Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

Row, Row, Row Your Boat–And Raise That Airport…

I try to read pretty broadly–both to inform myself and to come up with fodder for this blog. But I’ll admit that my reading materials of choice ordinarily would be unlikely to include Engineering News Record, which bills itself as “The Construction Resource.”

However, my husband, a retired architect, subscribes and reads it religiously, and I have to admit the publication quite often has fascinating information that you just don’t see elsewhere. Case in point: the August 7/14 issue’s special report on rising sea levels and what a sampling of threatened communities are doing about them.

I learned a lot.

  • Tangier Island, Virginia, has lost more than 66% of its land mass since 1850, and is eroding by some 25 additional feet each year.  Its Mayor wants to build a seawall, but the Army Corp of Engineers says the island will have to be abandoned sometime within the next 50 years.
  • In Cape Cod, the shrinking of the salt marsh is being met with construction of $4.8 million dollar bridge intended to restore natural tidal flow and–hopefully–sustain the wetlands. The article says the bridge is an example of a number of small, but high-impact projects that are their “best hope for fighting climate change.”
  • Boston is projected to experience between 2 and 6 feet of sea-level rise by 2200, and among other projects is building and reinforcing seawalls.
  • In New York City, Superstorm Sandy lent urgency to a “Big U” planned flood-protection system and an East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.
  • Atlantic City is building a 1,740 foot long seawall.
  • The Hampton Roads region of Norfolk, Virginia–facing one of the “worst combinations of erosion, subsidence and sea level rise in the nation”–explored the building of seawalls and sea gates, and concluded such measures would be too costly; according to the article, they are “looking for ways to live with increasing flooding.”

The article also reports on measures being studied or taken in Charleston,  Hattaras Island, Dare County, N.C., Houston, Miami Beach (which faces a sea level rise of 1.4 feet by 2040), Sacramento, Seattle and Louisiana (where measures to keep the state’s coastlines from falling apart have thus far been inadequate.)

Perhaps the most challenging situations are found at twelve of the nation’s airports. San Francisco is raising levees, and Miami International (facing 2 feet of sea level rise by 2060) is currently elevating its baggage handling area. But as one engineer notes, “You can’t just raise one runway–you have to raise the entire airport.”

I know you will be shocked–shocked–to learn that Trump’s proposed budget eliminates several of the climate-resilience programs that are helping these and other coastal communities with the enormous costs involved in these efforts.

Trump and Scott Pruitt–who is systematically dismantling the EPA–are both proponents of continued and even increased use of the fossil fuels that accelerate the pace of climate change. They dismiss–or choose to ignore– the scientific consensus. Trump reportedly told the mayor of a town located on an island that is sinking into the ocean “not to worry.” See, if we don’t worry about it, everything will be hunky-dory…

Just last week, Trump dissolved the science panel advising the EPA on climate change and rising sea levels. 

Too bad we can’t send Trump, Pruitt and other “alternate facts” assholes to an alternate universe where reality doesn’t bite.

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What Bible Are They Studying?

In the wake of Trump’s response to the Charlottesville riots–and especially as we look to see and judge the reactions of White House staff and Congressional Republicans–a news item published a couple of weeks ago in The Hill takes on a particularly ironic flavor.

Many of President Trump’s Cabinet members gather at a weekly session to study the Bible, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reported Monday.

Ralph Drollinger, the founder of Capitol Ministries, says he leads a weekly Bible study with Cabinet members such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

“It’s the best Bible study that I’ve ever taught in my life. They are so teachable. They’re so noble. They’re so learned,” Drollinger told CBN.

Vice President Pence, who is a sponsor of the faith sessions, reportedly joins the group when his schedule allows.

The snark just writes itself–especially when you consider that although Trump’s embrace of the “good people” carrying torches and chanting anti-black and anti-Jewish slogans prompted CEO’s to resign en masse from his two business advisory councils– it has yet to prompt even one departure from his Evangelical Advisory Board.

I am not a Christian (and I don’t play one on TV), so I don’t pretend to be conversant with the varying theologies that distinguish Christian denominations. But I have deeply religious Christian friends, and they assure me that Christ did not preach a doctrine of racial and religious hatred.

Evidently, the Evangelical Advisory Board and the leader of the cabinet’s Bible Study are more tolerant of intolerance than my Christian friends.

According to media reports, Pastor Ralph Drollinger, the 7-foot-1 former UCLA basketball star who leads these sessions, has his own take on a number of biblical admonitions. He once lectured a group of Sacramento lawmakers that female politicians with young children have no business serving in the Legislature. He called those who do so sinners. (Interestingly, he subsequently defended fathers whose careers take them out of the home for extended periods, although he did say they should be “extra sensitive” to such absences–whatever the hell that means.)

This is a “discipleship” that supports snatching health insurance from millions of Americans; that believes God wants them to deprive poor women access to the lifesaving pap smears and breast exams provided by Planned Parenthood; that wants to give wealthy taxpayers “relief” while viciously slashing already inadequate safety-net programs for the poor. It’s a “discipleship” that ignores biblical admonitions about stewardship of the environment. A “discipleship” that apparently has no problem supporting a President who equates good people and Nazis. I could go on. And on.

