House Votes To Deny Climate Science And Ties Pentagon’s Hands On Climate Change

— by Ryan Koronowski on May 22, 2014 at 6:24 PM

Credit: shutterstock.com

Sea level rise is impacting naval bases. Climate change is altering natural disaster response. Drought is influenced by climate change in the Middle East and Africa leading to conflicts over food and water — as in, for instance, Syria.

The military understands the realities of climate change and the negative impacts of heavy dependence on fossil fuels.

The U.S. House does not, the Republicans in the House that is.  Yesterday’s 231-192-8 vote #231 in the House on H.AMDT.671 to H.R.4435 prohibited the use of ANY funds authorized under the bill to be utilized for ANY anti-fossil fuel climate change agenda, including the National Climate Assessment, the IPCC report, the UN’s Agenda 21, and the Social Cost of Carbon.   For those of you who may not realize the full significance of that amendment’s reach, let me make it a little clearer.  Approval of H.AMDT.671  prevents the Department of Defense from using funding to address the national security impacts of climate change.

Here’s how Nevada’s Representatives voted on H.AMDT.671 intro’d by Rep. David B McKinley:

• CD1:  NAY … Rep. Dina Titus (D)
• CD2:  AYE … Rep. Mark Amodei (R)
• CD3:  AYE … Rep. Joe Heck (R)
• CD4:  NAY … Rep. Steven Horsford (D)

The McKinley amendment was added to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which later passed during Roll Call vote #240, 325-98-8. Only three Republicans (Garrett, Gibson, LoBiondo) voted against the amendment as well as the bill itself, and four Democrats (Barrow, Cuellar, McIntyre, Rahall) voted both for the for the Amendment and the bill.

“You can’t change facts by ignoring them,” said Mike Breen, Executive Director of the Truman National Security Project, and leader of the clean energy campaign, Operation Free. “This is like trying to lose 20 pounds by smashing your bathroom scale.”

The full text of McKinley’s amendment reads:

None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order

In other words, the House just tried to write climate denial into the Defense Department’s budget. “The McKinley amendment would require the Defense Department to assume that the cost of carbon pollution is zero,” Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) said in a letter to their colleagues before the vote. “That’s science denial at its worst and it fails our moral obligation to our children and grandchildren.”

The amendment forces the Defense Department to ignore the findings and recommendations of the National Climate Assessment and the IPCC’s latest climate assessment, specifically with regard to the national security impacts of climate change. It would also do the same for the Social Cost of Carbon, which provides a framework for rulemakers to take into account the societal, security, and economic costs associated with emitting more carbon dioxide.

If the Pentagon cannot use its funding to implement the recommendations from the NCA and the IPCC reports, the specific impacts on DoD would be vague — and troublesome — because the reports are crystal clear.

Earlier this month with the release of the National Climate Assessment, 300 leading climate scientists and experts told Americans in no uncertain terms that time is running out to confront the dangerous impacts of climate change.

This week, 16 military experts agreed, telling Americans in a report that climate change is already threatening national security and the economy. The CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board authored the report, titled “National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change.”

The experts that authored the report have well over 500 years of combined military experience (580, according to a Climate Progress tally). This isn’t idle talk. The steps the Department of Defense has been taking to cut its reliance on carbon-heavy fuels, however, are not just to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Vice Admiral Lee Gunn (Ret.), and president of CNA Corporation’s Institute for Public Research, said “the American military, the single largest user of oil in the U.S., has recently begun transitioning to renewable and more efficient energy to improve its operational effectiveness and flexibility, with the added benefit of beginning to reduce its fossil fuel dependence and mitigate climate change.”

“Civilian and uniformed leaders of our military know it is increasingly risky to depend on a single fuel source; these leaders are diversifying the military’s sources of power to make our bases more resilient and our forces more effective,” said Vice Admiral Gunn.

The Defense Department is beginning to take action. It recently started work on its largest solar project to date, and has been making progress on its “Net Zero” energy initiative. The goal? For bases to produce as much energy as they consume, and for forward combat operations to not have to rely on oil-heavy supply lines.

The Senate held first markup of their version of the bill on Wednesday. The NDAA sets out the budget for the Department of Defense, and details the expenditures it can make, though this is different than the budget that actually awards the appropriations. That will happen later this year.

