clinton administration official, now
a professor at UC Berkeley and among
a group of economic experts who regularly advise presidential candidate Barack
Obama, placed much of the blame for the current crisis on “years and years of
deregulation” under the Bush administration….
This week, Congress must vote on an emergency
Bush plan that would pump as much as $700 billion into bailing out mortgage
markets. Reich, preferring a
solution such as a bankruptcy reorganization that keeps taxpayers out of the
equation, said he worried that a failed bailout measure could spend trillions
of taxpayer dollars yet lead to more overseas borrowing, send domestic interest
rates soaring, drop the value of the dollar, raise the cost of borrowing abroad
and ultimately lower the American standard of living.
Whatever solution is reached, he said, should be
coupled with better regulations that discourage the “huge, irresponsible
decisions” that led up to the current problem….
Speaking to a supportive crowd at the
“We are not sufficiently respectful of each
other,” he said.
[Robert Reich
also appeared in the KGO-TV report of this event (ABC 7 Sunday morning news,
14. “The free market’s not always the fair and
honest market” (Los Angeles Times,
--David Lazarus, Consumer Confidential
An LED display in
Market forces are great. Until
they’re not.
After nearly three decades of conservatives insisting
that government has no business meddling in the private sector, the Bush
administration on Friday announced a sweeping plan to spend hundreds of
billions of taxpayer dollars bailing out financial institutions that bet wrong
on the mortgage market….
What cheeses me, though, is that we could have
done something about this before it turned into a crisis. This whole sorry
episode proves how badly we need government regulators to crack down on
increasingly reckless businesses.”Market fundamentalists
believe that markets always work,” said Robert
Reich, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and Labor secretary
under President Clinton. “They believe markets don’t need anyone to assure fair
and honest dealing.
“Those market fundamentalists have been proved
wrong time and time again.”
Nothing illustrates that better than the
meltdown on Wall Street last week—a frightening reminder of how easily
companies can get in over their heads when Uncle Sam is looking elsewhere, and
how expensive it can be for taxpayers to clean up the mess….
I’ve written frequently about the regulatory
shortcomings of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which all too often
relies on the companies it regulates to report defective or dangerous goods—and
even then, only after they’ve reached store shelves.
… Last week, the [Food and Drug Administration] shrugged
off a new report showing that the chemical bisphenol
A, used in baby bottles and other products, increases the risk of heart
disease, diabetes and liver problems….
“There’s a fundamental misconception about
market forces,” Reich said. “Markets
don’t exist in a state of nature. They need regulation to be fair.” …
15. “Advisers give clue to candidates on economy”
(
By David Jackson, Kathy Kiely
and Richard Wolf,
The stock market tanks.
Major banks and investment firms fail. The economy
flirts with recession.
Who would President Barack Obama or President
John McCain call?
The answer might be found in the people they
call now: former Cabinet officials and corporate titans, staffers to past
presidents and Congresses, economists who tamed double-digit inflation and beat
back budget deficits….
When Robert
Reich, a
“I never thought I would be sitting across a
table from Paul O’Neill,” says Reich,
who was
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Jared Bernstein
of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute have been asked to provide advice
to Obama. The team also includes veterans of the Clinton administration — some
of whom helped write the legislation that tore down the regulatory walls
between banking and investment firms — and others, such as Reich, who think that such deregulation of financial markets laid
the groundwork for today’s problems.
“It was a mistake,” says Reich, who had left the
16. “Bovvered in
boardroom” (Tribune Magazine [
Supercapitalism by
Robert Reich
(Icon Books, Ł12.99)
CAPITALISM, chameleon-like, has weaved its spell
over us all and taken a vice-like grip on the globe in its latest manifestation
as supercapitalism. Well, that’s Robert Reich’s analysis, anyway, and as Bill Clinton’s former
Secretary of Labor and now Professor of Public
Policy at the
He argues, in what he calls the battle for
democracy in the age of big business, that multi-national corporations dominate
because we let them. …[W]e have not reconciled the
difference in ourselves between the responsible, ethically minded and
environmentally aware citizen and the consumer and investor looking for the
best prices and the best return. So we have allowed big business to dominate
our economic and political systems…. Are you listening, Gordon? …
Robert
Reich’s timely book should act as a wake-up call to the body politic—there
is more to life than exploitation and the bottom line. Is anyone listening?