Isn’t there something in the bible about knowing people “by their works”?

Let me just modify that famous Gandhi quote: I like my friends’ Christ. I do not like these self-proclaimed “Christians.” They are so unlike my friends’ Christ.
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Votes That Count…

Vox recently had a provocative article advocating “proportional voting,” and claiming that the institution of such a voting system would solve two of America’s thorniest political problems: partisan polarization and the number of “wasted” votes.

A bit of background: we currently have an electoral system in which–as the article says– your vote is far more likely to shape Congress if you live in Des Moines than if you live in San Francisco.(Rural votes also count more than urban ones for President, thanks to the Electoral College.) The system thus undermines accountability and vastly increases polarization.

Polarization is often described in terms of red states and blue states, but it is a significant problem at the Congressional-district level across all the states. It’s also a more complex story than is usually suggested: Gerrymandering, or the partisan redrawing of district lines — a frequent object of complaint on the left —- has undoubtedly helped make some districts more unshakably Republican. (Democrats play the gerrymandering game, too, but they have had less opportunity.)

This polarization could be addressed by moving more liberal city-dwellers to more rural areas of the country, or ridding ourselves of the Electoral College–remedies that will be instituted right after hell freezes and pigs fly.

On the other hand, we might be able to pass the Fair Representation Act, introduced by Democratic Representative Don Beyer of Virginia. If passed, that Act would change our current voting system to one of proportional representation.

Whatever the causes of polarization, there is a relatively straightforward solution to our current predicament that has been embraced by most advanced industrial democracies: proportional representation. There are many versions of this approach, but they all involve some way of electing multiple people, at once, to represent a region. In a proportional system, parties representing as little as 1 percent of the electorate can gain representation, though the most stable systems usually have a threshold percentage level to prevent truly marginal parties from gaining seats. The regions can be as large as an entire nation — but even when they are smaller they tend to be larger than the 435 tiny US congressional districts, each of which is run according to the “winner take all” principle.

Under a proportional system, if you want to live in a big, liberal city in a liberal state, you don’t give up the chance to make a difference with your vote. There is also very little possibility for consequential gerrymandering in proportional representation systems, since districts tend to be so big that there’s not much to gain from alternative line-drawings.

Proponents of this approach point out that it makes third parties more viable, which means that more parties are competing for voters. They also note that because voters feel that their votes actually matter, proportional representation systems tend to have higher voter turnout.

The problem this proposal aims to cure is very real: thanks to residential “sorting” and gerrymandering, in today’s America only about one in 20 of us lives in a place that is likely to have a competitive House election.

The reality of the problem is one thing; whether proportional voting–or multi-member districts–is the right solution is another. In my state, we moved away from multi-member districts in order to increase accountability; at the time, the argument was that larger districts and multiple representatives attenuated the relationship between representatives and those they served.

I’m not sure what changes are most likely to be effective, let alone able to be adopted. I do know that America is no longer either a democracy or a republic. We can’t go on much longer with a “system” this dysfunctional, and “band-aid” prescriptions are unlikely to be effective.

What to do?

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Policy For Dummies

Permit me to channel–okay, parody– Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How do I ridicule thee? Let me count the ways.
I sneer to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach…

President Trump–in his obsessive effort to eradicate anything and everything that his predecessor did (he was black, you know)– has reversed Obama’s moratorium on new leases for coal mining on federal lands.

Although that moratorium was good for the environment, the impetus for it was actually financial. As Think Progress has reported,

Taxpayers are estimated to be losing $1 billion a year in revenues because coal companies are not paying royalties on the actual market price of coal extracted from federal lands. Royalty payments are split between the federal government and the state where the coal is mined, and coal lease sales in the in the past decade garnered close to $1 per ton in bids.

This is above and beyond the so-called “royalties loophole,” which allows coal companies to sell publicly owned coal to subsidiaries at artificially low prices. An Obama-era rule had closed that loophole, but the Trump administration has already stayed the legally binding rule, and has initiated court proceedings to throw it out entirely. Under the loophole, taxpayers lose millions of dollars annually.

So–let’s just “count the ways” that this latest impulsive eruption was both stupid and venal.

As noted, it will cost taxpayers. And it will cost us without doing anything at all for coal miners.

Even if new leasing goes forward, critics say Trump’s order to lift the moratorium will do more for coal industry executives than it will for coal communities. Coal jobs have been in decline for decades — and not just because coal production is falling. Automation and new mining processes have diminished the number of jobs per ton of coal.

“This order won’t bring the coal industry back, but it will ensure coal companies rip off American taxpayers for years to come,” said Jesse Prentice-Dunn, advocacy director for the Center for Western Priorities.

Trump has already loosened regulations that prohibited coal companies from polluting the nation’s drinking water, alarming public health officials, among others. But his love affair with coal also ignores market economics. Between coal companies’ massive amount of reserves (over 20 years worth) and the rapidly declining use of coal, the market has sent a strong signal about coal’s future.