The NDAA is one of the few pieces of legislation that actually work close to normal — the House passes its version, and the Senate passes its version. It remains to be seen if the Senate will take up and pass a similar amendment, but even if it does not, the final decision will come during conference. The two chambers go to conference to iron out the differences before final passage and the president’s signature.

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This material [the article above] was created by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was amended to include additional information about the Amendment and about how Nevada’s Congressional Representatives voted on the Amendment to HR4435.  Click here to subscribe.

A Tortured Twist on Ethics

Why isn’t the American Psychological Association pursuing ethics charges against psychologist John Leso for abuses he helped carry out at the Guantánamo prison?

— by Yosef Brody

George Orwell wisely observed that our understanding of the past, and the meaning associated with it, directly influences the future. And as the unprecedented public feud between the CIA and Congress makes clear, there are still significant aspects of our recent history of state-sponsored torture that need examination before we put this national disgrace behind us.

Important questions remain unresolved about the U.S. torture program in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And the four-year, $40 million Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture is unlikely to provide sufficient answers, even if it’s ever declassified and released.

For example, what will be done about doctors who helped create U.S. torture programs and participated in their implementation? And is there any evidence that cruel, inhuman, and degrading practices continue under official policy, even to this day?

The question of whether American health professionals previously involved in military torture programs should be allowed to quietly and freely continue their careers came to a head recently when it was revealed that the American Psychological Association (APA)refused to pursue ethics charges against psychologist John Leso.

According to official and authoritative documents, Dr. Leso developed and helped carry out “enhanced interrogation” techniques at Guantánamo Bay in 2002. Importantly, the APA hasn’t disputed Leso’s role in the interrogation of detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani, an interrogation that included being hooded, leashed, and treated like a dog; sleep deprivation; sexual humiliation; prolonged exposure to cold; forced nudity; and sustained isolation.

In a subsequent investigation, Susan Crawford, a judge appointed by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, characterized this treatment of al-Qahtani as “life-threatening” and meeting the legal definition of “torture.”

Over almost seven years, the APA — whose leadership has nurtured strong connections with the military and intelligence establishment — never brought the case to its full Ethics Committee for review and resolution. In defending this decision a few weeks ago, the APA board released a statement explaining that a handful of top people with classified military access had determined that there was nothing unethical about Dr. Leso’s actions and that the case should be immediately closed.

What exactly is the interest of the leaders of the world’s largest professional association of psychologists in blocking investigation into torture? And should psychologists who participated in torture have this dark chapter of their careers wiped clean without censure?

Ethical imperatives to “do no harm” and sanctions for psychologists who break the rules — from sleeping with patients to insurance fraud to not informing research subjects of their rights — exist not only to protect the public but also to provide clear guidance to professionals faced with moral dilemmas. Yet when considering ethical complaints, the APA apparently takes involvement in torture less seriously than these other transgressions.

If such ethical parameters are effectively nullified, what kind of future might we expect?

Here’s an equally important question: Has U.S. torture really ended? While the Obama administration made an early display of banning some of the worst techniques that had been given the official seal of approval under Bush and Cheney, such as waterboarding, the Pentagon continues to engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading practices.

As the lawsuit brought this month by Guantánamo prisoner Emad Abdullah Hassan in federal court makes clear, the force-feeding of hunger strikers there is continuing despite a military blackout since December on the number of inmates engaged in that protest. Human rights and medical organizations have widely denounced this brutal practice.

Before U.S. psychologists and other Americans tell ourselves it’s time to put our history of torture behind us, we should take a hard look in the mirror.

What does it mean for our society to allow health professionals who have been involved with torture to subsequently practice with impunity? Like all civilized societies, we must reckon with past and present truths — if we want to be in control of our future.

Yosef Brody is a clinical psychologist and president-elect of Psychologists for Social Responsibility PsySR.org.  The cartoon by Roy Eidelson, APA Finds No Ethical Violations at Gitmo, a former PsySR president, is used by permission. Distributed via OtherWords.org

Obama Sharpens His Nuclear Posture

A new Pentagon document indicates that contingent plans for the use of nuclear weapons are being made, with the self-evidently impossible task of minimizing collateral damage.

