issue: Energy & Environment

Beware the “Japan Syndrome” Narrative

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Taking Rahm Emanuel’s advice to heart, U.S. anti-nuclear activists are using the emergency in Japan to stoke premature panic in the United States about atomic energy. While the rest of us might want to wait and see what actually happens with the Fukushima Daiichi plant before leaping to conclusions, it’s not too early to draw three conclusions that belie this fearful, “Japan Syndrome” narrative.

First, while Japan is the world’s most seismically active country, vast swaths of the United States aren’t active. We probably won’t be siting new reactors on the San Andreas Fault.

Second, what’s been most striking about the Daiichi plant isn’t its vulnerability, but its resilience. The 40-year-old facility plant has thus far withstood one of the biggest earthquakes in memory, followed by a tsunami and multiple interruptions in power. Scientists say hydrogen explosions have vented minor amounts of radiation into the air.

Third, the health and environmental risks of nuclear energy don’t seem any greater than those associated with other conventional power sources, and in fact are distinctly lower than those of coal-mining and offshore oil drilling.

Continue reading at The Arena on Politico

On Energy, Long-Term Targets Needed

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This piece was originally posted at National Journal’s Energy and Environment Expert Blog

Asking what our energy mix will be three decades from now is exactly the right question to reframe the debate about our national energy policies—or lack thereof. Most of our discussions would be a lot more productive if advocates for different approaches laid out a clear vision of what our future mix of fuel sources would look like in 30 years, so voters and policy wonks alike will be able to better understand and compare competing proposals. We should start with simple but achievable targets, such as the “Balanced Energy Portfolio” that sets a 2040 goal of using one-third renewables, one-third nuclear, and one-third fossil fuels to generate the country’s electricity and avoiding increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

Too often our recent battles over energy legislation have focused on specific mechanisms for shaping our energy future, without making a clear case for what that future should actually look like. Trying to sell cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, or renewable energy standards isn’t going to work unless we can judge these abstract ideas against easily understood energy targets. That’s why President Obama was right to reduce his new energy agenda to a simple goal: producing 80 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources by 2035.

The elegance of the President’s clean energy messaging is made possible by his nearly total avoidance of mechanistic details about how he wants the country to reach this goal. Secretary Chu has offered an overview of a very broad Clean Energy Standard (also a fact sheet) that would include a system of mandates satisfied with tradable credits for renewables, nuclear, natural gas, and clean coal technologies. But the administration has not laid out a full proposal for how those credits would be allocated or traded, because there is no sense in making a case for implementation until President Obama can convince a critical mass of the public that his goal is worth pursuing.

The President’s Clean Energy Standard is important in another respect, because it is a form of energy resource planning, a realm of energy policy that has historically been handled by the states. It’s an anachronistic and unfortunate result of our federal system that the most important decisions about the types of energy resources we will build are made on a purely piecemeal basis by state regulators and local utilities, with no coherent plan or coordination at the federal level. Part of the political appeal of carbon-pricing models is that they offer an indirect method to influence resource planning decisions without totally upending the current patchwork of state and regional decision making. But there is no reason that the federal government should not take a more active role by adopting national goals and working with states and utilities to implement strategies for meeting them.

If we are going to have a national debate about resource planning, we will need to be more specific and forthright in setting goals than the administrations broad 80 percent standard. In a recent paper released by the Progressive Policy Institute, Jim Conca and Judith Wright offer a realistic Balanced Energy Portfolio with a 30-year target energy mix of one-third renewables, one-third nuclear, and one-third fossil-fuel generation. Their target would be an ambitious departure from our current mix of 69 percent fossil fuels, 20 percent nuclear, and 11 percent renewable energy. But it is a realistic, pragmatic first step to restart a national conversation about determining our own energy future, and it provides clear goals to evaluate policy proposals.

The best hope for finding common ground in this debate is to build consensus around long-term targets for how we as a nation produce and consume energy. Once we get some agreement on the big-picture goals, we can then work on reverse-engineering specific policy proposals to achieve those goals and argue over which approach is best.


We Can Do Better on an Oil Spill Liability Cap Compromise

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill revealed not just technological problems, but policy gaps as well. Among the most notable of these gaps is the federal limit on liability for oil spills, set at $75 million for offshore facilities. This is three or four orders of magnitude smaller than the damages associated with a major offshore spill like Deepwater Horizon, whose damages are estimated in the tens of billions. Firms that cause more damage than the limit aren’t liable, at least not under federal law. It is only BP’s decision to waive this limit that has kept it from being a much larger problem.

But we may not be so lucky next time, and the spill has greatly increased pressure to increase or eliminate the cap. I and my colleagues at Resources for the Future have written on this and, most notably, the President’s Commission on the spill recommended significantly raising liability caps. Congress could not agree on a measure to do so last year, however, and urgency ebbed in the election season. The problem still exists, however, and discussions in Congress have begun again. The latest development is a potential compromise between Democratic Sens. Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu. But unfortunately, this compromise is likely to make the situation worse, not better.

The Begich/Landrieu compromise has two elements: first, it raises the liability cap to $250 million. This is relatively meaningless given the size of large-spill damages, but let’s set that obvious objection aside for now. The deeper problems with the compromise exist even if the cap number is much higher. The second element is a kind of insurance pool, funded by contributions from all drilling firms, that would cover spill damages above the cap level.

This insurance pool creates problems that undermine any benefit from an increased cap. The first is moral hazard – liability works because, by forcing wrongdoers to pay for damages they cause, it creates incentives to avoid dangerous or negligent activity. But when liability is pooled, these incentives are blunted. Under the compromise, if a firm spilled oil that caused damage over $250 million, it would not pay much for these “excess” damages – but its competitors would. In a sense, the pool lets firms outsource the costs of their dangerous activity, and therefore erases much of the incentive to avoid it. This “moral hazard” is a recognized problem with insurance and particularly pooled insurance. There are ways to deal with it, but it is impossible to resolve it entirely.

But this isn’t the only way the compromise would kill firms’ incentive to operate safely. It would also undercut spill victims’ only real remedy under current law. Critics of the federal spill liability cap often forget that it isn’t the only game in town – spill victims can sue under state law. And with the big exception of Louisiana, state law has no liability caps at all. This means that victims can recover damages even beyond the federal cap levels. Now federal caps do still matter – for procedural reasons and due to protections offered under federal law, it is a better route for most victims. And of course Louisianans are out of luck under either law.

