Republican Congressman Attacks Sasha And Malia Obama

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

This week, Breitbart News broke a long-standing security protocol and published a story detailing the precise location where President Obama’s daughters are vacationing this week. On Wednesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) used the report to attack the First Daughters for taking a vacation.

King’s comments came during an appearance on Mickelson in the Morning, an Iowa-based radio show. A caller, Carla, brought up sequestration and proceeded to criticize the Michelle Obama and her daughters for taking a vacation in the Bahamas. King agreed — “Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through” — before criticizing them for also taking a vacation last year in Mexico. “That was at our expense, too,” King bemoaned.

CALLER: When I see the First Lady and the beautiful girls going off to the Bahamas waving goodbye to us, it’s really hard to stomach. When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it. This, I am pretty tolerant, I always have been, I usually shut my mouth. This is not acceptable.

KING: Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through. […] You’re right on the president. He needs to show some austerity himself. Instead he wanted to tell America how bad it was going to be. […] We’ve got the president doing these things. He sent the daughters to spring break in Mexico a year ago. That was at our expense, too. And now to the Bahamas at one of the most expensive places there. That is the wrong image to be coming out of the White House.

Listen to it:

This notion that the Obamas are living a life of excess is beginning to take hold among conservative members of Congress. At the CPAC conference earlier this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) smeared Obama for enjoying “the perks and the excess of the $1.4 billion presidency,” a charge that “fail[s] on the facts in simple fairness,” according to CNN.

King is strongly considering running for Iowa’s open Senate seat in 2014. His potential candidacy is already causing consternation among establishment Republicans who worry that he will be a Todd Akin-redux, appealing only to far-right conservatives and turning off everyone else.

View the original article here

Twitter adopts email security protocol to crack down on hacker attacks

Twitter announced Thursday that it adopted a new security technology that's aimed at cracking down on phishing, a popular method used by hackers to send emails to users that appear to be from a Twitter-related email address in order to gain access to their account information.

The San Francisco-based company said it started using DMARC, a security protocol, earlier this month to prevent bad actors from sending emails to users from a poser Twitter.com email address. DMARC — which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance — cuts down on phishing attacks by allowing an email sender, such as Twitter, to indicate that their email messages are authenticated and also direct email providers to either reject a suspicious message or flag it as spam in a user's inbox, according to the security protocol's website.

In a blog post published Thursday, Twitter Postmaster Josh Aberant said the company hopes users feel more at ease when receiving emails from Twitter because of its adoption of the security technology.

"While this protocol is young, it has already gained significant traction in the email community with all four major email providers — AOL, Gmail, Hotmail/Outlook, and Yahoo! Mail — already on board, rejecting forged emails," Aberant said in the post. "We hope to see it gain more coverage for our users as even more email providers adopt it, and that it gives you more peace of mind when you get an email from us."

Twitter's announcement comes after the company revealed earlier this month that hackers attacked its website and may have gained access to personal information for roughly 250,000 users. The company said the attack "was not the work of amateurs," but "extremely sophisticated" hackers.

In recent weeks, Facebook and Apple have also come forward about getting hit by hacker attacks.

A Twitter spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on whether the company decided to adopt the new email security protocol in the wake of the attack on its user data, or following the recent reports of hacks on tech companies.

DMARC was created by a group of organizations — including Google, AOL, Comcast, Facebook and PayPayl — to craft a method for combating phishing attacks on email accounts.

Cybersecurity experts have warned that spearphishing attacks, where a user is prompted to click on a poisoned link or attachment in an email that appears to be from someone they know, could be used to compromise sensitive computer networks and systems. During a cyberattack demonstration on Capitol Hill last year with senators, senior administration officials showed how a hacker could shut down New York City's power supply via a spearphishing cyberattack.

View Comments

View the original article here

Libya needs international assistance, not drone attacks

Two years to the day after the anti-Gadhafi uprisings began in Benghazi, the populace has again taken to the streets. This time they are protesting the new authorities failures to bring economic development and its prerequisite, security. Over the last two years, wide swathes of Libyan territory have been transformed into a non-governed space has indirectly facilitated the Islamist takeover in Mali and the attack by Al-Qaeda affiliates on Algeria’s In Amenas gas facility. If Libya is the fabled ‘gateway to Africa’, then the gate has been left wide open.

