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eDIGEST September 2006

UPCOMING EVENTS

1. “From Science to Regulation – Air Quality Successes & Challenges”

with Peter Hess, President of the Air & Waste Management Association

September 27, 2006, 12:30-1:30pm

Room 355 at the Goldman School of Public Policy

Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to mailto:cepp@berkeley.edu by September 25.

2. “National Security in a Turbulent Era” by Michael Nacht

Homecoming Week event - October 6, 2006, 9:30–10:30 a.m.

Barrows Hall, Lipman Room, UCB campus

3. “Where is America Going?” by Robert Reich

Homecoming Week event - October 6, 2006, 11 a.m.–noon

Barrows Hall, Lipman Room, UCB campus

4. GSPP’s 8th Annual Alumni Recognition Dinner

Honoring 2006 Alumnus of the Year, CARL V. PATTON (MPP 1975, PhD 1976)

And honoring Reunion Classes 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001

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

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

QUICK REFERENCE LIST

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

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

1. “Workers’ comp reform generates complaints” (Contra Costa Times, August 23, 2006); story citing FRANK NEUHAUSER (MPP 1993); http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/15339457.htm

2. “Federal guidelines would revise racial reporting data. Those of multiple ethnic ancestries object to being forced into ‘choosing sides’” (Oakland Tribune, August 21, 2006); story citing NINA ROBINSON (MPP 1989); http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_4213296

3. “16th International AIDS Conference” (Forum, KQED-88.5 FM, August 21, 2006); features commentary by MARK CLOUTIER (MPP 1993); listen to the program at: http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD19

4. “Breaks for businesses might go countywide” (Merced Sun-Star, August 17, 2006); story citing study by DAVID CARROLL (MPP 2000).

5. “Bank of America chief economist Mickey Levy, Wachovia Corp. global economist Jay Bryson, The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore and Economic Policy Institute senior economist Jared Bernstein talk about inflation and about housing bubble trouble,” (Kudlow & Company, CNBC News, August 15, 2006); features commentary by MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).

6. “Is $6.75 enough?” (Alameda Times-Star, August 13, 2006); story citing study by DAVID CARROLL (MPP 2000).

7. “Editorial: Pass AB 32. State could lead the clean energy market” (Sacramento Bee, August 9, 2006); editorial citing report co-authored by CHUCK SHULOCK (MPP 1978), PATRICK WRIGHT (MPP 1987), ROBERT SCHLADALE (MPP 1980), and Prof. MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/editorials/story/14291614p-15127940c.html

8. “Businesses divided over warming bill’s bottom line” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 17, 2006); story report co-authored by CHUCK SHULOCK (MPP 1978), PATRICK WRIGHT (MPP 1987), ROBERT SCHLADALE (MPP 1980), and Prof. MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/17/MNG7EKK3TC1.DTL

9. “When a Pill Is Not Enough” (New York Times Magazine, August 6, 2006); story citing DAVID HARRISON (MPP 2000); http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/magazine/06aids.html?pagewanted=all

10. “McClatchy Completes Sale of 12 Orphan Knight Ridder Papers” (Editor & Publisher, August 3, 2006); story citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981); http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950070

11. “Senate Panel Weighs Toxic Chemicals Law. Manufacturers and the EPA think the 1976 rules are effective, but many others call for revisions” (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2006); story citing study co-authored by DAN CHIA (MPP 2004) and BRYAN EHLERS (MPP 2004); http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-toxics3aug03,0,5420349.story?coll=la-home-nation

12. “Institute of Governmental Studies - Spring Highlights: Politics” (Public Affairs Report, Vol. 47, No. 1, Summer 2006); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980); forthcoming online at: http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/publications/par/

13. “Corzine calls for property tax cap - 4 percent limit on growth highlights reform proposals” (The Record (Hackensack, NJ), July 29, 2006); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975).

14. “Were temp nurses a factor in mix-up? - Lawmakers question care during strike” (The Record (Hackensack, NJ), July 29, 2006); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975).

15. “Are we really sparing the air? - Free rides on public transit keep motorists off the roads, but there is no sure way to measure effects on pollution” (Contra Costa Times, July 27, 2006); story citing STUART COHEN (MPP 1997).

16. “Group brings ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ fight to region” (Virginian-Pilot, July 27, 2006); story citing JIM MALONEY (MPP 2005); http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=108216&ran=8586

17. “Look, Ma, no gas—and yet zero to 60 in just four seconds. Civic virtue aside, Tesla is fun to drive—0-60 in four seconds. But at $100,000, it’s not yet ready for the masses” (Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2006); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992); http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-tesla26jul26,1,5883637.story

18. “The ’96 Games: 10 Years Later. City’s dreams rang true after Games. Hard to measure: Some contend downtown’s development is unrelated to stimulation by the Olympics” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 16, 2006); story citing CARL PATTON (MPP 1975, PhD 1976); http://www.ajc.com/search/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_449bddc6f497718e004e.html

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Greener California could impact business” (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 31, 2006

); features interview with DAN KAMMEN; Listen to this story

2. “Displaced poor likely to stay where they land” -- Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 30, 2006); http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/08/30/AM200608301.html

3. “Campaign 2006: Oil tax bid hatched by unlikely advocate” (Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14308686p-15198983c.html

4. “If Schwarzenegger = Bush, then Angelides = Clinton? Nominee pushes his equation in Berkeley” (Oakland Tribune, August 25, 2006); story citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_4235999

5. “What Class Are You? Inside America’s Taboo Topic” (The Oprah Winfrey Show, August 24, 2006 [Originally aired April 21, 2006], Oprah.com); features commentary by ROBERT REICH; http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200604/20060421/slide_20060421_350_106.jhtml

6. “Awards: John Quigley” (Berkeleyan, August 24, 2006); story citing JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2006/08/24_awards.shtml

7. “Still waiting for that trickle-down” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 23, 2006). Listen to this commentary

8. “Oakland: Oak-to-Ninth foes turn in signatures for ballot measure” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 18, 2006); story citing JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/18/BAG5BKL3D61.DTL&type=printable

9. “America losing its competitive edge” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [National Public Radio], August 16, 2006); Listen to this commentary

10. “Global warming cap can stimulate CA economy, report says” (UC Berkeley Media Relations, August 16, 2006); story citing MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/08/16_climate.shtml

11. “Not facing warming is costly” (Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2006); Letter to the Editor by MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14303431p-15178622c.html

12. “Apple’s iPod and the market for virtue” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 2006); op-ed by DAVID VOGEL; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/08/14/EDG0SJ7M3V1.DTL

13. “Wealth gap widening. Wages are not keeping up with the overall growth in household wealth, which is dividing the middle class and defining economic and political issues” (Houston Chronicle, August 13, 2006); story citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/4114442.html

14. “Roundtable: Robert Reich, Martha Raddatz, George Will” (This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, August 13, 2006); features commentary by ROBERT REICH; podcast available at: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/News/story?id=466

15. “Airline Security” (Forum, KQED-88.5 FM, August 11, 2006); features commentary by MICHAEL NACHT; listen at: http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD19

16. “Panel’s Report Urges Higher Education Shake-Up” (New York Times, August 11, 2006); story citing ROBERT BERDAHL; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/education/11educ.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

17. “Goodbye pensions” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 9, 2006). Listen to this commentary

18. “Former labor secretary Robert Reich, Governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski, Governor of Montana Brian Schweitzer, and Dan Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates discuss the BP oil shutdown, its potential economic damage, energy exploration and offshore drilling” (Kudlow & Company, CNBC News, August 8, 2006); features commentary by ROBERT REICH.

19. “Robert Reich of the University of California-Berkeley, Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial, Donald Luskin of Trend Micro, and Nouriel Roubini of New York University discuss the Fed and recession” (Kudlow & Company, CNBC News, August 8, 2006); features commentary by ROBERT REICH.

20. “Every day should be a tax holiday” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 2, 2006). Listen to this commentary

21. “Bigger Houses Pull More Electricity for Cooling” (Morning Edition, National Public Radio, August 2, 2006); features commentary by DAN KAMMEN; audio available at:

22. “New Role: Pariah? Jewish groups, PR experts say Gibson hasn’t handled his arrest and its aftermath well” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 1, 2006); column citing JACK GLASER; http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/01/MNGO6K90RL1.DTL

23. “If You Thought Last Week Was Hot ... Higher temperatures, rising ocean, loss of snowpack forecast for state” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 1, 2006); story citing study co-authored by MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/01/MNGDAK90EK1.DTL

24. “Clinton Foundation to Work to Reduce Greenhouse Gases” (New York Times, August 2, 2006); story citing study co-authored by MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/science/earth/02climate.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS

By George Avalos, MEDIANEWS

Two years after sweeping reforms of workers’ compensation in California, a growing number of injured employees say they have fallen through the cracks in the system to treat people hurt on the job.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed for changes to the workers’ comp system because skyrocketing premiums had burdened employers, but some critics believe those efforts eroded benefits to workers in order to reduce costs to businesses and insurers.

Employees in a variety of occupations say the reforms have produced delays and obstacles in their efforts to receive medical treatment or payment for their injuries. In some cases, workers say they have had critical treatment denied.

And numerous employees who once received long-term treatment for permanent disabilities through workers’ comp no longer qualify for that after the 2004 reforms.

“There is a substantial number of workers who were getting benefits before the reforms that now are not,” said University of California, Berkeley researcher Frank Neuhauser. He estimated that about 15 percent to 20 percent of the employees who were awarded permanent disability benefits receive nothing now….

By Michelle Maitre, Staff Writer

Ai-Ling Jamila Malone does not fit into a box.