But if there is an insurance pool, victims won’t pursue claims under state law. No good lawyer would advise them to do so when they could just recover from the insurance pool. State liability laws would become largely meaningless, and any incentives they give firms to operate safely would fade. This makes the moral hazard problem even worse. The only remaining reasons for firms to prevent major spills would be avoiding bad press and cleanup costs (which aren’t covered under the caps). And that’s not likely to be enough to increase safety investments, as the recent spill has shown is necessary.

The spill illustrated something we probably should have recognized earlier – that our liability policy for oil spills is totally inadequate. The liability cap was too low when it was passed, and it is far too low now. There’s a very strong case that we shouldn’t have one at all.

But changes to the liability cap won’t happen without compromise. It’s a good thing that legislators continue to discuss the issue and are making such compromises (though getting Republicans on board will be necessary eventually). But whatever political benefits the Landrieu/Begich compromise has, it’s bad policy. It will make the problems with current liability policy worse, not better. The senators risk expending political capital only to make the Gulf less safe. Oil companies and the legislators that champion them may still oppose this compromise, but there will be a certain amount of Br’er Rabbit and the briar patch in their cries. Even if politics means an ideal spill liability policy is impossible, we can do better than this.

The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of the Progressive Policy Institute.

Getting Real About Energy: A Balanced Portfolio for America’s Future

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The failure by Congress to pass energy and climate legislation has left U.S. energy policy adrift, with no clear direction or guiding concept of how we are going to address the long-term questions about the energy resources we elect to use and their impact on the environment. Rather than pursuing new approaches and policy proposals in the wake of the political defeat of cap-and-trade legislation, energy and environmental advocates have largely splintered into chaotic scrambles for subsidies or resigned their strategies to calling for increased research and development spending for energy, perhaps hoping technology can succeed in finding solutions where politics failed. Meanwhile, foreign nations continue to announce bold plans that set clear strategies for managing their future energy resources, leaving the U.S. farther behind every day in planning for leadership of tomorrow’s economy.

This paper aims to reorganize our discussions about energy and the environment around a very basic idea: the U.S. needs a new framework for identifying the goals of our energy policies and for laying out a vision of what our energy future should look like. Our current debates are too narrowly focused on incentives or regulation of specific fuels, pollutants, and technologies. We are losing sight of the forest in our fights over so many trees, and we need to take a step back and first address the broader question of where we ultimately want to be decades from now as a country and as an energy leader in the global economy. When we have an idea of the where we want to be decades from now, we can have a much more strategic and deliberate process for making policy decisions.

So what should this framework look like? By rejecting both the climate denialism and obstruction of the right and the wishful thinking and anti-nuclear biases of the far left, we outline a realistic plan to finally get the U.S. on track to a new, green economy and lead the world to a cleaner energy future. As an immediate and bold step toward setting real goals for clean and balanced growth, we propose a balanced energy portfolio that moves us toward a 30-year target energy mix for electricity generation of one-third fossil fuels, one-third renewable sources (wind, solar, biomass, hydro), and one-third nuclear generation. Such a target is an ambitious departure from our current mix of 69 percent fossil fuels, 11 percent renewable energy, and 20 percent nuclear energy. But it is doable – and setting the target is essential to serve as the polestar for all energy policy discussions.

Our balanced energy portfolio proposal is not meant to be exhaustive in its specific policy prescriptions. We offer this proposed portfolio as a framework for assessing what our needs are and for setting parameters and mileposts for policy proposals that are responsive to those needs. Such a framework is a starting point, and it will be up to policy makers to take the critical next steps by enacting meaningful policy changes that will get us there.

Read the memo

The President’s New “Better Buildings Initiative” Builds on a PPI Memo

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Barack Obama today announced a major new policy agenda to improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 20 percent by 2020, and it looks like he’s been reading PPI’s memos.

Last November, PPI released a policy memo calling on the President to support commercial retrofits as a key to powering America’s economic recovery. It called for a “targeted set of short- and long-term policies to spur jobs and drive investment in retrofitting commercial buildings”. With one in four construction workers unemployed, an aggressive plan to upgrade commercial buildings will not only create jobs, but it will also make small businesses more competitive.

The President’s new Better Buildings Initiative (announced on today’s visit to Penn State University to spotlight the school’s recently developed “Energy Innovation Hub”) is a signal of support for commercial retrofits as a driver of America’s economic recovery. The White House estimates that this will generate energy savings of $40 billion by 2020 for American businesses.

To meet this goal, the President proposed a number of policy actions. The most significant is to change the existing “Energy Efficient Commercial Building Tax Deduction” into a tax credit. Currently, the tax code provides an incentive to building owners for retrofitting buildings through a tax deduction of $1.80 per square foot.

Bipartisan support for the tax deduction already exists. Recent legislation from Senators Bingaman (D-NM) and Snowe (R-ME) on energy tax incentives would increase the deduction to $3.00 per square foot. Groups such as Rebuilding America, a broad-based coalition of labor, business, utilities, manufacturers, and policy groups, support updating the commercial building tax deduction to make it more usable for existing buildings. Rebuilding America issued a press release saluting the President’s Better Buildings Initiative.

Other elements of the Better Buildings Initiative include a ramp up of energy efficiency financing opportunities for commercial retrofits, with support from the Small Business Administration; a competitive grant program at the state and local level called “Race to Green”; an initiative to encourage CEOs and universities to commit to increase the energy efficiency of their buildings, called the “Better Buildings Challenge”; and a Building Technology Extension Program.

Jones Lang LaSalle, the nation’s second-largest commercial property manager, called the President’s proposal “exactly what’s needed to jump-start major energy and carbon reduction initiatives and to create jobs and efficiencies that enhance our global competitiveness.” (A White House fact sheet is available here.)

The President’s announcement on commercial retrofits sets the stage for renewed efforts in Congress to pass clean energy legislation. This will be part of deliberations in Congress over the President’s Budget. Over the past year, energy efficiency policy has garnered the support of Republicans and moderate Democrats alike. The Better Buildings Initiative goes a long way to outline a strategy for innovation and competitiveness in America and should be supported in the debate over the President’s Budget.