In today's Libya, heavy artillery and extremist militants flow across the country's porous borders with ease. Since the killing of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, Libya's extreme east is currently being monitored by American drones in search of jihadist training camps.

Barack Obama wisely pledged in his recent State of the Union address to help Libyans “provide for their own security” including cooperation on counterterrorism. However, should the promised “direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans” turn out to be code for conducting drone attacks on Libyan soil, then the president is on the verge of a catastrophic blunder which would irrevocably jeopardize vital American economic and strategic interests.

Libya urgently needs international assistance in building its institutions, especially the basic machinery of government and security. The Libyans have a friendly government, infinite money to spend on infrastructure projects, and they are actively soliciting Western assistance. Clearly, nation building – which the Libyans are even able and willing to fund themselves - would be far more effective than drone strikes at eliminating terrorist safe havens. It would be more cost effective as well.
 The drone infrastructure

Currently, U.S. surveillance drones focus on the Islamist hot spots in Eastern Libya (Derna, Benghazi, and the Green Mountains) due to the obsession with finding the perpetrators of the attack on the American mission which killed the Ambassador. Plans for a forthcoming U.S. unarmed drone base in Niger will make it operationally feasible to employ drones against militant extremists in Libya's southwestern region of Fezzan. This area is beginning to rival Yemen as one of the globe's premier ungoverned spaces and a site of heavy arms trafficking. If the use of drones in Libya should gradually switch from unarmed surveillance to armed attacks it would anger the heretofore friendly Libyan populace and likely incite revenge attacks against the West. In the wake of such attacks, Libyans would likely close ranks with the extremists in their midst and refuse Western capacity building assistance, which they otherwise support.
Life in a dangerous neighborhood

Instability in the Sahel can only undermine Libyan efforts to secure its borders. In retrospect, the attack against the In Amenas facility appears to be part of a broader strategy by al-Qaeda and its affiliates against energy facilities and Western interests in North Africa. Al-Qaeda affiliates are now involved in an undeclared war with Bamako, Algiers, and Tripoli for control of the Sahel.

The French campaign has dispersed the most hardcore jihadist elements from their previous redoubts in Mali, but they are presently finding safe havens among the Sahara's other ungoverned spaces -- awaiting the appropriate moment to make their next move. February 8th's guerilla-style suicide attack in Gao is a possible indication of the tactics that appear to be spreading. Attacks like those at In Amenas or Gao lacked extensive preparation or a unified command and hence, even with good intelligence -- they are impossible to forecast or preempt. So long as Libya's southwestern border is an ungoverned space, it will be impossible to win a counterinsurgency campaign in the vast empty space of the Sahara. The logic of drone strikes to disturb terrorists in this area holds a certain appeal for an administration that has decimated al-Qaeda leadership in the Af-Pak region, yet it is the wrong policy choice. In the Sahel, fighting fire with fire is not the right strategy.

Only a stable and secure Libya will prevent the indefinite spread of this contagion and a likely series of attacks against North Africa's oil installations and drone counterattacks against terrorist training camps.
Finishing what we started in Libya

A succession of various threats in Benghazi over the past month have made it quite clear that foreign diplomats, NGOs, and investors will remain at risk in Libya so long as the authorities are unable to govern outside of the capital. There is a palpable fear that the General National Congress' February 6 decision approving the direct election of members of the constitutional assembly on a regional basis will lead towards federalism and the disintegration of the Libyan state. These worries are coming to a head as mass anti-government demonstrations are planned in Eastern Libya for Friday, February 15 -- the second anniversary of the Libyan revolution.

If Libyans and Westerners want to see a free, open, and democratic Libya capable of being part of the community of nations and a vital engine for growth in the global economy, they cannot let Libya drift towards lawlessness and separatism. Libya’s international partners, especially the U.S., Britain, and France need to complete their commitments to support Libya in establishing the rule of law, transitional justice, and security. To this end, the major Western and Arab powers unveiled a security plan in Paris on February 12 calling for European experts to train Libyan security forces and rebuild the military. Crucially, this effort has the backing of the EU, UN, Arab League, African Union and the government of Libya.
Time to deliver on training

Until now foreign training of the Libyan army, police, and border guards has been small in scale. Most training has largely been conducted outside of Libya, in Jordan and Turkey. The U.S. for its part has discussed possible training of around 400 military special forces, but has not yet committed to firm details about the program. These positive cooperation measures are incomplete steps upon which we must rapidly build.