--Andrew Dodgshon
17. “Experts Assess Impact of Wall Street
Meltdown” (Voice of America News,
Reported by VOA Correspondent Cindy Saine
Robert
Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the
“The worry is that credit markets become so
tight as a result of all of this, that lending all but stops,” said Robert Reich. “Small businesses cannot
get the loans they need to invest in new factories and equipment or research.
Individuals can’t get the loans they need to buy automobiles or to finance
houses or a housing purchase and the economy basically goes into a very deep
recession. Now, the implications of that, of course, percolate and resonate
around the world. Global capital markets are already having a very, very
difficult time.” …
But economist
Robert Reich is among those who think it is very unlikely that people will
line up outside their neighborhood banks to withdraw their money in a panic.
“I don’t think we are going to see a run on
commercial banks because commercial bank deposits are insured by the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation,” he said. “So we are not going to a situation
such as we had in the early 1930s….
18. “Bush economic advisors meet with Pelosi” (KGO
TV,
By David Louie
It may be the break the financial sector has
been waiting for: A plan to form a government corporation to take over the bad
debts of the banking industry….
When word leaked out on Wall Street during the
final hour of trading, stock prices immediately shot up. The Dow ended with a
gain of more than 400 points, that’s the biggest percentage gain in six years….
Turning over the financial crisis to a separate
agency still leaves one issue unresolved: tighter regulation.
Robert
Reich was Labor Secretary under President Clinton. He is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley.
“The fundamental problem here is a lack of
confidence on Wall Street because you haven’t had the kind of oversight and the
kind of regulations you need, and that’s ultimately the only thing that’s going
to stem this bleeding,” said Reich….
19. “Dems lead voter
sign-ups in key states” (The Arizona Republic
--Ronald J. Hansen
Democrats continue to dominate Republicans in
voter registration in at least eight states expected to be among the most
competitive in the November presidential election, an
In
“That’s a precursor to turnout (in November).
That’s good news for Democrats,” said Henry
Brady, a political-science professor at the
He said turnout in battleground states has been
higher among newly registered voters than it is in less politically competitive
states. Both parties should expect at least 40 percent of the new registrants
to show up in November, Brady said….
20. “What Next For AIG?;
Interview With Former Labor Secretary Robert
Reich” (CNN,
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: … I want to bring in
somebody who was one of President Clinton ‘s economic
gurus back when things were pretty darn good economically…. Professor Robert Reich joins us now from
Berkeley, California. He was secretary of labor in the
ROBERT
REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: … Of course there is light at the end of
tunnel. …[B]ut will it be
six months from now? Will it be a year from now? Will it be two years from now?
We just don’t know. Nobody knows.
SANCHEZ: … Is this … still the tumultuous result
of people getting loans who frankly had no business
getting these loans? And … who in the hell allowed this to happen?
REICH:
Well, the subprime mortgage crisis, Rick, was the trigger for all of this, but
it was not really the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that, for
years, there has been a kind of anything-goes attitude on Wall Street. As long
as they were making money, Wall Street traders and executives would be dealing
in exotic instruments, derivatives on derivatives, swaps. They didn’t even know
the value of most of these things. There was no regulation to speak of….
SANCHEZ: … What I also hear you saying, though,
is that oversight is the key. Has there been ... a lack of oversight in the
last 10 years in this country, when it comes to business, even perhaps during
the administration you were a part of with Bill Clinton?
REICH:
Yes, complete lack of oversight. In fact, the watch word was deregulation. The
assumption was you could leave Wall Street on its own….
Well, we are now paying the piper. We’re reaping
the whirlwind for that false notion that deregulation was the way to go. Alan
Greenspan, in 2003, 2004, he let interest rates, short-term interest rates, go
down to 1 percent. Well, that was—in inflation-adjusted terms—…negative
interest rates, which meant everybody who had any money at all, big
institutions, were pushing that money out of the door to anybody who could
stand up straight, practically….
The current administration, the George W. Bush
administration, didn’t do any oversight; actually there are fewer investigators
at the Securities and Exchange Commission than there were in 2000. Well, you
are begging for trouble….
