The problem is what is sometimes called "combined sewer overflows." In cities like New York, the sewage from your home and the rainwater in the street both end up in the same sewer system. During big rainstorms, the surge of water through the system is too much for our sewage treatment plants to process and so the raw sewage is dumped straight into our waterways.

This is less of a problem in New York City than in other places, because our drinking water comes from upstate reservoirs. However, in places like Long Island that rely on groundwater for household use, pollution of this sort is a major problem. Serious health problems can also result from raw sewage back-ups in people's basements. And while the issue of private dumping of toxins into public water systems seems to be a case of lax law enforcement against corporations that can easily modify their practices, the combined sewage overflow problem is much more difficult to address. A solution would require massive investment and major public resources.

Duhigg's piece notes that the government has spent over $35 billion in the past thirty years to improve the city's water quality, yet over $50 billion more would be needed to prevent these combined sewer overflows. The issue is clearly one of resources, technology and investment in infrastructure. This is yet another example of a society that refuses to tax itself sufficiently to provide adequate investment in the transportation, park, educational, library, health and environmental facilities that we require.

The recent financial crisis seems to have caused some scaling back of our high rates of consumption, and we even see private savings rates starting to grow.  However, as a society we seem to be unwilling to admit our need to invest in infrastructure. The American political culture currently rejects taxation almost as a reflex at virtually every turn.

Governments' highly visible failures are one reason for this continued anti-tax fervor. So too is the culture of consumption that gets people trampled to death at Black Friday store sales the day after Thanksgiving. In the case of the combined sewage problem, the $50 billion solution is probably not a great idea anyway. It is based on a bricks-and-mortar approach typical of traditional engineering thinking and technology that I believe is being supplanted by more ecologically-oriented, creative and cost-effective pollution control technologies. One of the causes of combined sewage overflows is that we have paved over land that used to absorb water during rains. If we encourage green roofs and other decentralized ways of collecting the water during storms, we can more easily reduce surges and avoid spending at least part of the $50 billion that some think is needed.

Still, new large-scale investments are needed to improve treatment of sewage in New York City. When this is added to funds needed for transportation, energy, new school buildings, and other basic needs, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

What we need both in New York and nationwide is an infrastructure investment strategy and financial model - sort of a business plan for the United States. For a variety of reasons, our federal government does not have a capital budget. Our cities and states have capital budgets, which separate funds allocated to long-term projects from funds allocated to day-to-day expenses, but not the federal government. The federal government has a single budget that incorporates both immediate expenses and expenses that should be paid off over time into one lump sum. Consequently, the U.S. doesn't have a means of managing its borrowing - all borrowing is considered part of the federal deficit. Some of that borrowing is for capital improvements that we should finance and some is for day-to-day expenses that in good times should not be paid for with borrowed funds. In that respect we are like those people that use their credit card to buy groceries and other necessities, but don't pay the full balance on their bill each month.

State and local government debt is relatively transparent and is analyzed and rated by private firms that guide investors. The ratings of state and local finances by private rating agencies such as Moody's influence the interest rates that states and cities must pay to borrow money. This serves to encourage at least a little bit of financial planning by these governments. But the federal government has no similar incentive to plan their long-term borrowing or think about the investments the nation truly needs and can actually afford.

The issues of combined sewage overflow and the capital needs of our society as a whole require that we give some thought to a long-term capital investment plan for this complicated business called the United States of America. I know that our policy and investment decisions are based on a wide variety of political factors that have nothing to do with rationality and even common sense. But shouldn't our national, state and local infrastructure investment decisions be based on a plan that looks realistically at our capacity to generate the revenues needed for investment and the priorities among capital facility needs? I do not think we are rich enough to do everything, and I know we need to start making some strategic investment choices.

There are two motors behind the emerging climate policy. The first is the actual danger posed by global warming. The second is the rising cost and uncertain supply of fossil fuels. The transition to a renewable energy base is not a luxury item; it is essential to our economic well being. The side effect of a renewable energy base is a reduction of greenhouse gasses. Regulation of carbon dioxide will stimulate and hasten the transition to a green energy economy. It will also promote more efficient use of all forms of energy, even fossil fuels.