Obama’s Two-Track Approach on Energy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As often happens with State of the Union addresses, President Obama’s speech left a lot of D.C. pundits and policy types unsatisfied and complaining that he didn’t lay out enough specifics, or that he didn’t use clear enough language to endorse one policy proposal or another. And for some of the areas that he breezed through so quickly between his Sputnik references, they’re right to be hungry for more.

But one area where he did manage to send some strong signals was on energy policy. He didn’t lay out a long list of proposals here either, but he made it clear that he plans to push for an ambitious two-part energy agenda: encouraging technological innovation through research and development funding, and pursuing a strong national Clean Energy Standard (CES) that shifts our energy production away from the dirtiest categories of traditional power resources.

Supporting energy R&D isn’t really anything new for Obama, but the 80 percent CES target for 2035 is a more exciting announcement. It’s a bold attempt to take Congress again into the breach of debating a national energy plan, which requires more than relying on innovation alone. It’s a starting point for talking about what we want our mid-term future to look like, and how we intend to realistically manage our energy resources over the course of the next few decades.

One reason Obama is able to set the goal so high at 80 percent is that his definition of “clean energy” in this proposal is very broad. It goes beyond the zero-carbon category of renewables and nuclear, and includes partial credits toward the goal for natural gas and clean coal (see DOE’s fact sheet), a step that goes beyond most CES proposals that have been floated in Congress, and well beyond what many environmental advocates are comfortable calling “clean.” But Michael Levi has done an excellent job providing first-responder estimates of what the country’s generation supply would look like in 2035 under this proposal, and concluded that it’s clearly a more ambitious target than last year’s Senate bill.

In practice, Obama’s CES target is also very similar to the Balanced Energy Portfolio target for 2040 that PPI is proposing in an upcoming paper, but more on that later.

Just as the CES proposal is a new beginning for energy policy this year, Obama’s speech also signaled a new approach to framing the arguments for his proposals, both in what he said and what he didn’t say.

First, what he didn’t say: the phrase “cap and trade” didn’t come up, but that was no surprise, especially after he chose not to say much about it while it was dying a slow and public death in the Senate last year. But some of the other things he didn’t include in this speech are more interesting. He didn’t use the words “climate” or “environment” once. And no mention of global warming, carbon, EPA, or clean air. Apparently Obama not only wants to put cap and trade behind us, but he wants to move beyond the climate debate and talk about energy only in terms of innovation, competition, and clean energy jobs. With so many Republicans in the House now proudly flaunting their rejection of climate science, Obama’s move is politically understandable, even if it’s not morally commendable.

Next, what he did say: Obama’s call to arms was announcing a “Sputnik moment” for clean energy and national competitiveness, rhetoric he and John Kerry have been using a lot in recent weeks. It isn’t clear to me how they are defining this moment, but apparently my confusion is reasonable, since Obama himself wasn’t so clear on it back in 2009 either, when he sent a different message on energy [courtesy of Rachel Brown]:

There will be no single Sputnik moment for this generation’s challenges to break our dependence on fossil fuels. In many ways, this makes the challenge even tougher to solve—and makes it all the more important to keep our eyes fixed on the work ahead.

Frankly, I like Obama’s earlier message more than his new one, because I don’t really subscribe to this idea that clean energy development is a race that we are going to win or lose as a nation. However, I do think we should be taking much stronger steps than we are now to shift our energy use to cleaner resources and grow clean energy industries globally, so if Obama can make that happen by convincing Americans that a Chinese solar research center poses the same type of existential threat to our way of life as Russian rocket technology we couldn’t match in 1956, more power to him.

The best takeaway from Obama’s case for competitiveness is that we need a sustained national commitment to innovation, recognizing it as a comparative advantage we should exploit wherever possible.  This is true not only for clean energy, but for other innovative industries as well, as my colleague Michael Mandel emphasized this week. That commitment needs to be a shared effort that we value as part of our culture, with appropriate roles for the public, private, education, and non-profit sectors. It is a position that all progressives should rally around, because it’s one that will be under attack from the new goon squad of Tea Party conservatives, who want to cut most public spending just for the sake of cutting.

Just as progressives need to present a united front in support Obama’s call to defend well crafted R&D programs in the face of conservative budget roll-backs, progressives also need to raise their voices in support of his Clean Energy Standard proposal. Obama is right that investing in innovation and R&D is the key to finding long-term solutions that will be good for our economy and our planet, but innovation alone is not enough. Robert Stavins made the case last year that carbon pricing and R&D are both necessary, and one or the other alone is not enough, and I agree with his argument for the most part. And while a CES is a less efficient substitute for cap-and-trade, Stavin’s point still holds: whatever the incentive structure, we need a resource planning policy that reshapes today’s energy markets, while we wait for tomorrow’s solutions to become a reality.

President Obama deserves praise for taking a bold step toward an actual energy plan for the country, and he deserves it from all progressives. That means those of us who would prefer to see a stronger approach that includes a price on carbon, or those who are disappointed with Obama for moving too far to the center, should see the CES proposal for what it is: probably the only opportunity we have to move forward on energy resource policy in the next two years (at least), and therefore and opportunity that must be seized if at all possible. It also means that those who have advocated for innovation-only approaches need to extend their enthusiasm over Obama’s speech to support the CES together with other progressives, instead of trying to claim the mantle of leadership for themselves exclusively, as some have done this week.

Both pieces of Obama’s agenda are going to be tough to pass, and it goes without saying that they will require a better plan of attack than last year’s. There are a lot of details to be fleshed out, and some horse-trading compromises as it moves forward that won’t sit well with everyone. But the president has stepped forward this week and shown some real leadership, and progressives should return the favor as he takes the fight to Congress.

Grading the State of The Union: A Solid B+

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last week, the Progressive Policy Institute released a Memo to President Obama, which contained 10 Big Ideas for Getting America Moving Again. How did the President’s speech match up to our recommendations?

Overall, he did quite well. Eight of our ten ideas were largely consonant with proposals included in the address, and the future-oriented rhetoric echoes the language in our memo. We also appreciate his willingness to look to both sides of the aisle to find solutions.

However, we were disappointed that he did not discuss the sluggish housing market, and that he did offer any ideas to address the roots of the partisan rancor in Washington.

