Great new rules for green energy.

For years, green developers, politicians, and pundits have bemoaned America’s approach to incentivizing renewable energy projects. For years, the primary mechanism was a tax break on profits from approved renewable projects. There were two problems with this scheme: first, the financial incentive would not materialize until the projects began to generate revenue, which, for a large thermal solar plant could take years. The second problem is that the tax credit would persist for only a year at a time before it had to be renewed by congress, which set up an annual struggle and made fund-raising, planning, and development for new projects uncertain. Developers always had to be mindful of the possibility of what came to pass last year: the tax break lapsed and threw the renewables industry into disarray and then stagnation. Many green projects are tenuously financed: private capital is matched by some public funding and in any event the numbers are always very tight; the tax credit lapsing was enough to put hundreds of projects on hold.

Two days ago, the Energy Department issued new rules for incentivizing renewable energy development: ‘the government will pay up to 30 percent of the cost of renewable energy projects.’ The change was authorized under the stimulus bill; the first applications will be accepted around Aug. 1 for all projects that could begin construction this year or next. The rule solves both of the difficulties above, for now, and should be a major step toward stimulating a golden age for green development in this country.

Filed under: Domestic, sustainability , renewables

Putting U.S. intelligence back on track.

One of the popular academic opinions about the sources of poor intelligence estimation is that the likelihood an estimate will be publicized or released to congress will skew the judgment of the analyst. Glenn Hastedt has been particularly forceful in developing this hypothesis, which is surely a valid concern. So with this in mind, as well as the fact that the House is set to debate a new bill on intelligence oversight tomorrow, we should recall how brave Panetta’s action was today to inform the congressional intelligence committees that the CIA mislead them on unspecified matters possibly dating back to 2001. Much has rightfully been made of this administration’s hypocrisy in claiming to be advocates of transparency and falling short on those promises; but my point is that Panetta today struck a major blow for transparency in a situation in which he could have easily done nothing and pandered to his organization. Panetta—surely with the approval of the President—went well out of his way to do absolutely the right thing in a way that might well make his job more difficult. The intelligence-policy relationship is an extraordinarily delicate balance in which half-measures and half-truths are often employed to maintain the balance; Panetta today took a rare broad stroke, presumably to rectify a broad concealment. Congress needs to do their part to recognize that Panetta’s action was probably supererogatory given the expectations of Washington, but an obligation fully met by the standards of the American people; they should laud the effort, and refrain from crowing over the admissions. Today was a major, and much-needed step toward repairing the damaged expectations that have governed the intelligence-policy relationship following the Bush years.

Update: I’d been writing ‘today,’ but Panetta was informed of the program on June 23, cancelled it and informed Congress on June 24, and Congress’ letter was sent on June 26. Clearance issues prevented the news from becoming public until now. We should all hope that Sy Hersh’s rumors that the program was a Cheney-run assassination squad are unfounded; that is not a happy prospect. It seems to be something of comparable magnitude, though.

Filed under: Practicing Politics , intelligence, oversight, panetta

An unsuitable G8 wardrobe.

Will Boehlke, internet king of classic style, is fond of saying—rightly, I think—that the best dressed men will leave a strong impression of being impeccably dressed without standing out. Perhaps this is no more appropriate than in professional Washington or in political affairs. That having been said, how does the following strike you?

(This from the New York Times..)

What were you thinking?

I think Medvedev comes out on top. The three button is outdated, but he has properly left the top button undone, which can look very fine—and even contemporary—in slightly heavier worsteds and flannels. The slacks drape well, and he’s chosen what is either a dark charcoal or a midnight blue, either of which is superior to black black black. Stay classy, pols. Don’t choke laughing too hard, guys.

Filed under: Various , g8, medvedev, style, taro aso

Preemptive adherence to international law.

The Jerusalem Post has a fascinating article today about growing concern within the IDF about the legal fallout over how they prosecute wars or interventions. The rising concern has encouraged the IDF to take steps to limit their legal exposure, like attaching legal advisors “to commanders from the Brigade level up and are present when the target banks are drawn up, where questions are asked about whether the target is purely military or has a dual purpose” and also being proactive about investigating incidents internally to forestall questions from international jurists or advocacy groups.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the following unattributed quote was indicative of many in the IDF, though: ”There are hundreds of petitions, cases, legal opinions and actions cropping up across the world. The phenomenon is very wide and growing. The other side has a lot of money that comes from countries and people not friendly to Israel. This is another front in the war, and if we don’t realize it we’ll have a problem,” the senior defense source said.

