"Rising Defense Budgets are Not a New Law of Physics"

This was the message from Dr. Cindy Williams in her testimony in the Senate Budget Committee today at a hearing entitled: "Defense Budget and War Costs: An Independent Look." Another witness, Dr. Gordan Adams, stated explicitly: "...the defense budget should not be exempt from a freeze."

In his opening statement, Chairman Conrad (ND) pointed out that Defense spending is taking an ever-growing portion of federal government spending; it is higher in the President's budget request for FY2011 than peaks during the Reagan build-up, the Korean War and the Vietnam war.

The Our Nation's Checkbook campaign led by FCNL, has been working to change this imbalance in spending. We, along with organizers around the country and a coalition of national organizations, are pushing for hearings in the House and Senate Budget Committees on spending priorities, recognizing that the budget committees are really the place where spending priorities are set. Today's hearing was not the hearing we asked for, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.

Chairman Conrad (ND) recognized the critical responsibility of the budget committees, saying: "This is the Budget Committee and we have a responsibility to take the President's budget request and rework it and turn it into a budget resolution that considers all the trade-offs that we confront." Dr. Adams pointed out the risks of a rising defense budget very clearly: "An unconstrained defense budget is likely to make draconian choices in all other areas of discretionary spending necessary." As the Pentagon budget increases, other spending priorities are being squeezed.

Human needs, the environment and efforts to prevent war are absolutely essential to create real security in this nation and around the world. These priorities cannot take back seat to more Pentagon and war spending. As evidenced by the hearing today, there is a growing movement even within Congress to reevaluate Pentagon spending. Check out recent Our Nation's Checkbook successes and join the campaign to reprioritize federal government spending by emailing Stephen at stephen@fcnl.org.

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Green Schools and Fuel Efficiency...The Earth Wins this Week

In the last few weeks, climate change, energy and the environment have been front-and-center in the news. While the climate change bill that is moving through the House is not as good as it should be, there has been progress on a couple other key related issues.

A couple weeks ago, on May 14th, the House passed a "Green Schools" bill to provide $6.4 billion annually for the next five years to fund green school building and renovation projects. The bill passed 275-155; now it is up the Senate to pass a similar bill. To make this even better, the House bill has provisions to make sure that the money is focused especially on schools with low-income students.

I agree with Ben Chandler, a Democrat from Kentucky: "It will give much needed money to our schools struggling with huge budget deficits and deteriorating facilities while encouraging energy efficiency and creating jobs for Americans that cannot be shipped overseas."

Funding education, the environment and jobs with one program--how could anyone oppose it during this time of crisis? Some argue this spending just adds to the deficit. This reminds me of a study by the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities which shows where the U.S.' budget deficit really came from: tax cuts (especially for the rich) and increases in military spending (especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Check this out in the most recent issue of FCNL's Washington Newsletter.

The good news is that this bill is likely to pass in the Senate, and Obama will most certainly sign it, especially considering that his childhood middle school was named one of the top ten greenest schools in the country in 2007.

To top off this good news, Obama announced tougher fuel efficiency standards on Tuesday, May 19th. The new energy standards will finally match the fuel efficiency standards that California fought with the Bush Administration about for several years. According to NPR: "The new standards would cut greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and light trucks 30 percent by 2016. Cars would have to get 39 mpg, light trucks 30 mpg." It's about time that the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House was more concerned about the environment than corporate interests!

I hope these new initiatives by the Federal Government start a trend of continuing environmental progress.

Lobby your Representative to make sure that this progress continues by improving the climate change bill that is in the House of Representatives.

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Some voices on the new energy bill

A major energy bill is beginning to rumble in committee over at the House of Representatives. To me it seems like a major (and reckless) disappointment, and FCNL says that it needs to be strengthened. Greenpeace has said they can no longer support it.

Here are a couple of more (mainstream) voices on the debate:

• from Paul Krugman (you know, the nobel winning economist)
• from David Sokol (Energy company board chair)

What is your take? Are there other good articles or opinions you've come across?