Our overall grade: B+

Here’s a proposal-by-proposal scorecard:

 

1. Removing Obstacles to Growth: A Regulatory Improvement Commission

 

We proposed: A periodic review process conducted by a Regulatory Improvement Commission, modeled loosely on the BRAC Commissions for military base closures.

The President said: “To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I’ve ordered a review of government regulations.”

Analysis: The President clearly understands that we need to prune obsolete and ineffective regulations and stimulate economic innovation and entrepreneurship. But agency self-review is inadequate.

Grade: A-

2. Internal National Building: A National Infrastructure Bank

 

We proposed: Smart, innovative financing solutions that enable us to restore the backbone of our economy. A well-structured National Infrastructure Bank can play this role by leveraging public dollars with the participation of private-sector investors.

The President said: “The third step in winning the future is rebuilding America.  To attract new businesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information — from high-speed rail to high-speed Internet.”

Analysis: Making infrastructure one of five sections of the speech gave it real prominence. But the President needs to do more than just propose “that we redouble those efforts.”   He needs to lay out a mechanism to do that rationally, and to identify clear funding for it. A National Infrastucture Bank could accomplish that.

Grade: A-

3. A Way to Pay for High-Speed Rail

We proposed: Restructuring the Highway Trust Fund into a Surface Transportation Trust Fund that recaptures its original mission—to build and maintain an efficient national transportation network—and updates that mission to reflect 21st-century priorities, including upgrades to our passenger and freight rail systems.

The President said: “Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail. “

Analysis: We applaud the President’s full-throated commitment to high-speed rail. However, he’s going to need to figure out a way to pay for it. We suggest he read Mark Reutter’s excellent memo on how to finance high-speed rail.

Grade: A-

4. Restoring Fiscal Discipline in Washington

 

We proposed: Restoring fiscal discipline in Washington by trimming the $1.1 trillion in outdated tax expenditures, capping domestic spending (including defense), eliminating supplemental defense budgets, and slowing mandatory expenditures by reducing benefits for affluent retirees.

The President said: “Starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years… we cut excessive spending wherever we find it –- in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes… we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations…we simply can’t afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.”

Analysis: The President clearly gets the seriousness of the looming debt crisis, but understands the difference between smart cuts and needed investments. But he could have come out more strongly in favor the Fiscal Commission’s work, and he only paid lip service to entitlements.

Grade: B+

5. Setting National Targets: A Balanced Energy Portfolio

We proposed: A national Balanced Energy Portfolio with a target fuel mix allocated into thirds by 2040: one third of our electricity generated by renewable resources, one third by nuclear power, and one third from traditional fossil fuels.

The President said: “By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.  Some folks want wind and solar.  Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas.  To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.”

Analysis: The President is thinking big, but also recognizing that nuclear and natural gas need to be part of any energy mix.

Grade: A

6. Greening the Pentagon: An Energy Security Innovation Fund

We proposed: An Energy Security Innovation Fund, housed in the Pentagon, to help companies bridge the gap. Such a fund would leverage public dollars with private money to support research and deployment of the most promising green products.

The President said: “We’re telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo projects of our time.”

Analysis: The next clean energy breakthrough is going to require support from the government. But Obaa should look beyond the Department of Energy and recognize that the military can be a fertile source of innovation, too.

Grade: A-

7. Bringing Public Education into the 21st Century

We proposed: To radically transform public education by growing charter schools, ending teacher tenure as we know it, spurring a network of “Innovation Zones”, and creating a “Digital Teacher Corps”.

The President said: “Our schools share this responsibility.  When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance.  But too many schools don’t meet this test.”

Analysis: Education is clearly the key to our ability to “win the future,” and the President understands this. We support his Race to the Top program and the call for more bright young people to go into education. But we also hope he thinks more creatively about radical new ideas for 21st century education, embracing the possibilities of charter schools, digital education, and “innovation zones.”

Grade: A-

8. Lifting Housing Markets: One Million Homeowner Vouchers

We proposed: An innovative way to jump-start the housing market would be for the federal government to provide a million vouchers that allow low-income renters to become homeowners.

The President said: (Nothing)

Analysis: Surprisingly, the President failed to mention the sluggish housing market, which many economists believe is one of the leading factors holding back an economic recovery.

Grade: F

9. Align Innovation and Immigration

We proposed: Aligning innovation and immigration by providing a citizenship path for foreign students with advanced technical degrees and illegal immigrants’ children who are interested in national service.

The President said: “I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration… I know that debate will be difficult.  I know it will take time.  But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort.  And let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who could be staffing our research labs or starting a new business, who could be further enriching this nation. “

Analysis: The President deserves points for having the courage to bring up immigration reform. But he clearly gets it: our global competitiveness depends on continuing to be a magnet for the world’s best and brightest.

Grade: A

10. Taking Power from Special Interests: A Fair Way to Finance Elections

We proposed: A hybrid Fair Elections system introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to allow federal candidates to choose to run for office without relying on large contributions by using federal money to match small donations.

The President said: (Nothing)

Analysis: Campaign finance reform is not on the agenda, and the President does not seem particularly interested in putting it there. This is too bad. A great way to break the partisan rancor in Washington would be change the way politicians get elected to office. As long as congressional campaigns are privately funded, and as long as the big donations come primarily from ideologues and special interests, pragmatic candidates are going to have a tough time raising the resources they need to get started, and a difficult time winning in all-important low-turnout primaries.

Grade: F

Conclusion:

Overall, it was a great speech. It laid out the problems that we face as a nation, and provided a vision of an America that invests smartly in the future, building infrastructure, providing educational opportunities, and remaining a magnet for the best and brightest in the world, and all in a way that could move us past partisan divides.

The Right Growth Formula

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The specter of economic decline is haunting America. President Obama seeks to banish it by making jobs and U.S. competitiveness the centerpiece of his State of the Union report to Congress tomorrow. This sets the stage for a critical contest between dueling theories about how America can get its economic mojo back.

Over the weekend, Republicans flooded the media with preemptive strikes against Obama’s expected calls for boosting public investment to spur growth. “With all due respect to our Democratic friends, any time they want to spend, they call it investment, so I think you will hear the president talk about investing a lot Tuesday night,” GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell told “Fox News Sunday.” “This is not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending in very many areas.”