In his November 17th column in the New York Times, David Leonhardt discussed "cash for caulkers", a proposed stimulus program to promote weatherization in private homes.  Leonhardt concluded that while

"... cash for caulkers would be trickier than cash for clunkers ... [it] would have the potential to do far more good. McKinsey, the consulting firm, estimates that households could reduce their energy use by 28 percent over the next decade. In terms of greenhouse gases, that would be the equivalent of taking half of all vehicles in this country off the road...Done right, cash for caulkers would be precisely the kind of stimulus that makes the most sense: spending money now to save money later." 

It makes good economic sense to use less energy to get the same benefit. This is true in appliances, homes, autos and every place else we use energy. However, the argument is often made that fossil fuels are cheaper than renewables and so the move away from fossil fuels will increase costs and reduce economic well being.  However, as I and many others have frequently observed, the era of cheap, easily accessible and abundant fossil fuels will not last forever. The price spikes and political battles over drilling are warning signals of the uncertain future of fossil fuels.  Eventually, capital will move away from uncertainty and the risks of fossil fuels toward energy sources that are more susceptible to cost reduction through application of new technology. While today renewables are far riskier than fossil fuels, this is not a trend that will last forever.

In the globally interconnected economic competition we all work within, the future will belong to those nations that learn to deliver energy with the least economic and environmental cost.  This competition requires companies to look to cut costs on materials, labor, production processes, waste management, transportation and energy.  These trends will continue with or without a climate treaty.

But the climate treaty and a climate law in the U.S. will provide a strong signal to the public and to business leaders that governments will push the move to a green energy economy. In the case of the Obama Administration, the failure to produce such change endangers the fragile political coalition that brought it to office. The Copenhagen conference should be seen as a giant two-week long media event pushing climate policy. It will be the climate change Olympics. President Obama and his fellow world leaders will not be able to drive this issue off of the agenda no matter how hard they try to reduce expectations.

Moreover, it is in President Obama's political interest to ride this media wave and encourage it to build. The predictable aftermath of Copenhagen will be a rise in understanding of the climate problem and support for change policy at the national and international level.  As the mid-term elections approach and the Democrats continue to sink in the polls, they will need tangible results, or at a minimum a well fought loss, to energize the first time voters that made the difference in 2008.  During his presidential candidacy, Obama made hope a principle, and when questioned about the feasibility of fundamental political change, responded "yes we can." Many of us continue to hope that we can and we will.

I have argued that the Democrats need three successes to have any chance of maintaining control of Congress in 2010: 1. Economic revival; 2.Health care reform, and; 3. Climate change and energy policy. However, in addition to making progress in all of those areas, they need to link the three together in a convincing message that the change we were promised is well underway. If the main message out of Copenhagen is that the United States temporized and retreated, the Democrats will have deep problems motivating 2008's first time voters to the polls. In that election Obama was the choice of 69% of first time voters. At a minimum, the President needs to go to Copenhagen and clearly articulate his own policies on climate change. In my view, going to Copenhagen is less risky for him than staying away.

In the past fifty years, New York City has been a city transformed. Where this was once a manufacturing hub with a range of factories located throughout Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, today it is a thriving post-industrial city. The docks on the west side of Manhattan have been replaced by containerized port facilities on the Jersey side of the river. In West Harlem, a vertical auto factory that once manufactured Studebaker cars now houses the offices of Columbia University's human resources, finance and information technology staff. 

New York's land use plans have been adjusted to fit the city that we have become. Since we no longer do much manufacturing here, what kind of work do we do in New York City? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in September 2009 nearly 3,700,000 people in New York were employed. Only 200,000 of those jobs were in manufacturing and construction. We have about 725,000 people working in education and health care, about a half a million in trade, transportation and utilities, and 580,000 jobs in professional and business services. About 560,000 New Yorkers work in government, 430,000 have jobs in the finance industry and 311,000 work in leisure and hospitality businesses. New Yorkers think, teach, design and do things, but for the most part we no longer make things.  Although the Meatpacking District no longer packs much meat, you can eat plenty of meat in the District's fancy restaurants. The High Line doesn't move freight anymore, but it does provide breathtaking views of the post-industrial cityscape. The physical fabric of the city has adapted itself to a new economy, and one of the Bloomberg Administration's lasting accomplishments will be its effort to steer the city's development patterns with their new zoning rules.

