Vol. 2 No. 5 (September 2003)

Uncommon Denominator

The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

CONTENTS

Talking Points: Taking us backward: The Energy Act of 2003
Wit and Wisdom: "Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act"
Eye on the Right: Where have all the primaries gone?
Featured Article :"The Lost Vocabulary of Disinterested Politics"
Quoted! Arnold Schwarzenegger on gay marriage
Happenings: Theater outing; presentations; internships; website redesign
Endorsements: Congresswoman Anna Eshoo
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor

TALKING POINTS

By now, the importance of energy legislation must be obvious, especially to those who experienced the August blackout or lost revenue because of it, not to mention the millions who are paying nearly $2 for a gallon of gas and looking ahead anxiously to the winter's heating bills.

In the coming weeks, Congress will finally finish work on the sprawling Energy Act of 2003, which will determine how much you and I pay for energy in the short term, and what direction we pursue in the long term toward a more self-reliant and sustainable energy future.

As they stand, both the House and Senate versions heavily favor traditional production utilities while providing some funding for renewables and research, and reducing tax incentives that support energy efficiency. Conservation is given short shrift, and there is a conspicuous absence of imagination in seeking to reduce our nation's dependency on fossil fuels. (Read a comparison of the House and Senate Energy bills prepared by the Alliance to Save Energy, a coalition of business, government, environmental and consumer leaders.)

There is, in short, a refusal to "connect the dots" and see that good energy policy is homeland security, that it is economic development policy. It should not be a partisan payback to political donors. Energy policy directly contributes to the security and health of the entire nation, just as good public education contributes to an informed and productive citizenry. Now, more than ever, we need innovation, willpower, and sense of purposefulness to move toward cleaner fuels and greater sustainability. We dare not remain trapped in our dependence on the fossil fuels that pollute our air and water.

We have an opportunity today to realign America's future economic and energy independence. But it may not happen while those in control of the funding and the legislative process continue to short-change energy conservation and cleaner technologies. And it won't happen while they ignore the potential of smaller but effective energy sources, such as wind power, solar power, and biomass, to supplement, diversify and thereby strengthen our whole energy system.

Beyond strengthening existing regulations and stepping up their enforcement, the federal government should be taking positive, proactive steps toward achieving both a greener and a more productive energy future. In particular:

1. The government must invest more heavily in private-sector research and development of alternative energies and cleaner technologies. Historically, the government has acted as the nation's biggest venture capitalist, encouraging and incubating innovative business ideas, through either direct subsidies or tax incentives. And this private-sector investment must include small companies and start-ups. Currently, the deck is stacked in favor of big business and industry leaders, but independent entrepreneurs are essential in finding solutions to the nation's problems. For example, a small firm in Maine has developed a composite material that would allow more flexibility and capability in power lines, carrying two to three times the heat than our older conventional lines now do. This new product could substantially reduce the need to build more power lines, which require the federal government in many cases to seize private property under eminent domain. Assisting t! he efforts of such companies is the interest not just of certain companies or constituencies, but of all Americans. Our national energy policy should encourage research and innovation, not ignore it.

2. The government must provide tax incentives or credits to encourage greater energy efficiency. These are not to be confused with tax incentives to corporations for greater production. As it stands, the Energy Act of 2003 favors large-scale producers over consumers and entrepreneurial businesses, and under the Bush administration incentives for energy efficiency have declined. We should be supporting emerging businesses, such as the very innovative biomass industry, that are making good use of natural products, and we should be rewarding companies that incorporate efficiency into their operations and products. For example, following the Department of Energy's decision to subsidize the cost to manufacturers of adding more efficient appliances and insulation in new housing, new mobile homes today are highly efficient in energy use, often more so than traditional homes. This is nothing less than a win-win situation.

Congress should always work for the greater common good, and whatever energy bill it finally crafts should demonstrate that industry lobbyists did not earn their paychecks at our expense. We should demand a deliberate and reasonable review, not a hasty patchwork of proposals that ignores our long term needs. Congress should be mindful, in crafting this legislation, that the administration is being sued by several states that oppose its policies on the environment.

Sometimes great leadership comes from above, convincing the vast majority to go along with a plan or new way of doing things. Sometimes leadership must come from below, when the vast majority tell those who represent them what they want in the name of the greater good, the common interest.

Such is the dilemma we face this year, once again, with legislation to construct energy policy for 2003 and beyond. We need to diversify and strengthen our energy self-reliance, rather than continuing to depend on a handful of older and declining energy resources. We need to let our leaders know that we care, literally, about how we get to the future.

-- Karen Watters Cole

Sources and related topics:

Electric Power Research Institute projects (EPRI is a nonprofit organization "committed to providing science and technology-based solutions of indispensable value to our global energy customers.")

House Energy Bill: One Small Step for Efficiency, One Giant Leap for Production (statement from the Alliance to Save Energy)

"Process Used to Develop the National Energy Policy" (August 2003 report by the General Accounting Office's Energy Task Force)

"The Energy Policy Act 2003 Takes Us Backwards" (an editorial by the Sierra Club)

WIT AND WISDOM

Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act

"Washington, D.C. - President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. 'For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself.' Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty 'in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff.'"

- parody, from The Onion. Read more.

EYE ON THE RIGHT

It's easy to get blasé about presidential primaries, particularly when they're obviously going to renominate an incumbent, as in 1984 or 1996. Even in contested primaries, voter turnout rarely exceeds 20 percent, and late-season primaries can devolve into academic exercises. But primaries do play a vital role in the political process, and so they should be defended against attempts by some states to cancel them for the 2004 election.

