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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Obama administration issues major rewrite of national forest rules

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Obama administration issues major rewrite of national forest rules

Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By Juliet Eilperin,

The Obama administration finalized a rule Thursday governing the management of 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands, establishing a new blueprint to guide everything from logging to recreation and renewable energy development.

The guidelines — which will take effect in early March and apply to all 155 national forests, 20 grasslands and one prairie — represent the first meaningful overhaul of forest rules in 30 years. The George W. Bush administration had issued a management-planning rule for national forests in 2008, but a federal court struck it down the next year on the grounds that it did not provide adequate protection for plants and wildlife.

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In announcing the new procedures, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said they were crafted to enhance the nation’s water supplies while maintaining woodlands for wildlife, recreation and timber operations. The lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s drinking water, according to the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the Agriculture Department.

“Restoration is the philosophy, with a focus on forest health and our water,” Vilsack told reporters in a conference call, adding that the rules require that planning decisions be “driven by sound science.”

The debate over how best to manage forests — especially in regions such as the Pacific Northwest — has pitted timber companies against environmentalists and some scientists for decades. On Thursday, administration officials emphasized that they had sought input from an array of constituencies to develop a plan that could minimize these public disputes.

“We expect to see much less litigation with this process,” said Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell.

The rule will serve as the guiding document for individual forest plans, which spell out exactly how these lands can be used. While these plans are updated periodically, Vilsack noted that half are more than 15 years old.

Michael Goergen, executive vice president and chief executive of the Society of American Foresters, said that given the scientific advances in the past three decades, “we need to put that knowledge to work and outdated rules aren’t going to help us. The new rules should be given a chance to work.”

Several environmentalists and scientists praised the guidelines, which were revised to include additional scientific safeguards after the department received 300,000 comments. But they cautioned that the rules gave local supervisors considerable discretion in their implementation.

“The vision is laudable, and this is no small shift in how the national forests will be managed, from one of commodity extraction into a vision of protection, restoration and water preservation,” said Dominick DellaSala, president and chief scientist for the Oregon-based Geos Institute.

Society for Conservation Biology policy director John Fitzgerald said the rule had “several weaknesses,” including the fact that it would “assume and not require the responsible official to show that the plan includes all practicable steps to conserve the full biological diversity” within a given forest.

Agriculture officials noted that the guidelines still compel managers to document how the “best-available scientific information” has guided decisions ranging from what areas should be logged to how officials are monitoring wildlife.

“We have 155 forests. They are not all alike,” Vilsack said. “That requires some flexibility and some acknowledgment of that uniqueness.”

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said the concerns that he and other lawmakers expressed about the planning rule’s impact on jobs “apparently fell on deaf ears.”

“These new Obama regulations introduce excessive layers of bureaucracy that will cost jobs, hinder proper forest management, increase litigation and add burdensome costs for Americans,” Hastings said.

Officials at the American Forest & Paper Association, which represents pulp, paper, packaging and wood products companies along with forest landowners, said they were “still reviewing” the blueprint. But the group had concerns “regarding the costly procedural requirements in the proposed rule,” said vice president and general counsel Jan Poling.

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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Saul Alinsky would be so disappointed: Obama breaks ‘Rules for Radicals’

Newt Gingrich is only the latest in a long line of conservatives who have accused President Obama of being a “Saul Alinsky radical.” And Alinsky, who died when the president was 11, would delight in all the free PR. But he also would be the first to say Obama does not
President Obama (Haraz N. Ghanbari) much resemble that remark.

In fact, if Alinsky were alive today, he’d surely be camped out in front of the White House, using every trick in his book, “Rules for Radicals,” to point out the many ways in which the president is not an infiltrator of the dreaded establishment, but the personification of it.

Oh, Alinsky and Obama do have a few things in common: Both lived in Chicago and were community organizers there, though that is a little like saying both Freud and my old roommate Lisa were psychotherapists.

Both Alinsky and Obama were highly pragmatic self-described change agents, too. And as I have pointed out before, if you think Obama was initially hailed as “The One,” check out the 1940 editorial in the New York Herald Tribune that said if Alinsky’s work bringing people together to improve their own neighborhood in Chicago’s notorious Back of the Yards meat-packing district could be replicated across the country, “it may well mean the salvation of our way of life.’’

But Obama is as cool as Alinsky was hot, as conservative in his tactics as Alinsky was outrageous.

And again in last night’s State of the Union, Obama followed none of Alinsky’s “ Rules for Radicals .”

That 1971 book, written shortly before Alinsky’s death, begins “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

The president has indeed drawn attention to the Have-Nots. And Michelle Obama, in her remarks at the Democratic National Convention in 2008, did refer to Alinsky when she said her husband had won her heart by speaking of turning the world as it is into the world as it should be.

Yet Alinsky’s blueprint for revolution is the opposite of Obama’s ultra-traditional path to power — via Harvard and elected office.

In his last and most lasting work, Alinsky writes, “A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists.” Which pretty much rules out propping up capitalism’s failures.

Alinksy’s Rule #1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Obama sometimes opens negotiations with such generous concessions that it’s hard to imagine what’s left in his pocket. After the debt-ceiling negotiations, there was a serious argument over whether he’d been outsmarted or had secretly wanted the Republicans to carry the deficit-cutting day. Either way, a cunning and committed Marxist poker player he’s not. And again in last night’s address, he made no attempt to intimidate and many to cajole.

2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. Given the problems facing the global economy on the day he was sworn in, that was never even an option.