What have these rules actually done? According the Mayor's press release:            

"City Planning's 100 re-zonings have created a blueprint for sustainable development. Together, they offer new housing and job opportunities near transit hubs while maintaining the diverse character of New York City's many residential neighborhoods by updating decades-old zoning to protect the scale of lower density and auto-dependent neighborhoods... Approximately 2.1 million people live in areas touched by re-zonings."

Developers sometimes complain about Commissioner Burden's "intrusive" involvement in their development projects, and a fair amount of public attention has been devoted to her decisions to reduce the size of some building projects. Still, I think the most important impact of her work has been to increase population density in areas convenient to mass transit and preserve low density neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.

New York is a city of often startlingly diverse neighborhoods. Manhattanites may be surprised to learn what outer-borough folks rarely forget: that most of the land in New York City sits beneath single family homes. While most New Yorkers live in apartments, parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx are as auto-dependent and low density as much of Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey. Burden's zoning decisions discourage increased population density in the parts of New York City that are dominated by single family homes while encouraging efforts to increase density in the city's many commercial hubs located near subway stops.

In addition, the new zoning rules recognize the importance of greening our neighborhoods to improve the city's attractiveness to new residents and businesses. As Commissioner Burden notes on her agency's website :

"As a result of new zoning regulations, new developments must plant street trees to green and beautify our city as Mayor Bloomberg envisioned in PlaNYC2030. This initiative will result in as many as 10,000 street trees a year. Along with our green zoning requirements for landscaping parking lots and planting front yards, it will reduce storm water runoff, tame the urban heat island effect, and create a more pedestrian-friendly environment."

Moreover, the Commission is now working on a zoning rule that would encourage the development of neighborhood grocery stores in low income sections of the city. There are parts of New York City where it is a lot easier to find a beer that "tastes great and is less filling" than a piece of fresh fruit for your daughter's lunch bag.

When you look closely at the accomplishments of the City Planning Commission under Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Burden, it is easier to explain the Mayor's 70% approval rating than his meager electoral victory. Zoning reform of the type we have had in New York City these past eight years typically has a profound and long lasting impact on the physical contours of the city. There is little doubt in my mind that the impact of this visionary zoning reform will be felt in New York for decades to come. It will make the city a better place to live-especially when the economy picks up and the million new New Yorkers predicted by the City's PLANYC 2030 start to settle in. The large scale of New York City makes this city the ultimate "big tent." This place has just about everything. Riverdale, Forest Hills and Mill Basin may not look like Harlem, East New York and Times Square, but they are all neighborhoods of New York City. Mike Bloomberg and Amanda Burden deserve our praise for increasing the odds that these neighborhoods will be preserved well into the 21st century.

In the New York Times on November 5, John Broder wrote that "the move suggests that President Obama and Democratic supporters of the bill will have serious problems assembling the votes needed to enact it when it comes to the Senate floor, probably not before next year." There is little question that the President, or, more precisely, his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has a fight on his hands if the Administration is to get a climate law enacted before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ends on December 18, 2009. Broder's piece notes that the senior Republican on the environment committee, Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, believes that Boxer's aggressive tactic in Committee "marked the death knell of efforts to enact a comprehensive climate change bill."

Senator Inhofe may be right, but in my view he is underestimating the importance of the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Contrary to Inhofe's beliefs, Boxer's move does not suggest that the climate bill is dead, but rather that its proponents have recognized that the calls for further negotiation, cost analysis and discussion are merely delaying tactics. Thus far, "no" has proved a simple and effective strategy for Republicans. It's easy to communicate, and it has the Democrats on the run. But the off-year election that just took place may shake the Democrats out of their slow and steady slumber. They know that they must hold their base and motivate them to go to the polls, especially those new voters brought to the polls by Barack Obama in 2008.

To appeal to this base, the Democrats must stand for something. Actually, three things: 1. A revived private economy, stimulated by an activist government; 2. Health care reform that regulates insurance companies and provides coverage for poor people; and 3. Climate and energy legislation.

Democrats may be taking the hint from their dismal off-year election results that running on empty is a losing strategy. Republicans are trying to expand the scope of conflict and increase the noise level to frighten moderates into inaction. But perhaps the Democrats have finally figured out that the Republicans do not want to deal. If this is the case, and if the Democrats are to present a coherent record, they need to raise the stakes, stop talking and start acting.