Her mother is Chinese and her father is African American, and there’s no such thing as “choosing sides” when checking those little race boxes on college applications and other forms.

“I personally check both boxes,” said the 21-year-old University Of California, Berkeley graduate, who has a simple analogy for people who seem to think she needs to somehow “claim” one racial identity or the other....

But it is a concept that, for the most part, has long been problematic when collecting and reporting racial data at schools and universities. Students like Malone are typically recorded as being of one race, despite the boxes they choose.

A new proposal from the U.S. Department of Education would change that, however, and would provide a new mechanism for schools to collect and report racial data from those who are of several different heritages.

For the first time, students would be able to check more than one race box. Universities would report data on those students under a new category called “two or more races.” The proposal also changes the way information on Latino students is collected....

Officials at California State University and the University of California are still reviewing the proposal, but they cited a number of issues with the plan, including how it would impact long-term statistical data on their students....

UC ... allows students to check more than one box. When it comes to reporting racial statistics, however, students are identified by one race. By default, race is determined by whichever checked box falls first on the list of categories. A student who checked white and Asian, for instance, would be classified as Asian, since that category is higher on the list than white.

Nina Robinson, UC’s Director of Policy and External Affairs in the Student Affairs Division, said the university adopted that plan about 10 years ago, when officials thought guidelines for reporting students of several races would be imminent.

“At the time we made the decision, we fully expected we would get guidance from the federal government within a couple of months,” Robinson said. “It was a temporary solution, but we had to stick with it for several years. Once you adopt a particular method of reporting, you don’t want to change it.”...

Robinson said the federal proposal is a mixed bag.

“You gain the information that (students) are of mixed race, and that’s important information in our country and our state,” she said, “but you lose the information about which ethnicity they are.”...

3. “16th International AIDS Conference” (Forum, KQED-88.5 FM, August 21, 2006); features commentary by MARK CLOUTIER (MPP 1993); listen or download at: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R608210900

Forum looks at the discussions and issues focused on at last week’s International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Host: Michael Krasny. Guests: Mark Cloutier, executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and president of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation….

MICHAEL KRASNY: What about prevention strategies with respect to behavioral interventions? Certainly they’ve done well here in San Francisco, but each population is different?

MARK CLOUTIER: They have. From the mid 1980s when we had a rate of approximately 8000 HIV infections each year it has dropped dramatically; this year the health department is predicting about 900 new HIV infections. But the challenge in San Francisco, and throughout many urban areas, is that there are two kinds of epidemic occurring. One is in what you referred to as communities of color, both African American and Latino. The real alarm there is among African American men who have sex with men. There’s a recent study of six cities in which the infection rate was 46%, which rivals the infection rate in sub-Saharan Africa. So the challenging news domestically is that we’re kind of stuck in terms of the rate of new HIV infections. Behavioral strategies that we used have gotten us to a good point, but in order to move towards disease eradication—eliminating new infections—we have to develop new strategies….

One of the strategies we have to look at is to make testing more readily available. The CDC recently came out with recommendations to provide routine testing in emergency care settings and urgent care settings with an opt-out and informed consent and confidentiality. I think this is a promising way both to help people identify their HIV infection in terms of prevention and to get people on treatment….

KRASNY: What about mandatory testing, in prisons for example?

CLOUTIER: … There are some substantial civic rights concerns about mandatory testing in prisons. Prison officials are opposed to it, not necessarily for human rights reasons, but because they don’t really want the public to know the rate at which HIV is being transmitted in prisons and at which men on release then bring it into their communities and infect their partners….

KRASNY: …One ongoing [controversy] is that the Bush administration made strings attached to the billions it is giving out—$15B to roughly 15 countries. You work in the global sphere and know that these strings involve essentially denouncing prostitution, abstinence and that sort of thing…. A lot of that controversy swirled at the conference?

CLOUTIER: It did and it was roundly denounced. There was a lot of data presented about the lack of success of ABC (abstinence, be faithful, use condoms). Everyone at the conference acknowledged that you cannot succeed in slowing the epidemic if you do not reach out to marginalized populations, such as commercial sex workers, prostitutes, injection drug users, men having sex with men, and in developing settings, girls and women….

4. “Breaks for businesses might go countywide” (Merced Sun-Star, August 17, 2006); story citing study by DAVID CARROLL (MPP 2000).

By Leslie Albrecht

When Label Technology, Inc. added a third shift at its Wardrobe Avenue printing plant last year, 20 more people went to work in Merced.

The company would have delayed adding those new jobs if it weren’t for Merced’s status as an Enterprise Zone, a state program designed to spur economic development in areas with high poverty and unemployment. The zone’s tax credits helped pay for a new printing press for the added shift, and helped cover the cost of some of the new salaries.

Merced’s Enterprise Zone expires in December. Now the Merced County Economic Development Corp. is applying to renew the zone for another 15 years….

“The zone has been critical to the economic growth of this community,” Development Manager Frank Quintero told the Merced City Council shortly before it voted to approve the new application….

While a recent California Budget Project report [by David Carroll] said Enterprise Zones cost the state too much money and provide only “tenuous” benefits, local business leaders and officials said the Enterprise Zone is a crucial factor in boosting Merced’s sagging economy….

[David Carroll’s report, “California’s Enterprise Zones Miss the Mark,” can be read at: http://www.cbp.org/ ]

MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA, host: …Mickey, did today’s PPI report [described as “benign”] burst the inflation bubble?….

Mr. MICKEY LEVY (Bank of America Chief Economist): Not at all. The PPI was suppressed by the special factor of auto financing. It’s in the cards that inflation’s going to rise further at the consumer price level and we’ve had some excess demand. Fed can’t do anything about it. Even slower growth can’t do anything about it….

CARUSO-CABRERA: Mickey, go ahead. What do you think? The CPI tomorrow as benign as PPI?

Mr. LEVY: No, I think we’re looking for a .3 on the core. Right now, year-over-year the core CPI is 2.7 percent. Now that’s fairly low by historic standards. But we’ve had a couple years now where there has been excess demand relative to productive capacity. So that’s why I say it’s in the cards, inflation is going to rise further. It’s not going to rise forever. But I caution people about expecting a moderation in growth to lower inflation….

Mr. BERNSTEIN: If a slowing economy doesn’t affect inflation, then what the heck is the Fed doing, and we’re all doing paying that much attention to the Fed? I mean, Bernanke is telling you, `I’m pulling the levers to get the predicted result.’ I think we should listen to him.

Mr. LEVY: I think you should look at history. You find that a slowdown in the economy does not reduce inflation right away. But, secondly, I agree with Steve…. If you look at retail sales for July, we’re looking for a reacceleration in real consumption and GDP from the second quarter. Second quarter, of course, was slower than the robust first quarter. But average these out and take out the quarterly bumps due to auto sales... and we’re looking for reacceleration in GDP….

CARUSO-CABRERA: …[C]oming up, homebuilders’ confidence falling to a 15-year low in August. Has the housing bubble officially burst? … Mickey, how worried are you about housing? And does housing follow the economy or does the economy follow housing because it’s had such a big impact?

Mr. MICKEY LEVY (Bank of America Chief Economist): Well, they’re both associated. I mean, look, the Feds hiked the funds rate from 1 to 5¼ percent. You would expect housing to flatten out. And that’s what it’s doing. Inventories are high. But I think it will be an adjustment period that may last for a couple years. But in no way, shape or form does it point toward a sharp decline in the economy….

Mr. BERNSTEIN: … Look, one point that I think reflects weakness in the economy from the housing market is if you look at an employment index where you collect all the jobs associated with housing, not just the construction jobs, but downstream and upstream jobs as well, real estate credit markets, you actually see that index booming over the housing boom and seriously flattening over the course of this year with housing starts down. So I do think that it does wag the tail of the economy a bit more than some of the other speakers have….

Mr. LEVY: Well, look, the economy is moderating, but I’d emphasize the word moderating. Although I did mention it seems like we’re seeing a reacceleration of consumption in GDP growth in the third quarter. But we’re also, at same time as housing is flattening out, which is actually a healthy adjustment compared to what we’ve had for the last six years... we’re seeing a noted pickup in business investment and structures. And so, at the same time, there are other factors that are offsetting. And after having such healthy economic growth for so long, a moderation is just about what you’d expect from the Fed rate hike. One point...

CARUSO-CABRERA: Jay… One of the questions that we haven’t asked a lot of but a lot of people are worried about, whether or not we’re headed into recession next year. What do you think?…

Mr. BRYSON: … What I would say the probability of recession right now, say in the next 12 months, I would place it somewhere about one in three. I think we’re going to have a soft landing. But I would say the risk of recession are not insignificant.

Mr. LEVY: That’s way high….

6. “Is $6.75 enough?” (Alameda Times-Star, August 13, 2006); story citing study by DAVID CARROLL (MPP 2000).

By Michele R. Marcucci, Staff Writer

The image “http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site181/2006/0813/20060813_081539_0813trib_wages1.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. Photo: Norma Acevedo’s 17-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter share this room in the family’s two-bedroom Oakland apartment.

Sally Lieber says she recently spent time touring homeless shelters, and was struck by the number of people living there who were working full-time, earning the minimum wage. So the Democratic assemblywoman from Mountain View is working to raise it.

“Our current minimum wage is $1.23 an hour below the federal poverty line (for a family of three). I think it ought to be a moral value of our state that these families that are earning the minimum wage are at least earning enough to eat on,” says Lieber, who wants to increase the state’s hourly minimum wage by a dollar, from $6.75 to $7.75, plus automatic increases.