True to form, Republicans have a very simple theory for rekindling jobs and growth: Cut federal spending. That’s why they’ve tapped their leading fiscal hawk, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, to respond to Obama’s speech. And Rep. Michele Bachmann will offer an unofficial, “Tea Party” riposte to the President online.

Now, I’m all for fiscal discipline. I’ve chided progressives for posing a false choice between deficit reduction and economic growth. Restoring fiscal stability is an essential ingredient of any credible plan for robust growth.

But cutting spending by itself won’t help us rebuild our infrastructure (which is the foundation for productivity), strengthen our comparative advantage in science and technological innovation, or produce a highly skilled workforce. As virtually all serious economists recognize, these are tasks for government.

Yet today’s Republicans are so besotted by anti-government populism that you can’t even count on them to be good capitalists anymore. Perhaps conservative think tanks should organize seminars to reacquaint House Republicans with Adam Smith, whose defense of laissez faire economics did not blind him to government’s responsibility to supply public goods like roads, ports and education. As he wrote in the Wealth of Nations:

The third and last duty of the [government] is that of erecting or maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, although they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could not repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain.

As PPI maintains in Getting America Moving Again, a new Memo to President Obama, it will take both more public investment and more dynamic markets to reinvigorate our economy. We need to boost spending on research and commercialization of new inventions. We also need to boost spending on modernizing the nation’s transport and energy infrastructure – for example, by building high speed rails and smart grids that can accommodate clean energy generation. This can and must be done within a new framework for restoring fiscal stability that cuts tax expenditures, caps spending on defense and domestic programs, and most importantly, slows the unsustainable growth of the big entitlement programs.

At the same time, we also need to revamp archaic tax and regulatory policies that dampen incentives for economic innovation and entrepreneurial risk-taking. To that end we have proposed a base-closing style commission charged with culling the accumulation over time of burdensome rules and regulation.

In truth, neither party’s economic orthodoxies are equal to the challenge facing our country. That’s why President Obama needs to challenge both sides tomorrow to unite behind a bold plan for a national economic resurgence.

What’s Next For Climate Change Policy?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The new Congress is now in session, with a large GOP majority in the House and a much diminished Democratic majority in the Senate; the prospects for serious climate change legislation in the U.S. are dimmer than ever. The Republican Party has largely turned its back on science and its own conservative ideas (remember, McCain was a champion of cap and trade back in 2008), and because of the profound climate denialism of the Tea Party movement even once reasonable Republicans are now turning their backs on the overwhelming scientific evidence, and the many ways comprehensive climate policy is good for the overall economic and security interests of the nation. (To be fair, there are a few Democrats in fossil-fuel dependent states that are also opposing new climate measures, such as Senators Rockefeller and Manchin of West Virginia.)

But not all is bleak; there are still a number of reasons to be mildly optimistic that significant progress can still be made in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

  1. The EPA is set to roll out new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, which have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by a few percentage points over the next few years. The rules will make coal generation less economically viable, and likely spur new development in less greenhouse gas-intensive sources, such as natural gas, in addition to renewable sources. I highly recommend the work by David Roberts at Grist for details on the EPA’s actions and their consequences. On January 13th the EPA revoked the permit for a massive mountain-top removal coal plant (which had been approved by the Bush Administration in 2007), signaling that the agency is prepared to put an end to the industry’s controversial practice.
  2. The Obama Administration has given the okay for a host of huge new solar plants on federal lands and gone a long way to streamlining the process by which such plants can be built. By reducing bureaucratic hurdles and red tape for large solar installations, we are likely to witness a large increase in mega-solar plants. Aside from the higher cost of solar (relative to fossil fuel), the biggest hurdle to widespread adoption has been the huge time lags and transaction costs in the permitting process; the Administration’s moves go a long way towards decreasing these barriers. The economies of scale of these plants will likely lead to significant cost reductions, making solar much more competitive in the near future. It’s important to note that these solar plants mostly rely on solar thermal technology―an 18th century technology using mirrors to heat water and produce steam, which powers a turbine―that is fast-becoming the low-cost solar alternative.
  3. The announcement by Google that it will invest $5 billion in a massive electricity transmission line in the Atlantic will help spur the development of massive wind farms off the Eastern seaboard. These hold tremendous potential and could one day provide most or all of the power for many of the East Coast’s major cities.
  4. The G-20 is moving forward with its plan to eliminate or severely reduce fossil fuel subsidies in the “medium” term. This is extremely difficult to accomplish politically, given both the entrenched interests who will lose billions and the effect on consumer prices, but even a slow and steady removal of these subsidies will help to tilt the energy mix towards less greenhouse gas-intensive forms of energy and decrease overall emissions.
  5. California is finally moving forward with its climate legislation AB32, as the final challenges to the law have been defeated. While the legislation doesn’t go into effect until 2012, it is the most progressive and far-reaching climate change policy in the world and the results are likely to be extremely consequential for the nation, and ultimately any future international climate change regime. California is the world’s 8th biggest economy so if comprehensive climate change legislation can work here it will prove a global model; according to UC-Berkeley Professor Peter Berck AB32 is likely to lead to a net increase in jobs in California because of the major energy efficiency improvements that the legislation will force into action. We will soon see if these optimistic predictions are borne out by the reality on the ground.
  6. In 2010 private investment in green energy soared to a record high, and with the global economic recovery gaining momentum oil prices are likely to keep rising, providing additional economic incentives for alternatives. To date, much of this green investment has been outside the U.S. because of the failure to pass comprehensive national policy, but there is still time for the U.S. to catch up if we can get serious.
  7. Significant progress was made in the recent COP16 meetings in Cancun, with the major developing country emitters agreeing to verification of their emissions reductions in the future. Steps were also made to begin the implementation of the major forest carbon program, REDD, which has the potential to provide a cheap path to effective carbon emissions, while also preserving much of the world’s remaining forests.

As I detail in my new book, What Environmentalists Need To Know About Economics, the theory, facts, and ingredients for good policy, are on the side of those who want to take an aggressive and forward-looking approach to global climate change (and other critical environmental issues); hopefully, the intellectually honest and serious Republicans and conservatives will pressure the GOP to return to its pro-environmental roots and become constructive players in the national conversation. More on this soon.