I see the Boxer move not as an act of illogical desperation, but as a strategic step to take the fight right to her opponents. Copenhagen remains a real deadline for U.S. climate policy. The people who voted Obama into office, particularly his young supporters, want to see him play a leadership role at Copenhagen. The world's media is going to be in Denmark this December, and the President's political people know an opportunity when they see it.

Without a Senate bill enacted - particularly one able to survive a Senate-House conference committee - the President can't go to Copenhagen at all. Right now, the Democrats and the President look weak and unable to make progress.  While EPA is moving aggressively to regulate carbon dioxide, more dramatic and visible action is needed. The White House needs to marshal the powers of the Presidency to move wavering legislators into Obama's corner. In the last month or so we have started to see the White House deploy the power needed to get the health bill passed. Once a health bill is signed, Obama needs to move quickly on the climate bill. He needs to use his considerable rhetorical skills to mobilize public support.

The world's eyes will be on Copenhagen. Will they see an American President's leadership or will they once again be treated to a low-level American delegation with little to say and nothing to do? The first-time voters that voted for Obama in 2008 will sit on their hands in 2010 if they don't start to see some real progress. And if I can see that from where I sit, I'm assuming the political folks in the White House can see it too.

I grew up thinking that the natural order of things dictated that the Yankees belonged in the World Series. But Derek Jeter and I have both learned the hard way that other teams get to play and win in the Series too. Still, watching the Yankees in this year’s World Series feels to me like the planet has been restored to its proper orbit. What is there about baseball and New York that puts them in sync? I suppose some of it is that baseball is a 19th century sport, with plenty of time for contemplation and beer between plays. In the rest of the country, if people want to see smashing, crashing and fast-moving action, they check out football games or NASCAR. In New York, we just walk down Broadway.

For many, but especially for New Yorkers, the search for calm and a sense of connection to the past leads to baseball. That’s why some of us were so moved when Derek Jeter broke Lou Gehrig’s Yankee base hit record this summer. It was wonderful to see that someone whom we admire so much can somehow be connected to the guy who made the famous “luckiest man in the world” speech, way back when the world was filmed in black and white. The importance of baseball has never been better expressed than by the “Terrance Mann” character in the great baseball movie Field of Dreams:

“The one constant through all the years… has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past… It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again….”

Baseball appears again and again in our culture as a unifying symbol and set of images. Baseball is Jackie Robinson and the fight against Jim Crow. Baseball is the growth of the global economy and players from Latin America and Asia sharing a field of dreams with guys from Kansas. And baseball is the Yankees and New York City—from the “Bronx is burning” Reggie Jackson images of 1977 to the post-9-11 World Series against Arizona that was emblematic of the tenacity and toughness of New York.

This year, the cultural touchstone for the World Series may very well end up being the rap star Jay-Z. I admit that most rap songs don’t move me, but ever since I heard Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sing “Empire State of Mind” a few weeks ago.  I have not been able to get those lyrics or melodies out of my head.  As with all great art, the song has captured the sound and feel of this place perfectly. Jay-Z has created an indelible image of New York City in 2009.  Watching his performance at Yankee Stadium before the second game of the World Series the other night, with the Yankees looking on, was simply amazing.

New York City has a reputation for being a cold and unforgiving place, but those of us who have been here a long time know that is simply not true. This place gives and receives great loyalty and heart, and one sign of that spirit is the number of Yankee caps and A-Rod t-shirts you see all over town these days. Jay-Z may be able to “make the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can,” but all he’s really pointing out is that the cap and the team are just a part of this place. The “streets that can make you feel brand new” are bigger than the Yankees and bigger than rap music. They are what David Dinkins once called a “gorgeous mosaic.” Each community in the city is distinct and identifiable, but when you step back and look at the whole, it provides an image of great beauty. This is a unique place where the entire world gathers to meet, learn, have fun, make a living and, of course, watch the game.

The problem is that American democracy has never been overly democratic. Vermont's 600,000 or so people elect the same number of Senators as New York's 19,000,000.  However,  these days the problem with our system of representation is less one of geographic bias than of the power of economic interests.  Economic power is projected by direct lobbying in today's complex legislative process and by corporate campaign contributions to elected officials.  President Obama recently blasted the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers for opposing the climate and energy bills before Congress. Why should the President care about the views of those business groups? He was elected by a large majority and his party controls both Houses of Congress. He cares because he knows that his election was made possible by two anomalies unique to the 2008 election. The first was the Wall Street crash that appeared to be out of control in the weeks before the election. American business was in a state of panic and the McCain ticket, especially with Palin on it, seemed riskier than Obama and Biden. The second was Obama's remarkable success in raising money from small online contributions.  Obama was able to out-fundraise the Republicans and negate the usual advantage of wealth and economic power in American politics.