21. “Berkeley Approves City-Backed Loans for
Solar Panels” (New York Times, September 17, 2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN and program developed by CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18solar.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Berkeley&st=cse&oref=slogin
By Felicity Barringer
SAN FRANCISCO — The Berkeley City Council late
Tuesday unanimously approved a program [developed by Cisco DeVries] to give city-backed loans
to property owners who install rooftop solar-power systems. The loans, likely
to total up to $22,000 apiece, would be paid off over 20 years as part of the
owners’ property-tax bills.
Tuesday’s vote gave final approval to the creation
of special property-tax districts, which property owners could opt to join. The
final piece of the puzzle, however, is still missing: a deal with a lender
whose capital the city would use to finance the program….
If the early phase of the program lives up to
the high expectations of its backers, the city government is likely to expand
the field of projects it will fund, giving similar grants to energy-efficiency
projects like putting in double-glazed windows or adding to a home’s
insulation.
The program, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor of energy at
the
It allows homeowners “to think about creating
clean-energy homes with basically no cost” up front, he added.
The city’s mayor, Tom Bates, said in an
interview shortly before the vote, “I think this is probably the most important
contribution
He added, “I think the idea is going to go like
wildfire” through other city governments. Already, he said, nearly two dozen
cities, from
The overwhelming gloom in the national financial
markets might hamper the program’s ability to expand, [Christine Daniel, deputy
city manager] said, but added, “If the secondary market is not as robust as we
hope it will be, we believe the market will see the wisdom of this eventually.”
Mr. Kammen, the Berkeley professor, was not worried,
pointing out that venture capitalists have been pouring billions of dollars
into the development of alternative-energy technology and looking for new ways
to finance potential breakthroughs. “There’s so much more money there than
ideas,” he said.
22. “
--Elana Schor in
The
The
“It’s made renewables
and efficiency go from something that’s a good idea, but you’re paying for it …
to you paying over time and getting rewarded with added property value,” Daniel Kammen, a
professor in the energy and resources group at the University of California in
Berkeley, said.
“How many of us would have cell phones if you
had to pay for 20 years of minutes up front?”
Kammen has helped the city develop the unique solar
financing [first proposed by Cisco DeVries when he was Mayor Bates’ chief of staff], which
he described as a major boost to
The professor is also a senior environmental
aide to Barack Obama, making the
23. “Presidential Contenders Call for Financial
Industry Regulation” (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS,
JUDY WOODRUFF: We’re joined now by economic
advisers to both presidential campaigns. First, Robert Reich, an adviser to Senator Obama, he served as secretary
of labor under President Clinton and is now professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
WOODRUFF: … First of all, does Senator Obama
think that the current crisis could have been avoided with greater government
oversight and regulation?
ROBERT
REICH: Yes, Judy. Since February 2006, in fact, Senator Obama has been
pushing for strengthening regulation, strengthening capital requirements,
making sure there are anti-fraud provisions with regard to lending to consumers
who want mortgages.
The senator has been very, very active
sponsoring legislation, trying to push the administration this direction. And
absolutely, yes, we need regulation. This is a vastly under-regulated
market....
DOUG HOLTZ-EAKIN: The American people don’t know
where Barack Obama stands. John McCain has a record of doing the things he’s
saying….
ROBERT
REICH: … I can’t find any sunshine, any difference between George Bush’s
economic policies and John McCain’s economic policies. And whether it’s regulation, or staffing the regulatory agencies, or it’s
tax policy, or it’s even in the health care policy, I mean, simply an extension
by McCain of the Bush policies. They have failed.
You know, John McCain was a leader of the
Senate. The Senate was Republican for most of the Bush administration. John
McCain, if he wanted to really do something about these regulatory shortfalls,
he could have done it. He was head of the Senate Commerce Committee. He could
have done it. He did not. …
24. “Schwarzenegger to Veto
Budget and Other Bills” (New York Times,
By Jesse McKinley
SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said
Tuesday that he would veto a long-overdue state budget, and he threatened also
to veto hundreds of other pieces of legislation, as the state’s 78-day budget
crisis dragged on.
The California Legislature finally passed a $104
billion general fund budget by potentially veto-proof two-thirds majorities
early Tuesday morning, after setting a record for tardiness.
But Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said he
would not sign it, or very little else, until a “good budget” was passed….