Congress vs. The EPA, Round II

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Everything old is new again. Around this time last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the process of issuing major rules that would lead to regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Many in Congress opposed these moves, and sought to delay or halt them. I wrote about these attempts in this space (here, here, here, and here) and, as I predicted, they failed—none reached the President’s desk.

But failure has not stopped EPA opponents from trying again. Since last year, some things have changed. The EPA has moved forward with regulation, implementing GHG-related permitting requirements for new and modified emitters, and announcing in December that it plans GHG emissions standards for existing power plants and refineries. But none of these moves are surprising—the EPA is not pushing any harder now than it was last year.

But of course the 2011 Congress is different from the 2010 version, particularly since Republicans now control the House. Will this Congress be able to derail the EPA?

Maybe. It depends, not just on politics, but on what avenue of attack Congress chooses. This choice will probably be made first in the House, where new Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) will set the agenda. Four broad options are on the table. Last year, each of the first two options were pursued. All four are likely this year. Let’s briefly look at each in turn.

1) New legislation: Congress could simply pass a law modifying EPA authority. Proposals range from a short delay in EPA GHG authority to removing GHGs from the CAA entirely, effectively overturning the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision.

While Republican control of the House does smooth the path of new legislation somewhat, the Senate and above all the President remain significant barriers. While modest legislation, such as a delaying bill, is likely to attract some Democratic support, it will need 60 votes to pass the Senate. Even then, President Obama is certain to veto any legislation restricting EPA authority. It seems very unlikely that any such bill could attract a veto-proof majority.

2) Congressional Review Act: Congress has the authority to cancel any regulatory action with specific legislation. This authority is only available for 60 days after the regulation is formally issued, however.

 

CRA resolutions do not require 60 votes to pass the Senate. This is relatively little help, for two reasons. First and most obviously, the President will likely veto any resolution. Furthermore, almost all of the significant GHG rulemakings made by the EPA were issued well over 60 days ago, and cannot be rescinded by CRA resolution anyway.

3) Appropriations: Congress may choose not to fund EPA programs, even if they remain legally permissible (or even required).

 

Congress has not yet passed a budget for 2011, so this Congress will need to pass two over the next year. This gives ample opportunity for restricting EPA funding. The appropriations process is ultimately subject to the same procedural requirements as other legislation, so any budget will have to pass the Senate and be signed by the President. Defunding the EPA makes either far less likely — but unlike EPA-specific legislation, the politics are hard to predict. The budget process always involves compromises. How hard are EPA’s opponents and supporters willing to fight? If Congress does pass a budget that defunds agency GHG regulation, would the President veto it – risking a government shutdown?

4) Oversight: Even if none of the above is possible, Congress’s (or often individual committee’s) subpoena power can be used to investigate and, in practice, slow EPA action.

 

While oversight measures cannot alter EPA’s legal authority, they can make regulatory life very difficult. Since individual committees can conduct hearings and investigations, there is relatively little to stop motivated members of Congress from targeting the EPA with these tools. They are unlikely to stop any regulatory program, but they will be a drain on agency resources and energy.

In short, I don’t think headline-grabbing moves to alter EPA legal authority over GHGs are much more likely of success this year than last. That’s unlikely to change until and unless there is a change in the White House. These kinds of bills are more politics than policy; I doubt their supporters really think they will pass. Instead they allow members to make statement votes, and force EPA supporters to make votes that may be used against them later.

But the appropriations process and Congress’ oversight powers are both real, though different, threats to EPA regulation. Budget negotiations this year are likely to be acrimonious, and the EPA is a small pawn in a bigger game. If EPA opponents make defunding the agency a priority, they may be able to achieve it by doing so in an otherwise-palatable budget that the President determines he cannot afford to reject. In this sense, the relative political unimportance of the EPA works to its advantage — will Republicans in the House choose defunding the agency as their line in the sand, over other measures with much larger fiscal impact? This seems unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

Committee oversight presents a different challenge to the EPA. Some level of Congressional interference is certain, but its extent probably depends greatly on the agency’s ambition. If the EPA fears Congressional subpoena, it is less likely to regulate strongly or creatively. Instead, it may slow-walk some measures, and scrap others. Unfortunately, this may have the perverse effect of making regulation less efficient, rather than simply leading to less regulation. If agency resources are stretched (because of Congressional demands, underfunding, or both), it is less able to do careful analysis. If the agency makes avoiding controversy a paramount goal, it is less likely to try innovative approaches (such as tradable GHG performance standards) aimed at more efficient regulation. An EPA that does the minimum required by law might be more costly to the economy, not less.

This piece is cross-posted at Weathervane

Tom Friedman’s Reading My Stuff on Green Tech and the Military!

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Look, I realize that Tom Friedman gets a lot of guff from the liberal intelligensia.  Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone has practically made a second career out of eviscerating Friedman’s sometimes tortured contortions of the Queen’s Tongue.  Certainly, Taibbi scores the odd point: “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” Friedman once wrote about George Bush’s Middle East policy, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.”  What?

Fair enough.  But Tom, a long-time friend of PPI no less, is an insightful writer who, more often than not, is on the right side of history.  Take his column this weekend on the “U.S.S. Prius“:

Spearheaded by Ray Mabus, President Obama’s secretary of the Navy and the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the Navy and Marines are building a strategy for “out-greening” Al Qaeda, “out-greening” the Taliban and “out-greening” the world’s petro-dictators. Their efforts are based in part on a recent study from 2007 data that found that the U.S. military loses one person, killed or wounded, for every 24 fuel convoys it runs in Afghanistan. Today, there are hundreds and hundreds of these convoys needed to truck fuel — to run air-conditioners and power diesel generators — to remote bases all over Afghanistan.

Mabus’s argument is that if the U.S. Navy and Marines could replace those generators with renewable power and more energy efficient buildings, and run its ships on nuclear energy, biofuels and hybrid engines, and fly its jets with bio-fuels, then it could out-green the Taliban — the best way to avoid a roadside bomb is to not have vehicles on the roads — and out-green all the petro-dictators now telling the world what to do.