The new Libyan security plan announced on February 12 moves the location of training inside Libya, calling for a two-year EU border security training program using civilian trainers starting in June 2013. This plan should aid in dismantling the dysfunctional, militia-dominated Supreme Security Committee and Libya Shield Force.
However, military, police, and border security training should only form part of a broad capacity building and vocational training package urgently needed to promote a stable and secure environment. This is the best way to get needed job skills to former fighters.
Libya should be a top-tier U.S. foreign policy priority

A broad multilateral effort to prevent Libya from becoming a failed state can only succeed with the U.S. as a key and proactive partner. Ignoring or attacking Libya with drones would be a truly counterproductive policy that would worsen the devastating effects of instability in North Africa and the Sahel perpetuating the downward spiral of violence, the loss of foreign investment, and the proliferation of weapons through ungoverned spaces. Instead of drone strikes, Secretary of State John Kerry should go to Libya as part of his first Middle Eastern trip. While there, he should unveil a vast training scheme to help build a new Libyan army and provide it with on the job training in border security. America must follow through on its commitments in order to cultivate a valuable regional partner in Libya and prevent the Sahel region from becoming the next Afghanistan.
Pack is a researcher of Middle Eastern History at Cambridge University and editor of The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post Qadhafi Future (Palgrave Macmillan Forthcoming June 2013)
Benotman is a senior analyst at the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank in London. He was previously a senior leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
Cook is Director of Research of Libya-Analysis.com.

View Comments

View the original article here

US must do better in preparing professionals to help fight cyber attacks

By James Gabberty, professor of information systems, Pace University, New York City - 02/15/13 04:00 PM ET

While dozens of U.S. banks are in the midst of reviewing their information security policies after falling victim to recent successful network intrusions resulting from cyber-attacks, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and even Twitter have joined the ranks of other high-value companies to have been targeted by hackers, most notably from China and Iran. It should come as no surprise to anyone following U.S. Internet vulnerabilities that China has been named as principal culprit behind a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign that threatens the nation’s economic competitiveness, according to a report released today by The National Intelligence Estimate.

While U.S. officials debate over what new measures, if any, to put in place to protect our economic interests, firms - both public and private – should consider what they can do to thwart these attacks from re-occurring, or to at least minimize the collective threat they pose to American business.

The plain and simple truth of the matter is that qualified information security practitioners are few and in high demand, especially as current and planned regulatory initiatives such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank further constraining their availability.

Even from the perspective of the U.S. military, information security workers represent much more than basic levers of economic growth - they are a crucial component of the nascent effort to defend the nation’s information assets and our digital infrastructure. And we are losing the battle.

Given the mutual dependency of our economic and military infrastructure on the continuous availability and flow of confidential and high integrity data, one solution to solving the perpetual network probes and vulnerability scanning challenging U.S. companies is to retrain IT workers in the short term until long-term measures are put in place to protect our information infrastructure. But how can this be accomplished? After all, it takes years of technical training to produce computer and network programmers that can assist in combatting attacks from abroad. This may be true, but it is not the only way to protect U.S. economic interests.

One proven method is to train current IT workers by the thousands with the right mix of technical and managerial know-how that can be achieved in months, not years. Fortunately, the kind of training that these workers need already exists and is available through specialized training and professional credentialing agencies that specialize in information security, strategy and governance. 

While the majority of network breaches are caused by social engineering – that is, leveraging the end user as an attack vector though which unauthorized access is gained to sensitive computing assets such as communication and database servers – some other protective measures are available now and should be implemented immediately to effectively curb future exploits that can threaten even the most protected computer enclaves.

Although social engineering points to a failure at the top of the organization to link information security with corporate strategy (as well as a lack of end user training that could effectuate a first line of defense against would-be attackers), more frequent reviews of corporate strategies needs to be done, with special attention paid to ensuring that the firm’s information security strategies are aligned with business strategies.