In particular, the governor asked for guarantees
regarding contributions to a so-called rainy day fund, something he regards as
critical to budget reform, which has become central to his second term in
office….
While Mr. Schwarzenegger’s veto announcement set
the stage for a showdown with the Legislature, some experts said it was likely
to be a lonely fight.
“Everybody has the votes to override him, so he
doesn’t really matter anymore,” said John
Ellwood, professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of
California at Berkeley, “If I was a Democrat or Republican leader, I would
say, ‘What has this guy given me?’” …
25. “Robert
Reich: Government Needs to Rebuild Trust in the Markets” (U.S. News &
World Report,
By Robert
Reich
While it’s true that Hank Paulson didn’t give
Wall Street what it wanted to sweeten any potential takeover of Lehman
Brothers—a guarantee akin to what Fannie, Freddie, and J.P. Morgan got when
Morgan bought Bear Stearns—Wall Street’s big banks continue to have access to
the Fed’s discount window, previously reserved for commercial banks. And
because investment banks aren’t regulated like commercial banks, that means
they continue to get a free ride….
The problem is,
government bailouts, subsidies, and insurance aren’t really helping Wall
Street. The Street’s fundamental problem isn’t lack of capital. It’s lack of
trust….
What to do now? Do not socialize capitalism with
government bailouts and subsidies that put taxpayers at risk. If what’s lacking
is trust rather than capital, the most important steps policymakers can take
would be to rebuild trust. And the best way to do that is through regulations
that require financial players to stand behind their promises and tell the
truth, along with strict oversight to make sure they do….
Robert Reich, a former secretary of labor,
is professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the
University of California-Berkeley.
He is the author of Supercapitalism: The Transformation
of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life (Vintage
Books, 2008).
[Robert Reich
wrote another opinion on the topic published in the International Herald
Tribune (
26. “Economic Storm” (Rachel Maddow
Show, MSNBC,
Rachel Maddow: ...Joining us now is Robert Reich, secretary of labor under
President Clinton, now a professor at the
University of California at Berkeley. He does serve as an economic advisor to
the Obama campaign....
Maddow: … How much of this mess is the fault of this
administration and how much of it would have happened anyway?
Robert Reich:
Well … it’s like
And that has fed the problem because without regulations, without a belief that
the market has to be regulated, you’re going to have a lot of fraud, you’re
going to have a lot of funny business, you’re going to have banks and investment
banks issuing securities that are not backed with real value, you’re going to
have a lot of hankie panky going on and that’s
exactly what’s happened....
27. “Robert
Reich easily captivates audiences at two welcome events for grad students”
(eGrad, September 2008, volume 8, number 1); story
citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/publications/egrad/0908.shtml#4
(Photos: Benjamin Ailes)
New graduate students and first-time Graduate
Student Instructors had special treats in common at two separate events for
them as the semester kicked off, and in both cases they were the vocal stylings of Robert
Reich. He wasn’t singing, but Reich, who was Secretary of Labor in Bill
Clinton’s first term and is now 
a professor of public policy here, is
one extraordinary speaker.
Self-effacing and effortlessly powerful, he’s
also disarming. His first line, as the
new GSIs saw him step out with the microphone from
behind the podium, was, “As you can see, my years in the cabinet wore me
down. I was six-foot-two when I started.”
He is four-foot-ten….
… Getting serious, he told the packed auditorium
of incipient teachers about what he called a “tacit curriculum, what students
are picking up from you as teachers, beyond what is in the course, but as
important, if not more important, than the substance of what you are teaching.” … Despite any understandable anxiety—”many of
you have not done this before”—he urged them, in
preparing for that first class, to remember that “the enjoyment you exude, part
of the tacit curriculum, is very important.
Relax and enjoy it. Relax and
enjoy them.” …
He was surprised and delighted when he came to
28. “Foreclosure crisis could cause votes to be
lost” (KGO TV,
By Laura Anthony
So far this year there have been more than 22,000
foreclosure filings in
“We know this kind of thing undoubtedly goes on.
People have their ballots forwarded from the location they have it mailed to,”
says Henry Brady Ph.D., a U.C. Berkeley
Elections Expert….
29. “American Universities
Falling Behind in Clean Energy Research” (SustainableBusiness.com News,
In Congressional testimony this week, representatives
from several of the nation’s leading universities warned that research and
development (R&D) money dedicated to solving the climate crisis is woefully
lacking on U.S. college campuses.