Let’s just say I’m happy Tom’s reading my stuff.  Yep, on October 12, I wrote the following piece in the Los Angeles Times on the same topic to mark the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the U.S.S Cole in Aden harbor:

America forgets Oct. 12 as seamlessly as it remembers Sept. 11. Ten years ago today, 17 U.S. Navy sailors were killed and 39 injured in an Al Qaeda attack against the U.S. destroyer Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. The Cole was relatively defenseless during a 24-hour refueling stop when suicide operatives pulled alongside in a small, explosive-laden boat and detonated a charge, ripping a 40-foot hole in the hull.

Though the lessons from 9/11 will be debated for years, Oct. 12’s message is succinct. It is best summed up by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James T. Conway: “Energy choices can save lives on the battlefield.” The armed forces are searching for next-generation green energy technologies because they provide power at the point of its consumption, which decreases the military’s need to resupply with carbon-based fuels.
…
Mabus is setting big goals for an energy-independent military. He wants to sail a “Great Green Fleet” by 2016 — a full carrier strike group composed of nuclear and hybrid electric ships, as well as biofueled aircraft. By 2020, Mabus wants half of the Navy’s energy to come from alternative sources.

That’s why the Obama administration should consider a Pentagon innovation fund. A few well-spent dollars would help companies tackle the technological learning curve and reduce costs.

To get to where Mabus wants to go, ideas need cash. The Pentagon may have a truly out-of-control budget, but consider this: Radar, GPS and the Internet all started as military-funded projects. The next green technology could be sitting in a lab somewhere, begging for a few dollars to help produce it on a bigger scale.

With conservatives pushing this climate change denial nonsense, it’s an important point that the military is innovating on green-tech because it can’t wait for the political “debate”.  So much the better as more-and-more mainstream writers pick up on this narrative.

Knowledge Capital Writedown: Wind Turbines

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On the front page of the NYT this morning, Keith Bradsher gives a perfect example of a knowledge capital writedown, in his story about wind turbine technology being transferred to China by a Spanish company, Gamesa:

Nearly all the components that Gamesa assembles into million-dollar turbines here, for example, are made by local suppliers — companies Gamesa trained to meet onerous local content requirements. And these same suppliers undermine Gamesa by selling parts to its Chinese competitors — wind turbine makers that barely existed in 2005, when Gamesa controlled more than a third of the Chinese market.

But in the five years since, the upstarts have grabbed more than 85 percent of the wind turbine market, aided by low-interest loans and cheap land from the government, as well as preferential contracts from the state-owned power companies that are the main buyers of the equipment. Gamesa’s market share now is only 3 percent.

With their government-bestowed blessings, Chinese companies have flourished and now control almost half of the $45 billion global market for wind turbines. The biggest of those players are now taking aim at foreign markets, particularly the United States, where General Electric has long been the leader.

The story of Gamesa in China follows an industrial arc traced in other businesses, like desktop computers and solar panels. Chinese companies acquire the latest Western technology by various means and then take advantage of government policies to become the world’s dominant, low-cost suppliers.

It is a pattern that many economists say could be repeated in other fields, like high-speed trains and nuclear reactors, unless China changes the way it plays the technology development game — or is forced to by its global trading partners.

Because of Gamesha’s transfer of knowledge capital to China, GE’s knowledge capital has become less valuable, which eventually will affect wages and employment.   Gamesha’s knowledge capital has been less valuable as well, which affects the Spanish standard of living.

The correct policy prescription is for the U.S. to dramatically up our investment in knowledge capital and physical capital.  Dramatically. That may require less support for consumption now so that our children can be better off in the future.

This article is cross-posted at Innovation and Growth

Photo credit: Bonnie Tsang

Tip-Toeing Around The Elephant: US Mitigation And The COP

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The US was in an awkward position in Cancun. The administration clearly wanted to show leadership, but it was hamstrung by an inability to deliver legislation with any tangible commitments. Since that seemed unlikely to change in the new Congress, US negotiators were left playing defense on the key issue — mitigation.

This makes movement in other areas (such as finance and forests) difficult, though that is in part due to US insistence on parallel, rather than serial, treatment of issues.

The result was sometimes bizarre diplomatic displays by the US, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s address — essentially a remedial crash course in climate science. Secretary Chu did not take questions, one suspects because it would have been difficult to answer the obvious one — how does the US plan to meet the President’s 17%-cuts-by-2020 goal articulated last year?

Difficult, but not impossible. The awkward position in which US officials find themselves and the effects it has on US credibility and capability make the administration’s continued avoidance of serious public discussion of EPA carbon regulations puzzling. Research at RFF and elsewhere indicates that EPA regulations, either on the books already or likely in the near future, could achieve emissions reductions in the range of the President’s goal.

I’ve studied these regulations over the past year or so, and I’ve been repeatedly surprised by their likely impact. Vehicle fuel economy standards, new power plant permitting rules, and whatever the agency decides to do for existing sources can each make a significant emissions impact. Perhaps more interestingly, coming EPA regulations ostensibly aimed at other pollutants could have a big impact on carbon by pushing a substantial portion of coal plants into retirement, and replacing them with cleaner technology.

It’s not clear why the US administration and negotiators didn’t trumpeting these regulations as evidence of a commitment to cut emissions. It’s possible it is felt that a regulatory approach won’t be understood or taken seriously by the international community, but EPA regulations are far from the only complex issue on the table (just ask your local climate finance expert for a quick summary if you suspect otherwise). And other countries are undoubtedly familiar with a regulatory approach — for many it is their preferred domestic environmental policy. One thing is certain, though — the best way to ensure that the international community (and the American public) fails to understand or appreciate the EPA’s capabilities is for the administration and its negotiators to refuse to explain them.

Another possibility is that the administration worries that hyping EPA’s powers is politically dangerous. The agency is more effective, this argument goes, if it can operate quietly and at its own pace. To put it more directly, to speak of regulation is to destroy it — perhaps because Congress would respond by seeking to cripple the agency.

But the President should not forget that his party still controls the Senate, and that he still wields the veto pen. Even if the President resigned himself to giving up EPA powers (or delaying them) as part of a compromise, it would surely be in his interest to say how strong these powers are, thus increasing their value in any bargain.

Moreover, the argument that regulatory emissions cuts are more effective if kept quiet contradicts what is arguably the central dogma of US foreign climate policy — that US action is valuable not for its small contribution to global goals, but as a tool for unlocking negotiations and prompting action elsewhere. If US negotiators can’t or won’t talk about the best policy tool the US currently has, they can’t do their jobs. This makes the long term likelihood of a meaningful international agreement much smaller.