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Baby Steps in British Columbia

Over the past few weeks I've been ruminating more and more about how I would like to live in another country, one of those socialist ones, where I would have health care paid for (this longing largely sprung out of a struggle to pay for wisdom teeth extraction -- even with health insurance!!), and things like this would happen:

Voters in British Columbia have reelected Gordon Campbell, who promotes carbon tax, as premier of the province. Campbell specifically noted that his election is a vote of support for the carbon tax policy.

Now, why can't we do that in this country? What drives me crazy about the debate over climate change (and health care for that matter), is that somehow supporters of carbon tax (or single payer health care) are made to feel like crazy extreme leftists (or - gasp! - socialists).

How did affairs progress to this state? Can the U.S. begin to behave a bit more like Canada? Or do I need to face the fact that I'm just too progressive for this country and move? Somehow I think, for the good of everyone, that the former should happen.

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Life without a Car

During my post-lunch transition back into planning emails I stumbled across this story in the New York Times about a town in southern Germany that has done away with cars. As someone who doesn't own a car and relies totally on my own feet, the metro, and buses, I would love to see a day when D.C. is car free! Maybe then I wouldn't be too afraid to ride a bike and my fist would hurt so much from all that shaking it does at cars making right hand turns into me.

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The day after Earth Day

Yesterday was one of my favorite days: Earth Day! But today is the day after Earth Day, so why I am still talking about it?

On April 22nd ever year, it is popular to talk about how great the environment is and how much we should be doing to end climate change, protect endangered species, promote clean energy, and the like. And on April 23rd, we move on to other things and we all pat ourselves on the back for being such good environmentalists on Earth Day.

Along the same lines, greenwashing has also become a hip, new trend, as this Earth Day comic indicates. This is especially true of advertising. Every product and every company is trying to convince us that they are "green". (One of my pet peeves is seeing ads in the metro station from Chevron asking me to go green...I don't need an oil company telling me how to save the environment.) The greenwashing of politicians' speeches is also a growing epidemic. And yet, despite the cacophany of voices claiming to be green, the kind of massive, system change that we need seems far from realization.

The point of all of this is to say that I don't want to just add to the mass of people trying to capitalize on the "green revolution." So I am going to ask us to do something different this year. On this day, the day after Earth Day, I am asking us to take seriously the plea to make every day Earth Day.

Yesterday, Obama made his Earth Day speech proclaiming: "My Administration is also working to achieve a comprehensive energy and climate policy, one that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, make the U.S. the global leader in clean energy technology, and prevent the worst impacts of climate change. "

The President is encouraging action. And Congress is moving toward action on climate legislation....Finally! A first draft of climate change legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 was released. Now WE must act! The proposed legislation needs to be improved by leaving out the carbon trading and simply capping carbon emissions. Congress also needs to ensure that the revenue from this system is returned to consumers. Take the opportunity today to show that you care about the earth every day by writing your members of Congress, encouraging them to pass climate legislation with these improvements.

Write your letter here!

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Subway! Train! Podcast!

This week, we talk about how helping the environment can help the economy with Devin Helfrich. Listen up! It's pretty good.

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thoughts as I take my coffee break

As anyone who knows me knows, I love food. I love eating food, preparing food and serving food to others. Half of my past work and volunteer positions have in some way involved food. I love bonding over food with family, co-workers and my house mates. I particularly love the ways that the organic, local and slow food movements can be used to heal the earth and prevent world hunger.

So, imagine my excitement on the metro this morning when I read about the Japanese government's attempt to promote a local foods movement. It's great that some people in Japan realize that eating local foods can save on fuel, promote a healthier diet and help build the local economy!

And just in case you think that the local foods movement would never make such a big impact in this country: check out this petition to urge President-elect Obama to replant a vegetable garden on the First Lawn, with the harvest going to the White House kitchen and local food pantries. This would make the White House an example of environmentally friendly, economically savvy, healthful eating and would be a great way to support the hungry in DC!

And as my boyfriend (who woke up early on Saturday to do some mid-winter compost tending as I slept in) can attest, veggie gardens do great in DC!

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