Furthermore, sensible sharing of current attack vectors used by untrustworthy state actors from abroad against our economic assets, as witnessed by our intelligence community, needs to take place. All too often, many U.S. businesses are simply unaware as to how to best keep their firms from falling victim to common methods used by foreign actors to steal sensitive intellectual property. Less than one year ago, for example, Dupont scientist Tse Chao pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing the color white, or more specifically, the secret recipe for the firm’s Titanium Dioxide that is used to make products white, as in paint, toothpaste, and even Oreo cookie filling! You can be sure that Dupont has revised its security strategy, but what are other firms, especially those that have not yet been victimized, doing to forestall becoming victims themselves?

Infected USB drives, for example, sprinkled in corporate parking lots and commuter trains floors is a common attack methodology used by adversaries to gain access to computer networks with miniscule effort, since the workers themselves are culpable of spotting them, picking them up, and inserting them into their computers when they arrive at work. How many of us have ‘gotten the memo’ about this simple attack technique? If nothing else, security awareness training for all computer users both inside and outside the firm is absolutely necessary and can help stop nefarious activities from succeeding.

Computer worms and scripted malware, on the other hand, don’t necessarily involve human interaction and often rely on that leveraging previously reconnoitered network servers that are misconfigured or run outdated operating systems, or even unstable software that is vulnerable to getting inside corporate networks. Locating IP addresses (the addressing scheme the Internet uses to relay information) of misconfigured devices is a trivial task, since one can simply search online search to learn how to perform ‘penetration testing’ , and since most laptop and tablet users don’t know how to configure their devices and user accounts properly before plugging into the Internet, it becomes even easier to hack into systems. Perhaps more worrisome is the trend of smartphones that connect to corporate servers; these devices have paltry security features and are increasingly being used as a gateway to internal networks by hackers. Phone hacking, as famous Hollywood types have become aware, is commonplace. [hint: turn off Bluetooth unless you are using it!]

The path to train the kind of IT worker that is urgently needed today is not found in traditional academic degree programs, but instead is found in the professional credentialing agencies that specialize in identifying and developing solutions against the kinds of attacks we are witnessing daily. Of course, the traditional academic programs of study are necessary to provide deeper insight into the IT function, but the quicker path to securing America’s national economic interests is through professional information security training and credentialing associations.

Although there are literally hundreds of information security certification programs available, several in particular provide the kind of critical training that can transform interested students into ‘cyber warriors’ to stave off most of the attacks coming out of Asia. A good idea is to spend some time reviewing which certifications are in high demand (easily obtained through trade magazines) and determining which for-profit agencies offer the biggest return on training dollar. The overall objective here, of course, is to bring about a highly skilled IT workforce that possessed, for example, a thorough understanding of proper incident handling techniques so when breaches do occur, they can quickly be identified, contained, and eradicated, not to mention the payoff that firms acquire when reviewing recent unsuccessful hacking attempts and adjusting the firm’s overall security strategy. 

Furthermore, insight into common attack methods, malware analysis capabilities, network defense-in-depth techniques, and sound information security governance and policy frameworks that can boost the defensive postures of all firms and is also a necessary component of responding to the threats from network-based attacks. We simply cannot wait for a reversal in declining enrollment trends in the computing sciences to turn the tide against IT-leveraged international corporate espionage and should be doing everything we possibly can to keep our secrets protected.

While no one doubts that corporate information security policy starts at the top, the NIEs report makes it abundantly clear that current information security policies are proving ineffective. Too much trust is placed on lower-level technicians to ward off attacks on the firm. To stay ahead of so-called ‘script kiddies’ trying to hack into a company’s network is one thing, to keep away nation states hell bent on gaining access is another. This fact, coupled with the relatively miniscule amount of proven cyber warriors available today ultimately limits the ability of most firms to simply keep up with the ever-morphing catalog of millions of computer worms and viruses that grow by the thousands each day, hence the call for more certified IT security practitioners.