It is of course silly to believe that people with economic power would not use that power to advance their own interests in the political system. Every regulation ever created to control the role of money in politics is closely followed by an army of lawyers looking for loopholes. Economic power is like a stream flowing down a mountain; gravity alone can bring it to where it wants to go. If you make it difficult for this power to be expressed legitimately, some power brokers will still manage to achieve their goals illegally.

But not Mike Bloomberg. The problem with the current state of campaign finance law is that decent, civic-minded people like our Mayor are not only allowed to spend as much of their own money as they can, but the system actually encourages it. If you are a prudent, competent public servant, convinced that your election is in the public interest, failing to spend your own money on your own cause seems idiotic.  With $16 billion in the bank, one could spend $200 million and barely notice that it's gone. However, if it was illegal to spend your own money on a campaign, I know that Mike Bloomberg would not spend his.

As scary as Bloomberg's spending might be for democracy, the fundraising conflicts of interest by the non-billionaires running for office in NYC is even worse. Comptroller Thompson takes money from people in the investment and finance industry even though he runs the city's pension system, and City Councilman de Blasio takes campaign money from the same nonprofits he helped to secure city funding. These two guys are among the most honest, incorruptible elected officials you will ever find, but to compete in this electoral system, candidates have to become part-time public servants and full-time fundraisers.

The root of all this evil is in a well-known 1976 Supreme Court case called Buckley vs. Valeo. In that case:

"...the Court found that the expenditure ceiling in the FECA (Federal Election Campaign Act) imposed "direct and substantial restraints on the quantity of political speech" and invalidated three expenditure limitations as violations of the First Amendment." 

In a ruling that makes democracy a cash-and-carry operation, the Court decided that campaign contributions were a form of free speech. There are probably good libertarian and even free speech arguments for allowing people to spend their own money to promote their own views.  But the impact of this ruling, coupled with the escalating costs of modern political campaigning, has been to elevate the importance of money in politics to an absurd level.

The spectacle of a wealthy man spending his own money in a legal effort to stay in office makes for a good, entertaining news story. But all the whining changes nothing. The fundamental problem is that as long as we equate campaign spending with free speech, it will not be possible to control the impact of money in our political process.  Bloomberg's money is not the real problem. His contributions are upfront and visible for all to see. The real problem is the quiet, constant cash campaign contributions of businesses ranging from the health care industry to oil companies. These companies are working overtime, but out of the media spotlight, to influence public policy. The President will only get health and climate bills enacted this year if he is able to overcome these powerful economic forces.  That's the real money and politics story going on right now. The Mayoral election in New York City is just a sideshow.

If you spend nearly 800 billion dollars to get the economy moving again, you can be sure of three things: 1. some of the money will be wasted and/or stolen, 2. some of the money will do some good, and 3. some federal agencies will get the money out the door faster than others. One of the agencies given a large amount of new funding under the stimulus program was the Department of Energy, which received $36.7 billion dollars of the $43 billion allocated by the bill to energy projects. Since the transition to a green energy economy is critical to recovery, one would think that it would be important to spend these funds as quickly as possible.

Recall that the stimulus package included a number of provisions that simultaneously increased spending and reduced taxes. The $787 billion package spent nearly $500 billion for programs and allocated about $288 billion to tax relief. The NY Times website includes a detailed outline of the program's allocations.

The spending or non-tax portion of the bill breaks down into seven broad categories:

1.      State and local fiscal relief: $144 billion

2.      Infrastructure and Science: $111 billion

3.      Welfare Programs: $81 billion

4.      Health Care: $59 billion

5.      Education: $53 billion

6.      Energy: $43 billion

7.      Other: $8 billion

Some of the science funding is beginning to make its way to universities like the one I work at, providing funds for student scholarships, research jobs, facilities and equipment. While the impact of these funds will certainly be felt in waves, the first of these waves has hit the shore. It takes a while to make good use of these extra funds, and once we receive them from Washington, we cannot instantly build a lab or hire a researcher. Still, new grants are arriving on campuses across America, and scientists are moving quickly to take advantage of this rare opportunity to obtain extra funding for their labs. Moreover, in addition to these immediate short-term impacts, the longer-term economic benefits from scientific discoveries and newly trained researchers will ensure that the effects of these funds will be felt for many years to come.