But state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, says Lieber’s proposal will hurt the people she wants to help…. “Every increase in the minimum wage marginally reduces the jobs available, and I’ve never understood why it is better not to have a job paying $7.75 an hour than to have a job paying $6.75.” …

[Proponents] say the minimum wage is worth far less than it was at its peak in 1968, which would be $9.78 in today’s dollars, according to the California Budget Project. They also argue the raises could lead to a reduction in the need for public assistance.

And they say the raise is particularly important in California, where housing and other costs are higher than in other states and where a higher proportion of minimum-wage workers, 1.4 million Californians by one estimate, are adults instead of teens….

Advocates for the poor admit that an increase in the minimum wage won’t solve poor workers’ woes. According to a 2005 California Budget Project report [prepared by DAVID CARROLL], a single person living in the Bay Area would need to earn twice the state’s minimum wage to pay basic bills like housing, food and transportation; and families would need to earn much more.

But they think a raise can be a tool in a box that should include more low-income housing, expanded health coverage and more earned income tax credit.

“Even with a very meager increase in the minimum wage, families don’t have a fair shot at self-sufficiency,” Lieber says. “That’s the overall goal here, to not have parents and kids in homeless shelters and spending time in the soup kitchen and concentrating on getting ahead.”

[David Carroll’s report, “The Rising Tide Left Some Boats Behind: Boom, Bust and Beyond in the San Francisco Bay Area,” may be read at: http://www.cbp.org/ ]

California has more to lose than many states with a superheated climate. Scientists expect our snowpack to decrease dramatically, our air quality to suffer, our Delta water supplies to degrade and our coastlines to become increasingly eroded as temperatures spike and sea level rises.

California alone can’t reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. But by phasing in emissions reductions and creating incentives for new environmental technologies, it can create a model for the nation to emulate and put California at the forefront of the clean-energy market.

Assembly Bill 32, crafted by Speaker Fabian Núñez and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, is the vehicle for achieving this goal. It has a strong chance of passing this session. AB 32 would make California the first state to set caps on greenhouse emissions from industry and automobiles. It effectively would put into law the emissions reduction goals that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved last year.

Currently, California emits nearly 500 million metric tons of greenhouse emissions yearly, which makes us the world’s 12th largest emitter. Without any controls, statewide emissions are projected to increase 20 percent by 2020.

If AB 32 passes, California would be required to decrease its emissions to 2000 levels in four years. In 14 years, emissions would be brought down to 1990 levels, eliminating about 174 million metric tons of greenhouse gases.

Can California’s industries achieve such reductions? A report by the governor’s Climate Action Team suggests it is feasible. A transition to cleaner cars and improved energy efficiency could achieve nearly half the cuts. Renewable fuels and energy and changes in forestry practices could get us over the goal line….

[The governor’s Climate Action Team includes Chuck Shulock, Program Manager of the Air Resources Board, and Patrick Wright of the California Resources Agency; Michael Hanemann in the Scenario Planning Subgroup; Robert Schladale, Dept. of Finance, in the Market-Based Options Subgroup.]

By Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Sacramento -- A push to make California the first state in the country to cap greenhouse gas emissions has many businesses split over whether the new limits would hobble the state’s economy or create jobs and big profits.

The debate has intensified as Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a frequent ally of big business who also touts his efforts to fight global warming, try to reach a compromise before Aug. 31 on what is perhaps the most closely watched piece of environmental legislation in the country.

Traditional business groups such as the state Chamber of Commerce and Farm Bureau Federation oppose the legislation. The chamber is running a radio advertising campaign that seeks to torpedo support for the measure as the legislative session winds down.

But several venture capitalists and entrepreneurs promoting the legislation argued Wednesday that new regulations would create a boom in industries such as solar power and biofuels that will power the California economy for decades.

Also on Wednesday, a UC Berkeley study predicted that reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the state would create 17,000 new jobs and add $60 billion to the gross state product by 2020.

“Green technologies, sustainable technologies, are the next big thing,’’ said John Doerr, a partner in the powerhouse Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. “This really is the mother of all markets.”….

The heart of the broader debate is how a major change in the energy use of businesses and individuals will affect the economy.

The coalition opposing the legislation predicts that limits on companies’ energy use will be disastrous….

“The Chamber of Commerce needs to back off,’’ [Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, author of AB32 - “Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006”] said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. “They’ve cried wolf one too many times.’’…

And other studies predict an economic boom. A Schwarzenegger-created task force [the Climate Action Team] formed to come up with ways to reduce greenhouse gases suggested that a cap would add more than 80,000 new jobs.

And the study released Wednesday, by David Roland-Holst, an adjunct professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley, suggests that California businesses and consumers would save money through energy efficiency that will lower electricity bills. The report also suggests that businesses with lower power bills will invest money elsewhere and create jobs.

“Yes, there will be adaptation costs,’’ said Alex Farrell, a UC Berkeley professor who helped with the study. “But those up-front costs will easily pay for themselves.’’…

[To read more about the report by the Climate Action Team go to: http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/climate_action_team/reports/index.html ]

9. “When a Pill Is Not Enough” (New York Times Magazine, August 6, 2006); story citing DAVID HARRISON (MPP 2000); http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/magazine/06aids.html?pagewanted=all

By Tina Rosenberg

Illustration by Paul Sahre

…In South Africa, where AIDS has already exploded through the general population, prevention is an even more overwhelming challenge. One disturbing fact: Surveys show that South Africa’s teenagers know about AIDS and how it is transmitted. They know the behaviors that put people at risk. But they don’t apply this information to themselves. There is no correlation between information and behavior change…. Especially for teenagers, the psychology of sexual behavior resides in some deep and mysterious place, apparently shielded from the reach of traditional public-health messages as if by a lead curtain. The question is whether anything can get through.

South Africa is trying to answer that question with a controversial H.I.V./AIDS-prevention program called loveLife [headed by Dr. David Harrison], which generally serves youths from 12 to 17. It is as far from the traditional campaigns as it could be….

Today loveLife is one of the 15 best-known brands in South Africa….

But many people also question loveLife’s basics. Virtually every South African adult I met thinks that the messages on loveLife’s billboards — the media most visible to adults — are incomprehensible. Many — like “Get Attitude!”— indeed appear to have nothing to do with AIDS. But loveLife’s leaders argue that the billboards, like all of loveLife’s media, are not there to educate young people but to draw them into the face-to-face programs. They promote loveLife as an exclusive club that you, as a teenager, can join. The celebrity gossip and fashion advice in loveLife magazines is also not a message but a delivery system. “The logic of the brand is to create something larger than life, a sense of belonging,” says Dr. David Harrison, a tall, lanky, white physician who became head of loveLife in 2000. “That creates participation in clinics, schools — people go because they like to be a part of loveLife.”…

I met Harrison in loveLife’s headquarters in the Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, a pleasant campus of modern buildings with interiors painted in loveLife’s trademark purple and white. He said that loveLife’s research found that what particularly put young people at risk was coerced sex. Other factors were low self-esteem, absence of belief that the future offered any reason to make wiser choices today, peer pressure, lack of parental communication and the popular belief that a girl is not a woman until she has a baby. Poverty, low education and marginalization also led to higher rates of AIDS.

LoveLife cannot do much about those last three. Instead it tries to promote family and society communication and help young people acquire the skills and motivation to resist pressure to have sex, especially unprotected sex. “When I ask young people what made them change, they never say, ‘You gave us information,’ “ Harrison says. “They say: ‘I feel an identity with a new way of life. I can be like my friend whose life has changed.”‘

There have been some good recent analyses about how to tinker effectively with teenagers’ heads. A study last year led by Dolores Albarracín of the University of Florida examined evaluations of hundreds of H.I.V.-prevention programs. The group found that threats and fear don’t work…. For young people, not surprisingly, one of the most effective arguments for making healthier choices is that their peers are doing the same. Programs that produced the most behavior change combined H.I.V. information, attitude change and training in skills like saying no to sex without a condom….

LoveLife’s message is the same public-health gospel a Nashi would have used: abstinence, fidelity, condoms. But that message is received very differently if it comes during a five-hour lecture in the church hall than it is if it comes from Sibulele Sibaca, a petite, enthusiastic, energetic 23-year-old from Langa, a township outside of Cape Town. Today she is a corporate social investment manager in Richard Branson’s Virgin Group in South Africa. That, she says, is because of loveLife. When she was 12, her mother died of AIDS. When she was 16, her father followed. “Before I joined loveLife, I had a serious history of self-destruction,” she said by phone from Cape Town. “I saw my life ending up in the township, pregnant, not knowing who the father of my child is.”

She got through high school. A friend told her about loveLife, and she began going to its programs. “I had been engaging in highly risky behavior, but loveLife helped me realize there were things I wanted to achieve in my life, and I couldn’t afford to have sex without a condom,” she said. “The reality is that every young person has a dream, but a lot of us look at our situation and think, Who are we kidding? But the minute someone triggers in your brain that it is possible, you start looking at life in a different way….

There are strong indications that loveLife does indeed change young people’s behavior. In 2003, the Reproductive Health Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg did a survey of 15- to 24-year-olds. It found that people who had participated in loveLife’s programs were only 60 percent as likely to be infected with H.I.V. as those who had not, and the risk diminished further for those who had participated in more than one program. There was also a strong association between loveLife participation and increased condom use — although there was no statistically significant effect on abstention or partner reduction….

LoveLife has not, of course, produced the promised 50 percent drop in new H.I.V. infections. But loveLife’s face-to-face programs have been working nationwide since only 2002…. And last month, the South African government reported that new surveys of pregnant women showed that rates of infection in teenagers are holding steady, while the rates of other age groups are rising. This suggests something is working with teenagers….