Even as a record number of students in math, science
and technology are seeking curricula that focus on global warming and energy
solutions, they are being shut out due to lack of resources, university leaders
said….
Dr.
Daniel Kammen, Professor, University of California-Berkeley, testified:
• “While investment in research and development
is roughly 3% of gross domestic product, it is roughly one-tenth that in the
energy sector. By contrast, R&D investments in the medical and
biotechnology field are roughly 15% of sales, almost a staggering 40 times more
than in the energy field.
• “The fact that we see three to five times more
jobs per dollar invested in the clean tech energy area—and I am including
energy efficiency that we have not mentioned explicitly here, but it is vital
to the equation, this job dividend, green collar jobs, inner city jobs, as well
as the high end jobs is a critical benefit that we can capture. And right now
many of those jobs are going to
30. “D.C. Election Glitch Blamed on Equipment. No
Change in Outcome Despite Phantom Votes” (Washington
Post,
By Nikita Stewart and Elissa
Silverman -
D.C. election officials blamed a defective
computer memory cartridge yesterday for producing what appeared to be thousands
of write-in votes that officials say did not exist.
The glitch caused initially inaccurate results
in several contests, including two high-profile council races, and created a
chaotic scene at Board of Elections and Ethics headquarters Tuesday night….
For example, in the Republican at-large race,
1,560 write-ins at
Industry specialists questioned the board’s
explanation.
“That press release is a model of obfuscation,”
said Henry E. Brady, a professor of public
policy at the
The explanation that a defective cartridge
caused tallying errors across multiple races “is what throws me off,” Brady said. “It is hard to know what
that means. I’m having trouble figuring out how that happens.”
Brady
also said he was taken aback that so many write-in votes would have been
released even as an unofficial count on election night because “any elections
official who has been around for more than three days should know that
write-ins never are that frequent. That should have been stopped from going out
because someone paused to think, ‘This simply cannot be true.’ “ …
31. “UC Berkeley hosts federal task force on
sustainable energy. Decades of potential progress have been “frittered away,”
said Berkeley’s Dan Kammen”
(Berkeleyan,
By Cathy Cockrell, NewsCenter
“The transformation we’re talking about is truly
dramatic,” said UC Berkeley energy expert
Dan Kammen, an invited speaker at the roundtable
discussion. Having “frittered away decades” when the federal government might
have led a robust, coherent research and development effort, he said, it’s now
imperative that sustainable-energy R&D be precisely targeted and adequately
funded; the funding needs to be increased by a factor of at least 3 to 5, he
said.
Kammen proposed that the
32. “DNA firms step up security over
bioterrorism threat” (New Scientist,
A group of “designer
DNA” companies is stepping up security to counter fears that terrorists could
order the genes needed to make a deadly virus.
In 2005, New Scientist reported that
some gene synthesis companies were not checking their orders for potentially
dangerous DNA sequences. Since then, the US National Science Advisory Board for
Biosecurity has called for better screening.
Now the Industry Association of Synthetic Biology (IASB) says that its members
will carry a seal of approval on their websites confirming that they do screen
their orders. This is to encourage researchers to order DNA only from these
companies, and put pressure on the minority of firms that cut costs by not screening
to change.
IASB members will cooperate to improve the software used to identify suspicious
orders and will set up a secure database detailing which DNA sequences make
pathogens highly virulent. “The fact that they’re going to share their experiences
is really important,” says Stephen Maurer,
a lawyer at the
33. “Kammen:
By Lee
Bruno, Cleantech Group
A
“The urgency
for energy R&D funding is high,” Daniel
Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate
Energy Laboratory at
More than 30
years ago, the energy R&D budget was boosted by a factor of three in
response to the OPEC oil embargo between 1975 and 1979, Kammen told the House committee.
But this increase was not sustained.
“In fact,
the increase and then decrease in the budget was particularly wasteful because
a number of potentially important programs were initiated, then canceled,
leaving talented individuals and innovative companies greatly disillusioned and
distrustful of federal efforts in the energy area,” Kammen said.
In his
testimony this morning, Kammen
said investment in research and development is roughly 3 percent of the gross
domestic product, and just one-tenth of the R&D budget goes to the energy
sector...