In the Energy Department, the pace of spending stimulus funds has been excruciatingly slow. Fortunately, in recent weeks we have begun to see some signs that this particularly lumbering federal giant is finally beginning to get its act together. In early October, the Department announced a $750 million program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to "help accelerate the development of conventional renewable energy generation projects." According to the DOE website, these funds would "cover the cost of loan guarantees which could support as much as $4 to 8 billion in lending to eligible projects." The goal is to use federal loan guarantees to entice private capital into the energy marketplace. The Department of Energy has also announced a number of grant programs for universities researching energy issues.

The Department of Energy's share of the stimulus bill totals nearly $37 billion dollars.  According to the department's "Recovery and Reinvestment" website, the funds have been earmarked for various projects and allocated in the following manner:

1.      $16.8 billion invested in improving energy efficiency and developing sources of renewable energy

2.      $6 billion for decontamination and clean up of Cold War nuclear sites

3.      $4.5 billion for development and implementation of Smart Grid programs and efficient electrical transmission

4.      $4 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects

5.      $3.4 billion for research on carbon capture and storage and other ways to control carbon emissions

6.      $1.6 billion in funding for research and academic programs like those discussed above at schools and universities across the country

7.      $400 million to the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy for other research and technology development projects

Recovery.gov, the federal government's website for tracking stimulus spending, shows that the Department of Energy has received about $18 billion (actually $18,255,356,221) of the $36.7 billion listed above, but as of October 9, 2009, had only spent about one billion (or $1,023,085,017). The Department of Energy is spending its stimulus money at a much slower rate than the rest of the federal government. While the team at Energy has only spent about 3% of the $36.7 billion they were allocated, overall federal spending has reached about 22%, or $173 billion of the full stimulus package of $787 billion. 

While I am tempted to observe that an inability to spend money may very well be a comment on the overall competence of the Department of Energy, I will instead try to believe that just like the tortoise and the hare, DOE's leadership believes that "slow and steady wins the race."

This brief run through the stimulus spending data tells us two things. First, most of the impact of the stimulus will be in the future; over three quarters of the money promised is still in the bank. Second, we should not be surprised at the lack of impact of the stimulus on development of a green energy economy. Economists are telling us that the recession is over, yet unemployment is still rising. Perhaps the economy needs an extra shot of stimulus to caffeinate the job market. The good news is that when you look at the spending data, that extra burst of economic espresso is still being brewed.

For the extreme Left, he’s the President who is still fighting a war in Iraq, an escalating war in Afghanistan, and possibly thinking about taking out Iran’s nuclear capability. For the extreme Right, he’s a foreign born egomaniac who is getting ready to allow gays to serve in the military and planning to cut and run from all American military engagements. However, it is instructive to read the President’s Nobel Prize citation and see how Obama is being perceived abroad:

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population,” 

My favorite part of the news stories about the Prize is the way the President was informed of this award. Due to time zone differences, American Nobelists are typically informed of their win in the middle of the night. Not this time.  According to Nobel Committee Chair Thorbjoern Jagland , the Committee decided not to inform Obama early because it didn't want to wake him up. "Waking up a president in the middle of the night, this isn't really something you do,"  Yes, he might think the nation was being attacked.. Deploying  the air force would not be the correct response to winning a peace prize.

Of course, Obama is not the first sitting American President to win the Prize. Teddy Roosevelt won in 1916 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The move by the Nobel committee serves to reinforce the central position of American diplomacy and the continued importance of the American Presidency. With Europe, China, India, and Russia emerging as world powers, the United States continues to retain its critical position, with the world’s most powerful military and a huge if struggling economy. Of equal importance is America’s central position in the world’s media, on the web and in the popular imagination. Images of America are communicated throughout the world and continue to dominate the world’s collective bandwith.

It matters what the American President does, how he does it and what he says. When President George W. Bush swaggers on to an aircraft carrier to declare “mission accomplished” it says one thing. When President Barack Obama goes to Cairo to hold out an olive branch to the Muslim world, it says something quite different. While being popular outside the United States may not be the main objective of the American President, Machiavelli aside, being feared and loathed is not always the best way to promote American interests in an interdependent global system.