By E&P Staff

New York - The McClatchy Co. announced on Tuesday that it has completed the divesture of all 12 former Knight Ridder papers. McClatchy received a total north of $2 billion for the transactions, which represents a multiple of 11 times the last 12-month cash flows.

“This is the first milestone in the McClatchy-Knight Ridder transaction, as we have now closed the sales of all the newspapers we identified for divesture,” Gary Pruitt, CEO of McClatchy, said in a statement. “We are pleased to have executed as we promised in this deal, finding good buyers, getting full prices and helping ensure committed owners for all 12 papers we divested.”

Earlier this week, McClatchy also announced it has taken a 15% stake in CareerBuilder and ShopLocal.com and an 11.25% stake in Topix.net….

By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer

At the first Senate hearing in more than a decade to review the nation’s toxic chemicals law, the Bush administration on Wednesday agreed with chemical industry representatives that the 30-year-old statute was strong enough to protect public health….

Many political, legal, scientific and economic experts say the law needs to be overhauled because the U.S. trails the European Union and other developed countries in reviewing and restricting toxic substances.

“The EPA has slipped in its leadership in the international arena,” said Dr. Lynn R. Goldman, a Johns Hopkins University scientist and pediatrician who headed the EPA’s toxics program for the Clinton administration.

Several hundred industrial chemicals in use today are known to accumulate in human tissues and breast milk, and persist in the environment without breaking down. The health effects of many of them are largely unknown, though scientific studies have linked some to cancer, altered hormones, reproductive effects and neurological damage, particularly for fetuses exposed in the womb.

Under the toxics law, the EPA has had broad authority to ban or restrict chemical compounds developed after 1976. But the agency can regulate an older chemical only if proof is found that it poses an “unreasonable risk” to human health or the environment, which can require years, even decades, of costly and detailed risk assessments….

The U.S. government has not attempted to restrict an industrial chemical in use before the law was passed since 1989, when an EPA rule banning asbestos was struck down by a federal court, in part because the agency had not proven to a judge that the lung-damaging chemical posed an unreasonable risk….

John B. Stephenson, environmental director of the Government Accountability Office, told the Senate committee that the law set “such a high legal standard” that the EPA was “severely inhibited by its cumbersome authorities.” Last year, a GAO report concluded that the toxics law had many weaknesses.

Michael Wilson, a researcher at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at UC Berkeley, urged Congress to enact a “modern chemicals policy.” He said the EPA had insufficient data on the safety of chemicals and was not able to properly gauge the dangers to people and the environment.

Because of this, he said, the U.S. is “falling behind” in technology innovations that lead to safer chemicals. Wilson earlier this year coauthored [with Dan Chia and Bryan Ehlers] a report for the California Legislature that encouraged the state to adopt its own chemicals law because the federal one was weak….

[Read more about the UC Berkeley study, “Green Chemistry in California: A Framework for Leadership in Chemicals Policy and Innovation,” at: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/03/14_greenchemicals.shtml ]

Mike Genest, director of the California Department of Finance, talked to a combined meeting of students from several classes, including the IGS Cal-in-Sacramento Platinum Fellows. Also in the audience were students from the Goldman School of Public Policy. Genest described his work developing the state budget for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also encouraged the students to enter public service.

13. “Corzine calls for property tax cap - 4 percent limit on growth highlights reform proposals” (The Record (Hackensack, NJ), July 29, 2006); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975).

By Josh Gohlke, Trenton Bureau

Governor Corzine called for the state’s first limit on property tax growth Friday….

The speech marked the beginning of a special legislative session dedicated to stemming the inexorable rise of a tax that now accounts for 46 percent of the total tax burden in New Jersey, compared with a national average of about 30 percent. As Corzine quipped, “Frankly, I’ve never in my life wanted so much to be average.”…

Reiterating another proposal he has long supported, Corzine suggested applying $350 million of the new sales tax revenue toward direct property tax credits. He said those would replace and expand on the current rebate checks by next year, providing some immediate relief for low- and middle-income homeowners and tenants.

The remaining $250 million should be used to encourage towns and schools to consolidate services, Corzine said….

Bergen County’s 70 municipalities provide a favorite case-in-point for consolidation.

“There are important dividends for Bergen County in sharing our services,” said Assemblyman Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn.

“I think the public is starting to realize we can’t have 70 municipalities and 70-plus school districts.”

Bergen lawmakers also hailed Corzine’s promise to revise school funding formulas that leave many suburban districts supported largely by local property taxes, even as urban districts are increasingly state-funded….

[Legislative leaders named Assemblyman Robert Gordon among 24 lawmakers who must recommend ways to cut property taxes and government spending by a Nov. 15 deadline.]

14. “Were temp nurses a factor in mix-up? - Lawmakers question care during strike” (The Record (Hackensack, NJ), July 29, 2006); story citing ROBERT GORDON (MPP 1975).

By William Lamb, Staff Writer

The presence of temporary workers who replaced striking nurses at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center may have contributed to an incident this month in which a physician began to operate on the wrong hip of an elderly patient, a group of Democratic state lawmakers said Friday.

The legislators made the allegation in a letter to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The letter called on the commission to investigate U.S. Nursing Corp., a Denver company that supplied replacement nurses to Englewood Hospital after 660 union nurses went on strike June 29….

[Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-Englewood, who signed the letter] said the July 22 incident in which a physician opened up the wrong hip of an elderly female patient “raises an alarm” that patient care may have suffered during the strike.

The letter also carried the signatures of four other lawmakers: Assemblymen Gordon Johnson, D-Englewood, and Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn; and state Sens. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, and Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex….

A union spokeswoman, Jeanne Otersen, said it supported the legislators. Better oversight could help clear up “quality control” issues that arise when temporary nurses are called in during strikes, she said….

By Kiley Russell, Times Staff Writer

The Bay Area’s recent six days of free public transit during hot, smoggy summer commutes were popular, but whether the Spare the Air program justified its hefty price tag is up for debate.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the region’s transit planning and funding agency, spent about $13 million to compensate transit agencies for lost fare revenue during those six days in June and July.

Yet there is no clear way to measure whether the increase in transit ridership resulted in less air pollution.

One goal of the program — getting more people to ride public transit — clearly worked. Every participating transit agency in the region reported a big bump in passengers — more than 1 million additional riders in total.

Whether that translates into long-term ridership gains has yet to be seen, however.

And the twin goal of cutting down on pollution in order to lower smog levels and meet federal air quality standards is not being tracked in a way that shows whether the program is working.

For one thing, officials do not know how many people taking advantage of the free rides were regular commuters or just tourists and day-trippers. For another, smog measurements do not accurately reflect whether fewer vehicle emissions caused a significant reduction in air pollution or whether the lower smog levels were coincidental based on other factors such as variable temperatures and wind….

Specific air quality levels on this year’s six Spare the Air days will not be quantified until the fall, but commission staff members reported Wednesday that on two of the six days, the region avoided violating federal clean air standards….

Despite the criticisms, however, the program is popular with the commission, the transit agencies and activists trying to get people out of their cars.

“We shouldn’t underplay the value of marketing and the potential for getting new riders. It shouldn’t just be purely based on emissions (reductions),” said Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition.

“Even if you get 500 new people riding BART over time, that can turn into a tremendous economic return for BART over the course of a few years,” he said.

Also, free transit days have an important “intangible” benefit, he said. “It really reinforced in people’s minds the relationship between their transportation habits and our environment. A lot of people getting into their cars understood they were doing something that was degrading the environment.”…

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

By Kate Wiltrout, The Virginian-Pilot

Norfolk -- A fledgling national organization dedicated to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” hopes to make Norfolk a hot spot of grassroots opposition to the 13-year-old military policy on homosexuals.

The Military Equality Alliance is sponsoring a town hall meeting here Saturday that will feature four gay veterans from Virginia. MEA was formed this month, has one paid employee and an annual budget of $80,000, according to Jim Maloney, its San Francisco-based executive director.

Maloney said Norfolk is crucial for two reasons: It has a large military community with a sizable number of gay veterans, and U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake, who represents part of the city, is a member of the congressional subcommittee considering a bill to repeal the ban on openly gay service members.

“It’s requiring gays and lesbians in the military to lie -- about where they go on the weekends, about who they’re talking to,” said Lara Ballard , co-chair of MEA’s board and its coordinator for Virginia. “In an age of heightened security, why do you want a policy that requires service members to lie to their superiors about what they’re doing?”…

In 2005, Rep. Martin Meehan, a Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced the legislation [The Military Readiness Enhancement Act] requiring the military to adopt a nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation in place of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Drake’s spokesman, Tyler Brown, said Wednesday the congresswoman does not support Meehan’s bill….

The alliance hopes to change that by finding and training local residents to lobby for the bill….

Vivien Viloria, a lesbian, retired last year as a chief petty officer after 22 years in the Navy. The Norfolk resident is not a member of MEA, but will be a panelist Saturday….

Viloria said … that she endured verbal harassment for years, especially as a younger sailor, and said gay-bashing is still prevalent in the Navy. She said the U.S. should follow the lead of other nations—including Israel, Canada, Britain and Australia—that allow gays to serve openly.

“I think the hardest part was the fear of being found out…” said Viloria….

“When we retire, we retire into the fleet reserve,” she said. “I thought, ‘Can they still take my retirement away?’ It’s a slow crawl out of that military closet.”

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which tracks dismissals under the current policy, found that more than 11,000 military members were kicked out for being gay between 1994 and 2005.

The Government Accountability Office estimated last year that the cost of replacing enlisted service members dismissed under the first 10 years of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was $190.5 million. This year, a University of California commission studying the financial impact of the ban tallied the cost at nearly $364 million.