— by Peter Weiss

Soon after President Barack Obama began his first term, he called for a world free of nuclear weapons. His address, which quickly became known as Obama’s Prague Speech, helped him win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Then, he dropped the ball.

The Pentagon finally followed up in late June with a strange document that fails to explain how Obama intends to make progress toward full nuclear disarmament.

Even though the Report on Nuclear Employment Strategy of the United States doesn’t do that, it still should have been news. Instead, the mainstream media took a pass.

In the past, these documents, the last of which the Pentagon issued in 2010, were called “Nuclear Posture Reviews.” They focused largely on the role of nuclear weapons for deterrence. Now for the first time the word “employment” — another word for “use” — is in the title.

Is this a not-so-subtle way of telling our enemies, actual and potential, that we are not afraid to use these weapons of mass annihilation?

To drive home that point, the report states that, while the “2010 Nuclear Posture Review established the (Obama) administration’s goal of making deterrence of a nuclear attack the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons…we cannot adopt such a policy today.”

Instead, this report explains, “the new guidance re-iterates the intention to work towards that goal over time.”

What are the other purposes of U.S. nuclear weapons besides trying to stop nuclear attacks by others?

Alas, the report doesn’t really say. Instead, it vaguely states that while the threat of global nuclear war has become remote since the Cold War ended, the risk of nuclear attack has increased.

Presumably, this refers to nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists rather than governments. But it doesn’t explain how U.S. nuclear weapons could be “employed” to deter the use of nuclear weapons by, for instance, al-Qaeda.

The phrase “new guidance” appears repeatedly in the report. But it leaves readers guessing about the nature of such guidance as it relates to the most important goal of U.S. nuclear-weapons strategy: “strategic stability” with Russia and China.

The report indicated that our government is sticking with its longtime concept of “extended deterrence,” a commitment to also use our nuclear arsenal for the benefit of U.S. allies and partners. But what does “partners” mean in this context? The report doesn’t say.

And it looks like the government remains sold on the idea that it must maintain a stockpile of non-deployed nuclear warheads in case deterrence with deployed ones should fail.

There are other mysteries.

The Pentagon’s report states, “The new guidance makes clear that all plans must also be consistent with the fundamental principles of the Law of Armed Conflict. Accordingly plans…will seek to minimize collateral damage to civilian populations and civilian objects.”

Thus, plans for the use of nuclear weapons are being made, but the planners have been given the self-evidently impossible task of minimizing collateral damage.

There’s more.

In February, Germany sponsored a conference in Berlin on creating the conditions for a nuclear-weapons-free world. Washington didn’t participate.

In March, Norway held a conference in Oslo on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. Delegates from 127 countries attended. None were from the United States.

In May, the Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament created by the UN General Assembly held its first meeting in Geneva. The United States skipped it.

Obama’s recent declaration in Berlin that Washington might be willing to reduce its stockpile of more than 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads by one-third to 1,000 drew applause from some arms-control supporters. I’m holding my applause until he demonstrates the political will to work on the goal of scrapping nuclear weapons altogether.

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Peter Weiss is the President Emeritus of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy.  Distributed via OtherWords. OtherWords.org

Today’s Mad Men

The military justice system needs a 21st century wake-up call.

— by Colleen Teubner

I remember when I first started watching Mad Men. Like most of America, I got hooked. How could I not? The glitz and glamour of 1960s Manhattan was irresistible. But from the very first episode, I knew there was something deeply wrong with this world — the business-as-usual, casual attitude towards sexual harassment.

As a modern “working gal,” I can’t imagine being productive in that kind of environment. In fact, I know I wouldn’t be. I’d be uncomfortable and unhappy, and my performance would suffer. We may not have equal pay for women yet, but at least workplace sexual harassment is no longer considered playful banter.

Aren’t we mostly past the Mad Men era? Not if you’re in the armed forces.

Our military men and women risk their safety everyday — but not in the ways you might think. The most recent Pentagon survey revealed that out of the estimated 26,000 sexual assaults that occurred in the military in 2012, only 3,374 cases were reported. That brings the report rate to a meager 13 percent, compared with the national average of 46 percent.