It’s unfortunate to see such virulent and parochial resistance to the spread of international norms of military conduct, but it is a testament to their power. Furthermore, it seems that this is a deep difference in spreading norms qua norms or norms attached to legal enforcement. An international norm cannot receive compliance until a) a tipping point in the number of states that subscribe to it can levy overwhelming normative pressure, or; b) the state in question comes to accept it. Furthermore, international norms can be effectively contested: as Charlie Kupchan and I argued in Democracy, the current effort to redefine sovereignty is encouraging a disproportionately large blowback among recalcitrant states; international legal norms, at least among relatively-socialized states, face no such possibility because of the strength of the condemnation involved in a war crimes claim. The spread of international legal norms does not occur at the edge of their expansion; in this case, compliance outstrips the spread of enforceable legal statutes. In short, legal norms may carry with them an multiplier for compliance, while rhetorical norms might face a penalty for efficacy.

I’m generally skeptical of the utility of international law, but this is a pretty good argument. Because the senior defense source can complain all he can, or ensure compliance with the letter rather than the spirit of the law, but in any case it is progress.

Filed under: Middle East, the next order , Israel, war crimes, international law, international norms

Making the recession last.

Every so often I’ve been checking in with the Bureau of Economic Analysis to see the updates to the above chart, and the news keeps getting better and better. As you can see, the personal savings rate has been steadily declining towards zero and is now higher than it has been in at least a decade—in fact, the rate has not been this high since 1995 (a year that hardly comes to mind when one thinks of frugality).

I’ve been watching the personal savings because it is not simply an economic marker but a sign of our national identity: are we to be obsessed with conspicuous consumption to the detriment of our future and our children’s, or can we get a handle on ourselves to let the next generation of American’s decide their own future? The answer is far from clear, but the chart above is but one reason why this recession has the potential to do much good. But, as I have written before, it is a question of whether the recession—with a crucial push from our public leaders—can instantiate enduring norms or whether Americans are simply responding elastically to economic pressures, with the changes vanishing as soon as the economy seems to return to normalcy? Can American’s learn to save again? Can they retain their enthusiasm for reforming ossified, expensive, and hurtful systems? Can they keep their attention and their purchasing decisions on large epochal problems like climate change? Is this a lasting change to American identity, or just the exigencies of the times?

There is some reason to think that the former might be true. SUV sales, for instance, have proven imperfectly elastic to gas prices, having failed to rebound to previous levels. The percentage of Ford sales that go to large SUVs is a quarter of what it was five years ago. If these changes to consumer sentiment can persist, the structural changes they precipitated will help lock them into place: plants will retool to produce smaller personal vehicles; cities will complete projects to make bicycling more attractive; research and development funds for alternative energy will begin to drive unit prices lower; political rhetoric will develop new and irrevocable commonplaces; and, hopefully, once initial political efforts have confronted issues like healthcare, they will lose their sacrosanct patina and reforms can follow reforms.

Recession mentality suits America. U.S. consumers are almost never receptive to political suggestion about their finances, but if we can draw this recession out, we might be able to create a new era of collective and personal American responsibility. (Because when was the last time you thought of this country as responsible?)

Filed under: Economics, Who We Are, sustainability , cascades, responsibility, savings rate

Independence day.

This July fourth I’ve been thinking a bit about patriotism, and about something McCain said during the campaign. He said, ‘My country has never had to prove anything to me, my friends. I have always had faith in it and I have been humbled and honored to serve it. ‘

It strikes me that this has become a defining cleavage between American liberalism and conservatism today. For the latter, patriotism is a matter of faith in the tradition of one’s country, and its lasting legacy; for liberals, patriotism is a matter of reinvention, of progress, of critique. For most American liberals, this country does have something to prove to its citizens. It can, and probably has, gone astray; it is dangerous; it is misguided; it needs the critical effort of its citizens, who build a new America with every new generation and so must hold it accountable. For most liberals, the United States does not automatically live up to its better traditions; its dangerous and frightening traditions remain possible and so faith in its direction is an improper and unproductive response.