By Dan Neil, Times Staff Writer

Tesla Motors unveils its new electric roadster in Santa Monica.(Glenn Koenig / LAT)

When Tesla, the upstart auto company based in Silicon Valley, unveiled its all-electric Roadster at a swank affair in Santa Monica last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped in for surprise visit….

The yare and sleek carbon-bodied sports car is, by my reckoning, the first plausible electric automobile of the 21st century. And, without electrics, the 22nd century is going to be very rocky indeed.

To appreciate the Tesla, it helps to compare it to the much-lamented EV1, GM’s purpose-built electric car that was, in the mid-1990s, the most advanced vehicle of its kind. The Tesla Roadster has a range of 250 miles, says the company. The EV1, with the best nickel metal hydride batteries, could go about 150 miles under ideal conditions. A full charge of the EV1 could take eight hours. The Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries can be raised from the dead to a full charge in 3½ hours and, unlike the EV1, the Tesla will come with its own portable charging pack so it won’t be range-tethered to its home charging station.

The Tesla is a toothsome sports car. The EV1, um, wasn’t.

Perhaps most important and most unlike the EV1, the Tesla offers something beyond mere virtue as a reward to its buyers. Fun, in large, hair-raising voltages. The company claims 0 to 60 mph acceleration in four seconds and a top speed of 130 mph.

Big brakes, racy suspension, optional leather and navigation system, air conditioning, heated seats. There’s even room for golf clubs. With the Tesla, the electric car seems poised to move past its groovy-granola beginnings.

In terms of car culture, the Tesla is catching a larger wave, in which green technology — previously considered the antidote to fun — is being marketed as a performance enhancement. Just this month Lexus entered a GS450h sport sedan hybrid in the Tokachi 24-Hour Race in Japan. Audi’s Le Mans-winning R10 diesel race program, say company execs, shows clean diesel can also deliver high performance.

Some environmentalists have been queasy about this trend — accusing manufacturers of green washing — while others see it as a necessary step in mainstreaming clean-car technologies.

“I don’t know too much about the Tesla,” says Roland Hwang, senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, “but two-thirds less greenhouse gases and 0 to 60 in four seconds? Who could be against that?”…

By Bill Torpy, Staff

You want Olympic legacy, Atlanta style? Then visit developer Chris Schoen’s ninth-floor office overlooking the Downtown Connector and Georgia Aquarium.

Schoen gushed as he pointed to cranes and construction below. The nine square blocks slated for rebirth sit just northeast of Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta’s central gathering place created for the 1996 Olympic Games.

“This is the largest single redevelopment in an American downtown that we’re aware of,” the Barry Real Estate CEO said of the plans for Ivan Allen Plaza. “This is the most visible site in the Southeast.”…

Whether the Atlanta Games measured up to the Intercontinental Railroad or the Magna Carta is open to debate. Still the decade mark is a natural time to consider what was left in the Olympian wake.

The Olympics spurred a period of growth almost unparalleled in the city’s history. It left a host of venues and created a civic energy that led to international business investment and future development like Allen Plaza. But the dramatic urban renewal that city boosters promised was neither immediate nor widespread. And as time passes, it’s harder to definitively link new downtown development with the Games’ legacy….

Maybe the Olympics momentum should have been used to help struggling neighborhoods more, said [Charles Rutheiser, a former urban anthropology professor at Georgia State]…. But the Olympics weren’t meant to be a cure-all.

Perhaps the best hope for those languishing downtown areas comes from Georgia State University. GSU President Carl Patton is eternally grateful for the 2,000-bed dorm built along I-75 for the Olympic Village, then deeded over to the university.

Though he is trying to sell those dorms, which are nearly two miles from campus, the university’s construction of more housing and facilities on the east side of downtown is creating a building buzz.

“We had no housing before [the Olympics], and this changed the character of the university,” said Patton, who is quick to point out GSU paid off the housing bonds.

But Patton, a downtown booster who lives in a condo facing Centennial Park, said it’s important to keep things in perspective: A lot of intown development would have happened with or without the big 1996 sporting event.

“Downtown wasn’t like a blank slate and the Olympics changed everything,” Patton said. “Atlanta was already on the move.”

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

1. “Greener California could impact business” (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 31, 2006

); features interview with DAN KAMMEN; Listen to this story

Photo: Sandy Huffaker © Getty Images

Rush-hour traffic lumbers along the 5 Freeway in San Diego August 31, 2006. California passed the nation's first global warming legislation yesterday to cut the amount of greenhouse California passed the nation's first global warming legislation yesterday to cut the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the state. Host Scott Jagow speaks to Daniel Kammen from UC Berkeley about what it means for businesses.

SCOTT JAGOW: Sometimes, California behaves like a country. We have a good example of that today. The state senate has passed what could be a ground-breaking measure to attack global warming. It would force major industries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes other states .. And countries... Will follow suit. Daniel Kammen co-directs the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.

DANIEL KAMMEN: The California bill is estimated to reduce almost 200 million tons of carbon emissions by 2020. So that's about six times the total reductions from the New England and Mid-Atlantic states combined. So it's just a big jump up in the amount. And it also puts in place a trading mechanism so that we can really use the market as our friend here to find the economically most efficient ways to do this reduction.

JAGOW: Well, in Europe they've tried this. And it's fair to say that the idea has struggled. Some people would even say it's even failed. Why do you think it's going to work here?

KAMMEN: Well, I think the European experiment is really one that's very much in progress. And they're working across many more national boundaries. It's harder to harmonize among the different European nations. What California has going for it is two things: One, it's a major supplier and consumer of energy, so there's lots of energy being traded. It's got a diverse mix with nuclear and gas turbines and wind and solar all being used in the mix. And, it imports power, importantly, from its neighborhing states — including neighboring countries Mexico and Canada — so it's going to have reach in a lot of places. So it's got a much more healthy market dynamics from the outset….

JAGOW: Daniel Kammen is a professor at the University of California - Berkeley.

Brian Watt: Hurricane Katrina cast a spotlight on the plight of the poor in New Orleans. Now as the Crescent City struggles to rebuild, commentator Robert Reich argues the needs of the poor have been ignored.

ROBERT REICH: Even though the national economy keeps growing, the number of impoverished Americans has not diminished.

About one out of four New Yorkers, for example, is living in poverty. New York’s mayor has appointed a commission to come up with ways to reduce that number.

Before Katrina hit, about one in four residents of New Orleans was also living in poverty. Today, New Orleans’ poverty rate is much lower. But that’s not because it did anything New York or any other city should try to emulate. New Orleans lowered its poverty rate by having a flood that wiped out the homes of its poor and then made it hard for them to ever come back....

A year after Katrina and there’s no plan to redevelop its poorest neighborhoods, no housing for the displaced, barely a trickle of money to help them.

And since the poor who used to live in New Orleans don’t have their own money to rebuild there, they’ll probably stay where they are now in Houston or Dallas or Birmingham or Jackson, Mississippi. At least until those cities figure out how to reduce their own poverty rates and send the poor somewhere else.

Watt: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich now teaches Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley....

3. “Campaign 2006: Oil tax bid hatched by unlikely advocate” (Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2006); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14308686p-15198983c.html

By Laura Mecoy -- Bee Los Angeles Bureau

Los Angeles -- The gifts had been opened, the roast duck consumed and Dan Kammen was watching a football game when the telephone interrupted his Christmas Day ritual.

Anthony Rubenstein, a former screenwriter unknown to Kammen and most Californians, was on the line describing his dream -- a statewide initiative to pay for alternative energy research and development.

Almost anyone else would have hung up the phone. But Kammen is a longtime alternative energy advocate, so he listened and signed up to help.

“The renewable energy area is not one with huge sugar daddies, so we tend to listen to good ideas,” said the University of California, Berkeley, energy professor. “And Christmas Day may have been a good day because I think I was pretty bloated on roast duck and willing to listen.”

The Christmas Day phone call is a classic “cold calling” technique for telephone solicitors -- and one of many Rubenstein admits using as he turned his dream into Proposition 87, the oil tax initiative on the November ballot.

At 42, Rubenstein has never before been involved in a political campaign. He’s never been active in environmental causes and claimed little energy expertise before speaking to Kammen….

Rubenstein said he became interested in alternative energy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the East Coast renewed the debate over America’s dependence on foreign oil.

He studied the topic but didn’t know how to address the issue. So he began calling experts, like Kammen, during his 2004 Christmas vacation….

Kammen became his first contact among the alternative energy field’s leading scientists. The energy professor referred Rubenstein to others, including Nathan S. Lewis, a California Institute of Technology chemistry professor.

Soon Rubenstein was hosting weekly conference calls with Kammen, Lewis and about a dozen other scientists, policy specialists and environmentalists….

He said the breakthrough came when the group realized California was the only major oil-producing state without a severance tax on oil extraction. California imposes 6.2-cent-per-barrel regulatory fee that produces about $14 million in revenues.

Proposition 87 proposes a new tax on producers of 1.5 percent to 6 percent of the value of the oil they extract in California. The size of the tax would increase as the per-barrel price of oil rises.

“That made this more than just a good idea,” Rubenstein said. “It made it viable.”…

By Josh Richman, Staff Writer

Berkeley — State Treasurer and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides pressed his Schwarzenegger-equals-Bush blitz Thursday while casting himself as an heir to President Clinton’s policy legacy.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich — now a University of California, Berkeley professor — told Democratic activists at an Angelides event in a Berkeley back yard that the president he served generated 22 million net new jobs and the best U.S. economy in decades.

But now we have “a leadership that is presiding over a national economy and a state economy that’s not working,” Reich said. “It’s Washington and Sacramento, it’s the governor of California and the president of the United States.”