Let it be said right here that, as a non-partisan organization, the Commonweal Institute takes no position on specific races and does not support any political party. Our commitment is to the vitality of American democracy, which we feel would be undermined by the cancellation of primaries. Our analysis here is meant to throw some light on the motivations of those seeking to cancel primaries and on the consequences of doing so.

The impetus for this move comes primarily from Republican lawmakers, who make two main arguments: first, that the primaries are too expensive for states facing budget problems, and second, that President Bush will win the nomination anyway. The situation is still evolving, but Republican primaries have already been canceled in Utah, Kansas, and Colorado, and there are similar efforts afoot in South Carolina, Missouri, and Michigan. The issue is not entirely partisan, since some Democratic legislators and governors have felt compelled to support anti-primary efforts, but there is no doubt that the Right would benefit much more in 2004.

Most directly, by not having to compete in the primaries, President Bush would be able to save all his money (likely to top $200 million) for the general election campaign - and a good chunk of this money could presumably be used to support rightist candidates in state races. More broadly, the anti-primary campaign fits into a larger pattern of hard-right conservatives undercutting democratic procedures, a pattern that includes the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the shenanigans in Florida in 2000, the bought-and-paid-for California recall election, and the various state efforts at inter-census redistricting. In each case, conservatives have placed lower priority on giving full expression to the will of the people than on gaining and holding political power.

An additional reason that Republicans in particular are pushing for cancellation of primary elections is that the Democrats are expected to benefit disproportionately from the media coverage of presidential primary candidates. Democratic presidential hopefuls, now ten in number, can be expected to sound off volubly against the current occupant of the White House. State-funded primaries provide publicly-supported legitimacy for this throng of candidates, all taking aiming at the prime Republican target.

Despite the apathy with which most of the public greets primaries, they still serve important purposes. At the most basic level, they illustrate the commitment of a political party to going through the process by which the voters - not just the party operatives - choose a candidate. The alternative would render presidential elections a bit like shopping in a Soviet grocery store: you might have a couple of choices, but those choices would have been determined by faceless committees long before you walked through the door. Primaries guarantee that a leading candidate, no matter how far out in front, would have to face potential challengers and confront their arguments. Primaries make front-runners explain and defend their positions, justify their candidacies, travel to the various states, and talk to the people they hope to represent. A candidate winning a party's nomination without going through this gauntlet would be winning in the same way as Saddam Hussein car! rying 99.9 percent of the Iraqi vote in 2000.

Moreover, even if the ultimate nominee seems foreordained, it's not necessarily so, and without a primary, how could we ever know if the anointed candidate would really have beaten a strong challenger? In the current instance, President Bush might be more vulnerable than many people imagine. His approval rating has fallen to just above 50 percent, and a recent poll found that more people than not would like to see a different President. If the economy doesn't significantly improve by the beginning of 2004, and if the conflict in Iraq continues to fester, those numbers could worsen and create an opening for a relatively independent Republican such as John McCain. So canceling the primaries could be premature. But the Republican Party has an interest in presenting the President Bush as the obvious choice in the 2004 general election, and setting him up as a fait accompli in the primaries - or better yet, not even having the primaries - is an important! step in that direction.

FEATURED ARTICLE

>From time to time, the Uncommon Denominator will highlight particularly interesting or important articles about American political culture. The following is from "The Lost Vocabulary of Disinterested Politics," by Geoffrey Nunberg, a senior researcher at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information, and a member of the Commonweal Institute's advisory board.

"All of the candidates in California's recall election seem to be discussing the delicate semantics of 'special interests' . . . . But the words that everyone takes for granted are usually the ones that work the most mischief in political life. The British politician Aneurin Bevan once said that the student of politics 'must always be on his guard against the old words, for the words persist when the reality behind them has changed' . . . [I]n modern usage a special interest can be just about any group that favors a particular law or policy, though always with the implication that its demands are at odds with the interests of "the people."

Click here to read the whole article.

QUOTED!

"I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman" -- Arnold Schwarzenegger

HAPPENINGS

Theater & Think Tank. On September 28, CI supporters and friends will join Commonweal Institute's founders for an afternoon of theater, followed by an evening of good food and conversation. "Nickel and Dimed", the new play by Joan Holden, is based on Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America. Ehrenreich, a prominent journalist, went underground in working-class America to see what it's like to try to survive on the minimum wage. There are still a few tickets left; if you're interested in attending, please email us.

Presentations: Leonard Salle, Co-Founder and President, addressed the Lions Club in Campbell, CA, on August 13; his talk was "A Primer on Think Tanks." Co-founder Katherine Forrest is scheduled to speak to the Gray Panthers of Berkeley, CA, on September 24, discussing "The Voting Machine Scandal: The Promise and Pitfalls of Touch Screen Voting."

Summer Internships Completed. Tara Syed completed her summer internship at Commonweal Institute and has returned to UCLA, where she is majoring in International Economics. Julia Erlandson, now in her Junior year at Gunn High School, will continue as a volunteer with CI during the school year. The interns' major project this summer was researching young adults' political views and voting behavior. [more info requested from Judy so you can write about both interns.]

ENDORSEMENTS

"There is an urgent need today for a think tank to research and develop ideas and facts to inform the public and assist officeholders. The Commonweal Institute's work is urgently needed and I welcome what they will do and the impact they will have during one of the most trying times in the life of our country." -- Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, 14th CD-CA

GET INVOLVED

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