To protect against the potential devastation that the nefarious activities by hackers everywhere pose to all of us, it is vital stay in lockstep with the protocols being used by the most sophisticated malware purposefully designed to evade the most cleverly configured intrusion prevention & intrusion detection systems currently used throughout U.S. companies, but we are falling short. The ugly truth is that the bad guys, whoever they are, are outperforming our ability to defend our vital infrastructure and this is one race that our society cannot afford to lose.

The threats that loom over our digital infrastructure will undoubtedly multiply, causing risk to increase to untenable levels, the levels that are often associated with calamitous security breaches. So, at least for the foreseeable future, professional certifications will help to stem the tide of ever-mounting encroachment attempts, at least until academia eventually figures out a way to speed up its sometimes outmoded approach to teaching practical ways to stay abreast of a changing technological landscape.

Gabberty is a professor of information systems at Pace University in New York City and teaches graduate-level courses in systems analysis & design, telecommunications and information security. He is an alumnus of MIT and NYU’s Polytechnic Institute and has served as an expert witness in telecommunication and information security at the federal and state levels.

View Comments

View the original article here

Five Facts To Remember As Anti-Choice Activists Launch Attacks Against ‘Webcam Abortions’

Abortion opponents have rushed to introduce a slew of new abortion restrictions in the 2013 legislative session, attacking reproductive rights from all angles. But it’s not just about restricting access to existing medical procedures. Anti-choice activists are also looking ahead to the future, attempting to prevent medical technology from advancing to better accommodate women’s reproductive care.

Even though telemedical abortion services — which rely on new technology to allow doctors to meet with patients over video conferences, and distribute abortion pills with a remote control — can help expand reproductive care to women who wouldn’t be able to access it otherwise, abortion opponents are scaling a coordinated attack against it. Decrying “webcam abortions” as an unsafe medical procedure, despite the significant evidence to the contrary, anti-abortion lawmakers are increasingly advocating legislation to outlaw the practice. Here are five facts to keep in mind as the anti-choice community gears up for this fight:

1. Telemedicine is increasingly becoming a routine medical practice, and abortion is the only type of telehealth procedure that is tightly restricted. Telehealth, which first began being used in the 1960s to treat astronauts in space, has advanced over the past few decades to become a standard medical practice. In the past five years, telemedicine’s reach has quadrupled to treat 10 million Americans. The federal government has adopted the practice to treat chronically ill veterans. According to the chief executive officer of the American Telemedicine Association, abortion is the only area where lawmakers have restricted telemedicine. As Jordan Goldberg, the state advocacy counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, explained to Bloomberg, “There is a very clear division: Women are different, women who are attempting to access medication abortion are different.”

2. Nearly 95 percent of women who have telemedical abortions feel “very satisfied” with the procedure. Several studies have proven that telemedical abortions are safe and effective. Despite anti-choice activists’ insistence that women must be face-to-face with their doctors, there is no difference between the women who visit a doctor’s office for a follow-up appointment after an abortion and the women who simply call to follow up instead. And 94 percent of women who terminate a pregnancy with the help of video technology report they feel “very satisfied” with their procedure.

3. Restricting telemedical abortions disproportionately hurts low-income women in rural areas. Women who live in rural areas typically lack access to nearby abortion providers, and low-income women in particular often can’t afford the transportation to the closest health clinic. That problem is exacerbated by the mounting number of restrictions imposed on abortion providers, which narrows the pool of available abortion doctors even further. But after Iowa piloted the nation’s first telemedical abortion program, rural women’s abortion access significantly increased.

4. Allowing health clinics to practice telemedicine decreases the number of second-trimester abortions. If women in rural areas have more readily available options to access the reproductive care they need, they won’t have to put off having an abortion until they can travel to a surgical abortion clinic. The case study in Iowa proved that expanding telemedical abortion services can help lower second-trimester abortions. While abortion is still a very safe procedure when it is performed in the second trimester, earlier abortions do have a slightly lower chance of complications — and, of course, women who decide to terminate a pregnancy should not be forced to wait months to have the voluntary medical procedure.

5. Most of the states that are restricting telemedical abortions don’t offer those services in the first place. At least ten states have banned the use of telehealth services to provide abortion care over the past several years, and another five are considering passing legislation to do so this year. But Bloomberg points out that telemedical abortions weren’t even being offered in the majority of those states the first place; Iowa is the sole state where lawmakers are considering a ban that would restrict a procedure that is already in place. The anti-choice community — led by Americans United for Life, the anti-abortion group that drafted the language for the telemedicine bans — is working proactively to prevent the expansion of telemedical abortion services, particularly through indirect abortion restrictions that would require doctors to show women an ultrasound in person.