“This formula, which is the opposite of the Clinton formula, is a formula for economic ruin,” he said. “We’ve got leadership ... in Sacramento and leadership in Washington that doesn’t care. ... It’s a matter of putting people in these jobs who care, people like Phil Angelides.”…

Even the Clinton legacy might be too centrist for some in Berkeley. Two women in the audience criticized Angelides for pressing his new plan for a middle-class tax cut, which they said detracts from his liberal Democratic agenda; one described it as “Republican lite.”

Angelides replied, “Our economy is being devastated in the long term by this pernicious shift of wealth” from the middle class and public investment to the richest citizens’ wallets. “We have to address this fundamental inequality.”

Reich backed him up: “This is not Republican, this is not Democratic: This is building the common good.”…

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor for the Clinton Administration, is an expert on social policy and class in America. Reich says that a family’s ability to provide their children with a quality education, health care and access to other resources determines one’s class. “A lot of kids who are poor or working class are not getting the schools that they need and are not having the connections and the models of success that they need.”

Reich says there are three common indicators of class: weight, teeth and dialect. In terms of appearance, people who are overweight or have poor teeth are generally regarded as lower class. The way someone talks says even more about their class. “People pay attention to dialect, to language,” says Reich. “If you have the local dialect, wherever you’re from, you’re considered to be not as educated.”

These class designators also lend themselves to their own kind of discrimination. “People speak different forms of English and there is prejudice,” says Reich. “We have sexism in this country, we have racism, but we also have classism—and we are very sensitive to language.”…

Though Reich calls the rags-to-riches story “a very important part of the American creed,” he says the middle class is actually shrinking. He compares the range of incomes and classes in America to a ladder. “That ladder is getting longer and longer and longer,” Reich says. “So even though people are working harder than they ever have in their lives, they are not making it today. ... The middle rungs on that ladder are not there any longer.”

According to Reich, most people end up in the same class as their parents. “We live in a society in which the most important predictor in where you’re going to end up—in terms of class and also wealth—is your parents’ class and their wealth.”...

6. “Awards: John Quigley” (Berkeleyan, August 24, 2006); story citing JOHN QUIGLEY; http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2006/08/24_awards.shtml

John Quigley, the I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor (Economics, Public Policy, Business), was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences earlier this year. Quigley chaired the economics department between 1992 and 1995 and the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate in 1996-1997. The academy advises the Swedish government, industry, and the academic community on matters related to engineering, science, and economics, especially as they relate to technology and society. Quigley will be inducted into the academy by King Carl XVI Gustaf at an October ceremony in Stockholm.

7. “Still waiting for that trickle-down” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 23, 2006). Listen to this commentary

President Bush last week touted economic growth and a shrinking deficit. But consumer confidence is at an all-time low. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson calls this disconnect "the $64,000 question." Commentator Robert Reich has an answer.

ROBERT REICH: The University of Michigan's latest survey shows consumer confidence dropping like a stone. The Administration is puzzled, and worried about the implications for the fall elections….

But how can the Administration really be stumped by the public's downbeat assessment of this economy? I mean, the housing sector is weakening, and homes had been piggy banks for extra cash as well as baby boomer retirement nest eggs. Meanwhile, the price of gas continues to hover around $3 a gallon.

But maybe Hank Paulson had something more subtle in mind when he spoke of a $64,000 question. Maybe, just maybe, he was taking note of the fact that median annual household incomes have dropped, in real terms, from about $46,000 a year in 2000 to $45,000 today. Yet, if American households had been sharing in the growing economy the Administration is so eager to tout, median household income today would be on the way to $64,000.

Supply-side economics, meaning big tax cuts for the very wealthy, used to be called trickle-down economics on the assumption that some of the gains would be felt by average people. But in this economy nothing has been trickling down. The real $64,000 question is why the White House is puzzled that most Americans are so downbeat.

RYSSDAL: Robert Reich was Labor secretary for President Clinton. Now he's a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

By Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer

Opponents of Oakland’s largest proposed housing development in decades appeared Thursday to have turned in enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot that would overturn the City Council’s approval of the Oak-to-Ninth project….

The proposal includes 30 acres of parks, 3,100 condos and apartments, 465 of which would be affordable to families earning between $25,000 and $50,000 per year.

But critics say the project is short-sighted. They say it would wall off the city’s waterfront, with some condominium buildings as tall as 24 stories….

[Mayor Brown, who has made attracting prosperous residents to Oakland a cornerstone of his administration,] said the city could have never afforded to put a park on the parcel without money from the developers of Oak-to-Ninth….

John Quigley, a UC Berkeley economics professor, said the petition drive is emblematic of the backlash against gentrification happening in many urban cities.

“There are people who used to have access to housing suitable to their incomes and they’re now finding it upgraded in quality or they’re being priced out,” Quigley said. “There is no doubt some people are worse off. The illusion some politicians would try to tell us is gentrification is costless.”…

9. “America losing its competitive edge” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, American Public Media [National Public Radio], August 16, 2006); Listen to this commentary

Scott Jagow: China and India produce more computer engineers and scientists than the US, and China’s getting a lot of new research centers too. Commentator Robert Reich ponders the implications for the States.

ROBERT REICH: The question has to be asked: Why aren’t American companies investing more in cutting-edge science and engineering? I mean, they have more profits than they know what to do with.

Well, it turns out American firms are investing lots in science and engineering. The problem is, they’re doing less of that here and more elsewhere....

Recently, the National Academies surveyed 200 US and European corporations and found over a third shifting more research and development work to China and India. And most are decreasing R&D in the US and Europe.

So when you hear America is in danger of losing its competitive edge, it’s not that American companies are losing ground. It’s that Americans are losing ground. And they’re not the same thing.

US-based corporations are not putting much pressure on Congress or the administration to beef up American science and engineering, because they don’t depend exclusively on American science and engineering.

Which means they aren’t lobbying hard for better-funded graduate programs in science and engineering at American universities, more and better-paid teachers of science and math in American schools, or a requirement that the research-and-development tax credit be used only for research and development in the United States.

Yet without the concerted push from American business, it ain’t gonna happen.

Jagow: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich now teaches public policy at the University Of California at Berkeley.

10. “Global warming cap can stimulate CA economy, report says” (Berkeleyan, August 31, 2006); story citing MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2006/08/30_warming.shtml

Berkeley – A new University of California, Berkeley, report to be delivered to state legislators today (Wednesday, Aug. 16) finds that returning California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as envisioned by pending global warming legislation, can boost the annual Gross State Product (GSP) by $60 billion and create 17,000 new jobs by 2020.

The report, “Economic Growth and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in California,” offers an independent assessment of the economic benefits of Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), The Global Warming Solutions Act, sponsored by Assemblyman Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

The study finds that the gains could be even larger—$74 billion in annual GSP and 89,000 new jobs by 2020—if climate policies are designed to create direct incentives for California companies to invest in new technology.

“Our study demonstrates that meeting the 2020 limits under debate in Sacramento can stimulate the state economy,” said David Roland-Holst, UC Berkeley adjunct professor of agricultural and resource economics and author of the report. “Climate action can be profitable.”

The new analysis follows up on a January study [co-authored with Michael Hanemann] that concluded that achieving half of the 2020 targets would promote economic growth in California. The new study extends its scope to meet the 2020 targets and reinforces the earlier conclusion about economic benefits. Furthermore, this new study identifies new benefits when innovation goals are coordinated with climate policy action….

Separately, UC economists have organized a letter to the legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging state leaders to accelerate climate action. It calls emissions caps a “particularly potent strategy” and warns that “the most expensive things we can do is nothing.” The Aug. 16 letter, updated from an earlier version sent to state officials on June 26, has now been signed by 60 Ph.D. economists from across California - including three Nobel Laureates.

“California’s economy is vulnerable to climate impacts, but it can benefit from climate action,” said Michael Hanemann, UC Berkeley professor of agricultural and resource economics and a lead signer of the economists’ statement. “The economic evidence supports a cap on global warming emissions.”

The full report and economists’ letter are both available for viewing at: http://calclimate.berkeley.edu/.

[Prof. Lee Friedman was also among signatories of the open letter to the governor and California legislature.]

11. “Not facing warming is costly” (Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2006); Letter to the Editor by MICHAEL HANEMANN; http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14303431p-15178622c.html

Re “AB 32 is a bad idea for state’s environment,” Another View, Aug. 14:

I disagree with Margo Thorning’s dire prediction of economic doom from the Assembly Bill 32 legislation requiring statewide reductions in greenhouse gases by 2020. She relies on a 1998 study, sponsored by industry, estimating the impact of a deeper reduction in emissions over a shorter time frame than required by AB 32. The economic model understates opportunities for inter-sectoral trading and input substitution, thus overstating the economic cost. It also makes no provision for energy-saving policies such as those being proposed for AB 32.

A recent analysis by colleagues at Berkeley corrects these flaws, and finds that AB 32 actually leads to a modest gain in economic growth and employment in California. An important factor is the contribution of energy-efficiency measures that save money for industries and households, and grow the economy. AB 32 also helps cushion the California economy over time against higher costs caused by our dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Doing nothing now is the most expensive path California could choose. The longer we wait, the greater the ultimate cost of climate change impacts on California, and the more we pass up on the opportunity to make money by becoming a leader in the global market that will emerge for clean technology.

- Michael Hanemann, Berkeley

Chancellor’s Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy and Director of the California Climate Change Center

--David Vogel

A number of American and British newspapers, including The Chronicle, have recently published articles and commentary exposing the poor treatment of the Chinese workers who produce the popular iPod. Yet Apple Computer Inc. has reported a substantial increase in profits, boosted in part by record iPod sales. The financial markets responded by raising the value of Apple’s shares by more than 10 percent. What is the significance of these events? Does the apparent indifference of consumers and investors all over the world to these media exposés of the factories in which iPod’s are made mean that corporate social responsibility no longer matters?