“The energy
field is sorely lacking,” Kammen said, who serves as contributing researcher to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)….
Kammen said one
of the clearest findings from tracking actual investment histories is that
there is a very strong correlation between investment in innovation and
demonstrated changes in performance and cost of technologies available in the
market.
In the case
of solar photovoltaics, a 50 percent increase in PV
efficiency occurred immediately after an unprecedented $1 billion global
investment in PV R&D from 1978-85. From there, efficiency significantly
improved, which accounts for 30 percent of the cost reductions in PV over the
past two decades….
34. “Fannie
& Freddie Bailout Good for Economy” (KCBS Radio,
The infusion of $100 billion in each of the government-chartered mortgage
giants could help lower mortgage rates and encourage banks to write new loans
or re-finance existing notes at lower rates, said UC Berkeley professor of economics John Quigley.
“The winners in the long run are going to be the
What it won’t do is help homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments
and are facing foreclosure, he said....
35. “Questions
remain on Palin vetting” (Washington
Post,
By Dan Joling, The Associated Press
Anchorage,
Alaska -- John McCain’s presidential campaign did not speak with the Alaska
House speaker and other leading Republicans before McCain tapped Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate....
Attorney Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. led the review and
told The Associated Press earlier this week that Palin
underwent a “full and complete” examination.
But [John
Harris, speaker of the state House of Representatives], state Senate president Lyda Green and GOP chairman Randy Ruedrich
said no one called them in advance to talk about the governor.
“I’ve not
heard of one person who was talked to,” said Green, who lives in Palin’s hometown of Wasilla and has feuded with the
governor….
Henry Brady, professor of political science
and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said Friday
that campaigns should be more diligent about examining the record and
background of lesser-known candidates than well-known ones.
“Any
sensible due diligence would include not just looking at the public record, not
just looking at the newspaper, but also talking to people,” he said.
When
Democrat Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, she was not fully
vetted, Brady said. Questions about
her husband’s financial holdings and tax returns became a central issue in that
election, won in a landslide by Ronald Reagan.
Since the Palin announcement, snippets of potentially damaging
information have dribbled out—Todd Palin’s youthful
intoxicated driving conviction, the pregnancy of the Palin’s
unmarried daughter, Palin’s lack of international
traveling, reality vs. hype on her effectiveness as a governor.
“The
question is whether all these other little shortcomings are going to accumulate
into a not-such-a-great picture,” Brady
said.
The process
does, however, reflect on McCain’s decision making. McCain wrapped up the GOP
nomination in March, giving him plenty of time to investigate potential running
mates.
“You’ve got
months to make this decision,” Brady
said.
He called it
astonishing that with so many unknowns about Palin,
more was not done. Brady said he suspects
McCain did not seriously consider Palin until just
before he picked her.
Still, he
said, “This is one where there was time to do it right.” …
[This story
appeared in more than 100 sources, including the <a href=“http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/06/america/NA-POL-US-Palin-Reviewing-the-Candidate.php“>International
Herald Tribune</a>, <a href”http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-palin-reviewing-the-candidate,1,2692875.story“>Los
Angeles Times</a>, <a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_10398282“>San
Jose Mercury News</a>, <a href=“http://www.contracostatimes.com/politics/ci_10398282“>Contra
Costa Times</a>, and <a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/07/BAJH12PDUE.DTL&hw=Berkeley+University+UC&sn=028&sc=612“>San
Francisco Chronicle</a>]
36. “
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen,
Contra Costa Times and Mary Anne Ostrom,
UC
Berkeley public policy professor Henry Brady offered a far less positive
assessment. He called it a weak policy speech that relied too heavily on McCain’s
biography and glossed over the senator’s role in some of the nation’s current
problems.
“I don’t think it was a great speech,” Brady said “He didn’t talk about health
care or housing or gas prices. Yes, he’s a hero, but what will he do to run the
country?”
37. “Convention roles of corporate reps” –
Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace
[NPR],
ROBERT
REICH: At the Democratic convention last week, I kept bumping into two
different kinds of corporate professionals….
One type says its job is “public affairs;” the
other, “government affairs.” They sound similar but the jobs are quite
different….