EPA regulation is not the first, best option for US climate policy; it is above all likely to be more costly over the long run than a pricing mechanism. But neither this admission, nor the fact that EPA regulations are legally required, are good reasons not to forcefully and frequently articulate their emissions benefits. Perhaps we as a country should be embarrassed that we cannot adopt a national climate policy that more closely approaches the ideal in terms of both costs and benefits. But the administration should not let any embarrassment about what the country cannot currently do prevent them from talking about what it can.

As my colleague Dallas Burtraw pointed out in his talk here this week, US credibility on climate requires that the administration be a lot bolder — not by making new commitments that it lacks the domestic powers to back up, but simply by publicly, loudly, and clearly saying what it can and will do with the tools it already has.

This article is cross-posted at Weathervane

Making Sense of Connecticut v. AEP

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to hear an appeal to Connecticut v. AEP, a court of appeals granting eight states the right to sue American Electric Power (AEP) Co. and several other utilities for greenhouse gas emissions.  The states had argued that carbon dioxide emissions were a “public nuisance,” and hoped to force the companies to reduce their emissions through litigation.

In a recent PPI memo, Philip Goldberg argued that such litigation made little sense.

Progressives should … not reflexively support climate change litigation, no matter how passionately one might favor emission reductions. We should adhere to our principles and protect due process rights of defendants, even when those defendants are large corporations. The David and Goliath analogy may score political points, but it only works in litigation when Goliath does something objectively wrong. Otherwise, any group that fails to get its way in the political arena will turn to the courts. Such an act would be an affront to democratic proceduralism that has long defined our progressive philosophy.

You can read the entire memo here.

Why Progressives Should Cool to Global Warming Lawsuits

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Environmental progressives have been urging the federal government to address climate change for more than 30 years. Many of these efforts have focused on setting limits on the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases collectively referred to as “greenhouse gases” or GHGs. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama all negotiated international treaties on global emissions, and Congress has considered numerous climate-related bills. None of these efforts, however, has resulted in binding emission caps for U.S. operations, and Senate efforts to pass a “cap and trade” bill have been dropped. As a result, some progressives advocate a new arena for this battle: the courts, with lawsuits against a group of companies to directly force them to reduce emissions.

There are four lawsuits based on the premise that a handful of American companies, all associated with energy use and production, can be held legally responsible for “global warming.” The suits claim that the companies engaged in operations or made products that contributed to the buildup of GHGs in the atmosphere, causing the earth to warm. The cases seek either reductions in emissions or payment for injuries caused by specific weather events, such as hurricanes and flooding, allegedly caused or made worse by climate change. The liability threat for these defendants is massive: billions of dollars in the current suits, injunctions against their operations, and new filings for future weather-related injuries.

For environmental progressives, the real purpose of this litigation is to use the threat of massive liability to force the companies to accept concessions on climate change policy. These lawsuits, first filed in 2004, were born of frustration with the political process, particularly under President Bush, for failing to take steps to combat climate change. Given the seeming demise of climate change legislation in the current Congress, many progressives have found achieving the same – or perhaps more stringent – policies in the courts an increasingly appealing option.

Read the entire memo

Rupert Murdoch v. Justice Scalia

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Just like their crazy-as-a-FOX cousins, the Wall Street Journal editorial page has indulged yet again in a spectacle of tragicomical self-victimization. An especially shameless recent raving targets the Democrats’ efforts to expose the furtive corporate backing behind their array of political front groups, of the sort that Rupert Murdoch, the brothers Koch and their band of aspiring overloads have nearly perfected. Naturally, the Journal gets it wrong across the board.

Their charge was that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus engaged in a “liberal abuse of power” against right-leaning “issue advocacy” groups recently when he asked the IRS to investigate whether “certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity.”  But Baucus did not target “certain” groups—his request to the IRS was broad, and intended to give them wide rein to go where the facts led them and report back.

Senator Baucus, as chairman of the Senate committee responsible for the tax code, has the obligation to examine how his committee’s laws work in practice, and whether they ought to be revisited. The examples in his letter, one of which cited a local financier who paid for a pro-development referendum campaign in Washington State, represented the results of investigations by the New York Times and Time, not part of any partisan hit list as the Journal would have us believe.

Even if the IRS investigation ends up disproportionately impacting conservative groups, that is because these groups’ “issues” just so happen to coincide squarely with their backers’ financial interests, calling into question their tax-exempt status.

This is not the case with conservative bogeymen such as George Soros. While Soros and other wealthy progressives also contribute to issue advocacy groups, their personal fortunes do not turn on the agenda they espouse.  Soros would in fact be even better off financially were the Republicans to gain power and, say, extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Contrast that with the Koch brothers, whose sprawling empire is one of the top ten air polluters in the United States, and who have been called the “kingpins” of climate change denial.  One can just imagine how much they have to lose from stronger environmental regulations or a cap-and-trade bill.

Now, it is all well and good if the Kochs and Co. want to keep pumping dollars into elections and carbon into the air. That is their right under the law.  But they should have to be honest about it so that the American people can judge whether this agenda coincides with their own.   We all know that the Supreme Court in the case Citizens United upheld the right of corporations to spend freely on behalf of issues and candidates they believe in.  Less well known is the court’s decision, in the same term, in Doe v. Reed.  In it, the 8-1 majority held that there is no categorical First Amendment right to anonymous political speech.

In Doe, finding against such a right to privacy was critical, said the Court, to “fostering government transparency and accountability.” Perhaps Justice Scalia explained the rationale best: “Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed…”  That is what the tax code provisions the right is abusing are supposed to reinforce, and which Senator Baucus is charged with overseeing.

Would that the Journal had Scalia’s spine. Instead it complains about businesses being made the “targets of vilification with the goal of intimidating them into silence.”   But why should consumers unwittingly support businesses that advocate interests potentially at odds with their values?   This contrast is especially striking when those same businesses can covertly advance their interests through a tax-exempt organization.  Only in the Journal’s circular world, where what’s good for the golden gooses is good for the gander, could this somehow square.  But such misdirection and obfuscation, as we well know, is the only way the far right can still pretend to have the interests of the American people at heart.

Photo credit:  cafemama