The vision of many social activists that there was, in fact, a market for virtue—and that consumers could be counted on to “vote” their values through their purchasing decisions—was always unrealistic. Consumers primarily choose which products to buy on the basis of price, quality and convenience. They rarely pay attention to the social or environmental practices of the company that produces them. Only a handful of companies have ever been rewarded by consumers for being responsible or punished for acting irresponsibly. While a few “ethical brands,” such as Fair Trade coffee, do exist, their American market shares are extremely modest. In short, consumers cannot be counted on to drive corporate social responsibility.

Nonetheless, corporate social responsibility is alive and well. What is more significant is the way Apple responded to these accusations in the media. Only a little more than a decade ago, when Nike was faced with allegations regarding the treatment of factory workers in Asia producing its athletic shoes, the company’s general manager in Jakarta responded that the welfare of these workers was the responsibility of Nike’s subcontractors, not Nike. It took nearly five years of increasing public and media criticism for Nike’s CEO, Phil Knight, to finally put in place a comprehensive worker-protection code. By contrast, Apple, like virtually all other major American and European consumer brands, already has in place a supplier code of conduct. And its executives promised to promptly and thoroughly investigate evidence of non-compliance with that code....

The wages of workers who make many of the products Americans consume are low by Western standards. My research on corporate responsibility reveals that, in part, thanks to the pressures of activists on American and European global corporations, these workers are arguably among the most privileged in their countries. In this context, what is noteworthy is what the investigators of the factory in Shenzhen, China, where iPods are assembled, did not find. They found neither child labor nor unsafe working conditions. (In fact this “sweatshop” was air conditioned, though most likely to protect the machinery rather than its workers.) Nor were there allegations that the workers were being cheated of the wages to which they were entitled. Yet, a decade ago, all three abuses were pervasive in many such factories….

David Vogel is the Solomon P. Lee Distinguished Professor in Business Ethics at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and is the author of The Market for Virtue: The potential and limits of social responsibility (Brookings, 2005).

By Craig Torres And Alexandre Tanzi -- Bloomberg News

Evelyn Dawson and Kevin Manning spent most of their working lives in the same town, living on their paychecks.

They now find themselves on opposite sides of a widening wealth gap that increasingly defines American politics and the economy.

Dawson, 58, owns an expanding business in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Manning, 36, supports a wife and three kids on a truck driver’s wage, with nothing left for savings or to buy a house.

“I have pretty much always had to live paycheck to paycheck,” he says.

Dawson was able to kick-start a second career because she had assets and specialized knowledge, two attributes driving a wedge between an upwardly mobile middle class and others trying to manage on meager income growth in less-skilled jobs. Household wealth grew six times faster than wages from 2001 to 2005, the biggest gap of any five-year period in half a century….

Previously, income grew more or less in step with household wealth. From 1962 to 1966, a period of low inflation and robust economic growth, real private sector wages rose 27.5 percent while real net worth increased 23.6 percent, according to Bloomberg News calculations based on government data….

More recently, the gap between household net worth and wage growth has widened. From 2001 to 2005, the value of household assets minus liabilities rose 16.6 percent after inflation. Private sector wages rose just 2.7 percent.

“Asset ownership is now the driving force behind income inequality,” said Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor and now a professor at the University of California in Berkeley. “People with education and connections are doing better and better and accumulating extraordinary assets.”…

On This Week’s roundtable, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, ABC News’ Martha Raddatz and George Will join George Stephanopoulos to debate the week’s politics. This week’s topics: “Winning Terror War?”, “National Security Politics”, “Lamont-Lieberman”, “Anti-War Movement”.

15. “Airline Security” (Forum, KQED-88.5 FM, August 11, 2006); features commentary by MICHAEL NACHT; listen at: http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD19

Forum looks at the airline security and screening measures that have been put in place since 9/11 and how those might change in response to Thursday’s London terror threat. Guests:

Michael Nacht, dean of UC-Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and former assistant director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Clinton administration….

By Sam Dillon

Washington, Aug. 10 — A federal commission approved a final report on Thursday that urges a broad shake-up of American higher education. It calls for public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid.

The panel also called on policy makers and leaders in higher education to find new ways to control costs, saying college tuition should grow no faster than median family income, although it opposed price controls….

“Too many Americans just aren’t getting the education that they need,” the report said. “There are disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates.”

Leaders of some of the associations that belong to the [American Council on Education], like the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the American Association of Community Colleges, embraced the report as a helpful statement of priorities.

Other important groups in the council issued withering critiques.

The Association of American Universities, which represents 60 top research universities, noted that the report “deals almost exclusively with undergraduate education.”

Robert M. Berdahl, a former chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is president of the universities association, said, “What is needed is something much richer, with a more nuanced understanding of the educational engagement and how it is undertaken.”

Another council member, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities…attacked the recommendation to develop a national database to follow individual students’ progress as a way of holding colleges accountable for students’ success.

The association called the proposal a dangerous intrusion on privacy, saying, “Our members find this idea chilling.”

Several groups said the report spent much ink discussing increases in students’ work skills, while slighting the mission of colleges and universities to educate students as citizens.

17. “Goodbye pensions” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 9, 2006). Listen to this commentary

Last week, Congress passed a pension reform bill that will no longer allow employers to underfund their pension plans. People might think it'll give them more retirement security. All wrong, says commentator Robert Reich.

ROBERT REICH: I'm willing to bet this legislation is the nail in the coffin of defined benefit plans. From here on, companies will follow the lead of Hewlett-Packard and others and terminate the plans altogether. Or go into bankruptcy to get out of a unionized pension contract.

As recently as 25 years ago, more than 80 percent of large and medium-sized companies offered defined-benefit pensions. By 2005, fewer than a third did. What happened? It's called competition, folks….

The new law lets companies automatically enroll employees in ["defined contribution" plans, like 401Ks, where employees decide how much of their paychecks to put away] plans unless the employees specifically choose not to join. That's a help.

But the law doesn't require employers to provide any matching funds, not even a dollar for every three socked away by the employee.

Which means, given the same competitive pressures to cut costs that's been killing off defined-benefit plans, we can expect fewer and fewer employers to contribute anything….

907 pages of legislation and we're still, as the President's father used to say, in deep doo-doo.

RYSSDAL: Robert Reich was Secretary of Labor for President Clinton. Now he's a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

LARRY KUDLOW, host: … The BP oil shutdown is causing worries about potential economic damage, and the question is what are we going to do about it and what about American energy policies? …. Governor [Murkowski]… Is this the time to press on for ANWR in wake of this BP shutdown?

Gov. MURKOWSKI [R-Alaska]: The answer is clearly yes. We’re looking at curtailing about 8 percent of the total domestic crude oil produced in this country. That’s why the price has gone up, and that’s why we’re having the shocks. But, you know, to suggest that it’s not in the energy interest of this country to open up ANWR is absolutely without any foundation….

KUDLOW: …Robert Reich, I just want to pitch to you on this, a million barrels a day minimum coming out of ANWR. It’s not chopped liver. Are you ready to support ANWR now?

Mr. ROBERT REICH (Former Labor Secretary): No, I’m not. It’s an odd time to bring up ANWR when we see that the major oil companies can’t even keep their pipelines from corroding. They don’t know why they’re corroding. BP, which is one of the most environmentally conscious oil companies, has said that it doesn’t even know why the corrosion is existing. … I respect the governor a great deal, but in terms of any concerns about the environment … you would never want it right now, push for more ANWR production, would you? ….

Gov. MURKOWSKI: Yeah, but a little hindsight, gentlemen. The 1995 Congress passed ANWR. President Clinton vetoed it. We’d have that online today, and we wouldn’t be in this pickle had President Clinton not vetoed it….

KUDLOW: Bob Reich, if my memory serves me, you were a senior Cabinet officer in the Clinton administration.

Mr. REICH: I was very proud of that, Larry, and the point is…if you’re just concerned about more energy and getting energy prices down and don’t give a fig about environment, well, then go ahead. Drill everywhere. Drill on the continental shelf and drill in Alaska. Drill every place. And then open up every mountain … but… there’s a fundamental question, and that is how quickly can we develop clean, alternative energy supplies? Nobody is here talking about nuclear. I happen to think that-- if there’s really a promising nuclear energy industry out there that we--and the safety issues are exaggerated. But politics... is so intrinsic in all of this that we can’t get off the dime….

LARRY KUDLOW, host: …[T]he Fed delivered its widely expected pause, keeping the funds rate target at 5¼, but stock markets dropped anyways. My right on money thought is simply this: The Fed story on rising inflation and slowing growth doesn’t really hang together yet. Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker dissented and would have preferred a 25-basis point hike in the target rate. I agree. So let’s see what our panel has to say….

Don Luskin, it is the 25th anniversary of Reagan’s supply-side tax cuts. His motto is very simple: “Strengthen the dollar to combat inflation, lower marginal tax rates to promote strong economic growth.” Today, are we on the Reagan model?

Mr. DONALD LUSKIN (Trend Macro): …[W]e have learned nothing from the ‘80s based on today’s action. The ‘80s and the ‘90s that followed it were two decades of very fast economic growth accompanied by falling inflation. That’s what all of the Neo-Keynesian models say can’t happen. Fast growth is supposed to create inflation. Well, in today’s FOMC statement, the Fed is relying on nothing but slowing growth to take care of the inflation threat that is now been mounting for four years. So they are hanging on a very slender thread that is completely contradicted by the history of the ‘80s and the ‘90s.