The two types often work for the same big
companies but they seem to operate at cross purposes. For example, I met a
public affairs person who talked about the great strides his company was making
in green technologies. But the government-affairs people from the same company
have been actively lobbying against environmental laws and regulations….
But I can’t help thinking that if these companies
took social responsibility seriously, they’d put a break on their lobbying and
influence-peddling. Maybe they’d even avoid spending so much on political
conventions.
Jablonski: Robert Reich teaches public policy at the
38. “A theme of service. Republicans pay tribute
to military veterans, say Gustav shows Katrina’s lessons learned” (Denver Post,
By Chuck Plunkett, The
Republicans promoted the Bush administration’s
response to Hurricane Gustav at their national convention Tuesday and suggested
their lessons learned should close the chapter on the political disaster that
was Hurricane Katrina....
Bush extolled the efforts of federal and local
government in dealing with Gustav....
Going into the speech, Henry Brady, a political scientist and polling expert at the
As the night neared its end, Brady said he considered that aspect of the night successful.
“I thought that the tribute to the military
veterans and all the Medal of Honor winners was very impressive and touched the
heartstrings,” Brady said.
But Brady
found Bush’s address lacking in detail and questioned whether the campaign
could rely solely on McCain’s military service.
“It’s the war-hero strategy,” Brady said, adding he thought the
campaign would have to focus on other issues to win over voters still on the fence.
39. “The war against preschool” (San Francisco
Chronicle,
--David L.
Kirp, W. Stephen Barnett
There’s nothing controversial-sounding about
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to make a $10
billion federal investment in high-quality early education. After all, 38
states and the
While the McCain campaign remains mum on the
topic, the free-markets think-tank, the Reason Foundation, has rushed in to
fill the void. In an Aug. 22 Wall Street Journal commentary piece … foundation
staffers Shikha Dalmia and
Lisa Snell take a rhetorical cudgel to preschool. Not only is pre-K a waste of
money, they claim—it can even do “lasting damage.” This op-ed comes dressed in
the trappings of social science. That may make it sound impressive, but the
argument is pure snake-oil….
These writers show their true colors when they
describe the parents of the Perry preschool youngsters as “drug addicts and neglectful.”
Those mothers and fathers were poor, badly educated African Americans—to leap
to the conclusion that they were drug-addled speaks volumes about the authors’
biases….
David L. Kirp, professor at Berkeley Law and the Goldman School of
Public Policy at UC Berkeley, is the author of “The Sandbox Investment”
(2007). W. Steven Barnett is the director of the National Institute for Early
Education Research at
40. “Obama gives unions a Labor Day boost. He courts their votes to win
By David Shepardson -
Sen. Barack Obama’s Labor Day appearance in
Both the Democratic presidential nominee and
Republican rival Sen. John McCain are fighting for union members—a key voting
bloc in
Robert
Reich, who served as labor secretary under President Clinton, said he
predicts “very high union household turnout this year in support of Senator
Obama because union households have been particularly hard hit by the economy.”
…
41. “Inside the Future of Electric Cars, Hydrogen
and Next-Gen Biofuels” (Popular Mechanics, September
2008); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4279508.html?page=1
By Jennifer Bogo
Additional reporting by Alex Hutchinson, Erin Scottberg, Ben Stewart and Elizabeth Svoboda
Top to bottom: Honda’s
hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity, rolled out in
It’s
been a long summer. With world crude oil prices at record highs, the seasonal
fuel crunch has been particularly painful…. Drivers are no longer hoping for a
reprieve: They’re looking for other options.
Three years ago, corn-based ethanol seemed like a
no-brainer. It exploited a crop we were already good at growing with a process
we’d been using since the colonists brewed beer….
In one sense, the mandate worked. Last year,
A handful of companies are now pushing into a
third generation—biofuels that act like fuels we
already use….
But while manufacturing vehicles to run on
ethanol is easy—there are roughly 60 models for 2008 that can accept E85—biofuel companies have yet to prove they can scale up to
meet the challenge. And they won’t, for at least three more years. “This is not
going to be the quick fix,” says Dan Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy
Lab at the
In the meantime, Kammen’s lab has analyzed one
more way to exploit biofuels: Skip the liquid fuel
stage entirely. Gasifying biomass could produce electricity to flow directly
into the grid, facilitating another transportation
alternative—electric vehicles….
