EDITORIALS / OPINION

Go straight to your favorite columnist

- Sharon Guynup

Killing the Endangered Species Act

- Andrew Fois

The Changing Nature of War

Endorsements

the georgetowner

September 2008

In this historic national election year, change is in the air, and on the lips of almost any candidate running for office. That’s especially true of the Democratic Presidential Nominee Senator Barack Obama, for whom change is the banner which his campaign flies under.

Here in the district’s September 9 Primary, with several long-time incumbents up for re-election there’s also a lot of talk of change.

But we think change-big, transforming political change-has already happened in the District of Columbia, and it came with the election of Ward 4 Councilman Adrian Fenty in the mayoral race two years ago. Not only did he sweep all the wards and all the precinct, but he defeated the formidable City Council Chairperson Linda Cropp in what was seen as a major political and generational sea change here. And he was an early supporter of Barack Obama.

Fenty, young, energetic and pro-active, has turned out to be a “change” mayor, too, always several steps ahead of the city council in terms of initiating policy and acting on vision, most especially in managing to get a mayoral school takeover passed and bringing in Michelle Rhee as chancellor under the new system.

But that kind of change-the 2006 elections also brought in a new council chair, and several new council persons-doesn’t seem to be called for by present circumstances.

You probably won’t get energetic Carey Silverman, the young attorney who’s mounted a strong challenge to Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans in the Ward 2 Democratic Party race to agree with that. But we think, in spite of Silverman’s considerable gifts and tireless campaigning, his intelligence and performances in forums, that it’s not time to cut off your nose to spite your face. We believe that Evans, now a close ally on the council to Mayor Fenty, and a councilman of considerable achievement since first being elected in 1991 to serve the largest and most diverse ward in the city, deserves to be re-elected.

You can give Evans credit for much of the transformed downtown area, and the increased tax base while managing to reduce some taxes, and for his performance as Chair of the Committee of Finance Revenue. You can, if you’re violently opposed to the building of the baseball stadium, dill him for it, but you’ve also got to give him credit for helping to bring baseball back to the district, in which he was a principal player.

Give Silverman some credit for getting quite a bit of diverse support in the community. But give Councilman Evans credit for what he’s achieved during his stay on the council. His experience, his seniority, and stature are all qualities that will serve the residents and business people of Ward 2 well.

The fact that Silverman’s main campaign issue seems to be that Evans has another position as an adviser to a law firm is not exactly news, or a secret, nor is there any evidence that this fact has hindered, undermined or compromised Evan’s effectiveness on the council and in serving his constituents in Ward 2. Silverman’s charge that Evans is deficient in constituent services-an area Evans and his office pride themselves on-also seems to lack wide evidence. Silverman, it should be noted, has said he will quit his law firm job if he’s elected.

In the end, we’re happy to support and endorse Jack Evans for re-election to his Ward 2 council seat.

The Georgetowner also endorses:

Carol Schwartz, for the Republican at-large slot on the city council. Schwartz too is being challenged this time by young Republican Patrick Mara. The DC Republican Committee has endorsed Schwartz.

Schwartz is what Senator John McCain talks about being: a Republican maverick. She  mounted credible general election campaigns against Mayor Marion Barry. Today, she is among only a few City Council members who have challenged or shown skepticism about some of Mayor Fenty’s proposals. She is anything but a blank check council member and her voice needs to be heard on the council.

Muriel Bowser (Ward 4) and Yvette Alexander (Ward 7). Both Bowser and Alexander, who have several candidates running against them, are completing partial terms after being elected to seats vacated by Mayor Fenty and City Council Chairman Vincent Gray. We think they deserve complete terms to chow their mettle, and in Bowser’s case, an opportunity to show that she’s more than the mayor’s successor in Ward 4.

Kwame Brown for Democratic At Large Council Member. It’s Brown vs. Brown here. Kwame Brown, who seems to be an effective council member, is being challenged by Michael Brown, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor two years ago. Nothing against Michael Brown, but we’ll stick with Kwame Brown.