With all the progress women have made in the military, why is the sexual assault reporting rate so low?

The answer is clear: Military commanders have created an environment where women are afraid to stand up to their attackers. Of the women who reported instances of sexual assault, 62 percent suffered retaliation. The current system forces survivors to make an impossible choice: career or due process? It looks like the military justice system needs a 21^st century wake-up call.

And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand agrees. The New York Democrat proposed a bill that would remove prosecuting power from the military chain of command. She wants to replace this outdated system with a new one that would inspire confidence through accountability.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? Not to Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Instead, Levin agrees with the top brass that the prosecution of assault cases should be kept within the ranks.

This won’t work. It’s already failed.

And James Taranto isn’t helping. The Wall Street Journal writer offers living proof that misogyny remains alive and well today. Taranto wrote that any attempt to address the military’s sexual assault problem is the equivalent of declaring a “war on men” and an “effort to criminalize male sexuality.”

Really? Justice for sexual assault survivors threatens your sexuality? Tell that to the 70 women and men who are attacked every day.

I think we can all agree that this hasn’t been the best year for women. First, there was the media sympathy toward the Steubenville rapists. Then came the news that the already overwhelming number of sexual assaults in the military had increased yet again. And recently, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would prohibit abortion procedures after 20 weeks of pregnancy, down from the current 24 weeks.

It’s unrealistic to expect that the sources of these problems — the media, military, and the misinformed — can, or will, develop constructive solutions.

I understand that military commanders want the opportunity to reform from within, but the time for Mad Men style, backroom meetings is over. When Gillibrand reintroduces her bill later this summer, Congress needs to give change a chance.

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Colleen Teubner is a student at the George Washington University and an OtherWords intern at the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords.org.  Photo credit to www.feedtacoma.com

Fantasy Budgeting Won’t Make Us Safer

Lawmakers should make targeted and smart Pentagon budget cuts.
By Ryan Alexander

The watchword in Washington has been “cut” for some time. But the House of Representatives headed in the opposite direction when it adopted its version of the National Defense Authorization bill.

The bill authorizes $552 billion in military spending next year. That’s $54 billion more than what bipartisan majorities agreed to under current law in the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The House also added $5 billion on top of the $80 billion the Pentagon requested for the Overseas Contingency Operations account, which covers war fighting. While the Pentagon is scaling back activities in Afghanistan, Congress wants to ramp up spending in this area.

The bill is unlikely to become law, certainly not as written. President Barack Obama has already issued a veto threat and the Senate has a different (though still wasteful) approach. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be significant negative consequences.

Fantasy budgeting has a real impact when it crashes into reality. Instead of either living within the lower spending levels Congress already enacted or finding a fiscally responsible solution, lawmakers are approaching the situation like little children with hands over their ears yelling “I can’t hear you” repeatedly. Then — when the budget caps strike — lawmakers lament that cuts are not targeted or cut certain areas too deeply, when their inaction is what caused the impact.

“I’m tired of living in a town where if you don’t like the rules, you find a way around them,” Representative Woodall (R-GA) observed. There were several amendments to help the Pentagon get its budgetary house in order.

A proposed $60 billion cut would have brought the overall spending in line with the levels called for in the statute. Another amendment would have given the Pentagon the Overseas Contingency Operations budget it actually asked for without the extra $5 billion. One provision would have made the National Guard stop sponsoring NASCAR and professional wrestling. A measure would have let the Navy decide whether it wanted 10 or 11 aircraft carriers. There was an effort to reduce troop levels in Europe. An amendment would have mandated proving that the missile defense system being implemented in Alaska actually works before throwing more cash at it.

They all failed.

The House leadership wouldn’t allow several pro-taxpayer amendments to be offered on the floor, including a measure that would cut funding for weapons systems the Pentagon doesn’t want and require our allies to bear a greater share of the costs of their security.

Taxpayers deserve better. At the end of the nine year period of spending caps under the Budget Control Act, military spending will be at the level it was in 2007.  Nobody seemed to think more than half a trillion dollars was too little defense spending then. It certainly wouldn’t be now.