Receiving such signals–or, let’s face it, comprehending reality–isn’t Trump’s strong suit.

Reporting on the move, Reuters made similar observations.

Since 2012, coal production has plunged more than 25 percent to the lowest levels since 1978 due to falling prices. The industry has been hit with massive layoffs and bankruptcies.

Even if the rollback of the moratorium helped coal miners– an outcome analysts uniformly dispute–the number of Americans employed as coal miners is far fewer than Trump evidently believes. According to the Washington Post, more people work at Arby’s than in coal mines.

Experts in the industry have already pointed out, repeatedly, that the coal jobs are extremely unlikely to come back. The plight of the coal industry is more a function of changing energy markets and increased demand for natural gas than anything else.

Another largely overlooked point about coal jobs is that there just aren’t that many of them relative to other industries. There are various estimates of coal-sector employment, but according to the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns program, which allows for detailed comparisons with many other industries, the coal industry employed 76,572 people in 2014, the latest year for which data is available.

That number includes not just miners but also office workers, sales staff and all of the other individuals who work at coal-mining companies.

Although 76,000 might seem like a large number, consider that similar numbers of people are employed by, say, the bowling (69,088) and skiing (75,036) industries. Other dwindling industries, such as travel agencies (99,888 people), employ considerably more. Used-car dealerships provide 138,000 jobs. Theme parks provide nearly 144,000. Carwash employment tops 150,000.

Maybe we can get Trump to turn his attention to carwashes. Used-car dealerships would be a natural fit…

Or maybe he can enlist a new ghostwriter and publish another book; it could be titled The Art of the Very Bad Deal or Policy for Dummies.

 

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Has Liberalism Failed?

For quite a while, I called myself an “18th Century liberal,” because I considered myself a genuine conservative, a term I defined as a fiscal conservative who believed in conserving the libertarian principle developed during the Enlightenment.

The meaning of “liberalism” (at least until Rush Limbaugh et al appropriated the term for use as an expletive) was–as Fareed Zakaria recently noted in a New York Times book review–

the tradition of liberty and democracy and, by extension, the open, rules-based international economic and political system that has characterized the Western world since 1945, and many more parts of the globe since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

A couple of weeks ago, in the Sunday New York Times, Zakaria reviewed a book by Edward Luce, titled “The Retreat of Western Liberalism.” Luce was surveying the economic and political decay of the United States and European democracies, and he was less than sanguine about the future of Enlightenment liberalism, to put it mildly.  I haven’t read the book, but judging from Zakaria’s response, Luce places much blame for the current assault on liberty and democratic norms on the “elites” that it has become so fashionable to bash (and so rare to define).

Zakaria points out that recent European elections–with the exception of Brexit–have actually been cause for celebration by those who are rooting for the success of the European Union and the stability of liberal democratic regimes.

Instead of viewing the entire West as being overwhelmed by a tsunami of right-wing populism, we might step back and study countries separately. Those that have had strong safety nets as well as programs to help people move up the economic ladder, like Northern Europe, do not have as much of a problem as others. There, immigration rather than economics is the key driver, but that will wane in importance since immigration flows are dwindling. In my view, Germany seemed vulnerable to right-wing nationalism in the form of the Alternative für Deutschland only after Merkel’s extraordinary decision to take in a million refugees, but as that fades into the background, so has the AfD. In France, Macron is articulating a defense of Western democracy against Russian interference in much stronger terms than is the American president.

Zakaria began his review by focusing upon a recent speech by Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister. The speech was widely reported in the U.S., because Freeland essentially suggested that Canada–along with other democracies–needed to step up its defense of the liberal international order to compensate for the “situation” in the United States. (Although she never mentioned Trump, it was pretty clear what “situation” she was referring to.) Zakaria returned to Canada in his final observation.

In many ways, the one Western country that has seemed immune from any of this populism has been Chrystia Freeland’s Canada. That is not because Canadians are genetically immune to populism but rather because for the last 20 years, they have pursued good public policy. Canada’s economics, health care, banking and immigration policies have been inclusive and successful. One sign of the strength of Western liberalism would be if the United States could recognize that there are now other countries with a deep commitment to these ideas and values that might even be approaching them more successfully than is Washington. The West, in other words, we now live in is a post-American West.

Social science research confirms Zakaria’s reference to “good public policy.” Countries with strong social safety nets, like Canada’s, are more stable and less violence-prone; their populations exhibit fewer socially undesirable behaviors (everything from crime rates to out-of-wedlock births, divorce, drug abuse, etc.)

Paul Ryan and his cohort can insist that taking away access to health care and reducing other social supports is “pro freedom,” but people aren’t free when their waking hours are consumed by efforts to put food on the table, and their nightmares are of an accident or illness that plunges them into bankruptcy.

Eighteenth Century liberalism promised personal autonomy; your right to live your life in accordance with your own values and beliefs, so long as you were willing to accord an equal liberty to others. That’s a concept of liberty that is not only consistent with a social safety net–these days, as a practical matter, it requires one.

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