Marion Barry in Ward 8-Barry, as usual has a slew of opponents, which should make it easy for him to get re-elected. We find it hard to imagine the city council or Washington politics without him and he, more than anybody else, has consistently looked out for folks needing work, and struggling to survive on a daily basis, of which Ward 8 has more than its share. – GT

Killing the Endangered Species Act

By Sharon Guynup

September 2008

No more bald eagles? Sea turtles? Peregrine falcons? Manatees? That could be the legacy our children inherit if an aggressive, back-door overhaul of America’s wildlife protections is rammed through by the Bush administration. With Congress on August recess, the administration has sneaked a fast-track proposal into the Federal Register that will gut the 35 year-old Endangered Species Act (ESA) -- changes it has been unable to push through Congress. Three years ago, a Republican-led House bill reforming the Act died in the Senate. The administration has also gagged public opinion on the matter, offering an extremely brief 30-day public comment period and no public hearings. The changes do not require Congressional approval, and could go into effect before November’s presidential election.

The new rule will eliminate mandatory scientific review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), agencies charged with preventing the extinction of 1,353 U.S. plant and animal species currently listed as threatened or endangered. These agencies oversaw more than 300,000 such scientific reviews between 1998 and 2002. Under the new plan, the federal agency in charge of a building project -- be it a new dam, mine, highway, offshore drilling operation or other federally -funded or federally-approved construction project – will decide whether that project poses dangers to already-imperiled species, or requires input from wildlife scientists.

Suppose there’s a proposal before the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) to drill for natural gas near a national park that is home, say, to an ESA listed species like the grizzly bear. Under the new rule, MMS geologists and fossil fuel specialists would evaluate ecological impacts and be permitted to green - light the drilling.

Would you consult your accountant if you were having a heart attack? The administration argues that agency experts with absolutely no background in wildlife or botany are qualified to make these often-complex calls regarding plants and animals already teetering on the brink.

The rule would also allow a return to pre-ESA tactics, when agencies carved huge construction projects (such as roads), into multiple small projects that focused analysis on immediate local impacts, never considering any overall harmful ecological consequences.

Proposed changes also state that if Fish and Wildlife or National Marine Fisheries scientists cannot reach a decision on a construction project within 60 days, work can move forward without further study. This timeline is virtually impossible for these severely under-funded, understaffed agencies, especially for projects requiring serious scientific research. This attack on the Endangered Species Act, announced in the dead of August, has been given one of the shortest public comment periods of any environmental issue. The Interior Department is not allowing any emailed or faxed comments, nor are they holding public hearings. In contrast: Clinton’s roadless rule regulating new road-building in national forests was given two years of public hearings and massed 1.6 million comments. Public opinion polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support wildlife conservation.

The administration’s proposed ESA rule was drafted, says Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, to prevent the act from being “used as a back door” to regulate the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause global warming. (In May, the polar bear became the first species listed as threatened because of climate change). The rule would prohibit federal agencies from assessing the effects of a project’s GHG emissions on species or habitats.

What the administration is really proposing is the elimination of ESA’s checks and balances, whereby wildlife scientists ensure that taxpayer-financed construction projects, and projects on land taxpayers own, do not harm threatened or endangered species. This system has fostered dramatic recoveries of big horn sheep, whooping cranes, grizzly bears, and other species, and prevented our national symbol, the bald eagle, from going the way of the dodo.

Sen. Barack Obama has stated that he would toss out the ruling if he wins the White House. Sen. John McCain had no comment, a hint that if elected he would let the ruling stand, especially considering his rating of just 27.8 out of a possible 100 given by the League of Conservation Voters on his environmental voting performance from 2003 to 2007.

Congress could over-ride the rule in the fall appropriations bill, or could overturn it through legislation. But it’s smarter to stop the rule making now rather than fighting it later -- though a loud public outcry is needed (you can contact your representatives, or send comments to www.regulations.gov and by snail-mail).

The administration should scrap the proposed ESA changes, but if they move forward, then it is imperative that they lengthen the public comment period to at least six months,  open it to emails and faxes, and institute public hearings. Our wild heritage deserves protections based on sound science and democratic principles, not on political concerns.

Sharon Guynup’s first book is titled, State of the Wild 2006: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans. She writes on science and the environment for national magazines and websites.