A number of polls this summer show that the United States is more respected abroad than it was during the Bush Administration and it is clear that the Obama team sees diplomacy as well as the military as tools for advancing American interests. Obama is a masterful communicator and a compelling figure on the world stage. While it is too early to know if all of this promise will translate into performance, the Nobel Committee seems to be betting on our still new President. I admit that I am too. Obama has written his own story and termed it the Audacity of Hope. I think the Nobel committee has added its voice to that story- making the case for the persistence of hope. I think it is a wonderful gesture, worthy of the traditions of this important prize.

It’s true that, under cap and trade, companies receive permits to pollute. But it’s also true that the permits gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses they are allowed to emit.  For the record, it’s not just rich companies that get to buy permits to pollute, but clean companies that get to sell them. The idea is to get as much pollution reduction as possible at the least possible cost. There are two basic alternatives to cap and trade: 1. a simple cap—what is often called command and control regulation; or 2. a tax on carbon. By setting a cap or tax on pollution, you are still allowing it to take place—and so it is still “permission to legally pollute.” An out and out prohibition on carbon dioxide emissions is infeasible, since it would end economic life as we know it. Jon Stewart’s Daily Show would be taken off the air, since there would be no electricity to run our televisions. That would be a shame, since it’s my favorite TV show.

The problem of global warming is a complicated one, and it is only the most visible of the impacts of our growing technological capacity. Our economic and political lives are becoming more complicated and more difficult to manage. We benefit from these technological marvels, but we are more vulnerable as a result of them.  The growing complexity of economic life and financial transactions has been further complicated by the increased technical and scientific content of the goods and services provided by our post-industrial society. For example, the free market marvel of Henry Ford’s Model T has been replaced by today’s highly regulated automobile—a vehicle that includes pollution control technology, required safety equipment, and a range of computer controls and other technologies. Similarly, American farming has come a long way from “40 acres and a mule” to become a highly mechanized, computer-controlled agribusiness. 

Public policy requires an understanding of science and technology to be effective. Farming practices influence food safety, public health, and water supplies, and even generate ethical issues that stem from cloning and genetic engineering. Our public officials cannot regulate those activities in the public interest if they do not understand the science and technology upon which they are based. How can one create policy on “how clean is clean” at a toxic waste site—how far clean-up must proceed before it is complete—without some understanding of the transport, toxicity, and latency of the individual and interacting chemicals?

The names Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison are well known and are of a time when technology and the economy was simple enough for inventors to become “heroes” and even players in the national economy.  Today’s version of these innovators, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, may not be “inventors,” but are technically sophisticated managers who depend on huge R & D machines to develop new products. They continue the 20th century practice that tied economic growth to technological innovation.

New products, made with new and more efficient production techniques, are constantly introduced and upgraded: autos, electricity and illumination, refrigeration, air conditioning, radio, telephones, black and white TV, color TV, digital TV, main frame computers, laptop computes, satellite communication, air travel, cell phones, Blackberries, the Internet, and computer software. Modern economic life is dominated by the development and introduction of new technologies.

Just as economic life is dominated by science and technology, public policy issues are increasingly shaped by scientific and technological developments as well. Understanding public policy requires increased levels of scientific literacy. For example (not an exhaustive list):

• National security: Arms, aircraft, submarines, ships, missiles, atomic weapons, and spy satellites are all subject to constant technological change and advancement. Modern warfare is dominated by the importance of new technology and the ability or inability to develop counter-measures to these new technologies.
• Health care. From immunizations to MRIs, health care and the associated calculation of costs and benefits are constantly changing due to the development of new drugs and technologies. Moreover, the effect of the use of non-medical technologies on human health requires both an understanding of those technologies and of their impact on human biology and chemistry. People are living longer and healthier lives as a result of medical technologies. These technologies are reshaping our economies, societies, and politics in profound ways that we are only beginning to understand.
• Environmental Protection and Sustainability. The entire range of human activity influences a web of biological relationships in our ecosystems that eventually lead back to humans and their health. We are learning more every day about the science of our planet, how it is changing due to human impacts and what we need to do to minimize our negative impact or “footprint.” We need to learn more about how to provide food, water, energy, and other resources based on the principles of reuse and sustainability.