Instead of saving sacred military cows, lawmakers should make targeted and smart Pentagon budget cuts.  Spending more won’t make us safer. But spending smarter will make us stronger.

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Ryan Alexander is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a part of the Pentagon Budget Campaign, a broad national effort to rein in wasteful Pentagon spending. www.taxpayer.net  Photo Credit to Kevin H./Flickr  Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)

The Army Goes Off the Grid

Fort Bliss, a base near El Paso, is a hotbed of solar power and other green energy initiatives.

— By Jim Hightower

Do you know about “net zero”? That’s the wonky phrase attached to an elegant idea: converting communities to total renewable energy, complete recycling, and a culture of conservation to bring humankind’s carbon footprint into a sustainable balance with a healthy earth.

Now, imagine the last place you’d expect this ideal to take root…and even flourish. How about an Army base? In Texas? Well, astonishingly enough, the Army is pioneering America’s net-zero future. Fort Bliss, a sprawling military base accommodating 35,000 soldiers in El Paso, is one of our armed forces’ leading hotbeds of energy conservation and creativity.

The post already has a 1.4-megawatt solar array and has placed rooftop solar panels on enough base housing to generate 13.4-megawatts of energy. It’s partnering with El Paso Electric to add a 200-acre, 20-megawatt solar farm by 2015. The base’s managers plan to convert its own waste into energy. Oh, and it’s engaged in wind power, geothermal, and conservation projects while promoting energy-efficient vehicles and building bicycle lanes.

The Army! Who knew they cared?

At Fort Bliss, the rank and file, as well as the brass, are committed to achieving the goal of net zero by 2018. By that date, the base is supposed to generate all of the energy it uses — solely relying on renewable alternatives. Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas, aims to get there by 2020.

The troops have earned their green stripes by planting nearly 15,000 trees and embracing recycling. To encourage the latter, base commander Gen. Dana Pittard has invested the revenue from recycling into skate parks, gyms, and other morale-boosting recreation projects.

“Everybody is getting involved,” he says, noting that the effort is changing behavior and fostering a conservation culture, which he hopes “our soldiers will then take with them when they go on.”

There’s hope for the Earth when even the Army begins to care, take action, and change attitudes.

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OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org  Ribbon-cutting photo from USACE HQ/Flickr

Sequestration, the Pentagon, and the States

Sequestration, the Pentagon, and the States offers selected state-level briefs focused on the local impact of looming automatic across-the-board federal spending cuts known as sequestration and historically high levels of Pentagon spending.

On March 1, unless Congress acts, billions of dollars will be cut from domestic programs and the Pentagon. But while these cuts will have a devastating impact on many domestic programs, the Pentagon is better positioned to absorb them due to the significant growth in military spending over the past decade.

Highlights of the release focus on critical domestic programs that could see their funding cut if sequestration goes into effect, and the impact that modest reductions in Pentagon spending could have to safeguard these programs, such as:

• A $50 billion cut in Pentagon spending could fund five years of Community Development Block Grants AND five years of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) AND four years of Homeless Assistance Grants.
• Military spending has grown by 35 percent since 2002, 48 percent if you include war costs. Domestic discretionary spending grew by only 8 percent over that period.
• Funding for FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program has been cut by 53 percent over the last three years. Sequestration would reduce the program’s $100 million FY2013 proposed budget by $5.1 million.
• At the University of Virginia the Virginia share of total projected Pentagon spending for Fiscal Year 2013, $16 billion, would fund all in-state expenses of a four-year education for each incoming freshman class for the next 46.3 years.

Read the full report published by the National Priorities Project

Defense Secretary Lifted Ban on Women in Combat

“The Pentagon announced an end to the ban on women in combat, finally allowing our military to fully benefit from the talents of women who want to serve and defend our great nation. When we as a nation lift restrictions and allow people to serve based on their performance, we benefit from it. That was true when President Truman desegregated the military, allowing African-Americans to serve as equals. It was true when President Obama ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” allowing our gay and lesbian service members to serve openly. And it is true now for women.  As a Veteran who saw combat action, I know firsthand that America’s daughters are just as capable of defending liberty as her sons.  Allowing our women in uniform to serve fully is a win for our nation. ”  — Rep. Tammy Duckworth

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310586-1