Listening to speeches and rhetoric this independence day, it will be easy for all of us to lose sight of a liberal sense of patriotism. But we should remember: America is ours, in the here and now, and we should demand that it be what we want it to be. We demand that America constantly prove itself to us, in our health, in our education, our security, our moral judgment, at home and abroad. To love this country is to guide it, to improve it, to ensure that it is a force for welfare, for learning, and for peace. Too often recently, this country has been a force for ignorance, obstruction, for war and intolerance–for acquiescence in the continued thrall of nuclear politics and genocide, with infant mortality rates more than twice the number of Singapore, behind all other Western developed countries and also Cuba. This is a country with great promise and tremendous possibility, but our political failures mean we cannot save lives abroad, or keep our infants alive.

That this country was born as a revolutionary one meant that we declared independence from undesirable influence to construct the country we desired; our continued independence means we have a responsibility to continue to do just this. Faith is not enough.

Filed under: Who We Are , McCain, patriotism, progressivism

Another Downside to Military Rule

There have been several good takes on the crisis in Honduras. The Obama administration’s condemnation of the military take-over, and its deference to the OAS are a welcome change to the days of the Bush administration.

Process is everything in this case. As Brookings’s Casas-Zamora points out, President Zelaya was playing fast and loose with the constitution, under which the office of the president cannot be changed by plebiscite. If Zelaya were returned to office and was subsequently removed by trial, it would further institutionalize the norm of civilian rule and provide the relatively young democracy with some fruitful constitutional stress testing. (Interestingly, the Honduran constitution doesn’t include a mechanism for impeachment. The National Assembly/Congress has the right to “approve or disapprove” of the administrative conduct of the executive and other offices, but whether this extends to remove from office I’m not sure (Article 205.20).)

What’s going on in Honduras reveals the persistence of the view in Latin America that the military is (or should be) a fundamentally constabulary institution, one which in practice is geared overwhelmingly toward keeping the peace at home while remaining ostensibly concerned with fighting and winning interstate wars. The threat this conception poses to the consolidation of democracy is, by now, clear. Less obvious are the downsides this poses for military organizations themselves.

When militaries are conceived around a constabulary role, they become very skilled at staging coups, breaking riots, and running police states. In turn, they end up sacrificing effectiveness in conventional war. Of course, there are probably organizational pressures to, ahem, expand the military’s scope of operations since the threats to most countries in Latin America are minimal at worst and imaginary at best. But as Stephen Biddle points out, there is pretty good evidence to suggest that doctrine and tactics are at least as important on the battlefield as technology. In other words, maybe if the Argentinean military wasn’t also concerned with running the country in 1982, the Falklands/Malvinas War might have turned out somewhat differently.

–Brian

Filed under: Military, War , Honduras

The first next nuclear posture.

Since President Obama in April declared the United States’ intention to seek a world without nuclear weapons, the race has been on to reformulate American nuclear doctrine for the coming transitional periods. To this end, the National Security Archive recently published a fascinating briefing book on the formulation of nuclear doctrine in the first years of the Cold War that I fully recommend reading through. Admiral Arleigh Burke’s preference for a finite deterrence based around 400 warheads on nuclear submarines (which were thought then to be nearly invincible) was eventually extinguished when a RAND report tilted Robert McNamara and the Kennedies toward the Air Force’s preferred nuclear tripod of intercontinental missiles, submarines, and the Strategic Air Command bomber fleet. This, combined with a counterforce doctrine that is of course the nuclear posture that prevailed through the Cold War and now beyond.

But even if finite deterrence—or, more recently, minimum deterrence—was not the correct posture for the Cold War, surely it deserves at least another look now. Burke’s exclusive reliance on nuclear submarines may not have been appropriate for the later years of the Cold War, and it may not be appropriate now, but surely the original intuition that nuclear deterrence can hold firm without preemptive strike capability was right—and even moreso in a world in which we face no existential nuclear threat.

Until we can grasp this promise, the early sixties will simply stand as another in a long line of instances in which the moderate argument on American grand strategy could not hold its ground against more extravagant alternatives.

Filed under: Arms Control, Grand Strategy , disarmament, minimum deterrence, burke, mcnamara

The return of environmental tariffs.