KUDLOW: Robert Reich, a slender thread is how Don Luskin characterizes the Fed, and an important report, Mr. Luskin said there’s a Bernanke quagmire going on. Do you agree?

Mr. ROBERT REICH (Former Labor Secretary): No, I don’t think there’s a Bernanke quagmire, Larry. I think the Fed is responding to some real danger signs in the economy. The housing bubble is bursting. Consumers do not have very much purchasing power. The economy is slowing in many respects. And the Fed is nervous about raising interest rates any more for fear of pushing us into--well, not a recession--I don’t think recession would be likely--but certainly a much slower economic climate….

KUDLOW: Don, is recession right out there, as Nouriel [Roubini] suggested?

Mr. LUSKIN: No. I don’t think so at all. I think the economy is still the greatest story never told, and what’s so tragic about what the Fed’s doing now is they’re just falling for it. They’re drinking the same Kool-Aid that the bears have drunk every three or four months for the past three and a half years of a booming economy. This economy is still very strong. The problem is the Fed is going to induce the recession by letting inflation get out of the bottle….

Mr. REICH: There’s no inflation problem. Let’s be clear on this. There’s absolutely no inflation problem. The inflation is a supply-side shock from energy prices. But look at the jobs report we just had last Friday. Look at the jobs report from the last five months. I mean, we are seeing an economy that is seriously slowing. If you took out energy, and maybe some energy-related price movements, you’re not going to see any inflation at all….

20. “Every day should be a tax holiday” – Commentary by ROBERT REICH (Marketplace, National Public Radio, August 2, 2006). Listen to this commentary

Commentator Robert Reich argues that most Americans would be better off if we abolished sales taxes in favor of progressive, graduated income taxes.

ROBERT REICH: Retail sales are lagging. No surprise. Consumers are paying through their collective noses for gas, groceries and health insurance. Paychecks for all but the wealthiest are still stagnant….

The curious thing is why states continue to tax sales at all, any day. Sales taxes are among the most regressive forms of taxation. Consumers with moderate or low incomes have to sacrifice much larger portions of their incomes on sales taxes than do wealthy consumers.

It would be fairer to abolish sales taxes altogether and have government rely more on progressive, graduated income taxes. Yet over the past 10 years, sales taxes have gone up — notwithstanding the occasional tax holiday — while other taxes at the state and federal level have become less progressive. Why?

First and most obviously, as the rich get richer they also get more politically powerful. That’s why, for example, a handful of super-wealthy families are able to finance the current campaign to end the federal estate tax, which, if they’re successful, will reap them a bonanza.

But it’s also true, according to polls, that even low-income people would rather pay sales taxes than income taxes. Although sales taxes end up costing them more, most people feel that sales taxes are less coercive than income taxes. The psychological plus of a sales tax is you decide for yourself how much you’re going to buy and, hence, how much you’ll be taxed. Other forms of taxes hit you regardless of your personal choices.

And so when a tax holiday is declared and you run to the mall and spend like a drunken sailor, it feels like you’re exercising the ultimate choice -- getting a great deal. Even if you can’t afford it, even if your wages stink, even if the whole tax system is stacked against you.

Robert Reich is former Secretary of Labor. Now he teaches public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

21. “Bigger Houses Pull More Electricity for Cooling” (Morning Edition, National Public Radio, August 2, 2006); features commentary by DAN KAMMEN; audio available at:

Reported by Renee Montagne

Here in California we just emerged from a heatwave where temperatures in some places hit 114 degrees and the threat of rolling blackouts lasted for nearly two weeks straight…. So why is summer such a perennial test of the upper limits of the electric grids? Part of the answer rests in new home construction…. Dan Kammen teaches energy issues at the University of California at Berkeley: “California may be building the McMansions and monster homes, but we’re seeing this trend all over the place, and so it does portend dramatic increases in supply we’re going to need to produce.”

U.S. Census figures show 30 million new homes since 1980 where the interior space has expanded since 1980 from an average of 1,900 square feet to about 2,500.

Naturally people need to fill those houses with stuff… and stuff needs electricity—and not just when they’re on. UC Berkeley’s Dan Kammen says that cell phone charges, electric toothbrushes, Xboxes, they all draw on so-called “vampire” power: “Ten percent of all electricity used in California goes into standby mode, of sort of doing nothing except for the TV sitting there saying, ‘Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?’” Dan Kammen doesn’t recommend that you go around unplugging electronics, but that refrigerator in the garage that you only use on the fourth of July? Pull the plug.

By C.W. Nevius

The booking photograph of actor Mel Gibson.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department photo via Associated Press

By now, Mel Gibson is officially a public relations train wreck.

The actor touched all the politically incorrect bases when he was arrested driving down the Pacific Coast Highway early Friday morning. He reportedly had a bottle of tequila on the car seat next to him, tested over the legal blood-alcohol limit, insulted a female deputy with sexual remarks, was belligerent with arresting officers, and allegedly broke a phone in jail.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. Seemingly out of nowhere, Gibson came up with an anti-Semitic rant, telling the officers, among other things, that “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’’…

Gibson went immediately into full public relations damage control, issuing a long and emotional apology. He called his actions “despicable,’’ adding that he said things that he does “not believe to be true and which are despicable.’’

However, he did not address the anti-Semitic remarks specifically. That has made all the difference….

As several crisis management experts say, either Gibson didn’t realize his remarks were going to be such a big deal—in which case he isn’t very savvy—or he intentionally talked around them. Neither is a very appealing prospect….

The problem is Gibson’s history. His 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ’’ was slammed for an anti-Semitic viewpoint, and his father has attacked the Jewish religion and expressed doubt that the Holocaust took place….

Jewish groups are lining up to say that his apology doesn’t go far enough, there are calls for him to revisit the issue and give a public statement, and the premise he seemed to be advancing—that he was so tipsy he didn’t know what he was saying—isn’t playing well.

“This wasn’t a radio wave that randomly passed through his head,’’ says Jack Glaser, an assistant professor at Cal’s Goldman School of Public Policy, who studies hate crimes and prejudice. “People seem to keep a lid on their prejudice, but in a crisis it bubbles up. He lets his guard down, and all of a sudden you see it.’’…

By Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer

California will become significantly hotter and drier by the end of the century, causing severe air pollution, a drop in the water supply, the melting of 90 percent of the Sierra snowpack and up to six times more heat-related deaths in major urban centers, according to a sweeping study compiled with help from respected scientists around the country.

The weather—up to 10.5 degrees warmer by 2100—would make last month’s heat wave look average. If industrial and vehicle emissions continue unabated, there could be up to 100 more days a year when temperatures hit 90 degrees or above in Los Angeles and 95 degrees or above in Sacramento, the report states. Both cities have about 20 days of such extreme heat now.

The report’s good news: If emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are significantly curtailed, the number of extremely hot days might increase by only half those figures.

The report, released today by the California Environmental Protection Agency, was prepared by the California Climate Change Center [headed by Michael Hanemann], established three years ago by the California Energy Commission. Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC Berkeley are responsible for the core research, and about 75 scientists from universities, government agencies and nonprofit groups contributed to the study….

Highlights of the report:

· Hotter weather would increase the risk of death from dehydration, heat stroke, heart attack, stroke and respiratory distress. Under the most extreme scenario, heat-related deaths could increase by four or six times.

· The snowpack, the state’s major source of fresh drinking water, could nearly disappear.

· Power demand could go up as much as 20 percent, but hydropower supplies would drop.

· Heat could put stress on dairy cows, which could produce up to 20 percent less milk. Fruit and nut trees could produce smaller, inferior-quality crops. Wine grape quality could be severely affected in all but the coolest growing regions.

· Sea levels would rise, with the possibility of inundating the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a source of two-thirds of the state’s drinking water….

view chart

Read the full report (PDF) (8/1)

By Jennifer Steinhauer

Los Angeles, Aug. 1 — The Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has focused on combating AIDS, poverty and childhood obesity, will turn its attention to greenhouse gases, former President Bill Clinton said here Tuesday.

Mr. Clinton announced his new initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles, hours after the California Environmental Protection Agency released a report [co-authored by Michael Hanemann] predicting that the state would become hotter and drier by the end of the century.

California, like the rest of the nation, has grappled for weeks with record temperatures and the ensuing power failures. More than 100 people have died in the state in recent days from heat-related illnesses, renewing debate about the role of climate change in weather patterns….

“It seems to me that there is now a consensus in the world that climate change is real and that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” [Mr. Clinton] said. “What we need now is more information about how to do it quickly, economically, and organize the efforts to do it. It seemed to me that the challenge was quite a bit like the work I’ve done on AIDS.”

For its first act, the foundation, with a $3 million grant from three donors, has formed a partnership with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, led by the mayor of London, to work on reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases in cities, which generate roughly 70 percent of the world’s such gases….

Also Tuesday, a report on climate change, released by the California Environmental Protection Agency and compiled by the California Climate Change Center [headed by MICHAEL HANEMANN], said regional temperatures would be as much as 10 degrees higher by 2100, leading to severe air pollution, dwindling water supplies and an increase in heat-related deaths.

The report also warned that the heat could virtually eliminate winter snowmelt, the primary source of California’s drinking water. As temperatures rise, it said, residents can also expect to see increasing threats from pests and pathogens, wildfires and coastal flooding….

FACULTY SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & EVENTS

August 14 “Oil Tax Initiative, Proposition 87” (KTVU-TV News evening broadcast); DAN KAMMEN spoke about the proposition which would tax oil companies for drilling rights in California and direct the revenue to develop and promote alternative and renewable fuels.

VIDEOS & WEBCASTS

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