Scientific and technical literacy is essential for understanding and governing the modern world. To maximize the benefits and reduce the costs of using new technologies, decision-makers must develop a more sophisticated understanding of the science of the new technologies they are selling or trying to regulate. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, engineers knew that the toxic waste they were dumping the ground could kill people and ruin the environment, but the business leaders they worked for were largely ignorant of those scientific facts.  Most of the elected leaders responsible for the communities “hosting” these dumpsites did not even know they existed or, if they did, that they were dangerous. At the infamous Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, the Hooker Chemical Company sold the land they dumped chemicals on to the local government for a dollar. The community then built a school on top of the site, with a playground directly over the dump. Eventually, the chemicals leached off the site, causing great harm to the local community. It is difficult to know how much it will cost us to clean up this nation’s toxic waste, but the job is far from over and the bill is probably over $100 billion. Ignorance was far from bliss. In the 21st century we need to do a better job of teaching our leaders to understand science and technology. 

In addition to understanding science, last year’s Wall Street meltdown should also convince us that we need our leaders to develop a deeper understanding of finance as well.  The media can play a role in increasing our scientific and economic literacy, or they can focus on death squads, the President’s birth certificate or cute word plays on “cap’n trade.” A cheap laugh is always better than a vicious lie, so I’ll keep tuning into The Daily Show—since even on the rare occasions that he is wrong, Jon Stewart always does his job and makes us laugh.

According to EPA’s website, the new rule was announced by EPA Chief Lisa Jackson on September 30:

“The Administrator announced a proposal requiring large industrial facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs [greenhouse gases] a year to obtain construction and operating permits covering these emissions. These permits must demonstrate the use of best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures to minimize GHG emissions when facilities are constructed or significantly modified.”

Jackson remarked that:  “By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy.” EPA’s proposed climate regulation applies to the approximately 14,000 large businesses that emit about 70% of the nation’s greenhouse gases.

In Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have already voiced their opposition to the proposed rule. That is far from surprising, but, paradoxically, an interesting impact of this rule might be an increase in industry support for legislation like Waxman-Markey because it provides more flexibility in meeting emission caps. Waxman-Markey’s cap and trade provision allows companies to trade pollution allowances. The new approach to climate in Waxman-Markey also attacks the root causes of global warming by promoting the development of new energy technology and encouraging greater energy efficiency. It includes programs for climate adaptation, carbon sequestration and the transition to a green energy economy. EPA’s new rule, on the other hand, is good, old-fashioned command and control. The business community might prefer a bill with both carrots and sticks, if the alternative is the current law, which only provides sticks.
 
In comparison to Waxman-Markey, the Clean Air Act is a non-comprehensive, one-dimensional approach to climate policy. EPA’s proposed rule is a hacksaw, when the Obama Administration would rather operate with a scalpel. Nevertheless, if Congress is unable to provide an elegant tool to begin the process of reducing greenhouse gases, then the EPA will simply have to use the best tool they can grab hold of.  Though outdated, the Clean Air Act is far better than nothing. This approach to environmental regulation finds its historical roots in the early days of EPA. Seven days after EPA was created in 1970, its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, used provisions from the River and Harbors Act of 1899 to force a number of large cities (run by mayors that were not of the President’s political party) to stop dumping sewage into local waterways.

EPA’s strong action is possible because of President Obama’s deep understanding of the climate problem and his willingness to use the authorities he has available. In the 1970’s many industry groups eventually realized that the public demand for clean water and clean air would result in new and more stringent laws. Rather than opposing all efforts at change, some decided to try to shape the change they saw coming. Today, anyone running a business with even a small amount of foresight realizes that climate and energy policies are going to be changed over the next several years.  Better-managed businesses will be trying to figure out how to plan for change rather than continue to resist it.

Unfortunately, despite the President’s desire to usher in a post-partisan period, the lines only seem to be getting more sharply drawn. Let’s keep in mind that the lobbying business has grown dramatically in recent years, along with limitless electronic communication. Intense partisanship has become a big business. And there is simply more money to be made if you are part of the entrenched, hard line opposition than if you are a moderate, pragmatic deal maker.

EPA’s tougher approach to climate regulation will enable our negotiators at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in mid-December to claim that the U.S. has put in place a new policy to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases. While a new piece of legislation would be better than what we have now, using the Clean Air Act is better than doing nothing. Here comes the hacksaw.