3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. If Obama thinks of his political adversaries as “the enemy,’’ he’s done a better job of masking it than they have where he’s
Saul Alinsky in 1966, on Chicago's south side, where he organized the Woodlawn area to battle slum conditions. (AP Photo) concerned.

Republicans argue that stoking “class warfare” is exactly what Obama did in last night’s State of the Union, saying, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” But he repeatedly spoke of the future as bright and getting brighter. And as an incumbent, it’s insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty that are his enemies.

It would be hard to see the Republican response to the speech, from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, as anything but anxiety-producing, however: “On these evenings,” Daniel said, “Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true.’’ Daniels also suggested Democrats are “mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare,’’ and posited that we “are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe.”

4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity. Obama has never made an issue of the occasionally imperfect match between the “family values” rhetoric and record of some of his rivals. (Though if Newt Gingrich is the nominee, his super PAC will.) Last night, instead of calling out Republicans in Congress, Obama said we should all learn from the Navy SEAL team that took out Osama bin Laden, and not even think about who’s a Democrat and who’s a Republican.

5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. Obama has shown unfortunate flashes of sarcasm, as when he said he told his 2008 primary opponent, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.’’ He’s come off as dismissive, referring to “bitter” Midwesterners clinging to “guns or religion.” And he’s been too glib, as he acknowledged after telling Rick Warren that knowing when life begins was “above my paygrade.” But ridicule? That’s more in line with Gingrich calling Obama “the most effective food-stamp president in history.” Or the president’s golfing buddy, Republican Speaker John Boehner, calling the State of the Union “pathetic” before even seeing it.

Worst of all, though, according to Alinsky’s blueprint, would be Obama’s failure to adhere to his final rule:

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.

Obama not only doesn’t believe that, but ran against it. He said again last night that “this nation is great because we get each other’s backs.”

GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney recently spoke of how those (Gingrich and also Gingrich) who adopt the tools of the left — the rhetorical pitchforks of the Have-Nots — might live to see those tools turned against themselves. But so far, that’s not how it’s worked at all. So far, the Alinsky playbook has been used to excellent effect — against Barack Obama.

Melinda Henneberger is a Washington Post political writer and anchor of ‘She the People.’ Follow her on Twitter at @MelindaDC.

View the original article here

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Few rules control super-PAC donations after a candidate withdraws from a race

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Influence IndustryDan Eggen & T.W. FarnamFew rules control super-PAC donations after a candidate withdraws from a race

View Photo Gallery — The Iowa caucuses shook up the GOP presidential race.

Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By T.W. Farnam,

When presidential candidates drop out of the race, what happens to the million-dollar contributions sitting in their super PACs?

As it turns out, no precedent exists for this situation, since this is the first campaign in which the independent groups known as super political action committees have formed to help just one candidate.

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New rules for money in the presidential race have created some unexpected quirks in an already confusing system of regulations and practices.

The groups are spending millions of dollars to help many of the presidential candidates. The PACs are not subject to the $2,500 cap on donations to candidate campaigns, and a few super PACs have already accepted single contributions of $1 million or more.

The catch is that super PACs can’t coordinate spending with the candidate or the campaign they’re trying to help, even though the groups are often run by former advisers to the candidate.

Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future, is typical of the close ties between the nominally independent organizations: It’s run by three former aides to his 2008 campaign, and a top fundraising official jumped from the campaign to the PAC earlier this year.

Created as a result of the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010, super PACs have reported spending $13 million on this year’s Republican nomination contest. They have probably raised much more, but the details of their recent financial activity will not be disclosed until Jan 31.

But what happens when the candidate drops out? Who controls the money in the super PAC? It seems the law has few restrictions on what can be done with the money.

“The bottom line is the folks running these things can do whatever they want,” said Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for tighter regulation of money in politics. “They can buy themselves yachts and close up shop if they chose to do so.”

Legally, spending responsibilities rest with the PAC’s treasurer, who reports to whomever is running the group.

Candidates are prohibited from using campaign money for their personal expenses, but there’s no such restriction for PACs, several campaign lawyers said in interviews.

The Federal Election Commission, which regulates campaign money, has repeatedly asked Congress to amend the law to prohibit PACs from spending donations on non-political expenses. Lawmakers, who often use political contributions for personal expenses through vehicles known as leadership PACs, haven’t followed through on the request.

Once the presidential contenders are no longer candidates, they could take over for their former aides and spend the million-dollar contributions as they wish — for a political purpose or anything else.

It’s unclear under the law how long former candidates would have to wait before taking control of their super PACs. It’s possible they would have to settle all their own campaign accounts before they could spend big contributions raised by super PACs. And any federal officeholder is prohibited from spending it altogether, so, for example, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) couldn’t take control of a super PAC until he left Congress.

Even though it’s legal, it’s still a stretch to think that any candidate would actually go for that yacht.

“I think if you wanted to have any political future you wouldn’t do that,” said Bradley Smith, founder of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for less regulation of political money.

The most likely outcome would be that the super PAC goes on to support whomever their candidate endorses in the race, assuming there is an endorsement. Major donors to the group would also have a big say in which candidates would get support with their donations.

Several of the current GOP candidates could use financial help, especially former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who won a close second place in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. ¦

¦Romney’s in good shape — it’s the other candidates who could use the help,” said Michael Toner, a campaign lawyer who represented Tim Pawlenty’s campaign. “There’s a clear need by a few of these candidates for super-PAC help, and the opportunity exists both politically and legally to make that happen quickly.”

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