View the original article here

Despite Conservative Attacks, States Continue to Realize the Benefits of Renewable Energy Standards

by Matt Kasper and Tom Kenworthy, Center for American Progress

States’ adoption of renewable energy standards—which require electric utility companies to produce a portion of their electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources—has considerably driven clean energy advances in recent years. Though Congress has failed to enact a nationwide standard, policymakers at the state level have enthusiastically filled the void, with 29 states and the District of Columbia adopting hard targets for renewable energy production and another eight states setting renewable energy goals. Standards place an obligation on electricity-supply companies to reach set targets, while renewable energy goals are voluntary for companies—although states might incentivize a utility for reaching a set goal.

Those mandates have brought a wide range of benefits, ranging from robust clean energy economies to lower carbon emissions and improved public health. Since the beginning of 2009, eight states—California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York—have increased their standards, while three states—Indiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia—have established voluntary goals. Six other states—Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington state—have beaten back attempts to repeal their standards. Most of the states with renewable energy standards on the books are meeting or are close to meeting their interim targets.

Nonetheless, conservative attacks on state renewable energy standards are on the rise.

Two conservative organizations looking to repeal state renewable energy standard policies are the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. These two organizations worked together to write model legislation—the Electricity Freedom Act—to roll back state standards. The policy, which ALEC’s board of directors adopted last October, argues that “a renewable energy mandate is essentially a tax on consumers of electricity that forces the use of renewable energy sources beyond what would be called for by real market forces and under conditions of real competition in generation resources.”

ALEC is known for helping advance corporate interests by writing and pushing for passage of conservative legislation at the state level. The organization has been a force in shaping conservative agendas, including voter identification laws and right-to-work policies. In the environmental sphere, ALEC has targeted states that regulate greenhouse gases and has promoted bills supporting hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”; offshore drilling of oil and natural gas; and nuclear energy. Tax documents show that Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and other energy companies pay membership fees in order to help write legislation repealing carbon-pollution reduction programs in states across the country.

The Heartland Institute is a think tank that promotes skepticism about climate change. Recently, the organization launched a billboard campaign that linked people who care about global warming to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, murderer Charles Manson, and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. One specific billboard featured a mug shot of Kaczynski with the words, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” In a statement, the president of Heartland unapologetically called the billboard campaign an “experiment.”

With ALEC’s ability to successfully pass conservative legislation at the state level and the Heartland Institute’s intentions to attack policies that combat climate change, the threat that state renewable energy standard policies could be repealed needs to be taken seriously and aggressively contested.

ALEC and Heartland seem to be targeting North Carolina first. North Carolina State Rep. Mike Hager (R), a member of ALEC, says he is confident that in the upcoming session in his state’s general assembly, the votes exist to repeal or weaken the state’s renewable energy standard. Rep. Hager is the majority whip and the chairman of the Public Utilities Committee in the North Carolina General Assembly. But the bill that implemented the state’s standard passed 107-9 in the House in 2007—a resounding message Rep. Hager should recognize.

Last fall, however, fossil fuel interests funded a successful effort to defeat a constitutional amendment in Michigan that would have increased the state’s renewable energy standard from 10 percent in 2015 to 25 percent in 2025.

But voters in the eight states that have strengthened standards understand that these policies improve the environment and stimulate their state economies. California went from a 20 percent standard by 2010 to a 33 percent standard by 2020—and is currently on track to meet that 33 percent target. California’s three investor-owned utilities, or IOUs, achieved 18 percent of 2010 retail electricity sales with renewable energy. The three investor-owned utilities hit 20.6 percent renewables at the end of 2011. When California, the ninth-largest economy in the world, establishes a 33 percent renewable energy standard, it sends a clear message to every other state that renewable energy provides reliable, cost-effective clean electricity and strengthens the economy.