The Changing Nature of War

By Andrew Fois

September 2008

After the sun set on the Soviet Union in 1990, many scholars believed that the world had reached what Francis Fukuyama termed “the end of history.” On September 11, 2001, history came roaring back and is here to stay. In the seven years since the towers fell, the world has reminded us how dangerous it can be. The natures of the conflicts we face today are, however, unlike any others that have ignited the history of the world.

Until the end of WWII, men went to war primarily for the purpose of seizing and holding the lands of the enemy and subrogating its people to slavery. Xerxes of Persia attacked Greece for control of its peninsula. Alexander the Great sought to capture the entire known world.  Rome undertook its military adventures to expand the empire. Feudal lords bore chain mail and sword to capture fiefdoms for their serfs to farm. The violence unleashed by the Crusades in the name of Christianity and Islam were struggles over control of Jerusalem and other holy lands.

The rise of nationalism itself was characterized by the acquisition and consolidation of sovereign territory. The kings and queens of Europe battled each other for control of bits of territory, many of which repeatedly changed hands. Napoleon fought to plant the French flag as distant as the snows of Russia. The colonial powers acted to expand their empires and, in turn the occupied colonies fought to expel the foreign invaders from their homelands. The American colonies, and then the United States, fought for two hundred years on the assumption that its domain must stretch from ocean to ocean. Hitler’s mad dream was to expand his Third Reich throughout Europe, North Africa and eventually the world.

There have been some exceptions, of course, such as the European bloodletting over conflicting forms of Christianity. Territorial control, however, is clearly the historically dominant motivation for war.

The post-World War II Cold War opened a new era of global conflict. For 45 years the epic struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, was based upon incompatible political and socioeconomic systems. The “hot” wars in Korea and Vietnam were for their people about national sovereignty but their historic significance was the role they played as proxy wars in the struggle between the superpowers.  Their global competition focused on national choice of systems in order to add allies to their respective spheres of influence. Even as Eastern Europe was controlled by the USSR, the Bolsheviks never actually dismantled and absorbed its satellites. The sixty-year Arab-Israeli war and the troubles of Northern Ireland, with their territorial claims inspired by religious conflicts, can be seen as transition struggles to the next era.

That era began in the years leading up to 9/11. Since then the world has been faced with different sources of global antagonism dominated by three imperatives: ethnicity, religious ideology and control of limited resources. Genocidal atrocities have been committed in the name of ethnic consolidation in the Balkans, Rwanda and Sudan. Similar belligerence exists between India and Pakistan and in the Middle East between Arabs, Kurds and Persians. The impetus of ethnic independence has resulted in the dissolution of several East European countries and the liberation of former Soviet Republics. Russia’s invasion of Georgia involves the liberation of ethnic brethren. These battles are swimming upstream against history’s currents and have resulted in the atomization rather than consolidation of territorial control.

The second source of many current conflicts, of course, is the violent emergence of Islam’s jihad against the infidels of the West, as well as disputes within the faith between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Western civilization, especially the United States, has been put on the defensive and will continue to be potential victims of religious fanaticism for many years to come. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are the first efforts at self defense.

The third emerging worldwide struggle will be the competition over possession and control of limited resources, especially those that offer the production of energy. A finite world of limited sources of natural energy, along with increasing demand among emerging developing nations such as China and India, will make this an intense competition. The arsenal of the U.S. and the West is particularly limited in this 21st century conflict compared to other, generally unfriendly, countries.

If Western civilization is to survive, it must acknowledge and address the dangers posed by these global imperatives.  It must recognize the intensity of ethnic identity in a diverse world. It must find a way to defuse the religious jihad in ways other than ultimately ineffective military action. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the West must end its reliance on foreign sources of energy. It must develop a long-term plan that includes maximizing the use of its own natural resources -- including oil and nuclear power -- in order to minimize its reliance on foreign sources and to give alternative fuel technology time to develop. The U.S. will not be able to fuel its 21st century economy on the fickle breezes of the wind, existing sunbathing technology or the politically generated love affair with ethanol. By tuning up the engine of profit driven capitalism, combined with wise government support, we must develop and invest in serious, promising alternative sources of energy.

We still hold a precarious edge of intellectual and scientific resources. We must put them to work to rise to the challenge posed by the new threats of this century.

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