42. “What Should Uncle Sam Do?;
Newsweek’s Business Roundtable takes
stock of the real damage—and offer solutions to the economic crisis” (Newsweek
U.S. Edition,
By Robert
Reich
A Modest Proposal
Robert Reich, secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, and author of “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy,
and Everyday Life”
Of course Fannie and Freddie are getting bailed
out. They’re Bear Stearns to the 10th degree—way too big to fail, especially
with the rest of the Street in turmoil. And of course taxpayers get stuck with
the tab.
What worries me is the complete lack of
accountability by Fannie’s and Freddie’s executives, as well as Wall Street
investment bankers also now being insured by taxpayers. We’ve created the worst
form of socialized capitalism—private gains combined with public losses…
Herewith a modest proposal: when taxpayers insure
a giant entity against loss—Freddie, Fannie, Wall Street investment banks,
whatever—the entities must agree that (1) for the duration of the bailout,
their top executives cannot receive total annual compensation higher than that
received by the president of the United States, and (2) the government gets 5
percent of their current valuation as shares of stock (roughly representing the
benefit to their shareholders of the federal insurance). If and when the
entities become profitable again, taxpayers are thereby compensated for the
risk they’ve taken on.
September 2 Public
Policy Professor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich faced off against Haas Professor David Vogel in a
debate titled “Corporate Social Responsibility: Is it Responsible?” at the Haas
School of Business, video link
Sept. 10 Dan Kammen
testified before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
Hearing (chaired by Rep. Edward Markey, D-MA) on “Investing in the Future:
R&D needs to meet America’s Energy and Climate Challenges”; http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/pressreleases_2008?id=0035#main_content
Sept. 15 Alain de Janvry
spoke on “The Global Food Crisis: A World Development Report.” Sponsored by the
Sept. 15-29 Robert Reich commented on the financial
crisis and proposed bailout on BBC Radio 4—World Tonight, BBC TV “Newsnight,” BBC World Service Radio—World Today, CNBC—Kudlow & Company, MSNBC—The Rachel Maddow
Show, WNYC Radio—The Takeaway, CNN—hosted by Anderson Cooper, PBS, on Canadian
Broadcasting News, CNN International, CNN Domestic—Newsroom with Kyra Phillips
and Don Lemon, MSNBC—Race for the White House with David Gregory, CNN—Larry
King Live, Air America Radio—hosted by Ron Kuby,
Australian National Radio’s “Breakfast”, ABC TV—Good Morning, America. KCBS
News Radio, CNBC, Canadian Broadcasting radio, KGO Radio—host Gil Gross, 5 o’clock
Newshour—BBC News Channel, Tokyo Broacasting,
Australian Broadcasting TV’s “The 7:30 Report,” “Ring of Fire Radio” hosted by
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio,
Sept. 17 Dan Kammen spoke
on “Science and Policy Innovations for Deep Cuts in Carbon Emissions,” part of
the CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley; http://www.citris-uc.org/RE-Sept17
Sept. 17-19 Robert Reich debated the current issues
with Newt Gingrich in the Celebrity Forum Speaker Series, presented by Foothill
College; www.celebrityforum.net
Sept. 20 Robert Reich and Rep. Barbara Lee
(D-Oakland) held a town hall meeting at the Oakland Museum of California Art.
Sept. 21 Dan Kammen
spoke on “Climate Change and Peace: Why the UN Intergovernmental Panel of
Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize” for the United Nations
Association-East Bay Chapter, International House; http://www.unausaeastbay.org/
Sept. 26 Robert Reich appeared on “Late Night
with Conan O’Brien” (NBC TV).
Michael O’Hare, “Arts
Policy Research for the Next Twenty-Five Years: A Trajectory after Patrons
Despite Themselves” (
Jack Glaser and Eric
D. Knowles, “Implicit Motivation to Control Prejudice” (
To view a complete list
of GSPP videos, visit our Events Archive at: /news-events/archive.html
Recent events viewable
on UC Webcast: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/archive.php?select2=36
If you would like further information
about any of the above, or hard copies of cited articles, we’’’’d
be happy to provide them.
We are always delighted to receive your material for inclusion in the Digest. Please email the editor at wong23@berkeley.edu .
Sincerely,
Annette Doornbos
Director of External Relations and Development