Long-term commitments to purchase renewable energy from wind, solar, or geothermal sources enable developers to secure financing for such facilities, allowing the market for renewable energy to stabilize and grow. Long-term commitments also lock in electricity prices, helping shield ratepayers from price volatility that is typical of electricity purchased from coal and natural gas facilities.

And California is not the only state in recent years to set a higher standard. Colorado has increased its standard twice since 2004, rising from 10 percent to its current level of 30 percent by 2020. New York originally had a 25 percent renewable energy standard by 2013, but lawmakers in 2010 increased the standard to 30 percent by 2015.

The renewable energy standard program in New York continues to yield significant economic benefits—as it does in all the states that create standards. The planning, development, construction, and operation of renewable energy facilities create short-term and long-term jobs while benefiting local governments and school districts through property taxes and other leases or royalty payments. An analysis conducted in 2009 concluded that $6 billion in direct economic benefits are expected if New York meets its 30 percent target—and this analysis did not even include estimates of the multiplier effects that can accompany direct economic impacts.

In January 2012 London Economics International LLC prepared an in-depth analysis of Maine’s renewable energy standard, required by legislation enacted in 2011. The report found that policies in Maine and New England would create 11,700 jobs in Maine alone over several years. In addition, $1.14 billion of new investment will occur in Maine as more renewable energy facilities are constructed. The report also found that electricity prices will lower for consumers as more wind energy is developed in New England.

Some politically conservative states also recognize the benefits from these standards. In Kansas, for example, House Bill 2369, enacted in May 2009 but finalized in 2010, established the state’s first renewable energy standard. The law requires investor-owned utilities to generate or purchase 20 percent of peak demand capacity electricity from renewable energy facilities by 2020. The eligible generation sources include wind, solar energy (both thermal and photovoltaics), methane from landfills or wastewater treatment, hydropower, and biomass.

The American Wind Energy Association highlights Kansas’s renewable energy standard policy as a driving factor in helping the state attract wind projects and manufacturers like Siemens. According to the Kansas Energy Information Network, 11 of Kansas’s 21 wind farms began operating between 2010 and 2012—eight of them in 2012 alone.

Empire District Electric, a Kansas utility, had already decided to purchase wind power due to the high natural gas prices at the time, and also purchased a high percentage of natural gas base load generation. Empire wrote to its shareholders, “[Wind energy power purchase agreements] decrease our exposure to natural gas, provide a hedge against any future global warming legislation and help us give our customers lower, more stable prices.”

Also prior to the renewable energy standard legislation, the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities saw wind power as “a hedge against high market purchase prices” and estimated that their 20-year power purchase agreement for wind power would save the utility $3 million during the first decade.

The Kansas Corporation Commission, which established the rules and regulations in 2010 for the state’s renewable energy standard, recognized the problems caused by volatile fossil fuel prices, noting that wind energy in a state’s energy portfolio protects consumers. The commission stated:

Natural gas, coal, and wholesale power prices have all experienced significant volatility and upward trending costs. Wind generation provides value as insurance for customers from some of the effects of unexpectedly high and volatile fuel and wholesale energy prices.

In upcoming state battles, ALEC and the Heartland Institute will almost certainly claim that renewable electricity standards raise power rates for consumers compared to states without clean energy requirements. That claim is false, however, as Richard Caperton, Director for Clean Energy Investment at the Center for American Progress, demonstrated in a CAP issue brief last April.

Therefore, with no price impact on consumers of electricity, tremendous economic benefits, and utility companies praising renewable energy standard laws, it would be a mistake for state lawmakers to enact legislation written by ALEC and the Heartland Institute that repeals such standards.

Why we should enact a nationwide renewable energy standard

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed a federal “clean energy standard,” which would require utility companies to produce 80 percent of their electricity from no- or low-carbon sources by 2035. CAP has recommended that an 80 percent clean energy standard should also include a requirement that 35 percent of electricity generation come from renewable sources and efficiency measures. This standard should be met by requiring a national target of 25 percent renewable electricity generation alongside a requirement that utilities reduce demand to save energy by 10 percent.