What started an interesting idea has reared it’s head: a provision to establish tariffs on certain energy-intensive goods from countries that have not accepted emissions limits has found its way into the omnibus energy bill that Obama has to sign. Previously, I argued that if there were some way to differentiate the protectionist signal from the environmental one, the idea might be a useful way to gain some desperately needed leverage on these countries. If the tariffs were established by an international organization or enshrined in an environmental treaty, it would essentially do globally what countries are attempting to do domestically: raise the cost of socially-detrimental goods to get these industries and countries to internalize the full costs of their action. The President understands this, saying: “We have to be careful about sending any protectionist signals.” (These are tough words from a guy who helped kindle a fire of protectionist sentiment in the public and congressional candidates that helped him gain his office, but the point stands.)

I still think I was right in the first place: if we could differentiate the signals, I think it could be a useful lever to push on. So why not do the following?

• Remove the provision from the Senate version of the omnibus energy bill and kill it in the reconciliation committee,
• Initiate a discussion under the auspices of something like the United Nations Environment Programme, including the EU and other industrialized countries that will
• tighten cap-and-trade restrictions or other regulations on a select few of the most energy-intensive industries and
• impose tariffs on goods from these industries from countries that have proven resistant to adopting emissions caps.
• Set up a coordinating body to regulate and adjust tariffs levels.

The provision cannot enter into the upcoming Copenhagen environment summit, which needs a consensus agreement. But this scheme would do two other beneficial things: first, it would serve as a point of integration for the European and American cap-and-trade markets (which diplomats have been looking for anyway), and; second, it would put pressure on recalcitrant countries to behave better at Copenhagen.

Filed under: Economics, Energy, sustainability , trade

High speed rail for the long-run.

I took the time this Sunday morning to read a piece from the New York Times magazine on the tremendous complexities, the technological sophistication, the dazzling possibilities, and the tantalizing pragmatism of what would apparently be the most expensive single public infrastructure project ever built, California’s new high speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The $10 billion bond measure that passed this election season will be the first of a expected $33 billion for planning, renovation of existing stations, construction of new ones, expropriation of farmland, procurement of trains, electricity infrastructure (and so on) that planners expect could eventually do the same thing to California that it did to France: extinguish regional plane flight in favor of a cheaper, cleaner, faster transportation system that would revitalize large public works in this country.

The piece is filled with delicious details, like: the control systems on new bullet trains shut the train down if the conductor’s feet lose contact with the floor and does not override the process, (or when it gets too close to another train or senses an earthquake or sabotage); “At peak times, double-decker trains carrying more than 1,000 people leave Paris every 30 minutes for Lyon. “Those trains are full, full, full,” Mellier told me. Generally speaking, Mellier added, Alstom’s high-speed trains suffer two or three “faults” — delays of more than five minutes — for every one million kilometers, or about every 621,000 miles, they travel.” Here is my favorite: “Up above, the trains are delicate: the pantograph that touches an overhead electrical wire (the catenary) is far more sensitive than its equivalent on regular trains in order to maintain electrical contact at extreme speeds.”

The best part about the California plan is that it relies entirely on technology that has been proven safe, popular, and profitable in France and Japan (and now in Spain). The drastic expansion of California’s population means that the high speed rail system should actually be cheaper than a project to expand highways and airports, which would be necessary soon anyway. Put these together and you have a system that is absolutely pragmatic.

High speed rail is another one of those issues for which conservatism and foot-dragging is totally incomprehensible given the benefits. This demonstrates another point I think is absolutely crucial: rather than develop a middling system that meets transportation requirements adequately, high speed rail should be initially expensive, innovative, progressive, inspiring. Because initial ridership numbers will be an important test case, America’s high speed rail system should be advanced, shining, and obviously valuable. Building one train for $33 million that helps out California only goes so far—but building something that helps revitalize how we move around this country, and sets an example for the rest of the world, should be far more valuable.

The concept of leapfrogging is usually used to show that developing countries should be able to follow a different trajectory and develop more cleanly than America did using advanced technologies. The United States is so far behind in high speed rail, we should be able to leapfrog other established countries and put in place an advanced, expandable infrastructure from the start. Strangely enough, one of California’s arcane legal requirements actually facilitates just that: the California train is required to cover the distance between San Francisco and L.A. in two hours and forty minutes; the simulations show that meeting this requirement will demand a cutting-edge train like Alstom’s AGV. This is good, because nothing would be worse for this country’s transportation system in the long-run than a creaking, half-full, perpetually delayed, perennially ignored California system.

Filed under: Domestic, Who We Are, sustainability , california, high speed rail, leapfrogging, transportation