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| Prepared by: | Stephanie Hanson |
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A caribou walks by one of Alaska's many oil transit piplines. (AP/Al Grillo)
Environmentalists couldn’t help but sound enthusiastic after the Democratic midterm election victory in November. After years of wrestling with the Republican Party’s more skeptical approach to environmental regulation, they were anxious for an opportunity to play offense. “We’ll be setting the agenda,” said Melinda Pierce (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), a Sierra Club lobbyist.
That agenda runs the gamut of environmental issues. Measures to ban drilling (AP) in an Alaskan wildlife refuge, manage the health of the oceans (ENS) and protect the population from contaminated drinking water already have been introduced. Analysts expect the new Congress to increase oversight over the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as propose legislation to speed the cleanup of toxic waste dumps. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch summarizes the environmental initiatives which had no hope of enactment under Republican leadership—including the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act and the Clean Power Act. These now appear revived under the 110th Congress.
Yet with 2006 the United States’ warmest year on record (WashPost), most experts believe global warming will dominate Congress’ environmental agenda. Over the years, Congress has held 239 fact-finding missions on the issue but failed to produce any substantive legislation. Politically, as CFR Senior Fellow David G. Victor noted in this seminal 2004 Critical Policy Choice report, “Climate change has become a lightning rod.” This recently spurred the Economist to write, “When the subject is global warming, the villain is usually America.”
Key committee chairs hope to change that assessment. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has taken over the Environment and Public Works Committee from James Inhofe (R-OK), who once called global warming “the greatest hoax (CSMonitor) ever perpetrated on the American people." His final act as chairman was a hearing featuring some of the few remaining skeptics in the scientific community. Boxer says climate change tops her agenda (SFChron); she plans to push for federal legislation modeled on the landmark legislation California passed last summer that places a mandatory cap on all greenhouse gas emissions.
Any global-warming legislation will be complicated by debate over U.S. energy policy. The production, distribution, and use of energy accounts for over 95 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, notes Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), cosponsor of the newly proposed National Energy and Environmental Security Act of 2007. Ethanol, the alternative energy source with burgeoning political support (WSJ), draws criticism from some environmental groups. They claim it may not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and could also entail the use of more fertilizers and pesticides.
Even within the Democratic Party, climate-change legislation faces hurdles. Democrats from auto-producing states, such as Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the new chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, oppose efforts (LAT) to limit vehicle emissions and impose stricter miles-per-gallon rules. If such a bill did pass both houses of Congress, it could fall prey to a veto by President Bush, who has resisted efforts to curb emissions. Yet many—including the U.S. business community—still think federal greenhouse gas standards are imminent (Pew). This expectation has some U.S. businesses calling for more stringent federal regulations of carbon emissions, says this Backgrounder, reasoning it will give them the opportunity to shape the regulations early on. This CFR Independent Task Force examines the foreign policy and national security consequences of America’s fossil fuel addiction.
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Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
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The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
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Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
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