An analysis conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that a national standard that requires all electric utilities to increase usage of renewable electricity to at least 25 percent by 2025 would create jobs, lower energy bills, and reduce harmful pollution. The analysis specifically found that 297,000 jobs would be created, $263.4 billion in new capital investment would occur with an additional $11.5 billion going to local communities from new property taxes, and consumers would save $64.3 billion in lower electricity and natural gas bills by 2025.

Matt Kasper is a Special Assistant for the Energy Policy team at the Center for American Progress. Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center.

jQuery(document).ready(function(){jQuery('#comment_submit').click(function(){if(jQuery('#comment_check:checked').length

View the original article here

Bipartisan Group Of Former National Security Advisers Condemn Attacks On Hagel

Four former national security advisers in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post published on Tuesday denounced what New York TImes columnist Tom Friedman described as “disgusting” attacks on former Republican senator Chuck Hagel and praised Hagel’s prior service to the United States.

Responding to a Dec. 21 Post story on Hagel’s potential nomination to be Secretary of Defense, the former national security advisers, James L. Jones (Obama), Brent Scowcroft (Ford, H.W Bush) , Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter) and Frank Carlucci (Reagan), said they “strongly object…to the attacks on the character of former senator Chuck Hagel,” whom they called “a man of unshakable integrity and wisdom who has served his country in the most distinguished manner in peace and war”:

He is a rare example of a public servant willing to rise above partisan politics to advance the interests of the United States and its friends and allies. Moreover, it is damaging to the quality of our civic discourse for prospective Cabinet nominees to be subjected to such vicious attacks on their character before an official nomination.

This type of behavior will only discourage future prospective nominees from public service when our country badly needs quality leadership in government.

Scowcroft and 10 other retired senior U.S. military officials, including William Fallon and Anthony Zinni, signed a letter last week saying that Hagel would be “a strong leader at the Pentagon” and that he’s “eminently qualified for the job.” That letter came on the heals of one just days prior in which nine former U.S. Ambassadors, including Ryan Crocker, signed a letter praising Hagel’s qualifications for the top Pentagon job.

The high-level support for Hagel comes after the “neocon smear machine” recently began a campaign to tar Hagel as an anti-Semite and anti-Israel and not sufficiently militaristic toward Iran after news reports that he is President Obama’s top choice to succeed Leon Panetta.

Friedman defended Hagel against the backlash in his Times column today. “I think he would make a fine secretary of defense — precisely because some of his views are not ‘mainstream.’”

In its Dec. 21 article on Hagel, the Post quoted Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) calling the former Nebraska Republican an “excellent candidate” for Pentagon chief. “Most senators who served with Chuck would be favorable to his nomination,” Lugar said.

The Atlantic’s Robert Wright notes today that Hagel has now drawn wide ranging support from across the ideological spectrum. “[B]y and large this fight is between some neocons (plus a few reliable supporters) and everybody else,” he writes, adding: “So it’s in Obama’s hands. There’s a lot at stake here — not just whether McCarthyite smears will be allowed to succeed, but whether Obama, in the wake of the Susan Rice episode, will now get a reputation as someone who caves whenever he faces resistance.”

(Photo: Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski – Getty)

View the original article here

NYT’s Richard Thaler savagely attacks Barack Obama.

I know, I’m as shocked as you are: but that’s what happened. You see, Richard Thaler was trying to push back on the entire steadily-rising gas price thing (four bucks a gallon, if you’re lucky), and so in an op-ed today for the New York Times Thaler authoritatively declared:

Here is a one-item test to see whether you are guilty of cloudy thinking about gas prices: Do you believe that they are something a president can control? Many Americans believe that the answer is yes, but any respectable economist will tell you that the answer is no.

Meet the not-respectable economist Barack Obama:

…for those without video, it’s a campaign ad where then-candidate Barack Obama was engaged in some would-be faux populism over Big Oil and how they were causing high gas prices (three-fifty a gallon, back then), and how Obama would do something about it (mind you, what he did about it, apparently contra Thaler, was to turn what was a somewhat temporary spike in gas prices into the new baseline).  In other words, Barry certainly acted like he thought that he’d have some control over the process there, Professor Thaler. Was that acting an artifact of that informal advice to the President you were saying that you gave, Professor Thaler?

Before you turned on this administration, of course.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Isn’t YouTube fun? …And we have years of footage with which to work with, too.

View the original article here